Tag: chicago

Here’s Why the Venezuelan Illegal Immigrant Who Killed a College Student Missed His Court Appearance

Over the weekend, Venezuelan illegal immigrant Jose Medina-Medina was arrested for murdering 18-year-old Loyola University student Sheridan Gorman. Gorman, 18, was walking with friends in Chicago when Medina-Medina shot her in the head. He was released at the border by the Biden administration back in 2013.

Medina-Medina missed his court appearance yesterday because he was hospitalized with tuberculosis.

Here’s more:

Sheridan Gorman spent the early morning hours on Thursday with friends, watching the skyline on the Loyola Beach Pier, prosecutors said, when she noticed someone hiding.

As the group started to run away, Jose Medina, 25, fired a gun, prosecutors alleged Monday, hitting the 18-year-old Loyola University Chicago student in the back while her friends took cover in a grassy area of the beach.

Though a full detention hearing was postponed because Medina is hospitalized with tuberculosis, Cook County prosecutors gave a brief account of the shooting that plunged the Rogers Park university into mourning and generated international headlines when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced it had lodged a detainer request asking Illinois officials not to release Medina, who is a Venezuelan national.

Medina is facing charges of murder, among other felonies, in the slaying of Gorman, who was a first-year student from Yorktown Heights, New York. He is scheduled to appear in court on Friday where his public defender will detail any mitigating circumstances.

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VICTIM BLAMING: Democrat Chicago Alderwoman Says Loyola Student Shot by Illegal Was in ‘Wrong Place, Wrong Time’

An 18-year-old Loyola University student named Sheridan Gorman was shot and killed in Chicago over the weekend by an illegal immigrant.

Maria Hadden, a Democrat alderwoman from the city has put out a video in which she says that Gorman may have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time and that she and her friends might have startled the shooter.

This is, by far, the worst reaction to this situation possible. It’s truly stunning.

The Daily Caller reported:

A Chicago alderwoman appeared to blame an 18-year-old woman for her own fatal shooting last week, allegedly at the hands of an illegal alien.

Chicago police announced Sunday that Jose Medina-Medina had been arrested for the murder of Sheridan Gorman, a freshman at Loyola University. Chicago Alderwoman Maria Hadden speculated that Gorman was in the “wrong place at the wrong time.”

“From, from what, from what I’ve been told so far, right, from what police know, from, from speaking to the students who were with her, it seems she might have, that as they were just out, you know, people go out to the beach all the time, right?” Hadden, whose campaign website touts her status as the “first Black, queer woman elected to Chicago City Council,” said during a Thursday report by Fox 32 Chicago.

“And they go out on the pier, they walk around, so the, the kids were out doing normal, normal things people do in the neighborhood. And it sounds like this might have been a wrong place, wrong time, running into a person who had a gun, they might have unintentionally startled this person, I think.”

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Financial Expert Sounds Alarm on the City of Chicago – Facing Budget Gap of More Than a Billion Dollars

The city of Chicago is facing a serious financial crisis, and while their budget problems are not a secret, at least one financial expert is trying to sound the alarm.

The city is looking at a budget gap of more than a billion dollars. That is as serious as it gets.

Chicago already spends a massive amount of its budget un debt and unfunded liabilities like pensions, but it’s only going to get worse and Mayor Brandon Johnson doesn’t seem to know how to even approach fixing this.

FOX News reports:

Chicago’s teetering debt is stark warning left-wing mayor is fueling ‘pay later’ doom cycle: expert

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and his administration are presiding over a city in serious financial straits.

Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, is facing a corporate fund budget gap of more than $1 billion, while its 2025 fiscal year is projected to close with a roughly $150 million deficit with about two-fifths of the budget going toward debt service and pension costs.

Johnson said in April the city was “at a crossroads” and had to “essentially do more with less,” while simultaneously slamming the Trump administration for reportedly threatening federal funding, calling it a “different scenario we weren’t under before.”

