FOP Meeting

While the investigation into misappropriation was "closed," all is not well at the Lodge. We got reports from a couple people this week regarding the Wednesday meeting:

• So at the union meeting last night, the crew was completely gas lighting the members . First [JC] stated that he will not discuss the subpoena on “advice of counsel." the $425 hour lawyer our dues are paying for . When  [...] asked him are we still having to pay for his lawyer he said in a smug tone "Yes." Next was word salad where he said the “union “ was under investigation and that’s why we are paying for his lawyer
• A simple question was asked is John named in the subpoena and he said he would not answer . We are paying for his lawyer and we can’t get a straight answer on what the subpoena is about ? He also stated the US attorney got a “complaint “ and this is why they are asking for records.

So the union is under investigation? Then the membership deserves answers.

Is the president under investigation? Then the membership ought not be footing the bills.

• [JC]’s so confident that it’s all meritless and based on some sort of personal vendetta, he mentioned retaliating against whoever brought such an unsubstantiated allegation to the Feds, saying the person responsible needed to face consequences.

Um, whistleblower protections first of all. If there's retaliation, the membership better not be paying damages. Besides, that would be a civil matter, paid for by the aggrieved party, who (allegedly) is in such dire financial straits, he couldn't begin to pay those hourly rates, even with the union credit card.

And what's with the Board member in attendance being so drunk he couldn't give his report without staggering on stage and slurring his words so badly the audience couldn't understand portions?

The other guy drinking hard liquor on the rocks right up on stage? 

And everyone else looking shell-shocked like they were coming to the realization that they're going to be held accountable at some point for the blatant misbehavior still going on - either electorally or something more serious?

Wasteful Spending?

In Chicago? Seriously?

• In May of this year, the City of Chicago, facing a projected $1 billion budget shortfall over the next two years, paid “Big 4” accounting firm Ernst & Young (EY) $3.2 million to analyze the city’s spending and identify potential savings and efficiencies.

  A controversy arose when the mayor initially refused to release the report, instead preferring to “filter” it, in the words of Budget Director Annette Guzman. Aldermen were rightly suspicious of this approach, assuming that the mayor’s office would delete proposals that they did not agree with.  

  In the meantime, in mid-October, the mayor released his “Protecting the People” budget, which proposed $500 million in new taxes — including (most controversially) a head tax which he gave the Orwellian name of a “Community Safety Surcharge”, as well as a tax on cloud computing that would be the nation’s highest, and large new taxes on social media and ride sharing. In addition, the budget relies on one-time gimmicks such as the release of TIF funds.

  A few days later, the EY report was released. It proposed cost savings and revenue generation ranging from $530 million on the low end to $1.4 billion on the high end.  When asked why he is not implementing these ideas, the mayor variously has stated “it takes time,” “it’s a process,” and “I won’t negotiate my values.”

Plus, he has to make sure he locks in the $500 million in additional spending with the correctly aligned political operatives so that they kick back the appropriate amounts to "progressive" campaigns and CTU approved initiatives.

The Contrarian outlines the largest areas of waste, totaling between $400-and-$600 million dollars without breaking a sweat. The entire report has a potential $1.4 BILLION in taxpayer savings - far outpacing Conehead's budget shortfall.

But hey, don't forget to pay your increased property taxes soon! 

Endgame

The good news is Chicago's financial problems are finally hitting a national audience.

The bad news is it isn't a huge audience and there probably isn't any way to stop it entirely:

• There's nothing hotter than a little blue-on-blue action, and things are getting steamy at Chicago's City Hall as Mayor Brandon Johnson and his allies go to war with other Democrats over the scraps of the Windy City's finances

  We're in the endgame now.

  Jim Talamonti reported for Center Square on Tuesday that Johnson's allies "launched a seven-figure campaign" to support the mayor's budget because opponents argue that "the mayor’s tax plans will send the city into an economic death spiral and could bring about costly litigation."

  As of today, Chicago's political position is probably best described as paralysis. 

The blue shithole cities and states are going to have to fail....and fail badly, for there to be any real efforts at reform. It's an interesting article, but offers no real solutions.

Given, Not Earned

Keep those hiring standards low!

• A Chicago police officer is facing dismissal after he tested positive for methamphetamine and marijuana just months after he was arrested for allegedly driving drunk and groping a woman at a bar on the Near North Side.

  Officer Aramis Williams, 29, failed the drug test at police headquarters in Bronzeville on Jan. 17, 2024, according to disciplinary charges filed last month by Supt. Larry Snelling.

  Williams is at least the fourth cop to face dismissal charges for failing a drug test since last October, according to records maintained by the Chicago Police Board. Earlier this year, another officer who tested positive for weed was allowed to keep his job after the board found he had unwittingly ingested the drug.

  Williams failed the drug test four months after he was stripped of his policing powers following his arrest.

This mope passed a background check? After getting hired, he got caught:

• driving drunk
• molesting a woman
• before failing a drug test for weed and meth 

There weren't any Red Flags in his life history or interview process? Or any of the other three hirees pissing hot within a year?

Many people remember the Abbate debacle - that guy had at least one DUI prior to being hired (maybe more?) but had a heavy phone call to "overlook" an offense that previously resulted in tens of dozens of other people NOT ever getting hired....and look what that resulted in.

Perhaps Personnel needs a good housecleaning along with a review of what should disqualify someone from public service? 

