How To Destroy A State: Swap Out The Wealthy For Illegal Immigrants (Illinois)

 by Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner of Wirepoints

Whether they’re doing it on purpose or out of just plain ineptitude, Illinois’ political leaders have been slowly destroying this state. More recently, they’ve moved into overdrive.

What we’re talking about is all the wealth the state is giving up by pushing out wealthier taxpayers and inviting less wealthy people in. Not to mention the flood of illegal immigrants that have been “welcomed” to Illinois, many fully dependent on the state.

Not only is Illinois a net loser of people to other states, but the people leaving Illinois make far more than the people coming into Illinois, making things even worse.

The taxpayers that left – about 156,000 of them in 2022 – made on average $124,000 in income, according to data based on the IRS’ annual taxpayer migration report. In contrast, the 111,000 taxpayers that moved into Illinois made on average only $86,000.

That’s a massive $38,000 difference per person lost – a gap that has accelerated significantly in recent years. Compare that to 2010, when the difference was about $5,500. Illinois is increasingly chasing out its wealthy.

In total, Illinois lost a net 45,000 tax filers in 2022, or a total of 87,000 Illinoisans when those tax filers’ dependents are included. The state netted a similar loss of residents – about 90,000 each year – in 2019, 2020 and 2021 (see Appendix A on number of people leaving). 

The losses of wealth as a result of that outmigration have also been staggering. In 2022 alone, the state had nearly $10 billion less to tax because of resident flight (see Appendix B on the income losses). The losses to the tax base have been piling up for years.

“Don’t worry,” Illinois leaders want residents to think. “Our population has finally begun to grow again.” 

What they’re not telling you is that it’s all because of the spike in illegal immigrants.

Illinois was attracting about 25,000 (official) international immigrants a year until the Biden administration opened up the Southern border. And just like that, the number jumped to 61,000, then 93,000, and finally to 113,000 in 2024 alone.

Illinois and Chicago’s sanctuary status are sure to have played into that immigration increase.

A Wirepoints reader recently summed up the situation well: “It can’t be good for the Illinois economy when the upper-middle class and wealthy are moving out while most of the illegal immigrants may end up staying…”

He’s right. Illinois is losing people, businesses and investment, destroying its economic vitality. The state’s dismal job creation, high unemployment rate and meager economic growth – the nation’s 4th-worst since 2019 – are all evidence of that. 

Nothing will change until Illinoisans vote in a whole new class of lawmakers. Those that finally put Illinois residents first.

* * * 

Appendix A.

Appendix B.

https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/how-destroy-state-swap-out-wealthy-illegal-immigrants

BioNTech Attacked CureVac’s ‘Failed’ COVID Vaccine Program. The Rivals Are Now Merging

 

BioNTech said in 2022 that it faced “threats of a groundless patent infringement suit” from a company that was “unable to bring to market any product to help in the fight against COVID-19.” Now, the mRNA biotech is buying that very company.

BioNTech’s $1.25 billion all-stock acquisition of CureVac brings together two German companies that have spent the past three years trading blows in the courts. Having painted CureVac as a failed rival that was trying to profit from its success, BioNTech now faces the task of integrating the biotech’s 1,000 employees into its operations.

BioNTech and partner Pfizer set out their views on CureVac in a lawsuit in 2022, claiming they faced “threats of a groundless patent infringement suit” from a company that was “unable to bring to market any product to help in the fight against COVID-19.” The partners’ lawyers took aim at CureVac’s vaccine development woes and its decision to start legal action.

“Unlike BioNTech’s and Pfizer’s efforts, CureVac’s failed, as it was unable to develop a COVID-19 vaccine product,” the Comirnaty developers said. “After this failure, CureVac turned its attention to an attempt to profit from the success of BioNTech and Pfizer through threats of patent infringement.”

Now, BioNTech and CureVac are cozying up together. The path from scientific rivals to legal adversaries to a single company was shaped by the diverging circumstances of the two companies during the pandemic.

A 3-Year Legal Battle

BioNTech and CureVac, along with Moderna in the U.S., pioneered the use of mRNA to treat cancer and protect against infectious disease. CureVac made the early running, advancing a prostate cancer vaccine into a Phase IIb trial that failed in 2017. Three years later, COVID-19 radically changed the fortunes of mRNA.

