For the time being, I’ll be posting over at Twitter under “dancurry.” Several projects are preventing me from blogging.
[...]edited by: Douglas Welch,
Illinois Editor
For the time being, I’ll be posting over at Twitter under “dancurry.” Several projects are preventing me from blogging.
[...]The Illinois Republican Party has done a great job applying public pressure on Illinois Democrats in the wake of the arrest of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. They have started a website, friendofblago.com, and are running the TV ad below. Here’s what liberal Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown said [...]
Illinois Democrats are laughingly trying to say they didn’t know Governor Rod Blagojevich was under intense federal scrutiny in 2006 when they lined up behind him during his re-election bid. At the time, the Chicago Tribune called the corruption probe “a five-alarm fire.”
Speaker of the House Mike Madigan said this [...]
Barack Obama’s transition: A (not-so-well-oiled) machine.
Technorati Tags:
2008 election, Barack Obama, corruption, Illinois, journalism, Rod Blagojevich, Tony Rezko
[...]
Has anyone asked David Wilhelm about this quote?
Blagojevich’s campaign chair, David Wilhelm thinks the new administration will be up to the task of fulfilling the needs of state citizens fed up with tainted state politicians. “Rod realizes that he is being elected as a reformer. People in this state are [...]
A nuance being lost in the national coverage of the Rod Blagojevich arrest is the state of knowledge in Illinois. Prior to Tuesday’s hand-cuffing of the Illinois governor, it was known with virtual certainty that he was soon to be indicted. Considering this, it is gob-smacking stupid that Obama’s transition [...]
These campaign commercials from 2002 and 2006 attacking Il. Gov. Rod Blagojevich for corruption pinpoint what was known in Illinois at crucial junctures.
The 2006 ads are first and show the mature nature of the federal investigations against Blagojevich. Despite this, many Illinois Democrats endorsed him, including President-Elect Barack Obama. They [...]
As readers of this blog know, I have written often over the past several years about Rod Blagojevich. I was convinced he would be indicted someday and said so. From my days as a spokesman for former Il. Attorney General Jim Ryan—who Blago defeated in the Il. governor’s race in [...]
I’ll have much more on this later. In the meantime, peruse my past posts on Blagojevich, which number in the hundreds.
Technorati Tags:
2008 election, Barack Obama, corruption, Illinois, journalism, Rod Blagojevich, Tony Rezko
[...]
An Abraham Lincoln author and Barack Obama admirer says as a writer, Obama is no Lincoln.
Kaplan said Lincoln had to make language work harder than Obama, “who has a mellifluent voice and makes a terrific visual impression but has yet to write a speech that is, word by word, [...]
When will Mayor Daley, dozens of other Illinois politicians and the Chicago media establishment pay a price for the O’Hare International Airport expansion plan, a public policy blunder of epic proportions.
Just as former U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald and a few others said years ago, the plan eventually would collapse because [...]
Patrick Ruffini is doing a great job framing the Right’s challenges for the future. He’s the Republican’s preeminent new media tactician. He nailed it in a recent column that pointed out the difference between conservative and liberal online sites and blogs.
Another problem is that conservative bloggers are there [...]
Who do you trust to baby-sit your kids? Why, a “family friend” of course.
Technorati Tags:
2008 election, Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, Illinois, journalism, liberals, Sarah Palin
[...]
All those MSM “fact-checks” that said Barack Obama barely knew unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers? They were lies. Today, Ayers said in a forward to a new book he is hawking, that he and Obama are “family friends.”
Here’s what one of those esteemed fact checks said a few weeks [...]
Liberal writer Camille Paglia smacks down her ideological soulmates for their mindless trashing of Sarah Palin. Paglia is a gifted wordsmith who consistently has defended the Alaska governor.
Liberal Democrats are going to wake up from their sadomasochistic, anti-Palin orgy with a very big hangover. The evil genie released during [...]
When the history of this campaign is written, it should include a massive mistake by the Hillary Clinton team that probably cost her the presidency: Her negative research team failed to find the Rev. Jeremiah Wright tape.
