All this data proves what exactly?

So they supposedly save $2.8 million on mailing costs and then waste more some other way and the voters get no information about a change in the Constitution. Bad idea.

As Sgt. Gomer Pyle used to say, "Well SUPRISE SUPRISE.

Another lunatic idea. Who defines what is "dicretionary income" for each former student borrower who is making payments? This will require minute monitoring of individual finances of any former student who wants the debt forgiven. What is moral about taking money away from the lender to give a big break to the borrower?

Why the silly charade by GOP leaders? They do not really want independently drawn maps anymore than Mike Madigan does. They only want to appear to favor a new process for drawing map lines but if lighting ever struck and they returned to a GOP majority, butter wouldn't melt in their mouth fast enough to draw their own map if a GOP governor could sign it. The bigget fakes in Illinois politics are the leaders of both parties and the media.

This is a good radio spot to take advantage of the natural suspicion that voters have about career pols such as Sen. Durbin. The female voice testimonial is very effective and so is the business background.

It certainly is helpful information to be informed that Indiana is a "neiboring" state to Illinois. Who knew that before? I always thought Oregon is the state on the eastern border of Illinois. Kidding aside, the time might soon come when Illinois high school seniors will not be able to pick out their home state on a map of the U.S. thanks to the fact that geography is no longer taught in many Illinois schools.

You must be relatively new to study of Article V because wishful thinking does not mean states will control the topic. If you want to lobby for a convention, please at least do some serious homework on Article V for yourself and not just mimic the talking points of some thoughtless group looking for the magic bullet of a short cut around Congress. Read the Article again if you think Congress has nothing to do with it and only states would set the topic.. This is not a new issue, it has been around for many decades and both the late Sen. Everett Dirksen and the late Sen. Sam Ervin and Prof. Philip Kurland of the University of Chicago talked about the absolute need for a procedures bill in advance. Conservatives and even President Reagan were on both sides of this debate when Prof. Milton Friedman was alive and pushing a convention to pass the Balanced Budget Amendment because Congress would not. But he also understood the need for a procedures bill. Common sense tells you the convention cannot run itself without any rules. What do you expect to happen when two-thirds of the states pass convention resolutions? Resolutions are sent to the Clerk of the U.S. House. When the final state call comes in, do you think the clerk will just walk out on the front steps of the Capitol and holler at the top of his lungs, "Let there be a convention?. No, that is ridiculous. If no procedures are agreed to in advance then there is no way to limit the subject matter just like in 1787. You have not even addressed the two different modes of ratification also provided in Article V. The traditional route is ratification by 3/4 state legislatures and the one alternative used only once in Illinois is ratification by STATE convention as was done in Springfield in 1933 when wets won the majority over the drys to repeal prohibition. As I said before, I once wrote an article for Illinois Issues back in 1979 to argue in favor of the convention. But I was right in theory but wrong in practice. Of course opponents of a convention have stalled a procedures bill in Congress because they never want to see a convention happen. So there is a Catch 22 in my position as of now because I think in theory you could be right that the Article V convention could be a safety valve to get around an obstinate Congress. But we have to analyze the situation as it really exists today and not just embrace the latest fad that comes along. On balance, the risks of a convention going off topic of the call outweigh the benefits of a convention which at best are uncertain and still depoend on ratification by 3/4 of the 50 states.

While we are discussing "odd cults" one might well take a hard look at secular humanism which is one of the strangest cults of all. Please look up the meaning of words you do not understand. Mysoginistic means "hatred" of women and it is silly to say that a group "hates" others that teaches the love of Christ for all. It is also silly to claim that just because a certain profession does not include women that translates into "hatred." Equality does not mean interchangeability of all possible roles in life and those who make such a claim are only engaging in mindless demagoguery for its own sake.

Not since the Communist government in China started its own schism in the Catholic Church of that land in the 1960s has there been any serious attempt in the world to create a new schism. This may be one even if the group that purports to break with Rome is tiny. This woman will not be a "Catholic priest" in any true sense of the word because she will not receive the sacrament of Holy Orders from a valid bishop. If she is really a Catholic, she understands this but proceeds with the charade anyway to make her protest point. That is a shame for her and for anyone who breaks with the church to recognize her psuedo "ordination." There are forums where Catholics may discuss their disagreement with church doctrine in a respectful way, but this form of protest is not respectful and only invites derision.

According to a famous legend, in 1916 Republican Charles Evans Hughes went to bed on election night thinking that he had defeated President Woodrow Wilson. Reporters came to his house in the morning and his butler told the reporters "the president is still asleep." One of the reporters said to the butler, "Maybe you should wake him up and tell him he isn't the president any more." The main reason not to waste a vote on Jim Oberweis is that he appears to be a candidate who is not in close touch with reality. Doug Truax is working hard for every vote and is not taking anyone for granted.

And people wonder why there are so many unenforceable laws on the books.

The active support of Sen. Kirk for the 2014 GOP nominee for U.S. Senate against Durbin is a help but his passive support is not a deal breaker because every candidate has to build their own base of supporters and the endorsement of one politician by another rarely carries that much weight. Because the Illinois GOP organization is so weak, Kirk likely thinks his own base is stronger than any party organization and therefore he does not need to worry about the consequences of not endorsing a fellow Republican. If Kirk thinks that way, am not sure if he is right or wrong about that. I know many Republicans who would not vote for someone who failed to endorse a statewide GOP nominee but I don't know how many votes that is. This year a number of ward, township, and county GOP leaders have adopted the trick of giving their "personal" endorsement of candidates but still use their title to imply an organizational endorsement. They do this because they want to avoid the risk of being embarrassed if a free vote of their organization goes against their personal choice. One major reason that the un-elected state central committee is so harmful to the party is that in that isolated culture, the message comes across that party leaders really to not trust their own GOP primary voters and secretly have contempt for anyone who is an "outsider" in terms of their little world of party hacks. The party support means so little so it is like bald men fighting over a comb to retain their meaningless little titles. The real test of any party organization is not can they control party nominations because they can't. The real test is can they be of any real help to a nominee after the primary is over to get someone elected to office in the fall. The Illinois Republican State Central Committee has been largely useless in this regard for many years, so why should Kirk or other RINOs worry about what that committee thinks? Once in a while Sen. Kirk might happen to vote in accordance with conservative principles and he might vote to help Republicans organize the U.S. Senate so that he can get to be a committee chair. But otherwise the "R" after his name is mostly ceremonial and it is always a problem with candidates who have weak party loyalty that they could switch parties. That is why primaries are so important.