By Steve Rhodes

It’s certainly not the weekend – or month, really – we would have seen had the G8 come here too, but there have been some moments of note. Let’s take a look.
1. “Veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan returned their service medals to visiting NATO representatives Sunday to express their opposition to America’s role in these conflicts, and to demand better care for returning forces,” the Huffington Post reports.
“Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War organized a day-long protest, including a musical performance at the Petrillo Music Shell, a march and rally through the city and a ceremony at Michigan and Cermak where participants hoped to return their medals to visiting NATO generals.
“While Rev. Jesse Jackson and other political leaders spoke to demonstrators before they began a massive march through downtown Chicago, the group was unable to bring visiting NATO generals to accept their medals, so the 45 participating veterans hurled them at McCormick Place, where NATO meetings were taking place, according to ABC.”

Read More

Posted on May 21, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

Another day, another Tribune poll mishandled by its own writers. (See The [Thursday] Papers.)
This time, it’s a story whose headline “Global Policy A Hit At Home” is contradicted by the poll’s actual findings.
For example, on the question touted as one of the poll’s keys, just 33 percent of those polled approve of President Barack Obama’s plan to withdraw combat troops from Afghanistan in 2014. Forty-two percent chose another option: Withdraw troops immediately. Which is just what this weekend’s protestors are calling for.

Read More

Posted on May 18, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

Madness abounds. Let’s take a look.
Today’s Al Capone Alert: “We ought to be known for something more than the old stockyards, smog or Al Capone, but we aren’t,” Richard Longworth, a senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, told AP.
Stakes And Shakes: “If you live or work in Chicago, you may be shocked to learn that the NATO Summit this weekend is about more than protesters and traffic headaches,” the Sun-Times editorial page says.
Only if the Sun-Times was your only source of news.

Read More

Posted on May 17, 2012

By Kiljoong Kim

Is it the end of American community as we know it?
The U.S. House of Representatives voted last week to kill the American Community Survey, an ongoing survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau that collects demographic and economic information from over three million households every year.
The goal of the ACS is to continually provide information about ourselves that has been deemed crucial for policy makers, planners, academics, and businesses. The ACS replaced the long-form of the decennial census that used to collect the same information.

Read More

Posted on May 15, 2012

By The Grassroots Collaborative

Dear Journalist,
We are excited that you’ll be visiting Chicago and reporting on the NATO summit. Grassroots Collaborative has organized tours visiting four Chicago neighborhoods on May 17 and 18, so that you have the chance to see working class neighborhoods in the city, meet with local residents who are fighting for improvements, and report on the connections between Chicago struggles and your city.
Watch this teaser for the tour on May 17th:

Read More

Posted on May 14, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

Not everyone is impressed by Barack Obama’s sudden conversion to the cause of gay marriage. Progress? Undoubtedly. But pay closer attention, please. The man just endorsed North Carolina’s right to do what it just did.
You have to hand it to Obama: He runs mean game.

Read More

Posted on May 10, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

Here’s an idea for a new Chicago motto: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me over and over and over again and we’ll make you king.
So while the mayor takes a victory lap over passage of his infrastructure bank proposal, let us jump once more unto the breach of lies, obfuscation and spin, my friends, where we will also find astonishingly simple questions still lying in wait.
1. “Mayor Rahm Emanuel talked up his Infrastructure Trust proposal during a Marketplace Morning Report radio interview that aired on WBEZ three weeks ago today,” Deanna Isaacs writes for the Reader.

When asked how the Trust would differ from Mayor Daley’s infamous parking meter deal, he responded with a specific example:
“The Cultural Center, it’s 100 years old – when we’re done, we’re going to save about $30,000 a year in energy costs. But we still own the Cultural Center. We’re not privatizing it, we’re just literally using private money to build out the energy efficiency.
After that broadcast I tried to find out exactly what work is planned for the Cultural Center. Here’s the response from the Mayor’s Office and the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events:
“There are no specifics, nothing has been approved . . . the mayor was merely using the building as an example.”

Paging Mike Daisey!
There isn’t a single rational listener in the world who would have taken Rahm’s example as anything other than established fact. It turns out, however, that he was just fibbing. He made it up. Or there’s a secret plan whose existence he’s already denied.
Either way, add it to the list of Rahm’s lies. (See item Rahm’s Pants Still Aflame.)

Read More

Posted on May 8, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

The hugely profitable Chicago health-care debt collection company under fire for its (allegedly) unsavory practices – led by a devotee of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman – has also been a recipient of generous taxpayer subsidies including millions of dollars in TIF funds.
“The City of Chicago has approved a $6 million subsidy to a company promising to create 650 jobs over the next 10 years,” Fox Chicago News reported in 2010.
“The money will be going to the Accretive Health Company, which manages the collection of medical bills. The money will provide the company with tax breaks and other incentives to expand the offices it already has on Michigan Avenue.”
Last year the company reported $29 million in profits.

Read More

Posted on May 1, 2012

By Justin Elliott/ProPublica

The Federal Communications Commission voted 2-1 on Friday to require broadcasters to post political ad data on the Web, making it easier for the public to see how as much as $3.2 billion will be spent on TV advertising in this election.
The files, which detail the times ads aired, how much they cost and whether stations rejected ad buy requests from campaigns, among other things, are currently available only on paper at each station.
The FCC rejected an industry push to water down the measure. But the adopted rule also has serious limits. For example, the data will not be searchable or uploaded in a common format.

Read More

Posted on April 30, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

If there were any doubts that Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s infrastructure bank proposal had been revised into an acceptable form and looked much better after an extra six days to think about it, those doubts were dispelled on Monday’s Chicago Tonight. I’m convinced more than ever that this is a very bad idea.
Further, the mayor and his city council allies – growing by the minute after mysterious closed-door meetings of the sort that are usually a one-way exchange of threats and promises – have upped the ante on how disingenuous they are willing to be in handing over to Emanuel an unprecedented level of power to create a legacy that will either ultimately dissipate into dust or get dumped onto the taxpayers long after Rahm is gone.
But don’t just take it from me. Take it from, say, the city’s inspector general, Joe Ferguson. In a letter he wrote at aldermanic request, Ferguson writes that the infrastructure bank as currently structured “will only lead to legal disagreement and conflict down the road that will undermine public confidence in the integrity of this potentially beneficial program,” according to the Tribune editorial board, which echoes the IG’s call to fix the mayor’s proposal before passing it.
Ferguson thus joins both the Tribune editorial board, the Crain’s editorial board, the Better Government Association, the Sun-Times editorial board as well as the Grassroots Collaborative in opposing Rahm’s plan. What a coalition!
Unfortunately, the Chicago City Council is still the Chicago City Council. And nobody on the council, by the way, is clowning as hard in the final hours as Ald. Joe Moreno.
Let’s take a look.

Read More

Posted on April 24, 2012