Illinois

Fox News projects that Mitt Romney is the winner of the Illinois Republican presidential primary.

Rasmussen’s polling shows Mitt Romney leading Rick Santorum by 9 percentage points (41 to 32 percent) in Illinois, yet likely primary voters in the Prairie State hold almost identically favorable views of each candidate.  Romney’s net favorability ratin

Disgraced former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich was sentenced to 14 years in prison by a U.S. district court judge. Reuters reports:

Blagojevich, who turns 55 on Saturday, must serve at least 85 percent of the sentence or about 12 years.

University of Illinois at Chicago professors Barbara Risman, William Bridges, and Anthony M. Orum write this letter to the editor in response to “Fat City: Thank you, Illinois taxpayers, for my cushy life,” which appeared in a recent issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD:

Now that we've got a budget deal, who's up for a debt ceiling fight?

China to U.S.: Quit playing human rights cop.

Robert Samuelson on big government on the brink.

On Sunday, Mary Bell, president of the Wisconsin Educational Association Council, instructed the teachers in her union to return to the classroom after many of them skipped school for three days last week. The unexpected move energized Republicans in Wisconsin, who took it as a sign that negative public reaction to the “sick-out” is making a difference.

Or perhaps they don’t need the numbers because the unions are bringing in additional reinforcements. Madison, one of the most liberal cities in the United States, is a town always in search of a cause.

Minnesota, like a lot of states, is facing a major budget shortfall. In order to close the state's $6.2 billion gap, the Wall Street Journal reports that the state's new Democratic governor is considering jacking up the state's taxes on high income earners to unprecedented levels:

Republican New Jersey governor Chris Christie is in Illinois today to try to convince businesses to leave that state for his. Christie’s argument is simple: Come to New Jersey for lower tax rates; stay in Illinois for higher taxes. 

Steve Hayes, with Nia-Malika Henderson and Charles Krauthammer, last night on Fox News:

The New York Times reports:

With only hours left before new state lawmakers were to take over, Illinois’s State Legislature narrowly approved early on Wednesday an increase of about 66 percent in the state’s income tax rate.

Anyone who proposed even a decade ago that a state should be permitted to file for bankruptcy would have been dismissed as crazy. But times have changed.