Archive for the ‘politics’ Category

On Illinois Primary day I’m choosing a Democratic ballot so I can vote for Eileen O’Neill Burke for Cook County state’s attorney

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

I’m going to do something that I haven’t done since I moved from Chicago to the suburbs. On Illinois Primary day next week I’ll be taking a Democratic ballot so I can vote Eileen O’Neill Burke for Cook County state’s attorney.

When I lived in the city, I did so for a couple of reasons. For starters, much like the rest of the Chicago area now, there were no competitive Republican political races to vote in. Secondly, if I needed a “favor,” nothing illegal mind you, but let’s say, I wanted the loud garbage pickup at the condominium across the alley from my apartment to take place after 7:00am, it was my belief that a call to the alderman’s office–true story, by the way–would carry more weight if I was on the list of registered Democrats in the ward.

Eight years ago, voters made the disastrous decision to elect George Soros-funded Kim Foxx as Cook County’s states attorney. As the county’s chief prosecutor, Foxx has acted more like a woke social worker than someone who should be protecting the people of America’s second-most populous county. In one of her first moves as state’s attorney, Foxx said she would ignore state law and only prosecute thefts as felonies if the value of what was stolen exceeded $1,000, rather than $300.

The message was clear to Chicago and suburban career criminals. Steal less than $1,000, then move on to your next target. 

Crime of all types have soared since Foxx became county prosecutor. Sure, COVID hurt, but the pandemic has been over for over three years–crime remains high. That includes shoplifting, carjackings, and murders.

Foxx should have resigned in shame years ago–and not because of her mishandling of the Jussie Smollett race attack hoax. Once again, I have to say it. The primary duty of government is to protect its citizens. Foxx has failed to do that.

There are two Democrats running in the state’s attorney race: retired Illinois Appellate Court judge Eileen O’Neill Burke and University of Chicago lecturer Clayton Harris III, who previously was best-known as the final chief-of-staff for disgraced Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. O’Neill Burke is not related to the recently convicted Chicago alderman and Democrat power broker Edward Burke. When running for office, she has always used both of her surnames, but Harris, who has been endorsed by Blago in this race, simply refers to her as “Burke.”

Harris has the backing of the woke chair of the Cook County Democratic Party, Toni Preckwinkle. The longtime president of the Cook County Board enthusiastically backed Foxx in both of her runs–Foxx is a former chief-of-staff for Preckwinkle. Chicago’s inept leftist mayor, Brandon Johnson, was endorsed by Preckwinkle in last year’s runoff election. Harris has only four years of experience as a prosecutor, whereas O’Neill Burke, as a judge and an assistant state’s attorney, has 25 years of experience.

Harris has all but said that he’ll continue the pro-criminal failed prosecutorial approach of Foxx. 

As for O’Neill Burke, while yes, she has received large contributions from donors who usually back Republicans, including Citadel’s Ken Griffin, she is not a conservative or even a moderate. Sadly, she supports Illinois’ toxic SAFE-T Act, which abolished cash bail. But she’ll be an improvement over Foxx. As for Griffin, he was a major financial supporter of a super PAC backing Nikki Haley. Harris is trying to make an issue with O’Neill Burke over the financial support of these Republicans, but his big-name Democratic support leans on the party’s far-left, starting of course with Preckwinkle. O’Neill Burke’s Dem endorsement base is more centrist, or what passes for centrist in Illinois. Her most prominent supporter is Illinois treasurer Susana Mendoza.

Voting for safety is one of the best reasons to select a candidate, perhaps the best one. That is why I’ll be choosing a Democratic ballot in the Illinois Primary election on March 19 and voting for Eileen O’Neill Burke for Cook County state’s attorney.

And no, I won’t be voting for Joe Biden.

The Republican running for state’s attorney is Robert Fioretti. He’s an acquaintance of mine, and I think he can do well in that office. But Cook County voters haven’t elected a Republican county-wide–yes, it was for state’s attorney–in over 30 years. Since then, Cook has become much more Democratic.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

I’m Old Enough to Remember When This Kind of Speech and This Set of Beliefs About America Was the Norm Even Among Democrats

Posted: March 9, 2024 by datechguy in election 2024, elections, elections, politics
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If you haven’t seen RFK Jr’s State of the Union Speech do so now. It you’re under 40 it’s likely the greatest political speech you will ever hear in your lifetime.

This is the type of speech that changes votes, and the reason it’s that type of speech is that is:

  1. It’s Positive
  2. It’s aspirational
  3. It challenges us to be better than we are
  4. There is absolutely no question, at least in my mind, that he believes this and means it

For someone like me it reminds me of my youth when such beliefs were the norm, Donald Trump vowed to make America Great Again and he pretty much kept that promise as President, Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. in this speech reminded us WHY America was great in the first place and has done so at a time when we as a nation have forgotten it. In my youth Americans believed this, not republicans, not democrats AMERICANS believed this as the base belief of the country, before we allowed the Marxists into the schools.

If I thought for one moment that Kennedy would act wisely on the culture war issues: Abortion, Transgenderism and DEI, then I would have let myself be carried away by this speech to the days of my youth and change my vote in the general. Frankly given that I live in blue Massachusetts it might be strategic to consider such a vote as Kennedy would be more likely to win this state than Trump.

But in the end Abortion “Trumps” all with me because that’s a question of the soul plus I don’t believe personally in strategic voting so barring something like Trump dropping dead (he is in fact very old) and being replaced by Haley or Noam (who has been a not so much closet supporter of pushing Transgenderism until the VP talk came) I’ll have to pass on RFK Jr.

