Free Republic

A Southwest Airlines flight traveling from Chicago, Ill., to Houston, Texas on Saturday morning was delayed for about an hour after a woman onboard became enraged and allegedly used racial slurs at flight attendants. According to witnesses, the passenger became upset after a flight attendant asked her to put her tray table up for takeoff. In a video recorded by another passenger, the woman yells the N-word at the flight attendant. The woman continues to use the slur after she is removed from the plane. The airline said the woman was met at the gate by local law enforcement. Southwest...

Cook County’s chief watchdog has concluded that more than $330,000 in property tax breaks and refunds that Democratic gubernatorial candidate J.B. Pritzker received on one of his Gold Coast mansions — in part by removing toilets — constituted a “scheme to defraud.” Cook County Inspector General Patrick Blanchard also recommends that Cook County should try to recover the money from the billionaire. […] Blanchard writes in the report that the Cook County Assessor’s office was “the victim of sworn affidavits containing false representations.” […] “The use of these affidavits was part of a scheme for obtaining money by means of...

Hillary Clinton will headline her first public campaign event of the midterms on Monday, a Clinton spokesman tells CNN, when she attends a roundtable in Chicago with JB Pritzker, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Illinois. The event, which will include Juliana Stratton, the Democrats' lieutenant governor candidate, will be a roundtable with high school girls and focus on stressing the importance of leadership, according to the Pritzker campaign. end snip

Seven people were killed and four others injured in nine shootings over the weekend in Baltimore, according to local reports, increasing the total of those killed in the city to 17 in the past week. The latest shootings took place across the city on Saturday and Sunday, with victims ranging in age from 22 to 46, The Baltimore Sun reported, adding that the killings brought the number of homicides this year in Baltimore to 231. Though September has been exceptionally violent, Baltimore is reportedly still on track to see fewer shooting deaths than it did in 2017. A total of...

His style amplified his emotions, clusters of sixteenth notes often played in a dark-tinged minor key that sounded both thrilling and chilling. Rush paid his rent working in a steel mill and driving a truck, among other jobs, but his music couldn’t be denied. His distinctiveness was indelibly captured on “I Can’t Quit You Baby,” his first single for Cobra Record Corp. in 1956. He cut some of his greatest tracks over the next two years with Cobra, including “My Love Will Never Die,” “Groanin’ the Blues,” “Three Times a Fool,” “Double Trouble” and “All Your Love (I Miss Loving).”...

The Obama Foundation spent nearly $12 million on programming last year, including its star-studded international summit that brought leaders, elected officials and world-renowned activists to a two-day conference in the South Loop, newly released records show. The foundation also spent about $5 million paying its architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien to design the Obama Presidential Center campus, according to tax documents that were filed Tuesday morning. **SNIP** In 2017, the foundation raised about $232 million in contributions from private donors. It spent the bulk of its income — about $21.3 million — on operations, salaries and programs, the tax...

The 2018 Gun Rights Policy Conference was held at the Chicago O'Hare airport Hyatt Regency this year. I arrived after driving up from Dallas. As usual, the last 30 miles consisted of slow moving traffic. I used a GPS to make the proper turns. There wasn't any real choice of another hotel. The conference rate at the Hyatt wasn't too terrible. $119 with parking included. I expect some state and local taxes will be added to the final bill. The hotel had something new this year. A small "no guns" sign in red on the entrance doors. We were...

“Just though, ‘Oh my gosh. How can that be a cat when it’s that big? And it’s in my backyard,’” he said... In 2009, Chicago police shot a cougar in the Roscoe Village neighborhood... There have been a couple of similar sightings in the area in the last few days, according to social media posts.

SOUTH PORTLAND — Sometimes it takes a confluence of events to provide clarity to the muddle. The events in this case are the 50th anniversary of the riots surrounding the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August 1968, the recent death of Sen. John McCain and the mind-numbingly idiotic statement by Fox News commentator Marie Harf on “Outnumbered” on Aug. 16 that “the highest form of patriotism is protest.” The muddle is the catastrophic state of the modern Democratic Party.....

Days after it was revealed that the Rev. Paul Kalchik of Avondale’s Resurrection Catholic Church burned a rainbow banner that once hung in the church, Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, has removed him from his role as head of the North Side church. “For some weeks now, I have become increasingly concerned about a number of issues at Resurrection Parish,” read a letter, signed by Cupich, to parishioners and staff at the church. “It has become clear to me that Fr. Kalchik must take time away from the parish to receive pastoral support so his needs can be assessed.”...

