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.)

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.)

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.)

I’m currently reading Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged for the first time, in which the producers in an unspecified future America go “on strike”, disappear, and refuse to produce because of government over-regulation making it impossible to run their businesses efficiently or effectively. Written over 50 years ago, Atlas Shrugged seems remarkably prescient in many respects. So I couldn’t help thinking of it when I heard that Caterpillar may leave Illinois (H/T: Illinois Review):

The chief executive of Caterpillar wrote a letter to Illinois Gov. Patrick Quinn raising the possibility the heavy equipment company could move out of Illinois because of concerns that the direction the state is heading isn’t favorable to business.

In a letter to Gov. Pat Quinn obtained Friday by The Pantagraph of Bloomington, Doug Oberhelman said officials in at least four states have approached Peoria-based Caterpillar about relocating since Illinois raised its income tax in January.

“I want to stay here. But as the leader of this business, I have to do what’s right for Caterpillar when making decisions about where to invest,” Oberhelman wrote. “The direction that this state is headed in is not favorable to business, and I’d like to work with you to change that.”

Oberhelman wrote he has been called, cornered in meetings and wined and dined. He said he had never considered living anywhere else or the possibility of Caterpillar relocating.

“But I have to admit, the policymakers in Springfield seem to make it harder by the day,” he wrote.

Quinn spokeswoman Brie Callahan said Friday the governor plans to discuss the letter with Oberhelman on April 5 when the two meet at a conference in Peoria.

“The governor welcomes frank and open exchanges between the business community and government, and we are always open to new ideas that can help our businesses grow, innovate and create jobs,” Callahan told the Pantagraph.

Along with the letter to Quinn, Oberhelman sent correspondence the company has received from leaders of South Dakota and Nebraska.

“I stand ready to help convince you to relocate or expand in the fiscally conservative, low-tax Lone Star State,” wrote Texas Gov. Rick Perry in a Jan. 24 letter.

Caterpillar spokesman Jim Dugan tells The Pantagraph the letter shows Quinn that Oberhelman wants to be involved in finding solutions that benefit the company, which employs 23,000 people in Illinois.

“I view it as an olive branch to offer our help,” Dugan said.

While Oberhelman didn’t single out a specific problem with Illinois’ policies, Dugan said the recent income tax increase was major factor triggering the note. [Emphasis added.]

Illinois taxpayers, both individuals and corporations, are viewed in Springfield as milch cows, serfs tied to the land who must work and give as much of what they produce to the state as the legislature may demand. But people are streaming out of Illinois in droves. Former State Senator Roger Keats, recently a candidate for Cook County Board president, recently announced that he and his wife were moving to Dripping Springs, Texas (a lovely place near Austin, I can assure you). It takes longer for a major corporation like Caterpillar to pull up stakes and go, but they can and will go eventually.

The Democrats running Springfield — and yes, a few Republicans, too — are really a piece of work. They lie to get into office, they raise taxes, they over-regulate, they are looters and pirates who are not above any scam to rake off the productivity of Illinoisans and pocket the proceeds.

What can be done to stop the flow of red ink? Who is John Galt?

Michael Carbone

When my friend, fellow parishioner and fellow Knight of Columbus Michael Carbone, a member of the Grayslake School District #46 School Board was censured by the unanimous vote of his fellow board members this past Wednesday, what was the real reason?

Follow the money.

D46 board president, Mary Garcia, who is also the president of the local teachers’ union in another district, together with her cronies on the board, doesn’t like it when Michael Carbone, who has made it his practice over the past two years to uncover poor spending practices, and worked to bring accountability and transparency to board operations, sheds light on her shenanigans.

Follow the money.

When Michael Linder resigned from his unpaid position as a board member to take a job as a part-time consultant at $75,000 per year, Michael Carbone led the objections.

Follow the money.

When the board spent thousands to send staffers to Disney World for a conference, Michael Carbone was asking why.

Follow the money.

And when Mary Garcia hired her husband to work for the district as a janitor on the public payroll, Carbone was the first to question the process.

After all, with the economy as it is, with over 10% unemployment in Lake County and fifty applicants for every advertised job, just what was it, other than his relationship to the school board president, that made Robert Garcia stand out? Was he so highly recommended by his previous employers? In fact, if he was such a very good employee in his prior jobs, just why was it he was unemployed? Don’t get me wrong, many good people are un- or under-employed these days, for completely honest reasons. I’d just like to know how we came to the coincidence that Mary Garcia’s husband just happened to be the very best candidate for the job with the organization of which his wife is the head, but not for any of the other jobs he’d doubtless applied for.

There’s a word for this.

The word is nepotism. And in this instance, it means using taxpayer money to do favors for your friends and family. Or yourself.

Mary Garcia and her union cronies don’t understand that taxpayer money isn’t theirs to dole out as largesse to their favored recipients.

Michael Carbone does understand this, and that’s why they made up a series of lies about him, and publicly defamed him with a censure resolution that’s made national news.

Mary Garcia and one of her cronies are up for re-election in less than three weeks. Linder’s appointed replacement will likewise be leaving the board. I have to second the endorsement of the local paper for all three challengers to these seats to be elected, and I hope that with Michael Carbone, they will form a new majority who will bring some fiscal accountability to this school board.

So, as I told the board on Wednesday, I’m glad they chose this week to make such a statement of contempt for the taxpayers, and the one man on that board who represents our interests.

I was at that meeting, and was first in the public comments:

Some of those comments were attributed to me in this report as well.

He’s far from rich, and not making any money to speak of in the office he was elected to.

He’s not self-aggrandizing, doesn’t seek the limelight, and he’s not confrontational.

But neither will he back down from a confrontation, even if it means that people will notice him. He’s the most conscientious public servant I know.

Unless you live here in Lake County, IL, you won’t have heard of him. His name is Michael Carbone, and he serves on a local school board in Grayslake, and he has been a one-man champion of the taxpayer, fighting for transparency and accountability.

And tomorrow, Wed., March 16th, the Board will be voting to censure him for this.

So come out. The meeting is at Prairieview School, 103 E. Belvidere Rd., Hainesville, IL at 7:00 P.M.