How Many Chances?

And as this article asks, "At what price?"

• Last November, a deranged 26-year-old man, Devin Patrick Kelley, opened fire on worshipers inside a church in Sutherland, Texas, killing 26. High-casualty mass shootings are tragic in human terms but anomalous statistically, at least in terms of the portion of total U.S. homicides that they represent. The vast majority of murders, which take place disproportionately in America’s low-income and minority neighborhoods, don’t get nearly the same attention. The Texas church shooting does have an important point of commonality with the majority of American murders, however: its perpetrator had a troubling criminal record. The deincarceration movement, which would return thousands of convicts to American streets, presents a threat to public safety. Repeat offenders already commit a substantial portion of the nation’s violent crime—according to one study, 53 percent of killers have at least one prior felony conviction. They will be walking the streets in greater numbers if deincarceration advocates have their way.
  
  Consider a few examples. In October 2017, Radee Prince shot and killed three people in Maryland. Prince, it turns out, had 42 prior arrests and 15 prior felony convictions. About a month earlier, a police officer in Yonkers was shot in the face by an 18-year-old assailant not unknown to police. He had recently been sentenced to probation and classified as a “youthful offender,” despite being caught with an illegal firearm, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, a machete, and brass knuckles. Earlier in 2017, Baltimore police named Cortez Wall, an 18-year-old murder suspect, “Public Enemy No. 1.” Wall had already been convicted of a gun charge, for which he was on probation. That didn’t stop a Maryland judge from releasing him on bail on a drug charge; he had allegedly murdered someone before his release, though police did not yet suspect him. Had bail been denied, Wall would have been in custody when he became the prime suspect in the deadly shooting.

The final example in the article is the murderer of Commander Bauer. The article continues with cold, hard facts that show recidivist felons commit the vast majority of crimes, including murder. And it also points out that "progressives" like the current city and county administrations are driving the crime rate solely through their asinine policies.

Some people don't deserve to walk the streets. Some don't deserve to see the sunshine. And some don't deserve to breathe the same air you and we do.

More Manpower Cuts

A lot of interesting links in this article:

• Chicago is the canary in the coal mine for America's big cities as civil order slips away. The presumption that life can be lived without constant fear of violent predators is already gone in gang stronghold neighborhoods, where murder rates shock the nation and the world.
  
  The combined force of the police and judiciary, hobbled by federal scrutiny of police tactics and a bail system so weak that it is informally known as "catch and release," is simply laughed at. Cook County jail is "out of control," and a gang leader enforced a reign of terror there. Only last week, Chicago's top cop admitted that criminals think the police and judiciary are "a joke."
  
  Police powerlessness was convincingly demonstrated when police were unable to stop a thousand-strong gang party that disrupted a neighborhood for hours last summer. The angry and violent men enjoying success on their home turf are not content to leave alone the rest of the city, with richer pickings. The emboldened criminal class got the message: car-jackings are spreading into affluent neighborhoods.
  
  And now, via CWB Chicago, the locally focused website that chronicles Chicago's worsening crime, comes the news that violent crime in Chicago's Loop has skyrocketed 97% over the past five years, while Mayor Rahm Emanuel has cut the number of cops patrolling it by almost 8%.

We're having doubts that Rahm can get anywhere near the numbers he promised citizens. But will it cost him the election?

Still No Comments (UPDATE - We're Back!)

Blogger is irritating us to no end. We haven't been able to read/moderate comments since late on 15 February.

Five days, six days starting as of this posting, without our regular back and forth, sarcastic readers, pointed commentary, etc. We are beyond unhappy with the situation.

We'll let you know as soon as something gets fixed.

UPDATE: Comments appear to be working again. We have nearly 1,000 backlogged and it might have been more if it hadn't been a holiday weekend. Hopefully we can get a bunch of it up and running before headed off into the night. Keep an eye out.

Nice Police Station Rahm

Leaky, decrepit, one of a number of cancer-cluster stations:

• The Harrison District police station in the Lawndale neighborhood on the West Side lost power briefly Tuesday afternoon, authorities said.
  
  The loss of power to the district, 3151 W. Harrison St., about 3:35 p.m. affected the transmission of its police radio zone and officers had to switch to another police radio band, according to a police spokesman. Power was back on within a few minutes, according to officers at the station.
  
  A ComEd crew was dispatched to check on the outage, which was believed to be affecting only the district station, said Erica Velasco, a ComEd spokeswoman. It was determined to have been a malfunction of equipment at the station, not ComEd power supply equipment, she later said.

The entire station had to be evacuated a few years back when the electrical room caught fire due to leaky ceilings and an explosion. We're going to guess they haven't fixed that yet.

No Bail?

But we thought that Judge Evans said everyone gets a bail they can afford?

• A Chicago man with only a misdemeanor supervision in his past was ordered held without bail Tuesday after Cook County prosecutors said he shattered a window at a judge’s home a day after he had cursed her out from his car.
  
  Michael Laureto, 36, of the Logan Square neighborhood, faces felony charges of criminal damage to property and threatening a public official for the incident Sunday at the home of Judge Stephanie Miller.
  
  Judge David Navarro, who was hearing the regular bond court call Tuesday, recused himself from deciding Laureto’s bail because Miller is his colleague in the Pretrial Division. Instead, Judge Ursula Walowski, who regularly sits in the Criminal Division, stepped in and ordered Laureto held without bail, saying he poses “a real and present danger” to the public.

It certainly would be nice to see some consistency across the board in Cook County Courts and not simply based on who the victim happens to be.

Warm Weather

Looks like summer is here already - and the media is .....over-reporting the carnage?

• Eight people were killed and at least 30 others were wounded in Presidents Day weekend shootings across Chicago.
  
  The last fatal shooting of the weekend happened early Tuesday in Englewood. Maurice D. Hutson, 24, was involved in a fight with a group of males about 12:25 a.m. in the 6800 block of South Normal when one of the males pulled out a handgun and fired a shot, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. Hutson suffered a gunshot wound to the back and was taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead at 1:06 a.m. He lived in the Roseland neighborhood.

HeyJackass.com only reported 6 dead and 22 wounded. Are the media actually doing their jobs and reporting Rahm's and Special Ed's continuous failures?

Nice Subway Rahm

As understaffed as the CPD is, you'd think that maybe other means of combating crime would be undertaken. Perhaps moving the deployed officers around to, you know, when and where crime was actually occurring. That way you could effect arrests, drive down crime, perhaps even make the city a safer place for people to live and work in it. Because the criminals are doing it, working where they know the police aren't:

• A group of young men has surrounded and robbed people in downtown subway pedestrian tunnels at least three times in recent weeks, according to Chicago police who have released surveillance photos of four of the five robbers.
  
  The string of attacks date to Jan. 30, according to a community alert. They have surrounded people in pedestrian tunnels between the Red and Blue lines, hit and kicked and robbed them, even showing a handgun in one robbery, police said.

The Transit Unit is woefully understaffed and deployed as if there weren't any riders on the El between 1800 and 0400 hours. Almost no one walks the platforms and tunnels, visible presence is a joke and has anyone even seen an effective "decoy" mission run in recent years? McCompStat himself expressed shock and dismay at how few Transit Officers there actually were (seeing as how NYPD had thousands) but we can only assume he was told "no money" by the politicians because he pretty much never did a thing about it.

Shockingly, the Tribune provides actual descriptions of the ne'er-do-wells and posted the photos. A small miracle of sorts.

This Dumbass Again

Aldercreature Arena's media outreach people don't seem capable of keeping their boss out of the news:

• 45th Ward Alderman John Arena is facing criticism for a Facebook post about a police commander who died and allowing controversial comments to flood his page.
  
  The commander was killed Feb. 13 in the line of duty by a man on parole wearing body armor. On Arena’s Facebook page, followers have made comments such as “given how corrupt the police department is I really don’t feel bad at all” and “he got what he deserved.” The post and comments don't appear to be on Arena's Facebook page any longer.
  
  Northwest Side Neighbors News, a group opposed to a planned development project on Northwest Highway, called Arena out.
  
  “This is the same alderman who took screen shots and tried to have officers reprimanded,” Northwest Side Neighbors News wrote on Facebook. “Why the double standard? Why doesn’t he have an anti-bullying code of conduct for his page.”
  
  The Facebook incident comes as Arena staff recently filed a complaint against Chicago Police Department members for their opposition to the building project at 5150 N. Northwest Highway.

Remember, this is the staff member who filed the complaints against 31 police officers:

You'd think a "Community Outreach" person would be a bit more media-savvy than your average schmuck and attempt to not alienate voters.

City Finances Police Hater

Seems the police hater and jewelry store owner is a big supporter of Alderdumbass Pewar:

And where does she get the money? Suing the police when she got picked up for violating a "No Contact" order with a school principal:

Rather than Corp Counsel fight it, it looks like they settled for $15,000, and the money flows back into Machine politicians who march with anti-police haters.

You know, an actual investigative reporter could really write a few years worth of stories just looking into crooked pols and people who exploit the system. We got this from two e-mails and about three minutes of research.

