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Pity us if the arguments made to defend Governor Pritzker’s emergency order are accepted and become precedent. From Cicero to Star Wars, the challenge remains the same.
“Where do Pritzker’s emergency powers end and the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution begin? Clearly not a czar free to do as he chooses, Pritzker is maneuvering his way through a minefield of legalities. But so, too, are the dissenters who consider his three lockdown orders — the latest extending through May — to be overly broad and illegal.”
When asked Friday Pritzker did say the state was prepared to launch the system the week of May 11. But launching and payments are two different things.
Comment: This echoes precisely what Wirepoints has been arguing repeatedly. Pritzker is wrong to say this is about lives versus livelihoods.
The mayor said that Chicago had been at 82% compliance with the stay-at-home order, but in the past week the city has slipped to 77% compliance. “And I know that a lot of people have expectations that come June we’re going to be out of this. Not if we keep seeing what we’re seeing over the course of the last week. We still haven’t seen cases go down – they’re continuing to go up.”
Includes transcript of his Sunday appearance on Face the Nation.
“And in Illinois, which has not yet seen the predicted surges of COVID-19 hospital care, overall patient volume is 59% below norms – driven by a 76% reduction in outpatient surgeries.”
Comment: Better yet would be daily number of new hospitalizations, but they don’t even collect that.
Comment: Outstanding look at the big picture.
As the Senate gavels in and the 430-member House stays away on the Capitol physician’s advice, the Congress provides a snapshot of divided America struggling to confront the COVID-19 crisis. Some states are reopening, others are staying closed and questions abound.
The pandemic has been particularly devastating to America’s biggest cities, as the virus has found fertile ground in the density that is otherwise prized. And it comes as the country’s major urban centers were already losing their appeal for many Americans, as skyrocketing rents and changes in the labor market have pushed the country’s youngest adults to suburbs and smaller cities often far from the coasts. The country’s three largest metropolitan areas, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, all lost population in the past several years, according to an analysis by William Frey,
Following a round of layoffs, Evanston aldermen this week moved to take out a $15 million loan to keep city services running during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The Interim City Manager said the budget hole is expected to grow to $15-20 million as economic losses continue through July and the end of the calendar year.
“We view Cook County as having more exposure to the economic recession due to a high degree of economic sensitive revenues, high fixed costs, and health enterprise risk,” Blake Yocom, an S&P Global Ratings credit analyst, said in a statement announcing the outlook change.
Elderly care facilities have accounted for 44% of the state’s coronavirus deaths and nearly one in seven confirmed cases, according to a Sun-Times count.
A spokesman said precedent has been set with vaccination requirements at public schools being imposed because they are considered to be for the good of public health.
“On Tuesday, AP statehouse reporter John O’Connor passed along an astute observation — the governor exhibited apparent contempt for a downstate lawmaker’s decision to consult the justice system to question whether the executive branch of government’s extended stay-at-home order violated the state constitution. O’Connor asked, ‘You said Bailey is grandstanding. Isn’t that what you are doing?’ ‘O.K., that’s just a ridiculous question,’ the governor said, before rambling on without answering it.”
The letter points specifically to Illinois, which has received nearly $5 billion in federal funds this year through legislation passed by Congress to shore up coronavirus-related budgetary shortfalls.
Meanwhile, Gov. JB Pritzker sounded off on Friday’s protest outside the Thompson Center, which saw several hundred mostly unmasked people demanding the lifting of the stay at home order. Pritzker lamented the hateful signs he saw in news coverage, some of which included swastikas.
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