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

Above is from:  https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/wisniewski/ct-biz-train-amtrak-quad-cities-dubuque-rockford20181115-story.html?fbclid=IwAR21Gzh0sEGrSpVno6FUcL1lMAcLctIBTKc5WrTWIqk2AGsaN20FCzeE5dg

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

(Photo: Durk Talsma, Getty Images)

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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/

Ivanka Trump used a personal email account to send hundreds of emails about government business last year

Ivanka Trump used a personal email account to send hundreds of emails about government business last year

Carol Leonnig, Josh Dawsey

1 hr ago

 

Ivanka Trump sent hundreds of emails last year to White House aides, Cabinet officials and her assistants using a personal account, many of them in violation of federal records rules, according to people familiar with a White House examination of her correspondence.

White House ethics officials learned of Trump’s repeated use of personal email when reviewing emails gathered last fall by five Cabinet agencies to respond to a public records lawsuit. That review revealed that throughout much of 2017, she often discussed or relayed official White House business using a private email account with a domain that she shares with her husband, Jared Kushner.

The discovery alarmed some advisers to President Trump, who feared that his daughter’s prac­tices bore similarities to the personal email use of Hillary Clinton, an issue he made a focus of his 2016 campaign. He attacked his Democratic challenger as untrustworthy and dubbed her “Crooked Hillary” for using a personal email account as secretary of state.

Some aides were startled by the volume of Ivanka Trump’s personal emails — and taken aback by her response when questioned about the practice. She said she was not familiar with some details of the rules, according to people with knowledge of her reaction.

The White House referred requests for comment to Ivanka Trump’s attorney and ethics counsel, Abbe Lowell.

In a statement, Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Lowell, acknowledged that the president’s daughter occasionally used her private email before she was briefed on the rules, but he said none of her messages contained classified information.

“While transitioning into government, after she was given an official account but until the White House provided her the same guidance they had given others who started before she did, Ms. Trump sometimes used her personal account, almost always for logistics and scheduling concerning her family,” he said in a statement.

Mirijanian said Ivanka Trump turned over all her government-related emails months ago so they could be stored permanently with other White House records.

And he stressed that her email use was different from that of Clinton, who had a private email server in the basement of her Chappaqua, N.Y., home. At one point, an archive of thousands of Clinton’s emails was deleted by a computer specialist amid a congressional investigation.

“Ms. Trump did not create a private server in her house or office, no classified information was ever included, the account was never transferred at Trump Organization, and no emails were ever deleted,” Mirijanian said.

Like Trump, Clinton also said she was unaware of or misunderstood the rules. However, Clinton relied solely on a private email system as secretary of state, bypassing government servers entirely.

Both Trump and Clinton relied on their personal attorneys to review their private emails and determine which messages should be retained as government records.

Clinton originally said none of the messages she sent or received were “marked classified.” The FBI later determined that 110 emails contained classified information at the time they were sent or received.

Austin Evers, executive director of the liberal watchdog group American Oversight, whose record requests sparked the White House discovery, said it strained credulity that Trump’s daughter did not know that government officials should not use private emails for official business.

“There’s the obvious hypocrisy that her father ran on the misuse of personal email as a central tenet of his campaign,” Evers said. “There is no reasonable suggestion that she didn’t know better. Clearly everyone joining the Trump administration should have been on high alert about personal email use.”

Ivanka Trump and her husband set up personal emails with the domain “ijkfamily.com” through a Microsoft system in December 2016, as they were preparing to move to Washington so Kushner could join the White House, according to people familiar with the arrangement.

The couple’s emails are prescreened by the Trump Organization for security problems such as viruses but are stored by Microsoft, the people said.

Trump used her personal account to discuss government policies and official business fewer than 100 times — often replying to other administration officials who contacted her through her private email, according to people familiar with the review.

Another category of less-substantive emails may have also violated the records law: hundreds of messages related to her official work schedule and travel details that she sent herself and personal assistants who cared for her children and house, they said.

People close to Ivanka Trump said she never intended to use her private email to shroud her government work. After she told White House lawyers she was unaware that she was breaking any email rules, they discovered that she had not been receiving White House updates and reminders to all staffers about prohibited use of private email, according to people familiar with the situation.

Using personal emails for government business could violate the Presidential Records Act, which requires that all official White House communications and records be preserved as a permanent archive of each administration. It can also increase the risk that sensitive government information could be mishandled or hacked, revealing government secrets and risking harm to diplomatic relations and secret operations.

Revelations about Clinton’s personal email system led to an FBI investigation of whether she had mishandled classified information. The scandal shadowed Clinton throughout the 2016 White House race, culminating in then-FBI Director James B. Comey’s controversial decision to hold a news conference a few months before the election to announce his conclusion that she had been reckless with government secrets but that there was not sufficient evidence she had intended to skirt the law.

During the campaign, Donald Trump said the Democratic nominee’s “corruption is on a scale we have never seen before” and called her personal email use “bigger than Watergate.”

Trump supporters still chant “Lock her up!” at his rallies, and the president, nearly two years into his administration, continues to tweet about Clinton’s emails.

