This situation is funny—not funny-ha-ha, but funny-strange. Ordinarily, the left adheres to the notion, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” In fact, a “crisis” is so crucial to their strategy that, if there is no crisis, they will manufacture one. Just look at the crisis-mongering going on daily on most network and cable news outlets. What’s the crisis-du-jour that will bring down the Trump presidency—this time?
Mired in a serious crisis, Democrats running Chicago are letting a legitimate crisis go to waste by downplaying it. What is being wasted in Chicago are the lives of the innocent victims caught up in the daily mayhem.
On one recent weekend on Chicago’s South and West sides thugs committed 74 shootings, including 12 murders. The victims’ ages ranged from 11 to 62. According to the Chicago Tribune, “at least 1,700 people have been shot in the city this year, fewer than the last two years at this time when violence hit record levels in the city but well above other recent years. There have been at least 300 homicides, according to Tribune data.”
This is a disgrace for the Democrats running the city. But they don’t act like they’re disgraced. Instead, they toss tired condolences and trite phrases to the media and then return to business.
The shootings occurred at outdoor gatherings, including a block party and even a funeral. It’s not depraved enough to shoot into crowds of revelers enjoying a hot summer night, but they also have to spray bullets into mourners after a funeral? These are the actions of despicable creatures who’ve abdicated their humanity, making them no better than ISIS terrorists.
Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, has suffered 327 murders and 1,426 shootings so far this year. Compare that with the country’s two largest cities, Los Angeles and New York. For the same period, the much larger LAPD reports 515 shootings of which 143 were homicides. The NYPD, an even larger city, had 514 shootings with 167 murders. Again, not a math major, but that’s more shootings and murders in Chicago than in America’s two largest cities combined.
This discrepancy is not an anomaly. These numbers are occurring perennially. This is a dereliction of duty by people who appear more worried about the political optics and keeping their jobs. If not, they would have deployed the National Guard years ago and city leaders wouldn’t have effectively castrated their police force.
Deploying the National Guard is not unprecedented. In 1999, during the WTO riots in Seattle, I worked alongside the Guard. City leaders finally asked the governor to send guardsmen to assist Seattle police even though no one had been shot or killed during the demonstrations.
Several people were injured (some seriously), including police officers, but there were no fatalities. Part of this relatively positive outcome was likely thanks to the eventual augmentation of the understaffed cops with guardsmen. Local politicians waited too long, but they got lucky. No one was killed.
Although the National Guard cannot conduct law enforcement tasks, they can assist police by deploying in substantial numbers, which act as extra eyes, ears, and bodies for law enforcement. They can also act in self-defense, in the defense of innocent people and, when necessary, detain suspects for police, as any citizen can.
Now, what is Chicago’s mayor doing about what Fox News political analyst Gianno Caldwell called a “mass genocide in the streets of Chicago”? Very little. At least, nothing that is making things better. Caldwell believes the only solution now is for President Trump to intervene or to vote Mayor Rahm Emanuel out of office—both would work, too.
Speaking of President Obama’s former chief of staff, as I alluded to in the first paragraph, who said never let a crisis go to waste? Oh, that’s right. It was none other than Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Apparently, a real crisis doesn’t qualify.
Emanuel is in the midst of seeking his third term as the Windy City’s mayor. And, regarding his re-election bid, what’s the best thing you could say about the mayor’s performance to date? Well, he couldn’t do any worse. Then, again, he could. Now, there’s a campaign t-shirt for ya: Rahm Emanuel: He Couldn’t Do Any Worse.
What does it say about a man who’s failed so badly—battle casualty numbers of wounded and killed—yet believes he should keep his job? His audacity and tone-deafness are astounding.
And, you may ask, what about the cops? What about them? The cops can only do what their leaders allow. In a stunningly stupid move, especially during the ceaseless carnage, Democrat leaders in Chicago, Springfield, and Washington D.C. decided it would be a great idea to place the shackles of a partisan consent decree on the men and women of the Chicago Police Department (CPD).
Heather Mac Donald, writing in City-Journal.org, put it this way, “Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel and Illinois attorney general Lisa Madigan recently celebrated the issuance of a 232-page draft consent decree for the Chicago Police Department, possibly the longest police consent decree ever written.” Standing ovation, anyone?
