This is Awkward

A new stadium is finally being built!

Just not the stadium you thought: 

• The billionaire owner of the Chicago Fire FC has agreed to spend $650 million of his own money to bankroll a 22,000-seat, soccer-only stadium on the vacant South Loop parcel known as “The 78,” but tens of millions of public dollars would be needed to ready the long-dormant site for development.

  Joe Mansueto, founder and chairperson of Morningstar, a Chicago-based financial services firm, described the open-air arena he hopes to complete and open in time for the 2028 season as “more than just a stadium.”

Did you read that first paragraph?

• ...of his own money.

That's correct. Via private funds and private financing, this guy is building a new stadium, kind of like how Bill Wirtz did it on the west side a few decades back. If we remember correctly, a consortium of Japanese banks funded the United Center and ol' Dollar Bill paid off the entire note in under a decade. Of course, at that point Jordan was in his prime and the Blackhawks made the playoffs regularly so there wasn't an attendance issue.

The Chicago Fire is worth around $500 million and their owner is financing a stadium.

Compare that to the Chicago Bears (current market value - $6.5 BILLION) and they're lobbying Springfield for massive subsidies and taxpayer dollars so that they don't have to shell out $2 billion for a new stadium. A new stadium that would increase the team value to something comparable to the Dallas Cowboys ($10 billion) and the revenue stream which the Bears wouldn't be sharing with the taxpayers.

We'd say the road to a taxpayer funded Bears stadium just got a lot more difficult to sell thanks to Joe Mansueto 

How About Fight the Lawsuits?

Something we and our readers have been saying for two decades now:

• At what point do the taxpayers of Chicago get to say “enough is enough?”

  So far in 2025, the Chicago City Council has approved over $145 million in police-related legal settlements — more than double what was budgeted — and the year isn’t even halfway over. That figure doesn’t include another $120 million in court-ordered payouts the city is challenging, nor the mounting legal fees, nor the flood of additional lawsuits waiting in the wings. By any reasonable measure, this is an atrocity — not of criminal justice, but of fiscal malfeasance and political cowardice.

  Atrocities come in many forms. Some are moral, some judicial, and some — like this one — are budgetary. Chicago has turned the act of paying out settlements into a grotesque civic ritual, in which aldermen rubber-stamp multimillion-dollar payouts for decades-old incidents while shrugging at the burden it places on taxpayers, who had nothing to do with the original misconduct.

  Let’s be clear: Legitimate claims of wrongful conviction, abuse, and official misconduct deserve redress. But the scale, scope, and timing of this year’s deluge defy all proportionality. The system has become a gravy train for lawyers, a reputational black eye for law enforcement, and an existential threat to the city’s financial stability.

Back when J-Fledgar was "running" the Department, he decided to fight these lawsuits and guess what?

• Corp Counsel won a bunch of them. Even the threat of Corp Counsel taking these cases to trial had plaintiff lawyers backing off the cases - actually having to work for a verdict wasn't in the cards for these grifters and business dried up for a while.

But then, the lawyer associations went to Rahm and begged him to put the brakes on J-Fledgar, otherwise they'd stop contributing to democrats....and the rest was history. The spigot re-opened, J-Fledgar was leashed and contributions resumed to the politicians.

Go read it all at the Contrarian. Maybe taxpayers will wake up at some point.

Move to Chicago?

Employees of this company said, "Hell No."

• In January, Fortune Brands Innovations, whose portfolio includes home and security brands such as Moen and Master Lock, announced it was consolidating its regional U.S. offices into one state-of-the-art campus in Deerfield, Illinois. As part of that effort, they are requiring the majority of corporate employees to move to the Chicago suburb.

  When asked to relocate, most of these employees declined—but the company said it expected that, and in a conversation about the transition, CEO Nicholas Fink framed the changes ahead as a positive for the company. He added that while many opted out of relocation, the company still exceeded industry benchmarks for the number of people who said “yes” to the move.

Deerfield is over twenty-five miles from Chicago, and they still couldn't get a majority to follow their jobs. 

Temperature in Hell Dropping

Freeze warning ahead:

• [P]Father Michael Pfleger heaped praise on the Chicago Police Department during his Sunday sermon, one day after gunmen opened fire on hundreds of people gathered for a post-prom celebration near St. Sabina Church over the weekend.

  “The police were amazing,” Pfleger told his parishioners. “Ain’t nobody like the 6th District.”

  For decades, Pfleger has been outspoken about the city’s street violence. His parish frequently hosts gun turn-in events and peace marches. On Sunday, he spoke about the incident that occurred just outside the church grounds early on Saturday.

Sounds exactly like a remorseful jagoff who just found out he has incurable cancer and now he wants to make good after years of assholery.

Well Pfuck off Phleger. We know you, we know what you've said, we know what you've been accused of despite the inability of investigators successfully pin it on you and Cook County prosecutors unwillingness to charge you. You're to blame for so much of the mayhem, violence, and disrespect prevalent in that neighborhood. You should have been removed from that position years ago just as a matter of policy, but your ego-driven cult of personality (along with no other decent parish wanting you) and constant insertion of the Church into the political realm continues the societal damage to this day.

