City of Chicago’s cash plummets, debt triples, arrests drop

Mayor Rahm Emanuel closed the books on 2012 with $33.4 million in unallocated cash on hand — down from $167 million the year before — while adding to the mountain of debt piled on Chicago taxpayers, year-end audits show.

Last week, Moody’s Investors ordered an unprecedented triple-drop in the city’s bond rating, citing Chicago’s “very large and growing” pension liabilities, “significant” debt service payments, “unrelenting public safety demands” and historic reluctance to raise local taxes that has continued under Emanuel.

The 2012 city audits explain why. They show that an unallocated balance that was $167 million a year ago because of Emanuel’s aggressive cost-cutting efforts has dropped to $33.4 million.

Budget Director Alex Holt blamed the $133.6 million drop on “honest” budgeting and ending the long-standing practice of carrying “ghost” vacancies. Read more >>

State Rep Requests National Guard Help to Stop Chicago Violence

Gun violence in Chicago is so severe that a state lawmaker wants state police and the National Guard to assist the local cops. State Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago) is making the request.

“I am requesting with this press conference that Gov. Patrick Quinn order the Illinois National Guard (and) the Illinois State Police (to) come to Chicago and work with our mayor Ron (sic) Emanuel to provide safety for the children, especially,” she said at a news conference in Springfield.

Other state lawmakers accompanied Davis to recognize the severity of the problem, and the extent to which it carries beyond Chicago’s troubled neighborhoods to the entire city and other parts of the state, but not necessarily to concur with her solution.

Over the holiday weekend, 74 people were shot and 12 killed in Chicago, and Davis says the police don’t have the manpower to make arrests. Read more >>

Chicago Police Accused of Planting Evidence in ‘Molotov Cocktail’ Plot

Lawyers for three protesters arrested on terrorist-related charges ahead of the NATO summit have accused police of entrapping them and encouraging an alleged bomb-making effort. The three were arrested on Wednesday night when members of the Chicago police department battered their way into an apartment in the Bridgeport area of the city.

The Chicago police department said the men, described as self-proclaimed anarchists and members of the “Black Bloc” movement that has disrupted international gatherings in the past, were arrested on Wednesday and charged on Friday with conspiracy to commit terrorism, providing material support for terrorism and possession of an explosive incendiary device.

Supporters of the three men disputed the charges, saying the men had come to protest at the NATO summit peacefully and that the police had confused beer-making equipment with explosives. A lawyer for the three, Michael Deutsch, said undercover police officers had entrapped them by infiltrating the group and encouraging the bomb-making effort. The Chicago police department declined to comment on the tactics employed in the case. More...

Rep. Joe Wilson: "You LIE" Obama!

Watch Nurse Ratchet's -- I mean Pelosi's reaction. It's hilarious. Proof positive that behind that phony eternal smile is a woman with contempt for anyone or anything she can't control.

Rep. Joe Wilson shouted "You lie" during Obama's health care speech to Congress on Wednesday.

Wilson issued this apology: "This evening, I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the president's remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill," the statement said. "While I disagree with the president's statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the president for this lack of civility."

According to CNN, Wilson also called the White House to apologize and spoke with Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who accepted the apology on the president's behalf, according to a senior administration official.

"We can disagree without being disagreeable," Emanuel said to Wilson, according to the official. "That was the point of the president's speech."