Posts Tagged ‘datechguy's magnificent seven’

Republicans who voted Eileen O’Neill Burke to victory in Cook County, Illinois offer a lesson to blue state conservatives

Posted: March 31, 2024 by John Ruberry in crime, election 2024, elections, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

Yes, there are Cook County Republicans. 

Besides me. Really.

Cook County, Illinois is America’s second-most populous county. Chicago is its largest city. It’s deep blue, Cook hasn’t backed a Republican presidential candidate since Richard M. Nixon’s wipeout of George McGovern in 1972. In 2020, Joe Biden bested Donald Trump in Cook when he collected nearly 75 percent of the vote. However, in sheer numbers, over 500,000 people in Cook County voted for Trump.

Nearly two weeks ago, there was a primary election in Illinois. The most watched match up, which I wrote about twice here at Da Tech Guy, was the race for Cook County state’s attorney, the county’s top prosecutor. Two Democrats, Clayton Harris III, a former chief-of-staff for Rod Blagojevich and current university lecturer, and Eileen O’Neill Burke, a retired Illinois appellate judge, faced off. 

For the last eight years, Kim Foxx, a George Soros-funded leftist, has misruled as state’s attorney. Crimes of all types, including murder, have soared since she took office. Catch-and-release is not an effective law enforcement strategy. Harris was vague in his campaign, but he did give Foxx an “A” for her tenure as state’s attorney. Even worse, the far-left wing of the Chicago area Democratic Party backed him, led by the radical Chicago Teachers Union. Cook County board president Toni Preckwinkle, who is also chair of the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization, also endorsed Harris. Preckwinkle and the CTU were supporters of Brandon Johnson, now Chicago’s progressive mayor, in his first political race, a seat on the Cook County Board.

As for O’Neill Burke, it’s fair to call her a centrist Democrat, although the favors the odious no-cash bail SAFE-T Act. But she’s not an ideologue along the lines of Foxx, Preckwinkle, and Johnson. So, in the very likely event she prevails in the general election, I have hope that she can moderate further in the direction of protecting law-abiding citizens from the criminal class. 

One of the center points of O’Neill Burke’s campaign was to–get this!–enforce state law, specifically, return to prosecuting retail thefts as felonies when more than $300 is stolen. Foxx, in one of her first moves as state’s attorney, raised that felony threshold to $1,000. Although, if an accused thief has ten prior felony convictions, Foxx finally, or so she says, will prosecute those under-$1,000 offenders with a felony.

Yes, for now, there is a ten-strikes-and-you’re-out theft policy in Crook County. Jean Valjean was born in the wrong century.

Criminals are emboldened here. And small time crooks often move on to commit more serious crimes.

After a painful and troubling vote tally, late Friday, after provisional votes were counted, AP declared O’Neill Burke the winner in the state’s attorney race. Harris conceded that night. As of now, the retired judge leads Harris by around 1,500 votes–out of over 500,000 cast. 

Republicans, you put O’Neill Burke over the top.

Evidence is anecdotal, but it’s believed that many Republicans–certainly far more than 1,500–crossed over and took a Democrat ballot in the March primary election in Cook. I was one of them. Remember, in 2020, coincidentally, Trump received over 500,000 votes in Cook County. 

There was no reason for Cook County GOPers to vote in the Republican primary. Because of decades of rampant Democratic gerrymandering, there were no competitive Republican contests in the county. Statewide, the gerrymandering sin almost ensures, for both parties, few if any competitive intraparty races. 

There’s a lesson here for Republicans living in blue states. Take a Democratic ballot in primary elections, and vote for the least-leftist candidate. It’s a twist of Rush Limbaugh’s Operation Chaos strategy to drag out the 2008 Democrat presidential primaries. 

Have I given up on the Illinois Republican Party? Yes. While there a few good Republican politicians in the Land of Lincoln, none of them are within leadership roles. The state GOP apparatus is reminiscent of the two approved “opposition” parties in communist Poland, the United People’s Party and the Alliance of Democrats. The Illinois GOP knows its place, like those paid “Republican” contributors on CNN and MSNBC. 

Such a philosophy for a conservative is not nearly dramatic as William F. Buckley’s vision. He pictured himself as someone who, “stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.”

As I noted last week, crime in the Chicago area is a life and death issue, and by voting for O’Neill Burke last week, one of the lives I might have saved is mine. If there isn’t a better reason to vote a certain way than for personal safety–and for that of our loved ones–please let me know in the comments section.

Oh, while voting Democratic in a primary, don’t be afraid to cause some mischief while you’re trolling the neighborhood. For president, my choice in the Illinois Primary was Marianne Williamson.

Let the chaos roll!

I earnestly wanted Williamson to win.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

We should pay more attention to our local governments

Posted: March 30, 2024 by navygrade36bureaucrat in business
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The company DroneUp! made the news in 2021 when it announced that it signed a deal with Walmart to do drone delivery. Recently it announced it a new all-in-one delivery service that could be rolled out to any store and deliver packages within 30 miles and under 10 pounds, all while automatically maintaining flight safety rules. In their spare time, they also manage to release the occasional cute video, like this one, on Facebook.

