Regardless of how you feel about Chicago and/or Illinois politics, bringing the Olypmics to Chicago would be great for Champaign County and the University of Illinois. So this is good news:
The IOC has picked four finalists in the bidding for the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Making the cut are Chicago; Tokyo; Madrid, Spain, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Three cities were eliminated from the race -- Doha, Qatar; Prague, Czech Republic, and Baku, Azerbaijan.
Gov. Blagojevich is using the surge of violence in Chicago for political reasons.
Blagojevich said the $150 million for his anti-violence initiative, which includes up to 20,000 summer jobs for young people in high-risk communities, isn't an unreasonable amount of money.
"This is an emergency. Children are being shot and killed. And for lawmakers to say we can't do it, that's exactly the reason why there's so much violence out there today and so we're just not gonna take no for an answer," Blagojevich said as he left the youth center surrounded by reporters trying to ask him questions.
Blagojevich's proposal includes spending $30 million to provide summer jobs statewide. He's proposing another $20 million to fund grants for after-school programs and other activities to keep kids off the streets. And he wants to invest $100 million to revitalize neighborhoods, support local businesses that create jobs and help police departments buy equipment, according to his office.
I'm shocked - shocked, I tell you - that anyone would use the deaths of children to push a political agenda.
Billy Joe Mills at Urbanagora reports that Governor Rod Blagojevich is a closet Dallas Cowboys fan. The reasons for a recall keep rolling in.
I'm a few days late on this, but thought it would be worth discussing, given its impact on Illinois and our own local discussions about sales taxes.
Among the things Chicago wants to be known for, having the highest total sales taxes of any major U.S. city is probably not one of them.
But that's what it's getting after the Cook County Board voted Saturday to double the county sales tax to 1.75 percent. When added to the city's sales tax, the county' increase has the cumulative effect of setting a 10.25 percent sales tax on goods bought in Chicago.
The rates in New York and Los Angeles are below 8.5 percent. The next highest rate in the country is in Memphis, Tenn., at 9.25 percent.
And, they're increasing a bunch of other taxes and fees, too. I know it's easy to caricature this as typical of the most Democratic city in America, but is this good for the State of Illinois? Are these rates having any sort of impact on sales tax receipts in the City vs. Cook County or the Collar Counties?
(Hat tip: TaxProf)
Go Cubbies!
US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald strikes again.
Just a story I saw in which a law enforcement officer attacked a decorated veteran for parking a van in his driveway. He tossed in some ignorant AND false racial epithets for good measure (not that "true" racial epithets would be any better :P)
Heard about this from SALDEF... They're calling for the Joliet Police Department in Illinois to investigate an violent incident involving an officer patrolling a local neighborhood last month. The cop allegedly assaulted a Sikh American man while yelling racial epithets, right in front of his wife and six-year-old child:
On Friday March 30, 2007 at around 3:00pm , Mr. Kuldip Singh Nag, a Sikh American who was awarded the Bronze Star for his service in the U.S. Navy during the first Gulf War, was at his home in Joliet , IL when a local police officer noticed that a van parked on Mr. Nag’s private property had expired registration tags. Upon being confronted with this, Mr. Nag’s wife, Vera Kaur Nag, informed the officer that the van is parked on their driveway and was inoperable.
Mr. Nag then came outside to answer the officer’s questions regarding the van. The Joliet police officer then demanded that Mr. Nag park the van inside his garage and not on the driveway, to which Mr. Nag responded to the officer that it was not possible and that regardless, the van is parked on his private property and he has a right to park it on his driveway.
At this moment, the officer pulled out his pepper spray and attacked Mr. Nag. As Mr. Nag screamed in agony, the officer removed his baton and violently struck Mr. Nag numerous times until he fell to the ground. While the assault ensued, the officer was reported by both Mr. and Mrs. Nag as saying, "You f****** Arab! You f***** immigrant, go back to you f****** country before I kill you!"
The assault landed Mr. Nag in the hospital for five days, with complaints of intense pain and head trauma. And the whole thing happened right in front of his wife and kid. All this, because Mr. Nag parked a van with expired tags in his own driveway. Police brutality alone is unacceptable, but this clearly crosses the line as a hate crime. This incident needs to be investigated, and this officer needs to be taken down. That's racist!
In honor of Opening Day - a classic by Steve Goodman.
BTW, have the Cubs been mathmatically eliminated yet? Go Sox!
Marathon Pundit has a story that has this Marine torqued off. It seems that the Executive MBA program at the University of Illinois doesn't cotton to veterans. Good enough to take a bullet for you, but not a class from you, eh? Or good enough to use for advertising, but not diverse enough to mix in.
