Chicago Daily Observer

The mayor’s favorite pool boy—airport operations boss Dave “Pool Boy” Ochal—is at it again, throwing his vast political clout in the faces of his neighbors after the storms knocked out power this week.

Ochal’s Far Northwest Side neighborhood was without power for two days in the summer heat. Neighbors dug into their own pockets to pay for emergency generators and shipped their elderly, including some who required oxygen therapy, to live with friends and family who had power. Then neighbors said they witnessed a political miracle Wednesday night:

These are dangerous times we’re living in. Dangerous times for Americans who want to keep their inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Government is growing at an alarming rate and paying itself hefty salaries.

In Grover Norquist’s book, Leave Us Alone, he writes:

“In 2004, the average wage-and-benefit package for a private-sector worker was $51,876. The average federal worker earned $100,178 in wages and benefits. (For wages alone, private sector workers earned $42,635 and federal employees took home $66,589.) Total wages and benefits see federal workers taking in almost twice as much each year.” Besides the wage disparities, government leaders are telling us, the private citizens, what we can do, when we can do it, and what we have to give up.

If we sell our homes, we now have to pay our local government a sales tax on the sale. If we own a car, ... Read More...

Despite a tough U.S. economy, McDonald’s Corp. posted an 8 percent gain in July same-store sales on Friday as hungry consumers worldwide lined up for breakfast items and the classic Big Mac sandwich.

Many consumers have cut back on eating out amid economic weakness and rising gasoline prices, but business at the Golden Arches held up well in July, especially in the U.S.

State Senator, and Reverend, James Meeks launched himself back onto front pages Monday, by encouraging students in inner-city neighborhoods to skip the first day of school. The reason for the protest is something Meeks has harped on for years: inequities in school funding.

We should give Meeks credit for being persistent. But unfortunately we can’t give him credit for being effective, or even honest, in his protest. Meeks loves to make enemies out of suburban schools spending decadent amounts of cash on computer labs and sports facilities, while inner-city kids struggle for books and decent teachers.

But this obsession with the suburbs is the tip off that Meeks’ primary motivation is political. Why? Because there are inequalities within the City of Chicago that are just as great as the inequalities between city and suburbs.

A 2005 Chicago Catalyst study of school budgets found that some schools in Chicago, like ... Read More...

Before leaving Chicago State University, embattled university president Elnora Daniel signed off on spending more than $18,000 to publish a tribute book honoring herself, a glossy coffee table publication featuring pictures of Daniel posing with lawmakers, university staff and her family.

The 52-page soft-cover book looks like a personal photo album, with minimal text and no photo captions. There are pictures of Daniel at a grant ceremony with President George W. Bush, smiling at U.S. Sen. Barack Obama and accepting state checks from Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, who funneled millions of dollars to Chicago State under Daniel’s leadership.

The last page features a photo of Daniel and five family members dressed in formal dinner attire and standing next to an elaborate staircase. Daniel’s university-financed family travel was the subject of a stinging state audit that found she spent more than $15,000 to attend a leadership conference aboard a Caribbean ... Read More...

Citizen Journalists Tom Mannis, John Ruberry (The Marathon Pundit) and John Powers were the guests on the Jerry Agar Show on WLS-AM yesterday.

Archives are linked below, via Tom Mannis’ Rogers Park Bench Blog.

Initial estimates of second quarter real GDP put growth at 1.9% annualized, less than consensus expectations, and weaker than the First Trust forecast. At the same time, the Commerce Department revised its estimates to show a very small 0.2% decline in Q4–2007 real GDP.

However, government estimates of inventories – the part we have the least information about – fell by the second largest amount in history. We believe this decline was overstated and Q2 real GDP growth will be revised up in the months ahead. Real final sales (which exclude inventories) grew at a robust 3.9% rate.

In response to the data Dr. Victor Zarnowitz, who serves on the recession dating committee of the NBER, told the Wall Street Journal that “There is no cyclical decline, yet.”

Despite this, some analysts argue that Q2 data overestimated the true pace of real growth because the government ... Read More...

Wal-Mart, after reporting its biggest sales gain in several years in June, had projected July same-store-sales growth between 2% to 4% and boosted its fiscal second-quarter earnings target. Wal Mart Sales actually came in at a 3% gain over July 2007 sales.

