As the abortion debate turns

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

After electing the most extreme pro-choice president in history, more Americans now, for the first time, define themselves as pro-life.

How can that be?

Beats me. The easy explanation is that Americans are wising up to the pro-choice deceits. Gallup suggests that Americans may have come to realize just how extreme President Barack Obama is on matters of "reproductive rights." For example, as an Illinois state senator, Obama voted against protections for abortion victims born alive.

Let's just say that if I could explain why voters do what they do, I could tell you why Chicago and Illinois voters keep electing so many crooks and schlemiels. Returning to the poll, it finds that 51 percent of Americans consider themselves pro-life, compared with 42 percent pro-choice. That's a significant shift from a year ago, when half called themselves pro-choice and 44 percent pro-life. The shift is magnified by the fact that this is the first time since Gallup started asking the question in 1995 that a majority of Americans identify themselves as pro-life.

Dig deeper into the data, and it gets more interesting. In 1993, 34 percent agreed with pro-choice activists that abortion should be legal under all circumstances; only 12 percent took the opposite view, that abortion should never be legal. Now it's a virtual tie between the two "extreme" views, with 23 percent believing that abortion always should be legal and 22 percent that it never should be legal. Most Americans still say abortion should be legal "only under certain circumstances" (53 percent now, compared with the 61 percent high in 1996). The "circumstances" are not delineated, but this has to be a blow to pro-choice die-hards whose bizarre view is that any restrictions on abortion are "anti-choice" devices to "deny women the right to choose."

How else to explain their opposition to a partial-birth abortion ban, or requiring parental permission before an abortion can be performed on a minor of any age?

I guess what the poll shows is that pro-lifers aren't the oddballs that we're cracked up to be. It also is a pleasure to see pro-choicers squirm, after they have spent years in the comfort of their perceived majority. One commentator counseled that the poll, combined with the objections to the University of Notre Dame honoring Obama, constitutes some sort of incomprehensible "frenzy" against sexuality. Wow.

But could the political Obama White House be responding to this brand of "change"? The president already has reneged on a campaign promise to enact the Freedom of Choice Act, which would "guarantee the right to choose" if Roe vs. Wade and its companion Doe vs. Bolton U.S. Supreme Court decisions guaranteeing the right to abortion for virtually any reason were overturned.

Another test will come when Obama faces hard-left demands that Justice David Souter's replacement on the Supreme Court must be a pro-choice absolutist. Obama already has gone beyond the usual selection guidelines, creating an "empathy" litmus test.

But Americans don't agree. The prevailing (45 percent) view, according to Rasmussen Reports, is that legal background and competence come first. It will be fun to watch whether Democrats, who insisted there should be no litmus test on issues such as abortion when a Republican was doing the appointing, now will demand that the appointment be pro-choice.

Abortion and its related issues aren't the only matters that will be occupying the political side of Obama's brain. According to Rasmussen, Republicans and Democrats now are in a virtual tie when it comes to whom Americans trust more to handle the economy, only a rock-bottom 13 percent trust the Democratic Congress, few Americans are willing to pay higher taxes for health-care "reform" and the percentage of Americans who believe that human activity is driving global warming has "fallen dramatically.

Meanwhile, Democratic diversionary tactics to label the obnoxious radio host Rush Limbaugh or the sneering former Vice President Dick Cheney aren't working. Only 6 percent of GOP voters pick Limbaugh as their leader, and 4 percent name Cheney, according to Rasmussen.

Meanwhile, the hard left is sensing betrayal by Obama, who, among other things, adopted a GOP position by refusing to release the "torture" photos, as the American Civil Liberties Union demands. Maybe Obama's nascent shifts have nothing to do with "change" in public opinion. Maybe Obama now understands that the realities of governing aren't as simple as he told everyone. Let us hope so.

Dishonesty or ignorance from the Talker in Chief

During his Notre Dame commencement speech, President Barack Obama said this:

Those who speak out against stem cell research may be rooted in an admirable conviction about the sacredness of life, but so are the parents of a child with juvenile diabetes who are convinced that their son's or daughter's hardships can be relieved. [Emphasis added.]

I find it incredible and terribly frustrating that after all this debate over embryonic stem cell research that folks like Obama still paint its opponents as opposing stem cell research in general. I see it couched this way by journalists who should know better, on TV, in print and on the Web. They should know better.

Those of us who oppose embryonic stem cell research are, in fact, some of the most vocal supporters of stem cell research--the adult and umbilical cord blood kind. While embryonic stem cell research is still called the "gold standard" for all stem cell research, the fact is that it still remains promise, while adult and cord blood stem cells already are beyond the promise stage, but already producing cures.

This is the same kind of crap that people who oppose illegal immigration must put up with: politicians, journalists and commentators who paint its opponents as "anti-immigration." Have they totally eliminated logic from college and high school curricula? Do they not teach accuracy anymore in Journalism schools?

Keep Yucca Mountain project alive; stop screwing with Illinois

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

While President Barack Obama's newly proposed budget would finally allow Nevada to rid itself of a nuclear waste dump planned to be buried in tunnels deep under Yucca Mountain, it would leave Illinois with the shaft.

Obama's decision to zero out the Nevada nuclear waste repository is a betrayal of his Illinois constituents, forcing nuclear power plants here to continue to "temporarily" store more than 7,000 tons of dangerous, radioactive waste -- more than any other state -- in cooling ponds near rivers and Lake Michigan. It would mean that the $10 billion that Commonwealth Edison and other utility customers already have sunk into the repository have disappeared down a dark hole.

His decision also defies decades of scientific and engineering studies demonstrating that the Nevada site is the safest and best location to store the spent fuel. Now Illinois faces the prospect that the "temporary" storage of the dangerous materials here could turn into something a lot more permanent. There's no other way to put it: Obama caved in to Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid, who for years has been trying to kill the project in his home state for purely political reasons. Reid, representing the worst of "not in my backyard" irrationality, last week crowed, "It's over with; Yucca Mountain is gone."

Now, the question becomes whether Illinois' Democratic senators -- Dick Durbin and Roland Burris -- will adequately represent the state's and nation's interests by fighting to keep the Yucca Mountain project alive. Ah, but you know they won't. There is a lesson in this for the gullible who thought that having a president and the Senate's second most powerful leader -- Durbin, the majority whip -- would shower their home state with copious benefits. Durbin, who loves to crow about the earmarks he brings back to Illinois, has badly failed the state in this most crucial test of his worth. The blindly partisan will argue that Obama has demonstrated courage by bucking the pressures from the provincials back home (i.e. Chicago), who simply are trying to avoid their responsibility by unloading on another state the waste they generated. After all, we'll be told, the Chicago area is among the most heavily dependent regions on nuclear power.

That would be a good argument if all the years of scientific study had concluded that the best alternative is to dispose of radioactive waste where it's generated. The evidence, however, suggests no such thing. The billions of dollars and years of study into the alternatives -- which included rocketing the waste into the sun or dumping it into the bottom of the ocean -- settled on Yucca Mountain in the desolate and lightly populated state of Nevada (about 18 people per square mile) as the most geologically and geographically secure prospect. Most of the nation's 131 temporary storage sites in 39 states are near large population centers; 161 million Americans live within 75 miles of a temporary site. Because nuclear power plants use large quantities of water, temporary storage often is near rivers, lakes and seacoasts, posing a threat of groundwater contamination. They also are more exposed to terrorist attacks. No site other than Yucca presented such promising natural and man-made barriers for isolating the waste for "tens of thousands of years."

The president, of course, was not simply responding to the parochial demands of Reid; Obama also is genuflecting to self-proclaimed protectors of the environment who wish to scare Americans into believing that their energy problems can be solved by windmills and such. In fact, nuclear power is an energy source of huge potential, one that generates no climate-changing carbon dioxide. Opposition to a permanent repository is an arrow in their quiver, allowing them to argue disingenuously that nuclear power is dangerous because there is no place to put the waste.

After taxpayers and electric utility customers have paid billions to study the matter, the president's $3.6 trillion 2010 fiscal year budget proposes to set aside $197 million for something called the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management to study "alternatives" to Yucca Mountain, including "regional" solutions. Billions wasted and almost $200 million conjured up from somewhere to reinvent the wheel. Pathetically, that draws barely a whimper from our Illinois elected officials.

