Free Republic

"The diversity, the unity. This is for everybody. This is a safe space for everybody. So beautiful. ...Now, this library cost about $850 million to make. Now, that is still less than the $1.7 billion that Obama gave to Iran in cash on wooden pallets. Iran provided all of that footage, the tape of taking that money off that airplane..."I Visited Obama's $1B Library

The Phoenix location is now the second-largest Catholic diocese in the country, trailing only the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, according to the 2025 Official Catholic Directory. 'Something holy is taking place, something historical, something that goes way back, and they're intrigued by that,' said Joyce Coronel, the Diocese of Phoenix manager told the outlet. She called the current wave of interest in the church 'enormous.' Data obtained by the outlet showed the Diocese had 512 adult baptisms in 2025, up 46.7 percent from 2022, 84.8 percent from 2023, and 24 percent from 2024. 'Adult baptisms have increased significantly over the...

Downstate Illinois Democratic state representative Carol Ammons is facing allegations she steered state grants to a family member and lied to the FBI, among other misdeeds. Paris Schutz reports.

Twenty-four children have been reunited with their families, 305 fugitives arrested, and 179 charges filed against defendants in 140 cases in a multi-agency federal operation, says the Justice Department in annoucing a weeks-long, multi-agency operation. The DOJ posted on Thursday that 11 agencies had participated "as part of this first-of-its-kind ‘badgeless’ enforcement initiative in Chicagoland in recognition of our nation’s 250th Birthday that focused on a single mission for roughly 60 days: to set aside barriers and focus exclusively on disrupting violence in the Chicago and Rockford areas by arresting the worst of the worst offenders." [snip] Chicagoland is the...

A migrant driver of a semi-truck was arrested and charged with running down and killing a Chicago man who was trying to change his tire alongside a suburban highway late in June. The accident occurred early in the morning of June 24 when 24-year-old Sebastian Stone pulled off to the side of I-80 near Torrence Ave. to change a flat tire. While in the process of changing the tire, Stone was struck and killed by a semi-truck, which did not stop after running him down, CWBChicago reported. Police were called to the scene by witnesses, and officers found Stone dead...

Jessica Gorman delivered emotional testimony during a heated House hearing on sanctuary city policies, recounting the death of her daughter and criticizing Democratic lawmakers over immigration and public safety. Her remarks sparked a tense exchange as lawmakers debated border security, crime, and accountability in cities with sanctuary policies. Watch the full Capitol Hill hearing and the most emotional moments from the high-profile immigration debate.

There was a crooked man and he had a crooked smile he had a crooked legend and he built a crooked house

A Mexican national who was previously deported from the United States returned illegally, then tried to launch a drug-and-guns business relationship with a stranger he met in a Chicago truck dealership parking lot by offering to sell him a pound of methamphetamine and an AK-47, according to federal court records. That stranger turned out to be a federal informant. Now, Leonel Mercado Jaimes is charged with distributing nearly a pound of methamphetamine after authorities say he followed through on the drug sale and later admitted he had re-entered the country illegally after being deported in 2015. According to a federal...

Woke Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson declared he was reupping the city’s “Trans Femicide State of Emergency” to highlight violence against transgender women — despite just one reported killing of a trans person this year, compared with nearly 200 other murders across the city. His social media posting announcing the initiative drew widespread mockery as critics pointed out his bizarre focus on a small population as the city is plagued by dozens of weekly shootings primarily involving Chicagoans of color. Johnson’s declaration suggests an ongoing epidemic of trans murders. There have been 14 transgender people were killed in Chicago between 2016...

CHICAGO – A man who has lived on Chicago’s South Side for 18 years and now lives in the shadow of the newly opened Barack Obama Presidential Center described to Fox News Digital the havoc he says the years-long construction project wreaked on his housing complex. Akoma Amanze is a local cab driver who lives in Jackson Park Terrace, a low-income housing community directly across the street from the 19.3 acre campus dedicated to the 44th president. Over the weekend, while thousands of people from across the country — celebrities and ordinary folks alike — swarmed the area to visit...

The project was sold to the community – despite massive opposition from all sides, originally – as a huge influx of construction jobs for the community. When you spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a building project, that money doesn’t all go to an architect; the vast majority gets spread around among small businesses, employing building materials vendors and plumbers, drywallers and carpenters, electricians and glaziers, carpet layers and escalator installers. This should have been a godsend for the area; it simply wasn’t. According to the African American Contractors Association, there’s a long list of such small businesses who...

