Free Republic

olitics: Sen. Dick Durbin, who says Republicans have shoved attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch to the "back of the bus," once filibustered and opposed the GOP nominations of black and Latino appeals court judges. Last week, Durbin accused Republicans of forcing Lynch, President Obama's African-American nominee to replace Eric Holder, to "sit in the back of the bus" until a vote on a controversial sex trafficking bill could be held. That thinly veiled reference to the moment in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to move from her seat in a Montgomery, Ala., bus was meant to paint Senate Republicans as...

ities: The problem with socialism, Margaret Thatcher once noted, is you eventually run out of other people's money. In progressive Chicago, that's hit home as Moody's has cut its credit rating to two grades above "junk." Chicago's finances are staggering under the weight of an unfunded pension liability that Moody's Investors Service has estimated at $32 billion, eight times the city's operating revenue. Chicago has a $300 million structural deficit. And Illinois law requires the city to up its 2016 contributions to its police and fire pension funds by $550 million. "This is an unfortunate wake-up call for anyone still...

For the third time in International Little League history a team has been caught cheating and had its wins and title taken away. The latest story comes from Chicago and it involves an all-Black team. The governing body of international Little League has vacated Chicago’s Jackie Robinson West Little League (JRW) team title as champion of America. According to a spokesman for Little League International (LLI), its investigation into the eligibility of JRW players determined that not only had ineligible players been allowed onto the team, their status was known to team officials. The ineligibility of the players stems from...

JRW Supporters Suggest Decision To Take Title Racially Motivated February 11, 2015 2:58 PM (CBS) – There are accusations that racism was behind the decision by Little League International to strip the Jackie Robinson West team of the national title over cheating by the adults who run the team. “We know that we’re champions, our parents know that we’re champions and the team’s parents know we’re champions and Chicago knows we’re champions,” said JRW catcher Brandon Green. Green said the players did nothing wrong as he stood with his mother, Rev. Jesse Jackson and Fr. Michael Pfleger at the headquarters...

tates: Illinois entrepreneur turned governor Bruce Rauner ends the practice of forced union dues for government workers who don't want to join a union as he pursues right-to-work zones to promote growth. In Illinois, they're called "fair share" dues collected from workers said to benefit from the collective bargaining of the unions they're in thrall to, whether they want to join or not, moneys collected by force to pay for that representation. "Fair share" is a favorite mantra to liberals, but not to newly elected Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner. He believes that there's nothing fair about extorting money from people...

State Government: Bruce Rauner became Illinois' 42nd governor on Monday, the first Republican since 2003. He inherits a state that's been dubbed "America's Greece," but it's another opportunity to show what a GOP chief executive can do. A big part of the GOP tsunami in 2014 occurred at the state level, with Republicans expanding their hold on governors' mansions and legislatures with wins in blue states such as Maryland, Massachusetts and President Obama's Illinois. The number of GOP governors has grown to 31 from 21, control of legislatures has expanded to 68 of 98 partisan legislative chambers, and Republicans now...

The city is trying to kick-start development of vacant 62-acre parcel near downtown controlled by a controversial Iraqi billionaire once linked to convicted Democratic influence peddler Antoin "Tony" Rezko.

Black Crime: If President Obama had a son, he might look like 15-year-old Demario Bailey, one of three killed and 30 wounded in a typical Chicago weekend by thugs who wanted his Bulls jacket. As Bailey was being murdered while walking with his twin brother to a school basketball game, protestors of police brutality marched down Chicago's ritzy Michigan Avenue. They told high-end shoppers there that "black lives matter," held up their hands and said "don't shoot," and wore shirts that proclaimed "I can't breathe." The protest was part of a series of demonstrations also being held in Washington, New...

Fiscal Policy: A city teetering on the brink of insolvency passes a minimum wage that would reach $13 by 2019, higher than the minimum elsewhere in a state that just elected a Republican governor. What could go wrong? Ignoring the first rule of holes (when you're in one, stop digging), the Chicago City Council, in a Tuesday emergency session called by Mayor and former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, voted 44-5 to raise the city's minimum wage from the current statewide level of $8.25 an hour to $10 on July 1, with future increases bringing it to $13...

Voter Fraud: As early voting begins in the Land of Lincoln, President Obama casts his ballot and a Republican state senator voting for himself finds that his ballot was counted for his opponent. Eric Holder, call your office. The day after resigning as attorney General, Eric Holder told the Congressional Black Caucus that the voter ID laws he and his Justice Department opposed were answers to a problem that "doesn't exist." Yet when President Obama left the golf course Monday to vote early in his home state of Illinois, he was asked to present his ID before casting his ballot....

