Chicago Mayoral Candidate Vallas Has a Plan to Attack City’s ‘Utter Breakdown Of Law and Order’

By
John Boch
-
99

Decrying the “utter breakdown of law and order” in Chicago, mayoral challenger Paul Vallas on Monday unveiled a sweeping plan to fill 1,600 police vacancies within two years, take the handcuffs off demoralized officers and stop “brazen” criminals from terrorizing residents.

It starts with firing Police Supt. David Brown and his leadership team and ends with “pushing resources to the district level,” restoring “beat integrity” and using the $100 million the CTA spends each year on private security to add about 700 new officers…

Although Mayor Lori Lightfoot claims to be making progress on issues that matter most to Chicago voters, “no matter how she tries to spin it, violent crime is getting worse,” Vallas said.

“We’re gonna exceed 700 murders for the third year in a row. We’ve now seen our 65th school-age child killed. We’ve had 46 mass shootings. … Car thefts are averaging a mind-boggling 100 a day. Strong-armed robberies every single day. They pistol-whipped a woman just for amusement. It’s blatant,” Vallas said.

“There are not enough police cars to respond to 911 priority calls. The officers we do have are demoralized and handcuffed. There is no incentive to engage in proactive policing. And the criminals know it, and they’re becoming bolder. There is an utter breakdown of law and order,” he said.

— Fran Spielman in Vallas unveils crime-fighting plan to reverse ‘utter breakdown of law and order’

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

99 COMMENTS

      • Shoot well within the bounds of the law. Otherwise you could find yourself living among hundreds of dirtbag inmates just as bad or worse than the one you shot.

        In a big city like Chicago with millions of people some people are going to be food for the underbelly criminal element. And so as it stands today the best is ho hum criminals have to eat too.

        It’s either put the criminal element in prison, execute the murderers and attempted murderers or continue feeding them on the outside.

        • It’s safer in prison, Debbie. All the scumbags have been released early, so it’s only those who missed a child support payment, voted Republican, or miscounted on their magazine capacity who are in jail.

        • Well it appears a good bit of LE may not be onboard the nazi/kkk burn down the Gun Owner home train. That leaves pompous lily white Gun Control democRats to enforce their own sht. They should begin on the Chicago southside where odds are good they won’t survive a half a block.

      • Shooting back is the better solution.

        Locking people up costs us untold millions of dollars. Jails aren’t cheap. Burying a criminal only costs a few thousand. Maybe less – just cremate him, and send the ashes to the dump. Recidivism is at an all time low among those who have assumed ambient temperature.

    • Or wall it off. Make the whole city a maximum security penitentiary system. I feel like there’s an 80’s movie that could point us in the right direction.

      • “Make the whole city a maximum security penitentiary system.”

        Is that you, Snake?

        I thought you were dead! 😉

    • that dumb c@nt couldn’t unzip a ziplock bag of you have her directions.. she’s a domestic terrorist

  2. My bet goes on: Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss
    That political machine isn’t concerned with who is driving.

    • I had the same thought: nothing substantial will change in Chicago even if the Mayoral challenger wins.

    • Yep, the challengers all run on a vow to be tough on crime but after getting elected fall to the woke agenda. That said the current mayor is a total inept arrogant entitled joker and hard to believe most anyone else with half a brain and an ounce of morals would not be an improvement.

    • Of course he’s a Democratic. Didn’t the current mayor run on a change and anti-corruption platform? Look how that turned out.

    • I’ve never followed Chicago politics closely, but when I saw in the linked article that this guy worked for Daley, I had similar thoughts. A corrupt liberal vs. a corrupt leftist, ain’t a sliver of daylight between them.

  4. “There are not enough police cars to respond to 911 priority calls. The officers we do have are demoralized and handcuffed. There is no incentive to engage in proactive policing. And the criminals know it, and they’re becoming bolder. There is an utter breakdown of law and order.” — Fran Spielman

    Newsflash:

    That is neither happenstance nor ineptitude–it is intentional.

    What we should be talking about is why that is intentional, who wants it, and what to do with the people who are making it happen.

    • Shhhhh.

