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A man who ran for Illinois governor in 2018 was sentenced to four years in prison on charges stemming from threatening two Lake County judges.

Grayson K. Jackson, also known as Kash Jackson and Benjamin Winderweedle, 44, threatened to kill the two judges who presided over an ongoing civil case Jackson was party to during a call in October 2021 to the Lake County Sheriffs Court Security Office, officials said.

Grayson Jackson (Daily Herald Media Group)

The case was prosecuted in DuPage County at the request of Lake County officials to avoid a conflict of interest.

On Thursday afternoon, a DuPage County judge accepted a plea deal negotiated between Jacksons attorney and DuPage prosecutors. The deal called for Jackson to plead guilty to two counts of threatening a public official, a class 3 felony punishable by up to five years in prison. Both sides agreed for Jackson to serve two 4-year terms in prison, one for each count, according to Paul Darrah, a spokesman for the DuPage County States Attorneys Office.

Both sentences will be served concurrently. If Jackson exhibits good behavior while in prison, he will be eligible to serve 50% of his sentence. Jackson also will receive credit for the 479 days he served in Lake County jail while the case was pending, Darrah said.

Four counts of intimidation were dropped, according to court records.

Jackson was taken into custody at his home in Arkansas days after he made the threats and was extradited to Lake County jail.

Jackson, a retired U.S. Navy officer then living in Antioch, ran for governor on the Libertarian Party ticket in 2018 and lost in the general election.

Former governor candidate gets 4 years in prison for threatening Lake County judges

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Former governor candidate gets 4 years in prison for threatening ... - Shaw Local

Ubet, WIThe Libertarian Party of Wisconsin (LPWI) will have two keynote speakers at its annual convention in Milwaukee, Saturday, April 15th. Elizabeth Coquillard and William Henry, who co-direct Liberty Offense, a non-profit organization that addresses constitutional and personal rights violations, will conclude the days events at the evening dinner. Coquillard and Henry work through public and community action to address the issues of rights violations through all branches of government and media.

The LPWI convention, which will take place at the Potawatomi Casino & Hotel, begins at 8 AM, Saturday, April 15th, as part of a weekend for networking, meetings, and party business, including the elections for the Executive Committee for the 2023-2025 term. The events and the convention will simulcast online atwww.lpwi.org.

Coquillard, a noted liberty political activist, and Henry, a veteran and a communications professional, address the Libertarians as a pressure builds among American citizens against the discredited two-party system for the bipartisan inability to solve the material and ethical problems facing America. Coquillard and Henry speak as two private citizens who empower people to fight peacefully for their right of free choice and consent in all political, economic, social, and cultural matters against the ever-increasing, and abusive, power of government

For more info on the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin, the convention and simulcast, or to view the Party platform, please visitwww.lpwi.org.

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Libertarian Party of Wisconsin: Freedom & rights activists will ... - WisPolitics.com

At least three people are running this year to represent northwest Spokane on the City Council, and at least two of them may be familiar to local voters.

Randy McGlenn II, former chair of the state Libertarian Party and active member of his neighborhood councils, was the first to announce his candidacy. He previously made three unsuccessful runs for state legislature.

Christopher Savage, board president for Meals on Wheels Spokane, was the second to announce. This will be his third run in four years for a seat on city council.

Esteban Herevia, who until recently served as president and CEO of Spokane Pride, which organizes the annual Spokane Pride Parade and Festival, was the last to announce. This will be Herevias first run for public office.

Theyre all running for a seat in District 3 held by Councilwoman Karen Stratton, who will reach her term limit at the end of the year. The district, which has two seats, is also represented by Councilman Zack Zappone, whose term is not up until 2025.

The district stretches north from the Spokane River and west of Division Street, and after redistricting in 2022 also includes Brownes Addition. Growth has outstripped infrastructure improvements in some parts of the district, particularly in the North Indian Trail, Five Mile and West Central neighborhoods, according to the districts incumbents.

My district doesnt care who I voted for president, and they dont want political fights, said Stratton in a brief interview. They want safe parks, garbage picked up, streets plowed.

Though Herevia, McGlenn and Savage are the first to announce their candidacy, they might not be the last. Candidates will have until filing week, May 15-19, to throw their hats into the ring.

Unlike other candidates already in the race to represent northwest Spokane, Herevia has never run for public office .

It wasnt my first choice, he joked in an interview. Its not something I thought Id do.

But I care for my community, and I understand that the ways Ive contributed in the nonprofit world could be replicated in civil service.

