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SPRINGFIELD — At first glance, suburban businessman Gary Rabine might seem like the classic “country club Republican.”

He’s a millionaire entrepreneur. He argues soaring property taxes are the state’s No. 1 problem.

He even owns his own country club.

But Rabine’s political views hook sharply from the more moderate members of the GOP.

He’s a social conservative opposed to abortion. And he’s a strong supporter of former President Donald Trump, calling his four years in office “the strongest job creation administration in the history of my lifetime.”

“If I can be sixty to seventy percent that effective as a leader in Illinois, Illinois will be a way better place four or five years from now,” Rabine told the Sun-Times.

Rabine, 57, is the third Republican to officially enter the race for governor — and the first from the Chicago area.

He kicked off his campaign Tuesday with events in his business offices in Schaumburg and at his Bull Valley Golf Club in northwest suburban Woodstock.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Owning a paving business and several other companies based out of the northwest exurbs, Rabine is hoping to bring his business expertise to the governor’s office.

“Fifteen years ago in Illinois, we really were the best place in the middle of the country to create jobs and start a business, to grow a business. But over the last 15 years, that’s deteriorated to being the worst,” he told the Sun-Times in an interview between events Tuesday.

He dismisses Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker as a “trust fund billionaire” who doesn’t have the right business experience to lead the state.

“I don’t have any knowledge of him ever building a business from the ground up. I mean, he calls himself an entrepreneur, but I’ve not witnessed real entrepreneurship there,” he said of Pritzker. “Buying and selling companies for profit is a little different from … building a paving business here in Illinois and creating a national platform for paving parking lots.”

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Rabine criticized Pritzker’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis, saying that “a total shutdown may not have been necessary” last March.

The Bull Valley businessman also derided the governor for recently signing the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus’ criminal justice reform bill, saying it will “put our families, our communities and our neighborhoods in harm’s way like never before.”

But to Rabine, the biggest issue in Illinois is rising property taxes. Those are set by local governments, but Rabine promised to cut them 50% by 2024.

“People in Illinois that work so hard to pay for their homes end up with very little equity left because of our high [property] taxes and that’s pushing people out,” he said.

Rabine has never run for office before, but he has been a Republican donor in Illinois and nationally for decades. So far, he has pumped $250,000 into his own campaign.

Rabine backed former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner in his 2014 bid, but broke with Rauner when the GOP governor signed a 2017 law that expanded taxpayer support for abortions in Illinois.

“I believe that Bruce Rauner had his heart in the game to turn around Illinois, and I backed him because of that. But I did not believe that Bruce would ever do a bill like that,” he said.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Rabine switched his support to state Rep. Jeanne Ives, a Wheaton conservative who narrowly lost to Rauner in the 2018 Republican primary. Rabin contributed $10,000 to Ives’ campaign.

Even though Rabine is an abortion opponent, he said that he would not make that issue a priority as governor.

“I’m a man of the laws of the land, and the laws that are in place are in place,” he said of Roe v. Wade and other abortion laws.

Last October, Rabine hosted a fundraiser at his Bull Valley Golf Club for Trump, which was attended by Donald Trump Jr.

Repeatedly asked about the former Republican president’s false claims that the election was stolen, Rabine could not say whether he believes President Joe Biden fairly won last year’s presidential election.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

“We need to keep a close eye on it because every vote needs to count. But I would never say one way or another [about Trump’s claims of election fraud] because I have no clue.”

Illinois Democratic County Chairs’ Association President Kristina Zahorik slammed Rabine’s election denialism as “disqualifying.”

“Gary Rabine is either clueless or part of the conspiracy theory crew who don’t believe Joe Biden was legally elected President. Either one is disqualifying to serve as an elected officeholder,” Zahorik said in a statement.

Rabine is an advisory board member and longtime donor to Turning Point USA, a controversial conservative group that has college campus chapters across the country. At that fundraiser for Trump, Rabine called Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA and an Illinois native, a “hero of mine.”

Rabine said he supported the group because they “educate kids on college campuses on the blessings of the free enterprise system” and on the “dangers of socialism and Marxism.”

Kirk’s organization was a major proponent of Trump’s election fraud claims and one of the first to use “China Virus” as a moniker for COVID-19.

Turning Point USA was listed as a “coalition partner” on the “March to Save America” website for the rally that preceded the Jan. 6 insurrection. In a now deleted tweet, Kirk said that his organization was “sending 80+ buses full of patriots to fight for this President.”

On one of those buses was a man later charged for his participation in the riot and allegedly assaulting three Capitol police officers with a fire extinguisher.

Rabine said he was unaware of Turning Point USA’s involvement.

