After nearly 30 years of providing alternative news and views in sharp contrast to that of mainstream corporate media's highly scripted homogenous coverage (or lack thereof), it is the under-reported content that differentiates our journalistic missions. I have four (maybe five) favorite rules for life. Among them are (1) Never accept nonsense as a replacement for sense; and (2) Evidence matters. After 19 months of due diligence on all matters COVID without compromising these simple rules, I am confident Americans have been largely played.

This past May, Illinois House Deputy Majority Leader Jehan Gordon Booth (D-Peoria) and Governor JB Pritzker worked out a deal with some key state business groups to mandate seven days of paid-leave per year for every employee in Illinois. Workers wouldn’t have to give any reasons for the guaranteed paid leave.

Publisher's Note: The Reader is pleased to present our second Q&A with the Scott and Rock Island County Health Departments on controversies, contradictions, and conflicts that continue to plague the COVID-19 pandemic narrative. Questions were sent to both county health departments and simultaneously published in our June 2021 edition. And once again, to their huge credit, Scott and Rock Island health officials have fully engaged in this process, providing comprehensive responses for Quad Citians to consider.

You cannot on the one hand constantly harp about decades of Illinois credit-rating downgrades and then blithely dismiss the first bit of good Illinois rating news since George Ryan was governor. It’s okay to step away from the “Illinois is awful” screaming for a moment in the wake of last week’s upgrade of Illinois’ bond rating by Moody’s Investors Service. While not the end of our problems by any means, it signals yet another important fiscal turning-point.