[HotAir] Hizzoner Brandon Johnson is having trouble with Chicago’s bills, between the Chicago teachers pension plan and their recently negotiated 1/3rd increase in pay. But his hands are tied by the windy city’s long history of electing Democrats, to whit:
But no matter how he postures and bloviates, it still doesn't change the fact that Brandon has no bucks for all the big talk.
You would think with all the revenue streams available in a major city and the way he's jacked taxes up (the ones voters have allowed him to), Brandon could squeak something out to ease the burden on his constituents, right?
And this is where I stumbled across one of the worst examples of civic...hmm. Schmaybe 'malfeasance' is the word? It's too awful for mere incompetence.
Whatever it was, this deal done by Mayor Richard Daley in 2008, during that financial crisis, has screwed the city of Chicago royally and I never heard about it until today.
To close a city budget deficit that year, Mayor Daley sold every last parking meter space to a private consortium for $1.15B.
Every last dime collected on 36,000 metered parking spaces in the city leaves the city. Every time a street is closed and those meters cannot collect parking fees, the city must compensate Chicago Parking Meters, LLC - the private investor-owned company - for every dime those meters would have made had the street not been blocked.
The deal is for a schweet seventy-five years.
... As of 2023, the investors in CPM LLC have recouped their investment plus $500 million, and still have 60 years left on the deal.
And so he is. A minor hero, but it’s the sad truth that in today’s Zeitgeist standing up to the Progressive cancel mob is indeed heroic.
[NYPOST] ''Real Time'' host Bill Maher said Thursday that he should be regarded as a ''hero'' for how he handled the White House meeting with his political foe, President Donald Trump ...The tack in the backside of the Democratic Party... Appearing on the ''2 Angry Men'' podcast, Maher was asked about the public response to his dinner with Trump.
''I'm not pulling punches, either on my show or when I was with him or after,'' Maher told podcast hosts Harvey Levin and Mark Geragos. ''And I'm proud that I was able to go into the White House and say to the President of the United States, look him in the eye and say, 'You're scaring people. You know, it doesn't bother you that you're scaring so many of your own citizens?'''
Maher addressed the backlash he received from the left for his monologue recapping his positive Trump meeting.
''I would say to them, 'As opposed to what?' I had the opportunity to go to the White House and talk to the president and not give up my principles. It seems like nobody noticed that,'' Maher said. ''I didn't go MAGA. I had the opportunity to talk to Donald Trump and say things to him that maybe he never hears,
…according to the psychology boffins, a key difference between the current Left and Right is that those on the left have no concept of what conservatives think whereas those on the right can accurately predict Progressive responses across the issues. So Mr. Maher’s thoughts were likely not news to the president. The opportunity for a pleasant conversation with a convinced liberal and conduit to liberal audience? Clearly the president appreciated that properly…
literally to speak truth to power. I shouldn't take that opportunity?''
That said, he must know that simply recognizing any legitimacy of a dissenting viewpoint is a no-no and he went anyways.
I have to wonder if a point of the whisper campaigns is when in the makeup chair, the dresser gives instructions in the guise of conscience streaming, like a movie scene when somebody is giving a straight razor shave and starts a monologue while nipping the person's throat.
[MAIL] The three top staffers for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth who were suspended as part of the Signal group chat investigation have each been terminated.
Darin Selnick, the Pentagon's deputy chief of staff, and Dan Caldwell - a senior adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, were placed on administrative leave as part of the probe.
Colin Carroll, chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, was suspended a day later.
All three have since been let go, a spokesman for the Pentagon told DailyMail.com Friday night.
Hegseth's Chief of Staff Joe Kasper is also set to resign in the coming days, Politico reported.
A senior defense official told DailyMail.com of Kasper and the other three: 'At this time no final senior staffing changes have been decided, and the Secretary will make any future announcements on his own timetable.'
Kasper's departure would be especially curious, as he put in the request for an investigation into multiple leaks out of the Pentagon last month.
'Joe didn't like those guys,' an anonymous source said of Kasper's relationship with Caldwell, Selnick and Carroll.
[THEGATEWAYPUNDIT] The DC Circuit Court of Appeals late Wednesday evening partially blocked Judge Chutkan's order that barred EPA Chief Lee Zeldin from clawing back billions of dollars from Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. You're a lyin' dog-faced pony soldier... 's EPA slush fund.
The three-judge panel: Pillard (Obama), Katsas (Trump) and Rao (Trump) stayed Judge Chutkan's order requiring Citibank to disburse the funds by Thursday (today).
On Wednesday, Judge Chutkan, an Obama appointee, granted an injunction against the EPA and barred Lee Zeldin from clawing back the money currently being sheltered at Citibank for 8 different 'green' nonprofits.
Lee Zeldin previously clawed back the $20 billion in grants under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) and Citibank agreed to freezing the funds earmarked for the eight nonprofits.
According to AP, the money was awarded to ''Coalition for Green Capital, Climate United Fund, Power Forward Communities, Opportunity Finance Network, Inclusiv and the Justice Climate Fund.''
The $20 billion sitting at Citibank was ordered by Judge Chutkan to be unfrozen by Thursday and disbursed to the 8 'green' groups.
