My state is a solid blue state, but it wasn’t always that way.
In the 20th century, only twice, in 1912 and 1916, Illinois failed to back the presidential winner in the general election.
The Land of Lincoln, the home of the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, began its slide to the left in 1988, when George H.W. Bush won Illinois by just 95,000 votes in his blowout win, nationally that is, over Michael Dukakis. Democrat gerrymandering and feckless leadership from the state GOP have demoralized Illinois conservatives. Real conservatives, that is, not the country club phonies who are embarrassed by Donald Trump.
Illinois has now gone hard left, thanks to decades of gerrymandering. At the top of the heap is likely 2028 presidential candidate, J.B. Pritzker, who is nearly halfway into his second term as governor.
To embellish his woke credentials for his presidential run, Pritzker signed into law and championed the SAFE-T Act, which abolishes cash bail in Illinois. It’s been in effect for nine months. The numbers are still coming in, but at least in Chicago, other than a slight dip in murders, violent crime is up.
Still, criminals manage to get caught and convicted in Illinois, despite the presence until December of a George Soros-funded so-called prosecutor, Kim Foxx, in the state’s largest county, Cook.
But some of those unlucky Illinois crooks soon may not soon be officially known as “felons,” “offenders,” or “convicts” or “ex-cons,” If it’s not on his desk already, it soon will be, but Illinois House Bill 4409 will classify participants in the Adult Redeploy Illinois program as “justice-impacted individuals.”
To be fair, not all convicted criminals in the state will be referred to as such if Pritzker signs HB 4409 into law, but considering that the billionaire governor has proven to be cautious about being out-woked, look for all lawbreakers to be referred to be officially classified as such in that sanitized, Orwellian phrase.
Conservatives and centrists, who, despite Democratic dominance in in the Land of Lincoln, still make up a majority in this state, have two surefire ways to fight back.
The other method of attack is to refer to criminals, when a progressive is in earshot or likely to read a social media post, as “justice-impacted individuals.” Leftists can’t process the wrongheadedness of their political beliefs, such as men being able to give birth, and they despise ridicule.
Believers in common sense, you have your assignment. Think of yourselves as Groucho Marx and the leftist in front of you as the kind of pompous fool the legendary comedian regularly humiliated.
With some laughs, we might be able turn Illinois, even slightly, to the right direction.
Amazingly, the quiet presidential campaign of J.B. Pritzker, a billionaire pol from the family that created the Hyatt hotel chain and more, continues. That says about the girth of Illinois governor’s ego and the threadbare status of the Democratic presidential bench, as the failures of the Joe Biden administration continue to mount.
Illinois, despite the influx of COVID bailout cash, remains a financial basket case. At best, Pritzker and his fellow Democrats have only chipped away at the state’s pension bomb. Illinois has the worst-funded public pension system among the states. In 2021 the Prairie State lost 122,000 residents, only New York and the District of Columbia, percentage-wise, saw a bigger population drop.
At Wirepoints, Mark Glennon, justifiably eviscerated Pritzker in his critique of the governor’s trial run of a presidential campaign speech given last weekend in Florida. Yes, Florida, the place that Democrats, including Pritzker’s wife during the worst period of the COVID-19 lockdowns, flock to, despite the governorship of Ron DeSantis, a man they hate. Oh, while in Florida–Pritzker was there to give the keynote speech at a gathering of Florida Democrats–he contracted COVID. I wish him well–as someone who was afflicted with COVID last month, I can say that it is not an enjoyable experience.
I’m going to focus on just a couple of items from Pritzker’s dishonest Florida speech. “We honor the results of elections,” Pritzker said, obviously alluding to the Capitol Riot and its show trial investigation of it by the House January 6th Committee. In response Glennon retorted, “In Illinois, that would be elections based on the most gerrymandered map in the nation, which he approved in violation of what many regarded as his most important campaign promise – to deliver fair maps.” Yes, Pritzker repeatedly vowed as a candidate in 2018 to veto gerrymandered legislative and congressional maps. The Democratic supermajorities in the General Assembly–in place because of the 2011 gerrymandered map–sent to Pritzker’s desk new contorted legislative maps, which Pritzker signed into law.
