Free Republic

Gun Control: On his way to a play date with the world's most famous golfer, President Obama stops in America's most violent city to push universal background checks that Chicago's violent street gangs will totally ignore. Janay McFarlane, 18, was killed late Friday just hours after her younger sister joined a group of teens onstage for President Obama's speech in Chicago on gun violence. McFarlane was shot to death hours after her little sister, Destini, 14, sat just feet away as Obama spoke in the aftermath of the similar murder of Hadiya Pendleton. The 15-year-old Pendleton was gunned down in...

Federal officials filed charges Friday against Jesse Jackson Jr. after the former congressman reportedly signed a plea deal for allegedly improperly spending hundreds of thousands in campaign funds. The paperwork was filed at the U.S District Courthouse in Washington. Jackson, who left the public eye last summer for treatment of bi-polar disorder and resigned from office in November, is not expected to make an appearance, but he offered a response in his first statement to the public in months.

AP/WJLA) A 15-year-old majorette who performed with the King College Prep High School band in President Obama's recent inaugural parade was shot to death in Chicago. Police say Hadiya Pendleton was shot Tuesday afternoon in a South Side park. She died at a city hospital. Pendleton was standing under a canopy during heavy rain with her volleyball team when a man jumped a fence, ran toward the group and started shooting. Another teenage boy was shot in the leg. No arrests have been made. Pendleton's godfather says she was an excellent student and had dreams of being a doctor or...

State Budgets: Inability or unwillingness to fix the state's hemorrhaging pension system and curb union power has led a major credit rating service to downgrade the Land of Lincoln's rating to the lowest in the nation. On Friday, the bond rating agency Standard & Poor's downgraded the state's credit level again, to A-, putting Illinois' on par with California. No, actually below California, for S&P gives California a positive outlook. Illinois' fragile overall financial status netted it a negative outlook, putting it behind California overall. The ratings came out now because Illinois plans to issue $500 million in bonds within...

SNIP Hagel, however, has friends in Democratic lobbying circles. The powerful Washington D.C. organization known as the Podesta Group is reportedly asking defense contractors for financial support to run ads defending the Hagel nomination. Fox News White House Chief White House Correspondent Ed Henry reported on Friday: (2:15 in) "Sources confirm to Fox [that] Democratic super lobbyist Tony Podesta has been hired by a firm known as the Bipartisan Group to help mobilize support for Hagel. And defense contractors received calls this week urging them to be ready for a Hagel pick as soon as Monday, and asking them for...

In 2004, a nephew of Chicago’s then-mayor Richie Daley got into an altercation off of Rush Street, the Windy City’s alcohol-fueled playground for revelers and romancers. Taunts were thrown, obscenities exchanged, and in an instant, a kid from the suburbs, David Koschman, who was just 21 years old at the time, fell backwards, his head making an audible thump as it contacted the street. A friend says that he was unconscious before he hit the ground According to witnesses R. J. Vanecko, a current Daley nephew and a former college lineman who weighed in a 230 pounds and stands 6-feet-3,...

Congressmen: Jackson Jr. suffering tremendouslyAssociated Press 3:54 p.m. CST, November 24, 2012 **SNIP** After Saturday's service, Davis and Rush said they have not seen Jackson and don't know where he is. But they said they understand why he has not yet spoken publicly about his resignation. "He can't take the pressure," Rush said. Rush said when he and Davis visited with Jackson a few weeks ago, the 47-year-old son of a civil rights icon broke down in tears several times. They said they don't want others to see him that way. "He's suffering under a tremendous, tremendous toil," Rush said....

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...