Illinois Review

Illinois House contemplates mandatory vaccine registry despite strong opposition

SPRINGFIELD - Illinois lawmakers will once again be contemplating another political "hot potato" when they return to the State Capitol this week. As of Monday morning, 5526 (Update now: 5579) opponents have signed onto the Illinois General Assembly website to submit witness slips against HB 4244, a bill introduced and sponsored by only one Democrat lawmaker - Lake County resident Bob Morgan. 

HB 4244 would require all doctors, pharmacies, hospitals and medical centers to register their patients' personal immunizations with a state-run database.  Currently, the state immunization registry already in place is optional. 

Some Morgan constituents are not happy with their state rep's idea. They're calling for neighbors to contact Morgan's office and file opposition slips.

GOP opponents respond to Irvin entry into gubernatorial primary race

Mayor Richard Irvin.                       State Sen. Darren Bailey                Businessman Gary Rabine

SPRINGFIELD - Two GOP gubernatorial primary opponents that have been campaigning for several months responded to the news that Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin is entering the Illinois GOP's effort to oust Illinois Governor JB Pritzker in November 2022.

Irvin-Bourne team announces bid for Illinois governor

AURORA - A second-term mayor of one of Illinois' largest cities and a young female downstate state rep unveiled their campaign website as Republican gubernatorial primary team candidates Monday: IrvinBourne.com - Mayor Richard Irvin and State Rep. Avery Bourne (R-Litchfield). 

Their announcement, made via YouTube video, confirmed what Illinois Review.com reported hearing about in mid-December: 

The announcement video links Irvin back to his family's slave roots: 

Irvin/Bourne join several other candidate teams vying to challenge JB Pritzker in November: Gary Rabine and Aaron DelMar; Senator Darren Bailey and Stephanie Trussell, former Senator Paul Schimpf and Carol Scholfield, as well as a few others that have little name recognition or financial backing thus far. 

Di Leo: Analogy Time with Johnny Dee: Tollbooths, Syringes, and the U.S. Constitution

By John F. Di Leo - 

Let's say I claim the right to collect tolls on the Brooklyn Bridge. (I need cash, you know, and there’s money there).

So, I fly to New York; I erect tollgates, and I start collecting tolls from cars and trucks crossing the Brooklyn Bridge.

Now, as you might imagine, I have no right to do this.  I just did it, and dared people to stop me.  Well, people did.  They didn’t waste much time, either.  Let’s assume that people sued me, and it went all the way to the Supreme Court, where SCOTUS said "This is ridiculous!  John, you don't have the authority to collect tolls on the Brooklyn Bridge. Now cut it out. Unless you're given that authority, you can't do it. Period. Take down those stupid tollbooths and go home."

But you know me, folks.  I don’t give up that easily.

So, I go to Springfield.

Thorner: Are Satan Clubs coming to your school?

By Nancy Thorner - 

 

Elementary schoolchildren in Moline, Illinois, were invited last week to an after-school Satan club with five different meeting dates planned for 2022. The first meeting was scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 13.

 

“The superintendent of Moline-Coal Valley Schools said in her online note to parents that the flyers were 'not distributed' to all students. The flyers and promotional materials were sent to the school by the organization 'to be placed in the lobby. There, flyers were made available for children to peruse and pick up if they chose to do so,” Fox News reported. 

 

The superintendent made these other points in her memo:

• “Board of education policy allows for community use of our facilities.”
• “The district approves many facility use agreements with local churches.”
• “Since we have allowed religious entities to rent our facilities after school hours, we are not permitted to discriminate against different religious viewpoints.”
• “To illegally deny their organization (viewpoint) to pay to rent our publicly funded institution, after school hours, subjects the district to a discrimination lawsuit, which we will not win, likely taking thousands upon thousands of taxpayer dollars away from our teachers, staff, and classrooms."

