October 29, 2012

Dear Fellow 18th District Resident:

As we near the election date, I must bring one issue of great importance before you.

With my wife, June Shellene, I am co-founder and Executive Director of Evanston GMO Watch (egmow.org). Through this organization, we try to educate people about the risks of foods containing genetically modified organisms. To further our mission, we are distributing a version of this letter to thousands of home and including the following materials:
- A pamphlet providing “Non-GMO Shopping TIPS” published by The Institute for Responsible Technology (responsibletechnology.org). Reading and using the guide will help you and your family avoid the minefield of GMO’s foods that line the shelves of most of grocery stores. You can download a copy of the guide here: Guide.

- A flyer called “10 Things Monsanto Does Not Want You To Know.” (This was originally published at www.OrganicConsumers.org.) You can see the flyer here: Flyer.

If you’d like a hard copy of these materials, send us a stamped, self-addressed envelope to: Eric Lieberman, 1328 Washington St., Evanston IL 60202

Monsanto, of course, is the global company at the root of the GMO controversy. In the past it was the creator of Agent Orange and the now banned DDT, both of which Monsanto argued were safe. Today, it markets the world’s best-selling herbicide, Roundup^® at the same time it sells corn, cotton, soybean and canola seeds that Monsanto has genetically engineered to resist Roundup. This one-two punch is what has led to the huge mono-crop farms that now cover our state and crowd out family farms.

Monsanto is happy with this situation, and most disturbing of all, it resists your right to know whether you are consuming GMO’s. Together with several other pesticide companies, Monsanto is spending $1 million per day in California to resist Proposition 37 which, if passed, would call for foods containing GMO’s to be labelled as such.

In the course of my campaign, it has been disturbing to discover Monsanto’s tentacles of influence reaching into Illinois through political contributions.  This includes Republicans, and Democrats like House Leader Michael Madigan and incumbent Robyn Gabel, my opponent in the race to become State Representative for the 18th District.

June and I hope you find these materials helpful and that you join the growing numbers of informed consumers that are saying no to GMO’s. You can learn more about GMO’s at our website, Evanston GMO Watch: egmow.org. If you are interested in knowing more about me and my campaign for State Representative, you can visit my website, www.LiebermanForIllinois.com or search for me on any of the Northshore Patch publications.

Regardless of who you vote for, I wish you informed and healthy eating!

Eric Lieberman

The Republican candidate sees a good deal wrong with the status quo and provides his ideas on how to shake things up. 

By Jordan Graham (originally published on October 18 on The Patch at http://wilmette.patch.com/articles/18th-il-district-candidate-lieberman-on-truth-transparency-and-tax-reform)

Eric Lieberman is currently running on the Republican ticket for State Representative of Illinois’ 18th District against Democrat incumbent Robyn Gabel.

Eric Lieberman doesn’t mince words when asked why he should be elected State Representative for Illinois’ 18th District.

Lieberman said he sees a state headed for financial meltdown, a government operating ineffectually due to corrupt, machine politics, and elected officials without the backbones necessary to make the tough choices necessary to better the situation.

“I have a very sober view of where our state is at and the dire condition it is in, so I can’t give a really upbeat message to anybody,” Lieberman said. “I know enough, I’ve been around the block enough to know that there are some really painful things that we have to do.”

Background

Though Lieberman has described himself on his website as a “lifelong liberal, Jewish Democrat who grew up in Evanston”, “spent the late 1960s getting tear-gassed in war protests at Berkley” and voted for President Obama in 2008, he said he decided to run on the Republican ticket because “no incumbent should run unopposed.”

“I met initially with the Republican leaders in this district and they said, ‘be who you are,’” Lieberman said. “And there has been no attempt to try to shape or stifle or control or conform me in any way. And I wouldn’t be [willing to].”

Lieberman, who was raised in Evanston, has no background as a public official, but cites his employment experience as a reporter, a lawyer and a CEO as providing him with the knowledge and skill set to represent the district.

