Month: September 2019

Most, if not all, of us abhor hypocrites. It is the one name that no one likes to be called, as it cuts to core of our being. We are all aware that white-lying and exaggeration are part and parcel of being a politician, and for the most part we will reluctantly accept both. However, being a hypocrite is the bottom of the barrel. In politics a hypocrite is one who says that he believes in one thing, but when convenient, he changes his tune. For example, Joe Biden in recent months has shed his career-long opposition to federal funding for abortions and has come out in favor of a public insurance option on health care.  He also announced a proposal on 7/23/19 that would eliminate the death penalty and attempt to undo some of the impacts of the legislation he championed a quarter-century ago. He is obviously trying to cuddle up to the more liberal factions of his party, but a hypocrite? Joe is a flip-flopper, but giving him the benefit of the doubt, he may not remember what he said last week!
To me the biggest hypocrite is Chuck Schumer. Read the following two quotes and then explain to me why he is not a hypocrite.“When we use phrases like ‘undocumented workers,’ we give a message to the American people that the government is not serious about controlling illegal immigration.” and “Illegal immigration is wrong, pure and simple. Until the American people are convinced that we will stop future flows of illegal immigration, we will make no progress in dealing with the millions of illegal immigrants who are here now, and on rationalizing our system of legal immigration.” Yep, he said both ! I saw the videos of him saying both. A hypocrite!

But Chuck is not alone among the Democrats in Washington. At the present time most of them appear to have very short memories when the subject of illegal immigration comes up. In 1996, Bill Clinton said the following (again I saw the video): “Our administration has moved aggressively to secure our border by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as before. And we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years. We will try to do more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens.” If I did not know it, I would have said that this was President Trump speaking! The Democrats agreed with President Clinton then, but now disagree when President Trump essentially says the same thing. Hypocrites!

In 2005, Barack Obama said the following:“We simply cannot allow people to pour into the U.S., undetected, undocumented, and unchecked, circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently, and lawfully, to become legal immigrants in this country.” Again, this sounds very Trumpian!  The Democrats apparently agreed with Mr. Obama back then as he was their candidate for president in 2008. Later, when Mr. Obama was the President, he sent 1200 National Guard troops to the border, and in addition to the troops, he requested $500 million for border security, the Democrats did not raise a fuss. However they now disagree when President Trump who is saying and doing essentially the same thing, because . . . because they are hypo-crats!

My wife and I recently took three of our grandkids to Chicago – yes, I still go back to Chicago, but no longer in winter, as I have become allergic to winter! On this most recent visit we spent all of our time either downtown in the Loop or along Michigan Avenue. I no longer go back to my old neighborhood on the west side of the city, as I am also allergic to getting shot! One day we happened onto “The Picasso.”  For those of you not familiar with Chicago, “The Picasso”is an untitled monumental Picasso sculpture dedicated on August 15, 1967, in Daley Plaza in the Chicago Loop, which is not actually a loop, but rather a rectangle.(“The Rectangle” does not have much of a ring to it, so it is called the Loop!) Those of us who lived in Chicago when it was unveiled merely refer to it as “The Picasso,” as back then it was unclear what it was a sculpture of.

One of the three grandkids asked, “What is it supposed to be, Gpa?” I told them to spread out at different spots around the perimeter, study the sculpture, and then come back and tell me what they each thought. One of the amazing things about “The Picasso” back in 1967 was that from different angles and to different people it appeared  to be something completely different. (FYI: Picasso never told anyone what it was supposed to be!) Kerri checked it out from around the back and said,”It’s his girlfriend.”Paige from the right side said, “No doubt about it. It’s an Afghan dog.” P.J. just laughed at these suggestions and from the left side said,”Obviously, it’s the head of a baboon!” From the front my wife chimed in, “It’s a bird.” Back in the day, in fact, one of the most popular descriptive interpretations of that sculpture was that it was a bird.

