Move over Andrew Breitbart, here comes Hipskind!

Darlene Heslop "sighed and rolled her eyes" according to a story in the Chicago Tribune. For that she got ejected from the June 14 meeting of the City Council in Elmhurst, IL.

"Surely nobody expects the committee to conduct its business effectively if citizens are free to make facial expressions in public."

I'm serious.

"Making faces behind the mayor's back is disruptive, in my opinion,"

~Stephen Hipskind

Now, according to the Tribune's Editorial, the Elmhurst City Attorney has been directed to research the legal definitions of disorderly conduct and disruptive behavior apparently as a precursor to drafting an ordinance "to curb non-verbal outbursts." There is already a state law defining disorderly conduct as "an act in such unreasonable manner as to alarm or disturb another, or to provoke a breach of the peace." 

Somehow, to me, neither sighing nor rolling your eyes, even if done more-or-less simultaneously at a meeting of elected officials, seems likely to provoke a breach of the peace. A snort? Maybe. A chuckle or two, even? Perhaps.

July's been a busy month for dictionary makers

First we have the new verb breitbart, as in "he breitbarted the story," to describe taking something so egregiously out of context that it takes on a meaning opposite from what was originally intended.  Now we also have the new verb hipskind, as in "he hipskinded the event," meaning he caused members to walk out undermining the meeting quorum yet succeeded in wasting tax-payer money by sending an attorney on a wild goose chase - over somebody sighing and rolling their eyes.

Is it any wonder voters seem hard-pressed to trust elected officials to bring value to their work? To delegate to an attorney the task of devising a way to control facial expressions sounds like some farcical Monty Python sketch.  Sadly, it's not - it's the state of the city in Elmhurst, IL.

Thomas Hayes is an entrepreneur, Democratic Campaign Manager, journalist, and photographer who contributes regularly to various web sites on topics such as economics, politics, culture, and community. He's glad nobody could watch his facial expressions while he wrote this.

The Raw Story | Obama says creating jobs can help US race relations

The Raw Story | Obama says creating jobs can help US race relations: “President-elect Barack Obama, the first African-American to serve in the White House, said in an interview that producing new jobs would help improve race relations in the United States.

"The biggest challenges we face right now in improving race relations have to do with the universal concerns of Americans across color lines," Obama told the Chicago Tribune in an interview published in its Wednesday edition.”

Chicago Tribune / LA TImes Shrink - Tribune Co Fires Staffers

On the very day the New Yorker jumps the shark, the Tribune Company announces firings, including the editor of the Chicago Tribune and the publisher of the LA Times. The reason: readers flow to online sources and advertisers go with them.

Clinton Racism Out Of Control: Clinton Caller Uses "Osama" Not "Obama"

On the eve of what some call the second "Super Tuesday" we have a Chicago Tribune report of an Ohio Clinton Campaign caller using the name "Osama" in place of Obama and saying "Osama Bin Laden".

I don't know when the Clinton racism will end, but I do know that regardless I'm not voting for Hillary Clinton at all. She's ran a campaign that just plain speaks to the worst of America, and I'm not happy that people like John Edwards have not come out to endorse Senator Obama, because their actions would help end her race-based campaign.

The Clintons are using the worst aspects of America to win. Is that any way to run a campaign? It's not worked for them to this point, but God help us all if it does. America should be ashamed of itself for even allowing this kind of political farse of a campaign to go on.

To use a term I find myself coming to again and again with repect to Clinton, it stinks. It really does.

Oh, this is the full text of what the Clinton caller said:

So last night around dinner time, the phone rings. It’s the Hillary campaign–official number, per the caller ID. The woman on the other end asks me if Hillary can count on my support Tuesday. I say I have not decided.
She asks what would help me decide. I say, “Well . . . maybe she can make Bill her vice president.” She does not know how to take me, of course, but has to assume I am serious. “I don’t think she can do that.” “Bill will have a significant role in major decisions, though, won’t he?” I ask. “Oh, certainly he will be very involved. Do you like Bill?” “Very much.” I reply.

