Free Republic

For the first time in his presidency, President Donald Trump will visit Chicago on Monday for a pair of scheduled events. The president will address the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference at McCormick Place, and will also attend a fundraiser at the Trump International Hotel and Tower during his visit. Trump’s visit to Chicago is his first since March 2016, when protests canceled a scheduled rally at the then-UIC Pavilion at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Campaign organizers told those planning to attend the rally for then-candidate Trump that after consulting with law enforcement, the decision was made to...

I’ve written before about the fact that Barack Obama was not planning another big Election Night victory party in Grant Park here in Chicago like the spectacle he put on in 2008, because no one I know in the Parks Department or in the event planning community had anything on their radar for Grant Park that night. Because of the permitting and union rules that plague any event in this City (which wouldn’t be waived even for Obama, due to liability and insurance issues the City would face if anything went wrong and permitting was not followed to the “T”)...

U.S. President Barack Obama plans to usher in what he hopes will be a second four-year term in the White House at an election-night rally at a huge convention center near downtown Chicago, campaign and city officials said on Wednesday. The event will likely draw thousands of supporters to the McCormick Place convention center in Chicago, Obama's hometown and the site of his re-election campaign headquarters. Supporters are expected to watch the voting results come in and then hear a speech by the incumbent Democrat who faces Republican Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and private equity executive, in the...

Barack Obama's home town is hemorrhaging jobs thanks to union work rules and outlandish pay scales, and even government officials are concerned. Conventions used to be a big business in Chicago, but absurd union pay scales and work rules have been steadily driving major conventions to cities with no such union problems, especially Las Vegas and Orlando. This has created a dilemma for the government entity, the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, run by the city and state. Yesterday, a 16-member Illinois State Senate-House committee was looking into how to save McCormick Place, the vast convention facility in Chicago,...

CHICAGO—The sprawling McCormick Place became America's convention headquarters when it opened here 50 years ago, hosting buyers and sellers of products from candy bars to windmill turbines. But in recent months, a gradual drop-off in business here has turned into a rout as a string of high-profile shows have pulled out. With the recession cramping convention business across the U.S., exhibitors say Chicago's high costs and complex work rules make other venues more attractive. Chicago's Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which runs McCormick, had an operating loss of $3.6 million in the fiscal year ended last June and expects to...

McCormick Place is called the nation's largest convention center, but reputed Outfit guys, ex-cons and criminals have another name for it: A haven. The kind of guys who populate a prison yard have been getting work at McCormick Place for decades, especially through the small but politically powerful riggers union that sets up some of Chicago's biggest trade shows, including the Chicago Auto Show. There's a man working there who has ties to reputed organized crime figures and who helped run a heroin ring while locked up in Leavenworth. There's also a mobster's son, a convicted felon, who beat a...