Guilty....as Expected

An unsurprising verdict:

• The man accused of throwing a Big Gulp full of root beer on former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx during a road rage altercation near her Flossmoor home was found guilty of one felony and not guilty of another on Monday morning.

  Prosecutors charged William Swetz, 35, with aggravated battery in a public place and aggravated assault with a motor vehicle following the June 2024 incident. He took the case to a ench trial last month.

  On Monday, Judge Tiana Blakely found Swetz guilty of the battery charge but not guilty of vehicular assault, according to court records. She set a January 8 hearing for post-trial motions.

Two assholes come into conflict, but one is heavier than whale shit. 

He had to know the fix was in. No idea why he opted for a bench trial. 

There was a plea deal in place for a felony with zero jail time, now who knows if he'll get "time served" or something else.

CPS / CTU Corruption

People are noticing that a significant amount of their property taxes are going to the failing school system. The trouble is, that's how it has always been. The biggest user of taxpayer money has always been the schools and always at oversized percentages. In fact, we're pretty sure that the schools have ALWAYS raised their portion of the property tax to the absolute MAXIMUM allowed by law for at least the past twenty years, perhaps thirty.

And now, after all that time, the media is actually reporting on how the schools waste it:

• Overnight travel expenses within Chicago Public Schools have skyrocketed in recent years, an internal watchdog investigation found, as employees of the cash-strapped school district spent millions on overseas trips, spa getaways and flights to Las Vegas and Hawaii.

  CPS Inspector General Philip Wagenknecht’s office on Wednesday published a new report on the district’s travel and overnight spending, which jumped from around $300,000 in fiscal year 2021 to nearly $8 million in 2024.

  According to his report, some employees allegedly took advantage of the district’s “lax, vague, inadequate and unenforced” travel rules and procedures, leading to the “exorbitant” post-pandemic travel spending using taxpayer funds.

They spend this money to go to conferences to learn how to be better teachers and administrators, while test results continue to plummet and less than a quarter of CPS students can read or math at grade level. At last count there were something like a dozen schools where not a single student could achieve anything near a national standard.

But travel to conferences went up by TWO-THOUSAND SIXTY SIX percent in three years.

Funnily enough, when conferences were held in Chicago, attendance was in the low double digits, but when a conference was held in Vegas or Hawaii or Europe, attendance skyrocketed into the hundreds.

How much did everyone's taxes go up again? And why are Chicago voters electing progressive communist coneheaded teachers' union tools into office? 

More Property Tax Stuff

This made us smile, then chuckle, then laugh out loud:

• Homeowners in some of the city’s most affordable neighborhoods may be surprised to see a spike in their property tax bills that were mailed out Friday.

  Residential property tax bills are rising fastest in Black neighborhoods on the South and West sides as the county’s tax burden shifts away from the economically depressed Loop, according to a report from the Cook County treasurer’s office.

  The Sun-Times broke the news in March that the property tax burden had shifted from the Central Business District to neighborhoods. Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas’ report, released Monday, gets specific about how that shift has hit minority neighborhoods hardest.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but these neighborhoods have been a drain on city resources for decades, providing little....but taking much.

But then a series of political decisions over the dacades, like decriminalizing much of what used to be punishable, declining to prosecute certain individuals, even actively encouraging an expansion of anti-social behavior, expanded criminal activities into formerly "peaceful" or "untouchable" areas of the city, committed by the generational failures of those shithole hoods.

So downtown businesses fled. High wealth individuals took their money and went somewhere crime wasn't as prevalent. More people avoided the formerly "magnificent" stores, shopping areas, tourist spots, etc. and the taxes generated by those areas declined precipitously.

And those who enjoyed years of free rides suddenly have to live with taxes being raised to make up for all the wealth that left....and they can't afford to leave. 

Budget Rejected

Conehead showing - once again - that he isn't any sort of leader:

• Mayor Brandon Johnson’s already strained relationship with the City Council sunk to a new low on Monday when the Finance Committee rejected his nearly $600 million plan to, as he put it, “challenge the ultra-rich and corporations to pay their fair share.”

  The vote was 25-10. The defeat came only after a motion to postpone the vote failed by an 18-18 tie vote.

  “Can we just get this over with? This is a joke. They’re calling people out there right now to delay this,” said Ald. Matt O’Shea (19^th).

  For Johnson, it was a repeat of last year’s 50-0 City Council vote rejecting his proposed $300 million property tax increase.

The people (or folks) closest to the ground level, realize that "challeng[ing] the ultra-riach and corporations to pay their fair share" isn't any sort of strategy, because as proven time-and-time again for the past two decades or so, those people and companies will just pack up and leave once the balance moves too far out of their favor.

Or didn't Dumbass notice the vacancy rate downtown is passing 30% and closing in on 40%? That's NOT a healthy economy that can support all the "progressive" stupidity burning holes in the budget.

City Hall BBQ?

We can't find a single mention anywhere in the media: 

• Arsonist attempted to set City Hall on fire on Friday about 10:20pm. No one knew about it until this morning. The entire incident was captured on POD. Arsonist sprayed an accelerant on the outside stone and sidewalk of the exterior of LaSalle and Randolph. Nice fire light show but it all fizzled away in less than 5mins. The house mice inside City Hall were all asleep and had no idea. 

So granite, limestone and marble doesn't burn.

And no one saw it, reported it, or responded to it, the incident only being revealed when someone spotted the scorch marks on the building when the sun rose?