She then launches into a two-minute spiel on all the very specific initiatives and proposals Hillary has put forth on health care, the war in Iraq, etc., etc. At the end of her spiel, she says, “And we haven’t heard anything that specific from Osama bin Laden.”

I say, “You did not just say that.” She replies, “I’m sorry . . . just a slip of the tongue.” She then thanks me for my time and encourages me to vote for Hillary on Tuesday.

Someone get Hillary to quit before she wrecks the Democratic Party.

Barack Obama Scores Endorsement of Chicago Tribune, St. Louis Post Dispatch, and Philadelphia Enquirer

Wow, just after the SF Chroncle and San Jose Mercury News' endorsement annoucements, we learn that Obama has scored -- let's see -- the Chicago Tribune, St. Louis Post Dispatch, and Philadelphia Enquirer, and all on the same day that Obama won South Carolina! Talk about momentum!

According to the Huffington Post,

The Philadelphia Inquirer, the largest daily newspaper in Pennsylvania, and the Chicago Tribune, the largest paper in the Midwest, are both endorsing Barack Obama and John McCain in their parties' respective presidential primaries.

Although voters in The Keystone State don't go to the polls until April 22, the Inquirer also has a substantial readership base in southern New Jersey -- where voters cast their ballots as part of the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday round of primaries.

Illinois voters also go to the polls on Feb. 5. The Trib is Obama's hometown paper.

The Inquirer writes that:

BARACK OBAMA is the best Democrat to lead this nation past the nasty, partisan, Washington-as-usual politics that have blocked consensus on Iraq; politics that never blinked at the greedy, subprime mortgage schemes that could spawn a recession; politics that have greatly diminished our country's stature in the world.
Obama inspires people to action. And while inspiration alone isn't enough to get a job done, it's a necessary ingredient to begin the hard work.

Obama's appeal to Americans to have the audacity to hope, even in the face of tragedies such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, has fallen on fertile ground. Americans want desperately to believe they can overcome any difficulty - given the right leadership.

So it seems the New York Times is major-league outnumbered!

Chicago Tribune Says Clintons Tell Lies

The Chicago Tribune's Eric Zorn tears a new one into the Clintons regarding their lies and mistatements, which are, well, lies. Check out this from Zorn:

Originally posted: January 22, 2008
Why stop short? The Clintons are lying about Obama's remarks on Reagan
(Barack) Obama stopped just short of calling (Hillary) Clinton and her husband liars... from the Swamp's live blog of last night's Democratic debate.

Hmm. I see no reason to stop short. Bill and Hillary Clinton have lied brazenly about Obama's recent statement about Ronald Reagan.

Let's look at the transcripts (emphasis added):


Hillary Clinton, Jan 18:

My leading opponent the other day said that he thought the Republicans had better ideas than Democrats the last 10 to 15 years.

Bill Clinton, Jan 18:

(My wife's) principal opponent said that since 1992, the Republicans have had all the good ideas....I'm not making this up, folks.

Well, yes he is. The key, inflammatory words in the Clintons' quotes are better and good, and I invite you, reader, to find it in these transcripts of what Obama has actually said:

I don’t want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what’s different are the times. I do think that for example the 1980's were different.

I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it.

I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.

I think Kennedy, twenty years earlier, moved the country in a fundamentally different direction. So I think a lot of it just has to do with the times.

I think we’re in one of those times right now. Where people feel like things as they are going aren’t working. We’re bogged down in the same arguments that we’ve been having, and they’re not useful.

And, you know, the Republican approach, I think, has played itself out.

I think it’s fair to say the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last ten, fifteen years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom.

Read it all again if you want, you won't find "better" or "good" in there, or synonyms or implications along those lines.

When the Clintons used "better" and "good" in alluding the Obama's remarks, they weren't paraphrasing, they weren't misremembering, they weren't distorting. They were simply lying.