Joe Walsh: Crazy Like FoxNews

Eighth District Congressman Joe Walsh has been chewing up the carpets lately with the gusto of a soon-to-be-deposed Mideast dictator. Walsh was most recently seen mugging for the abcNEWS cameras:

Tea Party Freshmen Return Home

Walsh's talking points tend to be over-the-top cracks on the order of ...

We will do what we have to do, to shut down the government if we have to.

Think Progress

While the anarcho-libertarian schtick may play well with his Tea Party base, this sort of overheated rhetoric typically serves to only frighten the normal voter. Even the Northwest Herald's alpha-krug, Chris Krug, was taken aback by (while trying to soft-peddle) Walsh's histrionics:

Walsh, R-McHenry, is a wild card, vowing again on Friday to be true to the supporters who launched him into office.
Walsh in Washington: Doing it his way

As Krug concedes (albeit between the lines) this is not a strategy for re-election. So what's up with Walsh? Walsh-watchers are divided between three schools of thought:

1. I'm Ready for My Close-Up
   Guess what, being a Congressman is hard work. And Walsh either doesn't want or doesn't expect to be re-elected. So the show-boating for the benefit of the cameras is actually Walsh auditioning for a high-paying gig on FoxNews. It worked for Sarah Palin.



2. Redistricted into Rural Iowa
   Walsh expects to be redistricted out of the Eighth. He will end up in a right-turn-on-red district extending west from his Fox-Lake base down into Deliverance Illinois, where Walsh expects his biggest re-election hurdle will be the Primary. Long story short, Walsh is running to the right of Don Manzullo.



3. Walsh Really is Nuts
   Nuff said!

High School Confidential

Your LakeCountyEye has been on-the-record ad-nauseum saying Lake County's elected officials are not paid enough. All these government boards that you get to vote for in April, exist to represent the interests of you the taxpayer. But when these boards don't pay a decent enough stipend to attract civic minded individuals (who would be expected to do the right thing), they end up packed with proxies of the wealthy & powerful, sent there to represent their special interests. For instance, County, Township, Municipal boards -- those entrusted to buy, sell and regulate property -- are a magnet for those special interests best positioned to profit handsomely from these land deals. All your space are belong to us is the boast of these local land barons. It's the insiders who benefit from the inside deals, and that is because Lake County voters want to elect officials who will work for nothing.

This sad and ugly state of affairs has metastasized even onto government boards that typically do not engage in land deals. Since most Lake County school boards remunerate their members with zero dollars for their trouble, these boards are in the process of being packed by pressure groups who want to see their narrow-interest ideological programs imposed on the school curricula. As readers of this blog already know,

Guerrillas in Our Midst

three High School boards are likely to be taken over by creationists in April; and a fourth is teetering.

Your LakeCountyEye predicts that with a third-world education, Lake County's sons and daughters can look forward to third-class employment opportunities. All the good jobs will be overseas; and held down by professionals who enjoyed first-class educations in exotic places with names like Bangalore, Beijing, Chicago.

Listed below are Lake County's High Schools. Your LakeCountyEye couldn't figure out a way to make them into an Internet Top Ten list; instead the list indicates whether or not the school is likely to be teaching creationism in the near future. Operatives are encouraged to keep your LakeCountyEye current with new developments at their local schools. The list will be updated as things, well, evolve.

Where to Send Your Kid to Learn Creationism in Lake County

Antioch High School

Barrington High School

Deerfield High School

Grant High School

Grayslake High School

Warren High School

Highland Park High School

Lake Forest High School

Lake Zurich High School

Lakes Community High School

Libertyville High School

Stevenson High School

Mundelein High School

North Chicago High School

Round Lake High School

Vernon Hills High School

Wauconda High School

Waukegan High School

Zion-Benton High School

LEGEND Creationist On Board Creationist Not On Board Creationist Conceivably On Board

Read & weep -- then clip & save!

Guerrillas in Our Midst

Your LakeCountyEye takes pride in being unable to resist any opportunity at taking target practice against the low-hanging-fruits. Lately these low-hanging-fruits have been falling from an apple tree in the Garden of Eden, where your LakeCountyEye has been aiming potshots at the looney-toon creationists who are hell-bent on packing the local school boards with their proxies.

It's no secret that Lake County schools are on the cusp of being retooled to teach pseudosciences like creationism (and God knows what else). That story was covered on this blog here ...

