Chicago -
By Steve Rhodes
“A Hammond man took it upon himself to let the world know that – even though he’s not from Chicago and doesn’t live here – he’s leaving,” Kelly Bauer writes for DNAinfo Chicago.
“And he’s never coming back.
“In a letter to the Tribune, Brandon Vezmar said he was ditching the city where he was not raised and does not live, for good.”
Posted on January 12, 2017
By Steve Rhodes
I wrote my column on Twitter.
Undecided on Trump dossier until Curveball weighs in.
— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) January 11, 2017
Posted on January 11, 2017
By Steve Rhodes
“Gravel crunching beneath their wheels, cars and pickup trucks pulled up at twilight around the one-room schoolhouse in Bernadotte Township,” the Tribune reported in late December (that I’m just catching up with) as part of its “The Price of Pork” series.
A powerful pork company was planning a 20,000-hog confinement near the storied Spoon River in western Illinois, and a dozen neighbors were gathering to fight for their creeks, clear air, one-lane roads and rural way of life.
They exchanged greetings in the dim light inside, some squatting to fit onto children’s chairs.
“We’ll call the meeting to order,” began retired schoolteacher Stuart Harrison, 74.
Efforts like this one have largely failed during the past two decades as pork producers constructed more than 900 new swine confinements across Illinois, often brushing aside farm families’ concerns about sickening odors, road damage, depletion of wells and fouling of creeks.
But this network of farmsteads set amid rolling hills has become the newest battleground where small-town residents are trying to fend off a leading U.S. pork producer.
Posted on January 10, 2017
By Steve Rhodes
For completists, there was no Weekend Desk Report this weekend.
“In its effort to clean up a mistake it made on 1.9 million red light and speed camera tickets, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration has erred again,” the Tribune reported Sunday.
“In a mass mailing last week to recipients of those tickets, City Hall offered a second chance to appeal the violations. The effort was intended to fend off a class-action lawsuit alleging the city failed to give ticket holders adequate time or notice the first time around.
“One problem: The city’s ticket website is not allowing many ticket holders to view the violation video or photographic evidence used to issue the fines in the first place.”
Posted on January 9, 2017
By Steve Rhodes
“As Donald Trump prepares to take office, many fear a new hostility to human rights on the part of the United States. From his divisive rhetoric about minorities to his embrace of autocrats abroad, there is plenty to worry about,” Ken Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, writes for Foreign Policy.
“Trump presents a stark contrast with President Barack Obama, whose tone was strikingly different. In a 2011 speech at the State Department, for example, Obama said U.S. support for universal rights ‘is not a secondary interest’ but a ‘top priority that must be translated into concrete actions, and supported by all of the diplomatic, economic and strategic tools at [the U.S. government’s] disposal.’ During his eight years in office, his administration did sometimes live up to that rhetoric, and it never stooped to the kind of open disdain of human rights concerns that is feared from Trump.
“But the truth is, a careful review of Obama’s major human rights decisions shows a mixed record. In fact, he has often treated human rights as a secondary interest – nice to support when the cost was not too high, but nothing like a top priority he championed.”
Posted on January 6, 2017
By Steve Rhodes
I know facts don’t matter anymore, but just so you know how this is playing out in Trump Country.
Alt-Right Trolls Use Chicago Kidnapping to Spread Lies About Black Lives Matter [Update] https://t.co/DTIPSKFxB7
— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) January 5, 2017
Posted on January 5, 2017
By Steve Rhodes
“State Rep. Monique Davis of Chicago has resigned from office, ending a nearly 30-year career in which she developed a reputation as an outspoken lawmaker unafraid of controversy,” the Tribune reports.
“Davis submitted a letter of resignation in late December, but it was not received by the Illinois House clerk until Tuesday.”
So . . . snail mail?
Posted on January 4, 2017
By Steve Rhodes
“The city of Chicago paid out about $670,000 last year to plaintiffs in lawsuits alleging that officials violated open records law – nearly five times what the city paid in the previous eight years combined,” the Tribune reports.
“Experts and attorneys said the mounting payouts in Freedom of Information Act cases raise concerns about Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s pledge to run ‘the most open, accountable and transparent government that the city of Chicago has ever seen.'”
Because up until now that pledge was being fulfilled? “Concerns” are just now being “raised?”
Posted on January 3, 2017
By Steve Rhodes
Posting may be sporadic during Taint Week.
“Still looking for that perfect Christmas gift? It’s not too late to buy a drone, the gift that 1 in 5 people say they’d like to receive and that 1.2 million of them are going to find under the tree,” the Washington Post reports (via the Tribune).
One in five people asked for a drone? I’d check that list twice.
Posted on December 24, 2016
By Steve Rhodes
I was glad to see this lead by the Tribune on the latest Rahm e-mail dump:
Under pressure from a pair of open records lawsuits, Mayor Rahm Emanuel acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that he has used personal e-mail accounts to conduct public business, a practice that allowed him to hide some of his government correspondence from the public since he took office.
Why? Because Rahm doing city business on a private e-mail account (and server) is perhaps a bigger, more important story than the substance of the e-mails themselves.
For one thing, it clearly, irrefutably marks Rahm as a liar.
Now, some might say, “Not for the first time!”
But consider Rahm’s previous statements about his private e-mail account, all from previous Tribune articles:
Posted on December 22, 2016
