Ottawa Republican rally speakers focus on Kinzinger’s decisions, state’s criminal justice reform bill, COVID-19 reporting

About 150 Republicans in and around La Salle County attended a rally Saturday afternoon to show their displeasure with U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger’s vote to impeach former President Donald Trump.

Speakers at the rally also focused on Illinois’ criminal justice reform bill and questioned officials and the media’s reporting of COVID-19 cases at the rally at Washington Square Park in Ottawa.

La Salle County Republicans Central Committee Chairman Larry Smith said he decided to sponsor the rally because he doesn’t believe La Salle County Republicans are being properly represented by Kinzinger, R-Channahon.

Smith said Republicans have been left with no choice but to hold a rally confronting Kinzinger’s decision-making.

“We do not agree that our congressman should ... call for the second impeachment of Donald Trump without a single moment of investigation, the very role that the House is supposed to perform,” Smith said. “We do not agree, as Representative Kinzinger stated that we should invoke the 25th Amendment, an amendment to remove a sitting president, basically saying he is physically or mentally incapable of handling that job.”

Smith said he believes Trump was perfectly capable and did an extraordinary job in surviving the scrutiny he endured.

Larry Langston, the vice chairman of the La Salle County Republicans Central Committee, spoke to the crowd on Illinois House Bill 3653, a police reform bill that has yet to be signed into law by Gov. JB Pritzker, although it has passed through both the Illinois House and Senate. Langston also is a retired Aurora Police Department chief.

“I’ve watched, just like many of you have on the TV this summer, all these peaceful riots where we’ve actually had governments tell their police departments to stand down and don’t arrest,” Langston said. “Let me tell you something about a mob. When a mob starts to form, you have to stop it now.”

Langston listed situations like the autonomous zone in Seattle, or federal and government buildings getting taken over by radicals.

“Police aren’t perfect in every aspect, and I don’t know of any agency that is,” Langston said. “But there are ways that we have laws and how we deal with those things. Now you’ve got people calling to defund the police and take the money away from the police. How long do you think that’s going to work?”

Langston commended both state Sen. Sue Rezin, R-Morris, and Rep. Lance Yednock, D-Ottawa, for voting against the bill, which contains measures that eliminate cash bail in some instances and allows for decertification of police officers.

While Langston said this bill eliminates cash bail completely, Capitol News Illinois reported Tuesday that there are exceptions in place for “first-degree murder, sexual assault, arson and any other felony involving the use or threat of physical force; stalking and aggravated stalking where the defendant poses a threat to the victim if released; abuse or battery of a family member where their release poses a danger to that family member; gun crimes where the defendant poses a threat to a specific, identifiable person; and cases where the defendant has committed a felony that wouldn’t otherwise result in detention but they are considered a high risk of fleeing prosecution and missing their court date.”

Langston also said he is concerned that police will face restrictions on the type of force they can use on certain kinds of calls.

“Every call that a police officer takes, and I don’t care what that call is, I’ve been there,” Langston said. “It doesn’t matter. At any point in time, that call can go from nothing to a fight for your life.”

Former 8th District congressional candidate Col. Larry Kaifish shared worries that the political left fundamentally is trying to change America by attacking its foundation.

“We were built on a foundation of unity,” Kaifish said. “Going back to the founding era, the founders united on a belief that all men and women are created equal, and that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, which among them are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Kaifish said he thinks Trump did all he could to make America great again, but Democrats are bringing division through identity politics by driving wedges of race, sex, sexual orientation, class and others.

“When we look at our representation, what do we want to see?” Kaifish asked. “We want to see people that are going to promote America and make America great.”

DePaul University student and TikToker Chase Heidner spoke to the crowd, sharing her beliefs on the effect of media coverage and scrutiny on Trump’s decisions regarding the COVID-19 pandemic response.

“To this day, so many people are quick to blame President Trump for questioning the narratives surrounding the coronavirus because he didn’t advocate for wearing a mask,” Heidner said.

She then listed off purported instances such as medical doctors being deplatformed for sharing opposing views online, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi telling people to head to Chinatown after Trump established travel restrictions and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot getting a haircut during stay-at-home orders.

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One of the keynote speakers Larry Kaifesh, a former US Marine Corps colonel and candidate for Congress, speaks Saturday, Jan. 30, 2021, to the crowd of his disappointment with U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Channahon) during Rally For Representation at Washington Square in Ottawa. (Tom Sistak)

She also brought the COVID-19 death totals into question, citing Illinois Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike’s explanation from a May 12, 2020, news conference on how COVID-19 deaths are being reported:

“We are reporting those deaths that have laboratory confirmation, meaning that they have been tested, and a laboratory test indicates that they were COVID positive,” Ezike said at the news conference. “As we learn more about the disease, there may have been less typical presentations of COVID-19 that were not appropriately attributed to COVID because there wasn’t a test done because the suspicion was not there.”

Heidner said she believes the media switched too quickly from calling the pandemic “like the flu” to calling it a “plague.”

Kinzinger responded to the rally in the preceding days with a statement noting that he looks forward to building a solid foundation with local party leadership while they navigate the next four years under a Democratic majority, through the course of the pandemic, keeping the focus on serving the community and shared interests of the party.