AP Goofed on Kirk Swearing In? Or Did It?...Let’s Not Be Namby Pamby Jackwagons: Earmarks Should Go!

                               How Did the Wire Service Goof?

      The answer came down…after a number of bloggers—including this one--raised the roof…that the Associated Press goofed about the amount of  time “paperwork” would take before Mark Kirk would be sworn in.   He will be sworn in in ample time to make the Lame Duck session.   That’s great but how did AP get it so wildly wrong in the first place?  Even to the extent of quoting a Illinois State Board of Elections expert in its story whose writer drew a wildly inaccurate  conclusion?  

       You don’t suppose, do you that--?.  Naw.  Would the Democrats try to get away with a calculated slowdown delay so as to keep Tombstone Roland voting pro-Squid?    They wouldn’t try that would they?   Of course not.   But I would like to hear from AP how it came to that conclusion.   

                              Jackwagons in Namby Pamby Land.

           It would be the height of cynicism…now that so many conservative newcomers denounced earmarks…for the Republican leadership in the next Congress to wink and let the concept glide by.  I have great admiration for Mitch McConnell but  he shouldn’t try to mislead the troops that earmarks don’t cost money but are just a device.

          Let this octogenarian retired lobbyist tell you how earmarks do…and McConnell knows this very well himself.   I’m a congressman from Illinois and I very much want to get a defense installation earmarked for my district.  So I go to the chairman of Defense appropriations and say this:  Mr. Chairman, what can I do to convince Appropriations to earmark this thing for my district? 

           He’d say:  Well, that’s a pretty tough sell.  Freddie from Cedar Rapids [a congressman in the  Chairman’s delegation] wants it and of course he has been a good friend. Very good friend.” 

         I’d say: “That’s too bad.  That thing could spell the difference next time up  [meaning the next election] between my coming back or not.”

        He’d respond: “Sorry if that’s so.  On the other hand, Fred has done pretty well by us [meaning being supportive on the House floor for extension of subsidies  the subcommittee chairman needs for farmers in his district].   We’re thinking of building a $2.1 billion addition to the Air Force training station in Iowa which will house 1,300 recruits which will mean quite a good deal to Cedar and the locality around there—you know, in terms of support services.  The Pentagon wanted to scrub the addition and instead build something in Mississippi but hell I told `em they’re better off building on to the facility in Iowa. It should stay in the midwest’s been my thinking.  Maybe…who knows….in Illinois.    Let me see what I can do.”

        Me: “If anything could be done, I’d be more than grateful.”

        He: “ More than grateful!  How long you been here? I got scads of guys who are more than grateful for stuff..”

       Me:  “I realize that, Mr. Chairman. Let me be more helpful if  I can.”

      He:   “Well, sure.  Don’t get me wrong.  There’s no quid pro quo in this stuff.   But I sure would appreciate…you’re on the Education committee, aren’t you?”

       Me:  “Sure am.”

       He:   “I’ve been tryin’ to get your Department [of Education] to work out a cooperative program involving audio visual with a series of community colleges in my district.  A pretty dinky thing--$50 million or so total.  Well,  a little bird in the Department tells me it’s been scrubbed by OMB.  Now I don’t want to go to them and beg—wouldn’t be ethical or proper, you know.  But—“

       Me: “…but if the suggestion comes from me--.”

       He:   “It’s got to be more than a suggestion,  Tom, you know. Somebody over at Education should go back to OMB and make the case.   It’s not for me to say anything.“

     Me:   “I know.  Let me see what I can do.”

      He:   “Fine.  And let me see what I can do.   No quid-pro-quo stuff you understand.”

      Me:   “Of course not.  I’m supposed to meet with the Secretary tomorrow anyhow and you can bet I’ll come down enthusiastic about audio visual in community colleges.”

      That’s a rough sketch of how earmarks grow government.  Backscratching and good-old-boy [girl] dickering amounts to multi-billions.

        If the GOP suddenly becomes a wuss on earmarks it’ll stir up cynicism and….horrors….folks will think we just brought it up as a campaign device!  

         

What Arrant Squid Nonsense: Illinois State “Paperwork” to Delay Kirk’s Swearing in Until Dec. 3—Keeping Unelected Dem Burris in the Senate!.

 

          Yep, it’s the same old Squid. This time twisting its tentacles about the supposed “bipartisan” Illinois State Board of Elections which announced that newly-elected Republican Senator Mark Kirk won’t be sworn in until Dec. 3.  That means the Lame Duck session which starts Nov. 15 will feature unelected Blago-appointee Dem lackey Roland Burris…5 foot 6-inches of Lefty bluster… casting votes on our behalf on key measures. It also denies seniority to the duly elected senator from Illinois while Tombstone Burris who has no electoral mandate continues to vote.  

          Ha-ha-ho-ho…how very coincidental.   This is the Dems’ way of ratifying the new Obama-proclaimed era of cooperation.  And the spineless media will find oodles of justification for this Squid-manufactured atrocity. 

           The showcase reason: the Demo officials here and with their still controlled Senate in Washington need all this time to “complete their paperwork.”  Ah but Delaware’s new Dem senator Chris Coons and West Virginia’s  Democrat Joe Manchin of  West Virginia will be both sworn in immediately when the Senate convenes on the 15^th.

        A bureaucrat for the Illinois State Board of Elections named Kenneth Menzel told the media this:  “The special election is being conducted pursuant to a federal court order that said the election had to happen to begin with.    What you’re getting from the Board is what was in accordance with the federal court decision. When a federal court issues an order you say, `Sir, yes sir.’”

         That’s about as non-substantive an answer as is possible to contrive: meaning we’re taking the time because that’s the way it is—we’re taking the time. It’s murky language is worthy of the Right Honorable Danny Davis,  the walkin’, talkin’, workin’, thinkin, movin’  Squid creature doin’ the people’s business.

         This is par for one of the most crooked one-party states since the Long brothers ran Louisiana.  The scenario: Blago tries to auction off the seat.   Then the feds arrest him at 6 in the morning which prevented the sell-off.    The Dem-controlled legislature buckles at holding a special election for the seat—which was the way to go.

          Blago names Burris who’s on tape begging for the appointment and talking roundabout of how he’ll make good on it.  Burris lies under oath about whether he dickered for it.  He goes to Washington, knocks on the Senate door and isn’t let in. He finally is, is sworn in and the state decides it’ll hold two Senate elections—one for the Lame Duck and one for the regular. 

      Burris says he’ll run for the Lame Duck but is spurned.  Now he’ll serve anyhow because The Squid has determined “the paperwork” will take too long to process to send the duly elected Senator to Washington to vote on legislation the voters elected him for.

       A show of hands. If Giannoulias had won, would the paperwork be finished in time for him to be sworn in with the others on  Nov.15?

“Emanuel—Before It’s Too Late!” That’s The Squid’s Game Plan Against Moseley Braun or Davis. (They’ve Got Something There!).

                           BUT FIRST—BREAKING NEWS.

