By Alec MacGillis/ProPublica

The parties involved in the bankruptcy of a coal company have stepped away from a deal that would have diverted $18 million intended for the health insurance of retired Indiana miners to pay attorneys and other bankruptcy costs.
The turnabout came after ProPublica reported last week that the deal worked out by the lawyers and financiers involved in the bankruptcy of Patriot Coal Corp. would leave only $3 million to cover the guaranteed health-care benefits of 208 retired miners and their dependents, enough to last only about a year-and-a-half. The deal was especially striking given that the unionized miners had themselves never worked for Patriot. Instead, they were having their benefits stripped of their value through an elaborate bit of financial engineering.

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Posted on October 9, 2015

By The Illinois Public Interest Research Group

Tax loopholes encouraged more than 72 percent of Fortune 500 companies – including 29 in Illinois – to maintain subsidiaries in offshore tax havens as of 2014, according to Offshore Shell Games, released today by Illinois PIRG Education Fund and Citizens for Tax Justice. Collectively, the companies reported booking nearly $2 trillion offshore for tax purposes, with just 30 companies accounting for 65 percent of the total, or $1.35 trillion.
“When corporations dodge their taxes, the public ends up paying,” said Abe Scarr of Illinois PIRG Education Fund. “The American multinationals that take advantage of tax havens use Illinois roads, benefit from our education system and large consumer market, and enjoy the security we have here, but are ultimately taking a free ride at the expense of other taxpayers.”

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Posted on October 7, 2015

By The U.S. Public Interest Research Group

Monday’s announcement by the U.S. Department of Justice of a proposed $20.8 billion out-of-court settlement with BP to resolve charges related to the Gulf Oil spill allows the corporation to write off $15.3 billion of the total payment as an ordinary cost of doing business tax deduction.
The majority of the settlement is comprised of tax deductible natural resource damages payments, restoration, and reimbursement to government, with just $5.5 billion explicitly labeled a non-tax-deductible Clean Water Act penalty.
This proposed settlement would allow BP to claim $5.35 billion as a tax windfall, significantly decreasing the public value of the agreement, and nearly offsetting the cost of the non-deductible penalty.

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Posted on October 6, 2015

Another Beachwood Thought Experiment

* The head of the CTA one day would be the head of CPS the next . . .
* Zoo Day: Animals released into city streets to get residents to relax.
* We’d not only have an elected school board, Chris Coghlan would be on it.
* Aldermen required to wear onesies to city council meetings.

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Posted on October 6, 2015

By Alec MacGillis/ProPublica

This story was co-published with The New York Times’ Room for Debate. Read the full discussion here.
No sooner had the toll from the latest mass shooting been tallied than came the world-weary predictions that the carnage would have zero political effect. “Why the Gun Debate Won’t Change After the Oregon Shooting,” read truly grassroots network of committed and well-organized supporters who are willing to make calls to legislators and turn out in even low-turnout elections to back pro-gun candidates. This “intensity gap” bedevils gun-control groups, which, however well some of their proposals poll, have trouble getting voters to agitate and to prioritize the gun issue the way that gun-rights defenders do.
But the invincibility of the gun lobby is being overstated.

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Posted on October 5, 2015

By Lois Beckett/ProPublica

This story was last updated on June 18, 2015.
After mass shootings, like the ones these past weeks in Las Vegas, Seattle and Santa Barbara, the national conversation often focuses on mental illness. So what do we actually know about the connections between mental illness, mass shootings and gun violence overall?
To separate the facts from the media hype, we talked to Dr. Jeffrey Swanson, a professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Duke University School of Medicine, and one of the leading researchers on mental health and violence. Swanson talked about the dangers of passing laws in the wake of tragedy – and which new violence-prevention strategies might actually work.
Here is a condensed version of our conversation, edited for length and clarity:

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Posted on October 4, 2015

By Alec MacGillis/ProPublica

This story was co-published with The Daily Beast.
There was plenty in the complex deal to benefit bankers, lawyers, executives and hedge fund managers. Patriot Coal Corp. was bankrupt, but its mines would be auctioned to pay off mounting debts while financial engineering would generate enough cash to cover the cost of the proceedings.
When the plan was filed in U.S. bankruptcy court in Richmond last week, however, one group didn’t come out so well: 208 retired miners, wives and widows in southern Indiana who have no direct connection to Patriot Coal. Millions of dollars earmarked for their health care as they age would effectively be diverted instead to legal fees and other bills from the bankruptcy.

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Posted on October 2, 2015

New Twist On Classic Album

“On September 29, Roger Waters The Wall premiered in nearly 3,000 theaters around the world. The film puts a new twist on Pink Floyd’s revolutionary concept album The Wall, released in 1979.
“Waters sat down with RT correspondent Anya Parampil to discuss the new project, and to air his views on power and the media.
“He also talks about his activism surrounding justice in Palestine, BDS of Israel, and Guantanamo Bay, particularly the release of Shaker Aamer. Waters finally asks: Why are we killing the children?”

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Posted on October 1, 2015