“I don’t know anything about what they did or anybody did personally for that event. I’ve not been in touch with that and don’t really don’t care to be,” he said.

Rabine declined to say how much money he has donated to the group.

From Facebook

While saying he “didn’t know the whole situation,” Rabine defended state Rep. Chris Miller, who was recently censured by the Illinois House for allegedly helping incite the insurrection — allegations Miller denies.

Rabine said Miller was “a very good man.”

“I think we need to stop just jumping to conclusions before any investigation and before anybody knows what’s going on,” he said.

Rabine also “didn’t agree” with local GOP organizations’ censures of U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger for his vote to impeach Trump for inciting the insurrection, saying “any Republican can have their own opinion.”

Rabine joins state Sen. Darren Bailey of Xenia and former state Sen. Paul Schimpf of Waterloo in the Republican gubernatorial primary.

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As a nation, America spends far too much time and money pursuing petty criminals, and we can’t see much benefit in that.

More than 80% of all criminal cases processed through the nation’s justice system are misdemeanors — a homeless person panhandling outside a coffee shop, an addict who stole $50 to feed a drug habit — that steal hundreds of hours in law enforcement time that could be better spent investigating murders, gun crimes and other serious, violent offenses.

And all too often, as an important new analysis of almost 15 years of crime data has found, taking an overly tough approach to prosecuting petty offenders just makes matters worse. Nonviolent, misdemeanor offenders who are not prosecuted are actually less likely to be arrested for another crime anytime soon.

The typical alleged misdemeanor offender, it seems, too often gets caught up in a criminal justice system that is poorly equipped to deal with poverty, poor schooling, mental illness and all the other social ills at the roots of so much crime.

Or perhaps the alleged offender loses his job because of time spent in jails and courtrooms, only to end up with a conviction or arrest record that makes it harder to find the next job.

In 185 days — the average time, according to the study, that it took to dispose of a non-violent, misdemeanor case — a lot can happen to derail a life already teetering off the tracks.

A 14-year study in Boston

The analysis from the National Bureau of Economic Research is based on data from 2004 to 2018 on non-violent, non-firearms related misdemeanor cases in Boston and its suburbs.

The researchers looked at the differences in outcomes between cases that were prosecuted and those that were not, and concluded that “non-prosecution of a nonviolent misdemeanor offense leads to large reductions in the likelihood of a new criminal complaint over the next two years.” The difference was especially stark for first-time offenders.

Defendants whose cases were dropped, the researchers found, were 33% less likely to be arrested again within two years compared to those whose cases were prosecuted.

Think of that: People are more likely to be arrested a second time just because they were arrested once.

“If we have scarce law enforcement resources, should we be focusing those on non-violent crimes?” Kimberley Smith of the University of Chicago Crime Lab said. “Or should we be focused on crimes that are actually hurting people and causing harm to society?”

Finding alternatives

The analysis, as Frank Main of the Sun-Times reported on Sunday, seems a powerful argument in support of the approach to criminal justice favored by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, who has declined to prosecute thousands of low-level offenses since taking office in 2016. Foxx told Main that the police — who in Chicago have the authority to file misdemeanor charges without the initial approval of prosecutors — should heed the findings of the study and develop more policing alternatives.

Fair-minded people, we feel sure, understand the moral and practical arguments for helping and rehabilitating, rather than prosecuting, nonviolent offenders. Foxx’s office has targeted more resources in recent years to misdemeanor diversion programs that keep small-time crimes from clogging up the court system.

But police officers, as well, need more and better options. As Foxx said, “If a cop responds to a storeowner who wants a drunk person off the sidewalk, what’s the alternative?”

One such initiative has been at work, as a kind of experiment, since 2018 in Chicago’s Garfield Park neighborhood on the West Side, which is served by the Harrison Police District. And if an upcoming U. of C. Crime Lab evaluation of the initiative — the Narcotics Alternative Diversion Program — finds it has been effective, we urge the city to invest in its expansion.

Gun violence and drug dealing are common in Garfield Park, leaving the police with no shortage of serious crime to deal with. Yet, as Smith told us, “officers were arresting a lot of people, spending a lot of time processing people for a gram of heroin, all while shootings were taking place outside.”

The diversion program allows officers to send people caught with small amounts of drugs to treatment programs, rather than charge them with a crime. So far, 500 men and women have been diverted to treatment. Dozens more have walked into the Harrison Police Station on their own and requested treatment, something the program allows.

What reform looks like

The Crime Lab evaluation will look at whether the program has reduced the likelihood that someone is re-arrested and whether other more positive life outcomes, such as finding a job, have increased.