“Big story out that the FBI ignored tens of thousands of Crooked Hillary Emails, many of which are REALLY BAD,” he tweeted in August, referring to a Fox News story about claims that the bureau did not scrutinize all her emails. “Also gave false election info. I feel sure that we will soon be getting to the bottom of all of this corruption. At some point I may have to get involved!”

Ivanka Trump first used her personal email to contact Cabinet officials in early 2017, before she joined the White House as an unpaid senior adviser, according to emails obtained by American Oversight and first reported by Newsweek.

In late February 2017, she used her personal email to contact Small Business Administration chief Linda McMahon and propose they meet to explore “opportunities to collaborate.” The following month, she emailed Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, suggesting that their staffers meet to discuss ways to collaborate on “locational/workforce development and k-12 STEM education.”

While her messages were largely about government work, Trump was not then subject to White House records rules.

When she joined the White House on March 30, Trump pledged to comply “with all ethics rules,” responding to complaints that her voluntary role gave her all of the access and perks of the White House — but none of the legal responsibilities or constraints.

“Throughout this process I have been working closely and in good faith with the White House counsel and my personal counsel to address the unprecedented nature of my role,” she said in a statement at the time.

But Trump continued to occasionally use her personal email in her official capacity, according to people familiar with the review.

Her husband’s use of personal email for government work drew intense scrutiny when it was first reported by Politico last fall. The revelation prompted demands from congressional investigators that Kushner preserve his records, which his attorney said he had. At the time, administration officials acknowledged to news organizations, including the New York Times and Politico, that Ivanka Trump had occasionally used a private account when she joined the White House.

But Trump had used her personal email for official business far more frequently than known, according to people familiar with the administration’s review — a fact that remained a closely held secret inside the White House.

“She was the worst offender in the White House,” said a former senior U.S. government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal dynamics.

After discovering the extent of her email use in September 2017, White House lawyers relied on Lowell, Ivanka Trump’s attorney, to help review her personal emails to determine which were personal and which were official business, according to the people.

The White House Counsel’s Office did not have access to her personal account and could not review it without invading her privacy and possibly violating privileged communications with her attorneys, people familiar with the review said.

After his review, Lowell forwarded emails that he had determined were related to official business to Ivanka Trump’s government account, a move he viewed as rectifying any violations of the records law, they said.

Lowell’s review found fewer than 1,000 personal emails in which Trump shared her official schedule and travel plans with herself and her personal assistants, according to two people familiar with the review.

Separately, there were fewer than 100 emails in which Trump used her personal account to discuss official business with other administration officials.

The scope of her personal email use had not emerged in response to American Oversight’s records request, which sought Trump’s correspondence with Cabinet agencies in early 2017. Most internal White House communications are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

“I’m disappointed — although not entirely surprised — that this administration disregarded clear laws that they more than anyone should have been aware of,” Evers said.

In many cases, government officials contacted Ivanka Trump first at her personal email address. That was the case with a note she received in April 2017 from Treasury Department official Dan Kowalski, who was seeking to set up a meeting between the president and the secretary general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an international economic group of which the United States is a member.

“I apologize for reaching out to you on your personal email for this, but it is the only email I have for you,” he wrote, according to an email obtained by American Oversight.

“For future reference my WH email is [redacted],” Ivanka Trump replied. “Thanks for reaching out and making this introduction.”

But other times, Trump used her private email to initiate official business.

In April 2017, she used her personal email to write to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s chief of staff, Eli Miller, suggesting that he connect with her chief of staff, Julie Radford. The email chain, obtained by American Oversight, was copied to Radford’s government account.

“It would be great if you both could connect next week to discuss [redacted],” she wrote. “We would love your feedback and input as we structure.”

carol.leonnig@washpost.com

josh.dawsey@washpost.com

Above is from:  https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ivanka-trump-used-a-personal-email-account-to-send-hundreds-of-emails-about-government-business-last-year/ar-BBPTlLm?ocid=spartandhp&fullscreen=true#image=1

Boone County government announces board vacancies

Boone County government announces board vacancies

Posted Nov 13, 2018 at 3:42 PM Updated Nov 13, 2018 at 3:42 PM

BELVIDERE — The Boone County government recently announced vacancies on four volunteer boards.

The Boone County Sanitary District has two vacancies, the Boone County Housing Authority has one vacancy, the Capron Rescue Squad has three vacancies and the Boone County Regional Planning Commission has one vacancy.

Interested parties are asked to send a letter and/or resume expressing their interest and qualifications along with their contact information by Nov. 26 to Boone County Board Chairman Karl Johnson, Administration Campus, 1212 Logan Ave., Suite 102, Belvidere, IL 61008.

Above is from:  http://www.rrstar.com/news/20181113/boone-county-government-announces-board-vacancies

OSHA opens investigation into FPM Heat Treating

OSHA opens investigation in to FPM Heat Treating

• 5:39 pm
• November 12, 2018

CHERRY VALLEY (WREX) — Federal investigators are now looking in to a heat treating facility in Cherry Valley.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has opened an investigation regarding safety concerns at FPM Heat Treating.

