The U.S. Supreme Court is granting the Illinois attorney general more time to decide on an appeal over the carrying of concealed weapons.

A spokeswoman for Attorney General Lisa Madigan says the court decided Tuesday to extend the deadline to July 22.

The Democrat is weighing whether to take to the high court a challenge to the December ruling by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that declared the Illinois ban on concealed carry unconstitutional.

The appellate court ordered the ban be lifted by June 9. The Legislature adopted a plan that Gov. Pat Quinn is reviewing and the court extended that deadline until July 9.

One thing Madigan’s staff wants to consider is the governor’s action. If he signs the bill, an appeal would be moot.

We all know Quinn WON’T sign the bill; he wants to be reelected by the whining libtards in Chicago who wish to see gun control the likes of which they have in that town established state-wide.

What’s going to happen next is anyone’s guess. Contacting your elected officials is probably a really good idea right now; contacting the Supreme Court might not hurt.

Madigan claims she needs more time to decide if she intends to challenge the federal mandate to allow Illinois residents to carry concealed guns.

“That is such bullsh^t!” said one gun rights activist. “She knows damn well she doesn’t like this and wants to find a way to stop it. Since a majority of citizen taxpayers want concealed carry, who the hell is she challenging it for except herself and her political cronies?”

In fact, Madigan’s own father, State Speaker of the House Mike Madigan voted in favor of the proposal.

“Makes you wonder if they aren’t in on this together just to make it look good and in reality have no intension of following the federal mandate,” said one of the younger Madigan’s critics.

Madigan had already received an extension to June 24 and now is asking for one until July 24.

The 7^th U.S. Circuit Court ordered the state law banning concealed carry by June 9.

If Madigan does not get her extension and Gov. Pat Quinn doesn’t sign the current bill on his desk that he has shown no interest in signing into law, then on July 9 every Illinois citizen will have the right to carry a concealed weapon anywhere at any time.

Thus far the count in the City of Chicago is seven dead and more than 40 wounded.

Police are saying that from Saturday overnight to Father’s Day alone there were six killed and 13 others shootings across the city.

The news comes after anti-gun activists were praising an alleged 34 percent drop in murders compared to the same time last year, which was greater than the bloody 1960s.

Timeline: Dispute

Authorities have released a timeline that begins on Friday at 11:34 p.m. on Chicago’s West Side where two men were shot during what police are saying was a dispute.

In its wake an unidentified 24-year-old man was taken to Loyola University Medical Center and later pronounced dead. Reports indicate a 23-year-old man suffered a gunshot wound to the stomach and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital for treatment.

On Saturday, Ricardo Herrera, 21, was shot and killed at 10:50 p.m. while two others were wounded in the Little Village neighborhood on the Southwest Side of Chicago.

Drive-by on bicycle

Then later that night, at 11:45 p.m., a 16-year-old boy was shot by a gunman who rode on a bicycle on the West Side.

According to police the teen tried to escape but collapsed steps away from where he was shot.

The young man was struck by bullets in the back and arm.

He was pronounced dead at 1:37 a.m. at Illinois Masonic Medical Center.

Authorities later said the dead teen had gang affiliations but would not go as far as saying whether or not the shooting was a gang-style hit.

The death has been ruled a homicide.

The bicycling suspect has not been apprehended.

Nightclub gunman

Police say that shortly after midnight on Sunday a gunman burst into the Chatham nightclub, located at 1446 North Wells St., and opened fire.

Authorities say that 40-year-old Todd Wood was killed and three others wounded.

There has been no motive given for the shooting.

Another person was listed in critical condition.

No one has been arrested in that shooting either.

Southwest Side drive-by

Then nearly 30 minutes after the Chatham gunman sprayed the crowd with bullets, at 12:30 a.m., Sunday, on the Southwest Side, an 18-year-old was shot in the shoulder, chest and head in what police say was another drive-by shooting.

Police say the teen was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital and listed in critical condition. A 22-year-old woman was also wounded in the drive-by taking at least one bullet in the thigh.

Gut shot

At 1:15 a.m. Sunday authorities responded to a call and found 19-year-old Jamal Jones bleeding having been shot in the stomach, chest and shoulder.

Jones later died at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Southwest Suburban Oak Lawn.

West Side killing

Minutes after Jones was shot and killed, police say Cortez Wilberton, 31, was shot on the city’s West Side with an unidentified woman who was suffering from a graze wound to the face.

