If Republicans–or even those few moderate Democrats–want to advance their political career, a good place to start is Chicago’s Southwest Side.
There have a been a series of protests in the mostly Hispanic Brighton Park neighborhood, which has a sizable Asian minority, over the migrant crisis created by Joe Biden and the Democrat Party.
Residents found out through the rumor mill that the administration Mayor Brandon Johnson, Chicago’s far-left mayor who was elected six months ago, has his haughty eyes on Brighton Park.
And rumors are true sometimes, and they were confirmed when residents noticed bulldozing on property that has been vacant for a while. Chicago’s 12th Ward, which has slightly less than 60,000 residents, will have a population bump soon. However, many of them will be living in tents, although a contractor is calling them “yurts.”
Environmental testing is still being performed, but it appears, like it or not, that the nascent yurt community, which Chicago officials are calling a 10-acre “winterized base camp,” at 38th and California, is a done deal. And plenty of residents don’t like it.
There have been 24-hour protests at the future migrant camp for over a week now.
Most of these residents are minorities. Looking at local media video reports, the ethnic makeup of the protesters appears to be roughly half Hispanic and half Asian. That was the impression Mrs. Marathon Pundit got when she drove past the anti-camp protests last Friday.
And last Thursday, the 12th Ward alderperson, Julia Ramirez, got “roughed up” by the crowd at the protest, but it appears she was only shoved around a bit.
Apparently, Ramirez wasn’t told about Yurtville ahead of time. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Leftists like Johnson are always right, or at least they believe themselves to be. And when you question leftists, you are called said to be “uninformed” or “racist,” or someone who is “oversimplifying a nuanced issue.” I know, I live among leftists just north of the Chicago.
Last night there was a public hearing at a Southwest Side high school about the construction of the migrant camp. Block Club Chicago reports that 500 residents showed up. While there was some support expressed for the migrants, some chants broke out, including, “Send them back” and “No queremos venezolanos,” which is Spanish for, “We don’t want Venezuelans.”
What about Asians? Specifically East Asians.
East Asians feel threatened in woke era Chicago. A friend of the Marathon Pundit family–an immigrant from Hong Kong who lives in McKinley Park, which is next to Brighton Park–told me a while back, “The criminals see us as ripe prey,” adding, “they believe that all of us all own convenience and liquor stores and that we always carry wads of cash on us.” His garage was broken into earlier this month. There was no cash stolen, other than some loose change, but the thieves made off with a pair of boots. He didn’t even bother calling the Chicago Police, knowing that even if the culprits are caught, they’ll walk. And of course, that crime won’t figure into Chicago crime statistics.
Block Club Chicago reported last month that, “Precincts with a high Asian-American population cast 77.8 percent of their votes for [Paul] Vallas,” a moderate Democrat who Johnson defeated in the April runoff. Vallas ran on a strong law-and-order platform.
Chicagoans, you elected Johnson. As the old expression goes, “You made your bed, now sleep in it.” Although to be fair, Vallas carried the 12th Ward.
One lesson from the midterms is that Hispanics are trending toward the GOP. Illinois’ moribund Republican Party should be reaching out to them, but probably aren’t. Because they’re morons. And the Asian population, particularly East Asians, might be looking for a political home.
GOP, get moving. And not just for votes. Siding with these protesters is the right thing to do.
And those few moderate Democrats left, it’s time to confront the woke wing of your party.
Here’s my non-nuanced message I recommend for the GOP and moderate Dems: Secure the border, build the wall, protect America.
With Christmas past us it’s time to look back at the current year, 2021. And with a less than a week left we can say that 2021 was America’s worst year since 1864.
Why was 1864 so bad? While there were significant military successes for the Northern armies fighting to keep the United States together–Atlanta and Savannah were captured and General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was locked into siege warfare in Virginia–and a potential political victory of the Confederacy was averted by Abraham Lincoln’s reelection, Americans were still killing each other by the thousands. The following year was an improvement, despite Lincoln’s assassination. The Civil War ended in the spring of 1865 and the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery, was ratified.
