Irvin’ hedge clipper ad also cut

Illinois GOP gubernatorial candidate Richard Irvin hopes to cut his way into the gubernatorial mansion with a giant pair of hedge clippers supplied by his billionaire sugar daddy Ken Griffin.

The ad shows Irvin wielding his clippers to ‘cut income taxes, cut property taxes, cut wasteful spending, cut perks and cut electoral careers.’

But the ad concluded before we saw the last cut that was snipped out by Ken Griffin himself before being released to bombard us on TV: the social safety net.

Irvin to press: ‘Conservative Republican? Next question.’

Illinois GOP gubernatorial candidate Richard Irvin bobbed and weaved to reporters Monday when they tried to establish his missing credentials as a conservative Republican for GOP Primary voters who like their Republicans ‘conservative’.

Support impending abolition of Roe v. Wade, Mr. Irvin? ‘Let’s talk about Pritzker’s failures.’

Did you vote for Trump, Mr. Irvin? ‘Let’s talk about Pritzker’s failures.’

Will you support Trump in ’24, Mr. Irvin? ‘Let’s talk about Pritzker’s failures.’

While not Irvin’s exact words…you get the drift.

The truth is Richard Irvin is a Democrat who voted the Democratic Party in 5 of 6 recent national and local primaries. After several local defeats in his hometown Aurora, he morphed into a Republican to gobble up enough Republican cash to unlock the key to victory.

Now he’s elevated his money game to a gargantuan level, scarfing up a cool $45 million from Illinois’ richest Republican Ken Griffin to essentially serve as Griffin’s personal Tax Cutter In Chief should all that dough unseat J.B. in November.

Irvin has but one conservative Republican bona fide: he will decimate the social safety net to cut taxes if elected…and as ordered by Griffin.

People Who Play By The Rules…don’t

Illinois conservative gadfly Dan Proft has polluted the airwaves with the most racist, mean spirited political ad ever. Released by his newly funded PAC, People Who Play By The Rules, the ad targets black Republican gubernatorial candidate Richard Irvin because he supported, along with likely over a hundred million Americans, Black Lives Matter.

Proft says that supporting the nationwide effort to end unwarranted police killings of blacks disqualifies Irvin from being the Republican nominee. In Proft’s demented worldview, Black Lives Matter is a Marxist organization determined to burn down American cities while destroying the nuclear family. Gee, didn’t catch that part of the Black Lives Matter agenda at BLM rallies I attended.

Proft doubles down on the fear and loathing by adding clips of rioting that did occur during the Floyd protests; even quoting President Trump saying Black Lives Matter “is a symbol of hate.” At least Proft was decent enough to leave out Trump’s comment “Can’t you just shoot them.”

When the ad began, I thought it was a Democratic attack ad on J.B’s likely opponent backed by Ken Griffin’s $45 million dollars. As it unspooled its hate, I realized the Trump treason faction of the Illinois Republican Party simply can’t continence a moderate black Republican with the audacity to support protesting the senseless police killing of his people.

Dan Proft may be playing by the hardball rules of politics, but he’s violating the more important moral societal rules that keep our fragile democracy from splitting apart.

Hooray for abortion

I proclaim 'hooray for abortion' in the same sense I proclaim 'hooray for brain surgery, hooray for prosthetic limbs and hooray for heart transplants'. Whatever improves the health of people is their business. I would no more restrict their efforts to securing better health and life options than I would allow them to restrict mine.

Alas, the impending demise of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court next month, spells the likely end to legal abortion for 34 million women in the 28 states that have either already banned abortion or are on the cusp. Women with means will still be able get their reproductive services in progressive states like Illinois, albeit at unnecessary cost, time and mental anguish. But millions of women with little or no means face a daunting challenge to receive what they should with ease from local medical facilities. They must run a cruel gauntlet of shame, poverty, job loss, even loss of life trying to obtain the most basic right a human being is entitled to.

I'm not trying to convert any anti abortion person to applaud abortion. I simply encourage them to not ever have one if they find themselves pregnant; counsel their loved ones to do the same, and then get out of the way if rebuffed. But doing anything to degrade the Constitution’s right to privacy, inflicting untold pain on the have nots in desperate straits, earns my fervent opposition.

Hooray for abortion...and may it, against now all odds, become a basic human right in all 50 states...and around the world.

434 House reps say ‘Nyet’ to Kinzinger’s WWIII bill

It’s been a week since Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R, IL-16) introduced his Authorization for Use of Military Force to Defend America’s Allies Resolution of 2022 (AUMF) that would authorize President Biden to respond militarily to Russian use of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons against Ukraine. Yet not a single one of Kinzinger’s 434 fellow House members has signed on as co-sponsor.

That indicates every one views Kinzinger’s bill with alarm that it essentially sets up a trip wire for U.S. to directly attack Russian forces in Ukraine. Once that occurs, nuclear war between the 2 nuclear superpowers, possessing over 13,000 nukes, becomes likely; indeed inevitable.

One insidious aspect of his AUMF is it could inspire a Ukrainian false flag chemical attack to draw America directly into the fighting. That almost worked in Syria in 2012 till Obama blinked at what was likely a rebel false flag attack.

Promoting U.S. Russian conflict is not new territory for Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran Kinzinger. Shortly after the February 24 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Kinzinger proposed a No Fly Zone against Russian aircraft over Ukraine. Such a move was summarily rejected by President Biden who declared such a move was tantamount to igniting WWIII with Russia.

Kinzinger’s hard line anti-Russian agenda goes all the way back 8 years to his support of the U.S. inspired coup that ousted pro Russian Ukraine president Victor Yanukovych, his support of NATO membership for Ukraine and support for arming the ultranationalist Ukraine government in their civil war against pro Russian Ukrainians in the Donbas. That now puts Kinzinger in the dubious position of goading the Russians to set up red lines against U.S. aggression and now goading Congress to set up red lines against Russian aggression.

While a ratified AUMF may never be tested, or simply ignored if Russia did violate one of its prohibitions, it sets up a wholly irresponsible threat of nuclear war with no upside of ending the war in Ukraine.

One would have hoped Congressman Kinzinger would have learned the lessons from his service in 2 senseless U.S. war that killed hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis. Kinzinger’s district, indeed all Americans, world be better served if he stuck with his noble work of ferreting out treason in the Trump Republican party, than flailing away at provoking nuclear war with Russia.