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ALI ABUNIMAH, a Palestinian activist from Chicago, insists that at least in the recent past, Obama wanted to see U.S. policy move in that direction. "In 2000, when Obama unsuccessfully ran for Congress I heard him speak at a campaign fundraiser hosted by a University of Chicago professor," Abunimah has written. "On that occasion and others Obama was forthright in his criticism of US policy and his call for an even-handed approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict." Abunimah says that as late as 2004, during his tough primary race, Obama praised him for his activism, and apologized, "Hey, I'm sorry I...

Chicagoans can feast on foie gras once more. The Chicago City Council just repealed the ban on its sale that it put in place two years ago. Monica Davey, the Times’s Chicago bureau chief, says the ban has been a source of embarrassment for the city and the repeal comes as residents have accused officials of trying to micromanage people’s lives, with talk of prohibiting smoking even outside along the lakefront and eliminating transfats from restaurants. No other American city has prohibited foie gras’ sale, but California has passed a law banning it as of 2012.

SMOKE NAZIS On the March in: Chicago Smoke Nazis in the Chicago area rolled over the right of free association, when they forced attendees to the Chicagoland International Pipe and Tobacciana Show to go outside to smoke. At the Chicagoland International Pipe & Tobacciana Show in St. Charles, IL, attendees have been told that, due to a statewide smoking ban that went into effect in January, they may not light up even though theirs is a private gathering of only willing participants. This, despite the fact that the conventioneers bent over backwards to try to reach an accommodation. There was...

CMR is happy to give its readers a preview of a remarkable shrine in Chicago, the Sanctuary of the Divine Mercy, now in its final planning stages. The Sanctuary grows from the vision of Fr. Anthony Bus, the pastor of St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in Chicago, who tells the story of the sanctuary in his book A Mother's Plea. The project's architect, James McCrery of Washington, DC, a specialist in classical architecture, drew the sketches shown here (click the pictures for larger images). The sanctuary is understood as a refuge in the heart of the city, with a large exterior...

U.S. doesn't need Council's advice on Iran May 13, 2008 STEVE HUNTLEY shuntley.cst@gmail.com Iran's malign influence is ever present in the Middle East. In Iraq, Iranian-made weapons and Iranian-trained forces kill American troops as well as Iraqi soldiers and civilians. So blatant is Iran's destabilizing involvement that Iraqi Shiite politicians historically friendly to Tehran no longer are able to ignore it and have protested to Iran. In Beirut, the Hezbollah terrorists that Iran funds and arms have launched the worst fighting in Lebanon since its civil war. Iran remains the chief funder and arms supplier to Hamas, whose reign in...

In August 1999, Barack Obama strolled amid the floats and bands making their way down Martin Luther King Drive on Chicago’s South Side. Billed as the largest African-American parade in the country, the summer rite was a draw over the years to boxing heroes like Muhammad Ali and jazz greats like Duke Ellington. It was also a must-stop for the city’s top politicians. Back then, Mr. Obama, a state senator who was contemplating a run for Congress, was so little-known in the community’s black neighborhoods that it was hard to find more than a few dozen people to walk with...

A Chicago pol's wife gets a 200 grand salary bump (almost tripling her compensation) and a year later hubby seeks to channel a million bucks to the wife's employer. Good old time Chicago poltics, right? Apparently not, because the candidate in question is running on a platform of change, and he seems like such a nice fellow. Leon H. Wolfe of Redstate is being awfully judgmental here isn't he? Barack Obama, allegedly decent guy and agent of "change" in Washington, requested an earmark in 2006 for $1 million taxpayer dollars for the hospital where his wife works. Said hospital, by...

There is a huge blogswarm going on about this photo, from Chicago Magazine, of Obama's unrepentant terrorist associate, Bill Ayers stomping on the American flag. The photo was taken in 2001, the same time Obama served on the Woods Fund Board with Ayers. This was also the same time that Ayers donated to Obama's campaign. ... many political bloggers are saying it is long past due for Obama to disown his association with this controversial radical. ... It's worthy of recycling this to further probe into Obama's judgment, the one thing he says he should be measured by.

A 2001 photo of William Ayers, an associate of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, shows the former terrorist stepping on an American flag. The photo was taken to promote Ayers’s book, “Fugitive Days” and published by Chicago Mag for their August 2001 issue. As Obama has gained national prominence as a Democratic presidential contender media figures have questioned his relationship with Ayers. Ayers once hosted a fundraiser for Obama and the two have served together on the board of a philanthropic organization. In a nationally televised debate Obama compared his friendship with Ayers to that of conservative Republican Sen. Tom...

