The Midwest as a whole received relatively high grades in an annual rating of states’ manufacturing industries, but Illinois’ manufacturing sector is still struggling due to an unpredictable economic climate and unfunded public liabilities.

The 2017 Manufacturing & Logistics Report Card gave Illinois a “C+” for the overall health of its manufacturing industries, but the state earned a “D” in the “Tax Climate” category and an “F” in “Expected Fiscal Liability Gap.” That latter estimates the state’s ability – or inability – to fund bond obligations and pension costs.

Illinois also received an average grade – “C+” – in “Human Capital,” which measures the education level of the state’s workforce in an effort to gauge how well it is serving manufacturers.

The study gave Michigan an “A” for the health of its manufacturing sector, while Ohio and Wisconsin both received “B” grades.

Mark Denzler, vice president and chief operating officer of the Illinois Manufacturers Association, echoed some of the points made in the Ball University study.

“Manufacturing is alive in Illinois,” Denzler told Illinois News Network, noting that manufacturers in the state employ about 570,000 people. “However, it is struggling.”

The state’s strengths include good colleges and universities and a great transit system, according to Denzler.

“Seventy-five percent of the nation’s freight comes through Illinois,” he said.

But an out-migration of jobs to other states and workers compensation costs that are the highest in the Midwest and eighth highest in the country continue to add to the state’s economic uncertainties, Denzler said.

Although Denzler said today’s manufacturing workforce in Illinois is second to none, the employers continue to deal with a skills gap as they try to hire new workers. Manufacturers need to hire 20,000 to 25,000 production workers and 5,000 engineers every year just to remain at a constant level, he said.

“The governor has put a focus on vocational education and trying to provide workers with the skills needed,” Denzler said, but lately there has been no money for job-training programs.

Manufacturers have some advantages in the near future, including a growing advanced-manufacturing industry around the Chicago area, he said. But the state needs major structural reforms and begin to live within its means, according to Denzler.

“Quite frankly, Illinois needs to change its focus moving forward,” he said.

Illinois did end it’s more than two-year-long budget stalemate last week, but it came at a high cost to both businesses and workers, who will both see tax increases.

“[Last week’s] action by the Illinois legislature will speed up the loss of manufacturing jobs and will further decimate our economy,” Greg Baise, president and CEO of the Illinois Manufacturers Association, said shortly after the state House voted to override Gov. Bruce Rauner’s vetoes of the tax hikes and budget bills.

Those knowledgeable about the manufacturing industries in other Midwest states questioned some of the conclusions in the Ball State University study. Kurt Bauer, president and CEO of Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, took issue with the state’s “C-” grade in the “Tax Climate” category.

“I don’t think the Ball State report recognizes that Wisconsin’s Manufacturers and Agricultural Production Tax Credit reduces the corporate tax liability for qualifying companies from 7.9 percent to 0.4 percent,” Bauer said in an email to Illinois News Network. “Combine that with our right-to-work status and our recent regulatory and litigation reforms, and Wisconsin is clearly one of the most attractive states for manufacturing in the U.S.”

All of Illinois’ neighbors are right-to-work states – meaning employees can opt out of joining a union if they choose – which is another competitive disadvantage.

Professor Edward Hill, a faculty member at the Ohio Manufacturing Institute, took issue with some of the variables the study used to give Ohio a “C-” in “Human Capital.” The six states receiving “A” grades in this category were Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Washington.

“There are good manufacturers in many of these states, but none, with the exception of Washington and possibly Minnesota, can be claimed as centers of exceptionally skilled pools of manufacturing workers,” Hill said.

Still, Ohio is not doing particularly well in providing the type of skilled workers manufacturers need, he said, but all states likely have this problem.

“Manufacturers themselves are just waking up and taking ownership of the problem … and reinventing secondary and community college manufacturing training programs,” Hill said.

In Ohio, major employers such as Honda, Minster Machine, Lincoln Electric and Yaskawa Motoman are working hand-in-hand with educators to turn out a more skilled workforce, he said.

“We will see progress over the coming year,” Hill said.

Though Michigan was rated a top performer in manufacturing, it received “D” grades in both “Human Capital” and “Sector Diversification” in the Ball State study.

“It’s all tuned to just transportation,” Devaraj said, adding that the lack of diversification in Michigan’s manufacturing economy means that if any shocks hit that industry, the impact for the state as a whole will be major.

Recently released economic forecasts for Michigan have been positive. A University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, study said that the state recorded 28 straight quarters of payroll growth through the first quarter of 2017. But job growth should moderate through 2018, the report said.

“Manufacturing employment declines modestly over the forecast, reflecting the slowdown in the light vehicle sector,” the University of Michigan forecast said.

Devaraj stressed that manufacturing remains a key player in the U.S. economy, even as productivity gains have held down employment growth. Increased skill attainment by workers will help lower the risk of them being replaced by automation, he said.

“In reality, things are going really well in terms of manufacturing,” Devaraj said.

Back in Illinois, the state earned an “A” for the health of its logistics industries. That was due to a number of Illinois’ assets, including its central location, the value of shipped goods in the state and an efficient transportation system.

“Chicago is leading the pack in terms of the commodities flows,” Devaraj told Illinois News Network.

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“Of more worth is one honest man to society and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.”

– Thomas Paine, Common Sense, January 10, 1776

The year was 1776 and the time had come for Americans to assert their independence from the British. This was the topic of contentious debate throughout the colonies in the summer of 1776. Though locked in a bloody struggle with British troops, the talk was not about battles won or lost. People gathered, in townships, villages, taverns and churches, to talk about one thing: Common Sense. This was the title of a scholarly pamphlet on the rights of man which captivated a country caught between war and peace. Its powerful arguments against empirical rule were both revered and questioned, which provoked oracular thought throughout the anxious colonies between loyalists and patriots.

“The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms, like laws, discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe.”

– Paine

At the time, few knew who the author of this work was. Yet this enlightenment text was dramatically changing the attitude of many Americans toward their conflict with the English. At one time or the other, one of the political or intellectual elites was credited with the prodigious work of Paine since he never stepped forward to claim it. Paine knew a true leader remains anonymous so the people will believe they were the ones responsible for this new breed of insurgent thinking. He was keenly aware after watching revolutionaries across Europe; nobody can plan revolutionary change. It is a spontaneous combustion that is ignited by thought-provoking idealism. And Paine was so gifted to plant those seedlings that could be cultivated in the minds, hearts and souls of many others.

“One encourages intercourse, and promotes our happiness by uniting our affections.”

–Paine

Despite his humble beginning, Paine was admired and respected by founders such as George Washington, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson. Yet, his workingman’s perspective threatened the elites who wanted to design a government primarily to benefit aristocrats. To some, Tom Paine was the most hated man in America, and others, a light in the wilderness for those who sought direction, courage and leadership. Those who loved him for his benefaction of guidance saw Paine as the patriot that he was. And those who hated him thought of him as a trouble maker stroking his eccentric ego for indulgent narcissistic causes. And much of the legacy of that apprehensive animosity lives on by activist groups for one who thinks sovereign from them. They chasten those like Tom Paine who fail to court their compatriots.

“Character is much easier kept than recovered.”

– Paine

Paine had an unselfish ability to keep fellow patriots aligned for the common cause. Many feel his greatest contribution to our liberty was Common Sense, which demeaned the authority of the British and the royal monarchy. It was that pamphlet that brought the breath of freedom to the embers of independence. But few comprehend the significance of Paine’s The American Crisis. Paine wrote these articles during the Revolutionary War. His unrelenting inspiration for American patriots during this inexorable crisis kept the blood of liberty flowing freely in their veins. George Washington was so moved he recited The Crisis word for word to his sullen troops at Valley Forge.

“Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.”

– Paine

Paine rallied troops at The Battle of Saratoga, which is considered the turning point for America in the War. They stopped the southern advance of the British, which brought them French support.  Although this was a cardinal victory, their problems remained incessant. By 1781, the Continental Congress was bankrupt. Citizen support was dwindling faster than the English could enact a new tax. Army desertions were common place. The army was indigent and no longer united because the generals blamed others for this chaos. And once again Paine stepped forward and galvanized the troops. In 1781 at Yorktown, Paine motivated them to fight their best fight and they answered with their greatest victory. The colonies beheaded the great British Goliath to end the war.

“The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.”

– Paine

Throughout the decades, America has faced insurmountable crisis. But in those darkest of hours, a Thomas Paine stepped up to find a way to reignite the founding flames of republicanism. Many felt The Civil War would forever dis-unify our country once the last cannons fired at Palmito Ranch in 1865. Yet the day word reached the south that Lincoln had been assassinated, one southern telegraph operator saw this as a signal to begin the healing. And the entire south joined him. As word spread from the plains of Texas to the farms of Virginia that Lincoln had died, church bells rang for their fallen enemy.

“An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot.”

– Paine

Again, America is in crisis. It’s a crisis planted in American polity with the election of Barack Obama and his socialization of the republic. When voters rebelled and elected Donald Trump, the left cried he was unfit for the presidency; just as the right had claimed about Obama. Each party can make a case but that isn’t the crisis, only a symptom of it. This won’t be resolved until the elitists are removed from party politics. Leftist elitists supported Obama whose agenda few ever wanted. And cynical voters then choose a man who ran against party elites. That signals to both parties, elites are the real problem.

“It’s the duty of every patriot to protect his country from its government.”

– Paine

The elitists have always moved policy, yet the average voter doesn’t realize this. In the past, party elites imposed their authority to benefit their pocketbooks. In a capitalist society, as long as voters benefit from the profits of industry they go along to get along. But party elites went too far under Obama. Leftist elites crossed over the path and those on the right counter-reacted. When far left elites endorsed social engineering to romance the progressives, party politics replaced the will of the people in government. With each invented crisis to gain support from his flock, Obama drove a wedge between the two parties and true republicanism that even Tom Paine would find difficult to close.

“Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness.”

– Paine

After Obama’s reign, the two parties took sides and refused to back down. There’s a learning curve for every president and its far steeper without political experience. Obama had political experience, so one would think he could learn the job competently. But that never happened. From the day he took office, he acted like the bully in the school yard who cries “it’s my ball so we play my game or you can go home.” On the other hand, Trump had no political experience and is learning the art of governing the hard way; yet from day one the left has been bashing his inexperience inexorably. Elitists in his party excoriate him the worst.

“He who dares not offend cannot be honest.”

– Paine

The elitists have painted us into a corner. To them, the only way to end this one crisis is to remove Trump from office with no constitutional justification or collective voter consent to appease the left. To subject the right to this punishment will not only acerbate the crisis in American polarity, it will prove that our democratic republic has lost all legitimacy. We need a group of Tom Paines to step forward and take back our government from the elites to end this crisis forever.

“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.”

– Paine

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“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

– Francis Bellamy

Those that crossed the Mason-Dixon Line to work in the Civil Rights Movement were shocked to experience denial of justice and the violation of their Constitutional rights. They entered a twilight zone in a mythical Orwellian novel. They gathered from around the U.S. for an adventure few knew little about. Some wandered to the delta of the Mississippi, the red hills of Georgia, and war zones of Montgomery to Selma for conviviality. Others came to listen to Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and Joan Baez. But by the time they navigated Highway 61 back to the North, they knew why they’d ventured south.

“A nation that denies equal access to justice is a prison of malcontents.”

– William Howard

The Civil Rights Movement has taken on an air of inevitability in the popular imagination. Far too many have reduced its significance to a few heroic figures and the words “I have a dream.” The true purpose of the Civil Rights Movement has been distorted and romanced into something each individual, secular, political or religious group wished it to be for convenience or condemnation. The Civil Rights Movement had only one salient, underlying purpose: To banish the practice of denying equal justice to all Americans. Those ideals are embedded in every founding document. It remains an enigma why so many distort its historical significance, with false narratives promoted by liberal race baiters, media pundits and politicians.

“The true rule of law and justice in a judicial system is one in which the rights of some are not secured by the denial of rights to others.”

