Illinois: The Land of Self Reliance

JB Pritzker's gubernatorial win and retention of mostly Democrats in the Illinois General Assembly, as well as the 2018 victory of Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, is a signal to all the liberal think-tanks to come out of hiding and start reporting on the devastation left in the wake of the Rauner administration.

First, according to USA Today in a story posted way back in November of 2018, Illinois notoriously took three of the top 15 rankings for the worst cities for black Americans, Springfield ranking 11th.

I only noticed it because it was featured in an article by sj-r.com about the Springfield Mayoral race between incumbent Jim Langfelder and challenger Frank Edwards discussing the problems of race and economic inequality.

This evening as I was preparing a diatribe on the subject I stumbled upon yet another scathing criticism of Illinois, this time, about babies.

News channel 20 (WICS/WRSP) revealed that the report came from a non-profit called ZERO to THREE. Here is the link to the Illinois page on that site. Before you click, take a deep breath because there is lots of data.

Hillary Clinton said "it takes a village." Everyone scoffed. She lost. Mother is supposed to be home to nurture the children 24-7. Dear old Dad comes home at the end of a hard day's work and dolls out allowances and pays the bills.Then Mother gets on her knees and then bends over and such, right? Isn't that why our laws are written the way they have been since the birth of the nation?

Life isn't supposed to be more complicated than that! If it is, it because of what, sinners? I thought you were pro-life? Life doesn't just end at birth, fellas.

Dealing with race in Springfield? When I was in history class at Grant Middle School, I cringed when I learned about slavery because I wondered how my black classmates felt hearing about it. It must have filled them with immense hatred and fear.

I've come to regard the history lessons themselves, of slavery and Jim Crow, as acts of intimidation and terror, because I have met and become friends with people from Africa who never experienced what happened to African Americans, and they seem to thrive in their family businesses without a moment's thought of what white people think of them,

Rahm Wants Illinois To Raise The Gas Tax

Chicago Tribune: Mayor Rahm Emanuel pushes state gas tax increase to fund major transportation bill 

I've been saying "sure, why not, just base it on miles of road per county." Well guess what I found at IDOT's website: Illinois Travel Statistics.

It's clear who needs the most infrastructure repair yearly. It's also clear where most people gas up their cars weekly. Proportionally, Cook county has the highest amount of road usage, at least four times that of the next highest county, DuPage. Beyond the top 13 in the chart, the rest pales by comparison, plus Cook county has the highest cost of living.

It won't really hurt the rich, but a gas tax is regressive and especially hurtful for people down-state who must commute 45 minutes to work or more than 10 miles to the nearest grocery store.

Bruce Rauner and the Death Penalty

Some people are saying that Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner added to a bill, the return of the Death Penalty, to ensure the bill was too toxic to pass through the Illinois General Assembly.

Some people are saying the Bruce Rauner wants a return to the Death Penalty in Illinois as a deterrent to crime, which has long been debunked, because as you should all know by now, people who commit crimes worthy of the death penalty, in states that already had the death penalty on the books, don't have the mental capacity to consider the consequences of their actions anyway.

Perhaps the state should eliminate the HIPPA regulations and open everyone's criminal and psychological records, regardless of age, and single-out clinically diagnosed psychopaths, for immediate extermination. Given Rauner's record, this might be a problem for him personally.

On April 28, 2018, the Illinois Innocence Project held a fundraiser at the Crowne Plaza in Springfield, Illinois. Featured Speakers included Co-Counsel to Steven Avery who was featured in the Netflix Documentary "Making a Murderer", Jerome F. Buting of William & Stilling S. C. of Brookfield, Wisconsin. Author of "Illusion of Justice"

Among the stunning and shocking accounts of miscarriages of justice that were told that night, was the case of Grover Thompson. He walked right into the path of Tim Krajcir and one of Tim's many victims. Of course, Grover was arrested and convicted instead of Tim. Grover died in prison 15 years later.

After all the evidence proved that Grover was innocent, Governor Rauner still denied his exoneration. Why? He probably thinks the state will have to pay the family a huge settlement, which they are due. Why else? I have no idea why Governor Rauner thinks the Illinois Innocence Project doesn't have credibility in his mind, unless he fears what they will find out about him.

