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How the Koch network rivals the GOP

 

The Koch Machine

How the Koch network rivals the GOP

The billionaires and their allies have built a private political machine without precedent.

By Kenneth P. Vogel

12/30/15 05:17 AM EST

Updated 12/30/15 05:22 PM EST

Below is from: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/koch-brothers-network-gop-david-charles-217124#ixzz3vuOqsy4d

 

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The political machine that Charles Koch launched a dozen years ago in a Chicago hotel conference room with 16 other rich conservatives has exploded in size and influence in the past few elections and now eclipses the ofcanceficial GOP in key areas.

Koch and his brother David Koch have quietly assembled, piece by piece, a privatized political and policy advocacy operation like no other in American history that today includes hundreds of donors and employs 1,200 full-time, year-round staffers in 107 offices nationwide. That’s about 3½ times as many employees as the Republican National Committee and its congressional campaign arms had on their main payrolls last month, according to POLITICO’s analysis of tax and campaign documents and interviews with sources familiar with the network. And the staggering sum the network plans to spend in the 2016 election run-up ― $889 million ― is more than double what the RNC spent in the previous presidential cycle.

While rich donors have held considerable sway over the political process in past eras, the Kochs’ network is different. Its mission is in some ways more ambitious than the Republican Party’s ― to fundamentally reshape American public life around a libertarian-infused brand of conservatism ― but it also is encroaching on the GOP’s traditional turf. The Koch network’s data operation is now regarded by many candidates and campaigns as superior to the party’s, and it has invested in efforts to become the leading force on the right for training activists and registering voters. Its biggest group, Americans for Prosperity, plans to place full-time staff in all but eight states by late 2016 and aspires to copy the National Rifle Association’s broad-based membership plan for longevity, according to a POLITICO investigation. It found that the group has even discussed expanding its influence by writing and pushing model state budgets, a technique similar to the one used by the American Legislative Exchange Council to push various state legislative initiatives.

As the network has grown, though, internal audits at times have raised concerns about its management culture, spending and lack of coordination among core groups that compose the network. Insiders have questioned huge staff bonuses, fancy restaurant meals, purchases of Twitter followers and sporting event-related costs, as well as contracts directed to firms connected to top network operatives.

To address its growing pains, the network has tapped into a powerful resource unavailable to traditional parties, POLITICO’s investigation found ― the talent and management philosophies developed by the brothers’ giant multinational industrial conglomerate, Koch Industries.

In the post-Citizens United era of relaxed campaign finance laws, the Kochs and their megadonor allies, more than any other group of affluent political partisans, have leveraged their financial clout to do things that traditional party and political committees can’t or won’t do, as POLITICO’s investigation has shown. It revealed that the Koch network quietly launched sophisticated initiatives to recruit like-minded candidates, collect intelligence on rivals and win converts among the disadvantaged.

“I don’t know of any precedent for this,” said campaign finance scholar Robert E. Mutch, whose 2014 book “Buying the Vote; a History of Campaign Finance Reform,” traced the influence of ultrarich donors from the Gilded Age through the 2012 general election. “The rich guys who wanted to be politically active used to be politically active in the party. What’s different now is you’ve got them being active outside the party,” he said, adding that, while other megadonors are trying to build their own political operations, the Kochs have pushed this phenomenon to new heights.

2016

 

While the Kochs’ decision to build their own independent political organization was prompted largely by their dissatisfaction with George W. Bush and his Republican congressional majorities, so far, the network’s forays have almost exclusively complemented those of the official GOP. And the network is expected to spend heavily in 2016 on ads and other voter outreach boosting the party’s efforts to retake the White House and protect its congressional majorities. RNC and Koch network officials even meet periodically to discuss their respective efforts, to the limited extent that is legally permissible, POLITICO has learned. But the Koch network hasn’t hesitated to call out Republicans who violate the brothers’ brand of small-government fiscal conservatism. And perhaps more worrisome for the GOP, Koch operatives have signaled they’re looking for more chances to take on Republicans, including in primary campaigns.

“Our mission is to advance a free society that helps people improve their lives, not to prop up or defend the Republican Party,” said Marc Short, president of Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the nonprofit overseeing the Koch network.

Nonetheless, conservative leaders have grumbled that too much of their movement is being centralized under one umbrella ― the Kochs ― while GOP officials have openly fretted about the possibility of the party losing at least some control to “a group of very strong, well-financed individuals who have no accountability to anyone,” as RNC chief of staff Katie Walsh put it this year.

Permanent ground army

Charles and David Koch first dipped into their fortunes to influence American public policy in the 1970s, mostly pumping money into libertarian think tanks like the Cato Institute and George Mason University’s Mercatus Center.

They began getting more politically involved in response to what they saw as a reckless government expansion led by Bush and his GOP congressional majorities, including a costly Medicare expansion, the Iraq war and risky lending policies blamed for causing a housing bubble.

In 2004, not long after Charles Koch convened the Chicago donors’ meeting, the brothers provided seed funding for the group that would become the network’s most muscular political arm, Americans for Prosperity, which joined a pre-existing foundation arm that was spun off from another group the previous year. In 2004, AFP and AFP’s foundation had chapters in three states and a combined $2 million budget, according to tax filings. By last year, the main and foundation arms had morphed into the right’s most powerful nonparty group, with chapters in more than 30 states, a combined $104 million budget and a staff of 948 ― by far the network’s biggest footprint.

Internal network plans call for AFP to expand into several more states by the end of next year, sources tell POLITICO, leaving only Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington without an outpost. While the group’s stated mission is to advocate small-government policies, its evolution has been strategically tailored for maximum political impact. In recent years, the network has channeled more spending into red states where it can influence GOP governing majorities rather than fighting for swing votes. That strategy was shaped by Charles Koch’s longtime right-hand man, Rich Fink, who is considered the network’s “grand strategist” and who had privately advocated “owning” conservative states, according to network sources. Indeed, AFP has taken credit for major policy victories — including enacting tax cuts, fighting Obamacare and restricting union power ― in Republican-controlled states where it has a major presence, such as Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, North Carolina and Wisconsin. Likewise, it has shuttered chapters in deep blue states such as Connecticut, Oregon and Washington, where conservative reforms seem unlikely.

There’s also been a buildup in key swing states like Colorado, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia ― suggesting that the network has its eye not just on policy but also on political impact.

In Florida, for example, the Koch network’s core groups employ 77 full-time staffers, including AFP’s field staff of 50. Concerned Veterans for America, which courts veterans with fiscally conservative messaging, has 15 Florida staffers, while the LIBRE Initiative, which appeals to Latino voters, has nine. Generation Opportunity, a young voter outreach group, has three. Freedom Partners-backed outfits that aren’t considered core network groups ― the senior-focused 60 Plus Association, Concerned Women for America ― are courting other Florida voting blocs.

The network’s Sunshine State staffing rivals that of the Florida Republican Party and its local and legislative affiliates, according to sources familiar with Florida GOP politics, though the Republican Party presence in Florida and other key states will surge as the RNC ramps up its joint victory program with state party committees. RNC officials said that, by Election Day, they aim to have more than 4,500 paid staff on the ground across the country through the victory program, along with roughly 2,000 volunteer “fellows” trained through a program launched last year called the Republican Leadership Initiative. Those figures don’t include additional staff provided or subsidized by the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee. And the party committees, unlike Koch network groups, are able to coordinate with candidates’ campaigns to mobilize volunteers and get out the vote.

