ComEd made its first court appearance Tuesday since being hit with bombshell federal bribery charges involving House Speaker Michael Madigan’s political operation — and if all goes as planned, it may be one of the company’s last.
In a brief hearing at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, prosecutors and lawyers for ComEd agreed that after a formal arraignment next week, the company would not have to return to court until 2023, when a three-year deferred prosecution agreement with the government is set to expire. […]
Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu told the judge that due to the deferred prosecution agreement, ComEd does not have to enter a plea at its Aug. 5 arraignment. Reid Schar, lead attorney for ComEd, said if the company did enter a plea, it would be not guilty.
“There may be no need to come back short of the government ultimately dismissing the (charges) at the end of the three years,” said Schar, who as an assistant U.S. attorney a decade ago led the prosecution of Illinois’ previous “Public Official A,” former-Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
Interesting. I hadn’t really considered that plea angle. Thoughts?
…Adding… As a commenter suggests, this sort of thing may be the reason the company agreed to the deal…
A class action lawsuit filed Monday against ComEd alleges the utility company overcharged customers by $150 million through rate increases it got as a result of a bribery scheme.
Ten days ago, ComEd admitted it took part in a bribery scheme linked to Illinois elected officials and agreed to pay a $200 million settlement.
ComEd “unjustly enriched itself by overcharging its 4 million customers in Illinois for years,” the law firm, Romanucci & Blandin, said in a statement.
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today announced 1,076 new confirmed cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 30 additional confirmed deaths.
- Champaign County – 1 male 70s
- Coles County: 1 female 30s, 1 female 40s, 1 female 80s
- Cook County: 1 male 40s, 1 female 50s, 2 male 50s, 2 females 60s, 1 female 70s, 1 female 80s, 3 males 80s, 3 females 90s, 1 male 90s
- DeKalb County: 1 male 80s
- Douglas County: 1 female 60s
- DuPage County: 1 male 80s
- Iroquois County: 1 female 70s, 1 male 70s
- Montgomery County: 2 males 80s
- St. Clair County: 1 male 60s
- Williamson County: 1 male 70s
- Winnebago County: 1 female 70s, 1 male 70s
Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 173,731 cases, including 7,446 deaths, in 102 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years. Within the past 24 hours, laboratories have reported 28,331 specimens for a total of 2,570,465. The preliminary seven-day statewide positivity for cases as a percent of total test from July 21 –July 27 is 3.8%. As of last night, 1,383 people in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 329 patients were in the ICU and 128 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators.
Following guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, IDPH is now reporting both confirmed and probable cases and deaths on its website. Reporting probable cases will help show the potential burden of COVID-19 illness and efficacy of population-based non-pharmaceutical interventions. IDPH will update these data once a week.
* Meanwhile, from the CDC…
"35% had not returned to their usual state of health when interviewed 2–3 weeks after testing. Among persons aged 18–34 years with no chronic medical conditions, one in five had not returned to their usual state of health" https://t.co/2bSRrrpcbA
Health departments across Southern Illinois are seeing an upswing in COVID-19 cases.
The number of new cases was so high in Jackson County, it prompted the health department to issue a public health alert on Sunday.
“We have had a definite upswing in the number of cases,” Bart Hagston, administrator of Jackson County Health Department, said. “The number of cases eclipsed the previous record number three times in the past week, and that’s not the way we want the data to trend.” […]
Hagston said the health alert focused on residents in their teens and 20s because those age groups represent 70% of the new cases in the county during July. Of 212 new cases in the county in July, 148 are from people in their teens and 20s.
Beginning Friday, July 31, anyone traveling to Chicago from Wisconsin, Missouri, North Dakota, and Nebraska will have to self-quarantine for 14 days. The city said it will update the list of affected states every Tuesday - adding or removing states depending on the latest data, and will go in effect the following Friday. […]
There are currently 22 states covered by the travel order, which took effect July 6, including:
Alabama
Arkansas
Arizona
California
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Iowa
Louisiana
Kansas
Mississippi
Missouri
Nebraska
Nevada
North Carolina
North Dakota
Oklahoma
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Wisconsin
The order doesn’t apply to professional sports teams and nobody has yet been fined for violating it.
