chicago

After his speech at the Defending the American Dream Summit, I quickly asked Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) for his take on an issue that had been roiling the event: Chicago’s failed bid to host the Olympics in 2016. Video after the jump.

This seems like some curious behavior from a party that ostensibly wants to win some elections in Illinois next year. In a sizable embarrassment for the White House, Chicago was knocked out of contention for the 2016 Olympic games in the first round of voting. The conservative/GOP response: pretty much unbridled joy.
Michelle Malkin:
No Obamalympics. Goodbye, [...]

Just about every news organization out there is reporting that Chicago has been eliminated in the first round of voting as a possible host for the 2016 Olympic Games, despite President Obama’s high-profile lobbying effort to bring the games to his hometown. Drudge, of course, is touting the news in typical patriotic fashion:

I’ve written in the past about conservative author Jack Cashill’s quest to prove that Bill Ayers wrote President Obama’s “Dreams From My Father.” Cashill’s still beating the drum.
The Washington Independent’s David Weigel, for instance, is among those who dismiss [Christopher] Andersen’s claim because he credits me as a source… Had he read Andersen’s book, which [...]

While the organizers of the Washington, D.C. anti-spending “Tea Party” have given a speaking slot to Alan Keyes, that other failed African-American Republican Senate candidate from Maryland, Michael Steele, has been dissed by the crew behind the Chicago Tea Party. Eric Odom, the event’s organizer, has posted the email he wrote to the Republican National [...]

Per my earlier post explaining the growing crisis of vacant homes piling up around the country, here’s one of the best explanations for why we should be alarmed by this problem, courtesy of The Chicago Tribune:
“It’s a concern for the same reason the subprime lending problem should have been a concern five years ago,” said [...]

As expected, the Obama-Biden transition team’s report detailing its conversations with the office of Illinois’ Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich about filling President-elect Barack Obama’s Senate seat clears all transition members of any wrongdoing.

Speaking in the American flag-adorned gym of Chicago’s Dodge Renaissance Academy, a public elementary school, President-elect Barack Obama named Arne Duncan as his secretary of education this morning.
Duncan (his first name is pronounced AR-nee), the CEO of the Chicago public school system, has a reputation as a consensus builder, having won friends in both the [...]

The Obama-Biden transition team released a statement today reaffirming President-elect Barack Obama’s previous statements that neither he nor any one in the transition had any inappropriate contact with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s staff regarding Obama’s vacated Senate seat. Blagojevich was arrested by federal authorities last week for allegedly scheming to “sell” the seat.
From the statement:

Things are looking a lot worse for Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) today.
The Chicago Tribune reports that businessmen with ties to both Jackson and Illinois’ Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich discussed raising $1 million for Blagojevich’s campaign fund and then held a fund-raiser on the governor’s behalf in an effort to bolster Jackson’s chances for an [...]