 

Some parents are angry about their children's exposure to information about the club, apparently prompting the superintendent of schools to weigh in. The Satanic Temple says on its website that it operates the clubs "at select public schools where Good News Clubs also operate."

 

“Patti Garibay, founder and executive director of American Heritage Girls, a Christian alternative to the Girl Scouts, told Fox News Digital in an email, "At a time when youth are experiencing a mental health pandemic, it is outrageous that a school district would allow a club based on the master of confusion."

Hospital System Backs Off Race-Based Treatment Policy After Legal Threat

For The Washington Free Beacon, journalist Aaron Sibarium reports that a race-based medical rubric used by SSM Health “gave race more weight than diabetes, obesity, asthma, and hypertension combined” was recently abandoned after the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a conservative legal nonprofit, threatened them with a lawsuit claiming that the medical policy was both “immoral” and “illegal.”

The now-defunct rubric is much more radical, prioritizing healthy minorities over white patients with many of the largest risk factors for COVID-19. A 49-year-old white woman with hypertension, obesity, diabetes, and asthma would only get 19 points under the rubric, just shy of the 20 point threshold for antibody therapy. But a 50-year-old black woman with no underlying health conditions would receive 22 points, making her eligible.

The policy was initially justified by the claim that "COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on low income communities and certain racial/ethnic minorities in the United States." However, these purported racial disparities vanished when new analyses included relevant variables like health comorbidities and class.

"Black race was not associated with higher in-hospital mortality than white race," an analysis in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded, "after adjustment for differences in sociodemographic and clinical characteristics on admission." A study of Maryland and District of Columbia hospitals likewise found no relationship between race and severe disease "after adjustment for clinical factors."

More HERE

Paprocki: Why Illinoisans should stay and fight

By Matt Paprocki - 

One person leaves Illinois every 4 minutes and 18 seconds.

I sympathize with that person.

She is tired of being ignored in favor of special interests. She is tired of paying high taxes with little to show for it. It can be exhausting to fight for a better Illinois ­– but it is not futile.

Illinois is worth fighting for. I explain why, in the spirit of George Washington, below.

We can change the culture of Illinois – in fact, we already have. Imagine what we can do if Illinoisans take a stand and refuse to be driven out of their home state.

How School Closures Made Me Question My Progressive Politics

Excerpts:

My own experience, as a self-described progressive in ultra-lefty Oakland, is just one example of how people across the political spectrum have become frustrated with Democrats’ position on school reopenings.

But I began to fear that even in-person school in fall 2021 was at risk because of the impossible demands of the teachers union (that schools remain fully remote until there were “near-zero” Covid cases in Oakland) and apathy of the school board and district; even after teachers were prioritized for vaccination, there was no urgency to get kids back to the classroom.

The pandemic, and the school-reopening debate in particular, has thrown me into an ideological mid-life crisis, questioning all my prior political assumptions. I’m still attempting to hold onto the progressive label while calling out the policies I see as antithetical to it, but the longer fellow progressives support new school closures and other policies that restrict kids’ lives in order to allay the anxieties of adults, and have been shown to cause far more harm than benefit, the more alienated I feel.

More HERE

Lee: Central Planning and Its Medical Regime

By Gina Lee - 

Throughout the pandemic, we have heard from free thinkers, such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), that government-controlled health care is an imminent danger to society.  This is especially true when the central planners do not have the best interests of the public in mind.

Despite this truism, central planners like Dr. Anthony Fauci have pushed their preferred public policies, regardless of whether or not those policies have proven beneficial to the American people. For example, Fauci has relentlessly advocated for lockdowns, even though the evidence clearly indicates that draconian lockdowns do more damage than good. The same could be said for school closures and many other policy prescriptions supported by Fauci and others.

