Free Republic

This story has been building for weeks on HillBuzz.org, but the reporting there was often iffy, hazy, and speculative, so I didn't write about it myself. But this week things have come to a head proving the allegations had some merit because now Cook County GOP Executive Director Jeremy Rose has resigned over the allegations of sexual harassment leveled against him. The story goes that on June 17, 2009, a woman was attending a Chicago Young Republicans meeting in Chicago and when she made to leave for the night was prevented from doing so by Rose. Rose began touching the...

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger's last year in office is marked by one incident of bilking the taxpayers after another. Each week seems to bring a new example of Stroger and his buddies and family members sticking their hands in our pockets and this week has been no different. In fact, this week we've gotten a twofer as two incidents of Stroger's nest feathering have come to light. The first came on the 27th when Big Boss Todd awarded a $15,000 consulting job to Raymond L. Harris Sr., of Bolingbrook, who worked on Stroger's losing primary campaign to retain...

The Sun-Times reports that the next Cook County Board President might be yet another bought and paid for union stooge. Democrat Party candidate Toni Preckwinkle raised $1.3 million for her campaign for county board president thus far and $220,000 of that came from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). So, what we are seeing is yet another Democrat candidate owned lock, stock and barrel by a public employees union. Gee, I wonder if she’ll be amenable to union demands once in office? Her opponent, GOP candidate Roger Keats, has raised only $19,000 so far. Not that there IS a Republican...

A local rapper and a 35-year-old man are accused of beating a man to death because he accidentally scratched the rapper’s car. Edward Brown and Steven Fox, 26, a rapper known as “Sincere the Realist,” sent the 46-year-old victim into coma and eventually his death, according to prosecutors and police reports. Brown is a family friend of Larry Brown, who died on July 7 from the injuries related to attack, according to court testimony. It was Fox’s car that Larry Brown caused minor damage to when he was returning home in the early morning hours of June 17, assistant state’s...

EDITOR'S NOTE: Dan Patlak was an analyst at the Board of Review for eight years. Patlak has been a taxpayer advocate in Wheeling Township where he is in his second term as Wheeling Township Assessor. Patlak is a Certified Illinois Assessing Officer and has been a licensed real estate broker since 1986. Patlak is a member of the National Taxpayers Union and is endorsed by the National Taxpayers United of Illinois PAC. DAN PATLAK -- IN HIS OWN WORDS My campaign for Commissioner of the Cook County Board of Review has adopted a radical new idea…educating taxpayers so they can...

One of the main reasons that little Todd Stroger lost his comfy job as president of the Cook County Board -- the office left him by his deceased father -- is because of the graft and payoffs to his friends and family members that he constantly perpetrated. It was so bad even Democrats were ashamed of him and voted him out of office in the last primary. But thanks to the fact that Illinois Democrats moved the primary to February President Stroger has eight months to continue giving his friends and family members cushy jobs paid for by the County...

Reporting from Washington — Mwenda Murithi, the Kenyan-born leader of a notorious Chicago street gang, was arrested 26 times after his student visa was revoked in 2003. Charged with at least four felonies, he served 30 days in the Cook County Jail for a 2007 drug violation. By law, he could have been deported immediately. But Chicago officials did not report him to immigration authorities because city and county ordinances prohibit them from doing so. Not long after he got out of jail, Murithi ordered a gang hit that resulted in the death of 13-year-old Schanna Gayden, struck by a...

One of the most exhausting days we have had in awhile. Freepers, Minutemen, Veterans and law abiding citizens showed up at City hall to make sure there was a voice to demand justice for Schanna Gayden a young teenager who was muderer in Logan Square by an illegal alien who was arrested 27 times by the Chicago Police Department and nothing was done. If we had SB1070 in Illinois Schanna might still be with us today!! Be reminded we live in a sanctuary city and the hands of the Chicago Police are tied behind their backs when it comes to...

Cook County's 'country club' hospital Oak Forest Hospital is virtually empty -- and far overstaffed May 17, 2010 BY LISA DONOVAN AND ART GOLAB Staff Reporters Cook County-owned Oak Forest Hospital is known by doctors and nurses in the public health system as the "country club." They aren't referring just to the 340 rolling acres the hospital sits on, or the pond that beckons geese, ducks and brown-bagging staffers. » Click to enlarge image On a given day, more than two-thirds of Oak Forest Hospital's beds are empty, and about a fifth of its buildings are vacant. An entrance by...

<p>The 1890s Chicago City Council was notorious for corrupt political practices orchestrated by a faction of its aldermen known as the Gray Wolves. So named because they were viewed as preying upon the defenseless public, the Gray Wolves were led by First Ward aldermen “Bathhouse” John Coughlin and “Hinky Dink” Mike Kenna, and Johnny Powers of the Nineteenth Ward. These elected officials were not only skilled at trading votes for favors, but once in office they excelled in making municipal decisions to profit themselves financially.</p>

A long-brewing political war over Cook County property taxes has gone nuclear with charges that tax bills are being delayed intentionally until after the November elections to disguise big tax breaks to politically connected businesses and higher levies on homeowners.snipAt his [Houlihan's] press conference, he said that the County Board of Review — which doublechecks and revises proposed property assessments made by Mr. Houlihan's office — "is engaged in a deliberate effort to delay second-installment property tax bills until after the Nov. 2 election."