 It has always been interesting to me that two people can look at the same thing, at the same time, one from the left and one from the right and come up with different interpretations. That caused me to think about something I read in today’s paper.
The headline, from the New York Times read: North America Sees 29% Decline in Birds. The sub-headline read: “Habitat loss, use of pesticides, among possible culprits.” Apparently the number of birds has decreased significantly since 1970, according to an article published the journal Science. David Yarnold, President of the Audubon Society called the findings, “a full-blown crisis.” The writer of this NYT’s article then postulated that the most important causes are habitat loss and use of pesticides. What was interesting to me was that no other possible causes for this decrease were mentioned. The following day in Townhall, the same Science article was referenced, another possible cause for the significant decrease in the North American bird population was considered. This Townhall article pointed out that since 1969 wind turbines and solar panels have been going up at record rates. Could some of the “habitat loss” be due to the the vast amounts of land now taken up by solar farms and wind farms? Mark Zuckerberg is building six solar projects – each the size of four football fields – in the New Mexico desert, and Ivanpah, the solar thermal project along the California-Nevada border took over 4,000 acres of desert land. Speaking of Ivanpah, bird scientist Shawn Smallwood testified that one large solar farm alone—the Ivanpah solar panel project in California—likely kills 28,380 birds annually. This is nothing compared to numbers of birds that are killed by wind turbines. In 2014, Yahoo! News reported that wind turbines are responsible for killing over 573,000 birds annually. That’s over 600,000 birds that have been killed annually . . . for how many years?

Again I find it interesting that the left-leaning NYT did not even mention the bird carnage caused by solar farms and by wind turbines in their article. Of course when one thinks about it, it would be akin to heresy for the NYT to cast any aspersions on green energy! Here as with Picasso, two different observers, one from the left-side and one from the right see the bird-crisis entirely differently.

The 5th annual survey of D.A.C.A. recipients was just published in September, 2019. More than 1100 were surveyed by multiple agencies. The results were predictable with the vast majority wanting to stay in the U.S.A. More than 90% expressed concern with multiple things if they had to return to the country of their birth. They were mostly concerned about security for themselves and their families, but also were concerned about access to food and education. For these individuals getting sent back to a country in which they have no ties would be the culmination of a truly bad dream.

To bring everyone up to date, D.A.C.A. (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) is an American immigration policy that allows some individuals with unlawful presence in the United States after being brought to the country as children to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and become eligible for a work permit in the U.S.
This policy was “created” in 2012 by then President Obama. He spoke about the failure of Congress to pass the “Dream Act,” which would have provided a path to citizenship for certain immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. He said that in the absence of congressional action, the Department of Homeland Security would institute a temporary program to defer deportation for “eligible individuals who do not present a risk to national security or public safety.” The most important word here is “temporary,” and in fact he referred to it as a “temporary stopgap measure” . . . Plans to phase out DACA were announced by the Trump Administration on September 5, 2017; implementation was put on hold for six months to allow Congress time to pass the Dream Act or some other legislative protection for Dreamers. Congress failed to act and the time extension expired on March 5, 2018, but the phase-out of DACA has been put on hold by several courts. On August 31, 2018, District Court Judge Andrew Hanen ruled that DACA is likely unconstitutional. However, he let the program remain in place as litigation proceeds. The Supreme Court has granted certiorari to hear three cases related to the DACA, consolidated into one, in their term starting October 2019.

I think that it is reasonable to assume that many, if not most Americans feel sympathy towards the plight of these so-called “Dreamers.” However, the fact is that they are all illegal. Although I do not often agree with Barack Obama, his dictate concerning the Dreamers was a reasonable attempt at a compromise, but recall that even President Obama felt that it was “temporary,” and, oh yeah, a minor problem . . . only Congress can make laws, and only Congress can change our present immigration laws. President Trump, on the other hand, recognized not only the illegality of the Dreamers, but also the illegality of what President Obama had done back in 2012, and this has produced this present stalemate . . . a stalemate that will be hopefully be temporarily resolved by a definitive decision by the Supreme Court. But actually, nothing will be definitively resolved until Congress gets its act together on what to do with the Dreamers.

My solution should be acceptable to the American people as well as to the Washington politicians on both sides of the aisle. To me the stumbling block here is that the Dreamers should have a path to citizenship. Why should they have a path to citizenship? Remember, despite all of the sympathy that they engender, they are illegal. Get rid of this potential citizenship path as well as all of the benefits resulting from citizenship, including the right to ever vote, and from my perspective, a compassionate deal could easily be worked out. They would be placed in another category, a category of legal non-citizens, who can merely dream of citizenship, as it will never come to them.

Poetically, we can just continue to call them “Dreamers,” and their present bad dream would not have turned into a nightmare.

One of my granddaughters attends a California State school, as opposed to a school in the University of California system. Keep in mind that both the U.C. schools and the Cal-State schools are both supposed to be for educating Californians. However, when my granddaughter was a freshman her roommate was from Connecticut. I thought naively that this Connecticut roommate must be really “a rockstar” to have been admitted to a Cal-State school across the country from her home on the East coast.  However, it turned out that her SAT scores were actually not that good, and her high school GPA., while good, was far from outstanding. When I learned that this Connecticut roommate was not “a rockstar,” I was perplexed. Was she a legacy of some sort? Apparently not.

Likewise, it was very unlikely that she was a product of a Willam Singer-like scheme to get marginal students into prestigious universities, as while Cal-State schools are good, they are not prestigious, and the Connecticut family was not rich. (For those of you not familiar with William “Rick” Singer, he had a “Pay- to-Play” scheme to get rich kids into various prestigious, mainly private, universities, like Georgetown and U.S.C. Some of the tactics that Mr. Singer used were more that just unethical; they were criminal. Mr. Singer has pleaded guilty, and will be sentenced soon. Bribes were paid to do nefarious things that were clearly beyond the pale, and some of those that paid the outlandish “bribes” will also be sentenced soon.)The almost universal response to this “Pay-to-Pay” was shock and being aghast.
However being the contrarian that I am, let’s look at this from a somewhat different angle. There are graduates of certain universities that routinely give a fair amount of money to their alma-maters. Do they expect that their children will be moved to the head of the list when they apply to said university? Yes! Does this happen frequently? Yes! Are these “legacy admissions” criminal or even unethical? No, they are occurring regularly, and no one tries to keep them covered up. Do these legacy admissions deprive some students further down the line from getting into said university? Probably. Is this wrong? Aah! . . . now we are getting into the real world! 

What is the difference between rich Joe Blow giving ‘x’-amount of dollars over many years to “buy” the legacy admission of his kids to said university, and the rich non-alumnus giving a large one time “contribution” of the same cumulative amount (‘x’) to accomplish the same purpose? To my way of thinking . . . Not much! (And if said university were to use this ‘x’  to help some deserving, but poor individual, attend that same university on this ‘scholarship’ money, all the better, and perhaps these “buy-ins” could be encouraged. Everybody wins!)

Which gets me back to the roommate from Connecticut. Why was she here? Ah yes, the lure of the sunshine here in California. But how and why was she accepted to a highly competitive Cal-State school? As I have said before, when one is faced with an apparent dilemma, look at the money. Thousands of out of state and foreign students are accepted each year at Cal-State and U.C. schools, while thousands of California high school seniors are rejected. Why is that? I guess it could be that these non-resident students are rockstars, but this was not the case with the Connecticut roommate. In fact, the California State Auditor recently found that the average SAT scores and grades of out-of-state students were lower than those of in-state students, and that state universities had rejected 4,500 Californians whose test scores and grades were good enough for out-of-state and foreign students!

Again, it’s all about the money, as out-of-State and foreign students pay significantly higher tuition compared to the tuition paid by in-state students.So to me, it is easy to condemn rich people for attempting to buy acceptance into some universities for their children, but is anybody condemning those who are accepting those dubiously qualified non-resident students into Cal-State and U.C. schools? Does the saying of a friend of mine apply here? . . . “We all know what we are, and are just haggling about the price!”

Who of you can tell me who Tom Robinson is? What about Atticus Finch? Are these two sounding more familiar? They should be as they are two of the primary characters in Harper Lee’s 1960 novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, later made into a moviethat I am sure most everyone has seen. From Wikipedia: To Kill a Mockingbird is probably the most widely read book dealing with race in America, and its main character, Atticus Finch, the most enduring fictional image of racial heroism.

Just to refresh everyone’s memory Tom Robinson is the young black man who is unjustly accused of raping a white woman, and Atticus Finch is the lawyer who defends him. Although the evidence is strongly in favor of acquittal, Robinson is found guilty by an “all white prejudiced jury.” This was in essence, a “courtroom lynching.”(At one point, Atticus tells his son, Jen, that courage is “when you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.”)
I just finished “My Grandfather’s Son.” It is the autobiography of Clarence Thomas. I never really knew much about Justice Thomas, but his life story is one of those, “Are you sh***ing me!” I can’t believe he ever made it as far as he did, considering the extreme poverty into which he was born. He is an outstanding example of what a person can do with hard work. Before I had reached the Anita Hill episode in the book, during his confirmation hearings, I had already a great deal of respect for this deeply religious and humble man. The entire Anita Hill fiasco just strengthened this feeling. Judge Thomas defended himself when the “all white prejudiced jury,” including Democrats, Sen. Howard  Metzenbaum, Sen. Patrick Leahy, and our old friend, Sen. Joe “I’ll Stab You in the Back, if I Have To” Biden grilled him with vague questions chock-full of innuendo. In his closing statement, Clarence Thomas referred to the Senate hearing as “a high tech lynching,” while he defended his character and his family.  (“He was licked before it began, but he began anyway and saw it through to the end.”)
Justice Thomas’ 1991 “high tech lynching” in Washington D.C. turned out better for the accused than Tom Robinson’s “courtroom lynching” in Harper Lee’s book. However, now in 2019 we have another post-confirmation attempt at a lynching. The difference here is that the accused is white, Justice Kavanaugh, but the “jump on the bandwagon without having any facts” accusers continue to be Democrats, mainly either running for office or already in office. The major difference this time is that the ultimate decision concerning this lynching attempt will be made, not by a prejudiced jury, but by the American people.

9/19/29

I often take my young grandchildren, ages 2 and 4, out for a walk to our neighborhood park. I always point out the American flags that we pass on our walk. Occasionally we will have contests to see who can see the most flags. I will occasionally show them how to salute the flag, as I feel that it is important that they gain respect for the flag early on. 

Speaking of respect for the flag, did anybody watch the most recent Democrat debate? Due to an unforeseen and totally unexpected conflict, I missed it! Pshaw! Double pshaw!! Even though I missed the back and forth of a lot of big winds on the stage, apparently I did not miss the back and forth of American flags on the stage . . . as there were no American flags on the stage. This was a debate to help determine who could possibly be the next President of the U.S.A., and there were no American flags on the stage! Was this just an unfortunate faux pas? So far I have not heard anyone of the Democrats suggest that this was the case, and likewise I have not heard any of the commentators on either MSNBC or CNN even allude to this. Ergo, I can safely conclude that this omission was a purposeful omission . . . a disgraceful omission, but at the same time a very telling omission!

The notable absence of a flag on the stage led me look at the candidates themselves. I sent out inquiring emails, “Does anybody know if any of the candidates at the recent debate had American flags displayed on any of their clothes?” Thus far I have had some catchy, but unprintable responses. However, there have been no reported American flag sightings on the debate stage. I have looked at the pics of all the candidates spread out across the stage (even with a magnifying glass) to try to discover if any of them had an American flag on his/her lapel. So far, the best I can do is to say that Joe Biden definitely had an American flag on the left lapel of his suit coat. Yang was a “maybe” on his right lapel. Bernie had something round on his left lapel, but even with magnification, it did not look like a flag to me. The other seven definitely did not. (Just for grins, I randomly pulled up three pictures of President Trump. In two of these three pics, there was an American flag prominently displayed on his left lapel, and in all three his tie was tied with a Windsor knot.) I will not comment on the hidden meaning of the Windsor knot, but the message conveyed by the absence of American flags by the Dems is pretty clear!

