By John Kass

You see by the photo that it was a time of smiles and many sweet dreams for Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx. And her ambition could taste them all.

She excitedly tweeted out this photo or herself at a left-wing Emily’s List fundraiser with her BFF, soon-to-be Vice President Kamala Harris. She’d moved beyond being merely the hatchet for Cook County Democratic Party chair Toni Preckwinkle. She was about to hit the big leagues. That brass ring was within Kim’s reach.

There was speculation among the politicos that there might be some big things in Kim’s future. Or at least, she thought so.

U.S. Sen. Kim Foxx (D, Boss Toni)?

Dick Durbin wouldn’t live forever, would he?

But after the Jussie Smollett fiasco of her own making, she stumbles on that boulevard of broken political dreams.

Yet there is just one other dream involving Foxx. And many voters in Illinois are dreaming of it:

A recall of Kim Foxx.

Recall her now. Not next year. Now.

It just so happens that Illinois State Rep. Tim Butler, a Republican of Springfield, has introduced such a recall bill for Foxx, similar to other recalls of other woke prosecutors going on elsewhere in America, where voters are fed up with increasing violent crime, weak prosecution by design and lawlessness.

A recall would cost taxpayers something. But they’re already paying in the sobs of the living and their own fear.

“Look at the cost of having someone like Kim Foxx continue to stay in office,” Butler said while recording Friday’s edition of The Chicago Way podcast. “The cost to people’s lives. The cost to the taxpayers, like this crazy Smollett thing.

Recall her for her bungling of the Jussie Smollett fake racial-hate crime case, for mysteriously dropping the Grand Jury indictments against him, for her lying to the public about it, for hiding her private communications with Smollett’s politically influential supporters. And when she was found out, she said she “recused” herself from the case. But she did no such thing.

Recall Foxx for portraying Smollett as a victim. Recall her for daring to portray herself as a victim.

Recall her. Recall her. Recall her.

Let them know you won’t just limp off behind the barn and quietly dig a hole for your own grave. A great city is on the precipice, at the the point of no return. Perhaps it is already past the point of no return.

Smollett was convicted making up the racial hate crime hoax in which he falsely blamed fantasy Republicans. He was convicted of lying to police, of putting Chicago through his Jussie drama. Sentencing Judge James Linn said Smollett lied and lied throughout the trial, perjuring himself, and sentenced Smollett fairly to 150 days in jail.

In a theatrical display with his fist raised, Smollett shouted he was “innocent,” and that he would not commit suicide in jail.

And just the other day, he walked free, a celebrity of great privilege, with political contacts and more among the media. And by walking he made fools out of the jury, the judges, the law, and the law-abiding. And he and Foxx rubbed it all into in the faces of the people.

“My progressive friends always like harping on the things  ‘people of privilege’ get away with,” Butler said on The Chicago Way. “This is the perfect example of someone with privilege getting away with something. And it’s astounding that Kim Foxx defends the guy. The people see this. They know exactly what’s going on here.. And she thinks Smollett is someone she should go bat for.”

Smollett reeks of privilege. President Joe Biden and Harris leapt to his defense when he first began his hoax. Hollywood and the media leapt to his defense, too, and other Democrats and celebrities, because Smollett’s fantasy fit their fantastic narrative, his hoax fit neatly on all their race cards. And they flashed entire decks of them on Biden’s behalf in the 2020 elections.

The common wisdom of corrupt Illinois will tell you that Butler’s recall Foxx legislation will go nowhere, that it will be left to die a slow death in the state house Rules Committee because the Illinois House is controlled by the Democrat majority.

But is that a reason, or simply an excuse for the media to ignore it, and for the rest of us to shut up and take it?

Perhaps you might want to call your legislators. They’re all up for re-election. They are not your lords. The majority of them spent years sucking up to Boss Madigan.  He’s gone, indicted.

What are you afraid of?

And just to make it easier for you I’m including a link to the House Rules Committee members.

If you want their office phone numbers just click on their names. Call them to allow Butler’s bill to reach the floor for debate and if they don’t, remember them.  Or don’t call them. Just forget about it.  It’s all up up to you.

But the easy political answer about there not being enough votes to get Butler’s bill out of the Rules Committee, so forget about it, just won’t wash now.

It won’t wash because warm days are coming. And warm days mean long nights for Fire Department paramedics holding the dying, and Emergency Room docs and nurses. And Chicago Police evidence technicians marking the ground where the bodies fall.

Warm days mean warm nights with mothers screaming, and cops walking around the bodies and then going home to have their own nightmares.

It won’t wash, not with the prosecutor’s office dysfunctional and demoralized, with every day bringing more resignations from 26th and Cal. It won’t wash with thousands of people shot in the gang wars of Chicago and some 800 murdered last year, most of them minorities, most of them black and brown.

It won’t wash because the lawlessness just has to stop, and tweets and feelings won’t stop it. Cold reason could help stop it. Cold headed policy could stop it. Not feelings. Not virtue signaling tweets by those without names.

I’m sure Foxx has her reasons. To her shame she’s already explained herself in the Sun Times and that Tribune interview and I’ve linked to those as well. And Butler has his reasons. If you listen to the Chicago Way podcast, you’ll hear them.

And here are my reasons.

Recall Kim Foxx for the way she’s disgraced her office. Recall her for killing morale in what was once one of the most aggressive offices for prosecutors in the country.

Recall her for being more of a public defender/ social justice warrior than a prosecutor enforcing the law and protecting the people from violent predators.

Recall her for her poorly thought-out virtue signaling policies that reduced the population of the jail to the applause of the hard political left. But that allowed the habitually violent–including those charged with murder, sexual assault and shootings–to walk almost free with those ridiculous “electronic home monitoring” devices, intimidating witnesses.

Recall Foxx for using politics to capriciously select which state laws she’ll follow and which laws she’ll ignore, including her decision to not prosecute shoplifters stealing hundreds of dollars worth of goods at a time. Her non-prosecution of shoplifting discouraged cops from making arrests, because they knew the state’s attorney’s office wouldn’t prosecute.

And what did this do? It encouraged those smash-and-grab shoplifting gangs wreaking havoc in the shopping districts. It hurt small business that had already been gutted by Covid lockdowns. And the gangs drove shoppers away. Do you need to listen to the police scanner to determine it’s safe to go out to dinner? Does your wife need to read CWB Chicago to study crime patterns to determine if she can shop at that boutique or this one?

Recall her for walking away from Chicago street and expressway shootings where the innocent are killed, and that ridiculous “mutual combatants” rationale.

Recall her for saying irresponsibly, publicly, loudly in the pages of the Sun Times and the Tribune that the conviction of hate crime hoaxer Jussie Smollett was all about “revenge” and a “kangaroo prosecution” and that a cabal had hijacked the criminal justice system to impose “mob justice” upon Smollett.

Kangaroo? Really Kim? It’s odd that you would bring up kangaroos.

Because I can see you peeking your head out from Boss Toni’s protective maternal political pouch right now.

And in this time of March madness, Foxx and Smollett offer something crazy of their own. A steaming pile that they rub voters’ noses in while expecting voters to gulp it down and ask for seconds, the voters expected to wag their tails and raise a paw begging for more.

If voters don’t ask for a plate of second helpings with a smile, I don’t know what Foxx and Smollett would do.

Make fists? Pout? Shout that they’re innocent? Play the race card and play it and play it again?

The race card was once serious business, but now that hacks have played the life and meaning out of it, overplaying it from one day to the next, it gets old, especially with so many black and brown kids shot down on the streets their names forgotten from one news cycle to the next.

Tim Butler’s recall bill wouldn’t bounce Foxx out of office immediately. It would merely begin a process. Powerful Democrats are facing recall bills in other states and fighting to stay in office. California Gov. Gavin Newsom survived his recall, even though he imposed mask mandates on his state, and shut businesses during his pandemic lockdowns,  while dining happily, and maskless at fine restaurants like “The French Laundry.”

About the only thing wrong with Butler’s bill is that it doesn’t go far enough. House members are up for re-election every two years. They must be responsive to voters.

But for other offices with terms of four years or more, for prosecutors, senators, judges and governors, well, why shouldn’t they be subject to the people’s recall?

Are we citizens? Or are we simply the servants?

Butler’s recall Foxx bill should be discussed. It should be subject to open debate on the house floor, so all voters can see where and how their elected representatives stand. Yes, that’s exactly what the politicos hate, having to declare themselves, having to take a stand between you and public order and lawlessness, and Kim Foxx and her protector, Boss Toni.

But every day, the people of crime-ridden Chicago and Cook County have to take a stand, even if the politicians don’t. The people must decide whether to drive on those shooting galleries called the expressways, and risk the crossfire of street gangs. The people must take a stand and decide whether to walk in their own neighborhoods, to take the bus or ride the el at night to and from work, because they they’re not wealthy lawyers with politician’s cell numbers in their phones, and they can’t afford to drive with gas prices so high.

Or, they’ll decide to continue voting with their feet.

Perhaps the political class protecting Kim Foxx wouldn’t mind that so much if the people who don’t like what Foxx is doing just cleared out. If those who don’t appreciate Foxx and Preckwinkle and the other Democrats just voted with their feet, like they’re doing now, the complainers and the beefers would be gone.

And those who stay? The politicians will see those who’ve decided to stay as having implicitly agreed to another social contract. The ones who stay get stuck with the bill when the music stops. There are no chairs for them.

By staying and not complaining, they’re signaling they’ll put up with the cynical politics, like the kind that elects Kim Foxx after she plays all the race cards available, then re-elects her, and allows Jussie Smollett to do the same and call himself a victim and hold his fist in the air.

That kind of politics  allows Boss Toni Preckwinkle to shape so much of criminal justice policy through budgets she controls, at the jail, in the courts, in her protegee Kim Foxx’s office.

And all the while, as Foxx floats away, protected by Boss Toni, the mayor takes the heat, the cops take the heat.

 Boss Toni avoids scrutiny at the center of it all. She avoids scrutiny from the now-woke corporate media and the editorial boards. She avoids scrutiny from other Democrats.

And she avoids scrutiny from the hapless and often supine Illinois Republican Party, which has yet to field a candidate to oppose Boss Toni.

Can you hear the sound of a long sigh, alone at the grave?

If it doesn’t change soon, the politicians will understand that those who remain will have already agreed to a bargain, an implicit social contract of their own:

You just stay and forget about it and stop beefing.

You just shut up and take it, in the shut up and take it city, in the shut up and take it county, in the shut up and take it state of Illinois.

You shut up and take it. Until you just can’t take it anymore.

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(Copyright 2022 John Kass)

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