You're a grifting piece of trash and have a very high place on our list of "graves to piss on" once you're gone.

Proper Charging

It sure feels different having a States Attorney who is familiar with and applies the Law as it was intended:

• A man who allegedly drove his pickup truck into a Chicago police officer Saturday has been charged with attempted murder, police said.

  Carlos Sanchez-Roa, 28, was charged with three felonies: first-degree attempted murder, aggravated battery of a peace officer and aggravated assault of a peace officer, Chicago police said.

  Officers found Sanchez-Roa in the 3100 block of North Central Avenue in Belmont-Cragin about 2:10 a.m. when they responded to a call of a battery and shots fired, according to Chicago police. A witness told police that Sanchez-Roa fired shots and got into a red pickup truck. Police told him to get out of the vehicle, but he stayed in the car and pressed the accelerator, police said, driving toward officers and striking one.

  Officers fired shots toward the truck, and Sanchez-Roa fled the scene. Police later found him near Belmont and Central avenues with gunshot wounds to his body. They rendered aid before Chicago Fire Department paramedics took Sanchez-Roa to Advocate Masonic Medical Center, where he was listed in critical condition, officials said.

Anyone remember how Crimesha would have charged this one? It would have been either a misdemeanor or no charges at all.

Armed Photographer

Must not be very safe, hanging around the least popular politician in Chicago:

• A photographer for Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office was fired this spring after his colleagues reported him for allegedly carrying a firearm in a city-issued vehicle.

  Terence Crayton was found to have violated City Hall policy by bringing a gun “on to City of Chicago property and in a City of Chicago vehicle” in April, according to a copy of his personnel records obtained via a public records request. He was terminated April 24, the same day his co-workers reported him.

  Crayton’s boss, communications director Erin Connelly, wrote in an April 29 memo that two of her staffers alerted her about the firearm and after that, a third employee reported that Crayton had mentioned carrying a firearm to previous mayoral events “at his own personal discretion.” That employee said they reported Crayton to his former boss, Ronnie Reese, but Reese “did not report the incident or issue any report or disciplinary action,” per Connelly’s note.

The Tribune article (sorry about the paywall) uses variation of the word "alleged" a few times, but not a single mention if this photographer was a CCL holder. It still wouldn't prevent his firing nor being placed on the Do Not Hire list, but that would make the gun carrying a bit of a larger issue, correct? A potential UUW offender in close proximity to Conehead?

The media seems to mention it every other time.

Here Come the Lies

One of the shootings last week:

• A late-night shooting in Humboldt Park left one Chicago police officer injured, a male suspect dead, and grieving family members disputing CPD’s account of the incident.

We're told the family is frantically erasing any social media presence of the dead shithead.

• Chicago police’s preliminary investigation suggests that the incident occurred around 10:30 p.m. Thursday when officers attempted to conduct an investigatory stop in an alley in the 4300 block of West North Avenue in Humboldt Park.

  According to police, as the officers approached the suspect, identified by family members as Nathaniel Fejerang, he allegedly fled into a nearby backyard on foot, leading officers on a chase.

  Carrie Garza, a family friend and mother of Nathaniel Fejerang’s girlfriend, told WGN-TV that’s not what occurred. “He was chilling in the yard with the neighbors, so there was no running from police,” she said. “He was already in that yard.”

Not what the body cams and security cameras are showing. It was a pretty active foot chase over a number of addresses:

• CPD said that officers eventually caught up with the suspect, but while working to detain him, a struggle ensued. According to police, Fejerang’s weapon discharged, striking one of the officers in the leg. Police add that following the gunshot, one of the officers opened fire and fatally wounded Fejerang, who was pronounced dead at Mt. Sinai Hospital.

Amazing isn't it? When a suspect struggles, his gun "discharged," implying zero responsibility for the gunfire, but when police shoot someone, it's always "opened fire" at the subject, squarely attaching the action to the result. (this paragraph rewritten for clarification - SCC)

We're told the body cams show an active struggle and the offender actively attempting to draw his weapon, managing to squeeze off a shot that wounded the officer. What the media isn't reporting (and believe us, we're trying to find this footage) is a nearby security camera has vivid video of the offender achieving the "room temperature challenge" almost drawing his weapons and losing that race via a perfect set of head shots. Supposedly, it's better than the Zapruder film.

The family is (of course) positioning themselves for a ghetto lottery payout, and no doubt, Conehead will be knocking on their door to write them a check at some point. But again, sources are telling us that the neighborhood was terrified of this shithead and are actually relieved he's no longer around to terrorize their families. 

Let's see if the media does any of the necessary footwork to find the real story. We're betting no.

Pony Up....Again

Once again, Illinois democrats making it economically impossible for the middle class to remain in the state:

• SPRINGFIELD — After months of negotiating through one of Illinois’ toughest budget seasons in years, state legislators on Friday unveiled a $55.2 billion spending bill that Democratic leaders say bridges an estimated $1 billion shortfall in part through increased gambling and tobacco taxes, along with controversial cuts to immigrant health care.

