Whitecaps and Clouds

Taking a break. Back blogging next week. No, I am not going to Copenhagen.

#2016OpeningCeremonies: Parade of Parking Meters

UPDATE: Arrests for possible flag-burning--the Olympic one, Daley Plaza:

The six include two men with the same last name -- one of whom is from downstate Glendale and listed his occupation on a police report as a self employed rock star.

***HT Dead Voter. More tweet ideas? Add your own #2016OpeningCeremonies.

Also WSJ has masterful profile of Mayor Daley "Mayor Places Olympian Bet on Chicago's Bid for Games" and names some of the usual suspects. And this is quite a round-up of the Obama politicking. TAS.

OK, one more!

deadvoter N uclear scientists recreate the first nuclear chain reaction under the bleachers of the stadium #2016OpeningCeremonies

P.S. Valerie Jarrett likens Chicago2016 Olympic vote to Iowa caucus. Sun Times. Chicago Murder Map. RedEye. 4 teens charged.

Finally, John Kass, If Obama gets 2016 Games, Daley will be king, not mayor.

Previous posts: No Games Chicago Protest, Chicago Olympics Coverage, FoxTV Chicago Muzzled on Olympics, Olympics in Chicago: Obama's Folly?, Chicagoans for Rio 2016, First Lady Michelle O and her Precious Produce, Chicago Doesn't Deserve Olympics

Life After Harry:)

The Politico--what if their leader loses?

One Democratic staffer privy to the private interactions of Reid, Schumer and Durbin described their attitudes this way: “Nobody in the [60-member Democratic Caucus] is talking about life after Harry. ... And the two guys who are thinking about it will keep their heads down: one of them because he’s loyal enough; the other, because he’s smart.”

Just had to share:)

Palin is Tweaking You, Lefties

Let us help you get over yourselves. Despite the abuse, she's a class act.

dancurry ChiTrib's Obama stenographer Mark Silva (D-Media Matters) wonders whether Palin wrote her book. What about Barack? http://bit.ly/dwKmY #tcot

Maybe the Tribune could read and report. For a change.

Meanwhile, TOTUS says there's Something Rotting in Denmark.

P.S. Oh yeah. And Rogue open thread at Conservatives4Palin. [Book pre-order on Amazon--#11 already]

P.P.S. It was the Mom Jeans. (Puhleeze note--Sarah is not the one wearing them.)

No Games Chicago Protest

UPDATE: Serious lobbying going on--unprecedented use of government resources.***
CBS2Chicago coverage with video.

Brit Hume: Obama's Olympic Risk. Video.

Michelle Malkin coverage earlier. New logo?

P.S. The bright side if we end up losing. Dennis Byrne.

Previous posts: Chicago Olympics Coverage, FoxTV Chicago Muzzled on Olympics, Olympics in Chicago: Obama's Folly?, Chicagoans for Rio 2016, First Lady Michelle O and her Precious Produce, Chicago Doesn't Deserve Olympics

Another Fed Funds Ban for ACORN

Defense spending. Well. Let's hope that was just a formality. Other spending bans to come bill by bill until there is an overarching ban.

Also, RedState clarifying the web of connections of Obama's Karl Rove, Patrick Gaspard. TAS Matthew Vadum, The Politico Gets Played by ACORN. Here are the Chicago bits:

ACORN has been engaged in a campaign of deception about its SEIU affiliates, Local 100 headed by ACORN founder Wade Rathke and Local 880 headed by ACORN bigwig Keith Kelleher who happens to the husband of Madeline Talbott. Talbott, you may recall, is a radical agitator whose close personal ties to President Obama are extensively documented. Here's just one tidbit from National Review Online.

ACORN scrubbed its website of references to SEIU 100 and 880 earlier this year. Why would ACORN do that?

And Talbott just put on a new label on the door last summer when the heat was on.

Drive-thrus for Swine Flu

Hospitals explore alternatives--a moving exam room.

Tufts Bans Sex With Roommate Around

It has come to this:

"I don't believe it's the university's place to determine what goes on in a room," said Levinson. "Personally, I wouldn't want to have sex in front of my roommate, and my roommate wouldn't want to have sex in front of me."

Levinson said he didn't think it that many students viewed it as a problem and wondered why the school came up with the policy with just a handful of cases.

Bruce Ratain, 20, a junior political science major, said he was concerned how the school's Office of Residential Life and Learning implemented the policy without student input.

"It would have been preferable if this decision had come out of a more inclusive and collaborative process," said Ratain, a senator in the Tufts Community Union, the school's student council.

Really.

Nero's Rotating Banquet Hall Discovered

Built to entertain government officials and VIPs:

The discovery was made during routine maintenance of the fragile Palatine area, officials said.

Latin biographer and historian Suetonius, who chronicled his times and wrote the biographies of 12 Roman rulers, refers to a main dining room that revolved "day and night, in time with the sky."

Angelo Bottini, the state's top official for archaeology in Rome, said the ceiling of the rotating room might have been the one mentioned by Suetonius, who wrote of ivory panels sliding back and forth to shower flowers and perfumes on the guests below.

