#Justice4Dejon

The invaluable John Kass, reminding us of how pursuing #Justice4Jussie leads to other injustices:

Something important has been lost in the embarrassing saga of Jussie Smollett, the tuna fish sandwich-loving actor and anti-Trump activist, and those muscular Nigerian brothers.

And I suppose it’s easy to lose what’s important with all the panic and intersectional hatred and liberal identity politics gone bad in this Smollett story.

What’s been lost is this:

I’m told that two dozen detectives were assigned to the Smollett case.

That's a lot of detectives. And while one can't be 100% sure that these detectives might have been assigned elsewhere had not the now-indicted Smollett decided to get himself some sweet stolen victim valor, the mismatch of resources has a cost beyond the waste of the investigation. Back to Kass:

A few weeks ago, after Smollett began telling his tale — in which he’s the hero fighting oppression and hatred — a 1-year-old child was shot in the head.

It looked like a street gang may have been targeting his mother. She’s been shot before. The child, Dejon Irving, is on life support.

I don’t think there were two dozen detectives assigned to Dejon Irving’s case. But he’s not a star to be used by politicians in pursuit of power. He’s not a symbol.

Politicians don’t tweet his name. He’s just a little boy from Chicago, shot in the head.

What happened to Dejon Irving is real. We don't talk about what's real these days.

There's nothing for you here

Politicians sit yourselves down, there's nothing for you here
Won't you please come to Chicago for a ride
Don't ask jack to help you `cause he'll turn the other ear
Won't you please come to Chicago or else join the other side

I was born in the Chicago area. My parents left when I was six months old. I lived in the Chicago area for five years. We've been back to visit twice, briefly, in the last month. Chicago is an important part of my life. And in many parts of the city, it's become Hell:

Dozens of people have been wounded in weekend shootings across Chicago police said.

63 people have been shot, ten fatally, since 5 p.m. Friday. 34 of the shootings and five deaths occurred between 10 a.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday, according to police.

During one two-and-a-half hour-hour period, 25 people were shot in five multi-injury shootings. One paramedic described Saturday evening into Sunday morning as "a war zone."

"We know that some of these incidents were targeted and are related to gang conflicts in those areas," said Chicago Police Chief of Patrol Fred Waller at a press conference Sunday afternoon.

CPD said the majority of the shootings took place in the six, tenth and 11th districts and that gunmen shot into large crowds.

That last part is what merits particular attention. If you had active shooters firing into large crowds most other places in the country, it would be a huge story and David Hogg would be on the scene. In Chicago, you say? Crickets.

But this really isn't about guns or gun control. There are plenty of gun laws on the books in Chicago, but the bullets fly anyway. The areas in question are on the south side and the west side of Chicago, in neighborhoods that were dangerous 25 years ago and remain so today. 

The Onion is a parody site, but too often it tells the truth:

Garfield Park? No problem. Hyde Park? Problem

The lyrics excerpted above, written in the moment when 60s idealism was turning to cynicism, aren't accurate. There's always been something in Chicago for politicians. It's the people in Lawndale, and Garfield Park, and Woodlawn, who have nothing. It never surprises me to read these reports, but it always saddens me.

Awaiting Janus

The most important case before the Supreme Court this term has yet to be announced, but it could come today. Janus vs. AFSCME concerns Mark Janus, an employee of the State of Illinois, who is not a member of the AFSCME public employee union, but is compelled to pay "fair share" dues to AFSCME. It's the same topic that led Wisconsin Democrats to the mattresses when Act 10 passes in 2011. If the Court rules in favor of Janus, it will be a crippling blow to public employee unions, which are now a huge part of the financial and power structure of the modern Democratic Party, especially here in Minnesota.

On balance, this term for the Supremes has been very good for conservatives. If this ruling goes in favor of Janus, it will be more or less a clean sweep. And if Anthony Kennedy retires after the end of the term, Trump will get a chance to name a second justice who should be more reliable than Kennedy, who enjoys a little moral preening as a perk of his job.

