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[Speaking Truth To Power]
So, ex-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has resigned in disgrace after getting caught with his pants down snagged by a joint FBI and IRS investigation that exposed the former attorney general as a patron of prostitutes.
Lieutenant Governor David Paterson will become governor effective March17.
Spitzer's premature political demise started after a Norfork Bank reported transactions they deemed suspicious to the IRS, under the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, which was instituted to combat money laundering. The IRS then contacted the FBI who initiated wiretaps which led to a prostitution ring, the Emperor's Club VIP.
Four people were arrested and charged under the Mann Act of 1910, also known as the White Slave Traffic Act. Mr. Spitzer reportedly spent thousands of dollars on prostitutes. One troubling question is: did he use taxpayer dollars?
A politician preaching one thing while practicing another; where have we read this scri pt before? Politicians and prostitutes have things in common. Both ply tricks in their trade and constantly sell themselves. However, politicians lack honesty. Truthfully, are the Congress and White House anything more than whorehouses for servicing the excesses of the rich and well connected?
In the post Monica Lewinsky-gate world of politics, we have seen an orgy of sex scandals. The list includes: former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevy, Florida Rep. Bob Allen, Louisiana Councilman Joey DiFatta, Louisiana Rep. David Vitter, Florida Rep. Mark Foley and Idaho Senator Larry Craig.
Senator Larry "I have never been gay" Craig, who voiced opposition to gay marriage, was caught propositioning an undercover male cop in a public bathroom. Rep. Mark Foley, former Chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children engaged in sexual behavior with teenage congressional pages.
Rep. Bob Allen offered a Black undercover officer money to perform oral sex on the officer. When he was busted he claimed that he made the offer because he is afraid of big Black men. Washington State Rep. Richard Curtis who repeatedly voted against gay rights legislation ruined his career when his gay tryst with 26-year-old Cody Castagna was revealed.
Apparently, Curtis has a penchant for wearing racy women's lingerie. The greatest scandal of all relating to these politicians is their absolute dishonesty and hypocrisy. Spitzer's fall is instructive of why America's political system is so rotten. For within American politics, false images are created daily to erect and elect those who lust and sell their souls to have power over us.
Fraud and deception are the tools our "leaders" use to obtain that power. Mr. Spitzer is but a microcosm of the larger sham within the American polity. Here is a man who as New York's Attorney General prosecuted prostitutes. This "do as I say, not as I do" kind of "leadership" has created the corrupt cesspool that is synonymous with political power inside the D.C. Beltway, and in this nation's legislative corridors.
During his initial press conference, Mr. Spitzer had the temerity to claim this is a "private matter" before refusing to answer reporter's questions. If it was a "private matter" what was he "apologizing to the public" for? Some —like Harvard's Alan Dershowitz, Spitzer's former professor—stated that he shouldn't resign, although, as governor he broke a law others are expected to obey.
This kind of inconsistency is standard practice for the political powerful who feel they are entitled to do as they please. Many pundits have labeled this a "tragedy." Unfortunately, this sentiment partly implies that Spitzer's behavior is aberrant and isolated in politics. Wrong.
This is typical of the self-righteous stiff shirts that run our government. Remember the D.C. Madam story where Louisiana Rep. Vitter's phone number was found? How about former New Jersey Governor McGreavy, who was forced out of the closet and admitted to having sex with strange men on the streets of New Jersey? Isn't it clear that we haven't begun to uncover the tip of the iceberg?
Before Spitzer resigned he was being threatened with impeachment. The irony here is that we have a "president" in the White House who made false claims and plunged us into a trillion dollar war, caused the deaths of nearly 4,000 US soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, yet why aren't politicians pushing for his impeachment?
Media are also selective in issues of moral "outrage." Recall that the "decider" in-chief refused to answer questions about his cocaine use before entering office. Yet, we have tens of thousands of poor people—many of them Blacks and Hispanics—incarcerated for the use of crack cocaine.
Vice-President Dick Cheney shot his "friend" in the face while they were quail hunting. The vice president left the scene—my guess is that he was drunk—and refused to talk to the police until days later.
What do you think would happen if you shot someone in the face, left the scene, then refused to speak to police, until you
decided you were ready? The reality is most politicians believe laws are for regular people, not them.
Mr. Spitzer's corruption and arrogance is the thread that connects and undresses him and all the other morally bankrupt hypocrites running America.
Benjamin is a member of The Black Star News's Editorial Board.
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We're back live after a short intermission before the beginning of extra time. We're in for another thirty minutes of this, so get comfortable. Spain has already been peppering Italy with shots, but nothing is making its way to the goal. Silva just fired a rocket wide that would have sent chills through the body of every Italy hater watching. Alas. Continue along after the jump.
Image via Euro2008Girls.
(Ed. Note: Getting beer.)
• Now it's the Italian's turn to put on some pressure, however Luca Toni can't rid himself of the Spanish defenders. Two consecutive corners won by Italy, but neither could be converted. Toni went high with the second effort.</>
• Cazorla may have taken a nut-shot right there.
• Spain have worked the ball upfield and look to set up off of a throw. Villa falls down, but manages to sweep the ball to Fabregas, who can't do anything with it.
• Spain is called offside yet again. They should be winning this game by now.
• This fucking blows. Extra time is half gone, and so am I.
• Ah crap, a dumb foul and a free kick for the Italians is upcoming.
• The ball is fired wide and nobody moves for it, leaving Spain with a throw.
• And here comes Del Piero. Where was he fifteen minutes ago?
• Casillas boots a goal kick right back to Italy, but they misplay back to Spain.
• Tick-toc, bitches.
• More great chances for Spain without anything to show for it. I imagine they're quite frustrated, whereas this is exactly what Italy prefers.
• Oh get up and finish the fucking game, you cock!
• The end came down to one final attempt by David Villa, but it was off by an agonizing margin. Penalties are on the way, so enjoy that.
• David Villa is up first, and he certainly doesn't miss that one. 1-0 Spain.
• Grosso buries his as well, tied after the first round.
• The sub Cazorla tucks it away without a problem.
• CASSILAS WITH THE SAVE! Brilliance from the team's captain. 2-1 Spain after 2.
• Senna delivers for Spain, he's been a bright spot most of the day. Italy needs a goal here.
• Camoranesi steps right up and beats the keeper. BUFFON WITH THE SAVE! The commentators jinx Guiza, La Liga's leading scorer, and he was denied!
• SAVE CASSILAS, HE DOES IT AGAIN! Cesc is up for the win, and there was never a doubt about it. Fabregas should be under appreciated no more back home in Spain. SPAIN WINS IN A SHOOTOUT!
Yeah I hate shootouts, but that was highly enjoyable.


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February 04, 2016
September 18, 2020
Hi everyone, I am Larissa from Car-d-elicious and today I am posting a new project on the blog from Gerda Steiner designs. This time I have made a little bag with a tag. On the tag I used the digital stamp Strawberry mouse from Gerda Steiner designs. I have coloured the image with my Polychromos pencils and the black glaze pen and then I have fussy cut the image.
Continue Reading
September 13, 2020
Hi everyone! It's Jeannie (InsideoutJeans) on the blog today with Gerda Steiner Design's stamp set named, Ghosts ...
September 11, 2020
Hello my crafty friends... Ashlee here with you today and I thought I'd make and share with you a slimline card with a fall theme featuring the super cute "Pumpkin bear"....


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(BPT) – Many parents might wonder why they would ever need legal assistance themselves, much less for their children. But the truth is, even if you raised the perfect child who never got into a bit of trouble, there's a good chance you might someday have a legal need related to your child.
Just as is often the case for adults, legal needs regarding your children can occur when you least expect them. Courtesy of ARAG, a global provider of legal solutions, here are 10 situations where a legal issue might arise related to your children.
1. A legal document called Medical Treatment Authorization for Minors authorizes medical personnel to treat your child if you're not there and cannot be contacted. It also gives your child's school or daycare the authority to obtain emergency medical treatment. This is a good idea if you are unavailable during the day or travel frequently.
2. If your child is involved in sports and gets a concussion or suffers heat stroke, you may need to consult an attorney if best sport safety practices related to such injuries weren't followed.
3. If your child is bullied, resources to educate yourself on your rights and responsibilities may be helpful as you strive to keep your child safe and take the appropriate action to address the issue. Same goes if your child is accused of bullying.
4. If one of your child's friends gets hurt while he or she is at your house, you may need legal advice regarding liability issues.
5. As your children enter college, they could experience a legal issue such as a dispute with their landlord over a lease or other rental issues. Online resources and documents can help you take the appropriate actions when a lease is signed.
6. Once your child reaches driving age, it's possible he or she could get into an accident and need legal assistance if there's a disagreement with your insurance company or another driver.
7. If you don't see eye to eye with your child's college over a tuition bill or an issue related to academics, you may need legal advice.
8. Online safety is a big issue for children of all ages. Educating your children about Internet safety issues is important, but if your child becomes the victim of cyberbullying, Internet scams or other online crimes, legal guidebooks can help you understand your options and an attorney can help you to take action.
9. If you or your student takes out student loans and then you can't repay them, an attorney or financial resources can help you understand your repayment options.
10. If you have a college savings plan in place and are unsure of how to properly allocate your savings in accordance with tax laws, you may benefit from the help of an attorney or financial counselor.
These are just a few examples of situations where having access to educational resources or an attorney could help. Considering other "adult" issues that also may require legal assistance, such as modifying your will or settling a dispute with a contractor, a legal plan like those offered by ARAG can really be a benefit.
These types of plans, which are often offered through your employer as part of your benefits package, give you access to educational resources and tools as well as attorneys when you have a legal question or need. To learn more about legal plans and legal benefits, visit www.ARAGgroup.com.
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Ed Note: I find myself being manic about this article. I unpublished it in late 2011. I guess I'll put it back. It is the most viewed and most commented story in this blog and the leading generator of traffic. If people can realize that this isn't the Youngstown of today, then maybe it has its place. 3/29/12
This article comes from the July 7, 2000 edition of The New Republic. It is an interesting insight into crime, the mob and Jim Traficant in Youngstown.
