Free Republic

Life in Chicagoland, and the unfulfilling refreshment of a temporary stay… (this is the third in a series on the new Cook County soda tax): For all we like to say about the great culture of THE ancient Greeks – for all intents and purposes, they invented theater, you know! – they were really just as human as the rest of us. Sometimes, no matter how well the story was going, they wrote themselves into a corner. There was just no way to resolve the situation and end the play. So what did they do? They rigged up a contraption...

On July 1 – barring a court order or a last minute act of legislative wisdom or fear (at this point, we’ll take either) – Cook County will implement a “Soda Tax,” a brand new penny-per-ounce beverage tax on non-alcoholic drinks that exceed certain threshold of either regular or diet sweeteners. It will capture virtually all regular and diet soda pop, most juice drinks, and either many or most other flavored drinks, such as sport drinks, frappucinos, sweetened or diet iced teas, lemonade, etc. Much has been said and written about the outlandish nature of this tax. Charged in addition...

Contemplations on the new Cook County Soda Tax... Cook County, Illinois - the home of America’s fourth largest city - Chicago, is, like many metro areas, broke. So, as many jurisdictions do when broke, they imagine a need to raise tax rates. The one they have chosen for July 1, 2017 is a soda tax, in addition to any applicable sales tax, which in Illinois can be as high as ten percent ad valorem already. This new “soda tax” is not just on soda, but on any beverage that is sweetened with either sugar or artificial sweetener (so it applies...

llinois is like Venezuela now, a fiscally broken state that has lost its will to live, although for the moment, we still have enough toilet paper. But before we run out of the essentials, let's finally admit that after decade upon decade of taxing and spending and borrowing, Illinois has finally run out of other people's money. Those "other people" include taxpayers who've abandoned the state. And now Illinois faces doomsday. So as the politicians meet in Springfield this week for another round of posturing and gesturing and blaming, we need a plan. And here it is:

John R. Lott, Jr. | Crime Prevention Research Center The Distribution of murders The United States can really be divided up into three types of places. Places where there are no murders, places where there are a few murders, and places where murders are very common. In 2014, the most recent year that a county level breakdown is available, 54% of counties (with 11% of the population) have no murders. 69% of counties have no more than one murder, and about 20% of the population. These counties account for only 4% of all murders in the country. The worst 1%...

Update: Chicago police say race was not a motive behind attack shown on Facebook Live FROM WIRE REPORTS 20 min ago (23) Update at 7:45 a.m. Chicago police say they don't believe a man beaten in an assault broadcast live on Facebook was targeted because he was white. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Thursday morning that charges are expected soon against four black suspects. Guglielmi says the suspects made "terrible racist statements" during the attack, but that investigators believe the victim was targeted because he has special needs, not because of his race. Guglielmi says it's possible the suspects were...

The Cook County Board on Thursday narrowly approved board President Toni Preckwinkle's new penny-an-ounce tax on sugary and artificially sweetened beverages, with Preckwinkle breaking a tie vote.

[–]propercoil 138 points 41 minutes ago THIS IS BIG - Bob Creamer from the Veritas videoshttps://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/37101 Neera Tanden, Podesta & Mike Lux discuss how to use Bob Creamer!: Just wanted to pass along this note I sent to Bob Creamer, who as you may know is consulting for the DNC and is close to Robby Mook. Wanted to pass it along to you as well, hoping you won’t take offense because I feel some urgency about this. You and Podesta are a great bridge to the DC, more establishment oriented progressive world, but I just feel like the campaign is...

Voters ousted the Chicago area's top prosecutor Tuesday, backing Democratic primary challenger Kim Foxx in a campaign dominated by questions about Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez's handling of the shooting death of a black teenager at the hands of a white police officer.

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. . .