– John Seales

Three documents, known collectively as the Charters of Freedom, have secured the rights of all Americans for over two centuries and are considered instrumental to our founding and philosophy of our nation. These are The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and The Bill of Rights. In each founding document, they guarantee us equal rights and equal access to justice, which is the most indispensable right of all. Without access to justice, none of our rights are guaranteed or protected. Any American who does not covet their right of expedient access to justice is forsaking liberty. If we don’t protect that one right, it’s impossible to defend all others.

“The patriot volunteer, fighting for country and his rights, makes the most reliable soldier on earth.”

– Stonewall Jackson

Americans are continually at the mercy of lesser magistrates who cowardly subvert the provisions in our founding documents to deliver justice. Our right to justice is guaranteed by the Department of Justice, yet government subordinates regularly invent ways to abridge them. We hear about this on TV, see it in the fish-wrap and social media during high-profile trials, but hear little about the denial of justice by our local governments. We permit this to happen daily, yet this is a federal right and is disciplined by the DOJ!

“America was founded upon the doctrine of equal rights. Its cornerstone is the principle every man is endowed with access to equal justice to defend them.”

– Randal Hall

In hearing rooms across this nation, questionable legal practices are being reported to the DOJ to expose a miscarriage of justice in court proceedings. If a litigant cannot afford a high priced mouth-piece, they are appointed counsel. If they foresee an unfair advantage for the defense, they seek a change in venue, dispose of a capricious juror and recuse a judge. Although this is not a perfect system, most Americans have a fighting chance to improve their access to unabridged justice in our courts when they suspect malpractice. Even a green horn public defender will point out abuses of statutory protections to insure his client has access to justice.

– “Today, there are few times we are powerless to prevent injustice, but we must possess the knowledge on how to do so.”

– May Willard

The biggest offenders are not criminal or civil courts. We’ve all heard about the speed traps in our local “one-blink-of-the-eye speed limit signs” in rural townships. Although America has its fair share, they pale in comparison to the rights we thought we had and found out we didn’t have in local and state governments. These are rights denied at what are billed “informal hearings.” The only thing informal about these proceedings is how “informally” you find out they were anything but “informal.” Once a gavel is dropped, and the magistrate makes his decision, more times than not, you leave this “informal hearing” wondering if you just appeared before Judge Judy in a kangaroo court.

“One cannot bandage a mortal wound, that’s been inflicted by a miscarriage of justice.”

– Throe Bradley

This judicial deception has been going on for decades when offended citizens choose to protest any activity they have a right to in the governments they own. This is common when their property rights are violated. If their home or business is hijacked by eminent domain, the decision is etched in stone before the commission meeting. The hearing officer makes up rules as he goes along if they do not have Perry Mason there to scold him. If their rural neighborhood is rezoned to build a burger joint or county dump, notifications for these meetings are tacked on the bathroom door of the county seat or placed on page 10 in a local throwaway scandal sheet so they can call it legal.

“Those who make the law know best how to break the law without getting caught.”

– Albert Simms

States never reassess all counties at the same time. If they did this they’d have a tax revolt similar to California’s tax tsunami Prop 13 that rocked the U.S. like a New Zealand earthquake from east to west. “Prop 13 made the Gold Coast as infamous as Boston Harbor.” When a homeowner receives a tax bill for a Taj Mahal and they live in a 1,000 square foot home, they are forced to buy back their rights at dubiously “informal” tax hearings. The homeowner is guilty until proven innocent in the eyes of the taxman. The moment they arrive to face this hit squad, they are intimidated by the judge who is also the jury and only allows them to present what he wants to hear, not what they prepared. They feel like a Roller Derby skater in the “penalty box” wearing a dunce cap and wonder why! To this judge, just showing up is a capital offense!

“Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.”

– Dr. King

Denial of justice is generic in local tribunals. Most are semi-structured to mimic a fair legal process. There is no impartial verdict, to the detriment of the accused. It is decided in advance. This violates all formal judicial process. Rules are invented by the officer obtusely, which even the best jailhouse lawyer cannot defend! If you try to quote law, you are declared out of order. Humbling intimidation is the worst injustice of all. Taxpayers are made subservient to justice that is rationed to guarantee they lose. When a taxpayer is scolded for something insignificant to put them in their place, they are defeated before they have a chance to win or lose and sheepishly give in to the tax man to end this abuse! They quickly learn how it feels to be a punching bag in a federal penitentiary gym!

“Bullies are everywhere, but the worst kind of bully is one who bullies behind the cloak of law.”

– Eely Stalls

President Ronald Reagan once said, “There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.” The only way we can guarantee our access to justice is to know the law. If you feel violated in any way by a magistrate, you have the duty to file a formal complaint with your governmental controlling agency or the federal DOJ. You must know your rights and how to defend them!

“It takes great courage to stand alone against a judge whose best resource is to intimidate you when you and he both know you are innocent.”

– Reggie Stone

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Where the media falls down so badly so often is in its approach to stories.

Slanted and misleading headlines, hyperbolic and unsubstantiated reporting that’s short on facts and long on opinion, and manufactured outrage probably are the worst of what stands for journalism today.

But that’s simply the content that lives above the comment line. What of the interactive, social aspects of today’s journalism?

Well, that can be all forms of awful, too.

According to a report released July 12 by the Pew Institute, four of 10 Americans have experienced online harassment, 18 percent have been threatened in some way for sharing their point of view, and more than 60 percent consider this form of harassment a problem.

If you operate a news media site and allow the online forums to fester with hateful comments when matters are less important, they implode when real issues arise.

Most traditional media companies are so stripped down that they don’t have the resources to monitor comments and, as a matter of creating some visibility, have turned to Facebook comments to create some transparency. Oh, sure, they’ll take the clicks, but the responsibility for the environment? Not so much.

Others, well, I am not sure what they’re doing or if they are adhering to their own criteria because the inclusions and extractions appear arbitrary and capricious. One moment, a seemingly innocuous comment is there. The next time you might visit the site to see how people responded to your comment, but what you wrote is gone. Why? Nobody knows. For readers, the absence of continuity is jarring.

More than a decade ago, a daily newspaper and digital news site in greater Chicago I oversaw became one of the first in the country to allow comments on stories. We had this functionality and interactivity before any of the U.S. metropolitan newspapers had entered into the space. At that time, there was great debate whether the voice of the reader belonged alongside the journalism that had been published.

During my tenure as executive editor there, I saw comments as a meaningful way to interact with readers, and it provided explosive online growth at what was the onramp to the internet for most newspapers seeking to grow a digital presence.

We wanted to engage with the communities that we served. We believed, correctly, that our reporting was not the final word. We were part of a discussion – a significant part, but a part nonetheless. And we wanted meaningful conversations to occur around our reporting, because that is what journalists should strive to achieve.

We opened our online comments – I believe in 2005 – without rules, without filters, without any parameters at all really. It was a new frontier, so nobody knew what to expect.

Iterations ensued that required registration with a confirmed email, a profanity filter, and comments to remain in line with the subject of the story. It was an early handle on this key element of community building, interaction and balancing the newspaper’s standards with the community’s contributions that earned the 2007 Chicago Headline Club’s Lisagor Award for best website (over the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, et. al.) and an innovator of the year award from Local Media Association (an organization that then was called Suburban Newspapers of America).

The online community on our news site was vibrant, somewhat civil, oftentimes humorous, and with balanced and interesting points of view that – on occasion – brought new information or insight to the story. Because we served to include our community, we welcomed a reasonable amount of readers who came in without bringing their flaming torches or pitchforks.

There is nothing more essential to our democracy than the protections provided by the First Amendment. But if you want to hijack a discussion and run away with it on someone else’s news site, you’re not practicing discourse. Stay with the story. Participate in the discussion germane to that story. Be civil. Be frank, but be civil.

Civility may be too much to ask, though, as a story as innocuous as a local lemonade stand could elicit tangential commentary from trolls and wing nuts. Any digital forum, in particular those that welcome comments without accountability for them, can be hijacked by people far less interested in discussion and far more interested in hit-and-run bomb-throwing.

For publishers, a hands-off approach to comments on your site isn’t good ethical practice. It’s malpractice.

If you operate a site, and welcome guests to comment, your guests should adhere to house rules. So, as a site operator, basic rules should be determined that welcome discussion. Be clear about them; and fairly apply them.

And, to evolve the thinking, any organization that would seek to control the comments on their site through deceptive means (cloaking, fire-starting provocation, et al) is equally bad practice and, frankly, unethical.

Anyone who administers a site that allows comments knows the value of comments. And the law is on the side of the site owner. A site owner incurs no more responsibility for what is written on their “wall” than the landlord of a building whose alley-facing fence would for the scrawling from a graffiti artist. It’s actually one of my favorite aspects of digital news, because light reveals truth – right there in front of God and everyone else.

Bottom of Form

Trolls, flamer-throwers, and other cowards make some news media sites run. They drive more traffic than the content itself. Some editors say they deplore them. But they know readers like them, and visitors return again and again to see what the newest screed says.

Online comments have become the media’s click machine, powering their sites by blowing breath into what otherwise can be so-so stories that don’t advance the reader’s understanding of a subject. As mainstream journalism continues to wane, comments often are more interesting and insightful than the stories that prompted them.

But anyone who operates a news media site and allows anonymous attacks – or those created under the veil of pseudonyms – to stand is morally complicit in those comments.

I don’t care what your lawyer says. Lawsuits shouldn’t be the bar by which this is measured. Responsible news sites should aspire to higher standards.

And, when comments are anonymous and authors shielded by the public, the scrutiny of authenticity is not met. It harms the journalism.

• Chris Krug is President of Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity. This column is original, but draws from his thoughts included in a column for ILNews.org that was published on July 7, 2017.

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Small businesses across the country are breathing a sigh of relief on news that the Trump administration is walking back former President Barack Obama’s proposed overtime expansion.

Small businesses were dreading the Obama-era order that would have doubled overtime eligibility to cover people making as much as $47,000 a year. It was scheduled to go into effect Dec. 1 last year, but a federal judge ordered an indefinite stay.

Terry McClallen with Integrity Data, an HR system company in Lincoln, Illinois, said most small businesses were still unprepared for all of the regulations on salary, time-keeping, and paperwork that the overtime rule brought with it.

“People who never had to keep a time card, and companies that never really had to deal with time cards, were going to have to not only deal with time cards but deal with calculating overtime rates,” McClallen said.

The U.S. Department of Labor said as many as 193,000 people in Illinois would have been impacted by the rule.

McClallen said the overtime rule forced many small businesses to move some workers from salary to hourly. It would have been a move that cost some workers money and even jobs as employers sought to make up for the new costs.

“If you’re talking about service industries that are running on a very, very narrow profit margin, and all of a sudden you have to start paying overtime, those are things those businesses just aren’t able to absorb,” McClallen said.

The Trump administration said it intends to walk back many of the federal mandates included in the old overtime rule.

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“This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing, ‘My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing: Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

– Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,  “I Have A Dream” speech, August 1963

Everyone in America enjoys the 4^th of July. Much like all holidays of significance, the true meaning of the 4^th of July has mutated into another annual tradition. It has become a day of frolicking in the first days of fair weather and plentiful sun. It’s marked with outdoor activities such as BBQs, pick-up sports games and picnicking. Copious amounts of food, beer, soda and snacks are consumed until the sun begins to fade into the welcome twilight of the evening shadows of night. That is when many Americans begin celebrating the close of a blissful day of visiting with cousins they’ve never met and playing lawn games with friends and relatives. Before the first twinkling star has a chance to breach the horizon, the sky is populated with an assortment of Chinese sky rockets, horsetails, and Roman candles. The sounds of merriment echo from sea to shining sea.

“We play our favorite American guessing game every 4^th of July. Are we hearing gunshots or fireworks?”

– Arthur Oman

For as long as Americans can remember, the nation has celebrated the 4^th of July with fireworks shows in public squares and lighting displays at home. But the reality is that no fireworks went off on that day, nor was there any signing ceremony. That was a month later. But the events of the 4^th of that very day changed the course of history. During the sweltering heat of a tortuous summer in Pennsylvania, at the second Continental Congress, delegates from 13 colonies debated whether to adopt the Declaration or not. As the heat continued to rise, the temperatures in the room became so sweltering, it’s been said they broke every thermometer in the hall. Jefferson noted that by the evening the Declaration of Independence was approved, it concluded a battle more fiercely fought than the Revolution itself.