More Guns, Less Crime: Since Illinois began issuing concealed-carry permits this year, robberies, burglaries, car thefts and, yes, even murder, are down significantly. Last month, when an 86-year-old Crestwood, Ill., man decided to visit his local phone store, he arrived to find a robbery underway. After staying outside to keep others from entering the store, he saw the suspect fleeing through a back door. He pursued the suspect, legal firearm in hand, stopped him, then held him until police arrived to make the arrest. The actions of the unidentified law-abiding citizen were made possible by Illinois becoming the 50th and...

Malignant Neglect: The president talks about Ferguson, Mo., but not about a Chicago weekend where three dozen people were shot, seven of them killed, including a 16-year-old black girl who wanted to be a doctor. To his credit, President Obama was more judicious than usual talking about the shooting of Michael Brown outside St. Louis. He did not say the police acted stupidly. He actually made a rare attempt at acknowledging individual responsibility when he said that when young black men "commit a crime, they need to be prosecuted, because every community has an interest in public safety." One of...

MONTGOMERY, Alabama -- Former Illinois U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., who is serving the end of his 2-1/2-year sentence in a Montgomery federal prison, wants presidential pardons issued to all offenders who have served their time, according to a fellow inmate. Weeks after contacting Jackson inquiring about his ideas for prison reform, AL.com received emails from Jackson as well as a copy of a nine-page letter outlining his plan written by John P. Karoly Jr., an inmate Jackson knew during his stint at Butner Federal Prison in North Carolina. Jackson told AL.com he wrote two books while incarcerated, "The Tao...

In a previously unpublicized transcript from 2004, the Illinois State Senate specifically linked then US Senator-Elect Barack Obama with corrupt politician and Rod Blagojevich ally Emil Jones Jr. More than simply connecting the two, the transcript specifically calls Jones Mr. Obama's "mentor" and his "political godfather." The transcript was written on November 8, 2004, soon after Mr. Obama was elected to the United States Senate. Ironically, the subject of the section in which the soon-to-be Senator was linked to Jones was written in praise of Mr. Obama. The quote comes from Senate Resolution 716, which was in place to congratulate...

Tuesday night, activists in Chicago were interviewed shortly after the President delivered the State of the Union address, offering their perspective and feedback on what the President had to say. Rebel Pundit has released video of those reactions, including remarks from J.R. Fleming of the Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign, Joe Watkins, Founder of V.O.T.E. (Voices of the Ex-Offender), and Mark Carter, of V.O.T.E., among other activists. Mark Carter commented, “We’d be better of with you cutting off your presidency right now. Just quit.” Obama’s blame game is not selling, with Fleming saying “the reason why our economy is dying is because...

Hardball: Hell hath no fury like an administration embarrassed by a top credit-rating agency stating the obvious — that its perilous spending policies and rising debts warranted a downgrade just like any poorly run business. Speaking at a fundraiser in Philadelphia on June 13, 2008, candidate Barack Obama said of his Republican opposition: "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun." In this case, in August 2011, Standard & Poor's brought an embarrassing downgrading of U.S. debt to AA+ from AAA in advance of the president's re-election bid, the first such reduction in U.S. history. In...

<p>The Obama's younger dog is still getting used to the spotlight as it made a major faux pas during a White House ceremony Wednesday afternoon.</p> <p>Sunny Obama jumped up on a toddler who was a guest at the unveiling of the official Christmas decorations, pushing the little girl to the ground.</p>

The District of Columbia’s insurance commissioner says he was fired after questioning President Obama’s plan to fix ObamaCare and saying the city might not follow his suggestions. Commissioner William White told The Washington Post on Saturday that he was called into Mayor Vincent Gray’s office the prior day and told the Democratic mayor “wants to go in a different direction.” -snip- City officials have not commented on the situation, saying they cannot discuss personnel issues.

Fiscal Disaster: A major credit rating agency has just given Chicago, with more general obligation debt per capita than Detroit, its second triple-notch downgrade in six months. Its bonds are perilously close to junk status. Citing skyrocketing pension costs and a lack of meaningful solutions, Fitch Ratings lowered Chicago's debt to A- from AA- last week, making it the second serious downgrade since July. The move by Fitch follows a triple downgrade of Chicago's bond rating by Moody's Investors in mid-July. Moody's cited the city's "very large and growing" pension liabilities and "significant" debt service payments, among other factors. The...

Former Illinois Representative Jesse Jackson Jr., once one of the most promising black politicians in the United States, reported to federal prison on Monday to begin serving a 2-1/2 year sentence for misusing campaign funds, according to a family spokeswoman. Jackson, a former Democratic representative and the son of civil rights leader the Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr., entered a federal correctional facility in Butner, North Carolina, family spokeswoman Bunnie Jackson-Ransom said in a statement. "I am happy to report that he is in good spirits, all things considered," said North Carolina Representative G.K. Butterfield, who accompanied Jackson to the prison,...