Aw, that's a shame

OPEC has issues, and Walter Russell Mead and friends have noticed:

The oil cartel roped eleven other petrostates into an agreement to curtail production in 2017 and are currently working on extending that deal, but the output cut’s ultimate goal of eating away at the oil market’s glut of crude is being undermined by the actions of suppliers outside of OPEC—U.S. shale producers chief among them. Now, OPEC is revising upwards its estimates of how quickly supplies will grow outside of its membership this year by a whopping 64 percent. 

Why is this happening? Primarily because of the frackers:

By cutting costs and boosting efficiencies, U.S. shale has made itself capable of profitably producing $50 per barrel oil.

The only way cutting production makes sense for OPEC is if they can subsequently get $75 per barrel, or thereabouts, to make up for the lost amount of production. And meanwhile frackers are gearing up elsewhere:

Vaca Muerta, which is Spanish for Dead Cow, is a shale gas and oil formation the size of Belgium in the heart of the region of Patagonia and is essential to Argentina being able to become self sufficient in energy.

President Mauricio Macri hopes a pact he has negotiated with unions and provincial authorities will jumpstart investor interest in developing the field.

Argentina won't be in the game for a while yet, because labor and transportation costs are still obstacles to profitability, but it will be in the game eventually. The price of a barrel of oil was $115 as recently as 2014. It's been less than half that price for a long time now:

Frack you

OPEC cut production last year and while prices rose for a time, they have been essentially stable for over a year. I have paid as much as $4/gallon for gas around this time of year in the past; I have not paid more than $2.50 in a long time, except in places like Chicago where they tax the crap out of gasoline (and everything else). While we worry about bread and circuses in Washington, we don't have to cringe every time we approach a gas pump. I'm grateful for that.

Back in town

We were out last week looking at colleges. It was an enlightening trip. A few brief observations:

• If you want to know why colleges have become so expensive, go visit a few. The amenities at the schools we saw were top-notch. The dorm rooms at the schools were nicer than many hotels and the food service is quite good. You might see deferred maintenance and crappy food in some places, but the collegiate experience is quite pleasant these days. It's also unrealistic, because the real world isn't nearly so well scrubbed.
• I'd never been to St. Louis before. You can see the trouble from the highway in some places, but the areas around Washington University and and Saint Louis University were really quite nice. The prices for food and drink were also noticeably cheaper than in the Twin Cities. 
• On the other hand, Chicago looks worse for wear. The roads were terrible in certain areas we traveled, especially in the Rogers Park neighborhood on the far north side. Touhy Avenue is a major east-west thoroughfare and it had huge gouges in the pavement all the way to the border in Skokie. Make sure you get your shocks fixed before you attempt your passage.
• The Illinois Tollway system is really annoying. But you already knew that. The latest issue is that you are expected to pay, but there's no way to pay at certain entrances unless you have an I-Pass. I'm expected to go on to their website and enter my credit card to pay a 70 cent toll because I was on I-294 for all of three minutes. Sheesh.

Back to regular programming tomorrow.

Coming attractions

Chicago has problems galore, but the largest one might be its parlous financial condition:

The Windy City has become a poster child for financial mismanagement, having suffered a series of ratings downgrades in recent years. Aside from having thin reserves and large volumes of outstanding debt, Chicago is notorious for its underfunded pension plans.

For example, the city’s Municipal Employees' Annuity and Benefit Fund (MEABF) reported $4.7 billion in assets and $14.7 billion of actuarially accrued liabilities at the end of 2015, representing a funded ratio of just 33 percent. The actuarial calculations rely on a controversial practice of discounting future benefits at a rate of 7.5 percent, which is the assumed return on the fund’s portfolio return. If a more conservative assumption was employed, MEABF’s liabilities would be higher and its funded ratio lower.

