I do not yet know if this is on broadcast, but it’s a modest $9K cable buy running through September 23.
* Script…
Nancy Pelosi and Adam Kinzinger picked your pocket. Their spending spree sparked record inflation, driving up prices and eating into the value of your paycheck.
Now will Kinzinger support Pelosi’s reconciliation scam? It’s a $3 trillion tax hike that could cost your family $2400. And experts warn its higher investment taxes could slam your retirement savings. Remind Kinzinger he works for you. Tell him to stop Nancy Pelosi’s tax scam.
* I told subscribers this morning that this was probably coming. Press release…
Governor JB Pritzker today announced Illinois’ first union agreement requiring vaccines for certain state workers in congregate facilities. The agreement covers approximately 260 supervisory employees at the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) and the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) which are represented by VR-704. Employees must receive their first shot by October 14, 2021. Should an employee elect a two-dose vaccine, they must receive the second shot by November 18.
State employees who remain unvaccinated pose a significant risk to individuals in the Illinois’ congregate facilities. Therefore, if employees do not receive the vaccine or an exemption by the dates identified, progressive disciplinary measures will be implemented, which may ultimately lead to discharge. The agreement includes a process whereby employees can seek an exemption based on medical contraindications or sincerely-held religious beliefs.
“With new variants among us, the quick spread of COVID-19 in congregate settings in Illinois and across the nation continues to harm the most vulnerable among us,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “We have a safe and proven tool to end this pandemic, and vaccination remains the most effective way to protect ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities. I’m proud to reach this agreement with these critical labor partners and applaud VR-704 for taking this critical step to combat the virus and keep all of our State residents safe.”
Last month, Governor Pritzker announced that all state workers who work in state run congregate facilities would be required to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, that includes employees at IDOC and DJJ, the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) and the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs (IDVA), subject to bargaining. Negotiations between the unions representing the rest of the workforce impacted by this mandate are ongoing.
“When staff take the life-saving vaccine, they are protecting their colleagues, individuals in custody and communities while moving the agency closer to normal operations,” said Rob Jeffreys, Director of the Illinois Department of Corrections. “This commitment will help IDOC overcome the challenges associated with infection control in congregate living environments.”
To further encourage vaccinations under the agreement with VR-704, employees will receive an additional personal day. If the vaccine administration is not available during an employee’s regularly scheduled shift, the employee may be compensated at their regular pay for the time taken to receive the vaccine. In addition, vaccinated employees will receive paid “COVID time,” so that if a vaccinated employee gets COVID-19, or must quarantine due to COVID-19, they will receive a period of paid time off without using their benefit time.
The administration has taken extensive measures to make the COVID-19 vaccine equitable and accessible. The Pritzker administration established 25 mass vaccination sites. The Illinois National Guard supported more than 800 mobile vaccination clinics on top of an additional 1,705 state-supported mobile sites that focused on communities hardest hit by the pandemic, young residents, and rural communities. The COVID-19 vaccine has been available for healthcare and nursing home workers since December 15, 2020, and open to teachers since January 25, 2021.
Vaccination is the key to ending the COVID-19 pandemic and returning to normal life. All Illinois residents over the age of 12 are eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine at no cost and proof of immigration status is not required to receive the vaccine. To find a vaccination center near you, visit vaccines.gov.
Seems like a deal that, in normal times, AFSCME should’ve been able to live with.
Gov. JB Pritzker’s deadline for some professionals to get their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine was Sunday, Sept. 19.
This requirement is for all PK-12 grade teachers and staff, all higher education staff and students, and all hospital staff.
This mandate was announced by Gov. Pritzker in late August.
Those who do not get vaccinated will be required to do routine testing.
The mandate also applies to healthcare workers and Gov. Pritzker was asked today about if he was concerned that the teacher and healthcare worker shortage could be exacerbated by this mandate…
Of course I’m concerned about people who will refuse to get vaccinated and refuse to get tested. So we don’t want to cause any shortages, but we do want to keep everybody safe. We do have these alternatives available to people, but, again, vaccination is the safest thing that people can do for themselves, for their communities for their schools, as well as healthcare workers in their healthcare settings.
Riverside Healthcare notified what could be hundreds of employees by email on Friday that their religious exemption request regarding the COVID-19 vaccination has been denied.
In the email provided to the Daily Journal, the nonprofit organization — Kankakee County’s largest employer with more than 3,000 employees — stated, “We take all requests very seriously and respect the time you invested to submit it.”
The hospital administration further stated it could not risk having unvaccinated employees caring for patients.
The denial letter, which went to those not willing to participate in the healthcare organization’s COVID Vaccination Program Policy, sets the stage for what could be a showdown between Riverside and a significant portion of its employees.
As of the end of August, Riverside had a vaccination rate of 54 percent. The current rate was not available.
The denial form letter further stated, “Based on our review of your declination request and our COVID Vaccination Program Policy, your request has been denied. Although your religious or strongly held belief may otherwise qualify for an exemption, Riverside has decided to deny your request because you are in a patient-facing position.”
A new online calculator has been created to reportedly compute a person’s chances of contracting COVID-19 based on different circumstances.
Smithsonian Magazine reports the calculator was created by a group of friends who made a mathematical model based on the most recent research including on masks, vaccine efficacy and current COVID-19 cases in each county.
For the first time in Alabama’s known history, the state had more deaths than births in 2020 — a grim milestone that underscores the pandemic’s calamitous toll.
“Our state literally shrunk in 2020,” Dr. Scott Harris, Alabama’s state health officer, said at a news conference on Friday. There were 64,714 total deaths in the state last year, compared to 57,641 births, Dr. Harris said.
Such a gap had never been recorded, not even during World War I, World War II and the flu pandemic of 1918, Dr. Harris said. Going back to the earliest available records, in 1900, “We’ve never had a time when deaths exceeded births,” he said.
Illinois, Minnesota and New York were the only Great Lakes states to have recorded more births than deaths in 2019 and 2020, according to the study…
* To slow the spread of COVID-19, Illinois must decarcerate: Alongside releases, vaccination is key. Pritzker announced a vaccine mandate for state-employed correctional workers effective Oct. 4. But with less than one month until the deadline, only 44% of Illinois prison staff are vaccinated; two facilities, Lawrence and Vienna, are not yet at even double-digit staff vaccination rates.
* Doctor: Youth COVID-19 deaths less likely, but impactful in Illinois: After a Taylorville teen died after recently recovering from COVID-19, we looked into how common it is for youth to die from the virus. 17-year-old Alexia Garrison was a senior at Taylorville High School.
In addition, a mere 17 percent of respondents said they believed that neither face masks nor the coronavirus vaccine are effective.
Keep in mind that this is Illinois, which tends to poll more to the liberal side. So, you can probably safely bump up those national mitigation favorables here.
Conducted September 12-15, 2021 under the joint direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R), this Fox News Poll includes interviews with 1,002 registered voters nationwide who were randomly selected from a national voter file and spoke with live interviewers on both landlines and cellphones. The total sample has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Paul Schimpf has mostly followed Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment and avoided speaking ill of his Republican opponents.
Until now.
When a relative unknown named Jesse Sullivan jumped into the race earlier this month with a nearly $11 million out-of-state-funded campaign war chest, state Sen. Darren Bailey and businessperson Gary Rabine both called him a member of the San Francisco/Silicon Valley “elite” because that’s where his business was located and where much of his campaign money came from.
The Silicon Valley angle took hold in segments of the mainstream media. Did Sullivan really live in downstate Petersburg, as he claimed, or did he live in the San Francisco area? Sullivan’s campaign pushed back hard on the out-of-state angle, insisting he was a Petersburg guy who had made lots of influential business friends in California and other states.
