Rauner says he has plan to stop court-ordered spending

 

 

Gov. Rauner says he has plan to stop court-ordered spending, but offers no specifics

 

By Ivan Moreno and Ashley Lisenby, Associated Press 3 hours ago

 

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) -- Gov. Bruce Rauner said Monday he will outline a plan to get out from under court-ordered spending that's plunging Illinois further into debt during a seven-month budget stalemate.

Even without a budget, the state has been required to continue spending on things such as Medicaid and services for people with disabilities because of federal consent decrees and court orders.

Rauner said in an interview with The Associated Press that getting out from under those will "be a big part of our plan going forward," but he declined to offer specifics on his idea, which one analyst said would require court approval.

The new state legislative term begins Wednesday and the Republican governor is marking his first year in office Tuesday.

It's been a tumultuous year for the wealthy businessman who has battled with Democrats over the state's spending plan. It should've taken effect July 1.

Rauner has said a budget needs to include reforms he argues will help the state economy, such as curbing the power of unions and passing business-friendly laws. He also wants term limits and changes to how legislative districts are drawn every decade.

Democrats, who hold supermajorities in the Legislature, say they won't cave to some of Rauner's demands because it would hurt the middle class.

It's unclear how Rauner can get out of the court-mandated spending, which is running up a big tab on state expenditures. That's because the state is spending based on revenue levels from last year, when the individual Illinois income tax rate was at 5 percent, not the current rate of 3.75 percent. A recent report from the Governor's Office of Management and Budget says if the current spending levels continue without new taxes or the legislature cutting spending the deficit for the fiscal year ending in June will be $4.6 billion.

To get out of the court-ordered spending requirements, Rauner would have to show that the state is complying with spending for services the federal government has deemed essential, like caring for people with developmental and physical disabilities.

"He can't simply say we're not going to provide services people have a fundamental right to," said Ed Yohnka, director of communications and public policy for the American Civil Liberties Union in Illinois. Not having a budget will only make it harder for Rauner to show the state is complying with funding requirements, Yohnka said.

"If the governor has a magic wand he could wave today for the state to become complaint, we welcome him to use it. It doesn't exist," he said. "These are hard, persistent problems. You actually have to do it."

Rauner has said he's willing to discuss raising taxes, but only if lawmakers put some of his reforms in place.

"I have to be able to say to you, you're getting value for your taxes before I would ever discuss with you taking more of your money," Rauner said.

Rauner pinned the blame for the budget gridlock on Democrats who control the Legislature and said House Speaker Michael Madigan has been unwilling to compromise.

Steve Brown, spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan, said it was too early tell how Democrats would react to Rauner's idea of ending court-ordered spending. He took exception to Rauner's comments and noted Madigan has compromised, including as recently as last month when lawmakers and Rauner agreed to spend $3 billion from special funds. Some of that went to emergency dispatch call centers and 52 domestic-violence shelters.

"We have compromised. That's the point," Brown said.

Rauner also bemoaned the volume of insignificant bills passed by the Legislature, referring to the lawmaking body as a "do-nothing General Assembly." He criticized them for focusing on bills that don't deal with the state's problems, including addressing the state's $111 billion pension debt.

Lawmakers passed more than 500 bills last year, including one that Rauner signed into law making pumpkin pie the official state pie.

"Virtually none of them dealt with our problems," Rauner said of the bills. "And I love pumpkin pie, and I'm glad, I'm glad it's the state pie. I love it. But you know what? We have a pension crisis. They pass a pie bill. They don't pass a pension bill. Come on."

Brown also took issue with Rauner's comments, noting that some of the accomplishments the governor listed in a Sunday editorial in the (Springfield) State Journal-Register happened because of his collaboration with lawmakers.

"He contradicts himself," he said.

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What you need to know about Bernie Sanders

 

 

 

DEBORAH NISSLEY 2:13 p.m. EST January 10, 2016

I listened to one speech by Sanders and I knew this was a different kind of political race.

Deborah Nissley (Photo: .)

130 CONNECTTWEET 5 LINKEDIN 6 COMMENTEMAILMORE

As I have a Bernie Sanders 2016 bumper sticker on my car, I often get approached by people who are either angry or curious. What I have learned is people on the Eastern Shore are not too familiar with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and his political views.

