-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
Police had cleared a pro-Palestinian encampment on the university’s Main Quadrangle last Tuesday. Friday afternoon, organizers had set up tents on the lawn in front of the Institute of Politics.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Attorney General Merrick Garland said the new “Recent Arrivals Docket” will aim to process single adults through the immigration process in Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, Boston and Atlanta within 180 days.
Mayor Johnson and Chicago’s Chief Financial Officer “pointed to potentially extending the sales tax to professional services — an idea City Hall sources have told Crain’s is the likeliest to move forward — and a City Council subcommittee on revenue Johnson hopes will provide other options.”
The report cites overcrowding at the center for the rampant spread, with 500 people said to be crammed into a single room. The majority of the cases — 72 percent — were among unvaccinated people, the CDC said.
The request from the AG’s Charitable Trust Bureau earlier this month follows reporting last month about a potential conflict of interest and spending issues at the nonprofit foundation while it was pursuing an expanded partnership with the county’s public health system.
Rochelle Jackson, of North Lawndale, recently saw police arrive on her block less than three minutes after she heard gunshots. That response time is shorter than any she’s seen after making a 911 call, she said. “We usually had to wait 45 minutes to an hour if they even showed up for stuff like that. Our community truly needs this.”
In the past few months, the Capitol has been both locked down and evacuated on three separate occasions due to threats. Now, lawmakers wants to see the state put new screening devices at all entrances, license plate readers around the grounds, ID verification checkpoints at secure parts of the building, and more security cameras on the grounds.
Mueller said she started new contracts for more home-like placements for the children with complex medical or psychiatric conditions to keep children in state. She says there are currently 20 children statewide awaiting for that type of placement.
CEO of the Harris Poll: “In our polling, Chicagoans consistently rank taxes neck and neck with public safety as their top concern. Two-thirds think Chicago’s tax situation is worse than in other places, and half think it has deteriorated further in the past year. The real solution is to expand Chicago’s tax base, refilling vacant buildings and neighborhoods with more people and businesses. It’s either that or continuing to pray for a miracle.”
“The lack of affordable housing, loss of jobs, and closed schools and mental health clinics have impacted many of Chicago’s communities, and disproportionately hurt Black Chicagoans in particular,” he said.
“Gov. JB Pritzker has talked a good game about workforce development. But it does no good to help train and attract nurses, social workers and a host of other much-needed professionals if his licensing agency can’t even figure out how to deal with fruit that is literally sitting on the ground, let alone the low-hanging variety.”
House Bill 5830 would define terms like “woman” and “man” and prevent judges and state agencies from redefining the word “woman” to mean anyone who “identifies” as a woman. Given Gov. JB Pritzker’s recent tweet stating, “I will fight like hell to protect women’s fundamental rights,” the Freedom Caucus is hopeful he will ultimately sign the bill into law.
State Rep. Abdelnasser Rashid said Illinoisans biometric data will still be protected. “But it adds much needed clarity that helps small businesses operate in a more predictable regulatory environment,” said Rashid.
State Rep. Will Guzzardi said consensus seems to be around ensuring that Tier 2 is enough to comply with federal safe harbor laws for retirement benefits. IRS “safe harbor” standards require pensions to be an adequate replacement for Social Security benefits.
Gov. JB Pritzker credited “greater investments” in mental health – such as being able to use American Rescue Plan Act dollars to expand services and creating the state’s Children’s Behavioral Transformation Initiative – to Illinois’ improving financial picture, though he added, “there’s a whole lot more to do.”
Illinois’ job recovery rate since the pandemic also ranked worse than its neighboring states and 44th in the nation, with only 2,500 more jobs than were available in January 2020.
The Illinois Senate approved legislation banning four food additives, sending it to the House. Manufacturers will need to sell an alternate recipe in Illinois if the bill becomes law.
“Northwestern is one of the worst examples of administrative negligence in protecting Jewish students. (Michael) Schill allowed the pro-Hamas occupation to stand this spring and failed to go after protesters who called for violence against Jews. “
But in a report released this week, the Civic Federation warns that the governor’s $52.7 billion spending plan for the fiscal year starting in July is 4.5 percent higher than the current year’s operating budget, and that it’s balanced on “revenue enhancements” — moves that could undermine the recent progress.
It was “a political misjudgment” not to have worked with Springfield on the plan, “when Springfield ultimately was needed. It looked to me like the whole thing was set up on the notion that a fastball could be thrown through the car wash without getting wet because we had people in City Hall that really could be rolled on this,” Civic Federation President Joe Ferguson said.
“This is of great importance to us because government and government enterprises is our largest employment sector by number of jobs,” said Andrea Runge, CEO of Lincoln Economic Advancement and Development. “We employ 1,489 people within government and government enterprises, so the loss of Logan Correctional Center will be a projected 28.4 percent impact in our largest employment sector.”
Spokesman Mike Marron said that with an employer as big as Quaker Oats leaving the community, the loss of tax revenue will be seen, short and long term; The Village Mall in Danville is also up for auction, possibly affecting more businesses in the area. But he says other big employers such as the Golden Nugget Casino helps soften the blow.