No puffing allowed at pipe convention The United States' largest gathering of pipe smokers is being held near Chicago but none are lighting up inside the convention center, aficionados lament. Illinois law requires pipe smokers attending the Chicagoland International Pipe & Tobacciana Show to retreat to a tent 15 feet away from the St. Charles convention center if they want to enjoy a puff or two, the Chicago Tribune reported Saturday. How would you like it if you went to a wine tasting and you couldn't taste the wine? asked Al Shinogle, 53, of Denver, who was smoking a hand-carved...

Fifty-four shootings in two weekends. Shot-up bodies recovered in groups of three and five. Is this Ramadi? Basra? No. Welcome to Chicago. After a recent outbreak of gun-related violence, Mayor Richard Daley is now pushed into supporting a plan by new Police Superintendent Jody Weis to arm 13,000 Chicago police officers with assault rifles. Depending on how many weapons are eventually deployed, this may develop into the largest militarization of police patrol officers in United States history. If the department arms 10,000 of their officers with M4s, the police will have 9,900 more assault rifles in Chicago than the U.S....

The family of two sisters missing for nearly seven years has renewed hope for their safe return after a forensic artist said an online photo of a mystery teen is the older child, according to reports. Lois Gibson, a forensic artist with the Houston Police Department, said the online photo is that of Tionda Bradley, who disappeared at age 10 on July 6, 2001, from Chicago's south side with her 3-year-old sister, Diamond, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. "I took a hard look at them (the photos) for the first time (this week), and I do not say this lightly, but...

JERUSALEM – More pastor problems for Sen. Barack Obama? The man slated to become chief pastor at the Trinity United Church of Christ has called blacks "lepers" with a "skin disease," claimed U.S. entertainment corporations operate with "disdain" for black people, and in a fiery sermon claimed retired pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright was "lynched" by the media and compared the embattled pastor to Jesus. Otis Moss III, lauded this week by Obama as a "wonderful young pastor," also recently refused to deny claims by Wright that the U.S. government was involved in distributing illegal drugs to minorities or spreading the...

Our country is stuck in a quagmire. Unrelenting terrorism and violence mean families are held hostage in their own homes as gun-toting thugs sweep neighborhoods. The collateral damage is staggering. Twenty shootings in government-run schools have left innocent children dead. With 336 confirmed shootings in three and a half short months, we should ask for an immediate withdrawal of all law enforcement and first responders because they seem to do not much good, and there is a pervasive sense that we have lost. Perhaps America should echo the words of Barack Hussein Obama regarding Iraq. Pull our forces out –...

When Barack Obama met Rev. Jeremiah Wright in 1985, the pastor warned the young community organizer that he might want to distance himself from such a rabble-rouser. Obama didn't listen. Until now.

NEWS RELEASE Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms 12500 N.E. Tenth Place Bellevue, WA  98005 CCRKBA BLASTS DALEY FOR GIVING COPS MACHINE GUNS BUT KEEPING CITIZENS DISARMED For Immediate Release: April 29, 2008 BELLEVUE, WA – Anti-gun Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has taken one more step toward turning his city into a police state by planning to give police fully automatic M4 carbines, while still fighting to block the gun rights of citizens not only in Chicago but throughout Illinois, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today. “Here’s one...

CHICAGO—Deputy Police Chief Eugene Williams had a tough week. Wednesday morning, a two-storey house in his jurisdiction on the South Side. Five people, shot dead. The following afternoon, two more shootings. Another that night, non-fatal, shot in the leg and back. And all of this following a hail of gunfire that had peppered the city's toughest neighbourhoods just a few days before: In less than a week, more than 40 shootings, at least a dozen of them fatal. Williams, an affable 28-year veteran of the force, sat in his office in the blue-paneled bunker of the CPD's District 5 headquarters...

EDMONTON - TransCanada Corp. alone plans to ship more than one million barrels a day of oilsands production to the United States with an expanded pipeline construction program unveiled today. The Alberta oil and gas delivery mainstay added a second leg to its new Keystone export service that would more than double the system's capacity and extend it to the Texas coast of the Gulf of Mexico. TransCanada president Hal Kvisle said the added route is a companion instead of competition for projects underway by Enbridge Inc., which is also advancing more than one million barrels daily in new oilsands...

Chicago entrepreneur Robert Blackwell Jr. paid Obama an $8,000-a-month retainer to give legal advice to his growing technology firm, Electronic Knowledge Interchange. It allowed Obama to supplement his $58,000 part-time state Senate salary for over a year with regular payments from Blackwell's firm that eventually totaled $112,000. A few months after receiving his final payment from EKI, Obama sent a request on state Senate letterhead urging Illinois officials to provide a $50,000 tourism promotion grant to another Blackwell company, Killerspin.

