chicago tribune – Moe Lane

Chicago Tribune calls for a delay in implementating #obamacare.

The Chicago Tribune has finally reverted away from home-town boosterism of the President and is now telling him to, essentially, admit that his signature ‘achievement’ is toast:

[President Barack Obama] crusaded for [obamacare] and has embraced its nickname. But he did not write the law. Congress did. Major changes are necessary — he has stipulated by his actions that this law as constituted cannot work — and Congress should legislate them for his review.

Bottom line: Let’s delay and rewrite this ill-conceived law. Congress need not start from scratch. Lawmakers can build on what all of us have learned from three years of painful trial and error. Three years of attempting, but failing, to make this clumsy monstrosity work for the American people.

Continue reading Chicago Tribune calls for a delay in implementating #obamacare.

Chicago Tribune calls for Special Prosecutor in IRS scandal.

And Barack Obama’s hometown paper doesn’t exactly sound very pleased about the situation, either:

We can only speculate on which tools will unlock the grimy secrets of this egregious misuse of government authority. An ongoing self-examination by the IRS is laughably untrustworthy. The U.S. Department of Justice also is on the case.

But as we wrote May 23, many Americans won’t be much interested in what one arm of the Obama administration concludes about the conduct of other arms — the IRS, the Treasury and possibly the White House. There are times when only a special prosecutor has the independence and credibility to resolve such a politically fraught matter.

Needless to say, the administration has the same problem with special prosecutors and independent investigations and that sort of thing that every other Presidential administration has had; to wit, such activities have the pernicious (to them, and their party’s partisans) effect of causing new and exciting headaches for the party that holds the Oval Office. Alas, the Executive Branch* should have thought of that before it started going after conservative nonprofit groups.

Moe Lane

*Note the precise proper nouns used. Barack Obama would have to have been very stupid indeed to have had any direct link to any of that…

#rsrh Chicago Tribune whines about “Durbin tax.”

They’re very upset that Senator Dick Durbin is being rather insolent:

Sen. Dick Durbin must be forgetting that once you’ve dug yourself into a deep hole, you’d best stop shoveling.

How else to explain the Illinois Democrat’s blustery reaction to the $5 a month that Bank of America Corp. plans to charge some of its customers who use debit cards? The charge, which other banks are likely to adopt, is a direct result of his lawmaking. Call it the Durbin Fee.

…but, really, why should Dick Durbin be sorry? I mean, the Chicago Tribune endorsed Durbin in 2008, and it will undoubtedly endorse Durbin in 2014. I can’t for the life of me imagine why the senior Senator from Illinois would care that the editorial board of the local paper is upset at the loss of its free checking and debit card services; what are they going to do, actively try to get a conservative elected in his place?

(Via RCP)

Moe Lane

Chicago Tribune futilely calls for Burris’ resignation.

(Via Hot Air Headlines) It’s a lovely thought, but it won’t happen. If either state or Senate Democrats cared enough about the humiliation that they were putting the people of Illinois through with this sorry mess, they would have changed the law to permit a special election in the first place. But that wasn’t important. Keeping the seat in the hands of one political party? That was important.

Heck of a thing when the most laudable motivation energizing any Democratic Party player in this affair is coming from the impeached former Governor of Illinois; even worse, the motivation is “stark, bloody-minded revenge.” Oh, Rod Blagojevich: why could you not have chosen to use your powers for good?

Crossposted to RedState.