Wilberton later pronounced dead at Loretto Hospital.

The woman was listed in stable condition.

Police take one down

Then at 2:30 a.m., Sunday police attempted a traffic stop on the West Side of Chicago.

After several failed attempts to get the car to stop, the driver is said to have jumped out and ran off.

Authorities chased him down an alley.

Police say the man stopped, pivoted and grabbed for a gun they had noticed in his belt.

Officers opened fired and the unidentified man was killed.

No officers were injured in the shooting.

The Independent Police Review Authority is investigating the shooting.

Head shot

At 4:10 a.m., Sunday a 34-year-old man suffering from a gunshot to the head, back and leg on the West Side was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital by a friend.

The man’s condition has not been released and police are saying they are getting little cooperation in that particular case.

Shot in finger and stomach

At 4 p.m., Sunday a 25-year-old man was reported to have been shot in the stomach and back while a 21-year-old woman was shot in the finger on the city’s West Side.

No condition was available for the pair.

The weather?

In addition to the above listed shootings, police say there were at least 18 others wounded in separate shootings across the city.

And while there is evidence that violent crime peaks during warmer weather, many believe it certainly doesn’t help when you have an entire city of victims not allowed to carry a gun, as they would be in most other American cities.

“The criminals certainly had guns,” said one critic of the state’s gun law.

Currently Illinois citizens are waiting for the state to follow through with a mandate from the federal government to authorize some kind of concealed carry.

According to published reports, 70 inmates were transferred to Menard on Friday, June 14.

A spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Corrections said that 35 inmates had been moved from Pinckneyville to Menard with another 37 being moved from Lawrence to Menard.

With Illinois being dubbed being in one of the worse financial conditions nationwide, many are worried corrections officials are being pressured to cut corners/budgets and find cost savings.

Guards and union representatives are saying the already crowded prison system is being made worse and even dangerous by prison closings and a inmate relocation program that has pushed the already overcrowded prisons beyond their limits.

While a prison spokesperson says inmate population is well below Menard’s bed capacity a union official claims prison officials often lie bout the numbers.

A prison official did say that by shuffling the latest number of prisoners around they can now stop housing prisoners in a make-shift area set up on the basketball court at Graham Correctional Center.

“How they can say we don’t have an overcrowding problem and then say the move of these inmates gets others off the gym floor in Graham is ludicrous,” said a corrections official on condition of anonymity.

A union spokesperson said the situation may be being made even more dangerous with prison officials reclassifying dangerous prisoners as medium risk in order to move them.

Menard has already had three deaths behind its walls in the past several months.

Reports out of Belleville indicate that chief J.D. Roth, 55, who has been on suspension from his duties as chief since March of this year and under further scrutiny in May when a grand jury indicted him on official misconduct, was the victim of a single gunshot wound to the head, and that media on-scene at his home in Fairview Heights were “charged at” by Roth’s daughter, understandably upset that there was such a response to the incident.

The late Caseyville police chief JD Roth

Roth was accused of inappropriate conduct regarding a 2003 Dodge Dakota Ram 1500 pickup truck, seized by Caseyville police in a drug case, in that he allegedly drove that truck for personal and business purposes. The truck was later put up for auction by the village board, but instead of auctioning it, they told Roth to get bids for the truck from local car dealers. This process, too, became the subject of scrutiny when it was discovered that the dealership bought the truck for $7,500…and less than a month later, Roth bought the truck from the dealership, in violation of state law that prohibits individual public officials from buying or benefiting from seized property.

Interestingly, that’s exactly what Lawrenceville police chief Mike Mefford did with a drug-seized truck just a few years ago…but after some verbal paddling from the city council (lead by then-mayor Brian Straub), Mefford was allowed to keep the truck.

A second count of official misconduct as indicted by the grand jury has to do with Roth purchasing luggage, of all things, with village funds; he later used the luggage for personal, and not business, purposes.

Apparently, Roth believed the answer to these miseries, instead of either fighting the accusations, or admitting guilt and moving on, was to take his own life.

The amount of official misconduct going uncharged in Illinois is mind-boggling, but the amount going on in southern Illinois is astronomical, as you can see by the reference to Mefford. This kind of thing is a natural state of being for many governmental bodies who have “always done it that way” for so long that the people are completely inured to the way it’s SUPPOSED to be done.

