By The Uptown People’s Law Center

The latest report on health care in Illinois state prisons (PDF) was released to the public earlier this month. This report was created by Dr. John Raba, an independent, court-appointed monitor, as a result of the class action lawsuit Lippert v. Jeffreys, brought by ACLU of Illinois, Uptown People’s Law Center, and Dentons. This lawsuit alleged that the health care provided to prisoners in the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) is unconstitutional, and was settled in January 2019.
Five reports by independent experts have now been submitted to the federal court, each one finding serious defects in the health care Illinois provides to the people it imprisons. The latest report notes very little has changed since IDOC entered into an agreement to improve two years ago. The federal monitor suggests that the crisis needs the governor’s personal attention, a call shared by the lawyers for the prisoners.

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Posted on March 31, 2021

By Liz Willen/The Hechinger Report

Few elite colleges in the midst of choosing their freshman classes like to admit how often they give preference to legacy applicants, a practice that largely benefits higher-income students and by some estimates can double or even quadruple an applicant’s chances of getting in.
That’s why I should not have been surprised that most colleges I asked about this wouldn’t talk about it or release their data. They have reasons: giving preferential treatment to the children of alumni who can most afford to pay clearly benefits colleges, and is not something they want to broadcast when the pandemic is complicating budgets and enrollment predictions.
And let’s face it: Exclusive colleges and universities with annual costs as high as $80,000 have already endured an awful lot of bad publicity. Weren’t the lies and cheating of the Varsity Blues admissions scandal supposed to usher in a new era of transparency, with all those promises of an overhaul to follow?

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Posted on March 20, 2021

By David Rutter

Stealing is wrong. I get that, but then I’ve never been close enough to a large pile of cash as to be tempted.
So I have cheaply bought morals.
But let us assume that stealing is wrong. On that valid and traditional proposition, we all should be aghast that Donald Trump, hereafter to be known as The Former Guy, persuaded Americans to give him $200 million to win several elections he already had lost.
This is “past posting” on a grand stage. Past posting allows a skimmer who knows who won the televised horse race to bet against others who don’t know who won when the replay comes on air.
It’s the Barn Fire Fund After The Horses Left.

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Posted on March 12, 2021

By Jonathan Cook/Common Dreams

Oprah Winfrey’s interview with Meghan and Harry is a perfect case study of how an important political debate about the corrupting role of the monarchy on British life gets shunted aside yet again, not just by the endless Royal soap opera but by supposedly progressive identity politics.
As so often, a focus on identity risks not only blunting our capacity for critical thinking but can be all too readily weaponized: in this case, as the media’s main take-away from the Oprah interview illustrates, by providing an implicit defense of class privilege.

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Posted on March 11, 2021

By David Rutter

By the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” measurement, Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger is the buddy of upright-thinking Illinoisans everywhere. He’s a reformed buddy. A recovering nutjob.
He’s paid for his ticket to the dinner party of reclaimed right-wingedness. If Joe Walsh’s change of political heart can make him seem like a decent human being (we’re still keeping watch on that transformation) then the 16th District congressman from Kankakee is theoretically salvageable, too.

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Posted on March 2, 2021