January 6, 2010

Chicago considering scrapping police tests

From the Chicago Sun-Times (thanks to the readers who sent this in):
Police may scrap entrance exam
'OPEN UP THE PROCESS' | Union chief: It's 'too stupid to be true'

BY FRAN SPIELMAN AND FRANK MAIN, Staff Reporters

The Chicago Police Department is seriously considering scrapping the police entrance exam to bolster minority hiring, save millions on test preparation and avert costly legal battles that have dogged the exam process for decades, City Hall sources said Tuesday.

If the process is opened to everyone who applies and meets the minimum education and residency requirements, Chicago would be virtually alone among major cities. Most cities have police entrance exams -- and for good reason, experts say.

"A background check and a psych [exam] alone will not eliminate some people who should not be there," said Brad Woods, who ran the Personnel Division under former Chicago Police Superintendents Phil Cline and Terry Hillard.

Calling an application-only process a "step backward" and the "wrong way to go," Woods said, "When you lower your quality, you will get poor police service and more complaints. ... Whenever you make it easier to be the police, you're doing the citizens and the Police Department a disservice."

Charlie Roberts, who ran the training division from 1995 to 1999, noted that there are "eleven tracks" recruits must go through in the police academy, including the law and the municipal code.

"If you don't give someone at least a reading comprehension test, can you just put them in and risk the possibility of having so many of them fail? That could get quite expensive," Roberts said.

"We were getting people with 60 hours of college credit who were reading at a third-grade level. What do you think you'll get if you have no screening process?"

Human Resources Department spokesperson Connie Buscemi acknowledged Tuesday that the Daley administration has been exploring other "options" since last fall, when a "request-for-proposals" for companies interested in preparing an on-line police entrance exam was cancelled.

The last police entrance exam was held on Nov. 5, 2006.

"We wanted to try to develop something on-line to allow the city to accommodate members of the U.S. military who are on active duty. But, we didn't get any responses that met our needs. No one said they could administer an on-line exam" and guarantee its integrity, Buscemi said.

This is a legitimate need, although I doubt if it has much to do with dumping testing. Hiring tests in Chicago are typically given on a single day every few years, with copies of the test delivered written by outside consulting firms delivered to the test site by armored car. Otherwise, insiders will get a look at the test ahead of time and alert their nephews and in-laws to what's on it.

One problem with this system is that if you are a Chicagoan stuck on active duty in Iraq on the day of the test, you are out of luck getting hired as a Chicago fireman or policeman for years to come. And since the EEOC's Four-Fifths rule doesn't apply to military enlistment tests, such as the heavily g-weighted AFQT, Chicago is missing out on its most promising source of future policemen and firemen. But if Chicago offered the test online at the same time it was being given in Chicago, who would proctor the test-takers in the middle of the night in Iraq and Afghanistan?

That's an interesting question, but it's a complete sideshow for what's really going on. Post-Ricci, the politicians can't fudge the results as much, so now they want to get rid of the test.
"We're [now] reviewing our options on how to administer the police application process."

Other sources confirmed that the police entrance exam could be scrapped altogether "to open up the process to as many people as possible." A final decision could be made later this week.

Fraternal Order of Police President Mark Donahue said the idea "sounds too stupid to be true." "You need a testing process. ... You need to be very concerned about the very limited information you would get from just a screening and application process," Donahue said.

Something that is completely overlooked but that is totally obvious when you stop to think about it is that civil servant unions, who are always demonized by Republicans, are one of the few effective forces actively working against affirmative action in big cities. The head of the union always has some name like "Donahue," and union policies work to keep older white civil servants from being fired in the name of making the government work force "look more like Chicago." This is particularly true for teachers unions, whose leaders all remember when black politicians got local control of New York public schools in the Ocean Hill neighborhood in the late 1960s, and immediately fired hundreds of Jewish schoolteachers and hired blacks to replace them.

Hiring and promotions in the Police and Fire Departments have generated controversy in Chicago for as long as anyone can remember.

The criticism reached a crescendo in 1994 after a sergeants exam produced just five minority promotions out of 114.

The test was the first to be administered by the city after "race-norming" -- the practice of adjusting scores on the basis of race -- was ruled unconstitutional.

In November 2005, City Hall announced plans to offer the police entrance exam a record four times the following year -- and for the first time on the Internet -- after an unprecedented outreach campaign that bolstered the number of minority applicants to 34 percent black, 24 percent Hispanic and 26 percent women.

More than two years later, black ministers told newly-appointed Police Supt. Jody Weis that, if he was serious about re-establishing trust between police and the black community, he should start by hiring and promoting more African Americans.

NBCChicago adds
:
And as of last year, one in four patrol officers were African-American, but just one in 12 Lieutenants were of color.

Let me point out that, to get around the EEOC's Four-Fifth's Rule, Chicago has already almost completely emasculated its police and fire tests, in order to make the disparity between white and black passing rates (as innumerately measured by the feds) less than one-fifth. Chicago's last fire and police tests were passed by 85% of the people who walked in off the street. What's the point of even giving a test so easy that people at the fifth percentile among whites pass?

So, why not give up on testing completely? That's the logical implication of the EEOC's Four-Fifth's Rule.

As Steve Farron pointed out in The Affirmative Action Hoax, honest racial quotas would be better than abolishing testing. You'd at least get the smartest of each race.

Considering that Barack Obama taught "Racism and the Law" (not, by the way, "Race and the Law") at the University of Chicago and litigated disparate impact lawsuits in Chicago, somebody might want to ask the President of the United States his opinion on this subject.

But don't count on that ever happening.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

75 comments:

Anonymous said...

Western Governors University is able to administer online tests (albeit, proctored ones), and they do this with military personnel. If the soldier is in Iraq, there are still instances where the test could be administered (they have computers out there, and officers who can be trusted to ensure the test is taken properly). There is no reason why Chicago cannot do it either.

Anonymous said...

So how would Chicago choose which individuals to hire for police jobs, if testing for merit is eliminated?

Anonymous said...

Second City Cop's discussion will be here [although he hasn't started taking comments yet].

Dutch Boy said...

The NYC flap when the Black school board fired the Jewish teachers was the end of the Jewish/Black civil rights alliance.

Anonymous said...

