Posts Tagged ‘soros’

What about the current laws? The next time someone says we need more gun control laws, tell them about Cook County, Illinois

Posted: May 19, 2024 by John Ruberry in crime, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

Cook County, Illinois, America’s second-most populous county, has suffered under seven-and-a-half years of a pro-criminal so-called prosecutor, state’s attorney Kim Foxx. 

Jussie Smollet’s pal–who is a George Soros-funded Democrat–apparently doesn’t want to leave office quietly. Foxx, who thankfully decided not to run for a third term.

Foxx is considering adopting a policy of not prosecuting motorists who are pulled over for moving violations, thinks like speeding and driving with expired license plates, if they are found with narcotics or illegally possessing guns.

I’ve repeatedly criticized Foxx on this blog. Among her most egregious examples of prosecutorial malfeasance is her policy of ignoring the Illinois threshold for felony theft of $300. She raised it to $1,000. A second standout of idiocy was her decision, since reversed, not to charge participants in a wild west style Chicago gunfight because they were engaged in “mutual combat.”

For decades, liberals and leftists in Illinois have said that most deadly violence in the Prairie State is caused by guns. After every mass shooting–the latest one happened last night on Chicago’s West Side–libs will decry the latest instance of “gun violence.” Of course, these guns don’t fire themselves. It’s people violence. And playing along with the progressives’ word games, the next logical step of course is more gun laws, or better yet, they believe, a ban on public ownership of firearms. 

The reaction to Foxx’s no-charges suggestion regarding guns and drugs found during traffic stops has been mostly, but not exclusively, negative. 

The media-shy Foxx–I prefer to call her a coward–directed her office issue a statement defending her foolish idea.

“Decades of data demonstrate that these stops do not enhance public safety,” it reads. “Instead, they perpetuate a cycle of mistrust and fear, especially in under-resourced communities. This draft policy is a crucial step towards rebuilding that trust.” 

What data? Where? When?

And “rebuilding that trust” means not enforcing gun laws? 

A Chicago alderperson, Sylvana Tabares, issued a commonsense retort against Foxx’s proposal. “It strips officers of an essential tool to get illegal guns off our streets,” Tabares said. “Residents are demanding we do more to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and make their neighborhoods safe. This does the opposite.”

The Republican nominee for Cook County’s state’s attorney, Robert Fioretti, says if Foxx’s no-charges- on-guns-and-drugs-found-in-traffic-stops policy is enacted, he’ll reverse it. The Democratic candidate, Eileen O’Neill Burke, hasn’t commented on Foxx’s proposal. However, O’Neill Burke–who I voted for in the Democratic Primary over a Foxx-wannabe–campaigned on reversing returning Cook County to the $300 threshold for prosecuting felony theft. I suspect EOB is against Foxx’s proposal.

Meanwhile, last week Cook County’s sheriff, the weaselly Tom Dart, also a Democrat, in statement suggested that there could be over 80,000 Illinoisans who have had their Firearm Owners Identification Cards revoked who still possess guns. Dart, at least in regard to Cook County, says he needs more money to track down these criminals. Cook County Jail, which Dart is in charge of, has seen a dramatic drop in inmates because of Illinois’ pro-criminal no-cash bail SAFE-T Act, but has not laid off any guards. I know, that’s because of union contracts.

When are the next round of negotiations for those jail guards’ contracts?

Now back to guns. I’m going to state the obvious. Before suggesting new firearm laws, let’s first enforce the existing ones.

John Ruberry regularly blogs from Cook County at Marathon Pundit.

Soros-funded Chicago prosecutor will finally get tough on lawbreaking protesters–but only for the Democratic National Convention

Posted: April 28, 2024 by John Ruberry in crime, election 2024, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

Kim Foxx, the state’s attorney of Cook County, is the chief prosecutor in Chicago and its inner suburbs. 

The George Soros-funded catch-and-release Democrat has been a disaster for Cook County residents, except for the many criminals living here.

Nationally, the leftist ideologue is best known for botching the Jussie Smollett case. Yeah, I keep bringing that up, largely because Foxx supposedly throws a fit whenever her name is attached to the hate-crime hoaxer. 

Feel her rage.

By throwing his considerable weight around, both literally and symbolically, Illinois’ governor, JB Pritzker, who hopes to run for president in 2028, brought the 2024 Democratic National Convention to Chicago. This may prove to be Pritzker’s undoing. Chicago was hit hard by riots after the George Floyd murder, and the crime rate in Chicago and its core suburbs has soared since Foxx took office in 2016.

Fortunately, Foxx chose not to run for a third term. 

The campaign to succeed her was essentially a referendum on her time as state’s attorney. The winner by a hair was Eileen O’Neill Burke, who said at the end of a debate, “If you like the way things are going right now, you have a candidate in this election. It isn’t me.”

Last week, the Chicago Tribune reported that Foxx will get a little tougher in prosecuting crime. “You may not be aware, but for the last four years the public policy of the Cook County state’s attorney’s office has been not to prosecute criminal violations tied to protests and demonstrations,” the Trib’s left-of-center editorial board wrote, “if the office deems those actions ‘peaceful.'” 

“That means the office as a matter of policy won’t prosecute protesters arrested for disorderly conduct,” the op-ed continued, “unlawful gathering or criminal trespass to state-supported land, among other laws.”

As people with common sense–that is, non-leftists–know, small-time violators of the law sometimes become felons. Peaceful protests, or what liberal journalists laughingly call “mostly peaceful protests” sometimes become quite violent ones. 

Foxx’s end-of-term conversion does not mean she’s been suddenly blessed with wisdom. Crime is a very serious problem in Chicago. Nationally, liberal apologists for criminality regularly tell us that the crime rate in major cities is going down, but not only do they use the COVID year of 2020 as a comparison point, they ignore Chicago. While murder the murder rate is down slightly in Chicago, other crimes are becoming more numerous. Foxx is largely to blame, but Chicago’s mayor during the pandemic, Lori Lightfoot, as well as her neo-Marxist successor, Brandon Johnson, should hold their heads in shame too.

Instead, Foxx has cynically, in regard to DNC protesters, decided to do her job. 

Leftists are obsessed with history repeating itself. Looking past the calm 1996 Democratic Convention, they fear a repeat of the riot at Grant Park during the 1968 DNC, when Mayor Richard J. Daley’s angry cops beat up hippie protesters as millions of voters watched on television. Liberals blame that chaos for Richard Nixon’s victory that fall. 

At a protest earlier this month Joe Iosbaker, a left-wing gadfly, offered an ominous warning with a couple of questions. “Have you heard that the Democratic National Convention is coming to Chicago? Are we going to let ’em come here without a protest? This is Chicago, goddamn it — we’ve got to give them a 1968 kind of welcome.”

Foxx doesn’t want to be blamed for Donald Trump defeating Joe Biden in November. She cares more about her political party than fulfilling the duties of her job.

Pro-Hamas and anti-Israel protests are regular disturbances in downtown Chicago. Protesting, both peaceful and “mostly peaceful,” has become a habit in the city. Throw into the mix Chicago’s violent crime epidemic, and the result will be a vile stew that is set to turn toxic in late August, when the DNC convenes at the United Center.

Foxx’s “conversion,” in my opinion, will prove to be too little–too late.

Let the bad times roll. History will repeat itself in Chicago.

After the DNC leaves, Foxx can return to not prosecuting protesters who break laws until Eileen O’Neill Burke is sworn in.

John Ruberry regularly blogs in Cook County at Marathon Pundit.

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.

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.

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