September 17, 2025 • 54 mins
Chicago and Illinois leaders for weeks have been in a war of words with the Trump Administration. Mayor Brandon Johnson said he will do everything in his power to resist Federal Law Enforcement deploying to lower crime in Chicago. His comments denigrating Trump directly even after Chicago experienced a deadly Labor Day weekend. Not to be outdone by the Mayor, Governor JB Pritzker rejected an offer by president Trump to work together to solve the violence in Chicago.
We will be joined by the Editor and Chief of The Chicago Contrarian, Florian Sohnke, to discuss the actions of dumb and dumber and how these politicians actions actually hurt the Windy City.
We will be joined by the Editor and Chief of The Chicago Contrarian, Florian Sohnke, to discuss the actions of dumb and dumber and how these politicians actions actually hurt the Windy City.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:36):
Good afternoon. This Briefly with the Chief. I'm your host,
Patrick Jordan on kJ A dB dot com. That is
kJ A Radio. You can catch us every Wednesday at
five pm Eastern Standard Time on kJ ra's Rumble channel,
their Facebook page, and their Twitter feed. And if you
can't watch the show on any of those platforms, you
can certainly download the kja dB dot com app and
(00:56):
listen to us live on the radio station. Now you
can and also go to KJUI Briefing with the Chief
and then got the show and host tab. You just
find my show Briefing the Chief, and you can find
all the audio versions of my show. I've been at
this about a year and a half, so there's a
plenty of material in the can, as they say in Hollywood,
that you can pull up and listen to. And I
have a lot of you know, one of the things
(01:17):
I wanted to talk about, I did talk about it
last week, and I wanted to remind you. You know,
they just they just settled with Steve Friend. He was
a guest on my show. He was an FBI whistleblower.
They settled him and he's going back to work for
the FBI. He's got a big settlement. Go back and
listen to last week's show and you can hear all
about that. I'm really happy for him. You know. Hopefully
I can get him on my show again in the future,
(01:37):
and then next week. Next week. We just had the
guy that I'm going to have on my show next week,
Thomas Speciel Was. He just testified in court against the
leading Democratic gubernatorial candidate in the state of Virginia. Now Was.
He was targeted by the FBI as a conservative. They
tried to fire him, tried to take a security clearance away.
(01:58):
I guess he's an intelligence list and they were unsuccessful.
He fought them himself in court and they were unsuccessful.
And I guess she made some comments about him that
the campaign did in Virginia and he sued her for
defamation and her deposition will now be released to the
public prior to the election, which is a bad deal.
(02:21):
So she was way ahead in the polls and win
some sears. Who's the Republican Canady, she's the lieutenant government.
She's closing the gap and this will hopefully help put
her over. So we'll have him on next week. He's
got a lot of interesting things to say about January sixth,
which really concerned about what actually happened on January six
because we have not got the straight scoop on that.
So this week, though, we are going to have the
(02:43):
great Florian Suka with us and we are going to
catch up with what is going on in Chicago. There's
so much going on in Chicago. And I tell you,
I was down for four weeks with an injury and
I wanted to talk about Chicago a lot, but I couldn't.
I couldn't because I was flat on my back. But
we are going to talk about Chicago today. He is
the editor in chief of the Chicago Contrariant. I want
(03:03):
to encourage you go to see this periodically. They got
a lot of great articles on there. When I first
started my partnership with Florian, you know, they had articles
a couple times a week. Now it's almost every day
they're putting out an article. His subscriptions are increasing. It
is the conservative voice in the Windy City. With that,
let's bring on, let's bring on Florian Sunka and start,
(03:24):
let's get this ball rolling. Hey Floria, how you doing good?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Thanks for having me again, chief, and I'm glad your
health has improved.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Thank you so much. Well, let's get into first. I
want to talk about the success of your periodical. You
are growing, right, and you're becoming a the conservative voice
in Chicago, right hopefully.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yes, we've experienced some growth that's taken some time, but
you're right. We're publishing nearly every day now, which is
great news for us. Our audience is a little bit
over twenty thousand monthly readers, so we've become a little
bit more popular. We're getting a little bit more attention,
and we recently started a podcast, which already has gotten
(04:03):
some traction. So we're very pleased with the growth we've
experienced within the past two years alone. So we'll be
We just celebrated five years as a standing website, and
there's like you had mentioned earlier, it was sometimes once
or twice a week.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Now we're getting every day.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Hopefully we'll be able to publish six or seven times
a week, two days twice a week and by the
end of the year. So we're optimistic about it and
we're confident we've become even more influential in the political
scene here in Chicago.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Well, that's good and the great thing about it, as
we see with the murder of Charlie Kirk is you
need to have all voices right, and some people want
to suppress that voice. And if you haven't figured out, folks,
Florian Sunke is the nom de guerre for the editor
in chief of the Chicagoian. And I think the death
of Charlie Kirk kind of shows you know, sometimes you know,
(04:59):
you know, it's good to keep your name quiet because
you are a target just for being conservative. And Illinois
in Chicago is a bastion of liberal thinking. Do you
agree with that or is it very much?
Speaker 2 (05:10):
And I think it's it's almost in some ways ground
zero for you know, sometimes extremism. We've got We've got
an unruly and a very dangerous Chicago Teachers Union which
is led by the Core Caucus. And uh, you know
(05:30):
that this was also the birthplace of the Black Panther Party.
So I'm sure Los Angeles and New York they've got
their radical groups. I think the f a l N
was very big in New York Los Angeles. I don't
not too familiar with any extreme groups, but you know,
(05:51):
you've got Antifa out there, You've got some some crazy groups.
And and even though we've got a few koops on
the right. We've got extremism on the right. I still
believe the likelihood for political violence too. It's more prevalent
on the left than it is.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
On the right. And I think the.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
You know, and just to get off track for one second,
the murder of the healthcare executive I forget what his
name is, by Luigi Mangioni. He's the alleged killer. I
think it's it's that was kind of a turning point
because he wasn't a political figure, and it demonstrated the lefts,
the extreme left's willingness to target people outside the political sphere.
(06:35):
And that's frightening. So, yes, we've got a problem here
in Chicago.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
It's nationwide, Yeah, and I agree with that. I mean
it's also the I think the Weather Underground was founded
in the area of students for Democratic Society. I mean
Chicago was a part of that. And you know the
sixty sixty eight riots at the Democratic National Convention. I mean,
all of that stuff plays into Illinois. But also you
got dumb and dumber there. I mean Mayor Johnson and
Governor Pritzker. I mean, Jesus, you know, talk about people
(07:01):
who engage in incendiary reader rhetoric both of those guys do,
and they it's directed at Republicans, is directed at Trump,
and I'm not surprised that people feel like they can
act upon that and sendior rhetoric the calling of Nazis
and we have to fight them at all costs, and
we're going to fight them. And this is almost like
(07:23):
it's a civil war. I mean, that's we're going to
do a clip at Johnson here pretty soon. But that's
what's going on. That's who your your leaders are in
Chicago and in Illinois, right very much.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
I think.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
I think it would be bad enough if we only
had one of those two leaders, if we had just
Johnson as the mayor, or having a different mayor and
having Pritzker as governor. But we've got both, and you're
absolutely right, both of them tend to resort to inflammatory language,
and I think, specifically for Governor Pritzker, his comments in
(07:59):
the immediate aftermath of the death of Charlie Kirk, I
thought were just despicable, and as I had mentioned on
our podcast the other day, even the Washington Post criticized
Pritzker for the way he responded to Kirk's death. Had
the governor has simply said he regretted hearing about the
(08:20):
Kirk's assassination and just left it as it was. He
would have been fined. But he went on, and he
continued on to maybe a minute and a half rant
about how President Trump is responsible for this and only
political figures on the left, excuse me, on the right
are responsible for it, and it's false. He took a
(08:41):
beating about it. He's kept quiet, but Johnson routinely makes
remarks like this, and he talks about white supremacy as
a problem in Chicago.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
And as I'm.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Sure you well know, we have a black police superintendent,
We've got a black chief judge of the court system,
we have a black county board president, we have a
black chairman or CEO of the Chicago Public school system,
and we've got a black mayor. We've got we're on
our fourth black mayor. Right now, where's the white supremacy?
(09:18):
And for him to even raise the issue is patent nonsense.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah, but it seems like Chicago and some Chicagoans are
at least figuring that out. I mean, that's uh, I mean,
that's why we got Burke, right, I've got some people
are saying This is nonsense what they're doing. But we
got to talk about that. Let's let's roll, you know,
speaking of Johnson, let's roll with the Labor Day speech
and it just he can comment on it. Go ahead,
(09:47):
let's go.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Let me hear your Chicago. Let me get you a
little bit more noisy out there.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
Yes, no federal troops in the city of Chicago. Don't
militarized force in the city of Chicago. We're gonna defend
our democracy in the city of Chicago. We're gonna protect
the humanity of every single person in.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
The city of Chicago. And we got the baddest.
Speaker 5 (10:16):
Freaking labor movement in the city of Chicago birth right here.
We're gonna take this fight across America, but we gotta
defend the home front first.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
And the best way we.
Speaker 5 (10:28):
Defend the home front is to make sure that every
single worker has the livable wage. That's why we abolish
the sub minimum wage in Chicago. For brown and black women,
they get raises on top of their tips. This is
the city of Chicago where we have given paid time
(10:49):
off for over a million workers, ten days off, the
biggest city in America to ever do it.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
This is the labor movement. You all on pace to
build more affordable units.
Speaker 5 (11:03):
A teacher's contract that protects black women, a teacher's contract
that protects the LGBTQI community, the teacher contract that protects immigrants.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
This is the greatest freaking city in the world with
Shat Town.
Speaker 5 (11:22):
Now, look, there are some people that have doubts in
the labor movement. There are some people believe that we
don't have the power to be authoritarianism.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
But I'm also a history teacher as well.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
We have stood up for the interests of workers before,
if we will do it again, and no matter what
comes from the White House, Chicago will always be a
labor town.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Are you with me, Chicago?
Speaker 5 (11:51):
Now, finally we have seen this president shift the largest
concentration of wealth into the hands of the fume.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Justice Brandeis made it very clear.
Speaker 5 (12:03):
He said we can either have a democracy or we
can have wealth in the hands of the concentrated fuel.
But he says we cannot have both. Are you prepared
to defend this land, this land that was built by slaves,
a land that was built by indigenous people, a land
(12:23):
that is built by workers. Are you prepared to defend
this land? The people United will always prevail. I need
you all to stand firm, to stand strong. If this
president decides to continue to break this constitution, it's going
(12:44):
to be the labor movement that stitches it back together.
