Living in one of th e nation’s most politically active states has its good and bad aspects.

Although considered “flyover country” by New Yorkers, DCers and LAers, Illinois political sagas are some of the most scandalous and enticing. That’s good for political junkies and investigative journalists.

But after decades of revelations, from avoiding taxes to selling illegal drivers’ licenses and selling U.S. Senate seats, Illinoisans have become jaded and used to corruption and deceit. That’s bad for us all.

That’s why when the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington unveiled its annual list of Congress’ “15 most corrupt members,” it really wasn’t news that the list included two of Illinois’ most prominent Democrats: U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-2nd) and U.S. Sen. Roland Burris.

It’s been almost a year since then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich appointed former Attorney General Roland Burris to fill Barack Obama’s former U.S. Senate seat. It doesn’t seem that long ago when Burris sat before the Illinois House Impeachment Committee, avoiding questions from state Rep. Jim Durkin and insisting that he hadn’t done anything unethical or illegal.

And it doesn’t seem that long ago that in May, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s office released the transcript of a wiretapped conversation between Burris and the former governor’s brother Rob Blagojevich that directly conflicted with Burris’ sworn testimony before the impeachment committee. In those tapes, Burris offered to give Blagojevich a check and “do something at (Burris’) law firm.” Later in the conversation he pledged to “personally do something” and suggested he might have his attorney send over a donation.

So when the U.S. Senate initiated an investigation into Burris’ appointment, there was hope that it would strongly reprimand Burris and clear up the clouds surrounding Illinois’ representation in the U.S. Senate.

That hope for justice diminished when the Democratic Senate leadership took into consideration the partisan realities of scratching and clawing for a fragile Democratic majority. With the nationalization of health care, implementation of cap and trade and politicization of the nation’s economic crisis on the Senate docket, they needed a useful Burris in place.

The U.S. Senate Ethics Committee officially pointed to Sangamon County’s prosecutor, who declared Burris’ less-than-forthright testimony before the House Impeachment Committee failed to meet prosecution standards. So in November, the ethic committee’s slap on Burris’ wrist in the form of an admonition letter didn’t even sting.

Indeed, Burris was “pleased that after numerous investigations, this matter has finally come to a close. I thank the members of the Senate Ethics Committee for their fair and thorough review of this matter and now look forward to continuing the important work ahead on behalf of the people of Illinois.”

But the matter may not be over, CREW says. The federal government’s standard for perjury may have been violated by Burris’ inaccurate testimony. Under federal law, CREW reminds, anyone who takes an oath that he will testify, declare or offer written testimony that he subscribes to be true, but deliberately offers untrue statements about a material matter, is guilty of perjury.

“We wish Sen. Burris could realize that this matter is not closed, and that it won’t be closed until he vacates the seat he never should have accepted,” CREW wrote last week in an editorial.

“If he is so blind to the between-the-lines contents of the ethics committee’s letter, allow us to offer an interpretation on behalf of his fellow senators: ‘You lied to the Illinois House Impeachment Committee and those lies are what led us to admit you to this chamber. We can’t prove those lies in a court of law, so we can’t do more than send you this letter, but that doesn’t excuse those lies. You have embarrassed us and placed your integrity into a state of permanent doubt.’ ”

It’s painful, but refreshing, to hear from a group outside the state express the same disdain and frustration with self-regulating political entities that purport to serve the public’s welfare. We’re so used to Illinois’ self-regulated political corruption, greed and duplicity that we carelessly shrug our shoulders, even as two of our state’s most influential politicians are deemed among the nation’s most corrupt.

“This is news that Burris and Jackson are corrupt?” one political commenter noted when the CREW distinction was reported. “Everyone in Illinois already knows that.”

Is there no way to clean up Illinois’ political system? Are we, indeed, hopeless?

CREW’s list is just the tip of the iceberg. it investigates and blows the whistle on congressional members who affect the nation. Groups like Illinois’ Better Government Association focus on state corruption.

Last week, the BGA took on taxpayer waste found in the state’s archaic township governments. It outlined why township structures are no longer needed and how they’ve diminished to being patronage job promised land for the majority political party.

While duly noting government waste, Chicago media overlooked three south suburban cases, where township supervisors also are state lawmakers: state Sen. Maggie Crotty, who double dips as Bremen Township’s supervisor; state Rep. Al Riley, who double dips as Thornton Township’s supervisor, and state Sen. Lou Viverito, who supervises Stickney Township

For those who benefit from the cozy setup, that’s no big deal. A few years ago, when approaching our polling location, a Crotty supporter encouraged me to vote for Crotty for township supervisor.

