What does F.O.P. stand for?

“We’re in America, goddamn it." -- FOP Lodge #7 Prez John Catanzara

Chicago's Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) has no business calling itself a union. As a matter of fact, they don't. Early FOP founders decided to not use the term "union" because of the anti-union sentiment of the time. 

FOP's fascist potentate John Catanzara is nothing but a Trump-loving racist petty criminal who's been outspoken in defense of the Jan. 6th MAGA Capitol rioters and who recently was suspended from the CPD and charged with filing false police reports. 

Cantazara has from the start, been on a crusade against the city's two top Black female elected officials, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and States Attorney Kim Foxx over their attempts to implement federal court-mandated police reform.

Lightfoot unfortunately has been forced to negotiate with the FOP on issues of abusive, racist, and violent police behavior which shouldn't be a matter of collective bargaining at all. 

For more on that, see my brother Fred's Sun-Times commentary, "I’m a union guy, and I oppose police union contracts that cover up abuse."

But as we enter the next mayoral campaign season, the FOP has refocused its right-wing wedge-issue polemics to target the mayor's vaccine mandate for all city employees. Yesterday, Cantanzara laid bare his thuggy nature by launching this anti-mayor, anti-vax tirade. 

“We’re in America, goddamn it. We don’t want to be forced to do anything. Period. This ain’t Nazi f***ing Germany, [where they say], ‘Step into the f***ing showers. The pills won’t hurt you.’ What the f***?” he told the newspaper. [Sun-Times]

This trash needs no rebuttal. The Mayor's response (below) is adequate. My blog feels dirty as it is for even printing it. 

After FOP president John Catanzara compared the vaccine mandate for city employees to Nazi Germany, the mayor called his comments “offensive” and said he needs “serious psychotherapy.” https://t.co/hKJAcbZL84

— Chicago Sun-Times (@Suntimes) August 26, 2021

At times I've referred to the FOP as Fascists on Patrol. I'm switching now to Friends of Pandemic. 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

 

Debra Haaland, the next Sec. of the Interior

“I’ll be fierce for all of us, for our planet, and all of our protected land,” said Haaland in her acceptance speech. “This moment is profound when we consider the fact that a former secretary of the interior once proclaimed it his goal to, quote, ‘civilize or exterminate’ us. I’m a living testament to the failure of that horrific ideology.” -- Guardian

'Not Tuskegee...'

“This ain’t that, I’ll say it again, this ain’t that,” Cook County Commissioner Dennis Deer (2nd) said. “I want to get the message across that this is not Tuskegee; this is about you and about your children and about your generation.” -- Sun-Times

Kim Foxx

 “If we recognize substance abuse disorder as a health condition, then we must modify our justice system to treat it as such,” she said. “Criminalizing health is not in the interest of public safety.” -- Sun-Times interview

 CNN's Jake Tapper 

...says he won't have Kayleigh McEnany on his show because she “lies the way most people breathe.” -- Independent

NY State Dem Party Boss Jay Jacobs

AOC hasn't signaled a run for the Senate. But that didn't stop Jacobs from warning her not to challenge Chuck Schumer.  

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would “absolutely” lose a challenge if she went head-to-head against the veteran Democratic lawmaker, said Jacobs — who noted he’s yet to meet the Queens rep. -- NY Post

 

The epic freedom struggle continues. I'm feeling hopeful.

SNCC Poster, 1963, Photography by Danny Lyon

Woke up this morning with my mind

Stayed on freedom 

I woke up this morning with my head still ringing with music from Danny Lyon's new film, SNCC, and clear as a bell about the line connecting the great freedom struggle of the '50s and '60s with today's election. Win or lose, for me, this campaign was never simply about electing Joe Biden. Rather, it's about being part of a movement for freedom and social justice for the past 60 years, a movement that transcends party politics. 

This is definitely a which side are you on election like none other in my lifetime, save possibly Barack Obama's first campaign in '08. It's one that has certainly captured the democratic spirit of tens of millions from the heartland of the midwest to the so-called red states of the south and southwest. 

As the polls open this morning, nearly 100 million of us have already voted, more than two-thirds of the number of votes cast in the entire 2016 election.

Black and Latino voter turnout will likely hold the key to a Democratic victory, especially in southern and midwestern swing states. 

Of note... 239,822 African American voters over the age of 65 have already voted in Georgia, a state that has been red for the past three decades. That's 124% of the total 2016 turnout for African American seniors. Latino voters in GA are also turning out in record numbers. That state's results should be coming in early tonight and along with FL, should be a strong indicator of where things are headed. 

The ChiTown vote... More than 738,000 Chicagoans have already cast ballots in person or by mail, blowing past the city's early voting records set in 2016. I'm not worried about the Trump vote here IL. I'm just hoping that a giant turnout will mean State's Attorney Kim Foxx is reelected and the FairTax Amendment passes.  

All this and more, leaves me feeling hopeful about today's outcome. My hope is a massive anti-Trump vote will also bring a victory for Democrats down-ticket and return the Senate majority blue.

Republican efforts to suppress voter turnout have apparently fallen flat. This will likely leave Trump the choice of either conceding or more likely, resorting to futile attempts at sabotage or other counter-electoral or violent efforts to hang onto power. 

Defeating Trump today, if that happens, won't mean the death of Trumpism, neo-fascism, or white supremacy. That fight will likely continue for generations to come. But it will still mark an important victory in the long, ongoing freedom struggle and a reversal of the retrograde trend of the past four years. 

 

I voted today. It was one of the most emotional experiences I've had since becoming American. I wanted to hug every poll worker & thank them for their work & enthusiasm. I'm frightened, as many of you are, but the country we want is here, standing next to us. #VoteHimOut pic.twitter.com/MzipAtSZ9I

— Maaza Mengiste (@MaazaMengiste) October 31, 2020

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

'Absolutely' my job to push Democrats to the left.

