The Chicago Sun-Times ignores the fact that people HERE haven't answered for ONE DAMN THING

Edward Snowden has already answered for what he has done. He's sacrificed everything, and lives in exile for defending a principle called the Fourth Amendment.

The conclusion of the stupid effing Sun-Times editorial here:

"Edward Snowden, for all the undeniable good he has done, still has much to answer for."

Michigan Fuel Prices Fall 20 Cents Below National Average On Flood Of Supply

The lowest price in Grand Rapids, Michigan as of this hour was $3.39/gallon, which is 20 cents below the current national average of $3.59. Just weeks ago we were paying $4.29/gallon in many places, with discount retailers like Sam's Club charging 20 to 25 cents per gallon below that. Refinery delays in Joliet, IL and Whiting, IN were to blame, combined with a refinery fire in late April in Detroit, MI, drying up supply.

The Line of the Day Award Goes to "Hope Needs More Time"

The line of the day award goes to the ever-incisive Steve Huntley for The Chicago Sun Times, here:

Hope needs more time. That was President Barack Obama’s message in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention Thursday night. But a country that was forced to live on hope for four years and rewarded with dreary unemployment, falling middle class income and depressed home values may not be ready for another dose of lofty national goals based on nothing more than oratory.

Hope is the very stuff of ideology, whether political or religious.

Religious ideology makes life tolerable by offering faux rewards in the forms of community, sacraments and liturgy with hope of eternal life deferred to the next one. Forgiveness in the here and now goes with all that, a sort of foretaste of the salvation to come. Or it offers assurances of the imminent in-breaking of the kingdom of God with the second coming of Christ, a recrudescent hope which litters the historical landscape since the time of Jesus. Such assurances are often accompanied by religious experiences of being "born again", or of so-called miracles, which require new exempla over time to validate the ideology as the second coming fails to materialize and the experience flattens. Certain Jews say year upon year "Next year, in Jerusalem." Muslims await the last imam, fourteen centuries after Muhammad.

But political ideology promises, promises and promises, with not much to show for it even in democracy, which promptly turns it out when it is still healthy enough to do so. The American record in this regard is mixed. Woodrow Wilson was not turned out. A terrible, costly and demoralizing war was the consequence. FDR was not turned out. Another terrible, costly and demoralizing war was the consequence. But LBJ was turned out, in the throes of a period when first principles were readdressed selfishly under what was decided was an existential threat to the next generation. Say what you will about the '60s generation, war in America stopped being involuntary. 

Ideologues sometimes become dictators, in which case they just go on promising. FDR did this but in the extenuating circumstances of global war, flaunting the long-standing American tradition that presidents serve but two terms. A free people finally came to its senses and put a stop to that with the 22nd Amendment, but not until after the fact.

In other times and other places dictators install themselves permanently, as was the case with one Robert Mugabe. Barack Obama has made no secret of his admiration of such like, openly expressing his dissatisfaction with the constraints placed on him by our form of government at the same time he voices his admiration for the lack of such constraints in places such as China. Are Americans wrong to be disquieted by this?

Hope needs more time. But for what, exactly?    

I Got Your Sexual Harassment Right Here, Pal

According to The Chicago Sun Times, here, Herman Cain's latest accuser was awfully chummy with the so-called scoundrel only a month ago:

"[Cain and Bialek had an] encounter a month ago while backstage at the AM 560 WIND sponsored TeaCon meeting in Schaumburg Sept. 30-Oct. 1 at the Renaissance Hotel and Convention Center."

The very attractive one time reporter for NBC's WMAQ in Chicago, Amy Jacobson, is the source for the story. She is now on AM Radio Station WIND in Chicago.

Chicago: Olympic Venue Aspirant Cancels Fireworks Because It's Broke!

Story here.

Venetian Night, a 52 year old summer tradition, was canceled two years ago. Gee, wasn't that a sign already that the Olympic dream was just a pipe dream?

A fitting conclusion to the Daley legacy, and he gets to keep $1.1 million in campaign cash on top of it, plus his fat pension and a security detail.

Obama To Transform Bush's TSA Into National Security Force

How do you spell Gestapo? KGB? How about TSA?

Remember how Obama said on July 17, 2008 (video here) that he wanted a national security force as powerful, strong and well-funded as the US military? Here are his words:

"We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

People on the left went ballistic when conservatives and Republicans suggested that those words could be construed as sinister and ominous. Some on the right were upset enough about the tone that they grasped at anything that fit them as Obama's regime unfolded. Some even thought they discovered a "health care army" buried deep in the weeds of the Senate healthcare bill.

But now with Homeland Security's decision to go full steam ahead with scanners in airports after last Christmas' Fruit of Kaboom bomber incident, we're getting a clearer picture of Obama's commitment to the national security state, and that picture centers around a radical expansion of the role and scope of the TSA. How else do we explain these comments from the new head of the TSA, John Pistole, made in July and reported here in USA Today?

