Current Conditions

Showing posts with label cook county. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cook county. Show all posts

Monday, March 21, 2022

Chicago Tonight: Cook County's flag to get a new look

Current Cook County Flag

This would legit fall in line with regards to civic symbols. Although perhaps not as important as either the state or the city of Chicago, how many of us think of Cook County having a flag. Many of us have to pay our property tax to them yearly and then of course we may have to do some business with the county court system especially if we have to do jury duty.

Anyway if I was still in school, I wouldn't mind trying to compete in this contest. If this was the 1990s probably would be using crayons to design a new flag, I can only wonder if our more creative students use photoshop to design new flags now.

Chicago Tonight has a bit more if you click the link you will see the finalized designs announced on Thursday.

This county standard has flown forlornly beside its snazzier local, state and national counterparts ever since it was adopted back in 1961. But that’s about to change.

Officials announced a re-design competition in 2019, and while the process stalled during the pandemic, it has picked up steam once again.

Six student-led designs have been chosen as finalists, whittled down from 23 semi-finalists, which were themselves plucked from the nearly 300 original submissions. Each semi-finalist was assigned a design mentor to help hone their idea; occasionally students were paired up if their concepts were similar.

The design brief was to create “an inclusive representation of Cook County, the rich diversity of its residents, the beauty of its landscape, the innovation of its institutions, and the pride of its history.”

Guidelines were also shared from the North American Vexillological Association, which notes that a flag should be simple and easily memorized, use meaningful symbolism, have two or three basic colors, have no lettering or seals, and should be distinctive while using similarities in other flags to show connections.
Are there any designs that you might like to see as the county's flag?

Friday, September 24, 2021

Buckeye Politics: IL presidential results time lapse

[VIDEO] This YouTube channel I recently discovered is called Buckeye Politics and shows a timelapse of how the state of Illinois voted in presidential races over the years. Illinois has been a state since 1818 and I could nitpick over the counties which has evolved over the years. The video actually starts in 1860 or since the American Civil War. Then again perhaps we shouldn't pay much attention to them until you start getting to 20th Century elections.

Perhaps Illinois has been considered solid blue in presidential races since 1992 when Bill Clinton defeated President George H.W. Bush. Illinois hasn't looked back and yet it's fascinating that in 1972 Nixon won Cook County. A Republican presidential candidate winning in Cook County over at least the last 50 years generally doesn't happen.

This is a fascinating look back! 

Tuesday, July 28, 2020

The Cook County State's Attorney Race


The above flyer I saw taped on a bus shelter on 95th Street Sunday. This is the first time I've seen such an accusation although if the State's Attorney is unpopular amongst some parts of the electorate it's due to her offices handling of the Jussie Smollett affair - Smollett formerly starred in the popular TV series Empire had allegedly engaged in a hoax claiming racists wearing a Make America Great Again ballcap had assaulted him.

Regardless Foxx easily won the Democrat primary in March even if it was affected by the coronavirus. And she does have a Republican opponent and I mentioned that in passing on Twitter as Chicago Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara noted the Republican opponent during his appearance on FOX News Channel.

I found this article from March 2020 discussing the Republican opponent Pat O'Brien a former judge who was elected as such as a Democrat in 2006
After cruising through the GOP primary Tuesday, O’Brien outlined his plans to beat incumbent Democrat Kim Foxx in a live-streamed news conference, thanking his family, friends and “everyone who voted against Kim Foxx.”

“We really have to clean up the mess that she’s made,” O’Brien said, not even a minute into his remarks. “I think we have to restore justice to the community. We have to make it safer for people in all of the kinds of activities that they do, and we have to remember that the state’s attorney’s duty is to protect the victims of crime.”
...
O’Brien said he’s taken a hard look at the state’s attorneys office, and while he sees Foxx’s handling of the Jussie Smollett case as “a violation of oath and a lack of integrity” he said the office is “under producing in other areas.”

