Mayor Emmanuel is putting a third of the cost of DePaul University’s new $300 million basketball temple on Chicago’s tab.

Mind you this is for a men’s basketball team that has gone 47-111 in the past five seasons. Chicagoans are going to be on the hook for a Blue Demon recruiting class that has only one ESPN 100 Four-Star recruit.

Shallow recruiting class or not, the former HGH-popper is billing Chicago for a new arena that is 50 blocks away from DePaul’s campus. Sun-Times sports columnist Rick Telander pointed out that the Chicago Bull’s arena, the United Center, is, in fact, closer to DePaul’s campus than the projected taxpayer funded building. On top of that, the United Center has offered its services to the university for ten years for free 99.

But why make sense when you can make cents?

This is Sweet Home Chicago, whose most famous adopted son nominated one of his old bundler pals for Commerce secretary and whose mayor rewarded campaign volunteers with plush positions on his security detail. What’s most poetic: Chicago’s Board of Education is also made up of Ram appointees.

Telander interviewed a Chicago-based sports stadium pointy head to make sense of the deal. How does a team that draws 10,000 spectators a game warrant 10,000 times that amount in public funds to pay for a stadium that’s absolutely unnecessary and completely unearned?

‘I’m grasping at straws to think what could be the reason [for the plan],’’ Ganis says.

His best guess?

‘‘This is Chicago.’’

Agreed.

Agreed.

Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed gave a thumbs-down to the mayor’s economic development efforts, compared to 28 percent who said they were satisfied. […]

Those who most significantly disapprove of Emanuel’s work to enhance economic growth are African-American, lower-income and younger voters. Fully 73 percent of black voters, 70 percent of voters earning under $50,000, and 69 percent of those from age 18 to 35 think Emanuel has not done enough.

According to the poll, disapproval of Emanuel stems from the city’s unemployment numbers. When Emanuel took office in May 2011, the unemployment rate in Chicago was 11.4 percent. As of March 2013, the unemployment rate has only decreased by less than one percentage point.

The poll of 800 Chicago voters was conducted from April 30 to May 6.

But even, among voters who said they approve of Emanuel’s overall job performance as mayor, 52 percent said he has not done enough to improve the city’s economic climate.

Emanuel defended his progress on Thursday:

“I don’t create jobs. I create the environment, the atmosphere and the platform for success in the private sector.”

Australia’s Macquarie Group Ltd. is among firms that have expressed interest in bidding on a long-term lease to operate Chicago’s Midway Airport, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

Chicago city officials said parties who lodged expressions of interest by the Feb. 22 deadline include Global Infrastructure Partners LLC, which owns the U.K.’s Gatwick airport. A consortium including Grupo Ferrovial SA, which owns London’s Heathrow Airport and Macquarie Group Ltd. is part of another consortium, they said.

The Wall Street Journal reported in a previous article that Emanuel said he is “test[ing] market interest” for a lease, but may not agree to a deal.

Emanuel initially opposed efforts to privatize Midway Airport when he took office in 2011. He soon reconsidered because of the success of a similar deal in Puerto Rico’s Luis Munoz Marin International Airport. 

Regardless, Mr. Emanuel has said any Midway lease approved under his watch must be significantly shorter and include a continuing revenue stream for the city, in addition to upfront money.

Thus far, international organizations appear to have taken the most interest in acquiring the lease.

The Chicago mayor and former White House chief of staff, reprimanded former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for his alleged involvement in the outsourcing of jobs.

At the 2011 Iowa Jefferson Jackson Dinner, he criticized the Republican nominee and said, “America cannot afford an economy built on outsourcing and risky financial deals.”

Midway Airport was ranked in 2010 among the top 35 U.S airports for their annual aircraft operations and number of passengers.

The boards of Chicago’s municipal employees’ and teachers’ retirement funds voted to withdraw hundreds of thousands of dollars in gun company holdings. Chicago has some of the most stringent gun control laws in the country, as well as the highest murder rate in the nation. It also has some of the most severely underfunded pension systems.

Andrew Biggs, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and former Social Security administrator, said that the board might have broken the law by withdrawing support from profitable, yet politically unpopular companies.

“I’m not convinced of the appropriateness nor the legality of these actions,” he said. “Their commitment to the people in the plan is to maximize the value of investments to make sure benefits are paid for, so employees don’t end up having to pay the difference through contributions.”

Gun stocks have skyrocketed in the past decade due to increased demand.

Smith & Wesson’s stock has quadrupled in price since 2003, including 65 percent growth in the last 12 months. Sturm & Ruger grew by nearly 30 percent in 2012, quintupling in price over the last 10 years. The Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund (MEABF) and the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund (CTPF) voted in January to drop more than $1 million in those companies, as well as smaller gun manufacturers.

Jonathan Ingram of the Illinois Policy Institute accused the board of scoring cheap political points at the expense of worker welfare at a time when the city is more than $25 billion short of meeting its obligations to public employees.

“This is symptomatic of the entire Illinois pension crisis,” he said. “The retirement savings of government workers is controlled by politicians and politicians do what makes political sense, rather than fiscal sense.”

Illinois state law requires that pension fund managers make investment decisions based on the interests of members. The teachers fund’s investment guidelines say the board must makes decisions “solely in the interest of the members and benefit recipients and for the exclusive purpose of providing benefits and defraying reasonable expenses incurred in performing such duties, as required by law.”

Jay C. Rehak, president of the CTPF board of trustees, said that while investment growth is important, the divestment reflected the ethical standards of the workers.

“We are fiduciaries guided by the recognition that we act with the obligation to protect fund assets and minimize investment losses,” he said in a statement. “We are also teachers, in classrooms and schools every day, and many of us unfortunately understand all too well the tragedy of gun violence. In the last academic year, 319 Chicago Public School students were wounded by guns, and 24 died from gun violence. These aren’t just tragic statistics—these are our students.”

Biggs blasted Rehak for not including workers input on the decision.

“They may dress this up as an investment decision, but it’s a political decision made in violation of their legal and moral obligations to their beneficiaries,” Biggs said. “It’d be one thing if participants voted to divest; instead pension mangers voted to make themselves feel good at the expense and the financial well being of workers.”

Neither Rehak, nor representatives from the MEABF returned requests for comment.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is calling on the city’s financial community to take further steps to hurt gun companies. Emanuel, President Barack Obama’s onetime chief of staff, urged banks to halt lending to gun companies and later pressured mutual funds to “blacklist” manufacturers from their portfolios.

One financial professional, who requested anonymity because of his company’s involvement in the bond market, said Emanuel is threatening more than just gun companies.

“It sounds like a veiled threat that if you want to do business with or in Chicago, you better not have any gun holdings,” the source said.

Emanuel’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Ingram, who supports converting the traditional pension systems into 401(k)-style retirement accounts, said the state and city must reform the system to empower its workers.

“We need to give workers control over where they invest,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense for the government to make these decisions or to pressure money managers on how to invest.”

Cruz pilloried Emanuel’s gun-control efforts and invited executives to consider the warmer, friendlier climes of the Lone Star State in a Tuesday letter to the CEOs of Bank of America, TD Bank, Sturm & Ruger, and Smith & Wesson.

Emanuel pressured banks to stop extending lines of credit to firearms manufactures in a letter sent Friday.

Cruz responded that such actions “call into doubt the claims of President Barack Obama and Washington Democrats that they do not seek to strip Americans of our Second Amendment rights.”

You may be understandably concerned that there are risks to refusing to comply with the demands of a politician who has earned the nickname, “The Godfather.”

In Texas, we have a more modest view of government.

We do not accept the notion that government officials should behave as bullies, trying to harass or pressure private companies into enlisting in a political lobbying campaign. And we subscribe to the notion, quaint in some quarters, that private companies don’t work for elected officials; elected officials work for private citizens.

In light of the reception you have received in the Windy City, please know that Texas would certainly welcome more of your business and the jobs you create. Texas value jobs and value freedom, and over 1000 people a day are moving to Texas (often from cities like Chicago), because Texas is where the jobs are.

Cruz also thanked the firearms manufacturers for their commitment to the Second Amendment and wrote that he would be “happy to personally introduce” firearm manufacturer executives to leaders of Texas financial institutions, should they wish to relocate.

Cruz also noted that Chicago was recently forced to pay more than $1.1. million in legal fees “due to your unsuccessful assault on the Second Amendment.”

“Your continued anti-gun crusade may well cause some to wonder if the interests of the citizens of Chicago are being sacrificed in pursuit of a partisan agenda,” Cruz wrote.

“Regardless, directing your attack at legitimate firearms manufacturers undermines the Second Amendment rights of millions of Texans,” Cruz concluded. “In the future, I would ask that you might keep your efforts to diminish the Bill of Rights north of the Red River.”

NORAH O’DONNELL: I want you to explain that. Were you worried about the political backlash of taking on and pushing for the assault weapons ban? Why didn’t Obama do that?

RAHM: EMANUEL: No, because — first of all, the President’s record is very, very clear on this. It’s clear when he was a state senator, it was clear when he was also a U.S. senator. It was clear also as President, and he was dealing as you well know with a myriad of issues, and he was pushing very hard and making sure also that we had the funding to do everything we needed to do justice department.

Reports surfaced Wednesday that Paul Fosco, a vice president of United Service Companies, served time in 1987 after he was charged in the same corruption case as late mobster Anthony “Big Tuna” Accardo, who was acquitted. A day earlier the Chicago Sun-Times reported the owner of United Service, Richard Simon, had partnered in the past with alleged mob figure William Daddano Jr.

Emanuel skirted questions about both connections, twice pointing to the city’s “competitive process” that he said resulted in work for the Service Employees International Union and the hiring of about 100 former employees.

Local media has pressed Emanuel on United Service and Fosco’s connection to Chicago’s mob scene and each time, Emanuel has skirted by addressing the connection directly, repeatedly citing the competitive process the city uses when awarding city contracts.

Emanuel has been under fire since the airport contract with United Service was finalized in late October. The SEIU has lambasted Emanuel for favoring United Service and how the company does not  pay workers a living wage.

This is Emanuel’s second tumble with unions with year.  The Chicago Teacher’s Union went through a public and contentious negotiating process with Emanuel over teacher evaluations.

View Emanuel’s tap dancing around the questions below:

While the “mood on some picket lines Monday … was not as strident as days past” and parents are growing “increasingly frustrated,” socialist factions of the union blasted union president Karen Lewis for failing to disclose the full deal to members. A socialist leaflet distributed on Sunday accusing her of issuing a “package” summary of the deal to sell it to ignorant members.

The socialist statement accused the union leadership of conceding too much to the school system, allowing, for example, evaluations that “victimize teachers.”

Other union members faced a negotiating reality that does not match the massive expectations that the union initially set. Teachers entered negotiations last fall seeking a 30 percent raise over two years, but they are now facing an offer of a three percent raise for next year and two percent each year after that.

As negotiations continued over the past year, the union, joining with the Occupy movement, embraced more aggressive tactics, staging “protests, rallies and school sit-ins to call attention to inequities in the public school system,” the Tribune reported.

The judge, Peter Flynn, raised the possibility of setting a hearing for Wednesday, but he also questioned whether the issues would be moot by then.

As the Chicago Teacher Union’s strike enters its second week, Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel has launched a lawsuit to end the strike and return students to the classroom.

The strike has kept more than 350,000 students out of school.

Absent the court’s intervention, there is little hope that the strike will end soon: Union president Karen Lewis “acknowledged returning to classes Wednesday may be optimistic, considering how difficult it has been for the union and CPS to find agreement on many key issues,” reported the Chicago Tribune.

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) lawyers argue in a complaint that the strike is illegal, as state law forbids strikes over non-economic matters.

The complaint also argues that the strike is hurting children. The strike is “a clear and present danger to public health and safety. It prohibits students from receiving critical educational and social services, including meals for students who otherwise may not receive proper nutrition, a safe environment during school hours and critical services for students who have special needs.”

Negotiators announced an agreed-upon “framework” on Friday, raising hope of a strike-ending deal.

Those hopes proved false, as teachers have demanded more time to review a proposed deal.

A union official assured the Tribune that the needs of students were on teachers’ minds: “We thought about our children. We thought about our colleagues. We thought about all of that.”

Obama’s former chief of staff, Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, has incurred the labor union’s ire because of his support for lengthening the school day and for teacher evaluations.

Emanuel is not Obama’s only link to Chicago’s ongoing crisis, which has left more than 300,000 students without a classroom. Obama’s Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, was the chief executive officer for Chicago Public Schools and “has used federal funds to advocate tying teachers’ evaluations to student performance,” according to Bloomberg. The teachers’ union adamantly opposes these evaluations.

That puts Obama in a tough spot. Obama and the Democratic Party rely on labor unions for both votes and campaign efforts. The two major national teacher unions were quick to endorse Obama in 2012, noted Daniela Fairchild of the Fordham Institute, and he relied on teachers for door-to-door campaigning back in 2008.

Obama in return pledged support to labor unions: In 2007 he promised to “put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself” and “walk on that picket line with you as President” if workers were denied collective bargaining rights.

Obama has neither donned sneakers nor offered comment on his hometown’s crisis, however. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said on Monday, “His principle concern is for the students and families who are affected by the situation and we hope that both sides are able to come together to settle this quickly and in the best interest of Chicago’s students.”

President Obama “has not expressed any opinion or made any assessment about this particular incident,” Carney said.

Daniel DiSalvo, a political science professor at City College of New York, noted that the strike reveals a tension within the Democratic Party.

Vice President Joe Biden pledged White House support to the National Education Association just last year, saying the members “should have no doubt about my affection for you and the president’s commitment to you.”

Yet the reforms that Obama has pushed in his Race to the Top program have helped bring about the clashes with teachers unions, especially over support for teacher evaluations, DiSalvo said.

With budget crises across the country stressing state and local funds, public sector unions have been at the center of a fierce debate over pay and benefits. New Jersey governor Chris Christie has risen to national prominence by taking on his state’s powerful labor unions, going so far as to call New Jersey teacher union leaders “political thugs.” Wisconsin labor unions waged an epic battle against the state government, led by Scott Walker, over the right to bargain collectively—and ultimately lost.

The Chicago teachers strike, the first in a generation, comes as a major blow to the spirit of cooperation that emerged last year after teacher unions helped create an education reform act in the Illinois legislature.

DiSalvo expressed surprise that Emanuel did not push the unions harder. Chicago teachers are among the highest paid in the nation, he noted. Adjusting for cost of living, the Chicago teachers make the equivalent of about $95,000 in New York City.

Illinois is one of only a few states that permits public union strikes, DiSalvo said, which allows the conflict over what he described as a “fight over job security” to escalate.

The Chicago Teachers Union and Mayor Emanuel have what some describe as a “toxic relationship,” fanning the flames of conflict.

Even the liberal New York Times editorial board declared that the Chicago teacher strike “particularly senseless.”