But Schimpf, a former state senator, actually welcomed Sullivan into the fray, saying, “another robust campaign spreading the message that J.B. Pritzker is undeserving of reelection is good news for the Illinois Republican Party.”
Schimpf was born on an Air Force base in the Metro East, graduated from Annapolis Naval Academy, then graduated from law school and served 20 years in the US Marines, serving as the chief American adviser to prosecutors in Saddam Hussein’s trial. His service, to my knowledge, has not been questioned, but his ire was raised by some of Jesse Sullivan’s campaign claims.
The neophyte Sullivan has peppered his campaign website and announcement with photos of himself in military uniform.
“I proudly served our nation in uniform doing counterinsurgency work in Helmand Afghanistan with the US Department of Defense,” Sullivan declared in his campaign announcement speech near Petersburg.
Sullivan was part of what was known as the Army’s Human Terrain System, which recruited civilians with social science backgrounds to help military commanders understand the local populations. A 2012 profile of Sullivan in the State Journal-Register mentioned that his team, “left the British military unit stationed in the area with recommendations for strengthening the local police force and reopening a school.”
When I questioned Sullivan’s campaign about this seeming rhetorical contradiction, they acknowledged that he was an Army civilian without veteran status who nevertheless “led and participated in combat patrols in Afghanistan.”
The Army’s unclassified handbook on the Human Terrain Team says its leaders were active duty or retired military officers. So, I asked, how could Sullivan have “led” combat patrols?
Sullivan’s campaign responded with a 300-word background statement which claimed Sullivan’s Army team leader never left the base. Instead, the campaign claimed, Sullivan led a small team consisting usually of “another human terrain analyst, possibly a social scientist depending on the mission, and an interpreter,” which would, “embed with a military unit.” Sullivan, “was responsible for translating military objectives into collection priorities, executing the collection mission, reporting back, and advising the military decision-making process.”
To me, the long-winded explanation looked more like Sullivan had led a small group of advisers alongside soldiers in combat areas than actually leading what most would consider “combat patrols.” That still took courage, so why embellish it?
I sent Schimpf everything I had from the Sullivan campaign along with my own self-directed research. Schimpf was initially reluctant to say anything about Sullivan, but eventually issued this response:
“Although Jesse Sullivan, who is not a veteran and has never been on active duty, should be commended for having worked in Afghanistan as a civilian contractor, his claim to have led combat patrols flies in the face of Department of Defense regulations and established practices. While civilian contractors may be armed and act in defensive roles such as providing security, the use of contractors in contingency operations is specifically limited in DoD Instruction 3020.41 to support operations ‘in a non-combat role.’ If Mr. Sullivan wants to claim unprecedented combat leadership experience as a civilian contractor, he should identify the officer that he directly reported to while in theater in order to verify this extraordinary assertion. Otherwise, he should correct the misleading language on his website.”
Sullivan has managed to make a big splash in the Republican primary. He’s a young, handsome made-for-TV candidate and already has way more money than any of his opponents could ever likely hope to raise. But Sullivan should probably stop digging holes that he’ll eventually have to fill himself. It’s a really bad habit and I’ve seen it fatally backfire more than once. Like I said before, there’s no need to embellish this stuff.
And, for sure, this military combat claim needs to be cleared up right away.
After pushback from the largest state employee union, Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Friday extended his deadline for workers in Illinois prisons and other congregate settings to get fully vaccinated against the coronavirus by more than a month, to Nov. 18.
When Pritzker announced the vaccination mandate for workers in prisons and other residential state facilities last month, he set an Oct. 4 deadline for employees to be fully vaccinated and called on their unions to come to the bargaining table to work out the specifics. […]
Under the governor’s latest order, those who receive either a two-dose Pfizer or Moderna vaccine would have to get an initial dose by Oct. 14 and the second shot by Nov. 18. Those getting the single dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine would have to get it by Oct. 14.
The governor’s office said Friday that progress is being made in bargaining over the mandate, but offered no further specifics on why the original deadline could not be met. “Negotiations are ongoing and productive,” Pritzker spokesperson Jordan Abudayyeh wrote in an email.
* This man regularly emails state legislators, but today’s is particularly relevant considering the horrible news out of Taylorville…
…Adding… Rep. Jonathan Carroll received the email as well…
I guess we all have our own definition of what constitutes a hero. I would suggest that the front-line workers and medical professionals who continue to get overrun by those who deny the science of vaccines and masks are much bigger heroes than those seeking headlines arguing with smart people.
Taylorville High School is grieving after it was announced that a high school senior passed away last night.
Taylorville School Superintendent Doctor Chris Dougherty, in a news release sent this morning, announced that Alexia Garrison, a senior student at Taylorville High School, died last night at her home where she collapsed.
Dr. Dougherty, in the release, said there are no words to express the grief, heartbreak, and sense of loss felt by everyone in the Taylorville School District.
I was told by one area reporter that the school district pushed back against questions yesterday.
Garrison was quarantined for COVID-19, but had cleared her quarantine period and returned to school at Taylorville High School, according to a Christian County Public Health Official. […]
Students at Taylorville High School are planning to wear purple — Garrisons’s favorite color — to class on Friday to honor her memory.
Hopefully, this tragic death will prompt more people in the area to get vaccinated. Just 39 percent of Christian County’s population is vaxed, according to IDPH.
* Click the image from IDPH if you need a bigger version to see that unvaccinated kids aged 12-17 represent the highest case growth by far in Illinois right now…
…Adding… Rep. Deb Conroy…
Tragic. Which anti mask, my body my choice Republican will step up and take responsibility for the death of Alexia Garrison? She is everyone’s child and no child is safe when personal political gain is valued over human life.
*** UPDATE *** Get your shots, people…
Tragic news from Taylorville. A 17-year-old girl collapsed in her home and died after a long, drawn out bout with Covid-pneumonia. Her dad told @WCIA3 that her symptoms lasted beyond recommended quarantine, and that she was unvaccinated, per @Cole_Henke.https://t.co/gPLYohk88Y
The Sears anchor store at Woodfield Mall was such an instrumental part of the shopping center’s creation and early success that part of the mall’s name — the “Wood” is for legendary former Sears Chairman Robert E. Wood — pays tribute to the iconic retailer.
But now just a week after the suburban shopping mecca celebrated the 50th anniversary of its opening, Woodfield’s Sears store is preparing to close its doors for the last time.
Officials from Sears’s Hoffman Estates-based parent company Transformco announced Thursday it will close the Woodfield store, its last remaining location in Illinois, on Nov. 14, as part of a corporate plan to “redevelop and reinvigorate the property.”
“This is part of the company’s strategy to unlock the value of the real estate and pursue the highest and best use for the benefit of the local community,” the announcement states.
Governor JB Pritzker joined Boeing and community leaders to announce that the company will be investing $200 million to build a state-of-the-art facility to produce the MQ-25 Stingray, the U.S. Navy’s first carrier-based unmanned aircraft. The new 291,000 square-foot facility at MidAmerica St. Louis Airport, scheduled to begin construction later this year, will help support nearly 300 good jobs for the Metro East region over the next three years.
“The world’s largest aerospace company is doubling down on Illinois because of our unparalleled assets in the transportation and logistics sector and the world-class talent of our people,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “To prepare our communities for the future, my administration is committed to making continued investments that will modernize our airports, spark new innovation and bring jobs and economic opportunities to our communities from Chicago to St. Clair and beyond. I want to thank the Boeing Company for their vote of confidence in Illinois, as well as St Clair County leadership and the MidAmerica Airport team for giving companies another reason to choose Illinois.” […]
The new production center will bring 300 jobs to the Metro East community – with initial plans to hire approximately 150 mechanics, engineers and support staff who will build the MQ-25TM StingrayTM. This project was made possible in part by an EDGE agreement from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO), a tool used to support companies making large scale capital investments that lead to significant job creation. As part of its agreement with the State, Boeing has committed to an initial investment of at least $200 million over a 15-year period.
