Economic Disaster Coming

This looks like a tipping point:

• Even as President Obama and Governor Quinn push for a $10 an hour minimum wage across the state and nation, there’s a referendum on some Chicago ballots to boost the pay even higher.
  
  WBBM Political Editor Craig Dellimore reports that aldermen like the South Side’s Leslie Hairston say $10 isn’t enough.
  
  They back a ballot measure calling on major corporations to pay a $15 an hour “living wage” so workers aren’t stuck in poverty.

How about working hard, advancing, earning raises? Or forgoing the latest computer game, flashy shoes or expensive smokes, drinks and clubs? How about not having a child you can't afford and a car you can't pay for?

If you jack up the minimum wage by nearly 100%, we'll guarantee hiring in Chicago grinds to a halt. It's basic Econ 101 and no one in the City Council appears to have the slightest idea how it works. Money/Wealth isn't created out of thin air. Dumb decisions by lawmakers lead to real world consequences, in most cases disparately impacting the least fortunate.

Design Flaw?

This is as good an explanation as anything we've seen in recent weeks:

• ...apparently, the Fords all have some sort of electronic "brain box" module (as he called it---I'm not good with that stuff) that is located at the lowest point of the floorboard underneath the driver's feet. The water that collects on the plastic from snow melting from your shoes permeated through the plastic or gets in through the edges near the door jam, and cannot evaporate once underneath. Eventually, enough water collects to short out this module, and a lot of the electronic equpt in the car, including the blower motor for the heat (which we kinda need in this weather). Fleet is pressing Ford for a fix, as Area South has 23 Fords down for electrical issued caused by this.

As we've personally downed a couple of newer Fords for exactly this reason, it appears to that this could be exactly the case. But we aren't mechanics, so maybe not.

Another Lawsuit (UPDATE)

The Rahm-Times is at it again:

• Three people who claim Chicago Police strip-searched them in public and falsely accused them of carrying heroin during a traffic stop last year are suing the city, calling the officers’ actions “exceeding all bounds of human decency.”
  
  Caprice Halley, Tevin Ford and a representative for the estate of Robert Douglas filed the suit in U.S. District Court Wednesday.

"...the estate of...?" That's entertaining.

Does anyone have an actual count of how many nuisance suits are filed against the City and Department on an annual basis? It has to be thousands. And does anyone know how much the City spends to settle these suits, without ever "admitting blame" or actually putting on a case? Millions we're sure.

The only (and we mean ONLY) good thing J-Fled ever did was encourage City Hall to fight these suits. Because the City actually started winning them. And winning them handily. Once plaintiff attorneys began to realize they'd have to work for their money with shitty cases, they stopped taking them.

As soon as Rahm took over, he announced that the previous policy of fighting cases would be dropped - because you know, plaintiff attorneys make largish contributions to democratic political reelection campaigns. And here's the result.

UPDATE: To the obviously delusional commentator who claims, "J-Fled gave us rifles, too," we weep for your poor uninformed brain. J-Feld did not "give" us anything. Daley needed to have a few hundred officers qualified on rifles as part of the Olympic package bid. Therefore, the idea of "patrol rifles," which had been proposed dozens of times over the course of our careers (and utilized by thousands of departments nationwide) was finally brought into being. J-Fled had about as much to do with it as you do making the sun rise in the east every morning.

UPDATE: Another mistaken commentator:

• i don't agree with your assessment of "the only good thing" Jodi Weis did....He got us Rifles (no Chicago guy would have ever done that, EVER)Oh and the Striker fire pistols like Springfield XD & Glock. we also got a 4 day work week under his tenure. (remember 6 days in a row?) We got tasers , the Chevy Tahoe , extra training , and thats off the top of my head. Most importantly he LEFT US ALONE. no compost meetings, pressure for #'s etc. Shit id trade McEgo or Cline and day for Weis.

We already explained the rifles. The pistols were part of a long failing effort to modernize sidearms. Daley's anti-gun bias kept it in the closet for years. The four-day work week had been proposed in every contract since the late 80's - early 90's. The FOP had studies that showed the 6th day led to more accidents, more CR numbers and more disciplinary issues, yet hte city did nothing about it for years. Tasers were here before J-Fled. Tahoes suck (2-wheel drive?) and where's all the equipment we were supposed to be carrying in the Tahoes? Extra videos at roll call doesn't count as extra training - classroom and hands-on and walk-through scenarios is training.

Left us alone? Did you forget the "town hall" style meeting he held citywide while Aunt Bea took notes and names of those complaining? And the vengeance that was taken against those foolish enough to speak out? Or Cozzi? And the accountability meetings (precursor to CompStat)? J-Fled was an egotistical asshole who took credit because he happened to be in the big chair when the logjam broke because Shortshanks needed the Olympics to conceal the massive financial mismanagement that was coming into view and that we see today.

Residency in Wisconsin

Interesting happenings up north:

• Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Paul Van Grunsven on Monday declared Milwaukee's 75-year-old residency rule, which requires city workers to live within city limits, void and unenforceable.
  
  Van Grunsven said a measure signed into law last summer by Gov. Scott Walker applied uniformly to all local government units in the state. That state law, he said, removes the issue of residency from the scope of home rule authority.
  
  The state law, he added, "creates a constitutional liberty interest in being free from residency requirements as a condition of municipal employment."
  
  Van Grunsven's decision marks a significant victory for the city's police and fire unions, which have fought to end residency rules for years.

An appeal is planned, but we believe Ohio lost all the way through the courts. It would be interesting to see what their argument was and why the FOP's case failed in Illinois.

And a word of warning - posters who start playing the tired old saw, "You knew the rules when you signed up," will be summarily deleted. The fact remains we were told we'd have a pension when we signed up, too, and that looks like yet another broken oath. There's no harm in exploring this option seeing as how every promise made to the Police in Chicago is on the verge of being as substantial as a bag of fart.

Car Situation Getting Bad

We've been getting a lot of e-mails about the lack of regular vehicles and pool vehicles due to cold weather breakdowns. Not only are cars being doubled up, they're being tripled up or riding four deep. VRI can't even field enough cars most nights for the amount of bodies that are showing up for work.

This vehicle went out in 007 recently:

Now we know that it's winter, that cars aren't exactly clean. But the recently discovered design flaw in the new Explorers (heater burns out) and the continuing problems with other platforms, this is what we're reduced to driving.

Police Survivors Event

From our Police Chaplains:

Mark the date.

More Internal Strife

Somewhere, Rahm is giggling:

• Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police is asking Google to reveal the identity of whoever posted recordings of two heated FOP meetings on YouTube, saying they violated state law.
  
  FOP attorneys have filed a petition in Cook County Circuit Court to learn the “account information of the person or persons who authored and published a video and audiotape on YouTube.com that included an illegally and surreptitiously recorded FOP Board of Directors meeting.”
  
  Two videos posted on Sept. 30 show a series of FOP board members’ photos accompanied by an audio recording of a raucous board meeting earlier that month. Someone using the pseudonym “Rahm Wannabee” posted the videos.

Fun times on Washington.

Trooper Injured

Badly burned, he is currently in a medically induced coma:

• The accident happened around 9:45 p.m. Monday about a quarter-mile east of Eola Road, state police said. The disabled semi was pulled over onto the right lane of traffic and the shoulder, and the tollway truck and the trooper's car were behind it.
  
  The state police car's lights were flashing, and an illuminated arrow on the back of the truck was lit and directing traffic away from the semi, officials said.
  
  Petrella and the trooper were helping the driver of the disabled semi when another semi hit the trooper's car, Petrella's truck and the stalled semi, according to state police. All three vehicles exploded in flame.

Prayers and best wishes for a speedy recovery to our ISP brother.

Youth Shootings Are Down!

Once again, statistical manipulation:

• The youth violence that has too often drawn a national spotlight on Chicago has taken a significant dip, a new analysis shows.
  According to a report obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times, shooting incidents involving victims 16 and younger last year dropped 40 percent over 2012.
  Shooting incidents involving Chicago Public Schools students more than halved — dropping 56 percent so far this school year, compared to August through January 21 of the previous school year, according to the city's analysis.

