Posts Tagged ‘illinois’

America’s big cities, the GOP’s next frontier

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

Last’s week’s convincing victory by Donald J. Trump over Kamala Harris offers a plan for the future of the Republican Party.

Let’s begin with this development. America is in a new political era. The Sixth Party System, which covers the shift of the Democratic Solid South to the Republican Party, is over. While Georgia is still a swing state, the GOP still owns the South. 

The shift of the working class, regardless of race, to the Republican side is in motion. The Seventh Party System is here. The Democrats are now the party of the wealthy metropolitan elites and people collecting public assistance. Good luck trying to create functional policy out of those odd lots. This, as Trump would say, is yuge. Sure, there are some unfriendly ripples in the Red Wave, women favor the Democrats and the tiny blocs with permanent grievances, such as the trans lobby and the Green Luddites, will always favor the left.

In politics the game is never over. Envision the GOP as a football team with a 27-14 lead over the Dems–and Trump, as quarterback, has the ball, with a skilled backup ready when he’s needed in JD Vance.

QB Trump needs to pass the ball into the cities for the long-term victory.

Because I live just outside of Chicago, I’m going to focus on that city, which hasn’t had a Republican mayor since 1931. But the story is similar in other big cities, particularly New York.

Trump collected 12 percent of the vote in Chicago in 2016, he improved to 16 percent four years later. This year he took 22 percent; it was the GOP’s best presidential Chicago performance since 1992. Trump won a Chicago ward, the 41st, and that hasn’t happened since that same year. The now president-elect came close in several other wards, mostly ones where many Chicago police officers and firefighters live, but Trump was also in shouting distance in the 50th Ward, which has many Orthodox Jewish residents. 

Trump made massive gains among Chicago’s Hispanic voters. To be fair, the black vote and the haughty white know-it-all vote on the North Side continued past patterns

Yes, 22 percent in an election is a long way from a majority. But there much room for growth.

Elsewhere, after Election Day some urban leftist pols are now out of a job. They include three woke prosecutors, California’s George Gascón and Pamela Price (who was recalled), and Deborah Gonzalez in Georgia. Two other California leftist mayors are now cleaning out their desks, London Breed lost her reelection race in San Francisco and Oakland’s Sheng Thao was recalled.

Voters nationwide are fed up with leftist public officials and there doesn’t seem to be too many moderate Democrats, particularly in big cities. Chicago’s woke mayor, Brandon Johnson, who was elected in a low turnout election just last year, now has an approval rating of just 14 percent.

The GOP, even in cities like Chicago that have nominally non-partisan elections, needs to start recruiting candidates now for the next few election cycles, not just for municipal races, but for state legislature and congressional contests.

In many cities, such as Chicago, “Republican” is still toxic in many circles. To counter that, conservative candidates can run as an independent. Gascón’s opponent, Nathan Hochman, a Republican, did just that in California.

Never forget, the Democrats are the party many unpopular political positions.

Including:

  • Sanctuary cities and open borders.
  • DEI.
  • Featherbedding government worker payrolls.
  • No-cash bail laws.
  • Lax prosecution of criminals.
  • Defunding the police or cutting the number of law enforcement officers.
  • Transgenderism–including supporting boys playing in girls’ sports.
  • Forcing expensive electric cars on us.
  • Banning natural gas stoves and ovens.
  • Burdensome regulations.
  • Opposing fossil fuels.
  • Red-light and speed cameras.
  • High taxes.
  • Hostility to school choice and private school vouchers.

And so much more.

Yes, party identity is a tough nut to crack, but progress has already been made by the GOP.

Big cities are the rotten apples on the dying Democratic tree.

Conservatives offer a better way. Say it now and say it loud.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Brandon Johnson’s Chicago follies: The board of education disaster

Posted: November 3, 2024 by John Ruberry in education, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

Chicago’s leftist mayor, Brandon Johnson, who is probably a socialist, is on his way to being remembered as one of America’s worst big city mayors.

Among the awful history gives us are New York’s John Lindsay, Cleveland’s Dennis Kucinich, and Detroit’s Coleman Young.

“Branjo” has been mayor for only 18 months. 

In another post at Da Tech Guy, I discussed his propensity to blame any criticism of him on his race–Johnson is black. 

Last month I discussed his Friday Afternoon Massacre. Consider this post a sequel. 

Johnson was a longtime paid organizer for the radical Chicago Teachers Union. And by the way, when someone calls himself an organizer, consider that a code word for left-wing radical.  He was also Cook County Commissioner, a part-time job. Cook County government doesn’t have much power. 

Branjo is an empty suit with an empty head. 

Chicago is broke, thanks to fiscal mismanagement by Richard M. Daley, Chicago is essentially bankrupt. Its municipal pension funds are the worst funded in the nation.

Daley belongs in that worst mayors ever list too.

But the Chicago Teachers Union, Johnson’s former employer and the chief financial backer of his mayoral campaign, wants a big raise for teachers. To pay for that, as well as a looming pension bill for non-teacher CPS employees, Branjo ordered the CEO of CPS, Pedro Martinez, to take out what the media is collectively calling a high interest “payday loan” to pay for both. CPS faces a $500 million dollar deficit while Chicago proper faces a nearly $1 billion deficit. CPS bonds are rated as junk.

Martinez said no to the mayor, and in solidarity with him, the entire school board, all seven of them Johnson appointees, resigned, in short, the Friday Afternoon Massacre.

