Free Republic

Jihad has blown up The Liberal Utopia. The visionary liberal land of political and social perfection. President Obama is not happy — and he isn’t alone. You know the place. • The Liberal Utopia is a land where gun background checks prevent mass murder. • The Liberal Utopia is a land where Islamic fundamentalists have changed their perception of America because the President travels to Muslim nations to give lovely speeches, believes that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and elsewhere is a wonderful sign of an Arab Spring, and refuses to use the word “terrorist” whether his administration is investigating...

The bad news? Between this and what’s going on in South Carolina, American voters seem to have finally jettisoned any pretense of standards for their political leaders.The good news? We’re still on track for a Sanford-versus-Weiner presidential election in 2028. Cross those fingers. According to the poll, if Weiner entered the Democratic primary today, his 15 percent would put him behind Quinn’s 26 percent but ahead of City Comptroller John Liu (12 percent), de Blasio (11 percent), Thompson (11 percent) and former City Councilman Sal Albanese (2 percent).By comparison, without Weiner, Quinn would receive 30 percent of Democratic votes and...

Chicago’s murder statistics tell a story of young black males without fathers and at risk.The date was January 12, 2013. You probably didn’t hear about this tragedy involving guns and two teenage boys. But this was the headline in the Chicago Tribune: “Boys, 14 and 15, killed in separate shootings Friday.” You didn’t hear about it because such events aren’t news in Chicago. They’re ordinary daily occurrences. As we continue to hear calls for ever-tightening gun laws from the Obama administration, and from states such as New York, it is worth thinking about those headlines in Chicago. And in inner...

On Friday, the United States Department of Agriculture quietly released new statistics related to the food stamps program, officially known as SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). The numbers reveal, in 2012, the food stamps program was the biggest it's ever been, with an average of 46,609,072 people on the program every month of last year. 47,791,996 people were on the program in the month of December 2012.

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - How the Democrats Destroyed DetroitPosted By Arnold Ahlert On March 4, 2013 @ 12:39 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 61 Comments Last Friday, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, announced that the state will proceed with a takeover of Detroit’s Democratic city government. “The current system has not been working. We have not stopped the decline,” said Snyder. “This is time for us not to argue or to blame, but to come together as Detroit, Mich., not Detroit vs. Michigan, and bring all of our resources to bear.” Snyder may not want to point the finger,...

Chicago police are no longer responding in person to 911 calls reporting vehicle theft, garage burglary or simple assault in a change aimed at freeing up officers to deal with more serious crimes. According to a report in the Chicago Sun-Times, the change came into effect on Sunday and also covers crime where the victim is "safe, secure and not in need of medical attention" and the offender is "not on the scene and not expected to return immediately." Chicago authorities are hoping the change frees up more officers to attend to the most serious crimes, such as serious assaults...

  NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Violent, thieving mobs have been making headlines across the country for the past few years, and now they have hit New York City. And Maurice Dubois reported in this CBS 2 investigation, the teen mobs have left neighborhoods worried as businesses take matters into their own hands. Judson Bennett, 78, recently ran into a violent group of teens – often described with the once-benign term “flash mob” – as he made his daily trip to buy a newspaper at his favorite news team. “I’m approaching the newsstand, and then suddenly there is a tremendous force...

Rev. Jackson Calls on Obama to Stop Chicago Violence February 04, 2013 Windows Media RUSH: The Reverend Jackson, in Chicago. The Reverend Jackson and other relatives of victims of fatal shootings, in Chicago. Do you know, the lawlessness in Chicago, the gun violence in Chicago is now greater than when Al Capone's gang ran the town? Did you know that, Rachel? You want to know something else? There was no gun control when Al Capone was running around running things. Back during the glory days of Chicago, no gun control. Now they've got some of the strictest gun control laws...

A staggering one out of three Illinoisans today lives in or near poverty — the peak of a continued climb over three decades ... almost half of Chicago's population is living in or near poverty. In suburban Cook and Kane counties, it's nearly a third; in DuPage, McHenry and Will counties, one out of five people, and in Lake County, one out of four. Statewide, 31 percent of the African-American population lives in poverty, along with 22.6 percent of Latinos; 12 percent of Asians, and 11 percent of whites. Of the state's households headed by single women, 34.3 percent live...

Under Chicago’s Police Chief Gary McCarthy and the hack that hired him, Chicago has quickly become Murder City USA. Last year by a substantial amount, more Americans died from gunfire in the Windy City than died in Afghanistan. The gunfire is coming from the violent street gangs that infect the streets of Chicago. Since they have failed to solve the real problem of gunfire killing people in their streets, the current administration has invented a problem their media pals can fool the dupes that vote for them into thinking they are solving. Their invented problem is: what to do about...

There were 405 Coalition deaths in Afghanistan in 2012. 310 of the 405 deaths were Americans. Meanwhile in Chicago… There were 532 homicides in 2012. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel attributes the rise in homicides, in part, to the broader problem of illegal guns.

Metro says that Metrobuses traveling in parts of Southeast Washington are being pelted with rocks. As part of a campaign to discourage this, police are distributing a flier reminding people not to throw rocks at buses or cars. Flier here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dr-gridlock/files/2013/01/Dont-Throw-Rocks-Flier.pdf The Metro Transit Police and Metropolitan Police Department have been distributing the flier, which features a reminder that throwing rocks at vehicles is a crime. It also includes 911 as well as numbers for D.C. police (202-727-9099) and the transit police (202-962-2121, which riders may or may not recognize as the number repeated in system-wide announcements). The transit agency...

Guns: The mayor of what is at once America's most gun-controlled city and its murder capital wants an assault weapons ban like the one he pushed in 1994. Except it didn't work then, and it won't work now. Nathaniel T. Jackson, 40, an alleged gang member with a long arrest record, was gunned down last week outside a store in Chicago's Austin neighborhood, becoming the Windy City's 500th murder victim in 2012. Up to 80% of Chicago's murders and shootings are gang-related, according to police. By one estimate, the city has almost 70,000 gang members. A police audit last spring...

**SNIP** Although it’s difficult to pinpoint a single cause for last year’s increase, statistics show the early part of 2012 suffered the biggest spike in homicides. Experts and some law enforcement sources believe the unseasonable warmth that hit Chicago during that period contributed to a homicide spike as high as 66 percent in April, and the month of March—the warmest March on record in Chicago--was especially hit hard when there were 53 homicides, up from 23 in March 2011. **SNIP** Even though Chicago has the most police officers per 100,000 people out the five major U.S. cities, many within the...

CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy says the city has logged its 500th homicide of the year. McCarthy issued a statement Friday calling the milestone a "tragic number that is reflective of the gang violence and proliferation of illegal guns that have plagued some of our neighborhoods."

A winter storm battered the Northeast coast Thursday after cutting power to at least 115,000 homes and dumping record snowfalls in the New York City area. The National Weather Service warned of wind gusts as high as 60 mph along the coast, “minor to moderate” flooding from storm surges, and more snow, particularly in New England, early Thursday. More than 600,000 people were without electricity as a result of superstorm Sandy and the new storm. NBCNewYork.com reported that more than 198,000 Long Island Power Authority customers, 55,000 Con Edison customers in New York City and Westchester County, 197,560 Jersey Central...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A wintry storm dropped snow on the U.S. Northeast on Wednesday and threatened to bring dangerous winds and flooding to a region still climbing out from the devastation of Superstorm Sandy. The nor'easter storm added misery to thousands of people whose homes were destroyed by Sandy, which killed 120 people when it smashed ashore on October 29 in the New York-New Jersey area, swallowing entire neighborhoods with rising seawater and blowing homes from their foundations.

Chicago: First US Gun Tax 'Will Stem Carnage' There are hopes a levy will reduce attacks in the President's adopted city, although he has been largely silent on gun control. 7:40pm UK, Saturday 03 November 2012 By Gary Mitchell, in Chicago A leading anti-gun campaigner has told Sky News a new tax on guns will help end "carnage" on the streets of Chicago - where firearms now change hands for just $20. There have now been more than 440 murders in Barack Obama's adopted home city so far this year, surpassing last year's total of 435. Most involved gang shootings...

