Free Republic

It was less windy in 2023 in Illinois, the article tells us, and that was because of big Canadian forest fires last year. And it blames climate change, of course, for forest fires. Another part of the problem is impediments created by the “equity” requirements now built into Illinois energy law for hiring and worker training. Regardless, it’s not climate change or a year of low wind that’s “sucking the air out of Illinois’ wind power industry,” as the Sun-Times headline postulated. The state’s expectations for renewables were doomed from the start.

Devries said the Democratic National Convention is buying the city an new $11 million police chopper that will be used during the party gathering in August. The new helicopter will be outfitted with all of the latest equipment including is fueled by clean burning unicorn farts emitting zero greenhouse gases a backup electric generator an extra backup of solar panels a speed restriction device to make pursuits impossible a camera system that filters out all colors to prevent racial profiling - it only sees white (unless the white person is wearing all black clothing and masks and carrying an umbrella...

‘Historic progress’ on electric cars may turn into a historic rout in swing states. This week’s Environmental Protection Agency tailpipe rule amounts to an imminent ban on gasoline-powered cars Who else approves? The White House will point to a cheerleading automotive industry, but peek behind the pom-poms and you see an administration with a gun to carmakers’ heads... “They’re coming for your truck.” An energy trade group has already been up with ads making that point in swing states, calling on Americans to reject Biden’s “EPA car ban.” Today’s Democratic Party is entirely dedicated to the proposition that all Americans...

Early one mild morning last month, a transgender woman who recently migrated from Venezuela was waiting for a ride outside a Little Village nightclub when a driver pulled up and made an ominous remark in Spanish. “Bad gay,” he allegedly said before firing three shots at the woman around 4:30 a.m. on Feb. 4. She was struck in the groin and both legs and left in critical condition, according to Chicago police records. ...So since two "protected classes" were involved and no one was charged for various reasons, no crime was committed that can be tracked on paper.

Officials say a murder victim managed to shoot his killer before dying, and, after the murderer fled, a passerby took the victim’s gun, hunted down the killer, and shot some more. It all happened last Friday afternoon in the 7400 block of South Euclid, according to Chicago police and prosecutors. The entire story is over at the CWB blog and it's a doozy. At reporting time, they still haven't caught the passerby....and one may be forgiven for hoping they never do.

Mr. Dahl, 65, was surprised in 2022 when the cost of his car insurance jumped by 21 percent. Quotes from other insurance companies were also high. One insurance agent told him his LexisNexis report was a factor. “It felt like a betrayal,” Mr. Dahl said. “They’re taking information that I didn’t realize was going to be shared and screwing with our insurance.” Automakers and data brokers that have partnered to collect detailed driving data from millions of Americans say they have drivers’ permission to do so. But the existence of these partnerships is nearly invisible to drivers, whose consent is...

Officials look to crack down on James Bond-style tag flippers, other means to obstruct license plates; ‘This is about fairness’ Mechanical devices that can hide a driver’s tag at the push of a button are sold online for a couple hundred bucks. Other drivers are getting creative on the cheap, jury-rigging their plates with face masks or duct tape. Some drivers have power-washed paint off their plates or covered them with a range of household items such as leaf-shaped magnets “Our Motorized Stealth Plate Flippers, allows you to flip your license plates 180°, James Bond style!” New York State Thruway...

A group of YouTube Music staff found out that they had been made redundant while speaking at a council meeting in Texas, urging councillors to support them in their efforts to get the Google-owned company to negotiate with their union. Google says they were contractors whose agreements have expired ..."Then, as he began to expand on that point, a colleague of Benedict's stepped forward to let him know that the entire team had been laid off. "

A Chicago police officer is suing the city to change his race on his official records after the department said it would allow officers to freely change their gender to match their identity. Mohammad Yusuf, 43, said in a federal civil rights lawsuit filed last week that he is looking to change from "Caucasian" as he "currently identifies as Egyptian and African American." However, the Chicago Police Department is not allowing him to change his race.

