WWII Vets face criminal charges

This is an outrage!An “Honor Flight” (the charity that brings World War II vets to visit their memorials in Washington, DC for free) is planning on bringing World War II vets to visit their memorial in Washington this weekend. But with the government shutdown, not only is the trip being threatened with cancellation, but the government is threatening to ARREST any vet who tries to enter the memorial! This is after the fact that on Monday, October 1st, World War II vets knocked down barriers blocking the WW2 memorial so they could visit it, which was “closed” because of the government shutdown. Nevermind that this memorial is outdoors and never, ever has barriers around it – so why the need now?Honor Flight flys veterans to visit their memorials in Washington D.C. free of charge so they can see them. Most of these vets from the greatest generation have never seen the memorials built in their honor for saving the world from Nazi Germany and global tyranny.Northwest Ohio Honor Flight President Lee Armstrong said, ”We will make the call this Friday to determine if the flight is still a go, or if we will have to re-schedule.”When he contacted the parks service, he was told that if the veterans tried to gain access to the memorial, they would face arrest. “I said, are you kidding me? You’re going to arrest a 90/91-year-old veteran from seeing his memorial? If it wasn’t for them it wouldn’t be there. She said, ‘That’s correct sir.’” said Armstrong.When he asked for the parks service members name, the quickly hung up the phone.__________TOLEDO – In and around the Glass City, affects of the government shutdown can be seen at our museums, monuments, and national parks. The gates are closed and locked, denying access completely to the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge.Transportation Safety Administration employees were still working at Toledo Express Airport on Monday, but when WNWO called the TSA to find out if they would be affected, there was a message that said the public relations representative did not have access to her voicemail or email due to the government shutdown.A letter from Rep. Marcy Kaptur’s (D-OH 9) office reads,”…only services deemed essential for the safety of human life and protection of property will be continued.”Yet, for a group of World War II veterans visiting the national memorial in Washington D.C., an all expense paid trip which is called an ”Honor Flight,” the shutdown was not stopping them from seeing the tribute that was inspired by them.“It just goes to show you why we won World War II,” says Honor Flight of Northwest Ohio President Lee Armstrong.Many elderly veterans, some in wheelchairs, broke through the barriers set up around the memorial, as police, park service employees, and tourists looked on. “The Germans and the Japanese couldn’t contain us. They weren’t going to let barriers contain them today. They wanted to see their memorial,” says Armstrong.Honor Flight of Northwest Ohio has a trip scheduled to depart from Toledo next Wednesday, October 9.“We will make the call this Friday to determine if the flight is still a go, or if we will have to re-schedule,” Armstrong explains.He says they are considering going ahead with the trip even if the government is still on shutdown, but when he called the parks service, he was told they would face arrest. “I said, are you kidding me? You’re going to arrest a 90/91-year-old veteran from seeing his memorial? If it wasn’t for them it wouldn’t be there. She said, ‘That’s correct sir.’”When Armstrong asked for her name, he says she did not give it to him and then promptly hung up the phone.99% of veterans on Honor Flights have never had the opportunity to see the memorial that is devoted to their service.Through October, the are over 35,000 veterans scheduled to visit the site, more than 900 in the next five days alone.It may all be waiting in limbo if the government can’t complete their job.- See more at: http://americanmilitarynews.com/2013/10/ww2-vets-face-arrest-for-visiting-their-memorial/#sthash.0uxTq6pQ.dpuf

Comed ordered by court to hand out refund

http://fw.to/IiBH5Yh

Court orders ComEd to refund $37M in 6-year rate dispute

Crain's Chicago Business reports: ComEd has been ordered to refund $37 million to customers after a six-year dispute over the way a rate hike was calculated. The Illinois Appellate Court ruling from Sept. 27 action on Monday amounts to about $10 per delivery customer.

Obama shuts down our government

Congress plunged the nation into a partial government shutdown Tuesday as a protracted dispute over President Barack Obama's signature health care law reached a boiling point, forcing some 800,000 federal workers off the job.