“The Kochs’ efforts are helpful to the overall conservative movement, but they can never do the core functions that the party does,” said RNC chief strategist Sean Spicer. He argued that questions about whether the RNC is ceding influence to the Koch network prove “that POLITICO fundamentally lacks a basic understanding of how the political system and parties work.” But the committee’s own post-mortem analysis of the 2012 election openly acknowledged that changes in campaign finance and the rise of outside groups have led to “a troubling diminishment of the role of political parties and even candidates themselves in our democracy.” They “no longer have the loudest voices in campaigns or even the ability to determine the issues debated in campaigns. Outside groups now play an expanded role affecting federal races and, in some ways, overshadow state parties in primary and general elections,” the report says. It concluded that the situation “has caused a splintered Congress with little party cohesion so that gridlock and polarization grow as the political parties lose their ability to rally their elected officeholders around a set of coherent governing policies.”

Not only is the official GOP barred from accepting the unlimited and often undisclosed checks that fuel most of the Kochs’ groups, it’s also more thinly spread. That’s because the party’s mission is to try to win every election, even if that means backing less conservative nominees. Outside players like the Kochs, on the other hand, can focus more selectively on groups, races or states that fit their agenda.

In the 2014 election run-up, AFP quietly launched an initiative to add sympathetic voters to the rolls in 14 key states, according to sources familiar with the project. That’s a function that has mostly been the GOP’s domain. But Koch operatives concluded after the 2012 election that “the left outmaneuvered the right by … expanding the universe of voters,” according to network documents obtained by POLITICO.

The network also stepped up to fill what its operatives see as a void in data analytics on the right ― its Freedom Partners-owned data shop i360 has eclipsed the RNC data operation as the choice for many GOP candidates and committees. Last year, the network also invested heavily in what its officials privately call a “leadership factory” that they see as rivaling training programs of both the Republican Party and competing conservative groups, according to sources familiar with it. The Grassroots Leadership Academy, as it is now known, was absorbed into AFP’s foundation arm in 2014 and sources say it boasted a 2014 budget of more than $2 million, which it used to provide training to all network groups.

A newly created Freedom Partners division ― headed by an operative named Nathan Nascimento — works to coordinate ground initiatives run by the different network groups in the states. This effort, like many in the network, stemmed partly from shortcomings identified in corporate-style efficiency audits, which have raised concerns about duplicative spending and poor coordination, POLITICO has learned.

Audits also flagged insufficient understanding of fiscal conservatism by AFP field staff, an issue deemed “critically important to correct,” according to sources familiar with the findings. Another assessment found an “overwhelming” percentage of the 2 million members claimed by the group were not actually involved and “do not self-identify as being volunteers.” Findings about weak volunteer engagement were taken very seriously, sources tell POLITICO, because they undermined AFP’s positioning as a grass-roots army of millions.

They’re the most effective”

The network’s corporate-style efficiency measures are central to the donor pitches delivered by Koch operatives, who argue that they use cash more efficiently than rival conservative groups or the Republican Party.

While the super PACs devoted to various 2016 GOP presidential aspirants raised huge sums from ultrarich conservatives this year, AFP president Tim Phillips this month predicted in an interview “a lot of donors are going to give a second thought to the super PAC investments. They’re short-term strictly — no long-term value creation, A, and, B, you cannot hold them accountable as a donor. I mean, with an institution like us or some other (c)(4) that has boards and such, you can hold them accountable for how they spend your money over the long-term to actually do something.”

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The Koch Machine

The Kochs' war on poverty

By Kenneth P. Vogel

That framing appears to be paying off, as evidenced by the evolution of the Kochs’ twice-a-year donor gatherings. Sixteen donors joined Charles Koch at the first gathering at Chicago’s Peninsula Hotel in 2003, while the most recent summit drew more than 400 ― and many of the leading GOP presidential candidates ― to a slickly produced August affair at the St. Regis in Dana Point, California. Donors give at least $100,000 each year to join Freedom Partners and attend the “seminars,” as the gatherings are known in the Koch orbit. They have in some ways replaced the party’s convention as the most coveted ticket among some major donors, and now draw a more ideologically diverse crowd than the mostly libertarian-minded donors like variety store mogul Art Pope who attended the first one ― from religious conservatives like mutual fund pioneer Foster Friess to socially moderate neocons like Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.

“It’s about community and it’s also about commitment,” said Nancy Pfotenhauer, an AFP board member, Freedom Partners adviser and Koch confidante. “If you’re bringing in 40- to 50-percent more new people each time, that says there’s an appetite for what we’re doing and a shared level of concern.”

At an April 2013 gathering, POLITICO reported that Louisiana metals titan Ned Diefenthal complained to Sen. Ron Johnson about the incompetence of the RNC and its chairman, Reince Priebus. He “keeps sending me letters asking for money. I’m not giving him any money. He doesn’t know what to do with it,” Diefenthal said of Priebus. While Diefenthal’s family had donated $280,000 to the RNC over the years, he suggested to Johnson that the Koch network is a better investment.

Minnesota media mogul Stan Hubbard, a billionaire megadonor who regularly attends the Kochs’ gatherings, this month told POLITICO, “it isn’t just the Kochs’ money. Remember, most of the money comes from others.” Hubbard, his family and their company have donated nearly $5 million over the years to Republican and conservative candidates and groups that disclose their donors, but he told POLITICO that the Koch groups, which mostly are not required to disclose their donors, have been a leading recipient of his family’s cash.

“They’re one of the very biggest, if not the biggest, because I think they’re the most effective,” said Hubbard. “Being effective means they put resources in, they do research and they learn. They’ve learned every time they do something. If it doesn’t work the way they like, they do it differently. Like any business, they learn from experience. Any political party should learn.”

Some insiders argue that the efficiency, effectiveness and robustness are aspirational but sometimes don’t match the reality on the ground.

“It’s smoke and mirrors, and AstroTurf,” said one former network official, who did not want to be identified revealing internal network conversations. “It’s something that is being sold to donors. The notion that it is a grass-roots army is ludicrous. And the rest of it ― whether it’s the 1,200 operatives or the door-knockers or Twitter followers ― it’s all bought and paid for.”

Levi Russell, a spokesman for AFP, said suggestions that the group is a paper tiger “lack all credibility. One visit to one of the many AFP field offices around the country will show a vibrant, engaged and passionate force of grass-roots volunteers who power our field program.”

While the network boasts of cost controls, its groups’ fundraising success also means that they are among the biggest spenders on the right. They have paid out annual bonuses that can exceed a full year’s salary. Short, the head of Freedom Partners, earned a 2014 base salary of $235,000 but pulled in $525,000 in bonuses, tax filings show, putting him well ahead of Priebus, who made $153,000 last year, but far behind U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue, who was paid $4.9 million in 2011. And the network has financed contracts to consultants favored by donors (last year, Freedom Partners paid pollster Frank Luntz $1.5 million) or with connections to its operatives.

Americans for Prosperity’s chief technology officer, Adam Stryker, left in September after some AFP operatives questioned his spending of group funds and contracts signed with his friends’ firms, multiple sources familiar with Stryker’s tenure at the group told POLITICO. They said Stryker, a Las Vegas native, ran up expenses on donor meals at tony restaurants and accompanied vendors to exclusive events like the Kentucky Derby and the Stanley Cup Finals. One operative who worked with AFP told POLITICO that a number of AFP officials spent heavily. “There were checks and balances, but they weren’t effective,” the operative said.

In an email, Stryker ― who like many departed network employees signed a nondisclosure agreement preventing him from discussing his former employer ― said his departure was not related to questions about spending, but otherwise refused to comment. An internal AFP staff email said he was leaving “to pursue new opportunities in the private sector” but would remain as a consultant through March 2016.

