* The Center Square…
With few other outlets, statehouse Republicans are considering their own public hearings with stakeholders if Democrats won’t address Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. […]
State Rep. Tim Butler, R-Springfield, floated the idea with his fellow House Republicans to let their Democratic colleagues know they want public hearings. If there’s no response, he said the GOP needs to hold their own public hearings “where we have people in to talk about these issues.”
“I’m sure there’s plenty of people involved that would want to talk about these issues,” Butler told WMAY. “If the Democrats don’t want to join us in holding people responsible, I think we need to have our own, and get the issues out there, and hold our own hearings.” […]
State Rep. Blaine Wilhour, R-Beecher City, said having the GOP lawmakers hold their own hearings is a good idea, but there are other avenues to put pressure on the Pritzker administration to be transparent.
“Ultimately, the people of Illinois, they’re the ones that need to stand up and say ‘enough’s enough,’” Wilhour said.
The House Republicans used to do this sort of thing a lot, but several Republicans are busy with their campaigns and there is this little issue with the virus.
* Not to mention that the whole thing could easily turn into a circus…
* All that being said, we do need some answers on things like this…
The Illinois Department of Public Health has hired a former U.S. Attorney to review the department’s failure to investigate complaints of abuse and neglect in long-term care facilities for more than three months during the pandemic, but some lawmakers want public hearings on the issue. […]
[Rep. Tom Demmer, R-Dixon] said public hearings are needed.
“They should be honest about the fact, and they were, that they dropped the ball on this, they’re trying to take some corrective steps,” Demmer said. “I think it will be really good to have those discussions in public and talk about what we can do and some of the lessons learned to make sure that if we find ourselves in this circumstance like this again that we can make good on the investigation portion.”
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Question of the day
Wednesday, Aug 26, 2020 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Today is National Dog Day, so here’s Oscar…
* The Question: What is/was your favorite dog? Tell us the story.
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* Jeanne Ives campaign press release..
In another unhinged tweet on Friday, Sean Casten mocked Marco Rubio, a Cuban American Republican Senator, for tweeting out a Bible verse. In his tweet, Casten equated an expression of faith with mental illness.
“Does Sean Casten think people of faith are mentally ill,” asked Jeanne Ives, a West Point graduate and candidate for Congress in Illinois’ 6th Congressional District. “Why would an expression of faith on Twitter be met with mockery and shaming by a public official? Apparently Sean Casten wants to Keep Twitter Toxic.
“The media chooses to ignore Sean Casten’s extremely questionable behavior, but the truth is people of all religions should be concerned about the Congressman’s disdain for people of faith and his objections to the free expression of that faith. Especially given the Casten family’s large donations to the Center for Inquiry (CFI), an organization which states as its mission, ‘encourage[ing] effective action to keep religion from infecting public policy…’, Sean Casten represents a district where there are numerous churches, mosques, temples, faith-based schools and service organizations, like Catholic Charities, St. Vincent DePaul, Wheaton College, BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Bartlett. Does he think these organizations should lose their (c)3 status if they have conscientious objection to a policy Sean Casten advocates? It is a legitimate question on which he should have to face his constituents and answer. Maybe that’s why he’s hiding from a real debate with me.”
* Jeanne Ives campaign…
Sean Casten should either stop talking or start debating. He continues to make radical, weird and concerning statements and issue unhinged tweets.
In a webinar with college students over the weekend, Congressman Casten told young voters: “Having small genitals is not a sufficient reason to own a gun.” Perhaps Sean Casten is unaware that first-time gun ownership among women spiked amid the COVID shutdown and riots.
On the same call, he made an argument for decriminalizing all drugs by referencing his own college drug use, ignoring the fact that college students make up one of the largest groups of drug abusers nationwide, and are among the most at risk of addiction.
“Maybe Sean Casten thinks overgrown frat boys are cool,” said Jeanne Ives, candidate for Congress (IL-06). “On behalf of women everywhere: overgrown frat boys are not cool. They are pathetic, and they can’t be trusted to make sound decisions on other people’s lives. It is clear he is not the moderate we were sold in 2018. It’s well past time that Sean Casten answered for his deeply concerning rhetoric and radical policy positions.”
His genitals joke is here. The drugs comment is here. He was talking about not ruining lives with criminalization.
* Jeanne Ives campaign…
Yesterday morning Congressman Sean Casten tweeted out a statement referencing Cardi B.’s controversial new music video (W.A.P). before his campaign pulled it down [the tweet is still up]. The article Casten posted contained a link to the video.
Jeanne Ives, candidate for Congress (IL-06), said in a statement: “Once again, Congressman Sean Casten puts forth a deeply concerning statement and the media says nothing. He is a sitting Congressman who represents decent, professional people. And he seems to think using a sexually explicit music video to make a point about home weatherization is appropriate. This is gratuitous, attention-seeking behavior that is beneath the office. If you can’t make a public policy argument without Cardi B. in leather and fishnets, then you can’t make an argument. If he were a Republican, a powerful man objectifying women for personal gain would be headline news. But the media chooses to ignore Leftist Sean Casten’s deeply concerning character and comments.”
Among the remarks Casten has made that have received little to no media scrutiny:
When asked to identify a leader he looks to for guidance, Sean Casten selected a virulent, profane bigot named Dan Savage who has called evangelical Christians “pieces of sh*t” and said of Republicans, “I wish they were all f**king dead.”
Sean Casten doesn’t disavow such language, he doubles down on it as he did when he compared the President of the United States to Osama bin Laden.
Recently, Congressman Sean Casten, in an interview with supporters on discussing environmental and racial justice, stated, “The first places to fall are the places white, wealthy people move away from…” [”and we know how that movie plays out, unfortunately”]
In the another interview with Indivisible DuPage, Casten bragged about using his Twitter account to cyberbully his political opponents and implied that his GOP opponents were Nazi sympathizers. [“come 2021, the majority of my colleagues believe that Democracy is a good thing; that the Enlightenment was a good thing, that the good guys won World War II.”]
And in the same weekend, Casten put out a tweet likening those who disagreed with him politically to traitors [”To be on Trump is to bet against the American people”] and Indivisible DuPage called all Republicans “killers.”
Sean Casten is not at all the moderate he portrayed himself to be in 2018. His most recent tweet makes it clear Sean Casten is not making America better. He is only making it bitter, and more cynical. And the liberal Chicago and suburban press have given Casten a pass by not reporting his hateful and really strange comments.
“Reasonable people can disagree on policy and politicians,” Ives continued. “But there can be no disagreement over how out-of-step Sean Casten is with this district - and, frankly, with the suburban women who elected him. Casten isn’t the anti-Trump dignitary they bargained for. The guy is weird as hell. And the fact that Chicago and Suburban media continue to ignore his radical ideas and whacky statements just shows how illiberal, unbalanced and unfair these outlets have become, and how disinterested they are in the truth.”
