ET No Shows

People have been posting about a no-show rate for the ET exam topping 50%.

That's incredible.

One has to wonder at such demoralization that so many people don't even want a pay raise bad enough to take an exam. Does the job suck that badly? Is everyone fed up with the exams being fixed so badly (and baldly) that they don't even feel like attempting a test? Was everyone that depressed about Rahm winning?

There's definitely a cloud hanging over this entire Department.

StingRay, KingFish

We're betting it's run out of the "Black Site."  EVERYTHING is in the "Black Site!"

• Cook County prosecutors are being sued to provide records of criminal cases that have involved the use of covert cellphone tracking systems — devices that have drawn the scrutiny of the U.S. Senate and privacy activists.
  
  Freddy Martinez, a Chicago-area resident in the software industry, brought the lawsuit Thursday in Cook County Circuit Court, saying the state’s attorney’s office didn’t respond to his efforts to obtain the information through the state’s Freedom of Information Act.
  
  The lawsuit, filed by attorney Matthew Topic of the law firm Loevy and Loevy, follows a similar one Martinez brought against the Chicago Police Department. So far, the police have revealed to Martinez that they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars since 2005 on cell-site simulators made by the Harris Corp. in Florida. The devices, with names like StingRay and KingFish, capture cellphone signals.
  
  But the police department is resisting Martinez’s request for documents spelling out exactly how the devices are used. The city has been billed more than $120,000 in legal fees to fight Martinez’s lawsuit.

How do you expect lawyers to make their contributions back to Machine candidates unless they have a pile of money with which to contribute? This sounds like a fishing expedition in order to generate some half-assed plaintiff lawsuits for damages somewhere down the line.

Baltimore PD is involved in a similar lawsuit filed against it, too, but in their case, it looks like the Feds are running the actual towers with signed non-disclosure agreements with Baltimore PD. The Feds are actually dropping cases when pressed by judges to reveal the specifics of the program, leading many to speculate as to what the Feds are actually listening to - terrorist chatter maybe?

Coppers Injured

Hopefully, nothing too serious:

• Two Chicago police officers were taken to the hospital early Sunday morning after their squad car was hit.
  
  Police news affairs says two officers were stopped in their squad car near 68th and Western at about 1:50 am when they were hit from behind by another vehicle.

Best wishes to the injured PO's

This Sounds Familiar

From our friend, Garey McKee:

Check out his Police Limit strip here.

Rahm and Rauner are Fighting

Really. They both swear the tiff is real. They slapped each other repeatedly and threw shoes.

Meanwhile....:

• Over the last six weeks, it was impossible to turn on the TV and not be besieged by political spots in Chicago’s mayor’s race.
  
  But another component of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s fiercely fought re-election campaign appeared elsewhere.
  
  Digital media boosting Emanuel showed up on smartphones, tablets and in online video ads. It specifically targeted digital devices in 38 of the city’s 50 wards.
  
  It targeted younger voters and didn’t really bother with Hispanic wards, guessing those would go for Jesus “Chuy” Garcia anyway.
  
  None of that is very surprising except when you find out this: Republicans paid for it.

Next, they'll be badmouthing each other on Facebook.

Just a Quarter Million

Paid by the taxpayers:

• There is a potential settlement more than 10 years after the death of David Koschman at the hands of a member of former Mayor Richard Daley’s family.
  
  Koschman was 21 years old back in 2004 when he was punched in the face during a bar fight. He hit his head and died 11 days later.
  
  Daley’s nephew, Richard Vanecko, who wasn’t charged until seven years after the incident, pleaded guilty to hitting Koschman and served 60 days in jail.
  
  Koschman’s family says there was a cover-up in the case from the very beginning all because Vanecko was connected.
  
  The city of Chicago is reportedly set to settle the case, paying Koschman’s mother $250,000.

How about some individual liability for Vanecko? Maybe the file-hiders, too.

Nice Investment

Yet another reason why the city and state are pretty much bankrupt:

• A clout-heavy couple convicted of stealing more than $3 million in state grant money to support a lavish lifestyle of yacht-club memberships, luxury cars and vacation homes also had a sweetheart deal with the University of Illinois at Chicago that reaped them hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits, a Chicago Sun-Times investigation has found.
  
  A business owned by Leon Dingle Jr. and his wife, Karin Dingle, leased out a portion of a small, one-story building they owned on the West Side to UIC for storage. They collected nearly $700,000 in rent over seven years from the state university — more than twice the $310,000 they paid for the entire building, university and property records show.
  
  The Dingles’ Advance Health, Social & Educational Associates Inc. shared the 9,000-square-foot building at 2234 W. Walnut with UIC between the summer of 2006 and the fall of 2013, when the lease expired. That was about a year after the couple’s Oct. 4, 2012, indictment in a federal grant-fraud case in Springfield.

How come the pension fund can't make investments like this? Vanecko too dumb?

The good news is they're due to be sentenced shortly and face 20 years. We doubt they'll see half, but it's nice to dream of a federal judge making a statement in this corrupt shithole.

Sunday Posting Delayed

Technical difficulties

Please stand by

UPDATE: Fixed! Treat this as an open post - regular stuff going up shortly.

