More Pictures

We're going to upload a few more during the day. We have way too many to do all at once.

Can You Hear Us Now?

If you read the WBBM or Channel 2 websites, they've taken to quoting the blog at length, actually naming the site and linking to it.

• The blog Second City Cop, which his written by Chicago Police officers, has extensively discussed the picket.
  
  The blog indicated that the picket has widespread support among officers, and that the National and State FOP Lodges had also pledged support, with scheduled appearances by National FOP President Chuck Canterbury and State FOP President Ted Street.
  
  
• Second City Cop said signs were being provided, but suggested that officers might also bring some other signs that family members could carry.
  
  "Something like "My Daddy needs a Contract" will almost guarantee your kid face time on TV and will bring home the point that we've been trying to raise families in this city for the past two years while the aldercreatures and their staffs got large raises and the other unions got better than average offers in return for ten years of labor peace," Second City Cop wrote on Monday.

They even quoted the word "aldercreatures." Mike Royko is laughing his ass off somewhere. A-freaking-mazing. We had some 16,000 visits yesterday with 26,000 page views. That's pretty insignificant or so we've been told by somebody. Whatever.

But we'd like to deflect most of the credit and point out a bunch of people who really made a lot of this possible with their unending support and willingness to lay it out there when it needed to be done:

• First up, although we dislike a vast majority of them, the media. Without their reporting Daley's tirades and asinine quote, we'd have a hard time generating outrage;
• The FOP. We disagree on many issues. But like it or not, they are the public face of the rank and file. SCC isn't going out and spending money on signs or providing buses or putting their face on camera. We couldn't function like that. Maybe the blog provided the impetus, maybe not. We are merely a medium to communicate unedited raw emotion.
• Each and every officer who made it their business to show up Thursday. The naysayers, the mayor, the media were all wrong when they said we wouldn't show up. That we weren't willing to buck Shortshanks. That we couldn't get it together

And special thanks to the following:

• Our civilian supporters. Office workers in the Loop. Passersby and non-cops who care about this city the way that we do;
• The retirees. It was damn good to see a lot of you there, shaking hands, renewing acquaintances, telling war stories. We miss you guys, now more than ever;
• Off-duty CFD. Your union didn't want to come, but you know better. We're in this together and we'd do better together;
• Mancow, who came down and marched among us. Love him or hate him, we need support and he's got a 50,000 watt transmitter that reaches a bunch of people we can use;
• The head of the Chicago Teachers Union marched. The drivers for Ozinga Concrete blew the airhorns on and off all morning. We're sure there were others we didn't see and our readers will point them out in the comment section later. But thanks!
• The sky pilots, Nangle and Wolf. We've had minor disagreements with Nangle about the content that appears here occasionally. But both Nangle and Wolf are class acts that rise above the fray and care more about the men and women of this Department than many people do;
• Rosanna Pulido, Republican candidate for the 5th Congressional District. What a kick in the teeth it would be for a Republican to win Rahm Emmanuel's old seat. We don't care if she's not your typical candidate. She was there. Quigley wasn't. What does that tell you?
• There were two aldercreatures there. Allen and Waguespack. Both represent Wards with pretty heavy concentrations of City workers. While we've called the entire City Council to task and advocated the elimination of half their jobs and much of their salaries, well just say you've got a long way to go to earn our thanks. This might be a start;
• The bosses who spoke words of encouragement to the marchers. We know you had to do most of it out of the sides of your mouths lest you piss off the dwarf and his tools, but at least you weren't writing down the beat tag numbers of a Special Employment car that drove by to blow their horn and then get on your phone to call in the numbers like a certain Sergeant Deputy did.

Again, we salute you all for the fantastic job today.

Resignation Offer

From J-Fed?

• Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis said today that while he was disappointed with the police union's picketing on the day that an International Olympics evaluation committee arrived in Chicago, he supported their right to express their views.

  He said he faults himself for not effectively communicating changes to the department's rank-and-file officers.

  "It tells me I haven't done a good enough job getting our information out,'' said Weis. "That tells me I have to work a little bit harder. At the end of the day, the morale of the department is on me.''

Actually J-Fed, you've communicated exactly what you're about. And we aren't buying it. We not ignorant provincial rubes here. This is still Chicago.

• He said he has ordered his command staff to go to every roll call with talking points to help build up the morale of the officers.

Your command staff? Wow. That's going to work wonders. These are the ones ruining the Department as we speak. You've picked Daley clowns, political hacks, four-time "merit" promotees, the best man at your wedding, other FBI bozos with no police experience whatsoever, a "policy group" with a combined street-time measured in months, an Assistant Superintendent who's family was running a dope/gun house, do we have to go on?

• Weis said that if he ever learned that he personally was responsible for lowering the morale in the department, he would be the first to go.

  "If I ...saw that I was the cause of [bad] morale in this department, no one would have to ask me to leave. I would leave on my own.

Do we have to run another poll? Have another vote? Another march?

ChicagoBreakingNews edited the article a bit and removed the item about how J-Fed sees officers responding to 10-1's and thinks that is an indicator of high morale. That just shows how out-of-touch and incompetent this guy is. We don't go to 10-1's based on morale.