“The United States is the only country with a known birthday.”

– James G. Blaine

Most Americans are clueless why we shoot off fireworks on the 4^th of July, and fewer remember its true significance. The answer is considered folklore. But weeks before the Declaration was signed, John Adams envisioned fireworks as a part of the festivities. In a letter he wrote to Abigail on July 3, 1776, he postulated this occasion should be celebrated “with Pomp and Parade, Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one end of this Continent to the other.”

The first recorded Independence Day fireworks were ignited in Philadelphia on July 4, 1777. That night, the skies were cloaked with ringing of bells and a grand exhibition of fireworks that included 13 sky rockets cascading across the skies above the Commons. Today,

“The 4^th is when children running around with fire sticks burning at 400 degrees are supervised by intoxicated adults.”

– Milo Vance

Although founder John Adams is responsible for this monumental day being morphed into a display of fireworks, clannish carousing, mischief and merriment, much of what he wrote wife Abigail was never retold. After declaring independence, he wrote, “This marked the most memorable epoch in the history of America.” He had hoped the day would be “Celebrated by succeeding Generations, as the greatest anniversary Festival.” It should be commemorated, “as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty.” Although it was two days later Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, Adams was right about the celebrations through much of our history. For us July Fourth remains a salient holiday, it no longer has the solemnity and the significance that Adams hoped it would maintain. Much of the meaning of these festivities has been shadowed by commercial enterprise and self indulgence with little thought for our true patriotism.

“Capitalists must never forget what made them Capitalists; that was American patriotism.”

– Chadwick Black

July Fourth is not only the most important day in American history, but in the world’s history also. It created the most powerful nation the world has ever known. This one Declaration legally formed a more perfect union. It announced to an “insolent world” we were assuming the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God entitle to us as free men. Additionally it cautioned governments everywhere, they derived “their just powers solely from the consent of the people.” And when any governments became destructive of the people’s rights and liberties, the people had the authority to alter or abolish a government and institute a new one.

“Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

– Abraham Lincoln

The words our founders so carefully chose to scribe on that parchment in Philadelphia we now call our Declaration have served as an inspiration for the people of the world for centuries. They’ve been the battle cry of Colonial rebellions against imperial regimes around the globe as justification for chasing the flag of liberty to hang in their capitals and parliaments. Vietnam used these words in declaring independence from France in 1945. Ho Chi Minh cited our Declaration word for word. In Poland, Members of Solidarity and dissidents in Czechoslovakia invoked these words in opposition to Soviet subserviency in the 1980s. In Tiananmen Square in 1989, Chinese students quoted our founders to stand against government abuse. And some say activists in the Arab Spring chanted phrases from our Declaration of Independence in their rebellion for democratic liberty.

“It’s the love of country that has lighted and that keeps glowing the holy fire of patriotism.”

– Horace McFarland

For us Americans, the Declaration is the central ingredient of the combining of thirteen individual colonies in a unified body of free men emboldened with a sense of unity and of nationhood that has never been seen before. Because America is composed of many immigrants, races and ethnicities, we’ve cast aside the boundaries of separatism in favor of a brotherhood under the cloistered cloak of liberty for all. America became a nation of one identity comprised of many the day our colonies signed the Declaration. We agreed to agree on the most important ingredients that were necessary to comprise a free government of free people. We empowered the people to remain as free men in free states to control the central government and to never let it control us. July 4^th is what birthed Americanism.

“The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation.”

– Woodrow Wilson

Even former President Barack Obama said, “We still believe in an America where anything’s possible.” Our founders christened us the first states to form a nation while others conquered states to form theirs. And our history has been an effort to continually define that nationality. We remain not a nation in traditional meaning but one reliant on collective individualism to sustain our republic. We take no orders from a central oligarchy to hold us in unison. The Declaration has embodied these ideals in its sacred creed. And this is the true significance of July 4, 1776. Each year after we hang our flags, fill our cars with camping gear and head for the highways; keep in mind what this day means to all of us. It is our patriotic duty to light our first firecracker in the name of liberty remembering what John Adams wrote,

“This is the Day to celebrate our Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty.”

– John Adams

The members of the Continental Congress could only “mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred Honor. There was no nation, no fatherland, nor a union; nothing but the pledge itself to honor and uphold. A man’s country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.”

– George W. Curtis

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Supporters said all along that President Donald Trump would be good for American business.

But many didn’t anticipate that the American media business stood to benefit from his presidency.

Currently the greatest love-hate relationship in U.S. politics, the mainstream and legacy media revels in Trump’s “fake news” claims. While they denounce his behavior publicly, reporters draw strength from Trump’s insults and use it as fuel to power their self-righteous crusade to shame the president.

They wear each hostile tweet as a badge of honor and consider it confirmation they are doing God’s work.

Trump has worked the media masterfully. He didn’t need the legacy media’s support or endorsement when he campaigned for president, and he doesn’t need them now. They are a distraction, and Trump is working them.

Historically, American media have pursued a noble mission to serve the public and keep the government in check. But that mission falls on deaf ears when the watchdogs become attack dogs. We have reached that point.

When does pursuing a story become crafting a narrative with an obvious political agenda? It starts with basic editorial decision-making. And according to the Media Research Center’s recent study, network news has decided that Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election outweighs other critical issues such as health care, tax reform, and jobs. It feels almost as if it was pulled from a season of Netflix’s “House of Cards” – only not as clever.

And then there’s CNN, the cable news network that continues to beat the Russia drum even after there is no new evidence or information to report. Their desperation to find the smoking gun resulted in the retraction of a Russia-related story and the resignation of three staffers last week.

The driver? Not truth. No, it was red meat for the left; creation of controversy. We’ll wait for the next public opinion poll, but I think it’s safe to say that the Russia investigation is not at the top of everyday Americans’ priority list.

The videos released by conservative journalist James O’Keefe, known for undercover sting operations, show CNN producers admitting that the Trump-Russia investigation is overhyped for enhanced ratings. They need something they can own to differentiate themselves from other cable-news channels. And so the love-hate cycle continues.

Although this epic rivalry can be comical at times, it’s sad to look behind the curtain and realize that Big Media has its interests too – and it doesn’t always include the American public.

For media to be credible – truly credible – it must report independently verified facts. It must seek the truth, and report with integrity. It must distill facts and straight news from opinions and insights gleaned from perceptions of original reporting.

The criteria for whether a story is good to air or publish should be somewhat higher than a corporate lawyer’s opinion on the likelihood that it opens up the organization to a lawsuit.

The lone criteria should be truth and public interest. Often, it’s not.

Television news, in particular that which appears on 24-hour cable cycle, is rife with opinion. Understandably so: There simply are not enough resources on any network or cable channel to fulfill a mission of 365-day news content that would be interesting enough to hold an audience’s attention. Without commentary, every network would resort to the C-SPAN model of airing raw footage of endless committee meetings.

Opinion is less expensive than actual reporting, and is in endless supply. It is far more economical to bring in a person from a studio in Washington, D.C., than it would be to send a correspondent and crew to Moscow. That’s a business decision that saves media brands money and costs taxpayers in reliable information.

So what is passed off as straight news often is a new take of an opinion. And with each passing “hot take,” the message is pushed further and further away from the truth.

Why does it matter? Can’t people have an opinion on the news?

Certainly. This is America, and our speech is protected constitutionally. But it matters that the continuous news cycle rarely differentiates between straight news and opinion. The content is often indistinguishable. Context is rarely offered. Oftentimes, the crawl beneath the commentary is in clear conflict. The opinion often overwhelms the core of the story.

The result is that the news itself – the facts, the verification, the story, and the truth – has been discarded in favor of a take on the news.

A controversial or salacious quote often makes a better headline than the old journalism standby of who, what, where, when, and why. Just look at the mainstream media’s obsession with President Trump’s recent tweet about Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, or the video he posted of an old WWE appearance where Trump punches out a man with a CNN logo superimposed on his face. The exaggerated response gives President Trump an even greater villain to demonize and justification for controversial actions such as banning cameras from the White House press briefings. Veering from the facts lowers the public perception and credibility of media as a whole. It threatens our democracy.

So much so that it must be next to impossible for Americans to understand the media’s job, or what business we’re in anymore.

• Chris Krug is president of the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity.

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A bill fresh out of the U.S. House of Representatives would fix a long-standing problem in states’ tax code that has likely resulted in businesses and employees overpaying the state for decades.

Companies that send a worker to another state have to make sure their complying with that state’s tax code. The problem in Illinois and possibly other states is that their laws are all different and complicated. The Mobile Workforce State Income Tax Simplification Act that currently is awaiting a Senate committee vote would make all states adopt the same 30-day threshold before someone can be taxed.

Based on their answers in April, Senator Dick Durbin’s office, the Illinois Department of Revenue, and a number of accounting firms weren’t on the same page about Illinois’ current threshold.

“It’s a compliance nightmare,” said Maureen Riehl, Executive Director of the Mobile Workforce Coalition. She said the confusion around Illinois’ laws are a perfect example of the need for uniformity. “Organizations are sending money to Illinois that, last I was told, those checks aren’t being returned.”

Riehl says the new proposal would require an employee based on one state to work at least a month in another state before needing to pay income taxes there.

A 2015 Bloomberg study on multi-state tax compliance showed that less than half of the companies they surveyed keep up with the regulations of every state where their employees travel.

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 “It is interesting back in 2011, shortly after the swine-flu epidemic broke out; Congress enacted an earmark moratorium that would supposedly put an end to pork-barrel spending.”

– Jenny Reed

The phrase “pork-barrel spending” derives from the antebellum period. Plantation owners would give barrels of salt pork to their slaves, who fought with each other for a share. The term acquired its derogatory connotation after the American Civil War. References to “pork” became common in Congress as representatives competed for Reconstruction dollars. By 1919 the National Municipal Review started scolding Congress for passing legislative acts and referencing them as “pork barrel bills.” And today it is common practice in Congress. Pork-barrel coupling is politely called earmarks added to the federal budget as “appropriations.”

“Being willing to donate the taxpayers’ money is not the same as being willing to put your own money where your mouth is.”

– Thomas Sowell

Due to an influenza epidemic in 2009, referred to as “swine flu,” people worldwide stopped eating pork. Although this merging of human and animal strains proved non-transmissible by consuming pork, sales tanked. By the end of 2009, the pork industry suffered a $98 million loss, and was forced to hit back. Through costly advertising, they revealed facts to disprove this fiction. They convinced The Center for Disease Control to inform the public they were erroneously informed. The CDC issued an obsequious retort: “We have concluded pork has no relationship to this influenza. We’ll refer to it as H1N1 from now on.” Pork industry spokesman Bill Brier cried foul! “Calling this influenza ‘Swine flu’ damaged us needlessly. We’ve spent millions to convince people these claims were bogus.”

Unlike Congress’ 2011 earmark moratorium on pork-barreling, the pork industry’s reputation was deceptively damaged. But consumers found out “facts” out-weighed fables and this was not just lip service to regain loyalty. On the other hand, Congress has been preaching for years about cutting back on ear-marked favors for everyone. Yet, their claims are shallow promises made to impress a disenchanted electorate. Each year as session opens, they chant the same redundant song. This makes fiscal conservative voters furious for not dropping the hammer on them. But every time their state requests more money to bail them out in a trade for votes, those freeloading off federal dollars cry foul. It’s easier to talk the talk than it is to walk the walk.

“American government has turned into a cow that gives more milk the more it’s kicked in the flanks by special interests.”

– Drew Rusk

Everyone blasts Congress for their inability to control spending. They are more reckless with our tax dollars than a driver is at the local demolition derby. But far few discern the federal government operates from a reactionary podium. They jump higher than a kite flies in an Oklahoma tornado when those most influential to their benefit desire more tax dollars. Their actions reflect the will of special interests and those most venerable to treasury favors. In 2016, there were over 200 earmarks, an increase of almost 50 percent over 2015. This was disconcerting, hitting voters far below the belt!

