Commentary: The Democrats’ Coming ‘September Switcheroo’ to Bench Biden and Nominate Michelle

Michelle Obama

President Biden’s poll numbers seem set in quicksand. Now the special counsel’s justification for not recommending charges against Biden for having “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” is damning: Biden’s memory has such “significant limitations” that the special counsel believed he could not convince a jury that Biden has a “mental state of willfulness” that a serious felony (or, presumably, serving as president) requires. Cue the campaign commercials.

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Commentary: Big Labor State Politicians’ ‘Wall of Denial’ Is Starting to Crumble

California Illinois

For decades, cold, hard data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) have shown that states like New Jersey, Illinois and California are paying a high price for allowing dues-hungry union bosses to continue getting workers fired for refusal to bankroll their organizations.

Year after year, far more taxpayers have been leaving forced-unionism states than moving into them.  And the average tax filer moving out of a forced-unionism state has reported having an adjusted gross income (AGI) on his or her IRS form that is substantially higher than the average for a tax filer moving into a forced-unionism state.

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Southern States Are Growing While The Northeast Shrinks

New Home

Over the past few years, states in the American South have come to economically surpass the Northeast, owing to policies like lower taxes and better business environments spurring prosperity and population growth, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The gross domestic product of Florida, Texas, Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee surpassed the cumulative economy of the Northeast in 2020 for the first time since data has been tracked and has continued to exceed growth since, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis compiled by Bloomberg. The growth comes as businesses and people flock to the region seeking affordability, job opportunities, lighter tax and regulation laws and freedom from dense urban areas, according to experts who spoke to the DCNF.

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Affluent Chicago Suburb Proposes Allowing Illegals to Live with Residents

Josh McBroom

In Illinois, a lawmaker has proposed that residents of a wealthy suburb outside Chicago should be allowed to host illegal aliens in their homes.

According to Fox News, Councilman Josh McBroom (D-Ill.) of Naperville, Illinois made the proposal at a city council meeting last week, declaring that “I do know that there’s a lot of people that do care, and I think we live in a compassionate community, so before we go down the road of, you know, following suit on some of these other cities are taking action on, my idea would be, let’s find out, let’s find out who’s willing to help.”

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Man Who Allegedly Defrauded Elderly American Out of Thousands of Dollars Was in the U.S. Illegally

Abdul Waheed Mohammed

An Indian man who allegedly defrauded an elderly American out of $100,000 was in the United States illegally, the Daily Caller News Foundation has exclusively learned.

Abdul Waheed Mohammed, 31, entered the country on Dec. 12, 2019 in Chicago, where U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released him into the U.S. on parole in Feb. 2020, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told the DCNF. The accused faces charges of grand theft, conspiracy to commit a felony, and aiding, abetting, or advising grand theft, according to a local outlet.

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America Is Undergoing a Massive Population Shift

Family Moving

Democrat-run states are still losing population, new Census Bureau data reveal, a development that could have electoral implications when the government reapportions congressional districts in 2030.

Oregon, California, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania, all states with Democratic governors and Democrat-controlled state legislatures, lost between 0.01% and 0.52% of their population between July 2022 and July 2023, according to the Census Bureau. Left-leaning states experienced similar declines in the lead-up to the 2020 Census, which led to them losing seats in the House of Representatives and votes in the Electoral College, an outcome that could occur again in 2030 if current trends persist.

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New York, California, and Illinois See Incomes Decline for First Time Since 2009

America’s three largest Democratic states, along with Rhode Island, Mississippi, Louisiana and the District of Columbia experienced income declines in the last year while the nation as a whole saw incomes rise by 2%. New York incomes suffered the worst, declining 1.6%, while California incomes declined the least, at just 0.2%. 

These figures come from the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s revised numbers for 2022, which also reduced national growth from 2.1% to 1.9%, a cut in reported growth of roughly 10%.

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Commentary: Democratic-Run States Are Losing Population, Power, and Congressional Seats

For years, Americans who believe in limited government and putting the American people first have had to watch as states like California, New York, and Illinois have turned their cities into dystopian hellscapes and sent unhinged politicians to Washington DC to inflict their policies on the rest of the nation.

But something very interesting has been happening over the past decade and this trend is only accelerating – the most left-wing states are slowly losing power as their populations decrease and residents move elsewhere. California, New York, Illinois, and others are losing population as residents move to friendlier and freer states. What this translates into is a mathematical solution to leftism and centralized government control.     

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Court Rules in Favor of Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers over Illinois Law Declaring Them ‘Deceptive’

A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Thursday that favors the request of the National Institute of Family Life Advocates (NIFLA) to block Illinois’ new law targeting pro-life pregnancy ministries.

Judge Iain D. Johnston, of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, issued a preliminary injunction in the case of National Institute of Family Life Advocates v. Raoul to put a halt to Illinois’ new law.

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10 States to Sue EPA for Not Updating Wood Stove Emission Standards

Ten states and a regional government clean air agency plan on suing the Environmental Protection Agency for allegedly failing to update emission standards for wood-burning stoves, allowing high-emission stoves to still be sold.

The mostly Democratic state attorneys general filed a notice of intent to sue the EPA last week.

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Children’s Hospital Charges Schools Thousands For Trainings On How To Teach About Gender Identity, Anal Sex

An Illinois children’s hospital is charging school districts thousands of dollars for a sex education workshop that features lessons on how to teach kids about anal sex and gender identity, according to documents obtained through a public records request by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago is charging school districts up to $1,500 for a presentation to educators on “inclusive sexual health ed practices” that promotes the National Sexuality Education Standards (NSES), a K-12 sexual education curriculum, according to a copy of the presentation obtained by the DCNF through a public records request. The presentation recommends that fifth graders should learn several different sexual orientations, while eighth graders should be taught about anal and oral sex.

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Illinois Finds 54 Percent Uptick in Abortions One Year After Dobbs Decision

Planned Parenthood of Illinois (PPIL) announced Monday that it had seen an increase in abortions by over 50% since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, according to a press release.

The Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization in June 2022 that abortion was not a constitutional right and left the decision up to the states to enact their own laws on the issue. Nearly a year later, PPIL announced that clinics reported an increase in abortions by 54% with almost a quarter of the patients traveling out-of-state to get the procedure, according to the press release.

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Drug Manufacturers, CVS, Walgreens Settle Another Opioid Lawsuit with 22 States for $17.3 Billion

Thirteen attorneys general announced settlements with opioid manufacturers Teva and Allergan on Friday, while 18 states settled with CVS and Walgreens for a total of $17.3 billion.

The attorneys general said settlement funds will start flowing into state and local governments by the end of this year and will be used for prevention and treatment of opioid addiction.

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Progressive Activists, Officials Work to Extend Voting to Prisoners, Noncitizens to Expand Base

by Fred Lucas   Inmate voting, noncitizen voting, and even mandatory voting have been among the initiatives pushed in Democrat-led jurisdictions this year to expand their voting base. “The Left wants to normalize voter classes that nobody took seriously a generation ago—criminals, foreigners—to help them win elections,” J. Christian Adams, president of the…

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Blue States Suffer Largest Population and Tax Revenue Losses as Red States See Largest Gains, IRS Data Shows

Gavin Newsom

Even as Democratic governors such as California’s Gavin Newsom and Illinois’ J.B. Pritzker slam red state policies, their residents are fleeing in droves for Republican-controlled states.

IRS migration data released late last week shows that California lost more residents than any other state, with a net loss of nearly 332,000 people and more than $29 billion in adjusted gross income in 2021. The state with the second largest population loss is New York, which saw a net loss of over 262,000 residents and $24.5 billion in income. Illinois, meanwhile, suffered a net loss of 105,000 people in 2021 and $10.8 billion in income.

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Advocates Warn of ‘Desperate’ Movement to Undermine the Electoral College

An organization’s efforts to circumvent states’ rights are “getting desperate” as they try new ways to push their interstate compact through state legislatures, two pro-Electoral College advocacy groups told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The National Popular Vote (NPV) is a group initiative to reform the U.S.’ two-step, Electoral College system by ensuring that the candidate with the most popular votes nationwide becomes the president. Now that NPV has enacted its interstate compact in all of the “easy,” bluer states as a standalone bill, it is getting creative to force the law through in swing states like Minnesota, Nevada, Michigan and Maine, Trent England of Save Our States and Jasper Hendricks of Democrats for the Electoral College told the DCNF.

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Los Angeles, Cook Counties Post Biggest Population Losses in U.S. in 2022

The number of people who used to live in Los Angeles County and Cook County in Illinois continues to plummet.

Los Angeles County posted the largest population decline of all counties in the United States in 2022, falling by 90,704 and continuing a downward trend. It lost nearly twice that amount (180,394) in 2021, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Vintage 2022 estimates released Thursday.