“We need to make sure that we win this White House,” she said. “Frankly, I think it would be privilege and would be a luxury for us to talk about what we would lobby Democratic and how we would push the next Democratic administration." -- CNN

 George McGraw, founder of the human rights nonprofit DigDeep

 “Race is the strongest indicator in 2020 of whether or not you will have a tap and a toilet in your house in the richest democracy on earth.” -- Capital & Main

Mayor Lori Lightfoot

 “We must not go backward to the failed approach that Pat O’Brien supports — an approach that put innocent people in prison and cost Chicago taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

“We cannot afford to go back to those dark days. For women like myself and Kim [Foxx], justice is not an abstract thing...We know when the deck is stacked against us. That’s why I voted for Kim.” -- Sun-Times

Dr. Ngozi Ezike, head of the state’s Department of Public Health

 “I can’t break down why. I think it’s probably just a culmination of the frustration of seeing that we are repeating history." -- IL Playbook

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows

 “We’re not going to control the pandemic.” Pressed to explain why, he said, “because it is a contagious virus just like the flu." -- AP

Trump on TV

 "Turn on television: ‘covid, covid, covid, covid, covid.’ A plane goes down, 500 people dead, they don’t talk about it - ‘covid, covid, covid, covid,’ " Trump said. “By the way, on November 4th, you won’t hear about it anymore.” -- Boston Globe

 

If we win Texas, Trump will be a lame duck president before we go to bed on November 3rd.

— Julián Castro (@JulianCastro) October 25, 2020

Barr, take your law-and-order shit show out of our city

AG Barr, who has turned the Justice Dept into accused rapist Trump's personal defense attorney, get the hell out of our city!

Trump's protector and faithful sidekick, Atty. Gen. William Barr is in Chicago to tout his so-called Operation Legend, which has so far resulted in the mass incarceration of thousands of mainly Black and Latino young men in cities across the country.

Barr claims the operation is responsible for reducing the city's gun violence. But that claim is bullshit (not her words), according to Mayor Lori Lightfoot. 

In contrast, Barr is using the Justice Department to aid and abet the international gang of criminals that now occupies the White House. The latest outrage is Barr's move to replace  Trump’s private legal team with DOJ lawyers to defend the accused rapist in a defamation suit brought by author E. Jean Carroll. Last year, Carroll credibly accused Trump of raping her in a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s.

In Chicago, FBI sweeps have led to the arrests of more than 500 people, many on federal gun and drug charges so those arrested can be held without bail. The DOJ operation involves federal agents conducting large scale, counter-gang investigations using police informants and covert aerial surveillance. This at a time when Chicago's crime rate is on the decline and when area prisons have become COVID hot spots. 

But Operation Legend has more to do with Trump's election campaign than it does with crime-fighting. Barr has used his appearance here to blame the supposed "wave of violent crime" on the ongoing nationwide protests since the police killing of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor, as well as on "anarchic and far-left extremist groups."

Using Wednesday's announcement in part to criticize ongoing efforts pushing for racial justice and police reform, Barr blamed those protests in part for a spike in crime nationwide earlier this year and repeated a "law and order" refrain often employed by President Donald Trump as he campaigns for reelection. -- 5 Chicago

With the election only weeks away, Trump is counting on a new law-and-order surge to energize his base and spread fear among white suburban voters while painting Democratic-run cities, especially those with black mayors, as crime-ridden "shitholes." 

To her credit, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, while offering to work with the feds to control the worsening gun violence in the city, slammed the Trump/Barr political assault on Chicago, leaving Barr to complain that Lightfoot excluded federal efforts in their own discussions on the decrease in crime--adding that Chicago police had been invited to Wednesday's announcement but declined to attend, with Barr citing "politics" as the reason.

"They were certainly invited and could have attended," Barr said, when asked why members of CPD were not standing with federal law enforcement on Wednesday.

Lightfoot responds:

"Nearly two months ago, the mayor sent a letter to the President outlining areas where the federal government has the unique ability to help us fight the epidemic of gun violence... While the president continues to make factually inaccurate comments about Chicago from the political stump, almost two months later, we've received no response to the letter and worse, no results from him for Chicago. We hope Attorney General Barr's visit is part of an effort to help make these actions a reality as opposed to using our city and its residents as a political prop, as his boss regularly does."

It wasn't.

Omar Muhammad (formerly known as Omar Saunders), from left; Marcelias Bradford, Larry Ollins, and his cousin Calvin Ollins were arrested and falsely convicted as teens in the abduction, rape, and murder of a woman. Advanced DNA testing more than a decade later cleared all four. Foxx's opponent, former prosecutor Patrick O'Brien led the frame-up. 

Along with the black city mayors, the law-and-order Republicans' main target has been Cook County States Attorney Kim Foxx. Foxx is currently locked in a close campaign battle with Republican great-white-hope former prosecutor Patrick O'Brien who has attacked Foxx for being "soft on crime," particularly in her handling of the Jussie Smollett case, as a centerpiece of his campaign. 

But it was O'Brien who led a Barr-like charge in a rushed effort to convict four West Side teenagers on trumped-up rape and murder charges more than 30 years ago. It is clear now that torture was used in obtaining a confession that led to their false conviction.

All. four were cleared by DNA evidence after a decade in prison. 

After the broken glass has been swept

Looting... An inevitable, spontaneous reaction to the widening wealth and racial inequality gap which has been expanding at a record pace globally during the COVID pandemic.

Sunday night, there was another police shooting of a young black man in Englewood. The details of the shooting weren't immediately clear and still aren't. Why not? The cops weren't wearing their body cameras in clear violation of the federally imposed reform consent decree. CPD claimed it was because of "budget constraints". What a load of crap? Rumors about the shooting spread. Things got hot and carloads of people headed to the Miracle Mile to voice their anger.

