Illinois Review

Schakowsky's check-kiting husband behind Trump rally violence, undercover video reveals

WASHINGTON - If you think accusations of corruption and election rigging are "loser hysteria," you need to take a few minutes and watch James O'Keefe's latest undercover video released Monday morning.

The video features the escapades of Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky's check-kiting husband Bob Creamer, who, according to one of his operatives, is a key instigator of Trump rally violence.

At about 3:30 in O'Keefe's latest 16 minute video, the subject turns to Bob Creamer, starting with an undercover interview with Creamer. 

"Wherever Trump and Pence are going to be, we have events," Creamer tells the undercover reporter. "And we have a whole team across the country that does that. Both consultants and people from the Democratic Party apparatus and people from the campaign, the Clinton campaign. And my role in the campaign is to manage all that."

O'Keefe provides background: 

Bob Creamer is Democracy Partners. He is the husband of Jan Schakowsky, a Democratic congresswoman from Chicago. In 2005, he pled guilty to tax violations and bank fraud. He was convicted and sentenced to five months in prison and 11 months of house arrest. He founded Democracy Partners in 2011. 

Creamer goes on in the undercover interview. "Just for a little orientation, Democracy Partners is kind of a group practice of a variety of consultants that do, essentially, a wide variety of different kinds of political consulting."

One of Creamer's associates says, "Bob Creamer is diabolical, and I love him for it." 

Starkehaus: Is it a mystery that Chicago Catholics have given up on their religion?

Cardinal Bernadin - 1996 Associated Press photo

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

The January edition of Chicago Magazine explores the question, "Why is Chicago losing its Catholics?" This article by Elizabeth Fenner is the exactly formulaic reaction that one might expect from progressivist publication that has enjoyed watching a conservative Pope resign from office to be replaced with a progressivist Holy See and a conservative Cardinal of Chicago resign to be replaced with a progressivist Archbishop.

With all due candor, Catholic Leftists (which is an oxymoron if I ever did hear one…Marx was a jealous god that didn't believe in sharing power) have their pied pipers in place, and it is time for members of an obedient media to write the script for the new collectivist mandates.

Why are Chicago Catholics leaving the Church? Well, it's clear from Chicago Magazine and from other sources in the mainstream media that Chicagoans and Americans as a whole are just too darned cosmopolitan for the small thinking of traditional Catholicism, which holds humanity back from its real potential by setting standards of proper conduct when it should be busying itself with social and environmental justice. Where does the Church get off anyway? It's filled with sinners and hypocrites. The world is changing and the Church must change with it. So it is written in Chicago Magazine's opinion poll, so it must be done.

New Poll: Oberweis within 10 points of Durbin; Rauner 8 points ahead of Quinn

CHICAGO - Yet another poll released Monday shows Republican Jim Oberweis within a "lower than expected" ten points of incumbent U.S. Senator Dick Durbin.

A Gravis poll for the national conservative publication Human Events released Monday shows Durbin with 48 percent to Oberweis' 38 percent, with 14 percent undecided. 

If it's true, Durbin's showing - as one of the highest-ranking Democrats in the U.S. Senate - is "not very impressive," Crain's Chicago Greg Hinz said. 

The 567 likely voters from Barack Obama's home state were also asked, “Do you approve or disapprove of President Obama’s job performance?” 48% of those polled held a disapproving opinion of the President’s job performance, while 45% ‘Approved’ of his job performance – and 7% of those polled were ‘Unsure’.

Starkehaus: SCOTUS Rulings – hardly worth celebrating

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

This week in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court sided with Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties, which objected to Obamacare's contraception coverage mandates and said such coverage imposed a substantial burden to their religious freedom.

In a different 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that Illinois can't force home health care workers to pay dues to unions. This applies most directly to the Illinois home care providers who challenged a state decision to classify them as public employees and require them to pay fees to a union.

Conservatives are elated because we have won two battles in our war against outrage and perversion of law. Let us scramble to catch the crumbs of liberty that this tiny victory bestows upon its citizen dogs as they have fallen off the plates of our autocratic masters. Let us pat ourselves on the backs just as our typical premature celebration of victory requires. Let us drop our defenses and delude ourselves that these judgments mark a drastic shift in direction, and that we at last have momentum on our side.

Forget that a 5 to 4 decision means that there are four men and women sitting as Justices of the Supreme Court who disregard the document that they have sworn to uphold as one disregards the used tissue that has been tossed into the garbage. Forget that a 5 to 4 decision means that there are five men who must now vow to live forever acting as buffers against indiscriminate power grabs because no Republican president would dare nominate a constitutional originalist to the Supreme Court for fear it might upset the applecart of phony intellectualism that bleeds from the hearts of progressives.

Op/Ed: Who's Really To Blame For Illinois' Pension Mess?

By Allen Skillicorn - 

Let's go back to May 2005. Rod Blagojevich wasn't in a Colorado prison cell, he was still in his first term as Illinois’ Governor. 2005 was the top of the housing boom, so the economy was humming along and tax revenue was flowing in. The unemployment rate was 5.9%, not as good as the national average at that time, but significantly better than today's 9.2% rate. 

We keep hearing IL's public sector unions blame the legislature for missing pension payments. While I agree that the State shares responsibility in the underfunding and promising over-generous benefits, that's not the entire picture.

Illinois has a May 31st deadline to pass fiscal bills, so they can be enacted January 1st of the next year. Governor Blagojevich, Speaker Madigan, and Senate President Jones had a plan to spend the annual pension payment on more social programs instead of investing the payment in the pension system. Today we call it a "pension holiday." The plan also included pension sweeteners and the infamous government-pensions-for-union-bosses scheme. It was passed by Democratic Party members in both the House and Senate on May 31st, 2005. Details can be found in Senate Bill 27.

Kass: Republicans weakened by NSA revelations

By John Kass - 

Yes, President Big Brother has been hurt by the National Security Agency domestic spying scandal.

He once campaigned for the White House as a champion of civil liberties, and now he haplessly defends the NSA's secret data mining of the American people, our cellphones, our email and our thoughts even as we type them.

And while sales figures skyrocket for George Orwell's novel "1984," I'd like to ask you to try an experiment.

Try swimming against the current of common wisdom. It won't hurt, I promise.

Certainly, Obama doesn't benefit from the NSA scandal, especially coming after the other scandals involving Benghazi and the IRS targeting conservatives and libertarians for their political and religious beliefs. But there is one group that has been seriously weakened by the revelations about the NSA:

The Republicans.

CTU brings in nationally-renowned organizer to protest school closings

CHICAGO - Chicagoans, get ready for fun and excitement as a top-tier community organizer named Lisa Fithian prepares to bring her antics to Chicago to protest proposed school closures. Six months ago, she was at the Michigan State Capitol on the floor, moaning about right to work legislation.

Walsh clarifies stance on abortion

ELK GROVE VILLAGE - "Ms. Duckworth will likely spend the next 19 days talking about abortion," Congressman Joe Walsh said Friday after comments about abortion Thursday night during a WTTW debate stirred controversy. "I will spend the next 19 days talking about jobs, the economy, our debt and what I intend to do to get this country working again."

Chicago Park District SEIU member speaks out

TINLEY PARK - One of Illinois Review's more popular videos is of an SEIU Local 73 member, who spoke out in 2010 against his union using his dues to promote candidates he could never support. In 2012, Local 73 has donated an average of $15k per month to the Local 73's "BiPartisan" PAC.

Below is how SEIU Local 73's "Bi-partisan" Committee spent Mike's dues - not too "bi-partisan." 

Dearest Democrats, Re: Campaign Finance

By Sam Pierce -

Dearest Democrats,

I am a former Republican who will be voting Republican in the 2012 Presidential Election only due to the magnitude of the damage which may be done at the hands of our first composite President if he gets a second term. (Not that I would ever consider voting for a modern Democrat, but would love to vote for a more honest, constitutionally correct alternative to one of the two primary sources of our nation’s woes.) I shudder to think what the product of no parents, communist indoctrination, and brainwashing at the hands of 60′s hippy terrorists like mentor Bill Ayers might do with the type of “flexibility” he promised Putin. Our nation is not what it was intended to be, but I’ll be damned if Barack Obama is satisfied with the level of statism and government intrusion that we already endure.

