Free Republic

Two Illinois soldiers lost their lives from the evil, criminal actions of Muslim Nidal Hasan in Texas last week. Private Francheska Velez, 21, of West Kamerling was one of the thirteen killed by Hasan at Fort Hood Army base on Thursday. "She was the best I have. The light of my family," Juan Velez said of his only daughter. "She was living my dream -- to be part of the military, part of the United States. To be part of something. Just to give back to the United States because this is where we are from." Pvt. Valez was three...

In August, I created a blog which brought attention to U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk's campaign for the U.S. Senate. The blog, titled "Republicans United Against Mark Kirk" included information regarding Kirk's voting record as a member of the U.S House of Representatives. The "No To Mark Kirk" blog referred readers to articles, letters to the editor and columns which were posted by numerous Internet sources. My intent was to shed light on this so-called Republican's position on issues which social and fiscal conservatives care deeply about. Kirk's pro-abortion, anti-Second Amendment and anti-traditional marriage views were exposed on my blog. The...

Only a few months ago, Representative Mark Kirk voted for Cap and Tax… er, I mean Cap and Trade. Conservatives and Republicans in general lit into Kirk with a vengeance. Then he started running for the Senate and at a subsequent September 5 campaign stop he reversed himself and decided he wouldn't support Cap and Trade. Kirk is not a strong pro-life supporter, he is bad on the Second Amendment, Kirk is only middling on free trade, and he has drifted back and forth on sometimes support for Obama's left-wing, big spending agenda in Washington… though he is sometimes good...

IFI Media Watch A little over a year ago, I wrote a column regarding the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services' (DCFS) supposed confidential hotline. The DCFS hotline itself was a means by which Illinois citizens could report cases of child abuse and/or neglect. I had a personal experience regarding the use of the confidential hotline which was disturbing, to say the least. I was aware of a family who lived near me in which children were exposed to an unhealthy environment according to anyone's standards. During a visit to the home, three children (all under the age of...

State doc group fighting health care bills By Paul Merrion Nov. 02, 2009 (Crain’s) — The largest physicians’ group in Illinois, in a break with the American Medical Assn. on health care reform, is writing letters to Congress and running full-page ads in major newspapers across the state opposing legislation nearing critical House and Senate votes. “Our physician members are very concerned health reform is moving in the wrong direction,” the Illinois State Medical Society wrote in an “open letter to Illinois patients” posted on its Web site last week. Like the AMA, the Illinois State Medical Society has expressed...

As we at SayNoToACORN.com are fighting to help inform you about what you can do to impress upon our local and federal officials to distance themselves from ACORN, the other side -- those that support the actions of ACORN -- are also organizing. This fact proves that we cannot just sit idly by and hope that things go our way. We must act to make sure our politicians listen to us and defund this criminal organization. We must speak because our opponents definitely are. Once again, Byron York reports on this story and he finds a webpage trying to cajole...

From RFFM.org's Executive Director, Dan Zanoza: RFFM.org will post an op-ed submission from all Illinois pro-family statewide candidates. An op-ed posted on RFFM.org from a particular candidate is not an indication of an RFFM.org endorsement. Op-ed submissions from candidates must meet the following criteria...

SNIPPET: “WASHINGTON: Pakistan’s Consul General in Chicago personally knew both David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, nabbed by the FBI for planning to carry out a major terror attack in India at the behest of LeT, the US authorities have claimed. The FBI in its revised chargesheet filed before a Chicago court said the Consul General of Pakistan in Chicago personally knows both Rana and Headley alias ‘Daood Gilani’, as all three of them are from the same high school. According to the website of the Pakistan Embassy here, Dr Aman Rashid is the Consul General in Chicago. “On...

Earlier I noted that we need your voice to keep the pressure on our representatives to keep government funds out of the hands of the criminal organization ACORN. Today Byron York posted another reminder of this salient fact in his headlined, "Will Congress' Defunding of ACORN Expire Saturday?" York concludes that it is unlikely that ACORN funding will be restored on Saturday, but the simple fact of the matter is that it could be. Either this Saturday or during the very next budgeting process, ACORN funding can be easily slipped right back into a budget any time Congress feels like...

Mad at your job? Torked at your neighbor? Snoop around in their tax info and if you find something damning… REPORT THEM! And the kindly folks down at Chicago’s City Hall are happy to help with their new tax rat program. The Sun-Times reported that Daley’s Rat Line program could be added to the 2010 budget. Read the rest at Publiusforum.com...