Yes, the community is frustrated, they’re demanding reform and, sadly, some people are looting.

But loot-pillage-and-burn is more the strategy of  Donald Trump and his grifter family than that of the urban poor and working class. Just take as an example, his move yesterday to loot the U.S. postal service of $25 billion rather than give COVID-free voters a chance to remove him from office.

Looting has never been the way of the Freedom Movement as the Rev. Jesse Jackson reminded us, and it's somewhat disheartening to hear a young, movement militant holding forth in front of the TV cameras, dangerously (to themselves) calling on people to "take anything they wanted to take" and rendering looting more profound by describing it as "reparations."

Predictably, fascist FOP President John Catanzara was armed and ready with a hand-delivered  letter to U.S. Attorney John Lausch's office at the Dirksen Federal Building Thursday morning, asking the federal prosecutors to step in to pursue charges against "looters" meaning the BLM protest leaders. I'm sure Catanzara's pals, Trump and Atty. Gen. Barr are ready to comply.

Catanzara obviously wants to misdirect fire away from the police violence which set off this unprecedented wave nationwide protests in the first place, and onto Mayor Lightfoot and State's Attorney Foxx for supposedly "letting suspects cycle through the system without consequences."

Currently, a gaggle of downtown business groups, Chicago's corporate media, with the Tribune editors and Crain's Greg Hinz leading the way have joined Cantazara in attacking the city's Black leadership and even threatening elected officials, who he claims have "lost control" of the city. He's ordering them to "do their job" and restore law and order, or else...

Who are these guys?

Hinz expects Lightfoot and Foxx to keep the city's downtown safe for investment, suburbanite shopping, and tourism.

This has to stop. Now. Downtown is the economic hub of the Midwest, with 600,000 jobs, including mine. It’s home to a quarter of a million people. And we are tired of having our neighborhood trashed because our mayor and our state’s attorney can’t seem to control things.

Note the emphasis on "our neighborhood". The people on the south and west sides are tired of life on the bottom as well. But "control" is an illusion under the current conditions. Police or even Trump's federal troops only play their role after the fact and have been the purveyors of violence rather than protectors. Take Portland as an example.

It's also worth remembering that the Mayor and State's Attorney don't just work for your patrons, Mr. Hinz. They're elected officials who ran and won in opposition to your machine candidates.

 Remember, Mayor Lightfoot defeated your law-and-order guy Bill Daley who threatened to put camera-equipped drones on every street corner in Chicago. It was Daley who you proclaimed was, "the best guy for business." Obviously, Chicago communities didn't agree.

Kim Foxx is doing just what she was elected to do. She prosecuting violent crime while reforming the racist mass incarceration policies which have been plaguing Chicago Black and Latino families and communities for decades. To think that looters are looting because of her lowered bail policy is preposterous.

I'm especially glad to see that Foxx and Lightfoot are working it out after their initial falling out following Monday's looting. We need that unity.

According to Politico:

By afternoon, Lightfoot and Foxx were on the phone. During the conversation, they agreed to work together to come up with solutions for moving forward to avoid another night of destruction. It was “a very productive call,” Lightfoot said in a statement.

“They both have to navigate this really complex terrain — with intense scrutiny from every direction — and find a way to get the unrest and violence under control while still executing on the reform agendas they ran on,” Joanna Klonsky, a comms consultant with close ties to both women, told Playbook.

Remember, the Miracle Mile was built by the city's working people who now can't afford to shop in those stores. People will find a way.

Two big election wins

Another bad day for Madigan and the machine. Big wins for Kim Foxx and Marie Newman.

People are crazy and times are strangeI'm locked in tight, I'm out of range -- Bob Dylan, (Things have changed)

After nearly two weeks in COVID lockdown, I needed an emotional lift last night and I got one. In fact, two. The IL primary wins by Kim Foxx and Marie Newman had me grinning like a pothead last night while pedaling my damn stationary bike and watching the results come in.

Yes, Bernie Sanders did get trounced by 30 points as expected. Plus a couple of other local down-ticket progressives were knocked off. But the Foxx/Newman wins were big, big, big. Kim ran up the score on three great-white-hope opponents including billionaire's son Bill Conway who tried to ride the "bullshit" Jussie Smollett case to victory a la Bush and Willie Horton.

Both Foxx and Newman were backed by Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot who also endorsed Biden.

The icing on the cake for me was watching Eddie Burke get beat in his own ward race for committeeman by freshman State Rep. Aaron Ortiz. 

As the song goes: It's hard out here for a pimp. 

Marie pulled an Ocasio-Cortez by narrowly defeating 8-term incumbent Dan Lipinski whose family has ruled the district for 38 years. Lipinski was backed by many old-guard Democrats, AFL-CIO leaders and party boss Michael Madigan.

She did it even while calling on Madigan to step down and backing Bernie Sanders.  Yes, that's right. The same 3rd-district voters who overwhelmingly chose Biden over Sanders chose progressive Newman over Lipinski.

Lipinski pitched himself as in line with the district’s voters and cast Newman as too extreme, citing her support for "Medicare for All" and the Green New Deal.

I shouldn't be surprised though. All over the country polls are showing voters who overwhelmingly support progressive issues like Medicare-for-all, voting for Biden because they think he can beat Trump.

Bernie lost big. But with nearly the city's entire black leadership endorsing Biden, and with the Chicago left, including the teachers union, badly divided and unable to turn out Sanders voters, he had no chance to stall the Biden momentum.

And now that it's clear that Bernie has no real pathway to the nomination, he and his team may decide to pack it in and actively work for Biden. Whether they do or not, Bernie will still have lots of influence at the convention. This mainly because Biden and the DNC know he can't win without support from the party's progressive base.

I say all this without a clue how or even if a real election campaign can be carried out under the conditions of COVID.  But I'll take victories when and where I can find them.

In times like these...

Students at Chicago's Little Village Academy as CPS school ordered closed. 