Austin Berg, executive director of pro-taxpayer research group Illinois Policy Institute, said markets are looking at the true numbers and are “really concerned” about Chicago…

“The solution set is always the same: Stop making bad decisions, and you have to put a structure in place to make better decisions,” Berg said.

“So, the bad decisions are things like taking one-time revenues from federal COVID spending and putting it into operations. The bad decisions are borrowing for operations, which this latest bond issue just did. That’s a huge no-no and a red flag for investors.”

This is what decades of one party rule gets you.

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AIPAC suffers loss in congressional race, millions of dollars squandered helping Chicago mayor’s ally

Several super PACs linked to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee reportedly poured over $20 million into multiple House primary races in Illinois in hopes of advancing favored candidates or at the very least kneecapping candidates critical of Israel.

Some of the groups’ investments paid off.

For instance, Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller — a beneficiary of nearly $4.5 million in ad spending from the AIPAC-linked group Affordable Chicago Now — defeated former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. in the Democrat primary for the state’s 2nd Congressional District.

In the Democrat primary for the 8th Congressional District, former Rep. Melissa Bean, another beneficiary of spending by an AIPAC-aligned group, also came out on top, beating Junaid Ahmed, a leftist whom AIPAC faulted for centering “his campaign on attacking Israel.”

However, Chicago City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin, a candidate who ran in the 7th District Democrat primary to replace retiring incumbent Rep. Danny Davis, turned out to be a bad investment.

With 90% of the votes in, the Associated Press called the race for state Rep. La Shawn Ford, a Democrat with a history of tax fraud who secured 23.9% of the total vote. Conyears-Ervin, one of only handful of candidates who said in a WBEZ-FM survey that she did not oppose sending U.S. military aid to Israel, trailed behind with 20.5% of the vote.

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Identity Politics over Public Safety on the Chicago Transit Authority

Chicago’s transit chaos shows the cost of a grievance-driven politics: when enforcement is always racist, everyone else just gets less safe.

The Legacy of Jesse Jackson Makes All of Us Less Safe

If you ride the trains or buses in Chicago with any regularity, you don’t worry about microaggressions.

You worry about being maced, mugged, or shoved onto the tracks—or, in one grotesque recent case, set on fire.

That’s the lived experience of Chicagoans navigating the Chicago Transit Authority and Metra. Not academic theory. Not seminar-room sociology. Reality.

So naturally, when a modest pilot program is introduced allowing the transit agencies to suspend individuals who assault conductors, spit on drivers, punch random riders, or otherwise turn public transportation into a Thunderdome audition, what does the Chicago Tribune decide is the story?

Not whether the program works.

Not whether it can be enforced.

Not whether it deters crime.

No.

The story, apparently, is that it’s racist.

Because roughly 90 percent of the approximately 40 individuals suspended under the program are black or Hispanic.

Forty people. In a city of nearly three million. On a transit system carrying hundreds of thousands daily.

That’s the scandal.

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Will This Make Chicago Safe?

An ultimatum issued by the Trump administration has pushed the Chicago Transit Authority to unveil a beefed-up security plan, threatening to yank federal funding unless the agency tackles the rampant crime plaguing its trains and buses.

This move comes after a string of brutal attacks exposed the failures of soft-on-crime policies in the Windy City.

The CTA submitted its Revised Security Enhancement Plan to the Federal Transit Administration, detailing a “75 percent increase in monthly system policing hours, aggressive crime reduction targets, and expanded social service support,” according to an official agency statement.

Elements include more patrols from Chicago Police and Cook County Sheriff’s deputies, expanded mental health outreach to connect individuals with housing and services, and tighter collaboration with prosecutors for tougher handling of transit-related crimes.

“The plan is CTA’s formal response to an FTA Special Directive issued in December,” the agency noted, highlighting early signs that recent strategies are curbing crime.

