Posts Tagged ‘john ruberry’

Illinoisans need to organize and fight back against impending no-cash bail law

Posted: December 5, 2021 by John Ruberry in crime
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By John Ruberry

There have been over 1,000 murders this year in Cook County, Illinois–where I live–and the county where Chicago dominates hasn’t seen that many killings since 1994. As for Chicago it has, as of three days ago, endured 777 murders in 2021. 

Liberals like to talk about root causes of crime. Indeed, the current situation is horrible. Apologists for the dramatic increase in crime over the last two years like to blame the COVID-19 outbreak. But the worst outbreaks are concentrated in deep-blue metropolitan areas with so-called prosecutors, many of whom that accepted campaign contributions from funds tied to radical leftist George Soros. 

People like Kim Foxx, the state’s attorney of Cook County. 

Here is one of those roots from one of Foxx’s poison seeds. Before the COVID outbreak Foxx, shortly after her first election in 2016, announced that her office would not pursue felony charges against accused shoplifters unless the value of the goods stolen exceeded $1,000. State law puts that threshold at $300.

And what happened? Retail threats soared. Here’s a story about that from 2019.

Five years later criminals, many of them wearing face masks, are emboldened. They don’t fear getting caught and if they are, because of the low-bail or no-bail policies of Foxx and Cook County judges–they are elected too–they are out on the street almost immediately.  Chicago and its suburbs are being plagued by gangs of flash mob thieves.

Crime will get worse in thirteen months–and the problem will be statewide as a no-cash bail law that Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, goes into effect. 

Small time criminals move on bigger crimes. Rudy Giuliani’s broken-windows theory of policing should be known as broken-windows fact.

And Chicago, with about 100,000 street gang members, has plenty of big-time crooks. 

Carjackings are out of control in Chicago and its suburbs. In the city there have been 1,444 carjackings so far this year–nearly double the annual total of just two years ago. Last month Chicago police arrested an 11-year-old “prolific carjacker.”

 As I mentioned last week John Kass, a columnist formerly with the Chicago Tribune, was demoted after back-stabbing liberal co-workers at the Trib complained that his column on Soros and the leftist “prosecutors” he funds was anti-Semitic. They lied and they know it.

Kass’ new columns and his podcasts can be found at JohnKassNews.com.

In his latest podcast Kass interviewed former local and federal prosecutor Robert Milan. It was a wide-ranging conversation, but I want to focus on his comments on the no-cash bail law, which is absurdly known as the SAFE-T Act.

“The new bill is going to make it easier to get out [of jail], Milan said, “in 2023 this already dire situation is going to get worse.”

He continued, “People have to organize victims of crimes and stand up and say, ‘This isn’t going to happen.”

Milan added, “Dangerous people should not be on the streets, period.”

So far in 2021, again as I mentioned last week, 56 people, as reported by CWB Chicago, have been accused of “killing, trying to kill, or shooting someone in Chicago this year while awaiting trial for a felony.”

A knee-jerk response of course is to vote-the-bums-out. That’s not so easy in Illinois, which, after a third-straight decennial redistricting, is burdened by gerrymandered districts designed to benefit the Democrats. Still, now is the time for Illinois’ feckless Republican Party to find an issue to rally on–and present itself as the party of personal safety. 

I believe the fight against no-cash bail will be up to rank-and-file Illinoisans, especially crime victims. The no-cash bail law, which fortunately still allows the most-heinous accused criminals to be locked up without bail, was largely a project of African-American legislators. But it is minorities, particularly blacks, who are usually the victims of violent crimes, particularly murder. 

Let’s get going, Illinois. Let’s get organized. Let’s make it not happen.

We’ve tried fighting crime the leftist way. It doesn’t work.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Chicago already has a Waukesha problem

Posted: November 28, 2021 by John Ruberry in Uncategorized
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By John Ruberry

Last Sunday a career criminal, Darrell Brooks Jr, allegedly drove his SUV into a parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, killing six people and injuring dozens of others. He was out on $1,000 bail, an amount deemed “inappropriately low” the next day by the Milwaukee County district attorney, John T. Chisholm. Earlier this month Brooks allegedly ran over the mother of one his children in that same SUV. 

Chisholm is one of many woke prosecutors elected in major metropolitan areas who believe in “affordable” or even no bail for individuals accused of violent crimes. Others include Chesa Boudin in San Francisco, who faces a recall election next year, George Gascón in Los Angeles County, Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, and Kim Foxx in Cook County, Illinois, where Chicago is the county seat. Many of their campaigns accepted contribution from sources tied to radical leftist George Soros. 