As a former member of the IIP, one who learned how to research criminals, I now have an interest in Governor Rauner, personally.

City Sales Tax Issue

The State Journal-Register reported "At least half of Springfield aldermen oppose raising sales tax" apparently to 8.75%. Springfield has a population around 115,715. Seattle, Washington has an official population of 608,660 as of the 2010 census, but the wider metro area has a population of at least 3.5 million people. The state of Washington has no income tax. Seattle has a sales tax of 9.6%. 6.5% of which goes to the state, 2.7% goes to the city of Seattle.

Currently, Springfield's sales tax rate is 6.25% but the total combined city, county and state sales tax is already at 8.5%, plus there's an income tax rate ranging from 3.75% to 4.95%.

The problem: Population shrinkage. According to the Federal Reserve Economic Database (FRED), The civilian labor force in Springfield, Illinois peaked in 2010 and as of November 2017, was at the level it was in 2005, and continuing to decline.

[edit] Looking at the Per Capita Personal Income in Springfield, IL (MSA) shows a steady increase since 1970, but this chart relies on whose data is collected. It could reflect the growth of income inequality. In other words, poor people earning less while wealthy people earn more. Wages have been stagnant over the last 30 years, while capital gains increased dramatically.

The unemployment rate in Springfield, IL according to FRED seems to be declining almost in a similar fashion as the Civilian Workforce, meaning the unemployment rate is lower because there are fewer jobs and fewer people.

So, imagine what a tax increase would do to Springfield. Some factors include the following:

• People inextricably tied to their home because the mortgage is "underwater" or there are no buyers looking.
• People in retirement or nursing care facilities on fixed incomes.
• People inextricably tied to a government job that requires them to reside in or around Springfield.
• Businesses whose customers are most frequently the people listed above.
• Crain's: Slow growth, aging population plaguing Illinois.

Eventually, the tax burden will fall on who remains in town. It might be wise to relocate people away from the oldest, most vulnerable infrastructure and close off those older parts of Springfield until such a time as industry returns to the area.

As Economy Slides Schisms Heal Maybe

This will never happen in the realm of Lincoln history, between the State Historic Preservation Agency, the Illinois State Historical Society, the historians who take sides on whether Mary Todd Lincoln was aware of her actions or if she was suffering from Diabetes, whether her letters to family in the south included military secrets or not, and so on.

The Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce (GSCC), according to the article in the Illinois State Journal-Register, has endorsed consolidating efforts to develop the local economy. The caveat is that it "would be up to individual investors," whatever that means.

The city gives $100,000 to the GSCC annually. One online commenter said it was at the expense of the overtime police budget. It's bound to be at the expense of someone.

Consolidation of economic development efforts is a huge opportunity for a big money grab. Some people will get hired at exorbitant salaries, probably kicking some coin under the table for the big favor. Hey, it's Illinois, after all.

The ebb and flow of schisms where large sums of public money are concerned is starting to smell a little contrived, but such a long con job would require a team effort among some very safely entrenched families, not just within the local area, but the whole state.

Maybe my imagination is running away from me. We were all taught as children to treat others as we would want them to treat us, so naturally, I assumed that people actually did that. Naively I thought Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism was just that, a philosophy, and not the reality of human behavior where self-service and self-preservation always supersede altruism.

The Prodigal Son Returns

West Washington State was good for a while, but in mid 2015 the cost of housing, utilities, food, and other staples nearly doubled while wages stagnated.

The city of Seattle is in the process of raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour, but if the federal minimum wage was pegged to inflation from the mid-1960's it would be well over $20 per hour by now.

Things are just getting too expensive out here. Luckily I have a family that loves and mostly tolerates me back in the midwest so I'm coming home.

I'm going to dust off this old blog and start catching up on what's going on around Springfield, Illinois.

• I wonder what the gangs are like?
• What do the people west of MacArthur call the people east of MacArthur?
• I wonder if the class line has moved from MacArthur to Old Chatham Road? I know it moved from 5th Street to MacArthur when they built Veterans Parkway, it made a nice socioeconomic barrier. Maybe it happened when they developed Falling Brook
• Will anyone send me leaked dirt on local and state politics? Did someone  already start a blog called Springy Leaks? The reports must be worded in such as way that the sources are not exposed.and the subjects are not specifically identified.
• Could I get a regular full time job as a media analyst in Springfield?

