Free Republic

As construction nears completion on the long-delayed $850 million Obama Presidential Center, federal tax filings show the Obama Foundation paid CEO Valerie Jarrett $740,000 in 2024 while several former Obama White House officials collected six-figure salaries as foundation executives. The Obama Foundation — which will operate the 19.3-acre center on publicly owned Chicago parkland — paid its CEO more than any other major presidential foundation. Salaries and benefits soared from $18.5 million in 2018 to $43.7 million in 2024, as staffing expanded to 337 employees and annual revenue reached nearly $210 million. Jarrett, one of the Obamas’ closest advisors, took...

The scandal-plagued Obama Presidential Center in Chicago already stirred up plenty of controversy. Now the money trail surrounding it raises even more uncomfortable questions about how former President Barack Obama’s inner circle is cashing in while taxpayers get screwed over. New federal tax filings reveal the staggering salaries flowing through the Obama Foundation as construction of the $850 million Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park nears completion. The foundation will operate the massive 19.3-acre campus, which sits on publicly owned Chicago parkland. The project includes a museum, an athletic center, and a public library branch. It will not operate as...

Ousted Dolton mayor Tiffany Henyard has apparently not lost her appetite for elected office despite a long list of grievances, bills and legal judgements left in her wake. The democrat has qualified as a republican candidate for a seat on the Fulton County, Georgia, board of commissioners. It comes as WGN Investigates has learned Henyard’s troubled time in Chicago’s south suburbs now also includes a new $10,000 judgement from a case filed by her former landlord. Genetta Hull accused Henyard and her boyfriend of failing to pay rent for a home she lived in while serving as Dolton’s mayor. “I’m...

A Chicago woman with a pending robbery case is suing Target, accusing the retail giant of violating Illinois civil rights law by rescinding a conditional job offer after discovering her unresolved criminal case. Courtney McElrath-Bey, 35, claims the company unlawfully used her background against her when it decided not to hire her for a warehouse position last year. Her lawsuit, filed in February and first reported by Legal Newsline, seeks damages and could expand to cover other applicants who were denied jobs under similar circumstances. According to the complaint, Target extended McElrath-Bey a conditional offer in October for a job...

Huge discrepancies reported in Chicago Public Schools - There is a public school in Chicago with space for 912 kids. 28 students were enrolled. The school is 97% empty and it spends $93,000 per year per student - The staff-to-student ratio is one-to-one, but there's not a single student that can read - There are over 100 public schools in the state of Illinois that reportedly have zero students proficient in reading or math - There are 20 public schools in Chicago that are basically empty “That's not an exaggeration. Zero students are proficient in reading from that school. Just...

A Chicago federal appeals court on Thursday vacated a lower court’s injunction placing use-of-force restrictions on immigration agents during Operation Midway Blitz, calling it “constitutionally suspect” and questioning the manner in which the district judge dismissed the underlying suit. The three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals was split 2-1, with Chief Judge Michael Brennan and Judge Michael Scudder in the majority and Judge Frank Easterbrook dissenting. The ending of the Trump administration’s appeal was a foregone conclusion after U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis in January granted a motion by the plaintiffs to dismiss the underlying lawsuit....

Attention DePaul University donors! Do you want to check out how your funding is being put to use? The institution just initiated an obnoxious, new anti-ICE journalism institute in partnership with radical ex-Mayor of Chicago Lori Lightfoot and another Chicago-based left-wing group financed by some of the most notorious leftists in American politics. The supposedly Catholic DePaul — which sits comfortably on a roughly $1.15 billion endowment — announced that it was launching the cringely-named Institute for Journalism and Racial Justice (IJRJ) during a February 25 campus event, according to student newspaper The DePaulia. The announcement came following a “community...

The SWAT response and shelter-in-place order in Lake in the Hills Thursday morning was due to a search warrant on a 20-year-old man allegedly possessing 38 rounds of pistol and rifle ammunition without a FOID card. Joel Fernandez, 20, was arrested without incident at his residence in the 1400 block of Clayton Marsh Drive in Lake in the Hills and was charged with four counts of possessing ammunition without a valid Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) card, a Class A misdemeanor. At around 9:50 a.m. Thursday, the Lake in the Hills Police Department – assisted by the Carpentersville Police Department and...

Many in Chicago’s Iranian community are in high spirits after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was reported dead following a major attack Saturday by the United States and Israel. Saba Niaki, an Iranian living in Chicago, was getting ready for another rally in solidarity with Iran when she heard the news. Niaki, 38, who had stopped at a Starbucks near Daley Plaza where the rally was to be held, was carrying posters with the faces of the victims of the recent protests in Iran. “I started screaming and there was a construction guy standing on the railroad, and he...

A Chicago man is accused of robbing a Red Line passenger last week while on electronic monitoring for robbing another CTA passenger last year. Incredibly, he was on electronic monitoring at the time of last year’s robbery, too. Shannon Stephens, 23, was arrested following the February 19 robbery of a 16-year-old boy on a Red Line train near Garfield, Chicago police said. He and 20-year-old Markell Harper, of Gary, Indiana, approached the boy while wearing ski masks and hoodies and demanded the victim’s scooter and its key, according to a CPD report. When the victim said he did not have...

