Thursday, February 26, 2015

California Republicans -- evolve or die - LA Times

Republicans in a blue states need to understand.

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California Republicans under Reagan led a national revolution. Now they must lead their own evolution.

Delegates to the California Republican Party state convention that begins Friday in Sacramento should be asking themselves just two questions: Why can't they find an electable U.S. Senate candidate and how do they revive a state party that's become irrelevant?

This state went from red to blue because the California GOP lost its Reaganesque compass and, alarmingly, a willingness to discern between moral absolutes and generational evolution. Ronald Reagan brilliantly never let himself be the captive or defender of the status quo or party orthodoxy. He embraced broad principles and found ways to solve problems without selling out.

Voters, popes, presidents and even some elders have evolved. The state party has not and seems to be perversely proud of it. Political parties are meant to win elections, not be martyrs to lost causes of bygone eras.

Republicans need their own rhetoric of reliance

 

New leader of the state Senate Kevin de León made waves last fall for both the lavish “inaugural” bash he threw himself and for the speech he gave there. “Isn't it time we shatter the great American myth about pulling oneself up by the bootstraps?” the Democrat...

New leader of the state Senate Kevin de León made waves last fall for both the lavish “inaugural” bash he threw himself and for the speech he gave there. “Isn't it time we shatter the great American myth about pulling oneself up by the bootstraps?” the Democrat... ( Pete Peterson )

For the first time in 24 years there's an open U.S. Senate seat in California, and the party should be ashamed it has no viable candidates. The problem is “us” not “them.” What are some of the changes the state party needs to make to return California to a truly two-party state?

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Immigration: Quit whining. President Obama masterfully outsmarted the GOP. No one should be more sensitive to the implications than California Republicans but they're still clueless. In 1994, I wrote an op-ed in this paper warning that by voting for Proposition 187, the party risked becoming the “anti-immigrant” party, alienating Latinos. Since Gov. Pete Wilson's reelection that year, cynically on the back of 187, there has not been a GOP governor or U.S. senator (Arnold Schwarzenegger was a faux-GOP anomaly).

Today, the party does not have a single statewide office holder. Now, another generation of Latinos is reminded that the GOP divides families, seeks to deny education and social services to children and believes in absurd mass or self-deportation of 3 million hardworking souls in our state. Even if the GOP wins battle against Obama's executive orders, the party loses voters, especially here in California.

Voters, popes, presidents and even some elders have evolved. The state party has not and seems to be perversely proud of it.- 

Same-sex marriage: Get over it. Regardless of what the U.S. Supreme Court does, same-sex marriage is here to stay. California families are as diverse as its people. Stop alienating gays, lesbians, their families, friends and younger Californians. Even the Mormon Church supports LGBT anti-discrimination laws. Yet the state GOP's politically anachronistic and offensive platform still opposes them. It is on the wrong side of civil rights history.

The GOP loathes the “nanny state” but it is all too happy to be the “nanny party.”

Are there no courageous state Republican leaders to say we are better then this? The silence, especially among civil libertarians, is deafening, disappointing and cowardly.

Small government: The excesses and scandals of GOP big spenders makes it indistinguishable from the Democrats. Reclaim the Reagan doctrine that, however noble the goal, big government is inherently a threat to individual liberty. That includes the failed over-regulating administrations of Schwarzenegger and “too big to fail” budget-busting George W. Bush.

Inclusion: I was campaign manager and chief of staff to Bob Dornan, one of Congress' most conservative members in a swing Democratic district in the heart of largely Latino central Orange County. In his first election we were told to “not waste time and money” going after the black and Latino vote. We ignored that advice and Dornan won his marginally Democrat seat with 40% of the Latino vote in three successive elections. With year-round outreach and tangible deliverables, it still can be done. The GOP must court minority voters with substantive programs, not solely with targeted mail and condescending “Viva” campaign committees.

Opportunity society: If white children were largely products of single-parent families and had drop-out and youth incarceration rates similar to those of today's young African Americans, you can bet we'd have a serious strategy. The party of Lincoln should be vigorously working to reverse this alarming growth of an underclass in which so much young talent is lost and opportunity denied.

This is where the state GOP can act by creating a nonprofit foundation to teach, train, place and give back through non-government means to those who need help the most and probably dislike the GOP even more. Call them Ronald Reagan Centers.

Go where the party is not wanted. In places such as Chico, Oakland, Stockton, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Compton and Indio, make a sustained commitment to the most challenged neighborhoods with at-risk youths and families. These Reagan Centers would be focused on small business, pre- and postnatal care, ESL, job placement, computer skills, public-private partnerships, HIV/AIDS and public healthcare, etc. This is a necessary, unorthodox commitment to people with whom the state GOP needs to rebuild allegiances.

