Illinois Review

Chris Matthews on Suicide Watch, Jim Lehrer on LSM Excrement List

By Teri O''Brien - 

As usual, Barack Obama's apologists are incapable of accepting the reality that their guy is an unqualified, affirmative-action assisted, thin-skinned empty suit, so they are blaming his pathetic performance in last night's debate on the moderator. From the Politico story entitled, "Colorado presidential debate: Media piles on moderator Jim Lehrer:"

The loser of Wednesday night’s debate, according to many pundits and political commentators?

Moderator Jim Lehrer.

Free Phones and the Loss of Freedoms

By John F. Di Leo -

Statistics are odd things.  They can grab one’s attention; they can utterly fascinate, or they can make one’s eyes glaze over.

Election seasons are a great time for such examples – candidates, parties, and commentators all use statistics to make their points, but all too often, the important issues are lost in the shuffle of challenges or defenses to the statistics.

The modern welfare state presents such a problem.  Consider the “rise of the Obamaphone” in recent years, as a three-decade-old policy of providing the most indigent with a subsidized landline has been translated by the current administration as a commitment to provide 12.5 million voters with the latest cellphones.  Honestly, shouldn’t the recipients be offended that their party hopes their votes can be bought with a free phone?

First, the statistics:  there were about 7.1 million federally-subsidized cellphones in 2008, and that number nearly doubled to 12.5 million during the Obama presidency.  Politicians are sure that these statistics will affect the November elections, especially with the news that about a million of them are in Ohio, the battleground of all battlegrounds.

Kansas' Huelskamp objects to USDA takeover of school lunch programs

The debate about the new federal school lunch program is just heating up and moms aren't happy about what's going on with their kids. Tuesday, Illinois Review editor Fran Eaton wrote about the school lunch debate and urged the real Nutrition Nannies to re-assume their parental rights to make choices for their kids. The "hungry kids" debate continued this morning, when Congressman Tim Huelskamp of Kansas took it to the national level on CBS morning news. Nationwide, taxpayers are funding the lunches of 31 million school age kids now getting between 650 and 850 calorie lunches, approved by the USDA.

Paul Ryan Choice Signals Plan to Go at the One Head On

By Teri O'Brien -

In a little over an hour, Mitt Romney will formally announce, from the deck of the U.S.S. Wisconsin in Norfolk, Virginia, that he has chosen Rep. Paul Ryan as his V.P. choice. I was surprised, and delighted, by this news. I assumed that Mitt would go with the safe choice, Tim Pawlenty. I am happy to be wrong. The selection of Paul Ryan is an excellent one because:

Obama Campaign's Desperation Strategy: Insult Your Intelligence

By Teri O'Brien -

The Obama campaign's desperation has driven them to resort to stunningly outrageous lies, lies so ridiculous that the only explanation is that you are dumber than a box of rocks. Actually, I think they are suing in Ohio for voting rights for boxes of rocks. Someone called me and told me that, a very credible source.

Submitted for your consideration:

Mitt Romney Paid $3M in Federal Taxes in 2010, GE Paid ZERO

Even though he was allegedly a "lifelong Republican,"back in January 2011, Barack Obama selected General Electric's CEO Jeffrey Immelt to head his Jobs Council. I'm not sure I'd put that credential on the resume, big fella.  Mr. Immelt has been called Obama’s Pet CEO. Perhaps that's why Mr. Obama has refrained from demagoguery about the fact that for the last two years, GE has paid ZERO in federal taxes. This isn't something I heard from one of Harry Reid's imaginary friends. From ABC News: 

Corruption, Crony Capitalism and Obama’s Crypto-Communism

By Teri O'Brien -

Today we focus on corruption, crony capitalism and the redistributionist policies of Obama and his merry band of Marxists. Since the Jurassic media shows no interest in investigating and reporting on the lawlessness of the Obama administration, we’re fortunate to have the tireless fighters of government corruption and secrecy, Judicial Watch, who are always at the tip of the spear in the fight. Christopher Farrell, Judicial Watch’s Director of Research and Investigation, will join us to tell us the latest about their terrific work, including the New Black Panther Party case.

