Tag: chicago

Chicago Resident Goes Off-Delivers Powerful Rebuke of Democrats Using ‘Voting Rights Act of 1965 Propaganda’: “You sick in the head and more sicker in your spirit”

Chicago resident Jessica Jackson called out Chicago Cook County Commissioners Tara Stamps and Dr. Kisha McCaskill for claiming Black voting rights are under attack by using “Voting Rights Act of 1965 propaganda” to fearmonger voters, all while ignoring the crisis impacting Black communities in the county.

The grassroots organization “Chicago Flips Red” shared her powerful remarks and noted on X, “Since 2020, nearly 2,500 homeowners have lost their properties and the equity tied to those homes through delinquent property tax sales. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the practice unconstitutional years ago, yet families are still fighting for accountability, transparency, and relief.”

“Jackson also raises concerns about property theft tied to Cook County probate court practices, unlawful demolitions without due process, and generational wealth being stripped from longtime residents under the watch of local government.”

“Our argument: politicians continue using historic civil rights language during election season, but stay silent when Black families lose homes, land, inheritance, and wealth through government systems operating in their own backyard.”

Ms. Jackson said during her remarks, “The reality is this: Black people’s voting is not in danger, and you know it’s not, and you know it’s not. I’m 63 years old. I’ve been voting since I was 18. I have never had a problem voting.”

“Now, that may apply to my mother and father. It applies to my grandparents. Surely it does. And in fact, because it does, every single person in this room, including that Jewish lady that just got up and talked, need to really be thanking us. Really need to be thanking us for giving y’all the right to vote, for giving y’all the right to be here instead of sitting up here manipulating the Voting Rights Act like something’s getting ready to happen to our right to vote when you know that’s not true.”

“So now you all going to drag Black people in here, definitely some senior citizens, and going to have them come up here and talk about how they ‘scared to vote’.”

Keep reading

Lawsuit: D300 secretly gender transitioned student; Seeks to nix IL gender ‘guidance,’ too

A mother from Chicago’s far northwest suburbs has lodged a lawsuit against her child’s public school district, accusing Community Unit School District 300 of allegedly attempting to secretly transition her child’s gender and of blocking the parent’s attempt to learn more about what was happening and be involved, even when the student struggled with suicidal thoughts and required hospitalization for mental health purposes.

However, the class action lawsuit also seeks to more broadly overturn policies at the district and potentially throughout Illinois, which the mother and her lawyer claim trample parents’ constitutional rights.

On May 10, attorney Ajay Gupta, of Naperville, filed suit in Chicago federal court against District 300.

Based in the village of Algonquin, District 300 ranks as the sixth largest public school district in Illinois, has a student population of more than 20,000 students from communities within a 118 square mile radius in Chicago’s northwest suburbs mostly in Kane County, near the McHenry County line.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a named plaintiff, identified in the complaint only as S.K. According to the complaint, she is the mother of a student at one of the district’s three high schools. District 300 high schools include Dundee-Crown High School in Carpentersville, Harry D. Jacobs High School in Algonquin, and Hampshire High School in Hampshire.

The complaint does not identify which high school the student attended.

According to the complaint, staff at the student’s school allegedly began in 2022 using “alternate name and pronouns” for S.K.’s child, identified in the complaint only as T.K.

The complaint asserts the student at that time “experienced declining mental health and difficulty completing schoolwork.”

Keep reading

Walgreens Closing Chicago Location Due to Massive Theft, Local Political Leaders Who Enable the Crime Are Outraged

Walgreens has announced that it is closing a store in the Chatham neighborhood of Chicago. They claim that the store is losing upwards of a million dollars a year to theft, so the reason for the closure is no mystery. They say that this particular store loses more in theft than any other store.

And yet… The political leaders in Chicago, who allow thieves to run wild, are angry at Walgreens.

They caused this, with their soft on crime policies, yet they are mad at Walgreens for closing the location.

FOX 32 in Chicago reported:

Walgreens to close Chatham store after more than $1M loss, cites theft and declining sales

Walgreens executives revealed the store lost more than a million dollars last year, partly due to declining prescription sales but also a massive amount of store theft.

“Theft at this store is 16 percent,” Johnson said. “That’s four times above the company average.”

And the company explained that they tried to stop theft.

“Lock boxes help us protect the merchandise in the store. A lot of the time, those lock boxes were getting destroyed. And that’s at a great cost to the company,” said Jason Vasquez, Walgreens District Manager.