"The heart of every activity in ancient Rome was the banquet, together with some form of entertainment," Bottini said at the dig. "Nero was like the sun, and people were revolving around the emperor.

A cautionary tale in the rest of the story. (And a modern day superintendent named Maria Antonietta?)

Cracking the Educational Monopoly

LA parents demand choice. And get it. Reason TV:

Related posts: Incivility, illegitimacy, Death, Civil Rights Travesty

Governing by Union Grievance

Not for the common good. Tribune editorial: AFSCME, running Illinois

Who pays their salaries anyway? And what if we can't afford it? Nor our children.

Chicago Olympics Coverage

UPDATED. Washington Times Water Cooler blog with numerous Chicago links.

More: GOP Chairman Michael Steele slams Obama's Olympic Trip to Copenhagen. CBS2Chicago:

GOP strategist John Feehery said it was important for Republicans to pick their battles in deciding how and when to criticize Obama.

But Feehery, a Chicago native who said he is rooting for the city to win the Games, said GOP complaints about Obama's trip were well-founded.

"He's taking a bunch of Chicago cronies on an all expense paid trip to Copenhagen for just one reason, to get the Olympics," Feehery said. "For me it makes him seem unserious and look slightly desperate."

More: Chicago's Olympic bid hurt by Daley's remarks? Protest shortly at City Hall--5:30 pm. Well, da mayor won't be there but I imagine he'll hear about it.

Previous posts: FoxTV Chicago Muzzled on Olympics, Olympics in Chicago: Obama's Folly?, Chicagoans for Rio 2016, First Lady Michelle O and her Precious Produce, Chicago Doesn't Deserve Olympics

Gov. Jindal on ObamaCare: Watch your Wallet

The Louisiana Model. Video via RCP.

Elderly moving against ObamaCare. Dick Morris.

WSJ. The trial lawyers chokehold on the Dems--refusing to even consider malpractice reform:

The upshot is simple: A few thousand trial lawyers are blocking reform that would benefit 300 million Americans. This is not just your normal special-interest politics. It's a scandal—it is as if international-trade policy was being crafted in order to get fees for customs agents. [snip]

But under the current system, 54 cents of the malpractice dollar goes to lawyers and administrative costs, according to a 2006 study in the New England Journal of Medicine. And because the legal process is so expensive, most injured patients without large claims can't even get a lawyer. "It would be hard to design a more inefficient compensation system," says Michelle Mello, a professor of law and public health at Harvard, "or one which skewed incentives more away from candor and good practices."

It's the preeminent Dem pay to play. They give the pols big bucks and we the people pay over and over.

More:Nationalized Health Care Horror-- The Cheryl Baxter Story (Powerful Video)

Smiley-Faced Deception

"We believe in America's possibilities," Mr. Malik told the crowd. "We didn't come to criticize our nation ... I want the American people to know that we love you."

The imam's Facebook page tells a different story - but only The Times bothered to look at it. While Mr. Malik's Facebook shows him dressed in Western clothing, he attended the ceremony dressed as a sheik. That seems more appropriate to the real imam Malik, because on his Web page he has written: "Democracy is not revelation, and democracy does not equal freedom, for in democracy you have apartheid, you have slavery, you have homosexuality, you have lesbianism, you have gambling, you have all of the vices that are against the spirit of truth; so no we don't want to democratize Islam, we want to Islamize democracy."

Which imam is telling the truth and which is practicing deception? One might debate whether apartheid (Jews and Christians), slavery (oppression of women) and homosexuality exist in Muslim countries, the claim of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that homosexuals aren't present in his country notwithstanding.

Worshipping The One

Video: Community organizing group prays to Obama

Illinois Review: Socialists to gather in Evanston:

The Chicago New Party was formed by SEIU 880/ACORN, the report says, and was affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, the same group holding the convention in Evanston in November.

All hail our Dear Leader. You can't make this stuff up.

P.S. Hollywood defends child rapist. Rick Moran. Worshipping a child rapist.

Tough Talking Games

UPDATE: Stewart Mocks Barack. Video***51% Say Obama Not Tough Enough on Iran. Rasmussen.

Maybe send Michelle there instead of Copenhagen. "First Lady Militant". Just One Minute.

Cracking Down on ACORN

Illinois Grant to ACORN Housing Under Review

Kirk hits SEIU union for links to ACORN

The Tribune reporter glosses over what actually happened on those videos--has the Tribune ever linked to them? I don't think so. "...allegedly showed workers offering tax-saving advice to people who pretended to be setting up a prostitution business." The ACORN workers in 5 separate offices didn't bat an eye at assisting an aspiring politician pimp and prostitute to buy a house with taxpayer subsidies to set up an operation to import a dozen or so underage girls from El Salvador. And if ACORN is dormant in Illinois why are they still getting money?

Acorn Housing Board Member Steps Down

Cracking down on ACORN Pennsylvania--not an editorial but a GOP legislator

A falling ACORN The liberal Oregonian editorializes--a bit on the defensive.

