Autocrat Rahm's latest fiasco.

Rahm's police board. What kind of so-called community "leaders" would even go along with this charade? 

A friend of mine in Costa Rica calls this morning and asks, "How's Rahm doing? Any better?"

No, I respond. His ratings are lower than snail poop, especially in the black community which helped elect him. Everything he touches seems to turn to shit and even best friends like the Clintons won't get near him. No politician running in Chicago, will. He's toxic for Democrats and for Chicago's image (and credit rating).

Case in point: In the wake of the city' latest police scandals, involving cop killings and cover-ups at the top, the mayor does an end run around his own police board which just carried out an extensive national search for a new superintendent. To placate supposedly demoralized (video-taped) Chicago cops and take the wind out of the sails of Black Caucus leader and potential rival Ald. Rod Sawyer,  Rahm rushed to name CPD insider Eddie Johnson as interim chief, even though Johnson never even applied for the position and wasn't on the board's short list.

Sawyer and the Caucus had been demanding input into the selection, BEFORE it was made. So had the Hispanic Caucus. But collaboration isn't in autocrat Rahm's playbook. He anticipates dissent and then moves to silence or co-opt it.

His pals at the Sun-Times even ran an editorial, telling the Black Caucus to "butt out".

My friend in shock says: "No way!"

Way...

Rahm tells Eddie Johnson what to say. 

Rahm views his hand-picked police board (the same for his hand-picked school board) for what it is, a gaggle of bobble-headers who serve at his pleasure.

Now he's going to make the board do another pretend national search, spending lots of taxpayer money, only to come up with Johnson as their top choice. What kind of so-called community "leaders" would even go along with this charade? The question answers itself.

The topper: Johnson does his first TV interview and tells CBS 2’s Derrick Blakley that he’s never witnessed police wrongdoing first hand, not once in 27 years. Oops, wrong answer. Didn't Rahm's people prep him? Did they just leave him twisting in the wind? What?

“I’ve actually never encountered police misconduct, cause you got to understand, officers that commit misconduct don’t do it in front of people that they think are going to hold them accountable for it,” Johnson said. “Now that I’m sitting in this chair, if I come across it, I will deal with it accordingly.” 

As S-T's Mary Mitchell puts it: "Nothing against Eddie Johnson, but he’s being tarnished by City Hall’s shenanigans." And so is the board.

All these shenanigans and political maneuverings have little to do with solving the epidemic of gun violence in the city now known internationally as Chiraq since Rahm took over. So long as Rahm and city leaders continue to see it as mainly a policing issue, nothing will be done to change the fundamentals -- poverty, racism, black and Latino youth joblessness, gun flow,  school closings, deterioration of city services, etc...

Gov. Rauner's budget hostage-taking is bound to make things worse. Much worse.

Policing and thousands of stop-and-frisks can't prevent crime and violence. In fact, police misconduct is too often the cause. Police at their best can only try and contain it, usually by arresting and jailing, mostly young black men after the fact.

Then my friend asks, what about the schools?

Watch the news on Friday, April 1st, I tell him. No joke.

What about the Bulls?, he asks.

I'm late. Gotta run.

I hang up.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Verizon workers prepare for strike while talks continue.

Carol Marin

As the City Council Finance committee meets on Monday to denounce Spike Lee’s movie, “Chirac,” for making Chicago look bad, it might be useful to consider why, like Iraq, some of our neighborhoods resemble failed states. No matter what name we call them.  -- Willie Lloyd, King of Kings Has Died

Verizon spokesman Richard Young on prepping scabs

“We have done extensive training to prepare for this day, including the training of thousands of nonunion employees,” he said, adding that the company can also reroute calls to call centers not affected by the strike, and resolve some problems remotely. -- Guardian

Rebecca Klein

“In the next three years I think [Kansas] we'll have maybe the worst teacher shortage in the country -- I think most of that is self-inflicted.” -- Huffington Post

James Baldwin (We celebrated his 91st birthday Sunday)

Now the crucial paradox which confronts us here is that the whole process of education occurs within a social framework and is designed to perpetuate the aims of society.  Thus, for example, the boys and girls who were born during the era of the Third Reich, when educated to the purposes of the Third Reich, became barbarians.  The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. -- A Talk to Teachers (1963)

Breaking News! Chris Cristie announces he is done with punching teachers! He will announce that he will kick nurses in the shins today.

— Carol Burris (@carolburris) August 3, 2015

Chiraq Blues

Antonio Brown collapses after hearing his 7-year-old son, Amari was killed.

It was Rahm Emanuel at his worst yesterday, artlessly ducking any and all responsibility for the city's pandemic gun violence, calling for more and longer prison sentences, and once again blaming black parents for the shooting deaths of their own children.

Last weekend's body count included at least 10 dead and 55 wounded from 3 p.m. Thursday until just before dawn Monday. Mostly all of the victims were young, in their late teens or 20s including 7-year-old Amari Brown, struck by a bullet on the way home from watching fireworks.

Rahm had a couple of valid points:
There are too many guns in the hands of way too many children on the streets of Chiraq. But even there he managed to duck any responsibility for his role as White House Chief of Staff in icing any attempts at national anti-gun legislation, even telling A.G. Eric Holder to "shut the fuck up" on gun control. Yes, the easy availability of guns is a major factor, especially with bordering Tea-Party led, gun-crazy states like Indiana and Wisconsin nearby, making any local Chicago gun-control laws useless.

Rahm has another point:

It's not about police. They're doing hard work, doing the job they need." 

Yes, it's not mainly a policing problem. The cops generally come into play after the shooting is done.

But the Mayor used that point to slam community residents, including Amari's father, Antonio Brown, for "not cooperating" with the cops.

No doubt, there's a lack of trust, especially in the black community, where police doing "hard work" can translate into a quarter million stop-and-frisks a year ago and likely the same this summer.

But Rahm saved the worst for last yesterday, doing his best Bill Cosby moralizing and parent blaming.

"The idea that you're taking a 7-year-old out at midnight, or near midnight, at some point the rest of us say that's a 7-year-old out at midnight, or near, 11:55. Near midnight." 

It was that comment that drew the strongest community reaction.

"Stunning that he is asking for cooperation from the father but nevertheless in the same voice is indicting him and basically saying he is the cause of his son's death," said Rev. Ira Acree, pastor of Greater St. John Bible Church.

And what about the other 65 shooting victims. All due to parents letting their children stay up late to watch July 4the fireworks?

How about at least some accountability, not only for black and Latino youth unemployment, but for the free flow of guns, for isolated and blighted neighborhoods, shuttered schools, clinics and after-school programs?

Final point... Mr. Mayor,  before pointing a finger at other parents, please tell us what your son doing out unsupervised at 10:30 p.m. on the 4200 block of North Hermitage Ave. talking on his iphone the night he was supposedly mugged?