By Steve Rhodes

“A city of Chicago administrative hearing judge has upheld the denial of a march permit for NATO protesters,” the Tribune reports.
“Administrative Law Judge Raymond J. Prosser delivered his ruling late this afternoon, backing the city’s claim that a parade through the heart of the Loop on the first day of the NATO summit would create an unnecessary public safety risk.”
No surprise.
“A city hearing officer for the Mayor’s License Commission Friday denied a permit for peace activists to march on Michigan Avenue on the second anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq,” the Tribune reported in February 2005.
That hearing officer, too, was Raymond J. Prosser.

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Posted on March 30, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“[M]any in higher education said it is not a surprise at all that [Michael] Hogan’s presidency at Illinois did not last long and was marred with controversy,” Inside Higher Ed reports.
“They point to his administrative track record as president of the University of Connecticut, which was as rocky as his time at Illinois. The question those critics raise is why, given the very public problems Hogan had at the University of Connecticut, the search committee at Illinois deemed him to be the best candidate.
“When asked about the criticism Hogan faced at Connecticut and how it was considered in the Illinois search, [board of trustees chairman Chris] Kennedy said that he did not have much understanding of those problems.”
They were hard to miss. For example:
“From the beginning, his time at Connecticut was marred by the types of controversies that grab newspaper headlines. Hogan refused to live in the university-provided house, saying his wife was allergic to mold there, so the university paid for Hogan to stay in a different house. He ordered an expensive renovation of the university’s main administrative building – including new furniture – that totaled $475,000 and was paid for through operating funds made up mostly of tuition revenue.
“He held a costly inauguration ceremony, complete with fireworks. He also spent the university’s money on a series of life-sized cardboard cutouts of himself that were placed around campus.”

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Posted on March 29, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

More notes from the front.
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“Ron Szykowny was sitting on his motorized scooter chatting with his 13th Ward precinct captain outside a home at 68th and Springfield when I drove up on Election Day,” Mark Brown writes in the Sun-Times.
That would be the heart of Michael Madigan’s home turf; he’s not just Speaker of the House, he actually represents a district.
“This was one of those unusual precincts where the polling place is in the basement of a house.”
Wha?

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Posted on March 22, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

Wasn’t that exciting? Let’s take a look.
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“Several Cook County voters have received some very nasty robocalls over the past day or so,” Rich Miller reports on his Capitol Fax Blog. “A large number of Cook County pols have been slammed by these robocalls, and the one thing they may have in common is that they all are opponents of Cook County Clerk of the Circuit Court Dorothy Brown.”
Miller reports that one robocall also attacked Tribune political reporter Rick Pearson. Click through for the audio.

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Posted on March 21, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

Remember, you can take this into the voting booth with you. Just print out, cut along the dotted lines and follow the folding instructions. Or use your smartphone, which has been approved for use upon further review of a ridiculous rule.
Let’s start at the top of the ticket and work our way down through selected races.
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Office: President of the United States
Opponents: Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, Paul
Notes: Turns out it’s pretty amazing that either of the front-runners got on the ballot here and that it’s inconsequential that the other two are here at all . . . Democrats wondering if they should pull a Republican ballot and vote for Santorum to either weaken eventual candidate Romney or make Tricky Rick the nominee himself would not only be risking the nation’s future on a reckless gamble, but behaving just like their sworn enemy . . . Santorum must be expecting a loss because he’s spending Election Night in Gettysburg. Yes, that Gettysburg. Ironically, no one will remember what he says . . . The Tribune endorsed Romney. Four years ago they chose John McCain, writing that “Mitt Romney has the skill set of a superb Treasury secretary. But, thus far, he hasn’t convinced us he would be McCain’s equal in confronting that dangerous world of 2008.”
Beachwood’s Advice: Pull a Dem ballot and leave the box for the unopposed Obama blank.

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Posted on March 20, 2012

By Paul Baker/Illinois Open Government Data Initiative

Fox Chicago, the Chicago Tribune and others attended a press conference [Friday] in Daley Plaza called by a nonpartisan group of software designers and engineers. They were there to ask candidates for Clerk of the Court of Cook County, Dorothy Brown and Ricardo Munoz, to pledge to open up court data to the public and to institute e-filing of court cases.
Candidate Munoz attended, and signed the pledge, but Dorothy Brown’s press rep told at least some media who inquired Friday morning about her attendance that Brown was outraged that it was being held without her knowledge and without her being invited.
In response, event organizer Paul Baker, CEO of Webitects, showed five e-mails between him and Brown campaign leadership dating back to March 6 and played a voicemail he received yesterday from Brown’s PR Director asking for more details about the event.

