Free Republic

President Trump on Monday bashed Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) as “incompetent” amid threats from Trump to send National Guard troops into the Illinois city. “The incompetent Mayor of Chicago just stated that, in DC, where crime has been brought down to almost nothing, there have been no murders in 9 days, something which hasn’t happened in years, and people are safe again, only nine people have been arrested,” Trump said on Truth Social. “That is wrong, hundreds of criminals have been held, captured, and arrested, and their guns have been taken away. DC IS SAFE AND BOOMING!!!” As of...

NRA has often reported on failed “gun buyback” programs in cities across the country as being worse than useless. Unfortunately, for some, these programs have led to even more dangerous and life-threatening consequences. While the Chicago Police “gun turn-in program” website states that “all guns are destroyed and never returned to the streets,” that was not the case for Twanda Willingham. Ms. Willingham recently filed suit against the City of Chicago and others after she was shot with a Glock 21 .45 caliber handgun that had been relinquished to Chicago police at a gun turn-in event in December 2023. The...

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration has come under scrutiny for allegedly accepting numerous designer gifts without proper documentation or transparency, according to a recent report by the city’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG). The OIG’s investigation revealed that from February 2022 to March 2024, the mayor’s office received 380 gifts, including high-end items like Hugo Boss cufflinks, a personalized Montblanc pen, a 2023 U.S. National Soccer Team jersey, various Gucci, Givenchy, and Kate Spade bags, and Carrucci size 14 shoes. However, nearly 70% of these gifts did not have the donor’s identity recorded. When OIG investigators attempted to inspect...

Chicago cops blocked city inspectors from entering a curious “Gift Room” filled with designer bags, Hugo Boss cufflinks, a personalized Mont Blanc pen and other ritzy goodies that were accepted by Mayor Brandon Johnson, according to a bombshell report. The trove of pricey giveaways are part of an “unwritten arrangement” that dates back 35 years, in which mayors can just write down gifts they received in a logbook and store some of them on the fifth floor of City Hall instead of reporting them to the Board of Ethics, according to the Office of Inspector General. But the new report...

A chaotic scene unfolded at a Thornton Township board meeting in South Holland, Illinois, ending in a physical altercation on Tuesday evening. The incident began after a public commenter insulted Supervisor Tiffany Henyard, prompting her and her associates to react aggressively. According to reports, the confrontation started when a community activist, known for criticizing Henyard, publicly called her a derogatory name. This led to Henyard pushing her table aside and rushing to the back of the room, where she allegedly joined the fray. Police were already present and had to intervene to restore order. This brawl occurs amidst a backdrop...

AChicago woman is fighting to keep her home after a government mix-up led officials to sell her house from underneath her on account of supposedly "delinquent taxes." Robin McElroy bought her home in the Morgan Park area of Chicago back in 2012. Since then, she said she has paid the taxes owed on the property and even kept receipts of her payments. "I do not like wasting money. ... I pay my bills," McElroy told CBS News. Despite those consistent payments, in 2019, McElroy began receiving notices that her property taxes were in arrears and that her property was in...

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson appointed a new school board Monday, days after all seven members resigned amid an escalating fight over control of the public schools in the nation’s third-largest city. Johnson has been trying to oust Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez, who was named to the job in 2021 by Johnson's predecessor, former Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Johnson, a former Chicago Teachers Union organizer, has clashed with Martinez, including over how best to close gaps in the district's nearly $10 billion budget. Martinez has declined to resign, citing the need for stability in the district. Rather than step into...

Dozens of plastic bags containing “repulsive” antisemitic flyers and possible “rat poison” were found scattered around a Chicago neighborhood Monday — in the third disturbing incident this year. A resident came across the hateful leaflets in the Lincoln Park area Monday morning and reached out to their local official. “This is not the first time our ward has seen incidents like this. To the people who are spreading these flyers, I have a clear message: you are committing acts of hate,” Timmy Knudsen, alderman for Chicago’s 43rd Ward, said in a statement.

Monday marked the five-year anniversary of Joe Biden’s online condemnation of a “hate crime” that never happened. On Jan. 29, 2019, “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett, who is black and gay, made national headlines with claims a pair of white supremacist Trump supporters violently attacked him. The actor said his assailants screamed, “This is MAGA country!” in the apparently far-right city of Chicago. “I will never be the man this did not happen to,” Smollett told ABC News in an interview with Robin Roberts two weeks later. By December 2021, Smollett was convicted on five out of six charges over staging...