Good Question

From the comments:

• ....all those democRAT politicians and fake rev-runs are always calling to sue the gun manufacturers for their people and folks getting shot and/or killed so why won't they ask to sue the lighter fluid company or the company that made the lighter or matches?

They never try to sue Ford or Chevy or GM for all the deaths involving automobiles - which dwarf all gun deaths by magnitudes. It's almost as if a legally manufactured product. lawfully sold to the public, but used illegally, isn't the fault of the manufacturer.

Try explaining that to a lib-tarded moron. 

Negligent Discharge

PPO in 006, so it couldn't be a Sig:

PPO must stand for "P.P. Ouchie."

Too soon?

Federal Charges

CWB has been covering the CTA attack extensively:

• Article one
• Article two
• Article three

And like the Iryna Zarutska stabbing, the feds grabbed this one:

• After being arrested by Chicago police officers in the Loop on Tuesday morning, the man accused of setting a woman on fire aboard a Blue Line train this week spontaneously yelled “Burn b****!” and “Burn alive b****!” according to a newly filed federal criminal complaint.

  Lawrence Reed, a 50-year-old man on pretrial release for allegedly knocking a psychiatric ward social worker unconscious in August, is federally charged with a terrorist attack or other violence against a mass transportation system.

Federal charges should mean Federal penalties....which include the Death Penalty.

CWB also names the judges who have been lax in keeping this psycho away from the public:

• Reed ultimately pleaded guilty to arson and received two years of “mental health probation” from Judge Arthur Hill. Despite being arrested three times on misdemeanor charges, including twice for battery, while on probation, the court deemed his probation performance “satisfactory” after prosecutors dropped all of those charges.

• On August 19, Reed allegedly knocked a social worker unconscious while he was being treated at MacNeal Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Berwyn, according to court records.

  [...] Despite the allegations, Judge Teresa Molina-Gonzalez rejected the detention request and ordered Reed released on electronic monitoring rather than being put in jail. While the court clerk’s notes describe the monitoring as “24/7,” a document signed by Molina-Gonzalez shows she authorized him to leave home from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. on weekdays. The order also barred him from the psychiatric hospital “unless it is a medical emergency.”

• On September 12, court records show Judge Ralph Meczyk modified Reed’s electronic monitoring order to allow him out of his home during some daytime hours on Tuesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays.

Hats off to CWB for being the first (and maybe only) news outlet to start naming names in an effort to hold judges accountable for endangering the public. If the judges start getting voted out, maybe the politicians will wake up and stop catering to criminals?

Don't Blame the Cops

Blame the politicians (via The Contrarian):

• If you want to know why Chicago’s police overtime budget keeps exploding like a defective Roman candle, don’t point fingers at the men and women on the street. Point them directly at the political geniuses who created this mess: Governor J.B. Pritzker, “Mayor 6.6 Approval Rating” Brandon Johnson, and his equally disastrous predecessor Lori Lightfoot. These are the architects of Chicago’s “defund the police, demonize law enforcement, incite ICE riots, obstruct federal justice, and undermine public safety” era. And now — shocking absolutely no one — they have the nerve to blame the police for the predictable consequences of their own policies.

  Let’s be very clear about what’s happening here.

  Chicago’s Police Department has not been on a shopping spree. They have not been joyriding through the overtime budget like drunken sailors with a city credit card. Officers have been plugging holes in a sinking ship, forced into 12-hour days, canceled days off, mandatory weekends, riot response, special event security, teen takeover triage, downtown chaos containment, and every other catastrophe cooked up by politicians who spent the last five years kneecapping the department and then wondering why it limps.

The Contrarian even takes a poke at WTTW's horseshit "reporting," then rolls out the receipts for exactly how CPD has been structurally decimated for the last half-a-decade at least.

As usual, go read it all. It's a very good article. 

Pointing Incidents Up

And Larritorious promises he'll address it:

• The Chicago Police Department continues to make slow progress toward reforming its training, policies, and practices, but there are two distinct areas where it is lagging behind court-ordered reforms.

  The team charged with overseeing the 2019 federal consent decree — ordered in response to the police killing of Laquan McDonald — held a status hearing Tuesday.

  They expressed concern about the rising number of use-of-force incidents, including so-called “firearm pointing incidents,” involving police department personnel since 2022. The team also raised concerns that the department’s crisis intervention program is understaffed, making it difficult for Chicago police districts to respond to calls involving people experiencing mental health emergencies.

First, addressing the "understaffing" of the crisis intervention program. 

• Um, dumbasses? The ENTIRE FREAKING DEPARTMENT is understaffed. Down from 13,500 in the 1990's to under 10,000 today, with well over another 1,000 spots unfilled. 
• And with more people than ever on some form of treatment for "mental illnesses," society as a whole is unprepared and "understaffed" as far as dealing with these incidents.

Now onto the "pointing incidents." Let's see if we can save everybody some time, effort and money by saying what Larritorious isn't allowed to say - but have you idiots been paying attention the past six or so years? 

• BLM nonsense, 
• antifa jagoffs, 
• statue protests, 
• anti-Trump rallies, 
• attacks on ICE....
• combined with "defunding" police movements, 
• a Soros-funded DEI states attorney not prosecuting crime and downgrading everything else,
• Fata$$'s so-called "SAFE-T" act, 
• a liberal parole policy for multiple-convicted repeat offenders, 
• million dollar paydays for criminals via perjured testimony, 
• a crooked media that lies and buys "testimony" from felons
• no chasing - foot and vehicle
• a ridiculously restrictive Use of (no) Force policy 

We could go on and on, but all the above has fostered a culture on NON-compliance with Lawful and Legal police orders. And in the face of continuing and escalating NON-compliance, what is the one tool that tops the list for enforcing compliance?

• a f#$%ing gun

Is a gun the correct tool for each and every situation? No, of course not. 

But when you lower the hiring standards, provide crap training, spend more time teaching new officers what tools they aren't allowed to use, then threaten to fire them AND put them in prison for the tiniest infraction that runs afoul of the "progressive" agenda, why would anyone be surprised that pointing incidents would rise?

Mob Attack

We're surprised this one made the news:

• Parents and community members are outraged after a video that has gone viral on social media shows a mom and her children being attacked by students Monday as they walked home from Orville Bright Elementary School on the city’s Far South Side.

  Dozens of people showed up to the school Tuesday morning demanding accountability, some saying they’re shocked but not surprised by Monday’s incident and that the students involved should be expelled.

  Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Chicago Public Schools have responded to the attack, which sent 33-year-old Chicago mom Corshawnda Hatter and her 9-year-old son to Trinity Hospital in serious condition. The mayor called the incident “absolutely gut-wrenching” and “appalling.”

  CPS, meanwhile, has not released any details of consequences the students involved in the attack may face but says it’s working with city departments and agencies to provide support to Hatter and her children.

The video is....something else. Most of the attackers appear to be kids around ten-to-thirteen years old, like something out of a dystopian sci-fi movie....which come to think of it, pretty much describes our nearly thirty-year career in certain neighborhoods.

With offenders like that, rest assured that there will be a need for police for the next twenty years or so....not that we'd be allowed to actually arrest the little angels, but someone needs to be blamed

Hide the Crime!

This was always the intent - LAPD is just leading the pack:

• Do you ever wonder where and when Los Angeles police officers have responded to crimes, made arrests or used force against civilians?

  For over a decade you could have looked at the LAPD’s online crime map and gotten an idea of what the department was doing in your neighborhood at any given time.

  While other areas of L.A. County still regularly update crime data on the website, the LAPD has stopped uploading information and is refusing to release its data.

  LAist requested the LAPD’s COMPSTAT data in May in an attempt to verify claims by city officials about crime and police activities in specific neighborhoods. Those records include locations of crimes, police use of force and a number of other categories the LAPD tracks and reports on periodically.

  The LAPD denied that request on Oct. 30.

The reasoning behind this concealing of the data?

• The LAPD said it would be against the public interest to release the data, which is preliminary and “has the potential to lead to misguided public policy discussions or unjustified public panic.”

Sure, because data collected by a government agency using taxpayer dollars needs to be concealed from the voters who (in most cases) know EXACTLY what the information would show.

The Same Guy?

A known, repeat offender, released (again) by Fata$$'s SAFE-T Act, supposed to be on electronic monitoring, covers an innocent bystander in a flammable liquid, then chases her down to ignite it:

• Chicago police have detained a suspect in connection with the horrific setting of a woman on fire aboard a Blue Line train in the Loop on Monday night, according to a source familiar with the investigation. And, the source says, the suspect is supposed to be wearing an ankle monitor for a pending aggravated battery case in which a Cook County judge refused to keep him in custody.

  The man, who has a history of arson cases, including fires set downtown, was arrested around midday in the Loop as he prepared to board a train near Clark and Washington.

  We have also learned that, contrary to the initial information released by CPD, there was no argument between the victim and the assailant. Rather, a source said, the attack appears completely random and unprovoked.

  At about 9:25 p.m. Monday, the 26-year-old woman was sitting on the train using her phone when the man walked up and poured liquid from a beverage bottle on her head, a source said. The woman ran through the train car, but he caught up with her and set the liquid, as well as portions of his own body, on fire, according to a source.

So is this going to be Chicago's version of Iryna Zarutska?  

Someone sent us a still shot from the CTA surveillance cameras:

 And here's the City Hall arsonist from a number of hours beforehand:

Could be. 

Shooting

Strange how little coverage this is getting:

• A man suspected of having a gun sustained injuries that were not life-threatening after being shot by police in an alley Tuesday morning in the Washington Park neighborhood.

  The suspect “is going to be OK,’' said Chicago police spokesperson Tom Ahern, who was on the scene of the shooting Tuesday afternoon in the 5600 block of South Michigan Avenue.

  Chicago police said officers were attempting to stop a man believed to be armed with a handgun about 11:50 a.m. when he ran and they chased him. One officer who gave “verbal commands” that were “disregarded” shot the man, police said.

These things used to be front page coverage for days, a source of protests, and demands for camera footage. Now, it seems like it's faded into mere background noise.

Glad the Officers are okay - enjoy your time away from the streets.

Fuckworthless Fires Staffer

Gee, we guess impersonating a lawyer isn't allowed?

• Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) has fired a staffer accused by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of misrepresenting himself as the attorney of a detained undocumented migrant, Fox News reported Monday.

  Duckworth, in a letter to ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons obtained by the outlet, said that “neither I nor my leadership was aware of, authorized or directed” the staffer to do so, and that the employee has been terminated, effective Monday.

But you encouraged everything else under the sun to "resist" and obstruct the lawful actions of the Executive Branch to enforce the immigration laws of the United States.

What's Her Sell-By Date?

