By:  Diane Benjamin

Yesterday Steve Vogel’s Saturday column was published, maybe next week he can explain it.  It served no useful purpose.  It wasn’t even entertaining.  He rattled something about Illinois never seeing Presidential candidates.  Must be jealousy.  Mentioned were Clinton, Sanders, Trump, Carson, Rubio, Huckabee, and Santorum.  Jeb is polling so low, Stevie must have forgotten him.  Evidently the guy Vogel is most afraid of is Ted Cruz – not a peep about one of the leading candidates.

Stevie, you really need to up your game.  Of course if you can’t think of anything better to write, skipping a week is always an option.

Speaking of Vogel, last week he claimed Rauner should quit trying to get his agenda passed.  I responded:  http://blnnews.com/2016/01/24/vogel-get-some-facts-first/

Today Anonymous wrote an Editorial titled:

Status quo is recipe for continued failure

Too bad Anonymous at the Pantagraph is afraid to put a name to it.  Whoever anonymous is wrote with views diametrically opposed to Vogel.  (Three cheers)  If the press across Illinois hammered Madigan daily, not only would citizens be informed but change might happen.

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Funeral services for Lee Newcom are still incomplete.  The family is working on a memorial service for Wednesday morning.  The GoFundMe page will probably have information when it is available:  https://www.gofundme.com/3nbjuzg4

There is a great picture of Lee and family (plus dog) on the site now.

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Tuesday morning a little after 7, I will be on NewsTalk 98.3 with Ian Bayne.  We will talk about my lawsuit against the City of Bloomington and maybe some about my campaign.  Tune in!

The hearing is at 9:00 in Courtroom 5D.  Spectators welcome.  Hopefully the REAL show happens on Friday, also 9:00 am, same place.

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One more thing:

All local government agencies here seem to all be infected with the same disease:  Federal grants.

Heartland used one to build their wind turbine, but the grant wasn’t factored into the final payback period.  Grants appear to be free money and immaterial to the REAL cost.

Taking money that isn’t yours used to be called theft.  Now theft is used to make costs appear lower.

Hard working people across this country were robbed by taxation for your tiger grants Normal.  Stealing from average Americans for Uptown doesn’t phase the Normal Town Council however.

Actually it’s worse.  Take the Feds money, you play by the Feds rules.  So much for local control.

Since the Feds are spending money they haven’t collected yet, and won’t for decades, we aren’t the ones being robbed.  It’s generations yet unborn.

Evidently those folks are also immaterial.