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WILMINGTON, Del. - The Chicago Cubs baseball team filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday, a step that will allow its corporate parent to sell the team in an $845 million deal. The filing in Wilmington, Del., was anticipated and is expected to lead to a brief stay in Chapter 11 for the Cubs. It comes as part of the Tribune Co.’s plans to sell the team, Wrigley Field and related properties to the family of billionaire Joe Ricketts, the founder of Omaha, Neb.-based TD Ameritrade.

A group of aging hippie wannabes grandiosely calling themselves the "Cigna Seven" got themselves arrested by "the man" on Thursday. You'd be excused if you weren't aware of this because the media pretty much just yawned at the exploits of these few goof balls. These elder statesmen of the wacko set got themselves pinched by the fuzz as they sat their graying, age spreading rear-ends in the entryway of Cigna Corp.'s Midwest offices in downtown Chicago. The charges were, of course, trespassing but they should have been charged with impersonating a serious American. One of the idiotic things these nuts...

Obama's Community A Black on Black Killing Field .

This week we've seen King Daley's desperate attempt to get past his deep humiliation on losing the 2016 Olympics after spending so many years trying to convince the world that his corrupt kingdom was the ideal place for the games. The King's brilliant idea was to reveal how he was going to save the city from its epidemic of youth violence. A Chicago Tribune story reported the diminutive King's plan to cure the city of violence in the wake of the death of a student near Fenger High school. emphasized that families and parents need to take responsibility, but he...

Here is video of Oprah Winfrey giving public reaction to Chicago's defeat in their attempt to get the 2016 Olympic Games. Winfrey was part of the team that went to Copenhagen to lobby for Chicago, along with First Lady Michelle Obama and President Obama. Obama was eliminated first - a shock to everyone. Winfrey said she was shocked, and was glad she was not in Copenhagen when the result was announced, because she would not have been able to hide her disappointment. . . . (VIDEO)

Some critics call the $250 million dollar city project "outrageous" and a bad investment. It's the giant unfinished CTA "superstation" in the Block 37 development across from Daley Plaza. . **SNIP** . When the project was abandoned last year for an indefinite period, an estimated $250 million had been spent on it. Of that, an estimated $100 million came from cost overruns. Another $50 million was for mothball costs.

CHICAGO -- If you're looking for somebody to cheer for during Sunday's marathon, Steve Baskis is your man. The 23-year-old Iraq veteran lost his sight last year when a roadside bomb exploded next to the vehicle he was driving. One of his best friends, Victor Cota, was just a few feet away from him at the time and lost his life. Instead of falling apart, though, Baskis did exactly the opposite. He needed an outlet for competitiveness and he wanted to show people that life doesn't end just because you lose your vision. After numerous surgeries to repair his injuries,...

Chicago Tour Bus Used To Move Pot, Cash NationwideBy TODD RICHMOND, Associated Press Writer Oct 6, 2009 6:31 pm US/Central CHICAGO (AP) - The purple tour bus rumbled toward Arizona. On board were 15 passengers, all promised $1,000 and a hotel stay. Stuffed into the luggage compartments, in four black duffel bags, was $1.4 million. Trailing the bus were Wisconsin Department of Justice agents, heading straight into a case that reads like a crime novel. A Detroit drug lord named Adarus Mazio Black was using the tour bus to smuggle his cash and dope across the country and was so...

Obama Nobel Peace Prize Yes/ No poll at link. In Pres_ent Oblahblah's back yard.

Obama decided to take some ownership of the situation after Albert was beaten to death on Sept. 24. At least four young men, ages 16, 17,18 and 19, are suspected of killing the student with a piece of wood and their fists on the far South Side, a few miles from the neighborhoods Obama worked in as a community organizer. Obama sent Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan to Chicago on Wednesday to meet with Mayor Daley, local leaders, and Fenger students.

During the 2008 presidential campaign Democrats ignored candidates of long standing, proven leadership to push the candidacy of a guy whose only real accomplishment was to have become a "community leader." Democrats defended this sparse resume and said that "community organizing" was all so very important. That was then. Today, community leaders are not so important to the administration of the "community leader" president. At least is seems so since Obama sent his Attorney General, Eric Holder, and his Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, to Chicago for a photo op and meeting with the corruption riddled City of Chicago government...

