SUPERINTENDENT WEIS NEEDS HELP; OBAMA & DALEY NEED TO BE CONCERNED WITH KEEPING OUR KIDS ALIVE TO SEE 2016 OLYMPICS

Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis (AP)It is time to support Chicago's fairly new superintendent, Jody Weis, who comes with 23 years of FBI experience. It's time to give him the help that he needs. Even the most fabulous, wonderful, brilliant and powerful person cannot win a war by himself. Weis has the ability to carry out his job but he still needs strategy; he needs support; he needs infrastructure; he needs soldiers.

We are in a war on our streets. The other day, Derrion Albert was savagely beaten to death in broad daylight, just 10 miles south of President Obama's Chicago residence. Last year, Blair Holt was killed on a school bus as he tried to break up a fight. These boys are just a couple of the 100+ student who have died in the past year on Chicago's streets. The number of our children killed at home are WAR NUMBERS!

Superintendent Weis needs help - he cannot fight this war alone. While Daley and Obama are flitting around Europe and schmoozing with the IOC in an attempt to get the Olympics to Chicago, Superintendent Weis is in the streets of Chicago, assigning detectives to solve the brutal murder of Mr. Albert. (Don't forget, within hours, CPD had several suspects in custody, even though they did not receive one tip -- that's right, not even ONE tip!)

The innocent are getting killed. You must understand it's not just the drug dealers and gang bangers. Both Derrion Albert and Blair Holt were honor roll students. I'll never forget the funeral I attended at Rainbow Push a couple of years ago for a young, female college student who was shot to death in her car as she drove to get some food with her friends. It was a case of mistaken identity - the shooters got the "wrong" person. I just sat in the chair at Push and stared at the made-up face, reconstructed with cheap wax, of a young girl who had so much of a future ahead of her. I remember thinking, "What's wrong here? She didn't have a chance."

So, thank you, General McChrystal for your report on what we can do to "win" the war in Afghanistan. But we need the same kind of detailed report on how we are going to win the war on the streets of America.

We cannot and shall not bash Superintendent Weis. We need him to do his job and he needs the help of our leaders to come up with a plan on how we are going to save our kids. I've been to those "community" meetings held by the "community organizers" of our city. The people mean well. They have been crying out for help and change for years. Problem is, nobody is really listening.

Sure, we can have the "accountability" argument - until parents teach their kids to be accountable, we will continue to have violence. And sure, we can have the "blame the police" argument - since the police were a block away from the scene of the latest violent crime, it's CPD's fault. Because you know what? Even if CPD was there to save Derrion, there still is going to be another shooting or another beating the next day and the next day and the next day. So, those arguments only take us so far. The problem is so pervasive and so widespread that we need strategy, we need planning, we need infrastructure, and we need solidified leadership. Until then, the innocent will continue to die. And, your good kid could be next...

After Obama and Daley come back with their little "Chicago 2016" pins, they need to start planning on how to keep our kids alive so that they can actually see the Olympics in their hometown.

 PS: Please, let's not make this about race. Let's make this about saving our kids.

 www.xpunged.com and www.tamaraholder.com

NATIONAL MEDIA, OBAMA, POLITICIANS HAVE SOME NERVE: PLAY VIDEO OF BEATING DEATH OF BOY ON CHICAGO'S STREETS, IGNORE UNDERLYING ISSUE -- WE ARE AT WAR HERE AT HOME

I couldn't be more disgusted with our national media and our elected leaders.

Last night, I watched CNN play it over and over again: a bystander's video of Derrion Albert being beaten to death in the streets of Chicago.

* This isn't a beating in a gangway or in the middle of the night.
* This isn't a one-on-one fight between two men of rival gangs.
* This isn't a drive-by shooting.
* This isn't a drug-deal-gone-bad.
* This isn't Iraq or Afghanistan.

Instead:

* This is beating murder in the middle of the street, in broad daylight.
* This is a public spectacle - numerous people stand and watch instead of seek help.
* This is an innocent, church-going, honor roll student athlete who is beaten to death.
* This is less than 15 miles from downtown Chicago, just 3 blocks from Fenger High School.
* This is the United States of America.

This is a war in our streets. Derrion Albert's High School Photo

OUR POLITICIANS' SILENCE & THE MEDIA'S FAILURE TO REPORT

I watched CNN's report with a friend, whose opinions I greatly respect and that I often refer to in my blogs. I commented that I was disgusted by Obama and other politicians' failure to address the inner-city and race issues. I'm not quoting my friend directly -- but the response was something like: Obama and our elected leaders cannot address the race issue because too many people will manipulate their words. Basically, don't disturb the bees' nest because you will get stung. As I heard this opinion, I bit my lip and nodded my head in agreement. Yep, it's true; my friend is right, yet again.