For years I have thought about the “homeless crisis in California,” but have not commented much about it because I do not have the answer. However, it is clear to me, and probably to anyone with even half a brain that those in charge in California are “clueless personified” in dealing with this issue. In fact their policies are “insane,” according to the definition of insanity put forth by Albert Einstein.(“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting adifferent result.”)

Today the headline in our local newspaper-via the Washington Post had to do with President Trump launching an effort to take homeless off the streets in California. According to the Post, White House spokesman Judd Deere said that “the President has taken notice of the homelessness crisis, particularly in cities and states where the liberal policies … are combining to dramatically increase poverty and public health risks.” Hooray for Mr. Trump! Maybe he can actually help.

Is he playing politics here? Clearly, this is part of it! As most are aware the President has criticized the Democrats, who run the state of California, on their handling of the homeless issue. He has referred to the states growing homeless issue as “ a disgrace to our country!” It is a disgrace! And furthermore Governor Newsom and other Democrats like Rep. Ro Khanna (D, Santa Clara) have to audacity to say that their incompetence is somehow Trump’s fault. This response follows the usual Democrat modus-operandi of using ad-hominem attacks to defend their own incompetence, rather than addressing the issue. 
What are the actual statistics on homelessness and California?
From the Public Policy Institute of California:Last year’s count revealed that about 130,000 Californians were homeless—nearly a quarter of the national total, even though California has only 12% of the nation’s population. California’s rate of homelessness, 33 per 10,000 residents, was among the highest in the country. After rising 14% from 2016 to 2017, the total number of homeless Californians declined slightly (by 1%) from 2017 to 2018.However, even with this slight decrease, homelessness remains a huge problem. Los Angeles County alone recorded nearly 50,000 homeless people. The other nine counties with the largest homeless populations reported between 2,300 and 8,600 people experiencing homelessness. And many areas across the state saw increases in the number of homeless people.

The vast majority of homeless Californians (69%) were unsheltered, meaning they were living in streets, parks, or other locations not meant for human habitation—the highest rate in the nation, and double the rate, 35%, for the rest of the country. Among homeless veterans, California has the nation’s highest share that are unsheltered (67%); and among homeless youth, the share that are unsheltered (80%) ranks second highest.

Liberal Media Matters blamed Fox News because they have been emphasizing the futility and the seriousness of the plight of the homeless in California. Media Matters stated that the network has painted a dire picture of American cities, calling them “almost Third World in their decay” and describing “a complete breakdown of the basic needs of civilization.” Again another ad-hominem attack without commenting as to whether the Fox News reports are true or false. Unfortunately, just as Trump’s comments about Baltimore being “rat infested” were true, the comments from Fox News about homelessness in California are also true! Hooray for Fox News.

My prediction is that if President Trump comes up with some ideas on helping to resolve California’s homeless issue, California will sue!

Last week I attended a talk about China. The speaker was excellent and very analytical when discussing the economy of China, the Hong Kong situation, and the tariff battle between President Trump and China. In the “tariff war” he thought that Trump held all the cards, and thought that China would try to hold off until after the 2020 election . . . if they could, with the hope of getting a better deal if Trump lost. 

However, I have an idea to help President Trump have even more leverage, and I hope that he reads this blog more than his usual once a week!                                                                                              

Consider the following numbers from an article written by Phyllis Schlafly in Eagle Forum back in 2016:                                                                                                              The number  of Chinese and other foreign students who go to college in the U.S. is truly mind-boggling. Of the nearly 1 million people living in the United States on F-1 student visas, about 360,000 are from China. These Chinese mainland students are not gaining an acceptance of democracy in general nor an admiration for the U.S.A. They are here to take STEM. courses, and computer courses so that they can bring this knowledge back to China – obviously to China’s advantage.

