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Hey Joanne!You may be trapped inside your home, and you know you can’t escape the madness, but the good news is that Pritzker has obtained the much needed medical supplies from China, without Trump’s and the Federal government’s knowledge, behind their backs. And guess what? The White House is bigly mad about it. Pritzker cites his fear that if he hadn’t gone behind the Federal Government’s back that the supplies would have just been seized before they arrived in his state.The White House issued a sharp rebuke Saturday to Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, who reportedly spent over $1.7 million on flights bringing medical supplies from China in secret—out of fear the Trump administration would seize the cargo for the federal stockpile.To put this into perspective, and step back for a second here: Pritzker, who was specifically told by Trump that he was on his own to buy medical supplies in the open market, does so, and the White House is not happy with this because he did this without notifying them, he did it in secret? Why did Pritzker do this in secret? Because many shipments to states were diverted, seized, and confiscated for the federal stockpile, stolen, even though these states paid Millions of Dollars for these essential supplies, just to have them taken away right under their noses in an act of highway robbery.From Illinois Gov. Pritzker Secretly Bought Medical Supplies From China. And The White House Is Not Happy.Reports first emerged earlier this week that Illinois was “secretly” getting PPE and other medical supplies shipped from China in order to avoid interference from the federal government.The Chicago-Sun Times first reported Pritzker’s China flight payments, citing a source familiar with the matter who said that the governor didn’t want to release details “because we’ve heard reports of Trump trying to take PPE in China and when it gets to the United States.”In an online portal that tracks all of the state’s coronavirus-related spending, released by the Illinois State Comptroller on Tuesday, there are two payments of $888,275 each, listed as “aircraft charter flight to Shanghai, China for COVID-19 response.”“We’ve had to search the entire globe to find what we need. Shipping is very difficult,” Pritzker told reporters at a briefing on Wednesday, after his office confirmed the original reports a day earlier.Unbelievable. The governor of Illinois has to be afraid that PPEs and medical supplies he needs for his state would be confiscated by Trump’s Feds right out from under his nose, so he has to arrange shipments in secret to make sure he actually gets what he needs? What kind of Banana Republic are we? “Trump trying to take PPE in China and when it gets to the United States?” FOR REAL? What is wrong with this monster?He said that because “the federal government seems to be interrupting supplies that are being sent elsewhere in the nation” he “wanted to make sure that we received what we ordered,” and also told CNN that he had “given up” on receiving help from the Trump administration.White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere responded, telling RealClearPolitics that Pritzker, “through ignorance or incompetence or a propensity to politicize everything,” was wrong, and that the administration had been providing Illinois with resources.Stealing them is more like it.Dick Durbin explains it:Earlier this month, Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said in an interview with MSNBC that Pritzker was calling CEOs of major airlines and begging them for help in organizing airlifts of PPE and medical supplies from China to Illinois. “They couldn’t get flights, cargo flights out,” he said. “You know, I’ve got a very talented governor here… but to think it’s his responsibility to airlift what should have been in the national stockpile is incredible.”Indeed, providing PPEs and Coronavirus test kits was quite clearly the federal governments’ responsibility in this national crisis. What Trump, Kushner and the entire criminal Trump enterprise have been doing instead, delaying, diverting, confiscating, seizing, has been nothing short of a gross dereliction of duty, a callous disregard for human lives and a disgusting “game” of politics and favoritism when many human lives have been and are being lost daily because of the actions, past and present, of Trump and his mob-like cabal.Let’s go back in time 3 weeks to set the table for this sorry state of affairs, which now is forcing governors to go behind the White House’s backs to obtain medical supplies, test kits and PPE material (surely Pritzker isn’t the only one):From the very beginning Trump told governors they are on their own obtaining life saving PPEs and medical supplies such as masks, ventilators, face shields, gowns, gloves, etc. So, the governors had to look around in the open market and bid for these life saving items without any help from the Federal government.USA Today, 3/27/2020: It's state vs. state in a frantic search for medical gear to battle coronavirus' spreadIn typical GOP manner it wasn’t about getting the needed equipment to the states quickly, without red tape, in the fastest way possible, but the idea was “Let the market make the price and whoever is willing to pay the most gets PPEs”. Human lives be damned.To make matter worse the feds decided to actually participate in the market themselves, outbidding states for these life saving PPEs so they can accumulate them for their federal stockpile, a federal stockpile that Trump and Kushner made clear was not meant for the states. Kushner: The federal stockpile is ours, not the states'CNBC, 4/3/2020: States are bidding against each