How fitting that President Obama should deliver his farewell address in Chicago ~
 

As President Obama returns to his adopted hometown of Chicago to give his farewell speech Tuesday night, a dark cloud hangs over the city where the record-setting murder rate is so high there are pleas to declare a state of emergency […]

 
In 2016, 762 people were murdered in Chicago. That’s a 63 percent increase from the 468 murders recorded in 2015 and almost double the murders in 2014, according to Chicago Police.
 
Shootings also are way up — 4,331 people were shot in Chicago in 2016, up from 3,550 in 2015, according to police.

Source: Fox News

Despite the fact that the Obamas still own their home on the city’s South Side, the president hasn’t been too awfully concerned about reducing the body count in Chicago. In fact, the tragic statistics completely slipped his mind last night ~

Obama gives farewell speech in Chicago, fails to mention the skyrocketing murder rate due to black on black crime in Chicago#ObamaFarewell

— Makada 🇺🇸 (@_Makada_) January 11, 2017

Former Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, who is credited with a drop in the city’s crime up until 2015 through his community-policing approach, says officers haven’t felt a ton of support from the Obama administration.
 
“I can’t help but just look at criminal justice, and criminal justice in this country has not had a friend in the federal government during this administration,” McCarthy said.

Social justice warrior, leftist priest Father Pfleger is understandably distraught over the carnage – but inevitably appeals to the wrong authority for a solution ~

“When there is a fire in America, a tornado, a hurricane, they call it a state of emergency, federal funds come in, and help rebuild that town or that community,” said prominent anti-crime activist, Father Michael Pfleger. “Well, hell, we have a state of emergency in Chicago.”

Here’s a thought padre, how about giving the faith you profess to believe in a try, as Cal Thomas suggests in this article at the Stream ~

Chicago Carnage: What Can be Done? ~
 
While the federal government cannot prefer one religion, it can encourage and provide resources to churches and religious groups who seek answers to a problem that has defied secular solutions.
 
A changed heart almost always results in changed behavior and clearly the police, the incarceration of violent offenders and stricter gun laws are not reducing the level of violence. As Donald Trump said in appealing to African Americans voters, “What do you have to lose?” They’ve tried the Democrats for more than 40 years. Why not try something new?

 
Maybe like… God?
 

 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Related:
Obama’s Legacy of Chaos: Chicago Gun Deaths on par with Iraq War Deaths under Bush

A violent Christmas in a violent year for Chicago: 11 killed, 50 wounded

Gun-Controlled Chicago Ends 2016 with Nearly 800 Homicides for the Year

Chicago Resident: Obama Will Go Down as Worst President Ever ~ (Video) Blacks in Chicago were fed up with Barack Hussein Obama two and a half years ago

Here’s a morbid new twist in the Muslim jihad against Christians ~ Uganda: Muslim relatives force woman to take poison for converting to Christianity ~

NAIROBI, Kenya – Muslim relatives of a young woman in eastern Uganda who put her faith in Christ at a Christmas service coerced her into taking poison at a New Year’s celebration, she said.

As Sandra Summaya told Morning Star News ~

“I had great peace when the pastor prayed for me to take Jesus as my savior,” she said. “I later shared my testimony with my brother, who outrightly accused me of being an infidel and an outcast from the family and the Muslim community. I felt great pain inside me because of the insults.”
 

On Sunday (Jan. 1) Summaya’s immediate family and a few other relatives gathered in the predominantly Muslim village in Kamuge County to celebrate the New Year with a meal. At the high point of the gathering, Summaya said, a paternal uncle read to her a Bible verse and suggested it meant God would protect her from harm, including illness from ingesting poison.
 
“He said, ‘Do you believe that Issa [Jesus] is able to protect your from poison as written in the Bible?’ and I answered ‘Yes,’” she said. “Immediately I was forced to take the poison to confirm my faith in the Bible, at around midnight. I could not deny the Bible, so I took the rat poison.” […]

 
“I started having severe stomach pains together with vomiting and cried for help,” she said. “I was taken away from the homestead to a nearby bush. I was tied with a rope to a tree and left to die.”

 
Luckily – make that providentially – a neighbor heard her cries for help and rushed her to a medical facility ~

Summaya remains at the hospital and her condition has stabilized, a nurse who requested anonymity told Morning Star News […]
 
An area source requested prayer that Summaya be healed and protected, and that she not doubt God’s love and provision.

 
Thanks be to God. Please pray for healing and that her ordeal and survival be a compelling witness to her Muslim relatives and friends.