Republicans in California under Reagan led a national revolution. Now they must lead their own evolution.

This lost competitive opportunity for the Barbara Boxer Senate seat must be a wake-up call — not for capitulation of principle but for the courage to push for realistic change. Otherwise, these biennial GOP conventions will remain insular social clubs instead of calls to action for what was once the nation's most influential state political party.

Brian O'Leary Bennett, a former member of the state executive committee of the California Republican Party and five-time GOP national convention delegate, has been a conservative activist for nearly 40 years.

California Republicans -- evolve or die - LA Times

Commentary: Rauner’s minimum wage plan just more of the same from GOP | The Rock River Times

 

The Rock River Times

 

 

Commentary: Rauner’s minimum wage plan just more of the same from GOP

February 25, 2015

By Gregory John Campbell
Guest Columnist

Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner’s policy recommendation for increasing the minimum wage in Illinois to $10 per hour over a seven year period is insulting and demeaning to the very workers it proposes to benefit, because no family or worker can live on such a meager wage now, let alone in seven years, coming from a man whose political role is to cement elite privilege over common poverty in Illinois.

Somali Republicans, like Gov. Rauner, have as their sole motives the enhancement of power and acquisition of property over others, because they lack humanity, being what this citizen characterizes as “object beings,” not human beings.

Object beings exist to purchase, own or possess material objects, wealth and power only, treating others in the same manner—as objects to own or property to dispense with—as so much flotsam on the water or cattle in a pen. Accordingly, object beings are not moral in motivation or behavior because they lack the human capacity to be so, and cannot be trusted to serve those who are in any private or public venue.

But what they can be trusted to do is diminish the humanity in our state and nation to secure their personal property, economic privilege and political power over any persons or principles preventing them from doing so, like the social contract morally existing between “the people” and their elected representatives.

But Gov. Rauner is first and foremost a corporate businessman, before he is a human being or a public servant, because business, not public service or humanity, is his range of awareness, and he lacks consideration in dealing with others.

And so it’s to be expected Gov. Rauner would want more prison guards in our state, because he knows his policies are going to impoverish countless more in achieving “fiscal balance”; and because he also knows that desperate people do desperate things when living on the street and starving.

Like all Somali capitalists, endless greed and the lust for power are the only principals behind the Somali reality of Republican politics they use, to abolish the upward middle class mobility our nation once stood for, because their sole intent is to impound as much wealth and power from the middle class as they can through their Somali economic policies and practices. The Koch brothers personify this fiscal “free rape-it” ideological inhumanity precisely.

Today’s Somali Republicans are like the Robber Barons of the late 19th century, and should be understood as the fiscal plunderers who will kill the father, rape the mother, sell the son and keep the daughter to accomplish what they want in Springfield or Washington as political Genghis Khan’s.

And if you think this statement harsh, think of the millions who’ve lost their jobs or homes through Somali (corporate) foreclosure, offshoring and outsourcing, because without these their lives and families have been plundered.

The Illinois pension problem is the result of both political parties failing to meet the fiduciary requirements they pledged they would, to responsible citizen contributors who did, over a 40 year period. And so the Governor will complete the further pauperization of state pensioners by blaming them for policy shortfalls Somali politicians like himself, Democrat and Republican, intended or permitted.

Accordingly, Somali Republicans are skillful at laying-off workers, cutting benefits and social programs and ruining lives because they’re intrinsically Hobbesian, believing men to be more evil than good, like themselves. Such human self-contempt must turn outward then, to disguise what their conscience would never permit if they had one—that they’re not only anti-labor, anti-union and anti-American, they’re also anti-human and Christian.

Above is fromCommentary: Rauner’s minimum wage plan just more of the same from GOP | The Rock River Times

Local Papers Oppose Rep Sosnowski’s legislation on public notices

 

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Meet John Doe: Keep public notices in print | The Rock River Times

By Paul Gorski
Columnist

According to “Sosnowski calls for public notices to be pulled from papers” by Shane Nicholson, State Representative Joe Sosnowski (R-Rockford/Belvidere) wants to “end the publication of public and government notices in newspapers.”

I strongly oppose that ill-advised plan. Public, especially government, notices of meetings, hearings and other important events should be posted in local newspapers as it is in the public interest to do so. We cannot have a free, open, deliberative government unless we know when our public bodies are meeting to discuss important issues.

As Nicholson’s article points out, many governments do not properly post public notices online, and the public does not appear to go to the sites that have these notices. One sure way of hiding or burying a public notice is to publish it only online.

