Illinois Review

Starkehaus: The State of the Union, such as it is

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

The State of the Union speech was precisely what we all thought it would be, down to the last justification, the last delusion, the last whine, the last admonishment. As usual, it was phoned in and poorly considered. And sadly, it was no different from last year's speech in those respects. It was no different than 2012. You could have accidentally watched SOTUS 2010 and nary even noticed the difference.

Starkehaus: The reason for the season…Merry Christmas

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

Jonah Goldberg has written an article posted on NRO entitled, "But there's more than one front in the 'war on Christmas.'" His thoughts about attacks on public displays of Christian values are especially useful for understanding this phenomenon because Goldberg wasn't raised in a Christian household but celebrates Christmas mostly in recognition of his mother's Presbyterian background.

Goldberg's summation:

"While it's absolutely true that there are sincere and committed Christophobes and joyless atheistic boobs out there, one of the major culprits is capitalism itself. I like capitalism — a lot. Heck, the best Christmas present I could get would be a Scrooge-like conversion on the part of the president after a visit from the Ghost of Socialism Past. But the downside of capitalism is that it will, eventually, encourage the commercialization of everything sacred."

Starkehaus: Advice from the Left – Abandon your guns and your God. Let them take care of you.

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

Another mass shooting, another call for increased gun control, another proclamation from the podium that you – yes, you must pay for the evil that other men do.

So people are getting shot? And you no longer believe that a quick trip to the grocery store won't end with you dying in a pool of your own blood?

Well, what did you expect? It's your guns and your God and your big, fat mouths that are the problem here. You brought this upon yourselves because you won't accept new gun control laws; you won't reign in your political dialog about your First Amendment rights; and you won't hand over your existing guns so as to let the government sort out the possible dangers for you.

Hear ye! Hear ye! If you would simply curtail your free speech, your belief in the Judeo-Christian God of all creation and your exercise of your Second Amendment rights, people would stop shooting at you.

Just shut up and hand over your guns. The problem will be solved.

Starkehaus: Reflections on Charlie Sheen, HIV and popular culture

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

Like many who follow pop culture trends, I was curious when the Daily Mail began openly speculating about the "identity of [a] notorious womanizing actor whose hard partying ways have caught up with him."

Sadly, a fifty-something A-lister with a checkered past of boozing, womanizing and debauchery as a general description didn't narrow it down for me as much as I thought it would, and I found myself running through the who's who of middle-aged actors with public histories of bad behavior to better consider the possibilities.

Starkehaus: Is the culture of hate increasingly a norm at American universities?

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe and Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin resigned their positions this week amid racial controversies just as black university students divulged a list of demands to be met before members of the football team would return to their football related duties.

Starkehaus: Killing them softly – what’s up with Gen X?

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

When it comes to social trends and statistics, the media tends to focus much of its attention on two generational segments of the population for the sheer hegemony that they bring to the table – Baby Boomers and Millennials.

Almost as an afterthought, the media will grudgingly acknowledge that there's an actual generation that separates these two cultural forces, and this particular demographic ironically finds itself in a position where it could act as the anti-establishment in spite of the fact that rebellion is what the Boomers and Millennials were called to wage at the very moments of inception...or conception if you prefer.

We refer to this epochal postscript affectionately as Gen X.

The rise of Machiavellian “democracy” in America

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

Entirely enthralling was the recent interview of Lanny Davis delivered by the AM 560 morning team (Dan Proft, Amy Jacobson) on October 23. For those readers who are struggling to place the name, Mr. Davis was special counsel to the President from 1996 to 1998. He acted as spokesman for President Clinton regarding legal issues, which included former President Clinton's impeachment trial.

Ostensibly, the goal of the hosts in this interview was to discuss the results of the previous day's Benghazi hearings, and to tease out whether Clinton's wanton relativism has had any influence over the Left's serene psyche. Mr. Davis's objective, it would seem, was to lay out a pithy, patronizing defense of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's performance during those hearings as well as during the terrorist attack on the American embassy in Libya on September 11, 2012.

From a purely stylistic perspective, the interview was a brilliant display on the part of Mr. Davis. His condescending yet simmering anger is vastly different than any Khrushchevian shoe slamming that might engender defensible ire. Per usual, listeners were left confounded at Mr. Davis's lack of empathy for those seeking justice. I recommend that this should not act as a criticism of AM 560's hosts. Marginalizing public disapproval was, I think, quite the objective of Lanny Davis. I would suggest that he's well-schooled in the art of making the sane question their sanity.

Di Leo: Murder, Motive and Challenging an Approach

By John F. Di Leo - 

September was another month of murders in Chicago.

We have seen the murder rate – and the attempted murder rate, too – skyrocket in recent years, in Chicago, Baltimore, New York, St. Louis … all homes of half a century or more of liberal policies, all laboratories of Leftist solutions, all booming centers of the modern welfare state and the omnipresent leviathan. How could this happen, we ask ourselves? Why is the murder rate up?

Starkehaus: Our character will be our fate

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

I have many times throughout the years read these words and not fully known them: THESE are the times that try men's souls. With a most cursory glance, we can dimly fumble at what Thomas Paine meant with all that hubristic certainty and sympathy of an inexpert Emma Woodhouse of the Jane Austen variety, but to live in despairing times is to be present in the very moment when Paine took pen to paper in prayer for his beleaguered countrymen.

It is at that moment of isolation when sympathy blossoms into empathy, and we as a people can partake of the full bodied cassis of this sickly-sweet wine that is futility. "Faith is a dark night for man, but in this very way it gives him light."

