Monday, December 31, 2018

Will Pres. Trump sign this bill?



Senate approves bill to make lynching a federal hate crime after nearly 100 years of failed attempts


Elise Viebeck Washington Post

After nearly 100 years of failed attempts, the Senate on Wednesday unanimously approved legislation to make lynching a federal crime.

Sponsored by the Senate's three African-American members, Kamala Harris, D-Calif., Cory Booker , D-N.J., and Tim Scott, R-S.C., the bill would ensure that lynching triggers an enhanced sentence under federal law like other hate crimes.


"This has been a long arc, a painful history and a shameful history in this body," Booker, who has been mentioned as a possible 2020 presidential candidate, said on the Senate floor. "At the height of lynchings across this country affecting thousands of people, this body did not act to make that a federal crime. . . . At least now, the United States Senate has now acted. One hundred senators, no objections."

Booker introduced the bill with Harris, another possible presidential hopeful, and Scott following what Harris described as 200 previous attempts by Congress to pass similar legislation.


"Lynching is a dark and despicable aspect of our nation's history. We must acknowledge that fact, lest we repeat it," Harris tweeted after the bill passed.

The NAACP says lynching emerged in the late 19th century as a "popular way of resolving some of the anger that whites had in relation to free blacks." About 3,450 black people were lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1968, accounting for 73 percent of the total number of people lynched.

Only five states had no lynchings during that period, according to the NAACP.

The Senate bill defines someone guilty of lynching as "willfully, acting as part of any collection of people, assembled for the purpose and with the intention of . . . [causing] death to any person." The crime could be punished by a sentence of up to life in prison.

Seven presidents petitioned Congress to end lynching between 1890 and 1952, the bill said.

The measure was introduced in June 2018 and unanimously passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in October. A companion bill from Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., was introduced in June.

The Senate's presiding officer during the vote was Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., whose previous expressions of pride in the Confederacy came under scrutiny this year after she said she would sit with a supporter in the front row of a "public hanging."

Hyde-Smith defended the remark as an exaggerated show of friendship. Critics said it alluded to hanging.

Appointed to the Senate, Hyde-Smith successfully ran for election.

First published in The Washington Post

Above is from:  https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-senate-lynching-hate-crime-20181219-story.html

More than 250 Illinois laws take effect Jan. 1. Here's what you need to know.


More than 250 Illinois laws take effect Jan. 1. Here's what you need to know.


More than 250 new state laws are set to take effect Jan. 1, 2019. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)

Mike RiopellChicago Tribune

Privacy Policy

Some take on serious issues such as the safety of children, sexual harassment or synthetic marijuana that led to multiple deaths in 2018. Another abolishes a task force on farmers markets that hasn’t met in two years.

In all, more than 250 new state laws take effect Jan. 1. The final batch of new laws imposed under outgoing Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner run the gamut from technical corrections in laws that will have little effect on people’s daily lives to requiring parents of young children to keep them in rear-facing car seats longer.


An even busier year could be on the horizon in Springfield with Democratic Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker set to take over Jan. 14 and a legislative wish list that includes legalizing marijuana and sports betting. But first, here’s a sampling of Illinois’ new laws for 2019.
Guns

State lawmakers and Rauner tangled over several gun control efforts sparked by the deadly school shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school and the downtown killing of Chicago police Cmdr. Paul Bauer.

What was approved in the end?

The state created a 72-hour cooling-off period for people who want to buy firearms, expanding a requirement that already applies to handgun sales.

A new law requires schools to conduct an active shooter drill observed by law enforcement within 90 days of the start of the school year.

And hunters can wear blaze pink, not just blaze orange, for safety.

Transportation

Children in 2019 will have to ride in rear-facing car seats until they’re 2 years old, weigh 40 pounds or are 40 inches tall, making recommendations from child safety advocates into Illinois law.

Not following the new rules could land a driver a $75 fine for the first violation, and $200 for each one after that, according to the Illinois State Police.

State law already required drivers to use a “child restraint system” for children younger than 8 years old, but it didn’t specify which way the car seat had to face.

“There’s always been some confusion out there,” said Tara Devine, a personal injury attorney with the law firm of Salvi Schostok & Pritchard. “This at least provides consistency and clarity for pediatricians, the public and manufacturers.”


A different new law will require the Illinois secretary of state to include information about the so-called Dutch reach method of exiting a parallel-parked vehicle in its “Rules of the Road” pamphlet and ask questions about safe driving around cyclists on its written tests.

The Dutch reach method instructs drivers to use their right hand to open the door of their vehicle, basically physically forcing them to look behind to see if there is an oncoming cyclist or vehicle that could cause an accident or injury.

Sexual harassment

Sexual harassment complaints and how to address them was a continuing story in Illinois government and politics amid the national #MeToo movement. The new year means the Illinois General Assembly in March will get a new top watchdog, a job that came under increased scrutiny amid a flood of sexual harassment complaints at the Capitol since late last year.

But lawmakers directed some of their attention on the private sector, with a new law requiring companies that want to do business with the state or qualify for certain tax breaks to provide a copy of their anti-harassment policies

And a different new rule says that anti-harassment training must be part of the continuing education needed to renew a professional license.

Law and order

Statewide this year, at least four people died after ingesting “fake weed,” which refers to plants or oils with chemicals added that are meant to mimic the effects of marijuana. The drugs in those cases were laced with brodifacoum, a form of rat poison that prevents blood from clotting normally.

Lawmakers approved a new law aimed at preventing manufacturers of synthetic marijuana from skirting laws banning the substance often sold and branded as “Spice” or “K2.” It bans all types of synthetic cannabinoids instead of just specific formulas. It’s a “catch-all” approach designed to prevent manufacturers from circumventing laws that only ban specific chemical combinations. Manufacturing or delivery of those substances would carry two to five years of prison time and fines of as much as $25,000. Possession may result in at least one year in jail.

Other new laws include exempting nursing mothers from jury duty and requiring every Circuit Court building to provide a dedicated lactation room.

Odds and ends

A state law that takes effect Jan. 1 gives DuPage County authority to dissolve its independent election commission, a move made after it had trouble tallying results of the March primary election.

Another change replaces references to “chairman” in the elections code to the gender-neutral “chair.”

And 2018 means the end of the Farmers Market Task Force, a group that last posted an agenda to meet in February 2016. A new law abolishes it.

Now, a new law for 2019 creates the Illinois Route 66 Centennial Commission, a group intended to get ready for the road’s 100-year anniversary in 2026.

Chicago Tribune’s Mary Wisniewski contributed.

mriopell@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @MikeRiopell

Above is from:  https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-met-illinois-2019-new-state-laws-20181226-story.html

Saturday, December 29, 2018

Illinois' population is falling, but the sky isn't

Analysis: Illinois' population is falling, but the sky isn't

By Tim Jones
Better Government Association

Updated 6/9/2018 4:04 PM



Illinois hiked the state income tax rate by 66 percent in 2011 and three years later, according to revised census estimates, the state's population had grown by more than 20,000. The tax rate dropped down again in 2015 and, since then, the census estimate has plunged 60,000.

There's a popular and populist narrative afoot in Illinois that taxes are a root cause of a recent population swoon. But experts say a careful look at the data, in Illinois and elsewhere, blows holes in that notion.


How Illinois compares

Total population growth in Midwestern states since the 2000 census
Illinois 3.1%
Indiana 9.6
Iowa 7.9
Kansas 8.3
Michigan 0.2
Minnesota 13.4
Missouri 9.2
Nebraska 12.2
North Dakota 17.6
Ohio 2.7
South Dakota 15.2
Wisconsin 8.0

"The knee-jerk tax thing doesn't work because you can find high-tax areas that are growing in the U.S. and you can find low-tax areas that are declining," said Chicago demographer Rob Paral. "I know that gets lost on people who want to blame taxes on everything."

