Thank God It's Over Pt. 1

 

Like most of you, I am eager to put 2021 behind me.  It was a strange and disorienting year, one in which we nearly completed two years of “15 days to flatten the curve,” the Biden Administration took over the reins of government, Afghanistan collapsed, inflation reared its ugly head with a vengeance, cities were wracked by rampant crime, CRT demonstrated how embedded they were in our educational system and China threatened us with hypersonic nuclear missiles.  Trump’s exit from government did not heal our divisions.

It would be easy to fall into hopelessness and despair.

But I am rather hopeful.   COVID19 and CRT seem intractable in our society but I see some very positive developments.   That is why my year end post will be a little different that I have posted in previous years.

2021 was the year of The Great Realignment.

COVID19 changed our patterns of living, as did the unchecked crime in urban areas.  And the false religion of CRT changed our relationships with many established institutions.   We woke up one morning to find that we could not go to the office, and now we are in the process of being barred from restaurants, bars and public places unless we have a government approved vaxx pass.  We also woke up to find that our liberal institutions—the media, higher education, and K-12 education systems are not liberal at all.  They had been transformed into propaganda centers, from which dissenters were exiled and publicly pilloried with the scary label, “RACIST!”  A society that barred religion from schools and the public square now embraced the new Woke religion, which had made its doctrine compulsory in schools and workplaces across the country.  Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion became omnipresent and if you so much as raised a skeptical eyebrow, you were… well, excluded.  Similarly, despite the very mixed results of the vaccines, the unvaccinated are also in the process of being marginalized, treated like lepers of biblical times.

Throughout history, totalitarians have enjoyed a tremendous first mover advantage.   But the pushback has begun in earnest, and it is gathering momentum.

In The Great Realignment, I have shifted away from organizations that have gone Woke.  I dropped my membership in the American Writers Museum as soon as it had a program featuring Kathy Griffin.  I punted the Newberry Library as soon as it held a Drag Queen Story Hour.  When The American Scholar featured “The Problem with Whiteness” as its cover article, I immediately canceled my subscription with a note, “There is no problem with Whiteness.”  When Loyola Academy decided to permit a large Black Lives Matter sign and begin allowing CRT into the curriculum, donations to that institution were halted.

Instead, I shifted my memberships, donations and subscriptions to the non-Woke.  Library of America gained a new member.  The Willa Cather Foundation did not go Woke, so I signed up (she is one of my favorite writers).  I moved my subscriptions to The Spectator and Backwoods Home magazines.  I dropped the N.F.L., N.B.A. and MLB and pivoted to golf and hiking instead, becoming more of a doer than a spectator.  Most significantly, I joined The Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, a grassroots organization aimed at restoring the principles of MLK (www.fairforall.org) and have attended several of its events. 

The Great Realignment also pushed me beyond the traditional Republican/Democrat or Conservative/Liberal dichotomies.   With the degradation of journalism, I sought out other avenues to hear what others have to say about the momentous events and changes that seemed to be occurring.

I found podcasts to be much more in depth, nuanced and intellectually honest that anything produced by institutional print, broadcast or social media.

Here are the podcasts that I regularly listen to:

-Dark Horse Podcast – Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, a husband-wife team of evolutionary biologists that were run off by the Wokesters at Evergreen State and have a lot to say about the COVID19 pandemic, among other topics.

-Honestly with Bari Weiss- Another person canceled by the New York Times and now has her own substack and podcast.  She has displaced Terry Gross as the finest interviewer in the country.  Her September 8 interview with author Abigail Shier, Courage in the Face of Book Burners, is simply magnificent.

-New Discourses by James Lindsay- an in-depth explication of the Woke, CRT and Trans movements and their antecedents -Marxism, Maoism and Stalinism.  

-The Glenn Show- Podcast by Brown University economics professor Glenn Loury.  Glenn brings authenticity of his Chicago South Side roots to push back on Woke.  As an African-American from inner city Chicago, he brings a particularly poignant point of view to the fray.

-The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast- Back from his leave, Peterson had warned us about the dangers of post-modernism years ago.  

-The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad.  Like Peterson, Saad has been pushing back against the “Blue Hair People” for decades.  Like Bari Weiss, he is an excellent interviewer, and meets the challenge with humor and sarcasm rather than anger and bitterness.  His book, The Parasitic Mind was one of the best books I’ve read this year.   His most recent interviews with UChicago professor Dorian Abbot, Sociologist Goran Adamson and Dr. Janice Fiamengo are not to be missed.

Two of the writers that I most enjoy are:

Peachy Keenan, the non de plume of a young Catholic mom from California, who writes for americanmind.org.  Her writing is punchy, witty and sensible.  She is a more refined, less bitter, caustic and obnoxious version of Anne Coulter. 

Douglas Murray, author and defender of the West.  Murray has written The Madness of Crowds and The Strange Death of Europe.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp4XhZytdD0

As a rather traditional Christian Reagan pro-American conservative, I find it fascinating that two of the people that I pay attention to are Canadian- Jordan Peterson and Gad Saad and Douglas Murray is British.  And the podcasts I never miss are Honestly and Dark Horse, by two traditional liberals, Bari Weiss and Bret Weinstein.  This is a signal that there is a true realignment.  I find a much greater intellectual kinship with Weiss and Weinstein than most mainstream Republicans these days.

Crime and Punishment

 

Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot visited LA and San Francisco to see how they handle smash-n-grab.  That’s a bit like sitting down with Elizabeth Holmes, formerly of Theranos to see how she did product development.

Major cities across the US are in the midst of a crime wave, enabled in large part by Woke DA’s whose elections were financed by George Soros and Woke “bail reform” efforts that have led to violent criminals being released without bond.  

Chicago, in particular, is under siege, having eclipsed 800 murders so far this year, some of them quite heinous.

·        A 70 year old retired special ed teacher slain on the way home from a White Sox game on the Dan Ryan Expressway.  The shooter was identified but never charged.

·        A 36 year old female graduate student was stabbed to death just blocks from Sears Tower on a Sunday morning.

·        Most recently, a 71 year old former restauranteur was executed in Chinatown.

·        A University of Chicago student was slain on the way home from his internship last summer and a recent graduate was murdered in the middle of the day for $600 worth of goods.

This is just a sampling of the horrific occurrences over the past year in Chicago, which has seen over 4,300 shootings, 1,600 carjackings, beatings, muggings and numerous other organized smash and grabs.  The spike in crime has devastated these cities.  Restaurants, retail establishments and tourism are taking a beating.   Large retailers like Target have gone to Congress asking for help.   Joe Perillo, owner of Gold Coast Exotic Motor Cars in Chicago, a one-time supporter of Lightfoot publicly lashed out, “Enough is enough.”

