Free Republic

Ezekiel Emanuel, a noted oncologist, has helped advise the Obama administration in its effort to create an economic system larger than France’s economy to distribute health care services to over 300 million people. Together, those facts encapsulate the essence of our federal government: hopelessly overextended, devoid of caution and chock full of hubris. If that isn’t succinct enough to signal the coming disaster that will be Obamacare, then Emanuel’s recent column in the Wall Street Journal should tip the balance. Coincidentally, the column was about me, or, more appropriately, about a class of the peasantry to which Doctor Emanuel has...

There have been 441 shootings and 100 homicides in the city of Chicago so far this year, according to a blog that tracks crime in Chicago. That works out to 3.8 shootings per day or approximately one shooting every 6.3 hours. The "Crime in Chicago" blog updates daily and tracks crime news within the city. It keeps a running tally of all homicides and shootings. In 2012, the blog shows that 2,670 individuals were shot in Chicago. That was up 20% from 2,217 in 2011....

States: The governor from a thriving free-enterprise state travels to the U.S. counterpart of Greece and Cyprus with an invitation: Come to where folks are friendly to business. Texas' Rick Perry arrived in Illinois Monday to lure businesses away from a state that we and other's have dubbed "America's Greece" — beleaguered by debt, punished by regulations and subject to ever-rising taxes — to one that's leading the pack in job and economic growth. Taking umbrage at Perry's visit was Chicago Mayor and former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. He took the occasion to taunt the governor with...

CHICAGO — Mayor Rahm Emanuel gave Rick Perry a Chicago-style greeting Monday, challenging the Texas governor to remember the reasons for his visit to Illinois — a jab at Perry's presidential debate forgetfulness. "I hope when he comes he remembers all three of his reasons," Emanuel said. "Because it will be a real test for him." Perry was in Illinois Monday to encourage businesses to move to Texas and was scheduled to address a Chicago business convention Tuesday. Emanuel made pointed reference to a campaign gaffe Perry committed while running for president. At a Republican debate late in 2011, Perry...

Racism: Facing a billion-dollar budget shortfall, the Chicago Public Schools' plan to close 54 schools, mostly in black and low-income neighborhoods, forces many students to cross gang boundaries to get a mediocre education. Facing a billion-dollar budget shortfall, the Chicago Public Schools' plans to close 54 schools, mostly in black and low-income neighborhoods, forcing many students to cross gang boundaries to get a questionable education. Shuffling children around like so many deck chairs on a sinking ship, the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) announced the closings as a cost-cutting move, with CPS officials arguing that money being spent to keep underutilized...

CHICAGO (CBS) – The Chicago Public Schools’ plan to close 53 schools and 61 buildings, mostly in black neighborhoods, has some West Side residents vowing to fight the Emanuel administration until the end. As WBBM Newsradio’s Mike Krauser reports, to hear some tell it on the West Side, Mayor Rahm Emanuel is a racist liar who doesn’t care about the kids. And they’re just getting started. “I don’t see any Caucasians being moved, bussed, or murdered in the streets as they travel along gang lines, or stand on the steps of a CPS school,” said activist Wendy Matil Pearson as...

Why would the Chicago Public School (CPS) system be so presumptuous as to start teaching Lesbian Gay Bi-sexual Transsexual Sex-Ed to all its students, even five year old kindergarteners? Aside from pure hubris, satisfying Gay political groups is a good guess, but the simple answer is because they can. The Chicago’s public schools are more than 85% Black or Latino and just 8.8% White. A combined 87% of Black and Hispanic Chicagoans live in poverty so they are as dependent upon White liberals as house pets are on their owners. If these numbers were reversed the White ruling class in...

CITY HALL — Chicago's gun offender registry needs to be expanded to include the names of people busted committing crimes with a gun, Ald. Ed Burke (14th) said Thursday. And Mayor Rahm Emanuel agrees. The powerful alderman wants to force anyone convicted of a violent crime with a firearm, including kidnapping, assault, robbery and vehicular hijacking, to end up on the list, which now has 584 names on it of those convicted of less serious gun violations. Burke said he was shocked to hear the current list had so few names. "Clearly I felt that there are thousands of offenders...

