December 18 Evening Edition

ASSOCIATED PRESS
— Split screen: Trump holding rally as impeachment vote looms – DARLENE SUPERVILLE, ZEKE MILLER and JILL COLVIN
https://apnews.com/df59970ad25ae98e8d0139fd24adcec1

THE HILL
— Watch live: Trump holds rally in Michigan while House votes on impeachment
https://thehill.com/video/campaign/475202-watch-live-trump-hosts-rally-in-michigan

ABC7
— Trump impeachment debate: Republicans draw comparisons to Jesus, Pearl Harbor attack, Salem Witch trials – AP
https://abc7chicago.com/politics/gop-ties-impeachment-debate-to-jesus-pearl-harbor-salem-witch-trials/5766752/
— Chicago marijuana sales to start on time, City Council votes down ordinance – Jessica D’Onofrio and Sarah Schulte
https://abc7chicago.com/politics/ordinance-to-delay-recreational-marijuana-sales-fails-/5764998/

CBS2
— City Council Approves Ban On Aldermen Lobbying Other Elected Officials – Todd Feurer
https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2019/12/18/chicago-city-council-aldermen-lobbying-ban/
— Chicago Hospitals Prepare For Problems Related To Legal Marijuana Use – Vince Gerasole
https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2019/12/17/chicago-hospitals-prepare-for-problems-related-to-legal-marijuana-use/

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
— DISGUSTING, TRAGIC: Cigar shops, hookah lounges and other smoke shops could allow pot use under city proposal Mayor Lori Lightfoot introduced an ordinance laying out rules for consuming pot in public Wednesday. – Tom Schuba
https://chicago.suntimes.com/cannabis/2019/12/18/21028867/recreational-marijuana-cigar-hookah-smoke-shops-public-pot-consumption
— Lightfoot moves to strengthen Welcoming City ordinance — but leaves ‘carve-outs’ in place for now Immigrant activists have demanded removal of exceptions that govern how Chicago Police cooperate with ICE. Lightfoot campaigned on the promise to do just that. – Fran Spielman
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/12/18/21028945/lightfoot-moves-to-strengthen-welcoming-city-ordinance-but-leaves-carve-outs-in-place-for-now
— Effort to delay recreational pot sales fails after gov promises to give 2 new licenses to owners of color Mayor Lori Lightfoot warned of a “multitude of unintended consequences” if pot sales were delayed in the city until July 1. – Fran Spielman
https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2019/12/18/21028078/recreational-marijuana-sales-chicago-city-council-vote-delay

CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS
— Legal weed survives push to delay sales After a dramatic showdown on the City Council floor today—one of the biggest tests of Mayor Lightfoot’s administration so far— aldermen thwarted a call from black council members to halt recreational marijuana sales for six months. – A.D. QUIG
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/marijuanacannabis/legal-weed-survives-push-delay-sales

QUAD CITIES TIMES
— DISGUSTING, TRAGIC: Pot pushers push pot.
https://qctimes.com/news/local/holiday-gift-guide-in-the-weeds-looking-for-gifts-for/article_9a7d058e-be76-5d79-bd5c-f839fb6b50da.html

SUBURBAN LIFE
— DISGUSTING, TRAGIC: Hundreds at rally call for Trump’s impeachment – Kierra Frazier
https://www.mysuburbanlife.com/2019/12/18/hundreds-at-rally-call-for-trumps-impeachment/aozw1b8/

WJBC
— Illinois’ transparency on economic subsidies gets a middling grade
http://www.wjbc.com/2019/12/18/report-illinois-transparency-on-economic-subsidies-gets-a-middling-grade/

FRANKFORT PATCH
— OUTSTANDING: Rally In Support Of President Trump Planned In Frankfort The rally will be held from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday at the intersection of La Grange Road and Route 30 in Frankfort. – Andrea Earnest
https://patch.com/illinois/frankfort/rally-support-trump-planned-frankfort

EVANSTON PATCH
— DISGUSTING, TRAGIC: Hundreds Take Part In Anti-Trump Impeachment Rally In Evanston The House will vote on Wednesday whether to make Donald Trump the third president in U.S. history to be removed from office. – Nikki Gaskins
https://patch.com/illinois/evanston/hundreds-take-part-anti-trump-impeachment-rally-evanston