On Wednesday at Chicago's City Hall -- the real West Wing of the Obama White House -- the president's men comforted Mayor Richard Daley. They put their political arms around him, and by extension President Barack Obama's arms, and they talked about children being killed on Chicago's streets, the latest murder caught on video and broadcast around the world on YouTube. If you've spent any time in a big American city, you've seen this liturgy before, a sad scene, expected and politically necessary, televised, a liturgy repeated for several generations now. By their speeches, the politicians transform a murder victim...

In the misty past of ten months ago, dissent was patriotic, mass protests were a sign of passionate civic engagement, and the greatest sin any politician could commit was questioning someone’s patriotism. But that was America, B.B.O. (Before Barack Obama). Now dissent is potential incitement, middle American protesters are Swastika-carrying yokels, and disagreeing with a president’s decision to put his hometown above the well-being of troops in Afghanistan demonstrates a “lack of patriotism.� On Friday’s edition of MSNBC’s “The Ed Show,� Ed Schultz blamed Chicago’s first-round rejection, not on Rio or behind-the-scenes maneuvering, but on American conservatives who questioned...

Der Fuhrer reacts to Hussein's epic olympic failure HERE. PS. Pardon the vanity post, but this is too good not to share.

In a post from earlier this evening, John shows how various leftists have exaggerated the extent to which conservatives took pleasure from the fact that Chicago was not selected to host the 2016 Olympics. As John notes, the left is relying on a small number of examples. Nonetheless, it's unfortunate that there are any examples at all. If a crowd at the "Defending the American Dream Summit" actually did applaud the announcement that Chicago finished last in the balloting, what possessed the members of that crowd to do it? The lefties have a point: since when do conservatives root for...

Patient Dumping is the practice of dumping those that cannot afford medical services or those that would burden the system onto other medical care providers. At the University of Chicago Medical Center, patient dumping appears to be a routine practice. In 2002, Michelle Obama became the Executive Director for Community Affairs at UCMC. Interestingly, Susan Sher, who hired Michelle for the UCMC gig, currently serves as Michelle Obama's chief of staff at the White House. Shortly after Barack Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Michelle received a promotion to become the Vice President for Community and External...

On Thursday, September 24th, after an apparently productive day at Fengler High School in Chicago, Derrion Albert, a black 16 year old honor student was knocked to the ground by a blow to the head with a railroad tie. He was then punched, kicked and stomped. Those who responded to rescue him were too late. Derrion had walked into the middle of a fight between two rival black gangs. He attempted to help one of the victims in the melee and was killed for his trouble. This took place in Barack Obama's Chicago. All his work for "social justice" did...

The organization that brought you all those banners, ads and fund-raising pitches for the 2016 Olympics in Chicago soon will pay the price for the city's failure to get the games. Chicago 2016, the high-powered civic committee that has worked on the city's bid for three years, is expected to lay off most of its 57 paid staffers by the end of October. A small group is expected to remain through year-end as it winds down operations. In a "stewardship report" issued in late August, the committee disclosed that it has raised $76.9 million from July 2006 through last June...

met Pat McDonough about a month ago. The best way to describe McDonough is by this Shakespeare quote. Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them. For McDonough, his greatness if you will was thrust upon him. I doubt Pat would call it greatness and he'd also want to admit that all things being equal, he might even take his earlier life. That said, Pat McDonough is one of a handful of whistle blowers that was instrumental in uncovering the Hired Truck scandal about five years. He told me...

The Chicago Tribune reported yesterday that the US Olympic Committee told the White House early last week that the voting was tight and that a visit from Obama -- who, the Trib says, was if anything dubious about making the trip at first -- could well seal the deal. Valerie Jarrett, the leading White House aide, was told that leading backers of the Chicago bid had done some nose-counting and that a personal appeal by Obama could well tilt things their way. Oh well. Live and learn. Did the USOC play the Obama administration here? I'm not suggesting that the...