ABC News was first to air the infamous tape of parts of Wright’s sermons [...]
John Ruberry found this passage about Rahm Emanuel, President-Elect Barack Obama’s rumored choice as chief of staff. This is bi-partisanship we can believe in.
That night, on the northwest side, Rahm Emanuel was elected to Congress. A former Clinton whiz kid who’d gotten his start as a fundraiser for Mayor [...]
A historian says the MSM/Obama narrative that John McCain was waging a dirty campaign was false.
Finally, the protectiveness that Obama elicited from others also explains why McCain’s fall campaigning was reviewed so harshly. Throughout the year, Obama was often spared the task of defending himself because others with prominent media [...]
America’s greatness is never more evident than during our transfers of power. Our longest campaign for president is over and Barack Obama is the winner. As the architect of a well-run campaign, he deserves great credit.
As someone who strongly disagrees with his policies, I will hope that America prospers and [...]
The experts are idiots. Keep that in mind. They are often wrong. Polls are often wrong. Just a few months ago, the polls were 10.9 points off in New Hampshire. Several other states were also called wrong.
[...]
Is this the November surprise to tip the “bitter clingers” in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado, and Virginia to swing to John McCain in the eleventh hour?
Technorati Tags:
2008 election, Barack Obama, Illinois, John McCain, journalism, liberals, Sarah Palin
[...]
Columnist Selena Zito of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review believes John McCain can win Pennsylvania. Polls have showed him inching to within several percentage points of Barack Obama.
“This race is still not a slam-dunk for Barack Obama,” says Pennsylvania Democrat Mark Singel, a former lieutenant governor and acting governor.
Pennsylvania voters move pretty [...]
More video of Barack Obama’s left-wing economic philosophy that the news media failed to highlight during the campaign.
And listen here about Obama’s plan to bankrupt the coal industry.
Technorati Tags:
2008 election, Barack Obama, Illinois, John McCain, journalism, liberals, Sarah Palin
[...]
A nice rebuttal from a pro-Sarah Palin independent group.
Technorati Tags:
2008 election, Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, corruption, Illinois, John McCain, liberals, Sarah Palin
[...]
Here’s what Tribune Corporation (Owner of L.A. Times) chieftan Sam Zell said about his newspaper business:
“We are a 24/7 content and information provider that prints once a day for the record.”
Except, apparently, when the content could be harmful to a favored presidential candidate. Why, when everyone, including Zell, [...]
Barack Obama’s Illinois: Even the head of the Abe Lincoln library and museum is a crook.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich fired the head of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum today following revelations that the executive director shoplifted in Springfield.
Rick Beard, 61, has not worked in his $150,000-a-year job running [...]
John McCain’s new TV ad. Simple and effective. As a tool of persuasion, one of his best.
Technorati Tags:
2008 election, Barack Obama, John McCain, journalism, Sarah Palin
[...]
Certain liberal journalists have preened in print about Sarah Palin’s alleged lack of intelligence. One called her a “Grade A Dope.” Others have been even harsher. None, of course, have stood toe-to-toe with a veteran U.S. Senator and held their own in a debate, or flawlessly delivered a brilliant convention [...]
Dean Barnett died today of cystic fibrosis at the age of 41. He was one of the best writers on the internet. I discovered him a couple of years ago and exchanged emails a few times. He wrote with an amazing clarity and optimistic introspection about his illness and joyfully [...]
This rumor has been floating around the internet and I’m going to wade in because I have direct knowledge of this one. A credible person was told this directly by unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers in late 2006, a few months before Barack Obama announced his candidacy for president.
Ayers bragged about [...]
The provocative stories the media is sitting on, according to one blog.
Of course this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are plenty of other stories the press has decided we don’t need to know about this election cycle. Barney Frank’s Boyfriend at Fannie Mae comes to mind. [...]
The Palin smear factory continues working overtime, notes Power Line.
I don’t think there is any precedent in our history for the shameful manner in which the Left has treated Sarah Palin. Left-winger Andrew Sullivan gleefully posted a particularly disgusting example of the phenomenon today; it’s a YouTube video titled [...]