Thanks for Nothing COPA

Remember, these are the incompetent assholes Monday-morning quarterbacking every single decision you make - and this time it got a criminal off on the worst charge:

• A man who was shot in the head by a Chicago police officer inside a Brighton Park bar last year has been acquitted of the most serious charges filed against him. Fernando Guzman, 38, was found not guilty this week of attempted murder and discharging a firearm toward a peace officer after a jury trial before Judge Ursula Walowski. However, the panel did convict him on two counts of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon.

  The shooting unfolded around 12:20 a.m. on October 12, 2024, when officers responded to a “person with a gun” call at a bar in the 3900 block of South Kedzie Avenue. Witnesses told arriving officers that a man wearing a construction vest had pointed a gun at someone. When officers confronted Guzman, who reportedly matched the description, they asked if he was armed, officials said. Guzman allegedly displayed a handgun, and one officer tried to disarm him.

  In a statement issued hours later, CPD said, “Officers attempted to disarm the offender when he discharged his weapon. An officer returned fire, striking the offender.” And in an initial court filing, prosecutors said Guzman “shot one shot in the direction of” an officer. A second cop at the scene returned fire, striking Guzman in the left side of the head, the filing stated.

  But the Civilian Office of Police Accountability used different language five days after the shooting, leaving open the possibility that Guzman did not fire the weapon intentionally: “One of the officers gave verbal commands to drop the weapon and as officers attempted to disarm the individual, the individual’s firearm discharged. One of the officers then returned fire, striking the individual in the head.”

So COPA is making excuses for criminals now....or at least opening up a legal avenue to excuse discharging a weapon at/near/toward police officers.

• it was 'unintentional!' 
• he didn't mean it!
• it probably wasn't even his gun!

This really needs to stop. 

Property Tax Outrage

A whole bunch of people are writing about the largish increases in property taxes that arrived in the mail late last week. A few more are dropping comments here and there. Our neighbors were talking over the fences all weekend, too.

And in the hood....: 

• People gathered Saturday night for a "property tax bonfire" at Harmony Community Church in Lawndale as they are trying to light the way to fairness. Many homeowners in Chicago have received a hefty bill with the latest round of property tax increases, and they're wondering where exactly that money is going.

  Homeowners in Lawndale are searching for answers together about their property tax hikes.

  Community leaders partnered with the Lawndale Christian Development Corporation to host a bonfire, allowing neighbors to discuss their options.

  Lawndale resident Thomas Worthy received a bill this week that was $977 more than what he paid last year. "Tax increase is tied to a TIF that I have no idea why," Worthy said. "It's collecting money from our neighbors and streets, but we're not being notified why it's in the bill."

Well you see, when you elect democrats for nearly around a hundred years, and you actually buy the BS they feed you about free-shit, and then you reelect them based on "promises" that never come to fruition and you don't bother to any sort of actual voter oversight on their records.....

Do we really have to spell it out? 

How bad was everyone's hit? 

Heineken Trickbagged

This time body cams tripped up the Chief of Patrol:

• Newly released Chicago police body-camera footage shows officers were briefly told to steer clear of an Oct. 4 confrontation between protesters and federal agents in Brighton Park after a Border Patrol agent shot a woman.

  The heavily blurred videos, released Friday, confirmed the Chicago Sun-Times’ reporting that Chicago Police Department officers were ordered not to respond “per the chief of patrol,” Jon Hein, which has since sparked an intense backlash.

  These videos come after police officials blocked the public release earlier this month of body-camera and drone footage, saying it would hinder an internal investigation against Hein. Police Supt. Larry Snelling has defended Hein and said his officers were never told to “stand down.”

Years ago, we were warned (and passed along warnings) that body camera footage was going to be used incidentally, to trick-bag Officers, especially side conversations that had little to do with the situation being handled....and that is EXACTLY what happened here:

• On the body-camera videos, a dispatcher is heard telling officers that federal agents are “being surrounded by a large crowd of people” and are “requesting CPD.” The dispatcher tells officers leaving the station to “immediately head down to 39th Place and Kedzie [Avenue]” and “go assist.” “There are a lot of cars, so just use caution, please,” the dispatcher says.

  Several minutes later, a lieutenant can be heard over the radio telling officers not to respond to 39th and Kedzie, “per the chief of patrol.” Moments later, the dispatcher confirms, “We’re not sending anybody over to that location.”

  An officer at the scene working on a traffic crash report says her team is “blocked in” but will get out as soon as they can.

  “If you need resources, we’ll send you whatever you need,” the lieutenant tells the officer. And later, he tells the dispatcher: “Get them the information they need, and get them out of there.”

  “Again, those are the orders we’re being given,” the lieutenant says. In another video, several officers can be heard discussing the order. “They are gonna do the car accident report, and we’re getting out of here,” one officer says. “He doesn’t want us hanging around here.”

That's at a minimum, THREE separate incidents of body camera footage being revealed - not over actual actions, but over the orders being given by exempt staff and conveyed to the field supervisors and Officers.

What are the chances that there are more videos? Dozens more, because everyone has a camera and everyone should have had it activated. 100%?

What are the chances that every one of these conversations, transmissions, discussions got it wrong or misunderstood? Even if half got it wrong, that means half got it right and they're all digitally preserved.

Is Larritorious going to backtrack on his unqualified support of Heineken?

She Lied?

Really? A democrat DEI judge lied?