      Talking sense isn’t allowed in the US any more. Have a Xanax and forget about it.

      And don’t, for even one second, start talking about how the EU is “trying to fight” the same problem by banning large cash transactions while introducing a digital euro for convenience (the convenience of .gov tracking and outright controlling you).

      • Yeah, I saw that about the EU.

        It will be illegal to conduct any financial transaction over 10K with cash…

        • I know that moving large amounts of cash in the banking system results in an IRS report, I am not aware of any law making it illegal to make an expensive private purchase from an individual.

          If I’m in error, someone please point it out to me…

        • Yep if you withdrawl over $9,999 the bank is required to file a report with the IRS..

          Wire transfers are exempt, so far!!!

        • “Yep if you withdrawl over $9,999 the bank is required to file a report with the IRS..”

          If they suspect you make multiple transactions with the intent of not triggering the “Magic Limit” for reporting, they can bust you for “Structuring”… 🙁

        • “Hasn’t the US had that rule for the past 30+ years?”

          No. I’ve completed several transactions in EU territory for several hundred thousand USD a pop, large portions of which were cash. The EU was really rather easy to deal with in terms of large amounts of cash. The paperwork is minimal (if you’re honest, it’s 0 if you’re not).

          IRL the biggest PITA is the US Treasury/IRS forms to bring the money back to US jurisdiction. But they don’t care about the amount of cash as long as you declare it when it’s >$10K USD.

          The $10K limit on transactions is a misconception, however so is the notion of how things are *flagged*.

          If you transact more than $10K “anti money laundering” actions come up. Banks are required to report such transactions but this doesn’t stop the transaction, merely notes that it occurred. They also do this if it you meet certain rather nebulous requirements that are meant to catch people trying to get around the limit.

          But the same thing is true of international travel with large amounts of cash or gold. You have to declare it exiting or entering the country but they don’t confiscate it. They’ll just note that you’ve done this (and you’ll probably always end up on the extra-special search line with Customs after this, but you can end up with that sorta Customs flag for other reasons too, like being underage and transiting the US with booze in your possession).

          The IRS, DEA and FBI will keep an eye on how you move money around and *make sure* that nothing hinky is going on. If they suspect that you’re engaged in illegal behavior (like buying real estate to launder drug trafficking money) they’ll audit your ass, hard. Mostly that’s not hard to avoid as long as you have a pen with you at all times when travelling.

          That said, the reality is that the $10K limit is a joke. Most major banks and wire services will do this for amounts far, far under $10K, sometimes as low as a few hundred bucks if certain criteria are met. That might be one of ~115 federal agencies requesting “flags” for whatever they mark down as “suspicious in your case”. It might be that their computer system flags “anomalous transactions”, which are actually kinda common if you don’t have a mortgage with the same bank as your account.

          Smaller banks are better about this but can’t do anything if you transfer money in a way that transits someone else’s network, which wire transfers almost certainly will. The small bank might not care about your <$10K cash transactions at their location but they can't control your info when you use wire transfers or deal with another bank that does have *tighter* reporting.

          If you want to find out part of how this works, go withdraw like $50K in cash and then come back a week later and try to deposit it for the purpose of using it as the down payment on a mortgage. When you are informed that you can't do this, ask why.

          The reason is this: that money might be ill gotten and so has to sit, untouched, for 364 days before you can use it towards the down payment. Because you deposited cash it's not traceable as to where you got the money, so it's now *special*.

          So, let's imagine that you then wait a year and syphon off another $150K (after applicable taxes, of course) from your IRA to pay a grand total of $200K on a mortgage. Well, that's fine but you'll get a shitload of paperwork to document where that $150K came from.

          That $150K is basically the way they deal with cash transactions overseas or *in transit*. It's not illegal, so document the fuck out of it and then let it go.

          The $50K is special, because drugs. Or terrorism. Or human trafficking. Whatever.

          The EU is taking that US concept and putting it on steroids. There's NOTHING illegal about buying a house or car in the US entirely in cash. Nothing at all. In fact, it's preferred (unless you're a loan writer). The EU is making this illegal. You can't walk in and buy a Citroen with cash anymore because they want to document it.