CPAC dis-invites Pamela Geller, but invites loud mouth gas bag Donald Trump? The same Trump who donated $50,000 to deadish Emanuel for his mayoral run? The same Trump who donated $2,000 to jailbird Blago? Oy.

A prominent member of Chicago’s homosexual community claims Barack Obama’s participation in the “gay” bar and bathhouse scene was so well known that many who were aware of his lifestyle were shocked when he ran for president and finally won the White House. “It is common knowledge in the Chicago gay community that Obama actively visited the gay bars and bathhouses in Chicago while he was an Illinois state senator,” Madsen told WND. “Nobody who knew Obama in the gay bar scene thought he could possibly be president,” said DuJan. DuJan, founder and editor of the Hillary Clinton-supporting website HillBuzz.org,...

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is said by well-connected Democrats to be considering the idea of running for president if Hillary Clinton opts out of the 2016 race. The 53-year-old Emanuel, who is busy raising money for his 2015 reelection campaign in the Windy City, has had discussions both over the phone and face to face in the past month with Democratic Party donors and fundraisers about a possible White House run, according to sources. It’s unclear who raised the subject—Emanuel or the donors—and the mayor’s press secretary initially didn’t offer clarity on who said what to whom Hours after this...

Obama’s former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel might make a go for 2016, two well-connected Democrats tell Lloyd Grove—as long as Hillary doesn’t. And the potty-mouthed Chicago mayor could win.Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is said by well-connected Democrats to be considering with the idea of running for president if Hillary Clinton opts out of the 2016 race. It’s unclear who raised the subject—Emanuel or the donors—and the mayor’s press secretary didn’t offer any clarity on who said what to whom. However, Tarah Cooper sent a photo of Emanuel's scrawl on yellow legal paper vowing "not ever" to run for "for...

Ted Cruz (R., Texas) has been a United States senator for only 34 days, but already he is making his mark on national politics. His conspicuous presence and aggressive tone have thrilled his conservative cheerleaders, while inducing fits of rage in liberal detractors and Joe Scarborough. In the past week alone, Cruz has tangled with veteran Democratic spin-master Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) on Meet the Press, sent a tongue-in-cheek letter to Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, introduced legislation to fully repeal Obamacare, and recorded “no” votes on major items, including Hurricane Sandy relief, raising the debt ceiling, filibuster reform, and...

Rahm Emanuel Writes to Mutual Funds Urging them to Blacklist Gun CompaniesPosted By Bryan Preston On January 30, 2013 @ 11:29 am In Politics | 33 Comments The tyrant of Chicago is at it again. Mayor Rahm Emanuel is now pushing mutual funds to divest and blacklist gun manufacturers for the crime of opposing the Obama regime’s gun-control efforts.Emanuel’s statement on his assault on the First and Second Amendments: “Just like the banks and pension funds, I believe that these Mutual Funds can exert an enormous amount of influence by taking a stand against gun manufacturers that continue to refuse...

Our new Sen. Ted Cruz, of the great state of Texas, has a knack for making himself heard, and I look forward to a tenure filled with such press statements. Dear Rahm, this is what a little state-to-state competition looks like. Companies bullied by Mayor Pottymouth aren’t obligated to stay in the cold, bankrupt, and increasingly inhospitable state of Illinois. And, Cruz is proactive in his pitch to Rahm-targeted Bank of America, TD Bank, Sturm & Ruger, and Smith & Wesson (though not proactive in the subsidies arms race we too often see in state competition over sports teams and...

Texas Senator Ted Cruz (R) sent a letter to gunmakers, banks, and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday, after Emanuel reportedly sent letters to banks asking that they stop doing business with certain firearm manufacturers. In the letter, Cruz urged the mayor to keep his attacks on the Second Amendment to his own city, and informed gunmakers that their companies and business would be welcome in the state of Texas. Here is how the letter reads: To the CEOs of Bank of America and TD Bank Group: It has recently been reported that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel sent each of...

You have to give progressives credit. They’re nothing if not thorough. When an opportunity to limit the Second Amendment presented itself in the Sandy Hook massacre, regardless how tasteless it was to exploit that opportunity, they went full bore toward their goal. Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., introduced sweeping so-called “assault weapons” ban legislation this week that would place unprecedented restrictions on individuals’ rights to own, use, sell and even pass along already owned firearms to family members. But given where things stand now in the polls and political atmosphere, that legislation will go nowhere. But the Constitution and the...