Random links of interest, concern or curiosity from the past week or so, that deserve at least a SHORT mention:

 
Israel: EU drone spying on Jewish towns crashes near Mt. Hevron ~ It’s not bad enough that the UN is constantly condemning the Israelis, now the EU is spying on Judea and Samaria ~

Israel is threatened by the same jihad force that is now causing havoc in Europe, and the European Union is spying on…Israeli settlements.

 
GOP congressman takes down colleague’s sponsored ‘art’ depicting police as pigs ~ Thank-you Duncan Hunter!

A Republican congressman took matters into his own hands Friday and personally removed a painting depicting police officers as pigs that a colleague had allowed to be displayed at the U.S. Capitol complex.
 
“I was angry,” Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., told FoxNews.com. “I’ve seen the press [reporting] on this for about a week or so.”[…]
 
Hunter said he walked over to the artwork Friday morning with a few colleagues and unscrewed it. He then delivered it to the office of Rep. Lacy Clay, D-Mo., the congressman whose office had allowed the piece to be displayed. The painting was done by a high school student and had won Clay’s annual Congressional Art competition in May […]
 

As for whether the painting will stay down, Hunter said: “Lacy can put it back up, I guess, if he wants to … but I’m allowed to take it down.”[…]
 
More than 27,000 law enforcement professionals had been protesting the display of what they called a “reprehensible, repugnant and repulsive” painting in the hallway of the Capitol.

 
President Obama Brickhouse I’ve Even Got My Own Wall ~ The Hypocrite-in-Chief opens the floodgates for tens of thousands of illegals – many of them thugs – and commutes the sentences of hundreds of felons, but when it comes to his elitist butt, it’s build a wall!

 
Morning Star News’ Top 10 Persecution Stories of 2016 ~ Our religious freedoms may be threatened here in the U.S., but merely being a professing Christian in many other countries is grounds for a prison sentence – or worse ~

In Nigeria, Muslim ethnic Fulanis looked less like nomadic herdsmen and more like well-armed, well-funded jihadist militants. Close Muslim relatives and Islamist village mobs attacked their Christian kin in Uganda, while Somalia’s Al Shabaab rebels intensified their campaign to drive Christians from northern Kenya. At the same time, courts in Turkey and Pakistan made history by finally providing some measure of justice in cases of slain Christian martyrs.

16 Most Ridiculously PC Moments on College Campuses in 2016 ~ All new heights of insanity; a year of trigger warnings, safe spaces, and microaggresions. Here’s number 6 ~

Privilege-checking became problematic. You know how social-justice warriors are always telling you to “check your privilege” to see how problematic you are? Well, according to an op-ed by a student at the University of California–Berkeley, privilege-checking is also problematic, because it just makes privileged people feel lucky. (What the hell we are supposed to do to please these people is not clear.)

 
When you’re the only one who shows up to church (At an Episcopal church in Portland, ME) ~ So sad. But because so many of the mainline protestant congregations have embraced moral relativity and “inclusiveness” they’re no longer the “salt and light” they’re called to be and have become mostly irrelevant ~

Such a poor turnout for an evening service isn’t surprising given the national trends. Episcopal churches, like those of other mainline Protestant denominations, are far emptier than they used to be. The Episcopal Church in the United States says average Sunday worship attendance at its churches declined 26 percent between 2005 and 2015.

 
Italy: Muslim sets fire to church Nativity scene ~ No wonder that priest in Cremona didn’t want to “trigger” the barbarians. Isn’t “Coexistence” a beautiful thing?

 
Mr. Obama’s Parting Gift to Planned Parenthood ~ As public pressure to defund Planned Parenthood has been building across the country, several states redirected their Title X (family planning program) funds earmarked for that agency to other organizations that offer health care services to uninsured and low-income Americans. In retaliation, the spiteful president used his poison pen again ~

(T)he Obama administration has invented and adopted a Department of Health and Human Services rule—not a law, mind you—that in effect prohibits states from blocking Planned Parenthood from receiving Title X family planning services grant money.

 
Gun-Controlled Chicago Ends 2016 with Nearly 800 Homicides for the Year ~ The new murder capital of America, Obama’s adopted hometown ~

There were 4,385 shootings — fatal and non-fatal combined — in gun-controlled Chicago during 2016. That is an increase of nearly 1,500 shootings over the 2,900 Time magazine reported for 2015.
 
2016 was marred by shooting after shooting in Chicago. In fact, by early September, the egregious violence in the city was so high that ABC News reported “nearly 12” people had been shot every day in the city from January 1 to the end of August.

This is almost exclusively black-on-black violence. Why don’t these #BlackLivesMatter?