They say Walgreens was spending $400,000 a year on security guards in the store, but there were still attacks on store employees.

“We’ve had people jump across the counters, because we sell liquor behind the counter, taking liquor, cigarettes… That wears. That wears down. Not so much the financial piece but the endurance of that day in and day out,” said Lonnie Fuqua, the store’s manager.

Keep reading

8% of defendants in Chicago’s electronic monitoring program unaccounted for

According to the latest data released by the Cook County Chief Judge’s office, approximately 246 of the 3,048 criminal defendants currently enrolled in Chicago’s electronic monitoring program are considered missing or unaccounted for.

These individuals, who were released pretrial on the condition of wearing ankle monitors, have reportedly tampered with their devices, allowed their batteries to die, or otherwise remained out of contact with authorities for at least three hours.

The scale of the issue is particularly concerning given the nature of the charges involved. According to public tracking data, those currently in “AWOL” status include 21 individuals charged with murder, 13 with attempted murder, 103 facing sexual assault charges, and 173 charged with aggravated battery.

Nonetheless, Cook County Chief Judge Charles Beach confirmed to outlet WGN that law enforcement is actively working to locate and apprehend these missing defendants to ensure they are returned to custody.

“It doesn’t mean they’re out committing crimes necessarily,” Beach said. “Some might be. But they’re actively being searched for right now by law enforcement.”

Keep reading

Chicago Schools to Bus Students to Anti-Trump May Day Protests Using Tax Dollars

Tomorrow on May 1st, teacher unions in Chicago have decided to once again hold ‘May Day’ protests, which will obviously be aimed at Trump and all things Republican.

As part of these protests, Chicago Schools are going to allow students to attend, and if they choose to go, they can be shuttled to the protests using tax dollars.

Aside from the fact that a significant number of students in Chicago schools can’t read at grade level, how is any of this even legal?

Using tax dollars to transport students to political protests? Where is the outrage?

This report is from PBS:

Chicago labor unions, community groups, students and other advocates are expected to participate in events around the city on Friday in recognition of May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day.

Thousands of Chicagoans are expected to participate in a May Day rally and march starting at Union Park, 1501 W. Randolph St., and ending at Daley Plaza downtown. Other related actions are scheduled in different parts of the city in the morning ahead of the march.

The main rally is expected to begin at 1 p.m. in Union Park. The march is set to step off at 2 p.m.

The expected May Day actions come after disagreements between Chicago Public Schools CEO Macquline King and the Chicago Teachers Union over whether to close schools on Friday to allow students and teachers to participate in demonstrations…

Chicago Public Schools will still hold classes on May 1 after reaching an agreement with CTU that will also allow students and staff to attend labor rallies.

The union said the school district has pledged to provide buses for field trips for students and educators who choose to attend the afternoon May Day rally in Union Park.

Keep reading

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson Calls for Reparations and Claims Restaurants Are Tied to Slavery in Bizarre Rant 

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is currently embroiled in some sort of feud with the city council over a raise for tipped workers and it’s not going the way he wants so he is lashing out.

This week, while he was remarking on the situation, he suddenly veered into the topic of reparations and then claimed that the restaurant industry has ties to slavery.

How was this man elected mayor of a major city? It really seems like there’s something wrong with him.

FOX News reports:

Chicago mayor links restaurant industry to ‘slavery’ as tipped wage fight intensifies

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson linked the restaurant industry to “slavery” Wednesday as he defended his push to eliminate the tipped wage, doubling down after surviving a City Council effort to block the policy.

Johnson’s remarks came after the Chicago City Council failed to override his veto of a measure that would have halted the city’s phaseout of the subminimum wage for tipped workers — a policy set to raise base pay to the full minimum wage by 2028 that is opposed by restaurant owners who warn it could drive up prices and cut jobs.

He called on Chicagoans to “challenge city council not to do stuff like take wages away from Black and Brown people,” saying that most workers in the service industry who rely on tips are minorities.

“You just watched the entire city council, in transparency, try to take wages away from the very people who are part of an industry that has its ties to slavery is hiding from that,” Johnson said. “I am boldly declaring that we need reparations in this city, and that’s why I’m funding it.”

What is he even talking about?

Keep reading

Chicago: Pro-Gun Control Mayor’s ‘Armed Security’ Detail Costing Taxpayers $30 Million A Year

A report from the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s senior VP and general counsel Lawrence Keane indicates pro-gun control Mayor Brandon Johnson’s “armed security” detail costs taxpayers about $30 million a year.