The excremental liberal press is boycotting coverage of this to protect Obama but Fox is covering it. Staten Island has received zero help after four days. Bloomberg has stolen three huge generators to power marathon tents and given no help to the people of Staten Island. The entire borough is a ruined disaster. No food, no water, no gasoline, the homeless wandering across the island with no shoes, no socks, injured, starving, crying for help from camera crews. People fighting one another over dumpster garbage. Death toll rising. Another Liberal success story.

<p>Hurricane Sandy brought out the worst yesterday in some sleazy New Yorkers, who looted stores and homes across the city.</p> <p>Some posed as Con Ed workers to dupe their victims.</p> <p>Police arrested more than a dozen looters in the Rockaways and Coney Island, which had been evacuated, and stood guard outside ravaged stores at the South Street Seaport. “This morning when they told us the water receded, I walked back to the house to feed [my pets],” said Eric Martine, 33, a cabby who lives in Brooklyn’s Gerritsen Beach. “Guys were looting, pretending they were Con Ed and holding people up. It was sick.” Residents said police warned them to beware of crooks pretending to be utility workers...</p>

One of the great priorities of the left is to get Americans out of their cars and onto public transportation. When the masses no longer have access to cars, it clears the streets for the limos of the nomenklatura, just as it did in the old USSR, and still does in North Korea. The best way to accomplish this goal is to push up gasoline prices. Energy Secretary Steven Chu famously hoped that energy prices would double, and President Obama also admitted to wanting energy prices to rise, just not too quickly, lest the frog catch on the water is...

Have you heard the rumor that the number of food stamp recipients has increased during President Obama’s term from 28.2 million to 46.6 million? Have you heard that in only three years, the annual cost of the program, which was already astronomical at $35 billion, has soared to $76 billion? It certainly has been the talk of the town (if not the campaign), but does anyone really know how we got to this state of affairs? That is what I set out to discover. Even the most basic details about the program seem surreal. Why in the world is this...

This city, long among the nation's poorest and most crime-ridden, is on the verge of dismantling its police department and starting anew with a force run by the county government. City officials are making the move to increase the number of officers while keeping the cost the same by averting rules negotiated with a union that city officials have seen as unwilling to compromise. Unless the union - which is skeptical of the stated motivations for the change - reaches a deal with the county, no more than 49 per cent of the city's current officers could join the new...

Full title: Ground Reports from the “Depression that Shall Not Be Named” — things we notice that the corrupt media won’t report that show this is indeed a Depression On my desk, just under the computer monitor, I have a little box full of slips of scrap paper. I’ve been doing this since I was a kid because the nuns who taught me in Catholic School refused to ever waste paper. Anything that comes into my home that’s blank on one side and has outlived its usefulness is drawn and quartered and spends some time as scrap paper in that...

We know America is in big trouble when power corrupted law enforcement and California’s liberal state legislature ban together to createnew laws that regulate, pre-punish, and harass law abiding gun owners. In the name of safety and protection, lawmakers being obsessedwith violating our rights and beating up the Constitution bloody, feed into thebig government ways of today. They fail to realize, however, that the Constitution is meant to protect individual, God-given rights; it does not say big government can violate our rights, and do whatever they want. This all started with a 2011 California law (AB 109) that bans open...

U.S. Department of Education: 79% of Chicago 8th Graders Not Proficient in Reading By Terence P. Jeffrey September 10, 2012 (CNSNews.com) - Seventy-nine percent of the 8th graders in the Chicago Public Schools are not grade-level proficient in reading, according to the U.S. Department of Education, and 80 percent are not grade-level proficient in math. Chicago public school teachers went on strike on Monday and one of the major issues behind the strike is a new system Chicago plans to use for evaluating public school teachers in which student improvement on standardized tests will count for 40 percent of a...