Milwaukee and Boston still in denial. Rampant vote fraud documented in Milwaukee and they're still defending these guys--sorry, I'm sure there are some nice people who work for them, but it is rotten to the core. The Globe just thinks they should do a better job of hiding their political agenda.

ACORN Story Shows How Internet Reporting Is Beating the New York Times. US News Thomas Jefferson Street blog.

ACORN Question for Local Media: What in the World Are These People Doing? Newsbusters.

Good question. And why were they even eligible for billions in stimulus money, given their track record? Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint. Hint.

Legal Insurrection Reaches a Million

A nod on our Blago posts, from one of my favorite bloggers, Cornell Law Prof William Jacobson, who has reached a million hits. Legal Insurrection:

To this great country, you are worth fighting for. The people who think creeping socialism is cool don't have a clue as to the deep damage they are doing. I will not shut up about it, will continue to post the truth about where we are heading, and will fight with every last electron to stop the decline of this nation at the hands of those lazy, handout-seeking, selfish fools who think everything we have earned came for free, that history began a decade ago, and that they are owed something.

What troubles me more than anything is that this government is stealing the future from my children, and my not-yet-conceived grandchildren. Such generational theft is unforgivable and will not be forgotten.

The blog and the fight go on.

Mmm.Mmm.Mmm.

Chris Muir. And the French, (the French!) appreciate the neocons now. Bret Stephens, WSJ.

Tracing the ACORN Links

To the White House. Stanley Kurtz, NRO. Bone-deep radicalism.

And may I say, welcome back.

Cry, Chicago, Cry--If you can

The beasts who murdered honor student Derrion Albert did what is done so tragically often in America: They killed an innocent young person, a kid with promise. They did the KKK's dirty work. They killed a black kid. They killed out of hate, but this crime will not be listed as a "hate crime." All of this shows the absurdity of even using the "hate crime" designation. Derrion Albert is dead, but no more dead than he would be today had his killers been drunk white Klansmen. He is no less dead for the fact that his attackers were of the same race.

Civility?

The left is harping on it. Now. Don't make me laugh.

Pence on Hannity

ACORN big subject. Video here.

You get to keep your own doctor...

...just like your own mail carrier. (Chicago Uptown Branch) The most HATED post office ("On Yelp, reviews of the Broadway and Lawrence branch of the USPS are, uh, mixed: "Just writing about this place forces me to relive all my nightmarish experiences there. I need to drink some herbal tea just to calm down."):

After our beloved, regular mail carrier went on vacation, all mail delivery to our builidng just stopped. When I called the Uptown Station to ask about our missing mail, I was told that the temporary mailperson had been unable to get the front door key to work, so she decided to let everything accumulate at the post office until the regular carrier returned. Unbelievable. The supervisor was so appalled, he offered to deliver the backlog of mail to our building himself.

Will our President Barack Obama be our new bicycle? Oh, no, it's offline!!! Just remnants.

More:

Can you imagine what someone visiting from another country would think of the United States if they were forced to go to the Uptown Post Office? Sure, we're the fattest country. We have the dumbest kids. Ten percent of our population is glazed over on antidepressants. These things should be sources of PRIDE compared to the piles of garbage sitting behind the (two) open windows at this hell hole.

I work by the main Chicago Post Office on Harrison, and I try and avoid that place like the plague. One time, after waiting patiently in line, I was next up. As one person walked away from the counter, I approached, only to have the employee (with government benefits) point at me and say "I didn't call you yet. Get back in line." Then I watched her file her Flo Jo nails. No joke.

That was better than my visits to Uptown.

Read on.

The Science of The Bubbly

No I am not tempted to find the youtube, but I do love the stuff:

Don Ho was right. It is the tiny bubbles. A team of researchers — in Europe not surprisingly — found that Champagne's bursting bubbles not only tickle the nose, they create a mist that wafts the aroma to the drinker.

"I love the idea that such a wonderful and subtle mechanism acts right under our nose during Champagne tasting. In a single Champagne glass, there is as much food for the mind as pleasure for your senses," said researcher Gerard Liger-Belair of the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne in France.

No need for stimulus money for this. Non-virtue is its own reward. Let the French foot the bill.

P.S. How about some Ella. OK, Frank: Champagne makes it better.

...Oh, and Barbra admits singing People is boring. Well, it worked for me when I was 14--back when I was a dewy-eyed Gene McCarthy supporter.

Outsourcing Hate

P.J. O'Rourke. The burdens of conservatism in the Obama age.

Humor in a humorless ObamaWorld.

Endless leaves to bag. And miles to go before I sleep. Is anyone sleeping well these days?

Kirk, Roskam Go After ACORN, SEIU

A TOXIC organization. Video.

From the press release:

SEIU Local 880 formed by ACORN, rents office from ACORN front group while another finances ACORN “election efforts”;

U.S. Census recently cut ties with ACORN but partnership with SEIU remains

CHICAGO – Illinois Congressmen Mark Kirk and Peter Roskam today urged the U.S. Census Bureau to end its relationship with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a sister group to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) – a relationship intended to recruit SEIU workers for the 2010 census.

Rubio Rising: Yes He Can

A Catholic and father of four, Rubio, whose parents fled Cuba in 1959, says, "It is hard to be apolitical when you are raised by exiles." He worries that his children's generation "will be the first to inherit a diminished country." His preventive medicine includes limited government, tax reform, spending restraint and removal of all impediments to the entrepreneurship that makes America a place "where poor people can put billionaires out of business."

George Will on Rubio.

National Review cover story here. Support Marco Rubio.

The Challenge is on!

Chicago Argus:

Let’s just hope it becomes a significant accomplishment because it helps sway the health care reform debate, and not because it made the president and his people look like vacuous nitwits.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: Can you deliver a serious message in 30 seconds? If so, Barack Obama’s allies (http://my.barackobama.com/videochallenge/) would like to see your video vision by Oct. 18.

Chicago Argus seems like a very nice person. But I can't resist letting my side know about this:) And we want reform too--reform that works.

Nanny State Run Amok

The Children's Minister has ordered a review of the case of two police officers told they had broken the law by caring for each other's children.

A children's minister?! Caring parents as criminals. Big Government at work. BBC. HT NRO.

Wanna bet if ObamaCare passes we get an ObamaWorld with this next--the SEIU would demand dues.

ACORN Shatters the Dems?

ACORN Connections in Senate races. The Middle Coast.

P.S. Can Princess the Goldfish survive? The Middle Coast. Are you listening Clarence Page? Are you worried Dick Durbin? I HOPE so.

Are you filled with shame Jan Schakowksy? You should be.

ACORN's Man in the White House

More on Patrick Gaspard. Matthew Vadum, The American Spectator.

Previous posts: Secret Agent Editors, Alexi Giannoulias & the SEIU, Where's ACORN?, The enemy is us.

Palin's New Book Out Nov. 17

Going Rogue: An American Life. Conservatives4Palin. The Politico.

One for the conservative Christmas stocking.

And I imagine across more of the political spectrum, given her recent performance.

A Remote and Indecisive Commander in Chief

U.S. commander in Afghanistan talked with Obama only once

Obama can't downsize to success in Afghanistan: The president appears to be dragging his feet on more troops for the struggle, but that's what an effective counterinsurgency strategy requires

Mr. President, this should be your number one priority. To keep America safe. And support our troops in harm's way to protect us.

When we lost Vietnam because LBJ didn't listen to his military commanders, the defeat haunted us for generations, and tore this country apart.

But we didn't have Vietnamese suicide bombers coming to this country to blow us up.

And when we left Afghanistan unfinished the last time, we got 9/11.

More. Add foolish to the list of Obama attributes:

Iran tested its longest-range missiles Monday and warned they can reach any place that threatens the country, including Israel, parts of Europe and U.S. military bases in the Mideast.

And it doesn't need to top them with as yet still developing nukes.It can use conventional warheads. What does our President Barack Obama do? Reward them with talks.

Czar Power

Safe Schools Czar Ignored Statutory Rape. Sweetness and Light. Safe for whom?

A teacher was told by a 15-year-old high school sophomore that he was having homosexual sex with an "older man." At the very least, statutory rape occurred. Fox News reported that the teacher violated a state law requiring that he report the abuse. That former teacher, Kevin Jennings, is President Obama’s "safe school czar."

Oh. He told the boy to use a condom. There's audio of Jennings recounting this incident to a public gathering in 2000.

Then there's our President Barack Obama's diversity czar at the FCC--an open admirer of Hugo Chavez' "revolution", which has shut down independent media. Mark Lloyd's boss at the FCC has a heavy hand as well. Reason:The Internet's New Enforcer: The FCC chairman appoints himself top cop on the World Wide Web.

Czar power indeed. And unaccountable. Except to the president.

Well, we'll hold the president accountable. What a rogue's gallery. Expanding the radical primer.

Stroger and a Subpoena

A widening criminal investigation. Tribune editorial.

Related posts: Republican Keats for Cook County Board Chair, Illinois Dems: Rotten and Ill-Gotten, Stroger Tax Cheat

Daniels in Chicago Friday

If you haven't reserved a spot for Friday's event, there's still time! On October 2, join us as we host Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels for a lunch, talk, and Q & A regarding the policy successes of Indiana—and what Illinois can learn from these successes.

Date: Friday, October 2

Time: 11:30-1:30 (registration and reception begins at 11:30; luncheon begins at 12:00)

Place: 190 South LaSalle, 40th Floor, Chicago

Cost: Individual tickets are $50; to sponsor the event or purchase a table, click here to learn more.

To RSVP, or for further information, contact Katie Truesdell at Katie@illinoispolicy.org.

Related post: The Indiana Model

New Media and the Culture Wars

Rising Rightroots and Declining Netroots Now at Parity (or Better). Patrick Ruffini, The Next Right

And with the help of some of my Illinois blogger friends, the Illinois Policy Institute has catalogued: 10 Great Events in the Rise of the New Media

Related posts: The enemy is us, Secret Agent Editors, Come on, it's the LaRouchies

Support for ObamaCare Hits New Low

Only 41% in favor, 56% opposed. Rasmussen. Max's Mad Mandate: The Baucus health bill will break 50 state budgets via Medicaid. WSJ. And income redistribution--from young to old.

