CSX strikes again @ 4:30 P.M. on a Friday evening during summer

grade crossings were blocked at 103rd, 105th, 107th, 109th and 111th streets from 4:30 P.M. until who knows when. all fire and police services were diverted. hundreds of cars driven by frustrated motorist, were forced to drive from 111th st to 99th st. the entire west beverly was turned into a giant clusterf---.

WHEN IS THIS PRACTICE GOING TO CEASE?

These trains should never be stopping, much less during rush hour. 

Should be jailed

busy advising the Iranians

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday he believes President Trump was correct when he suggested former secretary of state John Kerry violated the Logan Act.


"It's true. I was there in Munich ... I saw not only Kerry ... [others] met with the Iranian leadership,” Pompeo said during an appearance on "Fox and Friends." “It's unusual, but more importantly, it's wrong."

The secretary was commenting an explosive assertion from Trump earlier this month that Kerry committed a treasonous action when he reportedly was engaged in secret talks with Iranian diplomats in an attempt to salvage the Iranian nuclear deal after the current administration nixed it.

This may be struck by a court

The Illinois House Wednesday passed a bill to require the submission of fingerprints, along with higher fees in order to own, shoot or even handle a firearm or ammunition. Kathleen Willis’ Amendments to SB-1966 would also end private firearm transfers and even require immediate family members gifted a firearm to report themselves to the Illinois State Police under penalty of a felony.

The bill passed solely with Democrat votes, Democrats who claim to fight for poor, inner-city minorities. At least at election time. SB-1966, with its increased fees, has a guaranteed disparate impact upon poor people of color within the Land of Lincoln.

But just like Black Codes and Jim Crow laws a hundred years ago, this bill effectively prices the exercise of fundamental constitutional rights out of the reach of poor folks in general, and disadvantaged inner city African-Americans and Latinos in particular.

Joe diGenova: Mueller should be disbarred

Ed Burke whacked by the Feds

racketeering?

chicago-alderman-edward-burke-indictment

15 Best beaches in Rio de Janeiro Copacabana Beach

Schiff is an overtly ambitious, partisan, wannabe senator

Was any of this necessary?

Lightfoot bests Burke in early City Council skirmish

It’s not the first time Lightfoot has squared off against her political nemesis. But now, the tables have turned.

By Fran Spielman  May 29, 2019, 1:09pm CDT

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Mayor Lori Lightfoot didn’t just survive the first test of her City Council muscle.

She humiliated and obliterated her political arch-rival in the process. And it was

Tucker: Mueller has nothing more to say

First pitch gone crazy at White Sox game!!

Mueller Speaks

and takes a cheap shot on the way out. 

Education, not pro sports, is almost always the key to a black child’s future

In this father’s loving eyes, there was more to dream for my black son’s future. How about engineering or law or physics?

By John W. Fountain May 24, 2019, 
Sun-Times Media

My boy was about 6 when he had his professional sports epiphany, which I promptly deflated like a Tom Brady football. “Daddy, I wanna play football when I grow up…”

“Nope… You can’t play football,” I told my son. “You’re not going to be someone’s practice dummy on their way to the NFL.”

Harsh? Maybe. But in this father’s loving eyes, there was more to dream for my black son’s future than just football and basketball — and also his good brain to protect. How about engineering or law or physics?

In the next breath, he asked, “Can I play basketball?”

“Yes, son, you can play basketball. You can also run track and cross-country,” I answered, echoing advice I had heard once about taking up a sport you can do for the rest of your life.

I grew up playing basketball and football as a kid on Chicago’s West Side. Like so many other boys, I dreamed of someday making it to the NBA, even if it was for me and my athletic skill set just a pipe dream.

I admit to having sinned with basketball. To having spent long hours on a concrete court — in the rain, cold, sleet or sunbaked heat — hoisting up shots from nearly sunup to well after sundown.

I’m a sports fan. A member of the NFL Sunday-loving dude clan who live for the game and relish every hard-hitting scintillating moment. I’m a former basketball junkie with a still undying love for the game.

And yet, I am admittedly also a hypocrite.

