THE ILLINOIZE: Monday Free for All
January 17, 2022
A few years ago, I was in Memphis for a conference. One evening we went to dinner at the famed Central BBQ in downtown Memphis, which we realized was just a half a block or so from the infamous Lorraine Motel. The Lorraine Motel is where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968, of course, and its exterior has been preserved as the National Civil Rights Museum.
As you likely know, I’m a Lutheran white kid from a farm in the middle of nowhere Illinois, so we spent more time learning about Martin Luther than Martin Luther King growing up. Seeing the Lorraine was important and you experience it with a sort of reverence like you do the Vietnam Wall or Arlington.
But as we stood on the walkway in front of the Lorraine as the sun was setting that humid April evening, I spotted an elderly African American woman, wafer thin and frail, standing by herself and weeping.
It was a stirring reminder of the sacrifices many made during the Civil Rights movement and the things in life I’ll never understand.
I think that’s a good way to look at the world we live in. There are a lot of people who feel strongly about whatever issue it is. Even if we don’t agree, we all owe it to each other to listen and try to understand why someone believes what they believe.
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YOUR MONDAY FREE FOR ALL
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Aurora Mayor Irvin enters Governor’s race today (The Illinoize)
It was a pretty poorly kept secret at this point, but The Illinoize has confirmed Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin will enter the Republican race for Governor on Monday.
Irvin, 51, will have the backing of billionaire Ken Griffin, though sources say Griffin may not make direct investments early on to give Democrats less of a line of attack on him.
Irvin has voted Democrat in all but one primary since at least 2014, according to the Kane County Clerk's office. That will obviously be a tough pill to swallow for many Republican voters and will be a constant line of attack for other candidates.
Irvin will run with Rep. Avery Bourne (R-Morrisonville), a conservative young lawmaker who, at just 29, has already made her way up the ranks of House GOP leadership and is considered a rising star in the GOP.
I'm told Irvin won't be making any in person announcement Monday, as has been the case with the entire Griffin slate, but a video will likely be the means to kick off the campaign.
Related: Pritzker pours $90 million into campaign war chest (Crain’s Chicago Business)
COVID-19 now killing 105 Illinoisans per day: ‘This is going to hurt for a long time’ (Chicago Sun-Times)
COVID-19 is now claiming Illinois lives at the fastest rate seen in a year.
The state Department of Public Health on Friday announced 153 more coronavirus deaths, marking three straight days with three-figure death tolls and Illinois’ worst one-day total since Jan. 7, 2021.
Statewide, 738 residents died of the virus over the last week, an average of 105 per day. In the darkest days of 2020, that rate topped 150, but it has jumped fivefold since Thanksgiving — and hasn’t been worse since vaccines were widely introduced.
University of Chicago infectious disease specialist Dr. Emily Landon predicted the death spike last week as the highly transmissible Omicron variant crowds Illinois hospitals with unvaccinated patients.
“We’ve been on this ride before. We know how this works,” Landon said on Friday. “Unfortunately, so much of this was preventable, because we also know the vaccines work.”
Related: Sangamon County on pace to surpass September death toll (State Journal-Register)
'More people are sick': Memorial Health chart shows how pandemic isn't slowing down (State Journal-Register)
COVID-19 in Southern Illinois: Washington County records nearly 31% positivity rate (The Southern Illinoisan)
Editorial: What’s the ‘stuck kids docket’? The latest way DCFS fails our children. (Chicago Tribune)
In Cook County courtroom parlance, it’s known as the “stuck kids docket.”
The phrase refers to the problem of wards of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services languishing in psychiatric facilities or temporary shelters for months because the agency doesn’t have the capacity to place the children where they belong — in therapeutic foster homes and group homes, where they can receive the proper care. There are so many of these children “stuck” in this horrible limbo that Cook County Juvenile Court created a separate court call for their cases.
Over the last year, that backlog has grown to a tally of more than 350 children locked up in psychiatric hospitals for an average of 55 days, solely because DCFS cannot find suitable residential placement.
Three recent, particularly egregious examples prompted Cook County Circuit Judge Patrick Murphy to take action, the county’s public guardian, Charles Golbert, tells us.
In one case, a 9-year-old girl who has been a DCFS ward for two years was put into a psychiatric facility last April and was supposed to be released in June. But she was kept there for more than seven months after officials there said she could be discharged, according to court records.
“This poor girl spent the Fourth of July, her ninth birthday, Christmas and New Year’s locked up in this psychiatric hospital,” Golbert says. Before being sent to the facility, the girl had been physically and sexually abused by relatives, and suffered from malnutrition as an infant.
A fed-up Murphy, who advocated for children for 25 years as Cook County Public Guardian, did something that Golbert says is unprecedented. He found DCFS Director Marc Smith in contempt of court in both cases, and ordered that the agency be fined up to $2,000 a day until the children were placed into proper residential facilities. DCFS got the message.
Related: 1,122 children who had contact with Illinois DCFS from 2010 to March 2021 have died, state lawmaker says (FOX 32 Chicago)
SOME CAMPAIGN UPDATES
Normal Councilman Scott Preston running in new 91st (Bloomington Pantagraph)
Dixon Mayor announces run for Demmer’s seat (Sauk Valley News)
Jonathan Jackson eyes Rep. Bobby Rush's seat (Crain’s Chicago Business)
Sen. Brian Stewart to retire, Chesney to seek to replace him (The Illinoize)
Former Rep. Cabello seeks return to House (Rockford Register Star)
SOME TOP LINKS FROM LAST WEEK
Rep. Chris Miller Slams Congressman Rodney Davis over Potential Primaries
Schofield on Cancer, Family, and a Moderate Joining the Ticket with a Conservative
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