Pritzker lied–and free and fair congressional and state legislative elections in the Land of Lincoln died. But since Glennon’s article was posted, the Chicago Tribune revealed that Pritzker this year contributed $24 million to the Democratic Governors Association. That group spent millions on ads supporting the most conservative Republican candidate running to replace Pritzker this autumn, state Sen. Darren Bailey, who easily won the GOP nomination. Yes, I voted for Bailey.
As with other races the DGA has meddled in, the group saw Bailey as the most conservative, or in their likely thoughts, the most extreme candidate. And presumably the easiest one for Democrats to defeat in November. But such a ploy might backfire. In another Republican gubernatorial primary race that the Democratic Governors Association meddled in, its preferred “extreme” candidate, Doug Mastriano, trails the Democratic nominee by only a few points. Yes, he can win, which has some Dems nervous.
On the flipside, imagine the mainstream media uproar if Republicans funded the campaigns of a Bernie Bro socialist running in a Democratic primary. They’d cry, “Election interference,” and “This is undermining free and fair elections!”
A couple of times in my lifetime–on the presidential level–Democrats received the GOP general election candidate they were rooting for, Ronald Reagan in 1980 and Donald Trump in 2016. You know what happened.
Bailey, in deep blue Illinois, faces a tougher hurdle than Mastriano. But much can happen in the next four months, and Joe Biden’s continued mismanagement of the economy, the border–heck, his complete mismanagement of everything–may compel moderate Land of Lincoln voters to send a message to the Democrats.
Are there enough such Illinoisans to send Pritzker packing?
Because of high taxes, Illinoisans suffer from among the highest gasoline prices in the nation. Pritzker, under the guise of a tax cut, is forcing Illinois gas station owners to post signs informing motorists of the “tax cut,” which is really a delay in an inflation adjustment, suspending it until December. Gas station operators who refuse to post the required signage face a $500-a-day fine. Without the fine threat, Illinois grocers are also being forced to post similar signage about a one-year suspension of a one-percent sales tax.
If Pritzker prevails over Bailey, look for his presidential campaign to begin. It will fail. Pritzker is not a likable candidate–and Illinois’ standards are low. His flat speeches are drenched in condescension. Pritzker comes across as a sleazy closer at a Las Vegas timeshare presentation, a meeting that you only agreed to endure after being promised free show tickets and two glasses of wine “Sign here,” he’d say, “you won’t regret it,” as all 350 pounds of him leans into you.
But not even alcohol can make Pritzker more palatable.
There is speculation that Illinois’ Democrat governor, J.B. Pritzker, is considering a run for president. A visit last week to New Hampshire is his first clue.
But Pritzker, a billionaire scion of the family that owns the Hyatt Corporation, faces reelection for governor this fall. I’ll be voting for the Republican candidate, and I of course dearly hope whoever the GOP entry is in November will make Pritzker a one-term governor.
There are many reasons to be against Pritzker for governor–and president. Let’s get started on why.
Gerrymandering. As a candidate in 2018, Pritzker vowed several times to veto gerrymandered legislative maps. He lied. Unless you are an aficionado of Cubist art or a Democrat activist, the 2021 census remaps, are a disgrace to democracy.
Budget. Illinois hasn’t had a balanced budget since 2001, when Republican George H. Ryan–yeah, Ryan was a bad guy–was governor and there was a GOP majority in the state Senate. In one of his first ads for his reelection campaign, Pritzker claimed the Prairie State’s budget is balanced. It’s not, unless you figure in trickery and federal COVID-19 bailout money. With a Republican majority a near certainty in the US House, Pritzker and the Democrats can’t count on bailout cash for Illinois’ next budget.
Crime. While I’ll concede that governors don’t have much control over local law enforcement, if you think crime is bad in Illinois now, just wait until New Year’s Day, when Illinois’ no-cash bail law goes into effect–after the general election votes are counted this autumn. There are still instances when judges can lock up accused criminals. But of course, big time crooks also commit small time crimes. Petty crooks often move on to become big-time crooks. Cook County’s state’s attorney is Kim Foxx, a George Soros-funded pro-criminal so-called prosecutor. If Pritzker has ever criticized Foxx, I missed it. Pritzker signed the no-cash bail bill into law in February of 2021. If it’s such a good bill, then why didn’t no-cash bail go into effect immediately?
Last year Cook County, which included Chicago and it’s where I live, recorded over 1,000 murders for the first time since 1994.
COVID. The lockdowns in Illinois were among the longest and most severe. But his wife, M.K., and his daughter spent two months in Florida in the spring of 2020. Florida’s lockdown policies were less stringent. Pritzker claims that his family were in Florida before the pandemic was declared. But the governor didn’t reveal that information until two months later.
Stagnant population. Illinois had lost population, according to the US Census, every year since 2014. Or had it? But like late night ballots arriving in big-city polling places, the Census Bureau said, wait, no, Illinois gained population between 2010 and 2020. But growth, such as it is, can rightly be called anemic.
Corruption. Until it appeared that the US Attorney’s office for Northern Illinois was finally closing in on Boss Michael Madigan, who was for decades the most powerful Democrat in the state, Pritzker was silent on the Illinois Democratic Party chair and longtime state House speaker. Only after a surprisingly lackluster 2020 general election for Prairie State Democrats did Pritzker issue a half-hearted call for Madigan to resign as speaker. The Boss failed to win reelection as House speaker last year and then he quickly resigned as Illinois Dem party chair.
Three months ago, Madigan was indicted on numerous racketeering charges by the feds. Illinois is generally considered one of the most corrupt states in the Union. Even the Washington Post agrees. What is Pritzker doing to fight criminality by Illinois public officials? I can’t see any evidence that he is doing anything.
Toilets. Pritzker and his wife own two mansions on Astor Street on Chicago’s North Side. Allegedly looking for a property tax break, M.K. had the toilets removed from the one that Illinois’ future first couple didn’t live in. Then she had that mansion declared “uninhabitable,” so the Pritzkers could score that tax break. The Pritzkers later paid Cook County back the money from that sleazy move.
Boss Madigan graphic courtesy of the Illinois Policy Institute
By John Ruberry
Last week, yes know it’s a cliche, but hell froze over in Illinois when Boss Michael Madigan was indicted on 22 corruption counts. I was a common assumption that Madigan never used email–after all, the feds might be reading those messages.
But the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois, led by a Donald Trump appointee, John Lausch, got the job done
Coded language didn’t work. Madigan cronies, in secretly recorded conversations, would avoid Madigan’s name, referring to him as “our friend” or “a friend of ours.” Ironically, the mafia name for themselves is “La Cosa Nostra,” which roughly translates from Italian into “our thing” or “this thing of ours.”
I’ve written about Madigan many times at Da Tech Guy. In short, he’s the man who destroyed Illinois. When Madigan was first elected as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives, Illinois had 26 electoral votes. For the 2024 presidential election the Land of Lincoln will make do with just 19. Illinois has lost population every year since 2014 and over 100,000 people bailed on Madiganstan from July 2020 thru July 2021.
Corruption is rampant in Illinois. And Illinois faces a millstone with Madigan’s dirty fingerprints all over it, unfunded state pension obligations, among the worst among the fifty states. Madigan was more interested in rewarding his public-sector union pals than properly funding their pension plans.
In 1983, Madigan was elected by his fellow Democrats as state House speaker and served, with the exception of a two-year span in the 1990s when the Republicans won control of the lower chamber, until last year, when the hint of scandal finally caught up with him. In 1998 Madigan was elected chairman of the state Democratic Party. Madigan remains committeeman of Chicago’s 13th Ward, a post he’s held since 1969. That seems like an insignificant position, but in 2007 when another ethically challenged pol was elected of as chairman of the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization, “the Machine,” there was just one nomination–for Joseph Berrios. Madigan nominated him.
Since the 1970s, the Boss has been a partner in a small but lucrative Chicago law firm, Madigan and Getzendanner, which specializes in property tax appeals. Who sets property tax rates? Politicians of course, most of whom are Democrats in Blue Illinois.
