With the special election for Dennis Hastert's vacant 14th Congessional District seat coming up next Saturday, the race has heated up. Democrat Bill Foster has hit Jim Oberweis almost daily, pointing out the differences on Social Security, global trade, and the war in Iraq. Oberweis has fought back, calling Foster a liberal and a liar, and charging that he will raise taxes. The close race got even more interesting this week when Foster released recent internal polling indicating that he leads Oberweis in the race. Now Foster is claiming that Oberweis violated the so-called "Millinoare's Law", by failing to disclose that he was about to dump buckets of his own cash into the race.
"The United States of America v. the State of Illinois" has a real dramatic ring to it, no? The Department of Homeland Security is suing Illinois in an attempt to invalidate a state law that bans employers from using E-Verify, a website that allows employers to check if a Social Security number is valid. Blago signed the law, which passed with bipartisan "veto-proof majorities," in August, and it's supposed to go into effect in January....
The misty-eyed reunion took place this weekend when Reba, popular Loop panhandler Tom Finley’s dog, missing since September 7, was returned to the Anti-Cruelty Society. Finely was speechless, but Reba had a lot to say, barking at the group of photographers who had gathered for the press conference. A $500 reward had been offered for the return, which was refused. So the money, which has grown from other donations, will be given to Finley, who...
One year after she took refuge inside a Humboldt Park storefront United Methodist church, immigration fugitive, mother, and unlikely activist for immigration reform Elvira Arellano announced that she would risk deportation by leaving the church to head to Washington, DC to lobby Congress for immigration reform. "If this government would separate me from my son, let them do it in front of the men and women who have the responsibility to fix this broken law...
Immigration protest image via Time Out Chicago.
Last Friday, 775 teachers in the Chicago Public School system were given the ol' heave-ho. All involved are Probationary Appointed Teachers, or PATs, those who have been in the system less than five years. Unlike last year, these firings are not budget-related; they were let go for "various reasons," with the emphasis on teachers that were not performing well.
"Kershaw Tie Crane in Repose @ Belmont Under a Full Moon" via TheeErin.
Seriously. Look it up. What Rosie Costello did to her kids falls under the first definition. She asked them to fake mental retardation (now having the preferred term developmentally disabled — DD for short) so that she could collect Social Security benefits on their behalf. Wow. She coached her kids starting with her daughter at age 4, and later taught her son. He pretended to be mentally retarded into his mid-20s, "picking at his face, slouching and appearing uncommunicative in meetings with Social Security officials."
The guy who's accused of killing Tank Johnson's friend/bodyguard is pleading not guilty. This is silly. "The Sun-Times is putting the Tribune on trial. The charge: The Trib has ruined the Cubs." Would the Sun-Times be attacking the Trib so virulently if they weren't a major competitor? We think not. In CTA news: Two more downtown Metra stations will get CTA transit-card vending machines. Also, the CTA said they're going to start flooding the...
Predicting the actions of the city and county boards is nearly impossible. One never really knows who will be arrested on corruption charges this week, what sort of zany plan alderman will propose next, or as we recently learned, how easily sensitive data can magically go missing.
We've got it relatively good in the winter, us Chicagoist folk. The last two apartments we've lived in, the radiator heat's been jacked up so high in the winter that we could literally walk around in our shorts. But before that, we were in a place that only had one centrally-located gas heater, and that thing gobbled up resources like nobody's business. Our heretofore unknown gas bill shot into the sky like Wile E. Coyote. So it is with a certain amount of sympathy that we read about the case of Mary Gray, a senior citizen on dialysis whose 18-month-old Nicor gas bill had crept up to a whopping $3,500.
Let's call this one the "You Really Thought You Were Going to Get Away With That?" edition. This Week in Stupid would be nothing if it weren't for stupid criminals, but this week's crop seemed to take things to new levels.
The annual University of Chicago Graduate School of Business’ forecast luncheon took place on Wednesday, December 6. The forecast, which takes a look at the domestic and international indicators regarding the economy, gives the political and business community a basis for which they can plan for the year ahead.
We’ve been told many things over the years, guidelines we should follow to ensure a safe and happy life. Don’t get in a car with strangers. Drink your milk. Look both ways before crossing the street. Don’t give out your Social Security Number. For 1,740 former Chicago Public Schools teachers, however, that last bit of advice was for naught, as their SSNs and home addresses were mistakenly included in a mailing about health care coverage....
Part of us thinks we're paranoid for protecting our personal identity like the Holy Grail, changing passwords every couple months, shredding every piece of paper with even a scrap of identifying data on it before it leaves our house, refusing to ever give out our Social Security number unless it's absolutely necessary. The thing is, we're not so much worried about someone actively going after this information as we are about it falling into the...
The city reported over the weekend that personal data of over 38,000 city of Chicago employees and retirees was on a laptop that was stolen back in April. The computer was pilfered from the home of an employee who works for a company that provides retirement savings program services to the city. Officials say the data included names, addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and Social Security numbers.
Identity theft is something that we are reminded to protect ourselves against almost every day. Shred those credit card bills. Don’t give out your Social Security Number. Don’t join the Army and let some jackass steal one of their laptops. Chicagoist makes sure that our identity isn’t stolen is by having bad credit, but that doesn’t work out so well when it comes to being a member of the ownership society.
Talk about a nightmare: back in August, a 57-year old man found himself homeless in Chicago, with no idea how he got here or what had happened in his life up until then. He was living in a shelter in the South Loop and selling newspapers on State Street, tormented by his lost identity. He asked the Chicago police for help, sent his fingerprints to the FBI, called the Social Security administration to research the...
Today is Festivus and we've been reading a lot lately about how all the cool kids are celebrating. It's easy. All you need is an aluminum pole to display unadorned. Local customs sometimes allow decorations, but they must be non-threatening plain decorations, and tinsel is absolutely banned. What? It's distracting! At Chicagoist's Festivus party we would ask everyone invited (all of you!) to contribute to The Human Fund and the money would really go to...
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