* From the US Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence report on Russian interference in the 2016 election…
DHS assesses that the types of systems Russian actors targeted or compromised were not involved in vote tallying. Based on the Committee’s review of the ICA, the Committee concurs with this assessment. The Committee found that Russian-affiliated cyber actors gained access to election infrastructure systems across two states, including successful extraction of voter data. However, none of these systems were involved in vote tallying.
Russian Access to Election Infrastructure: Illinois
In June 2016, Illinois experienced the first known breach by Russian actors of state election infrastructure during the 2016 election. As of the end of2018, the Russian cyber actors had successfully penetrated Illinois’s voter registration database, viewed multiple database tables, and accessed up to 200,000 voter registration records. The compromise resulted in the exfiltration of an unknown quantity of voter registration data.
Russian cyber actors were in a position to delete or change voter data, but the Committee is not aware of any evidence that they did so.
[Redacted] DHS assesses with high confidence that the penetration was carried out by Russian actors.
The compromised voter registration database held records relating to 14 million registered voters, [redacted]. The records exfiltrated included information on each voter’s name, address, partial social security number, date of birth, and either a driver’s license number or state identification number.
[Redacted] DHS staff further recounted to the Committee that “Russia would have had the ability to potentially manipulate some ofthat data, but we didn’t see that.”
Further, DHS staff noted that “the level of access that they gained, they almost certainly could have done more. Why they didn’t… is sort of an open-ended question. I think it fits under the larger umbrella of undermining confidence in the election by tipping their hand that they had this level of access or showing that they were capable of getting it.”
• According to a Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center (CTIIC) product, Illinois officials “disclosed that the database has been targeted frequently by hackers, but this was the first instance known to state officials of success in accessing it.”
In June 2017, the Executive Director of the Illinois State Board of Elections(SEE), Steve Sandvoss, testified before the Committee about Illinois’s experience in the 2016 elections.
He laid out the following timeline:
• On June 23, 2016, a foreign actor successfully penetrated Illinois’s databases through an SQL attack on the online voter registration website. “Because of the initial low-volume nature of the attack, the State Board of Election staff did not become aware of it at first.”
• Three weeks later, on July 12, 2016, the IT staff discovered spikes in data flow across the voter registration database server. “Analysis of the server logs revealed that the heavy load was a result of rapidly repeated database queries on the application status page of our paperless online voter application website.”
• On July 13, 2016, IT staff took the website and database offline, but continued to see activity from the malicious IP address.
• “Firewall monitoring indicated that the attackers were hitting SEE IP addresses five times per second, 24 hours a day. These attacks continued until August 12 [2016], when they abruptly ceased.”
• On July 19, 2016, the election staff notified the Illinois General Assembly and the
Attorney General’s office.
• Approximately a week later, the FBI contacted Illinois.
• On July 28, 2016, both the registration system and the online voter registration became fully functional again.
Hindsight is 20/20, but you think maybe they shoulda called the FBI when they realized what was happening?
…Adding… OK, my memory is faulty. Most of the timeline was released a while ago.
* Hacking isn’t limited to election data, however…
A computer server of a vendor with city and state contracts to sell Illinois license plate stickers and Chicago vehicle stickers at currency exchanges was exposed to the Internet in May — although city and state officials insist there was no security breach.
But that’s not enough for one Cook County watchdog, who says officials need to conduct a thorough investigation to determine what exactly was exposed and how the mishap occurred before they can give the all clear sign.
“It sounds like they’re making a guarantee, which always worries me,” Cook County Inspector General Patrick Blanchard said.
Despite provisions in Electronic License Service LLC’s contracts with both the Illinois secretary of state and the Chicago city clerk’s office that outline the steps to take after a potential security breach — including a secretary of state guideline to hire a “forensics expert” to conduct an investigation — both offices say there’s nothing to worry about.
* Afternoon email from the National Republican Congressional Committee…
Hey there –
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is facing serious backlash after she was caught on a hot mic calling a Chicago police official a “clown.”
When asked to apologize for her comment, Lightfoot begrudgingly responded, “I’m sorry that I said it out loud.” Really?
Illinois socialists Cheri “Beltway” Bustos, Sean Casten and Fake Nurse Lauren Underwood have yet to comment on Lightfoot’s despicable remarks, which begs the question:
Will Bustos, Casten and Underwood condemn Lightfoot’s comment? Or will they stand with Chicago’s Mayor in disrespecting a 30-year veteran police officer in one of America’s most violent cities?
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is portrayed as wearing clown makeup. Democratic congressional candidates — including an Air Force combat veteran — are labeled “socialist losers” or anti-Semites. Others have been singled out as Lyin’ Lucy McBath, Fake Nurse Lauren Underwood, Little Max Rose and China Dan McCready.
The National Republican Congressional Committee, with the blessing of House Republican leaders, has adopted a no-holds-barred strategy to win back the House majority next year, borrowing heavily from President Trump’s playbook in deploying such taunts and name-calling. After losing 40 seats and the House majority in November, Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the committee’s new chairman, and Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader, decided that their messaging needed to be ruthless. […]
Ms. Underwood, Democrat of Illinois, is “Fake Nurse Lauren.” (Ms. Underwood, who earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Michigan and worked as a research nurse, never worked specifically with patients.) Representative Collin C. Peterson, Democrat of Minnesota, is “Cranky Collin.”
* NRCC follow-up…
Greetings -
The New York Times recently confirmed that Fake Nurse Lauren Underwood “never worked specifically with patients.” Yet, in an interview weeks before the 2018 election, she lied directly to the camera, saying “I, as a nurse, have looked into my patients’ eyes.”
Yikes.
NRCC Comment: “Lauren Underwood is a fake nurse.” -NRCC Spokeswoman Carly Atchison
* Another classic…
Hi!
Sexist Sean Casten doesn’t think women belong in rooms where impactful decisions are being made. He also believes the best protectors of women’s rights are… men. Specifically himself.
In a fundraising email, Sexist Sean warns Illinoisans that if his challenger - Evelyn Sanguinetti - wins, a Latina woman will be in “those rooms where decisions are made that will impact our nation,” (terrible!) and goes on to presume she wouldn’t protect women’s rights.
NRCC Comment: “Sean Casten is a sexist misogynist who doesn’t think women, especially Latina women, belong in rooms where big decisions are being made. Blatantly fundraising off his misogyny is a new tactic for sexist Sean and we look forward to seeing how it works out in 2020.” -NRCC Spokeswoman Carly Atchison
They’re entertaining to read, but are news organizations actually publishing them? I checked some of their quotes on Google and it doesn’t look like it. So, they’re apparently just shouting into an abyss for now. Maybe outlets will start picking them up as the election nears.
Extending a trend that’s been developing for several months, the Illinois Department of Employment Security today reported that the state has gained nearly 100,000 nonfarm jobs in the past 12 months. That’s the biggest pop since July 2015, when a year-to-year increase of 105,300 was recorded. Figures shortly before that were much smaller and have dropped off since until now. […]
The specific figures come from household surveys conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and IDES. They show that, between June 2018 and this June, total non-farm employment in the state increased 94,700, to 6.266 million, a rise of about 1.5 percent. […]
The recovery appears to be fairly broad-based, with educational and health services, leisure/hospitality and professional/business services all showing healthy gains.
