Free Republic

Calls for Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel, to resign have been increasing and include a call from Al Sharpton. Amid rumors that Emanuel's office withheld the Laquan McDonald police video purposefully to boost his reelection chances, Illinois is now considering the possibility of a recall election. [Snip] Emanuel has been adamant in insisting that he will not step down and held a press conference to that effect last week. [Snip] With Chicago, Illinois, and other prominent Democrats calling for Emanuel to resign and even The New Yorker writing about Emanuel's "sudden but well-deserved fall," it's hard to see how he stays...

A hallmark of Obama's presidency since his early days in office has been his habit of pitting American citizens against each other: Democrats vs. Republicans, blacks vs. whites, rich vs. poor, climate change alarmists vs. climate change skeptics, gay vs. straight, etc.It was shocking at first. Seven years in, it is depressingly expected of the Community-Organizer-in-Chief.In his weekly address, released Friday, Obama vowed to spend his final year in office seeking ways to impose gun control policies via executive fiat, and urged American citizens to stand up against groups like the NRA -- which, of course, is made up of...

In a move that is certain to stir things up as the political new year unfolds, President Obama will lead a televised town hall Thursday to address tightening restrictions on access to guns. Obama will sit down with Anderson Cooper on CNN at 8 p.m. ET for the one-hour event titled "Guns in America," which coincides with the fifth anniversary, next Friday, of the shooting of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Arizona, in a mass shooting that left six dead and 13 others wounded.

<p>Matt Brandon, secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union Local 73, which represents the aviation police officers, said he doesn’t understand why the officers are prohibited from carrying guns.</p> <p>He said the union has been unable to get the aviation department to change the no gun policy, which dates to the early 1990s.</p>

The nearly 300 unarmed police officers patrolling Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway airports have been told to “run and hide” during active shootings. Internal aviation department documents obtained by CNN instruct officers not “to become part of the response” to an attack. “If evacuation is not possible, you should find a place to hide where the active shooter is less likely to find you. Block entry to your hiding place and lock the door,” but Matt Brandon, secretary-treasurer of the airport officers union, told CNN they have serious issues with the protocol. “These men and women are sent to the Chicago...

Several protesters took to popular North Side brunch restaurants on New Year's Day to chant and raise awareness of police violence in Chicago.The protesters, including members of Black Lives Matter Chicago, the Black Youth Project, and Assata's Daughters, went into restaurants Kanela Breakfast Club and Dove's Luncheonette in Wicker Park and chanted "While you are here celebrating over brunch, black families are struggling to keep themselves safe from CPD."The protest, which began trending as #BlackBrunchChi on Twitter, was meant to "intervene on the 'celebration' of consumerism, corrupt property zoning/displacement practices, and the retail and service industries' route collusion with police...

At the big Oprah-headlined rally for Barack Obama in Los Angeles on Saturday, surprise guest Maria Shriver, California's First Lady, cited -- as one of a string of reasons why the state's Democrats should vote for the Senator from Illinois -- the fact that, like California, he was "diverse." In the wake of Super Tuesday, we've learned that such diversity doesn't necessarily include Latinos, especially those older than 30. But a self-congratulatory article in the India Express touting the influence of Indian-Americans in the Democratic primary process reveals even greater constraints on the appeal of Obama's diversity. In California, exit...

--(snip)--Despite being the nation's third most populous city, Chicago far outpaces New York City, Los Angeles and every other large city in America in the sheer number of homicide and shooting victims, though it fares better than some smaller cities on a per capita comparison. And despite the attention given to Chicago's police-involved shootings, the city had fewer in 2015, with 22 people shot, than in recent years. In an interview with the Tribune, interim Superintendent John Escalante said he plans to fight violence in 2016 by employing some of McCarthy's past strategies, including a continued focus on arresting people...

No doubt you, too, spent the holidays relishing the humiliation of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the overrated and obnoxious Democratic Party hack who, finally, is teetering on the brink of political oblivion. How the former ballet dancer and Sarah Lawrence alumnus parlayed ambition and drive and the ability to scream like a lunatic into high office and a fortune of more than $10 million is one of the remarkable political stories of our time. "Emanuel has succeeded in almost every professional endeavor he has undertaken," Ryan Lizza wrote approvingly in 2009. Spoke too soon. How bad is Rahm Emanuel? He...

The results are in for one Illinois university's famous mock presidential election, but the clear winner may surprise some. Western Illinois University's mock election predicted a landslide victory for Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, with running mate Martin O'Malley, in 2016. The predicted Sanders-O'Malley ticket garnered 404 electoral votes to Jeb Bush-Marco Rubio's 114 votes. In the popular vote, Sanders earned 741 votes (49 percent) to Bush's 577 (38 percent). The famously accurate mock election correctly predicted the outcomes of the 2008 and 2012 elections, and the university claims it's the "largest and most elaborate mock presidential simulation in the nation."...

