Illinois Review

Wirepoints: Soon to be more Chicago pensioners than active workers

From Wirepoints April 22, 2019: 

You can’t help but call it a Ponzi scheme. Not if you look at Chicago’s collapsing demographics and consider how they’re threatening the solvency of the city’s government-run pensions. Chicago households are on the hook for more than $145 billion in state and local retirement debts and there are fewer and fewer people left to pay them.

Consider first Chicago’s falling population. The city’s metropolitan population has fallen four years in a row. It’s the only top-ten city to shrink like that. In all, the Chicago MSA lost 66,000 people between 2014 and 2018.

Read the rest on Wirepoints: Chicago’s pension funds looking more like a collapsing Ponzi scheme

Pro-life, pro-family groups encourage Skillicorn to make 14th CD bid

CHICAGO - Three pro-family groups in Illinois are encouraging state Rep. Allen Skillicorn (R-East Dundee) to seek the Republican nomination for the 14th Congressional - a race state Senator Jim Oberweis (R-North Aurora) has already announced he is pursuing. In addition, Crystal Lake HR specialist Danny Malouf and Republican businessman James Marter are stirring interest in bids, as well.

Skillicorn has been a consistent pro-life, pro-family voice during his first term in the Illinois House, the letter says - just what the 14th CD needs in 2020 to win back the 14th CD from Liberal freshman Democrat Lauren Underwood.

Sanguinetti announces campaign for Republicans to regain IL's 6th CD

Evelyn Sanguinetti with TMA President Steve Rauschenberger - 2018 file photo

WHEATON, IL – Former Lt. Governor Evelyn Sanguinetti announced Monday in her hometown of Wheaton that she is running for Congress in Illinois’ 6th District.

“I am running for Congress to keep the American dream alive,” said Evelyn Sanguinetti. “Only in America can the child of teenage immigrants who grew up on food stamps ascend to college, law school, and become our country’s first Latina Lieutenant Governor. I want my children to have the chance to live their own American dream, which is only possible through liberty, access, and opportunity.”

Gov signs measure taking wind farm standards out of township board hands

CHICAGO - Illinois Gov JB Pritzker signed a bill into law Friday that takes decisions concerning wind farm standards out of township board hands, and extends that power down to counties and local municipalities. Townships will no longer have authority in the process - neither will townships have uniformity within concerning wind farm standards - effective immediately.

The governor wants Illinois to become 100% dependable on renewable energy - a goal he set while running for office in 2018.

The Most Valuable Resource - Human Ingenuity

Human ingenuity is the most valuable resource. Ronald Bailey reports:

Inspired by [Julian] Simon's pioneering analyses, Marian Tupy,* editor of Human Progress at the Cato Institute, and Professor Gale Pooley from Brigham Young University-Hawaii have devised theSimon Abundance Index. Tupy and Pooley use data on 50 different commodities to track their price trajectories over the past 37 years from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The index measures the timeprice of commodities and change in global population to estimate overall resource abundance. They find that the planet's resources became 379.6 percent more abundant between 1980 and 2017.

At 11:00 a.m on Monday, April 22, to mark the 49th anniversary of Earth Day, the Cato Institute is holding a public event to unveil the Simon Abundance Index.

Bad data are boosting “Medicare for All” proposal

The United States spends a lot more per person on health care than other economically advanced countries, yet has lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality rates than many of those countries. The problem, says Bernie Sanders and others, is that we don’t have Medicare for All. But, writes Robert Moffit, non-medical factors and bad statistics, are the real sources of these variations in outcomes:

In a 2017 study for the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found that 74% of American variation in life expectancy—indeed, the largest source of variation—was attributable to behavioral and metabolic risk factors.

The recent annual declines in American life expectancy, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, werelargely attributable to increased drug overdoses (opioids) and suicides.

Illinois spends more per student on school administration than any other state, report finds

And for what? Cole Lauterbach reports:

Illinois spends more on public school administrators per student than any other state in the nation.

A new analysis of public school spending by the Chicago-based Metropolitan Planning Council found Illinois spends $544 per student on administrative, non-teaching costs. That’s more than double the national average. Illinois was the only state that spent more than $1 billion in administrative costs in 2016.

“There’s just a lot of administration going around,” Metropolitan Planning Council Vice President Josh Ellis said.

More HERE

Over half of Illinois' counties declare themselves "gun sanctuaries"

SPRINGFIELD - Two more counties were added to the growing list of Illinois Gun Sanctuary counties this week - Piatt and Wabash - bringing the total up to 62, more than half of the state's 102 counties. 

