Free Republic

It’s now public on Monday: Jarrett, who has homes in Washington and Chicago, is working with the Chicago-based Obama Foundation in an advisory capacity. The foundation now has a branch office up and running in Washington — in the same building where former President Barack Obama has his official government post-presidential office. Jarrett, I am told from one of her advisers, “will work with President Obama and the foundation leadership, including Chairman Martin Nesbitt and Chief Executive Officer David Simas, to help support the foundation team’s work as it develops the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park on the South...

When asked whether President Donald Trump would still cut off law enforcement funds to the city of Chicago because it’s a sanctuary city even though it could hamper police from fighting violent crime, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said sanctuary cities can’t have it both ways — refusing to cooperate with federal immigration officials and still expecting to get law enforcement grants to handle a situation they created. “You can’t be a sanctuary city and at the same time seem to pretend or express concern about law enforcement or ask for more money when probably a number of the...

Before the week’s headline Supreme Court debate, senators are poised to get the Delta Queen back cruising America’s waterways. The legendary riverboat has been barred from carrying overnight passengers since an exemption to the 1966 Safety of Life at Sea Act for the largely wooden vessel lapsed back in 2008. Lawmakers from Cincinnati to St. Louis have pushed for the Delta Queen to get a new lease on life since then, and the Senate has scheduled a Monday evening vote on passage of a bipartisan bill that would do just that... Sen. Rob Portman, who hails from Cincinnati, remembers the...

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has moved forward with plans for a Chicago-only identification card specifically designed to ensure illegal aliens in the city can receive welfare benefits with minimal risk of repatriation. The new program was unveiled at a Chicago City Council meeting on Wednesday, and it protects illegal aliens from federal oversight by not collecting any copies of identification documents presented when illegals apply for the identification card. “Applicants bring in the documents to prove someone’s identity. They hand them over to specially trained individual who can review the documents and then hand them back … It’s going to...

Caterpillar plans to close a machine production plant in Aurora, putting about 800 hourly employees out of work, the company confirmed Friday. The Peoria-based heavy equipment manufacturer said in January that it was considering moving production of large wheel loaders and compactors to Decatur and medium wheel loaders to North Little Rock, Ark. Caterpillar will still have about 1,200 workers, including management, engineering and support jobs, in Aurora, the company said.

Caterpillar Inc. has announced the closing of its facility near Aurora, Illinois, and the lay off 800 workers. Earlier this year, the earth-moving equipment maker said it would lay off employees in 2017 because of an anticipated decline in demand for its products. Caterpillar spokeswoman Lisa Miller said Friday the large wheel loaders and compactor production will be moved to the company’s Decatur, Illinois, plant. Its medium wheel loader production line will be moved to the North Little Rock, Arkansas, plant. …

CHICAGO – U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) today visited a Chicago elementary school that would lose funding under President Trump’s proposed budget cuts to after-school programs. Chicago Public Schools’ (CPS) after-school programs depend on federal funding from the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) program, which is the only federal funding source dedicated to after-school enrichment at low-income schools.  President Trump’s budget proposes to eliminate the 21st CCLC program, impacting 1.6 million kids nationally and over 52,000 students in Illinois. “President Trump tweets about Chicago a lot but has yet to show an ounce of real concern for our...

Seven people, including a pregnant woman, were killed in three separate shootings that happened within 12 hours of each other on Thursday in South Shore. The attacks took place in an eight-block radius in the neighborhood, but Chicago Police have not said if they were related. No arrests had been made as of Friday morning. The latest homicides happened about 11 p.m. as a 27-year-old man and a 23-year-old woman rode as passengers in a van going south on South Shore Drive. A black Jeep pulled alongside them near 70th Street and someone inside opened fire, hitting him in the...

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) released the following statement after President Donald Trump signed an executive order dismantling America’s efforts to reduce pollution and fight climate change:"Just about everyone agrees that we should try to pollute less, but not Donald Trump—he just surrendered in the fight against climate change. He’s put the future health and safety of America’s children back into the hands of big oil companies, and turned us back toward a dangerous future with more floods, droughts, wildfires, and national security threats. For anyone who enjoys breathing clean air and counts on clean drinking water, this...

Two guns were found at the Belmont Cragin home of a man who was shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent early Monday on the Northwest Side, authorities said. The allegation surfaced as immigration activists rallied Tuesday outside the home in the 6100 block of West Grand to decry the growing fear in Chicago’s Latino community as a result of the raid and its target, which remains unclear. A law enforcement source said Tuesday that federal agents recovered the gun that they say the 53-year-old pointed at them as they tried to serve an arrest warrant for his...