Mac Donald explains the consent decree. Not how it will help end the bloodshed. No, at least, that would have a veneer of logic. She explains that while gangbangers are shooting and killing people by the dozens, this decree will require the CPD to revise its policies for dealing with “transgender, intersex, and gender non-conforming individuals.” Not sure how many of these folks have been “jumped into” the Crips, Bloods, or MS-13. But, hey, you never know. Oh, and let’s not forget the consent decree will also mandate the use of proper “names, pronouns and titles of respect appropriate to that individual’s gender.” Are you kidding me? How is this kind of thinking not a sign of insanity?
A court-ordered consent decree is meant to “improve” a police department, right? How does assuring correct pronoun use when dealing with trans-what-have-you persons, while a slaughter continues in South Chicago, improve a police department? How is this frivolous nonsense not an insult to every mother and father who’s lost a child to this preventable violence?
While Chicago’s leftist leadership is calling for more money for social programs and wants to hire more black officers, Mac Donald points out those leaders are ignoring “the actual cause of Chicago’s violence: the breakdown of the black family structure and a demoralized police department.” De-Policing!
For his part, Emanuel seems content with retreating under his cloak of political platitudes: “All of us know that this is not Chicago, what we saw. We are better than what we saw.” What do these feeble words do to solve the problem? People are being shot by the thousands under his watch, and he’s telling the public what they’re seeing is not the real Chicago. Sorry, Your Honor. Yeah, it is, now!
Maybe it wasn’t Chicago, at one time, but it’s certainly Chicago today. The city has become synonymous with other blood-bath cities like Beirut and Belfast in that Chicago is as bad as or even worse than those cities at the height of their violence.
He may want Chicago to be something else—something it used to be. But what do you say about a mayor who won’t consider every possible solution to fix the problem—even if some ideas come from conservatives?
Bill O’Reilly, former Fox News anchor and current host of the “No Spin News” on BillOreilly.com has been trying to bring attention to the Chicago crisis for years and has offered solutions. These include calling out the National Guard, making gun crimes federal offenses, and imposing mandatory minimums for gun crimes. Is it worth it that even one more innocent victim dies if trying something new could have prevented it?
Rather than solving the problem, Chicago’s leaders seem to be doing things to prolong it. Here’s a partial list off the top of my head:
- Marginalize and demonize Chicago police officers.
- Disarm law-abiding residents, so they make easier targets for armed criminals.
- Ignore the social conditions that lead young people to violent outcomes.
- Increase government dependency for the people most in need of independence.
- Refuse to consider new ideas, especially if they come from conservatives.
- Fail to prosecute gun crimes to the fullest extent of existing law.
According to former U.S. Congressman Jason Chaffetz, “In Chicago, the U.S. attorney filed only one gun prosecution for every 25 cases of gun violence, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive.” Failing to file on gun crimes means gun criminals walk. How can they use as an excuse, we need more gun laws, when they’re not enforcing the gun laws already on the books?
Regarding the consent decree, Mayor Emanuel hasn’t signed it yet. However, if I had $100 to bet, I’d bet $99 he’ll sign it—no, wait. Here’s that other buck. He’ll sign it. It’s reflexive. It’s in his political DNA. I remember the leftist Seattle mayor signing ours, even as he was saying how much he didn’t agree with it. It’s like he couldn’t help himself. Couldn’t cut those marionette strings manipulated by the national Democrat Party.
Tragically, the carnage in Chicago is likely to continue because its politicians are not likely to do what’s necessary to solve problems. How do I know? They haven’t so far—they haven’t really tried.
Party, ideology, and appearances seem far more important than implementing effective solutions. I could make a note to revisit this issue a year from today and it’s not likely much will have changed. Well, unless President Trump calls in the National Guard. Or unless Chicago’s Democrat leadership allows their cops to do police work, which is even more unlikely.
I know what’s probably keeping President Trump from doing what I think he knows should be done. Doing the political calculus, the left will fault him as racist no matter what actions he takes. Though, taking the inaction path incurs the least risk, just like the Dems in Chicago have been doing.
But if he sends in the National Guard, he’s using his military to keep black Americans down. I can hear the media reports now. And if he doesn’t send in the Guard, they’ll say he talks big but doesn’t care about black people. He cannot win. They will not let him.
So, since he can’t win politically or with the media, he needs to do the right thing despite the leftist critics. Easy for me to say, right? But, so far, President Trump has been pretty damned good at doing the right thing, critics be damned.