Russians are being blinded from monitoring Ukrainian air space after losing another A-50 AWACS. An Indian expert suggests that the footage of A-50 Beriev ‘flying radar’ being hit indicates that Ukrainians are targeting Russian assets flying at a distance of over 200 km by modifying a drone to receive targeting data from Western surveillance and launching a heat-seeking missile. But the video points at Ukraine operationalizing something akin to the American Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA)’s “Project Longshot.” In 2023, the Longshot project reached its third and final demonstration and test phase. During the same attack, a Russian Ilyushin...

The dual explosion of cicadas, which hasn't been seen for centuries, will hit much of the state, but in one portion, an overlap of the two major broods is possible Illinois will see a unique situation when two massive broods of cicadas emerge across the U.S. this year, but where will the biggest emergence be seen? The rare occurrence, which could bring billions of cicadas to the surface, last happened 221 years ago.

Skokie Public Defender Sues To Be Able To Display Photo Holding Rifle Debra Gassman says preventing her from displaying the photograph is a violation of her First Amendment rights. After she returned from Israel, Gassman alleges she prominently displayed an 11-inch print of the photo in her shared office at the Leighton Criminal Courts Building at 26th Street and California Avenue in Chicago for 18 years without any issues.

Only $350.00 to fly from Mexico to Canada. It is the cheapest/easiest way into the US and is widely used.

Media assisting in the details: Chicago police could soon issue a final report on the mysterious shooting at a White Sox game last summer. Two women in the stands were shot and injured, and theories have varied about how it happened. During the game, two women were injured by bullets that struck them while sitting in the left field bleachers. One 40 caliber bullet was recovered. Another bullet remains lodged in the leg of the woman who was most seriously wounded. So two bullets? Or one bullet (in a known location) and one shell casing? Because the media is famous...

“I’m a smoker and gun owner in DC, I can’t even get a date.” Damn if that ain’t the truth!

Putin has relied on historical borders to argue Ukraine is part of Russia and to justify the war. Mongolia's former president shared a map of the Mongol Empire, which included parts of Russia. "After Putin's talk. I found Mongolian historic map. Don't worry. We are a peaceful and free nation," he wrote. The Mongol Empire was once the largest in the world. Its territory covered much of Eurasia and included modern-day China and much of Russia, as well as Ukraine. Today, Mongolia, between China and Russia, is a smaller country, but it's still one of the world's largest nations in...

A crowd in San Francisco's Chinatown surrounded a Waymo robotaxi on Saturday night, broke the windows and threw fireworks inside, setting the vehicle ablaze, the company said.

The truly interesting part is around the 2:26 mark where Kirk notes that the State Police Revocation Enforcement Arm is getting increased funding. Not doubled. Not tripled or quadrupled. Quintupled. From $2 million to $10 million. That is disturbing, because there aren't five-times the amount of gun crimes nor five-times the amount of FOID revocations that we've noticed anywhere. As far as we can tell, FOID applications are at all time highs and renewals so intense that the ISP delays are running afoul of statutory requirements. So why five-times the amount of money? That is disturbing, because there aren't five-times...

The wave of breakdowns started in December and shows no sign of stopping. This week, at least 16 people suffered burns in the city of Nizhny Novgorod when a large-bore heating pipe exploded, spouting boiling water into the street. "They decided to freeze out Europe, but that didn't work. Then they decided to freeze their own to intimidate others,"

Some 20,000 people in the cities of Klimovsk, Lyubertsy, and Podolsk, in the Moscow region, have been left without heating for days — some of them for weeks — as temperatures have dropped below -25C last week, Russian Telegram channel Baza reported. Local authorities declared an emergency. “Due to sanctions and overblown military spending, Russia does not have enough resources to spare for annual checkups of its outdated housing and utilities sector,"