Ironically, during the same week as Jussie Smollett was convicted of staging a fake hate crime, Woom Sing Tse was randomly shot and killed in broad daylight.

In the midst of all this, I raise some important issues:

1.      Why was Darrell Brooks, the driver of the SUV that mowed down 60 people in Waukesha, not charged with a hate crime?  Why was Alphonso Joyner similarly not charged with a hate crime for the murder of Mr. Tse in Chicago? You can bet that if races were reversed, charges would be brought.  If we are to invoke hate crime statutes, shouldn’t they go both ways?

2.      Isn’t a fake hate crime actually worse than a hate crime?  A hate crime is directed at one or more individuals.  A fake hate crime, however, is directed at societal cohesion as a whole.  It is calculated to create racial animus where none exists.  Moreover, in the cases of Bubba Wallace and Jussie Smollett, those perpetrators had accomplices.   Politicians and the media were more than willing to make judgments before any of the facts were known.  In the case of the actual perpetrator, the correct punishment should be

3.      What do we do about “feral youth?”  This is perhaps the most difficult and vexing question our society must face with regard to criminal justice.  One of the teens involved in the robbery and murder of 18 year old Tessa Majors in NY was only 13 at the time and was sentenced to a mere 18 months in juvenile detention.  The teen girls that killed the Pakistani Uber Eats driver received an easy plea deal.  In Chicago,  young Adam (Li’l Homicide) Toledo was killed by a Chicago patrolman when he turned with a gun in his hand in a dark gangway in the middle of the night.  Carjackers are often 10-16 years old and I saw one film clip of a 5 year old kid that was part of a carjacking team.   What is to be done with these rogue youngsters.  In the case of youths that would be convicted of murder or attempted murder, as the girls that killed the Pakistani driver, I would be hard pressed to have hopes for a future for them, or that they could be rehabbed.  

4.      The explosion of crime in major cities simultaneously leads one to question whether this is simply a wrongheaded set of policies or whether something more nefarious is going on.   Is there intent to  purposefully force professional class and working class citizens (mostly white) people out of urban areas—deport them, if you will, or rather lead them to self-deport?  In Chicago, it seems to be backfiring, as professional class and working class blacks are exiting the city.

These are not easy issues to discuss but they must be faced head on if we are to save our great American cities.

Mythbusting

 I’m going to write a few things that will make some people uncomfortable.  So be it.  We’re well past the point of comfort now.  Most people understand that we are in a different place now, that many of our institutional safeguards have given way and many institutions such as the FBI and CDC, instituions that we expected to protect us and be nonpartisan about it, have become partisan tools.   To be sure, some of the erosion has been due to COVID, but much has been due to accepting as gospel myths that turned out to be false.  And I freely admit that to some extent and at one time or another, I bought into all of these. 

No longer.

We need to fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here. 

This pithy slogan of George W. Bush was used as the justification for invading Iraq and for the 20 year debacle in Afghanistan.  In the shadow of the horrors of 9/11, it seemed to make sense.  We all heard the last calls of the frightened people on flight 93 and those trapped on the upper floors of the World Trade Center.  We all got behind W’s rationale for doing anything it took not to have that happen again.  But it turned out to be a false choice.  

We spent billions in both Iraq and Afghanistan, only to erode our standing in the world, exhaust our military, increase Iran’s influence in the Middle East and leave the Taliban with a nation state and advanced weapons. 

Al Qaeda and the Taliban and Iraq deserved an appropriate response but our policymakers chose the highest cost option—in blood and treasure.  And an overlooked cost to these misadventures is that we gave our future adversaries a free look at our doctrines, strategies, tactics and technologies.  And in the case of Afghanistan, we actually turned our weapons over to them.

If we have free and open commercial trade with China, a more prosperous middle class will bubble up, demand more freedom and the CCP will be forced to moderate, and China will become more like us.

A mere 4 years ago, I sat in the audience while Nobel Laureate Eugene Fama proclaimed this and a year later, I had lunch with libertarian economist Deirdre McCloskey, who voiced similar sentiments.  Enriching China may turn out to be the biggest policy mistake in history.  Our politicians blithely overlooked Tiananmen Square for three decades, pretended it didn’t happen and kept waiting for this sea change to occur.  What we got was exactly the opposite of what was predicted by the “experts” – an aggressive, bullying dictatorship that abrogated its deal on Hong Kong,  is threatening Taiwan, lying and covering up the COVID outbreak, threatening us with hypersonic missiles, and exercising hegemony in the South China Sea.  Our political, cultural and business leaders grovel before the CCP.  The NBA fears being shut out and disciplines people that criticize China.  Congressman Eric Swalwell openly cavorts with Chinese spy Fang Fang without serious repercussions, and the leader of America’s largest banking institution, Jamie Dimon obsequiously issued a public apology for offending the CCP.  Pope Francis had no reservations about openly criticizing Donald Trump is silent about China’s Uygher concentration camps and did a secret deal that purportedly gave the CCP veto power over appointments in China.  University of Chicago’s John Mersheimer has a must read article, The Inevitable Rivalry  in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs and I highly recommend it.  All this will be very difficult, if not impossible to reverse.  Since allowing China to join the WTO, I would argue that we have become more like China, rather than the other way around.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2021-10-19/inevitable-rivalry-cold-war

Mass incarceration is a problem.

Yes, we have been told that mass incarceration is a problem.  The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and a lot of it is due to our draconian drug laws, which affect minorities disproportionately.  Because they are poorer and can’t afford bail, they are condemned to sitting in prison.   This has been drummed into us for a couple of decades.

Well, we loosened or eliminated drug laws, went to cashless bail, and, in cities like Chicago, dramatically raised the standards for prosecution.   We are seeing the results of all this with the flow of blood on city streets and the ravaging of a retail industry by looters—an industry that is already reeling because of Amazon and COVID.

As with China, it turns out that mass incarceration was the solution, not the problem.  And this doesn’t mean harsh prison sentences for minor drug offenses.  This means keeping dangerous felons away from productive members of society.    I tweeted this comment:

“Exploring the ‘root causes’ is a useless academic debate and focuses on the needs of the perpetrator sometime off in the future, if ever, rather than the innocent victims today.”

Meanwhile, population will just bleed off, literally and figuratively.”

Ironically, it is the black community in places like Chicago that are bearing most of the suffering due to the propagation of this myth.

Immigration is an unalloyed positive for the country.

