Illinois

NBC5 Chicago: 'A Sign the President's Economic Stimulus Is Working'

By Mike Bates | April 21, 2009 | 12:28 PM EDT

Update at end: NBC5's Bob Sirott responds to this post

Persuading Americans that Barack Obama is an effective president won't be easy. So local news outlets are lending a hand when they can. This was obvious last night on Chicago's NBC5 News at 10. Anchor Bob Sirott reported:

And now to a sign the president's economic stimulus is working. Bank of American today announced a $2.8 billion profit for the first quarter. That report was much better than expected and followed positive results from other banks. It also comes after a loss of more than $2 billion for the last three months of 2008. Bank of America received $45 billion as part of the financial rescue package.

Sirott's positive assessment of Obama's plan isn't justified. The big profits he touted are largely illusionary. Andrew Ross Sorkin explained why in "Bank Profits Appear Out of Thin Air," which appeared in yesterday's New York Times:

Media Ignore Caterpillar Plant Employees Overwhelmingly Opposed Stimulus, Even After Obama Rehire Pledge

By Jeff Poor | March 3, 2009 | 6:52 PM EST

In February, in the build up to the ultimate passage of President Barack Obama's $787-billion stimulus package, there was a lot of discussion about how much the stimulus was going to help the ailing economy. And to promote the bill, Obama visited a Caterpillar plant in Peoria, Ill.

Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., who represents the 18th Congressional District of Illinois, where the Caterpillar plant is located, described Obama's visit and how he used it to lobby him to vote for the bill. It was another side of the story that went unreported by the media.

Obama singled out Schock in his Feb. 12 appearance, telling his audience to visit with the Illinois congressman and encouraged him "to do the right thing for the people of Peoria."

But despite the president's rhetoric, leading up to the bill passage and being signed into law, Schock told a group assembled at the Heritage Foundation's Blogger's Briefing on March 3 he did not hear from a single Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) employee urging him to vote for the stimulus bill, while hearing from 1,400 self-identified Caterpillar employees telling him not to vote for it. It eventually passed in the House by a 244-188 margin, without a single Republican vote.

Paper Editor Alters Column To Say Writer is 'Bitter Conservative' That 'Can't Wish US Well'

By Warner Todd Huston | February 2, 2009 | 1:22 AM EST

This is why newspapers deserve to be buried in the dust bin of history, at least unless they clean up their act. For well over 20 years a southwest suburban Chicago newspaper called The Reporter has employed a columnist named Michael M. Bates -- who is also a long time NewsBusters contributor. He has been their local conservative columnist for many years until, that is, his latest column on Barack Obama was altered to add malicious content aimed at the columnist by the paper's editor.

Bates was one of those conservatives (like myself) that wrote that he hoped that Obama would not succeed as president IF success meant that all sorts of socialist, unAmerican policies would be implemented. Bates was not wishing the president to fail except in implementing policies that Bates felt would be bad for America and even more to the point Bates was not saying he wished the U.S. as a whole ill. But it seems that "nuance" is not something that Bates' editor understands because the editor decided to add some things to Bates' column that Bates did not say.

ABC7 News Chicago: 'Quinn Comes in With a Squeaky Clean Reputation'

By Mike Bates | January 29, 2009 | 10:56 PM EST

On its Web site this evening, ABC7 News Chicago reports on the new Illinois Democratic governor in "Who Is Pat Quinn?" General assignment reporter John Garcia tells readers about the man who replaced former Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich :

Quinn comes in with a squeaky clean reputation at a time when the past two governors have faced serious federal charges.

An Illinois Democrat with a squeaky clean reputation? Now that is news. It also conflicts with assertions made by Illinois Senator Dick Durbin in 1996, when he faced Quinn in the party's primary. The (Springfield, IL) State Journal-Register covered a February debate:

Republic Windows & Doors Files for Bankruptcy

By Tom Blumer | December 16, 2008 | 3:25 PM EST

The Chicago company that was the site of a six-day worker sit-in has filed for bankruptcy. Though this appears to have been expected, it seems that many aspects of this story went under-reported or unreported.

The Chicago Sun Times story written by Francine Knowles and Sandra Guy makes it appear that Bank of America, the lender whose refusal to extend a credit line allegedly caused the company's failure, ended up "lending" over $1 million to fired workers (bolds are mine):

Obama Busted on His 'No Contact' Statement? Oh, I Think So (UPDATE: Ace Has Pic of 'Contact' at Guvs' Conference)

By Tom Blumer | December 10, 2008 | 1:59 PM EST

Note -- A related November 5 story at KHAQ in advance of the Obama-Blago meeting that is no longer available at KHAQ's site is here at my web host. It has been taken down from the related web site, and I believe its Google cache has also been removed.

(original post follows)

Yes indeed (content at original link was deleted; current link is to copy at my web host; HT to an e-mailer, who tells me that “this is (in) the newspaper from Quincy, IL from KHQA, a CBS affiliate”; bold is mine):

By Alexis Hunt
Saturday, November 08, 2008 at 9:48 p.m.

Duckworth comments on consideration for Senate

QUINCY, IL -- Now that Barack Obama will be moving to the White House, his seat in the U.S. Senate representing Illinois will have to be filled.

Obama met with Governor Rod Blagojevich earlier this week to discuss it. Illinois law states that the governor chooses that replacement. There's already been speculation about his selection...from Congressman Jesse Jackson, Junior to Illinois Department of Veterans' Affairs Director Tammy Duckworth.