I don’t want to get too far off topic, so I will get to it. Your party seems to make a lot of noise regarding campaign finance. Oh, I know there are squishy, “moderate” McCain Republicans who can’t help but to think like Democrats on such matters, as well. Your advocacy for constricting the the supply of campaign cash and in-kind support for your opponents (a.k.a. those who are more likely to follow the Constitution) through federal law and regulation is somewhat disgusting and disingenuous. That is, unless you are open and honest about the fact that you seek to allow unfettered in-kind donations to your candidates while using the federal government to choke off the support of more liberty-minded candidates.

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!"

Walker is in trouble, but Quinn i not?

By Fran Eaton -

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has delivered a balanced budget, cut in property taxes and no income tax hike. Gov Pat Quinn has delivered historic pension debt, budget deficits and a 67% state income tax hike. Guess which of the two is facing political pressure and possible removal from office? Go figure.

More frustration vented in my Southtown Star "Always Right" column today.

Oh, and if you're so inclined, please "LIKE" on the Southtown page. The editors need to know someone agrees with my viewpoint. Check out the "No Fan of Fran" letter to the Southtown Star editors today HERE

Kinzinger and Kirk oppose SOPA

U.S. Senator Mark Kirk and Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-11) released statements declaring their position on Hollywood's effort to pass the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA):

From Kinzinger: "American entrepreneurialism is vitally important to the economy and is something I believe we must protect by ensuring that ideas and content created here cannot be pirated through rogue websites based in places such as China. To do so we should bring representatives from all parties concerned to the table to address all of the major issues which have been presented; with an open and free internet being the central tenet to this debate."

From Kirk: "Freedom of speech is an inalienable right granted to each and every American, and the Internet has become the primary tool with which we utilize this right. The Internet empowers Americans to learn, create, innovate, and express their views. While we should protect American intellectual property, consumer safety and human rights, we should do so in a manner that specifically targets criminal activity. This extreme measure stifles First Amendment rights and Internet innovation. I stand with those who stand for freedom and oppose PROTECT IP, S.968, in its current form."

UPDATE: Tenaska legislation passes IL Senate

UPDATE 11/30/2011 - on Tenaska vote: The passage of Senate President John Cullerton's SB 678, which was the third try on the Tenaska coal plant legislation some are calling a "boondoggle," was dependent upon three downstate Republican senators - Larry Bomke, John Jones and Sam McCann.  Eight Democrats voted against their leader's legislation - J. Collins, Delgado, Garrett, Haine, E.Jones, Lightford, Maloney and Martinez.

SPRINGFIELD - The controversial Tenaska project tax credit legislation passed the Illinois Senate this afternoon without a vote to spare.  Illinois Statehouse News was on hand to video the vote:

Illinois Politics - Roman Style

by Ghost of John Brown

Over the last year we have seen the State of Illinois morph into the Roman Empire. Speaker Madigan reigns as Emperor Commodus.  Sorry, I know Pat Quinn should probably be cast in the role of Emperor, but does anyone in this State REALLY think that Pat Quinn is in control?

In an effort to raise more and more revenue, the State of Illicit (formerly known as Illinois) passed a sweeping gambling expansion bill that would put a casino in Chicago and make slot machines more prevalent than Justin Bieber CD's and just as obnoxious.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not a prude and I love playing poker, but how do we expand the economy by just moving money around from one person to the other with the casinos and the State of Illicit taking a huge chunk?  Oh sure, we are going to steal it collect it from out of state visitors passing through O'Hare.  Nothing like that midwest hospitality.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the Left's new target

WASHINGTON - Last weekend, 10,000 young Obama supporters gathered in DC to receive activist training and then rally in front of the White House to protest the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Left's new target.  The press release below from the "The U.S. Chamber doesn't speak for me" website says Obama Administration-ousted Communist-sympathizer Van Jones was featured at the weekend training, along with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

Leftist activists are being encouraged to visit their local small businesses and encourage them to sever ties with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, whose 527s and federal PACs were instrumental in electing Republicans to the U.S. House last November. 

The website says the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a corporate front group linked to "climate deniers."  How they can claim any earthling can deny climate is laughable in itself, but the website then says the Chamber is not only wrong about global warming, it was wrong about Civil Rights, Clean Air and Disabled Rights. 

Communists, SEIU and Teamsters unite at Chicago Solidarity Protest

This past Saturday in downtown Chicago.

via Rebel Pundit

"You will be killed" -- WI Republican senators threatened

So this is how Wisconsin public employee unions deal with legislative disappointment -- by sending death threats.