The labor movement that brings black folks, white folks agents,
and brings brown folks together. This is a city that
said keep hot, belied, the city that birth, Yes we
can in the city that would defend this country.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
God bless you all. God bless the labor movement.
Speaker 5 (13:08):
God bless the greatest freaking city in the world's town.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
No troops, no troops in Chicago. I mean, I just
you know, I saw this, and obviously this is a
red meat speech. He's doing red meat to the to
the unions, but he's also throwing out misinformation, violating of
the Constitution. We have to defend this land. So his
his his rhetoric is incendiary.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
And I actually, you know, while you replayed that, I
actually saw it live. I went down there to that
that parade or the protest there, and and to be fair,
it was very tame. I didn't see any violence. I
didn't see anybody with spray cans or tagging police cars
or slashing tires. But he showed up and gave that
(14:03):
ten to appeared for maybe fifteen minutes, and it was
standard fair for him, which is, you know, using that
inflammatory language, trying to whip up a friendly crowd, and
then and then everything is so deeply ahistorical, claiming slaves
built Illinois and you know, the just ridiculous historical perspective
(14:25):
he's putting there. There was probably two or three thousand
people their tops.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
I talked to a police officer who was there and
they said everything had gone pretty smoothly. But again there's
I think the speech, you know, his address, it just
demonstrates the man has no intellectual depth or whatsoever. It's
always getting up and repeating the same campaign slogans about
(14:54):
how he's building the big you know, the safest, most
affordable big city in America. He's dedicating the whole city
to workers and the labor movement. He's building a better, safer,
stronger Chicago. There's no nothing underneath that. That's all it is.
It's just the stale cliche we've seen from him since
(15:16):
the day he entered the political scene when he ran
for Cook County Board.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
So there's really not much to.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Him other than the good thing about him, unlike his
predecessor is Brandon Johnson, is really a skilled retail politician.
He's very friendly and warm out in public. He's funny,
you know. Of course, he has a completely obliging press
who never gives him a tough question. But Lorie Lightfoot
was a complete sour puss and unlike him, and that's
(15:45):
what makes him appealing. So there's really no depth. Its
just he throws out all the right buzzwords and he
jazz is his base, and then he goes and.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Then he.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Offers up some silly program. So we're being led by,
as Paul Vallie has mentioned many times, a failed teacher
is now the mayor of the city of Chicago.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yeah, he's fairly He doesn't even know history. I mean,
you know, it's funny. He posted something and I just
kind of looked up, jeez, how many men from Illinois
died in the Civil War, you know, because it was
one of those things that blacks, you know, slaves built Illinois,
slaves did this, you know, And I just posted that
and it actually got a lot of play because it's like,
you know, okay with him in here. You know that
(16:30):
there's some white dudes involved here. You know, there was
other immigrants who you know from Europe who are involved here.
And as I listened to his speech, I just go, Okay,
is he ever going to say, you know, our white brothers. No,
that never says that, never says that in an entire speech.
He'll say worker, but he always seems to equate worker
to blacks, Latinos, and minorities. He never And you know
(16:52):
what is the population though, the white population in Chicago
and Illinois at at least forty percent, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
It's approximate. I don't have a number to give you,
but you know, Hispanics are growing in Chicago. They're about
thirty It's it's pretty pretty even. It's like thirty thirty
three percent white, thirty three percent black, thirty three percent Hispanic.
Hispanics are growing, Blacks are leaving. Whites are, you know,
kind of holding strong. But middle class blacks are leaving,
(17:21):
and there's been an exodus. There has been a couple
of one hundred thousand black families who have left. And
these are your middle class blacks. These are you know,
you're you're you know the obviously city workers can't live
outside out side. But but there's been an exodus of
several hundred thousand Blacks from the city of Chicago since
(17:44):
two thousand and these are taxpayers. You know, we're losing
that tax base. So Hispanics are growing, they're coming here
and they're staying. We've also got you know, tens of
thousands of legals.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Here who you know, who've boosted the population.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
But you know, the irony here is one of the
ways we can determine, you know, population loss is the
Chicago public school system opened up and nearly a month
ago started school and they were down another thirteen thousand students. Wow,
so you know, but they just got but they're asking
(18:20):
for another one point six billion dollars for fund to
fund our schools. So the total population is kind of even.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Yeah, I have to tell you, I was listening to
a professor from Claremont mcannon. The same thing's happening in California.
So it's families that are making about two hundred thousand
a year that are leaving California. And he said, this
is disastrous for the state because you're left with the
ultra rich who can pay to live in California, and
then the people who are poor unit help, you know,
and because your middle class is leaving, and that's what
(18:53):
it sounds like. It's happening in Illinois and other what's
the other one in Massachusetts, you know. And this is
why we're doing the whole redistrict inting fight and all
this other stuff is is those people are leaving and
they're going to other states, and so those red states
are saying, well, why don't we redistrict and gain advantage,
you know, because they're getting the populations and they're leaving
(19:15):
tend to be a little more right of center exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
And just if I can add a majority of the
people who are leaving Illinois the whole state, not just Chicago.
You know, the people who are leaving Illinois, they're not
always going down to Florida or to Texas. They're just
going right across the border to Indiana or to Wisconsin.
(19:39):
And so they're the beneficiaries of this. This is their
tax base increasing to our loss. So you know that
they still have an affection for the Midwest, they still
have an affection for Illinois. So they're only just going
across the border so they can remain nearby. But it's
they're disgusted with the way the state and specific the
(20:00):
city of Chicago where.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Governed, right, you know, I, you know, o'p bring the subject.
I can't use a video clip. We're having a problem
with a clip, but I wanted to. We'll get into
ice and the surging of ice in federal resources to
Chicago in a minute here. But you know I did.
I listened to Brenton speak one time and he talked about,
you know, it's just last week or maybe week before that,
that all the guns are coming from red states. And
(20:23):
you know, I did the research and obviously there's a
trace report that the ATF does. If you're in law enforcement,
you know this. I pulled it up and most of
the guns are actually coming from Illinois. So the gun
seized in Illinois, you know, probably seventy percent of them
are coming from Illinois. And it was just a blatant
lie by him. And it was interesting because I did it,
(20:43):
and then Fox News picked up on it. They follow me,
and they did exactly the same thing a couple of
nights later, just showed the same report I showed. So
he's a liar though. That's that's the frustrating part about
Pritzker and Johnson is they just lie to you and
and and your said, you're really the only one that's
going to call him out because the Tribune's not going
to call him out.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Right, Well, we called him out immediately on this, and
there were a number of people who joined in. The
press conference to which you were referring was maybe ten
days ago or so, maybe almost two weeks ago. And
it was really kind of a disgrace because they they
all showed up in Chicago, and you had the governor
(21:24):
who likely arranged it.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
The podium had the Seal of the State, not the city.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
But Johnson spoke, Julianna Stratton spoke Kawamie Raoul. You know,
Juliana Stratton is Lieutenant governor. She has been anointed as
Pritzker's preferred Senate candidate. But the purpose of the press
conference wasn't too informed but to mislead and Governor Pritzker
got up with his typical, you know, miss hyperbolic.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Language.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Johnson took to the podium and instead of admitting, they
still have a problem in Chicago, and I want to
be as clear as I possibly can. Crime is down
across multiple categories. In some categories, it's either the same
or as Risen, But we should be celebrating the drop
in homicides and shooting. It's it's great news. It's the
city is safer than it was under Kim Fox, under
(22:19):
the COVID crime boom. But there is still a problem
and the scandal in Chicago particularly is crime is still
not considered an emergency. We still have mass shootings here regularly.
We still have the smashing grabs on Michigan Avenue. And
the fact he Mayor Johnson took the opportunity to talk
(22:46):
about gun violence and just violent crime in general and
again turn it into a political issue and blame Republican states,
only to be fact checked and to have it refuted
so easily. To me, said he the man will say
anything to avoid any responsibility. And if you follow him
(23:07):
the way I know you do, one of his favorite
deflections is I inherited this problem. And as I said
on our podcast last week, at what point does Brandon
Johnson or do Chicago's problems become Brandon Johnson's problems yep?
Or how he has mismanaged or created other problems.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Yeah, I agree one hundred percent. You know he's I
don't know why, I know you said was it Prickweakles.
He supported him. She's the county executive. And I don't
get why they put this guy in there because he's
he's dumb as rocks. He can he could do a
pretty good speech, I mean, fun speech, but you know,
I don't know who's fact checking, who's who's writing those speeches.
(23:51):
But he also him and pritzgarh are pushing back get
Trump's effort to bring federal stories there. And this makes
absolutely no sense to me. It's my understanding the mayor
road in an executive order that Chicago p D will not
work with defence in any way. And you know, it's
like and and and Trump reached out and he said, hey,
you know, if Pritzker called me, we'll work out. We'll
work out the way we work and work together. And
(24:12):
Prinsker's you know, dis them. No, I'm not going to
call him. And I don't get it. I mean, when
I was working and when I was the chief of
the La Metro, the trans system, if somebody said hey,
we're going to give you, you know, ten guys a
day surge on your system, like the f backers, they
would come and work with me occasionally just because they're
asking us to do something what we can do, I'd say, Okay,
(24:33):
I'm going to accept that free gift. I'm going to
accept that free gift in lower crime. You know, why not.
That's what they're supposed to do. And yet these guys
seem like they don't want any help. And you know,
and the funny thing is is like so on the
on the on the National Guard. You know, there are
places you can use the National Guard in New York.
(24:55):
The HCAL use the National Guard in the transit system
in New York, so there is precedence you can use them.
They use the National Guard in the transsystem DC. I know,
you've got the second largest transportation system in the country.
They can use it on the translations and keep them safe.
And these two morons won't accept the help. I don't
get it.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Yeah, and it's purely political reasons they they I think
ultimately both men know they still have a problem getting
a grip on violent crime.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
In the city.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
You know, Pritzker really doesn't care what happens in Chicago.
His concern with Chicago is during election time only. Other
than that he looks at the city of Chicago is
constantly begging for money.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
He doesn't have.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
I think the biggest issue with both men is their city,
Chicago is facing multiple financial crises. We've got a one
point one billion dollars citywide budget. We've got a seven
hundred and eighty I think million dollars seven hundred million
dollar deficit with the public transit system, the CTA, and
(26:04):
our schools are you know, like nearly a billion dollars
in debt. Pritzker's got a three point three billion dollar deficit.