This article has stirred some strong opinion on the Chicago Tribune website. If you want to read, or participate in the debate, go to the comment section at the bottom of the post (here).

Here are some informative links:
Reid’s victory on Yucca Mountain is nation’s loss

Is Yucca Mountain dead?

Notre Dame Students Do Themselves Proud

View their professional video of their objections to the Notre Dame administration deciding to confer an honorary degree on radically pro-choice President Barack Obama.

55% Say Media Try to Make Economy Seem Worse Than It Is

Here are some more poll results that may or may not explain why newspapers are in trouble:

The majority perception that the media isn't painting a straight picture of the economy matches similar Rasmussen Reports findings about global warming and political coverage. Earlier this month, 54% of voters said the news media makes global warming appear worse than it really is.

Just before last November's election, 68% of voters said most reporters try to help the candidate they want to win, and 51% believed they were trying to help Democrat Barack Obama.

Just seven percent (7%) thought they were trying to help his Republican opponent, John McCain. The number of those suspecting a tilt toward Obama had grown since June.

But while some liberal congressional Democrats would like to restore the so-called Fairness Doctrine because of their concern about the conservative tilt of talk radio, just 38% of voters think the government should require all radio stations to offer equal amounts of conservative and liberal political commentary. President Obama signaled several days ago that he opposes bringing back the Fairness Doctrine.

We paid for them, but we can't see them

The pictures of Air Force One taken on a photo op that scared the bejeebers out of New Yorkers cost taxpayers more than $300,000. Now Glib Gibbs, President Obama's spokesman, says we can't see them because he "doesn't know where they are."

Well, find them Gibbs; that's your job. And so many thought that Obama being from Chicago didn't much matter. Here's news: stiffing the public is standard operating procedure in the land of Daley.

Some details are here: The Swamp

Here's how they might look:

The Labor Cartel Vs. The Rest of The Country

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

For all the great good that organized labor has done for America and Americans, it now has become one of Chicago’s and the nation’s great handicaps.

The unions are snuffing out jobs, denying children a decent education and bludgeoning taxpayers for more than their labors are worth, among other things, all the while justifying their selfishness in obsolete 19th century rhetoric.

In Chicago, their mercenary practices are again denying poverty stricken communities and low-income families of a chance for hundreds of jobs, a decent place to shop and neighborhood revitalization. Chicago’s organized labor cartel, repeating a scenario from a few years back, is gearing up to block a Wal-Mart “superstore” at an abandoned Ryerson Steel plant site in Chatham.

Read more in The Chicago Daily Observer

L.A. Unified pays teachers not to teach - Los Angeles Times

The paycheck arrives regularly, as his contract requires. Read it in the Los Angeles Times

The fantasy of high-speed rail

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

How much would you pay to get to Milwaukee 10 minutes faster?

Not a cent, you say? Nothing against Milwaukee; it's a lovely town. But, if President Barack Obama gets his way, the Milwaukee-in-a-flash dream could cost taxpayers hundreds of millions. His vision of a network of high-speed trains -- many fanning out from Chicago to Milwaukee and elsewhere -- would cost $8 billion. Actually, that's just the start. The eventual cost to taxpayers of creating a network of trains zipping across America at rocket-train speeds would be way, way more.

Some visionaries (and government contractors) would argue that realizing the promise of high-speed rail travel is worth the cost. Ray LaHood, U.S. transportation secretary and former Illinois Republican congressmen, said in a new report, "A Vision for High- Speed Rail in America," that they included "building a robust, green economy, gaining energy independence, reversing global climate change and fostering more livable, connected communities."

That's quite a promise. But before building the gravy train to nirvana, some questions are in order, starting with, is it worth it? Federal regulations require that projects meet a cost-benefit test.

The costs? Well, we're talking about "high-speed" trains that would go up to 110 m.p.h, instead of the standard 79 m.p.h. speed limit on most passenger train service. That's far short of the 200-m.p.h-plus that most people think of when they're talking about bullet trains. Achieving the higher speeds would require the construction of entirely separate rights-of-way to avoid conflicts with Metra commuter trains. Every place the high-speed line would cross a street or highway, an expensive viaduct or underpass would have to be built. Less expensive street-level grade crossings would be unthinkable. Costs would skyrocket way beyond $8 billion.

Then there's the cost of separating the high-speed trains from the area's crisscrossing and clogged freight lines. In Chicago, that's been an eternal conflict, only now being addressed with a joint public and private improvement program costing in excess of $1 billion. And that's not even figuring in the new high-speed service.

In addition, expect intense local opposition from people who don't want 110-m.p.h. trains roaring through their communities. Think about the 1995 accident when a Metra commuter train going 70 m.p.h. rammed a school bus at a Fox River Grove grade crossing, killing seven children. The environment and social impact on communities bisected by any new high-speed lines would be substantial and controversial.

The benefits? Will the time saved in travel be sufficient to lure enough travelers out of their cars in trips between Chicago; Milwaukee; Madison, Wis.; St. Louis; Indianapolis; and Detroit? Proving that and other benefits requires rigid, independent analysis, and certainly more than the rosy projections of rail fans, greenies and romantics. Already, I've run across two student studies that challenge the cost and benefit assumptions of a couple of high-speed segments. If students can find the problem, I can hardly wait to see what independent professionals say.

I've enjoyed high-speed rail in France, and I believe it would be a joy here too. But France isn't the Midwest, where distances between major cities are greater and population densities lower. High-speed rail for years has been stuck at the awe-gee, wouldn't-it-be-great stage. Based on little more than that, columnists are rhapsodizing over the idea and public officials in the proposed high-speed corridors are dreaming of train loads of federal largesse. High-speed rail is one of those popular notions that's hard to oppose, positioning anyone who questions the practicality of it as an old buzzard who recoils from all the possibilities that life has to offer.

Well, here's a possibility, and I think a better one for the money. The Federal Transit Administration recently released a study estimating that bringing the CTA and major rail transit systems in six cities into good repair would cost $50 billion, and another $5.9 billion year to maintain them. Between spending more money for faster, safer and better rides for the many more who ride CTA trains, or cutting 10 or even 30 minutes off a trip between Chicago and Milwaukee, I don't think there should be any debate about where the money goes. Unless, of course, you think -- as many do these days -- that those cherry blossoms along the Washington tidal basin will ripen into endless harvests of money.

More comments can be seen and posted at the Chicago Tribune

Why shouldn't congressmen be subject to the same laws as we are?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi thinks congressmen are special. Read here to find out why.

A jury can acquit you, but...

a judge still can send you to jail. Read here about the "acquitted conduct" debate.

Congress knew.

This exclusive story confirms that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders knew about waterboarding, but didn't speak up.

This fact suggests that the leaders (including those on the intelligence committees) knew what the results of interrogations achieved, if anything. Is former Vice President Dick Cheney right when he claims that other memos show they were productive? Pelosi et al, if they're honest, can help clear this up.

But they won't, because it won't serve their partisan needs.

And why won't Pelosi tell her colleagues in the House? (See the video.)

"Mistakes were made."

It has become a cliche, but whenever politicians are caught in a blunder, they can be counted on to revert to the passive voice. That's to avoid saying, "So, I made the mistake." Or: "The mistake was mine." Or to suggest that someone else made the mistake.

So how did Obama's Homeland Security boss Janet Napolitano respond when she was asked about the goofy Air Force One flyover of Ground Zero? Here is the text:

NAPOLITANO: My understanding is the FAA sanctioned that, but I share that concern. I don't know how that happened and we want to get to the bottom of that. You know, mistakes were made. Mistakes shouldn't be repeated.

Cost of the Air Force One fiasco: $325,000

According to the Associate Press. View here.

Government, organized labor to run the Auto Industry

How scary is that?

By Dennis Byrne
Real Clear Politics

As the future of the domestic auto industry became clearer Tuesday, it appears that an unprecedented government and organized labor partnership would end up running the companies, and if that doesn't give you pause, nothing will.