Foxx, whose title is Cook County state’s attorney, made a national name for herself after dropping charges involving the hate crime hoax engineered by former Empire star Jussie Smollett. He was charged again after a special prosecutor was appointed after the uproar in response to Foxx dropped those charges. Smollett’s trial begins tomorrow.

But what is far worse than that is Foxx’s weak bail policy involving accused felons.

As I’ve mentioned before at Da Tech Guy, if you want to get the true story of how violent crime is devastating Chicago and its inner suburbs, you need to regularly visit CWB Chicago. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Chicago Tribune–more on them in a bit–the Chicago Sun-Times, and the broadcast TV station websites document many violent crimes, particularly the murders. But CWB provides the indispensable back story. 

Since New Year’s Day CWB Chicago has been documenting individuals “accused of killing, trying to kill, or shooting someone in Chicago this year while awaiting trial for a felony.” With a little more than a month left in 2021 CWB Chicago has discovered 55 such people. Of those, 26 of them are accused of murder–and two others are charged with reckless homicide involving a vehicle. That brings us to a total of 28 fatalities. 

Here is a list of some of those deadly 26:

#8: “Highly active” gang member charged with killing rival over haircut — while on affordable bail (March 4, 2021)
#9: On bail for five burglaries, man set fire to home, killing girlfriend and 10-year-old girl, prosecutors say (March 12, 2021)
#16: Man chased down and killed victim while on electronic monitoring for gun case, prosecutors say (April 18, 2021)
#18: Man charged murder of 7-year-old at McDonald’s drive-thru has 2 pending felony cases, prosecutors say (April 25, 2021)
#19: Second man charged with killing 7-year-old at McDonald’s was on 4 felony bonds, including robbery and gun cases (May 1, 2021)
#27: Teen charged with killing 73-year-old carjacking victim was AWOL in felony stolen car case, prosecutors say (July 17, 2021)
#32: Teen with pending felony gun case shot man dead over shoulder bump, prosecutors say (July 28, 2021)
#35: Man murdered another in cold blood while on bond for gun case, prosecutors say (August 12, 2021)
#42: Man killed 1, injured 3 in expressway shooting while on bond for attempted murder, prosecutor say (September 11, 2021)
#48: Five-time felon killed his own cousin while on electronic monitoring for pending narcotics case, prosecutors say (November 3, 2021)
#55: Man killed 2, shot 3 more while awaiting trial for carjacking, prosecutors say (November 28, 2021)

The complete CWB Chicago list, as of November 28, is here.

What else is there to be found in that back story?

Last summer John Kass, then a Chicago Tribune columnist, wrote a column about the rise in crime in big cities that have woke prosecutors whose campaigns were funded by Soros. Kass was attacked and essentially demoted when co-workers of his, by way of their union, the Chicago Tribune Guild, claimed that the Soros column was anti-Semitic. Soros, a Holocaust survivor, is by most accounts a secular Jew. Kass never mentioned the religion or ethnicity of Soros in that column. So why was Kass attacked? Because he was on to something, the truth that is, about Soros and those catch-and-release prosecutors.

By the way when I first heard of Soros I figured he was a Greek-American As for Kass, who is a Greek-American, well he’s also a big fan of CWB Chicago. A few months ago he accepted a buyout from the new owners of the Trib. He has his own site that I regularly visit. A site, as he mentioned in one of his Chicago Way podcasts, where he is allowed to use the word “riot,” which he wasn’t able to do when he was with the Tribune.

Clearly Chicago and Cook County–I live in suburban Cook–has an ongoing Waukesha problem. So far my family and friends have not been affected by the increase in violent crime here. Although on Thanksgiving I had to explain to my daughter and her cousins what to do if they hear gunfire.

And as bad as Kim Foxx is–she doesn’t deserve all of the blame. Although a hardened leftist as well, Chicago’s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, has chilly relations with Foxx, a member of a rival political camp. But Lightfoot endorsed Foxx when she faced a tough Democratic primary last year. Lightfoot’s feckless police commissioner, David Brown, does Lightfoot’s bidding. The mayor pledged to reduce crime as a candidate–but crime has instead soared. Chicago already has endured more murders in 2021 than in any year since 1996.

Illinois’ governor, JB Pritzker, was seemingly talking tough last month when he said that Chicago is “nearly at a state of emergency in our need to address crime.” Then Pritzker got silent on the subject–presumably after he remembered that like Lightfoot and Foxx, he is a Democrat. Oops.

