The New McCarthyism, Deep-Dish Chicago Style
Police officers are accustomed to a certain amount of foolishness in their upper ranks. It is the foolishness that often accompanies politics, and every cop knows that if he aspires to achieve high rank in his department, he must be prepared to ladle it out with the casual alacrity of a man spreading fertilizer on his prized front lawn. The fertilizer motif may seem especially apt given what follows.
The new superintendent of the Chicago Police Department is Garry McCarthy, who, in a 22-year career with the NYPD, rose to the rank of deputy commissioner before moving across the Hudson River in 2006 to head the police department in Newark. One does not attain these positions without a highly refined ability to speak the language of big-city politics, and indeed Chicago magazine tells us that McCarthy, while rising through the ranks in New York, studied at the feet of William Bratton, the unrivaled master at straddling the worlds of law enforcement and politics, who served as the top cop in Boston, New York, and Los Angeles.
Bratton, as he hopped from job to job, was something of a political chameleon, coming off as a tough-talking, no-nonsense bantamweight bruiser while serving under Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani in New York, then morphing into a standard-issue liberal under Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. He even went so far as to endorse Barrack Obama for president in 2008, thus becoming one of the few cops in America willing both to vote for Obama and publicly admit doing so.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, formerly President Obama’s head fixer, selected McCarthy for the superintendent’s post, revealing a faith in him to toe the Democrat Party line as it is practiced, in its purest form, in the city of Chicago. And indeed, in an appearance at Saint Sabina Church earlier this month, McCarthy did not disappoint. For pure political pandering, for a display of the most barefaced, shameless groveling, McCarthy may have set the bar so high that not even someone as adept at the craft as William Bratton would dare try to surpass it.
McCarthy took the microphone from Saint Sabina’s pastor, Father Michael Pfleger, and went on a diatribe about guns and the government’s failure to keep them out of the hands of those who use them with such alarming frequency and effect in Chicago and elsewhere.
“You know,” McCarthy said, “I’m going to take a risk here, and I’m going to give you something. And this is definitely the right audience.”
This was the cue that varsity-level pandering was about to take place. And indeed it was the right audience. Recall that Father Michael Pfleger is a proud friend and vigorous defender of Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan, so it’s safe to say the congregation is inured to outrages from the pulpit.
“This is sensitive,” McCarthy said, “because everybody’s afraid of race. Have you noticed that? Everybody’s afraid of race. I’m not afraid of race.”
Yes! Afraid! But not you! Teach us, Mr. McCarthy, so that we too may lose our fear!
“Let’s see if we can make the connection here,” he continued. “Slavery, segregation, black codes, Jim Crow, what do they all have in common? Anybody getting scared?
Scared? Us? Yes, yes, but exquisitely so!
“Government sponsored racism.”
Applause, applause! Yes, yes, yes! We mustn’t blame the young men who pull the triggers on all those guns! They’re victims too! Victims of a government indifferent to — no, responsible for! — our suffering.
“I told you I wasn’t afraid.”
No! And soon, with your help, we won’t be either!
“Now I want you to connect one more dot on that chain of the African American history in this country and tell me if I’m crazy.”
Not crazy! Perfectly reasonable!
“Federal gun laws that facilitate the flow of illegal firearms into our urban centers across this country that are killing our black and brown children.”
More and more applause. Not crazy! Not the least bit!
“The NRA does not like me, and I’m okay with that.”
Yes! We’re okay with it too! NRA bad!
“We’ve got to get the gun debate back to center. And it’s got to come with the recognition of who’s paying the price for the gun manufacturers being rich and living in gated communities.”
Rich! Gated communities!
And then came the heartfelt personal anecdote to drive it home. McCarthy spoke of leaving a Christmas party in Newark on December 23 when there were back-to-back shootings with a total of seven victims, two of whom died. He went to both crime scenes.
“I was walking through shell casings, bullets, spent bullets in the street. They were getting stuck in my shoes and I said, you know what? Something’s wrong.”
