The ULTIMATE Revenge of the Thin Blue Line: 1968 Chicago DNC Redux That Wasn't in 2024

The other night I watched a dad coming from the protest with his little girl, giving a good hard few final snaps on the drum he was carrying, nodding at her in crisp salute, percussing his perspective into her little mind. This is not peaceful. -

Ridiculous John McWhorter a Professor at Columbia University doesn't like drums or dads!

After the Campus Protests this spring, McWhorter was writing about, and the over-the-top heavy-handed response from University Administrators and several Police Departments, Republicans and their Corporate Media allies geared up for the Ultimate MAGA reunion; Making The Chicago DNC 1968 Great Again.

And poof it fizzled and didn't happen...

I don't know who is more upset;  the Chicago (and Suburban Police held in reserve) hoping to descend on some protestors and club them like their grand daddies did, Republicans who were hoping to declare Democrat Crime and Democrat Jew-Haters or the Corporate Media who were giddy at the thought of protestors derailing the Harris/Walz freight train towards victory.

Ok! Honeymoons Over! We say it's over! Stop it!
Stop it right now! We in the Media say it's over!!!

The Corporate Media, Republicans, and Reactionaries in the Police wanted their very own Kent State, and their own 1968 DNC in 2024, so the Media could declare the Harris Honeymoon Over and now it's DEMS IN DISARRAY til Election Day and we need a Strongman like Dear Leader DonOld Trump to bring Order to this Nation.

Man you can see how much the Mainstream Press Corps and elite Journalists yearned for chaos and violence in Chicago.  It's dripping from the dozens of pieces they wrote and when it didn't materialize they were reduced to complaining their seats in the United Center were waaaaaaaaaaaay up in the 300 level and their free accommodations were so poor and the free dinner portions were so small!  

Fortunately, the Biden/Harris campaign team seems to have recognized the Corporate Media are not only not neutral, the Corporate Media is actively working for ugly weirdo Traitor Trump and the Republican Project 2025 Agenda.

But, besides the disappoint for the Republican Neo-Nazis, the other great outcome from the DNC 2024 Riots That Weren't was the utter inconsequential Dirtbag Left attack on the Democratic Party.  With the thought that Joe Biden would be accepting the nomination, the DNC and CeaseFire Now groups thought why would have up to 40,000 protestors making things miserable for "Genocide Joe" and the DNC; 

Then came Kamala Harris — and the protest fizzled.

Organizers anticipated there would be 30,000 to 40,000 protesters on hand for Monday’s kickoff. But only a few thousand showed up; police estimated 3,500.

“There were more reporters than protesters,” observed Bennett Weiss. He was there selling Gaza-related buttons, including one that, he said, describes himself: “Self-Ambivalent Jew Against Zionism.”

Instead, perhaps a few thousand showed up, and they were either non-entities or such idiots they made the Chicago Police look good in comparison!  This was a great success for the Chicago Police and showed what can happen with proper planning and training in Police Forces,

“Can we stop talking about 1968?” Chicago police Superintendent Larry Snelling asked at a news conference Friday. “2024 is the new standard, and the men and women of the Chicago Police Department set that new standard out in the field.” 

After their outside agitation failed, these groups demanded a speaking spot at the DNC which was rightly declined because why would anyone give the erstwhile Left a chance to derail the Triumphant Harris/Walz DNC?  

What a colossal failure by the erstwhile Left, I write erstwhile left because this is a group which voted for Trump in 2016, preemptively declared they would never support Joe Biden in 2020, and decided to rebrand on the fly from ABANDON BIDEN to ABANDON HARRIS because like a horseshoe many of those "leftists" hate the Democratic Party as much as Faux News and the rightwing propagandists like Charlie Kirk, Mike Pillow Lindell, and Jack Proboscis trying to desperately to get some soundbite from some Kefir wearing malcontent which they could use to label Doug Emhoff an "anti-Semite".  Instead, Mike Pillow Lindell was fighting with children and Jack Proboscis was reduced to crying don't say any naughty words during my disingenuous podcast!