“Who is in charge? Is it taxpayers or is it the special interest groups?”

– Scott Walker

Pork-barrel spending is alive and well in Washington, D.C., despite their fabled claims of denial. The most frequent argument in favor of earmarks is they help pass critical spending bills. However, in the past, many members of Congress have voted for excessively costly legislation because they have received an earmark for their constituents or an avid party supporter. Don’t let anybody fool you. Congress takes their marching orders from those closest to them. That does not exclude the states eager to endorse federalism in trade for their votes.

“Balanced budget requirements seem more likely to produce accounting ingenuity than genuinely balanced budgets.”

– Thomas Sowell

“Porking-out” on American tax dollars creates more losers than winners. The losers are the public taxpayers while the winners hide in the halls of chamber. This increases the deficit, with additional funding, by attracting votes for costly legislation that barely passes the scrutiny of the CBO. This interferes with democracy by eclipsing the wishes of the voters and fuels distrust in government. It’s hard for voters to determine which legislators benefit and the ones that don’t in a system that openly incorporates “earmarks” referred to as “appropriations.”

“The problem with earmarks is Congress does not tell you the ear they are marking it from is the innocent porker.”

– John Pope

Nothing is more abused than the U.S. Transportation Authority and our states infrastructure. Donald Rumsfeld told us, “you go to war with the transportation system you have, not the system you might want.” We are currently committed to funding highways, light rail train lines, rural roadways, and even monorails that will be obsolete before they are completed. Yet last year, Americans traveled over 4 trillion miles by car, 700 billion by air, and more than 400 billion on the good old-fashioned bus. Passenger rail was a distant last with only 7 billion miles! Yet the transportation lobbyists are chomping at the bit for federal money for state projects nobody wants or will ever use.

“Wishful thinking is not idealism. It is self-indulgence at best and self-exaltation at worst.”

– Thomas Sowell

American taxpayers have great hopes in President Trump, who promised to “trump” the spending of the previous administration. And his new transportation bill demonstrates he is serious despite the wieners and criers in the states. Barack Obama blew over $150 billion in tax dollars on his green energy hoax that netted us a negative energy output. He subsidized solar and windmills, like the ones lying in the sand in the California desert with taxpayer money to the tune of a $40 billion average a year during his rocky tenure. These massive subsidies did nothing to increase the use of solar power or energy production but it sure made Al Gore ecstatic. Blasé taxpayers watched his pet projects fail as 88 percent went belly up.

“Never waste a crisis when it can impact climate change.”

– Hillary Clinton

Pork-barrel spending is nothing more than putting lipstick on a pig and calling it “appropriations.” It will never be contained; just masqueraded and renamed. And while we are preoccupied blaming Congress for not being able to live within their means, they are only reflecting the requests from those who whimper the loudest and do the most for them. Special interest groups and above all state lobbyists are eager to bury us in debt. Today, legislation is so laden with unrelated political handouts that many members of Congress don’t know what they are voting for. And those that do defend this secretive splurging claiming it is for the benefit of the general population.

“You can never bail someone out of trouble without putting someone else into trouble.”

– Dr. Arthur Laffer

Magic Johnson said, “The best doctors and medicine can’t save you if you don’t do what they tell you.” We have witnessed many medial miracles such as vaccinations for ailments like polio and pneumonia. And every year scientists develop new inoculations against influenza. But none have conjured up a cure for government swine flu. Even the best witch doctors and voodoo chiefs are clueless. This is beyond their wisdom. The only cure for swine flu is Election Day. We must elect healthy politicians instead of those infected with swine flu or susceptible to it. Congress’ manifestos to cure swine flu are like putting a Band-Aid on a malignant melanoma. James Madison warned us in 1782 : “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”

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“The Federal Reserve can continue to print more money, but cities and states can’t.”

– Rob Liner

The central bank has crushed the interest rates seniors have relied on for centuries to supplement their incomes and live lives that are meaningful and independent. After slaving in factories, fighting wars for our country and preserving democracy around the globe, the Fed has ruthlessly cut off the income of many of our greatest contributors to democracy and the free world:

“This generation made the sacrifices and paid ahead, so our country could remain free and libertarian.”

– Al Collins

Although America elected a capitalist leader, so far the Federal Reserve has kept interest rates at sub-zero. Capitalists foolishly felt the Fed would raise them if a conservative was elected, but they were swindled again. They felt they’d stop printing $5 billion a day to stimulate a factitiously contrived housing recovery. Barack Obama’s friends at the Fed made his recovery look real yet it was as phony as a $3 bill! This ghoulish Fed stuck future Americans with a debt they’ll never pay off. This was done to finance an illusion of “non-ready-shovel-ready-jobs” since the housing market could perpetrate the phantasm of a recovery to disguise his failures. Now, taxpayers are footing the bill for this hoax the rest of their lives.

“Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt.”

– Herbert Hoover

From the time this “Monster of Jekyll Island” was first created by JP Morgan and his gang of thugs, it has become the most impudent scam in economic history. Facts speak for themselves! It caused wars, boom-bust cycles, inflation, depression and, once in a blue moon, prosperity. The Fed was not a brainchild the government arbitrarily conjured up to watch over our money supply. It was a tool of a cabal of totalitarian bureaucrats who have helped shape the denigration of the 20th and 21st centuries. Developed in reaction to a catastrophic financial panic in 1907, a few independent wealthy plutocrats met in secret meetings with the vile “Mr. Hyde” on Jekyll Island, and adjured a plan with the blessings of Congress, to set the Central Bankers of the world on fire!

“The central bank nearly wrecked the world economy and has created one calamity after another.”

Jeff Tucker

It took these tycoons nine days to invent the beastly Federal Reserve. The motive behind this devil was more than guarding our money supply. They weren’t trying to solve an economic problem; but a political worriment. The U.S. didn’t need a new central bank; they had one in Morgan. He was the aphoristic lynchpin of Wall Street who bankers turned to when trouble arose. He was spirited, powerful and vain with an apostolic ability to persuade anyone to do anything. The economic future of the world’s greatest power was subservient to his wealth and his inflated ego. When these henchmen left Jekyll, they had taken control of all U.S. money. They have been playing Russian Roulette with it since then.

“He who controls the money supply of a nation controls the nation.”

– James Garfield

The Fed has proven they can screw up a junkyard without ever trying. Their hidden agenda when Obama reigned was to allow him to sky-rocket our national debt by reducing the interest rates to lower our borrowing costs. That raised the national debt higher than the Goodyear blimp flies on Super Bowl Sunday! And this activist Fed didn’t care about the harm they were doing, since elders will be gone when the economic tsunami hits! Because liberal progressivism has influenced every government institution in America, they have chosen sides. And don’t expect them to change now.  They will remain there until it benefits them to sell out to the other guys. This nightmare is alive and well.

“Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes its laws.”

– Mayer Rothschild

During Obama’s tenure, the era of virtual-nothing interest rates was devastating to senior citizens. It was a federal offense: “The Fed Elder Abuse Act.” You’d think now that we have a 70-year-old head of the Fed, Janet Yellen, she’d have sympathy for seniors struggling to survive? But that’s a pipe dream. When you pay someone $199,700 a year who is not concerned about maintaining a house, paying rent, buying groceries, health insurance, and fuel, why worry about others? She obviously agrees with Marie Antoinette when she told the peasants, “Let them eat cake.” And that is Federal Elder Abuse in its quintessence.

“Elder abuse is a slap in the face of all morality.”

– Ellen Waters

The Fed has turned its back on reality. From our first colonies, we have had an investment balance that was the adrenal gland of our economy. People put money in stockings, buried it in cans, kept it with trusted store keepers and later deposited it in our 1^st post offices before we had banks. They found innovative ways to stash their money for a time when it was needed. America was built by savers who over-saved and under-consumed so they could survive with a well-earned retirement. It was over-saving that made America financially and economically healthy. Now seniors must say:

“I learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, and I have remained content.”

– Jay Strong

The Fed’s blitzkrieg against the elderly is more abusive than anyone will admit. The banks used to give seniors a “living-interest rate” on their savings and trusted them to reinvest their money. This gave them both a good return on their investment, which was healthy. Now that has gone the way of the corset, the infamous Chevy Corvair, and the Dick Clark Show. Seniors, who used to rely on safe investments to live in security, now “pay” for the challenge of letting the Fed steal their money. And the Fed treats them as 2^nd class citizens with their hands out! They just tell them to get an EBT card and a free cell phone. Now:

“He who will not economize will have to agonize.”

– Confucius

Today, pension plans are so grossly under-funded, seniors are being told they are in danger of losing that one last remnant of security they had worked for all of their lives. And this is Fed Elder Abuse at its pinnacle! Insurance companies depend on interest rates to survive. They’re sucking air due to ground-zero rates. The companies insuring long-term health care are raising their premiums higher than an addict who just got a fix. Because the Fed has artificially kept the Consumer Price Index so low, seniors aren’t getting increases in Medicare or Social Security stipends. We need to pass the Federal Elder Abuse Act soon, before all of our seniors are forced to take jobs as greeters at the local Walmart!

“These days, you’ve ‘gotta’ milk a dollar out of every dime.”

– Gayle Forman

Those approaching retirement have three choices: save more, work longer, or tighten their belts; and pray. What happens when the whole country is faced with this dilemma? This is why most are wondering how the Fed was ever allowed to abuse its duty to guard and protect our money supply? Why have they become an army for the progressives? How can they justify their incompetent illogic by punishing seniors so young progressives can buy homes paid for with the pensions and security dollars of our elder patriots? Should older Americans be forced to live out their lives barrennessly because of Federal Elder Abuse? “It’s always easier to spend other people’s money than yours.”

The Fed has abused our seniors too long. It’s time to expose this heinous crime! Robbing them of their savings, taking away the security they once cherished, to give it to the federal government to make these villains into heroes should be a felony. That’s a nefarious crime that must be stopped! We need to pass the Federal Elder Abuse Act now. Our society has a duty to pay back those who have paid forward and repay them for their loyalty to the USA.  “To leave our elders stranded on an economic island of despair is a ‘holocaust’ for the purpose of generation cleansing”! (Jane Kline)

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There could be changes coming to how Illinois’ legislative maps are drawn every ten years with the U.S. Supreme Court agreeing to take up a Wisconsin case on the very issue.

Longtime Democratic Party activist Bill Whitford brought the case Gill v. Whitford, which challenges Wisconsin’s 2011 State Assembly map as unconstitutional. He said his state’s apportion scheme denies residents the ability to have real choice at the ballot box.

The Seventh Circuit Court found the map violates the constitution because it gives one party more power than the other. The case was then petitioned to the nation’s high court, which announced Monday it will hear it in November.

A ruling next spring could impact not just Wisconsin, but other states with similar issues, including Illinois.

In Wisconsin, Republican majorities draw political boundaries to favor Republicans. In Illinois, Democrats have that control. The practice is known as gerrymandering.

The Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a brief to the Supreme Court to affirm the lower court’s ruling in favor of Whitford.

CLC President Trevor Potter said the effect in Illinois is clear.

“More than 60 percent of the state legislative seats in the general election were uncontested, [with] no Republican running against those Democrats because they were such Democratic districts,” Potter said.

The same was the case for some Republican-dominated districts where there wasn’t a Democrat challenger in the most recent general election.

There could be challengers in party primaries, but Potter said that can make things more politically polarized, “which I think makes it much harder to have legislators do what the voters say they want, which is to come up and solve problems and figure out how to talk to each other and compromise.”

Paul Smith, lead plaintiffs attorney for the Wisconsin map case, said if the outcome is in their favor, there could be a lawsuit challenging Illinois’ map-making process using the ruling from the Supreme Court.

“And they would argue that the new legal standard is such that the Illinois map doesn’t measure up constitutionally and they would have a pretty good argument that it should be fixed before the next round of redistricting comes along,” Smith said.

Potter said the crux of the case in Wisconsin, as it is in Illinois and other states, is politicians pick their voters, not the other way around.

“What we have in this situation is essentially a theft of that right by whichever party is in power at that moment,” Potter said.

