Chicago Cook Cty
no content 3/18 PRIMARY 10 25 ICE RAIDS
SEE BLUE CITIES
LONG DEMONIZED URBAN BLACK CRIME BS MILLER?
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see fox on ice raid 10 25
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// TODD BLANCHE GRAND JURY?
AN 11 25
Alex Jones, the far-right conspiracy theorist and host of InfoWars, appears to have been given considerable insider information pertaining to President Donald Trump's campaign of legal revenge against his perceived enemies, based on a new analysis from The Bulwark, which called the situation "deeply troubling."
The efforts to bring lawsuits against prominent Democrats and opponents of the president, including former FBI head James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, have been ongoing for the past few months but have hit numerous snags in recent days. Among them, ABC News reported that the Department of Justice and the FBI are investigating whether the heads of the investigative efforts, Ed Martin and Bill Pulte, “enlisted individuals outside the Department of Justice to probe allegations of mortgage fraud." MS Now also reported that a federal grand jury is reviewing allegations that the two “illegally shared sensitive grand jury information with unauthorized people.”
Little is known about which individuals Martin and Pulte may have divulged sensitive legal information to, but an analysis of past posts and comments from Jones by the Bulwark suggests that he may have been one of them. As far back as August, just a few weeks prior to the indictment against Comey, Jones shared a video to X in which he claimed to have had long talks with “high-level DOJ sources” and was “authorized to tell you basically everything they told me except a few things,” mentioning grand jury investigations into James and Special Counsel Jack Smith, among other things.
“There are a whole bunch of grand juries open and I know where and a lot more,” Jones said in the August 23 post. “And I can tell you Trump is cracking the whip and pushing through the DOJ, any of the bureaucrats that are trying to block this and [Trump] is in daily communication with the patriots in there."
A day later, on August 24, Jones shared another video with the caption "MEGA-BOMBSHELL EXCLUSIVE!!!” in which he claimed to have had a 45-minute-long conversation with Martin specifically. Martin has a history withJones, appearing on InfoWars several times over the years.
“I’ve known Ed [for] twenty-five years and he’s one of the most stalwart, trustworthy people, everybody knows that,” Jones said. “He [Martin] has full discretion from the president to say whatever he wants, he decided to tell me."
Jones claimed that Martin had shared his strategy for pursuing prosecutions against top Democrats, including "about twenty" things that were "over-the-top, bombshell important.”
“They’ve got grand juries open in Virginia, Missouri, New York, and a bunch of other states,” Jones said. “And I don’t mean just one per state... I can tell you that there’s process crimes all over the place in this. So when you see people indicted for process crimes, that’s not because they’re limiting it, that’s to get them in the bear trap, and then to get them to roll over. They’re gonna get ’em any way they can."
While Jones named several figures who have since faced indictments, he also mentioned Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson as another target, citing allegations that he incited city residents against ICE officers. Later, on September 14, Jones shared a photo of himself with Martin with the included caption, “The Deep State is in DEEP S---!”
Assuming Jones is telling the truth, what else did Martin tell Jones about his investigations into top Democrats?" the Bulwark's analysis concluded. "We do not know. We do know that the relationship between Martin and Jones is deeply troubling, given Martin’s roles inside the DOJ. It shows that Martin is pursuing an extreme, sensationalist agenda—not justice."
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VID CANAL STR NICK SHIRLEY
MMA
October 22, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle
LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): The words they're using -- fight, push, resist -- they're signaling very clearly that it's war time and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson thinks he's a general.
...
Johnson dismantled tyranny. ICE-free zones are the answer. We're on the front lines, okay, general. General idiot. Sure sounds like he's calling for insurrection to me. And they're already promising their post-war tribunals.REP GARCIA
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10 25
velshi fasc author TO 40 academics fired (diff fields wapo AA woman?) much worse than maccarthy
//
fox bs
e president of the Turning Point USA chapter at the University of Chicago wants repercussions for a faculty member who was arrested for suspected violent crimes on Oct. 3 at an anti-ICE rally.
"Professor Eman Abdelhadi’s history of inflammatory and anti-American rhetoric is deeply concerning. Students deserve a safe and open campus environment where they can express their views without fear of intimidation or retaliation from faculty," Tyler Shasteen told Fox News Digital.
Abdelhadi, an associate professor in the school's Department of Comparative Human Development, was arrested on Oct. 3 and charged with two felony counts of aggravated battery to a government employee and two misdemeanor counts of resisting/obstructing peace stemming from a rally outside the Broadview, Illinois ICE facility.
A mugshot of Eman Adbelhadi from Oct. 3, 2025. (Cook County Sheriff's Office)
Rallies, some of which have turned violent, have been ongoing there for weeks.
"Professor Abdelhadi’s statements, which clearly endorse violence, are unacceptable and undermine the safety and well-being of our community," said Shasteen. "I call on the University of Chicago to review her position and ensure accountability for any actions that violate university policy or the law."
Last week, the school condemned violence, but has resisted answering questions about whether Abdhelhadi has been disciplined.
Abdelhadi has been largely silent, too. However, she thanked her supporters on Bluesky early last week.
"Thank you so much everyone for the messages of love and support," she said on the platform. "I feel fortified by your presence in my life and in the world. I keep thinking about all our neighbors and siblings—hundreds in Chicago alone—who’ve been detained into the unknown of horrendous facilities. We owe them resistance."
Police clash with demonstrators during a protest outside an immigrant processing and detention center on Oct. 03, 2025 in Broadview, Illinois. The site has been the target of frequent protests as federal law enforcement agents continue Operation Midway Blitz in the Chicago area, an operation designed to apprehend and deport undocumented immigrants living in the area. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Just a day before her arrest, she accused ICE of "terrorizing our communities" on a far-left podcast.
"I mean, in Broadview, ICE has been setting up shop in our backyard. Just brazenly taking up community resources to terrorize this very same community," she said.
She also put out a call for resistance, and lambasted those who she believes aren't taking extreme enough action.
"At this point, you are either on the side of protecting our neighbors and protecting our community, or you’re on the side of this administration. There is no neutral ground in this moment. There’s no center left. You’re either resisting or you’re complicit," she said.
At the Socialism 2025 conference earlier this year, she also slammed her employer.
"F--- the University of Chicago, it’s evil, you know it’s a colonial landlord. Like, why would I put any of my political energy into this space? I kind of had a little bit of disdain for people who spent their time doing that," she said on a panel during the far-left gathering.
A demonstrator is detained as people protest outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Broadview facility in Chicago, Ill., Oct. 3, 2025. (Jim Vondruska/Reuters)
LICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP](//www.foxnews.com/apps-products?pid=AppArticleLink)
"Turns out, I work at one of the biggest employers in the city of Chicago. I work at a place that is a landlord, a healthcare provider, a police force, f--- that s---, but, they are, and a place where I have access to thousands of people that I could potentially organize… actually, this is where I need to build power. That’s possible structural leverage," she said.
The University of Chicago and Abdelhadi did not return comment requests.
Peter D'Abrosca joined Fox News Digital in 2025. Previously, he was a politics reporter at The Tennessee Star.
Follow Peter on X at @pmd_reports. Send story tips to peter.dabrosca@fox.com.
Related Topics
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THREAT JAIL PRITZkER CHIC MAYOR
AN 10 25
'Wannabe dictator': Governor dares 'unhinged' Trump to carry out threat to jail him
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an 10 25
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker issued a new warning on Wednesday about President Donald Trump’s efforts to deploy the American military in US cities against the wishes of local elected officials.
Hours after Trump called for Pritzker’s imprisonment in a Wednesday morning Truth Social post, the Illinois governor claimed in an interview with MSNBC that the president’s ultimate goal with sending troops into US cities was to control the outcomes of future elections.
”He wants to militarize major cities across the United States, especially blue cities in blue states, because he wants us to get used to the idea of military on the streets,” he said. “2026 elections, I believe he’s going to post people outside ballot boxes and polling places, and, if he needs to in order to control those elections, he’ll assume control of the ballot boxes and count the votes himself.”
Pritzker pointed out that Trump considered ordering the military to seize ballot boxes after he lost the 2020 presidential election, but he was met with resistance from officials in his own administration.
However, Pritzker said that “I believe he would do it in 2026” to help Republicans maintain control of Congress.
Pritzker also struck a defiant tone when asked about Trump’s call to imprison him.
