News You Can't Use: Chicago Is Trying to Pay Down Its Debt by Impounding Innocent People’s Cars

As part of a new consumer advocacy format that I'll be switching to from now on, I'll be warning you, the unsuspecting future victim, about the various con games, shucks and trick bags out there. One of these is so-called "law enforcement" taking the cars of innocent (like a baby!) citizens to raise petrodollars for the debt doom spiral that we're currently in. At least it is according to something called "Reason dot com." Well, with a name like that, you know it's going to be nothing but sensible and impartial discussions of the big issues of our times, so let's dive right in and examine this unbelievable outrage.

On June 21, 2016, Chicago police pulled Spencer Byrd over for a broken turn signal. Byrd says his signal wasn't broken, but that detail would soon be the least of his worries. 

We noticed your turn signal was broken. It started flickering before you made that turn.

Ever since, Byrd has been trapped in one of the city's most confusing bureaucratic mazes, deprived of his car and his ability to work. He now owes the city thousands of dollars for the pleasure.

Soon to be a major motion picture, once we finish re-making every single existing movie.

Byrd, 50, lives in Harvey, Illinois, a corrupt, crime-ridden town south of Chicago where more than 35 percent of the populace lives below the poverty line.

Something tells my the Harvey tourism and development board did not sponsor this article.

He's a carpenter by trade, but until the traffic stop, he had a side gig as an auto mechanic.

This mechanical work? Just a little side hustle I do on the side before my YouTube channel of me eating and drinking anything and everything takes off.

Byrd says he's been fixing cars "ever since I was 16 years old and blew my first motor." Sometimes he did service calls and would give clients rides when he couldn't repair their cars on the spot.

He's basically the second best carpenter to ever live, in case it wasn't clear enough.

On this early summer night, Byrd was giving a client, a man he says he had never met before, a ride in his Cadillac DeVille.

It's pretty common practice for off-the-books fake mechanics, ask anyone.

Police pulled both of them out of the car and searched them. Byrd was clean, but in his passenger's pocket was a bag of heroin the size of a tennis ball.

Maybe that's why the car was impounded and not the broken turn signal? I know, it's a wild thought, but please consider it, "Reason."

The two were hauled off to the precinct house.

They got pitched in the jug, man.

Byrd had run afoul of Chicago's aggressive vehicle impound program, which seizes cars and fines owners thousands of dollars for dozens of different offenses. 

All you have to do is get caught with a significant amount of heroin and this insane program runs wild. Stop the madness!

It impounds cars even when the owner isn't even driving, like when a child is borrowing a parent's car.

I'm not driving, I'm traveling. Under the Articles of Confederation you have no authority here. Traffic laws aren't really laws. Am I being detained? Am I free to go?

In total, Chicago fined motorists more than $17 million between March 2017 and March of this year for 31 different types of offenses, ranging from DUI to having illegal fireworks in a car to playing music too loud, according to data from the Chicago Administrative Hearings Department.

Yes, fines for minor things like drunk driving. Your outrage is totally justified.

About $10 million of those fines were for driving on a suspended license, and more than $3 million were for drug offenses like the one that resulted in the impoundment of Byrd's car. 

In a Libertarian Society this wouldn't have happened. Mainly because everything would collapse into a chaotic and violent state of nature, but still, it wouldn't happen.

The city says it is simply enforcing nuisance laws and cracking down on scofflaws. But community activists and civil liberties groups say the laws are predatory, burying guilty and innocent owners alike in debt, regardless of their ability to pay or the effect losing a vehicle will have on their lives.

The city made an argument based on six millennia of jurisprudence, but a guy that yells things at people in front of a Taco Bell doesn't agree.

"There's plenty of reason to be concerned that there's injustice being done to people who are mostly poor, people who aren't in a position to fight back," says Ben Ruddell, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Illinois. 

You must earn a certain minimum income before you can be arrested for something.

I should be allowed to blow through red lights because I'm poor.

"The city has been perpetuating an exploitative system, charging exorbitant fees in a way that it knows is likely to make it so folks never get their cars out of impoundment." 

Another injustice against the folks on God's green Earth.

Byrd calls his car his "livelihood," and he has been fighting for close to two years now to recover it. 

"I need that car to live!" Two years pass, is still alive.

The battle between Byrd and the governments of Cook County and the municipality of Chicago over his 1996 Cadillac Fleetwood DeVille, valued at $1,600, is a tangled story involving the drug war, the controversial practice of civil asset forfeiture, ailing city budgets, and the rapacious use of fines and fees to generate city revenue. It's a story of how bureaucracy is used to grind down people by distributing their misery among as many public offices as possible.

No, really, we're impartial arbiters of true wisdom and the best solutions for society.

Full Article.

Komment Korner   

'No nothing' is the same as 'something'... Gotcha!

The sole purpose of government is to rob its citizens.

I'm pretty sure the battery is dead now to boot. 

I doubt the Chicago unemployment rate is 4500%.

Now that is how you Kafka!
 

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here. 

DotTeeVee: Sovereign Citizens Getting Owned 2 COMPILATION, Part VII

Previously on Sovereign Citizens Getting Owned we traveled (not drove, this is not a commercial vehicle) to Jolly Old England where we witnessed the blind aggression of a totalitarian state, we learned that you can't yell profanity in a public space without consequences, another window got smashed and a hero who wouldn't take off his hat in a courtroom for reasons that were never actually articulated got a ride in a wheelchair and a room in the painted concrete motel. Believe or not, today we're not only going to finish, but we have so little remaining material I'm going to have to throw in a special "bonus" video (lucky you, right?) just to make this an acceptable length (what she said, etc.).

For our final sovereign citizen we're back in Britain and this enemy of the state actually gets the courtesy of a blurred out face, a mercy Mister I Ain't Removing Muh Lid in No Court Room probably now wishes had been granted. It's time to blow into the breathalyzer and instead of citing the Articles of the Confederation or Hammurabi's Code our hero meekly complies. What kind of sovereign citizen is this? Next you'll just give the officer identification without a ten minute argument that concludes with a broken car window and repeated deployments of a taser.

Anyway, our faceless protagonist blows into the tyranny device. Despite the craven compliance just displayed, there's still going to be a ticket for some unknown violation, a state of affairs vigorously disputed by the last free man. The sticking point is it will be written in capital letters, one of the main weapons of the fascist state against us. Once they capitalize you, they can sell your birth certificate to China, if I'm correctly understanding how this outrage functions. We must never allow our names to typed out as "shouting," that's the bottom line.

Our unusually tractable free man casually promises to just take it to the "Supreme Courts" and the officer is all "Fine, sounds great." I'm sure a high court has nothing better to do than review the time this piece of work rolled a stop sign or whatever. On the other hand, our hero starts spouting legal mumbo jumbo and tells the brown shirt he'll owe "3 billion dollars" or "three pots of gold" (it's a cop, not a leprechaun, bro) for this incident. This is more like it. You've have totally redeemed your earlier compliance with this total nonsense.

Traffic violations aren't crimes according to People vs. Battle, laddie.

A voice-over closes us out. I guess this is like a classier continental version of "World's Wildest Police Videos." The traveler mentions appealing to "The Grand Master" and "Queen Victoria," earning what's basically a "Sod off, wanker" from a second officer. I just report this stuff. Some pointless bickering follows (I know, who would have thought) concluding with a claim to be a "shaman" that fails to gain the respect you would expect it to. With this whimper the video ends.

But don't leave yet! There's a totally lame slammin bonus video! Brought to us by someone or something called "Van Balion II," aka "Van the Man," it's one more classic traffic stop. We meet our less than impressive resistor, who is already asking for a badge number. Does that ever help or lead to anything good? My instincts tell me "no" and I'm pretty sure the officer's information will be on the ticket anyway, but on the other hand it antagonizes over-worked civil servants who are there for our protection, so you know it's good.

The tool of the Beast State explains that everything is already being recorded, so there's really no need to commit things to "the record" despite repeated requests. This is followed by a crash course in basic civics while the driver looks away at his recording device, seemingly doing his best to seduce the camera. Again, I just report this, I don't make it up.

Hello there beautiful. I didn't hear you come in.

The officer has clearly already lost all patience with this loser and demands ihnen papiern, bitte. Suffice it to say, this doesn't happen. Instead the last, best hope for a free and civil society again asks if this is "for the record," I guess forgetting those references to "everything is recorded" way back 30 seconds ago. "Are you under the influence?" Truly, angry cop is best cop. Honestly, make the request, repeat it maybe once, then break the window and apply the taser. No one who matters will care if you weren't polite to a fault.

Despite being a little blunt with the lover of liberty and high calorie meals, the officer still falls back into repeatedly asking for the required documents and we spin our wheels some more. It's apparently time to step out of the vehicle as we've gone from a civil offense to a criminal offense. "That's horrible!" If this guy breaks the window with his bare hands he'll officially become the best policeman we've seen in any of these seemingly endless sovereign citizen traffic stop videos.

"Maybe you watch too much T.V.!" Well, that would explain his voluptuous figure, but I think the information highway on the computer is responsible for this particular pathology. This is followed by giving the badge number and even the "commission card." Come on, break the damn window! All this sovereign citizen footage, it really does things to your perception of civil rights, let me tell you.

"I don't see why you're so angry?" Yeah, it really is quite the mystery. With that anti-climax, we're done. I need to get another hobby, this sovereign citizen stuff is not making me a better person.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.    

News You Can't Use: Young Driver Gets Help From YouTube

Arguably the best aspect of today's story is how the headline suggests we're going to get an inspiring tale of a dorky sixteen year-old who conquered his awkwardness and learned how to drive with a little help from the magic of the information network. Instead of this sort of eighties sex comedy hi-jinks, the actual story is about an eight-year-old driven mad by a craving for pink slime from the local burger box who then drove a car. It's wacky and funny because no one died! This time.

An 8-year-old East Palestine boy used YouTube videos to learn how to drive his father’s van to McDonald’s on Sunday.

HELLO EVERYBODY!!! MY NAME IS SUPERKITTEN854849 and today we're going to continue our "let's drive" game with a VAN! Please like and subscribe. Here's some links for donations. Be sure to share this video. If you already liked and subscribed, please create several new accounts and like and subscribe with those. I'm now on Patreon. Be sure to follow me on Twitter. All right, time to put this thing in drive. We'll just shift to do that...and hit that Dee! Get it? That's a joke! Did you donate yet? The red subscribe button, go ahead and click it.

East Palestine Patrolman Jacob Koehler responded to the restaurant that evening after the police department received reports from several people who witnessed the boy driving the van effortlessly through the downtown area.

"Effortlessly." As opposed to when I drive, with veins popping out of my forehead, sweating like Sean Spicer after saying something moronic about basic 20th Century history, using ample sailor talk and generally struggling just to maintain.

Koehler said that according to reports from witnesses Matt Stanley, David and Rachel Crowe and Lindsey Balmenti, the boy obeyed all traffic laws, stopping properly at red lights and waited for traffic to pass before making the left turn into the McDonald’s parking lot.

Clearly we should lower the driving age to eight, because a lot of adults don't follow these basic rules and like, society, man, besides [awkward reference to the movie "Idiocracy goes here].

When he pulled up to the drive-through window after ordering a cheeseburger he had been craving and intended to pay for using money he gathered from his piggy bank, the McDonald’s workers at first thought they were being pranked.

I was worried my deep personal dignity as a burger-flipper was under attack by outside forces.

“I think there is a good teaching point here. With the way technology is anymore kids will learn how to do anything and everything. This kid learned how to drive on YouTube. He probably looked it up for five minutes and then said it was time to go,” he added.

Yeah. That's almost certainly the correct lesson to take away and not something about "absentee parents" or "our dying country."

“He didn’t hit a single thing on the way there. It was unreal,” he said.
 
Speaking of not hitting a single thing, how about that local baseball team, haw haw.

He also said that he was able to get the keys to his father’s locked van by standing up on his tip-toes to get to where they were hanging.

Yet another miracle! How does he do it? Totally unreal, dudemar.

The boy, in tears when he realized he had done something wrong, told Koehler he just really wanted a cheeseburger.

Also I'm not on drugs, I'm just thinking.

Koehler said it was not a case of neglect — the boy and his sister had already eaten breakfast, lunch and dinner that day, but he still really wanted that cheeseburger.

We can all agree this is some of the best parenting ever displayed outside of a "Home Alone" film.

The children were picked up by their parents at the station and no charges were filed.

We're overworked as it is. *eats doughnut, falls asleep*

Full Article. 

Komment Korner 


I hope his dad whupped him for not going to Wendy's.  

The kid later said he was almost finished watching a video series on open heart surgery. We'll see what happens next.

and this is news why?????

Emergency update to Youtube vid... " do not use drive through services if you are a toddler or young child driver."

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.