So how would Chicago choose which individuals to hire for police jobs, if testing for merit is eliminated?

Paper bag tests.

Josuah Lawrence Chamberlain said...

As the racial demographics of the United States continues to change in a way that is very unfavorable to White Americans. One can predict with one hundred percent certainty that a large population of White Males will experience massive dicrimination on all levels of the society.

With this massive demographic shift will come a massive gain in political power for nonwhites, and they will use this massive political power to accelerate the discrimination and race replacement of White Americans in general. This is the fundamental issue that drives everythoing else.

So the really big question is:Will America crack and fracture along racial lines, and what comes after that?

Just thinkk of all the problems that could have been avoided if the 1965 immigration act reform act had not been passed. The passage of the 1965 immigration reform act occured during the Greatest Generation's shift. Apparently they were asleep at the wheel. Man, they really blew for their children,grandchildren,great grandchildren,great great great...then the lights go out for White Americans.

rightsaidfred said...

save millions on test preparation and avert costly legal battles

If it is going to be about money, let's throw in the cost of a non meritocratic police force.

Whiskey said...

Public employee unions routinely back hard-left "Diversity" politicians: John Kerry (Senate and Presidential Races), and Antonio Villaraigosa being two examples. The White leadership does not care about its rank and file, it merely wants to be eaten last.

What does it matter to Joe Average White Guy if Public Employee unions are merely made "No Whites Need Apply" more slowly, particularly at the top, if the process continues anyway? For White Middle Class, non-SWPL voters, the solution is to keep away from City Centers, and make suburban civil service as non-unionized as possible, because union leaders leverage the anti-White political alliance (hard left SWPL leaders, non-Whites, feminists, etc) to destroy their real enemy: the White middle class.

Look at Andy Stern of SEIU. The only way to prevent Stern-ization is drain the pond, so to speak. Prevent him from even being able to unionize government workers. [SEIU represents much of the State of California workers.]

dWj said...

1) Could they get away with simply accepting former soldiers without their taking the test? As you note, the pool of "former soldiers" is likely to be better than the pool of "people who passed the exam".

2) Can you get away with "stacking" tests? For example, 20% of blacks fail the test to enter a training program, at the end of which 20% of those blacks fail to satisfactorily complete the course? Or does the EEOC see through that?

Mike said...

The proliferation of low IQ individuals in a democracy leads to lower standards of efficiency in government. Americans must reconcile themselves to a Latin American quality of life in the future.

Anonymous said...

"Diversity is strength"......

It's also unqualified police officers too!

Bruce Banned said...

OT:
Kevin MacDonald launches a Third Party. Will Taki endorse him?

http://american3p.org/

dearieme said...

Look, a nation that doesn't even apply an entrance exam to its Presidential candidates (Let's see your birth certificate, bub!) should not mock one of its mayors for drawing the obvious conclusion.

Anonymous said...

Does "Human Resources Department spokesperson Connie Buscemi" have bug eyes?

Anonymous said...

The GOP and the conservative movement in general has been MIA on the affirmative action issue since the neocon purges of the later 90's. The people now running the party and the "right wing" media, like Fox News and National Review, could care less how much average white people get screwed as long as we are fighting wars in the Middle East.

Anonymous said...

Why not let black people police the black areas, hispanic people police their areas and whites police white areas? Chicago is pretty segregated. There are close to 100% black areas and over 90%-95% white areas.

Anonymous said...

Dearie, I've never known you to be a nut but I've never ever commented on Birthgate before so lemme take the opportunity.

Who the hell cares if he was born in Kenya and came here when he was two weeks old or he was born here? My GOD, what's WRONG with you so sorry excuses for "people"? If he's a manchurian candidate it aint because he spent the first two weeks of he life in Africa.

The whole birth certificate thing is so damn stupid it's extraordinary. The constitution doesn't require it and requires what it represents for obvious reasons which don't apply here and was written by a bunch of guys who lived in a wholly different universe and would all take to their arms in revolt against having to live under the dictates of so antiquated a document.

The American populace more or less chose Obama over McCain and if you want to argue that welfare recipients shouldn't vote, fine. That blacks should be slaves and thus not allowed to vote, also fine. That the whole system is corrupt and thus neither McCain nor The Obama represent the freely chosen vote of the majority of the American populace, also good. But to hold on to some ancint document's textual minutia and even THERE to care more about the wording of the law than about the clear and definite spirit that animated is nuts!

Thank you and have a great day.

mnuez

j-lil said...

"What's the point of even giving a test so easy that people at the fifth percentile among whites pass?"

Good point. What you really want is to bring the test down to the level of coin-flipping. Then you really get "a PD that looks like Chicago."

Or as you suggest, just institute quotas for a not-so-great but (much) better outcome, if "diversity is what we're after.

Anonymous said...

So the really big question is:Will America crack and fracture along racial lines, and what comes after that?

My experience has been that Komment Kontrol won't allow us to talk about that looming certainty.

read it said...

"And since the EEOC's Four-Fifths rule doesn't apply to military enlistment tests, such as the heavily g-weighted AFQT, Chicago is missing out on its most promising source of future policemen and firemen."


If Chicago police and fire departments want to hire ex-military, it seems they could just ask the candidates to have their military test scores forwarded to the dept to which they are applying and develop a AFQT conversion table to evaluate ex-military candidates. I mean, it's only a screening, the folks still have to apply. Of course that would be to damned easy.

Anonymous said...

--Considering that Barack Obama taught "Racism and the Law" (not, by the way, "Race and the Law") at the University of Chicago and litigated disparate impact lawsuits in Chicago, somebody might want to ask the President of the United States his opinion on this subject.--

Indeed, the media has observed a strict don't-ask-don't-tell policy when it comes to issues it knows will, if he answers honestly, only hurt him with white voters and if he answers dishonestly will hurt him with blacks.

And "the jews," to paraphrase Rev. Wright keep him far enough away from any journalist willing to risk the opprobrium of his colleagues to ask him such questions.

Sean

Anonymous said...

Can't whites game the affirmative action system merely by self-identifying as hispanic/black/native american? I'm not referring to this specific example, where it might not be relevant, but in general...

Anonymous said...

Commentator mnuez is apparently a product of the Chicago public school system. Gives you hope, doesn't it?

Kylie said...

