Media Lies Again (Still)

Remember, guns are bad. Therefore increased gun ownership is bad:

• More than half of American voters -- 52% -- say they or someone in their household owns a gun, per the latest NBC News national poll.

  That's the highest share of voters who say that hey or someone in their household owns a gun in the history of the NBC News poll, on a question dating back to 1999.

  In 2019, 46% of Americans said that they or someone in their household owned a gun, per an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. And in February 2013, that share was 42%.

That article is from late 2023, but the trend hasn't changed.

But then this article was written just the other day by the Commie News Network:

• Violent crime dropped by more than 15% in the United States during the first three months of 2024, according to statistics released Monday by the FBI.

  The new numbers show violent crime from January to March dropped 15.2% compared to the same period in 2023, while murders fell 26.4% and reported rapes decreased by 25.7%. Aggravated assaults decreased during that period when compared to last year by 12.5%, according to the data, while robberies fell 17.8%.

After all, there's an election to win for president sheet-my-pants, and you can't have the electorate believing all those crime stories about blue state shitholes being overrun by illegal alien crime along with the usual suspects.

Of course, you have to read past the headline to find this little tidbit that we've written about more than once:

• The numbers released Monday were gathered from 13,719 of the just over 19,000 law enforcement agencies from across the country, according to the bureau.

So they're telling you only 72% of the story, seeing as how 28% of the law enforcement agencies didn't send in their crime numbers. And among those agencies that didn't send in crime numbers?

• New York
• Los Angeles
• Chicago

The three biggest blue city shitholes who have crime numbers that dwarf those of entire states.

But hey, crime is down nationally. Don't believe what your own eyes are telling you.

Place Your Bets

A warm weekend on tap, heat indexes predicted to top 100 degrees, and Father's Day. 

Time for a Casualty Count prediction:

• HeyJackass.com has the historical average (10 years) at 8 dead, 45 wounded
• We're going to go out on a limb here and set the over/under at 12 dead, 42 wounded

This has the potential to set the tone for the summer.

Days Off Cancelled

Starting 30 June and continuing (?) through the following weekend.

The long tedious summer begins.

Hope you didn't have previous plans.

UPDATE: Only for the Pride Parade? What sense does that make unless you're deploying the Sat/Sun people to the event, and we haven't seen that order yet. Could someone sort out the mess and let the readers know.

Hahahahahahahaha!

This headline is so Chicago:

• Bally's won't open permanent casino in River West by 2026, gaming expert says — and may not build it at all

Granted, this is one person's opinion, but, he would appear to be THE expert:

• Bally’s will never deliver the $1.7 billion casino and entertainment complex in River West by a state-mandated September 2026 deadline — and may not have the financial wherewithal to build the project at all.

  That’s the bleak assessment from one of the nation’s foremost experts on a gaming industry in free fall.

  Alan Woinski is the CEO of Gaming USA Corp. and editor of the Gaming Industry Daily Report.

  He has watched Detroit and New Orleans struggle to complete their ambitious casino projects. And in Chicago, he said he believes the financial hurdles now confronting Bally’s — including an $800 million construction funding gap and a buyout offer from its largest shareholder that’s roughly half of what it was two years ago — are infinitely worse.

As we've been saying for years, Chicago missed it's casino window by a decade. Anything from this point forward would be a money-pit boondoggle (thanks Rahm and Groot!)

Unless....perhaps someone could come up with an alternative plan?

• “The one thing I’m certain of is we’re not going to have that full project by the end of 2026. … Whether there’s something in the permanent spot by 2026 — that’s going to be determined. I would not be surprised if we wind up with, ‘Let’s just get a better temporary casino. Build it out. It’s not going to cost as much. It’s the next best thing.’”

You mean like.....McCormick Place? Seconds away from existing convention space (captive audience), plenty of parking, the 5,000 seat Aire Crown theater to draw in more crowds, already hard-wired for thousands of gaming machines, able to handle tens-of-thousands of persons immediately, attached hotel space, easily adaptable room for restaurants, dining, high-roller games.

Too bad it would take a mayor with balls to pull the trigger.

Cut School Spending

How about some CPS accountability?

• There are few things I enjoy more about this job than writing a good "hilarity ensues" headline about the latest lefty absurdity, but when it comes to today's Chicago Public Schools (CPS) absurdity, the only word that will do is "tragedy."

