Chicago Daily Observer

Where are all the free-speech absolutists when you need them? Over the past month, left-wing partisans and Democratic lawyers have waged a brass-knuckled intimidation campaign against GOP donors, TV and radio stations, and even an investigative journalist — because they have all dared to question the radical cult of Barack Obama. A chill wind blows, but where the valiant protectors of political dissent are, nobody knows.

On August 11, I called the American Civil Liberties Union national headquarters in New York for comment about the Chicago gangland tactics of one of these groups — a nonprofit called “Accountable America” that is spearheaded by a former operative of the Obama-endorsing MoveOn outfit.

“Accountable America” is trolling campaign-finance databases and targeting conservative donors with “warning” letters in a thuggish attempt to depress Republican fundraising. (You’ll be interested to know that the official registered agent of Accountable America is Laurence Gold, a ... Read More...

If you think this is outrageous, wait until Obama becomes president..

His campaign tries to force a radio station to not air an Obama critic

Unhappy that Chicago’s WGN radio would ask writer Stanley Kurtz what he has found in documents linking Obama with one-time fugitive radical Bill Ayers, Obama’s henchmen organized a campaign to flood the station with angry calls.

Sure, it’s their right to protest Kurtz’ appearance on the highly respected and long-running “Extension 720 with Milt Rosenberg,” but it is clearly WGN‘s right to have as a guest anyone they wish. It says so right in the Bill of Rights.

Mary Mitchell wrote a puzzling column for the Sunday Sun-Times. Her subject was the appearance of the president of Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade, at the UNITY conference of minority journalists in McCormick Place. Mitchell wondered what he was doing there, given that Wade was the first foreign head of state UNITY had ever invited to speak, since he’s “been accused of unfairly suppressing journalists by locking them up and threatening them.”

And sure enough, during an interview Thursday with a group of journalists he “showed shocking disdain for journalists in his own country,” asserting that the “Senegalese press is infiltrated by politics. I am telling you if you do not give them information, they are going to invent it. They insult people. They accuse people when they don’t even have any proof.”

But what troubled Mitchell more—she found it “appalling”—is that Wade’s speech Friday was disrupted. Someone shouted, “I ... Read More...

“A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state: the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”—United States Constitution, second amendment of the Bill of Rights

Subject only to the police power, the right of the individual citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.—- Constitution of the State of Illinois, Article 1, Section 22

Illinois’ 1970 Constitution provides gun grabbing counties and city councils with an invaluable mechanism so as to create two strata of gun rights in Illinois. One strata that would pass muster south of I. 80 in the more crimson part of Illinois, and another that would enable the northern regions of Illinois to infringe upon the second amendment rights of the law-abiding citizenry in cities like Evanston, Wilmette, and Chicago. The clause that enables such constitutional mischief is that pesky “subject only to the ... Read More...

There was a pro-Second Amendment rally at the Thompson Center on July 11, 2008, and bloggers know about it.

There were quite a few people, up to 500, by some counts, photos and some reporting on the events that occurred, by an independent website or two.

Some pundits questioned whether the Chicago Tribune would cover the rally.

But, to no one’s surprise, the Chicago Tribune skipped the story, regardless of the significance of the recent Supreme Court decision, with a search returning a warmed over story of professional activist Fr. Pfleger instead of the news. Perhaps the Tribune did not have room in the paper for the story, as they are running a series of windy PR pieces painting Sen. Obama is a centrist demanding individual responsiblity, despite all evidence in his voting record to the contrary.

Kudo’s to ABC-7 and Chicago ... Read More...

The ballyhoo over the Supreme Court’s recent decision that declared Washington DC’s handgun ban unconstitutional, and therefore implied the same for Chicago, didn’t last through the holiday. Unfortunately, neither did five poor souls who fell victim to gun violence in downtown Chicago during the long weekend.

“Why should our streets be open to someone carrying a gun?” Daley remarked after the Supreme Court handed down the ruling. “Do [people] have a right to carry a gun on the CTA?” Daley’s theatric rant blamed the rich and the powerful for protecting themselves but not the poor. “Those who are rich always feel safe … those who are in power always feel safe.”

Those 27 words—the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution—probably caused more violent argument and political polarization through the years than any sentence since the Emancipation Proclamation.