Under proposed and tentative agreements, the government (meaning us taxpayers) would own half of General Motors and an undetermined slice of a 10 percent stake in Chrysler. In addition, the United Auto Workers Union would own 55 percent of Chrysler and 39 percent of GM.

There's some poetic justice in the possibility that organized labor, which had so much to do with the failure of the domestic auto industry, could end up holding so much of the bag for the mess it helped create. But how is it that we taxpayers now would have a share of two worthless companies that months ago should have gone into bankruptcy? The not-so-funny irony....

Read the rest in RealClearPolitics.

Bush didn't do it.

The East Coast, media and political classes are in the habit of blaming President George W. Bush for everything bad. But if something good has happened, Bush can't be in any way credited for it.

The latest example comes from Tom Friedman, a New York Times columnist who perfectly mirrors this sanctimonious know-it-all attitude.

Here he explains why we've had no more 9-11s during the Bush administration:

I believe that the most important reason there has not been another 9/11, besides the improved security and intelligence, is that Al Qaeda is primarily focused on defeating America in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world — particularly in Iraq. Al Qaeda knows that if it can destroy the U.S. effort (still a long shot) to build a decent, modernizing society in Iraq, it will undermine every U.S. ally in the region.

Sigh. Don't they ever get tired of writing the same thing, over and over again?

And speaking of trying to destroy "the U.S. [longshot] effort to build a decent, moderning society in Iraq," no one has tried harder than the East Coast, media and political classes.

It's 10 a.m. Do you know where your Air Force One is?

When asked by reporters about the startling fly-over of New York City by a plane that serves as Air Force One, glib Robert Gibbs, President Obama's spokesman, said errr, I, I, uhh, I, hmmm and huh.

“I was working on other things," he finally said. "You might be surprised to know that I don’t know every movement of Air Force One."



Yes, well someone did at the White House. It was Louis E. Caldera, director of the White House Military Office and former secretary of the army in the Clinton administration. So, you can't blame the Pentagon or the Air Force. Now, we are supposed to buy the act that Caldera was working entirely on his own, as if he reported to no one in the White House, such as the acting communications director. After the furor dies down, Caldera undoubtedly will be gone. And if the media have their way, so will any remembrance of this major gaffe.

Torturous definitions of detainee "torture"

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

While reading those controversial, recently declassified memos that provide the Bush administration's legal justification for "torturing" terrorist detainees, I wondered why they had left out one called "On the Rocks."

My high school Spanish teacher imposed that particular type of torture on miscreants who failed to accurately conjugate estar or who were languidly gazing out the classroom window, picturing the beauties over at St. Scholastica. Rare was the student who at least once a semester didn't spend at least five minutes kneeling on his knuckles (the "rocks").

Ha, you say, that doesn't sound so bad, and certainly not as bad as the horrors the evil Bush administration inflicted on terrorists. To which I'd ask: Which horrors? Judging by the condemnations issuing forth from the American Civil Liberties Union and other professional rebukers, you'd think that our government had been jamming bamboo sticks under fingernails.

Too bad few of those who have railed against America's "crimes against humanity" have actually read the memos. What they would have found are variations of "On the Rocks." Here are some:

* A one-time face slap, but only with spread fingers and an open palm, being careful not to hurt the poor dear.

* Nudity, with "ambient temperature" at least 68 degrees, but not before fellow detainees, because that might embarrass him.

* Something called "flicking," which means dipping your hand in water and "propelling droplets" at the detainee's face.

* An "abdominal slap" that the interrogators carefully deliver above the navel and below the sternum from no more than 18 inches away. (No fists or rings on fingers allowed.)

* Of course, there's the infamous "water boarding," in which the detainee is made to feel like he is drowning, but he knows better (thanks to the disclosure of the technique). "A single application of water may not last more than 40 seconds" and the number of individual applications of water lasting 10 seconds or longer may not exceed six."

And so forth. You get the idea.

Only lawyers could have written all this and if you got through only one of the memos, you'd quickly realize that they bulged with caveats, qualifications, exceptions and conditions, all designed for one purpose: to protect the detainee from injury and even, in some cases, pain. If this is the kind of torture that we're wringing our hands over, then the memos reveal to the world that when it comes to interrogating captured enemy combatants, we're pussycats. It also reveals to our enemies that they really don't need to worry about real, honest-to-God torture at American hands.

Is another country as finicky as America when it comes to protecting the "rights" of its sworn and unrepentant enemies? Is any country as masochistic as America when it comes to flogging itself for its perceived flaws. Does any other county have as many loudmouths who would exploit such critical questions for their cheap political value?

So, where to from here? Prosecute Bush administration lawyers for providing requested legal opinions? If so, how many lawyers will sign up to give President Barack Obama their honest opinions about controversial policies? I'd love to see their memos redefining the limits of "enhanced interrogation" as envisioned by Obama and his brain, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel: "Interrogations can only be conducted over three cups of tea in the presidential suite at the Drake Hotel. Care must be taken that the tea is not too tepid or too hot to cause discomfort to the detainee's lips. Interrogators who fall short of this standard will be shot."

For comments posted on the Tribune web site, go here. You are invited to join the discussion.

Glendon declines commencement honor from Notre Dame

Mary Ann Glendon, Harvard University professor and former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican declines to accept the school's highest honor because it also is honoring the anti-life President Barack Obama.

Details are here.

Air Force One photo op panics NYC - finger-pointing begins

What nitwit came up with this idea?

The Obama White House says knows n-o-t-h-i-n-g about why Air Force One is flying low over New York City, panicking thousands. Bunk. Who would be more interested in this than the Obama White House.

In addition to all the other questions raised by this incident, the one I find most intriguing is why public money is being used for a "photo op." What possibly could be the reason for this, other than The One's hubris?

Here's a good report in the Christian Science Monitor

Support for Free Market Economy Up Seven Points Since December

Americans have had a taste of Obama's economic recipe and they don't like it.

Seventy-seven percent of U.S. voters say that they prefer a free market economy over a government-managed economy. That’s up seven points since December.

The latest Rasmussen national telephone survey also found that just 11 percent now prefer a government-run economy, down from 15 percent four months ago.

No democracy among Democrats

Here Judd Gregg (the guy who jumped shipped after he found out what he was expected to do as the Commerce Secretary in the Obama administration) explains how the Democrats are trying to ram through a total makeover of health care. There are other insights as well that he gleaned from his short time on the inside.

This you've got to see.

Here is Barney Frank arguing that the "housing bubble" isn't at all like the "dot-com" bubble so he thinks that we should continue to promote home ownership.

High school administrators accused of "censorship" for doing the right thing

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

Here we go again, as defenders of unbridled high school journalism ride in on their high horses, raising alarms over the “censorship” of school newspapers. The very Republic, we are obliged to believe, is “at risk.”

Their latest crusade was launched by the recent resignation of a student newspaper advisor at Stevenson High School in protest of the administration’s newly instituted “prior review” of the student newspaper before publication. She and like minds are censuring the school administration because, they assert, prior review amounts to “censorship.”

Wah, wah, wah.

Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer

60% Say Government Has Too Much Power, Too Much Money

Rasmussen Reports also finds that 85 percent of Mainstream Americans say that government has too much power and money, while only two percent of the "political class" agree.

Bad news for Obama?

Obama orders $100 million in office supply cuts

Wait. Does this mean that there's $100 million worth of paper, pens and paperclips that can be cut from the federal budget? So, how much does that leave that isn't cut?

Senator's husband's firm cashes in on crisis

Here's a story that I'll bet you won't see recovered by the network news shops.

Obama Open to Prosecution of Officials Who Cleared Interrogation Tactics

This defies all rational thinking. Never in our nation's history has one administration demonstrated such animus to a preceding one. Yes, Thomas Jefferson, for example, took the national on an entirely different path than his predecessor, John Adams, but as far as I am aware, there was never an effort to prosecute anyone in the Adams administration or Adams himself (which is the logical extension of what Obama is suggesting).

This is insanity. Would this set a precedent for the next president to prosecute someone in the Obama administration (or Obama himself) for their actions while in office? Obama needs to think long and hard about this.

Tea parties define mainstream America

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

If you just listened to unfair and unbalanced CNN as well as some Chicago media outlets, you'd get the idea that the growing number of "so-called" tea parties is just a right-wing conspiracy that managed to lure a few hundred impressionable loonies from their dark recesses.

