Illinois Review

IDPH adopts CDC's recommended definition for "school outbreak" of COVID

From the Illinois Department of Public Health Friday afternoon - 

SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) is following recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to adopt the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists’ (CSTE) guidance for PreK-12 school-associated outbreaks.  Previously, CDC recommended that two cases associated with a school would constitute an outbreak.  The new national recommendation that Illinois is adopting defines a school outbreak as either (1) multiple cases comprising at least 10% of students, teachers, or staff within a core group or (2) at least three cases within a specified core group.  A core group means only those individuals who were together during an exposure period.  For example, this could be limited to a classroom, a sports team, before/after school care, performing arts, or other groups and likely does not apply to the entire school population. 

More information about school outbreaks, exclusion, guidance, and Frequently Asked Questions can be found on the IDPH website on a new COVID-19 Youth and School Resources page, including youth vaccination rates by county, youth cases over time, and youth emergency department visits.  https://dph.illinois.gov/covid19/youth-school.html.

Liberty Counsel: Military, Federal Employees and Civilian Contractors Sue Biden

A statement distributed to the press from Liberty Counsel - 

WASHINGTON, D.C.— Liberty Counsel has filed a class action lawsuit against Joseph R. Biden, U.S. Secretary of the Department of Defense Lloyd Austin and U.S. Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas on behalf of members from all five branches of the military -- Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard -- federal employees and federal civilian contractors, who have been unlawfully mandated to get the COVID shots or face dishonorable discharge from the military or termination from employment.

The military plaintiffs include two Navy SEALs, a Navy EOD Officer, a Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer, a Navy Chaplain, two Marine Lt. Colonels, two Marine Lance Corporals, an Air Force Major, an Air Force Technical Sergeant, an Army National Guardsman, an Army Colonel, and a Coast Guard Lieutenant.

The non-military plaintiffs include a Department of Defense contractor who has conducted Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) quantitative and qualitative assessments and studies, whose assessments are briefed to DOD senior leadership to inform decisions on future employment, allocation, and procurement; a federal civilian engineer employed by a large military defense contractor that provides LCD screens used in United States Armed Forces aircraft; a federal civilian contractor employer whose company develops and supports military weapons systems, including current and next generation land vehicles for the Army and next generation Navy vessels; a federal nuclear contractor employee who is a young woman opposed to abortion and who desires to have children of her own one day; and a Department of Energy Civilian Nuclear Tech who works at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Democrats' Congressional Map Proposal: "A Complete Joke." "A Slap in the Face."

CHICAGO - Friday, Illinois Democrats released the Congressional District map they want for the next ten years, and it's an embarrassment, Republicans are saying - especially those that will be directly affected by its bizarre appearance and its heavy emphasis on Democrats gaining more power for a Democrat-controlled U.S. Congress.

Illinois Democrats would likely control 14 of Illinois' 17 Congressional Districts as the map is currently drawn. 

“As expected, our lying Governor teamed up with state Democrats to draw a shameful, partisan gerrymander in a desperate attempt to keep Nancy Pelosi in power. This proposed map, along with this entire redistricting process, is a complete joke. It’s clear Governor Pritzker and the Democrats will stoop to any low if it means they can keep their corrupt system going," said GOP Congressman Rodney Davis (IL-13)

GOP Congressman Darin LaHood (IL-18) is also unhappy with the map.

Freedom Initiative Network hosts black conservative David J. Harris, Jr. October 20th

ROLLING MEADOWS - Freedom Initiative Network will host black conservative rising star David J. Harris, Jr. October 20th at Meridian Banquets in Rolling Meadows, and they're offering a 25% discount if ticket buyers use the CODE FIN. 

David Harris Jr is an entrepreneur, author, and podcast host that delivers thought-provoking and engaging presentations that challenge audiences to pay attention to important political, social, and economic issues. He has shared the stage with many notable individuals, such as Kirk Cameron, Dinesh D'Souza, Candace Owens, and Charlie Kirk. Reaching millions of people through his social media channels, radio show, and book, Why I Couldn't Stay Silent, David strives to break down the racial, political, and assumptive barriers that are currently causing division throughout our nation. Taking a stand for the Constitution and freedom of every American, he frequently appears as a guest on Lou Dobbs Tonight, Fox & Friends, and several shows on the OAN Network.

Harris will be joined by several other conservative leaders. Buy Tickets HERE and use the code FIN to get a 25% discount. 

