Police Matter?

Sounds like a perfect opportunity to roll out those Mental Health Responders:

• A McKinley Park woman who lost her cat in January said he's been sitting dead for weeks on top of her neighbor's roof, and she hasn't been able to get him back.

  Jadine Wambaja shared surveillance video footage showing a cat somehow landing on her neighbor's roof. She believes it's her cat, Scarface. "He was flung like he was garbage up on the roof," Jadine Wambaja said. "In the video, you see the cat tossed up, and seconds later, if you look at the man's back door, you could see someone walk inside."

The aldercreature posted video of the subject tossing the dead cat on the roof (if you find a working link, post it). The back yard looks like a disaster and the article further states the occupant isn't opening hte door and seems to have barricaded it shut.

Maybe someone from 009 can update the readers? 

UPDATE: Link here.

UPDATE: Clearer view here - content warning for the sensitive.

Another Traffic Freebie

Another effort to hamstring police proposed in Springfield:

• (via the 016/017 Police Scanner X/Twitter feed - no working link available) - State senator Rachel Ventura (IL-43), who represents many parts of Bollingbrook, Romeoville, Lockport, Joliet among others, has proposed a bill that
  
  
   "Amends the Illinois Vehicle Code. Removes the requirement that cannabis within any area of a motor vehicle must be in an odor-proof container. Provides that if a motor vehicle is driven or occupied by an individual 21 years of age or over, a law enforcement officer may not stop or detain the motor vehicle or its driver nor inspect or search the motor vehicle, the contents of the motor vehicle, or the operator or passenger of the motor vehicle solely based on the odor of burnt or raw cannabis."
  
  
  This is akin to allowing people to drive with open alcohol.
  

Seeing as how you can't drive more than a block without smelling weed emanating from parked cars, cars on streets, cars on the highway, trucks and bicycles, it's not difficult to say that driving while high is a very big issue. We'd estimate that nearly 10% of drivers are high as kites and a friend over at MAIU claims that personal injury / fatal accidents involve weed over 60% of the time, surpassing even alcohol the past few years.

But hey, keep the police from enforcing the law.

Expensive Living

Couldn't possibly have anything to do with Conehead's or Fata$$'s economic policies, right?

• No U.S. city is feeling inflation more than Chicago, according to new data from WalletHub.

  The financial website said the “Chicago-Naperville-Elgin Area” has seen a 4.3% jump in inflation year over year, the biggest increase in the country.

  A report from Crain’s Business said the higher prices are mostly due to a 6% increase in housing and transportation costs.

Might also be the cause of the almost 40% downtown vacancy rate?

Death spiral in full swing.

West Side Shooting

No hits, no runs, no errors?

• A Chicago police officer fired at least one shot as cops rounded up three armed robbery suspects in the Austin neighborhood overnight. At this point, officials have not released any details about what happened, but COPA, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, said its investigators were heading to the scene of an “officer-involved shooting.”

One report on NewsRadio said the chase went on for "miles" and another report said "accidentally fired a shot." The legacy media is largely useless at this point, but we certainly are thankful no Officers were injured.

Reform is Coming?

This was the last ditch protest on front of fbi HQ prior to the Senate vote for the new Director:

That's it - five democrat senators. No crowds of screeching harpies or blue haired lib-tards. Nada.

And now Kash Patel has been confirmed as Director, so we will refrain from using this graphic for a short time while we see if reform is actually possible:

If they actually start searching for the untold hundreds, maybe thousands of terrorists currently inside the US, if they start hunting down Red Chinese spies, if they start rooting out corruption instead of spying on parents attending school board meetings, surveilling Latin mass attendees, arresting trespassers and lying in front of FISA judges, perhaps we'll grant them some actual respect.

But it's a long road back from where they went.

F#&$ Fata$$

On one hand, he's cutting a program that granted ILLEGAL ALIENS hundreds of million of dollars that ought to be used in the service of tax paying Illinoisans:

• Gov. JB Pritzker on Wednesday compared President Donald Trump’s “authoritarian playbook” to the rise of the Nazis as he unveiled a $55.2 billion spending plan that also saves the state more than $400 million by nixing a health care program for adults who lack legal status.

