Free Republic

Oak Lawn post commander tells Tea Party group, "It ain't what we're about," after learning content of "educational seminar." Johnson-Phelps VFW Post 5220 in Oak Lawn, IL.The Johnson-Phelps VFW Post has canceled an event on the dangers of Islam in America that was being hosted by the Southwest Chicago and Suburban Tea Party.The Johnson-Phelps VFW Post, which rents its facilities and rooms to various political groups, including Democrats and Republicans, clubs, community organizations, and veterans groups, said in a statement that it did not know what the event was about when the Tea Party group rented the space.A notice posted...

The Trump Hotel Collection, a string of luxury hotel properties tied to business magnate and now Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, appears to be the latest victim of a credit card breach, according to data shared by several U.S.-based banks. Contacted regarding reports from sources at several banks who traced a pattern of fraudulent debit and credit card charges to accounts that had all been used at Trump hotels, the company declined multiple requests for comment. But sources in the financial industry say they have little doubt that Trump properties in several U.S. locations — including Chicago, Honolulu, Las Vegas,...

Puerto Rico is bankrupt. The key problem is that while municipalities can declare bankruptcy, states and territories cannot. President Barack Obama recognizes the problem. “No federal bailout for Puerto Rico” is the White House’s position. Instead, he urges Congress to pass a bill allowing Puerto Rico to declare bankruptcy. The Associated Press gives details: “The White House threw cold water Monday on the notion of bailing out Puerto Rico from its financial crisis, instead urging Congress to consider changing the law so the island can declare bankruptcy. “On the heels of a dismal economic report, Puerto Rico’s governor has warned...

An Illinois school board reportedly fired the teacher who stepped on an American flag in class on May 15 at a local high school. The Mattoon Journal Gazette reports that the Martinsville school board voted unanimously Thursday to dismiss English teacher Jordan Parmenter, effective immediately. Parmenter, 26, told the paper Sunday he was present in the meeting, where he was addressed by the board and answered questions from all six of the board members. Parmenter didn’t speak further into the matter until he had a chance to speak with a union representative.

As many as 1,400 Chicago Public Schools jobs will be affected starting as soon as Wednesday. Mayor Rahm Emanuel and interim CPS CEO Jesse Ruiz will lay out a plan Wednesday to fully fund the school district's teacher pensions. The announcement came after Tuesday's 11th hour $634 million pension payment. In a statement, CPS confirmed at least part of the money was borrowed and there will be 1,400 layoffs. The district said that not all of those positions are teachers, but some of them are. The Chicago Teachers Union reacted Tuesday night to the announcement. "I can tell you it's...

To keep conservative rebels in check, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his allies have been doling out punishments at an aggressive clip in the 114th Congress. From kicking unruly members off the Rules Committee and GOP whip team to stripping a lawmaker of his subcommittee gavel, leadership has been growing more comfortable with taking retaliatory measures to try to enforce party discipline. But several Tea Party targets haven’t gone quietly. They’ve been fighting back with help from Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan’s conservative House Freedom Caucus, which successfully pressured leaders this week to return a subcommittee gavel to one of their...

VOLO, ILL. • A museum in this northern Illinois town plans to keep displaying one of the Confederate flag-emblazoned cars used in the TV series "The Dukes of Hazzard." Brian Grams, director of the Volo Auto Museum, says he has received lots of queries about whether the car will stay amid calls around the nation for Confederate flags to be removed from public display after the fatal shooting of nine people by a white man at a historic black church in Charleston, S.C. Grams says if any location is appropriate for the displaying the flag, it's a museum. But he...

Former U.S. Representative Mel Reynolds, already convicted of having sex with an underage campaign worker, was indicted again for failing to file income tax returns for 2009 through 2012, federal prosecutors said on Friday. Reynolds, 63, who was charged on Thursday, faces up to a year in prison and a $250,000 fine for each of the four counts against him, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's office in Chicago.

Al Gore declined to back Hillary Clinton for president when asked who he thinks would be next in The White House. When questioned by WPP founder Sir Martin Sorrell at the Cannes Lions festival of creativity who he would back for 2016, Gore — Bill Clinton’s vice president from 1993 to 2001 —notably didn’t take the chance to praise Hillary. In a packed Cannes Lions session Friday, Sorrell asked Gore, “Would you refuse to answer the question [who will be the next president of the United States]?”

How early in a child’s education does indoctrination begin? “Of course, there are many resources to help initiate conversations and help frame our students’ thinking,” A. J. Jennings writes in the Summer 2015 issue of the periodical Rethinking Schools. “For example, we read Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson.” “This charming picture book is based on a true story of two male penguins in the Central Park Zoo.” Jennings teaches at the Park West Cooperative Nursery School in Chicago, “a play-based preschool on Chicago’s North Side.” “The country’s debate on gay marriage had reached the 4- and...

CHICAGO — Two people were killed and at least 16 people were injured in shootings across Chicago since 8 p.m. Tuesday evening. In Englewood, three women were standing in the street near 75th Street and Stewart Avenue at 11:30 p.m. Tuesday. Police say a man ran by and opened fire, then took off in a dark colored SUV. Ten minutes later and several blocks away, three more people were shot at 80th Street and Stewart Avenue. Police say someone in a white vehicle opened fire on the group, hitting a woman and a teenaged girl and boy.

From the man who married her grandmother to the man who married her daughter, from working a room full of bar mitzvah guests on behalf of her husband’s political career to headlining major pro-Israel events during her own, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s journey has never wandered far from Jews. Clinton’s Jewish encounters have been a natural consequence of her East Coast education, her trajectory in the party favored by a substantial majority of Jewish-Americans, and her embrace of the Jewish narrative of triumphing over adversity and bigotry, longtime friends of the 2016 presidential candidate say. Sara Ehrman, whose friendship with the...

There was some relief when Katrina Percy heard police had arrested three suspects in the killing of her 15-year-old son last week. Then she heard their ages: 14, 15 and 16. Her son, Kimon Wheeler, had been hanging out with two cousins and five others outside a convenience store in the 4100 block of West Cullerton Street just before 11 p.m Wednesday when he was killed. On the day he was killed, Percy said she texted him to ask if he wanted to be picked up. He didn't respond. "He was an all-around good 15-year-old boy," Percy said. Kimon had...

Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley suggested Sunday that Congress had fallen under the sway of "white racism" and the political force of the National Rifle Assn. in refusing to respond with new laws to a cascade of shooting incidents in recent years.. Speaking before the nation’s mayors, gathered in San Francisco, O’Malley pointed to gun restrictions passed when he was governor of Maryland to ban assault weapons, enforce background checks and tighten permitting procedures -- efforts that have been blocked at the national level by Republicans, and some Democrats, in Congress. "One of the sad triumphs of white racism is...

When Dorval R. Carter Jr. returned to the CTA last month as the transit agency’s president, he had to temporarily give up a sweet pension deal that had paid him three-quarters of a million dollars in just five and a half years. Taking advantage of a little-known early-retirement incentive offered by the CTA, Carter left his second stint with the agency in 2009 and started collecting a $137,229-a-year pension the same month he turned 52, records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times .. Carter didn’t retire, though. He moved to Washington, D.C., to take a post as a top lawyer in...

Four men were killed — including a man who died shielding his mother from gunfire — and at least 22 others have been wounded in shootings across Chicago since Friday evening.

Witnesses say the white gunman who killed nine people at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., was quite vocal about his motives: He wanted to kill black people. Sylvia Johnson, whose cousin the Rev. Clementa Pinckney was one of three ministers killed in the church, said a survivor of the horror told her the shooter muttered, "I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go." In Charleston, a slaughter in the sanctuary In Charleston, a slaughter in the sanctuary Facebook photos and other evidence suggest...

James Jones died shielding his mother from bullets meant for him, according to family members.. The 21-year-old and his mother, Alicia Jones, were on a porch in the 8400 block of South Colfax Avenue when a man approached from the gangway, gun in hand, and opened fire, police said. "He used his body to shield her, to save her," said Dietra Luckett, Alicia Jones' sister. After the shooting, Luckett said she went inside the home to find Larry Means, her brother-in-law, and bring him outside. "He was in the bed, shaking," Luckett recalled. Means, James Jones' stepfather, said he was...

When Chicago's plastic bag ban kicks in Aug. 1, many shoppers accustomed to carting groceries home in those ubiquitous plastic bags will instead walk away with ... nicer plastic bags.. Several retailers preparing for the citywide ban on the thin plastic bags bemoaned for cluttering landfills and littering parks, streets and waterways said they plan to offer customers reusable plastic bags that comply with the city ordinance, and don't plan to charge a fee. The law, approved by the City Council last year in a 36-10 vote, permits stores to offer "reusable plastic bags" that are at least 2.25 mils...

You can’t have an event like the Charleston shooting take place during election season without all of the candidates being asked to weigh in on gun control. (Once again pretending that any of the currently proposed gun control laws might have prevented that attack.) And since he’s still being discussed as a serious contender for some reason, Bernie Sanders was no exception. But when reporters asked the Vermont Senator to offer his thoughts on gun control, he took a pass. Bernie Sanders says he wants to talk — at length — about guns.Just not now.Two days after a white man...