AFP declined to comment, saying it does not discuss personnel matters. AFP and network officials both pointed to rigorous accounting practices for evaluating, approving and tracking contracts and other expenses that they say flag problem spending in real time and keep their rates among the lowest in politics.

Many spending and contracting controls were introduced after the 2012 election, during which the Koch network spent more than $400 million but failed to oust President Barack Obama or the Democratic Senate majority. Afterward, attention inside the network turned to an operative named Sean Noble, who oversaw a strategy that outsourced many key functions to consulting firms, including his own. Three firms owned by Noble were paid $24 million by a Koch-backed nonprofit.

Market Based Management

A forensic internal analysis after the election found the network was ill-served by redundancies and infighting among Koch-backed efforts, an inability to measure impact and too much spending by consultants ― including Noble ― who were technically independent from the Koch operation, according to multiple sources familiar with the analysis.

To avoid a repeat, the network centralized and rejiggered its organizational flow chart to bring more functions under the umbrella of Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce. At one point, Noble was offered a job working for the group that became Freedom Partners but turned it down, sources told POLITICO. Freedom Partners sought to reduce the network’s reliance on Noble and other outside consultants by building its own message testing, polling and advertising operations, partly by acquiring a Koch-backed nonprofit called Public Notice.

Freedom Partners became the vehicle for disseminating cash and coordinating strategy among the network’s allied groups. It has given out $384 million in grants to dozens of groups between its creation in late 2011 through the end of last year, the most recent period covered by publicly available tax returns. And it unceremoniously terminated underperforming initiatives, including the voter registration project, which was judged too costly for what it was delivering. Another was a well-financed initiative called Race Fans 4 Freedom, which in the run-up to the 2012 election endeavored to win converts to the network’s free market causes among people attending auto races in key states including Ohio and Virginia. It was found not to justify the cost of sponsoring the races.

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Carly Fiorina: 'Bill Clinton's fair game'

By Nick Gass

Another move involved consolidating the network’s far-flung Washington-area headquarters offices at considerable cost into a cluster of glass office towers in the Courthouse neighborhood of Arlington County, Virginia, in Washington’s near suburbs. At the center is an office building that houses Freedom Partners, the Charles Koch Institute and the Charles Koch Foundation. A block away sits Americans for Prosperity's sleek new offices, which are near the AFP Foundation and the Koch-backed data firm i360. Although the relocation was intended to facilitate greater collaboration, the network now occupies so many scattered offices in similar-looking buildings that the map can prove difficult to navigate even for insiders.

In fact, sources within the network tell POLITICO there is internal talk about purchasing an entire office building, though some of the sources say that’s unlikely, partly because Charles Koch views buildings as vanity projects.

While David Koch has welcomed attention for his cultural, medical and political philanthropy — even accepting a role as an alternate delegate to the 2012 GOP convention — Charles Koch rarely appears at fundraisers beyond those for the network. In fact, he has complained about the vagaries of politics — from pandering politicians to big consulting contracts to internecine competition — and has worked to rid his political network of what he sees as inefficiencies endemic to politics, partly by infusing it with talent, techniques and resources from Koch Industries.

Koch Industries’ corporate counsel, Mark Holden, who was already on the Freedom Partners board, joined AFP’s board and chairs its powerful executive committee. Rich Fink, who has served in various executive positions at Koch Industries, sat on the boards of the Charles Koch Institute, Freedom Partners and Americans for Prosperity Foundation, though he left AFP’s foundation board last month. And numerous high-ranking officials have cycled through the network, including roles at its administrative division, the Center for Shared Services, which handles human resources and IT services for all network groups. This entity was patterned off Koch Business Solutions, which fills the same function for Koch Industries. The Center, which originally was a stand-alone nonprofit, was rolled into Freedom Partners this past summer and trains network employees in Market-Based Management ― the organizational philosophy Charles Koch has honed over the years at Koch Industries.

Insiders say it’s impossible to overestimate the impact of 80-year-old Charles Koch or to gauge how his death would affect the network’s political efforts, especially fundraising.

“There’s definitely some concern about what happens after Charles dies,” said one operative who works with the network. “Many of the donors are there because they see Charles as the lead investor, and it’s not clear whether people are going to be as enthused about giving if they don’t see him at the helm.”

While Charles Koch is said to be in good health (his brother David is 75 and has battled prostate cancer), he has increasingly brought his son Chase Koch into the family’s political and corporate efforts. But there’s no indication that donors would rally to the son in the same way.

“What you have in the Koch organization is what you have in nondemocratic societies ― a succession problem,” said Mutch, the campaign finance historian. He views the Kochs as a case study of how much influence can be amassed by super-rich partisans in the new big-money era — and how long they can hold onto their power.

“This may be a short term consequence of Citizens United, and, if it doesn’t work out really well, maybe the billionaires themselves will say ‘OK, we’ll just let the party handle this.’ I just don’t know. I mean, nobody knows.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/koch-brothers-network-gop-david-charles-217124#ixzz3vuOIUAJ5

Voice of the Southern: Where’s Bruce?

 

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Above is from:  http://thesouthern.com/news/opinion/voice-of-the-southern/voice-of-the-southern-where-s-bruce/article_f3e670eb-44f7-52f2-8ba9-9e0a2f7870dc.html

Gov. Rauner returning early from vacation to tour flood-damaged areas, thank volunteers

By The Associated Press

Posted Dec. 30, 2015 at 5:53 PM
Updated Dec 30, 2015 at 5:55 PM

Gov. Bruce Rauner is returning early from a vacation outside the U.S. to visit areas damaged by floods and thank volunteers.
Rauner's office said Wednesday the governor will be in Springfield on Thursday night. He will spend the next several days in central and southern Illinois, where severe weather has led to flooding and seven deaths.
Rauner left the country sometime during the weekend of Dec. 19 -20 to spend the holidays with his family. His office wouldn't say where he was or the reason they were keeping his whereabouts secret.
He had been scheduled to return to Illinois on Sunday.
Rauner spokesman Lance Trover says the governor plans to tour areas dealing with severe weather and ensure "that communities have everything they need."

Rauner on Tuesday issued a disaster proclamation for seven southern Illinois counties, where about 7 inches of rain fell between Dec. 23 and 28. He added five more counties, including Christian and Morgan, to that list on Wednesday.

Above is from:  http://www.lincolncourier.com/news/20151230/gov-rauner-returning-early-from-vacation-to-tour-flood-damaged-areas-thank-volunteers

Illinois opinion sides with AP on Gov. Rauner calendars

Posted: Dec 30, 2015 6:05 PM CST Updated: Dec 30, 2015 7:45 PM CST

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) - The Illinois attorney general has ruled that Gov. Bruce Rauner's office has withheld too much information on his daily appointment calendars from taxpayers.

The state's public access counselor issued an opinion in response to an appeal under the Freedom of Information Act by The Associated Press. Public access attorney Joshua Jones says the AP correctly argues that Rauner's staff improperly used exemptions under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act to keep his whereabouts and activities secret.

Rauner spokeswoman Catherine Kelly did not comment because the issue is in court. The Illinois Times filed a lawsuit over the Rauner calendar in September.

Jones dismissed the Rauner administration argument that the calendars are not even public records.

The decision also applies to calendars of Rauner chief of staff Mike Zolnierowicz (zohl-NEER'-oh-witz).

Above is from:  http://www.wrex.com/story/30856965/illinois-opinion-sides-with-ap-on-gov-rauner-calendars

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Why is it so many of the people we elect pledge transparency and then work hard to avoid it at all costs?

