Midwest

The real reason Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is working so hard to resist Trump

Published

1 year ago

December 27, 2024

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The real reason Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is working so hard to resist Trump

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The reelection of Donald Trump as president of the United States promises great changes in the coming new year. However, there are politicians who have chosen to resist Trump and his administration. They often claim to do so because they believe they are more moral, virtuous, and human than the incoming president. Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson is one of them.

On the morning after the election, after he had campaigned for Vice President Kamala Harris in North Carolina, Johnson released an official statement from his mayoral office saying that “our president-elect has made direct threats against the most vulnerable and marginalized in our society.”

He added: “Chicagoans can be assured that they have a mayor who will not bend, who will not break when it comes to protecting our city, our values, and our neighbors. When it comes to fighting back against any hate, we will not flinch.”

There you have it: Brandon Johnson, the mighty moral man who would save us all.

CHICAGO MAYOR BOOTS PUBLIC FROM ROWDY CITY MEETING AS RESIDENTS OBJECT TO MIGRANT ‘INVASION’

Only if an ounce of that were true.

The reality is that Johnson has been a force against too many of us Chicagoans. It is because of men like him that I went to the American public for help in raising the funds to build my Economic and Leadership Opportunity Center on the South Side of Chicago. I have not received so much as a good word from him.

This is not surprising, since this man has not done much for public school education. The elementary school down the block from me has barely any kids reading or doing math on grade level. Why doesn’t Johnson, a former teacher, care about these kids? Where is the morality in sentencing kids to schools-in-name only?

It turns out that he was too busy launching a campaign to shut down some of Chicago’s best performing high schools: the CPS Selective Enrollment Schools. Many Black kids, including those from my neighborhood, fled to those schools to escape the failing ones. Now, Johnson wanted to shut down these schools because it wouldn’t be fair to the Black kids stuck in poor performing schools. You can’t make this up.

It was only after public outcry and pushback from a few government officials that Johnson backed off this issue — for now.

CHICAGO COMMUNITY ACTIVIST SOUNDS OFF ON MIGRANT CRISIS: ‘I WELCOME’ TRUMP BORDER CZAR

I couldn’t help the irony when Johnson posited him as a defender of the migrants that have moved into the city en masse. He said, “We’re going to defend the people of this city because…President Trump, his threat is not just toward new arrivals, and undocumented families” Mayor Johnson said. “His threats are also against Black families.”

How is he defending Black families when he threatens to shut down schools? And how is he defending Black families when he allows migrants into his city without any vetting and then allocates millions upon millions of dollars to them?

In a recent city meeting, a woman wearing a “Chicago flips red” shirt told Johnson that he was going to be “held accountable” for appointing a deputy mayor for “immigrant, migrant, and refugee rights” and spending freely on these people when the city is so far in debt that it’s not funny.

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Another speaker said in the same meeting, “We gonna talk about this budget, about the strange things that’s happening, because again, your name was on this executive order of May 2023, this executive order for immigration, migrants and refugee rights. You caused all this money to go to illegal immigrants.”

Yet another one said, “No one appointed a monarch to rule over the people of Chicago.”

Mayor Johnson’s response? “Sergeant at arms, please remove these individuals from the chambers.”

Johnson has appointed so many people to his administration that the public no longer has an accurate idea of who is responsible for what. All we know is that far too many of them are making six figures and apparently enough of them are people of color, allowing Johnson to brag that he has the most diverse administration of all time.

He may have that, but is he a moral man who truly cares about his people? Or is he an ideologue who uses resistance to Trump as a shield against his failures as a mayor? I strongly believe it is the latter. Johnson is not a friend to the city of Chicago. He is not a friend to the people. He’s a friend to the old rot of Chicago, institutional corruption.

That is why we must take his resistance against Trump for what it is: self-serving moralistic grandstanding. He is the government for the few who governs against our interests for a better Chicago.