Notice they use "school year" as a measure. And they only are looking at "youths."

Did you know that shootings among blind one-legged mongoloid immigrants has fallen to record levels, too? Nothing like narrowing the category in order to push a statistical agenda.

And then there's something else that might have had an effect on shootings.....what could it be again?

Oh yeah.  That.

Fire Rescue

From Sunday night:

• A Chicago police officer rescued a 72-year-old woman by throwing her over his back and carrying her down the stairs during an extra-alarm fire in the Portage Park neighborhood Sunday night, police said.
  
  The blaze left the building destroyed after starting about 8 p.m. in a restaurant on the first floor of a two-story building that has apartments on the second floor, according to the Chicago Fire Department.

We left this one be for a bit as the Tribune took it upon themselves to visit the sins of the Officer's brother upon his own individual heroic actions. We doubt that the 72-year-old woman who was carried out of the apartment really gave a second thought to who was rescuing her. She probably didn't demand that an Officer unrelated to the disgraced former member come and rescue her instead, once again proving that the media will use the same cudgel over and over again to beat up the Department at every opportunity.

A job very well done by the involved Officer, and nothing should take away from that.

This is Just Dumb

Remember when they used to be able to clear streets from curb-to-curb?

That's a "plowed" bike lane, completely iced over, pretty much unusable and eating up a lane of traffic in each direction. Silly Rahm.

Pension Lawsuit Filed

As predicted by just about everyone:

• Illinois’ largest government employee unions sued Tuesday to overturn Illinois’ new pension law, ripping the long sought, landmark money-saving changes as outright “theft” from workers that won’t pass a legal smell test.
  
  The timing of the lawsuit served as a political rebuke, dropped on the eve of Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn’s State of the State address — a noon Wednesday speech in which the governor is expected to highlight approval of the pension measure as a reason voters should re-elect him.
  
  The suit, filed in Sangamon County Circuit Court, had been expected following last month’s passage of a bill that seeks to curb annual cost-of-living increases for retirees and to increase the retirement age for many current workers. The goal is to close the state’s worst-in-the-nation $100 billion unfunded public pension liability within 30 years.

This may decide the fate of all pensions and so-called "reform" efforts in the near future. Keep track and stay informed.

Pension Reform Isn't Working?

How can this be? We were promised it would all work out:

• New calculations show the state will save about $15 billion less than initially projected from the controversial major government worker pension overhaul that lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn approved last month.
  
  Critics who say the pension law didn’t go far enough cried that supporters are “backtracking” on the savings and point to the change as a sign more money-saving changes to public employee retirement systems will be needed. Backers of the law, however, pointed to some good news from the latest number crunching — it shows that the state will owe less toward covering retirement costs.
  
  Last month, House Speaker Michael Madigan championed the pension overhaul as saving $160 billion over 30 years. But when the financial minds at the pension systems covering state workers, teachers outside Chicago and public university employees took a look, the savings estimate came out to $145 billion. The difference is in part a reflection of the various sets of assumptions folks wearing the green eyeshades make about how long tens of thousands of government workers will live and work.

Maybe Quinn and company ought to start encouraging less healthy lifestyles, increase smoking and drinking among the retirees in the hopes of killing them off sooner?

In the meantime, the rosy predictions of Quinn, Madigan and Company are once more proven to be numbers not based in any sort of reality.

Hey Look! Dart Does His Job

It looks like the process works:

• Cook County Sheriff’s officials say they’ve filed an objection to a gang leader’s state application to carry a concealed firearm — and they’re opposing hundreds of other applications, too.
  
  The high-ranking Latin Kings leader possesses a state firearm owner’s identification card, which allows him to own a gun. He got the card because he doesn’t have any felonies on his record, said authorities, who declined to name him.

But with the gang affiliation, the dozen arrests (including a firearm charge) and the association with other criminals, red flags were raised and an objection filed, even though Dart spent so much time whining about his people having to do work as directed by law.

Dart will no doubt make this a central theme of his reelection campaign - he prevented a gun from falling into the wrong hands.....as required by the duties of his office. You know.....his job.

NC Cop Indicted After Shooting

Hindsight is 20/20 and a copper is on the hook for someone else's bad decisions:

• A North Carolina police officer accused of shooting and killing an unarmed man was indicted on Monday on a voluntary manslaughter charge, one week after a separate grand jury decided against indicting him.
  
  The officer, Randall Kerrick, who is accused of hitting the man, Jonathan Ferrell, 10 times in the shooting last September 14, is the first police officer in the city of Charlotte to be arrested for an on-duty shooting in at least 30 years, the Charlotte Observer said.
  
  
• According to police, Ferrell wrecked his car in the woods late at night and then walked to a nearby house in a predominantly white neighborhood trying to find help.
  
  A woman who answered the door at the house where Ferrell knocked thought he was a burglar, feared for her safety and called police.
  
  Kerrick and two other officers responded. They found Ferrell a short distance away when police said he began to run toward them. One officer unsuccessfully fired a Taser at Ferrell, police said. Kerrick then fired his gun 12 times, hitting Ferrell 10 times, police said.

So a frightened old lady racial profiles someone. Police respond, and the soon-to-be-deceased acts exactly like someone who is breaking the law. And when less-than-lethal methods fail, the officer fires to protect themselves from the apparent assailant, they're to blame for a situation not of their making?

Because, you know, no officer ever has been disarmed and shot with their own gun or another copper's gun. It might just be safer for everyone concerned to never ever call the police and for police to never respond to those situations.

Bundle Up

Global Warming remember:

• After several inches of snow fell Sunday morning, the next winter weather story is the start of what could be the longest stretch of subzero temperatures the Chicago area has seen in decades.
  
  A winter weather advisory is in effect from 3 a.m. Sunday to 6 a.m. Monday, as the snowstorms are expected to be followed by winds increasing Sunday afternoon to about 30 mph, with 40 mph gusts, with some snow expected as well.
  
  Highs Sunday reached the lower 30s, but Sunday night, temperatures will begin to drop, falling to between 2 and 6 degrees below zero with wind chills around 35 degrees below zero. A wind chill warning is in effect from 3 a.m. Monday through 9 a.m. Wednesday.

Safety first boys and girls.

Vest Theft Rumor

We were hoping that this wasn't actually true:

• Anonymous said...
  No mention about the dude posted up in district stations pretending to sell vest covers? Then stealing coppers vests!
  
  1/26/2014 01:30:00 AM
  
  You mean no mention of the convicted felon allowed to set up shop inside 3 stations (3,4, and 5) to rip off coppers. Then again I wouldn't buy from someone that didn't have a storefront or shit I could view online. Glad to see that station security is at it's best. The DSS of those districts should be sparred for inattention to duty. Especially 3 seeing they have a history of letting unauthorized persons into their station....at least this fool wasn't allowed to suit up and ride with some 003rd district dogass all night

Please tell us this isn't true. And if it is,  we'd have to agree that everyone from the DSS upward needs to be suspended for a while.

Good Police Work

Fresh snow is no friend of criminals:

• Footprints in the snow led investigators to the hiding place of one of two men accused of robbing a pizza delivery driver Friday, authorities said.
  
  Jefferey A. Fields, 26, and Bernard V. Williams, 27, are each charged with robbery. Cook County Judge Maria Kuriakos Ciesil ordered the men held in lieu of $250,000 bail Sunday.
  
  [...] When officers approached Fields and Williams, police said, Fields ran but Williams was taken into custody on a theft warrant. Fields allegedly ran south down an alley and east through a back yard in the 8300 block of South Manistee.
  
  When officers got to the back yard, they said they followed the footprints in the snow to where Fields was hiding. Fields tried to run again but was eventually caught, police said. Officers then traced the footprints backward and discovered a Sig Sauer .38-caliber handgun loaded with six bullets.

Nicely done.

