Free Republic

Authorities have reached a $20 million settlement with a man who spent two decades in prison before he was cleared by DNA of the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl in Waukegan, ending a controversial chapter for Lake County's troubled justice system. Lawyers for Juan Rivera said the agreement with the city of Waukegan and other governmental bodies marks the largest settlement for a wrongfully convicted person in Illinois. "No amount of money could ever sum up to 20 years in prison," Rivera, who hopes to go to college to study business management, said Friday at the offices of...

Former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. will be released from a federal prison on Thursday and will serve out the remainder of his term in a Washington, D.C., halfway house, former U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy told The Associated Press after visiting Jackson. Kennedy said he spoke with Jackson at the minimum security federal prison camp in Montgomery, Alabama, where the son of the civil rights leader has been serving a 2 ½-year sentence after pleading guilty to illegally spending $750,000 in campaign funds on personal items. Jackson, an Illinois Democrat, began the sentence on Nov. 1, 2013. The U.S. Bureau...

Chicago police officers initiated stop, question and frisk encounters at a much higher rate last summer than their New York City counterparts ever did, and just like with New York’s heavily criticized program, Chicago blacks and other racial minorities were disproportionately targeted, according to a civil liberties group. The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois released a report Monday saying it identified more than 250,000 Chicago stop-and-frisk encounters in which there were no arrests from May through August 2014. African-Americans accounted for nearly three-quarters of those stopped, even though they make up about a third of the city’s population. On...

Giuliani: Well, his — his grandfather introduced him to Frank Marshall Davis, who was a Communist. Readers of The Fact Checker wanted to know if Giuliani’s comments were accurate. So we reached out to Cliff Kincaid, president of America’s Survival, a group that seeks to expose Communist and Marxist influences. The Pinocchio Test We carefully considered the facts underlying this assertion, and the evidence is slim. We may never definitively know one way or another, but it is time to put it to rest. Three Pinocchios

Milwaukee County sheriff David Clarke says that Senator Dick Durbin should explain his own previous opposition to the nominations of black women before accusing Senate Republicans of racial motivations for not confirming attorney-general nominee Loretta Lynch. Last week, after Republicans said they would only hold a confirmation vote for Lynch if Democrats approve language barring taxpayer funding for abortions in a human-trafficking bill, Durbin took to the Senate floor and invoked Rosa Parks, accusing Republicans of making Lynch “sit in the back of the bus.” But as Clarke points out, Durbin voted against the nominations of black women on more...

olitics: Sen. Dick Durbin, who says Republicans have shoved attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch to the "back of the bus," once filibustered and opposed the GOP nominations of black and Latino appeals court judges. Last week, Durbin accused Republicans of forcing Lynch, President Obama's African-American nominee to replace Eric Holder, to "sit in the back of the bus" until a vote on a controversial sex trafficking bill could be held. That thinly veiled reference to the moment in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to move from her seat in a Montgomery, Ala., bus was meant to paint Senate Republicans as...

A 25-year-old military reservist, his sister and his parents were injured when he used a blow torch to light a machine gun bullet that exploded in his backyard Saturday night and rocked a neighborhood in north Police responded to the 50 block of Timber Lane about 9:45 p.m. after multiple 911 calls came from people reporting their homes and windows were "shaking" during a "loud explosion," said Cmdr. George Moravec of the Lindenhurst Police Department.

CHICAGO — Mayor Rahm Emanuel had just finished the quintessential municipal politics photo op, briefly inspecting a dusty street-paving project on a block of the South Side lined with tidy brick bungalows. As his opponent, Jesus G. Garcia, along with supporters in labor and the left, tried to paint Mr. Emanuel as the candidate of the “1 percent,” the mayor made sure to banter with hard-hatted city workers on this Tuesday afternoon before making his way to a waiting sport utility vehicle. But when a reporter asked him about a labor leader’s accusation that he is too sympathetic to corporations,...

Father Who Torched Apartment to Kill His Daughter and Son-in-Law Found Guilty of Murder Subhash Chander set fire to a 36-unit Oak Forest building in 2007 because he was angry and offended. His 3-year-old grandson also died. By Dennis Robaugh (Patch National Staff) March 21, 2015 at 11:18am A grandfather who torched an Oak Forest apartment building seven years ago to kill his pregnant daughter, her husband and their 3-year-old son — because his daughter’s choice of husband offended him — has been convicted on three counts of first-degree murder. Subhash Chander, 64, an angry, argumentative heavy drinker, now faces...

Move to eliminate all U.S. funding for diplomacy with Iran Congressional leaders have begun pressuring their colleagues to cut off all U.S. funding for the ongoing talks with Iran over its contested nuclear program as the Obama administration rushes to hash out the details of a deal in the coming months, according to multiple sources and a letter that will be sent next week to appropriators in the House of Representatives. With the deadline approaching, congressional Republicans have been exasperated by the Obama administration’s efforts to prevent them from having any oversight over the deal.