The world has clearly gone nuts. How in the name of all that is good and just is Barack Obama supposed to bring lasting peace, true prosperity, and White House beer busts to the entire world if they won’t even let him get in a little playtime in sweet home Chicago? With just the sound of his mellifluous voice, Dear Leader has already ended a recession (well, all right, not quite – but what’s a few million unemployed?), cured the ills of all ailing Americans (well, he would have if those redneck Tea Partiers out in mid-America hadn’t turned on...

It didn’t take long for a major media outlet to lapse back into blame Bush mode once Chicago’s bid of the 2016 Olympics failed on the first ballot. The day after the startling loss the Chicago Sun-Times revealed its penchant for “Bush Derangement Syndrome” by reporting the claim that the reason Chicago lost is because Bush made the world mad at us. Even as Presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs rejected the idea, the Sun-Times eagerly reported that “some Chicago officials” were saying that they lost the bid because of Bush. Some Chicago officials say anti-American resentment likely played a role in...

Here is video of former Bush and McCain adviser McKinnon on MSNBC talking about Chicago's failed Olympic bid. McKinnon said "I think the Chicago incident was bad political instincts and bad political judgment but I was disappointed that it didn't come to America, and I think it is patriotic that we should have supported that move." He went on to say "I was very disappointed to see talk show hosts like Mark Levin coming out with jaw-dropping hate language about the president..and reveling in the presidents failure." (Video)

On "This Week," George Will says that the Obamas' trip to Copenhagen to try to land the Olympics for Chicago in 2016 was more about their ego than America. "The President and First Lady went to Copenhagen and gave speeches about themselves," Will said, breaking down the number of times they used the words "I" and "me" in their speeches. "It was all about them," he said, concluding that like "Honest Abe" and "Tricky Dick" before him, the President might go down in history as "Vain Barack."

The International Olympic Committee has been listening to President Soetoro’s recent accounts of America and they agree with him America is not what it should be. President Soetoro spent the first few months of his presidency reaffirming all of the world’s most negative feelings toward America and they heard him. (see previous post)(see 2:16min video) For years Democrats and Liberals have been attempting to undermine America’s position as world leading super power. Former Democrat President Clinton even forecasted that this day would come, a day when America would not be the pre-eminent military, economic and political power. (see related story)...

Frankly, I don't care that Chicago lost its bid for the Olympics. Really, I don't. But maybe the president's trip to Copenhagen was useful since his top battle commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, traveling from England to Denmark, had the opportunity to meet Barack Obama on Air Force One. Their talking with each other is, after all, a rarity. In fact, Obama and McChrystal had spoken but once since the general took on AfPak as his turf in early June 2009. With whom, then, is Obama conversing? And how independent of mind on military matters are they? Or are...

A young organizer at the conservative Defending the American Dream Summit interrupted a panel discussion last Friday to read aloud, from her BlackBerry, the electrifying news that Chicago had been dumped from the 2016 Olympics. A tracker caught the crowd’s reaction in the Arlington, Va., hotel ballroom on video: The place erupted in hooting and wild applause, a scene perversely reminiscent of the exultation that followed the U.S. Olympic hockey team’s “Miracle on Ice” victory against the Soviets in 1980. Chicago lost “on the very first vote! They did not have any chance,” the woman said to an ovation recorded...

It was an image that shocked the country. Could a case headed for the Supreme Court overturn gun laws in Chicago? A 16-year-old honor student in Chicago being beaten to death by teenagers. Derrion Albert, a high school sophomore was caught in a mob fight as he was walking to a bus stop. Despite not being part of either of the gangs, he was punched, kicked and struck by a board. And just a week and a half after the fatal incident, as residents demand safer streets, Chicago faces a new battle -- this time over guns. On Monday, the...

“It’s the world’s loss,” said David Axelrod, senior advisor to President Obama, in regards to Chicago not being selected by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as the Host City for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. So instead of admitting to a serious miscalculation by his boss and offering a modicum of a mea culpa for time lost and resources wasted, David Axelrod, with mind-numbing condescension, chose to double-down on President Obama’s fool’s errand to Copenhagen. Sadly though, this once again finds us at yet another “teachable moment” for our woefully under-experienced President and his staff of stubborn political toadies. As...

