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The Chicago Teachers Union has given the City of Chicago a list of more than 700 demands. Included in their demand is a 9 percent pay raise through 2028, 100 percent funding for teachers to get abortions, $2,000 for each illegal immigrant family, fee fare for all CPS students and employees to use public transportation, 45 vacation days per year, and no requirement for woke teachers to disclose to parents if their children are identifying as a different gender at school. All told, the list of demands has an estimated $50 billion price tag. The radical teachers’ unions have become
Can Democrats trust Democrats to protect their convention? There’s already a joke going around Democratic strategist circles that the main difference between 2024 and 1968 is that the Chicago mayor this year will be on the side of the protesters, not the cops.
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According to a news release from Raoul’s office, the settlement comes after a multistate investigation into wireless carriers’ misleading advertising. In total, Illinois will receive roughly $387,000 of the total sum.
The acting director of the agency blamed much of the delays to a large backlog that has built up in recent years. Gov. J.B. Pritzker asked for a 20 percent increase in funding for the agency, but that could be in doubt with news that there is an $800 million shortfall in the proposed 2025 budget.
Jim Dey: "To pass their surprise-attack legislation, Democrats used a familiar tactic — 'gut and replace' — honed during former House Speaker Michael Madigan’s lengthy tenure. They took a shell bill — SB 2412 — ostensibly devoted to Department of Children and Family Services issues, and led by state Rep. Jay Hoffman, stripped the bill of its original content, replacing it with election proposals."
Legislation introduced by state Rep. Dan Didech would establish a performance-based tax credit for concrete producers that use low-carbon materials and methods for state-funded projects. Because concrete would have to deliver quantifiable reductions in embodied carbon to qualify, the bill further requires the implementation of performance-based specification standards.
The allegations against the two state police officers are particularly significant because the agency is held out as a gold standard of policing. In the Chicago area, suburban police agencies turn to the state police to conduct independent investigations of police-involved shootings involving their departments. The state police might take over that role for the Chicago Police Department, too.
Meanwhile Illinois’ tax policy doesn’t align with or function well in the modern economy. Hence over time, state revenue growth is generally insufficient to keep funding the same level of public services, adjusting solely for changes in inflation and population. Which means state decisionmakers are already rationing inadequate resources among vital public service priorities. In that environment, diverting tax dollars to enrich folks who are already well-to-do isn’t justifiable."
"When asked whether his proposals would 'jump the line' ahead of other school districts, (Mayor Brandon) Johnson said, 'This is not a zero-sum game. There’s more than enough for everyone.' Except there’s not, which is what the mayor’s top allies at the Chicago Teachers Union will be told when they visit Springfield en masse for their own lobby day to demand that billion dollars the mayor didn’t bring up."
Under Illinois law, which is nearly 90 years old, the maximum amount of wine wineries can produce is 25,000 gallons, and they can only distribute 5,000 gallons.
The Illinois AFL-CIO labor organization brought the measure to lawmakers in an effort to ban what the unions refer to as employer-sponsored “captive audience meetings” pertaining to religion and politics. Labor advocates say the meetings give employers an opportunity to coerce employees to listen to anti-union rhetoric.
Local elected officials have joined organized labor in pushing back against the plan for Logan CC, citing economic impact on the rural area north of Springfield. But Gov. JB Pritzker said state and local officials should focus more on attracting great new private sector jobs. “And I think that really is the future for most places across the state, to not rely upon a state-run facility that’s a prison,” he said. “That can’t be a great economic growth strategy for the area.”
The Parents Matter Coalition said its ballot question was intended to allow voters to send a message to Springfield about the years of legislation and bureaucratic rule changes implemented by state lawmakers and officials that the Coalition said have been anti-family and which trespass on parents' rights to raise their children.
“It has been determined that there is no evidence of bias, but rather a lack of inclusion,” IMSA’s DEI Officer Adrienne Coleman wrote to the teacher in September 2023. “In this instance, while you were proactive in collecting students names and pronouns, IMSA students still felt uncomfortable and unsafe due to incorrect pronoun usage.”