With all this right around the corner from my house, and with the fact I buy a lot of things from our local Walmart, you’d think I’d have a never-ending stream of drones dropping off items on my front porch.

And you’d be wrong. Why? Because I don’t live in Virginia Beach.

See, DroneUp! approached my city about adding drone delivery, but my city insisted that every drone position be operated like an airport. Yup, that’s a thing. Essentially my city council wanted every Walmart to run under the same restrictive rules that airports do. Never mind that the FAA doesn’t insist on this. Never mind that there is more restricted airspace in Virginia Beach then my city, with the nearby Oceana and Norfolk airports contributing to plenty of civilian and military flights everyday. Nope, my city insisted on stupid antiquated rules.

So instead of drone delivery, we get nothing.

Local government elections get ignored too often. As a society we argue over national elections, but fail to show up to local elections. That’s how we get crummy school boards that push pornography in school libraries, crummy state prosecutors that let criminals run free, and crummy city councils that equate drone delivery to running an international airport. On a bigger scale, we’re seeing some states, like Florida, tackle issues like squatting head on, while other states allow criminals to kick people out of their homes and trash them. We’re seeing some states like Georgia get ahead of election security while others allow it to falter.

If we don’t pay attention to our local problems, it’ll be impossible to solve the national ones.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

Irony meters across the universe cried out in agony as if they were overwhelmed by a great disturbance

Posted: March 28, 2024 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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I have to admit the title of my article is a tiny exaggeration.  The disturbance documented in this Breitbart article only pinged irony meters across the United States. 

The Biden White House criticized Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro on Tuesday for barring the leading opposition candidate from his country’s upcoming elections — after Democrats tried to do the same to Donald Trump.

Maria Corina Machado, 56, won the opposition primary in Venezuela last year and has been favored in the polls to beat Maduro in the July elections, possibly putting an end to the authoritarian rule of Hugo Chávez’s successor.

But the Maduro regime blocked the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) opposition coalition from registering its candidate by midnight early Tuesday. Machado’s chosen successor, Dr. Corina Yoris, was also blocked.

The Biden regime exhibited maximum chutzpah when they called out Maduro and his henchman for engaging in the exact same despicable behavior they have been engaging in. 

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, asked about the Maduro regime’s actions during a press briefing on Air Force One on Tuesday afternoon, said: “Obviously, we’re deeply concerned by the National Electoral Council’s decision to prevent the registration of … the democratic opposition party’s candidate, Dr. Corina Yoris,.

“We are woring with other members of the international community to ensure that Venezuelans can participate in inclusive and competitive elections and urge representatives of Maduro to allow all candidates to run. We support the will and right of Venezuelans and the Venezuelans’ political parties to select presidentical candidates. We are monitoring the situation closely. ”

She suggested that Venezuela could lose sanctions relief if the Maduro regime did not provide for free and fair elections.

It is painfully obvious to all of us who have not been brainwashed by the mainstream media and our abysmal education system that for the past four years the Biden Justice Department has been orchestrating a lawfare campaign against President Trump to keep him off the ballot in this year’s presidential election.  As you can see from this article, the lawfare campaign has not gone unnoticed.

A clear majority of 56 percent believe Joe Biden is looking to win the 2024 election by jailing his opponent, Donald Trump — you know, like Putin does.

The question asked by McLaughlin & Associates is as straightforward as it gets. First, it starts with the facts: “President Trump has been indicted on a total of 91 counts by supporters of Joe Biden and his Justice Department.” Then comes the question: “If convicted of these charges, do you think that Joe Biden wants to stop President Trump from winning the election by putting him in jail?”

A whopping 56 percent said “yes,” while only 30 percent said “no.”

Voting irregularities and worse in Cook County as the winner of the Dem Primary for state’s attorney remains unknown

Posted: March 24, 2024 by John Ruberry in election 2024, elections, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

“Let me tell you about Florida politicians. I make them. I make them out of whole cloth, just like a tailor makes a suit. I get their name in the newspaper. I get them some publicity and get them on the ballot. Then after the election, we count the votes. And if they don’t turn out right, we recount them. And recount them again. Until they do.” Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson) in Key Largo. 

“Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” Johnny Rotten, at the end of the last Sex Pistols concert of their 1978 tour.

Last night a bombshell broke as votes are still being counted in from last week’s Illinois Primary in Cook County. Cook, where I live, is Chicago and its inner suburbs. It’s as Democratic as Manhattan. In the 2020 election, Joe Biden collected nearly 75 percent of the vote.

As I noted in my DTG post two weeks ago, the Cook County state’s attorney race was collecting most of the attention of voters. Jussie Smollett’s protector, the pro-criminal and George Soros-funded Democratic incumbent, Kim Foxx, after two tumultuous–for law-abiding citizens–terms in office, is retiring. Running on non-specifics, Clayton Harris III–Rod Blagojevich’s last chief-of-staff–received the endorsement of the extreme-left Chicago Teachers Union. The CTU is arguably the most powerful political force in Chicago. It placed Chicago’s leftist mayor, Brandon Johnson, one of their former organizers, in office. If CTU is behind Harris, you can assume he’ll continue the failed legacy of Foxx.

