Governor Walker Saves Wisconsin!

The man is focused like a work horse with blinders on. He told Wisconsin what he was going to do, and he won the [gubernatorial] election by 6%.

Yes, he did what he said, and now teachers pay 12% into their health care and only 5.8% into their pensions. As a result, thousands of teachers’ jobs were saved.

June 5th, he won the Wisconsin Recall by 7%. Scott Walker is the first governor to survive such a recall.

The taxpayers are finally waking up to the Tea Party message: smaller government, less taxes, less spending, less restrictions, and more transparency. These are the values our Founders proclaimed but are now blasted by the Left.

We continue to see our school, county, and city boards bow down to the public unions and give them 1.5 to 3% increases in pay or benefits. Yet the taxpayers who make these government jobs possible continue to experience wage freezes or pay cuts, and many are even losing their jobs. Government employees enjoy pay, pensions, benefits, vacations, days off, and job security that the private sector does not.

Steward Varney/ Fox News financial contributor said June 6th that Wisconsin government pensions are four-and-a-half times more than the private sector pensions. Socialism by the Left has finally been challenged by Governor Walker. Wake up, Illinois!

All we hear in Illinois is more tax, or shift the tax burden for teacher pensions to the local school districts. We are in much worse financial condition than Wisconsin, and our leaders want to continue to kick the can down the road.

If you have a major political complaint, come to our popular “Speak Out Session.” We will speak out on many subjects like the UN wanting to control America’s Internet, more costly government programs like Rural Transportation, Chicago teachers wanting a 30% pay increase, pastors hiding behind their pulpits, Attorney General Eric Holder trying to keep illegals on Florida’s ballot, and much more at the Stephenson County Tea Party meeting June 14th at 6:30 p.m. at 111 E. Mason St., Lena, IL.

Bill Dietz
Lena, IL

‘State Should Not Sacrifice Rural Health for Wind Energy Projects,’

as seen in The Cap Times, February 29, 2012

“Will the Public Service Commission continue to promote dangerous utility practices and sacrifice Wisconsin rural health for big wind profits?

“Electrical pollution tests conducted by Dave Stetzer at the Shirley Wind Project in Brown County reveal electrical pollution levels to be severely unsafe, not meeting the standards of the World Health Organizations and the Institute of Electrical Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

“By law utilities are allowed to dump 70% of the neutral current into the ground, creating deadly health effects which are amplified by wind turbine generation. Had the Electrical Bill of Rights passed in 2003, it would be illegal. But because of the successful lobby efforts of the utilities and wind developers, legislators turned a blind eye to the harm caused by such electrical dumping on an already-undersized grid. Various IEEE studies prove that contact voltage over 20 millivolts is a health concern. Dave Stetzer’s tests reveal 200-to-600 millivolts contact at faucet to floor on the homes near wind turbines.

“Another issue is electromagnetic frequency (EMF) that is created by variable speed wind turbine generators not properly filtered at generation. These EMFs enter the homes and barns via ground contact and power lines. Stetzer’s tests demonstrate that the Shirley wind turbines have amplified the problem to the point that people are experiencing severe health issues. His tests show electromagnetic frequency radiation exposure between 16 to 25 kilohertz and IEEE studies prove that anything over 1.7 kilohertz of radiation absorbs internally within our bodies (and those of farm animals and poultry), leading to problems such as cancer and heart disease.”

Personally, I want to know what happens to our water supply when all that rebar in the foundations begins to rust?

Sue McGinn
Tampico, IL

RE: Child Tax Credit Waste

The Child Tax Credit for illegal immigrants is the most recent example of how the federal government is wasting billions of dollars of our tax money. This is a cash refund (up to $1,000 per child) to people who don’t even have a social security number.

Do you need a better example of a failed tax policy and an ineffective immigration policy? Congress is to blame. They are NOT solving these problems. If we want a change, we must fire the career politicians and hire a new breed of legislators who will represent our country, not their party and those who funded their elections.

* Create term limits - don’t vote for an incumbent.

* Vote for any candidate supported by the GOOOH process (www.goooh.com). These candidates will agree to term limits and are not associated with any political party.

Serving in Congress should be an honor, not a career.

Billy D. Clifford
Austin, TX

Guest Commentary . . .

The Nation’s Top ‘Progressives’ . . . and Socialists and Communists

By Dr. Paul Kengor

The left-leaning magazine The Nation has published a list of what it deems America’s all-time, most influential progressives. The list, which you can review for yourself, is very revealing.

For starters, it’s fascinating that The Nation leads with Eugene Debs at number 1. Debs was a socialist. It was 100 years ago this year, in 1912, that Debs ran for president on the Socialist Party ticket.

Today’s progressives get annoyed if you call them socialists. Well, why is a pure socialist the no. 1 “progressive” on The Nation’s list?

Of course, progressives really get annoyed if you suggest they bear any sympathies to communism. That being the case, two other “progressives” on The Nation’s list are quite intriguing: Paul Robeson and I. F. Stone.

Paul Robeson was a proud recipient of the “Stalin Prize.” Even the New York Times concedes Robeson was “an outspoken admirer of the Soviet Union.” When Robeson in 1934 returned from his initial pilgrimage to the Motherland, the Daily Worker thrust a microphone in his face. The Daily Worker rushed its interview into print, running it in the January 15, 1935 issue under the headline, “‘I Am at Home,’ Says Robeson At Reception in Soviet Union.”

The Bolsheviks, explained Robeson, were new men. He was bowled over by the “feeling of safety and abundance and freedom” he found “wherever I turn.” He discovered sheer equality under Joseph Stalin.