• More than a year after Cook County Judge Tyria B. Walton said Chicago police threatened her following her acquittal of Whitley Temple, official records show no evidence that an investigation was ever conducted. 

  Temple, a former aide to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, was acquitted after allegedly stealing a police officer’s squad car while naked and nearly running him over.

  Temple was released under court-supervised mental health treatment extending through 2029. No agency has confirmed an investigation, and the Chief Judge’s Office has not issued a comment.

  An anonymous Chicago police officer who reviewed the case said the lack of records raises questions about Walton’s claims.

Go read the entire article - it's a blow-by-blow account of Cook County Criminal Court corruption. 

We (and many others) said this many times - if there was an actual threat made on a judge, there is Cook County Sheriff protocol in place - in place for years now - regarding reporting and protecting the judiciary. Part of the protection would include informing nearly half-a-dozen investigatory agencies, including CPD, IAD, COPA, ISP and assorted federal agencies.

None of that ever happened.

What did happen was DEI Walton accusing the blog of publishing her address, which never happened either. She was obviously just lashing out at the well deserved scorn she was receiving for her DEI verdict and mental health "findings" on Whitley Temple (still Whitley Temple so far) without any basis in fact.

But you'll never see a single media tool or Machine politician call to hold a DEI judge accountable for (A) bad decisions or (B) unqualified behavior. Being unqualified is what got her appointed to the position in the first place - she does what she's told.

Tenacious

Nice job keeping this one active:

• A man is back in custody and charged in a downtown Chicago murder over 20 years later following an international search effort. David Barklow, 68, was extradited Friday to Chicago from South America, police announced. Barklow was identified as the suspect who shot and killed 40-year-old Kent Projansky on December 18, 2004, inside his apartment in the 1100 block of N. Dearborn in the city's Near North neighborhood, Chicago police said.

  Detectives found that Barklow lived across the street from Projansky at the time of the murder, and the suspect was arrested on October 16, 2019 by the U.S. Marshals Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force following an investigation. Barklow was able to flee the county in December 2019, police said. It was learned in early 2022 that he had moved to Ecuador

  Police secured an arrest warrant for Barklow for First Degree Murder and Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution. In April 2025, detectives learned from INTERPOL that Barklow traveled from Ecuador to Peru, CPD said. "The U.S. Department of Justice, the DOJ's Office of International Affairs, the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service, the U.S. State Department, the Regional Security Office at the U.S. Embassy in Lima, Peru and Peruvian authorities" worked together to arrest Barklow.

  The suspect is now back in Chicago and has been charged with one felony count of First-Degree Murder, the Cook County State's Attorney's Office said. It was not yet announced when he will appear in court.

A lot of people, including CPD homicide detectives, put in a lot of effort to keep this one active.

No One Called....Again

Again, we were never a huge supporter of ShotSpotter, believing that it was mainly a very expensive crime scene locator, but that it did serve a purpose of informing police about shootings (with potential victims) when the neighborhood didn't bother to call....like this:

• A 61-year-old man was found lying dead outside his Auburn Gresham home early Friday, the latest gunshot victim to go undiscovered in a neighborhood once monitored by the city’s ShotSpotter system.

  Officers responded to the 7600 block of South Sangamon around 1:25 a.m. after a 911 caller reported a man down outside their door.

  Police found the victim unresponsive with a gunshot wound to his chest. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

  CPD had not received any calls of shots being fired in the area, leaving it unclear how long the man had been there before being discovered.

Now it's just a source of amusement and a reason to shake our heads at how far society has fallen.

NYPD Shootout

With as many cameras as there are in the big blue $hithole cities, we don't see nearly the amount of footage that the cameras capture, probably because it makes the police look like they aren't the problem:

• Chilling surveillance footage captured the “Wild West” moment an NYPD cop shot a gun-toting maniac who allegedly fired at officers after threatening to shoot up Mount Sinai Hospital.

  The tense clip showed the gunman – 20-year-old Elijah Brown – holding his weapon in his hand as he casually walked on Madison Avenue between East 95th and 96th streets late Thursday after telling a bodega worker he planned to riddle the hospital with bullets. 

  As cops approached Brown, he suddenly whipped around and fired at the officers – prompting at least one to return fire from the street, the footage shows. 

Hell, it even shows the officers rushing up after shooting the offender and rendering immediate first aid. Nothing wrong with this shooting which is probably why the NY Post is covering it and nobody else is giving it much airplay.

Light Weekend on Tap

We might be out of town for a little while. 

Nothing serious, but attention is needed other places occasionally.

Posting might be sporadic along with comment moderation.

Stay safe. 

More Charges for Puncher

Hard to believe no one has shot this asshole:

• A man accused of being one of the “Loop Punchers” — a group of unrelated men known for randomly attacking women on Chicago’s streets — is now charged with assaulting two more victims. William Livingston, 32, is already in custody awaiting trial for allegedly attacking and seriously injuring a woman in the Loop on August 19. Police say he has a long history of similar assaults.

  According to Chicago police, investigators recently linked Livingston to two additional random attacks that occurred on June 12 in the 2700 block of North Clark Street, where a 40-year-old woman and a 29-year-old woman were both targeted. Prosecutors have charged him with two counts of aggravated battery in a public place.

We were just about to say, if the previous States Attorney was pushing for felony charges on a root beer moistening just because it happened "on the public way," then these women getting punching in the head on the public way was at least deserving of similar consideration. 

Good to see some consistency finally.

