Free Republic

A recent round of posts between Gubernatorial candidate Dan Proft and Chicago Examiner website columnist Robert Moon of Macon County, Illinois shows the difficulty of trying to discuss immigration in Illinois today. Passions are high and it is hard to get past all the suspicion imbued in it all. It all began with a segment of a Chicago radio broadcast in which Dan Proft addressed some of the more demagogic treatments of the immigration problem and echoed the worry made by many Republicans that the more wild-eyed treatments of the immigration problem is bound to force the GOP into permanent...

Kate Campigne Piercy, director of government reform for the Illinois Policy Institute, recently penned an interesting piece for The Chicago Tribune that informed us all that the Illinois Commerce Dept. bought $2,821 worth of Hot Sauce during fiscal year 2009. That's not all, either. What's the need for a typewriter in a computer-centric world? The Illinois Employment Security Department spent $245.80 on a Brother ML100 Typewriter -- in addition to $12,176.54 on a Canon Microfilm/ Fiche Printer. The governor's office shelled out $20,692.24 on "subscriptions." The Commerce Department spent $3,770 for golf carts, $280 on soy crayons and $2,821 on...

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 ten) were found...

Note: The following text is a quote: Chicagoan Charged with Conspiracy in 2008 Mumbai Attacks in Addition to Foreign Terror Plot in Denmark Additional Charges Unsealed Alleging Retired Pakistani Major Conspired in Danish Plot New federal charges filed today allege that a Chicago man, who was arrested in October for planning terrorist attacks against a Danish newspaper and two of its employees, also conducted extensive surveillance of targets in Mumbai for more than two years preceding the November 2008 terrorist attack on India’s largest city that killed approximately 170 people, including six Americans, and injured hundreds more. The defendant, David...

CHICAGO - Despite opposition from congressional Republicans, the Obama administration is signaling that a state prison in rural Thomson, Ill., will probably become the new home for scores of terrorism suspects now housed at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Officials from the White House, Defense Department and U.S. Bureau of Prisons spent two hours last week briefing more than a dozen members of the Illinois delegation in the office of Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill. To reassure skeptical Republicans, they emphasized security. Although the officials left open the possibility that another site could be chosen, participants...

Thanks to a special freepmailer for pointing to this link. # SNIPPET: “”We are trying to ascertain whether the Moroccan was one of the women who could have helped guide the Mumbai terrorists during the attacks. Our investigations show that this woman had visited Mumbai on two occasions and met Headley during his stay here,” said an IB source.” SNIPPET: “Indian investigators say that Headley was not a womaniser but used women as a perfect cover for his operations. The IB says that this is contrary to the image Headley portrayed during his interrogation by the FBI. He came across...

Rod Blagojevich has been robbed of evidence central to his corruption case. Chicago Tribune: Chicago police are investigating a burglary at the offices of attorneys for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich in which at least one computer containing undercover recordings from the sweeping corruption case was stolen, sources said. The break-in took place overnight at the law offices of Sam Adam and his son, Sam Adam Jr., in the 6100 block of South Ellis Avenue, the sources said. The burglars set off an alarm but escaped the area. Investigative sources said there are no suspects. Read the whole thing >>

The last time Jim Ryan ran for governor of Illinois, he offered voters a clear choice between a man who never took a dime in public life and Rod Blagojevich. And though many would like to forget it, they chose Blagojevich. "The infrastructure of the Illinois Republican Party has never really been for me," Ryan said over breakfast the other day as we talked about that 2002 campaign and his current run in the crowded GOP primary for governor. "I'm not a deal-maker. And senior Republicans knew my reputation. They knew I wouldn't be flexible." Seven years ago, Ryan, then...

Well, Illinois voter, say you go to the polls and you decide you don't like any of the candidates for lt. governor or secretary of state but you are all fired up about your choice for governor. So, you just don't want to vote for the ones you don't like but you darn sure want to vote for the ones you DO like. Guess what? If certain authorities in Illinois have their way your vote won't count at all. It'll be flagged as an undervote, kicked out of the machine, and you'll be urged to complete the ballot whether you...

CHICAGO – Illinois environmental officials will dump a toxic chemical into a nearly 6-mile stretch of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal Wednesday to keep the voracious Asian carp from entering the Great Lakes while an electrical barrier is turned off for maintenance. The fish, which can grow to 4 feet long and 100 pounds and are known to leap from the water at the sound of passing motors, have been found within a few miles of Lake Michigan and there is evidence they might have breached the barrier, designed to repel them with a non-lethal jolt. Environmentalists fear the...

