Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) was heckled by a Republican Senate candidate at a recent fundraising event after he refused to say that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
“There are certain states with problems, but don’t kid yourself into believing that’s why we lost,” Crenshaw told Bobby Piton, a 2022 Senate candidate for the state of Illinois, referring to Donald Trump’s baseless claims that the 2o20 election was fraudulent. “It’s not; it’s not. I’ll tell you openly.”
Crenshaw’s refusal to validate lies pushed by the former president and his supporters prompted Piton to shout, “You’re wrong. You’re wrong!”
The Texas Republican maintained that he was not wrong, which led to Piton claiming he had “proof in Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.”
An aggravated Crenshaw noted that Piton had already told him about his thoughts on the ballot review of Maricopa County, adding, “And how’d that turn out?”
Piton went on to say that the audit would flip the election results, which Crenshaw assured the crowd would not happen.
Chicago grew by about 50,000 residents over the last decade, according to 2020 U.S. Census data released Thursday.
The decennial population count put Chicago’s total at 2,746,388 residents — a 1.9% increase over the 2010 total. The Chicago number was revealed during a Washington news conference. More detailed county and regional data is expected later Thursday.
Chicago’s gain in population is a stark contrast to the previous decade, when the the city lost 200,000 residents — a 6.9% decrease.
Chicago remains the third largest city in the U.S. despite worries about population loss, according to data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. […]
But Illinois lost population from 2010 to 2020, according to the data, mostly in the southern and western part of the state.
* Click the pic for a better view if you need it of Chicago’s historical demographic trend from Frank Calabrese…
Interesting stuff there. This post will likely be updated.
* From 32nd Ward Democratic Committeeperson Scott Waguespack and 43rd Ward Democratic Committeeperson Lucy Moog to Cook County Central Committee Chair Toni Preckwinkle…
August 2, 2021
Toni Preckwinkle Chair
Cook County Democratic Party 134 N. LaSalle
Chicago, IL 60602
Dear Chairwoman Preckwinkle:
On June 5, the Cook County Democratic Party held a candidate forum for IL Secretary of State. When the candidates were questioned by the Committeepeople, former State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias was asked whether he had ever endorsed a republican candidate; and specifically, whether he did so, in the 2014 race for Illinois Treasurer of Mike Frerichs vs. Tom Cross. Mr. Giannoulias replied that he said a few nice things about Tom Cross but did not endorse.
We are reaching out today to ask a formal request of the party to explore and determine whether an endorsement was made in 2014 by then Treasurer Giannoulias. If a candidate for the Democratic nomination were to have endorsed a republican in the past, this would be critical information for our fellow Committeepeople to know before going into the Party slating process this fall. Just this past year, we investigated and sanctioned one of our own Committeepersons for supporting a republican candidate for countywide office, recognizing our duty and importance of supporting the Democratic ticket.
We are available to answer any questions about this this request and hope that a subcommittee can get to the truth of what transpired in the fall of 2014. To keep a strong and vibrant party, we need to make sure everyone is playing for the same team with commitment and loyalty.
Thank you for your consideration.
Waguespack has endorsed Ald. Pat Dowell for SoS. Moog has endorsed Anna Valencia.
* Preckwinkle’s reply…
August 11, 2021
Committeepersons Waguespack and Moog:
We are in receipt of your letter dated August 2 in reference to a statement made by Secretary of State candidate Giannoulias at our June 5 forum. The Executive Committee met on August 9 and chose to provide this response.
Mr. Giannoulias’ actions regarding the 2014 race for state treasurer were widely covered at the time in local media outlets, so additional research on our part is unnecessary. Articles appeared in both the Chicago Tribune (https://www.chicagotribune.com/politics/chi-democrat-giannoulias-backs-republican-cross-for-state-treasurer-20140921-story.html) and Chicago Sun Times (https://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/2014/9/21/18592294/giannoulias-a-democrat backs -republican-cross-for-treasurer). We have also searched the Illinois State Board of Elections and have not found any records of Mr. Giannoulias making a donation to Republican Tom Cross. Please feel free to share this public information as you see fit.
