Chicago seems intent on replacing Martha’s Vineyard in national headlines about hypocrisy over treatment of border crossers. Bougie, liberal Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts is being widely ridiculed for promptly shipping out some 50 Venezuelan immigrants flown in from Florida. But that’s nothing compared to Chicago, which has boasted of being America’s “most immigrant-friendly city.”
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Wednesday issued an emergency proclamation declaring a disaster in every Illinois county “to ensure all state resources are available to support asylum seekers arriving nearly daily to Chicago from the State of Texas,” as stated in his press release.
Missouri and Louisiana attorneys general along with a number of individuals are parties to a federal lawsuit that has already produced evidence that “an army of federal bureaucrats” have been coercing social media platforms to censor free speech. Multiple federal agencies, their evidence shows, colluded with social media giants Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to censor speech, which led to the suppression of truthful information on several matters of critical national importance, including COVID-19.
As Chicago-style crime continues to spread across Cook County and collar counties, local state’s attorneys are increasingly worried about a new state law. As of January 1st it would sharply restrict the imposition by judges of cash bail for criminal defendants before trial.
Americans overwhelmingly say they oppose allowing government offices that oversee elections to accept funding for their operations from partisan, private individuals and groups – Democrats, Republicans and independents alike. It’s a problem exposed in the 2020 election on which Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife funded an astonishing $419 million in grants to county and municipal voting offices across America for essentially just that to support Democratic voter turnout. “Local election administration” grants are what supporters called it, but “Zucker Bucks” is what it’s more commonly called.
Over 2021 and into 2022 major crimes have spread from Chicago’s South and West Sides to the city’s downtown and upscale neighborhoods north and south. Now Chicago’s seemingly intractable crime problem is spreading across city and county lines, as well. This is what happens when basic principles of policing and law and order are subverted by a political establishment which puts the rights of the accused ahead of the rights of victims.
Still deeper into the hole they go. We finally got a response from Gov. JB Pritzker on what he knows about the Jenny Thornley matter, which we are following closely. As reported by The Center Square on Friday, Pritzker said he knows “Nothing other than what I read in the newspaper about it.” He added, “The truth is, if somebody committed workman’s comp fraud, they should be held accountable.” That’s all he said.
Most Illinoisans will go to the voting booth this November thinking the Darren Bailey vs. J.B. Pritzker contest for governor is the only statewide race that really matters. But three other November 2022 votes matter a lot, too, a couple being arguably more consequential than the governor’s race.
Yes, by all reported accounts, the speech was well received by those who attended, as was his speech last month to a New Hampshire Democrats’ convention.
It was also as caustic, divisive and dishonest as you will hear in a political speech, bristling with hypocrisy, claims that failures were successes and just plain absurdities. If Pritzker’s goal was to stake out a position as the most hateful toward the half of Americans who are right of center, he couldn’t have done any better.
When Gov. JB Pritzker took office, Illinois “was facing unprecedented challenges because we had a Republican governor who decided to hold the state budget hostage.” That’s what Pritzker told New Hampshire Democrats in his recent presidential teaser speech in New Hampshire and he said the same thing in his keynote address Saturday to Florida Democrats.
The July 4 mass shooting at a parade in the northern Chicago suburb of Highland Park which killed seven and wounded 30 was deeply disturbing and tragic, as all such incidents are. A suspect has been taken into custody and charged today. Again a cry is rising for more gun control. But the media and the public need to understand that the ongoing emphasis on mass shootings and gun control is a losing strategy. It’s easier to strategize smartly if you have a clearer view of the landscape.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker recently declared Illinois a Covid disaster area for the 31st consecutive 30-day period. For more than two years, the governor has invoked a “disaster” to rule by executive order. It’s what allowed him to lock down businesses, impose mask mandates, close schools and micromanage healthcare across the state.
With rumors heating up about Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s potential run for president and the federal governments’ recent release of GDP numbers for the first quarter of 2022, it’s a good moment to review the governor’s economic performance since he took office in 2019. Polls today consistently show economic issues as the biggest concern for Americans.
“First and foremost, respect the taxpayer. Start losing taxpayers and it’s a downward spiral from there.” That’s the advice a wise man from Detroit had for Chicago when I visited the Motor City right after it filed for bankruptcy in 2013. It was just one of five lessons I was told Illinois should learn from Detroit’s collapse.
The federal government has failed spectacularly to manage the risk of inflation. For many, that’s no surprise given the unprecedented government-enforced lockdowns, the trillions of dollars spent on bailouts and a haphazard implementation of the green energy agenda.
If what follows isn’t an indictment of Illinois’ education establishment, we don’t know what is. Of Decatur’s public school 3rd-graders in 2019, just 2 percent of black and 16 percent of white students could read at grade level. In Rockford, it was 7 percent of black students. In Peoria, 8 percent of blacks. And in Elgin, just 11 percent of Hispanic 3rd-graders could read at grade level. Similar results can be found across the state.
The very public servants we pay to protect us and maintain order in Chicago are increasingly under attack themselves. At an order of magnitude dramatically greater than in years past.
Zero media coverage on this, but on Friday before Memorial Day Gov. JB Pritzker signed yet another COVID Disaster Proclamation, his 28th since the pandemic began over two years ago. Pursuant to those proclamations, he has signed over 112 emergency orders.
