Archive for the ‘elections’ Category

In defense of “pink slime” newspapers

Posted: September 25, 2022 by John Ruberry in crime, elections, media, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

The latest media controversy in Illinois is the mailing of what the liberals call “pink slime” newspapers. The term was invented a decade ago by Ryan Zickgraf, a Washington Post reporter, to describe newspapers that aren’t “real,” such as the copy of North Cook News which was mailed to my home last week. On the other hand, as you can see in the photo, the North Cook News is printed on paper and it contains, get this concept, news. North Cook News, and similarly named publications (yes, I said it), is published by Local Government Information Services, which is run by Dan Proft, a conservative activist and former Illinois gubernatorial candidate, who is a co-host of a morning talk radio show on WIND-AM Chicago, part of the Salem News Network.

Proft is also the chair of the People Who Play By The Rules PAC, which has run a series of commercials, including “The Scream,” that have drawn much-needed attention to the SAFE-T Act. Among other things, the law eliminates cash bail in Illinois. Riding off of the emotion after the murder of George Floyd, the voluminous SAFE-T Act passed the Illinois state Senate at 5am on the last day of the lame duck session of the General Assembly early in 2021. It passed the state House that same day. Illinois’ Democratic governor, J.B. Pritzker, signed it into law a month later. Sensing trouble, Dem legislators, or whoever wrote the law, pushed the date that the SAFE-T Act takes effect until January 1, 2023, nearly two months after the 2022 general election. 

Not a single Republican voted for the SAFE-T Act.

As I noted in my Da Tech Guy post last week, in a discussion about the SAFE-T Act, Will County State’s Attorney, James Glasgow, a Democrat, told Fox Chicago’s Mike Flannery on his Flannery Fired Up show, “There are forcible felonies that are not detainable: burglary, robbery, arson, kidnapping, second degree murder, intimidation, aggravated battery, aggravated DUI, [and] drug offenses.” Not detainable means they’ll be set free until their trial date. 

Crime, particularly in the Chicago area, has skyrocketed since 2019. Blame is being given to Cook County’s catch-and-release state’s attorney, Kim Foxx and the anti-police policies of Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot. The mayor was sworn into office in 2019, as was Pritzker. Foxx supports the SAFE-T Act, while all but one of the other 101 county prosecutors oppose it.  

The mayhem of Chicago and Cook County will spread statewide. And the Chicago area will suffer even more because of the SAFE-T Act. 

People Who Play By The Rules PAC television ads and the Proft “pink slime” newspapers must be working. Pritzker and Illinois’ attorney general, Kwame Raoul, say they are open to amendments to the SAFE-T Act–but they don’t offer details. My guess is that the Democrats are panicking. I have no sympathy for them, they’ve had nearly two years to make major changes to the SAFE-T Act.

Meanwhile, Pritzker, a billionaire, is pushing back. He cancelled an appearance at a forum with his Republican opponent, Darren Bailey, sponsored by the Daily Herald newspaper. That paper is published by Paddock Publications, which printed Proft’s Local Government Information Services newspapers; LGIS used Paddock’s bulk-mailing permit to distribute them. That infuriated Pritzker. The governor’s campaign manager, among other things, called Proft’s papers, “fake and misleading and newspaper-style mailers.” Tellingly, the Pritzker camp doesn’t specifically attack the content of Proft’s papers. They are committing the ad hominem fallacy. Paddock, in a statement, announced that it cancelled future printings of LGIS papers. The forum is back on.

The headline of my North Cook News is “Former Chicago chief of detectives: Violent offenders given ‘get out of jail free card.'” That’s true.

Not only have Pritzker and the Democrats, who thanks to gerrymandering enjoy supermajorities in both chambers of the General Assembly, been negligent in fixing the SAFE-T Act debacle, so has the local media. With occasional exceptions, the newsrooms of Illinois’ major newspapers are woke echo chambers. They still claim to be the watchdogs for the public, but these so-called journalists are mostly interested in protecting and advancing leftist narratives. Contemporary reporters are a toxic combination of “the cool kids” in high school, with all of their arrogance, and the false ethical superiority of Iran’s morality police. Community newspapers usually only report on petty crime, but if you need to locate the nearest bake sale, well, you know where to find that information. These weekly papers are in fact weakly ones.

