Free Republic

A few days after the Chicago City Council approved a $1.3 million legal defense fund to help illegal immigrants facing deportation, officials in Los Angeles unveiled their version with more than seven times the money. It appears to be a growing trend of using public funds to protect those who have violated federal law. The offenders are municipalities that have long offered illegal aliens sanctuary and an array of taxpayer-funded benefits. Last week Chicago officials proudly announced their legal defense fund to help immigrants threatened with deportation. It was created to prepare for President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promise to deport...

The gunshots that rang out just after midnight last September sent youths in the neighborhood running scared. One 22-year-old man was killed. Three others, just passing by at the time of the altercation, were injured by the gunfire. Sound familiar? It's not a scene from Chicago. This shooting, stemming from a "spilled drink," happened near the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus.

Illinois losing 1 resident every 4.6 minutes, could fall behind Pennsylvania in population Jobs + Growth / Article December 20, 2016 Illinois has record loss of 114,000 residents to other states in 2016 as population shrinks by 37,500. Imagine the entire population of Peoria, Illinois’ seventh-largest city, all picking up and moving across state lines in one year, never to work, pay taxes or create jobs in Illinois again. That’s equivalent to what happened to Illinois over the past year: New migration data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that from July 2015 to July 2016, Illinois lost 114,000 people,...

The Left is livid and distraught over the Election Day victory of Donald Trump and has resorted to reporting incidents to blame Trump supporters. However, the problem is that many of them have been debunked as hoaxes. For example, Yasmin Seweid accused New York City subway riders of not coming to her aid when Trump supporters harassed her. She later admitted she made it up to not get in trouble for violating curfew. On college campuses, here are some Trumped-up hate crimes which have since their first reporting been verified to be false: • At North Park University in Chicago,...

Two West Side men are in critical condition after they were shot on a crowded party bus in Lakeview early Sunday. A third man, who may be the shooter, also suffered a gunshot wound to his hand. Police and ambulances rushed to the 500 block of West Irving Park Road after a man opened fire during a dispute on the bus, which was carrying 30 passengers, shortly before 2 a.m. The gunman and another man ran out of the bus and fled down Recreation Drive on foot. They crossed under Lake Shore Drive in the Addison pedestrian tunnel and fled...

Four people were shot dead during an attack in the Fernwood neighborhood and 15 other people, including a 9-year-old boy, were wounded in shootings from Saturday to Sunday. The quadruple fatal shooting marked the third time in less than 24 hours that a single shooting incident left at least four people wounded. It happened about 12:40 p.m. in the 100 block of West 105th Street at a home in the Fernwood neighborhood, said Officer Jose Estrada, a Chicago police spokesman. At least five ambulances were sent to the home after officers were alerted by an anonymous call that several people...

Even in the crowded annals of Chicago City Council malfeasance, Ald. Willie Cochran's indictment this week on federal criminal charges puts the 20th Ward in some rarefied air. When the federal paperwork hit at the start of Wednesday's council meeting, Cochran, a retired police sergeant turned politician, officially became the third of the past four aldermen from the South Side ward to be indicted while in office. It's the City Council's version of the office of Illinois governor, where four of the nine to previously serve ended up convicted. Cochran maintains his innocence and pledges to keep his seat representing...

DECATUR – U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) today announced that the U.S. Department of Energy has awarded two grants totaling $10 million to the Illinois State Geological Survey (ISGS), housed at the University of Illinois’ Prairie Research Institute (PRI). The grants will fund projects to research commercial-scale geologic storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. “Any meaningful strategies for addressing the causes and dangers of climate change must include reduced carbon emissions,” Durbin said. “That’s why we are here today to announce a $10 million investment by the United States Department of Energy to study if 50...

Ever since Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in last month’s presidential election, liberals have been whining about how “unfair” this result is. Now, the Democrat lawmakers in Congress have launched a sick plan against Trump before he’s even inaugurated that may result in his impeachment. Right Wing News reported that Sen. Elizabeth Warren is working on a bill that would force President-elect Donald Trump, future FLOTUS Melania Trump, their youngest son Barron, Vice President-elect Mike Pence and his wife Karen Pence to put their assets into a blind trust. This would prevent any conflict of interest during Trump’s presidency while...

Automatic voter registration bill dies in Illinois House after veto, but similar legislation could follow SPRINGFIELD – Gov. Bruce Rauner’s veto of a bill that would automatically register voters across Illinois has held up in the General Assembly, leaving unclear whether such a bill can secure enough votes to become law amid the current political environment. The Illinois State Senate easily topped the total needed to override the veto with a 38-18 vote in favor. The parties, however, were more divided in the Illinois House of Representatives. The bill received 67 yes votes. However, 71 votes were required to override...

