It’s just a bill
Wednesday, Jul 10, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller
* WAND TV…
Legislators are calling for a repeal of the recently approved Reproductive Health Act and for new definitions of the viability of unborn children.
State Representatives Allen Skillicorn (R-Crystal Lake), Bard Halbrook (R-Shelbyville), Amy Grant (R-Wheaton), and Chris Miller (R-Oakland) are calling for the repeal.
House Bill 3850 was filed. It would create the Illinois Abortion Law of 2019 containing provisions of the Illinois Abortion Law of 1975.
The bill includes provisions defining, “viability to include when in the medical judgement of the attending physician based on the particular facts of the case before the attending physician, the unborn child has a fetal heartbeat, and defining fetal heartbeat as the cardiac activity or the steady and repetitive rhythmic contraction of the fetal heart within the gestational sac.”
* The bill is going absolutely nowhere, but Personal PAC is already fundraising off of it…
For the last 46 years, the anti-choice movement has been working tirelessly to overturn Roe one step at a time. Today, a group of State Representatives took the first step toward repealing the RHA and dismantling access to safe and legal abortion in Illinois.
The right-wingers will never give up their crusade to make birth control and abortion illegal. The only way to defend against their relentless attacks in Illinois is by electing pro-choice officials to state and local office. Help us make sure we are prepared to fight back by joining our 2019 Annual Awards Luncheon’s Benefit Committee today. The fate of the RHA rests with us in 2019!
Always in choice (no exceptions, ever!)
Terry Cosgrove
President & CEO
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* IDES website…
Temporary System Problems
7/9/19 - The agency is temporarily experiencing system problems. Our system is currently unable to process claims, certifications or access claim information. We are working diligently to resolve the issue. You may contact our call center at 800-244-5631 or visit an office near you for general information.
* Sun-Times…
Illinois is temporarily unable to pay unemployment benefits and accept any new unemployment claims or mandatory certifications through its website or mobile site.
“The department expects that the issue will be resolved by the end of the week and that most recipients of unemployment benefits will receive their payments by Friday,” the Illinois Department of Employment Security told the Chicago Sun-Times Wednesday afternoon.
The state estimates payments will be delayed for about 29,000 people.
Technology troubleshooters have been working through the night and will continue to work around the clock to fix a database error causing the problems with the website and the agency’s ability to access claim information, according to an IDES statement.
“At this time, the cause of the malfunction is not fully known,” it said.
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Question of the day
Wednesday, Jul 10, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Wirepoints…
Illinois lawmakers could soon be receiving the nation’s 4th-highest legislative salaries as a result of a lawsuit filed by two former Illinois lawmakers.
Former Sens. Michael Noland of Elgin and James Clayborne of East St. Louis, both Democrats, have sued the state to unwind years of salary freezes they say were unconstitutional. A Cook County court ruled recently that the ex-lawmakers can proceed with their case against the state. State politicians’ cost-of-living increases, commonly known as COLAs, were frozen by the legislature each year from 2009 through 2016.
The fallout from the budget impasse also resulted in no increases to lawmaker wages through 2019. As a result, the annual base salary for members of the General Assembly has been $67,836 since 2009.
If the ex-lawmakers’ lawsuit succeeds, the wage freezes between 2009 and 2016 could be reversed and entitle Illinois’ 177 state lawmakers to years of back pay and raises. And if the “freezes” of the 2017-2019 years are eventually rolled in, the total back pay could cost taxpayers up to $13 million.
The recalculated raises would grow lawmakers’ 2020 salary to more than $81,000, an increase of more than 20 percent compared to their current $67,836 compensation.
* Zorn agrees with the judge on the constitutional issue, but points out some rank hypocrisy…
High-mindedness oozed out of a May 2012 statement from the Illinois Senate Democrats.
The news release quoted then-Senate Majority Leader James Clayborne, D-Belleville: “Rejecting this pay raise is the right thing to do at a time when so many people are struggling to make ends meet,” he said. “As legislators, it’s wrong to ask our fellow Illinoisans to make responsible decisions if we are unwilling to do the same.”
