Free Republic

A reporter for the Chicago Tribune congratulated President Obama on winning reelection during a press conference Wednesday at the White House. Obama called on Christi Parsons, the White House reporter for the Chicago Tribune. "Thank you, Mr. President," Parsons said. "And congratulations, by the way." Obama then noted Parsons was there "when I was running for state Senate." "That's right, I was," Parsons replied, adding that she had "never seen you lose. I wasn't there that one time."

A Chicago Bar called “Rocks” is currently offering free drinks to voters at their election-night party. The above photo of the flyer for the bar makes light of the Chicago way, of voting “early and often, (As long as it isn’t for Romney).”

Hi! Are you an employee of the State Department? Treasury? Defense? Justice? Interior? Agriculture? Labor? Health & Human Services? Housing & Urban Development? Transportation*? Energy? Education? Veterans Affairs? Homeland Security? Commerce? [pause] Wow. I didn’t actually think that I’d be able to find shenanigans going on in the Commerce Department. Aside from the Census, it doesn’t really do all that much. …anyway, if you are a member of this or any other government agency, please take this test. Please look around your desk Monday and see if you can see anything that will make you go Man, if Darrell Issa...

....The first shooting of the evening happened at about 5:46 p.m. on the 6100 block of South Ashland Avenue, said Chicago Police News Affairs Officer Daniel O'Brien. The victim was a man in his 30s who sustained a gunshot wound to his abdomen, said O'Brien. The man was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in critical condition, police said.

Campaign 2012: When an incumbent Democratic president is virtually tied in a congressional district he carried by high double digits in 2008, and is losing in the suburbs of his hometown, there could be trouble brewing. In August, a poll by the Joliet, Ill.-based polling firm of McKeon and Associates, found President Obama leading challenger Mitt Romney in Cook County, which includes Chicago and its suburbs, by a 12-point margin 49-37. That would seem to be a comfortable edge, but it is significantly smaller than traditional margins needed to outweigh the more Republican downstate vote. "He has to come out...

In an abrupt announcement that caught state and local business officials off guard, cable giant Comcast announced Tuesday that it's closing all of its California call centers, including one in Natomas that employs about 300 workers. Why? That's the tricky question. Earlier in the day, citing the state's "high cost of doing business," a regional Comcast official said the company's Natomas, Livermore and Morgan Hill call centers will be shuttered on Nov. 30. Overall, about 1,000 jobs will be relocated to existing centers in Portland, Seattle and Denver. But hours later, after state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento,...

There was an old Greek legend that Periander, the tyrant of Corinth, once visited the very successful tyrant of Miletus, named Thrasybulos, to find out what was the secret to his success and long reign. As the two men walked through a grain field, Thrasybulos said not a word in response to Periander's question. Instead, as they went, he would break off the strongest and fullest heads of wheat, crush them, and cast them aside. By the end of the walk, Periander realized that Thrasybulos had been answering his question all along. The key to maintaining power when you were...

Dan Cathy decided to make a PUBLIC statement to Mike Huckabee that, at the least, muddied the progress we had made with Chick-fil-A and, at the worst, contradicted the documents and promises Chick-fil-A made to me and the community earlier this month. Since Mr.Cathy made a PUBLIC statement, I am PUBLICLY asking him to confirm and support what I was told and shown by his company representatives. 1. For the FIRST TIME in the company’s history the company wrote and distributed a document to all of its employees titled, “Chick-fil-A: Who We Are” that guarantees that the company and its...

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The successful business leaders that sit on the Chicago Board of Education must have checked their brains at the door when they went into the negotiating room with the teachers union. How else could they possibly negotiate a contract that the school district can’t possibly afford? Truth be told, if board member Penny Pritzker’s Hyatt Hotels operated that way, they’d be out of business. But, alas, this is government. They strike deals with unions and figure out how taxpayers will fund it later. Reuters tells us: “Chicago public school teachers returned to their classrooms on Wednesday but thorny questions remained...

Illinoispaytoplay.com (IP2P) has learned that Daniel S. Mahru, former business partner of Antoin "Tony" Rezko, made a deal with the Department of Justice (DoJ) for his silence. IP2P is the first to report that on, October 4 2012, Daniel S. Mahru will receive probation at his sentencing hearing. IP2P has also learned that this is being done to insure Mahru will not speak of crimes, of which he has knowledge, that implicate Barack Obama, Valarie Jarrett, Allison Davis, Tony Rezko and others. (Remember Tony recently saying he committed crimes for which Fitzgerald did not charge him.) IP2P is also investigating...