Study finds 6 COVID-19 ‘symptom clusters’ that may inform clinicians about the severity of cases
After heavy COVID-19 toll on Illinois nursing homes, top regulators depart state agency
Bottled Blonde, controversial River North bar, closed permanently by coronavirus, but not violations
Bears nose tackle Eddie Goldman reportedly opts out of the 2020 season over COVID-19 concerns
Chicago-area house flippers ‘surprisingly unaffected’ by COVID-19, but brace for mixed bag in months to come
MLB shortened season could be threatened, but games don’t need to stop right now, says Dr. Anthony Fauci
Trump retweets video, banned by Facebook after going viral, that alleges unproven drug cures COVID-19
Chicago-based McDonald’s facing bumpy recovery, 2nd quarter sales down 30%
CTA giving away Ventra cards, healthy travel kits during food distribution event at South Side grocery store
‘Pandemic pods’ and ‘micro-schools’: How parents are finding ways to help their kids — and themselves — manage schooling at home
*** UPDATE 1 *** Region 4 is the Metro East. Not looking good there at all. Right at the 8 percent edge. And Region 5, which is the rest of southern Illinois, is heading that direction fast…
Regional positivity 7-day avg for IL's 11 regions as of July 25 (individual charts in next tweets)
Region 1 - 5.2% Region 2 - 4.2% Region 3 - 3.9% Region 4 - 7.8% Region 5 - 6.5% Region 6 - 2.9% Region 7 - 5.8% Region 8 - 4.5% Region 9 - 5.1% Region 10 - 5.4% Region 11 - 4.5% pic.twitter.com/kznGZ7B0cl
Illinois was one of three states added to New York, New Jersey and Connecticut’s joint list of states requiring travelers to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday.
*** UPDATE 3 *** Jordan Abudayyeh…
The State of Illinois has worked to flatten the curve and bend it downward and our statewide positivity rate remains one of the lowest in the Midwest. But, Illinois is surrounded by states with less restrictions and higher rates of transmission illustrating, once again, the need for a nationwide response. The Governor supports states that are implementing mitigation strategies to keep people healthy and safe and urges Illinois residents who are traveling to follow three Ws: wear a face covering, watch your distance and wash your hands.
The Department of Homeland Security is in the very early stages of plans to build an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Dwight, Illinois, about 80 miles southwest of Chicago.
According to a letter obtained by CBS 2, the Department of Homeland Security is preparing an environmental assessment for a proposed contract to build a privately owned and operated ICE detention facility in Livingston County, for detainees facing deportation proceedings.
Dwight Village Manager Jared Anderson confirmed the village has been seeking to be home to the facility, which would be built on a 40-acre farm field on the west side of town, just east of Interstate 55.
Um, I don’t think they can do that. From the synopsis of what is now Public Act 101-0020…
Provides that neither the State, nor any unit of local government, any county Sheriff, or any agency, officer, employee, or agent thereof, shall: (1) enter into an agreement of any kind for the detention of individuals in a detention facility owned, managed, or operated, in whole or in part, by a private entity;
* Rep. Kelly Cassidy was the House sponsor. Her press release…
In spite of the Illinois General Assembly voting overwhelmingly to affirm the state’s long held policy of prohibition of for profit prisons last year, it would appear that ICE and the Village of Dwight intend to continue the effort to build a for profit ICE Detention Center in Illinois. The state has had a ban on privately run, for-profit prisons for decades, but legislation passed last year clarified that ban should also apply to non-criminal settings such as ICE detention centers. The bill (HB2040) passed both chambers last May with significant bipartisan support and was signed by the Governor on June 21, 2019. A recent news report revealed that ICE has continued to pursue the location in Dwight, submitting a letter requesting an environmental site review on the proposed location.