Who are the the DIABLOs (Democrats In All But Labels Only)? Who are the RINOs (Republicans In Name Only)? Unfortunately, the American Conservative Union's rankings are pretty useless. In search of being non-partisan and having an even spread of votes, they include many votes which are very lopsided, and so therefore Republicans can fake conservatism without upsetting their media masters and liberal donors. At the same time, a conservative who thinks that a bill is too liberal can get lumped in with all the liberals who thought the bill was too conservative. Combining these two factors, it's impossible to tell...

IFI E-Alert:: Marriage Rally and Lobby Day -- Oct. 29th 10/20/2009 8:10:00 AM By David E. Smith, Executive Director -Illinois Family Institute Approximately eight hundred Illinois citizens from around the state joined IFI & other Christian leaders in Springfield last year to rally, pray, and lobby for natural marriage, religious freedom, parental rights and the innocence of our children. Click HERE to download a flyer to distribute at church and in your community. Join IFI and Illinois families from around the state to take a stand for protecting marriage, religious freedom, parental rights and the innocence of our children! Plan...

Not long ago I posted a piece with news that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) had decided to cut off its association with the Association for Community Activists for Reform Now (ACORN). I also reported that the RIS and several other Federal agencies had stopped their dealings with ACORN, essentially defunding them of federal dollars. But that was then... On October 22 Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D, Calif) was sadly successful in getting an amendment passed in the House Financial Services Committee that would allow ACORN to become an official government actor in setting regulations for financial institutions. You read...

< snip > After Headley’s arrest, dozens of FBI agents from the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Oct. 18 raided a Grundy County meat-processing plant owned by Rana that specializes in Islamic foods. Rana was arrested at his North Side home the same day as the raid on his First World Management Services plant in Kinsman, a farming town northwest of Dwight. Agents seized records from the plant, as well as a related North Side business also raided that day, said the source, who is familiar with the investigation. Rana is accused...

Republican Candidate for the 11th District House seat Adam Kinzinger is still trying to find out how much Vice President Joe Biden's August 20 appearance at a Democrat fundraiser for Rep. Debbie Halvorson (D) cost the taxpayers for police protection and city services. Along with Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica (R), Kinzinger, a U.S. Air Force pilot, has filed several Freedom of Information Act requests with Chicago and Cook County to discover the costs of Biden's fly-by visit at least to those two municipalities. Police interrupted travel from the airport, cleared city streets, monitored protesters and helped the vice president's...

The work of the Medill Innocence Project has already led to the exoneration of 11 inmates in Illinois. In 2000 Governor George Ryan cited the Medill Innocence Project of Northwestern University as one of the reasons he suspended the death penalty in the Land of Lincoln. It has yet to be fully reinstated. The Medill Innocence Project has recently set its sites on the case of Anthony McKinney, convicted of murdering a security officer in 1978. The students of the Project feel that they have successfully proved that McKinney was wrongly convicted and have also succeeded in getting a judge...

Illinois Senator James Clayborne wants to raise the Illinois State Income tax a whopping 67 percent on the citizenry and 33 percent on businesses. It amounts to thievery by the state and has earned Clayborne the title of "Tax Villain" for the month of October from the watchdog group National Taxpayers United of Illinois. In this day when Illinois is almost bankrupt from its profligate spending, Clayborne wants to give this irresponsible government even more of the taxpayer's money to waste. Of course, the out-of-control spending isn;t Illinois' only problem... Read the rest at Publiusforum.com...

Paul Kroenke wrote a great piece on the empty bravado of Mayor Richard Daley and his populist claims that he won't raise property taxes. Kroenke pretty much shows that because of the tax zones that Daley has set up across the city, he really can't raise property taxes even if he wanted to do so. Back on October 14, Daley played the populist by claiming that he was ruling out property tax hikes. "You can't [raise property taxes] ... That would hurt people tremendously," Daley said. "You can only take so much. People are being laid off on a daily...

Does anyone know anything about Robert Hughes? Evidently, he is running against Mark Kirkham (RINO) for senator. I am interested in helping conservative candidates and I have been told that Mr. Hughes is very conservative.

SNIPPET: "Search at Grundy County plant called part of ongoing probe" SNIPPET: "But a source said the owner of the plant, which processes lamb and goat, was taken into custody at his home in Chicago. Documents and records were taken from the plant and from a Chicago travel agency on West Devon Avenue, also owned by the same person, the source said."

For Democrats determined to get a health care bill, Sen. Roland Burris is like the house guest who couldn't be refused, won't soon be leaving and poses a plausible threat of ruining holiday dinner. Suddenly, he can no longer be ignored.