”This guy’s a convicted felon who’s threatening to jail me!” he exclaimed. “This guy is unhinged. He’s insecure. He’s a wannabe dictator. And there’s one thing I really want to say to Donald Trump: If you come for my people, you come through me. So come and get me.”
Pritzker’s remarks come as Trump and his administration have deployed Texas National Guard soldiers to Chicago over the objections of both Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. The state and city are challenging the deployment in court.
Federal immigration officials have been employing increasingly aggressive and violent tactics in the Chicago area in recent weeks, including attacking a journalist and a protesting priest with pepper balls outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility; slamming a congressional candidate to the ground; dragging US citizens, including children, out of their homes during a raid in the middle of the night; and fatally shooting a man during a traffic stop.
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mayor stands w gov pritzker on military 8 25
September 3, 2025, edition of The Daily Wire's The Matt Walsh Show
MATT WALSH (HOST): Now when you hear politicians like Brandon Johnson claim that they have solutions, remember videos like this one. They've gone out of their way to make violent crime much, much worse in Chicago. This is a deliberate effort that they've embarked on. Now it's true that in our federal system, states are not required to assist the federal government in carrying out certain policy objectives, but it's also true that states and local government cannot actively interfere with the federal government's decision to enforce the law. That is not states rights. That is treason.
Brandon Johnson is openly encouraging residents of Chicago to engage in treason against the United States. And for that reason, Brandon Johnson should be arrested, charged with treason, convicted, and then given the requisite punishment for a capital offense. Will that ever happen? Probably not. But then again, just a few days ago, Tren de Aragua, you know, they never thought that they'd be intercepted as they sped towards the United States on their drug boats. They certainly didn't imagine they'd get blown up without any warning.
All indications are that we are entering a new phase of federal governance, one where the U.S. military acts to defend the American people, where false narratives from NGOs are ignored, where criminals are actually punished when they violate the law in public. So who knows? Maybe Brandon Johnson shouldn't be so confident. Like Washington, D.C., which has experienced something like a 50% drop in violent crime since the National Guard moved in, Chicago is about to become a much safer place.
The more JB Pritzker lies about crime statistics, the more Brandon Johnson commits treason in public, the more obvious it becomes that this strategy needs to be applied to every major American city. Democrats have no response. They have no counterargument. The safer America becomes, the more they will complain. And in response, every American who's paying attention will recognize their party for what it is. They are the party of chaos, crime, and cartels, and they should be treated accordingly.
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MMA
August 22, 2025, edition of The Charlie Kirk Show,streamed on Rumble
CHARLIE KIRK (HOST): Here's what he can do lawfully. He can surge federal agents, expand ATF, FBI, and USMS task forces, go after carjacking, gang cases, and route them all up to federal cases where appropriate. Project safe neighborhoods and enforcement zones. Also, go down on this fugitive carjacking crackdowns. US Marshals -- flood the zone with US Marshals. An emergency backstop, if necessary, declare the Insurrection Act. Insurrection Act 10 U.S.C. (251–253) allows limited federal troop deployment as extreme last resort, but I don't think that should be off the table. Chicago has become more dangerous than third world cities.
And it's working in DC. Could you imagine if you're able to say in one week in Chicago, there's not a single murder? It's unheard of. Not a single murder in DC for a week. The DC template can now be scaled. Making America great again means making our Midwestern cities great again. Revive Chicago. Revive Detroit. Revive Minneapolis -- okay, that might be tough. That's a third world Somali slum. The city has a death wish.
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I want President Trump to do everything he possibly can. I'm going to talk to him. I'm going to say, "Man, Mr. President, I'm 100 percent behind you. Whatever you need to do a federal takeover of Chicago and make this a test case, I will do whatever I possibly can, Mr. President." I'm going to probably shoot him a message later on.
Black men have a cumulative incidence of being shot in Chicago of 11 percent by age 40. That means one out of ten Black men have been shot by the time they reach 40 in Chicago. In Chicago, one out of ten Black men have been shot by the age of 40. That's in Chicago.
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Declare a national emergency, flood the zone with ATF, FBI, take -- have an entire task force, make Chicago another test case.
