Appeals court calls for end of fed oversight of Illinois hiring
CHICAGO — A U.S. appeals court in Chicago on Friday called for an end to federal court oversight of state hiring, freeing Gov. J.B. Pritzker and future governors from scrutiny that has endured through eight administrations over a half-century.
The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling ordering the U.S. District Court in Chicago to vacate the Shakman consent decree as it applies to the governor’s office, an agreement that had its roots in the patronage hiring practices that have long plagued city, county and state government.
“In no way are we saying that the risk of unlawful political patronage no longer exists within Illinois,” a twojudge panel wrote in its ruling. “Of course it does: nobody is naive to the state’s embarrassing history.”
But the court found that reforms instituted under Pritzker and his predecessor, Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, have satisfied the requirements of the consent decree and that continuing to enforce it “is no longer warranted or tolerable.”
Friday’s ruling overturns a lower court decision denying Pritzker’s motion to vacate the consent decree. backed Trump over Biden, 55% to 43%, according to Dave’s Redistricting.
PARKLAND JURORS VIEW CRIME SCENE OF CHILLING DESTRUCTION, FROZEN IN TIME MOMENTS AFTER BLOODBATH
PARKLAND, Fla. — Jurors in the Parkland mass shooting trial were taken to the crime scene Thursday, a scene that is as much a time capsule as it is a towering piece of evidence in a criminal case that decides whether mercy should be offered to a gunman determined to kill as many people as he could.
The building has stood on the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School campus for more than four years, an eyesore to many, for one purpose — a purpose finally realized Thursday as 22 jury members retraced the steps of gunman Nikolas Cruz, over, past and through the results of his deadly rampage through the school.
Prosecutors say the exercise was necessary to prove what Cruz did was “heinous, atrocious and cruel,” that it was “cold, calculated and premeditated,” and that it caused and risked “great bodily harm” to the victims. Among other considerations, those are the factors that have to be proved to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt before the death penalty can be recommended, sentenced and carried out.
Defense lawyers have argued that the jury cannot render a fair verdict after being bombarded with so much emotional testimony,so many graphic pictures, and a harrowing firsthand look at the carnage of Feb. 14, 2018.
–South Florida Sun Sentinel
AT CPAC, VIKTOR ORBAN PAINTS BLEAK PICTURE OF ‘WAR’ BETWEEN PROGRESSIVES, WESTERN CULTURE
DALLAS — Frequently employing war-like rhetoric, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Thursday told a crowd of conservatives in Dallas that the future of “Western civilization” is in peril — attacking progressives while imploring right-wing Americans and Hungarians to “know how to fight.”
“The West is at war with itself,” Orban said Thursday, opening the three-day Conservative Political Action Conference. “We have seen what kind of future the globalist voting bloc has to offer. But we have a different future in mind. The globalists can all go to hell, I have come to Texas.”
Orban’s speech came weeks after he drew heavy criticism from civil rights groups, Holocaust survivors and even members of his own inner circle after denouncing racemixing and making light of the systemic killing of Jews and other groups deemed “undesirable” by Nazi Germany during World War II.
During his speech Thursday, Orban was unrepentant: “A Christian politician cannot be racist,” he said.
Making frequent attacks on progressives, communists and the “leftist media,” Orban said the horrors of World War II were the result of European countries abandoning Christian values.
“And today’s progressives are planning to do the same,” he said. “They want to give up on Western values and create a new world — a postWestern world. Who is going to stop them if we don’t?”
Orban, serving his fourth consecutive term as Hungary’s prime minister, has been described as increasingly autocratic and authoritarian by democracy groups. He’s taken control of Hungary’s media and courts system and painted himself as a defender of Christian values against migration from majority Muslim countries. He has also frequently demonized the LGBTQ community.