The Great Smoky Mountain Journal
Staff Reports
Posted: Sunday, January 21, 2018 11:20 AM
OUR VIEW: 08/07/2017 - Chicago Mayor Rham Emmanuel Needs To Be More Concerned With The Bloodbath In Chicago Each Week Than Suing Federal Government Seeking To Uphold Law Regarding Sanctuary Cities
In contrast, we have the illustrious Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, who seems to be more concerned about shielding law breakers than dealing with the blood bath going on in his city through violent crime. Sadly today, thanks to decades of dreadful leadership, including the current occupant of the Mayor’s office, Chicago resembles a “tottering” town, as in a place nearing collapse.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that from 2015 to 2016, Cook County – where Chicago is located – lost more people than any county in America. A U-Haul rental from Chicago to Texas can cost as much as six times more than the return trip, an indicator of the heavy outward flow of people. It’s no wonder people vote with their feet and escape the endemic corruption, escalating taxes, and rampant crime. Chicago has become the most dangerous place in the developed world, with over 2,200 shootings already this year.
So, what is Mayor Emanuel doing to address rampant decline and bloodshed in one of America’s great cities? How is he ameliorating the mammoth $838 million property tax increase that’s crushing disposable incomes for those residing in the city limits?
Is he searching for solutions for the most under-funded pension system in America, obligations that will cripple our budget in just a few years? Is Rahm empowering police to stem the bloody carnage that afflicts the streets, especially in predominantly black neighborhoods?
No. Instead, Mayor Emanuel is wasting time and focus and resources on suing the Department of Justice for daring to enforce federal law. Chicago, like other blue cities, has pursued a so-called “sanctuary city” policy, whereby police are forbidden from alerting federal authorities when they arrest someone for a crime and that perpetrator is also in the United States without permission.
Probably a better term for sanctuary cities would be “Renegade Cities” because such politically correct nonsense hardly provides “sanctuary” to the victims and cops forced to deal with criminal aliens who are allowed to hide in plain sight.
The real-world ramifications of such willful disregard for federal protections can prove horrible, as evidenced just last week in Portland, Oregon, where local police ignored an ICE deportation order for a 20-times deported illegal immigrant, who was then released and committed a brutal sexual assault on a 65-year-old woman sleeping in her own home.
Yet despite the glaring issues facing cities which allow such lawlessness, Emanuel would rather posture for liberal elites while seeking to turn the Justice Department and federal law enforcement into the bad guys. A few years ago, he campaigned against Chick-Fil-A doing business in his city because he didn’t like their stance on same-sex marriage.
He once bragged as President Obama’s chief of staff that “no good crisis” needs to go without being exploited. At every turn, he’s proclaimed Chicago as a “welcoming city,” and haven for the elite ideology that has driven America to the brink of destruction.
Now things have come full circle and to
a head. Emmanuel and the city filed a lawsuit Monday against the U.S.
Department of Justice over President Donald Trump’s immigration policy,
specifically over the what the Justice Department calls sanctuary cities
program.
The suit claims that it’s “illegal for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to
withhold federal Byrne grants from cities the Trump administration
believes aren’t cooperating enough with U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement officials,” the mayor said.
Chicago this year expects to receive $3.2 million from the Byrne grant program, money mostly used to buy police vehicles and other equipment, the Tribune reported. The grants are named for Edward Byrne, a New York City police officer who was murdered in 1988.
“We are not going to be between picking our values of who we are as a welcoming city, and strengthening our police department,” Emanuel said in the interview with left wing media over the weekend.
It's always comical to hear Democrats
talk about picking their "values" and breaking the law in the same
breath. That's the Democratic Party for you. Memo to Mayor Emmanuel. If
you allow law breakers to hide in your city you have absolutely no
"VALUES" to defend and you and your city deserve being cut off from
federal funds! Illegal immigrants HAVE NO RIGHTS under the Constitution
of the United States and anyone who says they do are either willfully
ignorant or arrogantly stupid.
In firing back against Emmanuel, the Justice Department called out the
mayor in its response. “In 2016, more Chicagoans were murdered than in
New York City and Los Angeles combined. So, it’s especially tragic that
the mayor is less concerned with that staggering figure than he is
spending time and taxpayer money protecting criminal aliens and putting
Chicago’s law enforcement at greater risk,” department spokeswoman Sarah
Isgur Flores told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Emmanuel likened the Justice Department’s actions to “blackmail.”
