Anyone Want This Job?

This might explain part of the reason we have so many crooked, incompetent and unqualified judges on the bench here:

• On paper, Cook County circuit judge is a great job. They make $258,000 a year, hold extraordinary power, and almost never get fired or even disciplined.

  But fewer and fewer attorneys are seeking the post.

  For the second straight judicial primary election, less than half of the seats up for grabs March 17 drew more than one candidate, continuing a decadeslong slide in competition. Observers have cited factors including the cost of campaigning, increased public scrutiny on judicial elections, and a Democratic Party that dominates local politics and discourages competition against its chosen candidates.

So few people want a job that pays over a quarter-million a year?

That's how you end up with candidates like this:

• All four vacancies in the 13th subcircuit — which covers the far Northwest suburbs — are uncontested. The candidate for one of those seats is Brittany Michelle Pedersen, who has been charged with driving under the influence three times, though one case was dismissed and two were reduced to reckless driving. Pedersen ran unsuccessfully for judge in Kane County in 2020 and 2022, receiving negative ratings from the Illinois State Bar Association, before moving in with her mother in Cook County and running again.

  She told Injustice Watch, “I believe that people deserve second chances, and third chances, and maybe sometimes a fourth.”

If that's what she thinks for after racking up three DUI arrests for herself, imagine what she'd be releasing back onto the streets.

Or like the incompetent Tyria Walton leveling accusations that she was threatened by CPD Officers, but never filed a complaint, nor registered the threat with Cook County Sheriffs Protective Detail and somehow coerced the FOP president to remain silent after this egregious slander. 

Vote "NO" on all judges all the time. 

A Republican Created?

One wonder if this might convert her thinking? 

• A 7-time convicted felon violently attacked a television news reporter as she sat in her SUV in the Loop and continued the assault until passers-by teamed up to pull him off the victim, prosecutors said.

  At about 12:46 p.m. on January 2, the veteran reporter was sitting in her luxury SUV in the 200 block of North State Street, just south of Wacker Drive, when Noah Johnson, 43, allegedly walked up and opened her driver’s door.

  Johnson, without saying a word, proceeded to punch the reporter in the face as the victim honked her horn, hoping to get someone’s attention, according to a Chicago police report. Prosecutors allege Johnson tried to pull the reporter out of her car and that the attack was so violent it dislodged the victim’s salivary gland. While Johnson did not say anything as he carried out the attack, he did mumble to himself and growl at the victim, the report stated. 

Gee, if only the reporter had a gun.

Or supported locking up SEVEN TIME CONVICTED FELONS so that they weren't free to continue to wreak havoc on the streets.

But it would probably take far more than simple mugging to convert a libtard. 

One....Maybe More

Another Illinois Congressional seat is one the way out:

• Despite three straight years of population growth, Illinois lost nearly 445,000 people since 2020. That puts it on track to lose a congressional seat in 2030 when new maps are drawn.

  The COVID-19 pandemic created a backlog of visa applications from 2021 to 2023. That period under former President Joe Biden had international immigration increases offset fewer births and more deaths among aging Baby Boomers, according to the Brennan Center.

  The trend slowed starting in 2024. The second Trump term has “pursued much more restrictive immigration policies, the contours of which are still evolving,” as people being admitted for humanitarian reasons has been reduced and deportation efforts have increased. 

And if a couple of current bills in the pipeline get passed, ILLEGAL ALIENS will not be counted in the census and will not count toward representation. That could jeopardize yet another spot. Which fully explains (and pretty much proves) the Great Replacement theory and why democrats no longer trust the black community to vote for who they're told to vote for.

Still Losing Business

Cionehead has to be under orders to bankrupt the city:

• Office space vacancies have soared to 28.2 percent in Chicago, which is higher than the vacancy rate from before the pandemic. The latest contraction marks the 14th straight quarter of rising vacancies, according to The Center Square.

  Wirepoints Executive Editor Mark Glennon says that the "anti-business attitude" in Brandon Johnson's City Hall is strangling the business sector and costing the city thousands of jobs.

  "You never see any effort to make life easier for employers here. The state of Illinois is like one big oppressive intermeddling HR department with countless rules and regulations that strangle people," Glennon told Center Square.

  ‍Glennon added the continued cratering of Chicago's businesses means trouble for the city itself. Fewer businesses mean fewer jobs and subsequently fewer taxes returned to the city, too. Worse, it is the city's homeowners that will hurt the most in the long run.

And this is directly responsible for the property taxes on the west and south sides finally catching up with the rest of Chicago.

Rehashing previous reports, the list of companies leaving is impressive, just in terms of market capital leaving town:

• ....Beam Suntory, Boeing, Caterpillar, Citadel, Guggenheim Partners, PEAK6 Investments, Schumacher Electric Corp., SC Johnson, TTX Company, Tyson Foods, United Airlines, Walgreens Boots Alliance, and many others.