I think we need to meet as conservatives to get ideas on how to save our beautiful state. It was going well until Blago took over in 2002. I'm thinking January 9th. Downtown Chicago.

A one two punch storm system is organizing across SE New Mexico and will be tracking eastward over the next 24 hours. In addition, a second storm system will be dropping south through the Northern Plains. These two systems will be phasing, or coming together, on Wednesday and a powerful low pressure system will track from the southeast Texas coast to near Louisville, Kentucky by Wednesday evening. A sharp shot of cold air will sink rapidly southward behind this moisture rich system and likely rainfall will be changed over to accumulating snow.

Here is a really fascinating series of tweets from Commissioner Tony Peraica as he participated in the latest Cook County Board meeting. Today (Dec. 1) Board President Todd Stroger tried to cajole the board into upholding his veto of the roll back of his implementation of the highest tax rate in the country. Peraica is against the tax and since the State Legislature ended the four-fifths rule, lowering it to three-fifths to overturn the president's veto, the fight was on. Anyway, here are the tweets that Peraica posted during the debate and they are a fascinating peak inside a board...

John Kass, he of the rail against "the combine," has another column reminding us of why the Illinois GOP has become the laughing stalk of the GOP nation wide. It's because up until this very day, the Illinois Republican Party has been but a weaker arm of the Illinois Democrat Party. Too many in the state GOP have been so intertwined with the criminal Democrats that they are indistinguishable one from the other, hence why Kass calls them "the combine." Kass reminded us of how the Illinois GOP establishment under past Party Chair Andy McKenna worked hand in glove with...

This week ABC 7's Chuck Goudie aired a report made in conjunction with the Better Government Association that explored the efficacy of the Illinois Township and what they discovered is just more waste and ripoffs of the Illinois taxpayer. Townships were originally created for two main purposes: raising taxes to take care of roads in unincorporated areas and to provide temporary aid to the poor. Unfortunately the I-Team and the BGA have discovered that this extra layer of government is collecting large amounts of taxes, spending only a fraction on the two purposes for which they were created, and banking...

Note: The following text is a quote: Eighteen Charged Following Multi-Year Fraud Investigation Steven M. Dettelbach, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, today announced that a federal grand jury returned a 23-count indictment charging 18 defendants with violating federal laws following a multi-year investigation into fraud relating to identification documents. Named in the Indictment are the following individuals: Vitaly Fedorchuk, 30 , of Parma, OH; Pavlo Mostranskyy aka Pasha, 45, of North Royalton, OH Sonya Hilaszek, 45, of Cleveland, OH Azamjon Asadov, 34, of Cincinnati, OH; Martynas Bojarcius, 29, of Palatine, IL; Jaroslav Wladyka aka Bohdan Borsuk,...

Vietnam veteran robbed, killed on his way to deposit VFW money William Burtner had helped raise money for WWII vets' trip to Washington Army veteran William Burtner survived Vietnam and dedicated his life to helping other veterans. On Monday, Burtner was about to enter a bank in Midlothian to deposit money that the south suburb's Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2580 had raised during a benefit. He never made it inside. Burtner, 65, was assaulted and robbed outside the bank. He died Wednesday night in Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. An autopsy Thursday concluded Burtner died of hypertensive...

THOMSON, Ill., Nov. 22 (UPI) -- Thousands of jobs would be created in Illinois if the U.S. government purchases a nearly empty prison there to house terror detainees, a study indicates. The study, performed by the Obama White House Council of Economic Advisers and obtained by The Chicago Sun-Times, asserted that 2,290 to 2,960 jobs would be created in and around Thomson, Ill., in the first year after its conversion to house some of the prisoners now held at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility, the newspaper reported Sunday. Local residents in the Illinois-Iowa border town would be "good candidates"...

Last week, the body of Chicago school board president Michael Scott was found in the Chicago River with a single bullet wound in his head. The big story was that this powerful, well-connected public official had, according to the Cook County medical examiner, committed suicide. The less-noticed story was that he did it with an illegal weapon. After all, handgun ownership is not allowed in Chicago, which has one of the strictest gun control laws in the country, and Scott killed himself with a .380-caliber sidearm. Unlike most Chicagoans, Scott could have been a legal handgun owner. Because he had...