No one in his right mind, we're told, would ever think that it's a manifestation of the growing split between mainstream Americans and the political class; a mushrooming fear of the out-of-control audacity of the Obama administration; or rising disgust with political machinations, no matter what the party.

Consider the numbers. Rasmussen Reports has tried to quantify the split between the political class and the rest of us using a "political class index." It shows:

•Three-quarters of the political class gives Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner rave reviews; only 12 percent of mainstream Americans did.

•Fifty-nine percent of "mainstreamers" think that troubled insurance giant American International Group Inc. should be allowed to fail; only 7 percent of the political class does. Sixty-seven percent of mainstreamers say politicians should give back any campaign contributions they received from AIG; only 29 percent of the political class agrees.

•Two-thirds of mainstreamers say that better protection for the nation's borders and reducing illegal Immigration is "very important." Only one-third of the political class does.

•More than half of Americans can be classified as "mainstream" or "populist." Only 7 percent identify with the political class.

Rasmussen found that Democrats, Republicans and independents generally share mainstream views in equal proportions. In other words, the greater divide in this country may not be between Democrats and Republicans or conservatives and liberals, but between the mainstream and the political class.

I think that the fundamental split between the political class and rest of us shows up in other ways: Rasmussen recently found that 62 percent of Illinois voters want Sen. Roland Burris to resign, 54 percent would definitely vote against him next year and only 19 percent have a favorable opinion of him. Only 4 percent will definitely vote for him. Lest we forget, Burris is a Democrat in a Democratic state, and Burris is a creature spawned by the political class. Could Illinois voters finally have had enough?

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. was once the most popular choice to take President Barack Obama's place in the Senate, but after reports that the feds were looking into claims that Jackson's associates might have offered then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich as much as $5 million for the seat, 63 percent viewed him unfavorably. Seventy-four percent of the state's voters say future Senate vacancies should be filled by a special election, like the one that the state's political class—which happens to be mostly Democrats—blocked.

On the national level, only 27 percent of voters want a second economic stimulus package, but 74 percent say Congress likely will pass one anyway. Fewer than a quarter of Americans believe the federal government reflects the will of the people. Democratic congressional candidates now are regarded with about the same disdain as Republicans. While some polls show that Obama's approval ratings are generally high (as they are for most starting presidents), the percentage of people who strongly disapprove of his conduct in office now is just about equal to the number of those who strongly approve. (All of these polls were conducted by Rasmussen.) Obama's election has failed to mend the split between the mainstream and the political class. If anything, his wild, reckless economic policies are widening that split. The folks at the tea parties only confirmed it.

62% in Illinois Say Burris Should Resign

Everything you want to know about what you are thinking. Read it in the Rasmussen Reports

It's about time

United set large charge for large travelers, reports Crain's Chicago Business

This can't be shown often enough

Democratic culpability in the mortgage mess:

Democrats hope to torch secret ballot

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

If anyone introduced legislation wiping out your right to vote secretly, he'd be run out of town. The secret ballot is cherished, ensuring that no person, organization or government can intimidate or threaten us in the free exercise of our right to choose. For this reason, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and a raft of other supporters of the ironically named Employee Free Choice Act deserve to meet the figurative tar bucket and rail.

This dramatic change in labor law would allow workers to form a union if a majority openly signed a card in favor of union representation. Not required is an election in which workers can vote confidentially without peer pressure.

As a former union officer, I can sympathize with the bill's purpose of facilitating union organizing. As a small businessman, I don't agree with so blatantly loading the dice in favor of organized labor. ( I am repulsed by a provision that would turn over certain contract negotiations to binding arbitration, a revolutionary government intrusion into private sector labor relations.)

But those are side issues. Nothing can justify any government stripping away the protections of a secret ballot. Ludicrously, some bill supporters say it wouldn't. "It would only give workers a choice to waive that right [to a secret ballot]," said Rep. John Barrow (D-Ga.). And why, pray tell, would they do that? Because, Barrow continued, it would be "the price they'd be willing to pay in order to avoid a campaign that goes along with a secret ballot election." Such goofiness is a measure of how desperate organized labor and their toadies have become in trying to deny the obvious.

When Congress returns from its spring recess, it will be challenged to uphold the cherished principle of the secret ballot, and the betting is that only a Senate filibuster stands in its way. In that, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) is the deciding vote. He recently said he would vote against the bill, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said if Specter does, he would not be admitted into Democratic ranks, a move that supposedly would make it easier for the Republican to win re-election next year in the blue state.

Truth is, I wouldn't put money on anything Specter plans to do. President Barack Obama will sign the bill if it gets to his desk, but if it doesn't labor shouldn't feel bad; Obama already has bestowed bountiful blessings on it, although you might not have noticed unless you're an avid reader of the Federal Register. Almost the first thing Obama did as president was to sign executive orders that defer to organized labor's aggressive demands. The orders, reversing Bush administration policy, effectively increase the costs of taxpayer-funded projects and further complicate an already burdensome web of federal red tape.

Executive order 13502, which applies to all federal construction projects of $25 million or more, "encourages" federal agencies to require the use of controversial "project labor agreements." The philosophy behind the agreements is simple: If you can't organize an employer's shop, you can at least get your foot in the door by muscling labor agreements out of companies on a project-by-project basis. Open-shop companies would have to negotiate with whatever union shows up, even before a single employee is hired. It reduces competition for federal projects and weakens government neutrality in the bidding process. The order also mandates a study by administration officials to determine whether the agreements should be extended into other areas of government purchasing, and guess what they'll decide?

Another executive order removes a requirement that most government contractors post a notice on site of employee rights, including this important one: You don't have to be a union member to be hired. Another executive order requires a new contractor (on jobs of $100,000 or more) that is taking over a project from another contractor to hire the old employees first. The effect, again, is to make it harder for open-shop employers to compete for new contracts.

"To the victor belong the spoils," President Andrew Jackson famously said in defense of doing favors for his supporters, and it has been that way in the nearly two centuries since then; that Obama is showering boons on his supporters should surprise no one. Except that Obama, with his usual elan and growing disrespect for reality, declared these changes were done for, ahem, economy and efficiency. Aw, c'mon, Mr. President, don't insult us with your pretense. Your election has brought about a change in policies (for the worse, I'd say), but no change in the way things are done.

The Obama administration charges juice loan interest rates

Some banks that initially received TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) money from Washington want to return it. That should please everyone, especially taxpayers who are fronting the money in the first place.

But the Obama administration is reluctant to allow the repayments, figuring, I guess, that they have a lot more fiddling to do with the banks.

Here's the experience that one bank had when it returned its TARP money, according to the New York Times.

Douglas Leech, the founder and chief executive of Centra Bank, a small West Virginia bank that participated in the capital assistance program but returned the money after the government imposed new conditions, said he complained strongly about the Treasury Department’s decision to demand repayment of the warrants. That effectively raised the interest rate he paid on a $15 million loan to an annual rate of about 60 percent, he said.

“What they did is wrong and fundamentally un-American,” he said. “Even though the government told us to take this money to increase our lending, the extra charge meant we had less money to lend. It was the equivalent of a penalty for early withdrawal."

(The warrants he mentioned are the stock warrants the banks had to grant to the federal government in exchange for the loans. Now that the camel's nose is in the tent and the government has tasted the power of running the private sector, there's apparently no backing out.)

Hastert to lobby for Turkey

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, a west suburban Repbublican, gets his due from Turkey. (Story here)

It's probably just a coincidence that he blocked--as the Speaker and at the request of then President Bill Clinton--a resolution condemning the Turks' killing of 1.5 million Armenians during the 1915-1916 genocide and that he shares (with former House Democratic Majority Leader Richard Gephardt) a $35,000-a-month contract to lobby Congress on behalf of Turkey.

True bipartisanship, that.

City 'wolfpacks' to hunt potholes

Wait, wasn't any "shovel-ready" project supposed to have "lasting impact," according to the Obama administration?

