“It’s on education, however, where progressive hypocrisy shines brightest in the bluest areas…Johnny Harris looks to one of the bluest enclaves in the US, Cook County and Chicago, to see how the wealthy ensure that their tax dollars only go to the schools where their own children are being educated…Wealthier families send their children to private schools, while everyone else is consigned to failing urban school districts obsessed with social-justice indoctrination rather than focused on actual education.”

“But it is the realm of homicide where Chicago makes its case for pre-eminence. In what the corporate media would trumpet as a ‘grim milestone’ if Republicans somehow could be blamed, Cook County yesterday surpassed 1,000 homicides for the year.”

“When you are this deep into a hole, how do you justify a budget 40 percent higher than it was before the arrival of a worldwide pandemic? Besides praising the leadership of the Biden administration and the fiscal response of the federal government to the pandemic, Lightfoot doubled down on a longstanding tendency of city leaders to call spending ‘investment.'”

“I just think that my time here, my years, I’ve given everything,” the 30-year Council veteran said. “I have to think about me first for once in my life, so that’s what I’m thinking about now.” The second-longest-serving alderman has had health scares in recent years and also is under indictment, as she and her chief of staff have been accused of taking bribes from a real estate developer.

Mayor Lightfoot issued a statement: “The past few weeks have shown what I have said from the beginning to be true: that our brave police officers are smarter than their FOP leadership, and care more about their city…than they do Catanzara’s frivolous demands to stop working. It should be noted, that should the FOP or John Catanzara take any further action toward encouraging an illegal work stoppage or strike, we can and will immediately refile this action.

This week, a bullet lodged in the window of a third-floor hospital room, where two patients were inside. No one inside the hospital was hurt, according to police.

Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa was happy to hear the vote on the Rules Committee’s as-yet-unseen map has been called off. “I guess they realized that it was very bad look to try and continue with the same old-school tired politics, but it’s time for them to show us their map. It’s time for us to be able to sit down, and negotiate, and reach a compromise.”

In his opinion, Judge John Kness acknowledged it’s a tricky issue. “Striving to save lives while still respecting fundamental rights — a goal professed by both sides — is, of course, both worthy and challenging. But efforts to harmonize those twin aims of safety and liberty must always align with binding legal precepts.”

With the city drowning in $47 billion in pension fund debt, Lightfoot is desperate for gambling tax cash and one logical casino choice is Lakeside Center. Construction experts say Lakeside Center was designed and wired decades ago for a future casino, and there is plenty of nearby parking.

And those overnight burglars will have fewer cops to worry about in the 18th District. Four cops assigned to the graveyard shift in the district were stripped and put on no-pay status Monday after they refused to enter their COVID-19 vaccine status into the city’s employee database, a source confirmed.

The clerk’s office was understaffed by 300 people when Iris Martinez took over. The office has filled 100 positions so far and are modernizing an office led by Dorothy Brown for 20 years. And they’ve had to deal with a data breach. Back in August the office’s website, which is used by thousands to look up case information, was tapped into by hackers.

She will be discussing city priorities with members from the Illinois delegation at a dinner Tuesday night hosted by Sen. Dick Durbin in his Capitol office, and has also scheduled meetings with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; White House Senior Advisor and Infrastructure Coordinator, Mitch Landrieu; and White House Domestic Policy Council Director Susan Rice.