Illinois Review

Federal Judge Halts Biden Shot Mandate for Health Care Workers

UPDATE x1: November 30, 2021 - A federal judge in Louisiana temporarily halted all healthcare worker vaccine mandates throughout the nation.

More information to come ...  from Liberty Counsel - Biden’s Shot Mandates Continue to Bite the Dust - Dec 1, 2021

This week, three federal judges have blocked the Biden administration’s COVID-19 unlawful shot mandates for federal contractors and health care workers. 

A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction yesterday against Biden’s shot mandate regarding federal contractors for three states. U.S. District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove blocked the order at the request of the three attorneys general of Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee. The states sued Biden arguing that the mandate for companies that do business with the U.S. government violated the U.S. Constitution. 

In his ruling Judge Van Tatenhove stated, “The question presented here is narrow. Can the president use congressionally delegated authority to manage the federal procurement of goods and services to impose vaccines on the employees of federal contractors and subcontractors? In all likelihood, the answer to that question is no.”

More HERE.

Here's what happened earlier this week: 

JEFFERSON CITY, MO – Health care workers in 10 states who don’t want to take the COVID-19 shot will be pleased with a federal judge’s ruling in a lawsuit brought by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt. St. Louis-based U.S. District Judge Matthew Schelp halted implementation and enforcement of the Biden administration’s COVID-19 shot mandate for thousands of affected health care workers.

Judge Schelp granted a preliminary injunction that applies to certified providers of Medicare and Medicaid and suppliers in each of the suing states: Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.

17th CD GOP candidate Esther Joy King releases "Battle-Ready" campaign ad

See whole map at fivethirtyeight.com  

EAST MOLINE - With hopes of winning a Trump-favoring central Illinois district in 2022, 17th CD GOP candidate Esther Joy King released her first campaign ad for next year's election. The incumbent - Democrat Cheri Bustos - has announced she's retiring, so the 17th CD seat will be open in 2022 in a conservative district with likely strong headwinds for Republican candidates. 

“With less than a year to go until the midterm elections, Illinois Democrats just put the final seal of approval on their corrupt, gerrymandered maps drawn for one purpose: to protect the Left's control of Washington and Illinois," King said in a statement.

"The Corrupt Springfield Democrats' desperate power-grab changes nothing. Since Day One, my campaign has been about fighting for the people of Northern, Central, and Western Illinois and protecting our communities from the radical Left-wing agenda. As a battle-ready leader, I am ready to double down for our generation's fight against socialism and keep America strong and free.”

The newly-drawn 17th congressional district includes much of the northwestern part of Illinois - an area considered "highly competitive" by political prognosticators. 

Davis to run for Congress again in 2022

TAYLORVILLE -- Despite political rumors that he might run for Illinois governor in 2022, Rodney Davis, a Republican from Taylorville, announced Tuesday he is choosing to run for re-election to Congress in the newly-drawn 15th Congressional district, which includes his home in Taylorville and much of the district he currently represents. He is the only incumbent member of Congress who resides in this district following the Congressional redistricting process.

Davis' announcement leaves only Republican Congresswoman Mary Miller as not yet announcing her re-election plans for 2022. The newly-drawn districts place her in the Democrat-intended situation of having to challenge a Republican US House colleague in a 2022 primary.

“My family and I are excited to announce that I am running for re-election to Congress,” Davis said in a statement. “I’ve been proud to fight hard for and work on behalf of central Illinois families in this district for many years, both as a member of Congress and as a staffer to my good friend and mentor, former Congressman John Shimkus.”

Thorner: Why Is Vermont, the most vaccinated state, grappling with another Coronavirus surge?

By Nancy Thorner - 

Keep in mind that you’re not considered “fully vaccinated” until two weeks after your second injection. If you got your second dose a week ago and end up in the hospital with COVID symptoms, you’re counted as "unvaccinated."

The case rate in Vermont is FAR higher now than it was in the fall of 2020, when no one had gotten the “vaccine.”  Vermont health commissioner Dr. Mark Levine says the surge is occurring primarily among unvaccinated people in their 20s and children aged 5 through 11 — which is obviously another ruse, given that the shots are just now being rolled out for 5- to 11-year-olds. 

Dr. Levin also tries to blame the delta variant, but delta has been around for months already, first case of delta in Vermont was identified in mid-May 2021.  

Op-Ed by Mark Curran: Lake County's Shanes, Filenko bad for Illinois

Lake County Judge Daniel Shanes 

An Op-Ed by Mark Curran, former Lake County sheriff and candidate for Illinois Supreme Court - 

The day that Fox Lake Sargent Joseph Gliniewicz took his life, Lake County made national headlines.  

George Filenko – recently featured at a press conference with Illinois Supreme Court candidate Daniel Shanes – was the Commander of the LCMCTF -- the Lake County Major Crime Task Force -- that day. Created in response to a need for investigative resources for police agencies in Lake County, the LCMCTF has had one of the worst reputations in the country for wrongful convictions.

To stop inflation, cut government spending

Price inflation has rapidly eclipsed COVID-19 as an economic concern, and with good reason.  To combat the problem, it's important to be clear about exactly what is causing it.

Federal fiscal policy — taxes and spending — and regulation have an enormous effect on the value of money.

The current situation has everyone on edge.  Consumer prices rose by 6.2 percent over the past 12 months, the worst increase since 1990.

Unleaded gasoline costs 57 percent more than it did a year ago.  Home heating bills are expected to be 54 percent above last winter's, used cars and trucks cost 26.4 percent more, the average price of a one-bedroom apartment has increased by 20 percent, and house prices rose at a 17.3-percent annual rate in October.

"Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 4.9 percent," the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.  That means that the average person's inflation-adjusted earnings decreased over the past year.

More HERE

Senate Democrats Approve Former Eco-Terrorist to Run the U.S. Bureau of Land Management

The U.S. Senate confirmed Tracy Stone-Manning to lead the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on a strict party-line vote of 50 Democrats in favor or the nominee, and 45 Republicans opposed, in early October.

Stone-Manning’s nomination was nearly derailed during hearings designed to vet her by Republicans who argued she was unqualified to serve as BLM director because of her involvement with the eco-terrorist group Earth First! and her past involvement in “tree spiking.” Spiking is dangerous act of sabotage in which metal spikes are nailed into trees making them unsafe to log. Unnoticed tree spikes have injured loggers in the past when saws they were using struck the spikes, causing the saws to explode.

More HERE

Prager: Irrational Fear More Deadly Than COVID-19

Dennis Prager -

The most famous words of Franklin Roosevelt, America’s longest-serving president, were, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

One wonders if any world leader would or could say that today. We live in the Age of Fear.

All of my life, I thought love and hate were the two most powerful human emotions. But owing to recent events, I have changed my mind.

I now understand that for most people, fear is the strongest emotion. In fact, I’ve come to realize that it is possible to get people to do anything if you instill enough fear in them. Specifically, irrational fear.

Fear of COVID-19, for example, is rational. But media and governments induced irrational fears. That’s why millions of healthy people stayed indoors for a year or more, why a vast number of people wore masks while walking or sitting alone outdoors, and why so many parents did not allow their young children to play with other children for a year or more, even though the COVID-19 mortality rate among children was considerably less than the flu’s mortality rate among children.

More HERE

OP-ED from Dr. Jane Orient: The FDA’s Gut vs. Your Child’s Heart

Loyola image

By Jane M. Orient, M.D. - 

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has set up a flimsy, or fake, barrier to reaping multi-billion-dollar profits from COVID-vaccine boosters or pediatric shots.

The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) voted 19-to-0 in favor of Moderna boosters for high-risk adults. “The data itself is not strong, but it is certainly going in the direction that is supportable of this vote,” stated Dr. Patrick Moore of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He admitted that his vote was based largely on a “gut feeling rather than truly serious data.”

He must know that “authorization” is likely followed by “no jab, no job” mandates—or pressure to inject children.

Americans should look at the truly serious data for themselves. Even non-experts can ask: Are fewer people dying now that we have these amazing vaccines.

Stossel: Prove You’re Needed!

By John Stossel -

“Why does Louisiana have the right to stop me from doing what I love to do?” asks Ursula Newell-Davis in my new video.

Newell-Davis has helped people. She’s a social worker who’s worked with kids with special needs for 20 years. She’s really good at it.

“She helped teach me how to talk to people,” says Kamal, who never had friends before.

His mother adds, “She explained to me things that I didn’t understand about my kids.”

Newell-Davis helped many families like hers. Her clients are ecstatic about her work.

Now she wants to help more kids by starting her own business focusing on “respite” work. “Respite” means acting as backup to a primary caregiver. They fill in for a few hours or days to give a parent a break.

“Someone that can go in and teach their child a different skill,” Newell-Davis says.

She has a college degree, a master’s degree and a social work license. But Louisiana bureaucrats won’t let her do respite work unless she can prove “there is a need for an additional HCBS provider in the geographic location for which the application is submitted” and “the probability of serious, adverse consequences to recipients’ ability to access health care if the provider is not allowed to be licensed.”

What!? Why?

“Louisiana wants to limit how many agencies they have to regulate,” says Newell-Davis. “That makes it easy for the state.”

Easy for the state? Yes, that’s the actual reason.

More HERE

IL Dem Majority Leader Greg Harris to step down for next generation of Democrats

CHICAGO - Saying "it's time," 66 year old State Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago) announced Monday that the "younger leadership" needs room to exercise their political muscle, so he's not running for re-election in November 2022.

Harris, an openly gay lawmakers, is proud of making Illinois one of the earliest states embracing same sex marriage, he told Crain's. 

"...[A]s the highest-ranking openly gay person ever to have served in state government, he says his proudest accomplishment was serving as chief sponsor of the bill allowing same-sex marriage in the state, an action that came years before the U.S. Supreme Court mandated that nationally," Crain's political reporter Greg Hinz writes Monday. 

What does that mean for the Democrat super-majority in the Illinois House under the leadership of State Rep. Chris Welch, who just took over within the last year?

Thorner: Is the World Overreacting to "Omicron" Variant?

NDTV.com image

By Nancy Thorner - 

On Friday, November 26, 2021, a new B.1.1.529 variant was first reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) by South Africa and classified as a "variant of concern",dubbed the "omicron" variant.

The variant has also been found in Botswana and Hong Kong.  Experts in South Africa say they don't know if vaccines work against the variant. #eNCA

 

The "omicron" variant – which has a high number of mutations – alarmed health professionals due to its swift spread among young people in South Africa, although there was no immediate indication whether the variant causes more severe disease.

Di Leo: Sundae Time with Basement Joe - Maple Walnut Sundae & the Meaning of Thanksgiving

By John F. Di Leo - 

Introduction: Imagine, if you will, an alternate universe in which a confused old man - Joe Buckstop - stumbles into the presidency, and spends his entire term in his basement. Each evening, an aide walks downstairs and serves him his evening snack, and engages him in conversation about current events, in a losing effort to keep the old man's mind somewhat sound. Tonight's episode is an excerpt from the ongoing series, "Evening Soup with Basement Joe," by John F. Di Leo, a fictional chronicle of the events of 2021, a political satire available in paperback or eBook from Amazon.

"Hello Down There, Boss!"

"Huh? Who's that?"

"I'm your cook, old man! Can't you hear me hobbling down the stairs?"

"Oh, right. Do you have soup?"

"No, boss, we have ice cream sundaes now, remember?"

"Oh. Right. Darn. What is it tonight?"

"Well, boss, since it's a big holiday, I figured I'd go with a nice all-American dessert: a maple walnut sundae. Here you go, sir!"

In Case With Global Implications, Finland Puts Christians On Trial For Their Faith

Meet the man who appears to be the first in the post-Soviet Union West to be brought up on criminal charges for publishing long-held Christian beliefs.

Juhana Pohjola wouldn’t be cast to play his own part if Hollywood made a movie about a bishop put on trial for his faith. The Finnish pastor has inherited a place in the church of Martin Luther, but it appears none of Luther’s pugnacity or vitriol.

More HERE

Biden’s Covid Death Milestone

PHOTO: MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGES

More Americans have died of the virus in 2021 than in all of 2020.

President Biden may not recall what he said during a 2020 campaign debate last fall, but Americans should: “Anyone who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain as President of the United States of America.” At the time the U.S. had recorded 220,000 Covid deaths.

Covid deaths this year have now surpassed the toll in 2020 with 350,000 since Inauguration Day. It would seem that Mr. Biden has done no better than Donald Trump in defeating Covid despite the benefit of vaccines, better therapies, and more clinical experience. The left politicized Covid by holding Mr. Trump responsible for a disease that was always going to be hard to defeat.

More HERE

Bishop: Pritzker leading in Facebook spending with ads appearing as news

By Greg Bishop - 

(The Center Square) – It’s not fake news, but social media ads funded by Gov. J.B. Pritzker could still fool some users.

Illinois gubernatorial candidates are expected to use traditional media like TV and radio to get their message out. But, millions have already been spent on social media outlets such as Facebook, mostly by Pritzker.

Since 2018, a Facebook page for “JB Pritzker” has spent more than $3.6 million on ads, $271,000 of which Facebook notes ran without a disclaimer.

Reform For Illinois Executive Director Alisa Kaplan said there is additional spending.

“Social media, in particular, can be a little deceptive in how ads are presented,” Kaplan said. “Some of the Pritzker ads for example are presented as news pieces.”

Unknown unemployment fraud compounded by delinquent report: GOP Senators say

Justin L. Fowler/The State Journal-Register via AP, Pool

(The Center Square) – The Illinois Department of Employment Security is nearly a month late in filing a report about the state’s unemployment trust fund, according to the Illinois Senate Republican Caucus.

A spokesperson for IDES didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Republicans said the legislative leaders received a letter from the Illinois Comptroller that IDES failed to submit necessary financial information on the trust fund’s financial activities and is nearly a month delinquent.

“If regular Illinois businesses and families miss financial reporting they are fined and can even face criminal penalties,” said Illinois Senate Republican Leader Dan McConchie, R-Hawthorn Woods. “The governor is not above the law. The UI Trust Fund is deeply in debt and without this report, we have absolutely no idea how big the problem really is.”

Neither the Illinois Comptroller, the House Speaker or Senate President’s office immediately returned a message seeking comment.

“The people of Illinois deserve answers as to why his agency is refusing to provide basic financial numbers on where Illinois taxpayer and federal dollars are going. What is the governor hiding,” McConchie said in a statement.

One unanswered question is how much fraud has been paid out in total.

More HERE

If You Like Stagflation, You Will Love Build Back Better

On November 18, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed the single-largest spending bill in American history: President Biden’s Build Back Better Act.

Now, the only thing standing between Build Back Better becoming the law of the land is the U.S. Senate, but more specifically, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ).

As of now, both Manchin and Sinema have expressed their misgivings about voting in favor of Build Back Better.

“By all accounts, the threat posed by record inflation to the American people is not 'transitory' and is instead getting worse," Manchin recently stated. "From the grocery store to the gas pump, Americans know the inflation tax is real and DC can no longer ignore the economic pain Americans feel every day.”

Manchin, unlike those in the Biden administration bubble, has his finger on the pulse of the American people.

Moreover, Manchin understands that Biden’s Build Back Better boondoggle would increase inflation while simultaneously reducing employment.

More HERE

Happy Thanksgiving from Illinois Review

ON OCTOBER 3, 1863, ABRAHAM LINCOLN PROCLAIMED THANKSGIVING A NATIONAL HOLIDAY

In doing so, he explained,

"In the midst of civil war of unequal magnitude and severity ... peace has been preserved with all nations ... and harmony has prevailed everywhere." He declared that the last Thursday of November shall become a day of "Thanksgiving and Praise."

WE CELEBRATE HIS SPIRIT

AND WISH YOU A SAFE AND MEMORABLE HOLIDAY.

Rep. Adam Niemerg: Far left indoctrination in schools a frightening reality parents must combat

Far left indoctrination in schools a frightening reality parents must combat

By State Rep. Adam Niemerg - 

 The term “Critical Race Theory” continues to make headlines across the nation as parents increasingly are confronting school boards concerned about the kind of curriculum being used in their kids’ schools.

At first, we were told the concerns over critical race theory were overblown. After all, what is wrong with having a frank discussion on race relations throughout our nation’s history? But as parents dug deeper, they realized there was much more to this than merely putting history under a microscope.

When the tactic of minimizing critical race theory did not work, woke activists landed on a new argument – namely that there is no such thing as critical race theory. They point to the fact there is no class in schools called “Critical Race Theory,” and so all of the furor about it must just be a right-wing talking point. Right?