Chicago Daily Observer

I haven’t done a count yet — breathlessly awaiting Berlin transcript — but Obama’s speech struck me as so riddled with clichés that even he was bored. It seemed like his speechwriters went through a bunch of old speeches, pulled favorite phrases and strung them together between a few poll-approved Big Ideas. I had the weary feeling I’d been there and heard that. And Obama seemed to feel it, too.

Obama noted that in a break from his whirlwind schedule, “we’ve got some down time tonight. What are you guys gonna do in Berlin? Huh? Huh? You guys got any big. plans? …I’ve never been to Berlin, so…I would love to tour around a little bit.”

Obama canceled a previously-planned stop to visit thousands of American service personnel, including troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan being treated at Landstuhl, so he could hold a political rally for Germans and go shopping in Berlin. Now that’s a nice set of priorities for a man who wants to become Commander in Chief.

While on the county payroll, a top urologist at Cook County Hospital solicited nearly $1 million from drug companies over the last decade for his private foundation.

Dr. Paul S. Ray’s pitch was that the money would go toward medical research and education.

But most of the money hasn’t gone to health care at all. Instead, Ray invested it—mostly in Tony Rezko.

“So the point that I was making at the time was that the political dynamic was the driving force between that sectarian violence. And we could try to keep a lid on it, but if these underlining dynamic continued to bubble up and explode the way they were, then we would be in a difficult situation. I am glad that in fact those political dynamic shifted at the same time that our troops did outstanding work.”—Barack Obama

It is assumed by most conservatives that big name universities are, for the most part, institutions run and staffed by leftists. This assumption is also, for the most part, true. Thanks mostly to the work of the DePaul Conservative Alliance, DePaul University has been shown to be a hotbed of liberal activism. . Perhaps, as a new report to be published by the Alliance will show, the “Largest Catholic University in America” acts as a foe to alternative ideas because of who makes up the university itself.

Leftists are found everywhere in DePaul’s ivory tower––from the highest levels of university administration to the bustling cubicles of staffers. But as with most universities, the most amount of leftists reside in the classrooms. The usual culprits are not only in the political science, sociology, and philosophy departments, but also surprisingly in the mathematics, nursing, and computer departments. Leftist professors have managed to ... Read More...

A Republican strategist was quoted recently saying if the presidential race is about McCain he loses—if it’s about Obama, then McCain has a chance.

That’s another way of saying this race is a referendum on Obama. Or, to put it yet another way, it’s Obama’s to lose.

Thus far he’s winning.

But before Obamaniacs or other Dems revel too joyously in the thought, there are two points to remember:

1. It ain’t over ‘til it’s over, four months from now.

2. Obama continues to run substantially worse than the hypothetical generic Democrat, meaning the public has not yet fully made up its mind about him.
Which is to say that if the candidate were, say, John Edwards or any such substantial white guy it would, for all practical purposes, be over right now.

I might add that if Sen. Hillary Clinton were the candidate, the race would be ... Read More...

In an election year dominated by the rallying cry of change, an unlikely coalition of some of the state’s most powerful special interests will spend $3 million urging voters to stick with the status quo.

The Alliance to Protect the Illinois Constitution is asking for a “no” vote on one of the most important issues on the November ballot: whether there should be a constitutional convention to make changes to the state’s 1970 governing document.

Every 20 years, the constitution requires that voters be asked whether the document should be rewritten. Sixty percent of the voters must approve the question for a convention to be called. In 1988—a time of more civil political discourse—75 percent of voters opposed a convention.

Tony Peraica proposed rolling back the Cook County sales tax in a July 22 meeting. The vote came to a roll-call and the Cook County board voted 10–7 to maintain the current sales tax, which is the highest sales tax in the United States.

The results are here:

Claypool (D-12th)
Quigley (D-10th)
Peraica (R-16th)
Gorman (R-17th)
Silvestri(R-9th)
Goslin, (R-14th)
Schneider (R-15th)

Collins, (D-1st)
Steele, (D-2nd)
Butler, (D-3rd)
Beavers, (D-4th)
Sims, (D-5th)
Murphy, (D-6th)
Moreno, (D-7th)
Maldonado, (D-8th)
Daley, (D-11th)
Suffredin, (D-13th)

When Cook County Commissioner Larry Suffredin was running for Cook County State’s Attorney, he told me that he opposed the tax increase package being rammed through by President Todd Stroger.

But once he lost the Democratic primary to Anita Alvarez, he changed his tune and became one of the most vocal proponents of supporting Stroger’s repressive 1 percent increase in the county wide sales tax.

This week, Republican County Commissioner Tony Peraica, who has been consistently speaking out against unnecessary tax increases and urging trimming waste and the county’s bloated budget, sought to push commissioners to repeal the punitive Stroger Sales Tax.

And who do you think stood up to lead the personal attacks against Peraica?

Thirty-nine years ago last Sunday America went to the moon, and nothing on Earth was supposed to be the same after that.
Last Sunday was a sunny day around here, and people were talking about gas prices and whether they could afford to drive maybe 400 miles to get the family on vacation this year. They were not – at least not anyone I heard – talking about getting to the moon.
Some guy on TV, as a kicker to a news feature on oil, mentioned with a shrug that next year, on the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon shot, there will probably be “a lot of remembrance going on.”
Probably. And they may even drag in Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin to help them remember – if those guys are still around. Right now all three original moon men are ... Read More...

“Well let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s,” (Sen Obama) said, according to a transcript of the press conference.

The Illinois senator went on to say that “it” (the United States?) would be a friend of Israel’s under his administration or McCain’s.

So the fox says to thefarmer, “Hey, don’t fix the henhouse door, just buy more chickens.”

That’s pretty much the same advice that you, as Illinois voters, are about to be spoon fed.

Big business, big labor and some “good government” groups have teamed up to urge a “no” vote this November on the constitutional convention ballot question. They’re planning to spend $3 million on TV and other advertising.

Illinois voters are given a choice every 20 years about whether to call a “con-con,” and in 1988 the ballot question was defeated.

The entire Illinois establishment was opposed to a constitutional convention back then, including most newspapers. But 2008 is a whole lot different than 1988, when the political world was pretty stable here and most things were on track.

“A mess” hardly begins to describe our current state political situation. Some have suggested that voters might be so fed ... Read More...

According to David McCullough, Harry S. Truman was supposedly fond of making the observation that the only thing new under the sun is the history that you do not know. How right the haberdasher from Independence, Missouri was!

Although he never attended college,“Give’ Em Hell Harry” was an avid reader. Sadly, many disinterested people would never know it because they care nothing for the past and have little patience for current events. Some contemporary cynics call these people “Democrats.”

One of my cousins refuses to watch black and white movies because they are “too old fashioned.” From the standpoint of cinematography and film preservation, black and white film stock is arguably a much more expressive and permanent medium than colored film. More importantly, I think that some younger viewers are missing out when they refuse to watch older films. Many of the scripts filmed when the production code was still ... Read More...

Arguably the biggest local election this fall will be for Cook County state’s attorney, where Democrat Anita Alvarez will try to hold off Republican Tony Peraica. If you think about it, Alvarez is kind of a Peraica Bizarro (if it’s not the other way around). Peraica, a former precinct captain for Bill Lipinski, lost a couple runs for office as a Democrat before switching parties and winning a suburban seat on the Cook County board in 2002. Now he encounters the stench of Democratic Party corruption everywhere he turns, and without fail finds it loathsome and campaign-worthy—he just can’t find enough opportunities to talk to the press about problems with the county jail, the county sales tax, or the county board president.

In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

Now Senator Obama has been forced ... Read More...