You have to give progressives credit. They’re nothing if not thorough. When an opportunity to limit the Second Amendment presented itself in the Sandy Hook massacre, regardless how tasteless it was to exploit that opportunity, they went full bore toward their goal. Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., introduced sweeping so-called “assault weapons” ban legislation this week that would place unprecedented restrictions on individuals’ rights to own, use, sell and even pass along already owned firearms to family members. But given where things stand now in the polls and political atmosphere, that legislation will go nowhere. But the Constitution and the...

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...

Chicago is known for good steaks, expensive stores and beautiful architecture. Unfortunately, the Windy City also enjoys a reputation for corrupt politics, violent crime, and some of the strictest gun control laws anywhere in the country. To rational people, the inverse relationship between the last two is obvious. Unfortunately for residents of and visitors to Chicago, the city is governed by officials who operate not in the real world, but in a virtual “Bizarro World,” where up is down, black is white, and good guys are to be punished. In this strange environment, current Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (who...

Chicago soon will have the nation’s most expensive downtown parking meters. On New Year’s Day, meters in the city’s downtown Loop area will begin charging $6.50 an hour—up from $5.75. …

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...

“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...

On the heels of the controversial California Federation of Teachers “Tax the Rich” video, the Chicago Teachers Union has produced its own class warfare-stoking cartoon, “Stand Up to the Fat Cats.” The CTU is again attempting to slam Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the advocates of school reform as the “fat cats” who are simply looking to get rich off the government education system. The CTU apparently doesn’t want the billionaires and “profiteers” horning in on their very lucrative territory. Fashioned as a children’s book – likely for an audience of students – the CTU video claims several groups from around...

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...

Rhode Island’s blue-on-blue showdown is heating up. Famed litigator David Boies is taking a 96 percent pay cut to represent the state against recalcitrant public sector unions. The New York Times reports: Mr. Boies became involved, he said, because he was convinced that Rhode Island’s pension troubles were just the tip of a $5 trillion iceberg of unsecured retirement promises to the nation’s millions of public workers. “This is something that can cripple state and municipal governments at a time when the federal government is, more and more, cutting back on the services it provides,” he said. Public unions and...

Demographics alone are not destiny. There is nothing in this year’s election returns that guarantees Democrats a permanent majority in the years to come. President Obama and the Democratic Party earned the support of key groups — young people, single women, Latinos, African Americans, auto workers in the Rust Belt and millions of other middle-class Americans — because of our ideas. So, instead of resting on false assurances of underlying demographic advantages, the Democratic Party must follow through on our No. 1 priority, which the president set when he took office and reemphasized throughout this campaign: It is time to...

The city may be nearly 2,000 miles from Mexico, but the country’s drug cartels are so deeply embedded in Chicago that local and federal law enforcement are forced to operate as if they are “on the border,” according to Jack Riley, special agent in charge for the Chicago Field Division of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Because of Chicago’s location in the heart of the United States, its large Mexican population and its abundance of street gang activity, drug cartels have designated the city as one of its main hubs of operation in America, Riley told TheBlaze in an exclusive...

“Government ’help’ to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off.” That is what Ayn Rand has to say about government involvement in the world of business, but the full extent of this practice is difficult to nail down. Tad DeHaven of the CATO Institute investigated the situation to determine exactly how deep the problem runs. Periodically, CATO analyzes the federal budget to ascertain exactly how much money our government shovels out to favored parties. Unfortunately, over the years both parties have...

Chicago Teachers Vote to Continue Strike By STEPHANIE BANCHERO The Chicago public school teachers strike entered its second week after the teachers union declined Sunday to call off a week-long walkout that has catapulted the city into the national debate over teacher evaluations and job security. Only hours earlier, Chicago Teachers Union officials had trumpeted new concessions they said they had extracted from Mayor Rahm Emanuel during talks to settle the strike that started last Monday and has canceled classes for 350,000 students in the nation's third largest district. The vote to continue the strike came Sunday night by the...