The city that fell in love with the mob.
Crimetown USA
By DAVID GRANN
Issue date: 07.10.00
Post date: 06.29.00
There was a certain tidiness to the killings in Youngstown. Usually they happened late at night when there were no witnesses or police and only the lights from the steel furnaces still burned. Sometimes neighbors would hear the short, sharp sound of gunfire and then nothing, a silence you can't describe unless you've heard it, which if you're lucky you haven't.
Everyone suspected who the killers were--they lived in the neighborhood, sometimes just down the street--but no one could ever prove anything. Sometimes their methods were simple: a bullet to the back of the head or a bomb strapped under the hood of a car. Or sometimes, like when they got Mr. Magda, they allowed for the more dramatic, tranquilizing their victim with a stun gun and wrapping his head in tape until he could no longer breathe.
Yet the most frightening method, the one that captured the city's imagination, was the most immaculate: the disappearance of people in broad daylight. They were the city's ghosts. Police found their cars empty on the side of the street, the engines still warm, or their dinner tables still piled with food. They had, in the most classic sense, been "rubbed out." The only sign of the killers was an artistic flourish: the dozen long-stemmed white roses victims often received just before they vanished.
So, when Lenny Strollo ordered the hit that summer night in 1996, there was no reason to believe it would go down any differently. As the top Mafia don in Ohio's Mahoning Valley, he presided over the killings and disappearances in and around Youngstown from his farm in nearby Canfield, where he tended his gardens and ate vitamins to quiet his heart. His reach extended over nearly an entire corner of the state, a stretch of land that was home to more than 200,000 people and that had become, by all accounts, the most crooked county in America--a place, in the modern era, where the Mafia still held sway over every element of society, from the police to the judges to the politicians. Only months earlier, Strollo had ordered his main mob rival mowed down as he drove to work. But this time his choice of target was more brazen: the newly elected county prosecutor, Paul Gains.
The Mafia didn't ordinarily "take out" public officials, but the 45-year-old prosecutor had so far resisted all the customary overtures, bribes, and campaign contributions, and it was now widely rumored that he planned to hire as his chief investigator the man the Mafia hated most: Bob Kroner, the local FBI agent who had spent 20 years pursuing the mob. In Mafia fashion, Strollo employed endless layers of authority so that nothing could be traced back to him. First he gave the order to Bernie the Jew, the man he relied on for all his muscle. Bernie, in turn, hired Jeffrey Riddle, a black drug dealer turned assassin who was obsessed with the Mafia and, according to friends, boasted that he'd one day be the first nigger ever inducted into the family. Riddle then brought in his own two-man team: Mark Batcho, a fastidious criminal who ran one of the most sophisticated burglary crews in the country, and Antwan "Mo Man" Harris, a crack dealer who, though he still lived with his mother, had already committed at least two other murders.
That Christmas Eve, as Batcho and Harris later recounted, the three men loaded up on everything they needed: walkie-talkies, ski masks, gloves, a bag of cocaine, a police scanner, and a .38 revolver. Around eight o'clock in the evening, they drove out to the prosecutor's home, in a Youngstown suburb dotted with strip malls. The houses glowed with Christmas lights. But, when they arrived, no one was home. Batcho got out of the car and waited behind a lamppost near the garage. He attached a speed loader to the revolver to enable him to shoot faster and tested the voice-activated walkie-talkie. No one responded. He tried again. Nothing. He couldn't believe it. Here they were asking him to carry out the premier Mafia hit in years and the equipment was busted. He ran back to the car and said he couldn't kill anyone without "communication."
Batcho, Harris, and Riddle regrouped at the Giant Eagle Supermarket on Route 224 and programmed two of their cell phones so they could dial each other at the touch of a button. As they eased up in front of the house again, they noticed that a car was in the driveway and the kitchen lights were on. "OK," Riddle said, shoving the gun back in Batcho's hand, "get out and go do this."
Batcho jumped out of the car, carrying the bag of cocaine Riddle had instructed him to plant on the body to make it look like a drug-related killing. He crept up to the house, his heart pounding. The garage door was open, and he said, "Hey, mister, hey, mister," but no one answered, and he kept walking. The side door to the house was open, too, and he could hear someone speaking. He decided to go in. Creeping down the corridor, he heard Gains talking on the phone in the kitchen. Batcho rushed in, pointed the gun at the prosecutor's midsection, and fired. As Gains fell to the ground, Batcho fired again. Blood spilled from two wounds--one in his forearm, the other in his side. Batcho took another step closer as Gains put up his hands to ward him off.
Batcho aimed near Gains's heart and pulled the trigger. But the gun kicked back in his hand, jamming. Jesus fuckin' Christ! Batcho turned and ran out of the house, stumbling into the woods in back. He tripped and fell and, getting back up, hit the button on the cell phone, screaming, It's done! It's done! Come pick me up! As he came out of the woods, he saw the car approaching down the street and lurched toward it, jumping into the backseat. He crouched down, shivering. "Did you kill him?" Harris and Riddle asked.
"I think so," Batcho said uncertainly.
"You don't know?" Riddle said.
"The gun jammed," Batcho said, "the gun jammed."
Harris looked at him coolly. "Why didn't you go in the drawer and get a steak knife and stab him to death?" he asked.
Riddle said they had to go back and finish the job, but just then the police scanner crackled with news of the shooting. Riddle hit the gas and started swerving along the back roads. Fearing they'd get pulled over, Harris took the gun and threw it out the window. But the speed loader was missing. Where the fuck is the speed loader? they started screaming at each other. Then from the scanner came even worse news: Gains was still alive.
It was one of the least skillful murder attempts in the valley's history: the speed loader was found outside the house, along with a clean footprint; a sketch of the shooter appeared in the paper within days. But, ironically, the crime scene was so messy that investigators couldn't believe Strollo's people were behind it--not even Gains, who told friends, If the mob had done it, I'd be dead. Batcho, who had begun to wear disguises around town, slowly emerged from hiding. Amazingly, it looked as if these murderers would get away as well, until one spring night the prosecutor got a phone call at home. "Are you Paul Gains?" a woman asked.
"Yes," he said, "who's this?"
"I know who shot you," she said.
When the woman rattled off details about the crime that few could have known, Gains called the police, who brought in the FBI. "I know everything," she told the agents who rushed to her apartment the next day. "I know other people they shot. I know everything."
And so it happened. The call, from the ex-girlfriend of an associate of the hit men, helped solve a mob hit for the first time in the valley's history. But, coupled with a three-year covert operation by the FBI, it would ultimately help uncover something far broader. It would slowly untangle what authorities describe as one of the last truly mob-run counties in the country: a place where the Mafia still controlled a chief of police, the outgoing prosecutor, the sheriff, the county engineer, members of the local police force, a city law director, several defense attorneys, politicians, judges, and a former assistant U.S. attorney; a place whose residents had grown so used to a culture of corruption that they viewed it casually, even proudly; a place, in a sliver of America, where a malignant way of life was left largely untouched for almost 100 years. Now, after more than 70 convictions, the investigation has wound its way to the most powerful politician in the region, a man whom the FBI caught on tape with the mob nearly 20 years ago but who has eluded them ever since: United States Congressman James Traficant.
Today, the Mahoning Valley is one of the most depressed corners of America. But it wasn't economic bust that first brought the mob to the valley; it was economic boom. In the early years of the twentieth century, the valley--a thin corridor of land that twists and turns its way through northern Ohio--was the heart of an industrial empire. Steel mills stretched as far as the eye could see, their furnaces streaking the sky with 15-foot flames. For more than 50 years, their lights drew immigrants--Poles and Greeks and Italians and Slovaks who thought they had found the Ruhr Valley of America--as well as a burgeoning class of racketeers who thought they had found their own "Little Chicago." Youngstown's streets were lined with after-hours joints, where the steelworkers drank and played Barbut, a Turkish dice game, and where capos, dressed in white-brimmed hats and armed with stilettos, ran the numbers, or "bug," as the locals called it. Youngstown in the 1940s wasn't particularly unusual. Like Chicago, Buffalo, or Detroit, it had a teeming immigrant population accustomed to arbitrary and violent authority, a booming economy, and pliable local politicians and police--all the ingredients the mob needed to flourish.
But, unlike those larger cities, Youngstown was too small to have a mob family of its own. And, as a result, it turned into a battlefield. By 1950, as the rackets mushroomed into a multimillion-dollar industry, the Pittsburgh and Cleveland Mafia families began fighting for control of the region. Bombings began to ricochet through the valley--warnings to those who allied themselves with the wrong side. It got so bad over the next two decades that the local radio station ran public-service ads featuring an earsplitting bang and the slogan "Stop the bomb!" In 1963, The Saturday Evening Post dubbed the area "Crimetown U.S.A.," noting: "Officials hobnob openly with criminals. Arrests of racketeers are rare, convictions rarer still and tough sentences almost unheard of."
Shortly after Bob Kroner arrived in the valley in 1976 as a 29-year-old FBI agent, a full-scale war broke out. On one side was Joey Naples's and Lenny Strollo's faction, which was controlled by the Pittsburgh Mafia; on the other were the Carabbia brothers--known in town as simply "Charlie the Crab" and "Orlie the Crab"--who were aligned with Cleveland. "It seemed like you'd get up every morning and get in your car and hear someone else had been murdered," says Kroner.
First there were "Spider" and "Peeps"--two petty cons hit within a few weeks of each other. Then came one of Naples's drivers, shot as he changed a tire in his driveway, and a crony of Peeps's, who was gunned down outside his apartment. Then, poor John Magda, who was discovered, his head wrapped in tape, at the dump in Struthers, and, next, a small-time bookie who refused to go easily--he was first bombed and later shot through his living-room window while he watched television with his wife. Then, Joey DeRose Sr., killed by accident when he was mistaken for his son, a Carabbia assassin; and finally, a few months later, the son, too. "Oh my God, they got Joey," his girlfriend screamed when police told her they had found her car burning on a country road between Cleveland and Akron.
