Question of the day
Monday, Oct 18, 2021 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Press release…
llinois House Republican Leader Jim Durkin (R-Western Springs) and Illinois State Senator John Curran (R-Downers Grove) were joined by suburban police chiefs from Cook County Monday morning to introduce new legislation that will give law enforcement the ability to override the state’s attorney’s charging decisions, as well as bring transparency and accountability to this process.
“Today’s legislation is a major step towards accountability for the Cook County State’s Attorney with law enforcement and victims of crime,” Leader Durkin said. “This legislation demands transparency in the charging process and gives law enforcement a fair avenue to participate in the criminal court system.”
House Bill 4176 will allow local law enforcement the right to override a state’s attorney’s decision not to file felony charges when law enforcement believes clear and convincing evidence exists. Currently, law enforcement has no recourse when charges are declined on a case by an assistant state’s attorney. This bill will give law enforcement the ability to protect public safety and fight for victims and victims’ families when no one else will.
A 2020 Chicago Tribune analysis found that Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx “dropped all charges against 29.9% of felony defendants, a dramatic increase over her predecessor.” In one of the latest egregious cases, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office refused to file Felony charges in a deadly shootout, citing “mutual combat” because both groups were shooting at each other.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Cook County is on track to see the highest carjacking numbers in 20 years, with carjackings up 43.5 percent in Cook County this year as opposed to the same time period in 2020. In another tragic case where a seven-year-old was murdered, police officials filed their own charges against the suspect when the Cook County State’s Attorney refused to do so, only to see their charges dropped.
“This proposal brings transparency and accountability to criminal charging decisions made by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office,” said State Senator John Curran. “There have been consistent complaints from law enforcement agencies within Cook County about the State’s Attorney’s charging decisions, oftentimes leaving the public with no information as to why criminal prosecutions are not being pursued while our communities are experiencing a rapid rise in violent crime.”
Leader Durkin held a meeting with over two dozen police chiefs from Cook County last week to discuss ways to empower law enforcement when the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office continues to reject charges for violent and felony cases, some of which have resulted in fatalities. Police chiefs from the villages of Riverside and Worth participated in the press conference today.
* Synopsis…
Provides that, in a criminal investigation in counties in excess of 3,000,000 involving a forcible felony where the State’s Attorney or an Assistant State’s Attorney rejects the filing of a felony charge or charges or the case is designated by the State’s Attorney or Assistant State’s Attorney as a continuing investigation: (1) a law enforcement agency in the jurisdiction where the alleged crime occurred may override the State’s Attorney or Assistant State’s Attorney’s rejection of the felony charge or charges or the case is designated by the State’s Attorney or Assistant State’s Attorney as a continuing investigation if the evidence supporting the charge is clear and convincing and the override is filed with the clerk of the circuit court and the State’s Attorney; and (2) the State’s Attorney or Assistant State’s Attorney may rescind the override within 7 days after the override by petitioning the Chief Judge of the Criminal Division of the circuit court. Provides for petition requirements. Provides that, if the court determines that law enforcement agency’s decision to override was based on clear and convincing evidence, the State’s Attorney must proceed with a preliminary examination or seek an indictment by grand jury within 30 days from the date he or she was taken into custody or, if he or she is not in custody, 60 days from the date he or she was arrested. Provides that the decision of the court on the law enforcement agency’s override is not appealable.
* The Question: Your thoughts on this bill?
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* Progress, but a drop in the bucket until AFSCME comes around…
After recently reaching three union agreements requiring vaccines for certain state workers, Governor JB Pritzker announced the fourth such agreement has been reached with multiple Illinois trade unions working in congregate settings. This progress has been reached as negotiations are ongoing with AFSCME representatives.
This agreement will ensure employees at facilities such as the Shapiro Developmental Center, Menard Correctional Center and Quincy Veteran’s Home are protected with the COVID-19 vaccines. Given the provisions in the previous agreements the state made with VR-704, the Illinois Nurses Association and Illinois Federation of Public Employees, the deadline for all employees covered by vaccine agreements to get their first shot has been extended to October 26.
State employees who remain unvaccinated pose a significant risk to individuals in Illinois’ congregate facilities. Therefore, if employees do not receive the vaccine or an exemption by the dates identified, progressive disciplinary measures will be implemented, which may ultimately lead to discharge. The agreement includes a process whereby employees can seek an exemption based on medical contraindications or sincerely-held religious beliefs.
