Chicago Daily Observer

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.—From the Declaration of Independence

Sounds like governance as practiced by “progressives,” when, in fact, it was referring to King George III. Eating out our substance was one of only a couple dozen complaints against the British crown that were cause enough for these 13 colonies to declare themselves to be “Free and Independent States.”

A multitude of offices hardly seems to be a fit enough description of what Washington D.C. and Springfield, Illinois have sent our way to eat out our substance. The only break we have received is a temporary reprieve provided by Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the Dancing Egos inhabiting Springfield because they’d rather suck each other’s blood instead of ours, at least for the time being. When they tire of clubbing each other, ... Read More...

have to confess that reading columns by Michael Sneed is something of a
guilty pleasure. Sneed’s column is one part gossip, one part political intrigue
and one part scandal mongering. Journalistic accuracy, however, is not
necessarily a prerequisite for the inclusion of an item in the column.

I was somewhat startled and surprised to read in Sneed’s column this morning
that both Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama (formerly Michelle
Robinson), have allowed their law licenses to become inactive. As Sneed pointed
out, both of the Obamas could complete some paperwork, pay the necessary fees
and reinstate their law licenses. The item continued by stating that various
politicians choose to go on inactive status when they are no longer engaged in
the practice of law on a regular basis. For example, both Governor Rod
Blagojevich and US Senator Richard ... Read More...

What describes the nature of Illinois politics better than the hiring of Democrat strategist David Axelrod’s firm by an establishment Republican to squash any possibility of a state constitutional convention?

Voting to convene a convention to revise the Illinois Constitution—which is required by that very constitution to be on the ballot this November—is hardly a subject on everyone’s (or even anyone’s) lips, but you never know when the natives might act up and demand a change in the nation’s most dysfunctional state government. No telling what it might lead to, something like, oh, government that works.

The Democratic and Republican powers that have run this state (into the ground) can’t have anything like that, so a coalition is about to hire Axelrod’s ASK Public Strategies and the public relations firm Hill & Knowlton to jointly run a $2-million to $3-million media and advertising campaign. “We haven’t signed the contract, ... Read More...

Our favorite non-religious holiday is Independence Day, celebrating the Declaration of Independence, which declared freedom from the Kingdom of Great Britain.

In 1776, America was an agricultural economy, with levels of productivity that lagged significantly behind most of Western Europe. Since then, on a very consistent basis, these United States have increased living standards and wealth. Today, US GDP is more than double the next largest country (Japan), and no country is as powerful – economically or militarily.

This nation is blessed with abundant natural resources, ports and an agreeable climate. But, the number one attribute of economic success is freedom, which allows people to find and exploit their own God-given talents. This freedom creates a sense of adventurism and entrepreneurship that many other societies strive to emulate. It also breeds optimism, which has been consistently reinforced by more than two centuries of success.

Despite this history, Pouting Pundits ... Read More...

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that gun ownership is an individual right turned Mayor Richard Daley into a fiery pillar, visible to the naked eye as far away as Rockford.

Daley declared the District of Columbia vs. Heller decision to be “frightening,” “outrageous” and a “return to the days of the Wild West.” You would have thought the court had ruled that free bazookas were to be handed out to gang members..

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Barack Obama is only the latest example of on-one-hand-then-the-other intellectual duplicity which oozes relativism. Another is John McCarron. The “Tribune’s” onetime editorialist McCarron appeared yesterday in the paper with an Op Ed. As a “Trib” editorial writer he specialized in the style during the era when the paper’s editorials ended up with nihilism-“who knows?” “stay tuned” “time will tell.” McCarron’s habit is to cast doubt on all sides and then gravitate gently to the left. He spent eight years on the paper’s editorial board when its most meaningful rhetorical device was the shrug. Rather than getting rid of him completely, the paper keeps him on tab as a once-a-month columnist. Good thing he runs only once a month for normally it would take a month of research to confront this jocular know-all with the truth.

McCarron can be funny but that’s a dodge; he wastes no time establishing the validity ... Read More...

Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois.

The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago.

HT: Backyard Conservative

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A little more than a month ago in this very paper I wrote that it was time for the GOP to go after the Democrats on the energy crisis that has been brought about by Democrat policies. If you notice every Democrat in a marginally competitive district has now coined a new term, “the failed Bush and so and so energy policy” depending on who they are running against.

