-By Doug Ibendahl
“Tom Cross has a brick on SB35.”
That’s a quote from State Senator Kirk Dillard from a few days ago. He simply stated what nearly all of you I’m sure already know.
It’s hardly some secret that Tom Cross – the House Minority Leader – is viciously opposed to the idea of regular Republicans having a voice again in their own party.
Now for the third time in six years, the direct election reform (now designated as Senate Bill 35) – has passed out of the Senate and over to the House. The most recent Senate passage was last month and this time the vote was unanimous. Even several Republican Senators who had been pressured by the old guard to vote “no” in 2009 are now waking up to the reality that our Illinois Republican Party needs an overhaul from the bottom and the top.
But in the Illinois House it’s different. Not a single Republican has stepped up so far to co-sponsor SB35 in the House this session. It’s really shameful.
It’s especially shameful where the 13 new GOP State Representatives are concerned (some won in November and some were appointed to fill vacancies post-November).
And by the way, I’ve talked to several of the freshmen, as well as with many of the longer serving GOP House members. I’ve not heard a single one voice an argument against SB35 – in fact many are clearly in favor of the bill and its reform. But their “support” is pretty meaningless if they won’t stand up…
Read the rest at RepublicanNewsWatch.com.
Rahm Emanuel is now officially sworn in as Chicago’s 46th mayor so we can now officially swear at him. Of course, we all know that today’s ceremony was merely a formality as he was anointed mayor months ago the second that Mayor Daley announced the end of his long reign of fiscal irresponsibility in the Windy City.
A former corrections officer and a downstate farmer have joined with the 
Feeling low, spunky? Feeling sad because you lose election after election, my friend? Crying because, no matter how hard you try, those idiot voters won’t put you in office where you’re sure you belong, donkey-boy? Well, fear not, sparkey. YOU are a Democrat and in THIS state you always win, even when you lose. In this state, as a Democrat, you get to feed at the public trough, paid by the taxpayers whether you can win election or not.
Illinois Governor, Democrat 
All across the web today (even 
If Governor Pat Quinn had been CEO of the White Star Line in April of 1912 I suspect his reaction to the Titanic’s sinking would have been to report that he had successfully transported 705 people from England to New York City. Never mind the 1,517 who didn’t make it.
Americans have weathered one economic storm after another over the last few years. Yet, time and again, Washington policies have only made our families’ woes worse. From a failed trillion dollar stimulus to a healthcare overhaul that costs jobs and makes healthcare more expensive, Washington policies keep making it harder when Americans need the help most.
Wisconsin is celebrating over 
Americans for Prosperity – Illinois has launched an effort to goad our lawmakers in Springfield to tackle the single most vexing problem the state faces: pension obligations. 
It is a particular problem with our voter registration systems across the USA that the voting roles are so filled with ineligible names that we aren’t sure how many voters really live in any particular district. East St. Louis is no different.
You gotta hand it to new Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle. Not only has she risen above her goofy name and won a highly important political position, but she’s achieved the art of almost saying something that she means.
Doug Ibendahl of 
No one but the worst sycophant thinks that President Obama’s latest stab at a federal budget is a serious plan. In fact, that he’s come before the American people again with a second budget plan itself bespeaks of a president badly floundering on the issue. This has left the Republican Party, and more specifically the GOP led House of Representatives, as the only real game in town on the budget, the debt, and in correcting the Bacchanalia of spending that Congress has indulged for nigh on the last 100 years.
Chicago area Congressman Luis Gutierrez has been harping on the immigration issue for many years and since Obama was elected he has stepped up that activism. Gutierrez wants complete amnesty and an open border and he’s been unhappy with the Obama Administration for its lack of movement on the issue. Now he’s threatening not to support Obama’s 2012 reelection bid over his stymied immigration bill.
Chicago area Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. is apparently as fickle as he is uninformed about economics and the Constitution both. In March we saw him praising the Apple iPad as technology so important that he wanted to have the federal government buy one for every American student. Only a month later he was calling the iPad a destroyer of American jobs. Talk about a whiplash inducing turn around.