One -- hold on. If anyone, like, thinks I'm wrong here, if one in ten Black men have been shot by the age of 40, how is that not an emergency? Seriously, what is your argument? If one in ten Black men are shot by the age of 40, how is that not an emergency? That means if you have a basketball team -- if you have a basketball team at Simeon High School where Derrick Rose went, and it's 20 people on the basketball team, that means two of the people on that basketball team will be shot by the age of 40. Email us as always freedom@charliekirk.com.
Sweet home Chicago, take it over. Seize it. Roll in the tanks just like we said in DC. Mr. Johnson, Mr. Pritzker, you are next, and you are woefully unprepared for what is coming. Law and order is coming, and we will liberate my favorite city, Chicago.
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YMAIL 2 24ExxonKnews
Chicago last week brought the newest lawsuit against Big Oil companies for spreading disinformation about the climate-warming hazards of burning fossil fuels — adding the third largest city in the U.S. to the growing list of state and local governments pushing for oil and gas majors to be held accountable in court.
The case charges BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, ConocoPhillips, and the American Petroleum Institute with conspiring together and through front groups to run “tobacco-industry-style campaigns to deceive and mislead the public about the damaging nature of their fossil fuel products.” The fallout of those campaigns, according to the complaint, was a long delay in climate action that has come at an increasingly unbearable cost to Chicago residents — particularly in its low income neighborhoods and communities of color.
City officials say their legal action is necessary for the city to help shift the financial burden of adapting to climate disasters away from those communities and back onto the companies most responsible.
“There is no justice without accountability,” said Mayor Brandon Johnson in a statement. “From the unprecedented poor air quality that we experienced last summer to the basement floodings that our residents on the West Side experienced, the consequences of this crisis are severe, as are the costs of surviving them. That is why we are seeking to hold these Defendants accountable.”
Ted Boutrous of law firm Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, an attorney for Chevron and chief architect of Big Oil's legal arguments in these cases, said in a statement that “addressing climate change requires a coordinated international policy response, not meritless local litigation over lawful and essential energy production.”
The city is charging the companies with 10 counts of failure to warn, negligence, fraud, conspiracy, and public nuisance, and it asks for compensatory damages and the disgorgement of profits made in the course of the industry’s fraud, among other remedies. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Cook County court, also requests a jury trial, where the companies could face more evidence of their deception gained through the discovery process.
That deception, Chicago argues, includes the oil majors’ ongoing campaigns to “falsely present themselves as corporate leaders in the fight against climate change, claiming to invest substantially in low-emission technologies and zero-emission energy sources, while their business continues to be overwhelmingly focused on fossil fuel production and sales.”
As one example, the complaint cites a recent BP ad targeting Illinois Facebook users that claims “We agree - the world needs fewer emissions. That's why we're working to make all forms of energy cleaner and better.” BP is simultaneously reneging on its climate pledges and increasing its production of oil and gas.
“At the end of the day, the climate crisis that we’re enduring was known by fossil fuel companies — they were warned decades ago by their own scientists of the potentially severe or even catastrophic consequences of their approach,” said Chicago Alderman Matt Martin, who applauded city leaders’ decision to file suit. “These companies should no longer be allowed to shift the burden of paying for the impacts resulting from that conduct onto Chicagoans.”
The harm to Chicago from climate change
It might be difficult to imagine what climate change looks like for a Midwestern city far from rising seas and hurricanes — but Chicago is susceptible to a spate of climate threats.
Chicago’s complaint cites more frequent and intense storms, flooding, droughts, shoreline erosion, toxic algae blooms in Lake Michigan, and extreme heat events like a four-day heat wave in 1995 that killed more than 700 Chicagoans.
The 1995 heat wave was a “watershed moment,” said Daniel Horton, who leads the Climate Change Research Group at Northwestern University. “Since that time the city has done a number of things to improve community resilience, but we expect more heatwaves in the future as the world continues to warm — so we have to constantly update our policies and prepare for extreme heat,” he added.
Many victims of that heat wave were elderly, low-income, and Black, residing in apartments without air conditioning. Those groups are still most at risk from extreme heat and air pollution in Chicago, which can coincide to produce “profound public health consequences,” said Horton, like they did when wildfire smoke from Canada gave the city the worst air quality in the world in June. The same demographics were also hit hardest during a severe rain event in July, which wreaked havoc on Chicago’s West Side, and are most susceptible to the city’s more-regular flooding.