* Jeanne Ives fundraising email…
Dear Friend,
There’s a word I have for when a politician gets a taste of their own medicine.
It’s called a Boomerang.
Just two years ago, Casten demanded five debates against his opponent- one for each of the five counties in IL-06.
He said: ‘Debates are healthy and important for our democracy, and voters demand them because they want to participate in the election process…I believe voters deserve the opportunity to see and hear us where they live.’
In a recent letter to the Casten campaign, I asked for 5 debates - one for each county in IL-06.
No response. Crickets.
Chip in $5, 10, $25, $50, or $100 right now to tell Sean Casten that you want to see him try to debate me.
Our campaign is working day-in and day-out to make sure voters understand the truth about Sean Casten.
With your help, they will know better than to take what Sean says at face value in 2020.
In 2018, he said “voters deserve the opportunity to see and hear us where they live.” In 2020, the prospect of a debate sent him into hiding.
Sean Casten is afraid to debate me on his own terms.
And this only means one thing.
Sean Casten Boomeranged himself. Hard.
Someone get him some ice.
Donate to my campaign right now to tell Representative Casten that the people of IL-06 deserve debates!
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* Press release…
Governor JB Pritzker today announced Illinois was chosen to host two of the five new National Quantum Information Science Research Centers led by Argonne National Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in affiliation with the University of Chicago. Each project is projected to received $115 million in federal funding to support breakthroughs in quantum information and science. As part of the state’s historic Rebuild Illinois capital program, Gov. Pritzker made sure the state invested $200 million in the Quantum Exchange to put Illinois at the forefront of creating jobs for the next century. The Quantum Exchange is hub for researchers, both academic and industrial, oriented around the goal of advancing efforts in the science and engineering of quantum information.
Today’s announcement builds on the progress Illinois has made to create an ecosystem to support groundbreaking advances in science and innovation. In addition, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will receive federal funding for two research institutes focused on artificial intelligence. Seven AI institutes will receive federal funding in partnership with existing academic research groups. With the new investments, Illinois is the only state nationwide to receive funding for two hubs.
“This is one of the most exciting developments for the economic vitality and prestige of our state. I could not be more delighted that Illinois will be home to not one, but two of the five quantum research centers in the U.S.— opening the newest chapter in the storied history of scientific and technological innovation in the state of Illinois,” said Governor J.B. Pritzker. “I’m also proud to see one of our world class public universities, the University of Illinois, recognized for their groundbreaking research on artificial intelligence that will revolutionize industry. Our outstanding ecosystem of world-class academic institutions, national labs, Fortune 500 companies and tech startups has changed the world before, and it is poised to do so again. With our state’s investment in science and technology alongside the university and the Department of Energy, we lay the groundwork for scientific achievements that will shape Illinois, the nation—and the globe—for decades to come.”
* I wrote about the governor’s interest in this topic last year…
In 2017, the University of Chicago invested $100 million and partnered with Argonne and Fermilab on a project called the Chicago Quantum Exchange.
While the University of Illinois may be better known for its supercomputing and internet breakthroughs, which led to pretty much everything digital that we take for granted today, the institution has been studying quantum physics since the early 1950s. It joined the exchange in October. […]
Gov. J.B. Pritzker has been involved with high-tech development for years in the private sector, and he says he’s familiar with quantum physics. He also knew about U of C’s $100 million investment and its search for more partners. So he decided to commit $100 million from his $45 billion infrastructure bill to the U of I in hopes of not only bringing some of the best minds in the world to Illinois, but also possibly creating an economic boom along the lines of Silicon Valley, the Boston area’s Biomedical Corridor and Boulder, Colo.’s gigantic data storage industry.
“If you catch the wave of a technology as it’s being commercialized, there is really endless opportunity,” Pritzker tells me.
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* The attorney general’s office sent me a list of active cases it’s handling. Click the pic for a larger image…
Whew.
* Meanwhile, as you’ll recall, the governor obtained a TRO against a handful of schools which refused to implement the state’s mask requirement. Those schools have since appealed. The state’s conclusion…
Finally, it is worth pointing out that Defendants’ argument that the TRO is really a preliminary injunction actually undermines their position in this appeal. If that were true, their appeal lies under Supreme Court Rule 307(a), not Rule 307(d), and this appeal should be dismissed. In any event, Defendants have not identified any basis to conclude that the circuit court’s order under review, if deemed a preliminary injunction, is invalid.
The schools are represented by Thomas DeVore, who is also handling Rep. Darren Bailey’s case.
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* Press release…
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today announced 2,157 new confirmed cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 37 additional confirmed deaths.
- Bureau County: 1 male 90s
- Cook County: 1 female under 20, 1 female 70s, 2 males 70s, 4 females 80s, 1 male 90s
- DuPage County: 1 male 70s
- Kane County: 2 males 70s, 2 females 90s
- Lake County: 1 male 50s
- LaSalle County: 1 female 80s
- Livingston County: 1 female 80s
- Macon County: 1 female 60s, 1 female 70s
- Morgan County: 1 female 80s
- Peoria County: 1 female 90s
- Perry County: 1 male 80s, 1 female 90s
- Pope County: 1 female 60s
- Rock Island County: 1 female 60s, 2 females 80s, 1 male 80s, 1 female 90s
- St. Clair County: 1 female 70s, 1 female 90s
- Warren County: 1 male 70s
- Will County: 1 male 60s, 1 female 90s
- Williamson County: 1 male 80s
- Winnebago County: 1 female 70s
Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 225,627 cases, including 7,954 deaths, in 102 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years. Within the past 24 hours, laboratories have reported 50,362 specimens for a total of 3,831,412. The preliminary seven-day statewide positivity for cases as a percent of total test from August 19 – August 25 is 4.0%. As of last night, 1,573 people in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 350 patients were in the ICU and 132 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators.
Following guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, IDPH is now reporting both confirmed and probable cases and deaths on its website. Reporting probable cases will help show the potential burden of COVID-19 illness and efficacy of population-based non-pharmaceutical interventions. IDPH will update these data once a week.
*All data are provisional and will change. In order to rapidly report COVID-19 information to the public, data are being reported in real-time. Information is constantly being entered into an electronic system and the number of cases and deaths can change as additional information is gathered. For health questions about COVID-19, call the hotline at 1-800-889-3931 or email dph.sick@illinois.gov.
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* Charlie Schlenker at WGLT…
Illinois State University President Larry Dietz said Monday he’s closely monitoring the rapid increase in COVID-19 cases among students.
The current tally is 273 ISU student cases in just over a week of classes. Dietz said several things in addition to the raw case count affect any potential decision whether to close the campus.
