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Shot Across the Bow of the Illinois Ship of State
President Trump has a pen and a phone, too. He used the pen to send a letter to Chicago Mayor Lightfoot and Illinois Gov. Pritzker on Friday, June 26, 2020. He made no overt threat, but the letter must be read in the context of his repeated statements about domestic security in these United States. President Trump’s two-page letter followed up his Thursday Fox News town hall, and his lengthy Federalist interview in the Oval Office on Friday. The letter cited the recent death toll in Chicago, a butcher’s bill added in the 72 hours that followed.
The Chicago Sun-Times tells the grim tale:
18 dead, 47 wounded in Chicago weekend shootings
Four children were among the weekend’s victims, including a 1-year-old boy fatally shot in Englewood, a 10-year-old girl killed in Logan Square and a 17-year-old boy killed in Humboldt Park.[. . .]
A 10-year-old girl was fatally shot Saturday night when a stray bullet hit her inside a Logan Square home on the Northwest Side. [. . .] Lina Nunez was taken to Stroger Hospital, where she was pronounced dead hours later, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
[. . .]
Earlier that afternoon, a 1-year-old boy was killed and his mother was wounded in Englewood on the South Side.
The woman and her child were driving home from a laundromat just after 2 p.m. when a gunman pulled up alongside them in another vehicle and opened fire near 60th and Halsted streets, according to police. The child was struck once in the chest, while his mother, 22, was grazed on the head. She drove them to St. Bernard Hospital, where the child died. The mother was later taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center for treatment and her condition was stabilized.
The medical examiner’s office identified the boy as Sincere A. Gaston. He lived in South Chicago.
[. . .]
Antiwon Douglas, 17, was in a large crowd at 11:25 a.m. in the 1100 block of North Monticello Avenue when he got into an altercation and someone from the group pulled out a gun and fired shots, authorities said.
Kayleigh McEneny opened the Monday press briefing with a reflection on the murders in New York City and Chicago. She should be calling the roll of every person under the age of 18 who is killed in our cities when they are not engaged in crime themselves. The press jackals continued to show their depraved indifference to inconvenient black lives, deaths that do not advance their radical leftist agenda. Next Monday, Kayleigh McEneny needs to conclude the briefing by reciting all the names and showing available pictures of the child victims from the past three weekends. She needs to then denounce the pack for their complete indifference, for killing the memories of these children and call on them to soften their hearts and repent.
Press Briefing by Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany
Issued on: June 29, 2020James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
1:25 P.M. EDT
MS. MCENANY: Hello, everyone. Law and order are the building blocks to the American Dream, but if anarchy prevails, this dream comes crum- — comes crumbling down. Anarchy in our streets is unacceptable, and anger is not enough. You have a President committed to action.
The DOJ has arrested over 100 anarchists for rioting and destruction of federal property. The DOJ has also charged four men in federal court for attempting to tear down the statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square. The FBI has over 200 open domestic terrorism investigations ongoing. AG Barr has created a task force on violent anti-government extremists led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Northern Texas.
With 200 Trump-appointed judges confirmed, the rule of law will be upheld. Democrats at all lev- — at all levels — federal, state, and local — have done nothing. Senate Democrats blocked bipartisan police reform. Minnesota’s Democrat governor failed to urgently deploy the National Guard — it took President Trump for that to eventually happen; his suggestion — and the ultimate descendance into chaos there in Minneapolis.
Three Democrat Minneapolis councilmembers voted to abolish the police, while they themselves were getting a private security detail. That’s quite rich.
Democrat mayor of Seattle called the CHOP zone — the autonomous zone — “the summer of love.” It is anything but that with one dead, multiple shootings, and desperate pleas for help unanswered by business owners and others.
Eleven people were shot in 12 hours this weekend in the Democrat-run New York City. And 61 people were shot in Democrat-run Chicago, and 15 fatally killed — a Democrat state, a Democrat city.
President Trump stands against defunding our brave police officers, caving to mob rule, and cancel culture which seeks to erase our history.
Let’s be clear: The rampant destruction of statues is not a part of any ideology, but this anarchy is aided by failed Democrat leadership. And as President Trump has tweeted, these statues, quote, “are great works of art, but all represent our History & Heritage, both the good and the bad. It is important for us to understand and remember, even in turbulent and difficult times, and to learn from them.”
So let’s stand for law and order, for peace in our streets, and against anarchy. This is President Trump’s vision for the future.
Cliff,
Black Lives Matter???? Every weekend this body count happens in these cities usually run by the Democrat machine from time immemorial. These Black Lives don’t ever seem to count. In fact, the MSM doesn’t even mention them. Gosh, hypocrisy maybe???