  To cap a 35-minute budget and State of the State address at the Illinois State Capitol, the Democratic governor said he’s “watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now,” framing Trump’s early weeks in the Oval Office as a playbook of blaming the “other” for the country’s problems.

  “It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic,” Pritzker said.

On the other, is anyone else getting as sick of the nazi comparisons as we are? 

Which nazis is he yapping about? The ones who locked down entire nations over a virus that has turned out to become less deadly than the flu? Oh wait, that was democrats. 

The ones stifling free speech and coercing tech companies to censor things they claim run contrary to the narrative? Um, dems again. 

Forcing businesses and local governments to administer a "vaccine" that prevented nothing and caused untold health problems for millions? Dems. 

Weaponizing the entire justice system against concerned parents, Catholics, conservatives, trespassers, manufacturing criminal charges, ignoring statutes of limitations and actual case law to pursue and persecute? Guess who?

Funneling billions to a European war with zero strategic or economic benefit to the country, more billions to the climate boondoggle, funding all sorts of left wing NGOs to enrich the so-called "elites"? Hmmmm.

And let's not even mention locking down Illinois while flying a wife, daughter and assorted horses to Florida to participate in equestrian events while back here, kids lost years worth of education, parents lost jobs and grandparents died alone because no one was allowed to visit.

But hey, Sieg Heil!

Fata$$ said he wouldn't be taking a knee to a "king," probably because he'd never get up without assistance. Fuck this jagoff.

About Time

"Mob rule" ought to be be disavowed, and should have been long ago:

• A Chicago alderman is pushing to reinstall statues and monuments that were taken down during Lori Lightfoot's tenure as mayor. "It wasn't just the monument was gone, it was a freedom of speech, it was the respect to our community was gone," Ron Onesti, president of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans said. Onesti said it was disappointing when statues of Christopher Columbus and others were removed.

  The monuments were taken down in 2020, after protests over the murder of George Floyd and police shooting of Breonna Taylor. The statues have been in storage ever since.

  "None of this was ever about actually what Columbus meant or the messaging about Columbus, it was how it was done," Onesti said. "The fact that the community was not engaged or involved with the decision-making."

  "It was selective censorship, and that's what we're doing," 41st Ward Alderman Anthony Napolitano said. "We are selecting who we're going to censor and who we are not going to censor and that is the epitome of unjust government right there."

Yeah, because a Columbus statue in Chicago had everything to do with a dope dealer's death in Minnesota and a tragic set of circumstances in Kentucky. It cost a CPD Officer an eye and countless others injured with zero convictions by Crimesha.

How about make sure the statues are appropriately secured, properly insured and the law is enforced across the board regarding criminal damage charges along with restitution against perpetrators? There used to be an entire unit of the Law Division tasked with recovering civil judgements against criminal actions. In fact, we're pretty sure federal (state?) prosecutors bankrupted the klan by holding individuals responsible for all sorts of financial judgements connected to criminal acts.

The Return of ShotSpotter?

It might actually happen:

• A year ago, this editorial board noted that Mayor Brandon Johnson was talking from both sides of his mouth when he pulled the cord on ShotSpotter when its nearly $50 million contract ended, only to plug the gunfire-detection system back in temporarily until the Democratic National Convention wrapped up.

  “Only in Johnson’s City Hall does this make sense,” we said of the mayor’s vacillating position at the time. The system was shut down for good last September.

  Now Chicagoans are learning of the very real possibility that ShotSpotter or similar surveillance technology could return. And the 180-degree turn back toward gunshot detection — a full 360-degree circle, if ShotSpotter comes back — could have been avoided if the mayor had simply listened to the right people.

  In this case, the right people were Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling and City Council members who were proponents of the technology; University of Chicago researchers who found that ShotSpotter likely saved dozens of lives every year; and everyday people in neighborhoods plagued by gun violence, who felt the technology helped keep their communities safer.

This was an unforced error on the part of Conehead. While we weren't (and aren't) super huge fans of ShotSpotter - we regularly derided it as The World's Most Expensive Shell Casing Locator - the movement toward a more technology driven department cannot be denied. It worked as advertised and as the CWB blog has been pointing out for months now, would have assisted in locating many persons shot/killed in neighborhoods where no one even bothers to call 9-1-1 when gunfire erupts.