Like other candidates running for public office, Herevia is running on improving public safety and increasing the citys housing stock.

Also like other candidates, he had few concrete proposals for how to do that, saying he was still at the stage of the campaign where he was focused on listening to the concerns of voters.

I think were at a time in the city where we need mediators, he said.

He emphasized that he wants more resources provided to support law enforcement during domestic violence calls, which can be particularly dangerous to both law enforcement and the public.

Hes also focused on improving the conditions of local streets and other transportation infrastructure, saying hed like to look at finding more room in the budget to patch potholes and maintain roads.

It might seem trivial, but potholes are a big deal, he said. We need to be able to get to work without damaging our cars.

He also said he wants to build better job pipelines for local residents, including by strengthening relationships with local colleges and universities.

We need to be thinking about, how can we be increasing the capacity of our citizens and community members, whether thats through job pathways or their health and well-being? he said.

Originally from California, Herevia moved to Spokane in 2016 to work at Whitworth University.

I fell in love with Spokane, he said. It felt like the right community, the right blend of people.

Today, he works as the Pathways and Inclusion Coordinator for Washington State University Spokane.

Herevia stressed that he is a member of the working class.

Im a renter, I work multiple jobs to pay my rent, so I understand what its like for folks who are living paycheck to paycheck, he said.

McGlenn is no stranger to running for public office. In 2014, 2016 and 2018, he ran as a Libertarian for a seat on the state Legislature against Rep. Marcus Riccelli, D-Spokane.

Though he lost each time to the incumbent, the experience taught him the ropes of running a campaign and listening to constituents, he said in an interview. Hes spent the last seven years earning his stripes, he said, including by serving on the East Central Neighborhood Council for six years, including a stint as its chair.

He serves as the community assembly representative for the West Central Neighborhood Council.

Now in his first run for city-level office, McGlenn said he plans to set aside his party affiliation while trying to bring smart solutions to the nonpartisan City Council seat. He said he was inspired to run for council after witnessing the contentious fight between state and city leaders over Camp Hope.

We need to fix this in our government, this type of tribalism and especially partisan politics in a nonpartisan government, he said.

McGlenn said his focus was on improving public safety, housing and homelessness, though he offered few concrete policy proposals.

I can talk to you all day long about computer networks and technology, but Im not a housing expert or public safety expert, he said. I wouldnt dare work on policy without consulting the experts.

McGlenn had more to say about the process of governance, saying hed like to bring the citys technology into the 21st century and take a long hard look at its budget, including the councils own departmental expenditures on staff.

He emphasized that he would be willing to work with any elected leader or community group to reach consensus.

Bottom line is, I want to make policy that creates a sustainable government, that respects the rights of everyone, that is responsive to our citizens, and making everyone feel heard at city hall, he said.

Though McGlenn was born in Tacoma, he was 3 months old when his family moved to Spokane. He joined the U.S. Army in 1994, working for four years the paper pusher arm of the institution processing assignments and promotions. He went back to school in 2000 to pursue an education in technology, and has worked various positions since graduation in the tech sector, including programming, networking and business technology solutions.

Savage ran unsuccessfully for City Council in 2019 and 2021.

Third times the charm, Savage said in a recent interview. I think Ive troubleshooted a lot and corrected mistakes from past runs, and Im concerned about the direction this city is going.

If elected, Savage said he would provide a different perspective than the councils left-leaning supermajority on myriad issues. He pointed to recent votes on higher fees on new development, saying that he preferred the lighter touch advocated for by Councilman Jonathan Bingle.

His top campaign issues include public safety, housing and homelessness.

Though Savage presented few specific policies to improve public safety, he said that he would better support police, decrying what he felt was a standoff relationship between the council majority and law enforcement.

On affordable housing, Savage said he would work to expand the citys boundary for growth when it revisits the Growth Management Act in 2026.

I dont want to abolish (the GMA), but I want to increase the artificial ring around the city of Spokane to assist with development, he said.

Savage said he supported efforts to create a regional homelessness workgroup in order to cut redundancies in social services.

While he wasnt prepared to make definitive statements on how we would like to reform the citys shelter system, he expressed skepticism that the city was carefully selecting the vendors that provide services.

Savage has lived most of his life in Spokane. He is board president of Meals on Wheels Spokane and the community assembly representative for the Balboa/South Indian Trail Neighborhood Council.

A former Lyft driver, Savage works at Project Beauty Share, a nonprofit that provides hygiene and beauty products to disadvantages women and families.