According to this, tens of millions of dollars of federal stimulus funding will go "resurfacing" Chicago streets. Considering the brief life-span of Chicago streets, how can the program meet the "lasting impact" standard. Unless, they meant a "lasting impact" that is political, and help get Mayor Richard M. Daley out of his pothole problem.

Frank never answers the student's question, and instead tries to make the student look like he has done something wrong merely by asking. Frank never explains his efforts to presure lenders into making loans to unqualified borrowers as part of the community reinvestment act.

For a response to Frank's dodging and weaving, watch this video:

Just 53% Say Capitalism Better Than Socialism

That's according to a new Rasmussen Reports. It makes me wonder what they're teaching in schools these days.

Big Victory for Daley in Suburban Elections

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley wasn’t on the ballots in Bensenville or Des Plaines, yet he won resounding victories in the northwestern suburbs when his candidates for town leadership swept away their competition.

Daley’s successful assault on the towns now leaves serious questions about the viability of any remaining opposition to O’Hare Airport expansion. For the Chicago Boss, it has to be a sweet climax to his decade-long campaign to silence elected suburban opposition to the $16-billion-plus airport enlargement.

In Bensenville, he broke the back of O’Hare Airport expansion opposition by vanquishing President John Geils and in Des Plaines, he strengthened his pro-expansion tentacles with the mayoral election of the pro-expansion Martin Moylan.

Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer

Notre Dame is wrong

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

As a Marquette University graduate, I don't give a hoot what the University of Notre Dame does. It can endow an academic chair in honor of Attila the Hun for all I care, and my life would proceed apace.

But the Indiana school somehow has been crowned the "nation's pre-eminent Catholic university"—a dubious claim considering the quality of other Catholic colleges. So everyone must have an opinion on the honors it will award to President Barack Obama while giving him a commencement podium to expound, if he wishes, his extremist positions on "reproductive rights."

Thus, even secular columnists—well practiced in telling those papists, but not, say, Unitarian-Universalists what to do—have assigned themselves to defend Notre Dame. Don't give in, they say, to troglodytes who would sink academic freedom by demanding that an institution that bills itself as Catholic should honor one of the faith's central tenets: the inviolate right of every life created in its maker's image to enjoy all the inalienable rights bestowed on every person. Shame on those Catholics.

Social justice is another key teaching of the Catholic Church. (This will surprise some who have ignorantly categorized the Catholic Church as a bastion of oppression and indifference.) Now suppose Notre Dame decided to confer an honorary degree on an acknowledged opponent of that particular church teaching, someone like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, no adherent of social justice he.

Because it's always good to hear from "the other side" in academe, let's suggest more folks that Notre Dame should honor: North Korean tyrant Kim Jong Il, who can explain why his approach to social justice is beneficial to all mankind. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who can expound on why the deaths of more than 200,000 and the displacement of more than 2 million people in Darfur was an exercise in social justice. We can all learn from listening graciously to this criminal, recently indicted by the International Criminal Court. Then there's Osama bin Laden. . . .Well, you get the point, which you will protest is too easily made. After all, Obama is none of those characters, and to in anyway equate them with the president is insulting, outrageous. And so it is. But there's this:

It is a firmly held belief by millions of Catholics, hierarchy and laity alike, that the abortion of millions of unborn people is a catastrophe of Holocaust proportions. To them, the legalized slaughter of innocents brutalizes us all. You might not agree, you might argue that the church is wrong on matters of "reproductive rights" and, therefore, there's nothing wrong with Notre Dame honoring Obama. But don't you see? You're telling Catholics what they should believe. It's as arrogant as entering a temple or mosque and telling the adherents that their refusal to eat pork is wrong, so line up for your ration of bacon. So much for your precious "diversity."

You can argue that the purpose of any university is discourse and disputation, so Notre Dame should invite whomever it pleases. John Henry Newman, a respected Catholic scholar, has a deeper, less simple-minded take. In his essay "The Idea of a University," he calls the university a "tribunal of truth." It is arrived at, yes, by conversing and disputation.

But truth is a hard proposition for modern ears to hear. To them, the search for truth is the entire story; its discovery is not to be admitted because truth, say some, is unknowable.

Newman continues: "Truth, a subtle, invisible, manifold spirit, is poured into the mind of the scholar by his eyes and ears, through his affections, imagination and reason; it is poured into his mind and is sealed up there in perpetuity by propounding and repeating it, by questioning and requestioning, by correcting and explaining, by progressing and then recurring to first principles, by all those ways which are implied in the word 'catechizing.' " If, then, disputation is the reason for Obama's appearance, then let it be in a classroom or confrontational format, where the antagonists can fence. Honoring Obama is not the same as disputing him.

Disputation in the academic sense is not the reason for Obama's appearance. Notre Dame assuredly knew that the Obama honors would cause a massive controversy, one that would catch the nation's attention and divide the church. It was a cynical move by an institution captivated by its own "pre-eminence" to draw attention to itself. At the expense of its (now-dead) principles.

A rift in the Democratic Party?

After hammering away at Republicans for years about their split between moderate and conservative members, the media need to take note of the rift between moderates and liberals that is splitting the Democratic Party and has the White House worried about enacting the president's far-left agenda. Details in Rasmussen Reports

Maybe Obama should stay in Europe

Rasmussen Reports finds that the number of Americans who strongly disapprove of Obama's presidential performance has jumped dramatically since his inauguration. The number who strongly approve has declined slightly.

Dennis Byrne reviews the news tonight with Milt Rosenberg on WGN radio at 9 p.m.

It ain't working...

An item from the-chickens-have-come-home-to-roost department (Part 1):

AIG Rescue Has Failed, Greenberg Tells Lawmakers

Beware of Presidents Bearing Gifts

LONDON (API)—President Barack Obama, attending the G-20 summit, today presented Queen Elizabeth with a $250 gift certificate to Target stores as an “expression of American solidarity” with Great Britain.

At the same time, the president, responding to the uproar created by his chintzy gift of a bunch of old movie DVDs to British Prime Minister Brown weeks ago, sought to smooth things over by presenting him a with dozen White Castle Sliders. Brown cordially received the gift of Krystal’s miniature square hamburgers, wrapped in a tasteful paper sack.

However, a source familiar with the situation said the prime minister planned to “regift that crap” to the pet dogs at Number 10 Downing Street.

“We had planned to give the Queen an iPod, loaded with pictures of her last visit to America,” First Lady Michelle Obama later cheerfully explained to reporters. “But, we thought Her Majesty might already have one—you know she’s the queen and all that—so we just figured that if she did, she could use the certificate for whatever she wanted. Besides,” Mrs. Obama added, “we had already given recordings to the prime minister, and if we did the same for the Queen, some people might think we totally lack imagination in the gift-giving department.”

As it did after the DVD controversy, the British press was furious over the perceived slight to the Queen and regarded the hamburgers as only deepening what it called it the worst crisis since the War of 1812 between the two previously inseparable allies. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promised intensified negotiations to restore normalcy. “We need to address the underlying causes of the problem that has festered over the past eight years of failed diplomacy,” said.

Clinton ignored media questions about whether a present she had earlier presented to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov bearing an incorrect translation that implied hostility rather than peacemaking was symptomatic of Obama’s own failed diplomacy.

In reaction, the New York Times opined editorially that the gift-giving brouhaha was a “tempest in a teapot,” a reference to the English taste for the beverage. Said the editorial: “We believe other overriding issues at the summit deserve greater coverage and more in-depth analysis, which is why we have assigned our best writers to report on Mrs. Obama’s outfits.

Congressional Republicans, meeting in caucus, could not agree about what to say.

Will the Senate approve a radical as Health and Human Services Committee?

Probably, but here is some interesting information on her.

Bensenville, DesPlaines: Chicago's new 51st and 52nd wards.

Daley is muscling into suburban elections near O'Hare, according to critics cited in a Tribune story.

A Daley spokeswoman said she didn't know any of the political operatives involved, although they worked for him politically. Sorry, Richie, the line that you've got no interest in the suburbs near O'Hare--where opposition to the airport expansion is strong--just doesn't work anymore.

No, a thousand times no

A poll shows some support for government bailouts for failing newspapers (which could be all of them). Thirty-three percent said they would support legislation that would allow newspapers become tax-exempt non-profit organizations as long as they don't endorse political candidates.

Thankfully, 51 percent oppose the legislation, introduced last week by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Maryland), thus showing that the entirety of the American public hasn't lost its mind. Besides some First Amendment questions, the very idea of a government-run media should set spines shivering. While the poll shows a slight majority believe that newspapers are essential to a democracy, the publications--like GM and banks--should rise or fall on their own merits. If all the people who believe that newspapers are essential actually were regular readers, newspapers probably wouldn't have the problems they're having.

Science and public policy

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

The flourishing liberal dictum that the public should keep its paws off the funding and practice of science is a serious and dangerous fabrication.

Among liberal rhetoricians, this erroneous diktat blossomed when then-President George W. Bush limited federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research. They said Bush and others with moral qualms about destroying human life to advance scientific knowledge were "anti-science." So, when the political left found they could advance their own scientific agenda by painting conservatives as anti-science, the slander became an embedded component of liberal group think. Anyone who opposed the politicalization of climate science or contemplated the nexus of science and theology in theories about evolution were dragged to the guillotine of political correctness. Even those holding secular or humanistic objections were unfairly labeled right-wing religious fanatics, hellbent on imposing their moral paradigm on an unwilling public.

This has to stop if America is to return to a thoughtful, intelligent discussion of scientific issues that are germane to the public interest. The setting of government-funded research priorities and the relationship between the public good and science are very much legitimate grounds for reasonable debate. Liberals once fought government funding for nuclear power research and nuclear weapons testing. They evoked moral, ethical and political considerations in the debate. Did that make them anti-science?

Liberals historically have opposed expenditures on space science, including missions to the moon, based on the non-scientific argument that the money would better be spent on helping people "here on Earth." Did that make liberals anti-science?

Liberals argued that the first claim on the federal health-science dollar should be HIV-related research, when cancer and heart diseases were clearly bigger killers. Did that make liberals anti-science? Then there's human cloning. Is opposing it anti-science?

Of course not. That made them citizens engaged in a proper democratic dialogue. And so are conservatives who disagree with some of the liberal science agenda. Disagreement over the funding of embryonic stem cells is not fundamentally a debate over science. Conservatives who caution against sliding into the easy fabrication and use of human life for research are not challenging the scientific potential of pluripotent embryonic stem cells. But I give an F for scientific literacy to many proponents of embryonic stem-cell funding because they have chosen, for political reasons, to ignore the science that has generated more immediate and promising results from embryonic cord blood and adult stem cells. Worse, instead of engaging in respectful scientific disputation, they disparage those who disagree with them as religious block-heads.

The same sorry spectacle has unfolded in the debate over global warming. Despite scientific evidence that challenges the "conclusion" that the "debate is closed" over climate change, the liberal default position is to label dissidents as anti-science. The science of how to make a nuclear bomb is closed; the intrinsically complicated understanding of the zillion variables in predicting global climate change remains incomplete. Nazis regarded eugenics and exploring the "beneficial" uses of human skin peeled from Holocaust victims as science. They dipped living people into salt water the temperature of the frigid North Atlantic Ocean to find better ways to save the lives of downed Nazi fighter pilots. Would opposing those horrors be considered anti-science?

As a former science and technology writer, I soon concluded that if science can be done, it likely will be done by someone, somewhere, whether it is beneficial to or destructive of individual and societal good. Efforts in a democratic society to encourage, guide, direct or regulate that science is not just a legitimate endeavor, but also a necessary one. If science was conducted in a vacuum, then who should care?

So, now we enter a debate about whether the University of Notre Dame should have scheduled a commencement speech by President Barack Obama because he is an advocate of using public money to fund the destruction of human life for the benefit of "more deserving individuals." Some will bewail the protests, claiming they are anti-science.

From this, we desperately need respite.

Kansas governor signs abortion law on fetal sonograms

Under it, abortion clinics will have to offer women the option of viewing a sonogram of the living fetus or listening to its heart beat. (Story here)

Of course, the abortion industry lobbied against the law, the story said, "arguing it was an attempt to erode abortion rights by placing new restrictions on clinics."

Restrictions? Offering more information for more fully informed consent to help women "choose" is an intrusion on abortion rights? Only in the Alice in Wonderland world of Planned Parenthood would such a requirement be viewed as an infringement on "choice."

Rahm Emanuel's profitable stint at mortgage giant

This is a must read. More revelations on the slimy character of Obama's trusted adviser.

Tollway officials OK breaks for violators

Why?

Tollway officials try to explain why here. It comes down to: We're supposed to feel sorry for the road runners.

Pelosi Vetoes Obama. Media Ignore It.

Obama was preparing a shock for military veterans

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

All too little attention has been paid to President Barack Obama’s shocking plan to force private insurance companies to pay for the treatment of military veterans who have suffered service-connected disabilities and injuries.

For most of the media—and, consequently, the public—the plan briefly flashed like heat lightning in the summer sky and soundlessly disappeared. But the very existence of the plan, and the story of how it bit the dust, raises serious questions about the Obama administration’s political wisdom, its ability to govern and whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is running things.

The astonishing proposal raised an uproar among veterans’ groups...

Read more in the Chicago Daily Observer

Haven't we had enough under Blago?

Now Quinn wants to hit us with a 50 percent income tax increase.

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

If you're not for Gov. Pat Quinn's 50 percent income tax increase and a raft of other new levies in his proposed budget then you're against the poor, elderly, veterans and children.

I'm doing it for the poor, elderly, veterans and children, Quinn repeatedly says to justify the boatload of new taxes in his proposed budget. Not helping them, he said, would be "mean-spirited."

Cork it, can't you?

It's the same old crippled logic that has been deployed against any member of the body politic that demurs from whatever big, new tax or spend number that shows up in a budget. After all these years, can't the people pushing ever-bigger government do better than suggest that their opponents are indifferent or cruel?

After all, suggests John Tillman, chief executive officer of the Illinois Policy Institute, a conservative think tank, can't being "mean-spirited" also mean dipping into people's wallets? Isn't it just as harsh (to paraphrase the left) as making people choose between paying their taxes and buying medicine or food?

Quinn, as Democrats often do, is arguing from the heart rather than the mind, which is why it sells politically.

But as a reasonable argument, it fails. The choice isn't just between a massive tax increase and doing nothing. A multitude of other possibilities present themselves, like not increasing revenues until demonstrating that current revenues—which have grown by $7 billion over the past decade—are well spent.

What Quinn is proposing is like pulling a wrecked car out of the ditch and deciding, while we're at it, to repave the road.

Give credit to Quinn for honestly facing Illinois' horrible financial condition head on; how refreshing not to hear ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich shucking about how he fixed the budget when he only made it worse.

But Quinn's budget also would make matters worse. Illinois is losing jobs and businesses. More people leave than settle here. An arguably low income tax is offset by higher-than-average property taxes, the nation's highest sales tax (in Chicago), a high inheritance tax and a multitude of other, less obvious taxes that Quinn would increase.

Illinois is becoming a tax sinkhole. If government workers in Illinois were paid what comparable workers were paid in the private sector, we could save $3 billion, argues Tillman.

Don't hold your breath. Even gradually narrowing that gap over time by limiting the exorbitant wage, pension and contractual benefits granted to organized labor is unthinkable in a state throttled by union power. Consider the additional money that Quinn wants for "the children"—meaning public education. Average per-pupil spending in Chicago now is about $13,000, prima facia evidence that taxpayers are getting rooked. Obvious alternatives (school choice) exist, but the teachers unions continue to resist freeing the children from their public school bondage. Incredibly, the Illinois Education Association thinks even Quinn's increases aren't enough. It criticized Quinn's budget for "balancing the state budget on the backs of public education employees and state government workers." The only satisfaction to be derived from such an absurd statement is that some of Quinn's rhetoric (he's doing it for "the kids") is getting tossed back at him.

On top of all this, the special interests (including the teachers union) that demand so much bloat from the Illinois budget managed to kill a proposed constitutional convention that could have addressed some of the structural problems that have led to our financial crisis. No matter how much we do for the poor, elderly, veterans and children, we always can do more.

But we're already doing plenty, so much so that the state's financial health is greatly endangered. Continue on this route and we'll for sure end up doing less, not more, for the poor, elderly, veterans and children.