The State of Illinois is not going to be able to bail Chicago out. Somebody is going to get stuck. Will it be the pensioners of Chicago, or will it be you and I? It's a story that will play out across the country. Be ready.

More trolling than a fishing show

I still have a number of friends from my days in Chicago and they are exceptionally angry about the latest column from the columnist they love to hate, the Chicago Tribune's John Kass:

FBI director James Comey's announcement about the renewed Clinton email investigation is the bombshell in the presidential campaign. That he announced this so close to Election Day should tell every thinking person that what the FBI is looking at is extremely serious.

This can't be about pervert Anthony Weiner and his reported desire for a teenage girl. But it can be about the laptop of Weiner's wife, Clinton aide Huma Abedin, and emails between her and Hillary. It comes after the FBI investigation in which Comey concluded Clinton had lied and been "reckless" with national secrets, but said he could not recommend prosecution.

So what should the Democrats do now?

Wait for it, wait for it. . .

If ruling Democrats hold themselves to the high moral standards they impose on the people they govern, they would follow a simple process:

They would demand that Mrs. Clinton step down, immediately, and let her vice presidential nominee, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, stand in her place.

Democrats should say, honestly, that with a new criminal investigation going on into events around her home-brew email server from the time she was secretary of state, having Clinton anywhere near the White House is just not a good idea.

A few thoughts:

• This is world-class trolling. It's also a reminder of the demands we've all been hearing from Democrats in this cycle -- why won't you denounce Donald Trump? I've probably seen 100 ads from the DCCC on behalf of Terri Bonoff, who is running (and losing) for Congress in MN CD-3, against the incumbent Erik Paulsen. Kass is asking a relevant question -- why won't Democrats denounce Hillary Clinton?
• Kass's hypothetical question about the high moral standards of Democrats is one that rarely gets asked. It's also pure Alinsky Rule 4 -- make the enemy live up to its own set of rules.
• Maybe half of the electorate is too young to remember the 1972 election cycle, but I do. The big difference is that the rot is being exposed before Election Day.

Kass makes a larger point that can't be made often enough:

As secretary of state she kept classified documents on the home-brew server in her basement, which is against the law. She lied about it to the American people. She couldn't remember details dozens of times when questioned by the FBI. Her aides destroyed evidence by BleachBit and hammers. Her husband, Bill, met secretly on an airport tarmac with Attorney General Loretta Lynch for about a half-hour, and all they said they talked about was golf and the grandkids.

And there was no prosecution of Hillary.

That isn't merely wrong and unethical. It is poisonous.

And during this presidential campaign, Americans were confronted with a two-tiered system of federal justice: one for standards for the Clintons and one for the peasants.

If nothing else animates Trump supporters, watching these double standards play out has to be at the top of their list of legitimate grievances. The Clintons really need to go, because they corrupt everything they touch. And that includes the party that millions support. The hour is late.

Meanwhile, in Chicago

Too many promises, not enough money:

Chicago, the nation’s biggest junk-rated city, has raised taxes and moved to shore up its debt-ridden pension system, but for its schools, the triage still has a ways to go.

The Chicago Board of Education is facing a potential strike by its teachers, which could further strain its coffers. The third-largest U.S. school district’s budget counts on state aid and union concessions that may not come. And this week, Moody’s Investors Service cut its rating deeper into junk, citing its “precarious liquidity” and reliance on borrowed money, as preliminary data showed an enrollment drop of almost 14,000 students -- a loss that may cut into its funding.

How bad is it?

"To say that they’re challenged is an understatement,” said Richard Ciccarone, the Chicago-based president of Merritt Research Services LLC, which analyzes municipal finances. "The problems that they’re having poses risks to continued operations and the timely repayment of liabilities.”

The school board’s situation has worsened as its fund balance and reserves shrink, according to Moody’s.