As a result, the unemployment rate continued to drop, off .3 percent to 4.1 percent in the Chicago area and down .7 percent to 4 percent statewide.
The national unemployment rate was 3.7 percent in June.
Across the country, the escalating costs of medical school have driven young doctors away from lower-paying specialties, such as pediatrics and psychiatry, as well as jobs in rural or less wealthy areas.
The lack of primary care physicians is particularly acute in California, which has a growing aging population and the country’s largest Medicaid population — and one of the lowest state reimbursement rates for doctors in the country. California is projected to have a shortfall of 4,700 primary care clinicians by 2025, according to a 2017 report by the University of California, San Francisco.
The new program aims to change that using revenue from Proposition 56, which imposed a tax on tobacco products, to help physicians pay back their loans. It will disburse a total of $340 million. To qualify, the physicians, who receive up to $300,000 each in debt relief, must agree to spend a third of their time with Medi-Cal patients over the next five years. As part of the first round of funding, announced this month, 247 physicians will receive $58.6 million and 40 dentists will receive $10.5 million in debt relief.
Nearly 1,300 providers applied for the awards, according to the Department of Health Care Services. The program’s administrators said they assessed candidates based on personal statements, work history and specialization, among other factors. Applications for the next round of awards will be accepted in January.
Since the state was flooded with applications, maybe they should increase the mandatory five-year service period to ten.
Illinois also has an aging population, very low Medicaid reimbursement rates and shortages of physicians in certain specialties.
* The Question: Should Illinois institute a similar program? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please…
The capital bill sets aside $80 million to assist mental health facilities all over the state, according to a recent announcement by Gov. J.B. Pritzker. […]
With diminishing financial support, state psychiatric hospitals and community facilities were forced to close their doors. Chicago used to have 20 community facilities, but is currently down to five.
“We used to have 33,000 state psychiatric hospital beds,” [Mark J. Heyrman, facilitator with the Mental Health Summit and Mental Health America of Illinois] said. “Now, we have fewer than 1,200.” […]
“There are areas of the city [and] there are areas of the state where it’s a long drive to get to a community health provider,” he said. […]
While it is unknown where the $80 million will be directed, Heyrman stated 2019 has been good for mental health services in Illinois due to more money from the Medicaid budget, which will be used to build more physical spaces for provisional services.
“This is the best year we had,” he said. “I can’t remember how long it’s been.”
A new Illinois law aims to ensure that parents of justice-involved youth who need costly mental health services don’t have to trade custody for treatment for their child. […]
In the past, [Cook County Public Guardian Charles Golbert] said, if a child or teen got arrested and it was found what they really needed was mental health treatment, “the delinquency judge would have to adjudicate the child a ward of DCFS and then that could be paid for, otherwise the parents would have to pay out of pocket.”
That meant if parents couldn’t afford the roughly $100,000 a year for residential treatment, they had to choose: keep custody but forgo mental health services and risk the child entering juvenile detention, or give up custody to the Department of Children and Family Services and get them into treatment. […]
Families facing these circumstances in the future could be spared from having to trade custody for treatment, with one caveat: the family must have a state grant known as the “Family Support Program” to pay for the services, or have an application pending with the Department of Healthcare and Family Services.
An AFSCME spokesman said that local union leaders who work at McFarland Mental Health Center and representatives from the Illinois Department of Human Services central office had a “substantive meeting” Wednesday morning.
The meeting laid out “concrete steps to address our concerns and make McFarland safer for employees and patients alike,” said Anders Lindall, the public affairs director for AFSCME Council 31. […]
The workplace safety issue seemingly came to a head early last week when a patient choked an employee until she lost consciousness. […]
An earlier news release indicated that employees accused facility management of routinely dismissing violence against staff as “part of the job.” They also said management ignored calls to increase hiring, improve training, provide needed equipment or make other changes to improve safety. […]
Lindall credited DHS representatives for being “responsive to the situation.”
* Related…
* Illinois To Create Online Database Of Mental Health Resources For Students, Parents And School Staff: “But what makes this interesting, and something that we’re supportive of, is the fact that we can be sharing resources with other districts and see other what resources other districts are using to potentially get new ideas or new interventions or new supports,” [Matt Liberatore, president of the Illinois School Counselors Association] said.
* Rep. Chris Miller (R-Oakland) just called me to announce that the “Restore Illinois PAC and the Eastern Bloc” have booked Confederate Railroad for yet another concert.
After Gov. Pritzker’s administration canceled the band’s Du Quoin State Fair performance, a local Harley Davidson dealership booked it to play on September 5th.
Rep. Miller (no relation) said the band will play at the Effingham Performance Center on August 27th, the same day they were supposed to perform at the fair.
“Our theme is ‘JB may give you 21 new tax hikes, but we’re going to give you Confederate Railroad in concert tonight,’” Miller said.
The Eastern Bloc is probably best known for supporting a resolution calling for Chicago to be kicked out of Illinois.
The Restore Illinois PAC is run by Reps. Miller, Darren Bailey (R-Xenia) and Blaine Wilhour (R-Beecher City). It had just $12.65 in its bank account at the end of June, but Miller and Bailey are well-off (and have received lots of federal farm subsidies), so they can probably recharge that account pretty quick.
The Southern country-rock group Confederate Railroad lost a second summer fair gig after objections over the use of the Confederate flag in its logo.
The band’s Aug. 1 date at the Ulster County Fair in New York’s Hudson Valley has been canceled, a spokesman for Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan said Thursday. Illinois this month canceled a state fair appearance by the band, whose logo features a steam locomotive flying Confederate flags.
“The Ulster County Fair must be an event that everyone can enjoy while representing the values of all members of our community,” Ryan said in a prepared statement. “Any showcasing of a symbol of division and racism runs counter to that principle and will be vigorously opposed by my administration.”
Madigan announced Friday that his political organization had retained an “independent counsel” in Kelly Smith-Haley, of Fox Swibel Levin & Carroll, LLP.
Smith-Haley “will provide independent review of allegations, conduct investigations, and provide recommendations for updating policies and procedures, including clear rules for conduct and penalties for violations,” Madigan wrote in a letter to Democratic lawmakers. […]
Smith-Haley’s two brothers, Mike Smith and Bill Smith, both work at Cornerstone Government Affairs - a public relations and lobbying firm that hired another top Madigan aide, Will Cousineau, eight months ago. […]
Smith-Haley confirmed Tuesday that her brothers work with Cousineau, though she said she has “no ties to Cornerstone” and has met Cousineau “briefly” but “never spoken with him in a one-on-one setting.”
“This is exactly what I do for all my clients,” the employment attorney said, adding, “I would not have taken the assignment if I was not going to be independent.”
Madigan’s longtime attorney Mike Kasper asked Smith-Haley, with assistance from others at her firm, to serve in that role after two high-ranking operatives in the speaker’s inner circle were dismissed over misconduct allegations within a week.
Smith-Haley said she and Kasper know each other because their daughters attend school together, but she has never done any work for him before.
