Archive for the ‘crime’ Category

Things to know about JB Pritzker, the governor of Chicago

Posted: November 17, 2024 by John Ruberry in congress, crime, election 2024, elections, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics

By John Ruberry

Nearly two weeks after Kamala Harris wipeout at the hands of Donald Trump, there’s a leadership vacuum in the Democratic Party. 

That’s good news, but let’s not get cocky. The Dems faced the same situation in 1988 after the Michael Dukakis debacle. Four years later, the Republican incumbent, was denied reelection at the hands of Bill Clinton–with an assist from Ross Perot.

As with Hillary Clinton after 2016, the Democrats are through with Harris and her worthless running mate, Tim Walz. Barack Obama is getting blamed, rightfully so, for the disastrous Joe Biden presidency and Harris’ expensive but failed attempt to succeed him.

Two pretenders to the Democrats’ throne of lies are a pair governors, Jared Polis of Colorado and JB Pritzker of Illinois. Sadly, Pritzker is my governor, and I’m going to return, again, to exposing Pritzker’s failures, because the legacy media–even in decline it’s still a force–isn’t doing its job.

As for Polis, I haven’t heard that he has presidential ambitions. Pritzker does.

Pritzker is not popular in rural Illinois.

Oh, about the headline, the governor of Chicago. In 2022, the Chicago Gold Coast billionaire and Hyatt Hotels heir won his second term over Republican Darren Bailey. Outside of three counties with big universities, and St. Clair County–where you’ll find East St. Louis–Pritzker lost every downstate county. Of Illinois’ 102 counties, Pritzker won only 12. The governor’s base is Chicago and its suburbs. Despite amassing huge vote totals there, he only was able to win 54 percent of the total, which will probably, when all of the counting is done, what Harris will end up with in Illinois. Bailey prevailed in some counties with over 80 percent of the vote. In 2016, when running against a failed Republican incumbent, he only did slightly better downstate.

Hillary Clinton and Harris ran poorly in rural areas. That’s a big reason why they lost.

After six years in office, Pritzker remains unpopular outside of the Chicago area. Successful leaders build broad coalitions.

Transgenderism.

While some of his fellow Democrats are easing away from their party’s extreme stance on transgenderism, Prtizker is not.

Last week on X Pritzker posted, “This Transgender Awareness Week, I want you to know that I see you and have your back as governor. Illinois has enshrined protections for gender-affirming care to meet this moment — and because of that, you will have a home here always.”

Illinois law allows biological boys, that is males, to play in girls’ school sports.

Pritzker is weak on crime.

Early on Election Day morning, when most of the media was understandably focusing on the presidential race, during a routine traffic stop Chicago Police Officer Enrique Martinez was allegedly murdered by a thug with a machine gun who belonged in jail but was free on electronic monitoring.

Last year, the SAFE-T Act, which Pritzker signed into law, went into effect. Illinois is now the only state that bans cash bail. Despite spin from the establishment media and academia, the result is disastrous for law-abiding Illinoisans. A daily look at CWB Chicago, Second City Cop, and Lake & McHenry Scanner will explain why. Illinois is a criminal’s catch-and-release haven.

Chicago cops and their families hate Pritzker, and prosecutors hate the SAFE-T Act.

The governor of Chicago is not popular with the Chicago Police officers and their families. Martinez’ funeral is Monday, and the slain cop’s family made it clear that they didn’t want Pritzker, or Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, to attend his funeral service. Earlier this year, Chicago cop Luis Huesca was murdered while off-duty in a carjacking, his family made the same request. Pritzker quickly acquiesced, Johnson–and that’s another story for another time–eventually followed the governor’s lead.

Cops are against the SAFE-T Act. And prior to it taking effect, 100 of 102 of Illinois’ county prosecutors opposed it.

Illinois is a sanctuary state.

On a personal note, my problems with Venezuelan migrants are just annoyances–dealing with panhandlers and people selling bottles of water and candy on street corners. Friend of mine living in Chicago say burglaries are up where they live. The evidence is anecdotal–but the migrant presence in their neighborhoods has a lot of fingers pointing at them.

On a more sinister level, the Tren de Aragua Venezuelan street gang has a presence in Chicago. Because of the SAFE-T Act, most of those migrant gangbangers are set free after they’re arrested.

