By Charles Ornstein/ProPublica

One day very soon, the focus on Obamacare will turn from signing up new enrollees to quantifying the law’s success – or failure.
The six-month open enrollment period, during which consumers sign up for health plans under the Affordable Care Act, is supposed to end today. But the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as well as many states running their own marketplaces, are giving some extra time to consumers who’ve had trouble signing up.
It’ll probably all wrap up by April 15. Then, the final numbers will be tallied and the pronouncements will begin. Politicians on both sides of the aisle will use the same data to proclaim that they were right about the law.

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Posted on March 31, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

From his Chicago Tonight interview on Thursday.
*

Pat Quinn on Chicago Tonight just said the 2nd graders he was with today “seem to like my plan.”

— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) March 28, 2014

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Posted on March 28, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

“Russia has pointed to America’s decision to go into Iraq as an example of Western hypocrisy,” the president said on Wednesday.
“Now, it is true that the Iraq war was a subject of vigorous debate, not just around the world but in the United States, as well. I participated in that debate, and I opposed our military intervention there. But even in Iraq, America sought to work within the international system.”
History says differently:
“The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, declared explicitly for the first time last night that the US-led war on Iraq was illegal,” the Guardian reported in 2004.
“Mr Annan said that the invasion was not sanctioned by the UN security council or in accordance with the UN’s founding charter. In an interview with the BBC World Service broadcast last night, he was asked outright if the war was illegal. He replied: ‘Yes, if you wish.’
“He then added unequivocally: ‘I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter. From our point of view and from the charter point of view it was illegal.'”

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Posted on March 27, 2014

By Bob Angone

During my 33 years as a Chicago Police Officer, one of the things I learned is that numbers play an important role in law enforcement. The biggest lesson was that numbers don’t lie but some people lie about numbers.
Here in Chicago, we hear about numbers almost on a daily basis as they relate to crime here in our city. Over the years on the job, I have served nine police superintendents, and each one had a different way of releasing numbers to the public. Through those years I have seen numbers inflated, ignored, exaggerated, manipulated, deflated and, yes, even made up.

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Posted on March 27, 2014

By The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

The Reporters Committee, joined by a coalition of 38 other media organizations, filed a friend-of-the-court brief last week in support of a Patch.com reporter in Chicago who was ordered to testify about his confidential source in a murder trial.
Reporter Joseph Hosey was ordered to reveal the identity of the source who supplied him with a police report that contained details of the double murder. The judge in the trial court applied the state’s shield law to Hosey but nonetheless found that the privilege had been overcome, finding that the identity of the source was relevant, alternative sources had been exhausted, and the information was essential to protect the public interest.
Much of that finding hinged on the fact that the court made 500 law enforcement officials swear that they were not the source, and thus finding out if one of them was lying was “relevant” to the proceedings.

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Posted on March 25, 2014

By Charles Ornstein/ProPublica

An internal review by the University of Illinois has found that an advertisement in which a university surgical team endorsed a pricey surgical robot violated school policies.
Though the team acted “in good faith,” the review concluded, the episode pointed to the need for clearer rules and stronger enforcement.
The review by the university system’s vice president of research followed criticism of the ad for the da Vinci surgical robot that ran in the New York Times Magazine in January. It featured a dozen members of the surgery team at the University of Illinois Hospital and Health Sciences System above the headline “We believe in da Vinci surgery because our patients benefit.”

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Posted on March 20, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

“First-time candidate Bruce Rauner eked out a surprisingly narrow victory over state Sen. Kirk Dillard for the Republican governor nomination in Tuesday’s primary as Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn launched an early TV attack ad against his wealthy challenger,” the Tribune reports.
Surprising only to those who believed the polls. For example, the Beachwood Bookmaking Bureau never wavered from placing Dillard atop the leader board – though we certainly should have downgraded the sliding Bill Brady had we updated the board since its last, Feb. 28 posting.
In fact, one has to wonder how much the polls showing Rauner with a 20-point lead affected the race. Were potential Dillard voters discouraged? Were wavering voters persuaded to “go with the winner?” What about the impact of the cynical punditry that kept insisting the election was a lock? And what about the overall media performance that delivered Rauner gobs of attention – not all of it positive, to be sure – while the other campaigns were left begging?
As I’ve said before, Rauner’s money didn’t just buy saturating advertising, but saturating reporting. And yet, we’re left with a candidate who was allowed to dodge just about every issue and outright dodge reporters – even on Election Night.
When the pundits do their analyses of what happened and why, I’m sure they’ll leave themselves out of the equation. But we all know media coverage impacts campaigns. If it doesn’t, why bother?

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Posted on March 19, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

Those of you who are longtime Beachwood readers know I won’t be voting today because I don’t believe journalists should participate in the internal activities of political parties. And that’s what a primary is: The parties are deciding their nominees for the fall.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t some folks I’m pulling for – Will Guzzardi and Jay Travis come to mind.
But I’m not a Democrat, so those choices aren’t mine to make.
Those of you who are longtime Beachwood readers also know that I don’t believe voting is the end-all, be-all of democracy. In fact, it’s nothing more than fig leaf on the real, anti-democratic machinery that wants you to think you chose your political representatives when in fact your political leaders gamed the system to leave you with few real choices – especially in Chicago, Illinois.

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Posted on March 18, 2014

By The Chicago Headline Club

In honor of Sunshine Week, Citizen Watchdog is asking citizens to join a nation-wide audit of local government websites. Go to watchdogwire.com for more information.
Can you access budgets on your county website, or find contact information for all public officials? Are meeting minutes available? Is there a database of all public spending?
It’s surprisingly easy to audit your city or county website – here’s how you get started:

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Posted on March 17, 2014

By The Electronic Frontier Foundation

Representing a large group of top computer science experts and professors, the Electronic Frontier Foundation on Thursday submitted a brief to a federal appeals court supporting the American Civil Liberties Union’s lawsuit over the NSA’s mass call records collection program. At the core of the brief is the argument that metadata matters.
Intelligence officials have often downplayed privacy concerns over the NSA’s interpretation of Section 215 of the Patriot Act by stating that the agency does not collect the “content” of calls, but only the metadata – who a person called, when, how long the conversation lasted and other information.
EFF’s brief begins with the line “It is not just metadata,” and goes on to explain how metadata collected on a massive scale can often reveal more personal information about an individual than content. The brief outlines how metadata can show patterns of behavior, political and religious affiliations, and other personal details, especially when combined with other data sources.

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Posted on March 14, 2014