The case opened Nov. 1 after OSHA says a referral came in.

Nobody was injured when the facility caught fire in October, but firefighters on scene said it was a high-risk situation. Nearly 30 departments were called in and hundreds of firefighters were on scene.

It is unclear if the investigation is related to the fire.

Calls to OSHA for more details and FPM were not returned to 13 WREX. We will follow this story and keep you updated on any developments.

Audrey Moon

Asst. News Director

Above is from:  https://wrex.com/category/2018/11/12/osha-opens-investigation-in-to-fpm-heat-treating/

How economically viable is Byron Nuclear Plant?

[ Blog ] Union of Concerned Scientists

Photo: Montgomery County Planning Commission

What the New UCS Report on Nuclear Plants Means for Illinois

James Gignac, lead Midwest energy analyst | November 8, 2018, 12:01 am EST

This post is a part of a series on The Nuclear Power Dilemma

Today UCS released a new report entitled The Nuclear Power Dilemma that examines the economic viability and performance of most of the 60 nuclear power plants operating in the United States as of July 2018.

The report also analyzes what electric generating resources are likely to replace these nuclear plants if some of them were to abruptly retire from service.

So what did the report find and what does it mean for a state with so much nuclear power like Illinois?

Illinois’ nuclear fleet is in sound financial shape

The economic viability of power plants is typically defined by how much revenue they earn compared to how much it costs to operate them. Our analysis defines “profitable” as making more than $5 per megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity and “marginally profitable” as making somewhere between $0 (breaking even) and $5 per MWh.

Illinois is host to six nuclear plants (Braidwood, Byron, Clinton, Dresden, LaSalle, and Quad Cities) that total 11.6 gigawatts (GW) of electric generating capacity, the most nuclear capacity of any state. The plants provided 53 percent of Illinois’ electricity generation in 2017.

Our analysis found that Byron and Dresden—accounting for just over 4 GW combined—fell into the marginally profitable category. The rest of Illinois’ nuclear power plants were determined to be profitable. In the case of the Quad Cities and Clinton facilities, financial support they receive from the Illinois Zero Emission Credit program, established as part of Illinois’ Future Energy Jobs Act (FEJA) of 2016, pushed the plants up to profitable status. Without this support, Quad Cities and Clinton would have been listed as marginal and unprofitable, respectively.

Of the 30 states with nuclear power plants, 17 states have nuclear capacity that is unprofitable or scheduled to close.
Source: UCS.

Even though our analysis found that all Illinois nuclear plants are currently making money, low natural gas prices are one of the primary factors squeezing the economics of nuclear plants and could pose a long-term threat to the profitability of Illinois plants if prices stay at current levels.

Indeed, low natural gas prices are a major factor in the analysis’ finding that 22 percent of total U.S. nuclear capacity is slated to close or is unprofitable and at risk of closing prior to expiration of their operating licenses, including many plants across the Midwest.

Without new policies, and with continued low natural gas prices, our analysis found that early nuclear plant retirements are likely to be replaced primarily with output from natural gas and coal plants—and that means increased carbon emissions and the wrong way to go for addressing climate change.

Our report recommends that federal and state governments should enact a price on carbon or a low-carbon electricity standard, which would help level the financial playing field for carbon-free power generation like nuclear and renewables. Today these resources must compete with fossil fuel plants who are allowed to spew greenhouse gas pollution into our atmosphere for free—a carbon price or low-carbon electricity standard would help fix that.

The next generation of Illinois clean energy policies

The Clinton Nuclear Generating Station

As mentioned above, Illinois is no stranger to the debate over nuclear plant profitability. In late 2016 Illinois passed FEJA, which created a program to compensate the struggling Clinton and Quad Cities plants for the carbon-free attributes of their power generation.

UCS supported FEJA because it also included measures for significantly increasing investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. But the debate over including the nuclear subsidy and providing electric ratepayers’ money to Exelon, the private corporation who owns those plants, was contentious and difficult to say the least.

The Nuclear Power Dilemma report shows that the Byron and Dresden plants are earning a small profit. And Exelon says the facilities are not at risk of early retirement right now. That’s good news.

Even better news is that the policies enacted in FEJA are spurring new clean energy development and expansion of efficiency programs that save consumers money and reduce emissions.

As these additional resources continue to grow, it’s time to develop the next set of policies to continue the momentum and keep Illinois and the Midwest moving toward a clean energy future. In addition to the carbon policies recommended above, Illinois should adopt stronger measures to accelerate investments in clean energy technologies like wind, solar, energy efficiency, and battery storage. These are exactly the kinds of policy conversations that the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition is having right now through its Listen. Lead. Share. initiative.

The severity of the climate crisis demands that we consider all zero carbon energy sources—including nuclear power. But should any of Illinois’ existing nuclear plants be forced into an early retirement, let’s be ready to replace them with clean energy technologies, not dirty coal or gas plants.

