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Public Employee Unions: In a city with double-digit unemployment, teachers who can't be fired and who make more than double what their students' parents make, have gone on strike. Anyone for school choice? Public sector unions reared their burdensome and inefficient head Monday when some 25,000 unionized Chicago Public School teachers went on strike, unhappy with a salary the parents of their students can only envy, leaving 350,000 students and their overtaxed parents struggling in the educational lurch. The Chicago Teachers Union walked away from a contract offer that amounted to a 16% raise over four years for the average...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Last week I asked a stupid question, and it took me a couple of hours on Friday to figure it out. I've been hoping I wouldn't forget it all weekend. And here we are, and I remember what it was. The stupid question I asked was: "Why are the teachers in Chicago going on strike?" The answer is very simple: So Obama can solve it as a campaign issue. That's why they're on strike. It won't be long before we hear Moochelle say that he's up late at night on the campaign trail practically crying, reading letters...

Chicago teachers went on strike today for the first time in 25 years. 400,000 students and their families were affected. Teachers in Chicago make an average $74,839 a year. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bKmzG8-bmWY** The teachers want a 16% raise over 4 years costing the city $400 million. (Who gets that kind of a raise these days?) Tens of thousands of teachers and support staff in Chicago went on strike Monday after their union and school officials failed to reach a contract agreement. The AP reported: Chicago teachers went on strike Monday for the first time in 25 years after their union and district...

Leslie Daniels enrolled her son in a Chicago charter school three years ago because she didn't like the education he was getting in his local neighborhood school. In the back of her mind, she also knew the school was less likely to be affected by labor problems because its teachers are not members of the Chicago Teachers Union. That's an added benefit now that the union has called for its first walkout in 25 years. All of the city's charter schools will remain open Monday. "I'm glad I made the switch," said Daniels, 55. "I feel for the other parents...

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog Why do so many public school teachers send their own children to private schools? The Washington Times reports:“Nationwide, public school teachers are almost twice as likely as other parents to choose private schools for their own children, the study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute found. More than 1 in 5 public school teachers said their children attend private schools.”“In Washington (28 percent), Baltimore (35 percent) and 16 other major cities, the figure is more than 1 in 4. In some cities, nearly half of the children of public school teachers have abandoned public schools.”“In Philadelphia,...

For the first time in nearly three decades, Chicago public school teachers went on strike this morning. At first glance, you might be tempted to think that what happens in Chicago has little to no effect on the politics of Washington and the presidential race. But, you’d be wrong. There are several reasons to believe that what happens in Chicago could have a real — and negative — impact on President Obama and the broader race for the White House this fall. We list the three biggest reasons below. * It’s Chicago: Yes, we know that President Obama has no...

Rush Limbaugh: Chicago strike is Democratic ‘setup’ By: Kevin Robillard September 10, 2012 03:14 PM EDT Rush Limbaugh said Monday a strike by the 26,000-member Chicago Teachers’ Union was nothing but a ploy to help President Barack Obama’s reelection. “Let’s just see how long this thing goes on, and let’s see how it gets solved,” the conservative talk show host said on his radio show. “Anybody want to bet against me that Obama’s the one that gets credit for this, in a few short days? Anybody want to bet that there might be a little bit of violence and finally...

Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan spoke out against the Chicago Teachers Union strike on Monday, saying he stands behind Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's opposition to the demonstration. "Mayor Emanuel is right today in saying that this teacher's union strike is unnecessary and wrong," Ryan said in Portland, Ore., according to a pool report transcript. "We know that Rahm is not going to support our campaign, but on this issue and this day we stand with Mayor Rahm Emanuel." More than 26,000 education professionals in the Chicago area did not attend work on Monday over a contract negotiation dispute with the...

Mitt Romney on Monday blasted the Chicago Teachers Union for its decision to “turn its back” on students in the Windy City after the labor group, representing teachers and support staff in the nation’s third-largest public school system, walked off the job for the first time time in 25 years. “Teachers unions have too often made plain that their interests conflict with those of our children, and today we are seeing one of the clearest examples yet,” said Mr. Romney, the GOP’s presidential nominee. The two sides are reportedly not far apart in salary negotiations, but other issues — such...

