U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said under oath
before a Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday what he has said for well
over a year – that the dormant prison in Thomson, Illinois the federal Justice
Department wants to buy would never hold detainees currently at
Guantanamo Bay.
Instead, the facility, built by the state
government in 2002 only to languish, will house federal inmates. According to the claims by Illinois Democrats and Republicans, the Obama administration, and village of Thomson, use of the prison in such a capacity would revive a downbeat
local economy.
Yet one lawmaker has evidently stopped the
conversion of Thomson Correctional Center to a Federal Bureau of Prisons operated facility: U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf (pictured), a Republican from Virginia. “The matter has
been discussed and debated for over a year,” said U.S. Senator Dick
Durbin, an Illinois Democrat at the Senate committee meeting. “It was
held up by one Republican Congressman.” Read more »
Incumbent U.S. Rep. Bob Dold and Democratic candidate Brad Schneider
packed Lake Forest High School’s auditorium during their first live
debate in the 10th congressional district Sunday afternoon. 
The following is an op-ed from Celeste Meiffren, field director for Illinois PIRG.
While most of Illinois was taking in the 14-year prison sentence of disgraced former governor Rod Blagojevich, hundreds of other state residents were at the nation's capitol yesterday 