Weather Underground's 2008 Tragical History Tour

Ever since Barack Obama's ties with former Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, became public, the pair, who are married, haven't been heard from.

That's not true. You just have to know where to look. And I found that they're talkative enough in the right forum. On February 12, they spoke at the Chicago History Museum about the events of 1968, which was recorded by the local National Public Radio affiliate, WBEZ-FM. I forgot to time it, but the show lasts about an hour.

Listening to it was a painful experience. Not because it caused any cognitive dissonance within me, but I figured it was very likely that members of the paying audience were swallowing their awful offal.

My quick take is this--they may not be terrorists anymore, but they are still left wing extremists.

The presentation gets off to a bad start when Liz Garibay, the museum's manager of public programs introduces the couple as "political activists, part of student groups (sic) called the Weathermen."

Student group? Uh, when did they go to class? Those Iranian "students" who held our embassy workers as hostages for 444 days were of the same breed.

Oh, about the name. The Weather Underground was originally known as "The Weatherman," one of the founders of the group was a Bob Dylan fanatic, and he took inspiration in the lyric, "You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" from "Subterranean Homesick Blues." Some within the terror group viewed the name as sexist, so they rechristened themselves "The Weather Underground."

Dohrn, who is a law professor at Northwestern University despite the fact she has no licence to practice law (the New York Bar Association denied her application because of her terrorist past), does most of the talking. Ayers is an education professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago.

She talks about all types of things that happen that year, including the Tet Offensive of the Vietnam War, she said the "US Embassy was overrun by the South Vietnamese (sic) forces." In fact, while some Viet Cong made it onto the grounds of the embassy, but the building was not overrun. She goes on to discuss "...this suicide unit took the American embassy (My note: No they did not!)...pictures of GIs, frightened, running, was really in a way a foreshadowing of what would be another seven years later when the US evacuated the American embassy by helicopter and the entire country...the US strategy there was defeated.

I bet that made you very happy, Bernardine.

The distinguished professor moves out of 1968, and then declares:

For 15 years, really, until Gulf War I, the United States was constrained from invading other countries. That doesn't mean, in my opinion, the United States empire still wreaked havoc around the world. But it was done through proxy wars, it was done by creating the Contras in Nicaragua. They were contrained for 15 whole years from doing what they really wanted to do, and it was done instead by creating terrorist organizations, really, armed and financed and trained militarily by the US, y'know, around the world.

Well Bernardine, who better to judge who is a terrorist than yourself, an ex-terrorist? Of course I don't think the Contras, who were fighting Communists, were terrorists.

The question and answer session begins about halfway into the program, and one audience member asks, "Do you still stand by your decision, both of you, to embrace violence during the '60?"

Ayers gives a very long answer. Part of his reply was:

We made a decision not to hurt anybody, and except for hurting ourselves, we never did. We made a decision to hurt property and I find it hard to compare, on a moral plane, hurting y'know, a computer in the Pentagon, versus killing 2,000 people that very week. Mostly what I do, mostly what urge all of us to do, is to engage in non-violent direct action.

Well I'm glad Ayers is urging non-violent direct action now. But he still remains, in my opinion, an unrepentant ex-terrorist.

One Weather Underground bomb accidentally killed three members of the group in 1970, it also destroyed a New York City townhouse.

The bomb was packed with roofing nails (which don't do much damage to property); the device was said to be intended for detonation at an enlisted men's dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey.

A year earlier, during the Weather Underground riots known as the Days of Rage, future Cook County Sheriff Richard J. Elrod, then an attorney for the City of Chicago, attempted to tackle a member of the terror group--Elrod broke his neck, and was permanently paralyzed.

Sorry Ayers, you are wrong. Elrod was hurt. A lot.

Which brings us to one of Ayers' bombings. I've posted these quotes before, but they're too good to overlook here.

From his 2001 book, "Fugitive Days":

Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon. The sky was blue. The birds were singing. And the bastards were finally going to get what was coming to them.

Also from that book comes this nugget: "I don't regret setting bombs; I feel we didn't do enough."

Ayers also wrote in regards to future bombings, "I don't want to discount the possibility."

Thanks to The Rutles, again, for inspiring the headline.

Related posts:

SDS' 1968 Tragical History Tour
Obama visited home of ex-Weather Underground terrorists in '90s
Obama's Bill Ayers problem
Jonah Goldberg: Left wing terrorists never have to say "sorry"
Axelrod throws Ayers ball on ex-terrorist
University of Illinois at Chicago's Bill Ayers: Not a jarhead
The Weather Underground and Ward Churchill-UPDATED!
Bernardine Dohrn watch
David Horowitz says you should know about Bernardine Dohrn and William Ayers
Moron Professor Bill Ayers
More on Bill Ayers' wife, Bernadine Dohrn
Update on another campus radical: Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground

Technorati tags: democrats Barack Obama Obama Politics Illinois Bernardine Dohrn Bill Ayers terrorism history Chicago Weather Underground Bob Dylan Northwestern University Vietnam War Left Wing Extremists

Leap Year Day on the river

This is what the North Branch of the Chicago River looks like in the Linne Woods Forest Preserve in Morton Grove this afternoon on Leap Year Day.

Besides the quadrennial uniqueness of the day, something else is unusual today. The sun is out.

Technorati tags: Illinois photography photos Morton Grove nature weather snow Chicago River river Leap Year

Obama caught fibbing on NAFTA

Will the followers of Obama's Cult of Change let this story change their minds about their hero?

During Tuesday's Democratic presidential debate in Cleveland, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, both in full-pander mode, tried to play up to organized labor by tarring the North American Free Trade Agreement, claiming, although evidence doesn't back up their claims, that NAFTA costs Americans jobs.

In the general election, NAFTA-trashing won't get either of them very far. Most people support it. So what to do?

Here's how Obama's staff handled it. Will the New York Times follow up?

From the American Thinker:

Regardless, both candidates trashed the agreement and said they would reopen it to renegotiation. But Obama went a step further; according to Canadian TV he actually had one of his primary aides get in touch with the Canadian government and assure them that Obama was just demagoguing the issue and that he would not press for any major changes.

The Obama camp denied this story and called it a smear. Evidently CTV doesn't like being referred to as a liar because they have released the information that the Obama camp couldn't afford to have out there - the name of the Obama aide who spoke to the Canadian government:

The Obama campaign told CTV late Thursday night that no message was passed to the Canadian government that suggests that Obama does not mean what he says about opting out of NAFTA if it is not renegotiated.

From CTV:

However, the Obama camp did not respond to repeated questions from CTV on reports that a conversation on this matter was held between Obama's senior economic adviser -- Austan Goolsbee -- and the Canadian Consulate General in Chicago.

Earlier Thursday, the Obama campaign insisted that no conversations have taken place with any of its senior ranks and representatives of the Canadian government on the NAFTA issue.

On Thursday night, CTV spoke with Goolsbee, but he refused to say whether he had such a conversation with the Canadian government office in Chicago. He also said he has been told to direct any questions to the campaign headquarters.

Back to the American Thinker:

CTV is also reporting that their high level source in the Canadian government is reconfirming the visit by the Obama staffer.

Audacious!

Related post:

NAFTA, the Dem debate and some Chicago steelworkers

Technorati tags: NAFTA Canada Mexico méxico trade Barack Obama politics Democrats news Barack Obama Hillary Clinton hillary hillary CTV unions Cleveland

Ex-Gov. George Ryan transferred to new prison

Three of the last seven Illinois governors have ended up in federal prison. The newest member of this club of ill-repute is Republican George H. Ryan, who left office in 2003.

The Chicago Sun-Times has an update on Ryan, best known outside of the state for his anti-death penalty activism.

Ryan had been incarcerated at the federal facility in Oxford, Wisconsin. Ryan's age, however, forced a move to the Federal Prison Camp in Terre Haute, Indiana. The health care facilities are better there, and prison officials want inmates who are over 70--Ryan is 74--at correctional centers like Terre Haute.

At Oxford, the former governor's work detail involved janitorial duties.

Ryan's successor, Democrat Rod Blagojevich, lied to the people of Illinois when he said that he'd "govern as a reformer" during his 2003 inaugural address. Although he has not been accused of wrongdoing, two men who are close to the governor, Christopher Kelly and Tony Rezko, have been indicted. The charges against Kelly do not involve political corruption.

Related post:

Ex-Gov. Ryan in prison, but will his successor be indicted?

Technorati tags: politics illinois Democrats Illinois Politics Tony Rezko George Ryan Blagojevich corruption crime Christopher Kelly

Pajamas Media Deep Background with Real Clear Politics' Tom Bevan

Tom Bevan, one half of Chicago-based blog Real Clear Politics, is the latest guest on Pajamas Media's Deep Background, a regular podcast presentation, and Austin Bay interviews the influential journalist.

Bevan discusses how he and his blog partner, John McIntrye, choose stories, come up with their poll averages, and of course, Bevan talks about this year's presidential election.

Naturally, since the outcome is somewhat in doubt, more time is devoted to the Democratic race, and Bevan, like almost everyone else, views it as Obama's to lose.

Hillary's position, according to Bevan, is that it's the bottom of the ninth inning in the World Series, Bevan argues, and there are two outs.

Listen to or download the podcast here.

Or do what I do--subscribe for free via iTunes, and listen while you're out and about. And for once, I didn't listen while I was running. I used the opportunity of this morning's pleasant walk home after dropping my car off for a regular service check.

Pajamas blogger Ed Driscoll produces the podcast.

Technorati tags: iPod itunes podcast blog Pajamas Media democrats Barack Obama Obama Politics Hillary Clinton Hillary

Jury will see photos of Rezko mansion at trial

The build-up to the corruption trial of alleged Democratic political fixer Tony Rezko continues. Federal judge Amy St. Eve ruled today that prosecutors will be able to show photos of Rezko's mansion in north suburban Wilmette. She cited, according to ABC News that "they are evidence of 'events that occurred' there and of his 'opulent lifestyle.'"

More from ABC News:

Rezko, charged in a scheme to bribe and corrupt Illinois officials, held numerous fundraising events at his Wilmette mansion, including one for the 2004 senate campaign of Obama that raised more than $60,000.

Obama is not considered a target of the federal corruption investigation, and his campaign staff says any contribution tied to Rezko has since been donated to charity.

In her ruling, Judge Amy St. Eve rejected Rezko's argument that showing the photos of his home "will generate additional media attention" and "add unnecessary stress and anxiety for the family during an already difficult time."

Here's some more information on that Obama fundraising event. From the Chicago Sun-Times:

The cocktail party Rezko hosted in 2003 came at a critical time for Obama. He and Rezko timed it to help Obama show he had enough money to compete in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate against millionaire Blair Hull and state Comptroller Dan Hynes.

"This was discussed a lot. They wanted to have a good showing," said a source familiar with the fund-raiser, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"Tony was one of the biggest fund-raisers."

At the time of the party, the state was in the process of foreclosing on a low-income apartment building Rezko's company rehabbed in Obama's state Senate district -- a rehab project on which Obama's law firm worked. Rezko had also abandoned many other low-income apartments, leaving numerous vacant units in need of major repairs.

Rezko's house is quite impressive. In a street full of mansions, Rezko's got the best one on the block.

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Illinois 2008 Election Democrats Chicago Tony Rezko corruption Rezko law legal Wilmette

School choice: Change Obama can't believe in

The Democratic Party has been beholden to the demands of the school teacher's unions for at least a couple of decades--the unions are a reliable source of funds, and votes, for the Democrats.

Luckily I live in an area with excellent public schools. Which is one of the reasons I moved from Chicago's North Side to Morton Grove. Not everyone is so fortunate, and some parents have not choice but to send their children to substandard government-run schools.

Obama talks about change, and to his credit he favors merit pay for teachers.

But as far as allowing parents to use vouchers to send their kids to private schools, well, Obama doesn't have the audacity to speak out in favor of that.

Friend of the blog Pat Hickey of ...With Both Hands writes in the Chicago Daily Observer, "The Public School Lobby is one of the most active and violently unforgiving of any candidate who would even consider school choice."

He also says:

The Chicago Archdiocese serves more than 100,000 students from every faith, family background, and financial situation. The Archdiocese also creates jobs for more than 8,000 persons who teach, administer and serve the Catholic School System. Those employees and the parents of Catholic school students pay taxes – which fuel the Public Schools. The public school sacred cow worshippers would have one believe that Catholic and other private schools serve the elite. That is not close to the case, unless, of course, great personal sacrifice is the rubric for elite.

Catholic school parents largely work more than one job. Catholic school parents are largely what one used to call middle class. The middle class in America is vanishing and public schools are doing their part to speed up that process. Catholic Schools and private schools in general need school choice – vouchers. Public school advocates scream ‘Parents have made their choice!’

Not true, but you have a tough time getting that through to Chicago news media. Choice in education will be a big part of the Presidential National Debate once the ring is cleared of all but the true contenders. John McCain stands for choice – which is anathema to the national Democratic Party (DNC) and candidates who wish to be elected under its aegis.

School choice: Change I can believe in.

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Illinois 2008 Election Democrats merit pay education McCain John McCain Chicago Catholic School choice

New York Times at it again: McCain's Canal Zone birth

No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.
United States Constitution, Article II, Section 1.

Here they go again. The New York Times, picking their cue from loony-left blogs, is now posing questions on whether John McCain, who was born on a US military base in a territory, the Panama Canal Zone, which was then a US possession, whose parents were US citizens, and whose father was an officer in the US Navy, is a "natural born citizen.

McCain's a natural American to me.

