Illinois Review

Illinois Democrats to require highest minimum wage in Midwest

Gov Pritzker on IL House floor after minimum wage hike vote | Chicago Tribune photo

SPRINGFIELD— As soon as Tuesday, Gov. JB Pritzker will sign a bill that passed the Illinois General Assembly with backing of Illinois Democrats that will have businesses pay their employees the highest minimum wage in the nation in 2025. 

Thursday, the Illinois House passed SB 1, sending to the new governor a bill he is eagerly anticipating which forces businesses from one end of the Illinois to the other to pay a $15 per hour for entry-level jobs. 

Governor Pritzker was delighted to hear the news, and joined the House members on the floor during the discussion. 

"Today is resounding victory for the 1.4 million Illinoisans who will soon get a hard-earned and well-deserved raise," said Gov. JB Pritzker. "After nearly a decade of delay, I applaud the House and Senate for passing a living wage with the fierce urgency this moment requires.

Di Leo: Not Your Father’s Environment – Changes and Truisms in America Today

By John F. Di Leo -

You may remember the tag line of a popular ad campaign:  “This is NOT your father’s Oldsmobile.”

The company was trying to reinvent its image, to shake the automaker’s reputation as a stodgy businessman’s car company, and recast it as a home of sleek design for hip young people.  

Whether it was successful or not, it was useful as a reminder that nothing is static anymore; some aspects of an issue remain the same, while others are constantly changing.   A famous 1970s book and film, Alvin Toffler’s “Future Shock,” hammered this home for my generation, stressing not only that some things change, but also that the rate of change is now so fast, it’s become difficult to keep one’s bearings.

Thorner/Ingold: The Wilting Green New Deal

By Nancy Thorner & Ed Ingold - 

The Left is proposing ever increasingly ridiculous plans to “save the planet.”  Democrat new Congresswoman from New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [aka AOC], the 29-year-old ditz apparently has become the face and voice of the Democrat Party.  In her Green New Deal AOC even wants to eliminate air travel, replacing it with a high-speed light rail network.   How fun it would be to be there to see AOC off on a train to Puerto Rico which would cross the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean (27,000 feet).

The climate may be changing (it’s too early to tell, since the data is continually “adjusted” to meet the predictions, not the facts). There have been wide swings in global temperature and local precipitation every 200 years or so since antiquity. Egypt was green in the time of the pyramids, and so was the Sahara 5000 years ago. Temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere were up to 10 degrees below “normal” from the mid-16th century until the Civil War in the "Little Ice Age.

Nevins to IL GOP Leadership: Embrace party platform or step down

By Jennifer Nevins = 

On February 9^th, the Illinois Republican Central Committee held an open-to the public meeting. If you are not aware of this, cut yourself some slack: most of the precinct committeemen I know were also unaware of it-which logically means that their committees weren’t aware of it either. Nevertheless, approximately sixty concerned observers attended the meeting; the public portion lasted three hours after which the committee adjourned to do their sausage making in private.

After a bit of jocular banter by Chairman Tim Schneider, a discussion ensued over precisely how much time to allot to non-member statements. In a move that illustrates the leadership’s reluctance to actually listen to its base, the committee members voted to allow sixty seconds per speaker and the microphone was passed around to those interested. Twelve individuals took the opportunity to speak their minds. I was one of them-and - owing to a kind soul who donated his moment in the sun- I took a little more than my allotment.

Rossi: China Loves Democrats' "Green New Deal"

By Randy Rossi -

Anybody living in the “Real World” knows that China has a formal plan to dominate the global economy by knocking the US off the top by 2030. In order to accomplish this, our own government reports that China steals $500 billion a year in US commercial and defense technology to defeat us. In addition, they have stolen millions of US jobs by putting US companies out of business by selling below cost using Chinese government subsidies.

Now Democrats are rushing to China’s side by launching their “Green New Deal” which will totally bankrupt the US by 2030 if they get to implement it. That “Green New Deal” will crush the American economy in every way. In fact, I would propose that China actually wrote this Democrat “Green New Deal” and they are thrilled at how vigorously the liberal Democrats have embraced it!