“No thanks,” I said. “She’s already state senator.”

“Aw, that’s only a part-time job,” the IBEW-jacketed thug said. “She can handle them both.”

Which brings us back to the question at hand: Is there any way for Illinois to escape our own cynical state of permanent doubt? Is there any way to fix our state’s problems?

We’re open for ideas. At least we should be.

All set to rant about our U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Gov. Pat Quinn pushing to bring Gitmo prisoners to western Illinois, I was pulled away by a demanding 3-year-old needing help with a project she was doing at the table across from me.

“Nana,” she said. “I need help with making my Thankful Tree for Thanksgiving.”

At first I was a little irritated. After all, the column deadline was soon to pass, and I didn’t want to miss it. But little Gabby beckoned with her big blue eyes, and I melted.

Gabby, her mommy and her little sister, Kendall, were living with us last Thanksgiving while their daddy was in Iraq. This year, all of us have much for which to be grateful. This year, Gabby’s dad will be celebrating the holidays, safe and sound, back in the States.

As we were writing on the Thankful Tree’s leaves those things for which Gabby was grateful, I couldn’t help but think about the things for which I am thankful this year. After all, isn’t that what Thanksgiving’s all about?

So what am I grateful for this year? Of course, family first – immediate and extended. Then friends and colleagues.

Then good health and jobs.

So many are struggling with their health and finances this year. Those of us who have survived job cuts, layoffs and unemployment have the responsibility of helping those struggling this year. We should be thankful we have the opportunity to serve others in time of need.

And freedom and liberties.

This was especially real over the weekend when Gabby, her family and I visited a historical site near their new home, a place called Arlington National Cemetery. Under the shade of beautiful golden and bronze-leafed trees were row upon row of white stones, marking thousands upon thousands of fallen soldiers whose bodies lay in rest. Each bravely fought to preserve freedoms for a generation of Americans they didn’t live long enough to see.

The domestic attack on Fort Hood this month came to mind as we were standing in that somber setting. And how innocent little children like little Gabby were affected directly when their loved ones were tragically killed as an act of war, while still at home, where they should have been safe.

When Gabby’s daddy was on the other side of the world last Thanksgiving, he would say that he was there to keep danger over there, far away from his family and loved ones. That’s what made the Fort Hood tragedy so bitter. Many soldiers deployed overseas rationalize their absence from home as the way to protect innocent civilians from enemies, foreign and domestic.

And how unbelievably ironic it is that after these brave representatives of our nation have been fighting overseas against religious zealots bent on destroying Western civilization, those most dangerous could be brought from Guantanamo Bay to America’s safe Heartland. And that our state’s leaders – Durbin and Quinn, as well as the president and commander in chief, would be seriously considering hosting cold-blooded enemies of our nation’s welfare and security.

We’re told that more than 1,500 soldiers will be deployed to Illinois’ Thomson Correctional Center to keep the international terrorists under supervision while they await trial. But to voice concern about such a setup is fear-mongering and hysteria, leftists tell us.

Gitmo-in-Illinois has become a hot political issue, with Republicans mostly against the plan and Democrats generally for it.

“I am vehemently opposed to bringing enemy combatants, including the Gitmo prisoners, to Illinois and was also opposed to the closing of Guantanamo Bay. This is failure of leadership of the Democrats – from the president down to Gov. Quinn,” GOP U.S. Senate candidate Patrick Hughes said.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mark Kirk also blasted the idea.

“By moving the al-Qaida core to Thomson along with 1,500 U.S. troops, the United States will publicly brand Illinois as the new Gitmo,” Congressman Kirk (R-10th) said. “Sen. Durbin claims we need to close Gitmo because it is currently used as a jihadist propaganda tool. What exactly does he think will happen when we relocate the facility to Illinois?”

In addition, on Oct. 7, 2009, dozens of retired generals, admirals and intelligence leaders, including former Clinton CIA Director James Woolsey, sent a letter to President Barack Obama expressing their concern over moving Gitmo to the United States.

“Over 500 lawyers describing themselves as the ‘Gitmo Bar’ stand ready to file the paperwork to free any detainees transferred to U.S. prisons,” the security leaders wrote. “Potential national and local security risks greatly outweigh any prospective economic benefits for states under consideration for such transfers.”

