Free Republic

When a government program is botched from the outset, everything about it becomes suspect. If money from the program flows to an elected official’s husband, you have to wonder — even more than you might usually wonder. If a teen hired by the program gets caught up in a murder rap, you can’t help but wonder why that teen was ever hired. When a government program is poorly executed at the outset, as was an anti-crime program set up by Gov. Pat Quinn, the benefit of the doubt fades fast. In August 2010, just before a tough election that pitted...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)The recent Conservative Political Action Conference provides a forum for big names. But it’s also a platform for the murmurs and asides from political strategists who’ve been everywhere and done everything, and like to speculate. Such is the case when the potential presidential candidacy ofHillary Clinton was parsed by a pair of insiders. Would she run? Maybe, if her health and vigor remain strong. But is she holding a place for someone else? Could be. The take-away suggestion: Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is seriously being groomed as a White House contender. “Maybe in the lead role, maybe the running mate....

CHICAGO - A former handyman serving life in prison for the 1993 murder of seven people at a suburban Chicago restaurant has been awarded nearly a half-million dollars in a civil lawsuit in which he alleged a jail guard punched him in the face. Victims' relatives Sunday criticized jurors' decision for James Degorski, who, with an accomplice, shot and stabbed two restaurant owners and five workers at Brown's Chicken and Pasta during a botched robbery. Their bodies were found in a walk-in cooler and freezer. Degorski, now 41, accused a Cook County Jail guard of punching him and breaking his...

Saturday, March 08, 2014 The Black Hitler of Harlem Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog The Black Hitler was a Chicago community organizer who moved to New York. Somewhere along the way he picked up a gold lined cape, a purple turban and a stepladder on which he used to stand while giving speeches outside the stores of Harlem's dwindling Jewish community.  The cape and the turban were combined with Nazi style military shirt and jackboots, for the quixotic uniform of a man who is remembered today as a pioneering labor leader-- but was known back then...

Jermalle Brown and Douglas Bufford were gang members hired to combat violence on the South Side through a program hatched by Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration. Paid with taxpayer funds to hand out anti-violence pamphlets, the teens were part-time foot soldiers in the governor’s $54.5 million Neighborhood Recovery Initiative, a program described as “a comprehensive and concerted effort to keep our young people safe, off the streets and in school.” Quinn launched that program a month before his 2010 election as an answer to gun carnage in the city — even though murders that year dipped to a nearly 50-year low....

CHICAGO — The daughter of President Barack Obama's former pastor was convicted on Friday of laundering thousands of dollars from a state grant for a Chicago-area job-training program, federal prosecutors said. A federal jury took less than two hours to find Jeri Wright, 48, the daughter of Jeremiah Wright, guilty on all counts for her part in a fraud scheme led by a former suburban police chief and the chief's husband, according to the U.S. Attorney's office for the Central District of Illinois in Springfield. The $1.25 million state grant was for a not-for-profit work and education program called We...

SPRINGFIELD—The daughter of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, President Barack Obama’s former minister, was convicted by a federal jury Friday of laundering thousands of dollars from a $1.25 million state grant for a Chicago-based job-training program. Jeri Wright said she would "definitely" appeal the verdict in U.S. District Court, which found her guilty of 11 counts that included money laundering, lying to federal agents and lying to a grand jury. "I didn't do anything," Wright, 48, of Hazel Crest, said as she left the Springfield courtroom.

The bidding war for President Barack Obama's presidential library is expected to formally get underway next week. Chicago, where the president spent his early career, is vying to put it somewhere on the South Side. New York, where he went to college, and his birthplace of Hawaii are also contenders. Like other presidential libraries, it's expected to be a big draw for tourists and create other economic spinoffs.

Sneed is told senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett is dating Ahmad Rashad, the four-times-married sportscaster who was once a wide receiver for the Minnesota Vikings. Although Jarrett has told at least one Chicago pal “it is not serious,” Sneed hears Rashad accompanied Jarrett to first lady Michelle Obama’s 50th birthday party at the White House in January. (snip) Rashad, who converted to Islam, was originally named Bobby Moore. ◆ Backshot: Rashad was photographed at an event in the East Room of the White House last Thursday to promote the “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative introduced by President Barack Obama urging...

ladimir Putin has put President Barack Obama’s vacation plans on hold. Obama’s headed to Coral Reef High School in the southern part of the city for an event about education and the economy Friday, which first lady Michelle Obama had been expected to attend as well. What hadn’t been known was that Obama’s daughters were planning to come with them, and that the four were going to extend the trip for a brief family getaway. Now the White House tells POLITICO that he’s reconsidering. “The president had planned to stay in South Florida with his family for the remainder of...

