03 Feb 2012

Quilt talk and workshop

By Kelly Lao

Davenport- The German American Heritage Center, located at 712 W 2nd St. Davenport,  presents Becky Wright "The Quilt Lady" as she gives a talk on "The Sequel: Christian Staffinger and his Civil War Quilt" at 2pm on Sunday February 19th. Becky will update us on the exciting events that occurred since her last talk at GAHC surrounding Christian Staffinger, the German immigrant who crafted Becky's beloved quilt. Event is free with admission.

For more information call 563-322-8844 or visit gahc.org. Join the Quilt Lady on Saturday February 18th from 1pm till 5pm for a quilting workshop at GAHC. Using one of her Orphans of War patterns "Reap the Whirlwind", Becky will show participants how to create one of these beautiful pieces. Registration fee is $35 and is payable at registration by February 15th. Patterns (a $10 value) are included in the fee. Materials list will become available at time of registration. To register call 563-322-8844 or email: director@gahc.org.

03 Feb 2012

Isaac Spangler Earns Degree from Marshall University

By readMedia

HUNTINGTON, WV (01/31/2012)(readMedia)-- Isaac David Spangler of Hillsdale, IL, was among nearly 1,250 Marshall University students who were recognized at the university's Winter Commencement Dec. 10 in Huntington, W.Va. Spangler earned a Bachelor of Science degree .

Marshall University is the oldest public institution of higher learning in West Virginia and one of the region's most dynamic universities, serving students from 47 states and more than 60 countries. Marshall offers undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs and competes in Division I intercollegiate sports in Conference USA. Headquartered in the college town of Huntington, W.Va,, Marshall University is known for its safe and beautiful campus, dedicated professors, small class size, successful graduates and great value.

03 Feb 2012

THURSDAYs @ THE FIGGE RETURNS

By Susan Horan

(Davenport, IA) - Thursdays at the Figge is back for another season of fun, food, music and art talks. The season opener on February 2 celebrates the exhibition Fins and Feathers: Children's Book Illustrations from The Eric Carle Museum of Art. Populated by an array of dazzling animals both real and imaginary, Fins and Feathers introduces viewers of all ages to memorable creatures from children's literature. The community is invited to an exhibition reception with complimentary appetizers and a cash bar at 6pm in the Figge Reading Room.  Rima Girnius, Figge associate curator, will lead an art talk about the exhibition at 7 pm.

 

Each Thursdays at the Figge in February will feature a 7pm art talk on a different subject.  On Thursday, February 9, Western Illinois University professor Jo-Ann Morgan will present the talk "Illustrating Uncle Tom, Topsy, and Little Eva: How Children Learned About 'Race' and 'Place.'" Professor Morgan will review illustrations of the main characters in Uncle Tom's Cabin, and will take a look at other children's books in which black children and white children interact, in order to consider how these portrayals may have impacted young reader's understanding of racial relations in the nineteenth century and since.  This art talk is offered in conjunction with Black History Month.

 

Myriam Stangherlin will present a program on Italy on Thursday, February 16 at 7pm.  Myriam's program, "Italian: The Language of Love," will use pictures of Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples and other "art" cities in Italy to introduce visitors to the beautiful language.  This program is an introduction to the five-week Italian language course Myriam will teach at the Figge beginning Wednesday, March 7.

 

"The Life and Times of Edward M. Catich" will be the topic of the art talk on Thursday, February 23.  Father Catich has an international reputation as a calligrapher and scholar.  In addition to being an artist in various media, Catich was also an accomplished musician.  The presenter, Paul Herrera, was a student, apprentice and friend of Father Catich, and he also worked with him at St Ambrose University. This talk is offered in conjunction with the many calligraphy workshops offered at the Figge this winter and spring.

 

Thursdays at the Figge programming in February also include live music by Lewis Knudson. The café and bar open at 5 pm for dinner and drinks and the museum is open until 9 pm. All programs, including the exhibition reception, are included with admission to the museum and all seniors receive free admission the first Thursday of each month.

-end-


03 Feb 2012

LOOKING FOR PIANO PLAYERS - Piano Celebration gearing up for another successful event in 2012

By Sara Vidoni

Piano Celebration, hosted by Piano for a Richer Life, is looking for piano players of all levels to perform!  Last year over 400 talented local celebrities, student pianists and piano enthusiasts of all ages performed at Northpark Mall in Davenport with a dual purpose: to raise funds to support Ronald McDonald House and get the message out that piano study equals brain development!

Iowa City Ronald McDonald House serves the families of thousands of children suffering from critical conditions.  The House receives no state or federal tax dollars, relying 100% on private gifts.

Numerous University studies prove that piano study leads to increased brain development, academic achievement and builds confidence while keeping you happy and healthy.  "Piano Celebration helps to get the important message out - while raising substantial dollars for Ronald McDonald House in Iowa City," quotes Jim Foster, the spokesman for Piano for a Richer Life.

