Archive for the ‘opinion/news’ Category

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.

The mainstream media was wrong about Bud Light: Boycotts work

Posted: May 28, 2023 by John Ruberry in business, culture, media, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

We’re approaching the two-month mark of the Bud Light boycott, which of course began when transgender social media, utilizing his–yes his–goofy 1950s-sitcom ditz schtick to recklessly promote Bud Light beer. 

Immediately, I was confident that this boycott had staying power, despite the increasingly irrelevant mainstream media telling its dwindling audience it did not. As Da Tech Guy himself explained, Anheuser-Busch’s problem is that Bud Light is too easy to boycott. Coors Light, Miller Lite, which taste similar–assuming that light beers have a distinguishable taste–are usually available in the same liquor stores, supermarkets, bars, and restaurants. And they are all priced about the same. 

American megabrewers are selling image and personality. Beer? Not so much. And in a few days, Bud Light, after partnering with Mulvaney, torched its macho brand-building work of four decades in just a few days. “Fratty” is the word used by the now-on-leave marketing head for Bud Light, Alissa Heinerscheid. Anheuser-Busch’s non-apology from its CEO only fanned the flames. 

Bud Light’s slogan is, “Easy to drink, easy to enjoy.” And it’s easy to boycott.

I have to reach back to Monty Python’s Flying Circus to find a worse marketing campaign. 

Boss (John Cleese character): Now, let’s have a look at the sales chart (indicates a plummeting sales graph). When you took over this account, Frog (Eric Idle character), Conquistador was a brand leader. Here you introduced your first campaign, “Conquistador Coffee brings a new meaning to the word vomit.” Here you made your special introductory offer of a free dead dog with every jar, and this followed your second campaign “the tingling fresh coffee which brings you exciting new cholera, mange, dropsy, the clap, hard pad, and athlete’s head. From the House of Conquistador.”

Yeah, I know, Bud Light’s Mulvaney campaign hasn’t been, so far, as awful for Anheuser-Busch as it was for the fictional Monty Python coffee brand. But sales of the beer continue to slide. Last week, by way of a $15 mail-in rebate, A-B started giving the beer away, because, unlike wine and hard liquor, beer has a brief shelf-life. 

So, yes, boycotts can be effective. 

But we were told by the mainstream media that boycotts don’t work.

Here a few examples of that wrongness:

Six weeks ago, ABC News’ Max Zahn and Kiara Alfonseca cautioned us about boycotts, “However, the campaigns rarely succeed in hurting a company’s sales or influencing its decision making.”

Around that same time, Patrick Coffee (no relation to Python’s Conquistador Coffee) of the Wall Street Journal, while citing other experts, opined that about the Bud Light boycott that “such campaigns often have failed to deliver a meaningful blow.” (Paid subscription might be required to access the link.)

Citing “research,” and of course falling back on “experts,” Becky Sullivan of NPR warned us “that other social media-fueled boycotts were short-lived.”

So where are the finger-waving fact-checkers? Why haven’t these articles been revised?

Meanwhile, Target is facing a boycott over its prominent promotions of “tuck-friendly,” that is, male-genitilia-hiding, swimsuits, as well as arguably promoting the trans agenda to children. It has lost $10 billion in market valuation since a boycott began against Target. 

Such a move is now called “Bud Lighting.”

This won’t be the last time that I say, when you get woke you go broke.

And it won’t be the last time I point out instances where the mainstream media was wrong.

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.

Covid Shot Committed: An Army of Ernst Jannings

Posted: May 2, 2023 by datechguy in culture, opinion/news
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I call these people “shot-committed”, a play on “pot-committed” in poker — a situation where you have too much money in the pot to fold, even if you know you’re behind.

Simulation Commander in comments:

I read this piece On Friendship With Self Righteous Cowards concerning those who still three years will not only not admit they were wrong about the COVID shots but still look down upon those who were right.

