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PI Original
by Josh Kalven
5:04pm
Sun Nov 23, 2008

Axelrod Comments On Open Senate Seat, D.C. Leadership Vacuum

This morning, David Axelrod appeared on Fox Chicago Sunday and had some notable remarks on both the local and national fronts.  He said that President-elect Barack Obama plans to stay out of Prairie State politics once in the White House and doesn't plan on being "a ...

PI Original
by Josh Kalven
5:21pm
Fri Nov 21, 2008

A Bailout For Main Street

Just three days after Dick Durbin relaunched his effort
to let judges alter the terms of distressed mortgages in bankruptcy
cases, a coalition of activists rallied outside the senior Illinois senator’s
Chicago office to commend his efforts and push him to offer more
...

PI Original
by Josh Kalven
1:14pm
Fri Nov 21, 2008

Waiting On The Office Of Urban Policy

It’s still unclear what Barack Obama’s Office of Urban Policy will do. On his campaign website, the president-elect makes the amorphous promise
that whoever holds the position will “develop a strategy for
metropolitan America and … ensure that all federal dollars ...

PI Original
by Josh Kalven
12:20pm
Fri Nov 21, 2008

Chicago Public Schools Seeing Green

While there have been -- and continue to be -- numerous obstacles to greening the Chicago Public Schools system, Suzanne Carlson, the woman hired by the district to oversee its new Environmental Action Plan, tells us not to rule her out. Carlson recently unveiled a ...

PI Original
by Josh Kalven
11:08am
Fri Nov 21, 2008

When All Else Fails, Kirk Blames The Unions

What does Rep. Mark Kirk have against the American worker? Back in June, the North Shore Republican initially voted down a federal extension of unemployment benefits, claiming that people who had worked as briefly as two weeks could game the system and collect 52 weeks of ...

PI Original
by Josh Kalven
7:35pm
Thu Nov 20, 2008

Statehouse Round-Up

Today saw no action in Springfield on the governor’s not-so-popular Emergency Budget Act.
Two more days remain in the veto session, so we’ll have to wait and see
what happens. Nonetheless, there were a few legislative developments
worth noting:

Answering ...

PI Original
by Josh Kalven
4:22pm
Thu Nov 20, 2008

Unemployment Jumps Again

The October jobs numbers are in and as expected, they aren’t pretty.
The state’s seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate jumped to 7.3 percent
from 6.9 percent in September, according
to the Illinois Department of Employment Security. October also marked
the fifth ...

PI Original
by Josh Kalven
2:25pm
Thu Nov 20, 2008

Nate Silver On The Interview Show

On the first Friday of every month, Mark Bazer hosts "The Interview Show" at The Hideout in Chicago, in which he conducts engaging discussions with three different figures from the area -- whether writers, artists, chefs, etc. Recent guests from the political/media ...

PI Original
by Josh Kalven
1:35pm
Thu Nov 20, 2008

Ethical Subprime Lenders

As the financial crisis spread
this fall, conservatives attempted to cast blame on the Community
Reinvestment Act (CRA), a 1977 fair banking bill. Amid this hysteria, we talked to Ron Grzywinski, an original CRA
proponent and one of the co-founders of Chicago’s ShoreBank, ...