 

 

Don't we deserve to know how our tax dollars are being spent?

Why is it so many of the people we elect pledge transparency and then work hard to avoid it at all costs?

Tinley Park, IL

By Reboot Illinois (News Partner) December 29, 2015

Gov. Bruce Rauner is out of the country, taking a vacation with his family. Where? None of your business. Forget transparency. We’re not allowed to know. (Hmmm, must be a really, really good undisclosed location.)

Reports say he paid for it himself; we taxpayers aren’t footing the bill, so I suppose that’s fine, but what’s the big secret?

Why is it so many of the people we elect pledge transparency and then work hard to avoid it at all costs? And why do we tolerate it so often?

Rauner regularly pledged to operate in the open when he ran for governor. How’s that going?

Last winter and spring, he created a set of special working groups that operated in total darkness. The media, and therefore, the public weren’t allowed to know times, locations or topics. Members of the groups were sworn to secrecy.

The governor also took months to share copies of legislation he sought.

Reporters had to wait, typically more than a month, for copies of his non-public schedule to get some sense for where he was. The Associated Press reported those documents had plenty redacted so that frequently it was impossible to see who was meeting with the governor.

Democrats also went after the governor for parking the salaries of many of his “star” cabinet members on the payrolls of departments seemingly unconnected to their work. This, after the governor signed an executive order within days of taking office saying he was creating a way for Illinoisans to find out more about political hires in state government.

“Taxpayers at every level of government deserve to know more about how their money is being spent. The action we are taking today will help build a more open and accountable government,” he said then.

Rauner’s press staff regularly keeps a tight rein on the governor’s and their own interactions with the press. And sadly, it’s become far too common for politicians of all persuasions to withhold information and to deal with journalists only through emails. Yes, we’ve become a texting/typing/tweeting society and that hurts us all.

It’s impossible to hear tone of voice, or see facial interaction, or to probe for a follow-up answer if all our interactions are typed.

Is Rauner alone in operating in the shadows? Not even close.

Above is from:  http://patch.com/illinois/tinleypark/dont-we-deserve-know-how-our-tax-dollars-are-being-spent

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Witnesses testify at Homan Square hearing in Chicago

Witnesses testify at Homan Square hearing in Chicago

  • Detainees, activists and lawyers testify at city hall meeting
  • Justice Department urged to include Homan Square in police investigation

The Chicago police department’s Homan Square facility is on the city’s west side.

Detainees, legal advocates and activists testified on Tuesday at the first public hearing to examine Homan Square, the Chicago police interrogation facility exposed by the Guardian and falling under renewed scrutiny amid intense examination of the city’s law enforcement officials.

Homan Square: Chicago police chief's downfall prompts calls to shutter facility

Garry McCarthy forced to resign over video of black teenager’s death, but politicians and activists say hearing on off-the-books ‘black site’ must follow

As protests continue to grip Chicago following the release of video footage and a landmark investigation by the US Justice Department, police practices at the warehouse received a rare political convening at city hall, which has all but dismissed public comment – despite an ongoing Guardian investigation revealing at least 7,000 people held off-the-books there.

“It’s fallen to us to shine a light on dark places,” said the Cook County commissioner, Richard Boykin, who convened the group under the board’s human relations commission. “Homan Square is such a place.”

Boykin called for the extended inquiry hours after the city’s police chief was fired by the mayor this month, following protests in the wake of details about the death of a black teenager shot 16 times by a white police officer. Less than one week later, the nation’s top law enforcement agency said it had begun an inquiry into the patterns and practices of the city’s notoriously brutal police.

“The Justice Department’s investigation must take into account those systemic issues in the Chicago police department that go back decades,” Boykin said on Tuesday. “Homan Square is one of those systemic issues.”

US attorney general: Homan Square findings are 'extremely important'

Loretta Lynch acknowledges potential constitutional concerns and says Chicago police facility could be investigated if new information comes to light

Read more

At a press conference announcing the federal inquiry into the department, the US attorney general, Loretta Lynch, told the Guardian the “extremely important” issues at Homan Square would not be involved in her department’s inquiry to begin but that “we always reserve the right to expand it”.

Police department officials were invited to attend Tuesday’s hearing of the county commissioners. But seven people who were either detained or involved in exposing the detentions testified instead, for more than an hour of answers meant to push the city closer toward shuttering the west side facility.

Flint Taylor, the longtime civil rights attorney who helped press for a landmark reparations ordinance earlier this year and whose clients are suing the city for unconstitutional “widespread and interrelated Chicago police department patterns and practices” at Homan Square, gave a testimonial in front of the commission and sizable crowd of citizens who watched.

“Some of the activities in Homan Square fit into the definition of torture, internationally, under the UN’s definition,” Taylor said, “and Homan Square needs to be looked at under that light.”

He argued that allegations logged in lawsuits and a series of Guardian articles fit into a long history of police practices stemming from the police detective Jon Burge, who who tortured more than 200 Chicago citizens who were in police custody across two decades.

“I want to try and prevent anyone else to go through this situation,” said Kory Wright, who says he was held incommunicado at Homan Square and spoke out publicly for the first time since his February interview with the Guardian’s national security editor, Spencer Ackerman, who also testified at the hearing.

“It’s easy to assume we’re up to no good,” Wright said, referencing other poor, black people in his neighborhood who he says are targeted by Chicago police.

The hearing’s testimonies are now public record, which Boykin said he hoped would keep pressure on Washington to include Homan Square in the Justice Department’s investigation, since he had little faith that the mayor’s office would shut the site by itself.

“When we allow for people’s rights to be violated,” Boykin said, “we basically erode them as individuals.

“They feel like less of a citizen of America, and it erodes America in the process.”

Above is from:  http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/15/homan-square-testimony-chicago-police-practices

Chicago' Homan Square: Torture by Any Other Name...

 

 

G. Flint Taylor Founding Partner, People’s Law Office

Chicago' Homan Square: Torture by Any Other Name...

Posted: 03/17/2015 2:11 pm EDT Updated: 05/17/2015 5:12 am EDT

Guardian investigative reporter Spencer Ackerman has sparked a firestorm with a series of reports exposing a "secret" site, in the heart of Chicago's predominantly African-American west side, at which police have conducted off-the-books interrogations for more than 15 years.

Ackerman reports that black and brown suspects and witnesses, as well as white activists, have been taken by police to the abandoned Sears and Roebuck complex, known as Homan Square, and subjected to abuse. The victims describe, variously, being denied contact with lawyers or family for up to three days, being shackled hand and foot, and being subjected to starvation, sweltering heat, sensory deprivation and beatings. On at least one occasion, a detainee -- John Hubbard, 44 -- died in an interview room. (After the Guardian article appeared, Cook County said the death was due to heroin intoxication.)

The initial Guardian exposé prompted calls for an investigation from two former high-level Justice Department officials, William Yeomans and Sam Bagenstos, and several progressive Chicago politicians (including one, Luis Gutierrez, who has been a conspicuous supporter of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel). The city attempted to give the growing scandal the back of the hand: Emanuel stated that the allegations were "not true. We follow the rules." The police department issued a statement claiming that the site was not secret, that lawyers had access to their clients and that the charges of brutality were "offensive." The local press, beaten on the story -- by a UK paper no less -- and having lost many of its award-winning investigative journalists years ago, turned to a veteran Chicago Sun-Times' police reporter who has long been embedded with the CPD, to attack the Guardian reports. He claimed that he had been to Homan Square 20 to 30 times to be shown drugs seized in raids. This, however, exhibits only the strange hidden-in-plain-sight nature of Homan Square: Press and lawyers were sometimes allowed in, but the interrogations and brutality were never reported. Nonetheless, a local NPR reporter, relying on the police reporter's assertion and doggedly focusing on the Guardian's use of the term "black site" to draw a parallel with the CIA's secret interrogation sites in the Middle East, attempted to dismiss the reports as "exaggerated."