Exhibit A is Minnesota, the state with the highest income tax rates in the Midwest but one of the fastest-growing populations. Exhibit B is Kansas, suffering slow population growth despite going on a tax-cutting frenzy sold as a way to supercharge the state.

Some complicated stew of events and trends clearly is affecting Illinois, with recent annual census estimates showing head count nudging down as immediate neighbors grow, albeit marginally. Economic experts say one possible reason for the divergence is that neighbors benefited more significantly from a resurgence in auto manufacturing following the Obama administration's federal bailout of that industry.

Rather than spur sophisticated analysis of a multifaceted problem, the numbers more typically become fodder for a blame game in which scoring political and ideological points is paramount.

The instinct to pounce obscures a statistical quirk of the census: Population estimates decried as disastrous on first blush often get revised upward, sometimes significantly, to little fanfare. That clearly has been the case for Illinois, where a numbers downturn is troubling but far from the free fall some media reports and partisans suggest.

In 2016, for example, the Census Bureau's American Community Survey population estimate for Illinois was initially listed as 12,801,539 and said to reflect a drop of more than 37,000 from the previous year. In 2017, the initial estimate was pegged at 12,802,023 and said to be down more than 33,000.

The glaring problem, of course, is that the first estimates released for both years were almost identical, so the big back-to-back declines in population that stirred sky-is-falling headlines don't add up. What got buried in the analysis was that the 2016 estimate was later increased significantly from its original value.

Such recalculations are common with census estimates, and it's too early to tell how those dire-sounding numbers for 2017 will be revised.

What is clear, however, is that because this is an election year a distorted storyline about population loss is sure to get elevated to a partisan rant: Somebody running for office in Illinois screwed up.

Those periodic data dumps of population estimates from the Census bureau -- the latest last month showing slight declines for Chicago and other Illinois cities -- have become fodder to be politically exploited and summed up in talking points and TV ads.

The scapegoat nominees include not just high taxes but House Speaker Mike Madigan, Gov. Bruce Rauner, government regulations, financial chaos and uncertainty from a two-year budget stalemate, not to mention old standbys greed and corruption.

"Over the past dozen years, 275,000 more people decided to leave Illinois than chose to come here," Rauner, then the newly elected Republican governor, told the Democratic controlled General Assembly in 2015, re-emphasizing his frequent indictment of the state's tax climate.

He uttered those words just weeks after the state income tax was cut by 25 percent. Yet, modest population gains turned to losses after Rauner took office, something duly noted by his critics.

"Rauner's not only failed to stem the population loss, it has gotten worse as more people are leaving the state," the Democratic Governors Association said in response.

Illinois does have a significant tax Achilles' heel, and it is property taxes, among the highest in the nation for several years that predate recent population softness. That is a consequence of decades of state policy pushed by Democrats and Republicans that provides low levels of support for public schools, thrusting the lion's share of those costs onto local property taxpayers.

Where politicians and activists are programmed to seize on troubling data for advantage, demographers get their wonk on. And what the numbers experts see in Illinois is a continuation of long-range trends that accelerated with the Great Recession.

Immigration drove population growth in Chicago and Illinois during the 1990s, but has slowed substantially since, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Meanwhile, the numbers of both black and non-Hispanic white residents have declined in recent years.

That has had a modest impact on population numbers in the Chicago area, but a much steeper one downstate. Of Illinois' 102 counties, 88 have seen population drops since the 2010 decennial census, a phenomenon that tracks with mostly rural counties throughout the Midwest.

An analysis of Midwestern employment by Bill Testa, vice president and director of regional research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, shows fundamental differences separating Illinois from most of its neighbors.

Illinois is more reliant on agriculture, construction and mining machinery manufacturing, as well as management, technical consulting and securities and investments. Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin are as much as five times above the national average in terms of motor vehicle-related manufacturing. In a touch of political irony, the controversial federal bailout of the auto industry during the Obama administration appears to have helped prop up population in those Republican-leaning states.

The effects of well-known negatives in Illinois, such as chronic deficits, unpaid bills and pension shortfalls, are more difficult to quantify. But it's clear there is a reshuffling of the state's demographic deck, occurring in ways that don't fit neatly into a TV attack ad.

"If you look at a rural county in Illinois, it's almost like any other state, where they're losing just like the Illinois county is," Paral said. "Illinois, though, is both unique in its total population but with very different things going on."

"Black population growth and immigration growth used to offset the white decline," Paral said. "Not anymore."

• Tim Jones is a reporter for the Better Government Association

Above is from:  https://www.dailyherald.com/news/20180609/analysis-illinois-population-is-falling-but-the-sky-isnt

Friday, December 21, 2018

Belvidere approves levy in emergency session on Friday

  • This a Work in Progress









Belvidere aldermen to revote on rejected $5.9 million tax levy

By Brittany Karlin |

Posted: Tue 5:25 PM, Dec 18, 2018  |

Updated: Tue 5:56 PM, Dec 18, 2018

BELVIDERE, Ill. (WIFR) - The aldermen and the Belvidere city mayor prepare for a showdown Friday to reevaluate the property tax levy vote.

"Basically a third or more of our annual budget going bye-bye creates a huge issue and a huge hole," said Belvidere Mayor Mike Chamberlain.

Belvidere aldermen said no to a proposed $5.9 million property tax levy. Mayor Chamberlain says it’s a major chunk and a key to balancing the city's $17 million budget.

"We will not be able to fund fire, police and public works at the normal levels. It would have created havoc in the city and the end of it would have been we have to eat up our reserve fund which would put us in a very uncomfortable position," said Mayor Chamberlain.

The proposal needed a majority yes vote to pass and four aldermen voted no, including Aldermen Clayton Stevens. He says taxpayers are already getting hit hard.

"Well, we already increased the gas tax by two cents a gallon. We have increased the sales tax by half a cent and those two rights there are going to bring in an extra $2 million projected next year,” said Stevens.

"It was alarming that the council members present last night were unaware of what they were doing and voting down $5.9 million that is desperately needed to balance our book," said Mayor Chamberlain
Stevens says he voted against the increase because he thought the other aldermen would vote yes. He also didn't discuss other possibilities with the mayor.

"I am going to vote against the 3.5 percent. I didn't discuss it with anybody. I was the first one to vote on it and I was quite surprised it went four and four,” said Stevens.

The special meeting to reconsider the levy is scheduled for 8:30 Friday morning. Mayor Chamberlain says aldermen can submit any changes they want and re-vote.

Busy Boone County Intersection Could See Changes to Roads


By:

Posted: Dec 19, 2018 10:44 PM CST

Updated: Dec 19, 2018 10:44 PM CST



BOONE COUNTY - Boone County leaders are looking at ways to make a busy intersection safer.  This comes about a month after a woman was killed there.  The 55-year-old didn't stop at the intersection of  Poplar Grove and Squaw Prairie Roads.  The woman was then hit by another vehicle.  The county is now considering changes to the two-way stop.

"I would like to publicly address the Boone County Board about my concerns with the intersections of Poplar Grove Road and Squaw Prarire Road," said Boone County Resident Pamela Gustafson.  Boone County residents, like Pamela Gustafson want something done about the intersection. Wednesday night, Boone County Board members discussed approving an agreement with an engineer about possible changes to the roads.

"We want to make sure that we take a look at it and makes sure we find ways to improve the safety for all our citizens," said Boone County Board Chairman Karl Johnson.  The county would apply for a $14-thousand Federal Grant to conduct studies on what would be the best safety measures to take.  Boone County Sheriff Dave Ernest says this year there have been nine accidents, including one fatality, last month.   "The accidents have increased at that intersection over the years," said Sheriff Ernest.  "That's based off of increase of traffic in those areas as some of our northern communities have been growing, Poplar Grove, Candlewick."

"People do not drive 55 miles per hour, they pass the intersection, which is against the law, they're just in too big of a hurry and they're driving too fast," said Gustafson.  "I have to sit in my driveway and watch traffic from the north and from the south. I can never just pull out."