Post See new posts Conversation Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh 🚨 HOLY CRAP! ICE has just arrested an Illinois teacher in a Tren de Aragua TRIPLE M*RDER CASE, MASS SHOOTING Democrats RELEASED HER FROM JAIL She reportedly came in 2021, then overstayed her visa, and ASSISTED the killings 🤯 "She drove 2 gunmen affiliated with TdA...where they allegedly opened fire." She ALSO reportedly helped them FLEE THE SCENE "3 killed, several injured." GET THEM ALL OUT! This is why ICE and DHS need maximum fun. 🇺🇸 Thankfully, the gunmen were DEPORTED. VIDEO AT LINK............

"People here in future years are going to hear about how this land was stolen from the Native Americans," Illinois GOP Chair Bob Grogan told Fox News Digital outside the center last week. "But, underneath, you should all be reading into this, that it was actually stolen from the citizens of Illinois, not from the Native Americans." The criticism stems from a yearslong legal and political battle over the transfer of 19.3 acres of Jackson Park public land to the Obama Foundation under a 99-year agreement requiring the one-time $10 payment. Critics also argue that what was originally presented as...

President Trump tore into lefty Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Sunday over spiraling violence in Chicago – after a bloody weekend in the Windy City left at least five people dead and 22 others wounded, according to reports.

At least 27 people were shot, five of them fatally, Friday into Saturday evening in gun-controlled Chicago, Illinois.Breitbart News noted at least 13 people were injured in a drive-by shooting Friday night around 11 p.m. The shooting occurred in the Princeton Park neighborhood, WLS reported police believe two shooters inside a red SUV opened fire simultaneously on a crowd of people.None of the 13 wounded persons suffered a fatality.The Chicago Sun-Times pointed to fatal drive-by that occurred at 5:15 Friday “in the 11900 block of South Michigan Avenue.” A 29-year-old was standing on the sidewalk when was shot numerous times...

At least 13 people were injured late Friday night when two gunmen opened fired from a vehicle into a crowd in the city's Princeton Park neighborhood, Chicago police said. Police said at around 11 p.m., officers were called about a person who had been shot along West 95th Street near South Wentworth Avenue. A preliminary investigation determined a red SUV pulled alongside a large crowd, and two suspects inside the vehicle began firing gunshots before fleeing the scene. When officers arrived on the scene, they found two people who had sustained gunshot injuries. A 32-year-old woman was shot twice in...

Pastor Jeffery Campbell has deep ties to Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood. He was raised in the South Side neighborhood, and has served as pastor at Woodlawn Baptist Church for 22 years. And for the past decade, he’s attempted to protect its residents from displacement and gentrification. He’s seen rising rents, residents squeezed by university development and life becoming more unaffordable. Now, there’s a new challenge: the opening of the Barack Obama Presidential Center – part of a 19-acre, $850m campus – that has transformed life in the neighborhood, as well as the adjacent South Shore and Hyde Park, long before this...

They just left him there. Former President Joe Biden was awkwardly left lingering by himself on stage at the grand opening of the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, tepidly waving at the crowd after the ceremony ended. A gleeful Obama had waltzed off the stage to the music, followed by a smiling former first lady Jill Biden, while the 46th president stood there seemingly dazed all by himself. For reasons that aren’t clear, the 83-year-old went over to the podium and took off his sunglasses before staring into the crowd with a puzzled look on his face. “Where’s my...

As of the latest available information, the Obama Presidential Center campus in Chicago has not yet displayed the American flag outside. Multiple reports from June 2026 note that while the center is designed to reflect American values and history, there is currently no visible American flag on display, and some visitors have not even spotted flagpoles on the property The center, which opened to the public on June 19, 2026, is a 19.3‑acre campus combining a museum, library, community spaces, and a Chicago Public Library branch Wikipedia+1. It is intended to be a public space that embodies American heritage, but...

Cost to taxpayers for Obama Center keep piling up Illinois taxpayers may be on the hook for millions in unpaid contractor fees for the Obama Presidential Center as the foundation's promised $420 million "safety net" fund to prevent a taxpayer bailout has yet to materialize and many black-owned contractors are being left unpaid. Meanwhile, multiple contractors are now saying that the Obama Center hasn't paid them for millions of dollars for their work. And some are wondering if taxpayers will be forced to pay up, according to Fox News. Some of these subcontractors say they are locked in payment disputes...