There is the Machine–but then there is what the federal indictment of Madigan calls “the Madigan Enterprise.”
Defendant MICHAEL J. MADIGAN, defendant MICHAEL F. McCLAIN, the Office of the Speaker, the Thirteenth Ward Democratic Organization, Madigan & Getzendanner, and others known and unknown together constituted an enterprise as that term is defined in Title 18, United States Code, Section 1961(4), that is, a group of individuals and entities associated in fact (referred to herein as the “Madigan Enterprise” or the “enterprise”). The Madigan Enterprise was engaged in, and its activities affected, interstate commerce. The Madigan Enterprise constituted an ongoing organization whose members functioned as a continuing unit for the common purpose of achieving the objectives of the enterprise.
The purposes of the Madigan Enterprise included but were not limited to: (i) to exercise, to preserve, and to enhance MADIGAN’s political power and financial well-being; (ii) to financially reward MADIGAN’s political allies, political workers, and associates for their loyalty, association with, and work for MADIGAN; and (iii) to generate income for members and associates of the enterprise through illegal activities.
The illegal activities committed by members and associates of the Madigan Enterprise included, but were not limited to: (a) soliciting and receiving bribes and unlawful personal financial advantage from persons and parties having business with the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago, or otherwise subject to the authority and powers vested in MADIGAN and other public officials acting on MADIGAN’s behalf; (b) using MADIGAN’s powers as Speaker, including his ability to affect the progress of bills in the House of Representatives, as well as his control over the resources of the Office of the Speaker, including its staff, in order to cause third parties to financially reward MADIGAN, his political allies, political workers, and associates; (c) using threats, intimidation, and extortion to solicit benefits from private parties; and (d) using facilities of interstate commerce to coordinate, plan, and further the goals of the enterprise.
In short, Madigan, according to the feds, was running a racket. Madigan supporters, the indictment alleges, were given no-show or little-show jobs, and the graft goes beyond state and local government. Much of the indictment covers Madigan and his associates allegedly strong-arming Commonwealth Edison, the electric utility for Northern Illinois, in exchange for legislation favoring the company.
Madigan was typically unanimously or near-unanimously reelected House speaker and party chair. The rest of the Democratic Party was along for the ride. All the while they were calling Republicans evil, racist, and lots of other things.
More from that indictment.
MADIGAN utilized his position as Chairman of the Democratic Party of Illinois to influence and garner loyalty from legislators by providing or withholding staff and funding to legislators and their campaigns [bold print emphasis mine]. MADIGAN utilized his position as a partner in Madigan & Getzendanner to reap the benefits of private legal work unlawfully steered to his law firm. MADIGAN directed the activities of his close friend and associate, McCLAIN, who carried out illegal activity at MADIGAN’s direction.
McClain, by the way, is a former member of the state House and a longtime Madigan crony.
As for Madigan, politically he is a soulless person, other than maybe thinking of himself as an FDR/JFK New Deal/New Frontier Democrat. Madigan was all about the power and the money to keep that power, reminiscent, not of the political bosses of old, such as New York’s Willam M. Tweed or his idol, Chicago’s Richard J. Daley, but as a political version of V.M. Varga from Season 3 of Fargo. That villain was fabulously wealthy, but Varga wore the same cheap business suit every day–he slept every night in a tractor trailer. Yes, Madigan lives well, but his first love, perhaps his only one, is power.
For sixteen years of Boss Madigan’s reign of error and terror, Illinois’ attorney general was his daughter, Lisa.
And do you seriously believe that his fellow Illinois Democrats didn’t smell the stench? After all, Madigan, who was also a master gerrymanderer, was good to them. With Madigan in charge in the state House and their party, they almost always won. Only when the Commonwealth Edison scandal got too close to the Boss did the Dems in the state House dump him. Madigan resigned his party chair post shortly after his ouster from the speaker’s post.
Illinois Democrats knew Madigan was running a cronyism machine. They always did. And they didn’t care.
Madigan won’t be on the ballot in Illinois this fall. But the Little Madigans will be.
John Ruberry regularly blogs from the Chicago area at Marathon Pundit and is a Commonwealth Edison customer.
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