When he left Illinois for Washington, D.C. in 1860, President-elect Abraham Lincoln had these words to say: “Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.”

I grew up in Illinois, from before my first birthday nearly until my sixteenth. When I returned nine years ago, it was with a delight of which I have seldom spoken. Illinois has charms and gifts that are rarely remarked and even more rarely appreciated.

But this beautiful state is oppressed beneath the weight of a political system that holds no regulation to be too onerous, no tax to be too high, and no virtue worth troubling about. This political regime has led, predictably and inexorably, to an economic depression with no end in sight. As other neighboring states pull their economies up by their own bootstraps, more and more businesses and citizens opt to “shrug”: they close up shop, sometimes permanently, sometimes to cross the border into neighboring states, sometimes to go, willingly or not, on the public dole, to become the beneficiaries of the programs for the maintenance of which they were taxed and regulated into penury.

As I became aware of this state of affairs, I began to involve myself, seeking to be more part of the solution than part of the problem. I soon found myself working alongside many good people — most of whom had, like me, only lately become activated to get involved.

Now I am returning to Texas, whence I came. I am taking up a job as a programmer with a growing company in Carrollton, Texas.

To the friends I have made in Illinois through my political endeavors, we have worked together to try to improve our communities and our state against tremendous odds. I hope my participation contributed to making a difference, just as I hope that you will carry on with it. I am very proud of the work we did.

To all the friends I am leaving, including those I have gained through religious, leisure and other activities, I hope we can keep in touch. I may not have often expressed my sentiment, but I have always been grateful for your many kindnesses and your friendships, and I will miss you.

I leave with regret for leaving so much incomplete, and for leaving so many good people. But I go knowing that in the place I am returning to, I already have many friends, and many more to be made, and work to be done there to which I can apply the lessons I learned here.

I am leaving because I could not find work enough to sustain my family here, and I have found it there. And so it is with very mixed feels that Karie & and I say goodbye to our Illinois friends, and hello again to our Texas friends.

I close with these words of Davy Crockett: “I must say as to what I have seen of Texas, it is the garden spot of the world. The best land & best prospects for health I ever saw is here, and I do believe it is a fortune to any man to come here. There is a world of country to settle.”

The Cost of Corruption – This is not something you will read for fun. But it’s something you must read, as a parent or taxpaying citizen. It’s a sordid story about crime and corruption where anyone would least expect to find it: In a suburban elementary school district.

In response to Freedom of Information Act requests, activists of the Lake County Tea Party organization have received over 300 pages of emails. The tale they tell is grim.

“Don’t Let Them Turn Us In” – The April 5th election was a hard-fought race in which five candidates (two incumbents and three challengers) were vying to fill three seats. The two incumbent candidates were strongly pro-union: Noting that the three challengers had been linked on the Lake County Tea Party website, incumbent candidate Mary Garcia wrote, “I think that all members of both Unions should be apprised of this information… There will be no collective bargaining with those 3 on the board. I am very afraid that Sue and I will not have the funds necessary to fight a ‘party’.” This email, sent to D46 Superintendent Ellen Correll, Assistant Superintendent Lynn Barkley, union leaders Christine Wilson and Diane Elfering, and fellow incumbent candidate Sue Facklam, was sent, like virtually all of the information we have, from Garcia’s email account in District 30 (Wed., Feb. 23rd, 11:34 AM), where Garcia works as a teacher and is president of the teachers’ union. Campaign fundraising activity like this, using D30 public resources have already landed Garcia in front of a review board scheduled to meet Monday, May 2nd.

In another telling email, Facklam, a voter registrar, writes about registering high school students to vote, and giving them gift cards: “Don’t let them turn us in; gifts to register to vote is probably illegal! I did offer Erika [Garcia’s 18-year-old daughter] more gift cards if she can gather up more friends!” (Wed., March 2nd, 10:14 AM to Mary Garcia at her D30 account.) It is a felony to offer remuneration to anyone for voting or registering to vote.

“Lie and pay me cash” – The emails reveal evidence of extensive contributions, expenditures, and in-kind contributions that, by law, ought to have triggered formation of a campaign committee, and been reported to the State Board of Elections. Garcia and Facklam’s campaign manager, Alex Finke, in one of the more egregious examples of their efforts cloak their campaign in secrecy, wrote, “Anything you spend counts towards the 1999.99 that you and Mary would be allowed to spend. The only way around it, would be to lie and pay me cash. Then I could claim that I am volunteering for you.” (Mon., March 7th, 3:55 PM, to Sue Facklam.)

