Public wants free lunch, pollster finds

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. By Rich Miller . As we’ve discussed before, the competition for scarce state dollars is particularly fierce this year in Springfield as various groups elbow each other for money while large surpluses and revenue increases start to dry up. A poll taken by respected national Democratic pollster Normington Petts in late February of 700…

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Take back the country from the rich

. By Ray Hanania . The pandemic gave license to politicians and businesses to pursue their own needs and priorities over the needs of the public. It’s all political BS, of course, when people claim the economy is great. It’s not, unless you are making a fortune. Everyone has seen the cost increases for groceries.…

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Fight on the right in southern Illinois

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. By Rich Miller . “The woke left is coming after me for peeing on a tree during my college days,” state Rep. Adam Niemerg (R-Dietrich) told me not long ago. I’ve told you about this race before. The 102nd Illinois House District is one of a handful of southeastern and southern Illinois Republican primaries…

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Dems bask in tax-cut headlines

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. By Rich Miller . “Mayors slam Pritzker’s proposal to eliminate grocery tax,” was the Daily Herald’s headline above a story last week about several mayors of upper-income suburban communities complaining about a proposed tax cut. I don’t know if the mayors quite understand this, but headlines like that are basically an in-kind campaign contribution…

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Weather is tricky, but forecasters aren’t

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. By Ray Hanania . Meteorology, or the science of guessing the weather on television, has been an entertaining segment since humans began watching television. Often, the weather reports were the least frightening to handle, compared to the growing domination of crime news that has filled up the expanding TV news broadcasts. There’s so much…

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Budget ‘healing’ is no magic trick

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. By Rich Miller . Gov. JB Pritzker proposed some changes to the state’s pension system during his budget/State of the State speech last month that will likely please the New York City-based bond rating agencies by giving them something they want, as well as his fellow Democrats by freeing up some money to spend…

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Greed flies high at airlines

. By Ray Hanania . I happened to be flipping through TV stations when I caught the hosts on ABC’s Good Morning America talking about two people who got into a fight on an airplane. There have actually been a lot of stories about passengers quarreling and fighting for a lot of reasons, but one…

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Media ignoring black, Hispanic Dems

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. By Rich Miller . Two press conferences held after Gov. JB Pritzker’s recent budget address didn’t receive much news media attention. As the saying goes, coverage follows conflict, and the two pressers were far more subtle and polite in their criticisms of the governor’s plan than those held by Republicans, so they were mostly…

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Silence is not at all golden

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. By Rich Miller . “Everybody gets pinched, but you did it right; you told ’em nothin’ and they got nothin’” Jimmy Conway told a youthful Henry Hill in the classic gangster movie Goodfellas after the mob-connected teenager was arrested for selling stolen cigarettes, clammed up to the police and was then released by a…

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Time is now for Biden to quit

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. By Ray Hanania . If the ugly, disrespectful politics of Orland Park has shown us anything, it is that individual selfish politics is driving America’s future. And this is going to be an ugly year for politics in America. It all comes down to who is at the top of the political heap. Right…

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