Obama, yesterday (a quote that, strangely enough, seems barely present on Google News, and on Google Web):

"I have had no contact with the governor or his office, so I was unaware of what was happening.”

ABC's Stephanopoulos Calls Dick Morris a 'Liar' About Rahm Emanuel on WLS Radio

By Warner Todd Huston | November 6, 2008 | 10:09 AM EST

**UPDATE*** With Audio Link

WLS AM 890 in Chicago hosted an in studio visit from ABC newser George Stephanopoulos this morning in the 8:30 segment. Host Don Wade played an interesting Dick Morris sound clip for Stephanopoulos and then asked for his response. That is when Stephanopoulos came right out and said "Dick is a liar." There was no equivocation, no weasel words, just a straight out "liar."

The discussion was focusing on Obama's request to Representative Rahm Emanuel (D-Illinois), a former Bill Clinton senior advisor, to become the new Obama chief of staff. Host Wade was questioning Stephanopoulos as to how the candidate of "change" could go back in time to an old Clinton hack and asked if Emanuel was a good choice for the position.

Obama Promoted Redistribution at a Socialist Group's Meeting in 1996; Media Could Easily Have Found

By Tom Blumer | October 28, 2008 | 2:34 PM EDT

First it was Barack Obama's encounter with Joe the Plumber. Then there was his 2001 interview at Chicago radio station. Today, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air highlights yet another in what is turning out to be a long line of links and other items proving that Democratic candidate Barack Obama is a longtime dedicated, doctrinnaire soc-, soc-, (yes, we're still allowed to say it) socialist.

It comes from the March-April 1996 edition of New Ground, a publication of the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America (CDSA).

I'll cite the relevant verbiage after the jump. But what's more important, I will show just how easy it would have been for a journalist searching Google to find this item. The fact that either no one found this, or that those who might have found it obviously ignored it, shows just how lazy and/or negligent Old Media has been in vetting the Illinois senator's fitness to be president.

Here's what Obama had to say at "A Town Meeting on Economic Insecurity: Employment and Survival in Urban America" on February 25, 1996 in Chicago (bullets added by me for clarity, bold is mine):

Obama Nonprofit Co-Founder Once Arrested for Assaulting Officer After Seeing 'Fahrenheit 9/11'

By Jeff Poor | October 22, 2008 | 9:53 AM EDT

Who you choose to surround yourself with makes you what you are and we already know Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama's associations with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko and William Ayers.

The media have given an extensive examination to Samuel J. Wurzelbacher aka "Joe the Plumber" and Republican vice-presidential nominee Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. But they've allowed another Obama associate to fly under the radar - Sokoni Karanja, president of the nonprofit Center for New Horizons. According a story in the Nov. 23, 2006 Chicago Tribune, Karanja co-founded the Lugenia Burns Hope Center, a leadership training nonprofit founded in 1994 with Obama.

But following the release of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," Karanja was arrested by Chicago Police. According to an article by Maureen O'Donnell in the June 28, 2004 Chicago Sun-Times, Karanja was walking his Doberman through a South Side Chicago neighborhood - where residents had been complaining about dog owners not cleaning up after pets.

MSNBC's 'Rachel Maddow Show' Can't Find Indiana on the Map

By Jeff Poor | October 14, 2008 | 10:30 AM EDT

If you're going base an entire TV show on taking potshots at conservatives and Republicans for anything and everything, you might try to get at least the simple things right - things like grade-school U.S. geography.

MSNBC's Oct. 13 "Rachel Maddow Show" must not have read that memo. After launching into a Keith Olbermann-esque tirade criticizing Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain's geographic campaign strategy, the best and the brightest couldn't correctly label the state of Indiana, mistaking it for Illinois - which ironically is Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama's home state.

Video below fold

Chicago's WGN Anchor 'Cheering and Applauding' Democrats

By Mike Bates | August 29, 2008 | 9:35 AM EDT

In today's Chicago Sun-Times, media reporter Robert Feder writes:

Obama Campaign Tries to Shut Down Chicago Radio Show

By Warner Todd Huston | August 28, 2008 | 11:40 AM EDT

**Audio below the fold**

<img height="88" hspace="0" src="http://www.theupkeepers.com/wgnradio.jpg" width="150" align="right" border="0" />Members of Barack Obama’s campaign HQ in Chicago tried to shut down a local radio show on the City's most powerful radio signal, WGN 720, because they didn't like a conservative guest that was on going on the air to discuss Senator Barack Obama's ties to local terrorist William Ayers. This is a shocking attempt at stifling political free speech and a bald attempt to quash debate by the office of the Democratic Party's nominee. The funny thing is, WGN is the most liberal station in the City with every host but one slavishly supporting the junior Senator from Illinois.

Show host <a href="http://wgnradio.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=48... Rosenberg</a>, the station's only conservative leaning host (probably to be considered more libertarian than Republican), had on short notice asked conservative writer Stanley Kurtz to come on the air to discuss his work on uncovering Obama's ties to terrorist Wiliam Ayres and the Annenberg Challenge project. Kurtz was just in Chicago for his investigation and Rosenberg contacted Kurtz only that morning to appear. At the same time, Rosenberg's producer contacted the Obama campaign's HQ -- which is but blocks from the radio station in downtown Chicago -- to offer some time on the air with Kurtz to debate Kurtz' claims about Obama and Ayres. The campaign, however, flatly refused the offer of the equal air time and instead tried to drum up via email a protest of the show, trying to get it stopped.

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