Chicago gang killings skyrocket while Democrat pols play footsy with gangs



A backyard memorial gathering for Mark Lindsey, 25
killed May 27, 2016 in a "safe" neighborhood of Chicago

The conventional wisdom is that the city fathers of big cities and gangs are at opposite ends of the spectrum.  That may be true in many cities but it isn’t true in Chicago.  The incestuous relationship between aldermen and gangs blurs the line between good and evil. The windy city currently has the highest homicide rate, most of it gang related, of any city in the US.  In August there were more killings, 90, than in New York and Los Angeles combined.  And it is getting worse.  Through August the body count was 472, almost equaling the full year 2015. 

85 years of Democratic rule has left Chicago with a reputation as the most corrupt city in the US.  It is well earned.  Aldermen are kings (or queens) of their wards.  They wield immense power.  They control patronage jobs, zoning, city contracts, property tax reduction and permits in their wards.  It is a graft friendly system.  Naturally they are loath to give up their power and financial opportunities the position offers.  And likewise challengers aspire to become aldermen for all the same reasons.  Political allies are important to politicians such as newspapers, TV stations, the chamber of commerce, religious organizations and, you guessed it, gangs.  It’s the Chicago way.

Chicago Magazine in the January 2012 issue documents how bad it is.  The story is overwhelming. Here is a sample:

Baskin, [a former gang leader and for several decades a community activist who now operates a neighborhood center that aims to keep kids off the streets was asked for help by local politicians and] … was happy to oblige. In all, he says, he helped broker meetings between roughly 30 politicians (ten sitting aldermen and 20 candidates for City Council) and at least six gang representatives. That claim is backed up by two other community activists, Harold Davis Jr. and Kublai K. M. Toure, who worked with Baskin to arrange the meetings, and a third participant, also a community activist, who requested anonymity. The gang representatives were former chiefs who had walked away from day-to-day thug life, but they were still respected on the streets and wielded enough influence to mobilize active gang members.

The first meeting, according to Baskin, occurred in early November 2010, right before the statewide general election; more gatherings followed in the run-up to the February 2011 municipal elections.

At some of the meetings, the politicians arrived with campaign materials and occasionally with aides. The sessions were organized much like corporate-style job fairs. The gang representatives conducted hour-long interviews, one after the other, talking to as many as five candidates in a single evening. Like supplicants, the politicians came into the room alone and sat before the gang representatives, who sat behind a long table. “One candidate said, ‘I feel like I’m in the hot seat,’” recalls Baskin. “And they were.”

The former chieftains, several of them ex-convicts, represented some of the most notorious gangs on the South and West Sides, including the Vice Lords, Gangster Disciples, Black Disciples, Cobras, Black P Stones, and Black Gangsters. Before the election, the gangs agreed to set aside decades-old rivalries and bloody vendettas to operate as a unified political force, which they called Black United Voters of Chicago. “They realized that if they came together, they could get the politicians to come to them,” explains Baskin.

There is a lot more in the article, read it.

Donald Trump has repeated the theme that Democrats have done little or nothing to improve the lot of African Americans in center cities. That is true. He promises to do better.  But his speeches suggest Democratic politicians are practicing benign neglect.  That is not the case in Chicago.  They are destroying the city.  They are selling out to the gangs to protect their own selfish interests. 

Who leaked to WikiLeaks? Russia? More likely payback by Netanyahu

The conventional wisdom has been that Putin is behind it.  But no one gives a reason he would want to tip the election from Hillary to Trump.  Granted Russia has the capability to hack the emails, but so do dozens of other nations as well as malefactors in the US, both governmental and private.  What is so intriguing is the timing of the release – late Friday afternoon, just two days prior to the opening of the Democratic convention – a time when most of the network news biggies had left New York and Washington for their summer homes.  There was no one left who could scan the nearly 20,000 pages.  Despite the media’s inability to digest the leaks, they went viral on the internet, especially on conservative websites.  By Monday morning DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Shultz had resigned and the DNC was in turmoil.  The leaks were skewed toward embarrassing the topmost levels of the DNC and demonstrating the bias of the DNC against Bernie Sanders -- this to build a divide between the Sanders and Hillary camps.  And it couldn’t have been more successful.

What would be the motive for Putin to drop this stink bomb on Hillary’s coronation?  Certainly Putin has not been treated harshly by this Democrat administration.  This administration gave up the missile defense site in Poland in exchange for nothing.  It cut American nuclear warheads beyond those negotiated with the Russians, just to be nice.  It failed to react when Russia grabbed Crimea.  It failed to provide defensive weaponry to Ukraine to counter Russian insurgents.  It failed to challenge Putin ally Assad when he defied the red line and continued to use chemical weapons.  It antagonized Egypt and Saudi for playing footsy with Iran, reducing what little influence the US has in the Middle East.  Putin is now the go-to person to get anything done in the Middle East.  He couldn’t have asked for a more pliant administration.  If anything Putin would love 8 more years of the same.  So scratch the idea of Putin having a motive.

Next, if not Putin, whodunit?  Most likely Israel.  To say relations between Obama and Netanyahu are chilly is an understatement.  Any picture you see of the two together shows it.  Neither can hide it.  They bristle.   What are the reasons?  There are many.  But the biggest insult is that Obama appeared to meddle in the Israeli elections a year ago.   Obama’s former campaign national field director, James Bird, went to work for an anti-Netanyahu political organization, V15 (Victory 2015) whose slogan was ABB (Anyone But Bibi).   This wasn’t the first time Democrat election operatives had worked to unseat Netanyahu.  James Carville, Clinton’s chief campaign strategist worked against Netanyahu in 1996 in support of Labor’s Shimon Peres (unsuccessful) and in 1999 in support of Labor’s Ehud Barak (successful).  In all three cases, Netanyahu felt they were there at the behest Obama and Bill Clinton.  Turnabout is fair play in politics.

FBI Director Comey is looking into the source of the leaks.  CrowdStrike an organization hired by the FBI and the DNC quickly pointed the finger at Russia, citing malware in the DNC servers consistent with Russian techniques.  Rush Limbaugh yesterday speculated that it might be a planted false flag.  Late in his show he interviewed a college senior majoring in computer science who admitted he has done some hacking.   He said you always cover your tracks and leave no traces.  Rush ran out of time to finish the interview but he said he would do another on today’s (July 27) show. 

We may never know the source for sure, but I will bet Bibi is having a good chuckle right now.

 

Is Hillary Cross-Eyed?

Much has been made over Hillary Clinton’s prolonged hospital stay for a concussion in December 2012.  But recent photos during her campaign show her cross-eyed.  Here are some photos that show the situation.  It is doubtful they were Photoshopped.  Two were taken by an MSNBC photographer and published on the MSNBC’s website.  The most recent one is a color AP photo carried by Drudge today (4/02/16).

 

 

 

Above AP photo taken April 1, 2016 and used by Drudge on April 2

 

 

Photo taken by MSNBC photographer September 18,2015 and carried on MSNBC website

 

 

Photo taken by MSNBC photographer January 27, 2016 and carried on MSNBC website