“I sponsored this bill knowing the realities of for profit prisons and knowing that the mistreatment we’ve seen in these facilities across the country has no place in our state. As we see reports from across the country of detainees contracting COVID-19 at an alarming rate in ICE detention centers, federal agents including ICE acting outside the law to ‘disappear’ protestors, and this administration’s ongoing war against immigrants, this appears to be yet one more example of this administration pursuing their hateful agenda regardless of legal standing,” said Rep. Kelly Cassidy, chief House sponsor of HB2040.
Local governments around the country have found that the promises made by for profit prison developers rarely come to fruition. Once the prison is built and the dangerous working conditions, low pay, and lack of benefits become the reality, it is often too late to go back. Representative Cassidy previously argued against the closure of Dwight Women’s prison, noting the town’s unique wrap around support for the women incarcerated there and has long advocated for more thoughtful economic development for towns impacted by closures of state facilities or other economic disasters. The state must do more to assist towns like Dwight when significant economic losses hit.
“The Village of Dwight should acknowledge the reality that the state has made our policy abundantly clear on the question of whether someone should profit off of putting humans in cages with the passage of HB2040 and abandon this wrongheaded approach to economic development not only is a flagrant violation of state law, but putting their residents at significant risk” said Rep. Kelly Cassidy. The company in question is also responsible for the greatest outbreak in any facility with a 75% infection rate at their facility in Farmville, VA.
…Adding… Sen. Robert Peters…
Illinois has long had a policy of prohibiting for-profit prisons. Last year, the General Assembly overwhelmingly passed HB2040 sponsored by state Rep. Kelly Cassidy and state Sen. Robert Peters to make sure these bans apply to non-criminal settings such as ICE detention centers.
A recent news report revealed that ICE has continued to pursue a location in the Village of Dwight to build a private detention center, recently submitting a letter requesting an environmental site review on the proposed location.
This is happening despite the fact that the Private Detention Facility Moratorium Act signed into law in 2019 stopped the original agreement ICE was trying to enter into with Dwight. The law states: “Neither State, nor any unit of local government…shall enter into an agreement of any kind of the detention of individuals in a detention facility owned, managed, or operated, in whole or in part, by a private entity.”
“Whatever deal ICE is trying to cut is cloaked in the promise of jobs and profits, but is nothing more than a flagrant violation of state law,” said state Sen. Robert Peters, chief Senate Sponsor of HB2040. “In reality, private detention centers historically have dangerous working conditions, low pay, and a lack of benefits — not to mention the inhumane war they wage on detainees under the direction of the Trump administration. This is yet another example of why we can’t trust this administration. Time and time again, they bulldoze our collective safety and health all in the name of pitting communities against each other.”
…Adding… Press release…
On July 28 news reports disclosed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is seeking an environmental assessment for a site for a new privately-operated immigration detention facility in Dwight, Illinois. ICE is making this move in total disregard of a state law enacted last year to bar such facilities. The following is the statement by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) and the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC):
The State of Illinois spoke loudly and clearly last year when the General Assembly passed and Governor Pritzker signed the Private Detention Facility Moratorium Act: Private prison companies are not welcome in our state, and no one should profit from keeping people in detention. Yet ICE, an agency that claims to exist to enforce the law, is defying the will of our state and acting in an unlawful manner by attempting to move forward with the Dwight immigration prison. ICE is attempting to double its detention capacity in the Chicago region with this facility, even as the number of people in ICE custody nationally is falling due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the company proposing the facility, Immigration Centers of America, is botching its handling of a COVID-19 outbreak at its sole facility in Virginia–with 75% of individuals detained there testing positive. Private for-profit immigrant detention centers have failed 100% of the time they have tried to come into Illinois, and this will be no different.
All of this is happening as Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents are being deployed to American cities without any real need or accountability, as DHS continues to defy the Supreme Court’s ruling preserving the DACA program, and as ICE in Chicago is planning a “citizen’s academy” to train civilians on arrest tactics and firearms use. Our organizations will continue to fight to hold DHS and ICE accountable, to stop the harms they are inflicting and the fear they are creating in our communities, and to make our state welcoming for all.
