Posts Tagged ‘democrats’

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.

Chicago’s southern suburbs are the sewer of corrupt Illinois

Posted: February 25, 2024 by John Ruberry in crime, elections, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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Blogger pictured in 2016

By John Ruberry

Illinois is a corrupt state. Rankings of the 50 states usually place in Illinois within the top five in the union in regard to public crookedness. 

Surprisingly, as bad as Chicago is, the city’s inner southern suburbs, are even worse in regard to political corruption. It’s the sewer of Illinois.

Sharp-eyed readers will recall I wrote a similar post here at Da Tech Guy several years ago, but the WordPress wormhole seems to have swallowed that entry up. 

So here I am again documenting south suburban Chicago sleaze, mainly because of the antics of Tiffany Henyard, the mayor of Dolton (rhymes with “Walton”), who has been accused of widespread corruption by her own village council. 

But you’ll find graft in nearby communities. More on them later.

Henyard is a double-dipper, a time-dishonored ILL-inois scam. The self-described “Super Mayor” collects $224,000 as a Thornton Township supervisor. But last year, the township’s board passed an ordinance that if voters remove her from office, her successor will earn just $25,000. 

As I wrote recently at DTG, township government in Illinois–a sinecure haven–should be abolished. 

Henyard’s salary as mayor of Dolton is $46,000. The village has 21,000 residents. As for her haul as a township supervisor, 49 of America’s 50 governors have a lower salary than hers.

Henyard, a Democrat, is accused of wasting village money on expensive trips to Atlanta and New York with village staff, wasting money on billboards with her picture. There is even her image in front of Dolton’s village hall. Yep. And I don’t care if you call me racist, it sounds a Third World-like cult of personality. I don’t care–because I’m not racist. Not surprisingly, Henyard is not above using the race card to deflect well-earned criticism. “You all should be ashamed of yourselves because you all are black. You all are black,” Super Mayor said recently in a livestreamed meeting. “And you all [are] sitting up here beating and attacking a black woman that’s in power.”

Henyard has only been mayor of Dolton for three years. She was defeated in a recall election in 2022, but a Cook County judge invalidated the results.

Meanwhile, finances in Dolton are a disaster. A lender is threatening to repossess 13 vehicles, including police cars. It could be at least $5 million in debt. Business owners are accusing Super Mayor of strong-arming them into making political donations to her campaign. Super Mayor is accused of shutting down businesses that didn’t cough up cash.

Speaking of donations, the Illinois attorney general’s office has ordered Henyard’s charity to stop collecting contributions, citing a lack of transparency and more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4e4KBV-jy8
Last month Super Mayor visited the White House and met President Joe Biden.

Is that all in regard to Henyard? No, but the FBI is investigating her.

Back to those other south suburbs.

In the 1990s, nearby Dixmoor’s Park District, which at the time had only one tiny tot lot under its jurisdiction, employed 80 people as police officers. Harvey, a poverty-stricken town has a long tradition of graft. While he has not been accused of wrongdoing, Eric Kellogg, who as mayor of Harvey until being voted out in 2019, Kellogg allegedly accepted kickbacks from a strip club that was offering prostitution. His brother was convicted for his role in that scheme. In Calumet City, which borders Dolton on the east, has recent sleaze to answer for. Its mayor is Thaddeus Jones. His wife, Saprina, collects $92,000 in a job working with state grants involved with Cal City. And the mayor’s son, Thaddeus Jr, collects $32,000 from the suburb.

Whose responsible for this debacle? Voters are. Yes, in the invalidated election Dolton voters chose to recall Henyard, but there were many red flags that should have been a sufficient warning to vote otherwise.

As the cliché goes, “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.” Barack Obama famously said, “Elections have consequences.” Indeed they do.

