Thoughts & Musings
Drivers Get Creative to Avoid High Toll Fees
Drivers fed up with New York City's expensive toll roads are carpooling to save a few dollars on the George Washington Bridge, according to the Wall Street Journal. Bridge commuters can save $6 a vehicle by using the "carpooling" lane. Because of this, some rogue...
CPS’s Safe Haven Funding Slashed
With money tight,Chicago Public Schools'summer Safe Haven program will be scaled back and serve fewer students.Last year, the district used $975,000 in federal stimulus funds for Safe Haven, which encompassed 100 churches working with 5,000 students on issues...
Raise Taxes — Lose Revenue
The current taxes on a pack of cigarettes in Chicago include $2 from Cook County, 98 cents from Illinois and 68 cents from the city. If Quinn signs the latest increase, the taxes in Chicago will be $4.66 per pack, compared with 99 cents in East Chicago. On Monday, a...
Protests
Story: Protesters throw fence on police 5:43 p.m. Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, dressed in his white uniform and wearing sunglasses, has appeared behind the thick line of police in riot gear. The police are facing off with protesters at the corner of Michigan...
Half of Florida H.S. Students Fail Reading Test
Nearly half of Florida high school students failed the reading portion of the state's new toughened standardized test, education officials said on Friday. Results this year from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test showed 52 percent of freshman students and 50...
Illinois 3rd in Foreclosures Nationally
This is embarrassing: Foreclosures starts in Illinois are on par with those in other areas but the state's court-supervised foreclosure system continues to bog down properties in the process. Almost 7.5 percent of all one-to-four-unit mortgage loans in Illinois were...
Gov. Red Tape Kills Another Biz, Jobs
Last month when Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced his streamlining of city business licensing procedures, he chose Logan Square Kitchen as the location to herald this new day in better relations between the city and small businesses. And so it's more than a little ironic...
Stripping Chicago Spending, Bare Down
“What do a Chicago strip club and the President’s campaign fund have in common?” ANSWER: BOTH were paid- with public funds- as “VENDORS” to the City of Chicago. _______________________________________ Yesterday, OpenTheBooks.com upgraded it's transparency portal to...
Wealthy Flee France (Shhh, don’t tell the U.S. Media)
For those that don't know, France recently had an election and voted for the most socialist guy on the ballot. The guy who's promising to raise taxes on the rich and increase the transfer payments to the poor. The result? The rich are leaving... in droves....
21 Unanswered Questions
#3 Why does the Department of Homeland Security need Predator-B drones to patrol the border between the United States and Canada? #4 Why is a militarized “Red Zone” being set up in Chicago three weeks prior to the upcoming NATO summit on May 20th and 21st? #5 Why is...
Layoffs on Wall Street?
After adding thousands bankers in the past two years, financial firms again appear to be on the verge of cutting that many positions and then some. Consultants and Wall Street recruiters say banks could eliminate nearly 21,000 jobs from their securities divisions in...
Cars Sit Unused for 5 Years in Maimi
Have you ever bought a brand new cars only to forget where you put it? How about 300 of them? Probably not – unless you're Miami-Dade County, which was recently reunited with 298 vehicles it bought brand new between 2006 and 2007. The county "discovered" this fleet of...
Scientists plan $1b Ghost Town
A scientific ghost town in the heart of southeastern New Mexico oil and gas country will hum with the latest next-generation technology -- but no people. A $1 billion city without residents will be developed in Lea County near Hobbs, officials said Tuesday, to help...
B of A’s Mortgage Reduction Insanity
Bank of America has started sending letters to thousands of homeowners in the United States, offering to forgive a portion of the principal balance on their mortgages by an average of $150,000 each. The reduction for qualifying homeowners could amount to monthly...
China Enters U.S. Banking Market
The United States on Wednesday opened its banking market to ICBC, China's biggest bank, for the first time clearing a takeover of a US bank by a Chinese state-controlled company. Just days after high-level US-China economic talks in Beijing, the Federal Reserve...
Frederick Douglass: Do Nothing With Us!
In regard to the colored people, there is always more that is benevolent, I perceive, than just, manifested towards us. What I ask for the negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. The American people have always been anxious to know what...
Self Defense Now a Federal Issue
House Democrats said Tuesday they will offer an amendment to push to overturn stand-your-ground self-defense laws in states like Florida. The amendment, which would withhold some grants from states that have such laws, will come as part of the House's debate on the...
Ron Paul vs. the #HonestMistake
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hONl8bAhRGI?rel=0]
Labor Force Participation Rate Messes with Unemployment Rate
Exactly a month ago I wrote about the bogus employment numbers claimed for the Chicago area. I claimed that there were no actual jobs "created" and that the only reason the employment rate went down was because people simply left the job market. Didn't have this at...
FYI, You CAN Cheat on Your Property Taxes
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Assessor Joe Berrios on Tuesday urged state lawmakers to give them more power to go after property owners who improperly claim tax breaks, saying they could recover more than $150 million in three years with the new...