“Our firm has been brought on to help the client look at previous investigations to see if it was handled in accordance with their policies and if not what needs to change,” Smith-Haley said in an exclusive interview Wednesday - conducted just after Kasper and Smith-Haley met. […]
J.B. Pritzker, who has received much of the party’s official backing, has also for the first time shared criticism of Madigan’s handling of the situation, saying, “The people investigating Speaker Madigan’s operation should have no political or other ties to the speaker.”
* The Sun-Times puts all that into context for this week’s news…
A lawyer hired by Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan last year to investigate allegations of sexual harassment within his political organization — including those leveled against longtime political aide Kevin Quinn — is the sister of two lobbyists who reportedly paid Quinn $2,000 earlier this year.
Kelly Smith-Haley was retained by Madigan in February 2018 to “receive and investigate harassment allegations” regarding the speaker’s political staff, according to a Feb. 16, 2018 letter Madigan sent to the House Democratic caucus and to staffers. […]
Smith-Haley’s brothers, Mike Smith and Bill Smith, both work at Cornerstone Government Affairs, a public relations and lobbying firm. Bill Smith is a senior consultant, and Mike Smith is a principal and director at the Washington-based firm, which also operates in Chicago. The Chicago Tribune on Wednesday reported Quinn received two checks for $1,000 each from Cornerstone Government Affairs in January, four months before his home was raided by federal agents. It’s not clear what authorities were seeking in the raid.
Among Cornerstone’s clients is ComEd, which has acknowledged being served with a federal grand jury subpoena seeking lobbyist records. The utility’s large stable of lobbyists include many with close ties to Madigan.
It’s like living in a small town. Everybody knows everybody.
It’s a small town, son
And we all support the team
*** UPDATE 1 *** ILGOP…
“It’s hard to believe that Speaker Madigan had no knowledge of $10,000 worth of payments from his close allies to his disgraced former employee, Kevin Quinn after Madigan had dismissed Quinn for sexual harassment. Yes or no, did Speaker Madigan have any knowledge of these payments? Why were his close allies paying Quinn after his dismissal?” - Illinois Republican Party Spokesman Joe Hackler
*** UPDATE 2 *** NRCC…
In case you missed it, the Chicago Tribune is detailing the shady financial dealings of four ComEd lobbyists who are under federal investigation for providing payments to an ousted Illinois political operative.
What else do these corrupt lobbyists have in common? They’ve all donatedthousands to Socialist Loser* Betsy Dirksen Londrigan’s congressional campaign! Betsy even appears to be close friends with one of the men under investigation.
Betsy is the first to decry corporate PAC money (even though she’s accepted hundreds of thousands from the DCCC), but will happily take money from corrupt Chicago lobbyists? Yikes!
NRCC Comment: “Socialist Loser* Betsy Dirksen Londrigan is a hypocrite and she can’t have it both ways. Betsy should return every penny from the DCCC and corrupt Chicago lobbyists, or come clean to voters about who is really funding her socialist campaign.” – NRCC Spokeswoman Carly Atchison
*(U.S. House Election Results 2018, The New York Times, January 28, 2019).
*** UPDATE 3 *** Ouch…
To the Democratic Women’s Caucus:
I have now been waiting for a year & a half for you to support me publicly, or even address me by name in a statement. Where are you? What is your stance? We all want to know.
Hey Rich. FYI some high comedy on the Boycott DuQuoin Facebook page amidst all the racism and off-topic posts. Apparently Black Diamond Harley who is hosting the band instead of the fair has altered the band logo without their permission to replace the rebel flags with American flags, and the Facebook group is going ballistic. My favorites are the amateur lawyers spouting legal theories for the band to sue on when the poster can barely spell.
I don’t know if anyone else noticed but I did. Black Diamond took it upon themselves to alter the Confederate Railroad image by removing the Confederate flags & adding the American flag. Dont get me wrong I love Old Glory. But wasn’t this supposed to be a form of protest against the liberal censorship of this band. Black Diamond scheduled a concert for them & we are boycotting the fair because of the censorship but now BD has jumped on the PC bandwagon & CENSORED the band’s album cover……WOW!!! The Band could of done that themselves & still be playing at the fair…..THE MESSAGE GOT LOST SOMEWHERE!!! Oh well they have a sold out show, guess the message doesn’t matter….. UGH!!!
(N)nearly a month after signing the massive gambling package into law, Gov. J.B. Pritzker has yet to name a chairperson and fifth member to the gaming board, which soon will be responsible for scrutinizing a host of gambling interests licking their chops at a slew of new licenses.
What’s the hold-up on Pritzker’s appointments? The process of “working to identify qualified candidates,” the freshman Democrat’s office says.
And insiders say the job is a tough sell.
That’s the best bet for what’s behind the delay, according to two men who previously led the board currently tasked with licensing, taxing and regulating 10 casinos and the 32,000-plus video gambling machines sprinkled across nearly 7,000 establishments statewide. […]
”It’s not an attractive job. Not at all, especially for the chairman,” says retired Cook County Judge Aaron Jaffe, who led the board for 10 years starting in 2005. […]
[Former chairman Don Tracy] estimates he spent up to 400 hours per year on gaming board business on top of his private practice, making several trips a month from the state capital to Chicago for regular meetings with staff.
It is a lot of work and the stipend is $300 per meeting, twice a month.
Gaming expansion is a huge part of the vertical infrastructure funding package. The board has enough members for a quorum, but the Pritzker administration needs to get on top of this. It’s July, for crying out loud.
On Wednesday, July 17th, [congressional candidate Betsy Dirksen Londrigan] held a joint press conference call with a campaign finance reform group called End Citizens United. The campaign sent invitations to local media and asked them to RSVP.
WCIA has learned an unpaid volunteer working on behalf of the [US Rep. Rodney Davis] campaign crashed the call, lied about his name to pose as reporter for a college newspaper, and ambushed Dirksen Londrigan with pointed arguments, including jabs at her husband’s career.
The caller identified himself as Jim Sherman with The Alestle, the SIUE student newspaper.
According to a call log provided to WCIA, the phone number used to dial into the conference call matched the cell phone number for Nick Klitzing, the former Executive Director of the Illinois Republican Party who most recently worked as the deputy campaign manager for former Governor Bruce Rauner.
Reached by phone, Klitzing confessed to committing the hoax and said, “I was willing to help. I’m just a volunteer.”
Falsely identifying yourself as a reporter is not only highly unethical, it’s also an amateur move and truly stupid.
Confronted with the established facts of the story and Klitzing’s confession, Davis’ campaign manager Matt Butcher initially tried to deny having any knowledge about the phone call.
WCIA gave Butcher another 24 hours to explain how an unpaid volunteer living in Chicago could have possibly been aware of a closed press call happening downstate, and how that volunteer might have known to parrot Congressman Davis’ talking points. Yet, Butcher still declined comment.
It’s unclear if Congressman Davis has any knowledge of the hoax phone call his campaign commissioned, or if he’s aware of WCIA’s persistent efforts to seek any comment or explanation from his campaign manager. His staff has taken the unusual step of repeatedly ignoring phone calls, text messages and emails from WCIA’s political reporters, and no longer sends press releases or notices of media availability to WCIA’s political staff, despite frequent requests to include them in media releases.