Even President Barack Obama's magic has its limits, it turns out. The International Olympic Committee rejected Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, despite the president's quickie trip to Copenhagen to make the pitch in person. Obama and the rest of Chicago's powerhouse delegation, which included first lady Michelle Obama, Mayor Richard M. Daley and his wife Maggie and the Queen of All Media Oprah Winfrey, were fighting an uphill battle all along.

While Michelle Obama fruitlessly pimped (oh ok, shilled, promoted) her corrupt, broke and now nationally known violent, native town, as a site for the 2016 Olympics, for the first time in her life she was seemingly proud of it. Her neighborhood "of working families -- families with modest homes and strong values.Sports were what brought our community together. They strengthen our ties to one another." It was also, and still is, a relatively high crime neighborhood. It is a testimony to Michelle and her parents that she emerged relatively unscathed except with a huge, but somewhat understandable, chip on her...

Those who are trying so hard to destroy America are upset with the right wingers who are rejoicing because Barack, Michelle and Oprah made asses of themselves in Denmark.

Some Chicago officials say anti-American resentment likely played a role in Chicago's Olympic bid dying in the first round Friday. President Obama could not undo in one year the resentment against America that President Bush and others built up for years, they said. "There must be" resentment against America, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said, near the stage where he had hoped to give a victory speech in Daley Center Plaza. "The way we [refused to sign] the Kyoto Treaty, we misled the world into Iraq. The world had a very bad taste in its mouth about us. But there was...

CHICAGO – The funeral of a Chicago teen who was beaten to death on his way home from school drew civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan on Saturday, both calling for an end to youth violence. Farrakhan said he came to the funeral because he was "deeply pained" by the death of 16-year-old honor roll student Derrion Albert. The boy was walking to a bus stop after school when a group of teens attacked him during a street fight late last month. "Naturally, we wonder why such a beautiful life? Such a...

Barack Obama’s schools chief tries to incite dramatic reform that will last. Mr Duncan, the former chief of Chicago’s schools, finds himself in an unprecedented position. No education secretary has ever had so much money to drive reform. Thanks largely to the federal stimulus, he has more than $10 billion, including $3.5 billion to turn around schools. More than $4 billion will go to states that pursue specific initiatives: final guidelines for applications will be issued this autumn, and states are scurrying to prepare. Mr Duncan calls the money a “moon shot”—for his department and for the country. With his...

President Obama, I come from Chicago. I was born in Chicago. Chicago was where I grew up. Mr. President, you are not a Chicagoan. Yes, it's true. I, Charles Henrickson, was born and raised in Chicago, in the city. I was that rarest of creatures there--a registered Republican. And I love my hometown. Even as I detest the corrupt Democratic machine that runs it. The Chicago I grew up in, the Chicago of Hizzoner da Mare, was corrupt, yes. But the Chicago of today, under da Mare's kid, Richie, is both corrupt and radically leftist, fostering the likes of...

Mayor Richard Daley and his supporters hyped the 2016 Olympic bid as Chicago's best hope for a sorely needed economic boost, a once-in-a-lifetime chance to raise the city's global profile and even a way to help keep more kids from dropping out of school. "The next five years, six years, tell me one thing that is going to have economic opportunities for any city," Daley had said in July, when asked about criticism of his Olympic dream. "If you have something better, I'd love to see it." But Daley headed home from Denmark on Saturday without a trump card. He...

October 02 A PR Nightmare for the Obamas [Victor Davis Hanson] One can understand an American president’s lobbying for an American city to obtain the Olympics, but the blitz by the Obamas proved a PR nightmare. Let us count the ways: 1) Obama’s brand is trans-nationalism and an “America is not exceptional” multiculturalism. According to his worldview, it makes sense that a South American country — especially a powerful, ascendant country such as Brazil — should at last have its turn at hosting the Olympics. It did not seem consistent that a politician who had reached out to the Castros,...

Jennifer Rubin - 10.02.2009 - 12:04 PM Obama received a nasty rebuff and a stern reminder that the rest of the world doesn’t necessarily care what he thinks. Chicago is out of the Olympics bidding process–in the first round. Why did Obama invest so much personal capital and time for this?