View a recent David J. Harris Jr video on Rumble:

 

Parental Notification prior to abortion could be threatened in next week's veto session

Weill Cornell Medicine News image

SPRINGFIELD - The last time the Illinois General Assembly made any move towards protecting unborn babies was in 1995 - just after the 1994 Republican political tidal wave hit Illinois, allowing both the Illinois Senate and the Illinois House to be controlled by Republican majorities - and for a bill requiring parental notification before a minor can abort a baby. 

That was then - 26 years ago. Since then, court battles kept the law from being in effect until a few years ago. Since 1997, the legislature has been controlled by the Illinois Democrats and their radical abortionist leadership. Illinois - the most abortion-offering state in the Midwest - has a legislature that wants to change or eliminate the parental notification law.

Di Leo: Evening Soup with Basement Joe: Solyanka Soup and Inflation Woes

 

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 bowl of soup, and engages him in conversation about current events, in a losing effort to keep his mind hale. 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.

 "Good evening, sir! I have soup!"

 

"And I have a headache. Leave me alone."

 

"Don't you want your soup, sir?"

 

"Of course I want my soup. Just don't want to talk to anybody."

 

"Oh, I see. Dale Carnegie is alive and well, I see."

 

Thorner: Timeline for Stranded Cargo Ships

By Nancy Thorner - 

9/27 Report

Dozens of container ships stuck outside of ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California because of shortage of trucks and drivers in the USA to collect goods.

The boats carry everything from clothing, furniture to electronics. Experts point out that delays are a global problem and consumers could  suffer delays in their deliveries for the Christmas celebrations.

10/8 Report:  Over 1,000 Crew Members Are Stranded 

"The $14 trillion shipping industry, responsible for 90% of world trade, has left in its wake what appears to be a record number of cargo-ship with crew members still aboard as castaways. Wall Street Journal Report 10/8/21 detailed some of the shocking reports of tanker crew members left adrift after companies abandoned vessels or sold or transferred them, or couldn't pay mounting debts, while trying to survive oftentimes on little food even while moored close to resort locations in places like Dubai - or in other cases floating off the Suez Canal or at Black Sea ports. [..]"

Joe Morris: Breaking the Establishment's "Rules"

Joe Morris, chairman of the board of The Heartland Institute, takes the stage at Heartland's 2021 Benefit Dinner to discuss why it's imperative that Americans break the unspoken rules elites and the establishment want us to live by. Joe explains how the mainstream media is an extension of the government, highlighting how media outrage is not indicative of public sentiment.

Democrats Propose Massive Taxes on Cigars

House Democrats’ plans to pass a combined $4.7T budget reconciliation and infrastructure package foundered last week, resulting from a rift between moderate and progressive Democrats. President Joe Biden has committed to working on a compromise this month, which is further complicated by the reluctance of Senators Manchin (D-WV) and Sinema (D-AZ) to consider a spending package that size with numerous policy conditions attached.

Senate budget reconciliation rules constrain how much the bill can add to the deficit, so draftees seek “pay-fors” to lower the net cost. Some of the proposed tax provisions come from Senator Dick Durbin’s (D-IL) Tobacco Tax Equity Act, which the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation recently estimated would raise $96B through massive increases on tobacco products. The legislation proposes, among other things, a 1,000 percent tax increase on premium cigars. The bill would achieve this by changing the tax basis from a percentage of the import price to a weight-based tax.

For decades, the primary arguments in favor of increased tobacco product taxes have been the public health costs of smoking-related illnesses and deterring youth consumption. Since 2013, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) have regularly released a joint study called the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study, described as “a national longitudinal study of tobacco use and how it affects the health of people in the United States.” The Journal of American Medicine (JAMA) also published an April 2018 article, “Association of Cigarette, Cigar, and Pipe Use With Mortality Risk in the US Population,” using data from the U.S. Census National Longitudinal Mortality Study (NLMS).

The evidence from these studies strongly suggests there is no correlation between the vast preponderance of premium cigar smoking and public health costs and youth consumption.

More HERE

Malkin: Comply or Die: Vax-Partheid in the Operating Room

Leilani and Jaimee told me they were informed by one of the transplant coordinators that if they didn’t submit to the COVID-19 jab, their transplant "journey would come to an end." In other words, a death sentence.

By Michelle Malkin - 

For nearly 20 years, I’ve reported on America’s medical welcome mat for chronically sick illegal aliens. Under a 1986 federal law, “unauthorized immigrants” with conditions such as kidney disease and cancer cannot be denied emergency room care, regardless of their immigration status or inability to pay. Open-borders politicians insist health care is a “right” that every last border-jumper is entitled to — and that every last American taxpayer must subsidize.

According to estimates from 2019 cited in a recent study published by the American Journal of Kidney Disease, there are between 5,500 and nearly 9,000 illegals with kidney failure in the U.S. There’s now a COVID-era push to provide them not only with emergency-room dialysis (at an estimated cost of $400,000 per illegal alien per year) but also with outpatient dialysis under Medicaid. Conveniently, the United Network for Organ Sharing and Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network do not document immigration status, so there are no reliable estimates of exactly how many illegal aliens have received organ transplants in the U.S. At least one scientific journal article identified 400 illegal aliens who had received kidney transplants since 2005 — most in California at taxpayer expense.

Keep all this government-backed generosity for illegal alien patients in mind as I tell you about the plight of Leilani Lutali, a law-abiding American citizen and Colorado Springs executive recruiter diagnosed with stage 4 kidney disease last November. Her condition worsened over the summer, leading her to medical providers at UCHealth in Denver to begin discussion of an organ transplant. Blessed with a close-knit network of friends through her local Bible study, Leilani found a living donor in Jaimee Fougner, a former Air Force medic, triathlete and medical assistant who has spent more than two decades in the health care field.

More HERE

Hope for America’s Future Fades

Americans have lost hope in the nation’s future since last year and only a third now believe the country’s best days are ahead.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that only 33% of American Adults now say America’s best days are in the future. That’s a steep decline from last November, when 47% of Likely Voters believed the nation’s best days were still ahead. As recently as April 2019, an absolute majority (54%) of voters saw America’s best days in the future. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

The survey of 1,000 U.S. American Adults was conducted on October 3-4, 2021 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

h/t: Randy Rossi

Upper Midwest Law Center files lawsuits over CRT in workplace

Can a company discriminate against their employees based on the color of their skin in 2021? One of Minnesota’s most storied corporations, Honeywell, Inc. believes it can.

Honeywell fired Chuck Vavra this summer for refusing to buy into a company-sponsored CRT narrative that accused this mild-mannered engineer of being part of an oppressor class, simply because he is white. Vavra pushed back against this racist accusation and another narrative that portrayed his black colleagues as victims who can’t act in their own best interest.

That sounds too familiar for those of us following the divisiveness occurring in Minnesota schools, as teachers classify students by their skin color and make broad generalizations based on their oppressor/victim status.

A lawsuit being brought by our friends at the Upper Midwest Law Center on behalf of Vavra and another employee will test a simple legal theory: can you be treated differently in the workforce based on the color of your skin? Their press release is below.

More HERE

Not in Illinois: Texas Gov Greg Abbott signs EO banning COVID vaccine mandates

CHICAGO - While Texas Governor Greg Abbott insists on health care freedom for his citizens. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker continues his 18-month use of freedom-restricting executive orders concerning COVID. However, Pritzker is adamantly opposed to any abortion restrictions, citing the need for health care choice.

From The Christian Post - 

Citing "bullying" from the Biden administration that's causing many private companies to impose COVID-19 vaccine mandates, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed an executive order Monday banning such mandates and has asked state legislators to codify the ban.

“No entity in Texas can compel receipt of a COVID-19 vaccine by any individual, including an employee or a consumer, who objects to such vaccination for any reason of personal conscience, based on a religious belief, or for medical reasons, including prior recovery from COVID-19,” Abbott declared in the order signed at 4:30 p.m. Monday. “I hereby suspend all relevant statutes to the extent necessary to enforce this prohibition.”

Di Leo: Supply Chain Advice Upon Joe Biden's Request, in a Year of Disaster

By John F Di Leo - 

The global supply chain, and particularly the North American supply chain, have been in crisis for about a year. There are a lot of reasons for this, almost entirely government-created, end it appears that the federal government has finally noticed it.

Joe Biden has been a lifeguard, lawyer, city councilman, senator, and vice president. While it’s hard to tell what he is now, he has gone public with a request to hear from the American people on this matter, and he has said that he will welcome advice. It would be a first for him, but we will try, anyway.

Let’s begin with the big picture. We go to the store, and we see empty shelves. We look at our harbors, and we see dozens of ships, often backed up for weeks, waiting for a berth. We go to our factories, and we see assembly lines idled for lack of components, injection molders idled for lack of resin, stamping lines idled for lack of steel.

Where's Weyermuller? Protesting with Chicago Area Nurses for Medical Freedom

By Mark Weyermuller - 

Last Tuesday over 50 Chicago area nurses rallied and protested in front of Evanston Hospital operated by North Shore University Health Systems. These nurses were once called  “essential workers” but now are being threatened with being fired if they don’t take a vaccine for Covid 19. Are they non-essential now? 

Thorner: How you like that? Pelosi demands IRS access to your bank account

By Nancy Thorner - 

Per an article published in The Wall Street Journal on Oct. 4, 2021, The IRS Wants to Look at Your Bank Account, the IRS plans to review every account above a $600 balance, or with more than $600 of transactions in a year.  Every American with a job's bank accounts could get looked over. A group of 41 industry groups recently warned congressional leaders that the plan “is not remotely targeted” to detect major tax avoidance.

The bigger threat of giving the IRS access to the details of your bank account is that politicians will eventually find a way to control how you save and spend your own money. This is a bad idea that deserves to die.

Where Weyermuller? With Kayleigh McAnany at Freedom Initiative event

By Mark Weyermuller - 

Former White House Press Secretary and Fox News Host Kayleigh McEnany keynoted a Chicago area event recently at Christian Liberty Academy. Over 500 people attended. 

McEnany was joined by local pastors and business leaders that addressed the Left’s attacks on Christianity, breaking news stories of the day and the ongoing COVID pandemic. She also promoted her new book coming out in December, "For Such a Time as This: My Faith Journey through the White House."

She graduated from Harvard Law School with a Juris Doctor and Georgetown University School of Foreign Services with a degree in international politics. She also studied politics and international relations at Oxford University, St. Edmunds Hall. McEnany is a recipient of the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service and the Department of Homeland Security Secretary's Public Service Award.

Illinois Review applauds Heartland Institute's stand in culture battles

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS - The Heartland Institute, now located in Arlington Heights, IL, is one of the nation's most effective voices fighting for Constitutional rights and common sense in America's ongoing culture battles. 

Taking on issues such as discriminatory COVID mandates, Big Tech tyranny, Green Energy fallacies  and more, The Heartland Institute has grown in its impact with arguments and data to defend their viewpoints. 

The Institute released yesterday an organizational promo that quickly reviews their media exposure and testimonial effect throughout the nation in the past year.

We're proud to say they're from Illinois - and while the vast majority of Illinois politicians are stubbornly covering their ears to groups like The Heartland Institute, thankfully, elsewhere lawmakers are welcoming and embracing the common sense and liberty The Heartland Institute offers. There's hope - even if it's beyond the stifled Prairie State borders! 

Congratulations, and please keep up the great work! Our nation's future depends upon your example! 

Prison for Man Behind Green Ponzi Scheme

Wayde McKelvy, the pitch man hired to raise funds for what was discovered to be a $54 million green energy Ponzi Scheme started by two Temple University graduates, was sentenced to 18 years in prison in August.

McKelvy was convicted of helping to defraud dozens of retirees of their life savings by selling them shares in Mantria Corp., a Philadelphia-based company which claimed to be on the verge of a new clean energy revolution with “biochar,” which founders claimed would turn common household waste into clean energy.

Mantria also claimed it was building a “carbon negative” housing development in Tennessee, but neither project ever proceeded to construction.

Mantria’s fraudulent operations eventually caught the attention of the Securities Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

“McKelvy is nothing more than a twenty-first century snake oil salesman, with all of the trappings to make him appear to be a legitimate businessman,” said Jennifer Arbittier Williams, Acting U.S. Attorney for Eastern Pennsylvania, after McKelvy’s conviction. “The defendant is clearly a danger to the investing public and deserves to be in prison for a very long time, as the government demonstrated at trial.”

More HERE

Shapiro: What if ‘Polarization’ Isn’t the Big Problem?

By Ben Shapiro - 

This week, the University of Virginia Center for Politics released a poll surveying Americans’ feelings about their political opponents. According to the poll, 80% of Biden voters and 84% of Trump voters believed that elected officials of the opposite party present a “clear and present danger to American democracy”; 78% of Biden voters believed that the Republican Party wanted to eliminate the influence of “progressive values” in American life, while 87% of Trump voters believed that the Democrats wanted to eliminate “traditional values”; 75% of Biden voters and 78% of Trump voters believed that the opposing party’s supporters were a “clear and present danger to the American way of life.”

These statistics are, of course, alarming. The popular theory these days is that willingness by both Democrats and Republicans to abandon democratic norms — election result acceptance, checks and balances, due process of law and all the rest — is purely the result of reactionary dislike. If you fear your neighbor is going to abuse the process, you’d be a fool to stick to the process — and the more we dislike our neighbors, the more we fear that they’ll take advantage of us.

But is this theory correct?

More HERE