Creating a Stir

and here ...

Schismisms

But your LakeCountyEye has the sad responsibility to report that two more County High Schools may become academic casualties of the culture wars. As reported in the Daily Herald ...

At a few recent meetings Stevenson High School board members have heard from parents who object to selections on student reading lists and want to be more involved in choosing what their kids read. Although publicly appreciative of the parents’ interest in the curriculum, the board rejected a request for the creation of a parental committee that would review and approve curriculum choices.
Dist. 125 candidates differ on parental involvement with curriculum

Three (of seven) school board candidates running for four seats are sympathetic to the idea that the parents deserve input into curricula decisions at Stevenson High School. Currently some parents are objecting to a few English reading assignments there. Your LakeCountyEye predicts that with a cooperative board writing the rules, there will soon be parents objecting to Evolution being taught.

While Stevenson bears watching, an adjacent High School may be on the endangered list. According to the Daily Herald ...

All four candidates for the Lake Zurich Unit District 95 school board believe creationism should be taught alongside evolution in science classes. One, Chris Wallace, went so far as to say creationism is fact and evolution is just a theory.
All four Dist. 95 candidates back teaching creationism in science classes

With the local high-schools soon to become academic Hootervilles, so to speak, what can a prudent parent do? Your LakeCountyEye suggests investigating the schools in places like Bangalore and Beijing, where they approach the task of educating their children with the seriousness it deserves.

The Morgue the Merrier

As if stretching their creative muscles this week, TeamAmerica10th took a stab at Internet humor. The niche-market blog posted a story about Richard Keller, the Lake County Coroner. Keller, who proved it doesn't pay to moonlight from the day-job, resigned suddenly on Tuesday; the Sun-Times has the post-mortem:

Lake County coroner resigns after plea deal in overdose case

TeamAmerica10th's comical spin on the story's aftermath:

Terry Link, Lake County Democratic Chairman, will likely be the one to make the recommendation of a temporary replacement to be appointed by the Lake County Board Chairman, David Stolman, with the advice and consent of the Lake County Board (since the replacement must be a Democrat). Maybe since his wife Susan Link was crushed in her primary bid for election as a Waukegan Alderman (against long-time incumbent Larry TenPas), she would be a likely candidate.
A Sad End to the Tenure of Democrat Dr. Richard Keller as Lake County Coroner

One of the pitfalls of Internet blogging is that there is no laughtrack to alert the reader where the jokes are. In this particular case the joke is the suggestion that Terry Link will recommend his wife to replace Keller. Rimshot.

All kidding aside, Link may very well be extended the courtesy to recommend a candidate. However, the appointment is to be be made by David Stolman and the Lake County Board; their only constraint is the appointee must be a Democrat.

Operatives are advised to watch for the County Board to disregard any qualified candidate recommended to them. Your LakeCountyEye has learned that the Board is already interviewing a pre-determined slate of eager job hopefuls. Here are their names, and the rationale behind their suitability for the position. The winner assumes the Coroner's job at an annual salary of about $100K, through 2012.

The Ten Leading Candidates for Lake County Coroner
Name	Occupation	Qualification
Brent Paxton	County Commissioner	Chiropractor
Joe Walsh	Congressman	Skeletons in the Closet
Richard Keller	Ex-Coroner	Prior On-the-Job Experience
Creepy Chicago Tribune Cartoonist	Political Cartoonist	Creepy
TeamAmerica10th	Attorney	Internet Blogger
Dan Duffy	State Senator	"I'm not down there to make friends."
Lisa Stone	Ex-Trustee	David Stolman : Lisa Stone :: Skipper : Gilligan
Bonnie Thompson Carter	County Commissioner	Able to Procure Plenty of Land for Pauper's Graves
Your LakeCountyEye	Pajamaclad Blogger	Extensive Experience Getting Dead People to the Polls
Mark Curran	County Sheriff	Mad as a Hornet

Look for your LakeCountyEye in the scullery, sharpening the knives.

What is Joe Walsh Afraid Of?

Our favorite source of Joe Walsh press releases, the McHenry County blog, posted one yesterday that we could have sworn was product of Cal Skinner's fevered conspiratorial mind. But, no, it's the product of Joe Walsh's fevered, conspiratorial mind.

Potential protests against Joe Walsh tonight at Harper College

There are rumors today that protesters are planning to disrupt the Joe Walsh town hall event tonight at Harper College.