This morning, Wisconsin radio station 620 WTMJ's Charlie Sykes republished an email sent to their state's Republican Senators last night. Sykes says local mainstream media refuses to cover what the senators are facing. An excerpt from last night's threat:

Please put your things in order because you will be killed and your familes will also be killed due to your actions in the last 8 weeks. Please explain to them that this is because if we get rid of you and your families then it will save the rights of 300,000 people and also be able to close the deficit that you have created. I hope you have a good time in hell. Read below for more information on possible scenarios in which you will die.

The rest of the death threat is here. Hopefully law enforcement is investigating.

All can't be well among Democrats

Governor Pat Quinn (D-Chicago) and House Speaker Mike Madigan (D-Chicago) are dealing with the tangled web they've woven over the years with state employee unions. 

Quinn's finding his generous campaign support from unions comes with a price, and the courts reinforce union contract agreements.  Madigan is hinting now that a pension shrinking deal may be necessary, along with another tax hike for the rest of us to pay for the Democrats' power-grabbing deals over the years. 

Quinn wants an $8.25 billion mortgage with which to pay overdue bills.  That may be tough to pass in the General Assembly.  Add that challenge to the teetering $31 billion capital plan, the resulting loss of more construction union jobs, and things must be very tense in the Democrats' power ranks. 

Can Governor Quinn save SEIU's future? You bet he can.

It's really hard not to roll your eyes when reading Progress Illinois' analysis of the state's FY2011 budget crisis. A piece entitled "Can Governor Quinn Convince Lawmakers to Fund our Future?" should strike us all as hilarious. When Progress Illinois (PI) writers say "our Future" they mean "their Future" since PI is owned and paid for by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

So, what's the crisis they write about? It's whether or not their pension coffers are refilled and how they will make it happen. The future they demanded includes a significant tax hike. Ralph Martire sides with SEIU's Progress Illinois. Noted PI:

The red ink is startling. Lawmakers already exhausted several one-time revenue sources last year that can't be tapped again. Martire guesses that without a tax increase of some sort, the state will run out of cash to fund public services sometime around February or March. "If that happens, what are they going to do?" he asked. "Just close down public schools and community colleges? Close down every senior center? Every agency that takes care of folks with mental health issues?"

Little Pavel Burns Up

by John F. Di Leo

Join us this week, as our young volunteer learns all about vote fraud in Texas…

“Awfully hot in here today, isn’t it, Pockets?”  Pavel mopped his brow with a napkin as he collated literature for the week’s volunteering.  “Dusty too…. Sorry, I don’t mean to complain.”

“No problem, Paully,” said Pockets, as he opened his window, carefully aiming it so the draft wouldn’t wreak havoc on the collating table.  That’s all they’d need… for the Boss to walk in just as an open window blew a thousand leaflets all over the 51st ward headquarters.  “That’s just the way these old boilers get the first few times they’re fired up in the fall.  Won’t be so bad by the election, when we’ve had the heat on a few times.  Besides, at least it’s not as hot as it got in Houston last month; now, that was a real inferno!”

“Houston?” the young volunteer perked up.  Pavel Syerov, Jr. (Paul to his friends) put down his work and opened another frosty can of diet cola.  “Doesn’t it ever cool down in Texas?”

Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy Bottom Line: Disgusting, Demoralizing and Completely Predictable

by Teri O'Brien

From the Washington Post’s article about Bob Woodward’s new book, Obama’s Wars

"Everything we're doing has to be focused on how we're going to get to the point where we can reduce our footprint. It's in our national security interest. There cannot be any wiggle room." 

Obama rejected the military's request for 40,000 troops as part of an expansive mission that had no foreseeable end. "I'm not doing 10 years," he told Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at a meeting on Oct. 26, 2009. "I'm not doing long-term nation-building. I am not spending a trillion dollars."

Stop the presses. Our Marxist, Amerika-hating, ACORN-educated Community Organizer-in-Chief isn’t interested in victory over America’s enemies, who just happen to share his sick, twisted view of our amazing country. His attitude is like Jay Cutler being interested in making sure that the Green Bay Packers win on Monday night, which should come as a surprise only to the really slow kids who still haven’t caught on. 