We’re getting ready to put up a post about something unbelievable in Edgar County in the north part of our region, and of course if you’re paying attention to what’s going on in the current issue, the level of surreptitiousness being infused into Hardin County by their newly-elected state’s attorney Tara Wallace is growing DAILY.

Will more public officials accused of wrongdoing react in the manner Roth did? That remains to be seen. These public people sometimes don’t understand that they’re public, and as such, their every move is subject to scrutiny because WE THE PEOPLE are paying for those moves, be they on the job or in their private lives, and therefore they are more accountable for them than we are…yet they make us more and more accountable for every move we make in OUR private lives, as evidenced by the world news lately about the NSA issue and Ed Snowden. If they can’t take the scrutiny, they need to get out of public life…and do it the decent way, by resigning, not the tragic way, like Roth just did.

Williams opted to change his “not guilty” plea to “guilty” in the federal court case against him in Benton, in which it’s alleged that he misappropriated funds in various accounts belonging to an elderly Mt. Carmel resident, Emma Eileen Spond, causing her to lose more than two million dollars, and gaining himself nearly that amount in misapplied/converted funds, over three years’ time.

The case had been languishing since its filing in January of this year; but it was announced on May 30 that Williams, after discovery had been turned in regarding the case, had opted for, and scheduled, a “change of plea” hearing in federal court.

That scheduled date was Wednesday, June 6, and on that day, Williams entered a plea of “guilty” in his case.

The guilty plea was to counts 1 and 37 of Wire Fraud and Money Laundering. Counts 2 through 36 were dismissed in accordance with the plea.

But interestingly, federal court documents show that Williams is also having to make “Restitution for Uncharged Conduct,” a sizeable sum of money that will be going to the IRS, Unemployment Insurance, and a former employer in Mt. Carmel, Rhine Ernest Law Office, because of fraudulent expenses he reported there and caused them to reimburse him for.

Complicated scheme

The complicated money laundering case actually began in Mt. Carmel with the Spond family in 1991, when Williams, then known as a local bigwig and entrepreneur, befriended the elderly lady.

The money laundering charges outline a detailed pattern of behavior Williams engaged in in order to misappropriate money and property belonging to Spond, the Spond Family Life Insurance Trust, and the Charitable Remainder, all for his “own personal enrichment,” by withdrawing money from existing investment accounts and money given to him to invest.

These funds he would divert into his own personal accounts  (five in all: an ING Sharebuilder account, an Ally Bank account, a First National Bank account, an Excalibur Development business account and the Interstate Development Corporation business account), as well as to his mortgageholder, Citi-mortgage; or make checks or cashier checks out to himself personally.

In order to conceal the fact that he was taking these funds for himself, Williams created fictitious account statements for an annuity account Mrs. Spond believed she had through Lincoln Financial Group, showing falsely that her money was being invested, not taken by Williams.

At times when the account balance was insufficient to make interest payments back to Mrs. Spond, Williams would transfer money from his personal or business accounts into a trust checking account, then use that money to purchase cashier’s checks payable to Mrs. Spond, misrepresenting them as “annuity interest payments.”

Changed her will

Interestingly, in something that hadn’t come forward in the original filing back in January, it turns out that Williams had attempted to obtain money from Mrs. Spond by “causing unauthorized changes to the designated beneficiaries on both Emma Spond’s will and the EES Trust agreement so that Williams would inherit property after Spond’s death, without the knowledge or consent of ES or other applicable trust representative,” this occurring on June 13, 2011.

There’s no indication in court documents that any local attorney was involved with oversight or a nod-and-a-wink in this matter, although most often, legitimate will changes are only made with the assistance of an attorney.

A “loss summary” featured in the federal court documents show that the government calculated that during the scheme to defraud Spond (which could only date back over the past three years, and not 22, as federal felonies cannot be charged back further than 2010) Williams:

Obtained control over and misapplied a total of $3,011,038.31 from Mrs. Spond and the related trust accounts;

Caused $923,408.25 to be deposited back into the trust checking accounts or paid to Mrs. Spond in the form of purported annuity interest payments;

Received gain of $1,521,169.34 from Mrs. Spond and the related trust accounts;

Caused out-of-pocket loss in the amount of $2,087, 0630.06 to Mrs. Spond and the various trust accounts;

And altered survivor benefit documents in an effort to obtain Mrs. Spond’s property upon her death. The value of those assets that he attempted to obtain totaled $1,716,034.

