Chicago Daily Observer

Sorry to be graphic but the indictment of Alaska Republican Senator Ted Stevens by a federal grand jury is necessary medicine to provide a much needed purgative to the infected body politic. Let them now turn the spigot and proceed with the full flushing. The purification will recompense partly for far more than the making of alleged false statements to conceal gifts and home renovations.

Such physic would blast out the moral debris accumulated long ago, by his arrogant defense of the status quo when the late Henry J. Hyde brought charges of Bill Clinton impeachment to the Senate. Meeting with hollow man Republican “leader” Trent Lott and others, Stevens told Hyde and House Judiciary chief counsel David Schippers:

“I don’t care if you prove that [Clinton] raped a woman and then stood up and shot her dead-you are not going to get sixty-seven votes.”

The meaning was clear to ... Read More...

When VeraSun Energy inaugurated a new ethanol processing plant last summer in Charles City, Iowa, some of that industry’s most prominent boosters showed up. Leaders of the National Corn Growers Association and the Renewable Fuels Association, for instance, came to help cut the ribbon — and so did Senator Barack Obama.

Then running far behind Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in name recognition and in the polls, Mr. Obama was in the midst of a campaign swing through the state where he would eventually register his first caucus victory. And as befits a senator from Illinois, the country’s second largest corn-producing state, he delivered a ringing endorsement of ethanol as an alternative fuel.

Mr. Obama is running as a reformer…

Across America seven days a week, parents drop their kids at day care centers, which are supported by funding from the federal government.

But what makes one facility noteworthy in inner city Chicago is that it’s run by Trinity United Church of Christ. It’s the same church whose former head pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, drew widespread scrutiny after he cursed the U.S. government for its treatment of African-Americans.

FOX News has learned that over the last 15 years, Trinity has received at least $15 million in grants from the federal government — in other words, taxpayer money.

Barack Obama has thrown Rev. Michael Pfleger under the bus. Pfleger took Hillary to task, claiming she felt she should win over a black man.

CBS News notes that Pfleger is “another pastor friend.”

But he’s much more than that. Pfleger and Obama have had a long relationship. Pfleger backed Obama against Bobby Rush when Obama ran in 2000 for Congress.

Already by that time, Pfleger was on record supporting radicals like Louis Farrakhan.

Pfleger is a campaign contributor to Obama, in addition to being yet another “spiritual mentor,” and Obama got a $225,000.00 earmark for Pfleger’s church when Obama was in the state legislature in Illinois.

New York city is trying to accomplish a reform that might be of interest to us midwestern folks domiciled in Illinois. It seems that New York’s city council gets about $200 million annually in something called special “initiative” money or “member items” —a direct counterpart to Illinois state government’s “member initiative” program. Like the member initiative money received by Illinois state legislators, New York’s council members are able to take their allotment of member item revenue and spend it in district as they see fit. Apparently, unlike us sophisticated political types in the midwest, New Yorkers are getting a little worked-up over the lack of transparency and accountability in the program. According to a recent New York Times editorial, one of the main problems with the program is, now get this:
Council members actually have the audacity to dole out member item money to family members and political contributors. ... Read More...

Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium is a spectacular showplace.

With two million admissions a year and 159 corporate donors, there’s no question of staying afloat.

Yet aquarium officials have come to Washington with their hands out, seeking taxpayer-funded earmarks, grants of money without the normal public review, CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports.

And the Aquarium has found friends among at least six of their home state members of Congress, including Sen. Barack Obama.

They each received campaign donations from Aquarium officials, and then colectively channeled nearly $1.8 million in earmarks to the Shedd Aquarium for this year, after first receiving campaign donations from Aquarium officials. Both sides say the donations have nothing to do with the earmarks.

How much wasteful spending goes on each year in Illinois? Yesterday, the Illinois Policy Institute released its 2008 Piglet Book, which details more than $686 million in wasteful spending alone. Highlights (or, rather, lowlights) include:

· $4 million for a Ford Technical Training Center in Chicago
Heights
· $1 million for the Illinois film office in Chicago
· $920,000 for the Chicago Aerospace Education Initiative
· $550,000 for the conservation of pheasants
· $500,000 to administer the tanning facility permit act
· $156,000 to Southern Illinois University to refurnish cabins at
the “Touch of Nature Environmental Center” at Southern
Illinois University – Carbondale
· $40,000 for the Springfield Figure Skating Club
· $35,000 for the Prairie Aviation Museum for a display gallery
in Bloomington

There’s a lot more where that came from, including protections for “fur-bearing mammals” ... Read More...

You’ve got to hand it to Sen. Dick Durbin. When everyone is blasting the “earmarking” of federal funds for favored local projects, the Illinois Democrat defends the practice.

At least he’s honest about it, unlike so many others who say they oppose earmarks, while soaking them up like bread dabbed in gravy. Take our favorite son and presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, who says he’ll get rid of them—partially at least—yet he basks in the warm gratitude of Illinois interests that are the lucky recipients of the federal loot. Obama, on his campaign Web site, touts his promise to “slash earmarks to no greater than year 2001 levels.”