Contact Card Lawsuit Resurfacing?

Here comes bad news:

• Legal notice was sitting on my desk this morning. Department is being sued for "practice of detaining citizens without their consent for the purpose of filling out contact cards to gather data to use in future investigations. On information and belief, this policy has led to the violation of thousands of citizen's constitutional rights." See 12C6834, John Hall, et al v. City of Chicago, et al. Another of Gary's policies gonna cost the city big bucks. Got to at least meet the burden of a Terry Stop to do a contact card folks.

Here's the link to the Court Documents.

If we're reading this correctly, the Court dismissed the case in December 2012 against the defendant (City of Chicago) without prejudice. That means that the plaintiffs could refile when they make the corrections or meet the legal standards provided within the decision.

If this is popping up on someone's desk, it may have been refiled. Or this may be another class action suit surfacing.

This would bring up the question, "is the Department purging the electronic and paper records of Contact Cards within the time limit that they were supposed to be kept?" We believe it was 6 months, but we might be mistaken. If records exist past the time limit, each card or data entry is a nail in the City's case. We doubt officers could be held liable for poor records management.

But as the commentator states, "Got to at least meet the burden of a Terry Stop to do a contact card folks." If you are generating the paper that the Corp Counsel will hang you with.....not a good idea.

UPDATE: Paul Geiger has no opinion on this post.

Dear Paul Geiger

A letter we received - nothing noted the contents were confidential in any way, shape or form, so we present it to you:

• Dear SCC,
  
  Today I received a phone call from a friend telling me that there were a number of unflattering statements about me on your website. I went there and saw claims that I fired the FOP's labor law firm so I could negotiate the police bargaining agreement and bill the FOP for it. There were also a number of other lies about "settlements" paid to unnamed secretaries. If you knew anything about what goes on at the FOP, you would know that I am the person responsible for stopping the practice of having in house attorneys billing their employer for legal services. Additionally, no settlement has ever been paid to a secretary regarding any allegation against me. You will kindly remove all references to me from your website by midnight tonight. If I see any commentary about me and my job performance, I will bring an action against you and any anonymous defamers. I have sent you this warning previously, and I am not going to send it again. Keep my name off of your website.
  
  Finally, you should be aware that it is not particularly difficult to obtain your identity and the identity those that comment on SCC through the court system.
  
  I value my reputation and I will take the appropriate action to protect it.
  
  Paul Geiger

SCC replies:

• Mr. Geiger,
  
  Apologies for not getting back to you sooner. We check e-mail every other day so we missed your midnight deadline. But even if we had found the letter, we have no mechanism in place for scanning through hundreds, even thousands of comments, from an unknown time frame. As we related in our previous correspondence, should you wish something deleted, we'll need the post name, the date and time so we can find it in an efficient manner.
  
  You seem to miss the point of a blog, so we'll take this opportunity to enlighten you a bit. This is a conduit. What appears in the front page under our bylines is our responsibility, nothing else. We've read the law and consulted with actual lawyers versed in internet law and we are under no legal obligation that we are aware of to verify the veracity of every single comment that goes up. Those "live comment streams" we see on so many national news outlets accusing various figures of all sorts of conspiracies, criminal acts, malfeasance - all live, all uncensored and all unverifiable? We don't see CNN in court for any of that.
  
  We noticed that when we "google" your name, the second post is a sexual harassment action filed against you covered by CBS News. When we add the words "sexual harassment" to the search, we find ABC 7 coverage and the actual lawsuit filed against you by Marie Marrero, which the internal investigation by Asher, Gittler and D'Alba is alleged to be credible and with merit. Channel 7 also references the previous 2005 lawsuit by a pregnant attorney in the FOP Office:
  
  
  • This isn't the first time the police union has had to fight charges against its general counsel. In 2005 the FOP was sued by one of its female attorney's who claimed that before she was fired after Paul Geiger made sexist remarks about her pregnancy. That case ended up being settled out of court.
  