Walled Separation: The Secular State Must Be a House Divided

By James M. Kushiner, The Fellowship of St. James -  

Confronting the soul is an intellectual exposure that tears open the mind to incalculable questions, the answers to which are not easily earned. Modern man, therefore, believes that his security lies in refraining to raise such issues. Ultimate questions have become the object of his favorite unawareness. Since the dedication to tangible matters is highly rewarded, he does not care to pay attention to imponderable issues and prefers to erect a tower of Babel on the narrow basis of deeper unawareness. (Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion, Abraham Joshua Heschel, p. 191)

Into the Athenian marketplace stepped Paul of Tarsus, Roman citizen, Jewish rabbi. Hearing him preach, the philosophers conveyed him to the Areopagus and bid him speak. He told them,

How to get your child to just say no to socialism

Despite mountains of historical evidence revealing the dangers associated with socialism, support for Karl Marx’s collectivist ideas is steadily increasing.

In an August 2018 Gallup Poll, 51 percent of young people aged 18-29 said they have a favorable opinion of socialism, compared to just 45 percent who said they view capitalism positively. Compare that to 2010, when 68 percent of young people said they view capitalism favorably. That’s a remarkable 33 percent decline in just eight years.

Many parents who support the traditional American values of self-responsibility, individual liberty and free markets, have been left to wonder how they can teach their children the truth about collectivism and resist the rise of socialism.

More HERE

New Mexico House passes ‘most extreme’ pro-abortion bill in America

Last week the New Mexico House of Representatives joined a wave of states passing measures meant to insulate abortion-on-demand from future Supreme Court rulings, with a bill critics are calling the most radical of its kind to date.

By a 40-29 vote, the Democrat-controlled House passed House Bill 51 which would repeal multiple unenforced, pre-Roe sections of the law that criminalized abortion, the Albuquerque Journal reports. Six Democrats crossed the aisle to vote against it; every Republican voted against it except state Rep. Paul Bandy, who was absent.

“It simply removes an antiquated law that criminalizes health care,” Democrat state Rep. Joanne Ferrary, a cosponsor of the bill, claimed. But New Mexico Alliance for Life argues it would not only effectively permit abortions up until birth and eliminate restrictions such as parental involvement, it would also erase “the only explicit conscience protection for doctors and other medical professionals that protect them from being forced to participate in abortions.”

“HB-51 is the most extreme bill in the nation because it keeps elective abortion-up-to-birth, and also seeks to force medical professionals to participate in this practice by stripping away explicit conscience protections from the current statute," the group’s executive director Elisa Martinez told Fox News.

More HERE

No Surprise: Durbin to oppose Trump AG nominee

WASHINGTON - No surprise to Illinoisans, but US Senate Dick Durbin is telling anyone asking that he opposes President Trump's nominee for Attorney General, Bill Barr. 

Durbin writes: 

This week , the Senate will vote on President Trump’s nominee to be the next Attorney General, William Barr. During my meeting with Mr. Barr, and when he testified last month before the Senate Judiciary Committee, I told him I was very concerned about his views regarding transparency for Special Counsel Mueller’s findings and executive power. Before he was nominated by the President,

Mr. Barr volunteered a 19-page memo to the Trump Administration that outlined his beliefs on executive authority, almost foreshadowing how he would approach the Special Counsel’s investigation if he were overseeing it. 

IL GOP 14th CD Committeeman Stan Bond dies of cancer

MONTGOMERY - After being diagnosed with cancer as recently as November 2018, IL GOP 14th CD Committeeman Stan Bond passed away Wednesday morning. 

Bond, who also served as a Montgomery Village Trustee, was honored by Village President Matt Broiley. "I am deeply saddened today by the passing of our friend, Stan Bond,"  he said in a statement. "As anyone who knew Stan can attest, he fully embodied the qualities of a public servant. His deliberate, thoughtful and responsible leadership was matched only by his joyful sense of humor."

El Paso widow recalls husband's 2015 disappearance, pleads for Border Wall

EL PASO - "Moms for America" visited with a woman in El Paso that lost her husband to violent drug cartels that invaded their ranch on the Mexican border. 

On behalf of Moms for America, Will County's Debbie Kraulidis interviewed Liz Uribe-Sinclair, whose husband disappeared in 2015 after Mexican gang members threatened him for testifying against them in a crime case.

Newspapers drop cartoon over Trump insult

CHICAGO - At least a dozen of the 700 newspapers that carry the "Non Sequitur" cartoon strip have cut ties with the distributor and cartoonist over a vulgar comment referring to the president last Sunday, the Hill reports. 