Lieberman’s Four T’s

Lieberman’s bases his candidacy on what he calls the “four essential T’s”: truth, transparency, take action and tax reform.

The first step toward government reform, said Lieberman, involves truth, because only after politicians are truthful with themselves and their constituents, can they begin to tackle the state’s problems. He has openly called for the removal of House Speaker Michael Madigan, calling him a protector of the status quo and “a conduit to keeping incumbents in office.” Lieberman outright accuses Madigan “and his pack” of obscuring truth in government.

Likewise, Lieberman said he thinks state government should be more transparent with itsspending. He boasts on his website that as president and chief officer of a Wisconsin-based software company, he increased financial transparency, and, by doing so, tripled the firm’s revenue, turning “a $10 million deficit into a $15 million bank account.”

Lieberman has proposed building a “government dashboard” that would digitally track whether the state was staying on target financially, determine if it was meeting key performance indicators and continually update analytics such as the “cost of government per resident” and the “percent [of] pension funds [that] are underfunded”.

The “take action” portion of his “four T’s” seems to be less of a government issue and more a call for Illinois residents to be more entrepreneurial. Lieberman said that he encouraged new groups to form that would spur innovation and spit out new businesses, but he gave no indication that he expected the state to fund such programs.

Lastly, Lieberman supports tax reform that even he called “a pretty radical idea” — one that would allow Illinois resident to “vote with their tax dollars” by allowing each taxpayer to choose and allocate how their money would be spent.

“We keep electing people that fail,” Lieberman said. “By allowing people to really vote through their dollars, we could get control of things back and get these corrupt politicians out of office and out of control… We can brainstorm it.”

Though he admitted that it was unlikely such a system would be put in place, he said he hoped to use the idea to spark meaningful dialogue that would cause legislators to reconsider how the state budget is currently created.

Evanston Democrats

Lieberman said that the key to beating Gabel will be convincing Evanston Democrats and independents to vote for him. By his math, even if he were to take every vote in Kenilworth, Wilmette and Winnetka, he would lose without the support of those demographics.

“I hope Evanstonians will vote for ideas and honesty and independence and breaking out from under the whole party schema,” Lieberman said. “Vote for someone who can actually accomplish things… [Gabel] does not bring the power or the strength of the presence to the job that I do. I don’t find her to be a persuasive or powerful person that could influence events in the General Assembly. I think that she’s a person who can follow.”

Lieberman said he is confident that he will win the election

“I will beat Robyn Gabel,” he said. “I’m already thinking about where I’m going to live in Springfield.”

Here is the article from October 17 in which the Chicago Tribune endorsed me. (And, as far as the myth that the Trib endorses only Republicans….read their endorsements and you will see they endorse Democrats in many races and decline to endorse any candidate where there are no good options.)

18th District: Democratic leaders appointed Robyn Gabel to this seat in 2010 when Julie Hamos took a job overseeing the Department of Healthcare and Family Services. Gabel is running against Republican Eric Lieberman of Evanston. Gabel says she considers pension reform a top priority, but she isn’t willing to say whether she would vote for it. The issue is complicated, she says. Indeed. And it’s siphoning money from the programs Gabel wants to keep, including FamilyCare and funding for the Department of Children and Family Services. You can’t have it both ways, Rep. Gabel — ducking on pension reform but pleading for continued spending. Lieberman, a straight shooter who favors shifting pension costs to local school districts and moving new state employees into a 401(k)-style retirement plan, gets the endorsement.

The Evanston Patch on September 17th, ran an interview with Jan Schakowsky, the Representative to Congress from the 9th District in Illinois. Schakowsky, a Democrat and longtime incumbent, is being challenged by Republican Tim Wolfe. You can read the interview at http://evanston.patch.com/articles/your-choices-for-congress-jan-schakowsky-9th-district.