  Illinois Policy just issued a report showing that while CPS has doubled spending per student since 2012, grades are down by 60-80%, depending on the subject. "Just 1-in-4 CPS students can read or perform math at grade level," the report says. "The percent of students enrolling in college after high school graduation is decreasing. And for those who do enroll, another study found many are struggling to finish college in four years – just 30% get their bachelor’s in four years compared to 47% nationally."

  By every other measure... there's no other way to put this... CPS is falling apart.

But Conehead is on track to give them something like a 9%-per-year raise.

Never have so many been awarded so much for doing so little.

Attention Gang Bangers!

Get your legal (again) pistol braces!

• More good news out of the Northern District of Texas. Judge Reed O’Connor has issued a ruling in Mock v. Garland vacating the ATF’s byzantine rule that effectively bans pistol braces. You know…the same pistol braces the ATF had previously said were perfectly fine and an acceptable firearm accessory. That, of course, was back before the Biden administration waged a war on gun owners, their rights, and companies that make legal products those people want to buy.

  This comes the same week the decrepit but still rabidly anti-gun president was trundled out of the White House and propped up behind a podium at Everytown’s “Gun Sense University” meeting of anti-gun flying monkeys. There the president once again rotely spouted all the same bogus hoplophobic talking points he’s been using since first finding himself in the Oval Office in 2021.

Seriously, get one. You mopes are so inaccurate with your mini pistol ARs. These could improve your accuracy and drive up the kill count of your rivals by 30-to-40% overnight.

FBI Loyalty Test

If you want a security clearance from this corrupt agency, you have to pass a loyalty test. Guess what the questions are about?

• FBI officials conducting a top-secret security clearance review (NOTE: this link has been removed by the feebs) for a longtime employee asked witnesses whether that employee was known to support former President Donald Trump, if he had expressed concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine or had attended a Second Amendment rally, according to internal memos that prompted a complaint to the Justice Department’s internal watchdog alleging political bias inside the bureau.

  The employee’s security clearance was revoked months after the interviews, which confirmed his support for Trump and gun rights and his concerns about the COVID vaccine, according to the documents obtained by Just the News.

  The memos show that agents for the FBI’s Security Division asked at least three witnesses in spring 2022 whether the employee, whose name and job title was redacted from the memos, had been known to “vocalize support for President Trump” or “vocalize objections to Covid-19 vaccination.” Agents ascertained from at least one witness that the worker, in fact, had declined to get the coronavirus inoculation.

So if you support a political opponent of the oatmeal brain regime, believe in the Second Amendment to the US Constitution or expressed any doubts about an untested unproven "vaccine" that ended up killing thousands while not preventing a single infection, then you were denied a Security Clearance and suspended without pay. The lawyers are involved now and the memos and documentation are at the link up top.

Time to disband this actively anti-American Stasi-wannabe agency and bring the leadership up on charges.

Big Scandal Brewing?

Big enough to derail Fata$$'s presidential ambitions?

• Anyone who knows who James O’Keefe will be happy to know he’s been here and already accumulated GOLD to be released in regards to both the DNC and an Oct Surprise. 
• Loose lips sink ships, sounds like a member of Coneheads inner circle after a few cocktails was caught talking about Pritzker and will derail his Presidential ambitions could this be national news by Aug and Part II right before November? This is a doozy and Chicago taxpayers will be beyond furious. It seems room to riot and burn isn’t an accident but a development strategy.
• Anybody who knows who James O’Keefe is and his reporting is going to love the gold he just mined in Chicago. I hope the free dirty martinis at Gibsons were worth it dumbass.  
  

O'Keefe is the guerilla journalist who has brought down some huge names via hidden camera reporting, and to counter the near-constant allegations that he selectively edits his reporting, he always posts full length, un-edited video and transcripts that prove the truth.

Based on the comment, we're going to guess that Fata$$ or his family or his hotel chain have been buying up distressed properties for pennies on the dollar, and that some of these riots weren't as "spontaneous" as they appeared to be?

Conehead Denies Reality

As he kisses the asses of his progressive masters:

• Mayor Brandon Johnson this week reaffirmed his opposition to the ShotSpotter gunfire detection system, standing by his decision to cancel the company’s contract after its current deal expires in September.

  “Why? Because it was proven to be ineffective. ShotSpotter came to the city of Chicago, got $10 million out of us every single year because they said they were gonna keep us safe,” Johnson told the Sun-Times on Monday.

