Parky60 Loc: People's Republic of Illinois

You may recall that the Chicago Teacher's Union fought to keep children out of classrooms for as long as possible during the p******c, inflicting a great deal of unnecessary, cruel and anti-science harm. Their social media team published a post calling efforts to reopen schools "rooted in sexism, r****m and misogyny.” They pushed weird interpretive dance videos in support of delaying full re-openings. After massive disruptions to kids' learning, the union again walked out on their jobs on students in January 2022, a shockingly selfish and callous move that prompted a lawsuit from parents. The CTU then poured huge cash into a low-turnout Mayoral e******n, succeeding in installing one of their paid agitators as the leader of America's third largest city. Brandon Johnson has performed so dismally that his approval rating quickly cratered into the 20s.

Their union boss is a scandal-plagued hypocrite who loves demanding that other people's money be spent in accordance with her interests, but doesn't seem too keen on paying her own bills or following tax or residency laws. She fights to keep children stuck in her failing system, fighting tooth and nail against school choice, while sending her own son to a private school, based on her assessment of his best interests. She lobbies to keep other, poorer parents from having the opportunity to do the same. And yes, the system is badly failing these students:

In Chicago Public Schools, 16% of elementary students tested at or above the proficient level for reading, and 12% tested at or above that level for math. Also, 16% of middle school students tested at or above the proficient level for reading, and 12% tested at or above that level for math. And 14% of high school students tested at or above the proficient level for reading, and 14% tested at or above that level for math.

With results that disastrous, you'd think a compassionate union whose leaders care about the ability of children to learn and thrive would simply disband and encourage a total overhaul of the system, to see if someone else can hurt these kids less. Instead, they're demanding both zero competition and a huge raise for themselves, plus all sorts of goodies. They look at the pathetic stats they've "achieved" and want a big reward for themselves:

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is negotiating a new contract with the public schools system and is understood to be calling for an extra $50 billion to pay for wage hikes as well as other demands such as fully paid a******ns for its members, new migrant services and facilities and a host of L**T-related requirements and training in schools. To put the figure into context, the total base tax receipts for the state of Illinois last year were $50.7 billion. The incredible demands are being made despite its members delivering underwhelming results for its students, with only 21 percent of the city’s eighth graders being proficient readers, according to the last Nation’s Report Card, which provides national results about students’ performance. The union’s demands have not been made public but a leaked document sheds light on the eye-popping demands.

FIFTY BILLION!

The city and state are broke. And these people are tossing in i*****l i*******t benefits and fully-funded a******ns to boot. Wh**ever level of contempt you may have for them, it's not high enough. The reason they believe they can get away with this madness is because they're protected by the mayor they g***med and bought, and by the political party that utterly dominates Illinois. That would be the same party that just jammed through a mid-e******n-year power grab that consolidated their grip on the state's politics:

Gov. J.B. Pritzker has signed into law a comprehensive e******n bill that would give Democrats a significant advantage toward keeping their legislative majorities before any v**es are even cast in the Nov. 5 general e******n. Democrats already enjoy legislative supermajorities in the Illinois House and Senate thanks to district maps drawn by party leaders following the 2020 federal census that were crafted to minimize Republican opposition. But the e******n bill given final approval by Senate Democrats Thursday, a day after the bill passed the House, would further help Democrats maintain control in the next General Assembly.

An e******n law expert makes this observation about the coverage of this development:

While I typically prefer to share stories without a lot of editorializing, I want to take a moment to offer one small observation. I waited for a couple of days to see how other media outlets would cover the story. After all, we are in an era where there is an explosion in journalists who identify as covering the “democracy beat” or looking for a “democracy angle” in stories. I wondered how the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Associated Press, or CNN might cover these stories. After all, they are quite attuned to what local county officials in Nevada or Arizona are doing with respect to counting b****ts, or every twist and turn of an e******n bill in Georgia. How about this? As far as I can tell, there hasn’t been any coverage in these or many other major media outlets of America’s sixth-largest state changing the rules of an e******n in the middle of the campaign to deprive hundreds of thousands of v**ers of the opportunity to choose a candidate of their preference, and as a number of candidates who behaved in a way relying on existing laws have lost their opportunity to seek office.

Strange, that. As someone once said, Democracy Dies in Darkness. But some democracy dying is perfectly fine with the "democracy" crowd, so long as it benefits the power interests of their tribe. I'll leave you with, um, this.