‘Uncharged Conduct’

In “Restitution and Uncharged Conduct,” the government said that Williams self-prepared and filed his tax returns for the 2008, 2009 and 2010, and over that time knowingly underreported his income and he has agreed to pay restitution in the amount of $106,437.98.

He also filed claims for unemployment insurance with the Illinois Department of Employment Security during various times across 2007, 2008 and 2011, and failed to report earnings when he filed claims, and the amount of those earnings, if properly reported, would have resulted in a complete denial of benefits. He’s agreed to pay restitution on $16,164 for those unemployment benefits.

As well, Williams was employed as a bookkeeper for the law firm Rhine Ernest LLP and while so employed, he caused the law firm to reimburse fraudulent expenses that were never incurred. Additionally, he caused them to issue checks or transfer money by means of an electronic debit card to himself and the Spond Family Trust checking account. He’s agreed to pay restitution in the amount of $38,547.01 for those expenses.

The grand total of reimbursement is $161,148.99, and there’s no indication of what means of income Williams currently has—now that he’s not stealing from elderly people—to pay that.

There’s an indication of reimbursement to the Spond family to be made, but Williams “reserves the right to review the government’s calculation on it.” The amount the government has assessed as reimbursement is $2,087,630.06.

Interestingly, the court documents on file show that Williams signed this stipulation of facts—in advance of any announced plea agreement—on April 16, 2013.

The government was kind enough, it pointed out in paperwork, to delay the entry of the guilty plea until the date of the scheduled final pretrial conference (May 30) because his daughter was scheduled to be married May 25 and Williams “wishes for his daughter to be able to enjoy her wedding day free from any grief associated with the entry of his guilty plea.

Possible sentencing

The plea to each of the counts carries a sentence of no more than 20 years imprisonment, and count 1 carries a fine of no more than $250,000, count 37 no more than $500,000 or twice the value of the monetary instruments or funds involved whichever is greater, or both.

Both carry supervised release (parole) of up to three years.

The point system on which a sentence is based shows in Williams’ case he will have increased points because he used “sophisticated means” to pull off his scheme, and had a “vulnerable victim” and “abused a position of private trust.”

Court documents show that the government does not intend to depose Emma Eileen Spond in conjunction with the case as they usually would an injured party, due to her “frail health and uncertain availability for future proceedings.” Paperwork filed in the case shows that the government views a deposition as “an extraordinary burden to place on a 96-year-old woman in frail health” and states that they endeavored to resolve the case by way of plea agreement to spare Spond from this burden.

There has been no sentencing date set as of press time (June 9).

Others may be at risk

The case underscores the belief many have that all is not as it appears when it comes to how people come to have what they have in a once-great county like Wabash (which greatly benefited from the “oil boom” several decades back, but which the splendor of has fallen by the wayside).

Much speculation has now arisen about how many more people, like Williams, are taking advantage of elderly citizens in the area with old money, like the Sponds.

Citizens are always urged to keep a sharp eye out for the seniors of the community, who often don’t recognize what a heartless individual can do to their savings or other holdings or income.

And if the local authorities—who are often in the pocket of the bigwigs of the area—aren’t the kind of people suspicions can be reported to, there are always other authorities, such as the state police and federal authorities..

The concern isn’t just that White is accused of lying about his investigation, but that this has happened in nearly half a dozen other cases.

Some of those cases have been either dismissed or lost at jury trial because White has no credibility.

Bogus confession in sex case

According to sources, 21-year-old Cody McVaigh of rural Bluford intends to file suit against White after McVaigh was charged in December 2012 with one count of Aggravated Criminal Sexual Abuse.

Sources close to the case say that McVaigh had sex with a 15-year-old girl he had met on Facebook who had posted a picture of herself with a woman she claimed was her mother.

The alleged victim also claimed on Facebook that she was 20 years old.

During the course of the investigation, White claimed that McVaigh had “confessed” to him.

White’s refusal to use a recording device during interviews, instead relying solely on his memory and a few notes in court, has become the stuff of nightmares.

After McVaigh spent 71 days behind bars, Wayne County judge Joe Harrison dismissed the charges against McVaigh and ordered him released.