I reached out to Maxwell to ask if his station was just being iced out by the campaign or if the government side was also stonewalling. He said both sides had cut the station off.
So, the congressman is refusing to communicate in any way with the largest TV station in his district.
Really smart.
*** UPDATE *** Clarification…
Just to be clear, the Congressman still appears on WCIA’s morning show on occasion, and his DC office sends some releases to our Champaign newsroom. They have stopped communications with our Springfield bureau, even after repeated requests and attempts to restore contact. https://t.co/Yyp5EgUKAJ
The embattled Sterigenics plant in suburban Willowbrook will stay closed until at least Sept. 6.
That’s the ruling from a judge Thursday on a controversial tentative deal that had been reached between the state of Illinois and Sterigenics for it to reopen its doors. […]
Now, the judge ordered four towns affected by the plant—Willowbrook, Darien, Hinsdale and Burr Ridge—to have a voice.
“We are looking at all possibilities,” Willowbrook mayor Frank Trilla said. “We would like to introduce a 100% ban on ethylene oxide.” […]
The judge also stated Thursday that the public has the right to intervene in the matter, so several nearby towns will file a brief by August 30.
If they want to ban ethylene oxide, then they’re going to need to introduce a new bill in the General Assembly. That’s not up to the judge.
* Response…
Attorney General Kwame Raoul and DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin today release the following statement regarding the proposed consent order with Sterigenics U.S., LLC (Sterigenics).
“We have never opposed the villages’ motions to intervene because we recognize the need for the impacted communities to be heard, and we welcome their input in this process. Throughout this litigation, we have regularly communicated with the leadership of the affected communities, and we are committed to using all legal authority to protect the residents of Willowbrook and the surrounding communities.
“Our authority is defined by the laws passed by the General Assembly, which we are obligated to enforce. Although the new law does not authorize the permanent closure of Sterigenics if it can comply with the stringent requirements imposed by the General Assembly, the proposed consent order ensures that Sterigenics can operate only if it complies with those requirements. If the General Assembly passes additional legislation regarding ethylene oxide, our offices would be duty bound and prepared to enforce that legislation.”
* Meanwhile in Georgia…
* Cancer-causing chemical in 2 Georgia communities leads to more cases of cancer, experts say
DuPage County Circuit Judge Fullerton recognized the “well written and informative” Amicus Brief submitted by State Representative Mazzochi, Leader Jim Durkin, and State Senator John Curran, contesting the Illinois Attorney General’s Consent Order that counsel for Sterigenics touted as its pathway to reopening. Mazzochi argued that the Consent Order agreement involving the Illinois Attorney General, the Governor and Sterigenics fails to comply with both the spirit and letter of the Matt Haller Act regulating the use of ethylene oxide statewide. Judge Fullerton issued a favorable ruling for parties challenging this Consent Order today, staying its entry and allowing various municipalities to jump into the fray.
“I commend Judge Fullerton for putting the brakes on the Consent Order today. Sterigenics has not shown that it can or will ever be able to comply with the law. The Illinois Attorney General needs to do his job and not let the company circumvent the will of the communities it has crushed with its behavior. I am pleased that the Court will not let the Attorney General force through an agreement sprung on the affected communities at the last minute, including the public servants who represent those communities.”
As Mazzochi explained, “these communities feel betrayed. The Attorney General gave our communities an ultimatum that essentially tells them, ‘This is the deal you’re going to live with’ as ordained by the Governor, the AG, and Sterigenics. That is simply unacceptable.”
She added, “Federal legislators, state legislators, local leaders and the community rightfully objected to the Consent Order, and they’re outraged. Our community has heard a lot of excuses about it, including one from the Governor who opined that we three legislators who represent the surrounding area don’t understand the law we worked tirelessly to write and pass. On September 6, our communities can finally have their day in court, which they should have had all along before the Attorney General decided it to strip that power away from them for a paltry $300,000 penalty and an admonition to sin no more.”
“We believe our brief helped Judge Fullerton target precisely where the proposed Consent Order is too weak. As it stands, this Consent Order is not only wrong on the politics, but more importantly wrong on the law. Sterigenics broke the covenant with the community where they do business. When it comes to the physical, emotional and mental wellbeing of our residents, this company has turned into a community wrecking crew.” Mazzochi noted that even the Illinois Attorney General seemed to have started to walk back some statements about the Consent Order and the Matt Haller Act.
“This Consent Order was premature; and deserved to be rejected. Let us do what the Matt Haller Act said to do: get everyone in a court of law, hear the merits of the case, and then hopefully, finally, our community can gain some peace of mind.
Mazzochi, who is an attorney, stated, “I will continue to fight for what is right for the community, under the dome in Springfield, in a courthouse in DuPage, or wherever else this case takes us.”
Judge Fullerton will allow the surrounding municipalities to intervene in the lawsuit, participate in the consent order, and advise if it complies with the Matt Haller Act. The next hearing is scheduled for September 6.
…Adding… Sterigenics…
We are confident that the Consent Order will be approved in due course. Our Willowbrook operations have consistently complied with and outperformed the State’s requirements and we are committed to abiding by the new requirements established by the State. Sterigenics will continue to take the necessary steps to resume operations at Willowbrook and remains committed to acting in the interest of the community, our employees, our customers and the patients and hospitals we serve every day.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot was caught on an open microphone belittling the number two man in the local Fraternal Order of Police during Wednesday’s city council meeting.
As a clerk called on FOP Lodge 7 First Vice President Patrick Murray to speak during a public comment section of the meeting, Lightfoot is heard saying “Oh, back again. This is this FOP clown.”
The comment was recorded and archived during a live stream of the meeting on the Chicago mayor’s official Facebook page. Murray was commenting on the FOP’s anger over a recent police board decision recommending the firing of officers accused of making misleading statements in the aftermath of the Laquan McDonald shooting.
Mayor Lightfoot’s contemptuous remark is a misguided and dangerous thing to say to a 30-year veteran police officer and FOP representative, particularly at a time when the city is facing such chronic violent crime. It is also telling that the Mayor would not even apologize. The red noses, however, belong on the members of the Chicago Police Board, her former agency, for their despicable decision to fire three police officers and a sergeant last week for no good reason whatsoever.
Murray wasn’t the only one who got a mouthful from the mayor during Wednesday’s public comment section.
So did a speaker who showed up on behalf of 75 murdered South Side women whose deaths, the man claimed, have never been investigated by the Chicago Police Department.
“I need your undivided attention, Mayor Lightfoot. I need your undivided attention,” the man said.
The mayor was livid.
“Sir, proceed with your statement. You don’t stand there as a man and tell me what to do when I was actually getting my notebook to take some notes,” Lightfoot said.
“If you want to talk, talk. You’re wasting your [three minutes of] time. But, don’t ever, EVER tell me what to do when I’m standing here conducting the business of the people. Do you understand that, sir?”
The City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved a bill requiring large Chicago employers to give workers at least two weeks’ advance notice of their schedules and compensate them for last-minute changes.