This coming year, everyone's going to be raising taxes across
the board. Pritzker has already raised taxes six point two
billion dollars since he began took office. And this is
(26:26):
also in light of taking thirteen billion dollars in COVID eight,
where they just blew through it. Their view is there's
only one way you can aid Illinois or the city
of Chicago. Write us a massive check for twenty billion
dollars so we can get out of debt, solve or
at least address the pension crisis, and we can solve
(26:49):
all of our problems. None of this will help. The
city needs some reform, and as you well know, one
of the worst criticisms of the Trump administration is he
cut that Community Development Block grant, which gave it's funded
tens of billions of dollars into nonprofit groups. Trump cutting
(27:13):
it was a great idea because these nonprofit groups are
all left leaning and they pushed left ideas. One of
the worst is the violence interrupters those communities. They're a joke.
In fact, as we were discussing before, over the past
(27:34):
several days, there was another attempted smashing grab at the
Louis v Town Store on Michigan Avenue. Seven people were
arrested and charged with murder because during the getaway, one
of the drivers barreled into someone who was driving to
work at five in the morning or so, killing the
driver of the car. One of the seven people who
(27:55):
was charged in this robbery was a known peacekeeper who
had four active warrants. And as you well know, under
the rules of these violence in Russian groups, it's supposed
to be a zero tolerance for criminal activity. Many of
these people are I don't want to say ex gang members,
(28:18):
because they go right back to gang banging on the street.
They deal drugs, they drink with these people, they're getting high.
I have seen police pod camera of violence interrupters wearing
their yellow or orange or green vest, doing drugs, and
engaging in criminal behavior while they are on duty. So
(28:40):
why are we paying gang members to enforce the law
as unarmed peacekeepers. For some reason, the mayor has deluded
himself into believing, as many of these groups do, peacekeepers,
because of their experience on the street, are uniquely qualified
to address crime.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
It's a lie, it's a fraud.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
It's griff yep, it's nonsense. And this is going on
all across the country. I don't you know. We've seen
a drop in crime in many places around the country,
but we've also got rid of George Gas going on
in LA we got rid of Kim Fox and Illinois
and Cook County, Illinois, we got rid of a lot
of these you know, these sorols fund of DA's And
you're seeing crime come down because there's some at least
(29:21):
some level of prosecutions. Yet they'll always tie it to
the violence interrupters or the community ambassadors, and it is
it's absolutely nonsense because there's no way, you know, when
you know, I'm a public policy nerd, there's no way
you can tie what they're doing to either an increase
or decrease in crime because nothing they do, there's no
(29:42):
key performance indicators, there's nothing. They just give the money
to these nonprofits. So I'm happy to see Trump cut
them out. I mean, they still exist. In California. We
have nonprofits that aren't having anydey with the Feds that
are funding this foolishness. And it's actually a city money.
They have fifty million dollars in LA for the the
UH public safety process that doesn't include fire service or
(30:04):
the police. It goes to these nonprofits for ambassadors and
community interrupters. What's the other one. It's it's a harm
reduction specialist or whatever they call it, and we don't
we don't get anybody sober. We just let them continue
to live on the street and save them every now
and then so that they can keep using drugs. None
of this stuff makes sense to me. I don't know
why it make why the left is embracing this stuff,
(30:26):
and of course Chicago is ground cereals for this nonsense.
But you know, here's the thing. You know, the the
executive order that Mayor Brandon wrote also said well, we're
not gonna work. So okay, they don't want to work
with the ICE, right, So they're sanctuary city, but they're
not gonna work with the FBI, They're not gonna work
with the DEA, They're not gonna work with anybody that
(30:46):
can bring safety to the city of Chicago. This makes
absolutely like, so if the DEA came in and say, hey,
we're going to focus on, uh, these drug gangs that
are selling fentanyl as we get this stuff off the
street so we could save lives, we have less overdose
ask and Brandon Johnson's saying no, I'm perplexed.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
You know, actually we're not, because we think he has
taken such a hostile stance to any of any standing
law enforcement agency. Brandon Johnson has never come out and
said I hate the cops the way several people in
his city hall have. He recently hired a woman named
Sheila Betty, who has sued the City of Chicago like
(31:30):
sixty five times, mainly over police matters. He's got a
woman who has posted inflammatory remarks about police before Kennedy Bartley.
He's surrounded that as Brandon Johnson's term has proceeded, the
number of rational thinking moderates, and there were very few
(31:53):
to begin with, has shrunk. I don't think there are
any real moderates. He's surrounded himself by the radicals. He's
that there's no hiding it. But I think he has
a real deep seated hostility with police, with law enforcement
in general, particularly the police department. He thinks armed men
(32:13):
and fatigues that's what he He looks at at them
as like some praetorian guard, not a legitimate law enforcement agency.
And in the past several weeks he's made several remarks,
you know, about how there is no need for law enforcement. Well,
he issued that executive order. It's an utterly meaningless executive order.
(32:37):
All it did was reaffirm the city's position under Sanctuary
city or Welcoming City ordinance. Police department is not allowed
to work with ICE or the the you know, ICE
or Custom and Border Patrol, but with the possibility of
(32:58):
an organization or law enforcement group like atf dea Postal inspection, FBI.
I'm not quite sure on the language specific I think
it discouraged cooperating unless there was an instance in which
a federal agent needed urgent assistance, if it was an emergency,
(33:18):
and even then, you know, they're kind of hopeful it's
not serious because they don't I think the police department's
very concerned about this because they're getting pressure from Johnson
don't cooperate, so, which is pathetic. There should be regular
cooperation with law enforcement. And I just want to add
one more remark to try to clarify the ignorance of
(33:41):
the position the mayor holds. Mayor Richard M. Daley regularly
held meetings with the US Attorney's Office and representatives of
every major law enforcement group when they were working on
fighting crime, and he was obsessed with it, and we
had some problems in the nineties, we had very high
(34:02):
homicide rates. He understood building bridges with federal agents was
going to reduce crime. Brandon Johnson has convinced himself because
he's He's applied for ten thousand housing permits for affordable housing.
This is responsible for or teen jobs for the summers.
(34:23):
This is why crime is coming down. That's absolutely preposterous.
It takes years for those type policies to be experienced
by the public. Fighting crime, jailing people or detaining and
incarcerating is the way to keep streets safe.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Absolutely, And so if I hear him say the word
we have to invest in our communities to self crime
one more time, I mean, if I had a dollar,
but Tim, he said that, you know, you'd be rich.
I'd be rich. Well, you know, let's social stats though.
Hey man, let's hold the Chicago turned Red video towards
the end, but let's show the twenty twenty four Chicago
(35:03):
is number ten and homicide rate. Now here's the thing.
So he's saying everything's great. So here this is a
list of all the cities, and it's who has the
highest homas for in great per one hundred thousand in
Chicago is the biggest city in this group. So if
you compare them to Los Angeles and New York, they're failing.
This is the kind of this is obvious to everybody,
(35:25):
Yet it doesn't seem to be obvious to Pritzker or
obvious to Brendan Johnson. So when they reject these resources,
they're rejecting the opportunity to drop out of that top ten.
That's kind of how I see it, right.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Yes, and again it's politics motivating this, not a concern
for public safety. And as you and I well know,
the people who suffer the most are law abiding blacks
and Hispanics and high crime neighborhoods. And we have heard
for the past decade, perhaps longer since two thousand and eight,
(35:57):
when the progressive movement started to explode again. Their greatest
concern was uplifting the marginalized, protecting people who had been
overlooked or in poorer neighborhoods. They are even more neglected
now if they were if they thought, if their public
view was these residents are living in obscurity. They're even
(36:22):
worse off now because they don't have the police protection
they deserve, and they only recently got a prosecutor who
gives a darn about them to prosecute the criminals who
prey on them every day.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Well, let's get into that. You know, I wasn't planning
on talking about Judge Nane Aleen Noberk, but she was
a big subject of many of our conversations previously. How
was she doing your mind? How's she doing?
Speaker 3 (36:48):
I think she's doing very well.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
I think since she came in in early December, we
saw an immediate reversal of you know, handful of policies.
The first one was retail theft and I think this
was the appeal of Judge Burke on the campaign trail.
Whenever Burke was asked about a specific crime. In contrast
(37:16):
to Clayton Harris. Harris would always say, well, we'll have
to look at, you know, the circumstances and before we charge.
Our charging decisions are well, we'll look at it. And
I think it's important you scrutinize every single crime properly.
What Burke's answer was consistently when asked how on charging decisions,
(37:40):
she said the same thing over and over and over.
We have to look at what the law says. And
under Kim Fox, she ran the office like an improv
She just kind of shrugged at minor level crimes and
then looked at the skin color of the perpetrator of
the crimes, if they were fell into a category she
(38:02):
thought was deserving his sympathy, she said, okay, well we're
not going to charge them, We're going to release them.
And so we have a different approach here. And in
March she had her one hundred day interview with ABC,
the local affiliate here, and they were asking her about
some of the most pressing matters her office is facing,
and she point blank said, we've had a dramatic rise
(38:24):
in murders associated with domestic abuse. And she looked right
into the camera and she said, that's a house on fire.
So as of today, I believe it's forty two percent
of people who are charged with gun crimes are being detained.
So that means those forty two percent were let go
(38:45):
under Kim Fox. And this is even better news because
because of Judge Burke, we have eighty one percent ofstic
abusers are now being detained. Wow, who are your victims
(39:05):
of domestic abuse? What's the highest percentage? What category? Black women?
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Black women?
Speaker 2 (39:10):
They are more than likely to be murdered by their
domestic partner or husband. So black women are safer already
under Burke than they ever were under Kim Fox. So
I think thus far she's done a very good job.
She's met all the expectations we had. I knew she
wasn't going to be the second coming of the Lord,
(39:32):
but we have a competent prosecutor with outstanding organizational and
managerial skills. She's returned the office to that of a
prosecutors rather than another public defender. And just one more
point I'd like to add, we've had a pretty significant
(39:54):
crackdown on retail theft, in which Burke several months ago
was interviewed on CNBC about partnering with the federal government
or federal law enforcement to crack down on retail theft drinks.
So her office is more than willing to work with
federal authorities on retail theft. Brandon Johnson won't work with
(40:17):
them even to reduce gun crime. And Burke's office, we've
seen an upswing on the prosecutions on retail theft. And
so we had that recent incident downtown on Michigan Avenue.