* Giannoulias, a Democrat, backs Republican Cross for treasurer: Former state treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, a Democrat, is throwing his support behind Republican Tom Cross in the current race for treasurer, opting to not support fellow Democrat Mike Frerichs.
*** UPDATE 1 *** Hanah Jubeh…
Seven years ago, Alexi said something nice about a candidate from another party. It was not an endorsement and it is certainly not what voters care about. Alexi is running to protect voter rights and modernize the office so we can reduce the lines at driver’s license facilities across the State. These false attacks are exactly what’s wrong with politics today and are what frustrate voters. Right now, people want to elect candidates who care about public service, are committed to restoring faith in government and will work hard for them to make a positive impact in their daily lives.
*** UPDATE 2 *** Greg Hinz got Frerichs on the record…
“He called me this spring, and apologized for endorsing Cross,” Frerichs told me. And Giannoulias did use the word “endorsed” in their talk, Frerichs said. “From my perspective, this all is in the past now.”
* I’m not a huge fan of focusing on case counts these days since people are vaccinated and, therefore, fewer will wind up hospitalized than they would have last November. But the vax rate in Jackson County is under 40 percent, and that’s a recipe for possible disaster…
A single-day record for new COVID-19 cases has been set in Jackson County.
The Jackson County Health Department was notified of 115 cases Wednesday, eclipsing the previous daily record of 87 cases from November 12.
Through the first 11 days of August, the department says there have been 451 new cases in Jackson County, which exceeds every monthly case total except for Nov. 2020 through January 2021.
25 percent of August cases have been in teenagers and younger children.
Get your shots and mask up, folks. We don’t want to wind up like Florida or Texas.
Federal public health officials say COVID-19 is now spreading at a high rate across nearly all of Illinois as the Delta-fueled surge lifts infections to the highest level seen statewide in four months.
Transmission is considered high in all but 13 of Illinois’ 102 counties, including the entire Chicago area except for northwest suburban McHenry County, according to metrics set by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And the spread is still labeled “substantial” in McHenry and nine of the other remaining counties.
The CDC laid out the sobering color-coded state map Wednesday as the Illinois Department of Public Health reported 3,933 new cases of the disease, the most in a day since April 9.
The state is now averaging nearly 3,000 new COVID-19 diagnoses each day, a rate that has multiplied by eight since the first week of July.
The seven-day average statewide positivity rate is up to 5.1%, which marks a seven-month high, while the total of 1,558 hospitalized coronavirus patients is the greatest burden facing Illinois care centers since May 15.
Some two weeks after the opening day of Lollapalooza, the music festival shows no signs of having been a “super spreader event,” the city’s top public health official said Thursday.
Of the approximately 385,000 people who attended, 203 attendees have been diagnosed with COVID-19, Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Allison Arwady said Thursday during a news conference at City Hall. As of Wednesday, none of those who tested positive have had to be hospitalized or have died, Arwady said.
For instance…
There was a time Pritzker/Ezike said restaurants/bars were driving spread, citing data, Lightfoot/Arwady said no then reversed themselves.
Outdoor events are safer than most. No doubt. Lolla probably wasn't as bad as naysayers thought. But, it's definitely complicated. https://t.co/f1V76v87hk
* The governor’s people admitted to me that he misspoke at the very end because, in context, he was actually talking about people dying from getting the vaccine, not from the disease. Still, he should be more careful because all he’s doing is giving ammo to those who would sow doubt…
A digital civil rights group says Illinois’ “Vax Verify” program is a step in the wrong direction, and the worst they’ve seen yet.
Electronic Frontier Foundation Director of Engineering Alexis Hancock reviews such systems from around the country and said Illinois’ program requiring people to verify their information through credit tracking firm Experian is severely flawed.