A stunned media was left speechless when President Barack Obama’s personal sales pitch on behalf of Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Summer Games failed to sway the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Of the four contending bids, Chicago’s was the first to be rejected—giving it a last place finish in the event. MSNBC’s Ed Schultz called the outcome “fishy.” “When the most persuasive man on the planet can’t sell a bunch of Eurostiffs on the benefits of a great city like Chicago, something ugly and obscene is going on,” Schultz opined. “One can only wonder if the racism fomented by...

Does anybody other than me see where our priorities have gone with the Chicago Olympics bid? For example, ever since Gen. Stanley McChrystal became the Commanding Officer in Afghanistan, he has been telling there would be a report forthcoming about what additional items he would need to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Rumors have been circulating for weeks about 40,000 more troops plus more hi-tech equipment like our predators to be used in hunting down the enemy. Our President, Barack Obama, even made the Afghanistan War one of his "priorities" in defeating those who attacked us on 9/11/2001....

President Obama says he's glad he went to Copenhagen to make a bid for the Olympics, but conservatives say the high-profile failure has exposed the limits of Obama's popularity abroad, Politico reports. Some conservatives are even celebrating Chicago's loss. Below, Richard Wolffe on what went wrong.

What vexes me is CNN's constant drumbeat of reports on Chicago crime - and specifically two teen murders - in the very week before the vote and leading right up to the day of the IOC vote. It seemed like CNN was trying to influence the vote to me, even mentioning the Olympics in their segments on the Chicago crime problem. Moreover, CNN failed to mention the crime issue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Rio has a huge drug and crime problem called "critical" and puts it in direct competition if not worse than Chicago. With all this why no...

Breaking News: Chicago Fails to Snag Hot Dog Contest WASHINGTON – The International Federation of Competitive Eating announced that the race for the 2016 Nathan’s International July Fourth Hot Dog Eating Contest is down to Rio de Janeiro, Madrid, and Wildwood, New Jersey as Chicago was eliminated in one of the most shocking defeats in IFOCE history. The defeat is especially painful for President and Mrs. Obama, who made personal pleas before IFOCE this morning in Coney Island. In an impromptu speech before IFOCE’s Board of Regents, Mr. Obama waxed eloquent by reading from a teleprompter for forty-five minutes about his memories of eating hot dogs...

This just doesn't get old. If you heard the CNN news anchor in shock, this is just more icing in the cake. VIDEO HERE At first, the audience is too stupid and too quick to hear what the European Olympic guy with the accent is saying. They here 'Chicago' and they start cheering and going: "Weeee Ohhhhh!" Then someone with a clue elbows the collective audience, and they realize they lost. Then, it gets even better. They blame Bush, the Iraq War, and anyone else for the US being "unpopular" in the world, and keep wondering out loud why Obama...

Today's Chicago Sun Times has the first ten pages and half the sports pages dedicated to analyis and hyperanalysis of Chicago's loss of the Olympic bid. One Sun Times article called the Olympic snub an after effect of "anti American bias." That's interesting because I thought that all ended when Obama was elected. With every analysis, there was a different perspective. Rick Telander thought it was a rejection of Daley's arrogance. Of course, the murder of Derrion Albert could have played a role as well.

WE'RE N0. 4! As I stood with the shell-shocked citizens in Daley Center Plaza before noon Friday, the sickly orange fountain bubbling like toxic waste before us on this gray, miserable day, I halfway expected that cheer to break out.

Chicago’s vitriolic West Side Catholic leader and one time Obama spiritual mentor Father Michael Pfleger is known by some as the “white” Jeremiah Wright. Pfleger, who has called Louis Farrakhan a “great man” and Rev. Wright “one of the greatest Biblical scholars this nation has,” earlier this year thundered about the hypocrisy of fighting a war in Iraq “when we have innocent children dying on the streets right here at home.” At home, meaning Chicago. In 2008 for example, America lost 314 fighting men and women in Iraq while 509 unfortunate citizens were murdered in Chicago. The case this year...

I must admit I was a little surprised to read this scathing account of cluelessness and incompetence in the effort to land the 2016 Olympics for Chicago in the New York Times … until I realized it ran in the Sports section. However, political reporters Jeff Zeleny and Peter Baker wrote it, and their inside look at the run-up and the reaction at the White House shows just how much this administration has bought its own press: