Archive for the ‘culture’ Category

Chicago has a street gang problem not a gun problem

Posted: June 27, 2021 by John Ruberry in crime, culture, News/opinion, politics
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Gang temple in 2016 on Chicago’s South Side

By John Ruberry

Last week President Joe Biden and attorney general Merrick Garland announced the latest get-tough on illegal gun sales effort.

Unless I missed it, there was no mention from either men of the major underlying reason for most murders in big cities such as Chicago: out of control street gangs.

While it’s America’s third-largest city Chicago, with about 2.7 residents, has more gang members than any other–about 100,000. 

I’m having a heck of a time finding recent statistics on the percentage of shootings in Chicago that are gang-related–so my guess is that they are no longer being tabulated. Perhaps that has something to do with the monumentally stupid deciscion by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to eliminate Chicago’s gang crimes unit in 2012. His successor, leftist ideologue Lori Lightfoot, is unlikely to bring it back. Fortunately for decent Chicagoans there are less than two years left in her term.

However, while speaking of Chicago’s gang culture in 2015, then-Chicago Police superintendant Garry McCarthy said, “It’s very frustrating to know that it’s like seven percent of the population causes 80% of the violent crime.”

What about the shootings?

“Eighty-three percent of the shooting victims in Chicago are black,” Fox Chicago’s Mike Flannery said on his Flannery Fired Up show this weekend, “and about 96 percent are black and brown.” Of course not all shooting victims are gang members. Some are small children.

With such a small population committing so many violent crimes, it’s pretty easy to determine the most-direct way to attack violent crime in Chicago and other big cities. But big city mayors, all of whom are Democrats, don’t seem to be spoiling for this necessary fight against street gangs.

In Chicago it’s worse. Chicago magazine, in a 2011 article that has been sadly overlooked, “Gangs and Politicians in Chicago: An Unholy Alliance,” exposed several job-fair type meetings between aldermanic candidates and people representing street gangs. The messsage the organizer of those meetings, Hal Baskin, a candidate for the City Council that year and a former gang leader who died in 2018, received was clear to him. “Who do I need to be talking to so I can get the gangs on board?”

Gangs not only are part of the criminal culture of Chicago, but they are part of the political one as well. Which partly explains why politicians in Chicago regulary decry “gun violence” but not gang violence. Gangs and politics go back decades, including the time when Chicago was overwhelmingly white. While not a gang in the modern sense, the Hamburg Athletic Club, which did not peddle drugs, was involved in politics. The “Hamburgers” were blamed for some of the violence of the bloody 1919 Race Riot in Chicago, part of the tragic “Red Summer” that year. Three years after the riot future Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley was the president of the Hamburg Athletic Club. 

In 1984 while running for president, Jesse Jackson publicly thanked the infamous El Rukn gang for their help in a voter registration drive. The gang’s founder, Jeff Fort, is now an inmate at the supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. Jackson’s half-brother, Noah Robinson, is serving a life sentence for murder and racketeering schemes that involved the El Rukns. 

In the 1990s the Gangster Disciples gang, which was started by Larry Hoover, now a lifer at the supermax, founded a political organization, 21st Century V.O.T.E. They were organizing a national gang summit at the Congress Hotel in Chicago, where I was working at the time. Man oh man, that was a wretched experience. Oh, Al Sharpton was there. Isn’t that special!

Back to 2011:

According to that Chicago magazine article there were similar gang-pol gatherings before 2011. 

I have no proof but I suspect such meetings still occur. After all we are discussing Chicago, one of the most corrupt cities in America. 

Chicago’s aldermen are notoriously crooked, since 1973 over thirty members have been sentenced to federal prison. Do the math, that’s one “public official” locked away every 18 months.

So, how many Chicago public figures have ties, however casual, with gangs? We’ll probably never know. 

One current Chicago alderman who sees the truth on gangs is Raymond Lopez of the Southwest Side’s 15th Ward. “If you really want to get to what is at the heart of a lot of this [the violence], it is gangs, and it is the borderline collapse of the family unit in many of our neighborhoods,” Lopez told the Washington Examiner in a recent interview. “Lightfoot] has avoided calling out gangs in our community as a source of violence in our city.”