MARENGO, Ill. — Officials have identified the pilot killed in a small plane crash over the weekend. 63-year-old Robert Sherman of Poplar Grove, Illinois died when his homebuilt Zenair CH601 crashed into a cornfield near Meyer and Pleasant Grove Rd. Sherman was the only person on board. The cause of the crash is not yet known. Local officials believe it may have gone down overnight, but it wasn’t spotted until around 7 a.m. Saturday. Sherman is an atheist activist known for his court battles dealing with the separation of church and state.

Atheist activist, Green candidate Rob Sherman dies in plane crash Rob Sherman, who died over the weekend in a crash of his small plane in Marengo, operated a business helping people build aircraft from kits. But the 63-year-old was better known as a colorful political activist and Green Party candidate — some might say gadfly — who called journalists and introduced himself as “Rob Sherman, your favorite atheist.” At one time, he had license plates that spelled out ATHEIST. Though he came in for derision as a self-promoter, he challenged the use of government-sponsored Christmas creches and displays and anything...

The refrain is heard almost as often as the fatal gunshots: The way to reduce Chicago’s gun violence is tougher prison sentences for repeat gun offenders, keeping them off the streets and decreasing the city’s mounting death toll. That idea, pushed by the mayor, police superintendent and others, shifts pressure from patrol officers of the city’s West and South sides to the Capitol, where legislators will consider how to balance law and order with finding alternatives to imprisoning young blacks and other minorities.In that building, in the same Senate seat where Barack Obama launched his political career and focused on...

A brother would never shoot me at point-blank range in the face. Never lie in wait to steal my life. Would never sell drugs to my mother. Never poison our community. Not a black man. Not my brother. No brother would allow himself to become the worst enemy of the state of Black America. A brother would never lure a 9-year-old boy from a playground to an alley and execute him to allegedly settle a score with his father. Would never stand over a wounded pregnant woman and pump her body with bullets as she pleads for her life, wounding...

Sears (SHLD), the 130-year-old American icon, can’t find a way to stop the bleeding. The floundering retailer has closed hundreds of Sears and Kmart stores, cut costs and borrowed millions of dollars from CEO Eddie Lampert’s hedge fund to keep the business going. Sears invested in its online store and a loyalty program, Shop Your Way, in hopes of regaining its footing, but customers have yet to return in droves. On Thursday, Sears reported its fifth quarterly loss in a row, and sales continued their downward trend. Sears also revealed that it will accelerate plans to shutter underperforming stores. Jason...

Chicago's public school (CPS) system plans to sell a new type of bond issue in an attempt to separate the debt from the district's severe financial woes and protect it in a potential bankruptcy filing, according to a document released by the district on Tuesday. The preliminary prospectus for the debt indicates the Chicago Board of Education will issue $500 million of bonds secured solely by a capital improvement property tax and not by the district's general obligation pledge.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel had a fiery response when asked Thursday night whether he would consider running for president in 2020. The former White House chief of staff to President Obama and senior adviser to President Bill Clinton flipped off consultant Neil Hare — twice — after being posed the question at BLT Steak, prompting laughter from others at the bar. Emanuel, famed for his coarse language and caustic retorts, was hanging out at the restaurant located blocks from the White House during a swing through Washington this we

Illinois state Rep Will Guzzardi, a Democrat from the Northwest side of Chicago, failed to win legislative approval for a bill that would have required state pension funds to divest investments in companies hired by the Trump administration to build a border wall. “If Trump wants to build his wall he can, but our taxpayer dollars aren’t going to support it. Those aren’t our values,” Capitol Fax reported Guzzardi wrote in an email to his legislative colleagues. As for what exactly the values of Illinois might be, Guzzardi said he was inspired by a joint statement from California’s legislative leaders...

94-year-old WWII veteran beaten during SW Side robbery; suspect crashed stolen SUV By Evelyn Holmes Thursday, December 08, 2016 CHICAGO (WLS) -- Police are looking for a man who allegedly beat a 94-year-old woman, stole her purse and took off in a stolen vehicle before crashing it in Chicago's Garfield Ridge neighborhood. The victim's daughter, Judy Dusk, said her mother, Josephine Regnier, is a World War II Navy veteran. Dusk said she was waiting for one of her daughters outside her building in the 5100-block of South Long Avenue to pick her up to go to the dentist when she...

How bad is the bloody violence in Chicago, where more than 700 people have been murdered so far this year and thousands have been shot in the street gang wars? The gangs keep shooting, the survivors mourn, police morale is down, anti-police sentiment is up and the mayor says some cops have gone fetal. And the politicians do nothing in the bloody city. Street gang violence in Chicago is as bad, if not worse, than the record-setting death years of the 1990s. But there is no penalty for Democratic politicians who sit back in the Democratic city and do nothing...