Regards,
Jim
The Democrats are racist. Always have been, and still are. Where they’re not racist, they’re just corrupt. Often they’re both.
This is sort of putting down a marker to Lightfoot and Pritzker in the same way as Trump did after the creation of CHAZ in Seattle. He didn’t send the troops in there, and isn’t likely to do it in Chicago, either, but as with Durkan and Inslee, he gives the mayor of Chicago and the governor of Illinois the option of doing something on their own, or playing to the angry Democratic activists by attacking Trump, and de facto siding with the rioters and the Antifa crowd.
Both Seattle and Chicago may be so far gone that nothing that negatively affects local residents’ quality of life will make them not vote for the same Democrats, or their doppelgangers, over and over again. Their voters may never think Detroit or Baltimore can happen to them, but it’s also instructive for other areas in those states and other parts of the country to see when push comes to shove (or when push comes to gunfire, as in CHAZ/CHOP) who the Democrats think their most important constituents are.
Very interesting post!
There are so many things going on that it’s hard to know where to start. I think if Trump were to intervene in Chicago, in some way, that would be interesting. It would show real concern for the people in the city who need help most, irrespective of partisan affiliation.
I really don’t know much about Chicago politics but, here is my concern: saying that the city is Democrat run isn’t a new rhetorical strategy right? Breitbart used to do it constantly. Has anyone checked to see if it has been effective strategy at accomplishing any conservative or Republican goal? I believe if someone did, they’d find it has been ineffective and maybe has convinced some people that it’s an unserious complaint.
I’d love to see the black community march against Lightfoot and Pritzker. The governance many blacks in the worst neighborhood have received has been horrible. I’m not going to go into all the reasons why I think we don’t see this happening now. I’ll note that it isn’t a Wendy’s drive-thru or Target store that is the problem. It’s Lightfoot and Pritzker. But I don’t think pointing out that Chicago is Democrat run is helpful. They know. They really do.
So many black lives don’t matter to to the ironically name Black Lives Matter organization that is beggars the imagination.
Black lives who are victims of crime don’t matter to BLM; unborn black lives don’t matter to BLM. Let’s not beat around the bush, BLM is a Marxist, racist organization that has succeeded in baffling 80% percent of the country and 100% of city politicians.
Chicago politics is a sewer. We had two options in the last run-off for mayor (all of the options, if I’m not mistaken, were dems)- Preckwinkle or Lightfoot. It was common knowledge that Preckwinkle was corrupt and Lightfoot wasn’t (yet).
Lightfoot has botched the handling of the riots beyond belief and vilified the police in the process. According to secondcitycop, she knew 3 days before that Antifa was coming to the city to riot and she did nothing to implement a city-wide plan to contain the damage. She left all of the access points into and around the city wide open so when the looting started, looters just hopped back into their cars/metra and got away. If the whole downtown is boarded up, that’s on her. She constantly references the fact that she’s black and identifies with the anger of the protestors which doesn’t help the situation at all (like Obama talking about how Trayvon Martin could have been his son).
So we voted for inexperience over corruption and we were rewarded with sheer incompetence.
Wow. Both Illinois politics and politicians are ugly.
Indeed.
Now Lightfoot has decided to play the sexist card (unprovoked!) and accuse Trump of targeting female mayors– Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta, Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington, D.C. and Mayor Jenny Durkan of Seattle- with “misogynistic and racist rants”.
“What’s abundantly clear over this last month in particular, there’s some obvious dots to connect as part of his regular rotation of criticisms,” Lightfoot said during an unrelated press conference Monday. “He has started attacking and trying to undermine every big city Democratic mayor, especially the women.”
Clearly it’s because they are women and not just because they are presiding over unhinged urban failures ranging from CHOP, the looting and destruction of public property, the demoralization of their police forces to soaring murder rates (let’s not forget that every week in Chicago alone those numbers include infants under the age of 10 who’ve been shot)?
But no, no one can criticize them because they are women.
I hate my city now. It used to be a great place to live, with great down to earth people. Where did all of these whackos come from who even tolerate let alone vote for this crap?
Lightfoot has been terrible to watch. Whether it is Covid or the homicides in Chicago… theres a level of contrition she should have when speaking that isn’t there. The answer for Trump’s attacks is simple. These were cities with major unrest and mayors who thought that throwing shade at Trump was a way to get ahead of the unrest and get media affection.
Bottoms? I feel a little sorry for her since Atlanta is a very different city than Chicago with a relationship between its cops and citizens that is also different. I mean, its been several years since I’ve been back but ATL and its metro had always struck me as a place that was steadily moving forward on race and police relationships. The Seattle mayor… I knew nothing about her until she embarrassed herself with the handling of CHAZ. So completely irresponsible.