  The budget proposal — revealed about 30 hours before a key state constitutional deadline to pass it — largely follows the spending priorities laid out earlier this year by Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, coming in about $200 million lower than his February proposal, officials said.

  It includes more than $1 billion in estimated new revenue through heightened “sin taxes” on some casino games, tobacco and vape products, as well as through an amnesty program intended to collect more money from tax delinquents.

We don't know how these morons keep missing the Econ 101 lessons every single year:

• when the "sin" taxes rise, most smart people cut back on their spending;
• the other smart people go shopping somewhere else....like Wisconsin or Indiana or other nearby states.

That $1 billion in "new revenue" is completely imaginary, as in there is zero chance Illinois will see that amount at all. It's a fantasy.

We were especially amazed at this objection from the Latino caucus:

• And it follows through with the governor’s proposed savings of some $400 million by cutting the Health Benefits for Immigrant Adults program — a politically perilous reduction that threatens health care coverage for nearly 33,000 people between the ages of 42 and 64 in Illinois without legal status. [emphasis added]

$400 million just for ILLEGAL ALIEN medical care from Illinois taxpayers who are already on the hook for $158 BILLION and after Trump won a growingshare of the Latino vote.

One bit of good news is that the Bears didn't get any of tax breaks they've been trying to grift. And legislators got a 5% raise as they drove nails in to the coffin that is the worst run state in the midwest.

How Bad Did it Get?

Starting with the Soros-funded DA's and SA's, climbing during the #blm bull$hit and reaching it's peak under Drooling Vegetable's open borders disaster, it got really really bad:

• Assaults on NYC cops have surged a shocking 63% over the past six years — and police officers and experts warned this week that the trend will continue because of a criminal-friendly justice system that fails to “deliver any consequences.”

  There have been 970 assaults on uniformed police officers in the city so far this year, up from the 595 officers attacked at the same point in pre-pandemic 2019, NYPD data show.

  The number of assaulted cops, which includes all city law enforcement officers, is up 57% so far this year compared to the same span three years ago, and climbed 4% compared to the same period last year, the data show.

And that's just blue-state blue-city-$hithole New York, but indicative of a wider problem among all democrat run $hitholes.

Anyone got the numbers for Chicago, LA, St Louis, Minneapolis, Seattle, San Francisco, Denver, New Orleans? We're betting on similar numbers, perhaps not as bad as 63%, but certainly significant increases.

Sergeant Assignments

Where they went:

Good luck boys and girls.

Some Notes

First up, thank you for all the kind words and wishes in our 20 Year post. We appreciate them all.

Second, we aren't going anywhere quite yet. We've been looking and keeping options open, but at the moment, we're stuck here in town for a few reasons. And once those reasons head off  - to their adult lives or to their heavenly rewards, more options open up to ourselves. Obviously, it would be weird blogging from hundreds of miles away, 

Third, as it's been twenty years, we've lost a few passwords, misplaced a few log-in credentials, the blogging platform has gone through a few changes and we're having an issue uploading the twenty-year star into a suitable graphic format. So we're stuck adding a fourth "service bar" at the moment. It's on our list of things to puzzle out, but nearer to the bottom than the top. 

We think that covers it for now. Open post in the meantime as the weather hits the 90s the next two days. Perhaps the first real test of Conehead's violence interrupters actually having something to deal with? 

Another Shooting

This time, instead of shooting at the Officers, he hit one with a pickup truck:

• A man is in critical condition after he was shot by Chicago police during an altercation early Saturday, police said.

  Officers were called to the 3100 block of North Central Avenue around 2:10 a.m. for a reported battery and shots fired at a business on the block, Chicago police said. An employee told officers a man had just fired shots and was getting into a red pickup truck.

  Officers ordered the suspect to get out of the vehicle and he didn’t comply but hit the gas, driving toward the officers and striking one, police said. Officers fired shots at the vehicle, and the suspect fled the scene in the truck.

  Police found the suspect, 28, on the ground outside the vehicle in the 3200 block of North Menard Avenue in Portage Park. He suffered gunshot wounds to the body, and officers rendered aid before the Chicago Fire Department arrived. He was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he was listed in critical condition.

  Police recovered a gun in the suspect’s car.

The article neglects to mention the Officer's condition, but we did hear he was going to be okay. A speedy recovery wished to him. 

And a lengthy painful demise to the offender. 

Effective Steet Clearing Method

You have a crowd of people, refusing to leave, ignoring police orders to disperse, gathering for no apparent purpose....what to do? What to do?

Remember, this is the age we're currently living in:

That was five years ago.

This was yesterday:

• Seven teens were hospitalized after a drive-by shooting during a gathering of people near St. Sabina Church in Auburn Gresham early Saturday, police said.

  Around 1:55 a.m., police were on patrol trying to disperse a large gathering of people in the 1200 block of West 78th Street when someone in a passing vehicle fired shots into the crowd, according to Chicago police.

  The victims were taken to different nearby hospitals in various conditions.

After the ambulances left, the corner was mostly clear.

In the meantime, no word from Phlaky Pfather Pfleger about how gun shops are bringing bloodshed and mayhem to the steps of the mostly peaceful Auburn Gresham neighborhood. 

He must have been shopping at that high end suburban mall where he gets his sweaters? Or perhaps entertaining a dozen or so young altar boys at Home Run Inn Pizza like he did for so many years?

Unaccountable "Peacekeepers"

What happens when you shovel government money out the door to "community groups" with no screening process and zero accountability to authorities?

Read The Contrarian to find out:

• By the time Chicago Police arrived at Grace and Peace Church at 1856 North Leclaire in the North Austin neighborhood to respond to shots fired in the late morning of April 22, the gunmen had fled.

  A neighborhood familiar with threats lurking around every corner and exhausted by random gunfire, as officers begin their investigation into the latest shooting incident in the area, investigators swiftly established two masked men had stepped from a gray Alfa Romero — likely stolen — to target a man who had exited Grace and Peace Church. An institution which shares office space with the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago, it did not take long for the Chicago Police Department to speculate the alleged target was a street outreach worker, a “peacekeeper.”

  As CPD proceeded with their probe and took statements from witnesses, officers surmised the alleged target had left a peacekeeper training session at Grace and Peace. Yet, when officers sought to interview the alleged victim of the shooting, police were unable to locate him, and outreach workers withheld the victim’s name and refused to assist law enforcement as they sought to complete a police report documenting the event. Aggravating matters, police say no one involved with the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago — including officials with the program — were willing to cooperate with CPD.

The Contrarian discovers and reports that numerous members of these groups - besides being criminals - are actively undermining police investigations, intimidating witnesses, coaching others, and gathering information to be funneled to gangs who will no doubt, end up threatening and killing witnesses in the near future.

And remember, these groups are funded by taxpayer dollars to work against actual Police Department protocols. So we're are paying for Police service....and paying for "groups" to hinder Law Enforcement efforts. 

Go read it all. 

 

Cops Injured in Rollover

015 District:

• Two Chicago police officers were injured after they lost control in a crash on Saturday, CPD officials said. The crash happened at about 3:11 a.m. in the 400 block of North Central Avenue near the CTA Green Line station, police said.

  Officers were driving northbound on Central Avenue in a marked vehicle, when the officers lost control. Their vehicle rolled over in the middle of the street, police said.

  Both officers in the vehicle were injured in the crash. A male officer had a hand injury. He was taken to an area hospital and is expected to be okay. A female officer had a leg injury, She was taken to an area hospital in serious condition.

A passing cyclist was also injured by flying debris. No mention of any other vehicle being involved.

We always disliked First Watch. We realize it's a necessity for a 24/7 operation, but it's not and never has been anything that lends itself to a natural sleep cycle. 

Best wishes to the injured for a speedy recovery. 

Relax

A lot of people commenting about the Hoover situation the past few days. Quite a few let their Trump Derangement Syndrome get the better of them, claiming outrage on the part of thousands of crime victims they cared little for in years past or resentment on behalf of cops, few of whom had direct or indirect involvement with Hoover or the g.d's.

We let most of the comments go through unless it got personal or outright wrong. For a little perspective, here's the former Head of the Prisoner Review Board saying Hoover isn't getting out under the current committee:

• “I think it’s all just drama” said attorney Jorge Montes, who was a member of the Illinois Prisoner Review Board for 16 years including six years as chairman.  “The president (Trump)  well knows that Mr. Hoover isn’t going’ anywhere. And that he’s not going to be released; he’s not going to be given freedom."

  Hoover has “to come back and fulfill his Illinois sentence – I think he (President Trump) is trying to impress his friends, Kanye West, and other celebrities who have been pushing for this pardon; but it’s a pyrrhic victory,” contends Montes. “At the end of the day, (Hoover) isn’t going anywhere. “

  Just a couple years ago when Hoover last came up for parole, the state board denied release by a vote of 10 to 1. That single parole board member on Hoover’s side is no longer even on the board. But a majority of the others are, and they voted against Hoover’s release less than three years ago. This time they will be the only people standing between Larry Hoover and freedom. 

We already opined that this was (and remains) a bad look for the president, but not a deal breaker for continued support. Let's be realistic:

• this was concurrent federal sentencing (six life sentences) to go with 200 years of state time for homicide. While we support Hoover dying in prison alone, "overkill" is a legit argument in this case;
• people with institutional or personal knowledge of Hoover and his crimes are minimal and getting more minimal by the day. Again, that doesn't excuse the release, but it factors into the political decision making process;
• Trump isn't facing Illinois voters ever again and the system ensures a Republican won't be competitive in Illinois for the next six to to ten years minimum; 
• the "pardon pen" has been abused for decades - Clinton was selling them for cash, Biden was covering crimes, Obama, Bush, W, Reagan, Carter. Until there's a concerted effort to reform the system, we give exactly zero fucks about someone else manufacturing a political advantage out of it;

In the end, it's going to come down to Fata$$ and what price - if any - he'll pay for going against the Prisoner Review Board, every member who was appointed by him. And those political ads WILL play to a national audience. Funny how national democrats are completely silent on this. 

