By Steve Rhodes

Our very own Roger Wallenstein is on the Bruce Rauner beat today with a fine post we’ve unimaginatively called A Lesson For Bruce Rauner. It’s a little tale about a kid named Andy Velez, whom Rauner might be surprised to learn matters just as much as his daughter.
Meanwhile, I’ll be out most of the day. For the last couple of months, I’ve been working with the Urban Youth International Journalism Program run by We The People Media, mostly out of Paul Robeson High School. (More on that in the days to come.) Today we have a field trip to the Field Museum, so I won’t get back to Beachwood HQ until late afternoon.

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Posted on January 15, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

Bruce Rauner is making my life complicated right now. This is the wrong week to go nuclear while imploding even as compliant TV “news” personalities aid and abet your counterattack on the well-reported facts!
So more on Rauner & Co. to come, but let me get out some other stuff first.
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For example, this:
“Last week’s bitter cold canceled the same two days of school for students across the Chicago area. But when those days will be made up will vary, as some school districts move away from tacking on days in June,” the Tribune reports.

The Beachwood has obtained proposals CPS is considering to make up days lost to the cold as well as other weather-related adjustments:

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Posted on January 14, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

“After pulling strings to get his daughter into Walter Payton College Prep, Bruce Rauner, a Republican candidate for governor, became one of the elite Chicago public high school’s biggest benefactors,” the Sun-Times reports.
“The Rauner Family Foundation gave $250,000 to the Payton Prep Initiative for Education on Dec. 14, 2009 – about a year and a half after Rauner called then-Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan to overturn his daughter’s rejection for admission, records examined by the Chicago Sun-Times reveal.”
A minimum-wage worker would have to log 30,303 hours to earn that much.

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Posted on January 13, 2014

By Natasha Julius

Yeah, our fiscal policy keeps getting overshadowed by our private life too.
Market Update
Returns on Revenge have soured.

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Posted on January 11, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

“Three days after the snow stopped piling up on Chicago streets, complaints about side-street snow removal – or the lack of it – were going in the opposite direction,” Fran Spielman reports for the Sun-Times.
“Some aldermen accused Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration of falling down on the job in a city where the politics of snow removal reached legendary proportions after the Blizzard of ’79 buried then-Mayor Michael Bilandic.
“‘The side streets are a problem. We’ve got to improve on the side streets,’ Zoning Committee Chairman Danny Solis (25th), a mayoral ally, told the Chicago Sun-Times this week.

Another alderman, who asked to remain anonymous, called the condition of side streets “horrible” and said Emanuel “needs to beef it up or it could get ugly.”

Asked to remain anonymous because they fear reprisals? Or perhaps they are already being reprised against.

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Posted on January 10, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

1. Macy’s Shares Jump On Plan To Cut 2,500 Jobs.
Bruce Rauner must be a major stockholder.
2. Rauner Makes U-Turn On Minimum Wage: ‘I Was Flippant.’
A) Flippant Rauner Flops Wage Test.
B) Flippant Rauner Flip-Flops.
C) Rauner Flippant, Then Flops.
Or just come up with your own.

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Posted on January 9, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

Clout’s consequences can be deadly. Some pols don’t care.
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Meanwhile:
“Former Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Al Sanchez wants to run for Cook County Board Commissioner, but he could be tossed off the ballot in a Wednesday hearing – in part, the argument goes, because he can’t run for office while on probation for a federal conviction,” the Sun-Times reports.

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Posted on January 8, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

“Homeless man Clifton Johnson tells U.S. correspondent Nick O’Malley how he plans to survive temperatures below -20 degrees centigrade on the streets of Chicago,” the Brisbane Times reports.

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Posted on January 7, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

“U.S. wheat futures approached a two-week high on Monday as the coldest weather in two decades threatened to damage dormant crops in the United States,” Reuters reports.
“Cold weather can boost demand for livestock feed because animals eat more to generate energy to keep warm.”
Who knew?

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Posted on January 6, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

We remain in holiday mode here at Beachwood HQ, where posting may be sporadic and weird until next week.
1. Fuddruckers Is Still Around?
2. Maybe .08 Is A Ridiculous Legal Standard.
3. Disney vs. Taste of Chicago.

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Posted on December 31, 2013