If the Illinois media performed their jobs honestly and capably, there’d be no need for “pink slime.”

Fact-checkers have been unkind to opposition arguments to the SAFE-T Act. The worst of these fact-checks comes from Jeff Cercone at PolitiFact. He deemed such opposition as “false.” Politi-Farce, that is Dan Bongino’s nickname for them, is partially funded by Facebook; the social media giant has used Cercone’s fact-check to blur out a video pointing out the flaws in the SAFE-T Act. Interestingly, Cercone’s Tweets are protected on Twitter. Is he afraid of his readers? I’m not. You can find me on Twitter. Come and get me, I’m not a coward!

Who did Cercone seek out as experts in his fact-check? Cops? No. Prosecutors? Nope. County sheriffs? Uh-uh. He called on Pritzker’s press secretary, Jordan Abudayyeh, and two criminology professors. Oh sure, he included links to articles with opposing opinions. As for Cercone’s experts, I don’t believe their defenses of the SAFE-T Act.

Instead, Cercone should have reached out to John Curran, a suburban Chicago Republican state senator who is a former Cook County assistant Cook County state’s attorney. That, my friends, is what I call an expert.

“You cannot take deterrence out of the system,’ Curran told John Kass last week in the former Chicago Tribune’s columnist’s Chicago Way podcast, “They’ve been doing that for years, the SAFE-T Act is the final straw. Crime is rampant because people don’t fear getting caught. They [the criminals] don’t stop, the police can’t pursue anymore because of insurance issues, coverage issues, and safety issues. They run and then when they do get caught–they know they are going to get processed, booked, and be back out that day. When there is no fear of accountability in the system, what is going to stop someone who sees something and says, ‘I want to take that?'”

Keep in mind, Curran is talking about the current status quo–before the SAFE-T Act kicks in. When that law goes live, Curran warns, what he described will “put that in place permanently.” Only worse, I’d like to add.

For flight risks, apologists for the SAFE-T Act claim, accused criminals can be detained. “The problem with that,” Curran pointed out to Kass, “is to show that someone is a willful flight risk the prosecutor has to prove that they are planning or attempting to intentionally to evade prosecution by concealing oneself. That is never going to happen,” adding, “You literally have to catch them with the plane ticket in their pocket going to the airport.”

So called fact-checker Cercone needs to listen to that Chicago Way podcast with an open mind.

As I mentioned earlier the SAFE-T Act, which is 764 pages long, passed on the last day of the 101st General Assembly. Curran said he was given one hour to read it.

Social media regularly blocks or suppresses stories that the “enlightened ones” deem false. Most notably is the New York Post’s initial report on the information found on the Hunter Biden laptop, which has since been found to be as genuine as today’s sunrise. On a personal note, I’ve been repeatedly warned by Facebook that my blog entries that I’ve posted on Facebook will be pushed lower into the general FB feed, meaning of course that fewer people will see my posts, because my writings have been labeled “false and misleading.” I am fairly certain I am “shadowbanned” by Twitter. I used to oppose setting up alternative social media platforms for conservatives–it’s best that the libs see the truth, was my reasoning.

Only they don’t see it.

Twitter and Facebook used to suspend accounts of users who claimed that COVID-19 was manufactured in a Chinese laboratory. That story, still not debunked, may end up being authenticated. There are numerous similar tales

What to do?

Well, as a resort, to get an alternative message out, conservatives can mail out “pink slime” newspapers. As a last resort there is always the Howard Beale approach. You can open the window and scream, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna to take it anymore!”

Proft is undaunted. In a statement he fired back at the billionaire, “Governor Pritzker believes his money guarantees him control of government and entitles him to make all media subservient to his government. He lords over Illinois through executive orders. He sees the Fourth Estate as no different than his equestrian estate in Wellington, FL. If he doesn’t like a television ad, it must be taken off the air. If he doesn’t like a newspaper, it must not be printed or circulated.”