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Posted on March 19, 2012

By Beachwood Labs

Psychopaths have been in the news a lot lately – namely the prevalence of them on Wall Street and in the corridors of power.
Our favorite (suspected) psychopath is Rod Blagojevich, and with him off to prison this morning we are announcing the results of testing done by Beachwood Labs using the Psychopath Checklist developed by Dr. Robert Hare of the University of British Columbia, one of the world’s most foremost experts on psychopaths. Let’s take a look.
For each characteristic that is listed, the subject is given a score: 0 for “no,” 1 for “somewhat,” and 2 for “definitely does apply.”

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Posted on March 15, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“Mayor Rahm Emanuel was frustrated that doubters of his controversial speed-camera plan were ignoring a city study he said offered compelling proof of the life-saving impact of camera technology,” the Tribune reports.
“That study, the mayor said in an interview last month, found that traffic deaths in Chicago had plummeted 60 percent near red-light cameras, cousins of the speed-detecting devices.
“‘You guys have continued to repeat wrong information because it doesn’t fit your storyline,’ Emanuel argued, thrusting it at a Tribune reporter with this challenge:
“‘If the report is wrong, you should go analyze that report.’
“As Emanuel prepares to introduce his speed-camera ordinance to the City Council on Wednesday, the Tribune has, indeed, analyzed that report. The findings raise further questions about how the Emanuel administration has brandished statistics to justify the push.”
Let’s take a look.

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Posted on March 14, 2012

By Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica

BP’s refining subsidiary was released today from criminal probation related to a 2005 explosion in Texas City that killed 15 workers.
The company has addressed the most serious safety deficiencies exposed by the accident and satisfied the terms of a felony plea agreement to settle charges that it failed to protect workers from known risks, a U.S. Justice Department spokesman said.
The move closes a controversial chapter for the company, but it leaves an array of worker-safety issues unresolved. BP is still negotiating over more than 400 additional violations brought against its Texas City refinery separately from the criminal case.
Following the explosion, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration and BP reached a settlement requiring the company to address safety issues at the refinery. Fixing those problems became one of the Justice Department’s conditions for settling felony charges relating to the explosion and for ending the three-year probation period.
In late 2009, however, after a series of inspections, OSHA determined that BP had not addressed many of its safety lapses and levied 270 additional violations and a $87.4 million fine. It also hit the company with another 439 additional “egregious and willful” safety violations at the refinery that were not a component of the criminal case.
At issue then was whether the company had violated some of the most important terms of its probation even after it was given a second chance. In 2010, BP settled with OSHA, paying the agency $50.6 million and committing to making substantive safety changes by the court-set sunset of its probation period Monday.
A Justice Department spokesman said BP has met its obligations for probation, including addressing the 270 violations. The remaining 400 or so OSHA violations, however, were not specific to the Texas City agreement.
“These violations were unrelated to the 2005 settlement agreement and did not in the Department’s view rise to criminal conduct,” said Wyn Hornbuckle, an agency spokesman, in a statement to ProPublica. “The Department did not seek any extension or revocation of BP’s criminal probation.”
The resolution of those remaining violations will be dealt with administratively, by OSHA, Hornbuckle said, and not by the courts.
As the probation expired, confusion remained about exactly what improvements BP had made at its refineries.

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Posted on March 13, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

There’s a still a lot to be gleaned from President Obama’s decision to move the G8 summit from Chicago to Camp David. We have the best gleanings. Shall we?
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“Administration officials and associates, speaking only on the condition of anonymity, said the president in recent weeks began discussing the idea of a more intimate setting for the world leaders – both to ease their communications and to cut down on the security concerns and traffic tie-ups of a big-city summit,” the New York Times reports.
Right. The administration was worried about traffic tie-ups. But the anonymous aides got that absurdity equal footing with security concerns.

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Posted on March 7, 2012