CWB has video of at least one of the attacks, for which they had bring legal pressure to get the city to release.

CFD Fundraiser

Got this from a couple people:

• In the middle of the night, Chicago Fire Department Paramedic Randy Campbell (Ambulance 67) was jolted awake by the smell of smoke. His Mt. Greenwood apartment was on fire.

  He immediately woke his 7-year-old son, Merrill. But the fire moved fast. Both exits were already blocked by a wall of heavy smoke and flames. Randy was trapped. His son was trapped.

  With no other way out, Randy did what any parent—and any firefighter—would do. He protected his son. He grabbed Merrill, held him tight, and jumped from the third-story window.

  His Son is Safe. His Recovery is Just Beginning.

  Merrill walked away unharmed, shielded by his father. Randy took the full impact of the fall. He suffered a fractured L5 vertebra—a serious injury we all know means a long, painful, and difficult recovery. It's a tough road for any medic, and it means he can't be on the rig, serving the city he loves.

Hopefully, he can recover and return to work. 

Click the link up top if you wish to contribute. 

End Approaching?

No one beats Father Time:

• Civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson washospitalized on Wednesday in Chicago, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition announced.

  In recent years, Rev. Jackson has been seen in a wheelchair, and public comments from the civil rights icon have been waning. It was believed Jackson had Parkinson's disease, but officials with Rainbow PUSH said earlier this year he was diagnosed Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, a neurodegenerative disease.

One of the more polarizing figures of our lifetimes, exploitative beyond measure, far more concerned with making a buck extorting corporate America for real and imagined wrongs, called out by MLK himself for being far too self centered instead of being united behind a common message.

Oh yeah, and this:

 If you ever wondered who was really calling the shots, Jesse is sitting at his feet below the throne.

Morons

Recommended for Separation, they did 365 days instead:

• Two Chicago police officers who brawled with restaurant employees following a Cubs game while off-duty in 2019 have completed year-long suspensions imposed under a disciplinary settlement, according to a recently released Civilian Office of Police Accountability report.

They were drunk, obnoxious and brought disrepute to the profession. 

Three-hundred-sixty-five days is a light punishment. 

But since they're obviously politically connected somewhere along the line to be able to beat numerous recommendations for termination, there ought to be some sort of restriction on them ever getting a promotion or cushy assignment where they'd further embarrass the Department.

Fiduciary Duty

Ever hear of it?

• A fiduciary duty is a legal obligation where one party, known as the fiduciary, must act in the best interests of another party, called the principal or beneficiary.

The city treasurer is flirting with abandoning that legal precedent:

• City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin touched off a political firestorm Wednesday by declaring that the city’s $10 billion portfolio her office controls will no longer invest in U.S. Treasury bonds to protest what she called the “authoritarian regime” of President Donald Trump.

  “Chicagoans do not want us to bankroll the regime — the authoritarian regime — of Donald Trump where he has waged a war on our city,” said Conyears-Ervin, one of thirteen Democratic candidates and fifteen candidates overall vying to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Danny Davis in the 7th Congressional District.

  “In the past three years, our office has held over $200 million in Treasury securities,” Conyears-Ervin said, speaking at a hearing on Mayor Brandon Johnson’s proposed 2026 budget. “Beginning today, I have directed my staff to boycott the purchase of United States Treasury securities.”

She claims that the returns on corporate bonds, money market accounts and asset-backed securities are "the same" but that is a questionable proposition at best. 

No one can predict with 100% accuracy what the markets are going to do (except Nancy Pelosi) so a unilateral move like this should be questioned by the aldercreatures. Some already are, but there ought to be more than a few eyes on this with calculators at the ready.

Budgets and pensions rely on that money. 

Crime is Down!

That's what Conehead and Fata$$ have been claiming for months now.

Except this happened: 

• President Donald Trump said Tuesday that violent crime in Chicago has fallen sharply since the start of a federal crackdown known as "Operation Midway Blitz," crediting the Department of Homeland Security-led effort with driving shootings and robberies down across the Windy City.

  The president’s Truth Social post claimed that shootings are down 35%, robberies down 41% and carjackings nearly 50% since the operation began several weeks ago.

  "This has been achieved despite the extraordinary resistance from Chicago and Illinois Radical Democrat leadership," Trump wrote.

Conehead was asked for comment:

 We fully expect him to start claiming crime is up. 

Nice Hiring Fuckworthless

Corruption among Illinois pols? Who would have thought it?

• The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said a member of Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s office misrepresented himself as the attorney of a detained illegal immigrant to facilitate their release.

  According to a letter sent Wednesday to Duckworth, D-Ill., U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Todd Lyons said the staffer told federal agents he was the attorney of Jose Ismeal Ayuzo Sandoval — a 40-year-old illegal immigrant previously deported four times to Mexico and who had a DUI conviction.

So Fuckworthless hires people who are working - allegedly by falsifying federal documents - to free a FOUR TIME DEPORTED ILLEGAL ALIEN rather than actual American citizens whom she purportedly represents.

D'oh!

Nice uniform there Captain:

 

We guess they don't have uniform inspections before promotion ceremonies any more?

When she looked down at her name tag, she probably said, "I can read it, so it must be good." 

Another Shotspotter Miss

We smile every time these pop up:

• A man was found shot to death inside a vehicle in Gresham on Friday night, but witnesses who heard the gunfire didn’t call police until they saw the man slumped over in his car about an hour later, according to an officer at the scene.

