We suspected that the European news media had filtered out accurate information about the genesis of Occupy Wall Street (OWS).

When Walesa’s comments hit the AP wire last week, my team immediately reached out to our Polish contacts.  We made the point that the political themes of Occupy Wall Street may have started out with some of the principles that we share, but OWS themes were rapidly being morphed into anti-freedom and anti-liberty messages.  At the core is the want for a big, powerful central government to dominate the lives of individual citizens.

Using biggovernment.com plus other news sources, rapidly we painted an accurate picture of the groups training, leading, and organizing the “movement.” The movement is organized by anarchists, Code Pink, the American Communist movement, jihadists, anti-Israel, socialist, and anti- free enterprise interests. OWS folks are politically to the left of President Barack Obama.

At the Lech Walesa Institute Foundation in Warsaw, they were thankful to receive this information.

Based on our discussion and intervention, President Walesa is not going to get involved with the OWS.  He is not comfortable with the “organizations” behind the movement.  It was not a difficult discussion.

The lifetime of good work exercised by President Walesa has lifted people around the world fighting tyranny.  Through the Lech Walesa Institute Foundation in Warsaw, Walesa has supported freedom and liberty around the world.  As a man primarily responsible for vanquishing communism in Poland, Walesa has a personal bent toward helping the underdog and the downtrodden.

This spring, when President Obama visited Poland, President Walesa refused to meet with him.

In January of 2010, Lech Walesa endorsed my campaign for Governor of Illinois and made national news when he forewarned… “America is sliding toward socialism.”  Watch his remarks below:

Last fall, President Walesa came back to Chicago to raise funds for my good government organization, For The Good of Illinois.  We held a tremendous event at University Club, Chicago where over four hundred people were in attendance.

America is a center-right country politically.  The Occupy movement, at its core, is a hard-left movement. If successful, America would cease to be governed on our founding principles of freedom and liberty. Thus, we react to the news that Lech Walesa will not support the OWS movement with much thankfulness.

There is debate as to whether these rotten scams could even be legal in Illinois!  But, we’ve discovered that sweetheart union leader access into our Illinois state pension system is an even larger scam.

On September 29^th, we broke this story nationally on the third largest conservative talk radio program: 34 union leaders who are not government employees are draining nearly $340 thousand per month from the state teachers’ pension system.

Last Sunday, the Illinois Statehouse News was the first Illinois newspaper to investigate.  No other newspaper has covered the statewide angle.

Former employees of the National Education Association (NEA), Illinois Education Association (IEA), Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT), and Illinois Association of School Boards (IASB), drawing pensions have collected more than $47 million from the Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS), to date.

It’s an on-going $47 million pension scam.  Union leaders who are not government employees are draining millions in teacher retirement pensions.

How did we unearth this pension abuse?

On September 13^th, our organization For The Good of Illinois launched www.openthebooks.com. We posted the pay and pensions of virtually every public employee from every level of Illinois government.  7 million lines of data and a grand sum of a quarter trillion dollars of government spending are posted online.

At openthebooks.com, citizens are uncovering sweetheart insider deals given to organizations that are not government entities.  With their lobbying power, unions and non-profit organizations exert so much muscle in Springfield that they’ve literally written themselves into the government’s pension code.

Consider these examples:

The second highest teacher pension in history goes to the former President of the NEA (national teachers union, Washington, DC)- $20,200 per month.  Additionally, we identified thirty-three union leaders draining $318 thousand a month from the teacher pension system.  Read more here.

Newspapers identify the example of Kenneth Drum. Drum has a state teachers’ retirement of more than $160,000 a year.  Drum only worked for 12 years as a teacher.  Drum’s large pension comes not from his time in the classroom, but rather because of a 20-year career at Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT). He’s collected more than $2 million in retirement.

Three of the top six largest pensions in municipal retirement history are paid to retirees from non-profit, non-government organizations:  Park District Risk Management Association ($20,125 per month), Illinois Association of Park Districts ($18,436 per month), Illinois Municipal League ($15,076). All organizations participated in end of career salary spiking to maximize the government pensions. See this at openthebooks.com and choose RETIRED;  VILLAGE, TOWNSHIP, COUNTY, LOCAL.

The Chicago Tribune outed union leader Dennis Gannon who was re-hired for one day at the City of Chicago and then retired with a $158,000 city pension. See this at openthebooks.com and choose RETIRED, CITY OF CHICAGO.  Gannon has the #1 city pension between the years 2000-2010.  He’s already drained a million dollars of city pension.