The event will take place on Saturday, April 21st 10am-5pm and Sunday, April 22nd noon-5pm at Northpark Mall in Davenport, Iowa. Three conservatory grand pianos will be placed outside of Dillard's, Younkers and JC Penny's stores.

Contact Lynn Kroeger at 563-285-8421 to schedule a performance time or to give a financial contribution. Donations can also be made during the performances at any of the three concert locations.

Over the past 9 years Piano Celebration has raised over $248,000 for Iowa City's Ronald McDonald House, and this year the goal is $35,000.  Admission is free and the public is welcome!

03 Feb 2012

Grassley Reacts to New Fast and Furious Report

By Grassley Press

Tuesday, January 31, 2011

Senator Chuck Grassley issued the following statement after the minority staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released a report excusing senior level Justice Department officials from responsibility for Operation Fast and Furious.

Grassley started conducting oversight of the flawed program more than one year ago.  The Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder initially denied gunwalking occurred, but have since withdrawn the denials and admitted that ATF whistlebowers were right to complain about the reckless tactic.  Despite the constitutional responsibility of Congress to conduct oversight of the executive branch, the Justice Department has stonewalled every step of Grassley's investigation.  In fact, the Justice Department has provided 80,000 pages of documents to the Inspector General, but has provided only 6,000 pages of documents to Congress.  Yet, the department has provided no explanation for withholding each of those 74,000 pages.

"The idea that senior political appointees have clean hands in these gunwalking scandals doesn't pass the laugh test, especially considering we've seen less than 10 percent of the pages that the Justice Department has provided the Inspector General.   They ignored the warning signs and failed to put a stop to it or hold anyone accountable.  Lanny Breuer is a senior political appointee, and he admits to knowing about gunwalking as early as April 2010.  Documents turned over late Friday night indicate he was still discussing plans to let guns cross the border with Mexican officials on the same day the Department denied to me in writing that ATF would ever let guns walk.  He stood mute as this administration fought tooth and nail to keep any of this information from coming out for a year.  It will take a lot more than a knee-jerk defense from their political allies in Congress to restore public trust in the leadership of the Justice Department.  The American people want to see those who failed to act be held accountable.

03 Feb 2012

Q&A on the False Claims Act at 25 Years and $30 Billion in Recoveries

By Grassley Press

Q:        What is the False Claims Act?

A:        The False Claims Act is an important tool for combating fraud against the U.S. government or, in effect, the taxpayers.  It's sometimes called Lincoln's Law because it was first passed in 1863, in response to unscrupulous contractors who sold the Union Army things like faulty rifles, decrepit horses, and ammunition boxes filled with nothing but sawdust.  When enacted, the law offered a reward that let private citizens sue on behalf of the government and receive a percentage of the recovery.  This provision is known as qui tam, an abbreviation of a Latin phrase that basically means "on behalf of the King as well as for himself."  In 1943, the qui tam provisions were curtailed by Congress based on the argument that they rewarded the unworthy and got in the way of other law enforcement efforts.  Forty years later, in the mid-1980s, there was growing concern about extensive fraud by defense contractors.  I was involved in exposing wasteful spending by the Defense Department at that time, and part of my response was working with Representative Howard Berman, of California, and others to reinvigorate the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act.  In 1986, we won passage of a major update to the law, restoring and updating qui tam.  Our goal was to empower private citizens who had information about fraudulent activity by government contractors to bring wrongdoing forward and sue in the name of the government.  We knew these kinds of courageous whistleblowers were in positions to identify fraud that would otherwise go completely undetected by federal law enforcement.

 

Q:        Does qui tam work?

A:        This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Grassley-Berman update of the False Claims Act.  All together, since 1986, the qui tam provisions have recovered more than $30 billion that otherwise would be lost to fraud.  Experts believe the deterrent effect of the law has saved taxpayers many additional billions of dollars.  While qui tam actions during the late 1980s and early 1990s involved mostly defense contracts, in recent years, most qui tam actions have fought fraudulent Medicare billing and fraud against other federal health care programs.  In fact, the law has become the government's most effective tool for fighting health care fraud.  In 2011, the False Claims Act recovered $3 billion to the U.S. Treasury, and $2.8 billion of that total resulted from qui tam.  Most of the $2.8 billion in recoveries were in Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, the Federal Employees Health Benefits program, and the Veterans Administration health care programs.

Q:        Is there current legislation impacting this law?