“It will have to do with isolation capacity. It will have to do with how many folks are hospitalized, and thankfully at this point I’m not aware of any. It’s a moving target we’re monitoring, so I don’t have any specific date or time,” said Dietz.
Dietz said there are 24 students in isolation through on-campus housing, and the campus has plenty of space left for more isolation cases.
Dietz said he believes on-campus behavior by students and staff is in good compliance with mask and social distancing policy. He said he’s aware that off campus and on the weekends, that behavior has not been as consistently safe. He urged students to observe safety protocols and avoid large gatherings.
* Wall St. Journal…
(A)t the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, between 35,000 and 40,000 students returned to campus to begin a mix of online and in-person classes that started Monday. The university has said it believes it can contain the virus, partly by testing students twice a week and processing 10,000 tests a day on campus.
The university expected that between 200 and 300 students would arrive on campus already infected with Covid-19 and that total new cases among students, faculty and staff would reach about 500 this semester. Two university professors, Nigel Goldenfeld, a professor of physics, and Sergei Maslov, a professor of bioengineering and physics, estimated that without the school’s program of frequent testing, contact tracing and isolation, the virus would spread to 20,000 students within a month.
The university’s modeling predicts that most transmission of the virus will occur at restaurants, bars and parties and in classrooms. Its saliva-based test received emergency authorization from the Food and Drug Administration earlier this month.
* News-Gazette…
According to UI campus testing data, there were 263 positive cases in the five days from Wednesday through Sunday, with the average rolling positivity rate for the most recent five days being 0.74 percent.
New cases from campus testing for the five days included 30 cases Wednesday, 59 cases Thursday, 65 cases Friday, 50 cases Saturday and 59 cases Sunday.
* Illinois Radio Network…
The mayors of both Champaign and Urbana, the home of the University of Illinois, have issued orders requiring bar and restaurant patrons to to stay seated most of the time. In Champaign, Mayor Deb Feinen issued an order limiting customer seating at Campustown restaurants and bars to outdoors areas only now through Labor Day. Emergency orders from the two mayors also set crowd limits and require face masks and social distancing at private parties on and near the U of I campus.
The University of Illinois requires all students and staff to be tested for COVID-19 twice a week. A study from Harvard and Yale suggests that is the minimum threshold to safely open.
* DeKalb Daily Chronicle…
DeKalb Mayor Jerry Smith said Monday that ’several large gatherings’ were held around Northern Illinois University campus over the weekend, and said he met Monday with NIU President Lisa Freeman and other leaders to talk COVID-19 virus prevention.
“I think everybody is concerned about Northern,” Smith said. “And the fact that there may be not only some positivity but over the weekend there were several large gatherings.” […]
For students, they can pay a $7.90 per credit hour health fee to utilize nasal swab testing services at Northwestern Medicine Student Health Center in the Health Services Building on campus. Testing for students living off campus or in Greek housing is not required, the website states.
“Those who do not should seek out testing from their local providers,” she said.
* WNIU…
Rockford University is a much smaller private school but have had to take their own precautions. Randy Worden is the university’s VP for Student Life. They have 350 students living on-campus, which is what they expected. Over the summer, he says they thought it could be much fewer because of safety restrictions.
“The actual reality has been kind of the opposite of that,” he said. “It seems like people were so ready to have a different experience than what they were having, maybe at home. Students were willing to say, ‘Okay, I understand it’s not going to be 100% of normal kind of collegiate experience, but if it’s 70 or 75, that’s good enough.”
RU removed around half of the furniture in common areas. Buildings cut occupancy in half or capped them at 50 people.
In classes, available seats have signs taped to them to try and ensure distancing. RU has installed yards of plexiglass around campus, especially in buildings and offices where hundreds of students have to interact with one person.
* Tribune…
Northwestern University’s campus in Evanston is going to feel less crowded this fall, with residence hall capacity reduced to about 70% and more than half of all employees still working from home, school officials said Tuesday.
But those estimates didn’t fully assuage concerns from residents that students will instead move into neighborhood apartments and throw raucous parties, potentially accelerating the spread of COVID-19 in a suburb that has so far avoided an uncontrollable outbreak.
Residents raised the issue Tuesday evening during a 90-minute Zoom meeting, billed as a “community town hall,” to discuss NU’s plan for repopulating its suburban campus when classes begin next month.
* Block Club Chicago…
In Chicago, Loyola University has closed its dorms and plans to host most classes online. DePaul University plans to offer classes in-person and online.
* Peoria Journal Star…
Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington reported 40 total COVID cases among its student population. They have returned home to isolate or are doing so in off-campus housing of their own or in university-provided housing.
* Daily Eastern News…
Two Eastern unions are urging Eastern to “put the safety of students, employees and the community first” as the university opens this semester.
The two unions, AFSCME Local 981, which represents building service, clerical, technical and food service workers, and University Professionals of Illinois Local 4100’s Eastern chapter which represents faculty and academic support professionals, are contacting Eastern after the university’s administration ordered clerical and technical employees back to campus after months of successful work from home. […]
“We’ve tried to work with the EIU administration to protect employees, students and the community, but the answer to our proposals has consistently been ‘No’,” AFSCME Council 31 staff representative Natalie Nagel said. “EIU claims it treats employees like family. So why aren’t they enacting common-sense health and safety protocols?”
* WJBC…
Officials at Illinois Wesleyan University announced 11 additional students have tested positive for coronavirus.
“We determined that all 11 new cases are connected to the outbreak announced last week, stemming from off-campus social gatherings in the week before classes began, where the consistent use of masks and physical distancing did not occur,” according to a news release Monday.
The outbreak now consists of 30 students.
* Daily Egyptian editorial…
Originally, SIU was not going to inform the public of COVID-19 outbreaks on campus. It cited privacy concerns as the reason and refused to even release general numbers.
Although SIU eventually reversed its decision, the university will only provide one weekly generic update.
These weekly updates provide a false sense of security. The statistics published do not show every positive case on or off campus, as it is optional for students, faculty and staff who test positive for COVID to report that they work at or attend the university. Currently, the updates do not disclose any locations or the number of students in quarantine.
Additionally, anyone not living in Jackson County will not be included in the SIU count if they test positive for the virus and inform the university.
*** UPDATE *** WILL reporter…
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* WBBM…
George Pearson, Will County Republican Chairman, told a livestream that the state GOP has helped launch the Illinois Black Republican Coalition. He and other black party leaders mean for this to be a working group for people who believe in free enterprise, school choice and self-reliance.
Bremen Township GOP Committeeman Kevin Suggs said black Republicans will combine their expertise to, in his words, “turn Illinois around.”
