By Sam Singer

One can be excused for assuming – given the historically embittered relationship between the Chicago Police Department and public protesters – that the city’s municipal code would reflect a hard-earned awareness for the free assembly rights of its residents. At the very least, the code, particularly those sections regulating conduct in the public domain, should be lawful, right? Not if you believe the Northern District of Illinois, which recently held the city’s disorderly conduct ordinance to be an unconstitutional restriction on speech and assembly. In doing so, the court brought shame upon City Hall, which has for decades relied on this clumsy ordinance to guide the police department’s treatment of public protests. Here, in relevant part, is what the city was working with:

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Posted on March 25, 2009

By Steve Balkin

Like a frog slowly dying in gradually hotter water, the New Maxwell Street Market has been killed off by City Hall and aldermanic indifference, ineptness, and ignorance. But before being boiled, multitudes of vendors have voted with their feet to go elsewhere, mainly to the Swap-O-Rama Flea Market on 41st and Ashland, where fees are lower and management is more skilled.
Empty vendor spaces abound on Des Plaines Street on Sunday, the new site of the New Maxwell Street Market. And the blues musicians have disappeared, too. The explanation is basic textbook economics: higher fees, stifling regulators, and mismanagement. The Mayor’s Office of Special Events now runs the Market with Jam Productions as their highly paid co-conspirators. Neither of them know how to run a grassroots community public market and, it seems, neither of them want to learn.

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Posted on March 24, 2009

By Sam Singer

For all the back and forth over the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) – its price tag, its sloppy administration, and its seemingly endless list of beneficiaries – few have earnestly questioned Congress’s authority to create the program in the first place. Legal scholars who did so in the beginning were often crowded out of the popular press by louder, more colorful dissenters in the business community. Now, months since the Treasury Department unloaded its final $350 billion, a prominent libertarian think tank is preparing to challenge TARP and its governing legislation, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, in federal court.
The organization, FreedomWorks, will allege that Congress created TARP in violation of the “non-delegation principle,” a doctrine limiting the lawmaking authority Congress can properly hand over to executive agencies, in this case the Treasury Department. Instead of confronting difficult policy questions relating to the distribution of bailout money – how much, to whom, and under what circumstances – the lawsuit will allege that Congress offered a list of open-ended pronouncements and invited Treasury to dispense the money in accordance with its own guidelines. In short, Congress turned Treasury into a mini-legislature and furnished it with a quarter of the annual budget with advice against spending it all in one place.

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Posted on March 19, 2009

By The CHANGE Illinois Coalition

Let’s get caught up.
1. CHICAGO – Representatives of civic, business, professional, non-profit and philanthropic organizations will announce the start of a campaign to combat Illinois’ culture of political corruption. Members of the coalition include:
* Peter Bensinger, former Administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency
* Deborah Harrington, President, Woods Fund of Chicago
* George A. Ranney, President and CEO of Chicago Metropolis 2020
* Cynthia Canary, Director, Illinois Campaign for Political Reform.
2. NEW COALITION VOWS TO CHANGE ILLINOIS LEADERS UNITE TO END CULTURE OF POLITICAL CORRUPTION IN ILLINOIS
CHICAGO – A coalition of civic, business, professional, non-profit and philanthropic organizations on Thursday launched a campaign to combat Illinois’ culture of political corruption and urged other citizens to join in the battle to demand honest government.

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Posted on March 16, 2009

By Pop Culture PR

COMPANY OFFERS FREE CAREER TRAINING TO FORMER BUSH ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS
The Wall Street Journal reports 70% unemployment rate for more than 3,000 former Bush officials
Also issues $1 million challenge to Obama
WASHINGTON, D.C. – According to The Wall Street Journal, more than 70 percent of former Bush officials are out of work, and an online poker training school is offering them free poker lessons from non-partisan 20-year olds earning seven figures a year. To qualify, simply fax in a letter describing your former position in the Bush Administration, along with phone and e-mail contact information, to (623) 889-5670 to process a 30-day subscription to www.BluefirePoker.com.
Sure, these guys helped to dismantle the American economy – and gambled away our futures – now they may want to consider gambling for a living (legally of course).