However,
there's more than one way to skin a cat... the DC Circuit Court stayed Chutkan's order pending further order of the court.
[RedState] Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard has now released the declassified part of the Biden administration's game plan that sought to censor about half of the American people over the past four years and ahead of the November 2024 election.
The strategy was known as the Strategic Implementation Plan for countering Domestic Terrorism.
She writes: "As promised, I have declassified the Biden Administration’s Strategic Implementation Plan for Countering Domestic Terrorism."
Former Missouri state Attorney General and now-Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO) has shared a helpful breakdown of the scheme on his X account. He begins by describing it as "a roadmap for left-wing ideological warfare."
"This was written in the early months of the Biden presidency," he writes. "But it lays out, in detail, exactly what they would go on to do—and how they justified it."
Sen. Schmitt continues: "By adopting the framework of 'domestic terrorism' (DT), they could effectively treat their critics as enemies of the state."
It was so troubling that even the liberals at American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called it out:
But it was even worse than anyone imagined, as the now-declassified parts of it reveal:
The plan lays out a four-pillar strategy:
1) Understand and Share DT-Related Information
2) Prevent DT Recruitment and Mobilization to Violence
3) Disrupt and Deter DT Activity
4) Confront Long-Term Contributors to DT
Schmitt explains that the first pillar focused on "information-sharing," with "every arm of the government" acting like the tentacles of an octopus and reaching into every aspect of Americans' lives. We saw clear signs of this with the major pushback parents across the country got from the school boards of their children's schools.
[Tampa Free Press] In a late-night decision, the U.S. Supreme Court intervened to temporarily halt the Trump administration's planned deportation of Venezuelan men held in immigration custody. The justices issued an order early Saturday morning, preventing the government from removing any members of the affected group until further notice.
The brief, unsigned decision, released around 12:55 a.m., came after lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed urgent requests in multiple courts, including the Supreme Court, citing imminent deportations.
The ACLU alleged that some detainees had already been placed on buses and informed of their impending removal.
"The Government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court," the Supreme Court's order stated.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito publicly dissented from the decision.
The ACLU's emergency appeals stemmed from concerns that the administration was preparing to deport the men under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, a law historically reserved for wartime, without affording them the judicial review previously mandated by the Supreme Court. The organization argued that the rapid developments effectively denied the detainees a fair opportunity to contest their removal.
#5
The answer to this is simple. Declare war on Venezuela.
Yup. Doesn't have to be hot or even confrontational. Trickier would be El Salvador or Mexico.
As far as 'international law' goes, Egypt had no problem designating unwelcome non-state actors, sorry USAID NGOs, as unwelcomed and threatened with local enforcement action ejection from state territory.
Following my Day One Executive Order, the Office of Personnel Management will be issuing new Civil Service Regulations for career government employees. Moving forward, career government employees, working on policy matters, will be classified as “Schedule Policy/Career,” and will…
… and will be held to the highest standards of conduct and performance. If these government workers refuse to advance the policy interests of the President, or are engaging in corrupt behavior, they should no longer have a job. This is common sense, and will allow the federal government to finally be “run like a business.” We must root out corruption and implement accountability in our Federal Workforce!
#2
The legal wrestling regarding this effort to put the Executive Branch back under control of the Executive will likely play out over the entirety of Trump’s second term.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/19/2025 7:31 Comments ||
Top||
[NYPOST] The Trump administration wants to shift the venue for Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, Gov. Gavin Governor Hair Gel Newsom ...mayor of San Franciscoas it transformed itself into Poopville, currently governor of Californiaas it transforms itself into Cinderland... 's lawsuit against its tariff policies from a federal court in the Socialist paradise of San Francisco ...where God struck dead Anton LaVey, home of the Sydney Ducks, ruled by Vigilance Committee from 1859 through 1867, reliably and volubly Democrat since 1964... to one in New York.
Justice Department attorneys on Thursday argued that the dispute should be adjudicated in the US Court of International Trade in New York since it has sole jurisdiction over matters related to tariffs.
Newsom, a Democrat widely viewed as a potential 2028 presidential contender, filed the suit along with California Attorney General Rob Bonta in US District Court of Northern California earlier this week.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has filed a lawsuit challenging President Trump's tariffs.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/19/2025 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11129 views]
Top|| File under: Lawfare
#1
Not sure how this could end with the Supreme Court taking control of foriegn and trade policy or giving control to Gavin Znewsom.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/19/2025 7:24 Comments ||
Top||
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...The tack in the backside of the Democratic Party...
...46th president of the U.S. 
[RedState] Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard has now released the declassified part of the Biden administration's game plan that sought to censor about half of the American people over the past four years and ahead of the November 2024 election. 
[Tampa Free Press] In a late-night decision, the U.S. Supreme Court intervened to temporarily halt the Trump administration's planned deportation of Venezuelan men held in immigration custody. The justices issued an order early Saturday morning, preventing the government from removing any members of the affected group until further notice.
...where God struck dead Anton LaVey, home of the Sydney Ducks, ruled by Vigilance Committee from 1859 through 1867, reliably and volubly Democrat since 1964...