Thursday, February 24th from 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. at:
Harper College – Wojcik Conference Center
1200 W Algonquin Road
Palatine, IL 60067

Please be there tonight if you can. Silent no more! Don’t let Chicago thug tactics intimidate the voters of this district.

Think about it. Democrats turning up in an angry mob to protest a Congressperson? They couldn't even work up enough volunteers to prevent Melissa Bean from getting booted by Mr. Paranoid. It beggers the imagination, really. A mob of angry Democrats in the northwest suburbs? A mob of Cook County Democrats interrupting their victory celebrations to drive to the boonies? Don't make us laugh.

His thinking is understandable, though. First, Walsh has experienced first hand how easy it is to mold some people into an angry mob of Pledge of Allegiencers. But perhaps more importantly, he obviously has access to the interwebs, or at least the tv. He has seen teeming hordes of teachers, firefighters and police across the border who are a little upset at the Tea Partier Governor who wants to deprive them of the right to negotiate their working conditions. (They've already conceded the wage and benefit demands.) Well, Tea Partiers say, most people in private industry don't have that right to bargain with their employers. Correctamundo! And why is that? Maybe because corporate overlords like David Koch have paid off politicians for the past 30 years to make it incredibly hard to organize? Hmmm. Could be.

The upshot is that Democratic protesters were a no show at Harper College. Big surprise. And Joe Walsh heads back unmolested to Washington to shut down the government next week.

Rep. Joe Walsh:
Republicans 'Will Do What We Have To Do, To Shut Down The Government If We Have To'

Video of Joe Walsh pledging to shut down the government if he doesn't get his way. Think Progress blog calls him the newest member of the Shutdown Caucus. They do not mean it as a compliment.

Q the Eye/02.24.11

Dear LakeCountyEye,

The voters send me back to Washington every 2 years because I tell them what they want to hear -- I'm going to slash runaway government spending. But I've just been caught, with my pants down so to speak, on a Congressional junket. I think I've tarnished the brand -- what are my damage control options?

Down Under

Dear Junket King,

Your LakeCountyEye recalls the last Illinois limited-government Congressman who acquired a taste for expensive overseas junkets on the taxpayer's tab. His name was Phil Crane -- remember him?

Speaking of vacation-time, considering this soul-numbing Illinois winter, your LakeCountyEye would trade the eye-teeth to be somewhere else right about now. Perhaps somewhere down in the southern hemisphere where it is summertime; and in a developed nation that has all the amenities of home; and plenty of white-sand beaches; and where everyone speaks English.

One local Congressmen had the same idea. A fiscal-hawk watchdog Congressman who, according to the Rockford Register Star, said ...

he voted against "$1.4 trillion in unnecessary spending in the last Congress. ... There are probably 150 organizations that have different plans to bring down the size of government. The biggest thing is for people to expect less from the federal government."
Security tight as Kirk, Manzullo talk budget

And who in a press release said ...

"We can fund our priorities and begin to pay off our debt by cutting wasteful spending, and we can do it without increasing taxes that Americans can't afford. We have got to get our financial house in order."
Manzullo Votes to Cut Wasteful Spending, Balance the Budget, Reject Huge Tax Increases on American Families

It should come as no surprise that this Congressman, as reported by the Daily Herald, booked a wintertime junket to ... New Zealand. One mistake however: he booked his taxpayer-paid vacation ...

Area congressman in New Zealand when quake hit

... during a major earthquake. Nothing gets a voter wondering what their Congressman is doing in New Zealand, quite like wondering if their Congressman perished in New Zealand!

If you happen to get caught in the media spotlight during your all-expenses-paid junket, your LakeCountyEye advises roll up your sleeves, put on your hardhat, grab a shovel, and start digging. And if that isn't feasible, the B-Plan is to beat tracks out of town as fast as you can and issue a statement saying you are lucky to be alive and your thoughtsandprayers are with the victims:

Manzullo, Colleagues Safe in New Zealand Following Quake

They say sunshine is the best disinfectant. Sunshine is what they have plenty of in New Zealand.

If you are an elected official, or a previously elected official, or just a private citizen under indictment, send your political questions to Q the Eye c/o ... LakeCountyEye@gMail.com

The War on Poverty

The number of the day is:

77,506

Those who guessed that 77,506 is the number of yardsigns to be found on the bottom of Waukegan Harbor are eligible for an honorable mention. $77,506 is actually the annual pension former State Representative Cal Skinner receives from the State of Illinois. As reported on this blog ...