Here is the comment I published in Patch:

Eric Lieberman

3 minutes ago

There is a small factory in Freeport, Ill. that manufactures sensors. It was once owned by Honeywell, but was purchased in 2010 by multi-national Sensata Technologies . Plans are underway to close the plant and move it’s 170 jobs to China. According to Reuters, Sensata had planned to close the plant since it acquired the facility. Because Sensata is partly owned by Bain Capital, the closing has become another ping-pong ball in the game we call “political debate”.

The wise leader always asks “why?” The wise leader wants to learn from the crisis.

The closing of the Freeport plant provides the opportunity to ask some important questions relevant to the loss of businesses, jobs and tax revenue vexing Illinois:

• Why is Sensata leaving?
• Is there something about the business climate in Illinois that is contributing to its leaving?
• Is Sensata unable to find the skills, know how, suppliers, customers, necessary to operate a sustainable business in Illinois?

(It is easy to dismiss Sensata leaving Illinois as another chapter in the story of cheap labor, but there are sure to be other reasons. For example, if the plant were selling huge amounts of sensors into the Illinois market, cheap labor alone wouldn’t be enough to get them to move. Reuters suggests that the market for Sensata’s products in the domestic economy had dried up, but was “burgeoning” in China. So, this is not just about “cheap labor”. it is about the domino effect of an economic crisis in the United States. )

So far I haven’t read or heard anything about our Congresswoman convening a meeting with Sensata to see what she can learn from this crisis/opportunity that might truly benefit her constituents and her state and even her country. That’s what I wish she were doing Tuesday night. That would be true leadership.

But, instead of learning from this crisis, she is using this as an opportunity to send a message to businesses everywhere: try to make a sound business decision in Illinois and a congresswoman will lead a protest. Dare to implement a sustainable business model and she’ll nail 35,000 signatures to your front door.

And if this “incident” gets so embarrassing for Romney that somehow he becomes the hero and influences Sensata to reverse its closing order, it won’t be because of any critical thinking, any broad interest in Illinois’ economy or any genuine learning from this crisis that can help us build a sustainable state economy. No, it will just represent politics as usual in leaderless Illinois.

Eric Lieberman

www.liebermanforillinois.com

NEWS RELEASE 06/25/12

Published at: http://www.gasb.org/cs/ContentServer?site=GASB&c=GASBContent_C&pagename=GASB%2FGASBContent_C%2FGASBNewsPage&cid=1176160126951

GASB Improves Pension Accounting and Financial Reporting Standards

Norwalk, CT, June 25, 2012—The Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) today voted to approve two new standards that will substantially improve the accounting and financial reporting of public employee pensions by state and local governments. Statement No. 67, Financial Reporting for Pension Plans, revises existing guidance for the financial reports of most pension plans. Statement No. 68,Accounting and Financial Reporting for Pensions, revises and establishes new financial reporting requirements for most governments that provide their employees with pension benefits.

“The new standards will improve the way state and local governments report their pension liabilities and expenses, resulting in a more faithful representation of the full impact of these obligations,” said GASB Chairman Robert H. Attmore. “Among other improvements, net pension liabilities will be reported on the balance sheet, providing citizens and other users of these financial reports with a clearer picture of the size and nature of the financial obligations to current and former employees for past services rendered.”

Pension plans are distinguished for financial reporting purposes in two ways. First, plans are classified by whether the income or other benefits that the employee will receive at or after separation from employment are defined by the benefit terms (a defined benefit plan) or whether the pensions an employee will receive will depend only on the contributions to the employee’s account, actual earnings on investments of those contributions, and other factors (a defined contribution plan).

In addition, defined benefit plans are classified based on the number of governments participating in a particular pension plan and whether assets and obligations are shared among the participating governments. Categories include plans where only one employer participates (single employer); plans in which assets are pooled for investment purposes, but each employer’s share of the pooled assets is legally available to pay the benefits of only its employees (agent employer); and plans in which participating employers pool or share obligations to provide pensions to their employees and plan assets can be used to pay the benefits of employees of any participating employer (cost-sharing employer).

Statement 68 (Employers)
Statement 68 replaces the requirements of Statement No. 27, Accounting for Pensions by State and Local Governmental Employers and Statement No. 50, Pension Disclosures, as they relate to governments that provide pensions through pension plans administered as trusts or similar arrangements that meet certain criteria. Statement 68 requires governments providing defined benefit pensions to recognize their long-term obligation for pension benefits as a liability for the first time, and to more comprehensively and comparably measure the annual costs of pension benefits. The Statement also enhances accountability and transparency through revised and new note disclosures and required supplementary information (RSI).

Defined Benefit Pension Plans. The Statement requires governments that participate in defined benefit pension plans to report in their statement of net position a net pension liability. The net pension liability is the difference between the total pension liability (the present value of projected benefit payments to employees based on their past service) and the assets (mostly investments reported at fair value) set aside in a trust and restricted to paying benefits to current employees, retirees, and their beneficiaries.

The Statement calls for immediate recognition of more pension expense than is currently required. This includes immediate recognition of annual service cost and interest on the pension liability and immediate recognition of the effect on the net pension liability of changes in benefit terms. Other components of pension expense will be recognized over a closed period that is determined by the average remaining service period of the plan members (both current and former employees, including retirees). These other components include the effects on the net pension liability of (a) changes in economic and demographic assumptions used to project benefits and (b) differences between those assumptions and actual experience. Lastly, the effects on the net pension liability of differences between expected and actual investment returns will be recognized in pension expense over a closed five-year period.

Statement 68 requires cost-sharing employers to record a liability and expense equal to their proportionate share of the collective net pension liability and expense for the cost-sharing plan. The Statement also will improve the comparability and consistency of how governments calculate the pension liabilities and expense. These changes include:

• Projections of Benefit Payments. Projections of benefit payments to employees will be based on the then-existing benefit terms and incorporate projected salary changes and projected service credits (if they are factors in the pension formula), as well as projected automatic postemployment benefit changes (those written into the benefit terms), including automatic cost-of-living-adjustments (COLAs). For the first time, projections also will include ad hoc postemployment benefit changes (those not written into the benefit terms), including ad hoc COLAs, if they are considered to be substantively automatic.
• Discount Rate. The rate used to discount projected benefit payments to their present value will be based on a single rate that reflects (a) the long-term expected rate of return on plan investments as long as the plan net position is projected under specific conditions to be sufficient to pay pensions of current employees and retirees and the pension plan assets are expected to be invested using a strategy to achieve that return; and (b) a yield or index rate on tax-exempt 20-year, AA-or-higher rated municipal bonds to the extent that the conditions for use of the long-term expected rate of return are not met.
• Attribution Method. Governments will use a single actuarial cost allocation method – “entry age,” with each period’s service cost determined as a level percentage of pay.

Note Disclosures and Required Supplementary Information. Statement 68 also requires employers to present more extensive note disclosures and RSI, including disclosing descriptive information about the types of benefits provided, how contributions to the pension plan are determined, and assumptions and methods used to calculate the pension liability. Single and agent employers will disclose additional information, such as the composition of the employees covered by the benefit terms and the sources of changes in the components of the net pension liability for the current year. A single or agent employer will also will present RSI schedules covering the past 10 years regarding:

• Sources of changes in the components of the net pension liability
• Ratios that assist in assessing the magnitude of the net pension liability
• Comparisons of actual employer contributions to the pension plan with actuarially determined contribution requirements, if an employer has actuarially determined contributions.

Cost-sharing employers also will present the RSI schedule of net pension liability, information about contractually required contributions, and related ratios.