Plus, as CPD steals every idea NYPD has, we would note the Big Apple just renewed their contract with ShotSpotter:

 

SSTI stock climbed 13% on the news, so all the aldercreatures just missed a chance to make some decent money. This time around, you can be sure they'll be buying all the stock they can prior to approving the Contract.

City Council Revolt

Conehead hasn't just lost the voters....he's lost the City Council, historically a rubber stamp for most mayors:

• Mayor Brandon Johnson’s $830 million general obligation bond issue to upgrade Chicago’s aging infrastructure stalled in the City Council on Wednesday amid claims the back-loaded repayment schedule is “fiscal insanity.”

  Ald. Bill Conway (34th) is so concerned about the size of the borrowing — and a financing structure that saddles Chicago’s taxpayers with $2 billion in added costs —.that he tried and failed to send the matter back to the Finance Committee he co-chairs for additional discussion.

  Conway’s motion was tabled, 27 to 23. That narrow margin underscores what former Finance Committee Chair Scott Waguespack (32nd) called a “lack of trust” between the mayor and Council that has become a “hallmark” of Johnson’s administration.

Not only is the bond issue in trouble, the proposed reduction in speed limits (thereby enabling a massive influx of automated camera fines) was defeated yesterday:

• A divided City Council on Wednesday put the brakes on efforts to reduce the city’s default speed limit from 30 mph to 25 mph.

  The 28-21 vote against lowering the speed limit followed a spirited and emotional debate that pitted traffic safety advocates, many of them on the North Side, against African-American alderpersons concerned about uneven enforcement and a surge in pretextual traffic stops targeting Black drivers.

  West Side Ald. Jason Ervin (28th), Mayor Brandon Johnson’s handpicked Budget Committee chair, led the charge against the lower speed limit.

Cracking down on speeders is racist! Of course, the fact that CPD writes almost zero speeding tickets isn't brought up - nearly 99% of all speeding tickets are camera tickets, so obviously the cameras are even more racist that police officers.

Another Conehead Success

So a few years ago, the NYSE bought the Chicago Stock Exchange and renamed it NYSE Chicago.

Now, they're moving the entire operation to Texas:

• The New York Stock Exchange announced Wednesday morning it would move its Chicago branch to Dallas and call it NYSE Texas.

  "Pending the effectiveness of regulatory filings, NYSE Chicago will reincorporate in Texas and be renamed NYSE Texas, offering companies the opportunity to list their securities on NYSE Texas," said the NYSE in a statement.

So how much in corporate taxes is this going to short Conehead's budget?

Broken Promises

It's been thirty days since Trump took over and we confess to being disappointed:

• no gay concentration camps;
• no removing women's right to vote;
• no media torture chambers and reeducation camps;

Democrats said all of this would come to pass and we were kind of looking forward to it all. What happened?

What the Actual F#$%?

We've been harping on this for a while, but here's the final proof:

• Dr. Deborah Birx admits the COVID shots were pushed on the wrong people, saying the rollout on young people ignored the science.

  Now, she tells us.

  “The messenger RNA vaccine should have been rolled out for the people that were at risk for severe disease because that’s what the vaccine was developed for,” Birx said.

  She also confessed the COVID shot was never “designed” to prevent infection:

  “That is not what the COVID vaccine was designed to do. It wasn’t designed against infection.”

  People lost their jobs under the lie that no one was safe until everyone was vaccinated.

  Now, four years later, they admit young people never really needed it—and it wasn’t even designed to prevent infection.

Fauci was the face of COVID, illegally funding the gain-of-function research in Wuhan labs.

But Birx was the architect of the lockdown protocols and admits in her book how she lied to Trump's administration and undercut them at every turn, directing state and local officials to continue lockdowns even as the science showed this was a bad idea:

• She bragged in her book that she defied Trump's policies with the collusion of Mike Pence. She simply ignored any orders she disagreed with and got away with it. 
• "When people start to realize that 99% of us are going to be fine, it becomes more and more difficult [to get people to comply]."