Starkehaus: When it comes to politics, ugly is as ugly does

By Irene F. Starkehaus -

Rumors are floating that a deal has been struck somewhere behind the scenes with regard to the Republican presidential debates. It's being said that the reason Carly Fiorina got placed on the A list for the CNN event is because she's a ringer who has been brought in to mow down Donald Trump. Apparently now that Donald Trump has called Carly ugly, she's just the person to kneecap him.

I heard of this possibility…that Carly is the evening's rented pit bull (talk about your affirmative action hire)… and paused to consider the reality of what this says about the debate process and about leading GOP contenders who are asphyxiating from the pure adrenalin of Donald Trump's poll numbers.

I don't know what the GOP is thinking by propagating such unattractive gossip, but bringing in a girl to beat up the so-called playground bully is not the narrative of political aptitude that I would be pushing on behalf any would-be nominee.

Nurture v. nature, the science of predestination and the end of choice

Irene F. Starkehaus - 

Across the globe, scientists have been working to discover whether people are born politically liberal or conservative. Studies of this nature have occurred in the scientific communities of the US and Europe over the last two decades. The earliest significant breakthrough occurred in 1999 with an experiment dealing with identical twins who were separated at birth and sustained similar political tendencies.

The most recent scientific surveys come from Singapore where 1700 Han Chinese students were studied for a permutation of the DRD4 gene which determines how dopamine is released into the brain. That variation mirrors earlier research done on people of European descent and indicates a genetic link to individualized dogmatic bias.

According to an article written for Phys.org entitled "Can genes make us liberal or conservative?" that gene will play a significant role in the genesis of a person's political disposition particularly in females:

"What they found was a robust link between the presence (or not) of the variant and a split between liberals inclined to decry inequality, on the one hand, and die-hard conservative wary of change, on the other."

Starkehaus: Progressive absolutism as a mental disorder – part deux

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

Broadening our discussion from July 10, 2015 regarding the Left's assertion of contrived thought crimes, we continue with one of the Left's favorite denunciations of conservative minded people.

Censorship is actually one of my favorite accusations coming from the Left because of how easily the mere charge silences conservatives into submission, and how readily the Left produces that slanderous assertion to further its own depraved vision of a so-called inclusive American culture.

What is most fascinating about the Left's hackneyed characterization of conservatives as prissy book burners is how often the Left finds itself in the hegemonic position of censorship.

Starkehaus: Progressive absolutism as a mental disorder – part one

Image Source: Allriot

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

If you don't believe in "X" then you are an idiot. If you don't believe in "Y" then you are a criminal. If you don't believe in "Z" then you don't deserve to live.

On and on the narrative goes as the rhetoric of the Left devolves into a muddled mess of ghoulish and insincere imperatives.

The reason that the employment of such dishonest absolutes is so nefarious is because when they are spoken by the right people in the right positions of authority, they excite mass delusion or worse; mob action.

In short, through the propagation of political correctness, we are now seeing an uptick in contrived thought crimes. We may surmise the growing trend is toward the idea that what you are thinking may actually be unlawful.

O'Brien: Hillary Clinton, the Democrat Party and That Evil Confederate Flag

By Teri O'Brien - 

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." Aldus Huxley

Let’s be very clear about a very obvious fact. Interrogating Republicans about their position on the “Confederate flag,” actually the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, is like asking Jonas Salk his position on polio.

The Republican party was founded as an anti-slavery party, and its first president fought a war against troops carrying that flag to save the Union and to end slavery in the United States. Notwithstanding that fact, the democrat operatives who masquerade as “journalists” have hounded every Republican presidential candidate about this ridiculous non-issue, brought to the fore courtesy of this week’s Freak of the Week, an intellectually-stunted, drug-addled dolt, alleged murderer Dylann Roof. They have insisted on hectoring these GOP hopefuls like interrogators at some Stalinist show trial, demanding that they recite the politically correct dogma that this heinous flag must be immediately ripped down, burned, and its ashes buried inside a lead-incased receptacle. lest it ever be heard from again. 

The First Amendment: Our fragile American psyches can’t handle the heavy burden of satire and dissent

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

There are critics of vigorous expressions of free speech that would explain the limits on free speech in this way:

"Freedom of speech does not entitle individuals to attack other individuals in a rude and obnoxious way or to cause harm by doing so. There are many Americans who willingly go to jail for defending their own honor in such situations. The Founders would not have supported such wildness, and they certainly would not have considered vicious verbal attacks as protected speech. These were men of great moral turpitude, of Christian character, and ultimately there is point where speech is outright damaging and harmful on the individual basis." (Emphasis added.)

Of course, this philosophy is not wholly accurate, is it? It is true that one may not yell "fire" in a crowded theater and claim free speech. It is true that one may not call the police pretending to be one's political adversary, tell them "I just shot my wife," then sit back and watch as the local SWAT team descends on the house of said political adversary. Limits on free speech have historically excluded such overindulgence as we see by reading Benjamin Franklin's pre-revolution words.

Starkehaus: Christians must better anticipate battles as gay marriage wins in Ireland

By Irene F. Starkehaus -

Here in the U.S., social conservatives who have been watching the gay marriage debate unfold in Ireland have rightly been concerned by the passage of a referendum that has redefined the millennials-old delineation of marriage. Prior to this moment in the human timeline, marriage has traditionally been between one man and one woman but now becomes a union between one person and one person.

