Chicago Daily Observer

The 2008 Democratic National Convention is passing with a welter of hugs. Things are going as hoped for. The Clintons are behaving. Joe Biden is tough and globally wise. The Obamas are the new-age, all-American family.

Out there in Denver we have watched the delegates applaud the shaky but determined appearance of the Kennedy patriarch, Teddy, fighting off his brain cancer to receive the kind of cheers the Kennedys always receive in honor of public trauma past.

While the lobbyists outside the big tent were opening their luxury hospitality suites, Michelle Obama gave her keynote speech in which she assured the delegates – and the estimated 40 million TV audience – that she loved her husband, her brother, her mother, her father, her daughters, and her country. At the end there were cute kids,

There is so much love going on that one almost wishes for a snarl or two, ... Read More...

Obama general counsel Bob Bauer today sent a second, sharper letter to the Justice Department, directly attacking the Dallas billionaire funding a harsh attack ad, Harold Simmons.

“We reiterate our request that the Department of Justice fulfill its commitment to take prompt action to investigate and to prosecute the American issues Project, and we further request that the Department of Justice investigate and prosecute Howard (sic) Simmons for a knowing and willful violation of the individual aggregate contribution limits,” he wrote.

He called the group’s activities “patently illegal.”

Bauer made the case that Simmons’ group fulfilling its a real nonprofit charter because it hasn’t spent any money on anything other than attacking Obama.

The American Issues Project released a statement responding to the letter.

“Having failed in its attempts to get our legal, factual and fully-supported ad off the air, Barack Obama’s campaign now wants to put our donors in ... Read More...

Reflecting and Reporting on the Democratic Convention: The Kennedys, the Obamas, Ald. Burke and “moving on.”
Last night, it appeared Teddy Kennedy upstaged Michelle Obama a bit. It was not that Michelle was not warmly received at the Pepsi Center [This reporter kept hearing the Billy Goat’s and Second City’s “Pepsi, Pepsi, no Coke.”] Michelle was warmly received, performed and spoke well, and she may have achieved what she set out to do. That is, be irresistibly likeable by the great majority of Americans [If not as much as her husband, at least in his league] and remove that bad taste in America’s mouth from her comment about being proud of America for the first time in her adult life—as a result of Barack’s run for President.
But, standing on the floor with the Illinois delegation, this reporter felt the tremendous warmth and affection of that crowd ... Read More...

I’m here in Denver at the Democratic Convention, and while enjoying it, frankly miss the presence of Mike Royko with whom I palled around with at 10 conventions from 1968 to 1996 (including two Republican ones). My first National Convention was 1952 and this is my 17th convention, and in spite of Royko’s absence one of my two favorites.

The selection of Joe Biden as the vice-presidential candidate is appropriate for many reasons, but I’m lucky because on August 16 I was asked in Paris at a meeting
of Democrats Abroad where I had spoken why I hadn’t supported Biden for President.

I said that if I could choose a President I would have chosen Biden, but in a democracy you have to win, and for a variety reasons I had felt as early as the summer of 2006 that only Barack Obama had a chance of wresting the ... Read More...

The U.S. economy was much stronger in the spring than first thought because of better exports and less inventory liquidation by businesses, according to a government report that surprised economists.
REAL TIME ECONOMICS

[Go to blog]
• Read the latest news and analysis on the economy at WSJ.com’s Real Time Economics blog.

Gross domestic product rose at a seasonally adjusted 3.3% annual rate April through June, the Commerce Department said Thursday in a new, revised estimate of second-quarter GDP.

Originally, the government had estimated second-quarter 2008 GDP climbed 1.9%. First-quarter GDP increased 0.9%.

Separately, the number of U.S. workers filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell slightly as expected last week but remained at elevated levels consistent with more declines in nonfarm employment.

From the Obama Campaign “Action Wire”:

It is absolutely unacceptable that WGN would give a slimy character assassin like Kurtz time for his divisive, destructive ranting on our public airwaves. At the very least, they should offer sane, honest rebuttal to every one of Kurtz’s lies.

In the next few hours, we have a crucial opportunity to fight one of the most cynical and offensive smears ever launched against Barack.

Tonight, WGN radio is giving right-wing hatchet man Stanley Kurtz a forum to air his baseless, fear-mongering terrorist smears. He’s currently scheduled to spend a solid two-hour block from 9:00 to 11:00p.m. pushing lies, distortions, and manipulations about Barack and University of Illinois professor William Ayers.

Tell WGN that by providing Kurtz with airtime, they are legitimizing baseless attacks from a smear-merchant and lowering the standards of political discourse.

Call into the “Extension 720” show with Milt ... Read More...

Click the above link to download the 10 page document, “Illinois 21st Century School Reform Initiative”.

