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Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) has a message for firearms manufacturers and banks under attack from Chicago Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel: Texas welcomes you. Cruz pilloried Emanuel’s gun-control efforts and invited executives to consider the warmer, friendlier climes of the Lone Star State in a Tuesday letter to the CEOs of Bank of America, TD Bank, Sturm & Ruger, and Smith & Wesson.

In a letter sent Friday to the CEOs of TD Bank and Bank of America, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel urged the banks to stop serving gun manufacturers unless they support gun control measures, CBS Chicago reported. According to CBS, Emmanuel wants the banks to "stop lines of credit, financing for acquisitions and expansions and financial advising" unless the manufacturers agree with him on issues like background checks and what he called “commonsense reforms." “In the past, the gun industry has stood in opposition to these safety measures. They opposed a ban on assault weapons on America’s streets, opposed a ban...

Illinois’ credit rating has taken another hit. Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service downgraded the state from an “A” rating to “A-minus”, making it the worst in the country.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, moving to take a lead role in the gun control debate, is turning up the pressure on banks that do business with firearms manufacturers. Emanuel is sending letters to two major financial institutions, TD Bank and Bank of America, which offer lines of credit to gun makers suggesting that they stop lending money to the manufacturers if they don’t come out for new gun restrictions. “TD Bank currently aids the gun manufacturing industry through a $60 million revolving line of credit with Smith & Wesson, a gun manufacturer that produces the AR-15 – an assault weapon...

Guns: The mayor of what is at once America's most gun-controlled city and its murder capital wants an assault weapons ban like the one he pushed in 1994. Except it didn't work then, and it won't work now. Nathaniel T. Jackson, 40, an alleged gang member with a long arrest record, was gunned down last week outside a store in Chicago's Austin neighborhood, becoming the Windy City's 500th murder victim in 2012. Up to 80% of Chicago's murders and shootings are gang-related, according to police. By one estimate, the city has almost 70,000 gang members. A police audit last spring...

In 2012, 532 people were murdered in the city of Chicago, according to statistics compiled by the Crime in Chicago website. The number of people murdered the year before was 441, meaning in the city of Chicago, murders have increased by 91 from 2011 to 2012. The Chicago Police Department was not available to confirm these numbers today, which is New Year's Day. The website also claims that, through December 25, 2012, there 2,670 people were shot in Chicago last year. That's also an increase from the year before, when 2,217 people were shot in Chicago that year. In all,...

**SNIP** Although it’s difficult to pinpoint a single cause for last year’s increase, statistics show the early part of 2012 suffered the biggest spike in homicides. Experts and some law enforcement sources believe the unseasonable warmth that hit Chicago during that period contributed to a homicide spike as high as 66 percent in April, and the month of March—the warmest March on record in Chicago--was especially hit hard when there were 53 homicides, up from 23 in March 2011. **SNIP** Even though Chicago has the most police officers per 100,000 people out the five major U.S. cities, many within the...

Breitbart News has confirmed that The University of Chicago Laboratory School, where Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel sends his children, is protected by an armed, on-duty police officer. University of Chicago Police public information personnel informed Breitbart News that there is at least one armed officer on duty a the school everyday and has been for “several years.” Emanuel blasted NRA spokesman Wayne LaPierre after he proposed adding armed officers to schools across the country last week in response to the elementary school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. A written statement from Mayor Emanuel said: It’s outrageous and unsettling that the NRA...

446 school age children shot in Chicago so far this year with strongest gun laws in country – media silent The cesspool known as Chicago probably has the toughest gun laws in the country, yet despite all the shootings, murders, and bloodshed, you never hear a peep about this from the corrupt state run media. In Chicago, there have been 446 school age children shot in leftist utopia run by Rahm Emanuel and that produced Obama, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, etc. 62 school aged children have actually been killed by crazed nuts in Chicago so far this year with almost...

Mayor Emanuel has released a fiery statement denouncing the National Rifle Association for advocating armed police in about every school. Rahm Emanuel prepared an unusually strong statement, even by his standards. “It’s outrageous and unsettling that the NRA would choose to address gun violence not by taking assault weapons off our streets, but by adding more guns to our schools, " the mayor said in a statement. The statement went on to say "that is not the right answer for our society, our schools and most importantly our children. People across this country, from small towns to big cities, are...

The cesspool known as Chicago probably has the toughest gun laws in the country, yet despite all the shootings, murders, and bloodshed, you never hear a peep about this from the corrupt state run media. In Chicago, there have been 446 school age children shot in leftist utopia run by Rahm Emanuel and that produced Obama, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, etc. 62 school aged children have actually been killed by crazed nuts in Chicago so far this year with almost two weeks to go. So why isn’t this news worthy? Is it because it would embarrass those anti second amendment...

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” said President Obama’s former consigliere Rahm Emanuel, who is now the mayor of the strictly gun-controlled gun murder capital of the world, Chicago. So naturally the statist anti-gun utopians see opportunity in Friday’s Newtown school massacre to push the total gun ban they’ve been lusting after for so long. Rather than pause long enough to grieve with the rest of us over the horrific murders of twenty children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school; rather than wait for the media frenzy to subside so all the facts could...

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is looking for current gun laws to change. "There is no parent and no grandparent in America that is not a resident to Sandy Hook, Conn.," Emanuel said Saturday afternoon while attending a ceremony for a new police building in District 12. "There is nobody that had their child last night, that didn't hold them a little closer, pull them in a little tighter, didn't hug them a little more. Emanuel stressed a need for gun laws to assure an event like the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School does not happen in Chicago. The mayor is...

Gov. Pat Quinn on Wednesday indicated he would like to see assault weapons banned in Illinois as lawmakers this spring revise state law to allow some form of concealed carry to comply with a court ruling that tossed aside a long-standing ban on allowing people to carry weapons. Meanwhile, at City Hall, Mayor Rahm Emanuel blasted Tuesday's federal appellate court decision as "wrongheaded" as he offered legal help to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan as she weighs an appeal. Judges gave the General Assembly six months to make changes, and the Democratic governor suggested the new rules will have to...

Time for Chicago's vending machines to chip up or chip out. Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Wednesday he's cracking down on the caloric content of vending machines in city buildings and plans to replace them all with healthy vending by next year. A proposed ordinance, to be introduced this week, will lay out plans for the new machines and detail guidelines on fat, sugar and calorie content starting in January 2013.

Last week’s election continued America’s great history of expanding opportunity and equality. Today, we must take the next step on that journey by affording the opportunity to marry to all Americans — and we can continue that march by quickly enacting marriage equality here in Illinois. Throughout my career in public service, I have seen our city and society make progressive strides towards providing greater respect and rights to the GLBT community. As mayor, I lobbied for civil unions in Illinois. In Congress and within the Obama administration I pushed for the end to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and helped...

Emanuel praises White House on Libya, says Obama ‘took control’By Alexandra Jaffe - 10/28/12 11:37 AM ET Chicago Mayor and former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel defended President Obama's handling of the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya on Sunday. Emanuel, appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” said that Obama "took control and he said exactly what needs to be done" following the Sept. 11 attack, which claimed the lives of four Americans. Earlier on the program, Arizona Sen. John McCain (R) McCain charged that the Obama administration's handling of the situation amounted to either a...

So, my boyfriend Justin’s been avoiding a mysterious caller coming from the number (720) 582-8383 for the last week and this morning I told him to just take the call because it was most likely a political survey and I’d answer it for him. It was a research company in Denver, Colorado hired by Rahm Emanuel to poll Chicagoans about what they think of him. I had an awful lot of fun taking this survey and telling the pollster how bad a job Rahm is doing…and was interested in the amount of emphasis that was given to Rahm’s dealings with...

Next School Crisis for Chicago: Pension Fund Is Running DryBy MARY WILLIAMS WALSH Published: September 19, 2012 One of the most vexing problems for Chicago and its teachers went virtually unmentioned during the strike: The pension fund is about to hit a wall. The Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund has about $10 billion in assets, but is paying out more than $1 billion in benefits a year — much more than it has been taking in. That has forced it to sell investments, worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year, to pay retired teachers. Experts say the fund could collapse...