As for 2021, it got off to a wretched start when hostiles, American ones, stormed the US Capitol in a riot. We have to go back to another horrible year for America, 1814, when the British Army seized the Capitol, for the only other time that happened. The hooligans who entered the Senate and House chambers on January 6 were not participating in an insurrection, despite claims made to this day by CNN and MSNBC. Sure, the rioters wanted to keep Donald J. Trump in power, but they had no plans for a coup, such as imprisoning Joe Biden, taking control of the military, and dissolving Congress.
And what about the people who were supposed to protect the Capitol, such as the Capitol Hill Police and the who they report to? You know, Congress, which is run by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. They failed America.
In the fraught election of 2020, a feeble old man, Joe Biden, was elected president. “Lunch Bucket Joe from Scranton” was chosen as the Democratic nominee because he was viewed by many as the “safe” alternative to Trump, and not a radical like Bernie Sanders. Biden’s “good years,” assuming he ever had them, are well in the past. Biden, and the people who control him, such as Ron Klain or Susan Rice, went full-blown leftist on Inauguration Day. Economically, the result is the highest level of inflation in decades. These price increases, once dismissed by the Biden White House as “transitory,” will likely continue indefinitely, serving as a hidden tax for all Americans.
While not quite energy independent as Trump claimed, our nation was headed into that direction under his leadership. Shortly after his inauguration Biden suspended new drilling and fracking on federal lands. It has since been reversed in court, but the White House maintains a malevolent attitude towards the world’s most reliable form of energy, fossil fuels. Gasoline costs over $1 more per gallon since Biden became president. Biden also cancelled the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, essentially firing thousands of union workers.
An effective commander-in-chief, such as Dwight D. Eisenhower, does his job so well it appears that he is doing nothing at all. While Trump certainly doesn’t have Ike’s soft touch, I’m of the belief that Trump would have seen the possibility of a supply chain crisis coming and would have taken steps to ensure we would not have seen the bottleneck of cargo ships outside America’s largest harbors.
Meanwhile in the Biden administration the cabinet officer in charge of our supply chain, Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, went on an unannounced two-month paternity leave just as the shipping crisis began. Rather than resigning for failure or dereliction of duty, Buttigieg’s is being hawked by some Democrats as a possible 2024 Democratic presidential candidate should Biden choose not to run for reelection. While family is of course important, liberals often claim that public service is the highest calling. Buttigieg could have simply quit as Transporation secretary. Or not taken the job at all.
While not something that the federal government is directly in charge of, violent crime plagued America’s largest cities this year–and all of those cities are run by Democrats. A dozen cities endured record murder totals. Some jurisdictions, such as San Francisco, Philadelphia, Los Angeles County, Milwaukee County, and Cook County (Chicago), are burdened with woke prosecutors engaging in catch-and-release policies regarding criminals.
Biden was elected last November because more voters saw him as more capable to fight the COVID-19 epidemic than Trump. But wait, what’s this? There were more COVID deaths in the United States in 2021 than in 2020, despite the availability of vaccines. And lockdown and mask mandates are ramping up again with the new omicron variant, which so far has killed one American. That number will surely climb but I have a strong suspicion that omicron will not be killing 15,000 Americans a week as soon as next month, which is what the politicized CDC is predicting.
In order to prove Trump wrong, Biden has proved him right in regard to enforcing the law at our southern border. In late October the Washington Post reported that a record 1.7 million people arrested while trying to cross that border. In addition to illegal aliens, it’s believed that large amounts of fentanyl have been smuggled across the border in 2021.
As Biden as Biden is, his vice president is even worse, the inept cackler, Kamala Harris.
I’ve saved the worst for last. America suffered a humiliating military defeat in Afghanistan. Biden vowed that our departure from Afghanistan would look nothing like our bugging-out from South Vietnam in 1975. He was right, it was worse. As with the border crisis, the Biden White House blamed Trump for the debacle. While Trump did enter an agreement to pull our troops out of Afghanistan this year, it was not a treaty. We could have back out. Trump says, and I believe him, that he never would have made our country look so feeble, yes, feeble like Biden physically and mentally is, if we had departed Afghanistan under his watch.