Pollak raises over $150k at Ryan fundraiser

Congratulations to Joel Pollak, 9th CD GOP candidate to oust Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, for raising $150,000 at his fundraiser featuring U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan. The SEIU protestors, there at the beckoning of Schakowsky's campaign manager, failed to disrupt the event, although they gave it a good try. 

Chicago News Bench's Tom Mannis reports via YouTube:

More on the event as live blogged by Marathon Pundit John Ruberry HERE.

Little Pavel Takes a Break

by John F. Di Leo

Tired and bored from a morning collating literature at party headquarters, Pavel Syerov Jr. (Paul to his friends) pushed back his chair from the table and said, “I need a soda.  Can I get you anything, Pockets?”

Pockets, the old pol who ran the office when the Boss was out, straightened out the stacks of brochures and direct mail.  “Sure, Paully, gimme a grenade.  Thanks.”

Pavel went back to the refrigerator and collected a diet cola for himself and a longneck bottle for Pockets, and promptly returned.  With adult unemployment at ten percent, there was no chance for a summer job for a 17-year-old, so he had been helping out at the local party HQ all summer.  He knew the refrigerator and storeroom as well as any volunteer, and he and Pockets had become fast friends.  The young man was getting a better education this summer than any summer school class could have taught.

VIDEO: Tea Party versus Public Sector Unions

Quinn faces class action lawsuit over home health care worker unionization

The day after thousands of purple-shirted state workers demanding higher taxes marched through Springfield's streets, House Democrats blocked passage of an effort to protect home health care workers from forced unionization. State Rep. Jim Durkin's HR 720 is a resolution calling on Governor Quinn to rescind his Executive Order forcing home care providers -- many of which care for their own family members -- to unionize. The home health caretakers voted down union efforts last year, despite what some called "bullying tactics" on behalf of the SEIU and AFSCME. 

The National Right to Work Foundation announced Thursday morning they are suing Governor Quinn on behalf of those care providers who do not want to be unionized. From the NRWF:

SEIU Executive VP Thinks His Own Members are Racists

by Ghost of John Brown

Hat-tip to Gateway Pundit

Illinois SEIU takes victory lap, prepares to flex muscle in November

from Chicago News Cooperative

As the debate intensifies over what to do about Springfield’s $13 billion budget deficit, a powerful labor union has given Gov. Patrick J. Quinn another big number to take into account: $1.7 million.

That is the amount the Service Employees International Union contributed to the governor’s primary campaign, state records show. The union’s largesse represented more than 25 percent of all contributions to Mr. Quinn, who edged Dan Hynes, the state comptroller, in the Democratic primary on Feb. 2.

The union’s 170,000 members in Illinois include about 7,500 state workers and tens of thousands of home health care and child care workers who are paid with state money.

More HERE

SPECIAL REPORT: Cook County Healthcare, Conflicts of Interest, and the SEIU

CBS 2 Chicago ran a story Wednesday night about a proposed Cook County ordinance that would heap a massive, $340 million tax on private hospitals within the county.

The tax — known as the so-called Healthcare Access Protection Initiative (HAPI) — would raise money from private hospitals to fund more indigent/charity care at the taxpayer-funded Cook County Hospital and Healthcare System.

Aside from threatening Cook County citizens' access to care by walloping hospitals with this massive tax — it would seem that this deeply flawed proposal might actually reduce the overall level of charity care provided within the county simply to increase the amount of charity care provided at a single hospital.

Would it surprise you that the SEIU labor union (which recently unionized doctors at Cook County Stroger Hospital) is behind the push for this new tax?

Who is Heather O'Donnell?

ACORN: Coming to an Illinois Voting Booth Near You?

by John Bambenek, on BigGovernment.com

When ACORN was caught stacking voter rolls with fake names leading up to the 2008 election, we stood up and took notice. Maybe an aberration, maybe part of a plan to undermine our system of elections. On Election Day, Black Panthers were inside a Pennsylvania polling station intimidating voters. They ultimately got off and the prosecutor who went after them was “reassigned”. Still, maybe it is simply coincidence. What if a high-profile state Attorney General argued that voters have no right to vote in secret?

