ACLU:

The American Civil Liberty Union announced today that President Obama’s decision to mandate coverage for birth control does not violate religious liberty.
The ACLU’s Alicia Gay warns that the “powerful lobbying arm of the Catholic Church” mistakenly claims that the HHS contraception mandate violates their religious liberty.
Individuals who choose not to pay for employees’ contraceptives, the ACLU counters, are forcing their beliefs on their employees.

“The fundamental promise of religious liberty in this country doesn’t create a right to impose those views on others, including ignoring civil rights laws or denying critical health care,” Gay insists.

Somehow in the ACLU’s backwards world they think that the “wall of separation” between church and state is only for the church to not infringe upon the government. It is laughable because the founders’ clear intent was to keep government out of religion. It isn’t shocking, they’ve held this belief forever. If an individual wants to mention Jesus in a graduation speech they think it is the beginning of the end, but government forcing a religion to violate its own beliefs is A OK with this dangerous organization.

Just look at this sentence: “Individuals who choose not to pay for employees’ contraceptives, the ACLU counters, are forcing their beliefs on their employees.” So, according to ACLU illogic individuals who do not pay for other people’s contraceptives are somehow forcing their beliefs on others. But somehow on the same coin….the government forcing people who do not believe in contraceptives to pay for those that do are not forcing their beliefs on others. It makes your head spin.

Ed Morrissey is all over this:

The rights in the Constitution are not granted to American citizens because the government decided to offer them beneficently at their discretion. They exist in the document as a testament to our natural rights, part of our innate humanness, and are detailed in the Constitution as a bar to government’s overreach in trampling them. If the ACLU can’t figure that much out, then not only have they jumped the shark, they’ve nuked the fridge and made themselves entirely irrelevant except for the elitist crowd that cheers on tyranny. And that is exactly what has happened with this HHS mandate.

Rhymes With Right:

The ACLU seems to thinkt that if Catholic institutions are not forced to pay for the birth control, sterilization, and abortions of their employees that some substantive right is being violated. That is nonsensical – as nonsensical as arguing that a Jewish nursing home with a kosher kitchen failing to provide bacon and pork products to its non-Jewish employees is somehow an unlawful and illegitimate imposition of Judaism upon those employees.

The reality here is that the ACLU isn’t concerned about the First Amendment here. It is instead concerned about the perpetual extension of the abortion culture in America. As a result, they are willing to see the federal government require that those with moral scruples against abortion be forced to burn a little incense at the altar of Margaret Sanger – or be crushed by the instruments of the state in the same way that the ancient Romans sought to crush the early Christian community for refusing to make such sacrifices at the altar of the emperors.

This isn’t new for the ACLU. They have always been hypocrites when it comes to the first amendment, especially if it conflicts with the abortion agenda. Abortion has always trumped the 1st Amendment as the ACLU’s top priority.

Also see: PJ Tattler
The Barber Shop

Superintendent Todd Carlson of Shawano High School in Shawano, Wisconsin is sorry a student observed his First Amendment rights and had his article published in the school newspaper that denounces homosexuals adopting children. And so Superintendent Carlson is making amends by punishing this Christian kid for being so darn Christian. Superintendent Carlson has also decided in his infinite wisdom to censure this article by having it sent down the memory hole so that no one else will be confronted with this evil Christian’s views.

That’ll show that darn Christian kid, won’t it?

The article, “Should Homosexual Partners Be Bale to Adopt?,” was written by Brandon Wegner who was assigned the task of writing a counter-point to another student’s pro-homosexual adoption article. The piece was then published as an insert in the school newspaper, the Shawano Leader.

Shortly after the newspapers containing the insert were distributed, Superintendent Carlson issued a formal apology to the school and parents, removed the insert from surplus issues of the paper, and censured young Mr. Wegner claiming his article violated the school’s “anti-bullying” policy.

Wegner says that Carlson grabbed him up out of class and began to brow beat him in an attempt to get the kid to disavow his religious-based beliefs. According to Liberty Counsel, a First Amendment law firm, Wegner was quixotically bullied by Superintendent Carlson in an attempt to deter bullying.