I don’t know much about Atlanta but I had heard that the relationships were better. Since the arrests of the two officers for the Brooks shooting, it looks like some of the goodwill there might be squandered. It really doesn’t take a lot, does it?
The officer arrests were shocking (APD is like majority black as I understand it). But I think the wave of riots probably also has to be interpreted in light of the lock downs and ongoing stress. Atlanta metro is a place I’d expect to see people, including police/civilian relationships slowly start coming back together. I don’t think I’d say the same for a place like Seattle, Portland, or Chicago.
Here’s the thing – people in Chicago don’t believe honest government is possible. Everyone cracks jokes about crooked politicians. Probably one of the few exceptions is @illiniguy , but he is from downstate.
My name having been mentioned in debate, I invoke the privilege of response. First of all, I thank @omegapaladin for his kind endorsement; I hope I never fall short of his words. (But I’m not from downstate, I live in McHenry County, right on the Wisconsin border. Come visit us sometime.)
The point made by @giuliettachicago about voting for inexperience over corruption shows how deeply the people of Chicago (and throughout Illinois) continue to look beyond what they see in front of them with the hope that something better can emerge, though they do so suspecting that little will change. And they’re rarely proven wrong.
Though we’ve become the poster child for political corruption (See eg: Senator Martin Sandoval, Rep. Luis Arroyo & Ald. Ed Burke), and while Speaker Madigan is the constant source of rumors, Illinois’ politics suffers more from several other afflictions which cut more deeply: economic ignorance and sheer inertia.
I think this comes from the fact that people have become spoiled by how inexpensive we’ve made government. I know that sounds counter-intuitive, especially in a state with one of the highest tax burdens in the country, but it’s very easy for someone to promise a dollar of government services for fifty cents on the dollar. Borrowing from the future (our pension debt is over $140 billion and climbing) to give voters the goodies they want today is the shortest path to re-election, but it’s also the shortest path to financial ruin. When you point that out, people turn their backs, and when you do vote for a tax increase to pay for something the state desperately needs (I voted to double the state gas tax that hadn’t been changed since the ’90’s to pay for billions in needed road improvements), the long knives come out.
It’s sort of a “chicken or egg” thing, and I don’t think it’s going to end soon, or end well. We’re at the point where we don’t need sea-green incorruptible politicians, we need Sully Sullenberger, because this sucker is going down, and all we can do is hope that we hurt as few people as we can in the process.
Yes our debt is climbing and we need real things to get done, and that costs money we don’t have. No, more revenue is still not the answer in Illinois because there’s plenty of revenue sloshing around. Taxing the people more should have been dead last on your list of solutions for paying for roads.
It was dead last on my list, but I voted for it for two reasons:
Until the day comes that we can cut the Gordian Knot of our debt and voters wake up to the reality of what one-party rule has done to destroy this State, those are the realities. I’m not going to be in the House forever, but as long as I’m there I’m going to take a clear-eyed view of what we must do and vote without concerning myself about the next election.
No choice? You could have voted no! You could have put forth counter proposals! You could have been a real opposition, but we don’t have such a thing in Illinois. At 74-44 the increase would have passed anyway, but it actually passed with a “bipartisan” 83-29. It could have passed without your support, unless of course you actually do support it? Do you think your constituents actually support it? Do you think your constituents would want you to put up some kind of fight?
It’s not about the next election. It’s about actually opposing that one party rule! It’s about making the differences stark and then pressing those differences, highlighting them, running on them. They should not be given legitimacy because in so many ways they’re not legitimate. Honestly, I don’t give a damn about roads at the moment. It, like a tax increase, is toward the bottom of the list. Our problems are one party rule, corruption, waste, progressivism, creeping racialism and authoritarianism, out of control spending, out of control taxation – these are the existential threats that are chasing away business and citizens.
I did support it, because as a conservative I think we should pay for the things we need. As to the support of my constituents, I guess we’ll find out in November. But I’ll tell you this. I figure I’m going to pay about $200 per year in additional motor fuel tax (I drive an F-150 which is not so fuel efficient), but McHenry County has almost $300 million in road and bridge improvements on the books over the next 5 years, and the County is getting an additional $250K per month in motor fuel taxes, while Woodstock’s take of the increase is $35K per month and the townships and other municipalities get varying increased allocations as well. I think that’s a pretty good return on investment.
So it is about the next election then, isn’t it?
No wonder Illinois is where it is. You’re bragging about pork. That would be bad enough, but it’s pork you first voted to take from people so that the people in charge (in Illinois!) can put it to better use than the people who earned it.