Newsweek today reported that a new lawsuit reveals for the first time that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is interested in the same day house and lot purchase by Barack Obama and convicted felon Tony Rezko.
A recent lawsuit filed by Kenneth J. Conner, a former real estate analyst, against Mutual [...]
Here’s another blockbuster the MSM (D-Obama) is ignoring. Apparently, the Barack Obama online campaign fundraising operation is accepting tens of millions from small donors—many of them illegally!
The Obama campaign has turned off address verification features on its online donation form—meaning it will accept money from anyone, foreigners, maxed out donors, [...]
Unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose radical organization bombed a police station and was involved in a New York robbery where law enforcement officers were killed, calls the cops on a cable TV stalker.
Technorati Tags:
2008 election, Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, corruption, Illinois, [...]
An ABC.com journalist has a scathing takedown of the blatant bias of his profession during this election. He says, “I’m deeply ashamed right now to be called a journalist.”
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those people who think the media has been too hard on, say, Gov. [...]
More contempt from Barack Obama for the religious heartland, this from a 1995 interview in the Chicago Reader, an ultraliberal free publication.
The right wing, the Christian right, has done a good job of building these organizations of accountability, much better than the left or progressive forces have. But it’s [...]
The Tribune Corp. (L.A. Times) is refusing to release a 2003 video showing Barack Obama toasting a man widely disliked in the Jewish community, former PLO spokesman Rashid Khalidi.
And in Chicago, the Tribune Corp. is helping Obama by refusing to report on Khalidi’s close friend, unrepentant domestic terrorist [...]
Newt Gingrich unloads on the news media:
NEWT GINGRICH (R), FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Well, I think the elite media’s attack on Governor Palin again and again has been factually wrong, intellectually dishonest, totally biased, worthy of the Polish state news media attacking Lech Walesa back in the 1980s. [...]
Just another fella from the hood.
Technorati Tags:
2008 election, Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, Illinois, John McCain, journalism, liberals
[...]
UPDATE–Wow. MSNBC is teaming up with ACORN and an all-star lineup of left-wing groups on election day. Why stop there? Might as well have staffers drive people to the polls for Obama.
A new Pew study of stories from the conventions through the debates:
Percent negative:
Barack Obama—29 percent
John [...]
Associated Press, which refuses to even mention that the Rezko-Obama house sale is under federal scrutiny, devoted massive resources to this “blockbuster.”
Who says journalists don’t investigate any more? The AP is getting to the bottom of Sarah Palin’s children traveling with her on state business. No news yet [...]
A glimpse of the future?
Technorati Tags:
2008 election, Barack Obama, John McCain, journalism, liberals
[...]
Something is fishy about the polls. Most are showing Barack Obama with a lead of 5 to 10 points. The respected Battleground poll, however, shows the lead at 1 point.
Another interesting dynamic is that John McCain is spending lots of time in Pennsylvania, where some of the polls show a [...]
That’s the headline you’ll never see in your Chicago newspapers—or any other for that matter. But that’s exactly what was revealed in this Chicago Tribune Friday evening blog dump, a story that never graced the print edition.
There’s no excuse for this blackout. It is inarguably a news story: Never [...]
The Matt Lauer interview of Barack Obama this morning. To call this a puffball interview would be insulting puffballs. This is how the MSM “vettes” Obama.
MATT LAUER: Now to “Today on the Trail,” and an exclusive interview with Barack Obama. On Sunday I caught up with him in the battleground [...]
Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama tells us something about the homestretch of the election. These endorsements are an opportunity for Obama’s people to give Powell talking points. Interestingly, Powell chose to talk about unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers, calling the topic not appropriate in this campaign.
Translation: Obama’s camp remains worried [...]
Because the Chicago newspapers have gone to sleep on covering Barack Obama, we’ll have to rely on a New York paper to perform basic reporting tasks.
The Chicago Tribune didn’t even know or care that Obama’s only executive experience was at the helm of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a “school [...]