But it wouldn't hurt to clarify the eligibility requirements for president with a constitutional amendment. When the founding fathers wrote the constitution, they were living with the recent historic memory of three foreigners ruling from Windsor Castle--William III, George I (who barely spoke English), and his son George II, who spoke it, but with a heavy German accent.

The founders wanted to avoid this situation, and also, since the republic was barely a decade old, there was the understandable fear that a foreign US head of state could work from within to destroy the then-fragile nation.

We've matured as a people and a nation, so I think we can open up the eligibility to have someone who, for instance, has been a United States citizen for twenty-five years, to be able to serve as president.

McCain responded to the "accusation" appropriately:

"I have absolutely no concern about that. An American born in a territory of the United States, whose father is serving in the military, (that) could not be eligible for the Presidency of the United States is certainly not something our founding fathers envisioned," McCain said aboard his plane today, noting that 1964 GOP nominee Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona while it was still a territory.

Technorati tags: Politics history McCain Democrats news history constitutional law Panama New York Times media bias Panamá John McCain

Axelrod throws Ayers ball on ex-terrorist

It's not going to be easy for the Barack Obama campaign to explain Barack Obama's relationship with former Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, as Obama's media guru David Axelrod found out.

The married academics are unrepentant ex-terrorists.

A refresher: In 1995, Obama's predecessor Alice Palmer introduced him to prominent supporters in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. Palmer brought Obama to the Ayers and Dohrn home for as part of this get-acquainted tour.

A couple of commenters here scolded me because they said Obama, who was eight years old when the October 8-12 1969 Days of Rage brought the group then known as The Weatherman into prominence, and they couldn't have known who they were. When he was eight, like myself, he didn't.

Obama and I are the same age, and by the time I was in high school, when the pair was still in hiding, I knew all about them. Well, not everything, since the teacher in my history class didn't bring free love or LSD usage into the discussion, but a lot other stuff.

Obama he doesn't specifically bring up the Weather Underground in Audacity of Hope, but he does broach the subject of 1960s radicalism.

In my teens, I became fascinated with the Dionysian, up for grabs quality of the era, and through books, films, and music, I soaked in a vision of the sixties very different from the one my mother talked about: images of Huey Newton, the '68 Democratic National Convention, the Saigon airlift, and the Stones at Altamont. If I had no immediate reasons to pursue revolution, I decided nevertheless that in style and attitude, I, too, could be a rebel, unconstrained by the wisdom of the over-thirty crowd.

So he must have known who Ayers and Dohrn were years before he met them.

In 1999 Obama began a three year stint on the board of The Woods Fund, which Ayers chaired. And in 2001, Ayers accepted a $200 campaign contribution from Ayers.

Since Obama is leaving it up to surrogates to explain his ties to Ayers, we still don't know the complete story. Ben Smith of Politico tracked down David Axelrod. here's an excerpt:

"Bill Ayers lives in his neighborhood. Their kids attend the same school," he said. "They're certainly friendly, they know each other, as anyone whose kids go to school together."

He called Ayers current defense of his 1960s bombings "objectionable, and I think Barack would also say that was objectionable. I don't think he's ever had an in-depth discussion [with Ayers] about them." And he cast the whole subject in the context of Obama's broader message.

"We can relitigate again and again these 40-year-old battles," he said. "He thinks what was done then was wrong and outrageous, and he believes that you can’t defend the indefensible – but he’s looking forward, he’s not looking back."

Okay...but there is a problem, as David Nasaw answers back in The Guardian:

Ayers' son Malik is roughly my age (27), his son Zayd is three years older, and Rhodes Scholar Chesa Boudin, Ayers and wife Bernadine Dohrn's foster son, is also roughly my age.

I know this because I went to summer camp with Malik and Chesa when we were little boys, at Ramapo Country Day Camp right across the Hudson from New York City. Ayers held a teaching post at Columbia that year.

Meanwhile, Obama's daughters Sasha and Malia are 6 and 9, respectively.

Unless 63 year-old Ayers and Dohrn, who is three years older, have much younger kids that I'm not aware of, I think Axelrod is mistaken about their kids going to the same school.

Back to Smith at Politico:

Obama's kids went go the the University of Chicago Lab Schools, where Ayers kids, who are much older, had gone. However, Bernardine Dohrn is still active at the school, and an Obama aide said that was the connection.

That's not the type of publicity the prestigious private school wants. But a search of the U of C Lab Schools site came up witn no match for "Dohrn" or "Ayers."

As for Obama: It's you, not your staff, who have to answer questions on Ayers and Dorhn. You are such a compelling speaker, or so I hear. So speak.

Related posts:

Jonah Goldberg: Left wing terrorists never have to say "sorry"
Obama visited home of ex-Weather Underground terrorists in '90s
Obama's Bill Ayers problem
University of Illinois at Chicago's Bill Ayers: Not a jarhead
The Weather Underground and Ward Churchill-UPDATED!
Bernardine Dohrn watch
David Horowitz says you should know about Bernardine Dohrn and William Ayers
Moron Professor Bill Ayers
More on Bill Ayers' wife, Bernadine Dohrn
Update on another campus radical: Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground
SDS' 1968 Tragical History Tour

Technorati tags: democrats Barack Obama Obama Politics Illinois Bernardine Dohrn Bill Ayers terrorism history University of Chicago

Toledo newspaper writes love note, make that endorsement to Obama

Was this Toledo Blade endorsement ghostwritten by Barack Obama's campaign spokesman, Bill Burton?

This is opinion journalism?

Mr. Obama offers a breath of fresh air and new hope at a depressing time in the life of this nation. His selection would send an unmistakable signal to the world that America really may be living up to its promise of a just and truly pluralistic society.

And how many of his Senate bills have maded into law? Just one.

This is rich:

Additionally, Mr. Obama, a younger and more physically vigorous man, will be in a far better position to push Americans into solving one of the biggest problems we face: that of an unhealthy, morbidly obese generation of young people, a health crisis that is costing the nation billions. We applaud the fact that, urged by his talented wife, Michelle, he has quit smoking. That alone should be an inspiration to millions.

Since when is the president supposed to be some fitness coach? And by the way, we all know smoking is bad.

And some more ridiculousness:

America is badly in need of something new. We need this election to mark, at last, the end of the Vietnam period. Hillary Clinton is a product of that era and is, in a sense, still fighting its battles.

If so, why did Barack Obama show up at the home of two violent Vietnam War protesters as he gathered support for his first state Senate run in 1996? Obama's ties to former Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn are stoking those Vietnam War embers.

Toledo, we have a problem. We are electing a president here.

Oh yes, obesity is bad, and please don't eat too much fatty food.

The Toledo Blade is in fact dull.

Technorati tags: democrats Barack Obama Obama Politics Bernardine Dohrn Bill Ayers terrorism Weather Underground Ohio toledo

Conservative giant William F. Buckley dies at 82

The current incarnation of the conservative movement, which is alive and well by the way, was arguably founded by William F. Buckley, the founder of the National Review.

Before Ronald Reagan became a conservative icon, even before Barry Goldwater did, Buckley and the National Review were on the scene.

Among the great deeds Buckley performed for the leading the drive to purge the Republican of the John Birch Society, a xenophobic and anti-Semitic group.

Buckley died this morning at the age of 82, at home working.

No cause of death has been given, but Buckley had been suffering emphysema.

Rest in peace.

Technorati tags: books National Review conservatism politics William F. Buckley

Jonah Goldberg: Left wing terrorists never have to say "sorry"

Sorry seems to be the hardest word. Elton John, 1976.

Of course, since former Weather Underground terrorists Bill "Bomber" Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, are unrepentant regarding their terror days, the word "sorry" may not have a place in their thoughts about that part of their lives.

From Johah Goldberg in the Manchester Union-Leader:

Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon."

This excerpt from William Ayers' memoir appeared in the New York Times on Sept. 11, 2001 -- the day al-Qaida terrorists crashed hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Ayers, once a leader in the Weather Underground -- the group that declared "war" on the U.S. government in 1970 -- told the Times, "I don't regret setting bombs," and, "I feel we didn't do enough."

Ayers recently reappeared in the news because Politico.com reported Friday that Barack Obama has loose ties to him. Ayers, now a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is apparently a left-wing institution in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, and Obama visited Ayers' home as a rite of passage when launching his political career in the mid-1990s. The two also served on the board of the charitable Woods Fund of Chicago, which gave money to Northwestern University Law School's Children and Family Justice Center, where Ayers' wife (and former Weather Underground compatriot who glorified violence) Bernardine Dohrn is the director.

Obama has left it to his campaign lackeys to answer questions about Ayers and Dohrn.

The Audacity!

More...

What fascinates me is how light the baggage is when one travels from violent radicalism to liberalism. Chicago activist Sam Ackerman told Politico's reporter that Ayers "is one of my heroes in life." Cass Sunstein, a first-rank liberal intellectual, said, "I feel very uncomfortable with their past, but neither of them is thought of as horrible types now -- so far as most of us know, they are legitimate members of the community."

Why, exactly, can Ayers and Dohrn be seen as "legitimate members of the community"? How is it that they get prestigious university jobs when even the whisper of neocon tendencies is toxic in academia?

I live in the Chicago area, and I don't view Ayers and Dohrn as "legitimate members of the community." And while we may have more nuts living here, particularly in the Hyde Park neighborhood, there are fewer crazies in such swing states as Ohio and Missouri.

Obama, who by the way is supposed to be so smart, once again leaves unanswered questions about his judgement--and also, just how left-wing is the junior senator of Illinois?

Finally, Bernardine Dohrn has gotten a pass from the few media outlets that have covered this story. Here are excerpts from a Dorhn Weather Underground statement:

June 1970: At 7:30 a.m., radio station KPFK (Los Angeles) receives a call from a woman identifying herself as a member of the Weather Underground (Bernadine Dohrn): "Hello. I am going to read a declaration of a state of war. This is the first communication from the Weathermen Underground. The lines are drawn...revolution is touching all of our lives. ...Freaks are revolutionaries, and revolutionaries are freaks. If you want to find us, this is where we are. In every tribe, commune, dormitory, farmhouse, barracks and town house where kids are making love, smoking dope and loading guns. Fugitives from American justice are free to go. ...Within the next 14 days we will attack a symbol or institution of American injustice."

There's an audio of the statement within the link, where you can hear a monotonal Dorhn claim "revolutionary violence is the only way" and learn about Richard Nixon's "attempted genocide against black people."

Technorati tags: democrats Barack Obama Obama Politics Illinois Bernardine Dohrn Bill Ayers terrorism crime history left wing extremists Chicago illinois Weather Underground history

Obama's weaker America

Barack Obama favors a weaker America. Don't believe me? Watch this YouTube video.

If Obama wins the presidency this fall and runs for re-election in 2012, his Republican opponent might want to bring out this Ronald Reagan quote from his 1980 debate against Jimmy Carter:

Is America as respected throughout the world as it was? Do you feel that our security is as safe, that we're as strong as we were four years ago?

For those Bush-haters out there who will yell out "No" this year, remember, if you were around then, that Carter's America was viewed by friends and foe alike as a toothless lion.

H/T to Urban Agenda via American Thinker for the YouTube video.

Thanks for the link:

This Ain't Hell, But You Can See It From Here

Technorati tags: elections 2008 Politics Obama Barack Obama Democrats war on terror military Ronald Reagan Jimmy Carter

Blue star morning in Morton Grove

The folks living at this home in Morton Grove have a family member serving in the military. The blue star flag has been flying there for months.

Technorati tags: Americana culture Illinois photography photos Morton Grove military armed forces patriotism

Is Hillary's cackle proof she is a robot?

Is Hillary Rodham Clinton a robot?

In the posthumously-released Isaac Asimov novel, Forward the Foundation, First Minister to the Emperor Eto Demerzel is forced to confront the ludicrous accusation that he's a robot. Androids by this time in future-history have gone the way of the telegraph machine. But not quite--Dermezel really is a robot, and he needs to keep it a secret.

A demagogue decides to run propaganda videos with the tagline, "I don't want no robot running the empire."

This presents a problem for the only two people who are aware of Dermezel's real identity.

Since they're certain a reporter will ask Dermezel--who, because of the Law of Robotics, is forbidden to lie to humans, if he is a robot--they decide to instruct Dermezel to laugh uproariously when that question is asked. But he's a robot, and laughs, well robotically.

They coach Dermezel, and with a twinkle of lubriating oil in the eye added for effect, Dermezel has his act down. And when the inevitable question is asked, he enthusiastically laughs, and the accusation is forgotten.

Which brings us to Hillary Rodham Clinton's "cackle laugh," which made another unwelcome intrusion onto the television airwaves tonight during her debate with Barack Obama.

Her laugh is of course, robotic.

Is Hillary Rodham Clinton a robot? If she answers with that cackle, then we know for sure. But she needs to keep practicing, like Dermezel did, to appear genuine, and to defeat Obama.

But I don't want no robot running the country.

Technorati tags: politics Democrats Barack Obama Hillary Clinton hillary books science fiction Isaac Asimov humor humour robot Obama Barack Obama

NAFTA, the Dem debate and some Chicago steelworkers

I'm watching Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama talk all over the map, both here and Los Estados Unidos Mexicanos, about the North American Free Trade Agreement. As far as I can guess, they favor it, but they want to renegotiate it. I think.

This will help John McCain, whose been very supportive of NAFTA, since this question will come up in general election debates. His policy has been consistent.

Obama made some comments about his days as a community organizer, which ran from 1985 until the autumn of 1988, and that he saw the effects to the steelworkers on Chicago's South Side, "as a result of these trade agreements."

