* Before I sign off, here are yesterday’s winners. The Golden Horseshoe Award for Best State Senate Staffer - Non Political…
Dave McEllis. Tireless workhorse who gets the details while also recognizing the big picture. A rare combo. Willing to tackle the tedious and transformative with same enthusiasm and commitment to excellence.
Dave got a lot of very strong nominations. Jo Johnson on the Senate GOP staff was a mighty close second. She’s also a great pal and she wins runner-up.
* The Golden Horseshoe Award for Best State House Staffer - Non Political…
Ben Lazare, hands down. He is all over Medicaid and is always so cool, calm, and collected. Very agreeable to listen to issues and work on projects. He exudes confidence in meetings and cracks me up when he kicks his feet up on the desk in his office, no matter who is there.
Judging by the comments and discussions with others, Mark Jarmer is most definitely an up-and-comer, so he wins honorable mention.
Congrats to our winners!
You can continue commenting on today’s awards. The comments won’t appear on the site, but I can read them. Lots of folks are over at the Board of Elections, which may have kept the volume a bit low here today.
We need volunteers today, tomorrow, and Sunday. Here’s why:
As you may have seen in the press, the Democrats are running a number of candidates for Republican ward committeeman positions across the city. It’s appalling, but there is a twisted logic to it: if the Democrats pick up some seats, they get influence within the Republican Party. And they get to place the election judges in a ward, which means it’ll be open season for vote fraud.
Fortunately, many of these candidates filed very poorly-done petitions. The petitions contain clearly fake signatures. (Ever known a whole family to have exactly the same handwriting?)
Unfortunately, we have to challenge these petitions a line at a time, which means we need people to go to the Chicago Board of Elections and look up voters to see if the signatures match. And the Democrats, who wrote the election law, have only given us a few days to do it.
We need your help ASAP. Please call Michael Federico at [deleted], or me at [deleted], and let us know if you have time to put in a few hours this weekend. The Chicago Board of Elections is open these hours.
This is nice, clean, easy, indoor work. (Not like that door-to-door petition work we asked you to do.) If you want to volunteer for the party, now is the time. Call us and let us know when you’re free. The Board of Elections is downtown at 69 W Washington.
A woman accused of repeatedly trying to contact actor John Cusack was charged today with stalking.
Elizabeth Diane Pahlke, 45, was scheduled to be arraigned this afternoon in Van Nuys Superior Court on the charge alleging that she stalked Cusack between Oct. 1, 2010, and Tuesday, when she was arrested by deputies from the Lost Hills/Malibu sheriff’s station.
Pahlke was already subject to a restraining order recently obtained by Cusack, who she’s allegedly tried to contact through text messages and Twitter for nearly three years, according to the criminal complaint.
Pahlke is accused of flying from Illinois to Los Angeles, going to Cusack’s home and following him to a restaurant, where she approached him, according to Shiara Davila-Morales of the District Attorney’s Office.
Elizabeth Pahlke of Arlington Heights ran unsuccessfully as an independent candidate in the 2013 special election for the 2nd congressional district once held by ex-U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.
In what is likely to be a first, the Illinois Board of Elections is going through nominating petition pages upon which Republican U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Diane Pahlke glued leaves, grass and bird droppings.
Pahlke’s reason for attaching these natural visual aids?
“The mud, grass & leaves & bird signatures represent the bad decisions that were made from developers & politicians that stole from our land”
To be clear, nobody has yet reported that candidate Elizabeth Diane Pahlke is the Illinois resident Elizabeth Diane Pahlke who allegedly stalked Cusack.
“He (the mayor) is saying positive things in private.” - Rauner
Rauner also claims he has had lots of productive one on one meetings with MJM in recent weeks.
And Rauner just said any tax hike should be temporary.
…Adding More… Emily Miller in comments…
Yes, there is a point of doing a budget, even if it is in April.
Providers are continuing to offer services based on contracts that say they will get paid when there is a budget. They need a budget to get paid for services already provided.
