By John Kass

July 20, 2022

How long has it been since I’ve written a proper column after I ruined my left shoulder and scheduled surgery to have it repaired?

Eons? A couple days? It feels like a long time.  How long? Who can say? History becomes legend. And legend fades to myth.

But compared to what others are going through, to the real pain they’ve suffered, what their families have suffered, all that’s going on with me and this idiotic shoulder issue of mine is nothing.

It’s nothing. And some are wondering, ‘Just when is Kass going to get back to work?’

How about today?

The city of Chicago is  still being torn apart by lawlessness and violent crime. The anarchy and chaos has been spawned by hard-left Chicago Democratic politicians and their progressive crime policy. They call this “Social Justice,” but does it provide justice for the  victims of crime, be they black, brown and white?

No.

The barbarian horde knows that in Chicago, at present, there are little if any consequences to breaking the law from the criminal justice system.

Most of the victims of violent crime are racial minorities, so you might think Chicago media would examine this, take a fresh look at progressive Democratic policy that has led to the chaos, from the city’s ban on police chases, to violent criminals often released on low or no bail–or on electronic “home” monitoring–to commit even more violence.

But Chicago newspapers are now completely woke. They’re definitely not interested in how left-wing policy drives the surge of violent crime.

The Sun Times/WBEZ editorial board isn’t all that interested in holding Democrats to account on crime policy. And the other place, ‘the paper’ where I worked for four decades, is more interested in reporting on the bathrooms in my house, the hardwood floors and my property tax bill. That’s what they spend their time on? My powder rooms?

But are they committed to examining what Mayor Lori Lightfoot and State’s Attorney Kim Foxx are doing, and not doing, on the crime issue and calling them to account for their ridiculous policies? No. It’s just not as attractive to the paper as the number of powder rooms at my place. Pathetic.

And just the other day, Chicago Police officer Dan Golden was shot in the back by human vermin after he broke up a fight in the Beverly neighborhood. A bullet to the back severed his spinal cord. He’s now paralyzed from the waist down. And there wasn’t much, if any outcry from Lightfoot and her politically endorsed non-prosecutor, Foxx.

I talk about Golden and his family on the latest edition of The Chicago Way podcast that you can listen to, here. Why? Once you could find people like the Golden family–in every neighborhood of the city, of every color and creed. Without them, there is no Chicago.

Our guest for this podcast episode is a favorite and a friend, Professor Charles Lipson, who has written an excellent piece on Joe Biden, the emperor without clothes.

It was great fun talking to Charles and Jeff about the horrifying image of Biden naked before the world. Just thinking about the image of a naked Biden, revealed in his feebleness, I wanted to stab my eyes out with a spork.

But is that work? Is sitting on my behind talking into a microphone real work?

No. Not really.

Though I suppose that sitting on my behind while typing—getting up periodically to play with Zeus the Wonder Dog—and check my tomatoes and roses, may be considered work. And I’ll get back to it, but I took a few days because doctors scheduled the shoulder surgery.

As many of you know, I got myself a proper man-chair to sleep sitting up during recovery. Then I scheduled friends–excellent writers all–to fill in with guest columns. They had a schedule. And they followed that schedule with honor.

But the doctors didn’t follow my schedule for johnkassnews.com.  They canceled surgery. They said they wanted to take some more tests. So for now, more tests and rescheduling. What does this mean?

It means I’ll honor the agreements I made with guest writers to publish their fine columns. But it also means that I’ll have to beg them for more columns when the surgery is finally scheduled.

Rather than chant “Alms for a child of misfortune,” I’ll beg for more guest columns.

Why didn’t I save the fresh guest columns for the rainy days? I wish. But news columns aren’t dried lentils. You can’t save them in a bin for emergency shortages, as would a prepper. It doesn’t work like that.

Writers are not legumes. They’re human. Once they’ve finished writing, they want to see their fine work published and debated by subscribers under the columns. They deserve respect.

My brother Nick wrote a column on the American Kemalists and their counterparts in Turkey. His editors at The American Conservative magazine kindly gave me permission to post his column. His piece was brilliant. It was a warning. All those who’ve casually used the term “Deep State” should read it again.

Dr. Greg Ganske, retired plastic surgeon and former U.S. Representative from Iowa, wrote a piece on a brave young woman expressing her conservative thoughts to an ostentatiously stunned and silent audience at left-wing Harvard.

Ganske asked, “When Will It Be Safe to ‘Come Out’ as a Proud American?”

And Cory Franklin wrote provocatively the other day about basketball star Brittney Griner. She was held in Russian prison on narcotics charges. Franklin reminds us how Griner loathed the playing of our National Anthem. And he also recalls one of the most frightening stories I’d read in my childhood, ‘The Man Without a Country.’

Steve Huntley—who spent more than three decades in Chicago news including a long stint as editor of the Sun Times editorial pages–has an important column ready for Friday. Huntley writes on the Civil Rights issue of our time: School Choice for families trapped in sub-standard urban public (government schools).

And Pat Hickey, the literature teacher who we all wish we had in high school, has another one ready. He calls it “Fish Camp.”

New contributor Michael Ledwith is something of a self-styled Renaissance man, something of a poet, a former bagboy at Winn-Dixie who later ran with the bulls at Pamplona. He was a U.S. military officer turned surfer.

Ledwith has written a piece titled “Do You Know Me?” about a man who wants to search for faith, yet is unsure what he’ll do if he finds it.

That’s coming too, in a few days. I’ve agreed with the writers that their work will be published. I’ve given them my word. But I also have to get back to work as well.

Why?

Because I owe you.  Everything.

When I left ‘the paper,’ thousands of you joined me on this great adventure in independent journalism at johnkassnews.com. You’re paying customers. You walked away from corrupt media as did I. You decided to join me here.

And with your help, I’ve been learning how to run this business. And how to grow it. There’s more to building a business than writing. But I love writing. As chief bottle washer here, I’d like this website to become a place where thoughtful people can express themselves without fear of being cancelled.

So as long as you keep subscribing, I’ll keep writing columns. Because that’s what I do. And I hope not all of them will be heavy and dark, though these are heavy and dark days for the city and nation.

We used to laugh together once, too. Remember?

But I owe you, to tell you what’s been going on with me. And now I wait.

And still, the violent anarchy that is Chicago continues, with Lightfoot and Foxx and friends gaslighting the people on crime, as local media seems all too comfortable with being manipulated.

The police are exhausted. But so are their families, their kids, their siblings. They’re all under siege. And the family of Dan Golden is exhausted too. He’s in his chair for life.

And the political gaslighting increases, as violent crime increases, as thugs attack police, jumping on squad cars. As violent crime spikes in downtown Chicago and along the lakefront and on CTA rapid transit, media avoids examining progressive Democrat policy that drives it, except for the good people at CWB Chicago.

They don’t avoid it.

And the pressure builds. The stress of violence, of lawlessness, of action without consequence, builds. The pipes tremble with the increasing pressure. Can you feel it?

It is only a matter of time until Chicago is faced with a Bernie Goetz scenario. And then we really plunge into it, on ground we already know, running on paths we’ve memorized long ago, with race and tribes and violence, with media hysterics and media gaslighting, and our old standby, racial animosity and political demagoguery.

And what happens to Chicago? You’ve seen it coming for years haven’t you? Under Lightfoot, Toni Preckwinkle and Foxx, Chief Judge Tim Evans, Gov. Pritzker, with media politely avoiding what left-wing Democrats have done to bring the city to this point.

Chicago is now a scene from those old dystopian “Mad Max” movies:

Chicago as Bartertown.

And the people vote with their feet.

And President Biden? He’s not merely some wrinkly and windy old naked man exposed to the world as the emperor without clothes, propped up as he is by his Obama puppet masters.

Senility is a dodge. He’s sharp enough to lie about what he’s done. Biden is a grifter, a corrupt politician who would have made a fortune in Chicago politics. But he was a U.S. Senator who became president. Biden Inc. has made fortunes, from Ukraine, and China. Biden Inc. and “The Big Guy” were protected by the corrupt legacy media that helped install Joe in the White House. And now media operatives don’t want their fingerprints on the coming political disaster. So they blame it all on him, not themselves.

You know this, too. His son, crack addict Hunter Biden, is also a big-league grifter. And the Democrats and their corrupt corporate media that protected him, the very people who are responsible for Biden taking the country down, are now in full panic.

Think of rats in a cage on the floor. Think of terriers on the other side of the bars.

The Democrats are so worried about Biden’s fading poll numbers as the Red November approaches that they’re ready to bounce him. They talk about his age as the reason to do away with him. But that’s just cover. That’s just a pose.

What will they do with Vice President Kamala Harris, she of the sing-song Valley Girl voice?

She talks to Americans, and to the world, as if she’s talking to idiots. And when she’s not using her sing-song voice, she cackles, supported by the flesh-eating harpies of “The View” and the Marxists of MSNBC.

As that spend and spend some more policy of Biden and the Democrats unleashes inflation that eats at your savings. As the southern border remains wide open. As illegals march. As fentanyl made in China keeps being pumped over the non-existant border by the Mexican drug cartels. As that poison kills 100,000 young Americans each year.

They pretend shock that you’re angry about being forced into buying expensive electric cars you can’t afford. As First Lady Jill Biden babbles that it’s all beyond her husband’s control. But he’s the president, isn’t he?

And Americans know they’re pushed along through the chutes like livestock.

So, yes, there is plenty for me to write about. I’d best get to it. I owe you.

But I’ll tell you this: I’m already sick and tired of that chair.

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(Copyright 2022)