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Sergeants Union EXECUTIVE Board

From the comments, we have this portion of a larger comment posted at 3:05 PM in the post titled "Sergeant Union Caves"

• To, SCC, I appreciate, your blog tremendously, I just wish in this regard, in this particular case. You would have been a little more objective, then, what seemed to me, trying to throw an actual good cop, under the bus. Because he did support the protest. It was those merit tools on the Board that had more votes. He had to put his name on it, we shouldn't be shooting the messenger in this case.

If John Pallohusky supported the picket, he should have said so. Plain and simple. But he's the one who released this statement after the 6-5 vote:

• "The CPSA Executive Board fully understands the frustrations that have prompted the other police unions to take this action, but at this time we believe the interests of the members of the Chicago Police Sergeants' Association are best served by the ongoing negotiation process."

That quote is under President Pallohusky's name. If Pallohusky was so inclined to support the picketers, he should have let the vote stand on it's own, noted his own abstention or negative vote, then showed up to march. We don't know that he did any of this. But we'll give him a chance:

• List the vote by roll. Who were the 6? Who were the 5? Who didn't show up to vote?

We don't envy the spot Pallohusky is in. We've been informed that he doesn't even serve in the off-street capacity that FOP's field reps do. He chooses, for whatever reason, to work in a Detective Area and has one of the vice presidents work at the CPSA Lodge. Unfortunately, that makes him susceptible to outside pressure from the City, because Sergeant of Detectives is an "at-will" spot. You don't test for it. It's granted, like a blessing. And according to at least a few of our commentators, much of the CPSA Board is made up of not only "merit" sergeants, but sergeants in "blessed" spots who don't want to lose those spots. God forbid they'd have to go back to Patrol and mingle with the great unwashed blue shirts.

We understand a huge number of Sergeants turned up to march and good for them. We appreciate that they support the troops. We'll note that is was the Executive Board of the CPSA that voted to not picket and most sergeants probably are as frustrated as the Officers at the pace of contract negotiations and City shenanigans. We remain of the opinion that this was a blown opportunity for the CPSA and Pallohusky and we question that undue influence over job assignments was the catalyst for it.

Channel 7 Boycott

Of all the media outlets, Channel 7 has been the most egregious lately in half-assed anti-police reporting. Chuck Goudie's piece was merely the peak of a recent wave of crap they've been dishing out. They continued their downhill slide on Thursday with their harebrained insistence that merely "hundreds" of police officers had showed up to picket, while every other media outlet accurately cited "thousands" and the FOP released figures of 3,600.

This was a big deal and Channel 7 managed to just about not report any of it by their evening newscasts and inaccurately reported the "NoGamesChicago" protest while showing the police march, which is just plain sloppy.

The following is a list of sponsors who bought ads during the 01 April 09 newscast that included Chuck Goudie's thinly disguised hit job that was almost certainly put together at the behest of the mayor and his cronies to try to make the police look bad:

• Dunkin Donuts
• Homegoods.com
• Value City Furniture
• Disney Nature
• Southwest Airlines
• Jewel Osco (2x)
  
• JC Penney
• Comcast
• 1-800-Dentist
• Cheerios/General Mills
• Lowe's

Disney doesn't seem to have an easily locatable complaint form, but they own ABC Broadcasting. They also let the indicted former governor vacation down there this past week, so they suck on many levels. It's their station, so you'd be talking to a brick wall anyway.

Most of the links above are directed toward the company's "Contact Us" pages. You might have to do a little searching to find the Complaint page or phone number. Be polite. Explain that ABC 7 has joined in a battle over a contract on the side of a corrupt political organization and you'll be looking to take your increasingly scarce dollars elsewhere.

We realize everyone isn't going to switch to Dominicks. And coppers aren't going to quit going to Dunkin Donuts. But most of the other companies have viable competitors who would welcome your money in these trying times.

La selección fantasma

Buscando alguna fórmula para vencer los efectos de la altura, la dirigencia argentina decidió enviar a principios de agosto de 1973, un equipo juvenil a Tilcara, provincia de Jujuy, comandado por Miguel Ignomiriello.

Entre aquellos juveniles estaban Fillol, Fornari, Bochini, Trobbiani y Mario Kempes que, en el libro Matador, biografía de Mario Kempes cuenta:

“La AFA se olvidó de nosotros y la pasamos realmente mal. Estábamos en un hotel de mala muerte y no teníamos ni para comer. Teníamos pactados dos amistosos y terminamos haciendo seis o siete a cambio de dinero. Así comprábamos las cosas en un supermercado y alguno hacía la comida. Volví con 7 u 8 kilos menos”.

Argentina le ganó a Bolivia 1-0 en La Paz con gol de Fornari: “Fue el gol mas importante de mi vida. Entrenamos cuarenta días en Jujuy, Perú, Costa Rica y La Paz y estuvimos algo olvidados. Nos llamaron la selección fantasma y hasta nos sacaron una foto con sábanas blancas”.

RELACIONADO:
MESSI: "ES IMPOSIBLE JUGAR EN LA PAZ"

Blago Indictment Out

Nice:

• Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, his brother Rob and Christopher Kelly, a former top fundraiser for Blagojevich, were all indicted today on corruption charges, the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago announced.
  
  Also charged in the indictment were Lon Monk, a lobbyist and former Blagojevich chief of staff; John Harris, also a former chief of staff to Blagojevich; and William Cellini, a Springfield insider for decades.

What happened to foul mouthed Patti Mell-Blago?