Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Pritzker’s Rules of Order’ Category

DOJ announces more than 175 charges, 300 fugitive arrests in Chicago area crime sweep

Posted in Chicago Sun*Times, Cook, County, Crime, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Dumb Bunny, Elections, Immigration, Look For The Union Label, Politics, Preckwinkle's Rules of Order, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Public Safety, Taxes, Unions on July 5, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Flanked by federal law enforcement officials, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Andrew Boutros speaks during a news conference at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse on Thursday, where he discussed the results of Operation New Dawn. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

Editorial note: It is worth noting the coincidentally just one day before the crime sweep was reported, “Chicago police boss Larry Snelling announces retirement: ‘He’s leaving big shoes to fill’.”

By  Kade Heather | Chicago Sun*Times

Justice Department officials on Thursday announced the arrests of 300 fugitives as well as sweeping prosecutions against more than 175 people accused of violent crimes — all part of a massive federal law enforcement collaboration over the past two months.

U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros called the effort, which he created, “Operation New Dawn.”

“A new dawn of crime fighting is underway in Chicago,” Boutros, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, said alongside other federal law enforcement leaders at a news conference Thursday at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse. He said the announcement was timed to coincide with the country’s 250th anniversary July 4.

The size of the joint effort was “an experiment,” Boutros said — and something that “had not been done before here in Chicago” and which “worked very, very well.”

In all, charges were filed against 179 people in 140 new cases, while 305 fugitives were arrested and 24 children who had been kidnapped or lost were returned home.

“Eleven federal agencies worked arm-in-arm as one cohesive, unified group to arrest dangerous criminals responsible for some of the most serious offenses,” Boutros said.

The 60-day operation was focused on the Chicago area and the Northern District of Illinois. It included partnerships between 11 federal agencies, among them the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Federal Bureau of Investigations; the Drug Enforcement Agency; U.S. Marshals Service; and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Report continues here.

Read Full Post »

James Talarico, Running for Senate as a Crusader Against Billionaires, Holds Big-Ticket Fundraiser With Billionaire Hyatt Heir JB Pritzker

Posted in Commodius Maximus, Elections, Fools and their money, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, The Washington Free Beacon on June 26, 2026| 1 Comment »

The Hyatt Hotels heir and Illinois governor once removed five toilets from his mansion to save hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes | L: James Talarico (Alberto Silva Fernandez/Getty Images), R: J.B. Pritzker (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

By Zach Kessel | The Washington Free Beacon

Left-wing Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, who says “billionaires” are “destroying this country,” held a big-ticket Chicago fundraiser with billionaire Hyatt Hotels heir and Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker (D.), where attendees were encouraged to contribute as much as $13,500 to attend.

The invitation for the Wednesday evening fundraiser, which was first reported by the New York Times‘s Teddy Schleifer, lists prominent liberal donors Robert Kohl and Clark Pellett as part of a host committee and touts Pritzker as the “special guest.” An online RSVP page shows that a ticket cost at least $500, while “hosts” contributed $5,000 and “champions” contributed $13,500. Contributions above the federal limit to an individual candidate of $3,500 went to the Texas Democratic Party and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, according to the invitation.

While Talarico for years advertised his support for “trans kids” and “bold, progressive ideas” as a state lawmaker in a deep-blue Austin district, he has pivoted to attacking billionaires while running for Senate in a state that backed President Donald Trump by double digits. Shortly before launching his campaign, in July 2025, Talarico said in a stump speech, “The only minority destroying this country is the billionaires. … Undocumented people aren’t defunding our schools.” Talarico’s campaign site, meanwhile, says that the “biggest divide in this country is not left vs. right” but “top vs. bottom” and that billionaire “corruption” is hurting “working people.”

Pritzker might be a target of Talarico’s ire, were he not a Democratic official driving deep-pocketed donors to Talarico’s campaign.

Article continues here.

Read Full Post »

Addicted to gambling in Illinois: ‘Someone has decided they can make money off you’

Posted in Capitol News Illinois, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Springfield, Taxes on June 24, 2026| 1 Comment »

People in Illinois lost more than $7.7 billion gambling last year. As lawmakers increasingly bet on gambling to pay the state’s bills, they have only spare change to treat compulsive gamblers.

By Casey Toner and Maggie Dougherty | Capitol News Illinois

This story is a collaboration between Capitol News Illinois and Illinois Answers Project.

Editor’s note: Some individuals in this story are identified only by first name and last initial  at their request to allow them to speak openly about their addiction without fear of reprisal for actions taken when gambling.

CHICAGO — When Reeve L. was growing up, his babysitters were the horse tracks in Arlington Heights, Maywood and Stickney, where he’d watch his father bet for hours.

When his father won, life was good — or at least tolerable. But when his father lost, he’d beat Reeve and his mother, her so badly she’d be afraid to show up to work with her bruises. In his father’s life, gambling came first, family a distant second.

Reeve saw how gambling could ruin a man and his family, and it was the last life he wanted to lead.

And yet, after Illinois legalized sports gambling in 2019, Reeve saw a gambling promotion scroll across the bottom of a televised Cubs-Reds game offering a free $5 bet for new customers. A modest bet on the Cubs, his favorite team, cracked open the dam for Reeve, sending his life spiraling into the rapids of uncontrolled gambling for five years.

That first bet, placed with a few taps on his phone, led him to blow through about $450,000 in savings and $150,000 in loans. He drained the nest egg that he and his husband saved to buy a house. Along the way he alienated about two dozen friends and would have lost his husband had he not joined a local Gamblers Anonymous group, Reeve said.

If the state had stronger gambling guardrails in place, Reeve said, he may have never found himself falling headfirst into his father’s addiction.

“There’s a responsibility of the state to protect the people,” Reeve said. “I think there has to be a responsibility of the state to know how many lives are being destroyed, and not even that person, but the lives around them, the divorce rates, the people not going out and spending money at restaurants or anything that now is going to sports gambling. It’s a billion dollar industry — that money is being taken away from somewhere in Illinois.”

Gov. JB Pritzker expanded casinos and sports gambling in his first year in office and has encouraged people to gamble in Illinois casinos, building on more than three decades of elected officials dealing a favorable hand to gambling operators. Chicago, the last major holdout against slot machines, recently lifted its ban, setting the stage for possibly thousands of new machines to flood bars and restaurants.

The state raked in more than $2.6 billion in gambling tax revenues last year to help balance its budget, but that’s just a slice of the more than $7.7 billion that people in Illinois lost last year gambling at casinos, playing on regulated slot machines, betting on sports and buying lottery tickets. Of those losses, more than $4.1 billion went to sportsbooks, slot machines and casino operators.

Illinois collected over $1 billion in tax revenues from sports betting in the first six years of legalization

The state has also made over $6 billion in taxes from video gaming terminals since they launched in 2012, nearly $13 billion from casinos since the first licensed casino opened in 1991, and over $23 billion in lottery revenues since introduced in 1974

The state dedicates less than 0.1% of the revenues generated by gambling back to treating the addiction it causes; for every $100 the state collected from gambling last year, it devoted less than $0.06 to treatment. Nationally, problem gamblers have one of the highest rates of suicide; the National Council on ProblemGambling estimates one in five have tried to take their own life.

The state last assessed problem gambling during the pandemic when sports gambling had yet to be fully implemented, estimating 383,000 Illinois adults to have a gambling problem, and another 761,000 as being at risk of developing one, though some clinicians consider the estimates an undercount. Pritzker’s Department of Human Services plans to publish a second assessment in 2027 and plans to do so every five years.

Report continues here.

Read Full Post »

Poll: Taxes, economy top concerns for Illinoisans


Posted in Commodius Maximus, Cost of Living, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Illinois Policy Institute, Immigration, Look For The Union Label, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, Taxes, Unions on June 24, 2026| Leave a Comment »

A recent survey also shows that fully half of residents would move out of the state given the opportunity.

By Todd J. Behme | Illinois Policy Institute

Pocketbook issues concern Illinoisans significantly more than other issues and account for why so many would leave if given the chance.

More than half of Illinois voters polled cited high taxes as a top issue in a list of seven issues facing Illinois, according to a survey conducted for the Illinois Policy Institute.

Next was the economy, selected by 41% of respondents. That percentage has risen sharply in the past year, from 24% at the beginning of 2025 to 35% in the first quarter of this year. The percentage citing taxes fell from 58% in the first quarter.

Voter irritation with property taxes is high. Over 61% said they were somewhat or very dissatisfied with the value their community gets for those taxes. Fewer than 24% were somewhat or very satisfied.

Illinois is tied with New Jersey for the highest effective residential property tax rate. State residents pay the highest combined state and local tax rate in the country. Per-capita state and local taxes were in the top 10 in the country in fiscal 2023.

The resulting financial stress has more residents considering an out-of-state move. Just over 51% of poll respondents would leave Illinois if they had the opportunity, the highest percentage in the past six quarters. About 39% would stay — lowest since the beginning of 2025 — and about 10% were unsure.

Report continues here.

Read Full Post »

Pritzker Adds $800 Million a Year in New Taxes to Already High-Tax Illinois

Posted in BOHICA, Commodius Maximus, Deception, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Elections, Fat Bastard, Look For The Union Label, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, Springfield, Taxes, The Washington Free Beacon, Unions on June 21, 2026| 1 Comment »

Digital advertising, social media, crypto, prediction markets are targeted by governor |
Governor J.B. Pritzker, Democrat of Illinois, is seen in a photo provided by his office.

