Why is Mayor Johnson defunding the police?

Why is Mayor Johnson defunding the police?

A couple of stats jumped out when perusing Mayor Johnson’s bloated Chicago budget included a $300 million property tax increase swiftly voted down by the City Council.

Johnson’s budget calls for reduction of 94 officers on top of 400 axed from his first budget. But the department’s current force of just 11,683 is nearly 2,000 lower than it should be. No wonder Chicagoans of all income levels are increasingly worried about safety.

Meanwhile, 275 of Chicago’s 474 schools are under under enrolled, many by 50% or more. Nearly a third of all school seats citywide are vacant.

But Johnson’s not proposing further school closings with sensible reduction in overall school staffing.

Before he ran for mayor, Johnson jumped on the ‘Defund the Police’ bandwagon. He hoped off that bandwagon when he ran for mayor. Now as mayor, Johnson quietly picked up his Defund the Police pen while proposing increased taxes to Refund Empty Schools.

Trump 2.0 promises US enabled Israeli genocide on steroids

 

Trump 2.0 promises US enabled Israeli genocide on steroids

 

President Biden set a high bar for enabling Israeli genocide in Gaza. Like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden didn’t’ lift a finger to bring the remaining 97 Israeli hostages back safely from Gaza. But he’s used over 50,000 tons of weapons, costing over $18 billion for Israel to complete the genocidal ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

 

He did nothing to force Israel to provide food, water and medicine to the 2,300,000 sick and starving Palestinians (less the 100,000 or so already dead) as a condition for supplying genocide weapons. On October 12th he issued a demand giving Israel 30 days to start allowing in life saving supplies. When Israel did nothing to comply, Biden essentially said ‘Just kidding about the consequences….keep up the genocide.’

 

But at least Biden said a ceasefire along with food and medicine were needed to stop the Palestinians’ suffering.

 

Unlike Biden, Trump will continue US genocide enabling without the veneer of sympathy for its victims. He repeatedly demands that Israel “Finish the job” in Gaza.

 

His picks on foreign policy promise even more genocide in Gaza compared to Biden’s tough act to follow.

 

Trump tabbed uberhawk Mike Waltz to be his National Security Advisor. Waltz is totally against ceasefire, charging it only lead to larger Middle East war when it’s only the ongoing genocide in Gaza fueling it. He’s a huge fan of Netanyahu’s conduct of the genocide, claiming Biden has been too reactive compared to Netanyahu’s proactive aggression.

 

Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick to run Defense, is all in for Israeli expanding the genocide in Gaza and bombing of Lebanon to take out Iranian nuclear sites. He’s enamored of Israeli bombing and assassinations in Iran because he charges Biden is too weak to do it. He carries visible symbols of his beliefs—a large Crusader’s Jerusalem Cross tattoo on his chest and the biblical verse Matthew 10:34, which reads, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword.” When in charge of Defense, Hegseth should change its name to Department of Endless War and Genocide.

 

Trump's selection of Marco Rubio to head the State Department equally dreadful. Rubio defends the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza saying “Israel’s enemies are also our enemies. The Iranian regime and its proxies - Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and a multitude of groups in Syria and Iraq seek Israel’s destruction as part of a multi-stage plan to dominate the Middle East and destabilize the West. The Jewish state is on the front lines of this conflict, fighting with many shared American-Israeli lives.” Rubio would be more accurate in saying ‘Israel is on the front lines of genocide.’

 

But Trump’s pick of Mike Huckabee to be Ambassador to Israel trumps even Waltz, Hegseph and Rubio for genocidal support. Huckabee, a Christian Evangelist claims “There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There's no such thing as occupation….there’s no such thing as a Palestinian.”

 

As grotesque as Biden’s enabling of Israeli genocide in Gaza is…Trump 2.0 figures to be much worse.

Trump didn’t grow his 2020 base…Harris lost her 2020 base

 

Trump didn’t grow his 2020 base…Harris lost her 2020 base

 

Democratic insiders and progressive pundits are spinning around at warp speed assessing the calamitous election results.

 

Agonizing on how Trump peeled off so many of the Democratic base doesn’t compute with these startling vote totals.

 

Trump won 75,589,234 votes, but only 1,364,916 more than his 74,224,318 in 2020. That’s an increase of merely 1.8% which does not suggest he captured a large number or percentage of Biden’s 2020 voters.