Setting aside lazy dismissals and stereotypes of the Irish as an Australian conservative commentator Grahame Morris provided when suggesting that the Irish are a lovely people, but, after all, they can't even grow potatoes…which means, obviously, that Morris isn't just a commentator, he's an extraordinary tater… getting Ireland to accept gay marriage was an integral phase in the holistic collapse of Judeo-Christian traditions on a global scale and shouldn't be so tritely dismissed by anyone – least of all conservatives who are already in the crosshairs of the progressivist social engineers that mow down 7,000 years of marriage laws on an industrial whim.

Starkehaus: For the first time in her adult life Michelle O is…right.

By Irene Starkehaus - 

The bad news: If Memorial Day in Baltimore is any indication of what's in store for American cities this summer, you can bet that we're in for one heck of a bumpy ride. When Michelle Obama stands before graduates of Oberlin College and encourages a contentious schism to begin because those who are opposed to it are now a fringe minority, you better know that the Left thinks it's in a position to take the lead in this battle for the soul of America.

And why wouldn't they? Things are truly going their way with no end in sight. There's no need to manipulate through skullduggery anymore. The Left has chosen 2015 to come out of the closet and light the streets on fire.

So the good news? Small victory though it may be, for the first time in her adult life, Michelle Obama is actually right about something. Excerpting from her Oberlin speech:

Starkehaus: In this age of moral relativism, is Pam Geller a hero or fool?

Irene F. Starkehaus - 

To learn who rules over you, you must find out first who you are not allowed to criticize.

This is a quote credited to French philosopher Voltaire, hero of convenience to both the political Left and the political Right for differing reasons. Funny really because in actuality, there is no record of any historic import...unless you assign the internet that status…providing evidence that he ever uttered the words, but it does sound a lot like something that Voltaire would say, so our intellectual lethargy might be excused just this one time for convenience sake to move our discussion along productively.

We ask, "Who might be trying to subjugate us through the suppression of free speech that we should worry about such matters in the first place?"

We could look to our mainstream media for the answer, but popular culture tells us that it's America's Judeo-Christian traditions that most endanger our realization of an idealized America, the Shining City on the Hill. It is America's Jews and Christians…Muslims are excluded from the criticism… that set limits on sexuality, expression, family, personhood, identity, and equity after all. Traditional religious expression must therefore be the problem.

Starkehaus: Being there – Recap of CPAC 2015

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

For those who have never been to an event like CPAC before, being there is very much like a Chauncey Gardiner experience. Countless people in attendance, including those in the audience, were there to be seen rather than to learn. What a thrill it was to be in a room with so many political masterminds who are the unique solution to everybody's problems. I don't know much about what CPAC was in the past, but in its current format, the event is more like an episode of the Bachelor than a concerted effort to showcase the rising stars and the cultural trends of conservative action. So many instructors. So few pupils.

So little genuine respect or awe for the wonder that is the great American experiment.

The real lesson of CPAC 2015 is that the conservative movement should end its manufacture of personality cults and get serious about the direction of the Republican Party. For all the people parading across the stage…and – wow – there are an ungodly number of people who feel entitled to the American presidency…only a few offered any substantive reason why they actually deserve the privilege.

Entitlement is the name of the game, I guess. What's sadly lacking in the process is the slightest bit of humility before the challenge of this historical imperative.

Starkehaus: Thursday at CPAC 2015

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

A number of dynamic would-be presidential nominees spoke Thursday at the CPAC convention in Maryland. Given the audience, all potential candidates stayed right of center in their messaging as they courted the voters attending the nation's largest annual conservative convention.

The day's list of prominent speakers began with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. The style of Christie's discussion was pretty unusual to say the least. He shared the stage with talk show host Laura Ingraham. They then went through what appeared to be an overly rehearsed interview session with the potential presidential candidate answering questions posed by Ingraham. Rather than engaging the audience, the contrived setup came off as something akin to an infomercial. The leitmotif seemed less likely to improve Christie's gravitas with conservative voters and more likely to hurt Laura Ingraham's, I'm sorry to say.

Christie did unabashedly pronounce himself a prolife candidate and offered as an example his success in eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood from the NJ budget. He stated that he is experiencing what he termed "implementation regrets" over the Common Core.

Starkehaus: CPAC 2015 Thursday Lineup

By Irene Starkehaus - 

Today's CPAC 2015 agenda rolls out a lineup of GOP presidential hopefuls angling for conservative support in 2016. Thursday's company of speakers includes Ben Carson, Senator Mike Lee (UT), Governor Chris Christie (NJ), Senator Ted Cruz (TX), Governor Scott Walker (WI), Governor Bobby Jindal (LA), and Governor Sarah Palin.

The whispered question that can be heard throughout America's largest conservative convention is whether any of these potential candidates will reach out to the traditionalist audience with an authentic conservative message that will satisfy requirements rather than pay lip service to them.

O'Brien: Lighten up, NBC's Brian Williams rescued a puppy once

By Teri O'Brien -

For years, I have been telling the two other Gym Goddesses, and listeners to The Teri O'Brien Show, that not only is the assumption that television newsreaders (and yes, that's what I called them long before Rush Limbaugh did) are the most well-informed, knowledgeable people on the planet not deserved. It's just the opposite.

The very fact that someone is a Lame Stream Media "journalist" is prima facie evidence that he or she is one of the least well-informed people you'll ever encounter, a mediocre mental midget, who spends lot of time in the makeup chair and having his coif blow-dried, and who repeats the daily mantra of leftist pap that all his fellow tv "journalists" are serving up to the low-information audience who still wastes its time watching them.