A:        There are constant threats to the strength of the False Claims Act and its qui tam provisions.  These threats have arisen in Congress and the courts.  I've led efforts to defend the law and keep it from being weakened legislatively, but over time federal courts have diminished the strength of the law.  In 2009, I sought and won passage of the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act to restore the scope and applicability of the law where it had been limited by court decisions.  I will stay vigilant in working to protect this proven anti-fraud law from efforts to weaken or even gut it.  In addition, I regularly give strong support to individual whistleblowers outside and inside government.  Our system is better off when government and all those who spend taxpayer dollars are held accountable, and whistleblowers play a major role in making certain that happens.  They do so at great personal sacrifice, often losing their jobs and livelihoods and living in a state of limbo for as many as 10 years, sometimes more, while fraud cases work their way through the legal system.  Qui tam is structured to compensate, based on the fact that without the whistleblower information, it's likely that the fraud would have continued undetected and no taxpayer money at all would be recovered.  Separately, I've worked to encourage states to adopt state-level versions of the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act with legislation establishing incentives for states to fight Medicaid fraud, as Medicaid is a program funding by both state and federal funds.  Looking ahead, the broad scope of government programs where the False Claims Act has helped recover taxpayer dollars is a testament to its flexibility and value.

 

Tuesday, January 31, 2012
01 Feb 2012

U.S. District Court Declares Mass Student Searches & Random Lockdowns in Missouri High Schools To Be Legal, Dismisses Fourth Amendment Lawsuit

By Nisha N Whitehead

SPRINGFIELD, Mo.?The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri has declared that school officials at a Missouri high school did not violate students' constitutional rights when they imposed a "lockdown" of the school for the purpose of allowing the local sheriff's department, aided by drug-sniffing dogs, to perform mass inspections of students' belongings. Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute had filed a lawsuit in Burlison v. Springfield Public Schools, et al., asking to court to declare that officials at Central High School in Springfield violated their students' Fourth Amendment right to privacy. Institute attorneys plan to appeal the ruling to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Rutherford Institute's complaint in Burlison v. Springfield Public Schools is available at www.rutherford.org.

"We have moved into a new paradigm in America where young people are increasingly viewed as suspects and treated as criminals by school officials and law enforcement alike. To then be denied justice by the courts only adds to the wrongs being perpetrated against young people today," said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. "Such random, suspicionless lockdown raids against children teach our children a horrific lesson?one that goes against every fundamental principle this country was founded upon?that we have no rights at all against the police state."

According to the complaint filed by attorneys for The Rutherford Institute, on April 22, 2010, the principal of Central High School announced over the public address system that the school was going into "lockdown" and that students were prohibited from leaving their classrooms.  Deputies and agents of the Greene County Sheriff's Department thereafter ordered students and teachers to leave all personal belongings behind and exit the classrooms. Dogs were also brought in to assist in the raid. Upon re-entering the classrooms, students allegedly discovered that their belongings had been rummaged through. Mellony and Doug Burlison, who have two children at Central High School, complained to school officials that the lockdown and search were a violation of their children's rights. According to the complaint, school officials responded that this was a "standard drill" and policy of the school district which would continue.

The lawsuit, filed by Rutherford Institute attorneys on behalf of the Burlisons and their two children, asked the court to declare that the practice of effecting a lockdown of the school and conducting random, suspicionless seizures and searches violates the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the similar provision of the Missouri Constitution. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri rejected the Institute's argument, finding that the students' belongings were not subject to an illegal seizure when ushered away from their classroom and told to leave their possessions behind before police entered to conduct a search. Affiliate attorney Jason T. Umbarger of Springfield, Mo., assisted the Institute with its defense of the Burlisons.

Click here to read online.

01 Feb 2012

Supreme Court case could threaten Big Labor's ability to deduct from public employee paychecks

By Rick Martin
By Victor Skinner
EAG Communications
WASHINGTON, D.C. - It's no secret that Big Labor is dependent on dues and fees automatically withdrawn from the payroll checks of union members and non-members alike.
The automatic deductions funnel millions of dollars into public sector union coffers each year, with a portion frequently going toward partisan political causes and liberal candidates who promise to preserve or expand the unions' forced dues racket.
But this vicious cycle is finally being challenged in states and municipalities around the nation. Perhaps the most important challenge, Knox vs. Service Employees International Union, was heard earlier this month by the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.
The case is one of a growing number of examples of how public employees, including public school teachers, are pushing back against forced union dues - something many consider a violation of their First Amendment rights. American citizens should not be forced to financially support an organization or political causes they don't agree with, union objectors rightly contend.
By forcing members and non-members to subsidize its radical political agenda, Big Labor may have finally cooked its Golden Goose.
SEIU wants to run from the case
The Supreme Court case stems from a "special assessment" that was automatically withdrawn from union and non-union state employees' checks in 2005 to help defeat a ballot proposal in California that would have made it illegal to force employees to pay dues that would be used for political purposes.

The plaintiffs, who are non-union members who pay a reduced fee in lieu of union dues, claim their rights were violated when they were charged more than their regular fees to support a union political effort.
They filed a lawsuit with the help of the National Right to Work Foundation, and a federal district court ordered SEIU to pay some of their money back, records show.
SEIU appealed the decision, the appeals court sided with the union, and the objecting non-union state employees took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Then a funny thing happened. The union decided that it didn't want to pursue the case anymore, refunded the employees the full amount of the "special assessment," and is now arguing that the case is moot because there is no longer a claim, records show.
The NRTWF attorneys representing the employees say the case is still important because it would settle the question of whether union officials must give employees a chance to object to a special assessment before the union sticks its grubby hand in the cookie jar. Plus, the union never really acknowledged wrongdoing or promised not to do it again, NRTWF attorney James Young argued.
During the hearing, several justices keyed in on an important question: Why does the union want to drop its case now that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear it?
SEIU attorneys contend it's because the employees' money has been repaid in full, the union has complied with the district court's original order, and everything is now resolved.
We doubt very much that's the case.
Union leaders fear legal precedent
We believe that the real reason the union wants to run away from the case is to avoid the chance of a precedent-setting ruling that would inhibit its legal ability to take money from members and non-members to support political causes.

The union probably also fears a more expansive ruling, which could deny the right of public sector unions to automatically deduct dues from paychecks under any circumstances.
It's not clear when the court will issue a ruling in the case.
"In essence, the union has to acknowledge wrongdoing before a case is moot, and they've never done that," said Young, the attorney representing the plaintiffs.
"They fear what this court will do, and I think they have reason to," Young said, adding that a ruling could potentially have broad implications for how unions charge members and non-members.
A veteran labor attorney in Wisconsin, who has been representing school boards for decades, recently told EAG that public sector union leaders are mostly concerned with preserving the flow of dues money, and preserving the right to use that money for political causes they believe in.
He noted that many teachers unions across Wisconsin scrambled last year to extend their collective bargaining agreements with school boards. They wanted to get that done before the implementation of Act 10, which made it illegal for schools to deduct union dues from employee paychecks once the union contracts expire.
Union leaders in many districts were willing to sacrifice many employee perks to get their contracts extended. The one perk they desperately wanted to preserve was automatic dues deduction from paychecks, according to the attorney.
"All of a sudden they would call me and say, 'Let's settle this contract,'" the attorney said.  "It's all about the kids, right? The kids? Ha! They sold their members out for dues."
Employees don't pay when it's not required
There is a reason union officials are vigorously fighting to preserve the automatic dues deduction system.
Washington Post columnist George Will laid it out in an editorial during Big Labor's battle over Act 10 in Wisconsin last year.
"After Colorado in 2001 required public employees unions to have annual votes reauthorizing collection of dues, membership in the Colorado Association of Public Employees declined 70 percent. In 2005, Indiana stopped collecting dues from unionized public employees; in 2011, there are 90 percent fewer dues-paying members," Wills wrote.
"In Utah, the end of automatic dues deductions for political activities in 2001 caused teachers' payments to fall 90 percent. After a similar law passed in 1992 in Washington State, the percentage of teachers making such contributions declined from 82 to 11."
Perhaps union members are hesitant to voluntarily pay because they don't believe the benefits they receive from their unions are worth the dues. Perhaps it's because they don't like their union's aggressive political activities and negotiating tactics.
Regardless, the SEIU case and Right-to-Work legislation pending in numerous states is turning up the heat on Big Labor's forced dues racket.
And that's encouraging progress for public employees who have been forced to fund Big Labor's antics for far too long.
Contact Victor Skinner at vskinner@edactiongroup.org or (231) 733-4202
01 Feb 2012

Cafe d'Marie Expands Hours

By Rick Martin

Cafe d'Marie, located at 614 West 5th Street where downtown Davenport meets the Gold Coast neighborhood, has expanded their hours.  They are now serving guests from 8:30am until 4pm seven days a week. 

Support a local business! The charming Cafe d'Marie is serving up breakfast, lunch, gourmet coffees, salads & more in a gorgeous historic building. Located on 5th Street behind the Scott County Admin building at the foot of the Gold Coast. Recently voted one of the Best New Restaurants in the Reader's Best of the Quad Cities readers' poll.

Call 563-323-3293 or visit them on Facebook® for more information.

31 Jan 2012

WQPT To Broadcast Illinois State of the State Address Live

By Lora Adams

MOLINE, ILLINOIS - WQPT, Quad Cities PBS will air Illinois Governor Pat Quinn's State of the State Address on February 1st at 12:00 noon, live from the State Capital in Springfield, Illinois. The address will include a proposal for tax relief for Illinois families.

The program will be hosted by Jak Tichenor. This program is part of "Illinois Lawmakers," a series that provides coverage of the Illinois legislature. "Illinois Lawmakers" is a joint production of all Illinois public television stations.

WQPT is a media service of Western Illinois University in Moline, Illinois.

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