Josuah Lawrence Chamberlain said: "As the racial demographics of the United States continues to change in a way that is very unfavorable to White Americans. One can predict with one hundred percent certainty that a large population of White Males will experience massive dicrimination on all levels of the society."

My husband doesn't yet understand why, when we discuss where to live once he retires, I insist that demographics be prioritized over climate and/or geography.

Thomas said...

Agree with the previous anonymous commenter regarding the GOP. Is there any reason to believe that decisions about who gets hired as a police officer or firefighter are of concern to that party? Seems to have nothing to do with "ending evil" or "expanding the opportunity for homeownership" or any of the other tenets of today's Republican party.

Anonymous said...

Man, they really blew for their children,grandchildren,great grandchildren,great great great...then the lights go out for White Americans.


Then the lights go out for everyone. Hello Detriot...

anony-mouse said...

Why would an intelligent person want to be a Chicago cop, except maybe for the graft?

And why would a US soldier in Iraq want to sign up for an even more dangerous job?

M Stein said...

***Let me point out that, to get around the EEOC's Four-Fifth's Rule, Chicago has already almost completely emasculated its police and fire tests, in order to make the disparity between white and black passing rates (as innumerately measured by the feds) less than one-fifth.***

Linda Gottfredson highlighted the dilemma a while ago:

"The major legal dilemma in selection is that the best overall predictors of job performance, namely, cognitive tests, have the most disparate impact on racial-ethnic minorities. Their considerable disparate impact is not due to any imperfections in the tests. Rather, it is due to the tests' measuring essential skills and abilities that happen not to be distributed equally among groups (Schmidt, 1988). Those differences currently are large enough to cause a major problem. U.S. Department of Education literacy surveys show, for example, that black college graduates, on the average, exhibit the cognitive skill levels of white high school graduates without any college (Kirsch, Jungeblut, & Kolstad, 1993, p. 127).

This dilemma means that the disparate impact of cognitive tests can be reduced only by reducing their ability to predict job performance. In fact, this problem is so well known among personnel selection professionals that there is considerable research estimating how much productivity is lost by reducing the impact of cognitive tests by different degrees (e.g., Hartigan & Wigdor, 1989; Hunter, Schmidt, & Rauschenberger, 1984; Wigdor & Hartigan, 1988; see also Brody, this issue, for a more general discussion of the same dilemma). There are two general methods of reducing the impact of cognitive tests: lower the hiring standards only for the lower-scoring groups, or lower standards for all races and ethnicities. Double standards lower productivity less than low common standards because they maintain standards for the majority of workers. Their drawbacks are that they are obviously race-conscious and that they create disparate impact in future promotions. In contrast, low common standards have the virtue of being race-neutral, but they devastate workforce performance across the board.

Unfortunately, current racial disparities in skills and abilities are such that disparate impact can routinely be expected, at least for blacks, under race-neutral hiring in most jobs. Moreover, the disparate impact to be expected (and the levels actually found) worsens with the complexity level of the occupation in question (Gottfredson, 1986).

Litigation is very costly, so many employers, particularly in the public sector, prefer to settle out of court or sign consent decrees rather than fight an adverse impact lawsuit. Moreover, as has been observed in many police and fire departments over the last two decades, employers who resist are often litigated by the Justice Department or civil rights groups until they eliminate the disparate impact by whatever means."

http://www.ipacweb.org/files/nassau/gottfredson3.html

Captain Jack Aubrey said...

The GOP and the conservative movement in general has been MIA on the affirmative action issue since the neocon purges of the later 90's. The people now running the party and the "right wing" media, like Fox News and National Review, could care less how much average white people get screwed as long as we are fighting wars in the Middle East.

That's what many of my liberal friends don't understand and what, more disturbingly, many of my conservative friends don't understand.

The GOP does the bidding of big business and neocons reflexively - lower taxes (on taxes that hit the rich), wars in the Middle East, aid to Israel, open borders, and so on. The voting base of the GOP, which consists mostly of the middle class and conservative Christians get very little. When they do get something it's only after much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Truth said...

Mnunez:

That was a brilliant post. I always compliment the author of a well-thought-out post here in the Steve-O-Sphere; In the two+ years I've been here I think this is the fifth compliment.

Captain Jack Aubrey said...

But to hold on to some ancint document's textual minutia and even THERE to care more about the wording of the law than about the clear and definite spirit that animated is nuts!

Well, why shouldn't we hold on to the "textual minutia"? It is there for a reason. And, if I might say so, the left holds tightly to the textual minutia of everything, when (and if) it's there (and invents it if it ain't). Half of their agenda, at least, has gotten through via the legal process rather than the democratic one, thanks to the "textual minutia." That's what the ACLU is for, among 18,000 other leftist groups targetting the courts rather than the legislature.

Personally I say all of this as a guy who sees no reason to think that Obama was born anywhere other than the United States, and who hasn't paid a bit of attention to the birth certificate debate.

Whiskey said...

You all are missing the point, again. Arguing over having the Chicago Police dept. more slowly or more rapidly becoming totally Black+Hispanic to the exclusion of Whites is like bailing out the Titanic.

It does not matter. No matter what, you have a government union it flips, either rapidly or slowly, to "No Whites Need Apply" and totally non-White. That's the "just the way it is" because unions are part of the anti-White middle class agenda uniting the Left.

I.E. Harold Myerson's "End of Whiteness" remarks in the Washington Post.

Moreover, the GOP is in the throes of seizure by the anti-Country Club folks, the Tea Party people. Those who want lower taxes, smaller government, no Amnesty, Border Enforcement, deportation of illegals, and the like. Its showing up in the Corner, at National Review, too, with the case of the guy in Utah, an illegal alien, who faces the death penalty for murder after he was never deported for numerous lesser crimes.

Its why Charlie Crist, RINO, faces a serious challenge from Marco Rubio. Its why Dede Scoffalazza, so RINO she endorsed the Democrat (and abortion, ObamaCare, Cap and Trade, Amnesty, and the rest) got a couple of million from the RNC and the latter can't raise cash after that, with Hoffman getting national small donors energized by tea party folks. Hoffman lost, but he will be back.