There was Dan "Fake but Accurate" Rather, and now there is NBC's Brian Williams, forced to admit that he lied about being in a helicopter that came under fire while he was covering the war in Iraq.

O'Brien: Why Did Chicago Tribune Tip Off Blago That Feds Were Taping His Calls?

By Teri O'Brien - 

Given all the earth-shattering stories occupying everyone's attention over the last couple of weeks, including the mystery of deflated footballs and Bruce Jenner's gender-bending drama, I think I can be forgiven for not noting an importance confluence of news stories that happened last week. First, last Friday, on January 30, those crusading seekers of truth at the Chicago Tribune ran an interesting story about Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel's awesome fundraising machine.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is building the most potent political cash machine in Chicago history by focusing on an elite circle of donors who frequently receive City Hall benefits, ranging from contracts and permits to appointments and personal endorsements from the mayor, a Tribune investigation has found.

Emanuel has tapped these roughly 100 most loyal contributors for more than $14 million — nearly half of all the money he's raised since he left the White House to run for mayor. All those key donors — consisting of individuals, couples, business partners and firms — are repeat givers. …

Starkehaus Review: The History Channel’s Sons of Liberty

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

The History Channel presented a three night miniseries from January 25 to January 27, 2015 on the Fathers of the American Revolution called Sons of Liberty. If you didn't know about it, you can follow the link and check out the episodes.

I promise that this show will be quite an eye opener for you:

Because Sons of Liberty has been aired by the History Channel, this automatically lends a degree of authority to its historical reliability, but this miniseries is less than accurate and seeks to manipulate our perception of American events. There is a specific message, a specific agenda that is baked into this show that goes beyond gratuitousness. At first blush, we can accept the soft porn storytelling as a sensationalized version of our beginnings for a society that suffers from ADHD and can't go five minutes without a hint of sludge.

And this is not to suggest that the story of our nation's founding should be canonical in nature and subject to accusations of heresy, but we know the chaos that has been created in Christianity (as a for instance) by simply trying to translate the Bible from one language to another. One word can set off a firestorm of debate that can cause irreparable schisms. Adaptations of history like Sons of Liberty can also have a lasting impact on our society if it advances inaccurate interpretations of the Revolution.

Starkehaus: Guess what, conservative America ... Hollywood doesn't like you

Big Bang Theory's Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting was pummeled this week for saying she's not a feminist

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

No doubt about it. This year's State of the Union Address should have you deeply concerned, but this is sort of water under the bridge. It's wise to remember that President Barack Obama would have been completely unelectable had it not been for the hard sell of media elites who saw to it that his obvious flaws as a leader were never discussed in any meaningful way. Barack Obama and our entire federal system own responsibility for the abysmal state of our national affairs, but pop culture decay sold the American people on this bill of goods. Isn't that our real problem?

While it's true that pop culture often fails to challenge or provoke meaningful thought, we all know – especially members of the political Left Wing – that positive representation in the media and entertainment industries ultimately leads to representation in our government. To that end, the lack of any meaningful conservative opinions coming from the entertainment industry denotes a cultural handicap that could lead to the extinction of the conservatism as a political movement.

Starkehaus: Has the State of Colorado infringed upon the right to privacy and expression?

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

Back in 2012, a cake maker by the name of Jack Phillips refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple (Charlie Craig and David Mullins) on the grounds that doing so would violate his conscience and religious principles. Mr. Phillips explained that he would be glad to bake anything else for them, but his religious beliefs precluded him from making them a wedding cake.

Seeing as how Jack Phillips is apparently the only baker in the greater Denver area and is therefore responsible for depriving all gay people everywhere of the constitutionally protected right to delicious confections, the ACLU filed a complaint on behalf of Mr. Craig and Mr. Mullins stating, "…the baker's religious beliefs don't give him a right to discriminate and violate Colorado law." The specific Colorado law in question is the 2008 Public Accommodations Law on sexual orientation and identity.

Judge Robert N. Spencer agreed with the ACLU and ordered Mr. Phillips and Masterpiece Cakeshop to serve gay couples. Quoting from CBS News in Denver:

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.

O'Brien: How George W. Bush Took it To the NORKS

By Teri O'Brien - 

If anything captures the state of a hobbled, declining America under President Payback, it is this headline from Friday's Wall Street Journal story about the cyber-terrorist attack by the North Koreans on Sony Pictures: "U.S. Struggles for Response to Hack." The story goes on to quote another hack, Obama spokes imbecile, the inappropriately named Josh Earnest, saying that the Regime is seeking a "proportional" response.  

History has shown that the Obama administration has a very twisted and skewed view of proportionality. Five Islamofascist terrorists for 1 deserter. Three citizens of a brutally repressive regime that harbors American fugitives who killed Americans, one of the three convicted of attempted murder, in exchange for an American hostage whose crime was trying to help the Cuban people get on the internet. A junk-science based "climate change" agreement with China, in which the U.S. agrees to strangle its economy by reducing its carbon emissions by at least 26% from 2005 levels, and the Chinese agree to a "target" of getting 20% of its energy from renewable sources by around 2030, maybe, if they feel like it. China builds one coal burning power plant a month, while Obama's war on coal has destroyed jobs and economic growth in some of the poorest regions of America. Just one month after this "historic" agreement, we learn about the North Korea cyber attack, an event that could not have been accomplished without the assistance of the Chinese. 

