Political Arena

Have we reached critical mass yet?

By John Biver

  Within the past couple days, the Illinois Family Institute and the Topinka Tattler listed bullet points comparing and contrasting the two major party candidates for Illinois governor this November. As a public service…

Read More

It’s really not that complicated

By John Biver

A “big box” regulation passes the Chicago City Council…BP Amoco shuts down a pipeline and gas prices rise…property taxes or income taxes rise or there’s a threat to raise them…Topinka issues an “economic plan.”…

Read More

Step One: admit you have a problem

By John Biver

One of the failed gubernatorial candidates from last March’s Republican primary rejected some good advice about a year ago. The simple suggestion was to admit that Republicans have been a part of the problem…

Read More

Mideast, Midwest, over there, over here

By John Biver

Our concentration is typically focused on Illinois political and governmental matters. National issues – and especially foreign policy – we leave to our allies with larger budgets and bigger staffs. Occasionally, however, events occur or words are…

Read More

How to win elections and influence turnout

By John Biver

Tomorrow is August—so time is running out on U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald—he only has a little more than three months left to win this campaign for Topinka and Birkett. Speaking of poor strategic decisions on…

Read More

One of the Republicans’ biggest problems

By John Biver

Yesterday in an editorial the Belleville News-Democrat yelled at the Blagojevich administration for it’s “cavalier” attitude regarding Illinois’ fiscal realities. Part of the problem, the editorial stated, is due to “all his spending.” The editorial referenced a…

Read More

Illinois: Land of Ideas and the Idealess

By John Biver

Imagine this scenario: a state in the union with a direction-less, idea-less, and principle-lacking Republican party. Now imagine that in that same state’s largest city resides the nation’s best state-level think tank. Can you conjure that…

Read More