This Might Explain Some Of The Problems In Chicago

Yesterday Breitbart posted an article about Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.

The article reports:

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx has dropped over 25,000 felony cases, including charges of murder and the alleged hate crime hoax from former Empire star Jussie Smollett, according to an analysis released by the Chicago Tribune on Monday.

The article quotes the Chicago Tribune:

During Foxx’s first three years as the county’s top prosecutor, her office dropped all charges against 29.9% of felony defendants, a dramatic increase over her predecessor, the Tribune found. For the last three years of Anita Alvarez’s tenure, the rate was 19.4%.

In all, a total of 25,183 people had their felony cases dismissed under Foxx through November 2019, up from 18,694 for a similar period under Alvarez.

[…]

For the three-year period analyzed, Foxx’s office dropped 8.1% of homicide cases, compared with 5.3% under Alvarez, the Tribune found. Under Foxx, the office dropped 9.5% of felony sex crime cases; the rate was 6.5% for Alvarez.

The article at Breitbart continues:

In a statement to the Tribune, Foxx, who is up for reelection in November, said of the figures: “It is always eye-opening to be able to look at our own data and compare it to my predecessor’s past. I can’t reconcile what her decision-making was, and how they chose to (dismiss) cases in the past. But I will say that this administration has been clear that our focus would be on violent crime and making sure that our resources and attention would go to addressing violent crime.”

If you are trying to make sense out of this, you might want to look at one of the contributors to Foxx’s reelection campaign.

In February 2020, The Chicago Sun Times reported:

A political action committee founded by liberal billionaire philanthropist — and Donald Trump nemesis — George Soros kicked $2 million to a committee supporting Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx in her re-election bid against three Democratic primary challengers.

A mega donor to Democrats and liberal causes, the hedge fund operator’s Democracy PAC transferred $2 million into the Illinois Justice and Public Safety PAC on Wednesday.

The justice and public safety PAC has so far spent $571,359.30 on mail, media and website production costs opposing Bill Conway, one of Foxx’s primary challengers.

George Soros is on a mission to undermine to government of America in order to further plans for a one-world government. He has funded the campaigns of a number of District Attorneys and State Attorneys General in order to do that. His campaign contributions were a major part of the Democrats’ takeover of the Virginia government in the last election. That takeover has brought restrictive gun laws and other problems. George Soros is an American citizen and can legally donate to campaigns both as an individual and through Political Actions Committees (PACs). I have no doubt he will continue to do so until Americans get wise to what he is attempting to do.

Promises Made, Promises Broken

Yesterday Hot Air posted an article about the latest twists and turns in the Jussie Smollett case. The article notes that two days ago Kim Foxx told the media that she thought the court had sealed Smollett’s court file due to a misunderstanding and that it would be unsealed once the error was recognized. Well, things have changed.

The article reports:

The state prosecutors’ association also faulted Cook County prosecutors for not objecting to a defense request to immediately seal the court file at Tuesday’s brief, unannounced hearing. By Tuesday evening, all traces of the case had been deleted from court records.

In an interview Wednesday with the Tribune, Foxx said she believed the case file had only been sealed due to a misunderstanding — and that the seal did not apply to the entire court file. Nevertheless, she said, the case file would be unsealed.

However, on Thursday, an office spokeswoman backed off that claim, saying the case file would remain under seal in its entirety by court order.

The Chicago Tribune ran to court yesterday to try to prevent Smollett’s lawyers from moving to expunge his file, which conceivably would mean all records related to the case getting destroyed. Smollett’s lawyers insisted they won’t try to do that — surely you trust them — and the presiding judge assured the Tribune’s attorneys that records wouldn’t be destroyed even if the file ultimately was expunged. “That isn’t what we do in Cook County,” he said.

So, look out next week for the inevitable headline, “SMOLLETT RECORDS DESTROYED AFTER FILE EXPUNGED; FOXX KNOWS NOTHING.”

Stay tuned.

 

 

Does This Surprise Anyone?

This story is from last year, but in view of recent events, I thought it might be a good idea to post it.

On August 30, 2015, Breitbart.com posted an article about a study conducted by the University of Chicago Crime Lab. Oddly enough, the inmates in the Cook County jail said that they get their guns on the streets from “personal connections” rather than outlets like gun shows and the Internet.

The article reports:

According to the Chicago-Tribune, Crime lab co-director Harold Pollack said the study shows that “some of the pathways [regarding guns] people are concerned about don’t seem so dominant.” He said very few inmates indicated using gun shows or the internet. Rather, they get the guns in undetectable ways on the street. He said the inmates know they run the risk of being caught by police but “were less concerned about getting caught by the cops than being put in the position of not having a gun to defend themselves and then getting shot.”

The vast majority of the inmates used handguns to commit their crimes or protect themselves, very few cited using “military-style assault weapons.” And they said their habit was to get rid of a gun after one year because of the “legal liability” of being caught with a gun that could be linked to crimes they or others committed.”

As for specifics regarding sources for purchasing guns, some of the inmates indicated that gangs have individuals with a Firearm Owners Identification Card who buy guns then sell them to gang members. Others indicated using “corrupt cops” who seize guns then “put them back on the street.”

None of the measures proposed by the Democrats to limit gun sales would have made a difference to these inmates–they would still be able to get guns. The Democratic sit-in was an attempt to manipulate the American voters. We are idiots if we fall for that attempt.

What Do You Do When The Money Runs Out?

One of my favorite bumper stickers ever says, “The lottery–a tax on people who are bad at math.” We all know that the odds of winning a major lottery prize are pretty much stacked against anyone who buys a ticket. However, the assumption generally is that if you win, you will be able to collect and enjoy your winnings. Unfortunately, lately that is not the case in Illinois.

Yesterday Time Magazine posted an article stating:

Big-time Illinois Lottery winners aren’t getting the largesse. They’re getting left out.

Without a state budget agreement two months into the new fiscal year, there’s no authority for the state comptroller to cut checks over $25,000. That means smaller winnings can be paid out, but not the larger lottery wins.

Can you imagine owning a state government more than $25,000 and telling them to wait? I can’t.

Sometimes Irony Is Just Fun

This week we heard stories about the faculty of Harvard University being upset that the ObamaCare Health Insurance that they supported affected them in a negative way. Yesterday The Chicago Tribune weighed in on the subject. The article reminds us that MIT economist Jonathan Gruber boasted that one of the reasons ObamaCare was passed was that the American voters were stupid (uninformed would have been a kinder word, but he said stupid).

The article illustrates that even smart Americans got caught in the ObamaCare trap:

Turns out, however, that some smart people at Gruber’s alma mater, Harvard, also are flummoxed by the health care overhaul that many of their fellow Harvard brainiacs championed into law. They believed the whopper from President Obama, Gruber et al. that Obamacare would spend billions to cover millions and tame health care costs. And, oh yes, if you liked your coverage, you could keep your coverage.

…Harvard profs are learning, extremely belatedly, what smart people knew from Day One: Obamacare is disruptive and expensive. All of that free care is not free. Someone has to pay. Make that: Everyone has to pay. No exceptions for Harvard professors.

There is a lesson here all Americans need to learn–there is no free money. The government has no money of its own. All the money the government has it has taken from either individuals or businesses. Actually, there are really no taxes on businesses or corporations–taxes put on businesses or corporations become business expenses and are passed along to the consumer in the form of  higher prices. There is no free lunch. Most Americans who have to keep to a household budget have figured that out; evidently Harvard professors have a different learning curve.

The article has a suggestion for the Harvard professors:

A modest proposal: Harvard profs helped lead the charge to ram Obamacare into law. They should now lend their fierce intellectual firepower to a Republican-led effort in Congress to roll back some of the law’s most pernicious and costly effects.

The article has a few suggestions as to things that could be done to fix ObamaCare and change it into a reasonable law. Personally, I would like to see ObamaCare replaced with health insurance that includes three things; tort reform, portability of health insurance across state lines, and insurance that stays with the persont regardless of job changes. We need to get the government out of the insurance business and let the people who understand actuary tables run their business,. Health insurance companies have one of the lowest profit margins of all American businesses. They are not the money-grubbing control freaks Congress and the Obama Administration have accused them of being. Actually, if ObamaCare is indicative of anything, it illustrates that the money-grubbing control freaks seem to be located in government–not in the insurance business.

The Price Of Gun Control

Theoretically, gun control makes sense. In a perfect world (which we obviously do not live in), if you got rid of guns, you would end gun violence. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world, and gun control does not end gun violence. Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, but it also has one of the highest rates of gun violence. July 4th weekend is known as a particularly bad weekend to be in Chicago.

Western Journalism posted a story yesterday about a shooting incident in Chicago this past weekend,

The article reports:

According to the Chicago Tribune, Denzel Mickiel placed a cup on the roof of a car that belonged to a female partygoer. When she removed the cup, he reportedly became irate and began screaming at her.

A short time later, reports indicate Mickiel returned with a gun and began shooting at the woman and those with her. One of her friends, however, happened to be a soldier and concealed carry permit holder.

Assistant State’s Attorney Mary Hain claims the serviceman took cover, drew his weapon, and returned fire. After firing twice, hitting Mickiel with both shots, the group was able to escape.

Two additional individuals continued firing on the four victims as they sped away in two separate vehicles. One young woman in the group was hit, reports indicate, and sustained injuries to her arm and back.

Mickiel was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was listed in critical condition. Still hospitalized Sunday, a judge ruled he be charged with attempted murder and held on $950,000 bail. The remaining two shooters have yet to be identified.

We need to have good people with guns. If they are among us, they can protect people before the police have time to get there. Thank God for that soldier. It would have been too late when the police arrived.