This person would be a good example to start with regarding a full blown Federal prosecution and fortunately, she wasn't one of the ones getting a preemptive blanket pardon from the drooling vegetable. Start at the top and work your way down, all the way to Larritorious stripping Officers for rightly refusing this bullshit government overreach.

Holding Criminals Accountable?

This sounds like dangerous Republican thinking:

• A bunch of “peace circle” facilitators may soon be looking for another line of work. That’s because Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen Burke has instructed prosecutors to stop diverting felony gun cases to the court’s “restorative justice” program, according to WTTW.

  The outlet says 82.8% of the restorative justice courts’ caseload consisted of gun possession matters.

  Defendants who complete a restorative justice program, which frequently involves participating in so-called “peace circles,” become eligible to have the matter scrubbed from records.

The CWB blog then cites a number of case where the "peace circle graduates" committed additional gun crimes within weeks, even days, of completing the non-punishment process.

If you want more of some behavior, reward it. In these cases, not being punished IS the reward and O'Neill-Burke seems to be recognizing that failed Crimesha policy was and continues to result in bad outcomes.

Somebody Stop This A$$hole

Hey aldermorons, we're looking at you:

• Mayor Brandon Johnson’s “exaggeratedly back-loaded” schedule for repaying $830 million in general obligation bonds could saddle Chicago taxpayers with $2 billion in additional costs by 2055, municipal finance experts warned Tuesday.

  Municipal Market Analytics, an independent research group on municipal bonds, urged the City Council to restructure the debt repayment schedule before signing off on Johnson’s plan to add $830 million to Chicago’s mountain of debt to bankroll a year’s worth of capital projects.

  The City Council is scheduled to take a final vote on the general obligation bond issue at Wednesday’s meeting, unless any two alderpersons use a parliamentary maneuver to postpone the final vote. They don’t need to provide a reason for that delay.

  MMA Partner Matt Fabian acknowledged the city has a history of “back-loading” its debt — putting more principal at the end, thereby “ballooning” those late payments. But he argued Johnson’s plans is a “more extreme version” of that dubious structure. It calls for the city to make “capitalized interest” payments only — using borrowed money — for the first two years and make interest-only payments until 2045. "Future taxpayers will be paying for improvements that current taxpayers benefit from. … It leaves future taxpayers to address the city’s current management failure to address its budget in a sustainable manner,” Fabian said.

Literally, the EXACT DEFINITION of robbing Peter to pay Paul. And the current administration - like administrations past - will be long gone, either out of office, out of Chicago, Illinois or out of earthly existence (dead and buried) when the bill comes due.

You want to stop crap like this, make it illegal to mortgage future generations of taxpayers to pay for these insane projects the current generation can't afford.

Tow Truck Crime

Now THIS is the type of behavior we expect from tow truck operators:

• A suburban tow truck operator is charged with shooting the occupant of a rival company’s tow truck on the Kennedy Expressway. The shooting occurred in October 2022, but Miguel Gonzalez is being charged now after a lengthy investigation by the Illinois State Police.

  The female victim was sitting in the back seat of a tow truck occupied by four other people as they traveled on the outbound Kennedy near Fullerton around 4:30 a.m. on October 22, 2022.

  Prosecutors say Gonzalez, 47, pulled his tow truck alongside the rival company’s vehicle and fired 13 shots into its rear window and driver-side doors. The driver of the targeted truck exited at Belmont and drove to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center so the woman could be treated for a gunshot wound to her knee.

  Documents reviewed by CWBChicago say the driver of the rival tow truck recognized the shooter as Gonzalez, adding that the shots came from a tow truck marked with the name of Gonzalez’s company: Serious Business Towing.

  Gonzalez, who goes by the nicknames “KB” and “Killa Boy,” called the rival tow company to admit to the shooting and threatened to kill everyone at the company, according to the documents.

We dealt with more felons in the towing business than we did anywhere except the dope trade. We even met a few Outfit connected persons who swore they were trying to go legit, and maybe they were. We even had a few sergeants who memorized the entire ILCS regarding towing operations and wouldn't hesitate to lock up drivers who didn't have a broom, a bucket of sand and proper towing light attachments. Fun investigations back in the day.

Drunken Auntie

America sure dodged a bullet last November:

She's obviously hammered out of her mind. Can you imagine her with the nuclear football?