The Guardian countered with yet another story, which detailed four more cases of secret physical abuse in "kennel-like" cells at Homan Square. The young African-American men describe being grilled about guns and gangs for days. This time, the alleged practices included handcuffing both wrists in a way that, according to the victim, felt like being "crucified," and stomping on another victim's groin.

The textbook definition

So how should we view Homan Square? The U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which has been adopted, with reservations, by the United States, defines torture as follows:

Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.

Given this, the emerging evidence of abuses at Homan Square once again places the question of systemic, racially and politically motivated torture squarely at the doorstep of the political powers that be in Chicago.

The similarities to the Burge torture era of the 1970s and 1980s are hard to miss. While the coercive tactics that have so far been documented at Homan Square are not as extreme as those practiced by then Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge and his men (which included electric shock, simulating suffocation with a bag and mock-executions), they still intentionally inflict "severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental" as forbidden by the CAT. During the Burge era, lawyers and family members would call the police looking for an African-American client or loved one who had been taken into custody, only to be told that he or she was not there. When the person was finally located, Burge and his confederates had finished their torture and abuse, and in most cases, obtained a confession. Similar to Homan Square, numerous black men, including Darrell Cannon, Michael Tillman, and Alonzo Smith, were taken offsite to remote locations or to the basement of the police station to be interrogated under torture. And, as in Homan, at least one person died under highly suspicious circumstances on Burge's watch.

Homan Square itself has a direct tie to other brutal chapters of Chicago police history: The site is geographically located in the notorious Fillmore Police District, near the former Area 4 detective headquarters. In the 1980s and 1990s, a team of well-known Area 4 detectives interrogated suspects with a viciousness that was second only to that of Burge and his men. Decades earlier, in the 1960s, Fillmore District Officer James "Gloves" Davis, and his partner, Nedrick Miller, patrolled the streets with a brutality so extreme that they are remembered by residents to this day. Davis has another claim to infamy: When the Chicago police were enlisted by Cook County State's Attorney Edward Hanrahan and F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover's COINTELPRO program to execute the deadly west side raid on the apartment of Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, Davis was one of the leaders of the raid, and bullets from his carbine were found in the bodies of both of the slain leaders.

More to unearth?

The first case of Burge related torture came to light in 1982, but it was more than two decades before the larger scope of his unit's systemic torture on the South and West Sides of Chicago -- 120 victims and still counting -- was unearthed. So it is little wonder that the stories emerging from the sprawling brick edifice chill those who have experienced similar terrorizing brutality at the hands of the Chicago police. At a rally in front of Emanuel's City Hall on March 2, torture victim Darrell Cannon linked Homan Square to Burge's racist torture, paraphrasing Martin Luther King Jr.: "Justice denied to one is justice denied to all." Angry young activists of color at the rally suggested that the revelations to date are just the tip of an iceberg and described everyday occurrences of brutal interrogations in their communities. Since the Guardian stories hit, lawyers have come forward and complained that holding clients incommunicado is a citywide problem.

That it is, without doubt, and it is much too early to call the story "exaggerated" or to conclude that there has been transparency with regard to what goes on in those kennel-like cells. As if on cue, the Guardian chronicled another case of Homan abuse less than a week after the angry demonstrations. And one veteran and well-respected African American activist, Prexy Nesbitt, who has lived in the shadow of that complex of buildings and had tasted the lawlessness of the Fillmore cops back in the day, has asserted that Homan Square is "where the bodies are buried." Unfortunately, in Chicago that statement can be taken literally, as well as figuratively.

On the Saturday after the first Homan Square article broke, a group of hardy protesters, led by Black Lives Matter, gathered before the fortified entrance of the main building at Homan Square. A spokesperson posed questions to the silent row of police guards: "How many people are you holding there?" "What are you doing to them?"

Those questions deserve answers, along with many others. Foremost among them: Given Chicago lawyers' reports that officers feel free to practice these kinds of abuses throughout the city, what is the purpose of taking people off the books to interrogate them at Homan Square? And who, among the thousands that may be taken into custody by the Chicago police on a given week, are brought there?

The CPD isn't telling. But an answer may be pieced together from what the police, the embedded reporter and the Guardian's exposé have so far revealed. Here's what we know: First, the CPD's undercover operations and intelligence and anti-gang units are based at Homan Square. Second, selected political activists are brought there, along with youth of color. The former are questioned about "terrorist" and other political activities, and the latter are grilled about gang activities, drugs and guns. Third, detainees are secreted away from their lawyers and families for as long as possible, sometimes days. Fourth, in many instances they are not charged with a crime. Fifth, one of Homan Square's main functions is, by the CPD's own admission, to "disrupt" gang activity, in a chilling echo of how the FBI's COINTELPRO program characterized its illegal set of tactics, which were also practiced by the CPD's notorious Red Squad and Gang Intelligence Unit to trample on the rights of political activists and people of color in the 1960s and 1970s.

All of this indicates that Homan Square houses a centralized police intelligence gathering and disruption operation -- secret, lawless, and out of control. Since the tactics at least sometimes include human rights violations forbidden by the United Nations Convention Against Torture, it seems depressingly appropriate to liken Homan Square to Burge's House of Screams, to Guantanamo Bay, and yes, to the CIA's secret black sites.

The politics at play

Two final overarching questions also must be posed: How, if at all, will the Obama Justice Department respond? And will these related human rights issues impact the mayoral runoff between Mayor Rahm Emanuel and progressive challenger Jesus "Chuy" Garcia on April 7?

With regard to the Justice Department, local activists remember all too well that Barack Obama, when a state senator, steered a wide berth around the Burge torture issue. That, coupled with his staunch support for his former chief of staff in the mayoral primary, make the chances of a meaningful federal investigation, at least in the short-term, next to zero.

As for the mayoral race, Garcia took a position in the primary elections that, to many progressives, appeared to be to the right of Emanuel on the issue of policing. He called for 1,000 more cops on the street in his one and only TV advertisement, a position that hardly resonated with those people of color and progressives who suffer the slings and arrows of overly aggressive, racially motivated policing. He does support the ordinance for reparations for Burge torture survivors, but came to it late in the campaign, with a written statement. He thereby missed a golden opportunity to seize upon an issue that would have further separated himself from Emanuel -- who has refused to commit to the ordinance despite its support by a majority of the City's aldermen - -while appealing to the African-American community.

The Homan Square scandal offers Garcia yet another chance to show progressives and people of color that he is committed to reform a corrupt and brutal police department. With a broad-based attack on his opponent for failing to support torture reparations or to halt Homan Square, Garcia would be taking a page from his mentor, the late and great Mayor Harold Washington. Harold's campaign caught fire in 1983 when he heeded the advice of one of his progressive advisors and seized on the issue of rampant police brutality to attack the incumbent, Jane Byrne. His base was galvanized, and the rest is history.

