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Illinoisans soon will get a new weapon to fight political corruption. It’s not the machete that’s needed to hack away decades of endemic corruption sown by pay-for-play political contributions that have gone totally unchecked. State lawmakers couldn’t bring themselves to…
Illinois sits atop the nation’s second-largest coal reserves. Whether that fuel represents the nation’s energy future or its past is the subject of an increasingly bitter debate playing out over the nation’s airwaves.
Industry groups have been working hard to sell…
AP Photo by Seth Perlman, February 2003.
I MET ROD BLAGOJEVICH just once. It was March 9, 2007. Twenty-one months later, I don’t know what to think about what I saw and experienced that day.
The Democratic governor of Illinois and several senior…
By R.J. Matson, Post-Dispatch
IT’S TIME WE STOPPED lying to our kids.
We tell them that they are our future. We encourage them to follow their dreams and work hard to achieve anything they want. We hammer into their heads that the key…
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich
Two years ago, as this page was debating the editorial endorsement for governor, and the page was leaning toward Rod Blagojevich, one writer told another writer, “You’re going to endorse someone who will be indicted before his…
Post-Dispatch photo by J.B. Forbes
canard
ca·nard (kə -NÄRD)
n. 1. An unfounded or false, deliberately misleading story.
Here in the editorial/commentary/letters area of the newspaper, our principal mission is to analyze issues and advocate positions that are consistent with the values and principles of…
Anti-poverty programs stir up controversy now and then. Why, then, does no one get stirred up over the pro-poverty policies of states including Missouri and Illinois? These states tax the poor, making their poverty worse.
Of course, poor people have always…
Photo by Emmanuel Dunand AFP/GettyImages
SO NOW, in the waning days of the campaign, here is the alleged storyline: Those polls that show Barack Obama leading in the race against John McCain for president? Even widening his lead? Those polls are warped.…
Illinois voters tired of a state government that argues a lot and does little will have a chance to do something about it on Nov. 4. On the ballot will be a proposal to call a convention to reform the Illinois…
Post-Dispatch photo by Robert Cohen
Nine Days before the Feb. 5 presidential primaries in Missouri and Illinois, this editorial page endorsed Barack Obama and John McCain in their respective races.
We did so enthusiastically. We wrote that either Mr. Obama’s message of…
The number of uninsured Missouri children increased by 44 percent since Gov. Matt Blunt took office in 2005, a fact we noted on this page Sept. 14. In a letter to the editor that we published Wednesday, Mr. Blunt complained…
Earlier this year, the Illinois General Assembly passed a bill that would make it easier for college students to remain covered by their parents’ medical insurance policies if the kids are enrolled part-time or have to drop out because of…
Illinois state government runs on the buy-now/pay-later plan, and it’s been that way for decades. If a new public works program called “Illinois Works” is approved by the General Assembly, the state will buy $34 billion worth of infrastructure projects…
The federal bribery conviction of Antoin “Tony” Rezko on Wednesday left a single question on the minds of Illinois politicians: Who’s next?
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald appears to be climbing the investigative ladder, nailing defendants one by one, then offering lighter…
Metro East businesses and homeowners have been living on borrowed time.
Five levees along the Mississippi River from Alton to Columbia, Ill., are inadequate to protect low-lying communities from what’s called a 100-year flood. They have been deficient for years. But…
Medicaid is like a parachute for thousands of Missouri and Illinois families: Most of the time, they don’t need it. But when the economy slows down, nothing else will take its place.
It plays the same role for economically hard hit…
Here’s an advance look at one of the editorials that will appear in Wednesday’s Post-Dispatch and online at STLtoday.com/news/editorials.
NO GREAT ALTERNATIVES
As they bounce over the potholes and stew in the traffic backups, Illinoisans feel the need for a new state…
