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It’s time once again to dive into another round of quick takes on the people, places and events that were being talked about over the past week:
Gift that keeps giving
The ongoing exchange of insults between President Donald Trump and Gov. J.B. Pritzker isn’t doing much to reduce tensions in Chicago. But it continues to do wonders for Pritzker’s national standing as he lays the groundwork for a 2028 presidential run.
Just last week, Pritzker got a satisfying headline over a New York Times story identifying him as the Democrats’ leading Trump foe.
“JB Pritzker Has Had It With Democrats Who Won’t Stand Up To Trump,” said The Times.
It followed with this — “The Illinois governor, a potential presidential candidate, is fighting the presence of National Guard troops and the activities of agents in Chicago.”
What better way is there for a presidential wannabe to promote himself as fighting Trump hard and castigating fellow elected Democrats for not fighting Trump hard enough?
Chicago Democrat William Daley characterized the Trump feud as a “gift” giving Pritzker national exposure.
“Without this going on, he’d be a governor running a state, but there wouldn’t be a reason to have the visibility. He’d have to go looking for crowds at a fish fry in Iowa,” Daley told the Times.
Pritzker has steadily escalated his rhetorical attacks on Trump, and the news media is eating up the name-calling.
Two weeks ago, Pritzker said he was “concerned” that Trump has dementia. Last week, he charged Trump is “out of his mind and has dementia.”
Trump has responded in kind, calling Pritzker a business failure and suggesting the governor should be “jailed” for his role in disrupting federal immigration enforcement in Chicago.
The Times said Pritzker’s efforts to position himself as Trump’s “chief antagonist” helps strengthen his image as a leader that could “fuel his future presidential ambitions.”
At the same time, Pritzker’s rhetoric suggesting that he’ll be taken as a political prisoner could undermine him credibility. He told a Minnesota audience that he and Democratic Gov. Tim Walz have a bet “over which of them will be arrested first.”
“I’m asking any of you to come visit me in the gulag,” Pritzker told the audience.
He also said the “real purpose” of Trump’s decision to send troops to Chicago is to promote election fraud in the 2026 election.
Pritzker asserted the troops are “going to intimidate a lot of people, and it’s going to intimidate people who are not Republicans.”
Florida’s gain
Multibillionaire businessman and philanthropist Ken Griffin may not love Illinois Gov. Pritzker, but he still loves to help the people of this state.
The Chicago Tribune reports that “Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital” will be re-named in honor of Griffin’s mother in recognition of a generous, but unspecified, donation from the formerly Chicago-based Griffin.
It will be called Northwestern Medicine Catherine Gratz Griffin Lake Forest Hospital.
The size of this donation has yet to be revealed. But Griffin, whose vast wealth is self-made, makes few small donations.
News reports indicate Griffin has donated more than $1 billion — yes, billion — over the years to top Chicago-area institutions. They include $125 million to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry.
He recently donated $10 million to Northwestern Medicine to fund advanced research and treatment of esophageal diseases.
Once a Chicago resident, Griffin left Illinois for Florida in 2022 after a public political feud with Pritzker. Before leaving, he donated $130 million to 40 Chicago organizations.
Now residing in Florida, he’s flooded that state with multiple generous donations that address a variety of public needs.
Griffin oversees a successful hedge fund — Citadel — and is estimated to have a personal fortune in the area of $40 billion.
He moved operations to Miami because Griffin said crime problems in Chicago made it unsafe for his employees. He also was irked by Pritzker’s governing style, including the governor’s unsuccessful effort to raise taxes by passing a progressive-income-tax amendment to the Illinois Constitution. Pritzker made it clear he wasn’t sorry to see Griffin go.
DEI is DOA
Purdue University recently dumped its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion program after the feds terminated a $34.9 million grant that funded it.
The program, expected to run through 2031, was shut down in late September after the U.S. Education Department notified university officials that the school’s DEI program reflected an “inappropriate use of federal funds” involving DEI training and “culturally responsive training.”
Purdue did not appeal.
The feds’ letter stated that Purdue’s program was not in accord with Education Department policy “prioritizing merit, fairness and excellence in education.”
Campus Reform noted that a number of schools are trying to get around federal objections by eliminating “references to DEI” in online postings. They include Michigan, Notre Dame, Northwestern, Stanford and the University of Southern California.
Nothing doing
A couple of weeks ago, the Faculty Advisory Committee recommended that the University of Illinois start over in its tenure review of an architecture faculty member previously denied tenure.
The committee said the first review raised so many questions about the process involving Assistant Professor Benjamin Bross that there should be a second one.
But when and by whom?
Bross, who is now working under a terminal contract, would like to know. But he said he has had no contact or conversation with anyone involved in the process.
“Quite literally, nothing. Crickets,” he said.
Standing or falling?
News reports last week addressed the legal case Illinois Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Bost presented to the U.S. Supreme Court.
It involves a technical-issue case concerning Bost’s legal “standing” to challenge Illinois election law.
One rarely can tell in advance how those cases will turn out. But New York Times legal writer Abby Van Sickle said a “majority … appeared sympathetic” to Bost’s legal position.
A conservative downstater, Bost is supported in this case by liberal interest groups, including the League of Women Voters and the American Civil Liberties Union. Van Sickle said they have a “shared concern that a rule making it more difficult to bring election law challenges could affect groups across the political spectrum.”
Bost hopes to challenge state law that allows mailed-in votes to be counted up to two weeks after an election if they are post-marked by election day.
But he can’t challenge the substance of the law if he can’t get past the issue of legal standing.
To show standing, Bost must show that he was somehow harmed by the two-week rule even though he won re-election by a strong margin. He has argued that the rule proved both complicated and costly to his campaign and contends that he obviously has standing because no candidate is an observer of his own campaign.
The Times said a pro-Bost ruling “could clear the way for a flood of litigation against all sorts of state rules.”
Illinois Solicitor General Jane Notz cited that predicted flood as a reason to reject Bost’s arguments. She said “chaos” will result in the federal courts if Bost prevails.
Renewed words to wise
It’s fingernail-biting time for Major League Baseball fans.
So here’s a repeat of previous advice. “MLB Now” on the MLB Channel is the place to go for fun and informative discussions of the post-season.
Fraternity house guffawing is kept to a minimum while expert guests — players, media and front-office types — discuss the inside story of post-season play.
At the same time, the NFL season is going strong. In that regard, Sunday night “GameDay Highlights,” hosted by Chris Rose, is a real winner. It will catch football fans up with all the highlights of all the day’s games.
This includes extended clips from each game along with Rose’s fast-paced and clever commentary.
These two shows are a delight for average baseball and football fans who just want to know what’s up.