DUPAGE COUNTY ELECTION DIVISION
— DIERSEN HEADLINE: Nomination Petition Hearings: West v. DiCianni at 9:30 AM Thursday, December 19, 2019; Hooper v. Felice at 2:15 PM Thursday, December 19, 2019; and Tarnowski v. Youngberg at 3:00 PM Thursday, December 19, 2019.
https://www.dupageco.org/Election/61831/

CITY OF WHEATON
— VIDEO: Adult-Use Cannabis
https://vimeo.com/380119918
— Cannabis Laws
https://www.wheaton.il.us/cannabislaws

ILLINOIS REVIEW
— COOK COUNTY DEMOCRAT PARTY CHAIRMAN ADDED TO LIST OF THOSE UNDER FEDERAL INVESTIGATION
https://www.illinoisreview.com/illinoisreview/2019/12/cook-co-democrat-party-chairman-added-to-list-of-those-under-federal-investigation.html
— CBS BOOSTS SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER
https://www.illinoisreview.com/illinoisreview/2019/12/cbs-boosts-southern-poverty-law-center.html

WASHINGTON TIMES
— Illinois high school officials probe racist insults at game – AP
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/dec/18/illinois-high-school-officials-probe-racist-insult/
(FROM THE ARTICLE: The Illinois High School Association is investigating claims that student fans at a high school girls basketball game west of Chicago subjected members of a visiting team to racist and body-shaming chants and slurs. Officials from Bishop McNamara Catholic School in Kankakee say the ugly behavior was on display Saturday during their varsity team’s game against St. Edward Catholic School in Elgin, WLS-TV reported. Bishop McNamara fans and parents say students in the St. Edward fan section were yelling racist comments throughout the game, including making animal noises at a black Bishop McNamara player and another member of the team.)
— Utah rally supporting Trump impeachment draws hundreds – AP
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/dec/18/pro-impeachment-rally-draws-hundreds/
— Trump favorability up 6 percentage points since impeachment began, Gallup poll shows Support for impeachment down 6 percentage points since October – Jennifer Harper
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/dec/18/trump-favorability-up-6-percentage-points-since-im/

WASHINGTON EXAMINER
— ‘Payback’: Republicans vow to impeach next Democratic president – Kerry Picket
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/republicans-vow-to-impeach-next-democratic-president

GOPUSA
— Judge permits Georgia to remove 120K ‘inactive’ voters from registration rolls
http://www.gopusa.com/?p=81410

BREITBART
— Pew: Race Divides Democrat Party on Faith and Marriage – DR. SUSAN BERRY
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/18/pew-race-divides-democrat-party-faith-marriage/
— Nancy Pelosi Compares Impeachment to Battle of the Bulge Against Nazi Germany – JOEL B. POLLAK
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/18/nancy-pelosi-compares-impeachment-to-battle-of-the-bulge-against-nazi-germany-wwii/

BLAZE
— Top House Democrat compares Trump impeachment to fights against slavery, Jim Crow – Nate Madden
https://www.theblaze.com/news/top-house-democrat-compares-trump-impeachment-to-fights-against-slavery-jim-crow

CNS NEWS
— Trump Administration Expands the List of Criminal Offenses That Would Bar Asylum – Susan Jones
https://www.cnsnews.com/article/national/susan-jones/trump-administration-expands-list-criminal-offenses-would-bar-asylum

DAILY CALLER
— Democrats Betray America With Impeachment Vote – RONNA MCDANIEL, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE
https://dailycaller.com/2019/12/18/mcdaniel-democrats-impeachment/
— Trump Administration Wants To Restrict More Criminal Aliens From Qualifying For Asylum – JASON HOPKINS
https://dailycaller.com/2019/12/18/trump-illegal-aliens-asylum-criminals/

DAILY WIRE
— Epic Fail: Latest Poll Shows Trump’s Approval Rising, Support For Impeachment Low – Paul Bois
https://www.dailywire.com/news/epic-fail-latest-poll-shows-trumps-approval-rising-support-for-impeachment-low

COLLEGE FIX
— Justice Department is still investigating Harvard for anti-Asian admissions practices – GREG PIPER (DIERSEN: Ever-increasingly, because of the Democrats, Libertarians, Greens, and RINOs, it is OK to be anti-Trump, anti-Protestant, anti-conservative, anti-patriotic, anti-Republican, anti-American, anti-White, anti-male, anti-older people, anti-rich people, anti-gun owners, anti-German Americans, anti-draft avoiders, and/or anti-those whose ancestors have been in America for a long time.)
https://www.thecollegefix.com/justice-department-is-still-investigating-harvard-for-anti-asian-admissions-practices/

