Crisis management continues over at City Hall. Today, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced that former federal judge Ann Claire Williams, a Ronald Reagan appointee to the federal bench who was once on Obama’s shortlist for the Supreme Court, will lead an outside investigation into the wrongful police raid on social worker Anjanette Young’s home, the Tribune’s Gregory Pratt and John Byrne report.
That includes a look at how Lightfoot’s administration handled the case in the aftermath.
Meantime, Chicago aldermen held a hearing on the matter and called for changes in the way such search warrants are served.
Ken Griffin, the billionaire founder and CEO of the Chicago-based Citadel hedge fund and investment firm, is opening up his check book in a big way to help GOP U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, forced into a January runoff race by a Democratic challenger, The New York Times reports. It’s one of two high-profile runoff races going on in Georgia that will decide which party controls the U.S. Senate.
Loeffler’s ties here go beyond that: The self-styled Trump loyalist grew up on a farm in central Illinois’ McLean County, attended the University of Illinois and DePaul University and at age 24 bought a condo in Chicago’s Gold Coast, the Times notes in a piece that examines her campaign narrative of a hardscrabble life.
Rickey “Hollywood” Hendon, a former West Side alderman and state senator who’s still in the politics game, released a new music video that offers a little commentary on the economy, Congress and financial need in the age of COVID-19 as he sings “I need my money – my Rona money.”
That’s ‘rona as in coronavirus. Watch it here.
U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams was in town today to discuss, along with state and Chicago public health bosses, Dr. Ngozi Ezike, and Dr. Allison Arwady, respectively, how the vaccine will be rolled out in Illinois.
My Tribune colleagues took a deep dive to get a better understanding of the fear, or at least hesitancy, over getting a vaccine in some predominantly Black and Latino communities that have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19. Now a racially and ethnically diverse group in Illinois’ congressional delegation fresh off their first round of the Pfizer vaccine has put together a public service announcement saying it’s safe and to get inoculated when the shots are in wider circulation.
It’s an important message as the latest round of Pew Research Center polling shows, for example, that Black Americans remain “less inclined to get vaccinated than other racial and ethnic groups.”
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Lightfoot enlists respected formal judge to lead outside investigation of mistaken police raid
In a letter to aldermen, Mayor Lightfoot laid out the parameters for Judge Williams as she leads an outside investigation of the Young raid: “Her mandate will include every relevant department, including the mayor’s office,” Lightfoot wrote. “We want a review of the procedures and processes in place that allowed this incident and subsequent actions to unfold as they did.”
While the raid happened before Lightfoot was elected, she and her administration have made a number of missteps in the run-up to and after WBBM-Ch. 2 airing a story on the mistake raid last week. That includes the city’s law department going to court and unsuccessfully trying to stop Ch. 2 from airing police body camera footage of the raid, which captures a line of mostly white male officers barging into the apartment of Young, who is Black, as she stood there naked and pleaded — more than 40 times — that they had the wrong address.
The mayor initially said last week that she had only learned of the mistaken raid after Ch. 2 aired the story and police body camera footage last week. But she has since acknowledged that members of her team told her about the February 2019 raid via emails in November 2019, as Ch. 2 was reporting on search warrants being served at the wrong addresses. Read the full Tribune story here.
To date, she’s ousted close friend and head of the City Law Department Mark Flessner and her top cop David Brown has put the dozen officers involved in the raid on desk duty.
Today, Chicago aldermen conducted a hearing on the matter.
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle ‘deeply disappointed’ as SEIU Local 73 holds one-day strike over pay, other demands, the Tribune’s Alice Yin and Liam Ford write.
About Hollywood Hendon’s music video
Hendon tells me he didn’t start out trying to pen political lyrics to go with House music, but it became just that amid months of stalled negotiations in Washington over a new stimulus package. He says the deal Congress inked last night is too little too late, especially the checks the stimulus checks most people in the U.S. are in line for.
“If you look at the $600 they’re giving Americans now, it’s a … disgrace,” Hendon said. “What the video is about, what it’s telling the government is to send enough money — everyone knows people are going to go out and spend it if there’s enough.” But there isn’t, he says. “Instead, (Congress has) just shortchanged the economy.” In the video, he suggests “I need my … $10K.”
