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Isabel’s morning briefing
Friday, Jun 9, 2023 - Posted by Isabel Miller * Here you go…
* Crain’s | Illinois House GOP leader rips Speaker Welch over new state budget: During an interview in which McCombie expanded on comments she made during the House budget debate, she not only called the budget unbalanced and preparatory to an eventual tax hike but went so far as to suggest former Speaker Mike Madigan was more candid in his dealings with the minority party than his successor has been. … Welch spokeswoman Jaclyn Driscoll denies that. In fact, she says, “Speaker Welch met with Leader McCombie every time she requested and House Democrats held bipartisan budget meetings for weeks.” Another source familiar with what occurred says a series of meetings did get canceled late in the budget process. But that source blames the situation on bad staff work by Welch’s office, not on the speaker himself, and suggests that McCombie has internal reasons in a right-leaning caucus to battle Welch. * Lake County News-Sun | Lake Forest councilman resigns amid police investigation; cites ‘personal reasons’: However, city police confirmed they are investigating a recent situation involving Mieling at the downtown Starbucks in the 600 block of Western Avenue. “We interviewed the alleged victim, and at least one witness,” Deputy Chief Rob Copeland said. Copeland said he could not confirm, nor deny the investigation involves photos allegedly taken by Mieling. He added that no charges had been filed in the case. * Tribune | Legal settlement ensures toxic coal ash will be removed from flood plain of Illinois’ only national scenic river: Under a legal settlement brokered by environmental lawyers and Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office, Texas-based Vistra will drain pits of water-soaked coal ash along the Middle Fork of the Vermilion River, about 120 miles south of Chicago. The company also will dig a trench to collect contaminated groundwater and monitor the fast-eroding riverbank after major storms. * Patch | Elmhurst Church Leaves Conference: An Elmhurst Methodist church is leaving its national conference, part of an exodus of churches opposed to a greater role for the LGBTQ community. Faith Evangelical United Methodist Church is among eight in northern Illinois that have ended their longtime affiliation with the United Methodists, the Northern Illinois Conference of the United Methodist Church announced Tuesday. * Injustice Watch | Cook County Judge Vazquez loses retention vote: The vote comes after months of Injustice Watch reporting about Vazquez’s actions inside and outside the courtroom. In December 2021, Injustice Watch found Vazquez was the Cook County judge who most frequently sentenced defendants to wear electronic alcohol monitors as a condition of probation, despite scant scientific evidence that the monitors help address substance abuse. Vazquez sometimes assigned the monitors even in cases in which the underlying charges were unrelated to alcohol, and in at least one case used the threat of jail time to compel a defendant to wear the device, according to the woman and her attorney. * Tribune | Feds ‘stepping into shoes’ of former Crestwood mayor in grab for his state pension contributions: A recent filing in the case looks to take $13,570 in contributions made by Presta to the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund as part of restitution, that includes a bit more than $72,000 to the Internal Revenue Service, according to sentencing documents. * Sun-Times | Justice Department officials take interest in Chicago anti-violence programs: The visit to UCAN, which was followed by a meeting in Little Village with a panel of parents who had lost children to gun violence, was not the first time Gupta has been to Chicago. As head of the department’s Office of Civil Rights during the federal investigation of the Chicago Police Department, Gupta announced the DOJ report that led to federal oversight of the department by a court-appointed monitor. * Tribune | Third airport would create jobs needed to grow Southland economy and tax base, panelists say: All the Southland’s problems are interconnected. High rates of violent crime are directly related to a lack of economic opportunities. Abandoned buildings, declines in municipal services and struggles to maintain quality education and health care can all be link Leaders in government and the business community identified this dynamic years ago and have worked to solve problems. Some measures, such as granting tax incentives to private employers and investing public funds in infrastructure, have paid modest dividends. * Sun-Times | Inside Chicago’s catalytic converter theft epidemic: Catalytic converter thieves have struck more than 17,000 times in Chicago since 2019. And they almost never get caught. Only 34 of those reported thefts — 0.2% — ended with an arrest, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis has found. “They just zip, zip, and Sawzall it out and leave,” says Shannon Cason of Edgewater, who had a catalytic converter stolen in December. “Nobody knew.” * Chicago Reader | How the FBI used ‘Cop City’ protests to snoop on activists in Chicago: It took less than two weeks for the FBI to flag the account, which was the focal point of a sprawling federal inquiry that collected information on several Chicago-based activist and community groups. Those groups appear to have done little more than promote or attend events affiliated with the Atlanta-area activists. According to 28 pages of FBI records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, the Chicago case file is part of a larger federal law enforcement assessment related to “Anarchist extremism” and domestic terrorism. * Tribune | Some Chicago beaches making a comeback after Lake Michigan’s high water levels ate into the shoreline: “Those were the areas that took the brunt of the impact of lake level rise,” Mattheus said. “We’re actually seeing in our measurements, our sonar, our drone data, that the beaches are rebounding; they’re reforming. They seem to be doing so quickly in the areas that saw the most destruction.”
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- Oswego Willy - Friday, Jun 9, 23 @ 7:48 am:
===she not only called the budget unbalanced and preparatory to an eventual tax hike===
Vertical Integration already taking root.
Jim Nowlan “did his job”, hope he gets his check.
- Suburban Mom - Friday, Jun 9, 23 @ 8:05 am:
===Elmhurst Church Leaves Conference: ===
I’m not Methodist, but I’ve been involved with the larger org for many years via my professional work, and this process has been so, so painful and heartrending for everyone involved.
My sympathies lie with the “reconciling” churches that recognize LGBTQ+ Christians as full humans, with rights to marriage and ordination and so on. But even for the most liberal pastors, it’s been really hard to watch generations-long relationships among churches split over what each side feels is a clear issue of morality that must be addressed. And leaders on both sides of the divide spent a lot of good-faith effort to persuade those on the other side to what they feel is the correct view, and nobody wanted a split to arise from the dispute. So this is in many ways an admission of failure of Christian love.
Anyway, not my church so not really my business, but I have so much compassion for those going through this process of splitting, it sucks.
- H-W - Friday, Jun 9, 23 @ 8:51 am:
@Suburban Mom
I disagree with your assessment regarding a failure of Christian Love on two grounds. First, this process has been one of inclusion, not exclusion. It has opened the UMC fully, to those who were previously denied opportunities to serve and marry with the blessings of the church. In this context, this process expanded Christian love to those institutionally denied previously.
Second, the process does not penalize those church congregations who choose to continue the practice of denying equality before God. No harm is done. They are allowed to leave with their churches in tact (until now, the UMC legally owned these churches).
Any failure of Christian Love existed prior to this resolution, I would argue. Rules that exclude are problematic because they deny equality before the law, before God, within communities and states, etc.
As a caveat, I left the Methodist Church in 2016 because of its refusal to embrace LGBT brothers and sisters as equals. After 44 years a confirmed member, I could no longer share my time, tithes, talents and prayers with a formal organization that denied God blessing upon a social category, and upon my son.
This resolution restores my faith in the UMC.
- Friendly Bob Adams - Friday, Jun 9, 23 @ 8:53 am:
Raised a Methodist, it’s disappointing to see that some churches have walked away from the whole “love thy neighbor” concept.
- Larry Bowa Jr. - Friday, Jun 9, 23 @ 9:10 am:
“I have so much compassion for those going through this process of splitting, it sucks”
This is some weirdly passive language, as though we are not talking about grown adults making conscious choices.
I have no compassion for the people choosing to exclude other human beings from their church on the basis of bigoted nonsense. They are the thing that sucks, not the situation itself. They are conscious actors in “the process,” it was not dropped on their heads from above.
- Hannibal Lecter - Friday, Jun 9, 23 @ 9:36 am:
Churches can include or exclude whoever they want. People have to decide whether the church they belong to shares their values and act accordingly. Sounds like the process worked and everyone will have an opportunity to worship as they wish.
- TheInvisibleMan - Friday, Jun 9, 23 @ 9:44 am:
–Older adults are less likely to reoffend than their younger counterparts–
The stats might say that, but is that the reality on the ground.
