The good and the bad, emphasis on Trib and Sun-Times
Interim Police Supt. Eddie Johnson said if there’s wrongdoing, “I will deal with it accordingly.”
Accordingly? What does that mean? He won’t just deal with it? What’s going on here?
Sheesh.
Source: New Top Cop’s Fiancee Under Investigation For Alleged Police Exam Cheating
In his unsuccessful 2014 bid for re-election, then-Gov. Pat Quinn vowed that sweeping changes had cleaned up an unwieldy anti-violence program, but new findings show that widespread problems persisted for two years longer than previously known.
The findings emerged in a “confidential draft” the Tribune obtained of a new, highly critical audit — nearing release — that focuses on a high-profile issue in the last gubernatorial election.
According to the draft, the state auditor general’s office found that bread-and-butter grant protocol was abandoned, leading to sketchy oversight riddled with missing documentation, questionable spending, unclear results and unspent money yet to be returned to state coffers. In one case, auditors discovered, a private agency filed for bankruptcy less than four months after getting more than $583,000 in state money.
Which pretty well sums up political life in a Blue State.
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See: Illinois Blues: How the Ruling Party Talks to Voters. As e-book, $1.49, paperback $5 at Lulu Books.
Won by governor and sec. of state of Texas, Republican conservatives both, plus consider this:
What strikes us about the case, though, is the narrowness of the Supreme Court’s ruling — and, indeed, the prospect that the court may have opened a vast national struggle in respect of the drawing of election districts.
What it ruled is that Texas was within its rights to apportion its election districts according to the total population of each district. What it didn’t do is require that the Lone Star State do so, which struck an uncharacteristic note of humility for the Nine.
You may do this vs. you must. Big difference.
He’s countercultural when you get down to it.
Young Trump followers say such backlash against minority opinion, in a realm where liberal culture dominates, is part of what draws them to the cause.
“Today, there is a movement to silence differing views,” Lopez says. He argues that the increasingly common practice of students turning to “safe spaces” is really about sheltering students from ideas with which they disagree.
“That’s not what America is about,” he says. “Mr. Trump, he’s single-handedly bringing back freedom of speech. He’s enabled students to voice whatever we believe in a thoughtful way.”
I’m with ’em. If knowing him by his enemies alone. The jerks opposing him look so bad. You know what else? He’s quirky.
. . . at his conference on nuclear issues, where he also stamped his trademark understanding of Islamic terrorism on a censored video :
One notable incident at the conference was the apparent censuring [sic] of a video released on YouTube and the White House website in which French President Hollande identified “Islamic terrorism” specifically as the root of the violence in the Middle East.
That video was scrubbed and replaced with another in which the French leader’s words are silences [sic]. So far, Obama has not identified “Islamic terrorism” as the source of many ills and violence in the war torn region.
Well, he ridiculously refuses to use the expression. But he knows what’s what, doesn’t he?
Consider the victim, Utah says.
Utah has become the first state to enact a unique new law requiring that abortion clinics give anesthesia to unborn babies at 20 weeks or later before they are
Source: Utah Governor Signs Bill to Require Anesthesia Before Abortion Because Baby Can Feel Intense Pain
Thing is, he’s “a New York hero in those working-class boroughs.”
Hey, in working-class boroughs and neighborhoods all over the land. I heard it from my Chicago precinct door-knocker: She’s all in for local Dems, but presidentially speaking, forget about it.
All it took was a plain-talking son of a b—h to win loyalty of people sick of parsers and articulators from the educated class. He makes them look so phony.
Source: Trump May Win New York, DESTROY Dems White House Hopes – Conservative Intelligence Briefing
Asked about it, he knows what to say: “McCarthyism” and “witchhunt.”
Source: Chicago Teachers Union VP Busted Participating in Midwest Marxism Conference – Breitbart
Usually it’s children first. This time not so much.
“I would submit that we have an obligation to side with the majority,” CTU vice president Jesse Sharkey said on a conference call with members before last week’s delegate vote.
“If you personally disagree, you have to stick with them … it’s something we all have to do together.”
I’d say he means “stick it to them.”
Mihalopoulos of Sun-Times back at it about the charter network with the mostest clout — an Illinois Blues moment.
Even as they ran a network of charter schools for thousands of students in low-income neighborhoods across Chicago, United Neighborhood Organization leader Juan Rangel and other UNO officials were piling up big bills at fancy restaurants and for travel on the taxpayers’ dime, records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show.
The records:
Despite being almost entirely government-funded, UNO leaders fought to keep the spending records secret, arguing that they didn’t have to comply with the state’s Freedom of Information Act because UNO is a private organization.
But they ultimately released the records in a recent legal settlement with the Sun-Times.
It’s an Illinois Blues moment in that UNO came up in a July, 2013 town hall meeting in Oak Park. Sen. Don Harmon was asked about UNO.
. . . with reference to a sizeable public-money grant for a charter school in Galewood in 2009. There had been much spending on a post-announcement celebration — all of it widely reported, especially in detailed Sun-Times accounts.
Harmon responded carefully: “I have no knowledge of money being wasted.” This in the face of major news stories, suspension of UNO funding, buck stopping at UNO’s top man (he was to resign later), and the rest, about which he apparently had not felt prompted to inquire.
He pleaded ignorance, said no more. No one questioned him further on the point.
It’s reported in my new book Illinois Blues: How the Ruling Party Talks to Voters. The beat goes on.
Source: THE WATCHDOGS: UNO’s secret spending spree | Chicago Sun-Times
Blithe Spirit 