This is BIG---

The American Spectator Reports:

Lech Walesa, the Polish Cold War hero who is coming to Illinois to campaign for Republican gubernatorial candidate Adam Andrzejewski, will join Andrzejewski tomorrow afternoon at a Tea Party rally at the Dirksen Federal Building in Chicago.

It was in Chicago, of course, that the Tea Party movement began last February when CNBC's Rick Santelli delivered "The Rant Heard 'Round the World." No word yet on whether Santelli will be at Friday's event.

It's no accident that Andrzejewski got Lech Walesa to stump for him. Having grown up in the Chicago area, I know that Chicago has the highest Polish ethnic population in the world, outside of Warsaw itself--right in the middle of Obama territory.

And if it's anyone who understands the sweet taste of freedom, what it's like not to have it, and what it's like to fight for it, it's Lech Walesa.

Quite a coup, if you ask me.

Who Are You, And What Have You Done to the Chicago Tribune?

As a child growing up in the Chicago area, the Chicago Tribune arrived on our doorstep every day. My grandmother, who lived with us, was an avid reader of the Tribune. In fact, I can attribute the Tribune to fostering my ability to read at a very early age, because they used to have features that promoted phonics education lessons that parents could use with their children. During my growing up years, the Chicago Tribune, then dubbing themselves, "The World's Greatest Newspaper," (A moniker from which the call letters for WGN Radio and then WGN-TV were derived) was pretty much considered the more conservative paper of record in the Chicago area (about as conservative a paper can be, at any rate).

As the 80s and 90s went on, however, the Trib eventually followed the primrose path of the New York Times, LA Times and other organs, and eventually turned into nothing more than just another statist liberal mouthpiece.

That's why I was so taken aback when I read this editorial today:

Not good enough. Time to silence the Illinois Lullaby and get on with dramatic changes to how Illinois government treats the people of this state. . . . From now on, let's judge our elected officials by their effectiveness or impotence at delivering reform. Enough with "effort." Illinois needs results.

Illinois needs results. We intend to live by that credo in an effort to rehab Illinois during 2010. In the months since those words appeared, Illinoisans have watched their politicians resist aggressive reforms, both to how Illinois is governed and to how state and county governments spend money: Many politicians have jealously protected their power while overcommitting taxpayers to more missions than we can afford.

As a result, this state is impoverished in spirit. And it is too impoverished financially to pay its bills for services already delivered to the disabled, the sick, the most vulnerable among us. Yes, recklessly growing state government at double the rate of inflation for two decades has brought devastating consequences to Illinois.

This confluence of man-made miseries menaces Illinois.

So, whom will we elect to right Illinois?

-- -- --

This editorial launches our pre-primary push to answer that question. Subsequent editorials will explore how a reconstituted Illinois can confront three mighty challenges:

--The wreckage from current spending and borrowing -- and the taxing to pay for it all.

--The need for ethical reforms to better curb corruption and to reduce the concentration of power in the hands of those Illinois oligarchs.

--The disturbingly low level of job creation here as state government policies nudge employers to locate and expand elsewhere.

Be assured, how candidates for the Feb. 2 primary propose to address these challenges figure heavily in the Tribune endorsements that will appear as early voting begins in January. We're looking especially hard at how incumbents have demonstrated their effectiveness or impotence at delivering reform.

Calendar 2010 really does need to be different. Forgive and forget? Not this time.

Next Sunday: Illinois' hazardous fiscal triathlon -- spending, borrowing, taxing.

Read, as they say, the whole thing.

Imagine that... From the same state and municipality that gave us Barack Obama.

Has Chicago's prodigal son finally seen the error of his erstwhile ways, finally returning to its honorable history as a credible source of news and commentary?

If so, There may be hope for our ailing nation, yet.

(h/t Gary Gross)

A new era of transparency in post-Blagojevich Illinois politics?

Err... perhaps not (emphases mine)

Unlike hundreds of other cities, however, Daley said Chicago won't make its list public.

"Yes, we do, we have our list, we've been talking to people. We did not put that out publicly because once you start putting it out publicly, you know, the newspapers, the media is going to be ripping it apart," Daley said.

"It's very controversial. Yes, we have ready projects from the Board of Education to the City Colleges to the Park District to the CTA and the city of Chicago. Oh yes. Us and New York decided not to do that. We thought we could go directly into the federal bureaucracies and the different departments," the mayor added.

Later, Daley was asked why he wasn't being more transparent.

"Read some of your newspapers. Heh heh," he replied.

Looks like Emperor Daley is rather Blago-like in his arrogance and comfort in his position.

Oh how the mighty do fall.

What hath Liberalism Wrought, Part......?

Is it time now for us to re-deploy from Chicago??

Chicago working to prevent repeat of deadly weekend

By DON BABWIN
Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO (AP) -- Police planned to increase patrols and put SWAT officers and specialized units on the streets over the weekend, a show of force aimed at deterring violence like the three dozen shootings that left nine people dead last weekend.

"Weather permitting, we will have our helicopter up," said police spokeswoman Monique Bond, who said Thursday night was relatively quiet, with only four shootings, none fatal.

Meanwhile, religious leaders said they had persuaded some churches to open their doors in the afternoons and evenings to protect people from gunfire.