* The attorney general has filed a motion with the Illinois Supreme Court to transfer all of attorney Tom DeVore’s latest round of cases to Sangamon County…
In short, although filed in five different counties, the five above- captioned cases were filed on the same day by the same attorney and seek the same declaratory and injunctive relief against the same defendant, the Governor. And that attorney (DeVore) has indicated that he “is ready to file lawsuits in other counties across the state.”
This is the most recent series of lawsuits filed by DeVore in multiple jurisdictions that challenge the Governor’s actions to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Six weeks after the Governor first declared an emergency, on April 23, 2020, DeVore filed Bailey v. Pritzker, No. 2020CH6 (Ill. 4th Jud. Cir. Ct.). In that lawsuit, DeVore argued that the Governor’s proclamations and executive orders exceeded his authority because they extended more than 30 days beyond March 9, the date on which the Governor first declared the COVID-19 pandemic a disaster. DeVore subsequently raised the same argument in three other lawsuits. But this argument—that the Governor’s ability to take action to address the pandemic expired 30 days after March 9—has been rejected by every court to have addressed it, save one: the Circuit Court of Clay County, where DeVore filed Bailey and Mainer. In Clay County, attorney DeVore twice obtained a temporary restraining order (“TRO”) against the Governor’s executive orders from the same judge, and both times, after the Governor appealed those TROs under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 307(d), DeVore withdrew his request for a TRO. By doing that, DeVore evaded appellate review of these outlier rulings.
In another recent series of cases, DeVore filed lawsuits in multiple counties on behalf of plaintiffs challenging the face covering requirement as applied to teachers and students. And in yet another, DeVore filed a number of cases arguing that the Governor lacks authority under the Act to suspend nonessential business operations. When the Governor removed three of those actions to federal court, DeVore’s law firm voluntarily dismissed those cases, thus evading review of these claims by the federal judiciary.
As another indication that these actions have sown confusion and uncertainty and have inhibited a clear resolution of the dispute over the Governor’s authority, DeVore has described the July 2, 2020 summary judgment ruling in the Bailey case as giving every Illinoisan the right to do as they please. If the July 2 ruling had that legal effect—which the Governor disputes—then there would be no legal reason to file new lawsuits to challenge whether the Governor had the authority to declare a statewide disaster. Consolidating the new cases will serve to avoid confusion and uncertainty, and may expedite appellate review and a final resolution of this dispute.
* Aside from the plaintiffs’ names, there is only one other factual difference between DeVore’s new set of cases…
The theoretical possibility that the court could answer the threshold legal question in favor of the plaintiffs does not alter this analysis. The complaints present many common factual allegations.And the few factual differences among the complaints are limited to the number of residents who have tested positive or who have died from COVID-19, as well as a calculation of the infection rates based on county population. These facts are easily ascertainable matters of public record, allowing for streamlined factual development in a consolidated case without witness testimony. But in any event, focusing on these facts ignores that the key inquiry here is the statewide occurrence and threat of sickness resulting from COVID-19, rather than the number of cases and deaths in any given county at any discrete point in time.
Critically, allowing one court to resolve the threshold question will avoid the expenditure of resources before multiple courts, as well as the risk of conflicting rulings and ensuing public confusion. The prospect of public confusion and wasted resources is particularly detrimental in the present context of a global pandemic, where statewide consistency on public safety directives is critical.
These cases thus present a threshold question of statutory interpretation and involve a common issue of law: whether the declaration of a disaster in a county based on the existence of a public health emergency requires evidence of illness to a specific number of people in that county. According to plaintiffs, the definition of “public health emergency” cannot be satisfied without such a showing. The Governor disagrees with plaintiffs’ position as a matter of law. The plain text of the statute authorizes the Governor to declare a disaster due to a public health emergency based on evidence of “an occurrence or imminent threat of an illness or health condition” caused by a novel infectious agent that poses a high probability of widespread exposure. 20 ILCS 3305/4. Indeed, the Act confers authority on the Governor to issue disaster proclamations, 20 ILCS 3305/7, when there is “an occurrence or threat of widespread or severe damage, injury or loss of life or property . . . resulting from any natural or technological cause,” including an “epidemic” or “public health emergencies” […]
Merits aside, however, these cases are appropriate for transfer and consolidation because answering the common question of law they present will not require any factual development, making the question amenable to resolution through consolidated pre-trial proceedings such as a motion to dismiss (which the Governor intends to file). If the court concludes that the Governor has the authority to declare a statewide disaster in light of COVID-19, then that will end the analysis without consideration of the facts in each individual county concerning the number of residents who have tested positive for COVID-19. As such, it would make sense and conserve judicial resources for one court to answer that predominant question of law.