The piece was very good but the comments were where the action was to wit (all spelling retained):

Its sad. My pulmonary doctor brother in law has never reached out, Apologized or acknowledged anything…even after they required/demanded myself and my unvaxxed family take tests prior to our gathering for Christmas only for they themselves to all come down ill with covid that following February after their 3 plus shots. I honestly I dont ignore them…we pretend nothing happened but they are sort of dead to me now in a general sense…I feel nothing for them…ambivalent at best if only for the sake of my in laws and keeping the peace. They want us to visit but I can not bring myself to bother …plus it’s San Fran which is not real inviting either. They were willing to make our ailing in laws be alone for every holiday and then insisted on making us feel like dirty disease spreaders even when science and common sense contradicted this plainly and that in my opinion became clear very early on..my family had covid in early 2021 prior to vax so our risk of spread was at par with vaxxed. They are both doctors as well….and my brother in law even pushed us to vax our healthy 16 year old who had already had covid. I can’t. They were supposed to be smart but I lost all respect for doctors and the medical community after this. I am a CPA and could follow the freaking logic better than them….totally blind to their own politically driven group think. Yeah I can’t really go back…the emperor has no clothes. (Reference to a childhood fairy-tale)

I’m reminded of the hoops that my wife had to jump through including at one point getting a job in another state turning a 15 min drive to work to a 45 minute drive over her request for a religious exemption before she was able to find a place that accepted her religious exemption just before a deadline that not only required the shot but required all boosters if you got the shot.

It reminded me of this commentator:

My un-jabbed son was banished from his NYC office in Dec 2021 by government decree because he was un-jabbed. He was exiled to New Jersey. When the jab mandate was lifted, his NYC office asked when he would return. He said “never” because he found NJ to be a better place to work – no mandate and a new group of co-workers who didn’t recoil when he entered a room. Walking away can be the best choice in matters of principle.

We were lucky in one sense, neither me nor my retired brothers, nor my sons got the shot. My wife and oldest son got religious exemptions and my youngest and I both worked places where it was not required. This created a social circle, furthermore while at my church the people I shared daily mass people were a mix of vaccinated and unvaccinated the judgement that others faced it not surface.

But for others the denial is strong to wit:

Had this text exchange with friends last week. Context was RFJ Jr. being correct on Covid shots.

Friend: 10X more people would have died without the shots. Vaccines are the new modern science.

Me: Who here got the shot and still caught Covid?

Friend 2: Vax is not preventative. Purpose is to mitigate symptoms.

Friend: Shorten illness and contagion so less are exposed (with a link to Harvard article).

Friend: But anti-vaxxers only care about themselves not humanity.

Me (feeling like I was in a 2021 time warp): Remind me why we had vax mandates. It was to prevent us from killing Grandma. Fauci told us if we got the shot we would not catch it and not spread it.

Friend: False.

Me: Why did we have mandates then?

Friend: We did not have mandates.

Of course, he made the shot mandatory for his employees.

I was incredulous that after everyone in the group caught Covid, they still felt this way about the shot, including the fellow R in the group (Friend 2).

The real question to many is: Why don’t they just take the “L” and move on? I think Ruth :

I haven’t gotten an apology or even an ACKNOWLEDGMENT that the shots didn’t work. They still say it prevented you from having a bad case and dying🙄. I think it’s PRIDE. people cannot admit they were wrong because then they would have to face the fact the government (which they all trust) lied to them. And that would open up a entire can of worms that they cannot deal with. That’s a biggy, my government lies!😳

And the woman who replied to her

Yes, and admitting the government lied to you whilst simultaneously holding a worldview where total government control will bring about equity and utopia means letting go of said worldview = total psychic collapse. So you see, you’ll be waiting a long time for an apology.

have it down pat.

It’s like being in Germany after the war we’re all living in a revival of Judgement at Nuremburg:

Mrs. Bertholt: I saw Mr. Perkins today. He told me they’d showed those pictures in the courtroom. Col. Lawson’s favorite pictures. He drags them out at any pretext, doesn’t he? Col. Lawson’s private chamber of horrors. Is that what you think we are? Do you think we knew of those things? Do you think we wanted to murder women and children? Do you believe that? Do you?

Judge Dan Haywood: Mrs. Bertholt, I don’t know what to believe.

Mrs. Bertholt: Good God. We’re sitting here drinking. How could you think that we knew? We did not know. We did not know!

Judge Dan Haywood: As far as I can make out, no one in this country knew.

The moment they admit they were wrong is the moment they have to accept responsibility and see themselves in the light of truth. I’ll close with the closing exchange from Judgement at Nuremburg:

Ernst Janning: Judge Haywood… the reason I asked you to come: Those people, those millions of people… I never knew it would come to that. You *must* believe it, *You must* believe it!

Judge Dan Haywood: Herr Janning, it “came to that” the *first time* you sentenced a man to death you *knew* to be innocent.

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