            Capitolfax is back at its old game—lobbying for Illinois Republicans to ditch pro-life—using as decoy in a Sunday fax a Topmost unnamed authority in the Brady campaign who says PersonalPAC was responsible for Brady getting only 41% of the suburban Cook vote instead of the 43% goal the campaign had set for itself.

           Know what?  It’s probably true.  PersonalPAC is an extraordinarily well-financed PAC and its success is a challenge for social conservatives to match it through the highly acclaimed FamilyPAC and other sources.   But that’s not the bone of contention.      

           It originally started with a statement in Sneed on Nov. 4 from a high Republican Brady source that what brought Brady down was a machine gun decimation based on pro-choice “in the suburbs.”   The words from Sneed are these:

      “Sneed is told GOP gubernatorial hopeful Bill Brady got machine-gunned by suburban women voters deluged by direct mailings last week highlighting his `socially-right-wing-not-exactly-pro-female agenda’ according to a GOP source.”

        This item coincides with a longtime Judy Baar Topinka view that  social conservatism is a death knell for the Republican party.   In countering this claim I cited a string of pro-life victories in the suburbs including the apparent defeat of Melissa Bean by an underfunded Republican Joe Walsh notwithstanding that Bean’s entire TV assault on Walsh centered on his being a pro-lifer.   Yesterday CapitolFax sent out a special fax to its subscribers hailing the work of  PersonalPAC and alleging that my defense “isn’t based on facts” and cited pro-Bean majorities in most of the 8^th’s  Cook county townships.

        Hey, guys you’re comparing apples and oranges.  Sneed’s  report didn’t specify Cook townships but suburban women voters.  I refuted the “suburban” generalization.  The ones who did sloppy work on this issue are the CapitolFax folks.   My answer was based on Sneed’s story that Brady was “machine-gunned” by suburban women…not Cook county suburban township women.

     Now if I were as thin-skinned and litigious-threatening as CapitolFax I’d demand the publication publicly apologize to me for threatening  my livelihood and reputation by stating my response wasn’t “based on facts.”   But I’ll let it pass understanding that the publication is such a cheerleader for abortion among other things (the Democratic party being foremost)  that it got carried away.

      NOW  BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED TOPIC.      

       It’ll be a campaign fight to the finish between Rahm Emanuel and Carol Moseley Braun—or Emanuel vs. Danny Davis …where The Squid will feature a choice between  tough-minded management and chaotic incompetence that—it hopes—will elect Emanuel.  Thus the whispered (not bill-boarded) slogan will be Emanuel—before it’s Too Late!   Reminiscent of the infamous GOP slogan devised by liberal (!) ad consultant John Deardourff  that almost toppled Harold Washington in 1983: “Epton—Before It’s  Too Late!” which made the general election a nail-biter, Washington winning by 3.7%.  

 The Squid will make a telling point—although assuredly our spavin-spined weak-kneed liberal media will interpret it as racism.  It is not: it just singularly pertains to Moseley Braun or Davis. There is a healthy selection of managerial and philosophical competence in the black community.  Terry Peterson for example…who ran Daley’s last campaign, the Chicago Housing Authority and the CTA among others…and Frank Clark, CEO of ComEd.  The problem:  Peterson and similarly good public administrators in the black community aren’t running for mayor. And among those running—Moseley Braun and Davis (a chronic electoral wannabe mayor) are electoral adventurers without a smidgeon of executive talent.

           Mosley Braun—charismatic, a phrasemaker and a liberal media favorite—nevertheless possesses all the qualities that made her an object of ridicule and a one-term senator: 

       Bad judgment, an inconsiderable time away from the desk… masterly inattention to detail …demagoguery…cronyism…chaotic mismanagement…proclivity to pushing incompetent political favorites to high governmental posts)…insensitivity to corruption.    Putting her in command of Chicago would be like handing a machine gun to a 6-year-old loaded with a clip of  live bullets and saying, “Here—try this!”

       Davis is almost as bad.   He’s never run anything either and his age and leisurely down-home southern style…not vigorous up-and-att`em attention to detail will warrant the same media assaults. But Moseley Braun is exceptionally incompetent.  Her chaotic background in the Senate should make the media campaign against her self-generative.  

        The unspoken but heavily implied  issue will be—but dominant nevertheless…baldly stated….that she could well start the slide turning Chicago into another Detroit reminiscent of Coleman Young under whose tenure his city became the arson and murder capital of the nation from which it’s never recovered.    Those who know the lady from past campaigns—particularly the Senate ones tell me she could outdo Young and complete the job in one term.

        Moseley Braun has two white adroit Squid-trained managers pulling her strings.  They  prepared her charge against Emanuel last week that he bailed out on Barack Obama,   sold out precious abortion rights  in the big health bill to please Blue Dogs and mismanaged the White House making his boss unpopular, was ingenious; tailored to stir up the Leftist rabble in  the city, it was a brilliant attention-getter.

         Why are two Squid veterans with her when it is so apparent that the organism wants Emanuel to win?  Dough and a cynical strategy outlined below.

                 Among the mayoral candidates, The Squid favors Rahm Emanuel.  He’s been spawned from its belly after all beginning when he volunteered to raise what he called “Jewish money”—always a lush banquet—for it.  Then Rahm turned on his heel and raised all kinds of money for the organism proving he was not a one-trick pony.  He proved to be a sagacious counselor to Dems and a brilliant strategist for the party—witness his role as chairman of the DCCC where he  led the Dems to capture the House in 2006. 

          His sagacity involves some moderation—not just going for broke ala David Axelrod who with stars in his eyes clicked his heels and saluted when Obama turned down Rahm’s suggestion after Scott Brown won in Massachusetts that they should indefinitely postpone health care and concentrate on job-building.  The Squid recognizes that.

         It recognizes that Emanuel is best suited to the tough job of mayor—but that Moseley Braun and Davis are spellbinding movement people who specialize in rhetoric and no action—not unlike Obama. 

       Moseley Braun is a will-of-the-wisp who, as she did with her ill-fated presidential campaign, can pull up stakes and disappear overnight.  Davis is someone more substantial although he could easily become our Coleman  Young as mayor.  The Black Caucus picked him the other day as its candidate.  Since then Davis has been intoning to the press in his rolling  Paul Robeson bass-baritone that sounds like the voice of God as played by Rex Ingram in Marc Connelly’s The Green Pastures.  .

         To be charitable, The Squid believes the times are not right for sonorous Song of the South black rhetoric like Davis’. The 69-year-old Davis is pretty old and painfully deliberate for this excursion…and odd for Chicago, is his slow, Baptist preacher speaking style comes from his southern heritage   giving the impression that here is just another pol who loves the sound  of his mellifluous voice.

        Also his slow rumbling  rhetoric evokes not just leisurely contemplation that takes seemingly forever to come to conclusion with needlessly long-winded and interminably pronounced rhetoric brimming with the outdated flowery language evocative of the South…tied to his habit of ignoring “ing” endings.. .producing words like “thinkin’” “talkin’” “movin.’” The slow pronounced rhetoric is substitute for managerial precision.  In sum, -Davis has not shown more than what he has demonstrated in Congress- a beautifully timbered voice that rings only with banal platitudes.  