ABC NEWS
— DIERSEN HEADLINE: America-haters want all the citizens of all the countries in the world to seek asylum in America.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/blocked-border-young-families-pregnant-mothers-struggle-asylum/story?id=67777661

WASHINGTON POST
— Pelosi emerges as Trump’s most powerful political adversary with impeachment – Paul Kane
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/with-impeachment-pelosi-emerges-as-trumps-most-powerful-political-adversary/2019/12/18/3f47cd96-21b2-11ea-86f3-3b5019d451db_story.html

USA TODAY
— ‘Four more years!’: Michigan crowd rallies for Trump ahead of House impeachment vote – Kathleen Gray and Elena Durnbaugh
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/12/18/donald-trump-battle-creek-kellogg-impeachment-rally/2693773001/

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
— DIERSEN HEADLINE: A Trump-hater says “Reject Trump’s cynical anti-Palestinian ploy on campus speech.”
https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-reject-trumps-cynical-ploy-on-campus-speech-20191218-yqbljj3wpbfofeo574wasjysum-story.html

NEW YORKER
— India’s Citizenship Emergency – Isaac Chotiner (DIERSEN: Islam is more like a political party or a country without borders than a religion.)
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/indias-citizenship-emergency
(FROM THE ARTICLE: Last week, India adopted new legislation called the Citizenship Amendment Act, which gives undocumented immigrants of several faiths a path to citizenship but excludes Muslims, who make up about fifteen per cent of the country’s population. The law is part of a pattern of persecution of Muslims carried out by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party, who seek to transform India from an avowedly secular, pluralistic country into a Hindu one. This past August, Modi revoked the autonomy of India’s only Muslim-majority state, Kashmir, and flooded it with troops, in an ongoing siege. In Assam, another state with a large Muslim population, the government implemented the National Register of Citizens, which forced people to prove or lose their citizenship status. Immigrants whose citizenship was stripped by the state are already being sent to detention camps; last month, the government declared that the citizenship registry would soon cover the entire country. The cumulative effect of these moves has been to throw India’s democratic character and future into a precarious state not seen since the mid-nineteen-seventies, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency and imprisoned her political opponents. In response to the Citizenship Amendment Act, demonstrations have broken out across India.)

DAILY BEAST
— The Illinois High School Association is investigating claims that students yelled racist comments and chanted animal noises at a black player during a high school girls basketball game. – Emma Tucker
https://www.thedailybeast.com/illinois-high-school-officials-probe-racist-slurs-by-students-at-game

WINDY CITY TIMES
— DISGUSTING, TRAGIC: Thousands attend impeachment rally in Chicago
http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/lgbt/Thousands-attend-impeachment-rally-in-Chicago/67655.html

Author: David Diersen

The opinions that I express in GOPUSA ILLINOIS emails are based on experience that I have gained doing many things since 1948. I base my opinions on what I learned a) working for the federal government for almost 30 years -- Post Office 1966-1969, IRS 1971-1980, and GAO 1980-1997, serving on the Executive Committee of the Association of Government Accountants Chicago Chapter 1983-1996, and being a union member while I worked for the Post Office and IRS; b) earning an MBA from Loyola in 1976, a masters degree in accounting from DePaul in 1980, and a masters degree in financial markets and trading from IIT in 1997; c) passing the CPA examination on my first attempt in 1979 and passing the Certified Internal Auditor examination on my first attempt in 1981; c) serving as a Republican Precinct Committeeman since 1999, the GOPUSA Illinois Editor since 2000, the TAPROOT Republicans of Illinois Chairman 2005-2012, a member of the 2008 Illinois Republican Party (IRP) Platform and Resolutions Committee, a Wheaton Chamber of Commerce Government Affairs Committee member 2003-2011, the Milton Township Republican Central Committee webmaster 2008-2010 and 2000-2004, an Illinois Center Right Coalition Steering Committee member 2003-2007, and an American Association of Political Consultants Midwest Chapter board member 2001-2004; d) attending the 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016 IRP State Conventions as a delegate; e) being the subject of a nasty 4-page article in the February 1978 issue of Money Magazine; f) pursing litigation including Diersen v. GAO and Diersen v. Chicago Car Exchange; g) being married since 1978; h) living in Crete 1948-1972, in University Park 1972-1976, in Chicago 1976-1978, and in DuPage County, Milton Township, and Wheaton since 1978; and i) being baptized, raised, and confirmed as a Missouri Synod Lutheran. View all posts by David Diersen