By: Mark Glennon*
Gov. JB Pritzker’s fact-indifferent routine for dismissing criticism reached a new low last week. “Carnival barkers,” his standard response to any critics, apparently now includes the Wall Street Journal, or at least sources like Wirepoints that they cite.
When asked about criticism of him by the Journal, Pritzker said this in an interview by Illinois Public Media:
But the Wall Street Journal, unfortunately they listen to the carnival barkers that are here in Illinois, the spelunkers for misery in Illinois, and they cite them in their editorials. They make no bones about the fact that they’ll just take the made up stuff, the Facebook fakery, from those organizations in Illinois and publish them on the editorial pages of one of the great newspapers in the country, certainly one of the most successful ones. It’s frustrating that they do that they don’t seem to know much about Illinois.
Pritzker presumably was referring in particular to a Journal editorial headlined Illinois’ Shocking Report Card, which cited Wirepoints’ report on abysmal outcomes in Illinois schools. Last fall, he said the information in that editorial “was provided to them by a right-wing carnival barker organization here in the state of Illinois. It’s just wrong, they are wrong.”
But our report was based entirely on data from Pritzker’s own agency, the Illinois Board of Education. The education data the governor says is “just wrong” comes straight from the board’s Illinois Report Card website and its data library. Every datapoint Wirepoints reported, and that the Journal cited, on student reading and math proficiencies, teacher proficiency ratings, district graduation rates and more can be found there.
So, Governor, tell us specifically: What did Wirepoints or the Journal get wrong? We say everything we have written is correct and the Journal has always cited our work accurately. What “stuff” have we ever “made up”? What “Facebook fakery” have we or the Journal ever printed about you? In the other Journal columns criticizing you that cited us, state anything you claim is untrue.
Pritzker no doubt figures he can marginalize critics by dismissing them with name calling alone because mainstream Illinois media never challenges him on anything. The name calling doesn’t bother us, but lying about the accuracy of our or anybody else’s work is different.
In his speech at The Illinois State Fair last week, he said, “The problem is this: Here in Illinois, we have a low tolerance for bullshit.”
Wrong. Tolerance for it is a central problem in Illinois.
*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.
Earlier related articles:
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
The Press, such as WGN, are DNC TV.
Excellent response to this blowhard!
Sadly, he doesn’t need to put up in this state 🙁 I was in a local forum and people were dismissing Wirepoints as “right wing”. I argued everything here is well-sourced but people don’t care. JB knows if he slaps that moniker on you, enough people simply won’t care what you have to say. Discouraging as all get out.
Labels and name calling are all they got. “Right wing” is the current favorite.
So true. Portly pugsley da pigster doesn’t care about Illinois. He only likes to call people names.
George, total lack of self-awareness is a nasty thing.
I agree. Portly pugsley pigster is nasty and not self aware.
Illinois is becoming the laughingstock of the country.
I would be honored to be a carnival barker
For JB aka “ The fattest man alive “,
Aka “ Zippy the Pinhead “
The worst part about being lied to is knowing you weren’t worth the truth.
Humility is nothing but truth, and pride is nothing but lying.
There are few reasons for telling the truth, but for lying the number is infinite.
A story teller makes up things to help other people; a liar makes up things to help himself.
A visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others.
Pick one of these quotes or all of them if they apply. He’s not fooling anyone.
Thumbs down, does that mean that 3 of you think it’s okay for these Politicians to lie to us? Or does it mean that 3 of you are or know someone on the Pritzker payroll and you have to disagree?
“Pride comes before destruction, and an arrogant spirit before a fall.”
Proverbs 16:18
King Solomon wrote this thousands of years ago. Pride and arrogance (and gluttony) are truly JB’s most defining qualities. JB ignores the wisdom of his ancestors at his own peril.
Remember Blago’s famous comment that he’s got nothing but sunshine over his head, and two days later, the FBI raided his home? He was under active FBI surveillance all the while JB was implicitly bribing Blago for a state position?
Remember those amazing Rauner commercials where he just played that tape on TV thousands of time leading up to the election, and yet, 800,000 new voters showed up in 2018 compared to 2014, and every one of them was a straight Democrat ticket?
I remember that vividly.
Also, as for JB’s presidential concerns, I listen to a lot of national talk radio, and virtually nobody is talking about JB as a serious primary contender. Nobody. Not as a dark horse, not as a back up. No one seems to think he has any serious chance.
‘Name calling’ is a lazy man’s argument.
I couldn’t agree more, yet it’s ironic your comment appears on this website where that’s a go-to response for numerous commenters. Name calling is tolerated and maybe even appreciated here by some apparently or it would gradually disappear one way or another.
Why is it OK for JB to call me a carnival barking fascist racist transphobe……but when I call him Fatty McFatso, you clutch your pearls?
Your premise is wrong as I see it. It’s not okay in my book for either to do that, but the fact is he presumably has never been a reader or commenter here.
Exactly! It starts with people employing goofy names and then devolves into vitriol, persistent swearing, antisemitism, and talking like Yoda. Bad actors up vote and promote this type of behavior because it undermines the conversation and ultimately destroys site credibility.
I’m confused. Wouldn’t 6 be in favor of this comment? Who is the 6?
Pay no attention to the votes. You’ll soon recognize who to read and who to skip over. A bunch of downvotes are a sign that someone got triggered because they can’t handle criticism and they have their friends come here and downvote. Usually only happens when you criticize teachers, unions or state government.
I trust the dummy in the bed more than I do the Gov.
Where’s Da Judge ?
Dont worry Da Judge is here. Fighting da censorship of Marky Mark and da funky bunch.
would buy the T-shirt
JB may win the presidency. They are bringing back Covid, masks, vaccine mandates, etc. For the purpose of having mail in ballots again. Elections are rigged. There is no reason to bring back the Covid era except to help rig 2024.
Some on the Left are calling for Biden to declare a ‘climate emergency’ and thus postpone the 2024 election. We certainly know how that works in IL with indefinite emergency authority.
But yeah, at the minimum the Left is taking steps for a rigged election again. And why not?
With crime against postal workers a near every day occurrence, how are we to believe that mail-in ballots will somehow escape the clutches of the thieves and vandals and arrive at the proper facility in time to be properly counted in the election? If you believe that mail-in ballots are secure there is a bridge in Brooklyn I could sell you.
The pigster is a liar. He has raised taxes. Spent tax dollars in a moronic fashion. Given unions powers beyond the legislature. Pigster is a subversive communist.
The thing is though my guess is Pritzker’s voting base contains a considerable amount of people who don’t pay taxes and a lot of the people that do pay taxes don’t take the time to vote for various reasons.
Mark: Fabulous rebuttal to the lying, carnival barker in your Governor’s mansion. We have our own, similar disaster here in Annapolis, our new Gov Wes Moore. He’s ignoring the issues of Baltimore, the most recent being the Md State Dept of Ed, Mohammed Choudhury, has been caught lying and covering up for lies in the Balto school system figures that show massive cheating in the ratings and test scores. Our Gov doesn’t seem to care. Even our previous Gov, RINO Hogan, didn’t care about Balto falling apart and descending into chaos and a dystopian nightmare. Oh well, I don’t like… Read more »
Wirepoints: suggest you post link to Daniel Klein’s recent essay “Misinformation Is a Word We Use to Shut You Up”. He’s a professor of economics at George Mason, wrote book “Central Notions of Smithian Liberalism”, recent guest on Jim Kunstler’s podcast.
Thanks. I read that months ago. I still don’t understand the trend in beating up readers with aggressive opposition talking points. Nobody likes being told to “Shut Up,” and you can’t beat people to improve morale. There are far better ways to frame an essay like this, assuming you’re looking to persuade. First off, humans are a lot more intelligent than given credit for and there’s plenty of data to prove it. There’s far more compelling material out there, but I’m waiting to drop it at the right time. https://www.simplypsychology.org/flynn-effect.html The etymological origin of disinformation and misinformation is MILDEC (military… Read more »
Facts aren’t relevant to Pritzker.