        The third major black candidate scared The Squid silly at first because he looked like he was eager to foment a  revolution on religious and moral issues.  He is a combination oratorical heavily perspiring Baptist pastor who riles his congregation up on their prospects for being sinners in the hands of an angry God.   He has 20,000 rapt South Side congregants and is a state senator as well.  The Rev.-Senator James  Meeks led a battle for school vouchers and is a declared pro-lifer and is against “gay” rights.  Well, back-to-God sells well on Sundays punctuated by a swaying choir but Meeks knows full well he’ll have to change his tune if he expects to get any Squid support.

          So he trucked right down to the gay-lesbian-trangenders’ leadership and asked what it will take for them to understand he means no harm in his sermonizing. Thereupon he lost much credibility—with his congregants and with the “gays” and their many allies in the media. People don’t particularly trust their pastors as politicians and wonder how they can do both jobs and remain true to both.  Being a  pastor and a part-time state senator is one thing but mayor and Baptist preacher?

       At first Meeks said that giving up his pastorate to be mayor is non-negotiable.  Blacks didn’t like that. So then he reconsidered and said well on second thought it is too negotiable and  if elected I’ll quit as pastor. That eradicated the last shred of believability for his congregants: their pastor is too hungry to run a hunk of the kingdom that is of this world rather than concentrating on the kingdom of the next.  Also telling the “gays” and pro-aborts he is personally opposed—but… strikes his thousands of amen-sayers that the reverend-senator is  too much a part  of the political world of compromise: and they’re right.  The Squid believes this guy is no threat.

        What’s likely to happen? Conceivably with a fractured black field…Davis, Meeks et al, Emanuel might run first but still not avoid a runoff.  He will face either Moseley Braun or Davis. .

       The Squid reasons that Emanuel vs. either Moseley Braun or Davis should win.  Either African American should be strapped for cash for a runoff.  Emanuel has already raised $3.7 million in the past two weeks, expects possibly $2 million from a Hollywood soireer run by his wealthy actors’ agent brother Arie…and has access to $1.2 million lying fallow in his old congressional campaign fund.  He will have maybe $7 million for the campaign to decimate Moseley Braun.

              Thus looking at the field and especially Moseley Braun and Davis, The Squid is repeating to itself the words “Mayor Rahm Emanuel.” He knows which levers to push.   He won election to the U. S. House in the 2002 5^th congressional district primary after Daley dispatched an army of water department payrollers to work the precincts….headed by one Donald Tomczak of the department who was convicted of election corruption and who is now in jail—saying nothing.

            The argument will be: mean-spirited, scatological, vicious, duplicitous, tough—Emanuel can keep this town from becoming another Detroit….so vote for him before “it’s too late.”

        Stay tuned: It should be exciting.

Pro-Life Killed Brady in the Suburbs? That’s What They’d Have You Believe! Facts Contradict It.

        The columnist Sneed wrote yesterday that Bill Brady was on the way to get elected but a last-minute flyer that pointed out correctly he is a pro-lifer doomed the effort.   She credited this insight to a high Republican source. 

       It takes no great stretch of imagination to imagine who The Source was…one of Sneed’s great favorites—the Catholic former pro-lifer who rose above principle and became a pro-abort to get  elected state treasurer and now state comptroller (with the help of ASCME funding)…the one Sneed often calls “irrepressible”-- Judy Baar Topinka.

         Every few weeks or so Sneed has printed choice Topinka cutesy  tidbits.   One was about her puppy who has gone wee-wee in ten countries.  Another how she looks in a kimono with her hair up in curlers running  down her front steps at 7 a.m. to pick up the morning papers.  The harmless gossip column items are to fit Topinka’s meticulously honed self-image: a working class Czech lady…great for the ethnic vote at which Topinka is proficient… schmaltzy, who’s tighter than a tick in her personal life and a sure bet to be the same with taxpayers’ funds.

          The reason it’s a good bet that Topinka is the source of that little vial of poison is that the same column carries another genre flavored item about Topinka’s Norman Rockwell-like lifestyle.

      Topinka whom I knew  well years ago before her transformation is known as a Republican who detests….make that word despises…social conservatives.

          Earlier when she was in the House and for a time in the state Senate, Topinka was a social conservative herself.  Fearing defeat she sold out, scrapped her beliefs, gained plaudits from the social Left,  endorses abortion, supports gay-rights and rides each year in Gay Pride parades blowing kisses to the crowd.

          The two items:

          In yesterday’s column Sneed writes this engrossing tidbit about Our Judy.   “Judy. Judy. Judy. Newly elected state Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka, unable to celebrate her victory Wednesday morning with her favorite cup of java from Grumpy’s coffee shop in Riverside, opted for a cuppa at a mini-mart, sent the dog-sitter home and settled into a nap with rescue pups Jack, Nora and Bella. Zzzzzzz.”

          The item just ahead of this breathless news read: “Sneed is told GOP gubernatorial hopeful Bill Brady got machine-gunned by suburban women voters deluged by direct mailings highlighting his `socially-right-wing-not-exactly-pro-female-agenda’ according to a GOP source.”

       That’s Topinka talk, familiar language she’s put out since she sold out as a pro-lifer.   It’s the language she used when she was State GOP chairman—calling pro-lifers weirdos, nutcases and loonies.  That kind of rationalization made her refuse to endorse Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, a pro-lifer, when he was considering running  for a second term. 

            The Combine days of Jim Thompson and  Jim Edgar where Topinka matriculated toasted  a pro-abort, pro-gay rights GOP.  What Topinka wants is to return to those days where being pro-life in the GOP was regarded as supporting the Flat Earth Society.  Already her views have been taken up by Capitol Fax,  the influential newsletter and blog.

      Soon it could be conventional journalistic wisdom—Brady lost because the pro-life crazies lost the suburban women.   Expect to hear Carol Marin postulate this in a future column. If only Brady were pro-abort and pro-gay rights as Mark Kirk is, Brady could have won the governorship.  Lynn Sweet will soon include it in her blog as a “given.”   But it is not political analysis they write but hard-shell advocacy.   If pro-life was the kiss of death statewide, how do they explain the victory of  pro-lifer Peter Fitzgerald to the U. S. Senate over pro-abort Carol Moseley Braun?    How do they explain the repeated statewide elections of  George Ryan (forget his transgressions later)  as Secretary of State and Governor?  (He recanted his pro-life status later when…along with other changes of opinion…he was trying to sway the jury that sent him to stir).  

       Advocacy holding that pro-life defeated Brady doesn’t have much journalistic standing. Not so for many reasons.

      First, take a look at the Walsh-Bean race for Congress which Walsh,  underfunded, virtually cut adrift from the state and national parties, purportedly won (Melissa Bean won’t give up).   The 8^th district is all suburban…ranging from Schaumburg, Palatine, the rapidly-growing western half of Lake county, Barrington Hills, half of McHenry county, the northwest suburbs, Arlington Heights.  Bean’s TV commercials against Walsh were single-issue…picturing him as a raving anti-abortion fanatic.    This was virtually the only issue she used.  It didn’t take hold sufficiently to reelect her.