Oh yeah, television. Two Chicago TV stations pulled a People Who Play By The Rules PAC ad featuring a Pritzker critic, which the governor says is “false and defamatory.”

In that same statement, Proft vowed that his papers “will continue to be printed and distributed even if we have to return to the Gutenberg press and must enlist fair-minded people across Illinois who want the truth, not Pritzker’s ‘truth,’ to hand deliver them door-to-door.”

John Ruberry regularly blogs from suburban Cook County at Marathon Pundit.

Under the Fedora: Dangerous Pillow Makers, Trusted Russians Manufacturers, Less Lucky Russians, Metal Detectors and Don Bolduc

Posted: September 14, 2022 by datechguy in business, elections, internet/free speech, News/opinion, opinion/news
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The FBI decided to go after that well known dangerous fellow Mike Lindell the pillow maker at a Hardee’s Drive-Thru.

Well I suppose he is dangerous to the Biden Administration in the sense that despite the loss of millions in business by places like Bed Bath and Beyond (now folding like a cheap suit) ridicule and attacks he steadfastly refuses to compromise on his opinion (which I share) that the last election was stolen and continues to produce evidence to support said claim.

That’s the thing about devout Christians, they have an affinity to the truth and they tend to not abandon it even when the emperor siccs their lions on them.

However there are apparently some things that the FBI totally approves of: Headline:

Wait — the Steele Dossier’s discredited source became a paid FBI informant?

Ed Morrissey being an honest and honorable man is flabbergasted:

There must be an explanation for this plot twist, which appears to have come right out of a James Bond film. Maybe Casino Royale … the David Niven version, not the straightforward Daniel Craig reboot. According to a court filing from John Durham, the FBI turned Steele dossier source Igor Danchenko into a paid informant.

Well after all he was willing to spread falsehood in order to aid and abet the left’s political ambitions. If that’s not worth a paycheck to the FBI I’d like to know what is?

Prediction: In my lifetime we will see FBI agents and bureaucrats who are taking part in and/or enabling the Biden Administrations efforts to intimidate their political foes & the citizens who support said foes will be sitting in a witness chair arguing:

I was only following orders!

Rather disgusting.

While that Russian apparently did OK a lot of Russians are not doing so well in Ukraine as a counter offensive seems to be gaining ground to the point where some are wondering if they should push into Russia proper and risk overextending their lines of supply.

For the record assuming these reports are correct I’d go deep enough to neutralize logistic centers that the Russians would need for any counteroffensive

In theory the Russians have the power to bring and use overwhelming force if they so choose (although it would take time to raise an deploy said force) against Ukraine, what the real question is, do they have the will?

And the bigger question is this. If this results in the fall of Putin, what replaces him?

Yesterday when I got to the warehouse where I work I was surprised to see metal detectors had been installed and that we from now on we will have to pass through them to enter.

I asked the chief of security who was there for the first day of them why, he said the company’s new owners decided on it. He suggested that given what’s been going on in the country it’s better to get ahead of such things.

Well considering that the new owners have stores and such in blue states and cities that have seen first hand what Democrat rule does and that I work in a deep blue state that is likely to replace a moderate Nevertrump republican with a radical democrat and put a DA who will do their best to turn Massachusetts into California in charge I’d say it might be prudent to be prepared for what is going to come.

Finally General Don Bolduc has won the GOP primary in NH to challenge Maggie Hassan for the US senate:

I interviewed General Bolduc at the Carenet dinner in NH last year it’s available both on Youtube

and Rumble

https://rumble.com/v1d5nqu-general-don-bolduc-nh-us-senate-candidate-interview.html

I really think this election in NH will determine if that state can be saved. If Hassan can win in this environment over a vet who has served in combat than any Massachusetts conservative who wants out of the state before it becomes California had better head to Montana, Wyoming or somewhere south, heat and bugs be damned.

Given his outspoken support for President Trump I’m sure he can expect an FBI raid any day now.

Under the Fedora: The Left’s Sweat is Showing, Jackson MS isn’t North Korea Either, No Vaccine Troubles to See Here, A Rumbling Glacier and Baseball rule thoughts.