Hendon said he’s had a rough year, like so many, contracting COVID-19, then burying his oldest daughter after a car accident in Michigan. After that he began writing music “like crazy,” he says. What followed was “Rona Money,” released in a music video last week, and other songs.
“We need music right now — it’s what’s gotten me through all of this,” he said. Hendon said a little humor was in order and the video provides a laugh and the wild ride some folks might need right now as he sings on a grounded boat, a convertible and in what appears to be a bedroom with a choir standing nearby. All of it was shot on the West Side, largely on Madison Street, with no social distancing or masks in sight.
He’s got more songs, too, including one titled “No Justice, No Peace” about the law enforcement killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. But amid a global pandemic, he’s not looking to move into a career in music. Instead, he’ll continue doing work as a political consultant a job he’s been doing, along with getting in the CBD business, since he abruptly quit the state Senate a decade ago.
“You’ve got to eat while you dream,” said Hendon, known as loud, boisterous and during his lawmaker days a flashy dresser.
It’s not the first time Hendon’s popped up on the little screen this year. He was one of many local politicians and activists featured in the four-part documentary on Chicago’s last mayoral election “City So Real.” Look back at his political career, controversies and how he earned that “Hollywood” nickname here.
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Ken Griffin donating millions to GOP candidate in George U.S. Senate race
Kelly Loeffler, the self-styled Trump loyalist trying to hold on to her U.S. Senate seat, is getting a big assist from Ken Griffin in her contest with Democrat Raphael Warnock, a minister, in Georgia. The New York Times reports Griffin is her No. 2 donor with his Citadel kicking in $6 million to an affiliated Political Action Committee.
It’s part of a larger piece that examines her narrative of a hardscrabble life growing up on a farm in central Illinois. Read the Times’ story here. And more on Griffin’s political donations here.
Durbin: Illinois shouldn’t count on Washington for future pandemic aid to tackle budget deficit
In a call with reporters today, Durbin, Illinois’ senior senator, detailed how the combined pandemic and omnibus spending bill “included funding for specific programs to help Illinois and Chicago, such as increased mass transit aid, support for airlines, restaurants and entertainment venues, as well as Great Lakes restoration and a first-time grant for federal health officials to study gun violence,” the Tribune’s Rick Pearson writes.
“But even with a new administration under former Vice President Joe Biden and the potential of a Democratic-led Senate, pending runoff elections in Georgia, Durbin said the fight for state and local pandemic relief would still run up against Republicans who claim it amounts to a bailout for mismanaged states.” Read the full story here.
COVID-19 data points in Illinois today: 63,000 front-line workers have been vaccinated in Illinois so far, the state announced. Meantime, 6,239 new COVID-19 diagnoses were announced along with 116 additional deaths in the last 24 hours.
U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, of Hoffman Estates, U.S. Rep. Jesus Chuy Garcia, of Chicago, U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly, of Matteson, and Naperville U.S. Rep., Lauren Underwood each got the first of the two-part Pfizer vaccine in recent days. Now they’ve issued a video PSA touting the safety of the vaccines. Watch it here.
Garcia points out that Latino, Black and Asian Americans “have the highest rates of COVID infection.” Kelly said the inoculations will stem the COVID-19 illnesses and deaths “so tragically common in our communities.”
Meantime Underwood, a nurse, said the inoculations are “safe and effective” and “developed under strict scientific protocols” and stressed that taking the vaccine is a giant step toward rebuilding the economy.
Lawmakers are facing some blowback for being in the front of the line for the currently scarce vaccinations. But as members of Congress they’re toward the front of the line under a so-called continuity of government protocol. Still, Washington Post columnist Petula Dvorak is scratching her head about it, writing that some of “(t)he very folks who downplayed the virus, partied maskless at the White House and called the coronavirus a hoax created to hurt President Trump are now getting the vaccine ahead of front-line and essential workers, and even the vulnerable residents in long-term-care facilities.”
Data points: 60% of Americans polled said they would definitely or probably get a COVID-19 vaccine, up from 51% n September, according to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. The race and ethnic breakdown is as follows: 42% of African American people polled said they’d get a vaccine, 61% of whites said they would while 63% of Hispanics and 83% of Asian Americans surveyed said they’d take the shot. More on the survey here.
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