From Dan Patlak for Cook County Board of Review…
In the spirit of empowering taxpayers, we have released the first in a series of “Property Tax Facts” videos. This video series compliments our website’s new “Education Center”, and answers commonly asked questions about Cook County Property Taxes. If you have a question about property taxes please visit our web site at www.ElectPatlak.com and click on Ask Dan.
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Dan Patlak: Empowering the Taxpayers”
-By Warner Todd Huston
The Southtown Star finally had enough of Congressman Debbie Halvorson’s illicit attack on her 11th District opponent’s military record and published a July 20 editorial saying so.
Halvorson jumped on the Mark Kirk bandwagon and tried to see if she could find any similar “lies” in GOP candidate Adam Kinzinger’s bio. Kinzinger is a Captain in the Air Force and flew missions in Iraq. His website bio stated his history as follows: “I now serve as a captain in the United States Air Force Special Operations Command flying reconnaissance aircraft.”
Halvosron is claiming that this is a “lie.” Why is it a lie? Because Kinzinger is not now engaged in that duty. And so, he’s a liar.
The Southtown is not amused. The paper says that whether he is now or just “was” doing that duty is immaterial.
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SouthTown Star Scolds Rep. Halvorson for Specious Attack on Opponent’s Military Record”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Jim Geraghty Campaign Spot blog post reporting that incumbent Democrat Phil Hare is down in the polls in his race for reelection to his 17th District House seat in Illinois.
It was widely assumed that Congressman Hare would easily win re-election, yet according to this poll he is losing to GOP candidate Bobby Schilling.
His GOP opponent, Bobby Schilling, hired Magellan Strategies to conduct a poll of the district. Magellan conducted an automated survey of 715 likely voters in the 17th congressional district of Illinois: “The interviews were conducted on July 12th of 2010. This [poll has] a margin of error of +/_ 3.6% at the 95% confidence interval. The survey results are weighted to reflect past turnout demographics from the 2008, 2006, 2004 and 2002 general election cycles.”
. . . Phil Hare’s image rating is “upside down,” with 27% of voters having a favorable opinion of him, and 41% having an unfavorable opinion of him.
Among all voters, 27% approve of the job Phil Hare is doing and 43% disapprove..
This is pretty big news if true.
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Wow: GOP Shilling Leading Dem. Hare in ILL 17th?”
Robert Dold is running to replace Mark Kirk who resigned his 10th District seat to run for Senate.
Dold’s calling himself a “social moderate.” I shudder hearing that. But he is running in a trending liberal district and that is how Kirk had to sell himself, too (and in Kirk’s case he more than a “social moderate.” He’s nearly a straight out liberal).
Anyway, Dold has a new radio spot…
Here is Dold’s website: www.doldforcongress.com
-By Warner Todd Huston
Ed McClelland over at NBC Chicago’s Ward Room blog makes a good point about reports of the two gubernatorial candidate’s fundraising. Both seem to be claiming to have $2.3 million on hand going into this leg of the campaign. But, McClelland makes the point that so far Brady’s $2.3 million is “bigger” than Quinn’s.
How is that?
Well, Brady has gotten the benefit of money from the Republican Governors Association for ads and whatnot while Quinn has not benefitted much from the Democrat Governors Association. That means that Brady doesn’t have to spend as much of his $2.3 million to reach voters as Quinn does.
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Ill Gov Race: GOPs Brady Has Bigger Bang for Fundraising Bucks”
A multi-part series from the Palatine Tea Party…
(Palatine, Illinois) – Congresswoman Melissa Bean is one of the Honorary Co-Chairs of the Third Way Foundation, formerly known as the Progressive Foundation.
What Third Way Does
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(Ill. Congresswoman) Bean’s Crime Inc: What Third Way Does”
At the end of June while walking a Chicago street, a Chicago musician heard the cries of a woman being assaulted and went to help. Matthew Leone, a bass player for a Chicago-based band named Madina Lake, found the woman being beaten by what turned out to be her abusive husband.
