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anon_6hv78pr714xta
Guest
Sadly, what they probably need is taken away from their current home.
Sad thing is, I would bet most parents think this is cute. "Oh, they're just kids".
Those kids likely won't make it to age 18 without being dead or in jail.
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anon_6hv78pr714xta
Guest
I think that separating map in the graphic places you guys in Indianapolis in the region named Greater Appalachia. Ha ha.
I do believe that much of the generational poor white population of Indy is made up of people who moved west from Appalachia.
Blue cities in red states have gun problems. You know this. I refuse to believe you're really this stupid.
Did you read the article? All I said was that it was an interesting read.
You know what...don't read it. I want you to stay ignorant. You're more fun that way. Stick with your Catturd tweets.
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anon_6hv78pr714xta
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Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson to meet with elite Democratic donors in North Carolina
Brandon Johnson on Tuesday will be in Charlotte to speak to the Democracy Alliance. Wednesday, in Washington he will meet with the Illinois congressional delegation and other federal officials.
chicago.suntimes.com
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anon_6hv78pr714xta
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More Than 700 Jobs Posted for New Chicago Casino Project, Bally's Announces
Preparations are underway for Bally’s Casino to open their temporary home in Chicago, and the company has announced it is hiring more than 700 workers to help staff the facility.
www.nbcchicago.com
He is showing early signs of becoming a machine politician. Lots of city hall veterans on his transition team, the interim police superintendent is a 34 year vet with the respect of the FOP, this trip to big money donors.Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson to meet with elite Democratic donors in North Carolina
Brandon Johnson on Tuesday will be in Charlotte to speak to the Democracy Alliance. Wednesday, in Washington he will meet with the Illinois congressional delegation and other federal officials.
I suppose status quo is preferable to a burn it all down progressive.
I figured quite a few of us live in the Chicagoland area and would start a thread about it.
Chicago politics is different than Indiana politics. We don't really have a functioning Republican party in the city or county, and one-party rule is never a good thing. But the Democrats here range from right of center to radically left of center on social issues (while most just want to ignore any financial issues and kick the can as far down the road as possible).
A request: if you don't live here or visit often, please refrain from just dropping in meaningless "it's a shithole" or "no, it's not; I visited the MagMile and it's so wonderful" posts. Those types of messages add nothing and just show you don't know the city well or care to discuss it in a serious way.
To start, Lightfoot is in trouble with this (I hope):
In Addition to CPS Teachers, Lightfoot Campaign Also Asked City Colleges Instructors to Encourage Students to Help Her Win Reelection – for Credit
The first email to City Colleges instructors urging them to ask their students to volunteer for the Lightfoot campaign was sent on Aug. 19, according to an email obtained by WTTW News. The second was sent Monday.news.wttw.com
I don't like Lightfoot much, but honestly don't know much about the other candidates. Anyone up to speed on them?
You will enjoy this read
Cook County prosecutor quits after 20 years: 'this State and County have set themselves on a course to disaster'
Before leaving work for the last time on Friday, a veteran Cook County prosecutor sent colleagues an email with his departing thoughts.
cwbchicago.com
That was amazing. Thanks for sharingYou will enjoy this read
Cook County prosecutor quits after 20 years: 'this State and County have set themselves on a course to disaster'
Before leaving work for the last time on Friday, a veteran Cook County prosecutor sent colleagues an email with his departing thoughts.
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anon_6hv78pr714xta
Guest
That guy is a friend of a friend. Really good lawyer. Big loss for the office.You will enjoy this read
Cook County prosecutor quits after 20 years: 'this State and County have set themselves on a course to disaster'
Before leaving work for the last time on Friday, a veteran Cook County prosecutor sent colleagues an email with his departing thoughts.
My good friend left a few years ago for some of the same reasons. That, and incompetent, racially based promotions that he said were really harming the State's Atty Office. Guy was a 25 year prosecutor with a sterling record. His father was police for 25+ years as well.
This is the kind of corrosion from within that happens that the public doesn't see. Same with police. I'm not sure how to get the city to change course at this point.
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anon_6hv78pr714xta
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I disagree. These policies and office politics won't be net neutral--they will (have already, actually) harm the city and its residents.
We’re not in disagreement. I think it’s horrible that it’s the way it is and that great people like this leave.
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anon_6hv78pr714xta
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That city is fkd. On current course to be the next St Louis. Progressive policies are a complete clown show, in action.
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anon_6hv78pr714xta
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Everything I read says he's the real deal. It's awesome for the Blackhawks. Now they just need to surround him with some great talent. Kid is going to be in the NHL at 17. Crazy.
He’ll be 18 in July. He’s an old head.