 

However, Harris garnered just 72,445,160 votes, an astonishing 8,839,906 (11.8%) less than Biden’s 81,284,666 votes in ’20.

 

Clearly, most of those nearly 9 million Biden’s ’20 voters stayed home or voted 3rdParty/Write in rather then vote for Trump. Democratic agonists must ponder why to make sense of Harris’ overwhelming loss. If they were truly honest and decent, they would put her support of Israeli genocide in Gaza at the top of their list. Had Trump campaigned to end US weaponizing the Gaza genocide, his vote total may have approached Biden’s massive 2020 vote.

 

I know because for this leader in the peace community, that was the sole reason I could not vote for her. And I know many in the peace community who could not vote for her for the same reason. Polling showed over 75% of Democratic voters wanted the Biden/Harris administration to stop all genocide weapons used by Israel to obliterate Gaza and its 2,300,000 beleaguered inhabitants.

 

Harris totally ignored the genocide in Gaza during the campaign. But when asked, she regurgitated the Biden policy that Israel will get everything they need for their ‘defense’ and that she’d continue Biden’s Gaza policy if elected. She essentially told millions of her base to go straight to hell.

 

But in the thousands of hours and millions of words on progressive news and at DNC headquarters regarding her loss, nary a word about Harris’ genocide support will likely be heard. Unless Democrats pivot to peace, most of those 9 million Biden voters may be lost forever.

Lame duck Biden needs to heed Leahy Law to end Israeli genocide in Gaza

 

Lame duck Biden needs to heed Leahy Law to end Israeli genocide in Gaza

 

With just 68 days left in his blood-soaked presidency, Joe Biden is running out of time to pivot to peace in Gaza. For the last 14 months he’s funneled over $18 billion in weapons for Israel to inflict genocidal ethnic cleansing on 2,300,000 Palestinians in Gaza.

 

In so doing he's  violating US laws 22 U.S.C. 2378d and 10 U.S.C. 362, collectively known as the Leahy Law. They prohibit the U.S. Government from using funds for assistance to units of foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights (GVHR). The entire world outside of the US and Israel acknowledge that ‘credible information’ of gross violation of human rights in Gaza.

 

Till now, Biden has not cared a whit about following the Leahy Law in his total support of Israel committing the worst genocide this century. Indeed, without Biden’s 50,000 tons of weaponry, Israel couldn’t have started, much less continued the genocide for 14 months. Even a high ranking Israeli official advised if Biden shuts down the weapons pipeline, Israel’s genocide would collapse within a few weeks.

 

President Biden not only flouts world public opinion in his weaponizing Israeli genocide, he ignores the majority of Democrats, Republicans and independents at home telling him to stop.

 

Biden can flout the Leahy Law because nobody in the Justice Department or Congress, other than Sen. Bernie Sanders, is raising the issue of his grisly Leahy Law violations.

 

With no public opinion or governmental resource to force Biden to comply with the Leahy Law, we’re left with a Hail Mary...Joe Biden’s conscience telling him he must end the grotesque US enabled Israeli genocide in Gaza before his dwindling time to do so expires January 20.

President Biden should not pass off failed US proxy war against Russia to Trump presidency