He said the Illinois Black Republican Coalition will be an alliance of people who share values like entrepreneurship and educational excellence.
“This is not just something we are redoing, or retooling, recreating. This is something that we believe in that we are going to make happen and we have the right people, at the right time, and are going to let the past go, we are going to move forward, in saying, ‘hey what are the key plans and steps we need to take to turn Illinois around?’” Suggs said.
“It is not about outreach. We know that there are a lot of blacks and African Americans that are out there that live this principle every single day - their business life, their family life, every single day. We are trying to build a coalition to show that you have support out here to say if you are a Republican,” he said. […]
He said the Illinois Black Republican Coalition will be an alliance of people who share values like entrepreneurship and educational excellence.
The Illinois Black Republican Coalition will supposedly be launched next month. It has no website and no Facebook page.
The Will County Republicans do appear to be walking the walk. The county party chairman, George Pearson, is an African-American as is its executive director Alyssia Benford (who ran against Rep. Natalie Manley in 2018 and got just 36 percent of the vote). And Cook County’s Bremen Township GOP Committeeman Kevin Suggs is as well. McHenry County Board member Chuck Wheeler, a Black man, also attended the announcement.
Illinois being Illinois, there are undoubtedly those who think this new project is just some election-year vaporware. We’ll see soon enough.
* Meanwhile…
Illinois Republicans, facing the tug of appealing to their base and the pull of trying to grow, acknowledged the need to reach out to Hispanics and Blacks on Tuesday as part of their second-day events tied to the Republican National Convention.
But a conversation on GOP outreach hosted on Facebook by the Illinois Republican Party turned introspective with the admission that the party needs to do more to encourage support among minority communities.
“Republicans in a lot of ways have not gone to these communities. Republicans have not addressed the Hispanic community or marginalized communities,” said Catalina Lauf, an unsuccessful northwest suburban congressional candidate featured during prime time on the convention’s opening night broadcast.
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* Greg Hinz…
A whopping 87 percent of communities replying to an Illinois Municipal League survey say they have suffered revenue losses so far, with the median decline 20 percent to 30 percent.
That’s a big, big number when most budgets generally don’t change more than a few percentage points year to year. And there are indications the figure will rise because some revenues lag and the full impact is not yet known, says league Executive Director Brad Cole.
According to the survey—227 municipalities around the state replied—reduced sales tax income is the most common source of problems, with 21.2 percent of municipalities reporting it as a “significant” cause of revenue woes in the period since March 1. Lagging gaming tax and motor-fuel tax revenues followed, at about 17 percent each, with receipts from income taxes collected by the state and passed on to local communities at 14.7 percent.
Cole said his group projects that when the money actually is passed on, his members will see an average drop of 10 percent in income tax receipts.
Survey results are here. 46.5 percent say they plan to reduce municipal personnel and/or services.
And the US Senate and House are still on vacation.
Heckuva job.
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Trouble brewing in Effingham County?
Wednesday, Aug 26, 2020 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Wall St. Journal…
As new coronavirus cases continue to decline nationally, health officials and business leaders in rural parts of Illinois are raising alarms about rising infection rates that are fueling a steady increase in positive cases statewide.
In the past two weeks, eight of the 10 counties in Illinois with the fastest rates of new Covid-19 cases per capita were in smaller nonmetropolitan counties across the state, compared with two metro counties, according to an analysis of data tracked by Johns Hopkins University.
This is a reversal from an earlier trend, which saw Cook County, which includes Chicago, leading the state in coronavirus infections. Since March, Cook County has accounted for about 55% of the state’s Covid-19 cases. But its contribution has slowed as cases have spread to other corners of the state. In the week prior to Aug. 17, Cook County accounted for 38% of the state’s new cases.
In rural Effingham County, with a population of 34,000, cases recently surged from a few dozen in mid-July to 427 as of Sunday. That increase gave the county the highest rate of cases by population for the week ended Aug. 17, with more than 400 cases per 100,000 residents. By contrast, Cook County had a rate of about 100 cases per 100,000 residents for that week.
Effingham County had a 7.7 percent test positivity rate last week, according to IDPH data. Chicago’s rate was 5 percent. Effingham County reported 251 new cases per 100k population, while Chicago reported 84.
…Adding… 97.9 FM…
There will be a local Republican gathering on the final night of the Republican National Convention.
The event is planned for 7 pm Thursday at the [Effingham] Holiday Inn.
State Representatives Blaine Wilhour, Darren Bailey, and Brad Halbrook are scheduled to attend, along with Congressional candidate Mary Miller and Judge David Overstreet.
The public is invited.
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* Rebecca Anzel at Capitol News Illinois…
Half of Illinois high school students reported using an electronic tobacco product last year, a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey found, “erasing gains” made by health advocates in recent years to curb tobacco use.
That trend of increasing e-cigarette, hookah and vape pen use is on par with the U.S. at large, which the nation’s wellness protection agency noted was a factor that prompted the surgeon general to proclaim electronic tobacco use an “epidemic.”
Fighting traditional cigarette, cigar and smokeless tobacco use “has always been a multi-prong approach,” Shana Crews, Illinois government relations director for the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network, said in an interview. State officials and advocates passed “strong smoke-free laws” and secured increased funding for tobacco cessation and education programs.
But in Illinois, electronic cigarettes are not included in a statewide ban of smoking at virtually all public places, taxes on the products are not “at parity” with traditional tobacco products and legislative proposals to ban flavored electronic products were not addressed by the General Assembly this session.
“We need to make sure that we’re treating electronic cigarettes just as we are combustible cigarettes,” Sen. Julie Morrison, a Democrat from Deerfield and long-time anti-tobacco advocate, said in a phone interview. “We were doing so well on changing the culture of smoking and now, especially the younger generation has gone backward.”
The study is here.
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Open thread
Wednesday, Aug 26, 2020 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Anybody see that no-hitter last night?
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“If this is the norm, we don’t have a chance”
Tuesday, Aug 25, 2020 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From Sunday…
Dear Maine South Families,
On Friday evening, the building administration was notified about potential COVID exposures to students in social settings at multiple parties across a four day period beginning on August 14th. After spending the entire weekend calling families, we know students were exposed to positive cases of COVID at these parties. When we’re notified about potential positive cases, we enact our mandated contact tracing protocol. For this protocol to work, it requires complete cooperation and honesty with all parties and unfortunately, we did not have that from some families. It makes the process impossible if we’re not able to quickly figure out which students were present where and with whom. In total, Maine South staff made contact with, or attempted to make contact with, at least 71 students over the weekend to determine the scope of contact tracing for the reported events.
Based on the numbers of students we believe were in attendance at the parties, and the positive cases we know of, we are making the following changes to the week of August 24th:
Senior day (August 24th) is now online.
