* WGN TV…

The piles of nuts first began appearing outside a Lincoln Park home a few years ago, attracting a swarm of squirrels.

Since then, workers carrying matching shoulder bags have been spotted dumping piles of nuts a few blocks away in the park, and no one can figure out why.

It’s like a luxury mélange of really nice nuts: I’m talking Brazil nuts and walnuts…these are not acorns,” said Lincoln Park resident Caroline Novak.

Novak’s husband David Pike said he counted 42 rats digging holes near the nut piles and running rampant when he recently walked through the park. […]

Ald. Timmy Knudsen (43rd Ward) says the City has traced the feeding frenzy back to a specific homeowner who, he says, has been undeterred by fines and a warning letter threatening further action.

“We’ve never dealt with the situation where it’s like ‘feed for hire’ for lack of a better term – where someone’s paying several employees to feed the animals in the surrounding area,” Knudsen told WGN Investigates. “Typically, when you ticket somebody it stops their bad behavior. This has not stopped it. If anything, the behavior is increased – the feeding has increased since we’ve been ticketing them.”

* The address posted in the accompanying video points to a house owned by Barre Seid, who is one of the quietest billionaires in Chicago but is nevertheless a major contributor to various causes. This is from 2022…

An elderly, ultra-secretive Chicago businessman has given the largest known donation to a political advocacy group in U.S. history — worth $1.6 billion — and the recipient is one of the prime architects of conservatives’ efforts to reshape the American judicial system, including the Supreme Court.

Through a series of opaque transactions over the past two years, Barre Seid, a 90-year-old manufacturing magnate, gave the massive sum to a nonprofit run by Leonard Leo, who co-chairs the conservative legal group the Federalist Society. […]

Our reporting sheds additional light on how the two men, one a judicial kingmaker and the other a mysterious but prolific donor to conservative causes, came together to create a political war chest that will likely supercharge efforts to further shift American politics to the right.

Also 2022…

Seid has funded climate denialism as well as a national network of state-level think tanks that promote business deregulation and fight Medicaid expansion. He’s also supported efforts to remake the higher education system in a conservative mold, including to turn one of the nation’s most politically influential law schools into a training ground for future generations of right-wing judges and justices. […]

Seid has also funded the State Policy Network, a group of influential state-level think tanks that push for deregulation and tax cuts, according to an email written by a friend of Seid’s. The head of the group once compared it to IKEA, The New Yorker reported, offering state think tanks a “catalogue” of successful projects, including opposing health care subsidies and imposing new voting restrictions. The network has also opposed efforts to expand Medicaid coverage.

That state policy network includes the Illinois Policy Institute. Seid’s state and local campaign contributions are here.

The moral of this story appears to be: A few municipal fines apparently ain’t gonna stop billionaires from hiring people to serve upscale treats to rats.

Discuss.