And a small arrest leads to bigger things:

• Authorities seized nearly 350 pounds of marijuana during a home search in the Southwest Side's Ashburn neighborhood Saturday, the Chicago Police Department announced Saturday night.
  
  Police charged a 22-year-old man with felony cannabis possession following the bust.
  
  Acting on intelligence developed after a traffic stop earlier this month, police searched a home in the 3600 block of West 82nd Place on Saturday, according to a police department news release.
  
  The search yielded nearly 350 pounds of marijuana, according to police. Authorities estimated the total estimated street value of the recovered cannabis at $1 million.

Well done.

Look - A State Surplus

Of course it isn't Illinois. Illinois is circling the drain. No, we're talking about Wisconsin:

• [...] Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has completely changed the “state of the state” and Wisconsinites are reaping the benefits.
  
  In 2011, Wisconsin had a whopping deficit of $3.6 billion dollars. But a cooperate [sic] tax cut and collective bargaining reforms invigorated the state economy. Now, the state is boasting a $911 million surplus, credited to “good stewardship of the taxpayers’ money.”
  
  [...] He's proposing $800 million in tax cuts.
  
  “What do you do with a surplus? Give it back to the people who earned it. It's your money," Walker said.
  
  Of course, there were plenty of Democrats who rolled their eyes at Walker’s State of the State address, but they can’t ignore the facts. Walker’s cuts and reforms have worked a miracle in Wisconsin, and I doubt liberals will be complaining when more of their money stays in their pockets.

And are you seeing this in any of the leftist media? The New York Times? ABC, NBC, CBS? Nope, and certainly not in the Tribune and Sun Times - if the word got out that a nearby Republican governor actually turned a deficit into a surplus, people might start getting ideas.

Camera Laws Falling

Not here - Ohio though:

• Ohio cities make missions on red light and speed cameras, but a recent court ruling should give them pause.
  
  Cameras in Elmwood Place, Ohio, were declared a “scam,” and in March a judge ruled the city had to shut them down. The city defied the order, which led Hamilton County Judge Robert Ruehlman to declare the city in contempt. He then ordered the Hamilton County Sheriff to seize the equipment.
  
  Thursday, Ruehlman reiterated the camera system violated Ohio’s constitution and rules on judicial process and public notice. He ordered the city to refund the $1.76 million collected in fines from the cameras — and to pay attorneys’ fees — because the city “acted in bad faith in implementing the ordinance.”

That's a pretty vicious slap at the town. This cold be the groundwork for any number of suits against the cameras, their operators and the city. After all, these things were pushed through with almost no debate and bribery was involved in seemingly every step of the process.

Anyone have a rich uncle who can spearhead the effort?

Over Budget?

Anyone see this report?

• OT, CLTV is reporting that the new DePaul stadium and McCormick hotel complex is going to cost substantially more than expected. They are reporting the city is looking for a "developer" (read someone who will line the pockets of rahmulous's cronies) to help keep the project on budget. Great, not even out of the gate and its already over budget. Maybe this will kill this stupid waste of taxpayer money.

Have they even broken ground over there yet?

Media - Tools of the Left

A bad idea once again surfaces:

• A national newspaper chain with nearly 100 publications and 1.6 million readers is considering building “state-by-state databases” on concealed weapons permit holders, according to an internal e-mail.
  
  The plan, laid out in an email from a top editor at North Carolina-based Civitas Media, could be similar to a controversial project a New York state newspaper carried out in 2012 which included an online map that identified gun owners in two counties by name and address. Civitas' database project was detailed in a Jan. 19 e-mail to newsrooms across the chain, which has papers in 11 states, including Ohio, Illinois and Pennsylvania.
  
  The newest project "examines the explosion of ‘conceal and carry’ gun permits across the U.S.,” wrote Jim Lawitz, Civitas’ director of content, in an e-mail first obtained by the Buckeye Firearms Association. “Through public records act requests, we will attempt to build state-by-state databases that list those who have the right to carry a concealed weapon.”

And once again, it is pointed out hat this "database" will most likely end up listing police officers (active and retired), victims of domestic violence who own a gun in case the psycho ex turns up on their doorstep, along with any person who knows that the police can't be everywhere and accept responsibility for their own protection.

We think it would be only fair to list the home addresses of each and every media member who participates in this nonsense.

CompStat Temper Tantrum

We suppose he might have been suffering from a McHangover:

• McPrincess walked out of his own comppost meeting yesterday and made everyone come back today. He looked like a complete ass. Bosses, even the suckholes were calling him a goof and laughing at him.
  
  Today was no better. Ranting, almost frothing at the mouth. He said, 'let me make this clear...(re tact)--the days of bringing in a head are over.'
  
  They had all kinds of stats where tact in 011 has not made a single arrest after 1900 and no activity. He does not want heads brought in. He wants areas saturated, quality arrests, more contact cards, more anovs. He wants tact to bring in cases that will shut down drug corners immediately, then afterward to stay in the area and keep making arrests, but not for simple dope.
  
  Tac should now suck as much as patrol.
  
  He also about had a stroke when talking about how 11 district personnel only wrote 26% of contact cards written in the district. (out of 3000 total). Said 11 officers should have a ton of free time to do contact cards due to so much help from outside units and even tho it's 10 below outside you should be out of your cars writing CC and anovs.
  
  Hopefully you guys in 11 will come in with less than 1% of the contact cards written, maybe a big fat goose egg across the board. If you heard how he talks about the beat officers, you wouldn't do one f*cking lick of work except go to calls. He has NO respect for you and thinks you should want to produce for him since he's such a great leader! Do what you want, but WTF could they possibly do to you? Take back what little power you have.
  
  He's so clueless it's embarrassing.

Remember, this guy invented police work. He and he alone can bring the benighted and back-ass-ward CPD hicks into line. And if he's having a bad day, then by golly, everyone else is going to have a bad day, too. And when he wants to cancel CompStat meetings at the drop of a hat and make everyone come back the next day, well then who's going to tell him "no?" A gold star? A leader?

Don't make us laugh.

Location Location Location

Or Connection, Connection Connection we suppose:

• The Mag Mile condo that Mayor Richard M. Daley and wife Maggie briefly lived in has sold for $2.73 million. The three bedroom, three and a half bath, 3,500 square foot condo at 77 E Walton Avenue was listed in August 2012 for $2.75 million. The couple moved in to the unit in May 2011, and the former mayor vacated the condo in June the following year, several months after Maggie Daley lost to her struggle with cancer. The unit was last held by the building developer who purchased the condo from Daley after his departure.
  
  Details of Daley's relationship with developer JMB Realty are slim, however at the time of listing, Da Mayor's investment firm Tur Partners had offices on the 17th floor of the building. Quite convenient.

Thank goodness someone was able to turn a profit in the stagnant real estate market. We all know how Shortshanks was hurting for money since leaving public office.

This good fortune for the former mayor doesn't seem to have hit the big media outlets yet for some reason. Anyone know way?

Church, State, Schools?

Interesting:

• One of the seven new charters schools CPS approved on Wednesday, Concept Schools, is run by Turkish immigrants and has close ties to Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, the Sun-Times points out. Although Concept officials deny any religious or political affiliations, records show extensive ties between the charter schools and organizations belonging to a movement led by the influential but reclusive Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen.
  
  Those groups include Chicago-based nonprofits that have sponsored dozens of trips to Turkey for Madigan and other state House Democrats.

And if you aren't following the international scene, you might not know that Turkey's government, formerly very secular, is rapidly becoming co-opted by religious extremists. We'll let the readers guess as to the religion being practiced. And while you're at it, you can wonder about Illinois politicos being wined and dined by this government.

City Lots for $1

Alternative media covers this - nothing on the big sites:

• Last week during a City Council meeting, Mayor Rahm Emanuel proposed a measure to sell six empty city owned lots to a developer at $1 each to build affordable single family homes. The lots, all of which are scattered around Humboldt Park are collectively appraised at $316,000, and would be sold to L and MC Investments LLC for a whopping $6. In exchange for the "free" lots, the developer will build two story 1,840 square foot homes on each site. The three bed, two and a half bath homes will be priced at $199,000 and made available only to households earning up to 120 percent of the median income for the area (about $88,300 for a family of four).
  