More HERE

Rossi: Biden’s Attack on Vote Integrity, Democracy, and Minorities

By Randy Rossi - 

All of America got to see and hear Democrat President Biden create even more divisiveness and hatred across our country with his “disgraceful” speech in Georgia pushing his “Voter Rights Bill” which is an attack on our democracy and vote integrity and designed to federalize elections and take away state rights. You know things are pretty bad for President Biden when even ultra-liberal Al Sharpton seriously criticized what Sharpton called Biden’s “You’re going to Hell speech” that attacked anybody who doesn’t agree with his absurd, immoral, and unpatriotic “Voting Rights Bill” which will destroy our democracy. Al Sharpton publicly said Biden’s speech would not unite Americans and would turn off all Americans that were against his “Voting Rights Bill” who President Biden said were equal to George Wallace and Confederate President Jefferson Davis (who was a Democrat!) if they disagreed with him.

The Great Resorting Is Here

Americans have been fleeing the most liberal states in mass numbers. Those numbers are about to increase even more.

Between July 2020 and July 2021, approximately 352,1985 residents of New York State embarked for warmer climes. Over that same period, the District of Columbia lost 2.9 percent of its population. California lost 367,299 people via net domestic migration. Illinois, another failing blue state, saw a net domestic out-migration of 122,460 people.

Where did all these blue state refugees go? To red states, of course. Texas picked up 170,307 Americans migrating from other areas. Florida picked up 220,890 people. Arizona picked up 93,026. Idaho had the fastest annual population increase in the nation.

More HERE

SCOTUS Blocks OSHA Shot Mandate, allows for healthcare workers

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-3 opinion blocked the Biden administration’s vaccine-or-test requirement for businesses with over 100 employees, but in a 5-4 opinion, the High Court allowed the shot mandate authorized for Medicare and Medicaid health care facilities and workers, Liberty Counsel said in a press release Thursday.

In National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) lacks broad authority to impose an immunization requirement on employers. The Court said that COVID-19 “is not an occupational hazard” in most workplaces (emphasis in original). The Court issued a stay of the OSHA mandate that will remain in effect through the ongoing litigation and continue if a petition for cert is granted in the future until the final disposition of the case.

Justices Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan dissented in the decision to stop OSHA from requiring any workers in large businesses who remain unvaccinated to “undergo [weekly] COVID-19 testing and wear a face covering at work.” If allowed to take effect, it would have forced every large business to require proof of a negative COVID-19 test on at least a weekly basis or proof of vaccination from each worker or face large fines.

Illinois conservative lawmakers respond to SCOTUS decision on Biden vaccine mandate

US Supreme Court

SPRINGFIELD - Conservative state lawmakers responded to the US Supreme Court's ruling Thursday that stayed the Biden Administration’s COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) during the pendency of the 6th Circuit case.

The Court stated, “the Act empowers the Secretary to set workplace safety standards, not broad public health measures.”

Some conservative lawmakers in the Illinois General Assembly issued statements in response to the ruling.

Illinois' current COVID spike could be leveling out, stats show

 

According to the New York Times' most recent data update, the number of COVID cases in Illinois during the current Omicron spike could be leveling off. 

Still showing the highest numbers since October 2021, the numbers show COVID cases did not continue to skyrocket as they had in previous weeks, when Illinoisans were gathering for the holidays. Altogether since the pandemic commenced, Illinois stats show the state has had over two and a half million cases. 

Positive COVID test rates are still high, nearing 16% - and Illinois reports nearly 48 million tests since they first became available last year. 

Thorner: Domestic Terrorism: The Nation’s Biggest Threat?

By Nancy Thorner -

On January 11, 2022 it was announced that the US Dept of Justice has created a special squad to target homegrown extremism, citing a rise in “anti-government and anti-authority ideologies” from within the American populace.

The department already had a counter terrorism section in its national security division, but Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen recently told US lawmakers that a new group of lawyers was needed to “augment our existing approach”and ensure that cases are coordinated and handled properly across the country.

