Free Republic

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Thursday morning slammed a provision in the pending spending bill that would repeal a piece of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law and expressed doubt that enough Democrats could support the package if that rider remains. “I just spoke to Nancy Pelosi. The Democrats believe this is an odious provision that should not be included. Many of us feel the same way,” said Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “[Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio)] can take it out in the bat of any eye, and I hope he will....

The Chicago police officer who played "Sweet Home Alabama" from of a police car during a West Side anti-police-violence protest over the weekend will be disciplined, according to a news release sent from the Chicago Police Department on Thursday.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren long has been a hero on the progressive left, but her popularity among the Democratic Party establishment is growing rapidly. Ms. Warren, Massachusetts Democrat, now is set to assume a leadership role in her party’s Senate caucus, and the leaders of that caucus say she’s uniquely qualified for the job.“I think [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid, all of us, have confidence that Elizabeth Warren is a great spokesman for our caucus and for our party on a national basis,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, Illinois Democrat and the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. Mr. Durbin appeared on...

Illinois Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka has died, less than 24 hours after having a stroke. A statement from her office says the 70-year-old Topinka died early Wednesday morning following complications from the stroke. She'd reported discomfort and was admitted to a hospital in Berwyn. After undergoing testing, she lost consciousness Wednesday and was pronounced dead shortly after 2 a.m. Topinka, a Republican, won a second term last month in a tough race with Democratic challenger Sheila Simon, the former lieutenant governor.

While President Barack Obama asks the nation if we will accept the “cruelty of ripping children from their parents arms” it’s blatantly apparent to parents like Michelle that he isn’t talking about sick children like hers. Agents of the state with calculated, callus, impunity take their children. On the morning that plunged Michelle and Isaiah into their current nightmare, Michelle scurried around her room at the Ronald McDonald House talking to Isaiah, and getting ready to see him. “Hurry,” he pleaded, and so she did. Before she could board the transport shuttle to the hospital another call came in: a...

Nineteen people were hospitalized early Sunday after an intentional chlorine leak at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare during the 2014 Midwest FurFest, public safety officials said. The leak, reported about 12:45 a.m. Sunday, caused a complete evacuation of the hotel at 9300 W. Bryn Mawr Avenue. The hotel was hosting the Midwest FurFest convention. Attendees dress up like furry animals and celebrate art, literature and performance based on anthropomorphic animals, according to the convention's website.

DETROIT -- Lions running back Reggie Bush, who has been outspoken about the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, continued his outspoken nature Sunday when he wore a shirt reading "I Can't Breathe" during pregame warm-ups Sunday. Bush wrote the message -- in black ink on his blue shirt -- signifying the last words of Eric Garner, the New York man who died while being placed in a chokehold as he was being arrested. Bush wore the shirt a day after Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose wore an "I Can't Breathe" T-shirt in pregame warm-ups prior to his team's game Saturday night...

Thousands of people — many dressed as foxes, bears, pandas, and other fuzzy creatures — were evacuated from a suburban Chicago hotel early Sunday morning after a chemical leak that police are investigating as a criminal act. The leak — of a chlorine-containing gas in the Hyatt O'Hare Regency Hotel — sent 19 people to the hospital, including several attendees at the 15th annual "Midwest FurFest," an animal fandom convention. The hospitalized individuals "complained of nausea and dizziness," the Midwest FurFest organizers explained on their website. "The Rosemont Police Department determined this was a criminal act and began investigating it...

Fiscal Policy: A city teetering on the brink of insolvency passes a minimum wage that would reach $13 by 2019, higher than the minimum elsewhere in a state that just elected a Republican governor. What could go wrong? Ignoring the first rule of holes (when you're in one, stop digging), the Chicago City Council, in a Tuesday emergency session called by Mayor and former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, voted 44-5 to raise the city's minimum wage from the current statewide level of $8.25 an hour to $10 on July 1, with future increases bringing it to $13...

Come to Chicago, Michael Bloomberg — in a big way — if you really want to fight gun violence in America. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. Among American big cities, Chicago suffers one of the highest per capita rates of gun violence. And you, since stepping down as mayor of New York, have established yourself as a national leader — certainly the leader with the deepest pockets — in the uphill fight for sanity in gun laws. No city or state could use you more. As we wrote in an editorial last month, Chicago...

New York Times reporter, Julie Bosman who along with her colleague, Campbell Robertson, thought is was perfectly okay to write an article revealing the town and street where former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson lives. This act of complete obliviousness to the safety of officer Wilson caused quite an uproar including from Sean Hannity who blasted the Times for revealing this personal information about Wilson's home address. One result of this backlash was the publication on the Web of the home addressses of both Bosman and Robertson so they could experience a bit of karmatic kickback. Apparently this was a...

