By Justin Elliott/ProPublica

News organizations cultivate a reputation for demanding transparency, whether by suing for access to government documents, dispatching camera crews to the doorsteps of recalcitrant politicians, or editorializing in favor of open government.
But now many of the country’s biggest media companies – which own dozens of newspapers and TV news operations – are flexing their muscle in Washington in a fight against a government initiative to increase transparency of political spending.
The corporate owners or sister companies of some of the biggest names in journalism – NBC News, ABC News, Fox News, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Politico, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and dozens of local TV news outlets – are lobbying against a Federal Communications Commission measure to require broadcasters to post political ad data on the Internet.

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Posted on April 20, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

The city council is poised to do what it always does: Roll over for a mayor they are afraid of and pass a controversial plan that even the smart ones don’t quite understand.
“This might be the greatest idea on earth,” downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly said before voting against the plan at Monday’s finance committee meeting. “I just have so many questions, I haven’t been able to figure out if it is.”
Reilly was joined by six other dissenting colleagues, but somehow 11 aldermen less brainy than Reilly pretended they knew how Rahm’s bank will work and voted to send it to the full council today.
“I’d like to find a way to support . . . this incredibly bold plan,” downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly said during hearings on Monday. “But I have almost as many questions as when I walked in here this morning . . . You’re asking us to take a leap of faith.”
Oy.

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Posted on April 18, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“Police arrested about two dozen people who barricaded themselves inside the Woodlawn Mental Health Clinic on the city’s South Side to protest its planned closing,” the Tribune reports.
“Of the 23 arrested, 12 were expected to be charged and 11 were released without charges, Chicago Police News Affairs Officer Hector Alfaro said.
“The outpatient clinic is one of six Mayor Rahm Emanuel has proposed closing, along with clinics in the Palmer Square, Rogers Park, Auburn Gresham, Back of the Yards and Morgan Park neighborhoods.
“Dozens of people, including the facility’s patients, locked themselves inside the building by chaining doors shut and erecting barricades about 4 p.m. Thursday. Police cut through chains and started arresting people about 1 a.m.”
The Twitter feed of Occupy Chicago provides an invaluable play-by-play from the inside, but this one summed up the general principle:

When a city can find $60MN to host a summit of economic & military elites but can’t provide mental healthcare to its poor, we have a problem

— Occupy Chicago (@OccupyChicago) April 12, 2012

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Posted on April 13, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“A city council committee today passed a controversial proposal to install speed enforcement cameras near schools and parks – despite incomplete information on changes to the proposal, especially how the city might use speeding ticket revenue,” Progress Illinois reports.
Truly, this is an embarrassment.
“The city, though, has not specifically laid out to the public – or City Council members – how installing cameras help children. For example, aldermen were provided statistics from the city that showed 800 children pedestrians were seriously injured or killed between 2005 and 2010 due to a motorist.
“But [city transportation commissioner Gabe] Klein could not say – in the face of repeated questions from aldermen – how many of these motorists were speeding or how many of these accidents happened near schools and parks.”
In video I saw on Chicago Tonight, Klein also cited the difference in mortality rates between pedestrians hit by cars going 20 mph and those hit by cars going 40 mph – but reportedly could not say how often Chicago motorists are caught driving 20 mph over the speed limit or how often they were caught doing so in school zones.
In fact, the administration still can’t say just how speed cameras will make children safer.
“Ald. Jason Ervin, 28th, questioned why the cameras will be ticketing drivers at all during school hours if children’s safety is the focus,” the Tribune reports.
“At 10 a.m., you don’t see too many kids outside,” he said.
In other words, investing in crossing guards in morning and afternoon shifts makes more sense if generating revenue isn’t your goal – and Mayor Rahm Emanuel insists it isn’t.
But even the revenue front is hazy.

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Posted on April 12, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“Fracking is coming to Illinois,” Crain’s reports.
“The state, which has sat on the sidelines as new technologies using high-pressure fracturing techniques to extract natural gas have launched energy booms in long-dormant states, could see a boomlet of its own in coming months.”
Sounds great, huh? Not so fast.