Politely agree or disagree, use logical arguments and considered opinions. 

Twenty Years....Pension Time?

Aside from that eighteen month hiatus - call it a Leave of Absence - it's been twenty years blogging. 

7,305 days with just shy of 25,000 posts (24,876 we think) and over 1.6 MILLION comments posted.

We don't think the internal counter on blogger is completely accurate as it didn't exist when we started, but it currently shows 98.8 MILLION visits. It probably missed the first couple years (as many as eight), so 100 million pretty much a given, and probably closer to 110 million. 

Where do we even begin to thank everyone? It isn't truly possible to do so in any meaningful way. This was a hobby....a distraction....from what we saw as the slow decline of an honorable and enjoyable profession that granted us so much:

• the opportunity to make a decent middle class living;
• the ability to provide for our spouses and kids;
• a world class city with mediocre sports teams, awesome restaurants, incredible museums;
• lifelong friendships, on the job and off, most of which we maintain at some level;
• the chance to Serve and Protect

Corny? Sure. True? Absolutely. 

But even at the beginning in the 90s, we were told by old timers of clouds on the horizon. We saw the seeds planted, the shortcuts and undercutting coming back to haunt the Department, the political winds constantly shifting direction, the endemic rot within the command structure. 

And we decided to "not go quietly into that good night." So we started a blog. And it was amazing and tedious and horrible and worrisome and God knows how many other adjectives we could come up with. We were inspired by the old SecondCityCopNetwork, run by a sergeant out of 025 who got sued when his name become known and we tried like Hell to avoid that. We only bailed out for those eighteen months so that we could top off our pension without spending it stripped at callback, awaiting a political decision that was already pre-determined and would have cost us tens, maybe a hundred thousand dollars in legal battles.

But it was mostly fun, which is what a hobby should be.

In any event, thank you for twenty years. So much has changed. The kids have all moved on. The Department changed, very little of it for the better. Chicago is in a death spiral along with Illinois and we don't see a good way out of it. We're attending retirement parties almost every other week, but not too many funerals which is good.

God Bless and stay safe. We'll be around.

Not Gunsmoke?

Not sure if we believe this:

• While Chicago-area residents woke up to long-awaited warmer temperatures, it also came with hazy skies and poor air quality due to smoke from Canadian wildfires.

  Thick plumes of smoke have led to a state of emergency in the Canadian province of Manitoba, with additional wildfires in North Dakota and Minnesota contributing to the conditions.

  The smoke led to an air quality alert being issued for all of Wisconsin, including Kenosha County, as particulate matter levels reached a threshold that is "unhealthy for sensitive groups."

  That smoke made its way into the Chicago area on Friday, and is poised to remain visible through the weekend, though the poor air quality that enveloped Wisconsin may not take hold in and around Chicago.

This being the first really really warm weekend, we're prepared to believe that the hazy air is the result of numerous gunshots and not some campfires in Canada.

We're also prepared to believe the wilding will be in full swing and the beaches will end being closed for it being "too hot." 

Another Wanna-be CPS Molester

Just the outer layer of a rotten system:

• A teacher at Adlai Stevenson Elementary has been jailed after prosecutors said he engaged in explicit sexual conversations online with a 13-year-old female student from the school.

  Trevon Jackson, a 27-year-old teacher, allegedly used Google Meet and the chat function on Roblox, a gaming platform, to engage in explicit conversations with a 13-year-old girl in February, prosecutors stated during a recent detention hearing. He is also accused of telling her to delete the messages and deny any interactions if questioned.

Is that building still over on Carroll St with all the teachers under investigation who aren't allowed near a classroom, but are still getting full pay and benefits until they can run out the clock and collect a full pension? CWB can't get any answers to their actual investigation:

• What is Jackson’s status with CPS? If he was removed from a teaching position, when and why did this occur?
• When did the girl’s allegations become known to CPS? When did the IG begin its investigation? What is the status of that investigation?
• What are CPS’s procedures when allegations of sexual misconduct involving a faculty member and a student are reported?
• Did CPS contact CPD about the allegations prior to CPD reaching out to CPS? If so, who was contacted at CPD and when? 

This perv will have to sit there for thirty years or more, at taxpayer expense....unless they actually convict and fire him. 

Officer Wounded

Offender is deceased:

• A suspect is dead and a Chicago police officer is recovering in the hospital after a foot chase ended in a shooting on the West Side overnight.

  A preliminary report by Chicago police indicates that the incident began just after 10:30 p.m. when officers attempted to conduct an investigatory stop on the suspect in an alley in the 4300 block of West North Avenue in Humboldt Park.

  According to police, as the officers approached the suspect, he allegedly fled into a nearby backyard on foot, leading officers on a chase. The officers eventually caught up with the suspect, but while working to detain him, a struggle ensued and officers said that is when the suspect’s weapon went off, hitting one of the officers.

  Following the gunshot, one of the officers opened fire on the suspect.

  Police say the officer involved in the altercation suffered a gunshot wound to his leg and was taken to the hospital in serious condition.

Updates on the Officer's condition are appreciated. 

Prayers for a speedy recovery. 

(this was supposed to go up at 0600 hours, but got mislabeled) 

Another Conehead Milestone

Or maybe that should be "millstone." As in a heavy weight tied around the necks of taxpayers:

• A Wall Street rating agency on Tuesday assigned an A- bond rating to Mayor Brandon Johnson’s upcoming plan to borrow more than $600 million for infrastructure, housing and economic development, but revised the outlook to “negative,” signaling a future downgrade.

  Fitch said the negative outlook is “driven by a lack of substantial progress procuring permanent, high-impact solutions” to a structural budget gap of $1.12 billion — 20% of the corporate fund — that could get worse if Chicago loses even a portion of the $3 billion in federal funding on the chopping block.

  At the least, that could result in “additional dependence on non-recurring solutions, including higher than expected draws on reserves,” the rating agency said. “The city continues to pursue new revenue streams that require state or voter support, which do not appear to be forthcoming in the near term.

Leftists are always fond of saying, "You can't arrest your way out of a high crime environment." They say this because they do everything in their power to hamstring the cops, corrupt the court systems, and shutter the prisons, then act surprised when things get bad.

We'd also point out that anyone with a basic understanding of Econ 101 knows that "You can't tax your way out of a failing economic system." Eventually, everyone who can afford to leave packs up and moves away. Those left behind are the ones least able to absorb the constant tax hikes, increasing fines and losing opportunities every time another company shuts down or relocates.

It's a "doom loop" and Conehead is accelerating it. 

Wheels Turning Already

From a reader:

So this is all going to be on Fata$$. 

He might win votes here in Illinois, but he'll torch his national ambitions.

Life is Cheap

Twelve years:

• A 19-time convicted felon was sentenced on Thursday to 12 years in prison for stabbing an acquaintance to death aboard a Blue Line train in the Loop. Travis Cook, 56, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of second-degree murder with provocation in exchange for the sentence from Judge James Novy.

If only there was a three-strikes law, this guy would have been gone years ago.

As it is, the victim wasn't any great loss to society either. Maybe that came into play.

• Cook must serve 50% of his sentence before being eligible for parole. He has already earned 1,502 days of credit while the case was pending, so he should expect to be released in a little under two years.

Amazing.

Not a Good Look, but....

Surprising news out of DC today:

• President Donald Trump commuted the sentence of Larry Hoover, a former Chicago gang leader serving a life sentence at a supermax prison in Colorado.

  The commutation, first reported by the news website NOTUS, was confirmed by a White House official speaking on the condition of anonymity because it had not been formally announced.

  Hoover was imprisoned in connection with a murder in 1973, and he was convicted of running a criminal enterprise in 1998. He later renounced his criminal past and petitioned for a reduced sentence.

Not what anyone with basic knowledge of what Hoover did to the Chicago ghetto back in the day wants to hear. It's also not a good look for law-and-order types to have to deal with. We confess, we'd be happy paying extra taxes just to see this turd taken out of prison in a pine box.

But after the initial flash of anger / disappointment, we got to thinking. This asshole is 75 years old. He might have cancer, diabetes, and all manner of elderly diseases. The administration might have figured he isn't long for this world, so why should the United States taxpayer foot the bill when the President can stick it to Fata$$ and have Illinois voters pay instead? After all, he's still got 200 years to serve on his state sentences for murder. 

Which also means if anyone is going to let him skate on the murder rap and not the "criminal enterprise" federal charges, it falls squarely in governor Porkulous' lap....and right in the midst of his presidential ambitions. 

Anyone remember how well Mike Dukakis did running for president after his prisoner "furlough" program was revealed? Porky would probably even lose Illinois if he let Hoover out. 

Serial Killer Inbound

Although there are many factors involved, the top three signs that a child may grow up to be a serial killer are as follows:

• bed wetting
• fascination with fire
• harming animals

There might be one growing up on the north side:

• A furious Jacob Pabello spent last Thursday afternoon scraping blood and the innards of two of his beloved pets from off his windshield near his Portage Park home.

  The birds — a chicken named Peep and a duck named Henry — were both killed around 3:50 p.m. May 22 in Pabello’s backyard in the 5200 block of West Newport Avenue, Pabello and Chicago police said.

  Pabello was asleep at the time when he was woken up by banging at his side door.

  “I look in the backyard and all I see is my duck and my chicken, just dead and laid out,” Pabello, 22, told the Sun-Times.

  Pabello rushed outside where his neighbors told him that the innards of the pets had been smeared on his windshield.

Curiously, there is actual footage of the killings from neighbors surveillance cameras, but no actual description in the Slum Times coverage. You'd think that the media would want to keep the people informed as to a budding murderer in the public realm....that's kind of their job, right?

