Free Republic

As I recover from foot surgery in Chicago, my break from the Walk Across America has given me time to do more than reflect. I’ve seen so many things on my walk so far through small towns, big cities, ghettos, suburbs, open-air drug markets, posh farmers markets and even the occasional country market. Throughout it all, I’ve seen Americans of so many stripes, and they’re all moving forward, moving with a sense of purpose in their work and in their belief in God. And when I returned home to the South Side of Chicago, I was struck by the stillness...

A suspect is in custody after a shooting inside a Chicago hospital left one police officer dead and another critically injured on Saturday morning, law enforcement sources said. Around 10:45 a.m., two Chicago police officers were shot at Endeavor Health Swedish Hospital, located at 5140 N. California Ave. in Chicago's Ravenswood neighborhood. Police took the suspect to the hospital to be checked out before going to jail for a separate offense before the shooting broke out, police sources told NBC Chicago. One of the officers was shot in the head, sources told NBC Chicago. Both were taken to a different...

Springfield, Illinois is feeling a lot like Chicago these days. Of course is probably because a woman on Mayor Brandon Johnsons staff is also an alderwoman on the Springfield City Council. WOW, sure seems like Brandon Johnsons Great hate for Law Enforcement is appearing in Springfield Through osmosis I guess. Lakesha Purchase, an alderwoman complains and whines and cries about her safety, when the rest of the leftists attack law enforcement and others on line, well she has nothing to say about that. Black fatigue is real.

DEI for buildings. . . . Hey, Chicago, try getting real. Behold: This exercise in ultra-woke-techno-narcissism for the Chicago lake-front is called (variously) Eden Rise or Sky Droplet by Yanko Design. It is supposed to be a “vertical farm skyscraper.” The promotional literature says it all: A skyline where fresh lettuce grows a few floors above your head, rainwater is harvested from the clouds, and the architecture itself works quietly to heal long standing urban inequities. This project dares to ask a radical question. What if skyscrapers did not just house people, but fed them?At the heart of this proposal...

Mayor Brandon Johnson HUMILIATED after LOSING CONTROL of Chicago Police Mayor Johnson issues EO ordering CPD to arrest ICE agents. CPD and other officials unanimously tell Brandon Johnson GFYS. Transcript linked below video.

Democratic Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson admitted Wednesday he was “in regular communication” with other mayors leading so-called “sanctuary cities” in efforts to impede enforcement of federal immigration laws. President Donald Trump called for an end to “sanctuary cities” in a post on Truth Social Monday, following a series of shootings, two of them fatal, that took place in Minneapolis involving Department of Homeland Security personnel engaged in immigration enforcement operations. Johnson said during a press conference at the National Press Club he’d been talking with Democratic Mayors Jacob Frey of Minneapolis and Michelle Wu of Boston about how to combat...

Last month, activists packed the Chicago Teachers Union Center for the annual conference of the National Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression (NAARPR). Attendees gathered to discuss fighting ICE and confronting the Trump administration. Despite NAARPR’s relative obscurity—it was founded in 1973 to agitate for the release of Angela Davis and has since become a catch-all activist organization—the group’s conference featured several high-profile speakers, including Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson, who claimed to have inherited a “white supremacist system.” The event was hosted by the Chicago Teachers Union, one of Johnson’s most aggressive backers. Johnson’s appearance, along with that of several...

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has said that imprisoning violent criminals is racist and immoral.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson argued that the phrase “illegal alien” strips away the humanity of the person in question. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson issued a scathing rebuke of dehumanizing language at a news conference Friday after a question he was asked about the city’s spending on “illegal aliens.” Though Johnson was less than sincere when he suggested that “illegal aliens” are something you’d expect to find in a work of science fiction, he was correct to argue that such phrasing erases the humanity of the people in question.“We don’t have illegal aliens,” he said, before making the science-fiction remark. “The...

Chicago’s self-professed “progressive” Democrat Mayor Brandon Johnson said on Saturday that there are no “illegal aliens” in his city and it is racist to say there are. He went on to say that if we refer to “undocumented individuals” as “illegal aliens,” then we should also call all black people “slaves.” “We don’t have illegal aliens,” Johnson offhandedly exclaimed. “I don’t know if that’s from some sort of sci-fi message that you wish you’ve had.” Johnson’s inflammatory rhetoric kicked off after a reporter asked him why he has yet to supply the federal government with his report on how much...

Mayor Brandon Johnson announced a $16.6 billion budget plan for 2026 on Thursday, relying on a number of new or increased taxes on corporations to close a $1.2 billion shortfall while protecting the city from funding cuts by the Trump administration. "We are asking large corporations and big tech companies that have made trillions of dollars to pitch in a little bit more," Johnson said. f Johnson's budget plan is approved, social media companies could find themselves on the hook for a new tax next year. Chicago would be the first city to impose such a tax, and it's just...

The drug cartels basically said out loud this week that they want war. They might just get one. Before we get to war and other niceties, here's why they might have just opened a can of military-grade whoop-a** directly into their own faces. Bugs Bunny has been a hero of mine for so long that I can't remember a time when he wasn't. All Bugs ever really wanted to do was enjoy his (surprisingly posh) digs and indulge in a perfectly crafted carrot stew. He never sought out trouble, but when it came for him, he came back ready to...

A week after federal agents arrested dozens of people during a military-style immigration raid of a South Shore apartment building, resident Cassandra Murray slowly inches down four flights of stairs because the elevators are broken again. Murray is disabled and walks with a limp. The 55-year-old wears plastic gloves as she holds onto a railing, pointing out urine spots and feces smeared on the wall in the building where she has lived for a decade. Murray is on her way to see a new apartment. She says her move wasn’t prompted by the harrowing raid or the Venezuelan immigrants who...

Posing as a TV reporter clad with body armor, Gov. JB Pritzker on Thursday mocked the Trump administrative narrative that National Guard troops are needed to quell chaos in “war-torn Chicago” in a bit for ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” “This is JB Pritzker, reporting from war-torn Chicago. As you can see, there’s utter mayhem and chaos on the ground. It’s quite disturbing,” he says on a downtown Chicago bridge. “The Milwaukee Brewers have come in to attack our Chicago Cubs. “We’ve seen people being forced to eat hot dogs with ketchup on them, and our deep dish pizza, well, has...

Are we living in 1859? I ask it that way because all you can see and hear from Chicago are chaos, anarchy, violence, leftist conspiracy theories and exhortations by Democrats to ruin, and murder federal officials enforcing the law. It’s getting worse by the day. The residents of the Democrat fever swamp now scream across broadcast media that President Trump will end Democracy in a year. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to rely on information from the local left-leaning corporate legacy news media–Sun Times and Tribune–as violent leftist mobs backed by Democrat politicians continue attacking federal law enforcement officers across the...

Democrats are using arguments for states’ rights as a cynical ploy to paint themselves as victims of an oppressive federal government.There’s an old adage that says history doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme. As the past few years have shown, Democrats aren’t too keen on history, especially American history. In fact, they hate American history so much that they probably don’t realize they’re repeating it.In their rebellion against Trump’s constitutional purview and mandate to enforce immigration laws, Democrats have resorted to using almost the exact same talking points that southern leaders used leading up to the outbreak of the Civil...

An alleged ranking member of a Chicago street gang has been charged in federal court with soliciting the murder of a senior law enforcement official involved in the immigration enforcement operation known as “Operation Midway Blitz.”A criminal complaint unsealed in U.S. District Court in Chicago charges Juan Espinoza Martinez, 37, of Chicago, with one count of murder-for-hire. Martinez was arrested and awaits his initial appearance in federal court.Court documents say that Martinez is a ranking member of the Latin Kings, a street gang that has engaged in acts of violence and other illicit activities in Chicago and elsewhere. Martinez stated...

In a dramatic escalation of federal immigration enforcement, 400 members of the Texas National Guard arrived Tuesday at a military facility in suburban Chicago to support ICE and Border Patrol operations targeting cartel-linked fugitives and violent illegal aliens. Texas Governor Greg Abbott authorized the federal government to deploy the National Guard, which has been patrolling the nation’s southern border during the Biden-era border crisis, Breitbart Texas’ Randy Clark reported. Abbott responded to Illinois Governor JB Pritzker’s complaints about the deployment. “We must now start calling this what it is: Trump’s Invasion,” Pritzker posted on social media. “It started with federal...

Parents are standing guard at schools. Restaurants have stopped delivering food or simply closed. “Every single person who looks brown is scared,” a lawyer said.The signs in Spanish are taped to windows in storefronts all over Chicago: “ICE NO ES BIENVENIDO AQUÍ.” Warning networks have been operating all day, every day, as people who spot agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the streets text friends and neighbors or begin streaming urgent cautions on Facebook Live. Even tourists have been drawn into the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, startled by the sight of federal agents marching in camouflage last weekend through...

We need more America First Americans just like this intelligent young man. Don't judge a book by its cover.