       Second,  consider the heavily suburban 6^th which has consistently been represented not just by pro-life congressmen but leaders of pro-life….the late Henry Hyde and now Peter Roskam.  Talk about suburban, the district takes in much of the suburban area west of O’Hare including the string of suburbs west of the Loop—Elmhurst, Villa Park, Lombard, Glen Ellyn and Wheaton…and goes on to include other suburbs along  Interstate 290…Bensenville, Addison, Wood Dale and Bloomingdale. 

        Third, although Capitol Fax doesn’t  like to admit it because it is culturally biased to the Left,  attitudes in the U.S. have changed on abortion thanks to education and a marvelous invention—ultra-sound.  These days a woman contemplating abortion can see her unborn on the screen, see him/her wriggling and even making an attempt to suck his/her thumb. That convinces her that this is a real live baby she would abort--not an appendix.     Thus pro-abortion as an issue is fading while pro-life as an issue is growing in potency.

        Fourth, if pro-abortion were all that potent an issue it didn’t take but pro-life did…as I reported yesterday…in many governorships where pro-lifers replaced pro-aborts up and down the map.  And if pro-life was disadvantageous, look at the list of  supposed pro-life Dems who were defeated largely because they voted for Obamacare which despite a fig leaf “executive order” from Obama provided  no airtight protection for unborn life…the only member of the Blue Dogs to survive being Dan Lipinski (3^rd) who opposed ObamaCare specifically because it didn’t protect unborn life.

      The list of so-called “pro-life” Democrats following Bart Stupak (Mich.) (who decided not to run) were Reps.  Brad Ellsworth (Ind.) who ran for the Senate and was defeated…Steve Driehaus (Ohio)…Kathy Dahlkemper (Penn.)…Alan Mollohan (Mich.)…Baron Hill (Ind.)…Paul Kanjorski (Penn.)…John Salazar (Col.)…Jim Oberstar (Minn.)…Bob Etheridge (N.C.)…John Boccieri (Ohio)…Chris Carney (Penn.)…John Spratt (S.C.)…Ciro Rodriguez (Texas)…and Charlie Wilson (Ohio).

         That’s all there is to that tune.

What I Really Think…Walsh…Berrios…Obama…Brady. More.

                                    Joe Walsh.

        If the media here were really doing their job, they’d report that if the likely election of Joe Walsh in Illinois 8 over Dem Melissa Bean, a rising Democratic subcommittee chairman, is verified with finality it would well be the most stunning good news to hit the Republicans here—or in many states.

       Walsh is “cautiously optimistic” as he leads Bean by 500 votes.  Of course the media here are mum.  Let’s say that Mary Ann Ahern won’t be jumping up and down with schoolgirl joy if as expected Walsh wins this one.  The news establishment and even some GOP country club cliques weren’t for Joe. His opponent has been supported in the past by the U. S. Chamber of Commerce.

        But Joe’s biggest ally is the Tea Party.   And I must say I have never heard anybody deliver a better stump speech.

          Nobody in my 50-plus years of reckoning ever won  a congressional race against more uphill odds. The liberal press savaged him because of his personal financial troubles but then I said  if everybody who ever had mortgage problems in this era voted for him he’d be a cinch.    If the initial returns are certified with Joe’s election, Republicans will control the Illinois delegation.     And if he sticks you can count that he’ll soon be regarded as a  conservative leader in the House. Oh  yes, Capitolfaxblog.com signified his importance yesterday by calling him a crazy.    Crazy:  That’s what it calls everybody who dares to challenge the Big Labor Union bund.

                  Joe Berrios Win a Rebuke to WTTW.

       The oh-so-veddy-veddy cool media types like Carol Marin and her ally WTTW-TV Chicago Tonight executive producer Mary Field felt so veddy-veddy strongly about Forrest Claypool the “independent reformer” defeating that horrid old ward boss Joe Berrios for Cook Assessor that they blocked Republican candidate Sharon Eckersall from participating in its TV debate…to make voters think there was only one choice—bad old Berrios and good, clean “independent”  Claypool.

        Their motive was…and looked…contemptuously partisan and heedless of journalistic ethics.  By calling Claypool an independent even though he was listed as such on the ballot is to defy reason.  The “independent” Claypool was twice Daley’s administrative assistant,  the mayor’s appointee as Superintendent of the Park District, has been a Democratic county commissioner and has worked for David Axelrod and in campaign tandem with Rahm Emanuel.  That even tops Berrios’ record as a party loyalist.

       Berrios’s win, bad for Cook, nevertheless serves Marin and Field right.   They shouldn’t tamper with the election process.  I always thought the job at “Chicago Tonight” was to schedule debates with the two major parties represented. But they’ve played footsie with the Greens even though it’s a minor party at best.

         Their thumb in the eye tactic to Republicans was malignant and self-serving to their own liberal proclivities at the expense of the station they serve and which receives taxpayer funds. Moreover Sharon tops both in assessor credentials since she is already the Evanston township assessor.   But not important—as passionate liberals Marin and Field had an ideological case to make showcasing two Democrats and no Republican.  Well despite their fingers on the scale they got Berrios—hurrah.    

                            In-Educable…Inflexible...Wilsonian.

        Watching President Obama at his news conference yesterday ratified for me that he is a congenital Leftist who is truly in-educable.  Declaring truthfully that he and his Dem allies in Congress “took a shellacking” he made several assertions that proved he not only hasn’t learned from Nov. 2 but is in serious denial.

        He said the electorate reacted to the economy’s woes. Wrong. It reacted to his programs which cost a trillion dollars with no results but worsened employment.   He said he had to rush through a great many programs without adequate explanation. Wrong. His major programs were thoroughly defended by him: 64 separate addresses alone on health care.  Many-many news conferences by him and his cabinet touched on cap and trade…stimulus—you name it.

      He seemed to thrive on the myth that Republicans simply opposed… and advanced no alternative programs. Wrong.  Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.l among others advanced a comprehensive re-ordering of budget and spending….so comprehensive that Obama’s favorite economist Nobel Prize-winner Paul Krugman of Princeton, columnist for The New York Times made a systemic critique of it. 

        Obama seemed annoyed that the voters don’t get what he tried to do.  He expressed contrition that “some of the finest public servants I have ever met” encountered defeat after risking their popularity by voting for his measures.  Good night…does this man not understand that the electorate does not want his program and the men who were defeated challenged their electorates saying they were wrong?