“Chicago will not be blackmailed into changing our values, and we are
and will remain a welcoming city,” Emanuel said. “The federal government
should be working with cities to provide necessary resources to improve
public safety, not concocting new schemes to reduce our crime-fighting
resources.”
So, let me get this straight. Because
the federal government is merely asking Chicago to adhere to federal
immigration laws, they are concocting “schemes” and resorting to
“blackmail.”
Sessions fired back Monday at Emmanuel’s stupidity, stating that “no
amount” of money will help a city that won’t help its own residents.
“This administration is committed to the rule of law and to enforcing the laws established by Congress. To a degree perhaps unsurpassed by any other jurisdiction, the political leadership of Chicago has chosen deliberately and intentionally to adopt a policy that obstructs this country’s lawful immigration system,” Sessions said in a statement.
Sessions said the city of Chicago has chosen to protect “criminal aliens who prey on their own residents” instead of enforcing laws meant to protect law enforcement. The attorney general has called the “open hostility” against protecting law enforcement -- while protecting criminal aliens -- “astounding” given the influx of Chicago’s violence crime.
According to statistics, the city of
Chicago recorded 762 homicides in 2016 — an average of two murders per
day, the most killings in the city for two decades and more than New
York and Los Angeles combined.
“The city’s leaders cannot follow some laws and ignore others and
reasonably expect this horrific situation to improve,” Sessions
continued. “This administration will not simply give away grant dollars
to city governments that proudly violate the rule of law and protect
criminal aliens at the expense of public safety,” Sessions concluded.
“So, it’s this simple: Comply with the law or forego taxpayer dollars.”
That sounds like a very easy and simply path for Emmanuel and his ilk to follow to avoid this showdown that will not end well for the city of Chicago.
Yet Emmanuel remained arrogantly defiant in interviews late Monday saying he did not think Chicago would be the last sanctuary city to file a lawsuit of this nature. Other cities the DOJ contacted about withholding funds of this nature include Baltimore, Albuquerque, N.M., and Stockton and San Bernardino, Calif.
The Mayor however needs to listen to his own Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson who said during a news conference Sunday that Chicago is among many U.S. cities that have seen a spike in violence, including in attacks on police, because it’s becoming clearer to criminals that they have little to fear from the criminal justice system. “Criminals have become emboldened in our city to violent crimes.”
I wonder if Mayor Emmanuel was at this press conference and heard the words "criminals have little to fear from the criminal justice system" in Chicago.
Emanuel embarrasses himself when he claims withholding the grants would violate the “rights” of Chicagoans. No withholding the grants will only violate the political nonsense coming from the Mayor’s office and that is not a bad thing. It’s necessary and needed.
There is something this Mayor, his wretched political party, as well as Emmanuel’s former boss at the White House has never comprehended and probably never will.
America is a nation of laws! We're a nation where we believe that people who come here illegally have no rights other than to return to their homelands, come back in legally, and become tax-paying citizens like the rest of us.
We're a nation who salutes the immigrants, millions of them, who have come in the proper way, waited in line, and are insulted at cities like Chicago and others whose efforts to hide illegals in their city are based on some stupid and non-existent moral high ground they think they have claiming this is about civil rights.
There ARE NO civil rights for illegal immigrants! They are breaking the law to begin with. As lawbreakers, they do not pass go. They do not collect $200. They go directly to jail if caught as they should!
Since Emmanuel has stuck his middle finger up to the federal government, it's more than right for the federal government to stick its middle finger up to Emmanuel. Chicago is a welcoming city alright. It's a welcoming city to the nation's highest murder rates, cop shootings, and gun violence in nearly five decades. So, my advice to Mr. Emmanuel is simply, keep acting stupid Mr. Mayor.
Let your Democratic buddies praise you for your "bravery" while the blood bath continues in your streets Mr. Mayor. That's liberal logic. That's the Democratic Party. That's Rham Emmanuel, former White House Chief of Staff to Barrack Obama, the great community organizer, who I'm sure has applauded his former crony's arrogance against the feds.
The difference now is we have a President and Attorney General in place who are not afraid to fight these sanctuary cities and put an end to them.
If withholding federal grant money gets the attention of these mindless city leaders and it gets them to stop doing it - it's something that needs to be applauded and praised. It’s not blackmail, and it’s not a scheme. It’s what the Constitution of the United States calls for and I salute Attorney General
Sessions for bringing down the thunder. He has the law and I believe the American people on his side.
It's time we become a nation AND CITIES
of law again!
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Christopher McDonald, Publisher, Editor in Charge
Great Smoky Mountain Journal
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