"I am scared in the summertime when I'm mowing." said Boone County Resident Marilyn Hunt,  "I mow part way up the road on the terrace. I'm always afraid, because they just come flying down Poplar Grove Road."

Currently, there are signs in place that reduce the speed limit to 45 miles per hour, lights have been added to signage, and white lines mark where to stop on the East and West bound lanes.

"It's not the case that people are blowing the stop sign," said Sheriff Ernest.  "95-percent of those accidents stop and they pull out.  It really is the congestion during those key, high-traffic times."

"If eventually, it comes down that it needs to be a four-way stop, then that's what will happen, but there's so many other things that we need to investigate," said Chairman Johnson.

The board has approved the measure to move forward on the grant application.  If the award is granted, the board could begin to take action as early as Spring season

Above is fromhttps://www.mystateline.com/news/busy-boone-county-intersection-could-see-changes-to-roads/1667684306

Christopher Steele Gave Copies of Trump Dossier to a McCain Pal, a Paul Ryan Aide, and a GOP Rep. in Late 2016

The GOP Rep was our Adam Kinzinger.

By Debra Heine December 20, 2018

chat 182 comments

Speaker of the House Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., greets President Donald Trump at the National Republican Congressional Committee March Dinner on Tuesday, March 20, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Christopher Steele gave copies of his discredited dirty dossier on then-candidate Donald Trump to a Republican congressman, the chief of staff to House Speaker Paul Ryan, and a longtime associate of John McCain in December 2016, well before BuzzFeed published the infamous report, according to court documents released Wednesday.

David Kramer, a former State Department official who was an executive at the McCain Institute, is the person who provided a copy of the dossier to BuzzFeed News. He met with BuzzFeed reporter Ken Bensinger on December 29, 2016, according to the court filing submitted by U.S. District Court Judge Ursula Ungaro in the BuzzFeed dossier-related defamation lawsuit.

BuzzFeed and Kramer disagree about how Bensinger obtained a copy of the dossier, according to a footnote in Ungaro's court filing.

“The parties dispute whether Kramer gave Bensinger a copy or whether Bensinger took photos of the Dossier when Kramer was not looking,” the judge wrote.

“Kramer testified that Bensinger took photos of the Dossier when Kramer was out of the room, even though he asked Bensinger not to,” Ungaro continued, adding that “in a later declaration, Kramer stated that he had no objection to Bensinger taking a hard copy and had provided hard copies to other journalists.”

The other journalists Kramer provided copies of the dossier to were not identified.

Ungaro also stated that Christopher Steele provided at least one memo from the dossier to Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) and longtime Paul Ryan aide Jonathan Burks.

“Steele gave Report 166 to Kramer, an unnamed senior British security official, Ms. Wallender [sic] at the NSC, Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), and House Speaker Paul Ryan’s Chief of Staff, John Burks,” Ungaro wrote.

Ungaro also stated that Christopher Steele provided at least one memo from the dossier to Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) and longtime Paul Ryan aide Jonathan Burks.

“Steele gave Report 166 to Kramer, an unnamed senior British security official, Ms. Wallender [sic] at the NSC, Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), and House Speaker Paul Ryan’s Chief of Staff, John Burks,” Ungaro wrote.

That report, which is one of 17 written by Steele, accused Russian businessman Aleksej Gubarev of using his companies to hack Democrats’ computer systems during the 2016 campaign. Gubarev vehemently denied the allegations and sued BuzzFeed for defamation, claiming that the website failed to investigate Steele’s claims.

Ungaro noted in her filing Wednesday that BuzzFeed did not reach out to Gubarev prior to its publication of the dossier on Jan. 10, 2017. The website apologized to Gubarev and redacted his name from its report after the Russian sued.

Ungaro ultimately ruled in favor of BuzzFeed on the grounds that its decision to publish the dossier was protected by the fair report privilege.

Sponsored

Steele also apparently supplied copies of his dossier to Celeste Wallander, the Obama National Security Council’s top official on Russia-related matters.

Though Ungaro wrote that Steele provided Burks and the others with parts of the dossier, a spokeswoman for Ryan’s office said that Burks never met Steele and did not receive information directly from the former British spy.

“Burks has never met Christopher Steele nor received any document directly from him. However, he was aware of and had read the dossier prior to its publication,” AshLee Strong told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

She did not respond to follow-up questions about how Burks obtained the report, whether he disseminated it, and whether Ryan knew he had received the document.

Inquiring minds would like to know exactly when Burks got the Steele dossier and what he did with it. And did he tell Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee or any other committees about it?

Kinzinger’s office did not respond to the Daily Caller's request for comment.

Above is from:  https://pjmedia.com/trending/christopher-steele-gave-copies-of-trump-dossier-to-a-mccain-pal-a-paul-ryan-aide-and-a-gop-rep-in-late-2016/

Above is from: 

Gen Mattis resignation letter

image

Dear Mr. President:

I have been privileged to serve as our country’s 26th Secretary of Defense which has allowed me to serve alongside our men and women of the Department in defense of our citizens and our ideals.

I am proud of the progress that has been made over the past two years on some of the key goals articulated in our National Defense Strategy: putting the Department on a more sound budgetary footing, improving readiness and lethality in our forces, and reforming the Department’s business practices for greater performance. Our troops continue to provide the capabilities needed to prevail in conflict and sustain strong US global influence.

One core belief I have always held is that our strength as a nation is inextricably linked to the strength of our unique and comprehensive system of alliances and partnerships. While the US remains the indispensable nation in the free world, we cannot protect our interests or serve that role effectively without maintaining strong alliances and showing respect to those allies. Like you, I have said from the beginning that the armed forces of the United States should not be the policeman of the world. Instead, we must use all tools of American power to provide for the common defense, including providing effective leadership to our alliances. NATO’s 29 democracies demonstrated that strength in their commitment to fighting alongside us following the 9-11 attack on America. The Defeat-ISIS coalition of 74 nations is further proof.


  • James Mattis

Similarly, I believe we must be resolute and unambiguous in our approach to those countries whose strategic interests are increasingly in tension with ours. It is clear that China and Russia, for example, want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model—gaining veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic, and security decisions—to promote their own interests at the expense of their neighbors, America and our allies. That is why we must use all the tools of American power to provide for the common defense.

My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues. We must do everything possible to advance an international order that is most conducive to our security, prosperity and values, and we are strengthened in this effort by the solidarity of our alliances.

Because you have the right to a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position. The end date for my tenure is February 28, 2019, a date that should allow sufficient time for a successor to be nominated and confirmed as well as to make sure the Department’s interests are properly articulated and protected at upcoming events to include Congressional posture hearings and the NATO Defense Ministerial meeting in February. Further, that a full transition to a new Secretary of Defense occurs well in advance of the transition of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in September in order to ensure stability within the Department.

I pledge my full effort to a smooth transition that ensures the needs and interests of the 2.15 million Service Members and 732,079 DoD civilians receive undistracted attention of the Department at all times so that they can fulfill their critical, round-the-clock mission to protect the American people.

I very much appreciate this opportunity to serve the nation and our men and women in uniform.

James N. Mattis

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Mexico’s Strategy for Dealing With Trump: Warn Him About China


The New York Times

Mexico’s Strategy for Dealing With Trump: Warn Him About China

By AZAM AHMED and ELISABETH MALKIN

2 hrs ago




  • Donald Trump wearing a suit and tie: Mexican officials say they will not force a confrontation with President Trump on migration. Instead, they are proposing an investment plan for Central America.

  • a group of people sitting at a dock: A sports center in Tijuana, Mexico, that has become a shelter for migrants. Thousands of migrants have amassed at the border with the United States..

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s new government has a strategy for dealing with President Trump.

Don’t anger him. Don’t cave in to him. Try to get him to help fund an ambitious investment plan to stem migration by creating jobs in Central America.

And if Mr. Trump cannot be persuaded, Mexican officials said in interviews that they would remind him that there is another player in the region willing to step into the vacuum: China.