The quote from Sen. Michael Noland, D-Elgin, was similarly sanctimonious: “The least we can do is cut our own pay again,” he said. “I know most working families in Illinois are not seeing raises this year, so we shouldn’t either.”
Both had added their votes to the upper chamber’s unanimous, bipartisan approval of House Bill 3188 that called for members of the General Assembly to take furlough days and forgo the regular cost-of-living raise built into state law as a show of support and solidarity with the citizenry during tough economic times.
Both have now gone back to private life, and together they are suing to get back the money that they so ostentatiously declined.
* Abdon Pallasch at the comptroller’s office…
If what’s really driving this is an overriding concern for following the state constitution, then if there’s going to be an order to pay everyone all these COLAs, the constitutional way to do this is for both houses of the General Assembly to have to convene a special session and go down there and ask taxpayers to foot the bill for per diems while everyone votes an appropriation and funding source for the back COLAs they voted earlier to decline. Just a thought.
* The Question: Should there be a vote or should the constitutionality issue be enough for a judge to order back pay? Make sure to explain your answer in comments, please.
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Strawberry Hampton released from prison
Wednesday, Jul 10, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller
* NBC 5…
A transgender woman who was battling the Illinois Department of Corrections over alleged abuse while she was incarcerated has been released from prison, officials said Tuesday.
Deon “Strawberry” Hampton of Chicago, who was serving a 10-year sentence for burglary, was released Monday from Logan Correctional Center outside Lincoln, Illinois.
In a statement, the Illinois Prisoner Review Board said the Corrections Department recommended granting restoration of good conduct credit to Strawberry Hampton, 28, “and the Prisoner Review Board approved that recommendation, which made Ms. Hampton eligible for release.”
Hampton was incarcerated in April 2015 and the Corrections Department projected she would be released in July 2021.
Hampton was incarcerated at correctional facilities for men before being transferred last year to Logan, a facility for women. She alleged she was repeatedly the victim of sexual assault, taunting and beatings in male prisons.
* AP…
Hampton said she was due to be released from prison in February, but she said officers retaliated against her for reporting the alleged abuse by revoking her good conduct credit. She said that effectively lengthened her sentence. Hampton has two ongoing lawsuits against the Corrections Department.
Spokeswoman Lindsey Hess said the department couldn’t comment on Hampton’s allegations because of pending litigation.
“I think it was a combination of having those two lawsuits, our clemency petition, our consistent advocacy,” that led to IDOC restoring her good time, attorney Vanessa Del Valle of the MacArthur Justice Center told WBEZ. “I think it just all came together.”
* WBEZ has been all over this story and broke the news…
Strawberry Hampton was housed at four different Illinois Department of Corrections men’s facilities. She said she faced repeated physical, verbal and sexual abuse from guards and fellow prisoners. Hampton accused staff at Pinckneyville Correctional Center of forcing her to have sex with her cellmate for their entertainment, according to court filings. […]
Hampton was due to be released from an Illinois prison last February, but she said officers retaliated against her for reporting the alleged abuse by revoking what’s known as good time, and it effectively lengthened her sentence. Hampton was sentenced to 10 years in prison for burglary. She was released Monday because IDOC recommended restoring Hampton’s good time, and the Illinois Prisoner Review Board approved its request. […]
Hampton waged a legal battle to be transferred to a women’s prison, and in December 2018, IDOC transferred her to Logan Correctional Center. She was due to stay in prison until November 2019. […]
Justice Department data estimates there were over 3,200 transgender inmates in state and federal prisons as of 2012. And nearly 40% reported being victims of sexual misconduct by other inmates and guards. That compares to around 4% of the general prison reporting such abuse.
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Cassidy was right
Wednesday, Jul 10, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller
* AP…
New research suggests legalizing recreational marijuana for U.S. adults in some states may have slightly reduced teens’ odds of using pot.
One reason may be that it’s harder and costlier for teens to buy marijuana from licensed dispensaries than from dealers, said lead author Mark Anderson, a health economist at Montana State University.
The researchers analyzed national youth health and behavior surveys from 1993 through 2017 that included questions about marijuana use. Responses from 1.4 million high school students were included.
Thirty-three states have passed medical marijuana laws and 11 have legalized recreational use — generally for ages 21 and up, many during the study years. The researchers looked at overall changes nationwide, but not at individual states.
There was no change linked with medical marijuana legislation but odds of teen use declined almost 10% after recreational marijuana laws were enacted.
The research article is here.
* So, Politifact may want to revisit this rating from May…
[Rep. Kelly Cassidy] said, “In states that have legalized, you see steady decreases in youth use if you do it right.”
She did not provide any proof to back up her statement.
Of the 10 states that allow adults to use cannabis recreationally, only four have permitted retail sales long enough to provide enough data points for a preliminary comparison. While state survey data show no spike in current marijuana use among teens, they also fall short of suggesting the downward trajectory Cassidy described.
We rate her claim Mostly False.
* In other developments…
Illinois is just months away from legalizing recreational marijuana.
Now the Adams County Board must decide if the county should allow dispensaries in the county.
Even though using recreational marijuana will soon become legal anywhere in the state, Illinois counties have the option of whether to allow dispensaries in to provide the drug.
“Let’s be honest about what we have in front of us, it is legal in Illinois,” Board Finance Chair Bret Austin said. “Let’s decide if it’s something we want in our county.”
It’s already in your county, commissioner. And criminals run the business. You can either try to put those criminals out of business with competition, or just continue along your current path.
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* Center Square Club for Men…
It’s unclear how much taxpayers will have to pay, if anything, to breach a contract with a country act that has been removed from the entertainment lineup for the DuQuion State Fair […]
[Rep. Darren Bailey, R-Xenia] said there are some questions the Department of Agriculture is going to have to answer.
“There was probably a contract signed, so what did the state of Illinois give up, what is the cost of canceling Confederate Railroad?” Bailey asked.
I asked the governor’s office yesterday and was told the cost of canceling the Confederate Railroad show was $7,500. That’s the full amount the group was promised to play the fair. In comparison, Thomas Rhett’s base contract to play the Illinois State Fair last year was $280,000. But Rhett has had hits during this century.
* The area’s Harley Davidson dealership claims to have booked the band…
Black Diamond is proud to announce the Confederate Railroad band will be on stage September 5th at the Black Diamond Event Center (Black Diamond RV building) in Marion Illinois!
But this is from the Southern’s article yesterday…
After speaking with the band’s agent, McKinney believes the band is receiving at least partial compensation from the state, and remains legally bound to some elements of its contract.
That includes an obstacle to a makeup show: a “radius clause” that prohibits the band from playing any other concerts in the Southern Illinois area within 60 days of the Du Quoin show, McKinney said, which was set for Aug. 27.
That means the soonest the band could play in the region is late October.
The governor’s office will have no objection to the show, I’m told.
* In other developments, a whole lot of people seem to be “unclear on the concept.” Let’s start with this post on the Boycott Du Quoin State Fair Facebook page…
Ok Southern Illinois, this group is for those like me that are tired of the constant censorship and liberal political correctness that is constantly being crammed down our throats. Join me in boycotting the Duquoin State Fair this year due to their canceling of the band Confederate Railroad strictly because of their name and the Confederate flag. Governor Pritzker has stated let this be a “Teachable Moment for Southern Illinois”.
Help me show his regime that we in Southern Illinois don’t need to be taught anything from Cook County or their liberal agendas.
From comments…
Boycott a fair that has been on the chopping block for two decades over a band that hasn’t had a hit single in a quarter century.
I love southern Illinois, but sometimes….
The Illinois Department of Agriculture decided last month to drop the Du Quoin Fair’s $2 daily admission price and make it free after officials heard “many complaints” from locals, according to Fox St. Louis.
So, they’re calling for a boycott of a free event which provides a huge annual economic boost to their area, while the costs are underwritten by northern Illinois taxpayers.
* From my email inbox…
You people are just an embarrassment to this great country of ours! Why must you bring politics into everything done here? I bet if the Confederate Band had a name like LGBQT Band you would have let them play. Again what an embarrassment you are and shame on you!
Um, OK.
