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  • Cook County Keeps Crazy Judge

    A Democratic Party-backed judge who won re-election in November while facing battery charges was found not guilty Monday — by reason of insanity.  …

    Bar associations have recommended since 2000 that Brim be tossed from her $182,000-a-year job, but voters have kept returning her to the bench. Experts have said Brim’s case highlights the difficulty of unseating a judge up for retention in Cook County.  …

    Testimony revealed that Brim has been hospitalized five times after suffering mental breakdowns in the 18 years since she was first elected. In 2004, Brim was carried off the bench at a suburban courthouse after she froze while addressing her courtroom before starting the day, standing mute until someone called paramedics, her attorney said.Brim, 54, was diagnosed years ago with a bipolar type of schizoaffective disorder, which means she experiences delusions and hallucinations, psychiatrist Mathew Markos testified. The symptoms can be kept in check with medication, he testified.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    Really?

    “The symptoms can be kept in check with medication….”  Well history suggests that either the medication doesn’t work on her or she doesn’t take her meds as prescribed.  Either way she doesn’t belong on the bench.

    It’s time for the Chief Judge to step in and remove her from the bench.

  • Lincoln Quote

    You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
    You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
    You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
    You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
    You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
    You cannot build character and courage by taking
    away people’s initiative     and independence.
    You cannot help people permanently by doing for them what
    they could and should do for themselves.

    — Abraham Lincoln

    Amen.

  • UNO Charter Schools Engaging in Graft & Corruption

    Kudos for the Sun-Times for shedding light on this.

    Business as usual.  The friends of the friends get rich on the backs of the taxpayer.

  • Crain’s Propaganda on Illinois vs. Indiana

    My comment on a brainless story:

    Since when is Crain’s the new PR mouthpiece for Quinn and Rahm?

    Except for the graphic this piece is nearly 100% opinion. So Indiana spent $300k on a campaign and got 20 or so companies to move. Those companies may provide several millions worth of tax base; yielding a huge ROI for IN. But the author just sweeps that under the rug.

    Yes, IN does not have the “white collar” talent pool that Chicago has. But it will develop it over time. Success is a long term game; not a lottery ticket.

    The Illinois Machine has driven us to the edge of insolvency. Rahm appears to have a plan. Quinn is a headless chicken. But sooner or later the taxpayers are going to get a tax bill the likes of which have never been scene before. Then we’ll see how many more people decide to move East and North.

    via Crain’s Chicago Business.

  • Feds investigating finances of former Ald. Sandi Jackson: sources – Chicago Sun-Times

    A federal financial probe of the once-politically powerful Jesse and Sandi Jackson has evolved into two separate investigations, with federal authorities taking an independent look at former Ald. Sandi Jackson, sources close to the probe told the Chicago Sun-Times.Included in the scrutiny of Sandi Jackson, who resigned from her 7th Ward aldermanic position last month, is her access and use of her husband’s congressional campaign money, including credit card charges, as well as the movement of money from one account to another, sources say.

    via Chicago Sun-Times.

    Anyone surprised?

    Of course not.

    Jesse Jr. and Sandi are getting exactly what they deserve.  For years they made themselves wealthy on the backs of the people they were suppose to serve.  They are the worst kind of people.

    Maybe someday some enterprising prosecutor will open the books on the old man.  He’s not done a single good thing for the black community in 30 years.

    Good riddance.

  • Obama Admin Claims it can Kill Americans

    Think about this for just a second.

    A confidential Justice Department memo concludes that the U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be “senior operational leaders” of al-Qaida or “an associated force” — even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S.

    via NBC News.

    It’s official.  Well, as official as NBC News.  Your government thinks that it has the right to murder you without any criminal (or any judicial) proceeding whatsoever.

    What the #%&%!

    So what they’re saying here is that the executive branch of the government can unilaterally decide without any hearing in any court, without any authorization from congress, without a jury of peers, without any due process, the Obama administration can label someone, anyone, for death.

    That there is not rebellion to this means that America has lost her soul.

    We’re doomed.

  • Immigrant Knows More About US than Most Citizens

    Kudos to this guy!!

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY2JR92Scmk]

  • Gun Laws and Common Sense

    Karl Marx summed up Communism as “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” This is a good, pithy saying, which, in practice, has succeeded in bringing, upon those under its sway, misery, poverty, rape, torture, slavery, and death.

    For the saying implies but does not name the effective agency of its supposed utopia. The agency is called “The State,” and the motto, fleshed out, for the benefit of the easily confused must read “The State will take from each according to his ability: the State will give to each according to his needs.” “Needs and abilities” are, of course, subjective. So the operative statement may be reduced to “the State shall take, the State shall give.”via The Daily Beast.

    This is an amazing piece.  If you have not read you should.

    Two more quotes:

    Rule by bureaucrats and functionaries is an example of the first part of the Marxist equation: that the Government shall determine the individual’s abilities.

    As rules by the Government are one-size-fits-all, any governmental determination of an individual’s abilities must be based on a bureaucratic assessment of the lowest possible denominator.

    and…

    The Left loves a phantom statistic that a firearm in the hands of a citizen is X times more likely to cause accidental damage than to be used in the prevention of crime, but what is there about criminals that ensures that their gun use is accident-free? If, indeed, a firearm were more dangerous to its possessors than to potential aggressors, would it not make sense for the government to arm all criminals, and let them accidentally shoot themselves? Is this absurd? Yes, and yet the government, of course, is arming criminals.

    Violence by firearms is most prevalent in big cities with the strictest gun laws. In Chicago and Washington, D.C., for example, it is only the criminals who have guns, the law-abiding populace having been disarmed, and so crime runs riot.

    I wish I wrote that first paragraph there.

    Thank you David Mamet.

  • Illinois’ Obnoxious Cell Phones Taxes

    Illinois was fifth in a ranking of extra wireless costs, the Tax Foundation said, with the user paying an average of about 21.8 percent in additional federal, state and local taxes and fees. Only callers in Nebraska, Washington, New York and Florida pay more.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    I was just talking to someone about this the other day.  Ya know, if you move your “address” out of state you can avoid some of these fees.  With paperless billing does it really matter where the company sends (or doesn’t send) your bill?

    I’m sure people who live in Indiana or Wisconsin burn plenty of minutes across the border.  Seems like a reasonably solution to me.

    No?

  • Quinn Balks at Illinois’ Fresh Interest Rate

    Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration delayed Wednesday’s planned sale of $500 million in construction bonds, saying a recent credit downgrade because of inaction on government worker pension reform left the market “unsettled.”

    The decision was made after officials with the governor’s budget office spoke with potential bidders who indicated they would seek interest rates higher than what the state wanted to pay.”

    In a bond market when there is uncertainly, you pay an extra premium, which we decided was imprudent to pay,” said John Sinsheimer, director of capital markets for the state. “So we pulled them, and will bring the back at a future date when everything has settled down.”

    via Chicago Tribune.

    Pathetic.

    The first thing to do when you’re in a hole is stop digging.  Quinn has the right idea… now may not be the best time to issue more bonds.  But because the finances are so bad pretty soon he will not have a choice.  More debt — at higher interest rates — is our future.

    More troubling however is note how the Gov’s office is not waiting until they actually fix anything.  He’s not going to defuse the pension time-bomb.  He and The Machine are not going to balance the budget or develop a long term spending plan to correct the state’s deficit.  The plan is to merely wait until “everything has settled down.”

    We deserve so much better than that.

    So alas… people don’t like to hear bad news and will continue to vote for Santa Claus.  We need not be real.  Just keep voting for the guy who tells you it’s somebody else’s problem.

    We’re so screwed.