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CPS Claim Of Central Office Cuts Defies Earthbound Mathematics, Physics

By Steve Rhodes

“In every statement on the budget this year, CPS has stated that it ‘has cut Central Office spending by nearly $600 million since 2011,’ adding that the reductions helped keep budget problems away from schools,” Sarah Karp reports for Catalyst. “It is a phenomenal claim.”
Indeed. There was just $600 million worth of unnecessary spending laying around? Even for a City of Chicago agency, that seems implausible – especially given that every administration claims round after round of Central Office cuts to show that A) they are financially responsible stewards, unlike the previous administration, which also claimed cuts to set it apart from the previous reckless administration, which also claimed cuts to set it apart from the previous administration, and so on and so on until you tumble into a time/space vortex taking us back to the reckless Central Office of God; and B) to show that management is doing its part – unlike, oh, let’s say teachers.
Or, as Karp writes: “For one, hundreds of millions in cuts have already been made, year after year, by one administration after another.”
I hope someone who isn’t me goes back and adds up all the claimed cuts, because I’m certain it won’t take long until we’re dealing with negative numbers. In other words, all the claims of Central Office cuts over the years probably trump the entire CPS budget pretty quickly.
But this is CPS make-believe land, which is a quasi-quantum place where the rules of earthbound mathematics do not apply.

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Posted on July 11, 2013

George Ryan’s Day Of Independence

By Ed Hammer

For one Illinois politician, this July 4th Independence Day means more than simply celebrating the birth of our great nation. It means personal independence for him. July 4, 2013, is the last day that convicted former governor George Ryan is supervised by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
On April 17, 2006, a federal jury convicted George Ryan of 18 counts of felony corruption, the most serious but least discussed being obstruction of justice. Ryan, along with Dean Bauer, his inspector general, and Scott Fawell, his chief of staff, conspired to cover up investigations by his special agents responsible for investigating corruption in the Secretary of State’s office.
The allegations they were looking into were that commercial driver’s licenses were being issued in exchange for bribes. One of those investigations involved an illegal immigrant named Ricardo Guzman driving a truck near Milwaukee on November 8th, 1994, that caused a fatal accident involving six innocent children.
The Secretary of State driver’s license examiner who issued the CDL to Guzman admitted to federal authorities that she contributed $80,000 in bribes to the Citizens for Ryan campaign fund. It is estimated that there were at least 12 highway fatalities linked to the licenses-for-bribes scandal.

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Posted on July 3, 2013

Boy’s Death In Drone Strike Tests Obama’s Transparency Pledge

By Cora Currier/ProPublica

On June 9, a U.S. drone fired on a vehicle in a remote province of Yemen and killed several militants, according to media reports.
It soon emerged that among those who died was a boy – 10-year-old Abdulaziz, whose elder brother, Saleh Hassan Huraydan, was believed to be the target of the strike. A McClatchy reporter recently confirmed the child’s death with locals.
(The London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism Monday reported that there was “strong evidence” it was a U.S. drone strike, but it could not confirm the fact.)
It’s the first prominent allegation of a civilian death since President Obama pledged in a major speech in May “to facilitate transparency and debate” about the U.S. war on al-Qaeda-linked militants beyond Afghanistan.
He also said “there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured” in a strike.
So what does the administration have to say in response to evidence that a child was killed?
Nothing.

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Posted on July 2, 2013

FAQ: What You Need To Know About The NSA’s Surveillance Programs

By Jonathan Stray/Special to ProPublica

There have been a lot of news stories about NSA surveillance programs following the leaks of secret documents by Edward Snowden. But it seems the more we read, the less clear things are. We’ve put together a detailed snapshot of what’s known and what’s been reported where.

What information does the NSA collect and how?

We don’t know all of the different types of information the NSA collects, but several secret collection programs have been revealed:

A record of most calls made in the U.S., including the telephone number of the phones making and receiving the call, and how long the call lasted. This information is known as “metadata” and doesn’t include a recording of the actual call (but see below). This program was revealed through a leaked secret court order instructing Verizon to turn over all such information on a daily basis. Other phone companies, including several billion calls per day.

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Posted on June 28, 2013

NSA: Responding To This FOIA Would Help “Our Adversaries”

By Jeff Larson/ProPublica

Shortly after the Guardian and Washington Post published their Verizon and PRISM stories, I filed a Freedom of Information request with the NSA seeking any personal data the agency has about me.
I didn’t expect an answer, but on Monday I received a letter signed by Pamela Phillips, the chief FOIA officer at the agency (which really freaked out my wife when she picked up our mail).

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Posted on June 26, 2013

Obama’s War On Truth And Transparency

By Steve Rhodes

Hey, don’t take it from me, and don’t take it from Glenn Greenwald if you’re buying into the smear campaign against a person who has done some of the most impressive and vital journalism of the last decade – take it from Barton Gellman of the Washington Post:

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Posted on June 21, 2013

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