It’s only because providers have been able to figure out how to tap into reserves and borrow money that the fall out from the budget impasse hasn’t been worse.
And in that regard, I hope no one is under the impression that lawmakers and the administration are opposed to borrowing– that’s exactly how this state has continued to function for the past 6 months.
* I’ve been pretty busy this morning, so I’ll announce yesterday’s winners when I close down comments later today.
Today’s categories…
* Best legislative campaign staffer - Democrats
* Best legislative campaign staffer - Republicans
I wasn’t going to take those nominations this year, but there was some push-back in comments. Instead, I’ve combined four awards into two to save some time.
Remember to explain your votes or they won’t count. Thanks!
* From a Tribune story earlier this week about the mainly non-GRF appropriations bill that passed the House…
The bulk of the $3.1 billion in new spending is money set aside in accounts earmarked for specialized purposes, though lawmakers also signed off on $28 million in spending from the state’s main checking account. About $18 million of that will go to domestic violence shelters and another $10 million was set aside for the Secretary of State’s office, which stopped mailing yearly reminders for drivers to renew their vehicle registration because of the budget crunch.
* I asked the secretary of state’s office where the money was going. Response…
We are currently reviewing all outstanding bills.
Our top priorities remain ensuring that Driver Services facilities remain open – this includes catching up on unpaid rent and utilities – and our firewall remains secure in order to protect the database of the public’s critical information that we maintain.
We will continue to be prudent in how we manage our resources during the budget impasse.
The office was really worried about its ability to pay cyber security contractors.
* I thought I’d share a bit of what I’ve been reading today and yesterday, starting with the AP…
A police dash-cam video that captures a white Chicago officer fatally shooting a black teenager 16 times has no sound, nor do videos from four other squad cars at the scene. But department protocol indicates all the cruisers should have been recording audio that night. […]
Several experts on the type of equipment commonly installed in police vehicles told The Associated Press that it’s plausible for a single squad car to have a glitch preventing sound recording. But they could not imagine how an entire fleet of cars would ever lose audio at the same time and place by mere happenstance.
Either their equipment totally sucks or something else is going on.
* The Tribune took a look at Burger King surveillance footage which shows “12 camera angles from inside and outside” the restaurant near the LaQuan McDonald shooting…
There is a gap in the footage from about 9:18 p.m. to 10:39 p.m., which covers the time when McDonald was shot by Officer Jason Van Dyke on a nearby street. […]
After the gap, a police officer in a bulletproof vest is seen sitting at a desk in front of a computer monitor in the back of the restaurant. Another officer is seen walking around behind the seated police officer.
I checked with the reporter and the gap is from all 12 camera angles. So, either the system went down (I saw another report a while ago which claimed the BK system was unreliable), or we’ve got another cover-up. The state’s attorney says there was no alteration, and other media outlets claim the feds say the same.
* Speaking of videos, the city is releasing the police shooting footage of Ronald Johnson, who, like LaQuan McDonald, was also killed in October, 2014. Mary Mitchell talked to Johnson’s mom, Dorothy Holmes…
Shortly after her son was killed, Holmes said she and several other mothers went to City Hall and tried to meet with the mayor.
“We wanted the mayor to come out and talk to us. He sent his spokesman out for him. He didn’t face us. If he had come out and talked to me, it would have meant something. It would have showed me that he cared,” Holmes said.
“But now that I had to go this far with it, I can’t accept his apology because I shouldn’t have had to fight this hard. It’s been 14 months that I’ve been fighting to get this dashcam video released,” she said.
“I wonder if he would have had to fight this hard if it was his son that had gotten killed by police. I just don’t want him in the office period,” Holmes said.
* The mayor apparently reserves his anger for reporters who divulge his vacation plans…
Rahm Emanuel laid into POLITICO’s Mike Allen on Wednesday when Allen revealed the Chicago mayor’s plans to vacation in Cuba with his family over the holidays, angrily saying, “I really don’t appreciate that.” […]
Allen again expressed his apologies.
