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Illinois

* Rosemont Mayor makes new push for casino

“I sat in his office and he said: ‘You know what, I’m with you. Rosemont’s the greatest place for a casino.’ OK, well then do something about it,” said Stephens, whose father died in April.

Stephens claimed his proposal - which would involve selling the Rosemont Theatre to the state to use as a casino - could bring in at least $1.2 billion in annual revenues to government coffers.

Representatives of Blagojevich and legislative leaders would not confirm the meetings were held.

* Mayor Stephens pitches casino at Rosemont Theater

* Many in top state posts fail to file ethics form

* Disabled protesters strike again

* 110 protesters ticketed as disabled target union

* U.S. Rep. Weller still refuses to answer questions about land deals: Weller did not respond Wednesday to a reporter’s calls for comment. “He’s not answering questions,” Weber said.

* WurfWhile: Vern Deljonson may enter IL-14 Dem primary

* McConoughey will make House run in IL-18

* ArchPundit: The problem of primaries

* DailyKos: Lipinski teams up with Republicans

* ArchPundit: The Freedom Watch ad

* Change of Subject: A shameful revelation from Obama’s past?

* The original investors in Rezko’s big South Loop deal

* American Family Assoc. protests Hardees TV spot

* Amtrak sees sight as boost for ridership

* Media Matters: The conservative edge in syndicated Op-Ed columns

* The death of net neutrality?

* Beating down government secrecy

In the wake of heightened government secrecy in the post-9/11 era, one media outlet has responded by making freedom of information news coverage a full-time job.

The government secrecy beat at Cox News Service’s Washington Bureau was the brainchild of bureau chief Andy Alexander, who dreamed up the position in response to the heightened levels of secrecy — not just in the Bush administration but at state and local levels.

* Chicago Public Radio: Commissioners fear Stroger’s over spending

* Schools aim to be havens after classes

* Sheriff finds new ways to curb violence at Cook Co. jail

* Judge: Chicago can’t deny comp time over cop shortages

* Chicago Public Radio: Mob history in the making

Guilty verdicts in the “Family Secrets” trial show the mob isn’t what it used to be. Lisa Labuz talks with mob historian Richard Lindberg about the trial’s place in organized crime history.

* Hybrids on the way for city fleet

* Stroger’s godson’s sweet deal

* Chicago Reader: A dispute among friend on Children’s Museum move

* Park board seals deal to develop lakefront harbors; more here

* Ameren will help small businesses

posted by Paul Richardson
Thursday, Sep 13, 07 @ 7:00 am

Comments

The American Family Association should be more concerned about the nutritional value of Hardee’s food on their children, rather than operating as annoying busybodies intent on destroying everyone else’s fun.

I hate most commercials in general. It’s called pick up the remote control for the love of Pete.

Comment by Carl's Jr. Thursday, Sep 13, 07 @ 8:12 am
The commisioner seem like frightened mice afraid to bell the Toddster Cat or the Beaver whom Todd leaves it to.

Comment by Truthful James Thursday, Sep 13, 07 @ 8:13 am
Another Stroger relative feeding at the trough. Is anybody really suprised?

Comment by Milorad Thursday, Sep 13, 07 @ 8:31 am
Let’s back off Orlando Jones for now. Something happened. More later.

Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Sep 13, 07 @ 8:46 am
media matters and dailykos? at least Kos had a local angle. your blog of course but IMO this lessens its seriousness significantly.

Comment by fan of Capitol Fax Thursday, Sep 13, 07 @ 10:01 am
Fan, we link to other blogs often. Not sure how linking to a study of newspaper edit pages “lessens” the blog’s “seriousness.” Perhaps you could explain.

Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Sep 13, 07 @ 10:02 am
Not to put words in Fan’s mouth … but the Media Matters piece puts the lie to the conservatives’ “the media is liberal” imitation of Chicken Little.

Comment by Rob_N Thursday, Sep 13, 07 @ 11:20 am
The Media Matters piece comes from a liberal website. One would expect it to seek ways to add liberal voices in newspapers.

Comment by Fan of the Game Thursday, Sep 13, 07 @ 12:14 pm
Media Matters is little more than agit prop (which is not necessarily a bad thing). The findings of that study are pretty dependent on how one classifies the writers. For example to my mind I would find most of the centrists in the study to lean left but regardless its not as if Media Matters ever does a story or study that casts doubt on its central premise that the media leans right (hence me calling it largely “agit prop). Chearleading for an ideological position I do not find to be very serious and putting it in the context of “morning shorts” composed mostly of straight news stories lessens the seriousness of the overall post IMO. The Daily Kos entry comments on a news story so I jumped the gun by including it in my original post. Kos diarists often seem to wallow in juvenile name calling and prolific use of swear words but the post linked to does not and is IMO a good “find” in that it comments and is revealing on a local political matter.

Comment by fan of Capitol Fax Thursday, Sep 13, 07 @ 12:22 pm
Also, what makes a columnist a conservative, a liberal, a centrist? What criteria did Media Matters use to categorize columnists? Seems like there is a lot of gray area there.

Comment by Fan of the Game Thursday, Sep 13, 07 @ 12:32 pm
Fan wrote: ===Also, what makes a columnist a conservative, a liberal, a centrist? What criteria did Media Matters use to categorize columnists?===

If you had bothered to look it up, they list all the columnists and show their work here. An excerpt…

===To avoid charges of injecting subjectivity into our process, we used, whenever possible, the syndicates’ own description of their writers to define the writers’ ideological alignment. For example, Universal Press Syndicate describes writer Maggie Gallagher as writing “right-leaning social policy analysis,” which would give her a designation in this study of “conservative.” In addition, we also went by political and media affiliations (for instance, a syndicated columnist who is also an editor for National Review can be safely classified as conservative) and writers’ own definitions of their politics, whenever available. For those whom we still could not comfortably identify, we read a sampling of columns to arrive at a designation.