In a Tweet, Lopez offered indirect support to the “broken windows” theory of policing. Big time criminals also commit petty crimes. “In less than 24 hours, a new gang ‘family’ moved onto a block, they immediately opened a fire hydrant after settling in, and just moments ago took to shooting at a passing vehicle.” Lopez Tweeted two weeks ago. “The property owner can expect a call from me tomorrow. I want them gone. Now!”

Instead of “defunding the police” the far-left is now parsing their words, calling their approach “reimagining the police.” I’m calling for reimagining law enforcement. Federal authorities, to crush the gangs that have destroyed American cities, they need to aggressively utilize wiretaps, informants, and offering those who testify against gangs participation in the witness protection program.

Street gangs nation wide need to be neutered by the feds. Just like they did to the mafia.

It would take many years for such a crackdown to succeed but that should take care of the urban gun violence problem.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Going to Pot, Segregation Returns, Portland Suckers, Blacks Channeling a different Marx and Mass Rocks Under the Fedora

Posted: June 22, 2021 by datechguy in catholic, culture, News/opinion
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How badly is California run? So badly that even Pot growers need a government bailout to survive.

There are those who think my statement that the goal of the purge of the military is to have one that will be willing to fire at US citizens without question is extreme. I offer this as more evidence to support this claim:

Adm. Michael M. Gilday, the chief of naval operations, did not answer questions Tuesday about whether author-activist Ibram X. Kendi’s opposition to interracial adoption and capitalism is extreme.

The smartest thing our enemies ever did was to start buying people rather than weapon systems.

This full page ad is being run in the NYT

Given the voting habits and news sources that NYT readers follow they might just be stupid enough to fall for it and will deserve all they get from going.

I’ve said it before I’ll say it again not moving to Portland after my Honeymoon based there was the best non-decision of my life.

It appears that Karl is not the only Marx that the black activists of the NAACP & Congressional Black Caucus mimic as they keep silent About Democrat Senator’s Sheldon Whitehouse Membership at All-White Club

Of course this is in keeping with DaTechguy’s laws of media outrage because their only principle is power.

Finally given the persecution and marginalization of Christianly in general and the Catholic Church in particular in modern society band by media in the west I find this most appropriate:

Mass Rocks, the clandestine churches of an age of persecution

In the 16th-18th centuries, during the period of the “Penal Laws” enforced by England, any public expression of the Catholic faith in Ireland was prohibited. Churches were closed, Catholics faced fines and imprisonment for practicing their faith, and priests were threatened with death for tending to to their flock.

In spite of the danger, Catholic priests continued to celebrate Mass, and held services in secluded outdoor locations, making use or large rocks or boulders as altars. These “Mass Rocks” are still in existence today, and since that difficult time, have served as a reminder of the hardships and the resolute faith of the Irish Catholics of the past.

Reviving the Mass Rocks

With the ACN Ireland Mass Rock Campaign, these boulders are more than just a symbol or interesting historical artifact. They are once again the sacred places where, acting in the person of Christ, priests celebrate the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, where, in the words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “they make present again and apply, until the coming of the Lord, the unique sacrifice of the New Testament, that namely of Christ offering himself once for all a spotless victim to the Father.” 

I will not be shocked to find it necessary to celebrate the Mass in secret before I die

Crime pays as NYC DAs drop most post-death-of-George Floyd looting and rioting charges

Posted: June 20, 2021 by John Ruberry in crime, culture, media, News/opinion, politics
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North Michigan Avenue in Chicago last summer after rioting

By John Ruberry

A bit more than a year ago most large American cities were struck by widespread rioting and looting after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. 

Of course for the most part the rioting was termed “unrest” by the mainstream media. In case you think reporters forgot what the word “riot” means, the “R” word was front in center in January news coverage after a pro-Donald Trump mob stormed the US Capitol. 

Local television reporters across the country–who are generally more credible than their dead-tree media counterparts–brought viewers many scenes of unmasked people emptying out stores. Some of the looters even posted their crimes on social media.

Were these outrages open-and-shut case for prosecutors? Yes, but not in the way you think. 

From NBC New York:

NYPD data reviewed by the NBC New York I-Team shows 118 arrests were made in the Bronx during the worst of the looting in early June. 

Since then, the NYPD says the Bronx DA and the courts have dismissed most of those cases – 73 in all. Eighteen cases remain open and there have been 19 convictions for mostly lesser counts like trespassing, counts which carry no jail time. 

Jessica Betancourt owns an eyeglass shop that was looted and destroyed along Burnside Avenue in the Bronx last June.

Those numbers, to be honest with you, is [sic] disgusting,” Betancourt said when told of the few cases being prosecuted.

According to the NBC New York, prosecutors are claiming that there is a backlog of cases because of the COVID-19 epidemic. “If they are so overworked that they can’t handle the mission that they’re hired for, then maybe they should find another line of work,” says former NYPD Chief of Patrol Wilbur Chapman.  True, that.

There is a similar pattern of prosecutorial malpractice in Manhattan too. The DA in Manhattan is Cyrus Vance Jr, the leftist zealot who is on a Captain Ahab-like quest to charge Donald Trump with crimes.

The primary focus of any prosecutor should be to protect the public. But are prosecutors subject to the “CSI Effect” that plagues trials? That is, short of videotaped confessions of criminals, there is always room for a scintilla of doubt–because cases laid out perfectly when presented in a television drama.

Maybe. But instead I suspect there is an even worse possibility.

During the rioting last summer in Chicago I watched live coverage on WGN-TV of a couple of women calmly loading their car with what must have been looted goods. The license plate of their car was readable. Locating the criminals should have been quite easy. I wonder if Cook County’s state’s attorney, the woke Kim Foxx who of course dropped the hoax charges against Jussie Smollett–since reinstated with a special prosecutor in charge–botherered to investigate those two looters?

Yes, I had to bring up Smollett. As a black man and a gay man–that’s a two-fer–the former Empire actor is automatically a double-victim. And since many of the looters were minorities, they are victims too. Not of course the owners of stores that were looted last year even though many of those shop owners were minorities too. The criminals are the victims here, it’s not the other way around. If this quasi-reasoning makes sense to you then I recommend that you watch less CNN and MSNBC–and cancel your subscription to The Atlantic.

Some in the dead-tree media have called these riots and outbreaks of looting an uprising. Here and here, for instance. Meanwhile, the investigation of the attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters, which The Media Elect is calling either a riot or an insurrection–is being aggressively pursued by federal prosecutors, and the allegd perpetatrors are being charged with low-level crimes such as tresspassing. Yes, they should be prosecuted. But to call the Capitol Riot, in the words some federal prosecutors, an “existential threat” to the republic is a gross exaggeration. And some of those alleged rioters are being held in solitary confinement in Gitmo-like conditions, including the moron who put his on Nancy Pelosi’s desk and the so-called QAnon Shaman. Yeah, I get it, the feds have jurisdiction over the Capitol attack, not New York or Chicago prosecutors. But the message to the public should be clear here.

Then there is Antifa, which for weeks was violently attacking nearly every night the federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon. Where is the dogged federal investigation of those riots? 

But I fear some in prosecutorial circles sympathize with Antifa, as I strongly suspect they do in regards to the George Floyd “uprising.”

It seems that prosecutors are taking sides. And that in the right circumstances crime pays well for the criminals. 

But civil society cannot survive such a mindset. 

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Ends and Means vs Love of Neighbor

Posted: June 13, 2021 by datechguy in catholic, culture
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Ernst Zimmerman Christ and the Pharisees

Daniel Hughes [PM senior policy advisor]: Jim Hacker will win though with a thoroughly public spirited self sacrificing policy. The PM will probably kick him upstairs: Lord Hacker of kamikaze.