The Interview…the movie that everyone is talking about for all the wrong reasons

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

The business of entertaining has long been bathed in an ethereal mix of duplicity and defamation whereby the power brokers in Hollywood can wrongly accuse conservative Americans of harboring the very prejudices that apparently burden their own minds and hearts. When called on it, they can claim sanctuary under the pretext of "It's just showbiz. It's not real." Talk about eating your cake and having it too. (Reference Dan Quayle vs. Murphy Brown here.)

The Sony hack merely validates the concerns that conservatives have been voicing about the Left's monopoly in entertainment. The Left has had the power to sway national opinions against conservative values and has had no checks or balances in place to keep them honest. It's nothing short of artistic tyranny, but short-lived has been the conservative celebration over exposed progressivist intolerance because the North Korean hackers could not be content with mere humiliation. They had to wreck this one glorious moment of exoneration with egoistic chest thumping and threats of violence.

To that end, the vainglory displayed by North Korean hackers offers demonstrable proof that it is so much harder to be conservative than liberal…because conservatives have to live by principles when we would much rather watch the Left steep in the brine of their own corruption until they pickle. Alas, we can't sit back and enjoy the show. Instead, we'll have to provide a united front in the defense of free speech over what may be the dumbest movie of all time.

Starkehaus: How Darius Rucker became a target of the Left

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

I am struggling with a growing concern that Martin Luther King Jr. will one day be viewed by the Left as an enemy of the Civil Rights Movement instead of one of its forefathers. This wisp of a Philippian twist has been gnawing at me for some time with little concrete substantiation to back it up, but last week's snark treatment of Darius Rucker during Rockefeller Plaza's tree lighting ceremony has strengthened the theory enough in my own mind that I think I may be on to something.

More on Mr. Rucker in a minute.

There's something about the hollowness in modern day progressivism's chosen muses that leads me to believe that race activists will ultimately devour their heroes to keep the beast of enmity strong. The Left's strident movement toward disingenuousness notwithstanding, I can foresee a time in the not too distant future when "I have a dream that one day my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" will be categorized by agents of the race industry to represent words spoken by an insufferable Uncle Tom.

O'Brien: Time for a Criminal Investigation of the Obama Regime's Amnesty?

By Teri O'Brien - 

Seventy-three years ago yesterday, the Japanese attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Today, our liberty hangs in the balance, but not due to any foreign threat, but because of the enemy within, the traitorous, corrupt media, enabling a lawless, gangsta regime, by running endless stories on the irredeemable racism of our country, most of which conflate the Garner case with the Michael Brown incident in Ferguson, Missouri.

As you well know, but for his race, Barack Obama would still be on a Chicago street corner with his clipboard and bullhorn, trying to stir up a sense of entitlement and rage among poor black people. So, the last thing he, and his fellow race baiters like Eric Holder, revered presidential advisor/tax cheat "Rev." Al Sharpton, and his repellant wife, Michelle "Black Solidarity" Obama, want is what Dr. King urged; that is, a society in which people are judged, not by the color of their skin, but the content of their character.

If that lofty and admirable vision were to be realized, where does that leave this passel of mediocre, affirmative-action assisted jerks, all of whom are C players, at best? Their supporting that would make about as much sense as the CEO of McDonald's dreaming of everyone on the planet going vegan. Right on cue, the dead enders of the Occupy Wall Street and anti-globalization imbeciles display their ignorance and even stupidity, staging "die ins" by lying down in the street, and chanting irrational slogans like "Hands up. Don't Shoot," which are at war with the facts in the Ferguson case. Thought experiment: Obama's America, Mobocracy or Idiocracy? Discuss among yourselves.

Starkehaus: 'Don’t Shoot' is the truth that is a lie

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

The Congressional Black Caucus came to the floor of the US House of Representatives on Monday with game faces on. They entered with their hands up in the air as a display of faux surrender to show solidarity for Michael Brown of Ferguson, Missouri because Mr. Brown was shot and killed by Officer Darren Wilson during an altercation earlier this year. As a recap, a grand jury has decided not to indict Wilson after reviewing evidence, and this has led to civil unrest and devastation in Ferguson and throughout the nation.

In addition to the lynch mob mentality displayed through what one might interpret as the Congressional Black Caucus's public infidelity to the truth, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan prophesied of the certain destruction of American cities because the grand jury in Ferguson – which he contends is representative of American injustice – failed to provide the proper sacrificial lamb to Farrakhan's golden cow of hatred. Following his logic, we are required to submit that, guilty or no, Wilson needed to be martyred in order to make up for the original sin of slavery, so that peace may prevail in America.

O'Brien: The Awful Truth About Obama's Lawless Amnesty

By Teri O'Brien -

So, Barack Obama finally made good on his threat to unilaterally amend our immigration laws with his pen and phone, and celebrated by jetting off to Vegas, where he lied to an audience of shrieking high school students. He favors groups of backward children for these performances. They are ignorant about even the most basic information about public policy issues, but what they lack in knowledge and information, they make up for in youthful exuberance. Ignorance plus emotions on overdrive, for a demagogue, what's not to like?

I won't insult your intelligence by stating the obvious, or at least not only the obvious; that is, that this amnesty is an affront to the rule of law, separation of powers and the Constitution, and that it is an exercise in pure cynicism and political expediency. We'll discuss the lies in Obama's Friday speech at De La Sol High School in Las Vegas, but there's more to it than that. Beneath the surface, there's a larger agenda. We'll connect the dots today. 