That, in a nut shell, is the approach the Mexican government is betting can defuse the standoff over the thousands of migrants amassed at its border with the United States, hoping to make it across.

Mexico’s plan to try to raise money to develop Central America and southern Mexico was announced last week, when Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the country’s new president, introduced what he called a “Marshall Plan” to address the root causes of Central American migration: a $30 billion initiative to invest in the region and welcome migrants into Mexico with visas, health care and employment.

Mexican officials have compared the proposal to the plan to rebuild postwar Europe. This approach would represent a break with Mr. López Obrador’s predecessor, who considered giving in to Mr. Trump’s demands and allowing people seeking asylum in the United States to remain in Mexico while they wait.

And Mexico’s new plan is, in many respects, the opposite of Mr. Trump’s vow to crack down on migration, which includes building a wall, deploying the military and cutting aid to Central America.

In speaking about the contours of their new policy, Mexican officials told The New York Times that they would not force a confrontation with Mr. Trump by demanding that he accept the migrants onto American soil; that would only anger the American president, and he would not do it anyway, they said.

But at the same time, they said they were not going to strike a deal with the United States to keep asylum seekers on the Mexican side of the border. That would allow Mr. Trump to claim a victory Mexican officials are not willing to give him. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to aggravate already strained relationships with the Trump administration.

Instead, they want to change the focus of the conversation to expanding the economy of Central America and the south of their country by marshaling public and private investment to build infrastructure, develop the energy sector and create jobs in the region so people do not have to stream north in the first place.

They acknowledge that it may be difficult to convince the Trump administration to invest large sums in the region, a proposal they have only recently broached with American officials.

Buy they are hoping the perceived threat of China’s growing presence in the region can be used as leverage to bring the United States on board.

While it is unclear how much more China would be willing to invest in the region, in recent years it has increased its presence throughout Latin America, financing infrastructure projects, tightening ties with governments and even convincing a handful of Central American nations to switch their diplomatic recognition of Taiwan to China — a sticking point with the Americans.

The Mexican strategy to rely on the United States’ concerns about China’s expanding influence in the region reflects a growing sense in Mexico that it can no longer take cooperation with the United States for granted.

Both the White House and State Department declined to comment on the Mexican proposal.

“For a long time there has been this competition within Latin America for influence, where China is willing to invest billions in infrastructure and energy that the United States simply isn’t,” said Duncan Wood, the director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center.

The proposal is also a reflection of the distinct personalities of Mr. López Obrador and Mr. Trump: Both are mavericks — albeit on opposite sides of the political spectrum — and both are willing to break with long-established conventions.

“Partly because of Trump and partly because of Andrés Manuel, there is an opening there,” Mr. Wood said.

Unlike his predecessor, Mr. López Obrador is willing to chart an independent course in his response to the Trump administration — partly because of Mr. Trump’s hard line on migration and partly out of a conviction that the only way to tackle the matter is to go after its root causes.

And to do that, Mexico will look for help wherever it can find it, including China, which has already expressed an interest in Mr. López Obrador’s plan to lay hundreds of miles of track for a tourist train in the Yucatán Peninsula — a project widely opposed by environmental advocates.

Of course, that does not mean Mexico will make a sharp turn to China, given its longstanding relationship with the United States. Nor does floating the idea that China may participate make Mexico’s costly proposal any more plausible.

“The money is just not there,” said Mark Feierstein, the former senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council during the Obama administration. He noted that the United States was spending more than $650 million a year in Central America’s Northern Triangle, which is composed of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

But that may be beside the point.

“If nothing else, it is a good bargaining chip,” said Doris Meissner, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, of the idea that China could increase its investment in the region. “Both sides are laying down their frameworks and their points of view as to how they should proceed.”

The idea that China could increase its influence in Mexico emerged even before Mr. López Obrador came into office.

“I heard from senior Mexican officials during the transition that if the United States is not going to treat Mexico with respect, don’t be surprised if you see a Chinese submarine in a Mexican port,” said Juan Gonzalez, who was an adviser to Vice President Joseph R. Biden on Central America.

“I think it was hyperbolic,” he said of the outgoing officials’ warning, before adding, “I think Mexico sees increased political risk coming from the political process in the United States and they are diversifying their interests.”

Since taking office on Dec. 1, Mr. López Obrador has done nothing if not shake up the establishment.

He has announced the cancellation of the construction of a new airport, a multibillion-dollar project that was well underway, and temporarily suspended new auctions for oil exploration in Mexico. He has also cut salaries for government employees and proposed a measure to dismantle a much-vaunted education overhaul.

As he did on the campaign trail, Mr. López Obrador has focused on domestic issues — an inward-looking vision that differs from recent Mexican presidents who saw the global stage as the nation’s future.

But the migrant crisis forced its way to the top of the agenda, proving a frustrating first test for Mr. López Obrador.

The arrival of thousands of migrants traveling in caravans from Honduras and other Central American countries raised the profile of an existing problem, increasing the stakes and forcing Mr. López Obrador to decide how to manage it just days after taking office.

For decades, Mexico kept its head down as hundreds of thousands of migrants — many of them Mexican — made their way into the United States. But in recent years, the nation’s status as a transit country has changed.

Mexico is becoming a destination, not just a portal to the United States. Every year, more people apply for asylum in Mexico, and many more choose to stay and seek work. A bottleneck in the United States has meant that thousands of migrants are stuck waiting months at the border for their initial asylum interview with the American authorities.

In 2014, at the urging of the Obama administration, Mexico adopted a tough policing strategy along its southern border with Guatemala that essentially amounted to detention and deportation. But that also failed to curtail the flow of migrants.

Today, with about 10,000 migrants having entered Mexico in caravans that focused global media attention on their plight, mass roundups and deportations are not an option, officials say. Nor is striking a deal with the Trump administration to host the migrants indefinitely.

So Mr. López Obrador’s government is trying to fold them into Mexican society — and raise money to invest in projects that would boost employment and prosperity in the region.

“It’s not enough just to point out that the causes of migration have to be dealt with,” said Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s foreign secretary, adding that Mexico wants to counter the idea “that the best way to confront migration is through exclusion and control.”

This is, in part, a recognition that Mexico forms a part of a busy migration corridor and that, with or without help from the United States, it has to deal with the issue.

“Finally, the issue of the Northern Triangle and migration is seen as a regional issue,” said Rafael Fernández de Castro, the director of the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of California, San Diego, and a former Mexican presidential adviser. “There is a window of opportunity. The knowledge and awareness have never been as clear as they are now.”

Mr. López Obrador is also signaling an interest in playing a broader leadership role in the region, as Mexico did during the 1970s and 1980s.

“Mexico wants to take back leadership in the region,” said Rodolfo Cruz Piñeiro, director of the department for population studies at the College of the Northern Border in Tijuana. “Mexico is telling the U.S.: ‘I can control this region for you, but I need your economic help.’”

“What will the U.S. ask?’’ he added. “That’s the great unknown.”

Above is from:  https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/mexico’s-strategy-for-dealing-with-trump-warn-him-about-china/ar-BBR5mtZ?ocid=spartandhp

Thursday, December 13, 2018

5 people arrested in Boone County following bust at massage parlors


BOONE COUNTY (WREX) — Five women are arrested and charged after a 3-month-long investigation in to criminal activity at Belvidere massage parlors, according to the Belvidere Police Department.

Police Chief Shane Woody says in a news release that on Monday, the police department and Department of Homeland Security, executed a search warrant at four massage parlors in Belvidere, including the Hot Stone Spa at 2184 N. State St.; Angel Spa at 998 Belvidere Road Suite 3; Ming’s Spa at 120 N. State St.; and Good Luck Relax Center at 404 S. State St.

Five women have been arrested and charged:

— Lisa Yu, age 60 of Lincolnshire, was charged with promoting prostitution within 1,000 feet of a school and prostitution.

— Tina King, age 53 of Chicago, was charged with two counts of promoting prostitution and prostitution.