Smith said a victory for the plaintiffs would “be to really affect the way the legislators in all of the states draw their maps next time in 2021 because they will know there’s a much-enhanced risk of the map being thrown out and they would much more likely try to minimize the degree of bias in the maps. We’re hopeful that within the next decade, we could have a dramatically changed playing field.”

Last year, a citizen-led group in Illinois collected over half a million signatures to get a question on the general election ballot to change the state constitution, allowing for an independent commission to oversee the map-making process. The measure failed a court challenge brought by an attorney with connections to House Speaker Michael Madigan and the Illinois Democratic Party.

“Illinois suffers greatly from gerrymandered, partisan-drawn legislative districts that result in a lack of fair, competitive elections,” Brad McMillan, Vice-Chair of CHANGE Illinois, the group that took over for the effort to change how Illinois’ maps are drawn, said. “The highest court in America could establish clear constitutional limits on partisan map-drawing that could have applicability to Illinois and other states.”

The national group Patriotic Millionaires put out a statement Monday supporting the plaintiffs in the Wisconsin case.

“Too many Americans have had the key to their power — their votes — stolen by the very system that was instituted to secure their rights,” Morris Pearl, chairman of the group, said.  “Partisan gerrymandering has distorted our political system and disenfranchised voters for far too long.”

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New York City’s Public Theater “Shakespeare in the Park” production of “Julius Caesar” sparked political drama for its on-stage assassination of a Trump-like Roman ruler. Before the performance Donald Trump Jr. asked via a tweet, “I wonder how much of this ‘art’ is funded by taxpayers?”

Here’s the answer to Trump Jr’s question: Data at OpenTheBooks.com shows that over $4.1 million in federal, state and city grants funded the New York Shakespeare Festival (NYSF) – the parent company to Public Theater and its production, Shakespeare in the Park – over the past three years. The total amount since 2009?  Nearly $30 million.

After Trump, Jr’s tweet, the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) was quick to clarify it had not funded this particular Shakespeare in the Park performance. However, the NEA disclosed its $630,000 in grants to NYSF since 2009. The NEA also disclosed that it continued grantmaking to NYSF’s other Public Theater project – “New York Voices” at Joe’s Pub – giving $25,000 in February.

By any estimation, NYSF is cashflow and asset-rich. In the latest year of IRS disclosed data (ending 8/2015), the non-profit had a financial asset base of $53 million; saved $22.4 million in cash-on-hand and invested securities; received nearly $28 million in contributions – $106 million over the past five years; and earned total revenues of $40 million.

Adam Andrzejewski is the founder and chief executive officer of OpenTheBooks.com. To read his full column at Forbes.com, click here.

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“The Tenth Amendment said the federal government is supposed to only have powers that were explicitly given in the Constitution but I think the federal government’s forgotten that.”

– David Mills

Our founders penned the Tenth Amendment out of necessity. It was hindsight after a summer of impassioned debates at the Convention of 1787. The adoption of our Constitution was opposed by many influential patriots including Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and Sam Adams. They were in disaccord over the powers of the central government and its ability to subvert the will and the rights of the states. They persistently argued the Constitution would eventually lead to an over-powering central state which would destroy the individual liberty of the people and the legal integrity of the states. Many dubiously tagged as Anti-Federalists concurred with Jefferson: “When the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.”

The Tenth Amendment was a necessary bone to toss at the liberty hungry patriots with the Bill of Rights. This reaffirmed their understanding the Constitution guaranteed all powers not granted to the central government were reserved to the states and to “them.” The Tenth Amendment clearly emphasized the limited powers delegated to central and state governments. This helped quiet the storm against ratification by most colonies. The highly susceptible patriots agreed this was the best insurance they could get to be free and continue exercising their sovereignty. They were comforted when Thomas Jefferson echoed: “All authority existing outside this domain belongs to the people.”

Since ratification established a bond of states under federal oversight, two issues have generated constant debate: What’s the true nature of the union? What powers, privileges, duties and controls does the Constitution actually grant the central government and reserve to the states? As a result of these heated disparities, the South engaged in a bloody civil war to put an end to this. But that only opened a bigger can of worms. And after the war, this has been fiercely disputed each time D.C. exercises federalism over our sacred sovereignty to reshape our nation’s political, social, and economic anatomy for their advantage.

“The plan of the convention aimed only at a partial union or consolidation. The states would clearly retain all sovereignty as before.”

– Alexander Hamilton

Federalism has reared its ugly head for decades under different masks and disguises. From 1789 to 1901, we had Dual Federalism with little collaboration between state and federal governments. After 1901, we lost liberty under Cooperative Federalism, marked by increased collusion between all levels of government. We witnessed the national income tax and an influx of federal programs that burden us today. Between 1960 and 1968, Creative Federalism was the beast that ballooned under Johnson’s Great Society. It shifted many powers from the states to the federal government through dependent-aid systems. Today we are fighting Contemporary federalism, characterized by shifts in intergovernmental grants, the growth of forced unfunded mandates, over regulations, and excessive control by Washington.

“Federalism should maintain our unity, not destroy it.”

– Alyn Lun

Though the progressives have established a firm position on the national political battlefront through continual growth of federalism, the complexion of our individual state governments proves we have had enough. Over half of our states are composed of conservative legislatures and governors in an effort to stop runaway federalism. Since Obama took office, Republicans captured control of 27 state chambers that Democrats held after the 2008 elections. The GOP controls the most legislative seats it has held since the founding of the party. Unpopular policies by progressive politicians have not gone unnoticed, and there’s a growing trend in our states to isolate themselves from the evils of federalism. They’re fighting back on Election Day.

Yes, “Elections have consequences.”

– Obama

The governor’s chair is now increasingly important in our states because it is the most powerful office in our legislative caucuses with clout, control and visibility. It is considered vital to isolate the states from federalism. While everyone talks about the presidency, American governorship gets little attention. Since all government is local, many voters think of their mayors and commissioners as those most affluent. They consider the governor as another figurehead stewarding their state. They seldom know anything about their syllabus before Election Day. They fail to perceive it is he or she who sets the states political and social agenda for the legislature and is the ultimate shield that stands between encroachments of federalism in their lives.

“A wise governor told me a long time ago, political capital you don’t get more of by keeping it. You get it by using it.”

– Scott Walker

Conservative state governments around the U.S. have made progress reforming civil service and beating back public sector union power. They are articulating a coherent agenda that satisfies the political center, as well as the moderate left. The red tide in our state governments has brought the GOP to its most commanding position in state governments in years. But it could shift at any time if the people elect the wrong type of conservative who is a mere party politician rather than one who defends their values and independent state culture. And this is not as hypothetical as one might think, considering the strength of the political party machine. It is that machine that bestows their blessings on a potential primary candidate that has the greatest influence on picking winners and losers.

“The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of political control.”

– Karl Marx

While watching the apocalyptic response to Donald Trump’s victory in so many liberal precincts around the U.S., governors and legislatures in many states realize they now have the headroom to raise state income by lowering business taxes. By taking advantage of cutting back the demands federal government placed on them in the past to toe the line from D.C. or get their entitlements cut, the states can now generate their own creative revenue. By replacing many federal services and benefits they had to pay the government for one-shoe-fits-all mismanaged programs as an agenda for social engineering, they can do it themselves. They no longer have to give the feds huge sums of money and beg to get a portion back by following their rules. They are no longer held hostage by the federalists.

“Governors compete. States compete. People and businesses decide.”

– Doug Ducey

For decades, true conservatives have preached of returning more power to the states, knowing they could do more, and do it more efficiently than Washington. Blue states have supported federalism for years. But red states have fought back to maintain the dignity of the 10^th amendment which is our sacred cow. The 10th Amendment is not a sword that cuts both ways. We either govern by it or federalism will consume us. And the governor is the key ingredient in defending us against federal extortion of our rights and liberty. Therefore, it is preeminent we judge every candidate for governor on their legislative history and how they have supported the ethos of the 10^th and its proclamations.

Machiavelli wrote: “It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved.” And that is the way the feds have been governing under progressive domination. And if we do not take advantage of our conservative administration in D.C. and its brand of politics, we will forever be wondering why we lost our sovereignty.

“Washington, D.C. is full of think tanks, theoreticians and advocacy groups. Governors are the ones whose feet are on the ground.”

Former Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen

If Republicans in state capitols can’t articulate a coherent governing agenda that satisfies the political center, the red tide that has brought the GOP to its most commanding position in state governments in a hundred years could begin to shift.

When states and local communities take the lead on policy, the people are that much closer to the policymakers, and policymakers are that much more accountable to the people. Few Americans have spoken with their president; many have spoken with their mayor.

Up until the outbreak of the Civil War, the federal government for the most part minded their business and kept their grubby hands out of our states’ constitutional privileges.

During the pre-federalism period, the country waged a war for independence and established a confederation form of government that created a league of sovereign states. Deficiencies in the Articles of Confederation prompted its repeal and the ratification of a new Constitution, creating a federal system of government comprised of a national government and states. Almost immediately upon its adoption, issues concerning state sovereignty and the supremacy of federal authority were hotly debated and ultimately led to the Civil War.

The period from 1789 to 1901 has been termed the era of Dual Federalism. It has been characterized as an era during which there was little collaboration between the national and state governments. Cooperative Federalism is the term given to the period from 1901 to 1960. This period was marked by greater cooperation and collaboration between the various levels of government. It was during this era that the national income tax and the grant-in-aid system were authorized in response to social and economic problems confronting the nation. The period from 1960 to 1968 was called Creative Federalism by President Lyndon Johnson’s administration. Johnson’s Creative Federalism as embodied in his Great Society program, was, by most scholars’ assessments, a major departure from the past. It further shifted the power relationship between governmental levels toward the national government through the expansion of a grant-in-aid system and the increasing use of regulations. Contemporary federalism, the period from 1970 to the present, has been characterized by shifts in the intergovernmental grant system, the growth of unfunded federal mandates, concerns about federal regulations, and continuing disputes over the nature of the federal system.

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“Liberalism is spread by those who feel the world owes them a living, not by those who work for it.

Those who work for every dollar they bank have nothing to gain from being a liberal.”

– Jay Kites

It is easy to see how liberals think backwards from observing how they employ reverse logic to reach their conclusions. This is the way a lot of people justify spending money when they come home and tell their spouse, “I bought this because was 50 percent off.” Yet they fail to realize they spent 50 percent more than they could afford. This was a common theme in sitcoms across the land. Lucile Ball would come home and tell Desi what a great deal she got on a coffee maker when they already had four. He would then spill out his infamous, “Lucy, you got some ‘splainin’ to do!”

“Politicians use reverse logic to justify facts to reach their reverse conclusions.”

– Art Snider

Liberal thinking works backwards and concentrates on flawed conclusions of spend now and pay later if and when you can. Although many Americans employ this every time they use a credit card, they know one day soon they will face the music when the bill is due. But this isn’t a factor when a progressive makes the purchase. This is how Obama used baseline under budgeting to kill our free market. Instead of announcing they were reducing their increase in spending from 5 percent to 4 percent, they claimed they were reducing it by 20 percent. By increasing the budget astronomically each year, and announcing how much they are cutting it back, this fatally flawed system of reporting to the public is why the nation’s debt exploded.

“I am proud that I never hide from the truth.”

– Barack Obama

Democrats decried borrowing for the Iraq/Afghanistan wars but have been using huge quantities of taxpayer dollars to prop up financial markets. That’s why Wall Street is booming while the economy is languishing in a pseudo recovery. Their unreal “economic stimuli” and “quantitative easing” spending put America’s children into debt before they were born. They will be indentured servants to government. Children born this year will see their share of the public debt burden grow by more than $100,000, to over $142,000, by the time they graduate from college due to the debt the Trump administration inherited. This is called public debt, which means the government sold this debt in credit markets to investors in the U.S. and abroad. Progressives love to spend money they do not have.

“He is a fool who spends what he does not have when the bill become due later.”

– Sol Seine

When Obama was elected, they knew they had to do something to make him “King for the day” and the easiest why to do this was to pump $6 billion a day into the housing market. For the first time in history, the progressives worked with an activist Fed and wheeled and dealed with them to print all of the money their presses would handle. Pumping monopoly money in to a broken economy they created with government giveaways created a false recovery to replace an equitable free market natural rehabilitation. Since this industry employed a lot of people, they figured they’d keep doing this until someone pulled the plug on the money machine, or it broke down and the motor wore out.