The greed of union leadership and other insiders is draining government pension funds. Unearthing these insider scams helps to protect the hard working rank-and-file government employees and taxpayers. Since the sustainability of Illinois’ pension systems is in question, public employees and taxpayers deserve hard facts and estimates of our liability.

Stop the insider pension abuse.  End the “pension invention” of sweetheart union access to government retirement systems.

As additional Freedom of Information Requests (FOIA) are fulfilled, here is the updated analysis of the Palatine Village Manager Compensation as compiled by a local Palatine resident. The estimated total annual compensation has increased to $355,514 (see link above).

The Palatine village manager out-earns every Governor from any of the 50 states!
Source: The Book of States 2010.

Because local governments are not proactively forthcoming regarding payroll, benefits and perks, this analysis is a good-faith estimate. For instance, the FOIA request regarding the managers current employment contract for 2011 was rejected- although contracts from 2006-2010 were fulfilled. FOIA requests regarding gross pay and accumulated sick days were rejected. Although taxpayers have a significant liability into the tens of thousands for both items, we are being told that this is “private information”.

This egregious salary and benefit package is a disgrace and symptomatic of much greater problems in the state of Illinois. At a time municipalities are asking Springfield for more taxpayer dollars saying they are broke, these types of bloated spending has become more and more common throughout the suburbs.

Funding bloated salaries, benefits and perks for their patronage army of municipal employees, Palatine taxed more, regulated more and hiked more fees.

In the past one year, Palatine has hiked numerous taxes and fees: property taxes by $850,000; water taxes and sewer taxes; mulch delivery, parking tickets, rental dwelling permits, fingerprint fees, and compliance tickets; and hiked village fees by 3.4%.

To generate an additional $900,000, Palatine added a brand new tax: Electric Utility Tax. Self-described as a new tax on the consumption of electricity, the taxpayers are shouldering increased burden.

And, the Palatine Village Manager is complaining that their red-light camera revenue has been slowed by IDOT construction projects.

Adding and hiking taxes was not enough. From the Village Manager’s Letter to the Mayor and Council in November, 2010, the Manager has forecast the need for more taxes. “…there will need to be a discussion on establishing dedicated funding source for us to maintain our roads, equipment and facilities if we are to continue to have a safe environment to call home.”

At all levels, the public sector is literally destroying private sector jobs. When government taxes more, families and local business owners bear the brunt. This has a chilling effect on employment, freedom and liberty.

Our elected officials at both the state and local levels have taken over the taxpayers’ coffers as their own. Now, we’re all paying the price.

The annual budget of the Village of Palatine is over $100 million a year. With less than 70,000 people in the village, $6,000 per household is taxed and spent for a family of four.

Palatine can’t tax and regulate the residents enough to pay for its spending.

For The Good of Illinois is standing up for taxpayers. Stop the egregious overspending.

We are committed to exposing these blatant examples of waste and mismanagement. We’re pushing for a new day of transparency, accountability — and most importantly spending reform from local city halls to the halls at the State Capitol.

Recently, a citizen brought transparency to his hometown of Palatine.

As a private sector executive compensation expert, he did a very professional one-page overview of the village manager’s compensation plan. He discovered that the village manager in Palatine has an unbelievably lucrative employment contract.

PalatineVillageManager

Base salary = $183,700. Total estimated annual compensation = $350,000.

Then, there is the…perquisites. I wasn’t familiar with that word. Here’s what it means: country club membership, health club membership, and luxury car. This contract has $23,000 of perquisites. Sickening.

Cash bonus = $35,000. Of course, that’s additional to the base salary.

Retirement benefits = est. $51,000. Retirement not only includes the gold-plated pensions, but also a village-funded deferred compensation plan. In this contract, that’s at least $11,000 extra!

Contract benefits = est. $39,500. This includes 90% village paid health, dental, prescription, disability and care insurance coverage.

His severance includes a full year of base salary: $183,700.

Help us take this transparency crusade statewide. As we explore this, it looks like most villages have similar compensation plans for their managers.

Excessive government spending needs a spotlight. This is a national disgrace.

Bigger government is cannibalizing the private sector and it is cannibalizing the taxpayers. More taxes, more spending, more borrowing, and more regulation is killing private sector jobs. The arrogance and aristocracy of government must be met by more accountability, more transparency and a more vigorous push for limited government.

It’s time to drive real reform. Thank you for standing strong with courage and conviction. Thank you for standing with us. Together, we will bring a new day to Illinois.

Government reform in Illinois has a fighting chance. Here’s the bell-weather state house races on reform…

In a central Illinois state senate district, 9-12 groups formed over the past year boast 3,000 members and have lifted Sam McCann to a slim pre-election lead vs. Sen. Deanna Demuzio. The Demuzio family held this state senate seat for over 35 years. In desperation, Sen. Demuzio spent over $2.4 million and set the record for the most money ever spent by a candidate in a statehouse race. McCann spent $1 million and has the energy of the movement plus the “wave”. Prediction: Sam McCann by 3 percentage points.

In a state representative district outside of St. Louis, businessman Dwight Kay is running with a fierce ground game of seasoned volunteers. The Kay volunteer armies go all the way back to 1998 when the last “reformer” was elected statewide, U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald. Kay’s opponent is Jay Hoffman, an 18 year incumbent and best known to be corrupt Governor Rod Blagojevich’s “floor leader”. Hoffman started the election season with $1 million in the bank and he has had to spend it all. Prediction: Dwight Kay wins by 2 percentage points.

In the 43rd state senate district, the now nationally recognized “One Mom” vs. the Machine, Cedra Crenshaw spent $200,000 vs. Sen. AJ Wilhelmi reportedly spending $1 million.

The district is a 2-1 blue-collar democrat district and the Crenshaw campaign feels like they won the early voting period. A full half of the early voters were already pre-identified as Crenshaw supporters by campaign volunteer phone bankers! In pre-election polls, Crenshaw was trailing by 5 points. But, that entire deficit was contained in the polling segment amongst the “lowest intensity” voters. Thus, turn-out is the key. This race is a true bell-weather of tea party impact, as the district is a Democrat plus 26 district! IF CRENSHAW WINS, REFORM WALKS WITH A BIG STICK AND A BULLY PULPIT. Prediction: Cedra Crenshaw by 1 point.

My organization, For The Good of Illinois PAC, opened a Lake County Project office with over 25 co-sponsoring organizations. We did phone banking, walking, literature distribution, sign placement, networking and organizing for all Republican Lake County candidates. In the state representative race, our prediction is that Dan Sagrue will pull an election day surprise and beat the incumbent. This will be a testament to the Lake County tea party volunteers, 25 plus organizations, our coordinator Maria Rodriguez and rank/file Republicans pulling together in victory.

On November 2, 2010, the Illinois Republican party finally got its act together.

It’s ironic then, that this powerful machine is trembling in fear of Cedra Crenshaw, a conservative, middle class, African-American mother in Will County, Illinois!

Why is the machine afraid?  Because a new class of leadership is starting to develop.  These new leaders threaten to end the shell game of taxes, politics, and patronage. Cedra Crenshaw is one of those new leaders, and she’s is running for state senate against one of the Chicago Machine’s rubber-stamp apparatchiks.

She’s  an accountant who wants to spearhead a forensic audit of Illinois state government.  A former auditor at Deloitte and Touche, Cedra supports an audit of the half a trillion dollars of Democrat controlled state spending during the blow-off historic corruption of Blagojevich/Quinn.  The Democrat Machine- contractors, politicians, and patronage army- stand in naked fear of the result that such an audit would bring.

Such an audit would fumigate thousands of campaign cash-for-patronage hires in agencies, boards and commissions; rescind bloated, rigged bid or mis-awarded contracts; stop the stealing, waste, and legalized graft that do-nothing, ribbon-cutting pork hounds like Cedra’s opponent  -  Sen. A.J. Wilhelmi -  thrive on…at your expense.

“I envision an audit that would not only institute controls on future spending,” said Cedra, ” but provide evidence of possible criminal acts of fraud to prosecute.”  Wow, that’s a tough mom!

So what is the Chicago Machine doing?  They are using political tricks intentionally written into Illinois unconstitutional election code.  These tricks, written in Springfield and honed in Chicago,  have brought out President Barack Obama’s top Illinois election lawyer and the General Council of the Illinois Democratic Party, Michael Kasper to challenge Crenshaw’s candidacy.

The arguments that Kasper used were the same arguments that have been rejected by the Cook County Board of Elections.  The local papers have editorialized on Crenshaw’s behalf.  After five weeks of consideration, word is that sometime today- on Friday before the 4th of July, while everyone is on vacation- the Will County (Democrat dominated) Board of Elections is going to railroad Crenshaw’s candidacy.

We must all go forward together, or it all ends right here!

Immediately, Crenshaw’s legal team will appeal the insider election board’s decision to the circuit court of appeals.  All legal experts agree that she’ll win that appeal. DONATE TO CAMPAIGN FOR LEGAL DEFENSE. In question is a new state law that conflicts with the old law in regards to candidate nominating process.  Crenshaw handled her process in the same manner that similar Democrats handled their processes under the new law!

The challenge isn’t the only “Chicago honed” ballot scam that the Democrats have pulled on Crenshaw.  A Christopher Pedersen filed petitions as an “Independent Conservative” for the offices of Governor, US Senate, Secretary of State, State Senate and State Representative with no signatures!  Then the Illinois Democratic Party put out a very derisive press release that Crenshaw was a hypocrite to “challenge” this guy’s ballot access in her state senate race!  Chicago Democrats are simply trying to muddy the waters on the baggage-free Crenshaw…

Cedra Crenshaw is just “One Mom” who decided she’d had enough of the Chicago Democratic Machine and she “was going on offense”.  Slated four hours before the nominating deadline, Crenshaw and her team then collected 2,100 petition signatures over the next two weeks and fought her way into the Illinois state senate race.

As we mentioned above, Crenshaw’s opponent, A.J. Wilhelmi, is a typical member of Illinois’ political establishment.  It’s been said, he “has a lot of friends”.  Wilhelmi has so many friends that in 2008, he couldn’t even vote to give the people of Illinois the right to remove corrupt Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office.  Wilhelmi voted “present”!

Illinois doesn’t need to elect more people who are “friends”  of our corrupt system.  We need people who will UPSET that system.  Cedra Crenshaw understands that cozy insiders are driving her city, county and state into a ditch filled with red ink and bankruptcy filings.  That’s why you should stand with Cedra and demand that challengers who followed the rules get on ballot.

The agenda driven by President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Leader Reid is aggressively targeted toward our becoming an all powerful central government. Since the 2008 election we have seen unprecedented expansion of government. History has shown us that as government expands individual liberty contracts.

In January of 2010, during the waning days of my primary campaign for Illinois Governor, former Polish President Lech Walesa came to Chicago to endorsed my effort. Known as the great anti-communist, founder of Solidarity, best-friend of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II, Walesa continues to inspire and encourage strong leadership. During the luncheon, Walesa issued an ominous warning for America, “America is sliding toward socialism; America is no longer the shining city on the hill.” In the videotaped interview, Walesa saw a hint of socialism creeping into America’s domestic policies. He spoke of “the issue with the banks” and how “the government wastes all the money … building a bureaucracy — just for itself.”

Walesa said that the strongest candidates are committed to principles. The framers of our Constitution based out government on strong principles, sometimes referred to as the first principles. The “first principles” that will Ensure Liberty and the American Promise for future generations are:

1. Smaller Government,
2. Fiscal Responsibility,
3. Lower Taxes,
4. National Security,
5. Federalism.

With these principles to guide us, we have created Ensuring Liberty, an organization of activists and citizens dedicated to strengthening the public’s appreciation of these ideas. Ensuring Liberty is working closely with a group of leaders currently serving in Congress to hear our voice and keep our First Principles. This group is chaired by Congressman Steve King.

In two weeks, congressional elections in Pennsylvania and Hawaii are drawing clearly delineated choices on “first principles”. Immediately, we have the opportunity to add two more “first principle” conservatives to the Congress. Electing these two candidates will eliminate two “sure votes” for the Obama/Pelosi machine. On a targeted and systemic basis, the unraveling of the National Democrat machine and it’s liberal agenda must continue- it’s our obligation.

President Obama and his Chicago operatives understand only one thing: raw power. Raw power is conferred at the ballot box. In Pennsylvania, Tim Burns is poised to take back Jack Murtha’s seat, and in Hawaii Charles Djou can win back the congressional seat of Barack Obama’s boyhood home.

Tim Burns can win the 12th congressional district in Pennsylvania. His life experiences growing up within the district as well as being a father, entrepreneur, successful businessman and community leader, make him uniquely qualified to serve as our next Congressman. Tim’s business grew to over 400 employees before he sold it in 2003. His commitment to conservative values, smaller government, lower taxes, ending wasteful spending and restoring an ethical standard in public service are political philosophies that stand in stark contrast to the Obama/Pelosi/Reid agenda.

Charles Djou was an elected state representative where he was the Minority Floor Leader. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, graduating magna cum laude with distinction. He is also an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve; practices as an attorney specializing in business law; and, teaches at the University of Hawaii’s William S. Richardson School of Law. To quote Mr. Djou, “I will never forget that every dollar the government spends comes from a family like yours.”

The American Promise and our nation’s liberty is dependent on electing “first principles” candidates. Electing these two candidates will eliminate two “sure votes” for the Obama/Pelosi machine. On a targeted and systemic basis, the unraveling of the National Democrat machine and it’s liberal agenda must continue- it’s our obligation.