U.S. Representative Judy Biggert (R, Hinsdale, IL) introduced legislation last week intended to prevent misuse of federal housing counseling funds. "It's abundantly clear that ACORN and its affiliates cannot be trusted as a federally certified entity," said Biggert, a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee. "Given the group's clear links to illegal and inappropriate activities, how can we knowingly give them federal certification to divert precious resources from legitimate housing counselors working overtime to help struggling homeowners?" For years federal funds have flowed into ACORN's coffers for services given to low-income home buyers across the country. These services...

If CBS News has it right, the majority of in-home healthcare workers in Illinois voted not to join a union despite the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Governor Quinn's best efforts to force the issue. Earlier in the year, Governor Quinn signed Executive Order 09-15 that gave away the private information of every in-home healthcare worker in the state to several unions so that they might begin a campaign to cajole these workers into joining a union by calling them on the phone and visiting them at their homes. In-home healthcare workers receive a stipend from the state in...

One of Chicago's top five trade shows may be leaving the gigantic McCormick Place Convention Center and taking up business with Orlando, Florida. Why? Because the extremely high costs forced on Chicago by the various unions that have a hammer lock on the service side of the trade show business are driving trade shows to other states. Crain's Business reports that the Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc. is considering the move to sunny Florida as a cost cutting measure. The show has been held in Chicago since 1971 but organizers are considering the move because of a "need to...

I first became a social activist nearly 20 years ago. At that time, I did not realize that activism and politics are inexorably linked. Perhaps I was naive to believe this was not the case. I had hoped with all my heart that pro-family conservatives held to a higher standard than those on the left which practice the dark arts of innuendo, ad hominen and character assassination as a means to gain political power. Again, I was naive. I am learning battles between factions of the Republican Party can be just as ruthless as our Democratic opponents. Republican U.S. Senate...

When I started to think about running for governor, and began the process of asking those closest to me about the race, one of the first questions I was always asked (by those who didn’t already know) was, “What is your position on abortion?”. “I’m pro-life” was always my immediate response. This often led to the next obvious question, “Why are you pro-life?” ...

When Gerald Harsen walks at night with a flashlight, his Elmhurst neighborhood "comes alive with eyes looking back at you," he said. Many of those eyes belong to skunks. Too many of them, he believes. "I grew up on a farm and I've always had the opinion there are certain critters I should not have to live with," he said. So, recently Harsen did something about it. He set a trap in his backyard, luring skunks with peanut butter and bread. On the morning of Sept. 30, Harsen caught one, grabbed his pellet gun and shot it dead. Then he...

Mr. (Forgiven Sinner) (Street) Peoria, IL Dear Mr. (Forgiven Sinner): Thank you for contacting me to share your concerns about federal funding for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). I appreciate hearing from you. I've seen the videos and I am appalled by them. I am also troubled by the discoveries of voter registration fraud, and I am glad ACORN reported the incidents to the authorities. These employees have been fired, and ACORN is being investigated by state and federal agencies for misconduct and potential misuse of government funds. Anyone who has broken the law should be...

Obama Appointee Tied to Effort to Unionize Home Health-Care Workers October 15, 2009 The plot thickens -- as in SEIU's pay-to-play plots in state government, including its most recent naked power grab: Its repugnant effort to intervene between children with disabilities and their parents by making home health care workers for disabled children in Illinois a closed shop. In an editorial today on President Obama’s nominee to head the National Labor Relations Board, the Wall Street Journal shines a light on Craig Becker, an associate general counsel at SEIU whose career is traced back to Gov. Rod Blagojevich:One of the...

We've been reporting to you of the outrageous under-the-radar actions of Governor Pat Quinn and his Executive Order 9-15. This EO both handed the private information of Illinois citizens to unions and set up a payoff for his union supporters by automatically unionizing hundreds of Illinois home healthcare workers whether they want to be unionized or not. Well, one mother is fighting back. Pam Harris serves as the primary care specialist for her developmentally disabled son and in so doing receives some helpful funds from the state for that purpose. When she found out that Quinn's EO gave her personal...

Demure Delaware was the first state to ratify the Con stitution, but since then has not made many waves. It might, however, be part of a political wave a year from now, thanks to a direct descendent of Benjamin Franklin. The great man's great-great-great-great-great grandson, Mike Castle, 70, a nine-term Delaware congressman, will be next year's Republican nominee for the Senate seat Joe Biden held for 36 years. This and other candidate-recruitment successes make it reasonable for Republicans to hope that in January 2011 the Senate will contain fewer than 60 Democrats. Biden's seat is now occupied by a former...