And this number just beggars the imagination:

• Chicago's famed Magnificent Mile was hardest hit, too, going from 1,600 registered businesses to only 784 in 2024 -- that's a 51 percent drop.

Most of those are retail establishments, but there are attached support businesses as well (supply, restaurants, etc).

Go read it all. 

Then think about that pension buyout option they're talking about in Springfield. 

The Smoking Gun

An amusing website that scours public crime records for odd or dramatic crimes. This one was forwarded to us along with a comment wondering if this would be more appropriately handled by social workers rather than the police:

• Domestic disputes that require police intervention are never a laughing matter.

  Unless, of course, two siblings are threatening to kill each other over “who ate the last sticky bun.”

  Police responded Monday afternoon to a Williamsport, Pennsylvania residence to handle “a domestic in progress, no weapons, no intoxication,” according to dispatch audio.

  Officers were told the confrontation “is between siblings over who ate the last sticky bun. Now they’re threatening to kill each other.”

(Keesing Bandit warning)

Homemade sticky buns are awesome. Our grandmothers and great grandmothers had recipes that have (unfortunately) been lost to history with their passing. The sticky buns in question for this case appear to be mass produced items.

But the question posed by our emailer is legit - no weapons, no intoxication. Are police even needed for verbal threats that aren't going to be prosecuted? 

Must be Election Season

You can tell because democrats are pretending they care about the center:

• While in Germany for the Munich Security Conference, Hillary Clinton participated in a panel titled, “The West-West Divide: What Remains of Common Values.”

  During the panel, Clinton appeared to take a stronger approach to her previous stance on border security.

  “There is a legitimate reason to have a debate about things like migration,” Clinton said.

  “It went too far, it’s been disruptive and destabilizing, and it needs to be fixed in a humane way with secure borders that don’t torture and kill people and how we’re going to have a strong family structure because it is at the base of civilization,” she added.

So just ignore the previous four years of open borders, tens of millions of un-vetted ILLEGAL ALIENS released into the country and the countless hundreds of billions of tax dollars that weren't spent on American citizens.

And just to make sure, guess who's undercutting their front runner?

• Barack Obama took a thinly-veiled jab at California Gov. Gavin Newsom over the homeless “atrocity” in Los Angeles Saturday.

  During a conversation with YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen, Obama explained: “We should recognize that the average person doesn’t want to have to navigate around a tent city in the middle of downtown.

  ”That’s a losing political strategy.”

So now homelessness is bad and it's open season on Newscum.

Watch for the new Virginia governor Spanberger to be the new face of the party. Then remember she worked for the CIA, is a long time globalist who thinks Europe is something to emulate, and uncontrolled immigration is a good thing.

Radios Compromise TASERs?

This is suddenly an issue? (click for larger image):

These are the ten-shot TASERs? 

We didn't get trained in those. But we would note that as more and more electronics are carried by Officers or in close proximity to Officers (body cams, radios, in-car cams, in-car microphones, phones that link to the PDTs, not to mention personal cell phones), the possibility of electronic conflicts would likely skyrocket.

One also has to wonder if the previous studies (and conspiracy theories) regarding electromagnetic effects on health need a re-visiting.

Excessive School Force

We had no idea that CPS had a Use of Force policy!

• A special education assistant at a South Side elementary school has been charged with aggravated battery of a child after prosecutors said she placed an 8-year-old student in a chokehold and threw him to the lunchroom floor, causing serious injuries.

  Tamika Odeh, 44, is charged with aggravated battery of a child younger than 13 causing great bodily harm in connection with an incident at Parker Elementary School, 6800 South Stewart Avenue in Englewood.

  In a detention petition, prosecutors said Odeh placed the 8-year-old student in a chokehold and threw him to the ground on November 3 while inside the school. The boy struck his head on a chair, suffering what prosecutors described as “serious neck injuries” that required medical treatment at a hospital.

Of course, she was released on no bail. 

Amusingly, this was revealed in the Arrest Report:

• In an unrelated note, the CPD arrest report listed a home address for Odeh in suburban Oak Lawn. With limited exceptions, all CPS employees hired on or after November 20, 1996, must live in the city of Chicago within six months of becoming school district employees. An individual familiar with the matter told CWB Chicago that Odeh lists a Chicago address in her CPS personnel file.

We'll bet the Inspector General will be all over that residency discrepancy.

The City That "Works"

Hiring D.E.I. accountants again?

• Hundreds of Chicago firefighters and paramedics are still waiting for four years’ worth of retroactive pay raises after Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration fumbled the ball in distributing the checks.

  Pat Cleary, president of the Chicago firefighters union, said the city’s failure to deliver back pay checks by the Dec. 30 deadline means the city must pay 4.5% annual interest on payments as high as $35,000.

  The problem started when the city waited until mid-January — at least two weeks after the deadline — “to start cutting checks for anybody,” Cleary said. When checks were finally in the mail, the Johnson administration “realized that they screwed up and didn’t take out pension deductions.”