        This is the mark of an ideologue of the Left who embraces a philosophy at great variance with what the country believes—and what the Founders taught. Obama’s  philosophy is rooted in abject secularism with utterly no spiritual overtone…no doubt mention of The Creator stuck in Obama’s throat three  distinct times when he gagged as he recited words of the Declaration—“endowed [no mention of “by their Creator”] “with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

       Godless materialism which Obama slyly implies as progressive is a radical change from the liberalism as religious Social Gospel by passionate Christian William Jennings Bryan in 1896 and pursued mainly by Democrats until the McGovern campaign of 1972.  It was acceptable Social Gospel liberalism that this octogenarian covered as a 20-something journalist recording the words of Hubert Humphrey, John Kennedy, Scoop Jackson and others which basically came down from Bryan. This liberalism was junked by moderns as they expounded cavalier agnosticism embracing abortion, homosexuality as an acceptable preference and patriotism belonging “to the planet” rather than this nation.  (Not that I am a social gospel guy but it reflected basic American tenets).

          There is no clearer typicality of this intellectual agnosticism of doubt of religious verities than Barack Obama.  It is as alien to America as Obama has shown himself to be by his anti-colonialism seeped into his makeup by his many years in the 3^rd world.  Obama being the first president who eschews organized religion is at least candid, no phony (Reagan avoided church-going but was devoutly Christian).  But anyone studying Obama realizes he is a man of no fixed absolutes other than the state shall supplant god (lower case).

        In this he, of course, has a right to his religious or non-religious opinions but we should recognize he is at variance with the entire point of western civilization belief—from the Greek teachings of absolutes in Deity, wisdom and beauty…through the Romans who instructed the fundamentals of tradition and patriarchy related to religious belief…continuing through the Israelites where the concept of salvation came from the Jews …going to the teachings of early Christianity where morality and sexual ethics were promulgated…then moving to the Middle Ages where in the monasteries intellectual curiosity thrived…proceeding through the Renaissance where with the works of Shakespeare and others vapid relativism was disproved…on through the Enlightenment where our forefathers delineated between statism and liberty…veering past the 19^th century where Marx’s and Freud’s theories that man can be a god was disproved…to and beyond the 20^th where major wars taught people that it is essential to resist godless Nazism and communism.

         This president of ours described wrongly by media as intellectual while well mannered, verbal with a kind of drawing room charm and an academic air… is basically educated beyond his intelligence, ignorant of all that has gone on before.  Let us see what lessons  he has learned from the midterm elections which he rightly said were “a shellacking” for his party.             

        He said his health care bill can possibly stand “some tweaking.”  What is there about the election he doesn’t get?  Did any of the Republicans who upset incumbent Democrats say “send me to Washington to tweak Obamacare?”  In this news conference Obama was at best un-cognizant, unaware and at worst duplicitous refusing to acknowledge the truth.

          His denial and willful obtuseness is a great calamity for the American people because it signifies that he has learned nothing from this election. In his first term Bill Clinton embarked on a similar Leftwing excursion and was set back by the midterm election.  He adopted some of the Republican critique, got credit for some of them and won reelection in 1996.  Not here.

        Here we have bad news for the country with Obama’s intransigence.  But good news for the Republicans because Obama serves notice that he is in-educable, incapable of understanding, much like Wilson…like Obama a creature of the Ivy League faculty…who shunned the Senate  after Versailles and refused to compromise one jot or tittle on the treaty.    But wait… Wilson was ill, having suffered a stroke which so changed his intellectual processes that he reasoned it must be his way or the highway which denied ratification of the Treaty and the League of Nations (a blessing, actually).

       Yes!  Exactly!  But Barack Obama has had no stroke.  He is the modern Paradigmatic liberal-radical… emblematic of  the university faculty lounge elites who believe secular statism, a European-style variant of  socialism, is in the future and damn the Great Unwashed—those who…as he told an inside San Francisco group of finance-contributing  elites where he didn’t know he was being recorded… “cling” to God, guns and nativism  because they can’t or won’t  understand the glories of “progressivism” as envisioned by the Educated Class.

        Think back if you can recollect any other leader who has shrugged off those who “cling” to God…guns…and nativism.

We elected a slender, tall,  very nice looking, courtly, soft-spoken un-American non-patriotic statist to whom any view of eternal verities is above his pay grade.   We will deserve what we may well get.

                                          Brady.

      I am told…rightly…that examination of ballots in the governors election should go on—which  may hit a snag and elect Bill Brady—but that the odds of his unseating Pat Quinn are less than even.   And of course I say with all Illinoisans: Of course proceed  so that the authenticity of the winner no matter who he is is not compromised.

       I was for another candidate in the primary but I came to respect and honor Bill for his forthrightness.  He is not a candidate who tries to spin you into Nirvana with ambiguous rhetoric.  He is latch-key honest and far more than his opponent who yields to the slightest breeze. 

         Even though I have covered politicians since 1953, supped and drank with them, listened to their stories, I have not  yet recovered from being aghast when I see those of my faith, tutored as I in the intricacies of the 2000-year-old moral laws that constitute our understanding of eternal salvation, cavalierly shuck them off for electoral favor.

          The litany of them is as long as one’s arm: all for the most part Catholic Democrats (always with some GOP exceptions—hi, there, Judy Baar Topinka who occasionally…prematurely orange hair tresses tucked under her cap…trots up to the altar at St. John Cantius to receive the Eucharist which if she has not repented her pro-abortion advocacy and received absolution would be an invested sacrilege, penalty for which canonically is eternal damnation).  The same applies to the whole lineage of the legions of  Democratic abortion advocates who constitute the fabric of  this major party.

                 As I say without puffing up the prayer of the Pharisee (Lord, I am better than these)…how the hell can they do it—knowing what in probability they face? Are they betting they can at the last gasp gurgle an Act of Contrition?  Is public office worth this?  As Thomas More said to Sir Richard Riche—you are doing all this—for Wales?  

          I have always known that Bill is a genuine Catholic statesman in an era when to be so is to be ridiculed.  God grant that an Angel somewhere sees that there are some validly voted ballots somewhere to rescue this situation.

           Capitol Fax Says Social Conservatism “Lost” for Brady.

        I resist being too hard on CapitolFaxblog.com because as a useful tool it is equal…even more valuable…than Mike Barone’s indispensable Almanac of American Politics but all the same the newsletter and blog is shaded heavily to the Left on social issues.  Yesterday it seemed to allege that Brady was his own worst enemy by  seemingly alienating precious suburban women pro-aborts.   And it seemed to prescribe one of those unproven axioms that liberals invent:  For God’s sake take a pro-choice view or you’ll lose. Being Capitol Fax of course it often assumes as true about conservatives what on examination is untrue.

        For example:  Pro-life is poison to the electorate is it?  Here are the pro-life governors elected Tuesday:   Alabama—Robert Bentley (pro-life gain)…Alaska: Sean Parnell (pro-life hold)…Arizona—Jan Brewer (pro-life hold)…Florida: Rick Scott (pro-life gain)…Georgia—(pro-life hold)…Iowa: Terry Branstad (pro-life gain)…Kansas—Sam Brownback (pro-life gain)…Maine—Peter LaPage (pro-life gain)…Michigan—Rick Snyder (pro-life gain)…New Mexico—Susana Martinez (pro-life gain)…Ohio—John Kasich (pro-life gain)…Oklahoma—Mary Fallin (pro-life gain)…Pennsylvania—Tom Corbett (pro-life gain)…South Carolina—Nikki Haley (pro-life hold)..Tennessee—Bill Haslam (pro-life gain)…Texas—Rick Perry (pro-life hold)…Utah—Gary Herbert (pro-life hold)...Wisconsin—Scott Walker—(pro-life gain)…Wyoming—Matt Mead (pro-life gain).