What a Lovely Person

The derangement of society has hit new lows:

It seems that she's taken down her business and personal page. Someone helpful ran her name and came up with this amusing tidbit - she has a criminal record:

• NAME SHERRI L BOURDAGE
  AGE 49
  CB NUMBER 18962132
  ADDRESS 2210 W WINNEMAC AVE , CHICAGO, IL
  ARRESTED Monday, August 25, 2014 8:41 AM
  ARREST LOCATION 2210 W WINNEMAC AVE
  ARRESTING AGENCY CHICAGO POLICE DEPARTMENT
  
  History Charges
  740 ILCS 21.0/125 VIO STALKING NO CONTACT ORDER

The attached booking photo is exactly what you'd expect from someone with such an ugly attitude. We'd suggest looking for jewelry somewhere else. Tell your friends, too. And spread the word however you like.

(The above is all public record with attached link. Time to stuff these types of attitudes back in the sewers where they belong.)

Staffing Numbers

FOIA is revealing - look at the progress Rahm is making at the District level:

Wait a second.....why is that last number in red? And why are all those other numbers in red? Red is bad, right? Red usually means things are going downward.

More New Buildings?

Interesting info from the gossip queen herself:

• Sneed is told the Chicago Police Mounted Patrol Unit as well as the CPD’s Canine Unit has been told to prepare to move to a new location in the near future.
  
  They were given no specific dates.
  
  • Translation: Plans to move the CPD’s horse patrol’s “barn” now housed on Chicago Park District property in the park adjacent to the South Shore Country Club — and next to the South Shore golf course — may be the result of a hush-hush proposal to merge the Jackson Park and South Shore golf courses into a single championship-caliber course involving the Obama Presidential Center planned for Jackson Park.
  
  (The Sun-Times has reported plans for the Obama center are being firmed up largely out of view.)
  
  Meanwhile, Sneed hears the police Canine Unit, located near O’Hare International Airport, has been told to prepare for a move because of the construction of a new tollway exit.
  
  “That’s what we are told,” said two top police sources.

We suggest the new Mounted Unit be placed in close proximity to City Hall. Not only are the horses then centrally located to where a majority of their assignments take place, but the smell of horseshit will blend in perfectly with what emanated from City Hall and the County Building on a regular basis.

Still No Fix

As of this writing, blogger still hasn't fixed the comment sections. We've been out of commission for 72 hours and no end in sight. The comment counter tells us we have many hundreds of comments waiting, so once it's up, we'll be busy for a while.

Final Honor

You can find coverage at all the usual media outlets on the right hand side of the blog.

This one was unexpected though:

• The $95 million police and fire training academy in West Garfield Park that has drawn opposition from Chance the Rapper and college students around the nation will be named after slain Chicago Police Cmdr. Paul Bauer.

RIP Commander.

What Makes Them Special?

This is from a few weeks ago:

• Emails and text messages sent and received by Chicago aldermen on their personal accounts and devices generally may not be subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, a Cook County judge has ruled, partially thwarting an attempt by a Chicago lawyer to uncover what he believed were efforts by his neighbors to use connections to a Chicago alderman to allegedly improperly block him from obtaining a permit for a home improvement project.
  
  Cook County Circuit Judge Celia Gamrath denied Ameer Ahmad’s request to force Chicago 1st Ward Alderman Joe Moreno and the city of Chicago to provide him access under the FOIA law to certain emails and text messages, which Ahmad believed would show Moreno had essentially allowed Ahmad’s neighbors to hold up the work on his home project and caused him to be fined by the city.
  
  In her ruling, issued Nov. 28, 2017, Gamrath said she did not believe an individual alderman could be considered a “public body,” under the terms of the state’s FOIA law, and thus, unless an alderman had sent or received such messages as part of an official city action, their personal messaging accounts could not be considered public documents discoverable under FOIA.

So why is IAD, COPA and assorted lawyers confiscating and subpoenaing cops personal phones and emails, despite there being no proof the personal device was used in an official capacity? In fact, when you go to Corp Counsel nowadays, they want all of your social media information, just because. No matter if you are scrupulously using it for non-police purposes - they want it all.

But not aldercreatures. Oh no. They can conduct "public business" on all sorts of accounts (remember, Rahm used non-city e-mails to thwart government record keeping laws...kind of like Sparklefarts and Shrillary did) and now they have legal precedent by a Cook County judge to hide behind.

We'll certainly be citing this ruling next time we appear at Corp Counsel. As stated before, cops are not above the law, but neither are we below it, and that should go double for the crooked pols.

Is the Machine Wounded?