Has there ever been a retro check that didn't have to be recalculated, amended and corrections issued either with additional checks or claw-backs by the City?

We can't think of a single one that didn't have issues, and this is after years of calculations and endless automation of accounting procedures.

Pension Board Election Results

The election results were released:

• Saul Del Rivero - 2,400
• Eugene J. Roy - 2,152

Roy promptly filed to contest the results according to numerous e-mailers.

Last we had heard, there were more retirees than active officers - almost 1,000 according to reports we can find, so voter turnout was even worse than recent FOP elections.

UPDATE: There were no ballots - there was a letter mailed to your last known address with instructions for on-line voting. 

We got one and if there was anything on the outside of the envelope that made it stand out in our memory, we don't recall it. 

UPDATE: Yes, it was ONLY for retirees as the Retiree spot was open. Anyone else wouldn't have gotten a letter. 

Death Rattle

Welcome to the new "normal":

• The 'Auto Show' shows how far we have fallen. 1/2 a hall instead of 2 floors in the olden days. Lexus, Acura, Mercedes, Rover and other high end brands not there. Factory rep I talked to who has worked the show for over 10 years says they have never seen anything like it! 

The unions pretty much killed the McCormick Place convention business, helped along by the political class with hotel taxes, entertainment taxes, restaurant taxes, rental taxes and taxes on just about everything in sight.

At this point, any casino draw is pretty much a fantasy, more like a bandaid.

Pension Buyouts?

This is a....novel concept we suppose:

• A new bill would give some police and firefighters flexibility with their retirement. State Sen. Robert Martwick, D-Chicago, filed Senate Bill 3404 which would make a “pension buyout” available to members of Chicago’s pension systems as well as downstate police and firefighters.

  Of the worst funded local pension systems in the nation, Chicago-area pensions take up seven of the bottom 10. In September, the city had to lend money to the firefighter’s pension fund to make that month’s payouts and avoid selling assets.

  A “pension buyout” allows government workers to take out a portion of the “net present value” of their pension – the amount needed today to fund a retiree’s lifetime benefit. After voluntarily “cashing out” all or a portion of their benefits at a 30-40% discounted rate, workers can roll the money into an IRA or 401(k)-style plan and control their money forever. In return, the discount equals savings for taxpayers.

Needless to say, anything with Martwick's name attached to it is suspect.

We imagine the calculations used to do this are a bit on the suspect side, too:

• The flexibility allows retirees to withdraw a larger amount at one time – such as using the funds to pay for housing or medical expenses – a vital option for some based on their circumstances, but one which they don’t currently have. Plus, a self-directed account can be willed to family while a pension cannot. Other retirees might desire to take the buyout because they are not confident in the stability of their pension funds.

No one has much confidence in Illinois pensions, that much is for certain.

Having confidence in politicians being able to solve it is probably even less. 

Opinions? 

Still?

This stat was true (and disturbing) back when we started. It doesn't seem to have improved much:

• A new police officer mortality study is putting hard numbers behind what many in the profession have long felt: the job’s hazards do not end when the shift does.

  Researchers analyzing National Occupational Mortality Surveillance (NOMS) data from 2020 to 2023 found that law enforcement officers had a higher all-cause mortality risk than the broader working-age population, using age-standardized mortality rates to compare the groups.

  The peer-reviewed study, published in Lancet Regional Health – Americas and available through PubMed Central, is based on death certificate surveillance data and focuses on “usual occupation,” a classification that reflects the job a person held for the longest portion of their working life.

And the death number?

• The study population included roughly 2.5 million working-age decedents ages 16 to 64, of whom 15,384 had law enforcement as their usual occupation. Researchers reported that the average age of law enforcement deaths was 53.7, and that most were men.

Nice to know that while we don't beat the odds often when we're gambling, we're doing better in retirement.

"Efficiency" Study

Two years for this study to be released....and it covers things we've been advocating for twenty years:

• A much-anticipated study on Chicago police staffing urges more hiring to better respond to community needs and offers a new model for how to best deploy officers with the resources available.

  The study, conducted by Matrix Consulting Group, was commissioned by the City Council in February 2024 to find ways to close gaps between police response times in different neighborhoods.

  The group quickly determined the police department had “real and uneven staffing pressures,” with workloads varying significantly depending on district and unit, according to an executive summary released this week.

  That resulted in inconsistent service and limited supervisory oversight in “high-demand areas,” the firm found. [...]

  The study recommends shifting 600 cops out of jobs that could be done by people without police powers, then filling many of those positions with civilians. It also calls for hiring an additional 270 patrol officers and 90 patrol sergeants.

  Instead of keeping a fixed number of officers in each district, the study argues that staffing should be adjusted regularly based on workloads. The department would also tackle challenges with oversight, with the study finding that “meaningful supervision becomes difficult” when sergeants are responsible for too many officers.

The good news is it supposedly didn't cost taxpayers a dime:

• Six funders, including the Civic Committee, stepped up to fund the study, which ended up costing $780,000...

