Hilarious

This scene gets used a lot, but this time it is one of the funniest take offs…

DGreport.com Hacked

After surpassing a million visits, Elaine Johnson’s DGreport appears to have been hacked by a turkish site  http://hovardayiz.net/

Usually when a site gets hit with a redirect bug, it’s because a back door was left open, allowing unauthorized code to be inserted.

RedSpeed Exposed

Marni Pyke- Local Hero

The Daily Herald slowly picked up steam on the scheming by RedSpeed and the Red Light Camera industry, and this weeks article by Marni Pyke shines the brightest light yet on the calculated for-profit ploy to use government and our safety officials-the police themselves-as dupes in their scheming.

Choice quotes:

RedSpeed credits its lobbyists, who include former elected officials, for its legislative successes. But it recognized the opposition was fierce and blamed voters in an April update.

“Most DuPage County senators are still having serious reservations about voting yes,” the update states. “Many constituents have been pressuring them to vote against the speed bill. It would help if they heard from police colleagues and friends on the importance of passing this bill.”

And more:

RedSpeed is sensitive to negative publicity. Following a critical radio interview by Duffy, RedSpeed e-mailed police chiefs, mayors and village trustees stating the senator “made several inaccurate statements about your (red light) programs, using this misinformation as a platform for his position.”

The e-mail offers talking points for local leaders.

For example, to offset arguments that cameras are installed for revenue reasons, the e-mail notes that “if drivers do not break the traffic laws, they do not receive a ticket and subsequent fine.”

Duffy shot back that RedSpeed has donated more than $39,000 in recent years to legislators to promote its cause while collecting millions of fines from Illinois citizens and urging lawmakers to ignore the voices of the public.

“The facts remain the same. The majority of tickets are issued because motorists roll past the white line when turning right on red. If turning right on red is a safety issue, then why don’t legislators make them illegal?” he said.

Read her whole story and more here.

For her efforts to investigate and expose the scam and how it has attempted to infiltrate Illinois, Marni Pyke has been shut out by RedSpeed officials, who refuse to return her calls and answer her questions.  Additionally, RedSpeed company attorneys have attempted to block Daily Herald FOIA requests for email records of their lobbying and marketing campaign, claiming the request for public records violated personal privacy and trade secrets exemptions provided by law.

That’s how we roll in IL

Townhall meetings IL style: Shakowski has the health care brown shirts salt the mine.  FAIL

Healthcare plan comparisons

Required reading.

From the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Click on image to go to document.

RLC pt. gazillion

“In our opinion, this would be an invitation to a lawsuit based upon an equal protection violation under the Illinois Constitution,” Korey said in an e-mail to village officials. “In effect, the village would be penalizing one violator $50 and another violator $100 for the same violation.”

- RedSpeed Attorney Martin Korey, quoted in the August 10, 2009 Tribune story Red-light camera company open to two-tiered ticketing- Rolling right turns may net lower fines, flatly rejecting the idea of two tiered fines, a higher tier for running red lights, and a lower tier for rolling-right-turn on red, explaining that residents have a constitutionally protected right to pay $100 for a ticket instead of $50 for a lesser infraction.

He did not say whether the law suit would come from residents demanding a flat $50 for all tickets, or from RedSpeed demanding a flat $100 for all tickets.

SB99 Nepotism Policy

I’m beginning to think a Sandack type of overhaul of SB99’s Ethics and Nepotism Policies may be in order.  As you may recall, Current Mayor Ron Sandack ran with overhauling and tightening village ethics a platform issue, and upon election immediately wasted no time fulfilling that pledge to voters.  One part: no more campaign contributions from people or groups that do business above a certain level with the village.  It reflected aspects of ethics legislation the state General Assembly pursued in response to Blago’s (and Ryan’s) abuse of power.  That hasn’t had any deleterious effects here so far, and doesn’t look like it ever will.  If anything, some local companies have sighed relief they are barred from having to play that game.