How could we be endangered? Federal law goes into effect as soon as the Gitmo prisoners touch down on American soil. American law bestows unique human rights, including the constitutional right to a speedy trial as well as the need for the state to file charges.

As of Tuesday morning, the major Democratic U.S. Senate candidate to succeed Sen. Roland Burris, Alexi Giannoulias, hasn’t yet proclaimed his opinion on the matter. The three other Democratic candidates – Cheryle Jackson, David Hoffman and Jacob Meister – all voiced their support for Obama, Durbin and Quinn’s idea.

All this brings us back to what lies ahead for Illinois during the next year – especially for the generation that 3-year-old Gabby represents. Will all the sacrifices that have been made over the past generations be deemed worthless as our trusted elected officials invite hardened and determined national enemies into our midst, to enjoy our constitutional rights? Will the war against terrorism be brought home after all?

As they say, you never fully appreciate something until it’s no longer there.

Happy Thanksgiving, dear Gabby. May you, too, be thankful for freedom and liberties in the years to come.

It was in the 1987 movie “The Untouchables” that we learned first about “The Chicago Way.” Overall, the gist is that when someone’s done something wrong, the victim retaliates with something slightly worse.

“The Chicago Way” seems to be the Obama administration’s modus operandi.

The administration is teaching “The Chicago Way” to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Fox News and the health insurance industry. During presidential addresses, Obama drops hints of who’s irritated him.

Obama mentioned the amount the chamber has spent on lobbyists, he pointed to Fox News’ criticism and in a weekly address he railed on the health insurance industry. What had they done? They issued a report about the costs of nationalizing health care and how Obama’s proposals would deepen our nation’s economic crisis.

The report was just too much. Immediately, the Democratic-led Congress began pushing through legislation to tie up the health insurance industry in federal regulations. Under the guise of busting monopolies, Obama paid them back “The Chicago Way.”

The health industry reported facts that could have stifled Obama’s grand plan for a government takeover of the nation’s health care. Obama retaliated by berating the study in an unpresidential manner.

“It’s smoke and mirrors,” he said. “It’s bogus. And it’s all too familiar. Every time we get close to passing reform, the insurance companies produce these phony studies as a prescription and say, ‘Take one of these, and call us in a decade.’ Well, not this time.”

Obama’s “too familiar” slur shouldn’t be quickly overlooked. The president is very familiar with using cherry-picked data to manipulate as a means toward an end.

Just before his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Obama used a self-serving report to push the Illinois Senate Health and Human Services Committee into investigating Advocate Health System’s billing practices. Along with a full court press from Obama’s political friends, the Service Employees International Union – which also authored the report Obama used – the hospitals eventually succumbed to union demands.

In 2004, SEIU’s Hospital Accountability Project released a study on Chicago’s largest medical employer, Advocate Health Systems, pointing to Advocate’s system of bill collecting. SEIU said Advocate recouped medical costs from uninsured persons by overcharging and resorting to liens on private property when collections were not successful.

Advocate’s hospitals are located for the most part within Cook County, where county hospital facilities offer public care to the uninsured and indigent.

Based on that 2004 SEIU/ACORN report on Advocate, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and then-state Sen. Barack Obama urged and initiated investigations into Advocate’s billing practices. Obama also wrote to the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, urging them to consider Advocate’s allegedly faulty billing practices when determining whether to allow the company to build a hospital in the southwest suburbs.

Obama urged the hospital planning board “to examine hospital pricing and debt collection policies as well as the provision of charity care, as you determine whether or not to award permits for new hospital construction in our state.”

It was the ACORN branch of SEIU that pushed for more charity on uninsured patients. It, Obama and Lisa Madigan were successful in getting Advocate to forgive hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills, and they pressured Advocate to revamp its collection program.

But it was the unionization of the largest Chicago-area medical company that the SEIU wanted more than anything. Advocate employed at that time more than 25,000 non-union employees.

And coincidentally, Madigan and Obama were recipients of some of the millions that SEIU has donated to Illinois elected officials over the years

Ultimately, Advocate revamped its billing and collection practices and forgave a number of uninsured patients hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid bills. The company also sued SEIU for defamation.

“Our purpose is to defend Advocate’s integrity and to protect our legal rights,” Advocate spokesman Ed Domansky told Crain’s Chicago Business in 2004. “Through the counterclaim we aim to correct misrepresentations about Advocate and our treatment of the uninsured.”