Wrong! Wrong!
“And I went from one scene to the next, and by the time I got home, probably ten-thirty, eleven o’clock that night, I snapped on the TV to relax for a few minutes, and what was on TV? Sarah Palin’s Alaska.”
Sarah Palin! Rich! Gated! Hisssssss!
“And she was caribou hunting and talking about the right to bear arms. Why wasn’t she at the crime scene with me?”
Yes! Why not? Hissssss!
Well, where does one start with all of that? First of all, why do liberals, no matter what the topic or setting may be, feel compelled to insert into their remarks some gratuitous slap at Sarah Palin? What on earth would she be doing at a crime scene in Newark two days before Christmas, or any other day for that matter? And why was McCarthy jollying it up at a Christmas party while the city’s gutters were running with blood? Getting technical for a moment, the detectives at those crime scenes would ask why McCarthy was destroying evidence by walking over and kicking around all those shell casings, something any cop knows not to do if he is paying attention and not concentrating on his next promotion.
But perhaps I’m nitpicking. Garry McCarthy knows that if his police department is going to be effective in combating crime in Chicago, his officers are going to come into violent confrontation with the people who are responsible for it, the great majority of whom are young black males. In his appearance at Saint Sabina’s, McCarthy was merely buying himself some cheap grace to be redeemed when one of those confrontations goes awry and makes the front page of the Chicago Tribune.
For more insight on McCarthy, I turned to an old friend, a captain on the NYPD who, for reasons that will soon be obvious, wishes to go unnamed here. His comments:
It should be noted how counterfeit and disingenuous McCarthy is. This is a man who has spent his entire professional life in an extremely aggressive, no-holds-barred crusade to put as many black men as possible in prison. He has vigorously advocated the wholesale arrests of black men for the smallest of infractions or violations with not a care as to how such actions could hamstring or effect their futures. He has publicly castigated (and humiliated in some cases) other police executives when they failed to pursue this crusade with the same zeal that he had.
This man is one of the architects of the “Stop, Question and Frisk” policy that the ACLU, the New York attorney general, newspapers, and civil rights activists have condemned as racist. For him to now climb up on stage and tell a black audience that he cares about them and that the problems in their neighborhoods are the fault of “gun laws” and some mystical governmental action is bizarre.
Garry knows what the real problem is but he is shamelessly prostituting himself in an effort to get a high approval rating and establish his liberal bona fides.
Sometimes a little pandering is necessary, but cops expect their bosses to be at least a little bit ashamed when they do it. In his song-and-dance number at Saint Sabina’s, McCarthy was far from ashamed. He should be a perfect fit for Chicago.
“Let’s see if we can make the connection here: slavery, segregation, black codes, Jim Crow, what do they all have in common? Anybody getting scared?”
And if you include the KKK, that would be the Democratic Party.
Gee Sheriff, I hope you’re there at the scene of my next shooting spree! With all the tainted evidence, I’ll be sure to walk scott-free to kill again!
It’s amazing we still get decent results from our police officers given that they have leaders like this. Amazing.
Evidently, you don’t live in Chicago!
I have another take on this – McCarthy knows he can’t do anything about crime in Chicago because it’s citizens have been disarmed, and only the bad guys have guns. Also, he knows that most of the bad guys in this instance are not white. So, what does he do to cover himself and try and get some job security: he blames guns and government racism. So the bad guys are excused of the crimes they are committing because it was government racism that “drove” them to commit the crimes, and of course, he blames guns because that’s the easiest thing to do given that the disarmed population actually fears guns.
BTW If it’s government racism, why not simply eliminate as much of the government as possible to eliminate the racism?
Jack, I have retired from police work (Thank God) and everything you say about those that seek the upward movement sell thier souls and everything else to get there.
He seems to have failed to mention the first gun control laws were put in place to keep guns out of the hands of freed slaves. Or that the Sullivan Act in NYC was enacted with a wave of anti-immigrant rhetoric and permitted the police to keep the guns out of the hands of those they considered the criminal element.
