Illinois Review

Ben Sasse’s Basic American Civics

A timely lesson in civics from Sen. Ben Sasse. Mike Sabo writes:

American civics has nothing to do with partisanship. It is, rather, the “stuff we’re all supposed to agree on,” no matter our policy differences. It’s the bedrock principles that we were supposed to learn in school – for example, “Congress writes laws, the executive branch enforces laws, and courts apply them,” as Sasse explained.

The American founders believed that all citizens needed a basic working knowledge of republican principles and how the government should properly function. As Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free . . . it expects what never was and never will be.”

Staver: Seize and Destroy - The War on Churches

By Matt Staver - 

In the wee hours of Sunday, May 17, 2020, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot tried to incite hatred against our client, Elim Romanian Pentecostal Church.

That morning, with no notice, the mayor banned people from parking in their own curbside parking spots. Every street-side car for nine blocks surrounding Elim Romanian Pentecostal church was towed. A letter was sent to residents declaring that their cars had been towed because of the church’s refusal to bow to Gov. Pritzker’s illegal church shutdown orders.

The message to Pastor Ionescu and his church was clear – give up now or the entire neighborhood will be punished for your defiance…along with all the church’s members.

NRCC poll shows King closing in on incumbent Democrat Cheri Bustos

EAST MOLINE – As the Illinois 17th Congressional District race tightens one week before the Nov. 3 General Election, Republican challenger Esther Joy King released a fourth TV commercial showing U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos is increasingly leaving constituents behind, a press release from her campaign says.

"Illinois families are struggling, yet Washington ignores us," according to the King spot "Gone Washington." "Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are pushing a devastating agenda, crushing families and small businesses back home and Cheri Bustos is blindly following, voting with Nancy Pelosi 100% of the time, voting against tax relief for families ($1,442 a year)."

"Cheri Bustos, who is she working for, because it's not us?" the spot asks.

Thorner/O’Neil: Our Constitutional Republic is at stake, thanks to expected voter fraud

Cleveland.com photo 

By Nancy Thorner & Bonnie O'Neil - 

How prevalent is voter fraud? Unfortunately, it remains a serious problem in our nation, especially in the states that legalized "Ballot Harvesting.”  

Many citizens have the advantage of having their ballot mailed to them. They can then fill out their ballot and mail it back in the envelope provided by the voter registrar in their state or county.  

Ballot harvesting, however, allows anyone to go door to door and gather other voters’ ballots.  These “gatherers” are often hired to go door to door in areas far from where they live, claiming to citizens they will take their ballots to the proper source; some gatherers even offer to help the individuals fill out their ballots. This might sounds like a nice and thoughtful gesture to employ, particularly for those who are elderly or ill. However, everyone is not honest.  Surrendering your ballot to a stranger is not a good idea, particularly when it isn’t necessary.

Di Leo: It's time to stop lying about Tom Morrison and other GOP lawmakers

By John F. Di Leo -

I was born in Chicago, and I’ve lived in suburban Cook County most of my life.

I am also a law-abiding, employed, patriotic devotee of the vision of our Founding Fathers, particularly the Framers of the Constitution.

Unfortunately, these two facts – my geographical location and my worldview – are at odds.  Because of where I live, I have negligible representation in my government.

Where’s Weyermuller? With President Trump in Waukesha, Wisconsin

By Mark Weyermuller -

President Donald  J. Trump is barnstorming the country holding  huge rallies in battleground states this week. Saturday night,  I headed up to the Waukesha County Airport just north of Milwaukee, Wisconsin to attend his rally.  

Op-ed Marty Ozinga: Springfield should not be trusted with more taxes

An op-ed published first in Crain's Chicago Tuesday am by Marty Ozinga, President of Ozinga Bros - 

Fifty years ago, 116 delegates from 58 state senatorial districts were elected to represent the citizens of Illinois to draft a new state Constitution. My grandpa, Martin Ozinga Jr., was proud to be one of those delegates. One important part of that Constitution was the language limiting the power of the state government to tax its citizens. After much debate, the current state income tax structure was adopted as part of the Illinois Constitution, making it very difficult to change without the approval of a significant majority of the citizens of Illinois. This flat tax structure has been in place ever since. The wisdom of that decision is on the ballot this November.

My grandpa made the argument from the floor that government couldn’t be trusted to keep its word that it would limit the extent as to how many people a graduated tax rate would affect. He reminded people that the federal government’s original income tax was a single digit percentage tax and the government gave assurances at the time that it wouldn’t ever be much more than that. We know how that worked out. He pointed out that government, left unchecked, would continue to tax its citizens more and more. 

Today, there are promises being made that the so called “fair tax” will only affect a small number of higher income residents, that the middle class and lower income earners will not be affected. The likelihood of this being true indefinitely is extremely low. Even if you were inclined to trust what our Springfield politicians are saying about it, those making promises today will not be the people in power tomorrow.

Top-Down White Penitence Is Shaking Up and Roiling the American Workplace

A white physician working in Raleigh, North Carolina, says he has participated in multiple diversity training exercises—including two in the last two years—without a fuss. But he was taken aback when his employer, Duke University Health System, said this summer it will roll out a comprehensive strategy to purge the last vestiges of racism from the workplace.

The way it looks to him, Duke basically wants him to admit he’s a racist and repent.

Like a growing number of organizations around the country responding to the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement, Duke is adopting anti-racist advocacy as an organizational mission.

That mission doesn’t mention time-honored workplace goals like color-blindness, meritocracy, or equal opportunity; instead, its target is the so-called complicity of America and its citizens in “structural racism,” “oppression,” and denialism.

More HERE

Capitalism or Socialism: Which One Is More Democratic?

What is the difference between free-market capitalism and democratic socialism? And which system is actually more fair and responsive to the needs of the people? Here’s a hint: names can be deceiving. Dinesh D’Souza has the answers.

Civil Society Can Usher in a New Era of Education

Civil Society may save American K-12 education. Jude Schwalbach and Garret Hoff write:

It’s an article of faith among many conservatives, and some liberals, that we’re being swept by a Maoist cultural revolution destined to transform American society into a woke collective. Yet before surrendering basics like equality of opportunity, social order, and free speech to leftist authoritarians, we should consider whether they’re the ones who will wind up getting canceled.

Most Americans don’t favor defunding police or instituting race quotas; they are wary of the costs connected with the Green New Deal and of allowing Washington to control local zoning. Many are already voting with their feet, fleeing places that promote these ideas and seeking out areas aligned with more recognizable American values. Over the past 20 years, virtually all the most progressive large states—New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and California—have suffered massive outmigration, while red or purplish states like Florida, Texas, the Carolinas, or Arizona welcome more and more Americans to resettle there. On the metropolitan level, even before Covid-19 accelerated the trend, a steady, largely unacknowledged, movement from the deep-blue core to the less progressive suburbs or exurbs has been underway.

Carlos Ron: Venezuela’s Dictator Hugo Chavez Packed the Courts

By Carlos Ron - 

Almost from the moment Republicans said they intended to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Democrats began to vow they would pack the court if Republicans went through with their plan.

“If [Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell] holds a vote [on a Supreme Court nominee] in 2020, we pack the court in 2021. It’s that simple,” Rep. Joe Kennedy, D-Mass., said the weekend Ginsburg died.

As a Venezuelan, this is not the first time I have seen an authoritarian measure like this. Changing the rules also was a strategy of Hugo Chavez, the former president of Venezuela.

Chavez had two fundamental rules—expel those on the court who were not attached to his party, and add enough seats to ensure his will was done. Chavez increased the number of judges on Venezuela’s highest court from 20 to 32 in 2004, and in so doing secured victories for himself until his death in 2013.

More HERE

Frustrated Suburban Mom to Gov Pritzker: We are done.

An open letter to Governor JB Pritzker from a suburban mom who's had enough with how he's dealing with COVID-19 in Illinois.

She says, "We are done" in a letter posted on "The Politics of Parenting" website.  Part of her thoughts:

Because of you.

Because of you, more restaurants are closing their doors permanently because they cannot survive another shut down.

Because of you more homes will be foreclosed. More cars repossessed. More college funds drained. Hopes and dreams lost as we remain powerless in your hands.

