By The Beachwood Olympic Smackdown Affairs Desk
vs.
Posted on July 24, 2009
The $4 Million Fund
By The Chicago Community Trust
The Chicago Community Trust, metropolitan Chicago’s community foundation, announces today a grant of $500,000 from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation that pushes the total raised for The Unity Challenge to over $1.3 million. The Trust has matched all Unity Challenge donations 2-to-1, making available $4 million to aid those hit hardest by the recession.
Following its first round of Unity Challenge grants in January that provided immediate relief for food pantries and homeless shelters, today the Trust also announces its second round of grant recipients from this special initiative. These grants in the amount of $675,000 will support a regional response to the foreclosure crisis and increase the capacity to provide legal assistance to families and individuals who are bearing the brunt of the economic recession and have the fewest resources secure their financial well-being.
Posted on July 21, 2009
For A Real Public Option
By Dennis Kucinich
In mid-May, in an effort to reach consensus, President Obama secured a deal with the health insurance companies to trim 1.5% of their costs each year for ten years saving a total of $2 trillion dollars, which would be reprogrammed into health care. Just two days after the announcement at the White House the insurance companies reneged on the deal which was designed to protect and increase their revenue at least 35%
The insurance companies reneged on the deal because they refuse any restraint on increasing premiums, co-pays and deductibles – core to their profits. No wonder a recent USA Today poll found that only four percent of Americans trust insurance companies. This is within the margin of error, which means it is possible that NO ONE trusts insurance companies.
Then why does Congress trust the insurance companies? A few days ago, HR 3200 (“America’s Affordable Health Choices Act”), a 1,000 page-bill, was delivered to members. The title of the bill raises a question: “Affordable” for whom?
Posted on July 20, 2009
Good King Rich
City Council Follies
By Ald. Joe Moore
Adapted from Moore’s e-mail city council report to constituents.
You would have never known it from the newspaper accounts, but the most intense debate at our last city council meeting on June 30th was over the approval of furlough days in 2009 for all non-unionized city workers.
For me, the core of the debate was not so much about the benefit to the city (15 furlough days would save about $10 million) or the pain to workers (considerable, but not as harsh as layoffs). Rather it focused once again on transparency and honesty by Chicago’s executive branch.
Posted on July 15, 2009
Affirmative Asian American Action
By Kiljoong Kim
Editor’s Note: Beachwood contributor Kiljoong Kim submitted this testimony last Friday to the Chicago City Council Subcommittee on MBE/WBE Affirmative Action Matters in support of proposed changes to the city ordinance. I added the links.
I. Introduction
My name is Kiljoong Kenneth Kim. I have been a freelance research consultant in Chicago for the past 11 years. My clients include various corporations and law firms in Chicago area as well as Metro Chicago Information Center (MCIC), Northwestern University, and Chicago Public Schools. I have served as a faculty member in department of sociology for 12 years and also as research director for seven years at DePaul University. I have co-edited and co-written critically acclaimed book New Chicago: Social and Cultural Analysis in 2006; the same year I began writing online columns about demographic trends in Chicago on The Beachwood Reporter. My work has been cited by such prestigious academic journals as Harvard Law Review and has been positively reviewed by top tier journals in sociology, urban planning, and geography. Finally, I am a product of Chicago Public Schools, Clinton Elementary and Stephen T. Mather High, as well as University of Wisconsin-Madison and DePaul University. Currently, I am a doctoral student of sociology at University of Illinois at Chicago, where my dissertation will examine how ethnic communities in Chicago are formed and how they impact racial and economic segregation.
In this document, I’d like to discuss Chicago’s MWBE program and Asian American contractors. In order to do so, I’d like to revisit the larger historical landscape of Chicago. The history of Chicago is a history of underdogs, whether it be Irish, Italian, or Polish immigrants who built proud traditions of several generations of firefighters and policemen despite the fact that those were the only government positions they could attain when they were looked down upon by others; or African Americans who fought hard to elect their own mayor despite the fear and resistance of those who doubted that a black man could be the leader of this city.
Posted on July 14, 2009
Tamms And The Trib
By Tamms Year Ten
Editor’s Note: The folks from Tamms Year Ten won a meeting last week with the Tribune editorial board to discuss a recent editorial (reprinted below) it took issue with. Here is their account.
Posted on July 13, 2009
Obama’s Justice
By Sam Singer
President Obama has developed a curious habit of taking one legal position in his public statements and an altogether contrary position in the courtroom. To be fair, it is his Justice Department doing the talking in court, but that’s a bureaucratic formality, right?
It depends on who you ask. The White House has stressed that with rare exceptions, the Justice Department must defend all validly enacted laws, not just the ones favored by the sitting administration. As a result, Justice Department legal opinions won’t always represent those of the President.
Civil rights advocates see things differently. They take issue not with the president’s statement of the Justice Department policy but with his understatement of its exceptions. Some insist the president is selling himself short, that he’s got more say at Justice than he allows for. Less charitable dissenters believe the president is trying to convince the public that his hands are tied when in reality they’re just a bit full.
Posted on July 8, 2009