Finally, there is speculation that if Joe Biden backs out of the 2024 presidential election, Illinois’ governor, JB Pritzker, will jump into the race. On X, Pritzker, who of course earns less in public money than Henyard, regularly rails about the evils of “MAGA Republicans.” But Pritzker is silent about Super Mayor.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

The Immigration Solution: ENFORCE THE LAW

Posted: February 6, 2024 by datechguy in crime, election 2024, politics
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Captain Jean Luc Picard: Professor, this situation is more serious than you realize. In less than five hours, those two planets will collide and a new star will form. Unless we move to a safe distance, this vessel will be destroyed.
Professor James Moriarty: I’m just a fictional character. I haven’t much to lose.
Captain Jean Luc Picard: But surely you wish to live like the rest of us?
Professor James Moriarty: Not alone. Not without the Countess.
Captain Jean Luc Picard:: We’ve discussed that. We are studying means of bringing her safely off the holodeck. But five hours is not enough time.
Professor James Moriarty: I’m not so sure. A deadline has a wonderful way of concentrating the mind.

Star Trek The Next Generation Ship in a Bottle 1993

We are Less than 10 months from the presidential election and that deadline has, in the wonderful way a deadline does, suddenly focused the mind of the left to the point where they are afraid that their open boarder policy plan to replace the existing electorate with one that might support them with the financial help our our enemies might actually produce an election backlash beyond the margin of fraud and remove them from power.

Since power is the primary goal of both the left and the deep state that tolerates them a “compromise” bill was put together. Said bill was crafted behind closed door because such a bill debated openly could not stand the scrutiny of light and then released all at once with billions of funding for all kinds of things that have nothing to do with the border, but a lot to do with the left’s objectives tossed in.

Alas in this computer age it didn’t take long for the text of the bill to be examined and the various provisions including allowing thousands to cross illegally daily, money to the left’s NGO’s we now have the spectacle of democrats DEMANDING the bill be passed at once and claiming that the GOP is not serious about the border if they don’t play along.

Now there of course is a very obvious solution to the problem at the border and that solution is this:

Enforce the already existing laws.

If the already existing laws are enforced the border problem is solved, however such an approach is not acceptable to the democrat left for some simple reasons:

  1. It doesn’t give sufficient opportunities for graft
  2. It doesn’t provide billions for their priorities that they can’t get passed otherwise
  3. Their goal is to APPEAR to address the border rather than actually doing so.

Thus a new bill that gives plenty of opportunities for graft (in the form of payments to the left’s NGO’s) and addresses democrat priorates ( again a source for graft) while actually codifying thousands of illegals crossing daily and most important of all gives them a chance to say: We Did Something to Fix it.

One of the advantages of age is memory and as I recall going all the way back to Reagan, deals have been made concerning the border with the left. These deals follow a familiar pattern where the left has repeatedly taken Amnesty and cash offered while failing to actually enforce laws concerning the border that they always vow to do in exchange for them. 

So let’s cut to the chase and ask a question so obvious that I don’t understand why it isn’t being constantly repeated.

Given that historically the Democrats in general and this Administration in particular have been unwilling to enforce any existing border law why should we believe that once all the funds the left wants from this deal are appropriated via law they would actually enforce any provisions concerning border security?

Spoiler alert: they won’t be!

So I submit and suggest that rather then giving them a billion dollar source of cover for the 2024 election the GOP needs to have a single message on the border:

ENFORCE THE LAW, PERIOD!

End of discussion.

Droogs’ paradise: Rough first week for the “Purge Law” in Illinois

Posted: September 24, 2023 by John Ruberry in News/opinion, opinion/news
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By John Ruberry

A legal challenge, struck down by the Illinois Supreme Court, delayed the start of Illinois’ ludicrously misnamed SAFE-T Act, but it finally went into effect last Monday. 

The SAFE-T Act’s opponents refer to it as the “Purge Law,” a reference to the movie about a generally peaceful dystopian society, except for an annual 12-hour period where all crimes, including murder, are legal. The SAFE-T Act abolishes cash bail. Accused criminals are either set free after their arrest to await trial. Or they are locked up with no bail. The latter category is reserved for the most heinous criminals, as well as flight risks, and those who are suspected of being likely to intimidate witnesses, and the like.