The legislation, fast-tracked last week by both the state House and state Senate and quickly signed into law by Gov. JB Pritzker, bars political parties from appointing a candidate to a legislative general election race if no candidate from that party ran for the seat in the primary election. Most of the General Assembly candidates who don’t have opponents in November are Democrats.
State election law permits political committees to obtain information about voters but stipulates that it “be used only for bona fide political purposes” and not for “commercial solicitation or other business purposes.” Violation of that provision is a felony.
A statement from the teachers who did not report to work Friday reads, in part, " The current system is ineffective in meeting the social and emotional needs of our students. The top priority of our school board should be to provide a safe environment for every student to learn and teachers to educate. Therefore, we are coming together to ask for mental health crisis support and more restorative behavioral measures for students."
Students for Justice and Faculty for Justice in Palestine explained in a joint statement that the encampment, which they referred to as “Popular University for Gaza,” was taken down voluntarily as the school year comes to a close.
“We’ve seen other programs that this governor has recommended just absolutely explode in costs,” state Sen. Jason Plummer said.
Insurers are currently only required to cover the procedure if it’s part of a follow-up exam recommended by a primary care physician.
State Rep. Maurice West, Rep. Yolanda Morris, state Sen. Ram Villivalam and Sen. Rachel Ventura joined advocates to ask the state to allocate an additional $120 million to paying direct-support professionals (DSP) contract reimbursements. Gov. JB Pritzker did not include funding for the wage increases in his proposed fiscal year 2025 budget.
The decision to consolidate the processing and distribution center on Mattis Avenue— which is expected to result in a loss of about 100 local jobs — includes transferring outgoing-mail processing to facilities in the Chicago suburbs of Bedford Park and Forest Park.
The number of journalism jobs at Illinois newspapers has dropped 86 percent since 2005, but press advocates see signs of hope in proposed college scholarships, state tax credits, scholarships and other subsidies to benefit local news outlets.
Raoul brought the action on behalf of the State Board of Elections, which alleges that the material Local Government Information Services has published involved voter data from 2016 and 2020 that was made available only to political committees in the state for political use. How the Lake Forest-based company obtained the information is not clear, the attorney general’s filing said.
Current law requires insurance companies to cover the equipment for people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. However, Senate Bill 3414 would secure coverage for 1.3 million people in Illinois who have this chronic health condition.
Advocates noted that the scholarship program would be subject to state appropriations.
More than 2.16 million international visitors came to the state in 2023, up 39 percent from the previous year. Those visitors stimulated the economy with nearly $2.7 billion of spending. The top five countries visitors came from include Canada, Mexico, India, the U.K. and Germany.
Top Chicago Stories
"There’s already a joke going around Democratic strategist circles that the main difference between 2024 and 1968 is that the Chicago mayor this year will be on the side of the protesters, not the cops." Brandon Johnson was an organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union and "has yet to fully make the jump from activist to mayor of one of America’s largest cities."
The dangers of insolvency are real, but just as with the exploding federal debt, too much focus has been put on the possibility of a single disaster and too little on the more obvious cost: deepening decline. Chicago could keep paying off its bondholders and retirees by bleeding public services, hiking taxes, and driving out still more residents, but it would become a shell of its former self.
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“We’re going to stay here until DePaul either divests fully [from Israel] or forces us out,” student protester Henna Ayesh said Sunday. “And seeing people in Gaza recognize us as the college revolution has really inspired us to keep going. We’ve found community here.”
The incident happened after 4:30 p.m. Sunday in the 100 block of N. Dearborn Street. The victim, a 15-year-old boy, was approached by four male suspects on the sidewalk when the situation escalated.