In any case, given what the NYC police chief you quote said, all we can say is at least ‘Bull’ Conner was above board in his racism unlike these senior police officials today.
“Let’s see if we can make the connection here: slavery, segregation, black codes, Jim Crow, what do they all have in common? Anybody getting scared?”
And the correct answer is, The Democratic party, am I getting scared, no I own fire arms.
Sullivan was interested in protecting _himself_ from the ‘Criminal Element’;
I suspect Superintendent McCarthy of having the same motive, justifiably.
Which criminal element? The street thugs or his bosses?
Of the two, he’s in more danger from the latter.
Meanwhile in Tucson…
Are you by chance referring to the Left-wing lunatic shooter of Congresswoman Gifford? Of course government racism drove him to it! Wasn’t African American? Oops!
No, the sheriff. When law enforcement feels this entitled to be this radical and this public about it, we gots a problem, Houston.
I think Chicago is the best example of Obama’s economic and social policies. They have poured millions of dollars of taxpayer’s money into social programs, removed lawful guns, have nothing but social policies. And now Obama and the dems want to bring all this to all of the US, because it works so well. Why doesn’t media ask Obama why all these social programs (with him deeply involved) didn’t fix Chicago? Isn’t leftist position that only with the “right” leader, socialism will work well? What a joke.
Close. The “right leader” and lots of other peoples money.
Thank you. I live in Cook County just outside of Chicago and I’ve been saying this exact same thing. Obama couldn’t help his community or this state with his policies when he was a local politician. He couldn’t help the the country with his policies when he was a Senator. He’s a destructive Marxist with no experience of helping anybody in any real constructive way. The democratic party is destroying this state and there’s very little anyone can do, especially with the most powerful politician in the state, Micheal Madigan, is doling out enough campaign money to keep himself, and his idiot daughter, on the state payroll.
Off topic: Cancer Surges In Body Scanner Operators; TSA Launches Cover-Up
FOIA documents reveal how “large number of workers have been falling victim to cancer, strokes and heart disease”
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet. com
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Fearful of provoking further public resistance to naked airport body scanners, the TSA has been caught covering up a surge in cases of TSA workers developing cancer as a result of their close proximity to radiation-firing devices, perhaps the most shocking revelation to emerge from the latest FOIA documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
After Union representatives in Boston discovered a “cancer cluster” amongst TSA workers linked with radiation from the body scanners, the TSA sought to downplay the matter and refused to issue employees with dosimeters to measure levels of exposure.
The documents indicate how, “A large number of workers have been falling victim to cancer, strokes and heart disease.”
“The Department, rather than acting on it, or explaining its position seems to have just dismissed. I don’t think that’s the way most other agencies would have acted in a similar situation if they were confronted with that question,”
EPIC’s Marc Rotenberg said.
In an email sent to Heather Callahan (PDF), deputy federal security director at Boston Logan International Airport, union representatives express their concern about “TSA Boston’s growing number of TSOs working here that have thus far been diagnosed with cancer.”
Of course, if TSA workers who are merely standing near the scanners are already developing cancer, frequent flyers are also putting themselves in harm’s way by standing directly inside the radiation-firing machines.
As we reported yesterday, newly released internal government documents, obtained via the Freedom Of Information Act by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, reveal that the TSA, and specifically the head of the Department of Homeland Security, “publicly mischaracterized” the findings of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in stating that NIST had positively confirmed the safety of full body scanners in tests.
In erroneously citing both NIST and the Johns Hopkins school of medicine to claim that the body scanners are safe, the TSA has also deliberately misled the public on the dangers posed by the devices.
Documents obtained by EPIC show that, far from affirming their safety, NIST warned that airport screeners should avoid standing next to full body scanners in order to keep exposure to harmful radiation “as low as reasonably achievable.”