“To win elections, politicians have promised practically endless government spending and covered up the cost, leaving generations of taxpayers obligated to pay off the public debt. They know that that is wrong. But nobody in either party is very anxious to stop doing this.”

– David Milpass

There are many things that liberal progressives do that are backwards to economic reality. They truly believe that Americans are actually equivalent to people of the dark ages of the past. They express equivalencies that are contrary to righteous morality. If you need just a few examples to comprehend this, think about how they equate modern-day bankers with money changers in the Hebrew temples during the life of Christ. They chastise today’s successful capitalists and compare them with the Robber Barons, feudal lords, and pirates of the days of old. They are worse than Robin Hood, an English Saxon who fought the oppressive taxation of the Norman King John. Not only do they believe that stealing from the rich is morally right to equalize an unequal society that is crying for handouts and free things, they also use trickery in accounting and maneuver the budget office to justify what they are doing with ludicrous inaccurate reporting.

“A long-lasting, sustained economy will never be achieved through massive government spending programs.”

– Stan Graves

Progressives believe capital punishment is wrong and defend the lives of convicted murderers. Yet they see nothing wrong with spending tax dollars to build abortion clinics in minority neighborhoods that threaten to wipe out entire ethnic populations. This is not only a waste of lives and impeding the natural rights of man. This is spending our taxpayer’s money to kill new citizens so they can import undocumented workers who will perform for less. And, of course, since the workers are not here legally, they do not pay taxes and the government uses our tax dollars to supplement their standard of living. When they need to create more government dependence, they reach out to these workers and others considered socially deprived, and advertise how easy it is to get food stamps and free cell phones at U.S. taxpayers’ expense.

“The left wants everyone to focus on the deficit so they can take us away from the focus on spending as a percentage of the economy.”

– Grover Norquist

Progressives subvert everything righteous in order to justify their beliefs. They continue to rewrite history to make villains the heroes and heroes the villains. Past conservative leaders like Ronald Reagan, Douglas MacArthur, Holmes Tuttle, Henry Regnery, and Anthony Fisher are condemned for their dedicated efforts to protect the American way. They deconstruct the teachings of Jesus Christ and other great religious moralists of the past from Saviors to Satans to convert more people to the religion they created that is the religion of the far left. This religion has no commandments, ethics, morals or principals other than those that pontiff their own party beliefs. Progressivist liberalism is now a religion, spending money now to build their party with no regard for the future.

“Given the religious nature and the emotional power of Leftist values, Jews and Christians on the Left often derive their values from the Left more than from their religion.”

– Dennis Prager

The journey back to American reality will not be easy. It took years to destroy it. Like Rome, it was not built in day. It will be a constant battle for Americans to resist the carrots dangled in front of them when the people are making the necessary adjustments and even some sacrifices to restore America to its greatness! So we will have to remain vigilant and aggressive in keeping the Left from destroying Trump’s efforts to rebuild the American Dream. It will be enticing for some to jump off the bandwagon and fall backwards if they hear enough liberal propaganda about how many social programs Trump is trying to reform. Even though he is a tough guy with great business savory, he will be labeled incompetent for wishing to only spend what we have and not what we can borrow.

We must resist the temptations of the past administrations to buy our loyalty and live within our means. The loyalty of a patriot is earned not bought.

“Loyalty cannot be blueprinted. It cannot be produced on an assembly line. In fact, it cannot be manufactured at all, for its origin is the human heart, the center of self-respect and human dignity. It is a force which leaps into being only when conditions are exactly right for it – and it is a force very sensitive to betrayal.”

– Maurice R. Franks

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“In a world full of lies, the most dangerous ones are those we tell ourselves.” 

― Diana B. Henriques

HBO debuted its original movie on Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff over the weekend. Based on Henriques’ book “The Wizard of Lies,” the film (and book) tells the chilling tale of Madoff’s fraudulent investment scheme in which more than 2,200 people lost almost $20 billion in retirement savings.

That is a lot of victims losing a lot of money.

But it’s peanuts compared to what public pensioners – in Illinois, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and elsewhere – stand to lose if drastic reform measures aren’t taken soon. More on this in a moment.

A Ponzi scheme is a form of fraud in which early investors see quality returns, not because their money was invested wisely as the investors are led to believe, but because new investors fund the payouts. The cycle perpetuates itself – more and more new investors are needed to continue to fund previous investors’ returns at an unbeknownst higher risk to themselves – until it inevitably collapses.

In Madoff’s case, the collapse occurred in 2008, after almost 30 years, when the housing bubble burst and the economy was sent into the Great Recession. Simplistically, far fewer new investors could be found, and prior investors, many hurting because of the turn in the economy, asked for their full investments back.

Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison after pleading guilty to multiple counts of fraud. His victims suffered untold losses.

What’s the point of my Madoff history lesson?

A strong case can be made that public pensions are eerily similar to a Ponzi scheme, and that a similar collapse in some of the most underfunded systems in the country might be inevitable. That would mean an untold number of new victims that would make the Madoff case seem relatively minor by comparison.

The difference between a Madoff-like Ponzi scheme and the public pension crisis is that government is complicit in the latter, and that dedicated public servants, state retirees and taxpayers are the ones at risk.

I think we all can agree that taxpayers and state workers who have spent their careers serving residents, teachers included, don’t deserve that.

Doubt that will happen? Let’s start with Puerto Rico.

The U.S. territory in the eastern Caribbean declared a form of bankruptcy (after Congressional approval) earlier this month because of massive debt that included $50 billion in underfunded pensions. In a story headlined “In Puerto Rico, pension fund works like a Ponzi scheme,” the New York Times reported the following:

“Puerto Rico, where the money to pay teachers’ pensions is expected to run out next year, has become a particularly extreme example of a problem facing states including Illinois, New Jersey and Pennsylvania: As teachers’ pension costs keep rising, young teachers are being squeezed — sometimes hard. One study found that more than three-fourths of all American teachers hired at age 25 will end up paying more into pension plans than they ever get back.”

For pensioners in Puerto Rico, where a recovery plan is still being devised, it could mean pennies of the dollar of what they were promised.

For current and future public pensioners, a similar fate awaits if drastic reforms don’t happen.

Take Illinois, whose five state pension funds are now underfunded by more than $130 billion, worst in the nation. At that deficit, the pension funds have in hand just about 37 cents of every dollar they will owe to current and future pensioners.

But it actually could be much worse than that.

Money set aside to fund pensions – from taxpayers and public employees – is invested to grow the dollar pool. But most pension systems have over-estimated the rate of returns on these investments. As recently as 2014, Illinois’ Teachers Retirement System projected an inflated 8 percent annual return rate. That projection was dropped to 7.5 percent three years ago. Just last year, Illinois’ State Employees Retirement System downgraded its rate of return estimate to 7 percent. Each of these downgrades cost Illinois taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars annually because the taxpayers are legally required to make up the difference.

What’s worse is that many investment professionals and ratings agencies say a more realistic rate of return is in the 3 to 4 percent range. If that’s the case, Illinois’ already staggering pension debt would balloon by tens of billions of dollars more. That could be devastating to younger state employees who still have decades to go before they retire. A younger teacher who is funding current retirees’ bloated pensions faces a potential collapse in the system, risking much or all of her retirement nest egg.

And as return estimates continue to drop, taxpayers are forced to pick up the ever-growing tab.

There is a partial solution.

Illinois state Sen. Dale Righter has filed legislation that would place all new state employees, including teachers, in a 401(k)-style defined contribution plan. State employees would contribute 8 percent of their salaries into the private investment account, and the state (taxpayers) would contribute an additional 7 percent.

While Righter’s plan wouldn’t solve Illinois’ $130 billion (likely more because of the overstated return on investments) pension deficit, it would relieve new hires of any concerns of a pension collapse and it would drastically slow Illinois’ ever-growing pension obligations. More action, particularly other structural reforms that will improve Illinois’ overall economy and increase its tax base, are needed to chip away at the deficit.

States that have adopted similar plans to Righter’s already are seeing fiscal improvements.

Unfortunately, many in the Illinois General Assembly continue to think that higher taxes are a major part of the solution. But we’ve been there and done that, and it hasn’t worked. It’s led to a stagnant economy and a mass exodus of Illinoisans to other states.

States such as Illinois and and their employees need drastic pension reform measures if they are to stave off a Madoff-like collapse.

It’s time we stop telling ourselves dangerous lies and get these reforms done.

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“Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.”

– Oscar Ameringer

According to a recent Gallup report, Americans regard the clergy as the most honest and honorable of all professions. And this same survey lists the bottom three professions they deem least tolerant: Car salesman 9 percent, politicians 8 percent and lobbyists 7 percent. Can anyone believe that a car salesman is considered as honest and trustworthy as those running our governments?

“Could it be because you can now merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal? As Adlai Stevenson said, “We gather votes like box tops?” Yes, we are now indeed selling out votes to the highest bidder like used car salesmen hock their 10 year old, high mileage junkers on the late, late show. And,

“This has become the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.”

– Adlai Stevenson

The public’s distrust for car salesmen is universal. As we hear the words “car salesman,” we think of that cigar smoking, tire kicking, slick haired, unfashionably dressed shyster that tried to sell you a car driven by the little old lady from Pasadena. Although this is a far-reaching stereotype, behind every prototype lurks some truth. And,

“What people believe prevails over the truth.”

– Sophocles

Of course, we all understand why lobbyists rate last. They have always been the most questionable ingredient in the political equation. This is political fact without a hint of invented fiction.

“Too often government responds to the whispers of lobbyists before the cries of the people.”

– Andrew Cuomo

But, the dismal rating that they gave to politicians is abhorrently disturbing. Many blame this current intolerance for politicians on the extreme political divide in our country. But that theory is nebulous. In 1513, Machiavelli, considered the king-philosopher of political manipulation, wrote “The Prince.” In that thesis, he profoundly and insightfully described the behavioral patterns of politicians whom he had witnessed and studied for years. Yes even in the 1500s, politicians received a very low rating in the Renaissance public opinion polls.

“Politics have no relation to morals.”

“The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.”

– Nicolo Machiavelli

Forbs told us, “Let’s face it, life is a sales game.” It is called marketing. Businesses, car salesmen, telemarketers and politicians have been touting the merits of their goods for centuries. The inimical political position society has taken today is, politicians are so desperate for a piece of the action; voters expect grandiose returns each election! Just like those ludicrous claims car hawkers make, voters are actually buying into these charismatic “pitches” for “add-ons.” They are willing to give up liberty, freely trading it for their votes! They somehow convince themselves those things are “easily financed.” Yet James Madison said, “Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”

When these promises are broken, voters go after politicians the same way they denigrate that sales guy who sold them a “barbecue machine.” The one that burnt up three days after their “too good to be true” deal was made. Instead of a wake-up call to the real world, they “bellyache” until the next election and they vote for them again. The U.S. Constitution doesn’t guarantee our happiness, only the ability to pursue it. And when it’s time to buy another car, most avoid the last salesmen who pulled the bait and switch, but they buy from the same type of slick talking shyster who makes them the same enigmatic “pitch.”

“It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.”

– Ben Franklin

Politicians use everything to buy votes. And the car salesman does the same to make a sale. Both buyers and voters act on emotion instead of common sense because it’s human nature. Although politicians would have a better reputation if they toned down their rhetoric, the stakes are too high if they “lose the sale.” Both politicians and car salesmen are not pathological liars. But, if a salesman claims his Ford sedan includes far more equipment for the same price as the guy’s down the road, you’ll never know unless you price them both. If a politician claims he’ll bestow lavish entitlements upon you that won’t cost a dime, you should check with his “competitor” to see if he is offering a better deal. Politicians and car salesmen work alike. They both make dubitable promises and we believe them.

“Only God never made a promise that was too good to be true.”