That is why for this coming New Year I have made it my resolution to continue the fight for a better Chicago from my tiny corner in the city. Trump may be the president, but he is nothing without us, The People. That is why we must resist the Brandon Johnsons of our cities.

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Illinois

How a clump of moss helped convict grave robbers in Illinois

Published

1 hour ago

March 5, 2026

Press Room

How a clump of moss helped convict grave robbers in Illinois

It was a particularly heinous crime. Four workers at a cemetery near Chicago dug up more than 100 bodies and dumped the remains elsewhere in the grounds, in order to resell the burial plots for profit.

Now, nearly two decades after the scandal broke at Burr Oak cemetery in Alsip, Illinois, scientists have released details of how a tiny clump of moss became crucial forensic evidence that helped convict the grave robbers.

Dr Matt von Konrat, head of botanical collections at the Field Museum in Chicago, was drawn into the case in 2009 when he received a phone call from the FBI. “They asked if I knew about moss and brought the evidence to the museum,” he said.

An investigation by local police had found human remains buried under inches of earth at the cemetery, a site of enormous historical importance. Several prominent African Americans are buried at the cemetery, including Emmett Till, whose murder in 1955 became a catalyst for the civil rights movement, and the blues singer Dinah Washington.

Alongside the re-buried remains, forensic specialists spotted various plants, including a piece of moss about the size of a fingertip. Hoping that it would help them crack the case, the FBI asked von Konrat to work out where the moss came from and how long it had been there.

After examining the moss under a microscope and comparing it with dried specimens in the museum’s collection, the scientists identified it as common pocket moss, or Fissidens taxifolius. A survey at the cemetery found that the species did not grow where the corpses were discovered, but was abundant in a lightly shaded area beneath some trees where police suspected the bodies had been dug up. The moss had evidently been moved with the bodies.

But when was the crime committed? The answer lay in a quirk of moss biology. “This is the cool thing about moss,” von Konrat said. “When we’re dead, we’re dead, but with mosses, it’s bizarre. Even when we might think they’re dead, they can still have an active metabolism.” The metabolism drops slowly over time as cells gradually die off.

Emmett Till is among those whose remains are buried in the cemetery. Photograph: Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

One way to measure moss metabolism is to bathe it in light and see how much is absorbed by the chlorophyll used to make food through photosynthesis, and how much light is re-emitted. The scientists ran tests on the moss found with the bodies, on a fresh clump from the cemetery, and other specimens from the museum’s collection.

“We concluded that the moss had been buried for less than 12 months and that was important because the accused’s whole line of defence was that the crime took place before their employment. They were arguing that it happened years and years earlier,” said von Konrat. Details are published in Forensic Sciences Research.

Doug Seccombe, a former FBI agent who worked on the case and a co-author of the study, said the plant material from the cemetery was “key” to securing the convictions when the case went to trial.

Von Konrat, who is a fan of the BBC forensic science drama Silent Witness, never expected to be working on a criminal case, but now wants to highlight how important mosses might be for forensic investigations. “I had no idea we’d be using our science, our collections, in this manner,” he said. “It underscores how important natural history collections are. We never know how we might apply them in the future.”

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Indiana

Watch Indiana basketball’s Lamar Wilkerson give his mom a Cadillac

Published

1 hour ago

March 5, 2026

Press Room

Watch Indiana basketball’s Lamar Wilkerson give his mom a Cadillac

Indiana basketball sharpshooter Lamar Wilkerson is known for his generosity.

Upon joining the Hoosiers, he gave a tidy sum of his NIL earnings to his previous program, Sam Houston State.

“I was blessed to be able go from that, from not having a lot, to being here, having a lot more than I even knew what to do with,” Wilkerson said at the time. “I just thought, I can give them this.”

He upped the ante on IU’s Senior Night, giving his mother a Cadillac after the Hoosiers throttled Minnesota.

You could imagine her reaction.