“Gay” media organizations and the mainstream press have headlined over the last two days Chick-fil-A’s “change” that they claim means the company suddenly is promising not to discriminate against homosexuals – and that it would stop giving money to those organizations that promote traditional marriage. But it appears the facts are that the company’s anti-discrimination policy remains just as it was months ago .. and its donations appear to have had no new directive applied. It was a statement from The Civil Rights Agenda that prompted the recent headlines. The statement said of the Cathy family’s foundation, the WinShape Foundation,...

A Chicago alderman who had threatened to block Chick-fil-A from opening a store in his community says he will no longer stand in the chicken chain’s way after company leaders agreed to create policies that support the gay, lesbian and transgendered community. Proco “Joe” Moreno said in a statement Tuesday that Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A has placed in a company document an agreement that directs its employees to treat people of all backgrounds with “honor, dignity and respect — regardless of their beliefs, race, creed, sexual orientation and gender.” The chain also said it would refrain from engaging in political or social...

Chicago Teachers Vote to Continue Strike By STEPHANIE BANCHERO The Chicago public school teachers strike entered its second week after the teachers union declined Sunday to call off a week-long walkout that has catapulted the city into the national debate over teacher evaluations and job security. Only hours earlier, Chicago Teachers Union officials had trumpeted new concessions they said they had extracted from Mayor Rahm Emanuel during talks to settle the strike that started last Monday and has canceled classes for 350,000 students in the nation's third largest district. The vote to continue the strike came Sunday night by the...

Having spent the better part of a week asking teachers why they'd risk a public backlash by going on strike, I've concluded that the answer is best summed up by what one told me at their Labor Day rally: "Mayor Emanuel's pushed us to the limit. He's the world's biggest asshole." Actually, I think he may have dropped the F-bomb once—or twice. But I'm trying to clean things up since this is a family newspaper, dammit! But here's the bottom line: so much of this fight is fueled by the animosity of thousands of teachers toward one man. Emanuel increased...

If Wisconsin governor Scott Walker has spent the last 18 months painting a portrait of public-employee unions as intransigent and selfish, the Chicago Teachers Union this week provided him with confirmation. On Monday, 25,000 Chicago teachers (average salary: $76,000 before benefits) walked out of their classrooms, leaving nearly 350,000 schoolchildren and their parents in the lurch. The teachers are fighting to protect their lavish pay and benefit packages and also trying to stave off a new accountability plan that would evaluate their effectiveness using studentsÂ’ test scores. The Chicago strike serves as a counterpoint to events in Wisconsin after WalkerÂ’s...

So far this month, the number of homicides has surpassed an average of one per day. Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy found some consolation in that statistic on Saturday. “The fact is, we’re doing better than we were doing before,” McCarthy said, after a press conference highlighting a citywide youth anti-violence campaign that recently ended. Through noon Saturday, there were 10 homicides for the month in Chicago — including two gun-related deaths shortly before McCarthy’s press conference, according to reports. There were 15 homicides through Sept. 8 last year, Chicago police statistics show.

WASHINGTON — They are the Sopranos of the Afghanistan war, a ruthless crime family that built an empire out of kidnapping, extortion, smuggling, even trucking. They have trafficked in precious gems, stolen lumber and demanded protection money from businesses building roads and schools with American reconstruction funds. They safeguard their mountainous turf by planting deadly roadside bombs and shelling remote American military bases. And they are accused by American officials of being guns for hire: a proxy force used by the Pakistani intelligence service to carry out grisly, high-profile attacks in Kabul and throughout the country. Today, American intelligence and...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (rahm ih-MAN'-yoo-uhl) is leaving President Barack Obama's campaign so he can raise cash for an independent "super" political action committee trying to help the president win a second term. An Obama campaign aide confirmed Wednesday that Emanuel is making the switch to the Priorities USA Action super PAC.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel will be spending a lot less time at the Democratic National Convention than he’d originally planned. Originally, the mayor had planned to be in Charlotte from Tuesday through Friday morning. Now, his Communications Director Sarah Hamilton tells Newsradio that Emanuel has changed his plans. Hamilton insisted the mayor’s shortened trip to the convention doesn’t have anything to do with a possible teachers strike. She said Emanuel’s abbreviated trip likewise doesn’t have anything to do with the city’s higher murder rate this year.