Our country needs immigration and I am hardly anti-immigrant, having been reared in a largely immigrant community. Yet, a sane immigration policy would take into account the needs of the country.  There are only 3 squares an immigrant can land on upon arrival:

1.      Employed, self sufficient and productive.

2.      The social welfare system.

3.      The criminal justice system.

That’s it.  We want lots of people on square number one.   We have plenty in squares 2 and 3 already, thank you very much.  A sane policy would filter out as many individuals likely to occupy squares 2 and 3 as possible.

Other factors which make unfettered immigration undesirable is that the demand for unskilled labor is projected to decrease in the future.  We simply do not need lots of people with strong backs and nothing else to bring to the table as we did a century ago.   Yet another problem is that our school systems and other institutions have gone Woke, which means that rather than being fully integrated into our society, new immigrants, particularly those of color, are being told that they are oppressed.  This is not good for a cohesive society.

Sticking blindly to these myths have wreaked tremendous damage to our nation and both Republicans and Democrats share blame for peddling them, along with the so-called “experts.”  We need to make adjustments to them and make them sooner, rather than later.   It’s past time to change course.

The Verdict

 There are plenty of op-eds on the verdict in the prosecution of Kyle Rittenhouse, so I will leave that to others.   Rather, I will comment on the comments and make an assessment of what this trial represented.

Of course, with social media, everyone has an opinion.  On the right, Rittenhouse is being hailed as a hero and his dismissal is a vindication of the 2^nd Amendment.  On the left, he is being smeared as a white supremacist and a murderer, mostly by the MSM, setting up a raft of defamation suits.

But I would focus on the reaction here locally from our political leaders--- the people that actually run the joint—J.B. Pritzker and Lori Lightfoot.   The links to their statements are posted below:

Pritzker

Governor JB Pritzker on Twitter: "Carrying a loaded gun into a community 20 miles from your home and shooting unarmed citizens is fundamentally wrong. Read my full statement on the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict: https://t.co/Buh585oblf" / Twitter

Lightfoot

Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot on Twitter: "Here's my statement on the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict. https://t.co/9jgE1eaZfo" / Twitter

 

First, that Pritzker and Lightfoot commented at all is problematic.  While blood flows weekly in the streets of their own major city, they are compelled to have an opinion on an occurrence in another jurisdiction.  Second, the contempt with which they view our judicial system in particular and the concept of separation of powers is simply breathtaking.   Whether or not you believe the case should have been brought in the first place, the charges were duly considered by a judge and jury of 12 and, despite the threats to both, the verdict came back “not guilty.”  Neither Pritzker nor Lightfoot sat through that trial, but they think they know better.

Even worse, their instincts are to side with the rioters that were causing mayhem and attacked Rittenhouse.  Pritker’s claim that Huber and Rosenbaum “deserve to be alive today” and “deserve justice” overlooks their role in this, that justice was served and, by the way, Rosenbaum was a repeat pedophile.   The reality is that Rittenhouse likely saved a number of children in the future from his dastardly acts.

But most bothersome is the hypocrisy of their statements.   Both Pritzker and Lightfoot have spent the bulk of their administrations attempting to remediate “systemic racism.”  But it was “the system” that put in motion the unfortunate set of circumstances that led to the incident in Kenosha.   It was the MSM condemning the police for attempting to protect children and others from the acts of Jacob Blake.  It was Wisconsin governor Evers who abdicated his responsibility to protect the Kenosha community from the rioters by not calling out the national guard and a mayor that had his force stand down.  These failures led young Kyle to believe that he needed to step into the void created by failed politicians.  You can’t ask a 17 year old to use good judgment when you don’t.

Lightfoot showed real chutzpah, a mere week after a 24 year old recent University of Chicago graduate was mercilessly slaughtered on the street in the middle of the day in Hyde Park, chirped, “What Kyle Rittenhouse did was reckless, dangerous, and showed an utter contempt for human life.”  She goes on to ask for prayers for rapist Jacob Blake.  Lightfoot’s sympathies are unambiguously with the criminal class—the rapists, looters, and pedophiles.  

With over 4,000 shot and 773 homicides this year, Pritzker and Lightfoot should be focused on cleaning up their own jurisdiction first.   What is reckless, dangerous and contemptuous of human life is their policing and criminal justice reform policies.

Like Wisconsin Governor Evers, Pritzker and Lightfoot, along with Kim Foxx have abdicated a primary role of government—that is to protect the persons and property of law abiding citizens.   

And as I write this, the governor of Illinois and mayor of the City of Chicago, who both were compelled to leap to the side of Antifa and take a position counter to a judge and jury in Kenosha now stand silent as we digest the mass casualty event in Waukesha.

Suddenly, the cat has got their tongues.  And it should make you question whether you want to live in a place where either is in charge of governing.

Remembrance- It's Worse Than You Think

 

I spent some time yesterday reflecting on the anniversary of Kristallnacht.  I participated in the observance of the event through the Illinois Holocaust Museum.  Later, I listened to Bari Weiss’s podcast interview with author Dara Horn, who discussed her book, “People Love Dead Jews,” a collection of essays about antisemitism.

I found it appropriate to do them together as the ceremony at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Bari Weiss’s interview with Dara Horn were perfect complements to each other.

Although I am not Jewish, I have had a strong interest in WWII, and, in particular, the Holocaust.  I have read widely on the topic, reviewed several excellent films, such as Son of Saul, and wrote a piece a few years ago in opposition to the proposed Polish law that would have made speaking of the “Polish Holocaust” or similar references illegal.

At bottom, I still seek to understand how citizens in a civilized Western country could have done such things.  And I am also seeking to relate those events to some of the things that are going on right here and now in the U.S. and wondering how concerned we should be.

The ceremony at the Illinois Holocaust Museum was appropriately solemn and dignified.  It had the Israeli Consulate General give some remarks as well as the granddaughter of one of the survivors.  Most moving was the lighting of the candles by some of the survivors and the mournful singing of the cantor.

I urge you to listen to the podcast interview of Dara Horn.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/weekend-extra-why-people-love-dead-jews/id1570872415?i=1000541010284

Perhaps the most important takeaway is Bari Weiss’s assertion that “The fate of Jews and the fate of liberty are intertwined,” a statement I agree with wholeheartedly.  Some of their conversation focused on the Tree of Life Synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh three years ago, as well as the self-erasure that some Jewish institutions engage in in an effort to be more “inclusive.”

Yet, given current events, I found the ceremony and the conversation a little incomplete.  The speakers at the Illinois Holocaust Museum, while remembering the past, did not spend a great deal of time on the most worrying aspect of the current expressions of antisemitism. 

