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A wellness center connected to a church founded by Illinois Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush has received $650,000 in taxpayer-funded government grants in 2017, public records show and has pulled in more than $15 million in grants since 2008. Rush, who was first elected to Congress in 1992, founded the Beloved Community Christian Church, a non-denominational church located in Chicago, in 2002. (snip) "I founded a church in Englewood, one of Chicago's poorest and most fragile neighborhoods, and named it Beloved Community Christian Church," Rush wrote in a 2011 op-ed published in the Huffington Post. "The church, once the site of...

Chicago police clear officers of racial profiling in stop of U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush On Aug. 4, 2016, U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush was pulled over in Bronzeville. He was let go without a ticket being issued, but later filed a complaint with IPRA alleging racial profiling. This video contains body cam footage from one of the officers that Rush filed the complaint against. (Source: CPD) Chief spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the department's Bureau of Internal Affairs found that the two Wentworth District officers acted properly because they had probable cause to make the stop. Earlier that day, officers at roll...

  Among other things, it looks like the Chicago lobbying to save ShoreBank paid off. Earlier this month I discovered a letter sent by Windy City power player and big Democrat donor Lester McKeever, Jr., to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, which urged his intervention. "It is my hope," McKeever wrote, "and one shared by others who care deeply about its most vulnerable communities, that the ShoreBank recapitalization plan with investment coming from the U.S. Treasury will enable it to continue servicing its customers and fulfilling its mission." In a post today on ShoreBank's blog, online channel manager (whatever that...

Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) took to the House floor Tuesday night to urge African-American mothers follow the example of a Baltimore woman who forced her son to leave the city's riots. Video of Toya Graham slapping her son for participating in the Baltimore riots went viral. Rush, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said mothers of African-American children should use their "awesome powers" to push back against violence. "I would like to make a special appeal to African-American mothers across this country. That they begin to use their awesome powers to take back our streets from the daily violence...

An already bizarre trial involving allegations an African despot hired a pair of obscure South Side businessmen to overturn U.S. sanctions against his regime — with the help of Illinois politicians — took an even stranger detour Friday. In the process, former U.S. Sen. Roland Burris got sideswiped, if not outright run over, with completely unrelated — and to this point unsubstantiated — accusations he once tried to shake down a contractor while in office. Burris might be asking what he did to find himself in the middle of this mess, or just maybe he knows. I’ve always been as...

Mick Dumke Congressman Bobby Rush convened a roomful of heavy hitters who promised to bring "hope and healing" to scarred neighborhoods. The reporters were told to wait outside the meeting room. The suggestion was that something big was happening in there. We were in the south-side office of Congressman Bobby Rush. He'd sent out word that he was convening a large group of elected officials, business leaders, and clergy to discuss what can be done about the daily casualty counts in Chicago. Rush's office is on a busy stretch of 79th Street in Chatham, just a couple doors down from...

Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) said the Office of Congressional Ethics is reviewing him after reports in December about a $1 million grant his non-profit organization received more than a decade ago. Rush told the Chicago Sun-Times he has been cooperating fully with the review and has asked others around him to do the same. He said he has not yet been interviewed by the independent panel. “I have been just totally, totally cooperative, open and cooperative and I encouraged anybody they wanted to talk to [to be] honest and frank about it,” Rush said. He said he hoped the OCE...

<p>Republican U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk on Monday sought to move past a controversy that flared over his call for mass arrests of gang members by pushing for new federal gang-apprehension initiatives to assist local law enforcement.</p> <p>Earlier this year, Kirk had called for arresting 18,000 Gangster Disciples to deal with the city's gang problem. That drew fire from South Side Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush, who labeled it an unrealistic "elitist, white boy" solution to Chicago's gang crime problems. Later, Kirk acknowledged his idea was unworkable and discussed the issue with Rush.</p>

"The Chicago connection NEVER surrenders or forgets its friends," a criminal complaint quoted one of the men as writing in a 2009 letter to the head of Zimbabwe's national bank. The two, Prince Asiel Ben Israel and C. Gregory Turner, were charged with violating federal law by lobbying on behalf Zimbabwe's longtime president, Robert Mugabe, whose violent and oppressive regime has been the target of U.S. economic sanctions since 2003. According to the charges, Ben Israel and Turner attempted to persuade undisclosed federal and state government officials — including an Illinois state senator and two U.S. representatives from Chicago —...

NEWT GINGRICH: This fits perfectly with what I was going to say earlier. You have a congressman -- and I respect Bobby Rush. You have a congressman who represents the most violent city in America. You have a congressman who represents the city in which over 500 people were killed last year, 74 percent of them African-American. You have a congressman who represents the city which is 80 percent of the killings, according to police, are by gangs. Gangs have increased -- let me finish. Gangs have increased by 40 percent since this president was elected. There is no federal...

