Even as Obama takes his anti-gun crusade to new highs with every passing week, having recently started dispensing executive orders, the president conveniently continues to ignore the state of affairs in his native Chicago - a city in which guns are banned - yet where the shooting epidemic has never been worse, and is truly emblematic of the "gun problem" America has.
Back in September, we noted that Chicago’s schools are in trouble. Deep trouble.
Amid Illinois’ intractable budget crisis, the city’s public school system opened with a budget shortfall of nearly a half billion dollars.
Borrowing and trimming the proverbial fat helped close some of the $1.1 billion hole but once the board reached the point where “further cuts would reach deep into the classroom” (to quote system chief Forrest Claypool), the schools asked Springfield to make up the difference which amounts to $480 million.
America has never - ever - avoided a recession when Chicago's Business Barometer has collapsed to these levels. At 42.9, missing the expectations of 50.0 by the most ever, down from 48.7 in November, the final US economic data point of the year sums up perfectly what a disaster Yellen has hiked rates into.
Recession!!!
The details are ugly across the board: