Free Republic

Stand Your Ground: A big hypocrite in the IRS scandal targeting Tea Party groups sets his sights on a conservative think tank, asking its suspected supporters: "Are you now or have you ever been a conservative?" Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin is on a witch hunt that threatens anew the free speech rights of Americans who don't hold his views or those of the Obama administration. This time he has targeted the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a group of state legislators who promote free markets, limited government and federalism, ahead of a "stand your ground" hearing Durbin announced after George...

Cities: Chicago appears to be following Detroit's lead to financial disaster, perhaps the latest victim of decades of one-party rule by Democrats eager to redistribute wealth while driving real wealth creators out of cities. Moody's Investors Service downgraded the Windy City's credit rating by three notches last week, partly the result of $19 billion in unfunded pension debt, leaving Chicago's lower than 90% of Moody's public finance ratings. Among the nation's five largest cities, Chicago has put aside the smallest portion of its looming pension obligations, according to a study issued this year by the Pew Charitable Trusts. The condition...

Exclusive: Erik Rush lists deaths some theorize have nexus to 'treasonous' president I know it’s typical for those on the political left to demand peer-reviewed studies, videotape and signed affidavits proving the assertions some of us make concerning the machinations of the Obama administration and socialist encroachment at large, but we all are aware by now that this is a diversion. It’s also a good indicator that we’re correct in said assertions. Like the left’s tendency for projection, wherein they accuse the opposition of that in which they are themselves engaged, it’s a fairly transparent ruse. That said, the available...

Guns: Illinois has become the last state in the union to allow citizens their full Second Amendment rights, and officials in the murder capital of America worry about the consequences of citizens defending themselves. Illinois' legislature on Tuesday voted to let gun owners carry concealed weapons. The action followed a violent and bloody Fourth of July weekend in President Obama's hometown during which 74 people were shot and 12 were killed. Permission for concealed carry in Illinois was prompted by a ruling late last year by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago. It found that...

Education: The president of the Chicago Teachers Union charges that racism and "rich white people" are to blame for the immense financial and educational crisis facing the Chicago Public Schools. Tbe Chicago Public Schools (CPS) represent everything that is wrong with public education in America. They are in thrall to the unions that run the system and bankrupt it through bloated salaries and pensions while too many of the students trapped inside graduate as functional illiterates, if they graduate at all. Poor academic performance generally, a huge budget shortfall and poorly attended schools in declining neighborhoods recently forced CPS to...

Scandal: Before his 2010 letter urging the IRS to target conservatives, the Senate majority whip's 1996 campaign benefited from the targeting of his opponent by a Federal Election Commission official with a familiar name. Perhaps not surprisingly, the IRS scandal may have its roots in Illinois politics with the 1996 targeting of Illinois conservative Al Salvi by a familiar name, Lois Lerner, then head of the Enforcement Division of the Federal Elections Commission. That year, Democrat U.S. Rep. Dick Durbin and Republican State Rep. Al Salvi were locked in a battle for the U.S. Senate seat Durbin would eventually win....

The scandals swirling around the Obama administration have many journalists scratching their heads as to how “hope and change” seem to have been supplanted by “arrogance and fear.” Perhaps it’s time they revisit one of their original premises about Barack Obama: that he wasn’