By The Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts and the Chicago Council of Lawyers

The Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts and the Chicago Council of Lawyers have released a report that catalogs 10 data-based facts about the Cook County Sheriff’s Electronic Monitoring (EM) Program to help the public understand the breadth of this program, who exactly is affected, and to make a determination as to whether it is worth the millions of dollars taxpayers spend each year to maintain it.
The report is a comprehensive analysis of public data from the Cook County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) obtained through public sources, such as the CCSO’s website, and through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts. Our analysis examines who is confined, why they are confined, for how long, and whether they are rearrested while on electronic monitoring. Full documentation and code used to generate the analysis in this report can be found here.

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Posted on September 23, 2021

By Shirley Smith/Other Words

Not long ago, I was a saleswoman and manager at Art Van Furniture, a furniture retailer that was an institution in metro Detroit for over half a century.
It was more than a job. My co-workers were my family, and we were all proud to work for our company. Thanks to our hard work, Art Van had grown from a family-owned business with one location to the top performing furniture retailer in our state.
But all that changed in 2017, when the private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners bought the company out. Soon, the company I knew and loved began to vanish right in front of my eyes. Where we saw a strong company we were proud to work for, they saw something they could strip for parts.
By 2020, my job had become one of the over half a million retail jobs that have been destroyed by private equity big shots.

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Posted on September 21, 2021

By The City of Chicago Office of Inspector General

The Public Safety section of the Office of Inspector General (OIG) has completed a follow-up to its June 2020 review of the Chicago Police Department’s (CPD) management and production of records. Based on responses from CPD, OIG concludes that the Department has undertaken almost no corrective actions in response to OIG’s recommendations. As a result, CPD’s ability to meaningfully ensure that it is fulfilling all of its legal and constitutional obligations remains seriously impaired.

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Posted on September 16, 2021

By Rachel Mikva/The Conversation

The most restrictive abortion law in the country went into effect on Sept. 1 after the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to deny an emergency appeal. In Texas, abortions are now illegal as early as six weeks into a pregnancy – before many women and girls know they are pregnant.
To date, 13 other states have passed laws establishing this six-week limit, but they face court challenges for state interference in women’s constitutionally protected right to terminate a pregnancy.
Texas got around that problem by forbidding state officials from enforcing it. Instead, the state authorized private citizens to sue anyone who helps these women – family members, rape crisis counselors, medical professionals – and promises at least $10,000 plus attorneys’ fees if they win. Opponents have dubbed it the “sue thy neighbor” law.

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Posted on September 7, 2021

By Bob Lord/Inequality.org

The Tax Foundation, a Washington, D.C. think tank founded in 1937 by business executives to “monitor the tax and spending policies of government agencies,” is once again ringing the alarm bell about tax proposals that impact only the wealthiest among us.
President Biden’s tax proposals, the Tax Foundation charges, add up to a 61.1 percent tax on “high-earning” taxpayers.
In reality, no actual taxpayers are going to face anything close to a 61 percent tax if the Biden proposals become law. The Tax Foundation, to reach that 61 percent figure, has had to add together two separate taxes on two different and totally mythical taxpayers.

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Posted on September 2, 2021