Illinois Review

Happy 2013!

Five Mainstream Republican Resolutions for 2013

By John F. Di Leo -

Time once again for a list of New Year’s Resolutions for the Republican Party. The party leaders haven’t taken my advice these past few years, so there’s no reason to believe they shall this year, but who knows? Perhaps if things get too dire, they’ll start looking to bloggers for solutions to the problems that their top consultants haven’t been able to solve. One can but hope.

1.  Learn the Meaning of Compromise

This isn’t entirely fair, but it’s still a good place to begin. Republicans are notorious for conceding defeat before negotiations begin.

Let’s say for example that the Republicans know that a 30% tax rate cut would be the best thing to spur the economy, create jobs, and restore upward mobility to all demographics. But the Democrats are still clamoring for a 30% tax increase because they’ve drunk so much Keynesian kool-aid that their veins run purple with the stuff.

Republicans Cave Big Time--Not one dime in cuts

By Mark Rhoads -

They don't call US Senate Republicans the stupid party for nothing.  If they take the latest deal from Harry Reid, not a single dime of spending will be cut now or ever in the future.  If Tea Party Republicans in the House go for this horrible deal, even with a modest compromise from Democrats on tax rates, John Boehner has failed as a GOP leader if the House approves.  Never in the future will any Congress or any president of either existing party cut any spending at all until the government is forced into bankruptcy.  It CAN happen. 

Chained to national debt

Artist Jon McNaughton portrays Americans chained to national debt:

Are We Helping Poor Americans?

From Heritage Foundation -

At the end of the year, many people take time to make charitable donations. But caring for those in need is a year-round responsibility—and when it comes to public policy, conservatives have an important opportunity to articulate an effective response to poverty and social breakdown in America.

A half-century into the War on Poverty, liberals can hardly declare victory. But they can claim the dominant anti-poverty narrative: Fight poverty by spending more, by starting another federal program.

Americans seldom look to conservatives for policy answers to the problems of poverty.

That’s not to say we don’t have answers. To the contrary, we’ve had important policy successes. The 1996 welfare reform rises to the top. School choice, which allows low-income parents to get their children out of failing and often violent public schools, is another a vital example of a policy that can help lift those in poverty and give them a chance at a different future. ...More HERE

Demand a plan to end Celebrity hypocrisy

Hollywood's demand for a plan to end gun violence has stirred all types of reactions - from Constitution lovers to Generation Y'ers. Here's another thoughtful response -

Hollywood Demands "A Plan" to Stop Gun Violence

By Mark Rhoads - 

I have never owned any firearm and I am not a member of the NRA.  However, I do think the Supreme Court made the right decision (District of Columbia v. Heller, 54 U.S. 570 (2008),when it said that the Second Amendment right to own a firearm is a personal right.  But like anyone who cares about the safety of children, I was sick about the senseless killings at Sandy Hook school and other public spaces. 

We have seen the Hollywood celebrities mindlessly babbling about the need for some non-specific "plan" and we have seen the video responses showing some of the same celebrities mowing down their enemies with automatic weapons in movies.  I merely want to make this simple point.  For Hollywood, of all American institutions, to demand an end to the culture of gun violence is like Typhoid Mary demanding an end to contagious disease.

Hillary Clinton hospitalized with blood clot following recent concussion

NEW YORK - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been admitted to the hospital with a blood clot following a concussion, according to The Associated Press.

According to CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan a spokesperson for Secretary Clinton confirmed that the former First Lady and 2008 presidential candidate has been taken to New York Presbyterian hospital where she will be under observation for the next 48 hours.

