Tuesday, August 11, was probably the best day, professionally, that Governor JB Pritzker has had in quite a while. The Joint Committee on Administrative Rules has been a source of legislative frustration for the governor all year. He didn't quite seem to grasp how best to work its process-dominated membership, and he was handed a major defeat back in May when JCAR members in both parties turned thumbs-down on a sweeping plan to impose fines and even jail time on violators of Governor Pritzker's COVID-19 executive orders.

This pandemic is waning by all measures that count. Regardless, the public at large remains deeply frightened, submissive, compliant, and disturbingly incurious. Incurious about the onslaught of redundant, irrational, fact-starved messaging recited by “trusted voices,” be they government officials or mainstream-media propagandists.

Months after the nation's economy crashed and millions were (and continue to be) put out of work, a large group of Illinois House Democrats is still quite upset at the way Governor JB Pritzker's administration is handling unemployment insurance-claims.

But the Pritzker administration is refusing to bend on their most important demands, saying the governor will not move selected constituents to the “front of the line” ahead of others, which created a backlash within his own party.

There have been extensive randomized controlled trial (RCT) studies, and meta-analysis reviews of RCT studies, which all show that masks and respirators do not work to prevent respiratory influenza-like illnesses, or respiratory illnesses believed to be transmitted by droplets and aerosol particles.

The present paper about masks illustrates the degree to which governments, the mainstream media, and institutional propagandists can decide to operate in a science vacuum, or select only incomplete science that serves their interests. Such recklessness is also certainly the case with the current global lockdown of over 1 billion people, an unprecedented experiment in medical and political history.