        Any questions, Capitol Fax? 

Not All I Hoped but I’ll Take It—Gladly. Liberalism Has Been Stopped in Its Tracks. Luck’s Been a Lady Tonight!

           Written at 12:45 a.m. Wednesday Morning.

         Liberalism has been halted. Look at it this way.  The House…thank God…is Republican and Lady Nancy is  expected to disdain being minority leader and make plans to leave Congress altogether.  That alone is worth the price of admission.  We’ve made great gains in the U. S. Senate.  When it was 3 to 1 Dem Mitch McConnell tied  them in knots so imagine what he can do with these ample reinforcements.  Particularly Rand Paul.  We picked up 10 governorships and here’s one I love:  RUBIO WINS IN FLORIDA. No more looking at that sun-tanned wizened switcher Charlie Crist.

          I’m told we have defeated Alexi Giannoulias which is about as good a news bulletin as I can imagine.   I’m told we won’t know about the governorship until morning but the margin is close.   That’s an attaboy but in the aw shucks category the defeat of Cedra Crenshaw by A.J. Wilhelmi for the state House and Brian Doherty losing to Mulroe for the state senate in my old northwest side.

        Happy about Dan Patlak.  Haven’t heard about Joel Pollak but will go to bed praying.

        The heartening thing is the GOP House gains here. When last I looked we ditched Halvorson for Kinzinger…we knocked out Hare—a real accomplishment replacing him with Bobby Schilling.  We took care of Bill Foster, an anomaly and replaced him with Hultgren.  Stunning—when last I looked Joey Walsh was ahead of Melissa Bean. Bob Dold finally put Dan Seals out to pasture.

     How does the Sinatra song go?  “Regrets, I’ve had a few but then again too few to mention.” I’ll mention some.  Hangdog Harry Reid squeaking by’s the big one.  I was hoping we’d get rid of Old Watery Eyes as governor tonight.   Still have hopes it’ll happen on Wednesday.  California. 

        But speaking of Californa…the pot referendum is beaten.  How can they reelect Boxer and return the nihilistic Jerry and yet do the right thing by keeping the marijuana ban?

      On this note: Are you happier going to bed tonight with what we’ve gained than when  you went to bed last night?

        YOU  BET!  I hear someone calling me: Are you ever coming to bed?  Yes dear.

Russ Stewart-Roeser Predictions for Nov. 2, 2010.

           Veteran political analyst Russ Stewart has been running electoral predictions for a long time but beginning a few years ago we started matching ours. Russ is usually right but I suspect this  time I may top him in several instances.  He was on my show Sunday with these to which I added my guestimates.   The only reason why I don’t carry his analysis with my comments tacked on here is that I haven’t yet got the complete hang of my new computer—but I’ve summarized his and my findings here.

        U. S. Senate (Illinois).   Stewart picks Mark Kirk.  He will lose Cook by 375,000 and prevail elsewhere by 390,000—a 15,000 vote win.  Roeser picks Mark Kirk. He thinks the margin will be significantly bigger than Stewart estimates.

        Illinois Governor.   Stewart picks Bill Brady. “He will replicate Judy Baar Topinka’s 2006 vote of 1,369,315 and add another 150,000 from his Downstate base.” Roeser picks Bill Brady.  He thinks Brady will win much more heavily.

       Treasurer and Comptroller.   Stewart picks Republicans Dan Rutherford (Treasurer) and Judy Baar Topinka (Comptroller), adding that Topinka will have “the most votes of any statewide Republican candidate.”. Roeser agrees that both will win, hopes Stewart is wrong on Topinka’s vote totals and while voting for Rutherford will mark a protest anti-Topinka vote  for highly qualified Libertarian Comptroller candidate Julie Fox, a CPA.

      U. S. Senate Races Nationally.  Stewart sees Republicans gaining 9 seats making  the Senate divided 50-50 with Vice President Biden breaking the tie.  Roeser sees the Republican margin greater than that with victories in New Hampshire, Missouri, Ohio, Alaska, Kansas, Kentucky,  Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Nevada, North Dakota, Illinois, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Washington,  California, Wisconsin and Delaware with the stunning upset victory of Christine O’Donnell. 

       U. S. House Races Nationally.  Stewart sees Republicans gaining 50 seats and taking control.  Roeser sees
the gain at 70 seats.   In Illinois Stewart predicts GOP wins in the 11^th with Kinzinger; the 14^th with Hultgren; and the 17^thwith Schilling besides holding the 10^th with Dold.  Roeser sees all of  the abovementioned winning plus Joe Walsh (8^th) over Bean and Joel Pollak (9^th) over Schakowsky in a big upset. 

     Illinois Legislature.  Stewart sees the next Senate divided 32-27 Democratic.  Roeser forecasts modest Republican takeover including victory of Cedra Crenshaw over Dem A.J. Wilhelmi, Brian Doherty over Mulroe with Crenshaw’s victory a national news story moving her front and center as a brilliant African American conservative leader. This will presage a revolution among Senate GOP rank and file,  dumping the GOP leader, Christine Radogno who a few days before election saw the inevitability of an income tax increase  for Sen.  Kirk Dillard.

        In the state House, Stewart sees Mike Madigan’s Dem margin greatly reduced with Republicans gaining 9 seats.   Roeser prognosticates a Republican takeover of the House and the ascension of Speaker Tom Cross. 

         Cook County Races.  Stewart sees Democrat Toni Preckwinkle winning county board presidency.  Roeser predicts big upset with Republican Roger Keats becoming first GOP board president since Dick Ogilvie.  For Assessor, Stewart predicts Democrat Joe Berrios defeating Independent Forrest Claypool.  Roeser agrees.  For Board of Review, Stewart sees GOPer Dan Patlak, the Wheeling township assessor defeating Dem Brendan Houlihan.  Roeser agrees.

                  

“Chicago Tonight” Exec Producer Mary Field Blocks Qualified GOP Assessor Nominee Sharon Eckersall from Debate to Focus on Two Dems. So Much for Electoral Choice.

 WTTW-TV Vetoed GOP’s Cook County Assessor Candidate.

    

    And, Viewers Like You, if You Don’t Like It You Can Lump it.!”
          ****************************************

       One-party bias  is alive and well in Chicago, particularly at “Window to the World,” WTTW-TV—a great irony since  state and federal taxpayers partially fund it and deserve two party representation. Two parties exist in Cook county…one composed of Democrats and the other, Republican, weak but struggling, seeking to get a toe-hold. But earlier this month on a debate panel supposedly disposed to honoring two sides,  two candidates for county Assessor featured were Democrats.