“Leadership by President Biden and businesses across the country show that vaccine requirements work,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “I’m proud to announce that Illinois has reached our fourth union agreement to ensure those we serve are protected. Vaccination remains our strongest tool to stay safe from COVID-19 and protect our children.”
Following Gov. Pritzker’s announcement that all state workers who work in state-run congregate facilities would be required to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, the agreements covering 1,990 workers have been made:
• VR-704: 260 supervisory employees at the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) and the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ). Agreement reached on September 20, 2021.
• Illinois Nurses Association: approximately 1,100 nurses working in 24/7 facilities like McFarland Mental Health Facility, Quincy Veterans’ Home and Jacksonville Correctional Center. Agreement reached on October 7, 2021.
• Illinois Federation of Public Employees: approximately 160 employees working in Human Services and Veterans’ Affairs. Agreement reached on October 7, 2021.
• Illinois Trade Unions: approximately 470 employees working in 24/7 facilities such as Menard Corrections Center, Shapiro Developmental Center and Quincy Veteran’s Home.
To further encourage vaccinations under the agreements with the unions, employees will receive an additional personal day. If the vaccine administration is not available during an employee’s regularly scheduled shift, the employee may be compensated at their regular pay for the time taken to receive the vaccine. In addition, vaccinated employees will receive paid “COVID time,” so that if a vaccinated employee gets COVID-19 they will receive a period of paid time off without using their benefit time.
The administration has taken extensive measures to make the COVID-19 vaccine equitable and accessible. The Pritzker administration established 25 mass vaccination sites. The Illinois National Guard supported more than 800 mobile vaccination clinics on top of an additional 1,705 state-supported mobile sites that focused on communities hardest hit by the pandemic, young residents, and rural communities. The COVID-19 vaccine has been available for healthcare and nursing home workers since December 15, 2020, and open to teachers since January 25, 2021.
Vaccination is the key to ending the COVID-19 pandemic and returning to normal life. All Illinois residents over the age of 12 are eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine at no cost and proof of immigration status is not required to receive the vaccine. To find a vaccination center near you, visit vaccines.gov.
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COVID-19 roundup
Monday, Oct 18, 2021 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Jake Griffin…
Illinois has surpassed another grim COVID-19 milestone with the disease now claiming the lives of one in every 500 Illinois residents, according to Illinois Department of Public Health records.
IDPH officials reported 63 more COVID-19 deaths over the past three days, bringing the state’s death toll from the virus to 25,470.
State health officials also report another 2,798 deaths were likely caused by the disease.
* The selfishness of these people never ceases to amaze me…
Keys and Kadence Koen, a math and business teacher at Southeast High School, are defying Springfield School District 186’s efforts to carry out Gov. JB Pritzker’s mandate that school personnel get vaccinated against COVID-19 or get tested weekly.
Keys and Koen cite “personal liberties” as the main reason for defying the order. […]
“I’m committed to standing up for my family, and, no, I will not comply with something that goes directly against my freedom to make independent medical decisions for my family and me,” Keys said. “The implications of eroding my personal freedom in my employment will then bleed into the freedoms of my children and my wife.”
Keys said Pritzker and the Illinois State Board of Education are “subverting the process” and forcing school personnel into “a life-altering medical procedure.”
Well, yeah, taking a vaccine is life-altering in that it can save your life and the lives of those around you. But, riddle me this, Batman, how is taking regular COVID tests as an alternative to a vaccine in any way “life-altering”?
Also, your “personal freedom” ends when it endangers the health and lives of others. You have the right to harmlessly swing your fist through the air. That right ends when you punch somebody.
* And for those of you who love trolling comment boards to ask why the vaccinated are so adamant about everyone possible getting their shots…
Colin L. Powell, whose immune system was weakened by treatment for multiple myeloma, died of complications of Covid-19 despite being “fully vaccinated,” his family said in a statement.
Being vaccinated will help you, but it could also save the lives of people who are severely immunocompromised or who can’t be vaxed.
* Eric Schmid…
Nearly every county in Illinois doesn’t have enough primary care, mental health and dental providers, according to a new report by the Rural Health Summit.