This overhaul follows the FTA’s rejection of an earlier CTA submission, with the Trump administration giving the agency until March 19 to deliver or risk losing up to $50 million in funds.

The push stems from high-profile horrors like the November 18 attack where Lawrence Reed, a career criminal with 72 prior arrests, allegedly doused a young woman with gasoline and set her ablaze on a Blue Line train. 

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Chicago Teacher Union Wants to Close Schools on May 1st to Protest Trump

The Chicago Teacher Union is calling for school to be cancelled on May 1st so that teachers, staffers, and even students can spend the day protesting Trump. Someone might want to clue these teachers in to the fact that this is not their job. Not even close.

Students in Chicago can barely read or do math at grade level. Maybe that is because their teachers care more about organizing protests than they do about teaching their students.

Maybe they could save the protests for the summer months when they’re not even working.

FOX News reports:

Chicago Teachers Union calls for school shutdown on May Day to protest Trump

The Chicago Teachers Union is advocating for a day off for teachers and students on May 1, for the national May Day movement.

May Day is also known as International Worker’s Day, which celebrates workers and advocates for labor rights.

On Wednesday, the union approved a resolution to designate May 1 as the day of “Civic Action and Defense of Public Education,” and seeking support for this from Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Chicago’s Board of Education.

“If we still want to have democracy in the midterms this November, public schools that provide our students with quality education, and unions to defend workers’ rights, then it is up to every Chicagoan to stand up for what we believe in and show the authoritarian billionaire in Washington that when he breaks every rule, we will not go along with business as usual,” CTU Vice President Jackson Potter said in a statement.

The union claimed in the resolution that public education is under attack by “MAGA politicians,” seemingly referring to supporters of President Donald Trump.

The resolution says “public education is facing an unprecedented national assault driven by MAGA politicians, billionaire donors, and corporate interests who seek to privatize our schools, censor educators, ban books, dismantle civil rights protections, criminalize and separate immigrant families, and weaken workers’ unions.”

None of that matters at all. These people were hired to do a specific job and this ain’t it.

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CHA-CHING! Financial Filings Reveal MASSIVE Grift at the Obama Foundation

Newly released financial filings reveal that there are a lot of people making an absolute fortune off the Obama Foundation. Anyone who remembers the massive grift at the Clinton Foundation might feel like they’re taking a walk down memory lane.

Valerie Jarrett, a former Obama White House player who was central to his presidency, was making a cool $740,000 per year running the foundation. That’s more than the President of the United States makes in a year.

Other figures were also pulling in huge six-figure salaries and the number of employees has ballooned to more than 300 people.

Obama has become an industry unto himself and everyone in his orbit is cashing in, big time.

FOX News reports:

Valerie Jarrett earned $740K as Obama insiders filled top roles during $850M presidential center build

As construction nears completion on the long-delayed $850 million Obama Presidential Center, federal tax filings show the Obama Foundation paid CEO Valerie Jarrett $740,000 in 2024 while several former Obama White House officials collected six-figure salaries as foundation executives.

The Obama Foundation — which will operate the 19.3-acre center on publicly owned Chicago parkland — paid its CEO more than any other major presidential foundation. Salaries and benefits soared from $18.5 million in 2018 to $43.7 million in 2024, as staffing expanded to 337 employees and annual revenue reached nearly $210 million.

Jarrett, one of the Obamas’ closest advisors, took over as CEO in 2021 and is among six of the foundation’s 10 highest-paid executives who previously held senior roles in the Obama administration or campaign, according to a review of the foundation’s tax filings from 2018 to 2024.

“Illinois Democrats are truly living their best lives — making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to help design the ugliest building in Chicago,” Illinois GOP Chairman Kathy Salvi told Fox News. “Their jaw-dropping salaries prove that Illinois’ culture of corruption is alive and well as Barack Obama’s top allies rake in the cash.”

Despite all of this heavy spending, the new Obama Center is looking for volunteers.