"The system is not really geared to what we need right now. That is a failing. Let's admit it." -- Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

With virus and science deniers Trump/Pence misleading the war against COVID-19, it's become impossible for local governments to rely on the feds for leadership out of the crisis. The bumbling and total incompetence of the Trump regime along with years of GOP assaults on the very idea of government has left us with a system totally ill-prepared and in full chaos mode.

Currently, the number-one concern is the lack of tests available to even begin to identify potential coronavirus patients and deliver adequate healthcare.

As yesterday's guest on Hitting Left, State Sen. Robert Peters pointed out, with the breakdown of federal support, resource-starved states, cities and local municipalities are forced to try and fill the gap. Peters, who along with States Atty. Kim Foxx, is championing efforts to get rid of cash bail, is also concerned about the plight of vulnerable prisoners and staff in the state's jails and prisons as the pandemic grows. A large percentage of these prisoners are simply there awaiting trial.

An open letter from dozens of concerned local community groups to Cook County calling for immediate decarceration of Cook County jail, the largest of its kind in the U.S.

Curtis Black, in the Chicago Reporter, reports:

Gov. J.B. Pritzker should act quickly to review the cases of elderly and infirm inmates in jails and prisons and provide medical furloughs or compassionate release to “as many of them as possible” in order to prevent a devastating outbreak of coronavirus in the prison system, according to a letter initiated by a prison educators group and signed by over 1,500 educators and health professionals.

They point out that prisons “are known incubators and amplifiers of infectious disease.” According to other advocates arguing for immediate steps, an outbreak of coronavirus would “cripple an already broken [prison health] system” and result in deaths of elderly inmates, who are particularly vulnerable to the virus.

Gov. Pritzker did what he felt he had to do yesterday when he ordered all state and CPS schools temporarily closed sending 2.2 million school children home for at least the next two weeks. Mayor Lori Lightfoot had pushed as long as she could to keep schools open as centers for delivering needed meals, healthcare and safe havens for children and families. Lightfoot said she was deeply worried about students whose parents can’t take off work and those who are dependent on breakfast and lunch at the school. About 76% of students in Chicago Public Schools are low income.

At her own news conference following Pritzker’s announcement, Lightfoot said the governor needed to consider the entire state’s needs and not just those of Chicago Public Schools. Though she insisted she and Pritzker were in “lockstep."

The temporary school closings were done only after a belated advisory was issued from the CDC authorizing local districts to temporarily close their schools. Until now, the CDC had advised that schools stay open and issued a set of guidelines for their operation during the crisis.

Here in Chicago, the closings were demanded by the CTU.

The state will view these as “act of God” days, meaning school personnel are expected to be paid during the next two weeks. The governor also waived the requirement that schools be in session for 180 days to receive state funding, meaning no district will lose tax dollars as a result of cancellations.

A plan has apparently been put in place to deliver food and other supports to children and families who are normally served by in-school programs. But I imagine that many teachers are still torn about once again being separated from their kids during this crisis.

Now Pritzker should follow Ohio and Washington state's lead and suspend statewide standardized testing.

A salute goes out to the heroic Chicago librarians and park district workers who are trying to fill the gap while putting themselves at risk, keeping libraries and park programs up and running during the school shutdown.

Nationally, Senate Democrats are expressing concern over the negative effects that K-12 school closings could have on students and families and demanding answers from Trump's Sec. of Education Betsy DeVos.

"In K-12 schools, many families rely on the Federal School Lunch Program and may experience food insecurity if they can no longer access meals at school," they explained.

"Few school districts have experience providing wide-scale educational services online for all students, and not all families have access to home computers and high-speed internet to take advantage of such online options. Online learning cannot substitute for a number of services provided in the school setting, and it raises particular challenges to ensuring equity in access to education for all students," they added.

All this while the Fed is about to bail out Wall Street with weekly injections of $1.5 trillion (with a T), to try and revive a crashing stock market. The next time you hear a politician tell you that we can't afford healthcare for all or abolishing student loan debt, tell them to go f**k themself.

We at @uplcchicago co-signed this letter. To prevent disastrous spread of Covid-19 to people in Cook County Jail, the best solution is to release anyone who can be released w/o endangering community, & allow those on monitors access to doctors w/o delay https://t.co/iZ3zEPsOsX

— Alan Mills (@alan_uplc) March 14, 2020

Thousands of children receive two meals a day at school and many live in food deserts. How will children in closed districts receive proper food security? We deserve answers from DeVos. https://t.co/hgkLHE3Ven

— Kerry Kennedy (@KerryKennedyRFK) March 13, 2020

On Chicago's 183rd birthday, I'm early voting

Happy birthday, Chicago. Sanctuary city of immigrants. Heartbeat of anti-Trump resistance. Definitely a union town with a black, gay, woman mayor. Look how far you've come in 183 years. See how far you have to go.

On my way to early vote this morning. The choice for me is pretty simple. Buttigieg out. Klobuchar out. Bloomberg out. Warren will likely be out before you read this post. My only choice left is between the two old white guys, Biden and Sanders.

One voted for the war in Iraq, supported the so-called "Race to the Top" in education, and authored the crime bill that paved the way for the world's worst mass incarceration.

The other, the leading progressive politician of our time. Author of a bill that requires congressional approval of acts of war. The leader in the fight for Medicare-for-all and tuition-free, K-16 public education. Opponent of school privatization. Supported by more than 100 African-American scholars, writers, and educators.

JUST IN: more than 100 Black Scholars, Writers, and Educators including @BarbaraRansby, @murchnik, @marclamonthill, Robin DG Kelley + have just announced their support of the movement to elect @BernieSanders.

Read the POWERFUL statement HERE: pic.twitter.com/WY8gh1lQvl

— phillip agnew (@iPhilSomething) February 29, 2020

All this and more will make my vote for Bernie Sanders an easy one.