Advocate claimed that SEIU’s media pressure to prevent the hospital expansion was all about forcing Advocate to allow the union to campaign among its employees without a comment from the system’s management. Another report says the SEIU wanted “card check,” which would force employees to vote publicly rather than secretly on whether they wanted union representation.

All this should sound familiar because this is exactly what many believe Obama has promised SEIU to help facilitate health care reform nationwide.

Advocate’s plan to build a hospital in the southwest suburbs were ultimately rejected by the hospital planning board. When recently asked as to whether the company plans to apply again to the state board to allow the new hospital, an Advocate spokesperson said there were no plans in the near future.

We in the southwest suburbs have been firsthand witnesses to what America may soon learn: how Barack Obama – with the help of unions, phony studies, the media and well-positioned legal authorities -may adopt “The Chicago Way” nationwide.

Next Monday morning, ballots will be counted to determine whether Illinois families that care for severely disabled family members in their homes and receive financial assistance from the state will become union members.

In June, Gov. Pat Quinn signed an executive order that had been left on his desk by his predecessor, Rod Blagojevich. Executive Order 09-15 set into motion an effort that would allow home health care workers who care for their own family members to collectively bargain and select with which union they would prefer affiliating – either the Service Employees International Union or the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Last month, purple T-shirted SEIU leaders stood on the platform with Quinn when he announced their endorsement over his Democratic primary opponent, state Comptroller Dan Hynes.

That leads us back to the questions being raised by family members now dragged into a power struggle between two of Illinois’ largest unions. An estimated 3,000 home health caretakers will be added to the membership rosters of either SEIU or AFSCME if these families cast a ballot in their union’s favor.

Pam Harris, a Western Springs mother of a severely disabled 20-year-old son, says she had no idea what was going on until one Sunday morning recently when there was a knock at her door, and there stood two purple-shirted union members from other states telling her why she should become a member of the SEIU.

“They implied we would get more money to care for our son,” Harris said. “They also suggested that if we picked SEIU, I’d get paid vacation days. What overworked mother wouldn’t go for that?”

But Harris said she felt like that Sunday morning visit was an invasion of their family’s privacy, and she began looking more into what the SEIU workers said. Indeed, a gubernatorial proclamation set the way for home caretakers to be approached in their workplace – her own home, in Ms. Harris’ case – to lobby the need for health care workers like herself to participate in collective bargaining.

Harris said she wasn’t sure how being a union member could really benefit her or her son. Illinois law stipulates that subsidies to families caring for the severely disabled are limited to three times that of the current Social Security allotment.

“If they wanted to get more funding for us, they would need to change the law,” Harris said.

What would the unions get for this new responsibility if the 3,000 families voted to be represented?

“They’d get 2 percent of whatever the state sends us,” Harris said. “And if I chose not to be a member, I’d still have to pay my ‘fair share.’ ”

Home health care workers who provide care for their own family members report their caretaking hours to an independent agency authorized to oversee their efforts. Based on the timesheet the caretakers submit, the agency authorizes a subsidy from the state, and the family members are paid directly.

Those third-party agencies were strictly forbidden from addressing the union vote with any of the caretakers by Quinn’s executive order. Indeed, a few third-party agencies have received memos from SEIU representatives who’ve said any negative comments about unionization could cost that agency their state contract.

Undeterred, Harris pushed the state for the same list of families that had been provided to SEIU and AFSCME to promote their unions. Harris wrote a letter to the families on her own accord and has received several notes of appreciation for keeping the families informed.

At the same time, Harris says she’s troubled by Quinn’s recent SEIU endorsement.

“I heard him say to the union, ‘Early to bed, early to rise, run like hell and organize!’ ” she said.

But Quinn not only has received the SEIU’s endorsement. Over the years, it’s given more than $30,000 in campaign donations. That’s a fraction of the $224,000 it gave to Attorney General Lisa Madigan and more than half a million to Blagojevich. Over the past decade, it has given Illinois lawmakers more than $12 million, the vast majority to Democrats.

Blagojevich was so thick with SEIU officials that he felt comfortable asking for a higher echelon six-figure job for himself and his wife, Patti, federal wiretaps revealed.

The Right to Work Foundation’s executive director, Mark Mix, is convinced that what Rod Blagojevich and Quinn have implemented in Illinois will be an integral part of the health reform act President Barack Obama is pushing.

“We’re seeing this kind of union promotion in other states, especially California,” Mix said. “And I’ve read about the need for home health care workers to have collective bargaining at the federal level, especially if the federal government oversees health care reform. If the unions get their way, what’s happening in Illinois will be nationwide.”