          Which, in and of itself is kinda whatever, but the way they want to do it should scare the shit out of you. If it doesn’t, you might be stupid. I’m not saying you ARE, but you should probably get checked.

        • I love how you can explain laws on international business transactions and get modded.

          It’s fan-fuckin-tastic!

  5. Good luck! Whiteys don’t win political office as much as they used to. Plus, the Cheat Machine in Chiraq is legendary.

    • Johnny LeBlanc,

      Friendly suggestion: refer to Chicago as Chicongo rather than Chiraq. It is a far more accurate moniker.

      Disclaimer: I use the moniker Chicongo to call attention to the banana republic behavior of Chicago. I am NOT creating some veiled bigoted “dog whistle”.

      • That’s right azz_hat…Through more gasoline on the fire as if there is not enough already. Don’t even try to excuse it.

      • I am NOT creating some veiled bigoted “dog whistle”.

        It’s cute that you think your intentions have anything to do with it. Shit, son, Debbie’s about ready to go full Antifa on you for your *bigotry*.

        I am, however, curious about the historical analogy. Are you suggesting that the Democratic Party is to Chicago what the Belgian Crown was to central Africa?

        I could actually see that argument working in several ways. Far from perfect but, then, what analogy really is truly perfect?

        • Poor analogy. Belgians were trying to make something out of the timeless cesspool of the Congo.

          The Demtards just are about socialist power. And incompetence.

        • King Leopold was trying to make lots of money from Congo. He did more than halve the population.

        • “Make something” like an extractive slave camp, er, sorry “country”… wait, no it was a “NGO” that was, in all probability, more brutal than anything the Germans ever did when they were running Shark Island?

          As Cross point points out, this was about making a King (Leopold II) rich because he felt that Belgium had lost the “scramble for Africa” in the first several hundred years.

    • You have less than 20 days until the “purge” begins. Thank you to the white democrat leadership in chiraq and the white leaders in the Land of Lincoln, for making this and the new “purge law” all possible.

      • Yep, you’re a racist. Wasn’t sure before but when someone shows who they are believe them. I told you before that Chicago’s problems stem from black and white but you keep pushing the white BS.

        • You will be blaming the black criminals when it’s the white democrats who wrote and passed the “purge law” when they begin their crimes. You will never hold the governor and the white law makers accountable. They will get re-elected.

          President Bush was correct. Do People like you have the “soft bigotry of low expectations”??? That is why the Purge law was written in the first place.

        • “To be clear my response was to Chris”

          Were you implying that Chris is ‘the Black face of White Supremacy’?… 🙂

        • to Geoff “I’m getting too old for this shit” PR

          I really do like Larry Elder.
          big(smile)

          Unfortunately we have come to a point in our country’s history that a certain demographic, in certain regions of the United States, that never really had to consider making such life-changing and life taking decisions.

          They will now have to make a very difficult series of decisions. And face the consequences if that terrible time comes.

        • Yes Chris there are white racists. I know a racist when I hear them. You know the type, Pelosi saying who’s going to pick our lettuce…You also said I can’t handle the truth can you? 80 percent of blacks pull the lever for blacks is that racist?

          “You will be blaming the black criminals when it’s the white democrats who wrote and passed the “purge law” when they begin their crimes. ” So because whitey passed the purge laws (along with black legislators by the way) you are giving cover to blacks that commit crimes? Pritzker is a POS as is Lightfoot I’m not conflating the two. White and black Democrats are the problem and as long as you keep pushing the white side of the problem I will call you what you are a racist. Don’t like it? Maybe it’s you that can’t handle the truth.

        • No Geoff,
          The “black face of white supremacy” as in Larry Elder doesn’t blame blacks for crimes because whitey passed a law he holds them accountable. I’ve been on this site for years although I haven’t until recently started commenting. Chris was one of the ones I had great respect for but this white bashing is BS.

          “You will be blaming the black criminals when it’s the white democrats who wrote and passed the “purge law” when they begin their crimes.”
          Are you freaking kidding me? That is not a serious statement. Personal responsibility Chris, period.