We've got people charged with murder. Now this what now
happened under Fox. So we think she is slowly moving
(40:42):
the needle back north.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Yeah. I think her model can be you know, the
prosecutor's office saving lives every day exactly. Yeah, that's good.
And I want to bring up another chart, and this
is the overdose death rates in Chicago because you know,
we you know, the things that you're talking about are
going on all over across country with these progressive prosecutors. Uh.
You know, in Philadelphia we got rid of most from
(41:05):
Mars in LA. But surprisingly Texas has a lot yet
often you got San Antonio, you got Houston. I think
Dallas has one too. But here's here's one of the
side effects of not prosecuting drug crimes. Is you see
the spike in overdose death rates in Chicago. This is
this spike is very similar uh all across the country.
And when you have a good prosecutor like Burke, you're
(41:27):
going to see that dip. Now, some of that dip
is from there. They got their uh harm reduction people
run around with narcon saving lives, and so it has
flattened out. But that that is what they call a
spike in statistics. A lot of people have died because
of bad public policy, not just by homicide, but also
from overdose death rates because law enforcement does intercede in
(41:49):
those types of crimes, and they save life if we're
doing it right. So so Chicago's still got a way
to go. When you look at the overdose death rates,
do you agree?
Speaker 3 (41:57):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (41:57):
I do.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
And and unfortunately, Johnson's remedy for overdose dates depths is
to install and I don't.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
Know if you're familiar.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
We put a tweet out about it because he went
up to celebrate. But it's called a NARCAN newsstand, and
they they I'm sure you know what I'm talking about,
but for the benefit of the audience, I'll explain. It's
a it's a newsstand. What's the term I want to
use the the the.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
Thing where you put the quarter in and you can
get the newspaper. This opens up and.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
There's a narcan pen in there. Essentially what it's kind
of what you had mentioned earlier. The way we're solving
our overdose is to set up those distribution vending machines,
you know, all sorts of They look like the old
co distributor, the news newspaper. And basically what we're doing
(42:57):
is narcanning these people back to life, so they're not
getting treatment. You know, I think our inner cities will
be better off. And as cold as this may sound,
there is some truth to it. If someone wants to
remain addicted to drugs, if someone wants to live out
on the street under a viaduct or in a tent
(43:17):
or rather than going in and getting public treatment facility
or a homeless shelter, that's the.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
Way they want to live.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Some people, and I've talked to many social workers, one
of their biggest challenges is to get these people off
the street. Some people don't want to because there are
restrictions they must adhere to. You can't bring your pets
with you, you can't smoke, you can't use drugs. When
the bar is low for entry for into homeless shelters
or drugs, you you know, you're basically allowing people to
(43:49):
bring all their problems there. Progressive thinks they have the solution.
You know, government is their solution for everything. I think
the the flattening of those fentanyl deaths is good, but
Johnson is going to say, well, it's flattening now, so
it must be the narcan dispensaries we're putting all over.
(44:12):
So let's invest two hundred million more dollars and have
one at the corner of Michigan Avenue in Chicago. So
and what they don't really care about, if they don't
see it, is the decline in the area. It's like
having a pot dispensary on the mag Mile. You know
it's there isn't one, but I mean, is that where
(44:32):
we're headed? So you know it's it's again. The policies
are just kind of slowly eroding at the character of
the city.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
I suspect, like in la they weren't filing any drug
charges that probably Judge Burke is filing some of that.
They've gone easy on drug dealers here, in LA and
in a lot of the progressive where they have progressive prosecutors.
And that's where I think, you know, there's a lot
of different places that you can pinch points or opportunities.
You have to reduce overdose deats, and we got to
put the dealers back in prison. They're killing people. They
(45:03):
are killers. There's nothing non violent about it. And that's
a critical piece of this.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
Yeah, totally agree drug dealers are killers. They and I
don't necessarily mean you know, maybe a guy standing on
a street corner with you know, ann ounce of pot.
But you know, we've got some people who run little
operations and neighborhoods, some of them citywide, some of them statewide.
(45:28):
Those are the people who need to be incarcerated. Unfortunately, though,
in Chicago we've got a far left left wing theologian
who recently described incarceration as unconscionable and immoral and racist.
So as long as we have this thought prevailing in
(45:52):
our political system here, I don't see any change. I
see it continue toward tilting towards the nark hand dispensaries.
The at least we're going to have drug dealers charge,
but we're going to have people criticizing Burke for doing so.
So I think that again, there's a decay there and
(46:13):
it's just Johnson is contributing to it.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Well, you know, I was doing some reach on research
on Portugal because I was asked to speak on that
and Organs when they drop all their drug charges there
and now they're re implemented them. And one of the
interesting things about Portugal because Portugal doesn't prosecute any of
that stuff, and everybody points to that as the model,
but when you start looking at what is actually going
on in Portugal, they're starting to see addiction increase or
(46:40):
starting to see more overdose desks. But more importantly, there's
an attitude amongst the people who service the community that
drug you should be a human right. And you know,
so they went from an attitude, hey, let's treat these people,
let's get them healthy, to hey let's just maintain And
I tell you what, you know, when your budget depends
upon having a lot of people who addicted, you know,
(47:00):
you end up embracing that, you know, because what are
you gonna do. You're gonna go into business once you
once you get everybody saved. Of course, not that's not
with it. Let's let's bring up the next slide, because
I want to reinforce what you said about women being
under targeted. Uh, and this is I think it's uh
seven percent of women that I got it on there.
Assault rate in Chicago is the is the slide here?
(47:23):
It is so assault rate in Chicago. Now I read
this article and as you see, women are being targeted.
And the interesting thing about this article you go ahead
and take down and is that it is not only
are women being targeted, but also a higher number of
black blacks in general are being targeted. So we're seeing
a reduction in assaults on whites, business induction assaults on latinos,
(47:46):
but we're not seeing a reduction on assaults on blacks.
In fact, it's kind of going up. And women, Black
women are primarily the ones that are taking the hit
it just as you, just as Burke has talked about.
So this I forget what periodical this was. Let's say
it's the Council. Yeah, so it it reinforces what you said.
(48:08):
The problem I have with this whole divisiveness with race
is you know, if if put people in prison, a
disproportion number of blacks in prison is racially divisive, allowing
a disportion number of black people to be victimized baticularly women.
How come that part doesn't play into the logic of
(48:29):
our public policy making.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Exactly, And it resonates with Burke obviously, it's not resonating
with with our progressive colleagues, you know in Chicago. You know,
I can't explain why why this doesn't you know, it's
it's something you and I consider, and it's something Burke
(48:52):
has considered. But how it doesn't How the impact of
some of these policies on uh, the very groups they
purport to help, is beyond me. You would think it
manifests itself so easily when you've got a total of
twenty six black women who have been murdered in domestic
(49:14):
abuse incidents, and you've got their assailants out after they've
been charged with domestic abuse, they are arrested, the police
bring them and then they're right back out on the street.
And you know that I forget the name of the instance,
but it was last year when there was a recent
(49:36):
parole who had returned to his ex girlfriend's house or
up and I think it's on the North side of Chicago,
and he stabbed Jaden. I forget the last name of
the young boy, but he went to defend his mother.
When the guy came back to seek revenge against the girlfriend,
(49:56):
the ten or eleven year old boy stepped in and
the the man stabbed.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
The young boy.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
And he had been out of jail for one day.
He did not fear the law whatsoever. So we've got
a problem here. You know how the left doesn't see
how negative that the negative impact of their policies are
is beyond me.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
Yeah, I believe, and I might have said this to
you before. Is they they look at crime as even
people who commit crime is a collective failure of all
of us, not the failure of the individual. They've they've
collectivized the responsibility for people commit crimes for all of us,
and we need to when you look at their policies.
(50:42):
I mean, I was looking up the website for the
California Department and Corrections and they have a victims meeting,
a suspects kind of program, then all the restorative justice stuff.
It puts the burden on the victim, It puts the
burden on the community for the individual's behavior.
Speaker 2 (50:58):
Yeah, and there was an instance. If I can just
throw this in there. I'll be real quick. Several years ago,
there was a carjacking. There was a rash of teen carjackings.
Law enforcement held like a zoom meeting, a public zoom meeting,
and it was shocking to see Kim Fox get up
and explain her office's approach to prosecuting teen carjackers. She
(51:24):
didn't talk about a teen stealing a car and committing
a crime. She expressed her view of the office as
what we need to do is to figure out what's
going on around this teenager's life so we can understand why.
And that's the problem with progressivism. They don't care who
(51:45):
committed the crime. They want to know why it was committed.
Nobody cares why it was committed. Nobody cares, and we
need to We need to return to a to the
prosecution of the law is identifying a criminal and proportionately
sentencing them behind bars.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
Yeah, and I you know, I just read a RAND
report on a program that I worked on, a rapid
diversion program is kind of ninety two success rate. But
I know why it was successful, not just because I
worked on it but here in LA but because there
was a lot of bureaucrats who who who had the
right feeling in their heart on how we want to
solve these problems. I mean I worked with the Public
(52:27):
Defender's Office, Alter, the Public Defender's Office, the City Attorney's office,
and we all understood the pro we all understood the
criminal justice system. And so when we developed the program
and it worked. But guess who wasn't involved all the
crazy left us. I was probably the only Republican and
I said, hey, you got one shot to do this right,
you guys, so let's do it right. And it now
has a ninety two. It was rejected by all the
(52:48):
left wingers. Of course, our program, and now because of
the success rate, it's been embraced in Los Angeles. It's
that six seven courthouses going to eight, and I'm sure
it's going to go county wide. But that's where these
ideas need to come from, is people who are subject
matter experts, not these leftists who have a very thin
slice of where they where they think it Audicle, But hey,
(53:09):
we got a minute to go for it. So I
want you to talk about your podcast again and your
and obviously your digital online newspaper. So give this is
your chance to tell people where to go.
Speaker 2 (53:21):
Yeah, Chicago Contrarian dot com. We concentrate on political affairs
here in Chicago. We are unapologetically conservative, but we do
have balance and we recently started a podcast which we
think is going to enhance our appeal across the city
of Chicago. It's called Chicago Contrarian the Podcast. So we
(53:44):
invite everyone to read our website and to tune in.
We have an hour long podcast once a week. We
record on Fridays, it's uploaded on Saturday. We just put
up our most recent episode this morning. Thank you Chief
for letting me that.
Speaker 1 (54:00):
Florian, thank you for joining again on Briefing with the Chief.