“What we’re seeing so far is encouraging,” Smith said.

This, we want to believe, is what criminal justice reform in Chicago will really look like.

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Reopening plans pushed back in Illinois as COVID-19 infections rise and hospital beds fill

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Reopening plans are being pushed back in Illinois as COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations rise yet again statewide, public health officials announced Tuesday.

With 70% of seniors vaccinated with at least one dose, the state had been on pace to see some business restrictions lifted this week under Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s “bridge phase” before a full reopening by May.

Not so anymore, as coronavirus cases mount and more people head to hospitals with the deadly respiratory disease. The governor’s intermediate reopening plan also required hospitalizations to “hold steady or decline over a 28-day monitoring period.”

That count has risen almost daily since hitting a one-year-low of 1,082 beds occupied by COVID-19 patients March 12. A total of 1,396 beds were taken up Monday night — the most since late February.

“As long as new hospital admissions continue to increase, the state will not advance to the Bridge Phase and on to Phase 5 of the Restore Illinois Plan,” officials from the Illinois Department of Public Health said in a statement. “The number of cases of COVID-19 has seen an increasing trend as well. Health officials continue to urge all residents to continue to mask up, socially distance, and avoid crowds to reduce transmission and bring the metrics back in line to transition to the Bridge Phase.”

Read the full story from Mitchell Armentrout here.

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News

5:30 p.m. City opening mass vaccination sites at Wrigley conference center, Chicago State

Chicago will open two new mass vaccination sites on Monday — one at Chicago State University, the other at a conference center adjacent to Wrigley Field.

The decision to open two more mass vaccination sites in addition to the United Center parking lot comes just one day after the city expanded vaccine eligibility to include all essential workers and adults with underlying medical conditions excluding smokers.

The Wrigley Field site will be at the American Airlines Conference Center at Gallagher Way, the open air plaza adjacent to the stadium. The Cubs play their home opener at Wrigley on Thursday.

It will be operated by Advocate Aurora Health and have the capacity to administer roughly 2,000 daily doses of the coronavirus vaccine by appointment only. Appointments will be posted on zocdoc.com/vaccine later this week with additional appointments added each day.

Reporter Fran Spielman has the full story.

3:03 p.m. Germany to restrict AstraZeneca use in under-60s over clots

German health officials agreed Tuesday to restrict the use of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine in people under 60, amid fresh concern over unusual blood clots reported in a tiny number of those who received the shots.

Health Minister Jens Spahn and state officials agreed unanimously to only give the vaccine to people aged 60 or older, unless they belong to a high-risk category for serious illness from COVID-19 and have agreed with their doctor to take the vaccine despite the small risk of a serious side-effect.

The move follows the recommendations of Germany’s independent vaccine expert panel and comes after the country’s medical regulator released new data showing a rise in reported cases of an unusual form of blood clot in the head — known as sinus vein thrombosis — in recent recipients of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The news is a further blow to the vaccine, which is critical to Europe’s immunization campaign and a linchpin in the global strategy to get shots to poorer countries. It comes less than two weeks after the EU drug regulator said the vaccine does not increase the overall incidence of blood clots following a similar scare.

Read the full report here.

1:16 p.m. New vaccination site will be dedicated to essential union workers

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Monday announced a new vaccination site in partnership with the Chicago Federation of Labor that will help get doses of COVID-19 vaccine into the arms of essential union workers.

Lightfoot said the site will be able to handle about 1,200 vaccinations weekly at first and can grow to 6,000 weekly as vaccine supply increases.

The announcement comes as the city expands eligibility requirements to what’s called Phase 1C. That expansion includes residents ages 16 to 64 with underlying medical conditions, such as chronic kidney disease or cancer.

It also will allow vaccination for those working in construction, retail, restaurants and all other essential workers who had not previously been eligible.

“You all know this, but it bears repeating. Chicago is 100% a union town,” the mayor said in making the announcement at the vaccination site, the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 399, 2260 S. Grove St.

“It’s our union workers who make up the backbone of this city.”

Those wishing to be vaccinated at Local 399 must live or work in Chicago, hold a current union card or be a union retiree, and qualify under the city’s current eligibility criteria.

Read the full story from Manny Ramos here.

12:44 p.m. States struggle to get rent relief to tenants amid pandemic

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced last July that New York would spend $100 million in federal coronavirus relief to help cash-strapped tenants pay months of back rent and avert evictions.

By the end of October, the state had doled out only about $40 million, reaching 15,000 of the nearly 100,000 people looking for help. More than 57,000 applicants were denied because of criteria set by lawmakers that many said was difficult to meet.

New York’s experience played out nationwide, with states failing to spend tens of millions of federal dollars aimed at helping renters avoid eviction. Burdensome requirements, poorly administered programs and landlords refusing to cooperate meant tens of thousands of tenants never got assistance. Some states also shifted funding away from rental relief, fearing they’d miss a year-end mandate to spend the money — a deadline that got extended.

The problem, housing advocates said, was that the federal government didn’t specifically earmark any of the coronavirus aid for rental relief, leaving states scrambling to set up programs with no guidance on how the money should be allocated. As much as $3.43 billion in federal aid was spent on rental assistance, according to National Low Income Housing Coalition. But advocates said more should have been done, given tenants faced as much as $34 billion in unpaid rent through January, according to a report released by the National Council of State Housing Agencies.

States’ rental relief programs “were a very mixed success. It was sort of a patchwork of programs,” Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen said in February. “There was a lot of experimentation — some successful, some not.”

Read the full story here.

9:32 a.m. Mayor’s plan for $1.8 billion in federal relief won’t go to City Council until May or June

Last month, a divided City Council authorized another round of federal coronavirus relief despite the political furor triggered by Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s decision to use $281.5 million from earlier funds to cover police payroll costs.

It looks like aldermen must wait a while for Round 2 of what is certain to be a battle royal over the $1.8 billion avalanche of federal money on its way to Chicago.

“I would expect that we probably won’t be taking a package to City Council [until] at the earliest, May, and it may not be ’til June,” the mayor said Monday.

Lightfoot’s timetable did not sit well with downtown Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd).

“We need to have more involvement in the preparation of that package. Nobody wants a done deal dropped in our laps at the last minute and then say, ‘Take it or leave it. Vote it up or down,'” Hopkins said.

“All the aldermen I’ve talked to about this have expressed an interest in being involved in the prioritization of it. … There’s gonna be a healthy disagreement among the various caucuses within the City Council about what a top priority should be. But we should be a part of that debate.”

Read the full story from Fran Spielman here.

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New Cases & Vaccination Numbers

• The Chicago Department of Public Health reported 438 new confirmed cases, 3 deaths and a test positivity rate of 4%.
• Another 110,211 shots went into arms on Saturday.
• Over 6.2 million vaccine doses have been sent to providers in Illinois and more than 2 million residents have now been fully vaccinated, officials said.

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Fire crews were working to contain an extra-alarm blaze that broke out Tuesday afternoon in the yard of a Brighton Park paper plant.

The wind-blown fire started in a prairie after 4 p.m. and “spread really fast” to the yard of the paper plant near 48th Place and Christiana Avenue, according to Chicago fire officials.

As of 5 p.m., the fire had reached the plant’s main building, as huge piles of paper continued to burn in the back, fire officials said.

Crews upgraded the fire to a hazmat situation as flames spread to containers of acid at the plant, and propane tanks were being stored outside, fire officials said.

As a precaution, the CTA has shut down power to the Kedzie station nearby. Orange Line train service is suspended between the Midway and Western stops, the CTA said.

No injuries have been reported yet, fire officials said.

This is a developing story. Check back for details.

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MINNEAPOLIS — Onlookers grew increasingly angry as they begged Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin to take his knee off George Floyd’s neck, but Chauvin would not let up, and another officer forced back members of the crowd who tried to intervene, witnesses testified Tuesday at Chauvin’s murder trial.

Witness after witness described how Chauvin was unmoved by their pleas, with the teenager who shot the harrowing video of the arrest that set off nationwide protests testifying that the officer gave the crowd a “cold” and “heartless” stare.

“He didn’t care. It seemed as if he didn’t care what we were saying,” said 18-year-old Darnella Frazier, one of several witnesses who testified through tears.

Frazier said Chauvin continued to kneel on Floyd while fellow Officer Tou Thao held the crowd of about 15 back, even when one of the onlookers identified herself as a firefighter and pleaded repeatedly to check Floyd’s pulse.

“They definitely put their hands on the Mace, and we all pulled back,” Frazier told the jury.

The prosecution asked multiple witnesses to describe their horror at what they saw, buttressing the testimony with multiple videos, some of which had never been seen before. Many testified about feelings of helplessness as Floyd gasped for air, pleaded for his life and finally fell limp and silent, his eyes rolling back in his head.

The testimony was apparently aimed at showing that Chauvin had multiple opportunities to think about what he doing and change course.

But Chauvin attorney Eric Nelson also sought to bring out evidence of anger in the crowd, in an apparent attempt to show that Chauvin and his fellow officers found themselves in an increasingly tense and distracting situation, with the onlookers becoming more and more agitated.

Earlier Tuesday, Donald Williams, one of the onlookers, testified that he called 911 after paramedics took Floyd away, “because I believed I witnessed a murder.” In a recording of the emergency call, Williams could be overheard yelling at the officers: “Y’all is murderers, bro!”

During cross-examination, Chauvin’s lawyer pointed out that Williams seemed to grow increasingly angry at the police, taunting Chauvin with “tough guy,” “bum” and other names, then calling Chauvin expletives, which the defense lawyer repeated in court.

Williams initially admitted he was getting angrier, but then backtracked and said he was controlled and professional and was pleading for Floyd’s life but wasn’t being heard.

Williams said he was stepping on and off the curb, and at one point, Thao, who was controlling the crowd, put his hand on Williams’ chest. Williams admitted under questioning that he told Thao he would beat the officers if Thao touched him again.

But witnesses also testified that no bystanders actually interfered with police.

When Frazier was asked by a prosecutor whether she saw violence anywhere on the scene, she replied: “Yes, from the cops. From Chauvin, and from officer Thao.”

Chauvin, 45, is charged with murder and manslaughter, accused of killing Floyd by pinning the 46-year-old handcuffed Black man to the pavement for what prosecutors said was 9 minutes and 29 seconds. Floyd was arrested after being accused of trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill at the convenience store.

The most serious charge against the now-fired white officer carries up to 40 years in prison.

The defense has argued that Chauvin did what his training told him to do and that Floyd’s death was not caused by the officer but by a combination of illegal drug use, heart disease, high blood pressure and the adrenaline flowing through his body.

Floyd’s death last May, along with the bystander video of him pleading that he couldn’t breathe and onlookers angrily yelling at the officer to get off him, triggered sometimes-violent protests around the world and a reckoning over racism and police brutality across the U.S.

On Tuesday, prosecutors played cellphone video recorded by yet another bystander, 18-year-old Alyssa Funari, that showed onlookers shouting and screaming at Chauvin after Floyd stopped moving.

The video, which had not been released before, also showed the woman who said she was a Minneapolis firefighter calmly walk up to Thao and offer to help, before he ordered her to get back on the curb.

“I felt like there wasn’t really anything I could do as a bystander,” a tearful Funari said, adding that she felt she was failing Floyd. “Technically I could’ve did something, but I couldn’t really do anything physically … because the highest power was there at the time,” she said, explaining that an officer held the crowd back.

Frazier testified that she looks at her father and other Black men in her life and thinks of “how that could have been one of them.”

“I stay up at night apologizing to George Floyd for not doing more … not saving his life,” she said, adding of Chauvin: “It’s not what I should have done; it’s what he should have done.”

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This week the Dingers Crew makes their predictions on the season. Who will have the first home run? How many times will Rossy get ejected? Which Cub will become Jeff’s punching bag like Descalso was? Plus, the guys break down the Pittsburgh Pirates before opening day!

The post Episode 33 – Shiver Me Timbers, It’s Opening Day! first appeared on CHI CITY SPORTS l Chicago Sports Blog – News – Forum – Fans – Rumors.Read More

With the new video for “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” Lil Nas X uses his giant platform to blow assimilationism out of the water.

.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; } The video for “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” directed by Tanu Muino and Lil Nas X…Read More

In a 2020 filled with unwanted surprises, one bright spot was the unexpected reunion of experimental metal group Genghis Tron after a self-described “indefinite” hiatus. Dream Weapon, the New York-based band’s first album in 13 years, departs from the sound of their earlier records in a way that may startle the group’s patient fans, but it’s worth the wait.…Read More

Chicago-via-New York producer Folie belongs to a loose collective of artists who’ve put out playful inversions of pop music through Dog Show Records, a Mad Decent imprint run by 100 Gecs cofounder Dylan Brady. Folie made her way onto Dog Show’s roster with some assistance from producer Gupi; in the mid-2010s, they both worked with an eclectic dance label called Rora Team, and after Gupi joined the Dog Show family in 2019, he urged Folie to send her stuff to Brady.…Read More

Weirdness and wonder abound in Matei Vişniec’s Decomposed Theatre at Trap Door, but be prepared for creepiness, too.

With nearly 40 actors, eight directors, and an overall roster of artists spanning five countries, Trap Door Theatre’s sprawling, eight-episode streaming production of playwright Matei Vişniec’s Decomposed Theatre offers a deep dive into the drama, absurdity, tragedy, and undeniably relevant work of the contemporary Romanian-French dramatist. Vişniec’s personal history bears mentioning: With all of his work censored during the brutal lengthy regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu, the playwright eventually fled to France and asked for political asylum.…Read More