Above is from:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/g-flint-taylor/chicago-homan-square-tort_b_6843750.html

Monday, December 28, 2015

Closing decimates Illinois State Museum management

By Chris Dettro
Staff Writer

Posted Dec. 27, 2015 at 10:00 PM
Updated Dec 27, 2015 at 10:43 PM

Union employees of the Illinois State Museum, which has been closed to the public since Oct. 1 over state budget issues, are keeping busy doing curation work and performing other duties, while about two-thirds of the museum’s management has either retired or found other jobs.
“Curation work needs to be done every day, and without the public being there, it has allowed more time for some of these things,” said Guerry Suggs, chairman of the Illinois State Museum Board. “Those employees who dealt with the public are doing whatever they can. There is productive work to be done.”
The state museum has about 13.5 million items in its collection.
The background
Without a state budget for the fiscal year that began July 1, Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration believed it could save $4.8 million by closing the state museum and branch sites at Dickson Mounds, Lockport, Rend Lake and the James R. Thompson Center in Chicago.
But a lawsuit filed in St. Clair County by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees at least temporarily stopped the layoffs of about 150 people employed at the museum and other state agencies. Rauner ordered the employees to continue reporting to work but closed the museum and related sites to the public.
The administration continued with layoffs for the 10- to 12-member museum management team, however.
The Illinois Senate passed a bill in August designed to keep the museum open, and the House passed it last month. The bill states that Illinois shall operate a state museum system at its current sites and that the sites should be open to the public. It also requires the state to operate a research and collections center in Springfield and to maintain access to those collections.
What’s next?
Suggs said the bill was delivered to Rauner on Dec. 9, and the governor has 60 days from that date to sign the bill, veto it or do nothing, after which it would become law. The legislature passed the bill with more than enough votes to override a veto.
Suggs said he thinks that even if the governor signs the bill — it is currently “under advisement” — it will amount to nothing more than an unfunded mandate. He thinks it is a longshot that the museum would reopen without a new budget.
The Illinois Department of Natural Resources, which operates the museum system, also is hopeful for action on the budget front.
“We’re still waiting on a budget to see what resources are available,” said DNR spokesman Chris Young.

Suggs did say he felt the bill, if it becomes law, will be helpful to the museum in the future.

“Governors would be less likely to close the museum because the bill would give us the same status as the state fair,” he said.”

Should the museum reopen, Suggs said only three or four members of the management team, which ceased being paid when the museum closed, would be available for recall. The others have either retired or taken other jobs, he said.

All of the above is from:  http://www.sj-r.com/article/20151227/NEWS/151229688

Sunday, December 27, 2015

1816—The Year without a Summer—could it repeat?

The Year Without a Summer

by Jaime McLeod | Monday, March 22nd, 2010 | From: Weather

The Year Without a Summer

The infamous “Year Without a Summer” was a weather event so devastating, people are still talking about it nearly 200 years later.

Referred to by many names, including “the poverty year” and “eighteen hundred and froze-to-death,” the year 1816 was literally a year without a summer across much of the Northern Hemisphere. Throughout not only North America, but also Northern Europe and parts of Asia, an exceptionally cold summer, featuring killing frosts in July and August, crippled food production. Crop failures and food shortages were so widespread that rioting and looting became common in the United Kingdom and France.

On this side of the Atlantic, many residents of New England and the Canadian Maritimes froze to death, starved, or suffered from severe malnutrition as storms–bringing a foot or more of snow– hit hard during May and June. Many others from the region pulled up their stakes and moved to Western New York and the Midwest, where the cold was less severe. In fact, the year without a summer is now believed to have been one major catalyst in the westward expansion of the United States.

Though the northeastern section of the continent was hardest hit, southern states still experienced their share of the cold. On July 4th of that year, for instance, the high temperature in Savannah, Georgia, was a chilly 46° F. As far south as Pennsylvania, lakes and rivers were frozen over during July and August.

So, what caused this tragically cold summer? The likely suspect was a series of volcanic eruptions that occurred during the winter of 1815, in particular, the eruption of Mt. Tambora in Indonesia, believed to be the largest eruption of the last 1,800 years. The volcano ejected a tremendous cloud of fine ash and dust was ejected into the stratosphere, where it remained for a very long time. This ash insulated the earth from the heat and light of the sun, resulting in a cooling effect throughout the Northern Hemisphere.

This ash also gave the sky a yellowish tinge in some areas, which can be seen in many landscape paintings from the era. Fortunately a summer like this had yet to repeat itself and the Almanac’s outlook for this summer is much more enjoyable.

Jaime McLeodJaime McLeod is a longtime journalist who has written for a wide variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites, including MTV.com. She enjoys the outdoors, growing and eating organic food, and is interested in all aspects of natural wellness.

 

 

Above is from:  http://farmersalmanac.com/weather/2010/03/22/the-year-without-a-summer/

Wind Decision among major highlights of Green Bay’s 2015 stories

One story marked a beginning, the other a tragic end.

The long-awaited unveiling of plans for the Green Bay Packers' proposed Titletown District, and the sudden death of Brown County police dog Wix during a golf tournament both happened in August, but the similarities end there.

The Titletown District was met with cheers and anticipation for the attention and tax dollars it is expected to bring when it is built just west of Lambeau Field. News of Wix's death prompted shock, sadness and some anger from members of the public who struggled to accept that two devices used to cool the car when the dog was inside had failed at the same time.

Those two stories were among the most read, and most-shared local stories on social media, but there was plenty of other significant news in the Green Bay area during 2015.

Here, organized by subject area, are the year's top stories as selected by the Press-Gazette Media news reporters.

ASHWAUBENON

In August, the Green Bay Packers revealed their plans for the long-anticipated Titletown District west of Lambeau Field.  The three-announced anchors include the Lodge Kohler luxury hotel, Hinterland Brewery and a Bellin Health sports medicine clinic. The development will include 10 acres of public plaza, including an ice-skating pond, an event area and a football-field-sized green space. The Lombardi Avenue side will include 200,000 square feet of retail, dining and entertainment businesses. Brookwood Drive will include up to 70 two-story townhouses. Work will probably begin in the spring. The anchors are slated to open by September 2017. The first phase of development will cost $120 million to $130 million.

BELLEVUE

Fire Chief Brad Muller was accused by the firefighters' union in June of putting staff in harm’s way, berating firefighters, making profane comments about women and using racist language. The Bellevue Fire Commission ultimately dismissed all of the charges. One commissioner claimed the union wanted to force Muller into retirement. Muller said he would retire at the end of the year, but he said it had nothing to do with the charges. He worked for the department his entire 30-year career.

BROWN COUNTY

Police dog dies: Brown County made national news on Aug. 12 when Wix, a sheriff's department police dog, died when an air-conditioner motor in a patrol car malfunctioned, and a device designed to alert the dog's handler that the cabin was overheating failed. In the 47 minutes Deputy Austin Lemberger was away from the vehicle during the PGA Championship golf tourney near Sheboygan, the heat killed Wix. An investigation cleared Lemberger of any wrongdoing. He is working with a new dog, a Belgian Malinois named Murdock.

 

Shirley Wind Farm, Glenmore Buy Photo

Shirley Wind Farm, Glenmore (Photo: File/Press-Gazette Media)

Wind farm ruling: Many people living near the Shirley Wind Farm in southern Brown County had their hopes dashed in December, when county Health Director Chua Xiong ruled insufficient scientific evidence exists to blame wind turbines for illnesses suffered by some area residents. Residents had battled for years for a ruling saying their sleep deprivation, depression and other illnesses were caused by proximity to the eight turbines. Health officials met multiple times for multiple hours and reviewed reams of evidence before Xiong ruled.

Airport name change:County lawmakers voted 15-10 in December to add "Green Bay" before the name of Austin Straubel International Airport, which honors the first Brown County airman killed in the Pacific in World War II. The name change, suggested by an airport business-owner and backed by the airport's director, is designed to improve marketing. It drew a handful of objections, some from veterans who said the change would diminish the honor bestowed upon Straubel, and others who said the change would not boost business.

