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As negotiations with Russia, Ukraine, and Hamas move at a pace that gives the second coming a better chance of occurring before any agreement will be reached there is a cease fire needed closer to home.
Chicago is an outdoor shooting range. The numbers are impressive, sobering is the better adjective. There are some that try to minimize the statistics with the per 100,000 population statistic. I'm not sure the survivors are impressed with rationalizations.
From 2019 to 2024 in Chicago 32,035 individuals have been shot. The Hey Jackass! website whose tagline states 'Illustrating Chicago Values' provides a Shot Clock. The 2024 Shot Clock:
The number of individuals murdered by shootings between 2019 and 2024 in Chicago is 5,611, and that does not include the numbers for 2025.
Local and state Soros prosecutors and judges' refusal to enforce additional charges for a shooter or a felon arrested possessing a firearm contributes to this problem. Federal prosecutors in Illinois have not done their job in enforcing federal penalties for gun crimes.
The recidivism rate for firearms offenders is 69%.
The data showed that 69% of firearms offenders were re-arrested within eight years post-release, compared with 45% of all other offenders (a difference of 24%), and the overall median time to re-arrest was 16 months. For both firearms offenders and non-firearms offenders, the most common offense at re-arrest was assault (26% and 19%, respectively), followed by drug trafficking (11.9% and 11.4%, respectively). Importantly, these findings support the idea that firearms-related offenders are more dangerous and more likely to recidivate than other types of offenders. This finding held regardless of criminal history and age and may justify the need for sentence enhancements based on certain factors (e.g., use of a firearm).
The sentence enhancements are on the books. The failure to use them is a huge problem in Chicago.
Discussion (13)
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One problem regarding the perception's outlook on peace negotiations is that the statements Trump is making with regards to the Ukraine as the matter is negotiated with Russia are simplified, ever downwards. Whereas in the 1970's the media wrote and spoke as though we were a nation of HS sophomores, we are now offered up information that some smarter third graders can manage, but little above that manner of understanding.
So the clever nuances inherent in the game that Trump are playing are overlooked.
When Trump states something in a strong and stubborn manner, the more radical Lefties in our media tell the public that, "See the guy ran on a platform of peace but what he really wants is war."
No he doesn't want war. If the EU goes into battle on the fields of Ukraine, the type of war that results will be a disaster for the global economy. A disaster for the global economy would then doom Trump's economic recovery efforts. This is something he most certainly does not want.
On the other hand, when Trump offers a softer friendlier comment in the Putin dialogue, the Never Trumpers and some of the pro-Ukraine Lefties who operate inside our media then tell the public "This man really is a Russian asset. It is just as true now as it was when we first stated this back in late 2015."
Any individual who has ever been involved in the back and forth of an overall strategy to get the other side to come up with a suitable proposal realizes that sometimes the individual plays hardball with unfriendly statements and other times with softer ones. But our media is careful to avoid such nuanced thoughts on the matter.Depending on which media sources the US citizen listens to, Trump is either a hardball war mongerer type or else a radical red diaper baby Russian!
But the fact is that when a person views the overall dialogue between the two world leaders in context and not in the mishmash of watered down statements that we usually get, both Putin and Trump are trying to find their way through to an agreement.
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Doug, what needs to become a total understanding of the situation inside our inner cities is how the local corrupt cops play into the situation.
I know of only one person who tried to bring this discussion forward, and that person is a woman novelist whose books appeal mainly to a female audience.
Elizabeth George's masterpiece "What_Came_Before_He_Shot_Her" details the lives of those inside the ghettos of our largest cities. Her writing is a tour de force. It both answers important questions and raises many more.
Why is it that often the individual arrested for a gangland style shooting is some "random" nine year old to eleven year old boy? How would such a person get a hold of a gun and then target an important individual? After all, most youngsters would not know the wife of a police inspector from any other lady on a train platform, right?
Since these events arrive with such a usual conclusion as "Woman shot by 11 Year Old" that perhaps the press can be forgiven for it, but the local cops should not be. If it is so often a young unimportant kid who is arrested, then the top people in a drug and prostitution running gang must be either blessed by a corrupt God or else extremely lucky. Or is something else going on?
The only reason that this book came to be published was that George was so convinced her message was needed that she fought a harsh fight with her publisher, and most authors would have lost. But she had held such a previously unbeaten record in terms of book sales that her publisher backed down. As a result, the public won one for a change.
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I have heard our best military doctors are trained in Chicago. Perhaps apocryphal.
It is horrible what Democrats have done to this country. From slavery to the KKK to the destruction of our great cities.
In the spirit of HL Mencken, the people are getting it good and hard.
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I used to love taking my family to Chicago. My wife and my daughter loved the magnificent mile, the American Girl store, etc. I loved Jazz Record Mart. We all loved the restaurants. Art Institute of Chicago. Shedd Aquarium. Museum of Science and Industry. It was great.
Detroit has been slowly becoming safer, with more things to enjoy downtown, while Chicago has fallen apart. Haven't been to Chicago in years, and I am not willing to go back.
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I love Chicago, and California too. I want it all back.
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