When asked about Stalin’s purges, Robeson retorted: “From what I have already seen of the workings of the Soviet Government, I can only say that anybody who lifts his hand against it ought to be shot!”

Yes, Robeson was deadly serious.

Robeson told the Daily Worker that he felt a “kinship” with the USSR. So much so that he moved his family there.

He also joined Communist Party USA. In May 1998, the centennial of Robeson’s birth, longtime CPUSA head Gus Hall hailed Robeson as a man of communist “conviction,” who “never forgot he was a communist.”

None of this is mentioned in The Nation’s profile, which blasts anyone who dared consider Robeson a communist. Instead, The Nation insists that Comrade Paul was a “progressive.”

And that brings me to I. F. Stone.

Stone is listed at number 26 on The Nation’s list. Stone has been hailed by liberals for decades as the literal “conscience” of journalism—a hero of impeccable honesty. In fact, we now know that Stone, at one time, was a paid Soviet agent.

In their latest Yale University Press work, historians John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev conclude that Stone (from 1936-39) was a “Soviet spy.” Also closely studying Stone’s case is Herb Romerstein. In The Venona Secrets, Romerstein likewise concluded that “Stone was indeed a Soviet agent.” One of the stronger confirmations from the Soviet side is retired KGB general Oleg Kalugin, who reported: “He [Stone] was a KGB agent since 1938. His code name was ‘Blin.’ When I resumed relations with him in 1966, it was on Moscow’s instructions. Stone was a devoted communist.”

None of this appears at Stone’s “progressive” profile at The Nation.

And speaking of progressives with communist sympathies, also on The Nation’s list is Margaret Sanger. The Planned Parenthood matron sojourned to Stalin’s Potemkin villages in 1934. “[W]e could well take example from Russia,” Sanger advised Americans upon her return, “where birth control instruction is part of the regular welfare service of the government.”

The Planned Parenthood founder was stunned by the explosion in abortions once legalized by the Bolsheviks. No fear, though. Sanger offered this confident prediction: “All the [Bolshevik] officials with whom I discussed the matter stated that as soon as the economic and social plans of Soviet Russia are realized, neither abortions nor contraception will be necessary or desired. A functioning Communistic society will assure the happiness of every child, and will assume the full responsibility for its welfare and education.”

This was pure progressive utopianism, an absolute faith in central planners.

Overall, the socialists, communists, and Soviet sympathizers on The Nation’s list are dizzying: Upton Sinclair, Henry Wallace, W. E. B. DuBois, Norman Thomas, Lincoln Steffens, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Tom Hayden, Barbara Ehrenreich, and John Dewey—founding father of American public education.

Thus, I’m compelled to ask: Is this “progressivism?” Is progressivism synonymous with liberalism, or is it much further to left, closer to communism?

I plead with progressives: This is your ideology . . . Could you better define it, if that’s possible? Or is the definition of progressivism always progressing? Actually, it is always progressing; that’s precisely the problem with this train-wreck of an ever-elusive ideology. The Nation’s list of leading American “progressives” is truly a teachable moment.

(Editor’s note: A longer version of this article first appeared at American Spectator.)

— Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College, executive director of The Center for Vision & Values, and author of the book, “The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor.” His other books include “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism” and “Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.”

Capitol Report

By Jim Sacia, State Representative, 89th District

What a unique challenge the last sixteen days of May! We eliminated a very costly free health care system for retirees. We did yeomen’s work in repairing an out of control Medicaid System. The work done on the budget by those of us on the five appropriations committees in the House to put together an acceptable budget that for once, spends no more than we anticipate as income was, simply put, amazing.

Pension reform remains, at best, a puzzle. In the waning hours before mandatory adjournment, midnight on May 31st, no consensus could be reached.

Late at night on May 30 Speaker Madigan, in a brilliant political move, stated that the Governor and House Republican Leader Tom Cross had agreed that a cost shift should not occur. This shift would have placed a $26 billion cost for state pensions on the shoulders of suburban and downstate school systems, universities and community colleges rather than the state, was seen as a break through.

Here is why it was brilliant – Speaker Madigan then transferred control of the bill to Tom Cross. Okay, so what? It had already been agreed that House Republicans would put thirty votes on the bill and House Democrats would do the same. Once it became Cross’s bill the republicans remained committed but Speaker Madigan could only produce twelve votes. He pulled his people off.

Now the bill will languish for some time, perhaps until after the election in November. It’s much easier to take a hard vote right after an election than right before. Do you see Speaker Madigan’s strategy? The real icing on the cake is the Governor has changed his mind and now wants the shift!!!

Since we’ve returned home from Springfield I continue to look at hundreds of emails much like this one – “I am a teacher that votes…Teachers did not cause this problem, past and present legislators are to blame”. No, not totally true!

In the ten years I’ve been in the legislature, three times we have either borrowed the money (on two occasions) or once omitted the state’s yearly payment (approximately $4 billion) to the pension fund. Each time the teachers unions (all) and the state employee unions (all) agreed to go neutral meaning they did not object to the bill.

Why would they do that? Simple, they negotiated a perk, such as step increases for those soon to retire to enhance their retirement. Many rank and file union members angrily respond to me that it didn’t happen that way. Oh yes it did. Do you really believe bills of that magnitude would pass without unions backing away? Never happen!

As always, you can reach me, Sally or Barb at 815-232-0774 or e-mail us at jimsacia@aeroinc.net. You can also visit my website at www.jimsacia.com. It’s always a pleasure to hear from you.