By commission and omission, the State has been an ally to antisemitic forces.  On a national level, both Ilhan Omar have made clear antisemitic statements and the House of Representatives could not bring itself to censure them.   In New York, under the pretext of enforcing COVID restrictions, authorities bullied Hasidic Jews, stopped them from having funeral services and other gatherings.  Most egregiously, they chased young Jewish mothers with their children off playgrounds—even though children have almost no risk from COVID.   And in cities like New York and Los Angeles, Jews have been subjected to random attacks on the streets by African Americans, which attacks have been widely captured on video and disseminated on social media.  The passivity of law enforcement in these cities has been particularly harmful to the Jewish community.

So, yes, we are seeing a resurgence of anti-semitism here in the U.S.

It was a mere four years ago that I saw a flyer on a public bulletin board at the University of Illinois at Chicago that proclaimed, “White Supremacy starts with Jewish Supremacy.”  Now that we are seeing signs that the State is not unequivocally and forcefully pushing back against it, and may be tacitly ok with it, we should be very worried.

Dara Horn said that she objected to Jews being viewed as “canaries in the coal mine.”   I view it a little differently.  My Jewish brothers and sisters are on the front lines of liberty.  And we need to stand with them, even when some don’t see it yet.

Preying on Youth

 

Our society seems to be being pulled apart by a number of forces—our political divisions, urban crime, Cancel Culture, Woke ideology that seems to have taken hold in nearly every institution, the corrosion of our educational system, the corruption of our media.

But there is one development that worries me the most—and that is our society’s disregard for the safety of our young people, particularly when it comes to sexual assault and sexual exploitation.  Indeed, our institutions have been complicit in the most egregious violations of their personhood.  That our institutions look the other way.

Chicago Blackhawks
As more is coming to light about the sexual assault of Kyle Beach, the more we should be repulsed by an organization that swept this awful occurrence under the rug.  The offender, Brad Aldrich,  went on to coach in high school and assaulted a 16 year old, and who knows how many others.  The Blackhawks just obtained the resignation of general manager Scotty Bowman, issued a statement and asked that Aldrich’s name be removed from the Stanley Cup.  The league pressured Coach Quennville to resign from the Florida Panthers.

Yet, this is 10 years too late and, like the Catholic archdiocese, the Blackhawks remained silent and allowed Aldrich to move on when what happened to Beach was common knowledge.

That the organization covered up for Aldrich is hideous.  Whatever sins were committed by  the mismanagement of Bill Wirtz in comparison to what occurred under the aegis of his son, Rocky.

U.S. Gymnastics
It was hard not to rage as McKayla Maroney and others testified about the abuse they suffered at the hands of Larry Nasser.  Michigan State president Lou Ann Simon resigned in the wake of the scandal and her replacement, interim president John Engler resigned after he was quoted as saying that the victims seemed to be “enjoying the spotlight.”    Most incredibly, FBI agents changed Maroney’s statements, and were slow to pursue allegations against Nasser, which enabled him to abuse more victims.

Loudoun County
We learned that a 14 year old girl was raped in the girls’ bathroom by a boy wearing a skirt.  The school board covered up the crime, transferred the boy to another school, where he molested another victim.  The school board, which recently implemented a transgender friendly policy enabling a student that self identifies as a girl to have access to the girls’ bathroom.  In its eagerness to advance its trans agenda, the board and principal showed their eagerness to trample over the safety of adolescent girls and the result was a girl brutally raped and several others assaulted.   To date, no one has resigned.

For Kyle Beach, McKayla Maroney, Simone Biles and the other victims of Larry Nasser, Brad Aldrich, and the Loudoun County rapist, the assaults were defining moments  of their lives.  It was a horrible occurrence that forever changed the trajectory of their lives. 

These were outstanding young people.  In the case of the gymnasts and Kyle Beach, they were athletes that evidenced discipline to compete at the highest level of their sport. 

The outrage is not simply that these horrendous things happened to these beautiful, talented and innocent young people.   That is bad in and of itself.  But the grotesqueness of it all is that the structures and institutions PROTECTED THE PERPETRATORS, enabled them to go on to sexually abuse and exploit more young people.  These are organizations whose mission is, in part at least, to develop and showcase the talents of young people.  Instead, they actively colluded to coddle the predators.

It’s as if the people running these organizations learned nothing from Joe Paterno and learned nothing from the Boy Scouts and the Catholic Church. 

These awful collusions and cover-ups are very bad indicators for our society.

MIA

 

Woody Allen famously said, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.”

In the midst of multiple crises, the adults in charge simply don’t show up. 

The American people can be quite forgiving even if things go wrong if you are honest and forthright and look like you’re trying really hard to solve the problem.

In one of America’s capstone projects, the Apollo program, 3 of our astronauts were burned to a crisp in that horrible launchpad fire in January, 1967.   Two and a half years later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin proudly stepped onto the surface of the moon.

We overcome missteps.  But you gotta show up and own up.

Less than a year in, Team Biden has show that when the going gets tough, the tough go on paid leave.

Biden put Kamala Harris in charge of the border crisis.  Harris didn’t visit the border until Donald Trump shamed her into it by threatening to visit the border first.  The only concrete Harris initiative was to stand at the podium and plea to the immigrants not to come and pledge to address the “root causes” of illegal immigration.  To date, there has been no plan put forward to fortify the border, provide for more security, or disincentivize immigrants from pouring in.

With regard to Afghanistan, as the horror show unfolded with the Afghan military in collapse, the country overrun by Taliban, and as our military scooted out, leaving equipment, Americans and our allies behind, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki was unavailable because she was on vacation.  Secretary of State Anthony Blinken headed to the Hamptons.  And old Joe claimed success at the podium, turned and walked away.   Meanwhile, 13 of our service men and women were killed and Afghanis were falling from the skies after futilely clinging to airplanes, reminiscent of the Americans jumping to their deaths on 9/11.

And the latest absence is Mayor Pete Buttigieg, our gay Secretary of Transportation, who wears his gender preference like a badge of honor and has no inhibitions about using it as both a sword and a shield.  He was last seen getting out of a van loaded with his bicycle, so he could be seen as a “green” worker pedaling to work instead of using the old combustion engine.

In the midst of a supply chain crisis, with cargo ships backed up and companies unable to get important goods, it turns out that Mayor Pete is on parental leave, and has been for two months.

Now, it’s fine to have a vacation.  It’s ok to take some time to be with your new child.  But there are roles and times when it’s simply not possible.  As an attorney, I know how hard it is to completely get away from the office.  It’s sometimes nearly impossible, even when you have adequate colleagues to pick up the slack.  Most attorneys concede that it is a hazard of the profession.  Likewise, almost every business owner I know is required to handle things while they are out of the office.   A day off for farmers?  You’ve got to be kidding.   And if you are in the restaurant business, vacations or “time off” simply doesn’t happen for you.

