Free Republic

On Saturday, April 9, the most recent session of the Illinois State Legislature finished up its business by passing a bunch of "anti-crime" measures. Note that the term "anti-crime" is in quotations. It has to be… because to the Democrat majority in Springfield, "anti-crime" measures exist to win votes on election day, not to make the streets safer. Think about it: if you really wanted to reduce crime, not just show “effort,” but to actually minimize the number of people who are robbed, raped, beaten or killed, what would you do? Well, you would do what everyone with that same...

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) on Thursday issued a stay-at-home advisory and called on residents to cancel their “traditional” Thanksgiving plans as part of an effort to combat the spread of coronavirus. Lightfoot announced advisory will take effect on Monday, November 16th, and will late 30 days. The mayor urged residents to avoid traveling, hosting house guests, or leaving their resident for non-essential business.

Oprah Winfrey says President Donald Trump's victory has her rethinking whether she could be elected to the White House. Winfrey, a Hillary Clinton supporter, spoke with financier David Rubenstein in December for an interview for his Bloomberg Television show, which premiered this week. Winfrey says before Trump's election she thought that she didn't have the necessary government experience to run the country but now she thinks differently. The billionaire businessman had never before held public office before his election victory in November. Winfrey also touched on her 25 years hosting a syndicated talk show. She says her ultimate purpose of...

Former U.S. Rep. Mel Reynolds is in federal custody following his arrest Monday morning at the Atlanta airport, federal authorities confirmed. U.S. District Judge John Darrah issued an arrest warrant for Reynolds at the end of March after the former congressman missed a court appearance to remain in South Africa at the side of his daughter. Reynolds said she was facing spinal surgery and is possibly suffering from cervical cancer.

Progress is often hard to measure, but in the coming year in Chicago, there will be one revealing indicator: how many citizens are being Tased. More, note, is likely to be better. That's the theory of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and black aldermen who want to see fewer people being riddled with police bullets. The mayor announced Wednesday his plan to equip every officer with a Taser, in the hope that more suspects perceived as dangerous will be subdued without the use of lethal force. The impetus for the change is a series of fatal shootings by cops. One of the...

In October 2014, 17-year-old Laquan McDonald was shot and killed by Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke. The dash-cam video of the shooting was not released until a few days ago, when ordered by a judge. Right before the video's release, the county prosecutor announced the intention to charge Van Dyke with first-degree murder. The excessive charge and the timing were done, presumably, to mollify potential protesters because the prosecutor called the investigation "ongoing." Following the release of the video, which showed McDonald being shot 16 times, protesters marched on Chicago's Michigan Avenue (aka the "Magnificent Mile") on Black Friday,...

Would Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel have been re-elected if voters had seen the video of Laquan McDonald's execution? No. Rahm would have lost the election. Why? Because he would have lost Chicago's black vote. Without the black vote, Rahm Emanuel would not be the 9.5-fingered boss of Bartertown. Black political figures would have been uneasy standing with Rahm. They would have run away. They couldn't stand with him. Not if that video came out during the election campaign, the video showing white cop Jason Van Dyke shooting McDonald, hitting him with two rounds, and then, with McDonald on the...

In masterful article by Kristi Culpepper, a muni-bond expert who works for the state of Kentucky, Chicago’s bond financing scheme is exposed as a house of cards that postpone debt payments in return for higher interest payments over time. Amongst the questionable strategies exposed by Culpepper include using long-term financing to cover day-to-day expenses, using bonds to pay pension obligations and misappropriating returns from the interest rate swap portfolio as an “ATM” for the city. And the winners are: Chicago city employees—union employees, for whose paychecks and benefit the scheme of providing short term-cash in return for high interest payments...

Once again, our Chicago-style Attorney General has proven that corruption is the basic foundation upon which the modern Democrat Party is built. Eric Holder, the nationÂ’s top extortionist officer, has been running around the financial sector suing banks for anything (and everything) he can get away with. Ally Bank paid millions for alleged racist lending practices (an allegation the DOJ made without ever looking at loan portfolios), JP Morgan has shelled out billions for various anti-Obama comments regulatory infractions, and Bank of America just paid a $16.6 billion fine for their government-mandated role in the financial crises of 2008.Aside from...

