Free Republic

A 21-year-old pregnant soldier who was due to come home within weeks is the second Chicago-area victim from the shooting at Fort Hood. Francesca Velez had just returned from a tour of duty in Iraq and was due to be temporarily released from the military on maternity leave, according to her family and friends.

It was January 28th 2009 a mire 8 days after Obama was inaugurated. With a stroke of the pen he landed a commanding blow to the bio-fuel companies of America. What a surprise!! Everyone thought Obama was going to be a green president;

Workers asked to back fund-raiser WATER DEPT. | 'Charitable equivalent of pay-to play': watchdog Chicago Sun-Times suntimes.com Member of Sun-Times Media November 5, 2009 BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter Employees in the Water Management Department at the center of the Hired Truck and city hiring scandals are being pressured to sell and purchase $50 tickets to the Nov. 19 benefit reception Mayor Daley is hosting on behalf of the United Negro College Fund. Although the cause is laudable, the tactic is questionable. The solicitation is being made on city stationery with employees referred to a city telephone number to...

SNIPPET: "The third article, titled "Al-Shabaab Recruiting in the West," takes a comprehensive look at what we know about the group's efforts to recruit fighters in the United States, and in other Western countries. The final article concerns the efficacy of the Somali president's recent diplomatic efforts in Minneapolis, Columbus, OH, and Chicago."

HINSDALE, Illinois, November 3, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A congregation of US Dominican nuns has publicly apologized for the scandal caused by one of its members acting as a volunteer escort at a Chicago area abortion facility, who now faces severe canonical penalties including excommunication and the possibility of dismissal.    LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) first broke the story about Sr. Donna Quinn, O.P., a Dominican nun who is outspokenly in favor of legalized abortion, who had been identified by pro-life witnesses as an escort for the ACU Health Clinic.Sr. Quinn's religious community, the Wisconsin-based Sinsinawa Dominican Congregation, admitted in a press release posted...

A Chicago suburb could not get anyone to fork over $1 for a home, the Belleville News-Democrat reported. The village of Barrington, Illinois put three older homes up for sale for just $1 each, but was not able to get any interested buyers. The suburb hopes to sell and relocate the homes in order to make way for redevelopment in the downtown area, according to the paper. If no buyers come forward, the village will demolish the houses, which many residents say hold an historic value.

The housing market is so bad you can't even give away homes these days. Officials in suburban Barrington put three homes up for a sale at just a dollar a piece - a dollar! - and didn't get a single bidder. A dollar! Let's review: For less than the price of a CTA ride, a Starbuck's coffee, or the typical tip slipped under a stripper's G-string, you could have bought a home in Barrington. Sure, buying a house means assuming the future costs of upkeep, but a dollar! "Even if you're offering a house for a dollar, sometimes all...

After hearing from an angry parent, I reached out to "Queen Sister," a colorful activist who has been at the forefront of rallies to stop the violence near Fenger High School. It's not surprising that Queen Sister's mailbox is full. Last time I saw her, she was outside Fenger yelling through a bullhorn. Since the fatal beating of Derrion Albert -- a tragedy that was captured on video -- activists like Queen Sister have been in great demand. And since U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan (US Dept of Ed & Chicago Dept of Education) promised millions of dollars to quell...

Attorney General Eric Holder tries to kill a TV ad supporting D.C. school vouchers. President Obama isn't taking kindly to a television ad that criticizes his opposition to a popular scholarship program for poor children, and his administration wants the ad pulled. Former D.C. Councilmember Kevin Chavous of D.C. Children First said October 16 that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder had recently approached him and told him to kill the ad. The 30-second ad, which has been airing on FOX News, CNN, MSNBC, and News Channel 8 to viewers in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, urges the president to reauthorize the...

SNIPPET: “WASHINGTON: Pakistan’s Consul General in Chicago personally knew both David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, nabbed by the FBI for planning to carry out a major terror attack in India at the behest of LeT, the US authorities have claimed. The FBI in its revised chargesheet filed before a Chicago court said the Consul General of Pakistan in Chicago personally knows both Rana and Headley alias ‘Daood Gilani’, as all three of them are from the same high school. According to the website of the Pakistan Embassy here, Dr Aman Rashid is the Consul General in Chicago. “On...