Negotiators for the Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union are back at the bargaining table this morning. The talks began around 10 a.m.10:30 a.m. Some students balk at crossing pickets

In past year, shelter population has risen by 17% and the number of children has risen by 18%, city stats show Sometimes life in a homeless shelter is more than a 14-year-old can handle. Francheska Luciano, who is among a growing number of homeless children in the city, said living in a shelter was “like living in hell.” “I’m tired of this,” she said Friday while sitting on a curb outside a shelter intake center in the Bronx with her mother and little sisters. “It’s a nightmare every day.” The number of children in the city’s shelters hit 19,000 last...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic National Committee chairwoman and congresswoman from Florida, was at ease this morning among a group of Democrats from deep-blue California. "Let me just tell you how much I appreciate the oasis of Democratic politics that California is," she said at a delegation breakfast on the final day of the Democratic National Convention. "I know that you all feel like you live in heaven."

Nineteen people were shot in attacks across the South and West sides between about 5:20 p.m. Thursday and 1:30 a.m. Friday - including 13 people during a single 30-minute period - according to the Chicago Police Department. The shootings peaked between about 9:15 and 9:45 p.m. Thursday when 13 people were shot, including eight in a single incident at 79th Street and Essex Avenue about 9:30 p.m. Police are still trying to sort out that shooting, the second of three incidents that left multiple people wounded since 8 p.m.

A clothing store in a trendy Chicago neighborhood is one of the latest victims of a so-called flash mob robbery — when a large group storms into a shop to collectively rip off a retailer. About 20 people entered the Mildblend Supply Co. in Wicker Park on Saturday afternoon, together grabbing more than $3,000 worth of high-priced denim jeans, according to police. “I’ve gotten somewhat immune to the shoplifting here with young people, but this one was certainly different,” store owner Luke Cho told NBC 5 Chicago Sunday. Cho described the group as a teenage mob. Only four staff...

The city of Chicago enforces the most draconian (and unconstitutional) gun-control laws in the United States. And how's that working out? Oddly, there are no calls for more gun control in the wake of the weekly Chicago massacre. Once you have the stiffest gun control laws on the books, you should probably look at the root of the problem... "Three men are dead and at least 23 other people wounded from gun violence across the city since Friday night."In fact, Chicago police superintendent Garry McCarthy is "accentuating the positives" of the bloody results of his city's oppressive gun ban, which...

It takes a lot of nerve to ask for a 30 percent pay raise. You’d better be sure you had a banner year. Yet in Chicago, where just 15 percent of fourth graders are proficient in reading (and just 56 percent of students graduate), the teachers union is set to strike if the district does not agree to a 30 percent increase in teachers’ salaries.The average teacher in Chicago Public Schools—a district facing a $700 million deficit—makes $71,000 per year before benefits are included. If the district meets union demands and rewards teachers with the requested salary increase, education employees...

If you've got some clothes you don't need anymore, you can give them to Goodwill or the Salvation Army. If you have an old car, you can call various organizations to take it away. And if you're in Chicago and have a gun that's burning a hole in your pocket, you can get rid of it on Saturday, no questions asked. The city government has a great fondness for gun turn-in events. It's done six of them in the past six years, collecting more than 23,000 weapons. This one will be held at 23 churches, and anyone handing over a...

Killings are double the figure for Memorial Day 2011 A man was shot dead near a raucous outdoor holiday party in the South Shore neighborhood late Monday night, bringing the number of homicides to 10 during a warm and violent Memorial Day weekend. More than 40 shootings were reported during the four-day weekend. The city has had more homicides and shootings so far in 2012 than during the same time last year, according to unofficial briefing summaries prepared by the Chicago Police Department. A department spokesman would not confirm the tally, saying several incidents were still under investigation and could...

While we have rescued our economy from catastrophe, we have also begun to build a new foundation for growth." Barack Obama from the White House, August 7, 2009 In 2008, Obama inspired legions of young Americans who bought into his "Change you can believe in" campaign message. According to the Pew Research Center, voters under the age of 30 supported Obama over John McCain 66:31 – by far the largest disparity between young voters and other age groups in any presidential election since exit polling began in 1972. In addition to the critical vote totals, Obama attracted thousands of high...