Want more Hoosiers coverage? Sign up for IndyStar’s Hoosiers newsletter. Listen to Mind Your Banners, our IU Athletics-centric podcast, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch the latest on IndyStar TV: Hoosiers.

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Iowa

Iowa House OKs ‘3 strikes’ bill with 20-year prison terms. What to know

Published

2 hours ago

March 5, 2026

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Iowa House OKs ‘3 strikes’ bill with 20-year prison terms. What to know

Iowans who commit multiple serious crimes would face a mandatory 20-year prison sentence under a “three strikes” bill passed by House lawmakers.
Republicans said the bill would keep Iowans safe and “prioritize victims and public safety over criminals.”
A nonpartisan state agency says the bill would disproportionately impact Black Iowans and could require the state to spend millions to build a new prison.

Repeat offenders convicted of multiple serious crimes would receive a mandatory 20-year prison sentence under a bill passed by House lawmakers.

House lawmakers debated for more than an hour about high costs, lack of prison space and the bill’s impact on Black Iowans before voting 68-23 to pass House File 2542, sending it to the Iowa Senate.

Seven Democrats, including Minority Leader Brian Meyer, D-Des Moines, joined Republicans in voting in favor of the bill.

“It will put public safety first,” said the bill’s floor manager, Rep. Steven Holt, R-Denison. “It will ensure that the debt to victims and society is paid. It will prioritize victims and public safety over criminals. It will establish real and effective deterrence that is nonexistent in our current system. It will reduce chaos and violence in our society.”

Here’s what to know about the bill.

What would the House Republican three strikes bill do?

Iowans who accumulate three strikes would face a mandatory 20-year prison sentence, with no parole, under the bill.

That would replace Iowa’s current law that says habitual offenders must serve a minimum three-year prison sentence before they are eligible for parole.

All felonies, as well as aggravated misdemeanors involving sexual abuse, domestic abuse, assault and organized retail theft would be considered level-one offenses that are worth one full strike.

Other aggravated misdemeanors, as well as serious misdemeanors involving assault, domestic abuse and criminal mischief would be considered level-two offenses worth half a strike each.

Lawmakers amended the bill to remove theft, harassment and possession of a controlled substance from the crimes that would count toward a person’s strikes.

And the amendment specifies that the bill would only apply to convictions that occur beginning July 1, 2026.

If someone is arrested and convicted of multiple offenses, only the most serious charge would count towards the defendant’s strikes.

Convictions would not count toward someone’s total if more than 20 years passes between a prior conviction and their current conviction.

Rep. Ross Wilburn, D-Ames, tried unsuccessfully to amend the bill to say that only a violent crime would qualify as someone’s third strike, but Republicans rejected the amendment.

“The bill still scores murder, felony embezzlement and felony theft the same, even though they are very different crimes,” Wilburn said. “One point is one point and three gets you 20 years with no ability for parole or judicial discretion.”

Holt said the legislation leaves room for judicial and prosecutorial discretion.

“There are deferred sentences, there are plea bargains,” he said. “There is plenty of opportunity for grace and judicial discretion in the legislation that we are proposing.”

Bill could cost millions, require Iowa to build a new prison, agency says

A fiscal analysis of the bill by the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency said it could cost Iowa nearly $165 million more per year by 2031 based on the cost of housing inmates for longer prison stays.

FY 2027: $33 million
FY 2028: $66 million
FY 2029: $99 million
FY 2030: $132 million
FY 2031: $164.9 million

The agency said if the bill had been in effect between fiscal year 2020 and fiscal year 2025, there would have been 5,373 people who qualified for the 20-year mandatory minimum sentence.

“An increase in the prison population due to increased (length of stay) will require the DOC to build additional prison(s),” the agency states. “The size, security and other features that a future prison may require cannot be determined, but costs would be significant.”

The analysis noted that South Dakota appropriated $650 million last fall to build a 1,500-bed prison.

