The Chicago area hasn’t been immune to the backlash. Vandals tagged a new Tesla dealership in Buffalo Grove with graffiti over the weekend. A Tesla showroom in the Gold Coast has been the site of protests calling for people to ditch their vehicles. And when Pablo Espinosa left work earlier this month he was met with an unwelcome surprise: His 2022 Tesla Model Y, which had been parked in the Humboldt Park area on the Northwest Side, had been vandalized.

“Why do we continue to enact legislation that always sides with criminals rather than the people who are trying to protect us?” state Rep. Dennis Tipsword said.

Laura Hois was surprised last July when she saw a 15-by-15-foot “free speech zone” marked in a corner of Fishel Park in Downers Grove. She had come to the park to promote her candidacy for the DuPage County Board, but a Park District employee told her that she couldn’t mingle and talk politics with attendees, she said. She could only do so in the “free speech zone.”

“There are some things that we have to consider for why people have chosen homeschooling,” state Rep. LaShawn Ford said. “They’re things in there for vaccinations, immunization and health requirements. Some people don’t like that.”

Researcher Chuck Casto said in January, 35 percent of Illinois small businesses were concerned about the effects of tariffs. “That’s significant, that’s more than a third, but now it’s up to 47 percent,” said Casto. “They’re worried about many different effects, they’re worried about what this will do in terms of inflation, in terms of consumer spending.”

Additionally, the suit names the Illinois Department of Corrections, its acting director, the city of Chicago, the Chicago Police Department, Cook County, its Sheriff’s Department and elected sheriff. The filing claims that together, the defendants represented a system that failed to prevent 11-year-old Jayden Perkins’s death.

“The state government is banking on people making more bets. Whether it’s the bettor or the sportsbook that wins, the state gets a cut. Sports betting now brings in more than $150 million a year for the state government.”

Illinois’ unemployment improved somewhat in January. It ranked fifth highest in the nation (4.9 percent) after being third highest for months. Illinois’ rate exceeds the national unemployment rate of 4 percent.

Jim Dey: “Pursuing a high media profile and taking advantage of the lecture circuit, (rahm) Emanuel is presenting himself as a pragmatic Democrat who is sick of the left-wing nostrums that contributed to the Democrats’ defeat in November. … Before 2028, however, is 2026, and (Gov. JB) Pritzker must decide whether to seek a third term as governor or give up the political platform that lends him credibility.”

Matt Paprocki, of the Illinois Policy Institute: “For all the talk about fiscal responsibility and avoiding ‘magic bean’ solutions, Pritzker’s budget is built on thinking he urges us all to reject.”

Among them, state Sen. Rachel Ventura filed Senate Bill 45: no person may intentionally drag or pull any bovine by its tail by any means for the purpose of entertainment, sport, practice or contest.

A middle school in Illinois reportedly forced a class of 13-year-old girls to change in front of a trans-identified male student in the school locker rooms after a Physical Education class, according to the mother of one of the girls involved.

Between 2020 and 2024, California, New York, and Illinois each lost more than 100,000 thousand residents. Florida and Texas, meanwhile, both gained around 2 million residents. The disparity is shocking. If the numbers hold, “the electoral impact could be disastrous for Democrats.”

Former Chicago mayor and Obama White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is laying the groundwork for a potential 2028 presidential campaign. Almost immediately after that news was broken by Politico, various and sundry Democrats began voicing negative reactions that ranged from exasperated boredom to outright disgust.

Lucas Meyer, a former president of the New Hampshire Young Democrats who chairs the advocacy group 603 Forward, called it a “wide-open field” for Democrats. “The crowd of leadership at the top of the Democratic Party isn’t very deep at the moment,” he observed. “There’s oxygen there for someone.”