On the Trail September 12th

It would have been great to stand on The Mall in Washington and rally for a return to America, but not everyone can afford the trip.

But the spirit of patriotism was alive and well along Randall Road today as we held our own protest on the state of things.

We had signs about

*ACORN

*Obama's czars

*Congressmen hiding from the voters

*Immigration enforcement

*Taxation

*Cap and Trade

*and of course Universal Health Care

People driving by responded thus:

*Most ignored us (sigh)

*Many honked their horns

*Many more gave us the thumbs up

*A very few (1o in two hours) gave us another finger

It is encouraging that some of our group had never been motivated enough to carry a sign for any cause. And a few cared enough to stop for more information.

Just up the street was another group in front of the Burger King.

I'm interested to hear how the other sites did today.

Thanks to all who joined with us.

Elgin is green...

…only when it wants to be!
(Or, Paver Madness)

Take a trip down to city hall, but first check out your own curb and sidewalk.

When you get down to Dexter and Douglas you will notice brick pavers all over the place.

Pavers at the intersections

Pavers at the curb

Pavers for a driveway to the parking terrace.

Wait, weren’t we spending $100K (down from an original request of $500K) to “go green”?

Surely someone must realize what a brick paver really is. I guess not. Let me clue you in.

Bricks are made of clay. Clay that must be dug out of the ground. They call it “strip mining.” (That can’t be good.) To strip mine the clay they must remove everything growing on top of it, along with the topsoil. The clay is in a thin layer spread over miles so off comes all the vegetation and topsoil.

Then they truck the clay to a manufacturing plant. And they truck in shale as well. The two are mixed together and formed into bricks. And then they COOK the bricks. At 2000 degrees. For 30 hours. Imagine the energy used in that process!

Then they bundle up all those brick pavers and ship them over 800 miles from North Carolina to Elgin.

Then some workers who don’t speak English (Really, they don’t. I talked to them.) pound them into the sand and cut them with a water saw. Lots of cuts to make that herringbone pattern.

But we’re saving on concrete, right? No, we aren’t. The pavers are laid on a bed of cement.

But those bricks are durable. They’ll last forever. But that doesn’t mean they’ll lay flat for very long.

Which makes it hard to shovel the snow.

Speaking of snow, with pavers there are seams every few inches. And snow and ice get down in those seams causing the bricks to pry loose after a couple of years. Look at the decorative gateway median at the tollway and Route 25 for an example. They are up and down, sinking and tilting.
All in the interest of making downtown Elgin look like The Streets of Woodfield or Deerfield Commons. There are a couple of problems with that concept:
1) Have you noticed all the vacancies at those outdoor malls?
2) Didn’t we try that already in downtown Elgin? A couple of times?
3) The upscale stores that are attracted to such malls are looking for two things – High income per capita and traffic. Elgin has neither.

Now, some of the pseudo-green bunch will say “drainage.” Those pavers allow for drainage. Not when they are sitting in a cement pan.

And another thing. They are tearing up sidewalks at the Centre that are only seven years old just to redecorate. And thirteen-year-old sidewalks in front of the police station. That doesn’t sound very friendly to Mother Earth.

Nor does it sit well with Elgin citizens who are looking at curbs and sidewalks that are 40 years old and crumbling.

Fix the problem of raw sewage in the basements downtown and skip the expensive facelift.

Liberty Trail

Please join us in protesting big government and big deficits.

From Crystal Lake to Aurora patriots will be lining Randall Road next Saturday, September 12th. Will you be one of them?

Contact Doug for details. E-mail afla.heaton@sbcglobal.net

See you then.

The Liberty Trail Website
http://www.libertytrail9-12.com/apps/links/

We've moved!

In case you've been looking for the website, we've moved to
http://sites.google.com/site/aflaelgin/

It is a work in progress.