This is from a week ago:

• A set of polls released Friday showed Democratic primary challenger Fritz Kaegi with a sizable lead in his bid to unseat Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios — but the embattled incumbent’s campaign says Berrios is not sweating over the numbers.
  
  Two of the polls — one commissioned by a progressive group backing Kaegi, the other by an independent pollster — gave the challenger double-digit percentage-point leads in a potential head-to-head matchup with Berrios among likely Democratic voters in the March 20 primary.

It hasn't gotten any better since then:

• Already facing a tougher-than-expected re-election bid, Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios had a bad week.
  
  The biggest blow came when an independent report found that Berrios has failed in determining the value of homes for property tax purposes, punishing poor homeowners while providing tax breaks to wealthy ones. The study backed up findings from the Chicago Tribune’s investigation “The Tax Divide,” which exposed widespread errors and inequities in residential assessments under Berrios from 2011 through 2015.

The Tribune really needs to tie Berrios to the Burke and Madigan law firms that constantly get property tax "breaks" for the big and connected that cost the city hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of dollars and costs every other extra in order to make up the difference. After all, who notices that you pay an extra $0.19 cents on your property tax bill when Vienna gets a half-a-million dollar break?

But all those breaks add up over time, and Berrios is steering the ship.

Glitch Persists (UPDATE)

We still can't moderate comments. We're pretty sure people can still make comments and submit them, but blogger isn't letting us into the comment moderation screens. That means comments are stacking up at the rate of 300 to 400 per day, and as of this posting, we stand at a day-and-a-half.

Again, this isn't us, but the platform. Be patient.

Comments closed here.

UPDATE: Still no fix from blogger. We can continue to post, you can continue to submit comments, but we can't see them to moderate, so we don't even know if they're being saved. Our historian tells us this happened once before a few years back and it took nearly a week to fix and a few days to moderate the hundreds of pending comments.

Apologies, but we'll get there when we get there. Stay safe.

Dirt on Madigan's People?

Gee, where did Madigan learn this?

• A lawyer is accusing Mike Madigan’s Southwest Side ward organization of trying to find “dirt” on a woman whose sexual harassment allegations led the powerful Democrat to fire a longtime aide who is the brother of the ward’s alderman.
  
  The lawyer for political consultant Alaina Hampton sent a “cease and desist” letter to Jack Hynes on Thursday, accusing her former boss at the nonprofit Chicago Heights Economic Development Corporation of trying to smear Hampton — and claiming that Madigan’s team put Hynes up to it.
  
  “It has been brought to our attention that you, on behalf of the 13th Ward Democratic Organization and Michael J. Madigan, have been conducting an investigation to build a case to disparage Ms. Hampton’s professional and personal reputation,” wrote the lawyers with Kulwin, Masciopinto & Kulwin. “In so doing, you have contacted several of Ms. Hampton’s male colleagues, friends and acquaintances, in an effort to get ‘dirt’ on her and determine whether she has had inappropriate relationships with those men.”
  
  Hynes issued a statement denying the claims.

Sounds like a certain Arkansas "power couple" with root(s) in Chicago hiring detectives to look for dirt to tamp down numerous bimbo eruptions. Perhaps local politicians had a hand in inventing the process and passed it along.

Burke Sideline

The corruption is so ingrained, they do it right in front of everyone and dare you to do something about it:

• This is a story about how hot dogs and money are made, Chicago-style.
  
  Nine months after Ald. Edward M. Burke led the Chicago City Council in approving a nearly $5 million tax deal for Vienna Beef to buy a vacant factory in Bridgeport in 2013, Burke’s law firm got a new client — Vienna Beef.
  
  It hired the alderman’s law firm to push for property tax cuts on the factory site.
  
  And Burke’s firm got results. It got Vienna’s property taxes slashed by an average of 70 percent over the next two years, arguing to Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios and the Cook County Board of Review that cuts were merited because the factory wasn’t operating while renovations were underway. That saved Chicago’s biggest hot dog maker a total of $308,460, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis has found.
  
  On top of that, records show Burke’s firm won a refund of $135,602 of property taxes Vienna had paid when it bought the factory at 1000 W. Pershing Rd., where Sara Lee Corp. used to make Best’s kosher hot dogs.

That $300,000 in taxes might look good in the city coffers about now, on top of the other $135,000. And this is just one of many businesses dealing with Burke's firm. How many others are there? And how many other aldercreature firms are there?

Please Stand By

Blogger is experiencing technical difficulties this morning and we can't access comments. We are going to take a nap and check back later.

We guess you can use this as an open post, but we still won't be able to access comments, so it's actually kind of pointless to comment on a post that we can't moderate comments on.