“This system is horrible in Illinois,” Hancock said. “Using Experian is definitely one of the worst ones I’ve seen yet.”
Hancock raised concerns about what that means for people who are not vaccinated, or may even be undocumented residents with little to no trackable credit history, among other issues.
“If you have frozen your credit for whatever reason, you have to unfreeze your credit with Experian in order to actually access a vaccination record from this Vax Verify system.”
Then there’s what she called “scope creep,” and how consumers could be impacted without proper protection to prevent private businesses from tracking citizens. […]
A spokesperson for the ACLU of Illinois said showing vaccine proof is good for public health and expects such measures would withstand legal challenges.
Yeah, I think I’d go with the ACLU on this sort of thing.
This year billions of dollars in U.S. pandemic relief for small businesses finally made it to minority neighborhoods, reaching hair salons, daycares and restaurants in some of the poorest and most-segregated urban areas of the nation.
So far the infusion of Paycheck Protection Program funds has failed to translate into a meaningful economic recovery in many of these neighborhoods, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Nowhere is this more on display than in Chicago, the only metro area tracked by Bloomberg where majority-Black zip codes have received more stimulus dollars per capita than White areas—albeit by a small amount—yet the pace of business reopenings is lagging and the local rate of Black unemployment is high. PPP loans are forgiven if businesses use a large part of the funds to keep employees on payroll, and the struggle to access federal aid early on in the crisis meant many small firms couldn’t stave off layoffs or even closures.
* The folks in Marissa and everywhere else need to finally come to the realization that this is not 2020 COVID…
The number of kids infected with Covid-19 is soaring as the highly contagious Delta variant spreads and schools reopen, pushing children’s hospitals around the country to the brink.
Nearly 1,600 kids with Covid-19 were hospitalized last week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — a new seven-day record and a 27 percent increase from the week before. Tennessee’s health commissioner expects the state’s children’s hospitals to be full by the week’s end. Louisiana reached that point more than a week ago. And Arkansas’ only children’s hospital has just two ICU beds remaining.
As dire as the situation is now, hospital leaders and public health officials predict it will get even worse in the coming weeks. They are already contending with unseasonably high levels of RSV, a respiratory virus that can be dangerous for young children and infants. Flu season is on the horizon. And schools across the country are welcoming children back, creating opportunities for Covid-19 and other viruses to spread even faster.
Edward Hospital in Naperville and Elmhurst Hospital, which are part of the same system, saw patients nearly double in a week, with 52 on Wednesday compared to 28 on Aug. 4.
Sixteen of the 52 patients were vaccinated, spokeswoman Janet Hosey said. “The vaccinated COVID-19 inpatients are predominantly immunocompromised or elderly,” she said.
* How the Pandemic Now Ends: The ventilation in our buildings can be improved. Scientists should be able to create vaccines against the existing coronaviruses. Western people can wear masks when they’re sick, as many Asian societies already do. Workplaces can offer paid-sick-leave policies and schools can ditch attendance records “so that they’re not encouraging people to show up sick,” Wiley said. All of these measures could be as regular a part of our lives as seat belts, condoms, sunscreen, toothpaste, and all the other tools that we use to protect our health. The current pandemic surge and the inevitability of endemicity feel like defeats. They could, instead, be opportunities to rethink our attitudes about the viruses we allow ourselves to inhale.
* Background is here if you need it. From the attorney for Timothy Christian Schools to the Illinois State Board of Education…
August 11, 2021
Via Electronic Mail
Mr. Derreck Langwith
Illinois State Board of Education
100 W. Randolph Street, Suite 14-300 Chicago, IL 60601
RE: Nonpublic Recognition Status of Timothy Christian Schools
Good evening, Mr. Langwith:
Our client, Timothy Christian Schools, is in receipt of a letter from Dr. Ayala notifying the school that ISBE is removing its status as a recognized nonpublic school, effective immediately, based on ISBE’s perception that the school will not comply with the universal masking requirement in Executive Order 2021-18.
First, Timothy Christian Schools never communicated its intent to be non-compliant with the Order; and second, neither staff nor students have returned to school for SY21-22, as classes do not begin until August 25th. This was communicated in written and video messages to the Timothy community, and was explicitly told to Dr. Ayala when she called Superintendent Matt Davidson late this afternoon.
Nevertheless, in order to be crystal clear, on behalf of Timothy Christian Schools, we are writing to inform you that Timothy has no intention of defying the Executive Order; Timothy will observe the Order effective immediately, even though school is not in session for two weeks. We trust this statement will be sufficient to reinstate the school’s recognition status, effective immediately, and without blemish to the school’s record.
With this behind us, I would welcome the opportunity to have an amicable conversation about the rules under which the school’s recognition was “immediately” revoked, in order to clear up any misunderstanding of the State’s authority. Regardless of our understanding, please know that Timothy will fully comply with the Executive Order.
We thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Vanessa V. Clohessy
* From Timothy Christian Schools Superintendent Matt Davidson to parents…
Team Timothy:
The support for our school is overwhelming. Thank you! Our mission here at Timothy is all about the kids and always has been about the kids. Therefore, we are working with ISBE on the restoration of our recognition status and have informed them that Timothy intends to comply with the Executive Order. We expect to hear from them shortly, so stay tuned. We are hopeful. Please continue to pray.
Our professional conviction is that we cannot allow such significant consequences as outlined by ISBE to adversely impact our children. Many of our high school students are looking forward to IHSA athletics and other activities; many are counting on college scholarships and opportunities; many of our families are receiving much-needed scholarship money from the Invest in Kids Act; and as a PreK-12 school, it particularly doesn’t feel right to have our children used as leverage.
As a reminder, we never stated that we would not comply with the universal mask requirement in the Executive Order to begin the school year. We simply made a schoolwide commitment to you that we would use the time before school starts to investigate this further, and I also made a clear personal pledge that I would not support outright defiance if we hit a dead end. If you haven’t watched the video, yet, I encourage you to do so. We did exactly what we said we were going to do — nothing more, and nothing less. This has never been a political matter for us. As I clearly stated in the video. This was never a fight, but rather an exploration.
Based on the current situation, we’ve determined that we will follow the Executive Order. Additional details on face coverings can be found here (see pp. 10-13). Note: face coverings are not required outdoors, so let’s plan to see each other’s faces outside.
Some will interpret this as wise…some will interpret this as cowardly…but I believe most here in the Timothy community will at least nod their head and understand the situation. This community is strong. Your support goes a long way in bringing calm for our kids. Hang in there!
More information will be coming soon. In the meantime, our entire staff is enthusiastically preparing for the start of school and welcoming your children! Let’s make this the best year in our school’s history.
* Gov. JB Pritzker signed so many bills sponsored by Sen. Robert Peters (D-Chicago) one day that somebody made the joke that it was Robert Peters Day in Illinois. The Democratic Socialist Peters gave a wide-ranging interview to Current Affairs magazine, but let’s look at this part about his methods…
Right now we have 41 out of, I believe, it’s 59 senators. 41 are Democrats. You need 30 to pass a bill. […] I will always say that I generally have about 27, 28 votes that I can rely on, generally. And I go around on every vote. I have a binder and in the binder I have a roll call sheet. I have fact sheets. I have the bill language. And so I was able to pass I think 17 bills this year, and a large part of that is I went around with my binder to everyone’s desk, every one of my colleagues. And I talked to them about the legislation. Everyone. Not only did I do that, if there was someone who was quote unquote a “moderate” Republican, I still talked to them. I said, “You know what, it’s your job to answer the question that I’m throwing at you. It’s not my job to answer it for you.” So I’m going to go up to you with my binder. And I’m going to ask you. One of the things that stands out to me: me and senator Terri Bryant, she’s a pretty right-wing Southern Illinois Republican. She has four prisons in her district. We generally don’t agree on anything. But we had a conversation about, I can’t remember what bill it was. And she said she supported it. And then she got on the floor and she praised me, the most left person in the Senate.
