Chicago Tribune: Illinois school funding debate breaks along political, geographical lines
Democratic state Sen. Andy Manar said he believes his latest version of a plan to redirect the way the state sends money to local schools — including cash for teacher pension relief to Chicago — should be the start for comprehensive talks to end Illinois’ lengthy budget impasse.
But even before the downstate lawmaker unveiled his plan earlier this week, Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner made it clear he opposes attempts at a massive rewrite of the state’s school-aid formula for the coming school year. Democrats are “screaming ‘Crisis! Crisis!'” when “they created it,” Rauner said.
The issue of state funding for schools, and state cash assistance to Chicago Public Schools, always results in a rancorous debate in Springfield that tends to fall along not just partisan but geographical lines.
Sun-Times: Police Board spent $500,000 on discarded top-cop search
The Chicago Police Board spent roughly $500,000 on the nationwide search for fired Police Supt. Garry McCarthy’s replacement, only to have Mayor Rahm Emanuel bypass all three finalists in favor of a candidate who didn’t apply: Chief of Patrol Eddie Johnson.
The spending covers everything from air travel, hotels and restaurants for out-of-town candidates to advertising and background checks in a search that started with 39 candidates and was winnowed down to a final three.
Sun-Times: Rivers Casino pays $1.65M after mob inquiry
Rivers Casino has paid one of the largest gaming-related fines in modern times — $1.65 million — following an Illinois Gaming Board investigation spurred in part by questions over a security and maintenance contractor’s ties to reputed mob figures.
Last year, the Better Government Association discovered that Rivers — Illinois’ newest and most lucrative casino — hired United Service Cos. for security and cleaning work at the Des Plaines gaming site.
The Atlantic: Rorschach's Crime Bill
“The ones that won’t let you answer are afraid of the truth,” Bill Clinton admonished protesters at a campaign event for Hillary Clinton today in Philadelphia. The protesters peppered him with questions about the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, a piece of legislation that has become wrapped up in this campaign cycle as Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders both build criminal justice promises built on dismantling parts of it. The crime bill, a signature accomplishment of his presidency and one to which Hillary has been tied, has been identified as a main culprit behind mass incarceration.
Bill’s response certainly won’t do Hillary any favors. In an 11-minute answer that wandered along a path of condescension, through tone-deaf comments, and into a difficult digression about Black Lives Matter and Africa, Clinton attempted to provide a defense for the bill and give context to the reasons why it had such broad support. He talked over protesters and attempted to play up the crowd to shout them down. His tone and talking points play especially poorly given Hillary’s early struggles in engaging with young black protesters. But even though his diatribe will be widely covered as a major misstep in Hillary’s campaign, it does provide some real insight as to why the issue of the crime bill seems to animate so much of the Democratic primary race.
Chicago Tribune: How the feds uncovered Dennis Hastert's sordid past
Approached by federal agents last year about dozens of large cash bank withdrawals, Dennis Hastert claimed he was being extorted by a former student who said Hastert had sexually abused him decades earlier when he was a high school teacher and wrestling coach.
The agents took the former U.S. House speaker at his word. But when they listened in on two phone conversations between Hastert and the man supposedly pressuring him to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars, agents began to suspect the story was a lie.
What soon was apparent, according to an explosive document filed in the federal case against Hastert late Friday, was that instead of being forced to pay to keep false allegations from being spread, Hastert was paying to hide his sexual abuse of a 14-year-old boy.
Slate: The Awkward Radicalization of the Chicago Teachers Union
Last Friday afternoon, the president of the Chicago Teachers Union, Karen Lewis, was speaking before an audience of thousands. It was the headliner rally of Chicago’s “day of action,” a massive citywide protest that brought together a disparate coalition of organizations: most prominently the teachers union but also the Fight for $15 group of low-wage workers, transit workers, nurses, South Side community groups involved in the fight for a trauma center in Hyde Park, pro-Palestinian activists with “Free Rasmea Odeh” signs, and multiple offshoots of the Black Lives Matter movement. All had come together in a remarkable European-style “general strike” to protest the austerity policies of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner.
While Lewis, who is black, was speaking, a group of young black attendees at the front of the crowd started chanting “Get cops out of schools!” loud enough for her to hear, according to several rally attendees. Lewis paused and told the chanters, “I tell you what—the cops are not our enemies. … If they let us, we will make them more helpful. Our kids are not criminals.”
If Lewis, who appeared to be speaking extemporaneously (though she has since repeated the sentiment on Twitter), didn’t think she was sharing a controversial notion, she was about to be schooled.