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A man whose father was killed at a New York City restaurant bombing for which the militant Puerto Rican nationalist group FALN claimed responsibility lashed out at Chicago aldermen Thursday for approving an honorary street designation for FALN leader Oscar Lopez Rivera. At the behest of local Ald. Roberto Maldonado (26th), the City Council’s Transportation Committee voted without a word of debate to designate a three-block stretch of North Luis Munoz Marin Drive as Oscar Lopez Rivera Way. Joseph Connor was just 9 years old when his 33-year-old banker father Frank was killed in the 1975 explosion at Fraunces Tavern...

The man who managed former President Barack Obama’s campaign has been slapped with a $90,000 fine for using Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s private email account to lobby the mayor on behalf of ride-sharing giant Uber without registering as a lobbyist. Newly-appointed Chicago Board of Ethics Chairman Attorney William Conlon said the fine assessed against David Plouffe is the largest ever by the Chicago Board of Ethics. It represents $1,000 for every one of the 90 days that Plouffe failed to registered as a lobbyist after his November 2015 email to Emanuel on the mayor’s personal account. “Registration of lobbyists is important....

A former senior executive for Uber who once served as Barack Obama's campaign manager has been fined $90,000 by the Chicago Board of Ethics for illegally lobbying Mayor Rahm Emanuel on behalf of the ride-hailing company. The board voted 5-0 to find that David Plouffe violated city ethics rules by failing to register as a lobbyist after contacting Emanuel to help the company on regulations for picking up travelers at Chicago's two airports.

“Everyone seems to be mourning your exit from office,” Amy wrote in the lengthy screed, posted on her mom Patti’s Facebook page. “I’m glad you’re gone. I’m not delusional — you’re not a saint. You were a mediocre president with unoriginal ideas.” “I thought you would finally right this wrong,” she told Obama. “You didn’t have to pardon him, only commute the sentence. You just had to let him come home. You didn’t. You released others, like Chelsea Manning or FALN terrorists, who actually committed reprehensible crimes, but you failed to release an innocent man.”

I re-read Barack Obama's autobiography. I revisited the book to help me think through Obama's relationship with Chicago, and what his departure means for our since he's not coming back here. I found a lot of reminders that as much as Chicago loves to claim Obama as its own, he was never really ours. Obama settled in Chicago by happenstance. He wanted to be a community organizer and he couldn't find a job anywhere else. He arrived in 1985 at the age of 24. He'd already lived in New York, California, Hawaii, and Indonesia. The son of a man from...

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Friday kept up his postelection push to position himself as a protector of immigrants against President-elect Donald Trump, announcing the creation of a $1 million "legal protection fund" to help those fighting possible deportation. The fund was created in partnership with the National Immigrant Justice Center to "provide immediate legal information, screenings, consultations and representation to individuals who may be at risk for deportation," according to a news release from Emanuel's office. The money will come from the $20 million the city set aside for Emanuel's property tax rebate program, according to city spokeswoman Jennifer Martinez.

In the run-up to Election Day, Donald Trump's eponymous tower on Wabash Avenue had been widely viewed as a 98-story joke. Thousands of people had RSVP'd on Facebook for a "Point and Laugh at Trump Tower" event scheduled following the election, the presumption being that he would lose to Hillary Clinton. On the sidewalk along Wacker Drive directly across the river from the skyscraper, someone had set up a makeshift photo studio—a framing device that passersby could use to complete what had become the selfie du jour: a middle finger directed at Trump's obnoxiously monogrammed building. Just last week the...

The polls have closed and the electoral firewall Hillary was banking on to prevent the Barbarian from crashing the gates and taking over — Results are all over the place. She's up. She's down. It's too close to call. I'm flashing back to game seven in Cleveland last week, when the Cubs had a three-run lead. Nate Silver: "We're in a state of suspended animation right now . . . no major state has fallen to Clinton." "Uh-oh. I'm starting to feel panic set in." My editor's pacing around in a state of terror. Texts are now pouring in from...

I’ve been trying to figure out what common trait binds Clinton supporters together. As far as I can tell, the most unifying characteristic is a willingness to bully in all its forms. If you have a Trump sign in your lawn, they will steal it. If you have a Trump bumper sticker, they will deface your car. if you speak of Trump at work you could get fired. On social media, almost every message I get from a Clinton supporter is a bullying type of message. They insult. They try to shame. They label. And obviously they threaten my livelihood....

Republican congressional candidate Joan McCarthy Lasonde called for U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Evanston) to resign. Lasonde said Schakowsky was the “ringleader” of protests and riots that led to the cancellation of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s March 11 rally at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Lasonde referenced undercover videos released by the conservative advocacy site Project Veritas Action that appear to show Jan Schakowsky’s husband, political consultant Robert Creamer, discussing voter fraud. Trump referenced the videos during the third presidential debate Wednesday night, saying Creamer’s work as a political analyst for the Clinton campaign was linked to the violence...