“I don’t know if you know this: It’s not gonna work,” Emanuel said
Asked this week why he never watched the video, Emanuel responded that “reporters would say, ‘If you got to see it, why doesn’t the public get to see it?’ ” Viewing it, the mayor claimed, would have “compromised the integrity of the investigation,” which assumes this investigation had any integrity to begin with.
“…But [Emanuel] also has the opportunity to make some historic reforms that will make a real difference.”
Axelrod noted that although use of excessive police force is not new to Chicago — he wrote his first newspaper column 43 years ago on that exact subject, “You fit it with other tragedies we’ve seen nationally, and it’s a seismic event.”
Agreed on both counts. Let’s hope the mayor eventually comes around to that thinking, because the Tribune is correct here…
Emanuel’s reflex is to try to control the story, the news cycle, the basic information about the operation of this city. He has been burned by his own instincts.
Yep. Use this as an opportunity to do some darned good. Stop being such a control freak.
The Justice Department launched a pattern-and-practice probe of the Los Angeles Police Department in 1994, as allowed by a new federal law. It was triggered by the notorious case of Rodney King, the black man who was beaten by Los Angeles police after being stopped for speeding.
The federal probe led to a 2001 consent decree in which the LAPD agreed to enact dozens of reforms. And that, in turn, led to a dramatic transformation of the department, well before court oversight of the department was lifted in 2013.
“The LAPD remains aggressive and is again proud, but community management and partnership is now part of the mainstream culture of the Department,” concluded a 2009 study by Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. “The Department responds to crime and disorder with substantial force, but it is scrutinizing that force closely and it is accountable through many devices for its proper use.”
Public satisfaction in the LAPD jumped, with 83 percent of residents saying the police were doing a good or excellent job, according to the Harvard study. The use of serious force by officers declined for five years straight, yet the cops did not curl up in a fetal position for fear of being accused of overreacting.
Two takeaways: 1) The civil rights probe is needed; and 2) Don’t expect quick results since it took them 7 years to get a consent decreee in Los Angeles, which welcomed the probe. Mayor Emanuel needs to get something moving now. There’ve been enough police studies to fill the Harold Washington Library. Action is needed.
A couple of years ago, Garry McCarthy met my boss and me for lunch. It was months after the 2012 NATO summit in Chicago and around the time the police superintendent was getting good press for joining his rank and file on patrols. […]
McCarthy also recounted in detail the NATO protest and his role commandeering the police barricade that ended the march. He received wide praise for the department’s handling of that scrum, and it was deserved. Certain factions of protesters were beyond obnoxious. They got into cops’ faces and taunted. They repeatedly provoked. They wanted so badly for law enforcement to lose its cool.
I almost lost mine. I wanted to punch a few protesters’ bandanna-covered faces as they darted and shoved through the crowd, occasionally popping up black umbrellas and huddling underneath to do God knows what. I gained greater respect that day for the unassailable restraint good policing requires.
A democracy cannot long survive as a democracy if it’s for sale to the highest bidder, ignoring the interests of ordinary members of society in favor of those wealthy enough to influence the election outcomes.
And make no mistake: The interests and preferences of the wealthy elite are far different than those of ordinary Americans. That seems self-evident enough, but it was confirmed by a 2013 survey of the richest 1 percent of Americans. The study found that the priorities of America’s elite differ markedly from the those of the rest of the nation — and that the rich are far more likely to win those policy arguments.
For instance, while 52 percent of all Americans believe the rich should be heavily taxed, only 17 percent of the wealthy agree. Taxes on the highest-earning Americans are far less than half of what they once were, with little chance they’ll be going up anytime soon.
