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Chicago Brown: Navy makes something positive out of Chicago violence Mark Brown This is a good news story, but underlying it is a bleak reality. The volume of gunshot wounds and other trauma cases treated at Stroger Hospital is so high that the U.S. Navy has teamed up the past two years with the hospital’s prestigious trauma unit to keep its medical personnel better prepared for their next deployment. The Navy guys might see as much action in a typical night at Stroger as they would if they were in a combat setting. Let that sink in for a minute....

The NRA -- and their gun-loving Republican cohorts -- are refusing once more to stop terrorists intent on getting armed in the U.S.A. A legal loophole allows suspected terrorists on the government's no-fly list to legally buy guns, but a bill to fix that will likely wither on the vine. The federal Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act, even in the wake of last week’s terrorist killing of 129 people in Paris, remains a long shot due to its rabid pro-gun opponents. "Anything which they feel restricts the use or the ability to retain a gun they’re opposed...

In August, Kleck told Mother Jones that he doesn’t know of any “credible criminologist” who believes that “with more guns there are less crimes.” More recently Kleck was interviewed by Ari Armstrong about these points and Kleck’s claims that there hasn’t been any increase in the rate that people are carrying permitted concealed handguns and that neither more guns nor more concealed handguns reduce homicides or any other type of violent crime. Here is the beginning of Ari’s interview with Lott: Recently I interviewed criminologist Gary Kleck about gun ownership and crime. In the course of that interview, Kleck expressed...

The idea was to ask the state to establish a special sales tax on handgun and ammunition sales. The thought was that the money made from the sales tax would help pay for body cameras. The Baltimore City Council's public safety committee rejected the resolution, but it is clear the conversation about funding the body camera program is not going away. City Councilman Carl Stokes, who is running for mayor, was one of the resolution's sponsors.

Our tax-cutting cup runneth over. Not since adoption of the Federal Personal Income Tax (16th Amendment) over 100 years ago has so much attention been given to the adverse effects of high-rate income taxes on economic growth, personal wealth creation, and wage and job levels. Thank you, national Republican debates and presidential hopefuls. Also weighing in are investment business leaders like Carl Icahn regarding the disastrous effects of U.S. tax laws on American businesses. U.S. corporations are fleeing the highest corporate tax rate among industrialized nations (about 40%, including state corporation taxes) through inversions — buying a controlling interest in...

A recent study that was conducted by the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab has learned that Chicago criminals do not acquire their guns from gun shops, gun shows or the internet. The study examined and interviewed inmates in Chicago’s Cook County Jail who are either facing current gun charges, or have a background consisting of firearms related convictions. The study learned that virtually zero criminals have ever used the internet or gun shows, because that method is easily traceable. It’s much safer for a criminal to acquire firearms on the streets where they’re harder to keep track of, and that’s...

Cook County Assessor (and Democratic Central Committee Chairman) Joe Berrios just cost the taxpayers $529,000 – the settlements we’ll be paying to 11 county workers he fired so he could replace them with family members and political cronies. Berrios said he didn’t know the firings were impermissible because “I thought they were all at-will employees.” Considering that political hirings and firings have been illegal for 40 years, Berrios should have known better. Most likely, he doesn’t care. When questioned about his hiring practices, Berrios claims he’s not subject to county ethics rules that prohibit nepotism. Then he asks why his...

No introductions are needed when the law firm of Crane and Norcross goes to Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios asking him to lower the value he’s placed on properties owned by the firm’s clients. The Chicago law firm comes to Berrios to lower the property assessments on hundreds of properties across the city and suburbs each year, saving some of its clients as much as $100,000 or more in property taxes as a result. Since September 2009, when he launched his first campaign for assessor, Berrios’ campaign funds have gotten $60,900 in contributions from employees of Crane and Norcross, records...

Cook County Cook County Board Toni Preckwinkle Government and Politics Infrastructure More + Preckwinkle-seeks-pay-hikes-following-Cook-County-sales-tax-increase.com Photo by Manuel Martinez Just two weeks after raising the sales tax to pay for pensions, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is moving to give tens of millions of dollars a year in pay hikes to county workers. Legislation introduced yesterday by the county chief would extend raises of up to 6.5 percent throughout county government. Only those who make more than $200,000 in annual salary would be excluded. The proposal, sent to a Cook County Board committee for review, extends to other unionized employees...

City officials are pushing property-tax hikes, sales-tax hikes, and even a commuter tax and financial-transaction tax. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s wish for a $474 million sales-tax increase to help pay for the county’s growing pension debt has been granted. The hike pushes the sales-tax rate back up to 10.25 percent in Chicago – the same as it was when Preckwinkle took office in 2010. And that’s not the only new tax residents have to face. Preckwinkle is just the latest local leader to usher in a tax increase. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel created a new tax earlier this...