The other candidate, who I endorsed, is a traditional Democrat Eileen O’Neill Burke, who has promised to dial back some of the extreme pro-criminal polices of Foxx. Violent crime, theft and more has soared under her misrule

On the morning after Election Day, O’Neill Burke was leading Harris by 51-49 percent–about 10,000 votes–with votes from a few stray precincts and many mail-in ballots uncounted. Per Illinois law, any ballot postmarked on Election Day or earlier that is received at the local board of elections by April 2 must be counted. It’s believed that most of the mail-in ballots have been received and already counted, and not surprisingly, O’Neill Burke’s lead has shrunk to 4,000 votes. The far-left has embraced alternative forms of voting.

Illinois has drop boxes for ballots too. 

Yep, just like in the Dinesh D’Souza movie, 2,000 Mules. Yep, Mark Zuckerberg boxes.

Last night, Alderman Brian Hopkins, who represents downtown Chicago, dropped a bombshell on X. His original post was deleted, here’s what he had to say last night:

Correction: after counting what was stated as most of the remaining mail-in & dropbox ballots, EOB [Eileen O’Neill Burke] holds a 4,000+ lead. BUT…election staff told me they misstated the total number of remaining ballots, and 14,710 more (most are dropbox, so not postmarked) still must be counted.

It gets worse. Because the Chicago Board of Elections may have had these ballots since last Monday.

Why weren’t these votes counted Tuesday night? Or heck, Wednesday morning even? By the way, decades ago, when I was a Little Marathon Pundit, even in the closest elections, we knew who won an election a day to two later after polls closed–at the latest. We’re declining as a society even as technology has greatly progressed.

It gets worse. Here are a couple posts from Max Bever of the CBOE earlier than Hopkins’ second X post last night. Bever apparently found some ballots he “mistakenly left out.” If you call his move a “Bever hunt,” then shame on you. Anyway, to refresh your memory, the alderman said the “found” ballots are drop box votes.

Statement from Max Bever, Director of Public Information, Chicago Board of Elections: “In adding up the total number of Vote By Mail ballots the Board had received back so far, I mistakenly left out additional ballots that had been received back via USPS the evening of Mon, 3/18.

I traded speed for accuracy in reporting out numbers this week as quickly as I could. I truly regret this error on my part and for the confusion that it has caused the voters of Chicago. I will share updated numbers only when they are accurate and verified.

The vote counting continues this afternoon.

I am crossing my fingers and praying that EOB holds on to her lead. With the crime high rates in the Chicago area, my life may depend on it. For real. I’m at vulnerable age that thugs view as a target.

At the very least, you call what is happening in the Cook County vote count irregular and incompetent.

Except for verifiable reasons, such as a military deployments and temporary out-of-state work assignments, absentee and early voting should be abolished. Drop boxes should be unconditionally dropped.

Whatever happens in the state’s attorney race, supporters of both candidates are probably going to cry “foul.”

And if there is credible evidence of a stolen election in the Cook County state’s attorney race, then we have an even more serious problem. Because if large numbers of citizens don’t trust the election results, it calls into question the legitimacy of government–and of American society.

There were lot of “irregularities” and then some in the 2020 presidential election. But Democrats were silent four years ago because they liked the result.

Yes, there were certainly many Republican crossover voters, but about half of Cook County voters backed O’Neill Burke in last week’s primary. Many Democrats, at least in Cook County, might soon have a different opinion on mail-in voting and drop box ballots soon.

It’s quite likely that updates to this post are coming.

Oh, for the days when we only had Election Day, not Election Season. Oh, for the days when votes were counted in one night–not for a whole week.

UPDATE 7:40pm EDT:

Election Week County continues, as NBC Chicago’s Mary Ann Ahern tells us. Oh, some background. The Cook County Clerk counts suburban votes, the Chicago Board of Elections tallies city votes. Why not just one agency? The public sector is rotten to the core. Ahern in the first X post appears to be referring here to suburban votes.

The Cook County Board of Elections tonight says it will count the remaining Vote by Mail votes on Monday. There are a little more than 1 thousand County votes not yet counted. The bulk of their VBM ballots, 7 thousand were added to the County totals on Thursday. #StatesAtty

But what about the county-wide total? Well, Eileen O’Neill Burke’s lead continues to shrink, as Ahern reports.

NEW: @EileenCookCnty lead now ist [sic] 2015 over @ClaytonforCook#StatesAtty.

Update March 29 9:30 EDT:

After ten days–yes, ten days–of vote counting in Crook County, Clayton Harris III, the Kim Foxx candidate, has conceded, about an hour after AP called the race for Eileen O’Neill Burke and after EOB declared victory. The retired judge won by 1,500 votes out of over 500,000 cast.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

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