Because we think it passed a while ago:

• Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas is joining the 2027 race for mayor of Chicago, but she doesn’t want to talk about it until after she is safely reelected next year to an eighth term in the job she has held since 1998.

  Pappas, 76, a baton-twirling grandmother known for her flamboyant wardrobe and sharp wit, has flirted with running for mayor for decades but has yet to pull the trigger on a mayoral campaign.

  This time, Pappas says she’s in it for real, whether or not embattled Mayor Brandon Johnson seeks reelection, and no matter how crowded the field of challengers becomes.

So who's backing her? Mayoral runs are expensive. 

Also, with the wide open primary field, every one runs and the top two go on to the runoff. Her declaring the intent to stay in seems like a ploy to split an already fractured voter base - kind of like how Fioretti ran a few years ago to draw away support and get the Machine to pay off his campaign debts. Or the assorted black candidates who divide up that shrinking bloc like Willie Wilson.

Who gets shafted by Pappas entering and staying? Rahm or Groot looking for a replay? Mendoza? Some other commie "progressive"?

CTA Attack

Following New York City (again) in setting their train passengers on fire:

• A man poured flammable liquid on a woman and set her on fire during an argument aboard a Blue Line train in the Loop on Monday night, Chicago police said.

  At about 9:25 p.m., the 26-year-old woman got into an altercation with the man while they were on a train near Clark and Lake, 124 West Lake Street, according to CPD. During the argument, the man poured a liquid on the woman’s head and ignited it.

  The offender fled when the train stopped at Clark-Lake. Witnesses said he was Black, 40 to 50 years old, and about 5’10” tall. He had some facial hair and wore black clothing with a gray hoodie underneath.

Thanks to CWB for the actual description. The Slum Times, which has spend the last month soliciting photographs of ICE agents engaged in enforcing the Immigration Laws of the United States, described the offender as a "male, about 45 years old." Big fucking help media assholes. 

Who would do such a thing, wandering around with a flammable liquid and ignition source, willing to set anything or anyone on fire?

• how about the person who set the fire at City Hall Friday night? 

From what we're hearing, the descriptions are oddly similar. 

Guilty....as Expected

An unsurprising verdict:

• The man accused of throwing a Big Gulp full of root beer on former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx during a road rage altercation near her Flossmoor home was found guilty of one felony and not guilty of another on Monday morning.

  Prosecutors charged William Swetz, 35, with aggravated battery in a public place and aggravated assault with a motor vehicle following the June 2024 incident. He took the case to a ench trial last month.

  On Monday, Judge Tiana Blakely found Swetz guilty of the battery charge but not guilty of vehicular assault, according to court records. She set a January 8 hearing for post-trial motions.

Two assholes come into conflict, but one is heavier than whale shit. 

He had to know the fix was in. No idea why he opted for a bench trial. 

There was a plea deal in place for a felony with zero jail time, now who knows if he'll get "time served" or something else.

CPS / CTU Corruption

People are noticing that a significant amount of their property taxes are going to the failing school system. The trouble is, that's how it has always been. The biggest user of taxpayer money has always been the schools and always at oversized percentages. In fact, we're pretty sure that the schools have ALWAYS raised their portion of the property tax to the absolute MAXIMUM allowed by law for at least the past twenty years, perhaps thirty.

And now, after all that time, the media is actually reporting on how the schools waste it:

• Overnight travel expenses within Chicago Public Schools have skyrocketed in recent years, an internal watchdog investigation found, as employees of the cash-strapped school district spent millions on overseas trips, spa getaways and flights to Las Vegas and Hawaii.

  CPS Inspector General Philip Wagenknecht’s office on Wednesday published a new report on the district’s travel and overnight spending, which jumped from around $300,000 in fiscal year 2021 to nearly $8 million in 2024.

  According to his report, some employees allegedly took advantage of the district’s “lax, vague, inadequate and unenforced” travel rules and procedures, leading to the “exorbitant” post-pandemic travel spending using taxpayer funds.

They spend this money to go to conferences to learn how to be better teachers and administrators, while test results continue to plummet and less than a quarter of CPS students can read or math at grade level. At last count there were something like a dozen schools where not a single student could achieve anything near a national standard.

But travel to conferences went up by TWO-THOUSAND SIXTY SIX percent in three years.

Funnily enough, when conferences were held in Chicago, attendance was in the low double digits, but when a conference was held in Vegas or Hawaii or Europe, attendance skyrocketed into the hundreds.

How much did everyone's taxes go up again? And why are Chicago voters electing progressive communist coneheaded teachers' union tools into office? 

More Property Tax Stuff

This made us smile, then chuckle, then laugh out loud:

• Homeowners in some of the city’s most affordable neighborhoods may be surprised to see a spike in their property tax bills that were mailed out Friday.

  Residential property tax bills are rising fastest in Black neighborhoods on the South and West sides as the county’s tax burden shifts away from the economically depressed Loop, according to a report from the Cook County treasurer’s office.

  The Sun-Times broke the news in March that the property tax burden had shifted from the Central Business District to neighborhoods. Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas’ report, released Monday, gets specific about how that shift has hit minority neighborhoods hardest.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but these neighborhoods have been a drain on city resources for decades, providing little....but taking much.

But then a series of political decisions over the decades, like decriminalizing much of what used to be punishable, declining to prosecute certain individuals, even actively encouraging an expansion of anti-social behavior, expanded criminal activities into formerly "peaceful" or "untouchable" areas of the city, committed by the generational failures of those shithole hoods.

