The Bears may leave Chicago, and the city has no one to blame but itself and the state's governor.
Every lover of the Chicago football team knows the song, "Bear Down, Chicago Bears":
Bear down, Chicago Bears! Make every play clear the way to victory.
Bear down, Chicago Bears! Put up a fight with a might so fearlessly.
We'll never forget the way you thrilled the nation with your T-formation.
Bear down, Chicago Bears, and let 'em know why you're wearing the crown.
You're the pride and joy of Illinois! Chicago Bears, bear down!
One might be required to change some of the lyrics:
Goodbye, Chicago Bears! It was great while we had you in our town.
Farewell, Chicago Bears
We lost your presence as our governor is a clown.
We'll never forget the way you thrilled the city with your amazing play,
We'll miss you, Chicago Bears, and send us pictures when you win the crown.
You'll be the pride of Indiana and the memory of Illinois, au revoir, Chicago Bears!
The Bears might be on their way out of venerable Soldier Field, the oldest stadium in the league and the home of the Monsters of the Midway since 1971. The state of Indiana has advanced a $2 billion bond offer for a new stadium in Hammond and a sports authority that would oversee the building of the state-of-the-art stadium. In the past few years, there were noises that the team might move to Arlington Park, outside of the city. The Bears bought a 326-acre site there for just under $200 million with an eye on building a major sports campus. If the Bears do change states and bolt for northern Indiana, it would not make it to the Guinness Book of Records. The "New York Giants" have been out of the Big Apple since 1976. The Jets followed them to the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey, eight years later. I don't believe that there is one Democratically-controlled state that one would call successful. Hundreds of thousands have abandoned my birth state of Illinois due to higher taxes, fewer opportunities, and better lives lived elsewhere. The governor of Indiana, Republican Mike Braun, did not miss an opportunity to take a shot at Gov. Pretzel of Illinois:
"Indiana is open for business, and our pro-growth environment continues to attract major opportunities like this partnership with the Chicago Bears. We've identified a promising site near Wolf Lake in Hammond and established a broad framework for negotiating a final deal."
The Bears might be fighting with other fleeing Chicagoans for the few remaining U-Haul trucks left in the city.
So, for how long have Democrats run various places in the U.S. uninterrupted by Republican leadership?
New York City: Since 2013
Detroit: Since 1962
Chicago: Since 1931
Philadelphia: Since 1952
Los Angeles: Since 2001
San Francisco: Since 1964
Illinois: Since 2019 (19 of the past 23 years)
Connecticut: Since 2011
New York State: Since 2006
California: Since 2011 (The Terminator)
Entrenched Democratic cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia are urban dumps. There were times in the past when they were the jewels of the American land. But some quick statistics:
The top four cities for homicides are New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, and Baltimore—all run by Democratic mayors. Top states with unfunded pensions: Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut, Kentucky, and Mississippi. Only the last one has a Republican governor. And while in some places, the Democrats have had decades to destroy local business, coddle criminals, and push people toward other places to live, one can see in New York how quickly an urban space can go down the tubes. It's been just 13 years that New York has been in the hands of Democratic mayors: de Blasio, Adams, and now Mamdani. I remember when the subway had no graffiti on the cars and was considered safe to ride. People were not being pushed onto tracks or knifed in the stations. We felt safe walking around Central Park and Times Square. But now, on its third consecutive "progressive" mayor, the city lost half a million people between 2020 and 2024. Strict COVID rules did not help, but people left also due to high taxes, lousy services, and increasing crime. What does it help to be rich if a person fears for his life every time he leaves his Upper West Side pad? My cousins say that they have given up on the subway, and many religious Jews get harassed because they are Jews and obviously are complicit in all of the made-up sins of the state of Israel.
When I was growing up in the suburbs, the elder Mayor Daley ran Chicago, and it was called "The City that Works." Today, it is the city that fails. It has high crime and high taxes. It has $36 billion in unfunded pension liabilities from teachers, cops, firefighters, etc. Businesses—like the Bears—find Indiana and other states more business-friendly. Boeing and Citadel left in 2022. The city issued 12,000 fewer business licenses in 2024 than in 2015. The once beautiful city with the longest stretch of beaches after Sydney, Australia, has become an urban jungle, where crime is out of control, and another Soros DA lets the criminals back on the street to terrorize the population again. Soft-on-crime policies with high taxes and poor city services are the elixir that is sending thousands to states like Florida and Texas. New York may be on its way to joining San Francisco in having a dedicated app to show where human feces are located on sidewalks; melting snow revealed a large amount of excrement on what was once America's premier city.
The cities with the highest economic growth tend to be run by Democrats but located in Republican states. In order: Austin-Phoenix-Seattle-
The Bears' potential exit from Soldier Field is sad but predictable. Like abusive husbands, the mayor and governor just assumed that the team would always be around and wouldn't ever have the gumption to get up and move out. The Bears are ultimately a business, and this year their product looked quite good. They want better facilities and the ability to maximize revenue from their talented quarterback and teammates. I have a dear friend here in Israel who used to see games at Wrigley Field before their move to the shores of Lake Michigan. In the 1980s, the grounds crew would open a huge door so as to get furious winds off the lake coming in against opposing kickers to make field goals extremely difficult. Pure Chicago: using the lake to get an advantage over the adversary. Hammond is only 40 minutes from Chicago, as is Arlington Park. The Bears will leave Soldier Field and a lot of history behind. I went to one game there, and my only recollection is one of freezing. Mayor Johnson and Governor Pritzker don't appreciate the needs of businesses, as they are obsessed with progressive shibboleths of race, "equity," illegal aliens, trans mania, and a nonexistent "climate emergency." I guess one could look on the bright side: they can put all of the homeless into Soldier Field if they ever get the brains to get them off of the streets.
Editor's Note: With President Trump back in the White House, the state of our Union is strong once again.
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