Fortunately, someone sent us a still shot from the surveillance video:

 Hmmmmmm.

Nice Job

The City continues to be broke:

• The Chicago Transit Authority paid more than $1 million to employees to stay at home and not work since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a newly released report.

  The workers were paid for a five-day workweek when they were on the job only three days a week, according to the Illinois Office of Executive Inspector General, which investigates misconduct complaints against CTA employees.

  The 10 workers were in the CTA’s vault unit, which packages, ships and processes currency from the agency’s fare boxes. Money handlers could only do their jobs at a secure facility — and not at home, according to the inspector general’s report.

  While at home, the CTA workers logged more than 31,000 hours of work and were paid a total of $1.12 million from March 2020 through February of this year — including about $300,000 paid after the CTA announced employees should return to the workplace full time in May 2022.

Chicago needs even more stay-at-home jobs. Since they don't want the police fighting crime, perhaps they could all do reports from home?

Cone-Hypocrite

Conehead is so far underwater in the polls that he's resorting to attacking the President....who garnered more black support than any Republican President in living memory:

• Mayor Brandon Johnson appears to be helping himself politically — and playing to the local crowd — by standing toe to toe with President Donald Trump. So it’s no surprise that he’s doing more of it, even if it provokes the president and makes Chicago a bigger target.

  That much was clear Tuesday when Johnson opened his weekly City Hall news conference by highlighting the many ways Trump’s budget cuts and legal actions threaten to undermine everyday life in Chicago.

  “You have a president that is cutting off medicine and food, a president that is working to erase culture. I mean, you can’t make this stuff up. He’s doing it in plain sight,” Johnson told reporters.

Um. Food prices are down. Inflation has petered out. We just had the lowest Memorial Day gas prices in twenty or thirty years He has proposal to reduce the cost of prescription drugs by 50-to-80%.

As for "eras[ing] culture, we have a question:

• where are the Columbus statues you sanctimonious asshole? Or is that culture erasable?

But Slum Times propagandist Fran Spielman just can't wait to slobber all over Conehead's hypocrisy and demonstrate once again how low the media has fallen.

Speed Cameras Going Active

The trial period is over for the sixteen new ones that went up last month:

• Some drivers in Chicago will be walloped with unexpected tickets when 16 new speed cameras go live June 1.

  The new cameras, mostly placed on the North Side, are about to finish a 30-day warning period and a two-week blackout period so notices could be delivered.

  History shows the new cameras will issue significantly more tickets in their first days as drivers adjust their speeding habits. In the past four years, most new cameras hit motorists the hardest in their first couple of months of issuing tickets, according to a Chicago Sun-Times/WBEZ analysis.

Conehead is determined to extract a minimum of $11 million in fines this year alone with a further thirty-four cameras being installed shortly.

There's a list of location at the link up top. 

Seattle PD Fed Up

Seattle has been a disaster since they decided to de-criminalize everything under the sun and allowing panti-fa to run parts of the city as "autonomous" zones. But last weekend really took the cake. 

It seems the city government wouldn't permit some anti-groomer people to protest at a certain park and told them there was only one available venue for said protest - and that location was right in the middle of panti-fa central.

Guess who had to stand between the two groups?

• Violence returned to Seattle this weekend, and that has police fuming about the city's "naïve or deliberate" decision that made it inevitable.

  Seattle police reported at least 23 arrests on Saturday at Cal Anderson Park during MayDayUSA’s "Don’t Mess With Our Kids" rally — and the pro-LGBTQ counter-protest. According to the Seattle Times, "Roughly 500 people attended the prayer rally" and "about as many turned out in protest."

  Police ordered the LGBTQ counter-protesters to "back away from officers and to stop throwing items at officers," but instead, fighting broke out. 

  The Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) said on X Saturday night that they don't have "the proper staffing to handle any more of these demonstrations that turn into mass arrests." They also warned that "this city lacks the political will to allow police to use the necessary tools to hold back criminal mobs to protect life and property."

Remember:

• Seattle has defunded cops to the point that they are TWENTY-FIVE percent understaffed (less than 847 of 1,200 spots);
• they've refused to hold criminals accountable in the courts;
• they denied protestors their first choice of location, steering them to a location that has been Ground Zero for rioters the past five years;
• then they stick the cops in the middle.

And the SPD union released a statement that a further 284 of the 847 remaining officers are eligible to retire tomorrow. Hopefully, they all leave this summer and Seattle burns to the ground. 

Still Lyin' his A$$ Off

Being a liberal gay black homosexual means never having to say you're sorry (click for larger version):

He learned exactly nothing, which is indicative the larger problem among those communities.

Cops Injured

Hopefully, nothing serious:

• Seven people, including two police officers, were taken to the hospital following a crash late Sunday night on Chicago’s West Side.

  According to police, a marked CPD squad car with its lights and sirens on, was traveling southbound in the 400 block of South Cicero Avenue at around 11:15 p.m. when it hit a gray Hyundai sedan that was turning southbound onto Cicero Avenue.