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Students Demand Catholic University ‘Eliminate’ Christian Group from Campus Due to Its ‘Discriminatory’ LGBTQ Views

Students at DePaul University, a private Catholic university in Illinois, are circulating a petition demanding the elimination of a Christian group after it posted a Q&A on its now-deleted Instagram page denouncing LGBTQ lifestyles, student newspaper The DePaulia reported.

Signees called on DePaul University officials to ban the group “from meeting on campus and promoting discrimination against members of the LGBTQIA+ community,” according to the petition titled “Eliminate Vessel.” Vessel is not an official student organization on campus and appears to have deleted their Instagram page soon after sharing that they are a “non-affirming” group and “do not agree that the LGBTQIA+ lifestyle is supported by biblical text. Below are verses which support this,” according to a screenshot obtained by the DePaulia.

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The Country’s Biggest School Districts Are Explicitly Hiding Kids’ Gender Transitions from Parents

The nation’s largest school districts are implementing policies that require educators to keep students’ gender transitions a secret from their parents.

Los Angeles Unified School District, Chicago Public Schools and New York Public Schools are promoting practices and policies that hide a student’s transgender status from their parents. The policies have become a cultural flashpoint amid a battle over the role parents should play in their child’s education, and the extent to which gender ideology has infiltrated K-12 classrooms.

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Chicago School Audit Finds Nearly 500 Sexual Complaints Filed in 2022

Chicago school officials this week revealed that the school system recorded nearly 500 sexual complaints over the last year, with investigators stressing their inability to respond to a majority of all complaints they receive.

The Chicago Board of Education Office of Inspector General said in its 2022 annual report that it received 470 “sexual allegation” complaints over the course of FY2022.

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Blue States Worry They Can’t Pay Out Retirement Benefits

Three high-profile Democratic governors are struggling to stabilize their states’ retirement programs due to a falling stock market and may have difficulties paying out benefits in the coming years, according to Politico.

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, all of whom are considered potential candidates for the 2024 presidential race, have poured billions of dollars into their states’ pension funds, according to Politico. They may struggle to maintain their public images if they’re forced to raise taxes or make budget cuts to keep pension payments flowing.

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Commentary: Republicans Can Thank the Federal Government’s Bungled 2020 Census for Their Razor-Thin House Majority

Republicans will soon take control of the House of Representatives, but with a margin so narrow it may prove difficult to achieve their legislative and oversight objectives. That margin might have been larger, were it not for egregious errors made by the U.S. Census Bureau in the 2020 census.

Come January, House membership will consist of 213 Democrats and 222 Republicans. A party must hold 218 of those seats to control the House. Thus, Republicans will have only a four-seat majority. That extremely narrow majority means that GOP leadership can lose any vote on any issue if only four Republicans defect and the Democrats stay united in opposition.

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Google Agrees to Nearly $400 Million Settlement with 40 States over Location-Tracking Probe

Google agreed to a $391.5 million settlement with 40 states after an investigation found that the tech giant participated in questionable location-tracking practices, state attorneys general announced Monday.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong called it a “historic win for consumers.”

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Seven Midwest States Enter Hydrogen Coalition

Seven Midwest states entered a coalition to pursue clean hydrogen development as an alternative to gas and diesel fuel.

The governors of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin signed onto the Midwest Hydrogen Coalition. The coalition will accelerate clean hydrogen development, from production and supply chain to distribution in agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, and other industries.

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Counties in Ohio, Tennessee, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and More Flooded with Requests for 2020 Election Records as Mandatory Preservation Window Expires

With the recent expiration of the federally mandated 2-year window for preservation of 2020 presidential election records, counties across the country have been inundated with public records requests from Americans concerned about election integrity.

During his “Moment of Truth Summit” last month spotlighting 2020 presidential election irregularities, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell exhorted “every single person in the country” to ask for cast vote records from the election from their local county clerk’s office. His website links to the Ordros Analytics, Inc., website, which provides templates of public records requests for cast vote records.

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30 Months into the COVID-19 Pandemic, at Least a Dozen States Are Under ‘Emergency’ Orders

In October 2020, the Michigan Supreme Court stripped Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of the unilateral powers she was using when she declared a state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Whitmer had been using a 1945 law – which was prompted by a three-day race riot in Detroit three years earlier – that had no sunset provision in it and didn’t require approval by the state legislature.

In May 2021, Whitmer told a news agency that if she still had that 1945 state-of-emergency law, she would use those powers, but not for anything related to a pandemic.

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Vast Majority of Illinois School Districts Have Opted Out of Radical Sex Ed Standards

The grassroots website Awake-Illinois is reporting that only 23 of 860 school districts in the state have decided to adopt radical sex education standards, based on a national model, while 536 districts have thus far opted out.

Governor J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) signed SB 818 into law in August 2021, with his office claiming the standards are “voluntary” and will “emphasize health, safety, and inclusivity with age-appropriate resources.”

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Caterpillar Announces Relocation of Global Headquarters from Illinois to Texas

Construction and mining equipment giant Caterpillar Inc. announced Tuesday it will move its global headquarters from its current location in Deerfield, Illinois, to the company’s existing office in Irving, Texas.

“We believe it’s in the best strategic interest of the company to make this move, which supports Caterpillar’s strategy for profitable growth as we help our customers build a better, more sustainable world,” said Chairman and CEO Jim Umpleby in a press release. 

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Democrats’ Dreams Turn to Dust as Adjudicated Redistricting Maps Set the Stage for Large Republican Gains in 2022

The Democratic Party’s hopes of gaining seats from redistricting have been crushed as court decisions and an increasingly aggressive GOP produced more Republican-friendly maps.

Democrats were initially optimistic that they could mitigate projected midterm losses in the House when it appeared they were poised to score wins in the redistricting process. However, the party’s hopes have been dashed after key losses in major states erased their redistricting advantage.

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Radical Illinois School District Curriculum Will Teach Children as Young as 4 Years Old About Ending ‘Gender Binary’ System Created by White ‘Colonizers’

The Evanston-Skokie School District 65 will teach children as young as four years of age to celebrate the transgender flag, to try on different pronouns, and that the “gender binary” created by white “colonizers,” based on male and female sex, must be broken.

Education researcher Chris Rufo obtained the curriculum documents, which he published at City Journal last week.

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Records Show Republican Esther Joy King Has Towering Financial Advantage in Open Seat for Illinois’ 17th Congressional District

FEC records show that Republican Esther Joy King has a towering financial advantage over the entire field for Illinois’ Seventeenth Congressional district.

Democrat incumbent U.S. Representative Cheri Bustos has announced her retirement, making IL-17 an open seat race.

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Five Attorneys Prepare to Represent Madigan in Wide-Reaching Corruption, Racketeering Case

Taxpayers could face a costly and lengthy path to justice as federal prosecutors work to convict one of the state’s most powerful politicians on corruption charges.

Prosecutors alleged in a 22-count indictment last week that former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, used his elected office and political operations as part of a years-long criminal enterprise for personal gain. In addition to the criminal charges, the indictment also seeks the forfeiture of $2.8 million in alleged illegal profits from Madigan and his confidante, former state lawmaker and ComEd lobbyist Michael McClain. If convicted of the most serious charge, Madigan could face up to 20 years in prison.

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University Diversity Training Uses Same Redacted Slur It Punished Professor for Putting in Exam

A public university forced a law professor to take “sensitivity training” that used the very “expurgated slur” he was punished for including in a law exam question, according to a First Amendment lawsuit seeking $100,000 in damages.

The University of Illinois Chicago allegedly violated its agreement with Jason Kilborn not to require such training after the Rev. Jesse Jackson joined black student protests demanding his firing last fall.

Kilborn’s employment discrimination question of 10 years, which the lawsuit claims prompted “one or two” complaints for the first time in 2020, referred to a hypothetical plaintiff whose managers “expressed their anger” at her by “calling her a ‘n___’ and ‘b___’ [sic].”

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Suspended Professor Who Was Forced to Take Diversity Training Sues University

A professor who was targeted and suspended after using censored language in a test question to make an example of employment discrimination just filed a First Amendment lawsuit against the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC).

The controversy began in 2020 when Jason Kilborn, a law professor at UIC, posed a hypothetical question in an exam surrounding illegal discrimination in the workplace. The question referenced anti-black and anti-women slurs, but were not fully spelled out. Instead, they were simply displayed by their first letters, “n” and “b.”

Despite keeping the words censored, a petition was launched against Kilborn condemning him for the contents in question. A short time after, UIC suspended Kilborn and announced he would be forced to take a five-week diversity training course in order to return to teaching.

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Chicago Schools Tells Teachers Sex Is ‘Socially Constructed,’ Tells Them to Hide Students’ Gender Pronouns From Parents

A Chicago Public Schools (CPS) training program tells teachers that sex is a “socially constructed” phenomenon and instructs them to hide students’ gender pronouns from their parents, Fox News reported.

CPS told teachers that “gender and sex” are social constructs that have been “created and enforced” by society and threatened retaliatory measures if they didn’t use students’ preferred pronouns during a required teacher training program, Fox News reported.

A 104-slide PowerPoint titled “Supporting Transgender, Nonbinary, and Gender Nonconforming Students” asserted that “everyone has multiple, overlapping identities” and that “gender & sex are socially constructed, meaning they’ve been created and enforced by the people in a society,” Fox News reported.

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‘1619 Project’ Author Nikole Hannah-Jones Brags About Tricking Audience into Thinking MLK Quotes Were Her Words

Nikole Hannah-Jones

The Union League Club of Chicago, a highly selective private civic and social club in the windy city, invited Nikole Hannah-Jones to give a keynote speech in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. 

Jones, a professor at Howard University, is notable for having authored the New York Times’ 1619 Project, a long-form journalistic work that falsely argues America’s true foundation is in the institution of slavery.

Prior to Jones’ speech, a series of emails were leaked in which club members voiced their opposition to hosting Jones at their club. In one email Brian Daley, a Public Affairs Committee member for the club, pointed out that Jones’ 1619 Project had been criticized by historians and that the New York Times issued a  “humiliating update” following widespread criticism of her work, according to reporting by Chicago City Wire.

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Chicago Public Schools Forced to Cancel School After Teachers Union Votes to Move to Remote Learning

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) voted Tuesday to move to remote learning Wednesday, citing concerns over safety amid the rise in COVID-19 cases, the union said in a press release.

The CTU’s elected House of Delegates voted in favor (88%) of a resolution to return to remote education amid the surge of COVID-19 cases and the rise of the Omicron coronavirus variant, citing a lack of safety guarantees, a union press release said. In the membership-wide vote, 73% of CTU’s members voted in favor of virtual learning, passing the two-thirds threshold required to enact the resolution.

The resolution outlines plans to work remotely until Jan. 18 or until the current COVID-19 wave falls below last year’s threshold for school closures, according to the resolution.

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Over Half of U.S. States Will Increase Their Minimum Wage in 2022

Over half of the states in the U.S. will institute a minimum wage increase in 2022, according to a report.

A total of 26 states will raise the minimum wage in 2022, with 22 of the states starting the pay hikes on Jan. 1, accordingto payroll experts at Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S.

“These minimum wage increases indicate moves toward ensuring a living wage for people across the country,” Deirdre Kennedy, senior payroll analyst at Wolters Kluwer, said in the report. “In addition to previously approved incremental increases, the change in presidential administration earlier this year and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic have also contributed to these changes.”

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University Spent $80,000 on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Training for STEM Faculty

A recent FOIA request filed by Campus Reform revealed that the University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC) spent $80,000 on a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion training created by the Kardia Group, LLC. The agreement was signed in 2018 and included two series of meetings and workshops for the Fall 2018 and Spring 2019 semesters.

The Kardia Group was founded in 2004 and describes themselves as a “leading strategic partner in the transformation of the culture, functionality, and success of the academic endeavor.” Its website lists resources and services ranging from Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to “transformational change for groups.”

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Illinois School Board Association Ends Membership with National School Boards Association over Parent-Threat Letter

The Illinois Association of School Boards voted Thursday to end its membership with the National School Boards Association after the national group sent a letter to President Joe Biden asking for federal intervention to investigate unruly parents who protest at local meetings.

“The decision follows previous attempts by IASB to initiate changes to the governance structure, transparency, and financial oversight of the national association,” a news release from IASB says. “IASB suspended payment of dues to NSBA for 2021-2022 but continued to work to try to bring about needed changes.”

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Nurses in Illinois Win Temporary Restraining Order Against Vaccine Mandate

An Illinois judge granted a temporary restraining order to nurses who sued Riverside Healthcare over the hospital system’s vaccine mandate.

Kankakee County Judge Nancy Nicholson granted a temporary restraining order until Nov. 19. She will then hold a hearing on a motion for a preliminary injunction requested by the nurses.

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Indiana Officials Invite Illinois Police Officers to Move There

Police lights on top of car

With the promise of no vaccine mandate and lower property taxes, Indiana officials are trying to lure jilted police officers from Illinois.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced a vaccine mandate for police in August. They must show their vaccination status or take the option of testing on their own time and dime. If they don’t, they can be placed on “no pay” status.

Indiana Republican Sen. Mike Braun tweeted that his office is ready to help connect police officers to an Indiana department that is hiring now.

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