Meanwhile, Pritzker is Illinois’ self-appointed champion of the Venezuelans and other illegal migrants.

Gerrymandering and depopulation.

As I mentioned earlier, the almost-final tally of the presidential race in Illinois is 54 percent for Harris and 44 for Trump.

What about Illinois’ congressional races?

When I was born, Illinois had 24 congressional districts–because of anemic or no population growth, depending on the decade–now we have only 17.

Since 2014, Illinois has annually lost population.

Pictured above is Illinois’ 15th congressional district. What’s that empty space in the middle? That’s the 13th congressional district, the penis of the Prairie State. The 15th district is represented by Republican Mary Miller, while Democrat Nikki Budzinski is the congresswoman for the 13th. The 15th is heavily Republican, the 13th leans Democratic, and its phallus shape was drawn to include Democratic strongholds such as East St. Louis, Springfield, Decatur, and Champaign. If Illinois had fair maps, the two districts would be split into two similarly shaped rectangular areas and its voters would likely elect two Republicans.

The rest of Illinois is similarly carved up in a biased and partisan manner.

Stay with me on this one.

So, Harris won Illinois with 54 percent. As for Illinois’ congressional delegation, there are 14 Republicans and just three Republicans. Which gives Republicans just 18 percent of the Land of Lincoln’s seats in the US House. Yessir, just 18 percent.

Illinois’ congressional maps are a disgrace to democracy.

What would Abraham Lincoln think?

Pritzker’s Dems enjoy supermajorities in both chambers of the General Assembly. Why? Well because of gerrymandering, of course. Many General Assembly races had victors who ran unopposed. If there is no chance for victory, why run? Why even vote? Citizens, be damned.

During his first gubernatorial run, Pritzker repeatedly promised to veto any legislative remaps that were partisan.

He lied.

Pritzker is a bully of a politician whose power is enhanced by gerrymandering. He won’t build a coalition because he doesn’t have to.

He might be successful as the de facto leader of the Democratic Party.

But as president?

You’ve been warned about the governor of Chicago.

John Ruberry regularly blogs from another oddly shaped Illinois congressional district, the 9th, at Marathon Pundit.

The Great Chicago Train Robbery offers more proof of the city’s decline and fall

Posted: October 13, 2024 by John Ruberry in crime, culture, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

The evidence of Chicago’s decline and fall keeps piling up.

On Friday evening, at least 30 thugs looted Union Pacific rail cars in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood on the West Side.

The city’s leftist mayor, Brandon Johnson, who lives in Austin, was in London in advance of Sunday’s Chicago Bears game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Although he later backed away, slightly, from his statement, in 2020 “Branjo” called defunding the police “a political goal.”

As you’ll see, the looters are so casual in these videos as they unload the U.P. freight cars, it’s as if they calmly enjoying a visit to a suburban pick-your-own pumpkin patch. They’re not hiding their faces; they’re not covering up their licence plates. One enterprising criminal even brought a cargo truck to speed their 100-percent discounts along.

The mass thievery was so vast that commuter rail traffic on those rail lines was suspended for hours.

Society is rotting in Chicago–as well as suburban Cook County, because we have had a pro-criminal George Soros-funded so-called prosecutor, Democrat Kim Foxx, lackadaisically enforcing the law for that last eight years. Thankfully, she’ll be out of office in two months.

Criminals don’t fear getting caught in Chicago–and if they are–only those accused of the most heinous crimes are locked up to await trial. Since last year, courtesy of JB Pritzker’s SAFE-T Act, cash bail is banned in Illinois.

The Chicago establishment media, TV stations are an exception, are shameful. They minimize rampant criminality, calling it “a perception problem.”

On Facebook, an hour after the brazen looting, a Chicagoan on Facebook, a self-described “entrepreneur,” was advertising a back yard full of widescreen televisions for sale. As of this writing, 5:00pm EDT, those TVs are still for sale on the social network. Facebook doesn’t seem concerned. It’s a good thing this “entrepreneur” isn’t claiming that masks don’t work against COVID.

Then again, maybe it’s a coincidence that the “entrepreneur” is selling those televisions. But there are a lot of “coincidences” in America’s third-largest city.

