The Patriot Post® · Crazy in Chicago

By Gary Bauer ·
https://patriotpost.us/opinion/100043-crazy-in-chicago-2023-08-29

Chicago is so off the rails it’s hard to describe just how bad it is. The last mayor of the Windy City was a total disaster. So much so that the voters fired her. She finished third in the primary.

There was a chance for the city’s residents to do a course correction by supporting a relatively moderate, pro-business, pro-police Democrat. Unfortunately, they choose a far-left Marxist candidate, Brandon Johnson, who is now making people yearn for the previous failed mayor.

Here’s the latest in left-wing lunacy courtesy of Chicago. In response to the skyrocketing number of carjackings in his city, Mayor Johnson is suing carmakers Kia and Hyundai for making it too easy for the city’s feral youth to steal their cars.

This is how the left handles, or more accurately mishandles, crime. It doesn’t blame the criminals. It blames businesses and innocent people.

In order to combat a rash of thefts, Illinois progressives recently proposed legislation requiring banks, grocery stores, gas stations and pawn shops to hire armed security guards.

Think about that for a moment. Leftist politicians refuse to put armed guards in schools to protect our children, but they will require certain businesses to have armed guards.

And the first time one of those armed guards shoots a violent criminal, we know exactly what’s going to happen: Leftists will blame the guard and the business, not the criminal.

This is the equivalent of victim shaming. It’s not the thief’s fault, it’s the car’s fault or the store owner’s fault.

Speaking on “Fox & Friends” yesterday, Chicago Alderman Raymond Lopez (D) mocked Johnson, saying his lawsuit is a “play from a socialist playbook.”

“Clearly, we don’t have a crime problem,” Lopez said sarcastically. “We have a Kia problem in the city of Chicago, according to Mayor Johnson. The numbers speak for themselves… A 234% increase in vehicle thefts from two years ago, but yet it’s the car’s fault.”

“We have yet to hear our mayor say anything, one word, about the criminals running rampant in our streets,” he continued. “All he does is lambast those who try to hold criminals accountable by playing word games.”

Lopez is absolutely right about Mayor Johnson’s word games. After one particularly violent weekend, Johnson lashed out at a reporter who asked the mayor what he was going to do about the out-of-control “mob actions.”

But in Johnson’s fevered mind, the problem wasn’t the rioters, it was calling them a “mob.”

Prior to that, Johnson scolded city residents for allegedly “demonizing youth who have otherwise been starved of opportunities.”

This kind of leftist lunacy is destroying America’s cities, whether it’s Chicago, New York City, Austin, Portland or San Francisco.

Manipulating Hate

There was a terrible hate crime in Florida over the weekend. A white racist killed three black customers at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, and then took his own life. Committing acts of violence motivated by hate against some specific characteristic, whether it’s race or religion, is something everyone understands as sinful and evil.

But you may have noticed something else about how the revulsion toward hate crimes is manipulated to serve the political agenda of America’s neo-Marxist left. We predicted this would happen when hate crime laws were first introduced and enacted.

A hateful, anti-Christian bigot drove his car through a Christmas parade in Wisconsin, killing and wounding dozens of people. In spite of all the evidence, authorities insisted they had no idea why the killer did it.

The evidence was overwhelming that he was a black bigot who hated white people and Christians. So, the media did its best to ignore the trial as it didn’t fit the leftist narrative.

In Tennessee, after months of heated rhetoric against Christians who opposed the insanity of trans mania, a young woman transitioning to be a fake man murdered six people and would have killed more were it not for the quick action of law enforcement and school officials.

She reportedly left a detailed manifesto. But months later, its contents still remain secret. Within hours, the left put a lockdown on that crime scene. The FBI seized the manifesto and won’t release it.

I have no doubt that the reason it hasn’t been released is because it would be a black eye for the trans movement. Their main argument is that if you oppose their radical agenda, you are a violent hater. Well, the Nashville Christian school shooting blew up their narrative, so they are blocking any information about it.

Fast forward to the ugly, disgusting act by a deranged criminal in Florida this weekend. They were announcing what was in his manifesto within hours of the event because that’s the narrative the left is pushing non-stop — that white people are full of hate and ready to kill at the drop of a hat.

Anybody who hasn’t yet figured out that they’re being manipulated by how events are covered is unlikely to ever figure it out.

Manipulating Maui

Speaking of manipulation, remember when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans? There was a total failure of all systems in that Democrat-dominated city, which made the impact of the hurricane that much worse.

So, what was the press coverage of that event? It was all George W. Bush’s fault. George Bush and his evil policies made it all happen. When it wasn’t immediately solved by the federal government, it was because George Bush obviously hated black people.

All of that was disgusting and untrue. But the left dances on graves a lot to advance its political agenda, whether it’s innocent preborn children or the innocent victims of natural disasters.

Now compare the coverage of Hurricane Katrina to the mess happening now in Maui.

There is not one so-called “mainstream media outlet” in the country that is blaming Joe Biden. Even when it was reported that FEMA was putting up federal employees at hotels that cost $1,000-a-night, while giving just $700 to families who lost everything, the media weren’t interested.

By the way, the Biden Administration is also wasting precious taxpayer resources teaching FEMA employees to hate America.

Virtually no one in Big Media cares that Joe Biden couldn’t put together a coherent thought about the Maui tragedy. (Although the American people are catching on.) All we got for days was “No comment.”

Biden only went to Maui after the White House realized that being the “vacationer-in-chief” was hurting him politically. And when he went, his conduct was insulting.

He joked about the “hot ground.” He talked about almost losing his Corvette in a small kitchen fire. If a Republican ever made a comment like that, comparing his classic sports car to such a tragedy, they’d be out of office before sundown.

But here’s more media manipulation. The one thing liberal politicians and their leftist media allies are saying about Maui is that this disaster was caused by “climate change,” and the “conservative climate deniers are stopping us from stopping these tragedies.”

Really?

There’s growing evidence that climate change had nothing to do with it. But Democrats don’t want this crisis to go to waste.

There continues to be an information blackout in Hawaii. Most of the major media aren’t there, and everyone in charge of this situation is a Democrat.

I don’t have any more inside information, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a significant update on the true scale of the tragedy sometime during the Labor Day weekend when 90% of America isn’t paying attention.