The issue is most acute in the state’s rural counties, including southern Illinois.
The report, produced by a consortium of health care professionals, finds the coronavirus pandemic exacerbated and illuminated the depth to Illinois’ rural health worker shortage.
“It showed a lot of people that there are a lot of issues that were under the surface for a long time and they came to the surface, and it kind of caused a crisis,” said Dr. Jim Daniels, a family and preventive medicine physician with Southern Illinois University’s medical school.
Speaking at a webinar Thursday about the report’s findings, Daniels said there’s a mismatch with the pipelines medical and government institutions have developed to get more doctors into rural areas.
“We’ve spent a lot of time on how we’re going to get someone to rural health, but maybe not a whole lot of time in the rural areas talking to folks saying, ‘What keeps folks there?’” he said. “If you say, ‘We’re going to pay your medical bills off,’ and then in about four or five years you haven’t bonded with the community, [so] you leave.”
One way to combat this, according to the report, is to provide opportunities and incentives for people from rural communities who want to enter the health care field.
* Oy…
In May 2021, as the U.S. vaccination campaign started to lose momentum, several U.S. states and some cities arrived at the same conclusion: To boost uptake, they’d launch vaccine lotteries, giving locals who’d gotten their shot the chance to win a million or more dollars.
But a new study published in JAMA Health Forum on Friday suggests that, on their own, the lotteries launched for vaccinated residents in 19 states failed to achieve their goals of encouraging people to take the Covid vaccine. It found no significant difference in rates of vaccine uptake in states that launched lotteries compared to those that did not.
“Everyone was rooting for this to work, but you’ve got to check,” says Andrew I. Friedson, an associate professor of economics at the University of Colorado Denver and an author of the report. “The way the evidence has stacked up it seems that there are better ways to spend our money.” […]
Researchers used an approach that compared states only by whether and when they launched vaccination campaigns, attempting to weed out other potential influences across regions of varying affluence, population and political leanings. They also controlled for other day-to-day variables, including the number of new Covid cases, foot traffic behavior and whether states had other vaccination incentive programs ongoing. They found no association, either way.
* More…
* New CPD memo threatens investigation, termination for cops not compliant with vaccination reporting deadline; ‘Invalid,’ says FOP
* CPD restricts time off for officers as Catanzara fights Lightfoot on vaccination reporting mandate
* ‘Legitimacy’ of Chicago Police Department at Risk Amid Vaccine Mandate Fight: Lightfoot
* Chicago chief: Unvaccinated cops risk retirement benefits
* She never planned to get vaccinated. Seeing other pregnant women die from COVID changed her mind.
* Clock ticks down on vaccine mandate
* NBA should be working on an alternative to Irving’s COVID-19 vaccination message
* Should You Mix and Match Your Booster Shot?
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Chicago Sky open thread
Monday, Oct 18, 2021 - Posted by Rich Miller
* I know many of you are fired up about the championship win, so have at it [multiple exclamation points]
…Adding… Press release…
– The City of Chicago will celebrate the 2021 WNBA Champion Chicago Sky on Tuesday, October 19 with a downtown parade and rally. The parade will begin at 11AM when the team departs from Wintrust Arena, arriving at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park for a celebration rally starting at noon.
“The City of Chicago could not be prouder of our winning Chicago Sky,” said Mayor Lori Lightfoot. “We are thrilled to throw a celebration worthy of this historic moment in Chicago sports and congratulate the Sky for bringing our city its first WNBA title. Let’s get ready to paint the town #SkyTown!”
PARADE ROUTE
The official parade starts with the team leaving Wintrust Arena at 11AM, traveling north on Michigan Avenue from Roosevelt Rd. to Randolph St., and heading east to Pritzker Pavilion. Fans are encouraged to cheer on the Sky along the parade route.
RALLY
A Celebration Rally will take place at Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park starting at noon.
The rally is free and open to the public. All attendees must pass through security screening at select entrances off Michigan Ave. and Monroe St. Guests are encouraged to leave bags at home. For security, health, and safety information, please visit MillenniumPark.org and “Plan Your Visit.”
While attendees are not required to be vaccinated to attend, it is highly encouraged. Please do not attend if you do not feel well or recently tested positive for COVID-19.
