Mark Konkol: “Pritzker could have shown himself to be a leader by engaging with industry leaders, pushing for adequate contact tracing data and using a wide range of data to develop pandemic policies that balanced the needs to save businesses and lives. It might have helped him realize sooner that those benchmarks he set early in the pandemic for determining the rate of virus transmission in regions didn’t end up being statistics to drive public policy.”

Jim Dey: “This vast control Madigan maintained is a tribute both to his political genius and insatiable appetite for power. He had the vision to see what the speaker’s post could be if correctly leveraged”

The bill also calls on every elementary and high school to develop a curriculum that includes one unit of studying pre-enslavement Black history. That unit will cover the period from 3,000 BCE to 1619, when the first enslaved Africans were brought to America. Black history units will also have to include the study of the reasons why Black people came to be enslaved and the study of the American civil rights movement.

In a letter to school administrators, State Superintendent of Education Carmen Ayala said districts should begin planning now to reimagine the school calendar, a move she said will help mitigate remote learning loss by offering more educational opportunities; the $2 billion in COVID-29 relief that Illinois is getting from the federal government could make it possible.

State Rep. Blaine Wilhour, R-Beecher City, has for months decried the governor’s unilateral authority and said Democrats failed to speak up under Madigan. “I think that Speaker Welch has said specifically that it’s his intention for the legislature to be a check on the executive branch and I welcome that with open arms.”

A republication of our Wirepoints article.

“With 11 different regions and each one separately having it’s potentially own little criteria above and beyond what even local districts need to approve, if and when in some sports they can compete, are they or aren’t they going to have spectators, because in certain tiers you may be able to have some spectators,” IHSA Executive Director Craig Anderson said. “I get it, it’s complicated.”

The Illinois Legislative Black Caucus passed their economic, education and health and human services initiatives despite Republican opposition, but the criminal justice pillar caused the most controversy.

Protesters were few as the Capitol police and National Guardsmen secured the Illinois State Capitol for the Biden inauguration.

Illinois is one of eight states that has placed its incarcerated population in the first tier of COVID-19 vaccination priorities, according to a study by the Prison Policy Initiative. The decision was met with criticism.

Keep your eye on the under-the-radar case of Illinois. That is where woke has gone for broke, and America may soon pay the price. Should the rule be ratified on February 16, the entire Illinois teacher corps will be effectively forced into political re-education and compelled to turn their classes into woke indoctrination sessions. Illinois is literally about to mandate that every one of its licensed teachers adopt progressive political orthodoxy and impart that ideology

No chances are being taken for Inauguration Day.

A total of 508,732 vaccine doses have been administered to people, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health. The state has been allocated 1,085,950 doses so far, meaning 46.8% of vaccines delivered have gone into arms. But the state has still not cracked the 1% mark for people who are fully vaccinated.

Illinois is one of the few states putting both inmates and corrections officers in one of the highest prioritized groups. “It’s in line with CDC guidance,” said Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokeswoman for Gov. J.B. Pritzker. “Illinois has included all (federal) recommendations for congregate facilities as part of (phase) 1b.”