Free Republic

Illinois Republicans have just forced state party chair Pat Brady to resign because of his support for gay marriage. What is this, Alabama? Brady, rather famously, came out in support of gay marriage in January of this year, and even made phone calls to lawmakers urging them to support gay marriage legislation before the Illinois legislature. And now he’s politically-dead, killed by a Republican party so permeated with hate and intolerance that even in a moderate-Republican state like Illinois, the GOP just couldn’t stomach having a fag-lover as party chair. This is why I, an Illinois Republican, left my party...

CHICAGO — Mayor Rahm Emanuel gave Rick Perry a Chicago-style greeting Monday, challenging the Texas governor to remember the reasons for his visit to Illinois — a jab at Perry's presidential debate forgetfulness. "I hope when he comes he remembers all three of his reasons," Emanuel said. "Because it will be a real test for him." Perry was in Illinois Monday to encourage businesses to move to Texas and was scheduled to address a Chicago business convention Tuesday. Emanuel made pointed reference to a campaign gaffe Perry committed while running for president. At a Republican debate late in 2011, Perry...

I want my money back. Last October, I gave $2,500 to support Heidi Heitkamp’s campaign to become North Dakota’s junior senator. A few weeks later, she won a surprise victory. I have had a long career in government and politics, but I don’t donate heavily to political campaigns. When I contribute, it’s because I know the candidate well or am really impressed with the person. Heidi Heitkamp was one of the latter: She struck me as strong-willed, principled and an independent thinker. But this week, Heitkamp betrayed those hopes. She voted to block legislation to make gun background checks more...

LaGrange, IL— This weekend’s epic showdown between movement conservatives and more moderate elements of the Illinois Republican Party ended with a split result. Embattled Party Chairman Pat Brady remains at the helm of the State Central Committee but the committee is beginning the process of lining up a successor in the event Chairman Brady resigns or his detractors can garner enough votes to oust him while simultaneously navigating party rules to make it happen. Brady’s term runs through the 2014 primary season when a new, 18-member central committee, selected under the downsized 2011 congressional map, will organize itself and elect...

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) told host Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday that supporters of new gun control legislation do not yet have the votes to pass it, despite defeating a Republican-led filibuster attempt last week. Durbin is the Senate Majority Whip, responsible for counting his party's votes on key legislative proposals. The specific bill facing the Senate is the Manchin-Toomey compromise on background checks, which would expand such requirements to gun shows, among other provisions. Currently, private sales between individuals at gun shows do not require background checks--just as private sales anywhere do not require them. The following is...

CHICAGO — When she returns home here Wednesday to deliver a speech on gun violence, first lady Michelle Obama will be making a rare foray into the politics of the day that could presage a more activist role during her husband’s second term. Obama is taking what aides described as an intentional step outside her narrow focus on military families and childhood nutrition to confront the dark reality of young people being gunned down on the streets of America’s cities. The remarks come amid a contentious debate on Capitol Hill over stricter gun laws advocated by President Obama. White House...

President Barack Obama’s got a volunteer army — and all their marching orders come from carefully organized paid generals back at headquarters. Obama won two terms by harnessing a grassroots movement through a tightly controlled, top-down campaign organization. Now the group formed out of Organizing for America is now bringing that approach to Organizing for Action. It’s what differentiates OFA from other grassroots groups, and even the Democratic National Committee: they’re combining large-dollar donations and unpaid local leaders for a carefully built, lasting structure that they believe will be just as effective in supporting the president as it was in...

Charges have been upgraded to a felony for a Chicago man accused of threatening a state representative over gay marriage remarks. Police say shortly after Stephen Bona, of Chicago, was charged with a misdemeanor for placing a threatening voice mail at Jeanne Ives' district office, he placed another call to her, leading them to change the misdemeanor charges to threatening a public official, a Class 3 felony. If convicted, Bona could face up to five years in jail. Wheaton Police Chief Mark Field told the Daily Herald Monday that Bona was arrested and charged March 22, hours after Republican state...