Why are they doing this? Because energy prices, more notably gas prices are the biggest issues in this election. They know they are vulnerable on this issue, and that it has been the policy of the Democratic party to make it hard to explore, drill and refine oil in this country. It was fashionable in America for the liberals to say that our cars should get smaller (as theirs got bigger) and that we should put higher and higher taxes ... Read More...

The man never ceases to amaze. When 72 senators voted for a “sense of the Senate” resolution last year rejecting the moveon.org ad rhyming (Gen.) Petraeus with “betray us,” O. took a pass, though he voted on two other bills that day, explaining:

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A note from Tom Roeser about a new addition, Kenan Heise.

Barack Obama is carrying some of Chicago, its image and its reality on stage with him; but what is the image and what is the reality of Chicago?

What is the image of Chicago and the reality, not just in terms of a Presidential candidate, but also ourselves and the world in which we live?

“What does Chicago mean, when we put it before such words as architecture, art, weather, politics, language, hot dog, sports, weather, culture, literature, theater or Presidential candidate?

The Chicago Daily Observer has decided to go to Kenan Heise not so much to answer as to probe that question…

…with your help.

We are initiating an interactive column that uses the question and answer approach to probe not only the who, what and when of Chicago’s past and present, but also the how and why.

... Read More...

Chicago's Media Incumbents do not see any connections between Curtis Cooper's crushed little body and the tons of Progressive Chicago Clout that helped unhinge the truth. There is nothing more heart-breaking than the death of a child due to an accident.



A three year old, like Curtis Cooper, and his pals probably weigh between thirty five and fifty pounds each -tops but we are told their hi-jinks and collective weight ripped a solid wrought iron fence from its hinges.



Here's this morning's account from the ... Read More...

I noticed two discordant events during Thursday’s pro-life demonstrations by black activists on Capitol Hill.

One was the lack of TV cameras. They said a Fox crew showed up early, then left on another assignment way before the demonstration began. But here you had folks wearing T-shirts with sayings on them like “black genocide” and carrying signs saying “Abortion is not a family value” and traipsing down SE Capitol Street in steamy weather between the Democratic National Committee HQ and the Republican National Committee building.

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Why…Would Anyone Want to Go to the Taste of Chicago?

A good number of years ago when I was a regular panelist on the Bruce DuMont radio show, the show would go one night to the Taste of Chicago and broadcast from the WBEZ booth. The first year we were there, I was sickened as we talked of public affairs on the mike, watching the army of vandals chewing, spitting and mulching, here a gross woman in gingham chomping her jaws on something, the juice trickling down her chin; there an oaf pulling on a chicken leg shouting to his fellows with a monotonous, unintelligible chant, now a child being tugged along by a mother unaware that her charge has just emptied her bladder. Following the show, I took a walk around the grounds. It was about 90 degrees with nary a breath of air stirring. What I saw ... Read More...

A potentially dangerous anti-Iran resolution is flying through Congress on the wings of some of our best-known doves. By the time you read this it may already have passed one or the other house with the all-out support of scores of liberals and progressives including Florida’s Robert Wexler, California’s Henry Waxman and the representative of the district next to where I live in Chicago, Jan Schakowsky.

Known as Concurrent Resolution 362, the nonbinding resolution expresses “the sense of Congress regarding the threat posed to international peace, stability in the Middle East, and the vital national security interests of the United States by Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and regional hegemony…”

The big problem is that a key clause can readily be interpreted as urging a naval blockade of the country, likely in the Hormuz Straits, which would be seen by most of the world as an act of war.

Its ... Read More...

It was, of course, inevitable. How could any politician rise so quickly on the legendarily corrupt Chicago political scene and be as pure as Obama’s devoted followers were purporting him to be? The question in the minds of skeptics was, “Who sent you?”

Well now we’re beginning to find out and it ain’t pretty. In a lengthy, and amazingly frank, Boston Globe article depicting the dismal results of Chicago’s attempt to develop and manage low income housing through private developers, we see that the candidate of change is nothing more than another Chicago machine-generated pol with his feet firmly mired in the muck of corruption of the city he chose to make his political base.

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