The GOP is in transition, from RINO types like Lindsay Grahamnesty and John McCain, to the Tea Party candidates and Thune, DeMint, and folks like them such as Sessions. It is becoming the "White Guy Party" of mostly Evangelicals and Mormons, plus a few Catholics. Wanting White Guy policies of low taxes and government, no AA, what spending there is to be defense spending (lots of White military contractors) and a strong defense and intimidating the bejabbers out of our enemies which is mostly now, Muslims plus China long range (i.e. outbuild their blue-water navy that challenges us for control of the Pacific).

Those latter policies are not popular with you, but they are VERY popular with the Tea Party folks who are both angry and energized.

Anonymous said...

Second City Cop's discussion will be here [although he hasn't started taking comments yet].

He just approved 164 comments in his first batch.

eh said...

Mnunez: That was a brilliant post...

I also believe we should defer to mnuez from now on as to which "textual minutia" in the Constitution we ought to fret over, feel bound by, etc, or not. Please save this link and add a new comment when you have a related issue or question; hopefully mnuez will do the same and reply.

Thank you.

Anonymous said...

In Chicago the black reverends ply the race racket quite brazenly, being a well organized group. In order to deliver the black voters to the office holders, the mayor, aldermen, and others, must fork over large sums of money in the form of contracts and jobs. They weigh in on hiring for the schools, police, streets and sanitation, water reclamation, parks, transportation, the list of sinecures is endless. Don't forget, this is where Jesse Jackson makes his headquarters, the master of race based politics. None of them care for the concept of merit, it's strictly a spoils system, how much can be demanded. The mayor has to give them a share so they don't turn on him. It seems that the ante is being upped because they smell weakness on the mayor's part, due to white voter disenchantment with him. He needs the black vote more than ever now. The police chief is a puppet of the mayor, this initiative would have the mayor's hand behind it. The headaches that would ensue from adopting this proposal makes my head spin to even contemplate it. I think all this is a symptom of the rot within the political/racial balancing act going on here in Chicago. Where it all ends nobody can say.

route 13 said...

If Chicago really wants to save money, why not get rid of all judges and lawyers, and let a whole bunch of Judge-Dredd-Dirty-Harry types blow away all the criminals off the streets?

There won't be any need for jails either.

Reg Cæsar said...

...civil servant unions... are one of the few effective forces actively working against affirmative action in big cities.

Er, no... historically, they don't so much oppose affirmative action, as aim it in a different direction. After all, they pioneered the concept!

Udolpho.com said...

the thing that actually makes Barry a Manchurian candidate is being the offspring of a stupid white trash skank and an alcoholic scumbag absentee dad...not quite as good as someone who grew up with two dads, but impressive nonetheless...how long after the WWII generation cashed out did we end up with this basket case?

he's also the perfect first black president, except for being something of a conciliatory pussy who gets elbowed by tough guys like Nancy Pelosi and that RuPaul impersonator who appears in so many shots with him

as for Chicago, can't wait for it to become another Detroit, then maybe we can talk some mad muslim into bombing it for us

beowulf said...

I think Silly Girl hit the nail on the head, but I'd take it further, require every police candidate to sit for the ASVAB (or forward their existing scores)

The military has minimum ASVAB scores for every job (I'll use the Army's MP requirements, the other services are similar). To qualify for the Military Police 31B MOS (Military Occupational Specialty), a candidate must score a 95 or above on the Skilled Technical composite, that is a combination of General Science (GS) + Sum of Word Knowledge and Paragraph Comprehension, scaled (VE) + Mathematics Knowledge (MK) + Mechanical Comprehension (MC).

Article II of the Constitution begins "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America". If a city simply adapted the US Army's testing requirements for police candidates, then the EEOC (acting for the President of the United States) would have to argue in court that the US Army (acting for the President of the United States) has created a written test that creates a disparate impact that is neither job-related, consistent with a business necessity nor "validated".

The city simply argues that if the President of the United States thinks that his own ASVAB is an invalid test, then the city will of course use whatever new "validated" exam he comes up with for when he's hiring military policemen. And then subpoena for deposition every army statistician, active or retired, who has, in fact, validated the ASVAB.

stari_momak said...

Something that is completely overlooked but that is totally obvious when you stop to think about it is that civil servant unions, who are always demonized by Republicans, are one of the few effective forces actively working against affirmative action in big cities.

Yes, just got through watching the local KOCE Orange County news/opinion program. An Irvine Republican was bashing the unions, the Democrat called him out. In going after civil servants, they are going after the public safety unions. Of course, not one word about the major factor in creating the need for all those public safety civil servants, immigration.

Cordelia said...

Some of the comments about Daley over @ Second City Cop's blog are as funny as h*ll:

Anonymous said...
I hear that Daley wants to abolish the Bar exam too. It took him three times to pass it and he wasn't the one who took it the third time.

1/06/2010 04:09:00 PM


They also refer to Daley as 42 extra-short! :-))

l said...

Have any other cities scrapped hiring standards in the interest of diversity? As I recall DC quit excluding applicants with criminal backgrounds. Until that backfired.

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain said...

Anon

The lights will go out for everyone. At that point in time,however, I won't give a hoot.

If the current trend continues, White Americans should think about living it up to the max. Endangered species can drop dead.

I could care less about saving the environment for the nonwhite replacements.

Has anyone here been to Newark? My God, it is a trip to Hell itself. Just scale up Newark across the nation and you will have very good feel for the future of United States. With the passage of amnesty, we'll get there real fast.

Since I mentioned amnesty,it will interact with the anti-White Male policies discussed in this thread by Steve. Either White Males will voluntarily accept being doormats or they won't. If they don't......

Immigration Enthusiasts have to be borderline psychotics. Eventually they will replace Michael Bloomberg-who recently said that NYC must be made into a foreign city so that NYC can be more attractive to foriegners-with one of their own kind. He said this three days ago.

TW Andrews said...

If it was reasonably easy to fire crappy cops, I think this would probably be ok, particularly if newbie officers had to work in some junior (i.e. no gun) capacity for 2 years before they were assigned full duty.

Anonymous said...

beowulf said

> Article II of the Constitution begins "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America". <

Minutia.

L'il Barry Soetoro said...

Don't forget, this is where Jesse Jackson makes his headquarters, the master of race based politics.

Ahem...

.

A Chicago Commuter said...