In these jobs, in a national emergency, with peoples lives and livelihoods at stake, these people don’t have the luxury of time away.  It was abhorrent that Psaki just wasn’t around to answer question during the Afghanistan crisis.  In a democracy, she owed it to our 330 million citizens to explain exactly what was going on, and the policy choices behind it. 

Mayor Pete needs to be working 18 hour days to unclog our ports and clear these cargo ships.

Instead,  Mayor Pete and Psaki declare a “success” and called it a day.

This is why conspiracy theories start.  People aren’t stupid.  When they see that no one is in charge or the person that’s supposed to be in charge is MIA, they assume that things are the way they are because the administration wants them to be that way.  Otherwise they would have SOMEBODY in charge working tirelessly to change course.

We can differ about policies and approaches.

But you have to show up to work.

 

Fossilized Tyrants

 

At the time of his election, John Kennedy at 43 was the youngest person to hold the office of president of the United States.  While I was just a toddler when he was assassinated, Kennedy was still talked about and adored when I was in grade school.  In fact, the vestibule of my Catholic grade school had three portraits on the wall—JFK, FDR, and Pope Paul VI.   Who ranked the highest was not a settled matter.

JFK’s youthfulness, vision and energy propelled a nation in the early Cold War years.  Elected a mere 15 years after the Nazi defeat, Kennedy exemplified a forward looking and confident nation.  He faced down Khruschev in 1962 and, after the Soviets had taken the lead in the space race, Kennedy threw down the gauntlet and challenged the U.S. government to put a man on the moon within a decade, which we accomplished.

But that was the America of 60 years ago.

The leadership of America today—the people setting the tone, writing the rules, and prioritizing the challenges have quite a different profile.

President Joe Biden is an addled 78.  Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House is 81 and when she’s not drunk on power, she’s just, well, drunk.   Anthony Fauci, the face of the Administrative State is 80.  Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer is the young pup at 70. 

The age of our political leaders has a profound impact on their decision making and horizons.

Here are the facts.  Fauci’s life expectancy is 7 years. Nancy’s is 9.  Biden’s is about 9 ½ years.  And their timelines are much shorter when you consider how much longer each will be effectively functional—assuming you make the leap and consider Biden fully functional now.   This means that 3 of 4 of our branches of government (the Administrative State is a de facto 4^th branch) are led by individuals THAT HAVE VERY LITTLE VESTED INTEREST IN THE FUTURE.   Only one is expected to live more than a decade.

This explains a lot, and yet leaves a lot unexplained.

As we age, we necessarily become more focused on our legacy, on what we are going to leave behind, on the traditions, the structures and heritage we will leave to the next generation.  Yet this geriatric crew disconsonantly appears to be much more interested in accumulating and wielding power.   

The parallels to the waning years of the Soviet Union gnaws at me.  As the sun set on the Soviets, it would do well to recall the hoary succession of Secretary Generals that preceded Gorbachev and the collapse.  Leonid Brezhnev faded and died at 79.   Yuri Andropov lasted less than two years and died at 69.  Andrei Gromyko was still in power at age 79.  Konstantin Chernenko died at 73 after less than a year in office, prompting Ronald Reagan quip that he wanted to meet “face to face with a Soviet leader but they kept dying on me.”

Historian John Lewis Gaddis said Chernenko “was an enfeebled geriatric so zombie-like as to be beyond assessing intelligence reports, alarming or not.”

Many observers could say the same thing about Biden’s mental acuity.

Of all the circumstances that are swirling around, this is one that is most troubling to me. 

The Soviet Union collapsed about two years after its disgraceful withdrawal from Afghanistan, and after being led by a crusty, ossified series of rulers.

The echo should give us pause.

Exemptions from Accountability at the Top

 Last week, I wrote about the Barbell Theory of Exemptions, how the very top and the very bottom of our society escapes accountability for their actions, performance, and behavior, and how rules don’t apply to them.

General Mark Milley can make horrendous decisions and mistakes in judgment costing thousands of lives and billions of dollars.  Barack Obama can host hundreds for a birthday bash, unmasked without vaxx passports.

You can’t.

Antifa and BLM can smash windows, loot stores, and assault people and get away without any time in jail.

You can’t.

Young gangbanger Adam Toledo, shot by Chicago police earlier this summer after wielding a weapon has a virtual sanctuary to him at the National Museum of Mexican Art.  George Floyd has murals and statues.

When you pass, you will not be so honored.

But at the pinnacle of all this are the Bidens.

The son of our current president, singularly unaccomplished, has slipped the surly bonds of accountability at every turn. 

Most recently, it was disclosed that he received a $2 million “retainer” from Libya.  Then there was the whole controversy over his board position at Burisma, even though he had no business experience in the Ukraine and no energy experience.  The Secret Service apparently covered up for his violation of firearms laws.  He fought tooth and nail to avoid child support payments for a child that he had with an Arkansas stripper that was shown to be conclusively his with DNA testing.  And then there are the leaked photos of him with apparently underage girls and an FBI that still won’t reveal what they found on his laptop.

These are things that would bring any of us to ruin.  But not only has Hunter escaped any accountability, he keeps getting rewarded handsomely.  He received a $2 million book advance for his literary talent that sold less than 10,000 books.  Wink. Wink.  And now, having attended not a single art school—no toiling at the Rhode Island School of Design, Hunter is suddenly a famous painter whose artwork fetches upwards of $500,000 from undisclosed buyers.  Wink. Wink.  His genius is having to avoid any studios and the “starving artist” part.

Any business person, lawyer or other professional that engaged in this sort of monkey business would get driven out of their profession, exiled and perhaps jailed.

All of this is covered by the Barbell Exemption for Hunter.

Then we get to the “Big Guy,” Joe himself, who apparently got a 10% cut from some of Hunter’s shenanigans.

The people behind him have the biggest exemption of all.  If you are paying attention at all, you can see with clarity that the people that are REALLY running the country have made themselves invisible, that Joe is simply a figurehead reading lines provided to him, calling on reporters whose names have been provided to him and being cut short when asked incisive impromptu questions.   Biden, Blinken and Psaki have walked off the podium rather than answer hard questions.

It’s pretty clear that it isn’t Joe doing the actual decision making and there is lots of speculation as to who it might be----Obama, Susan Rice, Valerie Jarrett??  They are being cloaked to shield them from accountability for the rampant inflation, increased gas prices, shutdowns and mandates and the catastrophic failure in Afghanistan.