In my area at least, older adults 50+, specifically the child offenders being released, are not even approached by police when they repeat their crimes after being released. In the past year, I can think of a half dozen examples - a few where the indecent act was recorded on video and provided to the police - and then absolutely nothing was done about it. I’m talking fully nude out in the open pleasuring himself in front of children. I’ve watched local officials *participate* in helping other released offenders avoid their registration requirements - one incident lasted for almost 3 years before I was tired of it and escalated it to ISP - where it was addressed and handled correctly in ONE day. A few years ago, another of these locally ignored repeat offenders ended up escalating his behavior and attacking a child in a retail store where it was much harder to brush it aside, and was finally arrested by a smaller town police agency other than the police in the area where he was residing, who had been ignoring/protecting him from arrest.
Yes, these are just anecdotes and not data, but I have no reason to believe the behavior of at least local police on this subject is any different in the situations I’m not seeing.
Stats like this reflect what police are doing, more than what offenders are doing.
- Springfield Watcher - Friday, Jun 9, 23 @ 9:45 am:
Welch lived in Durkin’s head rent free. Welch lives in McCombie’s head rent free. And now it sounds like she publicly wishes she had Madigan back. Sometimes you should be careful what you ask for folks.
- Capitol Observer - Friday, Jun 9, 23 @ 9:56 am:
Minority Leader Tony McCombie “went so far as to suggest former Speaker Mike Madigan was more candid in his dealings with the minority party than his successor has been.” If I recall, Madigan and Durkin didn’t talk much. Maybe Welch should stop having weekly meetings with McCombie if that’s what she really thinks. Seems like he’s wasting his time meeting with her.
- Blogger - Friday, Jun 9, 23 @ 10:00 am:
By the tone of Leader McCombie’s inauguration speech in January, her end of session speech a couple weeks ago, and this Crain’s interview, it doesn’t sound like she is going to get much done as a leader. She may want to swap out that vinegar for some honey.
- Lucky Pierre - Friday, Jun 9, 23 @ 10:05 am:
Seems like Speaker Welch cancelling multiple meetings with Republican leadership at crunch time for the state budget, freezing out the minority party, while claiming to want their support for the budget is a bad faith argument.
The budget has risen from 39 billion to 50.4 billion in 5 short years under total Democratic control of Springfield.
We are supposed to believe no new taxes are on the horizon with the federal money drying up and all the new programs implemented and the economy potentially slowing down?
Vertical integration on the Republican side and not with the majority party and all it’s sycophants who rarely admit any terrible policies that have been implemented?
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Jun 9, 23 @ 10:11 am:
===Seems like Speaker Welch cancelling multiple meetings with Republican leadership at crunch time for the state budget, freezing out the minority party, while claiming to want their support for the budget is a bad faith argument.===
Not one voted for the budget, not one.
So… there’s that.
It’s not like McCombie was bringing *ANY* votes to any budget.
===We are supposed to believe no new taxes are on the horizon with the federal money drying up and all the new programs implemented and the economy potentially slowing down?===
I’d ask Jim Nowlan.
:)
Good on you for falling in line so quickly.
===Vertical integration on the Republican side and not with…===
Whatabouting this is you readily admitting that “alternative facts” by Raunerite/Trumpkins that run the GOP will always be embraced by you, and trying to find “same” is as phony as the Timpone Papers.
- Demoralized - Friday, Jun 9, 23 @ 10:52 am:
==We are supposed to believe ==
You’re supposed to believe what’s staring you in the face which is the state is in the best financial shape it’s been in since I can remember.
You really have no ability to make a comment this isn’t dishonest.
- Pundent - Friday, Jun 9, 23 @ 1:33 pm:
=We are supposed to believe…=
Your belief system is entirely rooted in which party is delivering the message. That’s why we don’t pay much credence to your opinions and beliefs.
- cermak_rd - Friday, Jun 9, 23 @ 2:12 pm:
I’ll agree the US (this from the Injustice Watch article) sometimes has handed out extreme, indefensible sentences. I’m just not sure that 40 years for the robbery and murder of a jewelry store clerk is that extreme. I’ll agree in Germany it might be a 10 year sentence, but in IL he’s lucky he did not get life.
But we really need to make sure our halfway houses are compliant with ADA and it would be great if the last few years of prison actually started to prep the guys getting out for the world they’ll be entering.