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*** UPDATED x1 *** More remap stuff
Monday, Oct 18, 2021 - Posted by Rich Miller
* New York Times…
Illinois Democrats on Friday proposed a new set of highly gerrymandered congressional maps that would consolidate Democratic power in the state’s congressional delegation, most likely cutting the number of Republican seats in the state to three from five.
Only if you’re looking at presidential results…
2022 is an off-year election and President Biden’s trend ain’t the Democrats’ friend. And many (not all) congressional Dems underperformed Biden last year. Not saying that this map wouldn’t result in 14-3, but it ain’t a slam dunk when you factor in reality. A bunch of those districts could be tossups.
* Not sure why counties are always supposed to be kept together, but OK…
* Koutsky has close ties to a top Durbin person…
Yet if Republicans found that map absurd, they will be even more offended by a new proposal.
Crafted by Zach Koutsky, a longtime Illinois Democratic operative, it appeared on the state Legislature’s online portal late Friday night.
The more aggressive map is even more contorted than the first — though perhaps more effective at delivering seats for Democrats. It was crafted in consultation with national Democrats, according to a source familiar with its origin.
In this proposal, Bustos’ northwest Illinois district stretches across the state’s northern border, grabbing the city of Rockford and dipping into Lake County to pick up some of the city of Waukegan. It also loops the Democratic-leaning cities downstate into two districts: one snaking from East St. Louis to Springfield to Decatur, and another that stretches from Peoria to Bloomington to Champaign.
That would leave just two deep-red seats for the state’s current Republican members. Democrats could conceivably take 15 of the 17 districts in the next election under this map.
* Wasserman, who is better at numbers than political analysis, wasn’t impressed by the effort…
* Question from Crain’s…
Will the Dems’ new map survive the week?
This is not intended to be the final map. The chair of the House Redistricting Committee specifically called the proposal a “first draft” on Friday. So, no, it won’t survive. By design.
* The truth is, anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can submit a map, and several will before this is over…
* And some tweeters actually thought this obvious spoof was for real, which I thought was hilarious…
*** UPDATE *** AP…
A lawsuit seeks to block new Illinois state legislative district maps, saying Black residents of East St. Louis were unconstitionally split up into multiple House districts to help white Democratic incumbents in neighboring districts win reelection.
The federal lawsuit was filed Friday on behalf of the East St. Louis Branch NAACP, the Illinois State Conference of the NAACP and the United Congress of Community and Religious Organizations. It says race played a role in the redistricting of House District 114, which is currently represented by Rep. LaToya Greenwood, who is Black. According to the lawsuit, one-fifth of the district’s Black voting-age population was moved into two nearby districts under the new legislative maps that Democrats approved and Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law last month as part of redistricting. Thousands of white voters were added to District 114, which the plaintiffs say jeopardizes the prospects of a candidate preferred by Black voters. The district has been represented by a Black legislator for decades, the lawsuit states.
…Adding… The filing is here.
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* We’ve discussed much of this already, but here’s my weekly syndicated newspaper column…
Catholic priest and Chicago community activist Michael Pfleger has now twice called on Gov. J.B. Pritzker to declare a “state of emergency” over his city’s notorious gun violence problems.
The first time was this past July, when Pfleger demanded Pritzker issue a similar emergency declaration to the one announced by New York’s then-governor, Andrew Cuomo. Pfleger repeated his demand again last week after a security guard and a little girl were injured by gunfire outside of a school.
The Democrat Cuomo issued his emergency declaration about a month before he finally resigned his office in disgrace. A chorus was building against him for a variety of reasons, including numerous sexual harassment claims. His emergency declaration was seen by some at the time as a way to distract from the growing calls for his immediate ouster.
As far as the substance goes, there wasn’t much in former Gov. Cuomo’s declaration that the state of Illinois isn’t already doing.
Cuomo unilaterally increased spending on violence interruption and youth job programs, which Illinois did in its current fiscal year’s budget.
Cuomo’s declaration also created a new Office of Gun Violence Prevention, but the Illinois Legislature has already done that here.
Cuomo created a gun trafficking interdiction program to stem the flow of guns from other states, but that’s already being done here, too.