Junior orientation (August 25th & 26th): a virtual orientation recording will be sent via email.
Sophomore orientation (August 27th & 28th): a virtual orientation recording will be sent via email.
More information about instructional materials pick-up will be forthcoming.
The following will remain the same for the week of August 24th:
When your student is being tested for COVID, we need to know about it immediately. Please call the school’s health office when you take the test and then again with the test result. Information can be found in our COVID parent guide.
We have repeatedly said in the online sessions that we all want our students back in school. For that to happen, the rules outside of the school cannot differ from the rules inside school … and large parties are not going to help. What was also troubling was the lack of partnership that we witnessed through the weekend as we spoke to families who either refused to share information or gave us false impressions of what took place. There is no disciplinary action when we have to contact trace and when we call, we are doing so to keep our students and staff safe and make sure COVID is not passed along to anyone, especially those with underlying health conditions.
The virtual schedule for Senior day can now be found on the Class of 2021 webpage.
Sincerely,
Dr. Ben Collins, Principal
* Tribune…
“If this is the norm, we don’t have a chance (for in-person learning),” [Maine South Superintendent Ken Wallace] said. “If this is what we have to deal with week to week, trying to run down who is exposed and who is positive, it’s going to be really difficult to maintain any semblance of in-person school and grow it like we want to.”
In order to transition from remote learning to in-classroom learning, schools in District 207 must know if students have tested positive for COVID-19 or been exposed to it, Wallace said. Such information should be reported immediately by calling the student’s school, the superintendent said.
Students and their parents also share the responsibility in protecting themselves from contracting the virus and exposing others, he added.
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Question of the day
Tuesday, Aug 25, 2020 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Kelly Bauer…
The city is launching a contest that will ask Chicagoans to envision how there can be outdoor dining this winter.
Chicago is famous for its cold, snowy winters, with patio dining all but impossible. That’ll be challenging for restaurants, which are relying on expanded outdoor service because the coronavirus pandemic has limited their indoor capacity.
But the Winter Design Challenge will ask Chicagoans to “propose innovative outdoor dining solutions that adhere to COVID-19 protocols,” according to the Mayor’s Office. Three winners will get prizes of $5,000 each.
* My snarky entry…
* The Question: Your idea(s)?
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Please, wear a mask
Tuesday, Aug 25, 2020 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Market Watch…
Do masks really work? Ask the dozens of Starbucks customers who tested positive for COVID-19 in Seoul this month after a woman with coronavirus sat under one of the cafe’s air-conditioners.
According to a local news report, at least 56 coronavirus cases have been linked to that one customer. The kicker: The four masked workers avoided infection.
The Starbucks SBUX, 4.88% patrons, according to officials, weren’t consistently wearing masks because, of course, it’s hard to enjoy a latte when you can’t access your mouth.
“This speaks volumes about the role masks can play,” Ma Sang Hyuk, a pediatric infectious diseases physician in South Korea, explained to Bloomberg News. “Masks may not provide 100% protection, but there’s nothing out there that’s as effective.”
Local authorities made it mandatory this week for everybody to wear masks both indoors and outdoors, as the greater Seoul area has seen a surge in coronavirus cases.
* And wear your mask over your nose…
Researchers at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill mapped locations in the respiratory tract to see where COVID-19 most likely infiltrates the body and found the cells that line the nose were significantly more likely to become infected and spread virus than the throat or lungs.
In addition, they said that part of the reason you could be more likely to get infected through the nose is because COVID-19 infects cells with tiny hairs on them called cilia, which usually helps protects from pathogens.
“The nose is basically the purveyor of all viral ill,” said Dr. Richard Boucher, director of the Marsico Lung Institute/UNC Cystic Fibrosis Center at UNC-Chapel Hill. “The virus appeared to pick the nose as a fertile ground for infection.”
Ellerin called the study “important” and explained that the nasal passage has as many or even more receptors that the virus can use to enter the cell than the throat or in the lungs. Which makes it imperative that people cover their noses, he said.
* Science Daily…
Density and temperature are intricately related, and coughs tend to be warmer than their surrounding area. Tapping into this connection, Simha and Rao utilized a technique called schlieren imaging, which visualizes changes in density, to capture pictures of voluntary coughs from five test subjects. By tracking the motion of a cough over successive images, the team estimated velocity and spread of the expelled droplets.
Unsurprisingly, they found N95 masks to be the most effective at reducing the horizontal spread of a cough. The N95 masks reduced a cough’s initial velocity by up to a factor of 10 and limit its spread to between 0.1 and 0.25 meters.
An uncovered cough, in contrast, can travel up to 3 meters, but even a simple disposable mask can bring this all the way down to 0.5 meters.
* WebMD…
A study conducted in Brazil — the nation with the second-most coronavirus cases and deaths in the world — found that people with sociopathic traits were less likely to follow safety measures designed to curb the virus, such as face mask wearing.
“Our findings indicated that antisocial traits, especially lower levels of empathy and higher levels of Callousness, Deceitfulness, and Risk-taking, are directly associated with lower compliance with containment measures,” said the study published in the online journal Personality and Individual Differences. […]
People who tested for high levels of empathy were more likely to follow coronavirus safety measures, the study said.
Researchers said 1,578 adults in Brazil took a test between May 21 and June 29 to assess their “maladaptive personality traits,” as well as their attitude toward COVID-19 safety measures. The test included 220 questions answered on a 4-point scale.
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* A reader today sent me this mailer she recently received from her county sheriff. The return address is the same as the Stark County Sheriff’s office in Toulon. The email the sheriff uses in the letter matches the one on his official website and he admits below that this is official stationery…
1) Applette? Aside from the multiple typos in the letter, Justice Thomas Kilbride is running for retention on the Illinois Supreme Court. The Illinois Republican Party has made defeating Kilbride a top priority this year.
2) What the heck is Sheriff Sloan doing sending a political mailer on official stationery with that official return address?
Here’s our email exchange today…
Did your office send this mailer? It has your office’s return address. Were taxpayer resources used?
Was this on county stationery?
Yes, it was. It was on a piece of paper with my letter head
So, did you reimburse the county?
Yes. I an on it I’m at a conference right now
Um.
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* Background…
As part of a previous federal coronavirus relief package, workers collecting unemployment insurance temporarily received an extra $600 per week in supplemental benefits. Though Democrats pushed to extend it, they could not get Republicans to agree, and the extra benefits expired July 31.
As a workaround, President Donald Trump authorized the Federal Emergency Management Agency to set aside up to $44 billion from the Disaster Relief Fund for lost wage payments. Under this Lost Wages Supplemental Payment Assistance program, FEMA will provide participating states with grants to help cover expanded unemployment benefits of $300 per week, plus 5% of the total grant amount to cover administrative costs.
