Premium

Chicago's Brandon Johnson Refuses to Drop the Damn Shovel

AP Photo/Erin Hooley

This guy isn't in a hole. Mayor Brandon Johnson's in a tunnel of his own shoveling and on his way out the backside to China.

Holy smokes.

The negotiations for the teachers' union contract continue, with fired-but-still-in-his-job Chicago Public School Chief Executive Officer (aka superintendent) Pedro Martinez doing the city's heavy lifting.

If you remember back to last month, Johnson's hand-selected and appointed school board's sole purpose on Earth was to fire that pesky Martinez so Johnson could okay a schweet $300M one-year term payday loan to help meet the Chicago Teachers' Union (CTU) demands. A secondary reason was these impending contract talks. None of the principles wanted Martinez in the middle of the love fest between Brandon Johnson and the union, who, by the way, still carries the mayor on their role as a member, only an 'inactive' one. A four-year teacher who somehow, some way has a - so far - $3.8M pension in the union kitty (I keep meaning to talk to Ed about mine...).

Anyway,

Martinez invoked a clause in his contract that stated if he got fired, he stayed in his seat for an additional six months from that date. First bummer for Johnson's plans. 

The second was when contract talks with the union commenced, and school board members appeared at the venue. To Martinez's horror, they walked right past the city representatives' table, where Martinez himself was. Board members sat down with the union reps and were aggressively smug as they did so, taking time to taunt the city officers. 

Mr Martinez was in court that evening and had the board members booted, with him named sole authority over the contract talks and, perhaps, a nice little 'breach of contract' case made as lagniappe.

...The board may have "breached" Martinez's contract...among the other disgraceful things on what appears to be a very long list.

Cook County Judge Joel Chupak ruled that Chicago school board members must not meddle in contract negotiations with the Chicago Teachers Union and that their actions have kneecapped Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez's ability to do his job on behalf of students and taxpayers.

Martinez says Chicago school board members intimidated CPS staffers on Monday, saying, "We hold all the cards," when they showed up during CTU contract talks. A judge issued a temporary restraining order against the board, saying the move caused irreparable harm to Martinez and his ability to bargain on behalf of CPS.

Even a normally friendly Chicago station scathingly referred to the mayor's part in fleecing Chicago taxpayers at the bargaining table while discussing the CTU president whining about Martinez.

...I think it's a derisive term to signal her unhappiness with the fact that the mayor has been, sort of, sidelined here. Ah, the board that represents that mayor has been sidelined here and here is this sort of bureaucrat who has been elevated through this court order into a position... Well, frankly, he oughta be. The CPS CEO should be the one negotiating the contract. We're just in a bizarre situation, right? Because we have a mayor who is, uh, frankly, a tool of the union and that's been demonstrated at this stage. Normally we'd have a mayor who'd be on the other side of the table from the union, trying to protect the taxpayers. And we don't have that...

Everyone at the roundtable is nodding along. No one stops him to say, 'Oh, that's not fair' or anything like that.

WE HAVE A MAYOR WHO IS A TOOL OF THE UNION

All of Chicago is watching this shameless corruption play out on the news and across X all day long.

In the meantime, Illinois' corpulent corporate executive, J.B. Pritzker, was trying to get one of those 'for the children' bills through the IL legislature, and he needed some help from his biggest ward of the state, Mayor Johnson.

This doesn't actually sound too intrusive. What Pritzker was pushing was to close a loophole in the state's cannabis law: it would regulate hemp products.

...The bill, which had earlier passed the state Senate with nearly no opposition, would license, tax and regulate hemp, which is used for products such as delta-8 and delta-10 THC that get users high. Smoke shops and other stores that sell the product say the law is so restrictive that it would put many of them out of business.

The reason Pritzker and his allies were adamant about regulating hemp is the climbing rate of kids overdosing on hemp products. They can't resist hitting the gummies, etc., parents or older kids bring home from these head shops. Apparently, anyone can buy or sell the stuff.

The cannabis lobby is against the hemp producers becoming 'legitimate' through regulation and taxation because they feel it would eat into their sales, so they opposed this legislation.

...The hemp lobby’s efforts faltered amid a push from the cannabis industry, which opposes hemp products because they eat into potential cannabis sales.

Cannabis advocates argue this bill provided an attainable pathway for hemp distributors to acquire a license. Ted Parks, a licensed cannabis distributor, is a part of a social equity cannabis program, which provides accessible opportunities to enter the cannabis industry. He says these businesses struggle to compete with unregulated hemp businesses.

“This bill allows a pathway to get the proper licenses, and it’s going to be less than what we had to go through,” Parks said.

Where you would have thought a big city mayor would ride in on the side of protecting children from adult narcotics, Johnson did the exact opposite. He did his own outreach to legislators in Springfield to shelve the measure, and he and the pot industry carried the day.

Pritzker is not happy with the mayor.

Neither is the local Tribune. You see, Johnson's opposition to the measure stemmed from the basest of reasons but the most Johnson-ish: 

THINK OF ALL THE LOST REVENUE IS WE CAN'T SELL IT TO EVERYONE

Brandon Johnson often speaks of his concern for the welfare of Chicago’s children, usually in the context of seeking more taxpayer money for Chicago Public Schools and supporting higher wages and more hiring of members of the Chicago Teachers Union.

So it was a bad look indeed when Chicago’s mayor spent a healthy amount of what little remains of his political capital to stop state lawmakers from taking action against unregulated purveyors of potent hemp products that have sent numerous city kids to the hospital after what could accurately be described as overdosing.

...And, why? What was behind the mayor’s intense concern? It most definitely wasn’t the welfare of Chicago’s kids, who continue to have ready access to gummies and the like, infused with synthetic marijuana and sold in vape shops, gas stations, convenience stores and other locations, many of them near schools.

Instead, Johnson’s progressive allies justified continuing to put Chicago kids at risk by singing a familiar refrain: the need for more revenue to support a bloated city government as federal pandemic dollars are spent and the local economy remains moribund. The mayor sees intoxicating hemp as a business ripe for new taxes; the state legislation Pritzker supported effectively would have banned these potent synthetic THC offerings such as delta-8 to give lawmakers time to establish a regulatory regime keeping this stuff away from minors and ensuring we know what’s actually in these products.

'For the children' is fine if it doesn't impact the bottom line.

That should be on a T-shirt.

Speaking of the bottom line, Hizzoner has given up his dream of a city-owned and operated grocery store...for the moment.

He has bigger plans now that should raise more cash.

After all, Chicago has the second-worst traffic in the country, according to some surveys. Think of the money at $9...or even that og $15 a pop! Don't let the fact that Chicago also has nowhere near the public transit system that New York City has to stop anyone from dreaming big.

Once the CTU gets their cut off the top of the congestion fines, I'm sure there'll be enough money left to buy a new bus.

Now, big thinking isn't all happening in Brandon Johnson's empty head. No, sir.

Some residents are working on big plans of their own and, between Hizzoner and the governor, who knows - they might very well come to pass.

I dunno.

The idea looks just crazy enough to fly.

I'll bet a bunch of voters go for it.

Trending on HotAir Videos

Advertisement
Ed Morrissey 10:00 PM | January 08, 2025
Advertisement
Advertisement
David Strom 4:40 PM | January 08, 2025
Advertisement