Principle Over Party

The video below is a message from an Iraqi Veteran, Joe Cook, to Barack Obama:

The LA Times has a story today about an amputee Marine returning to combat duty. Cpl. Garrett Jones is a real American Hero. Heros like Cpl. Jones are what makes this Country great and what keeps us all free.

Just over a year ago, Cpl. Garrett Jones was one of thousands of Marines slogging through a tour of duty in Iraq. Today, he is deployed with the same unit in Afghanistan, but he serves now with an unusual distinction. On July 23, 2007, Jones was on foot patrol near the Iraqi city of Fallouja when he was injured by a roadside bomb. After the attack, his left leg was amputated above the knee. He developed infections and fevers. His weight dropped from 175 pounds to 125. At 21, Jones faced months of painful rehabilitation and a likely end to his service in the Marine Corps. One year later, Jones is walking smoothly on a prosthetic leg. He not only continues to serve on active duty, but he has worked his way back to a war zone, serving with his Marine battle buddies in Afghanistan.
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“I want to be someone an injured Marine can talk to,” Jones said. “And I can tell them: ‘Times will be rough and not always easy as an amputee, but you can still make great things out of an unfortunate situation.’ That’s what I want to do.” Sgt. Matthew Leonard, who served with Jones in Iraq and now works beside him at this desert base in southern Afghanistan, said Jones has earned a special status among Marines because he demanded to be sent back to combat. “He didn’t just choose to come — he fought to come,” Leonard said. “We bled and sweated with this guy in Iraq, and he wants to be with us more than anything. That’s awesome.”

Thank you Cpl. Jones for your service in keeping us free.

This falls in the no surprise category. The small group of parents and teachers who came to the meetings recommended a referendum. See the stories about it in the following local papers:

• News-Sun: Antioch group recommends elementary school referendum (Excerpt below)
• Daily Herald: Antioch group tabs education goals
• Antioch Review: Nav34 recommendations presented to board

An advisory group of parents and staff studying the issues facing Antioch School District 34 for the past seven months recommended the district hold a bond referendum to build more classrooms to relieve overcrowding and the district’s reliance on 16 mobile classrooms.

Considering the slowed economy and two failed referendums since 2006, the earliest the district would pursue a referendum would be March 2009, said District 34 Superintendent Scott Thompson.

“It’s too soon to do in November,” he said. “We have to determine when the right time is economically.”

What Superintendent Thompson means by November being too soon is they the district does not have the needed time to get their propaganda out in favor of a Yes vote. This is especially true since their last 2 attempts have been beaten.

District 34, like virtually every other school district in Illinois doesn’t listen to the taxpayers. They continue to put referendum after referendum on the ballot until it is passed. They’ll do surveys and these consensus groups together to make it appear that they are listening to the taxpayers, when these attempts are just masquerades of propaganda to get what the district wants.

Our public government schools are overfunded currently. They do not need more money. They need fiscal responsibility to stop the spending problems instead. One way to force this is to Fund The Child. Designate a specified amount of money for each and every child. The parents then get to choose the school they want their child to attend and the money then follows. This puts the parents in charge of the purse strings instead of the bloated and self-serving school bureaucracy. The schools will actually have to earn the money by innovating and actually producing results.

You can take a survey about District 34 at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=JGFWf8RgmyTbEJ3Chjoadw_3d_3d
. Let them know what you think.

In todays Daily Herald they report about a Wauconda School Board member pleading guilty to domestic battery.

Wauconda school board member Nicholas Batson was sentenced to 6 months in jail and 2 years probation Thursday after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor domestic battery charge.

Batson was facing up to 14 years in prison on two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse for allegedly molesting a 14-year-old female relative at his Wauconda Township home on Dec. 5.
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“This conduct to which he’s acknowledged is bad, but in my mind he is not a bad person,” Menaker said. “The school board has not discharged him.”

The last statement about the school board not discharging him is ludicrous because they can’t. All they can do is ask him to resign but they have no power to force him off.

This is just another example of why the citizens need recall for all elected officials. Unfortunately, the elected officials are not going to give us this option willingly. The only way to get recall is going to be via a Constitution Convention. To make that happen, there needs to be a Yes vote this November. For more information on the ConCon vote see YesForIllinois.com and the IllinoisCitizenCoalition.org websites.

I have been following the whole man made global warning debate for several years. It has been entertaining to say the least with all the arguments from both sides.

It seems that now the Physicist world is reopening the debate as to whether global warming is man made or not. The Al Gore consensus seems to be falling apart.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Voice of the Martyrs is giving away free Olympic Prayer Bands to help you remember to pray for the persecuted Christians in China during the Olympics. I encourage every Christian to order theirs today at Voice of the Martyrs.

The following is from the neighborhood coordinator who is leading a campaign to help a fellow neighbor in need. This neighbor lives across the street from me and is in great financial need. Please read the letter below and pass it along to other bloggers to spread the word about this need.

Lennie

Friends,

We are on a journey together to save a home from Foreclosure. Debbi Tepper passed away on May 29^th leaving behind a husband, George, who is need of a kidney transplant; a son, Brandon Tepper who is twelve years old; and a daughter Jamie who is 23.

Debbi was admitted to Condell Hospital in Libertyville, Illinois on May 21, 2008 with a mysterious illness that aggressively ravaged her body to the point where she became paralyzed. She was on a feeding tube and ventilator. She also received a tracheotomy. This illness eventually attacked her body to the point where her brain was no longer functioning leaving her on life support, until eventually the family had to let her go.

Debbi is at peace now, but her family is not. The government was declaring a Sherriff’s sale on her home the very same day she passed away. An extension was able to be obtained until July 28^th, 2008. That is the day the house is up for auction.

George, her husband has Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD). Because of his PKD, he is in immediate need of a second kidney transplant. He goes to dialysis three times a week and is awaiting a second kidney transplant. The extensive medical bills the family has incurred has forced them to get far behind on their house payments.

Jamie just graduated from college only to eventually see her mother who was the picture of perfect health die from a mysterious illness which violated her body in less than two weeks. Jamie and Brandon have gone through more than any child should ever have to in a lifetime.

Debbi was the hub of our entire neighborhood Lakewood Hills in Round Lake Beach Illinois. Brandon, her son, is undoubtedly the most popular child in the neighborhood. He does not deserve to lose the home he has grown up in.

We are on a mission to save their home and we need your help! Please give ASAP to “Team Up For The Teppers” at any Fifth Third Bank Location, donate online at DebbiTepper.com, or mail a donation to the following Fifth Third Bank address:

Fifth Third Bank
Attn: Randy Angsten
750 Northwest Hwy
Cary, IL 60013

Thank you for your kind support. Everyone is telling me it looks hopeless but I am believing God for a miracle! Please give from your heart. We are on a massive fundraising campaign in our community and we are not giving up! Keep the Faith.

Friends of The Tepper Family.

In a wonderful twist of irony, the ACLU is suing Florida School Districts over their abysmal education outcomes and graduation rates. They are in fact using the same phrase from the teachers contracts that the teacher unions used to get the voucher system thrown out. (Hat tip: Liberty Is For Me) The phrase is

uniform, efficient, safe, secure and high-quality education

Here are a few quotes from the Palm Beach Post [Emphasis mine]:

Low graduation rates in Palm Beach County show the school district has failed its students, especially minority children, by not providing a “uniform, efficient, safe, secure and high-quality education,” according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union.
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The suit alleges that the district is violating students’ rights to a high-quality education as outlined in the state constitution.
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Hansen said the organization intentionally left out specific remedies to allow school district officials to do what they think is best to improve achievement.

So, we have students rights being violated and the same school district that is violating this rights will be left to come up with their own solution to fix the problem. Sorry, but if they could have fixed the problem it would have been done already. The school officials will just go to the teachers unions and the teachers unions answer will be give us more money. Thus never solving the problem but making education even more expensive and you’ll get an even more entrenched bureaucracy.

The teachers union doesn’t want change, they want protection. This is why they fought the voucher system. They don’t want competition that would force them to improve educational outcomes. They want status quo and more money.

I bet the right lawyer could take this same clause and use it toward the goal of funding all children equally. The argument is simple. The education bureaucracy has failed our children. They allow unequal funding based on residence. To end this the State provides money equally to each school age child. This money can then be used at any accredited school of the parents choosing. The parents are then in charge of the money and competition will abound.

I have written about this very topic many times before. Here are just a few of the links to those stories:

• Equal Access To a Good Education
• Land of the Free or Land of Local Fiefs
• School Funding and the Courts
• Anti-Catholic Bigotry and How It Affects Public Education
• School Choice Saves Money
• Lesson from New Zealand

Today the CA Court of Appeals said (Hat tip: Liberty Is For Me)

The Courts are once again ruling against the rights of the individual and forcing the will of the State onto its residents. This is Judicial tyranny and it has to be stopped. Each day, we as citizens are losing our rights to an out of control judiciary. The courts have eroded our personal property rights with the Kelo decision. They have been gradually eroding our rights as parents to raise our children in the manner that we think is best. Now they take that one step further and say the State has the final say in how we educate our children.

More information can be found at the following:

• PDF of Ruling
• LA Times Coverage
• Citizen Link
• LA court says: Homeschoolers need to attend government schools

The yearly effort by Illinois Legislators to raise your taxes under the guise of Education Reform has returned. this time it is under a new name SB2288. You can read the full bill and see its co-sponsors at the General Assembly website. The Senate Education Committee votes tomorrow, Wednesday afternoon on this money grab. Please contact members of the committee and tell them to vote NO! Tell them to start holding the public school bureaucracy accountable for the billions of dollars we already spend on education in the state.

If you want to stop the continual money grab by legislators, county, township and school boards, then visit the Illinois Citizen Coalition and see how voting YES on a Constitution Convention this November can change this.

Extremewisdom.com has an alternative education funding plan that fully funds education, but results in a tax cut. View a short video presentation and read the Executive Summary.

For background information on HB750 now SB2288 review the following articles:

• Teachers To Springfield Part Duex
• School Funding: Where the Candidates Stand
• Study Showing More Faults with HB750
• HB 750 Not Dead Yet
• Tax Increase Cost an Average of 20%
• HB 750/SB 1484 Flyer
• HB 750 Analysis Roundup
• More HB750 Analysis
• HB 750 - Massive State Tax Increase