"So the idea was a go and a press release announcing the program was sent out on March 3 [2006]. In it, the 110 military scholarships was the big news. No other University in the country had ever done something on this scale for veterans. "
The announcement was made. A free MBA program, targeted at 110 Illinois veterans. It was big news, getting national attention. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld mentioned it. Soldiers overseas were signing up and being told they were accepted.
But something happened.
Apparently fearing that there would not be enough funds for the program, University official decided to un-accept them, telling them the program was closed ... except that they continued to recruit civilians for the program. It seems the point was to recruit from the Middle East, all right, but not Americans serving there. Teaching Americans involves too much paperwork -- the foreigners pay hard currency.
As an alumnus of the University, I am ashamed, and deeply offended.
[h/t: Moe Lane at Redstate]
It may be blasphemous for a Downstate Republican, but I love Chicago. The City itself is a wonderful place to visit, with so many things to do and see (and it's home to the greatest football team in the world...).
Chicago is making a bid for the 2016 Olympic Games, and planning big infrastructure improvements if Chicago is selected as the host city.
--A temporary stadium at Washington Park, the lynchpin for the Games, has reduced in size, while cost estimates have risen. The plan now calls for 80,000 seats, rather than 95,000, to trim costs. This is estimated to cost $316 million.
-- After the stadium is dismantled, another $50 million will be spent to construct a lasting amphitheater in Washington Park. The facility, for cultural and sporting events, will seat 5,000, down from the 10,000 originally planned.
-- The combined cost of the temporary stadium and the amphitheater, $366 million, is up from earlier estimates of $300 million to $320 million. A nationally known contractor has committed to build it for that amount, adjusted for inflation, though ultimately the project will go out for bid.
Chicago2016.org has little more information, and is missing the great renderings that the Tribune article has, including some dramatic facilities on the lakefront. There were rumors for a while that some UIUC facilities might be used for a Chicago Olympics - I don't know if that's still the plan.
Now there is certainly some merit to debating whether projects like these (or even hosting the Olympics at all) are worthwhile. Regardless, this is an ambitious project, and one that, if successful, will have a huge impact on Illinois (and yes, even Downstate.)
Say what you want about Mayor Daley and the City of Chicago, but I bet this drill is something that few other cities in America would be willing to even try, let alone pull off. Heck, I bet New Orleans still doesn't know how to evacuate their city.
Does anyone know if Champaign and/or Urbana have evacuation plans?
Just remember, the nanny-staters always scoff at the "slippery slope" argument. But once they get started, they never turn back:
Chicago aldermen have cracked down on foie gras, public smoking, noisy street musicians and drivers yakking on cell phones.
Now they want to microchip Fido.
A City Council ordinance likely to face a Wednesday vote would require dog owners to have a microchip implanted in the scruff of a pet's neck for identification purposes.
The best line:
They also have threatened to use their legislative might to improve living standards for elephants and require taxi drivers to wear crisp white shirts and matching pants and socks.
The microchip ordinance is in keeping with that activist spirit.
Will it ever end?
From a comment by Kevin Sandefur to yesterday's post about cops torturing suspects in Chicago:
When local law enforcement itself is under investigation, it frequently becomes necessary for the feds to step in to prevent a cover-up. And I'm guessing that torture probably counts as a civil rights violation, which can be a federal offense.
I haven't followed the details of this as closely as others, so somebody help me out here: when they say the statute of limitations has run out, does that include any federal civil rights violations?
Our commenters are so smart:
A day after the release of a historic report on police torture, attorneys for four men who say their confessions were coerced served federal subpoenas on the special prosecutors Thursday, seeking records of Mayor Richard Daley's testimony.
Attorney Flint Taylor, who represents pardoned Death Row inmate Leroy Orange and convicted murderer Darrell Cannon, said he is pursuing the information as a first step toward naming Daley as a co-defendant in ongoing federal lawsuits against the city, prosecutors and police officers.
Daley was Cook County state's attorney during much of the period in which police torture took place, special prosecutor Edward Egan found. Egan's team interviewed Daley, and the report devoted three of its 290 pages to what Daley knew and did not know about the allegations.
Since this is now clearly both an Illinois and a Federal matter, I'm awaiting Sen. Dick Durbin's scathing attacks on Chicago's pro-torture administration, and Mayor Daley, the pro-torture former State's Attorney and current Mayor, and political booster of Sen. Durbin.
I'm eagerly anticipating the loud, resounding condemnations (and the accompanying hand-wringing, self-flagellating, 36-point news headlines) by Illinois Democrats, especially Senator Dick Durbin, of the torture that was committed by police officers, under a Democrat administration running the City of Chicago and Cook County.