A strong majority — 59 percent of Americans — believe that Social Security should be expanded rather than cutting benefits and raising the eligibility age. Only 3 percent of America’s wealthiest agree. Despite the fact that simply eliminating the cap on income subject to Social Security taxes would be enough to guarantee the program’s solvency well into the future, there is no serious proposal to lift the cap, currently set at $118,500.
More than three-quarters of Americans believe that the minimum wage should be high enough that a full-time worker can earn his or her family out of poverty. Only 40 percent of the wealthiest agree. The federal minimum wage hasn’t gone up since 2009.
In essence, the study found that the United States is more oligarchy than democracy. Policy decisions at the local, state and federal level too often reflect the will of the wealthy rather than the will of the people.
The pilot study as a whole yielded a total of 104 interviews. After a brief false start in the autumn of 2010, during winter and spring 2011 NORC interviewers used the refined sampling design (described above) to contact, win the cooperation of, and interview 83 Chicago-area respondents, who provided the data for most of the analyses reported here.
Emphasis added. If you look at the accompanying charts, there’s always “n=83″ at the bottom, meaning 83 is the number of people interviewed.
Most of our respondents fell into or near the top 1 percent of US wealth-holders. Their average (mean) wealth was $14,006,338; the median was $7,500,000. To give a further idea of their economic standing: respondents’ average income was $1,040,140. About one third of them (32.4 percent) reported incomes of $1,000,000 or more.
In 2014, Illinois had an estimated 265,000 millionaires, according to Phoenix Global Wealth Monitor, a market research firm.
But that’s based on assets, not incomes. It’s also statewide, not just in the Chicago area. I can’t find better numbers, though, so assume the target interview size is half that and it’s 132,000 people or so. Maybe somebody else can find better numbers on the interwebtubes and I’ll update.
Raise your hand if you think 83 people out of a group of difficult to contact, very private people is a sufficient sample size to emphatically state that this poll “found that the United States is more oligarchy than democracy.”
I’m not saying the finding is wrong. You can calculate a margin of error for that sample size and target population. I’m just saying that I don’t have a huge amount of confidence in it.
Geneseo (IL) High School senior Morgan Miller has been selected for Western Illinois University’s Centennial Honors Scholarship, which awards $10,000 per year to academically high-achieving students.
High school students with an ACT score of 30 or higher and a grade point average of 3.0 or higher are eligible for the scholarship.
“I selected Western because I feel that it has the type of atmosphere that I learn best in,” said Miller of her decision to attend Western. “It has supportive and encouraging instructors, a substantial amount of educational resources and plenty of places that I can feel secure in. Western is a place where you can grow as both a student and a person. You can challenge yourself academically to prepare for your future career and you can join a wide variety of activities that will bring you in touch with inspiring and outstanding people to learn from.”
Miller said she expects to major in instrumental music education at Western.
After graduation from Western, Miller hopes to be hired by a local middle or high school as an instrumental director, as well as continue to teach private clarinet lessons.
In high school, Miller participated in several music ensembles, including honors band, pep band, pit orchestra, the Quad City Youth Symphony Orchestra and the ILMEA district and all state festivals, as well as her church’s orchestra and bell choir. She also played tennis over four years for her high school.
* Gee. Imagine that. The Cook County Board wants to hold a hearing about a topic everyone is talking about and the subject of that hearing gets all upset…
“Anita resign! Anita resign!” the group [of protestors staging a 16 hour sit-in at the Cook County Building] chanted.
While the group began its sit-in, Cook County Commissioners John Fritchey and Jesus “Chuy” Garcia said they are filing a resolution seeking to have Alvarez appear before the Criminal Justice Committee of the Cook County Board. They want Alvarez to answer questions about the McDonald shooting investigation and the timing of the murder charges.
“In light of the now internationally infamous video of the shooting of Laquan McDonald, there exist a number of legitimate inquiries as to whether the residents of Cook County, and justice itself, are being properly served and represented by the State’s Attorney’s office in this and other cases,” said Fritchey. “The quickest and most open way to do so is to have the State’s Attorney answer questions in a public forum such as a hearing of the Criminal Justice Committee of the Cook County Board, a body empowered to serve and represent the interests of the residents of the county.”