And seniors will still be worse off. Less care at a higher cost. NRO, 20 inaccurate claims by the president.

P.S.

MajoratWHGibbs says the president believes "health care is in a better place" and cites Sen Finance Cmte moving toward passage.

It sounds like he thinks it's dead tho.

...or maybe he's just musing on his plans for us Boomers and seniors.

Fox TV Chicago Muzzled on Olympics

UPDATE (more below). No Games Chicago rally tomorrow. ***Drudge main header. Muzzled video here.

Yeah. You bet. Are you listening Mr. President?

Apparently so.

Chicagoans for Rio.

Chicago Daily Observer on Tribune puzzlement.

P.S. Iran smolders, Afghanistan burns, and Obama heads to...Denmark
The first U.S. president to actually appear in person. Guess we're gonna get it. According to the Tribune, Michelle is going to cry.

More. TWS:

The Chicago Machine

A Republican emails this morning:

Read on. Michelle Malkin with the crony watch.

Where's ACORN?

Illinois Policy Institute on the hunt for their offices here.

Joe Calamino points out the curious incident of the unreported IHDA expenditure to ACORN that does not show up on the Illinois Comptroller's database.

More: Kirk calls for Census to sever ties with SEIU. Marathon Pundit. BofA suspends ACORN commitment. WSJ. RINO Kathleen Parker sorta comes clean on the ACORN-SEIU connection. The One goes way back.

Incivility, illegitimacy, Death

The video of the Chicago honor student caught in a gang fight and beaten to death.

Incivility? Our failing public schools.

The rise of illegitimacy. Again.

More ruined lives, more death. A destructive culture.

Related post: Civil Rights Travesty

Secret Agent Editors

Secret Agent Editors: The Obama scandals bring a new era of opacity at the New York Times.

Searching their (secret?) soul on their lack of coverage of ACORN.

The enemy is us

Clarence Page refers to us as "enemies". You know, usually we conservatives reserve that kind of language for those from overseas who are trying to kill us. But the Left, and let's include Page in that appellation now, calls citizens who object to corruption and criminality--including underage prostitution-- as "enemies". Let us note, a majority of Americans support stopping the funding, and of those who have been closely following the news, 80% recoil in revulsion at ACORN's activities.

But for Clarence Page and many on the Left, it's not my fellow Americans, it's my neighbors as enemies:

Yet, conservatives underestimate their successes in framing this debate long before Hannah put on her hot pants. Most ACORN coverage in major media has been overwhelmingly negative, according to a recently released study by Peter Dreier, a professor of politics at Occidental College, and Christopher R. Martin, a professor of journalism at University of Northern Iowa. Of the 647 newspaper and broadcast news stories about ACORN that they found in 2007 and 2008, most were on allegations of massive voter registration fraud against the organization.

If the MSM has covered it at all. 647 is not a large number. Incredibly, Page seems to be asserting the media is biased to the right. The usual MSM stance is media silence, but when they do break, could it be because there is overwhelming validity to these allegations? Even Uncle Barney has had enough. And don't give us the old canard that there was no evidence of actual vote fraud. Small comfort we haven't actually caught phony votes being cast at the time. There have been convictions--with the finding that in at least one of these Dem-run urban areas (Milwaukee) more people voted than voters, and that convicted felons have voted illegally--and some were deputy registrars with previous convictions of vote fraud. In Philadelphia, Penn researchers have found more people registered than were eligible to vote. In Nevada, a Democrat prosecutor is relentlessly pursuing ACORN, achieving the cooperation of a key insider. I imagine there will be more revelations.

Harshbarger? Comforting? The former Massachusetts AG who persecuted an innocent family? A gross miscarriage of justice?

Somehow no mention by Page of the embezzlement that was covered up for years. Are ACORN whistleblowers enemies too?

As far as caring for poor people, ACORN has victimized them, repeatedly thrown their employees under the bus (sound familiar?) and skimmed money off the top for themselves and their political allies.

But we who bring all this up are the enemy? Are you nuts? (And in response, we say, Nuts!)

It's a conservative year

Ramesh Ponnuru, NRO:

Will concludes, "Rubio intends to prove that 'in the most important swing state, you can run successfully as a principled conservative.' He probably will." Will is at odds with the conventional wisdom, but I think he is right. If I had to bet on who Florida's next senator will be, I'd put money on Rubio rather than Crist or Meek.

It's a conservative year.

Germany goes solid right

In one of his gigs John O'Sullivan used to be a Sun Times columnist. He still has wisdom. Some Comments on the German Elections

P.S. Perhaps Germany, France and Canada will lead us. And God help us everyone.

Favre Forever Wherever

Video:

First Lady Michelle O No-No

What not to wear to a medal of honor award ceremony. Check out the photo.

P.S. O gives CNN the FoxNews treatment on the new unofficial Barack and Michelle book. Surber.