        • the illinois black caucus drew up and pushed for this bill.
          https://www.ilbcf.org/
          plenty varying shades of legislators will place it on bugblatter’s desk.
          varying shades opposing too. not to mention sa’s from 100 of the 102 illinois counties.
          derogatory names for violent cities refer to less developed civilizations.

    • It has never mattered what color the candidate might be. Seriously, many of the most corrupt and subversive assholes in the US congress and Senate are white. Starting with Pelosi, you can work your way down, and find lots of cretins who never should have been elected, let alone re-elected time and again.

  6. There is no breakdown of law and order in Chiraq. This would imply the people who run the city really want law and order. They have simply chosen to not have law and order. They don’t believe they need a police force. Many of the three L’s also think this way.

    So now you will have lots of people who think it’s a good idea “to be much more polite to each other”. The others who think differently will be shot dead on sight by the law abiding.
    “Might does make right”. And “power flows out the end of a gun barrel”.

    I suggest the residence of the city go out and get, as much “power” as they think they need. In case they think they need to use “their power” in the future.

    • kass interviewed prickwrinkle. she said (something to the effect of), now some new neighborhoods can experience the violence inflicted upon other ones for so long.
      can’t find exact quote.

      • Yes “Prickwrinkle” didn’t want to solve the problem just wanted everyone to suffer equally. Equity and stuff for all except the elite.

  9. paul is the only candidate that could possibly nudge anything in an advantageous direction.
    he doesn’t bstand a chance. again, still.
    idiots.

  10. The issue here, IMHO, is that erecting a police state (which I think is what the leadership have wanted all along) does nothing to fix a broken society. But you can bet it will be weaponized against the “low hanging fruit” of the mostly law abiding jammed up on technicalities.

    Chicago has 11,710 cops currently according to their official numbers. Bumping that to 12,410 (+5.9%) probably won’t do much to suppress crime in a city full of people who clearly don’t GAF at this point. You’re on track to have more murders than the number of officers you’re planning to add? Ouch.

    Chicago proper has an official population of 8,901,000. At the higher proposed force level that’s 1 cop : 717 population. 1% just decides they don’t care and the cops are outnumbered 7:1. Numbers don’t get much better in other cities either, mostly they get worse. And, honestly, you don’t want them to get better for the reason I stated above.

    The veneer of civilization has always been thin. Society, in it’s soft luxury, scratched at that surface for decades and in the past few years has managed to get through the outer layer. What we’re finding isn’t something most people like to see, nor what they expected because they’ve never actually done much in life. But it’s hardly shocking to anyone who has traveled, read history or lived in a bad area.

    And so, the ones of means will flee to somewhere else, and like the political locusts they are, create the same problems there.

    • If there is no interest in fixing the broken society, then you could make things better for the law abiding by making more arrests and giving criminals long prison sentences. Except they aren’t doing that either. They’re intentionally breaking society while incentivizing the criminals to continue being criminals.

      Something can be done, but not in Chicago, or Illinois for that matter. (Or Cali, etc.) I know I sound like a broken record, but the solution is to fortify red states and flip purple states. A well run state will help protect you from the authoritarian feds. Flipping purple states would change national politics. You get the idea. There’s no shame in a tactical retreat. People are just spinning their wheels in these dem territories.

      There’s no way to purge the neo-commies. What we can do is isolate them. Let them rule over their utopias while the majority of the country lives in peace. Once we do that, we can change the trajectory of the country. The reason the Left lost their mind over Trump winning was they didn’t want people to see what the alternative looked like. Sure Trump and his admin had major faults, but how was life in 2017-2019 compared to now? 2020 was a mess for obvious reasons.

      • If there is no interest in fixing the broken society, then you could make things better for the law abiding by making more arrests and giving criminals long prison sentences.

        Incorrect.

        If society is broken, as it is, you will not empower the state to make life better for the law abiding because this is impossible. What you will do if you attempt to empower the state in such circumstances is that you will empower the state to make life worse for those law abiding people.

        The incentive structures for enforcement simply run in the wrong direction for empowerment of the state to do anything other than empower tyrants. From petty to grandiose, tyrants of various flavors are who will be empowered and no one else.