Chicago Breaking News reported late last night that former Chicago schools chief and current Secretary of Education Arne Duncan manipulated a system to favor powerful political allies by placing their children in the schools of their choice. The discovery of a list, the existence of which had been long denied by the city, and its composition of mainly high-powered political figures calls into question the appeals system used to reconsider applications that had been denied by the top Chicago-area schools: While many Chicago parents took formal routes to land their children in the best schools, the well-connected also sought help...

A naked, wet and angry Rahm Emanuel? That's the last image Americans need in our minds right now. But it's been seared onto our brains — just like that weird wrestling scene from the movie "Borat" — thanks to former U.S. Rep. Eric Massa, D-N.Y., who resigned the other day amid allegations he sexually harassed male staffers. "Let me tell you a story about Rahm Emanuel," Massa said on a recent radio program, talking about taking a shower in the Congressional Gym. "I'm sitting there showering, naked as a jaybird, and here comes Rahm Emanuel not even with a towel...

the times Some see Preckwinkle nomination as sign voters want to move past seedy Stroger era New era for Crook County? By Sophia Tareen Posted: Monday, February 22, 2010 12:05 am CHICAGO | Corruption in the nation's second-largest county is so commonplace that even a government phone system expects complaints: "For current patronage issues, press 2." For decades, Cook County -- where dozens and dozens of employees, contractors and politicians have been convicted of wrongdoing -- has been synonymous with politically connected hiring and nepotism. Although the county since 1983 has been under a court order banning political hiring and...

A new study has been released by the University of Illinois in conjunction with the Better Government Association that details Cook County’s disgusting history of political neer-do-wells calling it a true “culture of corruption.” (Download .pdf of report) “More than 140 people have been convicted of corruption in county-related cases since 1970,” the study finds. Featured are tales of bribes, ghost payrolls, sweetheart deals, rip-offs, and the “wholesale subversion of the judicial system.” “This rogue’s gallery of corrupt individuals is just the tip of the iceberg,” said the BGA’s Andy Shaw, “because, for every one of those convicted, there may...

New study provides insight into 141+ years of political hijinks Cook County has been a "dark pool of political corruption" for more than a century, a new study by the University of Illinois at Chicago says. Nearly 150 employees, politicians and contractors in the nation's second-largest county have been convicted on corruption charges since 1957, according to a report released Thursday by the university and the Better Government Association (.pdf) The 33-page study gives a history of corruption, starting from 1869 when county commissioners were jailed for rigging a bid to paint City Hall. It also details hiring scandals, including...

Chicago Tribune reporter John Kass is an old school journalist. He’s one among a cadre of Windy City reporters, most from the Sun Times and the Tribune, who routinely expose the hooligans and shenanigans of the Chicago Political Machine. Kass says the national MSM ignored the political environment that gave birth to Barack Obama. While Kass calls Obama “a Chicago political guy,” he knows the Machine is multi-layered. While the hub is Chicago, spokes extend throughout Cook County, and reach deep inside the state capital at Springfield. Because the MSM ignored the Machine from which Obama emerged, the electorate didn’t...

Terrence O’Brien got his start in Chicago Democratic politics like so many of his peers and the generations that came before him, dutifully ringing doorbells to solicit votes for his state senator on the far North Side. He rose to coordinating other precinct captains for such candidates as a young Cook County state’s attorney and mayoral hopeful named Richard M. Daley. After serving some 20 years as an elected leader of the obscure-but-jobs-rich Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, Mr. O’Brien decided last year that the time was ripe to seek higher office, to run for county board president. So he lined...

Illinois Democrats nominated Alex Giannoulias to run for the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama. As Richard Baehr noted Monday on AT, Giannoulias has substantial weaknesses that could enable Congressman Mark Kirk, the Republican nominee, to take the seat in November. The GOP Senatorial Campaign Committee is wasting no time in focusing on Guannoulias's shady past, something that may resonate with Illinois voters, sick of Democrat machine corruption that has left the state arguably in worse fiscal shape than California.

So, with a headline like that above perhaps you might imagine that I, a conservative, will launch into another attack on a Republican that just isn't Republicany enough for me, right? You might think that this will be just another hard-line blogger attacking another "moderate" Republican, right? Well, by "fake Republican" I mean just that: fake. Putting fake candidates on the ballot is a game that Chicago Democrats play in every election. Every election they put fake Republicans up against real Republicans in primary elections. What the Democrat Party does is put several shill candidates on ballots to drain votes...