LET THESE MAGA MORONS JUST GO ON KILLING THEMSELVES.....

 

The five worst states for vaccinations —Idaho, Wyoming, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana (despite a Democratic governor) — all voted for former president Donald Trump by double digits in 2020.

 

States with the U.S.’s lowest vaccination rates lost residents to COVID at a rate two to five times higher than states with high vaccination rates in 2021, according to an analysis of the country’s 458,000 COVID-related deaths and nearly 500 million vaccines administered this year.

 

The states with the highest deaths per 100,000 — Oklahoma, Alabama, West Virginia, Arizona and Kentucky — are mostly deep red. There is no doubt their vaccine resistance resulted in more deaths.

 

Among the 15 states with highest COVID death rates in 2021, 11 ranked among the 15 lowest for vaccination rates, according to the CDC.

 

NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN FROM HOWARD TULLMAN

 

Happy New Year, You're Fired

Startups can't afford to hang on to people who don't perform -- or don't want to. They are poison to any company's culture and you need to remove them. 

 

BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS@TULLMAN 

I hate to be a contrarian but, while everyone else seems to be focused on hiring the right people as soon as humanly possible, I feel obliged to mention that moving just as quickly to fire the right people right about now is equally critical if you want your business to succeed. With great talent so expensive and scarce today, it’s difficult to think about firing the people already on board who simply aren’t getting the job done. Yet starting out the new year (and the slow return to the “new” normal) with the best possible team in place is especially important in these complicated times. People who aren’t producing need to be not producing somewhere else.

Letting people go now when they’ve stuck with you over the last two very painful years seems harsh although - if you’re being honest with yourself - maybe that’s because they had nowhere else to go. The ones with serious alternatives have already “greatly” resigned and the ones who are just kidding themselves about their marketability are no great loss. And, just to be clear, I realize that now might not be a great moment to do some pruning, but the truth is that there’s never a good time to do hard things and - after the fact - you’ll almost instantly realize that you’re relieved and that you should have acted sooner. No entrepreneur I know would say that they’ve ever fired anyone too soon. Waiting and hoping things improve isn’t going to make things better.

It’s not the employees you fire that ultimately make you miserable, it’s the ones you don’t. These are the people that you should get rid of because they’re the ones whose actions and attitude can kill your culture and eventually cripple your company. These conversations aren’t going to be easy, but they are essential. A company’s ultimately only as good as its worst employee and chain sawing some dead wood at the bottom raises everyone’s game. As we used to say, our average employees now work elsewhere.

Taking care of the low-hanging fruit and bagging the bad actors is the first step. People who are just phoning it in and who aren’t trying or just don’t care about their work need to go as soon as possible.

Then you have to move on to the people who aren’t qualified or no longer capable of doing what their jobs demand. Some of these folks are too scared or too embarrassed to admit that they’ve fallen behind or lost a step or two. It’s not a sin not to know; it’s a sin not to ask. You can try some retraining, but with the accelerating rate at which core technologies keep changing and increasing in complexity, trying to teach old dogs new tricks is almost always a losing proposition. We’re all immigrants in this new digital-first world and the kids coming up are digital natives. This makes a huge difference in their attitude and understanding, which directly impacts their performance. There’s no digital “strategy” these days - it’s digital everything.

And finally, the entrepreneurial world is tough, bumpy, and even scary for many people who just aren’t cut out for the journey. They need a degree of stability, security and certainty and a lot more assurance and clarity than the vague, ever-changing, and ambiguous environment of a startup will ever offer. Your job description doesn’t include babysitting or comforting them; you’ve got a business to build.

But the hardest cases, and the ones where you’re going to really have to stick to your guns and just make the final call, are the ones who will also try your patience and your ability to manage what I call the “peanut gallery.” The peanut gallery is all those folks - investors, board members, other managers, customers, clients, congregants - who only see things from the outside and not the daily nitty gritty. These same characters are always pushing for new projects, more chances, additional “conversations,” polite warnings - basically anything to avoid overt conflict, ugliness, hurt feelings, and especially making a final decision. More CEOs go bald tearing their hair out following these kinds of touchy-feely meetings and healthy discussions than through the stress of their day-to-day jobs. Bystanders never seem to give you any credit for already trying a million times to make things work before you ever bring a personnel problem to their attention.

These particular problem employees fall into three basic buckets: (1) pleasant enough people who are just lazy; (2) crafty people who have checked out mentally - basically quit without leaving - who are happy to keep getting paid; and (3) passive-aggressive people who put on a great show when the grownups are around and looking, but who act like difficult assholes the rest of the time when the coast is clear.