Posted in: Energy, Global Warming, Nuclear Power Tags: clean energy, climate-change, nuclear power, The Nuclear Power Dilemma

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James Gignac is lead Midwest energy analyst for the Climate & Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Above is from:  https://blog.ucsusa.org/james-gignac/what-the-new-ucs-report-on-nuclear-plants-means-for-illinois

Voting Problems in McHenry County

** UPDATED x1 - Problem found, fixed *** As many as 24,000 votes may be missing in McHenry County

Thursday, Nov 8, 2018

* NW Herald…

More than 116,000 McHenry County residents voted in Tuesday’s midterm election – but unofficial election results showed about 21 percent of them did not pick candidates in statewide races. […]

Issues with the county’s election reporting software may be the culprit, according to McHenry County Clerk Mary McClellan.

“We are looking at election reporting software,” McClellan told the Northwest Herald. “It is not showing all the numbers for some reason.” […]

That’s 20 points lower than the 99 percent of Will County ballots that included a gubernatorial vote. In Kane County, it was 98.6 percent. In Lake County, 98.6 percent. Cook County? 98.3 percent.

In a phone interview Thursday morning, McClellan said the gap isn’t that unusual.

“People just didn’t want to vote for governor,” she said.

Oh, please, that is just not true. The county clerk needs to look at her own vote totals.

That undervote was in way more than just the governor’s race. It’s literally everywhere in McHenry County.

* For instance, go to the clerk’s elections page and you’ll see that only 92,559 out of a total of 116,703 voted in the secretary of state’s race, so that’s about the same undervote as the governor’s race. Same goes for the 92,287 who voted in the attorney general’s race and the 92,427 who voted in the county’s two congressional races.

You can’t tell me that as many as 24,000 voters cast totally blank ballots. Those votes are either missing or the total vote count is way off. I called the clerk and she hasn’t gotten back to me.

It’s even worse down-ballot, by the way. Only 81,533 voted in the sheriff’s race and just 80,503 voted in the county auditor’s race. I can see that drop-off happening between statewide and local, but I cannot possibly see 24,000 completely blank ballots. No way.

[Hat tip: Cal Skinner.]

*** UPDATE *** The county clerk has now fixed the problem. Turns out, the early votes were counted but not tabulated online. As a result, the Democrats have apparently picked up another seat on the county board and Democratic US Rep.-elect Lauren Underwood has narrowly won the county, boosting her final count in the race.

- Posted by Rich Miller

Above is from:  https://capitolfax.com/2018/11/08/as-many-as-24000-votes-may-be-missing-in-mchenry-county/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

U.S. sanctions on Iran—Do they make any sense?

Russia Is Surprise Beneficiary of Iran Oil Ban

3 hrs ago

© ILYA NAYMUSHIN/REUTERSAn early winner from the latest round of Iranian sanctions is emerging: Russia.

The U.S. began enforcing a tough new slate of economic restrictions against Iran on Monday, including a threat to sanction buyers of Iranian crude. That has refineries in Europe and Asia—recent, big buyers of Iran oil—looking for alternative supplies. Russian oil companies have stepped in, stealing customers from Iran. The two countries produce similar grades of crude, making a switch by refiners relatively easy.

But Moscow is also offering Tehran a lifeline for its stranded crude. It says it plans to defy U.S. sanctions and purchase Iranian imports. It’s offering to pay only in the form of barter, and then process the crude for domestic use. That would free up its own oil for more-lucrative crude export markets.

“Russia is playing on all sides,” said Helima Croft, chief commodities strategist at Canadian broker RBC.

Russia counts Iran as a key ally in its widened geopolitical role in post-civil war Syria. It has criticized the new round of U.S. sanctions and says it won’t be bound by them. In recent months, Moscow has repeatedly said it would purchase at least 100,000 barrels a day of Iranian oil, which would provide a welcome buyer for oil that might not find a customer otherwise. Russia is offering to pay for the crude with Russian machinery and food, according to Russia’s Oil Ministry. It’s also promising to invest in the Iranian oil sector as Western companies retreat.

The new, Washington-imposed sanctions take specific aim at Iranian oil exports, that country’s most important economic pillar. U.S. officials want to cork up all 2.2 million barrels a day of Iranian crude-export capacity, threatening buyers with sanctions. Many purchasers, because they use the U.S. banking system, are vulnerable to such sanctions and are already pulling back. Russia is less vulnerable to Washington’s retaliation, since it already is under U.S. sanctions and its economy and financial system are less tied to the U.S. than Western European countries.

Iranian exports had been down some 800,000 barrels a day from before the U.S. announced its new set of sanctions. Oil market watchers expect that to fall sharply now that sanctions are in place.

At the same time it is promising to help Iran, Russia is replacing Tehran on the global oil market. It has boosted its output by almost half a million barrels a day, compared with last year, recently hitting a 30-year production record. Russia, the world’s largest oil producer, pumped 11.41 million barrels a day in October, up 4.3% from the same period last year.

Some of that new crude is being snapped up by former customers of Iran.

That’s especially the case in Europe, where buyers have been abruptly halting Iranian purchase because they tend to be more exposed to the U.S. business and financial systems.