Steve,

Not only are police entrance exams in Chicago discriminatory, it seems public transportation is RAAAAAAAACISSSSTTTTTT! too. From today's (1/7/2010) Sun Times:

Lawsuit claims higher CTA fares, service cuts are racist

The CTA's frequent budget "doomsdays" threatening higher fares and service cuts are the result of a state transit funding scheme that discriminates against minorities, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday.

"Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. came to prominence more than 60 years ago when minorities in Montgomery were being denied a seat on the bus," said U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., who appeared at a news conference announcing the lawsuit, filed by two CTA customers seeking class-action status on behalf of black and Hispanic riders. "Half a century later, it appears that minorities in Chicago are subsidizing all transit riders, yet still not getting their seat on the bus."


Gosh, I just don't know WHY middle class (and higher) professionals move out of Chicago and Cook County and out to DuPage, (northern) Will, Lake, McHenry, and Kane counties, and only commute to and from Chicago for work.

Anonymous said...

Some of the comments about Daley over @ Second City Cop's blog are as funny as h*ll

Yeah, I find that the discussions at SCC can be absolutely mesmerizing.

Real people talking about real events in the real world - isn't that what journalism was supposed to be?

Mr. Anon said...

"Whiskey said.....

The GOP is in transition, from RINO types like Lindsay Grahamnesty and John McCain, to the Tea Party candidates and Thune, DeMint, and folks like them such as Sessions. It is becoming the "White Guy Party" of mostly Evangelicals and Mormons, plus a few Catholics. Wanting White Guy policies of low taxes and government, no AA, what spending there is to be defense spending (lots of White military contractors) and a strong defense and intimidating the bejabbers out of our enemies which is mostly now, Muslims plus China long range (i.e. outbuild their blue-water navy that challenges us for control of the Pacific).

Those latter policies are not popular with you, but they are VERY popular with the Tea Party folks who are both angry and energized."

Whiskey, you stupid dipstick. You're missing the point - again. You really ought to stick to what you know - plaing Modern Combat and learning Klingonese.

I'm in the deep South, and a lot of the - quite deeply conservative - white guys here want out of our foreign commitments and our idiotic wars. They see no point to them. The Republican party needs to learn this if they want to govern soundly. We do not wish to be the masters of the world - we just want to be the masters of our own nation.

Mr. Anon said...

"Anonymous said...

But to hold on to some ancint document's textual minutia and even THERE to care more about the wording of the law than about the clear and definite spirit that animated is nuts!

Thank you and have a great day.

mnuez"

You are right. I specifically dislike the pettifogging obsession with laws which restrain the government from hunting you down and killing you. And I don't mean 'you' generically. I mean 'YOU', specifically, mnuez. I think the government should declare a "Let's all hunt down and savagely beat mnuez to death day", and the fuddy-duddy ole' Constitution and it's niggling "rights" be damned.

Anonymous said...

It is becoming the "White Guy Party" of mostly Evangelicals and Mormons, plus a few Catholics. Wanting White Guy policies of low taxes and government, no AA, what spending there is to be defense spending (lots of White military contractors) and a strong defense and intimidating the bejabbers out of our enemies which is mostly now, Muslims plus China long range (i.e. outbuild their blue-water navy that challenges us for control of the Pacific).

I noticed that a lot of these guys are beginning to view Israel as our enemy.

why did you go with that person? said...

I have a better idea for reducing costs for the city of Chicago. De-criminalize crime altogether.

Besides, our current definition of crime must be 'racist' since it penalizes blacks disproportionately.

oh really? said...

"The whole birth certificate thing is so damn stupid it's extraordinary. The constitution doesn't require it and requires what it represents for obvious "

That this question has never been addressed or debated in a public forum until forced in recent months, is proof enough for me that those who vetted and chose the current occupant of the White House (that's also how I referred to Bush II for 8 yrs, btw) knew perfectly well he did not qualify. I'm not sure, whether he was born there or not (personally I think he was) but he sure acts as though he'd have preferred to be Kenyan, while still enjoying all that America has to offer, such the Presidency and all the tax-payers money. Everytime he is introduced to another president-of-color, he bows as if it were they who pay his way and not the American taxpayers. He creeps me out, no matter where he was born.

Those who forged the Constitution knew times would change and made provisions that it could be adjusted and modified as needed, legally. However, this is not for anybody to decide on simply because of their own personal whims. Several years ago there was a move to do away with the "natural born" rule. People thought it was because Schwarzenegger had presidential aspirations, but now we know it was to oil the cogs for the then unknown "Kenyan born Senator" (description taken from an article in an Ohio newspaper, 2004.) Didn't work, so they merely decided to use the tactics that work so well with so many subjects such as "racism", alternative fuels, free energy, investigation of 9/11 or the various assassinations. Ridicule. Call them "stupid" an especially ironic insult since the so-accused are the ones using their minds and questioning and doing on-the-ground research. Just questioning these things brings out the official "debunkers." Everybody on a site like this realizes that.

We owe allegiance to a Constitution, not to a government or a big business corporation, or some unknown Hawaiian-cum Indonesian-cum-Chicago pol, whom "they" decided to coronate for their own reasons. What to do? Dismantle the Constitution word by word. Call key phrases "minute" as if that meant unimportant. Bush II had already referred to the Constitution as toilet paper, so it has been an easier task. There's not that much difference among the elites of these "parties." Whatever works for their own interests is what they do.
It's pretty hilarious when you survey it from an emotional distance. All these people coming here (or Being There, as in the 1980 Peter Sellers film), taking advantage of all this Constitution has had to offer, and then deciding to illegally ignore it according to what prevailing ambitions are going. A bit like those people demanding entrance to schools and institutions whether they qualify or not, and then demanding that these same institutions change to accommodate Them once they are installed.
Obvious illegal aliens are not the biggest threat to the American nation. It's the Trojan Horse pushed, pulled and inhabited by those already in, legally or not. Indeed, some of the worst traitors have families that have been here for 300 years. And when it's all over to their satisfaction, what they will have will be no better than what they were trying to leave.

Svigor said...

The White leadership does not care about its rank and file, it merely wants to be eaten last.

Yes. This is why I'm all in favor of "diversity," as long as it starts at the top.

Anonymous said...