By Ira Stoll | The Washington Free Beacon

The governor of Illinois, Democrat J.B. Pritzker, the billionaire Hyatt hotel heir who is a possible 2028 presidential candidate, is facing sharp criticism after signing into law a state budget that adds $800 million a year in new taxes to a state already in the worst third of the 50 states when it comes to imposing tax burdens.

Unleash Prosperity, a pro-growth, free-market-oriented group, called Pritzker “a man who never met a tax increase he didn’t embrace.” He’s more frugal when it comes to his own money. Pritzker had five toilets ripped out of a second mansion in what Cook County described as a fraudulent scheme to save $330,000 in property taxes.

The Illinois Policy Institute had urged Pritzker to veto the advertising tax on the grounds that “its revenue isn’t needed and it’s sure to be legally challenged.” “It’s another ‘Pritzker Two-Step’ budget: increase spending, then raise taxes and sweep dedicated revenues from other funds to fill another big budget gap. This is why Illinois residents pay the highest combined state and local tax rate in the country,” wrote Paul Vallas, a senior fellow at the Institute. “Pritzker has presided over at least 63 tax and fee increases.”

A senior fellow at the Tax Foundation, Jared Walczak, warns that, “the new tax opens the state up to costly litigation it has a very good chance of losing … the whole thing looks like something dashed off with very little thought.” The social media tax “is $6 per user per year, denominated as $0.50 per user per month for large social media platforms, and lesser amounts per user for smaller platforms,” he writes. “Illinois plans to impose a complicated, legally fraught new tax based on a few pages of confused, contradictory, and almost laughably incomplete legislative text embedded in the new budget.”

An editorial in the Washington Post is headlined “Pritzker’s social-media-tax belly flop.” Said the Post, “He’s preparing to run for president in 2028 and apparently believes that antagonizing successful businesses will play well with the liberal base. But voters tend to notice incompetence.” It notes that the digital ad tax “is designed to extract huge sums from Google, Meta and Amazon, whose executive chairman Jeff Bezos owns The Post.”

The Post concluded, “Ultimately, the biggest losers might be the people who actually use social media. Rather than just swallow the tax, companies may need to consider charging for subscriptions, erecting tiered paywalls and raising the rates for advertising. That will disadvantage small businesses who depend on social media to get out the word about their products. It might even mean some smaller platforms cease operations in Illinois.”

Report continues here.

Read Full Post »

Editorial: ‘Toll free in ‘73’ was just another empty promise. Buckle up for a 45-cent toll hike, Illinois.

Posted in Aunt Blabby, Chicago Tribune, Clown Car, Cost of Living, Deception, Ethics, Illinois Tollway, Look For The Union Label, New Normal?, OP/Ed, Overhead, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Road construction, Springfield, Taxes, Traffic, Unions on June 19, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Engineer John Zimmerman, left, and Commissioner George DeMent, right, view an automatic coin collector at the toll gate of the Calumet Skyway on April 10, 1958, to be opened to traffic. | George Quinn/Chicago Tribune

By The Editorial Board | Chicago Tribune

Illinois tollways were meant to be freeways decades ago.

Gov. JB Pritzker promised to reform the Illinois Tollway before he was elected, the latest in a long line of governors, from Rod Blagojevich to Jim Thompson, who vowed reform.

Remember, the tollways aren’t even supposed to be tollways anymore. The tolls were meant to be temporary until the bonds issued to build the roads were paid off. Many of our readers may remember that old promise that by 1973, our dear tollways would become freeways.

“Toll free in ‘73,” it turns out, is just another empty promise long forgotten.

After decades — and billions of dollars — in paid tolls later, drivers are further away than ever from those cost-free roads.

Now, they’re staring down the prospect of another toll hike.

The Illinois Tollway board is in the process of implementing a 45-cent toll increase for I-Pass users, meaning a 70-cent toll today could become $1.15 in 2027.

And the toll hikes won’t stop there. Starting in 2029, the proposal to be considered by the Illinois Tollway board sets up CPI-indexed toll hikes every two years.

Editorial continues here.

Read Full Post »

Americans Are Sick of Paying the Democrat DEI Blood Price

Posted in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), John Kass News, OP/Ed, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Public Safety on June 18, 2026| Leave a Comment »

By John Kass | John Kass News

Who brings a knife to a track meet, then stabs another athlete to death? Or who brings gasoline on public transit in Chicago, douses a young woman and burns her alive?

And who pays the blood price for this anti-white racism, most of it institutionalized by the left, and protected in Western Culture?

We do. The middle class. And we’re sick of it.

Nausea builds as we realize, finally, that the center does not hold and we’re about to be cast adrift into the left’s dystopian nightmare that they have planned for us for years. We refuse. Our anger builds and grows.

And as the culture descends into racial tribalism predictably promoted by so-called “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion,” programs baked into American politics and policy, our fingers defensively twitch for rocks, clubs, triggers to fend off the tribalism.  What does this signal? The end of civil society.

Somewhere, Marx and Lenin are laughing.

In his article in Spiked online, Brendan O’Neill addresses the recent atrocities in Ireland that reflect similar horrors here in America, where a man in Belfast was nearly beheaded by a Sudanese migrant who crept into the country with the aid of the left-wing government.

“People are sick of paying the blood price of bourgeois virtue. That is increasingly how it feels to working-class communities – that they are expected to absorb the risk of letting in tens of thousands of unvetted men, while their betters absorb the glow of righteousness that comes with crying ‘Refugees welcome’. The activist class in their leafy suburbs are shielded from the social consequences of their moral theatre. It is the lower orders who suffer the fallout. Working-class girls who suddenly have 800 men from f#### knows where in the hotel at the end of their road. “Women like Rhiannon Whyte, murdered by a Sudanese ‘asylum seeker’ from the very migrant hotel she worked in. This poor man in Belfast. It seems their suffering is a small price to pay for the moral gloating of our rulers.”

Americans are sick of it, too.

Article continues here.

Read Full Post »

‘Wrong project, wrong place’: Critics push back on rezoning plan for potential Hoffman Estates data center

Posted in AI, Cook, County, Daily Herald, Data Center, Elections, Hoffman Estates, Intergovernmental agreements (IGA), Land Use, Plum Farm development, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, School Districts, South Barrington, Spring Creek Watershed, Springfield, Taxes on June 16, 2026| 1 Comment »

By Eric Peterson | Daily Herald

Hoffman Estates village board members Monday heard from critics of the proposed rezoning of the 186-acre Plum Farms property for a possible data center campus.

Although the issue wasn’t on the agenda, the board allowed half an hour for public comment.

Earlier this month, the village’s plan commission voted 4-2 against landowner Karis Critical of Florida’s request to rezone the site at Higgins Road and Route 59 to permit manufacturing. This classification could allow for a data center.

In January, Karis Critical’s proposal for a data center in Naperville was rejected by the city council there.

Monday’s opponents to the Hoffman Estates rezoning request included state representatives and candidates as well as the village presidents of neighboring South Barrington and Barrington Hills.

Critics from Hoffman Estates, South Barrington and Barrington Hills Monday voiced their opposition to rezoning of the 186-acre Plum Farms property at the northwest corner of routes 59 and 72 in Hoffman Estates that could allow a data campus there. Joe Lewnard/jlewnard@dailyherald.com, 2019

Republican state Rep. Martin McLaughlin of Barrington Hills spoke to infrastructure pressures like increased water and electricity demand, pointing out that even Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker had recently paused the state’s economic incentive for data centers.

“If you’ve opened up an electrical bill lately, you know increased electricity demand is one of the problems with AI centers,” McLaughlin said. “Unfortunately, this has not been planned for well by Springfield politicians. And now, with potential AI center draw, it’s a double-whammy for utility payers and I cannot support this.”

Article continues here.

Read Full Post »

Illinois public school enrollment drop 4th-worst in U.S.


Posted in Education, Illinois Policy Institute, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, School Districts on June 16, 2026| 1 Comment »

The state saw a drop of over 10% in the period from 2014 to 2024, five times the national rate.

By Rich Witzel | Illinois Policy Institute

Illinois public schools are losing students at a faster rate than in nearly every other state.

From fall 2014 to fall 2024, public elementary and secondary school enrollment dropped 10% in Illinois, according to a recently released report by the National Center for Education Statistics. The national decline was 2%.

Public school enrollment is falling across much of the country, but some states are losing students at a far faster rate than others.

Illinois ranked fourth-worst in the nation for enrollment loss percentage in the period, behind only West Virginia, Mississippi and New Hampshire.

The struggling system

At least some of the drop can almost certainly be attributed to Illinois’ ongoing outmigration problem. Still, it is not difficult to guess why fewer Illinois families are choosing public schools for their children.

Report continues here.

Read Full Post »

Presidential poll numbers show Pritzker at 2%

Posted in Commodius Maximus, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Elections, Fat Bastard, Look For The Union Label, Pension Funding, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, School Districts, Taxes, The Center Square on June 13, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Photo: BlueRoomStream / Screenshot

By Jim Talamonti | The Center Square

A new public opinion poll says Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker remains low on the list of voters’ preferred choices in the 2028 Democratic Party primary election for president.

The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll was conducted by Noble Predictive Insights, a nonpartisan public opinion polling firm, from June 1-4, 2026 and surveyed registered voters nationally.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris finished first with 27% of the vote among 1,013 Democrats who responded. 17% said they were not sure.

Next was California Gov. Gavin Newsom at 14%, former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg at 11% and New York U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at 8%.

Pritzker and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear both came in at 2%.

Report continues here.

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »