By John Kass

Chicago murders, shootings and other crimes of violence are on the increase beyond even last year’s  terrible levels, as anyone living in or near the city of anarchy knows.

But also on the increase is virtue signaling, and political public relations stunts in response. They come from hapless Mayor Lori Lightfoot, and the other empty suit being groomed by the Obama Machine to take her job: Arne “The White Shadow” Duncan.

More than 60 people were shot over the weekend, and at least seven died. Included among those wounded in the gang wars was Chicago Firefighter Timothy Eiland, a father of five, shot in the face after he and family members left a family birthday party. He was in critical condition on Tuesday.

“When I looked down, I saw my brother on the ground with blood squirting from his face,” a family member told the Sun Times.

Violent crime, from carjackings and robberies, to expressway shootings of innocents unlucky enough to be caught in the street gang crossfire are skyrocketing. The blood on the streets isn’t confined to the West and South Sides. Robbery crews rampage across the North Side. Even downtown is dangerous now. And who goes downtown at night these days to spend their money? Only clueless tourists who don’t know any better.

But don’t worry Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot finally has a plan.

She wants to bring street gang members to civil court and put their assets in peril.

“Their assets?” scoffed a longtime Chicago Fire Department paramedic who has taken thousands of wounded gangsters to hospital emergency rooms. He’s seen their assets as they bleed, and while administering life-saving treatment at their homes.

“She has no clue. Assets? What assets? A phone, a gold chain, a couple bags of rock, a couple packs of refer in their pockets? A tiny bag of bullets they sell on the street? The Jordans off their feet? What ‘assets’ is she talking about?”

It’s her secret. But Lightfoot is talking tough, putting her federal prosecutor face on, tossing out tough phrases like “make no mistake,” and “we’re going after their blood money.”

Like their shoes?

Or does she think these are old time Outfit bosses living in West Suburban mansions, or drug lords from the Mexican cartels living in castles guarded by armies? The gangsters doing the killings don’t have Swiss bank accounts, do they mayor?

When she first started talking crazy about putting those “assets” in peril I misheard her.

I thought she wanted to put their asses in jail. But I was wrong.

Putting them in jail would require her to demand that her fellow Democrats—including her endorsed candidate for Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx–indict repeat violent offenders and have them taken off the streets so they can’t kill other innocents, like children or the vermin who began shooting at each other in separate cars on the Dan Ryan expressway and killed special education teacher Denise M. Huguelet, 67, a mother and grandmother.

And Mayor Wokefoot? Instead of virtue signaling about “blood money” and civil court that the entire city sees as a public relations stunt, how about demanding a full public airing into what happened exactly when two men were questioned in connection with Mrs. Huguelet’s death, but then strangely released?

What happened there, mayor? Don’t you want to tell us?

But that would cause City Hall great political pain. Democratic pain. No, it’s not the same kind of pain as Chicagoans getting shot in the face, or beaten half to death in a robbery, or you getting slapped for your phones in the Loop as your girlfriend gets her teeth knocked out.

That’s your pain. And politicians aren’t worried about your pain as much as they’re worried about their pain.

Instead of virtue signaling and making speeches, wouldn’t it be more productive–and instructive–if the mayor and the City Council got to the bottom of what the hell happened in the investigation of the murder of 7-year-old Serenity Broughton? She was shot to death on Aug. 15 while sitting in the back of a car on the Northwest Side.  Foxx’s office and police are pointing fingers at each other. And mysterious leaked “memos” from Foxx’s office tarnishing the detectives in the heater case seem awfully self-serving.

A child is dead. Don’t taxpayers deserve to know what really happened in that investigation?

But that would force Lightfoot to confront her personally-endorsed candidate for Cook County State’s Attorney, Kim Foxx, the catch-and-release prosecutor, and beneficiary of George Soros political donations. Foxx is also the protégé of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle. Whoever runs for mayor–and every passing day suggests that Lightfoot is losing interest–will have to kiss Toni’s ring.

If Foxx and Preckwinkle were ever held to account for their policy choices adding to the mayhem and chaos, then somebody might start ask bothersome questions, about the third member of the Foxx-Preckwinkle Social Justice League:

The pliable Cook County Chief Judge Tim Evans and his attitudes about easy bond for repeat violent offenders, and his electronic home monitoring program, which is a joke.

It’s as much of a joke as Lightfoot taking gangsters to civil court. She could demand a public accounting, and in the loudest terms possible, use her MSNBC and New York Times media megaphones to personally call national attention to the fact that if violent criminals aren’t put behind bars where they belong, they’ll victimize others.

Though they’re rivals, Lightfoot, Foxx, Preckwinkle and Evans are all leftist progressive Democrats. They don’t dare condemn catch-and-release criminal justice policy. They’d lose Democratic votes. So the city bleeds and  people leave.

I assume that the earth will open and swallow me whole if the earth learns about this next paragraph.

But I must agree with the City Council Socialists, like Ald. Rosanna Rodriguez Sanchez, 33d, who used a parliamentary procedure to table the mayor’s pathetically weak spin attempt until next week.

“We believe that the ordinance is just a public relations move right now,” she told a TV reporter, “so they can say they’re doing something about crime.”

Of course it is a public relations stunt. And a cheap one at that. But what else does Mayor Wokefoot have left but stunts?

Speaking of public relations and spin, a few days before, an op-ed ran in the Chicago Sun Times, “Chicago’s public safety crisis threatens our whole city.”

 It was ostensibly written by Ald. Matt O’Shea, of the cop heavy 19^th Ward on the Southwest Side. And by  Susan Lee, Lightfoot’s former deputy mayor for public safety, now chief of “policy and strategy” for Arne Duncan’s mayoral launching pad, Chicago Cred.

“Chicago cannot continue down this road,” they wrote, “with a demoralized and understaffed police department and an under-resourced network of violence prevention groups.”

It’s all part of the Arne Duncan rollout. Media goes along, passively now, and later I figure they’ll become explicit Duncan cheerleaders. And Chicago voters are treated as if they’re witless chumbolones and too stupid to see what’s going on.

But Rahm can see it. Obama can see it. Anyone who knows politics can see it. Duncan, their “White Shadow,” is being positioned.

I keep telling you to look for what isn’t said in stories, in speeches, in stunts. Because what isn’t said tells you something. It tells you what Lightfoot and Duncan are trying to avoid.

The words missing from Lightfoot’s PR stunt about “civil court” are the same words missing from the Arne Duncan soft roll-out piece in the Sun Times about Chicago’s public safety crisis.

There are three names not mentioned:

Kim Foxx, Toni Preckwinkle, and Tim Evans.

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(copyright 2021 John Kass)