The updated map, constructed by the Gun Rights Watch group, is colored green for the states that have accepted the "Gun Sanctuary" resolution. Counties colored golden are making progress towards accepting the resolution. Four are listed as voting on the resolution in the near future.

Di Leo: Closing the Book on Mueller Investigation, Writing Chapters to Come

By John F. Di Leo -

After over two years, the dust is finally settling on the Mueller investigation.  The report is out, and it clearly shows what all but the uninformed and the most partisan leftists knew all along: Not only was the allegation of Trump-Russia collusion poppycock from the beginning, but more importantly, the very investigation was unfounded, a hit job that its instigators planned as a sort of internal coup, designed to either take down the administration through a framed impeachment or to utterly hamstring the Trump-Pence administration and reduce its effectiveness.

There is much yet to be done, and it is clear that William Barr was the right man for the job of Attorney General at this point.  We need to investigate the investigators – to determine exactly who, and how many, were responsible for turning the federal bureaucracy into a political weapon.  Some have acted more like the secret police of the communist world, or like the dirty cops who sometimes plant evidence and convict the innocent in our own cities, shaming an otherwise honorable profession with their tyranny.

Illinois' LaHood and Bost respond to Mueller Report

WASHINGTON - Two of Illinois' 17 Congress members released statements Thursday in response to the Mueller Report on a 22 month long investigation concerning the Russians' alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election. 

Congressman Darin LaHood (IL-17) said it's time the Democrats put aside animosity towards President Trump.

“I am pleased to see the release of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s report, which confirms what many of us believed and what was outlined in the Attorney General’s memo: there was no collusion between President Trump, his campaign and the Russians. This is a vindication of President Trump on the issue of Russian collusion,” said LaHood.

Rossi: Time to use our most powerful tools to protect our Republic

By Randy Rossi -

Rasmussen Reports did a poll in June 2018 that showed that roughly one third of Americans believe that we are in our 2^nd Civil War and it will get violent in 5 years. That war is between conservative patriots that support our Constitution, Bill of Rights, Electoral College, and our fundamental American values that made America the most powerful and prosperous nation in the history of the world and those liberals that are attacking all of those American institutions and values to impose socialism and government control on “We the people."

We are indeed at a critical point in our history and we must remember what John Adams warned us of, “There has not been a democracy yet that hasn’t committed suicide”. Over the last 2,600 years the average life of a democracy is just 200 years. If we allow these liberal Democrats to destroy our core institutions and values, they will destroy the world’s oldest continuous democracy. After all, a Gallup poll in August 2018 reported that while 57% of Democrats view socialism favorably, only 47% of Democrats view capitalism favorably! That is our new battleground. Socialism is government control, not freedom!

So my fellow patriots, how can we peacefully win this “2^nd civil war”?  Simple, by using our most powerful nonviolent tools; our money, knowledge, and voting power.

Berg: Polls show voters aren't buying what Pritzker is selling

By Austin Berg, Illinois Policy Institute - 

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s prized constitutional amendment is moving in Springfield, but new polling shows why Illinois House members should stop it.

The Senate Executive Committee on April 10 passed Senate Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 1 – which would eliminate Illinois’ flat tax protection, allow lawmakers to pass new types of income taxes and open the door for the nation’s highest corporate income tax.

But likely voters in House districts held by Democrats aren’t buying what Pritzker is selling.

The Only Solution to Climate Change? Pre-Emptive War with China, India, and Russia

According to Democratic rhetoric, the world will come to an end relatively soon if we do not stop climate change. The only option must then be to go to war with the heaviest polluters, namely China, Russia, and India.

More HERE

Educrats vs. students: the Milwaukee showdown

"Power to the education establishment!" — it could become the rallying cry for Democrats during their 2020 presidential nominating convention in Milwaukee.

"Power to local parents and taxpayers" — well, not so much.

In hawking a proposal to use federal power to give public school teachers a hefty pay raise (more than $13,000) over the next four years, U.S. senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) is catering to a massive group of voters.  Apparently, Harris is trying to buy delegates.

More HERE

Do You Have a Right to Repair? Yes and No

There is a growing legislative movement – yes, elected politicians are always looking for something to do – to create and enforce a “right to repair” your stuff. It applies to cars and trucks but the newest candidate for inclusion concerns your electronic gadgets.

You have probably had experience with the problem. Your iPhone breaks and you are looking for someone to fix it. But then you become aware of a problem. If you take it to a street vendor or some other random repair person, your device falls out of warranty. That’s dangerous because if the repair fails, you have a paperweight instead of a phone.

