Pro-Marriage Demonstration

Great video from Cao of Cao's Blog on the demonstrations in Chicago Friday. I will say this: it only took the counter-protesters about 2 minutes before they started calling us names: bigot, homophobe, right-wingers. They alternated between contempt for religion and appeals to it. Their chanting and hostility form a backdrop throughout this video.

I would estimate about 150 people came out for this march and rally in defense of traditional marriage, with about half that many counter-protesters demanding the right to redefine marriage for everyone.

If they were really as tolerant as they claim, you might think that they would just let us make our views heard peacefully, but no. Our folks prayed the rosary, and they chanted violent rhetoric through bullhorns.

And yes, I'm in this video.



Sometimes people like to point out that conservatives are a monochromatic group, but that certainly wasn't the case Friday. It was the folks carrying the rainbow flags who were all one color.

In related news, the Illinois civil unions law hasn't even taken effect, and its already pushing the Catholic Church out of the adoption business.

And, given that homosexual relationships don't engender children, their only hope for the future is co-opt heterosexuals' kids to embrace their lifestyle. So we recently had a rare moment of honesty from a gay blogger:

In response to New York’s recently introduced marriage equality bill, the so-called National Organization for Marriage got a bunch of pictures of black people and some guy who sounds like Foghorn Leghorn to repeat the same lies about indoctrinating schoolchildren that they ran in 2009. They accuse us of exploiting children and in response we say, “NOOO! We’re not gonna make kids learn about homosexuality, we swear! It’s not like we’re trying to recruit your children or anything.” But let’s face it—that’s a lie. We want educators to teach future generations of children to accept queer sexuality. In fact, our very future depends on it.

...Recruiting children? You bet we are.

Why would we push anti-bullying programs or social studies classes that teach kids about the historical contributions of famous queers unless we wanted to deliberately educate children to accept queer sexuality as normal?

Remember, Prop 8 passed along age lines with the very old voting largely in favor of it. The younger generation doesn’t fear homosexuality as much because they’re exposed to fags on TV, online, and at school. And I don’t know a single lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender person who wants that to stop. I for one certainly want tons of school children to learn that it’s OK to be gay, that people of the same sex should be allowed to legally marry each other, and that anyone can kiss a person of the same sex without feeling like a freak. And I would very much like for many of these young boys to grow up and start fucking men. I want lots of young ladies to develop into young women who voraciously munch box. I want this just as badly as many parents want their own kids to grow up and rub urinary tracts together to trade proteins and forcefully excrete a baby.

I and a lot of other people want to indoctrinate, recruit, teach, and expose children to queer sexuality AND THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT.

I dont' get the impression that this fellow really believes that line about people being born gay, either.

And for our liberals readers, how would you feel about your kids being gay?

But while Jerry, Geoff, and other progressive dads of their generation are more than happy to down margaritas and watch Project Runway with gay friends, they're not so comfortable with the idea of their own offspring going the way of Dumbledore. And only on the condition of anonymity will they elaborate on why, exactly...

Parents who say they're open to the idea of homosexuality are often the most difficult for a child to come out to. "Perhaps they make a distinction between your kid and mine," he says. "It's nice for other people's children to be gay or to have gay friends, but one's own child is a different story. Indeed, some of the young people say religiously conservative parents respond the best, because of the value of family. But it's the progressive, holier-than-thou parents who often can't cope."

One Christmas, my wife went over to Goodwill and came back with a boxfull of "dress-up clothes" for the kids; play costumes they could mix and match. I was somewhat disturbed when my then-four-year-old son put on the evening gown, high heels, and lady's hat and paraded around the living room, but I didn't make a sound, and he never did it again.

Liberal Civility: The Agenda Project

The Agenda Project is a well-funded liberal effort to sway public opinion.

Never mind all that crap about the intelligence of progressives. These videos are nothing other than slanderous lies intended to elicit emotional reactions.

How to begin a debate on an issue of national importance: Accuse your opponents of murder:



Or just tell them to f*ck off (NSFW):



Just remember, when a Democrat decries the low quality of public discourse, it only means he's losing. It doesn't ever mean that he really disapproves of below-the-belt tactics.