Porn Vendor Christie Hefner Has New Job

Creating a for-profit arm of the Columbia Journalism Review. Loving profile in the Gray Lady. In Fashion.

How to lose friends

Exceptional clarity of thought, at a critical time. Not coming from our president.

David Harsanyi, Denver Post.

More. Powerline "When Sarkozy Mocked Obama". David Warren, "Madmen at the Gates".

Come on, it's the LaRouchies

Or plants. This has been around for some time. It's not us. Note the LaRouchePAC on the sign in this pix. The president, and AP should know better. And President Obama, you should know, as they've infiltrated the Dem party in Illinois in the past:

LaRouche-affiliated political parties have nominated many hundreds of candidates for national and regional offices in the U.S., Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Australia and France, for almost thirty years. In countries outside the U.S., the LaRouche movement maintains its own minor parties, and they have had no significant electoral success to date. In the U.S., however, they are active in the Democratic Party, and individuals associated with the movement have successfully sought party office in some elections, particularly Democratic County Central Committee posts. [snip]

In 1986, Janice Hart won the Democratic Primary election for the office of Illinois Secretary of State, and Mark J. Fairchild won the Democratic Primary for Illinois Lieutenant Governor. Up until the day following the election, major media outlets were reporting that George Sangmeister, Fairchild's primary opponent, was running unopposed. 21 years later Fairchild asked, “how is it possible that the major media, with all of their access to information, could possibly be mistaken in that way?”^[10] Democratic gubernatorial candidate Adlai Stevenson III was favored to win this election, having lost the previous election by a narrow margin amid allegations of vote fraud. However, he refused to run on the same slate with Hart and Fairchild. Instead, Stevenson formed the Solidarity Party and ran with Jane Spirgel as the Secretary of State nominee. Hart and Spirgel's opponent, Republican incumbent Jim Edgar, won the election by the largest margin in any state-wide election in Illinois history, with 1.574 million votes.^[11]

After the Illinois primary Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) blasted his own party for pursuing a policy of ignoring the "infiltration by the neo-Nazi elements of Lyndon H. LaRouche," and worried that too often, especially in the media, "the LaRouchites" are "dismissed as kooks." "In an age of ideology, in an age of totalitarianism, it will not suffice for a political party to be indifferent to and ignorant about such a movement," said Moynihan.^[12]

Do anti-tax tea-partiers really want to build "magnetically-levitated" trains across the oceans? Puhleeeze:

In November 2007, Mark Fairchild returned to Illinois to promote legislation authored by LaRouche, called the Homeowners and Bank Protection Act of 2007, that would establish a moratorium on home foreclosures and establish a new federal agency to oversee all federal and state banks. He also promoted LaRouche's plan to build a high-speed railroad to connect Russia and the United States, including a tunnel under the Bering Strait.^[10][25]

In 2009, the LaRouche movement printed pamphlets showing President Barack Obama and Hitler laughing together, and posters of Obama wearing a Hitler-style mustache.^[26] In Seattle, police have been called twice in response to people threatening to tear the posters apart, or to assault the LaRouche supporters holding them.^[27]

They hand this kind of stuff out around downtown Chicago. Or maybe our President Barack Obama and his tame media should just consult Wikipedia.

Mayo Holds its Own

Excellent WaPo (9/20) piece on the Mayo Clinic model for healthcare. Front page Fargo Forum this week, as it mentions those hale and hearty Norwegians. (Shortened). Denver Post has it. (Updated and shortened.)

Not to be outdone, Wisconsin hosts model clinics as well, with a rebuttal to the naysayers:

Officials at Mayo and the other model centers reject the argument that their cost figures are explained mostly by demographics. Gundersen’s Thompson points to the high rates of smoking and drinking among many Wisconsin residents. “The stereotype that we’re all bachelor Norwegian farmers out there working till we’re 95 isn’t exactly right,” he said. Gundersen vice president Kathy Klock chimed in, “Have you ever been to Packers stadium?”

No need to encourage any more Packer-Viking rivalry this year. There might be blood.

Republican Keats for Cook County Board Chair

Tribune:

Former state Sen. Roger Keats of Wilmette, the slated GOP candidate for County Board president, promised that the slate would “fight the corrupt Stroger-led county government,” a reference to unpopular Democratic incumbent Todd Stroger.

“We are the soldiers who have to take these people on,” said Keats, who opted to run after former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas opted not to make the race. Keats, who served in the legislature from 1976 to 1992, had played a major role in Vallas’ nascent efforts.

“Yes we all know it’s a tough race, but this is 2010, and frankly, with the help of the Democrats, I almost sometimes think the Democrats are our campaign chairmen with the performance they’ve been going through the last few years,” Keats said, referring to a host of city and state corruption indictments and convictions while dubbing his home as “Crook County.”

Keats also repeatedly mentioned he was honored during Black History Month earlier this year by the Illinois Judicial Council, primarily for his role in pushing legislation that created judicial subcircuits in Cook County, which opened the door for more minority judges.