— Ssang Tretbar, age 52 of Van Buren, Ariz., was charged with prostitution and violation of the massage license act

— Jin Xiaolan, age 54 of Chicago, was charged with violation of the massage license act.

— Seng Yang, age 50 of West Palm Beach, Fla., was charged with violation of the massage license act.

Chief Woody says the investigation is ongoing and additional charges are possible.

13 News will follow this story and bring you more information as it becomes available.

Seng Yang, age 50 of West Palm Beach, Fla., was charged with violation of the massage license act.

Tina King, age 53 of Chicago, was charged with two counts of promoting prostitution and prostitution.

Ssang Tretbar, age 52 of Van Buren, Ariz., was charged with prostitution and violation of the massage license act

Lisa Yu, age 60 of Lincolnshire, was charged with promoting prostitution within 1,000 feet of a school and prostitution.

Jin Xiaolan, age 54 of Chicago, was charged with violation  of the massage license act.

Above is fromhttps://wrex.com/category/2018/12/12/5-people-arrested-in-boone-county-following-bust-at-massage-parlor/

How The Koch Brothers Broke Democracy & Stuck Taxpayers With The Bill




How The Koch Brothers Broke Democracy & Stuck Taxpayers With The Bill


This is a story of how a small group of wealthy white men can hijack an entire nation, destroy its founding principles, and force those most affected by their deeds to pay for the damage. The background for this piece is Jane Mayer’s extraordinary book Dark Money, which came out earlier this year. The subtitle says it all: The Hidden History Of The Billionaires Behind The Rise Of The Radical Right.

If you follow the link above, you can read the entire book in PDF form but be warned — the subject matter deals with such sleaze, so much self dealing, and so many crooked dealings in the halls of power, you will need a strong stomach not to feel sick to your stomach as you read it.

The principle characters in Mayer’s book are Charles and David Koch. Taken together, they are the richest people on the face of the Earth. They are also the sons of Fred Koch, who made his fortune supplying gasoline and diesel fuel to Josef Stalin and later Adolf Hitler. In December, 1958, the elder Koch became one of the founders of the John Birch Society, a radical right wing organization that has metastasized over the decades into dozens of right wing propaganda organizations, think tanks, and so-called “institutes.”

Weaponized Philanthropy

You may never have heard of Charles and David Koch, but they have touched the lives of every American. Many of the coded phrases that have infected political discourse over the past 50 years are attributable to them — “trickle down economics,” “welfare Cadillac,” “shrink the size of government until it’s small enough to drown in a bathtub,” “Citizens United,” “the death tax,” “death panels,” “I’m from the government and I’m here to help,” “the Federalist Society,” and the “Tea Party” are phrases familiar to us all that trace their lineage to the Kochs.

Trickle Down EconomicsHow did this happen? According to Mayer, the Kochs were making little headway with their ultra right wing ideas until they figured out how to turn the tax code to their advantage. For generations, wealthy people were encouraged to donate to charities like hospitals, the Red Cross, and humanitarian causes because they could deduct their contributions from their taxable income.

What the Kochs did was take the charitable deduction process and stand it on its head.  They created their own “charities,” then funded them lavishly with money that qualified for tax deductions. Non-profits with patriotic sounding names like the Heartland Institute, the Heritage Foundation, Americans For Prosperity, and the Cato Institute have become powerful lobbying groups supported by non-taxable contributions.

Their methodology is always the same. Hire well-paid “researchers” who are smart enough to produce reports that support the positions espoused by the Koch Brothers and keep their mouths shut. Those reports, studies, and white papers are disseminated throughout the highest levels of government to elected officials who owe their seats to campaign contributions from the Koch Brothers. It’s a nice little sweetheart deal that was called racketeering when the Mafia did it, but is considered perfectly appropriate today.

Out Of Sight And Underground

Writing in The Guardian this week, columnist George Monbiot prefaced a story about how the Kochs have exported their ultra right wing agenda to the UK with this summary.

“Dark money is among the greatest current threats to democracy. It means money spent below the public radar, that seeks to change political outcomes. It enables very rich people and corporations to influence politics without showing their hands.

“Among the world’s biggest political spenders are Charles and David Koch, co-owners of Koch Industries, a vast private conglomerate of oil pipelines and refineries, chemicals, timber and paper companies, commodity trading firms and cattle ranches. If their two fortunes were rolled into one, Charles David Koch, with $120bn, would be the richest man on Earth.

“In a rare public statement, in an essay published in 1978, Charles Koch explained his objective. ‘Our movement must destroy the prevalent statist paradigm.’ As Jane Mayer records in her book Dark Money, the Kochs’ ideology — lower taxes and looser regulations — and their business interests ‘dovetailed so seamlessly it was difficult to distinguish one from the other.’

“Over the years, she notes, ‘the company developed a stunning record of corporate malfeasance’. Koch Industries paid massive fines for oil spills, illegal benzene emissions and ammonia pollution. In 1999, a jury found that Koch Industries had knowingly used a corroded pipeline to carry butane, which caused an explosion in which two people died. Company Town, a film released last year, tells the story of local people’s long fight against pollution from a huge paper mill owned by the Koch brothers.

“The Kochs’ chief political lieutenant, Richard Fink, developed what he called a three-stage model of social change. Universities would produce ‘the intellectual raw materials.’ Think tanks would transform them into ‘a more practical or usable form.’ Then ‘citizen activist’ groups would ‘press for the implementation of policy change.’

To these ends the Kochs set up bodies in all three categories themselves, such as the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, the Cato Institute and the “citizens’ group” Americans for Prosperity. But for the most part they funded existing organisations that met their criteria. They have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into a network of academic departments, think tanks, journals. and movements. And they appear to have been remarkably successful.

“As researchers at Harvard and Columbia universities have found, Americans for Prosperity alone now rivals the Republican party in terms of size, staffing and organisational capacity (emphasis added). It has pulled ‘the Republican party to the far right on economic, tax and regulatory issues’. It was crucial to the success of the Tea Party movement, the ousting of Democrats from Congress, and the staffing of Trump’s transition team. The Koch network has helped secure massive tax cuts, the smashing of trade unions, and the dismantling of environmental legislation.

“But their hands, for the most part, remain invisible. A Republican consultant who has worked for Charles and David Koch told Mayer that ‘to call them under the radar is an understatement. They are underground.'”

Funding The End Of Democracy

Koch-inspired and funded groups have led the campaign to gerrymander voting districts in states such as Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and North Carolina. The current maps were drawn by ultra right wing partisans using artificial intelligence. The intent was to make it impossible for Democrats to gain a majority of seats in the legislatures of those states no matter how many people voted for them.

The strategy has been phenomenally successful. In the election last month, Republican Scott Walker was given his walking papers by the voters, but even though Democrats got 54% of the votes cast, they were able to win only 36 of the 99 seats in the state assembly thanks to the anti-democratic bias created by gerrymandering.

Writing in The Guardian, law professor Lawrence Douglas says, “Pundits have described these actions as Republicans playing ‘hardball,’ though the description obscures a noxious reality: Republicans aren’t playing ball at all — they are rejecting the basic rules of the game. The notion that elections count only when our side wins is nothing short of a repudiation of democracy. Republicans, on both the national and state level, are essentially staging minor coups.”

Democracy Is Socialism

We hear a lot of talk from conservatives reactionaries these days about socialism. Most of them have no idea they are spouting Koch Brothers-inspired dogma that has been injected into the national conversation at the highest levels and become part of the political landscape. But democracy itself is socialism. It is a contract between the people of a nation that says the government will be elected by the will of the majority. Any policy that interferes with that core principle is undemocratic and an affront to America’s heritage.

Asked in Philadelphia “What sort of government have you given us?” Benjamin Franklin reportedly said, “A republic — if you can keep it.” Largely through the unrelenting efforts of the Kock Brothers — efforts that have been generously subsidized by American taxpayers — the prospect of America ceasing to be a republic is becoming more real every day.