Mad at your job? Torked at your neighbor? Snoop around in their tax info and if you find something damning… REPORT THEM! And the kindly folks down at Chicago’s City Hall are happy to help with their new tax rat program. The Sun-Times reported that Daley’s Rat Line program could be added to the 2010 budget. Read the rest at Publiusforum.com...

The current Mayor Daley behaves as if Chicago was located in Death Valley where every drop of water must be conserved and accounted for. I am not sure if Coleridge‘s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is the incumbent mayor’s favorite poem, but sometimes I think that it ought to be. “Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink…” Under the present, enlightened regime, public buildings are being refitted, at great material expense and union labor costs, with automatic plumbing fixtures that will scrupulously dole out water each time a visitor goes to rinse his or her hands. Toilets...

To save his bloated city budget Mayor Daley sold the Chicago Skyway toll road. Then he sold the city parking meters. And now? Now Daley wants to sell the city water system in order to keep paying all his broken nosed pals their monthly stipend. CBS Channel 2 is reporting that that Chicago is considering leasing its water system. Apparently there is a local precedent for this idea already in the Will County city of Homer Glen that leased its city water services to a German-owned company. Amusingly enough, the mayor of Homer Glen is also named Daley (no...

< snip > After Headley’s arrest, dozens of FBI agents from the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Oct. 18 raided a Grundy County meat-processing plant owned by Rana that specializes in Islamic foods. Rana was arrested at his North Side home the same day as the raid on his First World Management Services plant in Kinsman, a farming town northwest of Dwight. Agents seized records from the plant, as well as a related North Side business also raided that day, said the source, who is familiar with the investigation. Rana is accused...

In 1994, while Barack Obama's memoir Dreams From My Father was being polished off, Bill Ayers co-authored an essay whose title befits a former merchant seaman: "Navigating a restless sea: The continuing struggle to achieve a decent education for African American youngsters in Chicago." In "Navigating," Ayers and his nominal co-author, former New Communist Movement leader Michael Klonsky, offer a detailed analysis of the Chicago school system and a discussion of potential reforms. Curiously, so too does Obama in Dreams. What makes Obama's educational digression notable is that he had spent only two months working on education issues as a...

Long recognized as one of America's savviest -- and most splashy -- advertisers, Apple Inc. is looking to seal another flashy pact with the CTA. A CTA spokeswoman confirmed that the transit authority is in talks with the computer and iPhone behemoth about a deal that could net the cash-strapped CTA as much as $4 million in funding from Apple to pay for an upgrade of the run-down subway station at North and Clybourn, which is adjacent to an Apple retail store now under construction and expected to open next year.

You dirty rat. Chicago and Cook County residents aren’t the only ones about to get shocking tax news; the city is debuting a “tax whistle-blower” plan that could turn neighbor against neighbor in Chicago’s business community. The folks at city hall will pay cash bounties to informants who turn in business tax cheats around the city. The reward would amount to some sort of percentage of the tax money that the city recovers. "It's just another way of bringing people into compliance," Revenue Department spokesman Ed Walsh told the Sun-Times. "It would probably be ... a business knowing that a...

The FBI this month arrested a second Chicago man allegedly involved in an international terrorist plot with Western European targets, the Tribune has learned. The man was taken into custody Oct. 3 before he boarded a flight at O'Hare International Airport to Philadelphia, the first stop on a trip to Pakistan, where he planned to meet people with known ties to terrorist organizations that have carried out fatal attacks that resulted in the deaths of U.S. citizens, a source said. He has not been charged.

Paul Kroenke wrote a great piece on the empty bravado of Mayor Richard Daley and his populist claims that he won't raise property taxes. Kroenke pretty much shows that because of the tax zones that Daley has set up across the city, he really can't raise property taxes even if he wanted to do so. Back on October 14, Daley played the populist by claiming that he was ruling out property tax hikes. "You can't [raise property taxes] ... That would hurt people tremendously," Daley said. "You can only take so much. People are being laid off on a daily...

Chicago prosecutors have subpoenaed the grades and other material regarding the classroom performance of Northwestern University journalism students, according to The New York Times. Seems the prosecutors are tired of being second-guessed by the J-students, who are participants in The Innocence Project. The Innocence Project is an effort by Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism to provide students with real-life experience in scrutinizing the actions of police and prosecutors in old cases. Their work has led to the release of at least 11 inmates who were shown to have been wrongly convicted. It's that success rate that has the local DAs...

