A Facebook posting from Illinois State Senator Sam McCann:

I am at my desk here on the floor of the IL Senate. We are in the midst of voting on FY2012 Budget Bills. You may ask yourselves how I have time to make this post when I perhaps should be weighing the merits of the facts contained within the individual bills so that I can make thoughtful, educated votes, for you, the taxpayers for whom I work. And you would be wise to ask that question. And I have the answer for you: I have NO BILL LANGUAGE TO READ!!!!! You are reading correctly. The bills we are voting on are AMENDMENTS to previously filed bills (many of which are SHELL Bills to begin with).

The Amendments become the Bills themselves. And it was JUST MINUTES ago that the Chicago Democratic Machine-controlled Democrat Caucus came out of a back room filing these bills AND immediately calling them for votes. Not only has there NOT been a week or three days or 24 hours or even one hour of SUNLIGHT on any of this budget language, there has not even been one minute. NOT ONE MINUTE!!!! They not only have not had time to print it out, it DOES NOT EVEN EXIST IN THE ELECTRONIC RECORD. Not only can I not pull up the language or any analysis on my “special Senate computer”, there is nothing on the IL General Assembly website.

Furthermore, I don’t believe there is anything even on the rank-and-file Democrats’ desks, either. It is all talking points from their leadership. I am not trying to sound partisan. I was elected by the people of the 49th District and I work for ALL THE PEOPLE OF THE 49TH District. I wake up in the morning and am proud to consider myself an American and an Illinoisan before anything else. But I have to tell you something: this is sickening. It is appalling. At a time when the People of the state are demanding balanced budgets and wise stewardship of their tax dollars, the majority party is choosing to continue to engage in bullying and blind-voting instead of conversation and negotiation.

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Despite firm denials, no objective evidence it occurred – and even exculpatory video and audio evidence that Tea Party protesters never hurled the N-word at U.S.Represntative John Lewis on Capitol Hill in March of last year, the media was quick to trumpet the otherwise unsupported claim to malign the overall Tea Party effort.

The state-run media is now pushing their anti-tea party propaganda from sources at the Huffington Post. And, they’re reporting this propaganda without a single piece of evidence.

On Saturday the media reported without a shred of evidence that tea party protesters were shouting obscenities and “n***er” at black Representatives on Capitol Hill. The representatives said it happened as they walked from the Longworth office building to the Rayburn office building.

Yet, it seems as though if you are a powerful Illinois Democrat connected all the way up to the Governor’s office, you can hurl the epithet at a black college student and the official line from local and state police and the state’s Democrat political machine is mum’s the word. They’ll even throw you a birthday bash the next night. You’d almost think it was cause for celebration among white Illinois Democrats.

The politically connected head of Gov. Pat Quinn’s Southern Illinois security detail used a racial slur against a black college student in a Carlinville bar, starting a fight that preceded the officer’s resignation, the student says.

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As reported in an earlier item, it’s unusual enough to learn of  a police department visiting a newspaper to advise them to not pursue covering a story. New information obtained from reliable sources in Carlinville, Illinois makes it appear as though local authorities may have visited a local paper, the Macoupin County Enquirer-Democrat, advising them to stay away from Blackburn College in reporting on a racial incident involving Democrat Ken Snider due to allegations of student harrassment although no formal allegations appear to genuinely exist.

Information released from the Carlinville Police Department indicates a particular student called police to report the alleged harassment. However, the student is actually a member of security staff at the college. Blackburn employs students in as many areas as possible.

It’s claimed that the sudent simply went to her supervisor to inform them of her interaction with a reporter from the Enquirer-Democrat. The supervisor is said to have then stated that the reporter was on campus allegedly harrassing students, before directing the student security officer to call police and report it.

The Carlinville police report names the student security officer as the student claiming they were harassed. But based upon reliable sources at the Enquirer-Democrat, there was no indication that the student felt harassed in any way during their interactions with a reporter.

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The Chicago Sun-Times provides this glimpse into our nation’s future:

The state’s miserable bond rating has driven up borrowing costs for state government by more than $500 million since last year, a government watchdog group says.

The nonpartisan, Chicago-based Civic Federation analyzed the near-record borrowing that the state has undertaken since last September and looked at similar borrowing during the same period in other states that have higher bond ratings than Illinois.

The result was a staggering $551.3 million extra that state taxpayers are having to devote to support the state’s thirst for debt because of a series of rating downgrades, the group says in a report being released today.

“This is an actual quantification of what the cost of the state’s fiscal irresponsibility has been because of the Illinois General Assembly and governor’s failure to stabilize state finances and to allow our credit rating to drop so low we are now the lowest credit-rated state in the country, with California,” said Laurence Msall, the Civic Federation’s president.

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