Instead, let the bees kill each other or learn to live together, right? Survival of the fittest.

The problem is that we aren't talking about bees -- we are talking about our children. We are talking about a  war on our American soil, not a war in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Why do our politicians have public opinions about whether we should send troops into Afghanistan but not about what we can do to stop the war on the streets? Why are we so concerned with keeping al-Queda out of Afghanistan but not with keeping domestic terrorists from killing more innocent children?

Remember Obama's recent Sepetember 8th speech to the K-12 students of America? Remember how everyone was all in a tizzy about whether it's appropriate for our President to speak to our students? Remember how some parents kept their kids home from school? I wrote a blog about his speech here, stating in part:

I find it interesting that it wasn't until the end of Obama's speech where he said something like "we are doing our part to get you the resources [for an education.]" Today's speech wasn't about what Obama's going to do to provide for the opportunity for our students to have the best education...but now he's opened the door so he better follow up!

Walk into a Chicago Public School one day and you will find kids whose only meal of the day is the one served in school. Many kids don't have those books and computers. Sure, he had an example of ONE child out of Chicago Public Schools who made it against the odds. But that girl is an anomoly. Kids cannot relate to that ONE child.  What is Obama going to do to bring our schools up to par?

Why does the media refuse to address these issues? Why does the media not put pressure on our elected officials, including Obama, to start protecting our inner-city youth?

And here I am, less than three weeks later, watching a kid get beaten to death, just 10 miles south of Obama's Chicago residence. Derrion Albert didn't have a chance even though he was doing all of the things Obama said to do: go to school, work hard, stay in school, work hard.

Where is Obama now? He surely didn't have a problem making a big scene about the arrest of Professor Gates. You know, the African-American Harvard Professor who was arrested in his home and then Obama said the police acted "stupidly." Maybe they did; maybe they didn't -- that's not the issue. The issue is, Obama continues to remain silent about inner-city issues that are not isolated incidents but proof of the ongoing war in our streets. 

THE RACE STATISTICS

The other week, Obama told David Gregory on "Meet the Press":

"Well, look -- David, here's what I'm saying. -- I -- I -- I think that -- the media loves to have a conversation about race. I mean, the -- this is -- is catnip to -- to -- the media because it is a running thread in American history that's very powerful. And it invokes some very strong emotions.

I'm not saying that race -- never matters in -- in any of these -- public debates that we have. What I'm saying is this debate is not about race -- it's about people being worried about -- how our government should operate."

In March, I wrote a blog about gun violence in Chicago:  "Gun Violence Among School-Age Youth in Chicago" a report released by the University of Chicago Crime Lab says the annual cost of gun violence in the City of Chicago costs $2.5 billion dollars annually. Yes, that's BILLION. Article here.

Derrion's death doesn't fall into that statistic because he wasn't shot; he was beaten to death. Imagine the annual cost of non-gun violence in the City of Chicago.

Here's another statistic: During the 2008-09 school year, 36 Chicago Public School students were killed, making it the third year in a row the murder rate has climbed into the double-digits. Article here. Dexter Voisin, a researcher at the University of Chicago said, "Those with nonfatal injuries are almost 100 times that of our homicide rates. You think for about every one kid who is murdered, 100 kids witness the murder or are victims of nonfatal injuries, of robberies, muggings and gang-related incidents. A lot of times, this exposure goes undocumented or unreported." Black youths, he said, are two times more likely than white youths to fail or drop out of school, and at the same time they are also eight to 10 times more likely to be victims of homicide than whites.

Obama, you are wrong. Derrion's death is about race and about black-on-black crime. This isn't just a "conversation about race" -- these are statistics and facts about race.

It kills me inside that my friend is right: Obama and our other elected leaders will continue to remain silent. Derrion Albert is now just another statistic, another number. People will continue to say our community leaders like Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. are irrelevant, even though they are the people who visit the family and console crying parents who lost their innocent children to the streets.

I pray for the day when General McChrystal's domestic counterpart (right now, there's no such person) submits a report to Obama on how to win the war in our streets, not just in Afghanistan. I also pray for the day when our national media will spend just as much time discussing the war at home as they do on Acorn.

Here is the video of the beating. Warning: the footage is extremely graphic.

 www.xpunged.com and www.tamaraholder.com