•Most important to me is that Sanders is honest. Even his detractors say he is a man of his word. Listen to his speeches starting from the 1960s and you will see his philosophy does not change with the political wind.

•He is a man of the people. He raised $33 million in the last quarter of 2015, only $4 million less than Hillary Clinton. The big difference is the average donation to his campaign was $27.16, in contrast to Clinton’s Super PAC donations. One woman said after she paid her electric bill she had $3 left, which she donated to Sander’s campaign. This is typical of Sander’s donors.

•Bernie believes the Koch brothers shouldn’t own the political process. Did you know the Koch brothers want to do away with Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act and the minimum wage? Seventy-six percent of Americans do not want any cuts to Social Security; 81 percent of Americans do not want any cuts to Medicare. Sanders believes people who work a 40-hour week should earn a living wage.

•Sanders is an advocate for our environment. He promotes renewable energy policies.

•He has political experience, but he is not a typical politician. Sanders started his career by being elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont, for three terms. He was congressman and is now a senator from Vermont. He has the highest popularity rating of any senator. Actions speak louder than bombast.

•Sanders has worked tirelessly for better care for our veterans.

•People believe he can’t win against Hillary Clinton. But I believe that yes, he can. There is media bias toward Clinton. Sanders has a grassroots movement – look at the sheer number of contributions he receives. Polls show he can beat Donald Trump, too.

•Sanders is not looking for a welfare state. What he wants is to level the playing field, so people can become self-sufficient. He wants an end to corporate welfare. The gap between the wealthy and everybody else is wider than at any time since 1928, and Sanders wants to do something about that.

I am a voter, but have never before been excited about a presidential candidate. I listened to one speech by Bernie Sanders and I knew this was a different kind of political race.

What clinched it for me was a speech he gave to an ultraconservative college body, where he admitted that they would disagree with many of his views, but also said it was easy to talk only to people who agree with you, but it it is possible to find common ground in any gathering.

Deborah Nissley lives in Fairmount.

Tricia Smith’s stand on wind turbines

Shellfish decision: Rare mussel holds up repairs to Newburg Road bridge in Belvidere

Ben Stanley
Staff writer

Posted Jan. 7, 2016 at 4:52 PM
Updated Jan 7, 2016 at 7:35 PM

BELVIDERE — For the second time since 2013, a rare mollusk has delayed bridge repairs in Boone County.

The Belvidere Public Works Department's plan to repair concrete, add guard rails and replace expansion joints on the Newburg Road bridge 5 miles west of downtown will have to wait until 2017 while the Illinois Department of Natural Resources determines whether a colony of black sandshell mussels need to be removed from the Kishwaukee River.

"It’s just a delay," said Public Works Director Brent Anderson. "That whole process has to take place during the summer months … so we’re going to lose this construction season."

Anderson estimated the repairs will cost $500,000.

Black sandshell mussels are classified by the DNR as a threatened species in Illinois rivers. Native mussels like the black sandshell are natural water filters for river systems, filtering out diatoms and green algae. Their shells and even their waste are vital to river ecosystems.

"It affects water clarity when they die," said mussel expert Lisie Kitchel, a DNR conservation biologist. "These guys are really the kidneys, or filters, of the whole river system."

Mussels, particularly black sandshells, are very sensitive to water quality. They are one of the first species to go when rivers become polluted and one of the last to return when water quality improves.

Kitchel said the black sandshell population in northern Illinois is rebounding, but slowly.

"The fish come back first, then the insects ... and eventually the crayfish and last are the mussels," Kitchel said. "For rare species it takes longer to recover."

Kitchel said that until mussel populations rebound, a river system hasn’t returned to full health.

This isn't the first time a rare mussel has halted bridge repairs. In February 2012, a portion of a beam on the Orth Road bridge in Timberlane collapsed. While local officials intended to repair the bridge in 2013, the project was delayed for more than a year while state officials searched a small creek beneath the bridge for spike mussels.

Ben Stanley: 815-987-1369; bstanley@rrstar.com; @ben_j_stanley

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New Boone County Animal Services building eyes summer completion

By Adam Poulisse
Staff writer

Posted Jan. 10, 2016 at 7:00 AM
Updated at 8:23 PM

BELVIDERE — The new Boone County Animal Services building is expected to be completed by August, but it could happen sooner if weather permits.