Of course, none will be forthcoming, as the original condemnations were all political in the first place.
And it's a shame that the torture that occurred under the Chicago Democrats was concealed for so long that prosecutions aren't possible.
In a follow-up to the story about Chicago banning trans fat oils:
Chicago's mom-and-pop restaurants would be exempt from proposed restrictions on restaurants' use of artery-clogging trans fat oils, Ald. Edward Burke (14th) said Tuesday.
Burke's call for a blanket ban drew scorn from many restaurateurs and Mayor Richard Daley, but the powerful alderman said he would introduce an amended version of his proposal Wednesday.
The substitute ordinance would create a loophole for restaurants owned by companies with annual revenues of less than $20 million. The new proposal targets fast-food chains such as McDonald's while giving a pass to the city's ubiquitous hot dog stands, taquerias, family-style restaurants and gyros joints.
"The biggest source of this unhealthy eating is the fast-food outlets," Burke said. "I understand the argument that this is overregulating people's lives, but it's at the point now where if kids were permitted, they would be eating at these places three times a day."
And then there's this:
Chicago will not be able to reduce the health disparities plaguing residents of "food deserts," where fast-food restaurants abound and grocery stores are scarce, until its public policies increase access to healthy food, city Health Commissioner Dr. Terry Mason told a panel Tuesday.
Mason's comments were in response to a new study that concludes that residents of such areas in the city are more likely to die prematurely from diabetes, cancer and heart disease, as well as suffer from obesity and hypertension.
Why not just ban those evil, irresistable fast-food restaurants in which people are compelled to eat?
Think of the children!
Best wishes for a speedy recovery to Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, the rabidly anti-UI Chicago Democrat who is Mike Frerichs largest campaign contributor. He's undergone an angioplasty to clear an arterial blockage.
Amidst the triumphalism of the nanny-staters who have convinced the corrupt Democratic government of Chicago to protect people from themselves, there's this little blurb:
To those still hoping to light up in some Chicago restaurants, one paragraph in the new smoking ban is a breath of fresh air. To those who oppose public smoking in all its forms, it is a loophole that threatens to prevent a meaningful smoking ban altogether.
Tucked away near the bottom of Chicago's new anti-smoking ordinance is a thick paragraph permitting smoking in public places where air filters or other devices can render the air inside as pristine as it is outside.
"If the air quality inside your smoking area is no worse than outside, you can smoke, you're exempt," said Illinois Restaurant Association President Colleen McShane, whose group had fought against a total ban. "I don't see a door completely closed."
Anti-smoking proponents view the provision as a Trojan horse.
"We are aware of that as a potential problem," said Kevin Tynan, deputy executive director of the American Lung Association of Metropolitan Chicago. "We are going to be looking at any restaurant that asks for an exemption on that basis."
From New York to San Francisco, cities have banned smoking in restaurants, bars and other public buildings. But in no other major city is there an exemption for establishments with air purification devices that bring secondhand smoke to a level comparable "to ambient outdoor air surrounding the establishment."
Despite the millions of dollars spent on PR and exaggerated claims about health damages, the Chicago nanny-staters appear to have neglected to pay attention to the details. And yet the arrogant triumphalism will continue unabated.
I'm getting the sense that things like this are happening a lot downstate, but it's refreshing to see them in Chicago, too:
The feud between two old pals, Gov. Rod Blagojevich and longtime Democratic operative Dominic Longo, has become so bitter that Longo now says he could go as far as putting his political army to work for a Republican.
Longo ordered 500 "Democrats for Judy" buttons after GOP Illinois Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka announced her 2006 bid for governor. But Longo said he would delay distributing the buttons until he sees whether a Democrat will challenge Blagojevich in the primary.
"Hey, anybody but Rod," said Longo, who was convicted on felony vote fraud charges in 1984 and commands the Coalition for Better Government, a political organization based on the Northwest Side.
State Rep. John Fritchey is saying that Governor Blagojevich will have a Primary opponent and that the opponent will be former Alderman Edwin Eisendrath:
After a number of calls and conversations today, barring anything unforeseen, I'm saying that Eisendrath is IN THE RACE. While there is no official announcement, I think that it is safe to say that this train has left the station.
As I said before, this changes a LOT of calculations for a lot of people, not just the Governor. So roll up your sleeves, sit back and get ready to witness some fascinating politics.
Wow. If this is true, and the challenge is serious enough to force Blago to spend some of that massive warchest, then the Governor's race is truly competitive.
Hat tip: (Capitol Fax)
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