Free Republic

Rahm Emanuel won re-election Tuesday as voters in Chicago’s first mayoral runoff decided that, despite his brusque management style, the former White House chief of staff was best equipped to deal with the many dire challenges facing the nation’s third-largest city. Emanuel was forced to campaign furiously across the city to beat Cook County Commissioner Jesús “Chuy” Garcia after failing to capture a majority against four other candidates in a February election. The mayoral runoff was the first since the city changed the way it conducts elections about 20 years ago. […] Emanuel raised far more money than Garcia, plastered...

They just broke in and announced Jesus "Chuy" Garca called rahm to congratulate him. This city deserves what they vpte for. Idiots.

Illinois inmates who will soon get out of jail won't pass "Go" and get $200, but they may collect their Medicaid card. A new plan working its way through the Illinois statehouse would start the enrollment, or re-enrollment, process for inmates 30 days before their release through the state's ObamaCare office. State Rep. Camille Lilly, D-Chicago, is sponsoring the legislation that would have Illinois' Department of Health Care and Family Services enroll inmates automatically upon their release. Illinois' prison system released 30,083 people last year, more than 27,000 men and nearly 2,500 women.

If Rahm Emanuel defeats Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia to win re-election as mayor of Chicago on Tuesday, it won’t be because he’s made the city a better place to live. He hasn’t. [Snip] [Rhambo has made] Chicago feel more like a confederation of 50 wards than a single city. And in most of those places, life has become more of a hassle. The libraries are open only half a day on Mondays. (And that’s a compromise after the mayor initially closed them all day.) Speed cameras spit out $35 tickets for going 36 miles an hour in a...

<p>A teenager shot by a Zion police officer Saturday died of two gunshot wounds to the back, Lake County Coroner Thomas Rudd announced Monday.</p> <p>Justus Howell, 17, was shot twice, with one bullet penetrating his heart, spleen and liver, and the other entering his right shoulder, according to a coroner's news release on the autopsy.</p>

A woman died and her husband was injured after they drove off the ramp to the demolished Cline Avenue bridge, which has been closed since 2009. Zohra Hussain, a 51-year-old woman from Chicago, died of burns at the closed Riley Road exit of Cline Avenue, according to the Lake County coroner's office. Her husband, Iftikhar Hussain, 64, survived the plunge of 37.5 feet off an elevated section of highway. He was able to get out of their 2014 Nissan Sentra after it smashed into the ground below, on property owned by BP. But the car erupted into flame while his...

The ABC network refuses to air a commercial criticizing Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel even though other networks are running the spot, The Daily Caller has learned.As Emanuel seeks re-election in the Chicago mayoral run-off next week, the Republican-leaning Real Chicago PAC produced an ad highlighting reported instances of Emanuel’s corruption and crony capitalism, including his promotion of the transportation company Uber, in which his brother Ari is a major investor.“We sent the commercial to the local Fox affiliate. They vetted it, they checked every single quote and every single headline to make sure it was accurate and they ran...

CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) - Tinley Park squatter living rent and mortgage free The problem with squatters is hitting home in an upscale Tinley Park Subdivision. On Mallow Street where homes sell for $350,000 or more, a woman has been living in a house rent and mortgage free for two years. “It's very frustrating, our property taxes are very high, I work nights to pay mine and to help support my family. And I just see her coming and going without a care in the world it's enormously frustrating,” said neighbor Patti Yara. And no one is more frustrated than...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has become the latest high-profile progressive to endorse Cook County Commissioner Chuy García's challenge to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D). “I am going to Chicago to support Chuy García and [City Council candidate] Susan Sadlowski Garza. I support them because we need a political revolution in this country and we need the kind of working-class coalitions that Chuy and Susan are pulling together,” Sanders said in a statement.

Illinois lawmakers are close to banning — or partially banning — new versions of some of the most popular products on any convenience store shelf. The Illinois state Senate is poised to vote on two proposed laws outlawing powdered alcohol, often called Palcohol, and powdered caffeine. Chicago Democrat Ira Silverstein is pushing the powdered alcohol ban, and the proposal cleared a legislative committee last week. Illinois Watchdog reached out to Silverstein, but he did not immediately return our calls. Silverstein has said, however, that he's afraid for young people. "It's the type of item that can be sprinkled on food...

Did anyone think one of the Senate’s most reliable RINOs, who’s up for reelection next year not just in a very blue state but in Barack Obama’s home state, and who supported the Schumer/Rubio Gang of Eight amnesty bill, was going to go to the mat to block Obama’s pick for AG to protest executive amnesty?Conservative Republicans won’t stick up for religious liberty even in red states for fear of being called bigots. The odds of a moderate Republican opposing the first black woman Attorney General of the United States in a Democratic stronghold were precisely zero. “I am...

