Archive for the ‘politics’ Category

The Great Chicago Train Robbery offers more proof of the city’s decline and fall

Posted: October 13, 2024 by John Ruberry in crime, culture, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

The evidence of Chicago’s decline and fall keeps piling up.

On Friday evening, at least 30 thugs looted Union Pacific rail cars in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood on the West Side.

The city’s leftist mayor, Brandon Johnson, who lives in Austin, was in London in advance of Sunday’s Chicago Bears game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Although he later backed away, slightly, from his statement, in 2020 “Branjo” called defunding the police “a political goal.”

As you’ll see, the looters are so casual in these videos as they unload the U.P. freight cars, it’s as if they calmly enjoying a visit to a suburban pick-your-own pumpkin patch. They’re not hiding their faces; they’re not covering up their licence plates. One enterprising criminal even brought a cargo truck to speed their 100-percent discounts along.

The mass thievery was so vast that commuter rail traffic on those rail lines was suspended for hours.

Society is rotting in Chicago–as well as suburban Cook County, because we have had a pro-criminal George Soros-funded so-called prosecutor, Democrat Kim Foxx, lackadaisically enforcing the law for that last eight years. Thankfully, she’ll be out of office in two months.

Criminals don’t fear getting caught in Chicago–and if they are–only those accused of the most heinous crimes are locked up to await trial. Since last year, courtesy of JB Pritzker’s SAFE-T Act, cash bail is banned in Illinois.

The Chicago establishment media, TV stations are an exception, are shameful. They minimize rampant criminality, calling it “a perception problem.”

On Facebook, an hour after the brazen looting, a Chicagoan on Facebook, a self-described “entrepreneur,” was advertising a back yard full of widescreen televisions for sale. As of this writing, 5:00pm EDT, those TVs are still for sale on the social network. Facebook doesn’t seem concerned. It’s a good thing this “entrepreneur” isn’t claiming that masks don’t work against COVID.

Then again, maybe it’s a coincidence that the “entrepreneur” is selling those televisions. But there are a lot of “coincidences” in America’s third-largest city.

So far only six people have been arrested for allegedly participating in the Great Chicago Train Robbery. Where were the Chicago Police on Friday? It took the cops over an hour to arrive to the West Side rail yard. ABC 7 News’ traffic chopper showed up much more quickly. Where was Union Pacific’s security detail? Just a thought, but U.P. may want to investigate their West Side employees. I suspect that this heist may have been aided by a tip from someone working in that freight yard.

There have been other thefts of U.P. trains in Chicago recently.

Finally, where are the decent Chicagoans?

There are some, right?

John Ruberry regularly blogs just north of Chicago at Marathon Pundit.

Election 2020, Election 2024 Donald Trump and Mysterious Ways

Posted: October 10, 2024 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, election 2020, election 2024, elections, politics
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If we had known he wanted a new car that badly, we all would have chipped in and bought him one.

Johnny Bench on Brooks Robinson’s MVP Performance in the 1970 World Series

I have argued more than once that if the left had not stolen the 2020 election they would have been done with Donald Trump by now and the deep state’s business as usual would have been able to continue without a problem. Now John Conlin at the American Thinker is pointing out all the ways that the steal of the election in 2020 was a blessing in disguise for the country and a disaster to those trying to destroy it.

The blatant politicization of the DoJ, FBI, CIA, IRS, military, judiciary, etc. — really almost every aspect of the federal government — has been laid bare for all to see. For many of these folks, the concept of equal justice under the law is something they discarded long ago. Many states are as bad or worse.

For years, DEI has been destroying institutions and companies across the board. That is ending now.

Institutions of supposed “higher” education have revealed themselves to be little more than dumbing-down indoctrination centers. Much of public K-12 education has been shown to be the same. The school choice movement is now unstoppable.

All of these things had been proceeding quietly since the Obama years and even before, but now the lid has been blown off them all and the American people are seeing things as they are. Conlin again

These institutions were this way before, but this period has removed all doubt. And before one can begin to address an illness, one must first accept the reality of the disease. We have done that. 