Mnuez - we are reminded that the US is a proposition nation, that Jews & blacks or whoever are citizens are equal citizens regardless of ethnicity and origin.

Its not a proposition nation just because some people say it is (though thats exactly what youre saying), its that way because of the primacy of the constitution. Its that which allows Obama, for example, to end up as prez, despite the instinctual understanding amongst many whites that, for all sorts of obvious naturel reasons, this is wrong.

So Mnuez, you want to dismiss the constitution with a flick of your wrist, fine, but then its bye-bye proposition nation. All bets are off, its every group fore themselves.

One day you may want to seek legal redress over a real case of anti-semitism. Well, talk to the hand, its my country not yours, your claims for equal treatment no longer have any basis, they arise merely out of the "textual minutia" of the constitution and you've just dismissed them out of hand.

Btw your birther arguement is a strawman anyway. Obama has to be a US born citizen. His BC would prove that, its that failure to provide it which entrains the problem, proferring his BC in itself is not a constituional point - obviously.

albertosaurus said...

"We were getting people with 60 hours of college credit who were reading at a third-grade level."

I suppose I too have contributed to this process. I was known at one public college as a tough grader. I routinely had about a third of my computer science students flunk or drop my courses. This never bothered me. In fact many drop outs were grateful to me because I showed them what was expected of them in a typical information system career.

But when I taught Oracle at a private university I changed my behavior.

I had a student (white) who was clearly retarded. I thought he might have had Down's Syndrome. He worked for some company in a warehouse. I suspect he was a very poor warehouseman but his company had a policy whereby they paid for relevant business education. That is to say they reimbursed you for books and tuition if you got a C or better in an approved course.

This guy had apparently read an ad in the paper that showed that Database Administrators made a lot of money. He asked me if after taking my course he could get a job as a DBA. I, of course, said no. The course was "Introduction to Oracle". Only that. But he kept asking me this same question in the course of the semester. He was retarded not just slow.

He never could do any of the class exercises, get any questions right on any quiz and he turned in a blank final exam. I gave him a "C".

The for-profit school wouldn't let me drop a paying customer and if I had flunked him (as I should have) he would have been out several hundred dollars. I wasn't tough enough to be honest. I wasn't tough enough to fine a mentally handicapped man.

ATBOTL said...

"But to hold on to some ancint document's textual minutia and even THERE to care more about the wording of the law than about the clear and definite spirit that animated is nuts!"

So you're saying that Jews are nuts?

P Schwartz said...

This craziness will not stop until the guilt has been atoned for:

"Well, not just yet. It seems there are still problems that need to be addressed, inequities that must be balanced. Of course, minority crime is still high, etc. But that’s the majority’s fault, mind you, and will not subside before the guilt has been atoned for.

One realizes at last that there is no way to expiate this guilt. It cannot be expiated because it does not exist and ought to have been laughed out of court decades ago. This is because the premise, that one group of people should be held to account for another group’s conduct, is patently false and evil. Its falsity was always obvious. It is such utter bulls**t that the only way to account for it is massive, societal insanity. It is a level of delusion that, if not snapped out of soon, will end in the complete collapse of the country. No nation, not even ours, can sustain this level of humbug forever."

http://stagheath.wordpress.com/

SGOTI said...

If news articles like these aren't the clearest indication of why you should get a reliable and cost-effective to shoot handgun (and carry unconcealed or with proper CCP), and practicepracticepractice with it, then I don't know what can more clear.

Mike said...

"Obvious illegal aliens are not the biggest threat to the American nation."

You have never visited Pacoima or Boyle Heights.

Truth said...

I agree with Steve, quotas (based on % of population) would be a better solution since you would end up with the best of each racial group.

I think what a lot of the closet racists on isteve don't seem to realize is that blacks in Chicago hate being policed by whites for various reasons.

The main reason being that these whites often live far away, in lily white neighborhoods, and thus tend to treat the people (blacks) they are policing like sh*t.

Anonymous said...

"Truth said...

I agree with Steve, quotas (based on % of population) would be a better solution since you would end up with the best of each racial group.

I think what a lot of the closet racists on isteve don't seem to realize is that blacks in Chicago hate being policed by whites for various reasons.

The main reason being that these whites often live far away, in lily white neighborhoods, and thus tend to treat the people (blacks) they are policing like sh*t."

Fair enough. Will you concede that whites may not want to be policed by black officers and should have the right to an all white police force?

Excuse me, instead of "black", I should have written "coal-black", just as you wrote "lily-white".

Mr. Anon said...

"Didn't work, so they merely decided to use the tactics that work so well with so many subjects such as "racism", alternative fuels, free energy, investigation of 9/11 or the various assassinations. Ridicule. Call them "stupid" an especially ironic insult since the so-accused are the ones using their minds and questioning and doing on-the-ground research. Just questioning these things brings out the official "debunkers.""

Free energy is stupid (there is no such thing, which is why you have never used any). As are many, if not most alternative "fuels" (water is not a fuel). As are 9/11 loose-change conspiracy theories.

Does the fact that I have called these things for what they are - stupid - make me an "official debunker"? If so, who commissioned me, and why haven't they been paying me?

Anonymous said...

Truth said...
blacks in Chicago hate being policed by whites for various reasons...

_______

Some wise commenter heres suggested that white cops act as police in white neighborhoods and black police act as cops in the black neighborhoods.

This sounds like a great idea to me. I would assume that making this the official policy would not fly, but have any cities you know of implemented this on the down low?

It seems to me that blacks would accept tougher policing if the cops were black. Perhaps our whole society is better off under this system

oh really? said...

"Does the fact that I have called these things for what they are - stupid - make me an "official debunker"? If so, who commissioned me, and why haven't they been paying me?"

Now why am I not surprised by this comment? We even have the word "stupid" in yet another context. Questioning why Obama pays an Oregon law firm a million dollars (this is public record) to deal with his refusal to produce a birth certificate is "stupid" too. There just no end to the "stupidity" of those who question the official line.

What's really depressing is that nobody needs to pay you. They've done their job well. The sheeple agree. Control the media, control the minds. We learned this from Russia and China and Nazi Germany during the 20th century. I used to think we had a free press. Ha ha.