Rockford Structures of Machesney Park will oversee the project. The company submitted the lowest of five bids, which were received since Dec. 2.

The building, which will be behind Heritage Woods of Belvidere off Squaw Prairie Road and McKinley Avenue, will cost about $1 million. That will cover the building, architect fees, water and sewer connections, furniture, equipment and a parking lot.

"Everything else is falling into place," County Administrator Ken Terrinoni said during Thursday's Health & Human Services Committee meeting. "They're out there staking the property. Now the weather's caught up to them, however."

Rockford Structures has a tentative mid-March groundbreaking date, or sooner if the ground thaws. It will accompany a groundbreaking ceremony.

In November 2014, 63 percent of voters approved a referendum to raise $800,000 through a property tax increase to pay for the building. The increase will last three years.

"This is a big thing for our county," committee member Cathy Ward said. "We've worked at this for years."

Funds are about $250,000 short. A $5 add-on dog tag fee, which started about two years ago, only generated $70,000 a year. The general fund will cover the difference, then the dog tag fee will repay the general fund over time, Terrinoni said.

The Animal Services building on Appleton Road is likely to be sold; the county hopes to get close to the original purchase price of $650,000, Terrinoni said. It's only 1,200 square feet; the new building will be about double that.

"It gives more working room," said Roger Tresemer, Boone County Animal Services operations supervisor. "This is a better housing area for the dogs and other animals we keep. It's much easier to sanitize, better ventilation, and it will be (a) better working environment for our staff."

In November, Animal Services received 20 dogs, three cats, a domesticated rabbit and one raccoon, according to a report Tresemer gave at Thursday's meeting. Twelve of the dogs were reclaimed, two were adopted, one was sent to rescue and four were euthanized. One dog is in a foster home. One of the cats was reclaimed and the other two were euthanized "for humane purposes due to health."

Adam Poulisse: 815-987-1344

ABOVE IS FROM:  http://www.rrstar.com/news/20160108/new-boone-county-animal-services-building-eyes-summer-completion

Mexico: Drug lord located thanks to interview with Sean Penn

 

 

CITY (AP) — The recapture of drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman took a surprise, Hollywood twist when a Mexican official said security forces located the whereabouts of the world's most-wanted trafficker thanks to a secret interview with U.S. actor Sean Penn.

 

Penn's interview with Guzman, who has twice escaped from Mexican maximum security prisons, appeared late Saturday on the website of Rolling Stone magazine. It was purportedly held at an undisclosed hideout in Mexico in late 2015, several months before Guzman's recapture Friday in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, after six months on the run.

In the interview, Guzman defends his work at the head of the world's biggest drug trafficking organization. When asked if he is to blame for high addiction rates, he responds: "No, that is false, because the day I don't exist, it's not going to decrease in any way at all. Drug trafficking? That's false."

In the article, Penn describes the elaborate security measures he took ahead of the clandestine meeting. But apparently they were not enough.

A Mexican federal law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to comment on the issue, told the Associated Press it was the Penn interview that led authorities to Guzman in a rural part of Durango state in October.

Authorities decided not to open fire on Guzman at the time because he was with two women and child. He was able to escape, but they were able to later track him to a house in Los Mochis where Mexican marines nabbed him after a shootout that left five people dead.

The official said the meeting between Penn and Guzman was held in Tamazula, a community in Durango state that neighbors Sinaloa, home of Guzman's drug cartel.

On Friday, Mexican Attorney General Arely Gomez said that Guzman's contact with actors and producers for a possible biopic helped give law enforcement a new lead on tracking and capturing the world's most notorious drug kingpin.

In the Rolling Stone article, Penn wrote that Guzman was interested in having a movie filmed on his life. He said Guzman wanted Mexican actress Kate del Castillo, who facilitated the meeting between the men, involved in the project.

"He was interested in seeing the story of his life told on film, but would entrust its telling only to Kate," wrote Penn, who appears in a photo posted with the interview shaking hands with Guzman whose face is uncovered.

There was no immediate response from Penn's representatives to the Mexican official's comments.

View gallery

FILE - In this Oct. 8, 2015 file photo, Sean Penn speaks during a forum with young entrepreneurs dur …

Earlier Saturday, a federal law enforcement official said that Mexico is willing to extradite Guzman to the United States, a sharp reversal from the official position after his last capture in 2014.

"Mexico is ready. There are plans to cooperate with the U.S.," said the Mexican official, who spoke on condition anonymity because he wasn't authorized to comment.

But he cautioned that there could be a lengthy wait before U.S. prosecutors can get their hands on Guzman, the most-wanted trafficker who was recaptured Friday after six months on the run: "You have to go through the judicial process, and the defense has its elements too."

Top officials in the party of President Enrique Pena Nieto also floated the idea of extradition, which they had flatly ruled out before Guzman's embarrassing escape from Mexico's top maximum security prison on July 11 — his second from a Mexican prison.

But even if Mexican officials agree, Guzman's attorney Juan Pablo Badillo told the Milenio newspaper that the defense already has filed six motions to challenge extradition requests.

Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is made to face the press as he is escorted to a helicopter in h …

"They can challenge the judge, challenge the probable cause, challenge the procedure," said Juan Masini, former U.S. Department of Justice attache at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico. "That's why it can take a long time. They won't challenge everything at once ... they can drip, drip, milk it that way."

Following his capture, the head of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel was brought to Mexico City's airport, frog-marched to a helicopter before news media, and flown back to the same prison he'd fled.

There were immediately calls for his quick extradition, just as there were after the February 2014 capture of Guzman, who faces drug-trafficking charges in several U.S. states. At the time, Mexico's government insisted it could handle the man who had already broken out of one maximum-security prison, saying he must pay his debt to Mexican society first.

Then-Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said the extradition would happen only after he finished his sentence in Mexico in "300 or 400 years."

Then Guzman escaped on July 11 under the noses of guards and prison officials at Mexico's most secure lock-up, slipping out an elaborate tunnel that showed the depth of the country's corruption while thoroughly embarrassing Pena Nieto's administration.

 

Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, right, is escorted by soldiers and marines to …

He also escaped a different maximum-security facility in 2001 while serving a 20-year sentence. Lore says he hid in a laundry cart, though many dispute that version. He spent 13 years on the lam.

Gomez said that one of Guzman's key tunnel builders led officials to the neighborhood in Los Mochis, where authorities had been watching for a month. The team noticed a lot of activity at the house Wednesday and the arrival of a car early Thursday morning. Authorities were able to determine that Guzman was inside the house, she said.

The marines were met with gunfire as they closed in.

Gomez said Guzman and his security chief, Ivan Gastelum, a.k.a "El Cholo Ivan," were able to flee via storm drains and escape through a manhole cover to the street, where they commandeered getaway cars. Marines climbed into the drains in pursuit. They closed in on the two men based on reports of stolen vehicles and they were arrested on the highway.

What happens now is crucial for Guzman, whose cartel smuggles multi-ton shipments of cocaine and marijuana as well as manufacturing and transporting methamphetamines and heroin, mostly to the U.S.

View gallery

Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is loaded into a marine helicopter at a federa …

According to a statement from the Mexican Attorney General's office, the U.S. filed extradition requests June 25, while Guzman was in custody, and another Sep. 3, after he escaped. The Mexican government determined they were valid within the extradition treaty and sent them to a panel of federal judges, who gave orders for detention on July 29 and Sept. 8, after Guzman had escaped.

Those orders were not for extradition but just for Guzman to begin the extradition hearing process. Now that he is recapture, Mexico has to start processing the extradition requests anew, according to the law.

The quickest he could be extradited would be six months, said a federal official who spoke on condition of anonymity, but it's not likely because lawyers file appeals. He said that they are usually turned down, but each one means a judge has to schedule a hearing.

"That can take weeks or months , and that delays the extradition," he said. "We've had cases that take six years."

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Sean Penn Secretly Interviewed ‘El Chapo,’ Mexican Drug Lord

Story below is from:  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/world/americas/el-chapo-mexican-drug-lord-interview-with-sean-penn.html?emc=edit_na_20160109&nlid=53444314&ref=cta&_r=0

 

Sean Penn Secretly Interviewed ‘El Chapo,’ Mexican Drug Lord

By RAVI SOMAIYAJAN. 9, 2016

 

The actor Sean Penn, left, and the drug lord Joaquín Guzmán Loera in a photo taken for interview authentication purposes. Credit Rolling Stone

 

Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the Mexican drug lord known as El Chapo, started out in business not long after turning 6, selling oranges and soft drinks. By 15, he said in an interview conducted in a jungle clearing by the actor and director Sean Penn for Rolling Stone magazine, he had begun to grow marijuana and poppies because there was no other way for his impoverished family to survive. 

