By John Ruberry
The foremost political issue in Illinois is crime. And we have plenty of other issues to choose from, including negative population growth and endemic corruption. The election of Kim Foxx as Cook County’s state’s attorney in 2016–her campaign was funded by radical leftist billionaire George Soros–set forth a rise in crime in Chicago and its inner suburbs that accelerated during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
The spirt of Foxx’s catch-and-release philosophy of law enforcement will go statewide, but only worse, on New Year’s Day when the SAFE-T Act goes into effect. In case you missed my last two posts at Da Tech Guy, I cited a Democrat, Will County state’s state’s attorney James Glasgow, who had this to say to Fox Chicago’s Mike Flannery about the SAFE-T Act, “There are forcible felonies that are not detainable: burglary, robbery, arson, kidnapping, second degree murder, intimidation, aggravated battery, aggravated DUI, [and] drug offenses.” Which means these accused felons walk free with the promise of returning for trial. An exception for flight risks, which a former Cook County assistant state’s attorney, John Curran, who is now a Republican state senator, says is almost impossible to use for jailing accused criminals. Curran told John Kass last month in his Chicago Way podcast that the SAFE-T Act passed the state Senate at 5:00am in the morning on the last day of a veto session of the General Assembly. He was given one hour to read the 764-page bill.
Some critics of the SAFE-T Act are calling it “the Purge Bill,” a reference the 2013 movie, The Purge, where crime goes unpunished for a 12-hour span.
As I noted before, Pritzker notoriously 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.” I called on the fact-checkers–even contacting them directly–to vet that statement. I’m considering offering a $1,000 reward to the person who finds Pritzker’s “diapers mom.”
Kass, a former Chicago Tribune journalist who was essentially demoted after his woke colleagues falsely claimed that a column he wrote blowing the whistle on Soros was anti-Semitic, now writes essential articles at John Kass News. He’s been at the forefront of the battle against the SAFE-T Act, and he’s calling for its repeal. Illinois’ Democrat governor, billionaire J.B. Pritzker, is promising unspecific changes to it after next month’s general election. He’s up for reelection, his opponent is state senator Darren Bailey.
Kass says, and I’ve been expressing the same view, that the Democrats are panicking about the SAFE-T Act. As they should, it’s a dangerous law that is a threat to public safety. He’s asking that Pritzker call an immediate special session of the General Assembly, “eat a few platters of steaming hot crow,” and repeal the SAFE-T Act. “J.B. Pritzker has the supermajority,” Bailey told NBC Chicago, which Kass recalled in his column. “Why hasn’t he called the legislature into action? Literally a text or a phone call, we could be demanded to meet in Springfield within a few hours. Why aren’t we meeting tomorrow at 9 o’clock hammering this thing out?” I believe I know the answer to that question. Pritzker wants to run out the clock.
Kass suspects that the SAFE-T Act is a woke exercise in credential building for the governor’s possible run for president. I’ll add my own theory. In addition to minting a badge of honor for himself, Pritzker is prepping himself for receiving a Nobel Peace Prize as the prophet who, at least in Illinois, atoned for the murder of George Floyd. Only the aftermath of an in-force SAFE-T Act will anything but peaceful.
Ads from the People Who Play By The Rules PAC focusing on violence have been very effective, even though at least three Chicago television stations have banned “The Scream.” A more recent ad, even more disturbing than “The Scream,” shows a robbery and a bloody assault that occurred last Sunday on Chicago’s CTA Red Line train. A few hours earlier my daughter was a passenger on the Red Line. One of the perpetrators in this attack has been arrested. He’s now locked up, amazingly, bail was denied to him. But the People Who Play By The Rules PAC has this message for Illinoisans, the attack you’ll below is “a non-detainable offense under Pritzker’s Purge law.”
Bailey, in my opinion, is still a decided underdog in the gubernatorial race, but the downstate farmer is closing his gap with Pritzker according to a recent Fabrizo, Lee, and Associates poll.
Twice last week non-political acquaintances of mine told me, “Hey John, you are wrong about the SAFE-T Act, I read a fact-check about it.” I exposed the phony SAFE-T Act fact-checks in an entry on my own blog a few days ago. Yet once again, and almost certainly not for the last time, I am compelled to point out that fact-checkers are primarily propagandists for various leftist narratives. And if you are told by someone that you are incorrect about the SAFE-T Act and they cite a fact-check as evidence, this needs to be your response: vomit on that person.
Back to Pritzker: If he is really serious about addressing the numerous flaws in the SAFE-T Act, he’ll call for that special session of the General Assembly with the purpose of repealing all of it. His feeble and non-specific calls for changes to the SAFE-T Act are empty promises.
Early voting for the November election in Illinois began last week. One way to block a Pritzker run for president is for voters to evict him from the governor’s mansion. A whole bunch of new state legislators in Springfield is needed as well.
By the way, no Republican legislators voted for the SAFE-T Act.
John Ruberry regularly blogs from suburban Cook County at Marathon Pundit.
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