"We just picked up about four more churches in Austin (a neighborhood on the city's West Side) that's going to open their doors as a safe haven," said Ira Acree, an activist and pastor of the Greater St. John Bible Church.

On Friday, Mayor Richard Daley took the unusual step of calling together more than two dozen officials from the police department, schools, social service agencies and religious groups for a City Hall summit on the violence. Afterward, he said it was just the start of a continuing dialogue about how to combat violent crime.

And, in turning the attention to where it needs to be, Mayor Richard Daley took a courageous step:

A fired-up Daley blasted the gun industry and called on parents and adults to do their part by intervening to help troubled youth and by working to keep others on the right path.

Way to go, Dick. Way to stick it to those guns. We all know that they all sprouted legs and pulled their own triggers.

And Tio Hardiman, executive director of CeaseFire, an anti-violence group, said young people need help finding alternatives to the streets.

"We need to go right to the corners and find out what some of these young people want to do, identify some employers that are willing to hire maybe 30 from this neighborhood, 30 from another neighborhood and try to get them hired somewhere so then we can get them off the corners."

But Daley said joblessness does not justify violence.

"When the killing is done, you still don't have a job, in fact, it greatly decreases the chances that you ever ... will have a job," he said.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Instead of pointing the bony finger of indignation at the gun industry, why not look at yourself and other liberals in the mirror, Mayor Daley? Ever since the dawning of the Great Society, the State thought that they would be more fit to parent kids via taxpayer money than would their biological fathers.

Now the State may be good at plowing streets, picking up garbage, and repairing highways, but by now you should know that it sucks at fatherhood.

As my good friend, Steve Gottwalt, is fond of saying, "The best welfare program is a job, and the best social program is an intact family."

Yet, Pelosi, Reid and other liberals, with allegiances ever-invested in the Nanny State, think it's a good idea to take even more money from the local economy and "invest" even more of it in "government fatherhood" programs that have clearly been failures from day one; ironically lessening the chances even further that these youths will get jobs; even if they don't pull a trigger.

As I noted in my very first post on this blog, I saw the ugly effects of the Great Society, and of liberalism in general when I grew up in the Chicago area in the 1960s and 1970s.

And let me tell you folks, it ain't gettin' any prettier.

Move over, O.J.

Being from the Chicago area, I've been following the story of Drew Peterson, a former police sergeant from Bolingbrook, a western suburb near Aurora and Naperville. Police and the Bolingbrook and surrounding communities are still searching for his wife, Stacy, who "turned up missing" under suspicious circumstances this past October 28. More suspicious still is the fate of Drew Peterson's third wife, who "drowned" in the family bathtub, also under suspicious circumstances.

Although Drew Peterson is a suspect in his current and now his ex-wife's untimely demises, he's now pulling an O.J. Simpson, and "ready to tell his story."

Prepared to sell his story

Lacking the media swarm, and apparently with no place to be, Peterson chatted about a range of subjects, from his love of flying to the actor he'd most like to see play him in the movie version of his life.

"I look a lot like Denzel [Washington]," he joked.

Oh really?



Perhaps Mr. Peterson was looking at the wrong motion picture for a body double.


May I suggest the following instead:

That is all.

Gentleman and Statesman, Congressman Henry Hyde, dead at 83...

One of the truly principled men of Congress has passed ad astra...

Story here.

To all my Illinois friends..and those who will be travelling through it...

IDOT, Tollway and State Police Warn Drivers to Prepare for Highway Construction Season

New tools this year include increased fines, loss of license and photo enforcement

Illinois will begin using photo radar in freeway work zones in July.
Second offense tickets are $1,000 with license suspension. Beginning in
July the State of Illinois will use speed cameras in areas designated as
"Work Zones" on major freeways. Anyone caught by these devices will be
mailed a $375.00 ticket for the FIRST offense, but the SECOND offense will
cost $1000.00 and comes with a 90-Day suspension. Drivers will also
receive demerit points against their license, which allows insurance
companies to raise their rates. This represents the harshest penalty
structure yet for a city or state using PHOTO enforcements. The State will
begin with TWO camera vans issuing tickets in work zones with speed limits
lowered to 45 MPH. Photographs of both the Driver's face and License plate
are taken.
Pass this on to everyone you know !!!!
for more info: http://www.dot.state.il.us/press/r033005.html



Under enhanced penalties passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Rod Blagojevich last year, first-time work zone speeders, including those caught on camera, will be hit with a fine of $375, with $125 of that sum going to pay off-duty State Troopers to provide added enforcement in construction or maintenance zones. Two-time offenders are subject to a $1,000 fine, including a $250 surcharge to hire Troopers, and the loss of their license for 90 days.

Starting in July, State Troopers will deploy specially equipped vans that can take photographs of drivers speeding in IDOT and Tollway construction and maintenance zones. Tickets will be issued by mail to vehicle owners.

In addition, drivers who hit a worker are subject for up to a $10,000 fine and 14 years in prison.

Gov. Blagojevich has set of goal of reducing traffic deaths to fewer than 1,000 a year by 2008. The work zone speeding crackdown is just one of the ways state transportation and law enforcement are working together to accomplish that goal.