But if you choose not to I completely understand.

Closing thought: If you think the Obama team (Let’s stop pretending it’s the ‘Biden’ team) was determined to keep Secret Service Protection away from RFK Jr. before they’re damn well going to make sure he doesn’t have it now. Unless of course the primary job of said team was to either kill him or allow him to be killed.

I’m old enough to remember when that final sentence would have been unthinkable to me.

Five Fast Thoughts Under the Fedora AOC out and about, Narrative Narrative Narrative, Unpeople, “Wolf” in the CPAC fold and the countdown to the end continues

Posted: March 5, 2024 by datechguy in internet/free speech, media, politics, the courts, under the fedora
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Saw the article about AOC out with her guy and protesters bugging her about Gaza.

It’s rather ironic as she’s generally on their side but what really struck me is the photo of her out with her guy seemed so …. normal.

I’m partial to the sight of a young lady out with her man and frankly I’d like folks to leave her alone to enjoy those moment which are some of the most important in life.

I don’t watch a lot of the MSM but I made it a point of watching the reactions to the SCOTUS ruling on the attempts to kick Trump off the ballots in various blue states.

I found it hilarious that all of the stressed that the court didn’t acquit him of being an insurrectionist.

They didn’t have to, nobody has filed a charge of insurrection against him in federal court, in fact none of the J6 prisoners or defendants have in fact been charged with insurrection.

Their desperation to keep this narrative intact is very interesting and shows how far they’ve fallen, but it’s amazing how far a person will willingly let themselves fall if their paycheck is attached to it.

Have you noticed that in the minds of the media nothing delegitimizes an institution more than no longer following the narrative of the left.

Elon Musk, Ben Carson, The Supreme Court, Donald Trump, Naomi Wolf and yes J. K. Rowling were all feted and celebrated by the left for a very long time right up until the moment that they were perceived as a threat to the power of the left and the narrative they were selling.

Once they did as far as all those folks who loved and celebrated them were concerned they were now unpersons that needed to be destroyed.

Hey commies gotta commie.

There is an excellent substack by Naomi Wolf about visiting CPAC titled “Letter from CPAC” that you should read. There is one bit that jumped out at me:

We entered the Gaylord at the peak of CPAC, to an atrium thronged with happy visitors. My first, ignominious reaction to the scene, for which Brian rightly chided me, was: “This is not my culture.”

There was a buzz, from the moment we entered: a joyful vibe. After we checked in, changed, and ran down to join the festivities, we were struck by how pleasant and positive almost everyone was to us, and to each other. As someone reported to me the desk clerk had said, “I know they won’t approve of me saying this back in Southeast DC, where I come from, but you all are nice.”

Nice is a good and accurate word, a better description is “normal”

She goes though a list of folks she met and spoke to, many that she might disagree with on some issues and notes how different they are from how the media paints them.

It’s been six years years since I’ve been to CPAC the last time I went was with my sons and them seeing the MSM in action as they actually are taught them plenty.

Finally there are two reasons why you don’t see me at CPAC anymore. The first is as a full time employees where I work I only get so much vacation time and it won’t be till 2028 that I have the additional week that attending CPAC would require.

But the other is frankly that DaTipJar has dwindled to almost nothing, my last fundraiser only managed 25% of my goal and last month between subscriptions and tip jar hits I had exactly $2 left over after paying my writers.

I suspect the blog as a business will not survive long after the election and with money tight it will be an effort to survive to the election. It’s nothing about $5000 wouldn’t solve but that money simply isn’t there and in the end I don’t have a divine right to a single person’s dollar, I can only earn it by producing content that people think is worth it.

It’s disappointing to fail in business I’ve done so many times I’m just sorry I couldn’t provide better for my wife who deserves better. If I had followed my brothers into the civil service I might even now be retired or close to it with a pension, but I’m not ashamed of trying to make it as a writer/pundit and this blog has done good work, sometimes even important work. I’ve showed things and told things as they are which is why both Youtube now and pre-Musk twitter censored me. Best of all I’m proud to say I never sold out to push any narrative I didn’t believe in.

Hey in the end 16 years isn’t a bad run

The Fear is Palatable at Work

Posted: March 4, 2024 by datechguy in economy, election 2024, elections, politics
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When I saw this video:

All I could do is nod my head.

The vast majority of the people I work with have Spanish as their first language. They came here a decade or more ago. I don’t know if they came legally or not at the time but many if not most are now American citizens and they are scared for their jobs, their managers are scared for their jobs and as a guy about to hit 61 who had planned to work till 70 I’m scared for my job.

Even with COVID four years ago we were not.

And let me note, we are scared for our jobs after our company closed two warehouses in our area and laid off every temp we had.

Without a turnaround of the economy I don’t see how we avoid either further layoffs or a reduction of our workweek to below 40 hours.

That the democrats are polling over 40% is beyond me and I would bet real money that a lot of the folks were I am are going to vote for Trump because they know who was in charge when they were able to make a living and who was not.

They don’t care about mean tweets they care about feeding their kids and virtue signaling stuff like this

doesn’t enter their radar.

The only reason why I have no idea who will win in November is:

  1. I don’t know that Biden will be the Dem standard bearer no matter what happens in the primary
  2. I don’t know if Trump can win beyond the margin of fraud or if the GOP is taking steps to prevent it
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