The path forward won’t be a straight one. It will probably involve a lot of “2 steps forward, 1 step back,” but we have bottomed out. The future might look far different than today, but history will show this was the high water mark for socialism, communism, big government, gender insanity, and a whole lot more.

And we owe this awakening to the “loss” of a stolen election, which is turning out to be a wonderous win.

I’m surprised that he didn’t mention what was to me one of the biggest changes. The MSM insisting and demanding that people believe that Joe Biden was completely fine. Was it not just four months ago that they were telling Americans that if you believed he wasn’t sharp as a knife that you were spreading disinformation? They’re very public exposure as a pack of liars before even the most credulous fool is the straw that broke the back of their power.

I suspect if the left knew what it knew now it might have done things different but hey they did get 4 years of good stealing.

It may be that even seeing and knowing all this the American people may still willingly walk into the hell of a Kamala presidency, but if they do it will be with eyes wide open rather than having tyranny quietly imposed on them.

All of these were only made possible by the steal. It has turned out to be a blessing in disguise, although I admit, it was a pretty good disguise.

A Reverse Pappy O’Daniel in PA?

Posted: October 8, 2024 by datechguy in election 2024, elections, politics
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The only election Lyndon Johnson ever lost was due to it being stolen. It was stolen for his rival Pappy O’Daniel not by O’Daniel’s allies but by his enemies because they wanted Pappy, the sitting governor of Texas gone. So when the chance came to steal that senate seat after Johnson made a rare mistake in reporting a key district early they jumped in with both feet and Johnson would have to wait six years to steal that senate seat back from Pappy’s successor Coke Stevenson.

And that brings me to something a friend of mine said in conversation yesterday that frankly I didn’t think of.

As you all know by now Kamala ended up picking the rather incompetent governor of Minnesota Tim Walz over the VERY competent governor of Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro as her running mate. This was likely because a pick of Shapiro might disturb the vital “death to Israel” and “death to Jews” vote that has been very vocal lately.

My friend noted that Shapiro is one of those rare things, a competent Democrat who has not driven his state into the ground. Furthermore he has ambitions for higher things and there is one thing we can be sure of: If Kamala Harris somehow wins in 2024, he wont be running for president until 2032.

BUT if Trump is elected he is instantly a lame duck meaning that he can run in 2028 against a J.D. Vance who will likely be bloodied in some tough primaries as there is actually a pretty deep GOP bench.

Do I think Shapiro would try to steal Pennsylvania FOR Trump? Nope, that would be an unforgivable sin for too many Democrat voters, but he might choose to do the next best thing, not allow them to steal it for Kamala.

Not only does preventing such a steal raise his cred with swing voters within the state when his re-election comes around but would allow him to co-operate with a Trump administration on energy which would produce a boom there that he could take credit for. It would be a powerful contrast to California the disaster where his chief rival Gavin Newsom is presiding over.

I must confess none of this had occurred to me but it DID occur to my friend who also notes that with the woke currently in retreat Shapiro might be able to marginalize that wing of the party, blame them for any Trump victory and in a sense use that to purge them from their place of power.

The one fly in the ointment is that simple demographics says to me that he can’t purge the “death to the Jews” wing but you might recall when he was being considered for the VP slot he was already hinting at compromises to appease them and of course in four years there might not be a Hamas or Hezbollah for them to support.

Will it work out this way? I don’t know but I do find the argument credible and thus has given me real hope, because the only way the steal worked last time was because everybody was on board. If Pennsylvania doesn’t play along the likelihood of successfully stealing the national election is low and the risk of an investigation from a crusading Trump AG and Justice department who would be highly motivated to investigate any steal in Arizona, or Michigan or Wisconsin is just too dangerous for a party that can’t stand scrutiny.

And frankly for all their anti Trump furor the Democrat party and the media didn’t want Kamala and were talking about her as a liability right up until Biden forced her on them.

