Illinoisans need to organize and fight back against impending no-cash bail law

By John Ruberry

There have been over 1,000 murders this year in Cook County, Illinois–where I live–and the county where Chicago dominates hasn’t seen that many killings since 1994. As for Chicago it has, as of three days ago, endured 777 murders in 2021. 

Liberals like to talk about root causes of crime. Indeed, the current situation is horrible. Apologists for the dramatic increase in crime over the last two years like to blame the COVID-19 outbreak. But the worst outbreaks are concentrated in deep-blue metropolitan areas with so-called prosecutors, many of whom that accepted campaign contributions from funds tied to radical leftist George Soros. 

People like Kim Foxx, the state’s attorney of Cook County. 

Here is one of those roots from one of Foxx’s poison seeds. Before the COVID outbreak Foxx, shortly after her first election in 2016, announced that her office would not pursue felony charges against accused shoplifters unless the value of the goods stolen exceeded $1,000. State law puts that threshold at $300.

And what happened? Retail threats soared. Here’s a story about that from 2019.

Five years later criminals, many of them wearing face masks, are emboldened. They don’t fear getting caught and if they are, because of the low-bail or no-bail policies of Foxx and Cook County judges–they are elected too–they are out on the street almost immediately.  Chicago and its suburbs are being plagued by gangs of flash mob thieves.

Crime will get worse in thirteen months–and the problem will be statewide as a no-cash bail law that Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, goes into effect. 

Small time criminals move on bigger crimes. Rudy Giuliani’s broken-windows theory of policing should be known as broken-windows fact.

And Chicago, with about 100,000 street gang members, has plenty of big-time crooks. 

Carjackings are out of control in Chicago and its suburbs. In the city there have been 1,444 carjackings so far this year–nearly double the annual total of just two years ago. Last month Chicago police arrested an 11-year-old “prolific carjacker.”

 As I mentioned last week John Kass, a columnist formerly with the Chicago Tribune, was demoted after back-stabbing liberal co-workers at the Trib complained that his column on Soros and the leftist “prosecutors” he funds was anti-Semitic. They lied and they know it.

Kass’ new columns and his podcasts can be found at JohnKassNews.com.

In his latest podcast Kass interviewed former local and federal prosecutor Robert Milan. It was a wide-ranging conversation, but I want to focus on his comments on the no-cash bail law, which is absurdly known as the SAFE-T Act.

“The new bill is going to make it easier to get out [of jail], Milan said, “in 2023 this already dire situation is going to get worse.”

He continued, “People have to organize victims of crimes and stand up and say, ‘This isn’t going to happen.”

Milan added, “Dangerous people should not be on the streets, period.”

So far in 2021, again as I mentioned last week, 56 people, as reported by CWB Chicago, have been accused of “killing, trying to kill, or shooting someone in Chicago this year while awaiting trial for a felony.”

A knee-jerk response of course is to vote-the-bums-out. That’s not so easy in Illinois, which, after a third-straight decennial redistricting, is burdened by gerrymandered districts designed to benefit the Democrats. Still, now is the time for Illinois’ feckless Republican Party to find an issue to rally on–and present itself as the party of personal safety. 

I believe the fight against no-cash bail will be up to rank-and-file Illinoisans, especially crime victims. The no-cash bail law, which fortunately still allows the most-heinous accused criminals to be locked up without bail, was largely a project of African-American legislators. But it is minorities, particularly blacks, who are usually the victims of violent crimes, particularly murder

Let’s get going, Illinois. Let’s get organized. Let’s make it not happen.

We’ve tried fighting crime the leftist way. It doesn’t work.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

The military never cared about your religion

While I don’t have a print subscription to the Military Times newspapers, I still get their morning email, and today’s headline featured the US Navy not accepting any religious exemptions for the COVID vaccine:

As the deadline for active-duty sailors to get the mandatory COVID-19 vaccine passed Monday, the sea service has yet to grant any vaccine exemptions on the basis of religious accommodation, according to figures released Tuesday.

As of Tuesday, 2,531 requests for exemption from the vaccine mandate had been filed by sailors on religious grounds, though officials could not say how many of those requests had been ruled upon.

Navy Times

I’m not surprised, because in my experience, the Navy (and most services) don’t really care about your religious beliefs. Never have, never will, because in today’s service, the service is the religion.

I noticed this trend when I first joined the Navy. I remember having to beg the Commanding Officer on my submarine to get a mere 45 minutes off on Sunday to hold Catholic services. Mind you, we weren’t on mission, at war, or even strapped for time, but he couldn’t be bothered, and it wasn’t until I talked with the squadron chaplain that I was grudgingly granted the time. This was despite the fact that there are plenty of instructions stating that time and space will be provided unless a submarine is on mission or executing critical duties. My Commanding Officer viewed my request as a nuisance, and he told me as much to my face.

