Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot—seen here at an LGBTQ event for Pride Month on June 7, 2021, in the Windy City—would rather sing a karaoke version of "Sweet Home Chicago" than do the hard work of combating the city's skyrocketing crime problem. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor and a contributing editor with National Review Online.
Democrats have no solutions to today’s crime surge. Here are four ways they shrug off the mayhem.
Through Sept. 27, New Orleans suffered 208 homicides, up 44% compared with the period in 2021 and up 141% versus 2019.
The Crescent City has become America’s murder capital.
“I do not embrace that at all,” said Democratic Mayor LaToya Cantrell. “It isn’t based on what’s happening on the ground.” She later said that “our city is safer than it’s been in a long time.”
Crime books can be cooked: Curbing arrests can “erase” lawlessness by leaving it unrecorded. But there’s no faking a cadaver. Regardless, Cantrell scoffs at humiliating police data.
Chicago’s crime numbers are hellacious: Year-to-date versus 2021, burglary is up 22%, theft ahead 61%, and car theft 79% higher. Overall, crime has climbed 38%.
Amid all this, Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot promoted a karaoke contest via a grating, vertical TikTok video in which she sports sunglasses, strides up to a microphone, and sings Robert Johnson’s “Sweet Home Chicago.”
The only excuse for Lightfoot’s lightweight response to Windy City chaos: Her dismal musical performance would neutralize criminals. If that works, I will say it first: Lightfoot for president!
Joel Murphy and Elijah Robinson, both 17, of Long Island, N.Y., were wounded in a drive-by shooting about 2:20 p.m. on Oct. 9, in suburban Shirley, N.Y. One hid beneath the front porch of U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, New York’s Republican candidate for governor. Another sheltered behind a bush.
A bullet lodged just 30 feet from where Zeldin’s twin daughters, 16, did homework at their kitchen table.
“I’m so pleased no one was injured,” said Crime-Spree Kathy Hochul, New York’s hapless Democratic governor. “It’s a reminder we all have to work together to get guns off the streets.”
Hochul’s words are as predictable as low tide. Yes, pistol-packing perps should suffer severe sentences. But 100% gun control would not have stopped David Jakubonis who, last July 21, confronted Zeldin on the hustings, shoved a sharp keychain weapon alongside the candidate’s neck, and said: “You’re done.”
Jakubonis was armed and threatened a congressman. Regardless, he was free the next day before being arrested on federal charges.
Vincent Buccino savored pizza outside a Hell’s Kitchen eatery on Sept. 9. An unprovoked attacker smashed a chair over his head and broke his arm. The unidentified criminal remains at large.
Michael Palacios terrorized a Manhattan McDonald’s on Sept. 16. After harassing patrons, he yanked an ax from his backpack, menaced diners, and chopped up a table, chairs, and glass wall. He, too, was arrested and swiftly sprung without bail.
Palacios was arrested again on Oct. 11, this time for alleged graffiti and bicycle theft. Once more, Palacios was freed without bail.
Hochul’s hackneyed “Gun control!” slogan would have done bupkis to foil these and countless other gun-free attacks. Had Hochul demanded keychain-weapon control, chair control, or ax control, one might respect her originality. Instead, Hochul the Hack spurns criminal control, which would address the evil that undergirds these cases.
Democrats shout “Racism!” as often as people exhale. They did precisely that when People Who Play by the Rules PAC’s devastating political ad showed doorbell-camera images of three thugs tackling an innocent woman and beating her on a sunny sidewalk in Chicago’s leafy Lakeview district.
She screams for help for 20 agonizing seconds. After a smiling photo appears of Lightfoot and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a fellow Democrat, a graphic quietly asks: “Lightfoot. Pritzker. How much worse does it have to get?”
The anti-cash-bail Pritzker—who, like Lightfoot, faces re-election—decried the ad’s “racial tinge” because it shows “apparently black” muggers. But this is Pritzker’s racist assumption. The armed robbers’ hoodies obscure the races of their concealed faces.
Democrats are out of gas on crime. The American people deserve to be rescued from the dangerous neighborhood in which the empty-tank Democrats have abandoned them.
Aaron Cichon contributed research to this article.
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