Chicago Sun Times: Mayor Emanuel returning early from Cuba
Mayor Rahm Emanuel is cutting short his family vacation in Cuba and will return to Chicago on Tuesday to deal with the latest crisis involving the city’s Police Department.
Early Saturday, police shot and killed two people on the West Side — Quintonio LeGrier, 19, and his neighbor, Bettie Jones, 55.
A City Hall spokesman said Monday that Emanuel left Chicago on Dec. 18 and was due to return at the end of this week.
Mish's Global Economic Analysis: Death Watch Illinois: Despite Massive Stock Market Rally, Illinois Pension Liabilities Go Up, and Up, and Up
Illinois’ unfunded liabilities have risen ten out of the last eleven years. The only exception was 2011. This was despite massive rallies in financial markets every year since 2009.
One out of every five tax dollars goes to pensions, but that’s nowhere close to enough to stem the tide.
Illinois has the worst funded pension plans in the nation. Those plans are a mere 42% funded in aggregate.
New York Times: Rahm Emanuel, Under Siege in Chicago, Shows Contrite Side
GQ, the men’s magazine, just named Mayor Rahm Emanuelto its list of “The Worst People of 2015.” In Springfield, the Illinois capital, a fellow Democrat is pressing for a measure to permit Mr. Emanuel’s recall from office. And here, demonstrators bearing thousands of signatures last week demanded Mr. Emanuel’s resignation, then blocked traffic on Christmas Eve along the city’s glittering North Michigan Avenue shopping district, chanting, “Rahm’s got to go in 2016!”
GQ: The Worst People of 2015
Well, I think we’re all shocked that a bloodless, profane political operative turned mayor would permit the suppression of a video depicting a horrific police shooting during the exact period when he was desperately trying to get re-elected. JUST SHOCKING, I TELL YOU. Rahm is one of those sociopathic career politicians who probably has a secret room filled with carved figurines of all his rivals, and he spends all night moving them around on a marble chessboard and cackling maniacally to himself while shit burns outside.
Chicago Tribune: State without a budget: Slow-motion mess in Illinois
As Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democrats who control the General Assemblyhead into 2016 without a state budget, the vast majority of taxpayer-funded services are chugging along as normal thanks to legal maneuvers that have kept the money spigot on during the six-month impasse.
Still, not all state-backed services are going unscathed. Some corners of the social safety net are still waiting for cash infusions that were approved months ago, while others have been told they’ll have to wait for a grand bargain at the Capitol before their money is released.
Colleges and universities, whose entire state budgets are on hold, are scraping reserves to help cover student scholarships the state promised but never funded. And while a piecemeal spending bill approved by Rauner and lawmakers this month allowed the state to make payments on some overdue electricity bills, a few state parks are nonetheless operating in the dark.
Chicago Sun Times: Father of slain 19-year-old sues city
The father of a 19-year-old man who was shot and killed by Chicago Police early Saturday has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city, claiming college student Quintonio LeGrier posed no threat to the police officer who shot him.
LeGrier, a sophomore at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, was “20 or 30 feet” away from the police officer who shot the teen inside a West Garfield Park home, attorney Basileios “Bill” Foutris told the Chicago Sun-Times on Monday. A neighbor, 55-year-old mother of five Bettie Jones, also was fatally wounded by police.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of LeGrier’s father, Antonio LeGrier, whose 911 call early Saturday brought police to the home in the 4700 block of West Erie Street.
WSJ: Time to Let the ‘Small Fry’ Become the ‘Smart Money’
Responding to my Dec. 14 letter (“Help the Small and Nimble Get a Start Going Public”), Sheldon Saitlin claims “small-fry” investors would only ever be offered the opportunity of a lifetime if “the smart money is sitting it out” (“There’s a Reason Smart Money Takes a Pass,” Dec. 19). Yet there is no reason why, under liberalized equity crowdfunding rules, growing firms could not raise money from both ordinary and wealthy “sophisticated” investors, just as Starbucks and Home Depot did before Sarbanes-Oxley made going public so…
Having the general public as a source of funding can help entrepreneurial firms negotiate better deals with venture capitalists and potential acquirers. This is what happened when the technology startup Oculus Rift proved its worth by raising $2 million in a crowdfunding campaign. Seeing the firm’s popularity, Facebook bought it for $2 billion in 2014.