About 22 percent of California's eighth-graders tested on a national science test passed, ranking the Golden State among the worst in the nation, according to figures released Thursday. Scores from the 2012 National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the Nation's Report Card, show that too few students have the skills that could lead to careers in the field, educators said. http://www.ocregister.com/news/students-353581-state-scores.html

For the eighth year in a row California is ranked at the absolute bottom of 50 states for business, according to Chief Executive magazine. What do they know? The esteemed Gov. Jerry Brown says California’s just swell for business. Well, OK, Jerry isn’t and hasn’t been a CEO and this is an annual poll of chief executive officers who run actual businesses. He’s a politician and a “progressive.” Did we mention it’s been eight years in a row that California finished dead last? ...

At least two people were killed and 11 others wounded in violence across Chicago overnight, most of the victims from just two shootings on the West and South sides, according to police. Suspects were being questioned in one of the shootings, the killing of a man near his home on the Far South Side, officials said.

Five people were killed and at least 12 other people wounded in shootings Saturday night and Sunday morning across the city. The evening attacks follow the fatal shooting of a 6-year-old girl and the wounding of four other people in Chicago within an hour Saturday afternoon, and 16 shootings, including the slaying of a 42-year-old man, overnight Friday and early Saturday morning.

The people of Detroit are taking no prisoners. Justifiable homicide in the city shot up 79 percent in 2011 from the previous year, as citizens in the long-suffering city armed themselves and took matters into their own hands. The local rate of self-defense killings now stands 2,200 percent above the national average. Residents, unable to rely on a dwindling police force to keep them safe, are fighting back against the criminal scourge on their own. And they’re offering no apologies. “We got to have a little Old West up here in Detroit. That’s what it’s gonna take,” Detroit resident Julia...

Oakland -- Hundreds of City of Oakland employees will receive layoff notices next week, as the city embarks on severe cost-cutting measures to make up for the loss of redevelopment funds, city staff said Thursday. The pink slips will arrive next week, when City Administrator Deanna Santana releases the 2012-2012 budget.The redevelopment agency - which will be nearly eliminated due to state cutbacks - has 158 full-time positions and more than 200 workers. But because of seniority rules, some of those employees might be transferred to other departments.

At 15, Jarvis Nelson should be in high school and even thinking about college. Yet Jarvis is in seventh grade, and doesn’t know where he’ll go to high school — or even where he will be living — when he graduates from junior high, hopefully next year. That’s because Jarvis has attended three different schools in the past four months. He’s lived in three different places on the North and South Sides of the city — including his most recent home, a temporary shelter in Lake View. Jarvis, like thousands of other students in Chicago Public Schools, is homeless. He...

June 15, 2011 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- A 15-year-old boy was mugged at gunpoint and struck on the head by a group of teens near the Ogilvie Transportation Center in the West Loop on Tuesday evening. The incident happened about 6:30 p.m. near an alley at 101 N. Clinton St., according to police News Affairs Officer John Mirabelli. The victim was approached by a group of seven male teens, Mirabelli said. One, who was armed with a handgun, approached the victim and demanded his money, according to police. A second teen struck the victim on the back of his head, Mirabelli...

A third of immigrants have not graduated from high school and 60 percent do not speak English fluently, the Migration Policy Institute found. These immigrants make up half the Los Angeles workforce. It said this left immigrants ill-equipped to fill California's fastest-growing occupations. The organization said that as the so-called baby boomers reach retirement age, a similar pattern will spread across the U.S. Ernesto Cortes, of the Industrial Area Foundation, a think-tank that specializes on social change said "The question is are we going to be a 21st century city or a Third World city with an elite group on...

Like a cash-strapped shopaholic reaching for a credit card before payday, New Jersey is planning to borrow $2 billion to cover expenses over the next few months – including those record-high property tax rebates.  But given the state's financial situation, some wonder if it's a wise move.   The state already owes an estimated $29.7 billion to creditors. Debt service alone is costing taxpayers upward of $2.5 billion a year. And employee pension funds are at least $25 billion behind where they should be to cover projected future costs. Overall, money is so tight that Governor Corzine is looking at...