Both BioNTech and CureVac launched vaccine development programs but BioNTech moved fastest. Boosted by Pfizer’s support, BioNTech’s candidate became Comirnaty, the best-selling COVID-19 vaccine. CureVac landed deals with Bayer and GSK, received cash from the German government and reportedly became a buyout target for the U.S. government in President Trump Donald’s first term.

However, CureVac published clinical data on its vaccine candidate months after its rivals and the results fell well short of the bar set by Comirnaty and Moderna’s Spikevax. CureVac stopped development late in 2021 and, working with GSK, advanced a second-generation candidate into the clinic in March 2022.

Then the lawsuits started. CureVac alleged Comirnaty infringed a European patent and three German utility models in the summer of 2022. Utility models give the same rights as patents but are granted in weeks, rather than years.

The patent covers stabilized mRNA coding for a viral antigen. CureVac filed the application in 2002. One utility model, which CureVac filed in February 2021, covers a COVID-19 vaccine. The other utility models, which date back to 2015, address ways to boost protein expression. At the time, analysts estimated the lawsuit had $500 million of “potential upside” for CureVac.

BioNTech and Pfizer filed a complaint in Massachusetts around the time CureVac began its legal attack in Europe, seeking a judgment of non-infringement by Comirnaty of three U.S. patents. The action came thick and fast across the rest of 2022. CureVac added another European patent to its lawsuit. Between them, BioNTech and Pfizer filed to invalidate one patent in Germany, took action against two patents in the U.K. and requested the cancellation of the three utility models.

The legal action continued in 2023. In the first half of the year, a German court supported the validity of a CureVac patent in a preliminary opinion, BioNTech and Pfizer filed oppositions against a EU patent and CureVac submitted a counterclaim in the U.S. alleging infringement of six more patents by Comirnaty.

CureVac opened another front in the legal fight in July 2023, claiming infringement of one patent and two utility models in a lawsuit in a regional court and expanding its counterclaim in the U.S. Over the following months, courts suspended infringement rulings for two patents and three utility models.

Events began to turn against CureVac in December 2023, when a German court nullified its stabilized mRNA patent after an oral hearing. A written judgment with reasons for the nullification arrived in April 2024, followed swiftly by an appeal from CureVac. In the second half of 2024, courts in Germany and the U.K. ruled CureVac patents invalid and several utility models were withdrawn from the cases and canceled.

Yet, the story twisted back in CureVac’s favor in March of this year, when the European Patent Office declared a CureVac patent valid. CureVac won another validity decision in May. The victories teed up a hearing into whether BioNTech infringed the patents. The court was scheduled to hear the arguments on July 1. Now, BioNTech is set to neutralize the legal threat by acquiring CureVac in the all-stock deal.

Analysts were somewhat confused by the deal itself, but many noted that the removal of the litigation threat was a positive for BioNTech.

“By acquiring CureVac, ongoing litigation related to BioNTech’s mRNA technology is likely to be resolved, potentially removing the possibility of damages that could have loomed prior,” BMO Capital Markets wrote.

Integrating Rival Organizations

It is unclear what the merger means for CureVac’s programs. CureVac has said its drug candidates “face direct competition from companies such as Moderna and BioNTech.” Soon, those direct competitors will be part of the same pipeline, assuming the deal goes through.

As for CureVac’s employees, of which there were close to 1,000 at the end of last year, the future is also uncertain. BioNTech will integrate CureVac’s research and manufacturing site in Tübingen, Germany, into the larger company’s network of facilities. The integration will align with BioNTech’s ongoing group-wide transformation from pandemic warrior back to its oncology roots.

https://www.biospace.com/business/biontech-attacked-curevacs-failed-covid-vaccine-program-the-rivals-are-now-merging

Operation Rising Lion and the Judgment of the Elites

 

By John F. Di Leo

When evaluating the action of any government, it’s important of course to fairly consider the various alternatives, the objective data, and whether it has been a success.

And it’s also valuable to ask oneself, “What if the other side had done the same thing?”

We are watching a world transformed, in real time.

Two years ago, several of the most evil organizations in the world were fully operational, impoverishing their own people, terrifying so many others.