Like a good neighbor, Leone got between the two and stopped the beating. Unfortunately, when his back was turned, Leone was then assaulted by the much larger husband of the beaten woman. Leone was beaten pretty badly and ended up in the hospital with a swelling brain, a broken jaw, and many other injuries.
Leone is recovering, but his brain injuries have yet to heal. They even had to remove a large part of his skull so that the swelling would not damage his brain further.
You can see more of the details of Mr. Leone’s recovery and story at the Chicago Radio and Media website: Through the Pain — Coming to the Aid of a Chicago Hero.
And if you want to help, here’s how:
Helping a Chicago Hero”
-By Warner Todd Huston
If this isn’t a reed-in-the-wind sort of move, I’m not sure what is? If you’ll recall a few weeks ago Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn was left trying to explain why he was giving his staffers big raises even as he was gallivanting about the state saying how we are out of money and that we’d need to cut the budget. Well this week he is cutting staffer’s pay giving them more furlough days.
After giving out raises, now Quinn is trying to save face from that tone deaf move and requiring his staffers to endure 24 furlough days this year instead of the previous 12 day cut.
And Quinn is now putting up a grand show of his seriousness on fiscal issues by hectoring every government office to make such cuts.
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After Giving Raises, Now Ill. Gov Cuts Staffer’s Pay”
From the Hayes for Congress campaign (2nd District)…
CHICAGO: Republican nominee for Illinois 2ndCongressional District Isaac Hayes published his position paper on U.S. Defense Policy today, calling for the United States to continue to lead the world toward freedom and liberty.
American National Defense Principles
The American defense policy is to seek and support democracy and its institutions in every nation-state and culture across the globe, with the ultimate goal of ending tyrannical regimes around the world. Achieving this high goal is the work of current and future American generations. The United States is in the early years of a long and tough fight similar to what our country faced in the early years of the Cold War. The twentieth century experienced the victory of freedom over the serious menaces of Fascism, Nazism, and Communism. Currently, a new totalitarian ideology threatens our freedom and democratic values and ideas around the globe. It is an ideology not based in a secular political philosophy, but in the extreme political and social beliefs of a religion. Its contest may be different from the old totalitarian political ideologies of the last century, but its means are similar: intolerance, terror, murder, enslavement, and total repression.
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(2nd District) Hayes: Position Paper on U.S. Defense”
-By Warner Todd Huston
If this isn’t a perfectly representative Illinois politician story I’ve never seen one. There’s misuse of public facilities, influence abuse, nudity, binge drinking, sexual harassment and a death… all the elements of the Chicago Way style of politics. It only lacks the bribes and payoffs that we always see, but as the cops become more involved, likely that’ll come along in due time.
Phil Kander has the odd tale of intrigue, wild partying, and death in the SouthTown Star of the southern suburbs.
As it happens, Freddie Bilotto, the president of the Blue Island Park District Board, thought it would be wonderful to commandeer a city pool after hours, close it to the public, and invite all his most lewd and lascivious buddies and their easily undressed girlfriends for a bit of wild bacchanalia all on the city’s dime.
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Blue Island, Ill. Politician’s Pool Party Ends With One Dead”
From the Dold for Congress campaign (10th District)…
Yesterday we filed our second quarter fundraising totals with the Federal Election Commission. We raised approximately $561,000 and have $722,000 cash on hand, almost identical numbers to our opponent. We’re well-positioned to take Robert’s message to voters through television, radio and internet advertising, and we have to keep our fundraising push going strong!
Our grassroots volunteer team is also up and working hard for Robert in the district. We’re phone banking every day, and this week the team made more than 9,000 calls to 10th District voters. They gave out yard signs, campaign literature and thousands of bumper stickers across the District.
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(10th District) Dold’s Fundraising Report”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Chicago’s Representative Luis Gutierrez has been finding few takers for his pro-illegal immigrant policies of late. But he and several Democrat lawmakers think they’ve found a way to increase support for their pro-illegal alien bill: add gay issues to it.