“When you’re talking about the legacy of environmental racism all across the city, too often with regard to both severe weather and other aspects of the climate crisis, the communities bearing the brunt of that devastation are lower income communities of color,” said Alderman Martin.
Chicago is an “incredibly segregated city,” explained Horton, where Black and Hispanic communities are far more likely to live in places that are hotter, have poorer air quality, and are most flood-prone. The city can make decisions to ease the burden on those communities — like figuring out “where to increase our green infrastructure, building more of a green canopy and reducing the heat island effect, deciding where to build cooling centers in neighborhoods that have more vulnerable citizens or people without access to air conditioning or the ability to pay for it,” he said. The more the city invests in community adaptation, the higher the price tag — in its complaint, the city said it is already spending $188 million on climate projects in low-income communities — and that’s the kind of thing Chicago wants oil companies to help pay for.
“There’s surviving, and then there’s thriving,” Horton said. “I like to think surviving isn’t the goal.”
“Another powerful player”
More than 25% of all Americans are now represented by governments taking oil companies to court for climate deception. Chicago’s lawsuit brings “another powerful player into the game,” remarked Pat Parenteau, an environmental law professor at Vermont Law School.
“There’s strength in numbers, and the more entities like Chicago and California that have the resources to do battle, the better, from the plaintiffs’ side of it,” Parenteau said.
Chicago is suing as similar cases across the country move toward trial in state court. Massachusetts' consumer fraud case against Exxon is currently in the pre-trial discovery phase, and the City and County of Honolulu is in the process of agreeing what discovery will look like once it starts. Delaware is requesting that the state’s Supreme Court review a lower court’s ruling regarding which parts of its case can be heard at trial. In Italy, the trial for twelve Italian citizens’ lawsuit against oil giant Eni just kicked off.
Parenteau had a long list of reasons why new communities like Chicago would choose to sue now — growing evidence of what the companies knew and how they lied, more attribution science linking specific companies’ emissions to specific damages, the state of California filing suit, plaintiffs winning the fight to keep their lawsuits in state court, and other legal successes against oil majors across the world.
Or it could be simpler than all that. “These cities are beginning to realize just how much money they’re facing to deal with climate effects, and the recalcitrance of the oil companies that are sitting on piles of money and making more every year,” he said. “Maybe it’s too much for them to ignore.”
Thanks for reading ExxonKnews!
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/bill-barr-has-done-this-before/
no lnx
Barr has done this before
Written by ProPublica July 31, 2020
As violent crime continued to climb in Chicago and other cities across the country, Attorney General William P. Barr announced that the U.S. Department of Justice was mobilizing to help: Dozens of federal agents would be sent to work with local police to combat gangs and illegal guns.
“Our message to gangs, gang leaders and gang members is this: When we throw the federal book at you, it will be a knockout blow,” Barr said.
That was in 1992, during Barr’s first stint leading the Justice Department, under former President George H.W. Bush.
If it sounds too recent or familiar to have happened nearly three decades ago, that’s because Barr, now attorney general under President Donald Trump, made a strikingly similar announcement on July 22.
Some of the details were different, of course. In 1992, Barr said the FBI was shifting about 300 agents from monitoring spies from the recently collapsed Soviet Union to taking on gangs and violent crime in American cities. Eighteen of the agents would be redeployed to Chicago.
This month, Barr stood next to Trump as he announced a Chicago “surge” of more than 100 agents from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and other agencies, along with staffing increases in other cities where gun casualties were making headlines.
Residents of Chicago could be forgiven for concluding that they’ve heard this before, since, of course, they essentially have. Barr even acknowledged that federal law enforcement agencies have carried out such operations “for decades.” Every presidential administration in the last 30 years has announced it was sending more federal agents to Chicago to try to stem violent crime.
But this time the circumstances are different — the politics are shifting. After 3 ½ years of Trump’s inflammatory comments and tweets, some thinly coded and others overtly racist, his administration’s announcement is widely seen in Chicago as a political move to use the troubles of a majority-nonwhite city to fire up his supporters.
And it’s happening as a growing number of people are demanding that their governments send something into their communities other than more guys with guns.
