Society's Child

Illinois ethics reform uncertain after house rejects Pritzker's amendatory veto

Joe Tabor
Illinois Policy
Wed, 01 Sep 2021 00:00 UTC

Illinois made an important first step in its break with the corrupt practices that defined the legislative process under former Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan. New ethics rules about lobbying, financial disclosures and the legislative watchdog were passed in the final hours of the session, but the reforms may die after the House rejected a technical change to the legislation by Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

The Illinois General Assembly on Aug. 31 rejected an amendatory veto to Senate Bill 539, throwing the fate of corruption reform in Illinois into question.

There were some solid advances in the bill, but there was also room for improvement and a promise to keep working on some provisions before Senate Bill 539 takes effect Jan. 1, 2022. The bill was improved from earlier versions and incorporated many measures advocated by Illinois Policy.

The governor's amendatory veto made a minor technical fix.

Because the governor vetoed the bill, both Houses of the General Assembly had to approve the changes. The Senate did approve the governor's amendatory veto, but the measure failed in the House, with 59 representatives voting to approve the change, 35 voting to reject the change, and 24 representatives casting no vote on the measure.

The General Assembly now has less than two weeks to take up the corruption package again, otherwise it will die. That means Illinois politicians will have reneged on their promise to tackle the state's rampant public corruption problem.

Comment: How many other state legislatures should be in these same or similar crosshairs?

The Taliban are lying, France's foreign minister says

Reuters
Sat, 11 Sep 2021 06:09 UTC

The Taliban are lying and France will not have any relationship with its newly-formed government, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said late on Saturday before heading for talks in Qatar on Sunday to discuss future evacuations from Afghanistan.

Le Drian said on France 5 TV:

"They said they would let some foreigners and Afghans leave freely and (talked) of an inclusive and representative government, but they are lying.

"France refuses to recognise or have any type of relationship with this government. We want actions from the Taliban and they will need some economic breathing space and international relations. It's up to them."

Paris has evacuated about 3,000 people and had held technical talks with the Taliban to enable those departures.

Le Drian, who is heading to the Qatari capital Doha on Sunday, said there were still a few French nationals and a few hundred Afghans with ties to France remaining in Afghanistan.

Comment: A rough road ahead for French and Afghanistan relations:

For the time being, France is not planning any relations with the radical Islamic Taliban ruling Afghanistan.

Paris - It is now up to the Taliban to keep their promises, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told France 5 on Saturday. "You are lying (with all your promises), and at the moment the results are not there." Le Drian emphasized: "We expect the Taliban to act."

Le Drian travels to Qatar on Sunday to speak about further evacuations after the chaotic international withdrawal from Afghanistan. There are still "a few French" who have to be flown out, as well as a few hundred Afghans who are threatened because they have ties to French institutions or are involved in areas that the Taliban hate, he said.

France had flown almost 3,000 people from Afghanistan in August, including 2,600 Afghans. After the international withdrawal, Qatar organized civil evacuation flights for numerous nations.

Qatar is a key player in the Afghanistan crisis. In the Gulf state, negotiations between the Taliban and the US government about a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan took place in 2020. Negotiations were later held in Qatar between the militia and the Afghan government at the time.

'The US government is censoring private conversations,' says the 'conversion therapist' fighting a legal battle not to be silenced

Chris Sweeney
RT
Sun, 12 Sep 2021 18:23 UTC

Brian Tingley is taking on the state of Washington for the right to continue counselling young people concerned about their sexuality. He believes the attempt to stop his work violates his right to freedom of speech.

Should private discussions between a counsellor and minors worried about their sexuality be allowed? Therapist Brian Tingley believes they should, and has taken to the courts to fight his case. Brian and his team are keen to overturn a district court decision in the state of Washington to reject his challenge to a law that prohibits 'sexual orientation change therapy' for young people.

Tingley has been widely depicted as practising conversion therapy, a charge he refutes. In his opinion, the crux of the matter comes down to whether the government should determine what happens during therapy sessions. Speaking to RT, he said,

"I've been a counsellor for over 20 years and until recently the government never told me what I could say and not say in my sessions. This law violates freedom of speech in a very private setting, a counselling office."

Drone pilot and whistleblower to RT: Going from 'video game sniper' to remote killer withers away who you are

RT
Sun, 12 Sep 2021 17:26 UTC

Targeted killings by US drones are notoriously prone to claiming civilian lives. It takes a toll on drone pilots too, as the job slowly eats away their souls, an ex-operator told RT in an interview for the Unheard Voices project.

Brandon Bryant served in the US military between 2006 and 2011, targeting drone strikes from the Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico. His job was to point a laser at where a Hellfire missile fired by a coworker from a Predator drone should hit. He estimates that he personally contributed to the deaths of 13 people.

After the first time he helped kill three people that he believed were innocent, he called his mother, crying. "She told me it was good that I felt bad about it, because if I felt good about it I would just be another psychopath," he recalled.

Comment:

UK dumps 800,000 AstraZeneca doses as vaccine uptake falls

Jennifer Rigby
Telegraph
Thu, 09 Sep 2021 16:00 UTC

Up to 800,000 doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine are likely to have expired across the UK at the end of August, analysis suggests, and could now be thrown away.

The doses were destined for use in the UK rollout, but after the Government recommended in May that younger people should get an alternative jab because of the blood clot risk linked to the AstraZeneca jab, take-up dramatically slowed.

Comment: This is sinister misdirection, because, Israel, that was proclaimed to be a 'laboratory' for its exclusive use of Pfizer's mRNA injection, has seen equal if not worse suffering by young people from serious side effects: Pfizer vaccine in Israel: Mortality rate 'hundreds of times greater in vaccinated young people'

GPs told The Telegraph they had been raising concerns over leftover doses for some time, including one who wrote to his MP in a bid to re-purpose the jabs after exhausting other options.

Comment: The story is much the same across the planet, those that were caught up in the manufactured hysteria got their experimental injection as soon as they were able; the next percentage did so slowly and reluctantly, primarily due to the increasingly coercive tactics of their government, like rolling lockdowns and the threat of vaccine passports; and, now, those that remain continue to decline the offer to suffer an injection that has been dogged by scandal and that they know they do not need.

It's likely that, as reports of severe side effects continue to increase, even more injections will go to waste as increasing numbers of people realise the risks the injections pose is much higher than that of the relatively harmless coronavirus:

Also check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: Pandemic is Over! (If You Want it)

Joe Biden's mandatory vaccine order may lead America straight to another Civil War

Robert Bridge
RT
Fri, 10 Sep 2021 11:03 UTC

In a massive overreach of government power, Joe Biden said federal and private employers must require their workforce to get vaccinated - or else. This move from the Democrat who once preached 'unity' could lead to national ruin.

Despite pledging in the past that he would never force Americans to roll up their sleeves for a mandatory vaccine, that is exactly what President Joe Biden announced this week to a nation already sick and tired of masks, lockdowns and political infighting. Worse, the US leader stoked divisions inside of the country, where many fear the rise of a medical-style apartheid, by singling out the unvaccinated for blame.

"We've been patient," the 78-year-old Democrat lectured, carefully reciting his tele-prompted words. "But our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us." The unvaccinated among us "can cause a lot of damage, and they are."

Department of Education opens civil rights investigation into Florida ban on mask mandates

Just the News
Sat, 11 Sep 2021 12:50 UTC

New CDC figures appear to bolster Gov. DeSantis argument for parental choice over mask mandates.

The Biden administration's Department of Education (DOE) has opened a civil rights investigation into Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's executive order banning mask mandates in schools on the same day that the First District Court of Appeals reinstated the ban after it had been blocked by a Leon County, Florida circuit judge.

The DOE's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) said in a Friday letter addressed to Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran that it was "opening a directed investigation" into whether the governor's statewide ban "may be preventing school districts in the state from considering or meeting the needs of students with disabilities," according to The Hill.

Comment: If the parents weren't so indoctrinated by fear spread by the media about a not-particularly-dangerous virus, this concern simply wouldn't exist. Not to mention the idea that society should have to change its behavior, and indeed put themselves at risk, because your child has a disability is completely anti-American.

See also:

Rose McGowan & Larry Elder to accuse Gov. Newsom's wife of attempting to 'bribe, silence' actress about Weinstein at presser

RT
Sun, 12 Sep 2021 10:55 UTC

Actress and activist Rose McGowan has accused California Governor Gavin Newsom's wife of trying to convince her not to go public with the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse story. She will detail the allegations on Sunday.

Newsom's chief rival, Republican Party candidate Larry Elder, said he and McGowan will hold a press conference on Sunday afternoon. "Gavin Newsom's wife, Jennifer, attempted to bribe and silence her from speaking out about Harvey Weinstein's sexual abuses."

"The time for radical change is now," the actress wrote on Twitter after the announcement.

Rutgers bars unvaccinated student from attending VIRTUAL classes

Lee Brown
New York Post
Tue, 07 Sep 2021 08:37 UTC

A New Jersey student has said he is barred from taking classes at Rutgers University because he has not been vaccinated — even though he is only studying virtually from home.

Logan Hollar, 22, told NJ.com that he largely ignored the school's COVID mandate "because all my classes were remote" from his Sandyston home, some 70 miles from Rutgers' campus in New Brunswick.

But he was locked out of his Rutgers email and related accounts when he went to pay his tuition at the end of last month — and was told that he needed to be vaccinated even though he has no plans to attend in person.

Comment: Welcome to the apartheid state. It doesn't matter whether the activity you're trying to engage in could not possibly expose anyone to Covid, if you're not vaccinated, you're not participating.

'This is fiction': Confused Stephen King makes claim about '1,200 dead' of Covid in Florida in ONE day, others eat up and spread

RT
Sat, 11 Sep 2021 00:49 UTC

© REUTERS / Mike Segar
Stephen King holds up a pink Amazon Kindle 2 electronic reader at a news conference in New York where the device was introduced.

Horror novelist Stephen King may pay his bills by inventing stories, but he was accused of taking creative license with health data, saying 1,200 Floridians died of Covid in one day - a claim that remains up despite being untrue.

"1200 dead of COVID yesterday in Florida," King, who lives in both Florida and Maine, tweeted on Friday. "Not the total for a week or a month, but ONE SINGLE DAY."

Comment: Anyone who takes anything Biden does as a sign of an "intelligent mind" is clearly delusional. It would be wise to not take anything they say on any topic seriously. Of course, the highly partisan King has a history of tweeting rather moronic statements.
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Society's Child

Illinois ethics reform uncertain after house rejects Pritzker's amendatory veto

The Taliban are lying, France's foreign minister says

'The US government is censoring private conversations,' says the 'conversion therapist' fighting a legal battle not to be silenced

Drone pilot and whistleblower to RT: Going from 'video game sniper' to remote killer withers away who you are

UK dumps 800,000 AstraZeneca doses as vaccine uptake falls

Joe Biden's mandatory vaccine order may lead America straight to another Civil War

Department of Education opens civil rights investigation into Florida ban on mask mandates

Rose McGowan & Larry Elder to accuse Gov. Newsom's wife of attempting to 'bribe, silence' actress about Weinstein at presser

Rutgers bars unvaccinated student from attending VIRTUAL classes

'This is fiction': Confused Stephen King makes claim about '1,200 dead' of Covid in Florida in ONE day, others eat up and spread

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