  This news was announced the same week that listing site Redfin gave Humboldt Park the number ten spot on the nation's hottest neighborhoods for 2014. If the measure is passed, construction on the lots is expected to begin this coming spring.

Hot neighborhood, cheap lots. Makes perfect sense while taxes rise, fees increase and pensions go bankrupt.

Congratulations FBI

Once again, a geriatric mobster is headed to jail:

• Five people said to be part of a New York crime family were arrested today. including a 78-year-old man accused of participating in a notorious 1978 airport heist that inspired the movie "Goodfellas."
  
  More than three decades after $5 million in cash and $1 million in jewelry was stolen from a Lufthansa airlines cargo building at John F. Kennedy International Airport, the FBI arrested Vincent Asaro, an alleged leader of the Bonanno organized crime family, on robbery charges.

How about directing some of that investigative effort at the 5th Floor of City Hall here?

Parking "Wars" Up North

Brilliant - ticket the people you know are probably going to pay:

• For years we've heard complaints about skyrocketing prices at Chicago parking meters, especially downtown.
  
  Now, a new parking battle is taking shape in the neighborhoods.
  
  Residents and businesses in Chicago's Northwest side Edison Park say they're under siege by enforcement workers writing parking tickets day and night.
  
  They're trying to fight back, but because the city privatized the meters, there's not much they can do about it.

We'll bet money that the surrounding neighborhood has all gone to Permit Parking in an effort to maintain their quiet lifestyle without all the revelers taking up street space? And the aldrecreature encouraged or facilitated it? So all the trendy people have to pay the higher parking fees or get expensive tickets? It's unfortunate that businesses will end up losing customers or moving out of the city due to these increased costs, but it was a completely predictable outcome that Shortshanks stuffed down everyone's throats.

But it will all be better in 70 years or so.

Rahm to Kill Rail Traffic

Currently, 30% of the nation's rail traffic flows through Chicago.

Prediction: within 10 years of this being enacted, it drops to half of that:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday asked the nations mayors to back a plan to impose a “national hazardous waste” fee on the freight railroad industry to fund programs to bolster safety as dangerous materials moves through cities and provide insurance if, as Emanuel said, “God forbid,” there is an accident. Chicago is a major national freight crossroads.
  
  “None of know what is coming through our city,” Emanuel said. [this might be English - SCC]
  
  Emanuel detailed his proposal during a panel dealing with transportation at the U.S. Conference of Mayors annual meeting here attended by Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. Afterwards, Emanuel met privately with Foxx, who replaced former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who was a close personal friend of the mayor. Foxx was open to Emanuel’s program but with many transportation issues on his plate, did not make a commitment.

Rahm sure has a lot of "close personal friends" in high places, doesn't he? In any event, at some point it will make more sense to keep rail traffic out of the Chicago area rather than pay fees. It might even make sense to move the rail center of the nation farther south, toward St. Louis, to avoid Chicago and its bottleneck.

NATO 3 Trial Continues

The defense seems to be portraying these idiots as a bunch of drunk college frat boys:

• One defendant used violent language and seemed intent on fighting with cops and vandalizing property on undercover recordings played at the NATO 3 trial.
  
  On more than two dozen recordings played for jurors Wednesday, the man alleged by prosecutors to be the central figure in a terrorist plot during the 2012 NATO summit in Chicago comes across as a stoner trying to impress the female undercover police officer who'd befriended him.
  
  Brian Church, 22, is on trial with Jared Chase, 29, and Brent Betterly, 25, on charges they plotted attacks against Chicago police, Mayor Rahm Emanuel's house and President Barack Obama's campaign headquarters. The so-called NATO 3, who had driven here from Florida, were arrested after filling four empty beer bottles with gasoline with the aid of two undercover Chicago officers at the Bridgeport home where they were staying with 12 others.

And loud-mouthed, drunken frat boys they may have remained...until acts of furtherance were committed. Then we move out of the realm of the "Occupy whatever" anarchist fantasy into the real world of consequences. Hopefully, Anita isn't blowing this one.

Close Schools, Open Schools

Anyone else keeping track of this nonsense?

• Chicago Public Schools moved to open seven new charter schools over the next two years, but the Board of Education also denied 11 other proposals as charter proponents and opponents clashed at the Board of Education meeting Wednesday.

This after already closing 50 schools across Chicago, mostly south and west. We can see consolidation of under-utilized properties, but the only reasoning here seems to be (A) a massive shifting of taxpayer money to private corporations who have contributed mightily to Rahm and (B) breaking the teachers union.

Don't believe it? How about this number, taken directly from the CPS supplied numbers:

• Jennie Biggs, of Raise Your Hand and the Bridgeport Alliance, presented a data study showing that 47 percent of Chicago's charter schools are underenrolled, a figure later cited by Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis in her remarks to the board.

So much for the supposed "high demand" for charter schools used to justify so much of this.

Pension Meeting with Rutherford

From an e-mail:

• About 2 months ago I decided to start a FB page titled SAVE THE PENSIONS OF CHICAGOS FIRST RESPONDERS. The page has grown to almost 3000 members. Ideally were keeping the group closed to CPD and CFD members only as we have some unique similarities in our professions that we can use in an effort to fight the politicians. We ideally want this to be more than just a FB page for bitching and moaning and more as a resource for info that's important to all of us, and to determine which politicians may actually be on our side, as few as they may be.
  
  Lt John Garrido has been kind enough to reach out to Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Rutherford and he has agreed to two separate meet and greets to discuss the concerns of Chicagos First Responders.
  
  The first one is scheduled for our north side friends at the VFW HALL AT CANFIELD/HIGGINS ON 25 Jan 2014 from 10-1130am.
  
  The second one is planned for the south side on 1 February 2014 at the VFW LEGION HALL IN EVERGREEN PARK AT 9701 S KEDZIE from 9am-10am doors will open at 830am. Lt Garrido and I will be covering the fees for the use of the halls ourselves as we feel it's important enough to all of us.
  
  I'm not endorsing anyone or asking anyone to vote for a particular candidate but since we at least were able to get a leading candidate to meet with us and hear our concerns we think it's important to get the word out there. If you wouldn't mind dedicating a post to this in the near future it would be appreciated. The last thing we want is to set this up and have only 15-20 people show up and then we look like a joke to these candidates. It's important that they understand we WILL VOTE and our concerns are important to us and our families. Also before anyone asks we have no ties to any union or any candidates running for any union positions. This is just something we chose to do on our own. Thank you for your help
  
  Sincerely,
  Mike Walsh

The first meeting is this Saturday and we know that there are plenty of cops, firefighters and retirees up north who have a vested interest in these "reform" efforts. We also know that the northside had the last recorded republican aldercreature in living memory.

Participate people.

Police Board Rejects Deal?

This is just about unheard of:

• In an unusual move, the Chicago Police Board has rejected a proposed deal under which a police sergeant had agreed to be suspended for 60 days because his gun was used in the shooting death of a Northwest Side woman four years ago.
  
  The police board scrapped the deal that police Supt. Garry McCarthy had struck with Sgt. Steven Lesner.
  
  Instead, the eight-member panel of mayoral appointees has ordered a full inquiry into the events that led to Catherine Weiland’s death, Max Caproni, the board’s executive director, said Tuesday.

An mutually agreed upon disciplinary action and the Police Board rejects it? That means some big politics involved behind the scenes. Stay tuned for this one. Perhaps some clout will be outed at some point.

Shovel Or Else!

Hard hitting investigative journalism from the peacock network:

• Shovel your walk or else.
  
  That's the message from the City of Chicago, which warns that residents face $50 fines if they fail to clear their sidewalks. Businesses can be cited for up to $500 per day.
  
  But an analysis by NBC5 Investigates finds that almost no one actually pays. Out of 1,669 complaints at 1,411 addresses citywide, only 72 tickets were actually written. Of those, only four had been the targets of complaints phoned into the city's 311 operators. And some of the tickets led to an adjudicated fine of "zero dollars".

