WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Right Ruling for the wrong reason...A British judge has blocked the extradition to the U.S. of WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, ruling that “Mr. Assange’s risk of committing suicide, if an extradition order were to be made, to be substantial.”

Trump to Raffensperger

“All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have." Raffensperger’s Twitter response: “Respectfully, President Trump: What you’re saying is not true. The truth will come out.” -- AP

Sen. Dick Durbin (IL)

President Trump's call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) "merits nothing less than a criminal investigation." In his statement calling for an investigation, the No. 2 Senate Democrat labeled the conversation as "more than a pathetic rambling, delusional rant."

"His disgraceful effort to intimidate an elected official into deliberately changing and misrepresenting the legally confirmed vote totals in his state strikes at the heart of our democracy and merits nothing less than a criminal investigation." -- The Hil

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez backs Pelosi for Speaker

...a progressive leader, backed Pelosi and told reporters that Democratic unity was important “at a time when the Republican Party is attempting an electoral coup.” -- AP

Trump ~ Fauci

The number of "China Virus" cases and deaths in the U.S. are "far exaggerated," President Donald Trump said on Twitter. He cited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's methodology. "When in doubt, call it Covid. Fake News!" Trump said.

Anthony Fauci, speaking on NBC's Meet the Press, said anyone who went into the "trenches" – intensive care units at hospitals across the nation – will quickly realize how severe the virus is. He called the statistics "real numbers, real people and real deaths."

Trump shot back on Twitter: "Something how Dr. Fauci is revered by the LameStream Media as such a great professional, having done, they say, such an incredible job, yet he works for me and the Trump Administration, and I am in no way given any credit for my work. Gee, could this just be more Fake News?" --  USA Today

When we look back on all this, the notion that Trump was impeached for the Ukraine call alone will seem utterly bizarre.

— Carlos Lozada (@CarlosLozadaWP) January 3, 2021

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Trump's federal cops descend on Portland. Chicago is next. 

Nearly two dozen lawmakers blasted Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara's letter in a joint statement Sunday.

"We resoundingly condemn FOP President John Catanzara's request that President Trump intervene in Chicago. This is a blatant attempt to instigate further violence against the young people who are leading the fight for real safety and justice in Chicago, and is particularly frightening given the situation in Portland, where unidentified federal agents have been throwing protestors into unmarked vehicles," the elected officials' statement said. "Yet as terrifying as the reports from Portland are, we must situate Catanzara's letter in the Chicago Police Department's own history of civilian torture and kidnappings. We stand with the organizers and activists who have called for an immediate end to such practices by the CPD, and the closure of Homan Square and all CPD black sites." -- ABC7

Trump tells Chris Wallace...

“I'm not losing, because those are fake polls."Not only did Trump deny the hard data, he also refused to say if he will accept the result of November’s presidential election if he comes out the loser.
“I have to see,” he said. “Look … I have to see. No, I’m not going to just say yes. I’m not going to say no..." -- Fox News Sunday

I don’t, for the life of me, understand why ppl ask @realDonaldTrump of he will “accept” the results of the election if he loses...Did I miss something in believing that it’s not up to him one way or the other...and that asking him so politely makes him believe its optional?

— Keith Eric Benson, Ed.D (@KeithEricBenson) July 19, 2020

Joe Biden
...called on Congress to provide billions of dollars in emergency funding for school districts, which say they cannot openly safely without federal assistance to make the changes necessary and purchase enough protective equipment.

“If we do this wrong, we will put lives at risk and set our economy and our country back,” Biden said in the video. -- Washington Post

Rep. Al Green (D-TX)

"America's race problem demands radical solutions like a Department of Reconciliation." -- Think

Prof. Nathaniel Persily, Stanford Law School

 It’s Not Too Late to Save the 2020 Election. Avoiding a debacle for U.S. democracy will require getting as many Americans as possible to vote by mail and ensuring that polling places are safe, convenient, and plentiful. -- Wall Street Journal

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL)

“Mark Curran’s public attack on John Lewis just days after his death is disgusting. To disparage Congressman Lewis, a truly selfless hero and relentless fighter for civil rights and equality is a new low for Curran. It is time for responsible Illinois Republican Party leaders to clearly repudiate Curran’s hateful rhetoric.” -- NBC5 

Yikes: A day after John Lewis died, Republican Senate candidate Mark Curran blasted him, says he may have been “instrumental” in civil right fight “at one time” but “got in bed with Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry.” Links it to Chicago gun violence.

