Author: jbosco

  • Robber Armed with 2-by-4 on West Side (Rahm demands lumber registry)

    A police alert warns Lawndale residents about a robber who threatens and beats his victims with a 2-by-4.  …

    The robber was described as a black man with a dark complexion, between 5-foot-9 and 5-foot-11, weighing 150 to 160 pounds. He was last seen wearing a dark-colored baseball hat and a dark top, police said.via chicagotribune.com.

    Rahm immediately called for a lumber registry.  “What we need are common sense lumber laws to make sure these sorts of crimes don’t happen again.” the Mayor said at an unrelated press conference.  He followed-up saying, “No one is trying to ban lumber. That’s extremist language by the extremist National Lumber Association.”

  • Emanuel Plans Changes to City’s Gun Law

    A few days ago…

    Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants to rewrite Chicago’s firearm ordinance in response to a ruling by a federal judge who struck down a section of the city’s law he called vague and unconstitutional.  …

    Last week, U.S. District Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan called that regulation “indiscriminate and arbitrary.””There is something incongruent about a nonviolent person, who is not a felon but who is convicted of a misdemeanor offense of simple possession of a firearm, being forever barred from exercising his constitutional right to defend himself in his own home in Chicago against felons or violent criminals,” Der-Yeghiayan wrote.  …

    Having strong gun laws is part of the city’s overall approach to stemming violent crime, Emanuel said at an unrelated news conference.”Sensible, smart, targeted gun laws keep guns out of the hands of gangbangers and drug dealers,” Emanuel said, calling such laws “key to a strategy of reducing violence.”

    via chicagotribune.com.

    How’s that again Rahm?  You have the nation’s most restrictive gun law.  It’s failing miserably by any standard.  You have failed to ‘keep guns out of the hands of gangbangers and drug dealers.’  You have also failed to create any ‘strategy of reducing violence.’

    Rahm:  You should start by enforcing the existing state and federal laws already on the books.  First show that they are somehow inadequate before creating a whole new system of bureaucracy to harass law abiding citizens.

    Get a real Cook County State’s Attorney.  Get a real Illinois Attorney General.  If these prosecutors would charge crimes already on the books (e.g. felons with guns do federal time) you would not need any new laws to lock-up gangbangers and drug dealers.

  • Fighting Crime The Chicago Way!

    CeaseFire Illinois, a group that works against violence, is being recruited by the city of Chicago as part of a pilot program to help reduce crime in two police districts, one on the West Side and the other on the South Side.  …

    The city will give the group a one-year grant for $1 million to hire 40 “interrupters” who will mediate conflicts in the Ogden and Grand Crossing districts, where gun violence has spiked.  …

    This is the first time CeaseFire has received funding from the City of Chicago. Previously, it was largely funded through state and county sources.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    So says the Tribune.  The SunTimes story is similar.  Both FAIL to mention what CeaseFire really is… the public relations arm of coordinated Chicago street gangs.

    In this city known for rampant corruption and cronyism the politicians know what to do with the money they extort from taxpayers! Whenever possible taxes here are only used to support thieves, thugs and liars.  …

    Chicago’s politicians have agreed to hand over $1,000,000.00 to a group calling themselves, “Cease Fire”. They were founded simply to take city tax money and pretend they’re working on violence reduction. Of course Cease Fire will be working in “secret negations” to make Chicago safer. I’m sure the time and money will be easy to audit that way.

    Cease Fire is a group of, not so retired ghetto gangsters with significant rap sheets that are supposed to convince their pals not to kill each other, or innocent civilians.

    via CRIME, GUNS, AND VIDEOTAPE.

    This is insanity.  The gang bangers are going to completely fabricate the number of “interruptions” in violence.  McCarthy will permit it because it creates the appearance that the money was well spent.

    Shouldn’t the city counsel have to weigh-in on this sort of spending?  Where’s the Alderman (and Aldermen) stand on this?

  • Chicago’s Suburbs Corrupt Too

    A former Chicago alderman is pushing for the creation of a suburban inspector general’s office to thwart corruption in the 1,200-plus government agencies spread throughout the suburban landscape.

