Chicago Daily Observer

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin has been mentioned in past presidential election years as a possible candidate for vice president. But not this year.

“I’ve been approached before,” Durbin, who is assistant majority leader of the Senate, said last week. “I never knew how serious it was.”

Durbin made the comments in an interview about the search for a running mate by Illinois’ other U.S. senator, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

In years past, Durbin said, he’s meant it when he said no to vice-presidential overtures.

“The irony is, this time, I really want to help this guy,” Durbin said. “It’s a good thing that I’m out of the running, because I would be tempted. I think he has a chance to do some significant things for this country.”

Bruno Behrend wants the Illinois Constitution to have some changes.

The conservative radio host is trying to gather support for a constitutional convention to make changes to the Illinois Constitution, last modified in 1970.

“If there is ever a year that we can get a ‘yes’ vote, it’s this year,” said Behrend, who is the co-founder of the Illinois Citizens Coalition, a group that advocates structural government reform. “What’s wrong with (Illinois politics) is everything.”

Barack Obama did not hunt or fish as a child. He lives in a big city. And as an Illinois state legislator and a U.S. senator, he consistently backed gun control legislation.

But he is nevertheless making a play for pro-gun voters in rural Pennsylvania.

By highlighting his background in constitutional law and downplaying his voting record, Obama is engaging in a quiet but targeted drive to win over an important constituency that on the surface might seem hostile to his views.

I was browsing through “the Irish Sporting News” a few days ago. For the uninitiated, this dated slang expression refers to the obituary columns. The term probably had its origins in the propensity of the Irish to consult the obituaries in order to attend wakes and funerals in decades gone by.

Still, once you are of a certain age, you check the daily obituaries to make sure that
you are still breathing and to fulfill your obligations towards others.

In any event, what struck me was the obituary for an elderly gentleman who had passed away in his nineties. What caught my attention was that this person was listed as a proud graduate of Crane High School.

Crane has been in the headlines too often lately for the escalating gang violence that has been occurring there on an almost daily basis. One teenager shot and killed another student in ... Read More...