Archive for the ‘News/opinion’ Category

Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson makes $10 million “growing pains” error with e-signature blunder

Posted: June 18, 2023 by John Ruberry in crime, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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Johnson in photo.

By John Ruberry

If I screw up at work, to the tune of $1,000 or so, I’ll get hollered at by my boss. 

And an error of mine that costs my employer $10,000 will see me filing for unemployment benefits the next morning. 

Chicago’s newly sworn-in mayor, Brandon Johnson, just made a $10 million whopper of a mistake. 

ShotSpotter, which this year changed its name to SoundThnking, is a firm that sells gunfire-detection software, has few friends in Chicago. It is blamed, wrongly in my opinion, for setting up the chain events that led to the death of 13-year-old reputed gang member Adam Toledo in a police shooting. A Northwestern University study found that 86 percent of Chicago police deployments initiated by ShotSpotter alerts led to “dead-end deployments.”

During this year’s mayoral campaign, Johnson vowed to cancel Chicago’s contract with SoundThinking. But earlier this month, a contract with his e-signature approved a $10,184,900 payment to SoundThinking, covering a contract extension approved by his predecessor, Lori Lightfoot, last autumn.

The mayor’s senior advisor, Jason Lee, says Johnson’s e-signature was mistakenly attached to the document authorizing the hefty payment. Of the contract carelessness, Lee said, “That’s not the procedure that we will have moving forward, but that’s what was done.” 

The SoundThinking snafu was a two-day story last week in Chicago. Kudos to the Chicago Sun-Times for breaking the story but had Johnson’s moderate opponent in April’s runoff election, Paul Vallas, made a similar mistake, we’d still be hearing about the $10 million e-signature debacle. And of course, the national media, which is a phalanx of the far-left, is completely ignoring this story. 

Hunter Clauss, who writes the Rundown, a popular political newsletter on behalf of Chicago’s NPR affiliate, dismissed the $10 million blunder as nothing but “growing pains” for the Johnson administration.

Chicago, because of its massive unfunded public worker pension debt, is essentially bankrupt. Its former cash cow, the North Michigan Avenue retail strip, suffered another departure last week when AT&T announced it was closing its local flagship shop there. Macy’s, Disney, Banana Republic, Verizon, and the Gap have shut down their North Michigan Avenue locations since 2020. The retail strip, also known as the Magnificent Mile, was hit by two rounds of rampant looting and rioting three years ago.

Chicago cannot afford $10 million “growing pains” errors. Don’t forget, ShotSpotter has not served Chicago well as a crime fighting tool.

Prior to his election, Johnson was a Cook County commissioner while also serving as a paid organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union. He was a Chicago Public Schools teacher before being hired by his union. 

Vallas was the former CEO of Chicago Public Schools. He was in charge of three other school systems. 

Prior to becoming mayor, Johnson was in charge of nothing of importance. Well, he does own a large home on Chicago’s West Side. But Johnson owed over $3,000 in unpaid water bills and fines until he paid up shortly before he was elected this spring. He also recently owed over $1,000 in traffic tickets.

As Barack Obama famously said many years ago, “Elections have consequences.”

John Ruberry regularly blogs five miles north of Chicago at Marathon Pundit.

Disney’s Fahrenheit 2023

Posted: June 11, 2023 by John Ruberry in business, entertainment, media, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

Ray Bradbury in a way predicted Disney’s latest outrageous move.

Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, published in 1953, is a dystopian novel that is overshadowed by two other great 20th century works about an unpleasant future, Brave New World and 1984. Fahrenheit 451’s lead character is Guy Montag, a fireman, only in Bradbury’s world, buildings are fireproof; Montag and other firemen are dispatched to homes to burn books. Nearly of them. Only comic books are permitted in that unhappy future. 

Michiko Kakutani, in a New York Times career appraisal written on the day after Bradbury’s death in 2012, remarked that Fahrenheit 451 “is at once a parable about McCarthyism and Stalinism, and a kind of fable about the perils of political correctness and the dangers of television and other technology.” Yep, Kakutani said “political correctness,” the term for “woke” from that not-too-distant time.  In a 1994 interview Bradbury, in very blunt language even for the 1990s, attacked that PC culture while discussing Fahrenheit 451. “Political correctness is the real enemy these days,” he said. “The black groups want to control our thinking and you can’t say certain things. The homosexual groups don’t want you to criticize them. It’s thought control and freedom of speech control.”

In a memorable passage from Fahrenheit 451, Montag’s boss explained–without government involvement mind you–how books became toxic. 

The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! All the minor minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. But the public, knowing what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic books survive. And the three-dimensional sex-magazines, of course. There you have it, Montag. It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals. 

Last week, Hollwood Elsewhere noticed the omission of the “N-word” from the Gene Hackman classic police thriller The French Connection from the Criterion Channel streaming service. The use of the racial slur helps define Hackman’s character, Popeye Doyle, as a great cop but a flawed man. 