Free energy is "stupid" because nobody makes money off it. There are persons who developed and prepared to patent various methods of alternative energy and ended up mysteriously dead or in prison for strange offenses. This is known among those who study this sort of thing and its been going on for a long time. Indeed, considering the world's investment in oil, for instance, "they" may even be right in the short run.
There was an interesting show made n the early 60s, something like Twilight Zone, featuring a mysterious man circa 1920, in Washington D.C. who wanted to show a senator how he'd patented a way to run cars on water. The man was scheduled to return to the senator's office the next day, bringing his car to demonstrate, but he disappeared and was never heard of again. The story is based on many individual incidents with similar endings.
9/11 "Loose Change"? As if that's the only "conspiracy theory" concerning 9/11? Yeah bud. They sure need to keep the ridicule lid on that one, or there might really be a revolution. It's too much trouble and too scary not to believe that our "government" always works in our best interests though how any sane person could still believe that is beyond me.
As baffling as the fairy tale that Lee Harvey Oswald defected to Communist Russia in the depths of the Cold War, returned to the U.S. with a Russian wife and no big deal about what could have been construed as treason,and then he conspired to do presi-cide all by his lonesome, with the official story not believing the witnesses lyin' eyes. This is the kind of crap I grew up not believing, and thank god, neither did some very motivated investigators.
My trust of our media, our "government" its officials, and the businesses running it, I'd agree with what Mary McCarthy once said of Lillian Hellman: "Everything she writes is a lie, including "the" and "and."

on a positive note: It appears that Steve is open to "alternatives" in the health world, which is why he is with us today.

Anonymous said...

You are right. I specifically dislike the pettifogging obsession with laws which restrain the government from hunting you down and killing you. And I don't mean 'you' generically. I mean 'YOU', specifically, mnuez. I think the government should declare a "Let's all hunt down and savagely beat mnuez to death day", and the fuddy-duddy ole' Constitution and it's niggling "rights" be damned.

Wow, when I rip into my enemies and mock their blatant stupidity komment kontrol stops me at the borders, apparently calling for my violent death however doesn't bother komment kontrol too much. Just some more evidence of ZOG I suppose.

Speaking of which, it's really cute to see all the braindead ones show their colors here in response to my post by running straight away to the Jewish thing. What I wrote had to do with common sense and absolutely nothing to do with Jews or Judaism at all. But seething antisemites can't quite hate themselves I suppose. Like in teh old cartoons where wily coyote would see sausages whenever he looked at woody woodpecker, these braindead thugs see a Der Strumer cartoon before their eyes whenever they see a Jew or read anything that any Jew wrotes - on any subject, Jewish or otherwise.

Oh, and the fact that these fellers keep piping up with complaints about "komment kontrol" says something quite unsavory about the sort of people who frequent teh steveosphere. I mean, heck, quite a few innuendos of violence against me - and against all Jews everywhere - got through in this thread and even a salivating hope for descriptive violence got through. Can you imagine what in god's name does not get through?!

As for the content of my pithy comment it really is very simple. I suspect that Udolpho got it and I have no rational qualms with his view whatsoever. As for the endless parade of goyishe kop morons who did not get it, well there really is little point in explaining it to them all over again because these idiots are simply idiots.

But to humor myself (and who knows but the Jewish Queen of you morons Orly Taitz may be reading this too - for the record, I know her personally and she's a very very strange person, a rebel in ever-present pursuit of a cause) I'll try again - very briefly.

All of you hankering for the birth certificate are simply anti-Obama foilk looking for any way youi can to de-legitimize him. All's fair in love and politics so I have no problem with that. Just admit to yourself and among friends here at isteve that this is the case and then go about your merry way continuing to obsfucate. If you seriously and sincerely have a problem with the birth certificate issue though and aren't just using it as a ploy and a tactic though then you're an absolute idiot who should be sterilized to fulfill your wetdream of a eugenics policy that rids the world of the mentaly defunct. Bear in mind of course that this will be the last wet dream you ever have.

Moving along.

(cont.)

Anonymous said...

(cont.)

Moving along.

The constituion requires no birth certificate.

What the constitution does require it requires for the obvious reason of ensuring that no Manchurian Candidate takes the Executive office. You can argue that Obama is just such a person for a whole host of reasons relating to his weltanschauung, policy preferences, associations, parentage, race or upbringing (as Udolpho fairly does - though without constitutional backing for Obama's exclusion based on these matters of course) and you would be well on this side of rationality and might even have some of the founding fathers agreeing with you and wishing that they actually had put something about those matters in the constitution.

But to fear that Obama is a Manchurian candidate based on the question of where he spent the first two weeks of his post-partum existence is idiotic.

Now we move along to the fun stuff:

Every Single Last One of the founding fathers would agree with me and did agree with me that aged legal documents should not be the go-to references when determining how a country ought to be goverened. I understand that most of you illiterate seething Judenhaaser are functionaly illiterate who have read exceedingly little from the founding fathers. Here's some advice then, learn to read and then do some of it. If your ADD is getting to you then stick with Paine and Jefferson, they're easy and entertaining and happily, they repeat themseves on this subject endlessly.

Would they vote for the Big O if they were alive now? Who the hell knows, they lived in a wholly different universe and if they bwere to suddenly arrive here they might spend the rest of their days in catatonia for all we know.

More to the point, who the hell cares?

If you believe in Democracy (I'm not saying that you do, but if you do) you'll recognize that Obama was chosen by a large plurality of American citizens and it's therefore logical for him to hold the technical, ridiculous, pseudo-position that he now holds.

As to the constitution, as you all know, it's a wholly irrelevant document that has almost nothing to do with how this country is actually run or ruled. I personally dislike the fact that the country is ruled by a plutocracy (through their lawyer, business and media underlings) and is unaccountable to any document that reflects the will of the people but such it is. Does this mean that there's absolute lawlessness in the streets and that the Venn diagram of the steveo-majorityrights-stormfront community can go about murdering Jews in the streets? No. We're inheritors of the constitution (and the magna carta, and the bible, and memories of the potato famine and memories of the civil war and much else besides) and are indeed governed by a combination of what works for the plutocracy and what works for their subjects and with or without The Sacred and Infallible Constitution (pbuh) Jew-killing is still verboten.