A former high school math teacher who turned in his books for a badge in 1971, Kroner quickly plunged into this underworld. He could be seen in town, in his neatly pressed suit and tie, trailing reputed hit men and banging on the doors of the All-American Club. Though he came from a family of cops, Kroner didn't look like one: he was too tall and slender, almost delicate, and he lacked the easy manner of the police who played craps in the shadow of the courthouse. He wore penny loafers in a city where most people wore boots, and he had a certain stiffness, as if he were a substitute teacher who feared he might lose control of his class.
Unlike his FBI predecessor, who, according to the agency's own affidavit and informants, had allegedly consorted with gangsters and was later appointed Youngstown's chief of police at the Mafia's behest, Kroner was hostile to the local dons. Prickly and shy, he spent hours alone in his small office, smoking cigarettes and listening to intercepted conversations between the different gangs. He made little diagrams of each family, to which he added further details whenever he received a tip from an informant. He did everything he could to bring down their enterprise: tapping their phones, tailing their cars, subpoenaing their friends. In other words, he was, as Strollo and his cronies put it, a "motherfucker."
One day in the spring of 1981, not long after Charlie the Crab, the head of the Cleveland faction, disappeared without a trace, Kroner searched the apartment of one of the city's most notorious assassins. The apartment was cluttered with knickknacks, and Kroner and his partner went through each room carefully. In a cabinet, Kroner noticed a bread box and opened it. Inside, tucked amid the stale bread, was an audiotape. When he played it, he heard vaguely familiar voices: "He's a scared motherfucker." And: "You either play our fucking game or you['re] going to be put in a fucking box." Two of the voices, he was sure, belonged to Charlie and his brother, Orlie the Crab. But there was also another voice, one Kroner thought he recognized from television and radio. Then it dawned on him: It was Youngstown's newly elected sheriff, a former college football star named James Traficant.
Later, acting on a tip, Kroner and his partner drilled open the Carabbias' sister's safe-deposit box, where they found a similar tape with a handwritten note that said: "If I die these tapes go to the FBI in Washington. I feel I have more people after me because of these tapes and ... I pray and ask God to guide and protect my family." At headquarters, Kroner and his colleagues listened to a jumble of voices arguing about which public officials were allegedly being paid off by the rival Pittsburgh mob.
"You believe they got all them fuckin' people?" Orlie said.
"I know they got [Mayor] Vukovich," Traficant said.
"Oh, they definitely got Vukovich," said Charlie.
"I know they got Leskovansky," Traficant continued. "I know they got Haynes. I know they got Morley. I know they got Gilmartin."
"They don't have Gilmartin," said Charlie.
Traficant paused, as if running through the names in his mind. "I don't know all of them," he finally said. "But I know it's a fuckin' fistful."
With its Pittsburgh rival controlling many of the valley's politicians, the Cleveland faction knew it needed some pols of its own. And the tapes, apparently made by Charlie the Crab at two meetings during the 1980 sheriff's campaign, appeared to show them buying Traficant, a rising star. "I am a loyal fucker," Traficant informs the Carabbia brothers at one point, "and my loyalty is here, and now we've gotta set up the business that they've run for all these fuckin' years and swing that business over to you, and that's what your concern is. That's why you financed me, and I understand that."
The arrangement, according to the tapes, was an oldfashioned one: Traficant acknowledged receiving more than $100,000 from the Cleveland faction for his campaign. In exchange, he'd use the sheriff's office to protect the Carabbias' rackets while shutting down their rivals. "Your uncle Tony was my goombah...," said Charlie, "and we feel that you're like a brother to us.... We don't want you to make any fuckin' mistakes." Traficant assured his benefactors that he was solid and that, if any of his deputies betrayed them, "they'll fuckin' come up swimming in [the] Mahoning River."
But, according to the tapes, Traficant wasn't primarily worried about his deputies; he was worried about the Pittsburgh mob. As Charlie knew, Traficant had accepted money from Pittsburgh, too--some $60,000, the first installment of which came with the message, "I want you to be my friend." The young candidate for sheriff was double-crossing the Pittsburgh family (he had just given over at least some of their money to Charlie the Crab to prove his loyalty), and he knew that, when they found out, they would retaliate. "Look, I don't wanna fuckin' die in six months, Charlie," Traficant said.
On the tapes, Kroner and his colleagues could hear Traficant hatching a plan to protect himself from the Pittsburgh Mafia--and the officials they controlled. "Let's look at it this way, OK?" he said. "They do have the judges.... They can get to the judges and get what they need done.... What they don't have is the sheriff, and ... I'm one step ahead." On the day he was sworn into office, Traficant said, he'd take some of the money the Pittsburgh family had given him and use it as evidence to arrest them for bribery. What's more, he described what he and the Crabs would say if their secret dealings were ever exposed: "I was so fucking pissed off at this crooked government, I came to you and asked you guys if you would assist me to break it up, and you said, `Fuck it ... we'll do it.' OK? That's gonna be what you're gonna say in court."
"Orlie too?" asked Charlie. "He's got a bad heart--"
"Look...," said Traficant. "I'm not talking fucking daydreams.... If they're gonna fuck with me, I'm gonna nail them." Traficant was taken with the audacity of his plan. "If you think about it," he mused at a later point, "if I fuckin' did that--"
"You can run for governor," said Charlie.
They all broke into laughter.
After Kroner and his superiors reviewed the tapes, they called Traficant down to headquarters. Kroner had never met the sheriff before, and he watched as he settled into the chair across from him. Traficant was an imposing figure, with wide shoulders and thick brown hair that stuck up on top so that, at first glance, it looked like a wig. You could tell from his muscles that he had once worked in the mills, and he walked as if his joints had been worn down to the bone. As they exchanged pleasantries, Kroner told Traficant he had grown up in Pittsburgh and watched him play football at the university there--where Traficant had starred as a daring quarterback who, as one NFL scout put it, "at the most critical point in a game ... will keep the ball himself and run with it," bowling over anyone in his path.
What happened next is in dispute. According to sworn court testimony from Kroner and other agents present, Kroner asked the sheriff if he was conducting an investigation into organized crime in the valley. Traficant said he wasn't. Kroner then asked him if he knew Charlie the Crab or Orlie the Crab. Traficant said he'd only heard of them.
You never met them? Kroner asked.
No, Traficant said.
You never received money from them?
No, he said again.
Then Kroner popped in the tape:
Traficant: "They have given sixty thousand dollars."
Orlie the Crab: "They gave sixty. What'd we give?"
Traficant: "OK, a hundred and three."
After only a few seconds, Traficant slumped in his seat. "I don't want to hear any more," he said, according to Kroner. "I've heard enough."
In the FBI's version of events, Traficant acknowledged he'd taken the money, and he agreed to cooperate in exchange for immunity. In front of two witnesses, he then signed a confession that read, in tiny, cursive letters: "During the period of time that I campaigned for sheriff of Mahoning County, Ohio, I accepted money ... with the understanding that certain illegal activities would be allowed to take place in Mahoning County after my election and that as sheriff I would not interfere with those activities."
According to the FBI, it wasn't until several weeks later that Traficant recanted his confession, after learning that he would likely have to resign as sheriff and that the reason for his resignation would become public. "Do what you have to do," he told Kroner, "and I'll do what I have to do." Or, as Traficant later told the local TV station, "All those people trying to put me in jail should go fuck themselves."
The FBI did what it had to first, arresting the 41-year-old sheriff for allegedly taking $163,000 in bribes from the mob and for willfully and knowingly "combin[ing], conspir[ing], confederat[ing], and agree[ing]" with racketeers to commit crimes against the United States. Incredibly, facing up to 23 years in jail, Traficant decided to represent himself in court, even though he wasn't a lawyer and even after the judge warned him that "almost no one in his right mind" would attempt such a thing.
On the day of the trial, pacing the courtroom in a short-sleeved shirt, Traficant told the jury just what he had vowed he would say on the Carabbia tapes: that he was conducting "the most unorthodox sting in the history of Ohio politics." In a role that he said deserved "an Academy Award," Traficant told the rapt gallery that he had been acting all along as an undercover agent, trying to convince the Carabbia brothers he was on their side so he could use them to shut down the more powerful Pittsburgh faction. "What I did, and what I set out to do very carefully," he said, "was to design a plan whereby I would destroy and disrupt the political influence and the mob control over in Mahoning County."
Though he admitted taking money from the mob, Traficant said he did so only so that his opponent in the campaign wouldn't get it. And, though he acknowledged that his voice was on the tapes, he claimed they were doctored to incriminate him. And, though he agreed he had signed "a statement," he said it was different from the fraudulent "confession" the FBI introduced into evidence. And, though he confessed he had initially lied to the FBI about the sting, he said it was only because he couldn't trust its agents--one of whom, back in the '60s, was allegedly tied to the mob. Indeed, he insisted that, if the FBI hadn't intervened, he would have cleansed the most corrupt county in the country. "The point of the matter I want to make is this," he said. "I got inside of the mob." Then: "I fucked the mob."
It was a stunning performance. When Kroner finally took the stand and testified that he had seen Traficant sign the confession, the sheriff jumped out of his chair and yelled, "That's a goddamn lie!" During cross-examination he taunted his FBI adversary, saying, "Oh, I see" and "No, Bob." Half crazy, half charming, he referred to himself as "my client" and asked reporters, "How am I doin'?" In a region instinctively wary of outsiders, he became, by the end of his defense, an emblem of the valley. In Youngstown, people held parties on his behalf. His supporters sold t-shirts touting his heroic struggle. It didn't matter that the IRS would later find Traficant liable for taking bribes and evading taxes, in a civil trial in which he took the Fifth. Or that the money he had allegedly taken as evidence for the sting was never turned over. Or that one of his deputies claimed on the stand that Traficant had repeatedly asked the deputy to shoot him to make it look like an attempted mob hit. Traficant understood his community better than anyone else. It took a jury four days to decide to acquit. Charlie the Crab was wrong about only one thing: Traficant wouldn't become governor. He would become a United States congressman.