In the old days when a party was facing a bad loss they basically took the hit and started planning on their comeback, if my friend is right the Democrats might actually be forced to play it on the up and up, not because they love Trump but because of the ambitions of a key Democrat in a key spot who might just decide to force them to do the right thing (and the smart thing in the long run) to satisfy his own personal agenda.

It’s so crazy it just might work.

Nixon had his Saturday Night Massacre, Chicago’s mayor has his Friday Afternoon Massacre

Posted: October 6, 2024 by John Ruberry in education, News/opinion, politics
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Chicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson

By John Ruberry

While he’s only 17 months in his first term in office, Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson is on pace to be remembered as one of America’s worst big city mayors. The competition to be inducted into that shameful club includes some real rascals and incompetents, such as New York’s Jimmy Walker, Detroit’s Coleman Young, Cleveland’s Dennis Kucinich, and Chicago’s Big Bill Thompson. 

The insufferably incompetent and complicit Chicago media, once among the America’s best, rarely mentions that “Branjo,” prior to his election as mayor, was a longtime paid organizer–that means agitator–for the far-left Chicago Teachers Union. The CTU was the largest donor to his mayoral campaign, and it supplied ground troops to get Johnson elected. Yes, I know, Johnson was also a Cook County commissioner. While in that job he authored no memorable legislation.

Johnson, in short, is in the pocket of the CTU. 

Why can’t you say so, Chicago media?

Chicago is essentially broke because of massive unfunded pension obligations, and so is Chicago Public Schools. 

On Friday afternoon, all seven members of the Chicago Board of Education resigned because they refuse to fire CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, who was appointed by Johnson’s predecessor, Lori Lightfoot. Johnson has called on Martinez to resign, the mayor supports the fiscally anemic CPS to take out what’s widely being called a “payday loan” to pay for pension obligations and big raises for CTU members. 

Martinez opposes that, and clearly, so do the former board members. Unlike Martinez, the board members who just quit aren’t Lightfoot holdovers. Johnson appointed all of them.

Richard Nixon, who Johnson has blamed for Chicago’s problems, had his Saturday night massacre. Johnson has his Friday Afternoon Massacre.

The president of the Chicago Teachers Union is Stacy Davis Gates. She’s an ill-tempered leftist who is possibly crazier than US Rep. Rashida Tlaib. Gates, it’s important to know, sends her son to a private school. Of course she is against school choice for everyone else, as is Johnson.

Besides its money problems, Chicago Public Schools do a horrible job educating students. Even though CPS spending continues to soar, student test scores continue to be quite low. Roughly three-quarters of CPS students are unable to read at grade level—and math scores are even worse. 

Can this story get any worse? 

In Chicago, getting worse is the normal.

As part of a transition to a fully elected Board of Education, ten seats for a new board are up for election this fall–voting has already begun. Johnson will appoint the remaining 11 seats. 

The new members that Johnson will appoint will be out of office in a few months. Branjo will task them to fire Martinez, approve the “payday loan” for those pension obligations, and approve a big raise for Chicago’s unionized teachers. 

Good government types in Chicago—amazingly, they really exist–condemned Johnson’s pro-Chicago Teachers Union power play. Surprisingly a large majority–over eighty percent–of the Chicago City Council, including aldermen who are members progressive caucus and two of the six socialists, have expressed opposition to Branjo’s move.

Johnson has been particularly cozy to some of city’s socialist aldermen. They were among his staunchest protecters after Branjo cancelled the city’s gunfire protection contract with ShotSpotter.

As Barack Obama famously said, elections have consequences. Chicago voters choose poorly.

Crime, despite laughable denials from Crain’s Chicago Business, also known as Crain’s Chicago Anti-Business, is a serious problem Chicago. The office and retail vacancy rate downtown are over 25 percent. For 2025, Chicago faces a $1 billion deficit.

Sadly, there is not recall mechanism in place for Chicago mayors.

Meanwhile, Johnson has other priorities. Today’s he’s campaigning for Kamala Harris in Las Vegas. Next week, ostensibly to bring business and tourism to Chicago, the mayor will be in London for the Bears game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

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