By Eric Boehm | Watchdog.org After working one day as a substitute teacher in Illinois, David Piccioli could be entitled to an annual pension of more than $30,000. And he’s suing the state to make sure he gets paid. Piccioli is a retired union political activist who’s already pulling down a pair of state pensions from Illinois’ beleaguered public retirement system. But he’s taking the Teachers Retirement System to court to squeeze more money out of the state. The Chicago Tribune reported Thursday that Piccioli is already collecting $31,000 annually from the Teacher Retirement System, but he could get an...

Yesterday, Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin took to the floor of the senate and accused the Republican caucus of institutional racism over the postponement of a vote confirming Loretta Lynch as the next attorney general.

This Wednesday was a big birthday for a 102-year-old woman from the Northwest Side Belmont Gardens neighborhood. WBBM’s Bob Roberts explains. Felicidad Lage, originally from Spain, celebrated by being naturalized downtown then told her family that their next stop would be the Chicago Election Board headquarters at 69 W. Washington so she could register and vote for the first time. The Election Board’s Jim Allen says she did so, then posed for a photo with her daughter, grandson and great-granddaughter at her side. “She determined that she needed to register to vote and vote on the same day,” Allen said....

U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock’s father said the congressman is a “broken” man, after announcing he’ll resign from Congress at the end of the month, in light of a growing scandal over his business deals, and possible misuse of taxpayer and campaign funds. Dr. Richard Schock said he spoke with his son Tuesday, when the congressman announced his resignation, effective March 31. “Ten years from now, whatever he’s doing, he’ll be successful at, I’ll promise you that. Two years from now he’ll be successful, if he’s not in jail,” the elder Shock said of his son. Schock, a four-term Peoria Republican,...

resident Obama has found himself at odds with his old law school mentor over the Environmental Protection Agency. Laurence Tribe, a liberal constitutional scholar at Harvard University, told House lawmakers that EPA carbon dioxide regulations are tearing the Constitution apart. “EPA possesses only the authority granted to it by Congress,” Tribe told lawmakers in a hearing Tuesday. “Its gambit here raises serious questions under the separation of powers… because EPA is attempting to exercise lawmaking power that belongs to Congress and judicial power that belongs to the federal courts.” “Burning the Constitution should not become part of our national energy...

The resignation of U.S. Rep. Aaron "Abs of Steel" Schock should come as no surprise. The Illinois Republican from Peoria was once a rising GOP establishment star. And now his career is in shambles after weeks of questions over spending. At least Schock has two things going for him: He's got great abs. And those of us who are challenged in the great abs department — I protect mine by wrapping them in fat — can appreciate perfection. And the other thing is what Schock said himself: He's not some old crusty white guy.

In 2009, Meghan McCain proclaimed “TMZ Republican” Aaron Schock the future of the GOP… The GOP’s House Hottie… (SNIP) Since her article, Schock supported amnesty, defended Obamacare, goose-stepped behind John Boehner, and accumulated binders full of ethics violations, including: (SNIP) Spending $10,053 in tax dollars to attend a free festival (SNIP) Incidentally, that sound you hear are the paper shredders at Schock ally Rep. Adam Kinzinger’s office working overdrive.

WASHINGTON — Embattled Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., facing a growing number of questions over his use of taxpayer and campaign funds on Tuesday announced that he will resign from Congress on March 31. By stepping down now, Schock likely heads off a probe in the works by the Office of Congressional Ethics and a likely examination of his spending by the House Ethics Committee. It does not automatically shut off inquiries, if there are any, from the Federal Election Commission or the Justice Department. Schock’s resignation comes as his legal and public relations team knew more revelations were probably coming...

Illinois Rep. Aaron Schock is resigning his seat in Congress. The 33-year-old Republican has been dogged by questions about his spending of taxpayer and campaign dollars. On Monday afternoon, POLITICO posed a lengthy set of questions about charging the government and his campaign tens of thousands of dollars in questionable mileage reimbursements. Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/aaron-schock-resigns-116153.html#ixzz3UfUrBF40

ILLINOIS GUN OWNER LOBBY DAY Rally and March Wednesday, March 18, 2015 Let your voice be heard in Springfield! 10:30 a.m. Doors open - Prairie Capital Convention Center - sandwiches, drinks available at concessions 11:45 a.m. Registration/Rally, Prairie Capital Convention Center 1:00 p.m. March to the State Capitol to lobby legislators 3:00 p.m. Rally at the Rotunda! 4:00 p.m. Buses depart for home (north side of Capitol on Monroe Street) Thank you to those who signed up for a bus to IGOLD. All schedules are being turned in to the bus captains at this time. Let's make this a great...