    In a report released Monday, Dick Simpson, a former alderman and current head of the University of Illinois at Chicago’s political science department, cited more than 100 cases over the past three decades involving suburban officials convicted of corruption.

    via DailyHerald.com.

    The article provides a couple of examples of corrupt behavior by suburban pols.  Nothing surprising; and missing some of the bigger players (Mayors Blaze & Stephens.)

    What’s missing from the article, and from the report apparently, is any mention of the dynamic duo of legal prosecution Ms. Anita Alvarez and Ms. Lisa Madigan.  Both of these positions have investigation divisions.  Each is certainly capable of putting corrupt politicians in jail.

    That Anita and Lisa simply refuse to protect the citizens from corrupt politicians means they both need to be replaced.

  • Obama Campaign Shuts Down Website

    Hagmann, CEO of Hagmann Investigative Services, Inc., a private investigative agency serving a roster of Fortune 500 clients, was given 48 hours by GoDaddy to find a new home for his website before it was deleted.

    Hagmann was told the reason for the shut down was because the website featured “morally objectionable” material. After GoDaddy refused to identify the complainant, only saying that it was not “any official government agency,” further investigation by Hagmann revealed that the order came from a group tied to Obama campaign headquarters.

    Speaking with the chief investigator in the GoDaddy Abuse division, Hagmann discovered, “Ultimately it was found that the complaint originated ostensibly with a group associated with the campaign to re-elect Barack Hussein Obama.”

    Turning to his contacts within government, Hagmann then spoke with another source who confirmed that the ‘Obama Truth Team’ was responsible for the shut down order.

    “I’m laying this right on the doorstep of the Obama Truth Team,” said Hagmann.

    via Infowars.

    Obviously disturbing.

  • Highest Gun Sales States

    The Daily Beast has some interesting data on which states have the highest rate of gun sales per 100k folks.

    It’s safe to say that Illinois is not on the list.

  • Illinois lags in science, tech, engineering, math grads

    Bad News:

    Illinois is producing fewer graduates with degrees in science, technology, engineering and math than the national average, according to the June release of the Illinois Innovation Index. …

    According to the Illinois Innovation Index, the number of STEM degrees granted to Illinois graduates hit a high-water mark of 20,248 in 2003 before dropping through 2007. The number rose by nearly 5 percent between 2009 and 2010, the most recent year for which data are available. But the 2010 number, 18,400, is well below the 2003 peak. Furthermore, STEM degrees represented 11 percent of all 2010 Illinois degrees, lower than the national average of 14 percent.

    via Chicago Tribune.com.

    This is a problem.

    Illinois generally and Chicago specifically cannot grow out of debt without high tech jobs. Our manufacturing businesses are dying and the city’s not helping. We live in a global economy and on the manufacturing front Chicago’s losing.

    Tech is the future. If you don’t have tech, you’re future’s not very bright. It’s really just that simple.

    CTU looks like it’s going to strike CPS because teachers making $80,000+ for 189 days of work say it’s not enough. I’d be happy to give the teachers more money… when Illinois’ in first place nationally for math and science scores.

     

  • Google and the Merchandise Mart

    Good News!!

    Crain’s Chicago Business reports: Google is in talks to lease some 500,000 square feet in the Merchandise Mart, sources say.  The deal would include a rooftop deck.  The Internet search giant, looking to move employees from the Libertyville headquarters of its recently acquired Motorola Mobility, has an office for tech workers near the Mart.

    via Chicago Tribune.com.

    Chicago is ripe for a tech explosion.  Of course we have a serious debt problem in this city, and state.  That will make some companies too scarred to move/expand here.  But if we can get that under control Chicago can become a major player in the tech space.

    If Rahm and Quinn can get our pension issues under control companies will relocate here from California.  Our taxes in Illinois are way too high and complicated — a/k/a suck — but the situation is far worse in California.  It’s freakishly expensive to do business there.

    This could just be the beginning of hope.  Now we just need to fix race relations, balance the budget, improve our schools, hire more police, find a State’s Attorney who will actually ask that criminals be placed in prison, find an Attorney General who’s not related to the most corrupt politician in the state, and fix an aging infrastructure.