* But the AG may need to file an amended motion. Here’s Mike Miletich…
DeVore filed lawsuits for clients in Clinton, Edgar, Richland, and Sangamon counties using this argument last week. He also presented his own case against the governor in Bond County. The number of cases grew Monday with cases filed in Montgomery, Kendall, Winnebago, Grundy, and White counties.
“If there’s no disaster in Clay County, I can assure you I’m gonna have a client that’s going to go to the Clay County school districts and say ‘Let our kids in. You can’t keep us in remote learning because it’s not allowed.’ There’s no disaster,” DeVore exclaimed.
DeVore believes judges should have their own decision on if there is a disaster locally.
“Then you can’t have emergency power being wielded in that county. You can’t have school districts engaging in remote learning in that county,” DeVore said during a virtual interview Monday. “You can’t be doing all this stuff because there is not a disaster.”
…Adding… DeVore is also searching for a plaintiff in Macoupin County. From Facebook…
Hello, citizens and friends of Macoupin County. I had a great talk with State Representative Darren Bailey and Constitutional Attorney Thomas DeVore this morning.
Here’s the deal. We (Macoupin County) just need one person (a resident of Macoupin County) to step up and file a lawsuit against His Royal Highness King Jay Bob. The lawsuit would be over the fact that there is currently NO state of emergency here in Macoupin County. [We aren’t disputing that a true state of Emergency may indeed exist in Chicago as well as in certain parts of the 618.]
Warning: There will be some fame attached to stepping up and filing a lawsuit against Pritzker, and probably just as much unwanted hatred from his brownshirt loyalists as well.
Rich — I’ve been keeping up with your good reporting on the ComEd/Exelon scandals and wanted to give you a heads up. We will launch a new TV ad (YouTube link here) statewide on cable news beginning tomorrow a.m. (7/28) and extend to local broadcast shortly after. We want to say loud and clear that Illinois can get clean energy legislation without kowtowing to ComEd and Exelon, and without Illinois ratepayers continuing to shoulder the cost. I just wanted to make sure you saw the spot before it goes live — feel free to share as you see fit.
A little background info — After all that’s come to light over the last year (and especially the last 2 weeks) regarding the 2016 FEJA bailout, we simply can’t go down that path again. ComEd has admitted to bribery and, with the ICC meeting on ethics reforms this Wednesday, it feels like the right time for lawmakers to say once and for all that they’ll give no more subsidies or bailouts to ComEd and Exelon. That includes stripping subsidies out of the current clean energy jobs bill. We saw Representative Williams’ announcement last week that she’ll add accountability measures to CEJA — it’s a good start and we agree but it needs to go further. She should also remove subsidies that would go directly to Exelon and ComEd so Illinois can transition to a clean energy future without continuing to put families and taxpayers at risk.
Again, just wanted to give you a heads up. Have a great evening,
Lacie
Clean Energy Transition Project
According to Comcast, the group is spending $58K through August 9, mainly in Chicago, but also some in the Champaign and Peoria areas. The group suddenly started spending big bucks on Facebook last year and has spent $71K since May. I’m not sure who they are or what they want by way of a “transition” to clean energy. The website is no help, either.
I am not familiar with the “Clean Energy Transition Project” and haven’t heard from this group with concerns about my bill. In the current climate, I question the judgment of a nameless, faceless dark money group inserting itself in Illinois’ energy discussions via paid ads.