Here are the sheets of the current Nepotism Policy for SB99.  This is not the policy for the District, this is for the School Board.

Page 2 of instructions for implementing Nepotism Policy

Page 1 of Instructions for implementing Nepotism Policy

Page 2 of instructions for implementing Nepotism Policy

The District 99 Nepotism Policy was changed in January to keep track with changes made to the School Board Policy.

I could not get these to post right at DGreport.

Local MSM Getting Hip to RLC

Check this recent write up on the Reporter.

Overdue, the public is beginning to smell the rat that is Red Light Cameras.

Saturday 6:30pm steam

GOP Attack Ad

Trib Wakes Up On RLC

Today the Trib finally woke up to the nightmare of private for-profit companies that deploy traffic cameras and enter into contracts to ticket for “civil” traffic offenses committed by vehicles, and collect money to make their profit.  Red Light Cameras was the first manifestation of this scurrilous abuse of consent of the governed.

Read the Tribune article here.

The Trib also lays out the major players in the unfolding RLC rip-off.

Read the Trib article on the players here.

HB255’s false promise

Pennsylvania teaches a lesson Illinois refuses to learn.

More revenue, lower taxes, education funding.  All lies sold in years past every time politicians want a taste of back room money and power, want to cement campaign donors to a steady diet of cash kickbacks to keep those in office, in office as long as they wish, not as long as the electorate wishes.

Money wins election in Illinois, and the gambling industry delivers that cash.  In return, IL lawmakers turned the spigot wide open with HB255, a disaster for Illinois that will change our state.  For the worse.

I have several friends who say “What’s the harm of playing a little video poker at the Moose?”  What about at the convenience store next to the school?  The gas stations at every corner?  Grocery stores? Once the foot is in the door…

They will become part of the fabric of society here in IL.  Try teaching your children to be fiscally responsible when video gambling entices them with the lie of easy riches.  Every day.  Every time they go in for a slushee, or a candy bar.  Every time you take them grocery shopping.  Expanded gambling will expand two things in Illinois we least need: greed, and corruption.

Get ready for an onslaught of politicians expanding programs for the poor that will be the hardest hit by video gambling. Those who barely have the means to keep their heads above water, which here in Illinois is topping 22% of the population (10%+ unemployed, 12% in working poverty) are the specific victims of advertising campaigns that cajole and convince them that the winning is easy.  And the desperate want to believe, so they gamble.  And lose.

But IL pols don’t care about that.  They care about money.   And if the poor get poorer because the politicians take their money, well, they’ll just tax the rest who do have money.  More welfare, more programs, more help-help needed because the politicians stole what little the poor have.

Read about how well this has all worked out for Pennslyvania here.

Bellwood Loves RLC

The last three minutes are where the revenue agenda is discussed.  “It’s like having a casino!”

AZ Figuring It Out

Red light cameras are a safety scam.  Police should be arresting them instead of endorsing them.

Was Schaumburg Scammed By Red Speed, Elected Officials On Red Light Cameras?

YES.

While Mayor Larson is desperately trying to stave off political pressure from the community, it should be remembered that Mayor Larson and the Village Board had ample opportunity to stop this red light camera debacle from happening in the first place.

Anonymous Comment

“As a Vietnam veteran, on behalf of the 50,000+ who died there, the hundreds of thousands of wounded, including myself, and the untold destruction caused to Vietnam, I hope Robert McNamara rots in hell.”

And We Want This In Illinois?

Required reading from the WSJ Opinion section:

President Obama has bet the economy on his program to grow the government and finance it with a more progressive tax system. It’s hard to miss the irony that he’s pitching this change in Washington even as the same governance model is imploding in three of the largest American states where it has been dominant for years — California, New Jersey and New York.

A decade ago all three states were among America’s most prosperous. California was the unrivaled technology center of the globe. New York was its financial capital. New Jersey is the third wealthiest state in the nation after Connecticut and Massachusetts. All three are now suffering from devastating budget deficits as the bills for years of tax-and-spend governance come due.