It wasn’t just one CO though. At multiple duty stations, there would be this unwillingness to grant military members the time off to celebrate their faith, be it Christian, Jewish or anything else. In Bahrain, where Sunday is considered a workday, I essentially caused a small office revolt by going to noon Mass on Sunday and telling my boss I simply wasn’t going to work yet another 12 hour work day when we weren’t in crisis mode. I distinctly remember the Admiral there telling us at an all-hands call that he was expecting 6 day work weeks, and even most Saturday mornings, despite no apparent need to do so. It was like the Navy was his “god,” and he couldn’t pray enough while slogging through the mass of self-induced paperwork at his desk.

If the Navy can’t provide a simple hour for Mass once a week, its no surprise they won’t approve vaccine exemptions. Now, to be fair, I encourage people to vaccinate because I think its far better than catching COVID, but I also don’t really think its a hill worth dying on or kicking people out over, similar to why I don’t think we should be stopping everything to chase the extremely tiny number of extremists that might exist in the ranks.

Kicking people out over a COVID vaccine is just one more reason the Navy is going to be hurting for recruitment come 2024-2025. The lip service paid to everything from ship maintenance and strategy to human resources and bonuses is becoming more obvious every day. People are catching on that the Navy views itself as its own religion, and if you’re not willing to worship, then you’ll be shown the door.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. If you liked this article, consider supporting the author by purchasing his book for either yourself or as a Christmas gift.

All of the hysteria over the Omicron Variant is truly moronic

I cannot claim credit for noticing that the anagram of the name of the latest Whuhan Virus variant is moronic.  That humorous tidbit appeared on FaceBook within minutes of the release of its name.  FaceBook went so far as to actually fact check a post I shared on that topic, proving that the FaceBook fact checkers are all partisan hacks.

After witnessing the instantaneous firestorm of panic that swept through the mainstream media immediately in the wake of the announcement of this latest variant, I felt the anagram was apt.   

Within a period of minutes of the announcement of a new variant, Joe Biden announced a travel ban affecting South Africa, where the variant was first discovered, and seven other African nations.  The governor of New York announced a state of emergency despite the fact that not one case has been documented here in the United States.  A great many other nations announced travel bans.  This was before any details about the variant were known.  This also proved that the anagram of the name is apt.

The details about the Omicron variant were released very quickly after the hysteria and the government overreaction, proving the moronic nature of the mainstream media and progressive politicians.  The title of this Newsmax article Doctor Who Discovered Omicron Slams ‘Hype,’ Travel Bans, proves just how moronic they have all been.

National Chair of the South African Medical Association, Dr. Angelique Coetzee, who made an early discovery of the Omicron variant amongst patients, says “the hype” that’s been created surrounding the variant is unwarranted.

According to Reuters, “the variant was detected and announced by South Africa’s National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) on Nov. 25 from samples taken from a laboratory from Nov. 14 to Nov. 16.”

Coetzee told Reuters that in one of the “biggest hospitals” in her “area” and country of South Africa, there is only one patient who is COVID-positive on ventilation, and there has been no confirmation, as of Sunday, that Omicron is the cause.

“The hype,” Coetzee says, “that’s been created currently out there in the media and worldwide doesn’t correlate with the clinical picture. And it doesn’t warrant to just cut us off from any traveling, and bans South Africa as if we are the villains in the whole process — should not be like that.”

Coetzee, who is also on the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Vaccines, says, “looking at the mildness of the symptoms we are seeing currently, there’s no reason for panicking as we don’t see severely ill patients.”

“I also checked with the hospital, some of the hospitals in my area, and one of the biggest hospitals they only have one patient currently that’s COVID-positive on a ventilator, and they don’t even know whether it’s COVID — you know it’s Delta- or whether it is Omicron-related.”

Even Reuters is documenting the true nature of the Omicron Variant. Check out this article, quoting the South African doctor who discovered this variant: S.African doctor says patients with Omicron variant have “very mild” symptoms

“We have seen a lot of Delta patients during the third wave. And this doesn’t fit in the clinical picture,” she said, adding she alerted NICD on the same day with the clinical results.

“Most of them are seeing very, very mild symptoms and none of them so far have admitted patients to surgeries. We have been able to treat these patients conservatively at home,” she said.

Coetzee, who is also on the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Vaccines, said unlike the Delta so far patients have not reported loss of smell or taste and there has been no major drop in oxygen levels with the new variant.

There are many reasons for the immediate hysteria from the media and overreactions from governments, here and abroad. 

During the Summer I went to many large events here in southern New England, such as agricultural fairs and concerts. I also ate out in restaurants many times.  During all of those outings I noticed only a small fraction of the people were still living in fear of the Wuhan Virus.  Only about ten percent were wearing masks.  That has held true during the surge in cases caused by the Delta Variant.  That is not good news at all for the government officials who have become drunk on the power they have exercised trampling on the rights of everyone with lockdowns and mandates.

If the media does not continue to ramp up the hysteria their ratings will suffer.

Vaccine hesitancy has remained  steady so the vaccine manufacturers need to ramp up the hysteria to increase their profits.

The midterms are looking quite bad for the Democrats.  They want to recreate the conditions that led to the steal of the 2020 election from President Trump.

There are many more reasons.  The only way to fight the hysteria is with the truth