By the time Traficant went to Washington, D.C., in 1985, the valley was already disintegrating. The worldwide demand for steel had plummeted, plunging the area into near-permanent recession. Mills barricaded their doors. Department stores closed. At least one airline discontinued its service to the region. By the end of the decade, the population in Youngstown alone had fallen by more than 28,000, while the sky, leaden for half a century, turned almost blue.
Traficant, reelected to term after term in Congress, railed against the closings, sometimes even sounding a little like Charlie the Crab. When one of the last steel mills in the region filed for bankruptcy in the late '80s, Traficant warned: "I think this is beyond all this talking phase. If [the owner] rips off the last industrial facility ... then someone should grab him by the throat and stretch him a couple of inches." But there was nothing he or anyone else could do.
And if prosperity had brought the mob to the valley a half-century earlier, depression cemented its rule. The professional classes that did so much to break the culture of the Mafia in Chicago and Buffalo and New York in the 1970s and '80s practically ceased to exist in Youngstown. Much of the valley's middle class either left or stopped being middle-class. And so Youngstown experienced a version of what sociologists have described in the inner city. The city lost its civic backbone--its doctors and lawyers and accountants. The few upstanding civic leaders who remained were marginalized or cowed. Hierarchies of status and success and moral value became inverted. The result was a generation of Batchos, kids who worshiped the dons the way other children worshiped Mickey Mantle or Joe DiMaggio. (Batcho even tattooed a picture of a legendary mob boss on his left upper arm, telling people proudly, "[I'd] take a bullet for him.") Meanwhile, Lenny Strollo and his partners, in need of players for their cash-strapped casinos, began catering to the local drug dealers and criminals, who were the only people left with money to spend.
The mob, which had once competed with the valley's civil society, largely became its civil society. As late as 1997, in the small city of Campbell, Strollo controlled at least 90 percent of the appointments to the police department. He fixed the civil-service exam so he could pick the chief of police and nearly all the patrolmen. The city law director literally brought the list of candidates for promotion to Strollo's house so the don could select the ones he wanted. "Strollo," says an attorney familiar with the city, could "determine which murderers went to jail and which ones went free."
In 1996, while three mob hit men, including Mo Man Harris, were on their way to kill their latest target, they were pulled over by the Campbell police for speeding, according to people in the car. In the vehicle the cops found an AK-47 rifle, a .357 Magnum revolver, and a 9 mm pistol. One of the killers used his cell phone to call Jeff Riddle, who rushed to the scene and told the police the men were running an errand for Bernie the Jew. The cops let them go.
In the rare instances when the police arrested a reputed mobster, Strollo and his associates simply paid off the judges. There was such a sense of impunity that once in the spring of 1996, when an incorruptible judge prevented Strollo from fixing a particular assault case, he dispatched Batcho with a walkie-talkie and a silencer to wound the defense attorney so they could get a mistrial. "I said, `Are you attorney Gary Van Brocklin?'" Batcho later recalled. "And he said, `Yes, I am.' ... And I shot him right in the knee." "I don't know how an honest defense attorney could make a living in this town," says Kroner's boss, Andy Arena.
And, of course, Strollo's tentacles reached the valley's representative in Congress as well. Until he was exposed in 1998, Traficant's top aide in the district, Charles O'Nesti, served as the "bagman" between Strollo and the city's corrupt public officials. (Traficant had hired O'Nesti in 1984, despite his claims on the infamous tapes that O'Nesti was a mob crony whom he would arrest as part his so-called sting to clean up the valley.) While working for Traficant, O'Nesti would meet Strollo at the don's farm or talk with him on the phone. The two even conspired to steal a stretch of city pavement as it was being laid down. "The hold that the mob has had here to this day," says Arena, "I don't think you'll see anywhere else in the United States."
The FBI sting that would start unraveling this web of corruption began in 1994. Kroner, now middle-aged, had given up smoking through hypnotism and put several pounds on his slender frame. One morning, as he met with other agents in their cramped office in nearby Boardman Township, he could barely contain his frustration. He had just witnessed the disintegration of one of his few triumphs: 14 months after he'd nailed Strollo for gambling, his nemesis had reemerged from prison and reasserted his power. Even when we bust them, Kroner thought, they just come back.
So, after years of disappointment, Kroner and his colleagues opted for a new approach: rather than attack the mob from the top, as they had in the past, they'd start at the bottom, with the number runners and the stick handlers at the Barbut games. The investigation was based on the theory of carpenter ants--if you didn't eliminate all of them, even the smallest ones, they would simply multiply again. "We set forth right in the beginning that we were not going to stop until we got to the nest," says Kroner, "and if it meant having to work deals with people we had lots of evidence against, that's what we were going to do if it would lead us up the chain."
One of the first people they persuaded to cooperate was a local bookie named Michael Sabella, who worked in the markets and always smelled of fish. After being questioned by the feds on another matter, he agreed to wear a wire around the county's gambling dens. Eventually, he gave them enough evidence to get wiretaps on several low-level members of Strollo's sprawling enterprise, who, in turn, gave them enough evidence to tap more phones, and so on. As the number of intercepted conversations mushroomed into the thousands, Kroner and his partners, John Stoll and Gordon Klau, spent days sifting through transcripts.
But, after more than a year of sleepless nights, they still hadn't penetrated the Mafia's innermost circle. Hoping to "shake the tree," as Kroner put it, they started raiding gambling joints, which finally gave them enough evidence to install bugs in Strollo's kitchen and telephones. They began picking up snippets of incriminating conversations. They heard what sounded like a plot to shake down a priest and what some "asshole did before ... he got whacked."
At one point early in their investigation, Kroner got a tip from an informant that Strollo was going to kill one of his rivals, Ernie Biondillo. Feeling a moral obligation to warn Biondillo, he picked up the phone and called him. "This is Bob Kroner," he said. "You know who I am?"
"Yeah, I know who you are."
"Well, I need to sit down and talk to you alone."
They met that night in a parking lot. Kroner hoped the warning would encourage Biondillo to cooperate with the investigation. But Biondillo just kept saying, Who the fuck wants to kill me?
Kroner studied him hard. "I can't tell you that. I'm not out here to start a war."
Unable to get an answer, Biondillo drove off in his Cadillac. Several months later, as Biondillo turned down a deserted street, two cars boxed him in, and two men wearing rubber masks opened fire. By the time Kroner got to the hospital, Biondillo was already dead.
Though Kroner was sure the hit was ordered by Strollo, the FBI still didn't have enough evidence to arrest him. But, by the summer of 1996, the authorities were finally starting to close in, and Strollo, sensing it, became more and more paranoid. On the phone, he began speaking almost exclusively in code and, suspecting Kroner was listening in, would say, "Bob, can you hear me? Can you hear me?" Once, upon meeting one of his oldest and most trusted confidants, Strollo had a sudden premonition that the friend was wearing a wire. Another time he decided a plane was following one of his bookies. When someone tried to calm him down, he snapped: "This is my life you're talking about ... I got to fight for survival."
Strollo grew obsessed with Kroner. He sent one of his men to find out if the FBI agent's father, an old-fashioned city cop, could be paid off to control his renegade son. But word came back that the father was honest, like his kid. Knowing the FBI was tapping him, Strollo began to plant evidence against his nemesis to suggest Kroner was on the take. He told associates, almost nonchalantly, that Kroner had received bribes from "Little Joey" and was running drugs through the valley.
Then one day Kroner's partner heard Strollo grow more and more menacing. "I don't know what I'm going to have to do about these guys," he said, referring to the FBI agents. Not long afterward, unbeknownst to the FBI, Strollo ordered the hit on Gains, the county prosecutor who, the Mafia believed, was about to hire Kroner as his chief investigator.
But the bungled hit, of course, only created a bigger problem: In spring 1997, Gains received the phone call fingering the hapless assassins. On the basis of information from the caller--"the scorned woman," as Kroner gratefully called her--Bernie the Jew, Riddle, and Harris were all charged with attempted murder. One day, as Batcho was leaving his house with a friend to go to Jay's Hot Dogs, an unmarked car pulled up behind him. "Are you Mark Batcho?" two men said, jumping out of their car. "No, I'm not Mark Batcho. I don't know him," Batcho replied. But, in spite of his protestations, they took him into custody, where he eventually became, as he put it, "the lowest form of life there [is]--a mob rat."
On a cold morning just before Christmas 1997, dozens of FBI agents fanned out through the valley, arresting more than 28 other mob associates. When Kroner showed up at Strollo's door with an arrest warrant, Strollo said, "Are you happy now, Bob?"
In the end, nearly all of Strollo's underlings pleaded guilty and turned evidence against one another, except for Bernie the Jew and Riddle, the two men who had adopted the old Sicilian code even though they could never be officially inducted. "The only ones who had any balls were a shvartsa and a shine," said one of the lawyers familiar with the case.
Bernie insisted there was nothing to worry about: Strollo would never turn on them and break his oath of silence. But just before the trial, even as Bernie was speaking, Strollo's lawyer was leading his client upstairs, where he cut his final deal with the prosecution and told Kroner, "You win."
The announcement is surely one of the strangest moments in C-SPAN's history: "I will probably be under indictment" in the next few months, Traficant says, staring into the camera. It is March 2000, almost 20 years since his last arrest. The congressman has put on a somber black coat and tie for the occasion, but his hair is slightly tousled and his trademark long sideburns make him look like an aging biker. In his 16 years in Congress, Traficant has earned a reputation as a fiery, eccentric populist who often appears on the House floor, in polyester suits, to champion the working class and rail against the IRS. In a city without memory he has become known simply as "the honorable gentleman from Ohio," an almost cultish figure who sleeps in his office to save money and closes his speeches with the line "Beam me up, Mr. Speaker."
