Rauner will sign sanctuary state bill for Illinois

Bruce Rauner is making a giant mistake by letting Illinois become a sanctuary state. He will sign a bill on Monday that will do just that.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

The immigration legislation would prohibit police in Illinois from detaining or arresting a person based on their immigration status or on federal immigration detainer. It would allow law enforcement officials, however, to detain a person with a judge's order.

The bill passed with bipartisan support and was supported by faith leaders, law enforcement and businesses. But Republicans initially opposed the measure, arguing it will cause a conflict with federal laws.

Who speaks up for the ordinary taxpayer in Illinois?

Robert Lee, an Asian, pulled from UVA football game by ESPN because of his name

Should Robert Lee change his name?

ESPN, the Colin Kaepernick-loving leftist sports network, has gone too far again.

From NY Magazine:

ESPN reassigned a college football announcer named Robert Lee from the University of Virginia's season-opening game because he shares a name with the Confederacy’s most famous general, the network confirmed Tuesday. Instead of calling UVA's game against William & Mary, Lee will instead work Pitt versus Youngstown State. In a statement, ESPN said it's "because of the coincidence of his name."

The statement added that executives and Lee made the decision together "as the tragic events in Charlottesville were unfolding," a reference to the deadly neo-Nazi rally on August 12.

"In that moment it felt right to all parties," ESPN said. "It's a shame that this is even a topic of conversation and we regret that who calls play-by-play for a football game has become an issue."

Two years ago ESPN, remember, it's a sports network, gave Bruce Jenner, or whatever his name is now, an ESPY courage award, even though he retired from competitive sports when Gerald Ford was still president.

ILL-inois: Harvey's firefighters pension plan headed to bankruptcy

159th Street in Harvey

Here is the latest unhappy development from Illinois' premier kleptocracy, Harvey.

From the Chicago Tribune:

In an unprecedented ruling, an appellate court declared the city of Harvey so severely neglected its firefighters' pension fund that it was on the verge of insolvency — meaning there might not be any money for retirees or firefighters on the job there today.

The ruling comes as local firefighters complain of equipment in disrepair and manpower cuts. And it follows another embarrassing ruling in which a Cook County judge took away control of Harvey's water finances from leaders of the scandal-plagued and debt-ridden south suburb.

In a scathing opinion filed earlier this month, the 1st District Appellate Court found that for nearly a decade, the city neglected to pay enough money to keep the pension fund solvent, leaving it in danger of running dry in as little as five years. Indeed, the court found that over that period, the city contributed only 17 percent of the amount needed to sustain the pension fund.

"Harvey has set up a collision course over a period of many years where the beneficiaries of their firefighters' Pension Fund are being paid substantially out of the money that the firefighters have themselves contributed to the Pension Fund and the money the Pension Fund earns from investments…" the court wrote. "In essence, Harvey is robbing Peter to pay Paul, but what happens when Peter retires?"

Related posts:

• Fox Chicago: "Insolvent" Harvey IL is worse than broke
• (Photos) Abandoned homes in the corrupt city of Harvey, Illinois
• (Photos) Abandoned homes in the corrupt city of Harvey, Illinois, part two

Arrests down 24 percent in Chicago--murders of course are way up

In 2015 there were 480 murders in Chiraq. Last year there were 2016 killings.

And what about arrests?

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Chicago Police officers made 85,493 arrests in 2016, a 24 percent drop from the year before and roughly half the number of arrests they made the year before Mayor Rahm Emanuel took office.

The steady and precipitous decline in arrests coincided with the mayor’s decision to rely on overtime — to the tune of $143 million last year, and even more during in the first quarter of this year — to mask a severe manpower shortage before abruptly reversing course and embarking on a two-year hiring blitz.

This is part of a long term trend, a disturbing one if you are a law-abiding resident of the city.

They show that Chicago Police officers made 167,355 arrests in 2010; 152,740 in 2011; 145,390 in 2012; 143,618 in 2013; 129,166 in 2014; 112,996 in 2015, and 85,493 last year.

The largest percentage drop occurred between 2015, when a judge ordered the city to release the Laquan McDonald shooting video, and 2016, when the U.S. Justice Department conducted its sweeping civil rights investigation of the Chicago Police Department triggered by the shooting of the black teenager.

According to HeyJackass, no one is charged in nearly 90 percent of all Chiraq homicides.