Obama readied a midday statement to the nation as Democrats and Republicans maintained their blame-each-other duel on Capitol Hill.

Even as Obama prepared to meet with citizens signing up for his health care program and then make a lunch-hour speech in the Rose Garden, the White House cut back to a skeletal staff. The U.S. Capitol canceled tours not personally led by Congress members. "Closed" signs and barricades sprang up at the Lincoln Memorial, and national parks and federal workplaces across the country were following suit.

With the Republican-controlled House and Democratic-controlled Senate stalemated, it was unclear how long the shutdown -- and the loss of some government programs and services -- could last. The Senate early Tuesday rejected the House's call to form a negotiating committee to resolve the deadlock.

Moments after the vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., laid full blame on House Republicans, declaring, "The government is closed because of the irrationality of what's going on on the other side of the Capitol."

Obama communications director Jennifer Palmieri told MSNBC that the White House was open to changes in the health care law in future negotiations, but not as part of passing a budget bill. She compared that to negotiating with "a gun pointed to your head."

In the House, conservative Rep. Marsha Blackburn predicted the standoff would drag on if Obama and Senate Democrats refused to bargain.

"You may see a partial shutdown for several days," Blackburn, R-Tenn., told Fox News. "People are going to realize they can live with a lot less government."

The health care law itself was unaffected as enrollment opened Tuesday for millions of people shopping for medical insurance.

It was the first shutdown since a budget battle between Republicans in Congress and Democratic President Bill Clinton in the winter of 1995-1996.

Traffic was lighter and the subway less crowded in Washington Tuesday morning. The Smithsonian museums website displayed a red banner noting that "all Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo are closed." On the zoo's website, panda mom Mei Xiang could be seen snuggling with her weeks-old cub through the morning, until the feed was abruptly cut off around 8 a.m. Care of the animals will continue.

Agencies like NASA and the Environmental Protection Agency were being nearly shuttered. People classified as essential government employees -- such as air traffic controllers, Border Patrol agents and most food inspectors -- will continue to work.

U.S. embassies and consulates will continue to issue visas and service passports because these activities are supported by fees not subject to congressional appropriations, according to State Department officials.

The White House was operating with a skeletal staff, including household workers taking care of the first family's residence and presidential aides working in the West Wing. A groundskeeper working outside Tuesday morning at daybreak said he was doing the job normally handled by four workers.

Given the shutdown, White House officials were discussing whether President Barack Obama should change plans for a trip to Asia scheduled to begin Saturday.

The military will be paid under legislation freshly signed by Obama, but paychecks for other federal workers will be withheld until the impasse is broken. Federal workers were told to report to their jobs for a half-day but to perform only shutdown tasks like changing email greetings and closing down agencies' Internet sites.

The self-funded Postal Service will continue to operate and the government will continue to pay Social Security benefits and Medicare and Medicaid fees to doctors on time.

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers get to decide which of their staff members keep working and which are furloughed. Members of Congress will continue getting paid.

There were no "Closed" signs outside the Capitol or its adjacent visitor center early Tuesday warning tourists they would not be admitted for the usual tours. "That would be me," quipped one Capitol Police officer standing outside an entrance.

The Senate twice on Monday rejected House-passed bills that first sought to delay key portions of the 2010 "Obamacare" law, then to delay the law's requirement that millions of people buy medical insurance. The House passed the last version again early Tuesday naming negotiators for a Senate-House conference on the bill; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the same fate awaits that measure when the Senate reconvenes Tuesday morning.

"You don't get to extract a ransom for doing your job, for doing what you're supposed to be doing anyway, or just because there's a law there that you don't like," Obama said Monday, delivering a similar message in private phone calls later to Republican House Speaker John Boehner and other lawmakers.

Boehner said he didn't want a government shutdown, but added the health care law "is having a devastating impact. ... Something has to be done."

It wasn't clear how long the standoff would last, but it appeared that Obama and Reid had the upper hand.