Chicago is considering leasing its water system to help fix the budget. The new boss could charge whatever they want for water, CBS 2's Roseanne Tellez reports.

The “innocent until proven guilty” concept is at the very heart of our legal system. Government ought not be able to exact punishment for a crime until proof has been established, beyond a reasonable doubt, by a jury of one’s peers.But this foundational principle of justice has been tossed out the window in recent years, at least in one realm, that of civil or asset forfeiture. Civil forfeiture allows police to seize more than $1 billion worth of property each year — cash, cars, boats, etc. — that is alleged to have been used in the furtherance of a crime.The...

Michelle Malkin slams President Obama in ChicagoOctober 23, 2009 BY ABDON M. PALLASCH Political Reporter Conservative firebrand columnist/blogger Michelle Malkin came to Chicago Thursday night to slam President Obama in his hometown and to slap Republicans who work with Obama instead of fighting him. “Many of you fight not just the Culture of Corruption among Democrats but the culture of corruption that has paralyzed and plagued much of the Republican Party nationally and locally,” Malkin told 250 members of the United Republican Fund of Illinois. And Malkin made it clear to this crowd at the Chicago Hilton — site of...

Former top editors of The Chicago Tribune and other journalists, backed by a public television station and a major foundation, on Thursday announced formation of a nonprofit news organization in Chicago, which will provide pages of local news for a Chicago edition of The New York Times, to be started next month. James E. O’Shea, a former editor of The Los Angeles Times and a former managing editor of The Tribune, will serve as editor of the new organization, the Chicago News Cooperative, and James Warren, another former managing editor of The Tribune, will write a regular column for the...

A 36-year-old Richfield man charged with making terroristic threats during an argument with another man in Wright County has been arrested at O'Hare Airport after skipping out before his trial was to begin this month, authorities in Minnesota said today. Ismail Alqawasmi remains in custody after his arrest at 8 p.m. Thursday, the Wright County Sheriff's Office said. The Chicago-Sun Times reported that Alqawasmi flew into the United States from Amman, Jordan, on Royal Jordanian airlines and a customs official conducting a name check found the warrant on a law enforcement data base, according to police. Alqawasmi was searched and...

Lawyer accused of demanding sex for job October 23, 2009 4:21 AM A Chicago immigration attorney is facing sanctions after he demanded "sexual interaction with me and my partner" as a job condition from a woman seeking a position as legal assistant at their firm. After the woman responded to an ad that Samir Z. Chowhan placed in the "Adult Gigs" section of Craigslist, he told her in a follow-up e-mail that she would also need to "perform for us sexually" as "part of the interview process." Chowhan is accused of lying to the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission...

They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way. –Jim Malone, "The Untouchables" When Barack Obama promised to deliver "a new kind of politics" to Washington, most folk didn't picture Rahm Emanuel with a baseball bat. These days, the capital would make David Mamet, who wrote Malone's memorable movie dialogue, proud. A White House set on kneecapping its opponents isn't, of course, entirely new. (See: Nixon) What is a little novel is the public and bare-knuckle way in which the Obama...

*snip* Turns out that when the former governor instituted a state-hiring freeze back in 2003, it was just a ruse so that he could do favors for a bunch of politically connected buddies. He ended up hiring just over 2,500 people during the so-called freeze. But these weren’t ordinary applicants; politicians, including then-state-senator Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, pushed all the job seekers on Blago. None of the politicians in the report are accused of doing anything wrong -- leaning on clout is the status quo in Springfield -- but the report does illustrate the insider game that occurs...

"His father was a great friend of my father." The reference to William Ayers' father was how Mayor Richard M. Daley began his defense of Barack Obama for his association with the unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist. Daley's father, of course, was Richard M. Daley, mayor of Chicago from 1955 until his death in 1976. Ayers' father was head of Commonwealth Edison, the Chicago-based utility, from 1964 to 1980. You bet they were great friends. That's governance, Chicago style. The head of government is friends with the heads of every big business, lobby and union, and together they make decisions on...

The Chamber of Commerce is only the latest target of the Chicago Gang in the White House. They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way. –Jim Malone, "The Untouchables" When Barack Obama promised to deliver "a new kind of politics" to Washington, most folk didn't picture Rahm Emanuel with a baseball bat.These days, the capital would make David Mamet, who wrote Malone's memorable movie dialogue, proud.

At 8 a.m. Sunday the population of Kinsman, Ill., stood at 109. An hour later it nearly doubled, as upwards of 100 federal agents and police swooped in on the tiny, rural community. And no one seems to know why. The law enforcement officers, including FBI agents, immigration officials and state police, surrounded an Islamic meat plant in Kinsman, cordoning off the area and briefly detaining the plant's handful of employees. The FBI isn't saying much, and the county sheriff is mum too, leaving Kinsman's residents mystified. The bust, in a town that has no local police force, involved dozens...

“When you can’t win an argument based on the facts, launch vicious political attacks.”

"His father was a great friend of my father." The reference to William Ayers' father was how Mayor Richard M. Daley began his defense of Barack Obama for his association with the unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist. Daley's father, of course, was Richard M. Daley, mayor of Chicago from 1955 until his death in 1976. Ayers' father was head of Commonwealth Edison, the Chicago-based utility, from 1964 to 1980. You bet they were great friends. That's governance, Chicago style. The head of government is friends with the heads of every big business, lobby and union, and together they make decisions on...

Daley: City Managers To Take Nearly Five Weeks Off Thousands Of City Workers To Take 24 Unpaid Days In 2010 CHICAGO (CBS) ― Faced with a $550 million budget deficit, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley on Monday said that all non-union city workers would take nearly five working weeks of unpaid leave next year to save the city money. Daley announced plans Monday to save $114 million by requiring 3,600 non-union city workers to take 24 unpaid days off, eliminating 220 vacant jobs and cutting expenses like travel and supplies by $20 million.

Approximately 100 armed federal agents, backed by a helicopter, 50 vehicles and sharpshooters, raided a Muslim meatpacking plant earlier this week but remain silent about the secret operation. Only half a dozen people work at the plant. No one was arrested, but one eyewitness said the huge police force indicates that the raid may involve criminal activity other than hiring illegal immigrants. Terror-related activity has not been ruled, but officials have refused all comment on the case...

SNIPPET: "Search at Grundy County plant called part of ongoing probe" SNIPPET: "But a source said the owner of the plant, which processes lamb and goat, was taken into custody at his home in Chicago. Documents and records were taken from the plant and from a Chicago travel agency on West Devon Avenue, also owned by the same person, the source said."

Mayor Richard Daley continued his drumbeat of bad financial news Monday, outlining a wage freeze and an unpaid month off for nonunion city workers that fell short of explaining how he will balance the 2010 budget that he is to unveil Wednesday. With revenues coming in well below expectations, the city has projected a deficit of more than $500 million next year. The new moves announced Monday would save about $44 million: --Reducing such costs as travel and supplies by 5 percent: $20 million. --Declining to fill 220 vacant jobs: $18 million. --Denying a scheduled cost-of-living increase for nonunion workers:...

One of Chicago's top five trade shows may be leaving the gigantic McCormick Place Convention Center and taking up business with Orlando, Florida. Why? Because the extremely high costs forced on Chicago by the various unions that have a hammer lock on the service side of the trade show business are driving trade shows to other states. Crain's Business reports that the Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc. is considering the move to sunny Florida as a cost cutting measure. The show has been held in Chicago since 1971 but organizers are considering the move because of a "need to...

As the U.S. Supreme Court makes its stately way into the new term, a case over the horizon promises to hit the 20,000 gun control laws in this country with the impact of a 9mm round. The prep work came last year in District of Columbia vs. Heller. A narrow 5-4 majority struck down the gun control law in the nation's capital, and for the moment settled an argument over just what the Second Amendment to the Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights, actually means. The Second Amendment reads, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of...

The Olympics was going to save the day. Then President Obama and wife Michelle made fools of themselves telling the Olympic committee how the Olympics would make them happy because they love sports, and they sat on their daddy's laps watching sports, and they really, really, really love the Olympics. One vote and out was the president's reward for wasting millions of the taxpayer's money flying them to Copenhagen. This presented a major problem for Mayor Daley, soon to run for reelection. He was hoping against hope that the Olympics would sweep into Chicago and save his floundering budget. The...

On September 14th, 2007, the water main broke at Jose De Diego Elementary School in the 1300 block of Claremont in in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago. The Department of Water was dispatched following this break to investigate. The subsequent inspection found enough problems with the schools plumbing that the commissioner of the Department of Water, John Spatz, sent a letter to CEO of the Chicago Public Schools Arne Duncan informing him of the situation on September 21st of 2007. In that letter, Spatz recommended that water fountains in the school be covered until several problems are fixed. According...

After action report of yesterday's Chicago "Can you hear us NOW?" march on the media. Approximately 100 patriots gathered at 4:00pm outside of ABC news studios on State Street in Chicago. We sang God Bless America, The National Anthem and chanted "report the news" "do your jobs" "can you hear us now?" etc... After about 1/2 hour, we marched on over to CBS News studios. The folks at CBS saw us coming and pulled down the window shades to the studio. LOL, cowards. More chanting commenced. The protest was to last until 6pm, but I left at about 5:30 as...

Ultimately, I still believe that we'll never know exactly what happened but here's what I've gathered after having conversations with members of No Games Chicago. In essence, one of the reasons that Chicago lost was that Daley's machine politics didn't transfer over to the IOC all that well. For instance, Daley said several untruths and many of these untruths were eventually discovered by the IOC. So, by the end, his credibility was weakened. Daley claimed that Chicago has a solid infrastructure. He claimed that all the Olympics sites would be compacted next to each other. His biggest whopper was that...

This is a powerful and disturbing piece. Although long it's worth seeing to the end. All the quotes were from articles I found including the Boston Globe and the Atlantic.

The public is being warned to avoid downtown Chicago expressways after pavement was damaged during construction work on the northbound Kennedy Expressway at Adams Street. "We're advising people to stay off the downtown expressways for the next 24 hours," said Marisa Kollias, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Transportation. "This is a major crisis." Workers were pumping concrete into an underground freight tunnel this morning when "pressure made the road erupt," according to an IDOT dispatcher. Two right lanes of the northbound Kennedy have been closed. It was not known how long the lanes would be shut down. The...

Chicago - Rev. Jesse Jackson says it's time to declare a state of emergency in Chicago so students can be ensured safe passage to and from school.

Tony Ray was talking with a police officer outside the Forest Park Community Center in Joliet a couple of weeks ago when the two men suddenly heard the crack of gunshots. Ray, executive director of the center, headed to safety inside the building. The officer ran to investigate. Sadly, the incident is not all that uncommon. There have been 165 shootings so far this year, almost as many in all of last year. Murders are up, too. There have been nine so far this year compared to six in all of 2008. That has community leaders like Ray and the...

GENEVA - A 43-foot-long magnet for the world's largest particle collider broke "with a loud bang and a cloud of dust" during a high-pressure test, and officials said Tuesday they are working to find a replacement part. The part that failed March 27 was in a super-cooled magnet designed to focus streams of protons so that they collide and allow scientists to study the results of the collision, giving them a better understanding of the makeup of matter, according to Fermilab, based in suburban Chicago, which has an accelerator of its own and is helping build one deep beneath the...

CTA plan: $3 for train, 25-cent bus fare hike, job losses October 12, 2009 8:38 PM | 281 Comments | UPDATED STORY CTA service would run less frequently and the basic fare would be raised to as much as $3 next year under a dire 2010 budget proposal unveiled today. The CTA workforce would be hit hard as well to ease a projected $300 million budget shortfall. Up to 1,100 union jobs and 100 administrative position are slated for elimination if new public funding and employee concessions fail to occur, transit officials said. "Union employees have been relatively untouched by...

Another insult to long suffering Chicago Cubs fans. ----- WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — The Chicago Cubs are seeking Chapter 11 protection, a step that will allow its corporate parent to hand the team to new owners. The team filed for bankruptcy in Delaware on Monday. The move was anticipated as the Tribune Co. looks to complete an $845 million sale of the team, Wrigley Field and related properties to the family of billionaire Joe Ricketts. Tribune, which also owns the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, filed for bankruptcy protection in December, but the Cubs were not included in...