other and the federal government for important medical supplies — and it’s driving up pricesNow, to make matters even MUCH worse, and to add insult to injury, the feds didn’t just outbid the states to beef up their stockpile, which wasn’t for the states, they also would confiscate, aka steal, supplies that the states had “won” fair and square in those ridiculous bidding wars, outbidding other states and the federal government for them. That was criminal on the part of the Trump cabal.Dailykos 4/4/2020: Kushner Using Federal Govt To Confiscate N95's Bought By American States AND European Allies.NY Times 4/6/2020: "Swept up by FEMA"Business Insider 4/8/2020: Officials in at least 6 states are accusing the federal government of quietly diverting their orders for coronavirus medical equipmentLA Times: 4/7/2020: Hospitals say feds are seizing masks and other coronavirus supplies without a wordSo, against the backdrop of the federal government and the Trump criminals doing everything in their power to deprive states from getting life saving PPEs is it any wonder that Illinois Governor Pritzker had to go behind their backs to get the supplies he needs for his state? And, the Trump White House isn’t happy about it. Well, well. Get THE HELL over it. You are robbing states and you are not happy that they are forced to go out on their own to find the supplies they need, fearing that you’ll just seize them at the point of entry again, as you’ve done countless times?Pritzker has given up on the White House ever doing the right thing, ever being helpful to them:CNN, 4/14/2020: Illinois governor says he's 'given up' on coronavirus help from the Trump administrationIllinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Tuesday that he has "given up" on receiving federal assistance to help combat the novel coronavirus pandemic, saying instead that his state is "doing what we need to do despite" President Donald Trump."We have gotten very little help from the federal government. It's fine. I've given up on any promises that have been made," Pritzker, a Democrat, told CNN’s Erin Burnett on “Outfront.” "I hope something will get delivered from the federal government, but I don't expect it anymore."His comments follow the President's statement earlier Tuesday at a White House news conference that governors "are supposed to do testing" for Covid-19, despite many state leaders saying they need federal assistance to do so. The lack of testing has been a point of contention between governors and the federal government, as the number of coronavirus cases increases.Here he is:For Illinois, Pritzker said Tuesday, "the President at this point is near irrelevant when it comes to this question of testing."Pritzker, an outspoken state leader during the pandemic, has expressed frustration before over how Trump has handled the federal response to the outbreak. He previously said he had told the Trump administration his state needed 4,000ventilators, and he told CNN's Jake Tapper that the President's inaction on states' requests had created a "a Wild West" environment for procuring much-needed medical supplies.It really can’t get much worse than that, can it?Sources: Everyone linked in the text and To avoid Fed confiscation Illinois Governor secretly bought PPEs from China. White House unhappy!

First of all we should refrain from using US contemporary terminology. The French had their own geographic concepts, that did not perfectly overlap with the US ones. The French called the region the Pays des Illinois (Country of the Illinois, a confederation of 12 indigenous nations), and it designated the area where the Illinois language was used for trade, so it’s not only limited to Illinois ancestral territory but may also include their Miami allies, and so on. Sometimes, the French said les Illinois, aux Illinois, in plural, to speak of the region in a shorter way. It was also considered by the French to be located in their colony of Louisiana, and so it was also considered to be the Haute-Louisiane (Upper Louisiana).When the French arrived, the Kaskaskia nation was considered the most powerful nation of the Illinois Confederacy, so the French merchants and missionaries chose to live in their great village in priority. They also lived among other Illinois nations like the Cahokias and the Péorias. At first the French simply created a geography that followed closely the indigenous geography that was already there. Later they built trading posts/forts.The Fort de Chartres became the mort important trading post in the Illinois Country for pretty much all the duration of 18th century New France, it was the major stop between Montréal and the New Orléans. The French dwellings around that fort would come to be known as la Nouvelle-Chartres.(You can visit a recreated fort de Chartres today in the Illinois State, at la Prairie du Rocher)As you might know, Louisiana was split in two by the Treaty of Paris of 1763. A lot of this Illinois Country and anything east of the Mississippi was attributed to Britain while the rest of Louisiana was attributed to New Spain.So the fort de Chartres and anything north of it went to the British. The British would often call it just “fort Chartres”. The English inherited a much damaged fort. Its walls were crumbling to such a point the cannon was never fired for fear of making the wall crumble.For the French of the Pays des Illinois, the splitting of Louisiana in two was a problem since the primary market for them was the New Orléans, that now was in New Spain.The British also caused insecurity for the Illinois because while they did have relatively competent personnel in the Department of Indian Affairs, the British military was not very competent when it came