The measure of who won and lost in Mayor Rahm Emanuel's showdown with the Chicago Teachers Union won't be clear until the details of the new contract emerge, but last week's strike took some of the luster off the mayor's self-portrait as an innovative leader brimming with new ways to solve the city's most vexing challenges. The long, stressful path to getting a contract in place offered a glimpse that Emanuel perhaps is not as multidimensional as he tries to appear. Repeatedly, the mayor turned to one tool: the attack. That singular approach contributed to the first teachers strike in...

via TwitterA sign seen during a protest by the Chicago Teachers Union.The strike going on in Chicago is serious: 350,000 students are locked out and we brought you the news in a post from this morning.We'll get back to real news in a little. First, here's a bit of levity:There is a picture from the picket lines on Monday that had Daniel Strauss, who tweeted it, saying, "Civility has disappeared in Chicago Teachers Union protests."The sign was written in all caps: "RAHM EMANUEL LIKES NICKELBACK."Nickelback, if you're not of that persuasion, is a popular Canadian rock band, which is not...

Neither Jay Carney nor Romney mentioned Rahm in their respective statements on the strike (Carney punted on the matter altogether, not surprisingly), but Ryan knows a political opportunity when he sees one. In a standoff between two of Obama’s biggest cronies, his former chief of staff and the unions that bankroll him, The One’s going to strain mightily to remain scrupulously neutral. Romney/Ryan’s task: Make that neutrality as uncomfortable as possible. The only surprise, says National Journal, is that it took the campaign this long to twist the knife. “If you turned on the TV this morning or sometime today,...

Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan spoke out against the Chicago Teachers Union strike on Monday, saying he stands behind Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's opposition to the demonstration. "Mayor Emanuel is right today in saying that this teacher's union strike is unnecessary and wrong," Ryan said in Portland, Ore., according to a pool report transcript. "We know that Rahm is not going to support our campaign, but on this issue and this day we stand with Mayor Rahm Emanuel." More than 26,000 education professionals in the Chicago area did not attend work on Monday over a contract negotiation dispute with the...

For the first time in nearly three decades, Chicago public school teachers went on strike this morning. At first glance, you might be tempted to think that what happens in Chicago has little to no effect on the politics of Washington and the presidential race. But, you’d be wrong. There are several reasons to believe that what happens in Chicago could have a real — and negative — impact on President Obama and the broader race for the White House this fall. We list the three biggest reasons below. * It’s Chicago: Yes, we know that President Obama has no...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (rahm ih-MAN'-yoo-uhl) is leaving President Barack Obama's campaign so he can raise cash for an independent "super" political action committee trying to help the president win a second term. An Obama campaign aide confirmed Wednesday that Emanuel is making the switch to the Priorities USA Action super PAC.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel will be spending a lot less time at the Democratic National Convention than he’d originally planned. Originally, the mayor had planned to be in Charlotte from Tuesday through Friday morning. Now, his Communications Director Sarah Hamilton tells Newsradio that Emanuel has changed his plans. Hamilton insisted the mayor’s shortened trip to the convention doesn’t have anything to do with a possible teachers strike. She said Emanuel’s abbreviated trip likewise doesn’t have anything to do with the city’s higher murder rate this year.

Twenty people were shot, two fatally, across the city Friday night and Saturday morning. The weekend's violence started about 6:20 p.m. Friday.......... [The article runs about 1000 words, listing locations and times of crimes, the sex and ages of casualties and where on their bodies everyone was shot]

A group of pro-immigrant activists in Chicago on Tuesday released an informational video warning about the possible dangers of deferred action, which on Wednesday will begin to register undocumented young people who want to try and postpone deportation. The video, “Defer the Bulls—t,” may be seen online at www.moratoriumondeportations.org and is an effort to resist the government’s alleged disinformation campaign about the program. “While some youth may have a chance at relief, Deferred Action is at best insufficient, and at worst misleading, dangerous and deliberately deceptive,” said Jose Herrera of the Moratorium on Deportations Campaign on Tuesday. Some 20 members...

Eleven Chicago police officers who were removed from Mayor Rahm Emanuel's security detail when he took office have filed a federal lawsuit alleging they were replaced by officers who had volunteered on the mayor's campaign. The officers, who are white or Hispanic, also alleged discrimination, saying African-American officers on the detail with less seniority were not demoted at the time. The lawsuit contended that police Cmdr. Brian Thompson, in charge of the security detail, and the city violated Chicago's decades-old Shakman decree, which prohibits political considerations in most city hiring decisions. Six of the 11 officers also filed a complaint...

Thinking Out Loud There were so many things I could have written about today: openly lesbian Tammy Smith's promotion to the rank of brigadier general and the fact that the military is still intact after DADT, or Thomas Beatie's (once dubbed the "pregnant man") divorce court struggles due to Arizona's confusion about his gender, or perhaps the fact that NBC's Olympic coverage actually included mention of out gay Olympians. Instead, I'm still stuck on Chick-fil-A. Oh, that's so last month. Let's move on already! I argued with myself about this. On one hand, it was hardly a lunch counter sit-in....

That stellar symbol of Chicago values, Rahm Emanuel, is working with Louis Farrakhan, purveyor of hatred and bigotry, on the Chicago crime wave. Meanwhile, Farrakhan is being allowed to block a Harlem memorial for murdered police officer, Phillip Cardillo. It was Farrakhan’s own people who killed the officer. …

•It seems that recently Rahm came home and found a brown paper bag sitting on his front porch and demanded to know how it got there and what it was from his security detail. After all, there are police guarding his house front and rear 24/7. The police are not supposed to come on the front porch and the 1st watch detail knew nothing about it. Looking inside it was determined that it contained tomatoes and various vegetables. And the Case of the Killer Tomatoes was closed with no evil consequence. And so far as can be determined, just one...

The unctuous and reptilian Rahm Emanuel has always reminded me of the sinister and malevolent schemer played Tony Curtis in film noir classic “The Sweet Smell of Success.” Both men specialize in backstabbing their opponents utilizing character assassination techniques such as distortion and scandal mongering. Having easy access to media figures willing to reprint the defamatory insinuations as news makes it all so simple. It was refreshing, for a change, to see the too slick by half Emanuel stick his foot in it last week when he tried to pile on during the manufactured controversy about issuing licenses and building...

More bank robberies have been reported so far in 2012 than in all of last year, records show. As of Aug. 8, there were 117 bank robberies reported in the Chicago area. In 2011, there were 115, according to BanditTracker Chicago. The 2012 figure is still lower than the record for bank robberies set in 2006, which saw 284 hold-ups, the Tracker reports. BanditTracker is run by the FBI, the Chicago Police Department and the Cook County Sheriff's office. The site publishes bank surveillance images hoping to catch bank robbers. Despite the rising number of robberies, surveillance images manage to...

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently said of the Chick-fil-A fast-food franchise that "Chick-fil-A's values are not Chicago's values." Why? Because Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy is on record as being opposed to gay marriage -- as is close to half the U.S. population, according to polls. The mayors of Boston and San Francisco also suggested that the company isn't welcome in their cities. Oddly, none of these public officials have lectured President Obama to keep clear of their cities. Yet until recently, Obama was likewise on record as opposing gay marriage. Why the exemption? Nor have the mayors in question disinvited...

When the New York Post puts a fast-food chicken franchise on page one, you know some feathers have been ruffled, so to speak. And, indeed, the Chick-fil-A outfit can forget about catering any gay marriage receptions, because the company's president, Dan Cathy, recently told an Atlanta radio station that by supporting gay nuptials, America is "inviting God's wrath." While that remains to be seen, the wrath of pro-gay marriage advocates is vividly on display. The mayors of Boston and Chicago, playing to their liberal bases, both came out against having any Chick-fil-A restaurants in their cities. In the case...

Scandal: The sunlight continues to expose the machinations behind the White House's support of failed solar panel manufacturer Solyndra with our tax dollars, including the false claim by former White House chief of staff. In a batch of White House emails released in a report on Solyndra by the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday, there's this gem: White House aide Aditya Kumar wrote to Jacob Levine of the Office of Energy and Climate Change on Aug. 19, 2009: "Feels like Rahm wants this too (barring any concerns) — POTUS (President Of The United States) Involvement (in pushing Solyndra)...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ron-galloway/the-chickfila-effect-on-t_b_1731161.html