Not as controversially, Doyle regularly refers to two French criminals as “Frog 1” and “Frog 2.” Those ethnic putdowns remain in the film. So does the iconic scene of Hackman gunning down Frog 2 on a set of stairs. For now, at least. 

It’s widely believed that Disney, which owns the rights to The French Connection, is behind the stealth editing. To use Bradbury’s words, “It didn’t come from the Government down.”

Disney of course has gone full-blown woke in recent years, the outrage prior to this one, from last month, involved a mustachioed man wearing a dress and eye shadow, a fairy godmother’s apprentice named Nick, greeting guests, including children, at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique at Disneyland. Before that, Disney’s prior woke atrocity there was an anti-white people song performed in the Disney+ children’s series, The Proud Family.

Disney’s theme parks are supposed to be “the happiest place on earth.” That’s it? Humans are only about happiness?

Back to Bradbury and Fahrenheit 451:

You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can’t have our minorities upset and stirred. Ask yourself, what do we want in this country, above all? People want to be happy, isn’t that right?

We won’t be happy, I believe, as dumbed down dolts.

The entertainment industry, a fortress of the left, constantly reminds us, especially during award ceremonies, that they are the vanguard for free expression. Sure, a censoring of the “N” word doesn’t seem like a noble hill to die on but remember the dystopian world of Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. The slippery slope began in order to placate a few people who were offended.

Why stop with the “N” word? What about the French Connection’s Frog 1 and Frog 2? Smoking in movies? And what Donald Trump’s cameo in Home Alone 2?

Viewers might get triggered.

Don’t laugh about that Trump scene. The star of Home Alone 2, Macaulay Culkin. wants the Trump bit cut. And he’s not alone.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Let’s go Brandon: a violent start to Brandon Johnson’s Chicago mayoralty

Posted: June 4, 2023 by John Ruberry in crime, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

By all accounts, crime was the biggest issue in this year’s Chicago mayoral election. Voters in America’s third-largest city had a choice between two Democrats in the runoff matchup in April, Paul Vallas, a moderate who ran on a law-and-order agenda, and Brandon Johnson, who until late last year was a defund-the-police advocate.

Johnson won and he was sworn in as Chicago’s 57th mayor on May 15. 

But his brief time as mayor-elect was rough. While Johnson of course denounced a late April downtown flash-mob riot, he did so with a caveat, declaring that the riotous thugs “shouldn’t be demonized,” even though they acted demonically. A few days later outside Illinois’ state capitol building, Johnson doubled down on his naivete, explaining his feelings about the rioters, “They’re young. Sometimes they make silly decisions.”

A big test for any Chicago mayor is Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of summer is also traditionally when violence ramps up. 

One new wrinkle for this year’s holiday weekend was implementation of yellow-vested “peacekeepers” to control the mayhem, including 30 funded by the state. While I don’t believe Johnson dispatched any of his own peacekeepers, he’s on board with the concept. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it, Johnson’s not even been mayor for a month, but if Memorial Day weekend’s crime fighting results are any indication, Chicago is in for a tough four years.

The last weekend in May was Chicago’s most violent Memorial Day weekend since 2016–eleven people were shot to death, 42 others were wounded, and one woman was beaten to death. Let’s take a closer look at that last one. The deceased was brutally and fatally beaten with a baseball bat two blocks from Johnson’s West Side home–the alleged murderer lives across the street from the mayor.

The beating victim and nine of the eleven weekend shooting victims were killed last Saturday. Only Hey Jackass Chicago among the local media noticed that it was one of the few double-digit murder days in the last decade the city has suffered. 

Now, back to the yellow-donned peacekeepers. The concept is ripe for a parody. For instance, on my own blog, I noted that Leslie Barbara, one of the less imposing cadets of the motley class in “Police Academy,” was wearing a yellow blazer when he was tossed by hooligans into a river from a bridge–along with his photo kiosk. The aforementioned Hey Jackass Chicago is selling official peacekeeper T-shirts on the “Buy Crap” section of its website.

One of those real peacekeepers, whom a veteran of the Obama administration hilariously defended as someone who “mishandled the stress” of being a peacekeeper, was arrested after allegedly beating and robbing a man. The accused, an ex-con who was on parole, was allegedly in the process of removing his yellow peacekeeper vest as the cops approached him.

Okay, skeptics may object and tell me that Memorial Day weekend was just one weekend, and a long one at that. What about this weekend?

Well, as of 9am Sunday morning Chicago time, nine people have been shot to death this weekend so far and at least 33 others wounded. Included in those numbers is mass shooting in Johnson’s neighborhood in Austin, where one person was killed and six others were wounded.

Let’s go Brandon!