The innovative MQ-25 facility will include state-of-the-art manufacturing processes, including robotic automation and advanced assembly techniques, to improve product quality and employee ergonomics. Boeing digitally engineered the MQ-25 aircraft and its systems, resulting in high-fidelity models that drive quality and efficient production. The new facility is expected to be completed in early 2024, and aircraft production is projected to begin in the start of FY 2024.
“The team and state-of-the-art technology we’re bringing to the Navy’s MQ-25 program is unprecedented, and we’re incredibly proud to be expanding both as we build the future of autonomous systems in Illinois,” said Kristin Robertson, vice president and general manager of Autonomous Systems, Boeing Defense, Space & Security. “We’ve received great support from MidAmerica Airport and countless dedicated employees, and we’re excited to build the Navy’s first operational, carrier-based unmanned aircraft right here in the Metro East.”
The new MQ-25 facility will be in addition to existing manufacturing operations at Boeing St. Clair, which produces components for the CH-47 Chinook, F/A-18 Super Hornet, and other defense products.
Boeing’s investments in Mascoutah are the latest in a series to prepare MidAmerica St. Louis Airport for future growth. Fueled by $57 million in Rebuild Illinois capital funds, the airport will deliver the airport will deliver taxiway and airfield enhancements surrounding the new Boeing production facility and significant upgrades to the passenger terminal facility.
Just a suggestion: Use some of that Rebuild Illinois money to open up more pay lanes to exit MidAmerica airport. There are only two now, and the unstaffed automated machines don’t always work, creating gridlock.
* Wednesday…
Governor JB Pritzker joined the Aviation Institute of Maintenance (AIM), Congresswoman Marie Newman, City of Chicago officials, and members of the community today in announcing a first of its kind aviation training facility opening in Chicago’s McKinley Park neighborhood. With support from the State of Illinois, the new AIM campus will expand access to industry standard aviation training programs, increase the talent pipeline for Illinois’ growing aviation industry, and unlock a long-term investment of 75 permanent jobs for the community.
At 137,000 square feet, the Chicago facility will be AIM’s largest training program in the nation, and its 14th campus overall. Working with longstanding industry partners and a range of educational partners in Chicago, the new campus plans to begin enrolling for classes set to begin on September 27th.
“Our long-term economic success as a state depends on our investment in the next generation of leaders, who will soon take on the task of steering our most important industries to meet the demands of the next decades,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “As governor, I’m committed to building on Illinois’s transportation leadership by working to educate and empower new talent and bring historically underrepresented populations into the field. Today, we have a new partner in that work: with the support of an EDGE agreement from the state, the Aviation Institute of Maintenance, or AIM, is set to open its largest aviation training facility in Chicago. I look forward to watching the AIM campus take the talent, diversity, and strength of our workforce to new heights.”
Construction on the training facility is now complete at 3711 S. Ashland Ave. AIM converted a former warehouse into a modern training facility with a large hangar, 17 classrooms, an avionics lab, and 31 administrative offices to support students. The Chicago campus will be 30% larger than AIM’s two current largest campuses, which will allow them to bring aviation maintenance training currently lacking in the area. AIM is a leading provider of training for students pursuing certification in aviation maintenance.
“AIM is thrilled to bring our proven industry training programs to Illinois as we work to prepare the next generation for exciting roles in the aviation industry,” said Aviation Institute of Maintenance (AIM) Executive Vice President, Dr. Joel English. “Thanks to support from the State of Illinois, City Colleges of Chicago, and numerous industry partners, we will launch our latest program in the country, with an emphasis on delivering training programs to match the needs of local employers and to increase diversity in the workforce. We look forward to launching classes this fall, partnering with Olive-Harvey College and with colleges and universities statewide to bring students access to training that will allow them to compete for well-paying jobs in this fast-growing field.”
* No law is perfect, and the new climate/energy law is far from it…
Gov. J.B. Pritzker vows Illinois will help stop — and even reverse — climate change with a new state law that outlaws coal- and gas-fired electricity by 2045.
But the law fails to address the state’s biggest source of climate-changing pollution: coal mining.
During 2020 alone, mostly out-of-state companies that burned Illinois coal released more than 57 million tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, according to a Chicago Tribune analysis based on a formula developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
By contrast, the state’s coal and gas plants emitted 46 million tons of CO2 during the year.
The result is what proponents call the “most equitable” climate bill passed to date in the United States.
Even some of the core people behind the environmental justice parts of the legislation — which include preferences for minority businesses and hiring, training opportunities for clean energy jobs and grants for community programs — seemed shocked by how much they had achieved.
“No one believed in Illinois we would actually pass legislation that can stop oil and gas facilities from running forever,” says Juliana Pino, policy director of the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization. […]
J.C. Kibbey, Illinois clean energy advocate for Natural Resources Defense Council in Chicago, says more needs to be done and will be done to address climate change.
Still, Kibbey says, “This would’ve been unimaginable even five years ago that we would completely move away from fossil fuels in the power sector. In a state like this, that we got it done, is a testament how the politics has shifted and how quickly the economics of coal has shifted.”
Parkview Christian Academy is scheduled to present its case in court later this month for a temporary restraining order against the Illinois State Board of Education over its move to revoke the school’s recognition for not acknowledging the statewide mask mandate.
Oral arguments are scheduled at 1 p.m., Sept. 29, in Kendall County Court. Plano attorney Carlo Colosimo will represent Parkview Christian Academy and Illinois Assistant Attorney General Samantha Grund-Wickramasekera will represent the Illinois State Board of Education.
A commenter noticed earlier this week that a person named Carlo Colosimo is the treasurer of the Kendall County Board of Health and wondered aloud if it was the same person, which would be really egregious.
So, I reached out to Colosimo on Facebook (of course) and asked if the commenter was right…
Yes that is me.
It’s just a microcosm of what this state is up against.
* The US Census clearly warns: “These data are experimental. Users should take caution using estimates based on subpopulations of the data – sample sizes may be small and the standard errors may be large.” So, be really careful with stories like this…
A new study is revealing some of the reasons why Illinoisans have yet to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
According to the Illinois Department of Public Health, 6.6 million or 61.1% of people 12 and older in Illinois are fully vaccinated.
Nick VinZant with QuoteWizard says there are five main reasons Illinoisans have avoided the shot.
“People are worried about side effects, they are waiting to see what’s going to happen with the vaccine, they don’t believe they need it, they don’t trust the government, or they don’t trust the vaccine specifically,” said VinZant.
Israel’s vaccination rate for those 12 and above is 78 percent. Illinois’ vaccination rate for the same age group is 63.5 percent. Israel’s population is 71.4 percent of Illinois’ population. According to NPR, 600 people are hospitalized in Israel with COVID, which is just 29 percent of the 2,082 hospitalized in Illinois. Israel’s most recent 7-day average deaths is 22, which is 54 percent of Illinois’ 41.
* IDPH…
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today reported 25,956 new confirmed and probable cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 285 additional deaths since reporting last Friday, September 10, 2021. More than 80% of Illinois adults have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose and almost 63%% of Illinois adults are fully vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of Illinois’ total population, more than 67% has received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose and more than 52% of Illinois’ total population is fully vaccinated.
Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 1,590,342 cases, including 24,546 deaths, in 102 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years. Since reporting on Friday, September 10, 2021, laboratories have reported 638,918 specimens for a total of 30,395,751. As of last night, 2,082 individuals in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 502 patients were in the ICU and 275 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators.
The preliminary seven-day statewide positivity for cases as a percent of total test from September 10-16, 2021 is 4.1%. The preliminary seven-day statewide test positivity from September 10-16, 2021 is 4.4%.
A total of 14,284,288 vaccines have been administered in Illinois as of last midnight. The seven-day rolling average of vaccines administered daily is 20,292 doses. Since reporting on Friday, September 10, 2021, 142,041 doses were reported administered in Illinois.
*All data are provisional and will change. Additional information and COVID-19 data can be found at http://www.dph.illinois.gov/covid19.
Vaccination is the key to ending this pandemic. To find a COVID-19 vaccination location near you, go to www.vaccines.gov.
* A couple of relevant tweets…
I work at a thrift store and found this vaccine card from 1956. Felt weirdly timely pic.twitter.com/pjo8nhwwUL
* Some East St. Louis parents demand schools provide remote learning due to COVID cases: “One of the reasons that we’re out here is that since school has started, there have been so many outbreaks of COVID in the school,” Rice-Barnes said during the protest. “We have been reaching out to the school district asking for answers, asking for options for our children. There is no school board, no school district without our kids and our families. We are the collateral. There is no school district without parents and without children. We do not feel safe.”
Creates the Stop Social Media Censorship Act. Provides that the owner or operator of a social media website that censors or deletes a user’s religious or political speech is subject to a private right of action by certain social media website users in this State. Authorizes the recovery of actual damages, statutory damages, and punitive damages. Provides for the award of reasonable attorney’s fees and costs. Prohibits a social media website from using alleged hate speech as a defense. Authorizes the Attorney General to bring an action on behalf of social media website users. Defines terms. Effective July 1, 2021.
A social media website may not use the social media website user’s alleged hate speech as a basis for justification or defense of the social media website’s actions at trial.
So, website owners could be forced to pay damages if they deleted commenters who used the n-word? Yeah. Hard, hard, hard pass on that one, dude.
* From Hannah Meisel’s story that’s linked and referenced above…
Ralph Rivera of Illinois Right to Life Action didn’t find Cassidy’s bill very funny, though he did say he would be on board for legalizing bounties for rapists. Otherwise, he speculated some of the broader strokes in the bill might be found unconstitutional.
“We’re talking about human life,” Rivera said. “It’s not silly. Taking a serious matter and trying to be flippant…she could’ve just stated that and not filed a bill.”
* House Speaker Chris Welch busted the campaign contribution caps yesterday with a $100,001 contribution to his personal campaign fund. He is now the third legislative leader to break the state’s contribution caps. House Republican Leader Jim Durkin has not yet done so, but he has in the past. From Welch campaign spokesperson Alexandra Sims…
This is another step by Speaker Welch to protect Democratic House members, as well as potential Democratic candidates, in the upcoming primary and general elections.
The caps are also off in the governor’s race, among others. [Sheesh! Another SoS mistake. I have a smooth spot on my brain about that office today.]
Greg Hart, a sitting board member from Hinsdale, will run for his party’s nomination for the chairman’s position in 2022.
On the Democratic ticket, Liz Chaplin, once the party’s sole county board member, is vying to take the seat held by Republicans for generations. First elected in 2012, Chaplin took the helm of the finance committee after Democrats won control of the board in 2020 for the first time since the Great Depression.
State Rep. Deb Conroy, a Villa Park Democrat, said she’s also considering a run for the county’s top seat. Her fifth term expires next year.
“I will decide where I can best serve DuPage County in the coming weeks,” Conroy said Thursday.
She represents the one-time seat of former Illinois House speaker and conservative stalwart Lee Daniels, another sign that the traditionally ruby red DuPage has skewed more Democratic.
The last paragraph just blows me away. That part of the world used to be at the very epicenter of Republican politics in this state.
* The second white man with union leadership credentials has said he’s running for the vacant 72nd House District…
Democrat Jeff Deppe has announced his candidacy for state Representative, Illinois House District 72.
Current state Rep. Mike Halpin, D-Rock Island, is running for 36th District state Senate.
Deppe’s roots run deep in Rock Island County, and he already wears many hats in the Democratic Party: He is vice president of the Rock Island County Democratic Party and is a Rock Island County board member, representing District 9. He was appointed to the county board in 2015 and elected in 2016, currently serving as chairman of the county governance, health and administration committee.
Deppe is employed as the secretary and treasurer of Laborers Local 309 (LiUNA) and was elected Illinois vice president of the Quad-City Federation of Labor in May. He sits on the boards of directors for Arrowhead Youth and Family Services and the Bi-State Regional Commission.
Thurgood Brooks, a young Black activist who narrowly lost the Rock Island mayor’s race this year is also considering a bid.
A Freeburg, Illinois native and newcomer to state politics is making a splash with a lot of cash.
Venture capitalist Jesse Sullivan announced he would run for the Republican nomination for Illinois governor. Sullivan joins three other nominees hoping to unseat Democratic incumbent Gov. JB Pritzker.
Even though some of his competitors have an advantage with their political experience, Sullivan may use his connections and capital to light his way towards the nomination, according to John Jackson of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute. […]
Jackson feels the frontrunner is U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL 13th Dist.) who hasn’t announced his candidacy yet.
” I think [Davis] has… [the] political experience and party connections that would make him the automatic frontrunner if he were to announce,” Jackson said.
*** UPDATE 1 *** Gary Rabine press release…
The Job Creators Network (JCN) is preparing a lawsuit against the Biden Administration’s vaccine mandate on companies with 100 or more employees, a move Gary Rabine, a JCN Board member, endorses.
Rabine is issuing the following statement on the JCN lawsuit against the Biden Administration.
“Biden’s Administration, the Administration that Pritzker & AOC support is off their rockers! Their main goal seems to be kill jobs, kill freedom, and tax more!
As one of the founding board members of Job Creators Network, I endorse this lawsuit against Biden. We have been a strong voice against terrible regulations that kill jobs but this mandate by Biden might be the most aggressive, freedom crushing bill that we have ever seen. If we allow this, what freedom will we give up next?
Our businesses at the Rabine Group have amazing people who are like family to us, and some will choose not to take this vaccine for their own personal reasons. Some of these invaluable people will choose to leave the small businesses they call home to work for a smaller company that doesn’t fall under the mandate. Some of them will move to a state that fights for their freedom against a tyrannical federal government. How many more Illinoisans can we afford to chase out?
As Governor, I will fight for the freedom of my teammates and all employees in our state. I will fight against a Biden and Pritzker tyrannical government to maintain a state of Illinois that will honor freedom and create abundant opportunity.
I endorse Job Creators Network 100% and I call on all freedom loving business leaders to join me in protecting the freedom of employees and small business.”
That’s quite… something. I’m not sure which Republican candidate would get crushed worst in a general election at the moment.
*** UPDATE 2 *** Heh…
It’s also super weird for them to claim that somehow the ad proves DGA sees Bailey as the “top contender.” It lumped him in with four people all saying practically the same thing. The DGA ad means one thing: they’ve seen polling on Covid related issues.
* From Ald. Pat Dowell, a Democratic candidate for secretary of state…
My campaign for Illinois Secretary of State will require all employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The pandemic has taken its toll in my community and all across Illinois. Every day, I learn of more people losing loved ones to this virus. Everyone must get vaccinated. It is the way to stop the pandemic.
I appreciate that Governor JB Pritzker and his campaign team are taking a strong stand by believing in science and trusting medical experts. I am proud to join him in this fight for the health and safety of the people of Illinois.
