By: Mark Glennon*
“Violence is never the answer in our democracy,” wrote countless Illinois officials on Sunday, including Gov. JB Pritzker, about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. Particularly significant, for reasons you will see, is Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who wrote on Sunday, “Political violence has no place in our democracy and I wholeheartedly condemn it.”
Where were such voices when the precedent was set – when political violence against the Trump campaign first got the green light?
The date is clear. It was early in Trump’s first campaign – March 11, 2016.
That’s when a concerted effort by Democratic party operatives to incite violence succeeded in causing cancellation of a Trump rally planned for that night at the University of Illinois in Chicago. Video evidence of that effort is clear. A former federal prosecutor said the tape is “absolutely prima facie evidence of criminal activity” — both federal and state criminal laws.
We wrote about it then. Our full column is linked below. Read the whole thing.
The warning was ignored. No Democratic official to my knowledge ever condemned the incitement to violence. Most of the legacy media never condemned it, either. Few consequences were imposed on the perpetrators. Schakowsky’s husband, Robert Creamer, a long-time Democratic political operative who was central in the video evidence, merely “stepped back” from his campaign role, and one of his underlings was dismissed.
Nor were any criminal charges made. Not by the Cook County State’s Attorney, the Illinois Attorney General or the U.S. Justice Department.
The violence at the rally was preceded that evening by a particularly ugly and inciteful protest outside the Palmer House hotel in Chicago in which Schakowsky herself participated. I saw it myself and described it here.
“Whatever it takes” to defeat Trump became the rule. The ends came to justify the means.
Democrats had planned daily press conferences this week to highlight “the grave danger that Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans pose to our democracy, our rights and our livelihoods,” as the Chicago Sun-Times reported Monday, but they have paused that messaging. Pritzker was among those to hold a press conference, which was cancelled. Good.
Prior to Trump’s shooting on Saturday, Pritzker said his party “stopped being so damn afraid of a little chaos and just embraced it as the path from here to there, we will win.”
Be thankful Pritzker got only the “little chaos” he was fine with. A one-inch difference would have shattered Trump’s head and national bedlam would have ensued.
Too bad, however, that only now Schakowsky and so many others see that violence has no place in a democracy.
*******************
From 2016:
Provoking Violence to Disrupt Political Activity Must be Stopped Cold
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.
-Thomas Paine
By: Mark Glennon
Clear video evidence shows a concerted effort by the Democratic party to incite violence to disrupt political activity of Donald Trump and others. If you haven’t seen the must-see video, it’s linked here. The central figure is Chicagoan Robert Creamer, husband of Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who is properly implicated, too. Creamer is subsequently reported to have visited the White House over 340 times since 2009.
Don’t tell me to ignore the video because the guy behind it is a conservative with a questionable background of selective editing. Most of the evidence in the video is self-contained and would not be diminished by whatever was omitted. It wouldn’t matter if the devil himself filmed the tape. Former federal prosecutor Joe diGenova says the tape is “absolutely prima facie evidence of criminal activity” — both federal and state criminal laws, he says.
Don’t tell me Jan Schakowsky isn’t part of this. On the night of the cancelled Trump rally at UIC where violence broke out, she led her own, separate demonstration at a GOP dinner at the Palmer House in Chicago. I was there. I, and many others, can attest to how clearly the demonstrators were intent on provoking a violent reaction. They blocked the entrance to the Palmer House, yelling “bigot,” “Gang of Hate,” and worse, personal insults. When they blocked traffic on Monroe Street, one vehicle seemed to threaten to hit the protesters.
I wrote the day after about how “rabid” and “incendiary” the protesters were. Now we know why. They carried signs bearing the name of the group Creamer and Scott Foval were helping — Americans United for Change. Some were bused in and there’s every reason to suspect they were among those recruited by Creamer’s operation. Schakowsky and Creamer have a long history of dirty campaigning. Creamer is already a convicted felon.
And don’t tell me the Democratic Party, Creamer and Schakowsky really believe nothing wrong was done by anybody, which each is now saying. They fired Scott Foval, the key operative in the video. If he was just an innocent victim of a right wing smear they’d be defending him. Creamer says he “stepped back” from his Clinton campaign duties. (However, it’s not at all clear that he’s ceased his other functions, including work for Schakowsky’s campaign, which he does through Democracy Partners, one of the organizations at the center of the video.)
Here’s what’s needed:
Law must be enforced. The video indicates a list of state and federal violations, from incitement up to civil rights violations. Where are the Cook County State’s Attorney, the Illinois Attorney General and the Department of Justice? Foolish question, I know, given how politicized they’ve become, but this has got to end. The Wisconsin Attorney General has already said crimes appear to have been committed and he is considering an investigation. Illinois and federal enforcement officials should have already announced investigations.
The press must wake up. Astonishingly, not a single paper in Illinois has made an editorial comment on the scandal, called for an investigation or asked how deep the scandal goes.