When the next international crisis comes, our allies will have understandable doubts about American resolve.
Every once in a while you hear about a story where a burglar breaks into a home, is caught, and then sues the homeowner for damages after being shot. Here’s one example.
Getting shot is an understandable risk for a burglar. Under Trump sneaking into America had consequences.
Donald Trump promised a tough policy on illegal immigration and he followed through. Yes, Trump was very good about honoring his campaign promises. He said he’d enforce the law at the southern border–and Trump did so. It was called his “Zero Tolerance” policy.
Joe Biden ran for office as the anti-Trump and his presidency, besides pushing America kicking and screaming into socialism, has been about repudiating his predecessor. So much for “Lunch Bucket Joe” from Scranton being a unifier.
Illegal border crossings plummeted during the Trump presidency because the word got out that illegally crossing into America could you arrested and then sent back home. But not everyone got the message. Some migrants still entered America from Mexico, with their kids, and they were jailed. When you go to jail or prison you don’t bring your children with you.
Now the Biden administration, according to the Wall Street Journal, is considering payments of $450,000 payments to these lawbreaking family members who were separated from their kids. There have been some lawsuits filed on behalf of the parents. Not surprisingly the ACLU is involved.
Illegal border crossings are at a 21-year high. The message received in Mexico, Central America, South America, and Haiti is clear. The border is open. C’mon over! Construction of the wall at the southern border is has ended. Yeah, yeah, I know. Vice President Kamala “Cackles” Harris, who is in charge of the southern border, unconvincingly said to migrants. “Do not come.” Yawn. Oh, there is another caravan on its way up here. Probably more than one.
Now some people considering entering America from Mexico might make the trek north because they think that maybe they too will collect a $450,000 windfall. Hold on for one moment. I’m not saying parents want be separated from their children in exchange for cash, but it’s not just Americans who see a headline on their smartphones and then come to an inaccurate conclusion without bothering to read the accompanying story.
Meanwhile American citizens make do with a couple of $600 COVID-19 payments. Families of military members killed in the line of duty receive only $400,000.
It took four years for Jimmy Carter, America’s 39th president, to amass a reputation for abject failure. Joe Biden only needed nine months, the time it takes for a baby to go from conception to birth.
Here’s a list–and I am sure that I’m leaving out a few–of his failures.
Gasoline prices. Liberals hate relatively cheap gas prices. On his first day in office Biden cancelled construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. In doing so, to borrow the words used in the Biden-Harris sign pictured here, he killed thousands of “good union jobs.” Gas prices immediately jumped. Also that day Biden signed an executive order blocking oil and natural gas drilling at the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The next day Biden imposed a suspension of new natural gas and oil drilling leases on federal lands–which fortunately was overruled by a judge in June.
It’s all part of the plan is what I believe. Leftists–excluding themselves of course–want as many people as possible to ditch their cars and trucks and take buses and trains everywhere. In 2012 Steven Chu, the Obama-Biden administration’s secretary of Energy, was asked by a Republican member of Congress if it was the goal of the White House to have lower gasoline prices. He replied to the contrary, adding “somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” Gasoline prices in 2012 were about $4-a-gallon–in Europe at that time they were $8 to $9-per gallon. Yeah I know, Chu, under pressure no doubt, walked back those comments the next day, as Barack Obama and Joe Biden were up for reelection that year.
Gas prices are at a seven-year high. Donald Trump was not president seven years ago.
As I’ve observed many times before, leftists particularly love trains–because they only travel where there are tracks.
On the other hand if you are a liberal you may consider higher gasoline prices as a Joe Biden success. But more expensive fuel hurts the poor the most. And liberal politicians always say it is they, not the evil Republicans, who are protecting poor people.
