This week, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley made his most uninformed, misguided decision in recent memory by deciding to pull Chicago Transit Authority President Ron Huberman out of the post and install him as the CEO of Chicago Public Schools.
If you want to succeed in American politics these days, there are three rules you should probably never break: don’t disappoint Oprah; don’t pick a podunk running mate; and don’t screw the news media. Someone should tell that to official Illinois state idiot, Rod Blagojevich.
It may be the biggest heist in Chicago history, folks, and it’s right under our noses. Or our feet, anyway. One look at this year’s new Chicago Transit Authority map uncovers the dastardly deed: someone has stolen the Washington/State Red Line station.
Yesterday, while I was engrossed along with the rest of the planet in the historic inauguration of President Barack Hussein Obama, I was stopped in my tracks by a visit to the White House homepage. It’s nifty, new, and finally Web 2.0.
Clout Gate. I’m coining the term here and now. I can’t think of any better reason than clout to explain why an Illinois governor elected on an anti-corruption platform and ending up under long-term federal investigation would think he could get away with disgraceful deeds the likes of which got Rod Blagojevich arrested in his jogging suit by the F.B.I. on Tuesday morning.
Yesterday, the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless announced on its blog that the organization will ‘track any efforts to crack down on homeless people riding the CTA.’ The statement highlighted and was in direct response to my recent opinion pieces here and on Huffington Post Chicago decrying recently installed Chicago Transit Authority signage barring ‘continuous riding’ that the agency appears intent on applying only to homeless riders.
No, the Chicago Transit Authority has not yet budged from its thinly veiled discriminatory policy of throwing homeless people out of the ‘L’ system at terminals. Over the weekend in these pages and on my Huffington Post Chicago byline I posted a series of questions about the policy that I had submitted to CTA’s media relations department along with the seriously spin-meistered answers that I received back. Yesterday, those posts unexpectedly made waves locally and nationally.
During the past few weeks of waning daylight, waxing chill, and growing holiday spirit, the Chicago Transit Authority has been busy installing new signage at rail terminals on the CTA ‘L’. The message on the signs is clear, and a bit ominous: they demand an additional fare from any rider who wants to depart the terminal in the opposite direction from which they arrived. Are the signs aimed at the homeless?
Last night on CNN, Campbell Brown nailed John McCain’s campaign advisers to the cross, damned near literally. In her ‘Cutting Through the Bull’ segment, she made one thing clear to GOP aides who have been set on publicly humiliating ex-Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin ever since Barack Obama’s historic win: they picked her–and more than that, they have only themselves to blame.
As thrilled as the world was to learn that America elected its first black President on Tuesday night, the reaction to the news by revelers at Grant Park was transcendent. Here’s what you didn’t see on TV: a quarter of a million people spontaneously counting down in unison while awaiting the West Coast polls to close–drawn from the YouTube feeds of my fellow Obama rally revelers.