  A City Council supermajority voted in support of keeping ShotSpotter last month, with most of the opposing votes coming from aldermen who represent wards that don’t have the technology. Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling has also voiced his support for the system, saying it saves lives and lets police respond more quickly.

  Meanwhile, ShotSpotter continues to be mentioned in courtrooms and police reports. Among the most recent ShotSpotter-related cases we’ve come across are a murder and an attempted murder.

Conehead and the "progressive's" issue isn't ShotSpotter itself, but rather that ShotSpotter is too good at pointing out that it's the minority criminals who are being outed by the technology. Numbers don't lie (though they can be manipulated) and the numbers in Chicago show that 95% of shooters are either black or brown.

Rather than address the social ills that lead to these horrendous numbers, "progressives" and lib-tards want the technology that shows they're constantly lying to be removed, even if that technology enables medical assistance to get to victims faster.

McCompStat Blows Burke

For a carpetbagging mope, he dove into the political game with both feet:

• Former Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy told Kendall that as a lifelong law enforcement officer he felt “conflicted” and that “it is hard to reconcile the Ed Burke that I know with the allegations in this case.”
  
  “[B]ut I am sure that I know who Ed really is, beyond the public persona,” McCarthy wrote. “I cannot fathom myself writing this letter for anyone other than Ed Burke.”

Wasn't Garry's new wife connected to some political family? Was it Burke?

Show Us The Money!

Politicians promised there would be tens of millions!

• When Bally’s Casino opened September 2023, expectations from owners, lawmakers and Illinoisans were high – nearly $3 million per month was expected to flow into Chicago’s coffers.

  But Bally’s is not coming close to meeting the original expectations.

  In 2023, former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot projected Bally’s temporary location in the River North neighborhood at the Medinah Temple would generate nearly $12.8 million in four months in tax revenue for the city’s police and firefighter pensions. Bally’s came about $9.6 million short, earning only $3.1 million of the expected $12.8 million.

  It’s been the same in 2024. At the start of the year, it was expected Bally’s would generate $2.92 million a month in local tax revenue. March 2024 was Bally’s best month of the year, but local tax revenue was only $1.13 million.

Here's a handy chart showing how badly Bally's is underperforming:

So what was sold as a "cure all" for underfunded pensions is itself sick and failing.

Chase Away Revenue

You'd think that with tax revenues being weak and every dollar being important, Chicago government would try to play nice with organizations that generate....you know....money. No such luck:

• Location. Location. Location.

  The real estate mantra has taken on whole new meaning with the official announcement Wednesday morning that Riot Fest is moving out of Douglass Park and heading to SeatGeek Stadium, 7000 S. Harlem Ave., in Bridgeview for a newly christened RiotLand extravaganza.

  The festival, running Sept. 20-22, will feature more than 90 bands and encompass RiotLand, an immersive “Choose Your Own Adventure” world, Wednesday’s announcement said.

And the founder wasn't shy about who was to blame:

• “Riot Fest will be leaving Douglass Park,” Petryshyn wrote. “And — allow me to be as clear as the azure sky of the deepest summer — our exodus is solely because of the Chicago Park District.”

  In a letter to the media on Wednesday morning, 24th Ward Ald. Monique Scott expressed her own disappointment with the park district’s approval process regarding permits for the festival, which has taken place at the park in her ward since 2015.

You'd think an aldercreature had some pull with the Park District.

We admit to poking a bit of fun at this particular music festival, being placed smack in the middle of the ultra violent 010 and 011 Districts. We predicted a massive spike in robberies and batteries of wide-eyed suburban visitors who had no idea what they were walking into. And although there were some incidents, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. And now it's gone along with whatever revenue it may have generated.

He's a Good Boy!

Why do the feds always demonize aldercreatures?

• As sentencing nears for Chicago’s 80-year-old, longest-serving City Council member, lawyers for ex-Ald. Edward M. Burke braced a judge this week “for a biblical flood of stories and letters from people of all walks of life who have been touched by his kindness and generosity.”

  And then they delivered, offering 200 letters — totaling almost 350 pages — from faith leaders, current and former government officials, members of the legal and law enforcement communities, and members of Burke’s own family hoping for mercy.

  “I am unable to grasp the thought of us not being together when God calls us home,” wrote Burke’s wife, retired Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice Anne Burke.

