By Steve Rhodes

So who doinked the state’s torture commission? Jon Markel did some poking around and came up with the following:
* The bill.
* Relevant section (page 38): “Section 10. The sum of $0 or so much thereof as may be necessary, is appropriated to the Human Rights Commission from the General Revenue Fund for expenses associated with the Illinois Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission.”
* Voting Yes/House.
* Voting Yes/Senate.
* State Sen. Dan Duffy (R-Lake Barrington), who has been opposed to the commission, actually voted against the bill that defunded it – and almost every Chicago Dem voted for defunding.
Finally:
* The floor amendment zeroing out the budget was filed on 5/29 by an unknown legislator.
I believe that would be The Unknown Legislator (R/D-Gutless).
UPDATE 12: 28 P.M.: A faithful Beachwood sleuther says:
“Looks to me like it was Rep. Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago):
“She filed House Amendments 4 & 5; 4 became the bill and 5 made changes to it.”
UPDATE 2:25 P.M.: From Markel:
“The $0 for the commission first shows up in the second house amendment to the bill which was filed by Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, not Feigenholtz, and then referred to a committee for review. That certainly doesn’t absolve Feigenholtz since she is the chairperson of the Appropriations Committee on Human Services, the very committee that the zeroing amendment was referred to and subsequently recommended for adoption. I guess that actually makes Feigenholtz more culpable since the committee is where the real line-by-line hashing out is suppose to occur.”
UPDATE 2:45 P.M.: From our other sleuth:
“[Feigenholtz] advanced this particular language; it’s mostly her fingerprints.”

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Posted on June 8, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

Another stroll through the day’s news.
1. Fritchey sees dead people. Preckwinkle does not.
2. Please, Billy, no.

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Posted on June 7, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

Taking a stroll through the news.
1. Cook County Commissioner Peter Silvestri joined the rest of Official Chicago on Tuesday in lowering the bar for police performance in these parts when police chief Garry McCarthy stopped by to be honored for leading a veritable battalion against a handful of scraggly, unarmed protestors who got a little pushy at the end of their anti-NATO march last month.
“Congratulations superintendent,” Silvestri said. “I saw you on the mountain on, uh, I think it was Michigan Avenue at one point. There was a mound and you were standing there, and it kind of reminded me of George Washington. All you needed was a horse and a sword.”
Um, under that scenario wouldn’t Washington have been leading the, uh, revolutionaries angry about their imperial, war-making taxmasters?

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Posted on June 6, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“On Tuesday, a state commission set up to investigate claims of police torture will refer its first cases to Cook County’s chief judge, beginning to fulfill its mandate to plumb one of Chicago’s most stubborn scandals by making recommendations for legal relief,” the Tribune reports.
“Then it will go out of business.”
Wha?
“Its budget last year: $150,000. Its proposed budget for the coming year, which called for adding a staff attorney: $235,000.
“The state House and Senate, however, voted last week to strip the commission of its funding.”
Name those legislators!

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Posted on June 5, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

I’m so hopelessly behind for about 50 different reasons that I’m just going to have to go ahead and skip the column today. But here’s some other goodies we have:
* This Just In: Darwin Barney Is Adequate. Apparently it’s really hard to find 30 or so people in the world capable of being better than he is. In The Cub Factor.
* A special White Sox Report is in but I haven’t finished preparing the photos yet. Look for it later today, tonight or tomorrow morning at the latest.
* Pro Publica’s Best Watchdog Journalism On Obama’s National Security Policies. Worse than Bush.

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Posted on June 2, 2012

By Natasha Julius

You know what? Totally worth the risk.
Market Update
See? See what happens when you peg the markets to unstable entities like actual people?! Much tidier to focus on the solid foundation of profit.

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Posted on June 2, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“State lawmakers spent the final day of the spring session failing to act on the crucial issue of pension reform, instead approving a major gambling expansion that wasn’t at the top of the agenda,” the Tribune reports.
Here’s what it looked like.

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Posted on June 1, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“Touting what would be downtown Chicago’s largest new real estate development since the 2008 financial crisis, representatives of the Kennedy family and three financial partners on Tuesday provided the first glimpse of a proposed three-tower office and apartment complex on a historic but long-underutilized site along the Chicago River,” the Tribune reports.
“The project, whose cost is pegged at more than $1 billion, calls for a slope-roofed office building of more than 900 feet, which would be Chicago’s eighth-tallest structure. A second office building and an apartment high-rise would bring the project’s combined square footage to nearly 3 million square feet, more than the biggest skyscraper of the boom years, the 2.6 million-square-foot Trump International Hotel & Tower.
“The plans for the triangular Wolf Point parcel southwest of the Merchandise Mart were made public at a community meeting called by Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd, that was attended by more than 300 people. The Kennedys sold the Merchandise Mart in 1998, but still control Wolf Point, once home to pioneer taverns, a hotel and trading posts.”
Can we go back to that instead? Seriously. A little Wild West village that’s operational. We don’t need more office towers and it could employ the river. An old-time Chicago trading post! Seriously.

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Posted on May 31, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“More than two dozen gay and lesbian couples in Illinois plan to file lawsuits Wednesday arguing that it’s unconstitutional for the state to deny them the right to marry, a move advocates hope will lead to legalized same-sex marriage in Illinois,” AP reports.
That puts them in opposition to President Barack Obama, who announced recently that he thought states did have the right to ban gay marriage. The stagecraft made it seem otherwise, but that’s what he said.

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Posted on May 30, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“What seems like a good idea at the start can quickly go sour, as anyone who’s ever offered to pick up the tab in a crowded bar can attest,” Crain’s says in an editorial. “Still mildly hung over from the NATO experience, we now await a full accounting of the weekend’s total cost.
“Our guess is that the Blues Brothers-scale army of security personnel so visible throughout the NATO conference will be pricey, though presumably the feds will chip in something to defray that particular expense. Just how much we won’t know for a while.
“The city’s restaurants, retailers, cabbies and museums – idled as Chicagoans avoided the Loop the way a preschooler avoids a salad bar – won’t be so lucky. Could these businesses apply for federal disaster relief?”

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Posted on May 29, 2012