UPDATE: A very useful backgrounder on the Obama, Rezko, Blagojevich connection to Mutual Bank.
The Chicago Tribune, on the day it announced an endorsement for Barack Obama, quietly slipped a potential bombshell story about The One on its Swamp blog as the day was ending.
Just weeks before Election Day, [...]
This afternoon, the mainstream media expended more collective energy investigating Joe the Plumber compared to the previous two years “vetting” Barack Obama’s association with unrepetentant terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.
Only in America is it a greater sin to embarrass Obama than to target America with a series [...]
The MSM fell on its face and never examined Barack Obama’s stint as board chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a $160 million foundation founded by unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers.
Stanley Kurtz, contributing editor at National Review, has picked up the pieces and looked at the records. Here’s his latest conclusion:
However [...]
…..It’s the Barack Obama formula. All those elements in one answer about nationwide vote fraud and ACORN.
Technorati Tags:
2008 election, Barack Obama, John McCain, liberals
[...]
Liberal columnist Eric Zorn at the Chicago Tribune is working around the clock to come up with excuses not to do any original reporting on the Barack Obama connection to unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers.
Zorn has debated whether Ayers was or still is a terrorist, cited fact checks that [...]
Take more taxes from a real-life plumber and give it to someone who doesn’t even pay taxes. That’s Barack-o-nomics. Or, as Bill Ayers would say, a good start toward “small c Communism.”
Technorati Tags:
2008 election, Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, Illinois, John McCain, [...]
The mainstream press (D-Obama) has now decided that ALL criticisms of Barack Obama are either racist, distractions, or mean-spirited. That allows the press an excuse to ignore, among other issues, Obama’s grossly under explained alliance with unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers.
Instead of checking out the vague and changing answers from [...]
Just another guy knocking around Barack Obama’s neighborhood.
Technorati Tags:
2008 election, Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, journalism, liberals, terror
[...]
Today, Barack Obama decided to try out a few new answers about his alliance with unrepetent domestic terrorist Bill Ayers and may have contradicted his own chief spokesman.
First, he told ABC anchor Charlie Gibson (D-Obama):
“Why don’t we just clear it up right now I’ll repeat again what I’ve said many [...]
Now that the John McCain campaign has taken on the Barack Obama-Bill Ayers alliance frontally in a new ad, the MSM is scrambling for its battle stations. There’s finally work to do: Discredit this ad to protect Barack.
Technorati Tags:
2008 election, Barack Obama, Illinois, John [...]
In my old baseball days, we’d yell out at a bad ump: “Hey blue, you’re missing a good game!” Somebody ought to shout that to the Chicago Tribune about the election they are looking at but not covering.
The Tribune, as the largest media outlet in Chicago, has a special duty [...]
The Barack Obama campaign is saying that its candidate didn’t know about Bill Ayers‘ radical past when they met in 1995. That is almost impossible because in left-wing circles, Ayers, his wife Bernardine Dohrn, and their group the Weather Underground is legendary.
When Dohrn made an appearance in Chicago in 1988, [...]
I’ve said in the past that while CNN is largely a pro-Obama network, Anderson Cooper’s show has shown the capacity to play stories straight occasionally. Here’s a story from investigative reporter Drew Griffin, who also has shown the capacity to put politics aside and just gather facts.
Technorati Tags:
[...]
The protection racket known as the MSM (D-Obama) couldn’t prevent the Bill Ayers story from emerging after Sarah Palin included it in an aggressive speech over the weekend.
Obama’s campaign went into full damage control mode and even pointed to the ancient “Keating 5″ scandal in John McCain’s past. But the [...]
Associated Press is supposed to be a neutral news organization, dispensing dispatches to newspapers and radio stations throughout the country. Tonight, it demonstrated it is both dishonorable and a Barack Obama propaganda agency.
In a “news story” describing Sarah Palin’s speech today criticizing Obama for his association with unrepetent domestic [...]
A quarterback looks out over the defense to see telltale signs. In a presidential election, keep an eye on the NY Times. Today, they published a story minimizing the contact between Barack Obama and unrepetent domestic terrorist Bill Ayers.