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

FOP taking some credit for this:

• The head of the agency that investigates allegations of significant wrongdoing by Chicago police officers, including cops involved in shootings, quit last week because the city’s police oversight commission was planning to recommend she be fired.

  John Catanzara, the head of the union that represents the city’s front-line cops, made that stunning claim in a YouTube video on Friday.

  “The reality is this,” Catanzara claimed. “The Community Commission [for Public Safety and Accountability], we know, took a vote to recommend her for a termination hearing at the City Council.”

  “She knew her days were numbered, so she left before having to face that termination and absolutely was not going to have her contract renewed at the very least, or at least not approved,” the union boss continued.

There are also a couple of lawsuits against her and her "leadership" issues that seem to mostly be personality conflicts based on her not having any trace of one. We aren't sure how much the FOP had to do with the final decision, but the heat was enough to keep it at the forefront of people's minds.

Check out the CWB link up top. There are a ton of embedded links in their reporting outlining what a corrupt mess CuckFOPA turns out to be.

Free Babysitting

Didn't a commander of 025 get removed for this? Escamerit we recall:

Thanks to the Contrarian for keeping the public aware of these aldermanic tools.

CPD Crash

Remember during the winter months, car windows are almost always closed up tight and the heaters are going full blast:

• Two Chicago police officers and another person sustained minor injuries Sunday night when a vehicle collided with a patrol car at an intersection on the Near North Side.

  According to police, at about 8:15 p.m. in the 500 block of North Michigan Avenue, a black sedan was going north on Michigan Ave. when it collided with a marked patrol vehicle that was going east on Illinois Street with lights and sirens activated.

  The two officers inside the patrol vehicle sustained non-life-threatening injuries and were taken to an area hospital in good condition, police say.

Clear those intersections people, because the Traffic Review Board isn't going to accept excuses.

Get well soon Officers.

CFD Crash

Looks like CFD is going to need another pool ladder truck:

• A driver crashed into a Chicago Fire Department fire engine early Sunday morning on the Eisenhower Expressway and was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and issued citations for Move Over Law violations, according to Illinois State Police.

  ISP says that just after 4:30 a.m., troopers responded to I-290 eastbound at Morgan Street in Chicago for a crash involving a CFD fire engine. Preliminary information indicated the fire truck was blocking lanes of traffic to protect a previous crash scene, with lights activated, when it was hit by a black 2018 Nissan.

  According to ISP, the driver of the fire truck was taken to an area hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries.

The truck was blocking multiple lanes from a previous crash and was thankfully only occupied by the driver as the rest of the crew was busy with the initial call.

Best wishes to the driver for a speedy recovery. 

Suburban Officer

On the commute to work:

• A Glenview police officer was killed in a car crash Sunday morning in Barrington while on his way to work, according to the Glenview Police Department. 

  The crash happened around 4:09 a.m. in the 200 block of South Northwest Highway. There, the Barrington Police Department found the victim, identified as officer Robert Fryc, 43, who had suffered fatal injuries during the crash. 

  Officer Fryc served with the Glenview Police Department since 2007 and was recently recognized at the Village's Feb. 4 Board of Trustees meeting for being one of the first responders who helped save the life of a fellow officer last summer.

Prayers and sympathies to our suburban brethren.

Beware the Sidewalks

San Francisco has "poop apps" for user to keep track of piles of shit on the streets of their lovely city.

Some enterprising Chicagoan ought to make an app for this:

• A large dog was killed in River North on Saturday afternoon when it apparently made contact with an electrified manhole cover, according to witnesses and other officials. People who work and live in the area believe other dogs have been shocked at the same location recently.

Yeah, don't walk your dog over here or you might end up dragging it home.

So aside from beggars, robbers, and all manner of illegal alien confronting you on the streets, now you have to worry about your pet headed to doggie heaven just for walking on the sidewalk.

Special Order 06-14-03

From the comments:

• Anyone see the new order on responding to incidents involving citizenship? The street deputy will respond, along with…. the wol. Interesting how they left the commander and captain off of it. Why wouldn’t they respond? Or be required to respond? Dumping it all on the WOL’s as usual as they skirt without any responsibility or liability.
  