So far only six people have been arrested for allegedly participating in the Great Chicago Train Robbery. Where were the Chicago Police on Friday? It took the cops over an hour to arrive to the West Side rail yard. ABC 7 News’ traffic chopper showed up much more quickly. Where was Union Pacific’s security detail? Just a thought, but U.P. may want to investigate their West Side employees. I suspect that this heist may have been aided by a tip from someone working in that freight yard.

There have been other thefts of U.P. trains in Chicago recently.

Finally, where are the decent Chicagoans?

There are some, right?

John Ruberry regularly blogs just north of Chicago at Marathon Pundit.

Chicago’s leftist mayor cancelling gunshot detection contract because he’s beholden to his ideology

Posted: September 22, 2024 by John Ruberry in crime, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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Chicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson

By John Ruberry

Chicago, in Brandon Johnson, has a leftist idealogue as its mayor. Not surprisingly, he’s failing. 

Take away his far-left beliefs, “Branjo” is a big empty suit, one tailored by his former employer, the radical Chicago Teachers Union.

As I discussed last week, Johnson was a backer of the Defund the Police movement, until after he made it to the runoff round of last year’s mayoral election.

Johnson’s approval rating is 25 percent. Crime was the biggest issue of the 2023 campaign. While murders are down slightly, the crime numbers remain horrible. People don’t feel safe, despite the minimalizing of lawbreaking by Chicago’s weak-kneed media.

Despite 33 of Chicago’s 50 alderpersons voting to continue the city’s contract with ShotSpotter, a gunfire detection system deployed in high-crime areas, Branjo is putting ShotSpotter on mute. 

While there are critics of ShotSpotter on the left and right, the general belief of people possessing open minds–meaning people aren’t extreme left-wingers–is that ShotSpotter works. A University of Chicago Crime Lab study said that there is a “3-in-4 chance that the technology saves about 85 lives per year.”

Besides those 33 alderpersons, Chicago’s two major daily newspapers, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune–both liberal publications–favor keeping ShotSpotter. As does Johnson’s pick for police superintendant, Larry Snelling.

Branjo has never explained why, other than fulfilling a campaign promise, his reasons for dumping ShotSpotter. Last week, Chicago’s man-child mayor dismissed ShotSpotter as “walkie-talkies on a stick.”

ShotSpotter, until Sunday night that is, is deployed in 12 of Chicago’s 22 police districts. The problem for Johnson and his far-left cop-hating base is that those districts are minority-majority. However, most of the alderpersons representing those areas voted to keep in ShotSpotter in place. The core of the support for cancelling ShotSpotter in the City Council are alderpersons–some of them are openly socialist–from progressive white wards on the North Side who put Johnson over the top in last year’s election.

This afternoon on X, Silvana Tabares, who represents a Southwest Side ward. bashed Johnson’s shortsightedness.

Experts and community member all know ShotSpotter provides a vital tool for first responders to render aid to victims of gun violence.

Beginning tonight, every gunshot victim bleeding in the streets of our city will be a worth sacrifice in the eyes of our mayor for his radical agenda.

Every single one.

Here are some headlines about ShotSpotter from CWB Chicago in just the last three days:

Branjo’s inner circle is comprised of fellow leftists. Earlier this month, on the Fran
Spielman Show podcast, a moderate downtown alderperson, Brian Hopkins, ripped the mayor.

“When you’re a democratic socialist who has some very extreme, left-wing views, that closes off a lot of opportunities to grow relationships with centrists or even moderate Republicans,” Hopkins said. “The city is suffering from that.”

A couple of, well, normal people were part of Johnson’s core staff early in his administration. Rich Guidice, the mayor’s first chief of staff, resigned his spring and he was replaced by a left-wing radical, Cristina Pacione-Zayas. Earlier this month, an office reshuffling ended up with an experienced and respected intergovernmental affairs officer, Sydney Holman resigning. Now in charge of lobbying the City Council and state legislators for Branjo is another extremist, Kennedy Bartley, who called police officers “f*cking pigs” in a 2021 podcast.

Chicagoans are only 16 months into Johnson’s four-year term as mayor.

As Barack Obama once said, “Elections have consequences.”

More murder victims will be one of those.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Presidential election warning from Chicago: Media malpractice gave the city its failed leftist mayor, Brandon Johnson

Posted: September 15, 2024 by John Ruberry in crime, election 2024, elections, media, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

Last year’s mayoral election in Chicago presents a media deja vu moment with national implications.

