Chicago cops for rent?

And that’s not a metaphor for police corruption; these are uniformed police officers “financially sponsored” by individual citizens or groups. In other words, rented:

A philanthropist or business could sponsor a police beat and put more off-duty cops on the streets under a plan being put forth by a downtown Chicago lawmaker on the City Council.

Alderman Brendan Reilly originally pitched the idea last October but is pushing it again following weekend incidents of teen mob activity on the Magnificent Mile, an upscale area of the city.

Under his plan, off-duty officers would work minimum six-hour shifts and make $30 an hour. The money would be paid by businesses, civic groups and churches at a time when city finances are stretched thin. The officers would be in full uniform and under the command of police supervisors.

“This is a way to make use of well-trained police officers who are moonlighting doing other things, bringing them back on the street to do what they do best, which is great police work,” Reilly said.

To say this is a bad idea would be to insult bad ideas. Moe Lane provides one answer to “what could go wrong?”

Those would be rented cops, and the difference will become clear the moment that somebody very important from one of those “businesses, civic groups and churches” happens to commit a trivial, surely-not-worth-mentioning, purely technical violation of the law.

Look at it another way: Order in a society such as ours depends on the law being applied equally — blindfolded Justice holding the scales, and such. And that includes the police serving all the public, because, in large part, all the public pays for the police. While we all know there are imperfections and exceptions, the acceptance that this is generally so is important to social order.

Alderman Reilly’s proposal, regardless of his protests otherwise, would break that perception. I don’t care how much anyone might say “they’re still Chicago police and they still enforce the law,” the fact is that their pay will come from individuals, not the public. As Alexander Hamilton said:

In the main it will be found that a power over a man’s support (salary) is a power over his will.

In other words, “You work for me.”

You can imagine what wonders this could work on a society based on the rule of law and its equal application.

That a loony idea such as this can even be floated is indicative of how far down the drain liberal, Blue-model governance has taken a once-great city like Chicago. (Detroit, on the other hand, is at the end of that drain…) The city’s finances are so strapped by out of control pension costs and greedy unions, as well as businesses fleeing high-tax Illinois, that they are having trouble paying for basic services such as police.

Is the next step RoboCop?

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Illinois' credit rating downgraded; state drops to worst in the nation

Reblogged from WGN-TV:

A warning came Saturday morning from state treasurer Dan Rutherford (R) IL State Treasurer. The Standard and Poor’s downgrade from A to A-minus puts Illinois last on the list-- and means a higher cost to borrow money.

On Wednesday, the state will issue $500 million in new bonds to pay for roads and other transportation projects. Rutherford says the credit downgrade will cost taxpayers an additional $95 million in interest,

Read more… 203 more words

Danggit, Illinois has passed us in California again in the race to financial suicide! Sacramento Democrats, you have absolute control of the legislature, and your duty is clear. I have faith you can take us all the way. (But will you respect us in the morning?)

Oregon in play? Really??

Normally I’d call whoever said that crazy, but it is Karl Rove, after all:

A lot of the political analysis you hear from partisans is predictable. But sometimes they surprise.

That was the case when Karl Rove spoke at a Politico breakfast event in Tampa this morning. Two examples:

(1) When asked what state, now that Wisconsin and Michigan seem to be in play, would emerge next on the target list, he cited Oregon. He noted correctly that the state House is ied 30-30, Republicans almost captured the governorship in 2010 and tha[t] there’s a left wing constituency disappointed in Obama. He surely remembers that in 2000 Ralph Nader won 5.04% in Oregon and tha[t] Al Gore carried it by only 46.92% to 46.52%.

To be honest, I’d expect Oregon to flip about the same time as California, which would also be when the sun goes out. But, much as I thought of the possibility of Obama losing Illinois, the fact that these questions are being raised at all indicates the depth of the problem Obama faces in his reelection race: he may have to spend a lot of money defending what should be his core states, rather than in the battlefield states where Romney is genuinely competitive. Given that Obama is already having trouble raising enough money to keep up with Romney, spreading what cash he has more thinly could cause a real problem come election day. While I’d love to see a “Red” breakout on the West Coast, I’ll settle for making Team Obama scramble to patch a leaky dam.

Read the rest; there are some interesting observations about the Hispanic vote, too.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Could Obama lose Illinois?

According to Alexis Levin of The Daily Caller, Obama may have to start spending real money to guard his home base (1):

President Barack Obama could lose his home state of Illinois in November, a new poll shows.

A poll conducted by Illinois-based pollster and political strategist Michael McKeon found Obama leading Republican Mitt Romney by 49 percent to 37 percent in Cook County, the home of Chicago. That puts him ahead by a far thinner margin than expected in a county he should be winning handsomely.

Cook is the most Democratic leaning county in the state. It is also the most populous.

Those numbers do not bode well for the president.

No, they don’t. But… come on. This is Illinois, where everyone gets to vote. Twice. Even the dead. Surely the Combine will scare up/buy up  enough voters to make sure their guy doesn’t suffer a humiliating loss in his home state. I’ll have a hot date with Kate Upton before that happens.

But then again…

As Levin points out, Democratic dominance of Illinois is largely dependent on the corrupt politics of Chicago itself and Cook County, and to a lesser extent in the ring of counties surrounding the two. “Downstate” Illinois is much friendlier to Republicans; in the last governor’s race, upstart Republican Bill Brady only narrowly lost to Democrat Pat Quinn by winning most of downstate. Obama’s number have to be worrisome to him and his team: Romney leads The One 45-38 in the area around Chicago, and among independents in Cook County Romney leads 43-31. Obama has to win big in these areas to overcome his unpopularity downstate, but his only lead is in core Chicago (which is huge, 60-29).

I still don’t expect Obama to lose Illinois, but the needle has moved from “not a snowball’s chance” to an intrigued “Hmmm…”.  And anything that makes him spend money here means less he has for the traditional battleground states.

Maybe I should start planning where to take Kate for dinner. Just in case.

Footnote:
(1) No, not Nairobi, you silly people!

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)