– Dwight Moody

Once you have the keys and drive your car off the lot, there’s no turning back. Before we give the politicians keys to our government’s doors, it might behoove us to study the fine print before we close the deal. We all know states have “Lemon Laws” to protect buyers if they buy a car that’s a pile of junk! They cover expressed and written warranties and buyers have recourse if contracts are breached. You rid yourself of the bad vehicle if it is “does not perform well.” The voters have the same type of law to get rid of an incompetent politician. That law is Election Day! We can trade in the “lemons” when they prove they are “souring” instead of trying to “refurbish” them!

“In Europe, politicians resign when they’ve lost public face. But in America, we must impeach ’em.”

– Bill Rogers

Competition is effective motivation. When healthy competition prevails, you have an opportunity to win. It brings out the best in products and the worst in people. Both customers and voters alike can make or break ones career. Realizing the urgency to “out-pitch” the competitors, politicians and car salesmen do anything to “close the deal” before that prospective buyer flees the lot or voting booth. They will tell them anything they want to hear. It’s hard to get valued answers and it takes common sense to depict the truth. Car buyers go to Consumers Digest and read the reviews before they venture to that antipathetic sales lot! But, we do not research our politicians as fervently. We’re baptized with campaign ads and vote party regardless of their Machiavellian declarations.

“There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.”

– Alexis de Tocqueville

Politicians and salesmen work for corporate machines. If they don’t close the deal, they are out of work. For the first time in decades, we elected a “Mr. Smith patriot” for president instead of a slick politician and professional salesman. He did not make elusive campaign sales pitches much like those “tire kickers” who try to “up-sell” us on unrealistic “extras” or “package deals.” Mr. Trump was elected because he made realistic, constitutionally correct promises appealing to a broad base of American voters. But after years of deception and misguided half truths, some voters are getting restless since their Mr. Smith has been waylaid by professional politicians in Congress peddling a bill of goods. President Trump is not a salesman or a politician. And like any consumer and voter, he is trying to survive an onslaught of deceptive rhetoric.

“Any politician who claims to solely vote the way their constituents want them to is either a schizophrenic or “B&% S#% you.”

– Ray Osland

Next time you vote for an incumbent, remember that shady car sales guy: Did he honor his word? How many pledges made were left unfulfilled? Buyer’s remorse is hard to swallow. But voters have the power to bring more Mr. Smiths into our governments. When you vote for a candidate, you are investing in America. You need to do your shopping before you close the deal. If the deal is too good to be true, it is. Do we need to elect more seasoned pros or patriotic real Americans and be patient that this is on-the-job training for him? Did that last candidate deliver “change you believed in?”

“In the face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it.”

– Barack Obama

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“I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

– Martin Luther King, Jr.

During the height of the Cold War, everyone was seeking refuge from the Communist “curtain of fear.” The principal at our parochial school demanded our parents vote for John Kennedy because he was a Catholic. Mother Jude, with holy authority, told us if we did not insist our parents support candidate JFK, it would be sinful.

This reverently stoic nun claimed since JFK was a Catholic, he emboldened the spirituality to protect us from the dreaded USSR. When I told my father what she had commanded, I soon learned my first lesson in identity politics. He told me blatantly: “We never vote because of religion! If we vote for Kennedy it’s because of his capability to govern our nation.”

During a campaign speech, JFK reiterated that: “I am not a Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic.”

Throughout his campaign, JFK’s spiritual beliefs were the subject of controversy. Many who disliked him claimed they did not want the Pope running the White House. Although he had a conservative record with 14 years in Congress, and often disagreed with the ambassador to the Vatican, this was ignored. He led the coalition to stop unconstitutional aid to parochial schools, yet few of his critics could see beyond his Catholicism. They continually referenced the articles with scrupulously selected quotations taken out of context from statements, made by church leaders.

Although the Counsel of Bishops strongly endorsed church-state separation, which reflected the views of almost every American Catholic at the time, he was chastened unmercifully for his religion by his foe.

“For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist.”

– JFK

Identity politics is voting or supporting an individual because of their pigmentation, number of x and y chromosomes, their religion or ethnicity. Identity politics is nothing new. It has been around since the Dark Ages. Although America has led other societies to declare all people equal before the law, this falls on deaf ears each election. In the last decade, American liberals have pandered to their dependent special identity groups to win elections because it works.

During the 2004 Democratic Convention, Barack Obama told reporters not to look at America as Red States or Blue States but as The United States. Academia and the media were mesmerized by this young unifier and his post-racial post-partisan consonance. He became their poster child for the entire election. Yet after two terms in office, we not only have a Red and Blue America we have a battered and worn “black-and-blue” America.

“The legacy of discrimination is part of our DNA that is passed on.”

– Obama

Jesse Jackson, the linchpin of race baiting, at the Democratic Convention in 1984, defined his base as a “rainbow coalition.” This consisted of racial, ethnic and religious minorities as well as women. But few took notice that this colorful and diverse collage included everybody in America except for those of European ancestry, who founded our Republic. He accepted most women, except those who were independent, successful and would not separate themselves politically from their fathers and husbands.

At that time Jackson lacked the political force to generate much enthusiasm from his lackluster montage of mercenaries. But three decades later, American politics has taken a far left turn in the wrong direction. We are beleaguered by a host of social, cultural and political trends that are transforming the country more rapidly than a con man can steal your money in a New York City “street corner shell game!” And this is influencing the governing of our Republic in ways that were never anticipated by our noble founders at the Convention. George Washington told the other delegates, we must “Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.”

The identity politics of special interests are a danger to America’s tradition of limited government and our ability to maintain law and order. This political philosophy is a by-product of our new age progressive politicians. Their fundamental philosophy is underpinning our Constitution to pander to their base and keep them corralled in a pen of dependence. During the debates in Philadelphia our framers verified they were obsessed with the challenge of keeping our republican government in check. They feared it would aggrandize its power whenever possible. Not only has identity politics diminished the power of lawmakers to govern, it has created animosity across the U.S. Liberally disproportionately redistributing wealth, taxpayers are questioning what they are receiving for their investment? The liberal use of their dollars to buy votes is not a fair return for the amount they invested.

“Today in America we have the best politicians in office money can buy.”

– Stan Gelds

If anyone in the U.S . doubts the power of special interest politics, they need not look any further than the Trump administration. We have a commander in chief who is trying to return America back to its constitutional traditions. Yet each time he proposes legislation, special interest groups inundate representatives with calls and emails excoriating his efforts. As much as America despises Obama-Scare, both Republican houses refuse to put it out of its misery. Nearly 2,000 appointed positions in the Trump administration remain vacant! This leaves many agencies without competent leaders or staffing. Trump is noticeably behind all recent presidents in securing the confirmation of Cabinet appointees and other top positions that require Senate approval. Just recently a progressive lynch mob publicly belittled and scourged a proven patriot war hero for his private religious beliefs! He finally withdrew to protect his family and state.

“Liberalism itself has failed, and for a pretty good reason. It has been too often compromised by the people who represented it.”

– Hunter Thompson

There is no separating special interest from politics. Special interest identity groups, big and small, have a corrupting influence at the very heart of our political system. Each election candidates vow to reform a system that has been broken by the prejudice and influence of special interest groups. Yet many of them feed from its tempting trough. Identify politics not only influences elections but it now convolutes presidential appointments and legislation brought to the floor.

Although Democratic nominees should be judgmentally decided on character and qualifications, progressives piece half-verbiage phrases together to destroy the character of anyone who does not buy into their brand of “control-politics.” The media feeds off of half-truths and misinformation to nurture its hungry cabal of throngs.

“In the political world we live in today, mis-quotations are a national vice.”

– Ellen Sutter

Exploiting politically correct but factually inaccurate racial motifs and gender politics is dividing our nation and threatens our critical place in the world. All patriotic Americans know the world needs a strong and free America. An un-united America at home cannot lead a chaotically divergent globe.

America has entered its darkest period because progressives have ganged up with academia and the left media to use race, sex and “feel-good” identity politics for their political success. President Ronald Reagan told us, “I believe now, as I always have, America’s strength is in We the People.’’

When will we start fighting back for America?

“We must never remain silent in the face of bigotry. We must condemn those who seek to divide us. In all quarters and all times, we must teach tolerance and denounce racism, anti-Semitism and all ethnic or religious bigotry wherever they exist as unacceptable evils. We have no place for haters in America, none, whatsoever.”

– Reagan

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A recent New York Times story, titled “A Polarized Supreme Court, Growing More So,” illustrates how left-of-center media distort perceptions of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The story’s problems begin with the lead paragraph’s assertion that Justice Neil Gorsuch’s appointment is “a conservative replacing another conservative.” What the Times probably intended to say is that the appointment replaces an originalist with an originalist. Originalism and conservatism are not the same thing.

Originalism is untied to political results, whether liberal or conservative. It applies the methods English and American judges have used for centuries to interpret most documents, including constitutions. The primary difference between modern originalists and non-originalists hinges on whether judges should be consistent or whether they should change the rules of interpretation for some hot-button constitutional issues.

In the article, as elsewhere, the Times describes the Court as split five-to-four, with the majority constituting a “conservative bloc.” It is more accurate to describe the Court as split four ways: (1) liberal activists (Elena Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor), (2) originalists (Clarence Thomas and Gorsuch), (3) advocates of judicial deference (John Roberts, Samuel Alito), and (4) an erratic social libertarian (Anthony Kennedy).

“And, in a shift in recent years,” the Times writes, “partisan affiliation has become a very strong predictor of voting trends for all its members.” The sentence is technically true but substantially misleading. This description would be better: although Democratic appointees have been reliably liberal on most issues, Republican appointees have commonly slipped to the left—a slippage reduced recently as GOP administrations have adopted better vetting procedures.

The article’s thigh-slapper is its description of Kennedy as “a moderate conservative.” Anyone familiar with Kennedy’s judicial style knows that he is not a moderate anything, much less a conservative. It is true that he has voted to strike down some particularly ambitious pieces of congressional legislation, but he has also reaffirmed the very liberal view that the federal government may exercise almost unfettered control over the national economy. More importantly, he has written a series of opinions reaching radical social results through an untethered and virtually unprecedented methodology.

Similarly revealing are the “experts” the Times chose to quote. Apparently, there are no experts in flyover country or in the South. Everyone worth hearing is from the Northeast or West Coast.  This is an extraordinary omission because the nomination of Gorsuch, a Coloradan, was widely viewed as an effort to rebalance the court toward the country’s center.

Neither do practicing lawyers exist in the Times’ world. Everyone quoted is affiliated with an academic or policy institution.

Nor do consistent originalist experts exist—even though the Gorsuch hearings dwelt largely on originalism. The Times quotes four liberals and one activist libertarian. No originalist scholars at all.

The Times article cites just one case by name: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The Times treats that case, as is common among liberal writers, as an unqualified “conservative” victory. In fact, it was a split decision, with originalists winning on one issue but losing on the other.

Several years ago, the Times was properly criticized for describing the Court’s activist liberals as its “four moderates.” While the latest article doesn’t make that mistake, it does reveal the Times’ propensity for putting its left-of-center views at the hub of the ideological universe. Thus the reporter describes Obama appointee Merrick Garland as “not especially liberal.” And he selected for publication an unrebutted claim that Garland was “centrist.”

Yet the reporter’s own article shows this to be untrue. It includes another unrebutted quotation in which a long liberal wish list is described as “safe” with Garland. If he were a centrist, presumably liberals would lose sometimes!

In fairness, the Times does quote an expert who cautions against its stereotyped nomenclature—pointing out that labeling Gorsuch and Garland as “‘conservative” or “liberal” is “too simplistic and unfair to both of them.” That caution, however, is buried at the end.

Rob Natelson is Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence at the Independence Institute’s Senior Fellow. This column previously published in the American Conservative and on the Independence Institute’s website.

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Republican members of Congress face a dilemma, particularly those from coal-mining states.

As Congress considers a $1.3 billion bailout of health benefits for retired union coal miners, they must weigh the arguments for and against such federal bailouts.

“My district has more United Mine Workers members than any other Congressional district in the nation,”Congressman Mike Bost, R-Ill., said. “West Virginia has a total of 8,000. Kentucky has a total of 3,000. And I have a total of about 4,500 in my district. It’s a lot of people.”

