Free Republic

No matter how many crimes occur in Chicago every day – carjackings, muggings, drug deals, political corruption – these rarely make the news, other than in reports of crime statistics. We hear numbers; we rarely learn the victims’ names. There are just too many of them. It’s the rarest of crimes – the incidents of severe police misconduct - that make the news. And the news of the day is a particularly disturbing story. The story broke on Thursday, July 6 that at least one Chicago police officer was being investigated for having sexual contact with illegal aliens (the press...

CHICAGO (CBS) — An emotional Mayor Rahm Emanuel lashed out today at the developer who allegedly performed illegal renovation work that led to the death of firefighter Daniel Capuano and we’re learning more about that businessman’s activities in the 10th Ward, reports CBS 2’s Derrick Blakley. “You don’t think they don’t make people like Dan Capuano anymore,” Emanuel said. Mayor Emanuel’s heartfelt tribute, after visiting the wife and three children of the fallen, 42-year-old Chicago firefighter, but Emanuel blasted the businessman renovating the South Chicago warehouse where Capuano died.

Abolishing federal things. Nice. In a crowded presidential field where the lion’s share of attention remains focused on the bombastic Donald Trump, candidates need to swing for the fences if they hope to earn much needed attention. Wisconsin governor Scott Walker made such a move Monday, announcing his intention to eliminate unions for federal employees and abolish the National Labor Relations Board. From the Associated Press: Union leaders are livid. Tony Reardon, president of the National Treasury Employees Union that represents 150,000 federal workers, said Walker is “declaring a war on middle-class workers.” And Democratic presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton...

..... On Monday, the Wisconsin governor released his plan to strangle unions, titled “My Plan to Give Power to the People, Not the Union Bosses.”....Under President Obama, the NLRB has been more aggressive for labor than the business-friendly boards of previous administrations. In August, for example, it made it easier for unions to negotiate on behalf of workers at companies that rely on contractors and franchisees. If fast-food workers at McDonald’s or software testers at Microsoft want to unionize, employers have to come to the table to negotiate. For Walker, this decision is evidence that the NLRB is now “a...

Detroit's Under-Funded Fire Departments Use a Soda Can For a Fire Alarm Where absent money leaves gaps, ingenuity fills in. Nowhere is that more true than in Detroit's fire departments, where, as Detroit Free Press reporter Tresa Baldas shows us, a soda can full of jangling coins and screws alerts the Motor City's long-suffering heroes when there's an emergency. The system is brilliantly simple: A soda can full of rattling metal is balanced on top of the fire department's printer at the end of the tray. When the printer spits out an emergency alert, the paper knocks over the can....

Federal judge blocks lawsuits against Detroit’s bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes stopped three lawsuits threatening to undo the city’s Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing. Detroit retirees had argued that the bankruptcy could dimish their pensions. DETROIT — A federal judge agreed with Detroit on Wednesday and stopped any lawsuits challenging the city's bankruptcy, declaring his courtroom the exclusive venue for legal action in the largest filing by a local government in U.S. history. The decision by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes was a major victory for Detroit, especially after an Ingham County judge last week said that Gov. Rick Snyder ignored the...

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.

Vote of Confidence A huge black turnout in November 1992 altered Chicago's electoral landscape—and raised a new political star: a 31-year-old lawyer named Barack Obama. By Gretchen Reynolds A huge black turnout in November 1992 altered Chicago's electoral landscape-and raised a new political star: a 31-year-old lawyer named Barack Obama. In the final, climactic buildup to November's general election, with George Bush gaining ground on Bill Clinton in Illinois and the once-unstoppable campaign of senatorial candidate Carol Moseley Braun embroiled in allegations about her mother's Medicare liability, one of the most important local stories managed to go virtually unreported: The...

In a confidential internal memorandum obtained by Face The State (PDF), the Colorado Democracy Alliance outlines a roster of "operatives" who worked for Democratic victory in the 2006 general election. The document outlines specific tasks for various members of the state's liberal infrastructure, including a campaign to "educate the idiots," assigned to the state's AFL-CIO union. Among the operation's intended targets: "minorities, GED's, drop-outs." Individuals named in the document, marked "CONFIDENTIAL," "for internal use only," and "DO NOT DISTRIBUTE," are high-level elected Democrats including House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, former Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald, as well as Gov. Bill Ritter's press...

Rusty at TheJawaReport connects the dots between the Obama campaign, a major PR firm, and a variety of baseless anti-Palin smears being circulated by lefty bloggers. As he notes, "Within an hour of this post going up, YouTube videos implicating Ethan Winner were yanked, sockpuppet accounts deleted, and more importantly, the Wikipedia entry on David Axelrod began to edit out mentions of his well-known astroturfing campaigns." If he were totally off base, would everything be coming down off the net? Sure seems like somebody's got something to hide. UPDATE: I like the way Ace puts it: "eswinner" is not sitting...

Obama is a product of the corrupt Chicago Machine. One of the key players in this corrupt machine is Tony Rezko - a Syrian real estate developer/slumlord who gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the machine and to Obama's law firm and to Obama's various campaign funds - and was VERY connected to the governor of Illinois. We've covered it previously HERE. NOW, THERE'S NEW NEWS: The real estate agent who sold Obama the house he now lives in - for more than a million bucks - was a pal of Rezko, someone he'd been pressuring the guv to...

Ald. Burton Natarus (42nd) collapsed on the City Council floor this afternoon after delivering a speech in favor of a resolution calling for troops to be withdrawn from Iraq. The 72-year-old alderman was standing near one of the exit doors to the City Council chamber, on the 2nd floor of City Hall, about 1:25 p.m. during the council's regular meeting. Ald. Virginia A. Rugai (19th) had just started to speak when another alderman got the chairman's attention by yelling, "Call 911!" A recess was called and proceedings came to an immediate halt as Natarus' colleagues ran to him. An aide...