In development for more than two years, the “fair workweek” ordinance reflects a compromise between representatives from labor and business, who have been working with the city on what kinds of employers and employees would be covered by the scheduling rules.
The final version of the workweek legislation limits protections to just those workers earning less than $26 an hour.
The ordinance, which covers eight industries ranging from restaurants to manufacturing, is the first in the country to include health care employers in predictable scheduling legislation. The potential impact on hospitals and other health care facilities, which have said they need flexibility to make abrupt changes in staffing levels as the need arises, was among the bigger industry concerns.
But during a hearing on the final bill Tuesday before the workforce development committee, David Gross, senior vice president of government relations at the Illinois Health and Hospital Association, said the group was withdrawing its opposition thanks to efforts to find middle ground. In addition to the wage threshold, which exempts most clinical staff like nurses and technicians, the final legislation includes exceptions for health care employers in the event of an unexpected increase in demand due to severe weather, violence, large public events or other events beyond their control.
* From the mayor’s press release…
This ordinance requires employers to schedule employees 10 days in advance, rising to 14 days in 2022, and directs employers to ban scheduling practices which prevent workers from attending to their families, health, education and other obligations.
By requiring predictive scheduling, employees covered by this ordinance will now receive:
• Predictability of pay: Employees are entitled to compensation for changes an employer makes to a work schedule after the deadline.
• The right to decline when schedules change: Employees may decline additional hours not previously scheduled.
• Choice of additional work hours when available: First offer of additional shifts of work will be reserved for qualified existing employees.
• The right to rest and request a flexible working arrangement: Employees are not required to work hours scheduled for less than 10 hours after the end of the previous day’s shift and are paid a higher differential for those shifts.
[…] To qualify for the requirements of the Chicago Fair Workweek Ordinance, a business must have over 100 employees globally, 50 of which must be covered employees, with the threshold for non-profits and restaurants raised to 250. Additionally, restaurants must have at least 30 locations globally, meaning that most small restaurants are exempt. Small businesses are largely exempt from these regulations, and to account for the unique needs and populations served, Chicago’s safety net hospitals will be given a six-month extension to meet the requirements of the ordinance.
* The Question: Should the state adopt a similar “fair workweek” law? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please…
Chicago police have for years compiled profiles on every citizen who spoke at public meetings of the city’s police disciplinary panel, a process that included running criminal background checks and internet searches on activists, a police union official and even relatives of an innocent woman killed in a high-profile police shooting, the Chicago Tribune has learned.
Documents obtained by the Tribune under a public records request show the Police Department gathered the details on nearly 60 people in advance of their speaking at monthly meetings of the Chicago Police Board since at least January 2018. A police spokesman said the background checks go back further, to at least 2013.
The checks appear to be extensive, with police searching at least one internal department database to determine if speakers have arrest or prison records, warrants outstanding for their arrest, investigative alerts issued for them by the department and even if they’re registered sex offenders or missing persons. Police also searched comments that speakers had previously made on YouTube or on their Facebook and Twitter accounts, among other internet sites, the documents show.
Among those subjected to background checks were a woman who alleged she was sexually assaulted decades ago by a Chicago police officer, a community activist who gained prominence after the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald by a police officer and a 77-year-old man known for his frequent, flamboyant rants on a variety of topics at public meetings across the city. […]
The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois said the practice harks back to the Police Department’s shameful Red Squad history of spying on political and other groups engaged in activities protected by the First Amendment, a practice that ended with a landmark court settlement in 1982 but stretched back in one form or another to the 1920s.
ACLU spokesman Edwin Yohnka noted how for years before the settlement was dissolved in 2009, Chicago officials had argued in court that the surveillance tactics were a thing of the past.
“This suggests that that’s not true,” Yohnka said.
With all the problems in the city, they’re using police time to run background checks on citizens who testify at an open meeting in front of a public body. Not only is it authoritarian, it’s wasteful.
The law allowing recreational marijuana in Illinois takes effect next year, and those in enforcement are getting ready. This includes a special category of police. Sergeant Nick Cunningham leads the Canine Unit in the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Office. Guy Stephens spoke with Cunningham recently. Guy began by asking what effect the new law will have on his work.
NC: One of the major impacts for the Canine Unit is that all the patrol dogs that we currently have are trained to locate marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines. Once marijuana is legalized, as far as any searches that we would do — on the street, on vehicles — we will not be able to use those patrol dogs. So in order to compensate for that we’ve just purchased two brand new dogs, two labs, that are going to be starting training next week. And those dogs will be training for narcotics, but they will only be trained for cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine. Myself and every other trainer in the nation will tell you that we cannot retrain those dogs that we already have. If they’ve already been trained on marijuana, it’s not something that we can reliably take out of them.
GS: How many dogs are affected?
NC: It’s a major impact for the canine community. There’s approximately 420 narcotics dogs in Illinois right now. All of those dogs, up until just very recently, were trained on marijuana. So you’ve got 420 dogs that can’t be retrained.
OK, first of all, there are 420 drug dogs in Illinois? How ironic.
But, to the point, Rep. Kelly Cassidy, the legalization bill’s chief sponsor, pointed to the floor debate where members went out of their way to establish “significant legislative intent” that searches with existing dogs would remain admissible for probable cause.
Possessing large amounts of cannabis will still be illegal after January 1st. If somebody has ten pounds of weed in their car, for instance, they can still go to jail. So there is no reason to retire those canines and spend money on new ones.
A lawsuit that seeks to void $14.3 billion of Illinois’ outstanding general obligation debt amounts to nothing more than a policy statement masked under a legal guise that lacks any merit, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office argues in the state’s first official legal response.
The complaint seeking taxpayer action status from the court claims the state violated its constitution when it sold $10 billion of GO pension obligation bonds in 2003 and again in 2017 with a $6 billion borrowing to pay down its unpaid bill backlog.
About $14.3 billion is still owed on the two issues, according to the complaint filed by the Illinois Policy Institute’s leader John Tillman, acting as a taxpayer, and the New York-based hedge fund Warlander Asset Management LP, a state bondholder. […]
Market analysts have voiced skepticism about the case’s legal merits, based on the approval granted by bond lawyers and the state attorney general and their read of state debt rules that give the state broad issuance powers as long as it names a general purpose for the bonds, method of repayment, and approval by a three-fifths legislative majority. […]
Those beliefs didn’t stop the market from driving state yield penalties up in trading and there’s an expectation now that the state may get stuck paying more to borrow during the course of the lawsuit if not resolved quickly.
Nearly two decades after the State issued General Obligation bonds backed by the full faith and credit of the State and applied their proceeds to the Illinois retirement systems, Petitioner seeks leave to institute an action requesting the Court declare the State a profiteering purveyor of worthless bonds and order it to default on billions of future bond payments after cashing the proceeds from selling the bonds. Petitioner similarly seeks to invalidate billions of already applied bonds issued in 2017 to pay an extraordinary backlog of unpaid vouchers, which were then accruing interest at rates greater than the subsequently issued bonds. Petitioner did not bring his suit to enjoin the issuance of the allegedly unlawful bonds before they were issued. Instead, Petitioner seeks to call back ships put to sea years ago, many of which are nearing their decommission date, to maximum detrimental effect. Petitioner does so without naming any holder of the bonds for a proper adjudication of their rights, instead advancing the interests of one noncitizen investor in different bonds against other bondholders, and attempting to elevate certain appropriations over others.
