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CHICAGO (Reuters) - With Chicago still facing a lingering deficit in its current budget, Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Friday unveiled steps that will lead to up to 625 layoffs. They include privatization of custodial services at city libraries and airports, benefits services and the water billing call center. Also about 126 seasonal workers in Chicago's transportation department would be discharged, resulting in a drop in curb, gutter and sidewalk improvements this year. "Today, I'm taking steps because I cannot wish away this budget shortfall," the mayor told reporters. Earlier this month, Emanuel said he would eliminate $20 million of the...

TRENDING: Emanuel aide resigns over ethics violations By: CNN's Gabriella Schwarz (CNN) - A co-chair of Chicago mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel's transition team resigned from her new post Friday after it was revealed that she left her high-level state job last summer over ethics violations, CNN confirmed Saturday. Judy Erwin previously served as the executive director of the Illinois Board of Higher Education and served on then-candidate Barack Obama's Education Policy Committee during his 2008 presidential campaign. On Thursday, she was named to Emanuel's transition team and according to a news release, Erwin was also recently hired as managing director for...

There's a new twist in the effort to stop Rahm Emanuel from becoming mayor of Chicago: Rob Halpin, businessman, cigar smoker, man of destiny and potential mayoral candidate. "This has nothing to do with Rahm Emanuel," Halpin told me Tuesday. Really? "This was not my idea," Halpin said. "I'm outside the mainstream. I'm not a professional politician. … I was approached by some businessmen who asked if I would be interested in running for mayor. And they explained to me why they thought I'd be a good candidate and a good mayor."

Exits: Having helped bring the Chicago Way to Washington, the White House chief of staff leaves a crisis he helped create to bring the nanny state to the heartland. On the surface, Rahm Emanuel is leaving to fulfill a personal ambition — to be mayor of Chicago. In reality, he's jumping a sinking ship, and the credentials he brings to a mayoral race in the Windy City may also be his political albatross. He heads for the self-described "city that works" leaving behind a country that doesn't. Emanuel is famous for saying what has become the mantra of the Obama...

Over the years a lot of suspicion has built up across the country about Washington and its population of opportunistic transients coming to see themselves as a special kind of person, somehow above average working Americans who don't work down in that former swamp. Well, finally, an end to all those undocumented doubts. Thanks to some diligent digging by the Washington Post, those suspicions can at last be put to rest. They're correct. Accurate. Dead-on. Laser-guided. On target. Bingo-bango. As clear as it's always seemed to those Americans who don't feel special entitlements and do meet their government obligations. We...

President Barack Obama says his chief of staff would make a "terrific mayor" of Chicago. But Obama says he expects Rahm Emanuel to hold off on deciding whether to enter the race until after the midterm elections. Barack Obama - Rahm Emanuel - Chicago - President of the United States - Chief of staff

Mr Emanuel published an endorsement of Mr Blagojevich in the Chicago Tribune in exchange for $2 million (£1.3 million) in school funding to his district, according to the emails, which were released on Monday. The newspaper had recently claimed in an editorial that Mr Blagojevich used public funds to support his re-election campaign. Mr Blagojevich, who was re-elected in 2006 but resigned in 2009, is currently on trial in Illinois on corruption charges. He is alleged to have attempted to sell Mr Obama's former Senate seat. The emails detailing the deal, revealed by the Associated Press, apparently were exchanged between...

Rahm Emanuel, Obama's Chief of Staff to quit White House in six to eight months: report BY Meena HartensteinDAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Sunday, June 20th 2010, 9:44 PM Arbogast/APRahm Emanuel, President Obama's chief of staff, told 60 Minutes that the job is 'a tremendous amount of pressure.' Related News ArticlesNo, that's not Obama in '93 'Whoomp! (There it is)' videoBam slams GOP for blocking unemployment benefits billRahm Emanuel calls Joe Barton's remarks 'dangerous'Daly: Want to punish BP? Build more energy-saving subwaysWhite House gate crashers stir it up again Rahm Emanuel just can't take it anymore.That's what "Washington insiders" are...