Once again it’s an Orwellian named bill, too. The pro-illegal alien supporters are calling this abomination the “Uniting American Families Act.”
The bill would allow gay couples from foreign countries to automatically bring in their gay partners and all their immediate family members into the United States when one of the pair has the fortune to make it across the border.
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New Dem Idea: Can’t Win on Immigration? Then Stick Gay Issues in The Bill, Too!”
-By Warner Todd Huston
The Hill is reporting that Democrat Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias is having trouble raising money, which is amusing because as a failed banker he gave away millions to a pair of mobsters that never paid back the “loan”
The Hill reports that Giannoulias “struggled to raise money in the aftermath of his family bank’s collapse in April.”
Giannoulias has raised only some $900,000 since March 31 — the bulk of it in June. His Republican opponent, Mark Kirk, collected close to $1 million that same month. And Kirk was dealing with his own scandal — the fallout from inaccuracies in reporting his Navy service record at the time.
Giannoulias raised less than half of Kirk’s total, and the Republican now has almost a four-to-one cash on hand advantage.
If you’ll recall — and the Hill notes — that VP Biden recently ambled into town to raise finds for the Democrats “mob banker” but apparently even “no body messes with” Joe Biden isn’t able to help Giannoulias.
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Illinois ‘Mob Banker’ Can’t Raise Money?”
A multi-part series from the Palatine Tea Party…
Congresswoman Melissa Bean is one of the Honorary Co-Chairs of the Third Way Foundation, formerly known as the Progressive Foundation.
What Third Way Believes:
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(Ill. Congresswoman) Bean’s Crime Inc: What Third Way Believes”
-By Warner Todd Huston
The website for the Illinois Reagan Centennial Commission seems to be about complete and running now. It can be seen here: http://www.illinoisreagancentennial.com/index.html.
The effort is being run out of Reagan’s boyhood home of Dixon, Illinois. Dixon is west of Chicago a few hours north of I-88 and is the town that Ronald Reagan lived in between 1920 and 1932.
The town has some great festivals, meetings, walking trails, and other events scheduled to celebrate Reagan’s life through 2011.
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Illinois Reagan Centennial Commission: Great Idea Horrible Logo”
From Kristina Rasmussen of the Illinois Policy Institute…
Talk of a soda tax is bubbling up again:
CHICAGO (CBS) ― Feel like you’re taxed enough already? More could be coming. There’s an early push to explore taxing soft drinks that are sweetened with sugars – all to get you to stop buying them. CBS 2’s Kristyn Hartman reports it’s all about obesity.
A coalition of groups is in the very early stages of mapping out a plan to fight fat in Illinois. Sugared beverage consumption has tracked with rising obesity rates – so it’s getting some attention.
Ill. Policy Institute: Soda Tax Talk Bubbling Up Again”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Homer Township is not a metropolis commonly in the news in Illinois. Situated to the south and west of Chicago about an hour or so, the small town is generally a quiet place. That may be about to change, at least for this week, because the township’s board of trustees just voted to support a new policy making English the official language for government business.
Granted this is not much of a change from what they are already doing. The resolution requires that all business that the government of the township does will all be in English only, something that is already the case. Minutes, notices, agendas, all printing, and all the records of the assessor’s office will be done only in English.
No one on the board, however, is saying that this is a big change. In fact, Township Clerk Steve Balich says that it is all symbolic and meant to start a dialog about illegal immigration.
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Small Illinois Town Makes English Official Language”
A multi-part series from the Palatine Tea Party…
Congresswoman Melissa Bean is one of the Honorary Co-Chairs of the Third Way Foundation, formerly known as the Progressive Foundation.
Third Way Foundation is the leading moderate think-tank of the progressive movement.*
Who is Third Way?
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(Ill. Congresswoman) Bean’s Crime Inc (Third Way)”
The folks at ChampionNews.net have a series of articles about the mess that Illinois public employees pensions is in that is must reading. The articles are penned by expert Bill Zetter.