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Posted on March 13, 2009

By Sam Singer

For hurling same-sex marriage back into the Op/Ed cycle, we owe thanks to gay marriage supporter Jonathan Rauch and gay marriage opponent David Blankenhorn, the joint authors of a widely circulated New York Times piece which seemed to steer the naturally polarized dialogue toward more civil waters. In it, they claim to have reached a “reconciliation” on same-sex marriage, an agreement they believe will pacify the culture war until it reaches “a healthier, calmer track” at an undetermined point in the future.
Here, in relevant part, is what they came up with: “Congress would bestow the status of federal civil unions on same-sex marriages and civil unions granted at the state level, thereby conferring upon them most or all of the federal benefits and rights of marriage. But there would be a condition: Washington would recognize only those unions licensed in states with robust religious-conscience exceptions, which provide that religious organizations need not recognize same-sex unions against their will. The federal government would also enact religious-conscience protections of its own. All of these changes would be enacted in the same bill.”
There are a number of questionable assumptions at work here, none more so than the idea that the fate of a reconciliation might somehow turn on added layers of protection for religious conscience.

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Posted on March 10, 2009

By Stephanie B. Goldberg

Things the cool kids can do to get Roland Burris to resign from the Senate.
1. Nancy Pelosi can have a party and not invite him.
2. Pat Leahy can trip him in the lunchroom.
3. Dianne Feldstein can sit in the back row and make belching noises whenever he talks.
4. Chris Dodd can hang a sign on his back saying “Ima Dork”.
5. Chuck Schumer can snap towels at him in the Senate locker room.
6. Frank Lautenberg can send him 30 pizzas.
7. Maria Cantwell can stand him up for the prom.

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Posted on February 27, 2009

By Steve Rhodes

No sooner had Sen. Dick Durbin called on Roland Burris to resign did this press release land in my e-mail inbox – and I’m sure the inboxes of reporters across the city, and maybe beyond. Let’s take a look.

ILLINOIS CLERGY SUPPORT U.S. SENATOR ROLAND BURRIS, DISAGREE WITH DURBIN, DECRY “DOUBLE STANDARD”

Strategic use of “U.S. Senator” to reinforce a level of status and privilege.

CHICAGO – Today, leaders within Illinois clergy under the auspices of Clergy Speaks Interdenominational, a wide-reaching association of predominantly African-American churches in Chicago; the Illinois Faith-Based Association; the Concerned Clergy of Illinois, a statewide, faith-based association representing thousands of churches; and, the Broadcast Ministers Alliance, released the following statement on behalf of its membership regarding U.S. Senator Roland Burris:
“Clergy representing a broad-cross section of Illinois voters have met with Sen. Roland Burris regarding his amended testimony to the Illinois Impeachment Committee and the political avalanche caused by its disclosure. We are confident Sen. Burris did nothing wrong and therefore we do not join the screeching voices calling for his resignation.

Strategic use of “screeching” voices to cast Burris critics as out-of-control reactionaries, rather than thoughtful persons who have presented rational analyses for why Burris must step down.

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Posted on February 24, 2009

By Steve Rhodes

Beleaguered Roland Burris now says he will no longer take questions from the media, whom he accuses of misreporting the facts of his pursuit of a United States senate seat. He has not, to my knowledge, asked for a correction from anyone, nor specified what exactly has been misreported. But then, this is an old game that Roland is playing.
In April 1995, Cate Plys wrote a terrific 4,300-word story for the Reader about Roland’s relationship with media during his mayoral campaign that year. The piece is behind the Reader’s firewall can be found here; I will excerpt from it here generously. It was called “Biting The Hand,” and asked: “Did candidate Roland Burris deliberately dodge coverage just so he could complain he wasn’t getting any?”
Here we go.

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Posted on February 19, 2009

By David Rutter

To our readers:
You understand the Roland Burris fiasco, don’t you? Of course you do. You’re an average person. Me, too. Those of us not professionally embroiled in political office-holding or office-seeking understand what’s happening with relative clarity. It’s only those involved in the business of politics that seem befuddled. And isn’t Sen. Burris really Mister Magoo writ large?
It’s the oldest problem of all in human interaction. What do words mean? And why do their meanings vary from person to person so drastically? Even reporters lapse into this alternate universe – sort of Roland Burris meets Heroes meets Orwell. Here’s how to understand the world of political vocabulary adjustment without the concept of “just tell the truth” intruding on the process.

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Posted on February 17, 2009