Brandon was hauled before the superintendent on charges that he had violated the school’s bullying policy. Superintendent Todd Carlson told him that the column “went against the bullying policy,” and asked him if he “regretted” writing it. When Mr. Wegner stated that he did not regret writing it, and that he stood behind his beliefs, Superintendent Carlson told him that he “had got to be one of the most ignorant kids to try to argue with him about this topic,” that “we have the power to suspend you if we want to” and that the column had “personally offended me, so I know you offended other people!”

Carlson’s action is itself “ignorant.” Ignorant of our American laws, ignorant of tenets of tolerance, ignorant of public comportment, ignorant for abuse of his position as an authority figure, and just plain ignorant in a moral fashion.

Carlson’s bullying also makes the lie to the claim that our schools are meant to teach our children. The truth seems to be that Mr. Carlson simply wants to indoctrinate, not help students come to their own conclusions when offered all sides of the issues.

In fact, the school newspaper deserves kudos for having handled the issue properly. It gave room to advocates of both sides to air their views so that readers could make up their own minds. But Carlson doesn’t want any of this horrid teaching going on. He wants to tell kids what to think based on his own warped, left-wing ideology. None of this freedom of choice nonsense in HIS school, I’ll tell you what.

Superintendent Carlson should be fired. Not because he’s an extremist liberal, but because he has violated this kid’s rights at worst and violated the principals of actual teaching at best. He is no educator. He is an indoctrinator and that is just un-American.

(H/T Moonbattery.com)

One of the Old Media’s favorite ways of attempting to hide the ideological track of a story is to somehow forget to mention to which party someone in the news hails or owes fealty to. In this case it is what they don’t report that misleads. This week we find a classic what-they-don’t-say story concerning the judge that blocked sections of South Carolina’s new immigration law.

For those unaware, U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel temporarily blocked segments of South Carolina’s new immigration laws because he claimed that some of its provisions impinged on federal prerogatives, things over which the state has no jurisdiction.

The South Carolina law was opposed in court by Obama’s left-wing, activist Department of Justice headed by Eric “Fast And Furious” Holder and a gaggle of civil rights groups and Judge Gergel agreed with these attackers issuing an injunction to stop implementation of the provisions in question.

The Old Media reported a lot of details in the story, of course. We learned all about who opposed the provisions, who scoffed at the injunction, in what District Judge Gergel hailed, and in some of the reports we even get to hear what Republican South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley had to say about it all. But one thing few of these news outlets seemed to report might help readers understand the decision better.

Judge Richard Mark Gergel is an Obama appointee.

So we have an Obama appointee — Eric “Fast And Furious” Holder — attacking a state trying desperately to deal with the illegal immigration problem that other Obama appointees won’t deal with and an Obama appointee — Judge Gergel — agreeing with Obama appointee Holder that the struggling state needs a rebuke.

Yet, the Old Media doesn’t see any need to tell us that Obama appointees are agreeing with Obama appointees against a Republican Governor, here? The fact that Judge Gergel is an Obama appointee isn’t relevant?

Imagine that.

Yes, it somehow slipped Politico’s notice that Gergel is an Obama appointee. The Associated Press made the little oopsie, too. Oh, and Reuters must have given their editors the week off for Christmas or something because they missed this fact. AFP missed it, too. Oh, and Bloomberg forgot to mention Gergel’s Obama connection. Naturally The New York Times didn’t bother with this little fact. Shockingly, the L.A. Times somehow neglected the fact that Gergel was an Obama man. It slipped right past the steely eye of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. Even Fox News missed it.

Did anyone note that Judge Gergel was an Obama man? At the time I wrote this only some SC political blogs and a site called the International Business Times bothered to let its reader know that Gergel is an Obama appointee.

Now, we all know that every time we have a Republican president and one of his appointees turns in a judgment that opposes the liberal mindset, the fact that the judge is a GOP appointee is always prominent in the story.

But, gosh darn it, the fact that Judge Gergel is an appointee of the most liberal president in American history just didn’t seem relevant to the Old Media today.

It’s just a little Merry Christmas present to the Old Media’s President Obama.

Ho, ho, ho.

