Free Republic

A six-year-old girl watched in horror as police gunned down her one-year-old dog as it stood in their front yard, her family has said. The girl's mother, Nicole Echlin, said their shepherd-mix Apollo, whom they have had since he was a puppy, got out of their yard in Hometown near Chicago, Illinois on Friday afternoon. After they chased him around the neighborhood, he returned to the yard and was standing on the lawn when police arrived and pulled out their guns, Echlin told the Chicago Tribune. 'He started showing his teeth - that's when the officer shot him,' Echlin, 27,...

It’s a picture-perfect summer day, bright sun, sparkling skies. And here I am, stuck waiting for another press conference in another stuffy meeting room. Up front stood a bundle of boys and girls, 25 or so, preschoolers in pigtails, strapping youths sporting football jerseys, assembled at the podium, to pose with the politicians and preachers. What’s wrong with this picture? These kids should be in play lots, parks and backyards. They should not be props at a photo op at a West Side church, waiting for the boring adults to make boring their speeches. Perversely, this is the best place...

The high-rise at 500 N. Lake Shore Drive is the second-most expensive in the city, with rents for a one-bedroom apartment approaching $3,000 a month, well beyond the reach of most Chicago residents. But that's not too much for the Chicago Housing Authority, which has used federal tax dollars to pick up most of the tab for four lucky residents in the year-old building, with its sweeping views of Lake Michigan, a concierge and a dog-grooming center. The tenants moved in over the past two years as part of a push by the CHA to expand its housing voucher program...

After a spate[??] of shootings across Chicago that left over a dozen dead and nearly 100 wounded, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Friday toured a new federal Gun Crime Intelligence Center, saying, “You can’t fight a war without intelligence,” the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Led by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the office will collect data on the more than 7,000 firearms used in crimes and recovered by Chicago police each year, the Sun-Times writes. “You can't fight a war without intelligence, to know where the weapons are, where the shooters are and to stop it before...

A number of prominent Democrats have pledged to spend the week learning how the other half lives. All have agreed to take the Live the Wage challenge, which entails limiting your cash outlay on food and transportation to $77 a week. The idea was developed by Brad Woodhouse, president of the labor-funded group Americans United for Change, who, according to the Washington Free Beacon, called on Congress to take the challenge. -- So how are the participants making out? Judging from a tweet by Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, it’s tough living down here among the hoi polloi. The tweet, which...

Emanuel wants city to house 1,000 more young illegal immigrants, report says Posted: Jul 26, 2014 4:02 PM CST Updated: Jul 26, 2014 4:02 PM CST FOX News - Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a former Obama administration chief of staff, wants to expand the city’s efforts to house young illegal immigrants from Central America, reportedly proposing to shelter an additional 1,000 of them by year's end. "The influx of unaccompanied child migrants is a growing humanitarian crisis that we can no longer ignore," said Emanuel, according to The Chicago Tribune. "While we have our own challenges at home, we cannot...

The community activist group "Put Down The Guns Young People" is headed to Chicago to spread their message of putting an end to gun violence. The group is driving to Chicago and will spend the weekend meeting with community leaders and passing out literature. Logan said he's going at the expense of his personal safety.

Last week, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the troubled bastion of mainstream liberal journalistic thought in the great American heartland published a short, but typically piquant editorial piece slamming Patrick J. Buchanan for his soon-to-be released memoir of the 1968 Presidential campaign entitled, “The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create a New Majority.” The Post-Dispatch, anticipating the release of Buchanan’s work launched what may be charitably labeled a pre-emptive strike on Buchanan, even though his new book does not concern the PD. Tony Messenger, the newspaper editor, picked an unnecessary fight with Pat Buchanan, and, like...

If you want to know which individual political race has the biggest stakes in 2014, look no further than the Land of Lincoln. The Illinois governor’s race pits incumbent Pat Quinn, a Democrat, against upstart non-politician Bruce Rauner. Why are the stakes so huge? Because Illinois is arguably the worst-run state in America. It’s a blue state that has been run for many years by corrupt and bungling politicians including Rod Blagojevich, who went to jail for trying to sell a U.S. Senate seat, and Mr. Quinn, who has run the state’s finances into the gutter. This year shows no...

First Lady Michelle Obama returned to her hometown Thursday and decried the effects of gun violence on Chicago’s youth as she told a group of campaign donors to “write the biggest, fattest check that you can possibly write” to help Democrats make a better future for children. The First Lady noted that all children deserve a bright future of opportunity, but it was not happening in some Chicago neighborhoods. Donors paid from $500 per person to $20,000 per couple, and the First Lady asked them to give more.