One benefit of having notices posted in newspapers is that each newspaper prints public notices in a consistent manner; readers do not have to learn how to navigate the newspaper to find the notices, like they might have to do with a variety of different government websites.

Sosnowski states his plan is “Just trying to move us into the 20th century. Internet has been around for a while. Maybe next year we can work on the 21st.” I do not buy that argument at all. By that reasoning, people should stop buying printed Bibles and read the good book on their Kindles. While some people may prefer an e-reading device for this use, I’m pretty sure printed Bible sales are still strong. I am also fairly certain that most churches prefer printed Bibles. Get important information out in as many ways as you can.

People are divided on how they consume news and information. Many people still read print newspapers and books; other read the same content on websites. Others only frequent social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook. More and more people are using their smartphones and tablets as their primary Internet-access device, and many government websites are not mobile friendly. You might save money on printing costs, but then pay big bucks for updating your website, and then be forced to pay staff to monitor, post, and reply to posts on social media outlets.

Sosnowski’s plan to stop printing public notices in newspapers is shortsighted. Newspapers provide a standard, portable format for sharing government information. If budgets allow, post the same information on websites and social media. Sharing public information on more, rather than fewer, media outlets is in the public interest and critical to encouraging the public to engage government.

Paul Gorski (paul@paulgorski.com) is a Cherry Valley Township resident who also authors the Tech-Friendly column seen in this newspaper.

The above is from:  Meet John Doe: Keep public notices in print | The Rock River Times

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Boone County: Water testing Open House, March 12 | The Rock River Times

The Boone County Health Department will be having an informational Open House as well as reduced rates for the testing of water samples for nitrates and coliform bacteria during National Groundwater Awareness Week March 8-14.

The Open House will be held at the Boone County Health Department, 1204 Logan Avenue, Belvidere on Thursday, March 12 from 4-6 p.m.

Those attending the open house can participate in drawings to win a free analysis of their well water and also pick up water testing kits to use themselves.

The Health Department is also offering reduced rates for well water testing for private well owners during the entire month of March with prices reduced to $35 from $45 normally.

Water samples must be collected on a Monday or Wednesday and brought to the Boone County Health Department that same day between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. with the results being ready in three working days.

Boone County Health Department is open from 8 a.m to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.

For more information on water testing call 815-433-2951 ext. 2 or email info@boonehealth.org

Boone County: Water testing Open House, March 12 | The Rock River Times

April 7, 2015 Consolidated Election Absentee by Mail Application | Boone County, Illinois

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April 7, 2015 Consolidated Election Absentee by Mail Application

HomeApril 7, 2015 Consolidated Election Absentee by Mail Application

For the April 7, 215, Consolidated Election, the Boone County Clerk's Office is now accepting applications to vote absentee by mail.  If you wish to vote by mail click on the attachment below and return to the Boone County Clerk's Office at 1212 Logan Ave, Suite 103, Belvidere, IL 61008.  The last day applications are being accepted is April 2, 2015.  If you have any questions please contact the County Clerk's Office at (815) 544-3103.

Application for Absentee Ballot 2015_04_07.pdf
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April 7, 2015 Consolidated Election Absentee by Mail Application | Boone County, Illinois

Mainstream Renewable Powers reaction to the “revised” text amendment

Mainstream’s attorney believes the revision does not change the illegality of the proposed text amendment.

Mainstream’s reaction to the initial text amendment proposal is available at:  http://boonecountywatchdog.blogspot.com/2015/01/mainstream-details-their-opposition-to.html

The revision is available at:  http://boonecountywatchdog.blogspot.com/2015/02/planning-staff-continues-to-recommends.html

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April 7 School Board Election

HERE ARE THE DISTRICT 100 CANDIDATES

Registered voters living within the boundaries of the Belvidere School District will be asked to elect three individuals to the Board of Education at the April 7, 2015 election.  This page has been established to provide basic information about the function and responsibilities of the Board of Education and to introduce you to candidates running for the three seats.

April 7, 2015 Election

On April 7 voters will be asked to select one individual from Belvidere Township and two individuals from the remaining congressional townships to fill three 4-year terms on the Board of Education.  The following names will appear on the ballot:

Belvidere Township (Vote for 1):

Allison Reid-Niemeic

Michael Rathbun

Frank Marks

Remaining Congressional Townships (Vote for 2):

Holly A. Houk

Lynette Danzl-Tauer

Heather Sell-Wick

Kelly Galluzzo

Information above and below is taken from District 100 website and is accessible by clicking on the following: April School Board Election

Belvidere Township (Vote for 1):

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Remaining Congressional Townships (Vote for 2):

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