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is warning U.S. voters: "If Donald Trump becomes president, he will take America into the abyss of hell." Farrakhan posted a video of his statements on his Facebook page Thursday. In the video, Farrakhan acknowledges that Trump has "done some great things in the business world," but then he accused the GOP front-runner of "exacerbating the race situation in America."

One of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's deputy chiefs of staff was attacked Sunday evening while attending a vigil for Bettie Jones and Quintonio LeGrier, who were fatally shot by Chicago Police in West Garfield Park on Saturday. According to a source, Vance Henry was attending the vigil about 5:50 p.m. at the site of the shooting in the 4700 block of West Erie when he was attacked.The police department's Office of News Affairs confirmed that a 50-year-old man was at the vigil when "he was approached by an unknown person who began to make verbal threats which escalated to a physical...

Yesterday I called Al Sharpton's call for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's resignation over a police shooting the “perfect Obama-era scandal.” It showcases Obama’s hometown, home of some of the country’s strictest gun-control laws, plagued by 2,937 shootings in the past year, about 350 more than the previous year; an entirely-Democrat controlled political system that engages in cover-ups and a culture of unaccountability; a microcosm of African-Americans, the most loyal demographic to the Democratic Party, feeling victimized and disregarded by leaders they eagerly elected and reelected. Elitism, double-standards, runaway state power, incendiary agitation, racial tensions - it's all here. Now we...

The Reverend Al Sharpton called for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to step down because of his poor management of race and policing in his city since the release last month of a video showing a white Chicago police officer firing 16 shots into a black teenager and subsequent officer violence. Mr. Emanuel is vacationing in Cuba, while demonstrators are circulating petitions for his resignation, and protesters blocked traffic on the city’s famed shopping district on Michigan Avenue on Christmas Eve chanting “Rahms got to go in 2016!” “You talk about a crisis on steroids,” Mr. Sharpton said Monday on MSNBC’s...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said on Monday he would cut his family vacation in Cuba short to address the fatal shooting of two more black residents by a city police department already under federal investigation over its use of deadly force. The decision comes after activists stepped up calls for Emanuel's resignation over his handling of policing in the nation's third-largest city. A protest is planned at City Hall on Thursday."While Mayor Emanuel has been in constant contact with his staff and Interim Superintendent (John) Escalante, he is cutting his family trip short so that he can...

The endorsement by South Carolina Republican Representative Trey Gowdy of Florida Senator Marco Rubio in the GOP presidential nomination contest offers a contrast in opposing positions. Gowdy has espoused positions that have been repudiated by Rubio and it will be interesting to see how the two men reconcile their differences as they campaign together. In Iowa, the Rubio campaign has been attacking his rival for the nomination, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, as weak on national security. This attack is based on Cruz’s support for the USA Freedom Act which curtailed the ability of the NSA to collect phone call meta...

It is grotesquely ironic that the White House, the administration, the media complex, the leading candidate for the Democrats—not to mention leftist progressives generally speaking—are so uptight about a candidate for the other party who has little to no filter. The irony is so rich because while the left (which includes all those listed above) may not ever fully say the most offensive and blatantly immoral, unhealthy, and in some cases inhumane things—they fight for policies that continually strip away dignity, health, and life for the masses. They also attempt to insure those policies by actually inferring that anyone who...

We told you early this year that right-to-work would likely come to Illinois but it would have nothing to do with what Governor Rauner or the General Assembly do in Springfield, and it would come locally. That is what happened last night in Lincolnshire, where the village board, by a five to one vote, made the town a right to work zone. This was not like other votes taken earlier this year by other towns, which were nonbinding expressions of policy. Lincolnshire actually enacted right-to-work, and it potentially sets a huge precedent. You may recall that, in March, Illinois Attorney...

Demonstrators in Chicago vowed to block shoppers from the city's world-famous Magnificent Mile Thursday to protest police shootings, one day after activists in Minnesota stormed the Mall of America and the Minneapolis airport. Organizers in Chicago are hoping the Christmas Eve demonstration will be a repeat of another Michigan Avenue demonstration in which a few hundred people disrupted shopping there on Black Friday. A group calling itself The Coalition for a New Chicago says the march will begin a noon at the south end of the Magnificent Mile shopping district and move north. The area is one of the largest...

Illinois losing 1 resident every 5 minutes to out-migration The U.S. Census Bureau report released Dec. 22 is compelling evidence that Illinois needs pro-growth, pro-jobs reforms. The report shows that Illinois recorded its first six-digit loss of residents to other states, with Illinois losing 105,000 more people to other states than it gained from July 2014 to July 2015. The border war losses were so bad that Illinois total population shrank by 22,000 people on the year, the worst ever. Similar to last year 2013-2014 data, Illinois is the only state in the region to have a shrinking population. The...