Cuomo was criticized by New York Republicans for not also rolling back some of the state’s criminal justice reforms passed two years earlier, but Illinois’ reforms haven’t even taken effect yet, so they aren’t contributing to the problem, no matter what some ill-informed blowhards might be saying.
Look, the hard truth is, if there was a legal magic wand that could be waved to immediately solve the nation’s violence problem, it would’ve already been waved years ago.
Even so, the Chicago news media has long been notorious for amplifying mostly empty but very loud calls to “Do something right now!” about violence. Mayors Richard M. Daley, Rahm Emanuel and now Lori Lightfoot have all been pilloried for failing to adequately address the city’s violence problems. Remember when another disgraced governor, Rod Blagojevich, threatened to call out the Illinois National Guard over Mayor Daley’s opposition? Blago got a ton of news media coverage for that, which, like Cuomos, is what his threat was really all about.
One thing deserving attention is a better understanding of what’s actually going on.
For instance, we are told over and over that gun violence in our cities is a gang problem. But a study conducted this year of Chicago police incident data for 34,000 shootings during the past decade found that detectives “labeled fewer than three in 10 of them gang-related,” according to The Trace. In 2020, the city’s police department claimed 43 percent of fatal shootings were gang-related, down from 70 percent five years earlier. But that police data is probably unreliable, so we don’t really know.
There are surely other things that can be done which are working elsewhere. And the current violent surge began with the COVID-19 pandemic, so it might eventually subside on its own once (hopefully) the pandemic finally recedes.
Some things take time. You can’t snap your fingers and bring back factories to the inner cities, or get rid of guns, or force people to trust the police and stop fearing neighborhood killers.
In the meantime, it wouldn’t kill the governor to be more aggressive in informing the public of what the state has done so far and what can be done in the future. He often tries to distance himself from local crime problems to the point where he comes off as uninvolved or uninterested.
Pritzker has done some good things, including vastly expanding violence interruption and prevention programs, but even then the money spent to treat violence like a public health issue is a relative drop in the bucket of what’s likely needed.
More funding for mental health programs is a no-brainer. This country’s track record on dealing with mentally ill people is beyond shameful. Schools should have counselors. Neighborhoods should have clinics with easy access. Police, nurses, doctors and so many others should get all the help they need so they can better deal with the devastation they engage with every day.
This stuff isn’t free, obviously. Magic wands are free, but they don’t exist. Make the case for more spending on real solutions and move the state forward.
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* Rick Pearson…
Since announcing his reelection bid in July, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker has spent nearly $7 million in advertising, a sign of what confronts the four announced prospective Republican challengers seeking to take on the billionaire incumbent in next year’s election.
Pritzker, an heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, spent more than $8.2 million from July through September, campaign finance reports showed. The first-term Democrat, who spent $171 million of his own money to defeat one-term Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner in 2018, is again self-funding his campaign and had nearly $24.7 million available in his campaign fund at the start of October.
Republicans are looking to see if or when Ken Griffin, the billionaire founder and CEO of Citadel, will weigh in on the Republican race. Griffin contributed to Rauner and spent millions to push voter defeat of Pritzker’s top agenda item to change the state’s flat-rate income tax to a graduated rate system.
Griffin has not expressed support for any of the four announced Republicans but the field could still grow.
The governor contributed about $39K to other campaign committees, including $15K to the Chicago Federation of Labor and $5K to Rep. Marcus Evans, who was one of the point persons on the climate/energy bill.
Pritzker spent almost $7.2 million on media buys and production, $274K on payroll and taxes, $182K on travel, $176K on consulting, $118K on legal services, $86K on research and $36K on software.
* Republican Jesse Sullivan reported raising $10.8 million and spent $789K, with $551K of that going to various advertising expenses.
Sen. Darren Bailey raised $894K, spent $383K, including $94K on consulting, $22K on yard signs, another $22K on t-shirts and $6K in salaries. He had a million dollars in the bank at the end of the quarter.
Gary Rabine raised $445K, spent $316K, including $146K on consulting and $63K on polling and “data.” He had $416K in the bank.
Paul Schimpf raised $60K, spent $103K, including $52K on consulting and $11K on signs. He had $73,652.58 in the bank at the end of September.