        • Think of the 90’s after violent crime peaked in this country. This country was still on a downward trajectory (as it has been my entire life), but they fixed the violent crime problem by making more arrests and giving criminals longer sentences. Now they have a different philosophy about dealing with crime. They incentivize it. Law abiding citizens have more to fear from the government now than they did back then when the government hired more police and gave longer sentences.

          Violent crime can be handled at the local level. Here we are back to strengthening red states and flipping purple states. Well run state and local governments can act as a buffer against the authoritarian federal government.

        • “Now they have a different philosophy about dealing with crime. They incentivize it.”

          Yes, and with obvious public approval in cities. That’s why you can’t rescue this with MOAR cops. MOAR cops that don’t go after the right people is just a police state that further victimizes the innocent.

          At that point you’re Zimbabwe in 1994 under Mugabe, not NYC in 1998 under Giuliani.

          The simple fact is that city-folk appear to like this. They vote for it. Look at someone like Dave Portnoy, who’s supposed to be “center left”. He wants to shoot Alex Stein over a silly stunt but votes for and supports Adams, just like he basically did with DeBlasio.

          If the public isn’t going to hold the police and the city accountable then more cops is just going to be a larger force of jackboots and nothing else. It’s about culture, not law.

        • Some people appear to be centrists now because they aren’t woke commies. They’re still liberal dems. They won’t vote for an alternative until it gets really bad for them personally. The crime level now has increased suddenly, but it’s still much lower than it was in the 90’s.

          The major urban centers are lost causes for now. Let them have it. We can pick our battles and win. More people will eventually notice the alternative. Check out where people are leaving, and where they’re moving to.

        • “We can pick our battles and win.”

          But will you? In what way? What does “winning” look like and who’s going to take ownership of making sure that this happens? Are you willing to continue simply managing the systems the Left builds for you? Oiling your own chains to keep them shiny? Is that winning?

          If one looks at the GOP a very good argument can be made that all of the serious thinkers, by which I mean more generally “serious people” are not in leadership at all. Fox might interview him a lot but the GOP itself entirely ignores Newt Gingrich. Dude’s OP as fuck about a lot of things. I don’t agree with him about everything but homie knows how to win and how to remake a party that’s stagnant. Yet no one listens within the GOP and there isn’t a big push within the grassroots to say “Hey, this Newt guy’s on to some things and maybe we should listen to him”.

          Instead, the people who are listening to him are disaffected former liberals.

          As much as GOPers don’t want to hear this, they need to start talking to and getting some ideas from outside groups because the GOP, as it stands now, is a dead letter party of morally bankrupt geriatric midwits. It couldn’t rally people to stop drinking spoiled milk, nevermind actually fight the Left.

          And a big part of that is the fault of the grassroots. They don’t tend to hold the party’s feet to the fire and they steadfastly refuse to seriously study their enemy. They’ll scream about “transitioning children” now but that’s been going on for nearly 20 years and they just noticed it.

          And so they appear reactionary and are painted as homophobes very easily. That’s exactly what’s going on with Balenciaga which has been doing pedo advertising campaigns for a lot longer than most people realize.

          This is how the Left moves the Overton Window over time and gets what they want.

          “What I observe with the Left, and the Left does this very well, is that they will do polling on a particular issue and find that there is very little support for it. So, then they go out and they advocate and they get their fellow travelers and they write columns and then they poll again.

          And now, the support is a little bit higher and they keep on inching up the level of support until they’ve got 50% plus one saying “yes” and then they act on it whereas Conservatives do the opposite. We say, “Oh, we’ve got this idea, let’s go out and poll on it. Ooo, people don’t like it, well let’s put that back on the shelf”.

          That is not what our job is if we want to win the ideas war.”

        • ” They’re still liberal dems.”

          Which is my point about how MOAR cops, by itself, isn’t a solution. It’s also why these people “fleeing” to “red states” isn’t the good thing the right-leaning media portrays it to be.

          Reversion to mean is a thing. Where does a liberal dem revert to? Liberal Dem. Duh.

        • “But will you? In what way?”