Why would Eric Holder’s Justice Department dismiss a slam dunk voter intimidation case against these racist thugs? Are the denials about the involvement of higher-ups in the decision true? In addition, we’ll ask Mr. Farrell about Judicial Watch’s exposure of your tax dollars being funneled into the coffers of another racist bunch of “community organizers,” La Raza.

Obama's calls for tax hikes for those making $250,000 or more

By Meghan Keenan -

President Obama called Monday for Congress to pass another one-year extension of tax cuts for household incomes less than $250,000 in the coming weeks. This plan would leave the issue of whether to extend the cuts to everyone until after the election.

In January, the 2-year extension on the Bush tax cuts that President Obama and Congress agreed on in 2010 will end. 

Obama said that extensions for the rich are “least likely to promote growth” and are a key reason why the federal government has shifted from the surpluses of the 1990s to the deficits that began during George W. Bush’s presidency and continue today. “We can’t afford to keep that up, not right now,” he said. “I just believe that anybody making over $250,000 should go back to the income tax rates we were paying under Bill Clinton.”

Forget the Birth Certificate. Will Obama’s Undoing Be His Social Security Number?

By Teri O'Brien -

While the Inside-the-Beltway geniuses obsess over the Romney campaign’s missteps, and his family vacation, hoping that we won’t notice the reeking stench of our stagnating economy, we in Real America count the days until the voters can undo the bad hiring decision they made in 2008. Even many members of the crowd of slobbering sycophants that helped sell the Obama brand now realize that the packaging was very misleading, as painful as it is for them to admit. This week we’ll ask whether Barack Obama’s undoing will not be the rotten economy, but his manufactured biography. It’s increasingly clear that in 2008 the public was completely had, duped into electing a fictional character. Now, a dogged detective is demanding answers. Will Susan Daniels get Barack Obama disqualified from the ballot in Ohio?

Of course, we can’t depend on Ms. Daniels and the other tireless patriots who have been insisting that Barack Obama is not an Article II “natural born citizen” to rid our country of the scourge that is the Obama presidency. Is the Romney campaign as lame as his opponents in the Lame Stream Media suggest? Were you satisfied with his response to the Supreme Court’s contorted decision on Obamacare and the anemic job numbers released last Friday? If you could give him advice, what would you tell him?

Ignore Your Candidate's Flip-Flops

By Sam Pierce -

Happy Independence Day! That seems to be harder to proclaim as each year passes and our electorate sinks deeper into the abyss of dependence. Perhaps we are celebrating a good run, now irretrievably gone.

Independence Day isn’t the subject of this post, however. I follow some proggie dingbats on Twitter (some of which are Obama campaign staff) and I couldn’t help but notice how they are on the attack over Mitt Romney’s shifting positions on Obamatax and its associated mandate. In the interest of honesty, I should point out that I am sympathetic with their position to a degree. The premise that Mitt Romney and his ardent supporters are flopping and flipping  (and flailing) like John Heinz-Kerry’s Rhode Island docked (for tax-avoidance purposes) yacht caught in a violent storm out at sea, seems to be sadly and sickeningly accurate. The Obamorons are all a-Twitter… but something is missing.

Barack Obama, International Man of Mystery, Rescued by Chief Justice Roberts

By Teri O'Brien -

Thursday morning when I first heard the results of the Obamacare decision, I recalled some words from John Roberts confirmation hearing back in 2005, when he quoted Professor of Law John MacArthur Maguire, who referred to law as the “the wise restraints that make men free.”

