Free Republic

Sweeping Illinois election law changes likely to be in place this fall mean it'll be easier to register, vote while away at college and cast an early ballot. Democrats say the relaxed rules will allow more people to exercise a basic democratic right, but Republicans are leery the moves are aimed at pumping up the Democratic vote in what has been a decidedly blue state. The changes are part of a measure lawmakers approved this spring that Gov. Pat Quinn plans to sign into law this summer. The biggest one will allow same-day registration for the first time, meaning Illinois...

The restoration of the University of Illinois’ iconic Alma Mater statue in April of this year comes with very mixed emotions. After undergoing a $300,000, two year restoration effort, our academic mother rests on her pedestal, arms outstretched once again welcoming us to Wright and Green Streets. But haven’t our university and other Illinois colleges and universities really made Illini citizens the children of cobblers who have no shoes? How can the state with such a proud academic and medical reputation be in such horrific disarray? Reading the most recent alumni magazine is disconcerting. “Blue Waters supercomputer on the Urbana...

Obama says he’s a “caged bear” on the loose. And he IS almost exactly like a caged bear on the loose. Nothing good will come of it, just blood and gore. Usually they euthanize animals after such an incident. And I would suggest to the Democrats that at the least they should consider castration. I mean if Michelle will let them have the parts for a while. Here’s an example: “A bear kept in captivity in a recreation center in the Rostov Region attacked a five-year-old girl,” writes RT.com, “biting off her hand. The girl is being treated in hospital,...

George Lucas, creator of "Star Wars," announced this week that he had chosen Chicago as the home of his new museum. Here's how the city and the movie series are remarkably alike: 1. An invisible power influences events, sometimes with negative results. In "Star Wars," it's The Force. In Chicago, it's The Clout. 2. Robots engage in predictable, often inane dialogue. In "Star Wars," there are R2-D2 and C-3PO. In Chicago, there are TV news anchors. 3. Story of a father and a son has great significance. In "Star Wars," it's Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. In Chicago, it's the...

CHICAGO (CBS) – Chicago Public Schools officials have sent layoff notices to 550 teachers and 600 clerical support staff, but said the teachers will be able to apply for other open jobs with the district for next school year. The district said the teacher layoffs were the result of enrollment declines at some schools, though CPS has not identified which ones. However, the district said it expects to have approximately 1,780 vacant teaching slots for next school year, and teachers who received layoff notices can apply for those positions. Approximately 1,400 of the open slots are for full-time teaching positions....

“Star Wars” creator George Lucas has selected Chicago over Los Angeles and San Francisco as the future home of his collection of art and movie memorabilia, according to a spokeswoman for the museum. The museum's board Wednesday is expected to vote on a name change — from the Lucas Cultural Arts Museum to the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art — and destination. Pending approval by the Chicago Plan Commission, Lucas' institution would be built on what are now parking lots between Soldier Field and McCormick Place and would open in 2018. Architectural renderings will be presented to city officials in...

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel earlier this month insisted that his brand of gun control should spread nationwide, but this past weekend’s Windy City body count – with six dead and more than 20 wounded, according to this morning’s Chicago Sun Times – does not instill public faith in his strategy. Earlier this month when Mark Glaze stepped down as executive director of Michael Bloomberg’s “Everytown for Gun Safety,” he told the Wall Street Journal, “when a mass shooting happens…nothing that we have to offer would have stopped that mass shooting (in Santa Barbara).” Late last month, Washington CeaseFire President Ralph...

At least 11 people were shot, four fatally, Saturday afternoon into early Sunday morning in Chicago. The most recent homicide occurred early Sunday morning on the Far South Side. At 7:43 a.m., police responded to a call of a "man down"’ in the 11100 block of South Lowe Avenue and found the victim with an apparent gunshot wound to the chest, according to Chicago Police Department News Affairs Officer Michael Sullivan.

Ex-Rep. Joe Walsh ‘kicked off the air’ over racist terms on radio Fri, 06/20/2014 - 3:37am Mitch Dudek According to posts on former U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh’s Twitter account Thursday night, the conservative radio talk-show host was kicked off the air on WIND-AM (560) for using racial slurs while trying to have a discussion about racial slurs. In a series of tweets posted about 7 p.m., Walsh says: “Just got kicked off the air until further notice. Tried to have honest discussion about racist terms and management censored my language.” And: “I’m trying to have an honest, adult conversations about...