The truth is that a perfson should never say in a thousand words what he could say in ten, a policy I just violated and have thus managed to elongate the succinct and accurate point that I made earlier into a more rambling and less airtight one. Were I to give a crap I'd scrap this and start again and keep only to the simple logical details of the thing but the people I'm addressing (and I should note that they are the specifically and only the idiots who didn't understand my clearer and logically tighter earlier post and managed to their responses into fantasies of violence) aren't worthy of anything but spit and the contemot of all of humanity for their block-headed thuggishness. So here's the response they're'a gonna get.

I hope everyone else finds it entertaining and manages to mine the worthy points out this spit of contempt for the irrevocably ugly.

mnuez

Truth said...

"He never could do any of the class exercises, get any questions right on any quiz and he turned in a blank final exam. I gave him a "C"."

So you agree with affirmative action?

Anonymous said...

Steve - how about a constitution for komment kontrol? It's cool n' all that you let the second half of my recent comment through unimpeded but without the opening quote of my first comment I think people might wonder as to who I'm referring to when I reference violent Judenhaas-filled comments. I mean, I hear (though don't really care for) the argument that comments are often held for a while if they might distract the focus of the thread from where you think it should be but this far down the thread it's somewhat strange that you chose to hold back the first part of my comment.

It's all good though. You do a geat service for us all with this blog and with allowing comments at all and you have a definite right to be strangely inconsistent about how you exercise censorship of comments here. I would recommend though that you simplify your work and not moderate your comments at all. If some comment gets through that advocates illegal behavior or that outs some anonymous internet writer you could always quickly delete it.

If you do choose to keep komment kontrol in place though, how about a constitution that sets the ground rules first?

mnuez

Mr. Anon said...

"Anonymous said...

I hope everyone else finds it entertaining and manages to mine the worthy points out this spit of contempt for the irrevocably ugly.

mnuez"

I seriously doubt anyone will even bother to closely read what you just wrote. I didn't, because you're a bloviating nitwit.

Anonymous said...

Mnuez, your comments on anti-semitism are themselves a cause of the same. It brings out all the who/whom arguments.

I suspect Im someone who might be accused of having anti-semitic leanings (I dont agree, I call it looking out for my own), reading comments by the likes of you have helped to firm up these views.

I should point out that I have some Jewish ancestry myself, ah the irony!

Anonymous said...

It's cool n' all that you let the second half of my recent comment through unimpeded but without the opening quote of my first comment I think people might wonder as to who I'm referring to

It could just be the LIFO [FILO] stack misbehaving again.

Watching these threads evolve as the LIFO stack is being slowly regurgitated back into its [true] temporal ordering will make you want to pull your hair out.

It's hard for me to imagine how the folks at Google could continue to allow such a rookie programming error at one of their flagship properties.

Svigor said...

Besides, our current definition of crime must be 'racist' since it penalizes blacks disproportionately.

Bingo! Law has "disparate impact" and is therefore racist. Ergo, law has to go. And while we're at it, this sort of argument has "disparate impact" and is therefore racist. Ergo, logic has to go, too.

Curvaceous Carbon-based Life Form said...

"If you do choose to keep komment kontrol in place though, how about a constitution that sets the ground rules first?"

This is funny, coming from MNUEZ, who holds contempt for the idea of adhering to Constitutions.

Hey, Steve, if you institute a Komment Kontrol Constitution, I'm sure MNUEZ will, if it suits his whim of the moment, deride you for adhering to its ground rules as "minutiae."

*****

As one who really does think Obama is something like a Manchurian Candidate, we want to see the birth certificate BECAUSE we think he's a "Manchurian Candidate," and it looks to be a viable legal technicality to hang our hats on to overturn his inauguration.

We want his inauguration overturned BECAUSE of his corruptness, and we are suspicious of his loyalty to those who are unquestionably citizens of the United States. The arising of dual loyalty questions are quite possibly why many Jewish are so frothing-at-the-mouth eager to deflect questions of Obama's citizenship.

The legal argument goes like this: For Stanley Ann to bequeath natural-born-citizenship upon her son sired by a FOREIGN NATIONAL, she either had to be physically located within the legal boundaries of United States when he left the birth canal so the son was, in fact, born on American soil, OR, OR, OR, OR, she HAD to have LIVED in U.S. for FIVE years AFTER age 14. Since she had him when she was 18, she can't bequeath him natural born citizenship because she did NOT live in U.S. for a full FIVE years AFTER age 14. (She wasn't old enough. She'd have had to have been 19 or older.)

Therefore, only if Obama left the birth canal IN Hawaii is he natural-born.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=105904

Also, the FACT of Obama's reticence to show his ACTUAL birth certificate raises questions in any reasonable person's mind about, just what IS it he IS hiding?

Naaah, I DON'T believe in "democracy." As Ben Franklin said, Democracy is mobocracy. It's two wolves and one sheep voting on what's for lunch.

We were intended as a Constitutional REPUBLIC.

A republic is, the sheep has a gun.

Mr. Anon said...

"oh really? said...
What's really depressing is that nobody needs to pay you. They've done their job well. The sheeple agree. Control the media, control the minds."

I have learned to summarily ignore anything said or written by anyone who uses the term "sheeple". By experience, I have realized that such people are deluded and not-very-bright nitwits. Incidentally, the ironic use of k's (Amerika, Komment Kontrol, etc.) is the same signifier.

"Free energy is "stupid" because nobody makes money off it. There are persons who developed and prepared to patent various methods of alternative energy and ended up mysteriously dead or in prison for strange offenses. This is known among those who study this sort of thing and its been going on for a long time. Indeed, considering the world's investment in oil, for instance, "they" may even be right in the short run.
There was an interesting show made n the early 60s, something like Twilight Zone, featuring a mysterious man circa 1920, in Washington D.C. who wanted to show a senator how he'd patented a way to run cars on water."

Well, who can argue with that? "Somthing like Twilight Zone" has to be an infallible guide to how the world works. Why, just the last time I flew on an airplane, I looked out the window and saw a hideous fanged creature on the wing, ripping out hydraulic lines.

So how does one run a car on water? Tell me. Tell the world. Right here, right now, and on this forum. No pictures necessary, just describe it. If violation of the conservation of energy or momentum or of the second law of thermodynamics is required, please point that out. Thanks.