States also may choose to contribute an additional $100 per week, bringing the total extra benefit amount to $400 per week. However, few states are expected to do so because of the cost.
It was originally expected that these unemployment benefits would last about five weeks. However, states approved for funding are now only guaranteed three weeks, retroactive to Aug. 1. If there are still funds available after that period, allocation of the money will be determined on a week-by-week basis until the money is gone. […]
“I think the reason that states are reluctant to get engaged is because of the technology involved,” said Jane Oates, a former U.S. Department of Labor official who now serves as president of the advocacy group WorkingNation. “Many of the states are using antiquated technology that doesn’t have interoperability. … it’s very difficult for them to add it to the unemployment checks of out-of-work workers.”
Getting that money into unemployed workers’ pockets depends on when the state applied, when it gets approved for funding and how quickly it can update computer systems to handle the payments. Arizona, for example, has already paid out benefits to qualifying residents. Other states may need six weeks or longer to get up and running.
* The article noted that Illinois hadn’t yet announced what it planned to do. I’ve been asking the governor’s office for days about this and the governor was finally asked today about why the state hadn’t yet made a decision when so many other states have…
That’s not accurate. It’s just not an accurate question. We have begun that process and, indeed, it takes a lot of setup on an internal basis for us to move forward with that and so that’s what we’ve been doing.
He did not say how long this process would take.
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* Press release…
The State of Illinois today announced revised guidelines for restaurants and bar establishments statewide to operate safely and help prevent the spread of COVID-19. Based on a recent increase in cases, these latest guidelines will require patrons to wear a mask during any interaction with wait staff, food service workers and other employees at bars and restaurants. Face coverings must be worn over the nose and mouth when patrons are approached and served by staff, including but not limited to when employees take patrons orders, deliver food and beverages, and service tables. This guidance will also apply to other facilities with food services areas that are currently subject to the Restore Illinois guidance, such as indoor recreational facilities, museums and entertainment venues.
New guidelines go into effect Wednesday, August 26th and will require face coverings to be worn both in indoor and outdoor dining settings in all eleven regions in the state. Full guidelines may be found on the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) website.
“Illinois residents continue to take important steps to protect the safety of our loved ones and neighbors. However, due to a recent uptick in cases, we must take additional precautionary steps when we are out in public,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “Based on conversations and input from industry and business leaders, the State of Illinois is implementing updated guidelines which will allow restaurants and bars across the state to stay open while helping protect the health and safety of patrons and staff.”
The revised guidelines announced today build on both the statewide Restore Illinois guidelines as well as the tiered mitigation strategies that are implemented when a region sees consistent increased test positivity or hospital admissions. The latest data on regional test positivity and hospitals can be found on the Illinois Department of Public Health(IDPH) website. More information about the Restore Illinois guidelines and tiered mitigation measures can be found on the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) website.
“Going out for food and drinks should not be a reason or an excuse to let our guards down in the fight against COVID-19,” said Dr. Ngozi Ezike, Director of IDPH. “IDPH and DCEO are updating current guidance to make it clear that face coverings should be worn in any situation where we are interacting with those outside of our immediate circles. We will continue to adapt our guidelines and institute additional precautions to help protect all residents that make up our communities.”
Patrons are currently required to wear a mask whenever on premises, except while eating and drinking at the table or bar. The new guidelines ensure that while seated, interactions between business staff and patrons can happen safely to prevent possible spread of the virus.
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* Press release…
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today announced 1,680 new confirmed cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 29 additional confirmed deaths.
- Cook County: 1 male 50s, 3 males 70s, 2 females 80s, 1 male 80s
- DuPage County: 1 female 80s
- Jersey County: 1 female 90s
- Lake County: 2 males 60s, 1 male 80s, 1 female 90s
- LaSalle County: 1 female 70s, 1 female 80s, 1 female 100+
- Madison County: 1 female 80s
- Massac County: 1 male 70s
- Peoria County: 1 male 80s
- Rock Island County: 1 male 40s
- Saline County: 1 female 70s
- Shelby County: 1 female 70s
- Vermilion County: 1 male 80s
- Williamson County: 1 female 90s
- Winnebago County: 1 female 20s, 1 male 50s, 2 males 60s, 1 male 70s
Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 223,470 cases, including 7,917 deaths, in 102 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years. Within the past 24 hours, laboratories have reported 40,859 specimens for a total of 3,781,050. The preliminary seven-day statewide positivity for cases as a percent of total test from August 18 – August 24 is 4.1%. As of last night, 1,549 people in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 345 patients were in the ICU and 135 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators.
Following guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, IDPH is now reporting both confirmed and probable cases and deaths on its website. Reporting probable cases will help show the potential burden of COVID-19 illness and efficacy of population-based non-pharmaceutical interventions. IDPH will update these data once a week.
*All data are provisional and will change. In order to rapidly report COVID-19 information to the public, data are being reported in real-time. Information is constantly being entered into an electronic system and the number of cases and deaths can change as additional information is gathered. For health questions about COVID-19, call the hotline at 1-800-889-3931 or email dph.sick@illinois.gov.
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* Press release…
Sens. Sue Rezin (38th District) and John Curran (41st District), both of whom represent portions of Region 7, have issued the following statement regarding the Governor’s double-standard when it comes to applying COVID-19 mitigation restrictions.
“In making his announcement today, the Governor has decided to place partisan politics above science. As a result, Will and Kankakee Counties will be forced to ban indoor dining while the Metro-East (Region 4) will be given an extra week to improve their numbers. Why the double standard? Because Democrat elected officials from that region pressured the Governor to change this stance. Backroom political deals should not be how public health decisions are made. The same rules should apply to all regions, and they should be based on science, not politics.”
I’ve asked the governor’s office for a response.
…Adding… I’m told that neither Curran nor Rezin were contacted or briefed about this decision.
* BND…
State health officials reversed a decision to preemptively ban indoor dining in the metro-east after facing pressure from lawmakers and mayors, St. Clair County Emergency Management Agency director Herb Simmons said Monday.
The state was planning to reimpose a ban on indoor dining and drinking at bars and restaurants in the metro-east Wednesday as the region sees a resurgence of coronavirus cases — a week before the original deadline they’d given regional leaders to reduce cases. […]
Illinois Department of Public Health director Dr. Ngozi Ezike told mayors in a Monday morning conference call that their communities could see restrictions this week because cases are increasing so rapidly, said Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokeswoman for Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
But area mayors and county leaders reacted with outrage and frustration at being cut short by a week. […]
Democratic State Reps. Jay Hoffman of Swansea, LaToya Greenwood of East St. Louis, Nathan Reitz of Steeleville, Katie Stuart of Edwardsville and state Sen. Christopher Belt of Cahokia “worked to combat the additional restrictions set to be imposed,” the county emergency management agency posted on social media after the reversal.
