Breaking News Out of Chicago: Illinois Governor Pritzker Giving Cover to Fleeing Texas Democrats

Proof that you can be a billionaire and not lose your humanity

Tonight, I wanted to make sure everyone who subscribes to my newsletter sees this important development, best reported by the headline that appeared in my inbox just now:

Screenshot of Tribune article; fair use claim, see link to article below.

The background is this: The Texas House of Representatives, at the request of Gov. Greg Abbott, began a special session to deal with the emergency created by the devastating rains they failed to protect the public from. True to form, Abbott used the special session to cynically demand that the special session also be used to redraw the Texas maps for U.S. congressional elections. This, in turn, came as a result of a demand by the pedoführer, who said he wants five more seats for the midterm elections, and wants Texas to give them to him through redistricting.

The special session was needed because normally, redistricting (aka gerrymandering — both sides do it), is a once-per-decade event triggered by a federal census count.

Naturally, because they’re all lost in a bizarre world of maga lust and hate, the Texas House leaders agreed to tack gerrymandering onto the emergency relief bill designed to help Texas families overcome prior Republican mistakes and negligence in the wake of the floods and Texas’s dying environment.

House Democrats said they won’t play that game, and fled the state, thus shutting down the legislative session.

In a deal brokered with Illinois Democratic Governor JB Pritzker, they dashed off to Illiinois, where Texas marshals won’t be able to arrest them for breaking quorum, which Abbott has whined they are doing.

This is a serious escalation in the long feud between Pritzker and Abbott. I have a fondness for both states because I was born and raised in Illinois, and I lived in Texas for several years, where the people are very nice, in a paradox of biblical proportions, because their politics certainly isn’t.

The battle for the Midterm elections has begun.

Here is a “gift” link to the Chicago Tribune article if you want to read more:

I’ll be doing a post soon on the Chicago Tribune, which is one of the rare large newspapers doing things right in the journalism world. That’s right. The paper that was once run by Colonel McCormick, a staunch Republican, has somehow, under private equity ownership, become a responsible news service.

More on that later.