But today he looks as if he hasn't slept in weeks, and he says he's scared to death. "Hawks are circling, buzzards [are] circling, sharks [are] circling ... trying to kill the Traficant election," he stammers. He pauses, his cheeks flushed. "Let me tell you what: Twenty years ago--not quite--I was the only American in the history of the United States to defeat the Justice Department.... They have targeted me ever since." Suddenly he points his finger into the camera: "I'm targeting them. They better not make a damn mistake ... I am mad and ... I'm going to fight like a junkyard dog in the face of a hurricane, and ... if I beat them you're now watching one of the richest men in America, because I'm going to sue their assets all apart."
Even stranger than his warnings to the Justice Department and the FBI--and his admonition that he'll shoot any unexpected late-night visitors to his house--are Traficant's threats to his own party. He warns that if Democratic leaders don't stand by him, he'll switch parties--a critical defection that could undermine the Democrats' chances of regaining a House majority this fall. And, as further compensation for his loyalty, Traficant demands a list of favors for his district: "I want an empowerment zone from the president of the United States--and I expect it this year--and I want additional appropriations...." On national television, he seems to be extorting his own party.
Traficant doesn't say what the indictment will be for; nor will the FBI. But his C-SPAN announcement comes on the heels of a six-year investigation into organized crime in the Mahoning Valley that has already led to convictions against Traficant's former aide O'Nesti, a disbarred attorney who had advised him for several years, and a former deputy in his sheriff's office. According to news accounts first detailed in the Youngstown Vindicator and the Cleveland Plain Dealer, investigators are looking into, among other things, whether the congressman received illegal contributions--including the use of a Corvette--from associates in the valley. They have recently homed in on two brothers, Robert T. and Anthony R. Bucci, who own a paving company in Traficant's district and allegedly delivered materials and did construction work on the congressman's 76-acre farm. Both brothers appear deeply enmeshed in the city's network of corruption. On one of the FBI's wiretaps, O'Nesti conspires with Strollo to steer a million-dollar contract to the Buccis' company. Robert Bucci has since apparently fled the country after allegedly transferring millions of dollars to an offshore account on the Cayman Islands.
Through it all, Traficant has steadfastly maintained his innocence, and the valley is bracing for a second showdown. "Here's what I'm saying now," he insists grimly on c-span, "and I'm saying this to the Justice Department in Cleveland, Ohio.... If you are to indict me, indict me in June so I can be tried over the August recess, [because] I don't want to miss any votes."
When I arrive in Youngstown on a recent, cold spring morning, there is an odd sense of déjà vu, as if the old tapes have been rewound and played again. As Traficant campaigns for a ninth term in Congress, he once again faces the old accusations: bagmen, illicit favors, payoffs. I head downtown, trying to find someone to ask about the allegations, but the city is bizarrely empty, as if people had been called away on a last-minute errand and never came back. Finally, after rows and rows of boarded-up stores and deserted sidewalks, I see a light in one of the shops. In the window, Italian suits hang with handkerchiefs in the pockets. An old man is folding clothes by the cash register. When I ask him about Traficant, he stiffens. "Ain't no one gonna get rid of Traficant," he says. "Traficant's too sharp." Far from being angry about the city's history of corruption, he seems almost proud of it. He recalls fondly the "henchmen," including Strollo, who bought their suits from him. "They didn't wear red or pink [ones] like they're coming out with now," he says. When I press him about the local corruption, he shrugs. "Who cares? If you're working and making a living and nobody is bothering you, why are you going to butt in?"
Later, at my hotel, several elderly men are sitting around a table arguing about Traficant. "Traficant produces," says one. "That's what counts." "Damn right!" says another. They are all in their seventies and eighties and have lived in the valley for decades.
"When I was eight years old," one of them says suddenly to me, as if to make a special point, "I delivered newspapers downtown, and I would always go by this speakeasy on Sunday afternoon. Well, one day the owner says, `I want you to meet someone.' So I went over and it was Al Capone." He pauses, shaking his head in awe. "Al Capone."
"You see this," another man says, referring to the last speaker. "This is typical Youngstown. Here's an educated man, an attorney, and Traficant is a god of his, and he's still raving about meeting Al Capone."
When I stop at Youngstown State University to talk to Mark Shutes, an anthropologist and one of the only academics who studies the region, the first thing he says is, "You're not gonna write some crap about how we're all victims of gangsters, are you?" Shutes contends that, after so many years of eroded civic institutions, the community has come to rely increasingly on mobsters, who play the same role in civic life that the police and the political establishment do in other cities. "We have socialized ourselves and our offspring that this is the way the world is," he says. "This is our little safe part, with our community and church, but in order for it to be safe, you need these people to be brokers." Indeed, in a world where corruption is normal, he says, values prized in other cities are, in the valley, deemed counterproductive. "We don't see high ideals as being a benefit," he explains. "We see [them] as being a weakness. There is no sense in this community in which gangsters are people who have imposed their will on our community. Their values are our values."
So much so that, despite two opponents railing against his alleged mob ties and an FBI investigation reportedly closing in on him, Traficant won the March 7 Democratic primary with more votes than his two main competitors combined. Traficant seems so unbeatable in November that some congressional Republicans have decided to defend him, apparently hoping he'll follow through on his threat to switch parties and cement their fragile majority. "Jimmy Traficant is not being done right by," Republican Representative Steve LaTourette of Ohio told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "There isn't a finer man, there isn't a finer member of Congress, there isn't a finer human being ... than Jim Traficant. God bless you, Jimmy Traficant, and I hope to serve with you for many years."
Emboldened by his popular support, Traficant is doing what he's long done so well: rallying the valley against the outsiders trying to besmirch its name. Over the last year, he has defiantly called his convicted former top aide, O'Nesti, a "good friend" and championed a local sheriff convicted of racketeering, arguing that he should be moved to a prison closer to Youngstown to be near his ill mother. "[T]hese sons of bachelors will not intimidate me," he likes to say of the FBI, "and they won't jack me around."
Though he has retreated from reporters--"I'll only make an official statement when I'm actually killed," he says-- the press releases have begun to pour out of his Washington office: "TRAFICANT BILL WOULD CREATE NEW AGENCY TO INVESTIGATE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT"; "TRAFICANT WANTS PRESIDENT TO INVESTIGATE FEDERAL AGENTS IN YOUNGSTOWN." On the House floor, where his speech is protected against suits for libel, he is bolder still: "Mr. Speaker, I have evidence that certain FBI agents in Youngstown, Ohio, have violated the rico statute and ... stole large sums of cash.... What is even worse, they `suggested' to one of their field operative informants that he should commit murder. Mr. Speaker, murder."
At FBI headquarters in Boardman, Kroner and his boss, Andy Arena, are trying to fend off Traficant's allegations. They are careful not to say anything about the press releases, the pending investigation of the congressman, or even the 1983 trial. But it is clear they are under siege. On talk radio, Traficant supporters denounce Kroner as a thief, a con man, a crook, a creep, a liar, and a dope dealer. "The thing that most depressed me," says Kroner, "was when I became the subject on talk radio one day and they were discussing my integrity." He folds his arms. "I just have to block out [those] things." Rather than a hero, he has become almost a pariah. "Everything is turned upside down here," says Arena.
As Kroner sits in his neatly pressed jacket and loafers, his 20-year-anniversary FBI medallion mounted prominently on a thick gold ring, he seems slightly defensive. "Every time we charge another public official, the [media] presents it as another black eye for the community," he says. "I'd prefer if they'd portray it to the community as another step in cleansing ourselves. We've got to take a look at what's being done here as a positive thing."
It is dusk by the time he shows me around the valley, and we rush past the old steel mills, past the Greek Coffee House and the Doll House and all the other gambling dens, past the place where Bernie the Jew met with his team of hit men and where Strollo had Ernie Biondillo whacked in broad daylight. "We're a part of this community like everyone else," Kroner says at one point. "We suffer the same problems if we live in a corrupt town." He pauses for a moment, perhaps because he can't think of anything to say or perhaps because he's not able to talk about the expected Traficant indictment or perhaps because he realizes that, after 25 years in the Mahoning Valley, he's done all he can do. "As long as they choose to put people in office who are corrupt," he says, "nothing will ever change."
Illustrations by Kevin Sweeney.
(Copyright 2000, The New Republic)
Note: Comments for this article have been disabled.


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Women's Ashes Test delicately poised after opening day at North Sydney Oval
Women's Ashes Test delicately poised after day one 's Ellyse Perry (centre) celebrates with her team mates after taking the wicket of England's Sarah Taylor. Photo: AAP Image/Dean Lewins
's Megan Schutt celebrates her catch of England's Georgia Elwiss, bowled by Ellyse Perry. Photo: AAP Image/Dean Lewins
's Megan Schutt catches England's Georgia Elwiss. Photo: AAP Image/Dean Lewins
's Ellyse Perry (right) reacts during the Womens Ashes Test between and England at North Sydney Oval in Sydney.
celebrates Amanda-Jade Wellington's wicket, England's Tammy Beaumont caught by Alex Blackwell off McGrath for 71. Photo: AAP Image/Dean Lewins
Sunset during the Women's Ashes day/night Test between and England at North Sydney Oval in Sydney. Photo: AAP Image/Dean Lewins
Shadows cast across the field during the Women's Ashes day/night Test between and England at North Sydney Oval in Sydney. Photo: AAP Image/Dean Lewins
's Jess Jonassen celebrates her LBW wicket of England's Heather Knight for 62. Photo: AAP Image/Dean Lewins
England's Heather Knight in action. Photo: AAP Image/Dean Lewins
England's Tammy Beaumont runs in safe to bring up her half century. Photo: AAP Image/Dean Lewins
TweetFacebookEngland blew a golden opportunity to assert themselves on day one of the Ashes Test as produced a flurry of late wickets to leavethe visitors 7-235 at stumps.
Star all-rounder Ellyse Perry claimed a pair of final-session wickets while debutant TahliaMcGrath chipped in with her secondscalp of the day to put the brakes on what had been apromising English start, which earlier on sat comfortably at 1-129.