SNIPPET: “In about less than a week, India will mark the first anniversary of the Mumbai terror attacks. After the US’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)’s Chicago breakthrough, now Italy has achieved some headway in the investigations relating to last year’s terror events(26/11). The Italian police have arrested, after almost a year long monitoring and surveillance, two Pakistani nationals (Father and Son duo) from Brescia city who are accused of sending funds from their money transfer agency and providing the logistical support to Pakistani terrorists. The suspects Mohammad Yaqub Janjua and Aamer Yaqub Janjua, owners of the Madina Trading telephone...

Tell me who that is standing next to Barack Obama. It sure looks like Bill Ayers. Anyone know who it is?

War On Terror: Sen. Dick Durbin calls a plan to transfer 100 Guantanamo detainees to northwest Illinois "a dream come true." It would paint a bull's-eye on America's heartland in time for the 2012 Iowa caucuses. It seems the question of where to put the Guantanamo detainees is being settled as we speak, with liberal Democrats in the very blue state of Illinois welcoming them with open arms and outstretched hands for the federal dollars that will come with them. Federal officials last Friday inspected the Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, Ill., a town of 500 on the Iowa border,...

In a follow up to my earlier post advocating for an actual debate on this issue here in Illinois on this business of bringing terrorists to live in Illinois, a new effort to try and stop this mess has been launched. Go to Not In Illinois and sign the petition and tell Governor Pat Quinn that we do NOT want terrorists living among us. We the undersigned ask you to not bring terrorist into Illinois. They should be tried in military courts and not in civilian courts. They are a danger to the citizenry of the United States and should...

Welcome to the Terrorists-for-Jobs Exchangeby Kevin McCullough, FOXNews.com Updated November 16, 2009 Shouldn't the voters of a state that have the chance to weigh in on whether or not terrorists should be housed in a prison in their state? It appears that officials in three states--Illinois, Montana, and Colorado--are salivating over the hope of landing a federal contract to house some of the remaining Gitmo detainees. The reason for such desperation appears mostly to be driven by desperate economics. Amid reports this weekend that President Obama's home state of Illinois is hoping to sell a prison facility to the federal...

Some folks in this dying Mississippi River town would rather take their chances with suspected terrorists in their backyard than watch their neighbors continue to move away in despair over the lack of jobs. News that the federal government may buy the nearly empty Thomson Correctional Center and use the maximum-security state prison to house Guantanamo Bay detainees has given people in Thomson hope that things might be about to turn around in this woeful town of 450. "This town is slowly but surely dying off, and I mean that literally because the people that are retired are dying off...

Security Increased at Indian Nuclear Sites Over Possible Attack Monday, Nov. 16, 2009 SNIPPET: "Security at nuclear power facilities in India has been boosted following indications that the sites might face a terrorism threat, Reuters reported today (see GSN, Aug. 17). New Delhi put its nuclear sites on alert following reports that a U.S. citizen, arrested Oct. 3 in the United States in an unrelated case, had visited Indian states with nuclear facilities, the Press Trust of India reported. "The step is precautionary in nature," said an Indian Home Ministry official. "The states have been asked to increase the vigil...

Once again we see how clueless Democrats like Illinois Governor Pat Quinn and Senator Dick Durbin are on matters of national security. With Barack Hussein Obama's decision to treat the terrorists at Guantanamo Bay as if they are common American criminals, as the president bestows all American rights upon them, and with his decision to spread these monsters out across the U.S.A, we see Quinn and Durbin idiotically asserting that terrorists equal "good paying jobs." These jobs might come from the sale to the federal government of the Thomson correctional facility in west central Illinois where Obama could send some...

SNIPPET: "Mumbai, Nov. 14: David Coleman Headley personally visited every target site of the 26/11 terror strikes last year, carrying out a recce on behalf of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, a police source said today. Posing as a Jew, he even visited Nariman House, the Jewish Chabad centre, in July 2008. The Mumbai police today carried out raids in Bandra, its adjoining suburb Khar and BPO hub Goregaon in search of Headley’s local acquaintances and contacts. “He (Headley) mapped the Chhatrapati Shivaji terminus, Taj and Trident hotels and Nariman House. We are interrogating (filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt’s son) Rahul to find out when...

Posted: Nov 13, 2009 3:14 PM Updated: Nov 13, 2009 3:15 PM MARION, IL (KFVS) - SNIPPET: "Ali Al-Marri, 43, is serving an eight year sentence for being a so called "sleeper agent." He has admitted to training in Al-Qaeda camps and having contact with the alleged planner of the September 11th attacks."

