Policy

Shakman wants the court to remove most of the questionable IDOT hires from their jobs, and appoint a “monitor” to keep an eye on potential patronage abuse in the future.

Boburg shares the back story in an email: “Although I had an inkling from the start that this was more than a ‘traffic study,’ it was tough getting any information at all during the two months before Christie’s election in November.

The Illinois legislature’s “diet doctor” is asking his fattest patients to swallow a bitter streamlining pill and, as you might expect, the Rx is meeting a lot of resistance.

In Chicago, the term “police brutality” is inextricably linked to former Cmdr. Jon Burge’s sadistic South Side homicide squad, which imposed extreme measures, including torture, to extract false confessions from dozens of suspects.

In the end, a balanced, transparent process serves everyone fairly — the cops, the incarcerated, and the families of the victims — and that should be the goal of this commission.

We’ve heard even louder calls for term limits from a restive electorate, and seen new polls reaffirming its appeal.

Thankfully, we have a lot of allies in our fight against this “obesity epidemic” — lawmakers, civic groups and a few government entities themselves that are downsizing their delivery of public services.

Last week’s column on civic “disengagement” — my term for the millions of Illinois residents who aren’t registered to vote in Tuesday’s primary, or won’t bother to cast a ballot even if they are eligible —prompted interesting emails from readers who are definitely engaged.

America’s first National Voter Registration Day came and went last September with the visibility and impact of a gnat on an elephant’s back.