You can find them at the Contrarium podcast on Rumble
right or no, it's on Spotify. It's on It's on
all the platforms. Right, and then you can find you
can find Briefing with the Chief. You find Briefing Chief
every Wednesday at five pm Eastern Standard Time on the
Rumble page, Facebook and Twitter feed, and you also find
(54:21):
us on the online radio station for Kgjerra. Thank you
Florin for joining me today. Amanda, I think we're done.
You could take it away
Good afternoon. This Briefly with the Chief. I'm your host,
Patrick Jordan on kJ A dB dot com. That is
kJ A Radio. You can catch us every Wednesday at
five pm Eastern Standard Time on kJ ra's Rumble channel,
their Facebook page, and their Twitter feed. And if you
can't watch the show on any of those platforms, you
can certainly download the kja dB dot com app and
(00:56):
listen to us live on the radio station. Now you
can and also go to KJUI Briefing with the Chief
and then got the show and host tab. You just
find my show Briefing the Chief, and you can find
all the audio versions of my show. I've been at
this about a year and a half, so there's a
plenty of material in the can, as they say in Hollywood,
that you can pull up and listen to. And I
have a lot of you know, one of the things
(01:17):
I wanted to talk about, I did talk about it
last week, and I wanted to remind you. You know,
they just they just settled with Steve Friend. He was
a guest on my show. He was an FBI whistleblower.
They settled him and he's going back to work for
the FBI. He's got a big settlement. Go back and
listen to last week's show and you can hear all
about that. I'm really happy for him. You know. Hopefully
I can get him on my show again in the future,
(01:37):
and then next week. Next week. We just had the
guy that I'm going to have on my show next week,
Thomas Speciel Was. He just testified in court against the
leading Democratic gubernatorial candidate in the state of Virginia. Now Was.
He was targeted by the FBI as a conservative. They
tried to fire him, tried to take a security clearance away.
(01:58):
I guess he's an intelligence list and they were unsuccessful.
He fought them himself in court and they were unsuccessful.
And I guess she made some comments about him that
the campaign did in Virginia and he sued her for
defamation and her deposition will now be released to the
public prior to the election, which is a bad deal.
(02:21):
So she was way ahead in the polls and win
some sears. Who's the Republican Canady, she's the lieutenant government.
She's closing the gap and this will hopefully help put
her over. So we'll have him on next week. He's
got a lot of interesting things to say about January sixth,
which really concerned about what actually happened on January six
because we have not got the straight scoop on that.
So this week, though, we are going to have the
(02:43):
great Florian Suka with us and we are going to
catch up with what is going on in Chicago. There's
so much going on in Chicago. And I tell you,
I was down for four weeks with an injury and
I wanted to talk about Chicago a lot, but I couldn't.
I couldn't because I was flat on my back. But
we are going to talk about Chicago today. He is
the editor in chief of the Chicago Contrariant. I want
(03:03):
to encourage you go to see this periodically. They got
a lot of great articles on there. When I first
started my partnership with Florian, you know, they had articles
a couple times a week. Now it's almost every day
they're putting out an article. His subscriptions are increasing. It
is the conservative voice in the Windy City. With that,
let's bring on, let's bring on Florian Sunka and start,
(03:24):
let's get this ball rolling. Hey Floria, how you doing good?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Thanks for having me again, chief, and I'm glad your
health has improved.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Thank you so much. Well, let's get into first. I
want to talk about the success of your periodical. You
are growing, right, and you're becoming a the conservative voice
in Chicago, right hopefully.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yes, we've experienced some growth that's taken some time, but
you're right. We're publishing nearly every day now, which is
great news for us. Our audience is a little bit
over twenty thousand monthly readers, so we've become a little
bit more popular. We're getting a little bit more attention,
and we recently started a podcast, which already has gotten
(04:03):
some traction. So we're very pleased with the growth we've
experienced within the past two years alone. So we'll be
We just celebrated five years as a standing website, and
there's like you had mentioned earlier, it was sometimes once
or twice a week.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Now we're getting every day.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Hopefully we'll be able to publish six or seven times
a week, two days twice a week and by the
end of the year. So we're optimistic about it and
we're confident we've become even more influential in the political
scene here in Chicago.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Well, that's good and the great thing about it, as
we see with the murder of Charlie Kirk is you
need to have all voices right, and some people want
to suppress that voice. And if you haven't figured out, folks,
Florian Sunke is the nom de guerre for the editor
in chief of the Chicagoian. And I think the death
of Charlie Kirk kind of shows you know, sometimes you know,
(04:59):
you know, it's good to keep your name quiet because
you are a target just for being conservative. And Illinois
in Chicago is a bastion of liberal thinking. Do you
agree with that or is it very much?
Speaker 2 (05:10):
And I think it's it's almost in some ways ground
zero for you know, sometimes extremism. We've got We've got
an unruly and a very dangerous Chicago Teachers Union which
is led by the Core Caucus. And uh, you know
(05:30):
that this was also the birthplace of the Black Panther Party.
So I'm sure Los Angeles and New York they've got
their radical groups. I think the f a l N
was very big in New York Los Angeles. I don't
not too familiar with any extreme groups, but you know,
(05:51):
you've got Antifa out there, You've got some some crazy groups.
And and even though we've got a few koops on
the right. We've got extremism on the right. I still
believe the likelihood for political violence too. It's more prevalent
on the left than it is.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
On the right. And I think the.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
You know, and just to get off track for one second,
the murder of the healthcare executive I forget what his
name is, by Luigi Mangioni. He's the alleged killer. I
think it's it's that was kind of a turning point
because he wasn't a political figure, and it demonstrated the lefts,
the extreme left's willingness to target people outside the political sphere.
(06:35):
And that's frightening. So, yes, we've got a problem here
in Chicago.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
It's nationwide, Yeah, and I agree with that. I mean
it's also the I think the Weather Underground was founded
in the area of students for Democratic Society. I mean
Chicago was a part of that. And you know the
sixty sixty eight riots at the Democratic National Convention. I mean,
all of that stuff plays into Illinois. But also you
got dumb and dumber there. I mean Mayor Johnson and
Governor Pritzker. I mean, Jesus, you know, talk about people
(07:01):
who engage in incendiary reader rhetoric both of those guys do,
and they it's directed at Republicans, is directed at Trump,
and I'm not surprised that people feel like they can
act upon that and sendior rhetoric the calling of Nazis
and we have to fight them at all costs, and
we're going to fight them. And this is almost like
(07:23):
it's a civil war. I mean, that's we're going to
do a clip at Johnson here pretty soon. But that's
what's going on. That's who your your leaders are in
Chicago and in Illinois, right very much.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
I think.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
I think it would be bad enough if we only
had one of those two leaders, if we had just
Johnson as the mayor, or having a different mayor and
having Pritzker as governor. But we've got both, and you're
absolutely right, both of them tend to resort to inflammatory language,
and I think, specifically for Governor Pritzker, his comments in
(07:59):
the immediate aftermath of the death of Charlie Kirk, I
thought were just despicable, and as I had mentioned on
our podcast the other day, even the Washington Post criticized
Pritzker for the way he responded to Kirk's death. Had
the governor has simply said he regretted hearing about the
(08:20):
Kirk's assassination and just left it as it was. He
would have been fined. But he went on, and he
continued on to maybe a minute and a half rant
about how President Trump is responsible for this and only
political figures on the left, excuse me, on the right
are responsible for it, and it's false. He took a
(08:41):
beating about it. He's kept quiet, but Johnson routinely makes
remarks like this, and he talks about white supremacy as
a problem in Chicago.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
And as I'm.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Sure you well know, we have a black police superintendent,
We've got a black chief judge of the court system,
we have a black county board president, we have a
black chairman or CEO of the Chicago Public school system,
and we've got a black mayor. We've got we're on
our fourth black mayor. Right now, where's the white supremacy?
(09:18):
And for him to even raise the issue is patent nonsense.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah, but it seems like Chicago and some Chicagoans are
at least figuring that out. I mean, that's uh, I mean,
that's why we got Burke, right, I've got some people
are saying This is nonsense what they're doing. But we
got to talk about that. Let's let's roll, you know,
speaking of Johnson, let's roll with the Labor Day speech
and it just he can comment on it. Go ahead,
(09:47):
let's go.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Let me hear your Chicago. Let me get you a
little bit more noisy out there.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
Yes, no federal troops in the city of Chicago. Don't
militarized force in the city of Chicago. We're gonna defend
our democracy in the city of Chicago. We're gonna protect
the humanity of every single person in.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
The city of Chicago. And we got the baddest.
Speaker 5 (10:16):
Freaking labor movement in the city of Chicago birth right here.
We're gonna take this fight across America, but we gotta
defend the home front first.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
And the best way we.
Speaker 5 (10:28):
Defend the home front is to make sure that every
single worker has the livable wage. That's why we abolish
the sub minimum wage in Chicago. For brown and black women,
they get raises on top of their tips. This is
the city of Chicago where we have given paid time
(10:49):
off for over a million workers, ten days off, the
biggest city in America to ever do it.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
This is the labor movement. You all on pace to
build more affordable units.
Speaker 5 (11:03):
A teacher's contract that protects black women, a teacher's contract
that protects the LGBTQI community, the teacher contract that protects immigrants.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
This is the greatest freaking city in the world with
Shat Town.
Speaker 5 (11:22):
Now, look, there are some people that have doubts in
the labor movement. There are some people believe that we
don't have the power to be authoritarianism.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
But I'm also a history teacher as well.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
We have stood up for the interests of workers before,
if we will do it again, and no matter what
comes from the White House, Chicago will always be a
labor town.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Are you with me, Chicago?
Speaker 5 (11:51):
Now, finally we have seen this president shift the largest
concentration of wealth into the hands of the fume.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Justice Brandeis made it very clear.
Speaker 5 (12:03):
He said we can either have a democracy or we
can have wealth in the hands of the concentrated fuel.
But he says we cannot have both. Are you prepared
to defend this land, this land that was built by slaves,
a land that was built by indigenous people, a land
(12:23):
that is built by workers. Are you prepared to defend
this land? The people United will always prevail. I need
you all to stand firm, to stand strong. If this
president decides to continue to break this constitution, it's going
(12:44):
to be the labor movement that stitches it back together.
The labor movement that brings black folks, white folks agents,
and brings brown folks together. This is a city that
said keep hot, belied, the city that birth, Yes we
can in the city that would defend this country.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
God bless you all. God bless the labor movement.