In essence the question was whether the founding parents were saying that anyone, anytime, had a right to own a gun or whether that right was restricted to the members of a militia—or National Guard as we would know it today.

Gun-control advocates—mostly liberal Democrats and card-carrying members of the American Civil Liberties Union like me—took the latter interpretation as gospel, while a substantial majority of Americans, strongly encouraged by the National Rifle Association, took the other side, tossing out the initial qualifying phrase.

In June the U.S. Supreme Court finally made a definitive ruling, ... Read More...

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that gun ownership is an individual right turned Mayor Richard Daley into a fiery pillar, visible to the naked eye as far away as Rockford.

Daley declared the District of Columbia vs. Heller decision to be “frightening,” “outrageous” and a “return to the days of the Wild West.” You would have thought the court had ruled that free bazookas were to be handed out to gang members..

Joined by leaders from the immigrant community, Aldermen George Cardenas of the 12th Ward and Manny Flores of the 1st Ward today introduced a resolution for the Chicago City Council that condemns the increasingly venomous tone of the national immigration debate and reaffirms the City’s support for sensible solution for the immigration issue.

“Throughout our history, Chicago has welcomed immigrants from around the world, including my own family,” said Alderman Cardenas at a City Hall press conference announcing the resolution. “Our city was built by immigrants, and has respected the contributions that immigrants have made and will continue to make. Unfortunately, the overall climate surrounding the immigration issue has turned more and more ugly, fed in particular by cable news. It’s time that our city took a stand against the hateful rhetoric.”

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

An extraordinary incident unfolded in the state of Oklahoma on Oct. 2. Three individuals were arrested, shackled and arraigned. Their crime: trying to curb the spending excesses of Sooner State politicians. They were accused of violating an arcane and certainly unconstitutional law that imposes restrictions on who can circulate petitions in the state

After pretty much exhausting the subject of Free Newspaper
Distribution Wednesday with a rousing session on Bruno Behrend’s
Extreme Wisdom on AM1120 discussing the Chicago Ban, syndicating a few
articles and answering emails to follow up on the story, I was pleased
to see that WTTW Chicago Tonight, and Phil Ponce also thought Freedom
of the Press to be a worthy topic for discussion for a civic affairs
program.

Alderman Manny Flores who was one of the co-authors of the ban, Ordinance 10–8-272,
and Ron Roenigk, publisher of the free publications Inside and Inside
Lincoln Park appeared to cheerfully disagree about the Ordinance,
while Phil Ponce lobbed happy questions about how this can be settled
in a way that both parties are happy. Mr. Roenigk rightly noted that
he would not be happy until the ordinance was completely ... Read More...

Grass Roots political organizer Paul Jacobs, the Senior Advisor at the Sam Adams Foundation, has been indicted on charges related to his work leading a petition drive in Oklahoma. Jacobs is charged with a felony of conspiring against the State of Oklahoma in collecting signatures in favor of a Taxpayer Bill of Rights by an out of state resident. After 300,000 signatures were gathered by Jacobs and others, signatures removed by the Oklahoma Supreme Court keeping the petition from making it to a ballot.

Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson has handed down the indictment to Jacobs and two other political organizers stating “Oklahoma law requires anyone who circulates a petition be a qualified elector, that means a U.S. citizen over the age of 18 and a resident of Oklahoma.” Edmondson charged that the petitioners “came into the state with the intent to leave the state ... Read More...

Paul Jacob Indicted in Outrageous Political Ploy to Quell Citizen Initiative Rights

Paul Jacob, the Sam Adams Foundation’s Senior Advisor, has worked tirelessly for years to promote and protect the citizen initiative process. Today he was rewarded for his efforts, however, with an outrageous and baseless indictment from Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson, who is abusing the law to suppress the initiative process-and slander Paul’s name in the process.

This is an outrage, not only for Paul Jacob, but for citizens across the country who have dared to assert their right to have a say in their government.

“This indictment unsealed today is not about the law, but rather 100 percent politically motivated. This is politics-very ugly politics,” Paul said in a statement . “The highest legal office in
the state of Oklahoma seems bent on silencing citizens through harassment and intimidation, threats and coercion. The goal is ... Read More...