          I’m not sure. I’m still trying to figure that out. I live in the reddest of red (historically) districts within a super red state. My parents have always been involved in politics, as in running for office, working on campaigns for others, etc. They’re big dems, btw. My dad held two different offices running as an independent. I never had the interest. I’ve always thought partisan politics was dumb. I’m more interested now.

          I’m mostly interested in remaking the GOP. I’m sure I have a built in bias against the GOP because of how I was raised, but they never really did anything to gain my respect. They finally have a chance to bring all kinds of people into the party, mostly due to Trump offering a new vision in 2016. People also want to counter the Left after they came out of the closet as ruthless authoritarians ready to burn the country to the ground to get what they want. If I volunteer my time, it’s going to be geared toward removing the establishment. We’re in this mess because people got caught up in just voting for the D or R on the ticket. The real action, especially in a one-sided district, is in the primaries.

          McConnell gave an interview recently. He said something like we weren’t able to choose a candidate in the primaries because the former president’s endorsement proved to be decisive. Wait a second! Who was choosing a candidate in the primary? Yes, they even rig the primaries. This goes on in red states as much as it does in blue states. The state legislature will even change the rules in order to keep certain people out of the primaries. John McCain’s famous push for campain finance reform was to make it more difficult for new people to challenge the establishment. The establishment has to go for many reasons. That’s my focus. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way.

          “Instead, the people who are listening to him are disaffected former liberals.”

          Believe it or not, anyone trying to put a political label on me prior to 2015ish would probably describe me as a liberal.

        • “Believe it or not, anyone trying to put a political label on me prior to 2015ish would probably describe me as a liberal.”

          Don’t feel bad about the label. People have called me crazy since I was in high school.

    • “And so, the ones of means will flee to somewhere else, and like the political locusts they are, create the same problems there.”

      Conventional logic would imply that, but something strange happened over the past few years here in Florida – Republican voter registration increased by 500K, and they voted that way.

      It’s suspected it’s a combination of conservatives tired of the crap in Leftist Scum ™ run states like NY and fleeing, and the Spanish-speaking folks waking up to what the Left really wants, and they want no part of it if they can help it.

      Florida is becoming redder, and the trend is accelerating, much to our surprise… 🙂

      • No offense, but I don’t really care about an ability hold Florida if it costs Texas, Idaho, Wyoming, Arizona etc in the US Senate.

        AZ is a pretty decent case study. They went R in every POTUS election from 1976 to 2016 with the exception of 1996.

        But when you look at vote totals over the years, particularly since 2000, you can see what retirees and expats from California have done, consistently growing the D vote and cutting back the R vote (by percentage).

        I don’t even like the R’s but I can see the danger of a one-party system, which we currently are quite close to having if the GOP can’t remove its head from its ass, particularly in the form of ground game.

        But then I have to ask if it even matters, since the GOP for my entire lifetime is just DNC Lite.

        Danielle Smith might be Canadian but she diagnoses this problem quite well:

        “What also doesn’t make much sense, I don’t think, is that this is what Conservatives do. We spend a lot of time creating an excellent business environment to attract investment and and grow the amount
        of revenue, which is fantastic. That’s one of the things that I think people can reliably count on Conservatives
        to do.

        But then what we do is we take that big pot of money and we hand it to the central planners and say “Go deliver stuff!” [We] hire the exact same people that the socialists hire and somehow we just think “Oh, we’ll hire better central planners” without realizing that central planning is the fundamental flaw in how we’re delivering our programs.

        And Conservatives fall victim to this all the time, is that we think “Oh, well if we just eliminate that layer of government and centralize we’ll eliminate administration and we’ll end up delivering better services. And it never, ever happens because the more you centralize the more you’re creating layers of managers who are disconnected from delivering those services. So, you end up with a very costly system that gets worse and worse results.”

        • “No offense, but I don’t really care about an ability hold Florida if it costs Texas, Idaho, Wyoming, Arizona etc in the US Senate.”

          None taken.

          The point I failed to communicate clearly was that some of what Florida has done to swing that hard to the right might be applicable to the ‘Mountain West’, especially the states that have large Spanish-speaking populations. Those folks have recent family memories of what ‘Shining Path’ and other similar political organizations did to their political opponents, back in their home countries… 🙁

        • This presumes that Hispanics tend to think alike. They don’t, I assure you. I’ve lived in South and Central America.