Coroner's office eliminated: Bodies of people who die under suspicious circumstances in Brown County will be transported to Madison for autopsies under an agreement Brown County supervisors approved in October. Lawmakers approved a two-year contract to place the Dane County Medical Examiner's Office in charge of Brown County's medical examiner's office, saying the arrangement would improve the quality of death investigations. The agreement, which also includes Door and Oconto counties, begins Jan. 1.

BUSINESS

Consumers experienced frustration with new micro-chipped credit cards. Many shoppers say store employees are not knowledgeable on the new technology, some businesses didn't convert to meet an Oct. 1 deadline. Green Bay-area residents said they enjoy the added security but dislike the extra processing time the cards require at the register.

COLLEGES

UW funding cuts: Under the new state budget, the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay faced a $2.8 million reduction in state aid as part of an overall $250 million cut to the University of Wisconsin System reduction. UW-Green Bay offered buyouts to senior employees in spring; 29 accepted. Officials expected to eliminate 24 jobs, mostly in academic advising and support services.

Executive audience: The UW-Green Bay women’s basketball team’s return to the NCAA tournament in March had more attention than usual. President Barack Obama attended UWGB’s first-round game against Princeton at University of Maryland’s Xfinity Center. The Phoenix lost 80-70 to the unbeaten Tigers, whose team included the niece of the commander in chief. But players, coaches and staff have memories to cherish.

Eyes brimming with tears, WWII veteran Ed Daul received his French Legion of Honor medal from the Consulate General of France at the veterans clinic in Green Bay. Daul served during the Allied invasion of the Normandy coastline in northern France. (Photo: Jim Matthews/Press-Gazette Media)

International acclaim: The French paid tribute to local World War II veteran Ed Daul in October. The deputy consul general for the French Consulate in Chicago came to Green Bay to present the 90-year-old De Pere native a French Legion of Honor medal for his efforts in helping to liberate France from German occupation as an Army rifleman near the end of the war.

» A few months earlier, Lawrence distance runner Alex Guild won two gold medals and set an American record in the Special Olympics World Games at Los Angeles.

DEVELOPMENT

Hotel Northland: After months of behind-the-scenes holdups and false starts, work finally started on the Hotel Northland renovation in downtown Green Bay. Announced in April but not started until December, developers behind the $44 million project intend to open the luxury hotel before the 2016 Packers season.

KI expansion:

The KI Convention Center welcomed its first guests this fall after an expansion of the downtown convention center almost doubled in size. Tourism officials said the expansion has already paid off: Eight conventions have been booked for the downtown Green Bay facility since the expansion was announced.

FAITH

Pilgrims see Pope: Several Northeastern Wisconsin residents traveled to the East Coast when Pope Francis visited the United states in late September. His first visit to the United States as the leader of the Roman Catholic Church drew more than 1 million people to downtown Philadelphia for the World Meeting of Families. Bishop David Ricken joined more than 100 people on a pilgrimage sponsored by the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay newspaper.

GREEN BAY

Psychiatric hospital: After weeks of heated debate, the City Council in April narrowly approved selling land and providing financial assistance to a for-profit psychiatric hospital on the city’s east side. Mayor Jim Schmitt cast a tie-breaking vote approving Tennessee-based Strategic Behavioral Health's 72-bed, $10 million facility. Critics, championed by nonprofit Bellin Health and other local health care providers, said the new hospital will destabilize existing services by stretching a shortage of psychiatrists and driving up costs.

Aldermen gone wild:

The City Council spent four months fighting over a code of conduct to improve decorum at meetings. The Council approved the policy in September following sharp exchanges, including Alderman Guy Zima ripping a copy of the constitution and declaring his right to free speech was being violated. The policy includes possible sanctions for violators, including fines up to $500, censure or removal from office.

Oneida fight: A struggle over who has jurisdiction over tribal land, the subject of closed-door contract negotiations between Green Bay and the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, has continued since early 2015. The governments have been trying since April to work out a deal in which the city continues to provide street maintenance and other services on tax-exempt tribal land located on Green Bay's west side. But the sides have been unable to move past a controversial provision that bans the city from opposing transfers of additional land owned by the tribe into the tribe's federal tax-exempt trust. Green Bay stands to lose up to 14 percent of its tax base to the tribe if the contract stays, or hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual fees revenue if the contract dissolves.

Monfils killing: Tom Monfils, 35, was found dead in a paper pulp vat 23 years ago, but the case continued to make headlines. This year, Keith Kutska, whom police and prosecutors believe was the instigator in Monfils’ murder, was denied parole for the first time. Kutska also sought to reopen his case based on what he claims is new evidence. Retired reserve Judge James Bayorgeon heard testimony and is reviewing transcripts and written arguments. He could make a decision any time.

Mayor re-elected: Green Bay voters elected Mayor Jim Schmitt to a fourth term in Office in April, putting him in line to tie the record for longest-serving mayor in the city’s history. Former Mayor Sam Halloin holds the record of four full terms.

Speeding crackdown: After months of pressuring police to crackdown on speeders, City Council started to finally see some action after a dog was killed in front of Aldo Leopold school.

HOWARD

Wick homicide:

Three years after Thomas Wick, 43, was found murdered in his Howard home, investigators made two arrests. Matthew Moore, 31, and his fiancée, Katie Heller, 27, are accused of killing Wick because they weren’t able to keep up with payments on a house they were buying from him. Heller’s trial is scheduled for February, Moore is headed for March jury trial.

Crash suit settled: A woman seriously injured when a Brown County sheriff's deputy slammed into her car in Howard in 2012 has settled with the county, the village of Suamico and two insurance companies. Michelle Lecker Micheel and her then-fiancee, Paul Micheel, agreed to a $260,000 settlement for the crash that left her with broken bones and significant internal injuries. Lecker and Micheel have since married. Lecker's attorney, I. Gregg Curry IV of Appleton, said the $260,000 was paid by insurance companies, and represents part of a larger settlement which he could not disclose. Lecker had sought $5.37 million.

MILESTONES

Final bow:

The Green Bay Symphony Orchestra’s current season will

The Green Bay Symphony Orchestra’s current season will be its last. (Photo: Submitted)

The Green Bay Symphony Orchestra, an institution in the community for more than 100 years, played its final concert April 11 at UWGB’s Weidner Center for the Performing Arts. The organization’s board of directors said financial burdens and declining attendance silenced the orchestra, which changed from a community band of mostly local musicians to a regional ensemble of professional players about 20 years ago.

More milestones: St. Patrick Catholic Church, one of the oldest churches in Green Bay, celebrated its 150th birthday. UW-Green Bay commemorated the 50th anniversary of its founding. De Pere celebrated the 25th anniversary of its Memorial Day weekend festival, Celebrate De Pere, with a patriotic concert by country musician Lee Greenwood.

PUBLIC SAFETY

City crime: Gang violence came to Green Bay in a shocking new way when two teens set fire to a 16-unit apartment building, putting 60 lives at risk to make a statement to a rival gang member. No one was injured in the April 27 fire, which destroyed the building. Jesse Jones, 19, is serving a 10-year prison term. Jordon Gardner-Shedrick, 18, is to be sentenced on Jan. 26.

Molitor leaves:

A dispute between police Chief Tom Molitor and members of the Green Bay City Council ultimately led to Molitor's retirement and the hiring of a new police chief. Molitor complained that city officials were trying to usurp his authority by demanding a gang unit, which Molitor said the department didn’t need. Former chief Jim Lewis, serving as interim chief, put a gang unit in place. Andrew Smith, a commander with the Los Angeles Police Department, is expected to take over as chief in early January.