If you have any suggestions please send an e-mail to
afla.heaton@sbcglobal.net

If you would like any of the material from the old website, drop me a line and I'll see if I can get you a copy.

Thanks for your patience while we get unpacked.

From the Utah State Prison System

Testing the system

Maricopa County Arizona has been a 287g agency since February of 2007. They are authorized to do both jail screening and participate in task force operations. And they are a busy place since Arizona is a border state and Maricopa County has a population of 3.7 million people.

Recently Janet Napolitano, former Arizona governor and now Obama's Secretary of Homeland Security, declared that the 287g program was only to be invoked for major crimes the agency was willing to prosecute. Translation: It would not be used for removing illegal aliens from the country.

Sheriff Arpaio has been accused of racial profiling simply for arresting illegal aliens in the course of his police work.

Under the new rules (which weren't suppose to impact his agency for 90 days) the federal government has ordered the release of illegal aliens rather than take custody of them. ICE told the media that Sheriff Arpaio let them go.

But the Sheriff has audio tapes that tell a different story. His deputies are speaking with ICE agents who order them released. The option is to give them a letter to return at a later date and show proof of lawful presence to the sheriff. In one tape, the ICE agent and deputy both have a good laugh about the effectiveness of that letter.

So, ten known illegal aliens were put back on the street as a direct result of policy changes by the executive branch.

This administration is very proactive in dismantling the effectiveness of 287g.

Why do I say that? Well, if ICE only wants people who have been convicted of major crimes, you don't need any local screening or enforcement. All you need is to screen inmates before they are released from state prisons and maybe county jails.

Any illusion of enforcement is gone. There is no deterrent effect.

Then again, here in Elgin we don't have 287g or ICE ACCESS so all of our illegal aliens are put back on the street, approximately one a day.

Deportation just got harder

In a move by Homeland Security yesterday, teeth have been removed from the 287g program. And not one member of Congress had to take a vote on it.

Link here: http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1247246453625.shtm

Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, just established new rules for law enforcement agencies who want to become 287g partners.

Typical of this administration, they tell us they are doing one thing and yet mean just the opposite. Napolitano says in her press release the change was made to improve “public safety by removing criminal aliens who are a threat to local communities…” and “This new agreement supports local efforts to protect public safety by giving law enforcement the tools to identify and remove dangerous criminal aliens.”

That’s what she said, but the change forbids deportation proceedings for “minor crimes.” Translation: You have to be REALLY BAD before you get deported.

Exactly how does that improve public safety?

So, why is this important? Well, let me give you an example. There was a case in the local papers the other day about a fellow who was arrested for dealing drugs.
Man charged with trying to sell coke to Elgin cop
By Harry Hitzeman Daily Herald Staff
Published: 7/8/2009 10:40 AM

A 25-year-old Elgin man faces prison time after being accused of planning to sell cocaine to an undercover officer.

Bond for Julio G. Zarate of the 500 block of Cleveland Avenue was set at 10 percent of $250,000 this morning.

He faces several charges of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver. That is a Class X felony that carries a prison of six to 30 years. Probation is not an option.

What the article doesn’t tell you is that this SAME MAN was arrested by Elgin Police in February for a Drivers License violation and identified then as an illegal alien.

It doesn’t take a genius to understand that IF he had been deported in February as the law requires, he would not have been selling drugs on the streets of Elgin. How many people bought from him in the last five months? How many new customers did he introduce to cocaine?

You might say that he would have just snuck back into the country if deported. Maybe. But do you think he would have come back to Elgin?

Then you get out the calculator and determine what this added arrest costs Elgin, Kane County, and the state. You've got the arrest, the trial (most likely we'll be paying to both prosecute and defend him), and the incarceration for the next six to 30 years.

Washington doesn't care about it because all these costs are local.

It seems clear to me that this administration has no intention of getting tough on illegal aliens. Six years in office Bush finally realized the need for enforcement before amnesty. Obama seems doomed to repeat the mistake.