This extraordinary request for relief rests entirely on a single, erroneous premise that the General Assembly may incur State debt only for “projects in the nature of capital improvements,” subject to only narrow exceptions. Fused with this incorrect statement of law is a policy paper masquerading as a complaint, positing that Illinois has not been wise in its fiscal decisions. The wisdom of that fiscal philosophy is a matter for the People of Illinois to determine. The Court has no role to play in that debate.
Because there is no cause of action stated in the proposed complaint and no judicial work for the Court to do in relation to the remaining allegations, and because equity firmly stands against granting the extraordinary relief requested therein, the Petition should be denied as an unjustified interference in the application of public funds.
* As we’ve discussed before, the plaintiffs rely on a provision in the Illinois Constitution which does not actually exist. From the AG’s filing…
As explained above, Petitioner’s theory of bond invalidity turns entirely on his unfounded assertion, contained in paragraph 27 of his proposed complaint, that the term “specific purposes” in the State Debt Clause means “projects in the nature of capital improvements.” But Petitioner does not cite any authority for this conclusion, and he does not even draw the Court’s attention to the single, controlling case interpreting “specific purposes” in the context of article IX, section 9
In this case, Petitioner seeks to unscramble eggs that were cracked, cooked, and eaten sixteen and two years ago, with no explanation as to why he did not bring suit before breakfast hit the pan. Had Petitioner timely sought and obtained an injunction against issuance of the bonds, the State could have made different arrangements to fund its obligations, and bondholders 12 of 22 19-CH-235 would not now be needlessly placed in peril. Petitioner’s inexplicable delay in bringing this challenge maximizes the potential fallout, creating an “unjustified interference[]” in the application of public funds that warrants denying the Petition.
Raoul’s office also claims the statute of limitations has passed and that the hedge fund has no legal standing.
[US Rep. Rodney Davis] said everyone should stop posting online and start going door-to-door to champion Republican principles instead of hammering it out on a keyboard.
“Let’s actually make sure to do what we can to bring civility into the political debate but it seems there are many that want to bring incivility, especially on social media, and that’s what’s frustrating to folks like us,” Davis said.
* Rodney Davis’ most recent fundraising email…
Betsy Londrigan would have you believe she’s a real downstate Illinoisan who represents real downstate values and real downstaters. She’d also have you believe that the majority of her campaign money doesn’t come from out of state.
Unfortunately, none of those things are true. Betsy Londrigan is Chicago’s puppet, propped up by out-of-state financiers and JB Pritzker’s cronies. Chicago money is being parachuted into our district to make sure us downstaters stay subservient to Chicago.
Rodney’s not standing for it. Chicago came for us once; they failed. Let’s make sure they fail again.
Chip in $250 to help win for downstate>>>
Chip in $150 to help win for downstate>>>
Chip in $100 to help win for downstate>>>
Chip in $50 to help win for downstate>>>
Chip in $25 to help win for downstate>>>
Chip in ANY AMOUNT to help win for downstate>>>
Downstate isn’t Chicago, and we like it that way. Let’s make sure Leftwing Betsy Londrigan gets the message.
This is what passes for standard campaigning nowadays. It is what it is. But the “Aw, shucks, can’t we all be civil?” act is getting old.
Political satire is nothing new. It aims to shock. But play the game, own the consequences. When a would-be satirist crosses the line from edgy commentary to offensive race-baiting, from tough criticism of political ideas to attacks based on personal identity, public outcry is deserved. Anyone who deliberately fans the flames of racism is reprehensible, period.
Agreed. But I wonder sometimes if they read their own newspaper.
Pritzker also noted a posting by the Kankakee County Democratic Party that contained a red Ku Klux Klan-style hood with “Make America Hate Again” printed on it. The posting also said “What’s the difference between a Klan hood and a MAGA hat? The Klan hood was made in America.”
“The Kankakee County Democratic Party posted something and removed it nearly immediately, or at least as (the chairman) said,” Pritzker said. “It was not actually up at the time anybody paid any attention to it. It was the Republicans who brought it back to life, I guess.”
As we discussed yesterday, that K3 thing was fomented by Dan Proft. But the local Democrats did what they did and it shouldn’t matter to the governor who “brought it back to life.”
State senators gathered Thursday in Chicago for a hearing to discuss Senate President John Cullerton’s Senate Bill 2259. It would put caps on how much assessments on apartment complexes could rise if the owner commits at least 20 percent of the building’s units to be reserved for families that make less than a set income depending on the area. The caps would gradually be reduced over the course of ten years.
New construction is typically assessed for a higher dollar value once it’s finished because it’s worth more than it was as an open lot. […]
State Sen. Dan McConchie, R-Hawthorne Woods, said he worried that the incentive would push the cost of government services onto other property owners.
“Whenever we create another tax credit, we end up shifting that tax burden to others,” he said. “We do it for veterans, we do it for senior citizens, we do it for other groups.”
Normally, I’m against narrowing a tax base. But doing so in a limited way to achieve a specific policy objective is an interesting idea.
Curt Bailey, the president of real estate development firm Related Midwest, praised the bill during testimony Thursday, telling the Senate’s Subcommittee on Special Issues that the program had worked in “many markets for many developers.” including his firm in New York, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
“So there’s evidence out there that this works,” Bailey said. “These are beautiful buildings, they’re tremendous places to live…In New York City, they have delivered 38,000 affordable units with this program mostly in the ‘90s through now. Talk about closing that gap of 120,000 units. this is a way to do it and do it fairly quickly.”
Bailey identified “hot” real estate markets like the West Loop and Fulton Market as ideal places for developers to build these so-called “80-20” projects, in which wealthier renters subsidize those not paying market value. For example, he said some renters may be paying $4,000 for their units next to renters who pay $400 for identical units.
But after Bailey mentioned those rapidly developing neighborhoods several times, Cullerton asked if the focus could be shifted to struggling neighborhoods, and if developers like Related Midwest would take advantage of a tax program like the one provided for under SB 2259 in poorer areas.
“What about the Lawndales and Englewoods?” Cullerton asked.
Bailey said it wasn’t out of the question, but said developers “need the 80 to support the 20,” referring to the 80 percent of renters in a development that would pay market price to subsidize the units set aside for affordable housing.
* This appears to be Bailey’s brainchild. He’s quoted in all the stories I’ve seen so far, including this one by Greg Hinz…
As now written, the bill would entitle any developer who builds or substantially rehabs a structure with at least six units to enter a program in which taxes on the new structure would be held at the pre-construction rate for two years. The break would drop an additional 20 percent every two years until hitting zero after 10 years.
