Events

Jennifer Rubin attempts to explain "what stops Republicans from behaving rationally:" First, unlike Senate and House Republicans during Watergate, there are few genuine leaders of principle whose sense of propriety is offended by Trump. The moral and intellectual quality of the current crew of Republicans pales in comparison to the type of Republicans who finally told Richard Nixon the jig was up. Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.), House Minority Leader John Rhodes (R-Ariz.) and Senate Minority Leader Hugh...

Bend over, here it comes again. Welcome to the kakocracy: As Trump went around the large table, one by one, most [cabinet secretaries] praised the president, while others gave brief updates on their departments' work. When it was his turn, Energy Secretary Rick Perry said it was "an honor to be on team," telling Trump that "my hat is off to you" for pulling the United States out of Paris climate agreement. U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley proclaimed "a new day at the U.N.," where she said Trump has provided...

The Kansas legislature overrode governor Sam Brownback's veto of their roll-back of his 2012 tax increase package, because even Republicans in Kansas have a limit to ideological myopia: Lawmakers voted to override Brownback’s veto of a tax plan estimated to bring the state more than $1.2 billion over a two-year span. Lawmakers marshaled together a coalition of moderate Republicans, conservatives and Democrats to overcome the governor’s opposition to seeing his landmark tax cuts, which have in large part...

Chicago temperatures stayed below 32°C for almost nine months: September 7th all the way until last Sunday, June 4th. Then we had absolutely gorgeous weather during the last work week, which all ended on Saturday when the temperature hit 32°C for the first of (so far) three times. Our forecast calls for continued hot and shitty weather through at least Thursday. Hey, it happens every year. And our cool weather was pretty good while it lasted. The bad part is that the temperature killed my Fitbit numbers...

I'll have a write-up of Ribfest 2017 and some photos tomorrow. Meanwhile, enjoy the really hot lazy early-summer weekend.

A few minutes ago, the Central London constituency of Kensington was declared for Labour candidate Emma Dent Coad, who defeated incumbent MP Lady Victoria Borwick by 20 votes. Imagine Bernie Sanders winning Kenilworth, Ill., or Beverly Hills, Calif., and you have a good idea how weird this is. Citylab explains: [T]he richest cluster of neighborhoods in Europe has just for the first time in its history voted in an MP from the center-left Labour Party. It may be understandably hard for an American reader...

Well. What a difference a few weeks can make. Last night, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, who called a snap election in April to shore up her majority in Parliament, discovered that she no longer had a majority in Parliament:   We are heading for a hung parliament. The UK’s first-past-the-post electoral system means hung parliaments rarely happen in Britain, but it was the case following the 1974 election and most recently in 2010. In the case of a hung parliament, the leader of the party with...

Real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield has published a list of the top-25 tech cities in the U.S. It turns out, we're not Silicon Valley: The report’s authors analyzed data from a variety of sources to measure factors such as universities, capital, talent and high-growth companies. The authors evaluated the cities on the potential for tech to affect the commercial real estate business, they wrote in the report. Chicago’s overall rank, No. 16, placed it behind Portland and New York and ahead of Atlanta and...

While we wait for former FBI Director James Comey to finish testifying before the Senate today, take a look at this really cool thing: They say all roads lead to Rome, but they also lead outward to a number of intriguing places. There’s Antinoopolis in northern Africa, Londinium in what we now know as the U.K., and—should funding from the mighty Emperor Hadrian arrive—the yet-built Panticapaeum station along the Pontus Euxinus, or Black Sea. Or so says this wonderfully thought-out fantasy transit map...

The Chicago Tribune today published the first in a three-part series showing how Illinois property tax assessments contribute to rising inequality while failing to fund schools: The valuations are a crucial factor when it comes to determining property tax bills, a burden that for many determines whether they can afford to stay in their homes. Done well, these estimates should be fair, transparent and stand up to scrutiny. But that’s not how it works in Cook County, where Assessor Joseph Berrios has...