I’ll be asking the other campaigns for their reacts.
Your thoughts?
…Adding… Fixed my headline because I need much more coffee. Sorry! I even asked the wrong campaign person for a react earlier. Sheesh! Not sure what’s wrong with me today, but I may need a nap.
And, yes, Secretary White has mandated vaccines for employees already, but the testing opt-out is not exactly strong…
Employees who don’t show proof of vaccination by Sept. 1 will be required to undergo a COVID-19 test every other week, White said.
*** UPDATE *** Anna Valencia…
“Since the City Clerk’s office returned in June 2020, we have been providing crucial essential services since and have done everything to protect constituents doing business with the office. Much like other personnel decisions during the pandemic, we’re working with our partners in labor to ensure we implement vaccination standards in a way that makes sense for our workers and customers. As the only person in the race who has had to manage a large government entity which interacts with our most vulnerable citizens during the pandemic, I know that this policy is the very least we can do. I will also have the same policy on our campaign.”
Nurses work 18-hour shifts while administrators are pulled from their offices and outfitted with personal protective equipment to help staff the hospital’s bustling COVID-19 testing site.
Other workers scramble to clear an intensive care unit bed that’ll immediately be filled by another coronavirus patient.
For the others waiting in line for critical care — including heart attack victims, car crash survivors and others who haven’t come down with severe respiratory symptoms from the virus — they’re looking at a five-hour ambulance ride to find the nearest available ICU bed.
And that’s only if the ambulance isn’t already behind schedule from its last out-of-state run with an infected patient.
It’s not a look back to 2020. It’s a September night in southern Illinois this week, nine months after life-saving vaccines were deployed in the pandemic fight. […]
The Illinois Department of Public Health said by the end of the week, it’ll have sent more than 100 additional health care workers to the region. The state agency also helped receive federal approval to start sending civilian patients to three V.A. hospitals.
Despite increasing the number of available ICU beds to 94 yesterday, from 84 earlier in the week, the region still has none available.
The nominee for the Executive Inspector General for the Illinois Treasurer has withdrawn from consideration after controversial social media posts were revealed.
Acting Treasurer OEIG Dennis Rendleman has been on the job since February 2020 with a $100,000 a year salary.
“Dennis Rendleman is a nationally recognized expert on ethics,” said Treasurer Michael Frerichs spokesman Greg Rivara. “However, Mr. Rendleman has asked us to withdraw his nomination and indicated that he will work with the Treasurer’s Office to provide an orderly transition to a new nominee as Executive Inspector General.” […]
State Sen. Steve McClure, R-Springfield, sponsored Rendleman, saying in committee he supported him, but then requested the appointment be held back after social media posts were revealed.
“We saw bad language, we saw posts that were accusing Republicans of killing people, essentially,” McClure said. “We saw just over the top extremist language which is just totally inappropriate for someone who wants to continue to serve, by the way, he’s been serving in this capacity while making these posts, but someone who’s supposed to be an inspector general, kind of above the fray, fair, impartial, that is not what we were seeing with these posts.”
Some posts obtained by The Center Square showed Rendleman writing on Facebook “White ‘Christian’ nationalists = Taliban/ISIS/Al Qaeda” and linking to separate Politico and NPR online articles. Another post Rendleman shared showed three people wearing Klu Klux Klan outfits with the text “when you accidentally wash your KKK robe with your MAGA hat.”
“They were of the most extreme types of political discussions on his Facebook page and all of us believed they were inappropriate,” McClure said. […]
“In Mr. Rendleman’s nearly 40-year legal career, there have been no issues or concerns raised about his ability to separate his personal opinions from the objective and neutral positions with which he has been entrusted by [University of Illinois Springfield], [Illinois State Bar Association], the [American Bar Association], and the Illinois Supreme Court,” [Treasurer Michael Frerichs spokesman Greg Rivara] said.
His Facebook account is here. And people on the right keep saying that the left is pushing “cancel culture.”
It used to be that running a broadcast TV series was the top of the mountain for those in the small-screen business. These days, you’re more likely to hear about an old broadcast series like “Friends” or “Seinfeld” moving to a streaming platform in search of a second life.
The streaming era has stolen the spotlight from the once-vaunted industry, which is long past the halcyon days of “Must-See TV.” As showrunner Saladin Patterson puts it: “Right now, my kids could not tell you where ABC is on the TV.”
* The Question: How often do you watch traditional broadcast network television, and for what?
All 88 of the [southern Illinois] region’s ICU beds are in use, as COVID-19 case numbers continue to climb, leaving the area worse off than the rest of the state in terms of emergency care, according to state health department data.
There were zero ICU beds available in Region 5 as of early Tuesday afternoon, according to IDPH’s metrics.
* The U of I really needs to get its act together, like today…
As of Wednesday, 449 public school districts and private K-12 school organizations in Illinois had signed up to implement SHIELD testing. About 79 of them had actually started testing, according to SHIELD Illinois. […]
SHIELD leaders say they have plenty of supplies and capacity. But they, and school leaders, say it’s taking time for schools to communicate with parents, get parental permission and then send rosters of participating students to SHIELD.
Further exacerbating the situation, the testing organization was hit with a wave of demand in the month before school started, with hundreds of school districts signing on in late July or August. In late August, Gov. J.B. Pritzker publicly announced that all schoolteachers and staff would be required to get vaccinated or get tested for COVID-19 once a week. That month, the state also detailed an optional new test-to-stay program, in which students and teachers who are close contacts of people with COVID-19 may stay in school so long as they test negative on days 1, 3, 5 and 7 after exposure.
It can now sometimes take days for SHIELD to answer schools’ questions about implementing testing because of the high demand and a limited number of SHIELD staffers, said Ron Watkins, managing director of SHIELD Illinois, which is a nonprofit unit of the University of Illinois system. SHIELD is working to hire more people to help answer schools’ questions in the next few weeks, and upgrading its software to help make the process of getting started more efficient for schools.
The Illinois Department of Public Health was in the hot seat Wednesday during a House committee hearing on nursing home reform.
Nursing homes and long-term care facilities house a small part of the U.S. population, but are estimated to account for about 3 in 10 deaths from COVID-19. IDPH reported 46% of all deaths from COVID-19 in Illinois occurred in long-term care facilities.
Lawmakers had questions for IDPH representative Becky Dragoo, including the number of deaths in long-term care facilities during the pandemic, and the number of nursing homes that were cited by the state for a lack of protocols.
State Rep. Lakeshia Collins, D-Chicago, was not happy that Dragoo did not provide the number of deaths in Illinois nursing homes during the pandemic.
“If there’s no numbers that you can present to us when we get on these calls and you have to give us a follow-up, that’s a problem because you know we are going to ask these questions,” Collins said.
(U)ntil recently, the [Biden] administration had shipped the antibody treatments to states on an as-needed basis — with top health officials in early August going as far as encouraging those battling the Delta surge to seek even more supply.
But demand from a handful of southern states has exploded since then, state and federal officials said, raising concerns they were consuming a disproportionate amount of the national supply. Seven states — Texas, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana and Alabama — accounted for 70 percent of all orders in early September.
The imbalance prompted an effort to rein in control of supplies, over concerns that the government wouldn’t have enough on hand to respond to Covid-19 surges elsewhere in the country. […]
DeSantis has similarly touted efforts to make the treatment widely available, while downplaying the virus’ threat and criticizing the Biden administration’s support for vaccine mandates and school mask mandates.