to the indigenous. The British assumed they could just disregard the relations between indigenous nations and that somehow trade would make all of them friends suddenly. The Chickasaws (or in French Chicachas) were British allies, and now the British attracted them to the fort de Chartres to trade, right in Illinois territory, that considered the Chickasaws their enemies. In doing so, the British alienated themselves with the Illinois… and also the French traders, that were married to Illinois, and that had no kinship links with the Chickasaws since they always were enemies of the French. This stupid move by the British of course made both the Illinois and the French more exposed to Chichasaw attacks.The British also tried to compete with the French trade. Merchants from Philadelphia (John Baynton, Samuel Wharton, and George Morgan) set up the Illinois Company to trade in this region, but the hostility of the French would eventually make that enterprise fail. Nevertheless, it showed these French traders were now exposed to competition from the British.This new situation made both the Illinois and the French migrate to the Spanish side of Louisiana. At the same moment, the New Orléans merchant Pierre Laclède founded Saint-Louis at the intersection of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. The trade of Saint-Louis was quite profitable as Laclède sent his stepsons Auguste and Pierre Chouteau get an alliance with the Osage nation that controlled the Lower Missouri. Unlike the situation at the dying fort de Chartres, the francophones there had a monopoly on this trade. The old French commander of the fort de Chartres, Pierre-Joseph Neyon de Villiers, himself relocated to Saint-Louis and became a major asset to the new Spanish regime as he already prepared their arrival telling to the indigenous that the King of Spain was a brother to the King of France and that there would be continuity with how France treated them.(Newer French settlements of Spanish Louisiana and later US Louisiana)(A Canadien father in the right and his métis son in the left navigating on the Missouri.)The Péoria nation of the Illinois migrated just south of Saint-Louis and established a new village there. Some French moved with them and began a new life in Saint-Louis, or in other new settlements like Sainte-Geneviève or la Nueva Madrid.In the north, their cousins that remained next to the fort de Chartres, weakened by the Chichasaw, but also Fox (Renards, Outagamis in French) and Sauk (Sakis in French) attacks, concentrated their presence around the fort to benefit from British protection. Péorias, Cahokias, Michigaméas, and Kaskaskias Illinois therefore created 3 new villages in 1769 in order to be under the British umbrella. They would trade their knowledge to the British for supplies.In the region of the rivière Ouabache (or Wabash for the British), the French Créole merchants were still pretty active. There the French were allied with Quicapous (or Kickapoo in English) who waged war against the Chickasaws against British wishes.In Saint-Joseph, the local French and the Potéouatamis indigenous (or Potawatomi in English) still resisted the British. In 1767 the Potawatomi were still at war with the British, who so far created very little economic opportunities to have an alliance with them, unlike the French residents of Saint-Joseph.Since the French Créoles of Saint-Joseph and the Ouabache river were still hostile to the British, the British commander of Détroit was trying to get their scalps and he complained:“The only method to Remove the French men from amongst the Indians, is first to order them to come in, which if they Refuse send a party of Indians and scalp them.”In 1768, the British signed the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, in which the Iroquois ceded to the British Shawnee (Chaouanons) and Cherokee (Chéraquis) lands. This caused yet again more stir as it forced many indigenous to migrate west, in their enemies’ lands.In 1772 the fort de Chartres was finally destroyed.I’d say the nail in the coffin was the arrival of the United States. You see, the French Créoles of the Illinois Country always profited from their situation of intermediaries between Montréal and la Nouvelle-Orléans. In short, they were adapted to the political configuration of the time of New France. Under the British it was still possible to trade from Montréal to la Nouvelle-Chartres to Saint-Louis to la Nouvelle-Orléans, but with the US War of Independence, this commercial route would be interrupted.The local French Créoles like Gabriel Cerré and Charles Gratiot tried to open new trade opportunities with the “Bostonais” rebels who came with the Virginian commander George Rogers Clark to claim Vincennes, Cahokia, Détroit and so on from the British.Cerré and Gratiot had no longer buyers in Montréal due to the war. Their trade was risky as both sides would assume they were spies. So they turned to the rebels and sold to Clark supplies. Clark had no money with him but signed promissory notes worth tens of thousands of dollars. The problem is that Virginia never paid its debt to them. Since the US was short on metal currency, they had nothing to pay but their dollar bills, which had no value then and the French Créoles considered this paper could not even buy a cat pelt (it’s possible “cat” here means raccoon). They also remembered their own card money that France never converted back into metal.Since Cerré transported furs to Michilimackinac and Québec City and came back to Kaskaskia, Clark did not trust him. He said Gabriel Cerré was “one of the most inveterate Enemies of the Americans.”This is why in 1780, Gabriel Cerré moved to Saint-Louis in Spanish Louisiana. His usual