Governor JB Pritzker delivered his eighth consecutive budget address on February 18th. If you closed your eyes and listened, you might have thought you were hearing a man of the people, a defender of the powerless standing up to a tyrannical federal government. He invoked Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Reverend Jesse Jackson. He quoted the great reform governor, John Peter Altgeld.

He spoke of empathy, love, and the courage to resist authoritarianism.… Continue Reading

As Chicago braces for another weekend of wanton gunfire, mayhem, and murder, the city has announced that headshrinkers will answer 911 calls for “mental health emergencies.”

In other words, the Sun-Times reported, if someone calls 911 because his neighbor crows “I’m cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs” in the wee, small hours every morning, a burly cop with a stun gun and a Glock 9mm might not be the right medicine.… Continue Reading

Why aren’t Republicans pounding the lectern with righteous indignation about violent gun felons being let off easy by the judicial system the same way Democrats engage in cerebral gyrations over guns? Democrats have sob stories for their gun control agenda. Republicans need to look no farther than Chicago as the poster child for criminal control.

On June 23, 2017, Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson stood beside then-Gov. Bruce Rauner and celebrated the passage of a bill stiffening sentences on gun felons.… Continue Reading

Written by Russ Stewart

Chicago doesn’t need a new police superintendent. It already has one: the American Civil Liberties Union. It is “Superintendent ACLU,” and the “ACLU Rule” governs on-street activity and monitors police conduct.

Every time a police officer makes a traffic stop, questions a suspect or talks to anybody on the street, a seven-page “stop card” must be prepared and filed, and a copy is forwarded to the ACLU. Every “contact” must be given a written receipt, which goes into the police department’s database.… Continue Reading