Speaker 5 (13:08):
God bless the greatest freaking city in the world's town.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
No troops, no troops in Chicago. I mean, I just
you know, I saw this, and obviously this is a
red meat speech. He's doing red meat to the to
the unions, but he's also throwing out misinformation, violating of
the Constitution. We have to defend this land. So his
his his rhetoric is incendiary.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
And I actually, you know, while you replayed that, I
actually saw it live. I went down there to that
that parade or the protest there, and and to be fair,
it was very tame. I didn't see any violence. I
didn't see anybody with spray cans or tagging police cars
or slashing tires. But he showed up and gave that
(14:03):
ten to appeared for maybe fifteen minutes, and it was
standard fair for him, which is, you know, using that
inflammatory language, trying to whip up a friendly crowd, and
then and then everything is so deeply ahistorical, claiming slaves
built Illinois and you know, the just ridiculous historical perspective
(14:25):
he's putting there. There was probably two or three thousand
people their tops.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
I talked to a police officer who was there and
they said everything had gone pretty smoothly. But again there's
I think the speech, you know, his address, it just
demonstrates the man has no intellectual depth or whatsoever. It's
always getting up and repeating the same campaign slogans about
(14:54):
how he's building the big you know, the safest, most
affordable big city in America. He's dedicating the whole city
to workers and the labor movement. He's building a better, safer,
stronger Chicago. There's no nothing underneath that. That's all it is.
It's just the stale cliche we've seen from him since
(15:16):
the day he entered the political scene when he ran
for Cook County Board.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
So there's really not much to.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Him other than the good thing about him, unlike his
predecessor is Brandon Johnson, is really a skilled retail politician.
He's very friendly and warm out in public. He's funny,
you know. Of course, he has a completely obliging press
who never gives him a tough question. But Lorie Lightfoot
was a complete sour puss and unlike him, and that's
(15:45):
what makes him appealing. So there's really no depth. Its
just he throws out all the right buzzwords and he
jazz is his base, and then he goes and.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Then he.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Offers up some silly program. So we're being led by,
as Paul Vallie has mentioned many times, a failed teacher
is now the mayor of the city of Chicago.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yeah, he's fairly He doesn't even know history. I mean,
you know, it's funny. He posted something and I just
kind of looked up, jeez, how many men from Illinois
died in the Civil War, you know, because it was
one of those things that blacks, you know, slaves built Illinois,
slaves did this, you know, And I just posted that
and it actually got a lot of play because it's like,
you know, okay with him in here. You know that
(16:30):
there's some white dudes involved here. You know, there was
other immigrants who you know from Europe who are involved here.
And as I listened to his speech, I just go, Okay,
is he ever going to say, you know, our white brothers. No,
that never says that, never says that in an entire speech.
He'll say worker, but he always seems to equate worker
to blacks, Latinos, and minorities. He never And you know
(16:52):
what is the population though, the white population in Chicago
and Illinois at at least forty percent, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
It's approximate. I don't have a number to give you,
but you know, Hispanics are growing in Chicago. They're about
thirty It's it's pretty pretty even. It's like thirty thirty
three percent white, thirty three percent black, thirty three percent Hispanic.
Hispanics are growing, Blacks are leaving. Whites are, you know,
kind of holding strong. But middle class blacks are leaving,
(17:21):
and there's been an exodus. There has been a couple
of one hundred thousand black families who have left. And
these are your middle class blacks. These are you know,
you're you're you know the obviously city workers can't live
outside out side. But but there's been an exodus of
several hundred thousand Blacks from the city of Chicago since
(17:44):
two thousand and these are taxpayers. You know, we're losing
that tax base. So Hispanics are growing, they're coming here
and they're staying. We've also got you know, tens of
thousands of legals.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Here who you know, who've boosted the population.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
But you know, the irony here is one of the
ways we can determine, you know, population loss is the
Chicago public school system opened up and nearly a month
ago started school and they were down another thirteen thousand students. Wow,
so you know, but they just got but they're asking
(18:20):
for another one point six billion dollars for fund to
fund our schools. So the total population is kind of even.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Yeah, I have to tell you, I was listening to
a professor from Claremont mcannon. The same thing's happening in California.
So it's families that are making about two hundred thousand
a year that are leaving California. And he said, this
is disastrous for the state because you're left with the
ultra rich who can pay to live in California, and
then the people who are poor unit help, you know,
and because your middle class is leaving, and that's what
(18:53):
it sounds like. It's happening in Illinois and other what's
the other one in Massachusetts, you know. And this is
why we're doing the whole redistrict inting fight and all
this other stuff is is those people are leaving and
they're going to other states, and so those red states
are saying, well, why don't we redistrict and gain advantage,
you know, because they're getting the populations and they're leaving
(19:15):
tend to be a little more right of center exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
And just if I can add a majority of the
people who are leaving Illinois the whole state, not just Chicago.
You know, the people who are leaving Illinois, they're not
always going down to Florida or to Texas. They're just
going right across the border to Indiana or to Wisconsin.
(19:39):
And so they're the beneficiaries of this. This is their
tax base increasing to our loss. So you know that
they still have an affection for the Midwest, they still
have an affection for Illinois. So they're only just going
across the border so they can remain nearby. But it's
they're disgusted with the way the state and specific the
(20:00):
city of Chicago where.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Governed, right, you know, I, you know, o'p bring the subject.
I can't use a video clip. We're having a problem
with a clip, but I wanted to. We'll get into
ice and the surging of ice in federal resources to
Chicago in a minute here. But you know I did.
I listened to Brenton speak one time and he talked about,
you know, it's just last week or maybe week before that,
that all the guns are coming from red states. And
(20:23):
you know, I did the research and obviously there's a
trace report that the ATF does. If you're in law enforcement,
you know this. I pulled it up and most of
the guns are actually coming from Illinois. So the gun
seized in Illinois, you know, probably seventy percent of them
are coming from Illinois. And it was just a blatant
lie by him. And it was interesting because I did it,
(20:43):
and then Fox News picked up on it. They follow me,
and they did exactly the same thing a couple of
nights later, just showed the same report I showed. So
he's a liar though. That's that's the frustrating part about
Pritzker and Johnson is they just lie to you and
and and your said, you're really the only one that's
going to call him out because the Tribune's not going
to call him out.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Right, Well, we called him out immediately on this, and
there were a number of people who joined in. The
press conference to which you were referring was maybe ten
days ago or so, maybe almost two weeks ago. And
it was really kind of a disgrace because they they
all showed up in Chicago, and you had the governor
(21:24):
who likely arranged it.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
The podium had the Seal of the State, not the city.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
But Johnson spoke, Julianna Stratton spoke Kawamie Raoul. You know,
Juliana Stratton is Lieutenant governor. She has been anointed as
Pritzker's preferred Senate candidate. But the purpose of the press
conference wasn't too informed but to mislead and Governor Pritzker
got up with his typical, you know, miss hyperbolic.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Language.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Johnson took to the podium and instead of admitting, they
still have a problem in Chicago, and I want to
be as clear as I possibly can. Crime is down
across multiple categories. In some categories, it's either the same
or as Risen, But we should be celebrating the drop
in homicides and shooting. It's it's great news. It's the
city is safer than it was under Kim Fox, under
(22:19):
the COVID crime boom. But there is still a problem
and the scandal in Chicago particularly is crime is still
not considered an emergency. We still have mass shootings here regularly.
We still have the smashing grabs on Michigan Avenue. And
the fact he Mayor Johnson took the opportunity to talk
(22:46):
about gun violence and just violent crime in general and
again turn it into a political issue and blame Republican states,
only to be fact checked and to have it refuted
so easily. To me, said he the man will say
anything to avoid any responsibility. And if you follow him
(23:07):
the way I know you do, one of his favorite
deflections is I inherited this problem. And as I said
on our podcast last week, at what point does Brandon
Johnson or do Chicago's problems become Brandon Johnson's problems yep?
Or how he has mismanaged or created other problems.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Yeah, I agree one hundred percent. You know he's I
don't know why, I know you said was it Prickweakles.
He supported him. She's the county executive. And I don't
get why they put this guy in there because he's
he's dumb as rocks. He can he could do a
pretty good speech, I mean, fun speech, but you know,
I don't know who's fact checking, who's who's writing those speeches.
(23:51):
But he also him and pritzgarh are pushing back get
Trump's effort to bring federal stories there. And this makes
absolutely no sense to me. It's my understanding the mayor
road in an executive order that Chicago p D will not
work with defence in any way. And you know, it's
like and and and Trump reached out and he said, hey,
you know, if Pritzker called me, we'll work out. We'll
work out the way we work and work together. And
(24:12):
Prinsker's you know, dis them. No, I'm not going to
call him. And I don't get it. I mean, when
I was working and when I was the chief of
the La Metro, the trans system, if somebody said hey,
we're going to give you, you know, ten guys a
day surge on your system, like the f backers, they
would come and work with me occasionally just because they're
asking us to do something what we can do, I'd say, Okay,
(24:33):
I'm going to accept that free gift. I'm going to
accept that free gift in lower crime. You know, why not.
That's what they're supposed to do. And yet these guys
seem like they don't want any help. And you know,
and the funny thing is is like so on the
on the on the National Guard. You know, there are
places you can use the National Guard in New York.
(24:55):
The HCAL use the National Guard in the transit system
in New York, so there is precedence you can use them.
They use the National Guard in the transsystem DC. I know,
you've got the second largest transportation system in the country.
They can use it on the translations and keep them safe.
And these two morons won't accept the help. I don't
get it.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Yeah, and it's purely political reasons they they I think
ultimately both men know they still have a problem getting
a grip on violent crime.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
In the city.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
You know, Pritzker really doesn't care what happens in Chicago.
His concern with Chicago is during election time only. Other
than that he looks at the city of Chicago is
constantly begging for money.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
He doesn't have.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
I think the biggest issue with both men is their city,
Chicago is facing multiple financial crises. We've got a one
point one billion dollars citywide budget. We've got a seven
hundred and eighty I think million dollars seven hundred million
dollar deficit with the public transit system, the CTA, and
(26:04):
our schools are you know, like nearly a billion dollars
in debt. Pritzker's got a three point three billion dollar deficit.
