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Comment: Now it’s worth $170 million of taxpayer money plus the free parkland, don’t you think?
Despite new concessions from CPS and Mayor Lightfoot, the union says it’s not enough, and appears to be set on continuing its strike into a 10th day.
Though the mayor says she’s not worried, a federal indictment may hinder her hopes to revive plans for a Chicago casino, and progressives vow to block her real estate transfer tax without more help for the homeless.
Comment: Madigan bravely roots out wrongdoers (after they’re indicted).
Comment: This hasn’t gotten the press coverage it deserves.
Comment: Note the pageview counter in the lower right on the republication of our Wirepoints article.
The 13-page criminal complaint, made public Monday, revealed that the state senator allegedly targeted by Arroyo first began cooperating with the FBI in 2016 but was terminated as a confidential source after it was revealed he had filed false income tax returns. The senator later agreed to cooperate with the FBI again in the hopes of winning a break at sentencing on expected tax fraud charges, according to the complaint.
The senator was not named in the complaint, but a source identified
The Chicago Tribune reported state Sen. Terry Link was the cooperating witness. The newspaper cited an unnamed source. Link denied it on Monday. On Tuesday, he declined to answer questions about it directly.
Comment: From the pro-union Sun-Times, no less: As we write this editorial, the stumbling blocks include two big demands by the Chicago Teachers Union: More prep time for teachers, and political support from Mayor Lori Lightfoot for a fully elected school board. Lightfoot and her negotiating team have said no to both, and we’re with them.
The Supreme Court ruled in the case of Janus v. AFSCME that unions could not extract what’s called an “agency fee” from non-members who happened to work in the same place a union had “exclusive representation” rights. But one group argues that in saying it was unconstitutional to force people to fund labor unions’ speech with their own money, the high court also indicated that the legitimacy of “exclusive representation” itself could be up for debate.
Chicago teachers remained on strike Monday, freezing 300,000 students out of crucial instructional time. Why? The reasons are growing, but they aren’t about pay or working conditions.
The latest reason: President Donald Trump visited Chicago to speak to police chiefs before heading to a ritzy fundraiser hosted by Chicago Cubs co-owner Todd Ricketts. No way could Chicago Teachers Union leaders miss out on the opportunity to protest Trump and a 1-percenter, together, on the same day. That was a double aphrodisiac
When it was finally time to retire, Don and Paula decided “to come home.” In 2016, they left sunny Florida for a place in Poplar Grove, Illinois, just outside of Rockford. Now, three years later, they’re experiencing buyer’s regret. Not because of the weather, but because they don’t know if they can afford to stay in Illinois.
Aldermen from across the city demanded to know how a budget that makes a series of rosy assumptions will be balanced in the event that Lightfoot doesn’t get what she wants?
What if the Illinois General Assembly fails to authorize a graduated real estate transfer tax and a casino gambling fix during its abbreviated fall veto session?
What if the federal government refuses to sign off on the $163 million windfall that the mayor assumes she’ll get by increasing ambulance fees paid by private insurers and from reimbursements administered by the state for ambulance transports for low-income
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