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* Politico…
Recently, wealthy elites have begun looking for other places to park their funds, places they think authorities won’t look. Places that offer all the financial secrecy these elites need, but that few would associate with lives of luxury. As a result, shadowy and sometimes ill-gotten wealth has started pouring not just into yachts and vacation homes, but also into blue-collar towns in the U.S. whose economic struggles make them eager to accept the cash.
One of these small towns appears to have been Harvard, Ill., a depressed factory community that allegedly became part of a sprawling network used by Ukrainian banking tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky to launder hundreds of millions of dollars earned from a Ponzi scheme. Kolomoisky, who was recently hit with U.S. sanctions for “significant corruption” in Ukraine, is separately accused by the Justice Department and Ukrainian investigators of using a constellation of shell companies and offshore bank accounts to move millions in misappropriated funds out of Ukraine and into a series of real-estate investments in the American Midwest. (Kolomoisky denies wrongdoing, claiming he made the investments with his own money.) […]
The idea seems to have been to purchase troubled assets that American sellers were eager to offload. Even if the buyers ultimately took a loss, the assets were still outside the grasp of Ukrainian investigators and could still act as vehicles through which to funnel money. Perhaps most importantly, the properties could be bought without much inquiry into the source of the monies: For two decades, American real-estate professionals have benefited from a “temporary” exemption to anti-money laundering laws, allowing them to avoid performing due diligence on the customer making the purchase. […]
More than five years after the purchase, no jobs had returned and no further investments emerged. Unpaid property taxes kept accumulating, starving the strapped local government of hundreds of thousands of dollars. In 2016, Optima sold the building at a $7 million loss to a Chinese Canadian businessperson. Years of neglect by various owners began to take a toll: Soon, the factory went dark entirely. With a half-million-dollar tab in unpaid electricity bills, the juice was cut off, forcing local officials to visit with flashlights. “It’s just heartbreaking to see that beautiful place sitting vacant,” the McHenry County treasurer said in 2018. […]
“The building won’t just be valueless — it will be a catastrophe for the town, because it will have to be demolished,” Eldredge told me in 2020. “And the net cost for that, after salvage, is probably three to five times the city’s annual budget. It will be a financial catastrophe.” He paused, pondering the implication: This hundred-million-dollar promise to a small outpost in northern Illinois ended up with a foreign oligarch apparently using it to hide his money from investigators. (The building was sold just last month to a group of developers from Las Vegas for an undisclosed amount.) […]
As it turns out, the decrepit Harvard plant had another chance to avoid falling into disrepair. But the story of how that opportunity collapsed suggests just how deeply kleptocratic networks have become embedded into the American economy. In 2016 — just as Ukrainian officials began investigating the depths of Kolomoisky’s alleged Ponzi scheme — the oligarch and his team somehow found a buyer willing to take on the former Motorola plant. The new buyer was another firm with links to overseas investors, this time headed by a Chinese Canadian businessperson named Xiao Hua Gong. […]
A year after the sale, though, still nothing had happened with the building. And then Canadian authorities dropped a bombshell: They accused Gong of running his own transnational money laundering scheme, charging him with fraud and money laundering. Follow-on allegations from New Zealand authorities detailed how Gong had led a “multi-national pyramid scheme,” eventually resulting in the country’s largest-ever settlement, worth over $50 million. If the various allegations are true, this means the Harvard Motorola plant has entered not one, but two separate dirty-money pipelines. […]
The Biden administration has vowed to take on global corruption, recently elevating it to a core national security threat. But the intertwined stories of Kolomoisky and Harvard suggest there’s much left to do before we can even grasp the scale of the damage in America’s heartland — and figure out what to do about it.
Wow.
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PNA repeal back on the front burner
Monday, Oct 18, 2021 - Posted by Rich Miller
* The AP’s John O’Connor has a story on a possible repeal of the state’s Parental Notice of Abortion law. A quick excerpt…
The 1995 law, adopted during the only legislative session in the past half-century that Republicans controlled both the House and Senate and the governor’s office, did not take effect until 2013, after years of judicial challenges by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Since then, the number of abortions among minors has dropped 38%, to 1,092 in 2018, while abortions overall among Illinois residents remained steady, according to Illinois Department of Public Health statistics. The numbers in both categories have plummeted since the mid-90s; overall, sinking 25% from a high of 49,131 in 1996 while abortions among minors hit a high of 4,853 in 1995 and a low of 1,003 in 2017, a drop of 79%. […]
Of 38 states requiring parental involvement in a minor’s abortion decision, 21 require parental consent — in three of those, both parents must consent, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
If a girl is in a family situation where notifying parents or other relatives would result in her harm, she may go to a judge who then decides whether she is mature and emotionally sound enough to decide for herself. That has happened 550 times since 2013, with a judge denying abortion access once, according to Brigid Leahy, senior director of public policy for Planned Parenthood of Illinois.