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Three candidates announce campaigns to represent northwest ... - The Spokesman Review

Incredibly, there is a new effort afoot to allow more child labor in the U.S. The Economic Policy Institute reported earlier this month that violations of child labor laws and proposals to roll back child labor protections are on the rise across the country, including bills under consideration to allow young teenagers to work in meatpacking plants. The Biden administration is belatedly promising to step up enforcement, as it has become clear that employers violate child labor laws with impunity, and children now are working hazardous jobs in every state and across industries, taking jobs in slaughterhouses, construction sites and commercial bakeriespositions that have long been off-limits to American children for nearly a century.

But, as Tyler Walicek notes at Truthout, the problem is not just that the laws are being flouted, because plenty of exploitative child labor is already legal, and enormous numbers of minors, many of them migrant children, are legally employed on U.S. farms, thanks to an underage-labor exemption unique to agriculture. The Atlantic ran a disturbing expose several years ago on children as young as 10 or 11 who work in Americas tobacco fields. The New York Times recently reported that in many parts of the country, middle and high school teachers in English-language learner programs say it is now common for nearly all their students to rush off to long shifts after their classes end.

One would have assumed the debate about child labor to be long since settled. Children deserve to focus on playing, learning, and developing. They shouldnt be sent down mines and into meatpacking plants! But astonishingly, there are still those who justify sending children to work. The libertarian Foundation for Economic Education even published an article called Let The Kids Work, claiming (quite seriously) that working down a mine is an exciting life that children will like because they enjoy danger, and its more interesting than sitting at a desk. The libertarian economist Bryan Caplan makes a similar argument in The Case Against Education, arguing that school sucks so much that for many kids, a job would be better. (I co-authored a review of the book in Current Affairs, and pointed out that this is an argument for making school better, not for sending children to work in Amazon warehouses.)

Some libertarians dont see any philosophical problem with sending kids to work generally. (Although note that its not clear they would send their own children to work in meatpacking plants, and usually what were talking about in practice is whether poor children will be sent to work.) But today, there is an additional justification offered for relaxing the child labor laws, which is that we have something referred to as a labor shortage in the United States: there just arent enough people to work certain jobs. Axios reports that the bills are largely in response to the current hot jobs market, with employers posting an elevated number of openings but struggling to fill positions.

Now, you should always beware of the term labor shortage, because its a kind of propaganda concept. When we say that there arent enough workers to fill certain positions, what were really saying is that there arent enough people willing to accept the terms on which employers are offering jobs. For instance, in Ohio, the state restaurant association has said that most restaurant operators in the state are still short between ten and 20% of the staff and teens could help fill that gap. But an important question is: what would that gap look like if you doubled the wages being offered? Of course, the restaurant association would balk, and claim that such an insane idea would bankrupt them (they always say this when you propose raising wages). But if youre willing to offer better terms, you can get more workers. Its a labor market. If youre not able to buy what you want in it (labor), its not because there arent enough people, its because youre not offering the market rate. Ive written about this before in the context of alleged teacher shortages. The shortage exists in part because the job conditions are shitty and not enough people want to accept them.

TIME reported that one of the companies recently found to have committed serious breaches of child labor laws was employing children in hazardous jobs cleaning equipment like skull splitters, brisket saws, and bone cutters. The company also paid investors a $297 million dividend in 2020, which TIME noted dwarfs the cost of the fine they received for violating the law, making employing child laborers the economically rational thing to do (Milton Friedman might argue it was actually the corporations obligation to maximize shareholder value by exploiting kids.) The company might well argue that they have a hard time getting people other than kids to take dangerous underpaid work. But the response should be: tough. If you want workers to do a job, you have to offer them terms they will accept. If you cant get the workers, its your job as an employer to change the terms. Here at Current Affairs, I wouldnt whine about a worker shortage if I couldnt find anyone to write for ten cents an article. Id realize that I wasnt paying enough. The shortage is a shortage at the given terms, meaning that the very concept has a status quo bias that accepts employers insistences that they have a right to get workers at the rates they prefer.

The worker shortage argument becomes even more absurd when we remember something called the border, and the fact that even as people are complaining that there arent enough workers, were simultaneously deploying physical violence to keep workers out of the country. Earlier this year, Joe Biden expanded a program allowing the administration to quickly expel people from Nicaragua, Cuba and Haiti who illegally cross into the country from Mexico. Biden has even recently made the (both immoral and irrational) decision to deport Russians fleeing conscription by Vladimir Putin. (Immoral because it could be sending them to their deaths, and irrational because its literally handing over new recruits for Russias war machine.)