And my colleagues who are a little bit more moderate, they were like, “Robert, can you believe, Robert?” I said, “You know what? I just went around. I asked a question, she agreed, and we were able to move it.” Now, I don’t know if I should be saying this out loud, because I’m sure this could be used against Terri Bryant. And that would be a horrible thing. I don’t want to be someone’s negative attack ad. But the idea is being able to have those conversations.
So there’s a few bills. Some that I want to talk about publicly and some I don’t, because I want to make sure that before I introduce or work on a piece of legislation with folks that we’re in the right place and we’re ready to build on it. But there were some things I wasn’t able to get done this year that left me very disappointed. One of them is the name change bill. Particularly transgender folks who were incarcerated being unable to change their names in the public record, and often times they’re left with their dead name and it causes so many problems and so much pain and trauma for folks, so I want to make sure make people aren’t having to be re-traumatized with a dead name, so they can go buy a house, or if they’ve had a divorce, they don’t have to have that linger. So we’re going to keep pushing on this.
Either to end solitary confinement or get as close as we can to ending solitary confinement. There’s this guy Anthony Gay, he was incarcerated in solitary confinement, he hurt himself so he could be out of solitary and see the sun. I think that’s something we can move from, and I’m hopeful we can get that done, but it’s going to be tough work. I’ve talked to Anthony, to organizers, and we’re just going to have to really convince people that this doesn’t do anything to help people who are incarcerated.
The other one is protecting the end of cash bond. I know with the fact that there has been a heightened level of violence, those that represent the status quo are going to make up whatever excuse they need to to continue the incarceration machine. They’re going to try to roll back what Illinois did. I’m committed to fight them tooth and nail to prevent that from happening.
* OK, I know we generally don’t talk about stuff like this, but we do have a local angle and it’s an interesting story…
A group of U.S. lawmakers who flew from South Korea to Taiwan in June hid their itinerary from officials in Seoul so they could deny knowledge of the trip and avoid a diplomatic fallout with China, Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) revealed at a conference on Tuesday.
Duckworth, who was part of the highly watched whirlwind visit to Taipei along with Senators Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and Chris Coons (D-DE), said the morale-boosting trip—sanctioned by the Biden administration—showed the Taiwanese public “that America would not abandon them” during the island’s politically charged vaccine shortage earlier this summer.
Taiwan’s vaccine procurement was “being blockaded by China,” the senator said at an event hosted by the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). During their three-hour visit on June 6, the senators announced the donation of 750,000 Moderna vaccines to Taiwan—an amount later tripled to 2.5 million doses. […]
[Duckworth] said: “We got to South Korea, and it was very much touch and go. We weren’t sure we were going to be able to get to Taiwan. There were no commercial flights. The administration agreed with us and actually sent a military aircraft, and flew us in from a military base in South Korea to Taiwan. […]
Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, whose government faced political pressure amid a coronavirus outbreak and a vaccine shortage at the time, met the senators at the airport. In brief remarks, she said Taiwan would “forever remember” the U.S.’ support.
llinois State Fair officials unveiled the treasured Butter Cow Wednesday in the Dairy Building on the Illinois State Fairgrounds. This year marks the 100th Anniversary of the unofficial icon, which is one of the most photographed subjects at the fair.
The 2021 Butter Cow features the Dairy Building theme “Embracing Tradition” and has been constructed to signify the 13 essential nutrients found naturally in milk, by having 13 hearts hidden into the mold. Along with the heart the cow features a young exhibitor embracing the animal.
“After a year where the world stopped, I felt including an exhibitor embracing the cow signifies the joy our youth are experiencing as they return to the fair,” said Sarah Pratt, 2021 Illinois State Fair Butter Cow Sculptor. “You only get one chance to celebrate the 100th Anniversary and hope this year’s Butter Cow will invoke those feelings of nostalgia people have experienced for generations.”