For my deep love of sports isn’t something I ever wanted to necessarily pass on to my kid, especially at the risk of him potentially being smitten by the professional sports bug that consumes far too many black boys. That has become our cultural obsession placed upon a pedestal.

An optical illusion, it causes far too many black boys to spend an inordinate amount of time honing their athletic skills versus sharpening their intellect and their academic or artistic abilities.

Education is the key, not athletics.

Quite frankly, in some ways, I have grown sick of football and basketball. I have come to see professional sports — or at least the idea of making it to the pros — as part of the mass delusion that leads far too many African-American youths, especially from poor neighborhoods, down the path of chasing a dream that for the vast majority of them will prove to be just a mirage.

Indeed across the African-American landscape, the pipe dream is alive and well from where I stand on the sidelines sobered by truth.

The truth that while becoming a professional athlete is not an impossible dream for some of our sons — and daughters — it is for most of them an improbable one. Simply supply and demand — not enough positions.

The truth that there exist beyond the realm of sport endless opportunities and possibilities for careers, success and life. And a college sports scholarship can help pave the way to a good education.

The truth that most black children will not run or dribble or rap and dance their way to success. Not that anything is wrong with anyone of these.

The danger lies in having a one-dimensional perspective. It lies in reducing our children’s possibilities to a pipe dream and in not seizing our role as parents to put books first, not balls.

It lies in realizing that the statistical chances for most of the untold thousands upon thousands of boys who lace up a pair of sneakers turning pro in basketball or football are slim to none.

And 11 years later, we’re betting on physics, not football.

Email: Author@johnwfountain.com

Integrity means nothing

the great fabricator

Former NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams whose career imploded after he was caught lying on the air in 2015 about being on a helicopter in a combat zone in Iraq in 2003 has apparently made it back into the good graces at the network.

Williams appeared at the recent upfronts–an annual presentation where networks preview their fall programs for advertisers, which is normally reserved only for the network’s stars and an event that Williams hasn’t been a part of since his downfall.

NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke who called Williams’ lie a faux pas and said it was “inexcusable” is letting his recent track record speak for itself as to why he is now an important part of NBC’s future plans.

For the network, Williams has done a credible job with his program “The 11th Hour”  as well as the face of MSNBC on big breaking news stories. It’s still a far cry from his evening news gig, but as time goes by NBC is hoping that viewers will forget what Williams did which is apparently what is happening as there has been no backlash to his reascendance. 

The fact that NBC didn’t fire Williams in 2015 and move on as they should have shows their lack of commitment to truth in journalism and that they are planning on using him in their 2020 election coverage only reinforces that notion. 

Kim Foxx has been at it again

It looks like letting off Smollett and these accused carjackers was “fighting systemic racism”.

Chris Menahan MAY 29, 2019



This is Kim Foxx country!

From The Daily Mail, “Frail Chicago businessman, 76, charged with the SAME crime as Jussie Smollett was fined and now has a criminal record, while the disgraced actor who cost the city $130,000 by refusing to admit culpability had all charges dropped”:


A frail businessman was arrested and charged with the same crime as Jussie Smollett, and admitted his crimes straight away to save Chicago police an investigation, but now has a criminal record.

Robert Racky pleaded guilty to filing false police report last month, after calling the cops in August 2018 saying he been carjacked. In fact, he had been booted by the city for unpaid parking tickets.

The frail 76-year-old, who opened the first rooftop club outside the home of the Chicago Cubs in Wrigleyville in 1988, was thrown in jail for two days before a lawyer posted his bond.

He couldn’t afford to pay the bail himself because of a slew of financial problems and was suffering from crippling bronchitis at the time.

Racky admitted his crimes straight after he was arrested and saved the city a lengthy investigation, but was still dragged through the courts and will now likely end his life with a rap sheet.

It was his first offense. Now questions are being raised as to why Racky was subjected to different standards to Smollett.

This one is a real mystery!

Just a few weeks before Racky’s guilty plea, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx dropped all charges against the Empire star after he allegedly staged a hate attack to try and get a raise on the show.