I’m not talking about Card Check, I’m talking about the voting all of us do in every election. Consider the following words argued in Champaign County Court in Illinois by the Illinois Attorney General’s office headed by Lisa Madigan:

Hultgren, Friedman and McAloon targeted by anti-Tea Party 527

With links to Service Employees International Union, a 527 called TheTeaPartyisOver.org has targeted three congressional candidates -- 14th CD's Randy Hultgren, 10th CD's Arie Friedman and 11th CD's David McAloon.  All three are involved in tight GOP primaries to be decided February 2.

Backyard Conservative Anne Leary has done some digging and writing on TheTeaPartyisOver.org:

SEIU's Andy Stern pleads poverty and calls Senators "terrorists"

Holly Rosenkrants of BusinessWeek wrote yesterday about how Andy Stern, president of SEIU (the second-largest labor union in the U.S.) responded to the recent Supreme Court decision to allow corporate contributions in campaigns. Stern wailed: “This is a moral disaster, it is a policy disaster and it is a practical disaster. This is going to bring an onslaught, if nothing changes, of an unlimited corporatization of our economy.”

According to the article, Anna Burger, secretary-treasurer of the SEIU and president of labor federation Change to Win, said "companies have 'lots and lots' of money to spend on the political process, while unions don’t."

Stern also put cross-hairs on Senators Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson saying “There are a lot of terrorists in the Senate who think we are supposed to negotiate with them when they have their particular needs that they want met.”

The next big battle -- Card Check

Since Service Employees International Union's top dog Andy Stern has been the most frequent guest to Barack Obama's White House, we can rest assured that they've not been just talking about the good old days.  We can assume Stern and Obama brainstormed how to bully through the government takeover of health care.  After all, Stern's gleefully anticipating SEIU's membership exploding with the taxpayer funding of health care and the medical personnel and hospital staffing the industry will demand. 

If Obamacare negotiations are successful, 30 million new patients will be on the health care rolls, and that means more non-union medical staffers that will be open to being unioned-up.  Obama's set on pleasing the SEIU workers and their ACORN brothers and sisters. They were his campaign army in 2008, and he'll need them again in 2010 and 2012 to push his agenda.

Beck creams Creamer's "Prison Plan"

The Glenn Beck segment earlier this week that aggravated Bob Creamer and Jan Schakowsky as mentioned in Thursday's Trib.

Liberal Creamer's list of 10 needs to pass universal health care

Acorncracked.com is featuring an audio tape of Jan Schakowsky's check-kiting, felonious husband Robert Creamer telling liberal activists in 2008 what is needed for a government takeover of health care in 2009. Five months in prison evidently doesn't disqualify Creamer from being a liberal Democratic leader and a guest at the White House. (Can convicted felons vote?) A quick listen will acquaint you with how the enemy thinks, and provide a insight with which to counter. Creamer's 2008 checklist in a nutshell were:

1. Elect a Democratic president and increase Democratic majority margins in both congressional houses
2. Make universal health care a national movement, led by the President
3. Reject conservative value premises when talking about health care
4. Appeal to the sense that the fight for universal health care is historical
5. Emphasize that health care is personal
6. Spend time going after principal adversary -- the insurance industry
7. Welcome allies that may not normally be on your side -- i.e. big businesses with huge legacy obligations they'd like to dump
8. Pressure for Republican support in Congress and the public
9. Invest a substantial amount into communicating the message on airwaves
10. Draw our enemies in by making them offer an alternative, then point out weaknesses

 CreamerAudio-MP3forAudioPodcasting

IFRL endorses Rodriguez in the 8th CD

Among six Republicans vying for primary nomination in the 8th CD, Long Grove Village President Maria Rodriguez is the only woman, the only elected official and the only candidate in the race endorsed today by the Illinois Federation for Right to Life.

Rodriguez told Illinois Review she's honored to receive IFRL's support and points to her strong Catholic background as a key reason she holds such strong pro-life positions. "I'm not prolife because it's a political issue," she said via phone. "I've worked for St. Mary's Catholic Church in the liturgy, and my respect for human life is tied to my religious beliefs. I'm prolife, with no exceptions."