Full slate here. Volunteer here. Anyone to challenge Suffredin?

Pollak Speech to Cook County GOP

“We stand for freedom”

Speech by Joel B. Pollak

Republican Candidate for Congress

9^th District of Illinois

Cook County GOP Convention

Rosemont, IL

September 25, 2009

On this day in 1789, Congress passed the Bill of Rights. The original Constitution did not include many of the liberties we cherish.

It was those ten Amendments, those changes, that allowed our Constitution to be ratified. And so from the beginning, change has been part of America.

But those first changes limited government and expanded freedom. Today’s changes are limiting freedom and expanding government.

We are gathered today from across the great city of Chicago and its suburbs because we believe in that Bill of Rights. We are here to redeem the promise of the Tenth Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

We are here to fulfill that duty. To stand up for the power of the people.

I was born in South Africa, a country that did not know freedom, where people were denied their rights because of color. We immigrated when I was eight weeks old. I became a citizen when I was ten.

I grew up in Skokie, with every opportunity. I went to Solomon Schechter Day School, which nurtured me in my faith. I went to Niles North, one of the best public schools in America. I went on to Harvard.

In college, I thought of myself as a Democrat. I believed that only government could help the poor and the needy. It was only when I traveled back to South Africa as a Rotary scholar, that I witnessed how much damage big government can do.

I saw people die of AIDS because the government denied them medicine. I taught black teenagers whose schools were made worse, not better, by national control. I met people who had struggled their whole lives for democracy, and who had lost faith in that democracy because of corruption.

I learned how fragile freedom is, and how important America is as a champion of that freedom. When I came home and enrolled at Harvard Law School, I began to realize that many of my fellow Democrats did not want to defend that freedom.

And so I became a Republican.

When Congressman Barney Frank came to Harvard, I asked him a question that I had not heard anyone in Washington ask. I asked: “How much responsibility, if any, do you have for the financial crisis?” He lost his temper. But I stood my ground.

The next day I began receiving hundreds of emails and letters—even from Democrats. I realized then that most Americans are tired of being bullied by the politicians we elect.

This summer, I traveled all over the United States on my book tour. Everywhere I went, I met Republicans and Democrats who are sick of being demonized simply for speaking their minds. We deserve better!

The challenges America faces today are severe, and urgent. But Congress is making them worse, not better. The radical left is in charge. And its answer to every problem is the same: more control, higher taxes, and less freedom.

The Democrats in Congress have created the largest budget deficit in American history. This year alone, they will add $5,200 of debt for every man, woman and child. That’s a bill my generation will have to pay.

The House passed a cap-and-trade bill that will cost each family in America $1,761 per year. I have a degree in environmental science, and I can tell you that bill will hurt our planet by driving American industry to high pollution countries.

Now they want to force a health care takeover that will raise insurance premiums by $1,200 annually. And Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that if we protest, peacefully, we are “un-American.”

There are some people who vote Democrat because they think Democrats stand for the less fortunate. Would a party that cares about the poor take away 1,700 scholarships from black children in Washington, DC? Would a party that cares about seniors cut benefits to the more than 10 million people who use Medicare Advantage? Would a party that cares about the needy deny money to charities by suggesting we slash the charitable tax deduction?

The big government policies of the far left are hurting the people of my community. You can drive through this district, where we are today, through Park Ridge and Niles and Morton Grove and Skokie and see the empty storefronts—block after block. And on the side of the road, a little “stimulus” sign. And as you pass by that sign, you will see how our tax money is being wasted while people lose their jobs and their homes.

We have already spent $53 million on ACORN. Its employees have been convicted of voter registration fraud 70 times in 12 states. Today we learned that ACORN spends more than half of its public money and donations illegally on lobbying and for-profit activities. Last week, 172 Democrats joined 173 Republicans in the House of Representatives in voting to cut off federal funding for ACORN. But my representative, Jan Schakowsky, voted to keep giving ACORN money.

That’s not money we could afford to waste. Money spent on ACORN is money taken away from projects that really do help the poor.

The only area in which we are cutting spending is where we need it the most. We are getting rid of missile defense in Europe, and replacing it with a system that will not stop long-range missiles. Meanwhile, the Democrat leaders who promised to win in Afghanistan are raising the white flag. And President Obama attacks Israel in the UN while he appeases Iran and the dictators who hate Israel and America both.

The Democrat leaders say we are the party of “no.” Perhaps they mean K-N-O-W. Because we know what the American people are going through. And we know that sometimes it is important to say “N-O” no.

We must say no when the far left tries to pass Card Check, which will take away workers’ rights and kill jobs. We must say no when Congress starts a trade war with Mexico. We must say no when Congress passes 9,000 new earmarks in just one bill at a cost of $5 billion. We must say no to ACORN corruption. We must say no to our exploding national debt.

Republicans say yes to freedom.

Freeing our automobile industry from the czars in the White House. Freeing American business from some of the highest taxes in the industrial world. Freeing consumers from sales taxes that are driving jobs away from Cook County and out of Illinois.

Government has a role to play in the economy. Its job is to guarantee the freedom of our markets, not to replace them.