Voters must step back and consider the essential fabric on which democracy is built. If they close their eyes to recruiting the homeless and mentally ill to use violence to stifle political opposition, all is hopeless.
*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.
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.
No one, not Creamer, not Foval, not any of the other individuals you talk about, were ever charged of any wrongdoing in either the 2016 or 2020 elections. In fact, each of them were cleared under multiple investigations by attorneys general in multiple states and the FEC. In Creamer’s case, his firm even won a lawsuit against Project Veritas for libel and slander.
Pritzker and the Democratic Party’s fear of Donald Trump is attributed to his success in the tough New York political scene and on the national stage. Even the Teamsters lauded the toughness of Trump. His return to the presidency poses a significant threat to the Democrats’ total control of both the state and the nation, and they will go to great lengths to prevent his return to office.
Good to see the Goons are reading Wirepoints. These extortionists are the problem.
The Illinois Democratic Party is the party of Goons. They watch everything including Wirepoints.
Democrats can get away with this kind of rioting and violence with impunity knowing that their lapdogs in the Pravda Media will cover for them and conveniently memory-hole events. “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
Typical sh*tbag democrats
Good information Mark. The Video is, well, scary if I am honest. To think there are these people out there being paid to manipulate crowds to show them in a bad light, to prey on emotionally disturbed people and manipulate them into causing problems and disturbances…
I mean….how friggin low can you go?
With this activity and the opinion TV shows (used to be called News) endlessly call him and anyone that supports him names and broadcasting this manipulated theatre…it is no wonder there are millions of numbskulls out there brainwashed and programmed to “orange man bad”.
Democrats are the party of violence. They are the largest domestic terrorist group.
They sure are, and evil
Knowing full well the goal of protests and the likelihood of violence and destruction, why are they protected and tolerated?
A mob is a mob is a mob.
The free speech argument doesn’t fly – free speech is a concept long lost in our country. Political correctness, identity politics, and woke ideologies restrict honest conversations – even when “the emperor has no clothes.”
Also conveniently forgotten is the DC riot, far worse than 1/6 the Dems just can’t quit harping on, when DT was inaugurated.
Wonder what they are gonna do when he’s sword in again in Jan??
Or the siege on Washington DC May 31-June3 2020. The mob burned the church by the White House and threatened to storm the White House so that Trump and family had to be evacuated to the underground bunker. Hundreds of police injured, thousands of dollars in property damage.
One of the people who rushed the podium at the disrupted Trump rally was and is a SEIU organizer, first name Kevin.
Judge them by their deeds, not their words.
Democrats – the party of intolerance, hate, and chaos. Completely unfit to lead.
Ignorance is the coin of the realm in Cook County. How on earth can anyone in a Trade Union be comfortable with these illegals flooding across the border? How can any citizen homeowner be content with the level of crime? Look for an answer from them and what you get is, “It will all eventually work itself out!”
All they do is stir things up but NEVER have an answer for peace or harmony or anything frankly ……..the only way they keep the upper hand is thru BS!!
Add to that event, the long list of conservative speakers who have had their event need to hire private security, or significantly disrupted, or outright cancelled because of violence or credible threats of violence: Ben Shapiro, Anne Coulter, Jordan Peterson, Chatles Murray, Dinesh D’Souza, Heather MacDonald, Milo Yiannopoulos (whose Berkley event got cancelled after Antifa rioters stormed the campus and set fires), Matt Walsh, Riley Gaines, to name a few. This list, in Business Insider from 2016 (https://www.businessinsider.com/list-of-disinvited-speakers-at-colleges-2016-7?op=1), includes speakers whose topics were not political, yet were disinvited because they had not said or done enough to show their allegiance… Read more »
Excellent point, things won’t change until they start cracking down on “protests” like that. When you allow that to happen then you are condoning violence and it escalates.
Well, it continues to this very day. Just last week (before the asasination attempt) BJ stated that Trump wants to bring back the Confederacy and Civil War!
Dems are ignorant, or foolish, or evil. They rule over Illinois, and they control you if you live there. What does that say about your character?
Don’t assume!!
Some people can’t AFFORD to leave or have no where else to go or have no one……..
Bad reasons. There are plenty of places cheaper to live than Illinois. People are welcome to live anywhere in the United States. Could it be that it’s simply a hassle to move?
People like you always miss the point!!
“Some people can’t AFFORD to leave”
So you’re saying that Illinois is more AFFORDABLE than other places.
whatever you say…………….
Thanks for the article, Mark. I remember reading about that event. The commies’ violence caused Trump’s rally at UIC to be cancelled. Talk about a threat to Democracy!
I didn’t know Schakowsky was involved, but I knew that her scumbag convicted felon husband was. Schakowsky is, in my opinion, a commie in Democrats’ clothing, and also a scumbag!