Jonathan Alter is a columnist and senior editor for Newsweek magazine. His column also appears in The Huffington Post, a progressive blog and news site.

Jay Ambrose is a senior fellow at the Independence Institute, a conservative nonprofit public policy group, and a former editor of the Rocky Mountain News.===

I doubt you’ll find many wrong hits on their columnist list. A few here and there you might quibble with, but overall it doesn’t look too off to me.

Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Sep 13, 07 @ 12:41 pm
The problem with using politically connected investment firms like Blair is that state employees or somebody who truly represents their interests should be watching to make sure that they are not getting poorer returns from Blair than they could elsewhere so various pols and their pals can get rich. I wonder how many do. I wonder if SERS and SURS etc really represent the interests of the investors. The issue isn’t really who made the introduction. It’s whether the deciders, so to speak, are truly free of political influence.

Retirees can roll over their 401k accounts
but I don’t believe current employees can. And that could be a problem worth tens, even hundreds of thousands to some, if decisions on where to invest are not made solely on the merits of the investments.

Comment by Cassandra Thursday, Sep 13, 07 @ 1:26 pm
This is just the last straw of many. This state governnment is broken. Electing more-of-the-same won’t fix it. We need a constitutional convention of non-professional politicans to change the rules.

Comment by Anon III Thursday, Sep 13, 07 @ 2:49 pm
Rich,

I did read that, and for the most part I would agree with their assessments, but when speaking about some of the writers, it seems they just made an arbitrary categorization, and for others they make no statement at all (.g., Jabari Asim and Anne Applebaum).

Comment by Fan of the Game Thursday, Sep 13, 07 @ 2:53 pm
Thanks for the update on net neutrality. I think the US DOJ has taken the right position, although I disagree with the analogies used by both sides.

Supporters of “net neutrality” who compare the Internet to the sidewalk is absurd. The sidewalk is publicly owned and nobody pays directly to walk on it.

The DOJ analogy comparing Internet services to the USPS is closer to the mark but the best comparison is to FedEx/USPS or the airline industry. Internet services are so ubiquitous, its easy to forget that the networks that they travel over are PRIVATELY OWNED.

1. Should these transporters be allowed to charge more to companies shipping bigger freight or making more frequent shipments?

2. Or should all of us subsidize the costs for frequent shippers or over-sized freight?

I guess if you’re Google or eBay, the latter makes sense. But it doesn’t make sense for me.

Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Thursday, Sep 13, 07 @ 3:15 pm
The thing that popped my eyes out was how many of the most-read columnists are hacks, whether on the left or right. In particular, it is appalling that Kathleen Parker and Cal Thomas are the #2 and #3 circulated conservative columnists, when there are many other more sophisticated and well-rounded opinion-makers available who veer right. I guess no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

Comment by Six Degrees of Separation Thursday, Sep 13, 07 @ 3:16 pm
SDS –

That is surely an elitist POV. Perhaps the center right readers are more prolific consumers of that viewpoint. Or perhaps the public is dissatisfied by what they read and hear in the mass media and looks elsewhere.

After all, if I weren’t so well informed I would be considered bigoted. :–))

Comment by Truthful James Thursday, Sep 13, 07 @ 3:29 pm
Oh puhleez… Kathleen Parker a hack? Seems to me she is one of the more level-headed and reasonable conservative columnists out there. A real “hack” would be someone like Ann Coulter, who goes out of her way to be outrageous and inflammatory.

Comment by Lainer Thursday, Sep 13, 07 @ 3:50 pm
===#1. Should these transporters be allowed to charge more to companies shipping bigger freight or making more frequent shipments?

Which they already do. I pay for the level of service I want. Why should ISPs be able to charge both of us. The analogy would be a toll road where they charge me for the size of my vehicle very reasonably, and then decide that the cargo I’m carrying is charged for more.

===2. Or should all of us subsidize the costs for frequent shippers or over-sized freight?

How is anyone being subsidized if individuals pay for the level of service (bandwidth) they want?

==I guess if you’re Google or eBay, the latter makes sense. But it doesn’t make sense for me.

Google and eBay pay for bandwith already.

Comment by archpundit Thursday, Sep 13, 07 @ 3:52 pm
Lainer - Agreed, but Coulter doesn’t get as many total column-inches as Parker. Need to be careful how I say that:-)

Truthful - If one lives in fly-over country, one by some definitions can’t be an elitist. And the jets from O’Hare fly over me quite regularly. FWIW, I find Maureen Dowd to be pretty irritating, too.

Comment by Six Degrees of Separation Thursday, Sep 13, 07 @ 4:26 pm
It is not the flyover that is harmful, it is the blue ice being jettisoned. {(:–]}

Comment by Truthful James Thursday, Sep 13, 07 @ 4:32 pm
More do as I say, not as I do. The guv$ higher level appointee$ haven’t filed ethic$ paperwork they are required to file, yet many lower and mid level state employees are constantly “reminded” (okay told) to get the ethics tests done before the deadline every time they come around.

Comment by Concerned Voter Thursday, Sep 13, 07 @ 5:03 pm