Random links of interest, concern or curiosity from the past week or so, that deserve at least a SHORT mention:

 
The Light of Chanukah ~ Daniel Greenfield explains the fascinating history behind the Jewish celebration and its ongoing relevance for the nation of Israel ~

For eight days and nights the Menorah burned on that single lonely pure flask of oil, until more could be found, and the men who for a time had been soldiers and had once again become priests, saw that while it may be men who kindle lamps and hearts, it is the Almighty who provides them with the fuel of the spirit through which they burn […]

It is the miracle that we commemorate because it is a reminder of possibilities. Each time we light a candle or dip a wick in oil, we release a flare of light from the darkness comes to remind us of what was, is and can still be.

 
Why Can’t I Marry My Robot? ~ Recent video from Dr. Michael Brown reveals the newest absurd level of marriage deconstruction; robosexuals, and “selfies” – the ultimate in self-centeredness
 

KKK Leaders Allege Producers Paid Them to Fake Scenes in Canceled A&E Documentary ~ Reality never matches the Left’s worldview, so they have to make up crap like this ~

The subjects of a TV documentary series about the Ku Klux Klan abruptly canceled last week by A&E allege to Variety that significant portions of what was filmed were fabricated by the producers.
 
Some KKK leaders divulged that they were paid hundreds of dollars in cash each day of filming to compel them on camera to distort the facts of their lives to fit the documentary’s predetermined narrative: tension between Klan members and relatives of theirs who wanted to get out of the Klan.[…]
 
The production team even paid for material and equipment to construct and burn wooden crosses and Nazi swastikas, according to multiple sources including Richard Nichols, who is one of the featured subjects of the documentary series as the Grand Dragon of a KKK cell known as the Tennessee White Knights of the Invisible Empire. He also said he was encouraged by a producer to use the epithet “nigger” in interviews.

 
Child Jihadists Hunt Down, Execute Bound Prisoners in New ISIS Video ~ The barbarians reveal a gruesome new twist on their savagery ~

The Islamic State released a grisly new video today showing child jihadists hunting down bound “apostates” in a live-fire training exercise.

 
Sports Store Owner Starts Memorial Wall in Response to NFL Players Kneeling During Anthem ~ What an excellent way to stand up to millionaire ingrates ~

Colorado Springs, CO – When Prime Time sports owner Stephen Martin found out that Brandon Marshall of the Denver Broncos refused to stand for the anthem, Martin immediately cancelled the autograph signing he had previously booked for Marshall at his store. Instead, he began the creation of a memorial of monumental proportions, one which continues to grow daily and gain widespread fame.

 
San Francisco grapples with growing crime, blight after years of liberal policies Reality catches up with Frisco ~

After 20 years of envelope-pushing changes to grow government and ease law enforcement, the once-shining City by the Bay has turned into a place where:
• Property crime runs amok
• An online map is needed to track human feces on city streets
• Discarded syringes are common sightings
• Public urination is so widespread it has damaged subway elevators and escalators, building walls and power poles
 
“There’s a very tolerant attitude, you can very much do anything on the streets you want,” said Marc Joffe, director of research at the California Policy Center think tank. “As members of a civilized society, there are things you should not accept. But we have ignored that … and there is nobody on the other side setting limits.”

 
American Muslim Groups Host Turkey Dictator’s Daughter, as Her Father Imprisons and Purges Thousands ~ It’s all good though – Obama & Erdoğan are BFFs ~

The Muslim American Society (MAS) and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) are hosting their 16th annual conference this week in Chicago.
The guest of honor for today’s events was Sümeyye Erdoğan Bayraktar, daughter of Turkish Islamist dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan who is currently engaged in a massive purge of politicians, judges, journalists, doctors, teachers, police officers, and the military.[…]
 
Turkey currently holds the distinction of the “world’s top jailer of journalists” — as it is imprisoning one-third of all jailed journalists worldwide.

 
Morocco Warned Germany Twice About Berlin Killer Anis Amri; German Intel Did Nothing ~ The willful blindness of the elite ruling class is killing us!

 
Stoke bus driver brings the magic of the silver screen to his back garden ~ UK man takes “home theater” to a whole new level. Check it out ~

That dream came true when Mr Jones built a 34-seat cinema, in his own garden. The 38-year-old bus driver has spent the past four and a half years, and £70,000 of his life savings, erecting the brick building at his Stoke-on-Trent home.
 
Replete with a 17ft by 7ft screen, red curtains and red seats Mr Jones’s home movie theatre is a homage to the ABC chain of cinemas of his youth.