This coming year, everyone's going to be raising taxes across
the board. Pritzker has already raised taxes six point two
billion dollars since he began took office. And this is
(26:26):
also in light of taking thirteen billion dollars in COVID eight,
where they just blew through it. Their view is there's
only one way you can aid Illinois or the city
of Chicago. Write us a massive check for twenty billion
dollars so we can get out of debt, solve or
at least address the pension crisis, and we can solve
(26:49):
all of our problems. None of this will help. The
city needs some reform, and as you well know, one
of the worst criticisms of the Trump administration is he
cut that Community Development Block grant, which gave it's funded
tens of billions of dollars into nonprofit groups. Trump cutting
(27:13):
it was a great idea because these nonprofit groups are
all left leaning and they pushed left ideas. One of
the worst is the violence interrupters those communities. They're a joke.
In fact, as we were discussing before, over the past
(27:34):
several days, there was another attempted smashing grab at the
Louis v Town Store on Michigan Avenue. Seven people were
arrested and charged with murder because during the getaway, one
of the drivers barreled into someone who was driving to
work at five in the morning or so, killing the
driver of the car. One of the seven people who
(27:55):
was charged in this robbery was a known peacekeeper who
had four active warrants. And as you well know, under
the rules of these violence in Russian groups, it's supposed
to be a zero tolerance for criminal activity. Many of
these people are I don't want to say ex gang members,
(28:18):
because they go right back to gang banging on the street.
They deal drugs, they drink with these people, they're getting high.
I have seen police pod camera of violence interrupters wearing
their yellow or orange or green vest, doing drugs, and
engaging in criminal behavior while they are on duty. So
(28:40):
why are we paying gang members to enforce the law
as unarmed peacekeepers. For some reason, the mayor has deluded
himself into believing, as many of these groups do, peacekeepers,
because of their experience on the street, are uniquely qualified
to address crime.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
It's a lie, it's a fraud.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
It's griff yep, it's nonsense. And this is going on
all across the country. I don't you know. We've seen
a drop in crime in many places around the country,
but we've also got rid of George Gas going on
in LA we got rid of Kim Fox and Illinois
and Cook County, Illinois, we got rid of a lot
of these you know, these sorols fund of DA's And
you're seeing crime come down because there's some at least
(29:21):
some level of prosecutions. Yet they'll always tie it to
the violence interrupters or the community ambassadors, and it is
it's absolutely nonsense because there's no way, you know, when
you know, I'm a public policy nerd, there's no way
you can tie what they're doing to either an increase
or decrease in crime because nothing they do, there's no
(29:42):
key performance indicators, there's nothing. They just give the money
to these nonprofits. So I'm happy to see Trump cut
them out. I mean, they still exist. In California. We
have nonprofits that aren't having anydey with the Feds that
are funding this foolishness. And it's actually a city money.
They have fifty million dollars in LA for the the
UH public safety process that doesn't include fire service or
(30:04):
the police. It goes to these nonprofits for ambassadors and
community interrupters. What's the other one. It's it's a harm
reduction specialist or whatever they call it, and we don't
we don't get anybody sober. We just let them continue
to live on the street and save them every now
and then so that they can keep using drugs. None
of this stuff makes sense to me. I don't know
why it make why the left is embracing this stuff,
(30:26):
and of course Chicago is ground cereals for this nonsense.
But you know, here's the thing. You know, the the
executive order that Mayor Brandon wrote also said well, we're
not gonna work. So okay, they don't want to work
with the ICE, right, So they're sanctuary city, but they're
not gonna work with the FBI, They're not gonna work
with the DEA, They're not gonna work with anybody that
(30:46):
can bring safety to the city of Chicago. This makes
absolutely like, so if the DEA came in and say, hey,
we're going to focus on, uh, these drug gangs that
are selling fentanyl as we get this stuff off the
street so we could save lives, we have less overdose
ask and Brandon Johnson's saying no, I'm perplexed.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
You know, actually we're not, because we think he has
taken such a hostile stance to any of any standing
law enforcement agency. Brandon Johnson has never come out and
said I hate the cops the way several people in
his city hall have. He recently hired a woman named
Sheila Betty, who has sued the City of Chicago like
(31:30):
sixty five times, mainly over police matters. He's got a
woman who has posted inflammatory remarks about police before Kennedy Bartley.
He's surrounded that as Brandon Johnson's term has proceeded, the
number of rational thinking moderates, and there were very few
(31:53):
to begin with, has shrunk. I don't think there are
any real moderates. He's surrounded himself by the radicals. He's
that there's no hiding it. But I think he has
a real deep seated hostility with police, with law enforcement
in general, particularly the police department. He thinks armed men
(32:13):
and fatigues that's what he He looks at at them
as like some praetorian guard, not a legitimate law enforcement agency.
And in the past several weeks he's made several remarks,
you know, about how there is no need for law enforcement. Well,
he issued that executive order. It's an utterly meaningless executive order.
(32:37):
All it did was reaffirm the city's position under Sanctuary
city or Welcoming City ordinance. Police department is not allowed
to work with ICE or the the you know, ICE
or Custom and Border Patrol, but with the possibility of
(32:58):
an organization or law enforcement group like atf dea Postal inspection, FBI.
I'm not quite sure on the language specific I think
it discouraged cooperating unless there was an instance in which
a federal agent needed urgent assistance, if it was an emergency,
(33:18):
and even then, you know, they're kind of hopeful it's
not serious because they don't I think the police department's
very concerned about this because they're getting pressure from Johnson
don't cooperate, so, which is pathetic. There should be regular
cooperation with law enforcement. And I just want to add
one more remark to try to clarify the ignorance of
(33:41):
the position the mayor holds. Mayor Richard M. Daley regularly
held meetings with the US Attorney's Office and representatives of
every major law enforcement group when they were working on
fighting crime, and he was obsessed with it, and we
had some problems in the nineties, we had very high
(34:02):
homicide rates. He understood building bridges with federal agents was
going to reduce crime. Brandon Johnson has convinced himself because
he's He's applied for ten thousand housing permits for affordable housing.
This is responsible for or teen jobs for the summers.
(34:23):
This is why crime is coming down. That's absolutely preposterous.
It takes years for those type policies to be experienced
by the public. Fighting crime, jailing people or detaining and
incarcerating is the way to keep streets safe.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Absolutely, And so if I hear him say the word
we have to invest in our communities to self crime
one more time, I mean, if I had a dollar,
but Tim, he said that, you know, you'd be rich.
I'd be rich. Well, you know, let's social stats though.
Hey man, let's hold the Chicago turned Red video towards
the end, but let's show the twenty twenty four Chicago
(35:03):
is number ten and homicide rate. Now here's the thing.
So he's saying everything's great. So here this is a
list of all the cities, and it's who has the
highest homas for in great per one hundred thousand in
Chicago is the biggest city in this group. So if
you compare them to Los Angeles and New York, they're failing.
This is the kind of this is obvious to everybody,
(35:25):
Yet it doesn't seem to be obvious to Pritzker or
obvious to Brendan Johnson. So when they reject these resources,
they're rejecting the opportunity to drop out of that top ten.
That's kind of how I see it, right.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Yes, and again it's politics motivating this, not a concern
for public safety. And as you and I well know,
the people who suffer the most are law abiding blacks
and Hispanics and high crime neighborhoods. And we have heard
for the past decade, perhaps longer since two thousand and eight,
(35:57):
when the progressive movement started to explode again. Their greatest
concern was uplifting the marginalized, protecting people who had been
overlooked or in poorer neighborhoods. They are even more neglected
now if they were if they thought, if their public
view was these residents are living in obscurity. They're even
(36:22):
worse off now because they don't have the police protection
they deserve, and they only recently got a prosecutor who
gives a darn about them to prosecute the criminals who
prey on them every day.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Well, let's get into that. You know, I wasn't planning
on talking about Judge Nane Aleen Noberk, but she was
a big subject of many of our conversations previously. How
was she doing your mind? How's she doing?
Speaker 3 (36:48):
I think she's doing very well.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
I think since she came in in early December, we
saw an immediate reversal of you know, handful of policies.
The first one was retail theft and I think this
was the appeal of Judge Burke on the campaign trail.
Whenever Burke was asked about a specific crime. In contrast
(37:16):
to Clayton Harris. Harris would always say, well, we'll have
to look at, you know, the circumstances and before we charge.
Our charging decisions are well, we'll look at it. And
I think it's important you scrutinize every single crime properly.
What Burke's answer was consistently when asked how on charging decisions,
(37:40):
she said the same thing over and over and over.
We have to look at what the law says. And
under Kim Fox, she ran the office like an improv
She just kind of shrugged at minor level crimes and
then looked at the skin color of the perpetrator of
the crimes, if they were fell into a category she
(38:02):
thought was deserving his sympathy, she said, okay, well we're
not going to charge them, We're going to release them.
And so we have a different approach here. And in
March she had her one hundred day interview with ABC,
the local affiliate here, and they were asking her about
some of the most pressing matters her office is facing,
and she point blank said, we've had a dramatic rise
(38:24):
in murders associated with domestic abuse. And she looked right
into the camera and she said, that's a house on fire.
So as of today, I believe it's forty two percent
of people who are charged with gun crimes are being detained.
So that means those forty two percent were let go
(38:45):
under Kim Fox. And this is even better news because
because of Judge Burke, we have eighty one percent ofstic
abusers are now being detained. Wow, who are your victims
(39:05):
of domestic abuse? What's the highest percentage? What category? Black women?
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Black women?
Speaker 2 (39:10):
They are more than likely to be murdered by their
domestic partner or husband. So black women are safer already
under Burke than they ever were under Kim Fox. So
I think thus far she's done a very good job.
She's met all the expectations we had. I knew she
wasn't going to be the second coming of the Lord,
(39:32):
but we have a competent prosecutor with outstanding organizational and
managerial skills. She's returned the office to that of a
prosecutors rather than another public defender. And just one more
point I'd like to add, we've had a pretty significant
(39:54):
crackdown on retail theft, in which Burke several months ago
was interviewed on CNBC about partnering with the federal government
or federal law enforcement to crack down on retail theft drinks.
So her office is more than willing to work with
federal authorities on retail theft. Brandon Johnson won't work with
(40:17):
them even to reduce gun crime. And Burke's office, we've
seen an upswing on the prosecutions on retail theft. And
so we had that recent incident downtown on Michigan Avenue.
We've got people charged with murder. Now this what now
happened under Fox. So we think she is slowly moving
(40:42):
the needle back north.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Yeah. I think her model can be you know, the
prosecutor's office saving lives every day exactly. Yeah, that's good.
And I want to bring up another chart, and this
is the overdose death rates in Chicago because you know,
we you know, the things that you're talking about are
going on all over across country with these progressive prosecutors. Uh.
