Chicago Daily Observer

Another rollercoaster day on oil markets… here’s an interesting observation from a Bloomberg article on the topic:

“Refiners are managing the crude supply they have on hand because they are worried about weak product demand,’’ said Tim Evans, an energy analyst for Citi Futures Perspective in New York. “Both gasoline and distillate demand over the last four weeks are down from a year ago.’’

Fuel consumption averaged 20.4 million barrels a day in the four weeks ended June 6, down 1.3 percent from a year earlier, the department said.

U.S. gasoline demand increases during the summer, when Americans take to the highways for vacations. The peak- consumption period lasts from the Memorial Day weekend in late May to Labor Day in early September.

Since both John McCain and Barack Obama purport to be persons of faith and prayer, I have devised a little prayer for both of them. It goes:

“Lord, save me from my friends—I can cope perfectly well with my enemies.”

Oddly enough, some of the friends plaguing or having plagued both candidates are themselves persons of faith and prayer.

We need no further reminders, do we, of Rev. Jeremiah Wright and more recently Father Michael Pfleger and the varying degrees of damage they have inflicted on Obama?

“Poof!” declares Obama, quite wisely, “they are no longer my friends.”

Then there are the Reverends John Hagee and Rod Parsley. Until very recently they were McCain’s newest best friends of convenience, vigorously courted to calm the qualms of the fundamentalist evangelical constituency so necessary to Republican victory. Trouble is, their historic histrionics seriously offended other necessary constituencies.

“Poof,” declares McCain, quite wisely, ... Read More...

Lobbying by the Children’s Museum and mayor’s staff obviously had a bigger impact over the last few weeks—especially the last few hours—than the push from 42nd Ward alderman Brendan Reilly and other opponents of the museum’s Grant Park plan.

A couple of aldermen said Wednesday that mayoral aides offered them administration help for projects in their wards in return for their votes. While horse trading is part of politics, some of the projects probably would have—and almost certainly should have—received city help without the promise of a vote on a citywide issue. As one alderman put it: “I just wonder if they cashed in for too little.”

You should if he’s Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

And surprisingly, under the Illinois Constitution, you can.

Unlike the U.S. Constitution, which requires “high crimes and misdemeanors” as justification for impeachment and removal from office, the state Constitution is purposely vague on the subject. So being the blockhead he is, the General Assembly can grant his most cherished desire: to become a permanent resident of Ravenswood who never, ever needs to go to Springfield again.

To that I’d say hurrah and alleluia. And three cheers for the Democratic staff, which works under the direction of Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, for getting the ball rolling for laying out one of the best indictments I’ve seen yet for kicking In-Rod-We-Trust out of office. Yes, it is ironic for one top state Democratic office holder to go after the state’s highest Democratic state officer, for, of all things, corruption, when the Democratic Party ... Read More...

The Illinois Senate quietly approved a bill this spring that would have steered the proposed third airport down a path of pay-to-play politics – and certain doom.

I know, because Antoin “Tony” Rezko attempted to lead Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. down that same path two years ago – a proposal Jackson flatly rejected.

Pay-to-play was the pathway laid out in Senate Bill 2063, sponsored by state Sen. Debbie Halvorson. That bill would have codified what Rezko essentially proposed to Jackson, ALNAC and its developers (SNC-Lavalin and LCOR), which was to create an airport board comprised of appointed – not elected – commissioners.

These non-elected insiders would have enormous powers to control the project – including eminent domain, condemnation, taxation, and contracts galore – yet they’d stand accountable to no one.

Sound familiar?