"We fondly say 'Go F### yourself to Trump" the comic says - so discreetly that the distributor says they missed it. The overlooked comment outraged Trump supporters who pressured the newspapers to discontinue.

Thorner: Ploy of "Blackface" Detracts Outrage Over VA Gov Northam's Infanticide Law

By Nancy Thorner - 

By extension, the Democratic party (at least the Southern branch) was the advocate for slavery through the Civil War, and constituted the bulk of the sheet-and-pointy hat brigade through the 1930’s. The Civil Rights Act of 1965 was actively opposed by Democrats, and only signed by Lyndon Johnson through the efforts of Congressional Republicans. Where is the shame? Should not all Democrats in public office resign and retreat to isolated mountaintops for perpetual penance? We can only hope.

UPDATE: Illinois poised to repeal parental notification, partial birth abortion laws

UPDATE: Legislation filed Wednesday.See below the fold.

SPRINGFIELD - Requiring parents to be notified before their minor daughter can undergo an abortion and protecting 20 plus week preborn babies from having their lives ended by partial birth abortions are two "really bad stuff" laws abortion supporters are pushing to repeal in Illinois. 

“House Bill 40 was a very courageous and important first step, and now we’re actually moving down the path of making the vision and the values of House Bill 40 a reality,” ACLU Illinois Executive Director Colleen Connell told reporters Tuesday. “We’re getting rid of all the really bad stuff.”

The ACLU and Planned Parenthood are flexing their powerful muscles in a sympathetic Democrat-controlled Illinois General Assembly with a governor that fully supports their efforts to roll back even the weakest restrictions on abortion in Illinois. Abortion supporters are emboldened and jumping on the timing.

Conservative group urges "no" to Vote-by-Mail bill

SPRINGFIELD - Despite the fact Illinois Democrats hold super majority control of both the Illinois Senate and House as well as the Governor's Mansion, they're pushing to solidify their control in the future by employing the U.S. Post Office as their ballot handler. 

Indeed, in 2018, California - using a vote-by-mail system of harvesting votes - lost a vast majority of their Republican Congress members.

The Green New Deal is Massive New Tax

The Green New Deal is really a plan for a massive tax increase. Jason Isaac writes:

[W]e are not going to figure out how to generate all the power we need and use in America from wind and solar in the next decade. We’re not even going to get close. We do not possess the technology to do this, and current advancements in technology are not remotely on pace to accomplish this in 10 years. The Left dismisses these inconvenient truths by calling the GND their “moonshot.” But the actual Moonshot took tremendous planning, time, money, and technological advances, none of which are present in this absurd proposal.

So if the Green New Deal won’t prevent the end of the world, what is the point of the plan? Simply put, it’s a massive tax on every American, now and in the future, to pay for the Left’s wish list of enormous government programs.

Democrats omit 'so help you God' from oath

A Democratic congresswoman from Colorado chose to omit “God” when administering the oath to witnesses during a hearing on the Trump administration’s family separation policy.

There are better choices than government schools

The American people, and parents in particular, are now faced with two stark choices: Withdraw from the public education system in massive numbers, or prepare for a future of planetary serfdom. It is really that simple. If Americans continue to allow their children to be educated by the government in cooperation with the United Nations, freedom will inevitably be lost, even if it takes another generation or two.

Chicago business leaders join call to protect Dreamers

CHICAGO - More than 100 business leaders - including mega-company heads such as Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, and Apple's Tim Cook - signed onto a letter Monday, appealing to Congress to protect Dreamers - those that entered the U.S. illegally years ago with their parents. 

The letter was published in daily news sources throughout the nation. 

Chicago leaders such as ABIC/IBIC members Chris Crane (Exelon Corporation), Penny Pritzker (PSP Partners), Mike Fernandez (MBF Partners), John Rowe (Exelon Chairman Emeritus and ABIC), Bill Kunkler (CC Industries), Carole Segal (Crate and Barrel), David MacNeil (WeatherTech), Martin Slark (Molex and Koch Industries), Craig Duchossois (Duchossois Group), and many more.

The letter says:

IR Readers disapprove of minimum wage hike

Illinois Review readers that chose to participate in a weekend Facebook poll overwhelmingly chose to reject the proposal to hike the state's minimum wage from its current $8.25 to $15 per hour.