Defined Contribution Pensions. The existing standards for governments that provide defined contribution pensions are largely carried forward in the new Statement. These governments will recognize pension expenses equal to the amount of contributions or credits to employees’ accounts, absent forfeited amounts. A pension liability will be recognized for the difference between amounts recognized as expense and actual contributions made to a defined contribution pension plan.

Special Funding Situations. Certain governments are legally responsible for making contributions directly to a pension plan that is used to provide pensions to the employees of another government. For example, a state is legally required to contribute to a pension plan that covers local school districts’ teachers. In specific circumstances called special funding situations, the Statement requires governments that are nonemployer contributing entities to recognize in their own financial statements their proportionate share of the other governmental employers’ net pension liability and pension expense.

Statement 67 (Plans)
This Statement replaces the requirements of Statement No. 25, Financial Reporting for Defined Benefit Pension Plans and Note Disclosures for Defined Contribution Plansand Statement 50 as they relate to pension plans that are administered through trusts or similar arrangements meeting certain criteria. The Statement builds upon the existing framework for financial reports of defined benefit pension plans, which includes a statement of fiduciary net position (the amount held in a trust for paying retirement benefits) and a statement of changes in fiduciary net position. Statement 67 enhances note disclosures and RSI for both defined benefit and defined contribution pension plans. Statement 67 also requires the presentation of new information about annual money-weighted rates of return in the notes to the financial statements and in 10-year RSI schedules.

Effective Dates and Availability
The provisions in Statement 67 are effective for financial statements for periods beginning after June 15, 2013. The provisions in Statement 68 are effective for fiscal years beginning after June 15, 2014. Earlier application is encouraged for both Statements.

Statements 67 and 68 will be available for download at no cost from the GASB website in early August. Bound copies of the Statements will be available for distribution soon thereafter. A plain-language description of the new requirements also will be available on the GASB website.

About the Governmental Accounting Standards Board

The GASB is the independent, not-for-profit organization formed in 1984 that establishes and improves financial accounting and reporting standards for state and local governments. Its seven members are drawn from the Board’s diverse constituency, including preparers and auditors of government financial statements, users of those statements, and members of the academic community. More information about the GASB can be found at its website, www.gasb.org.

Mark Brown, columnist for the Sun-Times called it right when he urged citizens to get tough on all the state reps for the pension mess. This is what he wrote on July 31:

Blame them all for pension reform failure in Illinois

SPRINGFIELD — The collapse of pension reform negotiations in the final hours of the Illinois General Assembly’s spring session Thursday night was preceded by the usual blame game — and I say don’t bother playing.

Blame them all.

This was one occasion where you would have definitely thought a bipartisan solution could have been found — an issue that everybody agreed demanded action. And yet again there was none.

As always, House Speaker Michael Madigan was right in the middle of it. As the most powerful and also most effective member of the legislature, Madigan also happens to be a master of the blame game.

Only a day earlier, Republicans were pointing to Madigan and his insistence on shifting the cost of suburban and Downstate teacher pensions from the state to local school districts as the main roadblock to pension reform.

Madigan called their bluff and dropped his push for the cost shift, which Republicans were concerned would result in higher property taxes or school cuts.

At first blush, some thought that would allow the measure to sail through the legislature.

But nothing important sails through the legislature without the speaker’s full support.

And it slowly became apparent Thursday that in dropping his sponsorship of the pension measure and tossing it into the lap of House Republican Leader Tom Cross, Madigan had sealed its doom.

I say slowly became apparent, because many of his own members were still guessing about his intentions even after a Madigan-controlled committee sent the measure to the full House first thing Thursday morning with some of his closest allies on board.

Then came word that Madigan himself intended to vote no, and the storm clouds slowly gathered until the point late Thursday evening when Cross announced that Gov. Pat Quinn had asked him to pull the plug for now — and try again in a few weeks.

In essence, Madigan was saying: Don’t blame me, blame the Republicans. It’s their bill now.