President Biden should not pass off failed US proxy war against Russia to Trump presidency   A wise aphorism advises ‘Finish what you start.’   That should certainly apply President Biden finishing up the colossal military blunder he began early in his presidency. A half century cold warrior in Congress, the Vice Presidency, culminating in the presidency, Biden tried to weaken Russia by using his Ukraine proxies to keep Russia out of the Western European political economy.   He spent his entire term seeking that goal, only to have it backfire spectacularly. He’s accomplished nothing except largely destroying Ukraine as a functioning, democratic nation. With Russia he’s accomplished the opposite. Russia has gained prestige, power, a vibrant economy and near total control over a fifth of Ukraine that will never return to Kyiv’s rule.   How Biden could be so shortsighted, so wrong, so stupid will forever remain a mystery. But he does have an opportunity in his last 70 days to finish his failed project with a win-win negotiated settlement before Donald Trump takes office.   He needs to inform Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky that US weapons, keeping the proxy war bleeding, will be cutoff, requiring Zelensky to sue for peace. The only thing those weapons accomplish is continued slaughter of the Ukraine military and further degradation of the Ukraine nation.   The settlement will be a huge embarrassment for Biden and the US national security state. But it will end the dying and begin the process of rebuilding the roughly 80% of Ukraine that Russia neither wants nor can conquer like the 20% on their border never to return to Ukraine sovereignty.   Ending the war, or at least starting the peace process, will take one major crisis from Trump’s overcrowded foreign policy plate. Since Trump often speaks on opposite sides of every foreign entanglement, we have no idea how he will handle the Ukraine war once in power.   During the campaign he bragged he’d end it in one day starting by ending the US weapons train to Ukraine. But he just announced Rep. Mike Waltz to be his National Security Advisor. Uber hawk Waltz never encountered a US military misadventure he didn’t relish. Waltz’ favors ramping up sanctions enforcement on Russia which has not hurt Russia one iota in 33 months of war. Much worse, he supports allowing Ukraine to use using long range US, NATO-weapons to strike deep inside Russia. That’s not a plan to end the war in 24 hours. It’s an unhinged recipe for igniting nuclear winter in 24 hours.   Achieving peace in Ukraine in his remaining weeks would allow Biden to partially salvage his disastrous foreign policy record. Largely destroying Ukraine, enabling the worst genocide in this century in Gaza, endlessly escalating tensions with China that could explode into war, represents one of the worst foreign policy records in US history.   There would be neat historical symmetry between Biden and Trump if Biden does initiate a Ukraine peace agreement. In Trump’s last year he inked a deal with the Taliban to end America’s 20 yearlong Afghan war. Biden wisely and courageously followed thru to complete it in his first year. It would be cool if Biden could reciprocate and leave office with a peace deal for Trump to simply sign off on.   If Biden ended one war, he’s capable of ending a second. Come on Joe…say it’s so.

Duckworth pockets cool $782,000 from Israel Lobby to erase ‘genocidal ethnic cleansing’ from her Senate vocabulary

 

Duckworth pockets cool $782,000 from Israel Lobby to erase ‘genocidal ethnic cleansing’ from her Senate vocabulary

Peruse IL Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s website and you will find nary a word about Israel's genocidal ethnic cleansing of 2,300,000 Palestinians in Gaza. She does state she “will do everything in my power to encourage de-escalation that ultimately brings bout a two state future that strengthens the safety of Israel, eliminates the threat posed by Hamas and ends the prolonged and continuing suffering of innocent Palestinians.”

The truth is slightly different. Duckworth is doing everything in her power to ensure the genocidal ethnic cleansing continues till all the Palestinians in Gaza are dead and gone. She’s supported every dollar of the 18 billion dollars in weaponry the US has sent to Israel to conduct the genocide there now in its 14th month.

She knows the genocide could not have commenced, much less continued, without America’s 50,000 tons of ordinance obliterating tens of thousands of Palestinian moms and kids, while destroying nearly every home, hospital, school, water treatment facility among infrastructure necessary for sustainable life. She approves all US vetoes of UN resolutions calling for an end to the genocide.

Duckworth knows her unquestioned genocide support ensures that the 97 Israeli hostages in Gaza will never come home alive. Had Duckworth truly worked to end US genocide support when it commenced, those hostages might be already safely home.

Duckworth cannot be unaware that US support of genocide in Gaza may be destroying Israel as well. Outside of the US, Israel has become reviled worldwide for continuing the most horrific genocide this century. Tourism is nearly gone. Foreign investment drying up like the desert. Thousands of Israeli businesses shuttered. The IDF suffering significant casualties and demoralization from having to participate in atrocities, with no chance of attaining Israel’s imagined end game. Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen are disrupting life in northern Israel, forcing tens of thousands to flee their rocket attacks in support of ending the genocide. Duckworth knows these attacks can never be stopped.

Why Duckworth does not do the right thing and demand, like her more humane colleague Bernie Sanders, that the US cut off all weapons to Israel, is no mystery. There are 782,000 reasons she does not to the right thing. They are the $782,000 in campaign cash the Israel Lobby has gifted her since becoming a senator in 2016.

My Senator Tammy Duckworth learned the first lesson of political survival in the Israel Lobby dominated US Congress. Money talks….and Palestinians die.

Walt Zlotow

West Suburban Peace Coalition

Glen Ellyn IL