Which ones?

The US and Canadian free trade agreement, the forerunner of NAFTA, went into effect on January 2, 1988. Prior to that there were chargers of "dumping" Japanese steel, but I really have to wonder if Obama is misplacing events here. Chicago steel mills didn't suddenly shut down on January 3 of that year.

Technorati tags: NAFTA Canada Mexico méxico trade steel industry Barack Obama politics Democrats news Barack Obama Hillary Clinton hillary hillary

Jonah Goldberg in Chicago Wednesday

I cannot make it, but National Review writer Jonah Goldberg, who is the author of the best-selling book Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, will be in Chicago on Wednesday.

The event will be held at the Hunt Club, located at 1100 North State Street in Chicago. If you want to attend, please RSVP to kathleen@americasfuture.org. Copies of Liberal Fascism will be available for purchase and Jonah will be signing books. Jonah will begin his book talk at 7:00 p.m., cocktails begin at 6:00pm.

I'm reading the book now, it'll change the way you think about politics--I guarantee it.

Thank America's Future Foundation for bringing Goldberg to Chicago.

H/T to Jake at the Freedom Folks for the information.

Technorati tags: books National Review Jonah Goldberg conservatism politics

McCain apologizes for radio host's comments

I think John McCain handled this very well.

From AP:

"Now we have a hack, Chicago-style Daley politician who is picturing himself as change. When he gets done with you, all you're going to have in your pocket is change," Cunningham said as the audience laughed.

The time will come, Cunningham added, when the liberal-leaning media will "peel the bark off Barack Hussein Obama" and tell the truth about his relationship with indicted fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko and how Obama got "sweetheart deals" in Chicago.

McCain wasn't on stage or, he says, in the building when Cunningham made the comments, but he quickly distanced himself from the radio talk show host after finishing his speech. McCain spoke to a couple hundred people at Memorial Hall in downtown Cincinnati.

More...

"I did not know about these remarks, but I take responsibility for them. I repudiate them," (McCain) said. "My entire campaign I have treated Senator Obama and Senator (Hillary Rodham) Clinton with respect. I will continue to do that throughout this campaign."

Technorati tags: politics Democrats news Barack Obama Illinois 2008 Election Democrats Chicago Tony Rezko McCain

Controversial Iraqi billionaire tied to Obama home purchase?

Hillary Rodham Clinton is right--Barack Obama hasn't been fully vetted. I'm not sure HRC has been either, but it's safe to say her past, much of it sordid, has been dug up and placed on display by her opponents.

From The Times of London:

A British-Iraqi billionaire lent millions of dollars to Barack Obama's fundraiser just weeks before an imprudent land deal that has returned to haunt the presidential contender, an investigation by The Times discloses.

The money transfer raises the question of whether funds from Nadhmi Auchi, one of Britain's wealthiest men, helped Mr Obama buy his mock Georgian mansion in Chicago.

A company related to Mr Auchi, who has a conviction for corruption in France, registered the loan to Mr Obama's bagman Antoin "Tony" Rezko on May 23 2005. Mr Auchi says the loan, through the Panamanian company Fintrade Services SA, was for $3.5 million.

The Rezko empire had was sinking in 2005. The taint of federal investigation made him persona non grata in many circles by then. Not to Obama, of course.

It was Rita Rezko, not Tony, who purchased the "Rezko Lot" south of the Obama home on the same day the Obamas closed on the mansion. Late in 2005, the Obamas purchased a 10' strip of the lot, and it remains my belief that the Obamas and the Rezkos had an agreement to slowly buy the lot--reuniting the properties. In other words, a loan that allowed the Obamas to afford their dream home.

It was $3.5 million 2007 loan from Auchi to Tony Rezko that put the billinaire's name in the news here. The Wilmette businessman didn't disclose it to authorites, which led to the revocation of Rezko's bond. Rezko, who lives in a stately mansion, is now jailed in the Metropolitan Correctional Center.

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Illinois 2008 Election Democrats Tony Rezko Nadhmi Auchi real estate real estate blog UK

Tony Rezko news

A week from today, jury selection will begin in the corruption trial of Democratic political insider Tony Rezko. Y'know, Obama's pal.

But for all of the talk of Barack Obama and Rezko, let's not forget the reason he's on trial--he allegedly abused his close relationship with another Democrat, Gov. Rod Blagojevich, to steer state pension fund business so he and his associates could enrich themselves with the finder's fees.

Blagojevich and Rezko are pictured above.

In court papers regarding the accusations against the North Shore businessman, it's been widely assumed that the "Public Official A" referenced within is Blagojevich. Well, Judge Amy St. Eve dropped all pretenses--"Blago" is the "A-man."

Obama has not weathered the Rezko storm. Although the pro-Hillary Clinton blogs have done some fabulous work on Obama's Rezko ties, they've barely touched on Blagojevich, because he's a Democrat. Not a very well-loved one, even in Blue Illinois. Republican operatives and bloggers will not hold back in attacking Blago via Rezko; in fact, they'll take great pleasure in it, as I am now.

As I've remarked before, an indictment of Blagojevich is an "October surprise" the Obama camp should worry about.

Even if there isn't, once the Rezko trial is over, there will be, guess what, another Rezko trial, this one involving his Papa John's restaurants, something the mainstream media, outside of Chicago of course, hasn't paid attention to at all.

Like Susan MacDougal and Webster Hubbell, characters from the Whitewater Scandal, Tony Rezko is a name we'll be hearing for a long time.

And one name that may come up in Rezko's first trial is Barack Obama.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

In a nine-page ruling this afternoon, U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve said she would allow federal prosecutors to present evidence about a portion of a $375,000 finder’s fee that a Rezko associate, Joseph Aramanda, obtained through an alleged kickback scheme orchestrated by Rezko.

She also ruled that prosecutors can ask questions about how money from that fee allegedly was used “to make a political contribution” in Aramanda's name "because Rezko had already donated the maximum amount by law and he could not make the contribution himself."

The ruling does not identify Obama as the recipient of that contribution. But sources have identified Obama as the "political candidate" who prosecutors say received a $10,000 contribution from Aramanda — at Rezko’s direction — during his 2004 run for U.S. Senate. Obama has donated that contribution to charity.

Aramanda lives in Glenview, the town just north of Morton Grove. His son served as an intern for Obama in Washington during the summer of 2005.

Technorati tags: democrats Barack Obama Obama Politics Tony Rezko Republican GOP Hillary Clinton hillary law legal corruption Papa John's GE Capital

More Obama Israel problems

Somehow I missed all of this yesterday.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

On Sunday, Ralph Nader, announcing another run for president on NBC's "Meet the Press," was critical of Obama's strong support for Israel, saying Obama "was pro-Palestinian when he was in Illinois before he ran for the state Senate."

So true. In 2000, Palestinian activist Rashid Khalidi, then a Hyde Park resident and now a Columbia University professor, held a fund-raiser for Barack Obama's unsuccessful 2000 run for Congress. More on that here.

The Obama campaign responded this way:

Barack Obama's long-standing support for Israel's security is rooted in his belief that no civilians should have to live with the threat of terrorism.

Hmmm...does the name Bill Ayers ring a bell?

Obama is distancing himself from his controversial campaign adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski.

More from the Sun-Times:

I do not share his views with respect to Israel. I have said so clearly and unequivocally," Obama said. "He's not one of my key advisers. I've had lunch with him once. I've exchanged e-mails with him maybe three times. He came to Iowa to introduce ... for a speech on Iraq."

His former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright,see more on him in the below post, was addressed too.

Wright, Obama said Sunday, "is like an old uncle who sometimes will say things that I don't agree with. And I suspect there are some of the people in this room who have heard relatives say some things that they don't agree with, including, on occasion, directed at African Americans. ... I am not suggesting that's definitive."

It's not the last time we'll hear about these subjects.

Related posts:

Obama's Israel problem

Obama visited home of ex-Weather Underground terrorists in '90s

Obama's Bill Ayers problem

Technorati tags: Israel מדינת Jewish Jews Barack Obama politics 2008 election Democrats Obama news خبر حقوق بشر محمود فتوى מדינת Rashid Khalidi Columbia Bill Ayers terrorism

Farrakkan praises Obama

Each February, the Nation of Islam celebrates its Saviour's Day, and its leader, Louis Farrakhan, manages to make news. This time it involves Barack Obama.

Here are some past Saviour's Day "highlights" from Calypso Louie:

2007: (Farrakhan predicted) "the fall of the great Babylon, the United States of America."

2006: "These false Jews promote the filth of Hollywood that is seeding the American people and the people of the world and bringing you down in moral strength…It's the wicked Jews the false Jews that are promoting lesbianism, homosexuality. It's wicked Jews, false Jews that make it a crime for you to preach the word of God, then they call you homophobic!"

Because an NOI member was a member of the Illinois Hate Crimes commission, those comments led to several resignations from the panel.

1996: See, sanctions is a weapon of mass destruction. America is angry with Saddam Hussein because his people love him. And they want to punish the Iraqi people to make the Iraqi people rise up and overthrow Saddam. They had a so-called election, a referendum. Ninety-nine percent of the people vote for their man. You can't get that in America. They love their man.

Here is an excerpt from yesterday Farrakhan's Saviour's Day speech:

If you look at Barack Obama's [diverse] audiences and look at the effect of his words, those people are being transformed from what they were. This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better.

Free registration may be required for the Chicago Tribune link.

There is just no way, however, that Obama will roll up Saddam Hussein-type numbers even in a Democratic primary. Sorry Louie.

To its credit, the Obama campaign fired back, via its spokesman Bill Burton:

Senator Obama has been clear in his objections to Minister Farrakhan's past pronouncements and has not solicited the minister's support.

But Obama should unequivocally rebuke Farrakhan's support, just as Ronald Reagan did when the Ku Klux Klan endorsed him.

Obama is a member of the Trinity United Church of Christ of Chicago, which follows an Afro-centric brand of Christianity. Its former pastor, Dr. Jeremiah Wright, routinely speaks of "white arrogance" and has repeatedly called the country Obama wants to lead as "the United States of White America." The senator denounced it, but TUCC awarded Farrakhan a lifetime achievement award last year.

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Democrats election 2008 religion christianity african american race Farrakhan Nation of Islam Ronald Reagan anti-semitism racism history Ku Klux Klan

Sunday Night's Odds and Sods

Once again, it's time for our weekly trip around the blogosphere.

Because I missed the last Democratic presidential debate, I didn't feel comfortable blogging about it. Barack Obama launched a whopper of a tall tale about how our military allegedly, and I must emphasize, allegedly, is scanvenging supplies from the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Aaron at Lifelike Pundits has the video and his take of things here.

The phrase about Israel, "A Land without a People for a People without a Land," didn't come from Zionists, although those opposed to the Jewish state, and many others, like to think so. Martin Solomon of Solomonia explains, and he scores an exclusive interview with essayist Diana Muir, who explores the origins of the phrase in the latest, but not online yet, edition of Middle East Quarterly.

Billy Dennis at Peoria Pundit posted his 10,000th entry last week.

Anthony H. Cordesman is one of the Democrats' favorite military experts--because of his pessimism. Now, as Flopping Aces reports, he's much more optimistic about our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Quick--tell Barack Obama!

I'm not the only one disturbed by what I call Barack Obama's "Cult of Change." So is Right Wing Nation, and he digs a bit a couple of other personality cults for some context.

More odds and sods next Sunday.

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama 2008 Election Democrats Cult of Change culture Iraq war on terror Afghanistan Peoria Israel מדינת

Pat Hickey novel reviewed

Pat Hickey, friend of the blog, John McCain supporter, and the pride of Chicago's South Side, is a novelist as well.

And his book from last year, The Chorito Hog Leg, Book One a Novel of Guam in Time of War, is reviewed, appropriately enough by The Pacific Daily News of Guam. The action takes place on the Pacific Island.

Technorati tags: Guam history World War II books McCain John McCain Republican

Raul Castro new dictator of Cuba

Wow, I didn't see this coming. (Sarcasm off.) Raul Castro has replaced his brother as dictator of Cuba.

Any hope, however dim, of reform in the impoverished nation has been dashed. The second in command is Jose Ramon Machado, like Raul, he's a veteran of the 1950s revolution that saw Fidel Castro assume power.

I'm just wondering if Cuba is going to end up like China, where the primary qualification for leadership once was being a veteran of the 1930s Long March. Only a painstakingly slow grim reaper allowed a new generation of ChiComms to take over.

As for the statue on the right, which I found in Cozumel, I imagine it will remain in place for a while--as long as the Communists misrule Cuba.

Related posts:

Failed leader Castro calls it quits

Obama's flip flop on normalization with Castro's Cuba

Technorati tags: Cuba cubano Castro Fidel Castro left wing lefties current events China 中國 中国 Cozumel Raul Castro

Nader running for president

Everyone needs a hobby. Ralph Nader has his. After winning 0.3 percent of the vote in his 2004 presidential trial, Nader will be trying again.

And America yawns.

Related post:

Nader may be a presidential race invader

Technorati tags: Nader politics 2008 Election current events news

No red state high tide for Obama

The Washington Post, not the New York Post, throws some cold February water on the delusion that Barack Obama will do well in red states such as Kansas and Mississippi in November.

Alec MacGillis reports:

Obama posted big wins over Clinton in caucuses in Plains and Mountain states such as Kansas, Nebraska and Idaho, but Republicans in those states scoff at the suggestion that victories in the small universe of Democrats there translate into strength in November. In Tennessee and Oklahoma, Obama lost by wide margins to Clinton, who lived in nearby Arkansas. He narrowly won the primary in the swing state of Missouri, but did so thanks to the state's solidly Democratic cities, losing its more rural, and more conservative, areas to Clinton.

More...

The red states where he has won have tended to be in the Deep South, where victories were based on overwhelming support from African Americans, or in mostly white states in the Midwest and West, where he relied on a core of ardent backers to carry him in caucuses, which favor candidates with enthusiastic supporters. He has not fared as well in areas that fall in between, with populations that are racially diverse but lack a black population large enough to boost Obama to victory.

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama 2008 Election Democrats

Rezko sought state job for Obama home seller's real estate agent

As I've remarked more than once, Barack Obama's jailed pal, Antoin "Tony" Rezko, has a lot of tentacles.

Here is the latest, courtey of UPI:

Indicted Illinois fundraiser Tony Rezko once sought a state post for the agent who sold a home to presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, court records showed.

Court papers filed in Rezko's corruption case indicated he asked Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration to appoint Donna Schwan Jackson, a real estate agent, to the Illinois Council on Developmental Disabilities, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Friday.

Jackson is included in a list of people Rezko and others tried to get appointed to state boards and commissions, Blagojevich administration records obtained by federal prosecutors showed. Jackson didn't get the appointment.

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said the revelation about Jackson doesn't change anything about the purchase of the senator's mansion on Chicago's South Side. Obama, D-Ill., was represented by a different real estate agent.

Tune in next week for more Obama-Rezko news.

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Illinois 2008 Election Democrats Chicago Tony Rezko corruption real estate real estate blogging

HamNation video: What can dirt do for you?

It appears that only John McCain stands in the way of the Cult of Change moving into the White House in eleven months. How can he be stopped? By dousing him with some dirt, courtesy of the New York Times.

Mary Katherine Ham explains in her video.

Technorati tags: elections 2008 Republican McCain New York Times politics Media bias

Obama visited home of ex-Weather Underground terrorists in '90s

More than a few liberal commentators on this blog commented that I was making something of almost nothing regarding Barack Obama's tie-ins with Bill "Bomber" Ayers (pictured in 1968) and his fellow ex-Weather Underground terrorist and wife, Bernardine Dohrn.

As for their terror past, both are unrepentant.

It turns out I was not grasping at straws. The Cult of Change leader is going to have trouble explaining this away during the general election campaign. But then again, if he's commander-in-chief of our armed forces next year, Obama can utilize his experience in working with former terrorists as he directs our War on Terror.

From Politico:

In 1995, State Senator Alice Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to a few of the district's influential liberals at the home of two well known figures on the local left: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

While Ayers and Dohrn may be thought of in Hyde Park as local activists, they're better known nationally as two of the most notorious — and unrepentant — figures from the violent fringe of the 1960s anti-war movement.

Now, as Obama runs for president, what two guests recall as an unremarkable gathering on the road to a minor elected office stands as a symbol of how swiftly he has risen from a man in the Hyde Park left to one closing in fast on the Democratic nomination for president.

"I can remember being one of a small group of people who came to Bill Ayers' house to learn that Alice Palmer was stepping down from the senate and running for Congress," said Dr. Quentin Young, a prominent Chicago physician and advocate for single-payer health care, of the informal gathering at the home of Ayers and his wife, Dohrn. "[Palmer] identified [Obama] as her successor."

Palmer chose to initially not to run for re-election for her State Senate seat and ran for the vacant 2nd Congressional District in 1995 office. Jesse Jackson, Jr. won the special election that fall, and Palmer decided to hang on to her state legislative seat. However, the Obama campaign challenged Palmer's petitions, and she did not appear on the spring 1996 Democratic Party ballot. In that heavily Democratic district--Obama was guaranteed a trip to Springfield.

Thanks for the link:

Peoria Pundits

Related posts:

Obama's Bill Ayers problem

Momentous special election: 1995 Illinois' 2nd Congressional race

Technorati tags: democrats Barack Obama Obama Politics Illinois Bernardine Dohrn Bill Ayers terrorism crime history left wing extremists Chicagoillinois Weather Underground

Advantage McCain over New York Times

The New York Times has been a reliable source of news, with a very liberal editorial board, for at least a century. It last endorsed a Republican candidate for president in 1956, Dwight D. Eisenhower got the nod.

There's nothing wrong with that. The Chicago Tribune used to be conservative as the Times is now liberal--it last endorsed a Democratic presidential candidate in 1872.
The Trib now just leans right, or at least its editorial board does.

But sometime during the Clinton years in the White House, the Times moved from a news source activating liberalism on its op-ed page to becoming an agent of change for the left.

Not coincidentally, Arthur Ochs "Pinch" Sulzberger Jr. was nemed publisher of the "Old Gray Lady" in 1992, and was elevated to chairman of the board five years later.

The New York Times problem is that unlike The Nation or The National Review, it still presents itself a straight news source, not as an opinion publication.

Mixing news and activism poses its risks. An eloquent supporter of affirmative action, the Times practices what it preaches. But the Jayson Blair fiasco hit the paper's reputation hard. Blair, an African-American, managed to become a reporter for the Times, despite not having a college degree.

Yesterday's New York Times article, which alluded of a McCain affair with a female lobbyist nine years ago, is a story that that the paper had been working on for two months. It is the latest chapter of why mainstream news producers should be cautious when they decide to become news-swayers.

As many others have remarked, the timing of the story's release raises questions. Did the Times wait until McCain had all but clinched the Republican nomination before it published it? Or did The New Republic, which was working on a story about the New York Times story, prompt the Times to move on it?

Journalistic activism is risky. The acted upon can act back, and not only has McCain's response to the Times article been nothing short of perfect--and probably better than admitted-philanderer Bill Clinton would've handled it--but conservatives, including some previously hostile to the McCain candidacy, have rallied around the presumptive Republican nominee in the wake of the attack. Not just verbally, but financially as well.

Technorati tags: elections 2008 Republican McCain New York Times politics Media bias Jayson Blair

Has Obama's Cult of Change peaked?

Rick Moran, and others, thinks what I call the Barack Obama Cult of Change has peaked.

He writes:

The list of politicians who sought to demagogue their way to power is a long and unsuccessful one. For that reason, "Obamamania" was bound to come back to earth at some point. And I think it will be sooner rather than later.

He collected a couple of other similar observations, including this one from Margery Eagan in the Boston Herald:

I'm nervous because too many Obama-philes sound like Moonies, or Hare Krishnas, or the Hale-Bopp-Is-Coming-To-Get-Me nuts.

These true believers "Obama-ize" everything. They speak Obama-ese. Knit for Obama. Run for Obama. Gamble - Hold 'Em Barack! - for Obama. They make Obama cakes, underwear, jewelry. They send Valentine cards reading, "I want to Barack your world!"

At campaign rallies people scream, cry, even faint as Obama calmly calls for the EMTs. When supporters pant en masse, "I love you!" (like The Beatles, circa 1964), Barack says, “I love you back” with that deliciously charming, almost cocky smile.

Oh - I'm nervous because it’s all gone to his head and he hasn't even won yet.

Nor has he gotten a second US Senate bill enacted into law. And he's yet to give a full explantion of his 18 year relation with jailed political insider Tony Rezko.

Paul Krugman of the New York Times zeroes in on the phenonmenon:

I'm not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality.

It is just that. Now we have to ask how this happened. Who decided to transform Obama from a "rock star" into the leader of the Cult of Change? Was it his chief strategist, David Axelrod? Robert Gibbs?

Or, heaven forbid, Obama?

Related post:

Obama and the Cult of Change

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Illinois 2008 Election Democrats media Cult of Change culture

Happy Birthday, George Washington

Today is the birthday of the Father of Our Country, George Washington, who was born in 1732 in Westmoreland County, Virginia.

Happy Birthday!

Related post:

Happy Evacuation Day!

Techorati tags: George Washington history on this day virginia

Food deserts continue to plague Chicago

And i know a fine thing when i see it.
See it!
For the same reason no one ever
Pointed a telescope at the sun
The Clash, Red Angel Dragnet, 1984

In 2006, the Chicago City Council, at the urging of organized labor, passed a law that effectively placed higher wage requirements on "big box" stores such as Wal-Mart and Target. Both are non-union retailers, and the left, trying to achieve through legislation what it is unable to accomplish through fair elections (meaning secret ballot), and negotiation, coaxed the Council to install a "living wage" ordinance on the big boxes.

Mayor Richard M. Daley did the sensible thing, he vetoed the bill--using that power for the first time since he was elected in 1989.

Wal-Mart in particular draws the ire of the left--the leadership of the retail king has a history of being friendly to the Republican Party.

Chicago's City Council has a duty to the citizens of America's third largest city--it needs to act in their best interest. And the "living wage" bill would not have done that.

More Wal-Marts and Targets are needed in Chicago and other large cities. Why, because of something I've blogged about before: Food deserts.

From CBS 2 Chicago:

Many people in Chicago take for granted that they can run a quick errand and pick up fresh fruits and vegetables in their neighborhood. Half a million people here cannot do that because they live in what's called a "food desert" -- an isolated area with no major grocery stores, but a lot of fast food, on practically every corner.

That describes the poorest parts of Chicago--the West and South Sides.

More from the same article:

"If you live in these communities you're more likely to suffer from hypertension, diabetes, certain kinds of cancers, so it's very serious," said Mari Gallagher of MG Research and Consulting.

MG Research looked at all 18,000 blocks in the city. The study found that fresh fruits and vegetables are very difficult to find in food deserts because the major grocery stores fled the inner city. "I'm embarrassed, outraged," said Congressman Bobby Rush. "You can buy French fries, but you can't buy fresh potatoes. You can get ketchup, but no tomatoes. Something is wrong with that."

Well he's right about that.

And finally:

The city hopes to lure independent, medium-sized stores to the grocery deserts. With childhood obesity reaching the epidemic stage, time is critical. And studies show that healthy eating promotes better learning.

Medium-sized supermarkets would be an improvement. But Safeway-owned (and unionized) Dominick's closed a dozen such stores in Chicago in late 2006, and only the big boxes seem to want to put down stakes in the food deserts. And despite the veto of the "living wage" ordinance, the City Council, which has to approve the necessary zoning changes to allow even medium sized grocers to expand in Chicago, remains hostile to Wal-Mart and the big boxes.

And the food deserts remain.

Oh here's some irony. Hyde Park, where Barack Obama lived until he bought (with some help) that Kenwood Mansion, was identified by MG as a food desert. It may not be now, because the unionized Hyde Park Co-op closed down, and was replaced by the Treausure Island chain, which decertified its union last year.

Obama, who may be the next president of the United States, is a foe of Wal-Mart, the world's largest corporation.

Very troubling.

Final thoughts. I'm not advocating the companies pay their employees less as a rule. But for Wal-Mart, Target and the like to make money, and continue to hire employees, they need to have wages set at a certain level. It's better to have a low or moderate paying job, then none at all. And it's certainly better to have a big box store in a neighborhood, than a bunch of fast-food outlets.

Some people will never understand.

Thanks for the link:

WindyPundit

Related posts:

Obama's Wal-Mart connection: Wife served on board of big Wal-Mart supplier
Chicago's "food deserts" well known to Obama
My book report: The Wal-Mart Revolution: How Big Box Stores Benefit Consumers, Workers, and the Economy
The good life of working for the UFCW
Union leaders don't share their members pain
Chicago food desert update: Hyde Park Co-op to close
Big-box shy Chicago facing "food desert"

Technorati tags: Wal-Mart unions labor politics elections retail business Obama barack obama democrats Chicago Illinois food deserts big box Safeway Target Richard Daley Bobby Rush

Obama recommendations are on Rezko's "clout lists" UPDATED

In 2006, Barack Obama told the Chicago Tribune that he had not "done favors for [Rezko] of any sort." But did Rezko, who is now in jail awaiting trial, do any favors for Obama?

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Indicted businessman Tony Rezko’s lawyers are asking a federal judge to bar from the political fund-raiser’s fraud trial extensive lists of hiring recommendations made by political figures to Gov. Blagojevich’s administration.

More...

Rezko lawyers noted that federal prosecutors have submitted as evidence 26 pages of "clout lists" that identify people who Rezko and other political figures wanted placed in the governor’s administration.

Those lists show that dozens of people, including Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama, Senate President Emil Jones (D-Chicago) and House Minority Leader Tom Cross (R-Oswego), recommended people for jobs and appointments to state boards and commissions.

Don't hold your breath for a detailed explanation from the Obama campaign.

UPDATE February 22:

From the Chicago Tribune, free registration may be required:

In addition, a former Democratic congressional candidate now on Barack Obama's presidential campaign staff in Chicago was listed as getting help from Rezko in 2003 and 2004, when he was seeking jobs in the Blagojevich administration.

Peter Dagher, who ran unsuccessfully against Rahm Emanuel in 2002, never landed a staff job despite the alleged assistance of Rezko. Dagher said in a brief written statement that he did not know that Rezko had recommended him for a job and that he barely knew him.

"I interviewed for about a half-dozen jobs with the state, none of which I got," said Dagher, who was an aide to Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater in the Clinton administration.

Obama's name also appeared on the other list as an apparent political sponsor for a candidate to a state insurance board. There was no indication that the candidate got that or any other position.

Admittedly, on its own, this isn't huge stuff against Obama. But it' just another piece in the Rezko-Obama puzzle. And Obama is supposed to be above "politics as usual." And so far, there appears to be just one Obama recommendation on this list, many other names are familiar to those following the Rezko scandal, such as Dr. Paul Ray and Joseph Aramanda--men who donated to Obama's campaign. Aramanda's and Paul's contributions were later donated to charity.

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Illinois 2008 Election Democrats Chicago Tony Rezko corruption

"Bears" released on ungrateful Berkeley

A bear diet consists of liberals and Dems...We need to drastically increase the numbers of bears in America, especially in key spots such as the Berkeley campus.
From a hate e-mail read by ecologist Marc Gaede, friend of Timothy Treadwell, the subject of the documentary "Grizzly Man."

The bears, metaphorically speaking, have been released on the loony-left city of Berkeley, California.

Last month, the City Council of Berkeley passed a resolution calling for the US Marines to close down its recruiting center, located a block from the University of California-Berkeley campus, and referred to the Marines as "uninvited and unwelcome intruders."

Earlier this month, the council voted not to send a letter with those words to the Marines, but the verbiage stands.

The timing couldn't have been better for Move America Forward's counterattack. Although a separate fighting force, the Marines are administratively part United States Department of Navy--scroll down one post, the Navy is having a good day, shooting down a satellite that could've reentered the atmosphere and scattered its debris anywhere, including Berkeley.

MAF has produced an ad denouncing the Berkeley City Council, which is up on YouTube. Do you want to show your support? Then sign their petition here. Or you can donate to Move America Forward by clicking here.

In Washington, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), is working to block federal earmark funds from reaching Berkeley, as has Rep. Tom Feeney, (R-FL).

H/T to ThirdWaveDave

Related post:

Move America Forward caravan comes to the Chicago area

Technorati tags: news Berkeley california Marines military politics left wing extremists Jim DeMint

Ka-boom! Navy shoots down wayward satellite

Hopefully rogue state leaders like Kim Jong-il, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Bashar Assad are following the news that the crew of the USS Lake Erie shot down a wayward satellite--on the first attempt--earlier today.

The satellite, which was within days of reentering the Earth's atmosphere with a an almost fuel tank of toxic hydrazine, has been obliterated. Nothing larger than a football is left.

Well done. America--and the world--has some heroes to thank.

Technorati tags: Navy military USS Lake Erie space news current events

Phyllis Schafly speaks at DePaul University

A legend in the conservative movement, but by no means out of touch today, Phyllis Schlafly spoke at DePaul University Tuesday night, and I was pleased to be in attendance.

Best known today for her role in leading the fight to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and early 1980s, her public life advocating conservative causes predates that episode, and she's still fighting the fight today.

Early on in her speech, Schlafly voiced a regret:

I was hoping that the students with the women's studies department would come tonight, so they could hear another view.

It probably would've been the only opportunity for those students, and their professors, to hear something that varied from the hard-left feminist groupthink that all women's studies departments are hobbled by.

We later found out one showed up.

Schafly spoke on a whole range of topics, including the Larry Summers travesty at Harvard, the destructive effects of the Title IX on men's college athletics, particularly wrestling, and the little-acknowledged fact that boys and girls, men and women, are somewhat different from each other.

I asked a question about regarding the almost complete silence of feminists groups (and women's studies departments) regarding mistreatment of women within Muslim communities.

Her response was:

Maybe if they did talk about that, maybe it would show how well women are treated in the United States. (Applause)

Well put. That prompted the one women's studies student in the audience to ask a question.

The photograph was taken by Jake Jacobsen of Freedom Folks. Jake and "The Bald Chick" videotaped Mrs. Schlafly's speech, it's available here. My part, you only hear my voice, is in Part 5.

She had her book, Feminist Fantasies, on sale that night. I picked up a copy.

Technorati tags: Chicago illinois college education DePaul conservative Phyllis Schafly Eagle Forum current events books

New York Times "hit" piece on McCain

Nothing to see here folks, just move along...

Seriously. Is this the best the New York Times can come up with against McCain? Hints of an affair? Having former lobbyists work for him? A rehashing of the 1980s Charlie Keating scandal? If so, it's going to be a glorious autumn.

Then there is this....

Like other presidential candidates, he has relied on lobbyists to run his campaigns. Since a cash crunch last summer, several of them — including his campaign manager, Rick Davis, who represented companies before Mr. McCain's Senate panel — have been working without pay, a gift that could be worth tens of thousands of dollars.

Nothing to see here...

Technorati tags: elections 2008 Republican McCain New York Times politics

Glenn & Helen Show podcast on how to raise a millionaire

Little Marathon Pundit is asking for an allowance. After listening to the latest Glenn & Helen Show, what Mrs. Marathon Pundit and I need to do is to nurture her entrepeneurial instincts.

While I was traversing the landscape below, I was listening to the latest Glenn & Helen Show podcast.

Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds and his wife, Dr. Helen Smith, interview Troy Dunn, father of seven who is the author of Young Bucks: How to Raise a Future Millionaire.

They imagined to impress the author. Unlike most interviewers, Dunn said, Glenn and Helen read his book.

And I listened to the podcast--you can do so here, or you can find it on the iTunes web site and subscribe to the Glenn & Helen Show for free in the bargain.

Technorati tags: iPod itunes podcast blog books children parenting family

Today's view from my ten mile run

The water is too cold for swimming, but the North Branch of the Chicago River offered a great view a couple hours ago in the Bunker Hill Woods during my ten mile run this afternoon.

Technorati tags: Chicago River rivers Chicago Illinois photography photos snow Niles

Kucinich press release: Dennis facing "toughest re-election"

"Look Out, Cleveland, the storm is comin' through,
And it's runnin' right up on you."
The Band, Look Out Cleveland, 1969

The people of Cleveland's west side and the surrounding suburbs may have finally had enough of its nutty congressman, erstwhile boy-mayor Dennis Kucinich.

In addition to the much-anticipated Ohio presidential primary, Buckeye Staters will vote in statewide and congressional contests as well. And Kucinich, who a month ago was running (not very well) for president, is now fighting, again, for his political life.

From the Cleveland Plain Dealer Politics Blog:

Rep. Dennis Kucinich's campaign acknowledged today that the six-term congressman faces his strongest opposition to date in his race to hold onto his 10th Congressional district seat.

In a press release about a campaign appearance, spokesman Andy Juniewicz says Kucinich is "facing the toughest re-election campaign in nearly 12 years in the U.S. House."

Kucinich faces four candidates in the March 4 Democratic primary: Cleveland Councilman Joe Cimperman; Barbara Ferris, founder/president of the International Women's Democracy Center; Rosemary Palmer, former teacher and journalist; and North Olmsted's Thomas O'Grady.

Cimperman seems to be Kucinich's strongest foe.

Related posts:

Cleveland Marathon: The Directors Cut
Kucinich congressional re-election trouble
Kucinich using Homeland Security to investigate opponent
UFO sighter Kucinich questions Bush's mental stability
Exit Kucinich

Technorati tags: Kucinich democrats elections 2008 politics Ohio Cleveland Congress Joe Cimperman

Underweargate in Chicago?

Am I missing something here?

These days, though, Antoin "Tony" Rezko is sharing underwear with other inmates while in solitary confinement at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, his lawyer said Tuesday.

"It's just disgusting," attorney Joseph Duffy said as he pleaded with a federal judge to release Rezko to home confinement with a special protection team before his public corruption trial begins in two weeks. "It's just a real degrading way for anybody to try to survive."

Rezko once appeared in court in pinstriped power suits. On Tuesday, he appeared unkempt, unshaven and in a wrinkled orange jumpsuit. He held his face in his hands as he sat in the courtroom.

Luckily I've not spend a minute in jail or in prison, so I'm unaware of the laundry situation in these institutions.

I might be going out on a limb here, but if I'm reading this right, according to Duffy, Rezko is being forced to wear dirty underwear while being in incarcerated in Chicago's Metropolitan Correctional Center. Filthy undies worn by someone else first? Yes, that is disgusting.

Or is the Wilmette businessman being compelled to wear someone else's underwear after being washed, presumably in hot water and with bleach. Personally, I prefer my own clean underwear, and I'm not alone in this thought. Go to a rummage sale or a flea market. You'll find used shirts, pants, and dresses on sale, but not secondhand underwear.

It's jail, counselor. Rezko, violated his bail agreement.

Technorati tags: politics Illinois Democrats Chicago Tony Rezko men's underwear jail laundry

Obama supporter exposes his idol as an empty suit

After years of hosting Hardball on MSNBC, Chris Matthews finally does some good journalism. Kirk Watson is a state senator from Texas, not some dreamy eyed MySpace Obama supporter. As a public official and a legislator, don't you think that Watson would be able to name any national legislative accomplishments the Cult of Change leader can list on his résumé when prompted?

Watson, along with Hillary Clinton supporter Rep. Stephanie Tubbs, appeared on Hardball last night as the returns from the Wisconsin Primary trickled in. Transcript courtesy of Captain's Quarters:

Matthews: "Well, name some of his legislative accomplishments. No, Senator, I want you to name some of Barack Obama's legislative accomplishments tonight if you can."

State Sen. Watson: "Well, you know, what I will talk about is more about what he is offering the American people right now."

Matthews: "No. No. What has he accomplished, sir? You say you support him. Sir, you have to give me his accomplishments. You've supported him for president. You are on national television. Name his legislative accomplishments, Barack Obama, sir."

State Sen. Watson: "Well, I'm not going to be able to name you specific items of legislative accomplishments."

Matthews: "Can you name any? Can you name anything he's accomplished as a Congressman?"

State Sen. Watson: "No, I'm not going to be able to do that tonight."

Matthews: "Well, that is a problem isn't it?"

More from Rick Moran at the American Thinker:

Indeed it is, Chrissy - for Obama. For John McCain and the GOP, it is a great opportunity to show the American people just how empty Obama's emphasis on "change" really is. McCain has had a legislative career where he has led the fight on many issues and has had his name attached to several bills (some of them, like McCain-Feingold, are less than popular with conservatives).

Obama can cut and paste his policy positions on his website all he wants and it still won't give him any accomplishments in the Senate. And you can bet that McCain will try and get the voters to focus on that aspect of Obama and not his Messiah-like personality or speaking ability.

As for the man who made a fool of himself last night: Watson is from Austin, the most liberal city in Texas.

For the record: Only one of Obama's bill has written has been made into law since 2005.

UPDATE 1:30 PM CST: My apologies. I had a misplaced link, and a misplaced source--Rick Moran instead of Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters. Both are great writers, by the way.

UPDATE 2:45pm CST: HRC saw the clip, and uses the ammo from it in a speech she made today in New York.

Related post:

MSNBC Maladies

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Illinois 2008 Election Democrats MSNBC chris matthews hardball Kirk Watson media John McCain McCain

Schakowsky's husband Robert Creamer on Obama and liberalism, again

One of the tactics of Barack Obama's Cult of Change is to rebrand liberalism as "Hope." That's because liberal ideas--more goverment control of our lives (which means higher taxes), less individual responsibility among citizens, appeasing our enemies, etc., are unpopular among the citizenry. In fact, libs like ex-con Robert Creamer now call their creed progressivism--they are aware of what the "l" word means to most voters. "L" also stands for losing, which is what the liberals have been doing for quite some time. 2006? The Democrats won control of Congress last year by recruiting centrist candidates such as Heath Schuler of North Carolina.

Now we have "Hope," which is wonderful tonic for a candidate who has gotten just one of his bill enacted into law since entering the Senate in 2005. Last month the National Journal analyzed Senate votes, and it determined that Barack Obama was the nation's most liberal senator in 2007.

Creamer writes in The Huffington Post:

Then came Obama, with his ability to inspire Americans to devote themselves to our values in a way that resonates with average people. His self-confident appeal to hope and possibility -- his "yes we can" -- have captured the imagination of millions of Americans. His ability to inspire has allowed him to simultaneously engage swing "persuadable" voters and the millions of stay-at-home "mobilizable" voters who would support progressive candidates if they could just be motivated to vote.

People want to be inspired. Inspiration is about making people feel empowered to be more than they are. They want to be inspired because they desperately want meaning in their lives. They want to be part of something larger than themselves and they want to feel that they can play a significant part in that larger purpose.

Meaning comes from being devoted to something outside of yourself -- to a cause, to a person, to a religion, to your art.

In 2006, Creamer served a five month sentence for check-kiting and tax evasion. As I blogged last week, last year Tom Roeser discovered that Creamer was working as an instructor for Camp Obama, an training conference for Obama volunteers. He did his time, but voters who haven't caught the "Hope" but want to know what role, paid or unpaid, does Creamer, who is the husband of Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), have in the Obama campaign.

I hope I get to find out.

Related post:

Ex-con Creamer gushes about Obama in Huffington Post

Technorati tags: Schakowsky Jan Schakowsky Congress democrats politics liberal Illinois Obama politics Barack Obama 2008 Election Democrats Robert Creamer

McCain, Obama win Wisconsin

The latest defeat for Hillary Clinton has to hurt. For the ninth contest in a row, she lost to Barack Obama. But now Obama is cutting into her base--white blue collar workers and women. HRC is hoping to do well in Ohio, one of her touted "comeback" states, and Wisconsin's electorate is very similar to the Buckeye State.

Her desparation is showing, as it appears she had a role in media reports about Obama lifting lines from speeches of fellow Democrat, Governor Deval Patrick of Massachussetts. But she's going to have to do better than that to even slow down Obama. The Cult of Change followers don't care who writes Obama's speeches, or that they are second-hand ones.

On the Republican end, John McCain won in Wisconsin, and the news is breaking just now that he'll win in Washington state.

On the media end of things, thank God the Wisconsin Primary is over. Yes, we get it, Wisconsin has cold winters. Just ask a fourth grader.

UPDATE February 20: Obama won in Washington and Hawaii as well.

Technorati tags: democrats elections 2008 Hillary Clinton Hillary Obama Barack Obama Republican Wisconsin Washington McCain John McCain

High water levels on a cold river

It warmed up enough on Sunday to allow heavy rains to hit the Chicago area. But it's 13 degrees right now, so the high levels of the North Branch of the Chicago River might have sheets of ice added to it.

I took this photograph of the river in Niles, just south of Howard Street.

Technorati tags: Chicago River rivers Chicago Illinois photography photos snow Niles

Obama's flip flop on normalization with Castro's Cuba

With news today that Fidel Castro is resigning his leadership of the nation he led down the road to tyranny and impoverishment, it's time to talk about Barack Obama's flip flop on normalization of relations with Cuba.

Here's what Obama told the Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization in 2004:

Our longstanding policies toward Cuba have been a miserable failure, evidenced by the fact that Fidel Castro is now the longest-serving head of state in the world. If our isolationist policies were meant to weaken him, they certainly haven’t worked. I believe that normalization of relations with Cuba (emphasis mine) would help the oppressed and poverty-stricken Cuban people while setting the stage for a more democratic government once Castro inevitably leaves the scene.

More Democratic? Cuba isn't Democratic at all.

Here's an interchange between a Democratic presidential debate moderate and Obama that took place two months ago:

MODERATOR: Normalize relations, whether or not Fidel Castro isn't... OBAMA: No, but there are two things we can do right now to prepare for that and that is loosen travel restrictions for family members, Cuban-Americans who want to visit, and open up remittances so that they are able to support family members, many of them who are fighting for their liberty in right now. MODERATOR: But for now...OBAMA: I would not normalize relations, (emphasis mine again) but those two things, those two shifts in policy would send a signal that we can build on once Castro's out of power. [Iowa Black and Brown Presidential Forum, 12/1/07]

Here is a portion of the statement Obama released this morning on Castro's adiós:

If the Cuban leadership begins opening Cuba to meaningful democratic change, the United States must be prepared to begin taking steps to normalize relations and to ease the embargo of the last five decades. The freedom of the Cuban people is a cause that should bring Americans together.

Castro's brother Raul has been the de facto leader of Cuba for over a year. I don't expect any "meaningful democratic change" once the expected occurs, Raul succeeds Fidel.

I'm waiting, patiently, for Obama to explain his flip flop on normalization with Cuba.

Technorati tags: democrats Barack Obama Obama Politics Cult of Change current events Cuba cubano Castro Fidel Castro

Michelle Obama finally proud to be an American

And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free.
And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.
And I'd gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today.
'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land, God bless the U.S.A.
Lee Greenwood, God Bless The USA, 1992.

That song isn't on Michelle Obama's iPod.

The leader of the Cult of Change's wife had this to say yesterday at an appearance in Milwaukee yesterday:

For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country, because it feels like hope is making a comeback.

If you listen closely to the YouTube audio, you'll hear cheers.

It's a revelation when you see hard-left statements leak out of a presidential campaign.

The day after officially launching his presidential campaign, Barack Obama said this:

We ended up launching a war that should have never been authorized, and should never been waged, and on which we have now spent $400 billion, and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted.

Hillary Rodham Clinton "air of inevitibility" began to sink when she was caught doubletalking between the left-wing stance on driver's licenses for illegals and the one most Americans agree with--they shouldn't get them.

In varying degrees, each statement was explained away.

But not forgotten.

In fact earlier this morning, Cindy McCain introduced her husband to an audience of supporters in Brookfield, Wisconsin, telling them "I'm proud of my country, I'm very proud of my country."

Related post:

Obama's Wal-Mart connection: Wife served on board of big Wal-Mart supplier

Technorati tags: democrats Barack Obama Obama Politics John McCain McCain Republican GOP Hillary Clinton hillary Wisconsin Cult of Change

Failed leader Castro calls it quits

When Fidel Castro assumed power in 1959, after his forces overthrew the corrupt regime of Fulgencio Batista, Cuba had one of the highest standards of living in the western hemisphere. Now it is next to last in the New World, only sad Haiti is poorer.

One man is responsible: Castro

Via a letter run on state-run Cuban television (there are no private broadcast outlets on the island), Castro announced that he will not accept another term as president, citing poor health. He's gone on Sunday, but his brother Raul is expected to succeed him.

Here is an unfortunate legacy of Castro's 49 years at the helm: Like his Argentine murderer pal Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Castro will remain an iconic hero to the loony left. These same people, who rail about "Bushhitler," have selective memories--they never speak out against the many political prisoners incarerated in Castro's "worker's paradise."

Technorati tags: Cuba cubano Castro Fidel Castro left wing lefties current events Che Guevara

Latest Obama-Rezko property deal explanation falls flat, again

The followers of the Cult of Change are celebrating the latest Bloomberg.com article that supposedly explains everthing about the Obama-Rezko real estate deals that continue to dog the presidential aspirations of Barack Obama.

After more than a year of silence, the sellers of the Kenwood mansion and the adjoining "Rezko lot" on the southern end have spoken publicly about their end of the deal--sort of.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton says the campaign contacted the sellers, Fredric Wondisford and Sally Radovick. A campaign advisor spoke with Wondisford on the telephone, and in an e-mail exchange supplied to Bloomberg.com, affirms the claim by Obama that the sellers didn't give the senator, or Rezko, a special price.

Case closed, right?

Wrong.

I wasn't aware that there were allegations that Obama got a sweetheart deal for the mansion.

Neither Wondisford Radovick didn't speak to Bloomberg.com directly, so there was no opportunity for follow up questions, such as, "Was the possibility ever discussed by you, Rezko, or the Obamas that they'd later reunite the house with the Rezko lot?"

"Why did you offer the lot separately from the house? When?"

Fair questions. A reporter needs to dig.

It is still my firm belief that the goal of the Obamas was to slowly buy back the Rezko lot bit by bit. I call that a loan. Remember, six months after the Obamas purchased the mansion, the bought a 10 foot strip of the lot.

If that's true, it's perfectly legal. But Obama chose to do business with a man that he had to have known was under federal investigation at the time. Great judgement, Barack. Of course Obama claimed until very recently that he had no idea the feds were looking into Rezko's affairs. He must not read Chicago newspapers.

Obama said this not even a month ago on Good Morning America:

Nobody had any indications that [Rezko] was engaging in wrongdoing....

One clarification that needs to be made. Tony Rezko's wife Rita, not Rezko himself, was the owner of the Rezko lot. Why? Was she some sort of smokescreen? If so, she wasn't a very effective one.

Related posts:

Why Rezko is an issue for Obama
Obama's Cult of Change doesn't include transparency
More Rezko drippings
President Obama, January, 2009: Who will he appoint as US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois?
Obama returns some more Rezko-tied funds
Obama once again donates Rezko linked funds to charity
Ill. corruption watch: Obama donates Rezko associate's contribution to charity
Obama donates more Rezko tainted donations to charity
Obama gives up donation from man with Rezko ties
Obama ditching more Rezko linked cash, but what about Hillary and IPA?
Rezko cash three times what Obama claims
The real story of an Obama Chicago fundraising event
Obama: Answer Rezko questions now--yourself: UPDATED
Obama can't shake Tony Rezko
Obama vows to clean up Washington as president
"Consigliere" Rezko still shadowing Obama
Feds hit Tony Rezko with six more charges

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Illinois 2008 Election Democrats Chicago Tony Rezko corruption real estate real estate blogging

Chicken feed from the mean, nasty left

Yesterday my traffic got a huge spike for no apparent reason. I found out this afternoon why. A blog that I've never heard of called Sadly, No! selected me for their target of abuse.

They didn't like my latest Bill Ayers post. But if I got them upset enough to doctor my Facebook photograph to make me some sort of gay street performer, then I must be doing something right for the cause of securing a Republican victory in November.

And for all of the talk of how mean and nasty conservatives are, just read the comment thread of the offending post to see where bile rises from. I do want to take back one thing I said there. I blurted out that Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, were cockroaches. I take that back--Cockroaches have never made bombs, so it was unfair to that resilient species to lump them in with Ayers and Dohrn. Please forgive me, my brown, six-legged friends.

As for Sadly, No: Well, one of their ads portrays a Democratic donkey in the dominant carnal position with a GOP elephant.

Who are the vicious ones?

On the other hand, a blog hit is a blog hit, and please patronize the advertisers.

Oh, the headline of my post. Sadly, No! is accusing me of choking chickens. Metaphorically speaking of course.

I think I'll hang out at Democratic Underground. They're so much kinder there.

Technorati tags: Politics Bernardine Dohrn Bill Ayers terrorism left wing extremists

Phyllis Schlafly at DePaul on Tuesday

Conservative icon, and onetime Illinois Congressional candidate, Phyllis Shlafly will be speaking at DePaul University on Tuesday. Little Marathon Pundit has a 4:00pm doctor's check up in Glenview, after that's over, I'm heading down to DePaul's Lincoln Park campus to listen in.

Mrs. Schlafly is best known for her leadership of the Eagle Forum, and of course, her successful opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and 1980s.

The event begins at 7:00pm, and will be held at the Cortelyou Commons is located at 2342 N. Fremont Street, on Chicago's North Side.

After the presentation, Schlafly will sign copies of her books, and she's written a lot of them, that will be available for purchase.

Schafly's appearance is courtesy of the DePaul Conservative Alliance, and coincides with the annual performance at DePaul (this is getting real old) of "The Vagina Monologues."

Technorati tags: Chicago illinois college education DePaul conservative books Phyllis Schafly Eagle Forum current events Vagina Monologues

Happy Presidents Day!

It's President's Day in America--and Morton Grove, Illinois. We don't have a Lincoln or Washington statue in town, so a street sign will have to do today. We have a Washington Street, but Lincoln gets the nod today, since we're in the midst of his bicentennial celebration.


Technorati tags: Abraham Lincoln history Americana culture Lincoln Bicentennial Illinois photography photos Morton Grove

Obama's Israel problem

I also expect that the Democratic party will abandon its historic sympathy for Israel, implying that the considerable continuity in U.S. policy toward the Jewish state is a thing of the past; in the future, it will lurch one way and the other, depending on which party controls the White House. Daniel Pipes, 2003.

Pipes' prediction hasn't come true--yet. But it's my belief that one day a majority of the Jewish electorate will wake up and realize that when they're voting Democratic, they're not voting no longer voting for Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The Republican Party's tough stand against terrorism will make the GOP increasingly attractive to Jewish voters, despite an idiotic statement by Ann Coulter, in the years ahead.

The Democrats specialize in pandering, and as they build their 21st century version of the Roosevelt coalition, Muslims are being welcomed into their "big tent." There is nothing wrong with that, but what of American-Israeli relations?

In the 2000 election, Al Gore got caught playing both sides of the issue of where the US embassy should be located--Tel Aviv or Jerusalem?

It was just a preview of what the Democrats can expect during this presidential campaign.

Senator John McCain says he is "proudly pro-American and pro-Israel." Will the Democratic candidate this fall, right now it looks like Barack Obama, say the same thing?

If you go by his Israel fact sheet, you might say he will.

But questions remain.

Let's start with Rashid Khalidi. Even when considering the extreme left-wing tilt of most college universities, Columbia University stands out as a bastion of radicalism.
This is the school that invited Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the man who says Israel will be wiped off the map, to speak there last year.

Khalidi is a slippery character, who dances around the truth when talking about terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

Obama's first run for Congress was in 2000, he failed in his attempt to unseat Bobby Rush in Illinois' first congressional district. Khalidi, then living in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, held a fundraiser for Obama at his home.

From Jewish Week:

Ali Abunimah, a Hyde Park Palestinian-American activist, said that until a few years ago, Obama was "quite frank that the U.S. needed to be more evenhanded, that it leaned too much toward Israel." It was vivid in his memory, said Abunimah, because "these were the kind of statements I'd never heard from a U.S. politician who seemed like he was going somewhere rather than at the end of his career."

In 2000, Abunimah recalled, Professor Rashid Khalidi, a leading Palestinian American advocate for a two-state solution and harsh critic of Israel, held a fundraiser in his home for Obama, embarked then on an ultimately unsuccessful bid for the House of Representatives. "He came with his wife," Abunimah said. "That's where I had a chance to really talk to him. It was an intimate setting. He convinced me he was very aware of the issues [and] critical of U.S. bias toward Israel and lack of sensitivity to Arabs. ... He was very supportive of U.S. pressure on Israel?"

Khalidi, now the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University, and head of that school's Middle East Institute, declined to comment on Abunimah's recollections. But in an interview in Tuesday's Daily News, he said he hosted the fundraiser because he and Obama were friends while the two lived in Chicago. "He never came to us and said he would do anything in terms of Palestinians," Khalidi told the paper.

Nevertheless, one Hyde Park source close to Obama, speaking only on condition of anonymity, recalled, "He often expressed general sympathy for the Palestinians -- though I don't recall him ever saying anything publicly."

Not good. Oh, how much money was raised at the Khalidi fundraiser?

Then there is Obama's Trinity United Church of Christ and its controversial former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. He may not be in charge of the church any more, but he'll still be around, and his presence will be felt. The Black Value System is still on the TUCC's web site.

Last year the Nation of Islam's Louis Farrakhan, a racist and anti-semite, was honored with a lifetime achievement award by Trinity United. To his credit, Obama did repudiate Farrakhan last month.