This supposed need for workers comes at a time when we are literally physically expelling workers. Why would you deport people who want nothing more than to stay in this country and make a livelihood here? The situation in the contemporary U.S. is pure insanity: people are trying to send children to work, while handcuffing and shipping out adults who are looking for jobs. Just open the border! Let people in! Its incredible the kind of double cruelty here. Its cruel to ruin a childhood with immiserating labor, and its cruel to ruin an adults life by tearing them away from their family. (There was much outrage at Donald Trump for his family separation policy, but too many liberals forgetor dont carethat all immigration enforcement involves family separation.)

U.S. immigration policy has deadly consequences. The Biden administration has infamously followed Trump in refusing to allow asylum-seekers to cross into the U.S. to apply for asylum, thus forcing them to stay in dangerous Mexican border towns where they can be targets of a vicious criminal business that kidnaps them and can torture them for weeks, extorting thousands of dollars of ransom from their relatives over the phone. Just this week, dozens of migrants in a crowded Mexican detention center suffocated and burned to death in a fire, after guards refused to let them out to escape. Earlier this week, frustrated by the U.S. governments useless scheduling app for asylum application appointments, hundreds of Venezuelans tried to cross the border and were turned back by force. Reuters quoted 18-year-old Camila Paz, who was sobbing heavily and pleaded: Please, we just want to get in so we can help our familiesSo I can have a future and help my family. We could give Camila that future at zero cost. Supposedly there is a labor shortage. And yet instead we use brutal force to send her and many others like her back to face poverty and violence.

Now, we should be careful about arguing that immigrants should be allowed to plug the shortage, because as I explained, the shortage presumes keeping the jobs shitty. In desperate refugees, we might easily find a population that (like children) does not have the ability to bargain for better conditions, and would therefore gladly take whatever was on offer. Really, many of the positions that would only be accepted by undocumented people or children should not exist; they should be safer and better-paid. Sometimes, those arguing for fewer restrictions on immigration make the (misguided, in my view) argument that undocumented peoples jobs are jobs Americans wont do. Well, if they wont do them, its probably because theyre inhumane, and citizens have more of an ability to walk away and demand something that meets certain basic conditions.

So, no, we shouldnt just fix our shortage through unrestricted immigration. We should open the borders and raise the minimum wage. And we should keep child labor prohibited. All of this is possible. There are plenty of people who want to work, and God knows employers make enough money to where they can share it fairly with workersremember, profits havent been this high in 70 years. We need to understand that when people claim theres a shortage of workers that needs to be fixed through exploiting kids, theyre not only advocating something hideously cruel, but theyre trying to get us to accept the propagandistic framing that shitty jobs must inevitably be shitty. Its not true. Employers have a choice, but its clear that they will offer the worst and most exploitative conditions they can, unless they are forced to do otherwise.

I debunk pro-child labor arguments at greater length in my new book Responding to the Right: Brief Replies to 25 Conservative Arguments.

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US Companies Complain of Worker Shortages While the US ... - Current Affairs

Countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East have all avoided taking sides on Russia's invasion of Ukraine -- but India's size and power make it the most influential nation to remain neutral, a year into the war.

The world's second-largest country and sixth-largest economy will continue to maintain ties to both Russia and the West with a posture of "strategic ambivalence," experts say, resisting a U.S. push to directly oppose Moscow while calling for "peace" and cooperation on what "common ground" there is.

Indian officials echoed that at this year's Group of 20 foreign ministers' meeting in New Delhi, which ended earlier this month.

"The G20 has the capacity to build consensus and deliver concrete results. We should not allow issues that we cannot resolve together to come in the way of those we can," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a video message at the gathering. "As you meet in the land of Gandhi and the Buddha, I pray that you will draw inspiration from India's civilizational ethos -- to focus not on what divides us, but on what unites us."

Later, India's external affairs minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, alluded to the divisions over the war.

"There were issues and I think the issues, I would say, very frankly, concerned the Ukraine conflict on which there were divergences," Jaishankar said.

Western leaders have been disappointed in India's reluctance to condemn Russian aggression, but they know India's reliance on Russian energy and weapons, paired with past problems with the U.S., present the country with a tempting option for neutrality, said Sahar Khan, a research fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute's Defense and Foreign Policy Department.

At the same time, India is working to diversify its military supply, which is one of its major links to Russia, and has been sending humanitarian aid to Kyiv.