Pro-Market Legislation?

Public Schools Love Leftist Indoctrination

One of the criticisms teachers unions and other government-schooling factotums level against private schools that accept voucher students is that in many cases they hire teachers who are not state-certified or licensed. In truth, that is one of the great strengths of independent schools. They can employ teachers who have not had to undergo the left-wing indoctrination that is all too common in the state certification mills known as “schools of education.”

Ed-schools long have been the butt of jokes for their low standards and insipid instruction about arcane education theory. They have earned that derision. However, the more substantive criticism is the extent to which many of the leading ed-schools seek to instill a collectivist mindset in the idealistic young people who enroll simply because of their wish to be excellent teachers of K–12 students.

More HERE

Cartoon comparing abortion and slavery: 'hate speech'

The founder of the popular Christian satire site Babylon Bee recently had a post to Instagram comparing abortion to slavery removed by the social media website over claims that it was “hate speech.”

Adam Ford, who sold the Babylon Bee website last year, posted an entry on his Christian Daily Reporter site on Wednesday, explaining that he recently learned that a comic he posted to Instagram last month was taken down.

“Instagram yanked it as ‘hate speech,’” wrote Ford, who included a screengrab of the message he received regarding the post.

More HERE

Beckman: Trump goes "Full Alinksy" on border crisis

By Hank Beckman -

Somewhere, most likely in a place in dire need of air conditioning and one gigantic sprinkler system, Saul Alinsky must be smiling ruefully.

He certainly wouldn’t approve of the policies of Donald John Trump, but he would have to have a grudging admiration for how well the former real estate developer and reality show host recently utilized the radical Chicago organizer’s own fourth rule of tactics: Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.

In Rules for Radicals, Alinsky’s seminal 1971 book that became a primer for radical leftists everywhere—published around the same time he was mentoring a young Hillary Rodham—he reasoned that no enemy could live up to its own standards, any more than “the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”

Thorner: Beware state lawmakers pushing legalized pot

By Nancy Thorner - 

Public town hall events are currently being held throughout Illinois with one purpose: to advance legalizing recreational marijuana use for adults.

The Highland Park Library, hosted by the City of Highland Park, sponsored a town hall discussion Saturday, April 13, from 10-11:30 a.m. In the announcement blurb, individuals of all viewpoints were encouraged to attend to ask questions and learn all about the proposed cannabis legislation. About 100 attended. 

The panel included Representative Bob Morgan (D - 58th District); Senator Julie Morrison (D - 29th District); and State Senator Heather Steans (D-Chicago), sponsor of Senate Bill 7.  It has been two years since the Steans/Cassidy bill legalizing recreational pot was first introduced in Illinois.

Following brief introductions by Representative Bob Morgan and Senator Julie Morrison, Senator Heather Steans gave a Power Point presentation on Cannabis Legalization, designed to convince those in attendance that Illinois knows what it is doing, and that its recreational marijuana program will be well designed for positive results.  As Steans suggested, in some states legalization of recreational marijuana was achieved by referendum.  Doing it legislatively in Illinois is the better way, she said, as it will reflect the feedback received over the past twenty-four months.

Rossi: Bad News Dems, Americans Don’t Like Reparations!

By Randy Rossi - 

In my life time, I have never seen anything more disgusting and insulting than to see most Democrat candidates for president embrace the horrific idea of reparations for slavery just to buy black votes. Al Sharpton asked many Democrat candidates on stage if they would support reparations if elected, and all present said yes obviously to get the black votes that Sharpton influences. The good news for America is that a new Rasmussen poll reports that 66% of Americans oppose the idea of reparations. That’s really bad news for Dems because apparently most Americans see reparations as the sham it is designed to buy black votes with our tax dollars and it will be fun to watch Trump eviscerate whoever wins the Democrat primary for endorsing reparations to buy votes.

But according to that same Rasmussen poll, 21% of Americans do support the idea of reparations and 13% are undecided. Did they flunk their high school history courses that taught them that 600,000 Americans died and 1.2 million were wounded in the Civil War over 154 years ago to free the slaves? That is enough reparations! Or don’t they know that all the Northern states had already made slavery illegal before the Civil War and only 2% of all Americans owned slaves when the Civil War started? I am sure that they don’t know that most if not all the black slaves in America originally came from Africa and were initially enslaved by fellow blacks in tribal wars and then sold for profit by their black brothers and then ended up as slaves in America. How about the uncomfortable truth that 13% of all American slaves were owned by free black men? Slavery has been practiced by virtually every country and every race in the world through history.