While five percent voted "yes," 95% voted "no." 

Minimum wage hike: How much are Illinoisans willing to pay for pizza?

SPRINGFIELD - Democrat lawmakers that hold all the power to pass or not pass a statewide minimum wage hike will determine whether or not struggling southern Illinois businesses suffer more and downstaters face deeper job layoffs.

"I'm scared," said Mike Monseur, who owns restaurants in Springfield including Godfathers Pizza and Dew Chilli Parlor. "I'm scared for my company, staff and the future of my community and state. How much will people be willing to pay for a pizza? I can only raise my prices so much before people stop buying my product. Many businesses like mine will be forced to turn out the lights."

During a press conference at the Capitol Monday, business owners and operators from across Illinois warned of layoffs, higher prices for consumers and the possibility of moving jobs out of state if legislation is enacted to raise the statewide minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Judicial Watch: El Paso still a major terrorist, opioid and meth hub

EL PASO - The Texas town of El Paso will be in the spotlight Monday night when President Trump visits the southern border town to discuss the issues that emphasize the need for high levels of security. 

The legal group Judicial Watch released a statement Monday saying El Paso is not only a dangerous opiod and meth hub, it is at the center of terrorist traffic. JW's statement:

Beckman: Death culture's ultimate goal? Ridding the world of "undesirables"

Carrie & mother Emma Buck deemed "imbeciles," "sexually promiscuous" in Virginia

By Hank Beckman - 

Seymour Glass, eldest child in J.D. Salinger's fictional family of mid-twentieth century Manhattan intellectuals, once told a radio audience that if an honest man had to say anything on the anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg and the thousands of casualties it produced, he "should simply have come forward and shaken his fist" and walked off the stage.

It’s pretty hard to completely accept Seymour’s argument on the defining battle of the Civil War, although any reasonable person can understand lamenting the loss of human life. But after all, the war did end slavery, an institution that also claimed its share of lives.

But thanks to rhetoric and actions taken by our progressive friends and their current views regarding the value of life, I’ve recently become familiar with the fist-shaking impulse.

Thorner/O'Neil: Blame the mainstream media for its own demise

By Nancy Thorner & Bonnie O'Neil - 

The effectiveness and ultimate impact leaders have on a society are difficult to discern during the time of their service. For instance, serious mistakes were made during President Obama’s administration. The more obvious examples were the tragedy in Benghazi that resulted in the death of our Ambassador and several brave Americans who tried to rescue him; an American border agent murdered during the "Fast & Furious” program; the I.R.S. scandal that identified inconsistencies in the agency's timely responses to Republican applications verses those of Democrats; the AP wiretaps; the Secret Service scandal; and a dozen or more less serious Obama-related infractions that received little publicity. Surprisingly, however, the mainstream media rarely attributed the blame for any of the above mistakes on President Obama.

Rossi: China Loves the Dem’s “Green New Deal”

By Randy Rossi - 

Anybody living in the “Real World” knows that China has a formal plan to dominate the global economy by knocking the US off the top by 2030. In order to accomplish this, our own government reports that China steals $500 billion a year in US commercial and defense technology to defeat us. In addition, they have stolen millions of US jobs by putting US companies out of business by selling below cost using Chinese government subsidies.

Study: Cannabis causes lower grades among students

A new study reveals that cannabis legalisation leads to lower grades and lower academic interest for students.

The research found that grades at Washington Western University declined after Washington became the first US state to legalize recreational marijuana in 2012.

In 2018 there were 528 marijuana retailers in Washington – one supplier for every 1.4 Starbucks in the state.

More HERE

Green New Deal Would Crush Liberal Values

Forget about diversity and localism. Chris Edwards writes:

A contradiction in left-wing politics for decades has been the professed support of community, diversity, localism, and democracy on the one hand with the advocacy of federal power to address society’s ills on the other. The Green New Deal (GND) issued by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and co-sponsors illustrates the contradiction in spades.

The proposed scope of new federal authority under the GND is remarkable. The plan demands a “national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization on a scale not seen since World War II” and a “10-year national mobilization.’’ The use of the war-like “mobilization” is particularly aggressive when talking about peacetime domestic policymaking.

