By Steve Rhodes

“In an interview with The Associated Press, [Secretary of State Jesse] White said it would be ‘a cheap shot’ for Republicans to raise the issue when he runs again in two years,” AP reports.
You mean like the time this happened?
“Secretary of State Jesse White tried to nail his opponent for allegedly using a county vehicle to do campaign work Friday but his charges blew up in his face when she accused him of using state employees to spy on her,” the Sun-Times reported in October 2002.
“The exchange occurred at the Friday taping of a radio debate between White and Kristine O’Rourke Cohn, the Republican county executive of Winnebago County. First, Cohn accused White of accepting political donations from secretary of state’s office employees.
“White shot back, accusing Cohn of using her county car for political work. ‘I’ve seen you at many events driving around in a county car . . . I raised the issue and we ran the plates and it was your car and you were driving it, or you were in the car.’
“After the debate ended, Cohn demanded to know who had looked up her license plate number and whether that person was a state worker.”

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Posted on March 29, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“At an appeal hearing today, city officials defended their refusal to allow a protest march in the Loop on the first day of the NATO summit in May, saying police will be too busy with all the motorcades for visiting delegates,” the Tribune reports.
Every clever comment I’ve tried to insert here has been way too obvious, so just pick your own.

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Posted on March 28, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel says it is up to neighborhood residents to reclaim the corners on the city’s West Side where members of two street gangs were arrested for drug trafficking,” AP reports.
How? Build a fort?
“The real test isn’t just today. Does the community come outside the church, outside the family room reclaim those street corners as ours?” the mayor said.
So everyone should grab a lawn chair?
We’ve been hearing that kind of rhetoric for years; it gives politicians something to say. You know what’s harder? Turning the city’s budget upside down to give those street corners top priority instead of lavishing handouts on those who won’t help themselves.

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Posted on March 27, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

The joint investigation of the Sun-Times and Better Government Association into the Chicago Public Schools’ kinky milk contract is too chock full of great reporting that will turn your stomach to give full treatment here without reproducing so much of it that I’d feel guilty of theft. Yes, there are limits!
So let me just summarize a few of the major takeaways and then encourage you to click through and read the whole thing in wide wonder. It is yet another quintessential Chicago tale of how insiders rig the game at the expense of taxpayers and (gasp!) even our children, who have to face the consequences of tight budgets when others are making out like bandits with their money.

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Posted on March 26, 2012

By Natasha Julius

We can’t predict who will take home the medals but we can tell you for sure which cloying song will be stuck in your head.
Market Update
It sure seems like the perfect time to profit from the indiscriminate killing of teens.

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Posted on March 24, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“More than $33.6 million in Illinois Tollway revenue ended up in state coffers during 2003-06 despite a law that prohibited tolls being spent outside the agency, a report said Thursday,” the Tribune reports.
“The money was diverted to the state’s general revenue fund at the direction of Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s administration, said tollway Inspector General James Wagner, who provided a tally for tollway board members while warning against future transfers.
“Blagojevich’s efforts to siphon money from the tollway and other agencies to help balance the state budget was well-documented, but Wagner’s report appears to be the first public accounting of how much toll money was shifted.”
Here’s my favorite part:

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Posted on March 23, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“Alice Carter loved cooking soul food since she was a child growing up in the Deep South of Mississippi,” the Austin Weekly News reports.
“She brought that ‘down-home cooking’ to Chicago in the early 1960s when she landed a job at a local West Side neighborhood eatery. But it was nearly 30 years ago that she opened the restaurant that many now today know as Alice’s Soul Food, currently located on 5638 W. Chicago Ave.
“On Wednesday, Ms. Carter, 77, died from a ‘brief illness,’ her daughter, Jackie Carter said.
AustinTalks profiled Carter in 2010 and it’s very much worth a read.

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Posted on March 22, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“Current and prospective college students who apply now hoping to get state tuition help for next school year will be turned away, officials said Tuesday,” the Tribune reports.
“The state is on pace to receive a record number of applications for 2012-13 from the Monetary Award Program, the primary source of need-based financial aid. The scholarship money, awarded on a first-come, first-served basis, was depleted by students who applied by March 13.
“It’s the earliest the state has run out of funds for MAP grants, said John Samuels, spokesman for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, the agency that administers the program. About 140,000 to 145,000 students are expected to get the aid, worth up to $4,968. An estimated 140,000 eligible students will be denied.”
Now consider:

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Posted on March 21, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

The Tribune editorial board is of the opinion today – and everyday, along with a host of other pundits and commentators – that you can be part of the solution to our political ills by voting today. I beg to differ.
I’m not advising you to skip voting – though I will. I’m a journalist, and as such, I don’t participate in party activities. It’s not my role to help a political organization choose its nominees.
What I do mean, though, is that a quick glance at any sample ballot – now and in the fall – will give you in almost every race a choice between candidates (when they actually have opposition) who have no interest in “solving” our problems. That’s how they got there.

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Posted on March 20, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

“Mitt Romney’s vaunted organization nearly failed him in Illinois, where he only remained eligible for delegates on the ballot after a negotiated truce between his campaign and Rick Santorum’s people,” Politico reports.
“The problems stem from the campaign relying on Illinois state Treasurer Dan Rutherford. He struggled to acquire enough signatures to qualify for Romney’s delegates and then had the statement of candidacy notarized out of state, which the Santorum campaign challenged despite having its own statement of candidacy notarized in Iowa.”
Gee, you mean this Dan Rutherford?
“Had Santorum’s campaign been successful with its challenge to Romney, the error could have led to disqualifying Romney from winning any of the state’s delegates.”

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Posted on March 19, 2012