The Superintendents Get Involved – D46 Superintendent Ellen Correll, who receives a compensation package worth over $200,000 per year to educate students, evidently spent quite a bit of her compensated time on election activities: “Mary Garcia is wondering how many signs or flyers you would take?” (Ellen Correll, on her D46 email account, to North Chicago D187 Superintendent Douglas Parks and to Mary Garcia on her D30 email account, Thurs., Mar. 10th, 3:24 PM.) As a custodian of federal and state education funds, Correll is prohibited by law from participating in political activity of any kind.

It’s important to recognize that this is not an article about politics. And it barely scratches the surface. This is not about whose policies are best and whose are wrongheaded. It’s about how elected officials and employees of School District #46, the elementary school district in Grayslake, Illinois, have abused their positions and their access to benefit themselves at taxpayers’ expense, and at the expense of the children entrusted to them.

Click to download all of District 30 FOIA 1
Click to download all of District 30 FOIA 2

Emails by hour of day. Notice that many emails are sent during work hours, but none during lunch hour.

Taylor Schilling as Dagny Taggart

Directed by Paul Johanssonn (who also plays the mysterious John Galt), working from a screenplay by John Aglialoro and Brian Patrick O’Toole, faithfully based on the 1957 novel by Ayn Rand, the film follows the efforts of the beautiful Dagny Taggart (wonderfully played by Taylor Schilling), the youngest, and most competent, scion of the ancient Taggart dynasty of railroad barons. Dagny must fight lobbyists, the legislature, her older brother James’s (Matthew Marsden) managerial incompetence, and the mysterious disappearances of the best thinkers and producers in the country to save her family’s railroad.

Joining her in her efforts is steel magnate Henry Rearden (Grant Bowler), the target of the lobbyists and his competitors due to his innovative development of a new, lighter, stronger and cheaper steel that he calls “Rearden Metal”. Faced with steel suppliers who don’t make timely delivery on orders, Dagny engages the controversial Rearden to manufacture new rails using his much-criticized new metal.

Grant Bowler as Henry Rearden

The setting is a dystopic 2016 (which might actually look this bad, if President Obama is re-elected) in which skyrocketing gas prices due to the complete political collapse of the Middle East has rendered both commercial aviation, much of trucking and even private automobiles unfeasibly expensive; railroads have re-emerged as the primary form of transportation of both freight and passengers. It is against this backdrop, in which the only remaining nationwide railroad — the final wavering prop of the country’s internal transportation network — must be preserved. If only the short-sighted lobbyists and bureaucrats of Washington can be persuaded not to tax and regulate every remaining successful business into bankruptcy in an effort to feed the poor and unproductive who have been thrown out of work because of prior rounds of taxation and regulation.

Rebecca Wisocky does an outstanding turn as Rearden’s loathsome wife, Lillian. Rounding out the cast are excellent performances by Grant Beckel as Ellis Wyatt, Jsu Garcia as the enigmatic playboy Fransisco D’Anconia, Edi Gathegi as Eddie Willers, Michael Lerner as Wesley Mouch, Patrick Fischler as Paul Larkin, and Armin Shimmerman as Dr. Potter.

Even in 1957, Rand foresaw much of today’s liberal trends in which no enterprise is too small or too local for the federal government to get involved in, no tax is too high, no regulation too intrusive, and no bureaucrat spouting pieties about the good of “the people” and trying to legislate “equality” is above lining his own pockets and serving his own interests at the public expense.

This is not an action movie. It is long on dialog, features virtually no nudity, only one momentary and discreet sex scene, and no violence at all, and very little suspense. It is a movie about thinking men and women, for thinking men and women. It is therefore sure to tank at the box office.

And yet, there is a very urgent sense of suspense attached to this movie. It’s not about how the movie ends. This film is the first of a planned trilogy to adapt Rand’s 1100 page novel. But even those who haven’t read the book will not find the conclusion too surprising, if those movies ever get made.

No, the real suspense generated by the story of Atlas Shrugged is not how the characters will get out of their crisis. Instead, the nail-biting question is how the real America of today might hope to get out of the crisis we now face. Atlas Shrugged offers an important suggestion: stop discouraging and penalizing those who make money, create jobs, produce goods, and drive the economy. We must stop discouraging and penalizing these people before we succeed completely and drive them all out of business. And then, with no businesses left to provide us with jobs or goods, where will we be?

And so it’s in the entrepreneurial spirit of John Galt that I’ve decided to pay homage to this story in the most practical fashion: I’ve opened a new Cafe Press shop! Order your t-shirt today!

My erstwhile opponent, Republican Sandy Cole, she of the “proven conservative leadership”, joined Illinois Democrats and 12 other Republicans to pass a ban on trans fats in Illinois. Other Republicans voting for the ban include Cole’s fellow Planned Parenthood beneficiaries Sid Mathias, Skip Saviano, and Tom Cross. Because of course, a social liberal is after all a social liberal:

Am I surprised that some of our Republican lawmakers – including the House Minority Leader himself – are supporting one of the most radical leftwing bills ever? No, I’m definitely not surprised. It’s hardly the first time it’s been impossible to tell the Republicans from the Democrats in Illinois.