The 10 Most Insane Requirements Of The Green New Deal

What’s in the Green New Deal? David Harsanyi provides some details of the ambitious plan released this week by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.):

Deputy Governor's report blames Rauner for state's poor fiscal condition

CHICAGO - A report on Deputy Governor Daniel Hynes' findings released Thursday about the state's budget blames former Governor Bruce Rauner for Illinois' poor financial condition. The report - distributed by Governor JB Pritzker's office - itself is named "Digging Out: The Rauner Wreckage Report" lines out specific ways Rauner's Ideology and politics worked against the state.

"Four years of failure and ideological warfare in Illinois state government created a mess that will take years to put behind us," Hynes' said in the opening paragraph of the report. "Many of the worst consequences are well-known: more than $1 billion in interest penalties, the decimation of human service providers, college enrollment that dropped by more than 70,000 students, and universities in jeopardy of losing their accreditation.

Blaming Charlottesville on Trump is "extreme nonsense"

Niger Innis (Wikipedia)

The topic of Freedom Journal Institute's "Racism in America" event on March 19th will be addressed by some of the nation's most powerful black conservatives, including Alveda King and Niger Innis. 

This week, Niger Innis addressed the Left constantly referring to Charlottesville to substantiate their accusations that President Trump is racist. 

Innis said the "pinning Charlottesville on Trump is "pure politics," and "extreme nonsense" in a piece featured in Lifezette. 

Where’s Weyermuller? At the 1st Televised Chicago Mayoral Forum

By Mark Weyermuller -

Thursday night I attended the 1st televised mayoral forum at the Union League in Chicago. It was hosted by the Lincoln Forum and shown live on Fox 32 TV. Mike Flannery was the moderator with the top five candidates participating based on several recent polls. The room had about 200 people as a live studio audience.

State rep calls for Chicago to be 51st State

SPRINGFIELD - Thursday, State Rep Brad Halbrook , with the support of his downstate colleagues Chris Miller and Darren Bailey introduced HR 101, suggesting that Illinois split into two states between the City of Chicago and the rest of the state - making Chicago the 51st state.

The resolution's wording is as follows:

WHEREAS, The State of Illinois is often regarded as having two distinct regions, the City of Chicago and downstate Illinois; and

WHEREAS, Even communities north of Chicago are considered "downstate" because they have more in common with rural southern and central Illinois counties than they do with the City of Chicago; and

WHEREAS, The divide between the City of Chicago and downstate Illinois is frequently manifested in electoral results such as the 2010 gubernatorial election in which the Democrat candidate won the election despite only carrying four counties out of 102 counties, and, in fact, did not need to carry any other counties to win because of the margin of victory in Chicago and Cook County; and

Senate moves to hike state minimum wage to $15

SPRINGFIELD - The Illinois Senate quickly passed SB 1 Thursday - a measure that would hike Illinois' minimum wage to $15 from its current $8.25 an hour. The measure passed the Illinois Senate along party lines - Democrats "yes," Republicans "no." 

Within minutes of the passage, Democrat Governor JB Pritzker issued a statement confirming his support for the measure - with no adaptations to regional cost of living as some business groups asked the lawmakers consider adding to the bill.

"I’m pleased that the interests of communities across this state are represented in this bill. Workers in East St. Louis and Peoria, doing the same job, deserve to be paid the same wage as workers in Chicago," Pritzker said. "I also want to be very clear that my administration will propose a balanced budget for the state – taking into account the effect of the new minimum wage."

Rossi: Home Run for President Trump

White House photo

By Randy Rossi - 

It will be interesting to see how the media reports on it, but the vast majority of Americans who watched President Trump’s critical State of the Union speech liked it and agreed with him on most important issues.

Don’t take my word for it, CBS released a scientific poll on it and the results clearly showed that President Trump hit a home run in his speech. According to that CBS poll, 76% of Americans who watched his speech liked it, 72% liked his ideas on illegal immigration, 71% agreed with him that we have a crisis at the border, and 78% thought his second meeting with North Korea was a good idea.

Moody's warns Illinois ... again. Wirepoints holds little hope they'll heed

It's never fun to get a warning - from law enforcement, a doctor or a creditor. But it's never wise to ignored warnings from the experts, either. Illinois was warned this week by a key credit rating agency - Moody's. It remains to be seen how Governor Pritzker and the Illinois General Assembly responds. 

Will they heed the warning, or foolishly blow it off again?