Champion News Radio, Breitbart's Big Government.com and Townhall.com All Cover The D46 Email Scandal

We getting some more widespread coverage for our local scandal: Townhall.com and Big Government.com!

And here is the video of our interview which aired last Sunday morning on Champion News Talk Radio, on WIND AM.

Andrew Klavan: The Hilarious World of Abortion

State's Attorney's Office Confirms School Board Under Investigation

This is how you change your community for the better. A simple FOIA request uncovers evidence of illegal activity. You publicize what you've found and file a criminal complaint. And then the prosecutors go to work:

The Lake County State’s Attorney office has confirmed it is looking into complaints of misconduct against Grayslake School District 46 officials related to the campaign for last month’s school board elections.

E-mails sent by District 46 officials, which form the basis of the complaints, were submitted this week to the state’s attorney’s office by district critics who are affiliated with the Lake County Tea Party movement.

In a press release issued Tuesday, Lake County Tea Party spokesman Paul Mitchell, of Hainesville, said the e-mails show, among other things, that political activity was conducted by district officials using public resources.

The e-mails, also posted on the Lake County Tea Party’s website, were obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, he said.

Mitchell said that in the weeks leading up to the election, one District 46 official had inappropriately used a public e-mail account to discuss campaign activities with other district officials.

In another e-mail, a different official referred to offering gift cards to high school students as an incentive to register to vote, Mitchell said.

The officials have not disputed the authenticity of the e-mails and have declined to comment further.

They say we're interfering with the task of educating the children. I say they're using the children as human shields to try to get away with their continued embezzlement of district funds for their own benefit.

So far, we have only scratched the surface of the tip of the iceberg.

Unhappy Crowd At Grayslake D46 School Board

We had quite a showing at the school board meeting last night:

Grayslake Elementary District 46 Superintendent Ellen Correll and other officials were blasted Tuesday night for what Lake County tea party leaders claim was improper use of publicly owned email systems before the April 5 election.

County tea party founder Lennie Jarratt of Round Lake Beach said during public comment time he’s turned over more than 300 pages of emails to the Lake County state’s attorney’s office and the Illinois attorney general. State law prohibits public resources from being used for political activity.
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Demonstrators smile outside before last night's D46 school board meeting.

Jarratt obtained the emails through open-records requests with District 46 and Northbrook/Glenview Elementary District 30. Mary Garcia, who was District 46’s board president until the changing of the guard Tuesday, is a teacher and union president at District 30, was the focus of many complaints.

District 46 resident Joan Seifert said school officials involved in the emails should apologize to her for their actions. Other who spoke contend the officials acted unethically and may have violated state law.

“You dishonor this community,” Seifert said.

Many of the 60 or so spectators had copies of a news release distributed by tea party members at the board meeting and read aloud selected emails that were posted Tuesday on the group’s website.

Garcia and Susan Facklam were the incumbents in the April election with political newcomers Shannon Smigielski, Kip Evans and Marchell Norris. Smigielski, Evans and Facklam were the top three vote-getters.

Several speakers criticized an email that apparently showed Garcia used her taxpayer-funded District 30 email to seek campaign assistance from a Lake County Democrat Party operative. Correll was chastised for potentially participating in political activity on District 46’s email.

Correll wrote an email to North Chicago Unit District 187 Superintendent Douglas Parks on behalf of Garcia on the afternoon of March 10. “Mary Garcia is wondering how many signs you would take?” Correll wrote to Parks.

Facklam was criticized by speakers for writing an email to Garcia’s District 30 account that implied she offered gift cards to a high school student encouraging her to get more friends to register to vote. Facklam arrived late to the meeting and declined to comment during a break, while Garcia was absent.

Round Lake Beach resident Joe Hubbard read an email that Garcia sent from District 30 to a Daily Herald reporter that expressed concern Smigielski, Norris and Evans were backed by the tea party and would bring partisan politics into a school board race. All three denied Garcia’s claim in a news story.

District 30 Superintendent Edward Tivador said officials there are investigating an ethics complaint that Jarratt recently filed over Garcia’s work email use. Depending on the findings, the District 30 administration can recommend discipline or termination of Garcia.

“We always take these matters very seriously,” Tivador said Tuesday.

Per typical operating procedure, neither the District 46 board nor Correll responded to the speakers during the meeting.

Board member Keith Surroz said he understood the crowd’s criticism of Correll and the others. He said Correll deserves credit for drastically cutting expenses at the district and managing to keep employee morale high.

“I think we have to look at what is there to see if it has significant merit," Surroz said of the political email attributed to Correll.

Correll declined to comment on the criticism, saying her focus is on education.

Tensions in the crowd at Grayslake Middle School ran high at one point in the meeting when the board discussed Correll’s yearly goal performance evaluation.

Board member Colleen Wade criticized colleague Michael Carbone because he didn’t submit an evaluation, which triggered hoots from the crowd. A Grayslake police officer walked into middle school library to monitor the session when the shouting became loud.

This is the text of the press release that was circulated:

Released School Board Emails Reveal Legal and Ethical Violations in Grayslake School District #46.

Activists of the Lake County Tea Party organization today made available on their website a collection of over 300 pages’ worth of emails obtained through two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, which they believe reveals legal and ethical violations, including offering rewards to people for registering to vote, conspiring to avoid required political disclosures, and political activity conducted by district employees using district resources and on district time.

“It's a sordid story about crime and corruption where anyone would least expect to find it: In a suburban elementary school district,” said Tea Party spokesman Paul Mitchell, of Hainesville.

“Don’t let them turn us in...” - The April 5th election was a hard-fought race in which five candidates (two incumbents and three challengers) were vying to fill three seats. Mitchell describes the two incumbent candidates, Board President Mary Garcia and Vice President Sue Facklam, as strongly pro-union. In one of the released emails, noting that the three challengers had been linked on the Lake County Tea Party website, incumbent candidate Mary Garcia wrote, "I think that all members of both Unions should be apprised of this information... There will be no collective bargaining with those 3 on the board. I am very afraid that Sue and I will not have the funds necessary to fight a ‘party’.” This email, sent to D46 Superintendent Ellen Correll, Assistant Superintendent Lynn Barkley, union leaders Christine Wilson and Diane Elfering, and fellow incumbent candidate Sue Facklam, was sent, like virtually all of the information we have, from Garcia’s email account in District 30 (Wed., Feb. 23^rd, 11:34 AM), where Garcia works as a teacher and is president of the teachers’ union. Campaign fundraising activity like this, using D30 public resources have already landed Garcia in front of a review board that was scheduled to meet Monday, May 2^nd.

In another telling email, Facklam, a voter registrar, writes about registering high school students to vote, and giving them gift cards: “Don’t let them turn us in; gifts to register to vote is probably illegal! I did offer Erika [Garcia’s 18-year-old daughter] more gift cards if she can gather up more friends!” (Wed., March 2^nd, 10:14 AM to Mary Garcia at her D30 account.) It is a felony to offer remuneration to anyone for voting or registering to vote.

“Lie and pay me cash” – The emails reveal evidence of extensive contributions, expenditures, and in-kind contributions that, Mitchell believes, ought to have triggered formation of a campaign committee, and been reported to the State Board of Elections. Garcia and Facklam’s campaign manager, Alex Finke, in what Mitchell calls one of the more egregious examples of their efforts to cloak their campaign in secrecy, wrote, “Anything you spend counts towards the 1999.99 that you and Mary would be allowed to spend. The only way around it, would be to lie and pay me cash. Then I could claim that I am volunteering for you.” (Mon., March 7^th, 3:55 PM, to Sue Facklam.)

The Superintendents Get Involved – D46 Superintendent Ellen Correll, who Mitchell says receives a compensation package worth over $200,000 per year to educate students, evidently spent quite a bit of her compensated time on election activities: “Mary Garcia is wondering how many signs or flyers you would take?” (Ellen Correll, on her D46 email account, to North Chicago D187 Superintendent Douglas Parks and to Mary Garcia on her D30 email account, Thurs., Mar. 10^th, 3:24 PM.) As a custodian of federal and state education funds, Correll is prohibited by law from participating in political activity of any kind.

