Here, the political equivalence between progressive fecklessness at the local and national level may end. Put it this way: What happens in Chicago, stays in Chicago. Chicago’s electorate—which, as in the other cities, is a political coalition of public unions and progressive sophisticates—just replaced Mayor Lightfoot with the even-more-left-wing former teachers union organizer Brandon Johnson. So be it. Be sure to wear a helmet when you hit the wall. It’s less likely, though, that a national electorate will let Mr. Biden or congressional Democrats off the hook in 2024 for their who-cares management of spending and the border.

Doxing is to publicly identify or publish private information – like phone numbers or addresses – about someone especially as a form of punishment or revenge. A proposal to allow victims of doxing the right to a civil private right of action for damages to help deter bad actors on the Internet has passed the Senate and now heads to the governor’s desk.

Gov. JB Pritzker said the law is the law. “As you know, there are many gun dealers who would like to have something different in the law, but the law that passed bans assault weapons.”

Ted Dabrowski, president of the nonprofit Wirepoints, said the pandemic was some dark times for Illinoisans. “It was a horrible period and it didn’t have to be that way and we know that because we saw some other states and some countries that didn’t pursue the same draconian policies and did as well or better than we did from a COVID-lives perspective.”

Jennie Huang Bennett, Chicago’s chief financial officer, believes lawmakers are underselling the retirement benefits they’ve written into the legislation. She noted that the police and fire bills make no mention of social security, instead tying payout calculations to income in a way that risks vastly exceeding the “safe harbor” threshold and erasing much of the initial savings promised by Tier 2 pensions. “It’s being marketed as a ‘fix,’ but this is not a fix,” Bennett said. “This is a pension sweetener, pure and simple.”

State Rep. Rita Mayfield said no family should have to absorb much higher costs or be forced to give up a treasured family pet because, “a bean counter doesn’t like them.”

HB 3162 retroactively provides Chicago police officers and firefighters disability benefits for the time they were unable to serve due to contracting COVID-19 between March 9, 2020, and June 30, 2021.

State Rep. Ryan Spain said the new tax is another bad idea that will drive employers out of Illinois. “Haven’t we realized that every state around us is increasing in population and they’re doing very well and it is because they make it a point to be a welcoming environment to attract businesses, employers, talented individuals and their families, and we have to be a state that is conducive to people arriving here and being successful, but what we keep doing is just repelling people away.”

“But if one were to look at how Illinois handled the pandemic – and this is kudos and gratitude to the people of Illinois – people did the right thing,” Gov. JB Pritzker said. “And the vast majority of people in Illinois understood what they needed to do. They heard what they needed to do from the experts, and they did it. And the result of that is, to the extent one can use the word ‘success’ here, the

Jim Dey: “Although Gov. JB Pritzker’s proposed FY 2023-24 budget approaches $50 billion, that number is within budget projections even in the face of the decline in income-tax revenue. But it remains to be seen if the capital gains decline foreshadows bigger revenue problems ahead.”

Ex-state Sen. Thomas Cullerton pleaded guilty last summer in federal court to embezzling funds from a labor union and was sentenced to more than a year in prison. But he enjoyed early release after about seven months behind bars and registered April 25 as a lobbyist with a public relations and government affairs firm whose current client list includes two western suburban municipalities.