We didn't even know htere were rules:

• The rules state that if the snow stops falling before 4 pm, residents have just three hours to clear their sidewalks (except on Sundays). If the snowfall stops after 4 pm, or on Sunday, the walks are to be cleared by 10 am the next day.

That doesn't even take into consideration people with ...you know... jobs, might not be able to clear the sidewalks in a timely manner.

By the same token, the sidewalks of the west and south sides where unemployment is highest, ought to be the cleanest sidewalks in the city - bare concrete all around - and no one should be walking in the streets. Ever.

Rahm is On the Job

Making sure his kingdom is running smoothly:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel checked on the city's response to the snow and bitter cold on Tuesday.
  
  He met with the director of the Office of Emergency Management and Communications and the Streets and Sanitation commissioner.
  
  He also visited snow command, the place where Streets and Sanitation dispatchers monitor road conditions.

Next thing you know, he'll be driving a plow himself.

Of course, he'll be driving it up and down his block. And Madigan's.

NATO 3

Of course, they were just high spirited college kids, drunk and full of bravado:

• Were they terrorists “ready for war” or mouthy “goofs” looking to protest and party?
  
  The first-ever terrorism prosecution by Cook County authorities began Tuesday with jurors hearing dramatically different views of the evidence against three out-of-state men charged with plotting terrorist attacks during the 2012 NATO summit in Chicago.
  
  Their attorneys told jurors their clients were just loud-mouthed young men, often drunk, who were goaded on by undercover police officers desperate to make an arrest to help their superiors justify the enormous security costs that came with hosting the summit.
  
  The attorneys referred to the 1968 Democratic Convention crackdown and the Haymarket Riot as they told jurors the city had once again overreached, charging three would-be vandals from Florida as if they were committed al-Qaeda terrorists.

Nice comparison assholes - during the Haymarket riot, 7 cops lost their lives.

iPhone Robberies Again

It must be too cold for the regular packs of wilding youth, but that doesn't mean crime is down...and on tourists, too:

• Police are on the alert after two incidents over the weekend involving an armed robber in the downtown Chicago area.
  
  The first incident happened at about 9:30 a.m. Saturday in the 100 block of North State Street.
  
  Police say a man followed a 12- and 15-year-old girl into a building, and when they got on the elevator, told them he had a weapon and demanded money.
  
  Police say he stole an iPhone and $20. Investigators are looking at surveillance video from the incident.
  
  The second robbery occurred at 2:30 a.m. in the 600 block of North Michigan avenue.
  
  A 20-year-old California woman was headed back to her hotel when a man approached her from behind, placed something to her head and threatened to shoot her.

And the always politically correct NBC states the following:

• No arrests have been made in either case, but police have suspect descriptions in both incidents.

Really? Would you mind sharing that info with the public so that they can be on the alert and maybe, you know, avoid or prevent a robbery from occurring?

Amazingly, the Tribune actually publishes full descriptions.  You can read them here.

Here Comes the Pain?

It's going to be an interesting year:

• It's possible that Chicken Little was right.
  
  Next year, Chicago must come up with a state-mandated $590 million increase in its contribution to police and fire pension funds. A Crain's analysis of the city's tax and budget options shows that payment could lead to the highest commercial property tax rate in the nation and still leave the city needing to make millions of dollars in spending cuts that could decimate many services.
  
  In the next few months, state legislators will be asked to restructure the city's pension obligations. But if they balk or the courts reject their fixes, Chicago will be faced with some politically toxic and economically perilous decisions.

The Detroit scenario took years, decades in fact, to reach the depths we see today. Chicago could accomplish it in short order by destroying the commercial base with massive tax increases while also jacking up the residential property taxes.

One a Day (And Then Some)

You aren't going to see this number touted at CompStat:

• Eight men were shot to death in killings throughout the city last week.
  
  The most recent murders happened when two men were shot to death during an apparent home invasion in the 9100 block of South Commercial Avenue about 5 a.m. Sunday, police said.

Someone at the Sun Times doesn't understand what a week is though - the murder count they use starts on Wednesday 15 January and ends Sunday 19 January. They ought to say "8 Murders in 5 Days."

Racist!

Someone turn out the lights on this presidency - this ass is ridiculous:

• President Barack Obama said that racial tensions may have softened his popularity among white voters within the last two years, according to a story posted on the New Yorker magazine’s website today.
  
  “There’s no doubt that there’s some folks who just really dislike me because they don’t like the idea of a black president,” Obama said in the article by David Remnick, appearing in the magazine’s Jan. 27 edition.

Yeah, which is why you got elected twice. It has nothing to do with the past five years of a stagnant economy, a disastrous foreign policy, a blatantly socialist outlook, a deficit our great grandchildren won't be able to pay off and the rapid dissolution of the healthcare system via "affordable" care.

The First Double of 2014

Once again, the south side sets the pace for the rest of the city:

• Two men were shot to death after an apparent home invasion Sunday morning in the South Chicago neighborhood.
  
  About 5 a.m., Chicago police were summoned to an apartment building in the 9100 block of South Commercial Avenue. The caller said a man had been shot in a neighboring apartment and turned up at the neighbor’s door for help, according to police.
  
  The injured man collapsed in the neighbor’s apartment and was dead by the time officers arrived. Police found a second man shot to death in the building. Both men were thought to be in their mid-30s.

We don't think McCompStat is still separating "innies" and "outies" - everything is a "death investigation" and "mutual combatants."

Shooting Totals Rise

While shoveling the snow:

• A 22-year-old man was shot while he was shoveling snow Sunday morning in the Avalon Park neighborhood on the South Side.
  
  The man was shoveling outside his girlfriend’s home in the 8500 block of South Constance Avenue about 10 a.m. when two men approached and got into an argument with the man, said [...] a department spokesman.
  
  The two men asked him whether he belonged to a particular gang before one of the men pulled out a handgun and shot him in his upper left arm — though the bullet lodged in his throat, according to police and a neighbor. The men then fled the scene on foot.
  
  The man who was shot has had run-ins with the law but no documented gang affiliations, police said.

Who does this guy think he is? Shoveling snow for his girlfriend. The gangs will put a stop to that nonsense!

Nicely Done

Someone was complaining we don't post enough "good" news:

• A man who holed himself and a woman up inside an apartment following a domestic incident has been arrested and the situation is under control this evening in the Rogers Park neighborhood, police said.
  
  Police were summoned to an apartment in the 1300 block of West Birchwood Avenue for a call of a domestic disturbance at 2:06 p.m., said police News Affairs [...].
  
  Officers got there and found a man had barricaded himself inside an apartment with a woman.
  
  [...] she was able to escape and was taken to Saint Francis Hospital for treatment.
  
  At 5:50 p.m., the barricaded man was taken into custody and taken to an area hospital to be checked out....

Cops fine, victim safe, bad guy in custody - we think that qualifies.

Nine Shot so Far

Not bad for a January weekend:

• Two men have been killed and seven people injured in shootings on the South and West sides since Friday afternoon, according to police.
  
  The violent start to the weekend, which came as downtown temperatures hovered in the teens, included a shooting that injured three people on a Dan Ryan Expressway ramp and another that left a 15-year-old girl hospitalized.

And still tonight to go, plus the holiday Monday.

Is it just us or do there seem to be a lot of shootings on the Dan Ryan lately? Is there a trend?

Impersonator

This one appeared in the e-mail a day or so ago:

• Robert Rozycki can’t get enough of the cop world. The guns, the uniform, the bulletproof vest, the cop car.
  
  Only problem — he’s not a cop. He’s just played one on the street.
  
  Rozycki has gone to prison four times, twice for pretending to be a cop, another time for claiming to be a bomb and arson investigator with the Chicago Fire Department.
  
  He’s got a pending criminal charge in Cook County court — again for allegedly posing as a cop.