Questions about SEIU's Stern and Burger lobbying activities

Good for Americans for Tax Reform and the Alliance for Worker Freedom.  They are pushing for the Justice Department to investigate SEIU President Andy Stern's multiple visits to the White House over the first six months of Barack Obama's presidency.  Questions about Stern and SEIU Treasurer Anna Burger's SEIU-promoting efforts and the federally-funded ACORN's activities suggest they may have crossed the legality line, Examiner.com says: 

ATR has formerly submitted a request to acting United States Attorney Channing D. Phillip asking for a probe into the potentially illegal lobbying activities of SEIU Treasurer and Change to Win Chairwoman Anna Burger.

Attention, Catholics: Given to ACORN lately?

by Richard A. Viguerie

You probably think you've never given money to ACORN and its allies.  But if you've contributed to the annual November Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) appeal of the Catholic bishops, you've done just that.

Each November, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops asks Catholics across the United States to contribute to the CCHD.  Until last year, much of this money collected by the bishops' appeal was funneled directly to ACORN. 

Are you going to again let the bishops use your contributions - money that's intended for charity - to promote extreme left-wing causes such as taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand?

SEIU's Andy Stern's own words: "global unions"

We've been awfully hard on Andy Stern's SEIU/ACORN over the past couple of months, so here's a chance for him to give his side of the story - via CNBC - in his own words.

Bi-state Democratic dynasties bolstered by ACORN/SEIU

Illinois' neighbor just to the west, Missouri, has a powerful political dynasty similar to Illinois' Madigans, Hynes, Daleys or Berrios', that also depends on community activists and service employees to keep them in power. Today, the Missouri Republican Party lifted the veil on a growing political family scandal involving ACORN that could affect Missouri's 2010 U.S. Senate race and the Democrats' balance of power.

The Show Me state's Democrat royalty consists of the younger Carnahans -- Robin Carnahan, who is Missouri's secretary of state, now vying for the U.S. Senate in 2010 and Robin's brother Russ, a Congressman representing southern St. Louis County -- and their parents. 

Robin and Russ' mother Jean Carnahan was appointed to fill her husband Mel Carnahan's U.S. Senate seat, when he was killed in an airplane crash just weeks before the 2000 election. The Carnahan's son Randy, who was piloting the plane, was also killed. At the time, Mel Carnahan was finishing his second term as Missouri's governor.

SEIU objects to home health care worker election

Parents who breathed a sigh of relief last month, thinking they were rid of union thugs knocking on their doors and calling them at home shouldn't relax yet. 

SEIU is back. And with a vengeance.

SEIU's Andy Stern White House's most frequent visitor

When the White House released its list of visitors from January to July this year, several very familiar names showed up (more about that on IR later), but the SEIU's president Andy Stern topped the rest with 22 visits with Obama. 

Stern hyped up the crowd of protesters at the "Showdown in Chicago" against the American Bankers Association's annual meeting this week. Despite Stern's rhetoric, only a handful of banks represented at the conference were bailout recipients. The rest are struggling to stay afloat.  But you wouldn't know it by listening to the SEIU's national president. 

As produced by and featured on SEIU-funded liberal political blog Progress Illinois, the man who has the President's ear along with Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod and Michelle and Valerie Jarrett.

ACORN fights back

Invoking the name of Jesus Christ as a purpose for defending the scandalous extortion-like practices of ACORN and SEIU is indefensible.  Nevertheless, the left never sits down and turns the other cheek.  They always, always fight back, using whatever tools available to them.  The video below is Exhibit D of ACORN/SEIU's tactics. 

Other examples are this week's demonstration at the Chicago American Bankers Association annual meeting to demand small banks stop legal means to get loans paid back as well as SEIU/ACORN's pressure on Advocate Health Care services in 2004 to wipe clean unpaid medical bills are nothing but schemes to rile more and more hysterical and unfounded class envy and animosity.

SEIU says "Health care plan means 'Yes we can!'"

From the Service Employees International Union pressroom in response to the Democrats' universal health care plan presented this am ...

"Today, the House of Representative's introduction of the America's Affordable Health Choices Act made clear that President Obama's challenge to our nation holds true: 'Yes We Can.'

"Yes we can provide quality health insurance that is affordable to 97 percent of the nation.

"Yes we can have a strong public option that drives costs down and gives people the power to choose what is best for their family.

ACORN maneuvers onto key federal financial board

The audacity of Congressional Democrats and ACORN is breathtaking.  Last week, in the midst of the ACORN scandals nationwide, the Dems not only ignored the allegations about giving illegal tax counsel and mortgage information to a pretend pimp and prostitute, they elevated ACORN.  Indeed, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) found a way to include ACORN reps on a financial oversight board, giving them a seat at the table of deciding the nation's financial future. 