The village would need to find another revenue stream comparable to raising property taxes by 10 percent or cutting costs equivalent to 11 firefighters or police officers, per Village Manager John Lockerby’s memo to the Board. “(The grocery tax) has financing ramifications for every municipality in the state. I’ve talked to my peers and we’re all concerned,” Lockerby said.
"Among the nation’s 30 largest metropolitan areas, metro Chicago owns the highest level of Black unemployment at 13 percent, according to census data spanning the five-year period from 2018 to 2022. With a nearly three-to-one ratio, metro Chicago also has the widest gap between Black and white unemployment among the nation’s 30 largest metro areas."
A press liaison for the protesters said that in any scenario, demonstrators want to embody what she calls the “resilience and resistance” of the Palestinian people.
"The leadership has been taking funds from much needed areas, and they're getting a lot of flack for it. And all of a sudden, those resources that they never had, for the homeless problems that they've already been faced with, they're now being made available," Brook said. "I understand when people, from Chicago or other areas start to really question the fact that now we have these resources, and they're going toward individuals who sometimes are not even legally here, and we never had an opportunity to get those resources ourselves."
A large police presence amassed on the Lincoln Park campus of DePaul University Friday night, as protests grew at the pro-Palestinian protest encampment that has been in place since last week.
Jason McGrath, a Chicago-based strategist and pollster, said Mayor Brandon Johnson should be concerned about these “calls coming from inside the house.” He said, "It’s a very, very hard job, and I think he’s finding now that it’s a lot easier to throw bombs from the sideline than it is to be in the ring and actually defuse them. Right now, there are too many people who are openly criticizing him who should be with them. And if that’s not a flashing red light yet, it certainly will be soon.”
"Chicago’s activist mayor is sympathetic to the pro-Palestinian protesters and likes to refer to the police as an entity separate from himself rather than under his control. Thus, he cannot be counted on to protect the convention and the party’s prospects. ... From Chicago’s point of view, if the city is reduced to little more than a drone shot and minimal live activities, that’s bad for the city and us. People will figure out why."
Mayor Brandon Johnson joins Rev Al Sharpton to discuss the current status of college protests in Chicago as well as upcoming DNC Convention and Johnson's work this week in Springfield. Johnson quoted W.E.B. DuBois when he said, "We're just simply demanding that Springfield do their part and fund our education system."
City officials and the Police Department have pushed to downsize this year’s Pride Parade — which is set for June 30 — with fewer participants, citing safety and logistical concerns.
With his latest appointment to the Regional Transportation Authority board, Mayor Brandon Johnson is apparently honoring a Chicago tradition: picking someone who is politically connected but has no apparent expertise in the work at hand.
“The drastic increase in fleeings we've seen in recent years is a level of lawlessness I haven't seen in my 23 years in this profession,” Naperville's police chief said at a press conference promoting legislation aimed at deterring such behavior and punishing those who commit it.
“We’re going to be here in full solidarity and we again are publicly asking the university president to continue the dialogue and asking the mayor of the City of Chicago to refrain from using the Chicago Police Department in any of these demonstrations, because they are peaceful they are moral and they are the right thing to do,’ Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez said Saturday night.
More broadly, (Mayor Brandon) Johnson turning tail and ditching reporters following his remarks in Englewood and allowing his press office to spread obvious fabrications provides a remarkable glimpse into how Johnson will manage City Hall as Chicago enters what is expected to be one of the most turbulent periods in recent history.
In 2023, ridership on CTA buses recovered to 68 percent of 2019 ridership. On CTA trains, recovery was 54 percent, on Metra trains it was 43 percent, for Pace buses it was 56 percent and for Pace paratransit buses it was 73 percent.
The plan is for each school in CPS to send one Chicago Teachers Union member on the lobbying trip to Springfield.
"The unlawful pro-terror encampment, dubbed the 'Northwestern Liberated Zone,' disrupted campus life and became a hotspot for pervasive antisemitic harassment and hostility," writes North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx, chairwoman of the House Education and Workforce Committee. "Rather than enforcing University rules and disciplining those who violated them, Northwestern’s leaders surrendered to the violators in a shameful agreement."