Wright regularly compares Israel to Apartheid-era South Africa, despite the fact that Palestinians living in Israel enjoy greater freedoms than their brethern living elsewhere in the Middle East. Yes, I'm well aware that Arabs living in the occupied territories greatly suffer, but after decades of leadership under the PLO, then Hamas, at some point reasonable people have to look at the Palestian leadership, the men who chose terror over compromise, as the source for the agony in Gaza and the West Bank. People like Wright and Khalidi fail to see that.

And finally, one of Barack Obmam's foreign policy advisers is Zbigniew Brzezinski, a long time critic of Israel. Yes, he has other advisers, but none of them were in Syria last week meeting with President Bashar al-Assad.

A lot of Jewish voters may not see past Obama's Israel problem.

H/T to No Quarter USA for the Khalidi information.

Technorati tags: Israel מדינת Jewish Jews Barack Obama politics 2008 election Democrats Obama news iran خبر حقوق بشر محمود فتوى מדינת Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Louis Farrakhan Rashid Khalidi Columbia McCain John McCain Republican Chicago

Sunday Night's Odds and Sods

Here we go again, it's time for Sunday Night's Odds and Sods, our weekly trip around the blogosphere.

Bill "Bomber" Ayers, scroll down two posts, is reluctantly back in the news. Fellow Illinois bloggers Anne Leary of Backyard Conservative and Bill Baar have their Ayers posts up.

Breaking: Jim Morrison is not dead, he's the manager of a minor league baseball team, Basil's Blog reports. Chicago White Sox fans over age 40 will know what I'm talking about.

A year ago Iraq was a mess. By autumn, the country was noticeably less violent, but the Iraqi government hadn't met many of the benchmarks Washington was asking for regarding building a viable state. Neo-Neocon reports there is progress in those benchmarks, even if no one else is aware of it.

From Right Wing News, I came across the very bizarre Is Barack Obama the Messiah? blog. I can't tell if it's for real or a parody. Either way, I guess I'm an unbeliever in regards to the Cult of Change.

Israel Matsav has some Israel Defense Force videos on his blog that shows that International Solidarity Movement radical Rachel Corrie died in Gaza not protecting a house from an IDF Caterpillar D9 bulldozer, but protecting an entrance to a tunnel leading to a weapons cache.

More Odd and Sods next Sunday.

Technorati tags: democrats Barack Obama Obama Politics Bill Ayers terrorism left wing extremists Chicago White Sox white sox Rachel Corrie israel International Solidarity Movement מדינת Iraq

Kosovo's independence

Kosovo declared independence today, affirming the status that it has had since 1999 in all-but-name. The ethnic Albanians who comprise over 90 percent of the nation's populace suffered terrible discrimination under the brutal regime of Slobodan Milosevic, but the few Serbs who are left since NATO drove his forces out of the nation face terrible discrimination themselves.

Time to step up, Kosovo.

Technorati tags: kosovo serbia Srbija Kosovë Косово news current affairs Albania

Obama's Bill Ayers problem

"Memory is a motherf*cker."

That's the opening line of Bill Ayers' 2001 book, Fugitive Days, about his execrable days as a Weather Underground terrorist. Now a (gasp!) tenured education professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, he's a campaign issue for Barack Obama.

Ayers, along with his fellow former Weather Underground terrorist wife, Bernardine Dohrn, are among the two most despicable people in living in America. And Obama served on a board with him. That will play well in rural Ohio--for John McCain.

While the Arizona senator was being tortured by his North Vietnamese captors, Ayers was openly cheering for a Communist victory over our troops.

In 1969, four years before McCain was set free by the NVA, Ayers and the Weather Underground brought the terroristic "Days of Rage" to Chicago.

Three years before McCain's release from captivity, future education professor Ayers exclaimed, "Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at."

One year before McCain achieved freedom, Ayers participated in a bombing of the Pentaton. Of that day, Ayers wrote:

Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon.

The sky was blue. The birds were singing. And the bastards were finally going to get what was coming to them.

If there isn't a viral video out there about all of this, it's only because someone is making it now.

Jump ahead to 2000...In addition to his professoship, Ayers is The Woods Fund board chairman, and a young state senator, who like Ayers is living in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, is a fellow board member--that person of course is Barack Obama. Why any organization would have Ayers serving on their board (he's not chairman any more, but Ayers is still on The Woods Fund board), is astonishing to me and any other person with common sense. And who'd want to serve with him? That year, Ayers and Obama (who should've abstained) voted to invest $1 million in Woods Fund money into a firm run by a former boss of the then-state senator, Allison Davis. In a different business venture, Davis partnered with Tony Rezko.

In 2001, Ayers gave a small donation to Obama's campaign fund, $200.

That same year, ironically in comments published on September 11, 2001, Ayers had this to say about his bombing past, "I don't regret setting bombs, I feel we didn't do enough."

Later on that tragic day, John McCain tells the world on CNN that the attacks the day were "an act of war." That evening, members of Congress sing "God Bless America" on the steps of the US Capitol.

The next day, McCain wrote:

We will prevail. We will prevail because the foundations of our greatness cannot be vanquished. Our respect for Man's God-given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness assures us of victory even as it has made us a target for the unjust enemies of freedom who have mistaken hate and depravity for power. The losses we have suffered are grave, and will never be forgotten. But we should take pride and unyielding resolve from the knowledge that we were attacked because we are good.

It'll be a real motherf*cker of a YouTube video.

According to Ayers' blog, he'll taking part in the finals of the Louder Than a Bomb Youth Poetry Slam in Chicago on March 9.

Well, he is an expert on bombs.

Related post:

Obama's Chicago blues: Ayers and Rezko
RezkoWatch: Terrorist donations to Obama campaign?
University of Illinois at Chicago's Bill Ayers: Not a jarhead
The Weather Underground and Ward Churchill-UPDATED!
Bernardine Dohrn watch
David Horowitz says you should know about Bernardine Dohrn and William Ayers
Moron Professor Bill Ayers
More on Bill Ayers' wife, Bernadine Dohrn
Update on another campus radical: Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground
SDS' 1968 Tragical History Tour

Thanks for the links:

Andrew C. McCarthy in National Review Online--Wow!
The Autonomist Blog
Infidel Bloggers Alliance
Rantings from the Lunatic Fringe
JAX Conservative
Pleasant Valley Sunday
Avid Editor
Woody58
Villagers with Torches
Seeing Red AZ
A World of Epic Fail
Luke Ford

Technorati tags: democrats Barack Obama Obama Politics Illinois Bernardine Dohrn Bill Ayers terrorism UIC crime history McCain John McCain Vietnam War Tony Rezko poetry left wing extremists

What has Barack Obama done for you?

Well, I believe he has gotten just one of his bills enacted into law in his three years as a senator, but he's done so much more!!!

Click here to find out what he's done for you on this site. Keep clicking!

Or as Mojo Nixon once sang, "Elvis is everywhere, Elvis built Stonehenge."

H/T to Eric Zorn's Change of Subject.

Technorati tags: democrats Barack Obama Obama Politics culture humor humour funny

First and ten...and time to sue

I was just thinking this morning that this is the first weekend in months where there'd be no football games--or news on the sport. But I'm wrong on the last one.

From AP:

A lawsuit filed Friday by a former St. Louis Rams player and others seeks millions of dollars in damages from the alleged taping of Rams practices by the New England Patriots before the 2002 Super Bowl.

The Patriots won the game 20-17 in the Superdome.

The $100 million suit, filed on behalf of former Rams player Willie Gary in U.S. District Court in New Orleans, names the Patriots, team owner Robert Kraft and head coach Bill Belichick.

Technorati tags: NFL sports new england patriots Rams football law legal

Ex-con Creamer gushes about Obama in Huffington Post

My congresscritter is the über-liberal, oops, make that über-progressive, Jan Schakowsky of Evanston. Her husband is political activist Robert Creamer, who spent most of the second half of 2006 living at the Federal Correctional Institute in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Illinois conservative journalist Tom Roeser discovered that Creamer was a "Campaign Culture" instructor, where the consumer advocacy CEO talked about "'persuadable' and 'mobilizable' voters, application of quantitative approaches, and different forms of messaging and research."

Über-yawn!

Okay, Creamer has paid his debt to society. But Obama's Cult of Change is supposed to represent "a new kind of politics." I haven't fallen for it.

Here's what Roeser wrote last summer:

Creamer taught at "Camp Obama," a week-long summer camp last month held at the presidential candidate's office in Chicago for campaign interns and volunteers-just a few blocks away from the federal court where on August 31, 2005 he pleaded guilty to charges of bank fraud and failure to pay federal taxes...on charges brought by U. S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. He admitted in his 18-page signed plea agreement that he wrote checks on accounts that lacked funds and did so repeatedly as he moved money from one account to another in three banks. He had a multiple group of organizations that received money, the best known being the "Illinois Public Action Council" a left-wing group on which his wife, Jan Schakowsky, was a board member while the manipulating was going on. She was already in Congress when he pleaded guilty; she was not charged.

Creamer's retention to instruct the Obama for President campaign is probably the most revelatory hint that the hopeful, idealistic, whimsical message floated by the candidate is mere vapor obscuring a cynical operation...unless, of course, the Obama people had no idea of Creamer or what his past represents.

Creamer’s being hired by the Obama campaign to instruct interns and volunteers in political organizing, abuses of which sent him to jail is ironic. Sen. Obama has been notable among the presidential candidates for crusading in an effort to "bring hope to our people." He has been chairman of the Senate Ethics committee. How Creamer ended up instructing the Obama workers when his notoriety has been so prominent in Illinois is anyone’s guess. And whether he still continues to work on the Obama payroll is still speculative. One would imagine that David Axelrod, the top Obama strategist, should have seen Creamer's hiring as a red flag.

Is Creamer still part of the Obama campaign?

Creamer in his Huffington Post article from yesterday talked more about those "persuadables" and "mobilzables."

Pulling at emotional strings is a time-proven strategy of the liberals, which is what Creamer does here:

By inspiration I mean something very specific. Being inspired is about feeling empowered. When you are inspired by a speech or story or movie it isn't the "facts" or proposals that affect you. It's how experience makes you feel. When you're inspired you feel that you, or the country, or your group can overcome obstacles and do things you previously couldn't do. You feel that you can be more and achieve more than you could before.

Sheesh...sounds like the kind of goo a guy feeds a woman when he's inspired to get in her pants.

And don't sell facts short, Creamer. As John Adams once said, "Facts are stubborn things."

Here a fact I want to possess: The role, if any, that ex-con Robert Creamer has in the Obama campaign.

Related posts:

Liberals laud book by ex-con husband of Rep. Jan Schakowsky

Ex-con and congresswoman's husband Creamer taught at Camp Obama

Technorati tags: Schakowsky Jan Schakowsky Congress democrats banking liberal Illinois Obama Barack Obama 2008 Election

Obama's Cult of Change doesn't include transparency

It's going to be a fun autumn. Political consultant Howard Wolfson, who is the communications director for the Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign, had this to say yesterday about the leader of the Cult of Change, Barack Obama:

Much is known about (HRC's) finances. There's an awful lot of information disclosed by her, and if Senator Obama is actually, really interested in transparency, there are many questions -- for instance, about his relationship with indicted political fixer Tony Rezko that he could answer, that he has not. What was the exact nature of his relationship with Mr. Rezko? How many fundraisers did Mr. Rezko throw for him? How much money did Mr. Rezko bundle for him? How many business meetings did Senator Obama attend that Mr. Rezko was at? What was he doing at those business meetings? What favors did Senator Obama perform for Mr. Rezko? So there's an awful lot of information that, if Senator Obama is interested in transparency, that he could come forward and offer the American people.

Related post:

Obama and the Cult of Change

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Illinois 2008 Election Democrats corruption Hillary Clinton Hillary Cult of Change

Around the bend

"Come on the risin' wind,
We're goin' up around the bend."
Around the Bend, Creedence Clearwater Revival, 1970

Come to think of it, there wasn't much wind rising this afternoon during my ten mile run, but there was of course a bend in the North Branch of the Chicago River in Morton Grove.

Technorati tags: Illinois photography photos Morton Grove nature weather snow

Letters, we get letters....

"The law is a ass." Charles Dickens' character Abel Magwitch, Great Expectations.

There is a very touchy Iraqi-born billionaire who has an even touchier law firm representing him. It should be obvious why I'm not going to mention his name in this post, as I don't want to add to the pressure other individuals are under.

RezkoWatch got the type of letter, actually an e-mail, that no blogger ever wants to receive, which RW wrote about here.

Larry Johnson of No Quarter USA got a real letter from that businessman's barrister, which is, at least for now, lovingly posted here.

Being far from an expert in American law, and even less so with British law, I'm still surprised to learn that you are not a "buddy" of someone who is only a business partner. Why this is a point of contention for an attorney is absolutely mind-boggling.

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Illinois 2008 Election Democrats Tony Rezko law legal UK blog

NIU gunman identified

Steven Kazmierczak, 27, was the "skinny white man" who opened fire on students in a Northern Illinois University lecture hall at the center of the campus, known as the mall, yesterday. Before killing himself, the former NIU student, who was recently a graduate student in sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, killed five others, and wounded many more.

According to media accounts, Kazmierczak recently stopped taking his unnamed mental health medication.

A terrible tragedy.

And some sicko has set up a Facebook account in Kazmierczak's name.

