Archive for the ‘crime’ Category

Electronic monitoring for violent criminals in Chicago and Cook County is a failure

Posted: August 1, 2021 by John Ruberry in crime, culture, media, News/opinion, politics
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By John Ruberry

The far-left has taken over many elected prosecutor’s offices, including Chesa Boudin in San Francisco, George Gascon in Los Angeles County, Marilyn Mosby in Baltimore, and Kim Foxx in Cook County, where Chicago is the county seat.

As I sadly live in Crook County I’m going focus on Foxx, Cook County’s state’s attorney and Jussie Smollett’s protector, who among other things, refuses to prosecute shoplifters with a felony unless they are accused of stealing merchandise worth more than $1,000.

Foxx is also a huge supporter of electronic monitoring of criminal suspects.

Small-time crooks often move on to bigger crimes. The “broken-windows” practice of policing that Rudy Giuliani put into place during his eight years as mayor of New York–his cops aggressively cracked down on petty criminals–led to a major decrease in violent crime. In the years before Rudy’s election NYC averaged over 2,000 murders annually. His successor, Michael Bloomberg, largely kept Guiliani’s policies in place. When Bloomberg left office in 2013 there were just 333 murders in America’s largest city. The murder rate has gone up with Bill de Blasio as mayor of New York but that’s a post for another time. 

The soft-on-crime approach of Foxx has been a disaster for Cook County residents, particular minorities who Foxx claims to champion. According to Hey Jackass there have been 467 homicides after the first seven months of 2021. Of the victims 83 percent of them were black and 13 percent were Hispanic. 

Bail is often light under Foxx and her prosecutors. Bad people who yes, have not yet been convicted of the crimes they are accused of, are being released with low bail or under electronic monitoring. 

Even Cook County’s sheriff, Democrat Tom Dart, doesn’t think electronic monitoring should be utilized the way Foxx is using it. “We were handed this thing—we didn’t ask for it,” Dart told NBC Chicago last week. “This is not what it was designed for The program was never designed for violent people.” And yet that is what is being done. 

More from NBC Chicago:

Nevertheless, numbers provided by the sheriff’s office show that on a recent day this month,100 murder suspects were free on electronic monitoring. Another 106 suspects were out in the community charged with criminal sexual assault, 547 charged as felons in possession of a weapon, and 263 as armed habitual criminals.

Let me repeat the first two: There are 100 people accused of murder who are free on electronic surveillance in Cook County. And what happened to the #MeToo movement? There are 106 people charged with criminal sexual assault on home arrest right in the county where I live.

Some of those on electronic monitoring in Cook County have eluded surveillance, including a man who escaped from electronic monitoring a few days after agreeing to it; he has since been charged with shooting a man in the face. Then there is the man accused of attempting to murder a cop who escaped from house arrest who was later found with an auto-fire gun. It gets worse. A man on electronic monitoring for a gun charge was charged with a murder during a home invasion.

Then there is this bizarre twist on electronic monitoring. Last month just a few minutes after being fitted with an electronic surveillance device rapper KTS Dre was shot–Sonny Corleone-style–64 times outside Cook County Jail. Clearly the rapper was better off being locked up. But Dre wasn’t the only person shot, two women were wounded in that attack. 

Can crimes be committed by people who stay home during their electronic home confinement? Of course! A woman selling cars on Facebook was lured to the home of a man on electronic monitoring. “Give me everything. You don’t f*cking move,” the accused allegedly warned. He also told the man who accompanied the salesperson, “Tell your b*tch not to move or I’ll shoot her too.”

As bad as Kim Foxx is–and she is indeed horrible–the ultimate responsibility for this public safety debacle belongs to Cook County voters–not me of course–who blindly voted Democrat party-line and returned Foxx to office last autumn. 

The warning signs on Foxx were there.

Chicago mayor’s Lori Lightfoot weak-on-crime policies deserve condemnation too. The man she chose to run the Chicago Police, David Brown, who for the most part has done a rotten job, did express some wisdom last week when he asked, “How many people think it’s OK to have over 90 people on electronic monitoring that we’ve charged with murder released back into our communities?”

The local mainstream media, NBC Chicago being an exception, is either ignoring or minimizing the crimes in Cook County being committed by accused criminals under house arrest. Many thanks to CWB Chicago for regularly reporting on this issue. After all, “Democracy dies in darkness.”

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Chicago has most of the tools already to fight violent crime without additional federal help

Posted: July 25, 2021 by John Ruberry in crime, culture, media, News/opinion, politics
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By John Ruberry

Another federal crackdown on guns in Chicago is coming. Just like in 2017 when the Chicago Crime Gun Strike Force was created by the federal government. Obviously it didn’t work well–because here we are in 2021 coping with out of control violent crime in America’s third-largest city.

According to Hey Jackass here are Chicago’s recent homicide and shooting totals:

Year       Homicides  Wounded
2021 
(to date)   443        2,023
2020	    456	       1,902
2019	    303	       1,307
2018	    338	       1,433
2017	    425	       1,813
2016	    414	       2,050
2015	    283	       1,358
2014	    243	       1,227

Already as you can see more people have been wounded so far this year than in any year since 2014, with the exception of 2016. And there have been more homicides–the totals comprised by Hey Jackass include other deaths, such as self-defense shootings–than any year except 2020, when there were 456 homicides. We’re already at 443 with a little more than five months left in 2021.

“2020 did have a lot of shootings in it,” Saniie said. “But it’s also important to put this into perspective.”

Here’s your perspective, Saniie: As I wrote earlier in this entry, violence is out of control in Chicago. A few weeks ago I wrote, correctly of course, “Chicago has a street gang problem not a gun problem.” There are ten gang members for every cop in the city. But let’s talk about guns. Chicago has among the strictest gun laws in America. Oh, don’t believe the long-time apologists’ line that guns from out of state are responsibile for this, or previous, violent crime waves. David Harsanyi ripped that pathetic argument to shreds last year in the National Review. And of course those out of state guns don’t fire themselves.

Chicago has plenty of other laws on the books to fight crime. But Kim Foxx is not a forceful prosecutor. The essential website CWB Chicago, unlike the city’s mainstream media outlets, honestly reports on Chicago crime and holds no punches. Since New Year’s Day it has been documenting the people in Chicago “accused of killing, trying to kill, or shooting someone in Chicago this year while awaiting trial for another felony.” Many of those earlier crimes involve guns. So far CWB Chicago has found 30 such individuals.

According to the same site, 32 people “were charged with committing murder, attempted murder, or aggravated battery with a firearm while free on bail for serious felonies in 2020.”

I don’t have any firm numbers on people in Chicago charged with new felonies while on electronic surveillance because I can’t find any. Perhaps the Chicago Sun-Times, which deems itself “the Hardest Working Paper in America,” or the Chicago Tribune, both of which have greater resources than internet stand-alones, can find out how many ankle-bracelet offenders there are if they put forth the effort. Perhaps such work can reverse their long decline in revenue and subscribers. But alas, both newspapers have a narrative to advance. A false one when it comes to crime.

Even though she is a leftist ideologue like Foxx, Chicago’s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, is not politically close with the Cook County state’s attorney. They may even hate each other. But on the issue of crime they are in lockstep. Last week Lightfoot said Chicago “can’t arrest its way” of of its violence crisis.

Perhaps she is right. But Chicago–and Cook County–can jail and imprison its way, at least for now, out of its violent crime outbreak. But that probably won’t happen. Last month Foxx said that she might drop many low-level charges–her office hasn’t said which alleged crimes would be covered–because of a backlog of cases dating to the 2020 lockdown. Crime very well may pay in Chicago. Foxx is a supporter of “affordable bail.” Meanwhile Illinois’ no cash bail law goes into effect in 2023, two months after Gov. JB Pritzker, who signed that bill into law, faces voters. Al Capone and his henchmen picked the wrong ’20s decade to commit crimes, for sure.

Presumably Cook County judges and Foxx’s attorneys are well-rested from an easy 2020. They need to work harder and fulfil their duty to protect the public. Foxx can put on her lawyer hat and pitch in and help out in the courtroom, although if I was a criminal and she was the lead attorney against me I’d be confident of my chances for an acquittal.

While I’m sure federal assistance will help in fighting violent crime in Chicago, many of the tools are already in place for Lightfoot and Foxx to clean up Chicago now.

Only the Chicago Police Department needs to bring back stop-and-frisk searches, allow foot chases again, and reinstate its gang crimes unit, for starters.

John Ruberry regularly blogs from suburban Cook County at Marathon Pundit. And no, I did not vote for Kim Foxx.

