Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson was in a foul mood when he appeared with 17 pastors and ministers from a "Unity Initiative" who had agreed to take in migrants sleeping in police stations and on the street. Indeed, Johnson launched into an epic rant blaming his predecessor, Lori Lightfoot, for "right-wing extremism," and, of course, racism.
He referred to the lack of space in Chicago shelters as an "international crisis" that he inherited.
On "the international crisis that I inherited six months ago, I've made it very clear we are going to move people out of police districts, women and children who are living on floors and sleeping outside that we're going to create spaces that provide more dignity," Johnson said.
So he ordered the construction of a huge tent to house 2,000 migrants. Real dignified, Brandon.
"Did you know when I was sworn in in May, the previous City Council did not budget for 2023's migrant mission," the mayor added. "So, not only have we stood up the full force of government in a collaborative way, we did it without the previous City Council even providing resources for it."
Unfortunately, the former Mayor Lori Lightfoot was not granted the gift of soothsaying, so she was unable to see the current crisis before it was upon the city. But Johnson threw her under the bus anyway.
What he really needed was a bogeyman to scare the citizens of Chicago and absolve himself of any responsibility for the royal clusterfark.
"What we've seen is a very raggedy form of right-wing extremism," Johnson said. "Everyone knows that the right-wing extremism in this country has targeted democratically-run cities, and quite frankly, they have been quite intentional about going after democratically-ran [sic] cities that are led by people of color."
"It is abysmal and it is an affront for everything that is good about this country for the extremism in this country to use people as political tools to settle political scores for something that happened over 400 years ago," Johnson continued. "They're still mad that a black man is free in this country."
Huh?
I haven't seen too many rallies in favor of bringing slavery back. That's really some kind of low point in the history of political discourse to actually claim that your political opponents are resentful that slavery ended.
"This is the same political party that did not want to accept that President Obama was actually an American. This is the same Republican right-wing extremism that stormed the Capitol. It's the same right-wing extremism that refuses to accept the results of the Civil War. It's raggedy, it's disrespectful," he said.
"Refuse to accept the results of the Civil War?" I know a lot of right-wing nuts are stupid, but you have to be brain-dead to not accept that the North won the war.
This is truly pathetic. Johnson's epic rant against reality won't draw any criticism from any Democrats. They will continue to accuse Republicans of denying reality and living in a fantasy world.
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