According to Keane, the detail “includes as many as 150 Chicago Police Department officers.”

Keane noted that Johnson avails himself of the security provided with firearms while simultaneously praising restrictions on citizens’ ability to own the rifle of their choice:

In Chicago, Mayor Johnson has backed some of Illinois’ most restrictive firearm policies. After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 2023 reversed a lower court’s preliminary injunction against Illinois’ ban on so-called “assault-style weapons,”… [which included the] state’s magazine restrictions, Mayor Johnson praised the ruling and called the law an “important step” that would keep “weapons of war” out of neighborhoods.

Keane observed, “The practical message to Chicago residents was clear. Government officials and their armed details can enjoy armed personal protection but the public should accept tighter limits on the tools of lawful self-defense.”

Numerous other pro-gun control Democrats have taken a similar “guns for me but not for thee” approach in leadership policy.

Keep reading

Beloved highschooler Lily Bova gunned down outside Chicago — and cops won’t say who did it

A 16-year-old girl was gunned down in a quiet Chicago suburb Saturday morning — and authorities have neither caught nor identified her suspected killer.

The victim, identified as high school sophomore Lilly Bova, was killed in the Cook County neighborhood of Glenview around 11 a.m., authorities said.

Sheriff’s deputies are searching for a person of interest but have revealed few details about who may have killed the well-liked teen.

“While we cannot share further details at this time, this was an isolated incident and does not appear to pose a risk to the general public,” the Cook County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement — without revealing further details about the murder that has shocked her loved ones in the peaceful, affluent village.

Bova was “bright, positive and mature beyond her years,” her school principal said in a message to students and parents viewed by Fox 32.

Keep reading

Chicago moves toward reparations with bus tours and town halls as $150M deficit looms

Chicago took its first step after establishing a reparations task force two years ago.

Now, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson plans to hold a public engagement forum called Repair Chicago to “gather lived experiences of harm of Black Chicagoans” in an effort to provide reparations for Black residents.

“Your experience is evidence, and we’ve placed it at the center of our work,” Johnson said. “By engaging directly with residents, we are grounding this work in the voices and lived realities of the people it is meant to serve.”

The first event took place Tuesday, and two more events are scheduled through April.

Johnson’s office announced the Repair Chicago effort would involve “bus tours, panel discussions, town halls and hearings,” helping the task force members gather input for the administration’s reparations study. 

“The community engagement process will gather input from Chicagoans across the city to better understand Black Chicagoans’ experiences across generations and how systemic racism has shaped their lives, opportunities and well-being,” Johnson said.

The move comes two years after Johnson named his chief equity officer, Carla Kupe, to lead the reparations task force with $500,000 in funding. 

In 2024, Johnson signed an executive order establishing a reparations task force of 40 members that addresses “historical harms committed against Black Chicagoans and their ancestors through the form of reparations.”

Keep reading

Chicago Democrat Closes Her Office After Backlash for Saying Student Murdered by Illegal Alien Was in ‘Wrong Place at Wrong Time’

Last week , when a college student in Chicago named Sheridan Gorman was murdered by an illegal immigrant, a Democrat Chicago Alderwoman named Maria Hadden blamed the victim, suggesting that Gorman was in the wrong place at the wrong time, or that she might have startled the shooter.

You can see the video of her comments here.

The backlash to the alderwoman was so severe that she has closed her office for the time being.

FOX News reports:

Chicago alderwoman closes office after ‘wrong place at the wrong time’ comment on slain student fuels backlash

A Chicago alderwoman closed her office for the rest of the week in response to backlash over comments that a slain college student was in the “wrong place at the wrong time,” citing safety concerns.

Sheridan Gorman, 18, was killed March 19 around 1 a.m. when she was on a pier in the city’s Rogers Park area, just north of Loyola University Chicago, where the freshman attended college.

The suspect in Gorman’s murder, 25-year-old Jose Medina-Medina, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, was apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol May 9, 2023, then released into the U.S. under the Biden administration, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

After the shooting, Alderwoman Maria Hadden suggested in an interview with Fox 32 Chicago that Gorman was in the “wrong place at the wrong time,” adding that she might have “startled” the individual accused of killing her.

In a Facebook story posted on Wednesday, Hadden announced her office would be closed for the rest of the week due to safety concerns.

“My team and I are taking these precautions to ensure our safety and ability to maintain the level of service that you expect of us. I am still working as usual and will be out and about in our ward this week,” she wrote.

Keep reading