Ahmed Abu Khatallah, the suspect captured by U.S. special forces on Tuesday for his role in the 2012 Benghazi attack, reportedly said he was motivated in part by the anti-Islam online video made in America, according to the New York Times. "What he did in the period just before the attack has remained unclear. But Mr. Abu Khattala told other Libyans in private conversations during the night of the attack that he was moved to attack the diplomatic mission to take revenge for an insult to Islam in an American-made online video," Times reporter David Kirkpatrick wrote in a story...

A group of Chicago-area nuns is suing a strip club behind their convent, complaining of noise, glaring neon lights, fist fights and heaps of litter that include empty whiskey bottles and used condoms. The Missionary Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo said Illinois mandates a 1,000-foot (300-meter) buffer zone between adult entertainment venues and places of worship or schools. The suit, filed on Friday in Cook County, also names the village of Stone Park, where the strip club is located. The $3 million Club Allure opened last September across the back fence of the convent, which has three chapels, a home...

VIDEO: Store Clerk Stands Up To Shoplifting Mob June 16, 2014 (CBS) – Chicago police are investigating a bold and massive shoplifting scheme. They walk into a store like any other shopper, only they have no plans to pay. In fact, they grab what they want and suddenly take off. But as CBS 2’s Mike Parker reports, the thieves were not expecting a store employee to put up such a fight. A dozen or so people came to the Grand Crossing neighborhood K & G clothing store, but not in search of advertised bargains. They came to steal, as a...

In tandem with a new report on gun crime in Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has proposed to track gun sales throughout the region and clamp down on gun retailers. Emanuel’s proposal limits buyers to one handgun purchase per month, and demands that gun sales be videotaped. The proposal is a response to a federal judge’s ruling in January that found the city’s total ban on gun shops to be unconstitutional.

While announcing that they would not longer give killers the opportunity at glory that comes from having their names mentioned and their photographs aired on television, Sun News also address the extremely low rate of "mass shootings" in America compared to the excruciatingly high rate of murder in gun-controlled Chicago. According to the Sun News, mass shootings around the world--including the U.S.--are so rare that news agencies make a mistake by seizing on them. Focusing specifically on the U.S., Sun News reported: "And in the U.S., they account for less than one percent of all gun-related deaths. Far more people

This picture of a prom ticket for a Chicago High School proves that the school has a serious problem. Paul Robeson High School is in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago and is one of the poorest and most dangerous schools in the city. See below via EAG News: That image came from veteran investigative reporter Chuck Goudie, who posted this image on his Facebook page. Some people might enjoy mocking the irony of the gross misuse of vocabulary. But unless the organizers of the prom festivities planned the wording this way as a joke, there’s nothing funny about the situation....

The Chicago Police Department, working with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and FBI, has opened the Crime Gun Intelligence Center to crackdown on illegal guns from what they call “three-percenters.” A number of agencies including Chicago PD, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the ATF, and other regional partners, will operate the new joint task force from within the ATF’s Chicago Field Division. The target of this Crime Gun Intelligence Center: a group the ATF is referring to as “three-percenters.”

The South Side lakefront jewel where Barack and Michelle Obama held their wedding reception vs. a rare, open downtown field set against Chicago's majestic mountain range of skyscrapers. These are just a few of the preliminary offerings area universities plan to present to the president, the first lady and the few confidants helping them as they begin to weigh where to locate the Obama presidential library and museum. Meanwhile, the University of Hawaii, where the president grew up, has said it wants to build the library on oceanfront property in Kakaako, a commercial and retail district of Honolulu between Ala...

Three women were shot to death and at least seven other people were wounded in shootings across Chicago on Monday.

President Obama’s senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett held a series of meetings with illegal immigrant activists during Obama’s first term and concluded that “They are the best that we have.” Jarrett, a Chicago-era mentor to Obama and wife Michelle, is currently fighting to pass immigration reform legislation, in her words, “this summer.” “I had met, maybe, a year-and-a-half ago, with about Four Dream Act kids,” Jarrett said in a 2012 conversation with Walter Isaacson at the 2012 Aspen Ideas Festival, video of which was posted by The Aspen Institute in 2014.

It’s hard to deny just how poorly Chicago’s public schools are performing when it hits you in the face. Such is the case with Paul Robeson High School’s 2014 prom theme: “This is Are Story.” That image came from veteran investigative reporter Chuck Goudie, who posted this image on his Facebook page. Some people might enjoy mocking the irony of the gross misuse of vocabulary. But unless the organizers of the prom festivities planned the wording this way as a joke, there’s nothing funny about the situation. Paul Robeson High School is located in the Englewood neighborhood on Chicago’s South...