Chicago has a long, ugly history of violence. As in other cities, violent crime surged in Chicago in the 1960s and ’70s, dropped and leveled off, then spiked again during the 1990s. But since then, as murder and shooting totals plummeted in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere, Chicago’s numbers didn’t fall as far or as fast, and they’ve climbed again during several devastating stretches in the last 10 years.
The reasons have long been debated and are probably more complex than most would acknowledge. But politicians, law enforcement leaders and many residents have repeatedly blamed Chicago’s gang culture and open-air drug markets, then called for policing strategies to attack them.
The fact that most of the hardest-hit neighborhoods have also been shelled out by segregation, business closures and job losses — including thousands of layoffs from government agencies and shuttered schools — is well known. Yet the need for immediate responses to the bloodshed, rather than those that tackle the deeper problems, always seems to consume political and financial capital in Chicago.
In 1992, the city banned loitering by people deemed to be gang members until the measure was ruled unconstitutional. Former Mayor Richard M. Daley led an effort to sue gun manufacturers for creating a public nuisance in Chicago and other cities; the case was tossed out of court. Speed bumps and cul-de-sacs were built on dozens of side streets to thwart drive-by shootings, though as police and paramedics discovered, such obstacles also made it harder for them to respond to emergencies.
Far more common have been announcements that more police will be deployed in high-crime areas, often under the banner of a new task force, program or initiative. That’s where the feds often come in — literally.
Soon after Trump took office in 2017, he called Chicago a “war zone” and blamed local leaders for being “politically correct.” He also threatened, via Twitter, “I will send in the Feds!”
Rahm Emanuel, then Chicago’s mayor and a frequent Trump sparring partner, rejected the idea of troops in the city. “I’m against it, straight up,” he told reporters. But Emanuel added that he welcomed additional resources to fight gun crimes. Within two weeks, CNN reported that 20 more ATF agents were being sent to Chicago.
Since Lori Lightfoot was elected mayor last year, she has repeatedly blasted Trump for racism and disrespect for civil rights — even as she’s been attacked in Chicago for not yet delivering on promises to reform the Police Department and drive up investment in underserved neighborhoods.
On July 20, after another weekend of appalling violence in Chicago — dozens of people were reportedly wounded in shootings and at least 12 people killed — Trump suggested at a press conference that he was again ready to send in federal agents. Lightfoot responded with a letter that criticized his administration’s “incendiary rhetoric” as well as the tactics of Department of Homeland Security agents who had seized people off the street in Portland, Oregon.
Yet Lightfoot also said the city could use other kinds of federal help, including “more federal prosecution or investigatory resources” to pursue violent crime and gun cases. She added that the government could help Chicago invest in underserved neighborhoods. “The violence our city is confronting is symptomatic of a larger public health and economic crisis.”
Trump and Barr announced the latest “surge” of federal agents to Chicago that week, describing it as part of a national crime-reduction initiative called Operation Legend. The FBI, ATF, DEA, U.S. Marshals Service and Homeland Security would together send dozens of investigators and agents to the city, with the U.S. attorney in Chicago, John Lausch Jr., overseeing the operation.
Underneath the politics and symbolism, the announcement signaled that federal and local officials were returning to their old strategy: send in more cops.
Shifting federal agents to cities under fire is “commonly done, and as a matter of fact, when I was the special agent-in-charge there, I asked for it,” said Jack Riley, who formerly served as the top agent in the DEA’s Chicago office. “It’s been called 20 different things in the past. [Operation Legend] is just the newest version of it.”
This federal surge may involve more agents than previous efforts, and Riley believes it could help tamp down violence in Chicago if it is carefully coordinated and sustained. Operations on the street should be carried out by agents who know the city, with those from out of town used in support roles. And as agents are conducting investigations and making arrests, the U.S. attorney’s office needs enough staff to prosecute the increased caseload, said Riley, who went on to serve as the No. 2 official in the DEA, overseeing global operations, before retiring.
“Are there going to be additional prosecutors?” he said. “That’s been an issue before.”
The U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago received a staffing boost in 2018, but no additional prosecutors are included in the latest operation. A spokesman for the office declined to comment.
Plus, the agent surge is only likely to last until fall, when the city’s usual spike in violence typically recedes along with the warm weather. So, like previous efforts, the surge is temporary.