Updated 07/10/12 – 9:06 p.m. CHICAGO (CBS) — A 5-year-old Orland Park boy at the center of an international custody battle was sent to Ireland on Tuesday to live with his father, even though he was born in the U.S. and has lived most of his life here. Jack Redmond was born in south suburban Blue Island, and has spent all but a few months of his life in the United States. His mother, Mary Redmond, says the Chicago area is all the boy has ever known. His school, his doctor, his dentist, his friends — they’re all here. Custody...

Gay group Dignity USA president Chris Pett: “He’s hijacking the parish and trampling on core Catholic values . . . The archdiocese needs to denounce this in the strongest possible terms.” Father (Paul) Kalchik, 56, claims he was preceded by three “bad priests” who were “big in promoting the gay lifestyle” before he was ordained as pastor of Resurrection by Cardinal Francis George in 2007. The flag was first displayed prominently at the church’s altar in 1991 to welcome LGBTQ worshippers to the faith, according to Kalchik, but it was later taken down and put into storage — along with...

Two dozen LGBTQ activists rallied Wednesday night outside the Avondale church where a priest burned a rainbow flag last week against the orders of Cardinal Blase Cupich. Calling the Rev. Paul Kalchik’s Sept. 14 flag-burning at Resurrection Catholic Church a “hate crime plain and simple,” Ald. Deb Mell (33rd) called on Pope Francis and Cupich “to send this hateful bigot packing.” “We’ve come so far as an LGBTQ community, and we have so many things to celebrate, and to think that this hatred is being spread in our neighborhood is not acceptable,” she said. “This isn’t who we are ....

September 19, 2018 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Chicago priest and his parishioners have burned a rainbow flag that was once displayed at the parish, in an act that the priest has called an “exorcism,” in apparent defiance of the Archdiocese of Chicago, led by pro-LGBT Cardinal Blase Cupich.

A North Side priest who says he “can’t sit well” with Cardinal Blase Cupich burned a gay-friendly flag outside his Avondale church last week — against the wishes of the cardinal he claims is trying to minimize the clergy sex-abuse crisis. Rev. Paul Kalchik says the banner, featuring a cross superimposed over a rainbow, had been featured prominently in the sanctuary at Resurrection Catholic Church but had been taken down and was forgotten in storage at the parish at 3043 N. Francisco for more than a decade. Kalchik led seven parishioners in a prayer of exorcism Friday, and the flag...

The foundation behind the planned Obama Presidential Center in Chicago has a tentative agreement with the city to pay just $10 to use 19.3 acres of city park space for 99 years, according to a report. The accord is described in legislation that Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration will send to the City Council on Thursday, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. If approved, the proposals will bring the estimated $350 million project closer to reality. Per the agreement, the city will own the buildings and grounds, while the Obama Foundation will be responsible for the center’s upkeep and management, Crain’s Chicago Business...

The long-awaited murder trial of Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke continued Tuesday with key testimony from Van Dyke’s partner and other eyewitnesses in a racially fraught case that has roiled the city for nearly three years. Here are five takeaways from the second day of the trial: 4. " In a setback for the prosecution, Judge Vincent Gaughan tossed out the entire testimony of one prosecution witness. FBI forensic examiner Mark Messick made a slowed-down version of the dashcam video with arrows pointing to where he believed the bullets hit. But later he said on the stand he was...

The #KassforMayor campaign is en fuego, with hordes of supporters beseeching me to put dibs on Chicago, become mayor and boss this crazy town. Perhaps they love me for the simple honesty of my Chicago Way platform: Riches for me and mine, from boodle and asphalt and trucking contracts. And taxes for the rest of you to pay for it all. I will give sanctuary to all voters, even the suburban dead. And if you don’t like it, get your mouth shut. So let it be written, so let it be done. Yes, my friends, I am truly humbled by...

CHICAGO — A Chicago City Council committee has given the go-ahead for a $16 million payment to the family of a woman who was fatally shot when a police officer fired at a teenage neighbor of hers. The city's corporation counsel, Edward Siskel, told the finance committee Monday that the payment to Bettie Jones' family made sense because a jury's decision against the city would cost more. He said a jury would have "profound sympathy" for Jones' family. The full City Council still needs to approve the payment. The 55-year-old Jones was standing near 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier in December 2015...

A man with a concealed carry gun license stepped from his car on Thursday and shot the suspected shooter of a Cicero police officer. Good for him. Had the good Samaritan not joined the gun battle, the Cicero cop might not be alive today, and the accused shooter might have gotten away. EDITORIAL We remain unconvinced, all the same, that concealed carry is good for Chicago or Illinois. There is no convincing evidence — just the occasional anecdote — that permitting people to walk around with concealed guns detours crime. There is credible evidence, on the contrary, that concealed carry...