As former President Barack Obama’s namesake foundation prepares to roll out the welcome mat to huge crowds of tourists flocking to the South Side when the Obama Presidential Center opens its doors in a few months, it is promoting Airbnb, a company with close ties to the Obama family that has faced international protests for its impact on local rents and housing supply. “(We’re) committed to making sure that South Side residents and entrepreneurs are ready to take full advantage of this influx of new visitors,” Valerie Jarrett, CEO of the Obama Foundation, said in a December release announcing a...

For Sale: Nine bedrooms. 19 bathrooms. One indoor basketball court. Den suitable for six NBA titles, five NBA most valuable player wards, two dunk contest titles and various championship rings and accolades — trophies not included. *snip* “Every weekend people from all over the world came to see Michael’s house,” Jordan’s former neighbor Lou Weisbach said. “There would be 1,500 to 2,000 cars every weekend. Limos would bring Navy personnel. Having his number on the gate, some people tried to paint that negatively. But it wasn’t about ego. He put it there so people could take a photograph to prove...

HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. -- Michael Jordan's longtime personal residence in suburban Chicago is for sale for $29 million. The sprawling estate is in Highland Park, along Lake Michigan, and has more than 56,000 square feet of living space. That includes nine bedrooms, 15 baths and five fireplaces. There's also a three-bedroom guesthouse, pool area, outdoor tennis court and three climate-controlled multi-car garages. An indoor basketball complex features a full-size regulation court with specially cushioned hardwood flooring and competition-quality high intensity lighting. It has a sound system set up to provide perfect acoustics within the court space. The property was put...

A social media post claimed that the former Bulls star had given his support to the Republican candidate.Throughout his career, Michael Jordan has endorsed everything from cereal to luxury watches, not to mention, of course, his line of athletic shoes. However, the NBA legend recently had to clarify his stance on the impending presidential election. A day before people headed to the polls to cast their votes in one of the closest elections in decades, a post featuring Jordan began to go viral on social media. The message claimed that the former player had become "the latest to endorse...

Michael Jordan came out of the closet to support our police officers. In a statement shared via The Undefeated on Monday morning, Jordan said the following: “As a proud American, a father who lost his own dad in a senseless act of violence, and a black man, I have been deeply troubled by the deaths of African-Americans at the hands of law enforcement and angered by the cowardly and hateful targeting and killing of police officers. I grieve with the families who have lost loved ones, as I know their pain all too well. “I was raised by parents who...

Michael Jordan, widely considered the greatest basketball player in NBA history and the lone African-American majority owner of a franchise, has decided to speak out on the country’s growing racial and social unrest. “As a proud American, a father who lost his own dad in a senseless act of violence, and a black man, I have been deeply troubled by the deaths of African-Americans at the hands of law enforcement and angered by the cowardly and hateful targeting and killing of police officers,” Jordan writes in a one-page letter released exclusively to The Undefeated. “I grieve with the families who...

Basketball Hall-of-Famer Michael Jordan reveals he was racist toward white people when he was growing up. In a new book entitled “Michael Jordan: The Life,” the six-time NBA champion told author Ronald Lazenby his hatred for white people when he was younger stemmed from the North Carolina community he grew up in having a huge Ku Klux Klan influence. ....“As I started looking at newspapers back in this era when I was putting together Dawson Jordan’s [Michael’s great-grandfather] life, the Klan was like a chamber of commerce. It bought the uniforms for ball teams, it put Bibles in all the...

Basketball legend Michael Jordan says that he considered himself a racist when he was a teenager and was “against all white people.” The confession comes from a new book, Michael Jordan: The Life, by Ronald Lazenby. Jordan said the Ku Klux Klan was dominant in North Carolina where he grew up in the mid-1970s, buying uniforms for sports teams and bibles for schools.

Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich argued Gov. JB Pritzker got "outplayed and outflanked" as the Chicago Bears look to leave the state for Indiana. On Thursday, an Indiana House panel approved legislation to help finance a potential new NFL stadium for the team. The facility could be constructed near Wolf Lake in Hammond, Indiana, just across the state border. "The Indiana legislature did what it did, and it caught our governor asleep," Blagojevich said Saturday on "Fox & Friends Weekend." "Governor Pritzker really is guilty of gubernatorial malpractice, and this isn't the first time a major business is about to...

FIRST ON FOX: Former President Barack Obama once declared that his presidential center would be a "gift" to Chicago, but taxpayers are on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in hidden costs related to the beleaguered project. A Fox News Digital investigation shows taxpayers are now stuck footing the bill for surging public infrastructure costs required to support the project — and no government agency can provide an accounting of the total public cost, despite months of queries and FOIA requests. "Illinois Republicans saw this coming a mile away. Now, right on cue, Illinois Democrats are leaving taxpayers...