Because of you, another teen suicide was reported just yesterday, because teens are NOT meant to be secluded, and some literally cannot handle the isolation.

Because of you, those parents must grieve a loss that never should have happened.

She continues ... HERE

Pritzker demands more restaurants, bars to serve outside only again - despite snowy weather

COOK COUNTY - It snowed in parts of Cook and DuPage counties Monday, emphasizing how devastating Governor Pritzker's shutdown COVID-19 decrees now expanding to the most-populated Cook County will be for the area's restaurants and bars. In his shutdown orders focused on bars and restaurants, he allows only outside tables, and those until 11:00 PM.

While the Rockford area and Chicago suburban DuPage, Kane, Will and Kankakee counties were shut down last Friday, the governor's office calls for these rules to extend to more areas - Regions 4 (Metro East) and 10 (Cook County) starting Wednesday, October 28 at 12:01 am:

Bars 

• No indoor service 
• All outside bar service closes at 11:00 p.m. 
• All bar patrons should be seated at tables outside 
• No ordering, seating, or congregating at bar (bar stools should be removed)  
• Tables should be 6 feet apart  
• No standing or congregating indoors or outdoors while waiting for a table or exiting 
• No dancing or standing indoors 
• Reservations required for each party 
• No seating of multiple parties at one table 

Restaurants 

• No indoor dining or bar service 
• All outdoor dining closes at 11:00 p.m. 
• Outside dining tables should be 6 feet apart 
• No standing or congregating indoors or outdoors while waiting for a table or exiting 
• Reservations required for each party  
• No seating of multiple parties at one table 

Meetings, Social Events, Gatherings 

• Limit to lesser of 25 guests or 25 percent of overall room capacity 
• No party buses 
• Gaming and Casinos close at 11:00 p.m., are limited to 25 percent capacity, and follow mitigations for bars and restaurants, if applicable 

These mitigations do not currently apply to schools.

Thorner: Censorship and Propaganda Run Rampant in Closing Days of Nov. 3rd Election

By Nancy Thorner - 

“Censoring and propaganda are but two strategies that shape and mold a population." 

Psychiatry professor Albert Biderman’s “chart of coercion” includes the following methods, all of which can be clearly related to the COVID-19 response.  Biderman’s article is worth reading in its entirety, Fear Secures Obedience in Covid-19,War.

The "Chart of Coercion:"

• Isolation techniques — Quarantines, social distancing, isolation from loved ones and solitary confinement.
• Monopolization of perception — Monopolizing the 24/7 news cycle, censoring dissenting views and creating barren environments by closing bars, gyms and restaurants.
• Degradation techniques — Berating, shaming people (or even physically attacking) those who refuse to wear masks or social distance, or generally choose freedom over.
• Induced debility — Being forced to stay at home and not be able to exercise or socialize.
• Threats — Threatening with the removal of your children, prolonged quarantine, closing of your business, fines for noncompliance with mask and social distancing rules, forced vaccination and so on.
• Demonstrating omnipotence/omniscience — Shutting down the whole world, claiming scientific and medical authority.
• Enforcing trivial demands — Examples include family members being forced to stand 6 feet apart at the bank even though they arrived together in the same car, having to wear a mask when you walk into a restaurant, even though you can remove it as soon as you sit down, or having to wear a mask when walking alone on the beach.
• Occasional indulgence — Reopening some stores and restaurants but only at a certain capacity, for example. Part of the coercion plan is that indulgences are always taken away again, though, and they’re already saying we may have to shut down the world again this fall.
• The Trampling of Privacy and Human Rights--The technocracy’s fingerprints are also evident in the invasive, privacy-shredding tracking and tracing programs that have been rolled out around the world, and the repeated warning that unless every man, woman and child gets vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, life will never go back to normal.

The truth is, the technocrats have no intention of ever letting us go back to normal. The plan is to alter society permanently. Part of that alteration is the removal of civil liberties and human rights, and it is now happening at breakneck speed.

Di Leo: Early Voting and the Costs of Lessons Learned

By John F. Di Leo - 

Some of us have been warning you all about the many risks in “early voting” for quite a while... there is always more to learn about candidates, and, strangely enough, most of it hits during the month of October. 