And sure enough, hopping over to the online directive site, you find this Order, updated 20 January 2025.

Skimming through, you'll find the usual responsibilities and such listed. But there's a phrase that keeps popping up:

• "civil immigration enforcement"

As far as we know, illegal immigration isn't "civil" at all - it's criminal, 100% of the time. So all this order seems to do is further muddy the waters in an attempt for Chicago politicians to put illegal aliens in front of actual America citizens....you know, the people paying taxes to support the police (and government).

Read it carefully so you know what's what and what's expected or required. 

The part about making the WOL's leave the office though....damn.

How Much?

You know they're going to go on strike shortly, right?

• Think student success is just a matter of spending enough money? Well, Douglass Academy High School spent  $93,787 per student last school year – yet not a single 11th grade student at the school was proficient in reading or math.

  Only 35 students were enrolled at Douglass last year in a building that can fit over 900 students. There are currently 27 full-time equivalent staff members, an increase of two staff members since the previous school year.

  What sense does it make to keep a big high school open for basically a single classroom worth of students? Why squander so many resources on so few students?

  Because the Chicago Teachers Union demands it. And Chicagoans can expect more of the same – high costs and abysmal student outcomes – if CTU gets its way in current contract negotiations

They're just about the single largest line item on the property tax bill, they constantly raise their portion the limit despite decades of failure, and they're going to do it again this spring.

Far past time to break the CTU.  Declare them "essential" and deny them the ability to strike. That'll put an end to 80% of more of their nonsense. Then start making funding contingent on actually producing positive results and see them start crying.

Years Long Problem

Back when Cuck Goudie was doing something bordering on actual investigative reporting:

• Monday, May 2, 2016 - The I-Team is investigating major equipment that Chicago firefighters say is so old it puts them and the public at risk.

  They are startling figures: 40 percent of the city's fire department engines and ladder trucks are too old for safe front-line use, according to industry standards. And within a year, that fire hazard will significantly increase

  The I-Team uncovered one of the worst cases: a busy Chicago firehouse with equipment from 1985, 31 years old. Firefighters say this slows down response times and puts lives in danger.

A comment yesterday cited this report and another asked if the trucks and engines from almost nine years ago might still be on the streets? We certainly wouldn't doubt it.

So this one can't be laid solely at the feet of Conehead, but it's been going on at least since the 9.5 digit midget was in charge and probably long before that.

No One Seems to Care

Lack of ShotSpotter, combined with near 100% community apathy, leads to bodies lying in the street without any sort of response:

• Passersby found a 54-year-old man lying in the middle of 49th Street overnight, suffering from three gunshot wounds to his chest, Chicago police said. Nobody called 911 to report gunfire in the area.

  The man was found on a block that was monitored by the city’s ShotSpotter gunfire detection network until Mayor Brandon Johnson ended the company’s contract in September. Had the system been operational this morning, it could have alerted police and EMS to the shooting so the victim didn’t have to lie around waiting for someone to find him.

Obviously,the community doesn't care, probably since the police didn't shoot him.

The aldercreatures don't care much since they've muted most of the criticism over the ShotSpotter contract being voided.

The public appears to have become inured to having dead, dying or bleeding bodies in the streets.

We continue to be amused.

Nice Highway Fata$$

We figure the state is mostly to blame for this continued disaster:

• The delays associated with the Kennedy Expressway construction project aren’t over.

  The Illinois Department of Transportation said Friday afternoon that problems with the new automated gates have forced the closure of the ramp from the Ontario Street feeder ramp onto the outbound Kennedy Expressway reversible lanes.

  The closure is indefinite.

Remember when we pointed out the express lanes were being used as a "private highway" for VIPs during the Kamalalalala Convention? It seems that ended up costing hundreds of thousands of dollars and untold man-hours, including a automated gate system that doesn't work:

• While the convention lasted only a week in August, the contractor said IDOT’s order to remove all equipment from the roadway delayed the project by 32 days.

  “JBCC was directed to cease all activity and remove all materials and equipment from the reversible, outbound and inbound lanes,” reads an August 28th memo from the contractor. “JBCC was not allowed to work on any activities during this time.”