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Posted on April 5, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“A city of Chicago administrative hearing judge has upheld the denial of a march permit for NATO protesters,” the Tribune reports.
“Administrative Law Judge Raymond J. Prosser delivered his ruling late this afternoon, backing the city’s claim that a parade through the heart of the Loop on the first day of the NATO summit would create an unnecessary public safety risk.”
No surprise.
“A city hearing officer for the Mayor’s License Commission Friday denied a permit for peace activists to march on Michigan Avenue on the second anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq,” the Tribune reported in February 2005.
That hearing officer, too, was Raymond J. Prosser.

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Posted on March 30, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“[M]any in higher education said it is not a surprise at all that [Michael] Hogan’s presidency at Illinois did not last long and was marred with controversy,” Inside Higher Ed reports.
“They point to his administrative track record as president of the University of Connecticut, which was as rocky as his time at Illinois. The question those critics raise is why, given the very public problems Hogan had at the University of Connecticut, the search committee at Illinois deemed him to be the best candidate.
“When asked about the criticism Hogan faced at Connecticut and how it was considered in the Illinois search, [board of trustees chairman Chris] Kennedy said that he did not have much understanding of those problems.”
They were hard to miss. For example:
“From the beginning, his time at Connecticut was marred by the types of controversies that grab newspaper headlines. Hogan refused to live in the university-provided house, saying his wife was allergic to mold there, so the university paid for Hogan to stay in a different house. He ordered an expensive renovation of the university’s main administrative building – including new furniture – that totaled $475,000 and was paid for through operating funds made up mostly of tuition revenue.
“He held a costly inauguration ceremony, complete with fireworks. He also spent the university’s money on a series of life-sized cardboard cutouts of himself that were placed around campus.”

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Posted on March 29, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

More notes from the front.
*
“Ron Szykowny was sitting on his motorized scooter chatting with his 13th Ward precinct captain outside a home at 68th and Springfield when I drove up on Election Day,” Mark Brown writes in the Sun-Times.
That would be the heart of Michael Madigan’s home turf; he’s not just Speaker of the House, he actually represents a district.
“This was one of those unusual precincts where the polling place is in the basement of a house.”
Wha?

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Posted on March 22, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

Wasn’t that exciting? Let’s take a look.
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“Several Cook County voters have received some very nasty robocalls over the past day or so,” Rich Miller reports on his Capitol Fax Blog. “A large number of Cook County pols have been slammed by these robocalls, and the one thing they may have in common is that they all are opponents of Cook County Clerk of the Circuit Court Dorothy Brown.”
Miller reports that one robocall also attacked Tribune political reporter Rick Pearson. Click through for the audio.

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Posted on March 21, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

Remember, you can take this into the voting booth with you. Just print out, cut along the dotted lines and follow the folding instructions. Or use your smartphone, which has been approved for use upon further review of a ridiculous rule.
Let’s start at the top of the ticket and work our way down through selected races.
*
Office: President of the United States
Opponents: Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, Paul
Notes: Turns out it’s pretty amazing that either of the front-runners got on the ballot here and that it’s inconsequential that the other two are here at all . . . Democrats wondering if they should pull a Republican ballot and vote for Santorum to either weaken eventual candidate Romney or make Tricky Rick the nominee himself would not only be risking the nation’s future on a reckless gamble, but behaving just like their sworn enemy . . . Santorum must be expecting a loss because he’s spending Election Night in Gettysburg. Yes, that Gettysburg. Ironically, no one will remember what he says . . . The Tribune endorsed Romney. Four years ago they chose John McCain, writing that “Mitt Romney has the skill set of a superb Treasury secretary. But, thus far, he hasn’t convinced us he would be McCain’s equal in confronting that dangerous world of 2008.”
Beachwood’s Advice: Pull a Dem ballot and leave the box for the unopposed Obama blank.

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Posted on March 20, 2012