District 6 News

I can think of no other issue as important to the residents of District 2, or for that matter the entire County, than water.  Water in all its forms: groundwater, stormwater, flooding, runoff, etc. is of crucial importance to the health and economy of McHenry County.   

As you may know, the McHenry County Board is considering what to do with a reserve fund surplus at the County operated Valley Hi Nursing Home.  Options under consideration include a one-time rebate to selected property taxpayers.

County Clerk Joe Tirio has posted the Sample Ballot locator on the County Clerk's web site.  You can find a link to the Sample Ballot on the Democratic Party web site.  Better late than never.

State Statute requires County Clerk to have Sample Ballots for the upcoming Consolidated Election available on February 21, 2019.  However, if you go to the McHenry County Clerk's (Joe Tirio) web site you will find.......NO SAMPLE BALLOT.  

After years of waiting for former Representatives Roskam and Hultgren to hold a Town Hall Meeting, our newly elected 6th and 14th District Representatives Casten and Underwood did just that.  

Welcome to the first posting of John's Blog.  Your District 2 Chair is an avowed news junkie, so I thought is was about time I shared my musing, thought and insights on the overlooked news of the day.  I will try to target my posts with a relevancy toward the citizens of District 2, but reserve the right to wander into State and National politics. 

Donald Trump is an out-of-control dumpster fire. No one with any sense at all would dispute that. But so what?

We can’t solve America’s problems with clever posts on Facebook or twitter. Buttons and bumper stickers won’t make America safe for Democracy again.

We must lead the way by living our values, no matter the personal risk in doing so. Our founders pledged their lives, their fortune and their sacred honor to make this nation possible. They risked everything.

The least we can do is open our eyes fully, see what needs to be done, and accept the challenge of being citizens. Risk being a leader. Often, that means doing things that are hard. It may mean doing things that make us uncomfortable. It may even mean opening our wallets to support the people and causes we believe in.

We begin by knowing what we stand for, and by recognizing that “standing for” something is much more than a slogan. As the late, great Sen. Paul Wellstone said,

Sen. Wellstone meant that what we believe is important, but what we do means everything. Our national dialog is broken because too many are left out of the conversation. It's up to us to fix this. We must work to give everyone a say in decisions about our future. We must demand that everyone be given their seat at the table.

For too long, too many Americans have had their dreams denied. If we do not solve this singular problem, we will cease to be America. The poet Langston Hughes said it best:

"What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun, or fester like a sore and then run? Does it stink like rotten meat or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags, like a heavy load. Or, does it explode?"

We as a nation must decide: what do we want to be? As Democrats, we must decide what we are willing to risk to make it so.

Our nation can be great only if all of its people have a chance to share in the American Dream.

                First off, my thanks to Marti Swanson for sending this to me in an email. Second, my apologies to all, but I had a helluva time deciding which slimy categories this best fit into, there were so many deserving of it. This is an article that I think explains a great deal more than we're accustomed to seeing and once again highlights the corruption so rampant in this misadministration in general and the usurper who occupies the Oval Office.---Dan

