Rahm Hit by Leftists

Looks like Salon.com wants to hamstring Rahm's national ambitions a bit:

• The city of Chicago and its public school system could recoup potentially billions of dollars in overpayments from complicated, unjust deals inked with Wall Street banks, if they pursued legal action or demanded enforcement from federal regulators. But Rahm Emanuel, the current mayor, has refused to chase this opportunity, despite the city’s drastic fiscal outlook and the effect on citizens. By contrast, his opponent in the April 7 mayoral run-off election, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, appears far more likely to take action against a powerful financial sector Emanuel has relied on for campaign contributions.
  
  Beginning over a decade ago, Wall Street banks sold municipalities, school districts, water systems and public hospitals across the country on obscure financial instruments, pitching them as a way to borrow more cheaply than plain-vanilla municipal bonds. But just as homeowners were swindled into loans they couldn’t afford during the housing bubble, local governments suffered a similar fate.

Why is this important? Well, look what came out on a Friday afternoon when no one is paying attention:

• Chicago’s deep financial problems worsened Friday as a Wall Street bond-rating agency dramatically downgraded the credit of the city’s school system — triggering penalties that could come to more than $200 million.
  
  Fitch Ratings dropped the Chicago Board of Education’s credit score by three notches. The plunge came two weeks after another agency, Moody’s Investors Service, also reduced its rating on the school district’s debt.
  
  Chicago Public Schools is required to maintain a certain credit rating under the terms of complex debt “swap” deals with financial institutions. Failure to do so could activate termination clauses in the deals and CPS could have to make payments to the financial institutions.
  
  Friday’s report from Fitch means CPS has dropped below the threshold for terminating the deals. According to Fitch, CPS could be forced to pay $263 million in penalties as a result.

Rahm has some new commercial out that says "we can't afford Chuy."

Um, it doesn't look like we can afford Rahm either.