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The [Wednesday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

Blockbuster NSA leaks are coming so fast now it’s hard to stay on top of them and process them all. Today alone:
* “The National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, according to documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials,” the Washington Post reports.
“By tapping those links, the agency has positioned itself to collect at will from among hundreds of millions of user accounts, many of them belonging to Americans.”

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Posted on October 30, 2013

The [Tuesday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

No time for a proper column today but instead of blank space, I’ll at least share the best, most interesting and important tweets from my timeline so far this morning.

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Posted on October 29, 2013

The [Monday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

“Hitch Elementary School Principal Debby Reese points out students learning in every nook and cranny as she tours the top-rated school on the Far Northwest Side,” Heather Cherone writes for DNAinfo Chicago.
“A class studies in what was once a men’s bathroom.
“The defunct projector’s booth in the school’s auditorium has been converted into a room for the school’s speech therapist to work with students.
“And the school’s hallways are dotted with cubicles that serve as classrooms – despite the hubbub caused by students passing from one subject to the next.”
It’s been hard for some people to get their heads around given the closure of 50 (allegedly) underutilized schools in Chicago, but CPS has an overcrowding problem too.

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Posted on October 28, 2013

The Weekend Desk Report

By Steve Rhodes

“Kraft is voluntarily recalling some of its Kraft and Polly-O string cheese because it may spoil and change color before the expiration date on the packages,” AP reports.
“The Northfield, Ill., company said Friday that about 735,000 cases of the affected products were shipped to customers in the U.S.”
Also, Kraft announced its outsourcing experiment was a total failure.

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Posted on October 26, 2013

The [Friday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

“The deeper threat that leakers such as Manning and Snowden pose is more subtle than a direct assault on U.S. national security: they undermine Washington’s ability to act hypocritically and get away with it,” Henry Farrell and Martha Finnemore write in Foreign Affairs.
“Their danger lies not in the new information that they reveal but in the documented confirmation they provide of what the United States is actually doing and why. When these deeds turn out to clash with the government’s public rhetoric, as they so often do, it becomes harder for U.S. allies to overlook Washington’s covert behavior and easier for U.S. adversaries to justify their own.
“Few U.S. officials think of their ability to act hypocritically as a key strategic resource. Indeed, one of the reasons American hypocrisy is so effective is that it stems from sincerity: most U.S. politicians do not recognize just how two-faced their country is. Yet as the United States finds itself less able to deny the gaps between its actions and its words, it will face increasingly difficult choices – and may ultimately be compelled to start practicing what it preaches.”

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Posted on October 25, 2013

The [Thursday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

“Mayor Rahm Emanuel formally presented his proposed 2014 city budget to the City Council on Wednesday, starting a weeks-long process that’s likely to consist of hearings, questions, sweet talks, twisted arms, capitulations, and moments of intended eloquence,” Mick Dumke writes for the Reader. “Then aldermen will vote to approve it largely intact.
“On the upside, this proposal appears to include some good news. Emanuel said the gap between revenues and expenditures is shrinking, from $655 million in 2011 to a projected $339 million next year. At the same time, he plans to invest more in services like recycling and resources for kids and teenagers.
“But even as Emanuel called for ‘telling the truth’ about city finances, his speech avoided doing so, glossing over details about how hundreds of millions of public dollars are spent. Here are the facts behind some of the mayor’s claims.”
You have to click through to get the goods.

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Posted on October 24, 2013

The [Wednesday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

“What are we to make of Edward Snowden?” Richard Cohen writes in the Washington Post.
“I know what I once made of him. He was no real whistleblower, I wrote, but ‘ridiculously cinematic’ and ‘narcissistic’ as well.
“As time has proved, my judgements were just plain wrong. Whatever Snowden is, he is curiously modest and has bent over backward to ensure that the information he has divulged has done as little damage as possible. As a “traitor,” he lacks the requisite intent and menace.
“But traitor is what Snowden has been roundly called. Harry Reid: ‘I think Snowden is a traitor.’ John Boehner: ‘He’s a traitor.’ Rep. Peter King: ‘This guy is a traitor; he’s a defector.’ And Dick Cheney not only denounced Snowden as a ‘traitor’ but also suggested that he might have shared information with the Chinese. This innuendo, as with Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, is more proof of Cheney’s unerring determination to be cosmically wrong.”

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Posted on October 23, 2013

The [Tuesday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

“A Tribune review of dozens of complicated public financing transactions shows [the city’s chief financial officer Lois] Scott has repeatedly selected firms with ties to her either to serve as financial advisers to the city or underwriters for billions of dollars in taxpayer-supported bonds,” the paper reports.
Scott, of course, is under scrutiny because she recommended that her boss, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, hire Amer Ahmad as comptroller. Ahmad, whom Scott had previously done business with, is now under indictment.
The Trib’s key findings:

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Posted on October 22, 2013

The [Monday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

At least with Derrick Rose it was a knee we were all thinking about. #imageinourminds
*

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Posted on October 21, 2013

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