We did it for free. Twenty years worth.

Can't wait to see the whole thing.

Voter ID

So democrats are claiming requiring a valid government ID is the new "Jim Crow voter suppression" and they're telling lie after lie about "If you don't have a passport, you can't vote" or "If you got married and changed your name, you can't vote" or "If you're poor, you can't afford the passport fee so you can't vote."

These are all lies, made to trick the uneducated and misinformed into panicking.

But let's take it to it's logical extreme then (from our e-mail):

• Since you've made it crystal clear that requiring an ID to exercise a CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT is "disenfranchisement" and "the new Jim Crow," I have a proposal.
  
  
  The Second Amendment is a constitutional right. Voting is a constitutional right. You claim requiring ID to vote suppresses people from exercising their right. Okay. Then requiring ID to purchase a firearm suppresses people from exercising THEIR right. Same logic. Same constitution. Same argument.
  
  
  So here's my challenge to every Republican in Congress: introduce a bill TOMORROW that eliminates ALL identification requirements for purchasing firearms. No background checks. No ID. No waiting periods. Nothing. If Democrats truly believe that ID requirements prevent citizens from exercising constitutional rights, they'll HAVE to support it. Right?

The savings alone in disbanding the ATF would be amazing.

You need ID to buy liquor, enter assorted government buildings, travel on an airplane, get treatment at a hospital, conduct business at a bank, and any of a million other daily tasks. Remember how they were pushing "COVID passports" to go outside, eat at restaurants, even visit dying relatives in nursing homes? 

But an ID to vote, arguably the most important duty as a LEGAL CITIZEN, is suddenly "Jim Crow 2.0"?

How Dare They Require Work

More taxpayer money on the line:

• As new federal SNAP work rules take effect this month, Illinois lawmakers are considering a plan that would use taxpayer dollars to soften the impact on families who fail to meet the requirements.

  House Bill 4730 would create a state run program called FRESH (Families Receiving Emergency Support for Hunger). The initiative would provide one-time cash payments to households whose Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits are reduced or terminated because a member of the household did not meet federally mandated work requirements.

How very....generous....of Illinois taxpayers to give more money away!

And what exactly are these new rules taking effect?

• New SNAP work rules require adults aged 18 to 64 without dependents to work, volunteer, or participate in job training for at least 80 hours a month to maintain benefits.

80 hours a month....works out to about 20 hours a week. 

And this is onerous enough to necessitate Illinois taxpayers picking up the bill?

People with actual jobs really need to stop voting for democrats. 

Or are they outnumbered?

Iowa Bears?

This is getting even funnier:

• A third state would like to enter the battle for the next home of the Chicago Bears.

  Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds voiced an interest in luring the NFL team on Wednesday, according to the Des Moines Register, calling the idea a "wild pass." A day later, an Iowa Senate subcommittee advanced Senate File 2252.

  If passed, the bill would modify Iowa’s major economic growth attraction program to “include incentivizing the building of a professional sports stadium by a National Football League franchise in the state.”

  The Bears do not appear to have publicly reacted to the move.

Maybe not reacted publicly, but one would think this could be another lever to pry something loose from Illinois. Again.

Unforced Error

This is a  badly timed "whoops" for sure:

• A lawyer for Dexter Reed’s family is calling for Chicago’s police oversight agency to release a report that largely clears a group of tactical officers of wrongdoing in connection to the 2024 shootout that claimed Reed’s life.

Why do we say "badly timed"?

• The report by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability remains under wraps as the Chicago Police Department reviews the findings. That means police Supt. Larry Snelling could still challenge COPA’s conclusions.

Why would Larritorious challenge the findings?

• [Officer X] was among three officers who continued firing after Reed had exited his SUV and fallen to the ground. [Officer X], who was the last officer to stop shooting, fired a total of 34 rounds and reloaded his weapon during the exchange of gunfire, according to a report by the state’s attorney’s office.

  Over the weekend, [Officer X] was named in a police report after allegedly threatening to beat up a detective at a Norwood Park bar. A police spokesperson said he remains on active duty.

Gee, could Larritorious could use this as cover to get rid of at least one potential problem child?

It's not like it hasn't been done before.

A couple times that we know of.

Even for people that were RDO when the shit hit the fan.

And then the City dragged out the appeals and lawsuits for two, three, even more years.

(don't post the names in the comments - go read the links if you want) 

You (Still) Don't Hate the Media Enough

This was a headline:

You mean....the president promised a crackdown on crime, delivered (even Conehead admited it) and this reliably left wing site wonders why crime is falling? 

It's a mystery. 

Maybe it was the Car?

Carjacking up north....and then it got interesting:

• A 22-year-old man was murdered during a carjacking in Boystown early Wednesday morning, and less than an hour later, a second man was found dead next to the stolen vehicle on the city’s South Side, according to Chicago police and law enforcement sources. Detectives are now investigating whether the second dead man was one of the carjackers.

  It all began around 3:59 a.m. in the 700 block of West Waveland Avenue, where two men were sitting inside a 2014 Hyundai Sonata, according to police. Two male carjackers approached the vehicle, displayed guns, and demanded the victims’ vehicle and belongings before opening fire, police said.

  They shot one of the victims, a 22-year-old man, and drove away with his car. The other victim, 38, was not injured. Officers applied chest seals and administered CPR to the younger victim, but he was pronounced dead at Illinois Masonic Hospital, police said. A bullet had apparently struck him directly in the heart.

  Shortly after 4 a.m., a Chicago Police Department license plate reader detected the hijacked car traveling in the 100 block of West 31st Street, according to police.

  Then, at 4:50 a.m., a passerby discovered a man lying unresponsive in the middle of the 3700 block of South Lake Park Avenue in Oakland, police said. The man, who had a gunshot wound to his head, was lying next to the Hyundai that had been hijacked in Boystown, according to a source. The car’s doors were open, and its blinker was on.

It may have been one of the carjackers, perhaps a falling out among thieves?

This is the stuff we miss. 

Illinois Jobs Improve?

Nationally, the January jobs were double expectations, so obviously the economy is turning around.

Illinois lags behind (as usual) but shows "improvement for the first time in TWENTY-FIVE months, so that's a good thing, right?

Not exactly:

• Chicago businesses expanded in January for the first time in 25 months, according to the Chicago Business Barometer. Chicago had a score of 54.0 for the month, up from 43.5 the previous month. A score below 50 indicates decline.

  The rebound in overall activity was driven by an increase in employment, which rose 17.5 points from December’s score, the lowest since 2009.

But (there's always a "but"), guess where the growth was?

• Almost all of the Chicago area’s job gains from November 2024 to November 2025 were in government with 19,800 and education and health services with 21,200. Professional and business services lost 11,200 jobs, and trade, transportation, and utilities lost 10,000.

So government grew. And how does the government pay for growth?

• increasing taxes

And what's still shrinking in Illinois?

• population

Meaning more taxes on the fewer remaining.

Nationally, the federal government cut over 42,000 jobs while Illinois added almost half that number to their payroll. This is not a sustainable model. We need to shrink state and local government. 

Exodus Slows?

According to one moving company, it looks like everyone who could afford to leave has exited:

• United Van Lines said Illinois dropped on its list of states ranked by residents packing up and moving out – the first time in a decade Illinois didn’t take one of its top spots.

From first place to ninth.

Other moving companies tell a different story:

• Other moving companies and the U.S. Census reported different results.

  Atlas Van Lines found 54% of its clients were moving out of Illinois rather than in during 2025. Allied Van Lines showed a 58% outbound rate for 2025, ranking Illinois No. 1 for losing people. Census estimates showed over 40,000 Illinoisans leaving for the year ending June 2025, with 82,900 leaving in 2024 – 95% for lower-tax states.

  The United Van Lines study ranks the percentage of those moving out versus those moving in. Illinois was considered “balanced” in 2025, meaning there wasn’t a big gap between inbound and outbound moves.

  Of everyone moving in or out of Illinois, less than 55% were moving out, according to the study. Just a year ago, nearly 60% of Illinois moves were people leaving the state, the second-highest rate behind New Jersey.

Maybe Atlas is just cheaper?

"Trust Us!"

The check is in the mail....we swear!

• Top mayoral aides assured the City Council on Monday that the full $260 million advance pension payment will be made, and that Mayor Brandon Johnson’s decision to make that payment in two installments to ease a cash flow crunch will not trigger another costly reduction in Chicago’s bond rating.

  A financial brain trust that included Budget Director Annette Guzman, Comptroller Michael Belsky and interim Chief Financial Officer Steve Mahr cited several reasons for Johnson’s decision to cut the initial payment in half. Chief among them are the delayed property tax payments from Cook County tied to the long-stalled computerized overhaul of that system by Tyler Technologies.

  Chicago’s share of those payments from Cook County have been trickling in slowly and are still roughly $135 million behind. Property tax payments to all four city employee pension funds were also delayed. That forced the city to make advance payments to those funds — to prevent them from losing investment income down the road — by selling off assets to meet obligations.

Investment 101 - selling assets to meet obligations is a HUGE no-no, because now the asset is gone. Not only is it gone, but (given the recent history and current market projections) it's going to cost significantly MORE to buy back that asset...or different assets.

Also, breaking up the payment only works if you don't spend the half withheld on some other boondoggle. Do we have that guarantee? Conehead already raided the TIF "surplus" to the tune of a billion dollars exclusively for the CTU, while the firefighters are owed something like four years back pay and the CPD white shirts have an outstanding VRI payment (ordered by the courts) dating back nearly a decade.

We can see exactly how this idiot didn't pay his water bill for years. 