“Low tolerance for bullshit”
The state fair butter cow isn’t made entirely of butter.
https://twitter.com/BenSzalinski/status/1693715122630320604
I was on crapfax yesterday, those people are scary. They asked if Pritzker were to become president (I don’t see it) who should the next governor be. The suggestions – Kwame, Chris Welch, Don Harmon, Susanna Mendoza. This state is screwed.
Considering those are statewide leaders in the Democratic Party and those individuals support Democrats, that makes perfect sense. Who were you thinking they would support?
So I’m guessing liberals have found this website. It has to be liberals. They hide behind their comments and don’t think they need to explain their opinions. Too bad they’re out numbered here.
I could see Mendoza and Welch running. Don has all the traditional connections but doesn’t check the right boxes. Kwame is too wooden. Biss might get back in the game.
I think kwame see himself in dc along w jb
Re the typical left behavior, when your policies/ arguments are shown to be a bunch of socialist nonsense, then begin the name calling. Next, get violent and start crying. This clown reads like the Communist Manifesto.
Pritzker/Johnson – a union-made disaster and the two biggest nails in the coffin of the once great State of Illinois. Chicago is already dead and buried.
Such a shame. Sadly it seems many that are still here like this collapse or are indifferent about it.
It is infuriating that Governor Rauner had to endure a hostile media day in and day out, however Governer Pritzker is lauded and given a free pass each and every day. The press is complicit in the fall of Illinois. And it will happen eventually. Case in point is the state of the schools.
Because Rauner inherited a tax rate that put him in a financial hole while JB inherited the tax rate that fixed everything with an unprecedented influx of free federal dollars.
Pugsley got into college and law school thanks to his crooked tax cheat generational wealth family money — he couldn’t argue his way out of a wet paper bag
Wait until Jumbo Belly finds out focus group that came up with phrase carnival barker copyrighted it so he owes them a check from his trust fund every time he uses it.
Everything Wirepoints publishes is backed by irrefutable data, and it’s normally the oppositions’s data to boot.
WP is exactly correct. Tolerance for BS, and/or indifference to it, is certainly ‘problem 1’ in Illinois. It’s the ‘foundational problem’. All the stuff that’s wrong in Illinois, or not nearly ‘right’ enough – pestilentially pyrrhic taxes, crime, unsustainable public debt, K-12 academic failure, public aid dependency, population loss, business loss, racial animosity – they’re all built on top of the foundation of an unquestioning and uninformed, cowed, controlled or bribed citizenry. Small wonder, then, that the softball-pitching NPR reporter didn’t even ask Pritzker about Illinois’ failing public schools in his interview. That was no accidental omission, and everyone with… Read more »
Anyone here think Pritzker could come close to winning a real primary for a nomination? Someone so completely untested, never questioned, never in the ring with a real challenger? Someone who’s whole political career is buying votes and being a stooge for public employee union bosses? I highly doubt it.
I think you are badly underestimating how far left the Dem primary voters are, and what they want to hear. I think Pritzker is laser focused on appealing to them and figures he can worry about the general election later. Look at his presidential teaser speeches in New Hampshire, Miami and last week at the State Fair. They are rocket fuel for Dem primary voters — full throated embrace of the radical populism, the red meat they want to hear, complete with calling his opponents “fascists.”
Who are these people, how many of them are there, and what do they want? I can’t figure out the answer to any of these questions. I have yet to see any legitimate studies or polls, and this tells me that there probably are a lot less than claimed. Hard core extremists never grow beyond 5% of the population. I’ve got plenty of stats to back this up too. Trump is getting 50 thousand people showing up to his rallies. Pritzker? Pritzker bought his office and paid for extremist opposition. Facebook users wreck every one of Pritzker’s adds. Fox 32… Read more »
Bingo, David. They are at the very best 30% of voters, probably much less. But they have punched way above their weight in elections, which we will be writing about. Polls overwhelmingly show that it’s the ruling progressives who are the outliers and out of touch on almost all major issues. Illinoisans, too, are moderates, according to what polls say on the issues and how they self-identify. Yet their views on the issues are labeled as “right wing” by Illinois media and Illinois progressives..
The problem is also an inept right wing who have had multiple opportunities to take the reasonable/moderate approach on issues to gain the independent voters necessary to win but have not. Abortion is a perfect example. Instead of taking the reasonable approach like the rest of the world (13 to 18 weeks), they go to completely banning it That’s not only how you lose the moderate women vote but embolden the crazies even further. Republicans need to make decisions that box progressives in a corner. Like student debt: draw up legislation that makes student loans interest free for 5-10 years… Read more »
The fallacy of this logic is that you assume a normie Democrat or Independent Moloch worshiper will accept a reasonable approach of 13-18 weeks. There is no evidence of this. In fact, the 7 or 8 lost abortion elections in various states shows that, for Democrats, unlimited access to abortion is a tenet of their religion, a sacrament not to be defiled. Abortion motivates Democrats like none other to walk over broken class to vote to sacrifice their own progeny. College educated Democrat voters won’t suddenly switch to Republicans over interest free student loans. They wouldn’t even know that Republicans… Read more »
Totally agree, once again. No way a independent/moderate like me would ever vote for a Baily or Trump. But its chump change for a JB to throw around a couple $100 mil in offshore family trust bucks to make sure a Baily’s is his opponent. I would, however, vote for a Lopez in a heart beat and it will be interesting to see if the machine swift-boats him in a flash.
Totally agree.
Many of the people showing up for the staged Pritzker extremist campaign speeches I believe are Democrat party workers, i.e. teachers, SEIU, postal employees, federal employees, BLM agitators, AME church officials. Do these people represent the core/ base of the Democrat party now? Possible.
Agree, in Illinois the formula’s pretty simple and hard to beat. You got a base 100% voter lock/ voter turnout from your guaranteed not to be diminished, upper middle-class, public sec folks (13%) + spouses and family members = 26%?. Throw in public sec retirees + spouses and family members and your easily at 30%. I really don’t think any of the public sec base care about all the progressive/equity stuff but are happy to go along with it as long as it helps them secure an Amendment 1, etc. Then all the fake progressive/equity stuff, JB throwing around $billions… Read more »
Attend one of your local rep’s forums. It’s at least half full of public sector employees and union reps. You can tell because they usually wear their union swag. I’d say maybe one-third of the audience is regular citizens.
Yes he can. Elections are rigged, mail in ballots have no chain of custody, they can be made to flow as to provide “just enough” fraudulent votes to a candidate.
I’ve been trying to figure out how JB the Hutt can possibly believe he has any chance of beating Gavin Newsom in a head to head primary contest. Well, I think I may have found an answer: seems that Newsom isn’t doing as well as expected with Black voters. Or maybe he has some reason to believe Newsom won’t run after all?
Newsome’s flip flop on reparations is going to cost him dearly. Unlike Pritzger and others, he can’t get away with making foolish promises and reneging on them.
Don’t think Pritzker is particularly appealing to any voter. Not smart, not empathetic, not charismatic, no semblance of personal ethics (toilet-gate just one example).
Issue is he can self-fund his election campaign entirely on his own, did so here in Illinois. He also is willing to contribute to most alienating candidate on Republican-side, as he did for Bailey, to assure he runs against the weakest alternate candidate.
Absolutely incredible that this guy gets away with what he does. There is no responsible media coverage of these Democrat failures. He says the statistics presented by his own Department of Education are wrong, and there is no media outcry about it. Kudos to Wirepoints and the WSJ for covering this disgrace. You just know what the solution from the State of Illinois will be right? He will change the way his own department keeps the books so all of a sudden there isn’t much of a problem any more. And the kids will continue to get substandard educations
Pritzker speaks to the crowd that supports him and as we can see Pritzker’s supporters probably don’t read the Wall Street Journal if they read anything at all beyond the sports pages.
Pritzker needs to be called out as racist who is doing everything in his power to subjugate every child who can’t afford a private education to a meaningless public education that will have little value in the real world of life beyond high school.