…Adding… The latest IDPH numbers show the Metro East’s positivity rate is 9.8 percent, far higher than Region 7’s 8.4 percent. Yet, the mitigation measures are far more restrictive in Region 7.
*** UPDATE 1 *** Gov. Pritzker said today that the mitigation efforts in Region 4 haven’t worked. The mitigations were based on advice from local public health directors who had worked with St. Louis to devise a standard set of guidelines on both sides of the Mississippi River. In retrospect, Pritzker said, bowing to that arrangement “was not a good idea.”
When asked why Region 4 was given another week before mitigation efforts would match Region 7, Pritzker said “We had said when we put the mitigations in place that they would have two weeks under those sets of mitigations and so there’s one week left.”
*** UPDATE 2 *** Sen. Hastings, a Democrat, is not pleased…
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* Florida’s non-presidential primary was August 18…
Rauner owns “a waterfront mansion in Key Largo,” which is in Monroe County. According to the Tribune, the mansion has a “72-foot-long pool.” A quick Google search found this photo.
* I only mention it because his name has popped up a few times this week, including on WTTW…
Leading up to and during his term as Illinois’ 42nd governor, Bruce Rauner spent some of his personal fortune to help boost the Republican Party in the state.
He’s not only no longer doing that, Rauner’s not even registered to vote in Illinois anymore; he’s set to cast his ballot from Florida.
It’s a sign of the lurch the Illinois GOP is in: The Congressional delegation is split 13 Democrats to five Republicans, both of the state’s U.S. Senators are Democrats, there are no GOP constitutional officers and Republicans are in super-minorities in both the Illinois House and Senate.
* The Tribune also ran a story last week about Democrats teeing off on the former governor…
“As comptroller, I’ve witnessed firsthand how bad leadership has hurt Illinois, mainly because of two Republicans. … These two Republicans have a lot in common. Former Gov. Bruce Rauner who nearly crippled our state over political ideology and now President Donald Trump who has botched the White House response to the COVID-19 pandemic and tanked our economy,” Mendoza said.
Fair hit?
…Adding… Interestingly enough, Mrs. Rauner and several of the Rauner kids are still registered to vote in Chicago.
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* To refresh your memory, this was from a couple of weeks ago…
[Logan County] Judge Jonathan C. Wright ruled Monday morning that Pritzker’s order that temporarily halted county jails from moving prisoners to state-run facilities ran afoul of state law.
The Illinois Department of Corrections must accept an inmate within 14 days of a transfer, but Pritzker’s order struck that language for the duration of his emergency orders amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
* Well, the Fourth Appellate District just overturned the circuit judge’s preliminary injunction and stayed the ruling…
(W)e hereby find defendants have made a strong showing on their likelihood of success on the merits, which would offset equitable factors that may favor the plaintiffs.
* Trial judges should not attempt to govern the entire state from their little county benches. Make a ruling and then stay it pending appeal…
In Stacke, 138 111. 2d at 302-09, the Illinois Supreme Court explained that when considering whether to grant a stay pending appeal, courts should consider the following non-exhaustive factors: (1) whether the party seeking the stay is likely to succeed on the merits, (2) whether a stay would preserve the status quo,’ and (3) whether the balance of equities favors a particular party.
Section 7(8) of the IEMMA, 20 ILCS 3305/7(8) (West 2018), provides that the governor shall have the power to “[c]ontrol *** the movement of persons within the [disaster] area, and the occupancy of premises therein.”
At oral argument, this court asked plaintiffs if they had any argument as to why section 7(8) did not apply. Their only response was that it did not apply because another portion of the IEMMA states that nothing in the IEMMA should affect the responsibilities of the police. Id. § 3(c). Plaintiffs made a similar argument in their brief. However, we conclude that this limitation pertains only to active law enforcement and policing and does not extend to incidental activities such as transferring prisoners. When read in context with the remainder of § 3[(c)J, “responsibilities of police forces” refers to the core functions performed by the police, such as keeping the peace, protecting the public, and enforcing criminal laws. Transferring prisoners to IDOC custody is an administrative task outside of the essential responsibilities of police forces generally. […]
We acknowledge plaintiffs believe EO 2020-50 imposes serious hardship on numerous sheriffs’ offices throughout the State and is unwise and unfair. However, we do not pass judgment on whether the Governor’s actions are unwise or unfair, but rather on whether the Governor’s actions are authorized.
* Jim Dey…
The good news for Illinois’ 102 sheriffs is that they had two weeks to transfer roughly 2,000 inmates to state prisons. The bad news is that they now face the same problem they had before — holding newly-sentenced inmates in county jails who ought to be serving their sentences in prison. […]
Coronavirus infection numbers jumped in DOC after the department was ordered to accept inmate transfers.
Two weeks ago, DOC reported that 371 inmates had contracted the virus, 336 of whom recovered.
On Monday, DOC reported 729 coronavirus cases, 470 of whom recovered.
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* After revealing that he planned to vote for Joe Biden, former Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar talked to several reporters about his decision. Turns out, this won’t be the first time he’ll cast a ballot for a Democratic presidential candidate. Bernie smoked him out…
Edgar, who was a state representative and secretary of state before serving as governor from 1991-1999, has broken with his party previously. In 2016, he said he wouldn’t vote for Trump, but didn’t reveal his vote at the time.
Edgar said Monday that he had always voted for Republicans for president until 2016. Asked if he marked Democrat Hillary Clinton on his ballot, he said, “I think you could guess that, yeah.”
* Tribune…
“I had hoped when he got elected, he’d kind of grow into the job. I think it’s been a very unfortunate four years — there’s a lot more turmoil than there needed to be. He doesn’t act like a president — his character is lacking. The presidents of the past, none of them have been perfect, but this is unusual,” Edgar said in a phone interview.
So is it a vote against Trump? Or do you like Biden? “It would have been hard for me to vote for Trump no matter who the Democrats would have” nominated, Edgar tells The Spin. “He never was around government. Some people like that. I think you need to understand the relationship between the federal government and the states. You have to watch what you say. What the president says really matters, and the president, it’s not in his DNA” to edit himself. “Do I agree with all his policies? No,” Edgar said of Biden. “But I do think he’s a decent guy and he’ll steer a moderate course.”
* Back to Bernie…
“I have been very disappointed,” Edgar said. “We’ve had chaos for four years we didn’t need to have. I mean, there’s always going to be some turmoil, but he stirs it up. He bullies. You can’t believe what he says because he’ll do the different thing the next day. … He’s bungled the virus, there’s no doubt about that. He continued to stir up division in the country, (when) a president should be trying to bring people together. I mean, the list goes on and on.” […]
A spokesman for the state GOP did not respond to Edgar’s statements.