  The shooting happened in the 8800 block of South Lowe Avenue in a neighborhood that used to be covered by the city’s now-shuttered ShotSpotter gunfire detection system. If the system had still been active, it could have alerted first responders even though no one who heard the gunfire called for help.

It's amusing that Shotspotter might have helped.

It's even more amusing that the neighborhood doesn't care enough to call in "shots fired" for over an hour. 

This by itself should be justification for Larritorious to pull every officer out of that District and send them somewhere that actually wants the police around. 

Where's Waldo?

Where's Heiniken for that matter?

We've gotten a bunch of pictures sent to us, so we're posting some for your amusement.

Number One!

And again, not for anything good:

• Chicago’s 10.25% combined sales tax currently ranks second among major cities, behind only Seattle’s 10.35%, but a 0.25-point hike for transit will make them the highest in America.

  The new Regional Transportation Authority funding bill, which increases the Chicago metro area sales tax by 0.25 percentage points, has passed both chambers of the Illinois General Assembly and now sits on Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk. Once signed, it will give Chicago the highest sales-tax rate of any major city in the nation at 10.5%.

And what do Chicagoans get for these massive taxes?

• failing schools
• rising property crime
• declining services
• less police coverage
• increasing wait times for ambulances
• fleeing businesses

And Conehead. 

New Award Ribbon

 

"We'll Be Back"

The Border Patrol is leaving for the winter, but will return in full force after operations on the west coast:

• Fifty-six days have passed since U.S. Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino announced on social media, “Well, Chicago, we’ve arrived!”

  Since then, it’s been eight weeks of chaos and fear. Of downtown patrols and boat tours. Of tear gas and pepperballs, even while children played and pastors prayed. Of defiance and violence and a hunt for “the worst of the worst” and several use-of-force incidents that a judge said “shocks the conscience.”

  Now Bovino and many of his agents are expected to leave Chicago, signaling a downshift in the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz.” That is, at least, while winter descends on the city. But the federal presence could return four-fold in the spring.

It's also been eight weeks of the media revealing themselves to be insurrectionists and traitors, supporting violence and excusing law breaking with assorted propaganda. They're barely covering this:

• Customs and Border Protection officials said Latin Kings street gang leaders have issued a “shoot on sight” order targeting agents involved in immigration operations in Chicago, NewsNation has learned.

  “Officer/agents are reminded to maintain heightened situational awareness and exercise extreme caution when conducting enforcement activities,” the agency’s internal warning said.

  News of the alert comes after shots were reportedly fired at federal agents during an immigration enforcement operation in the city’s Little Village neighborhood on Saturday. The Department of Homeland Security says a group of people also threw a paint can and bricks at a Border Patrol vehicle.

There's a name for this sort of behavior and The Contrarian calls it out:

• The shots that rang out last week resemble those fired on Fort Sumter which started the Civil War

  The shooting has started. 

  A federal law enforcement source has now confirmed that a Chicagoan opened fire on federal officers. Whether this is the first volley or merely the latest escalation, it follows an obvious trajectory: When city leaders wink at lawlessness and when newspapers sanctify defiance, blood is the next headline.

  Our local press corps has abandoned skepticism for sermonizing. They’ve become propagandists — much like the newspapers of the South in the years before the Civil War — stirring emotion, arousing grievance, and normalizing rebellion against our own federal government. They no longer cover the news; they choreograph it.

If this is the new "normal," well.....good luck.

Crimesha Pissed Herself

The Root Beer Trial concluded a few days ago and we barely heard a peep about it. Seems the media is still covering for Crimesha's political abuse of her office (summarized from the CWB report):

• William Swetz, the man accused of backing his pickup toward former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and throwing a Big Gulp of root beer in her face during a roadside confrontation, quietly went on trial last month in Markham. The two-day bench trial was held before Judge Tiana Blakely, with the Illinois Attorney General’s Office prosecuting Swetz on felony counts of aggravated assault with a motor vehicle and aggravated battery in a public place.

  [...] The case stems from a June 2024 confrontation near Foxx’s home in Flossmoor. Then still in office, Foxx was out for a morning walk around 10:30 a.m. when Swetz drove by in his GMC pickup.

  Foxx, who was walking along the edge of the roadway instead of the sidewalk, told police that Swetz yelled, “Get the f**** off the road b****!” She responded by flipping him off. Swetz allegedly drove a short distance, then threw his truck into reverse, zigzagging toward her in the opposite lane and forcing her to jump onto the curb to avoid being hit. When he stopped, the two exchanged more words before Swetz allegedly hurled the contents of his Big Gulp cup in her face.

  [...] Assistant Public Defender Michael Herzog, an attorney supervisor in the Felony Trial Division, saw things differently. He called it “a regrettable incident but noncriminal encounter between my client and a uniquely empowered complaining witness.” Herzog and co-counsel Colleen Gorman argued that the case was treated differently because of who the complainant was. “We’re looking… at a misdemeanor elevated for inappropriate reasons,” Herzog said.

Of course it was elevated for inappropriate reasons. What we had here was two assholes running across each other, except one was a legally incompetent (but politically powerful) Soros-funded DEI hire with the usual sense of entitlement that comes with being able to physically abuse her husband and get away with it. 

There's also zero video evidence of any of what Crimesha alleges, essentially he said/she said, none of which rose to the level of a felony (according to eight years of Crimesha not charging thousands of criminals.) Oh the irony!

