Connor Towne O'Neill
speaker
230 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 5 Jul
Connor Towne O'Neill’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Strader says if they neither get the approval of the state nor the federal legislatures, then that could potentially trigger violence.
Now, a bill to split the state was introduced during the most recent legislative session in Illinois, but it didn't make it out of committee.
The legislator who introduced that bill, Brad Halbrook, he told me the plan is to introduce the bill again in the next session.
When I asked him about the possibility of violence, he pointed to the Declaration of Independence.
The Founding Fathers weren't worried about the law, he said.
They were worried about the political will to do something different.
That's where we're at in Illinois, he said.
The question for Halbrook was, what are you prepared to do?
That's the question on Virgil Strader's mind.
He tells me there's no militia associated with New Illinois, but he does know people with heavy arsenals who would be willing to join a secessionist fight.
Strader imagines, fantasizes maybe, a scenario in which an armed group would surround the Capitol and demand to form a new state, forcing the split without having to fire a shot.
You see only two options on the table, separating or civil war.
Could it really come to that?
That's a sobering thought.
It is.
It is.
I wouldn't wish that on anybody.
The chairman of New Illinois, G.H.
Merritt, she disavowed any talk of war.
She said leaving Chicago was more like leaving a bad marriage to avoid killing your partner.
Showing 201–220 of 230 · page 11 of 12
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