The Washington Examiner's Byron York did an excellent job of explaining exactly how the ACORN con got around Congr. Michelle Bachmann, who has emerged as ACORN's #! Congressional enemy.  Waters' introduced legislation affecting the members of the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency's Oversight Board, and Bachmann misguessed and targeted instead the CFPA's Advisory Board.  Waters found her way around Bachmann's anti-ACORN language this way ...

Reid Me a Story: A Mind is A Terrible Thing to Lose

by Teri O'Brien

I have repeatedly expressed what I am sure is the collective astonishment of many over the ability of liberals to recite easily demonstrated inaccuracies, fabrications and outright lies with not only a straight face, but an earnestness that renders the vigilant truth seekers in the Jurassic media incapable of the cranial activity required to formulate even the most mundane inquiry.

Miss America judges ask more challenging and less predictable questions than journos ask liberals, but after so many decades of that, its lost the least bit of shock value. In fact, it is now official: Most members of the Lame Stream Media who have achieved even D list fame are not only not the best informed, most knowledgeable, and smartest people in the room. The reality is the exact opposite.

"The Chicago Way" is Obama's way

Today your Illinois Review editor's Southtown Star column is about Barack Obama's use of "The Chicago Way" last week against the health insurance industry, and how he used "The Chicago Way" to punish Advocate Health Systems in 2004.

It was in the 1987 movie "The Untouchables" that we learned first about "The Chicago Way." Overall, the gist is that when someone's done something wrong, the victim retaliates with something slightly worse.

"The Chicago Way" seems to be the Obama administration's modus operandi.

The administration is teaching "The Chicago Way" to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Fox News and the health insurance industry. During presidential addresses, Obama drops hints of who's irritated him.

Obama's irritation with the health insurance industry was answered with federal "anti-trust" legislation focused on restricting health insurance companies -- "The Chicago Way."  But that's not the first time he's used "The Chicago Way." He and Attorney General Lisa Madigan pressured Advocate Health Care Systems to succumb to SEIU demands using "The Chicago Way" in 2004.

Read the rest ...

It's the bankers' fault we can't pay our mortgages

SEIU, ACORN, and a myriad of related groups converged at the American Bankers Association annual meeting in Chicago this week to blame them for the mortgage and foreclosure crisis. ACORN Housing is one culprit in this national fiasco that refuses to take responsibility. Allegedly counseling mortgage applicants to provide false and incomplete information on loan applications, forcing banks to loan funds to applicants who couldn't afford to pay back the loans, they're now blaming the banks and fund providers for the inability of those in over their heads to pay back. Thus, the nation's foreclosure crisis.

These seriously misinformed and misled folks have been lied to by union thugs and community organizers who have taken advantage of their natural desire to improve their living standards. Listen to the misled's own words on the YouTube sponsored by SEIU and related orgs.

Insurance anti-trust controversy more of Obama's Chicago Way

Wednesday, Congress moved one step closer to punishing health insurance companies for releasing their recent report about the expected high costs of the Democrats' proposed health care takeover. Last Saturday, Barack Obama told the nation via his weekly address that health insurance industry's reports were "phony," "bogus" and "all too familiar."

“It’s smoke and mirrors,” Obama said. “It’s bogus. And it’s all too familiar. Every time we get close to passing reform, the insurance companies produce these phony studies as a prescription and say, ‘Take one of these, and call us in a decade.’ Well, not this time.”

Obama's "too familiar" slur shouldn't be overlooked. The President is very familiar with using "cherry picked data" to manipulate towards an ends.  Just before his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Obama himself used SEIU-ACORN authored reports to push an Illinois Senate Health and Human Services Committee into investigating Advocate Health Systems billing practices and eventually forced the hospital to succumb to union demands.

SEIU/ACORN crash ABA conference

Illinois Review wrote about SEIU/ACORN's planned three-day protests at a the American Bankers' Association conference in Chicago, starting yesterday.  SEIU/ACORN put together this video of yesterday's demonstration. See "SEIU/ACORN groups plan to "crash the bankers' party" next week in Chicago" for the list of groups and more info on today and tomorrow's schedule.