Elephant Joke

Skinner is the brainchild behind the McHenryCountyBlog. Yes, the same anti-government McHenryCountyBlog that seems to channel its instructions telepathically from the mind of Grover Norquist:

I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.
Grover Norquist

Case in point, the McHenryCountyBlog is none too happy that Illinois Democratic Congressmen like to vote in favor of anti-poverty bills. Apparently the McHenryCountyBlog resents tax dollars going to poor people; and would rather see that money sitting in the church coffers instead:

There is another comparison I'd like to see. Call it a "Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is" scorecard. Let me see a chart showing the percentage of household income that each Member of Congress contributes to his/her church and other charities.
Anti-Poverty Support Index vs. Put Your Own Money Where Your Mouth Is Index

So all you liberal legislators, touche!

Well your LakeCountyEye is ready to take the McHenryCountyBlog challenge -- and put the LakeCountyEye money where the LakeCountyEye mouth is. Sadly however, decades of laisseze faire government -- the sort of government championed by the McHenryCountyBlog -- has resulted in all the good jobs going overseas. And years of industrial and financial deregulation -- the sort of hands-off-government approach extolled by the McHenryCountyBlog -- brought the economy to the brink of Great Depression 2.0, where no one is working anyways. But the minute things start looking up for your LakeCountyEye, your LakeCountyEye will be ready to take the McHenryCountyBlog challenge!

In the interim, your LakeCountyEye has incorporated a 501(c)(3) charity for the benefit and well-being of underemployed Internet satirists:

Throw the Blog a Bone, Inc.

Wealthy pensioners who would rather see government drowned in the bathtub, please take note!

Schismisms

If there is one thing Lake County can't get enough of, it's pseudo-science. Local voters are jumping at the chance to teach their kids creationism in leaps and bounds. As reported on this blog ...

Creating a Stir

Lake County voters will have an opportunity in April to elect some creationists to their local school boards.

Its proponents portray creationism as a legitimate scientific theory -- an established scientific alternative to the theory of Evolution. If operatives are wondering why anyone would go to the trouble and expense of running for their local school board to get a rival scientific theory on the curriculum, the Daily Herald provides the answer ...

Creationism is the theory that God created the universe and humankind, typically as described in the biblical book of Genesis.
Candidates: Teach creationism in science classes

Creationism of course is code for Religion. And no op need wonder why someone would go to the trouble and expense of running for their local school board to get their Religion on the curriculum.

With creationism being taught in the schools, ha ha, don't expect your kid to get into Harvard Medical. Not if that kid writes on their SAT exam that the rhinovirus originated from an unguarded sneeze on Noah's Ark.

When creationism does become the established curricula throughout Lake County schools, other pressure groups will be emboldened to pack their own candidates on their school boards to propagate their own special interests. Your LakeCountyEye has polled some of these fringe elements and it's simply a matter of time before seeing any or all of the following ISMs on the curriculum at your school:

Ten More Special Interest Units Soon to be Taught in Lake County Schools

Rastafarianism Antidisestablishmentarianism Know-Nothingism Yellow Journalism Magical Realism Hooliganism Jingoism Bushisms Anachronism Fanaticism

Now even you can learn somnambulism! Watch for your LakeCountyEye, coming to a neighborhood near you.

Lake County Census...Not as Expected for some

The 2010 Census Reports are beginning to be released and the local media has begun reporting some of the statistics as they become available. Along with those statistics are comments by area leaders. 

If you haven't been keeping up with the news, Lake County's population increased 9.2% over the last decade. That is disappointing to several area leaders who expected a larger gain. There are three areas in Lake County that saw a substantial gain: Round Lake (213%), Antioch (64%) & Lake Villa (49%).

State Senator Suzi Schmidt who is also the former Chairman of the Lake County Board and current Lake County Board Chairman David Stolman(Schmidt's Vice Chairman) are on record stating their surprise. Senator Schmidt told the News-Sun she was surprised the rate of increase was only 9.2% and implied the less that expected growth may be contributed to taxes going up in Illinois (2011) and jobs moving to Wisconsin and other destinations.   Seriously???????????????????  You cannot blame the  2011 tax increase.  Chairman Stolman is on record suggesting the economy may have played a role.  Two and a half years of economic challenges trumps seven and a half years?  