Today we start with a quiz. Two politicians, one black and one white, have a disagreement on an issue. One airs an opinion, and the other responds with a racial insult. What will happen next? A) The politician who used the racial insult will be roundly and widely denounced and forced to resign from office. B) Nothing. The answer is: It depends. It's impossible to determine the correct answer without knowing whether the epithet came from the white politician or the black politician. In a society that treats racism, correctly, as a grave offense, it shouldn't really matter. But apparently...

Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) is highly critical of a proposal by Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) for mass arrests of 18,000 Gangster Disciples, telling the Sun-Times on Wednesday that Kirk’s approach is “headline grabbing” and an “upper-middle-class, elitist white boy solution to a problem he knows nothing about.” One of Kirk’s top priorities is targeting gangs; he has been meeting with law enforcement officials to devise a plan to execute the mass arrests. Rush’s comments came as Kirk and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) huddled Wednesday with Zachary Fardon, the nominee for U.S. attorney in Chicago, and urged him to keep fighting...

April 23, 2013 New Congressional Quest: End Prison Phone Call Price Gouging Bridget Johnson The Congressional Black Caucus Working Group on Prison Telecomm Reform is protesting high call costs for phone-homers behind bars. The CBC group will hold a press conference with former inmates and family members “to expose the often exorbitant rates that prisoners and their families are being charged for telephone calls and to announce the CBC response to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to resolve the issue after more than a decade of delay,” according to D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton’s (D)...

Democratic Rep. Rush wants to stop House use of term 'illegal immigrants' By Pete Kasperowicz - 04/15/13 10:01 AM ET Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) has introduced a resolution that calls on members of the House to stop referring to "undocumented foreign nationals" as "illegal" immigrants. His proposal, H.Res. 155, expresses the "necessity" for members of the House to use the term "undocumented" instead of "illegal" when referring to "foreign nationals which are working in the United States without proper documentation." Rush's resolution was proposed shortly after The Associated Press news service said it would no longer use the term "illegal...

Serious question. How can a convicted felon, who cannot even walk into a gun store to purchase a gun, be allowed to WRITE gun legislation? There is something seriously wrong with this country when this is allowed. This rule needs to be changed. This pisses me off more than I can say. We need to make it clear to those in power that not only is an AWB out of the question, but that things like this need to change. Common sense would dictate that if you cannot buy a gun you cannot have a part in writing gun laws!...

Democrats in House of Reps. joined J Street in supporting Obama administration's attempt to force Israel into making painful concessions Seventy-four Democrats in the House of Representatives have joined the dovish J Street organization in supporting the Obama administration's attempt to force Israel into making painful concessions to the Palestinian Authority. “In our view, support for a two-state resolution is inseparable from such support for Israel, its special relationship with the United States, and its very survival as a democratic homeland for the Jewish people,” the letter said. Seven Jewish members signed the letter, including Reps. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), John...

When Rep. Bobby Rush donned a hoodie and sunglasses on the House floor as a stunt to publicize his opposition to the handling of Trayvon Martin's death in Florida, McClatchy News Service cooed, "For the 65-year-old former 1960s Black Panther Party activist, an act of civil disobedience never felt so good." But Washington Post columnist Lisa Miller inflated the stunt way beyond its significance --- comparing it to lynching -- with a white Republican congressman from Mississippi, Rep. Gregg Harper, as the alleged metaphorical hangman for pounding the gavel and calling Rep. Rush out of order:

Former Black Panther Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Illinois, made quite a fuss when he donned a "hoodie" in the U.S. House until he was escorted out. At the time, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, "applauded his courage" for doing so. Meanwhile, back home in Rush's district, two men wearing hooded sweatshirts, or "hoodies," were the shooters in an incident that left one dead and five injured. A congressman was removed from the House floor Wednesday after giving a speech about Trayvon Martin while wearing a hoodie. In fact, during a span of six-hours Thursday night, 13 people were shot, leaving two...

“Just because one wears a hoodie does not make them a hoodlum,” Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) declared as he donned a hoodie and sunglasses on the House floor – at which point the session’s chair called the sergeant-at-arms to enforce the House rule on decorum. In a theatrical stunt to comment on the controversy surrounding the shooting of hooded Trayvon Martin, Rep. Rush pulled a hoodie over his head and went on a rant. Rep. Gregg Harper (R-Miss.), the session’s chair, repeatedly banged his gavel and called for Rush to desist. “The gentleman will suspend,” Harper said. “The member is...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi applauded Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., who was admonished Wednesday for wearing a "hoodie" sweatshirt during a speech in memory of Trayvon Martin, a teenager who was killed in February. "I think that Bobby Rush deserves a great deal of credit for the courage he had to go to the floor in a hoodie, knowing that he would be told he was out of order," Pelosi told reporters Thursday. "He quickly left the floor, he wasn't contentious about it. But he made his point. He called attention to a situation in this country that needs to...