Compare And Contrast
A slideshow created by bob60626 using photos from the Library of Congress’ online collection. Accompanying text from The Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago/Chicago Historical Society.
Posted on July 13, 2012
On The Anniversary Of The Freedom Of Information Act
By The Sunlight Foundation/C-SPAN
On Washington Journal, July 4th.
Posted on July 10, 2012
Pat Quinn Signs Campaign Finance Bill Into Law When Nobody Is Looking Because It Reverses Post-Blago Reform
Loophole Bill Was Rushed Through The Legislature In The Dark Too; Ruse Now Complete
“The co-chairs of the CHANGE Illinois! coalition on Friday said Gov. Quinn’s signing of Senate Bill 3722 has damaged the state’s campaign contribution limits system and opened the door to unlimited contributions in election contests where independent expenditure groups spend significant amounts of money,” the group said in a statement released to the media.
Here’s the rest:
“Under the new law, there will be no limits on campaign contributions in any election where spending by an independent committee (or super PAC) exceeds $250,000 in support of a candidate in a statewide race or $100,000 in an election for state legislator, mayor, judge and all other non-statewide contests.
“‘This new law could open the floodgates to a torrent of special interest money surging into the campaigns of candidates seeking some of the most important offices in our state,’ said CHANGE Illinois! Co-Chair Peter Bensinger. ‘Those unlimited contributions will carry more opportunities for the kind of corruption that has denied Illinoisans a fair and honest representation in their governments.’
Posted on July 6, 2012
Tribune’s Clarence Page Spoke At Rally For Iranian Militant Group
By Justin Elliott/ProPublica
Late last month, syndicated columnist Clarence Page appeared at a rally in Paris in support of the Mujahadin-e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian group that has been lobbying Washington to be removed from the U.S. government’s list of designated foreign terrorist organizations.
Before a huge crowd waving portraits of MEK leaders Maryam and Massoud Rajavi as well as Iranian flags, Page called for the MEK to be removed from the official terrorist organization list.
Posted on July 2, 2012
About The Health Care Ruling
By Steve Rhodes
POST-RULING UPDATE BELOW . . .
Angry that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this morning will be based on politics?
Let me ask you a question: To what degree is your view on what the court should decide based on politics?
Unless you are one of the very few who have actually read the legal briefs and listened to the oral arguments and researched the legal analyses of the case, your view is the one based on politics.
I once posted on Facebook a status update that said something like “A law’s constitutionality isn’t based on whether you like it or not.”
The responses seemed to assume this was a shot at Republicans and the court. It wasn’t. In fact, it was directed more at liberals, though it was directed at everyone.
Similarly, presumed good intentions or outcomes of a law don’t confer constitutionality upon it. Just because insurance companies must under this law issue policies to those with pre-existing conditions doesn’t make the mandate that those companies demanded in exchange – they ran the numbers and it’s quite a profitable structure – constitutional.
Posted on June 28, 2012
Jesse Jackson Jr. Is Super Tired
By Steve Rhodes
I wonder if Jesse Jackson Jr. is exhausted from booze, drugs, sex or federal investigators.
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Junior joins an illustrious list.
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Look, if the guy is suffering from an addiction or depression or just needs some time to work out issues in his marriage – as the Sun-Times reports – we can all be sympathetic. But don’t give us “exhaustion.” If you’re going to ask that we respect your family’s privacy, respect our intelligence.
Posted on June 26, 2012
Why Obama Says He Won’t Release Drone Documents
By Cora Currier/ProPublica
The covert U.S. effort to strike terrorist leaders using drones has moved further out of the shadows this year – targeted killing has been mentioned by President Obama and defended in speeches by Attorney General Eric Holder and Obama counterterrorism adviser John Brennan. The White House recently declassified the fact that it is conducting military operations in Yemen and Somalia.
But for all the talk, the administration says it hasn’t officially confirmed particular strikes or the CIA’s involvement.
Over the past year, the American Civil Liberties Union and reporters at The New York Times have filed several requests under the Freedom of Information Act seeking information about the CIA’s drone program and the legal justification for attacks that killed terrorists and U.S. citizens. The government answered with a Glomar response – neither verifying nor denying that it has such documents.
Posted on June 25, 2012
Obama’s Drone Death Figures Don’t Add Up
By Justin Elliott/ProPublica
Last month, a “senior administration official” said the number of civilians killed in drone strikes in Pakistan under President Obama is in the “single digits.” But last year “U.S. officials” said drones in Pakistan killed about 30 civilians in just a yearlong stretch under Obama.
Both claims can’t be true.
A centerpiece of President Obama’s national security strategy, drones strikes in Pakistan are credited by the administration with crippling al-Qaeda but criticized by human rights groups and others for being conducted in secret and killing civilians The underlying facts are often in dispute and claims about how many people died and who they were vary widely.
So we decided to narrow it down to just one issue: have the administration’s own claims been consistent?
Posted on June 18, 2012
Our Secret Government
Our Fraudulent FOIA
“It took Ed Mrkvicka Jr. a year under the improved Illinois Freedom of Information Act to get a two-page state disciplinary report about a real estate agent,” the Northwest Herald reports.
“The Marengo resident and his daughter filed two FOIA requests with the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. Not only did the agency ignore the request, but it also had ignored the Illinois Attorney General Public Access Counselor’s order to submit the documents for review.
“Suffice it to say, Mrkvicka doesn’t think highly of the new and stronger law.
“‘It’s tantamount to fraud to let Illinois believe that we in fact have a [Freedom of Information] law that has teeth in it, because we don’t,’ Mrkvicka said.
“Audits of governments’ compliance with the law – both before and after the reforms took effect – lend weight to Mrkvicka’s skepticism.
“Watchdog groups before the reforms found mass noncompliance among Illinois’ local governments. A new audit two years into the stronger FOIA finds that little has changed.
“The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform submitted FOIA requests to 400 governments statewide – 43 percent of them violated the law by never even responding to the request, according to its April report.
“The result mirrors pre-reform analyses done by The Associated Press and the Better Government Association showing that many of the state’s 7,000 units of government don’t provide the public with the public records paid for by their tax dollars.”
Posted on June 18, 2012
Fire Stadium Burning Taxpayers
By Steve Rhodes
“Rising from the rubble of an old industrial site, the 20,000-seat Toyota Park was supposed to put a small suburb on the map,” the Tribune reported over the weekend.
“Yet the soccer stadium also has become a model of what can go wrong when a little town takes massive development gambles in a state with loose borrowing and ethics laws: Politicians and insiders benefit, while taxpayers are stuck covering budget-busting losses.
“The blue-collar suburb of Bridgeview now suffers under the highest rate of debt in the Chicago region, a Tribune analysis of thousands of pages of state and local records found.”
Posted on June 11, 2012