Free Republic

Illinois residents celebrated their first annual “Barack Obama Day” on Saturday after the state legislature voted in 2017 to make the day honoring former President Barack Obama a state holiday. The bill establishing Obama’s birthday as a state holiday unanimously passed the Illinois state legislature last year, and Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner signed the measure into law on August 6, 2017. The legislation declared August 4 “Barack Obama Day” in the state of Illinois, but did not make the holiday an official legal holiday over concerns the state could not afford the cost of giving state employees a paid holiday....

Most Americans are appalled to read that 63 people were shot in Chicago over the weekend, with 10 fatalities. The numbers are huge, downright massacre-level. News coverage says Chicago's hospital and emergency rooms are now crowd scenes. Here in California, we are appalled at the death toll among firemen and other public workers in California's massive wildfires, brought about by eco-wackos and their environmental mismanagement, which have killed 7. In Chicago, seven dead would be a good day. What's going on? All of these attacks are gang-related, according to this report, and are happening in the 6th, 10th, and 11th...

By making carbon leak (trickle down) through cracks on copper, researchers have developed a new process for “growing” graphene directly on materials used for nano-scale electronic applications, thereby opening the way to produce high-performance electronic devices. This versatile process, developed by a team of chemical engineers led by Indian-American Vikas Berry at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) in the US, enables graphene to be economically grown on almost any semiconducting or dielectric substrate of relevance to the electronic industry, the researchers claim. They have reported this new method in the journal “ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces” of the...

Is it time for martial law in Democrat-run cities? Here’s a sampling of some recent headlines: The Chicago Tribune, May 7: “Chicago sees its most violent week of the year: 9 killed, 76 wounded”; The Baltimore Sun, May 7: “Double shooting of teens is first in series of shootings from Saturday evening through Sunday in Baltimore”; ABC, New Orleans, May 7: “NOPD investigating multiple shootings over the weekend in New Orleans.” Equally alarming as the carnage is how desensitized we’ve become to normalized violence in these culturally rich and historically significant American cities. Just how deadly and dangerous is the...

Words from the Frank Sinatra classic tune: "Chicago, Chicago...that,s our home town....Obama & I (Rahm Emanuel) stood by, did nothing, and let it go down"!!! African-Americans support Democrats, Barack Hussein Obama & Rahm Emanuel...really....you got to be kidding me!!! Why Chicago Mayor, Rahm Emanuel has refused overture after overture by POTUS, Donald J. Trump to willingly send federal law enforcement into the murder, mayhem, out-of-control crime, murder ridden city of Chicago, Illinois. In his eight years as POTUS, Obama did "zilch, zero. nothing, da nada" to address and correct the problem that so plagued so many African-American citizens and their...

Good grief, this is horrific. ABC News Chicago is reporting that over 60 people have been shot, with 9 killed, in Chicago just this weekend (Friday through Sunday). (Chicago) Dozens of people were wounded in shootings across Chicago since Friday, police said. One paramedic described the evening as “a war zone.” Since midnight, police said 43 people have been shot, six fatally. Since Friday at 5 p.m., 60 people have been shot, nine fatally, in shootings in Chicago. 34 of the shootings and five deaths occurred between 10 a.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday, according to police. During one two-and-a-half...

A Chicago-based newspaper columnist predicted re-election for President Trump in 2020 after witnessing first-hand the enthusiastic support for the president among blue-collar workers. Neil Steinberg attended a recent appearance by the president at a U.S. Steel facility in Granite City, Illinois, outside St. Louis. He wrote about speaking to steel workers and seeing how Trump connected with the audience. "We need steel," Trump said. “We need steel plants. And to see an old, big monster plant like this re-opening — that is an honor. I look at the faces of you people; I could be one of you. I like...

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Dozens of people were wounded in shootings across Chicago since Friday, police said. One paramedic described the evening as "a war zone." Since midnight, police said 42 people have been shot, five fatally. Since Friday at 5 p.m., 59 people have been shot, eight fatally, in shootings in Chicago. 34 of the shootings and five deaths occurred between 10 a.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday, according to police. During one two-and-a-half hour-hour period, 25 people were shot in five multi-injury shootings. "We know that some of these incidents were targeted and are related to gang conflicts in...

A day after scoring 39 points against Portland, Michael Jordan took a different sort of shot this afternoon -- from one of his teammates. Craig Hodges, the Bulls' 3-point shooting specialist and one of the league's best, chided Jordan and other National Basketball Association players for failing to use their visibility to call attention to pressing social and political issues, from the deepening plight of inner-city youth to the failure of owners to hire more black head coaches. Hodges spoke after the other Bulls had left practice for the day, and Jordan could not be reached for comment. The 31-year-old...

CHICAGO (CBS) — A 57-year-old woman is killed after being attacked by a pit bull on Chicago’s far South Side. It happened near 101st and South Calhoun around noon Saturday. Police said when officers arrived at the scene, the dog charged at them. Both officers fired their guns killing the dog. The victim was taken to the hospital where she was pronounced dead. The dog bit her throughout her body, including her neck. Police are still investigating. It’s unclear where the dog’s owner was. CBS 2 has confirmed the woman’s name is Karen Brown. Her nickname was “Punchie.” pw South...