“Because the reserves and the liquidity have weakened steadily over the past few years, there’s less room for uncertainty in the budget,” said Rachel Cortez, vice president at Moody’s in Chicago. “They don’t have any cash left to buffer against revenue or expenditure assumptions that don’t pan out.”

And of course, Chicago has a few other issues as well:

Tuesday, Aug. 23, provided a particular glimpse of how the city's murder toll steadily grew.
On that day, Victor Mata, 22, a member of a faction of the Satan Disciples, was found dead in the front yard of a house. It was the fourth time he had been shot in recent years.

Christopher Hibbler, 42, who belonged to the Black P Stones, a leading black street gang, died when people in a car sprayed gunfire at the corner where he was standing.

Tykina Ali, 20, was shot when someone opened fire on her boyfriend's car.

Johnell Johnson, a 37-year-old member of the Black Gangsters on the city's West Side, was found dead in the street, shot in the face.

I left Chicago nearly 24 years ago. I have not regretted the move.

Life in a one party town

Prediction -- Rahm Emanuel will not resign his position as mayor of Chicago. He'll get by with everything. The protests will mean nothing:

There was no mea culpa great enough, no promises convincing enough to satisfy hundreds of protesters who converged downtown in a vociferous rebuke of how he has handled issues of police misconduct, brought to the forefront in recent weeks by the controversy over Laquan McDonald's shooting death in 2014.

They want Emanuel gone.

"This is not a black problem, this is a democracy problem. We don't want your apology, we want your resignation!" one woman yelled.

It won't happen. He will wait the protesters out. It's going to get cold eventually. The snow will fly and people won't want to tromp around in the nasty weather, so eventually they'll go home. And nothing will change. The bullets will still be flying in the rougher precincts. Human life is cheap in a one party town.

You will comply

Here comes the stick:

The math is harsh: The federal penalty for having no health insurance is set to jump to $695, and the Obama administration is being urged to highlight that cold fact in its new pitch for health law sign-ups.

That means the 2016 sign-up season starting Nov. 1 could see penalties become a bigger focus for millions of people who have remained eligible for coverage, but uninsured. They’re said to be squeezed for money, and skeptical about spending what they have on health insurance.

Until now, health overhaul supporters have stressed the benefits: taxpayer subsidies that pay roughly 70 percent of the monthly premium, financial protection against sudden illness or an accident, and access to regular preventive and follow-up medical care.

But in 2016, the penalty for being uninsured will rise to the greater of either $695 or 2.5 percent of taxable income. That’s for someone without coverage for a full 12 months. This year the comparable numbers are $325 or 2 percent of income.

It's a steep fine, but when you consider what even crappy health insurance costs these days, accepting the fine is easier than paying the premium. I seem to remember being told otherwise:

Huh. That hasn't happened?

Out on the fairway

You may have seen this picture over the weekend:

Just two golfing buddies, probably discussing a little bidness while they were out there on the course. Of course one of the men is Bill Clinton, and the other is the Leader of the Free World. And there are other games afoot beyond a little $2 Nassau.

We're learning that the wife of Mr. Clinton, who has been much in the news lately, is in trouble over her conduct in office as Secretary of State. Many pixels have been piled up detailing the investigations under way, both by Congressional committees and, now, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Much of the story involves the homebrew server that Mrs. Clinton used for correspondence and whether or not it was secure. One might guess that the conversation between these two men would have some import.

For her part, Mrs. Clinton continues to deny any wrongdoing:

Speaking to reporters Tuesday in North Las Vegas, Nevada, Clinton said she was "very comfortable that this will eventually get resolved and the American people will have plenty of time to figure it out."

She added: "In retrospect, this didn't turn out to be convenient at all and I regret that this has become such a cause celebre. But that does not change the facts." She reiterated that what she did was "legally permitted" and said she did not send any emails marked "classified."

