Contentions

The city of Chicago, the third largest in America, is crumbling into anarchy.  The murder rate is so out of control that federal authorities have agreed to assist the Chicago Police Department in their efforts to curb soaring violence.  The city has seen over a thirty-percent rise in its murder rate this year and in the last eight days of August, 82 people were killed or wounded by gun violence.  With his city in a violent downward spiral, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has been focusing on what’s important: banning Chik-fil-A from Chicago. 

On Wednesday, during Bill Clinton’s address to the DNC in Charlotte, cameras panned to Emanuel, laughing in the audience.  While he was enjoying his stay in Charlotte at least three people were murdered back home in Chicago just that night.  What could be more important than taking charge of one of the most violent cities in America?  Apparently, for Emanuel, it’s fundraising for his old boss President Barack Obama. 

Where could he have learned that this behavior is acceptable for a leader?  During the Colorado wildfires President Obama went fifteen days without speaking with Gov. John Hickenlooper about the situation.  The Washington Examiner reported at the time,

Apparently in Obamaland, and therefore in Rahm’s World, fundraising for the president’s reelection is the most important task at hand, more important than actually doing the job Obama’s been fundraising to retain.  Since announcing his reelection campaign, President Obama has attended 205 fundraisers, a record for a sitting president–and it’s barely September. 

The Kebbeh family of Gambia came to America and settled in Chicago in search of a better life for their children.  The Chicago Sun Times reports, “They are considering going back to Africa after [their son Muhammed] became the city’s 370th murder victim this year and second of his six siblings to be gunned down on the South Side in the last six months.”  Rahm Emanuel may feel he owes it to his former boss to go on the fundraising trail, but his obligations to him ceased the day he was elected mayor of Chicago.  His bosses are now families like the Kebbehs, who feel there is no reason left to remain in the United States. 

The Sun Times asked Mayor Emanuel about the city’s record-setting murder rate in the same story, to which he responded “We’re containing it.”  If going out on the trail after the deadliest month in Chicago’s history is “containing it” one has to wonder what it would take for Emanuel to recognize that his city is self-destructing.