Alvarez fired back. She said neither of the commissioners called her or asked for a meeting.
“I would be willing to talk in a professional manner. I am not going to be subjected to some political grandstanding and circus, which is what I think they have in mind,” Alvarez said.
Alvarez said she will not resign and has refused to bow to political pressure.
“I absolutely have no intention of stepping down. I was voted in to do a job and I’m doing that job,” Alvarez said. “The people who are calling for my resignation aren’t the people of Cook County…They’re seasoned politicians all with political agendas.”
I’m betting a lot of “people” in Cook County ain’t all that happy with her now. So, she can be in denial all she wants.
And as an elected countywide official, the county board has an absolute right to haul her in to testify. The city council ought to consider doing the same with the mayor.
Yeah, that’ll happen.
* Inciting anti-Alvarez rhetoric? Wow! Goodness gracious, there should be a grand jury!…
Following a press conference with Cook County Commissioners John Fritchey and Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, Alvarez talked to reporters and pointed a finger at her political opponents for inciting the anti-Alvarez rhetoric in recent days.
“That’s disgusting, it’s degrading. It’s degrading to the criminal justice system,” Alvarez said. “The case is pending right now, and I think it’s disgusting what they’re trying to do, to turn this into their own political game. And I think that’s exactly what’s happening here.”
Criticism of an elected state’s attorney is not an attack on the criminal justice system. Equating her political self with that system did not help her cause yesterday.
* And while she makes some good points here, referring to herself in the third person made her seem like a cartoon character…
In addition to the backlash Alvarez has faced about the length of the investigation in the McDonald case, she has also been accused alongside Mayor Rahm Emanuel and former Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy of aiding a cover-up of the shooting. Alvarez vehemently denied this claim, however.
“You’re all intelligent, you get this. Let’s think about it,” Alvarez told reporters. “If Anita Alvarez was going to whitewash a case, if Anita Alvarez was going to look away, if Anita Alvarez wasn’t going to do her job and look at this case and do her review for excessive force, let me think. Hmm. I’m going to conspire to whitewash this to push it under the rug. Hmm. Who are my co-conspirators going to be. Let me see. I’m going to call on the head of the FBI. He could be a co-conspirator with me. Let me call on the U.S. Attorney for the northern district of Illinois and say, ‘Come be a co-conspirator with me, so we can cover this up.’ That is just absurd.”
“They can stand up here and they can criticize me all they want,” Alvarez said. “But I have an election coming up, and the people of Cook County will speak. Because you know what? I would rather lose an election than compromise the integrity of an investigation.
“I have done this job for 29 years, speaking up on behalf of the victims of Cook County, the majority of those victims being minority. And to be portrayed in this light by seasoned politicians with political agendas is disgusting and it’s degrading. I’m going to continue to be the Cook County state’s attorney, and there’s no way that I would ever even consider resigning.”
Um, I’m pretty sure that her outburst yesterday was intended to stake out some high ground in her primary bid. So spare us the whining about those bad, old “seasoned politicians.” She’s been elected twice.
* By the way, this is not to deny that the proposed hearing has political motivations. Campaigns elect our leaders, so campaigns do play a role in stuff like this…
Garcia has already called on Alvarez to resign, and Fritchey acknowledged he has endorsed Donna More in the race against Alvarez in the upcoming Democratic primary election in March. Kim Foxx is also running.
Fritchey added that, if he had his preference, Alvarez would not be in office during next year’s budget hearings for the state’s attorney.
“This is not an inquisition. It’s an invitation,” Fritchey added. “We’re not bullying her. We’re inviting her.”
He called it “her chance to give us the facts we don’t know” and explain the delay in charging Van Dyke.
“We’re already known as the murder capital,” Fritchey said of Chicago’s murder rate. “We don’t want to be known as the cover-up capital as well.”