My other easy vote will be for State's Attorney Kim Foxx who has turned IL from being the false-conviction capital of the U.S. into its opposite.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Champaign State’s Attorney Julia Rietz

...told WBEZ in an interview Friday afternoon that her office is involved in a “comprehensive investigation” with the Illinois Attorney General, the Illinois State Police and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of Illinois into the content of the email.

“There are efforts being made to unravel this – again – cryptic, unspecific allegation regarding a sexual assault,” Rietz said. -- WBEZ

Hamilton Nolan at the Guardian

Nothing requires less courage than letting yourself go along with a march towards war when you have the biggest military in the world. Show me a candidate willing to fight for peace, and I’ll show you the future. -- The Democrats must become a real anti-war party

State's Atty. Kim Foxx

We've got to have an inside/outside game. Chesa's [Boudin] election should speak to that. -- Hitting Left interview

Tracy Littlejohn, educator and homeschool coordinator

“I’ve gone into some fourth-grade classrooms where they thought we were extinct,” said Littlejohn, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation. -- LaCrosse Tribune

D.T.'s mercenary army

“I said to Saudi Arabia, you want more troops, I’ll send them to you, but you’ve gotta pay us... they’ve already deposited $1 Billion.” -- Rolling Stone

Not sorry. I will never apologize for protecting immigrants and refugee families in Chicago. https://t.co/pgWn3auhb1

— Mayor Lori Lightfoot (@chicagosmayor) January 12, 2020

But isn't it a crime to threaten the life of a congresswoman? Apparently not in Louisiana.

Gretna, Louisiana Police Chief Arthur Lawson announced Monday that Officer Charlie Rispoli would be fired for posting the comment on the social media platform and Officer Angelo Varisco would be fired for "liking" it. 

In the post, Rispoli said Ocasio-Cortez was a "vile idiot" who "needs a round." 

"And I don't mean the kind she used to serve," Rispoli wrote, apparently referencing the lawmaker's past work as a bartender. 

"This incident, we feel, has been an embarrassment to our department,” Lawson said of the since-deleted post. 

Fired? Is that it.

I thought it was a crime to threaten a government official. So I looked it up. Yep, I was right. 

Threatening government officials of the United States is a felony under federal law. Threatening the President of the United States is a felony under 18 U.S.C. § 871, punishable by up to 5 years of imprisonment, that is investigated by the United States Secret Service. Threatening other officials is a Class C or D felony, usually carrying maximum penalties of 5 or 10 years under 18 U.S.C. § 875, 18 U.S.C. § 876 and other statutes, that is investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 

But the two cops who threatened or publicly encouraged the taking of the life of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were merely fired for "embarrassing the department". What's up with that?

It looks like white racist cops, encouraged by a racist president, are above the law in Louisiana, a state with 540 lynchings to its discredit. This, especially is the case if their victims are people of color, in this case, a sitting congresswoman.

This is a continuing pattern nationwide. I'm thinking particularly of the four Chicago cops finally fired after five years, for filing false statements about Jason Van Dyke's fatal shooting of black teenager Laquan McDonald. No criminal charges were ever filed against the conspiring cops or their higher-ups, in the case.

Louisiana's history of lynching

Then there was the decision, by federal prosecutors, affirmed by Trump's hand-picked Attorney General William Barr, not to bring charges against a white N.Y. cop Daniel Pantaleo, after he choked to death Eric Garner on video in broad daylight. Garner's last words, “I can’t breathe” — became a national rallying cry against police brutality.

In stark contrast is the seemingly never-ending saga of black actor, Jussie Smollett, who was charged by Chicago cops with 16 felonies for allegedly filing a false report about a racist assault. The State's Attorney's office decided there wasn't enough of a case against Smollett to move forward. That made State's Attorney Kim Foxx, an African-American woman, the target of vengeful attacks by the racist FOP.

The case has become a rallying cry for the right-wing with even Donald Trump weighing in and calling for Smollett's head. Now a judge is looking to appoint a special prosecutor to pursue the case.

Such is our two-faced legal system carrying on the traditions of American slavery and Jim Crow.

An embarrassment...

“This incident, we feel, has been an embarrassment to our department,” Chief Arthur Lawson of the Gretna Police Department said at a news conferencehttps://t.co/rdJ1dUvh99

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 23, 2019

Klonsky Bros. will return to the air next week

Don Rose

The past two Fridays, the K Bros. were like Trump at a French military cemetery -- No Shows. This time off has been great for our own R&R and especially for badly needed recovery time after my knee replacement surgery last Friday. 

But I guess withdrawal pains can't be handled with opioids so I'm planning on hobbling back to Bridgeport next Friday when Fred and I will be back on air. Our in-studio guest will be the legendary, progressive Chicago political consultant, Don Rose. Among Rose's many attributes was his role as both Dr. Martin Luther King's and Chicago Mayor Harold Washington's press secretary.

We will also take some time to commemorate the life of  another progressive Chicago political strategist, Brian Sleet, who’s death was reported Wednesday. Brian's career, though cut-short at age 41, has been on a path similar to that of Rose's. He was also a friend of Hitting Left, having appeared on the show back in March, 2017 along with my favorite Chicago political strategist and media mover and shaker, Joanna Klonsky. 

The two have worked together on several hot political campaigns over the years, including that of State's Atty. Kim Foxx. Joanna is quoted in today's Trib, paying tribute to Sleet, whose life is being celebrated is many disparate Chicago political circles and all over local social media.

Brian Sleet on Hitting Left, March, 1917.

Close Sleet friend Joanna Klonsky echoed that in an interview, saying he was the sort of man who “would show up for people.”

“If you needed him he would be there, and that really matters in a business that is so often transactional,” Klonsky said.

According to Foxx, without Sleet's sage advice, her own campaign might not have succeeded.

