* I never got around to our Golden Horseshoe Awards today. It’s Friday and I was distracted and tired from a long week are my excuses and I’m gonna stick to ‘em. We’ll get back to the awards on Monday.
Homicides citywide are up about 56 percent compared to last year and shootings are up about 49 percent, but just five of Chicago’s 22 police districts are driving the bulk of Chicago’s rise. All are on the South or West Sides.
In the 11th [police district], shootings are up by 78 percent compared to a year ago, and homicides are up 89 percent. So far in 2016, 91 people have been killed in this district, where only about 74,000 people live. That is more homicides than in all of last year in entire cities, such as Seattle (population 684,000), Omaha (444,000) and Buffalo (258,000).
* Gov. Bruce Rauner probably enjoyed the most receptive audiences of his time in office when he visited the Quad Cities area and Clinton to sign the Exelon bill. The Rauner folks have made a video of the events. Have a look…
It was wonderful to join the communities in the Quad Cities and Clinton this week to celebrate the signing of the Future Energy Jobs Bill. pic.twitter.com/GMQcGoIqLk
* I dunno. You gotta be pretty desperate for news to ask Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of a city in financial peril and dealing with a huge spike in violence and racial discord, if he plans to run for president in 2020. Just sayin…
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel had a fiery response when asked Thursday night whether he would consider running for president in 2020.
The former White House chief of staff to President Obama and senior adviser to President Bill Clinton flipped off consultant Neil Hare — twice — after being posed the question at BLT Steak, prompting laughter from others at the bar.
Emanuel, famed for his coarse language and caustic retorts, was hanging out at the restaurant located blocks from the White House during a swing through Washington this week.
But the mayor isn’t shy when it comes to how he feels about being asked about potential presidential ambitions.
“She’s a reporter,” someone at BLT said after the Chicago mayor gave Hare the bird, referring to your ITK writer.
“I don’t give a f— who she is,” Emanuel shot back.
The predawn rousting of Gov. Rod Blagojevich from his Ravenswood Manor home Tuesday marked a stunning climax to a tale of alleged public corruption unmatched in Illinois’ storied history of elected scoundrels and thrust the state into an unprecedented political crisis.
Illinoisans awoke to news that their governor had been arrested, handcuffed and hauled before a federal magistrate on sweeping charges he conspired to sell his office many times over–including putting a price on the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.
U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald said the governor’s actions forced his office to intervene. “Gov. Blagojevich has been arrested in the middle of what we can only describe as a political corruption crime spree,” he said. Fitzgerald said Blagojevich’s “conduct would make [Abraham] Lincoln roll over in his grave.”
The well-coiffed governor, sporting a turtleneck beneath a blue Nike track suit and running shoes, was released on his own recognizance and walked out not only free, but still empowered to make an appointment to the Senate seat federal prosecutors say he tried to corrupt.
“They’re doing well. He’s sad, surprised and innocent,” Blagojevich attorney Sheldon Sorosky told reporters outside Blagojevich’s home Tuesday night.
Throughout the day, the halls of state government in Springfield and Chicago were humming with calls for his resignation or impeachment–and lawmakers planned an emergency session to schedule a special election and to strip the governor of his sole authority to fill the Senate post.
My website as well as those run by the Tribune and the Sun-Times all crashed that morning because of the traffic spike. Such crazy times.
Newly published federal campaign finance reports reveal that both Chris Kennedy and J.B. Pritzker teamed with Mike Madigan and Lisa Madigan to help fund the failed Leading Illinois For Tomorrow (LIFT) PAC that spent nearly $10 million attacking Bruce Rauner in the lead up to the November elections.
“It’s clear that both Chris Kennedy and J.B. Pritzker will do whatever Mike Madigan wants. Pritzker and Kennedy combined to give to a failed Madigan front group $950,000 and thousands more to Madigan’s House candidates,” said Illinois Republican Party spokesman Steven Yaffe. “The only thing less surprising than wannabe governor candidates doing the Speaker’s bidding is Lisa Madigan pouring in $150,000 to help him. Lisa Madigan proved that she’ll do anything she can to help Mike Madigan protect the special interests and failed status quo. Springfield needs a shake up more than ever.”