Further documents illustrate how a Johns Hopkins study actually revealed that radiation zones around body scanners could exceed the “General Public Dose Limit,” contradicting repeated claims by the TSA that Johns Hopkins had validated the safety of the devices.
At the time we pointed out that Dr Michael Love, who runs an X-ray lab at the department of biophysics and biophysical chemistry at the Johns Hopkins school of medicine had publicly stated two days previously that “statistically someone is going to get skin cancer from these X-rays”.
Ever heard of Blogger?
“Let’s see if we can make the connection here,”
“McCarthy took the microphone from Saint Sabina’s pastor, Father Michael Pfleger”
“cheap grace”
I made the connection! What do I win?
Of course, we all remember where we’ve heard that name before. Pflegler is the self-hating white male who guest sermons at TUCC.
IOW, this chief cop is speaking at one of the most radical hotbeds of communism in Chicago.
My sentiments with commenter ‘Another Bob’ – Michael Pfleger is a disgrace to the cloth in every regard. I’ll NEVER refer to that dude as ‘Father’, the same goes for the so-called, ‘Reverend’s’ Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Wright etc.,
Allow me to ‘make the connection’.
When 3 out of 4 Black children in the U.S. are born to a single, often times low educated woman who live on the public dole, flash mobs, gang members, MORE ‘reparation’ demands, rampant STD’s/HIV cases, low/no public school attendance and grades etc.,
‘Preach on’ you dolt, McCarthy. For ‘Saint Sabina’s’ congregation and other useful idiot/handout-minded folks ala present-day Grecian types are the ONLY audience drinking your counterproductive, excuse-making swill.
IN the inner city of large metros it has reached 98% of births to single unwed mothers (My record so far is six kids by a 20 year old with 5 different fathers, she started at 13, cute as a button). As bail bondsmen (surety agent) and bounty hunters we are in these homes and at the jails and see these ‘kids’ 24/7. To be fair we see the same culture among the poorly educated drop out, no job skills, single parent, white families. It is a sad affair. Frankly I am clueless how you fix this. We’ve thrown, people, money, laws at the poor for 40 years and it is not a bit better. Poverty has meandered between 10 and 13% for all that time. In my view it is entrenched. Not saying we should give up, but we’ve done plenty to destroy these lower socio-economic families by putting and keeping them on the dole.
Yes the system is gamed all the time by the poor. It is indeed a high art form. Food Stamp Cards, SSD, subsidized housing. Sell the Food Cards for cash, find things that belong to other people and take them, sell some stuff on the street and you got yoursel a life, shitty as it is.
We don’t operate in Illinois because our businesses are illegal in Illinois (one of three states), both bail surety companies and bounty hunters. If we go into Chicago (and we have) and snag a murderer or drug dealer, cuff him/her and get caught by Illinios law enforcement on the way back to Michigan, they throw the murderer in jail, but they also throw us in jail for kidnapping. Yes we are very careful and try to work with the police. We know how to find the thug, they don’t, but they are usually helpful which we appreciate (I am not knocking law enforcement, you could not give me their job, I have utmost respect for them, but yes there are some bad eggs, just like everywhere else in society).
Bonds are posted by family/friends/other gang members to the courts. The defendant then gets out of jail and then heads for the inner city if black or out of state if white, never to be seen again, because the police have no meaningful way to hunt all these thugs down so they mostly just let them run unless they get lucky and find someone in the middle of a new crime or one of their Tac Teams gets a tip (like from us). Meanwhile the county makes good money from the bonds, the Police don’t look as racist, and everybody is happy. It’s a grand game.
Because of this Chicago is full of some pretty nasty characters walking the streets, mostly fearless and often armed.
If Gary is out to kick ass and take names, he sure has landed in a wonderland of asses to kick and the corruption from Rahm on down should make his job a bit easier, fun, and he will look very good.
Like your reference to being a police officer, I too don’t envy your position.
I too know a great deal of ‘white trailer trash’ and like minded fringe of society-types of all colors, it’s disheartening for me and many of my Black friends to see the breakdown/welcome collapse of the Black family construct.