Grow Up, Sober Up

This is dumb:

• One of the Chicago police officers who fatally shot Dexter Reed during a traffic stop in 2024 has now been accused of threatening to beat up a fellow cop at a Norwood Park bar over the weekend.

  [...]

  Police said the threats stemmed from a “previous incident” at the bar about a week earlier, and the detective who was accosted was listed as the victim in the report.

Oh, and it's ongoing from a "previous incident"?

If this is over a woman, we're going to need to raise the specters of Academy Instructors long since passed to beat some sense into these idiots....all of them.

Conehead Doesn't Want Money?

And Bally's is the reason?

• The $16.6 billion budget approved by a City Council majority last December lifted the ban on video gambling in Chicago, but Mayor Brandon Johnson has yet to pursue licensing approval from the Illinois Gaming Board.

  Convinced that Johnson is buying time in order to pursue a repeal of the Council’s lifting of the ban, Ald. Anthony Beale (9th) is taking matters into his own hands.

  Beale is sending a letter Wednesday to the Illinois Gaming Board meant to serve as official notification that City Hall has lifted the video gambling ban, and that acceptance of license applications for video gambling can begin. The letter is co-signed by at least 15 other Council members, and is accompanied by a certified copy of the revenue ordinance that counts on collecting $6.8 million this year by licensing newly legalized video gambling terminals at bars, restaurants, theaters and bowling alleys across the city.

And why isn't the broke-ass Conehead allowing licensing to proceed?

• Bally’s has warned that lifting the Chicago ban on video gambling terminals would cost the city $74 million in annual revenue and as many as 1,050 jobs at its temporary and permanent casinos.

  That’s because it would force the Johnson administration to renegotiate “critical elements” of its host agreement with Bally’s, and wipe out a yearly $4 million lump-sum payment from the company and shrink the jackpot needed to save police and fire pension funds.

Correct us if we're wrong, but Bally's hasn't hit a single one of their revenue "projections" at their temporary casino yet. And they're over a year behind in building the actual casino (which is probably twenty years behind what should have been decades of revenue).

And we're pretty sure that the video gambling going on at Bally's won't be in conflict with the video gaming going on at bars, (most) restaurants, theaters or bowling alleys. Ballys' is catering to the tourist and convention people - most of those other locations are in the neighborhoods where tourists aren't.

We don't like relying solely on gambling to fund the pensions, but it's a revenue stream to be exploited. 

Exploit it already. 

FBI Wiretap Revisited

Someone was asking about the "Fata$$ on the FBI wiretap" recordings. 

Here it is, provided by Bruce Rauner during the campaign:

This was the one helpfully taken down by the feebs right before Blago and Fata$$ started discussing someone else as a participant in the selling of the Senate seat.

::cough cough president-elect Sparklefarts cough cough::

You'd think this would have keep Fata$$ from winning, but it didn't. 

Maybe it will keep him out of Washington DC? 

More Minnesota Nonsense

Remember, ICE is racist.

Also, in Minnesota a couple days ago:

• Twitter link - WARNING: NSFW

Have your ear-buds in or keep the volume down. This isn't one you want playing out loud.

These are the leftist protestors. 

Dems Love Criminals

What is it with democrat politicians posing with murderers?

• A conservative watchdog group is suing the office of Gov. JB Pritzker, accusing the administration of unlawfully withholding public records tied to a photograph showing the governor posing with a “peacekeeper” just days before he was allegedly involved in a deadly Michigan Avenue smash-and-grab robbery.

  CWB Chicago was the first outlet to report that Kellen McMiller, a man wanted in four states, posed with the governor in Englewood days before the fatal incident. The reporting highlighted a photograph from the event that the governor’s office scrubbed from its website after McMiller was arrested on the murder charge.

  Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit last month in Sangamon County Circuit Court, seeking a judge’s order compelling the governor’s office to release photographs, communications, and vetting records related to McMiller’s appearance with Pritzker on September 5.

CWB helpfully kept (and posted) the picture Porkulous wants hidden:

 

Turban Durbin is another one who posed with a killer who later fled the country:

 

We think he's still at large from around four years ago. 

That Had to be Painful

Well well well:

• Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson pushed back on President Donald Trump’s claims that federal actions made the city safer, but acknowledged that there has been a significant reduction in homicides.

  Johnson made the remarks during an appearance on MSNOW’s “The Weekend,” where he was asked whether Trump was correct in saying his actions improved public safety in Chicago. 

  “He is not,” Johnson replied, accusing Trump of increasing “instability” in the country. “Where ICE and federal agents were present, we actually saw an increase in violence. In other words, the tension and the chaos that federal agents bring to cities in America, it actually is counter-productive,” he claimed.

Yeah, engineered and directed violence. But....:

• However, Johnson then acknowledged a sharp decline in violent crime. “Yes, we saw a 30 percent reduction in homicides, shooting, shooting victims, all down,” he said.

Removing the criminal element from the streets, whether home grown or illegally imported, reduces crime. Is that so hard to admit?