Until I read the decision, I assumed that he must be finding some way to show great deference to Congress. In fact, it was just the opposite. As the always brilliant Justice Scalia points out in his dissent, Justice Roberts didn’t interpret the statute. He rewrote it, and he did so in direct contravention of not only the Founders’ plan, as expressed in Federalist Papers, but also in the legislative history. That’s a legalistic way of saying Congress knew what it was doing, and it specifically rejected versions of the Affordable Care Act (I laugh every time I hear that name) that called the “penalty” a “tax.”

Roberts engaged in ridiculous gymnastics, sophistry really, first correctly stating that stretching the Commerce Clause to the point of penalizing those who don’t buy something would make the federal government’s power nearly unlimited, then proceeding to write an opinion that makes the taxing power of the federal government nearly unlimited.

When repeal is no longer enough

By The Cranky Housewife -

Wow. What a difference a day makes. You wake up thinking you're a freeman and voila! Suddenly you're a slave to the State's voracious appetites. Who could have known that Khrushchev was so prescient? Well, wink-wink – I guess Jan Schakowsky did. See video below:

Kinzinger plans to fight government takeover of health care

By Hannah Ihms -

Shortly after the Supreme Court released its decision on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Representative Adam Kinzinger (IL-11) weighed in on the ruling making a formal statement and then answered questions from Washington DC via a phone press conference call. Mr. Kinzinger further explained his thoughts on Obamacare to reporters from various media agencies:

Wanda Rohl this morning said, ‘The government already makes people buy auto insurance. The government already makes people do other things, and we are already paying for the uninsured anyway, so she’d rather have everybody covered. Could you respond to that?’

KInzinger: “I think Wanda’s made it clear that she believes that there’s a huge role for basically a full government takeover of healthcare. It’s an area where we fundamentally disagree. State government—and keep in mind it is state—can make people buy car insurance, but they can’t force people to drive. You don’t have to have a license to simply exist as a person. In this case, it looks like the Supreme Court agreed that the Federal government does not have the power to do that. However, again, [Obamacare proponents] went and said, ‘This is actually a tax increase and the Federal government does have a right to tax.’

“So, from that perspective, this is a tax increase on the American people and it is not saying that the federal government has a right to make people buy something simply for existing.”

Illinois Review interviews State Senate Candidate John Bambenek

By Hannah Ihms, IR Correspondent -

Illinois Review recently interviewed John Bambenek, a conservative Republican candidate running for the 52nd State Senate district which stretches from Champaign to Danville.

Where did you grow up and what do you do for a living?

I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, in Oak Grove. I moved to the University of Illinois for college and that’s where I met my wife and never left. I’ve been in Champaign for seventeen years. Professionally I do electronic fraud prevention, so essentially I deal with Russian hackers trying to steal your credit card and bank account information. 

How did you decide to run for State Senate?

I’ve been active in politics for a while, most actively since I’ve had children and seen the direction of the state in terms of its ever-increasing tax burden, debt burden, and the amount of jobs and opportunities leaving the state. I’m much more conscious as to what kind of future my children will have. With this status quo, they won’t have the kind of opportunities I’ve had, and as a father that’s not really acceptable to me. The way to change that is to change the people who are there.

Illinois Policy Institute blasts IL Republican support for ObamaCare

From Illinois Policy Institute -

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (May 25, 2012) – Late Thursday, Illinois lawmakers approved legislation that would implement ObamaCare two years ahead of schedule in Cook County. Sixteen Republican lawmakers voted for the ObamaCare legislation, bucking the national trend of Republicans standing firm against President Obama’s misguided, big-government health mandate.

Illinois Policy Institute CEO John Tillman released the following statement regarding the Republican support for ObamaCare:

“By partnering with Democrats to implement ObamaCare ahead of schedule in Cook County, these Illinois Republicans and Illinois Republican leadership demonstrated how out of step they are with taxpayers and members of their own party. Unfortunately, this is not the only arena in which Illinois Republicans are the outlier.

Tell them to say NO to tax hikes and ObamaCare

By Kristina Rasmussen, Illinois Policy Institute

You are making a difference, but we're not done yet. Phones at the statehouse have been ringing off the hook since we alerted you last week to mischief in Springfield regarding plans to hike taxes and implement ObamaCare early under the guise of "Medicaid reform."