Between Friday night, and Sunday evening, 28 people had been shot in Rahm Emanuel’s gun control utopia (Chicago). Which, unbelievably, shows an improvement over the previous weekend, which tacked on more than 40 gunshot victims to the city’s climbing statistics. And, heck, with the CPD’s recent scandal surrounding how they classify various crimes, it almost makes you wonder if these numbers are more “ballpark” figures than actual stats. It would be easy to begin writing an article aimed at the abject failure of gun control. But, truthfully, Chicago’s failure goes far deeper than misguided (Bloomberg approved) regulation schemes. Since the...

A designer street drug made in Russia has hit the Chicago area according to a drug rehab doctor in Joliet, Illinois. The doctor has said that he’s seen as many as three patients who are suffering extreme effects of the drug. Those effects include scaly lesions, rotting flesh, gangrene and, eventually, death. Some reckon the life expectancy of chronic users at two years. Made by combining codeine with gasoline and other toxics, Krokidil (Russian for crocodile) is many times more potent than morphine and three times more potent than heroin, with withdrawal symptoms beginning shortly after the one and a...

It wouldn’t be summer really if America didn’t get to witness another lavish Martha’s Vineyard vacation by Barack Obama and his posse. Maybe we should just be thankful that he didn’t first ruin American credit like he did in 2011 before departing for the island off of the Massachusetts’ Horn of Plenty. Hotel rates in the summertime on the island range from $250 to $2100 per night. That’s more even than good seats at an NFL football game cost. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not against a president going on vacation. But when Americans face one of the worst job...

The four areas where organized crime reigns in America -- New York City, Dirty Jersey, Chicagoland and South Florida -- also account for the lion's share of corruption convictions by federal prosecutors against local officials as reported by Joe Palazzolo for The Wall Street Journal Law Blog. The U.S. Department of Justice has released the number of corruption convictions its prosecutors have won against public servants over the last ten years across the 93 federal judicial districts into which the country is divided, and at the top of the list is New Jersey with 429 convictions. Third on the list...

Operation Fast and Furious is the deadliest and most sinister scandal in American history. A scandal so big, it’s worse than Iran-Contra and makes Watergate look like a high school prank gone wrong. In the early days of the Obama Administration, President Obama claimed his goal was to stop the trafficking of guns from the United States into the hands of violent Mexican drug cartels. He claimed gun dealers in the United States were responsible for sending guns to Mexico. Both of his claims were lies. In order to push his lies and policies built around them, with a...

PRINCETON, NJ -- President Barack Obama averaged 46% job approval the week of Feb. 28-March 6, his lowest weekly average since mid-December. Obama's weekly approval rating had steadily improved from mid-December to late January, peaking at 50% during the final two weeks in January, before dropping below that mark in February. Trend, November 2010-March 2011: Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president? Obama is now essentially back to where he was in the immediate post-election phase of 2010. The decline could be due to a number of issues the administration is...

More than 10,000 applicants to the Chicago police and fire departments were given fraudulent physical exams and tests by a medical services company, authorities said Thursday. U.S. Occupational Health performed the tests between 1999 and 2005 on applicants and employees of various city departments, federal prosecutors said in a criminal complaint filed Wednesday.

A difficult interview for a Chicago Machine Boss in the Xtranormal world.

No matter what one thinks of the homosexuality-affirming "It Gets Better" project, do we really want the president of the United States to be associated with radical sex columnist Dan Savage, the creator of this campaign? "It Gets Better" is the online video project that Chicago native Dan Savage created in which he seeks to end bullying by affirming homosexuality. Joining him in this effort are Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Kathleen Sebelius, Nancy Pelosi, and Hillary Clinton. Savage--the even more offensive doppelganger of our Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings--celebrates homosexuality in general and his own in particular. He has chosen...

CHICAGO -- Even in President Barack Obama's hometown, they had hoped for more. Obama will be stumping for Senate candidate and basketball buddy Alexi Giannoulias on Thursday in Chicago, a city where every other person crossing the street seems to have a story about descending on Grant Park that historic night of the 2008 election or proudly watching the president take the oath on television. But nearly two years after Obama took office, while the president remains widely popular in the city, his image has slipped a bit as many people wonder where the promised change and jobs are, even...

HARVEY, Ill., Illinois officials announced plans to demolish a suburban Chicago mall that served as a set for a famous scene in the 1980 film "The Blues Brothers." Gov. Pat Quinn said Thursday the state is receiving a $4 million federal grant to demolish Dixie Square Mall in Harvey to make way for redevelopment to revitalize the area, the Chicago Tribune reported Friday. The mall, which has been vacant for more than 30 years, served as a filming location for the mall car chase scene in "The Blues Brothers." "Dixie Square has been a place that we know has to...