June, 2020, Part 5, Political Class Insanity: The Failure Of Chicago and Minneapolis Politicians to Serve and Protect

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

1) While protests and riots ran rampant across the country when a black man, George Floyd, was savagely and unnecessarily killed by excessive police force in Minneapolis, a continuing plague of death of black Americans again went unnoticed and unreported by the mainstream and biased press:

• We have often reported on the unrelenting violence that racks the city of Chicago everyday, violence that makes it the murder capital of the country from a sheer number of murders every year.
• The vast proportion of the violence victims are African-Americans living in Chicago.
• While many were protesting the death of a single African-American over a recent weekend Chicago was having the highest murder tally in a single day in SIXTY years.
• 24 Chicago residents were killed and 61 others were injured over the weekend by the unrelenting gun violence that has had the city in its grip for years and the mainstream press barely, if any, devoted any reporting to it.
• I would assume that those killed and injured were mostly, if not all, African-Americans, which has been the case in most previous Chicago murders and attacks.
• This violence occurred despite the fact that the city was under curfew because of the violent George Floyd-related riots.
• 8 were killed and 52 wounded during the same weekend last year.

This reality proves two of our favorite gripes with the American political class and the mainstream media:1) they both focus on the smaller issues, in this case the death of George Floyd [which I reiterate was horrific and unnecessary], despite thousands of African-Americans being gunned down every year in Chicago and 2) neither party, politicians and the press, can ever come up with the solution to any problem, big or small.

2) At least one Chicago politician seems to be boiling over with frustration with the never ending violence in Chicago, a statement I have never made before. Lori Lightfoot is the mayor of Chicago. We discussed her ineptness and inability to get anything right any number of times before. Raymond Lopez, a Chicago alderman AND a fellow Democrat to Lightfoot, is the sole Chicago city politician that appears fed up with the city’s political machine’s inability to curb the violence.

An audio recording from a recent meeting was leaked that captured the profane give and take between the mayor and the alderman. It is a a candid and somewhat disturbing confrontation, given the language exchange between the two: a mayor that is clueless and an alderman that is at least trying to get some good done:

• Lopez: “When downtown is in lockdown, our neighborhoods are next, and our failure to fully get ready for what’s going on in the neighborhoods, we’re seeing this destruction, and we’re thinking that it’s going to somehow end tonight. We have seen where, in other cities, this has gone on for days; and we need to come up with a better plan for days, at least for the next five days, to try and stabilize our communities.”
• Lopez went on to say that parts of the Back of the Yards and Brighton Park neighborhoods in his ward had become “a virtual warzone.”
• Lopez: “We can’t expect our police, and I don’t fault them at all, to be able to control this. Half our neighborhoods are already obliterated. It’s too late. Once they’re done looting and rioting and whatever’s going to happen tonight, God help us, what happens when they start going after residents? Going into the neighborhoods? Once they start trying to break down people’s doors, if they think they’ve got something. We know that people are here to antagonize and incite, and you’ve got them all pumped tonight, today. They’re not going to go to bed at 8 o’clock. They’re going to turn their focus on the neighborhoods. I’ve got gang-bangers with AK-47s walking around right now, just waiting to settle some scores. What are we going to do, and what do we tell residents, other than good faith people stand up? It’s not going to be enough.” 
• When Lightfoot tried to change the subject, Lopez called her on it: “It’s not something you ignore. This is a question that I have.” 
• Lightfoot responded: “I think you’re 100% full of s***, is what I think.”
• Lopez: “F*** you, then. Who are you to tell me I’m full of s***? Maybe you should come out and see what’s going on.”
• Lightfoot: “If you think we’re not ready, and we stood by and let the neighborhoods go up, there’s nothing intelligent that I could say to you. That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. I understand you want to preen.”
• Lopez: “Mayor, you need to check your f***ing attitude. That’s what you need to do.”

Great, this is what passes for political leadership in the city of Chicago, “you’re “full of s##t,” “f##k you,”, etc. No wonder nothing ever gets done or problems resolved. There is an old saying that basically goes as follows: “the reason people curse is because at the moment they are not intelligent enough or creative enough not to curse.” Not intelligent and not creative, sounds about right.

Again, I do give Mr. Lopez some kudos, you can sense his frustration about Lightfoot’s inability to put together a plan to fix what is violently broken in the city.

3) One interesting aspect of the violence in Chicago is probably the correct assumption that Mr. Lopez voiced to the local CBS News outlet: many small businesses will not be reopening inside of Chicago as a result of the daily violence and the riots caused by the George Floyd murder. According to a report on the Unfiltered Patriot website, Chicago is not going to be the only city with the problem that Mr. Lopez voiced:

• 7-Sigma USED to be a small manufacturing business based in Minneapolis.
• It had called Minneapolis its home for 33 years.
• It was owned by Kris Wyrobek and it employed 50 local citizens.
• When the George Floyd riots exploded in the city, rioters torched his business and burned it to the ground while local police and fire companies did nothing to stop the violence or the arson.
• As a result, his business and the 50 local jobs it supported are gone.
• Mr. Wyrobek: “They [police and fire resources] don’t care about my business. They didn’t protect our people. We were all on our own. The fire engine was just sitting there, but they wouldn’t do anything. That’s the frustrating thing to us.”
• As a result, he will attempt to rebuild his business but NOT in the city of Minneapolis, not in a city where the political class, the police, and the fire department failed miserably to protect life and property, a basic function of government.
• His departure is made more urgent and convincing with the nonsensical talk by that same set of local politicians who want to disband the police department. 

You can easily see his reasoning: if the police did not protect his people and property when they existed, who or what is going to protect his employees and property when the police department does not exist? A complete and total breakdown of government by the Minneapolis political class and as a result proactive businesses and citizens are leaving, taking their tax dollars and jobs with them. Nice job Minnesota politicians.

4) Let's go back to Chicago where the mayor finds that she also has a “Wyrobek” problem:

• Given the long term and short term, George Floyd related violence, many companies, small and large are having second thoughts about keeping their business locations open in the city of Chicago.
• You know this is a problem since the Mayor Lightfoot recently started to beg large companies like Walmart and others to reopen their store locations in the city after they were closed because of the violence, looting, and the dangerous riots.
• Her begging occurred during a conference call with major retailers where she admitted that she actually pleaded with them not to abandon Chicago.
• Lightfoot: “I think in the case of Walmart, what they were focused on was assessing the damage. They are doing an effort to donate fresh produce, to the extent of what’s left so it doesn’t perish, and other perishables, and they are taking their time, as I would expect.”

This is not rocket science: if a business owner does not think that their assets and employees are safe and protected by the local government and its public safety agencies, it is either going to close up shop for good or move their business somewhere where their assets and people can be protected. This is obviously not the case in Minneapolis and Chicago: in the former case, politicians proved they could not serve and protect and are taking the senseless and stupid move of planning to disband a police department that could not protect and serve in the first place. 

This is also not the case in Chicago where the ongoing, everyday violence that was augmented by the recent riots, looting and arson. At some point, rational people give up on their current untenable and unsafe situation and pack up and leave, taking tax dollars, jobs, and likely productive citizens with them.

We often point out how dysfunctional the Washington DC politicians are, inept and unable to resolve any issues or fulfill even the minimal requirements of government. As you can see from above, local politicians across the country are just as inept and just as unable to provide basic and essential government services.

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Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w