One of the bloodiest battles was fought in Cleveland, in the Slavic Village neighborhood. Today the streets of Slavic Village show the scars of the battle — destroyed homes, destroyed lives and vacant lots. From 2003 to 2007 houses were bought and sold at an alarming rate in this working class neighborhood. House were bought cheap and almost immediately sold at multiples of their true worth — this is commonly called flipping. Most new owners ended up with with sub-prime mortgages that put them on the fast track to foreclosure. A local real estate gang had emerged, and was partnering with mortgage bankers in California. They had the home sales process covered — seller, broker, appraiser, banker, buyer — all lined up to feed Wall Street a never ending supply of sub-prime mortgages.

“A wolf loves pork.”

“There are thousands of these agencies across the state and only three of us here at Progress Illinois. So if you see a report in your local paper detailing specific layoffs or service cuts, please send it to us at the following email address: contact@progressillinois.com. And if you work at an organization that is taking such action — or know of one secondhand — let us know.

“With your help, we can gradually paint a more complete picture of the damage caused by the political gridlock in Springfield.”

“Under our Constitution, what happened in Honduras this past Sunday? Soldiers arrested and sent out of the country a Honduran citizen who, the day before, through his own actions had stripped himself of the presidency.”

“Here’s how it works. The system would use license plate numbers to verify driver insurance. Ohio and Illinois are considering using the system. Officials in Chicago say the program could generate $200 million in additional revenue for the windy city.”

‘Gutiérrez declined to be interviewed by Chicago Public Radio’s Chip Mitchell, but said in a written statement, “I want to avoid even the appearance that there is a conflict, so I will not be accepting any contributions from the payday loan industry.”’

“Welcome to Sequential Chicago…your place for everything you wanted to know about the Chicagoland comic scene! Check out our extensive Links section for creators, shops, podcasts, web comics and more. Give our Events Calendar a look to find out what’s going on around town. We’ll keep you up to date with the latest Chicago-centric comic news.”

‘“Give us the data” is an easy slogan to chant. And there’s no doubt that much good will come from poking through what we are given. But we also need to have ideas about what we want the data for, and communicate those ideas to the providers who are gathering it on our behalf.’

“Who knows? Maybe a business aced out of a city contract by a clout-heavy rival will anonymously drop a dime at the site. Maybe a city employee, frustrated by waste in her department, will point out a few interesting secret facts about a contract — again anonymously.”

“Lest you think this move to open source is inspired by a cloud of cannabis smoke, the report also mentions significant improvements in interoperability (31 percent), cost reduction (8 percent), and quality improvements in the municipal governments (22 percent).”

“I found the whole process of watching the sausage getting made alarming — but also utterly fascinating. Without poker — and without that bill — there probably wouldn’t have been any FiveThirtyEight.”

“I once saw Redd Kross meet ‘Freebird!’ with a long rendition,” said McNew of Yo La Tengo. “That’s the best response of all. I mean, they made that audience pay.”

“IllinoisTrack.us helps you keep tabs on the Illinois General Assembly (ILGA). This site is not affiliated with the State of Illinois or any other entity; it is non-commercial and non-partisan.”