[…] Smollett has never apologized for his actions, has never been held accountable, and the investigation into his conduct cost Chicago police $130,000. He did two days of community service.

[…] Ever since, Foxx’s office has defended their decision to drop the charges against Smollett and insist they only focus on ‘violent crime’. She has also suggested race may be a factor in the criticism against her.

Foxx even said that Smollett’s deal is available to all defendants.

There was no violence involved in Racky’s arrest or conviction.

Incidentally, though Kim Foxx chose to prosecute Racky for filing a false police report about a carjacking which never happened, Foxx chose not to prosecute two teen suspects who were accused of taking part in a very real carjacking against a 71-year-old retired Chicago Police officer (a third suspect, pictured below, was shot and killed in the act).

dead

It looks like letting off Smollett and these accused carjackers was “fighting systemic racism” while throwing the book at Racky is what they call “correcting historical injustices.”

Those damn police again

From 2d City Copper

Hold Whom Accountable?

Not the "community," that's for sure:

• Mayor Lori Lightfoot spoke to the City Club on Tuesday. On the eve of her first City Council meeting, Lightfoot discussed priorities for her first 100 days and how the dozens of shootings that happened over Memorial Day weekend highlight the city's need to get a handle on violence.
  
  While dealing with violence remains a top concern, Lightfoot also announced a new

Trump calls the Jussie Smollett Hoax a Hate Crime

Were the actions and omissions of Smollett, Foxx, Preckwinkle, etc. indicative of hatred for whites?

breitbart.com/politics/2019/05/25/donald-trump-jussie-smollett-hoax-a-hate-crime-against-my-supporters

EU near collapse

nationalist did good at elections

BRUSSELS (AP) — France’s pro-EU president and the leader of Italy’s euroskeptic, far-right movement jockeyed for the role of chief powerbroker on the continent Monday after elections to the European Parliament hollowed out the traditional political middle.

The four days of balloting that drew to a close Sunday across the European Union’s 28 countries ended the domination of the main center-right and center-left parties in Parliament and established the anti-EU forces on the right and the environmentalists on the left as forces

Free Shit

We can free a generation from burden of college loan debt

Robert F. Smith’s gift to Morehouse students sets a standard for others of great wealth. He has paid it forward by freeing the potential of young graduates.

By Jesse Jackson  May 24, 2019, 1:12pm CDT

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Robert F. Smith delivering the commencement address this spring at Morehouse College. 

Getty

The reaction — shock, joy, disbelief, euphoria — revealed the importance of Robert F. Smith’s stunning gift, when he announced, unexpectedly, that he would pay off all the college debts of Morehouse College students graduating this year. 

His gift literally changed the prospects and the lives of the vast majority of those 396 graduates.

OPINION

Morehouse is a proud, historically black college, the alma mater of extraordinary leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Julian Bond, Howard Thurman, Maynard Jackson, former head of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, former head of the black caucus Cedric Richmond, Hollywood legends Samuel L. Jackson and Spike Lee, Olympic champion Edwin Moses and many more. 

Full-time tuition costs $25,368, with room and board and other expenses, a year at Morehouse can cost nearly $50,000. Ninety percent of Morehouse students get some kind of financial aid, cobbling together Pell grants, federal and private loans, family loans and more.

Morehouse seniors who borrow to pay for college carry an average of $26,000 in federal student loans. Private loans, federal Parent Plus loans, credit card and other debts are on top of that. The federal student loans alone would result in a monthly payment of $276.

Robert F Smith’s generosity has literally transformed the lives of those students. Now instead of putting off graduate school or being forced to live at home, and later postponing marriage and children, they are free to benefit from the hard work they have done to graduate from college. They can seek jobs that they want, without being forced to take one or more that can help them pay down their loans. They are free to dream.

Many of those benefiting from Smith’s remarkable generosity expressed what one student, Myles Washington, called a “level of survivor’s guilt.” All had friends who could not afford to go to college, or who were forced to withdraw early in the face of growing debts.