Fearing gang retaliation, funeral home refuses to bury couple's son 'IT'S CRAZY' | Family says 2 funeral homes rejected beaten teen, 3rd offered only brief rite, fearing violence April 18, 2008 BY STEFANO ESPOSITO Staff Reporter sesposito@suntimes.com The family wanted something simple for John Mendoza -- the chance to see the 16-year-old one final time and then to say goodbye. But two Chicago funeral homes told the grief-stricken Mendozas this week they couldn't help, and a third offered only an abbreviated service -- all because John Mendoza had been beaten to death and the funeral homes feared gang retaliation, the...

Mayor Richard Daley said Saturday Chicago police officers will he armed with high-powered assault rifles when they're on the streets fighting gangs and other criminals. "Many times they're outgunned, to be very frank," Daley said at an event in the Englewood neighborhood. "When they come to a scene, someone has a semi fully-automatic weapon and you have a little pistol, uh, good luck." The city's police officers carry pistols, and Daley suggested they will start carrying "M4 rifles." Police spokeswoman Monique Bond said the department still is working out details about the M4 carbines.

A tractor-trailer careened into a busy local train station here during the evening rush hour on Friday, killing two people and injuring nearly two dozen others just south of downtown in Chinatown. Witnesses described hearing a deafening screech then the tremendous roar of the truck slamming into the street-level waiting area of the elevated train station, a bustling stop on the Red Line which runs a north-south route through the downtown Loop. The truck crashed through the glass front of the station, Cermak-Chinatown, and caused the escalators to collapse. Eleven people, four of them children, were in critical condition...

CHICAGO (AP) — A fire department spokesman two people are dead and more than a dozen others injured after a tractor trailer crashed into a Chicago Transit Authority station during rush hour. Spokesman Larry Langford says the two women killed Friday apparently were walking near the Cermak-Chinatown Red Line elevated train station on the city's South Side when the collision occurred. Langford says seven people were critically injured and about a dozen others could be injured. Witnesses say the truck didn't appear to slow down before it plowed into the station. Chicago police say the accident happened about 5:20 p.m.

An outburst of gunfire rattled Chicago during the weekend, with at least nine people killed in 36 separate acts of violence. The shootings were reported from Friday until Monday morning, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said Monday. They included gang shootings, drive-by attacks, and even one case in which someone used an AK-47 to shoot up a plumbing supply store. Authorities did not immediately say whether any of the shootings were thought to be related. Police Superintendent Jody Weis blamed an excess of guns and gangs. "There are just too many weapons here," Weis said Sunday. "Too many guns, too many...

Gun violence that swept through swaths of Chicago over the weekend pressed into midweek Wednesday when five people were found slain in a South Side home. The afternoon crackle of gunfire in the Chatham neighborhood boosted a grim statistic: In fewer than seven days, the city has seen at least 40 shootings resulting in more than a dozen deaths. Many of the recent shootings have been attributed to ongoing gang feuds on the South and West Sides, but Chicago police spokeswoman Monique Bond said Wednesday's quintuple homicide may have been committed by "some known affiliate of the victims." Chief of...

Map Of Recent Shootings Wednesday afternoon's shooting comes on the heels of a particularly violent weekend in the city. Between Friday night and early Monday morning, 36 people were shot in Chicago, nine fatally, and two people were stabbed.

A South Side teenage mother who authorities said no longer wanted a baby because she couldn't go to parties was held on $600,000 bond Wednesday on charges that she drowned her 5-month-old daughter in a bathtub earlier this month. Rozlynn Rodgers, 19, was charged Tuesday with first-degree murder in the April 4 death of her daughter, Makalah, at their home in the 7800 block of South Ingleside Avenue. She later told authorities that she drowned the child because she no longer wanted to be a mother, officials said. Rodgers told police "she didn't want to be a mom anymore because...

Chicago police say there were "multiple fatalities" inside a residence on the city's South Side. Chicago police spokeswoman Monique Bond said there are five people dead.

Last evening, Chicago's Fox News at Nine aired the segment "Cardinal George Talks About Pope's Visit to America." Reporter Nancy Pender's interview with Chicago's Cardinal Francis George included video of Pope Benedict XVI touring the United States as Ms. Pender provided the voice-over: "The Cardinal says the visit reinforced his view of the Pope as a warm, compassionate man, and not the hardline conservative he's reputed to be." CARDINAL GEORGE: None of us is totally responsible for our reputations, it's what you make of it. So if that's the reputation he had, then it turns out not to be entirely...

