Originally posted on Oak Park Newspapers:
Was most impressed the other night, Feb. 25 ? at the county board candidates forum ? oddly enough by Ike Carothers, who got caught, took a plea, and at the forum defended himself plausibly (news accounts not reliable, ?I paid the price?) and less?relevantly (?I have been contrite .…

…

Nielson via Carpe Diem.

The Detroit News reports:

Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker on Thursday urged the National Labor Relations Board not to overturn the election results at Volkswagen AG’s Chattanooga plant after the United Auto Workers union appealed the results.

The UAW said outside groups and individuals — like Corker — had sought to intimidate workers, who on the first day of three days of voting said he had been told that if workers rejected the UAW, the German automaker would decide to locate production of a new planned midsize SUV in Tennessee.

“I probably am ‘Public Enemy No. 1′ to the UAW,” Corker told reporters at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor because he had pushed in hearings in late 2008 when U.S. automakers were seeking bailouts that the UAW agree to competitive overall wages and benefits with lower paid U.S. autoworkers at foreign-owned plants. “There’s no doubt there is some pent up anger towards me.”

For more on union violence , click on this link.

* From a press conference announcement…
[Chicago Coalition for the Homeless] ran a statewide survey in December 2013 that asked public school districts and Regional Offices of Education to respond about the level of services reaching children and teens identified as homeless students. Sixty-seven percent responded – 36 of 54 sub-grantees under the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless […]

* A recent Scott Reeder column was discussed in a Senate Revenue Committee hearing yesterday. The column was about the owner of a small business that was allegedly run out of existence by the Illinois Department of Revenue. The column was headlined “Another small business closed by the Illinois Department of Revenue”…
For 10 […]

In the 40-plus years that I’ve written this weekly analysis-and-opinion on politics, I’ve never encountered an instance where the lead-up, the information-gathering, is more column-worthy than the actual column. Now I have.
Call this a “pre-column.” It’s a column on the story of getting the story to write the column. And it clearly demonstrates how and why Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan’s “gag-and-spend” strategy maintains his iron grip on his Democratic majority, and his stranglehold on Illinois government.
In the northwest side 40th House District, the incumbent is Jaime Andrade, age 40, …

The Hill on America’s newest fascist movement.

The Business Insider