Caring family members such as Harris may well be swept into the health care reform tsunami that will change the home care scenery nationwide if Obamacare passes Congress this year.

It’s fairly certain that as a mom determined to provide care for her dependent son, Harris never imagined she’d have to come to a choice between lovingly meeting her family’s challenges and taking on union bullies. It may be a dilemma in which more families find themselves in the days to come.

Now we understand just a little better what Obama meant when he told SEIU Iowa supporters they would together “paint the nation purple.”

Last week, in the midst of the ACORN scandals nationwide, the Dems not only ignored the allegations about giving illegal tax counsel and mortgage information to a pretend pimp and prostitute, they elevated ACORN. Indeed, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) found a way to include ACORN reps on a financial oversight board, giving them a seat at the table of deciding the nation’s financial future.

Obama's First Day

As a longtime conservative activist in Illinois, I teeter between laughing out loud and grieving deep inside when prominent national pundits discover and disclose just how deeply Barack Obama’s leftist ideology is ingrained now that it is affecting national policy.

Why they’re shocked and appalled how his policies are enlarging government control, sweeping away individual rights, subduing the free market and devaluing traditional values.

If only our Midwestern lone voices could have had more exposure and had been taken seriously, we all wouldn’t have gasped when the president casually voiced deep-seated resentment against a Cambridge, Mass., police officer doing his duty. We wouldn’t squirm and be disappointed at never hearing an apology from him for speaking carelessly when he admittedly didn’t have all the facts.

After all, we warned about Dr. Jeremiah Wright’s unconscionable racist views and Obama’s lack of resistance to them while sitting for 20 years under Wright’s teaching at Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ.

We wouldn’t be shocked to see our national debt rise to unimaginably high levels with the promise of fixing a troubled economy. We wouldn’t be surprised when Congress is pressed to bailout a banking system collapsing under the weight of unpaid mortgages doled out to folks who really didn’t have the income to justify such huge debt. After all, Obama’s work as a community organizer with ACORN was well known. And the national ACORN organization and its sister Service Employees International Union thrives by pushing for “affordable housing” to those unable to qualify for loans.

We wouldn’t be stunned when Obama sits patiently as an animosity-filled world leader insults and demeans America. We wouldn’t cringe when he bows to a vowed enemy of democracy and is jovial when a communist dictator greets him with a book brimming with anti-liberty propaganda. We tried to tell them the president launched his Illinois political career in his Hyde Park community with the help of SDS activists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. In the 1960s, the SDS’ publicized goal was to destroy America from within.

We wouldn’t be appalled when we watch the world’s best health care fall into the federal government’s insensitive, controlling hands. Obama’s Hyde Park family physician, Dr. David Scheiner, was and is an outspoken proponent of universal health care. In an interview with Democracy Now!, Scheiner blasted private insurance companies for getting in the way of meeting patients’ health care needs.

Billions of dollars annually forked over to the insurance companies are wasted, Scheiner said, and the millions that company CEOs earned are excessive. With the state acting as health care determiner, all those messy forms would be unnecessary and bureaucratic obstacles would end, he said. Scheiner appeared to seriously believe what he was saying.

But not only does Scheiner think insurance company CEOs are overpaid, so are medical specialists such as cardiologists and neurosurgeons.

“A neurosurgeon gets paid $20,000 for cutting into the neck of my patient,” he told Forbes Magazine. “Have him get paid $1 million a year instead of $2 million or $3 million. He won’t starve.”

So when the brightest and best head toward non-government controlled, more lucrative vocations rather than limit their potential in a universal Medicare system, we shouldn’t be surprised. After all, we tried to tell them about Obama’s Chicago friends.

Scheiner said in the Democracy Now! interview that he owed a great deal to his medical practice partner and good friend, Dr. Quentin Young, 86, who was recently appointed by Gov. Patrick Quinn to head and reform the scandal-plagued Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board.

Young and Scheiner’s waiting room must have over the years looked like a Democratic holding room. The Obamas went to Scheiner, as did the late Chicago Mayor Harold Washington and late author Studs Terkel and Quinn was a patient of Young.

In 1987, Young founded “Physicians for a National Health Program,” a Chicago-based nonprofit group that advocates a universal Medicare system, a single-payer system. In such a system, the U.S. government would pay for all medical care, and, in effect, become the nation’s sole dictatorial health-care broker. According to Young, “National health insurance is no longer the best solution, it’s the only solution. All other alternatives have been proven disastrous failures.” Really?