The public is being warned to avoid downtown Chicago expressways after pavement was damaged during construction work on the northbound Kennedy Expressway at Adams Street. "We're advising people to stay off the downtown expressways for the next 24 hours," said Marisa Kollias, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Transportation. "This is a major crisis." Workers were pumping concrete into an underground freight tunnel this morning when "pressure made the road erupt," according to an IDOT dispatcher. Two right lanes of the northbound Kennedy have been closed. It was not known how long the lanes would be shut down. The...

The Illinois Supreme Court has affirmed a decision by the Third District Appellate Court that ruled that the definition of a "case" for transporting a firearm does, indeed, include an automobile's enclosed front seat console. The current law provides for several ways that a firearm can be transported: (4) Carries or possesses in any vehicle or concealed on or about his person except when on his land or in his own abode or fixed place of business any pistol, revolver, stun gun or taser or other firearm, except that this subsection (a) (4) does not apply to or affect transportation...

Over the weekend, Gov. Quinn signed a bill that would require Illinois schools to teach that there was "a forceful removal and illegal deportation of almost 2,000,000 Mexican-American U.S. citizens" during the Great Depression. The bill by itself is revisionist history. During the 1930's, then President Hoover ordered tougher enforcement of illegal immigration laws and nearly 2,000,000 ILLEGAL Mexican Nationals, with a very small percentage of U.S. Citizens (mainly children born in the US to Mexican Nationals that were being deported and did not want to leave behind). It wasn't the "forceful removal and illegal deportation" that the bill states.

This week we've seen King Daley's desperate attempt to get past his deep humiliation on losing the 2016 Olympics after spending so many years trying to convince the world that his corrupt kingdom was the ideal place for the games. The King's brilliant idea was to reveal how he was going to save the city from its epidemic of youth violence. A Chicago Tribune story reported the diminutive King's plan to cure the city of violence in the wake of the death of a student near Fenger High school. emphasized that families and parents need to take responsibility, but he...

Many states have ways to look up the businesses, organizations and people with whom the state does business. Illinois has such a service on the Secretary of State's website. In Illinois there is a way to search the folks the state does business with on a page titled Corporate/LLC Search / Certificate of Good Standing. There you can input the name of a corporation or LLC and find out the address of its offices, its registered manager's name, etc. Sadly, this feature is not easy to use. The problem is you have to know the actual name of the corporation...

During the 2008 presidential campaign Democrats ignored candidates of long standing, proven leadership to push the candidacy of a guy whose only real accomplishment was to have become a "community leader." Democrats defended this sparse resume and said that "community organizing" was all so very important. That was then. Today, community leaders are not so important to the administration of the "community leader" president. At least is seems so since Obama sent his Attorney General, Eric Holder, and his Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, to Chicago for a photo op and meeting with the corruption riddled City of Chicago government...

The perfect example of the idiocy of sin taxes... "According to the State of Missouri, July and August liquor tax collection remained relatively flat before spiking in the month of September. The growth in liquor tax revenue was solely attributable to a phenomenal 41% increase in sales of hard liquor and wine as..." Read more: Missouri liquor sales skyrocket after Illinois alcohol tax increase

Governor Pat Quinn signed Executive Order number 09-15 earlier in the year. This order gave the state government the OK to hand over the private information -- the addresses, names, and telephone numbers -- of hundreds of families that have developmentally disabled children and other family members with chronic medical problems in their homes. Many of these people are considered home-based healthcare workers by the state and they receive state aid to help them take care of their disabled family members. Unions like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)...

Imagine that. In this day and age most of the GOP Party organizations in the great state of Illinois do NOT have a web page. Illinois has 102 counties, but only 23 of them have a usable, working webpage. In this Internet age, the very first place everyone runs to in order to find out about something is the Internet. Yet three quarters of our Illinois county GOP organizations do not have their own maintained webpage up on the Internet for prospective voters to peruse. Of the 102 counties, 23 have websites that they've created and maintained. Another 33 have...

President Obama, I come from Chicago. I was born in Chicago. Chicago was where I grew up. Mr. President, you are not a Chicagoan. Yes, it's true. I, Charles Henrickson, was born and raised in Chicago, in the city. I was that rarest of creatures there--a registered Republican. And I love my hometown. Even as I detest the corrupt Democratic machine that runs it. The Chicago I grew up in, the Chicago of Hizzoner da Mare, was corrupt, yes. But the Chicago of today, under da Mare's kid, Richie, is both corrupt and radically leftist, fostering the likes of...