[Last week] in the 7:00 hour Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn will address the Democratic National Convention. Why he was chosen to speak I have no idea; he is probably the worst governor in America. Illinois' budget is an absolute mess, even after Quinn's $7 billion tax income tax hike. He has shown no appetite for difficult political decisions and has ceded much of his governing authority to the unions who financed his election. But his speech is useful in that it will tie Gov. Quinn to another prominent Illinois Democrat - President Barack Obama. And it will contrast their strikingly...

Video at link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdnY8r7_fLw&feature=player_embedded

On the opening day of their national convention, Democrats have chosen to showcase three governors who have a long history of pushing job-killing tax hikes on their respective states: Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, and Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley. Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, who kicks off the evening of tax hikers, has had a long love affair with tax increases. In May of 2009, Gov. Quinn proposed a 50-percent income tax hike, increasing the income tax rate from 3-percent to 4.5-percent. The proposed tax hike would have taken about $4 billion from Illinois’s private economy near...

Illinois' credit rating was downgraded by Standard & Poor's on Wednesday, a move that came after Gov. Pat Quinn's inability to persuade lawmakers to cut costs in the state's debt-ridden public employee pension system. The agency lowered the state's credit rating from A+ to A, citing a "lack of action" on changes aimed at decreasing the pension system's unfunded liability, which could hit $93 billion by next summer if nothing is done. Standard & Poor's also gave Illinois a "negative outlook," saying the state's budget future remains uncertain. It's unclear what impact the new rating will have on Illinois' pocketbook,...

CHICAGO, - Officials at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo said a rare Bolivian gray titi monkey was born at the facility. The officials said Tuesday the monkey, one of only about 50 of its species in U.S. zoos, was born to mother Delasol, 21, the oldest titi monkey to give birth in a North American zoo, and father Ocala, 15, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Tuesday. The zoo said the monkey is the ninth child born to the couple. Officials said the birth is a "big deal" due to the declining population of the species in the wild.

Nineteen people were shot in seven attacks overnight in Chicago, as the US city's gun violence epidemic continued. Thirteen of the victims were shot within a half-hour period, including eight in a drive-by shooting on a single street. Chicago officials have been battling a sharp increase in shootings and homicides, with some elected officials arguing gangs do not fear the police. The city's murder rate has spiked 29% year-over-year as of this month. By that time in 2011, 270 people had been killed in the city, according to data complied by the local newspaper RedEye Chicago. In 2012, that number...

This is Roger Ebert’s website. For the weekend of Friday, August 24, 2012, he has written reviews of seven new movies:

President Obama showed his skills as a comedian at the White House Correspondents' Association annual dinner, focusing mainly on Donald Trump. He made fun of the birth certificate controversy, and ribbed Trump about his presidential ambitions. (April 30)

President Obama and his useless administration insist that the drug violence in Mexico is not spilling over the border into America. Don't buy the political BS from Washington, D.C. In fact, Jack Riley, the special agent in charge of the DEA's field office in Chicago, IL, says that the local street gangs are proxies for the Mexican drug cartels in the battle for turf as reported by Armen Keteyian for CBS News: Riley says Mexican cartels have a significant influence in Chicago's gang violence problem. "Let's take the gloves off on that," he said. "We know that the majority of...

A Chicago-area official apologized after saying former President Ronald Reagan deserves a “special place in hell” for his part in stepping up the war on drugs. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, a Democrat, said her language Tuesday was “inflammatory,“ but stood by her criticism about the ”failure of the war on drugs to end illegal drug use or sales in this country.” According to the Chicago Tribune, Preckwinkle was defending the city of Chicago’s recent move to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana, allowing police officers to write tickets instead of make arrests. She said drug treatment should...

Almost a third of Illinois' high school Class of 2012 scored too low on the ACT college-entrance exam to be considered ready for key college classes, according to data released Wednesday. Despite some improvements, the results were troubling to some educators, while others considered the information a flawed method for judging how well students will fare if they go to college. [Snip] Former state schools Superintendent Glenn "Max" McGee, now president of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora, is troubled by the low college-readiness figures, particularly in science and math. Only 30 percent of Illinois' 2012 graduates met...