What both failed to address...is PROPERTY TAXES!!!!! Do you think perhaps that may have an impact on the slower than expected growth?????? Lake County is ranked as having the highest property taxes in the entire Midwest and ranked 16th in the nation according to Forbes. Lake County has priced themselves out of the market and until we get control of our spiraling property taxes, the next decade could see a further shrink in population.

Creating a Stir

The governor is talking about consolidating school districts. Your LakeCountyEye expects his proposal to float as well as his other lead trial balloons. Nearly every Illinois school has its own district because voters like local control, and they are not likely to dilute their control just to cut a few bucks from the State budget.

Local control means control over your school's curriculum. And here in Lake County the voters in Fremont Township will get a chance in the April election to teach their kids creationism. As reported by the Daily Herald ...

Two candidates for the Fremont School District 79 board — including the panel's current president — believe creationism should be taught alongside evolution in science classes.
Candidates: Teach creationism in science classes

The two candidates, board President Sandra Bickley and Kim Hansen, are running for 4 year terms.

Operatives are assumed to be acquainted with the basic principles of evolution. You no-doubt observe how survival of the fittest works in the raw every day. If you do not, you aren't an operative.

Whether or not evolution is taught in science classes is ultimately up to the individual school boards. And should it come as a surprise that they prefer to teach their children pseudo-science, in Fremont Township? Isn't Fremont Township after all, somewhere in the ante-bellum south of Lake County? Conventional wisdom dictates that creationism would never be taught at a real school, say, Barrington High. Well, ha ha, your LakeCountyEye has learned that of the six candidates for the Barrington Community Unit School District 220 Board, three prefer to teach creationism.

This area enjoys a well deserved rep for some nationally-ranked high schools: Stevenson, New Trier, Fremd, etc. But you better double check that syllabus before moving to one of these top-of-the-line school districts. The barbarians might just be at the gated community.

Q the Eye/02.18.11

Dear LakeCountyEye,

I thought running on a slate for village board was supposed to be easy -- I was told to just ask everyone at the community senior center pilates class to vote for me. No one ever said I'd be asked questions about roads and property taxes and stuff. Now the Daily Herald sent me a questionnaire with really hard questions. What's a TIF district? Help!

Civic Newbie

Dear Greenhorn Party,

Ha ha, every candidate lives in dread of the hour when the Daily Herald questionnaire uncoils slowly from the campaign office FAX machine. The contents of the Herald questionnaire have been known to give even the veteran office-seeker reason to pause.

Your LakeCountyEye recalls one hapless candidate who responded to the Herald with a questionnaire answer-key. To make matters worse the answer-key was addressed to a campaign op in Springfield. To make matters worse Springfield Missouri.

As sad as that story seems, even sadder was the office-seeker who accidentally attached their carry-out lunch order to the questionnaire response. When the Herald asked ...

What portion of the budget should be earmarked as pay-raises for elected officials?

the candidate replied ...

The Whole Enchilada.

This story, which was confirmed by independent reliable sources, is no-doubt apocryphal.

The reason newspapers send out these pre-election questionnaires is to save them the time and expense of pursuing actual reporting. They can look for mistakes in the replies and engage in gotcha journalism -- questionnaire errors become headline-worthy scoops. This is one way to do investigative journalism without having investigative journalists on staff.

Don't make the mistake made by one not-quite-full slate of local candidates; instead of responding individually to their Herald questionnaires, these three office-seekers collaborated and submitted identical answers. They were under the ill-advised impression that since they were running as a single slate of candidates they were expected to answer the questionnaire as a single slate. The story reported the next day in the Daily Herald was, naturally enough ...

LZ candidates copy answers on questionnaire

If you want your LakeCountyEye's advice, take that Daily Herald questionnaire and run it thru the office shredder. No one reads newspapers any more. And those that do are looking for the Walgreen's discount-of-the-week, certainly not for political endorsements. If the Herald does endorse your opponent, post them and angry note demanding to know why they never sent you a questionnaire. End of problem!

If you are an elected official, or a previously elected official, or just a private citizen under indictment, send your political questions to Q the Eye c/o ... LakeCountyEye@gMail.com

Joe Walsh: Working Hard or Hardly Working?

You be the judge. Does it seem like Joe Walsh is in the 8th District every time you turn around? Town halls at the drop of a hat at which the same 100 fans turn up. Tea Party rallies. 912 Patriots hooplas. Geez. It almost seems like you can't go out for a cup of coffee anymore without tripping over a Congressman with time on his hands.