“For a lot of families, it is a picture they take year after year,” said Illinois Agriculture Director, Jerry Costello II. “To have such an iconic stop at the Illinois State Fair for 100 years is priceless.”
“Illinois Dairy Farmers are proud to carry on the tradition of the iconic butter cow at the Illinois State Fair,” said Kendra Anderson, Midwest Dairy Farmer Relations Manager. “We are especially delighted that the 2021 butter cow celebrates the return of youth exhibitors to the show ring and the other great traditions that surround the Illinois State Fair.”
The iconic sculpture will remain on display in the Dairy Building for the duration of the fair and be viewable live via the Butter Cow webcam.
Mitigations in place at the fair include: mask mandates at indoor venues, and proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test for ticketholders in the grandstand track. The Illinois Department of Public Health will have six vaccination sites at the fairgrounds.
Asked, “Should we even be here?” Pritzker responded that the conditions in 2021 aren’t comparable to 2020, when the fair was canceled.
“The big difference is we have vaccines,” the governor said, “and the vaccines work.”
* And this is from the Sun-Times story on Pritzker not attending the Illinois Democratic County Chairs’ Association’s indoor brunch on Governor’s Day…
State Senate President Don Harmon plans to attend and speak at the brunch, but a spokesman for the Senate Democratic leader didn’t respond to a question about whether the Oak Park Democrat will attend Pritzker’s event.
Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch will be out of town, a spokesman for the Hillside Democrat said.
Most candidates running to succeed outgoing Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White still plan to attend the county chairs’ brunch as well as host other events.
32-year-old Mario Cruz-Cortes is grateful to be alive. Just a few days ago he needed the help of a machine just to breathe.
Cortes caught a case of COVID-19 that knocked him off of his feet, seemingly overnight.
Up until a couple of weeks ago he never had health issues. He had never been in a hospital bed in his life.
Now he wants everyone to know, if he could go back in time, he’d do one thing differently: “If you could go back in time would you get the vaccine? Yeah, I would get the vaccine because…what I went through, I don’t want no one to go through it,” Cruz-Cortes shared.
Cruz-Cortes was discharged from OSF Heart of Mary Medical Center in Urbana Wednesday afternoon after spending nearly two weeks in a hospital bed, about half of that time was spent on a ventilator.[…]
The 32-year-old was brought here to OSF from Taylorville on July 30. Cruz-Cortes said he had no idea how serious the coronavirus was until he was in the thick of it, and it happened really fast.
“One day you’re moving. The next day you cannot move anymore,” he explained. […]
Cruz-Cortes told us at least one of his friends, that was originally hesitant to get vaccinated, has gotten the shot since he’s been hospitalized. He said he hopes what he went through will encourage as many people as possible to do it for their safety, and for everyone around them.
I know a lot of folks have no sympathy for those who aren’t vaccinated and then become ill. But people like Cruz-Cortes might help save a whole lot of lives.
The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce today announced it is calling on businesses to review and implement policies that require all employees to be vaccinated before returning to the worksite, unless a valid health or religious reason is presented, or have stringent masking and testing protocols in place if vaccine requirements are not possible.
“Vaccines have been essential in the fight against Covid-19 and it’s time for businesses to make the necessary decision to mandate vaccinations,” said Jack Lavin, President & Chief Executive Officer, Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. “Many organizations, including Chamber members, have already made the decision to mandate that employees be vaccinated before returning to the office. Businesses are in a unique position to help change the direction of the pandemic, and we encourage businesses of all sizes and industries to require vaccinations so we can protect ourselves, those around us, and continue on our path to economic recovery.”
“Putting in place a vaccination policy will not only protect an organization’s own employees, but it will also protect employees across our country — from healthcare workers to teachers to delivery drivers, all of whom we would like to express our gratitude for all their support throughout the Covid-19 pandemic,” Lavin added.