What’s so bad about the government monopolizing one-seventh of America’s economy? One need only contemplate the failing public school system and the almost-defunct U.S. Postal Service as two government-controlled entities that have demonstrated what happens when special interests control public services.

During August, members of Congress will be back in their districts, and they need to hear from their constituents. It doesn’t matter whether Reps. Bobby Rush (D-1st), Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-2nd) or Debbie Halvorson (D-11th) welcome hearing from their Southland constituents about the impending disaster of nationalized health care. We need to tell them again what we know about Obama and the people who’ve had such an impact on the way he views the world.

At the very least, voicing our protests and concerns could slow down the process and could save us from yet another Obama administration disaster – one that could actually cost untold American lives.

Fran Eaton is a south suburban resident, a conservative activist in state and national politics and an online journalist. She can be reached at featon@illinoisreview.com

First published in the Chicago Sun Times’ Southtown Star on August 5, 2009

by Fran Eaton

Young Republican conservatives are charging back in Barack Obama’s hometown, determined to coax timid Republicans out of their hiding places and join up to push back on Chicago’s infamous corrupt, liberal Democratic control. The Chicago Young Republicans launched a month-long membership drive  for June 2009 with a first-class PR campaign, featuring ads on the heavily-traveled Chicago Transit Authority’s Blue, Red and Brown Lines. The ads are decked with GOP-identified elephants and the words “It’s Not Easy Being Right in Chicago.”

An interview with Chicago YR President Jeremy Rose took place after Monday morning’s press conference outside northside Chicago’s Southland Street CTA station:

Made available to Smart Girl Nation by www.IllinoisReview.com’s editor Fran Eaton.

WLS AM 890’s Mancow Muller said he wouldn’t have voluntarily undergone the waterboarding in the Chicago radio station had he known it was so bad.  “I don’t want to say this … absolutely, it’s torture.”  You can watch the YouTube HERE.

Sure, the waterboarding demonstration was a publicity stunt, but it gave us a taste of how psychologically traumatizing waterboarding is.  It showed us how it could frighten information out of those whose lives are threatened by their own co-horts if they succumb.   And it shows us how serious our enemies are about destroying Western culture as we know it.

On one hand, Americans are being made to feel guilty about frightening terrorists to extract information that could save lives.  The only permanent marks of this type of torture is on the minds of those who would harm us. 

But the loved ones of every victim at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the fields of Pennsylvania will also have permanent psychological scars from enemies whose reason for living was to terrorize and paralyze America.

There’s no doubt waterboarding is traumatic.  But so were the last moments before Flight 99 crashed into that Pennsylvania field.  So were the seconds before men and women leaped from the burning World Trade Center.  

Perhaps only the people that perished in the airliner as it suddenly veered into the Pentagon were mercifully spared psychological torture on September 11, 2001.   

Why are those ACLU lawyers and Bush critics who are so quick to condemn techniques that have protected us from other equally-horrific terrorist plots as concerned about their fellow Americans’ welfare?There’s a serious disconnect between those who insist on protecting predators over innocents. 

Perhaps the televised images of the burning World Trade Center did make us all uncomfortable and cause us to recall the feelings of grief and helplessness that grasped all Americans that fateful September morning.  But there’s no question now that the psychologists were wrong to insist images stop being broadcast.  We should have seen those images more.  If we had, perhaps our own trauma would have seared those images on our psyches and we as a nation would be united and compelled to do everything to prevent those horrifying acts from ever happening again with resolution and determination, rather than the misplaced guilt that guides our policymakers decision-making today.

Our enemies in the war on terrorism have now become bolder and are now taking advantage of our precious freedom of religion and using it against us.  Three radical extremist Muslims were arrested this week for plotting to destroy a New York Jewish synagogue.  Their bitterness about their lives leading to time in prison was tapped into by America-hating radical Muslims that are free to proliferate in our American prisons.  To find that a new angry and revengeful crop of anti-American terrorists are being grown within our own prison system should sober us and cause us to understand the ongoing and growing threat we face.

Waterboarding is a technique that should be used in only the most resistant cases.  But the option should remain available to those on the front, who are determined to protect us from those who would harm us and bring us psychological trauma. 

The war on terror is not over, no matter what President Obama and his administration want us to believe.   As Americans, we must stay alert and on guard, because the enemy that has declared jihad on America has not yet been defeated. 