Now, unapologetically, he said: “I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world. I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats.” 

Though his fortune, estimated at $1 billion, has come with a trail of blood, he does not consider himself a violent man. “Look, all I do is defend myself, nothing more,” he told Mr. Penn. “But do I start trouble? Never.”

 

The seven hours Mr. Guzmán spent with Mr. Penn, and the follow-up interviews by phone and video — which began in October while he was on the run — marked another surreal turn in his long-running effort to evade the Mexican and American authorities. Mr. Guzmán, one of the world’s most wanted fugitives, who had twice escaped jail, was captured in his home state of Sinaloa in northwest Mexico on Friday after a gun battle with the authorities.

Photo

Kate del Castillo and Sean Penn conducted the interview. Credit Left, Barry King/FilmMagic; Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Mr. Guzmán’s comments also mark a stark admission that he has operated a drug empire. Interviewed by a group of reporters in 1993 after a previous arrest, he denied that he engaged in drug dealing. “I’m a farmer,” he said, listing his produce as corn and beans. He denied that he used weapons or had significant funds.

The interview with Mr. Penn, believed to be the first Mr. Guzmán has given in decades, was published online Saturday night, along with a video portion of the interview.

The interviews were held in a jungle clearing atop a mountain at an undisclosed location in Mexico. Surrounded by more than 100 cartel troops, and wearing a silk shirt and pressed black jeans, Mr. Guzmán sat down to dinner with Mr. Penn and Kate del Castillo, a Mexican actress who once played a drug kingpin in the soap opera “La Reina del Sur,” according to Rolling Stone. 

 

Even though Mexican troops attacked his hide-out in the days after the meeting, necessitating a narrow escape, Mr. Guzmán continued the interview by BlackBerry Messenger and in a video delivered by courier to the pair later. 

The story provides new details on his dramatic escape from prison last summer, when he disappeared through a hole in his shower into a mile-long tunnel that some engineers estimated took more than a year and at least $1 million to build. The engineers, Mr. Penn wrote, had been flown to Germany for specialized training. A motorcycle on rails inside the tunnel had been modified to run in the low-oxygen environment, deep underground. 

Mr. Penn’s account is likely to deepen the concern among the Mexican authorities already embarrassed by Mr. Guzmán’s multiple escapes, the months required to find him again and his status for some as something of a folk hero. Mr. Penn describes being waved through a military road checkpoint on his way to meet Mr. Guzmán, which Mr. Penn suggested was because the soldiers recognized Mr. Guzmán’s son. Mr. Penn said he was also told, during a leg of the journey taken in a small plane equipped with a scrambling device for ground radar only, that the cartel was informed by an insider when the military deployed a high-altitude surveillance plane that might have spotted their movements. 

 

In the end, the Mexican authorities said Friday night that Mr. Guzmán had been caught partly because he had been planning a movie about his life, and had contacted actors and producers, which had helped the authorities to track him down. Mr. Penn’s story says Mr. Guzmán, inundated with Hollywood offers while in prison, had indeed elected to make his own movie. Ms. del Castillo, whom he contacted through his lawyer after she posted supportive messages on Twitter, was the only person he trusted to shepherd the project, the story says. Mr. Penn heard about the connection with Ms. del Castillo through a mutual acquaintance, and asked if he might do an interview. 

It is not clear whether the contacts described in the story are the ones that led to Mr. Guzmán’s arrest. Mr. Penn wrote that he had gone to great lengths to maintain security while arranging to meet Mr. Guzmán. He described labeling cheap “burner” phones, “one per contact, one per day, destroy, burn, buy, balancing levels of encryption, mirroring through Blackphones, anonymous email addresses, unsent messages accessed in draft form.” Nevertheless, he wrote, “There is no question in my mind but that DEA and the Mexican government are tracking our movements,” referring to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration. A Mexican government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe confidential matters, said the authorities were aware of the meeting with Mr. Penn.