Chicago Daily Observer

President Bush is poised to sign the housing and Fannie Mae bailout bill, after the Senate passed it with 72 votes on the weekend. But an underreported part of this story is that Majority Leader Harry Reid refused to allow a vote on Republican Jim DeMint’s amendment to bar political donations and lobbying by Fannie and its sibling, Freddie Mac.

This is a rare parliamentary move for a body in which even Senators in the minority party have long been able to force votes. The strong-arm play illustrates how politically powerful these government-sponsored enterprises remain even after going hat in hand to taxpayers.

Court Affirms Right to Own Guns
The Supreme Court struck down a District of Columbia handgun ban and affirmed Americans’ rights to own firearms in the court’s first definitive pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history

Barack Obama may have come up with a creative way to solve the housing recession: Let everyone buy property at a discount the way he did from Tony Rezko, and give everyone in America a discount mortgage the way Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide did for Fannie Mae’s Jim Johnson. Team Obama’s real estate and mortgage transactions are certainly a change from business as usual. They suggest old-fashioned back-scratching below even current Beltway standards.

Consider exports of the off-highway truck, made in Decatur. Customers in Colombia now pay a 15% tariff – equal to $200,000 – on the import of these vehicles. If the FTA goes through, that import tariff goes to zero immediately. Conversely, if the deal dies and Colombia, which is trying to expand its world trade, strikes an agreement with another country where similar vehicles are made, U.S. exports will immediately be at a 15% price disadvantage.

Colombia also has a large mining industry, and there are more Cat D-11 bulldozers in Colombian coal mines today than in any other country in the world. Those bulldozers are made in East Peoria. Colombian customers pay a 5% duty to import Cat bulldozers, which compete against Komatsu bulldozers made in Japan. Union members might ask Mr. Sweeney why he wants to spurn an offer that would give U.S. products a 5% price ... Read More...

What a spectacle. It is now respectable for Democrats to assert, even to welcome, military defeat (see here). But if a Presidential campaign functionary so much as hints at support for free trade, he’s banished to policy exile.

That’s the meaning of Sunday’s sacking of strategist Mark Penn from Hillary Clinton’s campaign. In his noncampaign job with a PR firm, Mr. Penn had met with Colombia’s ambassador to the U.S. to discuss the free trade agreement that President Bush sent to Congress yesterday. When word of that meeting leaked to a Wall Street Journal reporter last week, big labor went bonkers and Mrs. Clinton gave him the heave-ho despite more than a decade of loyal service. Maybe if Mr. Penn had called General David Petraeus a con man, he’d still have a job.

Mr. Kennedy (raising his voice): “What are we going to tell the states? What are you suggesting that you’re going to do to help assist the states and what are you suggesting that we do to try to be a partner and help the states so they’re not going to have the results of a significant reduction in terms of services or also in terms of the taxes?”
Mr. Bernanke said the Fed would meet its mandate of “establishing a strong, growing economy” with high employment, price stability and financial stability.
Mr. Kennedy was unmoved, raising his voice: “I’m asking what we ought to be doing. What’s your position with regard to the states? Are you going to provide help and assistance to the states so that they do not have to cut back in terms of services?”
Mr. Bernanke (remaining calm): “You’re going to have to ... Read More...

Does restricting “eminent domain”—the power of government to seize private property—harm economic growth? A new report from the Institute for Justice looks at the evidence and concludes the answer is no.

Since the Supreme Court sanctified eminent domain on behalf of private developers in the dreadful 5–4 Kelo ruling in 2005, 42 states have passed some restriction on the practice. Some reforms have been far-reaching, as in Florida, which barred public entities that seized property from transferring it to private hands for 10 years after the seizure. Other reforms are more modest, changing the definition of “blight” or throwing up other obstacles to overeager planners.