Because their “sins” of omission and commission aren’t readily apparent to the people who don’t have to work with them, count on them, and cover for them when they drop the ball, making a convincing case for their departure is more challenging. Only you know exactly how many times you’ve already had heart-to-heart chats, how many second and third chances these folks have already burned through, and frankly how hard it is to push a rope - to motivate someone who just isn’t that interested in changing or improving.

And only you understand how aggravating, discouraging and debilitating it is to have to constantly pick up the pieces, do their jobs for them, and eventually end up just taking on far too many tasks yourself because you simply can’t bring yourself to ask them again. Only others who have been to this movie and understand the drill can appreciate what a horrible and soul-sucking situation it is. And believe me when I say that it will never get better by itself.

So when, not if, you inevitably find yourself in this sad situation, here are the three smartest things you can do.

First, there’s no cure for laziness or lack of energy and desire. This is purely a performance issue and the easiest to address. Simply tell the spectators that the individual isn’t getting the job done and needs to go and tell him or her the same thing. If you’re lazy or unreliable, the skills or other talents you may have don’t really matter.

Second, you’re actually doing people who aren’t with the program mentally a big favor to boot them because maybe they’ll find a better opportunity and a way to succeed somewhere else. These hangers-on present serious morale risks to the rest of the team, who always see what’s going on and either wait to see how quickly the problem will be addressed or start looking around themselves for a better place to be.

Finally, with respect to the nasty ones who are unhappy themselves and basically just daring you to do something, you’ll also be doing them and yourself a big favor to fire them quickly and put everyone involved out of their misery. These are usually the toughest cases and it’s helpful to get ahead of the inevitable “what just happened” questions by giving a heads-up to a few key folks on your side and making it clear that this was a practical and not an emotional decision.

Again, the bottom line in all these kinds of personnel situations, is to remember that only you are really in a position to make the case-by-case personnel decisions and the sooner and more swiftly you act, the better the results will be for you, your people, and your business.

DEC 28, 2021

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

 

LET'S NOT FORGET THESE TWO COMPLICIT LYING ASSHOLES WHO HELPED MANAGE THE SCUMBAG'S PANDEMIC RESPONSE

 

HOLIDAY HEADS-UP

 

REMEMBER THE CROOKED DESPICABLE SCUMBAG WHO OCCUPIED THE WHITE HOUSE A YEAR AGO

 

MANCHIN IS A HYPOCRITE AND A SCUMBAG

 

NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN BY HOWARD TULLMAN

 

Four Pandemic Changes That Will Change Your Business Forever

The oncoming Omicron wave will only lock in the new realities of how we operate. Don't even think about going back to the way things were. 

howard tullman, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS@TULLMAN

I really pity the people who are still holding their breath and waiting for life to get back to normal: that glorious day when we all triumphantly return to business as usual. I've been struggling for a simple way - by example or analogy - to break the ugly news to them that they're dreaming. And to demonstrate that, post-pandemic, for a variety of reasons we'll never again look at our lives, our careers, or the world in the same way.  

Not that that's exactly a terrible thing; nostalgia and tradition are very often just bad excuses to avoid change. We'll never progress by trying to live our lives looking backwards. That's why the car's windshield is so much bigger than the rear-view mirror.

So, I've settled on single symbol: the ratchet. Not the "full ratchet," which is a venture capital deal provision that protects early investors from later dilution, and something all founders dread. (And lovingly call rat shit).  I'm referring to a b asic mechanical device that allows motion in one direction only, in a series of irreversible steps. That's where we're at today; there's no going back. We've learned too much, we've changed too much, and we've seen opportunities ahead of us - both personally and career wise - that we never even thought were possible or previously imagined.

The best plan for now is to survey the landscape, note the important changes going on that will impact your business and your plans, and start adjusting, adapting and revising your strategy so you don't end up at the airport when your ship comes in. Keep in mind that you can learn a great deal about what's coming from scanning -- not just your industry or marketplace, but also what's happening in other sectors as well. "Not invented here," which rarely works out for big businesses trying to innovate, has also never been a successful approach for startups. Beg, borrow or steal whatever works best. 

Here are four big directional shifts to keep an eye on so you can build them into your own plans.  

Forget Lifetime Employment

Few organizations benefited more structurally from the COVID-19 pandemic than the old-line property and casualty (P&C) insurance companies. They got an enormous one-time, two-fold opportunity, without any material social or regulatory consequences or blowback, to (a) reap enormous profits without being subject to the typical offsetting claims; people who aren't driving don't have accidents, but still paid their full auto insurance premiums until the companies were finally shamed into giving some modest prospective relief; and (b) even more importantly, to shed thousands of full-time, long-term employees -- a demonstrably fixed and fully-loaded cost --  in favor of adopting a variable-cost approach, where peak demands for additional manpower would be met by third party vendors.

Many of these very traditional corporations took pride in, and regularly advertised themselves, as lifetime employers of generations of families in their local communities, even as new technologies made multiple efficiencies and increased per-employee productivity possible. As the gig economy with its variable and on-demand charms loomed larger and larger across many industries, insurers as one example saw no way to effect savings and improvements in their own bottom lines other than through painfully slow attrition. These semi-societal and "political" limitations were eliminated by the pandemic. What's already obvious is that, not only is there no rush to rehire, but there's also little rationale or desire to do so, for a variety of good reasons.

Regular Retail is History

Covid-19 didn't kill luxury retail, it was just the last nail in the colossal coffin. Michigan Avenue, Madison Avenue, Rodeo Drive, Bal Harbour - it doesn't matter - they're coming for all of you. It's a deadly combination of three C's:  choice (the joy of infinite online inventory); convenience (the ease of never leaving home to shop for anything); and crime (the rampant looting of luxury stores by growing crowds of teenage gangbangers and professional crews of thieves). The cities can't seem to stop it, the merchants themselves are doing little or nothing, and you have to be nuts to go hunting for Hermes when you're taking your life in your hands.

JIT Means Right Around the Corner

"Just in time" inventory and parts delivery programs don't work that well when your supply chain starts halfway across the world and your shipments are sitting offshore in a massive traffic jam while the shippers and other port gougers keep raising your fees and even have the gall to charge you for storage. Going forward, we're gonna see a whole new emphasis on redundancy and resilience, with critical materials of all kinds localized, backed up, and readily available in real time. Parking garages, office buildings, and big box stores will all be reimagined as hyper-local warehouses for Amazon, Walmart, Costco and Sam's Club. If you don't have some leeway and slack built into your systems, and you somehow managed to survive this go-round, you won't be around long in the next installment.

Long -Term Leases Are for Losers

Landlords, by and large, were another group that took full advantage of the pandemic for as long as possible. They were happy to accept PPP monies and blame their lenders for not making concessions and deferrals for them. At the same time, they were slow as molasses in providing any relief or givebacks to their struggling tenants. But now, because we're closing in on two years of the virus and many leases whose end dates once looked fairly distant are now rolling around for renewal discussions, the many tenants with reasonably sharp memories of the shabby treatment they received will have their innings at bat. This is going to be brutal for the commercial real estate business.

One of my good friends recently told me that the best possible lease for any business is a one-year deal with a dozen or so annual options to renew or walk away. With the continued uncertainty surrounding the economy and the virus and with the clear and obvious need for so many firms to shrink their physical footprints as their workforce becomes increasingly hybrid or largely remote, the nature of the new negotiations is going to be radically different.

That starts with a laundry list of new demands for people who want to bring their pets to work. Then, add requests for enhanced onsite childcare provisions, along with the extensive insurance, safety, security and even air handling issues relating to both kids and dogs, and you can imagine the bumpy and costly road ahead for owners and managers. To compete, landlords will also need to figure out how to design their spaces with new features and amenities in ways that will convince business owners that their location will help entice existing employees back and continually attract new talent as well.

The landlord's traditional incentives have always been about absorbing the costs of new space buildouts and leasehold improvements on the front end and recouping them over the back end of the lease. Today, the math and the mechanics are completely upside down because so many tenants want less space and don't want to build out anything. Instead, they want lower rents and other CAM concessions, and they will be insisting on more flexibility in terms of lease terms, options and outs. We can expect to see a rapid growth in "spec suites" for tenants to occupy on an "as-is" short-term basis while they see where the world ends up. Rent rolls, which are crucial to the landlords' ability to secure and renew financing, are going to be considerably shorter, thinner and less substantial than ever in the past.  

.

DEC 21, 2021

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

 

DONNY BOY JR

 

Howard Tullman Joins Kristi and Tony for BSIA at Tasty Trade

 

WHY IS BIDEN SO MUCH WEAKER THAN CHENEY?????

 

If only the president and fellow Democrats would speak as directly, plainly and effectively as Cheney. Put it in prime time, keep it short, make it specific and easy to understand (thereby spoon-feeding the press), make a legal case against Trump (obstruction), and remind Americans (not to mention the media) of how important this is. Indeed, there is nothing more important than this.

Opinion: Distinguished pol of the week: What Democrats can learn from Liz Cheney

 

By Jennifer Rubin

Columnist|

Today at 7:45 a.m. EST

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) has pulled off a pro-democracy messaging triumph, more effective than anything the White House or other Democrats have accomplished to date. During a House select committee hearing about the Jan. 6 insurrection, and again on the House floor, she provided vivid evidence of the plot to overthrow our democracy — breaking through the media lethargy and GOP noise. How did she do it?

For starters, she watched the clock. The hearing was in the evening, which, not coincidentally, provided a larger audience and avoided getting trampled by other news. Her message was broad — former president Donald Trump’s cronies are not above the law — but her evidence was specific and measured. She spoke for a relatively short period of time.

Second, her tone was matter of fact. She spoke more in sadness than in anger. (“We are here to address a very serious matter, contempt of Congress by a former chief of staff to a former president of the United States. We do not do this lightly. And, indeed, we had hoped not to take this step at all.”)

Third, she picked an event that was easy to understand (refusing to appear for testimony after turning over thousands of pages of evidence) to remind voters of Trump’s unprecedented betrayal. “On January 6, our Capitol building was attacked and invaded. The mob was summoned to Washington by President Trump,” she recalled. “And, as many of those involved have admitted — on videotape, in social media, and in federal district court — they were provoked to violence by President Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen.”

Fourth, she read several especially alarming texts — some from members of Congress — putting them on notice that they cannot hide from the inquiry and will be held accountable for their conduct. She also pulled back the curtain on Fox News, making clear that its cynical hosts knew full well Trump was responsible for a horrible event — though for months they’ve been playing defense for him. (Disclaimer: I am an MSNBC contributor.) It may have been the most effective takedown of a faux news organization acting as a propaganda mouthpiece.

Fifth, she tied Meadows to one of Trump’s central offenses: “[F]or 187 minutes, President Trump refused to act when action by our president was required, indeed essential, and compelled by his oath to our Constitution. Mr. Meadows received numerous text messages, which he has produced without any privilege claim — imploring that Mr. Trump take the specific action we all knew his duty required.” Everyone understands the concept of dereliction of duty, and putting it in minutes (rather than “for over three hours”) highlighted Trump’s mendacity in allowing the siege to continue.

Sixth, while Jeffrey Clark’s testimony was not at issue (he’s pleaded the Fifth Amendment), she did raise Trump’s attempt to strong-arm the Justice Department, in the process implicating another Republican congressman. “President Trump intended to appoint Jeffrey Clark as attorney general, in part so that Mr. Clark could alter the Department of Justice’s conclusions regarding the election,” Cheney said. “Mr. Clark has now informed the committee that he anticipates potential criminal prosecution related to these matters and intends in upcoming testimony to invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.”

Seventh, she laid out the potential crime (obstruction of justice), and made clear it involved events before Jan. 6. “Did Donald Trump, through action or inaction, corruptly seek to obstruct or impede Congress’s official proceeding to count electoral votes? Mark Meadows’s testimony will inform our legislative judgments.” “Corruptly seek to obstruct” is right from the federal code. She reminded us that the call to Georgia’s secretary of state was part of the plot to stop the electoral vote counting:

In Georgia, for instance, Mr. Meadows participated in a phone call between President Trump and Georgia Secretary of State [Brad] Raffensperger. Meadows was on the phone when President Trump asked the Secretary of State to quote “find 11,780 votes” to change the result of the presidential election in Georgia.

Eighth, she anticipated Republicans’ objection and then demolished it. (“He has not claimed, and does not have any privilege bases to refuse entirely to testify regarding these topics.”) 

Finally, she elevated the importance of the House’s work and the seriousness of Trump’s betrayal, in the process making her sycophantic colleagues look craven and ridiculous in their continued fidelity to Trump. “January 6 was without precedent. There has been no stronger case in our nation’s history for a congressional investigation into the actions of a former president,” she began. What is at stake is nothing less than “our Constitution, the structure of our institutions and the rule of law — which are at the heart of what makes America great.” And she reminded the country of the reason for doing this. “We must get to the objective truth and ensure that January 6 never happens again.”

If only the president and fellow Democrats would speak as directly, plainly and effectively as Cheney. Put it in prime time, keep it short, make it specific and easy to understand (thereby spoon-feeding the press), make a legal case against Trump (obstruction), and remind Americans (not to mention the media) of how important this is. Indeed, there is nothing more important than this.

For some brilliant public rhetoric, we can say, well done, Rep. Cheney.

 

BOMBING AUSCHWITZ

 ISRAEL "BOMBS AUSCHWITZ"

by Rafael Medoff 

(Dr. Rafael Medoff is founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and author of more than 20 books on Jewish history and the Holocaust.)

It has often been said that if only the State of Israel had existed in the 1940s, its air force could have bombed Auschwitz, interrupting the gassing of countless innocents.

Well, now it does exist. And it turns out that it has been using its air force to interrupt a contemporary regime’s gassing of countless innocents.

The Washington Post has just revealed that two Israeli bombing raids inside Syria in 2020 and 2021, which previously had been shrouded in mystery, were in fact part of a covert campaign to stop “a nascent attempt by Syria to restart its production of deadly nerve agents.”

Syrian dictator Bashar Assad has used sarin nerve gas to slaughter thousands of civilians whom he regarded as his enemies since the outbreak of the country’s civil war in 2011. One attack alone left 1,400 dead in a Damascus suburb. Assad promised the Obama administration in 2012 that he would stop using chemical weapons and destroy his arsenal. But he secretly held on to part of his stockpile, and has carried out “more than 200 attacks” with deadly nerve agents in recent years, the Post reports.

The Israelis are well aware that Syria’s original purpose in developing the poison gas was to use it against the Jewish state—to continue, in a sense, the gassing of the Jews that began in German-occupied Poland eighty years ago this month.

Rather than wait for such an attack and then belatedly respond, the Israelis decided to preempt the attempted genocide—and in so doing, potentially interrupt the Assad regime’s ongoing use of those weapons against Syrian citizens. 

On March 5, 2020, according to the Post, Israeli bombers struck a compound in the Syrian city of Homs, “a hub for Syria’s chemical-weapons production.”

The Homs facility was preparing batches of the chemical tricalcium phosphate for Syria’s top military laboratory, known as the Scientific Studies and Research Center, which oversees production of the regime’s chemical weapons. Then, in June of this year, the Israelis bombed additional chemical weapons sites near the towns of Nasiriyah and Masyaf.

Some critics have opposed the idea of Western military action against Syrian chemical weapons sites, on the grounds that bystanders might be harmed. “People already living in fear of losing their lives in unlawful attacks must not be further punished for the alleged violations of the Syrian government,” Amnesty International USA has declared. And to this day, an occasional pundit will argue that bombing Auschwitz in 1944 would have been a bad idea because some of the prisoners might have been harmed. 

The critics were wrong then, and they’re wrong now.

It’s troubling that Amnesty International seems less concerned about the actual daily murder of Syrian civilians than the theoretical risk to a small number of bystanders in the course of eliminating the murder weapons. No war can be fought without the risk of some civilian casualties. Indeed, the Israeli attack on the Homs facility left seven guards dead. But how can one compare that to the thousands of Syrians who have died agonizing deaths because of the gas produced in that laboratory—or the many Israelis who would be Assad’s next victims?

It is likewise nothing less than scandalous to argue that the possible danger of air raids harming a relatively small number of prisoners should have prevented the Allies from interrupting the certain gassing of 12,000 Jews in Auschwitz every day.

In any event, the question of civilian casualties had nothing to do with the actual discussions in 1944 about whether to bomb Auschwitz. Most of the bombing requests by Jewish groups were for strikes on the railways and bridges leading to the death camp, not the camp itself. Such attacks on the transportation routes—over which hundreds of thousands of Jews were taken to their deaths—would have involved very minimal risk to civilians.

That’s why the excuses the Roosevelt administration made for not carrying out such bombings had nothing to do with the danger of civilian casualties. U.S. officials claimed that American planes were too far from the camp. In reality, U.S. bombers regularly struck German oil factories just a few miles from the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

Today, the term “bombing Auschwitz” has become a metaphorical catchphrase for the moral test that the Allies failed during World War II—and then failed all over again during several other genocides that blighted the post-Holocaust world ever since.

“Bombing Auschwitz” is now a moral obligation for every generation, because every generation finds itself confronted by perpetrators of atrocities. The idea of using military force against mass murderers is no mere history lesson; it is a military strategy for a better world. On a few occasions, the United States and its allies have recognized this principle—as in the bombing that ended atrocities in the Balkans, pre-empted massacres in Libya, and rescued thousands of Yazidi civilians in Iraq. Israel’s bombing of Syrian chemical weapons follows that noble path.