As of March 1, the Iowa Department of Corrections’ website describes the state’s prison system as being overcrowded by 25%, with 8,705 inmates compared to a capacity of 6,990.

The Office of the State Public Defender could see a projected cost increase of $1.6 million due to an increased number of trials resulting from the legislation.

But the agency’s estimates come with a caveat — the Department of Corrections did not respond to its requests for data.

“The LSA has not received a response to multiple requests for information from the DOC,” the note states. “Without additional information, the LSA cannot estimate the total fiscal impact of the bill.”

Holt called the fiscal note “an embarrassment to the Department of Corrections” and “an agenda masquerading as math.”

“It is clear, in my judgment, that because they did not like the legislation they went all out and extreme to create a fiscal note that cannot be taken seriously in its assumptions,” he said. “It assumes that nothing will change, that there will be no deterrent factor and that the numbers will continue as usual.”

Black Iowans would be disproportionately impacted by the law

The Legislative Services Agency analysis says the bill “may disproportionately impact Black individuals if trends remain constant.”

Of the 29,438 people convicted in fiscal year 2025 of felonies and aggravated misdemeanors that constitute a level one offense under the bill, the agency said about 70% were White, 22% were Black and 9% were other races.

Iowa’s overall population is 83% White, 4% Black and 13% other races, the agency said.

It’s not clear how the bill’s impact would change to account for the House amendment removing some crimes from counting towards the three strikes.

“Expanding three-strike laws will intensify disparities — and that’s what this statement shows — by mandating longer sentences, limiting judicial discretion,” Wilburn said. “We already have a habitual offender statute. We already have one in place. We have a 10-year low in recidivism in our correctional system.”

Rep. Angel Ramirez, D-Cedar Rapids, said California’s three strikes law, passed in the 1990s, worsened racial disparities, and “Iowa is about to repeat the same mistake.”

“I urge every member here, do not pass legislation that our own minority impact statement tells us will deepen inequality in our state,” Ramirez said.

Holt said minority communities in Iowa are impacted by crime and that the legislation “will make citizens of all colors safer.”

And he said the minority impact statement “tells only one side of the story, doesn’t it? It tells the criminal’s story. What about the victim’s story?”

“What about the mother who will continue to tuck her kids in at night and read them Bible stories because she never became the next victim of a violent career criminal?” he said. “Where is that data point in the minority impact statement?”

House lawmakers also approved separate legislation that would increase Iowa’s statewide bond schedule, Senate File 2399.

That bill passed on a vote of 74-19.

Iowans could see more information on judges’ rulings

Iowans would have access to more information about judges’ rulings ahead of the state’s judicial retention elections under a separate measure, House File 2719, which passed on a 73-19 vote.

The Iowa secretary of state’s office would be required to publish information including:

The percentage of cases in which the judge set a bond amount lower than the state’s bond schedule
The frequency that the judge releases someone on their own recognizance for a violent offense compared to a nonviolent offense
The frequency that the judge’s final sentence is lower than statutory recommendations or a prosecutor’s recommendations
The number of times the judge issues a deferred judgement, deferred sentence or suspended sentence
The number of times the judge’s rulings are reversed on appeal due to abuse of discretion or error of law
The average time it takes the judge to rule on a motion or case
The number of cases the judge has resolved compared to the number of cases on the judge’s docket

The data would have to be displayed with a five-year trend line beginning five years after the bill takes effect.

The Secretary of State’s Office would also be required to maintain a searchable database of all judicial opinions and orders for the judge’s current term and the preceding six years. The decisions would be redacted when appropriate.

And judges would have the opportunity to write a 2,000-word personal statement on their judicial philosophy or data trends present in their rulings.

Stephen Gruber-Miller covers the Iowa Statehouse and politics for the Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com or by phone at 515-284-8169. Follow him on X at @sgrubermiller.

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