• Hamas, funded and directed by Iran’s mullahs, fired rockets into Israel from Gaza for decades, culminating in the horrors of Oct. 7, 2023.
• Hezbollah, funded and directed by Iran’s mullahs, dominated the politics of Lebanon, transforming that once golden island of multi-denominational peace into a danger zone.
• The Houthis, funded and directed by Iran’s mullahs, not satisfied with merely taking over half of Yemen, have closed down Red Sea and Suez Canal shipping for over a year and a half now with their ship attacks and piracy, costing the global economy billions of dollars per day.
• And of course Iran itself, once a happy, peaceful, Western-minded nation with a thriving capitalist economy and general economic and societal freedom for both men and women, has spent the past 46 years under the iron grip of a band of seventh century homicidal maniacs, practicing everything from slave labor to torture, pulling the strings of the aforementioned demons and serving as the world’s primary source of terrorism.

And today, where do these situations stand?

Over the past year and a half, Israel has severely weakened both Hamas and Hezbollah through direct actions, and now, having absolutely pummeled the power structure of modern Iran this June, Israel has dealt a critical, if not absolutely lethal, blow to all four of these demonic organizations.

The current, ongoing operation in Iran was the most important, as the puppeteer of its many bloodthirsty subsidiaries.  But it was also the most challenging, in a way, because Israel has had a long and happy relationship with the Persian people.

Persians are not Arabs; they don’t share the same cultural biases so common to the many Muslim Arab nations to their west. Those Israelis old enough to remember the world of the 1960s and 1970s still remember a time when Iran was their friend, when Iran was a secular nation in which Muslims, Christians and Jews (and Bahais, Zoroastrians, Sikhs and others) all lived and worked together, happily and in peace.

When Israel’s government was finally ready move on Iran, to deny the mullahs their cultish dream – the destruction of Israel by nuclear attack – those Israelis had their old friends, the Persian people, in mind as much as their own self-preservation.

Israel’s leadership dreamed of returning Iran to its former glory as a peaceful, friendly Western nation.  And they implemented manners of attack so precise, so carefully targeted, that the minimization of collateral damage would be unprecedented.

Every day of this war, Israel has managed to eliminate one villain after another, in their offices, in their labs, in their headquarters, in their apartments – while avoiding the killing of nearby civilians.  Iran’s military power, long a terrifying foe, has been whittled away to the point that one dares to hope for a popular revolution and a return to peaceful republican governance.

Israel’s success has been so incredible, her supporters across the globe have been practically giddy with joy.

But how has the press been covering this? 

The press doesn’t know how to cover it.  The press has watched the past year of Israeli accomplishments, reducing the world’s worst threats to rubble, one at a time, without cheer, without compliment, without an ounce of the celebration that such accomplishments clearly merit.

So let’s ask the question:  What if Binyamin Netanyahu were not the prime minister of Iran whose government gets the credit for this?  What if it were one of his many political opponents?

Netanyahu is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, but his leadership has been split over several separate stints over the past thirty years.  During his political career, Israel was often run by socialists and moderates -- Rabin, Peres, Barak, Olmert, Lapid – people who were often the champions of the global press, despite their inability to successfully address Israel’s challenges.

What if these amazing successes had occurred under their watch?  What if Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak, or Shimon Peres, darlings of the New York cocktail party circuit, had managed to cripple both the Iranian regime and its client terror cells, all in such a short time?

We don’t really need to ask, do we?

The world press, from the New York Times to the antisemitic press of Europe, would still find it in their hearts to compliment such accomplishments if performed by their fellow travelers on the Left.  You know it. The Israeli prime minister would be Time’s Person of the Year, recipient of the Nobel peace prize, guest commencement speaker at multiple Ivy League universities, with countless coeds and starlets swooning over him.  Because their political affiliation as good leftists would mean that these accomplishments were worthy of commendation.

But alas, Binyamin Netanyahu, friend of America, solid conservative, defender of his nation, is no such leftist.  Nor are the members of his cabinet.

So, no matter how successful his tenure is, no matter how many millions of innocent people are freed from a lifetime of terror by Netanyahu’s administration’s accomplishments, the Western press will celebrate neither him nor those accomplishments.

Because to them, all that matters is the advancement of the Marxist/globalist agenda. Anything that stands in its way, no matter how many innocents it frees, must be opposed.

Thank Heaven there are still some world leaders who do what is right, without seeking the blessing of the corrupt elites and the yellow press.