If we give Americans the freedom to buy health insurance across state lines, we will see costs go down and coverage go up. If we give parents in poor communities the freedom to choose a different school for their children, we will see young people turn their lives around. If we open the doors to hard-working, legal immigrants, while securing our borders, we will give new Americans the chance to build our country.

They say Republicans have a “demographic problem.” I have had the privilege of working with black Republicans, Hispanic Republicans, Muslim Republicans—and, yes, Jewish Republicans. Our county chairman, Lee Roupas, went out of his way to make sure that I could deliver this speech in time for the Jewish Sabbath. We are a party that respects differences without turning difference into an obsession.

At Harvard, I had the great opportunity to teach undergraduates. I made a point of keeping my personal opinions out of the classroom. I let my students speak their minds. And I learned that many young people who voted Democrat do not share Democrat ideas. Most oppose using taxes simply to punish the rich. Many are critical of racial preferences. Most support our troops and our volunteer military.

The majority of Americans share the Republican belief in freedom. Freedom is the idea that brought my family here. Freedom is the idea that won the Cold War. Freedom is what Americans want us to fight for. Our task is to do it!

We must go to every community, every street in this great city. First to listen, and to understand—and then to lead, to reassure our friends and neighbors that freedom is better than government control.

Young Republicans are leading the way. Look at Congressman Aaron Schock, the youngest on Capitol Hill, who won in a Democrat-leaning district. Look at Adam Robinson, working the streets of Andersonville in the city as he runs for state senate. Look at Reverend Isaac Hayes, taking the message of freedom to where it is needed most. I am humbled to stand among the young men and women who are the future of our party.

I am running for Congress because a group of people from my community saw me stand up to Barney Frank. They asked me to stand up for them. I considered it carefully. I knew that we can win, but I also knew how hard it would be.

And then I went to a town hall meeting in my community, where I saw how well-funded outside groups were silencing the people of our district. I knew then what I had to do.

We are going to surprise America. We are going to present the voters of this district with a real choice. We are going to take on the most radical member of Congress. We are going to hold her accountable for the way her policies are hurting workers and families in this district. And we are going to stand up for the voices she drowns out.

No seat belongs to the politician who sits in it. It belongs to the people. And the people will take it back.

My father and mother raised us to believe that integrity counts most. My dad fought corruption at the University of Illinois hospital in Chicago. His bosses told him he had to learn to practice medicine “the Chicago way.”

Right now, America is being governed the Chicago way. We punish the whistleblowers instead of the guilty. We attack those who ask questions instead of questioning the answers.

But there are two Chicago ways. There’s the Chicago way of Al Capone, the Chicago way of Rod Blagojevich. And then there’s the Chicago way of Eliot Ness. There’s the Chicago way of Patrick Fitzgerald.

This city has its villains, but it has its heroes, too. The greatest heroes are the people who live in it. Chicago was destroyed—and we rebuilt it. We will rebuild America—starting right here, and right now.

On this day, in 1789, Congress did the unthinkable. It voted to limit its own power so that Americans could enjoy the freedom that has lasted until today.

Republicans have always stood for expanding that freedom. We fought against slavery. We stood up for civil rights. Our country is calling us once again to defend freedom at home and abroad.

This is the time. This is the place. This is our opportunity.

Let’s roll!

Kass Interviews Andrzejewski

First in a series of GOP candidates for Illinois governor. You say it An-jee-ef-ski. One bit:

Rather than just talk in vague terms about spending cuts for a state government that is $10 billion in debt, Andrzejewski offered specific cuts and reams of policy.

He'd cut $1 billion immediately by eliminating the entire Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, long a bipartisan patronage ground. He wants forensic accountants to go deep into each department budget to identify cuts and redundancies, and he wants to put all state contracts online so they are available, down to the subcontractor level and the costs of materials.

The subcontractor level is where the deals are made and hidden. Politicians resist such transparency, because the guys who pour asphalt and concrete might not like it.

"Yes, every dime online, in real time," he said, repeating what is becoming a mantra. "The subcontracts need to be disclosed."

Every dime online, in real time.

The Indiana Model

Illinois GOP candidate for governor Dan Proft:

Illinois residents don't just need to worry about losing their jobs to India, they need to be worried about losing their jobs to Indiana.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels greeted the Tax Foundation’s recently released Business Tax Climate report with a triumphant press release celebrating Indiana’s spot as 12th in the nation for business climate – up two spots from last year.

“Indiana’s growing national reputation as a great state to do business has received another boost,” said Gov. Daniels.

But you won’t be seeing any press release from Gov. Pat Quinn’s office. According to the report, Illinois dropped seven spots from last year, falling to the 30th place in the nation in terms of business tax climate. That’s not the kind of news Chicago Democrats want to trumpet from the rooftops as Illinois’ economic death spiral picks up speed.

Don't we know it.

Springfield Terrorist

From a reader yesterday afternoon:

Been busy, but haven't seen much on the arrest of Michael Finton in Springfield ...

Very odd that the best coverage would come from:

The British press. Here.

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