There's a link to an uploaded video from 10 months ago or so in the article. The YouTube comments are the typical leftist crap you see every time something like this pops up and carious comments blame the CPD for what was purportedly a "marshal" cuffing and arresting someone. It never involved any law enforcement personnel.

Don't expect retractions or apologies though

Bring Back the Firing Squad

In the words of Gary Gilmore, "Let's do it." :

• JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. When state Rep. Paul Fitzwater, a Republican, signed his name as co-sponsor of a bill that would allow execution by firing squad, he was thinking of the victims.
  
  That last minute or so of a murder victim's life can be brutal: He or she doesn't get to take an injection to die, Fitzwater said.
  
  "People look at inmates who will be executed as victims," Fitzwater said. "But the real victims have no voice because they are gone."
  
  Currently, the state puts inmates to death through injection of a lethal drug, although the current law also allows for gas the method by which 39 people were executed from 1938 to 1965.
  
  The House bill adds the option of firing squad executions consisting of five law enforcement officers chosen by the state corrections director.

Everyone on the "anti" side seems to forget there are real victims who died alone and in most cases, in varying states of terror. Society should show then about as much concern as they showed their victims.

SCC is Under the Weather

Flu bug hit us hard yesterday. We're taking the night off.

Open post and we'll get to the comments when we can.

Tamiflu time!

A New Coating of Snow

A few inches of snow overnight will do wonders to cover up the dirt, grime and general detritus of the city:

We're going to need a couple extra inches to cover up that one.

Photo from the Tribune - 015 had another.

Psycho Pleads Guilty

In the interest in Officer Safety, we'll quote extensively from the article so that members can take appropriate measures to protect themselves and loved ones:

• It’s been a mystery for more than five years.
  
  Who threatened to avenge the police shooting of a wild cougar in Chicago by torching Mayor Richard M. Daley’s vacation home? For more than five years after Chicago Police shot dead the big cat as it prowled the streets of Roscoe Village, it remained a riddle.
  
  But on Thursday in federal court, a lanky Southwest side botanist finally admitted he was behind the sick 2008 letter to Daley that included the line “F - - - your dead son.”

Is he an arsonist,too?

• Under a plea deal that leaves unresolved who actually lit an April 24, 2008 fire that spared Mayor Daley’s Michigan lakefront retreat, but destroyed a neighbor’s multimillion-dollar home, Rich Hyerczyk, 54, admitted he’d mailed an anonymous letter just three days earlier in which he vowed to “BURN down the Daley house in Michigan.”
  
  Hyerczyk, of the 5200 block of South Natoma, told U.S. District Judge Gary Feinerman he was guilty of mailing a letter threatening that police should “Prepare to DIE like the Cougar you killed.”
  
  And he admitted he’d written 90 threatening letters since 2003 to schools, police, religious institutions and officials, including Daley.

Dude has problems. And it's not just elected officials and cops he's threatened:

• A week later Hyerczyk mailed multiple copies of a letter in which he said he’d kill “PIGS” at the annual St. Jude Memorial march, and made threats against police officers “wives” and “children.”

Our wives and children,too. And of course, he's a loner with no friends and gets along with fungi:

• The ugly language in Hyerczyk’s letters contrasted with the round-shouldered, gray-haired man who spoke in a meek voice to declare himself “guilty” Thursday, then fled the courthouse without comment.
  
  The unmarried St. Xavier University grad, who has just one Facebook friend, works at a La Grange Park moulding company and has an interest in lichen that led him to found the Chicago Lichenological Society, records show.

Remember, that's Rich Hyerczyk, who pled guilty to threatening your wives and children. Be aware Officers.

Not The Professor?!

Another childhood icon passes into the void:

• Russell Johnson, the veteran character actor who appeared in science fiction films and Westerns before earning enduring fame as “The Professor” on the classic 1960s sitcom “Gilligan's Island,” died on Thursday at the age of 89, his agent said.
  
  “He died at 5:21 a.m. of natural causes at home in Washington state,” agent Michael Eisenstadt said, adding that Johnson's wife and his daughter were at his side.
  
  “Gilligan's Island,” which was created by producer Sherwood Schwartz, ran for three seasons on the CBS network, from 1964 to 1967, and attracted even more popularity in syndication.
  
  The show followed four men and three women stranded on a tropical island after being shipwrecked on the S.S. Minnow. Johnson, a decorated World War Two veteran who was a bombardier on a B-24 Liberator shot down over the Philippines in 1945, played Professor Roy Hinkley, simply called “The Professor.”

That leaves Ginger and Mary Ann as the last surviving occupants of the SS Minnow.

Like we said.....slow news day.

Crime Trends

If we're reading the charts correctly, and it's completely possible we aren't, January 2014 is on pace to match or succeed January 2010 and 2011, but fall short of 2012 and 2013.

These numbers are in constant flux, but once again, it certainly appears that when the Department had 2,000 more bodies in 2010 and 2011, crime was actually demonstratively down, unlike 2012 and 2013 where the "more with less" philosophy kicked in and over 500 people paid with their lives.

Just thought we'd keep up with the numbers during the cold time. Plus, there isn't much going on this week.

Denver SWAT Shooting

Bad move by the suspect; excellent shot by the rifleman:



Explanation of the events over at PoliceOne.com

He'll live at last report.

Concealed Carry per Capita

A mere drop in the bucket by Cook County residents:

• In small towns Downstate, murders may happen once every 50 to 100 years, if that frequently, and the worst crimes might be a meth lab getting busted or someone driving away from a gasoline pump without paying.
  
  Yet, these extremely low-crime pockets of the state are precisely where people appear to be lining up the fastest to apply for state permits to carry concealed handguns, according to a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of concealed-carry applications submitted so far to the Illinois State Police.
  
  By contrast, in Cook County, gun owners appear to be moving the slowest to apply for the concealed-carry permits, causing the state’s most populous county to rank dead last of all 102 Illinois counties on a per capita basis, data shows.

There's a graphic at the Sun Times website, but it's tiny and almost unreadable:

Maybe you can get a better view at the source page at this link here. In any event, although Cook has the most applications,per capita, we're dead last.

And Dart is still bitching about all the people who are going to slip through the cracks because his investigative people are overwhelmed:

• More than 1,000 requests for concealed carry gun permits are pouring in each day in the nation’s last state to allow the practice, sparking concerns among Illinois law enforcement officials that they might fall behind on weeding out applicants with a history of violence.
  
  The Cook County Sheriff’s office says it already has identified about 120 applications it plans to contest since the online application process was opened to most state residents Jan. 5. Chicago Police Department officials, locked in a battle to control high-profile gang violence, say they, too, are worried about keeping up with the flood of applications, while downstate sheriff’s departments said they might not have the capacity to meet the new law’s vetting requirement in the time allowed.

That's going to be your next bottleneck - Dart and McJersey using the 30-day objection process and the subsequent 90-day investigatory window to again delay the exercise of a guaranteed Right.

Ban e-Cigs?

Here you have a mostly harmless device that is actually helping people to quit a vice that kills as many people as most others combined, and the Nanny State wants to ban it in Chicago:

• E-cigarettes will join regular smokes and other tobacco products as forbidden in most indoor public places in Chicago after aldermen today passed a measure backed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to restrict where electronic cigarettes can be used and how they can be sold.
  
  The ordinance, which passed 45-4 after opponents took one last chance to voice their displeasure, will prohibit people from using e-cigarettes in restaurants, bars and most other indoor public places in the city. The measure also will require retailers to sell e-cigarettes from behind the counter so it’s harder for minors to get their hands on them.
  
  Emanuel has made tobacco regulations a recent focus, working to frame the discussion over cigarette sales as a question of how willing elected officials are to protect children from getting lured into addiction at a young age.

Someone notices that whenever Rahm wants to force legislation through, it's always "...for the children"

• And Ald. Rey Colon, 35th, said he resents how people who oppose greater restrictions on e-smoking have been accused of not having children’s best interests at heart. “I hate to keep using, I keep thinking of that movie ‘My Cousin Vinnie’ – ‘the youths, the youths.’ We keep using the children as an excuse to pass any ordinance we want to pass, because who can deny the children?” Colon said.