The Most Under-Reported Stories of 2012

By Teri O'Brien -

Well, Kids, we made it through another year, one that started with so much promise, and that is ending with the country, having failed to heed our urgent warnings, doing a Thelma-and-Louise dive over the “fiscal cliff” with our gangsta Dear Reader in the driver’s seat . We’ve known for months that the consequences of this plunge are the stuff of liberals’ wet dreams; specifically, increasing taxes on productive citizens and slashing military spending while leaving the billions thrown down their precious social welfare ratholes untouched. We’ll be on top of the latest, as the Senate meets today to try to avoid what is described as a potential disaster. Is it my imagination, or didn’t these weasels see this coming for the last two years? Who are these guys who want even more of our hard-earned money? They make high school students who wait until the night before term papers are due appear to have it together.   

We are One coalition demands "iron clad" pension reforms

The same folks that picketed the State Capitol, demanding 2011's 67% state income tax hike, are now attempting to stir public sympathy by telling taxpayers in a "We are One" video how they've made sacrifices for their pensions. Now they want those generous pensions to be "guaranteed."

Perhaps AFSCME, SEIU and teachers' union employees should be reminded that 100 percent of their paychecks come from taxpayers, who've also been forced to make financial sacrifices to pay the portion of their pensions they've not paid in.

"We are One" is a coalition of state employee union members who are demanding their pensions payments be made by the state - and want those payments to be guaranteed. They say they are willing to pay more into the pension kitty, but are unwilling to limit COLA benefit raises or wage hikes.

At the same time, they want to repeal the corporate tax deals that kept major financial entities in Illinois, threatening thousands of jobs and job creators.

France's high court rules millionaire tax unconstitutional

PARIS FRANCE - United States' Democrats might take into consideration what France's top court ruled on millionaire taxes, as Bloomberg reports -

President Francois Hollande’s 75 percent millionaire-tax is unconstitutional because it fails to guarantee taxpayer equality, France’s top court ruled today.

The tax, one of Hollande’s campaign promises, had become a focal point of discontent among entrepreneurs and other wealth creators, some of whom have quit French shores as a result. The ruling comes as the president seeks to cut France’s public deficit to 3 percent of gross domestic product next year from a projected 4.5 percent this year.

Bloomberg writes that France's millionaire tax isn't the only tax the court ruled to be excessive -

Schakowsky accuses GOP of 'literally' taking food from babies

It looks like Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) has been taking lessons from Vice President Joe Biden. Either that or she has become extraordinarily ​comfortable with hyperbole.

“The Republicans, the disdain that I have seen for poor people, for people who are struggling, like senior citizens on Medicare and Social Security, for low income people and the Women Infant Children (WIC) program,” Rep. Schakowsky said during a Friday broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Ed Show.”

“We saw the Republicans, last week, vote [for] spending cuts that would literally take food out of the mouths of hungry babies,” she added, signaling that she has either a remarkably poor understanding of the word “literally” or that she’s interested in a permanent spot on MSNBC. ...More HERE

Obama Urging Illinois Legislature To Support Gay Marriage

A spokesman for President Obama says he is encouraging the Ilinois General Assembly to approve gay-marriage legislation.

Illinois already has a civil-union law on the books, but a bill to legalize same-sex marriages could come up as soon as this week.

The president, a former Illinois state senator from Chicago, previously did not support same-sex marriage until this year as he ran for re-election. ...More HERE

Of fiscal cliffs and realistic resolutions

By Cranky Housewife -

It's just that, what difference does it make? Nothing ever changes anyway.

That one little statement is a major triumph of the Left's stubbornly unending fiscal melt downs, you know. Play it again, Uncle Sam. We're down to the wire. The Republicans are proving to be diplomatically inept against…the superior political intellect?...really?...of the Democrats once again. And all you can manage to think is, "Is it too much to ask that these Bozos just get it done without the drama so that I can enjoy my holidays? I mean, how much are we paying these guys anyway?"

Truth is, this little donkey and elephant show has been on permanent rerun since the Clinton Administration perfected it's War on Republicans during their own little fiscal cliff fiasco – you know, I've always thought that if the Democrats would work half as hard at actually solving the world's problems as they work to annihilate their political enemies and grab power, the country would be strong, well-educated and hunger-free in half a decade. But I supposed their wasted potential is quite beside the point.

