Free Republic

The U.S. Department of Justice sued Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Attorney General Kwame Raoul over the state’s new law aimed at limiting immigration enforcement in courthouses. The law, signed by Pritzker this month, bars immigration enforcement from courthouses and opens the door for easier legal action against federal agents over alleged civil rights infractions. It follows the Trump administration’s sweeping deportation campaign that has targeted the state, specifically the Chicago area, for months. The lawsuit claims that the law is unconstitutional and states have no regulatory authority over federal actions, such as immigration enforcement.

Pope Leo stated Dec. 23 that he had joined Chicago Archbishop Cardinal Cupich in pleading with Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker not to sign a controversial assisted suicide bill into law and was “very disappointed” when Pritzker ignored their intervention and signed the bill. “I spoke very explicitly with Governor Pritzker about that,” the Holy Father said outside Castel Gandolfo in response to EWTN Vatican correspondent Rudolf Gehrig’s question about the bill. Pritzker visited the Vatican and had an audience with the Pope in November. “At that time, the bill was already on his desk,” the Holy Father said Tuesday....

"Guns don't kill, people do." True or false, truth or lie, "people" do use their thoughts and words to help push their decisions to invalidate, as non-persons, other classes of "biological-organisms"-with-23-paired-chromosomes-which-are-totally-indistinguishable-from-humans; and whether or not to sentence the "non-persons" to termination because they want their land or money, or because if those 23-chromosome things are allowed to live it will curtail their ability to "do it" with whomever and whatever their supreme will dictates (what Ralph Nader called "gonadal politics"). So, yesterday, Jonathan Turley ("Democratic Despotism: The American Left Moves from Censored to Compelled Speech") noted: In Illinois, Democrats have...

My youngest daughter, Katie, who was only 20 years old, was killed on Jan. 19. Her only “crime” was being a passenger in a car in Urbana, Illinois. The man who took her life, Julio Cucul-Bol, was an illegal immigrant who was driving drunk when he slammed into the Honda Civic she was riding in at nearly 80 miles an hour. He fled immediately and was then aided by associates in Urbana and Chicago as he tried to escape justice.

Democrat Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker expanded his state’s culture of death on Friday by signing a bill into law legalizing assisted suicide for terminally ill people. Illinois is now the 12th state, plus Washington, DC, that allows physicians to assist terminally ill people in killing themselves — all in the name of “choice,” compassion, and easing end-of-life suffering. Pritzker signed the bill despite concerns from opponents that such a law could be a slippery slope (look no further than Canada) and could be used to coerce people with disabilities and financial hardships to choose death. […] The bill, called the...

A 35-year-old woman who uses a wheelchair was sexually assaulted at a CTA station in the Loop on Thursday morning, according to a Chicago police report. The woman was at the Jackson Red Line station when a man assaulted her around 2:57 a.m. She sought help from a CTA canine security officer and was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital for treatment. CPD said she was in good condition.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Todd Lyons sent a letter to Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul calling on him to put the safety of Americans first and honor ICE arrest detainers of the more than 4,000 criminal illegal aliens in the state’s custody including murderers, sexual predators, and those convicted of or charged with weapons offenses. Illinois' failure to honor ICE detainers has resulted in the release of 1,768 criminal illegal aliens since January 20. The crimes of these aliens include 5 homicides, 141 assaults, 23 burglaries, 4 robberies, 24 dangerous drugs offenses, 15 weapons offenses, and 10...

“The mayor is incompetent, and the governor is … a big, fat slob,” he said with a comically-timed pregnant pause. “He ought to invite us and say, ‘Please make Chicago safe.’ We’re gonna lose a great city if we don’t do it quickly,” Trump warned. Minutes later in his remarks, Trump was in full comedian-in-chief mode, mercilessly trolling Pritzker while mocking Chicago’s soft-on-crime policies. “I looked at the various cases, granting mercy, discovering the terrible trauma that everyone’s going through, and I had a little bit of a Pritzker joke. I was going to talk about Pritzker in size, but...

A man with a 30-year criminal record, reportedly at least 72 arrests, and around 15 convictions, lit a 26-year-old woman on fire on a train in Chicago Monday night. She is fighting for her life in critical condition. Mayor Brandon Johnson on Thursday called it an “isolated incident.” The “isolated incident” highlights everything that is wrong with progressive politics and Democrat leadership in all too many of our cities: let the criminals run free, forget about the victims, and vilify the police. But it only got worse for the Windy City Friday night, as the rampant violence and death the...

*** These are the hideous progressive sounds of Chicago political corruption: The jails are opened as the Cook County Democrats congratulate themselves …. And there is another sound that defines it. “Burn alive B****!” That is what a career violent predator with more than 50 arrests–at least 10 of them for violent felonies–is alleged to have shouted the other night in Chicago after dousing a female ... with gasoline on the Blue Line CTA train and setting her on fire. She is reportedly in critical condition. *** Lawrence Reed, 50, was out on pre-trial release for allegedly knocking a psychiatric...

Voices across Chicago and the nation expressed alarm on Saturday after two shootings in the Loop following the city’s annual Christmas tree lighting left a 14-year-old boy dead and eight other people, nearly all juveniles, wounded. Officials said officers arrested 18 people and recovered five firearms during what authorities described as widespread mayhem in the downtown area after the ceremony. Video circulating on social media showed a group of young people beating and robbing an apparent teenage victim in the Loop during Friday’s mayhem. As the boy curled up on the ground, someone pulled off his winter coat. Moments later,...

'Come and get me,' Illinois Governor JB Pritzker taunted Donald Trump last month. And it now appears Trump's Justice Department is doing just as he asked – launching a new criminal investigation that threatens to embroil the billionaire governor, the Daily Mail can exclusively reveal. Pritzker is a potential 2028 presidential contender. He is worth an estimated $3.9 billion, according to Forbes, with much of his wealth coming from his inherited stake in the Hyatt Hotels fortune. The case revolves around Pritzker's alleged links to his wife's friend, Jenny Thornley, who volunteered on his first gubernatorial campaign in 2018 and...

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced that efforts to nab illegal alien sex offenders have resulted in the apprehension of 230 foreigners accused of a variety of crimes including child molestation, sexual assault, drug offenses and murder. "This operation was called Operation Criminal Return," Noem said. "But I call it Operation Dirtbag because the specific targeted individuals are sex offenders, many of whose victims were children. These individuals should have never been in our country to begin with. These individuals will be gone off of our streets and kids will be safer." Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) objected, saying "Noem...

Last Wednesday, Nov. 5th I closed on my new home in Southeast Tennessee.Last Friday, Nov. 7th movers arrived at my now former home in Orland Park, IL and loaded up the moving truck. I was so anxious to get out of HELLINOIS, I'd already boxed up everything that wasn't furniture into moving boxes and made the job as easy as possible for the movers. Loading up the 26' moving truck took about three hours and the movers were darn' impressed at how easy it was for them.Saturday mid-day, the moving truck arrived at my new home in Southeast Tennessee (Loudon...

Republican Chicagoans believe the conflicts between ICE and the protesters are a consequence of the city's sanctuary policies. "ICE is trying to get the worst of the worst out of the city to keep them safer. They're getting a lot of really bad people out of our community: sex offenders, drug cartel pushers. I've seen crime go down because of this." "If the city cooperated with the Feds. ICE wouldn't have to go out into the streets and make arrests." Democrats who opposed ICE's actions are no different from the Confederates who tried to separate from the federal government during...

Illinois continues to hemorrhage wealthy residents. Since 2000, the state has lost roughly 1.6 million people — third most in the nation, behind only California and New York. Chicago’s population, even with the recent influx of migrants, is now at its lowest level in nearly a century. Illinois and Chicago’s sanctuary policies, routinely framed in moral terms, now function as political instruments — devised to offset population declines and protect Democratic dominance in state and city government. Yet these policies fail to replace the lost income. A 2025 Pew Research Center report estimates Illinois hosts approximately 550,000 illegal migrants, sixth...

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D), a fierce defender of sanctuary policies, is getting called out as an illegal alien is accused of killing a local elected Republican official and his wife last week. A 34-year-old illegal alien Edwin Pacheco-Meza of Honduras was driving a van on Oct. 24 when he crossed the center lane and struck 71-year-old Michael Clayton and his wife — killing them instantly. Clayton was a Republican who served on the Coles County Board. Pacheco-Meza, who crossed the southern border as an unknown got-away, was in his vehicle with illegal Juan Morales-Martinez of Guatemala, who crossed the...

Gov. JB Pritzker told President Donald Trump and his Republican allies to “f--- right off” during a speech last month before Illinois’ largest teachers union. Video of Pritzker’s F-bomb started gaining traction on social media Sunday, two weeks after the Democratic governor and potential 2028 presidential contender got a standing ovation for his profane takedown of Trump administration education policies. “President Trump and his bootlickers have torn down the U.S. Dept. of Education from the inside. Instead of helping to improve math and reading scores like you all are doing and supporting our educators, they’re making it harder for students...

With the potential Democratic Party field made up of weak candidates like Pritzker, Newsom, Harris etc, JD looks very good to win in 2028.

Gov. JB Pritzker's (D-Ill) claim that crime is down in his state and the City of Chicago is based largely on reclassifying felonies to misdemeanors. The Governor boasted "this essentially cost-free method of improving our safety record is something we should have thought of doing a long time ago. Prosecutors have always had the authority to decide whether to reduce the cost of prosecuting offenders by offering them a deal to plead to a misdemeanor and get a lesser sentence or probation rather than being tried for a felony. We also save on incarceration expenses with the lighter sentences." US...