Mitchell notes that these examples are only the tip of what appears to be a very large iceberg. “It’s our hope that the appropriate law enforcement agencies will take an interest and conduct a full investigation of these matters. But we have more FOIA requests pending.”

To download and view the entire collection of emails in pdf format, visit http://lakecountyteaparty.com.

This story has also been picked up by McHenry County Blog and Illinois Review.

Illinois School District #46 Email Scandal

Crimes, Corruption, and Lies in Grayslake D46

The Cost of Corruption – This is not something you will read for fun. But it’s something you must read, as a parent or taxpaying citizen. It’s a sordid story about crime and corruption where anyone would least expect to find it: In a suburban elementary school district.

In response to Freedom of Information Act requests, activists of the Lake County Tea Party organization have received over 300 pages of emails. The tale they tell is grim.

“Don’t Let Them Turn Us In” – The April 5th election was a hard-fought race in which five candidates (two incumbents and three challengers) were vying to fill three seats. The two incumbent candidates were strongly pro-union: Noting that the three challengers had been linked on the Lake County Tea Party website, incumbent candidate Mary Garcia wrote, “I think that all members of both Unions should be apprised of this information… There will be no collective bargaining with those 3 on the board. I am very afraid that Sue and I will not have the funds necessary to fight a ‘party’.” This email, sent to D46 Superintendent Ellen Correll, Assistant Superintendent Lynn Barkley, union leaders Christine Wilson and Diane Elfering, and fellow incumbent candidate Sue Facklam, was sent, like virtually all of the information we have, from Garcia’s email account in District 30 (Wed., Feb. 23rd, 11:34 AM), where Garcia works as a teacher and is president of the teachers’ union. Campaign fundraising activity like this, using D30 public resources have already landed Garcia in front of a review board scheduled to meet Monday, May 2nd.

In another telling email, Facklam, a voter registrar, writes about registering high school students to vote, and giving them gift cards: “Don’t let them turn us in; gifts to register to vote is probably illegal! I did offer Erika [Garcia’s 18-year-old daughter] more gift cards if she can gather up more friends!” (Wed., March 2nd, 10:14 AM to Mary Garcia at her D30 account.) It is a felony to offer remuneration to anyone for voting or registering to vote.

“Lie and pay me cash” – The emails reveal evidence of extensive contributions, expenditures, and in-kind contributions that, by law, ought to have triggered formation of a campaign committee, and been reported to the State Board of Elections. Garcia and Facklam’s campaign manager, Alex Finke, in one of the more egregious examples of their efforts cloak their campaign in secrecy, wrote, “Anything you spend counts towards the 1999.99 that you and Mary would be allowed to spend. The only way around it, would be to lie and pay me cash. Then I could claim that I am volunteering for you.” (Mon., March 7th, 3:55 PM, to Sue Facklam.)

The Superintendents Get Involved – D46 Superintendent Ellen Correll, who receives a compensation package worth over $200,000 per year to educate students, evidently spent quite a bit of her compensated time on election activities: “Mary Garcia is wondering how many signs or flyers you would take?” (Ellen Correll, on her D46 email account, to North Chicago D187 Superintendent Douglas Parks and to Mary Garcia on her D30 email account, Thurs., Mar. 10th, 3:24 PM.) As a custodian of federal and state education funds, Correll is prohibited by law from participating in political activity of any kind.

It’s important to recognize that this is not an article about politics. And it barely scratches the surface. This is not about whose policies are best and whose are wrongheaded. It’s about how elected officials and employees of School District #46, the elementary school district in Grayslake, Illinois, have abused their positions and their access to benefit themselves at taxpayers’ expense, and at the expense of the children entrusted to them.

Click to download all of District 30 FOIA 1
Click to download all of District 30 FOIA 2

Emails by hour of day.  Notice that many emails are sent during work hours, but none during lunch hour.

(Cross-posted from Lake County Tea Party.)