A man was charged with killing a 13-month-old baby while fleeing police after the shooting of Chicago rapper Capo, prosecutors said Monday. Antoine Watkins, 21, plowed over Dillan Harris as police chased him after seeing him walk "calmly" away from the murder scene Saturday, prosecutors said. Watkins has been charged only in the baby's death "at this point," not in the murder of Capo, whose real name was Marvin Carr, prosecutors said. "You killed my f---ing baby!" a woman howled during Watkins' bond hearing Monday before she was escorted out of the Cook County courtroom, according to DNAInfo. . .

Cook County Board today cleared the way for President Toni Preckwinkle's plan to raise the county's sales tax a penny on the dollar, mostly for pensions. The action came when the board's Finance Committee, which includes all board members, voted 9 to 7 to 1 to send the $474 million a year tax hike to the full board, which will consider it later today. The key votes came from Commissioner Luis Arroyo, a Chicago Democrat who voted "yes," and suburban Republican Elizabeth Gorman, who cast a "present" ballot and who is widely rumored to soon be headed to a new,...

A Lakeview Chinese restaurant with a controversial name that spurred a criminal vandalism case has closed, though its owner said he intends to reopen. Chop Chop Chinaman, located at 3343 N. Halsted St., has been shuttered for the last several weeks. Its name contains what many consider an ethnic slur — Chinaman — and it caused one woman in February to scrawl lipstick on the restaurant window to express her displeasure. That woman, Jeannie Harrell, was charged with misdemeanor criminal damage to property. She wrote on the window (in terms saltier than a newspaper allow) that the name is racist,...

CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) - Tinley Park squatter living rent and mortgage free The problem with squatters is hitting home in an upscale Tinley Park Subdivision. On Mallow Street where homes sell for $350,000 or more, a woman has been living in a house rent and mortgage free for two years. “It's very frustrating, our property taxes are very high, I work nights to pay mine and to help support my family. And I just see her coming and going without a care in the world it's enormously frustrating,” said neighbor Patti Yara. And no one is more frustrated than...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has become the latest high-profile progressive to endorse Cook County Commissioner Chuy García's challenge to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D). “I am going to Chicago to support Chuy García and [City Council candidate] Susan Sadlowski Garza. I support them because we need a political revolution in this country and we need the kind of working-class coalitions that Chuy and Susan are pulling together,” Sanders said in a statement.

Illinois had the biggest decrease in population according to a new report from the Census Bureau. Between July 1, 2013 to July 1, 2014, the state lost 9,972 people. On the other end, Texas saw the largest population increase adding more than 450,000 people during that time. Cook County saw a very slight decrease in population. It’s one of four counties with a population of more than 1 million to experience a decrease. Others include industrial counties like Wayne County, Michigan; Cuyahoga, Ohio; and Allegheny, Pennsylvania. The rate of people leaving Cook County for other counties has been increasing since...

Father Who Torched Apartment to Kill His Daughter and Son-in-Law Found Guilty of Murder Subhash Chander set fire to a 36-unit Oak Forest building in 2007 because he was angry and offended. His 3-year-old grandson also died. By Dennis Robaugh (Patch National Staff) March 21, 2015 at 11:18am A grandfather who torched an Oak Forest apartment building seven years ago to kill his pregnant daughter, her husband and their 3-year-old son — because his daughter’s choice of husband offended him — has been convicted on three counts of first-degree murder. Subhash Chander, 64, an angry, argumentative heavy drinker, now faces...

ities: The problem with socialism, Margaret Thatcher once noted, is you eventually run out of other people's money. In progressive Chicago, that's hit home as Moody's has cut its credit rating to two grades above "junk." Chicago's finances are staggering under the weight of an unfunded pension liability that Moody's Investors Service has estimated at $32 billion, eight times the city's operating revenue. Chicago has a $300 million structural deficit. And Illinois law requires the city to up its 2016 contributions to its police and fire pension funds by $550 million. "This is an unfortunate wake-up call for anyone still...

On Jan. 22, Jason Hammond accepted a noncooperating plea deal from prosecutors in Cook County, Illinois: He will serve 41 months for his role in an organized assault on a casual dining establishment in the Chicago suburb of Tinley Park. On May 19, 2012, Hammond and 17 others stormed the Ashford House restaurant with bats and hammers, interrupting lunch and leaving 10 people injured. But instead of years in jail, America should perhaps consider sending Hammond a thank-you card. He is not to be confused with his twin brother, Jeremy Hammond, who is serving a 10-year sentence in federal prison...

Whoops! Technical difficulties identified with Cook County voting machines. “This was a calibration error of the touch-screen on the machine,” Scalzitti said. “When Mr. Moynihan used the touch-screen, it improperly assigned his votes due to improper calibration.” A “calibration error” – indeed: if you vote for one candidate with an “R” after his name and the machine registers a vote for the candidate with a “D” after his name, you could call that a calibration error. The same way you could call going in for a surgery to have your gangrenous left leg amputated and the doctor mistakenly removes the...