* Hospital staff must swear off Tylenol, Tums to get religious vaccine exemption: The move was prompted when Conway Regional Health System noted an unusual uptick in vaccine exemption requests that cited the use of fetal cell lines in the development and testing of the vaccines. … The list includes Tylenol, Pepto Bismol, aspirin, Tums, Lipitor, Senokot, Motrin, ibuprofen, Maalox, Ex-Lax, HIV-1, Benadryl, Sudafed, albuterol, Preparation H, MMR vaccine, Claritin, Zoloft, Prilosec OTC, and azithromycin.
Recent charges filed against the Winnebago County Coroner inspire area lawmakers to hold elected officials accountable.
State Senator Dave Syverson is one local lawmaker trying to push a bipartisan bill into the Illinois House and Senate.
Syverson says the piece of legislation addresses how to hold accountable any elected officials potentially abusing their power.
“We want to protect the Constitution, protect those people who are duly elected from being a political victim. But in cases where an elected official, is clearly abusing their, their position, then we have to find a way to take them out of those duties,” Syverson says.
Other area lawmakers, like Senator Steve Stadelman, are also on board with this initiative.
“I think it’s something that needs to be explored it kind of sets up an interesting situation, ultimately comes down, you want the public trust your elected office,” Stadelman says.
The story goes on like that, but never explains what the bill would do. That’s because, according to Sen. Stadelman, there is no bill yet “and I’m not sure there’s a legislative fix to this situation.”
Statutorily requiring the removal of elected officials from office after they’ve only been indicted or charged with a crime would likely be problematic.
The DGA is launching a new video in Illinois that slams the growing GOP gubernatorial field for their reckless disregard for public safety throughout the pandemic.
While the rest of the field have already gotten a head start, Jesse Sullivan, the newest to join the growing primary, has quickly jumped on the anti-science bandwagon. Sullivan has repeatedly opposed measures to mitigate the spread of COVID, and he’s not the only anti-science Republican in the race. Gary Rabine, Darren Bailey, and Paul Schimpf have all similarly opposed common-sense safety measures.
Sullivan, Rabine, Bailey, and Schimpf have baselessly criticized the leadership of Gov. JB Pritzker, who acted swiftly to protect the health of Illinoisans when the pandemic hit. As Republicans flounder on public safety, Gov. Pritzker is putting Illinois back on a firm fiscal footing to emerge from the pandemic even stronger.
“As Republican primary candidates vie for the support of Trump’s extremist base, they’ve taken to spreading dangerous lies and threatening public safety with their negligence,” said DGA Senior Communications Advisor Christina Amestoy. “The growing primary field is in a full-on race to the far-right, and that means adopting an unpopular anti-science, anti-safety, and anti-Illinois platform that voters will reject at the ballot box.”
I’ve asked whether this is just a YouTube video or if the DGA is putting any money behind it online. My guess from reading lots of releases like this is it’s just a video, but I’ll let you know if I hear back. [I was right. Just a video.]
“The JB for Governor campaign is requiring full vaccination against COVID-19 as a condition of employment. We are leading by example and following the same science and medical advice from doctors, nurses and medical professionals that has guided Governor JB Pritzker in his strong leadership to protect the lives and livelihoods of Illinoisans during this deadly global pandemic. The best way to help end this pandemic is for all of us to listen to the science, and that means getting vaccinated. As always, we’ll continue putting the health and safety of all Illinoisans first.”
It’s not unexpected. But they’re one of the first major campaigns in the country to do this, and it’ll mean other Illinois candidates in both parties (statewide, congressional and legislative) will likely be asked about it.
As Ken Ferrie travels through parts of central Illinois this week, he sees a corn crop that has changed radically in the past seven days.
“Disease pressure is bringing fields to their knees, and a lot of that corn here will die before it can finish the race for yield,” says Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist and owner of Crop-Tech Consulting, Heyworth, Ill.
Corn that typically would be filling kernels this time of year is, instead, prematurely shutting down due to a cocktail mix of heavy disease pressure coming at it from many fronts – gray leaf spot, northern leaf blight, common and southern rust, tar spot and, most recently, Goss’s bacterial wilt and leaf blight.
“That picture-perfect photo finish you like to see with the top of the plant still green and the husk turning ripe is getting harder and harder to find as you visit these fields,” he says.
D and L-1 hybrids are a concern. Ferrie says the late disease push is particularly hard on D hybrids. These are hybrids that have kernel depth changes, positive or negative, based on populations and environmental conditions during the last 30 days of grain fill.
This post is mostly snark because I couldn’t resist putting that quote into a headline…
The silver lining is that the pressure has developed late enough that many of the D hybrids will still produce average to even slightly above-average yields but not record-setting yields.
Plaintiffs have shown there exists a clearly ascertainable right in need of protection, namely that the Children, while on school property, are being forced to utilize a device to allegedly prevent the spread of an infectious disease without a lawful order of quarantine having issued against them by the local health department. Plaintiff has shown, have shown there is a fair question that Plaintiffs will succeed on the merits in that the Children cannot be required to utilize a device to allegedly prevent the spread of an infectious disease absent, inter alia, an order of quarantine issuing against any or all of the Children from the local health department.
Plaintiffs have shown they will suffer irreparable harm if an injunction does not issue, namely the Children are being refused access to their education unless they unwillingly utilize a device to allegedly prevent the spread of an infectious disease even in the absence of a quarantine order against them; and
It is clear from the pleadings that given in this order precludes the local health department from issuing a lawful order of quarantine against any or all of the Children, which could compel them to utilize a device to prevent the spread of an infectious disease. […]
WHEREFORE, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED:
While the Children are on school property, the Defendants, are enjoined from requiring any or all of the Children who attend within the school district to utilize any type of device, including a mask, for the purposes of allegedly preventing the spread of an infectious disease unless an order of quarantine has issues against any or all of the Children from the local health department as required by the Illinois State Board of Education.
* This statement from Annie Thompson at the Illinois Attorney General’s office was issued yesterday regarding the previous case. It’ll suffice for this one, too…
We are reviewing the court’s decision. It is disappointing that some people do not support the right of all students, including those who have disabilities or other comorbidities, to safely access education in the classroom. Because we are dealing with a highly transmissible virus, the decision of some students to not wear masks affects not only them, but also the rights and health of every other student, teacher and staff member with whom they interact in a school setting. We remain committed to defending in court the governor’s actions to protect Illinois residents and our students from the spread of COVID-19, and the highly transmissible Delta variant in particular.
The same dark-money group that fueled opposition to the graduated income tax ballot measure Illinois voters rejected last year is helping launch “a statewide grassroots campaign to give voters the power to recall their elected officials.”
Although the group’s organizers aren’t yet revealing details about their campaign, the Illinois Opportunity Project, a conservative tax-exempt organization that does not have to disclose its donors, is joining forces with state Sen. Jason Barickman and state Rep. Mark Batinick, both Republicans, in the effort. Both lawmakers have been outspoken critics of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s handling of the pandemic.
The IOP, which is connected to the conservative Illinois Policy Institute, spent nearly $1 million to successfully oppose the graduated income tax ballot measure. Now we’re wondering how much it would spend to potentially create a recall referendum.
The first step is getting the idea on the ballot.
Plans to kick off its campaign Wednesday were delayed because media attention was focused on Pritzker signing the clean-energy bill. A spokeswoman says the recall effort will be launched next week instead.
All this comes on the heels of California Gov. Gavin Newsom easily beating back a recall effort this week, a signal of the uphill challenge Republicans here would face.
Illinois doesn’t have a recall law on the books and Pritzker is likely to have won a second term before one can be put in place, potentially putting the focus on legislators. […]
Illinois GOP political operative Jon Zahm, who has worked on statewide policy campaigns, says, “I am all for recalls and citizen referendums being easier to access for voters. However, when I was deeply involved in term limits and fair maps, the Democrat-majority Supreme Court threw out the petitions on technical grounds. I support these new efforts to educate voters and fight for change. But it’s a very steep climb.”