Meanwhile, soon-to-be President Harris and Vice President Walz continue to take their message of Joy & Freedom, True Liberty & Real Patriotism directly to the American people and the Corporate Media are getting more and more desperate to blunt what looks to be a 21st century electoral blowout of the Dear Leader DonOld Trump.

The Revenge of the Thin Blue Line 35: Dirty John Catanzara threatens "blood in the streets".

In the annals of the Chicago Police, there have been a few supremely dirty cops; but few of them have been as outspoken as Dirty John Catanzara.

Best known, nationally, as the defender of the Insurrection of January 6th, Catanzara blazed such a path of criminality he was forced to resign as a Police Officer.  But, Dirty John did not resign as the head of Chicago FOP Lodge 7, and as the leader of Union lodge Catanzara has pledged support for Paul Vallas for Mayor of Chicago.  And despite his criminal activities as an Officer and his penchant for supporting rightwing terrorism, Dirty John won another term as the head of the FOP Lodge a few weeks back.

So, Dirty John Catanzara probably felt empowered when he declared, in a Trumpian turn of phrase, that if Brandon Johnson wins election on April 4th, "we're going to see an exodus, like we've never seen before."

This is so much bullshit, Catanzara's FOP members aren't going to follow him out of their jobs.  But, Dirty John has a history of blowing smoke and threatening duly elected Mayors with outsized threats of Cops Quiet Quitting.  It's always made me laugh when rightwing Cops grumble about "quiet quitting" or bemoan 'Nobody wants to work anymore', when Police Officers invented this shit with the Blue Flu and habits of hiding out while on duty, sometimes in plain sight.

Paul Vallas has denounced Dirty John Catanzara's blood in the streets rhetoric because he's already secured Catanzara's support.  Meanwhile, Vallas is also spinning a bunch of bullshit about retirees and those Officer who've quit the Chicago Police of rejoining the Force;

“I know for a fact that there are hundreds of officers who will return if there's new leadership,” Vallas said during a WGN-TV debate last week. “The bottom line is, fill the vacancies, and invite those who have retired and those who have transferred to return and, under new leadership, they will.

First off if you're taking you Pension via Article V of the Illinois Pension Code you can't just come back.  And if someone who quit is going to reapply to work in Chicago I expect they have all sorts of red flags.  Brandon Johnson pointed out this is just so much poppy-cock.

Vallas is currently leading and has a good shot of winning election, he's playing the game of telling white liberals one thing and Republicans the opposite (as he did by publicly denouncing Catanzara even though hammering Johnson and Lightfoot before him as soft on crime and mean to the Police is his entire campaign strategy) as he has probably rightly concluded, no big story about his duality will make an impact in this last week before the election.

The Revenge of the Thin Blue Line 13: Murder, Someone Wrote, but we don't know Who

His only option is to question as many people as possible, to believe those who deserve belief, and to be a good judge of what he hears. - Polyibus, The Histories Book 12 Chapter 4c

Solving crimes is what most people believe the Police should be doing.  Murder is, of course, the worst crime and occupies its' own classification in the Illinois Criminal Code.

Unfortunately, over the past 40 years the clearance rate for homicides has steadily dropped.  From a high of about 75% solving a murder is now a 50/50 shot.  Now, this is bad in the aggregate but, it might not be as bad as the data and graphs seem to illustrate.  

Because for a long time clearance rate was simply based on the making of an arrest and unfortunately old school Police tactics were unethical and borderline criminal, besides the outright heinous crimes of the infamous Chicago Officer John Burge.

I'm not going to say solving a murder is ever "easy", but departments do have a wider array of diagnostic kits, greater investigative tools, and superior evidence collection at their disposal than ever before.  But, the most important aspect of investigating crimes remains face-to-face investigations.  Known for a long time as "shoe leather" detective work.  Have investigation skills, interview techniques, attention to details, critical thinking lapsed since the old days?  I doubt it.  The dismal clearance rate for murder is instead a direct reflection of a lack of trust of Police Officers and Departments by society.  

