Chicago -
By Steve Rhodes
News, views and booze.
1. All evidence points to the U.S. Attorney’s Office going back to an insider. It was fun while it lasted.
*
Can’t we just have Peter Fitzgerald make the choice again? At the very least, he deserves a spot on Durbin/Kirk selection committee.
Posted on July 2, 2012
By The Weekend Desk B Team
Weekend Desk Editor Natasha Julius is on a mission of national import. She will return next week.
The Public Safety Report
“The clock runs out on Chicago’s Police Department and Fire Department union contracts Saturday night, but don’t expect any difference in how cops and firefighters respond to emergencies around the city if the deal remains unresolved,” the Tribune reports.
But the ticket-writing and rig-washing will become particularly angry.
Posted on June 30, 2012
By Steve Rhodes
Illinois just cut $1.6 billion in Medicaid spending in part by tightening up eligibility and leaving thousands of needy citizens on the sidelines. Now, under Obamacare, Medicaid eligibility will be expanded, as explained in part by the Tribune this morning.
The good news, in a manner of speaking, is that the federal government will pick up the costs of the Medicaid expansion through 2016, when states will have to start contributing to the additional cost.
And that’s when things may get ugly – though they’ll get uglier much sooner for states that opt out of the expansion.
One result may be the eventual full takeover of Medicaid by the federal government, which is probably where Medicaid should reside anyway.
Posted on June 29, 2012
By Steve Rhodes
The upshot to the health care ruling as I understand it thus far: As long as the penalty for not buying a mandated private insurance policy is called a tax, the federal government can force you to make that purchase. Yuk.
See also: About The Health Care Ruling.
–
Dewey Beats Obama
CNN: The Counter-News Network.
Posted on June 28, 2012
By Steve Rhodes
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue its ruling on Obamacare on Thursday. I’m for a mandate, but I think the mandate as constructed in Obamacare is unconstitutional. Here’s why: I believe the argument that the federal government cannot compel individuals to buy a private product. The important part here is buying a private product.
The federal government compels the purchase of many things. Our taxes buy airplanes and highways and medical research and food inspections. On the local level, property taxes pay for schools regardless of whether you have children enrolled in them; you are forced to pony up either way.
Perhaps more to the point, you have no choice but to be automatically enrolled in Social Security, whose constitutionality was challenged long ago and upheld because of the way it is constructed: your taxes pay for it. You aren’t required to go purchase it in some separate transaction. So in that way it becomes just another government program in which you have no choice but to participate.
And that’s the problem with Obamacare. To construct it in the way of, say, Social Security, it would have to be a program in which you are automatically enrolled, like a single-payer system such as Medicare For All, or at least offered a public option that you could opt out of to participate in the private market.
Forcing citizens to buy a private product from the very profiteers who are in large part responsible for the problem is the worst of all worlds.
Posted on June 27, 2012
By Steve Rhodes
“Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios should fire his son and sister, two of three relatives who call him boss in the government tax office he was elected to run in 2010,” the Sun-Times reports.
“That’s according to the county ethics board, whose members investigated the hirings and issued a ‘finding of violation’ detailed in a report marked ‘confidential’ and obtained by the Sun-Times. The board found he violated his fiduciary duties as well as a prohibition on hiring relatives laid out in the county’s ethics ordinance.”
Berrios counts Pat Quinn and Toni Preckwinkle among his allies.
Posted on June 26, 2012
By Steve Rhodes
“The City Hall hiring scandal was former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s mess, but now some of it’s spilling onto Mayor Rahm Emanuel, too,” the Sun-Times reports.
“Emanuel is under fire from Noelle Brennan, the court-appointed City Hall hiring monitor. She’s blasting his administration for its ‘combative’ response to her suggestions it should discipline city officials accused of taking part in fraudulent patronage hiring under Daley.”
Apparently accountability isn’t just an app.
Posted on June 25, 2012
By Natasha Julius
Ever feel like you’re the worst parent in the world? Don’t worry. You’re not.
Market Update
It’s hard to feel triumphant when the underlying conditions are still so incredibly bleak.
Posted on June 23, 2012
By Steve Rhodes
News on tap.
1. Gridlock in a bottle.
2. “When high-ranking University of Illinois administrator Craig Bazzani retired in 2002, the board of trustees praised him for his financial expertise, his efforts to modernize the university’s operations and his knowledge of the state’s political system,” the Tribune reports.
“There was no mention of police work.
“Yet Bazzani, the university’s longtime vice president for business and finance, is drawing a pension not as a regular university employee but under the more lucrative pension formula intended for university police officers and firefighters.
“As a result, he was able to retire with full benefits at age 55 and has collected roughly $365,000 more in pension payouts over the last decade than he would have under the regular formula, according to a Tribune analysis based on his pension records. During that time, he’s received about $2.7 million from the State Universities Retirement System of Illinois, or SURS.”
Posted on June 22, 2012
By Steve Rhodes
Working on a bunch of stuff this morning, not sure if there will be a column. A few quick notes, though:
* My Lasko fan, which is sort of like this one if not this one, has been a trooper. Had it for years. Part of a three-fan system I use in case of emergencies, but I’ve rarely even had to go to two fans because I get such a good cross-breeze in my place. Plus, a ceiling fan.
* I’ve fallen out of love with Chicago the last few years and this is really the last straw. Oh, who am I kidding, I’m way beyond the last straw.
Posted on June 20, 2012