We believe in the philosphy of Ron Edmonds who said “We can, whenever we choose, successfully teach all children whose schooling is of interst to us. we already know more than we need to do that. Whether or not we do it must finally depend on how we feel about the fact that we haven’t so far.”

What drives this effort is the well-documented fact that too many students are failing to learn, failing to compete academically, and failing to complete their education in Illinois. That failure is compounded by the reality that youth of today will be confronted with a world-information economy that demands better than we’ve produced in the past-and therefore makes the prospects for those who fall short of success even gloomier than we now face.

To not fix these problems ... Read More...

Writing on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, thoughts and memories zip by—such as:

If Barack Obama had any sense of humor he would have introduced Joe Biden, his vice presidential choice, as a man both clean and articulate.

How many white guys get an intro like that?

The Biden choice has numerous implications, the most important of which is that the campaign concluded that the “experience” gap in Obama’s resume was potentially fatal to his candidacy. Otherwise he would not have selected a long-time Washington insider with tons of baggage who snuffs out any hint of “change” and adds hardly anything to electoral geographics.

On the plus side—in addition to a ream of foreign policy and national security credentials—Biden is Catholic, which will be a great help, has a heart-wrenching back-story and is solidly working class. OK—so his father once had a fortune, lost it all and the ... Read More...

Have you ever been a friend or business associate of a terrorist? Not someone who, to your shock and horror, turned out secretly to have bombed government buildings. No, the question is whether you’ve ever befriended an unreconstructed radical whose past was well known to you when you entered his orbit and walked through doors he opened for you. Have you been chummy with an unapologetic terrorist who, years after you’d known and worked closely with him, was still telling the New York Times he regretted only failing to carry out more attacks — and that America still “makes me want to puke”?

Barack Obama has.

Hillary Rodham Clinton recited her lines and hit all of the chalk marks when she assumed center stage at the Democratic National Convention in Denver on Tuesday, but something seemed to be lacking.

Her speech was crafted and approved by the Obama team, but for some strange reason the junior Senator from New York never managed to achieve the maximum response from the planned applause lines. Was Clinton’s delivery less than perfect or were her supporters in the convention hall sitting on their hands? Whenever Clinton spoke about her personal experiences during the past campaign, there was a greater degree of emotion in her voice. When speaking of Barack Obama, she resorted to a flat monotone.

Predictably enough, the mainstream media lauded Clinton’s performance and pronounced the Democratic Party united for the fall campaign. Then why was the assembly hall so quiet? You might hear louder applause from polite spectators ... Read More...

Orders for U.S. durable goods unexpectedly increased in July, indicating that growing demand from abroad is still helping companies weather a slump in domestic spending.

The 1.3 percent gain in bookings of goods meant to last several years matched the previous month’s rise, which was larger than previously estimated, the Commerce Department said today in Washington.

While some economists argue a recession is underway, it is hard to tell from the data. Yes, the unemployment rate has been rising, but almost all the weakness is coming from housing and high energy prices. Other areas of the economy are still doing well and overall economic growth has been positive. What is clear is that strong productivity growth is allowing the US economy to move forward despite headwinds.

While gross domestic product measures the total output of goods and services, productivity measures output per hour. And even as the number of hours worked has declined, output per hour has gone up enough to keep total output rising.

In fact, output per hour in the non-farm business sector is up 2.8% versus last year and is likely to be revised up to about 3% when new figures arrive in the first week of September. In the past ten years, ... Read More...

Rezko, a former top fundraiser and adviser for Gov. Rod Blagojevich, was convicted in June of corrupting two state boards by helping bring in illicit payments from firms trying to do business with Illinois.

[E]thics reforms means getting officials to limit gifts to themselves.” Those are the words of Emil Jones, president of the Illinois senate, in his speech at the Democratic Convention Monday.

Jones would know. He is Barack Obama’s political mentor, and he can now give himself a $578,000 gift. It is a perfectly legal and completely corrupt arrangement that he made ten years ago, with just a little help from Obama.

If you listen to Barack Obama’s supporters, you might get the impression that the presumptive Democratic nominee did something to reform Illinois when he served there. Sometimes they mention Obama’s involvement in a 1998 ethics bill. They probably won’t mention that the law they are discussing could soon make Jones a wealthy man. Such stories do not fit the image of the bipartisan reformer that Obama’s campaign has spent millions of dollars projecting.

At the Saddleback Forum two weeks ago, ... Read More...

MSNBC‘s Chris Matthews baits some agitated protesters outside the Democratic Convention in Denver. It is clear enough that Matthews is a partisan campaigner in this election , rather than a journalist, but the fact that he badgers some civilians over a rather well documented fact is absurd.

The AP has shown clearly that Sen. Obama was registered with the religion Islam at the (Catholic) Fransiskus Assisi school in Jakarta, Indonesia. The two ladies being tormented by Matthews seem to be trying to say that, though Chris could certainly do 5 minutes of research to realize the same thing.

AP Photo Linked below.