Free Republic

The Canadian government will apologize and give millions to a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner who pleaded guilty to killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan when he was 15, an official said Tuesday. An official familiar with the matter told the Associated Press that Omar Khadr will receive $8 million. The deal was negotiated with Khadr’s lawyers and the Canadian government last month.

The Illinois House voted to override Republican Governor Bruce Rauner’s veto of the income tax hike and budget bill. This is the first budget Illinois has passed in two years. The House voted 71-42, which is the bare minimum House Speaker Mike Madigan needed, after a security incident delayed the vote for two hours. The House passed the tax hike and budget bill on Sunday with 72 votes, including 15 Republicans. A few flip flopped, according to The Chicago Tribune: On Thursday, there were some slight changes. One lawmaker who previously voted for the income tax hike on Sunday, Republican...

The Illinois Capitol reopened Thursday after being on lockdown for about two hours after a woman allegedly threw a powdery substance in the governor's office. A hazardous materials unit was called in and Springfield fire officials said the substance was found to be not hazardous, although what it was remained unclear.

Beginning in 2020, Chicago high-school seniors will have to prove that they have a government-approved post-graduation plan in order to earn their diplomas. Yep. Rather than allow its young people the freedom to approach their futures creatively, Chicago will force its students to choose from one of just five government-approved options: College attendance (note: verbal vows of attendance are not enough, students will need to present actual acceptance letters), a gap-year program, military service, a trade apprenticeship, or a job. According to Reason, the official description of the demand claims that the city is trying to raise $1 million...

Governor Bruce Rauner urged lawmakers to put politics aside, calling their new budget plan a disaster. There is pressure being applied by both sides on the 15 Republicans who crossed the aisle and voted with the Democrats to narrowly pass the most controversial part of the budget bills, the $5 billion income tax hike. Wednesday, Rauner called on lawmakers to sustain his vetoes. Rauner stopped to take pictures with supporters in the Hegewisch neighborhood as he criticized House Speaker Mike Madigan for pushing through the tax hike.

illegal immigration costs Illinois $3.85 billion per year. This number is a low estimate in a particularly low year because of the budget crisis happening in Illinois currently. So let’s put that number in perspective. As mentioned above, Illinois is in a budget crisis and on the verge of bankruptcy. Their state debt is upwards of $64 billion. Their credit rating is a BBB-, which is one notch above a junk/non-investment rating. They are also projected to have their credit further downgraded. Illinois also has unpaid bills upwards of $15 billion (with $800 million per year just in interest payments)...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WLS) -- The Illinois General Assembly has voted to name a portion of Interstate 55 for a former president.

New video of a security guard at Alpine Bank shooting and killing the robber Rockford police say 34-year-old Laurence Turner of Rockford is dead after attempting to rob an Alpine Bank Friday. Investigators say Turner entered the bank and fired a round into the ceiling. Turner then reportedly fired his gun at an armed security guard inside the bank. The guard shot Turner. He was later pronounced dead at the scene. No employees were hurt and no customers were inside at the time. Authorities believe Turner may be involved in similar robberies in the Rockford area over the past few...

Total capitulation by Governor Bruce Rauner is in the works. The taxoholics wore him down. In the emergency session, Rauner has agreed to hike the personal income tax rate to 4.95% from the current 3.75%. The corporate income tax rate will rise to 7% from the current 5.25% rate. For what? Nothing. Reforms are nonexistent. Another Deadline Come and Gone {..snip..}

Illinois started its third straight fiscal year without a state budget on Saturday, territory that could mean some universities won't be able to offer federal financial aid, road construction and Powerball ticket sales will halt, and the state's credit rating will be downgraded to "junk." While a spending plan got early approval in the House on Friday, the chamber later adjourned for the day, with House Speaker Michael Madigan saying they would return Saturday — the first day of the new fiscal year.

Life in Chicagoland, and the unfulfilling refreshment of a temporary stay… (this is the third in a series on the new Cook County soda tax): For all we like to say about the great culture of THE ancient Greeks – for all intents and purposes, they invented theater, you know! – they were really just as human as the rest of us. Sometimes, no matter how well the story was going, they wrote themselves into a corner. There was just no way to resolve the situation and end the play. So what did they do? They rigged up a contraption...

Time to pop the champagne bottles and celebrate the state’s economic success, right? Not so fast. Illinois’ path to a low unemployment rate has been paved by labor force dropout. Too many workers have given up on the Land of Lincoln, and their act of despair is actually driving down Illinois’ jobless rate. You see, when an unemployed Illinoisan gives up on looking for work, he is no longer counted as unemployed. As more Illinoisans give up, the unemployment rate goes down. Illinois’ low unemployment rate is nothing to celebrate. If anyone is to be cheered, it is the dozens...

The city of Chicago is facing bankruptcy due to Democrat Party leadership that has simply destroyed the great American city. But this isn’t stopping the Democrat leadership in Chicago from paying for and placing a statue in front of Trump Tower in Chicago. The statue reads “Real Fake”. It was reported earlier this week that Chicago is on the verge of bankruptcy. Two years ago Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Chicago’s debt to junk status, now politicians in Chicago are arguing that maybe bankruptcy is not such a bad thing. Chicago currently faces $25 billion in pension promises that it cannot...

Our columnist Jazz Shaw wrote earlier in the week about the dreadful financial crisis in the state of Illinois. The deadline for a budget deal is July 1st which makes tomorrow the last day for lawmakers to try to arrive at the state’s first budget agreement in three years. From CNN Money: After decades of historic mismanagement, Illinois is now grappling with $15 billion of unpaid bills and an unthinkable quarter-trillion dollars owed to public employees when they retire.The budget crisis has forced Illinois to jack up property taxes so high that people are leaving in droves. Illinois may...

Politicians are notorious for making promises they can't keep. But they really outdid themselves in Illinois -- and now the state is paying for it. Illinois is on the verge of becoming America's first state with a junk credit rating. The financial mess is the inevitable result of spending more on pensions and services than the state could afford -- then covering it up with reckless budget tricks. After decades of historic mismanagement, Illinois is now grappling with $15 billion of unpaid bills and an unthinkable quarter-trillion dollars owed to public employees when they retire. The budget crisis has forced...

Dick Durbin, the leftist partisan hack who has advocated filibustering President Trump’s Supreme Court picks, has something to hide. The Associated Press has reported that GOP baseball shooter James Hodgkinson has been involved with at least two Democratic senators from his home state. Clearly these two senators are Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth. Durbin, who has long been an apologist for Islam, apparently is a defender of liberal aspiring killers as well. If the emails are so innocuous, why not just release them? What does Dick Durbin have to hide? From DailyCaller Democratic Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin’s office will not...

our people, including a 16-year-old boy, were killed and at least six other people, including a 14-year-old girl, were wounded in separate attacks during 13 hours Wednesday. In the most recent fatal attack, two women, ages 41 and 32, were shot on the South Side about 10:30 p.m. while they were driving through the Washington Park neighborhood. They were in a vehicle heading north in the 5400 block of South Wabash Avenue when someone in another vehicle shot at them. Both were shot in the head and were pronounced dead at the scene. Just after 7:30 p.m. on the Southwest...

Chicago government spends $90,000 per year on each of 200 employees to spend most of their “work” time sitting around doing nothing The Chicago Sun-Times reports:… the $18 million question… why City Hall tolerates having 200 motor truck drivers “paid to do nothing” but drive crews to their work sites and wait in the vehicle until they finish.A Teamsters Union contract that runs until June 2017 prohibits the city from transferring certain driver responsibilities to other employees, except during emergencies. Nor is the city allowed to sub-contract services in a way that would trigger driver layoffs.Inspector General Joe Ferguson argued this...

As if Illinois didn’t have enough to worry about between an imminent downgrade to junk (as soon as July 1), soaring debt costs, insolvent pension funds, and roads that may soon resemble the lunar surface, today in the latest insult to a relentless series of injuries, the lottery itself, including the popular Powerball and Mega Millions, is set to dump Illinois because the state literally can’t afford to payout winners.As we pointed out a few weeks ago, Illinois Lottery spokesman Jason Schaumburg confirmed that the association has had discussions since 2015 about dropping Illinois, but this is the first time...

A wellness center connected to a church founded by Illinois Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush has received $650,000 in taxpayer-funded government grants in 2017, public records show and has pulled in more than $15 million in grants since 2008. Rush, who was first elected to Congress in 1992, founded the Beloved Community Christian Church, a non-denominational church located in Chicago, in 2002. (snip) "I founded a church in Englewood, one of Chicago's poorest and most fragile neighborhoods, and named it Beloved Community Christian Church," Rush wrote in a 2011 op-ed published in the Huffington Post. "The church, once the site of...