Despite the Madigan-backed LIFT PAC spending close to $10 million this fall, Illinois Republicans still netted six seats in the Illinois legislature.
“The Madigan family and Chicago Democrat elite can spend all the money they want, but it won’t change the fact that Illinoisans want major reforms in Springfield,” Yaffe said. “Voters now know all the potential Democrat candidates for governor stand with Mike Madigan.”
…Adding… Just noticed something at the link. Chris Kennedy gave $50,000 to the LIFT PAC while JB Pritzker gave $900,000. That’s the whole “money” argument for the primary in a nutshell.
Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner praised President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for education secretary Thursday, saying the Michigan billionaire and school voucher proponent is “a very talented and very passionate education advocate.”
Betsy DeVos, whose husband is an heir to the Amway fortune, was named late last month as Trump’s choice to head the federal Department of Education.
DeVos is a longtime advocate for voucher programs that allow parents to use taxpayer funds to pay for private or parochial schools. She’s also a former chair of the Michigan Republican Party.
“I do know Betsy DeVos, I have great respect for her,” Rauner said Thursday when asked about Trump’s selection of DeVos. “I think she’s a very talented and very passionate education advocate. And I personally am a believer in school choice. And I look forward to working together.”
In Detroit, parents of school-age children have plenty of choices, thanks to the nation’s largest urban network of charter schools.
What remains in short supply is quality.
In Brightmoor, the only high school left is Detroit Community Schools, a charter boasting more than a decade of abysmal test scores and, until recently, a superintendent who earned $130,000 a year despite a dearth of educational experience or credentials.
On the west side, another charter school, Hope Academy, has been serving the community around Grand River and Livernois for 20 years. Its test scores have been among the lowest in the state throughout those two decades; in 2013 the school ranked in the first percentile, the absolute bottom for academic performance. Two years later, its charter was renewed.
Or if you live downtown, you could try Woodward Academy, a charter that has limped along near the bottom of school achievement since 1998, while its operator has been allowed to expand into other communities.
For students enrolled in schools of choice — that is, schools in nearby districts who have opened their doors to children who live outside district boundaries — it’s not much better. Kids who depend on Detroit’s problematic public transit are too far away from the state’s top-performing school districts — and most of those districts don’t participate in the schools of choice program, anyway.
This deeply dysfunctional educational landscape — where failure is rewarded with opportunities for expansion and “choice” means the opposite for tens of thousands of children — is no accident. It was created by an ideological lobby that has zealously championed free-market education reform for decades, with little regard for the outcome.
And at the center of that lobby is Betsy DeVos, the west Michigan advocate whose family has contributed millions of dollars to the cause of school choice and unregulated charter expansion throughout Michigan.
A Michigan automotive company hopes to take over the former Mitsubishi plant in Normal.
Rivian Automotive is in talks to buy the entire 2.4 million-square-foot plant and manufacture there, bringing 500 jobs by 2021 and 1,000 when at full production, the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) announced late Thursday afternoon.
The company expects to invest up to $175 million in the project by 2024.
Mitsubishi shut down production at the plant in November 2015 and laid off the last employees in May. The plant employed 1,200 before closing and about 3,000 at its peak. […]
An agreement between Rivian and Normal specifies that in order to receive [$1 million] incentives, the company must employ 35 workers by the end of 2018, 75 in 2019, 300 in 2020 and 500 in 2021. Those are “full-time employees with an average weekly salary equal to or greater than the average weekly salary in McLean County.”
The company started out in Florida then moved to Michigan when its incentive package ran out and Michigan stepped up with some cash. Its website has nothing on it.