  If you are arguing that since this is a lawyer, not a secretary, whose settlement was paid by our membership dues, then we'll grant you the point, no matter how nit-picky it is.  In fact, you are welcome to point out in the comment section that no secretary has been paid a settlement so far, but that a pregnant female lawyer received an out of court settlement from the FOP due to something something, Paul Geiger, something without admitting fault - or however you lawyers cover the issue.  We'll do it for you right here.
  
  Due to the facts above, we are prepared to argue that as the paid legal representative of a labor organization numbering in the thousands, you are a de facto public figure (limited purpose public figure) and therefore, the burden of proving libel falls squarely in the realm that a "reasonable person" would have to believe a comment to be true. Again, we specify "comment," not a "post" on the main page.  "Actual malice" also comes into play, and as you state that we are without knowledge of the FOP inner-working, malice is an uphill climb.  You would additionally have to prove monetary damages of some form.  Seeing as you work for the FOP, your only client as far as we can tell, and you have suffered no damages to your employment, even due to the multiple sexual harassment complaints on file over the past seven years, we think that avenue is going to be a difficult one.  Your work history, as the paid representative of thousands of police officers, is of paramount interest to each and every one of us.
  
  You are welcome to refute anything you come across in the comment sections. If you are party to some facts that the rest of us aren't, please enlighten us and the readers so that errors such as you are alleging aren't repeated. Additionally, mention it to your bosses that the knife cuts both ways - their IP addresses are just as traceable, maybe more so as their IP e-mails can be compared to those attached to comments on the board. Just food for thought.
  
  As a side note, in your honor, we are creating Rule ZERO in our right hand column. That should cover some of your concerns.  We look forward to your list of comments you object to.
  
  SCC

Just thought everyone should know how our dues money is being spent today. An insignificant blog, hated by the Department brass, the city government, the FOP, and now the FOP's attorney. If the blog disappears, you know exactly who to blame.

FOP meeting next Tuesday.

Police Shooting

Bad guy dead, police all good:

• Police shot and killed a gun-wielding man after responding to a call of a domestic dispute in the East Garfield Park neighborhood on the West Side early Thursday morning, authorities said.
  
  An officer shot the 58-year-old man after he refused to drop an "automatic assault weapon," police said in a statement. He died at the scene, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.
  
  The daughter of the man's girlfriend had called police shortly before 2:30 a.m. and said there was a domestic dispute and the man had a gun, police said.
  
  The girlfriend initially waved off police from the first-floor entry to the apartment, which is located above a convenience store. But her daughter appeared in the upstairs window and told officers to come up the stairs, police said.
  
  When they entered, the man appeared from behind a door holding a handgun, similar to TEC 9 or MAC 11 pistols, authorities said.
  
  An officer shot the man twice after he raised the gun toward police, according to police union spokesman Patrick Camden at the scene.

Excellent job officers.

New York "Riots"

Shoot an asshole with a gun and guess who's to blame for everything?

• Angry Brooklyn residents threw bottles at police Monday night as they marched in protest of this past weekend’s deadly police shooting in East Flatbush, 1010 WINS reported.
  
  The NYPD dispatched officers in riot gear to respond, and one person was arrested for disorderly conduct, CBS 2 reported.
  
  Dozens of officers stood guard in the aftermath of the protest. Police said it started peacefully, but then took an ugly turn as the crowd started to disperse.
  
  [...] During the march, crowd members rushed into a Rite Aid at Albany and Church avenues around 9:20 p.m. In the melee a store worker suffered a gash to the head, police confirmed to CBS 2 and 1010. The worker was taken to a nearby hospital and is expected to recover, police said.

A store or two was trashed, and one person went to jail. Just one. It continued for a second night. The jagoff who attempted to murder two police officers had an extensive record, too.

What with the wilding downtown, the Ford City melee and this crap up on the East Coast, we wouldn't be surprised to see some of these incidents pop up here shortly. We recall a few in years past around the west and south sides.  Maybe Garry can claim combating it as another idea he dreamed up in New York.

Quinn Tells Lisa "Waste Money!"