So downtown businesses fled. High wealth individuals took their money and went somewhere crime wasn't as prevalent. More people avoided the formerly "magnificent" stores, shopping areas, tourist spots, etc. and the taxes generated by those areas declined precipitously.

And those who enjoyed years of free rides suddenly have to live with taxes being raised to make up for all the wealth that left....and they can't afford to leave. 

Budget Rejected

Conehead showing - once again - that he isn't any sort of leader:

• Mayor Brandon Johnson’s already strained relationship with the City Council sunk to a new low on Monday when the Finance Committee rejected his nearly $600 million plan to, as he put it, “challenge the ultra-rich and corporations to pay their fair share.”

  The vote was 25-10. The defeat came only after a motion to postpone the vote failed by an 18-18 tie vote.

  “Can we just get this over with? This is a joke. They’re calling people out there right now to delay this,” said Ald. Matt O’Shea (19^th).

  For Johnson, it was a repeat of last year’s 50-0 City Council vote rejecting his proposed $300 million property tax increase.

The people (or folks) closest to the ground level, realize that "challeng[ing] the ultra-riach and corporations to pay their fair share" isn't any sort of strategy, because as proven time-and-time again for the past two decades or so, those people and companies will just pack up and leave once the balance moves too far out of their favor.

Or didn't Dumbass notice the vacancy rate downtown is passing 30% and closing in on 40%? That's NOT a healthy economy that can support all the "progressive" stupidity burning holes in the budget.

City Hall BBQ?

We can't find a single mention anywhere in the media: 

• Arsonist attempted to set City Hall on fire on Friday about 10:20pm. No one knew about it until this morning. The entire incident was captured on POD. Arsonist sprayed an accelerant on the outside stone and sidewalk of the exterior of LaSalle and Randolph. Nice fire light show but it all fizzled away in less than 5mins. The house mice inside City Hall were all asleep and had no idea. 

So granite, limestone and marble doesn't burn.

And no one saw it, reported it, or responded to it, the incident only being revealed when someone spotted the scorch marks on the building when the sun rose?

Thanks for Nothing COPA

Remember, these are the incompetent assholes Monday-morning quarterbacking every single decision you make - and this time it got a criminal off on the worst charge:

• A man who was shot in the head by a Chicago police officer inside a Brighton Park bar last year has been acquitted of the most serious charges filed against him. Fernando Guzman, 38, was found not guilty this week of attempted murder and discharging a firearm toward a peace officer after a jury trial before Judge Ursula Walowski. However, the panel did convict him on two counts of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon.

  The shooting unfolded around 12:20 a.m. on October 12, 2024, when officers responded to a “person with a gun” call at a bar in the 3900 block of South Kedzie Avenue. Witnesses told arriving officers that a man wearing a construction vest had pointed a gun at someone. When officers confronted Guzman, who reportedly matched the description, they asked if he was armed, officials said. Guzman allegedly displayed a handgun, and one officer tried to disarm him.

  In a statement issued hours later, CPD said, “Officers attempted to disarm the offender when he discharged his weapon. An officer returned fire, striking the offender.” And in an initial court filing, prosecutors said Guzman “shot one shot in the direction of” an officer. A second cop at the scene returned fire, striking Guzman in the left side of the head, the filing stated.

  But the Civilian Office of Police Accountability used different language five days after the shooting, leaving open the possibility that Guzman did not fire the weapon intentionally: “One of the officers gave verbal commands to drop the weapon and as officers attempted to disarm the individual, the individual’s firearm discharged. One of the officers then returned fire, striking the individual in the head.”

So COPA is making excuses for criminals now....or at least opening up a legal avenue to excuse discharging a weapon at/near/toward police officers.

• it was 'unintentional!' 
• he didn't mean it!
• it probably wasn't even his gun!

This really needs to stop. 

Property Tax Outrage

A whole bunch of people are writing about the largish increases in property taxes that arrived in the mail late last week. A few more are dropping comments here and there. Our neighbors were talking over the fences all weekend, too.

And in the hood....: 

• People gathered Saturday night for a "property tax bonfire" at Harmony Community Church in Lawndale as they are trying to light the way to fairness. Many homeowners in Chicago have received a hefty bill with the latest round of property tax increases, and they're wondering where exactly that money is going.

  Homeowners in Lawndale are searching for answers together about their property tax hikes.

  Community leaders partnered with the Lawndale Christian Development Corporation to host a bonfire, allowing neighbors to discuss their options.

  Lawndale resident Thomas Worthy received a bill this week that was $977 more than what he paid last year. "Tax increase is tied to a TIF that I have no idea why," Worthy said. "It's collecting money from our neighbors and streets, but we're not being notified why it's in the bill."

Well you see, when you elect democrats for nearly around a hundred years, and you actually buy the BS they feed you about free-shit, and then you reelect them based on "promises" that never come to fruition and you don't bother to any sort of actual voter oversight on their records.....

Do we really have to spell it out? 

How bad was everyone's hit? 

Heineken Trickbagged

This time body cams tripped up the Chief of Patrol:

• Newly released Chicago police body-camera footage shows officers were briefly told to steer clear of an Oct. 4 confrontation between protesters and federal agents in Brighton Park after a Border Patrol agent shot a woman.

  The heavily blurred videos, released Friday, confirmed the Chicago Sun-Times’ reporting that Chicago Police Department officers were ordered not to respond “per the chief of patrol,” Jon Hein, which has since sparked an intense backlash.

  These videos come after police officials blocked the public release earlier this month of body-camera and drone footage, saying it would hinder an internal investigation against Hein. Police Supt. Larry Snelling has defended Hein and said his officers were never told to “stand down.”

Years ago, we were warned (and passed along warnings) that body camera footage was going to be used incidentally, to trick-bag Officers, especially side conversations that had little to do with the situation being handled....and that is EXACTLY what happened here:

• On the body-camera videos, a dispatcher is heard telling officers that federal agents are “being surrounded by a large crowd of people” and are “requesting CPD.” The dispatcher tells officers leaving the station to “immediately head down to 39th Place and Kedzie [Avenue]” and “go assist.” “There are a lot of cars, so just use caution, please,” the dispatcher says.

  Several minutes later, a lieutenant can be heard over the radio telling officers not to respond to 39th and Kedzie, “per the chief of patrol.” Moments later, the dispatcher confirms, “We’re not sending anybody over to that location.”

  An officer at the scene working on a traffic crash report says her team is “blocked in” but will get out as soon as they can.

  “If you need resources, we’ll send you whatever you need,” the lieutenant tells the officer. And later, he tells the dispatcher: “Get them the information they need, and get them out of there.”

  “Again, those are the orders we’re being given,” the lieutenant says. In another video, several officers can be heard discussing the order. “They are gonna do the car accident report, and we’re getting out of here,” one officer says. “He doesn’t want us hanging around here.”

That's at a minimum, THREE separate incidents of body camera footage being revealed - not over actual actions, but over the orders being given by exempt staff and conveyed to the field supervisors and Officers.

What are the chances that there are more videos? Dozens more, because everyone has a camera and everyone should have had it activated. 100%?

What are the chances that every one of these conversations, transmissions, discussions got it wrong or misunderstood? Even if half got it wrong, that means half got it right and they're all digitally preserved.

Is Larritorious going to backtrack on his unqualified support of Heineken?

She Lied?

Really? A democrat DEI judge lied?

• More than a year after Cook County Judge Tyria B. Walton said Chicago police threatened her following her acquittal of Whitley Temple, official records show no evidence that an investigation was ever conducted. 

  Temple, a former aide to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, was acquitted after allegedly stealing a police officer’s squad car while naked and nearly running him over.

  Temple was released under court-supervised mental health treatment extending through 2029. No agency has confirmed an investigation, and the Chief Judge’s Office has not issued a comment.

  An anonymous Chicago police officer who reviewed the case said the lack of records raises questions about Walton’s claims.

Go read the entire article - it's a blow-by-blow account of Cook County Criminal Court corruption. 

We (and many others) said this many times - if there was an actual threat made on a judge, there is Cook County Sheriff protocol in place - in place for years now - regarding reporting and protecting the judiciary. Part of the protection would include informing nearly half-a-dozen investigatory agencies, including CPD, IAD, COPA, ISP and assorted federal agencies.

None of that ever happened.

What did happen was DEI Walton accusing the blog of publishing her address, which never happened either. She was obviously just lashing out at the well deserved scorn she was receiving for her DEI verdict and mental health "findings" on Whitley Temple (still Whitley Temple so far) without any basis in fact.

But you'll never see a single media tool or Machine politician call to hold a DEI judge accountable for (A) bad decisions or (B) unqualified behavior. Being unqualified is what got her appointed to the position in the first place - she does what she's told.

Tenacious

Nice job keeping this one active:

• A man is back in custody and charged in a downtown Chicago murder over 20 years later following an international search effort. David Barklow, 68, was extradited Friday to Chicago from South America, police announced. Barklow was identified as the suspect who shot and killed 40-year-old Kent Projansky on December 18, 2004, inside his apartment in the 1100 block of N. Dearborn in the city's Near North neighborhood, Chicago police said.

  Detectives found that Barklow lived across the street from Projansky at the time of the murder, and the suspect was arrested on October 16, 2019 by the U.S. Marshals Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force following an investigation. Barklow was able to flee the county in December 2019, police said. It was learned in early 2022 that he had moved to Ecuador

  Police secured an arrest warrant for Barklow for First Degree Murder and Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution. In April 2025, detectives learned from INTERPOL that Barklow traveled from Ecuador to Peru, CPD said. "The U.S. Department of Justice, the DOJ's Office of International Affairs, the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service, the U.S. State Department, the Regional Security Office at the U.S. Embassy in Lima, Peru and Peruvian authorities" worked together to arrest Barklow.

  The suspect is now back in Chicago and has been charged with one felony count of First-Degree Murder, the Cook County State's Attorney's Office said. It was not yet announced when he will appear in court.

A lot of people, including CPD homicide detectives, put in a lot of effort to keep this one active.

No One Called....Again

Again, we were never a huge supporter of ShotSpotter, believing that it was mainly a very expensive crime scene locator, but that it did serve a purpose of informing police about shootings (with potential victims) when the neighborhood didn't bother to call....like this:

• A 61-year-old man was found lying dead outside his Auburn Gresham home early Friday, the latest gunshot victim to go undiscovered in a neighborhood once monitored by the city’s ShotSpotter system.

  Officers responded to the 7600 block of South Sangamon around 1:25 a.m. after a 911 caller reported a man down outside their door.

  Police found the victim unresponsive with a gunshot wound to his chest. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

  CPD had not received any calls of shots being fired in the area, leaving it unclear how long the man had been there before being discovered.

