Genocide

The violence has become so horrific that it DEMANDS the President make a speech from the Oval Office during prime time.  Our civic leaders need to rise as one and demand the powerful United States take a stand for the sake of humanity.  A generation is being murdered.  And, worst of all, we're not talking about Darfur or Cambodia or any far off land, we're talking about the President's home town, Chicago.


Chicago is experiencing between 40 and 50 shootings every weekend.  About 9 end in fatalities.  Almost all the dead are minorities.  Almost all the shooters are minorities, too.

This year there have been 228 gun deaths in Chicago, so far. Actually, that number is a week old, so it's higher now.  While also a tragedy, there have been 144 American deaths in Afghanistan.  Unlike the 228 Chicago number, the Afghanistan number includes deaths for all reasons, accidents, and roadside bombs.   The Chicago number is gun murders only.


This isn't a new phenomena.  Sine the war in Afghanistan started, all the way back in 2001, we've lost 2,000 troops.  


But that number is dwarfed by the gun deaths in Chicago.  Since we first invaded Afghanistan, Chicagoans have murdered 5,000 other Chicagoans, nearly two and a half times more than American lives lost in Afghanistan.


Yet we hear about the war in Afghanistan nightly.  ABC, CBS and NBC have reporters stationed in Afghanistan.  We marvel at their bravery.


Congress has held literally HUNDREDS of hearings on Afghanistan.  Presidents Bush and Obama have held numerous press briefings on Afghanistan.  There have been dozens of plans, strategies, troop build-ups and plans for victory in Afghanistan.


In waging the war in Afghanistan the United States has spent between $2.3 and $2.7 TRILLION DOLLARS!!  In Chicago we've spent virtually nothing.  There are no troops. Hell, there are damned few police.  And few murders are solved, most are just chalked up to gang violence.

Why do allow this tragedy to continue?  Even worse, Chicago is just one city plagued with murders and gun violence. In all of America over 4,000 are murdered yearly.


When will President Obama give the long overdue speech from the oval office?

Gone and Pretty Well Damned Near Forgotten

As of June 10th there have been no arrests and there are no suspects in the Los Angeles gangland murder of 14 month old baby boy, Angel Mauro Cortez-Nava.  You might accidentally remember Angel since I just wrote about his murder a few days ago in the obviously forgettable post, The Black Teenage Boy in the Hoodie.


There are no suspects and no arrests in spite of the fact that the murderer rode by on a bicycle and shot into a crowd gathered on little Angel's front lawn.


There are no suspects and no arrests in spite of a $100,000.00 REWARD offered by the Los Angeles City Council and the LA Kings Hockey Team.


There are no arrests and no suspects in spite of the well known gang activity in the neighborhood, multiple previous murders and the attention of the LA Police Gang Crime Unit.


A quick review of Google News Feeds show there have been no news updates on this story for three days.


The Silence of the Lambs.


Angel will be forgotten, except by his family. Even I will undoubtedly stop blogging about this story eventually.  Based on the overwhelming outpouring of comments so far, no one actually cares.

Oh, and for those who care about that "other" murder, you know the one where the black teenage boy wearing a hoodie was killed in a scuffle in a "gated community" by a neighborhood watch patrol member.  That suspect, George Zimmerman, is still in jail, awaiting trail for the murder.  That trial will receive maximum 24 hour news coverage.

UPDATE: (6/29/2012) A fifteen year old boy, Donald Ray Dokins, has been arrested for the murder of Angel Cortez. The Los Angeles District Attorney has said he will be charged as an adult and faces life in prison.  Donald is suspected in other murders.

The Black Teenage Boy in the Hoodie

Back on April 2nd I wrote that the Trayvon Martin murder got so much press because it was so exceedingly rare.  Indeed, people are almost never murdered in gated communities by Neighborhood Watch patrols.  And blacks are rarely killed by whites in any communities. I don't mean to minimize Trayvon Martin's murder. Trayvon Martin deserves justice.


But, as I mentioned in that earlier article, similar murders in poor, urban communities are tragically common, so common almost no one outside of the affected families ever bothers to notice.  Not the media, most certainly. But not even the black leaders like Jessie Jackson or Al Sharpton, who dominated the media during the Trayvon Martin investigation.


There are thousands of such murders every year, ignored and quickly forgotten.  And one more occured two days ago.  Like the Travon Martin murder this also involved and black teen in a hoodie and a 24 year old Latino male.  But this one happened in the Watts area of Los Angeles.

But this time the victim was a tiny one year old baby boy, Angel Mauro Cortez-Nava, and the murderer was the black teenage boy in the hoodie.  Today police are still searching for the murderer, who shot and killed the baby and wounded the father in their own front year.  The teen shot the two as he rode by on his bicycle.


The murder was probably part of a wave of gang killings between the rival black gang, Fudgetown and the Latino gang, the Hispanic Barrio Grape Street Gang. Little Angels father was wearing a purple sweatshirt at the time of the shooting, but his friends and family claim he had no gang affiliation.


The police say this is just one of a half dozen killings in the neighborhood in the last year.


Maria Trujillo, a family friend and neighbor spoke for the entire community when she was interviewed by the media, "With these shootings going on, you don't feel safe in your own front yard,"


"I have seen plenty of people pass away here. For a child to go, this has to stop immediately," neighbor Marcus Williams said. "When a child, a child, a baby, this kid didn't have a chance at life. It really hurt. I'm afraid to let my kids play in the yard now. This is right across the street." 


If only we could generate national press and outrage over this killing.  If only community leaders and national leaders like Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton would get involved in these acts of violence, perhaps we could begin to put this epidemic of violence to an end.


What if President Obama stood at a press conference and said little Angel Cortez looked like one of  his children?

Federal Stimulus Doesn't Help the Economy

Friday's economic reports were nothing short of disastrous.  Unemployment is back up to 8.2%, new jobs created last month were 50% below forecasts, auto sales dipped to low levels (after earlier improvements), and the stock market dropped to the lowest levels in 2012.


And many think it's going to get much worse.  Could we be looking at a double dip recession? A genuine world wide depression? I certainly hope not.


My point this morning is not to spread doom and gloom, but instead to point out that President Obama's policies of massive government spending and expanded welfare programs just haven't worked.  Washington policies and political party posturing have only made things much, much worse than they needed to be.

I've enlarged the chart beyond the normal size of my blog to insure it is readable.

The chart above, prepared by the non-partisan Comeback America Initiative shows President Obama has stimulated us more that any president in modern history.  Sadly it's mostly through out of control Federal Spending.


Federal spending was close to 20 percent of GDP during the Carter administration, dropped to 18 percent under Clinton, and is currently at an incredible 24 percent of GDP according to the Congressional Budget Office.  And now the economy is slip-sliding backwards.

If government spending worked, it would already be working.  It's difficult to spend more than the 24% of GDP Obama is spending today.  Especially since a great deal of it is borrowed money.


Candidate Romney's prescription for the government is significantly better than President Obama's.  Most importantly, Romney will cut back the amount of Federal interference in the economy.  I fear President's Obama's solution of ever increasing spending will destroy the nation and bring on a world wide depression.


In a future blog entry I'll explain why the "hot button" social issues like abortion or gun control should NOT affect your decision on a President.