Most of the damage came once with the second new ball under lights in front of 2805 fans at North Sydney Oval, most of whom hope to witness a win for the home side which would mean retainingthe Ashes.
As expected, the pink ball started swinging around in the evening session after had toiled earlier in the day on a dry wicket all but devoid of grass.
"I've found this using the pink ball a little bit in training, some swing more than others and I don't think the first one really swung all that much and the wicket probably wasn't hugely responsive either," Perry said.
"The second one definitely swung a bit more, obviously we were under lights as well but I think the seam was a little bit more raised on that one so it tended to swing a bit more.
"It's pretty even conditions out there for the bat and ball. England batted well at different times, there's definitely enough there to take 20 wickets."
English opener Tammy Beaumont and captain Heather Knight took charge before tea having won the toss and batted, and the pair put on 104 runs for the second wicket, patiently but confidently stroking the ball around the picturesque suburban ground.
It was another debutant in Amanda-Jade Wellington who broke that stand when a sharply turning leg break shaded Beaumont's outside edge before landing snugly in Alex Blackwell's grasp at slip.
Wellington was one of three Test debutants for , alongside McGrath and Beth Mooney who will open the batting with Nicole Bolton.
That meant Sydney juniors Lauren Cheatle and Ashleigh Gardner both missed out on selection.
No Cheatle meant the Aussies had just the three seam options. Megan Schutt was economical and produced her trademark in swing under the lights, but bowled without luck.
Perry and McGrath were complemented by the attacking Wellington, and the metronomic orthodox tweaker Jess Jonassen who grabbed a couple of wickets herself.
She trapped Heather Knight LBW to remove the dangerous stroke maker, before the English middle order failed to take advantage of their solid start.
Georgia Elwiss faced 95 balls for her 27 before skying a ball to square leg, unravelling all of her hard graft.
The classy Natalie Sciver (18) never quite found her rhythm while Sarah Taylor's 29 was effortless but over far too quickly.when she belted one back to Perry who managed to snaffle a catch in her follow through having seemingly not sighted the ball until it struck her on the arm.
"I just slipped a little bit in some footholds on that delivery and my head went down and I lost all sight of it," Perry said.
"I kind of looked up and the lights were a little bit in my eyes. The first time I spotted the ball was just before it hit my arm,rather embarrassingly I managed to catch it.
"It provided a lot of entertainment for everyone and I lost all composure and I'm really glad [captain] Rachael [Haynes] took me off after that.
"Every now and then you bowl some bad ones or you have a bit of luck or something obscure happens and that's what makes the game so fun and entertaining.
"You'd happily get her [Taylor] out any way possible. I don't think it had anything to do with my skill or ability."


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Great photo's again and great quotes to go with them. I especially love the last on.
Wonderful- motivating quotes and images. On a personal note, I am embarking on a new chapter in my life with a new move, searching for a job and just trying to follow my dreams. It is all pretty scary. Anyways, reading/seeing positive uplifting words and images- It made my day and journey seem a little less overwhelming.
The picture with the cloud is simply wonderful...
Great post and I love all the "reality check" quotes. Cheers to finding inspiration!
I find inspiration in your blog and the words and photos you post. I love this quote:
"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for."
Amazing - made my day (and my FB status) haha :) Hope you find your inspiration again!
I am beyond inspired after this, xx
Thanks for giving Monday optimism!
Oh, I've had one of those days where I've had to tear my room completely up to find one thing. Now I really have to clean it up!
Thanks for the note.
I am very inspired with all of the quotes here and beautiful photos! I love the top two photos with the lovely paintings so much...:)
The heat has arrived here too. We spent Saturday in the park, in the shade. It was very nice!
Happy MOnday to you!!
I hope you feel inspired soon again.
T from THE WORLD TOUR
A couple of lovers sailing around the world.
Even though you don't feel inspired you continue to inspire me, sweetie :) Hope your week is off to a great start! xoxo
Some folk know right away what they want to do in life and some take time to realise their strengths. So hang in there!
Oh Shawna my sweet friend,
I have been out in the garden all day long and I needed that. Ruben and I cleaned up, pruned, got our water fountain all fixed up and now I can relax. Dearest, I thank you for your sweet comment; and I know where you are coming from HERE. I actually wrote a post a while back called, I'VE LOST SOMETHING...and it was an attempt to share the same sentiments you do here....and out of that dark moment and typing session, I actually created something nice!!!!!! But I know exactly what you mean. For me, as a writer, I take this advice from Sir Francis Bacon...and you can tell that it is from the 18th Century, so excuse the sexism:
Reading maketh a man full
Discussion maketh a man ready
and WRITING maketh a man EXACT.
Now, I think that not just for a writer, but for ANY KIND OF ARTIST, you must fill up in silence. Just in the last two days, I have stopped LONG ENOUGH to READ and fill up. Total quiet, no school, time for me, and I have learned SO MUCH. I have discussions with my husband and he with me about his muses and then the time comes to come in front of the computer, or YOU in front of your canvas or whatever medium you work in, and then it is up to us to just BE THERE and begin. Get something started. Stand back. Look at it. TRY AGAIN...that is the only way to be an artist.
Just think of me dearest....hang in there...you will find your voice. Much love, Anita
I know how that can feel sometimes !
I've been feeling much like you...wondering what my "thing" is. sigh. how can we ever find out?
ps-2nd picture = beauty
Hi sweety,
I know what you're feeling, some days I just feel blank and want something more. But I also love what I do and love that I get to meet and talk with wonderful and inspiring friends like you. I hope you find what you're searching for love. Let me know if I can help in any way.
what a great post and i just love all the pictures you included...i think some times letting go of life and just letting the wind take you is truly inspirational and you find the most unexpected things that way!
Hey Shawna! I'm glad you had a nice weekend. My weekend was turning out to be really heavy but I took a day off on Sunday and it was brilliant!
I know that you will get the inspiration that you are looking for....:-))
Another beautiful post and so many quotes to live by. :)Ada
I find, inspiration come when i get started - mostly. But at the moment, i feel distracted and a bit frustrated with my artwork and think about how to overcome this. So, let's hope the muse comes back to us soon! xx
Thanks so much for this. I am feeling a little the same way at the moment. Sometimes you can be your own worst enemy! I hope we can both get inspired - this post should certainly help! Gorgeous, gorgeous images, especially the one with the balloons! Hugs to you, Stephie x
Just coming by again to wish you a splendid day, Shawna...Anita
What an inspirational and absolutely beautiful post!
Lovely pictures! Great art. :-)
fantastic post. and i too will try again tomorrow.
Sometimes when I feel a total lack of inspiration i just give up. I find when you're not trying to feel/think/do something it happens more naturally. I'm sure you'll get your mojo back soon!
The blue shoes with the bike really make me want something in that colour!
So inspiring! very true words ;) xo
Part of my inspirations comes from your posts, dear friend!! Be sure!!!
LOVE everything here!!
I hope you get VERY inspired soon again!!!!!!!!!!!
Love, Bela
Beautiful images and quotes! You are quite inspiring. I'm making a few little dreams a reality these days yes :)
Beautiful and wonderful sentiments...
Aw, Poppie Girl.... YOU are so inspiring!
This post is filled with very wise qoutes paired with the such lovely images~ Hm.... very Poppie Girl!
I know you have tons of creative energy, and you have so many talents!
I know this feeling will not last!
A person so inspiring cannot be un~ inspired for too long!
Hope your week is going good? Whatcha been up to? Fill me in ;)
Love you lots
gi gi
I've definitely been feeling a lack of inspiration lately.
Love these images especially the blue heels and bike. So inspiring and fun!
I´m a little tired right now as well - but energized by all these wonderful pics! Had to jump in and take a look again! :-)
Such a beautiful and inspiring post Shawna!! I needed it..I'm feeling a little stagnant/indecisive/uninspired myself lately. Thank you for this :) I hope you find inspiration very soon.. xo
Thanks for the fun images and inspirational quotes, the one about courage is my favorite.:D
***** Marie *****
this was nice to read. i like the idea of just coming back to the solution later, and waking up saying i can try it again tomorrow. in the meantime, i hope you're not melting over there in the heat!
I LOVE the Courage doesn't always Roar quote! Seriously, it's perfect and true! I hope inspiration finds you again! Maybe visiting other blogs, and talking walks outside may help!
I LOVE the Courage doesn't always Roar quote! Seriously, it's perfect and true! I hope inspiration finds you again! Maybe visiting other blogs, and talking walks outside may help!


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Trent Muse has played the piano for most of his life. During his sophomore year of High School at Chisholm Trail Academy, his passion for music reignited when he was given the opportunity to be the pianist for choir. Then, in 2014, he decided to audition for the Meyerson Festival Scholarship, and became a finalist. Now, as a freshman music major, he plays piano for the Southwestern University Singers.
"This scholarship gave me the opportunity to come to Southwestern where I got the job playing for the University Singers. I also play for churches and worship services. I look forward to these experiences every day."
At this point, Muse is not sure what he plans to pursue as a career, but is confident that God will guide him. "I just want to share my love and passion for music with others, however God wants me to do that."


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0 Suspicious Package Sent to Sheriff Joe Arpaio
An Arizona lawman said the suspicious package addressed to controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio "would have caused a major explosion" if someone had opened it. Jerry Sheridan, chief deputy of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department, told reporters Friday the package was noticed by an alert postal employee in Flagstaff who thought he spotted gunpowder residue. Arpaio was at Sheridan's side as he spoke. Police in Flagstaff X-rayed the package, noticed what appeared to be an explosive device, and rendered it safe by blowing it up with a water cannon. Sheridan said the package was mailed Thursday, a day after the department received a death threat from a major drug cartel.