          One candidate for assessor was Joe Berrios heavy with Democratic party investiture:  chairman of the Cook county Democratic committee…Democratic committeeman of the 31^st ward…a Democratic member of the Cook county Board of Review (the old tax appeals body)…and father of Democratic State Rep. Antonia (Toni) Berrios.

         The second candidate on the program was a  so-called “independent” Forrest Claypool—but if  anybody believes Claypool is anything but a Democrat he/she should look again.  Claypool was twice administrative assistant to Mayor Daley, was appointed by Daley as superintendent of the Chicago Park District.   He ran and was elected as a Democratic member of the Cook county board….then ran as a Democrat for board president.  He was defeated by John Stroger even after Stroger was incapacitated by a major stroke and secluded from public view.    As a matter of fact Claypool could well have been defeated by a dead man since no one but a small group of Stroger’s political allies saw him.

        After the Democrats named Stroger’s son, an alderman, nominee Claypool refused to support him and declared his so-called “independence” from the Democratic party.   But for all practical purposes Claypool was a Democratic faction leader…on good terms with the Left (or “reform wing”) of the party.

         Claypool is running as an Independent against Berrios. In reality this is an internecine tong war between Democratic factions.   Liberal, Democratic-leaning journalists such as Carol Marin, a paid commentator for WTTW, NBC-TV and The Chicago Sun-Times has assailed Berrios…as is her right…declaring rightly that Berrios has a strong conflict of interest since he is also a very prominent lobbyist representing among others the Illinois Coin Machine Operators Association, Illinois Licensed Beverage Association and the Regional Transportation Authority.   

        Berrios was backed for chairman of the Cook county Democratic party by House Speaker Mike Madigan who is also chairman of the Illinois Democratic party who lobbies Berrios in his capacity of member of the Illinois Board  of Review….as does 14^th ward alderman and Democratic committeeman Eddie Burke.

       But here’s the interesting…almost scandalous thing.  The Republican party has nominated a very well qualified candidate who is currently the Evanston Township Assessor.

          The height of hubris and arrogance showed as the legally constituted Republican party candidate, the full-time assessor of Evanston township…a lonely Republican in the most heavily  Democratic county in the U.S…. was blocked from appearing on the program, assuring that the public saw two wings of the same party.  How did this happen when under the rubric of debate there should be two sides expressed to justify taxpayer dollars expended? 

        The decision was made for the two Democrats and no Republican to appear on “Chicago Tonight” by the program’s executive producer, Mary Field.   She’s the executive who calls the shots and sanctions who shall be guests and who shall not.  

        The reason Republicans were blacked out on `TTW: Liberal elites in Cook county are enthused about “Independent” Forrest Claypool possibly defeating Dem Joe Berrios for Cook county Assessor.   So much so that the imperious Ms. Field didn’t want the focus to be broadened—so she vetoed the duly nominated and far better qualified Republican candidate for Assessor from appearing on the show with Dem Joe Berrios and “independent” Forrest Claypool whom big media want to win.

. The two-man “debate” allowed interrogator Elizabeth Brackett to train her guns on Berrios’ finagling as Cook county board of (tax) appeals and Cook county Dem chairman with the conclusion that the only alternative to this Squid candidate Berrios is…tah!...tah!...the Knight in Shining Armor Claypool.   Claypool is the good guy…the “independent.”

           The idea that Claypool is “independent” computes only  if you buy the notion that his close friends and allies David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel are.  In this run Claypool needs a modicum of Republican votes such as there are in Cook…and actually there are many thousands in a soil that has been uncultivated for two generations… to beat Berrios.

         Small wonder that Mary Field blocked the Republican  candidate, Sharon Eckersall, from appearing.  She  could very likely have impress WTTW viewers as being far better qualified than the two Democrats.  

          Look at Sharon Eckersall’s credentials: a Certified Illinois Appraiser  (Berrios and Claypool are not)…a Certified Illinois Assessing Officer (Berrios and Claypool are not)…Full knowledge of  the Illinois property tax system basis her professional experience (I don’t know about Berrios but Claypool doesn’t) …Licensed Appraiser (Berrios and Claypool arenot).

         How will Mary Field explain her decision to black out the Republican nominee?  Indubitably it will run like this: The Republicans haven’t really run much of a campaign with her.  There’s no strong evidence that her campaign is well funded. Where is the evidence of a campaign?  Result: Eckersoll’s not going to win so why should we take up media time with  her  as a participant on the panel?

      That’s as egregiously phony an argument as is possible to construct.   The real reason Eckersall was blocked is that Field and Marin wanted to use WTTW as a “purifying agent” to elect Claypool without a pesky super-qualified   Republican candidate “confusing” the  electorate and possibly blocking Claypool’s  win.

        Regrettably Field’s right about Eckersall being underfunded by the GOP and not well known.  But viewers like us imagined a public, partially tax-funded TV operation would use its public service facilities to make candidates of merit better known.

         The argument that Eckersall isn’t well known should have been a challenge to Field—not a reason to block her out.… but that should not be WTTW’s or her concern.   

          The station has found plenty of slots for unelectable but Lefty Green party candidates to appear because the Greens represent liberal politics—even more so at times than the Dems—that Field,  Marin and WTTW support.

           That this is a one-party town is because of many historical factors. But WTTW is aiding and abetting one-party politics inimical to the fact that since 1856 the Republican party has been on  ballots as the verifiable second party in the United States. 

          The continuing intransigence of WTTW-TV to blocking out and blacking out diversity of thought evokes in me the poignant words of the ancient sufferer in Psalm 89:46.  “How long, O Lord, how long?” 

        The answer from On High will likely be:

        “How long?   What are you, stupid?  Until you end the state and federal subsidies entirely including the insidious back-alley route of laundered public dough for  public television and radio—so they have to depend entirely on the free market.”

       In conclusion let me endorse for election

        SHARON ECKERSALL (R) FOR COOK COUNTY ASSESSOR.

                      ************************

      Another endorsement…

        DAVID  RATOWITZ (R) FOR 5^th DISTRICT CONGRESS.

       The Washington Post just moved the 5^th district from certifiably Democrat to “toss-up.” This is the district represented by Mike  Quigley which sent Dan Rostenkowski, Mike Flannigan,  Rod Blagojevich and Rahm Emanuel to Washington.  David, 41, born in Hazel Crest  is an entrepreneur, former paratrooper, former Army Ranger who founded  a real estate development and property management firm in New Orleans, earning concurrent MBA and JD degrees at Tulane.

         After Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005 he founded a construction company.  He and his family returned to Illinois in 2007 and he established The Ratowitz Law Firm in Chicago.  He has been active the Chicago GOP, Chicago Young Republicans and the Republican Jewish Coalition as well as the Tea Party, helping to organize its rally earlier this year  in Daley Plaza.

              

        

Hey, Dude, So Obama’s Not Liberal Enough? Jon Stewart, the Insolent Ultra-Radical…..One Judicial Endorsement—No on Kilbride. More.

                                       Jon Stewart.

