* Miller: ‘Cut and run’ remark undercuts Roskam, despite being misquoted
* “The national spotlight on the campaign for retiring U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde’s 6th District congressional seat heated up Thursday as Democrats picked Tammy Duckworth to respond to President Bush’s weekly radio address and as former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole spoke out to clarify a Duckworth mailer.”
* SJ-R: The Illinois State Police are looking at moving their operations out of the crumbling State Armory in Springfield even as an $800,000 repair project is undertaken on the building.
* Tribune: “Cook County Board President Bobbie Steele said Thursday the county’s budget deficit going into 2007 exceeds $400 million, and she asked all department heads and elected officials to cut their spending by 10 percent.”
* Trib Editorial: [Steele] didn’t mention privatizing county services. Or layoffs. Or closing redundant institutions. She didn’t mention the need for a strong inspector general to slash the surtax that corruption extracts from taxpayers. She didn’t mention the need to consolidate county fiefdoms by the dozens. She didn’t mention the need to overhaul an antiquated system of salary increases that allows many employees’ compensation to grow by leaps and bounds.
* Daily Herald: Some call forecast for deficit a scare tactic
* I run this ward, alderman’s friend allegedly said - Claimed she had ‘total control over the 16th Ward’
* AP: Republican candidate for governor Judy Baar Topinka said Thursday she’s confident lawmakers would approve the Chicago casino that’s a key component of her proposed budget plan. Topinka, who first proposed her plan last month, said she has talked to lawmakers who were interested in the idea before and “will be interested again.”
* Post-Dispatch: In the governor’s race, neither incumbent Rod Blagojevich nor challenger Judy Baar Topinka has an official profile on MySpace.com. Blagojevich has a bare-bones profile on Facebook.com; Topinka, the state treasurer, has nothing. While Rep. John Shimkus, R-Collinsville, has profiles on Facebook and MySpace, Rep. Jerry Costello, D-Belleville, has very little on Facebook and nothing on MySpace.
* Tribune: The first name of Cook County Circuit Judge Victoria A. Stewart has been misspelled on 1.5 million ballots. Reprinting them would cost $450,000.
* State fund could help pay funeral costs for slain woman, three children
* Tribune: Chicago merchants would be barred from selling air guns that resemble real weapons and possession of the imitations would be banned under a measure advanced Thursday by the City Council’s Police and Fire Committee.
* Daley , in DC, pushes Chicago as Olympic site
* Guv candidates respond to Associated Press questionnaire
* We had this days ago here on the blog. The AP finally catches up: year after state agencies were caught throwing sensitive documents into the trash, two Illinois agencies admit they recently mishandled personal information about their employees. The Corrections Department said its information breach involved “virtually all” of its 13,500 employees but would provide no details.
* Huntley: Are you willing to pay politicians to campaign?