— Gregory Pratt (@royalpratt) July 19, 2020

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia shake hands and hand out “know your rights” cards in Little Village.

Chuy and the Mayor

“The hateful words that we hear on a regular basis from President Trump and other people in his administration do great harm,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said. “Whether they’re intending to take action or not, we have to be diligent and we have to push back against the hate.”

Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, D-Ill., said the reversal it was “typical of the president’s bullyish ways.”  -- Sun-Times

Dr. Dolly Lucio Sevier 

After visiting Ursula facility in McAllen, which is the largest CBP detention center in the country, Dr. Sevier wrote in a medical declaration: "The conditions within which they are held could be compared to torture facilities." -- ABC News

Sen. Dick Durbin (IL)

"I voted for the war on drugs. I know why I did it." -- Politico

Danny Green

When asked if NBA champions Toronto Raptors would visit the White House, he answered: "To put it politely, I think it's a hard no." -- Sporting News

 Mick Jagger at Soldier Field concert

  'I want to welcome Lori Lightfoot ... I'm sorry Ed Burke couldn't make it tonight." -- Sun-Times

“He should apologize to the children that have been separated from their parents,” said Rep. @AOC of GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, who demanded she apologize for calling ICE detention centers “concentration camps.” https://t.co/zf2Zdt9diu by @nicholasballasy pic.twitter.com/jjLXI0bjcV

— The Intercept (@theintercept) June 21, 2019

GOP down-ticket candidates run from Trump, but not Trump-ism.

IL Senators, Durbin (left) and Kirk. 

Down-ticket Republicans are understandably swimming faster than Ryan Lochte to get away from Trump's sinking ship. But not necessarily away from Trump-ism.

In IL we have several of this type. There's our union-busting, budget hostage-taking Gov. Bruce Rauner for one,  and our faux-moderate Sen. Mark Kirk for another.

SJR reports,

 Kirk is quick to tout himself as a maverick for breaking with his Republican Party on several issues, including his decision earlier this summer to "de-endorse" GOP nominee Donald Trump... But ask Kirk where he goes from here, and things get more murky.

 For instance, if he truly believes Trump is unfit to be president, it's fair to ask what he's doing to prevent him being elected. If Kirk believes that the Senate ought to consider Garland's nomination, he must actively lobby his leadership to do so.”

Kirk un-endorsed Trump in June and said he would instead write in Gen. Petraeus, who resigned in 2012 and later pleaded guilty to mishandling classified information.

But after facing criticism for his Petraeus choice, Kirk reversed course and backed former Secretary of State Colin Powell for president.

Last week, Kirk said on CNN he could not vote for Hillary Clinton because he "can't support someone who is for the Iran agreement."

Turns out, Powell endorsed the Iran agreement, describing it as a "pretty good deal."

So now Kirk is back to supporting Petraeus.

Remember, Kirk was the one who outdid Trump in calling for the mass incarceration of 18,000 young black men, alleged "gang-bangers", without and trials or due process. If this sounds like Trump's proposal to round up immigrants from Mexico and the Middle East, you're on to something.

Where would Kirk put 18,000 new prisoners?

Back in 2013, Kirk and Democrat Dick Durbin, approached Zachary Fardon, the nominee for U.S. Attorney in Chicago, and urged Fardon to begin rounding up every member of the Gangster Disciples street gang. Kirk wanted the Senate Appropriations Committee to give him $30 million “to go after gangs like the GDs . . . and pick the biggest and baddest for a federal effort.”

Where did Kirk and Durbin think they were going to put 18,000 more prisoners? Cook County jail was already stuffed to overflowing, mainly with young black and Latino men. The court system was so backed up, some prisoners have been held for up to 10 years without  trial.

Chicago's Guantanamo?

The answer wasn't forthcoming but worth considering, especially in light of Pres. Obama's recent announcement that private prisons would be phased out by the Justice Dept. Democrats have long attacked the Homeland Security Department's use of privately run facilities, particularly the detention centers that have housed thousands of immigrant families.

At the time, Congressman Bobby Rush lit into the Kirk-Durbin plan, calling it  “ a sensational, headline-grabbing, empty, simplistic, unworkable approach.” If there is $30 million for Congress to spend, better most of it be allocated for “job creation and job training,” to address the gang problem, Rush said. Rush said an arrest sweep “is not going to work. . . . It is not a law and order, lock ‘em up solution.”

Kirk also outdid Trump on union bashing. He claimed that SEIU and other "big unions are already running the state."

Now Durbin is planning to run for governor and Kirk is playing Trump keep-away to retain his senate seat and maintain the GOP senate majority. Not happening.

Kirk, who called for the mass arrest of 18,000 African Americans, was apparently fine w/ Trump's #StillTooRacist call for mass deportation

— Tammy Duckworth (@TammyforIL) June 8, 2016

What Supt. Johnson calls 'Progress'

Sorry. No Weekend Quotables. I spent most of the holiday weekend relaxing with family up in Williams Bay without reading a paper or touching a computer. Sweet.

But here's one for you. It comes from Rahm's newly-appointed top cop, Eddie Johnson. Remember, he's the one who claimed he'd never ever seen one case of police misconduct in 27 years on the force.

So halfway through the weekend, Johnson was already boasting about how his massive show of police presence including mass, targeted arrests of young blacks and Latinos in community sweeps resulted in "only" 39 shootings and 3 deaths.

From the Sun-Times:

Addressing reporters at Washington Park on Monday evening, Johnson called the four-day total of 39 shooting incidents and three fatalities a sign of progress as his department tries to tamp down a surge in killings through the first half of the year.

 “This is progress" Johnson declared. "This is not success. We will never, ever arrest our way out of this.” A pretty Frank admission coming from someone apparently trying to arrest his way out.

Turns out, Johnson might have waited 'til weekend's end before issuing his declaration of progress. About 28 more people were shot in the city in the hours after Johnson spoke, most of them in areas where patrols had been stepped up: Austin, Garfield Park, Englewood, Lawndale, Grand Crossing, South Chicago, Gresham.

By midnight Monday, 64 shootings had been reported, including a 5-year-old girl and her 8-year-old cousin.

Of course it's not just Interim Supt. Johnson who's seems bent of filling prisons with black and Latino youth before any crime has been committed. It's his boss, the mayor, who sets policy. Although, I must say that Johnson could use a better media person on staff.

Sen. Kirk calls for mass arrests of 18,000 black youth. 

I recall Republican Sen. Mark Kirk (now up for reelection) standing next to Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, calling for the mass arrests of 18,000 young black men. "And if they complain," Kirk said, "just say this is about the death of Hadiya Pendleton." As you might have guessed, none of the 18,000 were shown to have anything to do with the shooting of Hadiya. The alleged shooter, teenager Michael Ward, was arrested and confessed, AFTER the fact. Police sweeps don't prevent crime. The correlate with it.

I guess my point here is that Johnson's declaration of "progress" was not only premature, it represented the worse kind of thinking about our epidemic of gun violence. Not only is it turning the CPD into the biggest violator of civil rights, it's a totally ineffective strategy, no matter how well it plays politically. The worse the rights violations, the more violence. The 64 shootings this holiday weekend topped last year's horrendous record of 55.

The first four months of the federal civil rights probe of the CPD has already cost the city $1.4 million and counting.

Durbin embraces disgraced Rahm. Clinton watches.