Post Christian/Marxist Sore Thumbs in Science, Law, Tribalism, Truth and the Fruits of it All Under the Fedora

Posted: July 25, 2021 by datechguy in catholic, crime, culture, education, elections, News/opinion, politics, under the fedora, Vive L'Empereur
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You don’t really understand the costs of a Post Christian society until it arrives here are a few thoughts on the subject.

The scientific community was once one of the most trusted communities in the country, because it was based on the process of observation, theory experimentation and results, that is truth. This is a Christian basic principle:

You will know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

John 8:32.

But once “science” became all about pleasing the money men or advancing an ideology, truth was not a goal and once that was recognized trust in scientific institutions disappeared.

Haven’t you ever wondered why so many totalitarian counties were behind scientifically or needed to steal secrets from the west? When truth is suborned to fear it’s hard to generate accurate results.

One of the most critical principles of Christianity is equality before God and equality before the law You shall not act dishonestly in rendering judgment. Show neither partiality to the weak nor deference to the mighty, but judge your fellow men justly. Leviticus 19:15 That was a radical idea when God gave this law to Moses and it was of the things that Jesus called out the Pharisees for:

The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens (hard to carry) and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them.

Matt 23:2-4

The blatant double standards we have seen from Hunter Biden and his “Art” sales , to official flaunting the lockdown & mask rules they foist on others, to the treatment of rioters who burn cities vs those who sit on desks and take laptops enrages people. Furthermore the unwillingness to allow those who wish to actually enforce the law as written to do so in cities has led to the exodus of police and the turning of parts of those cities into ‘no go” zones.

The idea that an American could not walk safely in an American city is a concept that was so foreign in my youth that the tolerance of such things today completely puzzles me.

One of the basic principles of Judeo-Christian culture is the caring for others as yourself both in the Old Testament:

You shall not go about spreading slander among your kinsmen; nor shall you stand by idly when your neighbor’s life is at stake. I am the LORD.  

Leviticus 19:16

And the New

One of the scribes, when he came forward and heard them disputing and saw how well he had answered them, asked him, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” Jesus replied, “The first is this: ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.“

Mark 12:28-31.

However the Marxist left biggest goals have been to divide us. Punish those who protect their neighbor, allow people to rob and steal. The good one one race isn’t the good of another. The law of one race is not the law of another. The damage this has caused is self evident, yet the realization that the reason this has been so easily accomplished has been the withdrawal of Christian principles of society is not. Nothing better illustrates the bankruptcy of a society then when we decided it was licit and even proper to not lift a finger when other is beaten before us.

The audits have been the best example of another Christian Principle that has been completely suborned:

A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not pick figs from thornbushes, nor do they gather grapes from brambles.

Luke 6:43-44

Our friends on the left insist that the last election was on the up and up but then do all they can to suppress not only the audits of these count and ballots, audits that would supposedly verify their claims, but suppress any that might question then online, why because the truth is not valued. Their reaction and the “Cancel Culture they promote” is no different than the reaction of the crowd to St. Stephen, the 1st of the Martyrs who called out his accusers by their own history and they killed him for it:

But they cried out in a loud voice, covered their ears, and rushed upon him together. They threw him out of the city, and began to stone him. The witnesses laid down their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul. As they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he fell to his knees and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them”; and when he said this, he fell asleep.

Acts 7:57-60.

They are creating digital Martyrs although we have not yet reached the point where they are killing us, well except for Ashli Babbitt whose name must not be mentioned by media but whose mother got a standing ovation at yesterday’s Trump rally.

I suspect this martyrdom will have the same results on the voting community as the church’s martyrs did on the spread of Christianity.

Finally the most destructive of these things has had it seeds planted for the last several decades, the denial of the value of Fatherhood and of discipline:

Besides this, we have had our earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not (then) submit all the more to the Father of spirits and live? They disciplined us for a short time as seemed right to them, but he does so for our benefit, in order that we may share his holiness. At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it

Hebrews 12:9-11

And instead we gave trophies to those wo did not achieve, we indulged when we should not have and we refused to say no. We were warned of the fruits of this in scripture as well:

He who spoils his son will have wounds to bandage, and will quake inwardly at every outcry. A colt untamed turns out stubborn; a son left to himself grows up unruly. Pamper your child and he will be a terror for you, indulge him and he will bring you grief. Share not in his frivolity lest you share in his sorrow, when finally your teeth are clenched in remorse. Give him not his own way in his youth, and close not your eyes to his follies.

