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Illinois data on stimulus-related jobs saved, created don't add up

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Chicago Tribune - By Bob Secter, Erika Slife - Nov. 04 (News Report) - More than $4.7 million in federal stimulus aid so far has been funneled to schools in North Chicago, and state and federal officials say that money has saved the jobs of 473 teachers. Problem is, the district employs only 290 teachers. "That other number, I don't know where that came from," said Lauri Hakanen, superintendent of North Chicago Community Unit Schools District 187. The Obama administration last week released the first round of data designed to underpin the worthiness of its economic stimulus plan, which so far has directed $1.25 billion to Illinois schools. That money has helped save or create 14,330 school jobs in the state, the administration claimed.

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Secretary Arne Duncan has $5 billion for transformation. What should he do?

Mon, 04 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Chicago Tribune - By Jeb Bush, James B. Hunt Jr. - May. 04 (Opinion) - As former governors from different political parties who remain passionate about the quality of education in America, we agree that Arne Duncan is one lucky guy. As part of the $787 billion spending package passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama in February, the new education secretary gets $5 billion to spend on projects that will transform America's education system. Called the "Race to the Top Fund," the money is to meant to pay for innovations that improve student achievement and ultimately revolutionize our economy and workforce for the 21st Century.

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School newspapers: High school newspapers chart new course in tumbling economy

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Chicago Tribune - By Tara Malone - Apr. 22 (Special Report) - As newspapers reinvent themselves, high school newsrooms are locked in their own transition amid the economic tumult that has jolted the industry. Several school newspapers in Illinois now publish online only, while others are turning to the Internet to post stories edged out of a shrinking newspaper. These days, the pressures of tighter budgets, thinner papers and slumping ad sales are as central to the lessons of journalism as beat reporting and editing, educators said. "If we want to make it as real world as we can make it, you've got to be able to pay for the pages [through advertising]. If you can't pay for the pages, you figure out another way to do things," said Michael Gordy, adviser to Antioch Community High School's paper, The Tom Tom.

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IRS workers see double standard on tax errors

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Chicago Tribune - By Tom Hamburger, Ralph Vartabedian - Apr. 17 (News Report) - The Treasury secretary, who oversees the IRS, didn't pay all his taxes. Neither did five other top nominees for the Obama administration, or their spouses. Now, as Wednesday's tax deadline looms, some Americans are wondering why they should comply with the arcane requirements of the Internal Revenue Service when top administration officials failed to do the same. Even some IRS employees are upset at what they see as a double standard. The most criticized example has been Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who admitted not paying $34,000 in payroll and Social Security taxes, saying his failure to pay was an oversight. Five other nominees disclosed similar tax issues, including one as recently as two weeks ago when Kathleen Sebelius, President Barack Obama's pick for secretary of health and human services, admitted she didn't pay $7,040. "Our members are upset and angry," said Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, referring to concern bubbling up within the IRS over unusually strict rules that can cost agents their jobs if they make a mistake.

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Business, states sees green in Obama energy plan -

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Chicago Tribune - By Jim Tankersley - Mar. 23 (News Report) - The average American family spends about $2,000 a year on home energy bills, the Energy Department reports. In most cases, a quarter to a third of that energy is wasted: Air leaks through windows, ducts and poor insulation; older appliances hog power. The Obama administration believes that creates a prime opportunity to create jobs and free up cash for homeowners.

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Stewart vs. Cramer: We have a winner

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Chicago Tribune - By Maureen Ryan - Mar. 13 (Review) - On Thursday's "Daily Show," Jon Stewart -- channeling Jimmy Stewart -- delivered a beatdown of CNBC's Jim Cramer, who attempted to defend himself and CNBC but, for the most part, meekly said he and his network could have done a better job in the leadup to the nation's financial meltdown.

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Highway robbery? Texas police seize black motorists' cash, cars

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Chicago Tribune - By Howard Witt - Mar. 10 (Special Report) - Suit says cops force motorists, largely black, to forfeit cash and cars—or be charged with trumped-up crimes

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On different pages when it comes to race

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Chicago Tribune - By Dawn Turner Trice - Feb. 23 (Opinion) - I wouldn't describe us as cowards. But I do think too many of us are intransigent with regard to race. And, for too many of us, race remains a Rorschach test in that we still can look at the same thing and see something totally different.

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U.S. undercuts clean-air rule

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Chicago Tribune - By Michael Hawthorne - Nov. 14 (Investigative Report) - Looking to bolster the fight against childhood lead poisoning, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last month approved a tough new rule aimed at clearing the nation's air of the toxic metal. A key part of the initiative is a new network of monitors that will track lead emissions from factories. But the Bush administration quietly weakened that provision at the last minute by exempting dozens of polluters from scrutiny, federal documents show.

