Free Republic

So, my boyfriend Justin’s been avoiding a mysterious caller coming from the number (720) 582-8383 for the last week and this morning I told him to just take the call because it was most likely a political survey and I’d answer it for him. It was a research company in Denver, Colorado hired by Rahm Emanuel to poll Chicagoans about what they think of him. I had an awful lot of fun taking this survey and telling the pollster how bad a job Rahm is doing…and was interested in the amount of emphasis that was given to Rahm’s dealings with...

Illinoispaytoplay.com (IP2P) has learned that Daniel S. Mahru, former business partner of Antoin "Tony" Rezko, made a deal with the Department of Justice (DoJ) for his silence. IP2P is the first to report that on, October 4 2012, Daniel S. Mahru will receive probation at his sentencing hearing. IP2P has also learned that this is being done to insure Mahru will not speak of crimes, of which he has knowledge, that implicate Barack Obama, Valarie Jarrett, Allison Davis, Tony Rezko and others. (Remember Tony recently saying he committed crimes for which Fitzgerald did not charge him.) IP2P is also investigating...

Chicago’s hip-hop community is in a war of words that has escalated into violence, with the shooting death of a teenage rapper. Tuesday was another night, another homicide in a year in which hundreds of Chicagoans have been gunned down; the murder rate for the year’s first half is up an alarming 38 percent over last year. This time the victim was Joseph Coleman (18-year-old rapper Lil Jojo). The bicycle-riding teen was slain by a drive-by shooter in his South Side Englewood neighborhood. His death starkly punctuated a gang-related war of words and music between Jojo and rapper Lil Reese,...

CHICAGO (CBS) – A teenage boy was shot about a block from President Obama’s home, in the second such incident in the past week. The 17-year-old boy was shot in the leg and buttock in the 5000 block of South Woodlawn Avenue about 4:20 a.m., police said. The shooting scene is about a block east of the heavily guarded street where the Obamas have a home in the Kenwood neighborhood.

Nineteen people were shot in seven attacks overnight in Chicago, as the US city's gun violence epidemic continued. Thirteen of the victims were shot within a half-hour period, including eight in a drive-by shooting on a single street. Chicago officials have been battling a sharp increase in shootings and homicides, with some elected officials arguing gangs do not fear the police. The city's murder rate has spiked 29% year-over-year as of this month. By that time in 2011, 270 people had been killed in the city, according to data complied by the local newspaper RedEye Chicago. In 2012, that number...

Four males - 17, 30, and 34 and a man in his 20s - were killed and at least 5 others wounded in a three-hour stretch Friday night in shootings on the city's South Side. At least 12 people survived shootings between 4:15 p.m. Friday and early Saturday morning.

Nineteen people were shot across the South and West sides from Thursday evening through early Friday morning -- 13 of them wounded over a 30-minute period, authorities say. The overnight shootings peaked between 9:15 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. That's when eight people, many of them teens, were shot at 79th Street and Essex Avenue about 9:30 p.m. Then two men were wounded in the Ida B. Wells / Darrow Homes complex at about 9:25 p.m., police said. The men, 27 and 33, were shot in the 600 block of East 37th Street and taken to the University of Chicago Hospitals,...

Nineteen people were shot in attacks across the South and West sides between about 5:20 p.m. Thursday and 1:30 a.m. Friday - including 13 people during a single 30-minute period - according to the Chicago Police Department. The shootings peaked between about 9:15 and 9:45 p.m. Thursday when 13 people were shot, including eight in a single incident at 79th Street and Essex Avenue about 9:30 p.m. Police are still trying to sort out that shooting, the second of three incidents that left multiple people wounded since 8 p.m.

This video was done by a 13 year old boy in Chicago, and it perfectly demonstrates the gang bang mentality in Chicago which has caused the murder rate to skyrocket 40% in Chicago just this year. This video glorifies gang-banger violence, drugs, murder, and the gang "lifestyle."

There’s no Wheaton Bandit, Bomb Lady Bandit or Swine Flu Bandit to blame for the rise in local bank robberies. Rather, a group of average-looking mopes — likely desperate for cash to fuel drug or gambling addictions — is driving up the number of local bank heists. The Chicago FBI office has recorded 117 bank robberies so far this year, two more than in all of 2011. Ross Rice, FBI spokesman, said 2011 was simply “a really slow year.” “People didn’t rob banks,” he said. “It’s really that simple. Less people robbed banks and we don’t know why.” Since Monday,...

Chicago likes to compare itself to other world cities, so Ward Room thought it would find out how we rank in violence. It turns out no one can top us. Among what are considered Alpha world cities, Chicago has the highest murder rate --higher even than the Third World metropolises of Mexico City and Sao Paolo. Here’s how we rank in murders per 100,000 among cities we consider our peers, based on a projected murder total of 505 for this year....New York 6.0 Los Angeles 7.5 Mexico City 8.0 Moscow 9.6 Sao Paolo 15.6 Chicago 19.4

The Chicago Public School system has removed 12 principals and assistant principals for allegedly falsifying free and reduced lunch forms for their own children, according to a report from the Office of the Inspector General and CPS. None of the 12 assistant principals or principals have been charged with a crime, but have been removed from their posts pending due process hearings. Their names have been withheld during the hearing process. The program costs about $100 million per year and is meant to provide nutritious meals to needy children. “The investigation by the OIG has uncovered continuing fraud in this...

In a front page story about a major FBI terrorism investigation, The Washington Post has reported that the targets include “Chicagoans who crossed paths with Obama when he was a young state senator and some who have been active in labor unions that supported his political rise.” The implication is that the trail could lead to the White House. This is an unusual investigation that does not primarily involve Islamists. Instead, it is focused on elements of the old international communist networks that many people mistakenly thought had faded away with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Those under investigation...

When politicos play musical chairs in Illinois, what happens after the music stops and there's no safe place to sit? There have been four dead in recent years, unrelated cases of suicide, different except for the acts of the common pageant: The corruption investigators call. The music ends abruptly. Two were done in by guns, one on a beach, the other under a bridge. A third was by pills in a construction trailer. The fourth came Friday morning during rush hour, announced by that body under that white sheet on the Metra tracks in McHenry County. ...In his pocket was...

The Sound(?) Advice of "Chief Advisor" Valerie Jarrett Advice on “green energy” czar Van Jones--- HIRE HIM!Advice on Healthcare--- DUMP and DECEIVE the POOR PUBLIC (in action, not word)Advice on Public Housing for the Poor and Underprivileged--- SCREW EM! (in action, not word) Advice on “green energy” czar Van Jones: Hire him! “Van Jones, we were so delighted to be able to recruit him into the White House, we've been watching him, really, for - he's not that old— but for as long as he's been active out of Oakland and all of the ways that he has -...

<p>The 1890s Chicago City Council was notorious for corrupt political practices orchestrated by a faction of its aldermen known as the Gray Wolves. So named because they were viewed as preying upon the defenseless public, the Gray Wolves were led by First Ward aldermen “Bathhouse” John Coughlin and “Hinky Dink” Mike Kenna, and Johnny Powers of the Nineteenth Ward. These elected officials were not only skilled at trading votes for favors, but once in office they excelled in making municipal decisions to profit themselves financially.</p>