Reentry problems. “The most established job-placement agency for ex-offenders in the state, the Safer Foundation, places only about one-third of the more than 4,500 ex-offenders it serves each year, said Kathy Woods, the organization’s associate vice president for workforce strategies,” writes Sarah Karp in the Chicago Reporter (November). “Of those who get jobs, a third of them get fired or quit within 30 days.”
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History lesson. Statehouse columnist Rich Miller (Illinois Times, December 25-31) sees the allegations against former governor George Ryan as “small-time stuff” compared to his 1920s predecessor Len Small. “Small was a close political ally of Chicago Mayor ‘Big’ Bill Thompson, who was the Mafia’s chief enabler in this state. Small was also closely affiliated with Johnny Torrio, the guy who united the city’s innumerable rackets and gangsters under one umbrella during the beginning of Prohibition….In 1922, a group of Torrio’s bootleggers were on their way to Chicago when they shot and killed a motorcycle cop who was in full pursuit. Small pardoned the whole bunch….Compared to Len Small, George Ryan was a saint.”
More evidence that Republicans aren’t conservative. In an op-ed published in the Washington Times on November 7, Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute described 2003 as “one of the worst years for fiscal conservatives,” because the federal budget grew “by more than $150 billion–more than twice as much as any year that Bill Clinton was in the White House.”