While details are sketchy, sources indicate that it became clear White could not verify the “confession” he claimed McVaigh made and further to that, the court has had enough of taking his word.

Sued by state police investigators

White is currently being sued in federal court by the two former ISP investigators, one after White attempted to get bogus sexual allegations to stick to despite recantation by the former officer’s disturbed step-daughter with a history of mental problems.

The other was a former ISP investigator who, along with numerous other police officials, had interviewed and had been told by her that she made it all up because she was afraid she was going to be put in a mental hospital.

Cause of mistrial

In a sex crimes case in White County, Rick White was the lead investigator in a case against a Carmi doctor who had been charged with sexually assaulting one of his patients.

The doctor was alleged to have pinned a patient up against the examination table, grabbed her by the hair on her head and forced kisses on her.

He then allegedly put his hands on her female parts and groped her while still pinning and kissing her.

While the allegations were shocking, as the case moved toward trial, there seemed to be more concern over the fact that Rick White was the lead investigator and the one who had interviewed the doctor in his patented no-recording-device-present technique.

The jury ultimately deadlocked with nine not guilty, two guilty and one undecided.

After a mistrial was declared, Disclosure was informed that several of the jurors just couldn’t bring themselves to believe Rick White’s testimony.

Lied about facts in Kirkpatrick sex case

White was also the lead investigator in a Wayne County case against schoolteacher Haven Kirkpatrick, accused of having sexual relations with one of her female students.

If is wasn’t for the job done by Edwards County State’s Attorney Mike Valentine, White might have ruined yet another case for the state.

One of Kirpatrick’s family members later spoke to one of the attorneys in the case and said that they realized Kirkpatrick had done enough to be prosecuted and probably deserved what she got, but:

“But I know damn well that Rick White lied about what Haven told him,” the family member said. “I was there when she talked to him. It’s not that she wasn’t guilty, it’s that Rick White is a liar and seemed to want to make things worse than they actually were.”

Grad jury won’t indict

Rumor has it that some counties are asking ISP Division Headquarters not to assign White to cases in their area and if they do, not to bother sending anybody.

As recently as May 6 the effects of Rick White’s presence in a case was felt again in Wayne County.

A Wayne County man, Christopher A. Rogers, was charged with one count of Aggravated Criminal Sexual Abuse alleging that between May 1 and June 30, 2012 he committed an act of sexual penetration with a victim at least 13 years of age but under the age of 17 when he placed his penis in the vagina of the victim at a time when he was five years older than she.

A Wayne County Grand Jury refused to indict the man, and returned a “no true bill.”

The only witness on the witness list that testified before the Grand Jury was Rick White.

Are innocents in prison?

What seems to stun the public most is that even as he is being sued in federal court and even as cases are ending in hung juries and even as more reports come out that he has lied time after time under oath, White continues in his position as an ISP investigator and hasn’t even been forced to start using any kind of recording device.

“I wonder if anybody is going to look at Rick White and wonder how many people he has either put in prison when they were innocent or for longer that they needed to be because he juiced up his interviews,” asked one of the investigators who actually works with White. “He should at least be given a desk job until a real thorough investigation and review of all of his cases is completed. Credibility in this job is everything and the state police don’t need this kind of black eye.”

I had talked to Shaer a couple of times Friday on an unrelated matter regarding a local parolee who continues to violate the conditions of his parole with impunity because of who he is (more on that in the print version, which will be available by e-Edition starting tomorrow night and hard copy Tuesday). He seemed very stressed and harried. I figured that was just the way he was, having never talked to the guy before.

However, this morning we learned that on Friday, DOC was busy fielding questions about Ty J. Bates, deputy director for DOC’s southern district, resigned. And the resignations came amidst allegations of sexual harassment via text message with a female DOC employee.

Bates had been the warden at Big Muddy in Ina before his ascension to the big leagues of DOC directorship. Big Muddy has had more than its share of problems, having taken on a local do-nothing political gadfly, Bill Peyton, two years ago, then passing him along to juvenile detentions, because Peyton—who has no experience in corrections and only got the job because of his buddy status with the influential Phelps family, which should explain a lot—also got in trouble with sexual harassment issues, both at Big Muddy, and at previous jobs, as we’ve covered thoroughly in prior print versions.

But back to Bates.