Robert F. Smith is a billionaire, the brilliant founder of Vista Equity Partners, who has made a fortune largely in purchasing and selling software firms. Raised in Denver, the child of two parents with Ph.D.s, he graduated from Cornell and later got his MBA at Columbia. His gift to the Morehouse students is only a small part of his philanthropy, which has included major support for Cornell, his alma mater, and for the National Museum of African American History and Culture, as well as his service as chair to The Board of Carnegie Hall and much more.

With this gift, he has set a standard for others of great wealth. He has, as he put it at the Morehouse commencement, “paid it forward,” by freeing the potential of young graduates.

His gift should also rouse Congress to redress the folly of shackling the best of the young generation with often unpayable debt simply to get the education this country says they need. 

Student loan debt now totals over $1.5 trillion. After home mortgages, it is the largest source of debt, exceeding car loans and credit card debts. Almost two-thirds of all students are forced to borrow to pay for college; they end with an average debt of nearly $29,000. The debt of African-American students is, on average, $7,400 more than that of white students, reflecting the wealth gap that has built up over years of slavery, segregation and housing and employment discrimination.

Democratic presidential candidates like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont are calling for making public colleges tuition-free. Warren has put forth a detailed plan to pay off a substantial portion of existing student loans. Some like Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) say we can’t afford to do that. But we are a wealthier country than Germany, yet college there is free.

This is a question of priorities not resources. The number of corporations that pay nothing in taxes has doubled under Donald Trump’s tax cut. The cost of that tax cut, most of which went to the already wealthy, is estimated at $1.7 trillion over 10 years. That alone would have been able to pay off all current student debts.

Robert Smith’s generous promise should goad all of us into action. It is a personal tragedy and a national folly to burden an entire generation with often unpayable loans simply to get an education. We all benefit from a well-educated, active population. We all suffer when an entire generation is locked into debt from the day they get out of college. 

Smith has freed nearly 400 Morehouse graduates from that burden. We should demand that Congress act to offer every student that relief.

This will give Ming Cho something to think about

Japan to buy 105 F-35 U.S. stealth warplanes: Trump

Today  05:55 am 

TOKYO

 Japan plans to buy 105 U.S.-made stealth warplanes, Donald Trump said on Monday, which the U.S. President said would give Tokyo the largest F35 fleet of any US ally.

Trump, in Tokyo for a state visit, said Japan "has just announced its intent to purchase 105 brand new F35 stealth aircraft. Stealth, because, the fact is you can't see them."

"This purchase would give Japan the largest F35 fleet of any U.S. ally," added the president.

Trump appeared to be referencing a deal first announced by the F35's manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, in December.

Japan's government announced in its latest defense budget in December plans to buy 105 units of the F35A, which performs conventional take-off and landings.

Local media said at the time that the purchases could total more than one trillion yen ($9.1 billion).

The White House could not immediately comment on the timing of Trump's comments about the deal Monday.

The China Threat

The Cold War survives: China takes over for the old Soviets

By Wes Vernon

May 28, 2019

At last! Is America finally publicly off the lure of cheap "Made-in-China" merchandise?

As we highlighted on May 5, a group of American foreign policy experts recently launched the nonpartisan Committee on the Present Danger: China to push for just such an awakening – or a renewed determination to do something about increased Chinese infiltration into America's economy.

Open-mouthed wonderment is the natural reaction to the naivete of those who assumed that Ronald Reagan's brilliant strategy in causing the collapse the old Soviet Union would mean happiness ever after. Mainly in Disneyland do such fantasies generate permanence to the "Everything's coming up roses" mantra. For, right around the corner lies present-day reality: Communist China.

The hard-boiled realists among "the good guys" are preparing for the fight via the Committee on the Present Danger: China.

The group, according to an internet report, came together this spring to "awaken" Americans to the danger posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over the country it "misrules."

Included among those on hand for the launch of the new U.S. group were Gordon Chang, advisor to the President; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich; Senator Ted Cruz; and Lianchao Han, co-founder of Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars, an advisor to the president and others.

In a statement, the organization declared, " As with the Soviet Union in the past, Communist China represents an existential and ideological threat to the United States and to the idea of freedom – one that requires a new American consensus regarding the policies and priorities required to defeat this threat."