No it’s not about the next election! It’s about our existence and quality of life in our communities. It’s about actually opposing what should be opposed. It’s about not rationalizing bad governance and providing it cover, not justifying it by putting your nose into the trough too. It’s about persuasion and getting better hands on the levers and then actually reforming those levers.
Roads are one of the things the government actually should be funding.
Oy vey. Yes roads are a legit government function. Let’s double that gas tax this year too! Roads still suck; bridges are still falling apart. Let’s do it again next year too because all of that will still be true. As long as the machine makes room for you, keep sucking at that teat instead of doing something about the machine that is ruining our state. Keep knocking on my effing door for more money instead of fixing the damn budget and spending as job number one. Does it matter who I vote for? Apparently not as long as somebody keeps getting their share.
Several years ago I complained on Ricochet about a needed/wanted playground that went up at my local park. It cost $500,000! Yet no one seemed to bat an eye at that; in fact so many were pleased. If that’s the only way these people can make a playground happen then I say forget the playground until we have people in charge who can build a playground for less than the cost of 3-5 houses.
Lemme ask you something. I know you live in Chicago, which doesn’t have an elected school board, and the Chicago City Council is nothing more than a rubber stamp for the mayor. But have you ever tried to get involved in local politics, no matter how fruitless you may think the endeavor may be and no matter how much ridicule and blowback you’d endure by doing so? Have you tried to make your voice heard where it may have some effect, or do you think that because it’s fruitless it isn’t worth the effort?
You’re pretty good at pointing out my shortcomings, which abound, and that’s your right because I represent you as a citizen of Illinois. But I make my decisions and take my votes, not by sticking my finger in the wind to see which way the wind is blowing, but based upon the judgement that my constituents told me to exercise when they voted me into office. Oftentimes those votes are ones I’d just as soon not be making, but my responsibility is to use what brains I have to decide what’s the most I can get for my constituents (you included) without violating my principles.
Again, if all you want to do is complain, that’s your right. Otherwise, to quote Colonel Jessup in “A Few Good Men”: “I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post.”
Stand a post? Every effing day in my little platoons my friend. You left out a key part in Col Jessup’s rant:
Maybe if Illinois Republicans were to start providing something other than capitulation and complicity in my state’s ruin then I might not feel the need to “complain” or question so much and you might have a leg to stand on with your indignation. The last thing I want from you or anyone is to stick your finger in the air or to violate your principles. It’s just that I want representatives whose principles prioritize fixing the real problems instead of going along to get along, whose principles oppose more taxes before picking my pocket yet again because there’s just no other choice when you know well that there are other choices. Literally the least you can do is to oppose crap bills when they come up for your vote.
This is not unexpected take. Raising taxes is never a winning proposition anywhere. I understand that there are necessary infrastructure projects that are critical and require tax hikes. On the other hand, when the taxes continue to go up especially in cities like Chicago, people leave which is exactly what’s happening.
I go back to the schools a lot because that’s the social and political environment that I am the most familiar with after teaching in CPS. One of the things that I find perversely fascinating is that this recent strike in the fall drew 15% raises over 5 years for teachers (let’s keep in mind that a CPS teacher who’d been working with a B.A. for 20 years was making at least 80K- not too bad. Now this gets tweaked with the new contract). Well, one of the major issues facing CPS is shrinking numbers in the schools which would mean possible school closures and all that entails. But where do these come from? The draining effect of higher taxes from the city and state. So families flee the city, thus shrinking the tax base, teachers strike and their higher salaries, not to mention the growing operational costs of funding the schools (because now the school budgets have to be increased to cover teacher salaries + keeping the lights on) will have to be funded by higher city taxes that will cause MORE families- precisely the ones the union is crowing about trying to keep- to flee and the cycle repeats itself.
I think Chicago should declare bankruptcy and restructure like Detroit did. Constantly raising taxes might provide short-term patches for necessary projects, but it’s causing a real population drain right now that will have even greater, costlier effects further down the road.
Yes, the ratchet handle swings both ways, but only turns one.
Didn’t I read that Rahm Emanuel committed all airport revenue – O’Hare, I suppose – for X years to solve an immediate budget shortfall? That is some kind of epic stupidity.
I would love an Illinois perspective on the OP issue of street crime. Has any Illinois Republican ever sought to mobilize voters, to make inroads around this issue?
I’ve lived in Chicago since 2013 and can’t remember anything specific to street crime in that time aside from the typical hand-wringing. Rauner was the Republican governer for most of the time and he had a hard time getting anything done in Springfield. I’m new to Ricochet so I don’t know who the other Illinois/Chicago people are to turn this over to for their input aside from @edg and @illiniguy –
Yikes. Republican failure to engage signals nothing better than a slow retreat into irrelevance.