Women from eleven religious orders are working with hotels in the Indianapolis area to curb sexual trafficking associated with the Super Bowl this weekend.

Incidents of sexual trafficking tend to spike around major sporting events, said Grace Skalski of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph in LaGrange, which participated in the Super Bowl 2012 Anti-Trafficking Initiative.

The nuns called over 200 hotels asking if employees had been trained to recognize, document and report incidents of human trafficking.  They ended up providing training to employees of several hotels and supplying nearly a hundred hotels with brochures, information about the hospitality industry’s code of conduct on child sexual exploitation, and contact information for victim hotlines and safe houses.

Religious orders in the Coalition for Corporate Responsibility for Indiana and Michigan buy stock in hotel chains in order to establish dialogues on the issue of human trafficking in the hospitality industry.

“These are activities that happen in the dark,” said Sister Ann Oestreich, co-chair of CCRIM. “What we are attempting to do is to shine a light on sex trafficking and reduce opportunities for it to happen.”

“Human trafficking is a tragic violation of human rights that devastates its victims, strips away their dignity and security, and tears at the fabric of our global society,” said Sister Pat Bergen of LaGrange Park.  “It is a form of imprisonment and oppression which demands a compassionate response to the cries of victims who long for a future with hope.”

With Mayor Emanuel aligning himself with an extremist group focused on attacking teachers, a group of Chicago parents has decided it’s time to speak up in their defense.

“We’re upset with all the teacher-bashing that’s so fashionable today,” said Erica Clark of Parents For Teachers.  “It’s a complete distraction from the real issues facing our schools.”

The group, which started recently with a Facebook page, held its first action Tuesday, the first of several “phone –in days,” with members of parent and community groups calling CPS chief Jean-Claude Brizard asking him to withdraw current plans to close and “turnaround” 16 schools. The group argues that a 15-year record shows that these policies don’t work.

“Whenever anyone talks about ‘school reform’ these days, the first thing you hear is some attack on teachers,” Clark said.

She points out that SB 7, which reduced teachers’ collective bargaining rights, “was heralded as the most important ‘school reform’ bill of the year – but it had nothing at all about what really matters: class size, equitable funding, less emphasis on standardized testing, a richer, more interesting curriculum.  It was all about attacking teachers.”

“If you listen to the rhetoric of so-called school reform, you would think there are no good teachers in the system,” she said.  “But if you talk to parents – if you look at the data CPS collects in the surveys where parents rate schools and teachers – there’s a lot of support for teachers.

“Parents deal with their kids’ teachers on a regular basis, they see how hard they work, they see that they are working in the trenches every day for their kids.”

Breitbart connection

Emanuel appeared in a video produced by the Education Action Group, based in Muskegon, Wisconsin.  EAG’s leader, Kyle Olson, blogs on the Big Government website of journalist-provocateur Andrew Breitbart, whose exploits include doctoring video to make U.S. Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod look like she was fomenting racial division.

Two years ago Olson was forced to apologize after he was exposed for videotaping an interview with Frances Fox Piven, the activist academic who was a frequent target of Glen Beck, under false pretenses.

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TIF subsidies returned by three corporations should be declared surplus and used to restore cuts in public services; and Mayor Emanuel should hold off on new TIF spending until he can implement his TIF reform panel’s recommendations, groups working on the issue said Tuesday.

News broke Monday that CME, CNA and Bank of America were returning a combined $33 million, CME saying it didn’t need the money now that the state has cut its taxes, CNA and Bank of America admitting they hadn’t met job creation goals.

CME had been the target of a series of protests by Grassroots Collaborative, which on different occasions set up a classroom outside the corporate headquarters to dramatize lost school funding, declared the site a “corporate crime scene,” and held a bake sale for the corporation.  Last week Stand Up Chicago delivered a golden toilet to CME, which was to get $15 million for a luxury bathroom, cafe, and fitness center.

Restore public services

“With communities reeling from proposed school closings, cuts to libraries, and the shutdown of six mental health clinics, the $33 million dollars should be immediately returned to critical public services that working families of Chicago depend on, and not redirected back to downtown TIF slush funds,” said Amisha Patel.

She said the news reflects the impact of groups working to highlight the issue of corporate subsidies and tax breaks.

