Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

Tuesday, Feb 2, 2021 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Oscar has an appointment today for his annual checkup. I’ll be back when I can.

This tune has been going through my head since last night, so I thought I’d share…

…Adding… Forgot to note that he passed with flying colors.

*** UPDATED x1 *** Police chief who claimed hospitalizations would “skyrocket” after cannabis legalization now blasts criminal justice reform bill

Tuesday, Feb 2, 2021 - Posted by Rich Miller

* CBS 2…

Concerns were mounting Wednesday over a criminal justice reform bill awaiting the governor’s signature.

As CBS 2’s Jermont Terry reported Wednesday night, the bill has one north suburban police chief threatening to yank body cameras from cops. […]

“This bill includes brand-new language, called the law enforcement misconduct, which defines that an officer who fails to comply with any part of the Body-Worn Camera Act – state law – they are per se committing a Class 3 felony,” [Vernon Hills police Chief Patrick Kreis] said. “Never before have I seen a case where a law is passed that criminalizes the act of violating a department policy.” […]

Currently, officers can review body cameras to help write detailed reports. But that too would be banned.

“It really changes like the dynamic for the work product the officers are going to put out,” Jones said.

As is so often the case with recent reporting on this particular topic, not a single proponent was mentioned in the story, so I reached out to sponsoring Sen. Elgie Sims about why officers aren’t allowed under this bill to use cam footage to write their reports. His texted reply…

Supervisors are allowed to review the reports. And furthermore when a member of the public makes a complaint, they can’t review the data before making their complaints. This provision treats law enforcement the same way.

* Vernon Hills police Chief Patrick Kreis was eagerly spreading hype and fear in 2019…

Vernon Hills Police Chief Patrick Kreis said that based on what he’s heard from states where recreational marijuana is legal, local authorities will have a real challenge on their hands.

“Hospitalizations due to overconsumption of cannabis skyrocket,” he said. “The dispensary locations have been riddled with complaints connected with the odor.”

Point being, Kreis might be right now, but I’d take anything this police chief says with a grain of salt considering what he was saying two years ago.

* Related…

* Crime survivors say parts of sweeping reform bill help reduce their trauma and allow them to ‘move on to the next stage in your life’ - While much of the focus on the sweeping bill has involved law enforcement objections and responses from legislative sponsors, groups representing crime victims and their loved ones have largely been celebrating its passage.

*** UPDATE *** Some links from comments…

* 22 police shootings in Chicago this year — and no audio in any

* Chicago police are destroying their own dashboard cameras

* Key Body Camera Footage Missing After Chicago Police Officers Raid Wrong Homes, Point Guns At Children

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*** LIVE COVERAGE ***

Tuesday, Feb 2, 2021 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Follow along with ScribbleLive…

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Local health departments had almost 291,000 vaccine doses on-hand as of Friday, not including Chicago

Monday, Feb 1, 2021 - Posted by Rich Miller

* The Illinois Department of Public Health just published some new self-reported county-by-county numbers and, man, there are a lot of county health departments sitting on vaccines. Click here.

According to IDPH, those county departments had 172,999 vaccines on-hand as of Friday, while their “community partners” (like pharmacies) have another 117,807 doses, for a grand total of 290,806. Some of these could be second doses waiting to be administered, but that appears to be the minority.

Chicago isn’t reporting its data to the state, but suburban Cook County, with more than 2.4 million people, claims it has 44,390 doses at the county level and another 37,967 with community partners, for a total of 82,357 available doses - or about 3.4 percent of its population.

Sangamon County says it has 16,713 total doses available, or 8.6 percent of its population. Even so, Sangamon is restricting its 1B program to only those 85 and above.

Tiny Pulaski County, population 5,510, reports having 3,680 doses sitting around. That’s a whopping 67 percent of its population. The county has only vaccinated 202 people, and only 23 of those are fully vaccinated. What the heck?

I heard last week from a local that there were some issues with Madison County getting people vaxed. The county has 10,674 doses available, with another 1,918 at their community partners’ locations, for a total of 12,592.

* On the other end of the spectrum, 30 county public health departments had no vaccine doses on-hand as of Friday. And 14 of those also report no doses at their partners’ sites. The state delivers vaccines to the counties twice a week (Monday is a big delivery day), so those counties with no doses on hand as of Friday appear to be more efficient at getting doses into arms. I’m told Greene County is one of those high performers.

The local health departments asked that they be allowed to run the local programs because they have experience with similar efforts. Oops.

As the vaccine becomes more available, the local health departments will become a smaller component of the administration chain, the administration tells me.