The former judge said that under Foxx’s administration, fewer than 200 jury trials have been held in 15 felony courtrooms, which works out to less than four trials per courtroom each year. He said that from the 1980s until the first decade of this century that number was much higher. He also said Foxx has “lost more trials and gun cases than she’s won in each of the three years” and called for quicker trials.
This article noted that it's been almost 25 since a Republican had been elected Cook County State's Attorney. I vaguely remember him, he was a man named Jack O'Malley. Perhaps some of you remember those "Back Jack" political ads from back in the day.

Either way, 2020 has proven to be an odd year in a variety of ways. We got this pandemic and this unrest over racial injustice. I thought Trump could be re-elected President and right now he's limping because of those two ongoing crises. Perhaps a Republican could win the State's Attorneys office this year.

However, Cook County seemed to have trended more and more Democrat over the years and since O'Brien seems to have hardly campaigned since his primary I don't see a change in Cook County. Then again who knows time will tell..

Saturday, January 26, 2019

Capitol Fax: Today’s map

Well don't let the today fool you as this was actually posted by Rich Miller to his blog on Friday - just yesterday. He shared some other tweets from the Twitter page of Illinois Working Together (@IllinoisWorking) that illustrates the county by county unemployment rate.

Saturday, October 6, 2018

The Sixth Ward: Van Dyke - guilty! #laquanmcdonald

[VIDEO] Above I will share coverage from the CBS network which was live streamed on their YouTube channel yesterday. Below will be a tweet that shares the link to "The Sixth Ward" that attempted to compile various video stories about the reaction to the verdict of the Jason Van Dyke trial.

In late 2014, Officer Van Dyke shot LaQuan McDonald 16 times and McDonald died from his wounds. Yesterday among other charges, Van Dyke was convicted by a jury of second degree murder.
I'm relieved that there will be no rioting as the city was on high alert for any disturbances although there were protests around the city after the verdict was read.

Saturday, February 3, 2018

Community meet & greet on Saturday

Sorry for the late notice - and late crosspost from sixthward.us - on this as I just got wind of this on Friday night. Meet not only your new state Senator Elgie Sims, and state Rep. Nicholas Smith also county Commissioner Stanley Moore at their offices.
  • 8658 S. Cottage Grove Ave.
    Suite 404
    Chicago, IL 60619
    1:00 PM to 3:00 PM
    Phone: 773.933.7715

Flyer is below.

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

#alvarezisgone 2016 primary elections

via @toy4dst ig
Crossposted from The Sixth Ward

Not that I had been all over this, but aside from Donald Trump winning this state in his bid for the Republican nomination for President - the same with Hillary Clinton, btw. Also with longtime Congressman Bobby Rush beating his challenger Ald. Howard Brookins tonight. We have this.

I consider her response to a question about guns when Anita Alvarez first ran for Cook County State's Attorney. Her performance on 60 Minutes discussing Chicago being the false confession capital. And then the protests following the release of a video of a fatal confrontation with Laquan McDonald.

I share the pic above not only here but to our ig page just to share that someone is happy about Tuesday night's victory for the new Democratic nominee for State's Attorney Kim Foxx.

BTW, I have wondered people in other parts of the country and as it turns out suburban Cook County get those "I voted" stickers. Why don't we? DNA Info answers and unfortunately it took a few people to ruin it for everyone else as it turns out. :(

Saturday, August 22, 2015

Capitol Fax: Alvarez fighting to obtain party nod

In sharing this post at Capitol Fax, it's not just about state's attorney Anita Alvarez who sought backing from the Cook County Democrats. Todd Stroger wants to get back into politics is seeking an open seat on the Water Reclamation District. Rich Miller further opines that "This officeholder [Alvarez] really needs a primary so she can be held accountable…"

To go much further, this is really a post about how slating works in Cook County. Over the years there have been articles on the slating of judicial candidates in Cook County. Certainly it's a very political process but hey we are talking about politics here.

BTW, I retweeted this tweet from yesterday Chicago politicos met for slating there are a couple of familiar faces in this photo.
 
Alderman Sawyer is in the background on his phone and Alderman Beale is very attentive here.

BTW, to go back to Alvarez for a moment we'll go back to the vault to this post. She was interviewed for a 60 Minutes story regarding false confessions out of Chicago. Do you think Anita Alvarez should have a contested primary?