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

A “local” story that needs to go national: Chicago cop murdered because girlfriend of accused killer needed money for a barbecue

Posted: May 14, 2023 by John Ruberry in crime, culture, local issues, local stuff, media, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics, race card
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By John Ruberry

When does a local crime story become a national one? Outside of a mass shooting, a local crime story becomes a national one when there is a race element. 

On May 1, a deranged homeless man, Jordan Neely, was threatening passengers on a New York subway train. A former marine, Daniel Penny, aided by two other passengers, placed Neely, who by the way had 42 prior arrests, in a chokehold. Penny has since charged with second-degree manslaughter. I’m sure that you know these details: Penny is white, Neely is black.

The mainstream media, to use an old radio term, still has the Neely killing on heavy rotation.

On May 6 a much more troubling homicide occurred on Chicago’s South Side. Aréanah Preston, a Chicago police officer, had just finished her shift. As she exited her car in front of her home, Preston, who was still in uniform, was shot to death. Jakwon Buchanan, 18, two 19-year-olds Trevell Breeland and Joseph Brooks, and a 16-year-old, Jaylen Frazier, have been charged with her murder.

Preston, 24, was to have been awarded her master’s degree from Loyola University on Saturday. 

Here is the headline about the arrest of the alleged murderers from CWB Chicago, 4 people, all with extensive juvenile criminal backgrounds, killed off-duty Chicago cop during armed robbery: prosecutors.

By now you probably know why the murder of Preston is not a national news story. Preston, and the alleged killers, are African American. If the accused murderers were white, reports about this homicide would dominate the news outlets, particularly MSNBC and CNN, who would introduce each segment on the cop killing with a custom graphic and somber music. 

There are additional chilling details about the alleged perpetrators, all of whom are in jail, bail has been denied.

Their crime spree began early on the morning of May 6, according to a Cook County assistant state’s attorney, because the girlfriend of Jakwon Buchanan needed money for a barbecue. That’s right, a barbecue. Buchanan, by the way, has a pending carjacking case in juvenile court. 

First, the four teens, who were dressed in black and wore face masks, stole a Kia Forte, after robbing a woman of her charge cards, her smart phone, and a Louis Vuitton belt. As for the youths’ look and their criminality, think Alex and his “Droogs” from A Clockwork Orange crossed with ninja warriors from a 1980s action film. Next, a 62-year-old woman and her son’s girlfriend were robbed by at least three of the teens of a phone and a Coach purse. Then two of the accused allegedly robbed a man as he was leaving his car.

Then Preston was murdered. Her gun was taken and one of the accused allegedly sold her weapon.

I can describe the four accused killers with two words, ones that the holier-than-thou media has deemed racist: “Career criminals,” despite their youth, and “super-predators.” Remember how CWB Chicago portrayed the four, “all with extensive juvenile criminal backgrounds.” And CWB Chicago, citing a law enforcement source, said of two of the accused, “Brooks and Buchanan ‘are by far in the top 10 for prolific juvenile carjackers over the last two years.'”

Here’s another recent story from CWB Chicago about two different thugs–that’s right, I said it, thugs: Chicago boys charged with 16 armed robberies and carjackings. They’re 15 and 16 years old.

On Monday, Brandon Johnson, a Democrat who is essentially a creation of the far-left Chicago Teachers Union, will be sworn in as mayor of Chicago. Until his mayoral campaign began Johnson was a “defund the police” guy. Among other things, Johnson favors sending social workers, instead of cops, to domestic disturbances. After a riot last month in downtown Chicago, the mayor-elect had this to say about the creeps, “It is not constructive to demonize youth who have otherwise been starved of opportunities in their own communities.”

Sheesh.

If people do demonic things, they can expect to be demonized.

A few days later, Johnson doubled down on those initial remarks about the rioters. “They’re young,” Johnson said. “Sometimes they make silly decisions! They do. So we have to make sure that we are investing to make sure that young people know that they are supported.”

Investing? 

Johnson is a big proponent of summer jobs programs for young people. I don’t believe such employment would cause youths like Buchanan, Frazier, Brooks, and Breeland to alter their destructive life decisions for $15-an-hour make-work jobs.

Chicago is stacked with career criminals and super-predators. My solution to the city’s crisis is simple, aggressively prosecute these lawbreakers and imprison them when they are found guilty. Johnson, Cook County’s so-called prosecutor Kim Foxx, and Cook County Circuit Court chief judge Tim Evans don’t agree with me. They’re “root causes” people. 

Sadly, even though some moms rise to their challenge, there is one root cause the media and left-wing politicians refuse to discuss. Over eighty percent of African American births in Chicago are to single mothers. 

I don’t know what the solution to that problem is. But admitting there is a problem is the first step in confronting it. 

On Wednesday, four days after she was to receive her master’s diploma from Loyola, the funeral for Preston will be held.

John Ruberry regularly blogs five miles north of Chicago at Marathon Pundit.

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