Republic is another way of saying a representative democracy. Since all 330 million Americans cannot assemble in one place for a national conversation, they elect people to represent their interests. But the Kochs have broken the link between the people and their representatives.

Today, most government officials are looking out for the interests of the Kochs and their super rich colleagues, not those of the people who elected them. The only way to make America great again is to restore the democratic system of government the Founding Fathers envisioned.

Above is from:  https://cleantechnica.com/2018/12/11/how-the-koch-brothers-broke-democracy-stuck-taxpayers-with-the-bill/

Trump Moves to Deport Vietnam War Refugees




Trump Moves to Deport Vietnam War Refugees

Charles Dunst

13 hrs ago

Donald Trump et al. posing for the camera© Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

The Trump administration is resuming its efforts to deport certain protected Vietnamese immigrants who have lived in the United States for decades—many of them having fled the country during the Vietnam War.

This is the latest move in the president’s long record of prioritizing harsh immigration and asylum restrictions, and one that’s sure to raise eyebrows—the White House had hesitantly backed off the plan in August before reversing course. In essence, the administration has now decided that Vietnamese immigrants who arrived in the country before the establishment of diplomatic ties between the United States and Vietnam are subject to standard immigration law—meaning they are all eligible for deportation.

The new stance mirrors White House efforts to clamp down on immigration writ large, a frequent complaint of the president’s on the campaign trail and one he links to a litany of ills in the United States.

The administration last year began pursuing the deportation of many long-term immigrants from Vietnam, Cambodia, and other countries who the administration alleges are “violent criminal aliens.” But Washington and Hanoi have a unique 2008 agreement that specifically bars the deportation of Vietnamese people who arrived in the United States before July 12, 1995—the date the two former foes reestablished diplomatic relations following the Vietnam War.

The White House unilaterally reinterpreted this agreement in the spring of 2017 to exempt people convicted of crimes from its protections, allowing the administration to send a small number of pre-1995 Vietnamese immigrants back, a policy it retreated from this past August. Last week, however, a spokesperson for the U.S. embassy in Hanoi said the American government was again reversing course.

Washington now believes that the 2008 agreement fails to protect pre-1995 Vietnamese immigrants from deportation, the spokesperson, who asked not to be identified by name because of embassy procedures, told The Atlantic.

“The United States and Vietnam signed a bilateral agreement on removals in 2008 that establishes procedures for deporting Vietnamese citizens who arrived in the United States after July 12, 1995, and are subject to final orders of removal,” the spokesperson said. “While the procedures associated with this specific agreement do not apply to Vietnamese citizens who arrived in the United States before July 12, 1995, it does not explicitly preclude the removal of pre-1995 cases.”

The about-turn came as a State Department spokesperson confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security had met with representatives of the Vietnamese embassy in Washington, D.C., but declined to provide details of when the talks took place or what was discussed. Spokespeople for the Vietnamese embassy and DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

But the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, a Washington, D.C., advocacy group, said in a statement that the purpose of the meeting was to change the 2008 agreement. That deal had initially been set to last for five years, and was to be automatically extended every three years unless either party to it opted out. Under those rules, it had been set to renew automatically next month. Since 1998, final removal orders have been issued for more than 9,000 Vietnamese nationals.

When it first decided to reinterpret the 2008 deal, Donald Trump’s administration argued that only pre-1995 arrivals with criminal convictions were exempt from the agreement’s protection and eligible for deportation. Vietnam initially conceded and accepted some of those immigrants before stiffening its resistance; about a dozen Vietnamese immigrants ended up being deported from the United States. The August decision to change course, reported to a California court in October, appeared to put such moves at least temporarily on ice, but the latest shift now leaves the fate of a larger number of Vietnamese immigrants in doubt. Now no pre-1995 arrivals are exempt from the 2008 agreement’s protection. That means all such people are subject to standard immigration law, rendering them eligible for deportation.

Many pre-1995 arrivals, all of whom were previously protected under the 2008 agreement by both the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, were refugees from the Vietnam War. Some are the children of those who once allied with American and South Vietnamese forces, an attribute that renders them undesirable to the current regime in Hanoi, which imputes anti-regime beliefs on the children of those who opposed North Vietnam. This anti-Communist constituency includes minorities, such as the children of the American-allied Montagnards, who are persecuted in Vietnam for both their ethnicity and Christian religion.

The Trump administration’s move reflects an entirely new reading of the agreement, according to Ted Osius, who served as the United States ambassador to Vietnam from December 2014 through October 2018. Osius said that while he was in office, the 2008 agreement was accepted by all involved parties as banning the deportation of all pre-1995 Vietnamese immigrants.

“We understood that the agreement barred the deportation of pre-1995 Vietnamese. Both governments—and the Vietnamese-American community—interpreted it that way,” Osius told The Atlantic in an email. The State Department, he added, had explained this to both the White House and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

News of the Trump administration’s renewed hard line quickly made the rounds on Vietnamese American social media, with advocacy groups warning of potentially increased deportations.

“Forty-three years ago, a lot of the Southeast Asian communities and Vietnamese communities fled their countries and their homeland due to the war, which the U.S. was involved in, fleeing for their safety and the safety of their families,” said Kevin Lam, the organizing director of the Asian American Resource Workshop, an advocacy group. “The U.S. would do well to remember that.”

Above is from:  https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/trump-moves-to-deport-vietnam-war-refugees/ar-BBQRpss?ocid=spartanntp

Boy Scouts of America may file for bankruptcy following lawsuits over sexual abuse allegations


Is this the reason for recruiting girls to the BSA?


Boy Scouts of America may file for bankruptcy following lawsuits over sexual abuse allegations

KATE FELDMAN

7 hrs ago

a close up of a bag© Tony Gutierrez / AP

Amid falling membership and rising costs of battling lawsuits, the Boy Scouts of America is reportedly weighing filing for bankruptcy.

The decades-old youth organization has hired a law firm to look into chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The group plans to “explore all options available to ensure that the local and national programming of the Boy Scouts of America continues uninterrupted,” according to a letter sent to its employees Wednesday and acquired by the Wall Street Journal.

Since its peak in the 1970s, the Boy Scouts has seen massive drops in membership, including 610,000 in the last two years when the Mormon Church yanked its scouts from the rank.

But the larger issue at work is the influx of lawsuits related to sexual assault allegations; dozens of suits have been filed stemming from hundreds of claims of abuse in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

Legal fees have also gone to fight a lawsuit from the Girl Scouts, who sued the Boy Scouts in November after the group tried to expand recruitment to girls and transgender scouts.

Last year alone, the Boy Scouts paid $7.6 million to an outside law firm to help fight legal battles, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Above is from: 

Tuesday, December 4, 2018

After losing court battle, Pentagon will send green-card holders to recruit training


The Washington Post

After losing court battle, Pentagon will send green-card holders to recruit training

Dan Lamothe

2 hrs ago


Troops take part in a July 4 naturalization ceremony in Phoenix. Stricter security screenings have caused a backlog of recruits.© Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post Troops take part in a July 4 naturalization ceremony in Phoenix. Stricter security screenings have caused a backlog of recruits. The Pentagon will begin sending a backlog of thousands of green-card holders to recruit training, suspending a policy adopted by the Trump administration last year that required more-stringent background checks for some immigrants wanting to serve, according to two defense officials and an internal memo.

The policy called for green-card holders to submit to and complete a full background check and respond to any concerns before they could go to boot camp. That was in addition to standard requirements for green-card applicants, such as biometrics screening.

The change put thousands of people in limbo, as their screening languished and specific jobs within the military promised to them slipped away.

The new directive says that each armed service must comply immediately with a preliminary injunction issued last month in the District Court for the Northern District of California. In it, Judge Jon S. Tigar agreed with an argument from the lawyers of two prospective service members and the American Civil Liberties Union that the Pentagon had not satisfactorily explained why new screening is necessary. Tigar said the policy should be disregarded.