Where the Money Went

There's a social media account on X / Twitter named SubX News (or similar).  They were posting reports from someone who was taking pictures of snowed in bike lanes that weren't plowed, calling in to City Hall, and then posting more pictures of some specialty plow dumping the snow wither into traffic or onto nearby sidewalks. 

The one set we saw was mildly amusing and demonstrated what we had written about a number of years ago - that taking out an entire lane of traffic along with hundreds of parking spots was short-sighted in the extreme. Nearby businesses were denied thousands of customers and the City ended up cutting their own tax revenues in the end.

We had to go qualify last year at the Area 3 range and Belmont is a disaster from end to end, especially if a bus is there or God forbid, an ambulance has to try to force their way through.

The cost for these things was something around a quarter-million per city block, money that could have gone to balancing the budget, paying off debt, funding the pensions. This one isn't Conehead's fault but it's amazing how much money was wasted over the years for nonsense that continues to cost the City revenue.

Explain?

We've got explanations galore:

• Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling must explain why the number of times police officers used force against individuals has significantly increased since 2022, and detail what he is doing to reverse that trend, according to a measure approved by Chicago’s police oversight board.

  Snelling, who took over CPD in September 2023 after being appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson and unanimously confirmed by the Chicago City Council, must also explain why the number of times officers pointed their guns at individuals increased 44% between 2022 and 2024, according to one of the goals unanimously set for Snelling to achieve in 2026 by the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability during its meeting on Jan. 29.

  “It is imperative that CPD provide community members with an understanding and explanation of why these increases have been occurring and what, if anything, the department is doing to identify and address any trends,” according to the goals set by the commission, which has the power to set CPD policy and is responsible for evaluating Snelling’s performance.

Gee, maybe we're seeing the culmination of years of telling people to resist the police? Resist federal officers? That there's some sort of "right" to become physical in their efforts to protest? That they can fight and/or flee from the police with zero consequences thanks to Crimesha's years of not prosecuting the Law as written and passed by the Legislature?

Hmmmm? 

Conehead "Finds" More Money

A couple of days ago, we noted that Conehead was scraping up $50 million to buy the old Greyhound bus station.

 Now we find out he's stumbled into another $46.2 million for "neighborhood fix-ups:"

• Mayor Brandon Johnson kicked off Friday by touting a fresh $46.2 million in federal cash for 40 neighborhood projects across Chicago, covering everything from park upgrades to lead-service-line replacement. He is pitching the haul as targeted spending on public safety, housing and basic city services that will touch schools, transit hubs and shelter sites, all while City Hall keeps working on a broader infrastructure and budget agenda for 2026.

But the most pressing issue that needs "fixing up" would be the Pension Fund that he shorted 50% of the required payment.

Retiree IROCC Info

This appeared in the comments and in a few emails that seem to be going around:

• The communist State of Illinois will be trying to take away retirees right to carry a firearm. Read the article below on page 4 of the FEBRUARY 2026 Retired CPD Newsletter below.
  
  ALSO, there is a NEW DATABASE (see below) where you can look yourself up to see if you are still certified as a law enforcement officer. If you are de-certified, you can not carry a weapon as a retiree. Thank Pritzker.
  
  https://www.retiredchicagopoliceassoc.com/News.html
  
  https://www.ptb.illinois.gov/resources/officer-lookup/

The first link goes to the catalogue of Retiree Newsletters and the February issue seems to address some of this. It seems that the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board can revoke your "retired in good standing" status for pretty much anything job related going back years - sustained CR numbers, Use of Force complaints, allegations of Domestics, etc. 

They can also revoke it for anything post-employment, including misdemeanor-type allegations.

The newsletter says that Lodge 7 is attempting some legislative maneuvers in Springfield, but no progress is listed.

Well, Golly Gee

Everyone is jumping on the "crime is falling!" bandwagon, but nobody seems to be pointing out the biggest and most obvious factor.

The Illinois Policy website touches on it:

• Violent crime in Chicago fell to more than a decade low in 2025, declining across nearly 9-in-10 neighborhoods as arrests rates continued to rise. Total crime in the city fell from 257,558 in 2024 to 235,338 in 2025, marking two consecutive years of decline, Chicago Police Department data showed. Violent crimes dropped from a peak of nearly 30,000 in 2023 to 22,760 last year – the fewest attacks reported in over a decade.

Okay....and?

• Nearly all categories of violent crime declined in 2025, with homicides, robberies and aggravated batteries falling to a decade low. Only criminal sexual assault increased, rising to a decade high. This follows a general trend seen in U.S. cities nationwide, with most cities also reporting a steep drop in homicides and other forms of violent crime compared to 2024, according to the Council on Criminal Justice.

Yes....lots of helpful charts and such at the link....but? 

• As crime fell citywide, arrests rate for total and violent crime rose. The arrest rate for total crime climbed from 13.8% to 15.8%. The arrest rate for violent crime also increased to 17.9%, the highest level since the pandemic.

