It's traditionally been quite an honor for a city to be chosen to host one of the major party presidential conventions. It's a great opportunity to have the mainstream media feature all of the comings and goings, along with the chance for local businesses to see a surge in traffic thanks to all of the tourists showing up for the week. But the Democrats' big shindig is taking place in Chicago this year and that tends to make such gala affairs just a bit "different." 2024 is proving to be no exception to that rule. Just in time for the DNC, the latest round of national crime statistics was released and Chicago was prominently featured as "America's murder capital." This shouldn't come as any great surprise since it's the 12th year in a row that the Windy City has been noted for this "honor." But it's probably not the message that Joe BIden's party was hoping to project just as Kamala Harris is being officially recognized as their presidential candidate and will be expected to fix America's problems if elected. (NY Post)

Democrat-led Chicago earned the disturbing title of America’s murder capital for the 12th year running in 2023 — as homicides have surged almost 50% from a decade ago, according to troubling data.

At least 617 people were murdered across Chicago — where the Democratic National Convention kicks off Monday — in 2023, compared to 416 killed 10 years ago in 2013, recent statistics from the research group Wirepoints.org found.

That kill count put Chicago ahead of every city in the country for the 12^th year in a row — beating out Philadelphia’s 408 murders last year, and New York City’s 386 homicides.

The number of people murdered in Chicago surged dramatically by more than 200 between 2013 and 22023. Their 617 murders far outpaced Philadelphia and were even further ahead of New York City, despite Gotham having a population more than three times larger than Chitown. Welcome to the DNC! Please enjoy your stay. Did you know that in addition to offering free vasectomies and abortions, you can pick up a coupon for 25% off of your funeral expense if you don't make it back home alive?

While these numbers clearly look pretty bad (and they are), we should bear in mind that the figures being cited are simply the total number of murders recorded. That's the raw tonnage of bodies being dropped. A more accurate assessment can be found if we look at the per capita murder rates in American cities. Using that metric, Chicago isn't close to being number one. In fact, they come in tenth on the list. The top slot goes to St. Louis, Missouri with 69.4 murders per 100K residents. Plucky Baltimore, Maryland (with a far lower population) takes second place, with New Orleans, Detroit, and Cleveland rounding out the top five. Pretty much every city on the top ten list is run almost entirely by Democrats, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

All kidding aside, while this news was not unanticipated, it's still a terrible look for the Democrats. People were already having flashbacks to the 1968 DNC in Chicago when the Chicago PD was beating down protesters while wearing riot gear and loading them into paddy wagons. They are gathering for their big quadrennial festival at a time when rampant crime rates, particularly among illegal migrants and imported Venezuelan gangs are at least in the top three concerns expressed by voters. They are begging their base to get excited about Kamala Harris' chance to be the historic First Female President and lead the nation, but their supporters came to town and were greeted by a headline like this? 

If Harris' party really wants to get people motivated and excited, perhaps they should be talking more about their policies that would allegedly deal with these plagues. Rather than trying to box the protesters away from the convention site, they might try reaching out to the economically disadvantaged minority communities of Chicago and explaining what they plan to do to make their lives better. Of course, that's hard to do when you don't actually have a plan beyond desperately trying to be elected and sticking with the same failed policies that landed us where we are now.