Concerned citizens are weighing in against misguided policy deals and demanding real reform – such as the 59 savings ideas unveiled by the Institute Monday with state Sens. Kyle McCarter, Sam McCann and Darin LaHood. Together, this multifaceted approach offers more than $2.7 billion in real expenditure reductions.

Writing on the plan, Crain’s political writer Greg Hinz said: “The Illinois Policy Institute says the state can begin to bring Medicaid into balance without cutting reimbursement rates for hospitals and without imposing a $1-a-pack cigarette hike…Some of the ideas clearly make sense, such as better price transparency, worth $185 million a year.”

Where is the leadership​?

By John Tillman, CEO of Illinois Policy Institute -

Every now and then you find out whether leaders and legislators are truly for reform or whether they simply use the concept to advance electoral imperatives. The upcoming votes on Medicaid, pensions and the state budget will be illuminating.

Things are moving quickly in Springfield, and the most urgent issue on deck is Medicaid. Leadership of both parties promised real reform. However, that's not what is being delivered. We're about to be asked to swallow an incomplete reform plan coupled with a tax hike and a disastrous Medicaid rate cut that will hurt the poorest among us. It is not yet clear if we can count on Republican leadership to take a strong and principled stand against this disastrous deal.

Roskam talks cap gains and dividend taxes

WASHINGTON - Congressman Peter Roskam (IL-6) explains the effect of potential federal tax hikes that will dramatically damper the nation's economic recovery:

Angry SEIU Health workers protest budget cuts at State Capitol

SPRINGFIELD - Tuesday, hundreds of SEIU Health Care IL-IN workers protested Governor Pat Quinn's proposed $2.7 billion Medicaid budget cuts, as shown in this SEIU-produced YouTube.

The SEIU website says, "Throughout the day, members called on legislators to support a fair tax system in Illinois that puts community resources before tax breaks for rich corporations." Two years ago, SEIU fully supported the Democrat-backed 67 percent state income tax hike.

As show at the end of the video, SEIU union members chanted the Occupy Wall Street theme, "We are the 99 percent!"

Kicking the pension mess to local governments may be wrong

CHICAGO - Crain's Marc Levine clearly lays out Governor Pat Quinn's pension proposal Friday, and argues that Quinn's plan will wrongfully allow Springfield lawmakers to escape being accountable for passing irreponsible budgets year after year. Those foolish budgets delayed paying pension obligations, while at the same time they bought up new constituents with fancy new entitlement programs. Now the Democratic leadership can't avoid the mess they've made, and Republicans are on the hot seat for going along up until just recently. None of them can continue to kick the can down the road. They're at a dead end.

So Governor Quinn and Speaker Madigan's answer? Kick the can over to local governments to pick up where the state legislature failed. That means local property taxes will be hiked, and taxpayers get taken again. Levine rips on that plan:

Cook County judge overturns Illinois' Amazon Tax Law

A big surprise coming out of Cook County today, overturning Illinois' Amazon Tax Law -

Cook County Circuit Court Judge Robert Lopez Cepero said in court Wednesday that the Illinois law violated the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, which limits who a state can tax, and that the law conflicted with the federal Internet Tax Freedom Act, which prohibits some types of Internet-related taxes. He directed parties to draft an order reflecting his opinion.

The quick decision Wednesday was unexpected, even to officials of the Performance Marketing Association, said PMA Executive Director Rebecca Madigan. “The judge pointed out and agreed with us that the state overreached its boundaries in trying to regulate interstate commerce,” Madigan said.  “We…believe it paves the way for Internet marketing affiliates to get back in business in Illinois.”

However, the battle has just begun, said David Vite, president of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, which supports the law. “This is the first step in a very long battle,” Vite said. “We have seen local judges be overturned regularly on these kinds of questions.”

More about this on the Chicago Tribune.