In 2023 Illinois becomes the first state to without cash bail. Pritzker signed that bill into law earlier this year. Judges will be able to jail those accused of serious crimes.

Oh, what about Cook County judges? Circuit court judges are elected here–and once on the bench they face a retention vote every six years. Typically nearly all judges are retained. It’s time that voters take a close look at the role that judges play in the catch-and-release atmosphere in Cook County.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Lots of Illinoisans are crossing the Wisconsin state line–permanently

Posted: November 21, 2021 by John Ruberry in business, crime, economy, News/opinion, politics
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By John Ruberry

“He crossed state lines with an AR-15” is a typical bellyache from leftist pontificators about Kyle Rittenhouse traveling from his home in Antioch, Illinois to help protect a business in Kenosha, Wisconsin during the riots (oops civil unrest) there last summer. 

The northern city limits of Antioch end at the Wisconsin state line. So for many people, including for Kyle Rittenhouse, travelling to Wisconsin is a daily trip. He worked in Pleasant Prairie, which is sandwiched between the Illinois state line and Kenosha. And Rittenhouse’s father and other relatives of his live in Kenosha.

Rittenhouse of course was found not guilty–and it was the correct verdict–of charges surrounding the self-defense shootings of three rioters (oops mostly peaceful protesters) in Kenosha last summer.

Do you need to fill up your gas tank? Only naive fools top off their vehicles in Illinois when there is a Wisconsin choice a short drive away. For instance, last month Mrs. Marathon Pundit and I visited Illinois Beach State Park in Zion. On our way out of the park I told Mrs. Marathon Pundit, “Let’s head up Sheridan Road and fill up our car.” And so we did. At the BP station there–which is just 50 yards north of the Illinois border, we paid 40 cents less per gallon than we would have south of the Cheese Curtain. The BP station is a large one–there were about ten vehicles filling up. And each one had Illinois license plates.

What about permanent moves to America’s Dairyland?

Just north of that border you see many manufacturing facilities and warehouses, most of them are newly built. Many of them are businesses that formerly called Illinois home. U-Line has a massive warehouse in Pleasant Prairie, they moved there, bringing 1,000 jobs, from Waukegan, Illinois in 2008. That facility has many neighbors that are equally massive. But on the Illinois side you see farms and some small scale businesses.

Why are they leaving?

Writing for the Badger Institute in 2019, Mark J. Perry said, “On 14 different measures of labor market dynamism, economic growth, various tax burdens, business climate and fiscal health, Wisconsin comes out ahead of neighboring Illinois on all but one of those measures — state individual income tax rate.” Perry added, “On net, Wisconsin has gained 116,000 Illinois residents between 2006 and 2017, an average of nearly 40 residents every day from 2014-’17.” 

Illinois has other substantial problems. Its public pension system is the second-worst funded of the 50 states–at just 39 percent–while Wisconsin’s public worker pensions are the best-funded at over 100 percent. Only an amendment to the Illinois constitution to eliminate the pension guarantee clause, a default, or hyper-inflation can solve the pension crisis. Illinois regularly contends for the title of most-corrupt state. Since I was born four Illinois governors have served time in federal prison. No governors of Wisconsin from that period have suffered the same disgrace.

Violent crime and robbery is a growing crisis in Chicago and its inner suburbs. Chicago will probably exceed 800 murders this year–numbers that the city hasn’t seen since the crack-fueled street gang wars of the mid-1990s. According to Hey Jackass there have already been over 1,400 carjackings in Chicago–nearly double than the yearly total of 2009. Flash mob robberies are occurring not just in Chicago but also the suburbs, such as this outrage where a gang of thieves on Wednesday filched over $100,000 in merchandise from a Luis Vuitton store in DuPage County. Two days later in Chicago’s downsized Magnificent Mile a flash mob of shoplifters struck Neiman Marcus–filling up three cars of merchandise. Wow, up until recently finding even an illegal parking spot was nearly impossible on the Mag Mile. Of course no one has been charged in these flash mob thefts. 

So crossing the Illinois state line into Wisconsin isn’t just a common occurrence. It’s the safe and smart move for people and businesses. 

Who knows? Mrs. Marathon Pundit and I might make that migration north too. Without a rifle. We only own a handgun.

John Ruberry regularly blogs just forty miles south of the Wisconsin border at Marathon Pundit.

How long can MSNBC viewers fall for the lies?