          For all the lip service you’ll find in, say Costa Rica, for freeing Cuba you will find that it is actually nothing more than lip service. Sure, they’ll mix some rum and cola and call it a Cuba Libre but they won’t actually lift a finger to try to free Cuba and if you talk about it they’ll look at you like you might be some sort of dangerous lunatic.

          Mostly, outside Cubans, Latin Americans like Big Government because it’s all they’ve ever known. Outside Costa Rica you don’t find much appreciation for private property rights, for example. The Venezuelan nationalization of their oil industry, and the subsequent disaster doesn’t compute for Americans but it does for most Argentinians, Peruvians or Nicaraguans.

          These people also have a very different interpretation of “rule of law” than most Americans do, which I will explain with a little story.

          If you ask a Tico about why, exactly, CR is such a great place compared to Panama or Nicaragua (stroke the locals ego!) they will invariably tell you the following tale, alluding to the fact that CR is a place where “rule of law” matters and therefore property and tourism are secure. They’re right but for the wrong reason, as the story illustrates.
          ===
          Back in the late 1980’s CR had a lot of trouble with drug trafficking (they still do but it’s less out in the open now thanks to the Policia Nacional). This led to a spate of kidnappings of Euros and Americans that ran into the early 1990’s. I think a few Canadians too but no one cares about them (sorry, Rider). The policy of CR was that they would cover the ransom cost in full, provided hostages were not harmed, which they mostly never were because of this policy.

          The Policia Nacional got in cahoots with the CIA and the DEA in the US and got a bunch of tech and weapons transferred to them, specifically they got some, for the 1990’s, some nice, small GPS transponders.

          So, PN waits until there’s a kidnapping of a few Euros and Americans with a BIG ransom demand and dropped transponders into bags of cash. Then they watched where those bags went. They then dispatched several helicopters with one of their high-end strike teams to a jungle village where these things stopped and they massed the village. They killed everyone there.

          Turns out, the village itself was basically hostage to a bunch of narcos. Eh, well, the village got burned to the ground and the jungle took back over so… that’s that. Smells like victory (or something).

          Ticos will brag about this story and tell you about the “rule of law”. The reality is this was a vicious paramilitary operation that had a stupid amount of “collateral damage” that no one gives a fuck about because narcos. That’s not rule of law, that’s a war of attrition where killing of the innocent matters about as much as it does in Syria today. It’s the equivalent of most Americans cheering about Waco. Not just being ambivalent, but telling the story like it’s a hero myth.

          And they will continue to tolerate this. While I was living there a narco cigarette boat got chased by US Coastie helicopters up the West Coast, ran aground up in Mal Pais, killing a surfer, and the guys on board bailed out and had a running gun fight that shot up an entire small town. They damn near shot down a US Coast Guard chopper and the PN had to roll in an APC to root these guys out. In a town I was running a dive group in a week before. A bunch of people died. But, from the Tico perspective, it was worth it because the Narcos either died or were captured.

          Imagine, if you will, that a town like…. Winterset, Iowa has half a dozen drug dealers in it and the US sends in the DEA backed by a company of US Army, locks the place down like Boston after the Marathon Bombing and then proceeds to have a running day-long gun fight with these six dudes that destroys a shitload of the town, costs millions of dollars, abrogates the civil rights of everyone in the town and gets a bunch of innocent people schwacked.

          Would you celebrate that use of force for half a dozen drug dealers?

          ===

          Such people do not understand the danger of government power because it has not been turned against them, yet. Cubans have a very different view of government power. You’re not going to win Central and South Americans over, the Cubans might by explaining how Cuba actually functioned/functions and doing it within a context that Hispanics understand, but you’re not going to. Every one of these countries is slightly different but look at Mexicans, even the Conservative (big C) Mexicans are comfortable with a level of corruption you wouldn’t be willing to tolerate at all.

          You find the same tendency with Columbians. They like big government too because they’ve grown up with it suppressing FARC. They’re mostly willing to overlook corruption and abuse because FARC.