With Blagojevich gone, legislative leaders now have an opportunity to demonstrate their reasonableness.

We have a right to expect better governance. Illinois' reputation already is bad enough, and deservedly so. An astonishing 50 percent income tax increase will only convince the rest of America that we are, indeed, nuts.

The Sanchez Trial Isn’t The End

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

Denise Alcantar had never driven anything bigger than a rented moving truck and her only previous work experience was as an office assistant. Yet, the Daley administration figured she was skilled enough to drive one of those big, lumbering garbage trucks for the city. A few months later, she c crushed a fellow city worker between her truck and a post as she tried to maneuver the truck around a turn.

How can this happen?

The same way that the Daley Democratic Political Machine hires incompetents—based solely on their political connections—to inspect porches that later fall down and kill people. The same way that years, ago the Chicago Sun-Times could open an undercover bar and get overrun with city inspectors on the take.

Read more in The Chicago Daily Observer

Special Olympics chief responds to Obama gaffe

In comparing his dismal bowling game to the Special Olympics, President Barack Obama's crew immediately realized that he had stepped in it. An apology rang out from the White House even before the tape of the remark aired on the Jay Leno show.

Which offered Timothy Shriver, Special Olympics chairman, an opportunity to suggest that partial atonement might be achieved by hiring a Special Olympian for the White House.

If George W. Bush had made the same gaffe when he was president, and Shriver had made the same suggestion, looney left blogs would be buzzing with the rejoinder that the White House already has a Special Olympian working there--in the Oval Office.

Cable comic show clowns, of course, would never let us forget that Bush had made the gaffe, but with Obama in the Oval Office, look for this gnat to leave our attention before the next sunrise.

Dodd Draws Voters’ Ire Over Wall Street Pay

Oh, and did the New York Times reporters happen to mention that Dodd is a Democrat?

Check it out here.

Apparently, we're supposed to conclude that he is, because he comes from a heavily Democratic state and has a Republican opponent.

What would it have hurt to have inserted his party identification somewhere, anywhere in the story, if not at the top, where it belongs? It is "small" things that are trashing what used to be an honorable profession, my profession.

Bankruptcy=No Bonuses

If AIG had been left to fail--as it, GM and a raft of other "troubled" institutions should have been--there would have been no bonuses paid to its executives. Those receiving the bonuses would have had to line up for their money just like everyone else that was owed money--bondholders, suppliers, consultants and the rest. That's why we have bankruptcy, but no, the politicians had to fiddle with it all, arrogant in their thinking that they could foresee all and run the business.

And, so, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, President Barack Obama, Sen. Chris Dodd, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the rest of the clowns who insisited on the bailouts, stimuli, TARPs and all the other give-aways are sinking into an ever-deeper political quagmire today for abetting the bonuses.

Poetic justice, indeed.

City repaves park roads first

Here's how Mayor Richard M. Daley corrupts city priorities with his fixation on snagging the 2016 Olympics. While his administration asserts that the city doesn't have enough money to fix major streets, it's repaving the streets on the Olympic site first.

It's what you get when dolts repeatedly elect a dictator to run things.

Rational thinking about corporate bonuses

Let us pause for a moment from all the hysteria, get a glass of water, have a seat and take a deep breath to reflect upon the AIG bonuses. Here is some rational thinking from William Byrne, a retired corporate executive and a very smart fellow who happens to be my brother (don't hold that against him):

Regarding bonuses. In most companies bonuses are paid on the basis of performance: corporate, division, individual. The parameters for an individual’s bonus depend on the employee’s job description, and are generally weighted according to the priorities assigned to the elements of the job description. Examples might be: generate new business, submit winning proposals, complete a project within budget, etc. And in my company, if the business unit did not make a profit, no one in that unit got a bonus – so there could be overriding corporate goals as well as individual goals.

So to make a blanket demand that all AIG bonuses are bogus might make the public feel better, but might in fact be detrimental to future performance. But this will never sell in the public place so long as large amounts of public money are going to AIG. So a compromise is needed that permits legitimate bonuses be awarded (but maybe not paid right away, or paid in relationship to a formula based on the return of the bailout money to the government), but prohibits bonuses for the unperforming (whatever that means) units of the company. A very sticky problem. Ed Liddy (current AIG CEO) is a pretty sharp guy with a very good management track record. He needs to show his leadership skills in this situation.

Hedge Funds May Get AIG Cash

Here is another example of the folly of rushing ahead with simple-minded legislation that no one understood to solve a complex problem for which no one has a solution. I'll say it again, as I did before the TARP legislation passed: This will be the biggest flim-flam in American history.

Fed Data Show Banks Are Lending

So, what are we to make of this new report?

One of the underlying premises of the various bailouts and stimuli is the claim that banks aren't lending. This is report is dangerous to the Obama administration's plans, and thus, I suspect won't get much attention.

G.W. Bush: Obama 'deserves my silence'

In this former President George W. Bush is showing a lot more grace and style than the new president's administration. At every turn, Obama and his folks continue the thread-bare blame-Bush strategy.

Here's David Axelrod defending Obama's Treasury Sec. Tim Geithner against charges that he screwed up by allowing AIG pay bonuses:

David Axelrod, senior adviser to the president, dismissed such talk, citing the financial mess that Mr. Geithner had inherited. “He has been confronted with a situation and challenges that are unparalleled in modern history, and to put it all on his shoulders is not fair and not right,” Mr. Axelrod said. “He’s a brilliant and committed guy with a great deal of experience in this area, and we’re standing with him.”

Sooner or later, the Obama administration will have to start taking responsibility for what it's doing to this country.

It's not all gloom and doom

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Life is good.

Yeah, I know. That's not the most popular view right now and, and it probably is offensive, insensitive and in violation of all the other 'ives that define today's ethics. But because I'm paid to be unpopular, and if we all could start conducting our lives by practicing the good, true and beautiful instead of merely trying to float through life without displeasing anyone, I'll say it anyway.

Being wretched is the cause de jour. Even if we, ourselves, aren't miserable, we're supposed to act as if we were, because if we don't, how can we be considered simpatico with the suffering multitudes? If we don't walk around with long faces, we'll be indicted for not caring about the many who are losing their jobs, homes, savings and their futures. For me, that'll mean I'll probably have to work until the day I die—not a happy prospect for some of my most critical readers, but that'll be my silver lining to that particular cloud.

Financial problems, health problems; we've all had them. Some worse than others, and every night my last waking thoughts often are about how blessed and/or lucky we are to have survived the awful and avoided the worst. How wonderful is that gift that we have received; how immense are its possibilities. Now, our collective despond has overwhelmed it all. So much so that a national malaise poses a fundamental threat to the American economy.

We always believed that we were part of a great movement called democracy, involved in the search for freedom, and that belief has always strengthened us in our purpose. But just as we are losing our confidence in the future, we are also beginning to close the door on our past, a past founded on the conviction that we are the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy.

The crisis we face today isn't so much one of credit, excessive borrowing or a housing meltdown. It is a crisis of confidence. Confidence isn't just some romantic notion; it is a fact that has driven the American experience. From confidence flows private enterprise and self-government. Confidence links generations and fuels progress. All the legislation in the world can't fix what's wrong with America. The strength we need will not come from the White House, but from every house in America.

By now, the more historically astute have recognized that I've cribbed these words, some of them verbatim, from former President Jimmy Carter. On July 15, 1979, Carter delivered his televised "malaise" speech to a nation sinking into an economic quagmire, one that was actually worse than today's. That, of course, offends the current incantation that today's economy is "the worst since the Great Depression," a trope that has been repeated so often that it has been emptied of meaning. Truly, today's economy isn't as bad as the one that Carter faced; the unemployment rate was higher, credit had been severely crimped by incredibly high interest rates, the country still was in a post-Vietnam War and post-Watergate funk. Carter correctly diagnosed the cause: the loss of faith. Former President Ronald Reagan, for whatever his faults, helped restore it.

That history, however, hasn't mattered much to a political and media establishment enthralled with our depression. At every turn, they have been moved to forecast even worse times. For whatever political reason or personal gain, they continued to pile it on, deepening the gloom until its prospect became reality. Bad news has weighed down bad news; dire warnings are issued that as bad as things are, they'll only get worse.

