Free Republic

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. 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 a lengthy record filled with core liberal issues. But what's interesting, and almost never discussed, is that he built his entire legislative record in Illinois in a single year. Republicans controlled the Illinois General Assembly for six years of Obama's seven-year tenure....

There has been little discussion during this campaign of Obama surrogate and his admitted mentor Emil Jones. Jones is currently the Illinois Senate Majority Leader and responsible for first pushing Obama to run for office and then the US Senate. As Senate Majority Leader, Jones has proven to be one of the most divisive figures in Illinois Politics as a right-hand man of the unpopular Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. In recent weeks, while facing a backlash from his own party, Jones announced that he was retiring from politics; a move that well-received by the public who overwhelmingly did not approve...

Racial infighting among Democrats, which marred the presidential primaries, has flared up again at the party’s convention in Denver, where a black Hillary Clinton delegate is accusing a black Barack Obama delegate of calling her an “Uncle Tom.” Delmarie Cobb of Chicago told FOX News Monday that Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, whom Obama called his “political godfather,” hurled the racially charged insult against her late Saturday for speaking out in support of Clinton. Although Democrats at the convention are trying to project an image of unity, there is lingering bitterness between the Clinton and Obama camps, in part because...

Plenty of people know who Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers, and Tony Rezko are, but Senator Barack Obama's got another friend stirring a new controversy—his mentor, Illinois Senate President Emil Jones. Jones is accused of calling a Hillary supporter and Chicago political consultant an "Uncle Tom." After refusing to apologize, he later offered a semi-apology, ONLY after being offered a speaking role at the Democratic National Convention by Obama. This is the latest in a string of Obama's associates who have been publically discredited for crimes, bigotry, and anti-Americanism. "Being president means making personal judgments about the character and intentions of...

The chief of Illinois’ National Organization for Women chapter today called on Barack Obama’s “political godfather” to resign immediately from the Illinois state Senate for calling an African-American Hillary Clinton delegate an “Uncle Tom.” “That was a pretty horrible comment,” said Illinois NOW president Bonnie Grabenhofer, also a Clinton delegate, who issued the demand for Senate President Emil Jones’ resignation. Feminists who make up the Illinois Clinton delegate contingent at the Democratic National Convention were outraged to learn of today’s exclusive Chicago Sun-Times report about Clinton delegate Delmarie Cobb’s accusation that Jones directed the racially loaded slur at her. The...

DENVER -- A black Hillary Clinton delegate on Sunday accused state Senate President Emil Jones of calling her an "Uncle Tom." Jones -- Barack Obama's political mentor -- denied using the racially loaded slur against Chicago political consultant Delmarie Cobb, but two aldermen who said they witnessed the Saturday night exchange back up Cobb's account. "Last night, I was called an 'Uncle Tom' by Emil Jones in the lobby of the hotel, right in front of [Ald.] Freddrenna Lyle and [Ald.] Leslie Hairston and [Ald.] Latasha Thomas," said Cobb, a member of Clinton's Illinois Steering Committee. "I walked over to...

The Chicago Sun Times was first to report Monday that two aldermen said they heard Emil Jones, who is also black, call political consultant Delmarie Cobb "Uncle Tom".Cobb told FOX News on Monday that she will vote for Clinton on the first ballot. She said after Clinton releases her delegates on Wednesday, Cobb will vote for Obama. When Cobb walked away to get on the elevator, she said she heard Jones shout, “Uncle Tom.” She said she turned around and walked back to Jones, where he was sitting with a few other Chicago city council alderman, and asked him, “Did...

Windy City newspapers this morning are devoting coverage to a he said/she said mini-scandal roiling among Democratic Convention delegates. From the Chicago Sun-Times.: DENVER -- A black Hillary Clinton delegate on Sunday accused state Senate President Emil Jones of calling her an "Uncle Tom."

I caught up with Delmarie Cobb this morning to ask her about her claims that Senate President Emil Jones Jr., a Chicago Democrat and Obama supporter, called her an “Uncle Tom” because she's a loyal Hillary Clinton delegate. Both Cobb and Jones are African American. Jones denies he used the racially charged comment. Cobb is sticking by her story. Here's her version of how things happened. -- John PattersonQ: My understanding is President Jones said today the term was “doubting Thomas” I wanted to ask you what occurred and what do you think of the president’s explanation?Cobb: What occurred...

Joe Biden, Tim Kaine, or Evan Bayh? Oh, you silly country rubes. There is not an audacious name in that bunch. On Saturday, Barack Obama will return to the initial scene of his crimes against humanity with his vice presidential choice in tow. That choice? Does the phrase, "We're putting the band back together," mean anything to you, Chicago? That's right, Obama's choice will be a friend to lobbyists big and small, the master of economic disaster, a man of few usually unintelligible words, and the man at whose ample teet Obama suckled for his seven vanilla years in the...

Ryan Lizza writes a New Yorker article entitled "Making it: How Chicago shaped Obama." If you ask me, Barack Obama does not come off well here. Calculating politicians, ready to find scapegoats and godfather to pull levers for him and shower money unto him. But more importantly, 15 pages later, I find no evidence that Obama accomplished anything other than helping out on Project Vote. My guess is that he allied himself with ACORN on that one, but we don't see any information on that. Lizza ignores his work on what he calls the two "liberal foundations" -- which is...

Politics produces a gap between words and deeds. Obama exaggerates the credit he deserves for a limited piece of ethics-reform legislation. He embellishes when he presents himslf as having a consistent record on the Iraq war when in fact he's done done a fair amount of zigzagging. He says it was the 1965 bloody attacks on civil rights protesters in Selma, Alabama, that inspired his parents to marry. They had been married for years already. He engages in doubletalk when, on free trade and Iraq, he tells the yokels one thing and the policy people another. He overstates when he...

Who won, lost in budget game July 31, 2004 BY THOMAS ROESER When the spring legislative session dawned, Big Daddy decided he would have to take The Kid in hand (ahem). It was only right: House Speaker Michael Madigan had served in the General Assembly since 1971, the governor (The Kid) had a few years of legislative service under his belt, sitting on the remotest back bench in Madigan's caucus. Also, all other legislative leaders were new or untried: Tom Cross, in his first term as GOP House leader; Democrat Emil Jones had never been Senate president; Frank Watson was...

Barack Obama with Illinois Senate President Emil Jones and other leaders at a 1,500 person rally for the Senator at Liberty Baptist Church on Chicago's South Side on Tuesday, March 9th. Photo by David Katz/Obama forIllinois)   Barack Obama speaks to a crowd at Liberty Baptist Church. (David Katz/Obama forIllinois) OPINION -- "I am a Christian.… So, I have a deep faith. I'm rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people....

SPRINGFIELD -- Senate President Emil Jones issued an ultimatum to the University of Illinois on Tuesday: Get rid of Chief Illiniwek by next month or face tighter ''scrutiny'' of school spending. In his bluntest terms yet, the Chicago Democrat raised the specter of budget cuts while comparing the U. of I. board of trustees to ''segregationists'' for supporting the costumed mascot that Native American critics decry as an unflattering racial stereotype. ''If our tax dollars are going to the university, and the university is using those tax dollars to permit stereotyping, then I think we should deal with it accordingly,''...