          The other thing, which is rather telling, about Hispanic views as compared to American Conservatives is that most “conservative” Hispanics don’t have a huge, huge problem with prostitution. In fact, the main complaint in CR about Columbians, Nicas and Panamanian woman is that they take the prostitution jobs that should rightfully go to the Ticas. And those are good paying jobs, dammit!

          I mean, just think about Carnaval in Rio and tell me that most GOPers would support that kind of public debauchery. LOL, no, Conservatives can barely hack Mardi Gras and that’s tame by comparison in my personal experience.

          A huge number of Hispanics might be Catholic enough to not like abortion, but they’re far more comfortable with open, public displays of sexuality than most Americans will ever be. And you’re never going to get people who recognize Santa Muerte to be on the same page as a Southern Baptist.

        • Quite a few are bailing on California. The ratio of those leaving to those staying is accelerating…

        • I’d prefer to convince most Conservatives nationwide of the, quite literally obvious, truth that they already live in a fascistic state.

          Anyone who denies that statement’s validity is either not paying attention or is a liar.

          It’s also the root of why I’m not so hot about reliance on courts, particularly the SCOTUS, to keep things from getting much, much worse.

  12. Hmmmmm……who will be counting the votes?

    Standing ovation for the challenger, but Chicago is doomed, Illinois is doomed, unless the ruling elites who control the electoral process, decide they want real change.

    Queue the hysterical laughter.

  13. You good law abiding armed people in Chicago, think of it this way: Every time you shoot a violent criminal trying to harm you or someone else you are doing your part to lower the murder and crime rate in Chicago.

    As the late Sir Sean Connery said so well in the movie ‘The Untouchables’ (in part): “He pulls a knife you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue! That’s the Chicago way!”

    The bad guys right now have the advantage in Chicago thanks to democrat Governor JB ‘one slice of bacon away from a fatal heart attack’ Pritzker and democrat Mayor Lori ‘I’m incompetent and mentally deranged’ Lightfoot and a host of democrat liberal agendas designed to not prosecute crime but disarm you to leave you defenseless.

    I know you’ve probably heard ‘be prepared’. What are you prepared to do?

    …and for what was a great movie since people like video clips sometimes…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjOPLTTjnwc

    • The good people in Chiraq. Are going to have to embrace the phrase “I will not comply”. And then go get the Arms they need to protect themselves. And if the day comes they need to use their 2A civil rights??? They will have no moral or ethical obligations to report to or help the police. Who will arrest them as soon as they use armed self defense.

      Most of the over 8 million residence are not moving out to a safer place. So act accordingly.

  14. Yep, the challengers all run on a vow to be tough on crime but after getting elected fall to the woke agenda. That said the current mayor is a total inept arrogant entitled joker and hard to believe most anyone else with half a brain and an ounce of morals would not be an improvement.

  15. Good f’n luck fumigating Chicago. Or any other Dem run big city. There ain’t enough Raid in the world to do it. I say we take off and nuke them all from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

    • round up all the young black males who aren’t either students in good standing or gainfully employed when they run afoul of the criminal justice system…ship them to CCC style camps far away…where they will have to complete their high school diploma and gain a job skill before they can they released….seemingly harsh but it works out for everyone in the end….

  17. “Has a Plan”? does this “plan” involve North Korean/chicom nuc weapons? It not, then nothing will change.

  18. And what did he not say? Not a word about restrictive gun laws that put everyday citizens at risk. Unless the good people of Chicago armed everything he does with the police is built on sand or just an enhanced more efficient method of control.

  20. Start with something a little stiffer than a four year term for a home invasion double murder?
    That would have prevented three deaths this week alone.

  23. The only way to have a little slow down in crime in “shitcongo” ….is a really cold freezing blowing deep snow blizzard lasting a few weeks totally shutting down everything! Gang-bangers don’t like being out in the cold elements!

  24. I read the article. Nowhere does Vallas even talk about making it easier to get a legal gun in chiraq. And No new cops, that he wants to hirer, they don’t want to work in that combat zone. The “administrative state” there does not support cops. And it doesn’t support the law abidng getting guns either.

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