The Republicans, of course, had been telling us all along to blame Madigan, even though many admit they agree with the principle on which he was standing — that you can’t truly bring the pension costs under control once and for all until the people making the spending decisions are called upon to pay the bills.

In the blame game, both political parties put as much effort into making sure the other side gets the blame for the failure of some important piece of legislation as they put do into actually getting something accomplished.

The blame game is serious business. If played well, one side can gain political advantage over the other in the next election.

In focusing on Madigan, I’m not suggesting that he and his Democrats were any more to blame for the legislation’s failure than were the Republicans, who couldn’t put on enough votes to make it work.

Both Republicans and business leaders who have pushed the pension reform agenda were frank in their assessment that the legislation that was up for a vote on Thursday fell far short of the once-and-for-all solution that would put the problem in the rearview mirror for at least a generation.

Notably, in the aftermath of the failure, the blame rhetoric was far more muted than it had been in the run-up.

Cross had no cross words for Madigan. Quinn’s tone was more cajoling than lecturing. Madigan took no shots at Cross in expressing his disappointment that the issue hadn’t been resolved.

Publicly, at least, all sides had acknowledged in advance the importance of coming up with a solution to the pension problem, the urgency of which was cemented by threats from New York bond houses that they will make it more expensive for state government to borrow money if nothing is done. That makes this a clear failure.

The media is supposed to play a role in the blame game as the umpires who decides who gets the blame.

I understand Madigan’s point about the cost shift, if that was truly his point, as nobody is ever sure what the speaker really wants, and most have given up trying to read his mind.

In the end, though, neither party brought you pension reform. A pox on both their houses until they come back and get it right.

Copyright © 2012 — Sun-Times Media, LLC

Here is a video of our Lt Governor Sheila Simon making light..and music…of the corruption in Illinois. Her dad, the late, great Senator Paul Simon (the guy that wore bow ties) wrote the book “Our Culture of Pandering” about Illinois politics. (Video courtesy of the Better Government Association).

I have been fretting for weeks how to tell my friends, my family and my neighbors that I may not be the person they thought I am.

Well, here goes…

In November, I will be on your ballot as a candidate for State Representative for the 18th Legislative District. On the Republican ticket.

For the seven or eight of you that survived my use of the “R-word” let me explain how this happened to a life-long liberal Jewish Democrat who grew up in Evanston, who was active in Beth Emet, who excelled at ETHS, who writes and plays folk music decrying the plight of the common man and the human condition, who spent the late 1960′s getting tear gassed in war protests in Berkeley, who ran as the Democrat’s candidate for State’s Attorney, who spoke to JFK on the phone and still reveres him, who believes the warnings that Ike gave us in his parting speech, who worked for the Israeli government, who is fighting for our food supply and battling GMOs, who contributed heavily to Obama’s campaign and cried with overwhelming joy when he gave that speech from Grant Park.

Simply put, with no fanfare or crafted rhetoric: I am running because I want to kill what my state has become. I want to create a new vision of what a resurrected Illinois can be and to help plan and implement a long-term strategy to make that happen.

Do I really have to tell you how bad things are in this state? Don’t worry, I am not going to blame it on any party. All are equally culpable. (Boy, that should get me a lot of party support, huh?)

Just in case you have been asleep and not watching, reading or listening to the news, Illinois is a disaster. It has become the most financially decrepit state in the nation. It has earned a reputation for being among the top two or three most corrupt states. (In the past, when you told people around the world that you were from Chicago they’d say: “Rat-tat-tat. Al Capone”. Today, when you tell them you are from Illinois, they give a weird mile and say “Ryan. Blagojevich.”)

And, our pension mess. It is not a crisis…our “leaders” saw it coming for years like Metra barreling into the Central Street station. This just wasn’t just some unfortunate accident, our legislature made it happen. Come on,Pension obligations $82 billion (probably more) in the hole, debt mounting at $12.6 million each day, pensioners and local school districts, etc., all in a suspended state of anxiety and uncertainty until this “crisis” is somehow resolved. Do you really believe Springfield didn’t see this coming? They are either really, really stupid or really, really corrupt. You choose.

