Gov. Pritzker: State parks to reopen, outdoor dining available May 29
The big news for me: In Phase 3, "health clubs, gyms, and fitness studios can provide one-on-one personal training in indoor facilities" and outdoor fitness classes of up to ten people.
This indoor facilities clause seems to me to be a new wrinkle. Heretofore I don't recall there being any provision for indoor training at all. But one on one indoors implies someone can train solo. No doubt with some provisions for before and after hygiene and maintaining a distance.
The Illinois General Assembly was FINALLY called into special session by Pritzker this week. What follows are mostly based on my opinions and surmises.
Ostensibly this special session limited to working on the hopeless budget, but I suspected his party was knuckling him to get back in line. Turns out this may well have been the case, because also earlier this week he declared that any "non-essential" business not following the lockdown would be subject to misdemeanor charges and a $2500 fine. This met with howls of protest from downstate. I'm not sure what the reception in Shitcago or Crook County was.
Two days ago, the Illinois State Police issued a statement that they would not be arresting anyone for violating lockdown orders. This, despite Pritzker's threats and bullying to the contrary and failure of LE to implement those threats would result in withholding of Federal funds.
As it happens, I learned yesterday that Illinois has a unique legislative committee called Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR). Amazingly, somehow the dems allowed it to be entirely balanced in terms of party affiliations from both houses of the General Assembly. The RUMINT reported by a downstate AssemblyCritter Patrick Windhorst this morning was that dems of JCAR had splintered and informed Pritzker they would not support his misdemeanor edict.
So Pritzker appears to have caved a little. Possibly with more abdication to follow, we'll see. I am guessing that he realizes (finally!) that his high water mark was his interview Sunday before last on the news panel shows. Perhaps he recognizes that his political future is damaged at best and maybe even over after his first and only dip into the political water hole. One can only hope. Likewise, Illinois was surrounded by states that were loosening up faster than Illinois and many Illinoisans were vowing to shop and sit down to eat over the borders of Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, or Missouri.
It remains to be seen what, if any, effect this will have on other dem governors like Whitmer. I have to believe that some of them are realizing that despite the overwhelming MSM support and fear mongering, they are holding a losing hand. More than ever I am convinced that the nature of dem state lockdowns and media scares were just another chapter in the overthrow of the guy who beat their darling, Lady Clinton.
As I said much earlier in this thread, states like IL, CA, and NY were never going to get enough Electoral College or popular votes for Trump. I assumed that they collectively wanted to inflict enough pain and damage to the economy and by extension their own electorates to screw Trump. Even if by mail in ballots to assist as needed. They may be realizing that they could well have damaged their own political careers enough to limit or end them as well. Newsom is probably an exception. Because I find it hard to believe that anyone who voted for him didn't already know what a dick he was and still voted for him.