Looking at the schedule for the new 112th Congress, though, it's not a big surprise. In this new Congress, any given day could be a day off. In fact, Congressional Republicans plan to take about 21 weeks not working in Washington, D.C. this year. Nice job if you can get it.

(Sure, they call them "constituent work weeks," but who will ever know if they do? By contrast, the Democrat-controlled Congress, just concluded, took off about 9 of such "work" weeks in 2010.)

According to our research, the planned recess time for the 112th, Republican-controlled, Congress is 108 days or 41% of the normal work year in recess. With the average Congressional salary of $174,000, their pay works out to $669/day if we assume they are supposed to work five days a week. In other words, the American taxpayers will pay an astonishing $72,252 per Congressman for the time Congress is not in session in 2011.

By contrast, the Democrat-controlled Congress took just 54 days of recess during the work week in 2010 or 20% of the work year. That comes out to just $36,126 per Congressman for time not in session.

Hmmm. So we've paid Joe Walsh more than $4,000 so far this year for time off. And counting. Maybe we should ask for a refund. Or a 41% budget cut in Congressional salaries.

Don't believe us? Here are the 2010 Congressional Calendar and the projected 2011 calendar, from the official House web site. Current Congress on the left. Republican pink representing days off back in the district.

Elephant Joke

Fans of the Chicago Tribune's Creepy Cartoonist should be familiar with his Elephant-in-the-Room gags. The Elephant-in-the-Room is always some big-government outrage; and the outrage is symbolized by a drawing of some large, endangered African land mammal. Readers of this blog will recall ...

Creepy Tribune Cartoonist Oblivious to Elephant in the Room

where the outrage was the BLOATED GOVT DEFICIT, and the endangered land mammal was the African Black Rhinoceros.

Sharp-eyed operatives noticed, however, that the Elephant-in-the-Room is never actually a drawing of an elephant. The reason seems to be the elephant is the mascot of the Republican party. And if he used the GOP's mascot to represent government bloat, the Creepy Cartoonist might be drummed out of his secret skull'n'bones cabal ... or worse ... or something. So the creepster's drawings are limited in scope to rhinoceroses, gorillas, hippopotamuses, and other non-elephantine, large, endangered land mammals.

Of course, there is a reason that all these large, African land mammals are endangered. That reason being they will all be extinct within your lifetimes. And any sharp-eyed operative knows this means that sooner or later the Creepy Cartoonist will have a problem. Sooner or later there will be no large land mammals left to symbolize bloated government -- besides the elephant. So, for instance, the next time the Creepy Cartoonist is outraged by big government, as in ...

Creepy Tribune Cartoonist vs the 800 lb Elephant

there may not be any, say, Eastern Lowland Gorillas left to draw, and he may be compelled by the vicissitudes of cruel nature to use an actual elephant to represent bloated government.

Of course the thought of being forced to use an elephant on the printed page to symbolize out-of-control Illinois pensions is enough to make the heads of many Lake County natives explode. So with the snow yet to be shovelled off the walk, and in the interest of not creating any more clean-up work than necessary, your LakeCountyEye suggests that operatives take solace in this Northwest Herald story ...

Legislators write pension rules and cash in

It turns out that some high profile Illinois Republicans are doing quite well for themselves by way of that bloated Illinois pension system:

• Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka: $145,727
• Former Gov Jim Edgar: $130,925
• Former Gov James Thompson: 127,215
• Former State Sen Jack Schaffer: $96,126
• Former State Sen William Peterson: $91,007

None of these pensioners seem any worse for wear from the cognitive dissonance generated by the intersection of the GOP and their bloated government pensions. Why should you be expected to show any symptoms of cranial distress either?

In fact, the same Illinois pension system even bankrolls the anti-government incendiaries at the McHenryCountyBlog:

• Former State Rep Cal Skinner: $77,506

Operatives are advised to stay indoors. Your LakeCountyEye's head be exploding.

Creepy Tribune Cartoonist vs the 800 lb Elephant

Fans of the Chicago Tribune's Creepy Cartoonist know when they see a endangered African land mammal in one of the creepster's drawings, it means one thing: the endangered species depicted is supposed to represent evil government bloat. Operatives may recall one cartoon where the scapegoat was the endangered Black Rhinoceros ...