In other Chicago news. We’re up to almost 10K in illegal transfers courtesy of Governor Abbot.
This is really helping to tamp down our population loss problem.
I can't even imagine how much a post about pickle ball would cost me. I bet if I have to ask, I can't afford it.
Says the baseball guy. Is anyone going to break .300 this year? I remember when .400 was being challenged.
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anon_6hv78pr714xta
Guest
Log into Facebook
Log into Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know.
www.facebook.com
I'm not sure I'm good enough yet to return a serve and dodge bullets.Log into Facebook
Log into Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know.
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anon_6hv78pr714xta
Guest
‘We've Reached a Breaking Point' Lightfoot Says, Of New Migrant Arrivals to Chicago
Though Chicago welcomes new arrivals, “we’ve reached a breaking point” with a new surge expected later this week, Lightfoot said at an afternoon news conference.
www.nbcchicago.com
Triple the KC soccer fines. You also have to move next door to an outdoor court so you can hear thwack, thwack, thwack all day and all night.Log into Facebook
Log into Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know.
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anon_6hv78pr714xta
Guest
I live within 50 yards of two courts where they play. Fortunately, I can't hear it inside the house.
Just as nice, unused baseball fields are being converted to soccer fields, some outdoor basketball courts are being converted to pickle ball courts. Soon, we won’t have gas stoves and gasoline-powered cars, either.
It’s all part of a colossal plot. They already took my typewriter so now they can track me.
Can’t even get a 16-oz Pepsi in a returnable glass bottle. What’s up with that? Plastic tracking?
The thwack, thwack, thwack pounding in our brains is conditioning the players to forego all their social security payments and bingo winnings.
It is known.
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anon_6hv78pr714xta
Guest
This was my thoughts about NY talking trash about not being able to handle the illegals. You've had 6x the amount leave the city/ state, just put them up in those abandon homes! dip shit.
It’s all good for the clown libs on this board that live in bumblefk IN. They don’t have to deal with any of it, but remain experts on these issues.
Things are looking bleak again @BradStevens . This is utter insanity.
May 17, 2023 05:46 AM |UPDATED 2 HOURS AGO
24:30
Recast
1X
PRIVACYSHARESUBSCRIBE
Allies of Mayor Brandon Johnson today are rolling out a $12 billion financial proposal that doubles down on controversial tax-hike ideas pitched by Johnson during his campaign and adds a few more — including enactment of a city wealth tax and income tax, deep cuts in police spending, and an effective end to all tax-increment financing projects.
Authors of the proposal, which also includes a tax on vacant high-end rental apartments, say they’re not fronting for Johnson and suggest they rather are trying to hold his feet to the fire and push him to stand by his campaign promises in a way they believe former Mayor Lori Lightfoot did not.
Whatever the motivation, the proposals potentially affect not only business but hundreds of thousands of middle-class Chicagoans as well as suburban residents who work in the city. It comes in the same week CME Group chief Terry Duffy threatened to move his exchange out of town if Chicago’s tax situation turns toxic.
The report is titled, “First We Get the Money: $12 Billion to Fund a Just Chicago.” It comes from the Action Center on Race & The Economy and the People’s Unity Platform. (Read the full proposal below.)
Both groups have strong ties to the Chicago Teachers Union, for which Johnson worked as a paid organizer until shortly before the election and which was the biggest backer of his campaign. For instance, CTU President Stacy Davis Gates serves on the ACRE board, and her chief adviser has been named as one of Johnson’s deputy mayors. Report co-author Saqib Bhatti serves on Johnson’s transition team, with a seat on the Economic Vitality & Equity Subcommittee. And the People’s Unity Platform is a joint project of CTU and another strong Johnson ally, the Grassroots Collaborative.
“Communities that invest in their people are safe communities,” the report asserts, echoing one of Johnson’s major campaign themes. “The proposals in this report would generate $12 billion in new revenue and savings that we could invest in our people and neighborhoods.”
Some of that money would come from ideas Johnson put on the table during the campaign. Included:
• Reinstating the “head tax” of $33 per worker on companies with at least 50 workers, netting $106 million a year;
• Boosting from 5 cents to 19 cents the tax per gallon on jet fuel used at Chicago’s airports, raising $96 million; and
• Raising the real estate transaction fee on sales of at least $1 million by 1.9 percentage points, a move that the group estimates would generate $163 million.
Added to that list are several major items.
The first is a move to impose a city income tax of 3.5% on any household with income above $100,000 a year. This tax would apply to both Chicago residents and money made by suburbanites employed in the city, and would yield an estimated $2.1 billion a year.