As you’ve also mentioned, throwing money at the problem and looking the other way when bribes, theft and other forms of hustling occur hasn’t helped matters either.
What I’m truly tired of reading/seeing is our government pinheads blaming the ‘rich’ (whereas Obama recently charged $38,500 a plate campaign ‘dinners’ last week and today uses nonsensical class warfare fiction of the ‘rich’ – a sshole), the middle classes who know how to save, the law abiding, those who work their a sses off in the private industry, self-sufficient types are asked to give more and more to the majority who, let’s be honest, have NO inclination to improve their situation.
The elitist types on the Hill have no f ucking idea what America is, was and SHOULD HAVE continued to be.
The remark from the unnamed NYPD captain actually encourages me a little. If McCarthy can lock up bad guys while convincing their liberal protectors that he’s the bad guys’ savior, that’s pretty good. It’s damn slick.
Right. As long as he plans to ruthlessly pursue criminals, if he needs to blow a little “community relations smoke” as cover, I think I’m o.k. with it. Although, have to admit the tone of his remarks was really cringe-inducing.
Let’s not forget this:
http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/06/14/lapd-dep-chief-downing-we-should-not-demonize-the-muslim-brotherhood/
The dissidents had invented a perfect classification for this kind of human being on the way of adapting himself to the absolute lack of Freedom and dignity:
HOMO SOVIETICUS.
Any idiot who contaminates a crime scene by walking through the bullet casings should be fired on the spot. Any idiot who permits him to do that should be fired along with him.
Don’t you just wonder if those who did these shootings had attended gun safety classes and gotten concealed carry permits? By the way, it is those same liberals who put the black families and their children in the place they are today: without hope, but certain to vote for those same stinkin’ thinkin’ liberals.
Many moons ago I lived and worked in Chicago for 4 years. I gave up trying to live and prosper in Chicago and left. The level of corruption is beyond comprehension to anyone who has not lived there. I’m sure many members of CPD are trying to do their job in a responsible manner; but as Dunphy notes members of the upper echelon are politicians more than they are police officers and thus they pander, pander, pander.
Interesting timing for this topic (Chicago’s corruption) to pop up, with the conviction of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and the death of the wife of another IMPRISONED former Illinois Governor George Ryan this week. In fact. FOUR of the last SIX Illinois governors have been convicted and gone to prison!
Twenty percent of Chicago’s City Council have also been convicted of corruption since 1972 (31 and counting). In fact, the Chicago City Council CANNOT EVEN BE INVESTIGATED by the Chicago Police, The Cook County Sheriff, the Illinois State Police or the City of Chicago’s Inspector General! This is why the Chicago office of the USDOJ is the largest single office in the country, as they are the ONLY ones with the authority to investigate and prosecute the Chicago Aldermen.
There are MANY reasons that this political climate exists here. Jim Nowlan, a former state legislator and expert on state politics says that “…Illinois voters view government as something to work around, and they tolerate a certain degree of illegal activity as necessary to get things done”. In Illinois, more than 1,500 public officials have been convicted on corruption charges since 1970.
Twenty-two years of corruption from the Daley Crime Family didn’t help either. His reign (and I use this term purposely as he considered himself King of Chicago) is the single most convincing monument for TERM LIMITS I could ever conceive of. Daley and his pals managed to corrupt every aspect of local, county and state government that you can imagine. He helped put Obama in the White House and he has a brother as his Chief of Staff. Think there’s any chance that King Daley will be investigated by the Feds? Me neither!
Time to tax the Church out of existence. No worship there, just whoreship.
Uh, Jeremiah “G.D. America” Wright lives down the street from me in a (wait for it…) gated community. One that is inhabited by “rich people”. And the kicker? The town is pretty much 100% white.
But perhaps I’m nitpicking. Garry McCarthy knows that if his police department is going to be effective in combating crime in Chicago, his officers are going to come into violent confrontation with the people who are responsible for it, the great majority of whom are young black males.