Of course, the pension mess is the single biggest trouble that Illinois (and most other states) face today. It is a ticking time bomb…. heck its a bomb exploding already, albeit in slow motion.
Here is what they’ve posted thus far:
Back To the Pension Future: What Did We Actually Guarantee?
Illinois Pensions: Rob the Poor and Give It to the Rich
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Illinois Pension Problems and What to Do About Them, By Bill Zetter”
From the Office of Tony Peraica, Cook County Commissioner…
Earlier today, the County Board considered the newly proposed budget for the county health bureau.
Unfortunately, in terms of promoting transparency and truth in budgeting and taxation, the health bureau budget falls short.
You can read my statement on the budget here.
The National Republican Committee wants to know the answer to a few questions…
Once again the exculpatory memo issued by the President-elect’s lawyer, Greg Craig, in December of 2008 is finding itself in conflict with testimony coming out of the Blagojevich Trial in Chicago. First we learned through the testimony of SEIU boss Tom Balanoff that President Obama actually played an active role in promoting Valerie Jarrett as a candidate for his old seat, despite no mention of that in the memo. Now we are learning of another call, this time by Rahm Emanuel that violated Obama’s supposed neutrality policy and again failed to be reported by Craig. Here are a couple of questions for a White House that clearly wants to avoid this topic:
1) How do explain the inconsistencies between Craig’s memo, which said “the President-Elect had ruled out communicating a preference” and John Wyma’s testimony that he received a call from Rahm Emanuel with a message from the President-Elect?
2) How do you explain the reoccurring pattern of omitted or inaccurate information included in the memo, in this case the call from Emanuel to Wyma, and how does that reflect on the veracity of the document as a whole?
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What Did Obama Know of Blago’s Selling of Senate Seat And When Did He Know It?”
From the Isaac Hayes for Congress campaign (2nd District)…
Republican nominee for Illinois 2nd Congressional District Isaac Hayes released the following statement regarding the NAACP’s vote to condemn the Tea Party movement.
“Today’s vote by the NAACP to condemn the Tea Party movement highlights its ignorance of the history of the Tea Party movement and reminds us it has not changed its tactics in 100 years. A quick survey of American history will reveal the first American to shed blood in the American Revolution was both a Tea Partier and Black by the name of Crispus Attucks.
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(2nd District) Hayes Condemns NAACP”
The Sauk Valley News has a reader poll for folks to vote on for whom they’ll vote in the 14th District in the upcoming elections.
At the time I posted this Hultgren was in the lead over Democrat incumbent Bill Foster, the Green Party candidate Daniel Kairis, Libertarian Doug Marks and the ever popular “no opinion.”
I say we go hit up the poll and run up a good Hultgren total! Come on, folks. Go Randy Hultgren!
http://hultgrenforcongress.com/
-By Warner Todd Huston
The Sun-Times is Chicago’s left-wing, left-wing paper while the Chicago Tribune is but the city’s left-wing paper and pursuant to its agenda, the Sun-Times recently made to shore up support for Mayor “King” Daley’s attempt to eliminate the Second Amendment for his Chicago subjects with its headlined “More guns in city not a good thing.” Naturally most of what is contained in the piece is incorrect and deserves a good fisking.
So, here goes…
This won’t make the NRA happy. Twelve guns a year? How dare Chicago restrict a citizen’s right to buy 12 million guns a year.
My response here won’t make the Sun-Times happy: Newspapers? They have a constitutional right to be free of government interference, too. We call it the First Amendment. But here’s an idea for you, Sun-Times… how about we limit the public to one newspaper a month? After all, ideas are very, very dangerous, aren’t they? If, Sun-Times, you have no problem with our Second Amendment rights being restricted by the federal, the state or local governments, why should you be all upset that your First Amendment rights are restricted? Where is the intellectual honesty in agreeing to restrict the Second Amendment but not the First?
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Fisking the Chgo Sun-Times Anti-2nd Amendment Article”
From the Hayes for congress campaign (2nd District)…
The campaign committee for Republican nominee in Illinois 2ndCongressional District Isaac Hayes released the following video today challenging Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. to tell the truth.