* Dave McKinney…
“I think he bungled the pandemic thing. He undercuts our allies. I don’t understand his relationship with [Russian President Vladmir] Putin. The list goes on and on.
“But I think the biggest thing is his character. He’s a bully. He doesn’t tell the truth. Just all kinds of things,” said the former two-term governor from downstate Charleston who served between 1991 and 1999. […]
Edgar, who had high approval ratings that once topped out at 73%, said he understands how Trump’s message resonates among downstaters. But it is a losing ideology for Illinois Republicans, he said.
“All the downstaters are going to vote for Trump, but it’s not going to matter because they’re going to get out-voted by the suburbanites and Chicagoans,” Edgar said. “For the Party to be able to win in Illinois statewide, we need to divorce ourselves from the Trump thing.”
* Amanda Vinicky…
“He has been more of a disappointment than I thought he would be four years ago, and I was definitely bummed out when he won four years ago. But I’m just – I think this country has suffered a lot that going to take a while to take care of.”
While Trump is popular in much of downstate Illinois, Edgar said the President hurts Republican candidates who run statewide, in the city of Chicago and in the suburbs.
“If Trump would lose in November, then I think the Republican Party in Illinois statewide has a better chance of coming back,” Edgar said. “Republican candidates have to answer everything Trump says and does. … It hurts them in the suburbs and in the city.”
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* It’s convention week, so I generally give people latitude when they act all exuberant. Here’s Greg Hinz…
The goal: Snag a couple of congressional seats from Democrats, grab a seat on the Illinois Supreme Court, defeat Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s graduated income tax amendment. And maybe even make Donald Trump competitive in what now is very much donkey country.
So says Illinois Republican Party Chairman Tim Schneider, asserting that a mix of law-and-order concerns among voters and ethical stumbles by Democrats make those goals achievable. […]
“The president can win in Illinois,” said Schneider, a former member of the Cook County Board who got the job leading his party at the behest of then-Gov. Bruce Rauner. “Sitting here, 71 days out, I’m not saying that he will. But there is a lot going on.”
* Rachel Hinton at the Sun-Times…
In a livestream Monday afternoon, Schneider said “we need to make Illinois Republican again.”
He pointed to looting that has roiled the city in recent months, as well as the heavy security presence around Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s home while “terrible crimes and murders and shootings” happen in the city as reasons why the state should swing to the right.
“So, we can institute policies that are positive for the people of Illinois, to keep people from leaving our state,” Schneider said. “Or, as I always say, we’re going to need a wall around Illinois just to keep people in.”
Schneider said Lightfoot has barricaded four blocks in her neighborhood but she hasn’t protected “our downtown and our Loop and our Magnificent Mile.”
* Amanda Vinicky…
Illinois Republican Party chairman Tim Schneider said on Monday that President Donald Trump can win the state.
“Our side has the energy going this election. Who really cares about Sleepy Joe and Kamala Harris,” Schneider said. “People aren’t rushing out the door to vote for Joe Biden.”
The “lawlessness in Chicago” will put Trump on the victory path, Schneider said.
* But this particular issue hovered over the entire convention yesterday…
“This convention is going to be one of optimism, one of leading the American people,” said Demetra Demonte, a Republican National Committeewoman.
Demonte had to cancel her trip to Charlotte after being exposed to someone with COVID-19 two and a half weeks ago.
She did not contract the virus and has just been invited by the President to attend his acceptance speech in Washington Thursday. She believes his pre-COVID record on the economy, and his push for law and order will make him an appealing candidate for suburban women.
“Donald Trump is a man of action,” she said. “He is a man who says what he will do and he does what he says he is going to do.”
It’s kinda difficult to make the case that all is well when your party is forced to hold a mostly remote convention.
* Mark Brown dumped cold water on the upbeat mood…
Despite having a member of their own party in the White House, or partly because of that fact, these are tough times for Illinois Republicans, probably the worst in memory.
Coming up on two years since Bruce Rauner vacated the governor’s mansion, taking his money with him, the Illinois GOP has no statewide elected officials, faces super-majority opposition in both chambers of the Legislature and can claim only five of 18 members of Congress. Party coffers are anemic, if not quite bare.
To top it off, President Donald Trump is so unpopular in the state, particularly among the Chicago suburban voters who once gave Illinois Republicans an even chance, that no quick turnaround seems likely.
It’s so bad that Jim Edgar, the state’s last popular Republican governor, revealed Monday that he, too, is voting for Joe Biden for president.
And the kicker…
For now, though, they’re the party of Trump, who seems to want nothing to do with them.
Ouch.
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* Yesterday…
* More from Capitol News Illinois…
Prosecutors first indicated in June that additional, related charges could be forthcoming.
Arroyo, a Chicago Democrat, was charged in October 2019 with one felony count of bribery for allegedly attempting to pay $2,500 to an unnamed state senator, with promises of more to come, in exchange for the senator’s support of gambling legislation that would have benefitted one of Arroyo’s lobbying clients. The senator was wearing a wire at the time for federal investigators.
Chicago-area media outlets, citing unnamed sources, have reported that the unnamed state senator was Terry Link, a Democrat from Indian Creek in Lake County, although Link has strongly denied any involvement. Link was recently charged in an unrelated case with tax evasion for filing a false 2016 federal tax return.
Arroyo has pleaded not guilty to his charges, but he resigned his office Nov. 1, just ahead of a special House investigative hearing to determine whether he should be expelled from the General Assembly.
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* From the Association of Credit and Collection Professionals…
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has again extended Executive Order 2020-25, which includes limits on garnishments and wage deductions. It is now in effect until Sept. 19, 2020.
The extension is part of a new order that continues or reissues several existing regulations related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The garnishment and wage deduction order, which originally took effect April 14 and was extended into July, “suspends sections in the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure that permit the service of a garnishment summons, wage deduction summons, or a citation to discover assets on a consumer debtor or consumer garnishee. It shall not be construed to apply to domestic support obligations or relieving a debtor of any liability.”
The EO is here.
Thoughts?
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* Good point…
* I warned subscribers about this more than a month ago. Aurora, where Henry lives, is in DuPage, Kane, Kendall and Will counties. Bolingbrook and Naperville are in both Will and DuPage counties. Plainfield is located within Will and Kendall counties.
So, the Will County areas of those cities and towns will now see indoor tavern service closed, no indoor dining in restaurants and social gatherings limited to the lesser of 25 guests or 25 percent of overall room capacity, among other things. The rest of those municipalities will see no changes at all.
* I’ve said this before, but we really need a county remap in this state. We have far too many counties here. And their boundaries, particularly in the suburbs, are just too confusing.
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