  • Chicago’s Unreported Race War

    We’ve gone national!

    According to a statement in the Chicago Tribune, reporting on the race of individuals involved in news events, such as mobs attacking, robbing and vandalizing, is irrelevant.

    A news anchor at the ABC affiliate in Chicago goes even further: Anyone who reads or writes about the epidemic of racial violence in Chicago is an “idiot” who engages in “meaningless … race baiting,” says Ravi Baichwal.

    City officials and the media might be the only two places left where people still deny Chicago is under assault from more than 50 episodes of black mobs attacking, beating, robbing and vandalizing over the last three years in and around downtown. Many of them are on display at YouTube.

    via NWD.

    We as a society have to figure out how to handle this.  It’s not a political issue — it’s a fabric of society and a media issue.

    The facts are pretty clear:

    • There have been a great number of crimes committed by mobs of black youths in the greater downtown area.
    • These sorts of crimes have been going on for years in other parts of the city and the media turned a blind eye to it.

    As to the first part, we know damn well that if a band of pick-up truck driving white dudes wearing confederate flag bandanas sent a group of old black businessmen to the hospital with broken bones the media would be all over it.  There would be marches, and rallies, and protests in every part of the city.  The double standard when blacks commit crime on whites is obvious.

    The media has a responsibility to its consumers/customers to disclose the race of the perpetrators of these crimes so that others can protect themselves.  Especially ludicrous are the stories devoid of any details on race yet end with, “police are seeking anyone with information to come forward.”  No one is well served by removing race from articles about crime.

    This is the Tribune, SunTimes, and local ABC (and all the others) just pandering to the liberal overlords that run this place.  They don’t want this information getting out.  And the media needs access to local politicians in order to make its job easier.  So media doesn’t want to make politicians angry; lest they be cut off and have to actually work for a living.  Most media in this town is not journalism, it’s public relations.

    That mob thuggery has been going on for years doesn’t help the media’s case to withhold race from news stories.  The black community should rightfully be upset with local media outlets about covering these events when they occur on tony Michigan Ave but ignoring similar crimes in Englewood & West Garfield Park.

    The vast majority of crime in the City is black-on-black crime.  That’s where we need to focus more police attention.  We need black children to grow up and know that they can live in a crime free neighborhood.  That dealing drugs is not normal.  That knowing ten people who’ve been shot is not normal.  That burying a brother or sister is not normal.

    You cannot reclaim Michigan Ave and make it “safe” when bullets are flying 5 miles to the west and no one says a thing.

    Of course, the stunning lack of leadership from Jesse Jackson, Fr. Pfleger, Mary Mitchel, and the liberal choir of media voices is disappointing as well.

  • Illinois’ Pensions are the Worst

    A new report being issued today — see the bottom of this post — from the Pew Center on the States says that Illinois once again ranks 50th of the 50 states in assets relative to liabilities.

    But while Illinois’ absolute position did not sink — a mathematical impossibility — its relative position did erode, as the shortfall in terms of dollars here worsened faster than it did on average in other, better-positioned states.  …

    Illinois “is on an unsustainable course,” said David Draine, the chief author of the report by the Washington, D.C.-based public policy and research group.  …

    According to the report, Illinois as of the end of fiscal 2010, the latest year for which national figures are available, ranked dead last of the 50 states, having on hand only 45 percent of the assets needed to pay $139 billion in accrued pension liabilities.

    The report concerns the state’s five retirement funds, covering state workers, teachers who work outside of Chicago, professors in the University of Illinois system, judges and members of the General Assembly.

    The total unfunded liability as of the end of fiscal 2010 — that was June 30, 2010 — was $75.73 billion, somewhat less than the current $83 billion figure cited earlier this year by the Legislature’s economic watchdog unit.

    via Crain’s Chicago Business.

    Public sector unions need to understand the reality.  Retirees are in serious danger of not getting paid what they are owed.  Default is becoming a more and more real possibility.

    Heck!  These numbers don’t even include the Chicago Teacher’s Union.  So the situation is even worse.