One-hundred years ago, my grandfather immigrated to the City of Chicago. He was just 13 years old. He had no money. He spoke no English. He knew no one, except for a third-cousin he had never met. He came to Chicago to escape anti-Semitism and the pogroms of Eastern Europe. He found a city where, if you work hard and play by the rules, you can succeed — regardless of your faith or national origin. My grandfather came to a city of opportunity, not a country that breaks up families at the border. He came to a land of liberty,...

Loyola University Chicago offers a campus club “for self-identified White students” to admit their own racist feelings and to complain about the racism they perceive around themselves. The segregated “affinity group,” called Ramblers Analyzing Whiteness, allows all students “who self-identify as White” to talk about their “anger and confusion about institutional racism” and to confess “guilt and hope about internalized racism.” Members can also “examine what it means to be White” and “begin the journey of operating in solidarity with others and their privilege.”

Students who “self identify as White” at Loyola University Chicago can apply to join a safe space to learn about white privilege, institutional racism, and internalized racism. RAW, also known as Ramblers Analyzing Whiteness, is a small, closed group at LUC for white people to “engage in dialogue about their own racial identity” and “critically reflect on...their actions.”

A Muslim officer who was fired by the North Chicago Police Department last month is suing for religious discrimination, claiming he was fired after complaining about harassment. “I risked my life so someone could sleep better. And this is not right. This is not right what they did to me,” said Ramtin Sabet. Sabet started working for the North Chicago police in 2007, and the Iranian born officer said the harassment started a few years later. […] “I would show up to calls, they’d say, ‘oh Mr. Taliban pulled up here’, I would call in lunch breaks on the radio...

The purpose of Illinois campaign disclosures laws is to promote transparency and to permit voters to make informed decisions. While posing as a virtuous civic organization, the ‘Wilmette Friends’ are actively supporting candidates and opposing their challengers without disclosing their campaign contributors in violation of Illinois law. No one knows how to learn what expenditures have been made or where the funds were deposited. The League of Women of Voters, which has a lot in common with the Wilmette Friends (and the New Trier Caucus) is supposed to be nonpartisan, but in New Trier it would appear that the local...

An Illinois mom behind a viral Facebook post spoke to Fox 2/News 11 Wednesday. Her son, Hunter, 4, has been suspended from his preschool for bringing a shell casing from a fired bullet to school. He'd been at the preschool for about a year, she said, and now was in tears. Neither she nor Hunter's dad knew it, but he found something he thought was pretty neat and he took it to school Tuesday to show his friends. [Snip] Well....when I was escorted to the office for a sit down. I was handed a tiny .22 empty brass casing. Not...

Two years ago, Romeoville Illinois held a gun “buy back. They took in 73 guns, pictured above. Some of those firearms are very nice indeed, and worth much more than the $60 that police were paying people for them. Third from the left of the middle row of long guns appears to be an M1 carbine and sling. Two over on the left is a classic .22 target rifle, two over to the right a classic hunting tool, a pump action .22 rifle, probably a Winchester 1906.  In the center of that row are two Stevens Crackshot .22 rifles,...

CHICAGO (CBS) — At least seven people were wounded in separateshootings on Thursday in Chicago. The latest attack happened about 11:30 p.m. in the Eden Green neighborhood on the Far South Side, where a 42-year-old man was walking in the 13300 block of South Indiana when a gunman opened fire from a parking lot nearby, according to Chicago Police. A bullet grazed his leg and he declined treatment. An hour before that, a 20-year-old man was driving in Englewood’s 6600 block of South Racine when he was shot in the head and he crashed into a parked car, police said....

Cook County lost more population than any other county in the United States from July 2015 to July 2016, according to a new data release from the U.S. Census Bureau. Cook County shrank by 21,324 people. The county had more births than deaths and gained 18,434 people from international immigration. However, Cook County had a net loss of 66,244 people to other parts of the United States, which more than offset the components of population growth.

(CHICAGO) — The mother of a 15-year-old girl who authorities say was sexually assaulted in an attack streamed live on Facebook said Wednesday that her daughter has received online threats since it happened and that neighborhood kids have been joking about it and harassing her family. The woman was reunited with her daughter on Tuesday, two days after the girl went missing and a day after police learned of the attack. She said her daughter is staying with a relative and is scared to come home, and that she shares that fear. "This is just disturbing and to think the...