The Times knows attacks are coming at Obama on Ayers so it [...]
Below, the RNCC shortened the popular 10-minute “Burning Down the House” video that explains the origins of the financial meltdown. And here’s an interview the maker of the video, which has been viewed more than 2 million times.
Technorati Tags:
2008 election, Barack Obama, corruption, [...]
After 10 days of ridicule from the liberal high choir, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin showed once again they are not to be trusted as reliable brokers of information. The previous 10 days of reporting and commentary simply did not square with her superb debate performance.
Palin outdebated the three other members [...]
Barack Obama socialism indoctrination camps already in business. Can you imagine if George W. Bush tried to pull this stunt in 2000?
UPDATE: The video has been pulled. I’ll try to find another version.
Technorati Tags:
2008 election, Barack Obama, journalism, liberals
[...]
Michelle Malkin exposes that Thursday night’s debate moderator, Gwen Ifill of PBS, has a pro-Obama book coming out in January. And she just penned a puff piece on the Obamas in Essence Magazine. And her reporting on Sarah Palin at the Republican National Convention was clearly derisive, drawing many [...]
My ex-boss, former U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald, always seems to be one step ahead of everyone. His new bank in suburban Washington D.C. is booming in the midst of a financial meltdown.
Technorati Tags:
Illinois, Peter Fitzgerald
[...]
Here is the “vetting” the MSM (D-Obama) is giving a presidential candidate five weeks from the election. This “exclusive” interview of Barack Obama was conducted by CBS’ Bob Schieffer on Sunday morning’s Face the Nation. Here are the questions only:
SCHIEFFER: …Senator, it’s still very complicated. We should stress this, [...]
The angle the MSM (D-Obama) refuses to cover.
Technorati Tags:
2008 election, Barack Obama, corruption, Illinois, John McCain, journalism, liberals, Sarah Palin
[...]
I thought John McCain decisively defeated Barack Obama last night on substance. He schooled Obama on foreign policy and managed to steer the economy argument to earmarks and spending—his turf. If the MSM (D-Obama) was balanced, it would be pummeling Obama today for his Kissinger gaffe. My guess is [...]
This ought to stir the apologists of Barack Obama’s 130 “present” votes in the Illinois State Senate.
Technorati Tags:
2008 election, Barack Obama, Illinois, journalism, liberals
[...]
The Illinois Attorney General is now investigating a $100,000 state earmark from Barack Obama to the wife of a former campaign worker that apparently produced nothing of value to taxpayers unless you call an isolated, unfinished gazebo in a weed-filled lot a structure of value.
Obama and Kenny Smith [...]
As Illinois journalists, politicians and other institutions act offended at campaign commercials that portray Chicago and Illinois as corrupt, what is the big picture? The home town players are all trying to draw fine lines absolving themselves of taint.
What’s needed in Illinois is not just another campaign ethics law—we had [...]
“When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.”
Boy, is she dumb. Oh, wait, that was Joe Biden. And Katie Couric, a network anchor, didn’t catch it either.
Technorati Tags:
2008 election, [...]
Right on cue, the John McCain campaign notes Barack Obama’s anti-reform record with the ad below. The phrase “lie” is being thrown around during this campaign and most of the time, it’s overstatement. But I listened to a podcast over the weekend where local liberal lobbyist Dan Johnson-Weinberger [...]
We in Illinois know Barack Obama is a faux reformer. He has never bucked his own party in a meaningful way. He has thrived during the most corrupt period in Illinois history and instead of standing up to it, he essentially went with the dirty flow, as this excellent [...]
In the middle of this video is Barack Obama talking about his failed five-year chairmanship of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a $160 million education reform grant program that produced nothing of value to students.
The Chicago Tribune, the newspaper of record in Chicago, still can’t find this item on his [...]
One of the great advantages John McCain has in the presidential race is that his enemies—Democrats and the liberal press—have no idea how much they are helping him.
In its desperation to destroy Sarah Palin before she takes hold as a feminist busting role model, the New York Times today [...]
Barack Obama, for about the fifth time, promises a tough new edge to his campaign. His first move—insulting 20 percent of Americans who don’t use email.
I bet the damage is even worse. I don’t think children of non-email using senior citizens are appreciative of a presidential ad mocking [...]
National Public Radio (and others) continues to misstate its conclusion on the “Bridge to Nowhere.” Starting to remind me of 2004 when MSM outlets continually misstated that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth claims had been “discredited.”
THE ANTI-PALIN CRUSADE CONTINUES AT NPR
National Public Radio (NPR) is continuing its [...]
As they start to panic at the direction of the presidential race, a Democratic strategist (via Patterico) lays out the blunders the Barack Obama campaign and his supporters are making. This guy knows what he’s talking about.
Technorati Tags:
2008 election, Barack Obama, John McCain, [...]
The intense battle today on whether John McCain and Sarah Palin are “mavericks” is one that Barack Obama must win or he will lose the election. And I don’t see how he can.
McCain’s pick of Palin had many winning strategic dimensions. Commentators are focusing heavily on social issues. The “x” [...]
Another example of fake story telling on CNN. About 4:45 into this video, ex-Clinton aide Paul Begala passionately blasts Sarah Palin for cutting special needs funding as Governor. The only problem is that it’s not true.
KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: Let me give you an example. On CNN earlier this [...]
A handy list of Palin rumors and smears.
Technorati Tags:
2008 election, Barack Obama, John McCain, journalism, liberals
[...]
With a renewed vigor to smear Sarah Palin, the left-leaning news media and blogosphere continues to misfire in its attempt to explore her past.
The Chicago Tribune today, the hometown paper that couldn’t even find a major failure on Barack Obama’s resume after millions of words of profiles, uncovers [...]
The left can never admit someone on the right is smart “like them.” Eric Zorn sneers at Sarah Palin for using phonetic spelling on her teleprompter (common), her accent, and insinuating that she simply read a speech written by speech writers.
As an orator, as a presence on the stage, [...]
One of the most compelling and effective convention speeches I’ve ever heard. That sound you hear is the chain of public opinion—Sarah Palin’s going up and the MSM’s going down. All the smears of the last 48 hours look hollow. No wonder the Obama camp was trying so hard [...]
The MSM continually beats the drum, asking whether John McCain adequately vetted Sarah Palin.
I’ve never seen the MSM work so hard. Ironically, the same MSM had 18 months to inspect Barack Obama’s biography and failed to find Obama’s only executive experience.
Here are the gems the MSM has “found” so [...]
Follow the “logic” of Barack Obama’s statement on CNN last night and you have to conclude that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is twice as qualifed to be president as him by virtue of his two successful campaigns for governor.
This answer came after he was asked whether he was experienced enough [...]
Mark Silva of the Chicago Tribune tries to make the case that the John McCain campaign insufficiently vetted Sarah Palin.
But the question is unavoidable, as revelations about the private life of a public figure little-known to the public unfold.
It’s a question of vetting, perhaps, which hadn’t been fully performed [...]
How is it that the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times and other major media outlets breathlessly covering Barack Obama’s every move the last two years failed to mention the only item on his resume that qualifies as executive experience?
For nearly five years starting in 1995, Obama was chairman of the board [...]
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is a very risky pick as vice president. As a first-term governor, it brings the issue of experience front and center. But the news media, in the first few minutes of trying to digest this, are missing the point.
Palin has built her reputation as a gutsy [...]
Pundits both left and even some from the right were effusive in their praise of Barack Obama’s speech last night. Once again, Obama, the magician, fooled them.
This speech wasn’t even close to great as a piece of art. It was a mismash of several different styles—stump speech, soaring rhetoric, churlish [...]
My immediate impressions of Barack Obama’s speech is that more than anything, it was a tactical treatise.
He tried to pre-empt Republican attacks to come and gave a few more specifics to satisfy those who say he is an empty suit. It was the same old liberal ideas we’ve heard for [...]