Also Monday, Emanuel announced he would create an online TIF database and order random independent audits of TIFs.  It was his first action on the recomendations of his TIF reform panel since its report last August.

Illinois PIRG released a report calling on Emanuel to fully implement the panel’s recommendations as a first step toward TIF reform, and to declare a moratorium on new TIF spending until the reforms are in place.

“If the Mayor and the City Council admit that TIF is broken, why would they continue to use the program before it gets fixed?” said Celeste Meiffren, author of the report.

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Judging from the Tribune’s attack on its co-chair, the Chicago Educational Facilities Task Force must really be raising some hackles among the editorial board’s friends at the Board of Education, in the mayor’s office, and among the coterie of rich folks who are pushing what’s come to be called “school reform.”

Though the task force passed a resolution calling for a moratorium on school closings and other actions, the Trib focuses on Rep. Cynthia Soto.  In their zeal to lash out, the editorialists get a lot wrong.

First of all, of course, it was the task force that issued the call for a moratorium, after a public hearing where – as happens every year – parents and teachers complained about a CPS decision-making process that ignores their input.

Second, the Trib declares that legislators shouldn’t meddle in school closing decisions.  But the task force is mandated by the legislature to monitor compliance with the new school facilities planning requirements, which the legislature passed in 2009.

It includes legislators along with representatives of CPS, teachers, principals, and community groups, and it represents a first step at giving the public a real voice in the process.

Prior to the task force, there was virtually no accountability for CPS decisions — not since mayoral control was established in 1995.  Clearly, some people want to keep it that way.

‘Not in compliance’

“CPS’s historic and continuing lack of transparency and evidence-based criteria for decisions resulted in the pervasive climate of public suspicion about what drives CPS to take school actions and allocate resources, often in ways perceived to be highly inequitable,” as the task force noted in a recent resolution.

The Tribune argues that school closing decisions should be made locally.  Sure they should.  But does that mean they should be made by downtown administrators with no input from the schools and their communities?  The Trib thinks so.  The task force says no.

The Tribune’s argument hinges on ignoring the real reason for the moratorium call.  The editorial cites a quote from Soto about the new administration needing time to get to know communities better.  It ignores the task force resolution, passed this month with only the dissent of the CPS representative, that the school district is “not in compliance” with the requirements of transparency and open process mandated by the law.

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President Obama’s State of the Union announcement of a new investigation into bank fraud represents a victory for community groups, said National Peoples Action on Wednesday.

“We’ve been calling for a full investigation for over a year,” said Liz Ryan Murphy of NPA.  “This is a big win, but we still need to see results.

“We need a complete investigation to get to the bottom  of what they’ve done, with penalties and restitution that are commensurate with the crimes.”

The Woodstock Institute also hailed the announcement.  “Making it clear that criminal activity in the financial sector will not be tolerated is necessary to restore confidence in the mortgage market and the broader financial system,” said Tom Feltner.

Obama announced that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman will head a new task force looking into abuses in the mortgage origination and securitization sector.

Schneiderman’s appointment came as NPA and other groups (including IIRON in Chicago) expressed concern that the administration was pressing for a settlement in the robo-signing scandal that would release banks from legal claims covering a sweeping range of misconduct.  Schneiderman was among state attorney generals said to be raising similar concerns

Principal reduction

If it is narrowly focused on relieving claims arising from fraudulent foreclosure filings, a settlement could begin to bring relief to hard-hit communities in the form of loan modifications which reduce principal to reflect depressed home values, Feltner said.

Principal reduction is “a critical missing piece in the response to the foreclosure crisis,” he said.

NPA has argued that homeowners have lost billions of dollars of equity since the housing market collapsed due to the malfeasance of big banks, and that wholesale principal reduction would constitute a massive economic stimulus.

Both groups have called on the Federal Home Finance Authority to direct Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which own 70 percent of home mortgages, to allow principal reduction.

Murray said Obama should replace Edward DeMarco, acting director of the FHFA, who has ruled out principal reduction.

The president “should consider a change in leadership” at FHFA, Feltner said.

Community groups confronted HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan on Monday over a foreclosure fraud settlement the groups say is entirely inadequate.

Protestors sang, prayed, and testified outside a room in the O’Hare Hilton where Donovan and Justice Department officials were meeting with staff from state attorney generals to urge them to sign on to a settlement in a case arising out of the “robo-signing” scandal of October 2010 (see 10-21-10 Newstip).

The groups object to the deal with the five largest mortgage services – including Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase — as a “slap on the wrist” that would shield them from legal liability for a wide range of foreclosure misconduct.

(Van Jones of Rebuild The Dream and George Goehle of National Peoples Action spell out some concerns at Huffington Post.)

“President Obama and Attorney General Madigan must choose,” says Rev. Marilyn Pagan-Banks of Northside POWER. “Will they settle for a deal that benefits the 1 percent and lets the big banks off the hook? Or will they stand with the 99 percent and fight for accountability and a solution that will help millions of people?”

The O’Hare meeting may have been called to create an aura of inevitability around the settlement, Firedoglake reports, but none of the state attorney generals who have criticized its provisions were expected to attend.

Dissension in the ranks

Attorney generals of New York, California and other states have opposed provisions of the settlement that would give banks blanket immunity for misconduct and shut down ongoing investigations in New York and elsewhere.

Last week attorney generals from a dozen states (not including Illinois) met in Washington DC to discuss coordinating investigations — and their displeasure with settlement talks, according to Huffington.

Madigan is on the committee that is negotiating the settlement. After 50 state attorney generals began an investigation in 2010, the Obama administration began pressing for a settlement. (At Politico, Simon Johnson calls the case the administration’s “last chance” to stand up to banks.)

Several weeks ago members of the regional organizing network IIRON met with Madigan staff to express their displeasure with the deal. “They seemed surprised that we didn’t think the settlement is a great thing,” said Kristi Sanford.

When they learned of the meeting Monday, they organized a rally at the State of Illinois building – and upon learning the meeting’s location, a contingent set out for O’Hare.

There a couple dozen members of community groups from across the city asked a Madigan staffer if the attorney general could spare a few minutes to talk with them. The aide never returned – but police came to ask the protestors to leave, Sanford said.

The groups want banks to agree to write down underwater mortgages, and they say there must be a full-fledged investigation of bank misconduct. Criminal behavior by banks in the scandal is alleged to include perjury, filing false documents, illegal foreclosures, and investor fraud.

Mayor Emanuel wants to declare “victory” in his decision to partially rescind library layoffs and reductions in hours. Maybe he’s channelling George Aiken.

Don’t tell the Sun-Times, but it looks a lot more like a (partial) victory for the library workers and their union, AFSCME, which has pushed the city to find funds to keep the libraries open and the library workers at their jobs.

Library workers haven’t given up pushing for full restoration, either – which is why they’re going ahead with plans to join with library patrons for “People’s Library Hours” Monday morning at 10 a.m. in front of shuttered libraries in Beverly (1962 W. 95th), Bucktown (1701 N. Milwaukee), and Little Village (2311 S. Kedzie).

Emanuel now says of the cuts, “I didn’t support this and I don’t want this,” and “I don’t think it’s the right thing to do.”

It’s a comical performance. Emanuel originally proposed the cuts. Now he says they were wrong.

In October Emanuel proposed cutting library spending by $10 million, laying off a third of the library system’s employees, and closing libraries two mornings a week.

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Betty Smith was a respiratory therapist who was tired of seeing AIDS patients treated as pariahs when she founded the South Side Help Center in 1987.

She started by reaching out to African American ministers. When many were “hesitant,” she started going to their wives.

Today the South Side Health Center offers HIV testing, education and outreach programs along with myriad community services like youth mentoring and substance abuse counseling. The group is also dedicated to fostering other, younger community groups.

The group is turning 25 this year, and it’s featured in Windy City Times’ AIDS At 30 series, part of the Chicago Community Trust’s Local Reporting Initiative and the subject of one of several new posts at the Community News Project blog.

There’s the story of “Nina,” the first woman in the WINGS program of Cook County’s new prostitution court, profiled by Sarah Ostman at Gapers Block. And there are lots of stories of residents of Southwest Side communities collected by the Southwest Neighborhood Youth Writers Project. Check it out.