Chicago Daily Observer

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...

For years I have heard that the Democrats are better than the Republicans at the art of politics and everyday the Republicans show how right that old axiom is. Ever since George W became president we have heard that the economy was in horrible shape. It’s been easy for the Democrats to stretch the truth about the economy or the war in Iraq with the help of the mainstream media. They did it during the general election of 2000 pretending that the economy was still humming along even though the tech bubble had burst and the economy was slowing to the point of recession.

One of the amazing things about President Bush II is the fact that he brought the economy back even after America and the economy were attacked on 9/11. He knew that the terrorists had targeted the World Trade Center as a way to push our economy ... Read More...

The Chicago Tribune, which once employed Barack Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod, is refusing to publish the truth about a Weather Underground terrorist bombing that killed a policeman. The paper apparently does not want to tarnish the image of Obama friends Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who were allegedly part of or had direct knowledge of the bombing plot that also injured several other police officers. The Tribune considers Ayers an education expert and has published various articles by him.

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“Grassroots” campainging reached a new landmark in the Indiana and North Carolina primaries this week. Combined spending by Sens. Obama and Clinton topped $9.5 Million, making the amount spent on the two mid sized state greater than the entire amount spent by the Kerry Campaign in the 2004 primary.

Combining the available spending by 527 Funding organizations (not Lobbyists mind you) with the candidates own treasure, gets the party of the working man up to $10.6 Million mostly in the last week or so in the two states.

Spending per vote by Sen. Obama came in at $4.92 dwarfing the $2.47 per vote that Sen. Clinton was able to shell out. Yet, Sen. Obama got something of a bargain compared to the nearly $10 per vote he spent in Pennsylvania, only to get trounced by a 10% margin by Sen. Clinton (coming in at $2.64 per vote).

It does not ... Read More...

Does it matter whether Clinton, Obama, or McCain takes the Oval Office? Whoever does, government will grow, and taxpayers (Let’s not kid ourselves by calling them “citizens.”) will foot the bill. Actually, their children will when our staggering national debt (31,000 dollars for every man, woman, and child) comes due. At this point, Americans should hope for the candidate who is going to take the least amount of their money, and that is anybody’s guess. McCain may seem like the choice here, but he has been explicit about his plans to escalate prosecution of an illegal and unjust war that has cost the taxpayers 500 billion dollars. Remember those taxes you just paid? A third went to the War in Iraq. How high will it go under McCain?

If you are looking for a sign of hope, however, look at Congressman Walter B. Jones of North Carolina’s 3rd congressional district. ... Read More...

Dear Governor Blagojevich,

On April 15, 2008, the Circuit Court in this action issued a preliminary injunction enjoining your Medicaid FamilyCare program for failing to meet certain statutory prerequisites. The other constitutional and non-constitutional objections to what your Administration have yet to be addressed. As a result, at the present the approximately 25,000 persons and families enrolled in the program are now without health insurance coverage they paid for and the doctors, clinics, hospitals that provided medical services in reliance on their getting paid under the Mediciaid FamilyCare Health Insurance Program either won’t be getting paid ever, or, if you are successful in your appeal, for many months or years to come. This is tragic for many people who relied on you and your Administration that they were covered under the new Mediciaid FamilyCare Health Insurance Program and that you could create such a program on your own authority without ... Read More...

Jeremiah Wright is still a stone around Barack Obama’s neck and his supporters want to lay the same weight on John McCain by using Rev. John Hagee, televangelist and pastor of a Texas mega church who endorsed McCain at McCain’s request.

Jeremiah Wright has made it impossible to pretend that he was quoted out of context so Obama’s supporters have given the candidate a pass and taken to attacking those who told you the truth about Wright in the first place.

Frank Rich writes, in the New York Times, his belief that white people are attacking Wright/Obama and giving a pass to Hagee/McCain. Today in the Sun-Times Andrew Greeley repeats that Hagee hates Catholics.

I hear the same thing from some callers and e-mailers to my show on WLS in Chicago, hometown to Wright and Obama. Rich and the callers are wrong in their belief that the ... Read More...

At this writing…a little before midnight Tuesday…the hype about Hillary losing North Carolina and either carrying Indiana by an eyelash or losing by an eyelash is-eyewash.

It presumes the race for the nomination is suspenseful. It has not been for many weeks. Barack Obama has been slated to win the votes of a majority of the Super-delegates for many weeks now. Those mathematicians who are calculating the numbers don’t understand that at this point it is not a mathematical game but a strategic one. Literally a no-brainer since it involves the long range future of the Democratic party. Why?

Because the future of the Democratic party is tied up with its huge lock on the black vote. Super-delegates are all for the most part practical politicians. To snatch the nomination away from Obama when he is ahead in delegate count would irreparably destroy much black loyalty to the Democratic party. ... Read More...

The story of David and Goliath is playing at a theater near you. Only David doesn’t wear Biblical-style sandals. He wear sneakers, and a business suit.

David is played by actor-turned-activist Ben Stein. The part of Goliath is played by the scientific establishment of the United States. The movie, an excellent and entertaining documentary, is Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

The film takes a serious topic—the debate between Darwinists and those who subscribe to the idea of intelligent design—and treats it with wonderfully satirical humor. But the film is also deadly serious. Why? Because the suppression of honest inquiry and the twisting of ideas can lead to dangerous places, such as Dachau.

Let me explain.

The word “expelled” in the film’s title refers to accomplished scientists who have either been terminated or denied tenure for alluding to the possibility that the universe may have originated through the work of a designer. ... Read More...

Make no mistake about it: The Republicans are on the verge of eradication, if not extinction. If they don’t want to suffer the fate of the Federalists or Whigs, who vanished in the 1800s, their solution is simple: Lose the 2008 presidential election.
Let the country repudiate, and then forget, the Bush Administration.
In fact, the 2008 contest is really about future failure, not future “change.” Given the intractable situation in Iraq, coupled with a worsening economy – especially $4-a-gallon gasoline, inflation, and the collapse of the real estate market—the next president confronts a world of woe, and likely failure. It will be Jimmy Carter, Part Two.
To be sure, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain want to win in 2008. But that winner will be a loser in 2012. The 2008 outcome will either reaffirm the country’s two-party system, or precipitate a transitional non-party ... Read More...

Peotone—This column has long been loud in its fanfare for John McCain, but—at least in the sounds coming from Huffington Post —some cacaphony is being orchestrated.

Here, of course, McCain is wildly popular in the ‘clingingly bitter community—garnering 48%percent of the vote in the official Republicans in Will County—and seems to have captured the hearts of the Peotonese as well. I suspect he could be elected King of Will County Fair in a landslide.

But since Pennsylvania, McCain has not been forced to battle four opponents at once—two Clintons and Obama frontally, plus the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Billy Boy Ayers from the rear. It has not thrown McCain’s campaign even somewhat off course and there is no sense that he has been brought down to earth – by that fat-assed Texas Preacher that Allan Colmes insists is just like Rev. Wright. Musically challenged, McCain’s soaring with oldies hits, the ... Read More...

When no one was looking, the “world food crisis” elbowed out “global climate change” as our planet’s Numero Uno calamity.

As if that weren’t bad enough, we now discover that the two are connected; with this attempt to fix the climate by shifting away from fossil fuels to more “eco-friendly” renewable fuels, we have ended up starving people in Africa and Asia.

Seems like we can hardly settle on one cataclysm before another one demands our attention.

Food riots have broken out around the world; grain-producing countries have banned exports to feed their own people; food prices in the U.S. and around the world have gone through the roof. The UN—its usual bold self—created a task force to study the matter.

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It’s not hard to understand why fears of recession are elevated, or why some economists even think the US is in one right now. From their 2005 peaks, existing home sales are down 32% and new home sales are down 62%. Home prices are falling at their fastest pace in decades. Car and truck sales have been abysmal, with US-made vehicle sales down 15.3% versus a year ago.

The credit markets have seen enormous turmoil, with huge write-downs at major financial institutions, wider risk spreads, and a correction in the stock market.

These developments, or news about them, have helped drop at least one measure of consumer sentiment to its lowest level since the end of the 1981–82 recession, when the unemployment rate was up above 10%.

The conventional wisdom is not always wrong. But ... Read More...

Obama first played a perfuming role as a state senator. His mentor, Emil Jones, the machine-made president of the Senate, allowed him to sponsor a minor ethics bill. In return, Obama made sure to send plenty of pork to Jones’s district. When asked about pork-barrel spending, Jones famously replied: “Some call it pork; I call it steak.”

Obama repaid the generosity. When he had a chance to back clean Democratic candidates for president of the Cook County board of supervisors and Illinois governor, he stayed with the allies of the Outfit. The gubernatorial candidate he backed, Rod Blagojevich, is under federal investigation, in part because of his relationship with Tony Rezko, the man who helped Obama buy his house.

The Chicago way has delivered politically for Obama even this year. Ninety per cent of his popular-vote lead over Hillary Clinton comes from Illinois, and two-thirds of that 90 per cent ... Read More...

Indiana regulators on Thursday issued the final environmental permit needed for BP PLC to start work on a planned $3.8 billion expansion of its oil refinery along Lake Michigan.

The air emissions permit still needs approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, but the state action allows BP to start construction work at the Whiting refinery.

An environmental group that fought the project called the state’s review “drive-by permitting” and said it was considering its options for appealing the decision.

Project foes have raised concerns about increases in carbon dioxide and other pollutants coming from the expanded refinery about 20 miles southeast of downtown Chicago.

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