Change It or Obey It? — Why the Constitution is the Solution

The Arguments For Abortion Are Recycled Arguments That Supported Slavery

Erik Erickson writes:

"...The old arguments for slavery made by white plantation owners in the South have been repackaged as the new arguments by white progressives for abortion. Slaves were property the slave owners could do with as they pleased. Now we talk about bodies and how no one else can tell a woman what to do with her body. If she wants to have an abortion, who cares about the kid. It is her property.

Likewise, slaves were not real people according to the plantation owners. Now, babies in the womb are not real people. Slaves were actually better off on plantations than as savages in Africa, defenders of the institution told us. Now we are told it is far better to kill the child than have her be born unwanted or unloved. Slaves, we were told, could not really feel the pain of the beatings. Now, babies in the womb cannot feel pain until they leave the womb. Never mind what science says. Science is a useful tool with which to bludgeon the religious in political fights, but the science says children in the womb can feel pain. We must ignore that to advance the abortion agenda."

More HERE

A Digital Iron Curtain Descends Over the Internet

Why free speech on the web - as we once knew it - will be over within a decade.

A generation of economic pressure failed to regulate the internet. Outraged movie studios and record companies managed to cripple some file sharing pioneers, but broke their teeth on Google’s YouTube. Dot coms like Amazon, Google, Cragislist, eBay and Netflix casually wiped out entire retail industries from the local paper to the video rental place, costing tens of thousands of jobs. And nothing.

No amount of pressure from business interests could close down the internet. Politicians were still too invested in a vision of progress fueled by the growth of something that they did not understand.

"An iron curtain has descended across the Continent," Winston Churchill once warned. A digital iron curtain is now descending over the internet. Free speech as we once knew it will be over in a decade. The internet will still be a noisy place, but it will be a managed noise of echo chambers, a moderated system in which dissenting views will be treated as trolling and purged as quickly as they are identified.

More HERE

Where’s Weyermuller? At Chicago Young Republican Watch Party with Willie Wilson

By Mark Weyermuller - 

The Chicago Young Republicans held a watch party for President Donald J. Trump’s second state of the union address Tuesday night. It was held at McGees Tavern near DePaul University with over 100 attending.

The CYRs are led by new president Chris Myers with Carly Campbell as their vice president. Many members of the Northwest Side GOP Club, led by their president Matt Podgorski and vice president Ammie Kessem, also attended the event.

Chris Myers, Matt Podgorski, Charles Love, & Ammie Kessem

Dr. Orient: The Children, the Caravan and Health

By Jane M. Orient, M.D. -

There are three aspects to the caravan: what is shown by the media; what is there to be seen; and what is unseen.

The focus is on the innocent children, as in the widely circulated photograph of an obese woman with two children lacking pants or shoes, purportedly fleeing tear gas sprayed by cruel law enforcement agents. They are far from home, in a very dangerous place, in violation of the laws of Mexico.

Would Child Protective Services accuse an American citizen of child abuse and neglect, and take the children into foster care?

Thousands of migrants are crammed together in Tijuana, many outdoors, and about a third of them are already sick. Without sanitation, outdoors in the rain, many more will become ill. Several cases of tuberculosis, chicken pox, and HIV have already been reported.

Thorner: Former US Attorney says Mueller investigations place America under seige

Sidney Powell

By Nancy Thorner - 

“We are in a war for the heart and soul of America.  Under siege from every single front with sixteen on-going investigations, President Trump is fighting for his life in an all-out assault on everything he is trying to do.” 

Chilling words from the perspective of Sidney Powell, an experienced federal appeals attorney that has served in three different U.S. attorneys' offices and as Appellate Section Chief in two Texas districts. 

Powell is the author of "Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice," a book everyone should read to understand current events and how our Department of Justice has perverted the rule of law.

She was featured at the annual Gathering of Eagles in St. Louis last month with Phyllis Schlafly Eagles leaders from throughout the nation.

Why You Can't Argue with a Leftist

When two people share the same goals, they can disagree – even strongly disagree – and still have a productive discussion about how to reach those shared objectives. As comedian and author Owen Benjamin explains, the problem with America today is we no longer share the same goals, and that’s tearing us apart.

Vermont to Christian school students: You're unwelcome

A new lawsuit has been filed against the chiefs of the Vermont Agency of Education and the Vermont State Colleges System over a program that singles out students from religious schools and tells them they are unwelcome in a program that includes all other students.