* The statute…
No person shall knowingly perform an abortion upon a minor or upon an incompetent person unless the physician or his or her agent has given at least 48 hours actual notice to an adult family member of the pregnant minor or incompetent person of his or her intention to perform the abortion, unless that person or his or her agent has received a written statement by a referring physician certifying that the referring physician or his or her agent has given at least 48 hours notice to an adult family member of the pregnant minor or incompetent person. If actual notice is not possible after a reasonable effort, the physician or his or her agent must give 48 hours constructive notice.
Exceptions…
Notice shall not be required under this Act if:
(1) the minor or incompetent person is accompanied by a person entitled to notice; or
(2) notice is waived in writing by a person who is entitled to notice; or
(3) the attending physician certifies in the patient’s medical record that a medical emergency exists and there is insufficient time to provide the required notice; or
(4) the minor declares in writing that she is a victim of sexual abuse, neglect, or physical abuse by an adult family member as defined in this Act. The attending physician must certify in the patient’s medical record that he or she has received the written declaration of abuse or neglect. Any notification of public authorities of abuse that may be required under other laws of this State need not be made by the person performing the abortion until after the minor receives an abortion that otherwise complies with the requirements of this Act; or
(5) notice is waived under Section 25. [Judicial bypass]
Discuss.
* Related…
* Should Illinois repeal the Parental Notice of Abortion Act?
* Texas abortion law shutting down court avenue for teens
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* Hyde Park Herald…
“The map that I’m seeing is an absolute non-starter. It’s a horrendous map that does not take into consideration cultural affinities,” [US Rep. Bobby Rush] said in a statement to the Herald. “It begins at a place called absurd and it ends at a place called ridiculous. The best thing about this map is that my southern boundaries are not in Iowa.”
In her own statement, [US Rep. Robin Kelly] was more sanguine about the redistricting.
“Change is always hard, and the map released today is not final. I expect to see more changes in the final version. However, I am pleased to see that the Pullman National Monument, the Museum of Science and Industry, the future Obama Presidential Center and the proposed site of the south suburban airport will remain in my district. I have worked on these projects and with the museum for many years and look forward to continuing my work there,” she said.
“I have always felt fortunate to represent Illinois’ 2nd congressional district, which is representative of our nation itself, with urban, suburban and rural components. I hope the final map will reflect this.”
* Worst remap take so far, and that’s really saying something…
Yeah, because those noted conservadems JB Pritzker, Chris Welch and Don Harmon all banded together to mete out revenge on behalf of the pro-life legacy Lipinski. Right.
* Christie and Pompeo? OK. Also, could somebody tell Wasserman that this map will likely change over the coming two weeks? Thanks…
On Tuesday, the Sun-Times learned, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the co-chairs of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, will kick off an attack on the Democratic-drawn Illinois map, with more GOP assaults to come.
Democrats did not use all the available partisan firepower, said David Wasserman, one of the nation’s foremost remap experts, who is with “The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.”
The Illinois proposed map is “both uglier and less effective for Democrats than expected,” he wrote. With some shifts, Democrats could have added more protection for Rep. Lauren Underwood, who barely won a second term in 2020.
According to Wasserman’s analysis Illinois Democrats – who can still revise the map - unwittingly created some potential swing districts rather than safe havens in 2022. “If the political environment goes south for Democrats in 2022, this grotesque gerrymander could turn into a ‘dummymander,’” he wrote.
One possibility is that this is also a head fake. Republicans were expecting a lopsided map and this clearly is not. So, their attacks will fall flat… until the actual maps are passed in a couple of weeks.
* Using 2020 presidential numbers to predict 2022 outcomes is not smart, so keep that in mind when looking at these numbers from PlanScore, a project of the Campaign Legal Center…
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