Every time Democratic U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky mentions "Republicans" and "scandal" and "accountability," she'll be sticking her husband's foot in her mouth. The foot I'm talking about belongs to her spousal unit, Robert Creamer, the noted champion of the poor and the downtrodden and Democratic political organizer. Creamer's judge was U.S. District Court Judge James Moran, the former Democratic state legislator from Evanston. Moran's son-in-law is Democratic political consultant Peter Giangreco, who has worked politics with Creamer and Schakowsky and had a seat on the board of one of Creamer's many organizations. Judge Moran says he thought about recusing himself...

A new video investigation released Monday by James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas Action shows how Democratic-aligned organizations used a tactic called ‘bird-dogging’ to incite violence and chaos at Trump rallies for media consumption. A key Clinton operative is captured on camera saying, “It doesn’t matter what the friggin’ legal and ethics people say, we need to win this m*th**f***er.” In the video, Democratic activists Robert Creamer and Scott Foval reveal their strategy to create a sense of “anarchy” in and around Donald Trump events over the course of the campaign. Foval tells an undercover operative: “One of the things we do...

Time upon time, Clinton's behavior affirms the perception that she's a corner-cutter whose ambitions drive her decisions. One telling episode among the countless: Asked by a voter if she was for or against the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, she replied, "If it's undecided when I become president, I will answer your question." As we've asked here before, will Hillary Clinton ever get over her consuming fear of straight talk?

Bennison's Bakery conducted an unscientific "Cookie Poll" with reference to the upcoming Presidential Election. 920 specialty cookies were sold with the likeness of Hillary Clinton 708 decorated cookies were sold with the likeness of Donald Trump. Bennison's Bakery is located in downtown Evanston, Illinois, which is commonly called "The People's Republic of Evanston." The US Representative (Comrade Jan Schakowsky) for the 9th Congressional District is a crypto-Marxist who poses as an Obama Democrat. Hillary has reason to worry if the cookie poll is any reflection of reality in La la land. She ought to be outpolling 8-1 in Evanston.

Jeffrey Leef is a Republican and a political novice who challenged Chicago's Democratic machine by running for Congress. He had no expectation of defeating incumbent Rep. Danny Davis, whose 7th district hasn't elected a Republican in 70 years. This was an idealistic pursuit by a citizen in defense of the endangered two-party system in Cook County. What could possibly go wrong? Leef got the nomination and secured enough signatures to get on the ballot. But before he could put up signs or receive a single donation, an ousted committeeman filed an objection to his candidacy with the Board of Elections....

Worrying over whether someone is a real Republican is hardly a new issue for the GOP in a Democratic-dominated city where some wards are nearly devoid of Republican voters, let alone anyone who can occupy a leadership role. Accordingly, committeemen spots have long been sought by opportunistic converts of questionable loyalty. But Christopher Cleveland, chairman of the Chicago Republican Party, said concern was heightened after the Democratic-controlled Legislature in one of its last acts under Gov. Pat Quinn in 2015 gave ward committeemen the power to submit lists of proposed election judges. Previously, that power had been held by the...

CHICAGO (CN) — A Federal judge granted the Republican Party a preliminary injunction stopping a hearing to remove a congressional candidate from the November ballot. In its lawsuit filed in June, the party said two Democrats, Frances Sapone and Sammy Tenuta, infiltrated its ranks by running for and winning positions as ward committeemen on Chicago's far west side. According to the complaint, Sapone and Tenuta's candidacies don't count due to a bylaw the party passed last year disqualifying anyone who had voted for another party in a primary over the eight years prior, and their committeeman spots are considered vacant....

A federal judge temporarily blocked Chicago election officials Tuesday from removing a Republican Congressional candidate from the ballot in a case that poses an intriguing question: When is a Republican not a Republican? (An) ousted GOP committeemen, Frances Sapone, challenged the party’s selection of Jeffrey Leef to run against U.S. Rep Danny K. Davis in the 7th Congressional District. Sapone contended a vote of GOP committeemen to nominate Leef (after no candidate ran in the primary) was invalid because she and another of the ousted committeemen were not notified of the meeting in which Leef was selected. A Chicago Board...

Here’s Republican Billionaire Bruce Rauner, telling a story, at a recent conservative Republican fundraiser. “Four African-American TSA Security Guards, big guys, they rushed up to me, they looked like they played for the Bears. I was like, they said “HEY!” I thought Wow, I’m not carrying my gun, what’s going on? They said “HEY you’re running for Governor.” I said, “Yes I am, you scared me, don’t do that.” If that’s the kind of story Bruce Rauner tells behind closed-doors at a Republican fundraiser, what’s it going to be like if he’s in the Governor’s mansion? Rauner poured money into...

Prosecutors dropped gun charges against former Ald. Sharon Dixon (24th) Tuesday, but she has agreed to seek treatment in a 90-day inpatient program. Last year, a Cook County judge ruled that Dixon was unfit to stand trial on charges alleging she approached Chicago Police officers outside the 10th district with a loaded gun in the spring of 2013. Dixon, 51, was charged with unlawful use of a weapon and possessing a firearm without a license for the May 4, 2013 incident. She was remanded to the Illinois Department of Human Services for an evaluation.