No doubt, longtime China-watchers are muttering, "Thank you, God! At last, a common-sense consensus on the China threat is emerging."

© Wes Vernon

A powerful storm is moving toward Chicago

ETA 2:00 P.M.

Memorial Day Tribute

WHY LIBERALS HATE CHICK-FIL-A THIS MEMORIAL DAY

We ate lunch at a Chick-fil-A today. When we entered the restaurant, the first thing we saw was an empty table that was set up to honor fallen military personnel over the Memorial Day weekend. There was a red rose, a folded flag, an inverted glass and an open Bible, along with text explaining the elements of the display. Click to enlarge:

Chick-fil-A is unabashedly pro-American. I suspect that is the real reason for the animus that so many liberals bear against the company. There was a time when liberals were generally patriotic. George McGovern is a good example: he was wrong on just about every issue, but he was a veteran who loved his country. That is no longer true. 

Now, while no doubt there are honorable exceptions, liberals are usually anti-American. They have been taught a twisted, Zinnified version of American history, and they have internalized a Chomskyite view of the world in which all evils are traceable to American misdeeds. Liberals tend to be angry, unhappy people, and it is convenient for them to blame their problems on their country’s supposed failings. Organizations like Chick-fil-A that are pro-America, pro-religion (Chick-fil-A restaurants are closed on Sunday), and culturally upbeat are anathema.

One of my daughters lives in Texas. Coincidentally, she ate lunch at a Chick-fil-A today, too. (She loves Chick-fil-A, so it isn’t that much of a coincidence.) She wrote this on our family text chat:

The very high functioning Down syndrome boy who took our order jogged next to the car as we pulled forward, running our card at the same time and then wished us a blessed day. And then a very obviously gay kid handed us our food. Take that haters. 

Of course, nothing will shame the haters. But it is good to see that a few outposts of sanity are holding out against the tidal wave of left-wing hate that has engulfed the country.

Filthy, Disgusting Lot

Are We on the Ramp to Impeachment Road?

May 23, 2019 by Patrick J. Buchanan

RedditTuFlipShare

If Trump believes, not without reason, that Pelosi’s caucus is out to kill his presidency, should he cooperate with the co-conspirators or use all of the actual and latent powers of his office to repel them?

After a stroke felled Woodrow Wilson during his national tour to save his League of Nations, an old rival, Sen. Albert Fall, went to the White House to tell the president, “I have been praying for you, Sir.”

To which Wilson is said to have replied, “Which way, Senator?”

Historians are in dispute as to whether Wilson actually said it.

But the acid retort came to mind on hearing that Nancy Pelosi, hours after accusing President Donald Trump of “engaging in a cover-up,” a felony, piously volunteered, “I pray for the president of the United States.”

For, by now, the hostile investigations of Trump by Pelosi’s House are becoming too numerous to list.

Subpoenas have been issued to the IRS demanding Trump’s tax returns. New York has enacted a law to gain access to Trump’s state

Has The Day Of The Nationalists Come?

May 24, 2019

By PATRICK J. BUCHANAN

A week from the day this column was written, Europeans may be able to gauge how high the tide of populism and nationalism has risen within their countries and on their continent.
For all the returns will be in from three days of elections in the 28 nations represented in the European Parliament.
Expectation: Nationalists and populists will turn in their strongest performance since the EU was established, and their parliamentary group — Europe of Nations and Freedom — could sweep a fourth of the seats in Strasbourg.
Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party is predicted to run first in the British elections, winning two to three times the votes of the ruling Tory Party of Prime Minister Theresa May.
In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is running even with the party of President Emmanuel Macron, who pleads for “more Europe.”
Matteo Salvini, interior minister and leader of the League, predicts his party will finish first in Italy and first in Europe.
At Salvini’s invitation, a dozen nationalist parties gathered in Milan the weekend of May 18. They could become the third-largest bloc in the European Parliament. If so, their gains will come at the expense of the center-left and center-right parties that have dominated

No surprise

Theresa May has announced she is to stand down as Prime Minister on 7 June following months of mounting pressure over her failure to deliver Brexit.