Now it's just a source of amusement and a reason to shake our heads at how far society has fallen.

NYPD Shootout

With as many cameras as there are in the big blue $hithole cities, we don't see nearly the amount of footage that the cameras capture, probably because it makes the police look like they aren't the problem:

• Chilling surveillance footage captured the “Wild West” moment an NYPD cop shot a gun-toting maniac who allegedly fired at officers after threatening to shoot up Mount Sinai Hospital.

  The tense clip showed the gunman – 20-year-old Elijah Brown – holding his weapon in his hand as he casually walked on Madison Avenue between East 95th and 96th streets late Thursday after telling a bodega worker he planned to riddle the hospital with bullets. 

  As cops approached Brown, he suddenly whipped around and fired at the officers – prompting at least one to return fire from the street, the footage shows. 

Hell, it even shows the officers rushing up after shooting the offender and rendering immediate first aid. Nothing wrong with this shooting which is probably why the NY Post is covering it and nobody else is giving it much airplay.

Light Weekend on Tap

We might be out of town for a little while. 

Nothing serious, but attention is needed other places occasionally.

Posting might be sporadic along with comment moderation.

Stay safe. 

More Charges for Puncher

Hard to believe no one has shot this asshole:

• A man accused of being one of the “Loop Punchers” — a group of unrelated men known for randomly attacking women on Chicago’s streets — is now charged with assaulting two more victims. William Livingston, 32, is already in custody awaiting trial for allegedly attacking and seriously injuring a woman in the Loop on August 19. Police say he has a long history of similar assaults.

  According to Chicago police, investigators recently linked Livingston to two additional random attacks that occurred on June 12 in the 2700 block of North Clark Street, where a 40-year-old woman and a 29-year-old woman were both targeted. Prosecutors have charged him with two counts of aggravated battery in a public place.

We were just about to say, if the previous States Attorney was pushing for felony charges on a root beer moistening just because it happened "on the public way," then these women getting punching in the head on the public way was at least deserving of similar consideration. 

Good to see some consistency finally.

CWB has video of at least one of the attacks, for which they had bring legal pressure to get the city to release.

CFD Fundraiser

Got this from a couple people:

• In the middle of the night, Chicago Fire Department Paramedic Randy Campbell (Ambulance 67) was jolted awake by the smell of smoke. His Mt. Greenwood apartment was on fire.

  He immediately woke his 7-year-old son, Merrill. But the fire moved fast. Both exits were already blocked by a wall of heavy smoke and flames. Randy was trapped. His son was trapped.

  With no other way out, Randy did what any parent—and any firefighter—would do. He protected his son. He grabbed Merrill, held him tight, and jumped from the third-story window.

  His Son is Safe. His Recovery is Just Beginning.

  Merrill walked away unharmed, shielded by his father. Randy took the full impact of the fall. He suffered a fractured L5 vertebra—a serious injury we all know means a long, painful, and difficult recovery. It's a tough road for any medic, and it means he can't be on the rig, serving the city he loves.

Hopefully, he can recover and return to work. 

Click the link up top if you wish to contribute. 

End Approaching?

No one beats Father Time:

• Civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson washospitalized on Wednesday in Chicago, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition announced.

  In recent years, Rev. Jackson has been seen in a wheelchair, and public comments from the civil rights icon have been waning. It was believed Jackson had Parkinson's disease, but officials with Rainbow PUSH said earlier this year he was diagnosed Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, a neurodegenerative disease.

One of the more polarizing figures of our lifetimes, exploitative beyond measure, far more concerned with making a buck extorting corporate America for real and imagined wrongs, called out by MLK himself for being far too self centered instead of being united behind a common message.

Oh yeah, and this:

 If you ever wondered who was really calling the shots, Jesse is sitting at his feet below the throne.

Morons

Recommended for Separation, they did 365 days instead:

• Two Chicago police officers who brawled with restaurant employees following a Cubs game while off-duty in 2019 have completed year-long suspensions imposed under a disciplinary settlement, according to a recently released Civilian Office of Police Accountability report.

They were drunk, obnoxious and brought disrepute to the profession. 

Three-hundred-sixty-five days is a light punishment. 

But since they're obviously politically connected somewhere along the line to be able to beat numerous recommendations for termination, there ought to be some sort of restriction on them ever getting a promotion or cushy assignment where they'd further embarrass the Department.

Fiduciary Duty

Ever hear of it?

• A fiduciary duty is a legal obligation where one party, known as the fiduciary, must act in the best interests of another party, called the principal or beneficiary.

The city treasurer is flirting with abandoning that legal precedent:

• City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin touched off a political firestorm Wednesday by declaring that the city’s $10 billion portfolio her office controls will no longer invest in U.S. Treasury bonds to protest what she called the “authoritarian regime” of President Donald Trump.

  “Chicagoans do not want us to bankroll the regime — the authoritarian regime — of Donald Trump where he has waged a war on our city,” said Conyears-Ervin, one of thirteen Democratic candidates and fifteen candidates overall vying to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Danny Davis in the 7th Congressional District.

  “In the past three years, our office has held over $200 million in Treasury securities,” Conyears-Ervin said, speaking at a hearing on Mayor Brandon Johnson’s proposed 2026 budget. “Beginning today, I have directed my staff to boycott the purchase of United States Treasury securities.”

She claims that the returns on corporate bonds, money market accounts and asset-backed securities are "the same" but that is a questionable proposition at best. 

