For 60 years, Medicaid has provided essential health coverage for millions of Americans, ensuring that low-income families, seniors, people with disabilities and children receive the care they need. Yet, policymakers in Washington are considering hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to this essential program. Such a deeply flawed proposal must be rejected – not […]
Newsletter – Main
Posted inArts & Culture
Ageism: The last acceptable prejudice?
Quick! Finish this sentence with the first words that come to you: Elderly people _______________________. Did you make a positive statement? Then good for you; you haven’t bought into the stereotypes of this youth-obsessed society! Or perhaps it’s just that you’re a “senior citizen” like me who chafes at the persistently negative images of older […]
Posted inNews
Lawmakers seek to reverse Illinois law penalizing companies that boycott Israel
A growing number of state lawmakers are moving to repeal a 2015 Illinois law penalizing companies that boycott Israel to protest its policies toward Palestinians. Amid concerns about Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, lawmakers in Springfield supporting human rights for Palestinians have increasingly signed on to legislation opposing the decade-old anti-boycott law. But so far, […]
Posted inOpinion
Rep. Fred Crespo kicked out of caucus
House Speaker Chris Welch took the extraordinary actions last week of permanently kicking Rep. Fred Crespo, D- Hoffman Estates out of the House Democratic caucus, stripping him of his legislative staff, removing him from his appropriations committee chair’s position and booting him from the bicameral Legislative Audit Commission. Speaker Welch also suspended a Democratic staffer […]
Posted inNews
Governor’s office cuts revenue projection by $500M in latest downward estimate
Gov. JB Pritzker’s office is now projecting state revenues to come in about a half-billion dollars below the baseline projections assumed during his February budget address. The latest downward revision comes as lawmakers are entering the final two-week stretch to approve a budget before their May 31 deadline amid increasing economic uncertainty. While Pritzker’s office […]
Posted inOpinion
Does protesting really work?
As an organizer for the 50501 movement, organizing protests to protect the Constitution and our democracy, I sometimes hear nonparticipants question whether protesting really makes any difference. Some people claim that it is merely symbolic or that it only makes the protesters feel better by allowing them to publicly vent their frustrations. The study of […]
Posted inNews
Field of dreams
Things are progressing quite nicely with Scheels Sports Park at Legacy Pointe, according to all the principals involved. After years of uncertainty over its viability, a 180,000-square-foot dome is slated to be inflated in the latter part of June, with sports activities expected to start in October. The grand opening of the park’s primary money-making […]
Posted inNews
Exploiting Emma Shafer’s memory
In the wake of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s visit to Springfield, there are recriminations and explanations. On May 7, Noem visited Springfield and held a news conference near the home where community activist Emma Shafer was slain in July 2023. Police believe her former boyfriend, Gabriel Calixto-Pichardo, whose mother brought him to the U.S. […]
Posted inNews
Towns depend on immigrant labor
Rural Illinois communities like Beardstown in Cass County and nearby Rushville in Schuyler County, which rely on immigrant labor to keep local economies afloat, risk depression or even collapse under President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration policy, according to immigration advocacy representatives. Formerly known as the Oscar Meyer meatpacking plant, and eventually changing ownership to JBS […]
Posted inNews
State to end health coverage program for immigrant adults
State officials are on track to shut down a program at the end of June that provides publicly funded health care coverage to more than 30,000 non-U.S. citizens in Illinois, including many who are in the country without legal authorization. A legislative oversight committee took no action May 13 on a set of administrative rules […]
Posted inOpinion
A conservative approach to state finances
I spent some time talking with a top legislative budget negotiator last week who said rank-and-file legislators will very soon have to come to terms with a state budget environment unlike anything many have ever seen before. The “budgeteer” didn’t know yet how things would shake out, but the person was adamant that weak revenues […]
Posted inNews
Longtime Chicago friend describes first American pope as ‘very dedicated’
As the red velvet curtains at the Vatican parted, a priest realized that his college pal from the South Side of Chicago that he knows as “Bob” had been elected the first American pope. “Oh, dear God,” the Very Rev. Anthony Benedetto Pizzo, the prior provincial of the Augustinian Order in Chicago, said as he […]