The current economic bile that passes for political discourse would be a tragically tedious rehash under the best of circumstances, but how many times have we repeated this fiscal melodrama just this year? And it's almost New Year's Eve. How on earth are we supposed to keep caring about a crisis that's already been scripted to yield maximum economic pain for the producers of this nation and only waits for the clock to run out before that truth is revealed to an audience so overwrought by the absolute angst of it all?

Hollywood Demands a Plan

Numerous Hollywood stars are calling for a plan to end gun violence following the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. No mention in the video of Hollywood being a part of the plan by self-moderation of cinematic violence.

Trotter drops bid to replace Jackson

CHICAGO - State Senator Donne Trotter has decided to drop out of the special 2nd CD Democrat primary. He committed the liberals' self-loathing unpardonable sin of hypocrisy, and to top it off, it involved a gun. 

He is facing criminal charges for carrying a gun into a Chicago airport.

"Lincoln" Worth the Time, but Not Hyde Park

By Mark Rhoads -

I was very glad I took three hours and thirty minutes to see Daniel Day Lewis perform as Abraham Lincoln. In spite of a left of center screen writer and one or two needless vulgar words, the central plot device of a vote in the US House for the 13th Amendment gave a good structure to the story even if the film had too many final scenes. I was also glad that Bill Murray finally had a chance to perform in a serious role as FDR in "Hyde Park on the Hudson." But Murray's very good job was just not enough to save this movie from the same tedious ground about FDR affairs that has been tread too many times before.  So save your time and money for "Lincoln" but give "Hyde Park on Hudson" a pass.

Hobby Lobby owners choose civil disobedience

As evangelical Christians, the Green Family which owns national Hobby Lobby stores is choosing to obey their God rather than man and defy the Obamacare HHS mandate. On January 1, they will begin racking up federal fines of $1.3 million per day. Liberty University legal professor Ken Kuklowski explains in Breitbart.com -

... Today Hobby Lobby announced that they will not comply with [the HHS] mandate to become complicit in abortion, which the Greens believe ends an innocent human life. Given Hobby Lobby’s size (it has 572 stores employing more than 13,000 people), by violating the HHS Mandate, it will be subject to over $1.3 million in fines per day. That means over $40 million in fines in January alone. If their case takes another ten months to get before the Supreme Court—which would be the earliest it could get there under the normal order of business—the company would incur almost a half-billion dollars in fines. And then of course the Supreme Court would have to write an opinion in what would likely be a split decision with dissenters, which could easily take four or six months and include hundreds of millions of dollars in additional penalties.

This is civil disobedience, consistent with America’s highest traditions when moral issues are at stake.

Cong. Aaron Schock "On the Record" about Fiscal Cliff

Friday night, Congressman Aaron Schock (IL-17) discussed with Fox News' Greta Van Susteran the impending fiscal cliff and how Republicans have tried to negotiate with the President to steer in a different direction.

David McSweeney Appointed to State House

BARRINGTON - Representative elect David McSweeney (R-Barrington Hills) was appointed to the Illinois House of Representatives today to serve the remainder of the term of retiring State Rep. Kent Gaffney (R-Wauconda). McSweeney is set to be officially sworn in on January 6th and will represent the current 52nd district during the 97th General Assembly lame-duck session scheduled from January 6th – 8th.

“I am honored to receive this appointment and now it’s time to get to work and tackle the state’s major fiscal challenges,” said McSweeney. “The 52nd district has a tradition of honest and responsive leadership in government. I will continue that strong tradition and I thank and commend Rep. Gaffney for his service and commitment. Kent has served our state well and I'm confident that he will continue to be a leading voice in helping to solve the major issues that we face. I also want to acknowledge the longtime service of Mark Beaubien to our community.”