Laying the groundwork for his reelection:

• Gov. Pat Quinn today called on Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court a court order that requires Illinois to approve legislation this spring that would let citizens carry guns in public.
  The governor's move ramps up pressure on Madigan, a potential rival to Quinn in the March 2014 Democratic primary campaign, to keep the court fight alive. The Illinois General Assembly is working on fashioning legislation to put a concealed weapons law in place.
  
  At issue is a December decision by the U.S. 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals that ruled Illinois’ decades-old ban on allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons is unconstitutional. A three-judge appeals court panel gave Illinois until June 9 — about six months from its December decision — to pass legislation that would give citizens the right to carry guns in public with reasonable restrictions. Madigan lost a request for a review by all judges in the federal appeals court.
  
  But Quinn said Madigan should take the issue further. The governor said the “only hope” Illinois has of keeping its ban on carrying concealed weapons intact is to go to the U.S. Supreme Court. “The attorney general ought to take a look at that, and pursue that, and make sure that this is the law of the land,” Quinn said.

"make sure that this is the law of the land?" Quinn's an idiot, but a dangerous one.

If Lisa doesn't take it to the Supreme Court, Quinn paints her as soft on guns. If she does and loses, she's incompetent. If she defers to the legislature (which appears to be what she's doing at the moment) she's a tool of Daddy (which she is).

Of course, all of this costs money that could be spent on something else, like pensions.

Taste of Chicago Hearing?

We suppose it's par for the course - CAPS has been burning through money for years, why not pour more money down the rat hole that is the Taste of Chicago:

• A group of aldermen today called for hearings on whether Taste of Chicago should be restructured or even eliminated in the face of years of financial losses.
  
  Ald. Robert Fioretti, a sponsor of the non-binding resolution, suggested Taste may have run its course.
  
  "Two years ago, I said 'Taste of Chicago is on its last legs.' It's time to look at reconfiguring it," said Fioretti, 2nd. "Either we're going to eliminate it -- then, we should have -- or we're going to move it forward."
  
  Taste 2012 lost $1.3 million, more than the previous year, despite Mayor Rahm Emanuel's moves to raise revenue by charging for some concert tickets and gourmet meals, as well as shortening the annual lakefront festival from 10 days to five days.
  
  Speaking to reporters after Wednesday's City Council meeting, Emanuel said he's committed to keep working to modernize Taste.

It's a giant untraceable cash generator.  We don't believe for a minute, with all the creative bookkeeping that goes on around here, that someone connected isn't walking off with some sort of payoff.  It might not be the restaurants, it might not be the guys with all the service contracts for cold-storage or running the port-o-lets, but they wouldn't be there if they weren't making some coin somewhere.

It's Chicago....someone has their hands in the till.

Big Hog Balls Trial

The entertainment was getting out of hand even before the jury was selected, so the judge slapped a gag order on everyone:

• After hearing from Henderson, Zagel acknowledged it was rare to have a panel without a black male, but he also said there are potential legal problems with dismissing a properly-selected random panel.
  
  Zagel declined the defense request and instead instructed both prosecutors and defense attorneys to confer with the U.S. Clerk’s office for the Northern District of Illinois to ensure the selection process used to put together the larger panel was done according to established protocols.
  
  In the meantime, he continued to question jurors from the panel of 50 in order to select 12 who will sit for trial. At the end of Tuesday, he had questioned 24, and selection was scheduled to continue Wednesday.
  
  Outside court, Beavers’ attorneys called the process “rigged” and said they had no confidence that checking with the clerk’s office would make a difference.
  
  “I’ve been trying cases down here 52 years. I have never seen a case where I represented a black (male) defendant and they sent out 50 jurors, 50! 50 jurors! And not one single black man,” said a highly agitated Sam Adam Sr. “Now don’t tell me that was an accident.”

No Sam, it's a mathematical possibility, though we highly doubt you ever took and passed a course in statistics.  Occasionally, the kicker misses the extra point.  Sometimes the Double-zero pops up in Roulette.  Sometimes, on the 7th day of the 7th month, the #7 horse in the 7th race at Arlington wins.  Sometimes he comes in last though.  It's rare, but it happens, and there's ol' Sam playing the tired ol' saw of "racism racism racism."