When Charlotte Adelman was a student at the University of Chicago, the nearby parks became a refuge for her, a sprawling expanse of green where she could escape the concrete urban landscape. It was then, many decades ago, that Adelman began her journey to becoming a fighter for environmental justice. Along the way, she has fought to preserve open spaces, ban pesticides in Wilmette and co-authored a book, “Prairie Directory of North America.” Now, Adelman, 81, has set her sights on her biggest target yet — to block the Obama Presidential Center from being built in Jackson Park. Adelman, along...

Basketball legend Michael Jordan voiced his support for LeBron James on Saturday after President Donald Trump posted a critical tweet regarding the Los Angeles Lakers superstar. According to Geoff Bennett of NBC News, Jordan released a statement through a spokesperson that read, "I support LJ. He's doing an amazing job for his community." On Friday night, Trump questioned James' intelligence and suggested he preferred Jordan: @realDonaldTrump LeBron James was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon. He made Lebron look smart, which isn’t easy to do. I like Mike! Jordan was the latest in a long line...

Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s financial team is considering borrowing billions of dollars to pour into Chicago’s ailing pension funds — a move they contend could save future taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars but experts say comes with risk. The idea is to issue bonds at relatively low interest rates and use the money to reduce the city’s $28 billion in pension debt. The pension funds would invest the bond proceeds and ideally earn returns that outpace the interest the city would have to pay on the bond debt. Issuing so-called pension obligation bonds would be a first for Chicago, which...

An anti-violence protest in Chicago briefly shut down traffic on a busy city avenue on Thursday as dozens of protesters called on Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) to resign. The Chicago Tribune reports that about 150 demonstrators blocked traffic on the southbound side of Lake Shore Drive around 4:15 p.m. local time, blocking traffic while city snowplows prevented traffic from approaching the area. Demonstrators called for Emanuel to step down citing his support for tough policing tactics in the city as well as a climbing murder rate. “There are too many killings in Chicago, there are too many police-involved killings in...

Pay, diversity and safety are still obstacles for female bartenders in Chicago. Despite making up the majority of the bartending industry, women earn just 80 percent of their male counterparts’ income, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and The Wall Street Journal. Many female bartenders in Chicago carry a weapon at night or have a game plan for late-night commutes. Also, female bartenders of color tend to have less access to education, exposure and opportunities.

Gang violence and crime in the Windy City have not gone away under Rahm Emanuel’s leadership, though some progress has been made in specific categories of crime. Still, the endemic problems are enough to have altered the lives of many of Chicago’s residents, seemingly in a permanent fashion. The local CBS outlet looked at the effect this has had on some families and discovered some truly heartbreaking stories. In Lawndale, on the City’s west side, some parents report that they’ve become so desperate that they’ve taken to “hiding their children” rather than risking their being injured or killed in the...

Activists are calling on Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) to resign ahead of a massive protest scheduled for this week. Protesters plan to walk along Lake Short Drive during Thursday’s rush hour, on the first day of the Lollapalooza music festival, and end up at Wrigley Field during a Chicago Cubs game. Rev. Gregory Livingston and other organizers for the march against violence reportedly went to City Hill on Monday to tell Emanuel not to vocalize his support because they’re asking for him to resign. “The call of the people is ‘Resign Rahm,’” Livingston told The Chicago Tribune. “So how,...

Chicago, IL – Emergency 911 records received by Operation Rescue reveal that two women were hospitalized within three days of each other last March after having abortions at Family Planning Associates Medical Group (FPA) in Chicago, Illinois. The Pro-Life Action League initially obtained the 911 records and released them to Operation Rescue for publication. Both women suffered from bleeding so serious after their abortions that clinic staff called 911 for emergency help. “This Family Planning Associates abortion facility has a long history of medical malpractice related to botched abortions,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “Women need to be...

The Trump administration suffered another legal defeat on its sanctuary city crackdown after a judge Friday permanently blocked the government from retaliating against Chicago’s sanctuary policy by stripping away its police grant money. U.S. District Judge Harry D. Leinenweber, a Reagan appointee to the bench, said the administration is free to track down illegal immigrants on its own, but it cannot force Chicago to cooperate in reporting or turning them over. His ruling follows similar defeats for the Trump administration in California and Philadelphia, where judges have also ruled against the administration’s attempts to condition Byrne Justice Assistance Grant money...

**SNIP** The federal lawsuit filed in May might seem a legal long shot, since the center is an ode to Obama, the city's favorite son. But Caplan's challenge forced the city last month to reveal that the Obama Center isn't quite the done deal that many Chicagoans think it is: The city hasn't reached key agreements or a lease with the foundation, and those pacts will require another new city ordinance to be passed sometime soon. "The City Council has yet to introduce, much less enact, an ordinance authorizing the construction and operation of the center," the city's corporation counsel,...