Obama: Buy Guns
CHICAGO BOYZ
By Jonathan on RKBA
Yes, I know, the real headline is: Obama: Don't stock up on guns . This means that the fact that people are buying guns has caught Obama's attention and matters enough to him for him to express disapproval. Reasonable people might infer that he will support legislative and regulatory efforts to restrict gun ownership if it becomes politically expedient to do so.
I Need You Like I Need an…
By Carl from Chicago on Politics
a**hole_elbow
There is a fascinating yet repellent movie called "The Rules of Attraction" that I end up getting sucked into every time I see it on TV. The movie features an entire cast playing against type including Fred Savage shooting heroin into his foot (now he is part of "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia", so we were probably seeing the REAL Fred, after all).
One part of the movie features the "hero" or a better word is "protagonist" of the film when he visits a local, unhinged drug dealer to whom he owes money. The protagonist tells the dealer that he "needs" him, because he can help move the drugs on campus at a big markup. With this line, the dealer says…
"I Need You Like I Need an A**hole on my Elbow" (you can probably guess this is the still from the movie).
And why is this on Chicago Boyz? Because THIS is an accurate summary of what Obama is going to do to the left wing blog-erati that helped get him elected. He does not NEED them anymore, and he is going to prove it. Many of the left-wing folks are jabbering about the fact that Obama is keeping Gates as defense secretary and appointing a Wall Street lifer as secretary of the Treasury, and seeming to be bi-partisan rather than lashing out at people like Lieberman who seemed to side with the Republicans.
Obama is smart enough (hopefully) to know that those people are useful on the way up, but listening to them now is political suicide. The country is wide in the middle, and shallow on the ends, and where are these people going to go, anyways?
Obama also has the advantage that he isn't a white male Democrat, not from a union or other known power base. Those people, like Edwards and Kerry, have to keep "proving" how liberal they are from time to time, like a litmus test. For obvious reasons, Obama doesn't have to "prove" anything to anyone about how liberal he is.
So, in the immortal words of the drug dealer in "The Rules of Attraction", he needs them like he needs an…
Thompson on the Economy
By Ginny on Politics
Belmont Club links to Fred Thompson on the economy. That rumbling voice inspires a kind of good humor; it always seems the voice of good humor - the masculine equivalent of Dolly Parton's laugh. Here it is in the service of satire and beneath its humor is a picture of the equivalent to the Tory approach to the Brits in 1776; Thompson, a father for two generations, concludes with the equivalent of Paine's remarks.
Crisis #1:
I once felt all that kind of anger, which a man ought to feel, against the mean principles that are held by the Tories: a noted one, who kept a tavern at Amboy, was standing at his door, with as pretty a child in his hand, about eight or nine years old, as I ever saw, and after speaking his mind as freely as he thought was prudent, finished with this unfatherly expression, "Well! give me peace in my day." Not a man lives on the continent but fully believes that a separation must some time or other finally take place, and a generous parent should have said, "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace;" and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty.
Blagojevich, Obama and The Chicago Way
By Zenpundit on Politics
I think most people familiar with Illinois politics expected that eventually some kind of Chicago landmine was going to go off under President-elect Barack Obama - it's just that few people expected it might happen before the 20th of January.
Likewise, I think most informed watchers expected that Governor Rod Blagojevich(D-IL), perhaps the most unpopular pol in Illinois history, would follow his predecessor, disgraced ex-governor George Ryan(R-IL) to prison someday, few of us anticipated the depths of the grotesque quality of Blagojevich's grasping venality that would have made Alderman Tom Keane blush. Ryan at least didn't talk like a thug when he raked in his small-time bribes ( have to wonder if Ryan's chances for a presidential pardon just improved or gotten worse?).
The real political trouble for Obama can be read here in a post at "The Smoking Gun" regarding today's indctment:
" ….Blagojevich, 51, and his chief of staff, John Harris, were arrested this morning on political corruption charges. While the affidavit does not specifically name the six prospective Senate candidates discussed by Blagojevic, Harris, and the governor's aides, it appears that several are easily identified. "Senate Candidate 1? is Jarrett. "Senate Candidate 2? is Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. Emil Jones, an Illinois state legislator, is "Senate Candidate 5." And "Senate Candidate 6? appears to be J.P. Pritzker, a wealthy Chicago businessman. Additionally, Rahm Emanuel, the incoming White House chief of staff, is referred to in the affidavit as "President-elect Advisor." (21 pages)"
Aside from Lisa Madigan, Attorney-General of Illinois and daughter of Springfield powerbroker Speaker Michael Madigan, this list is composed of Obama's Best Friend, Political Godfather, a campaign Mega-Donor and his future White House Chief of Staff. Holy Cats!
I think this is what some folks used to quaintly refer to as " The Sleaze Factor". chicagoboyz.net |