And when Mancow recovers from his experience, he’s likely to agree.  We shouldn’t feel guilty about defending ourselves.

Obama's First Day

by Fran Eaton, published first at Sun-Times’ Southtown Star

The brassy, boisterous, “We won, you didn’t” theme already has been leading the parade for this week’s leftist celebration. Few things are more annoying in life than ungracious victors.

One hundred days into the Bush administration, those same leftists used their bully pulpits to pummel our enthusiasm with their constant, “Bush won by stealing,” “He’s not my President,” and more whines about our 2000 and 2004 choice. Maybe ungracious losers are one of those few things more annoying than ungracious winners.

So with that in mind, we’ll skip our natural tendencies to complain about the Obama crowd’s apparent drive to torture the American public with its incessant post-Bush administration probing and unrelenting policy dissection. That self-righteous, out-of-touch crowd of leftist vultures won’t be at peace until they’ve suffocated out of us all any comfort we found keeping terrorists from another successful Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on American soil.

We won’t whine about the imperceivable amount of debt Obama has dumped on our children and grandchildren, destined to pay for our self-centered wasteful spending. We won’t complain about the feds taking over private businesses and demanding they restructure and hire per faux CEO Obama’s whims.

And we won’t refer to the lack of respect shown for our nation’s sovereignty by Obama bowing to other nation’s heads, politely listening to the United Nations rantings of an anti-American megalomaniac, accepting a critical book from a U.S. hating Venezuelan dictator or extending courtesy to a nuclear-weapon flaunting Iranian dictator.

No, we won’t spew sour grapes on the president’s 100th day celebration.

Instead, we’ll focus on the new blood and new energy that these 100 days have invigorated among those who believe America made a tragic wrong turn in November.

Being one of those that early on voiced deep concern about what an Obama administration could mean for our country, it’s taken almost 100 days to process what message America was trying to send when she suddenly veered left last November.

Was life really that bad in America, or were we just beaten down by constant leftist messages bombarding us about change? And was that message totally political or was it really more social and ideological?

Or was it that naturally kind-hearted Americans saw the problems facing us, tired of the liberal media’s Chinese water torture drip-drip-dripping, and finally relented to let someone different have a chance?

In another 100 days or so, Illinois will swing into a yearlong gubernatorial campaign. If our party primaries remain in February, we’ll begin hearing from those who would like to take Illinois in a new direction.

With Democrats ruling the governorship, both branches of the legislature and much of the Democrat-appointed judgeships, now’s the perfect time for new ideas and energy to move ahead. What Illinois leaders have been doing thus far is obviously not working.

During the past few months, we’ve met numerous folks who are committed to timeless principles that have made American great. Their message will be less government, individual rights, free markets and traditional values – a direct contrast to Democrat-dominated Springfield.

However, the messengers are presenting themselves much differently: younger, more diverse, more aggressive and definitely more optimistic. They are passionate, committed and well-educated. They are exactly what we need to change direction in Illinois.

In the Republican Hispanic National Assembly of Illinois, Rafael Riverandeira, born of native Cubans, leads the way in persuasively arguing his respect for life and the traditional family.

He and other young professionals are quietly and powerfully energizing a bloc of voters among Hispanics who are challenging the idea that their votes are welcomed only by Democrats. Rafael represents real change.

At the Republican National Committee level, Illinois’ new National Committeewoman Demetra DeMonte from downstate Pekin has joined with other conservatives in the national committee to form a caucus energized to challenge the RNC with new direction. DeMonte has authored a resolution that specifically challenges federal Republican lawmakers to abandon budget earmarks, a practice of adding in expensive pet projects during committee conferences.

Earmarking abandons transparent government practices and is perceived as using taxpayer dollars for wasteful spending, something most Americans abhor. DeMonte’s gutsyness is refreshing and sets the example for other women to follow – an admirable development, as well.

Among the next generation is newly-elected Chicago Young Republican President Jeremy Rose, who jumped on board the Tax Day resistance movement and made it cool to be a young Republican in Chicago.

From a sailing ship out of Navy Pier, Rose and 150 other tax protesters dumped their tax frustrations overboard April 15.

“People are ready for change in Illinois,” Rose said. His e-mail box has been inundated with queries about how to get involved, a dramatic shift in the right direction.

Join up those political new faces with the growing under-the-radar non-profit movements pushing for more government transparency, more nuclear family stability, less taxes and less bureaucratic red tape, and you’ve got a formula for sweeping change in Illinois.