For European refiners, Russian oil is a natural substitute to Iran crude because it tends to be of medium density and relatively high sulfur levels can typically be shipped faster to their plants than other replacement crudes. Italian refiners Eni SpA and Saras SpA, for instance, are tapping more of Russia’s oil, especially its popular Urals grade, to make up for Iranian oil, according to people familiar with the matter. Spokespeople for Eni and Saras didn’t return calls for comment.

The “Urals [grade] will benefit,” Patrick Pouyanne, chief executive of Total SA, told a London energy conference last month.

Total stopped buying Iranian crude in July, the company said. The following month, it bought 217,000 barrels a day of Russian crude for its Le Havre refinery in France, a year-to-date high, according to data from shipping tracker Kpler.

Russia is also replacing Iranian crude for customers outside the European Union. Turkey resumed imports of Russian oil in June after a three-month absence, making up for cuts in Iran oil purchases, according to official statistics. Turkey has vowed to defy U.S. sanctions, too, but many of its companies have deep, international ties and would be vulnerable to U.S. sanctions.

That’s already translating into higher profits for Moscow’s state-run energy companies. On Tuesday, Rosneft reported a three-fold jump in net income to 451 billion rubles ($6.8 billion) for the first nine months of 2018 compared with the same period last year, mostly due to a production boost and higher prices for Urals.

The same replacement effect came about in China, which cut oil imports from Iran by 34% in September year-on year, while Russian sales rose by 7%.

In South Korea, Tehran’s oil sales collapsed in August, falling 85% on an annual basis. Russian shipments rose by 20% the same month, according to South Korean customs.

Write to Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com

Above is from:  https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/russia-is-surprise-beneficiary-of-iran-oil-ban/ar-BBPrVKG?ocid=spartanntp

Will Evers’ “victory” over Governor Walker hold up to recount?

Wisconsin allows a recount if election result is within 1%;  Will Governor Walker make the request?

Above graphic is from:  https://www.politico.com/election-results/2018/wisconsin/

© Getty

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) appeared headed for defeat early Wednesday morning at the hands of Democrat Tony Evers, the state superintendent of public instruction.

Walker’s loss puts an end to a fraught period in Wisconsin, a state long known for go-along, get-along politics. Walker notched a string of wins for conservative causes, victories that gave him a platform for a brief and aborted campaign for president in 2016.

Walker narrowly won three races in that stretch, including a recall election mounted by Democrats and union advocates angered by his move to curtail the power of public sector unions.

Polls showed the state narrowly and bitterly divided, and almost no one did not have an opinion of Walker.

Still, Democrats failed to recruit a top-tier challenger, and many worried that none of the eight candidates who did run would have the firepower to knock off a well-funded opponent, even in a battleground state.

Evers emerged as the runaway winner of the primary, with 42 percent of the vote.

Walker started the general election with about $6 million in the bank. In hopes of closing that gap, the Wisconsin Democratic Party hired a consultant to prepare donors to flood the party’s eventual nominee with cash to help him get on the air.

Since Labor Day, Walker pulled in more than $7.7 million, while Evers raised $6 million. Both the Republican and Democratic governors associations spent freely on behalf of their nominees, a sign of just how important the two parties viewed Wisconsin.

Evers’s win is an important step for Democrats trying to rebuild their broken Blue Wall, the 18 states and the District of Columbia that voted for Democratic presidential nominees in six successive elections. That wall fell in 2016, when President Trump won states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania on the strength of huge support from blue collar white voters.

Above is from:  https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/414904-dem-defeats-scott-walker-in-wisconsin-governors-race?userid=217221

Sosnowski works to lower the wages of Illinois’ skilled tradespeople

Opinion

Letter: Rep Sosnowski works to lower the wages of Illinois’ skilled tradespeople

Posted Sep 28, 2018 at 6:45 PM Updated Sep 28, 2018 at 6:45 PM

In a letter read to the Boone County Board last week, Representative Joe Sosnowski, IL-69th District, detailed the ways he has tried and failed to weaken or end Illinois’ Prevailing Wage law. In short, the law states when biding to be the contractor/subcontractor on a public works project you must pay skilled workers the wage most common in the area of the project as set by the state. Contractors must keep proof they’ve done so or pay a financial penalty.

He points to HB 3675 with pride as an example of his efforts. Amongst a laundry list of items in the bill is one item where building schools would be exempt from prevailing wage laws. Generally, tradespeople who are willing to work for less than the prevailing wage are less skilled or experienced. Tradespeople who are less experienced make more mistakes. Who wants their child in a school built by less-skilled workers?

Rather than paying a wage that increases buying power and increases taxes paid, Rep. Sosnowski favors paying in wasted materials and delays. When paying less than the prevailing wage taxpayers pay more because some workers are forced to rely on food stamps and other government assistance. The Boone County Board should be focused on paying wages that allow our citizens to prosper helping our county grow. What Rep .Sosnowski favors increasing profits for construction companies by Illinois subsidizing them and keeping tradespeople from earning a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.