A Chicago man has been charged with disorderly conduct for making a telephone threat to a state representative who called gay couples "disordered" on a Catholic radio show, authorities said. Wheaton Police Chief Mark Field said 49-year-old Stephen Bona was charged Friday, hours after Republican state Rep. Jeanne Ives reported getting a threatening voice mail at her district office. "Your Tea Party brethren Sarah Palin put up a map that included the names, locations and faces of Democratic candidates and put them in the cross hairs of a gun," a caller says on the voice mail, a recording of which...

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's $2.3 million in campaign spending helped anti-gun radical Robin Kelly win the Democratic primary to replace convicted former Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D) yesterday. Bloomberg joined Obama political adviser David Axelrod, radical Jeremiah Wright ally Father Michael Pfelger, and left-wing Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) in helping Kelly defeat former Rep. Debbie Halvorson, who was once the darling of the party's election machine but became a useful target due to her "A" rating from the National Rifle Association. (NRA) Though President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party have campaign against "big money in politics," they welcomed...

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is said by well-connected Democrats to be considering the idea of running for president if Hillary Clinton opts out of the 2016 race. The 53-year-old Emanuel, who is busy raising money for his 2015 reelection campaign in the Windy City, has had discussions both over the phone and face to face in the past month with Democratic Party donors and fundraisers about a possible White House run, according to sources. It’s unclear who raised the subject—Emanuel or the donors—and the mayor’s press secretary initially didn’t offer clarity on who said what to whom Hours after this...

Our new Sen. Ted Cruz, of the great state of Texas, has a knack for making himself heard, and I look forward to a tenure filled with such press statements. Dear Rahm, this is what a little state-to-state competition looks like. Companies bullied by Mayor Pottymouth aren’t obligated to stay in the cold, bankrupt, and increasingly inhospitable state of Illinois. And, Cruz is proactive in his pitch to Rahm-targeted Bank of America, TD Bank, Sturm & Ruger, and Smith & Wesson (though not proactive in the subsidies arms race we too often see in state competition over sports teams and...

Creating gun laws is one thing, but convincing people to support them is something else. That was the job of Vice President Joe Biden on Friday, when he held a roundtable discussion on gun control in Virginia. CBS 2’s Mike Puccinelli reports new laws could be tough to sell at gun shows, like one held in suburban Rosemont on Friday. Organizers said it was the first gun show in Cook County in as many as 50 years. Gun shows have come under increased scrutiny since the school shooting massacre in Newtown, Conn., because in the vast majority of states, gun...

CHICAGO (CBS) – A South Side alderman is asking for City Council hearings on an unorthodox gun control measure that would allow for GPS tracking of firearms. WBBM Newsradio Political Editor Craig Dellimore reports Ald. Willie Cochran (20th), a former police officer, has suggested that global positioning system chips be embedded in new guns, and retrofitted on existing firearms, so they could be located if they go missing. “Just like if your car gets stolen, OnStar can tell you where your car is. If your gun gets stolen, and you report it, we should be able to find that gun,”...

UPDATE: Two firearms-related bills—including an assault weapons (and more) ban, gun range regulations and a magazine registration scheme—are now headed for committee. Click here to read the texts. Press release: “The ISRA has learned from a credible source that Illinois Senate President John Cullerton [above] will introduce a so called ‘assault weapons’ ban on Wednesday when the legislature returns for its ‘lame duck’ session. Cullerton hopes to ramrod the bill through and get it to Governor Quinn for signature by Friday. If he is successful at doing so, nearly every gun you currently own will be banned and will be...

Goodness knows I’ve grappled with exactly how I’ve hoped the fiscal-cliff finagling would finally finish up, but the overriding constant for me has always been the ultimate triviality of the entirely petty discussion — and this just so perfectly, painfully exhibits precisely why. For Rep. Danny K. Davis, Illinois Democrat, the “fiscal cliff” fight came down to one thing: the unemployment checks the government will still be able to send to thousands of his constituents. “When I go to church on Sunday, I know that I will see people with the assurance that pretty soon an unemployment check is in...

The Rev. Jesse Jackson on Saturday said that President Obama’s reelection was “a great victory,” but that it would be incomplete with a reconstruction of urban America and an investment in the communities where the blacks who voted overwhelmingly for the president live. “We’re happy and full of pride,” in the president’s reelection, Jackson told the crowd at the Saturday morning forum at Rainbow/PUSH headquarters, 930 E. 50th St., “but our houses remain raggedy … our schools remain closed.” Despite attempts at voter suppression in states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, Jackson said, blacks turned out en masse to...

On Sunday, the Chicago Daily Herald, the second largest daily newspaper in metropolitan Chicago, endorsed Mitt Romney for President in 2012. In 2008, the Daily Herald endorsed hometown Senator Barack Obama for President: In endorsing Illinois’ favorite son in 2008, we declared Obama “has a chance to be a great president.” We said, “He offers a new kind of politics. A politics that breaks down the old partisan walls. A politics that strives to bring people together. A politics of hope.”... But four years later, where is the hope? Where is the confident swagger and leadership to uplift the nation’s...

A startling video released today by Jeremy Segal (“Rebel Pundit”) of Breitbart.com shows inner-city Black Chicagoans expressing outrage against President Obama, union racism, and the Democratic Machine, whom they say no longer represent their agenda. Further, when money is directed at their community, it is funneled through so-called community-based organizations and nonprofits or unions, and never touches the residents themselves. Community resident Paul McKinley says, “Everything in Chicago is controlled by the Democratic party. Everything in my community is controlled by Black Democrats. There is no Tea Party in my community. There is no Republicans. So they can’t blame the...

The Chicago Jewish Star an independent twice-monthly general interest Jewish newspaper wrote an editorial endorsing Governor Romney over their Hometown President Barack Obama. “It is not only that Mr. Obama thus deserves to be a one-term proposition; it is that Mr. Romney is simply the better bet for our country.” writes the Chicago Jewish Star. The Following are excerpts of the editorial: In many ways this is still a post-9/11 world. The threat of Islamic terror, a depressed and failing economy, an unsure future for a troubled healthcare system, a genocidal-spewing Iran, an unbalanced Middle East- these are some of...

Someone asked me why a “DOOM ANTIDOTE” is still needed when it looks like since the Denver debate not even the most conniving of Tokyo Roses in conservative ranks has been able to rev the Eeyores out there up with any “We’re doomed!” reports of “Obama’s winning this!”. Something magical happened at that debate between Romney and Obama that has prevented the Democrats’ Ministry of Truth (Minitru, for short) in the national media from being able to claim that “Romney’s campaign is imploding!” or “Obama’s inevitable!”. None of that was ever true. Romney was never in trouble. Romney’s campaign has...

Chuck Todd appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe earlier today to discuss Team Obama strategy — and perhaps staffing — in the wake of their debate debacle. Six days later, not only is the Barack Obama campaign still talking about the debate, they’ve released an ad about perhaps the least important issue mentioned in it … Big Bird. Instead of changing the subject, they’re continuing to extend the damage, and Mike Barnicle asked Todd about their strange obsession with the debate rather than finding anything else to discuss. Todd agrees, and says that “Chicago” may be making some personnel changes in...

The Blaze: President Barack Obama offered a boost for his wife on Friday, saying first lady Michelle Obama could “definitely” win the presidency but that she has “too much sense” to run for office. “She definitely could be the president but she will never run for the presidency ’cause she’s got too much sense,” Obama said Friday in an interview on Washington, D.C. hip hop radio station WKYS.

I’m just back from a delightful trip down to a little sandwich shop on the Southside of Chicago where prominent members of the black community enjoy lunch served up with a side of political gossip. I relish the occasions I get invited to these little meetings and never know who’ll be sitting at the table with me but love the jerk chicken combo with extra “bodacious sauce”. In a corner over by a colorful mural celebrating the roaring-twenties and jazz I got an earful about the black community’s feeling about both the Obamas and their abandonment of Chicago for the...

