Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

Tuesday, Aug 21, 2018 - Posted by Rich Miller

* You know it’s been a pretty horrific season when your favorite team’s two biggest highlights are a nun’s outstanding ceremonial first pitch and tonight’s first big league game by a highly touted pitching prospect.

First, the nun. Sister Mary Jo Sobieck from Marian Catholic High School in Chicago Heights…

SISTER ACT: Nun Mary Jo Sobiek brought the crowd to its feet with the ceremonial first pitch at a Chicago White Sox game. @JohnDonvan with the miracle on the mound. https://t.co/oE2wRM3LeD pic.twitter.com/12YDz9qjtA

— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) August 20, 2018

I was so impressed that I ordered her bobblehead.

* And now, the kid. Michael Kopech…

WE'RE HERE FOR THIS KOPECH HYPE VIDEO ???????????? #AlmostKopechDay pic.twitter.com/Z23q0lTzWu

— White Sox Talk (@NBCSWhiteSox) August 20, 2018

Happy Kopech Day!

Here is a highlight reel of @MichaelKopech5 strikeouts from his last start with Charlotte. pic.twitter.com/rGzTFBwjX4

— Josh Nelson (@soxmachine_josh) August 21, 2018

31 Comments

Obama/Pritzker coverage roundup

Tuesday, Aug 21, 2018 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Background is here if you need it. From WGN TV…

Former President Barack Obama has recorded a video supporting Democrat J.B. Pritzker for Illinois governor.

The roughly 90-second video released Monday is the first Obama has recorded for the fall election. In it, he says he’s backing Pritzker to lead his home state because “J.B. gets things done.”

* NBC 5…

Former President Barack Obama doubled down on his endorsement of Democratic gubernatorial candidate J.B. Pritzker.

“I am proud to endorse J.B. Priztker to be the next governor of my home state of Illinois,” he said in a new video. “And let me tell you why. It’s simple. J.B. gets things done.” […]

Wednesday’s endorsement marked the second time Obama has backed Stratton. While he was president in March 2016, Obama offered his support in radio and television ads to help Stratton, a political newcomer, unseat embattled Rep. Ken Dunkin in Illinois’ 5th District on Chicago’s South Side. That contentious Democratic primary battle was the most expensive House race in Illinois history, drawing Obama back into the local politics of his hometown.

Statewide, Obama also endorsed state Sen. Kwame Raoul for Illinois Attorney General. Raoul faces Republican Erika Harold in the race to replace longtime AG Lisa Madigan, who announced in 2017 that she would not be seeking re-election.

* Tribune…

Democratic governor candidate J.B. Pritzker’s campaign on Monday unveiled a web video featuring Barack Obama, marking another foray into his home state’s politics for the former president. […]

It’s not a surprise that the former Democratic president would back Pritzker over Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, and Obama this month released a list of endorsements that included Pritzker. The digital spot released Monday, though, gives the campaign another video to spread across the internet in the months before the November election.

Obama has gotten involved in state politics from time to time since heading to the White House, including backing Ald. Sophia King in her City Council race last year. […]

In a March 2012 Bloomberg TV interview, Pritzker hesitated on supporting Obama’s re-election efforts. “We’ll have to wait and see. I don’t know who the nominee’s going to be on the Republican side,” Pritzker said at the time.

* The Illinois News Network threw some shade…

Obama and Pritzker do share another connection that Rauner has highlighted in his re-election campaign. Pritzker was recorded on FBI wiretaps in 2008 speaking to former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich about being appointed to the Obama’s U.S. Senate seat, something that would ultimately put Blagojevich in prison. Blagojevich and Pritzker also discussed possible campaign donations.

* But the Illinois Policy Institute’s former news service has nothing on The Onion’s take. Click here for that one-line jab. Ouch.

* Lynn Sweet has the back story…

Obama taped the video in his personal office in Washington a few weeks ago.

Obama spokesman Eric Schultz told the Sun-Times, “President Obama of course wants to be helpful to Democrats as we approach the midterm elections. President Obama wants to help Democrats win at every level this year. He’ll ask voters to take a good look at candidates and their records — not just the top of the ticket — but critical local races, too. We need a strong pipeline to help the Party grow beyond 2018. We need activists poised to engage, volunteers motivated to mobilize and voters motivated to vote.”

Obama on Aug. 1 endorsed 81 Democrats, including many from Illinois: Pritzker, Kwame Raoul, who is running for Illinois Attorney General, and U.S. House hopefuls Sean Casten, Lauren Underwood and Brendan Kelly.

* Politico…

On the sidelines no more, President Barack Obama flexed his political muscle in his home state on Monday.

In a boost to billionaire Democrat J.B. Pritzker’s gubernatorial bid, Obama went beyond his customary political comfort zone, leaning in hard by cutting his first video on behalf of a candidate in the 2018 midterm elections.