— Wendy LaFauce, Belvidere

Above is from: http://www.rrstar.com/opinion/20180928/letter-rep-sosnowski-works-to-lower-wages-of-illinois-skilled-tradespeople

Trump's Surprise Border Mission Is a Politically Motivated Waste of Money: Pentagon Sources

The Trump administration’s plan to deploy thousands of troops to the U.S. border took officials by surprise, with many senior-level Defense Department officers saying they believed the move was politically motivated and a waste of money, multiple Pentagon sources with knowledge of the directive told Newsweek.

Sources with direct knowledge of how plans for the troop deployment—dubbed Operation Faithful Patriot—came together said that the initial directive to send troops to the border came directly from the president’s office, known in Pentagon parlance as National Command Authority, which would mean President Donald Trump or Defense Secretary James Mattis.

Moreover, sources affirmed that even if Mattis, a former U.S. Marine general, had been delegated authority for the operation, it would still have required permission from the commander in chief. But ultimately, the decision to move forward with the southern-border deployment was unexpected by military planners.

Speaking to Newsweek on condition of anonymity, as they are not authorized to speak to the media, U.S. military sources said senior leaders within the Pentagon had derided the deployment not only as a significant waste of taxpayer dollars but as running counter to military readiness, while a minority lauded the Trump administration’s hardline crackdown on immigration.

What the majority of service members within the higher echelon seemed to agree on was that the decision to deploy thousands of troops to the border was a politically motivated tactic, with the Trump administration ordering the deployment less than a week before the November 6 midterm elections, sources suggested.

“If Ray Charles was deaf he could still tell you that this is just an election stunt,” one source told Newsweek. “There is no practical or tactical reason for this to happen.”

Planners from the military and U.S. Customs and Border Protection discuss the requirements for DoD support to ensure the security along the Southwest Border on October 26, 2018, in Brownsville, Texas. DoD has a long history of supporting the Department of Homeland Security and CBP with capabilities such as engineering, aviation, and administrative support. Patti Bielling/Operation Faithful Patriot

The remarks come amid the president's doubling down on his immigration rhetoric on Thursday as he spoke to reporters in the Roosevelt Room at the White House.

“Anybody throwing stones, rocks, like they did to Mexico and the Mexican military, Mexican police, where they badly hurt police and soldiers of Mexico, we will consider that a firearm,” Trump said. "We’re not going to put up with that. They want to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back. I told them to consider it a rifle.”

Pentagon sources speaking to Newsweek moments after Trump concluded his comments said that service members deploying to the southern border had not received credible intelligence about “bad actors,” and there had not been a change to the rules of engagement that would permit service members to treat rocks as firearms.

Trump had previously called the expected arrival of the caravans, composed mostly of women and children from Honduras and other Central American countries, an “invasion of our country.”

The president had also falsely claimed that the caravan contained terrorist cells, and that Democrats were organizing and handing out money to the traveling migrants.

Critics of the president have called the troop deployment a publicity stunt meant to garner Republican support just days before the midterm elections.

Despite the president’s assertions that the caravans were “made up of some very bad thugs and gang members,” documents obtained by Newsweek show that intelligence officials did not anticipate high involvement of criminal gangs—or any terrorist infiltration—as the caravan continued to follow its projected route.

The documents also showed that the Trump administration had anticipated that “only a small percentage” of migrants traveling with the caravans headed to the U.S. would make it to the border based on historical trends. The assessment said only about 20 percent of the 7,000 migrants, or what equates to 1,500 traveling with the caravan, would make it to the border.

To put this in perspective, this means there would be about 3.5 members of the military deployed for each migrant.

Currently, there are at least four caravans of Central Americans making their way to the U.S. border, with the first group having departed from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, on October 13. By Thursday, the main group, which saw its numbers swell to 7,000 before dropping to roughly 4,000, had made it to the city of Juchitan in southern Mexico.

Asylum seekers traveling with the caravan still had about 875 miles to go before they reached the closest U.S. port of entry in McAllen, Texas.

A child's shoe sits along the roadside as members of the Central American caravan head out for their next destination on November 1, 2018 in Juchitan de Zaragoza, Mexico. The group of migrants, many of them fleeing violence in their home countries, took a rest day on Wednesday and resumed their journey towards the United States border on Thursday. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Their journey could more than double, however, if they choose to follow the same route of an earlier caravan of asylum seekers that made the trip to the U.S. border in April—they took a significantly longer trek to Tijuana in the far northwest of Mexico, to claim asylum at San Ysidro port of entry in San Diego, California.

Other files obtained include a slideshow presentation produced by the Joint Force Land Component Commander Threat Working Group on Operation Faithful Patriot.

Commanders were briefed on the presentation on Saturday, and it contained U.S. government guidance to subordinate commands handling press relations during the interagency operation led by the Department of Homeland Security, suggesting government officials had planned for its official narrative on the military deployment to be “top-down driven.”

That means that “a lot of these questions will be handled in Washington and by the Pentagon,” said David Lapan, a former Homeland Security spokesman under the Trump administration and a former U.S. Marine, speaking to Newsweek. “Recognizing all the policy and political implications, they’re going to want individual service members to stay away from those things.”