I watched as much of this as I could stand last night.  What a crock, and what suck-up by Lehrer.   Transcript JIM LEHRER: And now our interview with Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff.I spoke with him a short time ago.Rahm Emanuel, welcome..RAHM EMANUEL, White House chief of staff: Thank you.JIM LEHRER: How do you read the seriousness of these threats against members of Congress?RAHM EMANUEL: Well, I think, first of all, I think we should all know that we can have disagreements without being disagreeable.This was a long debate, a lot of heat, sometimes not...

Rahm Emanuel has been accused of a lot of things during his political career, but today one outgoing congressman may have topped all insults. “Rahm Emanuel is son of the devil’s spawn,” disgraced Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY ) said during a radio show, -- the radio diatribe is posted on Real Clear Politics.com. “He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote. He would strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive.” (snip) "Let me tell you a story about Rahm Emanuel," Massa said on the program. "I was a congressman in my...

A Knife in Obama’s Back?Maybe Rahm Emanuel is guilty of disloyalty, but he might be the only thing keeping Obama tethered to the reality-based community.  The president is surrounded by acolytes of the Cult of Obama. They consider him to be a “transformational figure” who need not sully himself with the usual rules of politics. The president agrees, rejecting suggestions that he recalibrate his Olympian ambitions. That’s not me saying that, nor one of my knuckle-dragging, baby-eating right-wing brethren. It’s Dana Milbank, the liberal Washington Post writer widely seen by most conservatives as Maureen Dowd in drag. Milbank wrote a...

Union Influence: The White House picks its most frequent visitor to sit on its deficit commission. He believes in big government, in big spending, and that the workers of the world should unite. What could go wrong? Computer security firms have been known to hire the best former hackers because they know best how to stop others like them. But the appointment of Andy Stern, president of the Service Employee International Union (SEIU), to a bipartisan commission to come up with ways to deal with the rapidly rising federal budget deficit is like having a serial arsonist organize Fire Prevention...

Blago wouldn't say whether his taped conversations w/Obama and Rahmbo would embarass them. He would only say they weren't illegal. Blago is afraid. Discuss.

WASHINGTON -- White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel praised Mayor Daley on Saturday and urged him to run for re-election in 2011 in a statement designed to quash gossip that Emanuel is considering a City Hall bid. "Mayor Daley is a great mayor for a great city. He has my full support and it is my hope that he will seek re-election," Emanuel said in a written statement.

A quick search of the Interwebs for the term “political suicide” will return a significant number of stories on the pending Democrat-pushed healthcare “reform” legislation and their seemingly inexplicable political death spiral. Virtually every poll says that the public rejects the bills in the Senate and House, Barack Obama’s popularity is tanking, and virtually no one on the Right OR the Left is happy with them. So the natural question is: Why are the Democrats pushing this? The characterization of the Democrats’ actions as “political suicide” is somewhat inaccurate. It would be more apt to call it “political hari-kari”, as...

Last fall, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel remarked, "Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before." That quote has become part of a rallying cry for conservatives, that those currently in power are trying to create the perception of a crisis to force things through the legislative process that couldn't be done otherwise. That has been dismissed by those on the left as fear-mongering and the party in power is acting in good faith based on what their constituents want. But on...

Some of these I haven't yet seen, and I've seen a lot of these clips. Words from: Russ Feingold Kathleen Sebelius Paul Krugman Barney Frank Ezra Klein Rahm Emanuel and Jan Schakowsky

It seems that the Dems are ready to "go it alone" on ObamaCare, according to this piece in the New York Times. Their current position seems to be moving toward blaming Republicans for lack of bipartisanship and refusing to compromise, and moving ahead with their plans for enacting reform on their own. Does that mean reconciliation? That much isn't clear. The Times quotes Rahmbo who says "The Republican leadership has made a strategic decision that defeating President Obama's health care proposal is more important for their political goals than solving the health insurance problems American's face every day."

As the Obama administration presses Israel to cease settlement expansion as part of a renewed push for a Middle East peace deal—a course of action that many Israelis have interpreted as evidence of the president’s favoritism towards Palestinians—Israelis have increasingly focused their disappointment not on Obama, but rather on his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. An observant Jew with deep ties to Israel, Emanuel is viewed as something of a native son, his rise through the ranks of American politics celebrated by Israelis who reveled in details such as his childhood summers spent in Israel and his volunteer stint during...

Here are the news stories and opinion articles Conservatives dugg yesterday: http://diggsandburies.blogspot.com/