Funny, we always thought it was the parents' job to raise the children properly, not government.

Bourbon Street Off Limits

Pam "the Troll" Zekman was at it again and managed to get some fish in the barrel she was shooting at:

• Disciplinary action has been taken against two Chicago police officers accused of staying too long for lunch at a popular Merrionette Park bar and restaurant late last month watching the Bears game.
  
  A large group of on-duty officers had gathered Sunday, Dec. 29 at 115 Bourbon Street, 3359 W. 115th St., in the south suburb, for lunch and watched the game while they ate, according to [...,] a spokesman for the Chicago Police Department.
  
  Most of them left after about an hour, but two tactical officers stayed longer, in violation of department policy....

A Reprimand or two has already been handed out. Pam gets to pretend she's still relevant. Expect the Inspection Division to be hanging around Merrionette Park for the next football season. You've been warned.

All Expense Paid Trip?

Where was this opportunity published?

• What's with the special details made available only to the select few to work as assistant/observers?
  There are two groups preparing for out of town details. One for the Super Bowl in New Jersey and the other to Sochi's Winter Olympics in Russia, to monitor and observe security protocols.
  
  What were the requirements? Who decided who gets to go?

We don't have a domed facility or a stadium that meets the capacity requirements of a Super Bowl, so what's the purpose of sending anyone to New Jersey? 

We also think that Rahm learned from Shortshanks and understands the Olympic Committee isn't picking Chicago without a shitload more bribes than 'Shanks was willing to part with, so what's the point of sending anyone to Sochi?

Something smells funny here and it isn't just McCompStat's feet.

Gun Shop Delay

There are a myriad of regulations governing businesses in Chicago, but if you want to sell a perfectly legal product, it shouldn't take six months to figure out where the store should be:

• A federal judge Tuesday granted the city the six months Mayor Rahm Emanuel said it needs to figure out where to allow gun shops in Chicago.
  
  U.S. District Court Judge Edmond Chang said his decision balances the needs of the city to craft regulations with the public’s Second Amendment rights.
  
  Pete Patterson, an attorney for gun rights advocates, told Chang the six-month time frame is too long. Patterson said the city acted far more quickly to a court ruling that overturned the statewide ban on carrying concealed weapons in Illinois.

And after 6 months, the city will drag it's feet on issuing store licenses, claiming paperwork errors, processing time, etc. We're actually hoping that no one will open a store in the city itself and deny Rahm the tax revenue he so desperately needs and instead companies open stores on the outskirts of town or even outside of Cook County to get the business of city residents. If we're spending hundreds or even a grand on a new gun, we aren't looking to give Rahm and Toni a single extra dime.

Savini Drama Continues

Conflict of interest?

• Citing a potential conflict, DuPage County prosecutors are asking to bring in outside counsel to handle the case of a Chicago television reporter charged with drunken driving.
  
  In a motion filed Monday, prosecutors asked for the appointment of a special prosecutor because a DuPage assistant state’s attorney is a brother-in-law to Dave Savini of CBS Channel 2 and could be called as a witness in the case.
  
  The motion will be heard Wednesday morning before DuPage Chief Judge John Elsner.
  
  Savini, 47, was arrested last weekend and charged with driving under the influence, battery and other charges after he allegedly shoved another motorist and then left the scene of a minor traffic accident in the parking lot of a Taco Bell in Naperville.

Meanwhile, media critic Rob Feder calls out SeeBS Channel 2 on their hypocrisy during this incident:

• It strikes me as the height of hypocrisy for a station that demands answers from everyone else not to respond to legitimate inquiries about one of its own employees.
  
  Remember that the next time you see Savini, in all his self-righteous arrogance, chasing after some unwitting target who doesn’t want to talk to him. Or the next time CBS 2 makes a big deal about a minor celebrity who gets in trouble.
  
  “Original Reporting” my ass.

Well Rob, it is the media. And it is SeeBS after all - it's part of the culture over there. It's not exactly a surprise.

Two Departments; One Mission (CORRECTION)

St. Baldricks announcement:

• As you know, both the Chicago Fire Department and the Chicago Police Department have proudly partnered with the St. Baldrick’s Foundation since 2007 (CFD) and 2008 (CPD). Alongside our friends, family and community members, we have banded together and shaved heads to save lives, baldly standing in solidarity with the kids who often lose their hair in the course of their treatment.
  
  Separately, we have done amazing things for kids with cancer, but in 2014 we are committed to do more.
  
  Chicago’s First Responders are joining forces in the mission to Conquer Childhood Cancers.
  
  Whether you participate at our event at our combined headquarters on Michigan Avenue, or one of our events at the neighborhood police stations at 5555 W. Grand or 1900 W. Monterey, please join us so that more kids can have a chance for a long and healthy life.
  
  We hope that you will not only join us at one of our 2014 events, but will share this information with your colleagues.

Three locations this year are all 21 March:

• 022
• 025
• Public Safety HQ (35/Michigan)

Sign up at this link.

Start growing that hair.

Rauner Steps in it Again

Has anyone seen the commercials running lately for this goof?

There's a whole series of them on YouTube, but we aren't linking to them. The one we saw has Rauner lambasting the government unions and "...career politicians bought and paid for."

Guess who's doing the buying?

• After pulling strings to get his daughter into Walter Payton College Prep, Bruce Rauner, a Republican candidate for governor, became one of the elite Chicago public high school’s biggest benefactors.
  
  The Rauner Family Foundation gave $250,000 to the Payton Prep Initiative for Education on Dec. 14, 2009 — about a year and a half after Rauner called then-Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan to overturn his daughter’s rejection for admission, records examined by the Chicago Sun-Times reveal.
  
  Rauner’s gift was the largest the not-for-profit foundation had received up to that point. It amounts to nearly 30 percent of all the money the group has gotten during its first five years, according to records the Rauner and Payton charities have filed with the state.

When you're a billionaire many times over, we guess you can forget about a measly quarter million given away as a quid pro quo. And that wasn't even the smallest amount of pocket change Bruce gave:

• Rauner’s gift to the Payton Prep Initiative came two months after his foundation gave $500,000 to the Chicago Public Schools Foundation, run by the school system’s top administrators. His foundation previously had given money to that organization.
  
  Rauner, a venture capitalist, called Chicago school officials in early 2008. Within days, his daughter was admitted to Payton for the 2008-09 academic year by the school’s principal, according to a source familiar with the matter.
  
  The gubernatorial hopeful has said little about his daughter’s admission to Payton, dismissing it as “stuff that doesn’t matter.”

But it kind of does matter when you're running for office, supposedly when you're participating in the very things that you claim to be campaigning against. This guy is unreal.

Depravity

This is just fucked up on many levels:

• Police are saying a man struck his girlfriend and then grabbed his 1-year-old baby by her ankles and slammed her head twice on the floor Sunday in the Logan Square neighborhood.
  
  The domestic incident occurred at 10:40 p.m. in the 2800 block of North Spaulding Avenue, said 14th District Sgt. Gerald Bremon.

Whoops - hi Ger. Looks like the Times spelled your name wrong.

Health Care Hilarity

How is this going to play in the leftist narrative?

• New Obamacare health insurance enrollees may feel a pang of envy when they eye the coverage plans offered by Walmart to its employees.
  
  For many years, the giant discount retailer has been the target of unions and liberal activists who have harshly criticized the company's health care plans, calling them “notorious for failing to provide health benefits” and "substandard.”
  
  But a Washington Examiner comparison of the two health insurance programs found that Walmart's plan is more affordable and provides significantly better access to high-quality medical care than Obamacare.

Amusing...and apt.

"Merit" Selections Work

It has been said here and elsewhere, that "merit" selections only result in the best and the brightest being promoted to leadership positions in the Department.

We finally have proof.

