Free Republic

Why Pensions Are A (Big) Black Swan – Chicago’s Unfunded Liabilities Are 10 Times Its Revenues, 50% Of Their Cash That Will Have Go To Pensions. [ Full title ]. ... When talk turns to what might derail today’s debt-driven “recovery,” the big names and easy stories get most of the attention: China with its soaring debt, volatile equities and heavy-handed intervention; Japan with its stratospheric debt and science fictiony demographics; Greece, which needs no explanation; the developing countries with their weak currencies and mountain of dollar-denominated debt. And of course America’s triple bubble of stocks, bonds and derivatives. Underfunded...

City officials are pushing property-tax hikes, sales-tax hikes, and even a commuter tax and financial-transaction tax. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s wish for a $474 million sales-tax increase to help pay for the county’s growing pension debt has been granted. The hike pushes the sales-tax rate back up to 10.25 percent in Chicago – the same as it was when Preckwinkle took office in 2010. And that’s not the only new tax residents have to face. Preckwinkle is just the latest local leader to usher in a tax increase. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel created a new tax earlier this...

We have rarely seen anything as disgraceful as this. There are just five days to go before the July 21 deadline to file for a re-hearing before the US Supreme Court on its recent 5-4 “same-sex marriage” ruling. But chances are bleak that this crucial filing will be done. The cave-in by the GOP has spread to major pro-family organizations. As we described in our report last week, the US Supreme Court "same-sex marriage” fight is not completely over. According to the Court’s published rules, within 25 days of a ruling, a party can ask the Court for a “rehearing”...

FULL TITLE: Fmr. Dem. Gov. Granholm, Who Vetoed Partial Birth Abortion Bans Twice, Caught Lying on Camera About Law Former Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D-MI) had a very liberal record during her tenure, twice vetoing a ban on partial birth abortions. A recent hidden camera investigation caught Granholm misrepresenting the true nature of Michigan’s abortion laws, saying that they were more restrictive than they actually are in what appears to be an effort to downplay the horrors of late term abortions. The video was taken by a citizen journalist who wishes to remain anonymous and has provided the video exclusively to...

DETROIT (AP) — An 8½-foot-tall bronze monument featuring a goat-headed Satan will be unveiled at a secret, ticketed event in Detroit after the owner of a popular restaurant and entertainment complex backed out and opponents issued threats, organizers said. The 1½-ton Baphomet, which is backed by an inverted pentagram and flanked by statues of two young children gazing up at the creature, shows Satan with horns, hooves, wings and a beard. The Satanic Temple, a group that advocates for the separation of church and state, will release the location of the unveiling on the day of the event, and details...

Black activists got angry when the Detroit Police Chief James Craig called the people responsible for shooting 12 people on a playground killing one of them urban terrorists. They complained about the insult and want him to apologize. Craig refused to back down and stuck to his guns. Craig said quite bluntly: “You will allow this to continue if you do nothing. It must stop now.” That’s when the president of the Detroit National Action Network (founded by Al Sharpton) Rev. Charles Williams took umbrage to Craig’s assertions that these thugs are urban terrorists: “We want to make it...

An illegal immigrant from Mexico is being held in the Van Buren County Jail for allegedly kidnapping a 13-year-old Florida girl and sexually assaulting her at a home in Hartford. 23-year-old Aurelio Hernandez-Gomez was arraigned over the weekend, and also faces extradition to Florida on the kidnapping charge. The teen will soon be reunited with her family in Florida according to the Van Buren County Sheriff’s Department. She was reported missing on July 7 from Polk County. She was recovered at the same home where police arrested Hernandez-Gomez in the 66-thousand block of 48th Avenue. Child Protective Services took...

Illinois and Michigan have traded places on two key metrics for measuring prosperity and opportunity, and both changes are embarrassing for the Land of Lincoln. The first major change came in October 2014, when Michigan surpassed Illinois for total factory jobs. Michigan now has 25,000 more factory jobs than Illinois even though the Wolverine State’s economy is only three-quarters the size of Illinois’. Now, new data from the Department of Human Services shows the embarrassing role reversal has come full turn. In March of this year, Illinois bumped off Michigan to become the Midwest’s No. 1 user of the Supplemental...

<p>An 8½-foot-tall bronze monument featuring a goat-headed Satan will be unveiled at a secret, ticketed event in Detroit after the owner of a popular restaurant and entertainment complex backed out and opponents issued threats, organizers said.</p> <p>The 1½-ton Baphomet, which is backed by an inverted pentagram and flanked by statues of two young children gazing up at the creature, shows Satan with horns, hooves, wings and a beard.</p>

Ted Nugent and Kid Rock have teamed up to record a song in support of the Confederate flag. The song, titled “Kiss My Rebel Ass,” was reportedly written and recorded in the space of a day after Nugent, seeing that Kid Rock had invited anyone protesting his use of the flag at his concerts to “kiss my ass,” reached out to express his support via text message. “When you get a text from the Nuge, you know you’ve done something right,” laughed Rock during a joint appearance the two made on WWJ Newsradio 950. Added Nugent, “Rock ‘n’ roll ain’t...

<p>A 23-year-old man who told police he entered the United States illegally from Mexico has been arrested in connection with the kidnapping and sexual assault of a 13-year-old Florida girl.</p> <p>The Van Buren County sheriff's office in southwestern Michigan says Aurelio Hernandez-Gomez was arraigned Friday in South Haven.</p>

After Four Months, Why Are 20 Chaldean Iraqi Christians Who Fled ISIS Still Detained by Immigration Officials? [ Full title ]. ... Despite having family members to sponsor them, a group of 20 Chaldean Christians who fled ISIS have been detained for over four months at the Otay Detention Facility in San Diego. The large Chaldean community in Southern California are unhappy with the unexplained delays and are demanding their release. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) claim they are undermanned and face a backlog of cases but have offered little to the media about the prolonged detention of the...

PONTIAC, Mich. (CN) - After her decision to jail three children for being rude to their father ignited a media frenzy, a Michigan judge presiding over a bitter custody battle switched their punishment to summer camp Friday. Insisting that she had the best interests of the Tsimhoni children, ages 14, 10 and 9, at heart, Judge Lisa Gorcyca said at a hearing Friday that her earlier order sentencing them to juvenile detention did not endanger them, the Detroit Free Press reported. Gorcyca reportedly said the children were not housed with criminal offenders and that every alternative avenue presented to the...

A mouthful of missing teeth. Chronic pain all over the body. Unrelenting weakness in joints and muscles. Even death. Those were some of the claims that Dr. Farid Fata’s victims heaped upon him at his sentencing trial this week for administering at least 2,000 unnecessary chemotherapy treatments. Fata admitted to misdiagnosing and exposing his cancer patients to unneeded and excessive rounds of chemotherapy to collect payments from both them and their insurance companies. He was sentenced on Friday to 45 years in prison by U.S. District Judge Paul Borman — which will most likely cover the rest of the 50-year-old’s...

Something is actually growing in Detroit, a city that mostly has been in the news for the its losses—charter schools, 66 of them. Their growth tracks with a statewide trend, and has the Detroit public schools worried. “With more than 260,000 Michigan students relying on educational choice, critics have likely realized that they must act now to limit it, before its growing popularity makes the task impossible,” Audrey Spalding writes in Impact, a magazine published by the conservative Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Specifically, “This year, more than 150,000 Michigan schoolchildren attend public charter schools. Another 110,000 students use ‘Schools...

The Detroit Police Department is suffering from its worst manpower shortage in nearly a century. There are currently fewer officers patrolling the city than at any time since the 1920s. At one point, the Detroit police force was over 5,000. Today, the force is just 1,590 officers strong — and not all of those are on the street. The city has lost nearly half its patrol officers since 2000 and ranks have shrunk by 37 percent in the past three years alone, according to the Detroit News. It’s so bad that precincts are reportedly left with only one squad car...

A homosexual man has filed a $70 million lawsuit against Bible publishers Zondervan and Thomas Nelson, alleging that their version of the Bible that refers to homosexuality as a sin violates his constitutional rights and has caused him emotional distress. Bradley LaShawn Fowler, an ex-con turned author, filed the federal suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on Monday, the same day a judge refused to appoint him a lawyer for his suit against Thomas Nelson, The Grand Rapids Press reported. “The Court has some very genuine concerns about the nature and efficacy of these...

PONTIAC (WWJ) – An Oakland County judge has sent three children to a juvenile detention facility for failing to have a relationship with their father, saying it’s one of the worst cases of parental alienation she’s ever seen — even comparing the children to the Charles Manson cult. Circuit Judge Lisa Gorcyca declared the children — ages 9, 10 and 15 — in civil contempt of court during a hearing on June 24. The children were taken into custody and hauled off to Children’s Village after declining to have lunch with their father. “It’s a very troubling case, no doubt,”...

Three Bloomfield Hills kids who refused an order by a judge to go to lunch with their father have been ordered to a juvenile detention facility. "I felt like I was watching them be executed," said Maya Tsimhoni. The Tsimhoni family was in Oakland County's family court for a hearing on supervised parenting time when Judge Lisa Gorcyca took matters into her own hands. Read the court transcript as the judge as she sent the three kids to Children's Village June 24 court transcripts showed how upset the judge was. She ordered the Tsimhoni kids ages 14,10 and 9 to...

DaJuawn Wallace said he didn't stop immediately when prompted by police at 2 a.m. Feb. 19 because he was taught to pull into a well-lit and safe area before doing so. The Detroit native who is a commuter student pursuing a master's degree at Saginaw Valley State University believes he did not commit a crime, since he pulled over in a Sam's Club parking lot about 1.5 miles up the road from where police activated their lights. The Saginaw County prosecutor's office disagrees, however. Wallace faces one felony count of fleeing and eluding. "I live in Detroit, and I know...