Creepy Tribune Cartoonist Oblivious to Elephant in the Room

Now the Creepy Cartoonist's crosshairs are aimed at the Eastern Lowland Gorilla ...

Chicago Tribune, 02/10/2011

which he tags with the label PENSIONS. Your LakeCountyEye surmises the GORILLA is supposed to represent the Illinois pension system, more specifically its obligations -- pension obligations ignored & exacerbated by previous Illinois administrations with names like Thompson, Edgar, Ryan, Blagojevich. And who are the recipients of these pension obligations? Your LakeCountyEye will only say that the Creepy Cartoonist chose to represent them as a gorilla. Operatives are asked to do their own math.

For your LakeCountyEye, the real elephant in this room is the lack of an elephant in the room. If the common phrase is "the Elephant in the room" then why does the Creepy Cartoonist want to talk about the Gorilla in the room? The African & Asian Elephants are large, endangered land mammals -- and would seem to completely satisfy to the Creepy Cartoonist's requirements for a threatening behemoth to represent government excess. Oh wait a minute, the Elephant is the symbol of the Republican Party. Ha ha, nevermind.

The Candyman Can

It's Valentine's Day in Lake County -- a time when your LakeCountyEye's heart turns to thoughts of the Illinois Republican congressional delegation. Their newest Senator, Mark Kirk, reciprocated already with a Valentine. A press release in your LakeCountyEye's inbox confided that Kirk will be handing out sugary favors from his senate seat:

U.S. Senator Mark Kirk today announced his new seat assignment in the Senate chamber is the historic "Candy Desk".
Kirk Assigned to Famous Senate "Candy Desk"

No your LakeCountyEye isn't making this up; the elfin Senator Kirk is promising a free supply of candy at his desk, for the US Senate. The details are too complicated to explain, other than this is the sort of stranger-than-fiction story that is too good to be true. Your LakeCountyEye, appreciative of any cheap-shot opportunity at an easy Internet Top 10 List, encourages DC operatives to cruise over to the Senate Candy Desk and eyeball the merchandise:

Ten Sweets on Supply at the Mark Kirk Senate Candy Desk

Bazooka Gum Banana Nut Log All Day Suckers Candy Canes Jawbreakers Pop Rocks Mr Goodbar Pixy Stix Malted Milk Balls Twinkies

Watch for your LakeCountyEye at the free dental clinic: 10am, 1pm and 3pm

Party On, Dudes

Your LakeCountyEye has the Super Bowl fever. Thanks to some shrewd bidding on eBay, your LakeCountyEye is currently in the possession of Super Bowl tickets, and at a bargain basement price. Operatives can expect your LakeCountyEye to be live-blogging at the Super Bowl tailgate party, direct from the parking lot at Soldier Field, until the kickoff.

In the meantime, and speaking of parties, operatives may recall on this blog ...

The Comical Sense Party

a hilarious Internet top 10 list of funny made-up political party names. Well file the following under truth-is-stranger-than-fiction; or life-imitates-the-Internet; or something. Because the candidate list for the April 5th Lake County consolidated election has been posted on the web. And some of the political party names listed were either inspired or downright stolen from the fake, made-up political party names invented by your LakeCountyEye for your merriment.

Here are the names of some of the actual political parties that will appear on the Lake County April 5 ballot.

• Most Excellent Bannockburn Caucus
• Common Sense Party
• Repeal Red Light Cameras
• Hawthorn Woods Resident's Party
• R. I. G. H. T.
• People's Voice for Island Lake
• Residents First
• Lake Zurich Vision
• Working For You!
• 4 All
• Proven Leadership
• Building A Better Tomorrow
• Positive Leadership Party

Skeptics can go to the Lake County website for the complete list ...

Candidate List 2011 Consolidated Election

Operatives are cautioned to learn from the sad lesson learned by your LakeCountyEye and always copyright your material immediately.

Anyways, operatives in search of inexpensive entertainment can go and vote on April 5. (And, for primary voters, February 22.) Your ballot may very well be a cornucopia of unintended humor!

As for now, your LakeCountyEye is wondering where all the tailgaters are. The big game starts in less than 24 hours but there isn't anyone here to be seen. No doubt everyone is waiting for the piles of snow to be plowed. Wimps.

Live-blogging from a snow-cave somewhere in the Soldier Field parking lot, your LakeCountyEye says GO BEARS!