U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk underwent surgery today at Northwestern Memorial Hospital after suffering a stroke, his office said.

“On Saturday, Senator Kirk checked himself into Lake Forest Hospital, where doctors discovered a carotid artery dissection in the right side of his neck,” his office said in a statement.

“He was transferred to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, where further tests revealed that he had suffered an ischemic stroke,” it said. “Early this morning, the senator underwent surgery to relieve swelling around his brain stemming from the stroke. The surgery was successful.

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John Podesta, Center for American Progress

The Washington Post has just published an article reporting that the Center for American Progress, the left-wing think tank whose policies and personnel have close ties to the Obama White House, has been “accused of anti-Semitic language.”

The Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank closely aligned with the White House, is embroiled in a dispute with several major Jewish organizations over statements on Israel and charges that some center staffers have used anti-Semitic language to attack pro-Israel Americans.

The controversy reflects growing divisions among important allies of President Obama over Middle East policy that could complicate the president’s reelection outreach to some Jewish voters, just as he is seeking to assure them of his commitment to Israel’s security amid fears of an Iran nuclear threat.

Among the points of contention are several Twitter posts by one CAP writer referring to “Israel-firsters.” Some experts say the phrase has its roots in the anti-Semitic charge that American Jews are more loyal to a foreign country. In another case, a second staffer described a U.S. senator [Mark Kirk of Illinois] as showing more fealty to Israel and the prime U.S. pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, than to his own constituents, replacing a standard identifier of party affiliation and state with “R-AIPAC” on Twitter….

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“There is,” Shakespeare’s Brutus said to Cassius, “a tide in the affairs of men.”

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

Such, I suspect, were the musings of Hillary Rodham Clinton last night as she watched the election returns from a safe and distant perch in an East Asian hotel, and her thinking was no doubt in accord with what was going through the mind of William Jefferson Clinton as well.

As expected, judgment day came on the first Tuesday in November, and the Democrats suffered an historic defeat. In the House, they lost at least sixty seats, and they lost at least six seats in the Senate as well. Their share in the overall vote fell well short of that accorded the Republicans.

Of course, the liberal media will go to great lengths to deny the obvious – first, that this constituted a fully conscious repudiation of the agenda pursued by the administration of Barack Obama and by its Democratic allies in Congress and, second, that William Daley – former Secretary of Commerce, brother of the Mayor of Chicago, and mastermind of the Daley machine – was correct when, on Christmas eve, he warned his fellow Democrats that “the political dangers of this situation could not be clearer,” explaining, “Either we plot a more moderate, centrist course or risk electoral disaster not just in the upcoming midterms but in many elections to come.” But no one will credit their spin, and Democrats everywhere will quietly and privately begin to rethink their relationship with Barack Obama.

Those Democrats who survived the Republican tsunami and retained their House seats this year may be apt to suppose that they will survive in 2012 as well. But Senators up for re-election in that year will be inclined to think other thoughts.

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No matter what happens on November 2^nd, 2010 will be the year that conservatives won.  Patriotic conservatives of all flavors, have risen up in extraordinary ways, in every corner of the country.  It appears all but certain that Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be dethroned. Dick Morris even predicts as many as 100 new Republican Congressmen giving many people really high expectations for the new Congress.

Others fear that for all their trouble from organizing, holding rallies and knocking on doors, they will only replace the leftist Democrats with RINO Republicans who will squander the victory.  Will we get Speaker Boehner, or a fresh new conservative leader who will truly take a big stick to big government.   A closer look at the numbers should give conservatives reason to be really excited and also a cause for continued resolve.

If you want a conservative Congress, you have to ask yourself just what kind of conservative are you after.  Drew Kurlowski, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Missouri who studies voting behavior and partisanship, referred me to a dataset popular with political science academics called DW-Nominate.  It is a tremendous resource that meticulously compiles the voting records of the Congress going back to the 1st Congress.  If you want to know who George Washington’s favorite conservative was, this is your site.  Moreover, they settled on a definition of “conservative” that is tremendously useful.  Move over “fiscal conservative” and “social conservative” and make room for (limited) “government intervention in the economy”.  Let’s call it L’GIE.  So who are the liggies?

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From 1998 to 1999, Alexi Giannoulias played professional basketball in Panionios B.C. Greece. That part we already knew.

But one thing we still don’t know is how an American with Greek citizenship was able to live in Greece without being drafted into the Greek military.

Under Greek law, all citizens must serve in the military once they turn 18. Much like in Israel, Greek citizens will perform a period of military service after high school.

Alexi Giannoulias was a college graduate when he came to Greece – an age meeting the requirement for military service. So how did he get around the requirement?

With many Americans holding dual Greek citizenship travelling to Greece, U.S. Embassy, Athens details the Greek government’s requirements for military service on its website.

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Illinois Governor Pat Quinn made it official: Illinois will have a special Senate election just for the lame duck session.  Thus Illinois joins Delaware and West Virginia (both having special elections) as the three states whose winners on election day will—barring a disputed election result—be seated for a lame duck session in December.  A fourth, Colorado, is less clear but may also be in play.

The lame duck session looks increasingly likely—and increasingly ambitious.  Sen. Kerry continues to stress that cap-and-trade will be on the agenda, and Sen. Harry Reid (who may be a lame duck himself after Election Day) confirmed it to the Netroots Nation audience, saying: “We’re going to have to have a lame-duck session, so we’re not giving up.”

