Chicago -
By Steve Rhodes
The Riverwalk Is (Sort Of) Open; The 606 Is (Finally) Here; Rahm’s Flyover; Pat Quinn’s Blue Ribbon Recommendations Are (Sadly) Dead, Dead, Dead; Riot Fest Got Screwed; and Confession: Maggie Daley Park Is Really Cool.
Posted on May 30, 2015
By Steve Rhodes
We cannot just write off his final scene. Plus: Scanner Stenography; Twitter Tallies; Big Media’s Super PAC Love; CPS Is A Rogue Nation; and American Cannot Stand The Light Of Day.
Posted on May 26, 2015
By First Defense Legal Aid
Englewood, Lawndale Know Your Rights Campaign Vows to Deliver 100 “What to do When Stopped by Police” Workshops by June 30 to Reduce Violence, Police Overreach
Who: First Defense Legal Aid is the only way people in Chicago police custody might access free legal defense 24/7 if someone alerts their pro-bono, on-call lawyers at 1(800) LAW-REP-4.
To promote the hotline and educate Chicagoans about the power of using their rights for a more equitable, accountable, and fair system, FDLA prepares and supports people in disproportionately policed communities to act as peer educators, giving know your rights workshops, conducting street outreach, and canvassing with posters in neighborhood business districts.
Posted on May 24, 2015
By Steve Rhodes
And Rahm Emanuel is our only hope. Plus: Cub Fan Gonna Cub Fan; When David Letterman Lost The Plot; Daddy Chance The Streets & San Super; Secret Hospitals Of The 1%; and Bruce Rauner’s Vegas Government.
Posted on May 21, 2015
By Steve Rhodes
“When running for office, future Gov. Bruce Rauner regularly pledged to bring unprecedented transparency to state government as part of the Republican’s campaign to turn around the Illinois economy,” AP reports.
Let me guess: He’s not transparent at all!
*
This is a worthy story, but AP is drawing a contrast between campaign pledges and governing reality instead of drawing a line from dishonest campaigning to dishonest governing. Rauner showed us who he was during a campaign filled with repeated lies, flip flops and evasions.
Rauner hid the ball during the campaign just as he’s doing now.
Posted on May 18, 2015
By Raymond Bonner/Special to ProPublica
This story was co-published with Politico.
Since being seized in a raid in Pakistan in 2002, Abu Zubaydah has had his life controlled by American officials, first at secret sites, where he was tortured, and since 2006 in a small cell in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
And, thanks to one of the strangest, and perhaps most troubling, legal cases to grow out of the War on Terror, it appears he’s not going to be leaving anytime soon – which was exactly the plan the CIA always wanted. Not even his lawyers understand what’s transpired behind closed doors in a Washington, D.C., courtroom.
Posted on May 14, 2015
By Steve Rhodes
A century-long assault on blacks by local, state and federal policy makers. Plus: Obama bin Lying; Eroding Checks & Balances; Enjoy Your Murder-Stained Nails; Prince’s Vault; Illinois Supreme Court Upholds State Constitution; White DUI Privilege; White Frat Privilege; and Loyola Beats Lewis.
Posted on May 10, 2015
By The Electronic Frontier Foundation
A federal appeals court Thursday ruled that the NSA’s bulk collection of phone records is illegal, saying Congress didn’t authorize collection of a ”staggering” amount of information on Americans. The decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S.Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit overturns a judge’s ruling dismissing ACLU’s challenge to Section 215 of the Patriot Act, ACLU v. Clapper.
”This is a great and welcome decision and ought to make Congress pause to consider whether the small changes contained in the USA Freedom Act are enough,” said Cindy Cohn, executive director of Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). ”The 2nd Circuit rejected on multiple grounds the government’s radical reinterpretation of Section 215 that underpinned its secret shift to mass seizure and search of Americans’ telephone records.
“While the court did not reach the constitutional issues, it certainly noted the serious problems with blindly embracing the third-party doctrine – the claim that you lose all constitutional privacy protections whenever a third-party, like your phone company, has sensitive information about your actions.”
Said EFF legislative analyst Mark Jaycox: “Now that a court of appeal has rejected the government’s arguments supporting its secret shift to mass surveillance, we look forward to other courts – including the Ninth Circuit in EFF’s Smith v. Obama case – rejecting mass surveillance as well.
“With the deadline to reauthorize section 215 looming, we also call on Congress to both expressly adopt the interpretation of the law given by the court and to take further steps to rein in the NSA and reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.”
Posted on May 8, 2015
By Michael Grabell/ProPublica
An injured worker featured in a ProPublica and NPR investigation into the rollback of workers’ compensation nationwide warned Illinois lawmakers on Tuesday not to make the same drastic cuts that his state has made in recent years.
John Coffell, who lost his home after hurting his back at an Oklahoma tire plant, testified as part of an eight-hour hearing on workers’ comp before the entire Illinois state assembly. The rare hearing of “the committee as a whole” was called by Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan as a preemptive strike of sorts as newly elected Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner prepares a number of changes to reduce costs for employers.
Posted on May 7, 2015
By Steve Rhodes
Better than the Beatles. Plus: The Return of Good Times and United’s off-key Rhapsody.
Posted on May 5, 2015