But Bost also served 10 years in the Illinois General Assembly, and knows that Illinois’ pension systems are more than $130 billion in debt.

Bost said he understands why some taxpayers are worried that a federal bailout for the United Mine Workers’ health care benefits could open the door to a federal bailout for public pension systems across the country.

“There is a danger in bailouts,” Bost said. “But this one is different.”

Congress is considering a $1.3 billion bailout of health benefits for 22,600 former coal miners. The bailout is included in the $1 trillion spending plan designed to keep the federal government running. Bost said Congress is looking to use money from the coal mine reclamation fund to pay for the health care bills of what he calls a “finite group” of elderly people. Bost said this week that he’s pleased Congress has reached an agreement on what he calls “vitally” important benefits.

“The coal companies used a loophole to abandon these people,” Bost said. “It’s the right thing to do.”

Rachel Greszler, a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, disagrees, saying taxpayers shouldn’t be paying for what the union promised its members but never delivered.

“There was never a promise from the [federal] government,” Greszler said. “It was the union itself. They set up this fund and wanted to pay out benefits right away, in 1947, to people who were retiring. But they never made contributions. It’s the same thing as Social Security. If you start paying benefits to people who didn’t earn them, you’re digging a hole that at some point you have to climb out of. But the problem that you have with the coal industry is that they can’t climb out.”

Coal mining in the United States is not what it used to be. More than 860,000 people worked in the coal industry at its peak in 1923. Nearly 75,000 people worked in the industry in 2000. In 2016, just 65,000 people worked in mines. The number of coal mines also is down significantly, as is total coal output.

Greszler said that’s the biggest problem for union mine workers.

“There’s one worker for every 11 retirees,” Greszler said.

There are also questions about the bailout plan itself.

A new Inspector General’s report from the U.S. Department of the Interior found numerous flaws with the $1 billion former President Barack Obama sent to the United Mine Workers health-care fund between 2011 and 2015. The report said the union listed nearly 1,800 people born in the 1800s as beneficiaries. The report also found the union added thousands more people to the list of “previously retired” miners.

Slippery Slope?

Greszler said Congress is setting a dangerous precedent with a bailout for miners. Even if it’s only their health care.

“If you open the door to the mine workers, how can you say in the future, ‘We’re just going to pick and choose?'” Greszler said.

Bost agrees.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do with the Central State’s pension system,” Bost added. “That’d be a true bailout because there is no revenue there.”

The Central State’s pension fund also is in trouble. It’s underfunded by about $18 billion, and thousands of truck drivers say they could lose their pensions as well. The Central State’s pension fund was supposed to be the retirement account for nearly 400,000 Teamster members in the Midwest. But under funding, questionable accounting, and scandals dating back to Jimmy Hoffa’s days have left the pension fund in the brink of collapse.

But Greszler said miners and truckers aren’t the concern.

She said taxpayers need to be very worried about a Congressional bailout of state and local government pensions.

“If you say, ‘We’re just going to provide a small, limited bailout for the coal miners’, that’s $5 billion,” Greszler said. “But then you just open the spigot. And if you open it to private unions, how can you not then bail out state and local governments? That’s retired firefighters and teachers, and there’s plenty of sympathy for them.”

Greszler said the total unfunded liability for public sector pensions tops $5 trillion.

But the miners’ health care bailout had the bipartisan support of lawmakers from coal-mining states.

“I’m proud to have secured this important provision as we put together the final package,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentuck, said Monday on the House Floor. “I’ll continue to fight for relief for coal communities going forward.”

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“I hate big government, but I really hate a government that doesn’t work. So when they say we either have to raise taxes or cut core services, it’s actually a false choice.”

– Scott Walker

During the late 1970s and continuing for a decade, America experienced unprecedented prosperity.

President Ronald Reagan created wealth and jobs, and everyone prospered. Under his leadership, Americans changed the incentive structure on all taxes, inflation, and regulation. This enabled our economy to roar back to life after the anti-growth, high-inflation Carter years that devastated the US. But as usual, few political leaders profit from the sins of the past. And in the past eight years, America has moved away from protecting capitalism, which has decimated growth and prosperity. This is why blue color America rebelled and elected a president with a stellar record of free market success. He campaigned in blue and red states to give everyone the same opportunity to be prosperous like him.

“Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.”

– Ronald Reagan

The policies of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi caused America to lose its status as the world’s growth and job-creation machine. Their economic mismanagement of our nation was an unmitigated disaster. Economists warned them if they did not curtail expanding government, we’d go belly up.

This gang of four’s policies not only failed to articulate a recovery; they set us back to the nightmare created by Franklin D. Roosevelt. The activist Federal Reserve and Obama’s fiscal stimulus policies ravaged social and economic progress. Their systemic solution to try and revive a failing economy was to raise taxes and redistribute wealth. This was only a straw man to cover up their plans to facilitate their brand of progressive social engineering.

“Those who believe that what our people desire is big government are living in a state of delusion.”

– Marco Rubio

Before our wise founders set forth to create a free market nation of free men, they were congruent in philosophy on one key principle: History demonstrated that the larger a government is, the more expensive it is to run. Since they wanted to give us a republic, they looked to Rome as an example of what “not to do.”

The cataclysm of the Roman Empire was a result of the greatest tax burden in history for the average citizen. The 3rd century taxation was so desolating that many citizens were driven to starvation and bankruptcy. Rome was so desperate for money they chased after widows and children to collect taxes owed by their deceased. By the 4th century, the Roman economy was dolorous. Many farmers vacated their land and moved into the cities to receive public amenities. By then, Rome was spending most of its taxes on military and public entitlements and people wanted more.

“What people want is big government that they don’t have to pay for.”

– Timothy Noah

Greece mimicked the Romans in 2008 as their economy wilted quicker than a lily in summer. Most of Europe entered the global recession, but Greece bottomed out. Unemployment reached 28 percent in 2013, which was worse than the U.S. during the Great Depression. Government spending was 50 percent of Greece’s economic output by 2013. Greece’s score from The Economic Freedom of the World Index was the lowest in all of Europe’s free nations.

During the heart of this tumultuous fiscal crisis, Greece soon tried to atone for this profligacy by implementing a fiscal “austerity” program to reduce government’s size and cut back onerous levels of entitlements. But the people revolted and Greek leaders cried uncle!

“Big government doesn’t help the middle class, it buries it.”

– Rubio

Like so many countries before, Greece suffered a crisis caused by too much government and the politicians decided the solution was to “drum roll” its size and scope. It is a sobering reality. The tax burden was so oppressive people didn’t want to inherit property. Throughout the land people were lining up renouncing their inheritance. They’d rather give it away than pay the taxes.

When this tax revenue dwindled to a trickle, Greek politicians squeezed even more from the taxpayers. They had drones on social media to see if people had lifestyles more extravagant than income they reported to tax police. Greek officials foolishly thought the more they raised taxes and printed money to pay their bills, the sooner the economy would improve.

“To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”

– Thomas Jefferson

The economic decline of any civilization is caused by political elites who give away the farm and milk the cows dry every time someone demands something. By permitting voters to dictate social policy, they must increase public debt and debase the currency. This results in obloquious taxation and insidious restrictive laws. The people sell their liberty like Judas sold his soul for “30 pieces of silver.”

To support the waterloo of giving government unrestricted power, they put the propaganda machine into high gear to ensure everyone that this is for their good. Deluded by patriotic fervor, voters are too simple-minded to notice they’re being plundered by the state. Whether it’s direct or indirect taxation by printing money like Obama and Carter did, the result is the same. Tactics to support wealth redistribution have been used for centuries to market political agendas at the expense of all taxpayers.

“Unrestricted government power always leads to lost liberty and freedom.”

– Nick Davis

The economic blunders in Greece and Rome will be replicated worldwide for centuries. People cannot comprehend that government does not have any money except what they steal from them. And “He who giveith takeit away”! We have felt the sting of these past failures already.

There are many blue states on a bad trajectory, such as California and Illinois. If there’s any hope for the politicians in Sacramento and Springfield to right the ship, they best do it now. If they beg the feds for money. D.C. must tell them no! This is your faux pas for bankrupting your state houses. Ludicrous, unfunded pensions and obscene benefits for blue state employees are a ticking time bomb. D.C. must school them. There are no more gifts of bailouts from ol’ Uncle Sam.

“A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.”

– G. Gordon Liddy

Plato saw the writing on the wall in 400 BC: “Democracy is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder.” Politicians will continue to misappropriate funds when taxpayers foot the bill. Perhaps in 1,000 years, historians will be writing the same thing about us. It’s not far-fetched if we don’t remember our history.

Rome was not built in a day and it did not fall in one. It was a transition from the frugal governing by Julius Caesar to when Odoacer deposed the Emperor Romulus into exile. They were unable to defend themselves and were easily conquered.

“The Roman Empire was much like us. They lost their moral core, their sense of values of who they were.”

– Ben Carson

We must transform our tax policy into an engine of growth and innovation and apply “tough love” to cut back on social engineering and entitlements before we meet the fate of Rome and Greece. We have no more money to buy votes.

Government’s “We have what it takes to take what you have” attitude, “grab our money and run with it,” must be changed. We must maintain capitalism and free markets in order to field our strength as a world leader, to protect our liberty and freedom. Anyone can increase taxes and balance the budget, but it takes guts to tell people the free ride is over.

D.C. must learn how to say “no!” If we fail to do this now, big government will be our Waterloo. Lyndon B. Johnson once said, “In 1790, the nation which had fought a revolution against taxation without representation discovered that some of its citizens weren’t much happier about taxation with representation.”

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Ohio education officials are delaying their ESSA implementation plan until fall, giving the state more time to gather feedback on issues such as statewide testing and teacher evaluations.

The move was popular with the Ohio teachers union and state legislators focused on education policy, who complained to Superintendent of Public Instruction Paolo DeMaria that residents demanding less testing and simpler state report cards are being ignored.

A new testing and accountability plan is required under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, the federal law that replaced the Bush-era No Child Left Behind.

Read more here and here.

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A little more than a year out from an overhaul of the state’s charter school assessment system, Ohio’s charter sector is in a period of transition.

Crain’s Cleveland Business has a guide to the changes that have happened and those that are on the horizon at the local, state and national levels.

Read the whole thing here.

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Researchers who studied the first year of Ohio’s charter school reforms say the 2015 law is “bringing promising changes to the state’s charter school sector.”

A new report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute cites tougher oversight of Ohio charter authorizers and governing boards as key components of the overhaul.

The authors note that this is a first look only, “an early (and important) checkup on the implementation of HB 2, and to prompt action, if needed, to ensure faithful implementation of Ohio’s much improved charter school law.”

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Consolidation could be coming to Ohio’s charter school sector.

The I Can charter school network is considering turning its schools over to the Accel network, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.

Accel founder Ron Packard said the move “would be less of a purchase than a transfer of leadership.”

Accel has taken over 23 schools in Ohio over the past two years and, the paper reports, “has made strong initial academic improvement in several.”

I Can has five schools in Cleveland, with other campuses in Akron and Canton, as well as one in Indiana.

Read more here.

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A bill designed to curb civil forfeiture practices in Ohio is set to pass next week despite opposition from the state’s law enforcement community.

The U.S. Justice Action Network, a coalition of conservative and progressive organizations, and fellow proponents of the bill appear to be closing in on victory after an eighteen-month battle for reform.

The bill, which passed the state House in May, is expected to see a Senate vote next week. Originally the bill would have eliminated the practice of civil forfeiture entirely. Opposition from prosecutors and police chiefs pushed lawmakers to amend the measure to allow for the seizure of assets valued at more than $25,000.

Critics of the bill such as John Murphy, executive director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, argue that the state’s civil forfeiture law provides sufficient protections and says concerns regarding abuses are the result of overreach by authorities in other states.

Supporters say it strikes an appropriate balance between protecting the interests of private citizens and those of law enforcement.

Robert Alt, president of the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, emphasized the bill’s potential to reverse the negative public perception of law enforcement spurred by forfeiture abuses.

“This will remove that stain with how it is perceived that they are operating,” he said.

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