"We can't win," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., adding that "sooner or later" the House would have to agree to Democrats' demands for a simple, straightforward funding bill reopening the government.

Another veteran Republican, Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, called the shutdown "a big mistake." Interviewed on MSNBC, Cole called on House and Senate negotiations to end the impasse and insisted Democrats should yield on delaying the requirement that individual Americans have health coverage.

The order directing federal agencies to "execute plans for an orderly shutdown due to the absence of appropriations" was issued by White House Budget Director Sylvia Burwell shortly before midnight Monday.

Around the same time, Obama appeared in a video message assuring members of the military they'll be paid under a law he just signed and telling civilian Defense Department employees that "you and your families deserve better than the dysfunction we're seeing in Congress."

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Tuesday that Pentagon lawyers are trying to determine ways for some of the Defense Department's 400,000 furloughed civilians to continue working.

He bemoaned the standoff, telling reporters traveling with him in South Korea, "It does have an effect on our relationships around the world and it cuts straight to the obvious question: Can you rely on the United States as a reliable partner to fulfill its commitments to its allies?"

The underlying spending bill would fund the government through Nov. 15 if the Senate gets its way or until Dec. 15 if the House does.

Until now, such bills have been routinely passed with bipartisan support, ever since a pair of shutdowns 17 years ago engineered by then-Speaker Newt Gingrich severely damaged Republican election prospects and revived then-President Bill Clinton's political standing.

Boehner had sought to avoid the shutdown and engineer passage of a "clean" temporary spending bill for averting a government shutdown.

This time tea party activists mobilized by freshman Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, mounted a campaign to seize the must-do measure in an effort to derail Obamacare. GOP leaders voiced reservations and many Republican lawmakers predicted it wouldn't work. Some even labeled it "stupid."

But the success of Cruz and other tea party-endorsed conservatives who upset establishment GOP candidates in 2010 and 2012 primaries was a lesson learned for many Republican lawmakers going into next year's election.

Tom Dart say Cook County jail is a Insain Asylum

Appearing on CBS’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday night, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart spoke of the peril of housing mentally ill inmates in jail.

In light of a slew of mass shootings carried out by people with mental illnesses, correspondent Steve Kroft interviewed Dart at the Cook County Jail.

Dart said the jail housed at least 2,500 inmates with mental illnesses. He also characterized prisons and jails as “the new insane asylums.”

To highlight “what happens when we take mentally ill people and we cram them into the criminal justice system, where they’re not supposed to be,” Dart shared videos recorded by his staff inside the prison showing mentally ill inmates behaving erratically.

“This is a population that people don’t care about and so as a result of that there are not the resources out there to care for them,” Dart said. “The irony is so deep that you have a society that finds it wrong to have people warehoused in state mental institutions but those very same people were OK if we warehouse them in a jail. You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Dart said leaving their needs to an ill-equipped incarceration system is a recipe for disaster.

“Some are getting treated, some are not getting treated. People are falling through the cracks all the time,” he said in the interview. “To think that won’t then boil up at some point and end up in a tragedy, that’s just naive.”

Kroft pointed out that most mentally ill inmates are released back on the street after stints at the jail “with a packet of pills and no plan.”

Obama Care to be REPEALED

Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania doesn’t want to shut down the government over Obamacare, but he does want to get rid of the landmark health care law.“I think our strategy should be systematically repeal the things we can, delay the things we can’t,” he said.Toomey called for Republicans to adopt a repeal-and-delay tactic against the bill. Earlier this month, Toomey co-sponsored two bills to delay elements of Obamacare.First up? The Senate should work to repeal the unpopular medical device tax, Toomey said on Monday’s Morning Joe,which his office says would cost the Pennsylvania economy $100 million.He danced around questions over where he stands on the recently passed House budget.“The budget is a document that lays out a sense of principals. You have to work from there,” Toomey said. “Whatever might be in the House Republican budget, doesn’t make the case that Obamacare somehow works.”Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, noted on ABC on Sunday that the House budget assumes Obamacare savings and revenue while stripping out funding for the law at the same time.Republicans “have to explain to the American people how they voted for a budget that includes all of the Medicare savings from Obamacare, that includes the same level of revenue generated from Obamacare and, in fact, would not even balance in 10 years, if not for the Affordable Care Act,” the Maryland Democrat said. “That’s misleading and that’s a hoax.”