 

Officials with the Alliance Defending Freedom have filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Vermont against Daniel French of the Vermont Agency of Education and George B. Spaulding of the Vermont State Colleges System.

The case is being brought on behalf of several students and parents Christopher and Jill Messineo and Russell and Selena Senesac, as well as the Catholic Diocese in Burlington.

More HER

China’s social control technology is helping Maduro in Venezuela

James Roberts writes: "Maduro clings to power, thanks in part to Russian arms, and to the high-tech design and implementation of this new “Fatherland” system of totalitarian control.

And from whom did Maduro (and his Cuban puppet masters) receive this cyber warfare help? From the communist regime of Chinese President Xi Jinping, of course. More precisely, from ZTE, a manufacturer of telecommunications equipment and software systems that is heavily influenced (if not outright controlled) by the Chinese government. Venezuela’s state-owned telecommunications company is using ZTE equipment.

Kushiner: Ill-Fated Life Applause & Cheers for the Dying Lives of Others?

By James M. Kushiner, The Fellowship of St. James - 

When I was young,  I wondered how a virulent moral virus could so infect a nation that they would give power to a man willing to kill millions in death camps. What I puzzled over concerning Hitler, I realized had another expression in the USSR when I became aware of the crimes of Stalin and the fate of those caught in the gulag archipelago.

Soviet Jewish writer Vasily Grossman's dissident novel Life and Fate, published in English in 1985, and finally published in the Soviet Union in 1989, focuses on both the personal and the political in the context of the battle between Stalin and Hitler during World War II. Both men use state-run camps to impose their wills and ideologies.

Illinois considers joining California, New York with $15 minimum wage

SPRINGFIELD – Illinois lawmakers are preparing to introduce legislation nearly doubling the state’s minimum wage from $8.25 to $15 per hour. While anyone in Illinois would be delighted with a nearly 100 percent pay raise, there are negatives that experts warn could happen if such a dramatic hike were to take place – even spread out over ten years.

UPDATE x1: Nebraska senator calls for U.S. Senate to protect born-alive abortion survivors

WASHINGTON - Following Monday night's scheduled roll call votes, U.S. Senator Ben Sasse - Republican from Nebraska - will ask his Senate colleagues unanimous consent to pass the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.

Illinoisans interested in how their representatives to the U.S. Senate Dick Durbin (202.224.2152) and Tammy Duckworth (202 224-2854) will vote may contact their offices before the vote this afternoon.

UPDATE: An Illinois state rep filed a bill late last week to protect babies born alive after abortion. See below. 

Chicago Republican groups side with Dr. Willie Wilson for Mayor

CHICAGO - As Chicago Republican Charles Love said on his Facebook page this weekend,  

There are 14 candidates for Chicago mayor; all Democrats. Here is how I group them.

If you are a Democrat, you have 14 choices.
If you are anti-machine, you have 10 choices.
If you want a black mayor, you have 6 choices.
If you want that black mayor to address issues facing black communities, you have 3 choices.
If you want someone high enough in the polls to win, with the money to finish, you have 5 choices.
If you're not a leftist, you have 4 choices.

Here's what separates them. There's only one candidate that fits each category. Can you guess who?

Last week, two of the most active Republican groups in Chicago announced their picks in the crowded mayoral race as Dr. Willie Wilson.

Democrat continues to refuse to resign as Virginia governor despite racist allegations

Over the weekend, a 35 year old photo on the new governor of Virginia's medical school yearbook launched a movement demanding he resign.

The governor, a Democrat, at first apologized for the photo, then said he didn't remember being in the photo dressed as either a Ku Klux Klan member or with black-face makeup.

He refuses as of Monday morning to resign, although all 2020 Democrat presidential candidates have called on him to step down. 

Freedom's Journal Institute is addressing "Racism in America and the Role of the Church" in March. Check it out: 

Thorner/O'Neil: Battle to protect America's Electoral College heats up

By Nancy Thorner & Bonnie O'Neil - 

A nation's governing system will not be truly a democratic republic unless its citizens are able to choose their representatives through elections that are free and fair.

We have free elections in the U.S., but what about fair elections?  With the 2020 presidential race now under way and given Democrats' desire to take back the White House by any means possible -- for winning is the only things that matters to the Left -- the 2020 election could be the most corrupt and unscrupulous American election ever held.  Will Republicans be prepared to fight back?