In 2015, Sleet threw his energy into Foxx’s reform campaign. Before she decided to run, Sleet talked with her about how to approach black voters and how to dissect complicated issues. And then he guided her through messaging at a time of high tension and anxiety related to the the police slaying of Laquan McDonald and how it was handled.

“Brian understood and embodied nuance in politics, whereas everybody is about simple messages and simple answers,” Foxx said. “He knew people in the community. With him, I was asking, ‘What do I do? What do I say? How do I navigate this time?’ He was really blunt: ‘You don’t pander. … Walk through this period in your voice, doing the things that make sense for you.’”

Tune in Friday, January 4th, 11-noon at WLPN 105.5 FM in Chicago, streaming live across the globe at lumpenradio.com.

Some shocking news on this gray Chicago morn. Our friend Ben Joravsky has been fired from WCPT, Chicago so-called "Progressive Talk Radio".

According to Mark Pinski, general manager of WCPT,  “Ben did a great job of moving our brand forward, and we want our next host to take us to the next level.” 

I hate to break it to Mr. Pinsky, but Ben was the "next level". You blew it.

Until he lands another paid gig, Benny J is always welcome to sit in with us at Hitting Left.

Fans of the Ben Joravsky show: mobilize for WCPT to Bring Back the Ben Joravsky @BennyJshow - Sign the Petition! Sign & SHARE away! Don't let Ben's strong progressive voice be silenced! https://t.co/sZVqHBkNhi via @Change #twill

— Susana A. Mendoza (@susanamendoza10) December 28, 2018

THANKS

We're taking the day off to recover from last night's turkey fest. But if you missed last week's show with in-studio guest Fritz Kaegi, it's re-running this morning at 11 a.m. CT on WLPN FM 105.5 in Chicago, streaming wherever you are at www.lumpenradio.com.  We will return to the airwaves next Friday, Dec. 1st, same time, same station.

Local holiday thanks go out to...
State's Attorney Kim Foxx whose first year uin office ended on a high note, including the release of two black men serving life sentences for a 1994 rape and murder, set free based on DNA evidence that links the crime to another suspect. In other words, Nevest Coleman and Derrell Fulton, doing life life in prison, were obviously framed for the 1994 murder of Antwinica Bridgeman and served 23 years when a fresh round of DNA testing this spring showed semen stains on Bridgeman's clothing matched a serial rapist.

Foxx should credited with the release of Jose Maysonet, and Arthur Brown, who have served 29 years after being falsely convicted and the exoneration of 15 men, en masse, who had 18 convictions between them - all tainted by crooked cop Ronald Watts and his officers who terrorized residents of the Ida B. Wells public housing complex for years before they were caught by federal agents.

Thanks also to Alds. Scott Waguespack (32nd), Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th), and John Arena (45th) the only three aldermen who had spine enough to stand up to "Mayor 1%", Rahm Emanuel and vote no on his budget.

Ald. Ramirez-Rosa: "It is time we demand that the rich and wealthy elite of this city pay their fair share. We can and should reinstate the corporate head tax, enact substantive TIF reform, implement a commercial lease tax, and create a municipal bank."

Ald. Waguespack: And yet, again through this year's budget, the Emanuel administration adds to the load of regressive fines, fees and taxes that working families must bear. We cannot in good conscience vote to advance this irresponsible approach." .

And thanks in advance to groper/assaulter, Al Franken, for voluntarily stepping aside and allowing MN Gov. Mark Dayton to replace you with another Democrat, hopefully a woman or even a real progressive like Keith Ellison. Yes thank you for saving the party from humiliating defeats in 2018 and allowing fellow Dems to speak out on women's issues in Congress without being rightfully  ridiculed. 

In case you need more reasons, consider recent polls and let me remind you of the fact that you used your super-delegate vote at the 2016 convention in Philly to override the votes and voices of Minnesotans who wanted Bernie Sanders as their candidate. 

Thanks and don't let the door hit you on the way out. 

I think Democrats have underestimated how seriously voters are taking the Franken allegations and how hypocritical it makes them look. https://t.co/fw3xSIz59G

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 22, 2017

KSTP/SURVEYUSA: Just 22 percent say Sen. Franken should remain in office. 33% say he should resign...36% wait for results of Senate Ethics Committee. His approval rating in MN now just 36%, only 5 points higher than President Trump. pic.twitter.com/eHXI5CBFiq

— Tom Hauser (@thauserkstp) November 22, 2017

No Nekritz, No Burke, please

Fred Klonsky

It seems nobody is quite sure why Lisa Madigan has suddenly decided to step down from her attorney general post. It's especially bewildering since Madigan just sued the city of Chicago, asking a federal court to stop the city's police department from engaging in what the suit calls a "pattern of using excessive force" and other discriminatory misconduct against Chicago's African-American and Latino residents.

Did she find a horse head in her bed?

State Rep. Elaine Nekritz wants to replace Madigan as IL Attorney General. She tells POLITICO that the AG post is an even better fit for her and that she is seriously considering a run. "I think there is a path for someone like me. I want to keep this option open," she said.

But I say, no no no. No path.

We still remember that Nekritz was one of the architects of the pension-theft bill that was ruled unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court. Anyone with such disregard for the state's Constitution and disdain for the state's pensioners, shouldn't be trusted with it's top prosecutor's job.

The question is, what's wrong with POLITICO's Natasha Korecki? She calls Nekritz's pension theft debacle, the "crowning period" in her legislative career.

The AG candidate swamp gets even swampier...Next in a line of opportunists stepping forward for a chance at Madigan's job is Jennifer Burke (who?). Oh, that Burke. Yes, she's the daughter of the city's most powerful and most premier machine alderman (going back to the Harold Washington days), Eddie Burke, whose wife Anne already sits on the State Supreme Court. A win for little Burke would mean a hat trick for Eddie. I guess he figures, if Mike Madigan's kid can hold the job, why not his?