We thank Divine Providence for giving this earth such heroes -- Prime Minister Netanyahu, his cabinet, the Israeli military, and the Israeli people -- who stand today as role models of leadership for the world.

Copyright 2025 John F. Di Leo

 

John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation manager, trade compliance trainer, and speaker. Read his book on the surprisingly numerous varieties of vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel), his political satires on the Biden-Harris years (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I, II, and III), and his most recent collection of public policy essays, Current Events and the Issues of Our Age, all available in eBook or paperback, only on Amazon.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/06/operation_rising_lion_and_the_judgment_of_the_elites.html

Michelle Obama cannot contain her contempt for Barack

 

By Andrea Widburg

If you want to know whether someone’s marriage is going to fail, you can’t predict it by the volume or frequency of fights or by the fact that the couple prefers “alone” to “together” time. Instead, the single greatest indicator that a marriage is over is contempt. And while the media are passing off Michelle Obama’s explanation for her gratitude that she never had a son as a joke (and it may well have been), it is one of the most contemptuous statements I’ve ever seen one spouse say publicly about the other.

There’s been a lot of speculation lately about whether Michelle Obama wants to divorce Barack. Admittedly, most of these rumors come from reading the tea leaves, but Michelle has rather consistently complained about Barack, often in ways that are singularly inappropriate:

Michelle has pushed back against divorce rumors, and I believe her. Unless she wants to move on to a new man (and there’s no indication that she does), the marriage probably works the way Bill’s and Hillary’s does: A political power couple who, now that the power game is finally at an end, no longer want each other’s company, but could still badly hurt by the scandal of a divorce. Divorces have a way of getting ugly fast, even if that does not benefit either party.

But just because I doubt that Michelle wants to divorce Obama, that doesn’t mean she likes or respects him. She can still feel contemptuous, even as she enjoys the benefits flowing from their combined ~$70 million net worth, and his status as a two-term president of the United States. And so, the contempt oozes on, with the most recent being Michelle’s gladness that she never had a son:

“You should’ve threw a boy in the mix,” radio host Angie Martinez told Obama in an episode of the former first lady’s “IMO” podcast released Wednesday.

The remark came as Obama and her brother, Craig Robinson, along with Martinez, discussed society’s view of masculinity and the challenges of raising boys and young men.

“I’m so glad I didn’t have a boy,” Obama exclaimed.

“Why didn’t you throw in a third?” Martinez said with a chuckle to the mother of two.

 

“Because he would’ve been a Barack Obama,” the “Becoming” author and former president’s wife quipped to laughs.

You’ll note that The Hill, from which the quotation above comes, assures readers that it was a “quip” with “laughs.” However, as we all know, there are jokes and there are mean jokes. The former never hurt a person close to the joke-teller. The latter are a way to get away with a truly nasty, abusive line, while disclaiming responsibility. We’ve all hurt the mean guy, after throwing out one of those insults, claiming afterward, “What are you getting so upset about? Can’t you take a joke?” But of course, everyone knows it wasn’t a joke.

And when you have someone like Michelle Obama, who never stops complaining about her husband and making endless little digs at his expense, believe me, it’s no joke.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/06/michelle_obama_cannot_contain_her_contempt_for_barack.html

NIRP Is Back As Swiss National Bank Cuts Rates To Zero, Introduces Stealth Negative Rates

 Five years after covid sparked a once in a generation inflationary surge and forced all central banks to push their interest rates well above the zero (and in some cases negative) lower bound which defined the post-QE era, overnight the Swiss National Bank became the first to show that the world of higher rates is over and ZIRP is coming back, after the central bank cut its rate from 0.25% back to 0.00% for the first time since 2022.

But it's not just ZIRP that is back: NIRP is also here courtesy of the Swiss, because while the SNB may have cut its interest rate to zero, the way it penalizes banks’ excess reserve holdings means lenders will face negative rates if they park too much cash at the central bank.

Ah yes, the magic of the zero lower bound is once again with us!

According to a statement by the SNB published on Thursday morning, Swiss banks can hold up to an unchanged 18 times their minimum reserve requirement in sight deposits at the SNB for free but anything over that they will be charged interest of -0.25% as the discount from the policy rate remains unchanged at 25 basis points.