  “As retirees, we get through these days by helping each other with all those daily tasks that are challenging at 80 years old. I am devastated by the prospect that I will not be with Ed at the end of our lives,” she wrote. “Please find compassion through the Holy Spirit in your decision.”

No word on the tens of thousands of people whose lives were made more difficult - or ruined - after run-ins with this political turd when they wouldn't play his crooked game.

Every single one of the authors of these 200 letters owes Burke a favor in one form or another, and the final payoff is a plea for leniency.

We've got a story, told directly to us in the first person. It involves the Police Department and a golf outing, held by the Airport Units at a golf course in Wisconsin for decades. As you may or may not know, Burke ran the Airports for years as his own little fief for the connected. He was the sole reason that when the FOP fought to get the bidding process to an 80%-seniority-20%-management, O'Hare and Midway were held at 50-50....and that second 50% needed Burke's okay to get there.

Every year there was a golf outing which was so successful and huge that they had to have an AM and a PM tee time on a twenty-seven hole course with two foursomes starting on every hole and three foursomes on the par fives. Three hundred plus golfers....and a waiting list for cancellations. Raffle prizes were bunches of top shelf liquor baskets, autographed jerseys from all the sport teams that flew in and out of the airports, dozens of airline tickets to destinations all over the world.

Arriving just before tee time, in a shiny black city car with M plates, driven by a couple of cops, was King Ed. The outing couldn't start until he got there and made his entrance, he teed off with a select group of airport bosses, and at the steak dinner afterwards, the line to kiss the ring ran completely around the dining area. He made sure everyone knew who ran the airports.

And after the rumors hit of the federal investigation, the entire outing disappeared without a trace. One has to wonder what was being spoken about....or passed around.

Great Rumor

From the comments:

• “If they have handcuffs and a badge and can use a gun I want they ass on the damn street.” Overheard from a convention and Mayoral Powwow . Brandon wants to release all but the worst or most damaged CPD POWS, Aviation Security Unit and fast tracking recruits for the summer chaos. Unless he can muster up 1,000’s of extra bodies the images of an armed National Guard is the only option and will be forever his 1 term legacy. The Feds have done the math and know we can’t even control a Pride Parade let alone multiple violent riots. This scared the shit out of his cabal of 50 Thieves with the reality it could cost the Dems the election and bring in a new Law and Order DOJ to investigate the systemic thievery here.

Supposedly, there are tens of dozens of officers at Callback who have been all but cleared, and the city is keeping them prisoners, denying the OT opportunities and such, because Conehead.

There are many dozens more who are facing suspensions of ten days or less, and the incompetent mopes at HQ ::cough cough Talley cough:: can't or won't serve them papers because then they'll grieve it and the process will drag out another year or more. They're political footballs.

There was also a comment a few days ago about a meeting being held with the Secret Service with the guy in charge walking out of a meeting with our illustrious "command staff" exclaiming, "Who the Hell is actually in charge here?" We can confirm that this story is pretty much dead on accurate.

You can see why the DNC is: 

• planning for an early "virtual" nomination due to the Ohio deadlines;
• putting on a show of pre-recorded speeches by the major party figures;
• is the driving force behind Chicago's "negotiating" with protest groups to tone down the planned mayhem.

They know their party figurehead is a failure and the convention location of choice is another failure.

Setting the Stage for Disaster

So many revisions that only tie the hands of police:

• Chicago police officers have already started training for the Democratic National Convention, but now, with less than 10 weeks to go before delegates flood the Windy City, the department is asking the public to weigh in on new crowd control and arrest policies.

  Community groups have been critical of previous policies they said did not protect First Amendment rights. The Chicago Police Department's new Response to Crowds suite of directives respond to those public concerns.

  [...] A key takeaway from the department's new policies relates to crowds, First Amendment assemblies (previously called "protests") and civil disturbances: "Force will only be used when it is objectively reasonable, necessary, and proportional."

  CPD also said "mass arrests are a last resort" and officers will attempt to peacefully resolve situations first.

Sure, like at the Columbus statue riot where a copper lost his eye and who knows how many cops suffered burns and permanent hearing damage as they were bombarded with aerial firework mortars.

There should have been an entire extra day for the Sergeant and Lieutenant Exams just to cover these changes that everyone better know inside and out....of you'll be at callback for a year and fired thereafter.

This part of the "report" really pisses us off a bit: 

• As CPD vows not to repeat what happened in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention of 1968, policies like the use of batons and chemical agents like pepper spray were revised nearly a year ago.