The efforts of Northwestern University’s scholarship football players to unionize could have profound implications for the future of college education. northwestern university football According to the Associated Press, Northwestern University just filed a 60-page brief with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, D.C. This comes after a regional director of the NLRB ruled this past spring that “football players who receive full scholarships to the Big Ten school qualify as employees under federal law and therefore can unionize.” If the decision of the regional director is upheld, the framework between the players and the university would be redefined...

A proposed gun shop/shooting range that has generated controversy because of its location near several neighborhood schools will be coming to Niles. The Niles Village Board of Trustees voted 4-1 on Tuesday to approve a special use permit to allow firearms sales, firearms safety training and an indoor firing range at the proposed location, at 6143 Howard St. About 200 supporters and critics of the plan packed the Village of Niles Municipal Building to make their voices heard on the gun shop, to be called Sportsman’s Club and Firearms Training Academy. Dozens wore green shirts and ribbons to honor victims...

$75K bail for off-duty officer accused of shooting into home By Marwa Eltagouri July 22, 2014 A judge set bail at $75,000 today for a south suburban police officer accused of firing his handgun while off-duty in Country Club Hills, with one of the rounds ending up in a wall inside someone's home, authorities said. Country Club Hills police officer John Silas, 38, charged with reckless discharge of a firearm, was in court today before Markham Courthouse Judge Darren Bowden, who set bail at $75,000, according to a statement from the Cook County state's attorney's office. According to Ben Briet,...

Detroit Residents Fight Back Over Water Shutoff: 'It's A Life-or-Death Situation' The beleaguered city says a water shutoff is essential to recoup $89m in overdue bills. But the decision outraged thousands of Detroiters – who have taken matters into their own hands Of 178 homes whose water was shut off last week, 79 had restarted their supplies, triggering $21,750 in fines on top of what the residents already owed. When the coast is clear, and the trucks from the contractor shutting off water for the city of Detroit have rolled away, the men with water keys come. They offer residents...

So… how’s that whole gun free zone thing in Chicago working out? Even though they came close to setting a new record over the 4th of July, things in the Windy City aren’t slowing down much. The toll just for Friday afternoon through Saturday morning was impressive in a pretty horrid way. A 10-year-old girl was shot in the head and critically injured by a stray bullet fired into her home in the Garfield Park neighborhood Friday afternoon, authorities said.The girl, and another 12-year-old shot in the same neighborhood, are among 22 people shot between about 3:30 p.m. and...

Shamiya Adams was sitting on a bedroom floor in her best friend's home, making s'mores after an evening of practicing a dance routine, when the shot ripped through the house in Garfield Park. The bullet crashed through the wall of the bedroom and struck the 11-year-old in the head. She was rushed to Mount Sinai Hospital, where family kept an overnight vigil until the girl was pronounced dead at 7:33 a.m. today. [Snip] The victims told police they were approached by someone they didn't know, who fired shots at them. In other shootings:

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) likes to present itself as the champion of the little guy. But officials of SEIU Healthcare—“the fastest-growing union of healthcare, child care, home care and nursing home workers in the Midwest”—aren’t averse to a little high-living. For example, in FY 2013 officials of SEIU’s Illinois-Indiana healthcare division (SEIU-HCII) chalked up more than $1.1 million in travel expenses—$13,000 of it on D.C. hotel expenses rung up at President Obama’s second inaugural. The union designated all that travel as “representation activity.” Also claimed as a “representation” expense: a $6,000 liquor store tab for “beverages for...

Steven Salaita is one of the leaders of the anti-Israel academic boycott movement in the United States. He even has authored a guide for other faculty as to how to implement boycotts of Israel at their own universities.Salaita currently is an associate professor of English at Virginia Tech and starting in August will join the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign’s American Indian Studies Dept.Salaita’s Twitter feed is crudely anti-Israel and has been since long before the recent Gaza conflict. Maybe that will be an issue for a later day.But for today it’s worth noting that Salaita is following the path we...

Thousands of Chicago drivers have been tagged with $100 red light fines they did not deserve, targeted by robotic cameras during a series of sudden spikes in tickets that city officials say they cannot explain, a Tribune investigation has found. The Tribune's analysis of more than 4 million tickets issued since 2007 and a deeper probe of individual cases revealed clear evidence that the deviations in Chicago's network of 380 cameras were caused by faulty equipment, human tinkering or both. Chicago transportation officials say they had no knowledge of the wild swings in ticketing until they were told by the...

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn (D) is supporting statewide "restrictions" on .50 caliber rifles and bans on "assault weapon" and "high capacity" magazines because of the violence in heavily gun-controlled Chicago.