http://jaxpolitix.com/2018/09/30/jax-politix-good-news-edition/
Jax Politix – Good News Edition v1.0
Jack Altschuler - JaxPolitix - 30 Sept 2018
A partial compendium of Trumpian distractions designed to keep your eye off the ball.
[Part I - Kavanaugh]
The good news associated with the Kavanaugh hearings is that the American Bar
Association called for the nomination process to be put on hold and for the FBI to
investigate the serious new and credible allegations that have been made against
Kavanaugh. In addition, the Jesuits called for Kavanaugh’s nomination to be
withdrawn altogether. That’s quite in contrast to the behavior of the Republicans
on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who continue to refuse to release to
Committee Democrats 100,000 documents pertaining to Kavanaugh’s record.
In this era of the loudest, shrillest, most strident voices, when people who have a
piece of the power of the machine are scratching and clawing to hold on to it and
who will sell their souls to keep it, there still are people of good sense and good
will. We’re all the better for that.
Here’s the really good news to come from this mostly sordid Kavanaugh affair.
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) was cornered in an elevator by two women survivors of
sexual assault. They confronted him with the intolerable of his knowing of the
accusations against Kavanaugh and yet being likely to vote him onto the Supreme
Court anyway and what that would say to these women and the many women like
them. One of the women, Maria Gallagher, courageously said,
“Don’t look away from me. Look at me and tell me that it doesn’t matter what
happened to me. That you will let people like that go into the highest court of the
land and tell everyone what they can do with their bodies.”
It was a watershed moment of demanding the respect that was due her,
respect that had heretofore been denied and is commonly denied to women who
have been abused in this way. Apparently, it made a difference.
Flake went back to the committee room and agreed to vote Kavanaugh out of
committee with the proviso that there be a delay in a floor vote and an FBI
investigation into the allegations against Kavanaugh.
Jeff Flake just stood up to the President of the United States, Senate leadership
and much of Senate membership in order to do the right thing. Even one man with
a spine is a really good thing.
[Part II - House Republicans Unmasked]
Last year Congress gave away $1.9 trillion in tax breaks and 83% of it went to
wealthy people and corporations. Apparently, that wasn’t enough for them, so as
the nation was focused on the Kavanaugh political drama, the House voted to
up the tax gift to $3 trillion. Gotta wonder where that money will come from.
You don’t suppose it might be taken from Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid,
do you?
That sneaky stuff by Paul Ryan’s House may not sound like good news, but like the
kid finding piles of horse manure in his backyard and declaring happily, “There’s
gotta be a pony here somewhere!” there is some good news in Sneaky Paul’s
behavior.
In their haste to suck all sense from government, House Republicans used the
Kavanaugh cover of darkness to ram this bill through. In doing so, they’ve
shown us conclusively exactly who and what they are. That’s good news.
[Part III - HIV-AIDS]
In the 1970s and -80s the reach and impact of HIV-AIDS was terrifying. There
were no tools to combat it. Now this, from The Boston Globe’s STAT publication,
Just a decade ago, 45,000 people in the U.S. were contracting HIV each year. Now,
the fight against HIV could be undergoing a sea change. Buoyed by the
astonishing impact of effective HIV medications, health officials and HIV experts
are beginning to talk about a future in which transmission could be halted in the
U.S. “We have the science to solve the AIDS epidemic,” CDC Director Robert
Redfield tells STAT.
Now, that’s good news, indeed.
[Part IV - Victims Heard]
Bill Cosby squandered a lifetime of entertainment success by preying upon women
by drugging them and then sexually violating them. He was found guilty of sexual
assault and last week was sentenced to 3 – 10 years in prison plus a $25,000 fine,
as well as having to pay prosecution costs of about $43,000. In addition, his
sentence includes mandatory monthly counseling and Cosby will have to register as
a sex offender if and when he’s released.
The good news is that at last victims were heard instead of shamed and blamed
and that justice, however delayed, was served.
[Part V - One Child Reunited with Parents]
Finally, 141 children are still in U.S. custody after having been ripped from
their parents’ arms and kidnapped by the U.S. government. Reunification is
difficult because after kidnapping the children the geniuses in Washington had
their parents deported and did so without creating documentation that would tie
children to their parents.
That sounds bad, but here’s the good news: A 6-year old girl named Marianita was
reunited with her parents in Honduras last week. That’s why there are 141 assylumseeking
children still in kid prisons in the U.S instead of 142.
————————————

The League of Women Voters hosted a candidate forum at McHenry County College Monday night for candidates running in the 6th and 14th Congressional Districts.  Both incumbent Congressman Roskam and Congressman Hultgren were no shows.  Congressman Hultgren declined the request to attend and Congressman Roskam did not have the courtesy to respond. 

Sean Casten, Democrat candidate 6th Congressional District and Lauren Underwood, candidate 14th Congressional District provided detailed and insightful answers to questions ranging from the environment, health care, tax reform, school violence and returning civility to the political arena.  

Voters in District 2 were not given the opportunity to hear an exchange of ides and policies between incumbant and challenger; too bad.

      The Italian poet Dante Alighieri is credited with the statement that "the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who during a time of moral crisis, remain neutral."  In Dante’s great tri-part poem, Paradiso, Purgatorio, and Inferno, the neutrals, those who in this world had never taken any side on any issue, occupy the mouth and vestibule of Hell. There they are condemned to  swirl unceasingly in clouds of red sand, their faces bitten by wasps and hornets. They are doomed to pursue in a blind, fatal, and ultimately hopeless way, a flag which never stays for a moment in one place. Dante denies them the moral dignity of a place even in hell itself. “Heaven will not have them, and the deep Hell receives them not lest the wicked there should have some glory over them”—lest the wicked, that is, looking at these neutrals, should be able to feel a sort of superiority over others. What was the sin of these neutrals? Only this: they had never taken a side.Their ongoing moral neutrality condemns them to an eternity of this treatment. 

      Today we face strongly defined choices. We can pull back into our safe homes and send indignant tweets, instagrams, emails,assure ourselves that somehow,somewhere, some vaguely defined, but immutable, justice will prevail, and we can cry bitter tears over children being separated from their parents at our borders, ala Hitler and the Jews...OR, we can take a position of moral and ethical rectitude.We can work to change the inequities of the situation. How do we do this? We vote. We go out and walk the streets of our precinct, we knock on doors, we talk to citizens, we press out points and we push the need for the population to VOTE. GOTV--get out the vote is our strongest weapon. Trump won election based on the Electoral College, Clinton had considerably more of the popular vote. This time around, Trump can't hide behind the EC--this time, his party has to face the people and defend itself for disrupting families, for the wealthy oriented budget, for the ongoing corruption of this administration and a near endless litany of sins.

      We need every vote, every voter to show up and express their indignation. There is talk of a "blue tsunami," in the mid-terms. Personally, I don't believe it. I want to be proven wrong. The only way to do that is to bring out every voter, to offer the opportunity for transportation to the polls and reaffirm the right of our citizenry to vote and determine its own political destiny.  Another quote, this one in dispute as to its author. Most think it from Edmund Burke. Burke was an Irish political philosopher, Whig politician and statesman who is, ironically, often considered the father of modern conservatism. Burke said ,All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Let us heed his wisdom. Get out and vote, bring out your neighbors si they vote, bring out your precinct so it votes; bring out the vote.----Dan