CHICAGO — An outburst of gunfire rattled the city during the weekend, with at least nine people killed in 36 separate acts of violence. The shootings were reported from Friday until Monday morning, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said Monday. They included gang shootings, drive-by attacks, and even one case in which someone used an AK-47 to shoot up a plumbing supply store.

CHICAGO -- The weekend has gotten off to an especially violent start, with no fewer than 20 people shot on the streets of Chicago, three of them fatally, from Friday afternoon through early Saturday. About 12:50 p.m. Friday, a girl was wounded in the arm when she and another person were shot at 2714 W. 66th St. A Chicago Lawn police sergeant said two people were shot and "one of the victims,'' a girl, was shot in the arm. The sergeant would not disclose the girl's age. The girl was taken to Holy Cross Hospital. About 3:30 p.m., a 15-year-old...

CHICAGO, April 17 -- In the 1960s, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn saw themselves as urban guerrillas who just might be able to overthrow the U.S. government and force an end to the Vietnam War. They were members of the Weather Underground, a radical offshoot of the antiwar movement, who went into hiding for a decade after a bomb accidentally exploded, killing three members of the group. Nearly 30 years after surrendering to police, Ayers and Dohrn, both in their 60s, are tenured university professors whose work on school reform and juvenile justice have won them bipartisan respect. Ayers is...

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama's name came up again at the Antoin "Tony" Rezko corruption trial and in a way that earlier filings in the case did not telegraph. Stuart Levine, the prosecution's star witness, said he and Obama were at a party Rezko threw at his Wilmette mansion on April 3, 2004, for Nadhmi Auchi, a controversial Iraqi-born billionaire who Rezko was trying to get to invest in a South Loop real-estate development. Auchi, now a citizen of the United Kingdom, has faced criminal charges in Europe. He also figured in the revocation of Rezko's bond early this year...

A 150-pound cougar was shot and killed Monday evening in the Roscoe Village neighborhood on Chicago's North Side, Chicago police said. The incident occurred around 6 p.m. in an alley near North Hamilton Avenue and West Roscoe Street, according to officials. Police cornered the cougar in the back yard of Ben Greene, 39, who lives on the 3400 block of North Hoyne. Greene said he heard a volley of gunfire shortly before 6 p.m. as he was bathing his 10-month-old son. His wife, Kate, ran upstairs screaming with their 3-year-old son, and they all took cover in a back room

Attacks on nuclear power stations, oil and gas terminals, Canary Wharf and Heathrow’s control tower were being considered by leaders of the plot to blow up seven transatlantic airliners in mid-flight, a court was told yesterday. Documents found on computer memory sticks at the home of an alleged terrorist ringleader contained a list of targets across Britain – including the gas pipeline between Britain and Belgium. The man, Assad Sarwar, was said to be in contact with terrorist leaders overseas and visited Pakistan a month before his arrest as preparations for the airline attacks were being finalised. Peter Wright, QC,...

Cardinal Francis George has long opposed politics at the communion rail. But Sunday's anti-war protest at the start of his Easter homily spotlighted a frustrated faction in the Roman Catholic Church who believe committed Catholics must do more than preach and pray for peace. Chicago police charged six protesters Sunday with felony criminal defacement of property and two counts of simple battery for spattering parishioners' clothes with stage blood. Five of the protesters are being held in lieu of $25,000 bail. The sixth, who served time in prison for illegally entering a U.S. military installation, received $35,000 bail. Gerard Powers...

...more than 60 Chicago couples at St. Clotilde Catholic Church to honor their years of marriage on the sixth annual national Black Marriage Day.

Barack Obama - The Wizard Of Oz By Evelyn Pringle 28 March, 2008 Countercurrents.org The most trusted leaders of the Democratic party, such as John Kerry and Ted Kennedy, ought to be ashamed of themselves for supporting Barack Obama. With use of the internet, a fifth grader could connect the dots to show a picture of a guy who was picked up in college and carried up the political ladder by a corrupt gang of influence peddlers. John McCain is just drooling waiting for Obama to become the nominee so that he can come out with the trail of dirt...

The most trusted leaders of the Democratic party, such as John Kerry and Ted Kennedy, ought to be ashamed of themselves for supporting Barack Obama. With use of the internet, a fifth grader could connect the dots to show a picture of a guy who was picked up in college and carried up the political ladder by a corrupt gang of influence peddlers. John McCain is just drooling waiting for Obama to become the nominee so that he can come out with the trail of dirt that the Democratic party is too afraid to reveal this late in the in...

