Free Republic

Joe Biden has officially formed a transition team that will be led by former Delaware Sen. Ted Kaufman, a longtime Biden adviser who also led his transition as vice president in 2008, a Biden campaign aide confirmed to CNN. This team is a preliminary group that will focus on developing the infrastructure of the transition effort. The full rollout of the team is expected later this fall, the aide said, noting that the timing of today's announcement falls in line with the timeline of past non-incumbent candidates who developed a transition team.

I was asked by our local chapter of the Cardozo Society — an affinity group of Jewish lawyers of which I am a member — to speak over lunch as a counterpart to ABA Foundation Fellow and historian Victoria Saker Woeste on the subject of fake news at the society’s October 8 continuing legal education program. Ms. Woeste was the featured speaker. Her theme was that the term “fake news” is anti-Semitic in origin and that President Trump’s use of it, knowingly or not, is wrongful. Her talk expanded on her Washington Post column (accessible via Outline here) making this...

I think I've been shadow banned on Twitter. Nobody is responding to my comments or posts when I challenge conventional liberals. Is there a way to confirm? And what to do? Thanks

Here's an opportunity to get ahead of events and hand the Republicans some free advice. My question for you all is this. What made the employers work out a delay of their employer mandate? Is there another mass dump of insureds about to happen. Do the Republicans have a media response to any new disruptions that could be anticipated.

I just heard on WLS that McCain is in Chicago to stump for Durbin. And Kirk has good things about Durbin as well. What a nice thing!

Demanding access to organ transplant procedures for undocumented immigrants, a group of hunger strikers set up camp outside Northwestern Memorial Hospital on Sunday. They said they would stay until hospital CEO Dean Harrison agreed to a meeting, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. The group of about 40 picketers included 14 people who were in the sixth day of a hunger strike. “We’re asking for help,” said Blanca Gomez, 23, who needs a kidney transplant. “I go to dialysis three times a week. I’m not going off the hunger strike until I get on the transplant list.” Gomez said she had lost...

A poster last night read Mitts lips at the opening greeting. He said, "I'm coming for you." Man-o-man, this is just like sending a stale pizza to Axeldouche's Chicago headquarters last spring. I'M COMING FOR YOU, loser!

Dan Cathy decided to make a PUBLIC statement to Mike Huckabee that, at the least, muddied the progress we had made with Chick-fil-A and, at the worst, contradicted the documents and promises Chick-fil-A made to me and the community earlier this month. Since Mr.Cathy made a PUBLIC statement, I am PUBLICLY asking him to confirm and support what I was told and shown by his company representatives. 1. For the FIRST TIME in the company’s history the company wrote and distributed a document to all of its employees titled, “Chick-fil-A: Who We Are” that guarantees that the company and its...

Evanston officials hope that a partnership announced today among five Great Lakes states and several federal agencies could clear the murky regulatory waters that have made efforts to develop offshore wind farms on the Great Lakes difficult. Evanston began looking at such a project two years ago. “I think it’s terrific news, because I was told when I first started exploring wind turbines in the lake that no one would put them in the lake because there were no rules governing how to do it,” Evanston Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl said. “So I’m delighted that five states made this pact and...

WASHINGTON — White House chief of staff William Daley has told President Barack Obama he will stay until after the 2012 re-election campaign but then wants to go home to Chicago, a senior administration official said today. Daley, formerly an executive at JPMorgan Chase, became Obama’s top aide in January. He is the brother and son of former Chicago mayors. Daley’s plans were first reported Monday by Mary Ann Ahern of WMAQ-Channel 5 in Chicago. The chief of staff said: “I made a commitment to the president through his re-election, which I’m confident he will do, and then my wife...

Chicago has won a $54.6 million federal grant to fund security and emergency planning and cooperation among the city, Cook County and the state as preparations begin to ramp up for the G-8 and NATO summits being held here next May. While the money is to be shared among city, county and state emergency management agencies, Chicago's top emergency planner said the grant will be most useful in planning training exercises to handle security at the simultaneous economic and defense summits, which are likely to attract thousands of demonstrators. Gary Schenkel, director of the Chicago Office of Emergency Management and...

All I was snoozing through a cable channel show in World War 2 last night which referred to a network to rescue downed fliers across the Pyrenees to Gibraltar that was run by a twenty year old woman. The story was that she was betrayed eventually, imprisoned and ended her days as a nurse in Africa. I missed her name. Does anybody out there know of her and her story. Thank you.

As radio firings go, Cisco Cotto’s was one for the books. Just after finishing his midday airshift one Friday last July, Cotto was summoned to meet with his bosses at WLS-AM (890), the Citadel Broadcasting news/talk station where he’d worked for eight of the previous 11 years, first as a news anchor and reporter and more recently as a talk show host. There he was told that even though his ratings were excellent and his show was consistently profitable, Cotto was being let go — effective immediately — to make room for the duo of Bruce Wolf and Dan Proft,...

With the rapid decline of available credit and investor confidence, 2009 has not been the best year for the global wind power industry. However, the sector is presumed to pick up due to concerns for energy security and global warming and the growing demand for electricity in developing countries, according to Frost & Sullivan. Preferential government policies and other factors will also contribute to the development of the wind power business and take it through the current financial crisis. Frost & Sullivan predicts opportunities for investment in China, in particular. Wind power industry overview: China and the world According to...

President Obama is in Fremont, California today to visit Solyndra, Inc, an innovative solar panel manufacturer that is building a new facility with funding made possible by the Recovery Act. Here's a look at what they're doing: The direct benefits of this investment are easy to see. The plant expansion now underway has already enabled the creation of over 3,000 construction-related jobs and Solyndra estimates that the new factory could create as many as 1,000 long-term jobs in operations and supply. Likewise, a formerly empty field will soon be home to a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant that produces clean energy products...

WASHINGTON---The Obama White House issued new measures on Friday to prevent genocides and mass atrocities, creating an "Atrocities Prevention Board" in the wake of the failure of the "Never Again" vow taken following the German Holocaust to stop the murders of entire populations. Obama's directive forming the board states: "Preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States of America." The directive creates an important new tool in this effort, establishing a standing interagency Atrocities Prevention Board with the authority to develop prevention strategies and to ensure that concerns...

Some of the Great Lakes' treasured national parks are showing ill effects of climate change that are likely to worsen in coming decades, from shoreline erosion to decline of certain wildlife and plant species, a former park system administrator said Wednesday. Without changes in public policies and personal habits that pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the parks could lose qualities that attract visitors and support unique ecosystems, Stephen Saunders, former deputy assistant secretary of the Interior Department, said in a report released by two advocacy groups. "Human disruption of the climate is the greatest threat ever to America's national...

A 49-year-old Libertyville man who was employed as a senior software engineer with the Chicago-based CME Group has been charged with stealing trade secrets, officials said. Chunlai Yang was arrested Friday morning by FBI agents at the CME office located at 550 W. Washington St. and was charged with one count of theft of trade secrets, according to a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court of Chicago. Yang had been employed with CME since 2000 and was responsible for writing computer code, officials said. The company started monitoring his computer activity in May of this year and discovered thousands...

Hello from Chicago. I just got back from my weekly grocery shopping and I want to start an inflation report. Beef was up 33% from a month ago. Milk fluctuates wildly. My grocery bill was 25% higher than a month ago and my cart was 15% lighter by volume.

Have you noticed that the economy is slowing down once again? The data of late has been pretty unequivocal on that front. In the last few weeks, we've seen monthly reports from Fed regional banks that show local economic growth stalling. Industrial production for April was flat. The housing market is in a double dip, despite the fact that mortgage rates are at bargain basement levels. Weekly jobless claims have bounced back up. And while the top-line number of April's unemployment report showed somewhat good news, though it also revealed clear signs that wages are not keeping pace with inflation,...