Free Republic

The Richard Uihlein-funded People Who Play By The Rules PAC, in recent quarterly disclosures, reported $1.3 million cash-on-hand – but the disclosures also reveal that the PAC paid three political consultants $142,000, while spending just $3,725.56 to support conservative school board candidates over the last several months, records reveal. The founder, president and treasurer of the PAC received the majority of the consulting fees, totaling $75,000 to Starfish Consulting LLC, while the rest went to a consulting firm owned by Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau, who was paid $26,000 through Fahrenheit Consulting Group, while $41,000 went to a consulting firm...

This is one of the most heartbreaking podcasts you will ever hear. Dan Proft has numerous audio clips of Beth George speaking about the loss of the Resort Cabin business she has run for THIRTY-ONE YEARS due to Pritzker's ridiculous shut-down orders in Illinois. Fast forward to 4:34 for the Beth George segment. It will probably leave you in tears. I transcribed part of the show that is most heart-breaking. Dan Proft intro: "Beth George runs a little resort called White Pines for 31 years 100 miles west of Chicago. She made an announcement on Facebook this week about the...

As radio firings go, Cisco Cotto’s was one for the books. Just after finishing his midday airshift one Friday last July, Cotto was summoned to meet with his bosses at WLS-AM (890), the Citadel Broadcasting news/talk station where he’d worked for eight of the previous 11 years, first as a news anchor and reporter and more recently as a talk show host. There he was told that even though his ratings were excellent and his show was consistently profitable, Cotto was being let go — effective immediately — to make room for the duo of Bruce Wolf and Dan Proft,...

First let me begin by stating the following commentary is not an endorsement of Adam Andrzejewski's gubernatorial bid who is seeking the GOP nomination in the February 2nd primary. But I must provide full disclosure regarding my prior relationship with former state Sen. Patrick O'Malley. My wife Julie and I know O'Malley well. He was our state Senator when we lived in Crestwood, Illinois in southwest Cook County. We care for him deeply and always will. As a private citizen, I supported his bid for the GOP gubernatorial primary in 2002. Then-Attorney General Jim Ryan went on to defeat O'Malley...

In 2002, I lived in Crestwood, Illinois. I came to know Dan Proft when he was working on the campaign of then-state Senator Patrick O'Malley who was seeking the Illinois Republican Party's gubernatorial nomination. O'Malley represented the district where I lived at that time. After O'Malley lost the GOP gubernatorial primary race to then-Attorney General Jim Ryan, Proft joined Blue Island Mayor Don Peloquin in an attempt to bring a casino to southwest Cook County. Eight southwest Cook County suburbs were vying for the only license which was available at the time. Proft and Peloquin wanted to bring the casino...

I have been fighting against the slaughter of the innocent unborn for nearly two decades. It is not a political issue, it is a moral issue. But in the world of politics there are those who will say anything to get elected. Perhaps for the first time since the birth of our nation, the American public is seeing through the political mist. The "promise them anything, but tell them whatever you think they want to hear" mantra isn't working any more. A perfect illustration of the aforementioned politics is laid out to see in Dan Proft's campaign for Illinois Governor....

Desperate times call for desperate scare tactics from Governor Pat Quinn. Yesterday, Quinn argued that if personal and corporate state income taxes are not increased by 50%, as he proposed, Illinois will descend into darkness. Quinn said, "In the future, cities will become deserts. Roads will become battlefields. And the hope of mankind will appear as a stranger." Wait, no, I'm sorry, that was the opening line of the trailer for Road Warrior, the 1981 post-apocalyptic thriller. But it is a close approximation of Quinn's unhinged melodrama. Among the actual examples of his withering sophistry, Quinn said that without his...

I understand the hypocrisy. Most of our politicians in Illinois are amoral people-pleasers. They want to be endorsed by the Chicago Tribune and to be treated with deference by everyone else. While detestable, their hypocrisy is a distant second to the most repugnant characteristic of our politics which is the way people who live by the rules in this state are bullied by those with political power. Everywhere you look, the politically connected use the power of the state to poke the productive class in the chest and demand their lunch money. You do not comply. You get a beat...

37 years ago Wednesday was the date of my birth. But the best day of my life occurred 37 years ago today. That was the day that my parents adopted me. According to the Dave Thomas Foundation, 60% of Americans have been personally touched by adoption. There is a general understanding that adoption is a loving option because so many have had their intuition about adoption confirmed firsthand--and millions of children and families are the better for it. There are, however, a few places that have remained impenetrable to common sense when it comes to supporting adoption. And, yes, as...

Former federal prosecutor Patrick Collins, a Democrat, has figured out how to clean up Illinois state government: Stop J.B. Pritzker. J.B. Pritzker, a scion of one of Chicago's most prominent and most well-heeled families, gave Rod Blagojevich $100,000 for his re-election campaign in 2006. According to Collins, 400 individuals gave Blagojevich more than $25,000 and those folks, like J.B. Pritzker, are the problem, which is why we should impose the federal campaign finance regime on Illinois. I would rather light my money on fire than donate it to Blagojevich or any current Democrat-in-charge in Illinois. However, Collins is precisely wrong...