. NBC News : Free Republic's Patton@Bastogne calls-out Myth Romney as a "Pathelogical Political Liar" at the Tampa 2012 GOP Convention ... Patton@Bastogne calls-out Myth Romney as a "Pathelogical Political Liar" in Tampa ...(click) Internet Link: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nbcnews.com/48798495 .

The Daily Caller reported on a poll today that gave a rather remarkable result: it showed Barack Obama ahead of Mitt Romney 49 to 37… in Cook County, Illinois: which of course includes the City of Chicago. Being under 50% in what can be considered the ultimate Democratic stronghold is not good news for the President. In 2008 Cook County went for Obama over McCain 67/32; in 2010 it went for Quinn over Brady 54/40… which helped make the difference from Obama’s blowout 62/37 win statewide in 2008, and Quinn’s squeaker 47/46 win in 2010. Put another way: if this...

United States Senator Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) reveals the progress that he has made in his recovery after suffering an ischemic stroke in January. Sen. Kirk recently completed a 9-week mobility study at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, where he worked tirelessly to improve his walking, speech, and mobility. During the course of the study, Sen. Kirk walked a total of 14.79 miles and climbed 145 flights of stairs.

Chicago -- Obama doesn't just denounce outsourcing on the stump. His campaign HQ is a living test of the theory that everything can be done best in-house. Out on the campaign trail, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are at the moment engaged a spirited rhetorical debate over what it means to be an "outsourcing pioneer," a phrase borrowed from the Washington Post's coverage of Romney's Bain Capital past. For the most part, it's been discussion waged in generalities. But a tour of Obama's headquarters half-seriously suggests that the president might just want to point to his own campaign as a...

President Barack Obama has had a terrible few weeks, and it could get worse. Especially if the Supreme Court accepts the ancient premise in that old, forgotten document called the Constitution that the federal leviathan cannot force Americans to purchase a thing, let alone health care. But I still believe that the guy from Chicago will win re-election in November, despite all the anguish around him, because the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, isn't exactly inspiring either. Romney is no conservative alternative, he's merely the un-Obama corporatist, eerily similar to the big-government Illinois Republicans who partnered with Democrats to spend the...

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney is seen as more 'mainstream' than President Barack Obama according to a Rasmussen poll posted on Sunday morning: A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S. Voters finds that 52% say it’s more accurate to describe the putative Republican nominee’s views as mainstream, while 30% regard them as extreme. Eighteen percent (18%) are undecided. When it comes to the president's political views, 45% of voters say they're in the mainstream, but an identical 45% say it's more accurate to describe them as extreme. This same poll, however, showed that voters are equally...

She didn’t see it coming. One day, Oprah Winfrey turned around, and her nationally syndicated show was sliding in the ratings, and her audience was fleeing en masse. And it happened soon after a day she thought was one of the best in her life. Isn’t that how all the giants fall? When they least expect it? It was the day Oprah announced she was backing the African-American candidate, then-senator Barack Obama, over the highly qualified and experienced woman candidate, then-senator Hillary Clinton. It was the first time that Oprah put her brand on a political candidate. And her audience...

The four candidates vying for outgoing Congressman Tim Johnson’s seat — Jerry Clarke, Rodney Davis, Erika Harold and Kathy Wassink — presented their platforms to Champaign voters at a public forum Saturday evening. The forum was led by Champaign County Republican Party chair Habeeb Habeeb, one of the 14 Republican Party chairmen who will decide May 19 which finalist will be the GOP’s candidate for the 13th district race that Johnson pulled out of soon after the March primaries. “I really care about winning the race,” said Habeeb, who estimated the attendance at 250 people. “(This district) leans slightly Democrat,...

Local Republican officials in the 13th district will now select a new nominee to replace Johnson, who was first elected to the House in 2000. A senior Illinois GOP operative immediately pushed Rodney Davis, the former Illinois Republican Party executive director, as a potential successor to Johnson. The source also suggested Davis would have the support of his former boss, Rep. John Shimkus (R). Shimkus currently represents much of the redrawn 13th district but is seeking re-election in a nearby safe Republican district. State Reps. Chapin Rose and Adam Brown as well as state Sen. Sam McCann are also considered...

If patterns from 2008 are any indication, the media mogul's absence from the stump could make the president's reelection a little bit harder. Back in the heady days of May 2007, when Oprah Winfrey endorsed Barack Obama, the future looked bright for both of them. Five years later, they've both gotten somewhat bogged down. Obama, of course, won the presidency, but inherited a nation in the throes of recession. While the economy is back on course, he still faces a tough road in his quest for reeelection. And he'll be down one major asset: Oprah herself. That's because Winfrey's gotten...

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., has defeated fellow Republican Rep. Don Manzullo in the state's 16th District GOP congressional primary. The AP called the race for Kinzinger just after 11 p.m. Eastern time. With 85 percent of precincts reporting, Kinzinger led Manzullo 56 percent to 44 percent. The race between Kinzinger and Manzullo, forced because Illinois lost a congressional seat and state Democrats controlled the redistricting process, followed a common tea party-against-establishment trend in recent GOP primaries. But the script flipped here, with 10-term veteran Manzullo garnering the bulk of the tea party and movement conservative support while Kinzinger, a freshman,...

Tweaking Republicans four days before the Illinois primary, President Barack Obama said Friday that the hopefuls campaigning to take his job would do well to channel the moderation and inclusiveness of the Land of Lincoln. "I'm thinking maybe some Lincoln will rub off on them while they're here," Obama told a lunchtime fundraiser in Chicago....

The two were thrown together after the Democrat-controlled restricting process was finished. Their primary has turned into a funhouse-mirror image of many races between older establishment Republicans and younger Tea Party challengers. Kinzinger won his seat in 2010 with strong Tea Party support but has developed a more centrist voting record since he entered the House, making establishment Republicans happy but angering his Tea Party base. His decision to quit the conservative Republican Study Committee and join the centrist Tuesday Group after a fight between the RSC and House GOP leaders pleased Boehner but infuriated groups like Freedomworks, which cite...

Mitt Romney's presidential campaign would like to be focusing its attacks on Democratic President Barack Obama around now. But after failing to seize control of the Republican nomination race on "Super Tuesday," Romney cannot shake off rival Rick Santorum, whom he criticized on Thursday as a political insider. Opening up a new front against Santorum, the Romney campaign accused him of being a lobbyist in his home state of Pennsylvania even before he went to Washington in 1991. Romney's campaign also attacked Santorum for holding regular meetings with lobbyists as a Senate leader, part of the Republican "K Street Project"...

Mitt Romney's top ten is made up of Goldman Sachs, followed by Credit Suisse (Switzerland), Morgan Stanley, Barclays (UK), Bank of America and JP Morgan. In contrast Romney's co-frontrunner in Iowa, Ron Paul, has a top three donor list made up of the US Army, US Navy and US Airforce.

When it came to choosing a Republican presidential nominee, Benjamin Franklin just couldn't commit. “It's too early. There's so many qualified people,” said Don Van Gogh, dressed up as the Founding Father at the Midwest tea party convention this weekend in Schaumburg. But his fellow tea party members displayed no such indecisiveness, picking Herman Cain as the decisive winner in a straw poll. Cain, a former Godfather's Pizza CEO and radio talk show personality, has been building momentum since placing first in a similar poll in Florida a week earlier. On Saturday, he received 77 percent of the votes among...

Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, her husband Todd and other members of her family were in Springfield Sunday morning to tour the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum. Shortly after 11 a.m., museum officials posted pictures of the visit on Facebook. Palin's political action committee website also made mention of her stop in Springfield. NBC News' Alexandra Moe also posted a photo on Twitter of Palin's bus passing the Statehouse. According to news reports, the visit came a day after the Palins spent time visiting a historic site dedicated to another Republican president from Illinois, Ronald Reagan. Saukvalley.com reported the...