But the BIG revelation at trial:

• Herzog questioned whether Foxx was truly horrified during the incident.

  “At the time of him backing his vehicle up to you, you were not in fact afraid for your physical safety?” he asked.

  Foxx replied she “was absolutely afraid for my physical safety. I was horrified.”

  “You never told the police that, correct?”

  “I described to the police what happened. I didn’t tell the police that I wet my pants, but I’ll tell you,” she revealed.

Nothing like a last-second addition to her story in an attempt to sway the bench trial her way.

Swetz is likely going to be found guilty of something - this is still Cook County and the connected take care of their own. Crimesha still has ambitions for another election, so the system will work in her favor. 

Arrest in I.C.E. Shooting?

DHS says it's in "relation to the shooting." 

No idea what that means, but he's an ILLEGAL ALIEN of all things - with a previous weapon charge that probably should have gotten him deported a long time ago:

• A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said agents were shot at on Saturday during an operation near 26th Street and Kedzie Avenue in the Little Village neighborhood.

  On Monday, DHS told NBC Chicago they arrested an undocumented man from Mexico in relation to the shooting. Authorities said he has a prior conviction for unlawful use of a weapon, although they hadn't released his identity as of Monday evening.

So what is he still doing on this side of the border? 

Another one of Fata$$'s and Conehead's sanctuary beneficiaries?

Best Performance?

We can't tell if the CWB writers are being humorous or not:

• Thirteen people were shot in Chicago over the weekend, four of them fatally, marking the best performance for the same weekend since 2017, according to HeyJackass, a website that tracks Chicago violence using official and open-source data.

So does "best performance" mean lowest number of shootings?

Or do they mean the kill percentages are getting better along with the aim of the ne'er-do-wells? Because a 30% success rate is almost unheard of these days.

It's a bit of unintentional dark humor - and we appreciate it. 

Government Shutdown Ending!

Thank goodness! We don't know what we would have done if it had gone on for another forty days!

Guess who voted to open the government back up?

• Sen. Dick Durbin is once again under fire for voting on a Republican-led measure that would end the government shutdown — angering Democrats who say the extension of health care subsidies must be part of any deal with Republicans.

  Durbin on Sunday joined a group of moderate Democrats in a 60-40 vote toward passing a bill to fund the government and to hold a later vote on extending Affordable Care Act tax credits that expire Jan. 1. The agreement would also reverse mass firings of federal workers that began Oct. 1, the day the shutdown began, with workers to receive back pay.

This was all political theater with dems blaming republicans for their shutdown, while everyone with a brain knew it would take 60 votes in the first place:

 

That was the vote pretty much every time it came up for the past month, with dems attempting to (A) get free healthcare for ILLEGAL ALIENS and (B) subsidies for the "affordable" health care. 

They got neither and Dickless Durbin - who's retiring - knew he wouldn't face voters again, so he caved along with a bunch of other senators in vulnerable seats. Now everyone can get back to grafting tax money.

Chickens Come Home to Roost

Jon PP Heiniken is still being kept out of the public eye:

• When Chicago’s top cop spoke to the media after a Border Patrol agent shot a woman last month on the city’s Southwest Side, he addressed a growing political firestorm over the department’s role in the incident.

  Supt. Larry Snelling’s right-hand man, Patrol Chief Jon Hein, was facing a flood of criticism — from ex-cops, internet trolls and members of his own department — after radio transmissions showed his officers were ordered not to respond to the Oct. 4 shooting scene, as an angry crowd gathered to protest and confront federal law enforcement.

  Snelling defended Hein, saying reports that Chicago police were told to stand down were “absolutely not true.” Dozens of complaints were filed against Hein over his response to the incident, but all but one has been closed out.

That "one complaint" is being held open for two reasons:

• so COPA/Conehead/IAD/Larritorious can continue to hide any CPD video of a shooting that was likely 100% justified (shades of LaQuan), and
• because the dispatch audio, OEMC notes and the radio transmissions by CPD supervisors sustain the charge, therefore Hein is guilty....and we can't have that after Larritorious' gallant defense.

Whatever. It's all political at this point. The important thing is that the bars in Edison Park are experiencing a noticeable downturn in their bottom lines and that has an impact on tax revenues.

What we meant by the headline up top is this paragraph in the Slum Times "report":

• The afternoon became emblematic of the federal response to demonstrators and neighborhood residents shouting, blowing whistles and at times throwing objects in protest.

Throwing objects isn't and has never been a legitimate form of protest. Ever. Not in Illinois and not in any country we know of. Yelling, waving signs, making noise, blocking streets (within certain parameters), even property damage (again, within recognized limits) are - for better or worse - recognized as protesting actions.

Battery and Aggravated Battery are not. 

But....years and years of CPD being ordered to stand down, retreat, surrender control of the streets and pretty much become punching bags to those claiming "we're protesting!" have led us to this - where the media "reports" that committing battery is now "protesting." 

We saw it across the board in 2020. We see it regularly on the west coast with pantifa and transtifa. We saw it at the Columbus statue. And we see it at every ICE deployment. 

And Hein's order is the culmination of the dumbass "duty to retreat" bullshit. Hopefully, he pays a professional price for his stupidity.

Getting Thinner

Missed this from a couple days ago, but nothing really new here:

• Chicago will slow police hiring to roughly 50 recruits per month — and put no classes through the training academy again next summer — to generate the $91 million in “turnover” savings needed to help erase the city’s $1.2 billion budget shortfall, police officials told City Council members Wednesday.

