Mark Kirk

Since suffering a near-fatal stroke last January, two tasks have obsessed Senator Mark Kirk from his encampment at a Chicago rehabilitation center: relearning how to walk, and expanding the economic war the Illinois Republican has been leading against the Islamic Republic of Iran for the past decade.

Since suffering a near-fatal stroke last January, two tasks have obsessed Senator Mark Kirk from his encampment at a Chicago rehabilitation center: relearning how to walk, and expanding the economic war the Illinois Republican has been leading against the Islamic Republic of Iran for the past decade.

Senator Mark Kirk is pushing for the U.S. to engage in deeper strategic cooperation with China on drugs, terrorism, and Afghanistan. Speaking yesterday at the Foreign Policy Initiative’s annual conference at the Newseum, the Illinois Republican argued that the U.S. should build a supply line to Afghanistan through Urumqi, Xinjiang, the area known to its Uyghur and other Muslim inhabitants as East Turkistan.

 UK prime minister David Cameron:

Last week, a senior Russian official met two Republican senators and came away warning that the GOP would drive Washington’s relations with Moscow into the ground if they came back to power.

Conservative foreign policy wonks are worried that the Democratic majority in the Senate might try to squeeze through the new START agreement before the influx of new Republican senators come to work in January. But Don Stewart, spokesman for Republican leader Senator Mitch McConnell, thinks that the Democrats probably will not be able to get new START through during the lame duck session, and almost certainly not before Senator-elect Mark Kirk is sworn, which will happen probably around Thanksgiving.

Media outlets are now predicting that Congressman Mark Kirk will be the next senator from Illinois. As it stands, the New York Times reports that Kirk has 48.4 percent of the vote, while Democrat Alexi Giannoulias has 46 percent, with 97 percent of precincts reporting. This might be the greatest gain for Republicans tonight: The last person to win this Senate seat was Barack Obama.

With recent polling consistently showing the GOP nominee, Mark Kirk, leading mob banker Alexi Giannoulias in the Illinois Senate race, the Democrats are pulling out all the stops to try and steal any Republican advantage. 

In September, Big Government first reported that Illinois Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias may have dodged the Greek military service requirement when he lived and worked in Greece in the late 1990s:

On Tuesday, THE WEEKLY STANDARD first reported that an activist in Illinois tied to Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias was working to recruit veterans to film a television ad attacking Senate candidate and 21-year Navy Reserve veteran Mark Kirk.

Just in case you didn’t think the Illinois Senate race could sink any lower, THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned that Democrat Alexi Giannoulias is planning to launch a final ad campaign featuring a “veteran” to attack Mark Kirk’s service record.

The most telling line of today’s Meet the Press debate between Illinois Republican congressman Mark Kirk and Democratic state treasurer Alexi Giannoulias came from the Democrat, who proclaimed: "I didn't know the extent of their activity." The line was in reference to the loans to well-known convicted mobsters that Giannoulias serviced while working for his now-defunct family owned and operated Broadway Bank.