You'll learn:

Starkehaus: The Cosby Convergence

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

Bill Cosby, perhaps the most iconic TV dad of the 1980s and outspoken critic of the deteriorating condition of the African American family, stands accused by multiple women of being a serial rapist. Prior to these accusations, Cosby was positioning an evolving political perspective that tended toward social conservatism. Although it is unlikely that he considers himself a Republican, he espouses an almost Tea Party-like affinity for moral clarity in our culture, and preaches steadfastly for economic self-sufficiency within the African American community.

At the time of this writing, the scandal is rolling along with the accusation and information gathering phase, and it still remains to be seen whether Cosby is guilty of rape. There's nothing to be gained in belaboring that point of innocence or guilt with gossip and conjecture. Within this space and time, Bill Cosby is a little like Schrödinger's cat. He's both guilty and innocent until the public's final judgment.

So instead of reveling in the innuendo that will likely undo Cosby's well-crafted public persona and leave him ruined – because guilty or no, he will forever be a punch line to the Left's tale of hypocrisy about social conservatism – let us consider the question, "Why now?"

O'Brien: Will The Supreme Court Rescue Us from Obamacare?

By Teri O'Brien - 

In spite of the clear message of last Tuesday's election, specifically, that the people want Barack Obama's radical, lawless behavior stopped, leaders of the victorious GOP are sending disturbing signals that they are not as determined to do what they promised when they were looking for our votes.

For example, more than once Senate Majority-Leader-in-Waiting, Mitch McConnell, vowed to fight to repeal Obamacare. Just days before the election, he ran an ad, featuring a Kentucky nurse and mother saying just that. Suddenly, we're hearing about ditching the medical device tax, but not much else.

Perhaps there is still hope. Will the Supreme Court rescue the GOP from its own gutlessness, and thereby rescue the country from Obamacare? Its decision last week to review the Fourth Circuit's decision in King v. Burwell strongly suggests that four justices are willing to reverse the lower court's ruling authorizing tax credits for insurance purchased on federal exchanges, something clearly prohibited by the statute. 

O'Brien: Will Barack Office Poison Create a GOP Wave Election, and Does it Matter?

By Teri O'Brien -

Will the GOP take the Senate? Polls strongly suggest that on Tuesday, Election Day 2014 (and by "Election Day," I mean our current mess of a system consisting of early voting, voting by mail, and casting a ballot when you stream a movie from Netflix or buy the "Bagel of the Day" at Dunkin' Doughnuts) will bring a bloodbath for the democrats, brought on by the collective realization by millions that they have been played for suckers by the most successful race hustling con artist in American's history, Barack Hussein Obama? Desperate members of the Jackass Party are resorting to ridiculous measures, including attempting to shame their base into voting by threatening to tell their neighbors that they didn't vote, a tactic that seems to be working about as well as everything else they've tried.

So, get the popcorn ready, and look forward to jubilation on Tuesday, but be under no illusions. Even if the GOP does take the Senate, which is essential, what will change? Are we forgetting that Sen. Mitch McConnell has had three or four different positions on whether the GOP will push for a repeal of Obamacare? Don't get me wrong: the evil reanimated cadaver currently serving as Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, must go, and if we have to elect some RINO's to make that happen—and make no mistake, establishment Republicans like McConnell are no conservatives—so be it. What say you? Will the GOP win big? Does it matter? Do you care, or are you suffering from end-stage politics fatigue, preferring to ponder whether Mama June will survive the current scandal involving her TV show? Let me know in the comments.

Prediction: Post-election Barry will be even more lawless and radical than he has been this year. The new focus of his "remaking" of America will be amnesty, to dramatically alter the demographics of this country for decades to come.

O'Brien: Obama's Pen and Phone in Action

By Teri O'Brien -

Start spreading the news, or the plague. Thanks to the ideological fanaticism of the Obama Regime, the deadly Ebola virus has made it to New York City. Not to worry, though, as we are reminded by an endless parade of government apparatchiks. It isn't spread by "casual contact," and can be contracted only by those with direct exposure to the bodily fluids of someone with symptoms, but what does that mean? Bottom line: once again, we're being lied to.

In the interest of political correctness, Obama refuses to seal the border and stop the flights from the Ebola hot zone, and you don't have to french kiss an Ebola patient to have contact with bodily fluids. We'll explain how that could happen, and how you can protect yourself and your family.

O'Brien: Obama parties with celebs While Enterovirus kills American children

9-year-old patient Jayden Broadway of Denver is being treated for the enterovirus 68 

By Teri O'Brien - 

How many American children have died from the Enterovirus D-68, or do you call it the “Unaccompanied Alien Minors Virus?” Were illegal alien children shipped all over the United States after this past summer’s invasion to try to cover up the origin of these infections with a virus that hasn’t been seen in the U.S. since 1962, and which some experts consider more dangerous than Ebola? There is evidence that the answer is yes. 

Speaking of Ebola, the third-world plague that Obama was eager to see invade our country for reasons stated here, now a Dallas health care worker, probably a nurse, who took care of the late Liberian, Thomas Eric Duncan, is infected, despite taking every precaution recommended by “experts” from the federal government’s CDC. How could that happen? During a Sunday morning news conference on October 12, the CDC director stated that the cause was a "breach of protocol," while other experts are warning that it may too late to stop the spread of this disease in the U.S. If we had only listened to left-wing lunatic Rep. Alan Greyson. Even he could see back in July that we should have shut down flights from West Africa.