It won't get one, Chicagoans are at best misguided, but the city needs a law-and-order mayor.

Chiraq: 9 dead and at least 54 others wounded over weekend

West Pullman

You can't blame the solar eclipse for this weekend's carnage in Chicago--the eclipse is today.

Nine were shot to death and at least 54 more wounded in shootings across the city.

The most horrible incident was in West Pullman on the Far South Side when a man was killed and seven others were wounded early Sunday morning in a mass shooting.

The other fatal shootings were in North Lawndale and University Village on the West Side, Rogers Park on the North Side, Logan Square on the Northwest Side, Brighton Park on the Southwest Side, and in Englewood and West Englewood on the South Side, along with another, unrelated, shooting death in West Pullman.

Truthout editor invokes 1970s Nazi march in Skokie that never happened in fundraising pitch

Truthout is a far-left online publication that I peek at once in a while. I mean, someone with a level head has to do it, right?

I live 50 yards from Skokie, Illinois, which is famous worldwide because a neo-Nazi group based on Chicago's Southwest Side applied for a permit to march there in 1977. What made this story a very big deal is that back then Skokie's population was about half Jewish and among those Jews were approximately 5,000 Holocaust survivors.

By all accounts the tiny Nazi group--they all are tiny, by the way--had no desire to march in Skokie, as they would have feared for their lives if they followed through. What they craved was publicity and contributions to their twisted organization from sympathetic whack-jobs who otherwise wouldn't know they existed. Skokie and the Nazis was a major national news story in 1977 and 1978. The Nazis, led by the son of a Jewish survivor of Dachau, Frank Collin, enlisted the aid of the Illinois American Civil Liberties Union, who successfully overturned an injunction by the village of Skokie to prevent the Nazis from marching because it would likely inflict emotional harm to thousands of residents. The case was finally resolved by the Illinois Supreme Court. The ACLU--and the Nazis--won.

Collin later served time in prison for child molestation. Some stuff you just can't make up.

But the Nazis didn't parade through the streets of Skokie. As the leftist legal group tells us, "Although the ACLU prevailed in its free speech arguments," we learn on its website, "the neo-Nazi group never marched through Skokie, instead agreeing to stage a rally at Federal Plaza in downtown Chicago."

Holocaust memorial
in Skokie

A very good made-for-TV movie, Skokie, starring Danny Kaye who plays a Holocaust survivor, was first broadcast in 1981. Eli Wallach. Carl Reiner, and Brian Dennehy are in it too.

Back to Falseout--I mean, Truthout.

In an email fundraising appeal from Truthout's editor-in-chief, Maya Schenwar misinforms us. "A large group of neo-Nazis famously marched in Skokie in the 1970s, targeting Jews and other marginalized groups," she claims. Schenwar then mentions a 2000 Ku Klux Klan rally in Skokie that she witnessed. That one did occur. And it was a rally at a courthouse, not a march. Still, I guess some stuff you can make up.

The ACLU and I are right, Truthout's Schenwar is wrong. But the image of Nazis marching in a heavily Jewish suburb really tugs at the purse strings.

Always tell the truth when soliciting for cash. Wait, rewind. Always tell the truth.

From Doug Ross: 15 antifa photos you'll never see in the legacy media

President Donald J. Trump is right--there were some very bad people on both sides of the protests in Charlottesville. The white supremacists and the antifas have some bad hombres in their ranks.

From Doug Ross: 15 antifa photos you'll never see in the legacy media.

From Da Tech Guy, Series review: Broadchurch

I return to reviewing television shows for my weekly post at Da Tech Guy. Series review: Broadchurch.

Schoolhouse Rock: Shot Heard Round the World

With George Washington--the Father Of Our Country--is under attack in the United States, it's time to look back at happier times.

Yes, Washington is under attack in America--not North Korea.

Watch as Schoolhouse Rock looks back at Washington and the American Revolution.

Let Freedom Ring!

Ted Nugent: David Crosby can 'kiss my ass'

Recently Ted Nugent, the conservative rock icon, said that he isn't in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because he's on the board of directors for the National Rifle Assocication, which led leftist druggie David Crosby to reply on Twitter, "No the asshole just isn't good enough."

Nuge, a Fox News specialist replied, back the Crosby can "Kiss my ass."