Air Force Lt. Col. Carla Gleason, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said the services will begin sending the recruits to training this week. They will be placed in available slots, and the services will have to consider factors such as their needs and prospective recruits’ preferences.

The injunction eases pressure on a group of prospective troops that the Pentagon has long recruited, pitching self-betterment and, in some cases, a chance at U.S. citizenship. About 18,000 U.S. troops were green-card holders at the beginning of the Trump administration, and about 5,000 joined the military each year before the stricter policy, Pentagon officials have said.

Some military officials have raised concerns internally that the growing backlog of green-card holders could present problems for a military always in need of new troops.

The directive, which was obtained by The Washington Post, was issued two days after a reporter began asking military officials last week about the glut of potential recruits waiting to train and whether it was complying with the injunction.

In the Navy, officials overseeing the issue called it “untenable” in a recent document reviewed by The Post and warned that the situation brings “increasing risk of mission failure.”

The document said the average wait time for a green-card holder to join the U.S. military had grown to 354 days as opposed to 168 for U.S. citizens, raising the possibility that the Navy would miss its recruiting goals.

If the Pentagon ordered the services to comply with the court injunction, the Navy should ship lawful permanent residents to the “maximum extent possible” to fill about 1,154 open slots in recruit training in December and January, officials added.

A military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, said the Navy has more than 2,870 green-card holders under contract and waiting to go to recruit training.

A Marine Corps spokesman, Gunnery Sgt. Justin Kronenberg, said his service had 1,062 additional green-card holders awaiting recruit training. Like the other services, the Marines were awaiting additional guidance from the Pentagon last week.

“The Marine Corps Recruiting Command has kept full pace with [Defense Department] policy updates and is in compliance with all guidance regarding Lawful Permanent Resident accessions,” Kronenberg said. “We’ve maintained maximum transparency concerning the process with our LPR applicants to ensure they and their families are informed and their questions are answered.”

The Marine Corps sent 1,044 green-card holders to recruit training in 2016 and 1,169 in 2017, but the number dropped to 808 in the most recent fiscal year ending in September.

The Air Force sent 567 green-card holders to recruit training in 2016 and 590 in 2017, according to data provided by the service. But that number dropped to 44 in the fiscal year ending in September. About 470 green-card holders are under contract and waiting to attend training.

The Army sent 4,600 green-card holders to recruit training in 2016, and 3,600 in 2017, according to data provided by the Pentagon. That number plummeted to 513 in 2018, as the Army also missed its recruiting goal in 2018 for the first time since 2005 by about 6,500 soldiers, despite spending more than $200 million on bonuses. The service declined to say how many green-card holders are in its system waiting to ship to training, citing the open litigation.

The green-card holders originate from many countries with which the United States has friendly relations, with lawful permanent residents from the Philippines making up the largest number. In the Navy, about 656 of the group waiting to go to boot camp are from there.

China, Jamaica, Nigeria and Mexico are among the other nations with significant numbers, according to data provided to The Post.

The Pentagon has grappled with frequent Chinese efforts to steal U.S. secrets and is concerned about Islamic extremism in Nigeria, but it also has lauded the past efforts by green-card holders from those nations to join the military and earn their citizenship.

The suit filed in California by the ACLU details the cases of Jiahao Kuang, who moved to the United States from China at 8 years old, and Deron Cooke, who successfully applied for a green card at age 22 and emigrated from Jamaica.

Kuang grew up in California and enlisted in the Navy in July 2017, motivated by a desire to serve the United States and earn money for college, according to court documents for the case. He was initially expected to head to training in July 2018, but that date was later shifted until January 2019. He did not apply for college in anticipation of joining the Navy, the documents said.

Cooke, unaware of the Pentagon’s new policy last year, resigned from a job in anticipation of soon joining the Air Force as an auto mechanic. He, too, was caught in limbo and still hasn’t begun training.

The judge ruled that the two recruits are representative of the kind of people affected by the Pentagon’s policy. The court will continue to review the issue.

dan.lamothe@washpost.com

Saturday, December 1, 2018

Boone County seeks resident feedback as it plans for next decade's land usage

Boone County seeks resident feedback as it plans for next decade's land usage

By:

Posted: Nov 29, 2018 10:39 PM CST

Updated: Nov 29, 2018 10:39 PM CST

Invisible placeholder

BOONE COUNTY - Residents packed the Boone County Board room ready to listen and comment about the County's plans for its land for the next decade.

"This needs to be the community's plan," said Boone County Board member Sherry Branson. "[It needs to be] the community's development."

Thursday, Boone County leaders hosted a meeting to hear feedback on their proposed plan. Many residents had concerns or questions about the county flipping too much farmland into industrial or commercial.

"A plan is simply a vision of the future as to maybe what could happen," said Boone County Administrator KenTerrinoni. "This is and has been a very pro-agricultural community and this plan still says that."

Lifelong Boone County resident John Ratcliffe says farmland gives the county tax dollars and changing it would mean loss of revenue

"If they put industry in, lots of times they put that in a TIF area and they take it off tax roll," said Ratcliffe.

Others, like Toria Funderburg, welcomed changes as long as they are smart and beneficial for the county.

"We need to specify what we want our land use to be," said Funderburg. "Where we put our industrial and where we put our housing."

Funderburg believes the southern county land near I-90 shouldn't be industrialized and the areas near Route 173 should be used instead.

"Those are prime places where we could have industrial use at the edge of our county and not go into our farmland," said Funderburg.

Terrinoni says the proposal doesn't mean rural areas won't remain agricultural.

The County Administrator adds community input is important to make sure everyone's best interests are in mind.

"Boone is between Chicago and Madison," said Terrinoni. "It's a great place to live and work and we want to maintain that."

Thursdays's comments will now go back to the planning commission for consideration. A final plan will then again be presented at a public hearing before it goes to the Boone County Board for a vote.

Above is fromhttps://www.mystateline.com/news/boone-county-seeks-resident-feedback-as-it-plans-for-next-decade-s-land-usage/1628503046

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Boone County hosts forum on new infrastructure plan

By Ethan Rosuck |

Posted: Thu 10:08 PM, Nov 29, 2018  |

Updated: Thu 10:50 PM, Nov 29, 2018


BOONE COUNTY, Ill (WIFR) -- Boone County is looking to further develop its land across county lines and board members wanted to hear from business-owners and residents about its most recent plan.


The Boone County Regional Planning Commission and The Boone County Planning, Zoning, and Building Committee hosted a forum in Belvidere and presented a draft of their 2028 Comprehensive Plan. A plan like this has not been drafted by the county since 1999.

It comes with many potential opportunities like expanding industrial business parks just south of I-90 and building more commercial spaces and restaurants north and west of the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway that runs through the county.

Boone County Administrator Kenneth A. Terrinoni says this is the perfect time to introduce a plan like this, as the population of the county has not had too big of growth in a few years. He says, "As Boone County is between Madison and Chicago, it's only a matter of time before the growth comes back like it did when we were the fourth fastest growing county in the state. So if you think about it a minute, the best time to talk about these issues is now when we aren't being barraged with all of the growth and trying to decide what our plan is and where to put things."

Boone County is not done drafting this plan yet. However, some residents are concerned that this county expansion will take up farm land and become more crowded overall. The county has heard about these concerns and more forums will be held in the near future as the draft is further clarified and drawn up.

Above is fromhttps://www.wifr.com/content/news/Boone-County-hosts-forum-on-new-infrastructure-plan-501602671.html

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Column: Hopes rise for new passenger trains to Quad Cities, Dubuque

Moline, Ill., there is a new train station in the same building as a new hotel and just-opened stores.

All that’s needed is the train.


The Quad Cities have wanted a passenger train to and from Chicago since the Rock Island Rocket stopped service to the community of Mississippi River towns in the 1970s. Legislators began planning a new line a decade ago, but the project has been frozen a few times since, most recently during the Illinois budget impasse.