The department has received other threats in the past, but, Sheridan said, this development is "something that was brought to the height of seriousness." "That is a very serious threat. It was labeled to come here, to this building and to be opened by Sheriff Arpaio," Sheridan said. He said injuries, burns and maybe death could have resulted. The FBI and deputies were trying to track down "a person of interest." Arpaio, well-known for his hardline anti-immigration policies that have led to accusations of civil rights violations, vowed that he would not be brought down by his enemies. He spoke after Sheridan briefed reporters. He said he's been besieged by certain groups and people and has been slammed with rhetoric criticizing him. He said he's resolved to do his job and won't be intimidated by people who want to force him out of office or kill him. "My answer is it will not deter me from doing my job," he said. "I'm not running scared.
"All I know is I'm going to keep being the sheriff," he added. "I want everybody to know that."
Earlier, sheriff's department spokeswoman Lisa Allen said it was her understanding that the package had gun powder, wires, a battery -- all the components for an explosion. U.S. Postal Inspector Andrew Rivas in Flagstaff, who screened the package Thursday, considered it suspicious enough to call a local police bomb squad and the FBI.
"We evacuated the post office, got all our employees to safety," Rivas told www.azfamily.com/.
Rivas said authorities have an idea of where the package may have come from, but declined to
specify, citing the ongoing investigation. Allen said the origin of the package is one of the underlying issues in the investigation. At present, the department is not opening mail and is checking to see if any suspicious packages have made it through, Allen said. Neither she nor Flagstaff police knew if the box contained a message. The FBI declined to release details.
"I can confirm the FBI is involved in the investigation," said FBI spokesman Manuel Johnson in
Phoenix. "At this time the FBI is not commenting further due to the matter being ongoing."
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also is investigating, ATF spokesman Mike Campbell said.
Flagstaff is about 150 miles north of Phoenix, the seat of Maricopa County.
A lightning rod for controversy
Arpaio has made national headlines for years with his unorthodox -- and often controversial -- style of justice. And he has been the object of threats before. Since August 2011, nine threats have been directed at Arpaio that were were credible enough to be investigated. There has been at least one arrest in the past involving threats. While Arpaio already has reasonable security, Allen said, "we are going to have to augment" it either by getting more personnel or adding electronic security. Arpaio has housed thousands of inmates in tents and forced all inmates to wear pink underwear. He has boasted about feeding each inmate on less than $1 a day. His critics say he has a long history of www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/07/09/arizona.tough.sheriff/index.htm against political opponents and anyone else who gets in his way.
He was the subject of a civil lawsuit by the Justice Department www.cnn.com/2012/05/10/us/arizona-maricopa-lawsuit/index.htm. According to the complaint, the sheriff's office has displayed a pattern of discrimination against Latinos that includes racial profiling, unlawful detention and searches, and unlawful targeting of
Latinos during raids.Arpaio has denied any discrimination, and one of his attorneys called the Justice Department investigation a "witch hunt."
www.mcso.org/About/Sheriff.aspx touts his "get tough" policies and says his chain gangs contribute thousands of dollars of free labor to the community. Male chain gangs, as well as the world's first-ever female and juvenile chain gangs, clean streets, paint over graffiti and bury the indigent in the county cemetery. After www.cnn.com/2012/11/07/us/arizona-arpaio-re-elected/index.ht last November, the 80-year-old sheriff said he doesn't plan on leaving office anytime soon.
"For my critics out there, I'm going to say right now: In January, I'm signing up for 2016.
So I'm not a lame duck," he told a crowd of cheering supporters.
*As an added bonus, click on www.azfamily.com/ and enjoy the Maricopa Mugs located in middle of the page under slideshows.


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Of Meowth and Pokémon (Part 2) (アルバイトはたいへんニャース!? Meowth with a Part-Time Job!?) is a special episode. In the dub, it is the 21st episode of Pokémon Chronicles.
Episode Plot
The next day, Meowth plans on making his statue, but realizing he needs money for construction, Meowth goes to find a job. He finds a poster of a restaurant, requiring a delivery boy. Meowth takes the job and as soon he gets dressed, he gets new orders to deliver. Meowth has an idea and rounds up the Pokémon. Teddiursa tries to take one pizza, but Meowth scolds it, but promises if these Pokémon deliver the food, by the end of the day they will all get a large pizza. The Pokémon are glad, so Meowth gives them the papers, where they have to deliver the pizza to. The Pokémon run off, making Meowth glad, for he had nothing to do but relax.
Meowth thinks this is an easy plan. However, Smoochum comes to a dead end and is ambushed by Squirtle, who wear sunglasses. The Squirtle use Water Gun, causing Smoochum to be blown off. Wooper notices her and uses Water Gun to cushion Smoochum's fall, but Smoochum falls onto Wooper and the pizza they were carrying are now soaked. As Meowth thinks of himself as a successful businessman, Teddiursa opens the box and tries to eat a slice of pizza. However, the ground shakes, as a sleeping Snorlax appears close to Teddiursa. Snorlax changes his pose, causing Teddiursa to be crushed. Meowth wonders he may even go as far as the Hall of Fame for this business trick. The Pichu brothers notice a catapult, made of junk. Pichu comes onto it and jumps, bouncing off across the fence, though it lands right onto a Houndour. The Pichu runs off, along with his brother, away from Houndour. They bump into Magby and they all drop the pizza by accident, which hits Houndour and knocks it down. Magby becomes angry and uses Flamethrower, burning Houndour and chasing it away.
All the Pokémon return to Meowth, who is terrified to see none of the orders have reached their destination. Meowth reports back and is immediately fired. Knowing he has to look to his future, Meowth returns to his apartment. The next day, Meowth got hired as a janitor and starts cleaning a place. The Pokémon visit Meowth, who is not pleased, for he has to do this job alone to get the best results. However, the Pokémon start cleaning up, so Meowth relaxes a bit. The Pichu, however, notice a statue they could clean and climb up. Upon seeing them cleaning the statue, Meowth becomes terrified and orders them to descend down. One Pichu comes down, but the other stays up and the statue starts sliding. The ropes holding the statue are cut off, so Meowth holds onto the ropes. The other Pichu loses balance and is thrown off and uses Thunder Shock, which startles Teddiursa, who drops its broom. The broom lands onto Smoochum and Wooper, the latter using Water Gun, which soaks Magby. Magby is furious and uses Flamethrower, which burns off the rope Meowth is holding. The statue loses balance and falls onto a pillar, which creates a domino effect, causing pillar after pillar to fall.
The last pillar falls into a fountain, which destroys it, causing a flood and making a disaster. Sometime later, Meowth is fired from the job and thinks of taking a new job. Later, Meowth sees he is just too tired to start over and is visited by the Pokémon, who bring him acorns to eat. Meowth pretends to be pleased, since he hates eating acorns. Nevertheless, Meowth is pleased to see he gained these Pokémon's respect, even if he didn't manage to start building the statue.
- Meowth reads the title of the episode
- When the pillars fall down, one of the Pichu had no cheeks nor nose.
|Pokémon Chronicles
|Other spin-offs: Planetarium · Origins · Generations · Pikachu Shorts · Twilight Wings


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Yearning for first Oscar love at the Toronto International Film Festival is a tradition.
Brad Pitt's Moneyball and George Clooney's The Descendants began their journeys to the Academy Awards at last year's festival.
So did The King's Speech and The Hurt Locker before that. Juno, No Country for Old Men, Slumdog Millionaire, Michael Clayton, Atonement and Eastern Promises, and many more, got their Oscar mojo working at the Toronto festival.
At the 2012 edition, Ben Affleck's Argo is attracting the most awards talk as the film builds toward the Academy Awards next year.
The film's uncanny mix of thrills and laughs in the profiling of a real-life escape escapade during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis has won lots of praise. In fact, the film seems bound to get a best picture nod, a nomination for Affleck's solid directing and another nomination for Chris Terrio's script.
Alan Arkin, who plays a sarcastic old-school movie producer in Argo, will most assuredly pick up a supporting actor nod, as well.
During an interview, Affleck said Oscar attention would be nice, but he was more interested in getting the movie released with a sound sendoff when it arrives in theatres Oct. 12.
In other film festival Oscar-wannabe news, both Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman are getting lots of attention for their roles in Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master. Phoenix plays a dysfunctional Second World War veteran trying to cope, while Hoffman portrays a charismatic 1950s self-help guru exploiting the weakness around him. Both are likely candidates.
Keira Knightley is getting raves for her Anna Karenina, and possibly headed to Oscar night with her director, Joe Wright (who collaborated on Atonement with her). The film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's classic love story might be a tougher sell.
John Hawkes won't be. He came to prominence with his Oscar-honoured role in Winter's Bone, and does it again with The Sessions at this year's festival. In the film, he plays a man stricken with polio and surviving in an iron lung. To lose his virginity, he hires a sex surrogate (Helen Hunt), and complications ensue. A second Oscar nod for Hawkes is a sure thing.
In the maybe-and-might department, consider these two winning types. Marion Cotillard's portrayal of a whale trainer in the romantic drama Rust & Bone is up to her high standards. Jim Broadbent gets to exercise his acting instrument with multiple personality definitions in Cloud Atlas. Both are close to getting nods, depending on the whims of the season.
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The sirens could be heard blocks away. I waited on my driveway, wondering if my cat, who had quickly slipped past me as I stepped outside just moments before, had found a safe spot away from the smoke.
The sirens grew louder, and soon two fire engines turned into my narrow street of this small, townhouse condominium complex where I live.
Oh boy. The neighbours are going to start to panic, I thought to myself.
The fire engines stopped in front of my home, and out tumbled two, then four more men, strapping up yellow cover alls, and pulling on helmets. A few had gas masks dangling around their necks. Two were hauling out a fire hose.
A fire hose.
I turned away, to see the second fire truck, another six men strapping on their gear.
Oh my gosh.
I covered my face with my hand. Well, this is a bit embarrassing.
It's just some smoke in my basement I wanted to yell. No need to gear up so much!
But they kept on, and it was obvious they were prepared. Prepared for any fire that might happen. At that moment, no fire hose was needed. Yet, they still prepared, pulling the hose along my driveway until it's nuzzle just rested outside my front door.
And then three went inside. And it reminded me of a line in the movie "Fireproof." You never leave your partner.