The goal behind the “tiered remuneration”, according to Bloomberg, is to incentivize lending between banks so that enough liquidity is exchanged on the Swiss money market. For lenders holding more than their limit it’s cheaper to pass on excess reserves to institutions which are under their thresholds, because they have to pay them less than the central bank.

For all lenders which don’t have a minimum reserve requirement the threshold is set at a paltry 10 million francs ($12 million) in sight deposits, the SNB said.

The system, which the SNB has had in place since it lifted its key rate above zero in 2022, means that the average money-market rate — known as Saron — has usually been a few basis points below the central-bank rate.

Which means that starting Friday, negative funding costs for banks are therefore likely, as board member Petra Tschudin told reporters in Zurich. She added that she expects only “very little” sight deposits to be remunerated at the negative rate. That chimes with experience from some three years under the regime, where typically only a tiny fraction of them were hit by the lower rate.

Still, little or not so little, negative rates are back in at least one country... and soon in many more. 

While Switzerland’s main banks lobby called the SNB’s decision “understandable,” it criticized its consequences.

“It’s clear that a zero interest rate environment diminishes the incentive for responsible saving and places additional pressure on retirement provision,” the Swiss Bankers Association said in a statement. “As in previous periods of low interest rates, banks and their customers once again bear a significant share of the monetary policy burden.”

Similarly, the insurance association welcomed the SNB not going negative, but stressed that “even the return to a low interest rate environment already poses a challenge” to the sector.

SNB President Martin Schlegel acknowledged the discomfort the new rate environment creates for banks and signaled that there’s an elevated bar for further cuts.

“We would not take the decision to go negative lightly,” he said. “But I want to stress that the profitability of banks is not within the national bank’s objectives.”

Finally, while some argue that negative rates are a way for capital deficient central banks to restock their coffers after years of high rates pushed them all into technical insolvency, given the small share of deposits affected, it’s unlikely that the SNB will make a lot of money from charging lenders. Between 2015 and 2022, the central bank earned almost 12 billion francs from negative rates, though it then paid out 14.5 billion francs from when rates turned positive through the end of March of this year.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/nirp-back-swiss-national-bank-cuts-rates-zero-introduces-stealth-negative-rates

DHS debunks Dodgers’ claim that ICE attempted a raid at stadium on game day

 The Department of Homeland Security poured cold water on the Los Angeles Dodgers’ claim that there was an attempted Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid at their stadium on Thursday.

The reigning World Series champs’ official X account claimed that ICE agents had requested access to the Dodger Stadium parking lot Thursday morning, with the team touting that it had denied the agents entry — in the wake of Los Angeles being ground zero of resistance against the Trump administration’s immigration raids.

The Department of Homeland Security said the vehicles were parked briefly.X/@DHSgov

Rioters and protesters have been clashing with police over immigration enforcement in Los Angeles in recent weeks.ZUMAPRESS.com / MEGA

DHS officials, however, said that the team’s grandstanding was irrelevant because there was never an operation in the works at the stadium.

“This had nothing to do with the Dodgers,” the agency wrote on X. “CBP vehicles were in the stadium parking lot very briefly, unrelated to any operation or enforcement.”

An ICE official confirmed that there was no raid planned at the stadium, telling The Post that the parking lot was merely used as a staging site. 

Several DHS vehicles with masked agents were spotted outside Dodger Stadium in the Elysian Park section of the city, but there have been no signs that anyone has been arrested in the area on Thursday. 

While LA Police sources said the team never requested local cops’ help to remove the agents from the stadium grounds, the Dodgers did ask for assistance when a group of anti-ICE protesters showed up, the LA Times reported. 

The Dodgers have been under pressure from the local community to take a stance against the immigration raids in the city. 

The pressure reached a boiling point earlier this week when singer Nezza sang the American national anthem in Spanish at the stadium after she was specifically asked to sing in English, prompting the Latin pop star to receive death threats.

Tensions are expected to escalate further after President Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, announced that ICE would resume raids against farms, hotels and other businesses that rely on immigrant labor. 

“We will concentrate on worksites on a prioritized basis just like we do at large operations,” he told reporters at the White House Thursday. 

The new priority comes just days after the Trump administration claimed it would not conduct workplace raids at hotels, restaurants and farms. 

https://nypost.com/2025/06/19/us-news/dhs-debunks-dodgers-claim-that-there-was-an-attempted-ice-raid-at-stadium-on-game-day/