By The Illinois Public Interest Research Group

Analysis of pre-primary campaign finance reports for 45 candidates in 15 state house races in 14 state legislative districts shows that 86 percent of money raised came from donors giving $1,000 or more, while only 5 percent came from donors giving less than $150. The selection of races was chosen for its geographic diversity, includes both Republican and Democratic primary contests, as well as races with and without incumbents. More details and analysis available here.
Candidates who ultimately won in these 15 races received 92 percent of their campaign funds from big donors giving $1,000 or more, and only 2 percent from donors giving $150 or less.
While the candidate with the most money does not always win, primary results show that 12 of the 15 contested races across the 14 districts were won by the candidate with the most resources.

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Posted on May 1, 2018

By Jeff Cohen/Common Dreams

TV news shows are good at getting viewers riled up. Day and night, I hear the anchors on CNN and MSNBC getting us riled up about the schemes of this or that “Russian oligarch with links to the Kremlin.” I’ve heard that phrase incessantly in recent weeks.
And plenty of others have heard the “Russian oligarch” phrase. Merriam-Webster.com reported that “oligarch” was one of its most searched-for words on April 5th “following reports that Robert Mueller had questioned Russian businessmen to whom this descriptor applies.”
But here’s a phrase I haven’t heard from any of the purportedly progressive hosts on MSNBC: “A U.S. oligarch with links to Washington.”
That avoidance is revealing when one considers an indisputable fact: U.S. oligarchs have done far more to undermine U.S. democracy than any Russian.

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Posted on April 12, 2018

By The City Of Chicago Office Of Inspector General

A report released Tuesday by the City of Chicago Office of Inspector General found that the City of Chicago Department of Buildings had a backlog of more than 5,000 complaints, some dating back to 2013, almost 200 of which described serious health and safety hazards.
OIG’s audit also found that DOB met its department response deadline for only 36.5 percent of building complaints in the first five months of 2017. The audit also determined that DOB did not have an effective strategy for prioritizing complaints, and exceeded the Municipal Code of Chicago mandatory 21-day deadline for several complaint types. In addition, the City Data Portal and DOB Building Violation websites failed to provide a property’s full violation history.
“Deadlines that fail to meet legal mandates set by the City ordinance, public information that lacks transparency, and unaddressed health and safety hazards pose far too many risks to the residents of Chicago,” said Inspector General Joe Ferguson.

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Posted on April 11, 2018

By Jessica Corbett/Common Dreams

Royal Dutch Shell’s scientists warned the oil giant about the threat that fossil fuel emissions pose to the planet as early as the 1980s, according to a trove of documents obtained by a Dutch journalist and published Thursday by Climate Files.
The documents bolster an investigative report published last year showing that Shell lobbied against climate legislation and invested billions in fossil fuels despite knowing dangers of global warming.
One such document, a confidential 1988 report entitled “The Greenhouse Effect,” outlines a comprehensive study of climate science and the projected impact of fossil fuels, and reveals that the company secretly had been commissioning such analyses since at least 1981. The report acknowledges the central role that fossil fuels – especially oil – play in increasing CO2 emissions that drive global warming.

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Posted on April 5, 2018

By Fight For $15

CHICAGO – McDonald’s is breaking its highly-touted April 2015 pledge to pay the 90,000 workers at its corporate stores $1 an hour above the local minimum wage, the Fight for $15 announced Monday.
Worker paystubs in three major metropolitan areas where the company has large numbers of corporate stores, including Chicago, show cooks and cashiers being paid less than $1 above the local minimums.
McDonald’s made the announcement of the increase three years ago in the face of massive worker protests calling for higher pay and union rights. At the time, CEO Steve Easterbrook said the increase was in response to employee surveys and was about delivering “better customer service.”
The move was widely panned as inadequate because the increases only applied to a small fraction of McDonald’s employees, but nevertheless the company has failed to make good on its promise.

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Posted on April 2, 2018

By The Rainbow PUSH Coalition

The racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, violent climate we find ourselves in these days manifests in many ways – starting at the top with the toxic rhetoric coming out of Washington to the latest police slaughter of an unarmed African American in California to the n-word showing up in an ad selling boots on Groupon.
This week, Groupon was forced to apologize after a third-party vendor used the n-word in an ad to describe the color of suede boots for sale on the site. Groupon said that as soon as company officials became aware the word was being used, both the product and the vendor were pulled.
“We are appalled,” a Groupon VP said.
So are we. How does this keep happening?

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Posted on March 29, 2018

By The Obama Library Community Benefits Agreement Coalition

Tenants who live in the Jackson Park Terrace Apartments, across the street from the proposed Obama Center, are already facing a rent increase ranging from $100 a month to more than $250 a month.
“[Obama] heard that we would not be displaced but my rent is going up next week,” said Cindy Lee, a Jackson Park Terrace tenant and longtime neighborhood resident. “I don’t want to move now that the Obama Center is coming, but with this rent increase I may have no choice.”
The building is owned by politically connected Leon Finney, who has put up “We Trust Obama” signs on the housing development.

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Posted on March 27, 2018

By The Let Forest Park Vote On Video Gaming Political Action Committee

On March 16th, the Illinois Appellate Court 1st District overturned the finding of the Electoral Board of Forest Park and the Cook County Circuit Court ruling that tossed all 276 sheets containing 2,840 valid signatures from a citizens’ petition that would allow residents Forest Park residents to vote on the ballot question, “Shall Video Gaming be Prohibited in Forest Park?”
The appellate court found that despite six sheets having erroneous headings, the rest of the petition sheets exhibited substantial compliance with Illinois election law. Thus, this binding referendum is now allowed to continue to the ballot.

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Posted on March 26, 2018

By The City Of Chicago Office Of Inspector General

The Office of the Deputy Inspector General for Public Safety (Public Safety) is announcing its first list of initiated projects related to police and police accountability functions and operations in the City of Chicago.
Public Safety supports the mission of the Office of Inspector General by conducting independent, objective inspections, evaluations and reviews of police programs and operations, as well as by issuing public reports and making recommendations to strengthen and improve public safety.
Its goals include fostering trust and improving interactions between Chicago Police Department officers and the communities they serve through assurance of constitutional policies and practices, within a system of operational accountability that fully identifies and supports the needs of the community and the members of CPD. Public Safety is examining the following issues:
1. Evaluation of CPD’s Gang-Related Designations and Tracking.
Public Safety is assessing CPD’s standards and practices for determining gang affiliation and the consequences of being identified as gang-affiliated. The “gang database” in Chicago has prompted public concern regarding the potential for significantly adverse impacts on those designated as “gang-affiliated.”

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Posted on March 22, 2018

By Steve Rhodes

The three most noxious candidates on the ballot.
Joe Berrios, chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party: Nepotism. Ethics. Campaign finance. Dirty tricks. Oh, and generally being a piece of shit.
Supporting him? Rahm, Pritzker, Madigan, Preckwinkle, Burke, White, Gutierrez.

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Posted on March 19, 2018