Nov. 15-16, Chicago

You are invited to join Healthcare-NOW! activists from around the country to plan our 2009 strategy to win guaranteed single-payer national health insurance. By learning and sharing from one another we can build on the tremendous successes of the last year and develop the plan to push the next administration and Congress to implement single-payer national health insurance NOW.

Any chance that anyone from the Mighty Corrente Building could go to this?

Ever wonder what Obama actually did as a community activist? Whether he succeeded in actually helping people in Chicago? How an outsider without Chicago ties ended up a political insider? Why he left organizing for law school? Why so much of his language in the primaries was that of "bottom up" and "movements"? About all that Alinsky stuff? ...

John Judis: Creation Myth--What Barack Obama won't tell you about his community organizing past

and from 07, a long, but thorough account of those days: The Agitator--Barack Obama's unlikely political education

Support move to universal health care

That's because we have an enormous parasite on the U.S. health care system: The health insurance industry. Health insurance companies gobble up about 31 cents of every health care dollar. They contribute not one aspirin and not one Band-Aid to anyone's medical care. They collect premiums and they control who gets care and who does not. I hold them directly responsible for those 18,000 deaths.

Well, you can't say I don't know when to Be There. What an entertaining week it's been for me, here in the old hometown. CD got her Chitown on, and it's just got my brains a-stirrin. Heh, there haven't been any riots between supporters of the two hometown candidates now that it's all over (nevermind that 'convention' thingee) and for the most part, people seem genial and happy that One of Ours is going to go all the way. Seriously- outside of these evil, hateful wars we have in the blogosphere, Dems I spoke with this week seemed pretty happy and satisfied; some even hopeful that the "Dream Ticket" is still possible, some happy that the SB finally Q (which I guess I missed, but anyway). Heh, I kept my cards close to the vest all week; I wanted to listen and perceive. Biggest thing I noticed: even here, in the Windy City for which Da Mayor has slaughtered many enemies to economically buttress and protect, the Recession is here. That's one thing I really hate about our gummint today: you just can't trust anything they tell us about "the economy" and are often reduced to anecdotes and personal impressions. So let's reduce.

Alice Palmer and Obama's first campaign, when he knocked out the politician who recruited and introduced him to fundraisers and others who could help him (like Ayers, etc) --

"... "She went out and recruited Barack."

So everything seemed set. Palmer would move to Congress and Obama would take her place in the Illinois Senate.

But then Palmer lost the special congressional election. Suddenly, this well-liked community leader faced being out of office after four years in the state Legislature.

...

Palmer finally asked Obama to halt his legislative campaign so she could run for re-election.

He refused. ..."

I get all misty eyed when I read Royko. I mean really. There is just something about politics in Chicago. The city, its culture, its history are all cut form the same cloth -burlap. FYI – Obama is from Hawaii. This hard scrabble sensibility that understands urban Americana - twisted. Daley reminds me of Robert Hansen, sociopathic ideologues who yearn for order. Sounds like someone we all know.

I promise you, the ones in South Shore and Boystown will always work perfectly, while the ones in certain lily-hued, properly religious neighborhoods will strangely malfunction whenever one of the Good Chicagoans is misled into temptation by a gay, black devil.

Julie Farby - All Headline News Staff Writer
Chicago, IL (AHN)-Chicago Mayor Richard Daley says that if Chicago wins the right to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, security and terrorism won't be an issue because, by that time, there'll be a surveillance camera on every corner.

During a meeting with the Sun-Times editorial board, Daley said, "By the time 2016 [rolls around], we'll have more cameras than Washington, D.C. ... Our technology is more advanced than any other city in the world -- even compared to London -- dealing with our cameras and the sophistication of cameras and retro-fitting all the cameras downtown in new buildings, doing the CTA cameras."