Free Republic

According to data from the U.S. State Department’s Refugee Processing Center, almost all of the Syrian refugees resettled in Virginia since October have been placed in towns with lower incomes and higher poverty rates, hours away from the wealthy suburbs outside of Washington, D.C. Of the 121 Syrian refugees placed in Virginia so far, 112 have been placed in communities at least 100 miles away from the nation’s capital; 105 were placed in cities where median incomes fall below the state average. The D.C. suburban counties of Fairfax, Loudoun and Arlington are all among the nation’s wealthiest and, according...

Bill Ayers spoke at the University of Oregon last week on the subject of teaching and organizing for “social justice.”  His speech was not free of the radical sentiments he is well-known for espousing (especially in the company of America’s youth). Case in point: he spoke of the end of America, a new world, and what our role ought to be in all of it. Almost as interesting as Ayers’ speech itself, perhaps, was how the leftist radical was introduced by the university students.  One girl, who described herself as a doctoral student at the university, spoke of the privilege...

Two sources with knowledge of the situation told the Tribune today they have been notified that Christopher Kelly, a key figure into the federal corruption probe into former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, is dead.

Catching up: Seeking to end an embarrassing episode, Democratic leaders of the U.S. Senate sent word to the world today that Roland Burris, a 71-year-old African American, would be sworn in late this week to replace the 47-year-old president-elect, Barack Obama. (See video below.) The move, done with no cameras present to provide lasting video evidence of the political debacle for Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Illinois' other senator, Dick Durbin, should get the political mess out of the way in time for Obama's inauguration next Tuesday, as his aides had suggested. Even in another time zone, the...

City Hall has another multimillion-dollar deal in the works for Mayor Daley's nephew and his business partners. It's the latest in a string of city deals involving Daley nephew Robert Vanecko. They began five years ago, when Vanecko and the mayor's son, Patrick Daley, became hidden investors in a company that took over the city's sewer-inspection contracts -- a deal now under federal investigation. Records show that Vanecko is a hidden investor in a company owned by Allison S. Davis, a friend of the mayor who's seeking a $2 million loan from the city along with $838,369 in federal tax...