If those earlier short-term operations worked to reduce gun violence, it’s hard for city residents to see as shootings spike again.
Over the last three years, the U.S. attorney’s office here has prosecuted more than 500 defendants on weapons charges, records show. Some of the defendants are traffickers or leaders of other criminal enterprises. But many tend to be lower-level players caught with illegal guns that have traded hands multiple times. Law enforcement officials argue that prosecutions for illegal possession help deter others. Still, the approach hasn’t shut down the gun marketplace, as firearms continue to flow into the city from suburbs and neighboring states.
So far Operation Legend appears to be following the playbook of those earlier initiatives. The first three arrests made as part of the Chicago surge were all for illegal gun possession, according to court filings.
On July 23, the day after the latest federal deployments were announced, Black Lives Matter Chicago and 10 other organizations sued Barr and other administration officials. The groups, seeing no reason to trust the Trump administration, asked for a federal court order to protect their right to protest in the event of any Portland-style tactics. In addition, they made what amounted to a defund-the-federal-police argument, claiming federal resources would be better spent on investing in their communities than flooding them with more law enforcement officers.
“We should take their money and use it to help people facing eviction, use those resources for people who need access to food,” Amika Tendaji, an organizer with Black Lives Matter, said in an interview. “The police haven’t been able to do anything [about the violence]. We need to actually address the root causes.”
More and more leaders are signing on to this approach. Over the last week, advocacy groups, churches and more than 30 state and local elected officials added their names to a letter urging Lightfoot and Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart not to cooperate with the federal operation.
“Donald Trump has repeatedly demonstrated both his callous disregard for Black, indigenous, and immigrant lives, and his increasing inclination towards fascism and authoritarianism,” the letter said. “We grieve deeply the lives lost to gun violence in Chicago. … At the same time, we are clear that we cannot police ourselves out of this terrible situation.”
Chicago is now on a pace to record one of its highest annual murder totals in two decades. It’s hard to argue that the old strategies have worked.
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https://www.propublica.org/article/politic-il-insider-additional-gang-databases-illinois-cook-county
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In every locality that has introduced a soda tax in recent years, the beverage industry has responded with the techniques of a industry that knows it has a big public relations problem. The ABA has set up grassroots-sounding front groups and has blanketed the neighborhood with flyers and messaging. In Richmond in 2012, for instance, the ABA group fighting a soda tax referendum on the ballot was called “Community Coalition Against Beverage Taxes.” In El Monte, the front group was called “El Monte Citizens Against Beverage Taxes.”
The ABA has worked to rebrand the issue and shift the terms of the debate. It doesn’t want to debate a soda tax, so it spins it as a “grocery tax” that harms everyone not just those who drink soda. It doesn’t want to talk about the rising rates of obesity, it would rather talk about the “high cost of living.” Recent campaign names have included “Enough is Enough: Don’t Tax Our Groceries” in San Francisco to “Keep Seattle Livable for All.”
In TV and internet ads produced by the trade association, you don’t see the CEOs of Coke and Pepsi making the case against the soda tax. Rather, the ABA puts up a diversity of spokespeople to carry its preferred messaging. San Francisco grocery store owner Abdul Taleb tells the camera “politicians say it is a soda tax, they are lying. This is a tax on groceries.” In Chicago, a professional-looking African American woman tells the camera “we’re being taxed out of Cook County, I’m a single mom. I can’t afford this tax.” In Philadelphia, a hoagie shop owner says “we try to offer the best food at the best price…with that tax the working man can’t afford it anymore.”
The soda industry spent $48.9 million on recent soda tax opposition campaigns in Cook County, IL; Philadelphia, PA; Boulder, CO; San Francisco, CA; Oakland, CA; Seattle, WA, Santa Fe, NM; and Albany, California, according to a November 2017 report by the watchdog group Center for Science in the Public Interest. The ABA does not engage in absolute concealment of their sponsorship, but it does work to shield its brand name companies from responsibility and culpability.
The ABA has won some of these battles, rolling back a soda tax in Chicago and defeating one in Sante Fe, but it has lost more than it has won, so it is shifting the battle ground to state legislatures. In doing so it is following a timeworn path utilized by other industries that are hazardous to public health.