I'm preparing to sell all of my stuff here as I prepare to move home so it will take a while, but I'm coming home.

Addiction stimulates the economy in Illinois

The Chicago Tribune on November 11, 2010 published an article Gambling our way to prosperity? in which the lame duck session of the Illinois Legislature is "expected to push through legislation expanding casinos in the state" following on the heels of recent legislation that legalized video poker.

Meanwhile, another issue reported about, but kept carefully apart from the gambling issue by time and/or space is the fact that the Illinois Department of Human Services seems to be suffering the most when the state's budget is being cut. The World Socialist Web Site focused on this issue in an article titled Illinois budget cuts gouge education, social services back in July of 2010. This article pointed out that mental health was primarily targeted:

The largest of the detailed spending cuts was made to the Department of Human Services, which is to lose $312.6 million, or nearly 8 percent of its funding. Although these cuts are expected to impact a wide variety of programs, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that programs for the mentally ill and developmentally disabled were particularly targeted. -- http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jul2010/illi-j09.shtml

When these two issues are kept at a distance from one-another, it's easy to overlook their engineered interactivity. When considering the reaction of the business community to the state-wide smoking ban, one can get a sense of the motivation and back-room influence the business community has on the state's decision to most severely cut the budget of the Illinois Department of Human Services in the area of addiction, whether it be substance or behavior.

Mental health services deal with such economically influential addictions as gambling, over-indulging in consumption of mind-altering chemicals, food, and even hoarding. The Department of Human Services particularly deals with people who can't afford to pay for private assistance in these matters.

So it's easy to conclude that providing such services has a two-fold negative effect on the state's economy. First, it costs the state to help people fight their addictions, and secondly it costs the economy to have people gain control of their addictions and rein-in their spending habits, thus reducing the state's tax revenues through sales taxes on such things as cigarettes, alcohol, the state lottery, and even the revenues gained by law enforcement seizing drug money.

So when wondering about half-hearted attempts at law enforcement, national border security, the war on drugs, and the poor treatment of the good people at the Department of Human Services, just follow the money.

Computus Interruptus

You get frustrated when you have to do work, especially when you have one of those really boring jobs at a state agency and you don't feel like quitting in the middle of computer solitaire or World of Warcraft, The solution becomes old-school.

You write your assignments long-hand on paper and pass them to an office clerk to type for you. It's that simple! You can continue your awesome hand in Solitaire, position in chess, or battle whatever. You and your computer can while-away the hours until theclock strikes three-thirty, then off you go to enjoy the rest of the sunny day.

So what if the office clerk has assumed more responsibilities due to budget cuts, or that even your own boss and everyone else types their own memos because they have computers! It's your life to take by the reins and galivant.

The problem is you are wasting valuable taxpayer dollars, and wasting paper. Ruining the environment by using excess paper and performing redundant tasks adds up to serious waste over time.

So stop it!

Stop tearing off a sheet of paper, writing something that should be typed by you, then handing it off to someone else to repeat what you just wrote, on their computer. Type your own damn Shit!

Consequences of laying off employees.

People are getting laid off so they can be replaced by entry-level low wage workers who will have absolutely no spending power, and from whom the city and state won't be able to extract tax revenue.

Businesses are collectively sinking their own ships to try and economically reduce government.

The timing is different for each business, between the time a business cuts it's costs by laying off employees and when the negative consequences occur, but in every case the delay is long enough for the cause of those negative consequences to be vaguely blamed on "the economy," rather than the businesses own practice.

The state and city cut a tiny bit deeper into it's own throat by laying off highly paid government workers. The tax loss won't be felt for a while, but it's inevitable.

The shock to the local private sector economy is three-fold for every government worker laid off, by virtue that most government employees are paid at least twice the private sector average wage, even more if you include benefits.

No customers, intermittent fire and police protection, utilities rendered unreliable, If you own your own business and you own the building too, you've doomed yourselves.

My advice is to continue to hype the local economy long enough to sell your business. Oh, sorry about giving away that secret.

S.A.P. Sapping the state retirement fund.

Did you know that the Illinois Supreme Court has a historic preservation program? Back in August of 2007 an act was passed that funneled five million dollars ($5,000,000.00) of state funds into the program (705 ILCS 17/20-c).

I never heard of the program, but the fantastic thing is that it creates nine jobs, all of which are appointed by the Governor, President of the Senate, and Speaker of the house (705 ILCS 17/10, 1-5).

But don’t worry, nobody gets a salary (705 ILCS 17/10 – 5(g)) “The members of the Commission shall receive no compensation for their service, except for their actual expenses while in the discharge of their official duties.” What ever that means, they get to hire staff (705 ILCS 17/20).

I suppose that’s the point leading to my next little steaming nugget.

I heard many times about a bad habit from inside sources, (yes, I have inside sources) there’s a bad habit going around the state I call the State Accelerated Pre-Retirement Promotion method of draining the state’s pension system. People who are close to retirement are getting promoted so their pensions will be much larger than they would be naturally through normal merit based promotions.

It’s not enough that state employees already make such incredibly rich salaries on the backs of poverty level private sector taxpayers that make up nearly one-third of the state’s population; they need to rub it in by appropriating funds away from social programs that subsidize corporations that pay low wages.

Besides that, why is there a separate historic preservation commission away from the Illinois State Historic Preservation Agency? Is that not a little redundant? How many other redundancies are there like this?

Source: (705 ILCS 17/) Supreme Court Historic Preservation Act.
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=2924&ChapAct=705%26nbsp%3BILCS%26nbsp%3B17%2F&ChapterID=50&ChapterName=COURTS&ActName=Supreme+Court+Historic+Preservation+Act.

Ashland Incident poised to bring down Illinois

The subterranean infrastructure of Illinois politics is about to get another exposure.

The dirty dealings that got former Governor George Ryan Convicted and then former Governor Rod Blagojevich Impeached, is about to be exposed again through it's lack of action regarding the murder of Steve Watkins in Ashland, Illinois over nine months ago.

According to DIMFI.com, the Cass County State's Attorney passed the case off to the Illinois State’s Attorney’s Appellate Prosecutor’s Office, which is said by some people to be a place where cases go to die.

Where they thinking Steve Watkins had no next-of-kin?

The Appellate Prosecutor's office is currently occupied by an individual who, while a Sangamon County Assistant State's Attorney, charged someone with murder who was then incarcerated, but not prosecuted. The state supreme court let the suspect go on for being incarcerated for too long.

This case will grow to include questions about the higher-ups who employed those responsible for investigating and prosecuting this case. The relentless vine of justice climbs higher every day. Every day, Mark Thoma updates the status of the Steve Watkins case from 3 to 6 P.M. on WMAY AM 970

Food at the Illinois State Fair

It's irresistible!

Railroad Closures and Bypasses

Here is a map of the proposed railroad closures that also includes routes that bypass the tracks.


View Railroad Closings in a larger map

Rally against Racism in Springfield, Illinois.

August 5, 2009 at 5:00 P.M.

We gathered in front of the Municipal building today to protest bigotry and hatred.

Click on the slide show to go to the main album. There you will be able to look at larger pictures.



Photos from the rally in Springfield taken by Fred Slocombe.

Red Springfield

In Red Springfield:
• Government wages are equal to the minimum wage and anyone who is deemed qualified to serve the people in a specific role is drafted for no more or less than the time it takes to find someone of equal or better qualifications. Offices may be totally vacated or reoccupied by bureaucrats at the whim of the people. Voting cycles are forty eight hours and will take place on Facebook.com

• Laws regarding yellow lines on the road will also be enforced in private parking lots. Especially the yellow curved line behind the County Market on White Oaks Drive. You will stay to the right of the curved yellow line as you enter the rear of the parking lot or lose toilet paper privileges.

• All Public School children wear uniforms to school that look exactly the same.

• All Public Schools have separate classrooms for boys and girls.

• Busing will no longer exist as the entire city is desegregated.

• Everyone will be issued a wheelbarrow, shovel and pick. There will be work for all.

I'm sure there's more. What is your ideal Red Springfield?

