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Pritzker said there is no better place to see that change is possible under Democratic leadership than in Illinois. “If you look at the statistics, we are at the bottom of the barrel for most things that matter to most people,” said Ted Dabrowski, of Wirepoints. “When it comes to jobs, incomes and economic growth, safety, all those things.”
A Cook County judge says Chicago’s city public health commissioner had the power to act beyond the limits of her power spelled out in the law to block a permit that would have allowed a new Southwest Side metal recycling center to open, even after prior approvals from other city reviewers had led the company to invest more than $80 million in the project, before the project was suddenly nixed by the public health commissioner.
All told, CTA ridership during the convention was up on the Green Line related to convention events and demonstrations, the agency has said, citing preliminary information. But fewer regular commuters were riding, and overall bus and rail ridership was down “modestly” from the prior week, a spokesman said.
The Chicago Police Department ended the week without any major skirmishes or indelible images of violence similar those taken during the 1968 convention or even the NATO Summit protests in 2012. “We watched these officers going through it,” Police Supt. Larry Snelling said. “We saw people yelling in their faces, yelling obscenities, and they maintained their cool throughout, they didn’t take the bait.”
“In 2021, with COVID disruptions wreaking havoc on schools and universities, Illinois created the Commission on Equitable Public University Funding to address significant disparities in the college-going experience across lines of geography, race, ethnicity and income. … Such an approach is fundamental to cultivating a healthier university system, where strong outcomes follow sufficient, equitable and predictable state investment.”
CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said that while Martinez said progress is being made, he acknowledges there is tension.
The result will be more than a dozen Republican candidates for state legislature will be placed on the ballot to challenge Democratic incumbents this fall, including in an expected close race in downstate Madison County and other races in Chicago and the suburbs.
Illinois lawmakers changed the rules about placing candidates on the ballot in the middle of an election cycle. A judge said they can’t do that and the Illinois Supreme Court dropped the state’s appeal. The ruling means the 14 candidates who joined in the lawsuit have the right to appear on the Nov.
The Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, which has a contract from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, backed Gov. JB Pritzker’s failed “fair tax” bid to replace Illinois’ flat state income tax rate with progressive rates lawmakers could change at will. Now, the group’s fix for Illinois’ unfunded pension liabilities is to ask for more from taxpayers.
Immediately after Sanders dumped on billionaires, Pritzker spoke and said, “Donald Trump thinks we should trust him on the economy because he claims to be very rich. Take it from an actual billionaire, Trump is rich in only one thing: stupidity.”
The Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau announced the area generated a local economic impact of $601.3 million and contributed to an increase in visitor spending across Illinois in 2023. This money directly supports 5000 jobs in the tourism and hospitality industry.
“The dead children are swept away in Chicago’s river of violence. Most of the victims are black and Latino. The race-baiting Democratic hacks got to play the race card for votes, portraying it all as white racism. But the victims are also minorities. They don’t vote. And they’re impervious to racial politics. So they’re forgotten.”
Raines-Welch, who’s married to Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch is one of two circuit judges on the Illinois Courts Commission. She is currently assigned to the Maywood regional courthouse, hearing misdemeanor and criminal traffic cases.
The convention took place without any sign of a renewed surge of migrants to Chicago. “We have the most expansive new arrivals mission anywhere in the country right now,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said. “It is compassionate, and it is fiscally responsible, but here’s what has to happen. … We’re still making critical investments on the West and South sides of Chicago, but we need comprehensive immigration reform.”
The email thread between the then-D.C. lobbyist for the Johnson administration and a Congressional aide suggested that Chicago would spend as much as $25 million on Chicago Police overtime, another $10 million on salaries and $25 million on equipment, including a new helicopter. The email thread also shows the $76 million request for a Department of Justice grant went “above and beyond any grant amount previously requested.”
Colorado Rep. Javier Mabrey said he and his friends got down under the tables in the restaurant and thought the suspect was going to open fire on everyone inside the restaurant. Police say no one is in custody.
Austin Berg, of the Illinois Policy Institute: “I agree that the city is the greatest in the world, but it’s also among the worst-managed. In the city that perfected the political machine, a new machine has tightened its grip and inflicted pain: the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). And now, residents are pushing back.”
Nick Pisano with Clever Real Estate said the changes may force some realtors out of the business. “When you’re having to get buyers to sign an agency agreement before you even get started, that is a little more difficult and time consuming for agents who only do a couple deals a year,” said Pisano.
“They spoke at the DNC about ‘hope’ and about the importance of everyone living up to his or her potential. For many Chicagoans, that’s a tall order. In 2022, according to the Illinois State Board of Education, there were 53 Illinois public K-12 schools, mostly in Chicago, where 0 percent of the students could do math at grade level. There were 30 public schools, mostly in Chicago, where 0 percent of the students could read at grade level.”
The Grade 2 Personal Health and Safety Education Unit Plan features a lesson that teaches students about gender stereotypes and that they can “advocate for change and will have an opportunity to apply what they learn to create gender neutral packaging for common children’s toys.”
A spokesperson for Northwestern University said that they are updating their code of conduct ahead of the new school year amid the spike in antisemitism.
Chicago-based consultant Michael Mayes said a lot of the social equity retail permit winners have worked out deals with larger companies and small retail chains to unload their licenses for a small profit, because they weren’t able to raise the capital in order to stand up dispensaries by themselves. But the state has made it hard for many of them to legally sell their permits, Mayes said, which means many will likely expire and turn into nothing.
The suit, filed in 2022, contended the state law violated the federally established date for federal elections. It also alleged five-term U.S. Rep. Mike Bost was subjected to harm, including expenses for post-Election Day poll watchers and the possibility that mail-in ballots counted during the 14-day period “dilutes” votes “timely” cast up to and including Election Day.
“Consider: “The formidable [former] House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is running around the convention in heels as a rock star,” MK Pritzker said. “I can’t keep up!”
Years of declining enrollments, combined with a decade-plus of state underfunding, are finally coming to a head in Illinois as some public colleges are staring down gaping budget deficits with no quick and easy fixes in sight.
Ted joined Jeff Daly to talk about the actual facts of Illinois instead of Gov. Pritzker’s rhetoric, the reality of homicides and crime in Chicago, why it’s wrong for the state to pick winners and losers in green energy, and why Chicago police have stepped up protections for the DNC that don’t extend to ordinary citizens, but should.
Minor skirmishes broke out during the march Thursday, including one involving a counter protester with an American flag. Some of the anti-Israel side also taunted police with a megaphone, saying, “You guys are the ones with guns!” Later in the evening, protesters burned an American flag.
In the sea of Palestinian flags and signs condemning the killings in Gaza, a handful of people also protested other causes. Spotted were signs that said: “Only the Struggle has won women’s rights,” pointing to the rollback of abortion rights in states across the country; and “Corporations are not people,” decrying the 2010 Citizens United ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which enabled companies to spend unlimited funds on elections.
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