In any event, this should be an entertaining trial if Beavers actually takes the stand like he's threatening to.

"The Letter" = No Retro (UPDATES)

The truth is out there....finally:

• Fraternal Order of Police President Mike Shields may be riding high after working to torpedo a four-year contract tied to pension reform that Mayor Rahm Emanuel had hoped to use as a roadmap to solve the city’s pension crisis.
  
  But leave it to Emanuel to send the outspoken FOP president crashing back down to earth.
  
  Emanuel is playing hardball, thanks to an embarrassing oversight Shields made last year, flatly denied but now acknowledged by his own corrective action.
  
  The Chicago Sun-Times reported last year that rank-and-file police officers may have to wait a year to negotiate a new contract — and forgo a retroactive pay increase in 2012 — because Shields failed to notify the city between Feb. 1 and March 1 of last year that he intended to terminate the police contract and commence negotiations on a new agreement.
  
  If that notice is not given within the one-month window, the contract automatically rolls over for another year.
  
  At the time, Shields insisted that his letter to the city was “well within the timeline” required by state law.
  
  Two weeks ago, the FOP president essentially acknowledged his earlier mistake by sending the city the required notice to avoid having the old contract roll over for a second straight year.
  
  That gave Emanuel an opening to declare that, as a result of Shields’ earlier mistake, the FOP has forfeited the retroactive pay raise that has long been an automatic part of any union contract.
  
  

Oops. There it is. No retro for the last year. When Rahm said he was going to stick it in the FOP's ear, we thought maybe the reporter had misheard a word that rhymes with "ear." Looks like we were correct.

And everything we published at that point seems to have been 100%, completely accurate, despite all of the abuse we took in the comment sections about being a tool of Rahm and undercutting the FOP, along with all the slander and threats from Shield's people.

Good job Mike.

UPDATE: Here's the SCC post from last year that marked the start of this rumor/fact. Read the comments, too. Very enlightening.

UPDATE: Here's the FOP response.  To the commentator who was whining about we only posted the Sun Times story, the Sun Times story was up at 0530. The FOP had nothing up.  Then we had to go to a little thing we call a "job."  And since we don't use Department resources or time that the city is paying us to actually be the police,  FOP's reply had to wait.  That's what they get for being reactive - late coverage.  The fact remains that if FOP had been upfront a year ago, this story is a non-issue.

UPDATE: Yes asshat, FOP had to wait.  We have a job.  A job you obviously don't have, kid.  One that lets us be up at 00-dark-hundred, and if we were caught blogging on city time instead of our time, guess where we'd be?  And your nonsense that 10,000 people's jobs are on the line - bullshit.  No one is losing a job.  But the statement that 10,000 people's welfare is at stake?  That is the job of the FOP Union, not SCC.  So go place your ignorant head back up whomever's orifice you recently vacated and sniff the fumes there.  If Mikey had been upfront in March 2012 instead of picking fights he didn't need to pick, this wouldn't be an issue - FACT.

Rahm Says "Nyah Nyah Nyah."

He claims he'll get everything the sergeants turned down anyway:

• Saying "being honest is never a failure," Mayor Rahm Emanuel stood by the pension deal rejected by Chicago police sergeants and said inevitable reforms passed in Springfield will share many of the same earmarks.

Not to put to fine a point on it, but what does Rahm know about being honest? He made his millions in crooked deals and shady contracts for what was essentially a no-show job.

• Emanuel called the deal's opponents those who "have decided denial is a long-term strategy. That doesn't work."
  
  He promised to "bring honesty to a system that doesn't have it today."
  
  The rejected deal would have raised the retirement age, frozen cost-of-living increases every other year and called on retirees to pay more of their health insurance.
  
  Emanuel said "every aspect of this agreement" will inevitably be part of pension reform in the General Assembly.
  
  "Hoping otherwise is not a strategy," he added.

It may be part of some "agreement" at a later date, but not during contract negotiations. Pension matters are State Law, not collective bargaining. We're all pretty sure Rahm isn't planning on being around in two years.

And the majority of sergeants realized that while change may be on the horizon, they don't have to provide 9.5 with the rope and tree from which he'll try to hang them.

Call It What It Is

Is anyone really reading what the media is putting out there? Is anyone in the media going to ask the obvious question?  Let's set the stage here.

Dad changing baby in the back of a van. Think about the physical confines of a van. Those of you lucky enough to have changed a diaper know the mechanics involved. You're hunched over the child, there isn't much space, even in a van. He has an extensive criminal record - nearly 40 arrests, gun charges, dope dealing, self-admitted gang banger - and now he is refusing to cooperate with the investigation.

Mom caught a couple rounds herself while pregnant with the child, so her lifestyle choices aren't exactly stellar.

Dad got shot twice, in the side of the face and the ass, so this probably wasn't what cops call a "violation." Violations are usually messages over some error in judgment (shorting the tip, under-counting, talking smack) that can be cured with a bullet in the leg, arm, etc., not usually intended to be fatal. A round to the head isn't a violation - that's a hit. The shot in the ass occurs when they're running away.

Channel 5 lists the baby's wounds as follows:

• His young daughter was hit five times: in the thigh, shoulder, lung, liver and bowels, the family later said.

This after lying on the front seat to get her diaper changed. Anything here strike anyone as strange? Dad shot twice, once probably running away. Baby that can't run away, catches five rounds? And if Dad was running, away, why keep shooting into the van?

We'll tell you what we think - human shield. We'll even bet money on it.

All the play-reverends and politicians are huffy, surprised and sad about what they've had a direct hand in creating. There are monsters among us, created by failed social policies, enabled by the thinking that "there is no such thing as a bad boy," and nurtured by blaming everyone else but the faces in the mirror.

Supporting Fraud?

Guess where the money is going?

• Another attempt to fight fraud by putting ID photos on Illinois’ food stamp cards looks doomed, but not because of political opposition inside the Capitol.
  
  The Illinois Retail Merchants Association is making it clear to lawmakers that the gas stations, grocery stores, local shops don’t want to deal with the headaches or possible legal nightmare that might be created by adding pictures to LINK cards.
  
  “Federal regulations require that stores treat SNAP customers no different than anyone else,” Robb Carr the executive vice president with the retail merchants said.
  
  SNAP is the federal food assistance program, in Illinois SNAP recipients use a LINK card to buy their groceries.
  
  “If you require a photo ID for a LINK card, then clerks across the state have to ask for ID anytime anyone wants to buy almost anything,” Carr added.

Too many shady retail outlets "buy" link money, charging fifty-cents on the dollar so crackheads have cash for their dope. Walk into any ghetto corner store and the check out the rows and rows of chips and pop - nothing else. Then do a little research and pull their sales figures. Some of these stores do more LINK business per capita than established chains like Jewel or Dominicks. We know of at least one investigation that tracked literally hundreds of thousands of Illinois tax dollars being funneled overseas from one single store.

And guess who isn't supporting this obvious (and simple) protection against fraud? Chicago democrats? Good guess!

• Senate Human Service Committee Chairwoman, state Sen. Mattie Hunter, D-Chicago, said Rose’s plan will eventually get a hearing. But she is clear she won’t support the plan.
  
  “I don’t like the idea, a person is likely already embarrassed that they must accept food stamps,” Hunter said adding their picture is an attempt to shame LINK card holders.
  
  Hunter also questions how much money it would cost the state to add pictures to LINK cards. U.S. Department of Agriculture numbers from October of 2012 show over 2 million people in Illinois received SNAP benefits.

Gee, we have a Costco card, has our picture right on the back, simple little dot-matrix computer image. Probably cost all of two-cents to do. Wonder how much LINK money senator Hunter is collecting on her end.

Can Poor People Be Trusted With Guns?