Pistole said he wants TSA workers, including 47,000 screeners at 450 airports, to operate as a "national-security, counterterrorism organization, fully integrated into US government efforts."

"I want to take TSA to the next level," Pistole said.

In other words, Obama's vision for a national security force is going to come to fruition through the expansion of the TSA George Bush created after 911.

We now know that that expanded scope will involve putting scanners everywhere. TSA's mandate covers all modes of transportation, not just those over which the federal Department of Transportation has jurisdiction. Train and subway stations and points of maritime embarkation immediately come to mind. But also federal highways, where the feds use scanners to detain and inspect truck traffic. In fact, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano just recently went on the record saying as much:

“I think the tighter we get on aviation, we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime. So, what do we need to be doing to strengthen our protections there?”

Think also of stationary federal jurisdictions: all federal buildings. Scanners have already been deployed in a Colorado courthouse according to this report, and expanded use of them has not been ruled out:

"Although we have no current plans for deployment, the US Marshals Service believes in the technology," said Washington-based Michael Prout, assistant director for judicial security for the US marshals. "We will continue to explore the use of body scanners as a security measure for the federal judiciary."

Can you imagine reporting for jury duty but being treated like a common criminal having to submit to a full body naked scan?

Being a surveillance enthusiast whose installation of cameras everywhere on Phoenix highways was rebuffed by its freedom-loving population, Janet Napolitano as head of DHS has made it a priority to fund cameras in New York, which is nearly half way to its goal of 3000 cameras in the city, 90% funded by DHS. She made a high profile visit to Chicago last summer to praise its commitment to camera surveillance.

Will introduction of small, silent 3' spy drones be next?

TSA's mandate currently involves security "in all modes of transportation." Obama appears to be concentrating his efforts on the "all." Expect to see thousands and thousands of new federal hires by the TSA to man the national security state. They will interfere with your every movement, unless you stop this now. Today is a good day to begin.

Opt out!

Obama and Company: Experts at Bankruptcy

The Chicago Sun Times is reporting:

On Feb. 14, 2006, newly obtained records show, the bank [Democrat Senate hopeful Alexi Giannoulias' Broadway Bank] made a $22.75 million loan to a company called Riverside District Development LLC, whose owners, it turns out, included Rezko.

Antoin Rezko, of a Syrian Catholic family, was convicted of fraud and bribery charges in 2008 and once had close ties to Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, now on trial, and to President Barack Obama.

The Sun Times also reports:

According to Giannoulias . . . Riverside District Development paid off the Broadway Bank loan with money it obtained from a $27 million loan from another financial institution: Mutual Bank.

The president of Mutual, Amrish Mahajan, was also a fundraiser, like Rezko, for Blagojevich.

Mutual Bank, Harvey, IL, failed on July 31, 2009, costing the FDIC $696 million. Its assets of $1.6 billion were overvalued by $696 million, or 77%.

Broadway Bank failed April 23, 2010, costing the FDIC $394.3 million. Its assets of $1.2 billion were overstated by $494.3 million, or 70%.

Read the complete story, here.

Ideologues Never Prosper

Steve Huntley of The Chicago Sun Times has a firm grasp on reality. It would be nice if Obama and the Democrat left did, he thinks, not appreciating well enough himself that "compromise" is not in the ideologue's lexicon, and never can be, which is the real problem. Obama just doesn't belong in The White House. As of tonight, 52% would seem to agree. Here's an excerpt:

Here is the real story about the current gridlock in Washington -- no willingness to compromise by Democrats. The Senate is not broken; it is performing a function the Founders intended -- subjecting the enthusiasms of the House to careful scrutiny. And the filibuster is serving its purpose of protecting the rights of the minority in Congress. Together they can help force compromise and bipartisanship. Republicans had to turn to the filibuster because Democratic leaders in Congress shut them out of sweeping legislation such as the health-care bill.

Even so, the GOP-party-of-no excuse for inaction is largely bogus. Until last month, Democrats had a filibuster-proof 60 votes in the Senate to go with their House super-majority. They couldn't accomplish anything because they couldn't get moderate Democrats to sign on to the liberal program.

Left-wing Democrats saw the 2008 election of President Obama as a mandate for transformative change. In reality voters were rejecting Bush and turning to Obama to address the nation's economic crisis. Instead, taking Rahm Emanuel's famous advice, liberals saw the crisis as an opportunity to advance a big-government, big-spending agenda.

The voters rebelled. The Tea Party movement sprang up like a spring flower and blossomed. Poll numbers for Obama and health-care overhaul sank. Republicans scored big wins in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts. What would have been unthinkable a few months ago -- a return to GOP control of the House -- now seems possible. Democrats are putting their fingers to the wind and seeing trouble ahead -- with Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana the latest to forgo re-election.

Yet Democratic leaders still don't seem to get the message.

Click here for the rest.