UWGB-area slaying: The shooting death of Krystal R. Torres-Smith, 39, shocked and worried people in and near the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay campus, where she had been found dead in her car. Percy N. Sims, 26, of Appleton was arrested. Police think Sims set up a marijuana buy, then robbed and shot her. His next court appearance is Jan. 11.

Trooper slain:

 

A bank robbery in Wausaukee in March ended in three deaths, including that of the robber, Steven T. Snyder, Wausaukee truck driver Tom Christ, 59, and State Trooper Trevor Casper, 21. Snyder shot Christ shortly after the bank robbery, when Christ stumbled upon him going to his getaway car near Christ’s Oconto County home. Snyder and Casper died in a shootout in Fond du Lac when the trooper spotted him four hours later.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Voucher program expands: Wisconsin lawmakers lifted the cap on the number of students who could participate in private school voucher programs as part of the state 2015-17 budget. Some private schools in Brown County saw enrollment jumps of 10 to 20 percent. Funding mechanisms also changed, and rather than use a separate pot of money the state now reduces aid to the student’s home public school district to cover voucher costs.

School referendums: In April, 59 percent of voters in Northeast Wisconsin Technical College’s six-and-a-half county region approved a $66.5 million referendum to cover building and program expansions at its three campuses. Voters in the De Pere School District also overwhelmingly approved a $7 million referendum question asking to borrow for construction and renovation projects. De Pere voters rejected a $3.1 million request to cover improvements to the De Pere High School athletics complex.

PULASKI

Superintendent resigns:

Pulaski School District Superintendent Milt Thompson resigned in June before a disciplinary hearing. In a performance review, School Board members said Thompson was dishonest and handled the discipline of an employee poorly. The board plans to hire a superintendent in the spring.

Principal, teacher suspended: Pulaski High School Principal John Matczak and David Shaw, a physical education teacher and the boys varsity basketball coach, were disciplined for their roles in an incident in which one student repeatedly punched another. In April, Shaw was suspended for three days without pay, and Matzke was suspended for five days without pay. District officials said they would provide training for staff, including expectations for lunchroom supervision, and ways to respond to student concerns.

TRANSPORTATION

I-41: The stretch of U.S. 41 from northern Brown County to the Illinois line was re-designated as Interstate 41, a significant milestone in the multi-year, multimillion-dollar upgrade of the highway. Work will continue in 2016.

Interstate 41

Interstate 41 (Photo: Photo: Wisconsin DOT)

Uber: The Uber ride-share program made its way to Green Bay.

70 mph: Speed limits on parts of I-43 and selected other Wisconsin highways were increased to 70 mph. Some proponents of the change had claimed that lower speed limits caused some interstate commercial traffic to bypass the state.

dschneid@greenbaypressgazette.com and follow him on Twitter @PGDougSchneider. Adam Rodewald, Todd McMahon, Paul Srubas, Richard Ryman, Patti Zarling, Jeff Bollier, and Shelby Le Duc contributed to this report.

Above is from:  http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/news/local/2015/12/26/packers-titletown-plans-lead-year-review/77841810/

Saturday, December 26, 2015

Jobless rate in Boone, Winnebago counties up in November to 7.5 percent

  • Posted Dec. 23, 2015 at 2:06 PM
    Updated Dec 23, 2015 at 2:27 PM

  • ROCKFORD — The jobless rate in Boone and Winnebago counties inched up in November to 7.5 percent, compared with 7.2 percent for the same month last year, the Illinois Department of Employment Security said today.
    In October, the rate was 6.8 percent for the two counties.
    Statewide, the unemployment rate increased in 12 metro areas, decreased in one and was unchanged in one. The Illinois rate, which is not seasonally adjusted, was 5.8 percent in November. By comparison, it was 12.2 percent in January 2010 at its peak. Nationally, the rate was 4.8 percent last month and 10.5 percent in January 2010.
    Georgette Braun: 815-987-1331; gbraun@rrstar.com; @GeorgetteBraun
  • Above is from:  http://www.rrstar.com/article/20151223/NEWS/151229786/0/SEARCH

Boone County Journal criticizes board approval of new animal services building

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The above is from the December 25, 2015 Boone County Journal which is available free of cost at merchants across the area and on line at:  http://www.boonecountyjournal.com/news/2015/Boone-County-News-12-25-15.pdf#page=1

Friday, December 25, 2015

The Great Republican Revolt

 

 

The GOP planned a dynastic restoration in 2016. Instead, it triggered an internal class war. Can the party reconcile the demands of its donors with the interests of its rank and file?

 

The angriest and most pessimistic people in America aren’t the hipster protesters who flitted in and out of Occupy Wall Street. They aren’t the hashtavists of #BlackLivesMatter. They aren’t the remnants of the American labor movement or the savvy young dreamers who confront politicians with their American accents and un-American legal status.

The angriest and most pessimistic people in America are the people we used to call Middle Americans. Middle-class and middle-aged; not rich and not poor; people who are irked when asked to press 1 for English, and who wonder how white male became an accusation rather than a description.

You can measure their pessimism in polls that ask about their expectations for their lives—and for those of their children. On both counts, whites without a college degree express the bleakest view. You can see the effects of their despair in the new statistics describing horrifying rates of suicide and substance-abuse fatality among this same group, in middle age.

White Middle Americans express heavy mistrust of every institution in American society: not only government, but corporations, unions, even the political party they typically vote for—the Republican Party of Romney, Ryan, and McConnell, which they despise as a sad crew of weaklings and sellouts. They are pissed off. And when Donald Trump came along, they were the people who told the pollsters, “That’s my guy.”

They aren’t necessarily superconservative. They often don’t think in ideological terms at all. But they do strongly feel that life in this country used to be better for people like them—and they want that older country back.

You hear from people like them in many other democratic countries too. Across Europe, populist parties are delivering a message that combines defense of the welfare state with skepticism about immigration; that denounces the corruption of parliamentary democracy and also the risks of global capitalism. Some of these parties have a leftish flavor, like Italy’s Five Star Movement. Some are rooted to the right of center, like the U.K. Independence Party. Some descend from neofascists, like France’s National Front. Others trace their DNA to Communist parties, like Slovakia’s governing Direction–Social Democracy.

These populists seek to defend what the French call “acquired rights”—health care, pensions, and other programs that benefit older people—against bankers and technocrats who endlessly demand austerity; against migrants who make new claims and challenge accustomed ways; against a globalized market that depresses wages and benefits. In the United States, they lean Republican because they fear the Democrats want to take from them and redistribute to Americans who are newer, poorer, and in their view less deserving—to “spread the wealth around,” in candidate Barack Obama’s words to “Joe the Plumber” back in 2008. Yet they have come to fear more and more strongly that their party does not have their best interests at heart.

Against all evidence, GOP donors interpreted the Tea Party as a movement in favor of the agenda of the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

A majority of Republicans worry that corporations and the wealthy exert too much power. Their party leaders work to ensure that these same groups can exert even more. Mainstream Republicans were quite at ease with tax increases on households earning more than $250,000 in the aftermath of the Great Recession and the subsequent stimulus. Their congressional representatives had the opposite priorities. In 2008, many Republican primary voters had agreed with former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who wanted “their next president to remind them of the guy they work with, not the guy who laid them off.” But those Republicans did not count for much once the primaries ended, and normal politics resumed between the multicultural Democrats and a plutocratic GOP.

Above is from:  http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/01/the-great-republican-revolt/419118/?utm_source=nl__link1_122515