The names Homs, Nasiriyah and Masyaf are not well known in the West. Neither was Auschwitz—or Chelmno, in German-occupied Poland, where the gassing of Jews began in December 1941. Perhaps the next generation will remember the names of those Syrian towns as the places where genocide was stopped in its tracks.

 

Armed robbery crews claim 14 more victims Wednesday — hours after politicians staged a street corner conversation about armed robberies

December 16, 2021 CWBChicago Lakeview, Lincoln Park, Uptown

At least 14 people were robbed in nine separate incidents as an armed robbery team swept across Lakeview, Lincoln Park, and Uptown on a two-hour hold-up spree Wednesday night. Last night’s street robberies, which are the latest in a six-week-long wave of similar crimes that has left more than 60 victims in its wake, came after local politicians stood on a Lakeview street corner with local beat cops for a “listening session

Perhaps someday they’ll replace listening and talking with action.

Here’s a run-down of last night’s crime spree:

At 9:57 p.m., three men displayed handguns and robbed a 23-year-old man on the 800 block of West Oakdale. They took his phone and wallet, CPD spokesperson Kellie Bartoli said. The robbers made the victim unlock his phone before they fled in the small compact car that they arrived in. Bartoli said the suspects are described as Black males between 18- and 25-years-old who stand 5’8″ to 6-feet tall, and weigh 140 to 160 pounds.

Around the same time, witnesses reported seeing two men with guns chasing a man near the intersection of Barry and Kenmore in Lakeview. A robbery victim later called 911 for help. He said four offenders, one of whom wore an orange ski mask, robbed him near his home, just down the street from Barry and Kenmore. The other robbers wore black ski masks. According to initial information, they are Black males who wore dark clothing and escaped in a small SUV.

A map showing the approximate locations of Wednesday evening’s robberies.

Around 10 p.m., three men robbed a 27-year-old man at gunpoint as he walked on the 1200 block of West School, Bartoli said. They took the victim’s belongings and fled in a tan minivan. They were described as Black males between 15- and 20-years-old who stand 5’7″ to 5’10” tall and weigh 150 to 180 pounds. They wore hooded sweatshirts.

At 10:15 p.m., three men stepped out of a dark blue sedan and robbed a 25-year-old man on the 3200 block of North Lakewood. They held the man at gunpoint, took his phone and wallet, then fled, Bartoli said. They wore hoodies with face masks. One of their masks was orange and one of their guns had a green laser.

Around 10:20 p.m., four men jumped out of a blue hatchback and robbed a man on the 3200 block of North Southport. One of the offenders wore an orange mask. One of the group’s guns was equipped with a green laser.

Then, at 10:48 p.m., two men armed with handguns stepped out of a dark-colored Toyota Prius and robbed a man and woman who were walking on the 1300 block of West Wrightwood in Lincoln Park, Bartoli Said. They took a purse from the 32-year-old woman and fled the scene. One of the suspects had a gun with a laser attached.

About 20 minutes later, two men in their 50s were walking on the 400 block of West Barry when three men confronted them with handguns, according to Bartoli. The robbers went through the victims’ pockets and escaped with three phones and two wallets. Bartoli said the suspects in this hold-up are Black males between 15- and 20-years-old who stand 5’7″ to 5’9″ tall and weigh 130 to 140 pounds. They were wearing hooded sweatshirts.

Then, a 50—year-old man was robbed in Uptown by two men who displayed handguns on the 1400 block of West Leland at 11:35 p.m., Bartoli said. They demanded the man’s valuables and fled in a blue sedan. The robbers were described as Black males between 18- and 25-years-old who stand 5’6″ tall and weigh 150 to 170 pounds. They were wearing hoodies and face masks, Bartoli said.

At 11:50 p.m., two men armed with handguns robbed a 40-year-old man walking on the 2600 block of North Wilton in Lincoln Park. According to Bartoli, the offenders struck the man in his head several times, then took his headphones. They were described only as Black males between 15- and 20-years-old.

Finally, around midnight, a 30-year-old woman, a 20-year-old man, and a 25-year-old man were robbed at gunpoint near the intersection of Wilson and Broadway in Uptown. Three men, one armed with a gun equipped with a green laser, pushed the victims, pistol-whipped two of them, and took their valuables. One of the offenders wore an orange mask and all three of them displayed guns. A fourth offender waited in a nearby SUV.

Area Three detectives are investigating all of the robberies — along with at least 40 more that have gone unsolved since early November.