Um....What Now?

Rahm and the City Council are just planning to give away money now:

• The city of Chicago appears poised to approve another substantial settlement in a fatal police shooting of a black teenager.
  
  A proposed settlement of $5 million to the mother of Laquan McDonald, 17, is scheduled to be discussed at Monday's monthly Finance Committee meeting at City Hall, according to an agenda for the meeting posted online Friday.
  
  The $5 million settlement — which still would need to be approved by the full council later this month — comes nearly six months after McDonald was shot 16 times outside a fast-food restaurant on the Southwest Side.
  
  The family has not filed a lawsuit......

Whoa whoa whoa....stop right there. So there's been no trial, no depositions, no evidence introduced pro or con....the facts remain that he lunged at a police officer with a knife and got shot for his actions - no one has even contested this - and his "estate" is going to get $5 million?

Someone want to explain this one to us? What, we shot him "too many" times? Now we're going to make officers judge how much lead and copper is going into the central nervous system of someone who will happily gut us? What the fuck? Dean, if you aren't going to speak up, how about Garry? This is fucking nutty.

Spike Taking Some Heat

You have to love when the looney left starts turning on their idols:

• Director Spike Lee was accused Friday of “stigmatizing” Chicago and “insulting” its residents by choosing the name “Chiraq” for his upcoming Chicago-based movie on violence and education.
  
  “It’s very offensive and, hopefully, he rethinks his position. He definitely needs to change the name. That’s an insult to the city of Chicago. I don’t care what he changes it to, but not that one,” said Far South Side Ald. Anthony Beale (9^th), former chairman of the City Council’s Police Committee.
  
  “People are stigmatizing Chicago unnecessarily. We have a lot of good communities. Yes, we have challenged areas and we’re attacking those challenging areas. But we don’t need anybody coming in trying to highlight the problems we’re having. To stigmatize our city as Chiraq is an insult to me and, I’m sure, to the rest of the residents of Chicago.”

What's insulting is the complete failure to address the root causes of violence that has taken the lives of how many people over the past 10 years. 20 years. 40 years. Not a single step to address the base problems, just shovel more money at it and blame the police and the guns.

We Can Hardly Wait!!!

This is going to be great!

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel predicted Friday that the Illinois General Assembly’s spring session would run into overtime and culminate in a “mega-megadeal,” exhorting supporters to join him in fending off Gov. Bruce Rauner’s doomsday budget cuts.
  
  “I don’t have enough resources in the city, even in a good budget, to make up for an absent state partnership,” Emanuel said during a conference call with hundreds of business, community and religious leaders who helped re-elect him.
  
  “Everybody can high-five each other and get a cup of coffee, but turn this energy into fighting the state. Your voices can’t be quieted and put to the side. Stay engaged so what we built politically in the last six weeks stays activated around issues.”
  
  Emanuel noted that spring sessions normally end with a “megadeal” hammered out behind closed doors in the final 48 hours.

We're sure this will be just like the other deals that have slowly (then rapidly) driven Illinois into some $100 billion in debt.

National Amusement

Yeah, this about covers it:

Even Jon Stewart gets it, and he's pretty indicative of the lowest-common-denominator-type "news" you get nowadays. At least he's contributing to the destruction of Rahm on the national stage as a viable candidate for office.

Financial Engineering

Here's a very enlightening article:

• Chicago made headlines at the end of February after Moody’s downgraded the city’s general obligation bond rating to Baa2. Moody’s has cut Chicago’s rating five notches in less than two years. This downgrade, however, placed the city’s credit below the termination triggers on some of its outstanding interest rate swaps. The city has been working to renegotiate the terms of those contracts with its counter-parties.
  
  If Chicago’s general obligation rating falls below investment grade, the city’s credit deterioration will become a self-fulfilling prophesy. The city risks nearly $400 million of swap termination payments and the acceleration of its $294 million of outstanding short-term debt.
  
  Unsurprisingly, some of Chicago’s bonds are already trading at junk levels.

The article is rather lengthy, but it covers the city's financial situation more thoroughly that anything we've read recently, from the short terms pitfalls, the scoop-and-toss refunding, all the way to a Chapter 9 bankruptcy. Give it a read - the better educated we all are during the upcoming Rahm-times, the better off we might be.

Chiraq Movie in the Works

By the one and only (thank god) Spike Lee?

• Spike Lee, who comes to town later this month as part of the Chicago International Movies and Music Festival (CIMMfest), plans to shoot his next feature film here, as well.
  
  As reported by The Wrap, the project is called "Chiraq" and Lee is making it for Amazon Studios:
  
  "The Oscar-nominated filmmaker is courting Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Piven, Common and Kanye West for the ensemble cast of 'Chiraq,' multiple individuals familiar with the project have told TheWrap."
  
  Three of those four names (minus Jackson) are Chicago-area natives.

Gee, we can almost see the plot from here. Sneed gets in on the act, too:

• Now Sneed hears Lee is planning to shoot the film, which will not only focus on violence but how it may be handled effectively, in Chicago.
  
  The director was accompanied by the actors/Chicago natives John and Joan Cusack at Sunday’s Easter Mass at St. Sabina Catholic Church, led by the Rev. Mike Pfleger, the firebrand peace priest.

Because Pfleger has such a handle on violence in and around the parish.

And what is it with every jackass from New York stopping to chat with "Pfather" Pfleger? Is this like some pilgrimage of some sort when visiting the hinterlands? Pfleger giving Spike the scoop on things around town like he did McNewlyWed?

Sneed even speculates that Cusack might be playing some sort of firebrand white priest in the movie, perhaps guiding the benighted black folks (and people) from their path of self destruction and into the light of .... oh wait, it's a Spike Lee joint. Never mind.

Sergeants Made

Thirty-one is certainly an odd number for a promotional class:

• Allen, J 020
  Banks, Y 142/123
  Collins, T 114
  Crawford, C 002/376
  Desmond, J 004
  Glenke, J 022
  Gugger, G 002
  Guswiler, N 189
  Hawkins, T 015
  Julian, T 001/124
  Kennedy, B 022
  Kochanny, P 002
  Medina, J 010/116
  Nicpoin, A 017/211
  Nowak, M 011
  O'Keefe D 312
  Olsen, N 004
  Parizanski, J 018
  Perez, A 025
  Perez, A 024
  Pickett, D 003
  Putrow, J 009
  Schmitz, P 189
  Schnoor, K 116
  Schultz, E 011
  Steinbrenner, R 005
  Stevens, M 010
  Utz, J 014
  Vanoourek, J 014
  Vargas, J 014
  Wasielewski C 007
  

So who was the 31st who couldn't be left out of the first class? Because we certainly wouldn't expect another class for at least a year now.

That Didn't Take Long

A reader sent us this picture taken from 71st And Cottage:

Newly installed, judging by the concrete pad.

It Ain't Over Yet

Still five outstanding aldercreature elections up in the air:

• Just six votes stand in the way of a North Side alderman’s fight to hold her City Council seat.
  
  Election night may be over, but candidates in five wards are still holding their breath, awaiting absentee ballots before declaring victory – or conceding defeat.
  
  Out of 18 aldermanic runoff races, five were too close to call Tuesday night: the 10th, 16th, 21st, 31st and 43rd wards.

But Rahm has a pretty heavy winning percentage already:

• More than two-thirds of City Council candidates backed in this year’s elections by Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s campaign fund or a pro-Emanuel political action committee won office, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis has found.
  
  While the mayor raised and spent tens of millions of dollars to ensure his own re-election, he and his allies also shelled out a total of more than $1.3 million trying to influence City Council races in 39 wards, state election records show.
  
  Twenty-seven candidates backed by the mayor or the pro-Emanuel Chicago Forward “super PAC” won in either the Feb. 24 election or Tuesday’s runoff races. Their aldermanic campaigns received a total of more than $800,000 in aid from the Chicago for Rahm Emanuel campaign committee and Chicago Forward.

Although one of the largest "opposition" blocs in recent memory, still too small to have any meaningful impact on business as usual. And you can be sure Rahm and his minions are working overtime to find a pry-bar to leverage those opposition aldercreatures into his column if need be - equipment, scheduled cleaning, maintenance, adding/subtracting enforcement cameras, etc.

Today Victory, Tomorrow Headaches

Rahm is probably done as a national-type candidate, so we got that going for us:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel has told associates he wants to “hit the re-set” button in a second term to rebuild strained and soured relationships that may have cost him politically.
  
  He’ll have to do plenty of rebuilding to shore up his diminished clout.
  
  After being forced to fight so hard and raise so much to defeat Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, an under-funded and relatively unknown third choice of the Progressive movement, Emanuel’s once-legendary political muscle has atrophied.

And that stick he kept hitting Garcia with?

• On the reform side, the mayor has said he would enter talks with police and fire unions with “five core principals”: phasing in higher taxpayer contributions; reining in cost-of-living increases for retirees; maintaining the current retirement age; “gradually increasing” employee contributions by roughly $300 more-a-year and exempting retirees with annual annuities of $22,000 or less.
  
  If lawmakers, union leaders or the courts don’t go along, Emanuel will have no choice but to do what one of his most powerful City Council supporters has called inevitable: raise property taxes.
  
  After four straight years of up-to-the-limit property tax increases for schools, he might even be forced to ask Springfield for permission to lift the property tax cap so he can go above it.

Now let's see if the FOP collapses as many have been predicting.

Ethics Schmethics

Time for that old tired saw - Ethics Testing, the test that every city employee supposedly has to pass, but every city politician seems to have no concept of the rules contained within.

In case you were wondering:

1. yes, no, yes, yes
2. yes, no, yes, yes, yes
3. no, yes, no
4. yes, yes, no, yes

Thank god we're retired.

Mixed Bag

Looks like 4 more years for Rahm; get ready for some giant changes.

A minor bright spot - Napolitano appears to have won, while Garrido continues his Don Quixote impersonation. Other incumbent aldercreatures are currently about a 50/50 split between retaining office and losing it.

Updates later, sometime after the Hawks' game.