Due to constant bad actions (and I don't mean just spectacular crimes like Chauvin's) and the proliferation of information Police Departments have also lost moral authority.  Because of this people know who is responsible for many murders they just don't want to tell Police the information.

That's bad and it strikes at the core problem facing Policing going forward and right now.  #3 of Sir Robert Peel's nearly 200 year old 9 principles of Policing; The police must secure the willing cooperation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain public respect.  Those 9 maxims still stand as basic guidelines for Policing in the United States and Western liberal Democracies. 

Can Police get the trust and cooperation of society back? Not now.  I don't know what it will take to regain trust.  If it is even possible.  Defund?  Reformation?  Police reform has been a catch-phrase and running theme for decades.  Police reform is only accomplished when a new generation with a new way of thinking takes over and the problem with Policing was identified by Raymond Chandler a century ago; 

The Revenge of the Thin Blue Line 2: Welcome to Chicago Trump

"You just kicked the shit out of an innocent man." - Strawberry Alice

"Innocent of what?" - Little Bill (Unforgiven 1992)

The Chicago Police Department embarrassed and debased themselves during Traitor Trump's visit. Trump is so obviously a conman and yet they applaud him. Police Departments across the United States are so thoroughly corrupted by believing their own Hero Warrior bullshit that Trump needed to spew little more to get the fawning adulation of a group of so-called Law Enforcement Officers.

Working the job for over a decade the only thing which irritates me on the job is when someone lies to me. I can deal with a lot but, lying to me is just too much. Yet, Chicago Cops not only enjoy being lied to by Trump they are eager to be lied to? Why?

During the 2016 campaign Trump recounted one of his fantasy scenarios where a big strong burly tough guy fawns over Trump when he declared a confided in him,

"And I said, 'How long would it take you to straighten out this problem?' " the president added. "And he said, 'If you gave me the authority — couple of days.' I really mean it.  I said, 'You've gotta be kidding. ... Give me your card.' And he gave me a card. And I sent it to the mayor. I said, 'You ought to try using this guy.' Guess what happened? Never heard. And last week they had another record. It's horrible."

Trump trotted out the story yet again, and added in the standard rightwing canards that Chicago has the Toughest Gun Laws in America and laws don't work. Now, you would think even the least inquisitive Cop would recognize the syllogism:

If the laws are tough and crime is still a problem, then enforcement is lax. 

I.e. the Chicago Police Officers are lazy or incompetent. But, what these Officers heard was 'those people are natural born criminals and animals and your command staff are weak or namby-pamby liberals' and if only Police Officers were unshackled they would be able to clean-up the City.

Trump is stupid but he has certain mean low cunning and what Trump knows is most people believe in half-conceived theories of criminal justice; usually variations of the wholly discredited Broken Windows Theory. So what Chicago Cops heard was what they wanted to hear;  "Don't be too nice."

I am wholly insulted and ashamed that Police Officers are so fucking gullible and easily taken in by a bloated, adderall abusing, grifting RAPIST.

Of course, no one should be surprised Police Officers, especially Chicago Police Officers, will ignore the law and willingly violate peoples Constitutional Rights because Chicago Police Officers are currently engaged in such activities.

Stop & Frisk violates the 4th Amedment. In 2016, Chicago Officers became required to justify their detention of minorities because that's who Chicago Police stop, by being able to articulate their reasonable suspicion. Of course, what's become apparent in the data collected since then is Officers don't have or don't know what that standard is and their supervisions are helping them add data after the fact, to justify the unlawful interaction.

But, illegal stop & frisk is supported by conservatives because right-wingers believe all black people are a priori guilty of some crime thus, any stop any detention of a black person is thus justified.