New York Times reporter Julie Bosman published Officer Darren Wilson’s address in a report on his recent marriage.Now Bosman is worried about her own safety and reportedly has requested A-List police protection.The police laughed at her.Illinois Review reported: Julie Bosman, the Chicago-based New York Times reporter who published police officer Darren Wilson’s address is “over exaggerating” her security concerns say the Chicago Police Department (CPD).Sources inside CPD tell Got News that Bosman (photo above) demanded a level of protection afforded A-List celebs and dignitaries. But an investigation revealed that she was not in any danger, and deserved no more than...

The semi-prestigious University of Illinois system is rapidly becoming famous for its bizarro penchant for hiring terrorists as professors. Last month, the statewide board of trustees cleared the way for the flagship campus in Urbana-Champaign to rehire 1970s-era Symbionese Liberation Army terrorist James Kilgore, a convicted murderer who participated in a 1975 bank robbery during which bank customer Myrna Opsahl was shot and killed. The 42-year-old mother of four bled to death on the bank floor. Now, Chicago businessman Richard Hill has notified officials at the University of Illinois at Chicago that he will rescind a pledge to donate $6.5...

Illinois has a chance to get smarter about penalties for gun crimes, hitting offenders with longer sentences where needed and shorter ones where appropriate. We urge the Legislature to seize the opportunity. So much is at stake, especially in Chicago, where the bloodshed from guns is constant and horrific. Within the next couple of days, the Legislature’s Joint Criminal Justice Reform Committee will present a series of findings on gun violence and gun laws, reflecting months of listening to law enforcement officials, national criminal justice experts and others. The committee’s findings are expected to be the basis for new laws...

The Chicago studios of talk-show superstar Oprah Winfrey and the iconic “Sears Tower” (renamed Willis Tower) were the targets of a terrorist truck-bomb plot in 2009. But initially unbeknownst to federal authorities, two of the conspirators recently were arrested for unrelated state crimes in different parts of the country. The alleged bombers targeted Ms. Winfrey’s Harpo Studios because they resented her popularity and power, while the tower was selected because of its obvious landmark status. The bomb plot itself, planned in 2009, was inspired by militant Islamist hatred of American military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to law...

Holiday travelers faced a literal nightmare on Sunday morning when the line for security checks at Midway Airport in Chicago was reportedly over a mile long. KOMO reporter Denise Whitaker said that the line was 1.2 miles long. An airport spokespersonsaid that she wasn't surprised by the crowds. “This happens sometimes,” Chicago Aviation Department rep. Karen Pride told the Chicago Sun-Times. “There was a period of time earlier this morning, between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m., that lines were long because that is when most people are traveling for the holiday period.” Twitter users posted pictures of the hellish scene....

Farrakhan: 'Law of Retaliation' Applies to Ferguson In a fiery sermon last week, Nation of Islam head Louis Farrakhan addressed the Ferguson verdict and reaction. In his remarks, he suggested retaliation as means for a just end. “We gonna die anyway,” Farrakhan said. “Let’s die for something. Elijah Mohammed said 40 years ago, maybe near 50 years ago – there were 20 million of us then – he said if 10 million of us lost our lives, 10 million would be left to go free. Wait, wait. Just think about that. See, when my Muslim family here, Imams and my...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - IRS Scandal Follows Old Obama Illinois PatternPosted By Tom Thurlow On May 24, 2013 @ 12:06 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments Boy, it sure makes a primary or election contest easier when your opponent pulls out, don’t you think?  Barack Obama has been managing to do that since he won the Democratic nomination for state senator in Illinois in 1996, and it helps explain the IRS harassment of conservatives and Tea Party groups since 2010.  Whereas once Obama targeted candidates to get them to pull out, from 2010 onward, he had the...

In 2012, the Department of Health and Human Services estimated that 72.2 million Americans were receiving Medicaid benefits for at least a month. Medicaid is a government health insurance program aimed at helping the poor and disabled. Enrollment into the program is going up dramatically, according to the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI). Both Medicaid and ChildrenÂ’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) are up 15 percent, or 8.7 million people, since Obamacare began enrolling people in the fall of 2013; states that expanded Medicaid coverage are seeing 22 percent growth or more. For many states, Medicaid is the largest item of...

".....Ezaldein began dating Dee in August 2012 after meeting him through her older sister's roommate, they said. Dee physically abused and beat the woman throughout the relationship, and in December 2013, threatened her by inserting a handgun into her mouth, the victim's family said. The incident resulted in a hospital visit and the victim ending the relationship. In the year since, Dee had harassed both the woman and her family members by making threatening calls to her father and siblings, family members said. The victim changed her number three times as a result, they said. Ezaldein also tried to request...