In exchange, the developer would have to offer rents on at least 20 percent of the building’s units at rates affordable to tenants with a household income no more than 60 percent of the area median. That’s roughly $41,242 in metropolitan Chicago, according to U.S. Census data. […]
Cullerton said he got the idea from developers, including Related Midwest’s Curt Bailey, who ordinarily are more willing to pay for building off-site affordable units than creating them in high-rent towers. […]
“Look at it this way, it’s not a TIF,” [Cullerton] said, referring to tax-increment financing subsidies that sometimes are used to push affordable housing. “Eighty percent of the units in a building are subsidizing 20 percent.
But the numbers work only if you don’t have to pay the full property tax increase” immediately.
If this is about one guy funding one development, then I’m a hard pass. If there is a significant number of developers out there, then maybe.
But it’ll still slightly raise taxes for everyone else.
[US Rep. Bill Foster] is getting a primary challenger from the left for the suburban 11th Congressional District Seat. Will County Board Rachel Ventura, a progressive from Joliet, jumped in the March primary against Foster, who lives in Naperville. As of June 30, Foster has $3,104,802.93 cash-on-hand in his political war chest.
On Saturday, Will County Board member Rachel Ventura, D-Joliet, officially launched her campaign to challenge U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Naperville, in the 2020 primary election.
Ventura emphasized a list of progressive policies on health care, the environment and immigration in an attempt to contrast herself with the incumbent.
“America does not need nor want transactional politics, nor pay-to-play politicians,” Ventura said. “We want our voices to be heard and represented.”
Ventura decried a “broken” political system and endorsed a $15 minimum wage indexed to inflation, the Green New Deal and comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. She also specifically criticized Foster for not supporting a Medicare-for-All health care system, and even said it was one of the reasons she thought to launch a primary challenge against him.
A group of about 15 people protested outside U.S. Rep. Bill Foster’s office to pressure him to support a single-payer health insurance proposal called “Medicare for All” on Friday.
Leaders of the local chapter of Our Revolution, a progressive organization created by supporters of Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, led the demonstration. […]
Other local officials such as Will County Board members Herbert Brooks Jr. and Rachel Ventura participated in the demonstration. Ventura shared her personal story of her fear in leaving her previous marriage with an abusive husband and losing health insurance in the process.
“If we do not have health care as a right, there are millions of people in relationships, abusive relationships, and they fear leaving,” Ventura said. “And they stay in a horrible situation because they’re too afraid. That is not a government that works for everyone.”
Although she’s readily admitted this will be an “uphill battle” opposing Foster, who has retained that seat since 2012 on a moderate voting record, Ventura is convinced “the time is right” for a more progressive candidate to help fix what she sees as “signs of a crumbling society.”
Ventura became even more convinced in June, she told me, when she said Foster “blew off” her and a group of protesters who’d gathered at his district office to discuss a single payer healthcare system, after telling the media he’d meet with them.
The Green New Deal has to be the first priority. We have to start addressing climate justice. When I say climate-justice I mean for it everybody, not just the wealthy few at the top, but everyone is being affected. We are all in this together. We need to make sure we are taking care of one another. The Green New Deal is about infrastructure, jobs, emissions, cleaning up pollutants, and then I would say Medicare for All is my second priority. They are both equally important and investing in people telling them they are valued. Healthcare is a human right. We have the money for it now. We are wasting so much money on having insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies profit off of the suffering of others, and enough is enough.
She said in the release she recognizes the national significance of the race as the divide spreads wider between the Progressive Democrats and the New Democrat Coalition, a conservative caucus that Foster belongs to.
“We are living through a tumultuous period of upheaval and crisis and I feel like our current representative is in a state of stasis,” Ventura said.
Foster responded with a big list of endorsements, including eight Democrats who serve on the Will County Board with Ventura, Will County Executive Larry Walsh and several state legislators.
Foster also put out a statement strongly defending his stances on some of the issues highlighted by Ventura. For instance, according to Foster, with the middle class “overtaxed,” the better solution to health insurance woes is to create competition and lower costs by strengthening Obamacare and creating a public-option health insurance plan.
On the environment, Foster said that despite opposition from the Trump White House, “I’ve been successful in securing additional funding every year for research into clean energy technologies that will ensure we have the methods we need to actually combat climate change at an acceptable cost to the global economy.”
Perhaps more important, Foster reported $3.1 million in his campaign war chest as of June 30, while Ventura has had to start from scratch. Foster also has hired the same campaign team he used to challenge then-GOP incumbent Denny Hastert in 2008, including strategists Pete Giangreco, Jef Pollock and Tom Bowen.
* Foster’s endorsements…
Will County Board Members Speaker Denise Winfrey (District , Majority Leader Mark Ferry (District 13), Majority Whip Tyler Marcum (District 10), Reverend Herb Brooks (District , Mimi Cowan (District 11), Jacqueline Traynere (District 4), Margaret Tyson (District 3), and Joe Van Duyne (District 6), all endorsed Foster’s campaign.
Local elected leaders are also standing will Bill Foster, including State Senator Laura Ellman (IL-21), State Senator Linda Holmes (IL-42), State Representative Barbara Hernandez (IL-83), State Representative Natalie Manley (IL-98), State Representative Larry Walsh Jr. (IL-86), Illinois 11th Congressional District Democratic State Central Committeewoman Julia Beckman, Illinois 11th Congressional District Democratic State Central Committeeman Duffy Blackburn, Will County Executive Larry Walsh Sr., Bolingbrook Village Trustee Bob Jaskiewicz, and Fox Valley Park District Commissioner Mavis Bates. […]
(L)ocal Democratic Party leaders are also standing with Foster. Jeff Boetto (Chairman, Troy Township Democrats), Kevin Clancy (Chairman, Plainfield Township Democratic Organization), Greg Elsbree (Chairman, Aurora Township Democrats), Ken Griffin (Chairman, Lockport Township Democrats), Nora Gruenberg (Chairwoman, New Lenox Township Democrats), Nick Palmer (Chairman, Wheatland Township Democrats), Kim Savage (Chairwoman, Downers Grove Township Democrats), and Bill Thoman (Chairman, Will County Democratic Central Committee)
As Chicago embarks on an $8.5 billion expansion project at O’Hare, the Better Government Association looked at the airport’s history of failed predictions, broken promises and costly disappointments.
We reviewed decades of financial records, contracts and planning documents that revealed billions of dollars in spending to expand O’Hare, reduce delays and improve the passenger experience. Yet O’Hare continues to lag. And along the way, the BGA found a history of machine politics, bid-rigging, fraud and even an assassination.
Don’t miss this first-of-its-kind, multimedia, three-part investigation published in partnership with Chicago Magazine.
In the last 15 years alone, City Hall has saddled the airport with more than $18 billion in debt and pledged nearly $7 billion more — enough to build two nuclear aircraft carriers — in an attempt to make flying through O’Hare a little more bearable. […]
No other major airport has borrowed so much, and accomplished so little, records show. A BGA analysis of debt at the five busiest airports in the nation — including those in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Denver — put O’Hare at the highest debt and the lowest in on-time performance. […]
Tens of billions of dollars later, O’Hare still languishes near the bottom of the federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ airport rankings for flight delays.