The group appears to be a “front group” for fossil fuel companies who don’t like the provisions of the Clean Energy Jobs Act that prioritize carbon free power sources over polluting fossil fuels in the capacity market. My bill will eliminate the ongoing subsidy of the fossil fuel industry, which benefits coal and gas companies while costing Illinois consumers over $1B a year. No wonder this group is running ads designed to mislead Illinois consumers by claiming ComEd/Exelon is “hijacking” the clean energy legislation.
As Senate sponsor Cristina Castro and I have repeatedly stated, the utilities and power companies will no longer be dictating energy policy in Illinois. The recent and stunning admission of ComEd was the nail in that coffin.
Our plan is to prioritize carbon free resources first as we work to build up renewables in Illinois, eventually to 100% renewable energy sources, and we will not do this by continuing to prop up polluting fossil fuel plants. Our planet cannot afford it. We will, however, work to ensure that all utilities and power companies be held accountable and answerable to Illinois ratepayers, and that the illegal manipulation of the legislative process is over. Energy policy can and should be driven by the best interests of consumers, communities and our environment – not by corporate profits.
The Illinois Jewish Legislative Caucus welcomes the report that the Chicago Tribune may finally have had enough of the bigoted and anti-Semitic rants of John Kass, and is ending his 23-year reign as “lead columnist” for the paper.
Kass authored a winding, conspiracy-filled diatribe blaming George Soros for violence in Chicago and other major cities. “The Soros-funded prosecutors, not the mayors, are the ones who help release the violent on little or no bond,” he wrote on July 22, 2020. Kass knows, as most journalists know, that Soros-themed conspiracy theories have proliferated amongst the fringe white supremacist and Twitterazi’s. Kass knew about the rise in anti-Semitism, he just didn’t care.
The Anti-Defamation League and others have chronicled the rise of anti-Semitic tropes based on the Soros theories. On June 2, 2020, the ADL noted:
“Although the vast majority of Soros-related conspiracy theories do not mention his Jewish heritage, the concern remains that they can serve as a gateway to the antisemitic subculture that blames Jews for the riots. This type of content can be found on mainstream platforms; a Twitter user wrote, “George Soros is paying for this he is a Jew America bows to the Jew [sic],” while another tweeted, “Antifa are on the payroll of the Jewish financier George Soros who often uses these paid thugs to intimidate any opposition towards the status quo that he and his Zionist allies have set up to control us.” Yet another claimed, “Soros is every bit the subversive, parasitic conspirator these people make him out to be. The problem they always neglect to mention is the fact that he’s a Jew.”
Not to be outdone, the Tribune Editorial Page Editor doubled down on support for Mr. Kass following his editorial and removal as lead columnist. Ms. McQueary also knows about the devastation of the anti-Semitic Soros fear-mongering, but cannot be bothered to apologize for it on her own editorial page. What message does this send to your Jewish readers? To your Jewish reporters?
Words matter, Mr. Kass and Ms. McQueary, so do a better job and stop peddling anti-Semitism. We assure you - we will hold you accountable to do just that.
Sincerely,
Illinois Jewish Legislative Caucus
Illinois State Representative Jonathan Carroll
Illinois State Representative Kelly Cassidy
Illinois State Representative Daniel Didech
Illinois State Representative Robyn Gabel
Illinois State Representative Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz
Illinois State Representative Will Guzzardi
Illinois State Representative Mark Kalish
Illinois State Representative Bob Morgan
Illinois State Representative Yoni Pizer
Illinois State Representative Sam Yingling
Illinois State Senator Sara Feigenholtz
Illinois State Senator Laura Fine
…Adding… Strannik in comments…
Not all criticisms of a billionaire who happens to be Jewish are antisemitic, but columns that talk about a rich Jewish person undermining the fabric of society through Jewish money is a bit on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion side.
John Kass’ column “Overwhelming sense of lawlessness growing” (July 22) perpetuates conspiracy theories against Jews that have been the gateway to anti-Semitism for centuries.
The scapegoating of George Soros for recent increases of violence in Chicago abandons the notion that correlation does not equal causation, as Kass directly alleges with insufficient evidence.
