The rap on Mayor Johnson

News from the proxy war in Ukraine

Latest news from the Ukraine proxy war

The Kremlin declined to comment on US and Ukrainian assertions that Moscow had fired North Korean missiles at Ukrainian targets, but it also accused Kyiv of using missiles produced by Western nations to strike targets in Russia. — Reuters

And that about says it all, folks.

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The rap on Chicago’s mayor

Nearly eight months in, Johnson has not established himself as a leader of a viable coalition that can govern writes the Tribune’s Laura Washington.

In August, 50,000 visitors in town for the Democratic National Convention will swarm the United Center and McCormick Place Convention Center. Since Chicago was selected to host the convention, Republican interests have been plotting to sabotage the proceedings, the Democratic Party and President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott will surely continue to dispatch thousands of migrants on buses and planes to our town in the run-up to the convention. That will require that Johnson closely collaborate with Gov. J.B. Pritzker to ensure the convention is turmoil-free. A no-brainer, right? Johnson’s mantra is “collaboration.”

Pritzker is looking to the confab as his national, perhaps even presidential, calling card.

I detect precious little kinship between Johnson and Pritzker, Illinois’ most powerful politicians. Their rocky relationship serves no one’s interest, and their party’s fate goes nowhere if Chicago and Illinois are feuding.

The rap on Johnson is that he’s not really calling the shots on the 5th floor of City Hall and that the regime is being run by a small sect who can’t get past their hatred of former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who Johnson edged out in the first round of the elections before beating right-winger Paul Vallas in the finals.

Dora Meza, left, with Azhley Rodriguez, former Lightfoot staffers fired by Mayor Johnson after they reported abuse.

The dumping of former city Health Director, Dr. Alison Arwady and last week’s purge of two former Lightfoot staffers who had complained about mistreatment by COS Jason Lee, seem to confirm that rap.

Add to that the gross mishandling by the administration of the migrant crisis and City Hall is looking more and more like a political big dumpster fire.

More from Laura Washington….

This all leaves me nervous about a mayor whose relative inexperience is being severely tested. Even some of his staunch allies are jittery.

“We should not be on the fifth floor. And I’m speaking my whole heart,” Ald. Jeanette Taylor, 20th, declared recently on “The Ben Joravsky Show.” She was referring to the location of the mayor’s City Hall office.

“We were not ready, because we haven’t been in government long enough to know how government really runs.”

Taylor, in her second term on the City Council, is part of the council’s Democratic Socialist Caucus and the progressive coalition that helped Johnson get elected.

“It feels like we’ve got some more work to do, and we don’t know government as well as the folks that have been in charge of it,” she told Joravsky.

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And finally, this from Chitown…

Migrant families and schools brace for wave of shelter evictions

Thousands of migrant families with school-aged children will begin having their time in city shelters run out starting Tuesday as the first 60-day eviction notices, which the city began passing out in October, start to expire.

Among those whose time runs out Tuesday is Joana, 38, a Venezuelan mother who asked that her last name not be used. She said in recent days she’s been having hard conversations with her 8-year-old daughter about what’s in store. — Chalkbeat