It looks like the One has found a worthy successor to his race-baiting disgrace of an Attorney General, Eric Holder, and he’s a doozy. Reports are that he will be named before the election, which is only 23 days away.

O'Brien: Eric Holder’s Legacy of Left-wing Lawlessness

By Teri O'Brien -

Now that Eric Holder has announced that he will step down once his successor has been named, it's time to review some of the greatest hits of his disgraceful tenure, from “race cowards” to his role in ginning up racial resentment in Ferguson, Missouri, and everything in between. Why did he resign now? What have Obama and Reid cooked up for the lame duck session of Congress?

O'Brien: 9/11 Anniversary and Obama's "Manageable" Middle East disaster

By Teri O'Brien - 

Thursday is September 11, the two-year anniversary of the attack on the Benghazi compound, and the 13th anniversary of the murder of nearly 3000 people on American soil by our determined Islamofascist enemy, so it seems like a good time to revisit the effects of Barack Obama's "lead from behind" strategy.

Are you aware that there was another ISIS beheading yesterday? Do you know what's going on in Libya, Obama's template for "how the international community is supposed to work?"

Under Obama's brilliant leadership, we intervened to dispatch wacko dictator Mohamar Gaddafi. How's that working out? Don't worry about the threat of our determined, vicious, murderous enemy. Focus on the "war on women," and racism in local police departments like the one in Ferguson, MO, the current hobby horse of the worst attorney general in America history, Eric Holder.

IR EXCLUSIVE: Kaifesh, West talk Iraq, War on Terror and Naive Americans

(L-R) Colonel Allen West, Colonel Larry Kaifesh

SCHAUMBURG - Colonel Allen West and Colonel Larry Kaifesh, GOP candidate for Congress in 8th CD, talked with Illinois Review about the upcoming election and the ongoing War on Terror. Part 1 is HERE. Here is Part 2: 

IR: Many voiced hope that America would have a new generation of leaders coming back from fighting terrorism in the Mid East. But we’re seeing a tone of disrespect for the military growing as people grow tired of war.  What are your thoughts as things are changing – from the Administration down – towards the military?

KAIFESH: I’d just like to highlight that as one of the reasons I’m running. Because there’s a complete failure in leadership from the Administration on down. And in regards to Iraq, we had a success – it was a fragile success – but it was success. At one time before we pulled out, Iraq was one of the most stable countries in the region. And there’s not one national security or military person that didn’t understand this fragile success needed to have some work.

We just couldn’t pull out the support network. It was amazing what we were able to do there – build a Western democracy in a foreign, Islamic country in the heart of the Middle East. It was a major accomplishment. But it was there, and it was succeeding. It was fragile.

When the Status Armed Forces Agreement failed, I don’t think anyone of us believed it would make it. It was just a matter of time at that moment. And that is the unfortunate part. Leadership would recognize that and identify.

We need to do what’s right for the sacrifices of those that served, all the commitment and the treasure we gave to fight this war – and for the Iraqi people. And make sure we saw it through to success, instead of pulling out because it was politically favorable. When we start making national security decisions based on political pulls, bad things happen.  This is just the perfect example.

IR: The military budget is being cut by this Administration. Where will all this end up?

O'Brien: How's That "Great Society" Working Out?

President Lyndon Johnson launched the "Great Society" program 50 years ago

By Teri O'Brien -

Just wondering …who kills more young black men, white police officers or other young black men? Do "civil rights leaders" from black-on-black shooting gallery Chicago, like Jesse Jackson, who has insinuated himself into the mess in Ferguson, MO, have any credibility there?

Recently, on The Teri O'Brien Show, we joined the rest of the country in celebrating Barack Obama's arrival on the national scene, what has become known as "The Speech," his 2004 Democrat convention performance, and what a performance it was, a declaration that there are no divisions among Americans, and a rejection of attempts by "cynics" to divide us into warring groups based on race, religion or any other external, and irrelevant, difference.

What a difference 10 years makes.

Starkehaus: Remembering Robin Williams, but not praising him

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

I got the news via instant message while spending way too much money for the back-to-school supplies that I'm required to purchase if my kids want to access their free education that I paid too much money to provide.

The text read, "Robin Williams is dead. He killed himself." This communication had a sort of Kafkaesque quality to it…just dangling there in the logosphere with no consideration of where I was and what I was doing – so detached from the humdrum chore at hand that I couldn't quite grasp what was being said to me.

"Seriously?" was my aporial response.

"And why would I kid about something like that? Yes, seriously."

I don't know. We've often been told and I am quite certain that we will be reminded enough in the coming weeks about the comic genius that was Robin Williams. I felt like there must be a punchline on its way, but none was forthcoming. Fifteen minutes later, I was at the register ringing through the loose leaf notebook paper that represents but a small fraction of this year's back-to-school extortion and thinking through the tragic event. It occurred to me that "Yes. Of course. He killed himself. That makes perfect sense actually."

O'Brien: World in Flames, Obama Phones it In

President Obama on the phone with British Prime Minister Cameron | Photo: by Pete Souza

By Teri O'Brien -

Barack Obama's "lead from behind" foreign policy strategy is working out even better than his brilliant stewardship of things here at home. Fortunately, he was able to go off on his vacation to one of the playgrounds for the 1% that he and his repellant wife, Michelle Antoinette, love so much, Martha's Vineyard, and was able to get in one round of golf already. Just who was in yesterday's jolly foursome on the delightful resort links yesterday as children starved and died of dehydration in Iraq?