(Washington Post) The Obama administration on Tuesday will wade into the increasingly divisive national debate over new voting laws in several states that could depress turnout among minorities and others who helped elect the president in 2008.

A dozen states this year tightened rules requiring voters to present state-issued photo identification at the polls, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Although Democratic governors vetoed four of the measures, liberal and civil rights groups have been raising alarms about the remaining laws, calling them an “assault on democracy” and an attempt to depress minority voter turnout.

We’ve talked about this numerous times, and, I just have to wonder, is it racist to think that minorities aren’t capable of getting state issued IDs? I think it just might be. It is pretty damned simple to get a state issued ID, and not particularly expensive. Most people have them. They are needed for tons of stuff in our daily lives. Yet, Democrats think minorities, and they are mostly talking about Blacks, do not have one for one reason or another. I bet Eric Holder has an ID. In my previous job, I saw IDs all day long, from people who made lots of money to people in Section 8 housing who lived on welfare. Some of them were minorities, and they all had ID. Who doesn’t have ID? Heck, in some states even illegal aliens have state issued IDs.

With the presidential campaign heating up, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. will deliver a speech Tuesday expressing concerns about the voter-identification laws, along with a Texas redistricting plan before the Supreme Court that fails to take into account the state’s burgeoning Hispanic population, he said in an interview Monday.

“We are a better nation now than we were because more people are involved in the electoral process,’’ Holder said in the interview. “The beauty of this nation, the strength of this nation, is its diversity, and when we try to exclude people from being involved in the process .?.?. we weaken the fabric of this country.’’

First, some people are too uniformed to vote, as witnessed by thinking “hope and change” is a political platform. But, we can’t exclude people, even if they are idiots. Second, can the AG point to anyone being excluded because they do not have ID who could legally vote otherwise? No? Damn.

When it comes to voting fraud, some conservatives have long argued that it is a serious problem, although others say the number of such cases is relatively low. Studies of the issue have reached different conclusions on the extent of the problem.

“You constantly hear about voter fraud .?.?. but you don’t see huge amounts of vote fraud out there,’’ Holder said.

So, the AG of the USA has no problem with some violations of federal law? Is anyone surprised?

Democrats freaked after the 2000 and 2004 elections, claiming massive voter fraud which put Bush in the White House and saw his re-election. They latched on to many things, but one thing that stops some fraud is the requirement for ID. They do not want their people who vote multiple times to have to prove they are who they are. Furthermore, they are having a conniption fit over reduced early voting. Last time I checked, the Constitution gave Congress the duty to choose a voting day, and by law they made it the 1st Tuesday in November following the 1st Monday in November. That’s why it is called “Election Day” not election weeks.

Anyhow, Democrats talk a good game about doing all that can be done to reduce election fraud, but, when push comes to shove, they know it is a necessity in order to get Democrats elected, as Powerline points out in wondering if the Obama admin. is coordinating with left wing groups on this issue.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

“The ACLU has managed to block North Carolina from issuing license plates with a “Choose Life” message because the state legislature declined to also issue “Choose Death” plates.

U.S. District Judge James Fox didn’t put it that way in his Nov. 28 injunction, but he did agree with the ACLU that the absence of an opposing plate violates the First Amendment. The problem arose because lawmakers refused to authorize the “Respect Choice” plate that Planned Parenthood wanted as part of its ongoing “Culture of Death” initiative.

The ruling prompts the question of whether every expression allowed on a license plate must be accompanied by a contrary view, sort of a Fairness Doctrine for motorists.

Tennessee also found itself in court over “Choose Life” plates in 2004 in ACLU of Tennessee v. Bredesen. In 2006, the 6th U.S Circuit Court overturned a district court ruling against the state, saying, “Government can express public policy views by enlisting private volunteers to disseminate its message, and there is no principle under which the First Amendment can be read to prohibit government from doing so because the views are particularly controversial or politically divisive.”

The court pointed out that nobody is forced to buy the “Choose Life” plates, unlike, say, New Hampshire’s “Live Free or Die” plates that all Granite State vehicles must bear.