Sirach 30: 7-11

The result, we are not only at the point where are children are unsure of what they are, afraid of everything, led like sheep but even worse we are actually giving these kids the right to decide on destructive surgery that will scar them forever and going after their parents if they object!

All of this comes from the rejection of God, the idea that there is nothing greater than themselves and what they feel at any given moment. This is ironically but not surprisingly the very 1st temptation of the Devil to mankind:

But the serpent said to the woman: “You certainly will not die! No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad.”

Genesis 3:4-5

It is the primary lie that those who for years told us not to make the cultural fight to protect their own advancement that got us here. Jesus knew these types implicitly & called them out:

Why do you not understand what I am saying? Because you cannot bear to hear my word. You belong to your father the devil and you willingly carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks in character, because he is a liar and the father of lies.

John 8:43-44

The saying goes when you don’t believe in God you’ll believe in anything from people being able to change their sex and gender at will to dark magic as a solution to problems

This was the endgame, and it was always the endgame from the very start, but you couldn’t get to this endgame without creating a post Christian society.

Draft Women? What’s a “Woman”, Clarifying Francis, Reputations gone, China’s Bad Japan Move and Now I’ve seen Everything under the Fedora.

Posted: July 20, 2021 by datechguy in catholic, crime, culture, economy
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Apparently the Democrats are talking about making women register for the draft.

Senate Democrats are proposing a sweeping rewrite of the military draft laws aimed at requiring women to register for the Selective Service System, according to a draft authored by Senate Armed Services Chair Jack Reed and obtained by POLITICO.

I’ve said for a while that the draft is coming since . Even more so now that they are chasing away the actual volunteer base (conservatives, Christians and people who think the country is worth fighting for) they’ll need to increase the pool but the real story here is that Democrats are willing to define “woman”.

For those of you who aren’t Catholic let me put his reversal of Benedict in a way that you might get better. Basically before Benedict the rule on the Latin mass was a Bishop “may allow” the mass, like a state that say it “may allow” concealed carry. Benedict changed it to “shall allow” in other words. Francis has changed it back to “may allow”.

The real question to me here is this. Will Bishops that have the Latin Mass in place in some parishes forbid it from continuing? I suspect that Bishops who allow the Latin mass to congregate will find themselves off Francis’ list of potential future Cardinals.

Unexpectedly of course.

The sheer terror that the MSM, Social media and the left have concerning auditing the ballots in swing states is having an effect on public perception of the left that isn’t very good. Furthermore the willingness of school boards, the FBI and the Military to do the same is having a similar affect on the reputations of all these groups in the eyes of the public.

A lot of these people in charge of these agencies are going to learn that like a spouse who has cheated once trust doesn’t return once normalcy does. But I suspect they are counting on it never returning and the full power of the federal government will be used to make sure those who stole the last election will never have to worry about losing power.

China recently released a video threatening Japan if they aid Taiwan during any Chinese attack.

This is about as stupid as it gets.

China should remember that Japan is one of the most technologically advanced societies in the world and the only reason they do not have nukes, or chemical weapons or miniature killer drones is because they choose not to.

Furthermore while post WW2 realities has kept them from re-arming if Japan decides to return to it’s previous traditions to any degree and chooses to rearm, they can likely have nukes or chemical weapons or killer miniature drones to target CCP leaders pretty fast, not in less time then it takes me to type this but not a whole lot longer.

Talk about waking a sleeping giant.

I can’t think of a story that more perfectly meets the stereotype of a woke stupid liberal than this one:

Brits looking to ease their conscience over their involvement in bloody drug wars overseas are now being targeted by cynical dealers selling what they claim is “ethically sourced” cocaine.

Users have revealed a high demand for the so-called “woke coke” at posh dinner parties across the UK.

Drug policy expert Neil Woods told the Daily Mirror: “I have been shown ads for ‘environmentally friendly sniff’ but it’s nothing but a very clever marketing ploy.

Via Instapundit. The degree of stupidity necessary to fall for something like this is so incredible that it boggles the mind, however given the idiocy of the left, particularly the wealthy left advancing luxury ideals I’ve reached the point where nothing they do surprises me anymore.

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