You know, in Philadelphia we got rid of most from
(41:05):
Mars in LA. But surprisingly Texas has a lot yet
often you got San Antonio, you got Houston. I think
Dallas has one too. But here's here's one of the
side effects of not prosecuting drug crimes. Is you see
the spike in overdose death rates in Chicago. This is
this spike is very similar uh all across the country.
And when you have a good prosecutor like Burke, you're
(41:27):
going to see that dip. Now, some of that dip
is from there. They got their uh harm reduction people
run around with narcon saving lives, and so it has
flattened out. But that that is what they call a
spike in statistics. A lot of people have died because
of bad public policy, not just by homicide, but also
from overdose death rates because law enforcement does intercede in
(41:49):
those types of crimes, and they save life if we're
doing it right. So so Chicago's still got a way
to go. When you look at the overdose death rates,
do you agree?
Speaker 3 (41:57):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (41:57):
I do.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
And and unfortunately, Johnson's remedy for overdose dates depths is
to install and I don't.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
Know if you're familiar.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
We put a tweet out about it because he went
up to celebrate. But it's called a NARCAN newsstand, and
they they I'm sure you know what I'm talking about,
but for the benefit of the audience, I'll explain. It's
a it's a newsstand. What's the term I want to
use the the the.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
Thing where you put the quarter in and you can
get the newspaper. This opens up and.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
There's a narcan pen in there. Essentially what it's kind
of what you had mentioned earlier. The way we're solving
our overdose is to set up those distribution vending machines,
you know, all sorts of They look like the old
co distributor, the news newspaper. And basically what we're doing
(42:57):
is narcanning these people back to life, so they're not
getting treatment. You know, I think our inner cities will
be better off. And as cold as this may sound,
there is some truth to it. If someone wants to
remain addicted to drugs, if someone wants to live out
on the street under a viaduct or in a tent
(43:17):
or rather than going in and getting public treatment facility
or a homeless shelter, that's the.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
Way they want to live.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Some people, and I've talked to many social workers, one
of their biggest challenges is to get these people off
the street. Some people don't want to because there are
restrictions they must adhere to. You can't bring your pets
with you, you can't smoke, you can't use drugs. When
the bar is low for entry for into homeless shelters
or drugs, you you know, you're basically allowing people to
(43:49):
bring all their problems there. Progressive thinks they have the solution.
You know, government is their solution for everything. I think
the the flattening of those fentanyl deaths is good, but
Johnson is going to say, well, it's flattening now, so
it must be the narcan dispensaries we're putting all over.
(44:12):
So let's invest two hundred million more dollars and have
one at the corner of Michigan Avenue in Chicago. So
and what they don't really care about, if they don't
see it, is the decline in the area. It's like
having a pot dispensary on the mag Mile. You know
it's there isn't one, but I mean, is that where
(44:32):
we're headed? So you know it's it's again. The policies
are just kind of slowly eroding at the character of
the city.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
I suspect, like in la they weren't filing any drug
charges that probably Judge Burke is filing some of that.
They've gone easy on drug dealers here, in LA and
in a lot of the progressive where they have progressive prosecutors.
And that's where I think, you know, there's a lot
of different places that you can pinch points or opportunities.
You have to reduce overdose deats, and we got to
put the dealers back in prison. They're killing people. They
(45:03):
are killers. There's nothing non violent about it. And that's
a critical piece of this.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
Yeah, totally agree drug dealers are killers. They and I
don't necessarily mean you know, maybe a guy standing on
a street corner with you know, ann ounce of pot.
But you know, we've got some people who run little
operations and neighborhoods, some of them citywide, some of them statewide.
(45:28):
Those are the people who need to be incarcerated. Unfortunately, though,
in Chicago we've got a far left left wing theologian
who recently described incarceration as unconscionable and immoral and racist.
So as long as we have this thought prevailing in
(45:52):
our political system here, I don't see any change. I
see it continue toward tilting towards the nark hand dispensaries.
The at least we're going to have drug dealers charge,
but we're going to have people criticizing Burke for doing so.
So I think that again, there's a decay there and
(46:13):
it's just Johnson is contributing to it.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Well, you know, I was doing some reach on research
on Portugal because I was asked to speak on that
and Organs when they drop all their drug charges there
and now they're re implemented them. And one of the
interesting things about Portugal because Portugal doesn't prosecute any of
that stuff, and everybody points to that as the model,
but when you start looking at what is actually going
on in Portugal, they're starting to see addiction increase or
(46:40):
starting to see more overdose desks. But more importantly, there's
an attitude amongst the people who service the community that
drug you should be a human right. And you know,
so they went from an attitude, hey, let's treat these people,
let's get them healthy, to hey let's just maintain And
I tell you what, you know, when your budget depends
upon having a lot of people who addicted, you know,
(47:00):
you end up embracing that, you know, because what are
you gonna do. You're gonna go into business once you
once you get everybody saved. Of course, not that's not
with it. Let's let's bring up the next slide, because
I want to reinforce what you said about women being
under targeted. Uh, and this is I think it's uh
seven percent of women that I got it on there.
Assault rate in Chicago is the is the slide here?
(47:23):
It is so assault rate in Chicago. Now I read
this article and as you see, women are being targeted.
And the interesting thing about this article you go ahead
and take down and is that it is not only
are women being targeted, but also a higher number of
black blacks in general are being targeted. So we're seeing
a reduction in assaults on whites, business induction assaults on latinos,
(47:46):
but we're not seeing a reduction on assaults on blacks.
In fact, it's kind of going up. And women, Black
women are primarily the ones that are taking the hit
it just as you, just as Burke has talked about.
So this I forget what periodical this was. Let's say
it's the Council. Yeah, so it it reinforces what you said.
(48:08):
The problem I have with this whole divisiveness with race
is you know, if if put people in prison, a
disproportion number of blacks in prison is racially divisive, allowing
a disportion number of black people to be victimized baticularly women.
How come that part doesn't play into the logic of
(48:29):
our public policy making.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Exactly, And it resonates with Burke obviously, it's not resonating
with with our progressive colleagues, you know in Chicago. You know,
I can't explain why why this doesn't you know, it's
it's something you and I consider, and it's something Burke
(48:52):
has considered. But how it doesn't How the impact of
some of these policies on uh, the very groups they
purport to help, is beyond me. You would think it
manifests itself so easily when you've got a total of
twenty six black women who have been murdered in domestic
(49:14):
abuse incidents, and you've got their assailants out after they've
been charged with domestic abuse, they are arrested, the police
bring them and then they're right back out on the street.
And you know that I forget the name of the instance,
but it was last year when there was a recent
(49:36):
parole who had returned to his ex girlfriend's house or
up and I think it's on the North side of Chicago,
and he stabbed Jaden. I forget the last name of
the young boy, but he went to defend his mother.
When the guy came back to seek revenge against the girlfriend,
(49:56):
the ten or eleven year old boy stepped in and
the the man stabbed.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
The young boy.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
And he had been out of jail for one day.
He did not fear the law whatsoever. So we've got
a problem here. You know how the left doesn't see
how negative that the negative impact of their policies are
is beyond me.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
Yeah, I believe, and I might have said this to
you before. Is they they look at crime as even
people who commit crime is a collective failure of all
of us, not the failure of the individual. They've they've
collectivized the responsibility for people commit crimes for all of us,
and we need to when you look at their policies.
(50:42):
I mean, I was looking up the website for the
California Department and Corrections and they have a victims meeting,
a suspects kind of program, then all the restorative justice stuff.
It puts the burden on the victim, It puts the
burden on the community for the individual's behavior.
Speaker 2 (50:58):
Yeah, and there was an instance. If I can just
throw this in there. I'll be real quick. Several years ago,
there was a carjacking. There was a rash of teen carjackings.
Law enforcement held like a zoom meeting, a public zoom meeting,
and it was shocking to see Kim Fox get up
and explain her office's approach to prosecuting teen carjackers. She
(51:24):
didn't talk about a teen stealing a car and committing
a crime. She expressed her view of the office as
what we need to do is to figure out what's
going on around this teenager's life so we can understand why.
And that's the problem with progressivism. They don't care who
(51:45):
committed the crime. They want to know why it was committed.
Nobody cares why it was committed. Nobody cares, and we
need to We need to return to a to the
prosecution of the law is identifying a criminal and proportionately
sentencing them behind bars.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
Yeah, and I you know, I just read a RAND
report on a program that I worked on, a rapid
diversion program is kind of ninety two success rate. But
I know why it was successful, not just because I
worked on it but here in LA but because there
was a lot of bureaucrats who who who had the
right feeling in their heart on how we want to
solve these problems. I mean I worked with the Public
(52:27):
Defender's Office, Alter, the Public Defender's Office, the City Attorney's office,
and we all understood the pro we all understood the
criminal justice system. And so when we developed the program
and it worked. But guess who wasn't involved all the
crazy left us. I was probably the only Republican and
I said, hey, you got one shot to do this right,
you guys, so let's do it right. And it now
has a ninety two. It was rejected by all the
(52:48):
left wingers. Of course, our program, and now because of
the success rate, it's been embraced in Los Angeles. It's
that six seven courthouses going to eight, and I'm sure
it's going to go county wide. But that's where these
ideas need to come from, is people who are subject
matter experts, not these leftists who have a very thin
slice of where they where they think it Audicle, But hey,
(53:09):
we got a minute to go for it. So I
want you to talk about your podcast again and your
and obviously your digital online newspaper. So give this is
your chance to tell people where to go.
Speaker 2 (53:21):
Yeah, Chicago Contrarian dot com. We concentrate on political affairs
here in Chicago. We are unapologetically conservative, but we do
have balance and we recently started a podcast which we
think is going to enhance our appeal across the city
of Chicago. It's called Chicago Contrarian the Podcast. So we
(53:44):
invite everyone to read our website and to tune in.
We have an hour long podcast once a week. We
record on Fridays, it's uploaded on Saturday. We just put
up our most recent episode this morning. Thank you Chief
for letting me that.
Speaker 1 (54:00):
Florian, thank you for joining again on Briefing with the Chief.
You can find them at the Contrarium podcast on Rumble
right or no, it's on Spotify. It's on It's on
all the platforms. Right, and then you can find you
can find Briefing with the Chief. You find Briefing Chief
every Wednesday at five pm Eastern Standard Time on the
Rumble page, Facebook and Twitter feed, and you also find
(54:21):
us on the online radio station for Kgjerra. Thank you
Florin for joining me today. Amanda, I think we're done.
You could take it away
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