Sir Humphrey: I hardly think that’s funny Daniel or likely

Daniel Hughes: Why not? I mean he [Jim Hacker] ran the leadership campaign against the PM didn’t he? This could be the PM’s master stroke. In one fell swoop, approbation, elevation and castration. In one fell swoop You know the PM’s motto: “In defeat malice, in victory revenge”

Yes Minister: The Writing on the wall 1980

In yesterday’s piece I wrote this quite startling proposition:

This is heading to a place where the people left in the military will be the ones who will when a woke officer decides that a crowd of conservatives are a threat and says “Fire”

This is heading to a place where the people in the police will be afraid to stop a looter or a violent criminal of the left but will not hesitate to fire at or arrest a person of the right defending themselves or their property.

Ashley Babbitt is the future the left wants for us. Her death is not a bug it’s a feature to them.

One enough people realize this is the case all hell is going to break loose.

To a lot of people I’m sure this sounded alarmist just like in the 90”s those of us who saw the logical conclusion that “civil unions” would lead to were told. It took but a generation for the calls for “tolerance” to become an inquisition any who would declare these now dubbed evil words:

The question is how did we get to this point and why are we heading to where we are going.

Easy. We have a society and culture that is divided between it’s Christian component (Traditionally American) and non Christian (Communist Marxist) society.

That is why as I wrote years ago the enemy for the left is always Christianity because the rules of Christianity are anthemia to all that the left wants to achieve:

Love your enemies, Thou shalt not steal, all men are equal before the Lord, Honor your father and mother, male and female they created them, Thou shalt not kill.

All of these principles are deadly to the left but the worst of all is the Unity of belief in Christ in Christ and the brotherhood of man. Many passages of scripture are hated by the left but none more than this one:

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.”

The scribe said to him, “Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, ‘He is One and there is no other than he.’ And ‘to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself’ is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

And when Jesus saw that (he) answered with understanding, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And no one dared to ask him any more questions.

Mark 12:28-34

Love of God, the idea that there are principles and rules beyond ever changing memes and the love of neighbor not limited by the division of rich and poor, of race, of national origin, or of sex all of these are poison to he left. As Paul Wrote:

For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendant, heirs according to the promise.

Galatians 3:27-29

You can’t divide and conquer if all men are brothers , nor can you wreak vengeance if you embrace empathy and tradition:

Shame not a repentant sinner; remember, we all are guilty.

Insult no man when he is old, for some of us, too, will grow old.

Rejoice not when a man dies; remember, we are all to die.

Spurn not the discourse of the wise, but acquaint yourself with their proverbs; From them you will acquire the training to serve in the presence of princes.

Reject not the tradition of old men which they have learned from their fathers; From it you will obtain the knowledge how to answer in time of need.

Kindle not the coals of a sinner, lest you be consumed in his flaming fire.

Let not the impious man intimidate you; it will set him in ambush against you.

Sirach 8:5-11

And you especially can’t divide people if they forgive:

Then Peter approaching asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.

Matthew 18:21-22

For forgiveness is what checks hate and division and once you have forgiveness, once you seek 1st the kingdom of God then ends and means goes out the window. And you can find no better description of the tactics of the left than the parable that followed that passage:

That is why the kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who decided to settle accounts with his servants. When he began the accounting, a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount. Since he had no way of paying it back, his master ordered him to be sold, along with his wife, his children, and all his property, in payment of the debt.

At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’ Moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go and forgave him the loan.

When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount. 22 He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, ‘Pay back what you owe.’ Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’

But he refused. Instead, he had him put in prison until he paid back the debt.

Matthew 18:23-30

This is the left all over. Begging for tolerance when they are weak and wreaking vengeance when they are strong but it That is what the left is, that is what the left always will be and that is why they must be fought while we still can. Our willingness to stand up and having courage to fight against this will be our second greatest test.

It, like the parable started above will end bad for them.

Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened, they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master and reported the whole affair.

His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?’

Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt.

So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart.”

Matthew 18:31-35

And it it does end bad for them, either by our courage to fight it now or by the courage of our our children and grandchildren who will throw off their yoke, our greatest test will be to forgive them after we prevail.

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