Without Obama’s first 100 days, much of this wouldn’t have all come together so well and so quickly. So we, too, will celebrate today’s mark on history. To the future!

St Lucas Medical Center in Pitesti Romania

By Fran Eaton

Although the United States spends almost $2.2 trillion or $7,421 per person each year on health care, it remains at the top of Americans’ concerns. As the nation’s unemployment nears the 10 percent level, criticism of the current national employer-based health care system is reaching new heights.

President Barack Obama told congressional leaders last week that he wanted comprehensive health care reform legislation on his desk by the end of July. The White House’s plan includes reducing long-term growth of health care costs for businesses and government, protecting families from bankruptcy or debt because of health care costs, guaranteeing choice of doctors and health plans and investing in prevention and wellness.

There is no doubt from a liberal or a conservative viewpoint that the American health care system is in dire need of reform. Private health care plans are tied to employers for the most part. Those who are unable to find jobs where employers offer health care as part of employee benefits have two choices – use the public health care system or simply go without.

Government health care has evolved throughout the years from first caring for those too old to work full time to include those who are too disabled to work to those under the poverty level to now include children of the working poor. Kid Care was added to Medicaid, which was added to Medicare.

One breath at a time, America has been sucked into the very same universal health care system that we so strenuously resisted during the Clinton years. It is very similar to the failed government-run system from which the former communist Romania is now struggling to escape.

Staff at Romania’s St. Lucas Medical Center said when their Pitesti clinic opened in 2002, locals commonly offered bribes to hospital caretakers, something they learned to do to attain the best health care under the old communist health care system.

Before the communist fall in 1989, Romanian doctors made less money than those who worked in the factory, and reports are that 95 percent of the nation’s medical transactions involved money under the table for the doctors. It’s taken years for those coming to St. Lucas to understand their facility’s nongovernment care and private staffing offer excellent service for everyone who has needs, not just those who are able to pay under the table.

“When we told them we wouldn’t take bribes, they would ask, ‘why?’ They thought if we didn’t take their bribe we were not treating them well, that we just didn’t want to see them anymore or that they were so sick they were not going to live,” St. Lucas’ founder Dr. Augustin Batis said in a recent interview.

St. Lucas was the first nongovernmental medical clinic built since the communist dictatorship failed. Based on a theme of “honesty and integrity,” it has had a powerful impact on the Petisti community.

After seven years, St. Lucas’ reputation for excellence has become so well-known, that now the country’s powerful elite come to the facility for medical care rather than place themselves or their loved ones in the state’s inferior and corrupt system.

In the documentary, “Progress in Pitesti,” Romanian hospital staffers describe the deplorable conditions at the state-run facilities where they previously worked. One physical therapist said he never had access to up-to-date equipment while working at the state hospital. A nurse described how she and her colleagues commonly brought cleaning materials from home to sanitize the facilities.

The American-based Luke Society executive board, upon which Mokena businessman Marty Ozinga serves, provided funds for the establishment of St. Lucas Medical Center. Despite its Christian community backing, the medical facility is not considered a non-profit organization, but rather a private business beginning to sustain itself and profit enough to consider expanding to other areas in Romania.

“The business component is operating at a level that gains access to government officials, to political leaders to other industry leaders. We’re not just ministering to a Christian community or to the poor community,” Ozinga said. “We’re interacting with all aspects of Romanian life, Romanian government and are, in fact, playing a role and participating in the rebuilding, reshaping and restructuring of that country.”

Health care strikes at the core of human welfare. Traditionally, the family has been the center of health, education and welfare, but as the state steps in to meet those needs, the family becomes more dependent on the provider. In these unstable economic times, that can become immeasurably powerful.

Why would America head toward universal health care and abandon medical care self-determination?

A group of 14 Republican members of Congress recently formed a Doctors’ Caucus to steer us away from that disastrous direction. Each of the congressmen have worked as private physicians and are committed to pushing for a health care insurance system that follows the patient from job to job and allows patients to choose their health care providers. The caucus suggests tax credits, insurance vouchers, health care networking, and an ar ray of other reasonable reforms.

Whichever way our lawmakers determine in the next 60 days, it is our job to insist on true health care progress and with a cautious, wary eye on the universal health care system that failed in Romania.

First published at the Chicago Sun-Times News Group’s www.southtownstar.com

Fran Eaton is a south suburban resident, a conservative activist in state and national politics and an online journalist. She can be reached at featon@illinoisreview.com.