Techorati tags: DeKalb NIU northern illinois university news Illinois

Obama's Chicago blues: Ayers and Rezko

Nothing new, of course, to the readers of Marathon Pundit, but this Bloomberg News report covers some of the items in Barack Obama's background that his campaign would prefer to keep hidden--Tony Rezko, of course, but also his contacts with the repugnant Bill Ayers, the former Weather Underground terrorist, and Obama's race-based Trinity United Church of Christ.

Obama's endorsement of Alexi Giannoulias for Illinois State Treasurer also is mentioned. Giannoulias was an officer at his family-owned Broadway Bank in Chicago, and approved a loan to Michael "Jaws" Giorango, a convicted bookmaker and reputed mobster. Shortly after be becoming a US senator, Obama said he didn't want to be "a kingmaker." But by endorsing Giannoulias over the party slated candidate, he did just that. Even after Alexi won the primary, the state Democratic Party chairman, Michael Madigan, refused to endorse Giannoulias. He won anyway.

Ayers' donation of $200 to Obama's state senate campaign occurred in 2001; the Daily Mail first alluded to the contribution earlier this month.

From 1999 to 2002, Ayers and Obama served on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, a not-for-profit group. In 2000, Obama, rather than abstaining, voted to invest $1 million in Neighborhood Rejuvenation Partners L.P., a firm run by Obama's former law firm boss, as well as an early contributor to his campaign, Allison S. Davis. In a different venture, Davis was in business with Tony Rezko.

Way outside of Chicago, but still in Illinois, is the impoverished town of Cairo. Obama waxed about his Senate campaign visit there in his last book. He was there for a rally held in his honor by Ed Smith of the Laborers Union. Smith is an accused vote-buyer.

Related posts:

RezkoWatch: Terrorist donations to Obama campaign?
Obama's state treasurer pal needs a memory upgrade
"Obama's candidate" Giannoulias needs to explain alleged mob ties, says state house speaker
Why Rezko is an issue for Obama
Obama and the Laborers Union Ed Smith
Hypocrite Obama won't tolerate election theft

Technorati tags: democrats Barack Obama Obama Politics Illinois Bill Ayers terrorism crime Tony Rezko law Alexi Giannoulias

Obama mole sabotaging Hillary campaign with bad song?

This song is so awful that you have to think that the Barack Obama campaign has a mole in the Hillary Clinton camp who wrote it.

The video is almost as bad. Funny, but unintentionally so.

H/T to Brainster.

Technorati tags: democrats Barack Obama Obama Politics Hillary Clinton Hillary culture humor humour

Romney endorses McCain

Nine days after Super Tuesday, Mitt Romney announced he's endorsing John McCain for president. He's on the bus.

I'm watching the senator on Larry King Live, and he's coming across as clear and confident.

Technorati tags: John McCain McCain Republican GOP CNN Larry King Mitt Romney

Northern Illinois University shootings: UPDATED

This is still a breaking story--At least three people were shot this afternoon on the campus of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, about 60 miles west of Chicago.

From the NIU web site:

3:50 p.m. CST

Its has been confirmed that there has been a shooting on campus and several people have been taken away by ambulance. All classses are cancelled on the DeKalb campus. People are urged not to come to campus. More information will be posted as it becomes available.

I'm watching ABC 7 Chicago, the regularly programmed news show is dedicating all of its airtime, commerical free, to the shootings.

The shooter, who is believed to have committed suicide, is being described as "a skinny white guy" who shot his victims while they were attending classes in Cole Hall Four students are being treated with gunshot wounds to the head at Kishwaukee Hospital, about 15 victims have been sent there. However, Kishwaukee is not a trauma center.

The spokesman for the DeKalb police says the gunman "is deceased." For a short time, the campus was on lockdown.

UPDATED 5:15PM: CBS 2 Chicago is reporting two additional fatalities.

UPDATE 5:45 PM: The Chicago Sun-Times interviewed NIU student George Gaynor from southwest suburban Homer Glen:

There were about 150 people in the classroom. Gaynor was about 30 rows from the stage toward the back. He was attending Geology 104: Introduction to Ocean Sciences, which is taught by Professor Joseph Peterson.

"The gunman walked through a door on the stage and started shooting toward the students," Gaynor said.

He did not say a word. "He shot one round and I turned around and ran" Gaynor said. "Other people in the room said he fired more rounds."

"The shotgun looked like an assault style shotgun like what a police officer would use," Gaynor said, describing it as a short-barreled gun that the shooter held with two hands. "Not look like what a farmer would carry."

UPDATE 7:00 PM: The Chicago Tribune is reporting five deaths, including the gunman.

UPDATE 8:00 PM: Northern Illinois University's president now says the death toll is six.

Techorati tags: DeKalb NIU northern illinois university news Illinois breaking

Former Rezko real estate project still in works

Middle East Online has a report on Riverside Park, a proposed Chicago West Loop housing development that would build 62 homes with retail outlets, in one of the most valuable pieces of land in the city.

It was orginally planned by Rezmar Corp, the firm that Barack Obama's now-jailed pal Tony Rezko once led. In 2005, the alleged political fixer sold the firm's stake to General Mediterranean Holding SA, headed by Iraqi-born businessman Nadhmi Auchi.

Federal prosecutors say Auchi loaned Rezko $3.5 million after the Wilmette businesmans's indictment, a violtion, Judge Amy St. Eve ruled, of his bail agreement--which is why Rezko is awaiting trial while being incarcerated in the Metropolitan Correctional Center.

Oh, more fuel for the fire on the issue of Obama's judgement--or lack of.

Here is the opening paragraph of an September, 2005 Crain's Chicago Business story about the Rezmar-General Mediterranean Holding SA deal:

Chicago businessman Antoin S. "Tony" Rezko, a controversial figure in local political circles, has agreed to sell his massive real estate development in the South Loop to an Iraqi-born British billionaire with a similar knack for generating controversy on the international stage.

(Bold print emphasis is mine.) For those of you living outside the Chicago area, Crain's, after the Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times, is arguably the third-most influential print journal here. It's a big deal.

The CCB story came out after the first Rezko/Obama real estate deal, but before the Obamas purchased the 10' swatch of land from the "Rezko lot."

After the deals were uncovered by the Chicago Tribune in late 2006, Obama issued an explanation that challenges believability that he didn't know that Rezko, whom he had known since 1990, had become such a shady figure.

Riverside Park is still a go, Auchi says.

I wouldn't break ground just yet. I know several Chicago realtors who've quit the game and taken 9 to 5 jobs. They specialized in investor properties which they would sell to "homeowners" who hoped to sell it later and make a bundle. This mindset helped get us in the housing bubble.

But then again, Auchi is a billionaire, I'm not.

Related post:

Orwell's Winston Smith at work on Rezko?

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama Illinois 2008 Election Democrats Tony Rezko corruption Nadhmi Auchi Blagojevich real estate real estate blog

Northwestern Univ. J-school anonymous quote flap

Three years ago, newspaper veteran John Lavine was named the dean of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. As I blogged last year, Lavine is facing resistance for bringing in web, audio, and video courses into the standard J-School fair.

Changing lifestyles, the internet, and an inability to attract many younger readers have led to a declining subscription rolls, newspapers shutting down, and of course fewer traditional jobs in journalism.

So the students, who dish out $40,000 a year to attend Medill, don't end up jobless after finishing their studies, Lavine changed the curriculum. And there is some resistance among the students and some faculty.

Anonymous quotes, which I use sparingly here by the way, are at the heart of the latest controversy coming out of Medill. Lavine used several of them in a letter to the school's alumni, and first the Daily Northwestern, now the Chicago Tribune, are on the case.

Here are a couple:

"I sure felt good about this class. It is one of the best I've taken,"

A sophomore chimed in, "This is the most exciting my education has been."

Lavine can't track down the students who made those comments.

From the Tribune, free registration may be required:

At Medill, one of the country's premier journalism schools, training in the careful use of unnamed sources is emphasized.

Professors routinely require students to submit names and contact information for every person quoted in their articles as a guard against fabrication.

So Lavine's use of anonymous quotes raised the suspicions of David Spett, a Medill senior and Daily Northwestern columnist.

Spett figured out the marketing class Lavine was discussing, he said Wednesday, and then tracked down all 29 students. He quizzed each one about the "I sure felt good" quotation, but each of them denied saying it, according to his column.

The counter-argument is that Lavine's letter is an opinion piece, so the bar shouldn't be set so high. However, this guy is the dean of major journalism school, to perhaps it should be set much higher.

Related posts can be found before, including information on the Alstory Simon saga.

Anthony Porter case breaks wide open; the Porter story triggered the emptying of Illinois' death row

CBS' 48 Hours tonight to feature Ill. murder case--show likely to feature Northwestern prof tarnished by recent lawsuit (w/exclusive material)

Update on the Anthony Porter/Alstory Simon case

The media and a professor told us Anthony Porter was framed, a Chicago jury disagreed

This case helped empty Illinois' death row: Was it built on fraud?

Northwestern J-school dean faces resistance as he drags it into modern times

CBS' 48 Hours tonight to feature Ill. murder case--show likely to feature Northwestern prof tarnished by recent lawsuit (w/exclusive material)

Technorati tags: Northwestern University Medill journalism newspapers Illinois college education news ethics

Happy Valentine's Day

A little warmth is always welcome in the cold, and it's pretty cold here in Morton Grove, Illinois. In some parts of the world it is already Valentine's Day, and tonight, Mrs. Marathon Pundit and I celebrated--she has to work tomorrow night.

Technorati tags: Valentine's Day photography photos valentine

Obama vs. McCain

The more I think about it, it appears that it will be my senator, Barack Obama, up against John McCain. The prize: The White House for four years.

As for myself, it looks like my post-after-post of Tony Rezko entries dating back to 2006--was time well spent.

Regarding McCain: Look at the Iraq War. If we listened to Obama and the Dems, we'd be withdrawing now. McCain supported "The Surge" before it was popular even among Republicans.

Any questions?

Technorati tags: democrats Barack Obama Obama Politics Tony Rezko John McCain McCain Republican GOP

Hezbollah murderer killed

The media doesn't always focus on bad news.

From AP:

Fugitive militant Imad Mughniyeh, a top U.S. target suspected in the killings of hundreds of Americans as well as a series of infamous strikes against U.S., Israeli and Jewish targets, was killed in a car bomb blast in the Syrian capital Damascus, Iranian television and a Syrian human rights group said Wednesday. Hezbollah accused Israel for the assassination.

The shadowy Mughniyeh, a top figure in the Iranian-and Syrian-backed Shiite Hezbollah militant group, was one of the most notorious terror figures of the 1980s and 1990s but had virtually vanished for the past 15 years.

He was implicated in the 1983 bombings of the U.S Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut that killed more than 300 people, the 1985 hijacking of a TWA flight in which an American Navy diver was killed and the kidnappings of numerous Americans in Lebanon, including then-AP Mideast chief correspondent Terry Anderson. Mughniyeh is on an FBI wanted list with a $25 million bounty on his head, equal to that of Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden.

And the creep was a suspect in the 1984 torture and murder of Beirut station CIA chief William Buckley.

Mughniyeh was killed by a car-bomb in Syria, which terror-supporters are blaming on Israel--but the nation denies involvement.

May you rot in Hell, Mughniyeh.

Technorati tags: Hezbollah Hizbullah terrorism Lebanon بنان War on Terror current events

Mexican President Calderón visits Chicago

Amidst a lake-effect snow storm, Mexican President Felipe Calderón was in Chicago yesterday, and Jake Jacobsen of Freedom Folks was there to capture the scene.

And yes, Che Guevara made an appearance.

Oh, did you know, and I'm not making this up, that Calderón's nickname is "Fecal." You can look it up.

Technorati tags: Chicago metroblogging Mexico méxico política Felipe Calderón Felipe Calderon

Berkeley backs down from anti-Marines stance

The Berkeley City Council is still anti-war, but they repealed a resolution is passed last month that stated that a US Marines recruiting station "is not welcome in the city, and if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders."

Protesters, such as ThirdWaveDave, let the council know that there are other viewpoints besides their hard-left one.

UPDATE February 21: Upon closer review, I've discovered that all the council did was rule that they wouldn't send a letter to the Marines calling them "uninvited and unwelcome intruders.

Technorati tags: news Berkeley california Marines military politics left wing extremists

Comments are coming

As you can see, my comments section is missing. As you can see, I'm in the process of remodeling here.

Berkeley City Council chewing over repealing anti-Marines resolution

A bear diet consists of liberals and Dems...We need to drastically increase the numbers of bears in America, especially in key spots such as the Berkeley campus. From a hate e-mail read by ecologist Marc Gaede, friend of Timothy Treadwell, the subject of the documentary "Grizzly Man."

Okay, maybe we shouldn't let grizzly bears lose in northern California so they can end up like the well-meaning, but deranged, Treadwell. He spent 13 summers living with bears in Alaska until one ate him, but some pressure should be kept on the Berkeley, California City Council as they consider tonight whether withrdaw a resolution about a US Marines recruiting which the body said "is not welcome in the city, and if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders."

The radical group Code Pink received a permit for a parking spot and a sound permit by the City Council to protest the Marines presence there.

Fortunately, Move America Forward has been there all day to put the pressure on the council, and to show Berkeleyites that there are other viewpoints other than the "America Sucks" one.

I'm optimistic things will be worked out tonight. If they're not, to paraphrase Mr. Burns in The Simpsons, then release the bears.

The Radio Patriot has a lot more. And as I noted this morning, ThirdWaveDave is part of the Move America Forward protest.

Related post:

Move America Forward caravan comes to the Chicago area

Technorati tags: news Berkeley california grizzly Marines military Code Pink politics left wing extremists Move America Forward