With the exception of the little piece about Bates being disciplined for the sexting (which didn’t arise to “sexual harassment” according to DOC; it was just kind of inappropriate), THEN resigning, not a lot is known about why he really resigned, because DOC is one of the most stingy state-supported (taxpayer-funded) agencies in Illinois. They shouldn’t be. They should be open and transparent. It appears that’s what Shaer was trying to do Friday by confirming to mainstream media via email that Bates was let go after a couple of investigations into whatever it was Bates was doing. But we still don’t know a lot.

A state agency that doesn’t come off information readily and fully is just ripe for internal abuse of this nature (if in fact allegations of sexual harassment are true) and, likely, rife with that exact thing. However, a lot of it doesn’t rise to the level of complaints (grievances) amongst the ranks because “no one wants to lose their job.” We believe DOC, and all other state agencies, should be a little more forthcoming in these things, and issue press releases when such an event happens…but right now, with the state of the State, we’re not holding our collective breath.

NEW YORK—A bill has just passed the New York Senate making it a felony to ‘annoy’ a law enforcement officer.

On June 5, 2013 the bill (S.2402) passed, leaving it up to the House of Representatives on whether or not it becomes a law.

Language is vaguely contained in the bill of what it means to “annoy, harass, alarm or threaten” an officer; to establish the crime of aggravated harassment of a police officer or peace officer; or if a person contacted the officer physically with the intent to “ annoy, harass, threaten or alarm” they would be guilty of aggravated harassment and could spend up to four years in prison for being a “nuisance.” 

Of course “harassing and threatening” a lawman is a legit crime in most states; but as far as to “annoy or alarm” a lawman, many believe this bills is going a bit too far.

Example: Are the above folks ‘annoying’ the local gendarmerie by fishing with donuts? What if they’re merely attempting to exercise their freedom of speech and exhibiting something they feel strongly about, and don’t feel words are enough?

And what of the ever-annoying (to a cop) “videotaping of a police officer in the line of duty”? Surely THAT’S quite annoying…especially when their ‘line of duty’ involves beating/macing/TASERing a restrained suspect…or someone who’s done nothing wrong.

This, folks, is where it’s going.

This is how the authorities take away our rights incrementally.

Did anyone in New York think to ask what the legislature’s intent was with this law? Did they suggest that it was to get closer to taking away a private citizen’s RIGHT to chronicle on videotape what public servants are doing when they’re in the line of duty, expending taxpayers’ funds?

They should have. And make no mistake. If this is successful in New York, it will spread quickly. And Illinois is just all OVER that action.

Be sure if this kind of garbage legislation infects our state, we tell our representatives unequivocally that we ARE NOT INTERESTED in any more rights being taken away from us incrementally…even though the legislators will argue that we don’t have a “right” to “annoy” a copy, we must argue back that we have a “right” to be free from oppressive government…and this is the very definition of it.

Yeah, you read that right. A sitting US Senator is trying to pass a law to protect and uphold a law that is so central to the founding of this country, that it is one of the supreme laws from which all other laws are suppose to flow.

The Fourth Amendment guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with requiring any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause. It was adopted as a response to the abuse of a type of ‘genera’l search warrant that was issued by the British in the American Revolution created. “Blanket” searches are not allowed according to the Constitution and there must be a real reason and a list of specific things authorities are looking for. One can’t “go on a hunch” and ask for a broad sweeping warrant like the British did during the American Revolution or the NSA’s request from Verizon. That would make such a search warrant meaningless…purposeless…a mockery of the law.

A classified 2001 NSA memo asked the then-George W. Bush administration to “rethink” the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution to allow for more power and loosen the provisions to keep up in the Internet age…a policy that the current Obama administration seems to have supported fully in light of the recent news that the NSA is collecting the phone call data of every Verizon customer in the US. The idea that the NSA is broadly searching and collecting all Verizon customers’ call data flies in the face of the very reason the Fourth Amendment was added to the Constitution to begin with.

President Obama was quoted as saying, “You can’t have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy and 0 percent inconvenience. We’re going to have to make some choices as a country.”

A lot of people, however, are tired of giving up “a little liberty” for “peace and security”…perhaps not enough people, however, as so many are lulled into ‘sleep’ by all the distractions day-to-day living, mainstream media and pop culture, an ever-diminishing economy and other factors that take our minds off the blatant robbery of our basic civil liberties. Can we overcome this? let us know what you think, and what you’re ready to do to defend our freedoms in this country.