In the video, Jackson is heard saying he is not “aware” that he is Senate Candidate 5 in the Rod Blagojevich indictment. The very next day the Chicago Sun-Times confirms he is.
The second half of the video shows Jackson at a press conference where he said, “I did not initiate or authorize anyone at anytime to promise anything to Governor Blagojevich on my behalf.” But on July 7, 2010 the Chicago Tribune reported testimony from the Blagojevich corruption trial that placed Jackson at a meeting where Indian businessman Raghuveer Nayak told Jackson, “I will raise a million if he appoints you to the Senate seat.”
.
This statement appears on the Citizens for Isaac Hayes website at:
www.isaac4honesty.com.
From Bill Brady for Governor and the Illinois GOP…
Pay hikes for state government executives during a fiscal crisis is outrageous, but Governor Quinn? He defends his executive pay hikes, telling viewers on Chicago Tonight, “… that’s how it works.”
If Pat Quinn is serious about controlling state spending, he should immediately enact a wage freeze on state government payroll, and reverse his pay hikes for his executive staff today.
From the Illinois Review YouTube Channel:
U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock joined U.S. House candidates Joel Pollak and Isaac Hayes in pumping up a Chicago Young Republican VIP reception Friday night before joining over a thousand CYRs in the group’s 2010 Summer Membership bash at Chicago’s Cubby Bear, across from Wrigley Field.
From the Hayes for Congress campaign (2nd District)…
CHICAGO: Republican nominee for Illinois 2ndCongressional District Isaac Hayes released the following statement calling for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign after failure to prosecute the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation during the 2008 election.
“The Justice Department’s refusal to prosecute the terrorist actions of the New Black Panther Party for its 2008 intimidation and threatening vitriol outside a Philadelphia polling place is criminal affirmative action. This selective justice paradigm was exposed during the testimony of J. Christian Adams – a former U.S. Prosecutor assigned to the Civil Rights Division, Voting Section, before the U.S. Civil Rights Commission – who testified he was told ‘cases are not going to be brought against Black defendants for the benefit of White victims.’
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Hayes Calls for A.G. Holder to Step Down”
From the Hayes for Congress campaign (2nd District)…
CHICAGO: Republican nominee for Illinois 2ndCongressional District Isaac Hayes released the following statement following testimony from the Rod Blagojevich trial placing Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. at a meeting where cash in exchange for the U.S. Senate Seat was discussed,
“Today, we again heard damaging testimony belying Congressman Jackson’s claims of innocence in the Blagojevich Senate Seat scandal. We can now place Mr. Jackson at the head of the table when this conspiracy was first discussed. According to testimony by Rajinder Bedi, on October 27, 2008 he met with Congressman Jackson and his supporter Raghu Nayek at the 312 Restaurant in the loop. During this meeting at which Jackson was present, Nayek asked Bedi to send word to Blagojevich that he would raise a million dollars for Blagojevich if he would appoint Jackson to the Senate seat.
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(2nd District) GOPs Hayes: ‘Jackson at Head of Table When Blago Bribe Conspired”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Many businesses across Illinois are trying to stave off closing their doors by cutting salaries and hours for employees. Some aren’t so luck and are laying off thousands of workers. Add to that dismal outlook that the state’s budget is billions in the red and politicians are so at loggerheads on how to solve the crisis that no budget can be agreed upon.
Cue accidental Governor Pat Quinn whose job, as he sees it, has been to warn Illinois that we are broke, that we can’t afford the many programs we have, that the poorest of us are at risk and that taxes will have to be raised to “fix” it all.
It’s a very bleak picture, indeed. Bleak, that is, unless you are one of Quinn’s staffers. In that case you are living high off the hog and getting an up to 20 percent raise in salary thanks to the Governor’s generosity… oh, and at the taxpayers expense, of course.
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Gov. Says Ill. is Broke, but His Staffers/State Workers Get Big Raises”