The current controversy is likely to continue for years, as courts have been all over the map, with some ruling that message plates constitute a “public forum,” and others disagreeing. Twenty-nine states have “Choose Life” plates or have authorized them, according to the Winston-Salem Journal

Source

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

Like nearly every conservative in America today I am unimpressed by the current crop of GOP nominees for president and feel they all have major flaws — especially the two frontrunners Newt and Romney, both of whom have major deficits as far as staunch conservatives are concerned. But at this point I’ve come to realize that I don’t think I care which one of them is nominated. In fact, I think the White House is not where we should be focusing our intensity in 2012.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not saying we shouldn’t vote for whichever GOP nominee wins the game show plaudits. We should absolutely pick one of them and then we all, conservatives and Republicans alike, should vote for him (or her).

So, what am I saying? I am saying that the White House is less important than people are saying it is. Instead, we need a two-point focus for 2012 that doesn’t include the White House. We don’t need 999 points. Just two. 1). Gaining control of Congress and 2). turning Obama out. The identity and purity of our presidential nominee is the last thing we should be worried about at this point. It is a bit late for that anyway.

Let me assure you that I don’t have a favorite in this GOP race. And I have three real dislikes: Romney, Huntsman, and Ron Paul. This article is no stealth shilling for any particular candidate. I really do have big problems with all of them. But, again, I don’t think it matters which of them we pick if we focus on the two points I note above.

First of all, any of the GOP candidates (yes even the cranky uncle of the GOP, Ron Paul) would be better than Obama. But that goes without saying because I am a conservative that votes Republican. No surprise there, really.

But there are reasons besides blind partisanship that any of the GOP nominees is better than Obama. In fact, it can really be boiled down to but one issue that makes getting rid of Obama imperative: the courts. He has been thoroughly destructive to this country with his judicial picks.

Aside from the courts, of course, Obama has been a very destructive president in many ways — another reason to be rid of him. He’s presided over the continued destruction of our business sector and our economy, we all understand. But there’s more.

Obama has already turned his power to regulate into a tool of Big Labor and United Nations-styled socialism. He’s unleashed his extremist appointees and given them the freedom to push every anti-business, anti-worker, anti-American idea they can possibly get through.

There’s more.

Obama has also created all sorts of extra-constitutional czars and “advisory” committees, the President has issued a slew of dangerous executive orders, and he’s made all sorts of horrible moves in foreign policy. But all this can be quickly negated by a new president — quickly in terms relative to how Washington works, anyway. An active new president could make headway to reverse these Obamanations almost immediately. None of these changes, as bad as they are, have the misfortune of being irrevocably permanent.

But there is great danger that another four years of Obama will create, one that cannot be easily reversed. Obama has been steadily placing radical judges on benches throughout this land. His nominees tend to be abortion activists (not just abortion supporters, but out-and-out activists), Big Labor dupes, anti-Second Amendment activists, and the like. Many are so radical that even Democrats haven’t been able to convince themselves to vote them in.

Let’s just take his latest nominee for the DC Court of Appeals for example. Caitlin Halligan, a close associate of the disgraced Eliot Spitzer in New York, is an extremist anti-Second Amendment activist. If she gets on the bench she will take every opportunity she can to damage the Constitution.

A past example is his attempt to put a radical racemongering ACLU member on the bench in California. Obama’s attempt to place Edward Chen on the bench succeeded, unfortunately.

Let us not forget that the Supreme Court of the United States is already in a delicate balance tipped only barely in favor of conservatives. It is easy to see that with the ages of the current oldest members of the court, the next presidential term will see perhaps as many as three chances to replace retiring justices.

As conservatives we must put our desire for a pure conservative president in second place to the pursuit for the next nominees for the US Supreme Court. The fact is, if Obama gets a chance to put more judges on the bench, especially on the SCOTUS, he will be able to damage this country for decades to come.

I can hear just what you are saying at this point. But Warner, you are saying, if we don’t get a pure conservative president we will still get bad judicial picks, won’t we? If we get an abortion lover like Romney (Or is he? Do you believe his miraculous conversion? I don’t) we’ll still get squishes as judges, won’t we?

I’m hearin’ ya, friends, I’m hearin’ ya.