Into Infamy

There's more at my VLOG on YouTube

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Rod Blagojevich Is a Jagoff

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=213346&title=rod-blagojevich-is-a-jagoff

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Rod Blagojevich Is Arrested

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/213518/december-09-2008/rod-blagojevich-is-arrested



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scNyb2fFEDQ


EVEN IN RUSSIA!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WufABzp4lno&eurl=http://spfld.net/main.html&feature=player_embedded

Suddenly in Springfield

There's talk of spending millions of dollars on infrastructure replacement in Springfield, Illinois. The trend has been to use the claim of infrastructure maintenance necessity to justify sudden massive increases in utility rates in the city.

I contend that such maintenance requirements are common knowledge and should have been included in already existing taxes and fees. Therefore, I conclude that corruption is rampant on a scale that requires federal intervention.

The city of Springfield has an old generation that spent huge amounts of money to build Springfield right after World War II, and when they were done, they sat back and retired, and complained bitterly about taxes.

They didn't want to pay taxes and their politicians promised not to raise taxes, and now that they are all dying off, they can go peacefully without a worry for themselves, or so they thought.

Suddenly, money is needed to fix things. Now water, sewer and other city service charges are doubled, tripled, or quadrupled. Why? Those idiots didn't want their taxes increased to create a surplus for such needed maintenance. If they allowed for a gradual increase in taxes to maintain a budget surplus in anticipation of repair or infrastructure growth, there would be no issue here. The money would be available.

If the budget was planned properly and there was still a need for sudden increases in fees by the city, than a federal investigation needs to be initiated, and people jailed for stealing the money.

So what is the solution? Leave Springfield, Illinois. Move out. Those who leave now will join others who left when schools were desegregated.

The commutes to work will be longer and harder. Sales taxes locally will be the only way to shore up the city coffers.

The flipside is the gentrification of Springfield. The only people who will stay will be those that can afford it. But I have bad news. More than two-thirds of the population of Springfield earns less than ten dollars per hour.

Allegedly local business owners have influence with local politicians. Did they influence local politicians into keeping past utility rates too low? Do the majority of these local business owners actually live within the Springfield city limits?

If the majority of the local business owners reside elsewhere, they might be inclined to think they will suffer no long-term consequences for dangerously low utility rates and city taxes. They can pull up stakes and move elsewhere, that's why most of them only lease the property upon which they do business.

Except for farming, SPFLD's well of commerce is drying up, my friends.

Newspaper Buckles!

Let me begin by telling you my story. I was laid off from AT&T Cable Advertising in South Bend Indiana in 2001, when they sold my Photo Clasified Channel to the Warner Brothers Network. The sale was a deal sweetener to sell the entire South Bend cable operation to Comcast.

Six years later I make a phone call to the old office, checking up on my employment references. To my astonishment, the only person left at the South Bend Cable Advertising office was the office manager. No, not the General Manager, the office administration manager!

Comcast completely cleared the slate when they bought the cable operation, I was only the proverbial "canary in the coal mine." Now everything at South Bend is controlled out of Indianapolis.

Now, Back to SPFLD and the State Journal Register.

BlogFreeSpringfield.com reports that some top managers have resigned. My guess is that editorial control is going completely electronic and remote. The local material will probably come from some "good" local freelance writers.

Local divisions such as the Business and Food section appear to already be using more nationally syndicated material from outside the community, and local artists, writers and photographers appear to be utilized less.

The shift in ad space toward the big multinational clients, especially pharmaceuticals, is attempting to appeal to an older audience of newspaper subscribers. There might even be a shift in the types of investments that get more attention in the business section. More like television these days, daily and weekly print media outlets serve only themselves.

At the cable company, I found out my channel was going to be sold by reading about it in the newspaper, over a month before I was supposed to get my two-week termination notice. Out of kindness I stayed and kept the operation going until the very end. My boss told me I helped bring in $500,000.00 in annual revenues.

The only benefit was a mild severance package and unemployment insurance. If I had resigned, I would not be in a position to bargain for anything. And I'm sure neither was anyone at Michiana Cable Advertising when the Comcast tsunami hit.

Everyone I knew there is gone. They were pretty good friends and I miss them, but when I was laid off, they treated me like a Leper. I’m sure they regret it now that they realize the precariousness of their own employment security. How is your job security, my media friends?

Now I extend an open invitation to those emancipated from the Illinois State Journal Register: Come hither and build SPFLD.net, we the media outcasts shall take the Internet, and overcome the mainstream corporate behemoths!