Republican U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk on Thursday slammed President Barack Obama's announcement of a framework nuclear agreement with Iran, contending it will lead to a "total meltdown" in U.S. relations with Middle Eastern allies. Kirk, a former Navy Reserve intelligence officer, is among the strongest supporters of using economic sanctions against Iran in an effort to force the country to divest any efforts to gain access to nuclear weapons. Under the conditions of the framework reached between the U.S., five other world powers and Iran, United Nations sanctions that have threatened Iran's economy would be lifted. "It looks like they...

Republicans are debating whether their path to the presidency in 2016 runs through the blue-collar Rust Belt states, or the demographically changing new South and Sunbelt states. For Democrats looking to retake the Senate, however, the formula is more clear-cut: Win back white working-class voters, or be consigned to a longer-term minority. Most of the Senate battlegrounds run through the Midwest—Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio—along with New Hampshire, which carries demographic similarities with those older, whiter Great Lakes states. To defeat the vulnerable Republican incumbents, Democrats have a challenging task ahead: Making inroads with blue-collar voters, who have been stubbornly resistant...

President Barack Obama finds Indiana’s religious freedom law and others like it “unthinkable,” the White House said Wednesday. “I do think in the mind of the president, the thought that we would have state legislatures in the 21st century in the United States of America passing laws that would use religion to try to justify discriminating against people for who they love is unthinkable,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said. Critics say Indiana’s law now allows for businesses to discriminate against gays and lesbians.

A group of robbers on the south side of Chicago appear to have taken a page out of the Gulf Cartel or Los Zetas manual for setting up roadblocks in order to carry out violent robberies. Just last week a group of three or four robbers have used a construction area in the city’s south side to set up roadblocks as a trap for motorists. Once the motorists stop, they were assaulted and robbed, UPI news reported. The practice bears a striking similarity to a practice already established by both the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas who set up roadblocks...

CHICAGO — Chicago police say a group of robbers have been using fake road blocks to attack drivers. This is happening in the Fuller Park neighborhood on the South Side. It’s happened twice in the last five days in the 300 and 400 blocks of west 51st Street, around 6 p.m. After drivers stop to move a construction barrel blocking the street, three or four suspects start attacking and robbing them. Police have only released vague descriptions of the suspects.

On a recent Friday, Kwanza Brooks, a $7.25-an-hour McDonald’s worker, climbed into a 14-person van to take a four-hour ride from Charlotte, N.C., to Atlanta. As she and other workers headed south, Ms. Brooks, a short, fiery woman, swapped stories with her companions about unsafe conditions and unfair managers. Upon arriving, they joined more than 400 other people — including home care aides, Walmart workers, child care workers and adjunct professors. The gathering was a strategy session to plan for the fast-food movement’s next big wave of protests, which is now scheduled for April 15. But the meeting was also...

This article explains that the City of Chicago has concealed how it has dealt with its budget gap over the past decade. The city failed to cut its recurring expenditures to match its recurring revenues after it blew through its reserve funds. Instead, two administrations have: Used long-term debt to finance everyday expenses and maintenance; Used long-term debt to finance judgments and settlements, including police brutality cases, and retroactive wage increases and pension contributions for its unionized employees; Restructured the city’s existing debt to extend the maturities on its bonds far out into the future in order to avoid having...

Some of the worst public-sector pension problems in America are playing out in states and cities where legislation or local court rulings have granted extraordinary protections to workers’ retirement benefits—far beyond those enjoyed by private-sector employees. ... One can see a glimpse of Illinois’s possible future in Arizona. Last year, the state’s Supreme Court overturned 2011 pension reforms that, among other things, sought to curb expensive annual cost-of-living increases for judges, legislators, and ... The predicament faced by Illinois and Arizona should be a warning, especially to other states where government pensions enjoy extraordinary legal protections. Raising benefits or shortchanging...

Rep. Tammy Duckworth D-Ill., made it official on Monday and announced her 2016 Senate in a video, largely autobiographical, titled “Tammy Duckworth is running for the Senate.” As first reported in the Chicago Sun-Times, Duckworth, a wounded Iraq war vet, elected to her second term last November, is looking in 2016 to clinch the Democratic nomination and take on Sen. Mark Kirk R-Ill. Kirk is a top target for the Senate Democrats as he seeks a second term. Duckworth does not mention his name in her announcement video. Duckworth describers herself as a wife, a mom and a combat veteran...