If that were true, the FBI would not be involved. A few thoughts:

• While the questions concerning the marking on emails matters much, the larger question concerns the content of the emails that were on her server, particularly the thousands of emails that Clinton deemed "private" and therefore outside the purview of those pesky investigators.
• If I were to bet, what Mrs. Clinton deems "private" are not the details of her daughter's wedding planning, nor her yoga schedule. None of that matters and would be of no interest. What would be of huge interest? How much business were the Clintons doing with foreign governments through their foundation, and the relationship between the business they did and the office she held. People don't give the Clintons money because they admire their grooming.
• It's safe to assume that the Leader of the Free World knows exactly what was happening and thus has the fate of the Clintons in his hands. As a Chicago politician, the Leader of the Free World is willing to tolerate a little graft here and there, so long as it doesn't get in the way of larger agendas.
• If Mrs. Clinton becomes president, the balance of power changes and the Clintons would have access to rather a lot of information concerning the conduct of the Leader of the Free World. Does the Leader of the Free World trust the Clintons to safeguard the records? Would you? Or would it end up on some homebrew server, so to speak?
• If I were to guess, the FBI investigation is a sign that the Leader of the Free World has made his decision and that the Clintons need to go away now. He would be better off if someone more loyal is his successor. The Leader of the Free World could even live with Jeb Bush, because the Bushies know the code and wouldn't pursue any investigations, because who knows where that could lead?
• Further, if I were to guess, the meeting out on the fairway was about the terms of Mrs. Clinton's exit. If she leaves, the Clinton enterprise is safe and the money keeps flowing for now. And when the Leader of the Free World leaves office, it becomes his turn to cash in.

Stay tuned. The endgame may be coming sooner than later.

Poor Ron

It's not easy being Ron Fournier these days, having to break it to us gently:

 For once, Hillary Rodham Clinton seemed to be a decent candidate. Taking aim at weak spots in the GOP lines, she attacked Jeb Bush on women's health, Marco Rubio on abortion, Scott Walker on college costs, and Donald Trump on sexism.

Then the stone wall crumbled around the Queen of Paradox: Hillary Clinton, both a political colossus and a catastrophe. 

He's just broken up about it all:

If the deleted emails can't be recovered, Clinton will never be able to clear her name. Only the most blindly loyal and partisan voters will accept her word and ignore the serial deception. Even people like me who have known and respected Clinton for years will walk into the voting booth asking ourselves, "What is she hiding?"

We all know what she's hiding, actually -- everything. The homebrew server, her feckless conduct as a diplomat, her eternal grifting. It's all coming down on her now.

Many people are speculating that the Obama Justice Department is going to stall out the investigation long enough for Hillary to win. Why would Obama want to do that? He couldn't count on Hillary to protect him. He'd rather have a loyalist like Joe Biden succeed him, or if a Republican has to win, someone who understands the code, like Jeb. The endgame is coming soon.

Meanwhile, back in that same old place

Remember Homan Square, the "off the books" interrogation facility in Chicago, that we briefly heard about in February? The Guardian has stayed on the case and we now know more about what's been happening in the City That Works:

At least 3,500 Americans have been detained inside a Chicago police warehouse described by some of its arrestees as a secretive interrogation facility, newly uncovered records reveal.

Of the thousands held in the facility known as Homan Square over a decade, 82% were black. Only three received documented visits from an attorney, according to a cache of documents obtained when the Guardian sued the police.

That's a little, uh, problematic. So is this:

Lawyers and former police officers say that lack of access to a lawyer after the arrest and before booking – particularly during any interrogation, and particularly people from poor minority communities – puts a suspect’s rights in jeopardy.

“In Chicago, the police do not provide people with attorneys at the police station at the times they most need them: when they’re subject to interrogation,” said Craig Futterman of the University of Chicago Law School. “That’s what the Miranda warning is all about: the right to counsel while interrogated by police.”