America is now run by the best and brightest of Chicago. What they did to Chicago, they’re doing to America. Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded Chicago’s credit rating, citing the city’s unfunded pension liabilities.The agency announced Tuesday it’s lowering the rating on $8.3 billion in debt from A3 to Baa1, putting it only three notches above junk-bond status.Moody’s Investor Service rated the city’s upcoming $388 million bond issuance at Baa1, down from A3, a level set last year after an unusual triple downgrade.Chicago will test the bond market for the first time since its bond rating dropped three notches, thanks...

A state licensing board has rejected about half of the concealed carry applications it has reviewed based on law enforcement objections — but those applications represent a tiny fraction of the total number filed, according to figures released Monday. The seven-member Concealed Carry Licensing Board has sustained about 100 objections, denying permits to those people, said Monique Bond, spokeswoman for the Illinois State Police. The board has overruled about 100 other objections, allowing those applications to move forward, Bond said

Detroit's looming bankruptcy is making news again, this time focusing on current restructuring plans aimed to wipe out $18 billion in debt by axing pension checks of city retirees, including police and fire. Massive long-term retirement and healthcare promises were by no means solely responsible for the city's fall, but these massive pensions coupled with a tax base weakened by high unemployment and housing vacancies caused the budget to bleed out quicker. The Michigan city may be the most recent victim of bankruptcy, but many of the 61 largest U.S. cities have adopted the same retirement legacy leading to $118...

If you're in the hospital with multiple fractures, a staph infection and a collapsed lung, you may not take great comfort when your doctor informs you that his last patient has it worse, being dead. Sometimes encouraging comparisons are not that encouraging. So Chicagoans didn't break out confetti upon hearing that Standard & Poor's Ratings Services regard the city's fiscal condition as less dire than Detroit's. In other news, most residents of Baghdad were not killed by suicide bombers yesterday. The S&P report is not exactly a burst of sunshine. It judges "both Detroit's and Chicago's budgetary performance to be...

A smaller and smaller percentage of adults are working to support the entire state population. Why does this matter? Because a booming economy provides the benefits of opportunity and upward mobility. But not only that. Growing the number of taxpayers is essential for funding core government services and pension bills. The only other tools legislators have are tax hikes, which have done more to chase away taxpayers than to fund the government. The percentage of the working-age population that is employed fell by 5.6 percentage points, from 65 percent in January 2008 to 59.4 percent in December 2013. This percentage,...

Russian military servicemen have taken weapons from a radar base and naval training facility in Ukraine's Crimea region and urged personnel to side with the peninsula's "legitimate" leaders, Interfax news agency said on Sunday. It quoted a Ukrainian Defense Ministry source as saying the Russian servicemen had taken pistols, rifles and ammunition cartridges from the radar post near in the town of Sudak and taken them away by car. Another group of Russian military had also removed weapons from a Ukrainian navy training centre in the port city of Sevastopol, where Russia's Black Sea Fleet also has a base.

Former lesbian Rosaria Butterfield found controversy and opportunity on her recent visit to a Christian college campus Joni Mitchell sang, “I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now, from up and down, and still somehow, it’s cloud illusions I recall. I really don’t know clouds at all.” Rosaria Butterfield, a former lesbian and Syracuse University professor, has looked at homosexuality from inside and outside, and has not come away empty-handed. I learned a lot from interviewing her last year, and Wheaton College students learned a lot when she visited their campus in late January. The visit was not without controversy....

Washington, DC (LiveActionNews) — Black leaders in Illinois have closed ranks, calling for increased accountability and safety regulations for abortion mills after the death of Tonya Reaves, who bled to death after a botched abortion in a Chicago Planned Parenthood. Reverend Ceasar LeFlore, Bishop Lance Davis, and State Representative Tom Morrison are leading the crusade for legislative change in the state of Illinois to prevent future tragedies like Reaves’s. Rev. LeFlore stated: tonyareavesWhile Roe v. Wade provides a women with choice it does not guarantee the safety of her life nor set a standard for abortion clinics demanding due diligence...

Recently, I completed the classroom portion of the new Illinois concealed carry licensingrequirement. I then traveled to the firing range with my classmates and passed the live-fire training by destroying a practice target with 30 rounds of 9 mm ammunition fired from three distances. Having had my fingerprints and a recent picture of myself scanned into the Illinois State Police database, completing the online registration form and paying my fee, I submitted my application. In 90 days or less I expect to receive my concealed carry permit and will be able to legally carry a loaded firearm on my person...

A day after a boy was arrested and charged with a felony for throwing a snowball at a police officer, students outside George Leland Elementary continued to build snowmen and throw snowballs at each other after school. According to police, a 13-year-old boy was charged as a juvenile with felony aggravated battery against a police officer Wednesday after he hit the officer in the arm with a snowball while the officer was parked in his vehicle in the 4900 block of West Congress Parkway about 3:20 p.m. Residents sounded off on the crime and punishment the next day, many describing...