text: The Illinois Department of Employment Security today announced that the jobless rate in the Democrat-controlled Chicago metropolitan area shot up to 10.7 percent in May from 6.2 percent a year earlier and 9.9 percent in April.
  With Cook County boasting the dubious distinction of first in the nation in reported cases of gonorrhea -- and second in reported chlamydia cases -- the Chicago Public Schools will begin testing teens for STDs in place of teaching.
  As I and a couple other IR Contributors have discussed, the Waxman-Markey or "Cap and Trade" bill is going to be up for a vote today. For background, click here. Please take a moment to call your Congressman and tell them to vote no. There are several Illinois Congressmen/women that are "on the fence". They need to hear from you. Their names and numbers are below the fold.
  Be polite, and don't be long winded. The staffer is just taking a head count, and probably won't care why you oppose the bill. If they ask, go ahead and tell them - again, be polite. You want them to write down your opposition, not hang up on you. They will most likely just be taking a tally.
  Sunday, GLBTs (gays, lesbians, bi-sexuals and transgenders) will hold their annual Gay Right parade in Chicago, and hundreds of thousands will line the streets to gaze upon some of the most bizarre and offensive public displays of human behavior -- truly an embarrassment to civilized society.
  Each year, not only do local television stations cover the parade, they participate in it. So do politicians and political candidates, but thankfully, less Republicans than Democrats. Each year, things get just a little stranger as Chicago's public decency laws are suspended for the day.
  This year, for the first time, local elementary school kids will participate, thanks to a gay dad and a lesbian mom who've enlisted the school kids and introduce children to the depravity firsthand.
  Illinois Family Institute's Laurie Higgins is fuming about this, and Americans for Truth About Homosexuality's Pete LaBarbera is outraged.
  Yesterday, I initiated legal action over Mayor Daley's recent actions to unilaterally commit the taxpayers as guarantors for the cost of the Chicago 2016 Olympic Games. You can read more about these actions here.
  I am taking this action on behalf of the taxpayers in response to Mayor Daley’s actions – which were unilateral, without express authority, and without approval from the city council. Like most people, I am a fan of the Olympic games, but not if they leave the taxpayers on the hook for a huge price tag that wasn’t even approved by the city council. My actions are intended to protect the Cook County taxpayers -- and to express my own outrage, as someone who has owned and paid taxes on my law office property in the City of Chicago for the past 18 years.
  Below is a brief video in which I issue a call to action to the taxpayers to hold the mayor and your city council members accountable on Olympic spending:
  In an article regarding congressmen who might be on the fence as to how to vote on the dangerous and stupid Cap and Trade Away Prosperity Act of 2009 or HR 2454, Lisa Lerer puts Mark Kirk in the following class: