After taking a pandemic-induced hiatus from proposing large, permanent base spending-increases and instead using most revenue increases for one-time expenditures, Governor JB Pritzker’s recently-proposed Fiscal Year 2024 state budget appears to increase base operational-spending by at least $2.75 billion, or 7.9 percent. Annual pension payments will also rise by a relatively modest $201 million, which ups the total base spending-increase to $2.95 billion.

The legislature’s Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability released its latest monthly fiscal report last week. The report claimed the state is still on track to match the commission’s revised November estimate of a $4.1 billion revenue increase for the current fiscal year. Revenue had originally been projected to fall from the previous fiscal year. And much of the recently-projected increase is believed to be a one-time event and has so far been treated as such.

State records show that Dan Proft’s People Who Play by the Rules PAC spent almost $36 million during the second half of 2022, mostly on advertising boosting Senator Darren Bailey’s gubernatorial bid and opposing Governor JB Pritzker. Of that, $2.4 million was spent on consulting. Former ABC7 political reporter Charles Thomas was paid $100,000 in two $50,000 installments. Thomas appeared in some of Proft’s ads praising Bailey.

My sincere apologies! In last month's article “Noble Lies Are No Excuse For Ignoble Acts," I carelessly, erroneously reported, “In nearly 100 percent of the cases to date, the punishment is far worse than the crime and severely disproportionate to rulings for far worse bad acts by BLM and Antifa rioters during their rampages just a year prior, where hundreds of police officers died with billions in damages.”

Uncle Scam Cartoon by Ed Newmann Feb 2023 River Cities Reader.png

Publisher Todd McGreevy recounts the highlights and content of the River Cities' Reader's February 2023 printed edtion, as well as links to the same stories online herein. Illustration of "Uncle Scam" is by Ed Newmann. 

6th Annual Fake News Awards - The DINOs by CorebettReport.com

And now, from an undisclosed location deep beneath the Earth's surface, it's the 6th Annual Fake News Awards! Shining the spotlight of ridicule on the dumbest disinformation, the silliest smears and the most ludicrous lies of the mainstream-media dinosaurs of the past year! Which press-titutes will walk away with a DINO of shame? What mendacious government mouthpiece will commit seppuku after being exposed as a deceiving sack of excrement ? And who will walk away with the greatest dishonor of them all: the Fake News Story of the Year? Find out in this year's exciting Award Show Extravaganza ... .

Something really stinks about Operation Warp Speed

[Publisher's note: This article was originally published at the Web site The Last American Vagabond on October 6, 2020, and is more relevant than ever today.] $6 billion in COVID-19 vaccine contracts awarded by Operation Warp Speed have been doled out by a secretive government contractor with deep ties to the CIA and DHS, escaping regulatory scrutiny and beyond the reach of FOIA requests.

The Rockford Register-Star reported last week that the state of Illinois “has submitted what could be its best offer to keep the Belvidere Assembly Plant operating and save what could be thousands of jobs.” Stellantis announced in December it would idle its Jeep Cherokee assembly plant in February. So there appears to be a glimmer of hope that the state can finally notch a victory with a carmaker after years of trying. And the online Web site Jalopnik recently reported that Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin told the Ford Motor Company that he didn’t want their $3.5 billion electric vehicle-battery plant which would employ 2,500 workers because the company had partnered with China.

A group of legal experts, press freedom activists, journalists, and public figures filled a ballroom at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., to organize international opposition to the United States government's extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. For the Belmarsh Tribunal, United Kingdom parliamentarian Jeremy Corbyn flew more than 3,670 miles to speak in person on January 20, 2023. Other speakers flew in from Italy and Croatia. In fact, very few of the delegates on the tribunal organized by Progressive International were from the D.C. area.

“All they are saying,” claimed Illinois Sheriffs Association executive director Jim Kaitschuk about dozens of his members, “is ‘We’re not going to knock on people's doors to ask whether they have registered their firearms. And if they're arrested solely on that charge, we will not house them in our jails until ordered to do so by a competent authority.”

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