Only one had stopped to talk to me. The fire chief for that unit. I let him know where the smoke was, (in my basement) and how, after searching and searching, I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. So I'd called them.
And they came. And they geared up. And got ready for a roaring fire, even though there was just a bit of smoke.
And I wondered, how ready am I? Am I prepared, always ready with my suit of armour?
Put on the full armour of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. Ephesians 6:11
Do I skip the helmet thinking it's all just some smoke that will eventually go away, and I'll be fine without it?
But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. 1 Thessalonians 5:8
Is my hose ready, and water tank full, so I can extinguish any flames that threaten me?
…in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Ephesians 6:16
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armour of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:10-20
My daughter, cheeks red from heat, steps beside me. What's happening? she asks.
There was smoke in the basement, I tell her. And couldn't figure out where it was coming from. But the fire chief thinks it might be the washing machine belt. He's seen that before I guess, I explain.
There's a bit of panic I notice, in her eyes. It will be fine, I'm sure, I assure her. They-gesturing to the young men (good-looking I must say) around her age, hovering in coveralls that grace their hips now-have it under control. No flames.
Her eyes open wider. NO, she laments to me. Why didn't you warn me they were coming? My room is a mess!
Warn her?
Well darling, I say to her apple red cheeks, guess that goes to prove that you should always be ready with a clean room as you never know when you might have a fireman needing to go into your bedroom.
You never know when…but you can always be prepared. Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. 1 Corinthians 6:13


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I have returned!! I drove LaDawn and crew home on Monday. I only almost killed everyone once so I'm fairly proud of myself. I really enjoyed seeing my family. We haven't seen each other since I got married last June. It was also a blast to see my extended fam. All my cousins are loaded with kids now. . . and then there was me. . . with none. I was sure to tell Chris that everyone thought he was totally lame for not coming. I also assured him he would not be so lucky next reunion. I missed Chris tons while I was gone, but then when I got home I was bawling my eyes out cuz I missed my family. Hopefully by next reunion Chris and I have kids, and the Hughett's well have mastered the game of Spoons.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Walker Reunion
Posted by Unknown at 4:29 PM
9 comments:
- Brad and Marissa said...
The reunion was so much fun. We are glad that you came Johnna and we do hope that Chris will come next time so that we initiate him into the family too. As for the game of spoons, we just need to get faster at grabbing spoons, make sure that our chairs don't roll around, and wear protective clothing. That game gets pretty intense.
- July 30, 2008 at 9:04 PM
- Brad and Marissa said...
Also, I love the background on your website. I am totally excited for the final Twilight book to come out on Saturday!! Hopefully I can be still be attentive to all the family coming into town for Brian's blessing this weekend and still get some of the book read. Probably not.
- July 30, 2008 at 9:08 PM
- Bert and Benton said...
Yeah, going on trips without the hubs is so weird, but we survived! Happy birthday, Love the new couch and sorry you had to ditch the puppy.
- August 1, 2008 at 10:54 AM
- The Moore Family said...
Did you finish the book yet??
- August 4, 2008 at 9:58 AM
- JoHanna said...
it was so awsome to see you again, I am glad you made it home safe and I cant wait for the next reunion so we can meet Chris.
- August 5, 2008 at 7:21 AM
- Brad and Marissa said...
Marissa will be done with the book in about an hour or so. Feel free to call and chat with her all about it. She is excited and tells me the progress of the book every so often.
- August 5, 2008 at 12:50 PM
- Brad and Marissa said...
Johnna, I am DONE!!! What a crazy good book. Some people I know aren't too excited about it, but I loved it. It was everything I hoped it would be. Give me a call when you are done. We can chat about how crazy the book was.
- August 5, 2008 at 5:52 PM
- Dorese @ Dorese's Pieces said...
Hey Johnna! I just wanted to let you know that I've tagged you on my blog. Check it out for instructions! :D
- August 9, 2008 at 7:08 PM
- LaDawn Lingard said...
HOw do you make a collage like that? love the picture of grandpa in brown tones, can i get one?
- August 10, 2008 at 2:03 PM


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Critics of the controversial, three-year-old proposal — and there are many — say allowing spouses with children under 18 to share up to $50,000 of their income for tax purposes does little for low-income families and encourages one of the parents to stay out of the workforce.
The C.D. Howe Institute and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives alike say roughly 85 per cent of households would gain nothing from the proposal, particularly single parents.
Some 40 per cent of the benefits would go to families earning more than $125,000, for whom the change could be worth $6,400 a year, the institute calculates. That would likely include Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who makes $320,400 a year and has two teenage children.
If the Conservatives want to provide tax relief for more families with children, there are some alternatives, said Alexandre Laurin, who co-authored the 2011 study. Increase the universal child care benefit, which gives $100 a month to families with children under six, he offers.
Kevin Milligan, an economics professor at the University of British Columbia, suggests extending the age range to older children, to the benefit of both low and high-income families.
Another example, the Canada child tax benefit for families with children under 18, provides a certain amount per child and is phased out by income level. And widening the employment insurance provision for parental leave would give parents to spend more time with their children, Laurin says.
But his personal preference would be an across-the-board tax cut and, as Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has suggested, paying down the $619-billion federal debt.
"The more you lower the tax rate, the less the need for income splitting, if the intention was to equalize the tax burden between two types of families," he says. "It's just simple arithmetic."
University of Calgary economist Jack Mintz argues it's time to change the tax system so single-income families aren't facing a higher tax rate than other households. The income-splitting proposal can be tweaked so different families can share the benefits, he argues.
Right now, one spouse can transfer the unused portion of the basic personal tax exemption to the other spouse. One alternative would be to make that personal exemption non-transferable if they decide to take advantage of income splitting.
"Between income splitting and this provision, you actually create a lot of equality between families of different types," Mintz says. "Because to me, this whole issue is how to treat families of different types."
If the Tories were to lower the $50,000 transfer limit on the original proposal — $25,000, for example — they'd not only save on the cost of income splitting, it would also help middle-income families, says Mintz. Or it could also be clawed back from higher-income earners.
David Macdonald, the chief economist with the Centre for Policy Alternatives, says the Tories should abandon the income-splitting proposal entirely because it only helps wealthy, single-earner families.
"It's sort of like a poison," Macdonald says. "If you take too much poison, it's going to kill you. If you take a little less poison, maybe you're just going to get a sore stomach for a couple of days, and then if you take even less poison, maybe you'll only get a headache."
If the Tories want to help families with children, they could look at existing child-based benefits, such as the national child benefit supplement, he suggests. It provides monthly payments to low-income families with children, no matter if it's one or two parents, and reduces them as they earn more income.
The working income tax benefit, meanwhile, helps single parents in particular by giving them an extra boost to join the workforce. "If you're looking at helping families with children, it's quite clear that these other measures are ones that are more effective."
Finally, says Macdonald, a national child-care program would cost about the same as the income-splitting plan, which is estimated at upwards of $2.5 billion a year.
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Carol Stream library board gives president power to sell property
The newly seated Carol Stream library board is giving its president the power to sell -- or not sell -- its Kuhn Road property.
It's the same authority the old board granted to its president that new board members objected to while campaigning for their seats.
The difference between new and old, new Board President Jim Bailey says, is that the board recommendation passed on a 5-2 vote Wednesday night includes the provision that any final sales contract requires the approval of the board of trustees.
And, Bailey says, he will keep the entire board apprised of any conversations he has with realtors and attorneys -- something he claims former Board President Mike Wade didn't do.
"It doesn't make sense for seven people to talk to the realtor," Bailey said. "Yes, I was opposed to empowering Wade -- it gave him the power to negotiate in blind. The intent of this motion is to make clear this board will be apprised."
Bailey and four other trustees elected in April on the Support the Library slate have expressed reservations with a sale of the 7.5-acre property at 2N540 Kuhn Road -- a site once intended for a new library.
Wade and his majority on the old board voted to put the property on the market last fall and subsequently received an offer from ManorCare, a Toledo, Ohio-based nursing home company, for $1.35 million. The property was listed for $1.8 million. The company has proposed construction of a two-story, 120-bed rehabilitation and convalescent center.
The authority granted by the board in February was to authorize Wade "to cause to have performed any actions needed, and to set the price as discussed in executive session, to sell the Kuhn Road property," according to meeting minutes.
Wade said legally speaking, that could have given him the power to sign a contract without consulting with the rest of the board. But he said he wouldn't have done so, in the interest of transparency.
Wade had scheduled a special board meeting May 8 to vote on a contract to sell the property, but the newly elected board was sworn in a week before -- all in an attempt to prevent the outgoing board from trying to sell the land.
On Wednesday, the newly seated board members took part in a ceremonial swearing in before the regularly scheduled board meeting with DuPage County Associate Judge Rob Douglas, the former library board president who swore them in officially two weeks ago. Library Attorney Stewart Diamond said the early oath-taking, though unconventional, was legal.
Last week, the new board called a special meeting to direct Library Director Susan Westgate to find up to three outside commercial real estate attorneys to provide a "fresh" perspective, Bailey said, on the pending contract with ManorCare. Westgate said she sent letters to attorneys in Carol Stream, Wheaton and Winfield, and some or all of them could appear at an upcoming meeting where trustees could vote to hire one of them.
Bailey previously said he had "reason and cause to be suspicious" about the negotiations conducted by Wade, which led to Bailey filing a Freedom of Information Act request with Westgate for Wade's email exchanges with attorneys and realtors. Through Westgate, Wade provided the emails, but they were heavily redacted, with Wade citing attorney-client privilege.
Wade said during the public participation portion of Wednesday night's meeting that the FOIA response was handled in a "truthful and pristine manner," and Library Attorney Britt Isaly advised him to redact the portions he did.
Wade said Bailey never personally asked him for the emails, but if he did, he would have provided them without redactions, as a fellow library trustee.
Bailey said he thought FOIA would be the most expedient way to get the information.
Ken Muehlfelt of Realty Executives, hired by the old board last year to market the property, told the new board Wednesday that the contract is currently being reviewed by attorneys for the library and ManorCare.