Archive for the ‘opinion/news’ 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.

America’s big cities, the GOP’s next frontier

Posted: November 10, 2024 by John Ruberry in election 2024, elections, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

Last’s week’s convincing victory by Donald J. Trump over Kamala Harris offers a plan for the future of the Republican Party.

Let’s begin with this development. America is in a new political era. The Sixth Party System, which covers the shift of the Democratic Solid South to the Republican Party, is over. While Georgia is still a swing state, the GOP still owns the South. 

The shift of the working class, regardless of race, to the Republican side is in motion. The Seventh Party System is here. The Democrats are now the party of the wealthy metropolitan elites and people collecting public assistance. Good luck trying to create functional policy out of those odd lots. This, as Trump would say, is yuge. Sure, there are some unfriendly ripples in the Red Wave, women favor the Democrats and the tiny blocs with permanent grievances, such as the trans lobby and the Green Luddites, will always favor the left.

In politics the game is never over. Envision the GOP as a football team with a 27-14 lead over the Dems–and Trump, as quarterback, has the ball, with a skilled backup ready when he’s needed in JD Vance.

QB Trump needs to pass the ball into the cities for the long-term victory.

Because I live just outside of Chicago, I’m going to focus on that city, which hasn’t had a Republican mayor since 1931. But the story is similar in other big cities, particularly New York.

Trump collected 12 percent of the vote in Chicago in 2016, he improved to 16 percent four years later. This year he took 22 percent; it was the GOP’s best presidential Chicago performance since 1992. Trump won a Chicago ward, the 41st, and that hasn’t happened since that same year. The now president-elect came close in several other wards, mostly ones where many Chicago police officers and firefighters live, but Trump was also in shouting distance in the 50th Ward, which has many Orthodox Jewish residents. 

Trump made massive gains among Chicago’s Hispanic voters. To be fair, the black vote and the haughty white know-it-all vote on the North Side continued past patterns

Yes, 22 percent in an election is a long way from a majority. But there much room for growth.

Elsewhere, after Election Day some urban leftist pols are now out of a job. They include three woke prosecutors, California’s George Gascón and Pamela Price (who was recalled), and Deborah Gonzalez in Georgia. Two other California leftist mayors are now cleaning out their desks, London Breed lost her reelection race in San Francisco and Oakland’s Sheng Thao was recalled.

Voters nationwide are fed up with leftist public officials and there doesn’t seem to be too many moderate Democrats, particularly in big cities. Chicago’s woke mayor, Brandon Johnson, who was elected in a low turnout election just last year, now has an approval rating of just 14 percent.

The GOP, even in cities like Chicago that have nominally non-partisan elections, needs to start recruiting candidates now for the next few election cycles, not just for municipal races, but for state legislature and congressional contests.

In many cities, such as Chicago, “Republican” is still toxic in many circles. To counter that, conservative candidates can run as an independent. Gascón’s opponent, Nathan Hochman, a Republican, did just that in California.

Never forget, the Democrats are the party many unpopular political positions.

Including:

  • Sanctuary cities and open borders.
  • DEI.
  • Featherbedding government worker payrolls.
  • No-cash bail laws.
  • Lax prosecution of criminals.
  • Defunding the police or cutting the number of law enforcement officers.
  • Transgenderism–including supporting boys playing in girls’ sports.
  • Forcing expensive electric cars on us.
  • Banning natural gas stoves and ovens.
  • Burdensome regulations.
  • Opposing fossil fuels.
  • Red-light and speed cameras.
  • High taxes.
  • Hostility to school choice and private school vouchers.

And so much more.

Yes, party identity is a tough nut to crack, but progress has already been made by the GOP.

Big cities are the rotten apples on the dying Democratic tree.

Conservatives offer a better way. Say it now and say it loud.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Brandon Johnson’s Chicago follies: The board of education disaster

Posted: November 3, 2024 by John Ruberry in education, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

Chicago’s leftist mayor, Brandon Johnson, who is probably a socialist, is on his way to being remembered as one of America’s worst big city mayors.

Among the awful history gives us are New York’s John Lindsay, Cleveland’s Dennis Kucinich, and Detroit’s Coleman Young.

“Branjo” has been mayor for only 18 months. 

In another post at Da Tech Guy, I discussed his propensity to blame any criticism of him on his race–Johnson is black. 

Last month I discussed his Friday Afternoon Massacre. Consider this post a sequel. 

Johnson was a longtime paid organizer for the radical Chicago Teachers Union. And by the way, when someone calls himself an organizer, consider that a code word for left-wing radical.  He was also Cook County Commissioner, a part-time job. Cook County government doesn’t have much power. 

Branjo is an empty suit with an empty head. 

Chicago is broke, thanks to fiscal mismanagement by Richard M. Daley, Chicago is essentially bankrupt. Its municipal pension funds are the worst funded in the nation.

Daley belongs in that worst mayors ever list too.

But the Chicago Teachers Union, Johnson’s former employer and the chief financial backer of his mayoral campaign, wants a big raise for teachers. To pay for that, as well as a looming pension bill for non-teacher CPS employees, Branjo ordered the CEO of CPS, Pedro Martinez, to take out what the media is collectively calling a high interest “payday loan” to pay for both. CPS faces a $500 million dollar deficit while Chicago proper faces a nearly $1 billion deficit. CPS bonds are rated as junk.

Martinez said no to the mayor, and in solidarity with him, the entire school board, all seven of them Johnson appointees, resigned, in short, the Friday Afternoon Massacre.