SNIPPET: “With the National Investigation Agency registering a case, officials have begun a sprawling investigation into rail, air and phone records to track the trail in India of US national David Coleman Headley and his Canadian associate Tahawwur Hussain Rana, the two men arrested by the FBI last month for allegedly plotting terror strikes. While preliminary investigations are expected to go on for at least six weeks, sources said there is evidence to show that Headley checked in at least twice in Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Palace Hotel and Towers more than a year before it was targeted by the Lashkar’s...

<p>CHICAGO — A White House official says the Obama administration is considering buying a northwestern Illinois prison to house a limited number of detainees from Guantanamo Bay, along with federal inmates.</p>

A near-empty prison in rural Illinois has emerged as "a leading option" to house suspected terrorists currently held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, an Obama administration official said Friday. PHOTOS As they work to shutter the controversial detention center, federal officials are talking to Illinois officials about buying the Thomson Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison about 150 miles west of Chicago. With Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and other key officials warm to the idea of a federal purchase of the prison, federal officials have stepped up investigations into turning Thomson into a super-maximum facility with a unit for former Guantanamo detainees....

Until this Summer Andy McKenna was the Chairman of the Illinois GOP. He presided over a party that saw every single state wide office lost to it. He presided over a party that tried as hard as it could to make sure that Illinois' Republican voters would be barred from voting their own leaders into place (even though Democrat voters do elect their leaders). McKenna presided over a GOP that seemed little more than a junior partner to the corruption plagued Democrats. …and now McKena's running for governor. And guess what? House Republican leader Tom Cross is backing McKenna. Yep,...

OK, say you are running for the Cook County Board. And say your daddy is the village clerk in the very district where you are hoping to get a whole slew of by-mail and early votes. Also say your cousin is running for Governor and he's already the State Comptroller now. Do you think your opponent might casually wonder if the fix is in? ... well, it is Crook County, after all. Naturally, the above isn't just some bad TV script, but a real situation in southern Cook County. In Orland Park where Democrat Patrick Maher is running to unseat...

If you think the recession has hit hard where you live, consider the little Northern Illinois town where almost half the working age adults are out of work. It's called Pembroke. Imagine a community so deep in the hole, the government has fired the police force and closed two of three elementary schools. It's happened in Pembroke, a little town of some 3,000 in eastern Kankakee County near the Indiana border. It's a town where these days, many folks don't rebuild after a fire. The charred remains just sit there. Mayor Sam Payton puts it this way: "I'd say we're...

How can we best honor the judge who granted a $50,000 yearly firefighter's pension to a convicted serial arsonist? Hear ye, hear ye, Cook County Judge LeRoy Martin Jr. You've just been inducted into the judicial wing of the Chicago Way Hall of Fame. Martin's ruling, handed down late Friday afternoon -- when all bad political news oozes out -- involves the strange case of former Chicago Fire Department Lt. Jeffrey "Matches" Boyle, a prolific arsonist. On Tuesday, I visited Martin in his Daley Center courtroom, to inform him of his prestigious honor. "You know very well that a judge...

Federal Bench: Yet another judicial nominee seeks to impose the "empathy" standard on the courts. He thinks judges should base rulings on a plaintiff's status, legislate from the bench and amend the Constitution. Indiana federal judge David Hamilton stands poised to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate to assume a seat on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals serving Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. He's a former fundraiser for Acorn and a former leader of the Indiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. He is also another in a series of activist judges who believe the U.S. Constitution is not...

"U.S. cites al-Qaida DVDs in pressing for suspect's detainment Chicago man allegedly plotted to attack Danish newspaper, target in India" SNIPPET: "A federal judge could decide on Nov. 19 whether to release Rana, owner of a Chicago Immigration business and a Grundy County meat processing plant, on bond pending trial." SNIPPET: "Last week prosecutors alleged that Rana and Headley, also of Chicago, had discussed targeting the National Defense College in India, a military school. Rana also allegedly told an associate of the Pakistani terror organization Lashkar-e-Taiba how to use loopholes in U.S. Immigration procedures to get others into the country...

Several Republicans and candidates here in Illinois have spoken out on the passage of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's version of Obamacare. Here are a few of them (in no particular order). Republican State Chairman, Patrick Brady, warned Illinois Democrats that what they have wrought is "wrong for Illinois." Today is a disappointing day for Illinoisans as Nancy Pelosi, Melissa Bean, Debbie Halvorson and Bill Foster ignored the concerns of voters and rammed a trillion dollar 1,990 page government-run health care bill through Congress ignoring pledges of transparency and bi-partisanship. Illinois for generations will be forced to deal with...

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...