Did everyone suddenly forget that there was a convention here in Chicago in 1996? And it went off almost flawlessly? No one died, very few injuries to anyone, mayhem was contained to sporadic outbursts at most.

But fifty-six years after 1968 - when 95% or more of the current Department WASN'T EVEN BORN - is being used to set the stage for cops being attacked, being accused of misconduct and being set up to be fired (or imprisoned) for resisting the human urge not to be punching bags.

Procedural Plea

Pretty sure Crimesha will be gone by the time this goes to trial, which is a good thing.

• The man charged in connection with the murder of Chicago Police Officer Luis Huesca pleaded not guilty in court on Tuesday.

  Xavier Tate, 22, was charged with first-degree murder, aggravated vehicular hijacking and possession of a stolen firearm in the death of Huesca, who was shot and killed on April 21 while he was returning home from work in Gage Park.

  Huesca was a six-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department. He was killed just two days before his 31st birthday.

  Tate was arrested on May 1 after a multi-state manhunt. Police said they were able to find him in part because of video evidence collected from more than 90 locations after Huesca was killed. Detectives tracked Tate to a business where he bought a bottle of water using a relative's bank card.

Crimesha would have had him out on electronic monitoring weeks ago.

Don't Demonize!

Kids deserve to run free and perform street abortions on the unsuspecting!

• Mayor Brandon Johnson on Monday put the political kibosh on a political ally’s plan to impose an 8 p.m. curfew for unaccompanied minors in downtown Chicago. Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) Johnson’s handpicked chair of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee, floated the idea in response to the violent attack by a group of teens on a couple in Streeterville on May 31.

  One of the victims said she was pepper-sprayed and punched in the abdomen, causing a miscarriage. Several attackers managed to escape on foot. A 14-year-old boy accused of striking the husband in his head, and a 17-year-old girl accused of pulling the wife’s hair out were charged with misdemeanor battery.

  Hopkins said he plans to introduce an ordinance at Wednesday’s City Council meeting banning unaccompanied minors after 8 p.m. from the Central Business District — the Loop, Streeterville, River North, and the South and West Loop. The current curfew for unaccompanied minors is 10 p.m.

  But if Johnson has his way, Hopkins’ trial balloon won’t get off the ground.

You know what else won't get off the ground?

These asshole punks after you put a few bullets in them.

Beating the Average

Summer is almost here and the numbers reflect it:

• Per HeyJackass.com, this past weekend average over the past ten years is 8 Dead, 37 Wounded
• The 2024 numbers? 10 Dead, 44 Wounded

A cool and damp spring has kept the numbers a bit lower than last year. But that can change over the stretch of a few weeks.

Some in the media are noticing:

• Ten people were killed and at least 34 were injured in shootings citywide over the weekend, marking the third weekend in a row in which more than 30 people were shot.

  The fatal attacks happened as far north as the West Ridge neighborhood and as far south as Roseland and include one man shot on the inbound Dan Ryan Expressway.

  Police reported no arrests in any of the shootings.

It's a marathon, not a sprint.

Feds Pick Up After Crimesha

One way to tell if someone in government is completely incompetent and useless at their job is if another branch of government has to come in and do it for you:

• Nearly three years ago, Chicago police detectives asked the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office to charge a high-ranking gang member with the murder of Chrys Carvajal, a 19-year-old National Guardsman who was visiting his family for a Fourth of July barbecue on the Northwest Side.

  The prosecutors refused to sign off on the charges, citing insufficient evidence. They sent the cops marching with instructions to get more proof. Their office never charged anyone with Carvajal’s death.

  Federal prosecutors are now doing what their state counterparts would not. On Friday, the Chicago U.S. Attorney’s Office announced that they have charged two (m)ilwaukee (k)ings gang members with racketeering and murder in connection with Carvajal’s death. One of the men charged is the same man Chicago police tried to charge with murder in 2021, according to a source.

And the rumor persists that Crimesha - after her tenure as the "Criminals and Rapists Bestest Friend When She Isn't Allegedly Beating her Husband" - is in line for a judge's slot upon leaving office.

DUI Cover-Up?

A high ranking civilian was (allegedly) tagged with a DUI charge on or around 23 May 24 and nary a peep in the media.

Cops being second guessed for decisions being made in tenth of seconds while someone with the title of "Assistant Director of Reform Management" can spend hours getting blotto and no one holds them responsible?