These states have been models of “progressive” policies that are supposed to create wealth: high tax rates on the rich, lots of government “investments,” heavy unionization and a large government role in health care.

Here’s a rundown on the results:

Government spending as economic stimulus. State-local spending per capita is $12,505 in New York (second highest after Alaska), $10,136 per person in California (fourth) and $9,574 in New Jersey (seventh).

Has all this public sector “investment” translated into jobs? Not quite. California had the nation’s third highest jobless rate in May (11.5%). New Jersey and New York had below average unemployment rates in May compared to the national average of 9.4%, but one reason is that so many discouraged workers have left those states. From 1998-2007, which included two booms on Wall Street, New York and New Jersey ranked 36th and 31st in job creation. From 2000 to 2007, the New Jersey Business & Industry Association calculates that nine out of 10 new Garden State jobs were in the government.

…

Instead of balanced budgets, these high taxes have produced record red ink. California’s deficit for 2010 is projected at $33.9 billion, New Jersey’s $7 billion and New York’s $17.9 billion, despite multiple tax increases this decade. The Manhattan Institute finds that three-quarters of the loss in revenues this year in Albany is a result of reduced income tax payments by rich people even though the state keeps raising taxes on high earners.

…Powerful unions. Mr. Obama believes union power is a ticket to the middle class. The middle class is getting creamed in all three of these “progressive” states, where organized labor is king. The unionized share of the workforce is 20% in California, 19% in New Jersey and 27% in New York compared to 13% across the country. All three are non-right-to-work states, have super-minimum wage requirements and provide among the nation’s most generous public-employee pensions.

Workers in these paradises are indeed uniting — by leaving. New York ranks first, California second and New Jersey third in moving vans leaving the state. A study by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research found that over the past decade these and other high-union states (mostly in the Northeast) had one-third the job growth of states with low union penetration.

…

Have government controls and Medicaid expansions (“the public option”) lowered costs? Here is what the American Health Insurance Plans found. For family coverage annual premiums in 2006-07, the national median cost was roughly $5,300; in California it was $5,884, in New Jersey $10,398, and in New York $12,254. New York’s coverage mandates cause families to pay more than twice what they do in other states for insurance.

As a result, California and New York have more than one-third of their residents uninsured or in Medicaid — much higher than the national average of 25%. More government involvement in health care in California, New Jersey and New York has raised costs and often reduced private coverage. That’s hardly a model for the nation.
* * *

So goes the real-life experience of progressive governance, with heavy tax burdens financing huge welfare states, and state capitals dominated by public-employee unions. Formerly rich states, they are now known for job losses, booming deficits and debt, wage stagnation, out-migration and laughing-stock legislatures. At least Americans have the ability to flee these ill-governed states for places that still welcome wealth creators. The debate in Washington now is whether to spread this antigrowth model across the entire country.

One Thousand Words

Balancing the State Budget Without Tax Hikes

Click on image to go to report page.

Required Reading

When Quinn came to the rescue of a s(t)inking state budget by throwing us all an anchor, he was quick to demand that any naysayers provide a complete alternate solution.

The Illinois Policy Institute has done exactly that. All that’s required is the will, the moral and ethical fiber, and leadership.

In other news, in a bipartisan effort of will, moral and ethical fiber, and leadership, the Illinois House voted for expanded internet horse race gambling.  More on that later.

NOTE: Still mainly writing over at DGreport.com, but right now Elaine Johnson  just put up an editorial on the increasingly odd behavior of our high school Board of Education (CHSD99), and I don’t want to bump it.  I’ll dump it further down the page if I can.

DGreport “I’m In”

We’ve all read Elaine’s DGreport now for over two years, and recently she asked us if we might help her out for a while. I said yes, so I’ll be posting over there for at least a bit.