Some of you, for example, voted early, for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris... before the most recent debate, before the huge revelations about Joe Biden's family and their corruption network, which has now proven to be so much bigger than most of us ever suspected. 

How many Americans voted for Biden, days or weeks ago, and are now kicking themselves for voting before all the information was in?

Dr. James Dobson: The national election isn't about you

Dr. James Dobson

COLORADO SPRINGS - Dr. James Dobson, founder of Dr. James Dobson Family Institute and one of America's modern Christian Conservative movement's most revered elders, broke his silence on the upcoming election with an open letter to like-minded voters: 

With all respect, the national election isn’t about you. It certainly isn’t about me. It is about our kids and grandkids. It is about those who are yet to come, if they are allowed to live. This vote has awesome implications for future generations and the nation we love. It is about our Constitution and the immutable, God-given rights it protects. It is about values, and truth, and greatness, and hope. That is why the notion of choosing a president based on frivolous personality characteristics, such as style or rhetoric, misses the mark.

This election is for all the marbles… the next Chief Executive, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Supreme Court. Together, they set the agenda for this country.

If you love America and don’t want it to be “fundamentally transformed,” it is time to do three things:

1. Pray like never before that God will spare this great nation from tyranny and oppression of religious liberty.

2. Volunteer to help your candidates.

3. Vote for the candidates who will best uphold your values and convictions.

Dobson encourages like-minded voters to share his open letter with friends, family, and others whom the reader might influence.

Does Biden Endorse the 'Great Reset'?

Joe Biden delivered a campaign speech in July that contained some language that sounds eerily similar to the talking points provided by the biggest supporters of the socialist Great Reset.

Government Worsened the COVID Crisis

There is no doubt that 2020 has become a unique event in almost everyone’s life due to the Coronavirus and the response of almost all governments everywhere in the world.

Few would disagree that we have been and are living through some unprecedented times in 2020. A global pandemic, government-imposed and mandated lockdowns and shutdowns of much of the world’s economic activities and social interactions, and total government debts that cumulatively are almost equal to the global economy’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

But while comparisons are being made between the impacts and effects of the coronavirus and the Great Depression of the 1930s and the war years of the 1940s, they are not really anywhere alike. To begin with, the Second World War cost the lives of an estimated 50 million people, combining military and civilian lives lost. Advancing and retreating armies and air bombardments undertaken by all sides in that conflict destroyed an immense amount of the world’s physical capital, especially in Europe and parts of Asia. Nothing during the last year comes even close to this from the coronavirus.

More HERE

Sunde: The forgotten child: Pandemic policies are leaving kids behind

By Joseph Sunde - 

The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed many victims, from the millions who have contracted the virus directly to many others who continue to endure its social and economic disruptions.

The suffering has been particularly acute for the children who continue to be confined at home, whether struggling to adapt to remote-learning regimens or remaining mysteriously absent altogether. For low-income and minority families, in particular, the road is even more difficult. As Jonathan Chait recently put it, “The social damage will not be spread evenly.”

Meanwhile, somewhat paradoxically, the public-health case for school reopening seems only to grow stronger. According to economist Emily Oster of Brown University, “Schools do not, in fact, appear to be major spreaders of COVID-19.” Observing a range of evidence from multiple states, Oster summarizes her findings as follows:

The Heinous Team-Up of Harris and Planned Parenthood

As California's attorney general, Kamala proved she'll be the most radical pro-abortion president ever.

It’s hard to believe some pro-life Christians are about to vote for Joe Biden, despite his strong pro-abortion stance and his other anti-Christian, anti-religious liberty policy preferences.

But upon reading a letter from some prominent ones, we see that these so-called Christians aren’t worried much about the killing of preborn babies. Instead, it’s racism and climate change that keeps them up at night.

It’s probably a good thing this group of radical leftists disguised as evangelicals doesn’t care much about abortion, because it’ll have good company if Kamala Harris becomes the next president. (Does anyone really think Biden will finish out his first term?) Then we’ll have the most radical pro-abortion president in American history.

More HERE