Authored by Mark Glennon via Wirepoints.org,
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson outdid himself yesterday.
Earlier, a Wall Street Journal editorial said, about his empty comments on Chicago violence over Labor Day weekend:
“Yes, he actually said that, which goes a long way to explaining why gunmen patrol the streets with impunity.”
But Tuesday, about last weekend’s number of shootings - the worst in ten years for the first week in June - Johnson said it’s the critics of Chicago’s violence who are wrong, saying, “What I find disingenuous is, where were these individuals when schools were being shut down and closed? Did they have a critique then?”
Are you kidding, Mayor Johnson?
It was your Chicago Teachers Union, where you worked and that played a major role electing you, that was behind Chicago’s indefensible, catastrophically long shutdown of its schools ostensibly because of Covid. That shutdown lasted long after even the Center for Disease Control and left-leaning press said it was safe to open schools. Critics sure did “have a critique then,” including Wirepoints, among many others. We wrote often to reason, shame, insult, and beg obsequiously to get schools open, but your CTU fought relentlessly against opening.
Maybe Johnson was referring not to the Covid closing but to the shutdown of empty schools ten years ago.
Regardless, the point remains the same. And still today, nearly a third of CPS’ 478 traditional schools are less than 50 percent full. Further consolidation is needed and that certainly shouldn’t justify more killing.
Johnson was just getting started. He went on to give a speech criticizing the media for its coverage of Chicago violence, though he didn’t name names.
To the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce he said the best thing you can offer to young people is jobs.
That’s good, but then he said what he wants:
“Not criticism, not demonization of a city that is divided over whether young people should be seen or heard. We’re not going to allow the press or the media to dictate who our young people are.”
Johnson at Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday
“In fact,” he said, “if you don’t live in Chicago and you aren’t offering solutions, stop talking about us.”
Forget that, Mayor Johnson.
All Americans have a stake in the destruction of what was once among the world’s greatest cities.
As for jobs, you and your fellow progressives seem intent on running job creators away. Your and the CTU’s hatred of capitalism is open and notorious.
And you say critics aren’t offering solutions?
Among those that have been offered:
Ask for legislation vesting Cook County prosecutorial authority in somebody other than Kim Foxx.
Eliminate the paperwork and liability cops face if when they try to catch criminals.
Ask to trash the Safe-T Act which, if courts let it get through, will further hamstring prosecutors and police.
Get Cook County Chief Judge Tim Evans replaced.
Tell your Chicago Teachers Union to cease teaching racial division and hatred.
Rail against unwed parenting.
Tell CPS to take down the video that’s one of the “Tools” on the Office of Equity page that justifies burning down communities.
And, most importantly, speak directly to the wrongdoers and their parents about personal responsibility.
Johnson will have none of that.
Instead, he really said what’s quoted above.