Stumbled across this article today:

• Can poor people be trusted with guns? Overwhelmingly, Republicans thinks so. But while Democrats fight against taxes on the poor and oppose voter photo IDs because they impose too much of burden, they seem to be doing everything possible – from fees, expensive training requirements, and photo IDs -- to make it next to impossible for the poor to own guns.
  Indeed, legislation in at least 17 states around the country is aimed specifically at making it more costly to own a gun. Democrats are voting in mass against exempting the poor from fees when it comes to guns. New Yorkers aren't alone facing everything from registration fees to buying liability insurance.
  That's too bad, because many law-abiding citizens, particularly minorities in crime-ridden neighborhoods really do need a gun for self-defense. There is little doubt that the people who are most likely to be victims of violent crime – again, overwhelmingly poor blacks in urban areas -- are also the ones who benefit the most from owning guns. Research, including my own, has demonstrated this.

The entire article is a good read.  John Lott wrote a great book titled "More Guns, Less Crime" that pretty much destroyed the myths that Rahm and McStreetlights continue to perpetrate.  The left wants their voters poor, dependent, ill-informed and unarmed.  Little wonder.

Old Ideas Are New Again (Again)

First up, Broken Windows makes it's Chicago debut....under the name Broken Windows - it was stolen years ago and called something else..."quality of life arrests" or something.  Back before we had New York people running things, Chicago folks borrowed generously from the NYPD idea factory:

• Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said today he wanted to bring a "broken windows" strategy to Chicago that would allow cops to arrest those who ignore tickets for routine offenses like gambling and public urination.
  
  "Fixing the little things prevents the bigger things," McCarthy, long an advocate of the "broken windows" approach, said at a press conference at the Harrison Police District Station.
  
  The superintendent said an ordinance would be proposed to the City Council to allow police to arrest those who fail to pay tickets for public urination, public consumption of alcohol and gambling, "the three top complaints" he said from residents. Currently, 65 percent of the tickets go unpaid, McCarthy said.

You just know that 65% unpaid rate grates on Rahm like sandpaper.

Here we go though, enforcing little crimes prevents big crimes is the theory, and it has produced positive results in practice. The only thing it needs is a fully-staffed police department, enough cars and teams to get it done, fully operational lock-ups to process the sudden influx of prisoners, and a willing Cook County Jail to take all the assholes who won't be paying bond money.

Oh yeah - no I-Bonds, which fits nicely into the way McBrokenStreetlights wants things to be, but doesn't take into account Dart's and Preckwinkle's desires to cut their budgets and empty out County.

We also saw a report on NBC this afternoon of a brand new idea to shut down open air drug markets, and then....get this....park a car at the location to discourage the boys from setting up the operation again and warning off former customers. NBC doesn't appear to have a link up yet, but you can rest assured, it's brilliant!

In fact, we remember it being called the Distressed Neighborhood Program back in the late 1990's and it was run by Vice and Special Operations. It may even have been created during Phil Cline's reign as every idea seems to be traceable back to him lately - almost as if someone is going through the history books and seeing what worked five and ten years ago....you know, instead of coming in like a New York or FBI blowhard and trying to reinvent the wheel.

Why All the "New" Strategies?

Because Rahm is getting hammered nationally and needs to stop the bleeding of his ambitions:

• Rahm Emanuel’s $3 million anti-violence program was supposed to defuse Chicago’s exploding murder rate. But has it? Despite the PR spin from the Mayor’s office, the numbers don’t lie.
  
  In summer 2012, the glare of the national spotlight was on Chicago. The city’s out-of-control murder rate demanded a response. Mayor Emanuel was under intense public pressure to show he was taking immediate action. School-age children like seven year-old Heaven Sutton were being caught in the bloody gang crosshairs. The body count was mounting. Chicago was desperate for an answer to the violence, and the funerals, and the hopelessness.
  
  It still is.
  
  So Mayor Emanuel signed a three year multi-million dollar contract with CeaseFire, the anti-violence group made up of ex-cons, to “interrupt” violence in Chicago’s high crime-addled areas of Woodlawn and North Lawndale.
  
  Under the controversial CeaseFire “model,” workers attempt to mitigate or “interrupt” violence on the street before it turns violent. Because many of the “workers” are ex-gang members, the group argues that it has street credibility to mediate that police officers don’t.
  
  But, according to numbers released this week, that model appears to be failing.

The article rips Rahm about the cash spent on CeaseFire with no tangible results, so he appears not only helpless in the face of violence, but gullible for this stunt, and gullible doesn't win national office - usually.

Air Show is Going to Suck

The Thunderbirds are out:

• Every year, thousands flock to Chicago’s lakefront for the annual Air and Water Show. Many come only to see the featured performances of military demonstration teams like the Air Force Thunderbirds, the Navy Blue Angels, and the Army Golden Knights.
  
  This year, those spectators may very well stay home.
  
  Because of the sequestration battle which has pulled billions from the federal budget, the military air show teams are canceling or severely curtailing their schedules. And in the case of the Chicago show, the marquis performer has sent word that they won’t be attending.

And if they aren't making it, you can be sure some of the other high-tech attractions won't either. Crowds might be less. That means less revenue. Less hotel and restaurant taxes.

Of course, it's all the fault of the "sequester."

"Yeah, We Lied, So What?"

There isn't a penalty anyway:

• Illinois broke federal securities laws and “misled investors” in misstating the true health of the state’s depleted pension funds between 2005 and early 2009, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced Monday.
  
  The finding of securities fraud doesn’t subject Illinois to any fines or penalties, but it represents another fiscal black eye for a state burdened by the worst bond rating in the country and completely underwater by inaction in solving its $96 billion pension crisis.
  
  The SEC finding, the second such action against a state, focuses mostly on misstatements linked to $2.2 billion worth of bond offerings issued during impeached ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s administration. New Jersey was cited in 2010 for similar disclosure failures regarding pension underfunding in its bond offerings.

No penalty, no fines, and evidently, no promises to do better or to make up for the lies.

Maybe they'll float another bond issue to kick the can even further down the road - your great grandchildren will be paying this somehow....if they still live here.

IPRA Plotting Again

Once again, this story rears up:

• To the Blog Author, everyone need to read this. A bunch of us from the 3rd watch of a west side district just heard that ipra is recommending suspensions on old cases and the officers who are being investigated have no rights. We are 3 thousand cops short and suspending cops will just take more off the street. And our bosses bitch when we come in at the end of the night with nothing. Why should we come in with anything. Those investigators don't have our back. They would rather take the word of some shit head than the police. McNutty and his super staff can bitch all they want. Nothing is being taken from their pockets. We have to answer service calls but be very careful, these shit heads know that they can get one over on the city just by making a beaf against you or me. Call a supervisor to the scene of you'r call and let them take the hit when the complaint is made.

An old rumor that pops up with regular frequency.  It started when J-Fled brought in that Rozen-earwig from California at first, then popped up again when all the civilian investigators got hired.  It's surfaced almost annually for the past two or three years lately.  We don't have anything to hang it on, but it's a good opportunity to remind everyone that that IPRA is not your friend, has never been your friend, and will hang you out to twist in the wind on the word of a forty-time arrested felon.

Be smart boys and girls.

Sergeant Contract Fails (UPDATE)

Not just fails, but crashes and burns.

Approximately 900 - to - 100.

In the old days, the leader of such a disaster would either cut their own stomach open, or shave their heads and become a monk, never to be seen again.

Hopefully, Rahm does both.

Back to the drawing board.

UPDATE: Sun Times link here:

• Chicago Police sergeants on Monday resoundingly rejected a proposed, four-year contract with the city tied to pension and health care reform, dealing a stunning blow to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s efforts to solve the city’s pension crisis.
  
  Emanuel had praised Chicago Sergeants Association President Jim Ade for the “courage” he demonstrated in cutting a deal the mayor hoped would serve as a “road map” for other unions to follow.
  
  But the divide-and-conquer strategy that touched off a civil war among Chicago Police officers failed miserably with the rank-and-file.
  

"...a stunning blow..."

A stunning blow to whom? The only three people pushing for this were Rahm, PBPA President Ade and Fran Spielman. Get a load of how she describes this "deal" in the article:

• By an overwhelming vote of 876 to 134, sergeants rejected the groundbreaking deal that would have raised the retirement age for sergeants to 53; increased employee pension contributions from 9 percent to 12 percent by January 2015, raised health care contributions for new retirees to 2 percent of annuities, forfeited cost-of-living increases every other year and limited C.O.L.A. in intervening years to 2.5 percent with simple interest.
  
  The tentative agreement also included a 9 percent pay raise spread over four years while maintaining the $1,800-a-year uniform allowance and $3,220 in annual duty availability pay that supplements a sergeant’s income.

(1) Raised the retirement age; (2) Increased pension contributions by 3%; (3) raised health care costs for retirees; (4)forfeit cost-of-living every other year; (5) limited COLA.

Wow. The Sergeants sure negotiated a GREAT contract!!! Plus they held the line on Duty Availability AND Uniform Allowances, something that the FOP negotiated years ago in lieu of pay raises - remember?

Hypocrite

Being a liberal means never having to say you're sorry for being a two-faced asshole - until you get caught, then you spin and spin and spin!

Mark E. Kelly, husband of former Congress-weasel Gabby Giffords, who was wounded by a mental deranged far-left lunatic some months back, has been traveling the country speaking out against "assault weapons," "high capacity" magazines, and other anti-gun talking points. But then a funny thing happened:

• Mark E. Kelly, gun-control proponent and husband to former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, recently purchased an AR-15 (an "assault weapon," he called it)—which he now says he intended as an illustration of the need for more stringent gun laws.
  
  Kelly reportedly bought the AR-15 and a 1911-style semi-automatic pistol at a gun store in Tucson, Arizona.

Oops. But he didn't mean to! In fact, wait until you hear the reason he bought these "assault" weapons:

• I just had a background check a few days ago when I went to my local gun store to buy a .45. As I was leaving, I noticed a used AR-15. Bought that too. Even to buy an assault weapon, the background check only takes a matter of minutes. I don't have possession of it yet but I'll be turning it over to the Tucson PD when I do.

So he's a humanitarian! He's spending probably over $1,000 to give a gun away. He probably believes the Drop-Box Initiative is a brilliant new idea in 21st Century policing, too.

As someone who served in the military (as he did), earned the Distinguished Flying Cross (which he did) and retired honorably (as he did) with no criminal record (as he doesn't) and served as a Space Shuttle pilot AND commander, he ought to be able to purchase a weapon with no problem, right? Well, yeah, that's what "Instant Background Check" means.

But when you start preaching for the other side, restricting Constitutional Rights that you swore to uphold against all enemies, foreign and domestic, well then you open up a whole can of stupid on yourself and deserve whatever comes your way.

No guns for anyone except the elite evidently - and we all know who the elite are, don't we?

Shredded Buses

This was just a funny story:

• The owner of a scrap company where the remains of several school buses were found after being stolen from the Far South Side has been charged with illegal possession of auto titles, police said.
  
  The name of the Sunrise bus company could be seen on shards of metal in the yard at SRV Metal Scrapper and Gonzalez Auto Parts & Dismantling, 3405 S. Lawndale Avenue, police said.
  
  Initially, four people were taken into custody, including the owner of the company, Sergio Quintero, 44, who was charged late Saturday with felony possession of a title or registration that has not been assigned, said Chicago Police Department News Affairs....

GPS devices led police to the piles of scrap metal. Doesn't everyone know about GPS nowadays?

The funny part of the story is someone said some boss on scene wanted to take possession of all the shredded metal as "evidence."

The "evidence" weighed in at about 180,000 pounds. So where is/was ERPS supposed to store this stuff? In the lot behind Homan Square under a tarp? And can you imagine being the poor cop going to ERPS, signing the stuff out, bringing it over for a hearing, then transporting it back? It might be good for some OT if you plan it right, but sheesh.