In some quarters, it is a partisan exercise, meant to deepen our gloom, gain political advantage and either scare the populace into ever-grosser levels of debt or to discredit efforts to ease the gloom. President Barack Obama blames, with increasing acidity, the Bush administration and "those who would have us do nothing" (who, pray tell, are they?). We could argue the point all day about whether the "failure of regulation" was Barney Frank's or George Bush's fault.

But it's about time to acknowledge that we, with our constant harping, have created the monster that we lay at the feet of speculators, bankers, financial finaglers, irresponsible borrowers and all the rest. And that we are responsible for re-igniting the innate American confidence that will restore our health.

Another Obama appointee gone, at least for now

Vivek Kundra, President Barack Obama's just-appointed chief information technology officer, was placed on administrative leave before he could even organize his pencils.

That's because as the D.C. government's chief technology officer he oversaw a contracting process that now is being investigated for massive fraud. He hasn't been identified as a suspect, but....

The story is here

Obama Orders Treasury Chief to Try to Block A.I.G. Bonuses

An item from the I-got-frigged-so-you-should-get-frigged-too department:

Obama Orders Treasury Chief to Try to Block A.I.G. Bonuses Why wait for information about the contracts and individual details of the bonuses? We assume that each and every one of them are the "people who caused the problem?" More demagoguery fed by sophomoric stereotyping.

Who can explain it?

Chicago will get at least $1 billion in stimulus funds, according to reports.

But can anyone--anyone at all--explain how it was decided that Chicago would get $1 billion and not, say $800 million, or 1.2 billion? How why it will "preserve 1,000 CTA posts" or "750 teaching positions?" And not 1,000 community service jobs, instead of 650?

The most basic explanation of how these decisions were made is totally missing. It's as if the public had no say in these matters, which, of course, it hasn't.

This is the biggest single distribution of public money in our history, but we are supposed to sit by like a bunch of serfs, waiting for Czar Daley II to make these decisions. Nothing, nothing at all, seems to be able to stop this and restore our basic rights as a self-governing people.

Who caused the housing meltdown?

Have voters had enough to push reform?

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

Now if voters would only stay angry. They were cross enough last week to select a reformer, Mike Quigley, as the Democratic candidate to run for Rahm Emanuel's open seat in the 5th Congressional District. Quigley's victory in the Democratic primary in a field of 12 candidates came as something of a surprise. Chicago voters have a well-honed tradition of sheepish acceptance of whatever bozo is offered up to them for their rubber-stamping.

Quigley's reform credentials were soundly established as a Cook County Board commissioner in his sometimes quixotic but always energetic campaign against the odious practices of Board President Todd Stroger and his cronies. It's possible that the party's dark forces divided and weakened themselves by fighting each other in the primary, leaving only Quigley standing, but there's also the possibility that voters in even this highly organized and heavily Democratic district had enough of the usual thieves and rascals. What's interesting is how the thieves and rascals are so arrogant that they cavalierly keep piling on reasons, at an unbelievable rate, for voters to be enraged.

The incumbent bosses have:

• Gone to extraordinary lengths to tell voters that governance is none of their business. Brazenly, the bosses have killed a special election to fill President Barack Obama's empty Senate seat, scotched voter recall of unworthy officeholders and combined with powerful interests, including Republican power brokers, to block the calling of a constitutional convention to impose reform on dug-in insiders who have too long resided safely in their taxpayer-funded sinecures.

• Worked all kinds of dodges to keep secret information that citizens have a right to possess if they are to fully participate in a democracy. Tribune reporters on Sunday documented how difficult it is for citizens to crack that wall of official and bureaucratic resistance, often to the detriment of the public good. It's such an ingrained part of the status quo that Mayor Richard Daley openly flouts his ability to withhold from public scrutiny critically important details about how he plans to spend taxpayers' stimulus funds.

• Bungled every phase of governance, as demonstrated by the horrid financial shape of Chicago and the state, conditions easily camouflaged in a flood of meaningless or dishonest rhetoric. How many times can Gov. Pat Quinn change his mind about electing Obama's replacement before he becomes as discredited as the governor who preceded him?

• Stood by quietly as members of their own party engage in gross racial politics. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) and state Sen. Rickey Hendon (D-Chicago), in particular, unconscionably leveled imputations of racism against those who engaged in a legitimate debate over the suitability and propriety of Roland Burris serving as Obama's replacement in the Senate.

• Engaged in an endless, costly, dishonest and sometimes deadly fight to preserve political patronage. Just two recent examples: A fed-up Julia Nowicki recently resigned as the federally appointed monitor of hiring abuses in Cook County. Details of Chicago political corruption are unfolding in the federal trial of Al Sanchez, the former Streets and Sanitation commissioner and Daley aide.

• Thrived on a system of corruption that enriches the powerful; rewards the dishonest, incompetent and lazy; stacks the deck against ordinary citizens; robs taxpayers of a fair return on their public investments; and burps out the likes of Rod Blagojevich. And so on.

But despite all these reasons for throwing the bums out and the momentary hope that Quigley's election might signal reform, the corrupt political organization that has a grip on this town will need more than that to feel threatened. They'll figure that the reliable return of apathy and self-interest as the dominant factors in state and local politics will keep everyone in line. In fact, some machine pols might even consider Quigley's victory a godsend. Traditionally, the easiest way to dispose of pesky reformers here is to send them to Washington. Which gives party bosses a chance to appoint a compliant hack to replace Quigley on the County Board.

Maybe the voters now should demand an election to replace Quigley.

Reid: Paying income tax is voluntary

Journalism students outclass the pros

Here is an informative article on a promising and at-hand alternative to using embryonic stem cells to advance the science. The use of stem cells from umbilical cords holds the promise of more than 70 diseases, yet lacks sufficient funding.

If President Barack Obama is so interested in advancing science, maybe he should look to this noncontroversial alternative.

Congratulations and thanks are owed to Medill Reports, a news service available here, written and produced by graduate journalism students at Northwestern Univerity's Medill School.

CTA's pension fund fiasco

Here is an eye-opening, must-read story about the unnerving state of underfunded public pensions, including the Chicago Transit Authority's. A must read for people who aren't scared enough yet.

Now they're getting it

The Government Accountability Office will closely watch how Illinois spends its stimulus money, according to reports.

Seeing as how Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley won't tell the public where its stimulus money is going, maybe the GAO can start by smoking out the list.

"Experience tells us that the risk for fraud and abuse grows when billions of dollars are going out quickly, eligibility requirements are being established or changed and new programs are being created," said Gene L. Dodaro, acting U.S. comptroller generator.

Especially when one of the old requirements is that the money has to go to one of the mayor's friends.

And the Obama campaign propaganda machine said that it didn't matter that he was hatched in the cesspool of corrupt politics. Think aain.

Glib Gibbs

Asked if President Obama would accept Rush Limbaugh's invitation for a head-to-head debate, press secretary Robert Gibbs said something about shutting off his television and not having a radio. Clever.

As Obama sinks the nation into a deeper and deeper mess, he and his White House are increasingly less willing to engage in a substantive debate, instead attempting to make witicisms about "who is the Republican spokesman?" and engaging in personal attacks.

Obama, who hasn't missed a single opportunity to make himself public (before friendly crowds), will use the excuse that a president debate critics, which historically is true (except during re-election campaigns). But it sure would be nice if the White House responded with substantive arguments, for a change.

A $30-million Obama earmark for the CTA | Chicago Daily Observer

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Daily Observer

President Barack Obama, who has assured us that he’s the St. George in the crusade to slay the evil dragon Earmark, slipped a $30 million boon into the federal budget for the CTA’s Brown Line.

Which I guess proves that all earmarks are bad…unless they are our earmarks.

Obama, while he was still our junior senator connived with Illinois’ senior senator, Dick Durbin, to insert the $30 million give-away into the fiscal year 2009 omnibus budget just passed by House. Taxpayers for Common Sense, in its search for earmarks in the massive budget bill, discovered the $30 million lurking in federal transportation expenditures.

Read more in The Chicago Daily Observer