  Two months ago, Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling vowed to resist any attempt to eliminate 984 police vacancies — even after Mayor Brandon Johnson ordered all of his department heads to cut 3% to 5% from their 2025 budgets.

  Instead, Snelling said he would meet the cost-cutting mandate by holding open those 984 police positions, but budgeting less money for those vacancies he knew the city would not be able to fill.

So we're already short those 984 spots. Rahm cut 1,200+ spots from the budget a decade ago. Groot did similar numbers. 

We've been sounding the alarm for years, pointing out that where we used to have eight or ten rapids up along with a second wagon and a traffic car, those haven't been seen on a regular basis for nearly twenty years now. Not to mention Chicago closed three entire Districts. So that "10,000" number is and has been a fantasy for a long time. Depending on what happens in New York City and knowing that CPD steals every NYPD idea (no matter how bad it it), we might even see a further drop.

This amused us though:

• But Ryan Fitzsimons, deputy director for oversight coordination, said police hiring will be “staggered” throughout the year. “We will be pausing some of our recruit classes over the summer, which we did this year, to allow us to better allocate resources out into the field and also tamp down those overtime expenses,” Fitzsimons said.

  If police hiring needs to slow down, Snelling said the “best time for that to happen was during the summer.” “We have less recruits in the academy during the summer. That’s when we have most of our [special] events. We have sworn officers working in the academy. Those people we could use now to go out to some of these events. It reduces overtime,” the superintendent said.

"pausing...recruit classes"? Like hiring them and then what? Laying them off? Forcing them to work details? Because as readers know, the training process is six months long. Someone you hire in January isn't on the street until June. Moving forward:

• February hirees come out in July
• March hirees come out in August
• April hirees come out in September

That covers the summer months. So when does the "pause" occur?

May is also the first opportunity for FOP members to retire and many take advantage of it. You're shortages are going to peak right when hiring is "paused"? 

And that calls this into question:

• For years, the city has allocated $100 million for police overtime, only to blow through it — to the tune of $282.8 million in 2023 and $238 million last year.

  Johnson’s budget caps police overtime at $200 million and requires Council approval for spending that exceeds the cap.

We shall see. 

"...cleared..."? Maybe....

 But maybe not:

• Chicago police union president John Catanzara faced a mutiny by opponents who claimed he misused money; but an internal investigation has cleared him of wrongdoing, several sources tell WGN Investigates.

  “City Hall and [police] headquarters are going to have to wait a little longer to get their way,” Catanzara quipped....

But according to two different people we talk to (neither involved in filing the previous allegations), after the Board meeting where Catanzara's hand-picked committee excused his actions, federal agents showed up at the FOP office for a copy of the meeting transcripts.

Why would they want transcripts of the meeting? 

Are they comparing what was said at the meeting to what was said somewhere else? Or how what was said lines up with what any paperwork shows? 

Conehead Wants....the U.N.?

This moron is delusional:

• Arguing that “no country should be above international law,” Mayor Brandon Johnson urged the United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday to hold President Donald Trump’s administration accountable for what he called a “worsening human rights crisis in the United States.”

  In a virtual appearance before the panel’s members meeting in Switzerland, Johnson invited U.N. experts to come to Chicago to witness firsthand abuses committed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during raids he said have wreaked havoc in neighborhoods across the city and suburbs.

  “That is why I call on this council to hold the federal government of the United States to the same standards of accountability you apply elsewhere in the world,” Johnson said, urging the group to consider holding a special session on the matter. “Human rights are universal — or they are meaningless.”

Mayor slave Conehead would be shocked and highly disappointed if the rules in other countries were applied here:

• most of Europe, Iran - 1 to 3 years
• China - 1 year
• Russian - 2 years
• Iraq, Japan, Taiwan - 3 years
• South Korea, Malaysia - 5 years

All sentences are followed by immediate deportation. Caught again and most sentences double. 

Funny how Conehead wasn't calling for any of this while tens of thousands of minorities were being gunned down in the streets the past few decades - after all, those people (or folks) vote, too - probably as reliably as the ILLEGAL ALIENS.

NYPD Downsizing

With the demo-socialist being elected, New York City is about to witness first-hand how big de-policing can go:

• Former New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told Newsmax that New York City should prepare for a smaller police department.

  Kelly told "Saturday Report" that the reason is the mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. "It looks like Mr. Mamdani is going to reduce the size of the NYPD significantly," Kelly explained.

  "He wants to start another agency. It's a community safety agency, but he wants it to be a billion-dollar agency.

  "So the only place where that money is, is in the NYPD budget. And New York City police, their budget, 95% of it is personnel. So if you're going to take a large amount of money out of the NYPD budget, it's got to be a reduction in headcount.

Supposedly, 5,000 NYPD personnel are eligible to walk out the door as of 01 January, although it is expected that a "mere" 3,000+ will retire in 2026. Combine that with a hiring freeze and you'll see numbers dwindle even faster.

We don't know if HeyJackass.com has ever looked into a New York offshoot of its operation, but there might be a financial opportunity there for an enterprising capitalist.

You Want More I.C.E.?

 Because this is how you get more ICE:

• Someone fired shots at Customs and Border Patrol agents on Chicago's Southwest Side, the Department of Homeland Security said. A responding Chicago police officer was injured during the incident, according to another CPD officer at the scene.