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Dems didn't put out for Quinn/Vallas

No car today. I had to cab it home from basketball practice this morning. Yes, I know I said I retired from coaching last year. I lied. But anyway, the cabbie Jesus, who moved here from Mexico a few years ago, is also the janitor at a CPS high school. Plus he works in a restaurant downtown at night. He tells me that his CPS boss, Aramark has fired lots of his co-workers, leaving the school with three custodians. He says, there's no way they can keep the whole school clean with only three people.

He shared some stories about his home town. I talked privatization and asked him if he knew about his namesake running for mayor. He didn't. But he does now.

 Rahm and Rauner outside the Paradise Valley Grill near Livingston, Montana

Please don't blame progressives, African-Americans, teachers, or my brother Fred (he was in Mexico) for the Quinn/Vallas defeat. They earned  it on their own because they couldn't excite their own base.

Never, at least in my memory, has there been a worse pair of candidates who pissed away more than $30 million, trying to match billionaire Rauner's negative ad for negative ad instead of spending enough time and resources on voter turn out in Chicago's south and west-side wards.

Quinn sent his own aide in a chicken suit to stand outside Rauner appearances, while Rauner swiped back by campaigning beside actual chickens. And that was the high water mark of the campaign. Quinn certainly had nothing to offer black and Latino voters or union rank-and-filers besides chicken poop.

I would suggest it was the party's support for pension grabbing (Quinn) and union-busting privatization (Vallas) that kept lots of folks home on election day. They were also done in by a total abandonment of the campaign by Rahm Emanuel's own ward organization machine and lost the downstate Democratic counties of St. Clair & Jackson.

By now everyone knows that the  Rahm/Madigan gang hates Quinn and Vallas and feels much more comfortable playing let's make a deal with Rauner running the state. Greg Hinz at Crain's writes:

What counts now is that the Big Dance has begun, in which winner Mr. Rauner and General Assembly leaders Michael Madigan and John Cullerton take each other's measure.

While the turnout was low, there were enough registered Democrat voters statewide to elect Quinn/Vallas -- if they wanted to. For example, Sen. Dick Durbin was elected easily over his Republican opponent, and got over 100,000 more votes statewide than did Bruce Rauner. But the same voters who punched Durbin's ticket didn't vote Quinn/Vallas. Why not? Isn't it obvious that IL Dems didn't really put out for them?

It's true, Durbin wasn't running against Rauner but his clone, the Oberweis dairy magnate. But still.

Talking violence, trauma tonight on WGN

LATE-NIGHTERS...I'll be back on WGN tonight at 11:30, on the Patti Vasquez Show. Along with a few other noteworthy Chicagoans I'll be talking about gun violence. You can call in and join the conversation.

Doctors demand trauma center

I'm certainly going to take issue with the Univ. of Chicago getting approval from the State Board to build a new $67 million medical facility in suburban Orland Park. Meanwhile despite months of community protests, including some by doctors and med students, there is still no Level 1 adult trauma center on the south side to treat victims of gun violence who now must travel miles by ambulance to the North Side or West Side for emergency medical care. The University of Chicago Medical Center closed its adult trauma center in 1988. And though it moved into a new $700 million building last year, officials say the hospital lacks financial and other support to reopen a trauma center that can treat patients 17 and up.

I still remember Damian Turner, who died of a gunshot wound sustained in a drive-by shooting in 2010. Though the 18-year-old was shot just blocks away from the UC Medical Center, he was taken eight miles away by ambulance to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he died of his injuries, because there are no adult trauma centers on the city's South Side.

Sen. Durbin knows who butters his bread. 

It's shocking, yet predictable, that Sen. Dick Durbin won't support the trauma center.

“To say, ‘Let’s go open a trauma center two miles from here’ is not a casual decision. It has to be done very carefully, with a dramatic investment. So I don’t want to push them into something that is not practical,” Durbin said. “I understand the community concerns, because of all the violence and bloodshed, but we need to look at this in honest terms.”

Yes, Sen. Durbin. Let's be honest about where your campaign funds come from, including millions from the medical industry, Blue Cross & Blue Shield, and related PACs and lobbyists. UC is one of Durbin's biggest patrons. No, I'm not surprised.