Rockford wants a train too — the old Black Hawk train from Chicago through Rockford to Dubuque, Iowa, stopped running in 1981. Plans for a new Black Hawk also were put on hold.


But with the election of Democrat J.B. Pritzker as governor, and with strong local support, hopes are rising for the eventual revival of both routes.

“We’re hoping with the new administration that they’ll put a higher emphasis on passenger rail and keep it moving,” said Ray Forsythe, planning and development director with the city of Moline, which is part of the Quad Cities along the Illinois and Iowa border. “… We’re pretty excited.”

As for the Rockford line, “It’s a popular idea in northern Illinois,” said state Sen. Steve Stadelman, a Democrat from nearby Caledonia. “It’s a matter of getting the political will and the financing. … We have a new governor who talked about the importance of transportation infrastructure. I hope he’s willing to take a look at the idea.”

Funding for both projects came out of the 2009 capital bill — the last one seen in the state. The state appropriated $150 million for Amtrak expansion for both the Quad Cities route and service to Dubuque via Rockford, along with money for rail upgrades for the existing line between Chicago and St. Louis, said Rick Harnish, executive director of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association.

Plans for the Black Hawk line were limited to Rockford first, with the idea of pushing onto Dubuque later.

In 2011, the Federal Railroad Administration awarded a $177.3 million grant to the Illinois Department of Transportation to complete planning, environmental review, design and construction of the Quad Cities line, with the intent of having two passenger rail service round trips daily.

But in 2015, “a few projects were put on pause,” IDOT spokesman Guy Tridgell said. These included plans for both new rail routes.

Harnish said it was harder to get service started on the Quad Cities line than anticipated.

“The Illinois Department of Transportation worked on it while they were trying to do many things at once” Harnish said. “They weren’t able to get the deal done.”

The Quad Cities route would run along BNSF tracks to the small village of Wyanet in Bureau County, at which point the rail switches to a different owner, the Iowa Interstate Railroad, which carries freight.

Illinois resumed planning and engineering work on the Quad Cities line in late 2016 and resumed talks with the Iowa Interstate late last year, Tridgell said. Negotiations on the Black Hawk route with Union Pacific have not resumed, he said.

About $25 million in improvements to BNSF’s Eola Yard in Aurora were finished within the past year, Tridgell said. These were needed to accommodate extra trains that would be using the yard once the Chicago-Moline service begins.

Amtrak passenger service already runs along the line from Chicago to Quincy. Federal Railroad Administration spokeswoman Desiree French said improvements on the BNSF line are already helping Amtrak’s California Zephyr and Southwest Chief long-distance services.

The state and the railroad administration are negotiating with the Iowa Interstate about upgrades needed for passenger service along the single-track line from Wyanet to Moline. These include installation of positive train control, a federally mandated system designed to automatically stop a train to avoid danger if an engineer fails to do it. There also needs to be a connection between the BNSF and Iowa lines.

A representative from Iowa Interstate Railroad was not available for comment.

There was concern that the federal grant would expire, but IDOT has worked out extensions, Tridgell said. He could not give a timeline for when the Moline line could happen.

Though there has been no recent financial help for the Rockford line, voters in Winnebago and Boone counties overwhelmingly approved an advisory referendum supporting it in the Nov. 6 election.

Amtrak is interested in operating both the Rockford and the Quad Cities routes, when and if they happen, spokesman Marc Magliari said. He noted that studies of both routes have shown them to have high potential for passengers.

Meanwhile, traffic is growing on the route from Chicago to St. Louis, which shows the demand for passenger trains in the state. With ongoing improvements along the route, including track upgrades for higher speeds and new stations and locomotives, passenger volume has grown to 719, 634 in the most recent fiscal year, up 12 percent from 2010, Magliari said.

Getting more state money, and in turn more federal money, for routes to the Quad Cities and Rockford will not be easy. It will first require a new state capital bill. A spokeswoman for Pritzker said the incoming governor is committed to “working across the aisle” to get a capital plan that will leverage as much federal money as possible. Lawmakers say they expect it will happen next year.

But there will be a lot of competition for that money from other infrastructure needs, especially roads, water systems and transit agencies.

Moline’s Forsythe remains optimistic. He said a train would connect the Quad Cities with the Chicago area and will be a great help to students from Western Illinois University’s Quad Cities campus and Augustana and St. Ambrose colleges.

“We’re just being patient,” he said.


mwisniewski@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @marywizchicago

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Saturday, November 24, 2018

U.S. impacts of climate change are intensifying, federal report says


Doyle Rice, USA TODAY Published 2:11 p.m. ET Nov. 23, 2018 | Updated 5:57 p.m. ET Nov. 23, 2018

A new climate report, Volume II of the National Climate Assessment, says that the affects of global warming are intensifying and getting costlier. USA TODAY

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A massive report issued by the Trump administration on Friday emphasizes the dire threat that human-caused global warming poses to the United States and its citizens.

"Earth’s climate is now changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization, primarily as a result of human activities," researchers say in the report, officially Volume II of the National Climate Assessment. (Volume I was released last year.)

The 1,600-page report details the climate and economic impacts U.S. residents will see if drastic action is not taken to address climate change.

"The impacts of global climate change are already being felt in the United States and are projected to intensify in the future," the researchers say.

The last few years have smashed records for damaging weather in the United States, costing nearly $400 billion since 2015. In a worst-case scenario, the researchers say, climate change could deliver a 10 percent hit to the nation's GDP by the end of the century.

 

Climate change threatens the health and well-being of the American people by causing increasing extreme weather, changes to air quality, the spread of new diseases by insects and pests and changes to the availability of food and water, the researchers say.

Report co-author Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University said it shows the dangerous weather that scientists said will happen in the United States is already happening.

This is the fourth National Climate Assessment. It was mandated by Congress in the late 1980s and is prepared every four years by the nation's top scientists from 13 agencies. It's meant as a reference for the president, Congress and the public.

What makes the report different from previous versions is that it focuses on the United States, then goes more local and granular.

The report frequently contradicts President Donald Trump, who took to Twitter on Wednesday night to again express his doubts about climate change, using the especially cold Thanksgiving forecast as an example.

"Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS - Whatever happened to Global Warming?" the president tweeted.

But weather isn't climate, the researchers say. They say cold snaps can occur even as the planet warms overall.

“Over shorter timescales and smaller geographic regions, the influence of natural variability can be larger than the influence of human activity," they write. "Over climate timescales of multiple decades, however, global temperature continues to steadily increase.”

Environmental groups quickly reacted to the report.

“Any remaining debate on the reality of climate change is over," said Lou Leonard of the World Wildlife Fund. "The Bush, Obama and now Trump Administrations have all published reports showing the current and future impacts to the United States from climate change. Each report is increasingly dire."

More: UN report: 'Unprecedented changes' needed to protect Earth from global warming

More: Climate change to trigger widespread hazards to Earth and humanity – many at the same time

Report co-author Brenda Ekwurzel of the Union of Concerned Scientists said it "makes it clear that climate change is not some problem in the distant future. It’s happening right now in every part of the country.

“U.S. residents are now being forced to cope with dangerously high temperatures, rising seas, deadly wildfires, torrential rainfalls and devastating hurricanes," she said. "The report concludes that these climate-related impacts will only get worse and their costs will mount dramatically if carbon emissions continue unabated."

Nathaniel Keohane of the Environmental Defense Fund said “it is worth nothing that the report was released by an administration that has persistently ignored the warnings of scientists, economists, businesses and community leaders that corroborate the report’s findings.

”As long as government leaders sit on their hands, Americans will suffer for generations to come. The evidence is clear: the Trump administration is failing to protect the American people."

The day-after-Thanksgiving release comes more than two weeks earlier than the original planned release at the American Geophysical Union annual conference in December, according to Climate Nexus.

Above is from:  https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/11/23/climate-change-intensifying-economy-impacted-federal-report-finds/2093291002/