  The contractor also claims IDOT significantly expanded the scope of the project beyond the original contract, adding a total of 113 days and $318,000 to the timeline and cost. The changes included a 200% increase in power cable as well as delays caused by additional work added to the inbound lanes of the Kennedy expressway, according to the memo.

Oh, and they've been lying about the delays the entire time. And since it was the state that ordered the lanes be opened as a private highway, they're not going to try to collect the $10,000 per day fines that would have been levied against the general contracts for missing the deadlines, costing taxpayers even more money.

No Brakes!

CFD is short working equipment and their pool rides are as bad as ours:

These things weigh between ten and twenty tons including a full water tank. That's a lot of momentum with zero brakes to be flying around city streets.

Madigan Pension Suspended

Sorry about the Tribune paywall (there are ways around it):

• Former Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan’s $158,000 annual state of Illinois pension is being halted following his high-profile corruption conviction.

  Timothy Blair, executive secretary of the Illinois General Assembly Retirement System, said Thursday he “sent the letter out today” to notify Madigan the pension system will stop sending his monthly checks because Illinois law bars elected officials in the legislative pension plan from collecting payments once they are convicted or enter a guilty plea in a felony tied to their government job.

  But Blair said Madigan will receive his nearly $13,170 pension check for February because that has already been processed.

Here's a different link from WTTW:

• Michael Madigan’s pension has been suspended following his conviction on federal corruption charges.

  The General Assembly Retirement System of Illinois (GARS) sent the former Illinois Speaker of the House notice by mail Thursday, according to the State Retirement Systems.

  The suspension comes days after Madigan, 82, was convicted on 10 felony counts of bribery, conspiracy and wire fraud in his landmark corruption trial.

Hopefully, he can survive on his other ill-gotten gains and generous gifts from those who benefited from his favors. Maybe he can move in with the booger-eater.

Cleaning House?

Conehead is getting rid of people he doesn't like:

• Three days after warning of a City Hall housecleaning fueled by disloyalty, Mayor Brandon Johnson broke out the broom.

  It happened quicker than anyone expected. In rapid-fire succession, the mayor’s office announced that Aviation Commissioner Jamie Rhee and Civilian Office of Police Accountability chief Andrea Kersten, both holdovers from previous administrations, were “retiring.” Also leaving is another holdover, OEMC director Jose Tirado, who has a job lined up.

  The Chicago Sun-Times reported earlier this week that Rhee was among those whose days could be numbered as Johnson seeks to act on his claim that he should have “cleaned house faster” when he took office and now plans to correct that mistake by sending people packing.

  “If you ain’t with us, you just gotta go,” the mayor said.

While every cop should applaud the firing of the CuckfOPA witch and the OEMC departure appears completely voluntary, the Aviation Commissioner is garnering assorted aldermanic praise, which may hint at Conehead making yet another misstep. The appointments he makes moving forward will tell everyone more.

One could be forgiven for noting the ::ahem:: "melanin deficiency" of all the persons leaving or being forced out though

The Fallacy of "Consent"

The Contrarian has a guest article up outlining the Orwellian "newspeak" describing Consent Decrees:

• A consent decree is a term and process feared by law enforcement and law enforcement chiefs, city village managers, and some political leaders. While there may be some legitimate reasons for having consent decrees in some police agencies throughout the United States, I have always believed they are a form of judicial extortion. If you think there is any consent by police agencies in these consent decrees, I hope to enlighten you. 

  What is a consent decree? For law enforcement agencies, it is a court-ordered settlement between a police department and the Department of Justice (DOJ) that establishes an enforceable plan for sustainable reform. Typically, consent decrees are detailed documents that include specific requirements and deadlines for action. Most consent decrees require an independent monitor as part of the process. A federal judge typically oversees the consent decree and is the individual who appoints an independent monitor.

"Extortion" is an understatement.

The entire article is a mere ten paragraphs, so go read it all.

Zero-For-Four

Just keeps popping up, over and over and over:

• A Chicago police commander’s odyssey to land a chief’s job in another city has come up empty again — this time in Detroit.

  Joshua Wallace was one of three finalists for Detroit’s police chief job. This week, the mayor there picked a Detroit candidate, the interim police chief, over Wallace and a former chief of a Denver transportation district. The Detroit News reported the Michigan staffing service that ran the candidate search was unaware Wallace had filed for bankruptcy last year after he fell more than $839,000 in debt.