And just who has transformed and nurtured the black inner city ghettos into their current form, by which they are essentially the Modern Plantations directed toward creating an apparently “critical habitat” for a significant segment of the “inferior but still human” black populace, and even perhaps a visionary Model for all future American Society?
Why, it’s almost as if the KKK was in charge of these ghettos, oops, the DemoKKKrats, that is, the Party of Slavery and of Racism to this very day! Hey, but at least they’ve upgraded the status of blacks now to “Moose”.
So it truly is “Government sponsered racism”, indeed, and perhaps “Hope and Changingly” even coming next to the whole Nation as reified by Obama’s Communist Master-Slave Utopia!
A republican president issued the Emancipation Proclamation and initiated the War Between the States. Later, a democrat president integrated the Armed Forces. With a negro in the White House, charges of racism contra blacks are difficult to sustain. Despite Obamas’ absolute failures in each and every area of government, his approval is at 46%! Fortysix percent of americans believe he is doing a good job. In 2012, add to that number the votes he will receive from folks who vote multiple times, from non-existent votes added to the count, from the dead, imprisoned, and the ficticious, and he may win. His base certainly includes the mentally ill and the retarded, ignorant and welfareites.
He is not opposed by racists; but by those who see him as a pathetic buffoon; a megalomaniac better suited to bussing tables.
McCarthy, just remember, that when you straddle the fence very often one finds one’s nuts getting smashed. Pawnus Maximus. These jackholes have NO idea how many guns the bangers REALLY have. I have seen them first hand. A few years back, a guy I met 20 minutes earlier proudly showed me his TEC-9, and told me he had “test fired” it in the alley the night before…. There is a LOT of gun violence/murder in Chicago, but only a “small” percentage is “random”. Until the Pols, and their paid for judges, stop paying lip service to the justice system and start kicking some SERIOUS azz, and stop coddling the scum, the situation will be status quo. (and as long as everyone gets “paid” that ain’t gonna happen…). The Dem Machine and it’s sheeples are eternally self propagating.
This is the same kind of amoral political whore that went along to get along in Nazi Germany,collaborating in oppression and slaughter to advance his career.This slimeball is the perfect aspirant for a position helping to run a future police state.He is a traitor to freedom, the constitution ,and common decency , and is a living argument for the second amendment.
He spouts the gun manufacturers live in gated communities. Well so does Obama’s old pastor Rev. Wright. Why is that? Is he too afraid of the militant black youth?
What apparently few are aware of is that the first gun control laws were instituted to keep those with a preponderance of melanin from acquiring or possessing firearms. The courts even declared that when those with insufficient melanin were arrested under the statutes the laws were not meant to be applied to them. I recommend for any who would like to further their education on the issue: Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black & White.
http://shop.wallbuilders.com/index/page/search?FullText=black+and+white&x=0&y=0
The Democrat Party (not all Democrats mind you) is racist. But no matter your race, as long as they can control you, they will.
Jack strikes again! Well done. If only we could all learn to “Do what is right, and let the chipd fall where they may.” Backside bussing bozos like the protagonist of this story are despicable; but do have one redeeming facet: they act as an appetite suppressant for dieters.
actually, what you prefaced his remarks to the church group with (how he’s really a tough, no-tolerance type with unruly thugs), I found that to be encouraging; it made his later remarks seem like mere agitprop, which as you noted, is at times necessary in dealing with the unavoidable political elements of the job. If he didn’t play it on both sides in now way whatsoever, he’d be politically stymied from doing his job, as there are plenty of examples of officials who’ve gone down that road.
LAPD police officers want a 7% pay raise, plus they are slated to get a $1,500 bonus (each officer!). Regular officers are greedy too, Jack, not just the high rankers. Others in the city are struggling while you guys and your Union are still trying to milk the system.
*** they’ve already got the raise plus the bonus. while the rest of the country’s getting laid off, i guess it’s good to be a cop with a greedy union. ***