“This ordinance is about punishing the bus companies that would allow something like that to happen,” Mayor Cohen Barnes said, noting an incident in Kankakee. “How in the world can you take a busload of people, people families and dump them like cargo along the side of the road? In my eyes, we need to go after them. We need to go after them with all the resources that we possibly have.”

“You wouldn’t think a state would want to boast about these high numbers of indigents and criminals – but Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is celebrating that this recount will bring tens of millions more in Federal Welfare dollars to his state. None of this changes the sad reality of Illinois: the state is rapidly losing its most productive citizens – no matter what Census bean counters say.”

“The Snyder case is interesting because the facts demonstrate about as clearly as possible the presence of corruption without an explicitly stated underhanded bargain. Most observers, we believe, would look at those facts and conclude that, yes, that kind of behavior is corrupt and should be illegal. Likewise, in the ComEd Four case, most reviewing the evidence would view as blatantly corrupt the sometimes-frantic steps (Anne) Pramaggiore and company lobbyists took over many years to keep in (Mike) Madigan’s good graces as he helped push through state legislation that meant billions for ComEd and its parent, Exelon.”

Jim Dey: “Despite that good news, the population issue will continue to vex a governor who is waiting in the wings to run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2024 or 2028. He needs a good story to tell if he’s going to promise residents of the other 49 states that he will make America as great as Illinois.”

“I understand the desire to prevent members of the public from using real-time police scanner information to commit crimes or to evade law enforcement,” state Rep. LaShawn Ford said. “Blocking accredited media from real time access is counter to governmental transparency and does not lend itself to the original stated purpose of the encryption program.”

Jan. 1 marked the deadline for Illinoisans to register their assault weapons with the state before the ban signed by Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker takes effect Jan. 10. However, of the over 2.4 million Firearm Owner Identification (FOID) cardholders, there have only been 112,350 disclosures filed as of Dec. 31, 2023, according to state police data. Another 29,357 disclosures were in the process of being completed.

The 2019 task force report also found the state’s “already below-national-average” number of behavioral health professionals dropped 23 percent between 2016 to 2018, coinciding with a two-year period in which social services funding was slashed as lawmakers and the governor failed to approve a state budget.

The “investment” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson wants “isn’t funding to close the border, restart border wall construction, or reinstate Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy – instead he wants $15 billion in cold, hard cash deposited in the bank accounts of Democrat-run cities.”

Jim Dey: There are other Pritzkers who also make news. This week, it was the governor’s sister, uber-progressive Penny Pritzker, and the governor’s cousin, Thomas Pritzker.