Posted: September 13, 2022 by datechguy in baseball, election 2020, elections, News/opinion, opinion/news, tech, under the fedora
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A bit back I suggested the reason why the Biden Admin is so willing to shatter norms is they are terrified of a Trump AG going all in for an investigation of what they’ve been up to.

The move on Trump Associates and Tucker is the first clincher on that kind of thing to me.

If I’m right, and my gut says I am, that means DeSantis will be unacceptable to them too because he will be doing the same thing.

That’s why you’re seeing the “Voting GOP means civil war” stuff. They know they’ve crossed a line and now they’ve scared.

They should be

I thought this story should have gotten a lot more attention.

However, following President Joe Biden’s emergency declaration, the Army Corps of Engineers and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) arrived on the scene, and within 24 hours, the city’s water crisis was fixed.

The EPA and Army Corps showed up and fixed the “issue” quickly and easily. Social media users have begun to speculate why Mary D. Carter, the Deputy Director of Water Operations for the past 8 years, could not fix the “problem” herself.

Of course getting the water flowing is one thing, making it drinkable is another. This is what happens when you use a public office as a source of graft rather than a public trust and that’s what the Democrat mayors of Jackson have apparently done for decades

Speaking of topics the media left wish would just go away:

More than 55 percent of children ranging in age between 6 months and 2 years had a “systemic reaction” after their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Sept. 1.

In addition, almost 60 percent had a reaction to the second dose of the Moderna vaccine, in the CDC survey of more than 13,000 children.

For some reason nobody seems to be reporting on this story, or this one:

According to a report in theblaze.com, the National Institute of Health (NIH) deleted certain sequences of coronavirus data from the agency’s Sequence Read Archive. This was allegedly done early in the pandemic, at the request of Chinese researchers. Doctor Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, published a study in June of 2021 that identified the missing sequences and recovered the files from the Google Cloud, from which he performed an analysis to learn more about the origins of the virus.

As the side effects become more apparent over the years you’ll continue to see the media pivot concerning the vaccine and I guarantee you by June 2024 it will be known as the “Trump vaccine” in every media outlet.

Of course if the election hadn’t been stolen all this would be front page today.

It’s been a while since I opened my Rumble account and told all of you that once all my youtube files were migrated I might start podcasting again.

Rumble warms you that it can take weeks, apparently that’s a pretty broad term because nothing moved over for weeks although all my stuff over two years old is listed as pending.

I’d be more upset except I suspect so many people are making such a move worldwide that such a time frame is inevitable.

I suspect Google/Youtube isn’t all that worried right now. As I recall neither was AOL or IE.

Finally a some quick thoughts on Baseball rule changes:

  1. If the new stay off the grass rule was in effect during Ernie Lombardi’s Time he would have hit .400 because he was so slow infielder would play there to field balls from him. He still was a regular .300 hitter.
  2. If modern players learned how to bunt there would be no need for this rule as guys would be dropping bunt singles left and right off these shifts.
  3. Since the distance from the home to 1st and 3rd has not changed I suspect that the larger bases while encouraging stealing will be more of an advantage to the defense at 1st since the first baseman can now be closer to the throw and a thrown ball is faster than a running man.
  4. I don’t know if the modified pickoff throw rule includes 3rd if it does as a manager I’d encourage runners to try to draw throws to 3rd then send my guy on 3rd as far down the line as I can to distract a pitcher.
  5. Frankly if they really want to speed up games put the mound back where it was in 1968 and let the pitchers get people out quicker. Problem solved.

Democrats are the vote-buying party

Posted: September 4, 2022 by John Ruberry in elections, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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Willie Wilson billboard in 2016 on Chicago’s West Side

By John Ruberry

“Since the 1930s the technique of buying votes with the voters’ own money has been expanded to an extent undreamed of by earlier politicians.” Milton Friedman.

“But it can also be said that the social largesse of the boss system, the food, coal, clothing, and jobs provided for the needy, was there when it counted–with no delay and no paperwork–for those loyal to the system.” David McCullough, at the opening of the PBS American Experience documentary, “The Last Boss.”

Democratic politics has gone from handing out free stuff, ploys used by machine politicians including James M. Curley of Boston and Richard J. Daley of Chicago, to handing out free stuff again. In between, the social programs created Franklin D. Roosevelt, proved to be a better and more popular distributor of goodies. Daley, unlike most of the other big city bosses, adopted to the times a bit; he was able to siphon a generous chunk of the funds from Lyndon B. Johnson’s Model Cities boondoggle, for instance. 

Last month President Joe Biden, like a Democratic boss of old, in a legally tenuous move, announced that he would forgive $10,000 to $20,000 in student loan debt. That debt of course won’t disappear, federal taxpayers will get stuck with the tab.

You’ve heard about Dr. Jill Biden. The first lady uses that title because she has doctorate in education. Chicago has millionaire businessman Dr. Willie Wilson, who according to ABC Chicago, “is the recipient of a Doctor of Divinity degree from Mt. Carmel Theological Seminary, a Doctor of Humane Letters from Chicago Baptist Institute International, Honorary Doctorate in Humanitarianism from Swisher Bible College and a Doctorate in Humanitarianism from Denver Institute of Urban Studies and Adult College.” I haven’t heard of those schools either.

Wilson is a political gadfly. He has run for mayor of Chicago three times, including his current attempt at the office, as well as for US senator and president. But he is best known as a man who gives away stuff, through his foundation, of groceries, PPE masks, groceries, and gasoline. The local media falls for his ploy–and to be fair, they have been placed in a trap, as their audience likes freebies. Who doesn’t?

Oh, Wilson favors slavery reparations.

Laura Washington, a far-left columnist for the Chicago Tribune, rightly condemned the “Willie Wilsonization of politics” in a column ironically published two days before Biden announced his student loan debt forgiveness plan. And she didn’t stop with Wilson. First up was Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

From that Trib column, paid registration may by required:

Thanks to an “avalanche” of federal stimulus funds, Lightfoot is “running for reelection armed with a seemingly bottomless gift bag of giveaways that includes everything from gas cards, Ventra cards, bicycles, locks and helmets to more than $1,000-per-household in rebates to defray the cost of security cameras, outdoor motion sensor lighting, cloud storage and GPS trackers to hunt down vehicles in the event of an auto theft or carjacking,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported in June. 

Lightfoot’s “Chicago Moves,” is the city’s $12 million transit response to skyrocketing fuel costs and inflation. It will distribute up to 50,000 prepaid $150 gas cards and 100,000 prepaid $50 transit cards to Chicago residents. 

Earlier this year, Lightfoot pushed through a controversial guaranteed income program for low-income families. The pilot program will provide no-strings-attached $500 payments to 5,000 Chicago families per month for a year. The recipients were chosen through a lottery system.

For months, Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who is running for reelection in the Nov. 8 election, has ballyhooed a $1.8 billion tax relief plan in his campaign ads. It provides short-term tax reductions and freezes on purchases of gas, groceries and school supplies.

Pritzker’s “tax cuts” are quite dishonest. His gasoline tax reduction only delays a mandated tax hike–Illinoisans pay the second-highest gas taxes in the nation–until, how convenient, after Election Day. Gas station owners are required to post signs touting Pritzker’s tax “cut.” Those who refuse face a $500-a-day fine. The grocery tax “cut,” which also comes with a requirement that grocers post signage about it, although non-compliant grocers don’t face face a fine for refusing to obey. Next year, when presumably Pritzker has been sworn in for a second term, the grocery taxes return.

Because of unfunded public worker pension debt, both Chicago and Illinois face enormous fiscal challenges. In regards to those pensions, Lightfoot and Pritzker are doing what their predecessors have done worst–kicking the can down the road.

Amazingly, Pritzker is considering a presidential run. His chances of winning are dismal, I offer the reasons why here. But if Pritzker somehow succeeds in 2024, imagine all of the vote-buying possibilities for him! He already has the physique of Santa Claus. On the other hand, Christmas comes just once a year. The federal government is with us every day.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

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