Sarah Palin's bus has been parked in Moline all day long, and it was creating quite a buzz. The question was is she actually in town? Well, she was not in town. The bus driver was told to go to Moline and wait for further instructions. Palin's bus was tucked behind Benjamin Franklin Crafts in Moline. Even though you could not see it from the main road, folks were still finding it. "I think that it spreads quickly. I think that it's really one person saw it, couple more people. But truthfully we haven't had much interest through the store,"...

While speaking at the Washington Area Community Center’s Lessons for Leaders (Washington, IL) on August 6, Coach Mike Ditka lambasted the mainstream media (MSM) and heaped praise on Gov. Sarah Palin. Said Ditka: “I understand Sarah Palin spoke here last year. I admire her. She’s a great lady, mother and wife, and that’s more important than the [bull****] the media spreads about her.” Ditka has offered up a strong defense of Palin before. For instance, in 2010, during an interview on Fox and Friends, he said “Sarah Palin is one of the greatest people I’ve ever met.” When he stumped...

Sen. Althoff sets the record straight on “Illinois DREAM Act” bill. Recently, the Illinois Senate approved legislation (Senate Bill 2185) aimed at allowing student immigrants who have a valid taxpayer ID to invest in their college education – this legislation has been the subject of much misinformation on the Internet and in the media. The bill requires the Illinois Student Assistance Commission to create an Illinois DREAM Fund that will provide scholarships funded entirely from private contributions – no Illinois tax dollars will be directed toward these scholarships. In addition, to be eligible for the program, a student must be...

Special delivery for President Obama: From Romney, with love? The former Massachusetts governor and all-but-declared presidential candidate sent his leftover pizza to President Barack Obama?a>??s election headquarters after a fundraising event in Chicago on Thursday. "Great deep dish at @ginoseast. Sending the extra slices to @barackobama and his Chicago HQ team," he tweeted, adding a photo of the deliveryman. Jeff Himmel, president of Bravo Restaurants, Inc., which owns Gino’s East, wouldn't take sides, adding Obama is no stranger to his home-town restaurant's famed pies. "I’m quite certain that the President has visited our institution on several occasions and is familiar...

President Obama “never did a deal in his life except with Tony Rezko,” said Donald Trump on Fox News. “People should look into that one,” he added. Trump once again went on the offensive against Obama. His previous point of attack was doubts over Obama’s birthplace. Now, it’s the latter’s long history with Tony Rezko, who Hillary Clinton in 2008 called a “slum landlord.” Rezko is am Illinoisan political fundraiser who was convicted for fraud and bribery in 2008. He was accused of using his political position to extort money from businesses seeking contracts from the Illinois Teachers System Board...

CNN’s chief national correspondent and anchor John King was in Chicago this afternoon to report on the mayoral race. King sat down at Manny's Cafeteria with David Axelrod, former senior adviser to President Obama, to discuss the mayoral race, Chicago politics and Wisconsin. The second part of the interview with David Axelrod will air tomorrow on John King, USA – 7pm ET. Transcript is after the jump. MANDATORY CREDIT: JOHN KING, USA HIGHLIGHT TRANSCRIPT THIS IS A RUSH FDCH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. KING: Any doubt that your friend will...

Can we compare the State Of Cally,New York&Illinois to The Three Blind Mice?or Monkey See,Monkey Hear,Monkey Do? As far as conservatives see those states,they are through. Billions in debt and no way to pay it off. If this keeps up Obama will only carry about ten states in 2012.

Former President Bill Clinton is coming to Chicago in January to campaign for mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel. Before serving in President Barack Obama's White House and representing the North Side of Chicago in Congress, Emanuel worked in Clinton's administration as a senior adviser for policy and strategy. Clinton is scheduled to headline a public event that highlights Emanuel's role in passing a crime bill....

When President Obama kicks off his reelection campaign sometime in the next few months, senior advisers say, it is virtually certain that his headquarters will be located in Chicago. But should it be? Full of nostalgia for the 2008 campaign and keenly aware of the anti-Washington vibe in the electorate, advocates say the arrangement would give the president's team a chance to get away from inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom and to recapture the grass-roots energy that helped Obama beat two candidates entrenched in the capital's culture two years ago. Yet no president or vice president in recent history has won reelection...