  After the initial crash, the squad car then subsequently hit a black Hyundai SUV traveling northbound on Cicero Avenue. The gray Hyundai subsequently hit a Red GMC SUV traveling northbound on Cicero, according to investigators.

  Police said two officers were taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Five people inside the black Hyundai SUV were taken to Stroger Hospital in good condition.

Of all the injuries we had over the years, the ones that bug us most in retirement are the ones from the car accidents.

Speedy recovery Officers.

The Media is Dead

Kass's latest about the last gasps:

• After it destroyed its own credibility by twisting the truth to protect Joe Biden and hide his senility, can American corporate legacy news media hope for rebirth?

  No.

  It’s dead. Journalism killed itself covering up Joe Biden’s senility so Democrats could maintain power. Humpty Dumpty can’t be put back together again. The media is a feast for crows.

  CNN’s Fake Jake Tapper and the rest of them can shriek and pull out their hair, protesting wildly that they are true journalists interested in “speaking truth to power.”

  That too, is a lie.

  They are not journalists, they are political propagandists. They’re paid whores.

They've been whores for quite a while, yet there are still tiny-brains who think the media is not in the propaganda business. The other day, someone derided our linking to a site called "HotAir.com" because who would ever believe a site like that? Obviously, they never looked at the site nor its authors who have been among the leading voices exposing years of Biden and DC corruption while CNN and every other lame-stream media source lied about Biden's health, Hunter's laptop, COVID origins, vaccine effectiveness, fbi scandals, congressional corruption, etc.

The media has been corrupt for quite a while now. More and more people are waking up finally.

Downtown Danger

The Mole-People are attacking!!!

• A man who allegedly fired a gun upward from a sidewalk-level sewer grate in the Loop on Monday morning has been arrested, Chicago police said.

  The armed man entered a restricted CTA area near the State and Lake Red Line stop at 8:07 a.m. He then fired shots upward through a metal grate toward State Street, police said. No injuries were reported, and the man was arrested at the scene, police said.

  A weapon was recovered, and charges are pending, police said.

We don't know how many people - police or otherwise - are familiar with the vast network of underground tunnels and such associated with the CTA. A lot of it is for venting air pressure from trains moving in closed tubes. A bunch more is for maintenance. There are all sorts of grates in plain sight downtown (think Marilyn Monore's iconic shot) and underground staircases that emerge from hatchways in the sidewalks.

But these areas aren't patrolled or secured in the manner they ought to be. "Out-of-sight, out-of-mind" isn't really a strategy that keeps the public safe.

Another EM Disaster

Yet another request to keep a violent felon (rapist) behind bars denied and someone else suffers the deadly consequences:

• After a woman accused Kemonte Rice of forcing her to have sex at gunpoint last autumn, prosecutors asked Judge Ankur Srivastava to keep the 25-year-old in jail on sexual assault and firearms charges. Instead, [...] Srivastava placed Rice on an ankle monitor and released him on home confinement.

  He was wearing that ankle monitor when, according to prosecutors, his 13-year-old nephew, Tawon Tribble Jr., accidentally shot and killed himself on March 24 after Rice told the boy to unload the weapon and clean the bullets. Still wearing the ankle monitor, Rice left his home before an ambulance arrived, went to his mother’s house, and hid the firearm under a mattress, officials said.

How could this happen? 

We thought that persons under bond were supposed to turn in all their weapons?

Remembering The Fallen

 

 

In memory of those who sacrificed everything for their fellow citizens.

CPS Groomers?

Won't somebody think of the children?!?

• A months-long investigation by NBC 5 Investigates has uncovered allegations of grooming and teacher misconduct dating back more than a decade at one Chicago Public School.

  As part of our reporting, we interviewed 12 women who graduated from Little Village Lawndale High School between 2009 and 2019.  Most of them asked to have their identities be withheld due to the sexual nature of what they allege transpired. Their allegations involve various teachers or administrators - all of whom have resigned or were fired amid allegations of misconduct.

  Most of the sexual encounters, they say, happened after they turned 18 or weeks or months after graduation. But others told us it happened while they were still high school students.

  NBC 5 Investigates filed multiple Freedom of Information Acts requests - collecting hundreds of pages of teacher personnel and disciplinary files. We also reviewed emails, lawsuits, internal investigative records and conducted interviews with former students, teachers and attempted to talk to the accused or their attorneys.

Keep in mind, this is a single high school. There are something like 160 CPS high schools, including Selective Enrollment, Military Academies, Magnet, Special-Ed, IB, Charter, Technical and neighborhood.

According to one detective we talked to, there are - on average - over 400 complaints annually involving CPS teachers at all levels. Some don't pan out. Many do. 

We've also heard of tens of dozens of teachers being paid who aren't allowed anywhere near a classroom due to allegations. It dwarfs the allegations leveled against the Archdiocese in years past, but for some reason, never attracts the same attention.  So why has NBC gotten the green light to report this?

Where's Porkulous?

Someone sent us a bunch of these:

 We had room for an extra post tonight.