by Sharon Rondeau
(May 28, 2021) — On Monday, May 17, Morton, IL resident and P&E reader Michael D. Jackson addressed his Board of Trustees, equivalent to a town council, on the state’s mask mandate, which he has been challenging since last fall after Gov. JB Pritzker imposed it a year ago as a result of the COVID-19 declared “disaster.”
Also that day, Pritzker issued a revised executive order to say that anyone who has received full dosing of a coronavirus vaccine need not wear a face mask indoors or out, except in healthcare settings and where businesses might require it.
Roll call was taken followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. As a scheduled speaker, Jackson was then called to take the podium. After introducing himself and his ties to the community, Jackson said, “The reason I’m here…I’m against wearing a sharia-burqa slave mask over my face, not because I don’t think wearing masks is appropriate, but we have a choice. I don’t want to get any vaccines or be forced to have a COVID green passport…”
As a registered nurse of “nearly 20 years and “born-again Christian,” Jackson told the council, he believes there is “too much misplaced fear” in general and that for optimum health, citizens need fresh air, sunshine, and “good water, good diet, exercise…” “Living freely and peacefully are all essential for every one of us, I’m sure,” he said.
A former challenger to Barack Obama’s constitutional eligibility to serve as president, Jackson has shared with this writer his objections to wearing a face mask for medical and other reasons. He told the council that he believes “the United States Constitution,” “HIPPA”; the First, Fourth, Tenth, and 14th Amendments; “statutory law” and the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) are being violated by mask mandates.
Jackson himself is classified as “disabled,” he told The Post & Email and documentation shows.
Regarding the governor, Jackson recounted to the council that a Clay County judge ruled last summer that Pritzker’s executive orders “in effect after April 08, 2020 relating to COVID-19, and finding their authority under the emergency powers of Section 7 of the IEMAA are void ab initio.” The ruling came after State Rep. Darren Bailey, who Jackson mentioned in an October 1 letter to Sommer, filed a lawsuit challenging Pritzker’s authority past the 30-day period granted him by the legislature for emergency powers.
Through the office of Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, Pritzker appealed the ruling. “In the appeal, Raoul argues the court must act quickly to snuff out such legal challenges, and affirm Pritzker’s open-ended emergency powers, or risk allowing the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 to spread more quickly throughout the state and claim many more lives,” reported the Cook County Record on April 29, 2020.
Pritzker was successful in federal court in a suit filed by the Illinois Republican Party, the Chicago Sun-Times reported July 2 and has continued to issue executive orders associated with the COVID-19 state of emergency.
“We need to be able to see people’s lips and hard-of-hearing and things like that, and kids need to be able to see facial expressions, smiles…” Jackson told the council.
Last September, Jackson told us, his personal physician of approximately three decades refused to see him since he was unwilling to wear a mask into the office. He received no response from his state representative, Keith Sommer, after delivering materials to his office on three occasions beginning September 10 and contacting him in writing on October 1 to request that he take a stand against the mask mandate for the benefit of all Illinois citizens. “My physician of nearly 30 years would not let me in because he was bowing down to Gov J.B. ‘Jackboot’ Pritzker, and completely ignoring all medical training that he was taught, taught others, and that I was familiar with being a medical professional,” Jackson wrote in a February 13, 2021 email to this writer. “I wanted to let my representative know how this lawless mask mandate and lockdown was just that, lawless! I never heard anything from my office as a result of that September 10 visit.”
In August 2013, Sommer wrote a letter to Jackson instructing him not to visit or call his office, but rather, to communicate only by email or the U.S. Postal Service. Copied on Sommer’s letter were the Tazewell County Sheriff, Illinois State Police and Morton Police Department.
Jackson’s subsequent inquiries to those agencies for any communications from Sommer concerning him were met with the reply that no responsive records existed.
Jackson has also been asked to leave when attempting to conduct business at his longtime credit union, he told the council and this writer.
On June 16, Jackson sent a letter and numerous attachments critical of Pritzker’s policies, particularly those stemming from COVID-19.
Update, May 29, 2021: Mr. Jackson sent us the following electronic file containing his notes for the May 17 presentation to the Board of Trustees similar to those he provided to Board members prior to his address.
Pritzker and Sommer – serving the citizens of Illinois or servicing them?