Pritzker’s Budget Address: The Rhetoric and the Reality

Written by Kathy Valente

Referred to by the General Assembly doorkeeper as ‘His Excellency,’ Governor JB Pritzker and his entourage entered the House Chamber where he gave his annual Illinois budget address on Wednesday, February 18^th.

For the next fiscal year, Gov. Pritzker is proposing an additional $1 billion in spending — along with new taxes to pay for it. Don’t be surprised if the General Assembly adds even more to the budget — and the taxpayers’ tab.… Continue Reading

JB Pritzker, ICE, and the Art of Selective Outrage

Written by Thomas Hampson

Governor JB Pritzker delivered his eighth consecutive budget address on February 18th. If you closed your eyes and listened, you might have thought you were hearing a man of the people, a defender of the powerless standing up to a tyrannical federal government. He invoked Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Reverend Jesse Jackson. He quoted the great reform governor, John Peter Altgeld.

He spoke of empathy, love, and the courage to resist authoritarianism.… Continue Reading

The Media Is Repeating the George Floyd Playbook

Written by Robert Knight

You just knew when anti-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement protester Renee Good tragically died in Minneapolis on Jan. 7 that the media would turn her into the next George Floyd.

Floyd, whose asphyxiation death under the knee of a police officer triggered the 2020 anti-police riots that took at least 25 lives and caused $2 billion in damage, has since been virtually deified. Minneapolis has named a square after him and erected a “living memorial” featuring art installations, including a raised-fist sculpture, in his honor.… Continue Reading

Defending Hyde: Why Taxpayers Must Not Fund Abortion

Written by David E. Smith

You’ve likely been hearing a lot lately about the Hyde Amendment—a vital, long-standing safeguard that has protected Americans for nearly fifty years from being forced to fund abortion with their tax dollars. Its purpose is straightforward and morally necessary: no citizen should be compelled to subsidize the taking of innocent human life.

The amendment is named for Illinois Congressman Henry Hyde, a courageous and principled pro-life leader who represented the 6th Congressional District from 1975 to 2007.… Continue Reading

Open Borders, Open Jihad

Written by Daniel Horowitz

Over the course of a single day this month, a pattern repeated itself across the West. Two Muslims murdered at least 15 people at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney. Five Muslims were arrested for plotting an attack on a Christmas market in Germany. French authorities canceled a concert in Paris due to credible threats of an Islamist terror attack. Two Iowa National Guardsmen in Syria were murdered by an Islamist while we play footsie with an illegitimate regime.… Continue Reading

Ilhan Omar’s Unchallenged Claims — and a Protective Media

Written by Tim Graham

As a leftist Muslim immigrant from Somalia, radical U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is wonderfully blessed with a DEI press. She is perennially assumed to be a victim of racism, sexism and xenophobia whenever she is criticized, and especially when she’s verbally targeted by President Donald Trump.

At the end of a typically syrupy interview with Esme Murphy from the local CBS station WCCO in Minneapolis on Sunday, Omar claimed her 19-year-old son Adnan Hirsi was pulled over by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement personnel.… Continue Reading

Unlawful, Unqualified, and Behind the Wheel

Written by David E. Smith

A disturbing reality is finally being exposed: thousands of illegal immigrants have been operating commercial vehicles on American roads—often without proper training, without English proficiency, and in violation of federal law.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy recently announced that more than 9,500 commercial truck drivers have been taken out of service nationwide after failing federally required English-language proficiency checks. This followed new enforcement guidance strengthening long-standing rules that require commercial drivers to read, speak, and understand English—a basic safety necessity when navigating traffic signs, emergency instructions, and law-enforcement encounters.… Continue Reading

Why the Left Gets a Pass on Political Violence

Written by Robert Knight

We keep being told that both sides of America’s political divide are equally culpable for violent rhetoric and violent acts. It’s a lie.

Virtually all of it comes from the political left. It wasn’t right-wingers who shot President Donald Trump and murdered health care executive Brian Thompson in New York and conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah in cold blood.

It wasn’t Young Republicans who attacked a Turning Point USA event on the University of California, Berkeley, campus last week, beating up a TPUSA staffer.… Continue Reading

Shutdown Spin: How the Media Always Blames Republicans

Written by Tim Graham

If the national media can be counted on to spin anything dramatically toward the Democrats, it’s a government shutdown. They feel passionately that the Democrats are the Party of Government, and the Republicans are the Haters of Government, so who naturally favors shutting it all down?

Even before the shutdown occurred, NPR and PBS issued their poll warning Republicans would get more of the blame than Democrats. That’s why those partisan hacks deserved defunding.… Continue Reading

The Media’s Double Standard on Political Violence

Written by Tim Graham

Once the shock of Charlie Kirk‘s murder began to wear off, it became easier to notice how today’s “news” media routinely fail to live up to their own pompous prattle about their work. They don’t “hold people accountable,” they don’t “uphold democracy,” and they aren’t “independent” or “objective.” They don’t produce “news” as much as narrative.

You can see this in their energetic declarations that you couldn’t possibly ascribe a leftist motive to Kirk’s shooter … and even claimed you shouldn’t try.… Continue Reading