QUOTE OF THE DAY
Daily Herald: Suburban conservative leader Jack Roeser dies
Conservative voices around Illinois and the suburbs are speaking out Friday to honor the legacy of Jack Roeser, a conservative icon in the suburbs and founder of the Family Taxpayers Foundation.
Roeser’s passing was announced Friday.
“We are deeply saddened to learn of Jack Roeser’s passing,” the Chicago Republican Party said in a statement.
The New York Times: A New Battle for Equal Education
When states are sued for providing inferior education to poor and minority children, the issue is usually money — disproportionately more money for white students, less for others. A California judge has now brought another deep-rooted inequity to light: poor teaching.
In an important decision issued on Tuesday, Judge Rolf M. Treu of Los Angeles Superior Court ruled that state laws governing the hiring, firing and job security of teachers violate the California Constitution and disproportionately saddle poor and minority children with ineffective teachers.
The ruling opens a new chapter in the equal education struggle. It also underscores a shameful problem that has cast a long shadow over the lives of children, not just in California but in the rest of the country as well.
Politico: The fall of teachers unions
As the two big national teachers unions prepare for their conventions this summer, they are struggling to navigate one of the most tumultuous moments in their history.
Long among the most powerful forces in American politics, the unions are contending with falling revenue and declining membership, damaging court cases, the defection of once-loyal Democratic allies — and a multimillion-dollar public relations campaign portraying them as greedy and selfish.
They took a big hit Tuesday when a California judge struck down five laws they had championed to protect teachers’ jobs. The Supreme Court could deliver more bad news as early as next week, in a case that could knock a huge hole in union budgets. On top of all that, several well-funded advocacy groups out to curb union influence are launching new efforts to mobilize parents to the cause.
Clarion-Ledger: Chicago man filling potholes with mosaics
The perfect pothole might not exist for many people — but for mosaic artist Jim Bachor, it’s one with a nice oval shape. Bachor began filling those potholes a little more than a year ago, after one in front of his house became a hassle.
Bachor doesn’t just fill them with cement, though. He’s turned pothole-filling into a public art project — one with a sense of humor. He fills them with mosaics.
“I just think it’s fun to add that little bit of spark into (an) issue that people moan about,” says the Chicago resident, whose work also hangs in galleries. He was first drawn to the ancient art form because of its ability to last.
WAND: Political firm had key job in Get Covered Illinois
A key subcontractor working to promote President Barack Obama’s health care law in Illinois is a Chicago firm owned by three former aides to powerful Democrats.
Mike Noonan, Victor Reyes and Maze Jackson are among the consultants whose hourly billing rate of $282 is raising questions about whether Illinois did enough to rein in federal taxpayer costs during the “Get Covered Illinois” campaign.
Their firm, Compass Public Affairs, could take assignments directly from Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration under a special provision of its subcontract. Compass was part of a team assembled by the main contractor, FleishmanHillard.
Chicago Sun Times: Ten health insurers apply for Illinois online marketplace in 2015
Ten health insurers have applied to be part of the Affordable Care Act’s online marketplace in 2015 for Illinois, including for the first time, the state’s second-largest insurer, UnitedHealthcare.
And 504 health insurance plans were submitted to the Illinois Department of Insurance for 2015, including 306 individual plans and 198 plans for the small group insurance marketplace, the department said Thursday. Last year – the first year the ‘Obamacare’ marketplace existed – eight insurers offered 165 plans, including 120 individual plans and 45 small group plans.
UnitedHealthcare Group Inc. confirmed Thursday that it had put in an application to be part of the marketplace. So did three other insurers who were already in the marketplace, including the state’s largest health insurance market Blue Cross Blue Shield.
WSJ: The IRS Loses Lerner’s Emails
The IRS—remember those jaunty folks?—announced Friday that it can’t find two years of emails from Lois Lerner to the Departments of Justice or Treasury. And none to the White House or Democrats on Capitol Hill. An agency spokesman blames a computer crash.
Never underestimate government incompetence, but how convenient. The former IRS Director of Exempt Organizations was at the center of the IRS targeting of conservative groups and still won’t testify before Congress. Now we’ll never know whose orders she was following, or what directions she was giving. If the Reagan White House had ever offered up this excuse, John Dingell would have held the entire government in contempt.
The suspicion that this is willful obstruction of Congress is all the more warranted because this week we also learned that the IRS, days before the 2010 election, shipped a 1.1 million page database about tax-exempt groups to the FBI. Why? New emails turned up by Darrell Issa’s House Oversight Committee show Department of Justice officials worked with Ms. Lerner to investigate groups critical of President Obama.
CARTOON OF THE DAY