       No one likes to see a sitting president of the United  States humiliated—and although I’ve been a critic of Barack Obama from the very first day I met him as a candidate for the Illinois state Senate, I must say I felt the treatment he received at the hands of Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz (aka Jon Stewart) was disgusting.  Who the hell does this schlock-meister think he is calling the president “Dude”?  His lack of reverence for America is disgusting.  He’s been a Lefty radical all his life and has developed a perverse reputation for being funny.

      He quipped on the day after 9/11 that now at least the smoldering Trade Center carnage where 3000 were killed has opened up the vista from his Manhattan window so he can at last see the Statue of Liberty. No, I don’t want him censored.  I just want to see this country develop a little pride in itself so that this clown’s popularity diminishes out of personal choice so he can go back to the venue where he belongs—onstage at Star and Garter where he pours seltzer down somebody’s pants.   His line of smut belongs there anyhow, spewing words on TV like f**k, p**s. 

        His earlier contribution included the suggestion for which he had to  apologize: that Harry Truman should have been put on trial as a war criminal for dropping the atomic bomb.  Were these things supposed to be funny?  Why is this anti-patriotic lanky goon who’s about as funny as a cerebral palsy patient patronized by presidents, candidates, journalists and as happened not long ago the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?   The direction of his questions represented snide questions from the ultra-Far Left, rebuking Obama for not taking this country over a cliff.

        The kids think Stewart’s cool.  He is. So’s the late  Ted Williams standing in a vat of cryonics-chilled fluid.    Come to think of it, both are headless.

                   Vote to Take Out Kilbride, PI Bar’s Darling.

        Illinois Chief Justice Thomas Kilbride’s 10-year term is up and he’s seeking retention.  In this state where judges are elected, voters are asked whether or not they should be retained (there’s no opposition candidate to vote for;   just vote him up or down).  I say vote him down with enthusiasm.. He’s the darling of personal injury lawyers and one principal reason why doctors and specialists are fleeing Illinois and big unions.

           Kilbride joined with other Dems on the Court to overturn a state law that placed monetary caps on damages awarded in medical malpractice cases. He’s the liberals’ darling—having backed McGovern for president in 1972…went to California to help some of the most radical labor forces in U.S. history…has received $650,000 from Mike Madigan in campaign cash which added to the total he’s already pocketed from the Dems is $1,250.00…plus $250,000 from the Illinois Federation of Teachers, $90,000 from the Illinois Education Association PAC. Armed with bundles of PI lawyer cash, he’s an automatic vote to screw the medical profession and is notoriously soft on criminals.

     This Nov. 2 make  it a clean sweep.  No Illinois Supreme Court Justice has ever been voted off the Court—a great incentive to make Illinois history. Be the first on your block to vote “no” on retaining Kilbride.  No I’m not getting paid to write this.  As one who’s benefited from good doctors, I just want `em to stick around Illinois—not be driven out by such as Kilbride.

                                      Mark Kirk.

          I’ve gotten some heat for saying that despite his views are on a swivet  I’m endorsing Kirk because I don’t want a mob banker in the Senate which indubitably we will get if people run to the Libertarian candidate—no matter how nice he is.   Well you’d think I wiped my nose on the American flag from the tone of some responses.    I’m a has-been…the host of a very boring radio show…have been snotty to my old mother before she died…and am a tool of Lucifer and his demonic hosts in hell.

       I hate to bring this up but are these critics happy that we finally got two conservative  jurists on the U. S. Supreme Court—John Roberts and Sam Alito?   Do you know how we got them confirmed?

       In the campaign of 2004 where Bush was running for a second term the question was whether or not he would endorse for reelection the Chairman of Senate Judiciary, Sen. Arlen Specter the Kirk-like liberal.  Specter was opposed  in a very close race for the Republican nomination by Pat Toomey, an inestimably better man—pro-lifer and all.

      This will cause some of your soft pink ears to redden because it will remind you of what Bismarck said about politics and sausage making: you don’t want to witness the details of both.

        Surrogates for Bush sat down  with Specter behind the scenes and said: Listen, Arlen—you’ve been a pain in the neck to this administration but we’ve got a deal for you.  If  you vote to confirm the Supreme Court nominees and help guide them through the committee to confirmation  and help us on the floor, we send up to the Hill, we’ll endorse you now. If you can’t say this, well, we’ll endorse Toomey and it’ll be goodbye Arlen.  What do you say?  Remember we’re going to have to take you at your word which on some things has been notoriously bad—but we’re willing to make this deal.  What’s your answer?

         Specter said: Who are you going to name?

         Their answer: We don’t know and you don’t know Arlen because there are no vacancies yet.

         Specter:  You’re asking me to give you a blank check on this one?

           Their response:  Yeah, Arlen that’s right….just like we’re going to take one from  you that you’ll honor your commitment.  So two blank checks.

           Specter:  You’re suggesting my word to  you is no good?

            Their rejoinder:  We’re not suggesting, Arlen. We are maintaining that as a goddamned fact.  Do  you want us to enumerate chapter and  verse from the past?  Understand we’re going to  take a lot of heat from the conservatives of  our party when we do….so it’ll be no cakewalk.

            Specter:   Er, uh, no.  Okay, I’ll trust you and you’ll trust me. 

            Their summation:  We want you to repeat this deal now Arlen in front of us so that we hear you say it.

             Specter (outraged): WHAT?  YOU MEAN…?

            They: Repeat it, Arlen.  And remember if you break it a friend of ours will divulge [private details on an earlier negotiation in Harrisburg].

            Specter: I resent that you [descriptive words redacted].

             They:  Ok, we take it to mean no deal. Deal’s off? 

             Specter:  I didn’t say that, did  I?  Okay, the president endorses me for reelection.   Then er,uh--.

             They:   Yes, Arlen.  Continue.

            Specter:   I will definitely endorse them.  How many will there be?

              They:   How do we know?

             Specter:  You’re going to put my integrity in handcuffs for every federal court appointment for the  next four  years?

             They:   No.  Just  the Supreme Court.

            Specter:   Okay.   Resuming—the president endorses me for reelection and I will support his Supreme Court nominees and do all I can to get them confirmed—in committee and on the floor.  One thing.

             They:  Yes, Arlen.

            Specter:    At least I will get to have my input on the names before they are announced?

             They:  Yes.   Now repeat it again.

            Specter:    Oh God do I have to go through all this again?

             They:  You do.

            That was the deal—and it was kept.  The appointments were John Roberts for Justice….later for Chief Justice…and  Sam Alito.  Specter cooperated fully. 

             The point of this is: We have two major supporters of  Life and conservative principle because this was done…and we wouldn’t have if the White House wouldn’t negotiate and held firm for
Toomey.    As you know, the wily Specter years later left the GOP when he was due to face Toomey again…became a Democrat…was endorsed  by Obama…and lost.  I don’t cite this to endorse all negotiations when principle is at stake but to say once again there is in politics such a thing as Aquinas’ principle of double effect…where you balance one disadvantageous action for a countervailing good effect that overweighs the disadvantage.

          I got this information from a very prominent House member who was informed of the deal and checked it out with Specter (who cursed and said “You’re right but goddam it you’re not going to make me run through it again now, are you?”