Remember that Lieutenants promotion list back in 2010? Of course, you don't. But you can see it here at this link. It was the first list in history that separated out the "merit" picks and their sponsors. Here's the "merit" picks:

• 606 Cesario, Robert C. by Cmdr Eddie Johnson
  610 Duffin, Kevin B. by Cmdr Patricia Walsh
  111 Hamilton, Raymond J. by Cmdr Robert Roman
  189 Ramirez, Jose G. by Cmdr Genessa Lewis
  193 Sanchez, James R. by Cmdr Joseph Gorman
  189 Sanchez, Noel by Cmdr James O’Grady
  196 Valadez, Francis A. by ADS Steven Georgas
  193 Waller, Fred L. by Cmdr Walter Green
  153 Watson, Larry W. by Cmdr James Roussell

Out of those 9 picks, seven have since been promoted again, to Captain or Commander. And in one case, both. The 21 rank-order promotees? Not a single one has made XO or better.

So obviously, whoever picks the "merits" must have a finely tuned sense of who will make a superior leader in the future and testing actually has nothing to do with it.

So let us hear no more about "merit" being a slander for "connected."

Does This Work? BANG!

Fools with firearms:

• A South Shore woman accidentally fatally shot a 65-year-old relative during an argument about whether the gun would fire, police said.
  
  Joeann Smith and Willie Smith were arguing about whether or not a gun would fire about 7 p.m. Wednesday at the woman’s home in the 1700 block of East 72nd Street, authorities said.
  
  During the argument, Joeann Smith pointed the weapon at Willie Smith‘s face and pulled the trigger — shooting him in the eye, authorities said.

Of course, this means no one should ever own guns and all guns should be banned.

Money Poorly Spent

You've heard the expression "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"? How about this - a simple background check, including a phone call to the previous employer would have saved city taxpayers $825,000:

• Chicago taxpayers spent $825,000 to find out that Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s now-convicted former City Comptroller Amer Ahmad did not cost them a penny beyond his $165,000-a-year salary.
  
  The $825,000 was paid to the law firm of Drinker Biddle and Reath LLP and the accounting firm of Grant Thornton for a 47-page report that concluded that Ahmad did not defraud cash-strapped Chicago like he did in Ohio.
  
  Ahmad pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy and bribery for his role in a kickback and money-laundering scheme that occurred when he served as Ohio’s deputy state treasurer. He faces up to 15 years in prison after agreeing to pay $3.2 million in restitution.

You don't just hide a federal indictment and investigation. Someone dropped the ball on the background check ...or someone didn't care enough to actually do one. As a result, a connected firm pulls in nearly a million bucks doing a job that should have cost taxpayers almost nothing if done before the hiring.

Sgt Test Review

Use this open post to ask questions about the test, relate scenarios, detail shortcomings and speculate about what might be thrown out.

Everything else most likely will be deleted.

More Openings

But after last month, less desirable Districts are the majority:

• 003 - 10 openings
• 004 - 10
• 005 - 10
• 010 - 10
• 011 - 10
• 015 - 10
• 019 - 3

Good luck.

New St. Baldricks Info

Coming soon to a blog near you:

• Some exciting things have taken place over the last couple of days and I can't spill all of the beans yet, there will be an announcement Monday from St. Baldrick's
  
  I did want to share with you two parts of the news that will affect you ahead of this announcement. We are changing the date from March 14 to the 21st and the location from the Academy to the headquarters' building. Sorry for the short notice on the date change but this all developed rather quickly.
  
  Keep your eyes and ears open for  Monday's big announcement and I will follow up shortly after that with more particulars.
  
  Thank you all for your past participation and support, and in advance for your help this year.
  
  Until we find a cure,
  
  Bill O'Reilly
  chromedome1269@sbcglobal.net

Check back shortly for more info.

Forty-Two Degrees

Rahm added Mother Nature to his cabinet yesterday.

She will replace Charlie Williams.

That is all.

Officer Escapes Burning Wreck

Missed this one the other day:

• A Chicago Police car started on fire after another car t-boned it this morning in the Edison Park neighborhood.
  
  The officer, who was not injured, was able to jump out of the squad car as it started on fire when the vehicle t-boned him in the 7500 block of North Odell Avenue, according to police News Affairs [...].
  
  The officer was the sole occupant of the squad car which had its lights and sirens activated and was responding to a burglary in progress call about 9:30 a.m. when the crash occurred.

The officer expressed his appreciation other responding units and off-duty personnel who responded to the crash. A speedy recovery to the Officer.

Sergeant Exam Part II

Good luck today folks!

Hopefully you score right behind us and we can get promoted together.

Open post for now.

We plan on burning a binder full of General Orders and hoisting a few frosty cold ones immediately afterward.

Poor Planning

Gee, it's like no one at City Hall knows how to plan for a Chicago winter - or their taking Al Gore's bullshit to heart and spending the money somewhere else because, you know, global warming!

• The City of Chicago already has used about half its 2014 plowing budget trying to deal with the deep snow and intense cold that took hold this month.
  
  The city has spent $11.2 million since Dec. 31 on snow removal, according to city spokesman Bill McCaffrey. That's $1 million from the 2013 plow budget and $10.2 million in 2014 funds.
  
  That includes $7.2 million worth of salt, $2.5 million in labor costs, including overtime for plow drivers, and $1.5 million in equipment costs, according to numbers McCaffrey provided.

Rahm also announced that he was having pothole crews working 7 days a week until at least April, meaning a lot of OT for patching crews - it's like VRI for Streets and San!

Steep Learning Curve

You'd think that most people, after spending time in prison, would try to avoid another stint there. That doesn't seem to be the case here:

• Disgraced former Chicago Ald. Ambrosio Medrano once boasted that he wanted to be a “pig” who feasted on government contracts.
  
  On Friday, he was sent back to the pen.
  
  Calling the serially corrupt 60-year-old Southwest Side politician a “cynical” operator who followed the city’s unofficial motto of “Where’s mine?,” U.S. District Judge Gary Feinerman sentenced Medrano to 10½ years in prison.

He seems to have gone to the Beavers School of Political Corruption:

• The federal prosecutor pointed to one of the most damning pieces of evidence against Medrano — the tape in which he echoed Moreno’s comments that he wanted to be a “pig” who made money on dirty government deals, but not a “hog” because “hogs get slaughtered.”

In a just world, he'd have lots of company in short order.

Aldrecreature Calls Out McJersey; Rahm Agrees

Is McStreetlightAssassin on the chopping block? Or is Rahm pandering to a voting monolith?

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Thursday he agrees with Ald. Carrie Austin (34th) that an avalanche of police statistics showing a reduction in homicides and shootings mean “crap” if people don’t feel safe.
  
  One day after a verbal broadside from one of the City Council’s most influential African-American aldermen, Emanuel refused to return fire.
  
  In fact, the mayor agreed with Austin, who unloaded on Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy when asked how she felt about Chicago’s first homicide of 2014 occurring in the Far South Side’s Roseland community she represents.
  
  “I talked to Carrie. . . . Everything she said — in one way or another in different words — I’ve said and I agree with,” said Emanuel, whose popularity has dropped among black voters who helped put him in office because of persistent crime and school closings.

We're pretty sure we started saying that exact same thing back when J-Fled was pretending to be able to run a metropolitan police department:

• The perception of crime is what matters, not the actual statistics

If, as aldercreature Austin says...

• “Don’t tell me about no statistics of McCarthy’s. You say, `Well, statistically, we’re down. That means crap to me when I know that someone else has been shot,” she said.

 ....then all of this CompStat nonsense is exactly that - nonsense. Austin probably knows more than a few people who got shot in her ward. It's a violent hellhole. And CompStat numbers are little comfort to the people living there. McCarthy is saying "crime is down" and their eyes and ears are telling them another murder happened within a mile of their apartment, three more got shot and the little old lady down the block was the fourth robbery victim that they know about?

Voters smell bullshit. We've pointed out bullshit. But the media praises McGoof's as the inventor of modern policing, Rahm accepts the ass-kissing for his supposed brilliance until the polling numbers start falling and suddenly everyone is picking up on what our readers have been telling us for five years now?