Category: Politics
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Workers Occupy Goose Island Plant
A group of about 65 workers who occupied a Goose Island window factory in 2008 have once again locked themselves inside the plant in a desperate move to save their jobs. California-based Serious Energy said Thursday it is closing the plant’s doors and consolidating operations in Colorado and Pennsylvania. via Chicago Tribune. This is not good…
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Chicago Aldermen Want Quiet Public
Some of the City Council’s most influential aldermen proposed a crackdown today on crowd participation at council meetings that would ban everything from signs and posters to clapping and booing in the public gallery. via Chicago Tribune. I guess they want their constituents like children; seen and not heard.
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We’re Number One… in corruption that is.
A former Chicago alderman turned political science professor/corruption fighter has found that Chicago is the most corrupt city in the country. He cites data from the U.S. Department of Justice to prove his case. And, he says, Illinois is third-most corrupt state in the country. University of Illinois at Chicago professor Dick Simpson, who served…
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Aldermen Push For What?
This is just insane: On Sunday, Aldermen Deborah Graham (29th), Robert Fioretti (2nd), and Toni Foulkes (15th) joined members of the Chicago Teachers Union, Action Now, and a group of parents and community safety advocates for a press conference urging Mayor Rahm Emanuel to make the Vacant Property Safe Passages Ordinance a priority. If approved,…
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No Tax Refund if You Owe Parking Tickets
Really? Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday referred to people and businesses with unpaid city debts as “the deadbeats and the delinquents” after winning City Council approval to intercept their state income tax refunds to collect millions of dollars. … At every level we have protected the taxpayers of the city of Chicago by not raising…
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New Ward Map Confusing? Try Getting a Garbage Can
Excellent points raised by Greg Hinz over at Crain’s. Ask folks at City Hall whether new or old wards apply for purposes of voting, zoning and distribution of services and the like and, after a couple of shrugs, you’ll get a multipart answer fit for an SAT test. … “We’re dealing with the old aldermen,”…
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Athens Burns
[B]uildings burned across central Athens and violence spread around the country. Cinemas, cafes, shops and banks were set ablaze in central Athens as black-masked protesters fought riot police outside parliament. State television reported the violence spread to the tourist islands of Corfu and Crete, the northern city of Thessaloniki and towns in central Greece. Shops…
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Athens: Our Future?
BBC News has a few shots of Athens. On one of the photos there’s an interesting quote by on of the protesters. “Even if they eat the flesh of the people, bankruptcy will not stop. It will just get worse. That is why we support a write off of the whole debt and to be…
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Himalayan Glaciers Lost No Ice in 10 Years
The authors of the U.N.’s climate policy guide were red-faced two years ago when it was revealed that they had inaccurately forecast that the Himalayan glaciers would melt completely in 25 years, vanishing by the year 2035. Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and director general of the Energy…
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Rahm Wants Handgun Registry
Stupidity in human form. Mayor Rahm Emanuel today said he wants state lawmakers to approve a statewide handgun registry. … Rep. Brandon Phelps, who has championed efforts to pass a concealed weapons bill in Illinois, said the mayor’s office called him Thursday morning to let him know the registration proposal would be introduced. “Number 1,…