The [Tuesday] Papers

1. Robin Williams.

Waiting for statement from Rahm Emanuel regarding Robin Williams - while explaining why he closed half the city's mental health clinics.

— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) August 12, 2014

Last tweet inspired by this MT @davidaxelrod: Such sad news abt Robin Williams. Let us recognize depression as a life-threatening illness...

— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) August 12, 2014

2. Barack Obama.

"In June 2014, the Obama administration asked Congress for $500 million to train and equip nationalist Syrian rebels battling both the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Assad regime. Questions were posed then about the genuineness of the gesture: The request was e-mailed to Capitol Hill rather than made in person; it was unaccompanied by visits or telephone calls; there were no follow-up consultations; there was no order to the Department of Defense to reprogram funds to initiate activity quickly; and there was no evidence of an existing plan or overall strategy. Two months later, those questions seem to have been answered by the president of the United States. He says that arming nationalist Syrian rebels was never going to work anyway."

3. Pat Dowell.

"A South Side aldermen suggested Monday that it may be time to shorten the nation's oldest and largest African-American parade after a shooting Saturday near the Bud Billiken parade route injured two teens and frightened families," the Sun-Times reports.

"As the parade has aged, perhaps now it's just time to take a look at tweaking it to figure out what changes need to be made," local Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd) said during a live interview on the WFLD-TV program, Good Day Chicago.

Um, perhaps. Or maybe we should consider shortening Pat Dowell's career as an alderman.

"After the television interview, Dowell refused to return phone calls about her proposal to shorten the parade that has become a day-long celebration of African-American families and a must-attend for politicians courting votes.

"In a series of text message to the Chicago Sun-Times, Dowell said she would have 'no additional comment on the parade' until a post-mortem with city officials on Wednesday.

"I said perhaps [we should shorten it]. I also said we should look at traffic management and police deployment," she wrote.

So Dowell was apparently too busy texting to return phone calls.

4. Bagels for bros?

5. Choose Chicago.

"When conventions and trade shows threaten to leave McCormick Place or Rosemont for Orlando, Las Vegas or elsewhere, officials at the lakefront and suburban convention centers have a carrot to offer to keep those shows here: A pot of taxpayer money they guard so tightly they've tried to keep secret how it's spent, the Chicago Sun-Times has found.

"Over the past three years, $26.5 million from Illinois taxpayers has been spent to lure the International Housewares Association's trade show, the Radiological Society of North America convention and 79 other shows to McCormick Place under an obscure provision of a 2010 law passed to save Chicago's convention industry by lowering the cost of union labor, records show.

"Another $10 million has gone to Rosemont, which uses the money to subsidize dozens of events at its village-owned convention center - including several editions of the International Gem & Jewelry Show - as well as to repair its parking garage and pay off debt."

Chicago: City of magical pots of money.

"The Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority - the government agency known as McPier that oversees McCormick Place and Navy Pier - and Rosemont both denied requests made under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act seeking lists of the subsidies individual conventions got. They said revealing that information might anger the organizers of conventions that didn't get any money and might help other cities lure away conventions that now come here."

That would be FOIA exemption 3F: Anger Management Clause.

6. Dick Durbin.

"U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin was trying to stay out of the dispute over whether the University of Chicago Medical Center should open a trauma center on its Hyde Park hospital campus," WBBM Newsradio reports.

Maybe threaten an inversion?

"Some residents living near the U of C hospital campus said the lack of a Level 1 trauma center on the South Side means some gunshot victims or crash victims must travel several miles by ambulance to the North Side or West Side for emergency medical care."

To repeat: "The South Side of Chicago has no adult trauma centers at any hospitals. The only hospital in southern Cook County with a Level 1 trauma center is Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, 10 miles away. "

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"To say, 'Let's go open a trauma center two miles from here' is not a casual decision. It has to be done very carefully, with a dramatic investment. So I don't want to push them into something that is not practical," Durbin said.

Like caring for gunshot victims.

"I understand the community concerns, because of all the violence and bloodshed, but we need to look at this in honest terms."

Meaning, y'all are poor and black. Get real.

7. Ali Abunimah.

He spoke and Evanston is still standing. We have the video.

8. Michael Reinstein.

Illinois Suspends Medical License Of Leading Prescriber Of Antipsychotic Drugs.

9. Lovie Smith.

Did he bring his O-line woes to Tampa Bay?

10. Rick Rentamanager.

In The Cub Factor.

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TweetWood

Have #Bears doctors told him to vaccinate his kids RT @LouCanellis: if you had the chance to interview Jay Cutler, what would you ask him?

— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) August 11, 2014

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NBC execs believe Chuck Todd is going to restore "passion" and "insider cred" because of his love of "the game". http://t.co/WT8ystYfJy

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) August 11, 2014

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The Beachwood Tip Line: Game-changing.

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