In Brandon Johnson’s Chicago, things can always get worse.

Johnson quickly replaced the school board with seven new members, who have so far done nothing. Martinez hasn’t been fired and no payday loan has been taken out. In a few weeks, that board will be replaced with a hybrid board, half elected—the election is this week–and half appointed by Johnson. 

Of the soon-to-be former board, two members, including the president of the board, Mitchell Ikenna Johnson (no relation) are an embarrassment. The day after he was sworn in, it was reported that Mitchell was disbarred for life in Ohio for “engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, deceit, fraud, or misrepresentation.” The mayor, who almost certainly lives in a leftist pseudo-intellectual monoculture, should have immediately called for Mitchell Ikenna Johnson’s resignation. He didn’t. Then it was learned that Mitchell was active on social media supporting 9/11 conspiracy theories and promoting anti-Semitic hate. On Friday, Mitchell finally resigned.

Apparently, there is no vetting at Chicago’s City Hall. Competence is absent too.

Another of Branjo’s recent board appointees, Olga Bautista–a socialist–faces accusations of anti-semitism, which led Illinois’ treasurer, Susana Mendoza, a Democrat, to comment on X, “Springfield should intervene. There clearly needs to be Chgo City Council vetting, oversight & consent of these mayoral appointments to the Chgo Public School Board. Antisemites should be automatically disqualified, full stop. As should socialists calling for the fall of the U.S.”

Mendoza, a Democrat, is rumored to be considering a mayoral run in 2027.

Meanwhile, another radical left-winger, Kennedy Bartley, a top Branjo aide who is in charge of lobbying with other public officials, including the City Council, on behalf of the mayor, has called Chicago Police officers “f*cking pigs” and has made anti-Semitic comments on social media. She’s still on the job.

Johnson is rumored to have a police detail of 125-150 officers.

Clearly, being an anti-Semite, or at the very least, anti-Israel, is on the checklist to be included in leftist government employment circles.

And incompetence is on that checklist too.

As I’ve mentioned a few times at DaTechGuy, the warning signs were all there with Brandon Johnson. Chicagoans voted him in anyway.

While Chicago has some able aldermen–Brendan Reilly, Anthony Beale, and Ray Lopez come to mind–there are many leftist losers there too.

But that’s a topic for another time.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Chicago Public Schools took COVID money and splurged, now that source of funds has dried up

Posted: October 23, 2024 by John Ruberry in education, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

William J. Bennett, when he was Education Secretary under Ronald Reagan, declared the Chicago Public Schools system was the worst in the nation.

Decades later, CPS still might be at the bottom, despite a recent influx of federal COVID-19 relief cash.

According to Illinois State Board of Education test results, nearly three-quarters of CPS students can’t read at grade level and over eighty-percent of them aren’t proficient in math.

Not shockingly, many Chicago parents are finding alternatives their children’s education, such charter and private schools, or moving out of Chicago altogether. 

The sad irony is that many CPS schools call themselves things like “school of excellence,” or “STEM academy,” or “college prep high school.” 

One-third of Chicago’s traditional public schools, Wirepoints reports, are under half of enrollment capacity. One high school, the somewhat modestly named Manley Career Academy, which was built for 1,000 pupils, has just 100 students enrolled there. “Journey to world class” is the school’s motto.

There’s state-enforced moratorium preventing school closings, but that expires next year. But the Chicago Teachers Union, the straw that stirs the drink in city politics, is vehemently opposed to that.

Fewer schools means fewer union jobs. 

The CTU and its allies say that Chicago schools are underfunded. However, they never say what the proper amount is. Just more, more, and more.

CPS-per-student funding has increased by 40-percent since 2019, when scores were higher, the district now spends nearly $30,000 student, while the statewide average is just $24,000.

As I reported here earlier this month, Chicago’s leftist mayor, Brandon Johnson, who prior to his election last year was a CTU organizer, saw his school board resign because, according to media reports, “Branjo” was pressuring them to fire the CEO of CPS. 

Johnson appointed that entire board.

CTU was the primary funder of Johnson’s campaign. That union is fond of Alinskyite tactics, particularly creating and demonizing an enemy. Usually that’s the mayor, but Johnson is on the CTU team.

Johnson and CTU–assuming there is a difference between the two–are pushing for high-interest loans to increase spending for schools on things like salaries and pension obligations, rather than for capital projects, which is what fiscally responsible school districts use loans for.

CPS has a junk credit rating. 

Johnson’s new appointees will be out of office soon. A new 21-member board–10 elected and 11 appointed by the mayor, will take over shortly after Election Day next month. Many of the electoral candidates for the new school board are endorsed by the CTU.

Things have gotten so bad that even the Washington Post has taken notice.

Chicago and CPS appear to be in a death spiral. How both got there goes back decades. As for the misdeeds of the last few years, the Chicago Teachers Union deserves much of the blame.

Getting out of this mess won’t be easy. While Governor J.B. Pritzker is also a Democrat, he and Branjo aren’t close. Pritzker is a liberal, but Johnson is a quasi-socialist. But a state takeover of CPS isn’t likely. Pritzker wants to run for president one day and if the state is in charge of Chicago’s schools, then CPS becomes his problem.

Even if Kamala Harris wins the presidency next month, a federal bailout of CPS is very unlikely, especially because the district squandered COVID funds.

And Chicagoans are stuck with Johnson until at least 2027.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

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.

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