In leveling these absurd charges, Kass joins the ranks of those who employ long-standing anti-Semitic myths blaming Holocaust survivor Soros, his philanthropy and other Jews as manipulating government for their own benefit while plotting to control countries and global events.
The Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism tracks attempts to spread these falsehoods, which have included in recent months laughable charges that Jews are funding antifa and violent protests and are responsible for the spread of COVID-19. While Kass gives oxygen to these anti-Semitic myths, the Tribune provided a platform.
Without question, Chicago has a rampant problem with violence. But the column offers no solution — and also does harm to the Jewish community.
Even if no anti-Semitic insinuation was intended, casting a well-known Jewish individual as a puppet master who manipulates high-profile events for malign purposes has the effect of mainstreaming anti-Semitic tropes and giving support, however unwitting, to bona fide anti-Semites and extremists who disseminate these ideas knowingly and with malice.
Let me pause here for a minute to discuss George Soros and today’s leftists. Soros is genetically Jewish. That’s his sole connection to Judaism.
As a 14-year-old during World War II, Soros worked with the Nazis. That was not his fault. He was a teenager and did what he needed to survive.
What is Soros’s fault is that he feels no guilt or sadness about this collaboration. At 14, if he had possessed a normal moral sense, Soros should have known what he did was wrong. His is a psychopathic world view
As part of their efforts to control and eventually eliminate the Jews of Europe, the Nazis sought the participation of the people whom they were attempting to destroy. In much of Nazi-occupied Europe, the Nazis set up “Jewish councils” and forced Jewish authorities — from religious leaders to trusted family patriarchs — to put Nazi policies and orders into practice.
In Hungary, the Nazis ordered the creation of the Central Council of Hungarian Jews in March 1944, intended to control the Jewish population without panicking them. The Council included both Zionist and Orthodox Jews, many of whom were aware of what the Nazis had done in neighboring countries but believed that they could somehow placate the Hungarian government and the Nazi authorities through smaller concessions — giving up furniture and other possessions, moving into ghettos created by the occupying German forces — and somehow avoid deportation to death camps until the war ended.
This was fruitless. As Ernő Munkácsi, the head of one of Hungary’s largest Jewish communities, put it in his postwar memoirs, “… the leaders of the Jews … lulled themselves into the unfounded optimism that we would be the exceptions, the tiny island in the sea of the destruction of European Jews.”
It was for the Jewish Council that 13-year-old George Soros worked for all of two days. He was asked to deliver messages across the city. When his father read one of the messages, he saw that they were in fact summonses, orders for Jewish individuals to report to a rabbinical seminar with food for two days and blankets.
There’s more, and even more here and here. It’s all bogus.
“The speaker has a lot that he needs to answer for — to authorities, to investigators and most importantly to the people of Illinois,” Pritzker said. “If these allegations of wrongdoing by the speaker are true, there is no question that he will have betrayed the public trust and he must resign.”
The Democrats who’ve been living off that weak ultimatum — Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle included — won’t call for Madigan to resign as House speaker and head of their state party, or as a state rep, until they know the Justice Department’s allegations are “true.” But years could pass before federal courts render final judgment on what prosecutors can establish beyond reasonable doubt. Years. […]
Rather than demanding that Madigan leave or be dethroned, Pritzker, Lightfoot, Preckwinkle and Democrats in the legislature are waiting for … what, exactly?
If they won’t insist that Madigan go until they know everything about his conduct, then they’re admitting that milking Madigan for campaign money and political muscle means more to them than living by the good-government platitudes they love to mouth.
The allegations presented today are troubling and downright depressing. Speaker Madigan needs to “speak” up on this issue, and if the allegations are true, he needs to resign immediately.
If the allegations reported today against Speaker Madigan turn out to be true, then he should resign.
…Adding… Um, no, unless they’re gonna do a write-in…
And there’s an effort to drum up an opponent against Madigan in November. Good luck. The election is Nov. 3 but the first round of mail-in ballots land in voters’ homes Sept. 24.