That is why we desperately need to focus on point two: taking the entire Congress under GOP control. And not just GOP control but conservative GOP control. We have the House now, certainly, but we need to make that control stronger. But more importantly we need to take control of the Senate. Both houses of Congress need to be under GOP control and we need to put conservatives in there to do the controlling.

This is the thing, folks. We need to have the most conservative Congress that we can get. A conservative Congress, you see, will drag the squishy Romney, the unpredictable Newt, the isolationist Paul, or any of the others along behind them whether those folks want to go or not. You see, if we have a more conservative Senate, a president will understand that soft, moderate or leans-left judicial nominees will not be acceptable. A conservative Congress — if we as voters force them to toe the line and get active — will force a president to be more conservative despite his inclinations.

As far as judicial nominees go, even if we do get soft nominees that lean conservative only 70% of the time we will have justices that at least act like Americans! If Obama gets another four years he’ll continue to put people on the bench that despise this country. And these people serve for life, don’t forget, so they will be there to continue destroying this country for decades.

This is something we must work hard to prevent. It is imperative that we deny Obama and his extremist, under-the-table agenda from continuing.

It isn’t a happy predicament to be forced to settle for a less conservative president, to be sure. But that is where we are whether we like it or not. Better than we start to realize where the important matters are located and it ain’t in the presidential election as far as GOP nominees is concerned.

(Fox News) The video shows a large animal-like figure walking upright on a ridge on the top of Mount Monadnock, one of New Hampshire’s most popular hiking attractions.

A group of tourists nearby are then interviewed.

“What is it that you saw?” a man’s voice off-camera asks.

“I saw a big hairy man-like creature on the top of Mount Monadnock,” says a teenage boy, clearly having fun with the surreal scene.

“Were you afraid?” another tourist is asked. “I was horribly afraid,” is the answer.

No, it’s not the second coming of Bigfoot, it’s just performance artist Jonathan Doyle in his Yeti suit, who then acted as off-camera interviewer moments later.

Dude’s just having some fun, but, the park rangers apparently had their humor glands removed, because they say he cannot film his follow up film without a permit, because he is a “film crew.” They caught his first performance on Youtube. Obviously, he went and got a permit, right? Er, no

Doyle has now hooked up with New Hampshire’s American Civil Liberties Union and is suing the Rangers for violating his right to “free speech.”

OK, a little bit of politics today. This is simply absurd. Making a film about Bigfoot is not “free speech.” It is not a civil liberty. It is not criticizing the government without fear of retaliation, which is what that part of the 1st Amendment is about. It’s simply a dude making a silly film pretending to be Bigfoot.

And simply the park rangers being stupid and bureaucratic. Said permit would cost $100 and would require that Doyle show proof of $2 million in insurance. There are no “rights” violated, just plain stupidity from the park rangers. What’s next, needing a permit to film your hike on the Mount?

Doyle has actually taken the case to the NH Supreme Court.

Yes, yes, I know that lying on your Internet dating profile is wrong, but let’s not make a federal case out of it. Well, maybe you do want to make a federal case out if it at least if you are the meddlesome Obama, nanny state king, and buttinski extraordinaire. That’s right, Obama wants to make it a federal crime to lie on an Internet dating profile, of all things.

Is there anything this nanny-in-chief doesn’t think is his business?

As CNET.com notes, the U.S. Dept. of Justice is spending its resources to defend anti-hacking laws that would also make it a crime to use a fake name on Facebook or lie about anything — like your weight or height — on an Internet dating service profile.

The DOJ wants to make it a federal crime to violate a “terms of service” policy of the websites and services you join. According to DOJ, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act must allow “prosecutions based upon a violation of terms of service or similar contractual agreement with an employer or provider,” as Richard Downing, the Justice Department’s deputy computer crime chief, told Congress last week.

Opponents of this point of view say that the “crimes” that the DOJ is worried about are already crimes under other statutes and laws and that this new layer is unnecessary.

During his testimony before Congress Downing also tried to ally fears that the DOJ would be interested in prosecuting people for lying on their Internet dating service profile. “We don’t have time or resources to do that,” he told the committee.