In Brandon Johnson’s Chicago, things can always get worse.

Johnson quickly replaced the school board with seven new members, who have so far done nothing. Martinez hasn’t been fired and no payday loan has been taken out. In a few weeks, that board will be replaced with a hybrid board, half elected—the election is this week–and half appointed by Johnson. 

Of the soon-to-be former board, two members, including the president of the board, Mitchell Ikenna Johnson (no relation) are an embarrassment. The day after he was sworn in, it was reported that Mitchell was disbarred for life in Ohio for “engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, deceit, fraud, or misrepresentation.” The mayor, who almost certainly lives in a leftist pseudo-intellectual monoculture, should have immediately called for Mitchell Ikenna Johnson’s resignation. He didn’t. Then it was learned that Mitchell was active on social media supporting 9/11 conspiracy theories and promoting anti-Semitic hate. On Friday, Mitchell finally resigned.

Apparently, there is no vetting at Chicago’s City Hall. Competence is absent too.

Another of Branjo’s recent board appointees, Olga Bautista–a socialist–faces accusations of anti-semitism, which led Illinois’ treasurer, Susana Mendoza, a Democrat, to comment on X, “Springfield should intervene. There clearly needs to be Chgo City Council vetting, oversight & consent of these mayoral appointments to the Chgo Public School Board. Antisemites should be automatically disqualified, full stop. As should socialists calling for the fall of the U.S.”

Mendoza, a Democrat, is rumored to be considering a mayoral run in 2027.

Meanwhile, another radical left-winger, Kennedy Bartley, a top Branjo aide who is in charge of lobbying with other public officials, including the City Council, on behalf of the mayor, has called Chicago Police officers “f*cking pigs” and has made anti-Semitic comments on social media. She’s still on the job.

Johnson is rumored to have a police detail of 125-150 officers.

Clearly, being an anti-Semite, or at the very least, anti-Israel, is on the checklist to be included in leftist government employment circles.

And incompetence is on that checklist too.

As I’ve mentioned a few times at DaTechGuy, the warning signs were all there with Brandon Johnson. Chicagoans voted him in anyway.

While Chicago has some able aldermen–Brendan Reilly, Anthony Beale, and Ray Lopez come to mind–there are many leftist losers there too.

But that’s a topic for another time.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Social media influencers add no votes for Kamala Harris

Posted: October 27, 2024 by John Ruberry in culture, election 2024, elections, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics, twitter
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By John Ruberry

There’s a tendency by the left to refer to supporters of Donald J. Trump as a cult.

We’re not.

Oh, before I move on, if you plan to vote for the Trump-Vance ticket and other Republican candidates, do so now. While our side typically likes to vote on Election Day, there’s always that chance you’ll be ill that day, have car problems, a family emergency might arise, or inclement weather might sneak up on you. All of these things can happen tomorrow–however, there’s always the day after.

Except on Election Day.

Mrs. Marathon Pundit and I voted–for Trump of course–last week. Up until post-election day in 2020, both of us opposed early voting. But we’re against the Democrats even more.

Back to “the cult.”

The Democrats dragged a senile old man over the finish line in 2020. So instead of wandering the beaches of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, Joe Biden was living in the world’s priciest nursing home, the White House. Now the Dems, citing first “joy,” and now “Trump is Hitler,” are trying to accomplish the same stunt for Kamala Harris, the poster child of that disease of the public sector, failing upwards.

Cult-leaders believe their followers will fall for anything. Which brings me to influencers.

One bizarre campaign strategy of the Dems is the use of social media influencers who mindlessly cheer on the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz ticket. They were just as zombie-like for Biden-Harris. Since they often post on social media on the same topic almost simultaneously, I suspect all of them are being fed the same lies, oops, make that lines, by the Democratic Party or Dem PACs.

Cult members fall for such appeals to emotion.

The worst of the bunch is the man-child, Harry Sisson. More often than the others, Sissons begins many of his posts with “BOOM,” or “OMG.” And he regularly claims, almost always falsely, that a Trump rally venue is dominated by empty seats, or has attendees leaving early, which course, Sisson will say, cause the Trump-Vance campaign to “panic.”

Thru a couple of liberal PACs, Sisson is paid for his X blather, according to Community Notes on X.

A couple of other influence tools are almost as bad. Until the day Biden was pushed out of the campaign, the Kamala’s Wins X page was known as Biden’s Wins.

What wins?

In an X post last week, Kamala’s Wins said about a Tempe event, “BREAKING: Local reporters in Arizona are reporting that Donald Trump is struggling to fill seats for his rally tonight. Trump’s rallies have been emptier than ever lately.”

That Tempe rally, according to an X video posted in that account’s comments feed, didn’t seem to have a single empty seat.

Then there is Victor Shi, another influencer. Today he said on X, “This matters,” about a Madden game between Tim Walz and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Because he appears to be about 60 years old, the worst of the Harris influencer ilk is Jon Cooper.

For the last few days, Cooper has been claiming on X that a “devastating” video damaging to Trump would be released soon. We’re still waiting. If such a video existed, it would be out by now. What was that I said earlier about early voting? Depending on where you live, it began days ago–or weeks ago.

If Kamala Harris believes these influencers change or add a single vote for her, then it’s solid proof that she is too dumb to be president.

In the 2028 presidential campaign, I predict the use of influencers by Democratic presidential campaigns will be greatly diminished.

But Dem cultists, like shell game operators who can’t fool anyone anymore, will move on to something else.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

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