"These students, many of whom come from low-income households and foster care, have shown exceptional talent and dedication to the game of chess. ... The decision to withhold this opportunity from them is not only unfair but also goes against the spirit of inclusivity and equity that we strive to uphold in our educational system."
The suit alleges that that the now defunct "Quiet Time" transcendental meditation program, organized by the David Lynch Foundation for World Peace in partnership with CPS and the University of Chicago, violated the constitutional rights of minor students by incorporating Hindu religious rituals into public schools.
There are more than 40 tents set up in the quad and security is tight. On Wednesday afternoon, things were peaceful and quiet on campus. Students were reading and studying in the grass.
“Politics is different than it was in the ‘60s. You also have the Chicago Police Department, while certainly not perfect, the Chicago Police Department is not the Chicago Police Department of 1968,” said convention executive director Alex Hornbrook. “We have great confidence and a great partnership in the superintendent and the mayor.”
The Environmental Protection Agency granted Chicago Public Schools more than $20 million to purchase 50 clean buses as part of its 2023 Clean School Bus Program Grants Competition. But another $500 million would be needed to buy another 1,250 electric buses to fulfill CTU’s demand.
Why so far from the main convention locations of the Loop, where the delegates are booked in eight hotels; the McCormick Place complex, the site of daytime meetings and press briefings; and the United Center, where President Joe Biden will be nominated for a second term? Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said, “You want to be far enough away from the event so that if something were to occur it doesn’t affect your ability to command and control your response.”
Chicago Public Schools leaders are giving more than 600 teachers and staff members a paid day-off so they can go to Springfield to lobby lawmakers for more money.
Wirepoints Research and Commentary
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson recently traveled to Springfield with a big wish list, including $1 billion in extra funding for Chicago Public Schools. Among the reasons his demand should be categorically rejected: the growing rate of CPS teachers simply not showing up to school. 
Gov. J.B. Pritzker recently promised electric car maker Rivian $827 million in taxpayer subsidies when he shouldn’t have given the company a penny. The question is, was it negligence or something more? 
Details emerging about Chicago Teachers Union’s upcoming contract show just how divorced its demands, both extreme and expensive, are from the reality at Chicago schools. It's not just about massive salary increases, but also about money for migrant students, climate initiatives, abortions and gender-affirming care. About blocking parental notification. Count on CTU’s demands to veer further from reality until the public finally says no. 
Ted joined Dan and Amy to talk about a new law passed by the Democratic supermajority and signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker that results in brazen election interference, keeping Republicans off ballots; about a referendum that tests the waters for a renewed progressive income tax hike; about how the Parental Notification referendum question was knocked off the ballot; and why laws like that pass so easily. SIGN UP HERE FOR FREE WIREPOINTS DAILY NEWSLETTER
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Weekly crime statistics from the Chicago Police Department: Report through 5/4/2024. 
Gov. JB Pritzker calls it "ethics" reform. 
It’s rare to see city leaders in Chicago take an open, unabashed stance on the collapse of literacy. To complain is deemed as too political, too racist or too anti-public schools. So it’s refreshing to see Willie Wilson, a successful businessman and leader of the black community, call for a literacy initiative “with the goal of getting 100% of Black students reading at grade level.” 
While this new advisory referendum could be nothing more than a political distraction, it could also be that lawmakers are gauging Illinoisans’ appetite for another bite at a progressive income tax hike – this time with lower property taxes as a sweetener. 
At $1.5 million per job, the new incentive package from the state is at least 15 times the norm. For this much money, the state could have just handed out a million bucks to 827 people, instead of creating 550 jobs. 
Ted joined Jeff Daly to discuss the university student protests erupting across the nation on the Israel/Palestine conflict, why it's so dangerous for society if the media abandons facts in favor of narratives, why that allows government to spin away the problems like crime and financial crises, why it causes the voting public to become apathetic, and more.
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