But the fact is, if this law passes without this point made explicit, the power will be there to do so and whether the DOJ intends to prosecute these sort of violations now this does not mean a future administration won’t decide it is a good idea!

In fact, let’s note an interesting dichotomy about what the DOJ finds that it is its duty to prosecute. While the DOJ is wringing its hands over someone lying on an Internet dating site profile it is uninterested in attempting to stop people from lying about serving in the U.S. military. My friend Duane Lester also notes that the DOJ is also uninterested in prosecuting criminals for “standing outside a polling place with a billy club intimidating people” from voting!

The sad fact is that there is just no way to account for what this partisan DOJ will prosecute so fears that they are adding even more to their power is a justly feared issue. This is yet another power grab from an already too powerful federal government.

“American Atheists announced Monday on their “No God Blog” a new billboard campaign in their continued effort in “laboring for the civil liberties of atheists,” but in reality just upsetting those who disagree with their theological stance. A press release for the American Atheists’ new holiday season billboard campaign reads:

“American Atheists announced today that their new billboard is going up in several locations nationwide, including the New Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel: the same location as last year’s famous ‘You KNOW it’s a MYTH’ billboard. The new billboard will also be going up in Ohio and Florida.

This year’s holiday season billboard features pictures of Neptune, Jesus, Santa Claus, and the Devil and says, ‘37 Million Americans know MYTHS when they see them. What do you see?’”

Anticipating the inevitability that their billboard will offend others, Dave Silverman, the president of American Atheists, said, “When you question someone’s long-held beliefs and doctrine they are going to be immediately offended and be on the defensive: it’s a known psychological phenomenon.”

More here

Being offensive will always get you disliked. Is that what they aim at? I guess they are so hate-filled that it just bursts out.

Odd that it’s OK for atheists to tell Christians that they are wrong but Christians get attacked for “hate speech” if they tell homosexuals that they are wrong.

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

Earlier this year the State of Illinois moved to force religious-based children’s services to break their religious principles and give children in their charge to homosexual couples. Organizations such as Catholic Charities have been told by the state that they either break their religious principles or face being shut down by the state. So, pursuant to that agenda, the state has determined that all children currently in the hands of religious adoption agencies need to be removed immediately.

Representing Catholic Charities of three Illinois Roman Catholic Dioceses, the Thomas Moore Society filed an emergency motion to prevent the state from removing all the children in its care. Unfortunately, an Illinois appellate court refused to overturn the trial court’s decision to remove the children during the appeal process in which lawyers are now engaged. (Filings here and here.)

Still, other motions made in the emergency motion were granted. Thomas Moore informs that the matter “is now on an expedited schedule for briefing in the Appellate Court.” The fate of the children remains unknown at this point.

So what was so bad that the State of Illinois felt it necessary to take all children away from religious-based organizations? Have there been cases of abuse? Perhaps children’s services from religious-based groups have been rated lowly? Have adopting parents complained?

None of the above. In fact, there is no substantive reason at all for this attack on religious-based children’s services in the Land of Lincoln. Well, no reason except for a left-wing, pro-homosexual political agenda, that is.

You see, the state received precisely one complaint about Catholic Charities. It was from an activist homosexual who complained that the religious-based adoption agencies in the state would not willingly give children up to homosexual couples.

If there has been before such draconian actions taken by government based on a single, hazy, non-substantive complaint — one that did not entail any abuse of children — I’ve never heard tell of it. But here we have such a case. The complaint of one activist pushing the homosexual agenda was enough for the state to decide to force all religious children’s services to either break religious principles and give children to homosexual couples, or face being shut down by the iron fist of the state.

This overt attack on religious-based children’s services hits with interesting timing, too. This month the Illinois Dept. of Children and Family Services gave Catholic Charities its highest rating for children’s services. Catholic Charities received a Level 1 compliance score and was ranked as one of the best foster care providers in the state.

So on one hand, one state agency says that the services Catholic Charities provided to the State’s most vulnerable children is top notch, yet on the other hand another state agency (the Attorney General’s office) says that Catholic Charities is so bad it must be shut down.

It just goes to show that Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan (a Chicago Democrat) has a political agenda and doesn’t really care what’s good for the homeless children of Illinois.