Chicago Daily Observer

Over the 4th of July holiday, I, like many of my colleagues, was able to speak with hundreds of constituents. Folks were more eager than ever to talk to me about unaffordable energy prices. And when they asked what Washington is doing to address this issue, unfortunately, I had to tell them nothing. But not because of a lack of Republican will.

Despite Democrat promises of ‘common sense’ plans to lower gas prices, the average price of a gallon of gas has increased by more than 76 percent since they took control of Congress.

The Chicago Daily Observer takes to the Airwaves to talk about the Constitutional Convention, with Frank Avilla, Bruno Behrends,Tony Peraica, and John Powers.

Things are going badly in Springfield, says Rich Miller, who lists problems, including:

“Unemployment is rising, yet a jobs-producing capital construction bill for our roads, bridges, schools and mass transit is stuck in limbo.”

Reading along, I thought he was going to say a tax-reduction bill was in limbo, or such bill is not being discussed. But he refers to state spending that would produce jobs.

To listen to Democrats, Congress can’t wait to crack down on all those greedy “speculators” who are driving up the price of oil. To listen to one Democrat in particular, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, is far more illuminating.

If the powerful majority whip is looking a little thin these days, it’s because he has been feeling the squeeze.

On his left is his party, wild to find a villain on whom to blame high gas prices, intent on deflecting attention away from its own antidrilling policies. It has settled on those unfortunate traders who deal daily in contracts for the world’s short supply of oil.

If Phil Gramm can upset both Sen. Obama and John McCain, he must be doing something right.

Seven consecutive years of quarterly economic growth is not a recession;it is an near miracle given the rising cost of commodities and an expensive war in Iraq. Yet for having the audacity to point out something that has been pointed out here in the Chicago Daily Observer numerous times (The United States is not in a recession), Phil Gramm is taunted by the most economically backwards candidate since William Jennings Bryan (Sen. Obama) and chastised by Gramm’s theoretically free-market boss, Sen. McCain.

Yet the media whines daily about economic doom and gloom, and certainly on an individual level, there are always some problems with the economy. However the severity of these problem is minor when compared with the tanking after 9/11 or the downturn in the early 1990’s. Historically low unemployment, low inflation, ... Read More...

This apology mania is getting out of hand. It’s bad enough to have to beg for forgiveness for every perceived slight or insult. Now, Jesse Jackson has taken it a step further by issuing apologies when most of us didn’t even know what he was sorry for.

Only after Jackson jumped before the cameras to issue his mea culpa did we learn that he had criticized—in front of an open mic—the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama for “talking down to black people” by supporting federally funded faith-based initiatives. For that, Jackson said he would like to cut off Obama’s testicles.

So, when I had turned on the TV, I had no clue about what Jackson was apologizing for. It didn’t help when he tried to explain the meaning of what he said:
“It does not reflect any disparagement on my part for the historic event in which ... Read More...

Long before he was a national figure…and, seemingly aeons before he was slapped down by John McCain…I began a Phil Gramm fan: when he was a little known, folksy Democratic congressman from Corsicana, Texas with a fondness for a product Quaker Oats made, Wolf Brand chili. When he succeeded a tiger in the House in that south Texas district in 1978—a tiger literally—“Tiger” Teague, a conservative Democrat with a congressional medal of honor—I happened to drop in on him in his tacky freshman quarters at the Longworth House Office building, the same building I had worked in twenty years earlier as a House staffer. Wolf Brand Chili was made in Corsicana and I brought a box of it with me as an introduction to our newest congressman.

Ethical purists would say I tried to bribe a congressman with an unsolicited gift but he leapt out of his chair, pumped my ... Read More...