No one can predict with 100% accuracy what the markets are going to do (except Nancy Pelosi) so a unilateral move like this should be questioned by the aldercreatures. Some already are, but there ought to be more than a few eyes on this with calculators at the ready.

Budgets and pensions rely on that money. 

Crime is Down!

That's what Conehead and Fata$$ have been claiming for months now.

Except this happened: 

• President Donald Trump said Tuesday that violent crime in Chicago has fallen sharply since the start of a federal crackdown known as "Operation Midway Blitz," crediting the Department of Homeland Security-led effort with driving shootings and robberies down across the Windy City.

  The president’s Truth Social post claimed that shootings are down 35%, robberies down 41% and carjackings nearly 50% since the operation began several weeks ago.

  "This has been achieved despite the extraordinary resistance from Chicago and Illinois Radical Democrat leadership," Trump wrote.

Conehead was asked for comment:

 We fully expect him to start claiming crime is up. 

Nice Hiring Fuckworthless

Corruption among Illinois pols? Who would have thought it?

• The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said a member of Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s office misrepresented himself as the attorney of a detained illegal immigrant to facilitate their release.

  According to a letter sent Wednesday to Duckworth, D-Ill., U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Todd Lyons said the staffer told federal agents he was the attorney of Jose Ismeal Ayuzo Sandoval — a 40-year-old illegal immigrant previously deported four times to Mexico and who had a DUI conviction.

So Fuckworthless hires people who are working - allegedly by falsifying federal documents - to free a FOUR TIME DEPORTED ILLEGAL ALIEN rather than actual American citizens whom she purportedly represents.

D'oh!

Nice uniform there Captain:

 

We guess they don't have uniform inspections before promotion ceremonies any more?

When she looked down at her name tag, she probably said, "I can read it, so it must be good." 

Another Shotspotter Miss

We smile every time these pop up:

• A man was found shot to death inside a vehicle in Gresham on Friday night, but witnesses who heard the gunfire didn’t call police until they saw the man slumped over in his car about an hour later, according to an officer at the scene.

  The shooting happened in the 8800 block of South Lowe Avenue in a neighborhood that used to be covered by the city’s now-shuttered ShotSpotter gunfire detection system. If the system had still been active, it could have alerted first responders even though no one who heard the gunfire called for help.

It's amusing that Shotspotter might have helped.

It's even more amusing that the neighborhood doesn't care enough to call in "shots fired" for over an hour. 

This by itself should be justification for Larritorious to pull every officer out of that District and send them somewhere that actually wants the police around. 

Where's Waldo?

Where's Heiniken for that matter?

We've gotten a bunch of pictures sent to us, so we're posting some for your amusement.

Number One!

And again, not for anything good:

• Chicago’s 10.25% combined sales tax currently ranks second among major cities, behind only Seattle’s 10.35%, but a 0.25-point hike for transit will make them the highest in America.

  The new Regional Transportation Authority funding bill, which increases the Chicago metro area sales tax by 0.25 percentage points, has passed both chambers of the Illinois General Assembly and now sits on Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk. Once signed, it will give Chicago the highest sales-tax rate of any major city in the nation at 10.5%.

And what do Chicagoans get for these massive taxes?

• failing schools
• rising property crime
• declining services
• less police coverage
• increasing wait times for ambulances
• fleeing businesses

And Conehead. 

New Award Ribbon

 

"We'll Be Back"

The Border Patrol is leaving for the winter, but will return in full force after operations on the west coast:

• Fifty-six days have passed since U.S. Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino announced on social media, “Well, Chicago, we’ve arrived!”

  Since then, it’s been eight weeks of chaos and fear. Of downtown patrols and boat tours. Of tear gas and pepperballs, even while children played and pastors prayed. Of defiance and violence and a hunt for “the worst of the worst” and several use-of-force incidents that a judge said “shocks the conscience.”

  Now Bovino and many of his agents are expected to leave Chicago, signaling a downshift in the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz.” That is, at least, while winter descends on the city. But the federal presence could return four-fold in the spring.

It's also been eight weeks of the media revealing themselves to be insurrectionists and traitors, supporting violence and excusing law breaking with assorted propaganda. They're barely covering this:

• Customs and Border Protection officials said Latin Kings street gang leaders have issued a “shoot on sight” order targeting agents involved in immigration operations in Chicago, NewsNation has learned.

  “Officer/agents are reminded to maintain heightened situational awareness and exercise extreme caution when conducting enforcement activities,” the agency’s internal warning said.

  News of the alert comes after shots were reportedly fired at federal agents during an immigration enforcement operation in the city’s Little Village neighborhood on Saturday. The Department of Homeland Security says a group of people also threw a paint can and bricks at a Border Patrol vehicle.

There's a name for this sort of behavior and The Contrarian calls it out:

• The shots that rang out last week resemble those fired on Fort Sumter which started the Civil War

  The shooting has started. 

  A federal law enforcement source has now confirmed that a Chicagoan opened fire on federal officers. Whether this is the first volley or merely the latest escalation, it follows an obvious trajectory: When city leaders wink at lawlessness and when newspapers sanctify defiance, blood is the next headline.

  Our local press corps has abandoned skepticism for sermonizing. They’ve become propagandists — much like the newspapers of the South in the years before the Civil War — stirring emotion, arousing grievance, and normalizing rebellion against our own federal government. They no longer cover the news; they choreograph it.

If this is the new "normal," well.....good luck.