…Adding… Through an intermediary, Rep. Patrick Windhorst says the Pulaski number is so large because that is where the headquarters is for the Southern 7 Health Dept, a regional health dept. “You’ll notice the counties around it have 0.”

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A look at Kinzinger’s fight with the far-right

Monday, Feb 1, 2021 - Posted by Rich Miller

* AP…

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump, is launching a political action committee to push back against a House GOP leadership team and party that he says have become too closely aligned to the former president.

The “Country 1st” PAC, unveiled in a six-minute video released Sunday, will challenge the current direction of a GOP that Kinzinger says has wrongly become a “Trump-first party” to the detriment of the nation, as seen by the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

The Illinois congressman cited most Republicans’ seeming unwillingness to hold Trump accountable for his role in encouraging the violent protests, as well as the party’s support of lawmakers such as Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has drawn criticism for past social media posts reported by various news organizations in which she’s suggested support for killing Democratic politicians, unfounded QAnon theories and racist views.

The goal of the PAC is to say, “Let’s take a look at the last four years, how far we have come in a bad way,” Kinzinger said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “How backward-looking we are, how much we peddle darkness and division. And that’s not the party I ever signed up for. And I think most Republicans didn’t sign up for that.”

The video is here. Music is too loud, but it’s an interesting approach. We’ve seen much of what he’s warning about here in Illinois, particularly during the pandemic…

“The party that always spoke about a brighter tomorrow no longer does. It talks about a dark future instead. Hope has given way to fear. Outrage has replaced opportunity. And worst of all, our deep convictions are ignored. They’ve been replaced by poisonous conspiracies and lies. This is not the Republican road and now we know exactly where new and dangerous road leads. It leads to insurrection and an armed attack on the Capitol,” he argued.

* But he has his work cut out for him…

Former President Donald Trump amassed $31.2 million in his new political operation by the end of 2020, giving him a powerful tool to keep the Republican Party in his grip as he left office.

Save America, a leadership PAC created in the aftermath of the 2020 election, is set to play a key role in Trump’s plans to keep a strong hand in party politics — both to boost loyalists and also to seek retribution against Republicans he believes have wronged him, such as the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in mid-January. Trump cannot spend the PAC funds directly on any future campaign of his own, but he can use it to wield influence in campaigns in the midterm elections, pay his political advisers and travel the country.

I guess we’ll see soon enough if Kinzinger’s new PAC is more about publicity or actually raising the kind of money he’ll need to counter the former POTUS.

* Kinzinger continues to turn the GOP’s rhetoric around on itself. He called Marjorie Taylor Greene a “RINO” and then used the “cancel culture” lingo on Matt Gaetz…

Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) going to Wyoming to campaign against Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) for voting to impeach former President Donald Trump was “totally GOP cancel culture.”

Anchor Chuck Todd said, “I’m curious, is there just no room for disagreement in the Republican Party when it comes to Donald Trump? This is to me, a form of cancel culture, is it not?”

Kinzinger said, “It is totally. If you look at Matt Gaetz going to Wyoming because a tough woman has an independent view, and he doesn’t want to explain why he voted for impeachment, that’s totally GOP cancel culture. I think what a significant part of the base wants, we can have a diverse opinion. Peter Meijer from Michigan, good friend of mine, he and I are on other ends of the spectrum on things like foreign policy, but I respect his view. That’s what the Republican Party needs to be, the optimistic party in the future. We need to quit being the party that supports an insurrection, a dead police officer, and other dead Americans on the Capitol. There’s no equivalency to that. We have to run from that as fast as we can.”

…Adding… Maybe he could add this to his repertoire…

Pour out a cold one for all the GOP press secretaries who have to apply extra care and diligence as they type out statements condemning the coup in Myanmar…

“Subverting the will of the people”… no, can’t say that….

“…bogus allegations of voter fraud”….no….

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) February 1, 2021

* Meanwhile, in Politico…

Rep. Adam Kinzinger on Sunday offered a glimpse of what it’s like being one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump: Friends and family turned against him, and he was told he’s “possessed by the devil.”

“Look it’s really difficult. I mean, all of a sudden imagine everybody that supported you, or so it seems that way, your friends, your family, has turned against you. They think you’re selling out,” the Illinois congressman said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“I’ve gotten a letter, a certified letter, twice from the same people, disowning me and claiming I’m possessed by the devil.”

That appears to be a bit of an embellishment. Here’s what he told the Sun-Times a couple of weeks ago…

“I’ve heard from friends that don’t want to be friends with me anymore. … I’ve had family members who are somewhat distant relatives sign a petition disowning me,” citing “Bible verses and that I was part of the devil’s army”.