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Peaceful Protests for Thee, But Not for Me
Chicago Mayor, Lori Lightfoot, has banned protesters from demonstrating on the block on which she and her family live. In defending her order, Lightfoot cited unspecified threats that she receives daily, and stated:
I think that residents of this city, understanding the nature of the threats that we are receiving on a daily basis, on a daily basis, understand I have a right to make sure that my home is secure.
I’m not going to make any excuses for the fact that, given the threats I have personally received, given the threats to my home and my family, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure they’re protected. I make no apologies whatsoever for that.
Other Chicagoans might believe that the Mayor has an obligation to protect their homes as well. While such a belief is apparently foolish, it’s technically correct. According to an article in The Chicago Tribune:
Both Lightfoot and [Chicago Police Superintendent David] Brown noted there are laws on the books banning residential protests, but Brown acknowledged the Police Department does not always enforce them. Brown said the city tries to give “wiggle room” for protesters.
“Wiggle room” when people’s lives and homes are on the line?
Securing the Mayor’s home comes at a cost:
Published in GeneralAside from the expanded police presence to block protesters from reaching her home, Lightfoot already receives 24/7 protection from cops including officers stationed at the residence. The aggressive policing has sometimes siphoned away resources from the area’s police district, some sources with knowledge of the situation said, leading to quiet grumbling.
Oh my gosh that was wonderful.
You certainly might have heard that from me. It is true and I have said it many times. I was amazed when I first learned how it worked. The mayor is sort of like king and the aldermen like local lords. Traditionally, no one questioned the mayor when he or she laid down the law, but in most day to day matters, the aldermen have carte blanche to rule their wards as they see fit. The city council, on which they serve, doesn’t function as a legislature. It rubber stamps the mayor when necessary, but otherwise it’s just where the aldermen sit and from where they get their power to rule. They don’t govern the city as a whole like a legislature. Instead, the unspoken deal is that they simply don’t interfere with each other in the management of their own wards. The city code even has some rules that only apply in certain wards, based on the whims of the various altermen as to whether they want them to apply in their wards or not. If there’s another system in the US anything like it, I don’t know where it is.
Actually, she ran on an outsider/anti-corruption platform. The DOJ is doing a house cleaning of the sleazeballs who’ve been siphoning off cash for political favors in both Chicago and Springfield – maybe most notably Ed Burke in Chicago and Mike Madigan in Springfield, but a bunch of smaller fish as well. Lightfoot ran as someone who hadn’t been involved in the system and who was determined to clean it up. She is a former AUSA herself, as well as a successful attorney in private practice at Mayer Brown – one of the city’s most prominent white shoe firms. I honestly believe she meant it when she said she wanted to clean things up. She’s just discovered it’s a lot harder than she thought. The city and state governments are so shot through with mutual handwashing that they don’t know how to govern any other way.
Mike Madigan has been a fixture in this cesspool for as long as I can remember. As for Lightfoot, I’ve heard of Mayer Brown, and didn’t know she’d been with them. All I do know is she seems to have been sucked into the cesspool, and it’s all exacerbated by PC and especially BLM. It looks to me like because of those influences, the Democrats running some of our cities are afraid to act like the grownups, afraid it will look like “selling out.” So they just throw up their hands and let the looting continue.
She would have been more successful if she made some attempt to hide her hatred of the police. It’s been ongoing and relentless.
All Chicago politicians either corrupt and competent, corrupt and incompetent, or incompetent reformers. All the competent reformers leave or end up dead.