The group bills this tax as a levy on “high earners.” U.S. Census Bureau data indicate that the average Chicago household now has annual income of $100,347. Median income is less at $65,781 — $80,511 among households headed by someone aged 25-41 — meaning that at least a third of city residents would end up paying at least some city income tax if the groups' proposal goes through.
Bhatti, in a phone interview, said the tradeoff is worth it. People want good services and, “if you want those, there’s a cost. You have to pay up,” he said. Beyond that, shifting to an income tax would reduce pressure on the property, tax, he said.
Another $960 million would come from a 0.4% annual “wealth tax” on the richest 10% of Chicagoans. The report’s co-author, Gabriella Noa Betancourt, said she does not have adequate background data to say how much someone would have to be worth to pay the tax, but stressed that only personal liquid assets like stock holdings would be covered, with retirement accounts and real estate exempt.
In Philadelphia, a similar proposal would apply to those with income of as little as $120,000, according to reports there. In Illinois, a similar levy proposed by state Rep. Will Guzzardi, D-Chicago, would only apply to those with assets worth at least $1 billion.
A new digital ad tax of 13% would apply to bills for online advertising. Betancourt said it would apply to companies with at least $25 million in digital ad revenue, with only nine large corporations now hitting that mark, including Google, Facebook, Amazon and Twitter.
The tax on luxury-apartment vacancies would apply to landlords who own more than 20 units with rents above the city average. If the unit involved sat empty for more than 12 months, and more than three units were vacant, the property owner would have to pay the equivalent of “rent” to the city. Bhatti said the intent is to pressure landlords into lowering rents to more affordable levels.
And the plan includes a tax of $1 to $2 on financial transactions on the CME and other financial exchanges, with the city getting at least $2 billion.
On the spending side of the ledger, the plan calls for eliminating all vacant positions in the Chicago Police Department, and then cutting the CPD budget another 9% a year. All new TIF spending would be eliminated, with efforts to renegotiate or file lawsuits against existing TIF deals, such as the one extended to the Lincoln Yards development. And a new city bank would issue debt at lower than private-market costs, a move the proposal's authors contend would save the city money.
Johnson during the campaign made a point of saying his plan does not include a city income tax, and had promised to cut “not one penny” from CPD. His spokesman, Ronnie Reese, declined to comment on the rest of the report, noting Bhatti is just one of many transition team members.
Bhatti said many of the bigger ideas contained in the proposal would require approval from Springfield. Such as the transaction tax, which Gov. J.B. Pritzker already has said he opposes, arguing it would hurt the city’s economy.
Bhatti also said Johnson was not briefed in advance on the proposals, but argued that they are in line with the kinds of things the new mayor has supported as a mayoral candidate and in his public life as a Cook County commissioner and political activist. Johnson backers do not want a repeat of what happened in “prior administrations,” Bhatti said, referring to but not explicitly mentioning Lightfoot, who backed off her promise to enact a higher real estate transaction tax to raise money for affordable housing.
“I think it’s appropriate to hold (Johnson) accountable for the promises he’s made,” Bhatti said. “Mayor Johnson ran on a platform that actually included some of these things.”
Bhatti did not indicate whether City Council members are prepared to push for such items. Johnson’s floor leader is Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, 35th, who also heads the council’s Democratic Socialists of America caucus.
May 17, 2023 05:46 AM |UPDATED 2 HOURS AGO
Crain's Daily Gist | EP867Crain's Daily Gist | EP867Crain's Daily Gist | EP867
5/17/23: What's first for Mayor Johnson?5/17/23: What's first for Mayor Johnson?5/17/23: What's first for Mayor Johnson?
00:0024:30
Recast
1X
PRIVACYSHARESUBSCRIBE
Allies of Mayor Brandon Johnson today are rolling out a $12 billion financial proposal that doubles down on controversial tax-hike ideas pitched by Johnson during his campaign and adds a few more — including enactment of a city wealth tax and income tax, deep cuts in police spending, and an effective end to all tax-increment financing projects.
Authors of the proposal, which also includes a tax on vacant high-end rental apartments, say they’re not fronting for Johnson and suggest they rather are trying to hold his feet to the fire and push him to stand by his campaign promises in a way they believe former Mayor Lori Lightfoot did not.
Whatever the motivation, the proposals potentially affect not only business but hundreds of thousands of middle-class Chicagoans as well as suburban residents who work in the city. It comes in the same week CME Group chief Terry Duffy threatened to move his exchange out of town if Chicago’s tax situation turns toxic.
The report is titled, “First We Get the Money: $12 Billion to Fund a Just Chicago.” It comes from the Action Center on Race & The Economy and the People’s Unity Platform. (Read the full proposal below.)