Burke and Trump

Jennifer's qualifications? A job at daddy's law firm and then an appointment by then-Gov. Pat Quinn to a post at the Illinois Pollution Control Board. You mean you didn't know, she was a "pollution expert"?

It's worth mentioning that prior to Jennifer's appointment, Eddie Burke lent $200,000 and gave an additional $52,000 to Quinn’s campaign.

The topper... According to Clout Street, daddy gave Cook Democratic Party Chairman, Joe Berrios, a "heads-up" over the weekend that his daughter was circulating petitions to run for attorney general.

Berrios is the county's tax assessor and a close ally of Cook County Board President, Toni Preckwinkle. Burke's law firm, Klafter and Burke, specializes in representing clients in property tax appeals before the Cook County Assessor's Office. Get it?

Burke's firm helped Donald Trump cut property taxes on his downtown Chicago hotel by nearly 40% over seven years, saving Trump and his investors $11.7 million at the expense of city tax payers. Yes, let's put Jennifer Burke in the AG post. You bet.

As you may recall, Berrios is also the state's master of nepotism. He's notorious for loading the bureaucracy with his family members. His daughter Toni was a state rep who lost her seat to progressive, Will Guzzardi.

Now we need a Guzzardi-type progressive (Kim Foxx?) to step up and defeat the likes of Burke and Nekritz and drain the swamp.

Tour de Fork shows signs of political realignment in Chicago

The Progressive Caucus Tour de Fork fundraiser last night at the kitschy Catalyst Ranch in the West Loop was an impressive event, catered by restaurants from some of the 11 wards represented by Caucus members. But the large, spirited gathering was much more than a gastronomic success. It also signified the sea change taking place in city, state and national political alignments, thanks mainly to the emergence of Gov. Rauner as our own local version of Donald Trump.

There are now 11 caucus members, instead of 8 a year ago. This growth is testimony not only to the progressive movement's recent election victories out in the wards, but to the rapid and near-total collapse of Rahm Emanuel's political machinery and personal credibility.

In the wake of the school closings and the Laquan McDonald scandal, the mayor's approval ratings are somewhere down in the 20s, and in the single digits in the black community where voters were largely responsible for Emanuel's previous two election victories over the progressive opposition.

Rahm has lost so much juice that both Democratic Party presidential candidates avoid him like the plague when they campaign in Chicago. Liberal icon Bill Moyers is now calling on Hillary Clinton to press for the resignations of both Rahm Emanuel and DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz in order to "do their party and country a service."

Moyers and Michael Winship write:

And now he’s mayor of Chicago, reelected last April for a second term, but, as historian Rick Pearlstein wrote in The New Yorker a couple of months ago, “Chicagoans — and Democrats nationally — are suffering buyer’s remorse.”

 To millions, they are enablers of the one percent, perpetuators of the Washington mentality that the rest of the country has grown to hate. What a message such servants of plutocracy send: Democrats — a bridge to the past.

Alds. Munoz, Foulkes, and Sposato at Tour de Fork

Just as the Bernie Sanders campaign, combined with the existential threat of Trump presidency, has pushed the Democratic Party's campaign rhetoric leftward, the Rauner-inspired realignment in Illinois has brought some strange bedfellows together here in Chicago around an emerging progressive and pro-labor policy agenda.

Last night, veteran Caucus leaders like Alds. Scott Waguespack, Leslie Hairston, Rod Sawyer and Rick Munoz shared tacos and chicken wings with newly-elected Democratic-backed State's Atty. Kim Foxx, State Senator Omar Aquino, Rep.  Jaime Andrade,  City Treasurer Kurt Summers, City Clerk Susana Mendoza, Committeeman Aaron Goldstein, reps from the CTU, SEIU, AFSCME, and more.

Tactical alliances and overlap of interests between the progressives and the council's Black and Hispanic Caucuses could well decide the next mayor's race. Note that yesterday's Black Caucus press conference demanding greater input into the selection of the next police superintendent drew progressive support. Ald. Sawyer plays a leadership role in both caucuses.

New State's Atty. Kim Foxx speaks to Caucus supporters

I joked with some, standing in the taco line, that I half expected Rauner nemesis Mike Madigan himself to come walking through the door singing "we shall overcome".

The new political alignment in the city and the shifting boundaries around the word "progressive" may cost some Caucus desertions and precipitate new internal struggles within the ranks of union leadership. But it is more likely to liberate some pols held captive on the machine's plantation in the same way the Harold Washington movement liberated them back in the day.

It's the season of the progressives. And that's a good thing. Right?

See Ben Joravsky's latest Reader piece for another view of the realignment.

It's okay Rahm. You can come out now.

Much of the credit for Foxx victory belongs here. 2 Down, Rahm to go.

Will the mayor come out of hiding now that pal Hillary Clinton has left town?

She succeeded in avoiding Rahm long enough to narrowly squeak by Bernie Sanders with just 50.4% in her home state. It was a race she was picked to win by double digits and surely would have lost, at least the popular vote, if the race had gone another week or so.

With the Illinois victory, Clinton secures 68 delegates and Sanders pockets 64 delegates. Not too shabby, Bernie. Credit should also go to groups like Chicago Votes who have made it easier to register, even on election day. More credit, at least in my mind, goes to the anti-Trump protests at UIC last week, which more than any campaigning, generated a sense of urgency and passion for political struggle in thousands of young folks.

Of course, the popular vote doesn't mean as much in this state, since, win or lose, Hillary controls the 29 big-shot elected officials ("super delegates") who automatically get convention seats. In that sense the game was rigged from the start.

But congrats to Bernie and his team of Chicago progressives for running an amazingly close race and engaging thousands of new voters in what otherwise would have been a dull race. The movement for social justice comes out the better for it.

Voter turnout in Chicago was over 50%, according to the Chicago Election Board, and 26,000 new voters, mostly young registered to vote on Primary Day.