What our are legislators doing about this? They’re taken their neat little summer vacations to Wisconsin and Michigan dressed in Polo shirts and Patagonia shorts (Yes, I am talking to YOU Mr. Representative, sitting on the beach in New Buffalo sipping a Dewey Cannon beer and reading “Samurai Game”.) Even worse, they are out raising re-election funds at fancy fetes in rooftop gardens so they can get re-elected to perpetuate this statewide suicide pact we are in.

This is not just ivory tower politic-speak or stuff to talk over while you dine on Hecky’s barbecue. Recent studies report that the corruption in this state has a price tag…they call it a “Corruption Tax” of over $500,000,000 each year. That’s a lot of moolah out of my pocket and yours. This corruption seeps into everything: the pension crisis, the way political bosses decide who you’ll vote for, the losses of business and jobs, the declining way of life and poverty outside our cozy little northern suburbs. You choose: you want to do something about it or you want to go swat balls on the tennis courts at the Nielsen Center or swing your clubs at the Peter Jans Golf Course or escape to Walker Bros and wait for that German Pancake.

You see, I am not letting you voters off the hook. Your sniveling, “I stick with the party” thinking makes you as culpable as the most corrupt and inept politician. Insanely, you have installed, supported and re-elected a corrupt government over and over and over again, until it has become so entrenched in our culture that you accept it and mumble: “Well, what should I expect? It is Illinois, after-all” Well, rat-a-tat-tat! You accept it because the wrongdoers happen to be in your favored party that supports a combination of these same old schtick platform issues: low taxes, high taxes; laissez faire, the government will take care of the poor, the sick, the needy; the constitution doesn’t guaranty life is fair, businesses don’t need to be regulated, businesses need to be controlled for the people, aren’t our schools wonderful, our schools have filed us, etc., etc., etc. Ad nauseam. Party politics are a diversionary tactic intended to prevent us from addressing the real problems and finding the real solutions, if any still exist. Party politics shield us from the truth.

So, I am running to make you aware, because – like any stepped recovery program – we must admit we have a problem before we can make systemic changes. The problem isn’t that some of us like bourbon and others of us like gin. The problem is that we are drunk.

I am running because I have this broken chromosome in me that makes me want to fix things and help people.

I am running because it will take years to make the tremendous cultural change we need to make. We should have started it twenty years ago. The next best time is to start today.

And, BFD that I am running as a Republican. There was already an incumbent riding the ass, all that was left was the elephant. With our state legislature having failed us so profoundly, there is not one single incumbent that should run unopposed. Not one. My G-d people, that’s how we hold them accountable. I now have little use or belief of parties and side with some insignificant do-little American politician, some guy that wore wigs named “George Washington” who wrote: “However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government”. So, grow up, get over it and move on. It is not relevant whether I am running as a Democratic, a Republican, a Libertarian a or member of the Looney Party (Month Python fans remember.) The sooner you understand that, the sooner you will open your mind to the freedom that awareness brings.

Now that I am out of the closet, I have much work to do trying to get my message out without scaring off the very people that need to hear it. We’ve been working on my the website -www.liebermanforillinois.com – it will up and running on the 18th.

The chances of me winning in November may be laughable. But, the chances of me maybe awakening 2 or 20 people is enormous and of awakening 2,000 or 20,000 people is a possibility. In business, I was taught to always consider the worst case, best case and expected case in any situation. The best case here is I could win, the worst case is I could become embarrassed and shunned in the community, The expected case is I will make some small dent in the party-think that has fostered the decline of our state.

Eric

Candidate & Exec. Director of Evanston GMO Watch (egmow.org)

ejlieberman@gmail.com