Both groups have strong ties to the Chicago Teachers Union, for which Johnson worked as a paid organizer until shortly before the election and which was the biggest backer of his campaign. For instance, CTU President Stacy Davis Gates serves on the ACRE board, and her chief adviser has been named as one of Johnson’s deputy mayors. Report co-author Saqib Bhatti serves on Johnson’s transition team, with a seat on the Economic Vitality & Equity Subcommittee. And the People’s Unity Platform is a joint project of CTU and another strong Johnson ally, the Grassroots Collaborative.
“Communities that invest in their people are safe communities,” the report asserts, echoing one of Johnson’s major campaign themes. “The proposals in this report would generate $12 billion in new revenue and savings that we could invest in our people and neighborhoods.”
Some of that money would come from ideas Johnson put on the table during the campaign. Included:
• Reinstating the “head tax” of $33 per worker on companies with at least 50 workers, netting $106 million a year;
• Boosting from 5 cents to 19 cents the tax per gallon on jet fuel used at Chicago’s airports, raising $96 million; and
• Raising the real estate transaction fee on sales of at least $1 million by 1.9 percentage points, a move that the group estimates would generate $163 million.
Added to that list are several major items.
The first is a move to impose a city income tax of 3.5% on any household with income above $100,000 a year. This tax would apply to both Chicago residents and money made by suburbanites employed in the city, and would yield an estimated $2.1 billion a year.
The group bills this tax as a levy on “high earners.” U.S. Census Bureau data indicate that the average Chicago household now has annual income of $100,347. Median income is less at $65,781 — $80,511 among households headed by someone aged 25-41 — meaning that at least a third of city residents would end up paying at least some city income tax if the groups' proposal goes through.
Bhatti, in a phone interview, said the tradeoff is worth it. People want good services and, “if you want those, there’s a cost. You have to pay up,” he said. Beyond that, shifting to an income tax would reduce pressure on the property, tax, he said.
Another $960 million would come from a 0.4% annual “wealth tax” on the richest 10% of Chicagoans. The report’s co-author, Gabriella Noa Betancourt, said she does not have adequate background data to say how much someone would have to be worth to pay the tax, but stressed that only personal liquid assets like stock holdings would be covered, with retirement accounts and real estate exempt.
In Philadelphia, a similar proposal would apply to those with income of as little as $120,000, according to reports there. In Illinois, a similar levy proposed by state Rep. Will Guzzardi, D-Chicago, would only apply to those with assets worth at least $1 billion.
A new digital ad tax of 13% would apply to bills for online advertising. Betancourt said it would apply to companies with at least $25 million in digital ad revenue, with only nine large corporations now hitting that mark, including Google, Facebook, Amazon and Twitter.
The tax on luxury-apartment vacancies would apply to landlords who own more than 20 units with rents above the city average. If the unit involved sat empty for more than 12 months, and more than three units were vacant, the property owner would have to pay the equivalent of “rent” to the city. Bhatti said the intent is to pressure landlords into lowering rents to more affordable levels.
And the plan includes a tax of $1 to $2 on financial transactions on the CME and other financial exchanges, with the city getting at least $2 billion.
On the spending side of the ledger, the plan calls for eliminating all vacant positions in the Chicago Police Department, and then cutting the CPD budget another 9% a year. All new TIF spending would be eliminated, with efforts to renegotiate or file lawsuits against existing TIF deals, such as the one extended to the Lincoln Yards development. And a new city bank would issue debt at lower than private-market costs, a move the proposal's authors contend would save the city money.
Johnson during the campaign made a point of saying his plan does not include a city income tax, and had promised to cut “not one penny” from CPD. His spokesman, Ronnie Reese, declined to comment on the rest of the report, noting Bhatti is just one of many transition team members.
Bhatti said many of the bigger ideas contained in the proposal would require approval from Springfield. Such as the transaction tax, which Gov. J.B. Pritzker already has said he opposes, arguing it would hurt the city’s economy.
Bhatti also said Johnson was not briefed in advance on the proposals, but argued that they are in line with the kinds of things the new mayor has supported as a mayoral candidate and in his public life as a Cook County commissioner and political activist. Johnson backers do not want a repeat of what happened in “prior administrations,” Bhatti said, referring to but not explicitly mentioning Lightfoot, who backed off her promise to enact a higher real estate transaction tax to raise money for affordable housing.
“I think it’s appropriate to hold (Johnson) accountable for the promises he’s made,” Bhatti said. “Mayor Johnson ran on a platform that actually included some of these things.”
Bhatti did not indicate whether City Council members are prepared to push for such items. Johnson’s floor leader is Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, 35th, who also heads the council’s Democratic Socialists of America caucus.
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anon_6hv78pr714xta
Guest
They do that and I'm moving my firm out of the city.
