Chicago Pols Blame the Victim Rather than Fight Crime

“Where was that anger when the stores in our communities were under years and years of assault by criminals allowed to shoplift, vandalize, and destroy neighborhood institutions?"

Stephen Moore: Unleash Prosperity Hotline – In Ayn Rand's famous novel Atlas Shrugged, the collectivist government of the day passed laws to stop businesses from shutting down.

It hasn't gotten that bad in the dystopian Chicago.

Chicago Alderman William Hall and union leaders held a news conference this week demanding that the drug store giant Walgreens be prosecuted for "first-degree corporate abandonment" for its planned closure of a store in his Chatham neighborhood next month.  He railed that the plan would create a "food desert" and "medicine drought" in his district.

Why are they shutting down? Rampant crime.  Walmart has 100 Chicago stores in high-crime neighborhoods where they are targeted regularly by retail thieves. Mayor Brandon Johnson has done nothing so Walmart closed five stores last year.

The company says it could no longer "maintain a secure environment for our team members and customers.”

Here is the towering hypocrisy of the left.  They have got nitwits in their movement with loud bullhorns telling their leftist followers that it’s ok to steal from stores because they are rich and the residents are poor.

Now they complain that their city’s are turning into “food deserts.”  Progressives can’t put two and two together.

Actually, a few can. Kudos to Raymond Lopez, a Democrat who serves on the City Council, who laments:

“Where was that anger when the stores in our communities were under years and years of assault by criminals allowed to shoplift, vandalize, and destroy neighborhood institutions? There are real-world consequences for crime running rampant."