This week brought another clash between the Trump movement and the Democrat party. The Presidential Address to Congress on Tuesday night was a spectacle, courtesy of certain Democrats.
They came loaded for bear. Some walked out, one got thrown out, and many held up paddles saying “False” and other things; nearly all of them sat in silence when young Americans were praised for coming through difficult personal trials, many caused by terrible public policies like illegal immigration or letting men play on women’s teams. Some Democrats just stayed home, refusing to honor the tradition.
To be fair, Republicans in recent times have yelled out at Democrat Presidents during the State Of The Union. In 2009, South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson yelled, “You Lie” at Obama, and Marjorie Taylor Greene yelled, “Liar” during Biden’s SOTU two years ago.
Laurie Higgins wrote about the Democrats further securing their place in America as the party out of step with common sense in an article linked below. My sentiments mirror hers.
A revolution of common sense, as Trump and many others have noted, maybe the best way to understand what America is battling right now. Underlying the confusion over common sense policy are lies and misinformation that have been propagated for personal, political, and/or economic gain. Fortunately, most Americans have a fair amount of common sense and a good amount of skepticism about people telling them things that they can see with their own eyes are not true, so the majority of America is excited about Trump’s bull in a china shop attitude. The bureaucracy is out of control. It is a wild bush that never got trimmed and now needs to be cut bare so new growth can propagate in an orderly fashion, fitting into the landscape and flowering for the purpose it was designed.
In Springfield, though, there is no common sense. Here are just a few examples of discussions from this week that you should be aware of.
If you missed my discussion with Steve Goreham from last Sunday, please listen to it. We discussed the proposal to heavily subsidize grid-scale battery storage. In the interview, I opened with a clip of Democrat Senator Bill Cunningham first admitting that we are looking at a power shortage in the future. He then admits they never planned for the energy suck data centers would create – something they should have known and even worse, these data centers he is now complaining about were also subsidized by taxpayers to locate here all with agreement by Democrats like Senator Cunningham! But Cunningham’s solution to “invest” in battery storage is ridiculous.
Steve Goreham is great in this interview. Listen HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBsmdcnh9mo&list=PLAhU4p9j8a1a8rSsLppMwd5c-wn23BVOA&index=1
Cunningham’s bill is is in committee and a look-alike bill is in the House. Democrats are getting ready to spend big for this nonsense. You will pay for expensive energy while favored companies get tax breaks and more money is fed to the LIHEAP program to support the working poor who cannot afford to keep their lights on. It is a vicious cycle that needs to stop.
Locally, Naperville is going through discussions right now on what they will do when their contract with Prairie State Energy is up. Will the Green Energy radicals demand they go full-scale renewable? If so, this article makes it clear that the transition to renewable will be costly, doing so won’t make any difference in CO2 output, and regardless of Naperville choosing not to continue to receive power from the coal plant, that plant will keep operating for years.
When will the Democrats learn their lesson on green energy?
Next up, as if taxpayers haven’t given enough to illegals, IL House Dems passed a bill out of committee that authorizes Cook County public defenders to represent criminal illegals, even those located in other states in both Criminal AND Deportation procedures. Insanity!
And then the official from the Public Defenders office said it wouldn’t cost them anything since the 8 people doing the work already were on staff anyway. What? Rep. Gong-Gershowitz is the sponsor, and the bill number is HB 2436.
Race-Based Scholarship
In a recent opinion article published in the Chicago Tribune, State Rep. Barbara Hernadez argues that the Minority Teachers of Illinois Scholarship should be continued despite it being blatantly racist.
The scholarship is being challenged in court by the American Alliance for Equal Rights. They allege that the scholarship violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
Hernandez notes that the scholarship has been in place for 32 years. She says, “When students have teachers who look like them, they are more likely to score well on tests, consistently come to school and graduate.”
A number of academic studies purport to show this to be true. However, the studies, if you read them carefully, also admit that there are limitations to what they can really discern. Read the Harvard study HERE.
Here’s the rub – when we look at data from specific schools, the theory that matching the race of students and teachers for better outcomes doesn’t seem to add up. Or, at best, it doesn’t show any correlation to any of this race hustle.
Below I pulled information directly from the school report cards on the Illinois State Board of Education website. For proficiency, I used the high school SAT scores.
First, State Rep Barbara Hernandez, who represents Aurora should be talking about how poorly the vast majority of the students in her area are doing in English Language Arts and Math proficiency – regardless of race. She should be embarrassed that she is not pushing to get to root causes for the poor performance – and it isn’t money.
Only 6% of Black students attending Aurora West are proficient in reading. Is it because 86% of the teachers are White? Should they experiment and fire all the White teachers, hire only minority teachers and see if scores improve?
In East St. Louis SD 189, 73% of the teachers are minorities and 0% of the Hispanic students are at grade level in Math. How does this fit in with Hernandez’s arguments?
Chicago Public Schools also has a majority of minority teachers. Black and Hispanic reading proficiencies are 12% and 18%, respectively. That’s awful.
Bolingbrook High School has one of the top basketball programs, and the Chicago Sun-Times named Davion Thompson Player of the Year. The coach is white, Thompson is Black. Does having a coach that matches your race make a difference in player performance?
Do employees respond better to a manager of their own race?
How far down the rabbit hole should we go on this?
Or maybe we should look at talent, hard work, financial need, and test scores when we award scholarships.
Student Outcomes & Minority Teacher Representation
Let’s face it – several things can influence the education of a child. The two most important aspects are supportive parents and a quality teacher in the classroom -regardless of race.
Guess who acts as both a supportive parent and teacher – the homeschooling mom and/or dad.
This brings me to another terrible bill circulating in Springfield.
Given the vast need for improvement in public schools, it is shocking that the Democrats are intent on aggressively regulating homeschooling and requiring registration of private schools to include all sorts of personal data.
I wrote about that bill earlier. It will be up in committee on Wednesday of this week.
Here is my article: https://www.breakthrough-ideas.com/read/2025/03/05/il-dems-overreach-again-want-to-require-private-schools-to-register-with-the-state
Laurie Higgins wrote about the bill here: https://www.breakthrough-ideas.com/read/2025/02/07/illinois-democrats-target-homeschoolers-freedom
I encourage you to file a Witness Slip in Opposition to the bill at this link:
If you want to know more about filing a witness slip, State Rep Chris Miller put out this good information – click here: https://repcmiller.com/how-to-file-a-witness-slip/