Afghanistan. I’ll be brief on this one. Yes, Donald Trump made a pledge to pull our troops out by May 1. But Biden extended that deadline to September 11 then he moved it back to August 31. Biden blamed Trump for setting a withdrawal date–after the Afghan government collapsed in the middle of August. Biden promised an orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan–and said it would not be like our dramatic and tragic departure from South Vietnam. But that government stayed in power two years after American combat troops were flown home.
Biden either lied–or forgot–about being advised to keep 2,500 troops in Afghanistan to at least slow the government’s collapse. During the hasty evacuation from Kabul thirteen members of our military were killed by a terrorist bombing. And despite another Biden promise, Americans were left behind enemy lines in the Taliban-ruled nation. At least 200 remain.
The southern border. While Biden all but said his hands were tied by Trump’s agreement to take our troops out of Afghanistan, he felt no such need to continue the stay-in-Mexico policy for refugees that Trump successfully negotiated with the Mexican president. The result is the ongoing crisis at the southern border. Illegal crossings at that border have soared since January. A record number–1.7 million–have illegally entered the nation at that border so far in 2021. They are unmasked and not checked to see if they are infected by the COVID-19 virus.
COVID-19. Biden promised to get the virus under control. Meanwhile, despite a vaccine developed under the push initiated by Trump, COVID, by way of the Delta Variant, has roared back. Biden is pushing mask mandates–but what about people crossing the southern border? What’s that about “health care” on that sign?
Critical race theory: A little more than a year ago President Trump issued an executive order banning divisive CRT training in federal agencies. Biden reversed that order. Biden’s attorney general, faux moderate Merrick Garland, announced that the FBI would investigate parents who protest the teaching of CRT at school board meetings, citing unnamed threats.
Supply chain crisis. About the time Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg went on paternity leave–without publicly disclosing it–the supply chain crisis began. Container ships are backed up in the Pacific off of Long Beach harbor. There is also a shortage of truck drivers. As Santa said in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, “We’ll have to cancel Christmas.” Okay, not really, but there will likely be fewer gifts under Christmas trees this year.
Jobs: Job growth has been anemic since Biden was sworn in.
Inflation. Higher gasoline prices are always a driver of inflation. And I already mentioned the shortage of truck drivers. Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan pumped cash into the economy. While that seems like a good thing at the base level inflation is caused when there is too much money chasing too few goods. And there is a shortage of semiconductor chips, new automobiles, used cars, plastics, palm oil, magnesium, and more. Oh, besides truck drivers there are not enough workers overall. Biden and the Democrats want to double down on stupid with a so-called infrastructure bill, Build Back Better, priced at over $3 trillion. That bill is drenched with social-engineering and Green New Deal nonsense. Inflation is not going away.
Kamala Harris: Biden’s vice president, the Queen of Cackles, was put in charge of the southern border. How is that working out? Biden turns 79 next month and Harris is a heartbeat away from succeeding him. He could have of course done worse with a running mate choice, but Biden also could have done so much better.
Cognitive decline. The spin has been off of Joe Biden’s fastball–and that pitch was never a commanding one–for a few years now. On a mental level things will only get worse for him. Is Biden running the White House? If not then who is?
Allies losing faith in us. People are attracted to strong leaders and repelled by weak ones. Unless, in regards to the latter, bad people want to take something that doesn’t belong to them. Like for instance, Taiwan. I already mentioned the Afghanistan debacle. But Biden screwed over the French by stealing a nuclear submarine deal they had with Australia. Or maybe I’m being too harsh. John Kerry said the Biden didn’t even know about the France deal.
Can America be trusted? Can America be relied upon? Our allies are surely asking those questions. And our enemies, China, Russia, and North Korea, certainly sense opportunity.
And of course we are just nine months into this Rosemary’s Baby of an administration.
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Which brings us to Joe Biden. He comes into office with one advantage that Trump had namely the lowest expectations of any incoming president for years.
He has one disadvantage that Trump never had but Obama did, a press that will by so fawning (till Jan 21st 2023) that he will never be challenged (till Jan 21st 2023) which will make his mistakes more glaring and likely more destructive as they’ll not be challenged.
The media is still spinning these failures as success at least as much as they can.
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