RALSTON: This energy story seems to be changing every day, I want to make sure I have it straight. It has been played up a lot in stories that you were against drilling, and tapping the petroleum reserve but you have reversed on that and now you are for both. You want to compromise on energy, so you don’t really favor drilling but for political reasons you are going to change your position. This is change we can believe in Senator?

Why do Illinois Democrats keep voting for those clowns of theirs?

They’d probably reply that their clowns are a cut above the Republican clowns, and they may be right. But that still leaves the question: How can Democratic voters keep electing the very people who keep assaulting health care, child welfare and other social programs so dear to the Democratic heart?

Even the most reactionary, right-wing troglodytes have not been as successfully obstructionist as Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Senate President Emil Jones and House Speaker Michael Madigan—Democrats all—whose budget stalemate is giving social service providers fits.

Violent crime continued to rise in Chicago after a deadly July in which 62 people were killed, according to unofficial numbers provided by a police source.

For the first seven months of 2008, murders rose by 18 percent over the same period in 2007 and by 9 percent for the same period in 2006. According to internal police data, 291 people were killed from January through July, up from 246 in 2007 and 266 in 2006.

In May and June, the murder rate hovered at a 13 percent increase for the year after a spike in homicides in the spring. July furthered the uptick with 19 more murders than a year earlier. Still, that July tally fell three below 2006 levels when there were 65 murders.

I landed in Karachi with a full bag of scotch whiskey, as instructed by my host, an army general known for treating his officers well. We greeted, we did the required double-bow, and then I made a big mistake. I opened my bag, displaying the lovely scotch plaid of the Johnny Walker bottles.

The entire crowded airport came to instant attention. It was as if, yes, I had openly, right there, lit an opium pipe.

“Quickly.” My general hissed. “Close that bag. Quick step!” he ordered his staff. And we marched out of that airport while all airport staff and baggage handlers averted their eyes in that singularly Pakistani way, eyes raised, unseeing, as if in quick consultation with Allah.

Out on the street in that teeming city, of course, you could spot a heroin drug dealer in the shadows of almost every corner.

The general and his men later, ... Read More...

“Anyone who wants to pull troops out of a vitally important country where we’re finally winning and send them to a marginal country where ultimate victory is impossible must be a Democrat.”

“Thanks to the surge, whose effectiveness my opponent refuses to admit, the Iraqis now see a way forward to peace and democracy. If they are correct, Iraq will set an example for the entire Muslim world of a nation prosperous, pious, progressive, and free. This is an outcome my opponent was unable to imagine and cannot imagine yet. For some reason, he’d rather fight in Afghanistan, a primitive collection of clans and warlords on the fringes of Arabia that for centuries has defied every attempt to civilize and reform it, chewing up and spitting out every invading army that tried. Osama bin Laden is nowhere to be found in Afghanistan, and neither is the future of the Arab-Muslim ... Read More...

The BBC Comes to Town.

Not long ago my phone rang at home and I was connected to a woman’s voice from London. She told me that BBC…the most radically left media institution in Europe…was coming to Chicago to do a radio documentary on the Chicago convention of 1968. It so happened she had been referred to me by my friend Karl Maurer and that she then read my reminiscences of Hubert Humphrey and Eugene McCarthy in the archives of this website. She was intrigued that I am also a Republican, something that is definitely a “rara avis” to the Brits.

So she signed me up gratis for a 3-hour panel discussion at WBEZ Navy Pier with others who remember those days. Given the BBC’s leftwing proclivities I knew exactly what I would be confronted with. Four elderly ex-hippie radicals including an organizer of SDS ... Read More...

Pat Hickey from the Chicago Daily Observer discusses Catholic schools with Superintendant Sr. Mary Paul McCaughey on July 30th. Sr. Mary Paul began leading Archdiocese of Chicago Schools, the largest Catholic School system in the United States, this July.

Hickey- Having directed Marion Catholic one most the Chicago area’s impressive co-educational college prep schools for thirty years, you seem more than up to the challenge of righting the course of Chicago’s Catholic schools, what is your first priority?

McCaughey – I was at Marion for sixteen years, but I will tell you this I believe, Pat, that good schools share some common threads. First is the focus on our mission and our mission is this – the Catholicity and successful academic performance of our people. In order to do that, we need a lot of help. We need to engage their parents, we need to engage our professionals – teachers; ... Read More...