The group that Obama mocked as the "J.V.," ISIS, now poses a direct threat to the United States. As usual, the Lame Stream Media hasn't told you about the terrifying details of why that's the case. We will.

O'Brien: Nixon, Watergate, Vietnam - Lessons from History We Ignore at Our Peril

By Teri O'Brien - 

In any rational universe, with an informed citizenry, Barack Hussein Obama would never have been elected to any important public office, and certainly not re-elected. His relentless and aggressive lawlessness, since that re-election, which was all too predictable, certainly rises to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors," and there is not doubt that that same informed citizenry, would have demanded that he be impeached and removed from office.

Should the G.O.P. impeach him?  Why don't they? The truth is that the democrats are lying about impeachment to raise campaign cash, very successfully. Forty years ago, another U.S. president faced an actual threat of impeachment.

What was the Watergate scandal really all about? What does it have to do with another event, which occurred 50 years ago, and prolonged our involvement in what the Lame Stream Media dubbed with the cliché "quagmire," the Vietnam War? As stunning as this assertion may be, I am here to tell you that the current media narrative about Watergate is a fairy tale. Find out what really happened.

Starkehaus: Should children see Dinesh D’Souza’s America the Movie?

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

background

Rather than jumping right into my answer, I'm going to tell you a personal story to set the scene from which I'm basing my thinking. At the time that this event took place, my child was in seventh grade and was getting ready for school one morning. My child asked me to help print a document that needed to be handed in for a Language Arts class. I was given a thumb drive and my child took off up the stairs to work on other tasks that required attention. I printed the document and read it because I'm fundamentally nosy, and I'm unashamed to say that enjoy what my children write.

On this particular day, my child had penned a critique based on an article that was assigned to the class from a book called Us and Them – A History of Intolerance in America by Jim Carnes.

After I had finished reviewing the critique which was heavily biased against the Texas Rangers for being racist terrorists, I called to my child and asked if I might please see the original source from which the assignment took its information. My child had written forcefully against the atrocities that were brought upon the Mexican people at the hands of the Texas Rangers during the border disputes between South Texas and Mexico in 1917. My child's scorn thoroughly startled me. Keep in mind that the assignment was to be based on what was written in the article. The written directions were for the students to critique the way the Mexican people were treated. This was not to be a criticism of the quality of the writing.

My child handed me a photocopied version of an article entitled Untamed Border. Quoting now from an eight paged article:

Starkehaus: The battle of the ages – determinism versus free will

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

According to research published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, human choice is born out of predictable electric impulse in the brain which suggests that human beings do not possess free will but are slaves of determinism. Read the full article here in the Independent Online. JoCN is published by the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute out of Berkley.

Volunteers within the experiment conducted at the University of California, Davis were asked to sit in front of a screen and focus on its central point while their brains' electrical activity was recorded. They were then asked to make a decision to look either left or right when a visual cue appeared on the screen, and then to report their decision.

Based on the brain activity, researchers could determine with reasonable accuracy which way the volunteers would look.

(I shudder to think how much money was spent to discover something that Penn Jillette could have offered for free or at least for the cost of a ticket to his next show, but such is the politics of science.)

Gallup poll shows Americans have little faith in media

CHICAGO - Maybe it's not so much what news is covered, it's what is not covered that has caused confidence in media to dip to its lowest levels ever. A Gallup poll in early June showed that Americans simply don't trust the media anymore than they do the neighborhood gossip. The Daily Signal reports:

Confidence in American newspapers has fallen to less than half of what it used to be at its apex. In 1979, 51 percent of Americans placed their confidence in print institutions, but today only 22 percent express confidence in newspapers.

While news sites have reached newfound prominence on the Internet, their confidence ratings continue to lag behind. Internet news sources garnered 22 percent of American’s confidence in 1999 at Gallup’s only previous measure. Fifteen years later, confidence remains anemic at 19 percent.

O'Brien: House GOP shuffles just to dance to the same tune

By Teri O'Brien - 

Last week, after Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor's recent primary defeat and resignation as Majority Leader, the GOP's theme song could have been The Who's "We Won't Get Fooled Again," as in "meet the new boss. Same as the old boss." California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, beloved by Silicon Valley and, despite his vociferous denials, enthusiastic supporter of amnesty for illegals, is the new Majority Leader.

In an interesting coincidence, like many of you, I find myself feeling like Kevin McCarthy, not the guy in Congress, but the actor, or rather the character that he played in the classic film "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." He could clearly see the terrifying destruction of his perfect American town by an alien invasion, which so many of his friends and neighbors could not. Many of them decided there was no point in resisting, passively assenting to and becoming part of the takeover. 

Starkehaus: Controversal exchange at Heritage Foundation event

By Irene F. Starkehaus - 

The Heritage Foundation held a panel discussion on the Benghazi massacre that occurred in September of 2012. The purpose for the event was to ascertain how the U.S. government failed to protect U.S. citizens in its U.S. Embassy during a period of unrest. Saba Ahmed attended the conference and posed a question that was off topic regarding so-called Islamophobia and the panelists went about answering her question.

Particularly brilliant was Brigitte Gabriel who laid down some of the most simple and concise arguments regarding the accusations of bigotry that are occassionally thrown down by peaceful Muslims.

The MSM is doing their best to portray Ms. Gabriel's response as an over-the-top personal attack on Ms. Ahmed which it was not. Additionally, and I am quoting heavily from a good friend who took the time to dig into this matter further -