Yes, I’m talking about Kamala Harris.

Brandon Johnson, an organizer for the far-left Chicago Teachers Union while serving as member of the Cook County commissioner–a rubber stamp body controlled by board president, Toni Preckwinkle, a leftist like Johnson.

Paul Vallas, a centrist Democrat, ran a wonky white-paper dominated campaign that was centered on hiring more police officers and prosecuting more misdemeanors. He lost. 

Johnson campaigned largely on platitudes. His political career is a creation of the Chicago Teachers Union, and aggressive campaigning by the CTU, including door to door work, identifying Johnson’s supporters, and getting them to the polls, pushed “Branjo” over the top. 

Republicans? Are we doing that? 

Back to my point.

As a commissioner, Johnson could only point one accomplishment in office, the non-binding “Justice for Black Lives” resolution that passed in 2020, which called for diverting funds from law enforcement to social services.

The extreme left loves symbolism. It also hates the police.

Also in 2020, Johnson said of the Defund the Police movement that it was “not a slogan, it’s an actual real political goal.”

Chicago’s mainstream media, Fran Spielman of the Chicago Sun-Times is a notable exception, are compliant lapdogs for the left. If at all, they barely challenged Branjo on his thin resume and his far-left beliefs.

Before the first round of voting for mayor, Johnson was asked about his support of Defund the Police and cutting law enforcement, Johnson flippantly replied, “Ask better questions.”

Finally, at a law enforcement forum before the second round of balloting, Johnson was asked about his backing of the Defund movement. “I said it was a political goal,” Johnson replied, “I never said it was mine.”

So the media, even though crime was the biggest issue of the 2023 Chicago mayoral campaign, dropped the Defund issue. 

The Chicago media barely vetted Johnson. Just as the national media didn’t do so on Joe Biden’s senility in 2020–and it all but ignored Hunter Biden laptop story. A year later, the national media elite is ignoring or minimizing the far-left political position of Kamala Harris, and her politically convenient flip-flops on them.

Last week, in her weekly podcast, the aforementioned Spielman interviewed centrist Chicago alderman Brendan Reilly, who supported Vallas in last year’s election.

Reilly, who may be candidate for mayor in 2027, said that Johnson was en route to becoming a “one-termer” who was “woefully unprepared” to lead America’s third-largest city, and a mayor who is a beholden to the “radical left.”

Johnson, who has blamed Richard M. Nixon for Chicago’s violence epidemic, is rumored to have suffered from panic attacks. The mayor regularly points his finger at white supremacy when his discussing city’s many ills.

The warning signs were there on Johnson for anyone who did some digging. But the Chicago media barely reported on them. Last week, a Fox Chicago reporter revealed that his City Hall staffer in charge of working with City Council and state legislators to advance the mayor’s agenda, Kennedy Bartley, made vile anti-police comments in a 2021 podcast, including calling law enforcement officers “f*cking pigs.”

This is Johnson’s inner circle. The mayor has resisted calls to fire Bartley.

As for crime, while Johnson has not defunded the police, his choice as police superintendant, Larry Snelling, says the CPD is short nearly 2,000 officers. 

Chicago faces a $220 million budget deficit for this year and a nearly $1 billion for 2025. In response, Branjo announced a hiring freeze, but two days later, he exempted the fire and police departments from that freeze. 

Crime is still sky high since Johnson took over. Murders are down, but only a little bit.

Johnson has driven the Chicago train off the rails. Ironically–and the Chicago media ignores this other story–the mayor has a massive polite detail, said to number anywhere from 125-150 cops. Johnson clearly doesn’t want to defund his police protection.

Back to Harris. 

Will the mainstream media drop its biases and finally vet the vice president?

Or will they wait, until a year or so after she’s sworn in, when another “woefully unprepared” office holder, one who is beholden to “the radical left,” fails again, for so-called journalists to finally sound the alarm about Harris? Maybe not. The media was all-in on Biden until his cognitive decline couldn’t be explained away after his June debate with Donald Trump.

Biden, whose mind was clearly slipping in 2020, is arguably a tool of the far-left. 

Will Harris, arguably an intellectual lightweight, end up in the same position if she wins the presidency?

John Ruberry regularly blogs from just north of Chicago at Marathon Pundit.

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