What is the reason for this huge increase of students from foreign countries, especially China, who are admitted to study on American campuses. Again, as I have said before, if there is a question whose answer seems to defy logic . . .always follow the money!   At University of California, San Diego (U.C.S.D.) in 2017 the tuition for in-state students was $13,646, whereas the tuition for out-of-state or foreign students was $40,327, and I would assume that this cost differential of $26,681 per year would be the same at all of the different University of California (U.C.) campuses. For just U.C.S.D. alone with its over 5000 Chinese students, this amounts to almost $68 million per year! And who do you think benefits from this largesse? Not those in-state students who did not get into a U.C. school, because a mainland Chinese student took his/her place, but rather the State of California and/or the U.C. System.

As almost everyone is aware, President Trump and China are presently facing off in a tariff war. With regard to this “tariff war” and the myriad of Chinese students studying in the U.S., my suggestion to President Trump is two-fold:

First: Stop issuing all new Chinese F-1 student visas immediately . . . zero, nada, turn off the spigot! When one thinks about the number of new mainland Chinese students studying in the U.S. every year, who will be the winners? The obvious answer . . . The winners will be the thousands of high school graduates who are losing out to foreigners when it comes to getting into college. Here in California, the lure of higher tuition has tempted state colleges to lower their admission standards for foreign and other out-of-state students. The California State Auditor recently found that the average SAT scores and grades of out-of-state students were lower than those of in-state students, and that state universities had rejected 4,500 Californians whose test scores and grades were good enough for out-of-state and foreign students. 

California has more U.S.-born Chinese students than any other state, but its public colleges nevertheless admit huge numbers of students from mainland China, including in 2016, 1,200 at University of California, Berkeley, up from 47 in 2006, and 2,200 at University of California San Diego (U.C.S.D.), up from 70 in 2006 – at present U.C.S.D. has approximately 5227 total students from mainland China, up from about 500 a decade ago.  Of course, the Democrats will howl at this suggestion, and California will sue! 

However, California high school graduating seniors are not alone when talking about their potential spots as in-state students, being taken by mainland Chinese students. For example, in 2016, the University of Illinois had 5,000 Chinese students on its Champaign-Urbana campus, compared with less than 100 a decade ago, and students from the People’s Republic of China made up a tenth of the freshman class in 2015 at that campus.

Second: At the end of the present semester begin tariffs on college and postgraduate tuition for mainland Chinese students. These tariffs would start at 100% of the Chinese student’s college tuition in January 2020, and would double each year thereafter . . . until China agrees to President Trump’s tariff compromise.

This will, in essence, give those in power in China three months to decide what to do with these “tuition tariffs.” Either they compromise and agree to what Trump wants as far as trade is concerned, or they will begin paying double (100% tariff) for those enrolled at U.S. colleges and universities. In essence, as of January, 2020, this means  “double tuition” for the almost 400,000 students studying in the U.S. by the first of January, 2020. These “tuition tariffs” will narrow the trade deficit between the two countries.

Joe Biden while campaigning in Iowa, was talking to a 41-year-old special needs educator about his plans for strengthening collective bargaining rights for teachers in states like Iowa. After a short back and forth, Biden grabs the woman’s hand and clutches it firmly throughout the rest of the conversation.”

Apparently the Washington Examiner thinks that this is “news!” Now don’t get me wrong. I do not like Joe Biden. I think this worn-out, aged, hackneyed politician would make a lousy president. But really! This is “news?” Who cares? I suspect that good-old Joe is a sincere guy . . . mostly wrong in his political views, but sincere, and his grasping of someone’s hand is just an innocent part of his personality. Many years back I worked with a sincere friendly guy who was chummy with many of our female co-workers. Occasionally he would innocently put his hand on one of their shoulders. Did they consider this an affront? No! This was who he was. Now granted he was not campaigning to be the President, like “Old Joe,” but if he was, would his hand be “news?”
What if this male co-worker were to be nominated to be a Supreme Court Justice? And what if Christine Blakey Ford had worked with us? Would it then be okay for her to go after him because he and Ms. Blakey Ford had different opinions on certain issues? Most of us would say, “no,” but according to Ford’s attorney, Debra Katz, Blakey Ford apparently felt otherwise. Katz said part of Blasey Ford’s “motivation” for coming forward with her unsubstantiated claims against Brett Kavanaugh during his contentious confirmation hearings stemmed from Kavanaugh’s views on abortion. Interestingly, I have not seen anything concerning Debra Katz’s recent statement in our local  liberal newspaper, which apparently does not consider attorney Katz’s statement as “news!”

BTW: When I read about Blasey Ford’s “motivation,” I found myself wondering what Anita Hill’s “motivation” was during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings? Maybe this is something which Joe Biden could be asked, as he was a key player in Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearings. Here his answer might well be “news!” 

Another Labor Day Weekend has come and gone.

From Townhall:

While most of the media attention this Labor Day weekend focused on the mass shooting in Odessa and Midland, Texas, where seven people were killed and 22 injured, the death toll in Chicago was the same with 36 people shot. The weekend proved to be more violent than the same time last year when four people were killed over Labor Day weekend and 23 people injured. BTW, all of the weekends in July also had near record-setting numbers of dead and wounded.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) took notice, tweeting that “gun control doesn’t work, etc.” Sen. Cruz should keep his mouth shut when mayhem and murder are involved. He has no reason to state the obvious in this situation. Chicago’s Mayor Lori Lightfoot took issue with Cruz’s assessment, and lashed out, telling him to “Keep our name out of your mouth. 60% of illegal firearms recovered in Chicago come from outside Illinois – mostly from states dominated by coward Republicans like you who refuse to enact commonsense gun legislation.”

She is right about the numbers, as only 40.4% of the recovered firearms come from Illinois. The rest come from a potpourri of states, from as far away as Texas (1.8%) and Georgia (2.4%). The majority of the out of state guns (21%) come from neighboring Indiana, the northwest corner of which abuts Chicago’s South side, and surely Mayor Lori Lightfoot must know that most likely the guns are brought across the state border by Chicago thugs.

However Mayor Lightfoot should learn not to lash out, when the problem is not solely a matter of where the weapons are coming from. Granted, she is in a bad position, having inherited the city’s violent state of chaos from her predecessor, Rahm Emanuel who served as the 55th mayor of Chicago from 2011 to 2019. Emanuel tried his best to emasculate Chicago’s Police Force by bringing in Garry McCarthy from Newark to take over the Chicago Police Department in early 2011. McCarthy came in and cleaned house by reflexively demoting most of the police captains, which caused a large number of experienced police officers to retire. These actions of Emanuel and his hired gun, McCarthy, severely damaged the morale of the department, a blow from which it has not yet recovered. The remedy here falls directly on Mayor Lightfoot. Hopefully, she recognizes the severity of the morale problem, and realizes that only she can reverse it.

The other major issue that Emanuel dropped on Lightfoot is the sanctuary city issue. Emanuel was a big proponent of sanctuary cities, and Chicago was made a sanctuary city in 2012 when Mayor Emanuel and the City Council passed the Welcoming City Ordinance. This ordinance meant that the police could not ask about one’s immigration status or disclose that information to authorities, and that the City will not deny city services based on one’s immigration status. Considering that most of the violence on the South and West sides of the city is gang and drug related, and a considerable portion of this is related to criminal illegals, the making of Chicago a Sanctuary City seems almost counter-intuitive! Again with this issue, the remedy will fall directly onto Lightfoot, and whether or not she will have the balls to reverse this sanctuary city designation. 

The other problem which Mayor Lightfoot did not address or even mention has to do with the often light sentencing of gun offenders.  As Dana Loesch recently pointed out, “Classic example of ridiculous sentencing in Chicago allowing repeat offenders to drive gun homicide: Felon fires off gun in public, and prosecutors let him plead guilty to a reduced charge of unlawful use of a weapon & drop two counts of felony possession.”

So unless things are changed it will be “Sundown” and like “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” for Lightfoot and Chicago!