Last year House Republicans sealed the defeat of school choice legislation.

And it’s been House GOP lawmakers who have kept rank-and-file Republicans from having a voice and a vote in their own State GOP. Tom Cross and his lieutenants have been stonewalling SB35 (formerly SB600) for years.

So we’ve got Republican lawmakers who won’t let low income families choose better schools. They won’t let Republican voters choose their own party leaders. And now they even want to take away choices about what you eat.

When it comes to banning trans fats – a reasonable person might say our state has bigger fish to fry.

Which leaves only one question: how many years will people violating the ban be thrown in jail for? Sandy wants a 100% ban on trans fats, for how many years will she put people in jail? Sandy Cole wants you to go to jail for eating McDonalds fries! Call her and ask for how many years.

Why is that I just can’t work up much enthusiasm for the “health-conscious” nanny-statism of liberal elites who get elected by taking money from people who kill babies for a living?

With our state on the verge of bankruptcy, this is really what the legislature is spending its time on?

His meeting with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., having concluded, President Obama came to the White House briefing room this evening to report “additional progress” had been made and “differences have been narrowed.”

But outstanding issues remain, he cautioned, ones so important – to both sides – the president said he wouldn’t express “wild optimism” that there will be a deal.

Democratic sources tell ABC News that things “feel better now” in terms of a deal being cut, but the major sticking point remains the GOP rider prohibiting any federal funding to Planned Parenthood or any of its affiliates.

…“The stickiest issue will end up being Planned Parenthood.”

The House voted earlier this year to de-fund Planned Parenthood but 41 Democrats in the Senate already have said they would not support legislation ending funding to Planned Parenthood, making the matter one that could be filibustered. The White House has said the president would not agree to any ban on funding to Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood is already prohibited from using any federal funds for abortion-related services. Officials of the organization say more than 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood clinics do has nothing to do with abortion, but rather focuses on women’s health services such as pap smears and breast cancer screening.

Abortion opponents say federal funding for other services means money freed up for the purposes of conducting abortions, which they regard as ending human life.

The claim that the bulk of Planned Parenthood’s operation is not abortion is simply a lie. A boldfaced, easily disproved lie. And it’s also been proved that they don’t do breast cancer screenings, either, but they’re still harping on that one as well.

That President Obama would take this to the brink to protect Planned Parenthood comes as no surprise. This is the most pro-abortion president in history.

(Cross posted from the Northern Illinois Patriots blog.)

Next week, on Friday, April 15th, at the Marcus Cinema at Gurnee Mills Mall in Gurnee, Atlas Shrugged, Part One will open.

Let’s go see it together.

I recently finished reading the novel by Ayn Rand that this movie is based upon, and I think this will be an important film. We should help it be a success.

If you, like me, feel that the world is going crazy, I want you to know that someone predicted over 50 years ago much of what we’re seeing today. It is not too late to fight the trends, and I believe that this story will help us put the current problems that our state and our nation are facing into context. It will also help us understand who our opponents really are, and what they driving us towards.

The movie is opening in limited release, and the Marcus in Gurnee is one of the few theaters in Illinois that will have it.

We won’t know the showtimes until next Tuesday, but I want to pick a time close to 7:00 PM. I’ll send out another email next Tuesday to let you know which showing.

Meanwhile, for more information about the movie, visit: http://www.atlasshruggedpart1.com/.

Let’s line up our babysitters, and clear our calendars for a night at the movies. If you’re joining us, I’d love to hear from you (but come whether you get in touch or not), and please feel free to pass the word and invite your friends and neighbors to join us for this special event.

Start Time: 6:45 PM
Date: 2011-04-15

Illinois’ premier pro-abortion activist, Terry Cosgrove, Executive Director of Personal PAC, claims credit for electing Democrat Pat Quinn as Illinois Governor last November, and well he might. His organization’s vile, lying, misleading and mean-spirited ads, mailings and calls slandered Republican Bill Brady — and many other candidates besides.

Is Governor Quinn grateful? You bet your sweet bippy!

Last week, Governor Pat Quinn nominated abortion rights leader Terry Cosgrove to fill an opening on Illinois’ Human Rights Commission. Next Thursday, Cosgrove’s nomination will be heard before the Senate Executive Appointments Committee.

Cosgrove, the 58 year old CEO of Personal PAC, plans to continue directing his pro-abortion political action committee while he serves part-time on the commission. Personal PAC’s generous $400,000 campaign donation to Governor Quinn’s campaign in 2010 is stirring another round of Quinn “pay to play” buzz.