The biggest win yesterday belonged to Kim Foxx who rode to victory over police-murder cover-up artist Anita Alvarez, on the momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement. Two down, Rahm to go.

Proud of Harish I Patel and Jay Travis for fighting the good fight. Progressive first-time candidate Patel was not only battling political boss Dick Mell's machine dirty tricks, he also was abandoned by unions who decided to play it safe and throw in with the machine's Jaime Andrade. I hope they hold Andrade's feet to the fire.

The unions split on Travis, with AFSCME and SEIU throwing [our] money behind pension thief and school privatization (Stand For Children) incumbent Christian Mitchell. The CTU backed Jay.

Glad Andrea Zopp got clobbered. Voters remembered her role on the school board in support of Rahm's school closings in the black community and her role in the Byrd-Bennett/SUPES corruption scandal.

Theresa Mah & Chuy Garcia

Congrats to Juliana Stratton. Bye-bye to Rauner's puppy-dog Ken Dunkin. You knew he was toast when Obama pointed a finger at him and said, "We'll talk later."

Congrats to Theresa Mah for beating the machine in the 2nd Dist. State Rep race.

Congrats to Omar Oquino for beating the machine in the 2nd Dist. State Senate race.

And did you see? Sue Sadlowski Garza whipped Pope/Rahm in the Ward Committeeman race. This despite massive vote fraud (ballot box stuffing) by Pope's machine goons.

Kudos to Aaron Goldstein for kicking machine boss Mell in the ass in the committeeman race. I've been waiting 40 years for somebody to do it.

When I went to bed last night, Goldstein was ahead of Mell by 143 votes with 2 precincts left. But I'm not celebrating yet. Aaron better keep close eye on the ballot box. Remember Deb Mell was down by 26 votes to Tim Meegan last Feb's aldermanic election and then beat him by somehow "finding" enough Mell absentee votes.

The Machine does its best work after the polls close.

Now the struggle moves back to the streets, April First (no foolin') when CTU teachers hit the bricks in a citywide, one-day strike action.

Big turnout in Chicago will be good for progressives.

Sanders supporters packed the Auditorium Theater last night. 

Despite inclement weather, it looks like a big voter turnout today in ChiTown. I hope so. Big turnout can only help progressives like Sanders, Foxx, Travis, Patel, Stratton, and others. A tightening race between Bernie and Hillary should also drive turnout and more down-ticket votes.

Early voting has been high and the excitement generated by last Friday's huge anti-Trump protest at UIC will likely drive new and younger voters to the campaigns and to the polls today.

The Tribune reports that early voting in Chicago surpassed 130,000 by Sunday night. That's about 37% more than the previous high for a primary, the 81,690 votes cast before Election Day in 2008, when Obama and Clinton were running against each other. Biggest increases are reported in both black and Latino wards. Only five of 50 Chicago wards have had lower early voting turnouts this year than in 2008. More on those wards later.

Last night's massive turnout at the Bernie Sanders rally while Hillary Clinton's rally was half filled, bodes well for the progressives. Whoever gets the most votes, if the race is close, Sanders will come out the winner.

Two names not on the ballot will also have a major impact today's races, Rahm Emanuel and Laquan McDonald. Rahm, because in the wake of the the McDonald killing/cover-up, the Byrd-Bennet affair, and his closing of 50 schools, mainly in the black community, he's become politically toxic, the turd in the Democratic Party's swimming pool. Neither Bill nor Hillary will get near him, even though he's an early Hillary endorser who owes his political career and wealth largely to the Clintons.

Rep. Ken Dunkin is running his Rauner-financed TV ads targeting Rahm and not even mentioning his opponent, Juliana Stratton. Smart? Maybe. But I don't think it will work. Everyone knows Dunkin is a tool of the governor whose hate-ability rating is right up there with Rahm's. Plus, Pres. Obama has openly endorsed Stratton. Bye bye Dunkin.

As for Laquan McDonald, the very mention of his name sends chills down the spines of the mayor and State's Attorney Anita Alvarez. Check out today's Ward Room column by Carol Marin and Don Mosely. 

On South Stony Island Monday morning some signs reading “I love Laquan” and “Fire Anita” were seen being hauled away by a city Streets and Sanitation crew while other political signs were left standing. 

The shooting of the 17-year-old by a Chicago police officer in 2014 has in large part defined the race for Cook County State’s Attorney. It is also playing out in the Democratic presidential primary where the mere mention of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s name drew loud boos at Bernie Sanders’ Friday rally.

Standing up for Kim Foxx

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has never endorsed anyone running for states attorney before. Until yesterday, that is. That's when the 30,000-member union endorsed Kim Foxx, running against current SA Anita Alvarez and gambling industry shill, Dona More.

 And why wouldn't they? When Alvarez, began covering up cases of police misconduct, including the murder of 16-year-old Laquan McDonald, the election became a critical one for teachers. The school-to-prison pipeline, facilitated over the past few years by Alvarez, is an affront to all educators.

"We have never endorsed in a state's attorney's race, but we are at a turning point in Chicago," CTU President Karen Lewis said in a statement, issued after a morning news conference to announce the endorsement was canceled. "This race is critical to everyone that cares about the future of our children. Kim Foxx is (the) only candidate with a real plan to invest in our next generation that will help end the school-to-prison pipeline." (Tribune)

 To get an idea of where Alvarez backers are coming from, read their pro-pipeline comments below the Trib story. Their lock-em-up mentality is directed only at disruptive students, ignoring the fact that it is Chicago cop Jason Van Dyke who's finally on trial here for murder.

To those who say that teachers and their union should "stick to teaching" and stay out of politics, I would remind them that it's hard to teach a kid with 16 police bullets in him. They should also consider the high cost, socially and financially of locking up, rather than schooling, thousands of our city's children.