  Wallace’s bankruptcy was first reported in October by a newspaper in Des Moines, Iowa, after he was named a finalist for the chief’s job there. That position went to a local candidate, too.

  Last year, Wallace also was a finalist for police chief’s jobs in Austin, Texas, and Boulder, Colorado. The Austin job went to a Cincinnati assistant police chief, and the Boulder job went to the interim police chief there.

We remember a time when a walking financial disaster like this wouldn't have even been considered for the job he did have with CPD - commander of a specialize unit. Speaking of which - how are these other cities discovering his issues, but Chicago never did?

Burke Gets a Bunkmate

Although, at their ages, we doubt there's a top bunk available - probably all ground level:

• Michael J. Madigan spent decades building a political empire rivaled in Illinois history only by his most storied peers, rising to become the longtime speaker of the state’s House of Representatives, chair of its Democratic Party and head of a powerhouse tax appeal firm.

  But in a landmark verdict that could transform the 82-year-old politician into a federal inmate in the twilight of his life, a jury found Madigan guilty Wednesday of a nearly decade-long bribery conspiracy involving ComEd. They also convicted him of a plot to install ex-Ald. Danny Solis on a state board in exchange for Solis’ help securing private business for Madigan’s law firm.

  However, the jury stopped far short of delivering the sweeping verdict prosecutors sought.

But even the relatively "lower" charges Madigan was convicted on carry a maximum of 20 years. 

Figure it's his first actual conviction and lack of a criminal record, the judge will go toward the low side of sentencing. But even if he gets five years, he has to serve 85% of federal time, so he's doing four inside.

After Burke and now Mike, will other politicians get the message?

Go Where You're Wanted

If true, then hats off to the 017 Officers:

• Last year, Community Policing Officers from Chicago’s 17th District organized a prom clothing drive for Roosevelt High School, collecting hundreds of donated dresses and suits for students in need. Officers set up racks of clothing at the school, allowing students to browse and select outfits, with a seamstress even volunteering to tailor dresses.
  
  This year, Roosevelt High School refused to allow officers inside, instructing them to simply drop off the clothing, citing concerns that some students might feel "scared" by their presence. To their credit the officers refused and going to the more welcoming (and not insane) Schurz High School.

This is how you stop the progressive bullshit in general. They don't want you around, then don't go there. Go where you're appreciated or the beneficiaries are thankful and screw the entitled.

Drink at Home

Seldom - if ever - does anything good happen after midnight:

• The Civilian Office of Police Accountability has released 911 calls and ring camera footage of a drunken gunfight that broke out in December involving off-duty officers, but the files do not include any calls from the officers themselves.

  COPA did not respond to the scene because there was initially “no indication” that an officer discharged their weapon. Whether or not the officer fired a weapon later became unclear “due to the inconsistency of his statements and intoxication,” according to police reports.

  At about 1:25 a.m. on Dec. 14, two off-duty officers, a woman, her boyfriend and his brother, 26, were leaving a party at Legends in Maywood.

And absolutely nothing good ever happens in Maywood once the sun goes down.

You can read more at the link up top, but it's run-of-the-mill drunken BS that we used to be warned about in the Academy during Week #1.

Geez, Call the Paramedics

If the Desk Sergeant saw this in lockup, he/she would be a moron not to at least get a medical clearance:

• A New Jersey driver was awarded nearly $13 million after she was arrested by a state trooper who mistakenly believed she was intoxicated when she was actually suffering from a stroke, which delayed the medical care she urgently needed by several hours.

  Cheryl Lynn Rhines, now 57, was having a stroke on Oct. 17, 2017, when she pulled her vehicle over on Route 78 as she was traveling from her home in Jersey City to her job in Florham Park, according to her lawsuit against the New Jersey State Police obtained by NJ.com and the New Jersey Monitor.

  [...]

  More than two hours passed before someone at the police station eventually realized she was having a medical emergency and called an ambulance, which transported her to a hospital.

At the very least, paramedics would make an actual medical determination and spare the New Jersey tax payers a $13 million payout.

Protect yourself.