Leaving no doubt as to the types of ideologies that the DOJ is targeting with its terrorism crackdown, Olsen told senatorsthat the Capitol breach is being investigated as an act of domestic terrorism. However, none of the more than 700 people who have been arrested in connection with the riot has been charged with insurrection or a terrorism-related offense.

Samuels: No Truth in Socialism: Why the ‘Crisis of Marxism’ Matters

By L.K. Samuels - 

Why do the Progressive Big Media, Democrats, elites, and Democratic Socialists feel duty-bound to create false realities?  Why must they silence, obstruct or distort any truthful voice before it can ever be heard? And why do they rush to judgment before the facts can be sorted out?  The answer is rather simple; socialists and collectivists have no other choice. By hard experience, they learned over 100 years ago that their ideology was devoid of facts and reality. They had to sacrifice truth in order to hide the inevitable failures of socialism.

More HERE

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Must Die

The damaging “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” racket needs to be extinguished.

Researchers extraordinaire Jay Greene and James Paul have released a series of three carefully crafted studies on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion that detail many aspects of the harmful scheme. In a nutshell, the authors find DEI to be “counterproductive and politically radical.”

The part of the study that examines DEI’s effects on elementary schools is particularly damning. It looks at school districts with at least 15,000 students, of which there are 554, and finds that schools with Chief Diversity Officers (CDOs) “actually have larger gaps in achievement between black and white students, Hispanic and white students, and non-poor and poor students than districts without CDOs. And those gaps are growing wider over time. This pattern holds true even after controlling for a host of other observable characteristics of those districts.”

More HERE

Civil Liberties Are Under Attack

Property rights and economic freedom are the key ingredient for promoting civil liberties and a free society.

We are living at a time when civil liberties are severely under attack from a number of directions. Two of the most obvious ones at the moment are the response by many governments to the coronavirus crisis and the rise of “critical race theory,” with its accompanying “cancel culture.”

We are seeing imposed or threatened suppression of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of association, and freedom of movement. Historically, all of these were hard-won freedoms over the last 300 years. We need to recall that for most of human history, such freedoms did not exist.

More HERE

Di Leo: Getting the Jab and Doing Your Job

By John F. Di Leo - 

Joe Biden wants everyone to be vaccinated against the China Virus commonly known as Covid-19. 

Whether that’s a good idea or not is at this point an open question.  The vaccines and boosters currently available appear to be ineffective at preventing people from catching the virus, but there is evidence often interpreted as proof that they are effective in reducing the danger of the virus to those who do catch it.  There is also evidence often interpreted as proof that they are dangerous, often causing severe heart ailments in otherwise healthy people.  The oddity here is that the virus may be most dangerous to people who are already sick, and the vaccine may be most dangerous to people who are otherwise healthy. 

With billions of people getting doses of brand new vaccines, it is difficult to tell – because much of the information is censored – whether these side effects are statistically worthy of note, or are so rare, statistically speaking, that we shouldn’t worry about them.  Anyone on either side who says this is a clear-cut issue is jumping to conclusions.  We simply can’t be sure yet.

So, most reasonable people’s natural gut instinct is to treat this like the annual flu shot, and make a personal decision on whether to take this particular vaccine or not.

Di Leo: Biden's Testing Fail

By John F. Di Leo - 

Asparagus is wonderful for you.

Depending on how it’s prepared, asparagus provides -- at a minimum -- iron, vitamins C, and B-6, potassium, fiber, and a trace of magnesium and calcium as well. But asparagus can be tricky to prepare, and it can be expensive. So, what is a health-conscious family to do?

Well, let’s say the government decided to step in. A president might say, on some random Monday, “I hereby declare that, effective this coming Saturday, every American person -- male, female, and gender-bewildered -- is entitled to eight free servings of asparagus every month.”

But… how to accomplish it? We have over 330 million people in America (tens of millions more if you count illegal aliens and voter registrations); that’s a heck of a job. The government certainly doesn’t have the facilities to provide such a service.

More, in the American Thinker, here: