By Ray Hanania The 18-year-old man who reportedly murdered Chicago Police Officer Andrés Vásquez Lasso was a known gang member who slipped through the judicial system because of lenient policies towards gun-wielding criminals by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx. Steven Montano allegedly shot and killed Vásquez Lasso on March 1 near 53rd and Sawyer,…

By Rich Miller Last month, I wrote a tongue in cheek headline for my blog: “Poll conducted for IEA finds about 10 percent of Illinoisans are wackos.” The Normington-Petts and Next Generation Strategies poll of 1,000 Illinoisans conducted in January found that 11% strongly favor, “the fighting, yelling, or other contention at school board meetings…

By Ray Hanania Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau has launched a campaign to silence his critics and expand his power by reducing accountability in Orland Park, the largest municipality between Chicago and Joliet. His most recent effort is to expand power is to remove Orland Park from the “confines” of state law that define a…

. By Brian O’Shaughnessy American universities have long attracted the best and brightest from around the world. They come for the sophisticated research opportunities that prevail in academic labs — funded, in part, by American taxpayer dollars. But with taxpayer dollars comes political scrutiny. One-hundred members of Congress proposed a reinterpretation of the law that…

. By Rich Miller Gov. JB Pritzker told reporters a few weeks ago that he was concerned about some local school and library board races. “There are organizations that are anti-LGBTQ, that are racist, they’re anti Muslim, that are supporting candidates for these local boards. And they’re trying to take over at a local level…

By Ray Hanania The terrorist regime in Tehran, Iran is providing weapons to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Iran is the same nation that supports terrorist militias that have targeted American soldiers who are fighting to eradicate the ISIS terrorists in Iraq and Syria. Iran is partnering with Syria to block relief from getting to…

By Rich Miller After taking a pandemic-induced hiatus from proposing large, permanent base spending increases and instead using most revenue increases for one-time expenditures, Gov. JB Pritzker’s recently proposed Fiscal Year 2024 state budget appears to increase base operational spending by at least $2.75 billion, or 7.9%. Annual pension payments will also rise by a…

. By Jessica Krim While there has always been an ebb and flow of teacher shortages and overages over time because of population, trends within generations of students, and enrollment in and support for university educator preparation programs, there are several factors that provide a unique twist to our current iteration of a teacher shortage.…

. By Rich Miller The legislature’s Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability released its latest monthly fiscal report last week. The report claimed the state is still on track to match the commission’s revised November estimate of a $4.1 billion revenue increase for the current fiscal year. Revenue had originally been projected to fall from…

. By Ray Hanania Consumers are reeling over massive increases in Nicor Gas costs, and they can’t get answers because the system is rigged against them. Nicor Gas is owned by a massive conglomerate called Southern Gas, which has four gas subsidiaries serving 4.2 million customers. Nicor is the largest serving 2.2 million consumers in…