  The incident happened as federal agents launched several operations Saturday in the Little Village neighborhood as part of Operation Midway Blitz, possibly detaining at least two people. In a statement posted to X, DHS said agents were conducting operations near 26th Street and Kedzie Avenue in the Little Village neighborhood when the shooting happened.

  An angry crowd gathered after federal officer allegedly detained a young woman near 26th and Kedzie. Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino was there. He could be seen in cellphone video with an apparent tear gas canister in his hand. Residents demanded the detained woman's release while in pursuit of their caravan.

  During the incident, DHS says an unknown male, who was driving a black Jeep, fired shots at agents and fled the scene. DHS also said "an unknown number of agitators" threw a paint can and bricks at Border Patrol vehicles.

Um, that isn't a protest - that's unlawful interference. You don't get to "demand" the release of arrestees on the street. There's a process on place for that defined in the Illinois Compiled Statutes and in legal procedures. Throwing things is Aggravated Battery. Shots fired is another felony. That's also how you get shots fired back at you.

We're getting close to the point of military intervention and justifiably so. 

Hide the Criminals

On one hand, certain misdemeanors shouldn't be held against you for your entire life:

• Nearly 2.2 million people in Illinois might see eligible criminal records sealed following passage of the ‘Clean Slate’ Act during last week’s veto session. The bill would require law enforcement agencies to automatically seal eligible criminal records every six months. Excluded from the measure are convictions for sexual violence against minors, DUIs, reckless driving, cruelty to animals and serious violent crimes, including any that would qualify for sex offender registration.

  “We are not adding any crimes that are not currently allowed to be sealed by petition, we are just making the process automatic,” bill sponsor Sen. Elgie Sims Jr., D-Chicago, said during discussion on the Senate floor.

  After an earlier version of the bill failed to clear both chambers during the spring legislative session, House Bill 1836 now awaits only a signature from Gov. JB Pritzker to become law. The legislation passed 39-17 in the Senate and 80-26 in the House during the fall veto session.

  Law enforcement, courts and other relevant agencies would continue to have access to sealed records, but the public and private background check entities would not. Automatic sealing would apply to convictions as well as dismissed or reversed charges and arrests.

  Advocates of the bill say it will give Illinoisians a second chance to participate in society and will open new opportunities to work, vote and secure housing.

And therein lies the problem - in Illinois, it's never just a "second chance." It's third chances and fourth chances and twenty-seventh chances. How many time are we reading about someone with an arrest record running thirty and forty pages, with extensive misdemeanor arrests and convictions.

But how many other times are those misdemeanors the result of half-a-dozen felony charges being pled out? We'll bet it's well over half, probably closer to seventy percent. You can't trust criminal records to reveal anything close to the truth any more, thanks to democrats.

Sergeant Assignments

As requested (click for larger versions):

 

When in Doubt....

....create another tax!

• Chicago residents and businesses would pay $1.25 for every package they have delivered — whether from Amazon or another business — under a proposed ground delivery tax that could generate as much as $275 million a year.

  Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th), chair of the City Council’s Committee on Economic and Capital Development, wants cash-strapped Chicago to follow the trail blazed by Colorado and Minnesota, which have imposed similar delivery fees.

  Villegas’ ordinance calls for a ground delivery tax of $1.25 per package that would be imposed “on the purchaser of the tangible personal property being delivered … without regard to the number of items within” each package.

We'll just have everything delivered to our suburban dwelling offspring. Then we'll get to visit the grand kids more. Or Amazon opens up a bunch of those drop-off lockers at suburban sites that are just over the border - Oak Lawn, Oak Park, Bridgeview, Elk Grove, Niles, Norridge, etc. and you pick up your stuff there for free.

Science for Sale

It's almost as easy to buy a scientist nowadays as it is to buy a politician:

• A prominent U.S. virologist who collaborated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology before the COVID-19 pandemic privately informed the U.S. intelligence community in January 2020 that the Chinese lab may be responsible for the outbreak. But in his public remarks to congressional staffers one month later—and after meeting with former White House health adviser Anthony Fauci—the researcher stayed mum about the Wuhan lab and lent credence to the discredited wet market theory.

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill virologist Dr. Ralph Baric warned the Office of the Director of National Intelligence during a closed-door presentation with the agency’s Biological Sciences Experts Group on or around Jan. 29, 2020, that the Wuhan lab, which was conducting risky gain-of-function experiments on bat viruses similar to the one that causes COVID-19, may have accidentally released the virus into the human population. Baric’s presentation, which the Washington Free Beacon obtained from a whistleblower, went beyond mere speculation: Considered one of the world’s foremost experts on coronaviruses, Baric experimented with coronaviruses in 2015 with the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s top researcher, Shi Zhengli. Later, in early 2024, he testified to House investigators that he had privately warned Shi that her lab lacked sufficient biosafety protections and that he always believed a lab leak origin was possible.

  But Baric had nothing to say about the Wuhan lab in his public remarks during the early days of the pandemic as the press cast Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) and other proponents of the lab leak theory as unhinged conspiracy theorists.

Every day, those "conspiracy theorists" turn out to be batting far closer to 1.000 than anyone pushing the jab or mandatory masking.

As a side note to those complaining about our harping on the COVID stuff:

• there's a scroll button so you can move past it without reading;
• do you have any idea how illegal and improper and hypocritical those in power were attempting to make you to surrender bodily autonomy, restricting your freedoms and turning you - the police - into a totalitarian force to suppress dissent?

Wake up - you don't want to be on the wrong side of that one.