trade with Montréal was interrupted, both the British and the rebels did not trust him, the rebels did not pay their debts. In Saint-Louis, Auguste Chouteau, who took the helm of the family business after the death of Pierre Laclède, was just too happy to welcome these useful partners that had contacts in Montréal.The situation was similar for the merchant Charles Gratiot. He was a partner in a society based in Montréal, and he was sent to Cahokia. He did trade between Cahokia, the Prairie du Chien, Michilimackinac and Montréal. Now, with the new borders that were set where New France had none, trade was more difficult as now it was necessary to obtain passports from both the US and Spanish Louisiana. Even then, the Menominee indigenous (Folles-Avoines, Malhoumines) and the British would seize his goods. The US interpreted the capture of his goods as an intentional move to help the British.Worse. In 1779, the rebel commander Richard McCarty granted to Charles Sanguinet, a rival from Saint-Louis (Spanish Louisiana) the right to trade on the rivière des Illinois, which was directly in competition with him. Since Gratiot had not contacts on the side of Spanish Louisiana, he informed McCarty he would be forced to “become a Spaniard”. Gratiot also felt betrayed by the rebels as he had given then $ 8000 worth of goods, and McCarty would still not grant trade rights to him but to a guy from Saint-Louis.Gratiot said from the US rebels:“I cannot help regreting the Time and trouble I have lost in trying to serve a People so Destitute of Patriotic Sentiments, who are totally guided by a vile Particular Interest never doing any thing or even caring about the General Benefit of a Country.”(Letterbooks of Charles Gratiot)Therefore, he too was forced to move to Saint-Louis in 1780. So clearly, as the fort de Chartres was destroyed in 1772 and as the local Illinois Confederacy was greatly weakened, becoming dependent on the British, now the centre of trade move to Spanish Louisiana and the Missouri valley, where the Osage indigenous ruled. The French merchants of the British Illinois Country became clients to the powerful Auguste Chouteau and over time, they would intermarry together.The commercial links between Montréal and the New Orléans would still manage to survive, but they would yet again be interrupted by the War of 1812. Then there would be the 1837 Rebellion of Lower Canada (new name of the former province of Québec). The traditional trade between the Louisianais and the Canadiens would be increasingly difficult to maintain, and the two populations would grow more and more isolated from each other. Moreover, for 35 years, British would turn into a majority in Montréal in the 19th century and their trade relations would start to overcome the French ones. Worse. Fur trade would decline, and whereas francophones and indigenous were important agents in that economy, the new British economy based on agriculture, timber (with the dangerous wood driving on the rivers), fisheries (dominated by the Robin that would treat Gaspesian fishermen as slaves) would on the contrary make them dependent on anglophone bosses that would own these companies, would make them subordinates instead of autonomous merchants or voyageurs that could exploit the rivalry between the companies to menace them of defecting if they were not paid. In Saint-Louis, Auguste Chouteau would no longer make money from fur trade and would have to turn to supplying the US government with goods to give to indigenous in the cession treaties the US would force them to sign. In the New Orléans, the city would quickly be overwhelmed by US banks, and US lawyers that would quickly start to apply US laws when in fact they were still not the law in Louisiana, that was still ruled by the Custom of Paris, and so Créoles would be disadvantaged in trials held in a language they didn’t understand following a law that should not apply yet and that they didn’t know. Le Moniteur, the journal of the Créoles of that city, would complain that trials would always favour USAmericans. So little by little, francophones across the continent would be downgraded in position during the 19th century. This is how francophones turned into the “Chinese of the Eastern States” in 1881 according to Carroll D. Wright or into a “janitor people”, to speak with the words of Michèle Lalonde in 1974.As for the indigenous nations, the Indian Removal Act moved most of the nations I mentioned to Oklahoma, a sort of big state-reservation mixing all sorts of nations that used to be enemies with each other.

I’m not surprised this fantasy question was posted anonymously, I can’t imagine anyone wanting their name associated with it.Illinois gun laws are not sensible, they’re stupid and tyrannical.The Illinois National Guard has no police power or authority in a neighboring state. And Illinois law has no standing in a neighboring state.The President could declare this unlawful invasion of a neighboring state an armed insurrection and send in regular Army troops. They would make very short work of the weekend warriors.Chicago’s illegal guns come from all over including ones that have been in Chicago for years, they’re not coming from licensed dealers or gun shows in neighboring states.Most of the illegal guns are handguns. You cannot buy a handgun across state lines legally. Most sales at gun shows are actually by licensed dealers who have to follow the same rules for those sales as for sales at their shop.This is a standard lie told by gun controllers when their stupid laws don’t work. They would rather take someone’s freedom than admit they are wrong.Chicago is the second most corrupt city in the US and it’s politicians are among the most incompetent.