1) The press conference wasn’t intended to “launch” any actual recall “effort.” I checked in with Rep. Batinick and asked whether he supports recalling Gov. Pritzker: “Nope,” was his response.
2) Batinick has hardly been an “outspoken critic” of the governor’s mitigation measures. “I’ve supported most of the governor’s mitigations,” he told me today.
3) Yes, we already do have a recall law here. Illinois voters approved a recall amendment to the Illinois Constitution in 2010. It was designed to be almost completely unworkable…
The recall of the Governor may be proposed by a petition signed by a number of electors equal in number to at least 15% of the total votes cast for Governor in the preceding gubernatorial election, with at least 100 signatures from each of at least 25 separate counties. A petition shall have been signed by the petitioning electors not more than 150 days after an affidavit has been filed with the State Board of Elections providing notice of intent to circulate a petition to recall the Governor. The affidavit may be filed no sooner than 6 months after the beginning of the Governor’s term of office. The affidavit shall have been signed by the proponent of the recall petition, at least 20 members of the House of Representatives, and at least 10 members of the Senate, with no more than half of the signatures of members of each chamber from the same established political party.
4) The first step is not getting a recall on the ballot. The media event was designed to highlight HJRCA4, a proposed constitutional amendment that’s stuck in the Rules Committee. Synopsis…
Proposes to amend the Suffrage and Elections Article of the Illinois Constitution. Provides for the recall of all State Executive Branch officers, legislative leaders, the Auditor General, members of the General Assembly, and local government officials. Makes changes to the procedures for the recall of the Governor. Effective upon being declared adopted.
5) The California recall process “sucks,” Batinick told me…
You should never have a system where someone with 49 percent of the vote can be replaced with somebody with 20 percent of the vote. It also should not be used so blatantly for partisan purposes
This proposal, Batinick said via text, would be much better…
What we proposed was to follow the normal replacement process. So if Blagojevich were to be recalled he would’ve been replaced by the lieutenant governor - Quinn.
We have a 60 percent threshold to recall somebody. It needs to be a super majority.
Finally, people only think about recall in terms of governors. We’ve had local officials do their jobs from Florida at townships. When that’s discovered there should be a process to recall those people.
ILL back in the market today with $360Mish sales tax backed Build ILL bonds…trimmed size of tax exempts, raised taxables by 10M…the 10-year in deal landed at 45 basis point spread to AAA with 5% cp, compared to 40 bp spread, 4% cp last month & half of the 89 bp spread in 2018
one more time, in english, which sometimes I forget how to speak…state's 2nd foray into market with remainder of nearly $500M deal fared along same lines as last month & that was good news as the spread to what a top rated borrower pays is at best levels in very very long time.
* I stopped at the Pontiac Wally’s for the first time several months ago while my brother Devin and I were driving from our parents’ house to our uncle’s house. We needed gas anyway and my only superstition is to always stop in Pontiac on my way through. I don’t usually care about such things, but wow is it ever big and impressive…
My uncle loves jerky, and Wally’s actually has a jerky bar. Imagine that.
* All during the spring session and then through the summer’s special sessions, I heard legislators, lobbyists, reporters and staff talking about how much they loved the place and how they always ran into somebody they knew there. I was driving back from Chicago after a White Sox game and ran into Sen. Patrick Joyce while he was filling his tank. Senate President Don Harmon ran into Gov. JB Pritzker at Wally’s a couple of weeks ago. “I saw somebody I knew at Wally’s” has truly become a thing. From today…
Patterson was on his way back from today’s Chicago bill-signing ceremony. He was supposed to send me some Wally’s pics, but I guess he forgot.
* You may recall the Fourth Judicial Circuit as the one which produced Judge Michael McHaney, who issued a weird ruling early last year that was eventually tossed. Here we go again…
Three children in Effingham County can’t be forced to wear masks without an official quarantine order from the county health department, a judge ruled Wednesday.
The attorney who brought the case [Tom DeVore] anticipates more such cases across the state. […]
On Wednesday, DeVore took a different case a step further and successfully argued in Illinois’ Fourth Judicial Circuit that masks are a medical device that can’t be required without quarantine orders. […]
“Plaintiffs have shown they will suffer irreparable harm if an injunction does not issue, namely the children being refused access to their education unless they unwillingly utilize a device to allegedly prevent the spread of an infectious disease even in the absence of a quarantine order against them,” the judge’s temporary order says. “Nothing in this order shall prohibit the local health department, or the Illinois Department of Health, from issuing a lawful order of quarantine against any or all of the children as allowed by law.”
The Teutopolis school district, where the three students attend classes, did challenge the issue, DeVore said.
Masks as a medical device. Novel. The order is here. What DeVore appears to want to do here is tie up the courts with quarantine cases to the point where nobody can keep up.
But if disease-infected kids attend a school and refuse to wear a mask, the result could very well be that part or all of that school will be shut down for remote learning.
* Senate President Don Harmon, House Speaker Chris Welch and Gov. JB Pritzker pose with a copy of the climate/energy legislation after today’s bill-signing ceremony…
* According to the Pew Charitable Trusts, Illinois’ average annual pension contribution growth rate was 12 percent in 2009-19…
A Growing Share of States Have Achieved Positive Amortization of Pension Debt
Illinois, Kentucky, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania led this trend in increasing [pension] contributions, with an average growth in scheduled pension payments of 16% each year from 2009 to 2019. These states have been among the worst-funded states for two decades, and their contribution increases are part of long-term plans to address the large legacy pension debt each has accumulated. As a result, Kentucky and Pennsylvania achieved positive amortization in 2019, with Illinois and New Jersey expected to begin reducing pension debt once the outsized investment returns in fiscal 2021 are recognized. In each case, the turnaround was prompted by state policymakers’ acknowledgment that a return to pension plan funding discipline—paying down pension debts in addition to the value of annual benefits as they are earned—is the only path forward in order to avoid pension fund insolvency.
Funding discipline has been central to the improvement in these states, though all four have also changed benefits to help reduce future costs and risks. Illinois began its long path to pension funding in 1995, with a plan to be 90% funded by 2045. This approach was criticized for pushing costs to future generations of taxpayers, as evidenced by the sharp increase in contributions required between 2008 and 2019. However, a quarter of a century later, Illinois is getting closer to stabilizing pension debt, though plan actuaries continue to encourage further strengthening funding policy.
In 2000, Kentucky, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania reported having fully funded pension plans, in contrast to Illinois. But those three states emerged as among the worst-funded due to a combination of shortchanging contributions, offering unfunded benefit increases, and investments that fell short of expectations. All of these weaknesses were in place before 2008. When the 2007-09 recession hit, it further strained underfunded pension systems and forced a reckoning.
In all three states, the initial response to the recession was to gradually increase the level of pension payments that would avoid immediate budget pressures but would give policymakers a plan to meet minimum funding standards. In Kentucky, it became clear that this would take too long. In 2013, further reforms required the state to start making the full payment recommended by plan actuaries and put in place a new plan design to help manage risk. Pennsylvania stuck with the ramp up in pension costs despite the strain it placed on state and school budgets. In 2017, state officials supplemented the initial response with changes to plan design for new hires to make future costs more predictable and lowered investment fees expected to save taxpayers at least $3 billion. New Jersey was the slowest to fulfill its promise to make full pension payments. Before the pandemic, the strategy was to make the full payment in the fiscal 2023 budget, but an improved fiscal situation allowed policymakers to put the full pension payment in the 2022 budget, a year ahead of schedule and the first time this century New Jersey will meet minimum funding standards.