Most accused criminals in Illinois, public safety be damned, will walk free, albeit some while wearing an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet, which, in case you didn’t know, are very easy to remove.

Of course, without cash bail, which often is paid for by a friend or relative, accused criminals can be expected to be more likely to skip out of town and blow off their trial dates.

Welcome to Illinois, the criminal paradise, where Alex and his “Droogs” of A Clockwork Orange fame, will feel at home.

Here are some of the lowlights of the first week of “the Purge.”

One of the first accused thugs arrested and set free pretrial was a woman raising hell during an unofficial, and at times disruptive, Mexican Independence Day automobile caravan celebration in downtown Chicago. Esmerelda Aguilar of suburban Cicero allegedly attacked four Chicago police officers with pepper spray. Prosecutors didn’t even ask the Cook County judge presiding over her hearing to detain Aguilar.

Cook County prosecutors, in another case, didn’t ask for another accused criminal to be detained in another egregious case. A Ukranian national, Ivan Muryn, was ordered by a Cook County judge not to drive, to submit to electronic monitoring and to surrender his passport. According to CWB Chicago, Muryn has been “charged with failure to report an accident involving death.”

That death was of his wife. According to the Arlington Cardinal, Muryn was arguing with his spouse while driving in Inverness. His wife removed her seatbelt and she “fell” out of his car, and then she was fatally struck by another vehicle. Muryn kept driving. Yeah, she “fell” out of her car.

Outside of the Chicago area, two California men were pulled over in Henry County, near the Quad Cities, driving an old bus that contained over 5,000 pounds of marijuana. The value of the drugs is estimated to be worth between $6 million and $14 million. They were not jailed, even though the duo is accused of committing an Illinois Class X felony. The drug bust is being called one of the largest in Illinois history. 

Eight days ago, the sheriff of Williamson County in southern Illinois released 30 jail inmates, because of the SAFE-T Act, the sheriff said he could no longer detain them as they awaited trial. 

Back to the spiritual descendants of Alex’s Droogs.

Criminals are risk averse. If criminals believe they can get away with lawbreaking, or if they are caught, they won’t get locked up, they become emboldened. 

Early Thursday morning, at least 10 people, including a 72-year-old man who was beaten, were robbed on Chicago’s North Side. 

In an encore performance on Saturday night, in at least five incidents, a dozen people were robbed at gunpoint in a two-hour period on the city’s Northwest Side.  No one has been arrested for either wilding spree.

That last story led CWB Chicago to quip, “Did anyone in Chicago NOT get robbed or shot last night?” Oh yeah, of course people have been shot in Chicago this weekend, including an 86-year-old man.

Violence also hit DePaul University’s North Side campus on Saturday night. Four students were mugged, and one of them was beaten, another was pistol-whipped.

The Purge is here.

No one has recently heard from the SAFE-T Act’s primary champion, possible presidential candidate Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who is on an extended vacation with his wife. Citing “security concerns,” the Democrat governor’s staff isn’t saying where Pritzker is. The governor, laughably but repeatedly claimed that the SAFE-T Act was about, “Making sure that we’re also addressing the problem of a single mother who shoplifted diapers for her baby, who is put in jail and kept there for six months because she doesn’t have a couple of hundred dollars to pay for bail.” The truth is, and Pritzker knows it, is that these Jean Valjeans of motherhood weren’t being jailed in Illinois, and they haven’t been so in quite some time.

Oh, back to Pritzker and his vacation: What about the security concerns of Illinois’ 12 million residents?

Kim Foxx, the Cook County state’s attorney who is more of a social worker than a prosecutor, says Illinois is “on the right side of history” now that the SAFE-T Act is up and running.

Well, history sometimes takes an evil turn.

John Ruberry regularly blogs, more nervously than ever, just outside of Chicago at Marathon Pundit.

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