So why is O’Hare lagging behind? The Great Recession didn’t help, nor did expensive security upgrades following September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It’s also faced a near-constant stream of litigation over everything from having to displace graveyards to insider deals. […]
To date, expansions at O’Hare have put more than a dozen people in prison, including the late Ald. Thomas Keane, 31st, and runway paving contractor George B. Krug Sr., whose children’s business decades later remains a major O’Hare contractor.
Numerous probes have unveiled sweetheart deals that benefited the businesses of elected officials and cronies, illegal payments to secure contracts, and the gaming of programs meant to increase the hiring of businesses owned by minorities and women.
Under Emanuel’s O’Hare 21 plan, which is packed with new gates, concourses, and amenities, the terminal will move to a new structure at the site of Terminal 2, which is set to be demolished. The idea is to have a mixed-use terminal where domestic and international travelers can transfer between flights. The estimated cost: $2.2 billion.
To execute the expansion, the city recently selected a design team helmed by renowned Chicago architect Jeanne Gang. Along the way, a key member of Gang’s team was represented by lobbyist Gery Chico, a longtime City Hall powerbroker, two-time mayoral candidate and political ally of indicted Ald. Ed Burke, 14th. Chico’s law firm, Chico & Nunes, also did legal work on a recent bond deal to fund airport projects. He did not return telephone messages.
The selection, under a process in which even the identities of Emanuel’s hand-picked selection committee remain cloaked in secrecy, was announced days after Lightfoot took office.
Responding to President Donald Trump border policies he dubbed “wrong for America” and “wrong for Illinois,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Tuesday moved to strengthen Illinois’ immigration laws — signing bills designed to protect the children of undocumented residents.
The new laws would create a pathway for citizenship for undocumented children who have experienced trauma and extend legal guardianship for children whose parents have been detained.
They are the latest in a series of immigration bills the Democratic governor has signed, prompting Pritzker to vow “the state of Illinois stands as a firewall against Donald Trump’s attacks on our immigrant communities.”
Pritzker signed the measures the same day that protesters lined the Marriott Marquis Chicago in Chicago as the hotel hosted a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) conference.
It was also Day One of a new Trump Administration policy that will fast-track deportation regulations to include the removal of undocumented immigrants who can’t prove they have been in the country for two years or more.
“In our state, parents will decide who will take care of their children if they are detained or deported, not ICE, customs or border patrol,” said State Rep. Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz D-Glenview.
The Gad Hill Center in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood provides services for immigrant families.
Months ago, it began collecting information from parents about their chosen guardian for their children in case families were separated.
“We have in our records the name, driver’s license and every identification necessary in order to make sure that the children have somebody safe to go to in case families are separated by deportation,” said the center’s CEO, Maricela Garcia.
“We have an obligation to protect children regardless of their immigration status,” said state Sen. Cristina Castro, a Democrat from Elgin.
State Rep. Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz, a Glenview Democrat, said it’s a response to the Trump Administration’s immigration policies.
“This is about giving families peace of mind. And while it may not stop the deportation and detention of every parent, it’s certainly a better option for children than a mylar blanket on a concrete floor,” she said. […]
Earlier this year, Pritzker signed off on laws banning private immigrant detention facilities in Illinois, and prohibiting state and local police from assisting federal immigration agents in removing undocumented people.
“As long as Washington [D.C.] is dominated by a philosophy that threatens Illinois families, we can and we will give parents the dignity of knowing their children are in trusted hands,” Pritzker said.
HB 836 ensures a parent in the country illegally can entrust a guardian to make medical decisions and enroll a child in school, among other activities, the governor’s office said. The measure would also give the courts discretion to grant guardianship of a minor whose parent can’t be reached due to an administrative separation.
State Rep. Darren Bailey, R-Xenia, said Illinois can’t even manage its current caseload at the Department of Children and Family Services.
“We can’t even get our foster care situation under control and we’re going to sit here and pretend that we’re going to take care of these children until these things get straightened out with their parents,” Bailey said.
Pritzker also denied that Trump is helping his re-election chances by fomenting racial divisions.
“It’s not working for his re-election,” Pritzker said. “I have called him out as a xenophobe, as a racist. I believe that he is. He’s going to continue to do this. This. This is the world that we live in. We’re fighting hard to hold back the efforts of his government of his White House to foment this kind of racism around the nation.”
Federal investigators are looking into $10,000 in payments from current and former ComEd lobbyists to an ousted political operative for House Speaker Michael Madigan, sources have told the Chicago Tribune.
Records obtained by the Tribune reveal that the checks went to Kevin Quinn, a former top Madigan lieutenant and brother of 13th Ward Ald. Marty Quinn, after he was dismissed from the speaker’s political operation in early 2018 amid a sexual harassment scandal.
The checks came from accounts linked to five current or former lobbyists for utility giant ComEd, including Madigan’s close confidant Michael McClain, records showed. McClain’s home in downstate Quincy was raided by the FBI two months ago.
The FBI is looking at the checks as part of an ongoing investigation, a source with knowledge of the probe told the Tribune.
Other than McClain, the story claims the current and former lobbyists are former Rep. John Bradley, Cornerstone Government Affairs (Will Cousineau), Tom Cullen and Michael Alvarez. An unidentified businessman who has “worked with Madigan’s property tax appeals law firm” gave a grand and the name “McClain” appears in the memo area.
…Adding… Either Kevin Quinn’s ex got the number wrong or there’s more out there…
My name is Sarah Mckay, I’m married to Kevin Quinn. I have stayed silent long enough, I have two children that I love more than anything in the world, they are currently uninsured, while he has insurance, he made $14,000 in January, he’s being ghost pay rolled by Madigan goons.
It remains unclear precisely what the feds are probing with regard to Madigan himself. But a picture is emerging of his political operation turning to ComEd to secretly aid a long-trusted lieutenant whose personal conduct made it politically impossible to continue employing him.
ComEd and its parent company, Exelon, are perhaps the most politically potent business interests in Illinois. Both donate substantial sums to political campaigns and have employed many former lawmakers and others close to Madigan as lobbyists and consultants.
In recent years, Madigan has provided immense help to Exelon, first by shepherding through ComEd’s $2.6 billion smart-grid law in 2011 over the veto of Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn. That act has led to substantial rate hikes to finance ComEd’s grid modernization program and a regulatory rate-setting system that enables the utility to change rates annually via a formula with limited regulatory oversight.
In 2016 Madigan helped usher through a ratepayer-funded bailout for two nuclear plants Exelon had threatened to close. That was one of the only measures Madigan and Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner agreed on during Rauner’s single term. The bailout provides Exelon with more than $200 million in additional revenue each year and costs the average Illinoisan an extra $2 or so per month on their electric bill.
*** UPDATE *** Alaina Hampton…
It is deeply troublesome that various powerful lobbyists, per the Tribune article, provided financial aid to Speaker Madigan’s former political operative, Kevin Quinn, after he was let go in the wake of my disclosure of his sexual harassment of me. In contrast, I was shunned and lost out on career opportunities for speaking out. This is further evidence of a culture of sexism and corruption that has silenced victims and protected men. And it starts at the top.
, Majority Leader Mark Ferry (District 13), Majority Whip Tyler Marcum (District 10), Reverend Herb Brooks (District 