Um, the dude cut an Internet video in his office. And if doing that is outside his comfort zone, then what was this?…

12 Comments

Rauner on Quincy veterans home: “Occasionally some things stumble here or there”

Tuesday, Aug 21, 2018 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Press release…

On a Quincy TV station yesterday, Bruce Rauner claimed his administration did “an excellent job” responding to the Legionnaires’ crisis that took 14 lives since 2015.

“Well our team has done, by and large, an excellent job. People aren’t perfect. Occasionally some things stumble here or there,” Rauner said on WGEM Monday. Legionnaires’ has plagued the Quincy Veterans’ Home since Rauner became governor, sickening Veteran residents and staff in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 and killing 14. The Rauner administration waited six days to publicize the first outbreak, a delay one infectious disease expert called “mind boggling” and “inexcusable.”

“The fact that Bruce Rauner thinks Veterans and spouses in Quincy losing their lives to Legionnaires’ is him doing ’an excellent job’ is all we need to know about his failed leadership,” said Pritzker campaign spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh. “Fourteen people died on Rauner’s watch, but he still has the gall to go on a Quincy TV station, rewrite history, and insult those who lost loved ones.”

* Video…

* And this man, whose Quincy veterans home resident father died in 2015, is not going away…

You did not visit this hero as he obviously was not available! pic.twitter.com/7vTf6EVSRW

— Timothy Miller (@Timothy715211) August 20, 2018

How is it 13 Vetereans die and you think everything was done right? Why did other government officials have to tell you too ask for funding to build a new home? Why did it take 5 days after the vets home got the warning too tell anyone. Do you really think you will be re-elected?

— Timothy Miller (@Timothy715211) August 19, 2018

@GovRauner This is what legionnaires looks like it’s not just pneumonia this is my fathers flag draped casket right before it was folded and handed to my oldest brother! pic.twitter.com/Kv3zK0dwfy

— Timothy Miller (@Timothy715211) August 21, 2018

* Related…

* Rauner says improvements at Illinois Veterans Home moving at quick pace: The first step in the plan involved buying the nearby Sycamore Healthcare Center, which closed as a nursing home in April 2017. The state paid $625,000 for the facility and is gutting the complex so it can be rebuilt to house veterans during construction on the Veterans Home campus. It also can be used for other veterans-related services in the future. “The Sycamore facility is going to create a lot of options for us, so getting that done quickly — in the next few months — is a goal. And we seem to be on track to do that,” Rauner said. “We’re putting in all-new everything. We’re going to make it a world-class facility.”

25 Comments

It’s a simple question, Rodney

Tuesday, Aug 21, 2018 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Watch Rodney Davis dance…

* Bernie…

U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, said Monday that he did not personally send a campaign field director to a fundraiser for his opponent last week where that staffer was arrested for allegedly harassing the Democratic candidate and her supporters.

“There is no way that I would ever send anyone to go sit at a bar for multiple hours and become intoxicated with my opponent’s supporters,” Davis said when asked if his campaign sent Levi Lovell, 25, to the event for candidate Betsy Dirksen Londrigan at J.P. Kelly’s Pub in downtown Springfield.

Asked if his campaign might have sent Lovell to attend the event, Davis said, “I did not send anybody there. I don’t believe anybody on my campaign has ever said that they sent Levi to that event, and I certainly don’t condone the behavior. … I think it’s wrong, and frankly, there probably would have been disciplinary actions without the video that was in question.”

Sitting congresscritters don’t usually have direct control of their campaign trackers, so I’d be shocked if Davis personally sent that guy to Londrigan’s event. And I’d be even more shocked if the candidate ordered a tracker to get drunk and harass his opponent’s supporters. That sort of stuff just doesn’t happen.

But, notice this line, which was uttered after Bernie tried multiple times to get Davis to say if his campaign sent the guy: “I don’t believe anybody on my campaign has ever said that they sent Levi to that event.”

Right, they never said they sent him because Davis’ campaign refuses to answer questions about who dispatched the tracker.

* And now, this…

NEW: From the Springfield Police Report: Former @RodneyDavis field director Levi Lovell told police he was acting on behalf of the campaign in an act of "dirty politics" where he tries to catch her on camera saying something embarrassing. pic.twitter.com/vZxS3eIpiW

— Mark Maxwell (@WCIA3Mark) August 21, 2018

40 Comments

Rate Rauner’s new TV ad

Tuesday, Aug 21, 2018 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Press release…

Today, the Rauner campaign is launching a new statewide TV ad titled “The Main Thing.”

The ad centers around the main thing JB Pritzker would do if elected: raise taxes. Featuring quotes from newspapers across the state, it’s clear that Pritzker is deadset on raising taxes on hardworking Illinois families.

Illinois can not afford the Pritzker-Madigan agenda of higher taxes and more corruption.

* The ad…

* Transcript…

The main thing JB Pritzker wants to do is raise taxes. An immediate increase in the current tax rate. A short and long term plan to increase income taxes. A threat, a promise, a plan that will punish Illinoisans. Madigan and Pritzker want more money. As soon as Pritzker takes office, a significant increase that will affect all taxpayers. JB Pritzker and Mike Madigan. Higher taxes. More Corruption.

34 Comments

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