Cosgrove’s Facebook photo (right) is pretty indicative of his pro-Quinn, anti-Brady partiality in the 2010 governor’s race. You’ve got to wonder how impartial he’d be voting on the Human Rights Commission, don’t you?

Certainly, no one could reasonably hope that Cosgrove would support human rights for all humans. Cosgrove’s vision of “human rights” is something that mere humanity doesn’t qualify you for.

And Quinn’s vision of public service is something that mere public service isn’t a qualification for. In both cases, something… extra is required.

And, oh yeah, this is the same guy who sent out this mailing about me during my campaign in a Republican primary.

(Cross-posted from Thoughts of a Regular Guy.)

On April 14, 2011, you will have the unique opportunity to support Lake County Right to Life while having a very enjoyable evening at our annual fund-raising Banquet, from 7:00 to 9:00PM. Come and listen to David Bereit, National Campaign Director of 40 Days for Life, who will be our featured speaker for the event, while enjoying dinner with friends at the Country Squire. The event is free, however there will be two fund-raising opportunities offered throughout the evening.

David comes to Lake County from Fredericksburg VA, where he lives with his wife and two young children. He is the most requested speaker in the nation, inspiring audiences across America, as well as internationally.

David will address The Tipping Point: Sharing the Truth – Do it Now! A dynamic presenter, David has a story to tell that is amazing and continues to unfold. We are looking forward to learning from him about effective strategies, we can implement here in Lake County, to save innocent human lives.

David is the founder of the ground-breaking 40 Days for Life Campaign, that has united 307 cities in all 50 states for some of the largest simultaneous pro-life mobilization in American history. 40 Days for Life is an intensive pro-life campaign focusing on prayer, fasting, peaceful vigil and grassroots outreach and education. His work has been featured in the media; including coverage on FOX News, HBO, ABC, NBC And CBS television stations, numerous radio programs, and in over 100 newspapers across the country.

This is a speaker you will not want to miss; there’s a message here for everyone. Reservations are required. Please call 847-223-7022.

Start Time: 7:00 PM
Date: 2011-04-14
End Time: 9:00 PM

In the past year, CCSD #46 has gone through 5 business managers, one of whom was not properly vetted for the position. It was not until after he was hired, that the district learned of his litigation with another school district in Wisconsin. Now, there is additional consideration of litigation against Grayslake. “This type of poor, not well thought out decision making, harms all of us. Unnecessary litigation costs redirect money that should be spent in our schools educating our children,” said Carbone.

However, this is not the only questionable hiring made by the school board. Carbone led the efforts to expose the nepotistic hiring of school board president Mary Garcia’s husband for a job, which otherwise would have gone unnoticed.

In November, Garcia’s husband was hired for a custodial position with the district, as well as coach for several sports teams. At the time that his paperwork was before the board, Ms. Garcia recused herself from the vote. But she never openly admitted that her husband’s application was among the stack of applicants. Carbone questions her decision. “In this economy, the district receives hundreds of applications for every job posting. What makes her husband the most qualified candidate and does his hiring really support the needs of our children and this district?”

Now others in the community are looking closer. Many are wondering how Garcia’s husband can work as both custodian, Tuesday through Saturday as required by his contract, and still get paid for a coaching position which often requires him to work on Saturdays. This conflict of schedules causes the custodial department to find a sub for Garcia on the weekends. Community activists are now trying to determine if Garcia’s pay was docked for the days not worked or if the District paid both Garcia and his fill-in for those days, while still paying him a full stipend to act as coach.

As a current board member Michael Carbone cannot endorse any specific candidate. However, he has been quoted as saying “This year is an election year. It is time for new blood on the Grayslake School Board. We need people on the Board that realize we are servants of the public and not the other way around.”

There are currently three seats open on the CCSD 46 school board. The three newcomers recently endorsed on March 17th 2011 by the Daily Herald are Kip Evans, Marchell Norris and Shannon Smigielski. All three have shown a dedication and involvement in the school board.

Marchell Norris, a private business owner of 15 years with an MBA from the University Of Notre Dome, believes her strong business background coupled with Evans’s knowledge of the inner workings of school systems can help shape a new vision for Grayslake.

Kip Evans is a retired teacher of 33 years. He has taught grades K through 12 in his career and also has an Administrative Degree from Roosevelt University. While not officially in a slate, Evans is leveraging resources with Norris to get the word out about their campaign.

Currently, 68% of property taxes in Grayslake are allocated to school budgets. It is more important than ever to ensure that school budgets allow for the funding of quality education, while being ever vigilant to root out corruption and waste. In 2011, an individual in CCSD received a 14% pay increase, which equated to $27,000 raise.

In this economy we cannot continue to ask American families to shoulder the burden of wasteful government.

(Cross-posted from For the Good of Illinois.)