U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a retired Air Force pilot whose missions took him to Afghanistan and Iraq, doubled down on his criticism of the U.S. withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan, writing on Twitter today that “removing the peacekeepers and leaving the Afghan people without support is a grave mistake, Mr. President.”
Kinzinger’s tweet comes after President Joe Biden’s announced last week that U.S. military operations in Afghanistan would end Aug. 31 and as the Taliban has been making gains in the country.
Biden maintains that it was time to exit the nearly 20-year war and not sacrifice more American lives.
Kinzinger was also critical of pulling out of the country when then-President Donald Trump, a fellow Republican, raised the idea last year. He’s now making the same case to a Democratic White House. In an April op-ed for Fox News, he wrote that while the combat mission was not the same as it was for U.S. troops after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the U.S. presence had evolved into a partnership with the Afghan government that lent stability to the region.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s top public health official announced today that two states have been put back under Chicago’s emergency travel order, ending a string of several weeks when there were no travel restrictions in the city, my Tribune colleague Alice Yin reports.
About 2,000 unionized Cook County employees are back to work today after an 18-day walkout. The strike was the longest ever for the Service Employees International Union Local 73, whose leaders have now reached a tentative contract agreement with Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s bargaining team.
During an interview on WBEZ-FM 91.5, Preckwinkle acknowledged that relations with SEIU Local 73 — a union that supported her losing bid for Chicago mayor in 2019 — “have been damaged.”
And the upcoming city-sponsored Small Business Remote Expo offers a lineup of experts and events for Chicago entrepreneurs just starting out, looking to expand or are seeking a little fraternity post-pandemic.
The includes keynote speaker Alex Pissios, the President and CEO of Cinespace, Chicago Film Studios who’s been through the ups and downs of doing business in the city.
While the studios studies have been home to NBC blockbusters like “Chicago Fire” and “Chicago P.D.,” Pissios ended up in the midst of another drama: He cooperated with the FBI in a sting against Teamsters boss John Coli who later pleaded guilty to extorting $325,000 from Pissios at Cinespace.
As ace City Hall reporter John Byrne points out, it “Will be interesting to see what advice Pissios has on networking for Chicago’s small business owners.”
Welcome to The Spin.
Kinzinger tells Biden troop withdrawal in Afghanistan is ‘a grave mistake’
On Twitter this morning, Kinzinger, who remains in the Air National Guard, shared a CNN story detailing the Taliban execution of Afghan commandos who were in the midst of surrendering. He commented: “This is horrible—yet it’s the reality of announcing the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Removing the peacekeepers and leaving the Afghan people without support is a grave mistake, Mr. President.”
The White House didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
Kinzinger sees the U.S. troops’ presence at this point as a “peacekeeping” mission.
He offered his take on NBC’s “Meet the Press” this weekend, saying “the Taliban have outlasted the will of the United States. It was not a hot war really, it was basically a peacekeeping operation, and we may have to go back now.”
“I wish it would have been a lot shorter (mission) … but we set out so that the Afghan government could defend itself — and we only had 2,500 troops there, 5,000 NATO troops, and the Afghanistan government was doing 98% of the fighting against the Taliban,” Kinzinger said.
Kinzinger also said he agreed with The Economist magazine’s headline that labeled the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan a “crushing defeat.” Watch the interview here. Read The Hill’s report on it here.
In announcing the Aug. 31 deadline to exit Afghanistan, Biden said there will be no sense of “mission accomplished” but that ultimately the lives of U.S. soldiers will be spared by ending an operation whose conclusion is not clear-cut. Read The Associated Press story here.
Chicago banker convicted in loans-for-Trump job scheme
Dispatch from The Associated Press: “A Manhattan jury on Tuesday convicted a Chicago banker of criminal charges for enabling Paul Manafort to get $16 million in loans before the former campaign manager for ex-President Donald Trump helped him get an interview for a job in the Trump administration.
“The jury returned its verdict in federal court, convicting Stephen Calk of financial institution bribery and conspiracy charges. Calk’s lawyers had maintained their client did nothing illegal in the weeks after Trump won the presidential election in November 2016.
“But prosecutors said Calk cleared the path for Manafort to receive loans he was not entitled to in the hopes that Calk could secure a high-level post with the Trump administration. Although Calk eventually got an interview at Trump Tower, he was not hired.” Full story here.
Calk had been chief executive of The Federal Savings Bank of Chicago.
The 18-day strike was the longest-ever for the SEIU Local 73, whose workers staff offices under the Cook County president, in the county clerk’s office, in civilian positions in the sheriff’s office, and for Cook County Health.
It’s also the longest public sector strike in Chicago’s recent history.
“It also frayed ties between labor-friendly Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and SEIU 73 as she and union leadership continued to ding each other Tuesday following an acrimonious negotiating period,” Yin writes in the Tribune today. Full story here.
Union leaders felt the Preckwinkle administration wasn’t prioritizing the contract.
Preckwinkle dismissed that, saying on WBEZ-FM: “One of the things that’s happened, of course, is that my relationships with SEIU have been damaged, but my primary responsibility is not, frankly, my relationship with SEIU. It’s to the residents and taxpayers in Cook County, to be a good steward of county government, and that’s what I’ve tried to do.”
On Friday, Fraternal Order of Police Local 7 President John Catanzara released a video saying the union representing rank-and-file Chicago officers had reached a deal in principle with Mayor Lightfoot’s administration. But this week, Lightfoot said that’s not quite right.
The mayor told reporters yesterday: “My team is evaluating the proposal, and we’ll have more to say about it one way or the other, but unfortunately Mr. Catanzara’s announcement that there’s a deal … simply wasn’t correct.”
The Sun-Times’ Fran Spielman reports that Catanzara isn’t exactly backing down. But, she writes, he was “uncharacteristically tight-lipped … for fear of reversing the progress he believes has laid the groundwork for an eight-year deal.”
He also told Spielman, “I will have more to say later in the week.” More here.
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Chicago adds two states to travel advisory after weeks without restrictions
“Since the start of June, no states had been on the city’s COVID-19 travel restriction list as the pandemic appeared to ebb in the U.S. thanks to vaccinations. But as the more contagious delta variant began spreading and states hit a wall with vaccine outreach, positive tests began creeping up once again,” Alice Yin writes for the Tribune.
“Missouri and Arkansas were added this week because they met the threshold of at least 15 daily cases per 100,000 residents. Once a state breaches that ceiling, travelers returning from there to Chicago must be fully vaccinated, quarantine for 10 days or test negative for COVID-19 no more than 72 hours before arrival.”
In a statement, the city’s public health commissioner, Dr. Allison Arwady, hit a familiar refrain: “The COVID-19 pandemic is not over, and this only goes to show that the virus is still very much a threat and that we must all remain vigilant against it. That means getting vaccinated and wearing a mask in public settings if you are not fully vaccinated.”
COVID-19 infections are rising again in parts of Illinois: Tribune reporter Joe Mahr examines where and why.
Conservative activist Charlie Kirk will headline the annual Northwest suburban Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner on Aug. 16 at the White Eagle Banquet & Convention Center in Niles. Founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA and loyalist to former President Donald Trump, Kirk relishes a political battle.
Last week he was a guest on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show, where he likened colleges that require students to have COVID-19 vaccinations to “almost this apartheid-style open-air hostage situation, like: ‘Oh, you can have your freedom back if you get the jab.'”
New leadership for troubled Chicago Teachers Pension Fund: Crain’s A.D. Quig reports that Carlton W. Lenoir Sr., chief benefits officer at the Teachers’ Retirement System of Illinois, has been hired as the system’s executive director after a national search. He walks into the post with a board in turmoil and a balance sheet that shows the CTPF’s unfunded liability stands at $12 billion-plus. Full story here.
More Chicago high schools vote to remove school police, a year after George Floyd’s murder intensified calls to oust CPD from CPS. Full Tribune story here.
Former state Sen. Heather Steans, a Democrat from Chicago’s North Side, has been tapped to serve on the board of Lambda Legal, a civil rights organization representing the LGBTQ community.
Steans served for a dozen years in the Illinois Senate and worked closely with Lambda Legal during the push for the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act — the legislation to legalize same sex marriages. The measure was signed into law in 2013 by then-Gov. Pat Quinn. She now chairs the Board of the Steans Family Foundation, which focuses on providing opportunities and services to Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood.
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