* The AP was particularly clueless…
The flare-up in DuQuoin, about 320 miles south of Chicago, rekindles a centuries-old rift in Illinois, whose southern tip reaches far into the confines of the old Confederacy
Kentucky, just to our south, was a “border state” and never seceded. A “rump” legislature in Missouri voted to secede, but it didn’t appear to have the authority or even a quorum to do so.
Yes, southern Illinois is on the same latitude as northern Virginia, but that AP claim is still pretty odd. Also, Virginia narrowly voted for the decidedly non-southern Hillary Clinton in 2016.
* Meanwhile, the boycott page has started to implode…
Well, it sucks, but it’s time for me to leave this group. I joined when it first started to support CR and show my disapproval of the censorship/loss of freedom of speech. I wish you all well and I hope it gets back to what it was originally about. It has become a page of posts wanting to ban another act, which is just more censorship. It has become about black and white, Republican and Democrat, and people wanting to do things that just reinforce what happened and make southern Illinoisans look like a bunch of redneck racists. I hope some of you will start thinking a little more before you post and maybe do some self reflecting. Good luck to the original movement. I hope to see CR playing somewhere close soon. God bless you all.
*** UPDATE *** Tina Sfondeles…
A day after the Pritzker administration defended its decision to bar Confederate Railroad from performing at the downstate DuQoin State Fair, the Democratic governor called the Confederate flag “a symbol of murder, of kidnapping, of rape.”
“The Confederate flag is a symbol of not just slavery, but of treason agains the United States,” Pritzker said at an unrelated press conference in Chicago. […]
“That’s what happened under the banner of the Confederate flag many years ago in this country,” Pritzker said at an unrelated press conference in the Loop. “It is today the symbol of racists, of white nationalists, of the alt-right and so I do not think that the state of Illinois should be sponsoring something that is amplifying that symbol.”
But Pritzker, too, was asked to respond to a lawmaker’s claim that Snoop Dogg, scheduled to perform at the Illinois State Fair on August 16 in Springfield, also has some controversial imagery. The rapper’s latest album, “Make America Crip Again,” features Snoop Dogg standing over a corpse with a toe-tag that reads “Trump.” That comparison was brought up by state Rep. Terri Bryant, R-Murphsyboro.
“There’s a big difference between what I just described and the hundreds of thousands of people [who] died; millions, in fact tens of millions of people, were enslaved. We’re talking about a history, a terrible history in the United States,” Pritzker said. “Death and destruction that took place under that flag — and on the other side, political satire.”
* Related…
* Mystery solved: Montgomery Gentry to do Fair Grandstand show
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State trying to reduce huge Medicaid backlog
Wednesday, Jul 10, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Crain’s…
Illinois is hiring hundreds of frontline workers to resolve major delays of its Medicaid application and renewal processes.
The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, which oversee Medicaid, and the Illinois Department of Human Services are working together to fill the vacancies, the departments said in a statement today. The first positions [were] expected to be filled [last] week.
The Medicaid redetermination process, which reviews eligibility for the state’s nearly 3 million Medicaid beneficiaries, can lead to lapses in coverage. Such gaps are hard on patients, especially those managing chronic conditions, and health systems that don’t get reimbursed for medical services when claims are denied by health plans.
Backlogs, which have increased in recent years, are considered delays of 45 days or more for initial applications and 60 days or more for renewals, the statement says.
* More from WUIS…
The state of Illinois is expected to hire more than 300 training and technical staff members in an attempt to bring down a backlog of unprocessed Medicaid applications.
The General Assembly also approved a bill this spring aimed at addressing problems with the Medicaid program. Those include a high denial rate cited by providers and the application processing backlog – which has reached over 100,000.
State Sen. Heather Steans, a Chicago Democrat, the bill’s sponsor, said, “The federal government actually has outstanding problems with the state, and the state’s at risk of losing some dollars from the federal government because of the long, long backlog,” she said.
Applications are going unprocessed now for long periods, which is now in violation of federal rules. Many who do have the insurance for lower income individuals lose it because of problems with the renewal process. That’s according to Dan Rabbitt, a health polucy expert with the the Heartland Alliance.
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