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REPORT: Obama’s Hideous Presidential Center is Going to Cost Chicago Taxpayers A LOT MORE Than They Were Told

In addition to being ugly, the new Obama presidential center is going to be a massive financial burden on the people of Chicago.

They were sold a bill of goods about how the center was going to bring tourism and revenue to the city, but not so much about the costs.

In this sense, it is a perfect monument to Obama’s legacy. Overpriced and based on lies, much like Obamacare.

FOX News reports:

Bureaucrats hide true price of Obama Presidential Center as taxpayers hit with infrastructure bill

Former President Barack Obama once declared that his presidential center would be a “gift” to Chicago, but taxpayers are on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in hidden costs related to the beleaguered project.

A Fox News Digital investigation shows taxpayers are now stuck footing the bill for surging public infrastructure costs required to support the project — and no government agency can provide an accounting of the total public cost, despite months of queries and FOIA requests…

When the project was approved in 2018, Obama pledged to privately fund construction of the expansive 19.3-acre campus in historic Jackson Park through donations to the Obama Foundation – a commitment that remains in place as the center’s construction continues to be privately financed.

But the extensive infrastructure required to make the campus operationally viable — including redesigned roads, stormwater systems, and relocated utilities — is publicly financed, and without those changes, the center could not function.

At the time, projections placed public infrastructure costs at roughly $350 million, split between the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago.

Eight years later, the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) told Fox News Digital that approximately $229 million in infrastructure spending was tied to the site, up from its earlier estimate of roughly $174 million.

The $229 million figure reflects state-managed spending, which may include federal transportation funds routed through IDOT.

The report goes on to state that the agencies which are supposed to be overseeing the accounting on the project are not being upfront with taxpayers and are providing ‘estimates’ of ongoing costs.

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EXPOSED: Taxpayer-Funded Horror at University of Chicago – NSF Pours Millions into Inducing Severe Strokes in Dogs Before Killing Them

In a shocking new exposé highlighting the grotesque waste and cruelty involved in federal science funding, watchdog White Coat Waste (WCW) has uncovered documents revealing how the University of Chicago is using millions in taxpayer dollars from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) to deliberately inflict the “most severe” strokes on dozens of dogs, only to kill them shortly after.

This barbaric practice, which involves blocking the animals’ brain arteries and subjecting them to immense suffering, comes as the NSF is already under fire for a litany of wasteful and inhumane animal experiments.

According to WCW’s investigation, obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, the lab at the University of Chicago has conducted these experiments on at least 64 dogs, inducing what researchers themselves describe as the “most severe stroke” possible.

The process is cold and methodical, spanning three days:

  • Day 1: The dogs undergo imaging scans and blood draws to establish baselines.
  • Day 2: Experimenters block the animals’ middle cerebral arteries using coils, triggering massive strokes. The dogs are then assessed using a “stroke scale” to measure the damage.
  • Day 3: The suffering ends – not with treatment or mercy, but with euthanasia. Lab documents admit that if the dogs were allowed to survive, they would endure “significant suffering” due to the lack of round-the-clock care equivalent to what human stroke patients receive.

These experiments are purportedly testing a stroke treatment that has already been proven safe and effective in human clinical trials, raising serious questions about why innocent dogs are being tortured and killed for redundant research.

WCW notes that this continues despite NIH’s pledges to phase out dog testing, led by figures such as Fauci-fan girl Nicole Kleinstreuer, who heads the agency’s efforts to promote non-animal alternatives.

While the NIH has wasted $4.9 million on these dog experiments, including a new $596,000 grant awarded in June with three more years of funding secured, the NSF’s involvement is even more egregious.

Portions of two massive NSF grants, totaling a staggering $40.5 million, are supporting the University of Chicago lab. The current active grant alone is worth $24.7 million and runs through August.

Those are your hard-earned tax dollars, part of the NSF’s bloated $9 billion annual budget, going straight to needlessly torturing man’s best friend.

This isn’t an isolated incident.

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