Rick Russow, a senior adviser and chair in U.S.-India policy studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank, said that India is one of the only countries amid the war in Ukraine that is able to "pick up the phone and talk to leadership in both the United States and Russia on the same day."

India currently holds the rotating presidency of the G20 and so hosts an annual slate of events with some of the key nations from around the world, where they focus on economic issues and international relations, emphasizing cooperation.

Western officials have been looking to India to explicitly condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin through this global platform, but they have been met with disappointment.

India has long signaled its ambivalence -- decrying the fighting but, for example, declining to participate in U.N. resolutions against Russia.

Jaishankar said in October that "we have been very clearly against the conflict in Ukraine. We believe that this conflict does not serve the interests of anybody. Neither the participants nor indeed of the international community."

At the G20 foreign ministers' meeting this month, Prime Minister Modi's message also conveyed his government's insistence on highlighting domestic issues -- and India's top priorities -- pertaining to the Global South, a category of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America with similar socioeconomic characteristics.

The multi-day meeting included sessions on food security, development cooperation and terrorism, among other topics.

But the topic of Ukraine was unavoidable. Russia and China were the only states who refused to condemn the war, and India maintained its call for a peaceful solution without backing a specific country.

Even before it was selected to host the G20, India had positioned itself as an impartial party to the war.

In September, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said that India was supportive of the territorial integrity of both Ukraine and Russia.

"India has repeatedly emphasized on the immediate cessation of hostilities and the need to resolve the ongoing conflict through dialogue and diplomacy. India's position has also been clear and consistent in so far as respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of the countries concerned," Bagchi said then.

Since Russia's attack on Ukraine began, the U.S has put pressure on India to take a stance, with President Joe Biden acknowledging early in the conflict that India's position on joining anti-Russia efforts was "shaky." And in May, Biden appeared to reference the countries' split on Ukraine during a meeting with Modi and others when he said, "This is more than just a European issue. It's a global issue."

Despite that lack of alignment, the U.S. and India have still maintained a solid partnership in matters of commerce, technology, security and education.

While India seems impartial to the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, especially in its reluctance to condemn Putin, it is acting on a history of reliance on Russia and past sidelining by the West, according to Harsh Pant, vice president of studies and foreign policy at the Observer Research Foundation, an Indian think tank.

In 1998, in response to a series of nuclear weapons tests India conducted near neighboring Pakistan, countries including the U.S. imposed sanctions, leaving India unable to trade in high-end technology or, in the view of Indian officials, defend themselves against Pakistan -- with whom there is a history of sectarian conflict.

Instead, at the time, India found defensive support from post-Cold War Russia, based on a relationship that stretched back to the Soviet Union.

Pant said that much of India's weaponry has for years been manufactured by the Russians, who have also supplied India with energy.

"If you look at India's big platforms like aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, they are all of Soviet vintage, because the Soviet Union was willing to share technology with India," he said.

Russia remains a major supplier of weapons to India and Russian equipment still makes up a large portion of the Indian Armed Forces' force, experts said. And India's dependence on Russian defense materials have been crucial for the country amid a protracted border dispute with China.

But recently, India has attempted to diversify its supply of weapons and develop its own defense industry, resulting in declining Russian arms deliveries to India.

Pant said India previously acquired approximately 80% of its weapons from Russia. That number has dropped down to about 55%.

"It's quite a serious decline in the share of Russian equipment, as it gets diversified to the West," Pant said, noting India has started to buy defense weaponry from the U.S. and Australia, two other countries in the so-called "Quad" that also includes Japan.

That has led to some distance in India and Russia's relationship. Such relationships "don't really change overnight," Pant said. Rather, multiple factors can add up to major changes.

"India and Russia have been drifting apart gradually and that is something that I think needs to be brought out: With or without the Ukraine war, India-Russia relations have been going in a negative direction," Pant said.

The country is updating its defense industry, making it less manpower-heavy and more technology-heavy. Against the backdrop of China-India tensions, Russia's position as China's emerging partner has also made it harder for Russia to preserve its partnership with India.

"China is already threatening India from multiple sides. If Russia also joins the bandwagon, then I think there is a problem. There is going to be a big issue for India, given its defense relationship, given its security environment and given the mismatch between Indians' and Chinese military capabilities," Pant said.

Russow, with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, also said that though India is definitely more involved with Russia, the country believes its future lies closer to Western powers.

"Things are working out for India," said Khan, at the Cato Institute. "They're getting some criticism, but they're fine."

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What's behind India's strategic neutrality on Russia's invasion of Ukraine - ABC News