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McCain's fate rests on who will vote

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Chicago Tribune - By Jim Tankersley - Nov. 02 (News Report) - As the presidential race enters its final weekend after two years of battle, John McCain's best chance for a history-defying comeback rests in the greatest of electoral unknowns: voter turnout. To win on Tuesday, analysts and polls suggest, the Republican nominee must win nearly all the remaining undecided voters in key swing states and peel a large chunk of "soft" supporters from Democratic rival Barack Obama. Then he must hope that his supporters vote in overwhelming numbers, and that more Obama supporters than expected stay home. It would be a daunting task in any election, but it's particularly the case this year, when analysts predict the largest voter turnout ever, perhaps 130 million, and the biggest percentage of eligible voters casting ballots in a century. "It would have to be almost like a perfect game," said Christopher Borick, a Muhlenberg College professor who conducts a daily tracking poll in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state. "Everything would have to break his way."

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Finding their way out of debt and learning along the way

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Chicago Tribune - By John Keilman - Oct. 25 (News Report) - As they clawed their way out of the hole many Americans are still entering, Charles and Moriah Aldarondo became experts in living under the crushing yoke of debt. The Joliet couple, both 29, racked up $45,000 in bills ranging from the unavoidable (Moriah, who had no health insurance, needed to have a pacemaker replaced) to the frivolous (condo remodeling and credit card-fueled vacations). They kept their creditors appeased with minimum payments, but in July 2006, when Charles lost his job at a medical billing company an hour after learning that Moriah was pregnant, the reckoning arrived. Bill collectors bombarded them with calls. Their electricity and water were cut off. Charles, a computer science graduate of the University of Illinois, had to go to work at Taco Bell. After months of 80-hour weeks at the restaurant and a multitude of odd jobs, Charles decided to vent and seek advice in a way that came easily to him: He started a blog.

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'Joe the Plumber' in media cross hairs

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Chicago Tribune - By John Kass - Oct. 19 (Opinion) - Tax experts were consulted and said that even if Joe could afford to buy the plumbing business, he shouldn't worry about Obama's taxes. But I grew up in a small family business, and saw what my father went through to pay this tax and that tax and the other tax and then try to pay our bills, so listening to experts reassure small business owners that they shouldn't worry when Democrats may control all of Washington made me want to laugh my head off.

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Political rumors, full of sound and fury, fly fast online

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Chicago Tribune - By Bob Secter - Oct. 17 (News Analysis) - Have you read the e-mail from the psychologist who detailed how her South Pacific vacation was ruined by an encounter with a boorish, racist John McCain? Surely your inbox has been clogged with those exposes about Barack Obama's secret life as a radical Muslim who won't recite the Pledge of Allegiance? And how about Sarah Palin posing with a rifle in a U.S. flag bikini and claiming her daughter's baby as her own? Malarkey all. Yet people who routinely laugh off those get-rich-quick entreaties from the ubiquitous Nigerian banker can now be found yapping incessantly on cyberspace, talk radio and around the office about an ocean of specious political muck. "This election is made for an upper-level 'rumor psychology' class," said Nick DiFonzo, a psychologist and rumor expert at the Rochester Institute of Technology in upstate New York. "In the 20 years I've been studying rumors, I've not seen this level."

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Daley reins in radicals — the Chicago Way -

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Chicago Tribune - By John Kass - Oct. 12 (News Analysis) - Turn on the TV news when John McCain is picking up undecided voters by invoking Barack Obama's relationship with unrepentant American terrorist William Ayers and, invariably, some liberal talking head will sniff in disgust and say Ayers is no big deal where Obama comes from. Unfortunately, that's true. Ayers is a terrorist. But this is Chicago. Obama and Ayers are neighbors and they worked together on school issues with the same foundation. Obama's political coming-out party was held in Ayers' living room when Obama was running for his first political office.

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A Princeton economist reviews the candidates' health plans

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Chicago Tribune - By Judith Graham - Oct. 06 (Interview) - Is Sen. Barack Obama’s health reform plan affordable, I asked one of the nation’s most distinguished health care economists today. “Yes,” said Uwe Reinhardt, the James Madison professor of political economy at Princeton University, who spoke with me about the presidential candidates’ health care proposals. But maybe the question should be phrased differently, he suggested. “What we should be asking is, ‘Can average American households afford not to have this plan?’” Reinhardt offered. Please explain, I requested.

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Sarah Palin sought, got federal pork

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 06:30:13 -0700

Chicago Tribune - By Frank James - Sep. 02 (News Report) - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin apparently likes a good earmark as much as most other politicians. The watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense found that when Palin was mayor of little old Wasilla, Alaska she hired a well-connected law firm to lobby for nearly $27 million in earmarks. That's the kind of spending Sen. John McCain, the all-but-official Republican nominee typically rails against as pork. The TCS report, which the Washington Post evidently got an exclusive on, suggests that Palin, who McCain recently named as his running mate, isn't the anti-earmark crusader that the man on the top of the Republican presidential ticket portrayed her as when he announced her as his veep choice. Added to the information that Palin actually supported the infamous Alaskan bridge-to-nowhere before she opposed it, the emerging picture of Palin is of a fairly typical local and state politician interested in capturing as much federal taxpayer money for her constituency as possible.

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The sooner you quit, the better it is

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Chicago Tribune - By Jeremy Manier - Jul. 08 (News Report) - Even Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), 71, who quit smoking in 1980, still faces some increased risk of cancer from smoking two packs a day for 25 years, studies suggest. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), 46, who says he has struggled to stay off cigarettes since quitting last year, may have less long-term risk because he smoked fewer cigarettes per day.

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Test your John McCain IQ

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Chicago Tribune - Jun. 08 (Poll) - How well do you know the Republican candidate for president? Test your knowledge here, and then take our Barack Obama quiz.

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Opportunity ahead for McCain among women voters

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:54:22 -0700

Chicago Tribune - By Jill Zuckman - Jun. 06 (News Report) - Angling for the backing of women voters, the Obama campaign has created a wide array of support groups: Prime Time Women for Obama, Boomer Women for Obama, Middle-Aged Women for Obama, Women over 50 for Obama and even Obama Mamas. But after wrapping up the Democratic nomination in a long and bruising battle against a popular female politician, Sen. Barack Obama will begin his general election push trying to attract women voters who feel a keen sense of disappointment that Sen. Hillary Clinton will not become the first female president next year. Those women may be open to hearing what Sen. John McCain has to say, creating an opening for him to make inroads with a group of voters who traditionally lean Democratic.

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Obama vs. McCain

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Chicago Tribune - Jun. 04 (Editorial) - Enough with all that tedious math over delegate counts. The 2008 primary season is now over and the surviving Democratic and Republican candidates can focus squarely, and only, on each other. Five months from Wednesday, Americans will elect Barack Obama or John McCain to the presidency of the United States of America.

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McCain calls for Iran divestment effort

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Chicago Tribune - By Jill Zuckman - Jun. 02 (News Report) - Speaking to the AIPAC policy conference in Washington this morning, Sen. John McCain mocked his presidential rival for thinking he could solve the threat Iran proposes by holding high-level talks, and he proposed a range of sanctions against Iran as well as the launch of a worldwide divestment campaign similar to the one used to wipe out apartheid in South Africa.

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McCain's, Obama's worldviews as divergent as the lives they have lived

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Chicago Tribune - By Bay Fang - Jun. 02 (News Report) - "John grew up in a family where military strategy was constantly being discussed at very high levels," said Carl Smith, a Washington lawyer who served with McCain in the Navy. "He was steeped in the history and purpose of American military power." By contrast, the influences in Obama's youth were more about diversity than tradition.

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VA psychologist to staff: don't diagnose PTSD

Sat, 17 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Chicago Tribune - By Judith Graham - May. 17 (Opinion) - In the email, Norma J. Perez, PTSD program coordinator at the Olin E. Teague Veterans' Center in Temple, Texas, tells staff "given that we are having more and more compensation seeking veterans, I'd like to suggest that you refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out." Instead, she advises "consider a diagnosis of Adjustment Disorder." Veteran Affairs staff "really don't ... have the time to do the extensive testing that should be done to determine PTSD," Perez wrote.

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GOP heavyweights reportedly tried to oust Fitzgerald

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Chicago Tribune - By Bob Secter - Apr. 23 (News Report) - U.S. attorney allegedly targeted by Karl Rove, Bob Kjellander

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Presidential debates on TV in peril

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Chicago Tribune - By Clarence Page - Apr. 23 (Opinion) - In a New York Times interview, CBS producer Don Hewitt, who directed and produced the John Kennedy-Richard Nixon debate in 1960, explained that debates entail "a big dose of show biz" and "trying to keep an audience." "When you're in television," Hewitt said, "that's your job." Indeed, a lot of Democrats are angry at ABC for doing what it does best, which is to put on a TV show. That's like inviting yourself into a bear's cave and being surprised that you are mauled. Republicans were just as unhappy when their candidates were asked in an MSNBC/Politico.com debate, "Is there anybody on the stage that does NOT believe in evolution?" The half-dozen candidates stood stunned for a moment before three of them raised their hands. Gotcha. The ABC debate exposed an uncomfortable truth: TV and other new-age electronic media don't just cover election campaigns. They have increasingly become the campaign.

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