Chicago Daily Observer

I am less concerned with his speeches, than I am with Obama’s vapid and vacuous adult work history. There is no significant impact as a result of any of his efforts – other than his run for President. I have adopted the terms vacuous and vapid as adjectives to describe his legislative carreer, his community organizing, his impact at the Harvard Law Review, his work history as an attorney (Contracts and Other assorted paperwork?). When I look at some of the other candidates who have decided to run I see the enormous impact of Mitt Romney, Rudy Giulianni. Even Ralph Nader had a truly significant impact on on the auto industry and the American Consumer movement. I continue to have trouble with the fact that Barack Obama has had little to no impact on anything or helped anyone at this point in his life. Why should I think we will ... Read More...

Later today the Treasury Department will announce federal budget figures for April (the month when tax payments are due). We expect the figures to show a $161 billion surplus in April, which would leave the federal budget, after the first seven months of the 2008 Fiscal Year, with a $150 billion deficit. For comparison, the deficit for the same period last year (in FY 2007) was $81 billion.
Trouble is, those rebate checks most taxpayers have just started receiving – the bulk of which will be distributed in May, June, and July – are going to make a large dent in the federal budget this year. The Congressional Budget Office anticipates a deficit of $357 billion for all of FY 2008 – roughly $200 billion more than last year.
However, even at this supposedly lofty level, the deficit would still be only 2.5% of total US Gross Domestic ... Read More...

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, after planes had crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Vice President Dick Cheney was in the White House bunker and had to make a momentous recommendation to President Bush, who was in flight aboard Air Force One: that Bush authorize the military to shoot down any civilian airliners that might be hijacked and headed for other targets.

Bush concurred—and shortly after, the moment of truth arrived. A military aide approached Cheney: “There is a plane 80 miles out,” he said. “There is a fighter in the area. Should we engage?” Cheney had thought through the complex implications of that question, had discussed it with his boss, and didn’t hesitate to answer: “Yes.” That plane was United Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania before fighter jets could reach it.

Yesterday The Ticket broke the stunning news of America’s acquisition of seven, maybe eight, new states, according to future president Barack Obama.

He was speaking at the start of a two-day swoop through Oregon, which is already a state.

In Beaverton, which is not a state yet, the Democrat let it slip that during this marathon 16-month party presidential nomination struggle against a bunch of dropouts and this female political zombie from New York who won’t surrender short of a silver stake, he had already visited 57 states with one more to go.

That’s not counting the existing states of Alaska and Hawaii, he said, which his staff decided aren’t important enough to visit. Unless maybe you’re Mike Gravel or Dennis Kucinich, who weren’t very important either, come to think of it.

I inaugurated this column early last fall with profiles of all the candidates of both parties and some predictions about the Dem and GOP races, which were just getting under way. Now that they are all but decided, I thought I’d go back and take a look at some of my calls.

Back on Sept. 20, I noted that Obama had plateaued in second place and was even falling further behind Hillary Clinton. He was definitely in need of a second leg and I wondered where he would find it.

My partially correct answer:

“Will Oprah Winfrey’s support provide him that second leg? Somewhat, but I doubt it will be enough. If, however, she (or some other issue) invigorates his black base, it will deflate Clinton’s numbers—though not in all-important Iowa or New Hampshire.”

Well, Winfrey’s endorsement turned out to be the turning point—and it brought him all-important Iowa, ... Read More...

A pop quiz: When was Chicago supposed to run out of landfill capacity and we’d all have to start eating our garbage?

Answer? I don’t know exactly, but it was some time past, according to environmentalists who warned that in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s the city—and the rest of the country—would run out of places to dump the garbage. Adding to the crisis mentality were scary claims that leaking toxic substances and methane would poison and asphyxiate the populace. Somebody had to “do something,” and fast.

So, Chicago and other municipalities stampeded into adopting solid waste recycling programs. Americans suddenly were “educated” or forced into massive recycling efforts, separating paper, cans, plastic and other materials from the oozing, dripping, rotting stuff. Recycling became a matter of given truth in the bible of the caring, even though the net benefits were, and in some quarters still are, in doubt.

Among ... Read More...