The Department of Defense will make sure to differentiate between uniformed members of the military and “people who are members of the administration or people who hold policy positions in the Pentagon and can talk about political stuff,” said Lapan.

The U.S. Army North documents show that Pentagon officials were well aware of the political effect that deploying thousands of U.S. forces to the southern border might have on the upcoming November midterm elections well before the Trump administration announced the deployment.

Presentation slides provided guidance on the role that the November elections could play in driving narratives around the arrival of the caravan in an “information environment analysis” completed by the operations wing of U.S. Northern Command, the Pentagon unit overseeing the southern border deployment.

“Midterm elections NOV 06 will be the dominant driver of competing narratives and increase competitive and combative nature of IE,” stated a slide titled “Public Affairs.”

The president insisted his show of military force had little to do with next week’s elections. “I’ve been saying this long before election[s], Trump said. "I've been saying this before I ever thought of running for office. We have to have strong borders. If we don’t have strong borders, we don’t have a country.”

Deployers from the 541st Engineering Company, 19th Engineering Battalion, Fort Knox, KT., land at Kelly Field, San Antonio, in support of Operation Faithful Patriot, October 30, 2018. SrA Alexandra Minor/U.S. Air Force

The public affairs documents go on to instruct officials to emphasize the collaborative nature of the interagency deployment, and how it will avoid any potential legal trouble.

The Department of Defense was asked to direct all communications coordination to the Department of Homeland Security, with public affairs officials being told to highlight the temporary nature of the mission to members of the press.

“From a military standpoint, the timing or reason for a mission is out of our control. We get an order from the commander in chief, and we do that mission when they tell us to. If you have a question about why you’re doing it, you don’t talk about it because that’s not you, that’s the White House,” said Lapan.

“It’s a tricky situation for military service members to be in given how politically fraught the situation is right now. I don’t know why the policymakers are doing this now or how they’re going to answer those questions. I haven’t seen any policymaker answer the question of why they’re doing this now and whether it has to do with midterms,” Lapan said.

Trump has staunchly defended his administration’s decision to send as many as 15,000 troops to the border, telling ABC News chief White House xorrespondent Jonathan Karl that the U.S. needed to “have a wall of people” standing guard at the border for when the caravans eventually arrive.

The U.S. Army North operation order used to coordinate tasks at the southern border paints a dire picture of the situation there, which seems to echo Trump’s sentiments: “CURRENT SITUATION. THE SECURITY OF THE UNITED STATES IS IMPERILED BY A DRASTIC SURGE OF ILLEGAL DRUGS, DANGEROUS GANG ACTIVITY AND EXTENSIVE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION THREATENS SAFETY OF CITIZENS AND UNDERMINES THE RULE OF LAW. THE SITUATION AT THE BORDER HAS REACHED A POINT OF CRISIS AND POTUS HAS TAKEN ACTION TO SECURE OUR BORDERS. DOD WILL SUPPORT THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (DHS) AND THE UNITED STATES CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION (CBP).”

Brad Moss, a Washington, D.C., based national security attorney, told Newsweek: “The deployment of thousands of active duty personnel to the border remains a decision with unclear motivations or intentions…[but] under federal law, military personnel are limited in what they can do, particularly in terms of domestic law enforcement.

“They certainly have the authority to provide technical and intelligence assistance to local law enforcement and DHS personnel, but they are prohibited from directly handling seizure and detention of any undocumented immigrants from the ‘caravan’ that reach the U.S. border.

“This isn’t an area of differing interpretations. Under the Posse Comitatus Act, the military is strictly prohibited from handling domestic law enforcement tasks absent an explicit grant of authority by Congress or a presidential determination regarding the existence of an emergency,” Moss said.

The Posse Comitatus Act is a longstanding federal statute that restricts the government’s ability to use the U.S. military as a police force; however, language contained in the documents give an overview of the legal authorizations for deploying U.S. troops domestically.

The president maintains an “inherent authority” exception, according to the documents. Trump could use those executive powers to restore order in extraordinary circumstances, even if a state governor objected to the president wielding his authority.

Trump had initially vowed to send up to 5,200 troops to the southern border in anticipation of several caravans of Central American migrants heading toward the U.S. border, but the president more than doubled that figure on Wednesday, indicating that he could send as many as 15,000 military troops to multiple ports of entry locations across the southwest border.

A screenshot from a presentation obtained by Newsweek showing a tweet from Dana White, the Pentagon's chief spokeswoman. Defense Department sources say the southern border mission was a surprise from the White House, with many believing it was politically motivated. Newsweek

The surge in troop levels aligned with Newsweek’s report on Monday revealing how government documents showed that the Pentagon had placed roughly 7,000 troops on notice to deploy to the southern border within 24-hours. A Defense Department official told Newsweek it didn't believe the number of U.S. forces would surpass the 15,000 figure touted by Trump.

In a presentation briefed to commanders on Saturday, a public affairs slide included a Twitter screen shot from the verified account of Dana White, the Pentagon’s chief spokeswoman. The date stamp showed the tweet had been posted on the same Saturday as the briefing.

“@DeptofDefense is in support of @DHSgov request to provide support to the @CBP. #SecDef Mattis’ signed order did not specify the number of troops that will support this mission. Media reports of 800 or 1000 troops deploying are inaccurate."

Sources told Newsweek that while it was true that the order Mattis signed did not indicate troop strength numbers when he signed the directive this past Friday, operational planners at the Defense Department knew the troop levels would surge to more than 14,000 before White’s October 27 tweet.

Newsweek sought comment from the Pentagon, but received no reply on Thursday.

On Wednesday, when asked if the number of U.S. troops on the border was a political stunt, Mattis said: “The support that we provide to the Department of Homeland Security is practical support based on the request from the commissioner of customs and border police,” Mattis said per a poll report. “We don’t do stunts in this department.”

• Above is from:  https://www.newsweek.com/trump-administration-mattis-migrant-caravan-border-troops-1198043

Illinois Report Cards for Boone County Schools

Belvidere Community District #100

North Boone School District #200

Belvidere School Statistics and Scores are available for individual schools at:  http://www.illinoisreportcard.com/search.aspx?address=61008&miles=5

North Boone Statistics and Scores are available at:  http://www.illinoisreportcard.com/District.aspx?source=schoolsindistrict&Districtid=04004200026

Belvidere Community School District #100

North Boone District #200

Second Fight over Enbridge pipeline?

Boone County residents gear up to fight possible second Enbridge pipeline

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By Susan Vela
Staff writer

Posted at 12:19 PM Updated at 3:48 PM

CAPRON — A strip of bright green grass identifies the Enbridge pipeline running parallel to Ronald Gadow’s property.

The pipeline, officially Line 61, which starts in Superior, Wisconsin, runs through Boone County on its way to its endpoint near Pontiac, carrying an average of 930,000 barrels of crude oil a day.

Now, a new $2.6 billion Enbridge oil pipeline project sparking debate in Minnesota has Gadow and other Boone County residents concerned that the Canadian company will revive studies designed to lay the groundwork for a “twin” Line 61 that would carry more oil through the county. Enbridge officials say they have no such plans.

Gadow fears he could lose woodlands and a whole host of plants and wildlife if that happened.

“Safety is one of my concerns,” Gadow said. “It also devalues the property. If you don’t have a lawyer, you’re a total victim to what Enbridge can do.”

He has hired an attorney and plans to join other landowners and groups like Save Our Illinois Land, called SOIL, and Wisconsin Safe Energy Alliance, or WiSE, in pressing the Boone County Board to pass a resolution opposing the use of eminent domain to obtain land for a new Enbridge line. Eminent domain is the right of a government or its agent to take property at fair market value for public use.

Experts agree that Enbridge could prevail if it seeks to use eminent domain, and residents doubt they could stop the project.

“I’ve just always been under the impression that the oil companies always win,” Gadow said.

Residents are wary after Enbridge’s massive 2010 oil spill into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River and because of the Minnesota controversy.

“I think that you have to consider other things that Enbridge is doing,” said Deni Mathews, a SOIL activist.

SOIL and WiSE have invited residents living near Line 61 to informational meetings that are being held despite Enbridge’s insistence that there is no plan for a second line.

“Our stakeholders know we are not pursuing another pipeline project,” said Jennifer Smith, an Enbridge manager, during a telephone interview last month. “We have no plans to build south of Superior.”

Line 61 went into service in 2008. The company added three new pumping stations to the existing line between 2014 and 2016 to increase daily pumping capacity from about 400,000 barrels a day to 1.2 million barrels a day.

Surveys were done in anticipation of a potential twin line, Smith said. The market did not support construction of a second line, however.

Jim and Lori Schall live near Gadow. Their property also would be at risk if a twin line were built.

“You hear about things happening, like leaks,” Lori Schall said. “You can fight. You can express your concerns. But is it going to matter? It can’t hurt. It’s nice to at least let them know our concerns. If they can listen and address our concerns, more power to them.”

“Nobody is going to want it on their property,” Jim Schall said. “Nobody is going to want it near them. It’s just like having a prison built.”

Robert McNamara, a senior attorney for the Virginia-based Institute for Justice, said pipeline companies’ use of eminent domain is the subject of debate.

Although a County Board resolution may carry little weight, McNamara nonetheless says residents should “stand up, make your voice heard, and make it known you don’t intend to go quietly.”

The Boone County Board in 2016 approved a resolution opposing a proposed $8 billion, 275-mile rail line that would have cut through the county after residents expressed concerns that eminent domain would be used to acquire vast stretches of private land for the project.

“If residents want to band together, we’re more than happy to listen to what their concerns are,” County Board Chairman Karl Johnson said. “I personally am not a big fan of eminent domain.”

Susan Vela: 815-987-1392; svela@rrstar.com; @susanvela

Above is from:  http://www.rrstar.com/news/20181101/boone-county-residents-gear-up-to-fight-possible-second-enbridge-pipeline