Her voice cracking, the Prime Minister said it had been ‘the honour of my life’ to serve

Pro Golfer Paige Spiranac

playing charitable event at Beverly CC next week

Climate Change is BS

Climate change is a hoax developed as part of a secret plot by the United Nations to undermine democracies and takeover the world, a top adviser to Tony Abbott, Australia’s prime minister, has warned. 

Maurice Newman, the chief business adviser to the prime minister, said the science showing links between human activity and the warming climate was wrong but was being used as a “hook” by the UN to expand its global control. 

“This is not about facts or logic. It’s about a new world order under the control of the UN,” he wrote in The Australian. 

“It is opposed to capitalism and freedom and has made environmental catastrophism a household topic to achieve its objective.” Born in Ilford, England, and educated in Australia, Mr Newman, a staunch conservative and former chairman of the Australian Stock Exchange, has long been an outspoken critic of climate change science. 

He was appointed chairman of the government’s business advisory council by Mr Abbott, who

I thought this was cooling down

The more steps that we take toward a war with Iran, the more likely it becomes that somebody will do something really stupid that will actually trigger one.  By cutting off Iran’s oil exports, we are threatening to completely wreck their economy, and at this point they feel backed into a corner.  And the Iranians have already watched the U.S. invade two countries that they share a border with (Afghanistan and Iraq), and so it is understandable that they are a bit paranoid that it could happen to them too.  President Trump keeps saying that he doesn’t want a war with Iran, but the Iranians do not believe a single word any U.S. politician says.  Instead, they watch what we actually do very, very closely, and the fact that the Pentagon wants to deploy thousands of new troops to the Middle East is definitely going to freak them out.  

The Pentagon is slated to request several thousand more U.S. troops be deployed to the Middle East amid escalating tensions with Iran, a senior U.S. defense official told Fox News on Wednesday.

It's old, don't you know

Bill to demolish part of McCormick Place along lakefront gets labor support
Legislation in Springfield would add a ride-sharing tax and allow for construction of a new building over King Drive.

The Chicago Federation of Labor wants to demolish the oldest McCormick Place building and replace the lost convention space with a new building over Martin Luther King Drive. Facebook

With just over a week to go in the spring legislative session, Chicago Federation of Labor President Bob Reiter is beating the drum for a plan to demolish the above-ground portion of Lakeside Center, the oldest McCormick Place building, and replace the lost convention space with a new building over Martin Luther King Drive.

Insiders said the partial teardown of Lakeside Center could result in additional parkland along the lakefront and that below-ground portions of the building, such as the Arie Crown Theater, could still be

The religion of peace.....not

want to blow you up

The Jihad Caucus hosted a Ramadan event at the Capitol, for a number of high level Democrats. The Democrats continue to spit in the face of their Jewish voters, by regularly appeasing Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar despite their open anti-Semitism. No mention was made of the hundreds of victims of Ramadan slaughter.

AMERICAN CITIZENS MUST COME FIRST

THORNER/O'NEIL: AMERICAN CITIZENS MUST COME FIRST

By Nancy Thorner & Bonnie O'Neil - 

Americans are facing problems new to this era with challenges both from outside and within. Our forefathers would have deemed many of the current changes as irrational and perhaps even crazy. It is possible that a substantial number of Americans hold similar views; however, the loudest and strongest voices are the ones most listened to (the “squeaky wheel”), even if the substance of their words and arguments are detrimental to this nation's sovereignty.

Recently, a timely and thought-provoking e-mail read: “So let me get this straight, if you

Idiot role model

Ice-T Says He 'Almost Shot' an Amazon Delivery Driver for 'Creeping Up' to His Home. Mr. Ice fails to understand that he just told his followers, many of whom are dim-witted, that it's ok to just open fire on someone that they don't recognize.

 
 
 
 

Ice-T says he came close an Amazon delivery driver after mistaking him for an intruder.

Following the incident, the rapper, 61, suggested on Twitter that the tech company should