A Milwaukee businessman has complained to the Indian Embassy in Washington, D.C., about what he claims is a passport-selling scheme involving individuals at the Indian consulate in Chicago.Amrit N. Patel, who owns a local accounting firm and is president of the India Cultural Society, outlined the suspected scheme in a letter to Indian Ambassador Ronen Sen last March. Milwaukee has a large Punjabi community, many members of which have come here with political asylum, which does not make them eligible for an Indian passport, he said in the letter. But over the last two years, Patel said, the Chicago consulate...

Obama Tied to More Racists By Sher Zieve As the leftist media valiantly attempts to bury any additional and factual racist-related stories about their presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), new information regarding Obama’s ties to racism and anti-Americanism are still emerging. And just as Obama’s former self-admitted anti-American/anti-white people/anti-Semitic pastor Jeremiah Wright has skulked off the pulpit of the inaptly named “Trinity United Church of Christ”, another apparently racism-preaching minister—Otis Moss—is picking up where Wright left off. And there is, yet, another one—Minister James Meeks. But, let’s begin with Moss. During this year’s Easter sermon, Moss (I will not...

In some ways, Barack Obama's speech on race last week was as brilliant as it was nuanced. But for all its rhetorical beauty, it was also an enormous step backward and, in the end, a rather self-serving call for more discussion about racial grievance in a country that has already done way too much talking. Until last week, so much of Obama's appeal lay in the fact that he was not asking us to talk about the racial divide. Instead, he offered himself as a living and breathing symbol of racial reconciliation; his very origins pointed to the goal of...

A group of anti-war protesters interrupted an Easter Mass in Chicago yesterday, stunning parishioners with their shouts during Cardinal Francis George’s homily. They then squirted stage blood on the congregation, leading to their arrest and an angry confrontation in the gathering space outside the hall. As it turns out, the protesters not only were mostly incoherent, but also very, very late (via Memeorandum): Six people were arrested at Holy Name parish’s auditorium Sunday after disrupting an Easter mass to protest the Iraq war.The group—whose female and male members identified themselves as Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War—stood up at the beginning...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Barack Obama's speech last week, hastily prepared to extinguish the firestorm over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, won critical praise for style and substance but failed politically. By elevating the question of race in America, the front-running Democratic presidential candidate has deepened the dilemma created by his campaign's success against the party establishment's anointed choice, Hillary Clinton. In rejecting the racist views of his longtime spiritual mentor but not disowning him, Obama has unwittingly enhanced his image as the African-American candidate -- not just a remarkable candidate who happens to be black. That poses a racial dilemma for...

It was the year 2000 and I was a young hungry reporter in Chicago covering a young hungry state legislator It's not quite eight in the morning and Barack Obama is on the phone screaming at me. He liked the story I wrote about him a couple weeks ago, but not this garbage. Months earlier, a reporter friend told me she overheard Obama call me an asshole at a political fund-raiser. Now here he is blasting me from hundreds of miles away for a story that just went online but hasn't yet hit local newsstands. It's the first time I...

As they listened to the gospel during mass Sunday, few parishioners at Holy Name parish could have imagined the bloodshed about to taint both the holiday service and their Easter finery. Six protesters disrupted the beginning of Cardinal Francis George's homily to shout their opposition to the Iraq war. The demonstrators, who call themselves "Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War" despite their male and female membership, squirted fake blood on themselves and nearby worshipers as security guards tried to usher them from the parish's auditorium, where mass is being said during repairs of the cathedral in downtown Chicago. The syrupy red...

CHICAGO (Associated Press) -- Six Iraq war protesters disrupted an Easter Mass on Sunday, shouting and squirting fake blood on themselves and parishioners in a packed auditorium. Three men and three women startled the crowd during Cardinal Francis George's homily, yelling "Even the Pope calls for peace" as they were removed from the Mass by security guards and ushers.

Even though Barack Obama has "moved on" from the messy association that he has recently been forced to explain to man who had been his pastor for 20 years, it is clear - the voters haven't. There are legitimate questions being raised about a relationship that spans a generation and the beliefs of a man who has on multiple dozens of occasions issued some of the most vitriolic, bigoted, racism imaginable in America today. No doubt one of the most infamous video moments recently unearthed was Jeremiah Wright's use of what he cleverly believed to be a cute play on...

This is Father Michael Pfleger, the pastor of an African American Catholic church on the South Side of Chicago. The guy actually is mad that the media is "tearing down" Farakhan.