Forensic pathologists help local governments determine what caused a person’s death. Some say they are liable for lawsuits for their opinion if there’s a mistrial or a conviction is overturned. This bill would require local governments to cover their legal fees.
State Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders explained that the ACT aligns with the Illinois Learning Standards and provides a “secure online testing experience” for students, while reducing administrative burden on school districts. The Illinois State Board of Education awarded a six-year, $53 million contract to the ACT, Inc. organization.
Nearly half of the governor’s proposed revenue increase comes from a plan to make a corporate tax deduction more generous than it was for the previous tax year.
Illinois remains the nation’s second-most corrupt state, but despite keeping prosecutors busy the political machine keeps grinding. The cost is $550 million a year.
Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza called it “unbelievable, yet sadly completely believable.” She posted to X, “This @KimFoxx policy will help keep illegal guns in the hands of criminal offenders, rather than getting them off the streets. … Looking forward to a new States Attorney who’ll follow and enforce the law.”
While he is now one of the most high profile congressmen in Illinois, Krishnamoorthi was first introduced in 2016 in with a memorable campaign ad in which he implored voters, “Just call me Raja!”
According to the Census Bureau, data it compiled was used to determine funding for more than 350 federal assistance programs in fiscal year 2021, and was integral to efforts like COVID-19-related relief programs. The agency reported this week that Chicago lost approximately 0.3 percent of its population between July 1, 2022 and July 1, 2023.
“We are sort of stabilizing at a historic high, but the fact that it is not continuing to go up is reassuring,” Dr. Jenny Hua, of the Chicago Department of Public Health. But some numbers lately are not reassuring at all. From May 10 to May 15, there were a total of 242 opioid-related EMS responses.
Subpoenas served in recent weeks to the two municipalities led by Tiffany Henyard – the village of Dolton and Thornton Township – name Henyard, her political committee, her cancer charity, her boyfriend, two of her relatives, four trustees who are allies, her deputy police chief and even her defunct burger business as subjects of federal investigations.
The program’s reported opt-out rate as of December 2023 was just under 40 percent and participating workers were saving about $135 a month on average—with more than $1,100 saved on average per account.
“Illinois has, for too long, failed to safeguard the rights of people accused of a crime, regardless of their access to money. The new pretrial system that launched with the SAFE-T Act was a critical step toward addressing this problem. A fully funded public defense system accountable to the public — not to local politicians and judges — is the next needed reform for this session.”
RCP co-founder Tom Bevan predicts how protests could overshadow the 2024 Democratic Convention, which will be held in Chicago in August, during a conversation with Andrew Walworth and Carl Cannon on Friday’s edition of the RealClearPolitics radio show.
Becky Simon, of the League of Women Voters of Illinois: “Instituting unnecessary legislation that denies voters a choice, especially when it restricts ballot access for one of the two major political parties in Illinois, runs counter to these (the League’s) beliefs and is inconsistent with democratic principles in general. Equally troubling is that a majority party would push such legislation through the General Assembly along partisan lines in only two days.”
What a representation of Chicago’s plight.
The bill passed despite their votes in response to certain incidents where local prosecutors are thought to have been too lenient with non-citizens assaulting cops.
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board cited Wirepoints’ analysis of Chicago student proficiency data in their latest piece condemning the Chicago Teachers Union’s outrageous contract demands…all while a vast majority of Chicago’s children graduate unable to read at grade level.
Ted joined Tom Miller of WJPF to talk about the details of Gov. Pritzker’s proposed $52 billion budget, why the state is struggling now that federal covid dollars have run out, the controversy surrounding Tier 2 government pensions, why Illinois’ expensive education system fails to teach children to read, the outrageous demands of the Chicago Teachers Union, and more.
Ted joined Jeff Daly to discuss how politicians can never spend enough on education despite there being no accountability for that spending, the growth of education staffing across Illinois, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s $1 billion demand for Chicago schools, why Gov. Pritzker is providing $830 million in taxpayer subsidies to struggling EV carmaker Rivian, and more.
Some of Foxx’s staff raised alarms about its implications. “People are in disbelief,” said one prosecutor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “This is unthinkable.” Foxx said her office’s current caseload related to traffic stops was “not significant in numbers,” but the source said more than 70 percent of gun cases are in some way connected to such stops.
Business groups have said the reforms are welcome, but they don’t believe it goes far enough, and still leaves Illinois businesses too exposed to lawsuits under the Biometric Information Privacy Act, a law which, to this point, has largely allowed trial lawyers to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars in fees without ever having to prove any of their clients were actually harmed.
The lawsuit claims systematic pay disparities between female and male employees, as well as between Black and white employees under its current and previous owners.
“We are going to see ghost towns created all across the southern and southwestern suburbs,” said attorney Mario Reed. “You have thousands of homeowners who won’t be able to afford their bills, they will lose their homes and there won’t be anyone behind them because the taxes are unsustainable.”
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