CHICAGO — A newly acquired video shows four people, at least two armed with machine guns, unleashing a torrent of gunfire in Chicago on Wednesday evening. The shots left a 14-year-old boy dead and at least three others injured. Later, a 16-year-old boy fired a gun at Chicago police officers as they investigated the shooting. He was charged yesterday with six counts of attempted murder of peace officers. The video, provided to CWBChicago by a source, shows four people walking across a vacant lot in the 4200 block of South Wells around 8:20 p.m. on June 1.

Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is taking on a new role in education, less than a month after she left office. Beginning this fall, Lightfoot will teach a course at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health tentatively titled "Health Policy and Leadership," according to an announcement from the school. Lightfoot, who left office on May 15 after losing re-election, will serve as the Richard L. and Ronay A. Menschel Senior Leadership Fellow at the school beginning at the end of August. The Menschel program, according to the school, "offers a rare opportunity for those who have recently served...

Lori Lightfoot is the first Chicago mayor in 40 years to lose re-election. She will now assume a teaching role at Menschel Senior Leadership Fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Ironically, Lightfoot will teach a course titled “Health Policy, and Leadership.” While there are worse choices to educate students about leadership, we can’t think of one off hand. Nonetheless, Michelle A. Williams, Dean of Faculty at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, considers Lightfoot an impressive addition: “I’m delighted to welcome Mayor Lightfoot to Harvard Chan School as a Menschel Senior Leadership Fellow. As mayor,...

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Exit, Lori Lightfoot; enter, Brandon Johnson — and the song remains the same. Or does it?It’s hard to imagine conditions in Chicago getting more desperate than under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, but new Mayor Brandon Johnson — in office less than a week, as I write — is already doing his damnedest to make everyday life and business survival in one of the country’s most iconic cities even worse.But imagine, we must.As reported by The New York Post, the iconic Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) opened in 1898, only 27 years after the infamous Great Chicago Fire. Proud Chicagoans heralded the...

Michael Jordan mostly kept himself out of controversy at the height of his fame with the Chicago Bulls during the 1990s but it was a comment about selling sneakers that drew the most ire. Jordan’s comment, “Republicans buy sneakers too,” resurfaced Sunday night in an episode of ESPN’s “The Last Dance” documentary. Jordan admitted that the remark, which was made during the 1990 U.S. Senate race in North Carolina between Democrat challenger Harvey Gantt and incumbent Republican Jesse Helms was "said in jest.”

Michael Jordan's enormous house in Chicago is still on the market after 10 years. Jordan has tried to sweeten the pot by cutting the price nearly in half and throwing in a complete set of Air Jordans with the purchase of the house. And yet, it remains unsold and he pays more than $100,000 in annual property taxes. The house was originally listed for $29 million and has every bell and whistle you can think of. Some "over-improvements" and the house's location are making it hard to sell the property.

An 18-year-old has reportedly been arrested for breaking into NBA legend Michael Jordan's $15million mansion in Chicago. The 60-year-old Jordan was not in the property at the time, according to TMZ, but the teenager was found inside the building after neighbors alerted the police in the afternoon of Tuesday, April 4. The teenager has been named as Raiden Hagerdorn by local media and has been charged criminal trespass and two counts of criminal damage to property. Jordan has not lived at the property since 2012. He has been trying to sell it for 13 years, initially putting it up for...

The Chicago Bears first started playing at Soldier Field in 1971, but the iconic stadium’s days could be numbered as recent news has accelerated the possibility of a new stadium being built in the near future. According to a report from the Chicago Sun-Times, the Bears’ franchise has submitted paperwork with the Village of Arlington Heights to begin the demolition of the Arlington International Racecourse. The 326-acre property has been described as a crown jewel of the area’s horse racing community. The Bears, who just finished an eventful NFL Draft, stressed that the request does not guarantee they will demolish...

It is sick out there and getting sicker. Chicagoans are living in a war zone. Over half the population has witnessed a shooting by age 40. The average age of the witnesses is 14. The average age for being shot is 17. Of those young people who were surveyed, 7% of blacks, 7% of Hispanics, and 3% of whites were themselves shot. This indicates that while so-called “black-on-black” crime may be at a higher level, a pathological percentage of young people are being subjected to the hail of bullets that has become a way of life in the Windy City....

Early in the morning hours of a polar vortex in January 2019, FOX's "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett claimed two White supremacist Trump supporters attacked him near his Chicago apartment in a racially-motivated hate crime that would soon incite outrage from activists and the media. It's the "hate crime" that dominated headlines, but facts proved none of it was true. In December 2021, the now-40-year-old actor and singer was convicted of five felony counts of disorderly conduct. One year ago, he was sentenced in March 2022 to 150 days in county jail. Brothers Abimbola "Bola" and Olabinjo "Ola" Osundairo, Smollett's accomplices...