With all of the stories and statistics being furiously emailed around recently about job loss, businesses leaving, crushing debt, and unfunded obligations, you might think, as has often been said, that Illinois state government is broken. You would be wrong. Illinois state government is generating precisely the results it was set up to generate. In fact, I do not understand all the wailing. Given the structures of the public sector systems tasked with delivering education, health care, and transportation, the current outputs from these systems are nothing if not predictable. You may have been analyzing the performance of these systems...

On Wednesday, Governor Pat Quinn will deliver his own political eulogy when he proposes a 50% hike in the Illinois state income tax and a corresponding hike in the state's corporate income tax during his budget address. As if businesses had any less reason to locate here or residents needed any more reasons to leave. Increasing the tax on work--you know, so we get less of it--comes on the heels of a state report that Illinois lost 175,000 jobs in the last year. Quinn, doing his best Obama impersonation, is selling his tax hike as a "reform" to make the...

"Nor should we turn a blind eye to the fact that the spirit of free enterprise, including the principle of personal responsibility of businesspeople, investors, and shareholders for their decisions, is being eroded in the last few months. There is no reason to believe that we can achieve better results by shifting responsibility onto the state." Who issued this warning to the U.S. about the state's usurpation of economic life? Some Poindexter from a free market think tank? A Republican opponent of hope? How about Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The above was from a speech he gave in Switzerland...

"We Are All Socialists Now." That is not some RNC talking point. Rather, it was the title of Newsweek magazine's cover story last week. If there is anyone who knows socialism when they see it, it's Newsweek and other such old media outlets run by second-generation Red Diaper babies. And so what was ridiculed by old media high priests jealously guarding the Oracle at Hyde Park is now embraced. Free market conservatives were laughed at when they argued that then-candidate Obama was little more than an old school socialist in a fancy new wrapper. Such accusations were treated as little...

We simply do not know what the impact will be. This has never been tried before: government spending. Somehow this nation is $10 trillion in debt and yet we are told that pitching another $800 billion into the furnace is some kind of policy innovation. Ok, President Obama, I'll be your Huckleberry. We are on the verge of economic Armageddon, correct? We must get these so-called "shovel-ready" infrastructure projects underway to jump-start the economy, correct? Then, Mr. President, give Illinois taxpayers the $6 billion that was set aside for us in the 2005 transportation bill. As you know, Mr. President,...

The leadership title holders of the Illinois Republican Party have done it again. They have found a new bottom in the wellspring of incompetence from which they drink: Paul Vallas for Cook County Board President. "He'd be great for Republicans, great for Cook County, [with] impeccable credentials, substance and integrity." That is what House Republican Leader Tom Cross had to say about Paul Vallas to the Chicago Sun-Times. My view of Paul Vallas as a Republican standard-bearer is a bit different as mine is rooted in Vallas' record. It goes something like this: Paul Vallas is a visionless, bean-counting hack...

The era of good government is off to a rousing start. Within minutes of upgrading from the Springfield EconoLodge to the Governor's mansion, populist Pat Quinn proposed moving the 2010 primary election from February to September. To signal a new era of executive branch-legislative branch camaraderie, McHenry County legislator and Mike Madigan suck toy Jack Franks filed legislation last week to similarly move the primary to the fall of 2010. When asked to explain the rationale behind this idea, Quinn and Franks contained their snickering long enough to squeeze out a few insincere bromides about needing more time "to conduct...

It is just a matter of days now and yet I still have not reconciled my feelings about Rod Blagojevich's removal from office. I feel as I suspect I would if Ted Kennedy drove off a cliff in my brand new car--conflicted. On the one hand, Blagojevich so richly deserves the fate about to befall him. On the other hand, every day brings us a new and more entertaining Rod Blagojevich. One day he is Rod the Poet-Warrior for the people. The next day he is Rod the Persecuted, the manger boy from the Northwest Side who must endure the...

I will admit; over the last several weeks my faith in the ability of Chicago Democrats to run Illinois state government had been shaken. I have always tried to be a "Yes We Can" kind of guy like, say, Tony Rezko? But I had started to give in to the cynics. I began to believe that maybe Illinois truly was little more than a feudal kleptocracy where absolute primogeniture had replaced popular elections as the pathway to public office. I actually started to think Illinois that the problems with Illinois' political culture might extend beyond Blagojevich. Can you fathom such...

Is Rod Blagojevich an idiot or an idiot savant? That is not a trick question. It turns out he is mostly an idiot. But Blagojevich's selection of Roland Burris to fill the Obama senate seat was a shrewd tactical move legally and politically. Arrested for allegedly conspiring to sell the seat to the highest bidder, Blagojevich's lawyers can now argue he did nothing of the sort by pointing to who he actually appointed. Burris is the rarest of all Chicago Democrats (his Centralia, IL roots notwithstanding): one who is heretofore untainted by scandal. That in itself is an accomplishment for...