And there it is!

We guess, contrary to what democrats have been telling us for years, you CAN arrest your way out of a crime situation. Increased enforcement numbers, successful prosecutions AND prison time contribute mightily to falling crime rates.

That and deporting tens of thousands of ILLEGAL ALIEN criminals, too. 

'Stray Voltage' in Action?

Politically, when you want to really launch a devastating attack on an opponent, you don't usually do it yourself - you have someone do it for you, usually via leaked documents or studies or phone calls. Then you have the "media" run with the story, distracting from the main event while subtly planting alternative solutions or ideas in the public realm that otherwise would have been too uncomfortable to address.

It's a common Chicago Machine tool. Entire political careers have been built and run using it. Rahm used it during the Clinton administration and later with Sparklefarts. Axelrod was another expert. Sparklefarts himself became rather adept at it, trolling the GOP to great effect. 

We may have just seen O'Neill-Burke use it against Conehead via a subordinate:

• Mayor Brandon Johnson’s executive order targeting federal immigration agents for prosecution faced a devastating critique Friday from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, which warned the mayor’s plan could sabotage criminal cases and inject politics into law enforcement decisions.

  In a two-page memo to staff, Yvette Loizon, Chief Assistant State’s Attorney for Policy and External Affairs, systematically dismantled key provisions of Johnson’s order, calling parts of it “wholly inappropriate” and warning it “jeopardizes our ability to effectively prosecute and secure convictions when federal agents have committed a crime.”

  The extraordinary rebuke came days after State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke publicly disputed Johnson’s claim that he “worked closely” with her office in drafting the order. Burke called the mayor’s assertion “not true” in an unusual social media statement posted within hours of Johnson’s announcement last weekend.

  Johnson’s office fired back, claiming it had “reviewed the language with the State’s Attorney’s Chief of Policy and made edits based on their feedback.” Friday’s memo raises questions about what edits, if any, were actually made.

  Loizon’s memo acknowledged that Burke “is deeply concerned” about immigration agents “who have been wreaking havoc in communities across the country and in our own neighborhoods.” She noted that Burke takes prosecution of criminal conduct by law enforcement seriously, but warned that “if a federal law enforcement agent commits a crime while on-duty, state and federal law limits the CCSAO’s ability to prosecute and secure a conviction, except in very narrow circumstances.”

  According to the memo, “The Mayor’s recent Executive Order introduces additional hurdles” to prosecution.

  The state’s attorney’s office identified a critical flaw in Johnson’s directive that the Chicago Police Department collect evidence of crimes by federal agents and refer those matters for prosecution “at the direction of the Mayor’s Office.”

  Loizon wrote that the mayor’s office is not part of the criminal charging process, and by inserting himself into the mix, Johnson taints a process that is supposed to be non-political. Anyone in the mayor’s office involved in reviewing evidence or making charging decisions would almost certainly find themselves called as witnesses by defense attorneys, she wrote.

We apologize for stealing such a huge chunk from CWB's reporting, but we wanted to convey the awesomeness of this rip job on Conehead. 

This is interesting on a number of levels. Remember, all democrats must support ILLEGAL ALIENS over US citizens and reflexively oppose everything Trump does. Conehead is following the script that has been placed in front of him - he's not smart enough to do anything else.

O'Neill-Burke wasn't Prickwrinkle choice for States Attorney. But Conehead had Prickwrinkle's backing for mayor along with the CTU money. And here's one of O'Neill-Burke's top people publicly roasting Conehead's position, publicly and meticulously and mercilessly, tying it into future Cook County court failures.

Prickwrinkle's Machine might have a flat tire....and it might be Conehead.

Conehead Corpses Stacking Up

After near record cold days in January, the mayor's people are touting a "continuing drop" in crime. We've warned about crime being cyclical and trends should only be cited in a year-over-year manner so as to avoid the usual surges.

And these still amuse us:

• A man was found shot to death on a front porch in Roseland early Friday morning, Chicago police said, but it was not immediately clear when he was slain because nobody reported gunfire in the area, and the mayor disconnected the city’s ShotSpotter network nearly 17 months ago without having a plan for replacing the gunfire detection system.

  At about 4:34 a.m., a 911 caller reported that a man she did not know was lying on her porch in the 200 block of West 108th Street. CPD dispatched officers to check it out and, about 10 minutes after receiving the call, they found the man had suffered a gunshot wound. The officers summoned EMS to the scene, but the 29-year-old, who had a gunshot wound to the left flank, was pronounced dead.

  Investigators later determined that the victim had been outside when a red truck rolled up and someone inside the vehicle shot at the man around 4:29 a.m., about five minutes before the 911 caller reported a stranger on their porch, according to a CPD statement. The victim ran to the porch and collapsed.

One really has to wonder how many of these people (or folks) would have been saved had ShotSpotter still been active.

The truly twisted and cynical probably wonder if society would have benefited from them being saved at all.