Chicago - A message from the station manager

The [Thursday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

“An American soldier with mental health issues shot dead three people and injured at least 16 on Wednesday before taking his own life at an Army base in Fort Hood, Texas, the site of another deadly rampage in 2009, U.S. military officials said.”
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“Progressive aldermen urged the city [last] Thursday to accept new funding for its six mental health clinics after six others were closed two years ago,” DNAinfo Chicago reports.
“The Progressive Reform Caucus announced . . . that its eight aldermen would submit a resolution next week calling for hearings on funding for the clinics.
“They say the $2.3 million in savings the city claimed in closing six clinics in 2012 ‘failed to account for the additional costs of increased emergency-room visits, hospitalizations, police interventions and incarcerations.'”


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Rahm called the aldermen “fucking propellerheads,” sources close to my imagination say.
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DNAinfo identifies the progressive caucus as Alds. Bob Fioretti, Leslie Hairston, Roderick Sawyer, Toni Foulkes, Ricardo Munoz, Scott Waguespack, Nick Sposato and John Arena. That matches the names on an e-mail invite the caucus sent out recently advertising its inaugural fundraiser.
Notice whose name is missing?
From the Beachwood vault, March 14, 2013:

The real progressive caucus:
Alds. Waguespack, Arena, Hairston, Fioretti, Sposato, Munoz, Sawyer, Foulkes and Pawar.
The fake progressive caucus (or, as I suggest we call them, the Regressive Caucus, or maybe the Astrogressives for their ingenius insider astroturfing):
Alds. Moore, Moreno, Reilly, Colon, Osterman, Smith, Cappleman, Burns, Dowell and Pawar.
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Or, as a close observer suggested to me, the Bizarro World Progressive Caucus.
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Yes, that’s right, Pawar is a member of both. Which only says one thing to me: Double agent. Or single.

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Perhaps that explains this Twitter exchange.
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Nobody’s politics are more “pure” than the Machine’s when it comes to strict adherence. And dissent is to be crushed, not accommodated. But plead for honesty and even basic decency and a little humanity – like, say, funding mental health clinics – and you’re the “purist” with an aversion to compromise. In fact, nobody is more open to compromise that takes in all voices than a person whose politics is based on that very premise.
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Speak of the devil:
“Mayor Rahm Emanuel, House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton on Wednesday tried to quickly push through a sweeping plan to raise Chicago property taxes and cut city worker retirement benefits, but hit the brakes when they ran into resistance,” the Tribune reports.

The rapid rollout strategy was aimed at giving legislators little time to get cold feet and blunting labor union lobbying against the changes. But several Chicago lawmakers raised concerns, Democrats blamed Republicans for not getting on board, and the blitzkrieg approach failed – at least for a day.
The reprieve gives unions a chance to rally opposition while legislative leaders and the mayor regroup at a Capitol where rank-and-file lawmakers are still tender from taking a tough vote in December to repair the state’s government worker pension system over the strenuous objections of organized labor.

In other words, the city and state’s Democratic leadership tried to pass a controversial and complicated piece of pension legislation through the General Assembly in less time than last night’s Cubs game before anyone (including legislators) actually had time to read it. (Sources close to my imagination tell me one clause has Rahm annexing the Crimea.)

“The longer you let things linger, the more dangerous they get. The more vulnerable they are toward falling apart,” said Sen. Kwame Raoul, a Chicago Democrat.

We wouldn’t want to let legislation linger; you know, stick around for more than a day. Things could get dangerous. Democracy may break out.
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“[A] House panel voted 6-4 [in the morning] to advance Madigan’s measure for quick consideration by the full chamber. In the Senate, Cullerton held a hearing to clear the way for approval should the bill arrive from the House on Wednesday. The sprint was on.
“After the House committee vote, Madigan was asked a variation of the same question numerous times: What’s the rush?

“Why would you want to slow it down? Why would you want to do that?” Madigan said to reporters crowded around him. “What’s the problem with calling the bill today? What are you so concerned about?”

Dude. Maybe go back to not commenting.
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“Emanuel, too, was asked about rushing the plan through the legislature and whether the reason was to avoid opposition from unions. Instead, the mayor chose to focus on the consequences if pension changes aren’t passed.

“You cannot kick the can down the road any longer, because the can got so big, because it was kicked in past years,” Emanuel said. “We’ll deal with it, deal with in a responsible way up front, but if you took more time, we’re at a point where the city was either make a pension payment or not pave a road.”

So kicking cans makes them bigger and today’s road paving is called off.
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We all know what the rush was; we’re not stupid. Fortunately, enough outraged people were around to notice and the shenanigans began to look like a PR disaster by the end of the day. Plus, Republicans. Sometimes you just gotta say, God bless ’em.
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CPS is also afraid of democracy, though their blitzkrieg strategy is better termed ditzkrieg.
“Dozens of parents, teachers, community members and students gathered Wednesday night to urge Chicago Public Schools to forgo firing all teachers and staff at Dvorak Technology Academy in North Lawndale,” the Sun-Times reports.
Yada, yada, yada. Here’s the real news:


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The question, though, is if these esteemed elected officials are going to let CPS kick them around like cans on the road. My Magic 8 Ball says Yes.
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Rahm was too busy kicking cans and cancelling road paving projects to respond.
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When Rahm kicks cans, he pictures the faces of union workers on them.
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He gets his cans from Bruce Rauner.
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Chicago OS
Introducing Chicago’s Operating System.
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BeachBoook
* Wicker Park Bar Fight Featuring A Mop And A Man Tumbling Through A Glass Storefront. Chicagoland!
* Ortiz-Obama Selfie Was A Samsung Stunt. Very little “news” that makes its way to the public isn’t stage-managed.
* Crime And Punishment In Chicago. A real transparency project.
* Comcast Forces Skokie Access Center To Close.
* An NSA “Reform” Bill Of The Intelligence Community, Written By Intelligence Community, For The Intelligence Community.
* Every Bro In Chicago Is 28.
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TweetWood


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The media shouldn’t simply allow a well-endowed “institute” buy its way into their conversation, which of course is exactly what the Illinois Policy Institute was formed to do. Credibility has to be earned, and the IPI has a long way to go in that regard. Why not put some actual city workers on a pension panel?
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Heavy.

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Posted on April 3, 2014