These people symbolize the worst of what I have called the Barbell Exempt from accountability—the very top.

Our country won’t get back on track until we ALL are accountable for our decisions.

 

The Barbell of Exemptions from Accountability

 

I think most would agree that something is out of kilter in our society right now.  It feels raw, unstable and unsettled.   Many of us don’t quite know what to make of it.   Our political system is being stretched in ways we never imagined.  COVID19 rules seem totalitarian and arbitrary.  Crime is ascendant in major cities and shows no signs of abating.  Race relations are worse than they have been in more than a half century.   The U.S. is abandoning some allies, ignoring others and coddling totalitarian regimes.

At the top of the list is General Mark Milley.  Leading a catastrophic and abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of 13 marines and untold other Afghani allies, while leaving U.S. citizens behind, Milley still has a job.

Under Milley, a family was droned, which included 7 children, and Milley had days before considered it a “righteous strike.”  And if the reports by Bob Woodward are true, Milley subverted the chain of command and had unauthorized conversations with our principal geopolitical adversary.   In an earlier era, Milley would have faced a firing squad. 

Anthony Fauci is still employed and spouting off recommendations even though Rand Paul caught him in a flat out lie about his role in funding “gain of function” research at the Wuhan Lab.  Despite inconsistent and flawed projections and recommendations, Fauci still graces the covers of magazines and is lauded as an “expert” by the mainstream media.  In any other venue, someone with Fauci’s track record would have gotten the heave-ho long ago.

Then, there are the real sewer rats-  people like Eric Slawell and Ilhan Omar.   Slawell slept with Chinese spy Fang Fang.  Omar purportedly married her brother to flout immigration rules, funneled campaign money to her lover’s consulting firm, and made breathtaking antisemitic pronouncement.  In neither case were they held accountable in any way.

The entire F.B.I. deserves its own essay on accountability, beginning with the fabrication of the Steele dossier used to “trump up” the collusion charge with the FISA court (as an aside, there were no consequences or reforms proposed by Chief Justice John Roberts for this, either).  But worse was the F.B.I.’s handling of the sexual abuse of the Olympic gymnasts.   McKayla Maroney’s testimony last week was particularly heartbreaking as she made clear that the F.B.I. not only failed to protect these girls, but actively enabled Nasser to continue to abuse them.  To my knowledge, not a single person has suffered a consequence as a result.

At the bottom of our society, criminals are no longer accountable.   SF can’t be prosecuted for shoplifting for under $950.   In cities like Chicago, murderers are not prosecuted or are released on no cash bail.   Disturbing the peace and public nuisances aren’t dealt with at all.  Violent criminals in Chicago go free on cashless bail.  The Antifa and BLM melees last summer resulted in few arrests and even few perpetrators that spent time in prison, even though deaths, injuries and billions in property damage resulted.

The rest of us are always accountable—abiding by the law, paying our taxes, performing at work, living up to our familial obligations.    We are accountable to our employers, to all the government rules and regulations, and to our families.

But what is completely out of kilter is that the elites exempt themselves and the bottom of our society from accountability.  We cannot have a society in which the very top and very bottom escape accountability while the rest of us are held accountable.

This cannot go on much longer.   It is the stuff that populism is made of…and if things do not change, rebellions.

The Hallmarks of a Communist or Fascist Regime

 

There are demonstrable, legitimate reasons to be deeply concerned about our society at the present time.    As I discussed in my post on May 31, the radical movement that seems to have gripped the nation doesn’t look exactly like other socialist/communist movements (https://commonsense-mark.blogspot.com/2021/05/who-are-fascists.html).  I argued that it is more of a hybrid between a communist movement and national socialism and has borrowed features from each. 

But in any event, I believe that the radical Left that has gained control of our federal government and many states and municipalities is as dangerous as anything we’ve witnessed since the end of the Cold War.  Because the New Left doesn’t look exactly like Bolshevism or National Socialism, many are confused about it.   Here’s why you should be concerned.

Its Callous Disregard for Human Life

Like its Communist and National Socialist antecedents, the New Left has a callous disregard for human life.   James Lindsay, in his New Discourses podcast of April 23, 2021, Communism Doesn’t Know How   (https://newdiscourses.com/2021/04/communism-doesnt-know-how/) argues that the Neo Marxists are in a hurry to dismantle the current system but are vague on what is to replace it.  I would add to that an assertion that Communism Doesn’t Care (and neither does fascism). 

And it doesn’t.  Mao starved out millions, as did Stalin.  And we know about Hitler.  And Pol Pot.

Are today’s Neo-Marxists any better?  Not much.  They are evidencing a lack of inhibition about breaking a few eggs to advance their agenda.

Whatever your views on abortion, the cheering and glee that we witnessed in New York and Illinois over passing laws permitting unrestricted abortion until birth was grotesque.   Ending the life of an almost-to-be-born fetus would be a somber and serious thing, no matter what.  But what we saw were all cheers, smiles and backslapping. 

Likewise, in cities like Chicago, the violent crime rate continues to escalate.  In Chicago, 280 children have been shot so far this year.  A 24 year old bank employee was stabbed to death in the middle of the day a few weeks ago, and earlier this summer, a 31 year old woman was stabbed to death just blocks from Sears Tower.  A University of Chicago student was shot to death on his way home from his internship this summer.  A 70 year old former special ed teacher was slain on her way home from a White Sox game.  Dozens of black children have been murdered, and I have repeatedly asked the question of why I seem to care about the senseless slaughter of black children more than the black city management does.  There has been no effort, no urgency, no mandate, no personnel changes.  The Neo-Marxists in charge are apparently ok with the status quo.  The death toll is an acceptable level to advance their agenda…or they would do something different.

Similarly, the abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan cost us 13 young marines, and an untold number of Afghan allies and people that assisted the U.S.  Even more egregious, we left Americans behind.   The images of Afghans falling from airplanes that they were clinging to will be seared in our memories for a long time.  There are reports that U.S. intelligence knew of the suicide bomber and actually had him locked on with a drone but did not disrupt it because we were negotiating with the Taliban.  The photos of Biden checking his watch as he met the parents showed just how much he cared.

Marxists and Nazis simply do not care.  The loss of human life is incidental to their drive to power. 

 

Lies and Deceits

The second marker of a Communist or Nazi is the willingness to propagate  falsehoods.  And where to even start with this bunch?   From the Christmas bombing of Nashville in which the entire investigation was wrapped up in 48 hours to Anthony Fauci’s lies about funding “gain of function” research at the Wuhan Lab to the Pentagon’s claim that they had killed ISIS-K leaders when in fact, they had mistakenly droned a family, the government has gotten bigger, bolder and more brazen putting out falsehoods.

Then there are the “do you think we’re that stupid” lies like Hunter Biden selling his “artwork” for upwards of $500,000 when he had no previous history of artistic inclinations.  

Then there is the 1/6 “deadly invasion of the capitol” except that the only death was at the hands of the Capitol Police and the “insurrection” looked suspiciously more like the Reichstag Fire than and actual insurrection. 

And just today, the government announced that it was sending $64 million in “humanitarian aid” to Afghanistan, but assures us that none of it is going to the Taliban, but rather will be administered by NGO’s and not-for-profits.

Right.

The lies and deceits that are painfully obvious to anyone with a functioning central nervous system are a hallmark of communism/national socialism.

These are the things that concern me most.  I do not recall a time in my lifetime when a government evidenced such a callous disregard for human life and was so willing to look us in the eye and lie.

Where is the Rage?

 

My grief and anger has continued to rise as more photos of those beautiful young marines have been circulating on social media.  Any one of them could have been my son or daughter and it turns my stomach that 14 families have had to endure the awful experience of having two marines walk up to their door and ring the doorbell.   Their families will never be the same.

And it was all unnecessary. 

And this doesn’t take into account the 2,300 that went before them and the thousands more that were injured and maimed over the past 20 years, whose sacrifices are now being nullified by the reckless withdrawal of Team Biden.

Making matters worse, the Taliban ginned up a flag raising ceremony meant to mock the iconic image of the US soldiers pushing up the flag at Iwo Jima.   There have been other photos of Taliban sporting our confiscated equipment and joyriding in one of our Blackhawk helicopters.   Incredibly, the Taliban conducted a press conference before our own ossified president could get out of his pajamas.  This was all meant to humiliate us, to show that these throwbacks could bring the most powerful military force the world has ever seen to its knees, just as they did to the Soviets in 1989.

My blog this week, however, is a reaction to the reactions

Since the bombing, Twitter has been seething with rage with some notables like Jesse Kelly ranting on Tucker Carlson’s show.  He was hardly alone.  There were many, many calls for the resignations of Biden, Blinken, Austin and Milley.   Upon learning that we had left behind some $80 billion in US weaponry, turning the place into the most heavily armed terrorist hotspot and arms bazaar in the world overnight, many even called for court-martials and impeachment.

I listened carefully to the reactions of our political and military establishment, both to the words and the tone.

I was taken by what I didn’t hear—rage, or any real anger for that matter.  The responses were clinical and devoid of emotion. 

From Biden, we got the expected flat, bumbling speech, after waiting all day, blaming Trump and vowing not to exact revenge but to “complete the mission.”

From Milley and Austin, nothing.   They just lost 14 of our finest.  You’d think they’d have something to say. 

From Col. McKenzie, a clinical zoom call, incredulously talking about a “common purpose” with the Taliban.  We have no common purpose with the Taliban, you dolt.

Most curious was the silence from people who had a lot to say about a lot of things in the past.

Barack and Michelle Obama- Zilch.  We heard a lot about the Cambridge police, Trayvon Martin, and George Floyd from Barack.  Suddenly, the cat got his tongue.  Michelle suddenly mute on women’s rights and after spouting off about her fears she has that her daughters might get pulled over by the police.

General Jim Mattis- Mad Dog simply vanished.  After asserting that “Trump was a threat to the Constitution” during last summer’s near assault on the White House after Trump ordered up the 82^nd Airborne, the man who let bin Laden slip out of Tora Bora is nowhere to be found.  This is the same guy that resigned the Trump administration over Trump’s decision to pull US troops out of Syria because he thought we were betraying our Kurdish allies.  Now that Biden betrayed our Afghan allies as well as our European allies, the General of Pithy Quotes is nowhere to be found.

Pope Francis- His Holiness never missed an opportunity to take oblique shots at Trump and the US over capitalism, immigration, and climate change.  Scrolling through his tweets, he is also now a salesman for the jab.  Nothing about Afghanistan.  Nothing about the gross abuses of human rights and women’s rights in Afghanistan.  Francis had lots to say about “environmental sins” and “equity.”   Beheadings and child marriages—not so much.

Uncontrolled anger does not make for good decisions.  But there are times when rage is an appropriate response.  From the Establishment, we saw none, if we saw any response at all.

The response to the bombings in Kabul echoed the responses of our local people here in Chicago with the murder of police officer Ella French.  I did not see any anger in the responses from Mayor Lightfoot or Police Chief David Ward, neither of which could even get her name right.  No change in personnel.  No commitment to do things any differently.

Because they really don’t care.  In both places, on the streets of Chicago and in Kabul, the neo-Marxist  establishment virtually guaranteed this outcome.  Joe Biden and Mark Milley put these wonderful young people in this position.  Lori Lightfoot and David Ward put Ella French in the position she was in.

The silence and lack of emotion speak loudly.

 

The Real Import of Afghanistan

 

If none of this makes sense to you, it’s because it’s working.

Much is being said and written about the horrendous events unfolding in Afghanistan.  I will leave it to others to spin out their narratives.   My goal here is to put forward some observations of facts, and ask some questions.  I leave it to you to draw your own conclusions. 

Fact 1: Just weeks before the takeover of Afghanistan, General Milley was in front of Congress on a military budget hearing proclaiming “white supremacy” as the top security risk facing the nation, as he answered questions about teaching Critical Race Theory in the military.

“It is important that we train, and we understand…and I wanna understand white rage.  And I’m white.”

Fact 2:  Again, at about the same time, Obama held a birthday bash on Martha’s Vinyard with about 700 people—unmasked, while at the same time, the president and blue state governors are issuing mask mandates for school children.

Fact 3:   The Biden Administration, without consulting with any of our allies or the Afghan military (indeed, after issuing assurances to them concerning the security of Afghanistan), abruptly pulls our intelligence people and contractors supporting Afghan forces.  This has the effect of blinding the military and then Biden publicly berates the Afghan army for not fighting.

Fact 4:  The US simply walked away from Bagram Air Base, a very strategic airfield,  in the weeks before the Taliban takeover while thousands of American civilians were still in Afghanistan.  Bagram was under no real threat from the Taliban.

Fact 5:  Most damning, some $80-100 billion of US equipment was left behind, much in its original, pristine packaging, including 75,000 vehicles, 200 aircraft (including Blackhawk helicopters).  Horrifyingly, night vision equipment was left behind, taking away a huge advantage we would have if we have to do battle with the Taliban.

Fact 6:  While all this is going on, Joe Biden and his press secretary are “out of office” on vacation.  While Biden returns to speak, his answers were inconsistent with facts on the ground.  Inaccuracies include statements that no Americans are being harmed (they were being beaten and passports taken). 

Fact 7:  The administration immediately began making plans for evacuating 30,000 Afghan refugees (no vetting, no vaccine requirements), but told our citizens outside Kabul to “shelter in place” with no plans to extract them.  Neither the Defense Department or State Department could provide numbers of U.S. citizens marooned there.  So far, of the people evacuated, less than 7% are American citizens.

Fact 8:  Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar was released from a Pakistani prison under pressure from Barack Obama in the infamous prisoner swap for deserter Bowie Bergdahl.  Baradar was a trusted advisor to Mullah Omar.

Fact 9: CIA director had a secret meeting with Baradar.  Don’t be surprised if, in addition to the military equipment, there is a cash transfer to the Taliban.  Here come the pallets of cash again.

Fact 10:  There are 3 leaders that have lots to say about a lot of things:  General Jim Mattis (who allowed bin Laden to escape Tora Bora and famously called Trump a “threat to the Constitution” last summer), Pope Francis and Barack Obama.  Suddenly, all three have been muted.  Why the sudden silence?

Fact 11: In the style reminiscent of Baghdad Bob, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki, is most incredibly asserting that Americans aren’t stranded in Afghanistan. 

This all looks very fishy, especially when you consider that Obama was at the forefront of excusing, ignoring or explaining away militant Islam.  At each terrorist attack, his first instincts were to get in front of the cameras and urge people “not to rush to judgment.”  He was the only Western leader not to make the trip and walk in solidarity with world leaders after the Nice attacks in France.   Obama likewise made sure that “recognizing Muslim accomplishments in science” was specifically written into the mission statement of NASA, a courtesy not extended to any Christian or Jewish sect.  The transfer of cash to the mullahs of Iran in connection with the JCPOA was egregious and provided needed lifeblood to a regime that was staggered.

These are just facts as they exist today.   As with the origins of COVID19 and the strange facts around the 2020 election results, the governing elite has left a great deal of ambiguity and open questions that require answers.  If you begin to piece together the threads, you are vulnerable to being labelled a “conspiracy theorist.”  But the facts speak for themselves.  Afghanistan is either borne out of intent or is one of the worst strategic and military blunders in human history. 

I will leave you with this thought.  Our federal government is allowing our own citizens to be exposed to the brutality of the Taliban with no sense of urgency and no real plan for getting them out.  Indeed, it is putting Afghanis first.  Locally, in cities like Chicago, law abiding citizens are being brutally attacked, carjacked, beaten and shot every week and government isn’t lifting a finger to help.  Indeed, every law and mandate that has been issued has been to coddle, protect and empower criminals.

In other words, government, by its passivity in dealing with threats is causing harm to its own citizens.  Its omissions are telling all of us that we are on our own, that government is abdicating its most important function, that we are going to live in a Hobbesian society.

It should deeply concern you, because it’s only a half step from allowing us to be harmed through passivity to becoming more active.   If you are experiencing an uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach, you should.

 

Disrespecting Ella

 I’m going to write something that will be uncomfortable for most of you to read.   Because we don’t want to believe it.  We really don’t want to believe that people in leadership positions can be this callous, and this committed to the twisted righteousness of their cause.

In a stunning series of purported slips, the hierarchy of the Chicago Police Department continues to heap disrespect on to the slain young officer, Ella French.  It is tradition that bagpipes accompany the body of a slain officer but as her body was being taken to the morgue, First Deputy Superintendent Eric Carter was caught on tape saying, “We’re not waiting for bagpipes…We don’t have time for this shit.”

Really, Eric?  What else was more pressing?  What else was on your busy schedule?

Then, Chief of Police David Brown in his first public comments explicably flubbed her name and called her “Ella Fitzgerald.”  

Downtown David Brown, in these circumstances, you had one job.  Just one.  And you shockingly whiffed.

Not to be outdone, in a budget meeting,  Mayor Lightfoot referred to her as “Ella Franks” earlier this week.

The mayor and chief of police both botched her name.  Her name is not a long, difficult to pronounce ethnic name like mine.  It’s not Polish with a paucity of vowels.   It’s not Lithuanian or Czech.   A few Mexican names can be tough to handle.   Some Arabic names can get you tangled up.  No.  It is a simple, one syllable name,  a name any kindergartner could easily remember and enunciate.

And a mere week after allowing Lollapalooza to go on, she deep sixed the longstanding tradition of playing bagpipes for French, claiming it violated new COVID protocols- to which the medical examiner’s office immediately  responded that that claim was not true.  There have been no changes in protocols.  And two weeks after Lollapalooza, Lightfoot joined Pritzker in marching in the black-oriented Bud Billiken parade—another summer Chicago tradition.  Every step of the way, Lightfoot displayed her disingenuousness around the entire tragedy.

But wait, there’s more.   The suspect that sold the shooter, Emonte Morgan, the gun in a straw purchase was released by the judge.   And feckless prosecutor Kim Foxx declined to charge Morgan’s mother with a felony after she burst into the hospital where Morgan was being treated, screaming hysterically, recording the drama with her cell phone and assaulting officers.  Clearly, she was either hoping for a big payday or garnish national attention as Jacob Blake’s parents did.

Adding up all the messaging by the mayor and the top brass at the Chicago Police Department, you have to reach one conclusion:  The disrespect shown to Ella French by this cabal is intentional.  The mispronunciation of her name is intentional.  The refusal to honor her with a time honored tradition is intentional.

Here is the hard truth that we need to come to grips with:  The people in the chain of command are all black radicals (or sycophants) that are secretly pleased with her death.  They view this as payback for George Floyd, Michael Brown, Rayshard Brooks and Jacob Blake, and the false narratives that went along with each of those incidents—that the police are unjustly targeting African Americans.  If they could spit on French’s coffin, they would.  Deputy Chief Eric Carter came as close to doing so as you could.

This cabal reduced police manpower, forced officers to work 12 hour shifts, and assigned young, inexperienced officers like Ella and her partner to the toughest districts.  Worse, the politicians changed all the rules of engagement over the past year, adding another element of risk and complexity to an already stressed system.  It all virtually ensured that something like this would be the eventual result.  It was inevitable that an officer would get hurt or killed or that an officer would overreact or react badly to a situation.

This is the outcome they engineered and wanted, and I’m not ashamed of saying it out loud.  And when it did, they went out of their way to disrespect her.   It is something that you really do not want to believe that people in a leadership position could be so sinister, but it is reality.  Their actions belie their beliefs.