When I started QCE over four years ago, my expectations were modest; I figured I would provide a forum for a few like-minded people who were disgusted and disgruntled with our political class and press situation in the QCs.

The fact that it grew and expanded into the network it became is truly astonishing. The credit for that goes to my commenters who provided information, insight and hoots all along the way.

Thank you, gentle readers.

Today Greg Aguilar said he was running because “I know the struggles the working class has…”

Yes, Greg is a member of the downtrodden by virtue of being director of Augie’s “Multi-Cultural” Services. He makes a point to mention his parents were “two John Deere floor employees”, and we all know how downtrodden JD union people are. Oh, the humanity! Being forced to toil in the elite vineyards of a private college! And your parents—forced to suffer with the $$$$ and benefits Deere gave them! I feel your pain, pal.

This makes the third hispanic to run for congress from the QCs—Bustos (by marriage), Reyes, and now Aguilar. It seems in RICO Dem politics, the era of middle aged white people is over.

This is just a wild guess, but Boland, Schwiebert, Jacobs, etc. must realize their time has passed—squandered by the Evans/Hare regime.

A Cook County Circuit judge granted Three County’s request to delay payment of the 2% raises to public employee union members that an arbitrator says is due them as of July l.

OK, make sure you don’t have any liquid in your mouth when you read this rationale from Quinn as to why these raises should not be given:

“Funding these raises would force the disruption of core services for the people of Illnois, including children, the elderly and those with special needs…Illinois taxpayers have already paid more than $280 million in raises under the current labor contract. We cannot afford $75 million in additional pay raises this year.”

What a hoot!

If Quinn was really concerned about the taxpayers and services to the chilllldren, etc. he wouldn’t have cut the backroom deal with AFSCME to defer raises in exchange for no layoffs. This is the deal Quinn made with the union devil and at the time he had no concern for anyone but himself getting elected—which he did with a mere 19,000 votes.

Every other state is laying off government workers in order to balance their budgets—Quinn shut the door on the option with his dirty deal.

I’m no fan of public employee unions, mostly because we taxpayers don’t get a seat at the negotiation table, yet we are forced to foot the bill when self-serving politicians and self-serving unions make a deal, but Quinn needs to man up and honor his dirty deal, for better or worse. I’m sure he’s hoping the Democrat legislature will ride to his rescue, but if they’re smart (we’re talking about Dimocrats, here) they would decline the honor and force Quinn to make the painful cuts he created by sucking up to the powerful unions.

I have no idea how this will play out, but in a just world, Quinn would be hoist on his union-pandering petard.

On the other hand, maybe it isn’t ignorance of history that is Obama’s problem, it could be that when he compares himself to FDR, Roosevelt really WAS “pretty fiscally conservative”.

“The excitement in our streets on Monday night in regard to the sad news from Manassas exceeded anything we have ever seen. The crowd was determined to have the news before it went to the printing office.”

Bernard Schoenburg dishes the dirt:

“…emails that went public about the [funding] situation suggest that Adrian Madunic, the $65,000-a-year downstate director for U.S. Rep. Bobby Schilling, and Beth Toon, Carlinville’s economic development coordinator and zoning administration, were trying to get Belln fired.”

I have no idea if this is true or not, but if the leaked emails are accurate, it indicates that Mandunic ain’t ready for prime time. Here’s a sample email from Madunic to Toon:

“If you put your heads together you can out-fox the idiot impeding the fortunes of Carlinville…Remember she wants you to give up.”

Jeez, “idiot” is the kind of epithet I toss around here!

At any rate, it seems this incident has left Madunic sadder and (maybe) wiser:

“I learned that you must be very careful with any correspondence…and you have to be very judicious in language and what may be perceived intent.”

Better late than never, I guess, but shouldn’t a middle-aged man have already figured this out?

The kicker is at the end when Schoenburg notes that Mandunic “generally voted in Democratic primaries and considers himself ‘more of an independent’” which is nice, I guess, on the diversity front, but I can’t help thinking my choice for district director wouldn’t have made such a silly rookie mistake.

It’s also worth noting that Schoenburg is the Democrat’s favorite crying towel—Hare often ran to him when he wanted to get his talking points out without inconvenient questioning and it may be Belln is just pulling a Hare. Schoenburg isn’t a reporter, he’s a columnist, so there is no expectation that he is giving us the full story here, but even so, this has negative potential for Schilling.

In order mollify the business community, Quinn administration officials and lawmakers (probably not Jacobs or Verschoore) are holding a series of meetings with business leaders “to attempt to look at [the corporate tax rate system] and come up with comprehensive solutions.”

Naturally, the GOP is pushing for easing of the draconian anti-business pogrom against job creators, but just as naturally, Democrats like Sen. Toi Hutchinson are throwing cold water on any tax decrease proposal:

“Balance the need to fund our government to the level people expect, while we create a competitive tax code that attracts and retains business.”

Unfortunately for Democrats, these two things are mutually exclusive because the level of government people have come to expect has been so blown out of proportion by the political class, there isn’t enough money in the State O’ Illinois to meet those ever increasing expectations. This is something the business community uderstands which Democrats do not. How does Hutchinson think Illinois got in the financial hole it is in? It wasn’t too little taxation, it was too much spending. Taxpayers funded public pensions once, the politicians looted the funds to spend on other “expectations” and now we are forced to fund unions a second time. History has shown that if you give a Democrat a dollar, he will spend three.

What is needed is not to increase the tax burden on individuals and business—both are mobile and can leave for greener pastures; what is needed is for the Democrats to lower these “expectations” to more affordable levels. The era of Illinois giving everything to everybody for free is not sustainable and it is wrong for politicians to lie to the public by telling them is can be done by sticking it to businesses, millionaires and billionaires.

“Mr. Gaulrapp said he is glad there are at least two Quad-Cities Democrats running since that should create a better chance of winning for someone in the outlying portions of the district.”

Hey Denny and Philster, you said there was to be no messy primary which would require massive amounts of funds being raised and spent in order to determine The Chosen One. What happened?

Oh wait, I just remembered—the Democrat created redistricting map happened!

22. From the Atlantic: “There Really Is No Good Way to Advertise Douching Products.”

Politicians seem to have no problem.