Along with cap-and-trade, a lame duck will likely consider the recommendations of Obama’s deficit commission — a package that will include enormous tax hikes and could draw the support of some departing Republicans like Judd Gregg of New Hampshire George Voinovich of Ohio, and Robert Bennett of Utah.

And organized labor, seeing the lame duck as their last chance for a legislative return on their political investments for years, will also demand lame duck action.

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Despite its deep blue hues, Illinois is poised for a Republican pick up this November as Democrat Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias is neck deep in scandal. This remarkable ad is running statewide in Illinois and in 30 seconds shows why the Democrat party has destroyed this great state over the past 30 years.

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Reporting on politics, “The Chicago Way.”

The Illinois Senate race is shaping up to be a high-profile and influential campaign that will have national implications. Not only because Illinois is the most populated state in the mid-west, but also because the seat up for grabs is President Obama’s former seat. If Republican candidate Rep. Mark Kirk, were to win the seat it would be seen as an enormous PR loss for the White House.

The Democratic nominee, Alexi Giannoulias has been under fire because of the failiure of Broadway Bank and his direct connection to it. Believe it or not, there are suspicions of corruption, incompetence and graft with regard to a Democrat in Chicago. Go figure! (more…)

From the Associated Press:

Regulators shut down the bank owned by Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias’ family on Friday, setting up an expected but daunting challenge in his bid to keep President Barack Obama’s old Senate seat in Democratic hands.

Broadway Bank, which was heavy into real estate loans and lost $75 million last year, had been given until Monday to raise about $85 million in new capital, but the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. announced at the close of business Friday that Broadway was among four banks, all in Illinois, that had failed.

Giannoulias, 34, worked at the bank as a senior loan officer until he ran for treasurer four years ago. He has tried to take some of the political and public relations sting out of a collapse, acknowledging the bank was likely to fail but blaming the bad economy. He also said it was financially healthy when he left four years ago.

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At some point in the past few weeks, Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias was sitting in his million-dollar Chicago condo wondering how he could possibly stop the death spiral of his campaign for the United States Senate.

It had all seemed so perfect just a few months ago—The dashing and urbane Alexi had burst on the political scene only four years ago spending millions of his parents money to win statewide office in his very first foray into politics.  He shot hoops with his role model and political patron, Barak Obama.  He had wealth, charisma, connections and unbridled ambition and a solidly blue state in which to make all his dreams come true.

But things started to go poorly from the start.  His entry into the race for his idol’s Senate seat was met with a collective wince from Democrats.  From the White House on down, political operatives made overtures to nearly every possible alternative candidate short of Rod Blagojevich.  State Attorney General Lisa Madigan, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, Chris Kennedy, and Dem mandarin Bill Daley are just the alternatives that readily come to mind.  Even with all these A-listers taking a pass, Alexi still drew four primary opponents.  The scuttlebutt was that Democrat insiders felt Alexi lacked depth and that, coupled with troubles at his family’s Broadway Bank, he would be a very weak candidate.

He spent a ton of cash to eke out a primary win.  But 61% of Democrats wanted someone else to be the nominee.  Meanwhile, moderate GOP Congressman Mark Kirk cruised with nearly 60% of the Republican primary vote against six challengers.  Since then, things have gotten progressively worse for Alexi.

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The Tea Party folks keep getting mad at me for saying that in the end they might prove ineffective in races at levels higher than local because they aren’t organized enough. They puff up their chests proudly proclaiming that they intend to resist being organized and they claim that being organized is precisely what they are fighting against. I understand the feeling, even sympathize quite a lot, but there is a problem with this obstinacy. It means they won’t win on a statewide ballot very often. The Illinois primary just proved me correct, too.

Let’s take the race for Senate in Illinois as exhibit “A.” Of course the good old boys in the state party went with Mark Kirk, the center left candidate from a northern suburb of Chicago. He was the he-can-win candidate and the establishment choice. Not one Tea Party group, though, wants Kirk and for good reason — and I heartily concur with them, as it happens. So who was the “Tea Party candidate,” the one meant to beat out Kirk, the one backed by the newly found power of the Tea Party movement? There wasn’t one. There were three.

Sadly, the Tea Partiers in Illinois split their vote all up. Some Tea Party Groups went with Don Lowery and some went with Patrick Hughes. A few even went with John Arrington. Hughes, of course, was the only one that had even a remote chance as far as voter polls were concerned. Hughes at least registered in the polls, Lowery and Arrington barely showed up at all.

Now, I like Mr. Lowery to be sure. He is a great fellow and has some fantastic principles. I can see why Tea Party groups are attracted to him. I feel the same way about Mr. Arrington. On the other hand, the same can be said of Hughes (disclosure, I endorsed Hughes). The problem is not that one or the other Tea Party group chose the wrong candidate, it’s that they didn’t choose the same candidate. They petered away their votes by choosing three candidates allowing Mark Kirk to run away with it.

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Yesterday, Rep. Mark Kirk offered a great illustration of the relationship between ACORN and SEIU. A part of that chart is worthy of a further look: The relatively unknown story of how SEIU and ACORN took their act from Illinois Southward to mess with Texas and allegedly threatened to kill one man’s business because he wouldn’t toe the union line.

Most people know that unions haven’t done as well in the South as in industrialized (and economically troubled) Northern states such as Illinois and Michigan. So, in 2006 SEIU decided it would bring its brand of “justice for janitors” to Houston to set up a new foothold in the South.

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