State Rep. Tom Morrison on Thursday retracted his earlier letter of support for a Christian teacher and pastor convicted of aggravated assault for severely spanking children in Arizona.
The letter from Morrison, a Palatine Republican seeking re-election to the 54th House District seat, was among 16 provided to a judge ahead of Thomas Chantry’s sentencing last week.
Chantry, 48, was found guilty in August by a Yavapai County, Arizona, jury of two counts of aggravated assault. He was sentenced Oct. 19 to three years of supervised probation and 100 hours of community service. He’s also barred from interacting with children other than his own.
* His opponent Maggie Trevor (D-Rolling Meadows) has a new TV ad about the case…
* From southern Illinois near the Trump rally location…
Where out politics stand in IL…someone has placed "bought and paid for by Mike Madigan" signs next to local county clerk and treasurer candidates….What? @capitolfax@WSILNews#Vote2018
UPDATE: Signs I referenced earlier. Looks like wind blew them flat. "Bought and Paid for by Mike Madigan" signs next to Jackson Co. Dem. Clerk candidate. @WSILNews@capitolfaxpic.twitter.com/85yTP2Irxl
JB Pritzker transfers $2 million to the Democratic Majority, which is chaired by Speaker Michael Madigan. Pritzker has now pumped a total of $5 million into the committee this election cycle. #twillhttps://t.co/jXB4fpZL28
One of the [JB Pritzker campaign] employees, Carolyn Mehta, said that the [blackface] photo was “taken completely out of context.
“The screen shot was submitted by a member of our staff who follows me on Instagram and is suing the campaign for $7.5 million,” she said. “It was taken completely out of context. This is extortion in the purest form. In 2012, I worked on President Obama’s re-election campaign. I worked on a team to register 10,000 new voters on the South Side of Chicago. I have been a tireless advocate for racial equality my entire life and anyone who knows me knows that.”
The campaign worker who posted the image on Instagram was identified as Carolyn Mehta, the campaign’s deputy Get Out The Vote director. She was also a field organizer for President Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign in Virginia, according to LinkedIn.
So she should really ought to know that a photograph posted anywhere of a Pritzker campaign worker in anything resembling blackface would be criticized as racist.
But instead of the campaign directly acknowledging the racial insensitivity on display when a white person smears a black substance on his or her face and grins for the camera, it insisted the incident was not racial in nature.
That’s adding insult to injury.
* Today’s front page…
Oof.
* Other stuff…
* Long files defamation suit against Yednock: “Rep. Long is living in an alternate reality where his own party did not call on him to resign over a harassment allegation. In fact, rep. Long even admitted to the Ottawa Times on Sept. 20 that Republicans told him he was under investigation for sexual harassment. If Rep. Long has a problem with the contents of this ad, he should take it up with his own party,” Yednock stated this morning.
* Dispatch-Argus Editorial: For Illinois governor: Pritzker: We backed Republican Bruce Rauner for governor four years ago because we believed he was the change agent needed to turn Illinois around. The state did see changes under the rookie governor. Unfortunately, too many things went from bad to worse.
* Costa Howard questions Breen’s votes on gun-control bills: “Even though it passed, the governor did veto that piece of legislation,” Costa Howard said during the forum. “So that was a nice political vote during a time when you were running against a candidate who has a Moms Demand Action gun sense candidate distinction, which I have received since before the primary.”
After days of questions over whether he’d make the trip, Gov. Bruce Rauner’s campaign said he will indeed attend a rally being held by President Donald Trump on Saturday afternoon in downstate Murphysboro.
About five hours before the planned 4:30 p.m. “Make America Great Again” rally at the Southern Illinois Airport, a Rauner campaign spokesman confirmed the governor would be there, though it wasn’t clear if he would appear with Trump, or what the extent of their interaction would be — if any. […]
“In the height of political desperation, Bruce Rauner will join Donald Trump in Southern Illinois just 10 days before Election Day,” Pritzker campaign spokesman Jason Rubin said. “It’s nothing more than a Hail Mary in the last second of the game that Rauner is losing — badly.”
…Adding… My niece, Isabel Miller, interviewed a Trump supporter ahead of the rally today for the Daily Egyptian newspaper.
Isabel asked Kevin Sauls from Ridgway (who was wearing an American flag as a cape) if the president could bring something new and unique to southern Illinois. Sauls said he thinks President Trump “can help the coal, I think he can help all the industries, he can help the working man, the white people that stand up for him”…
Kevin Sauls from Ridgway, Illinois, speaks at the Trump rally in Murphysboro.
President Trump told reporters on Air Force One they are considering canceling the rally later today in Murphysboro, Illinois. He says he spoke to Gov. Wolf, the mayor of Pittsburgh, and Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.
Trump will go to Murphysboro. In Indy: "We can't let evil change our life, change our schedule," he said. "You go with a heavy heart, but you go. … So I'll go. Not that I want to go. But in reverse, I think I actually have an obligation to go." … "I will go to Illinois."