Founded in 2009, Rivian is an automotive technology company developing an integrated portfolio of products and services to advance the shift to sustainable mobility. Backed by strong investors and driven by a team of passionate innovators, Rivian is creating solutions that redefine traditional automotive economics and remove the pain points of conventional ownership.
Yeah, I don’t know what that means, either. Supposedly, they’re trying to develop a low-priced but high performance sports car…
Rivian Automotive, founded in 2009, develops and manufactures efficient sports cars. The company was formerly known as Mainstream Motors Inc., and changed its name to Rivian Automotive in 2011.
* As we discussed earlier this week, Senate President Cullerton has told the governor it would be much easier to pass a pension reform bill if Rauner reached a contract agreement with AFSCME. Speaker Madigan also said this week he wants the AFSCME negotiations to be part of the working group talks. Cullerton explained his position to WTTW…
So why isn’t that pension reform happening? Cullerton says the governor’s contract dispute with state public employee union AFSCME has poisoned the well, and that it’s the governor who’s holding up pension reform.
“He’s offered them no pay raises for four years, and to cut their healthcare by a third. How, on top of that, can we say ‘We’re going to cut your pensions too?’ He has an ability to negotiate that contract and help us pass a pension reform bill. Democrats or Republicans won’t vote for pension reform. The conversation isn’t what’s going in the bill, it’s, how are you going to pass it? And he’s not offering any help.”
* Related…
* Curtis Black: Rauner’s war on unions brings Illinois to the brink
Gov. Bruce Rauner and legislative leaders were to meet again Thursday, but the meeting was called off. Rauner says it’s because leaders don’t have a budget plan. Democratic leaders say it’s the governor who doesn’t have a plan.
The reality is, a series of working groups, spearheaded by the governor’s budget director, concluded that taxes would have to go up from 3.75 to 4.85 percent, and that the sales tax would be broadened to include some services. In addition, there would be cuts and some reforms. But neither party wants to be the first to propose a tax hike.
I asked [Senate President John Cullerton], Why not go first? He responded that he believes it’s on the governor to do that.
“He has to tell us, ‘I have a plan where we’ll cut $8 billion out of the budget,’ or, ‘We’re going to cut some of it, but we’re going to need some revenue.’ It’s not a matter of who’s going first. We don’t have the votes in the Democratic Party to pass a tax increase and then override it if Rauner veto’s it. So that means, if there’s gonna be a tax increase, Governor Rauner is going to determine what that level’s going to be, or if it should be. Tell us that number and then we’ll go back and figure out how to spend the money you’re willing to sign.”
* Michael Sneed reports that Bill Daley says he’s backing Chris Kennedy for governor and not JB Pritzker. That doesn’t mean much, of course, except possibly Kennedy access to some of Daley’s wealthy friends, who he probably knows anyway. But read on…
“If anybody had the fire in the belly to run, it would be Pritzker,” said a top Dem source. “He could pull the trigger and self-fund and run.” […]
Sneed is told Pritzker and Kennedy also called Chicago Federation of Labor President Jorge Ramirez to seek support. “I explained the optics,” said Ramirez. “Kennedy has his own mystique. It’s amazing. And he is really serious. So is Pritzker. He’s determined.”
It’s been suggested Pritzker could do $450 million of his own money. “Kennedy couldn’t and wouldn’t do that, relying instead on his platinum donor list to fund his campaign,” the top Dem source said.
However, Sneed is told House Speaker Mike Madigan was disappointed in Kennedy’s ability to raise money for Dem campaigns in the last election gleaned from his donor lists.
“Look, Madigan has been sucking air from the trial lawyers and laborers to get his people elected — and getting tapped out,” said a second Dem source. “Susana Mendoza’s race for state comptroller was expensive. That’s why Madigan told Pritzker and Kennedy to rely primarily on self-funding if they are gonna run.”
Discuss.
* Related…
* Meet the Democrats’ proto-Trumps - Liberal mega-donors move to run for governor after watching their party lose ground in 2016
