CHICAGO – Long-respected commentator Dennis Byrne has agreed for Illinois Review to showcase parts of his valuable insight to our readers, and we're delighted. Byrne rates among the most knowledgeable writers on the history and inside of Illinois politics.
Byrnes is writing these days as proprietor of "The Barbershop," where he rarely holds back punches about the good and the bad of Illinois politics.
Yesterday, for instance, he wrote in "Illinois and Cook County still ain't ready for reform. Neither is Chicago," these scathing words about how nasty and vindictive the Democrats' Chicago Machine can be:
Preckwinkle and Evans engineered a Kremlin-like political poisoning of Cook County Judge Michael Toomin because he ordered a special prosecutor to investigate State's Attorney Kim Foxx’s handing Jesse Smollet a get-out-of-jail free card. Preckwinkle led the move to not endorse Toomin for retention in the coming election even though, as John Kass noted, the judge is 'a well-respected, veteran judge.'
…
They now have embraced the same autocratic methods of Richard J. Daley and the demonic Democratic machine, punishing those who are 'disloyal' and who put the public interest ahead of party subservience.
Which leads to Mike Madigan and his most commonly used ploys to maintain his unrelenting grip on Illinois.
Read about it HERE.