Obama Care Goes into effect

People living in Illinois may start shopping for ObamaCare health insurance next week, but for many, there are still more questions than answers about what it's all about and how much it will cost.

Officials already know what insurance companies plan to charge, as well as other details of the Affordable Care Act. Critics suggest they're waiting until the last minute to reveal it because, for many consumers, it will be expensive bad news.

For now, the emphasis is on those who will clearly benefit.

"For an individual who's not been able to access health care before, I think it's going to be great news," says Tom Meier of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois.

Vice President Tom Meier helped assemble dozens of proposed ObamaCare health insurance policies that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois submitted to regulators. Five other health insurers did, too. Thanks to a series of delays in Washington, though, consumers in Illinois will apparently be among the last to learn what exactly those policies will cost.

Four levels of policies will be available, with Platinum the most expensive, followed by Gold, Silver and Bronze.

Unlike Illinois, Indiana is already posted pricing. Governor Mike Pence, a foe of ObamaCare, said the average cost would be $512 a month. But insurers are charging $294 a month for a low-end Bronze plan for a 47-year-old male non-smoker. Depending on their income, some will pay much less.

"A number of our both existing and future customers are going to have access to subsidies through the Affordable Care Act that they haven't had access to before," Meier explains.

A family of four earning less than $23,550 would be eligible for free coverage through Medicaid. Incomes of up to $94,200 a year would be eligible for a sliding scale of government assistance to pay for their health insurance.

Some may find it cheaper to pay an annual penalty than to buy ObamaCare insurance: next year $95 per adult or 1% of taxable income.

That penalty would be collected at tax time, by the Internal Revenue Service. Making it easier to ignore the requirement to buy health insurance: someone who gets a serious illness would be allowed to buy coverage after a relatively brief waiting period.



MORE INFORMATION FROM THE HEALTH INSURANCE MARKETPLACE:

Individuals will have two-and-half months in which to compare plans and enroll in coverage that begins Jan. 1.
The entire enrollment period will last for six months, all the way through March. But to be covered on Jan. 1 of 2014, you need to enroll by Dec. 15.
Approximately 1,200 in-person assisters/navigators will be available around the state to help consumers who need it sort through the plans.
The Marketplace website, which will be ready for business on Oct. 1, will make it easy for consumers and small businesses to apply for and enroll in comprehensive health coverage, compare private health insurance plans and enroll in the plan that's best for them.
Subsidies will be available on a sliding scale for people who earn between 138 percent and 400 percent of the federal poverty level – that's from $15,860 to $45,960 for individuals and $32,500 to $94,200 for a family of four.

Chicago Resident Speaks up on new gun laws

Dear Sarge:I wanted to start out with a thank you for allowing people to read and comment on you fb, and blog site it gives a nice feel to true free speech. Now the business part of this letter. I hold a Pennsylvania, Utah, Florida, and Texas permits. I can go into any restaurant in Indiana, or Wisconsin that serves food and liquor those establishments have bars and before you walk in there is a sign guns welcome but you will not be served any alcoholic beverages while carrying a firearm. I aslo noticed I can not carry on public transportation but I ride the Metra in to Indiana and once that train is across state lines I am strapping up. But I can not carry in Illinois sorry I disagree I will carry on Metra regardless. I also take the CTA were most of the crimes happen so I guess the city will lose the CTA revenue from gun owners because we can not carry which means the people who are not armed that ride will be stuck with higher prices. Places like Roseland, South Shore, South Chicago, Englewood, and the North part of the city where there is a high rise in crimes will not get the new revenue from people who would only visit if they carried. I don't have this problem in neighboring states. Thank you Sincerely, Conceal carry Chicago resident