Even when suspects claim to understand their rights, “they still tend to incriminate themselves” without an attorney present, Lorenzo Davis, a former police detective and attorney who himself commanded a unit at Homan Square, explained.

There's a lot more at the link. It's worth your time.

One day is "later"

So, yesterday I said the criminal probe of Hillary Clinton would come later. Maybe it was only one day later:

The FBI investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s unsecured e-mail account is not just a fact-finding venture — it’s a criminal probe, sources told The Post on Wednesday.

The feds are investigating to what extent Clinton relied on her home server and other private devices to send and store classified documents, according to a federal source with knowledge of the inquiry. 

“It’s definitely a criminal probe,” said the source. “I’m not sure why they’re not calling it a criminal probe.

“The DOJ [Department of Justice] and FBI can conduct civil investigations in very limited circumstances,” but that’s not what this is, the source stressed. “In this case, a security violation would lead to criminal charges. Maybe DOJ is trying to protect her campaign.”

Nah, they aren't trying to protect her campaign. My working theory about all this, which is hardly unique, is pretty simple: the current administration doesn't trust the Clintons. They'd rather have someone more loyal be the successor. They'd even settle for a pliant Republican disinclined to make waves, e.g., Jeb Bush.

At bottom, the Clintons are grifters. The Obamas play for keeps.

Under my thumb drive

Here they come, Hillary:

The FBI has begun looking into the security of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private e-mail setup, contacting in the past week a Denver-based technology firm that helped manage the unusual system, according to two government officials.

Also last week, the FBI contacted Clinton’s lawyer, David Ken­dall, with questions about the security of a thumb drive in his possession that contains copies of work e-mails Clinton sent during her time as secretary of state.

I wouldn't find this particularly reassuring, either:

The FBI’s interest in Clinton’s e-mail system comes after the intelligence community’s inspector general referred the issue to the Justice Department in July. Intelligence officials expressed concern that some sensitive information was not in the government’s possession and could be “compromised.” The referral did not accuse Clinton of any wrongdoing, and the two officials said Tuesday that the FBI is not targeting her.

The FBI is not targeting her yet. That comes later. As we mentioned yesterday, the most important thing to remember about the Leader of the Free World is that he is a Chicago politician. Among other traits that Chicago politicians share, he is willing to wait until the right moment to drop the bomb. Mrs. Clinton might want to ask David Petraeus about that.

What is the end game? Hard to know, but one thing seems increasingly clear -- Barack Obama does not want his successor to be Hillary Clinton.

il miglior fabbro

Victor Davis Hanson, making a point that's obvious to those who have paid attention to the Leader of the Free World's career:

There has been bad blood between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama ever since their acrimonious 2008 nomination fight. Hillary should beware: Obama has a long Chicago memory, and as an unfettered lame duck he no longer worries about polls or national elections. Coincidentally, Hillary just learned that federal officials are once again looking into her private e-mail mess and her possible release of classified information to friends and associates. She should remember what happened to General David Petraeus, whose use of private e-mails and sharing of classified documents were apparently known to the Obama administration well before the 2012 election — but mattered more opportunely after the Obama victory, when it led to Petraeus’s resignation and eventual guilty plea to a federal charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified information. In Chicago style, the sword of Damocles falls when the boss chooses.

Even more curious, as Stanley Kurtz has pointed out, the Obama administration is apparently going ahead with its bizarre plan to force elite suburbs to diversify and become more racially proportionate under federal guidance (certain tony enclaves like Oprah’s Montecito or Silicon Valley’s Woodside will no doubt be exempt). Disbursements of federal money will apparently be used to alter zoning laws in wealthier areas, with the purpose of granting access to the underprivileged. Guess which exclusive enclave the Obama administration tried targeting first?

Westchester, N.Y. – home to Hillary Clinton. Pettiness too is a Chicago presidential trait.

Emphasis mine. The most important thing to remember about Barack Obama is that he is a Chicago politician. Read the whole thing.