Posted: November 14, 2021 by John Ruberry in culture, economy, media, News/opinion, politics
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By John Ruberry

Sometime in her early 20s my wife, aka Mrs. Marathon Pundit, realized she’d been fed a stream of lies from the Soviet Union. The state media and the government schools put forth this whopper, for instance, that Estonia, Lithuania, and her own Latvia voluntarily joined the USSR in 1940, after the Red Army moved in

What else had they lied to her about?

Plenty of things. The Chernobyl nuclear disaster was one colossal series of disinformation. And she grew up with the false belief that Soviet citizens enjoyed a standard of living that was among the world’s highest. And some information was left out. While we were still dating we were looking up with amazement at the stars on a crystal clear and moonless night in rural Michigan. Then she asked me, “Did the Americans really send men to the moon?”

Let’s move up a few decades to MSNBC, the most reliable mouthpiece for leftist Democratic politicians and their supporters. 

Watching MSNBC you’ll be told that Critical Race Theory is not being taught in public schools. As I explained last week, while the original CRT texts probably aren’t being presented, lessons are being rammed down kids’ throats that put them into two camps for instance, oppressors and oppressed. And that America is incurably racist–well there is a cure. And that is of course CRT, even though it might be labeled “equity training.”

That conversation is morphing into their belief that conservatives don’t want racial history, including slavery, taught in schools. That’s just made-up nonsense. 

Just this morning on some MSNBC program called Velshi, one of the panelists made the claim that many of the protesters who spoke up at school board meetings aren’t parents, or perhaps she said they don’t have children at those schools. No matter. For instance as taxpayers these patriots have a right to voice their opinion on how the biggest part of their property tax bill is spent. Secondly if we take that twisted logic further, then Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, who has no children, should have no voice in how are youngsters are educated. 

MSNBC and CNN pushed the Trump-Russia collusion fallacy for most of the Trump presidency. It is the Elvis-sightings of political scandals. Elvis Presley died in 1977 and there was no Trump-Russia collusion during the 2016 presidential campaign. 

Here’s another MSNBC fable–that Kyle Rittenhouse, in the words of one commentator on that network, was “arguably a domestic terrorist.” The MSNBC talking heads were infuriated that Rittenhouse crossed a state line from Antioch, Illinois–which borders Wisconsin, to travel during the riot (oops, unrest) in Kenosha, where his father lived and where Rittenhouse worked. The truth has since emerged that the then-17-year-old was just trying to help out in a lawless zone who was forced into a situation where he had no choice but to defend himself.

Oh, just so you know, I don’t believe that minors should be waking around with an AK-47. 

For months MNSBC has been following the Democrat Party line that inflation was all but non-existent, then it was “transitory,” and now while it is real, inflation is not a problem. After Velshi MSNBC’s next program, The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart came on. His first guest was the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), who discussed rising prices. “Part of the reason that people are talking about inflation is that there are costs rising for American families across the county.” Duh! Her party’s solution? Of course it’s the expensive Build Back Better bill that includes child care money–and that will bring down costs for Americans. Wow. Give Jayapal her Nobel Prize for Economics now! Capehart didn’t bother to challenge Jayapal’s idiocy.

You probably believe that the typical MSNBC viewer is a hardened leftist who is immune from logic. Yes on the first and no on the second. MSNBC is telling its core audience what it wants to hear. But untruth can only be carried so far. Imagine for a moment a brothel that caters to men in their 50s like me. (Disclosure–I have not been to such a place.) You walk in and the women comment on how handsome you are–and that you are in incredible physical shape. They laugh at your jokes and when you bring up politics, “Republicans are racists, Biden is the best president since FDR,” one of the women winks at you and says, “Let’s continue this conversation upstairs in private.” And upstairs you go.

Eventually you learn that you are being played at that imaginary brothel–you ascertain that the sex workers are coyly reconfirming beliefs that you already have. “I’m a great looking guy.” Even though you’re not. You’re a guy in your 50s. Duh! They just want your money so they tell you want you want to hear.

MSNBC just wants your time. With so many choices for time–hundreds of cable channels, streaming services, podcasts, the internet, not to mention old school choices such as books and actually sitting down and having a one-on-one conversation with another person, time is an ever-precious finite resource. MSNBC is reconfirming the false beliefs–Trump colluded with Russia, Rittenhouse is a vigilante, inflation is not a problem–of its viewers to steal that time.

Sure it’s a trite expression, but time really is money.

What will MSNBC say if runway inflation–not to mention Jimmy Carter-era stagflation–is with us in a year? 

How many of its viewers will switch the channel? Forever.

MSNBC’s ratings are already way below those of Fox News. CNN is in even worse shape.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

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