* This is what I told subscribers over a month ago…
Gov. Pritzker traveled to New York recently to meet with the three bond rating agencies. This was his third such briefing, which is highly unusual for an Illinois governor. Deputy Gov. Dan Hynes, who is transitioning out of his job, traveled with Pritzker and Hynes chatted with me for a few minutes yesterday.
Hynes said the ultimate goal of the trip was to push for additional upgrades in the state’s credit ratings. Two of the three firms have raised the state’s rating since the new budget was enacted.
The most news-worthy item to me was about the state’s pension debt. A slide was presented to the agencies showing that by next fiscal year the state will have more employees in the much less costly Tier 2 pension program than in Tier 1. “That’s why the trend is our friend,” Hynes said. “If we just continue to make the same payment, over time, the demographics are going to work in our favor.”
Hynes explained that the “same payment” didn’t mean the dollar amount would level off, but payments would remain at about 25 percent of the state’s budget into the future. While that’s a huge chunk of the budget, “75 percent of a growing revenue pie is still a lot of money to do the things we need to do and want to do,” Hynes said. And planning will be easier. Of course, that assumes no major revenue crashes and no successful legal action on Tier 2.
* The Sun-Time has a story today trumpeting the news that the governor is “pleased” with the new COVID numbers…
Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Tuesday said he’s “pleased” with the way the state’s surging COVID-19 numbers are flattening out […]
“They’ve subsided a little, they’ve flattened a bit, not the case numbers necessarily, but the hospitalizations, and so I’m pleased about that,” Pritzker said at an unrelated news conference in Aurora. “But until they start to come down the other side of this, we can’t lighten up on our mitigations, because, once again, we’re trying to defeat this so that people can go about their daily lives.”
* Pritzker was responding to a question about local officials not enforcing the indoor mask mandate…
Well, the first thing is, voters can vote those leaders out, because they’re not real leaders. They’re not standing up for the health and safety of the people in their communities. As you’ve seen throughout this pandemic, there have been local officials who’ve been unwilling to stand up for the people of their communities on a mask mandate. It’s perhaps now more important than ever, as we have our children back in schools, all across the state, that we’re trying to keep them healthy.
And it’s not just the mask mandate within schools that’s helping to keep those communities healthy. It’s obviously the indoor mask mandate. As we’ve seen hospitalizations and cases rise in the state, they haven’t come down. They’ve subsided a little they’ve flattened a bit, not the case numbers, necessarily, but the hospitalizations. And so I’m pleased about that. But until they start to come down the other side of this, we can’t lighten up on our mitigations because, once again, we’re trying to defeat this so that people can go about their daily lives.
One last thing, if you want to keep your business open, if you want to keep the economy going, we need people to wear masks.
* Dan Cronin spent almost two decades in the General Assembly before becoming county board chairman. But he’s ready to stop for a while…
DuPage County Board Chairman Dan Cronin will step aside next year rather than seek a fourth term, but the Republican stalwart won’t rule out running for another elected office. […]
Cronin said he’s been encouraged by supporters to consider a bid for statewide office, “any office at the state or federal level.” But Cronin said it’s “highly unlikely” he’d run for governor.
“I still plan to be very much involved,” Cronin said. “I’m going to sit this election cycle out, though.” […]
He says he wants to serve on nonprofit boards and he wants to stay politically engaged, and he can still use his influence and campaign war chest to help elect like-minded candidates.
* Marion County Board of Health meeting minutes from June 16, 2020…
On June 11, 2020, Melissa received a complaint phone call from a Marion County restaurant that Sharon’s Café in Salem was allowing inside dining. Dan, our Health Inspector, went to Sharon’s Café and spoke with the owner and expressed that inside dining was not allowed in Phase 3 of the Restore Illinois plan, at this time only outside dining, curb side pickup or delivery was a part of Phase 3. Dan did inform them that inside dining would be allowed in Phase 4, which is in 2 weeks.
On June 12, 2020 Representative Blaine Wilhour visited various restaurants in Marion County and told them the health department had no authority to tell them they could not have indoor dining. Melissa contacted Bill Milner, our State’s Attorney, to advise. Mr. Milner stated no judge would side with the health department when a small business is trying to stay open to make a living. Also that inside dining is no more harmful to the public than Wal-Mart that is full of shoppers.
We went over that illogic a kabillion times here. Most people don’t shop for the hour or two that it takes to eat lunch or dinner. And you can’t wear a mask when you’re eating and drinking.
It’s worse in 20 counties spanning the southern tip of the state. All 88 ICU hospital beds were occupied Monday night for a region that’s home to more than 400,000 residents and that has a testing positivity rate of 10.3%.
“We’re chugging through some pretty bad days here,” said Nathan Ryder, community outreach coordinator for the Southern 7 Health Department, which covers Illinois’ seven southernmost counties. “It looked like it was leveling off the last couple of days, but now we’re facing a pretty scary number.”
The state deployed a team of critical care nurses to the region last week when it was down to one or two available ICU beds per night, Ryder said, to open up about 10 additional beds.
“Even with that help, we still don’t have the capacity,” he said. “If you’re in a motor vehicle accident, or you’re having a cardiac trauma, a stroke — those are people who need ICU beds. At this point, if you encounter that, you’re probably looking at getting shipped off to St. Louis or Nashville. That’s an incredible strain on the patient and their loved ones.”
The region also has some of the lowest vaccination rates in Illinois — all the way down to Alexander County, where not even 17% of residents are fully vaccinated, the lowest in the state.
Take a very deep breath before commenting, please.
…Adding… Rep. Wilhour…
First off, prayers to the family that is dealing with a loss of a loved one.
I strain to see the connection between your 2 Facebook posts.
At the request of the restaurant-who stated they could not afford to shut down, I like I have throughout the past 18+ months, by request of the owner offered them my take on their statutory due process rights in light of a health department telling them they have to close without their consent or having any intent to get a court order.
THAT WAS 15 MONTHS AGO.
The tragic death that was noted in the 2nd post happened yesterday under a situation where being open was not in violation of any executive order.
Trying to insinuate that one is the result of the other is purposefully misleading at best.
This is a case study in building a false narrative for political purposes.
The right thing to do would be to immediately update your post with my full commentary. Especially since you insinuated some pretty serious stuff against me.
The bill sets a goal of adding 1 million electric cars to Illinois’ roadways by the end of the decade. To do that, the state will offer $4,000 rebates to residents who purchase electric cars.
The problem is the rebate only applies to Chicago and its suburban counties: Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, Will, the townships of Aux Sable and Goose Lake in Grundy County, and the township of Oswego in Kendall County.
Sen. Steve McClure, R-Springfield, says it makes no sense to push for vehicle electrification statewide and not even include the incentives for the county where state government is located.
“Unfortunately, people are not viewing this as one state. They’re viewing it as Chicago vs. everybody else,” McClure said. “Sangamon County is going to be paying for these nuclear power plants that are in that area of the state that we get no benefit from.”
Illinois Senate Democrats argue that the eligible counties and townships pay into a state account that funds the rebate, which is why their residents are eligible for the rebate.
But McClure says downstate counties shouldn’t have to pay into the fund since every Illinoisan will pay into the $694 million bailout of aging nuclear power plants that only provide power to northern Illinois communities.
1) The governor’s office says a scrivener’s error excluded Downstate counties from the rebate program and it will be added back in during the veto session, even though their counties and townships don’t pay into the rebate fund.
2) Sangamon County electricity users will not be funding the Exelon bailout. Only ComEd customers will be on the hook for that.