An elderly woman is raped in her room, and police arrest a 21-year-old ex-convict with acute psychiatric problems. When the victim is interviewed by investigators five days later, she shakes with fear. A frail man blind in one eye is slashed in the throat by a gang member, police say. About a year earlier, the same assailant allegedly had stabbed him in the face with an ice pick. A man in a wheelchair dies of head injuries so severe that his doctor says it looked like he was hit with a baseball bat. One of the suspects is a 24-year-old...

Democrats should be bitter that President Obama failed to secure the Olympic Games for the City of Chicago as major donors in the Unions and ACORN will be lacking the millions of dollars in donations that would come from the Olympic Projects. If Obama along with Mayor Daley had in fact secured the games, the deconstruction and construction of the Waterfront and Olympic Village would have put millions if not billions of dollars in the back pocket of Union Only Labor, who would ensured the projects would be riddled with cost overruns(remember Boston's Big Dig Project) Social Groups like ACORN...

Illinois is a bankrupt state, yet our accidental Governor Pat Quinn is handing over millions of state dollars to ACORN/SEIU and any other union that wants to put its hand out. Join me and Americans For Prosperity to Say NO to ACORN.com. Take the first step today. Please visit our website often, share with friends and join our effort to put the heat on state leaders and urge them to launch a real investigation into ACORN and its affiliates. It’s time to end the culture of corruption in Illinois. Join us, sign the petition and Say No to ACORN. Read...

The Associated Press is reporting that the poverty rate in Illinois has jumped from 10.7 percent in 2000 to 12.2 percent in 2008, the last year for which we have Census Bureau data. That comes out to about 1.5 million Illinois citizens living below the poverty line. Hardest hit were some of the counties in Northern Illinois in and around the Chicago area. The drops in income were particularly steep in several northern Illinois counties, DuPage, Kane and Winnebago. For instance, in DuPage County, the median income has declined $10,690 since 2000, from $87,723 to $77,033. One of the things...

The Alliance for Worker Freedom has decided to send a letter to replacement Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois asking him how much his favoritism and goodies given to unions in the state have cost the taxpayers of Illinois. (I say "replacement gov." because Quinn is the former Lt. Gov. that became the accidental gov. when Rod Blagojevich was indicted and then impeached from office) Quinn is guilty of handing over the personal information of thousands of Illinois home-based support workers that receive state aid to take care of family members with severe medical conditions to several unions so that the...

Note: The following text is a quote: September 30, 2009 O'Hare Airport temporary staffing employees sentenced for harboring illegal aliens who were given access to secure areas Assisted illegal workers in obtaining unauthorized airport security badges CHICAGO - The owner of a Bensenville temporary employment agency and her assistant were sentenced in federal court Wednesday for harboring illegal aliens and assisting those workers in obtaining unauthorized access to secure areas at O'Hare International Airport, including the tarmac. The sentences resulted from a multi-agency federal investigation conducted in 2007 and led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Mary Gurin, 38,...

SNIPPET: "(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama are both traveling to Copenhagen this week to promote Chicago's bid to host to the 2016 Olympic Games--and they will be making the 3,979-mile trip on separate airplanes." SNIPPET: "As reported earlier by CNSNews.com, a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report cited two cost estimates for an hour of air travel by the president, vice president and first lady. One estimate comes from the White House Military Office, the other from the U.S. Air Force. Using the CRS cost estimates and the inflation adjuster from the Bureau of Labor Statisitcs,...

Exelon Chairman and CEO John W. Rowe has announced that the Chicago-based utility will not be renewing its membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce due to the organization's opposition to climate legislation. "The carbon-based free lunch is over," says Rowe. "But while we can't fix our climate problems for free, the price signal sent through a cap-and-trade system will drive low-carbon investments in the most inexpensive and efficient way possible." According to the New York Times, Exelon is the third utility to leave the chamber because of its opposition to the climate bill. San Francisco-based Pacific Gas & Electric...

Today, we sent the below letter to Gov. Quinn urging him to disclose documents releated to his office giving names and contact information of home healthcare providers to the unions. Illinois currently provides state funding to approximately 3,000 residents to assist family members with developmental disabilities through the Illinois’ Home-based Support Services Program. The personal information of people enrolled in the Support Services Program was distributed to two unions in accordance with Executive Order 09-15 which states, “the Department of Human Services shall provide to an organization interested in representing individual providers access to the names and addresses of current...