Tag: chicago

Report: Taxpayers Could End Up Footing the Bill for Obama Presidential Library

Chicago taxpayers could be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars for the costly Obama Presidential Center after new tax filings show the Obama Foundation has only deposited $1 million into its promised $470 million reserve fund.

That’s the conclusion of an in-depth report by Fox News as it looked at what it described as a “sweetheart deal” to create the reserve fund “to spare taxpayers should the project ever go belly up.”

The center will serve as Obama’s presidential library.

According to the report:

Under its agreement with the city, the [Obama] foundation was required to create the fund, known as an endowment, to take control of a sprawling 19.3-acre section of Jackson Park — often described as Chicago’s Central Park equivalent — where the complex is now slowly rising.

…

But when former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama turned the sod at the site in September 2021, just $1 million — or 0.21% of the pledged funds — had been deposited into the endowment, and that figure has remained unchanged ever since.

An endowment is typically a large sum of of money meant to earn enough interest each year to cover operating costs without touching the principle in order to avoid needing funding from other sources.

Also according to Fox News’s report, the “use agreement” hands over “exclusive control” of the land to the Obama Foundation “for nearly a century in exchange for $10.”

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Antifa Terrorists Dressed in War Gear Seen Unloading Supplies Outside Chicago Ice Facility – Marxist-Terrorists Scream “Shoot the F*cker!” at ICE Agents

Chicago patriot and activist Terry Newsome brought his cameras with him on Friday to film the Antifa terrorists outside the Chicago Broadview ICE facility.

Newsome captured the violence outside the facility on Friday.

At one point, a protester was arrested and you can hear the officials say, “He was carrying a gun.”

While covering the mayhem, Terry filmed the “peaceful” Marxists screaming, “Shoot ICE,” and “Kill ICE.”

One protester is screaming, “Shoot the f*cker! Shoot the f*cker!”

Local Antifa leaders, the Hammond twins, were arrested when they arrived at the ICE facility.

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Chicago Cubs Sued for Allegedly Using Facial Recognition on Fans Without Consent at Wrigley Field

A federal lawsuit filed in Illinois claims the Chicago Cubs and their security contractors used facial recognition technology on fans at Wrigley Field without following basic legal requirements under state privacy law.

The proposed class action, lodged on September 15, 2025, says the team and two private security firms captured biometric data without proper notice or permission.

The legal complaint names the Cubs alongside Blue Star Security, LLC and Security Services Holdings LLC, which operates under the name Protos Security.

We obtained a copy of the complaint for you here.

Together, they are accused of deploying facial recognition tools at Wrigley Field that scanned the faces of attendees without providing the written disclosures or obtaining the signed releases required by Illinois law.

The suit states that this happened to “millions of fans.”

Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), passed in 2008, sets out some of the most protective rules in the country when it comes to biometric data.

The statute prohibits the collection of biometric identifiers, like fingerprints or facial geometry, unless the person is informed in writing and gives signed authorization.

Lawsuits can be brought by individuals even if they haven’t suffered financial or emotional harm, a position backed by the Illinois Supreme Court in Rosenbach v. Six Flags.

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Chicago police officer says he received racist image from fellow officers in lawsuit against city

A Chicago police officer is suing the city and several of his fellow officers, accusing them of racism and intimidation.

On March 17, Chicago police Officer Anthony Banks was allegedly cornered by a group of fellow officers inside the Chicago Police Department’s 11th District on the city’s West Side.

The alleged incident sent Banks on medical leave due to emotional distress, trauma and fear for his own safety.

“They encircled him in such a fashion that he did not feel free to leave,” Attorney Blake Horwitz said. “They all surrounded my client and start making racial comments, using [a racial slur] and also telling him to go back from where he came from, which has a double meaning.”

Banks’ attorney said the alleged incident happened after a disagreement during an investigation.

The police officers were carrying out their duties inside someone’s home, when Banks allegedly stepped in to deescalate a heated exchange between a visibly pregnant woman and another officer.

“He intervened, and said, ‘why don’t you distance yourself and give her some room?'” Horwitz said.

According to the lawsuit, two Chicago police sergeants who witnessed the confrontation intervened.

Banks was sent home and asked to fill out a report documenting the incident.

The next day, Banks “received a graphic and threatening email containing a racist image on his department-issued phone,” his attorney said.

“The image is the most racially perverse photograph of how an African American can kill himself,” Horwitz said. “It is a 1950s Mississippi-type of representation.”

The attorney said Banks went on medical leave shortly after the incident.

The officer returned to duty on July 1. He was transferred to CPD’s 6th District.

He chose to file a lawsuit to shed light on the issue of racism within the department

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Eyewatering financial records of Barack Obama’s ‘eyesore’ library

Barack Obama‘s foundation center’s staggering $850 million cost has been fueled by soaring operational budgets and huge salaries for executives, a new financial report has revealed. 

Construction of the former president’s namesake center campus has already surpassed the total budget set out when Obama first proposed the building before he left the White House. 

Situated in the South Side of Chicago in Jackson Park, the towering grey monolith-like property will serve as the headquarters of the Obama Foundation and will house a museum, library and education center dedicated to his eight years as president. 

It was initially estimated to cost $300 million, before the budget was revised to $500 million in 2017, and then again to $700 million in 2021. 

In an annual financial disclosure form released last week, the foundation reported spending an extra $90 million to prepare exhibits and $40 million in operating costs for the first year alone. 

Executives at the center raked in a total of $6.1 million and are among the best paid of all cultural centers in the nation, with CEO Valerie Jarrett paid $740,000 last year. 

OPC Executive Vice President Robbin Cohen earned $610,195 and Tina Chen, the organization’s chief legal and people officer, earned about $425,000. 

Although the cost of all artworks is not clear, the museum recently installed an 83-foot painted glass window by artist Julie Mehretu to its exterior to beautify the grey building’s exterior. 

Despite the soaring costs of the site, fundraising to Obama’s foundation has stayed high and surpassed $1 billion thanks to a $195 million cash injection last year, the foundation said in its recent financial report. 

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JB Pritzker Says He Has Moles in Trump Administration and Military Feeding him Information on Trump’s Law Enforcement Operations – Claims DHS Plans to “Invade” Chicago Neighborhoods

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker told former White House Press Secretary and MSNBC host Jen Psaki that he is being tipped off on Trump’s plans to send troops and federal agents to Chicago by people in the Trump Administration and the military “who have let us know things without, you know, having permission to do so.”

“I would call some of that rumor, but, you know, well sourced rumors,” he said.

This comes as President Trump plans federal law enforcement operations and potential National Guard deployment in the Windy City after at least 14 were killed and nearly 100 injured in shootings over the last two weekends.

It was revealed last week that 200 Homeland Security Officials will be deployed in Chicago as soon as this week and will potentially stay for the entire month of September.

The enforcement operations will be centered on arresting illegal aliens in the sanctuary state of Illinois, but the National Guard could be used to quell violent rioters, as done in Los Angeles, or to deter crime, as we are seeing in Washington, DC.

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Chicago Mayor Johnson Calls for Insurrection

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is rallying the people to begin an insurrection, but of course, it is (D)ifferent. “Are you prepared to defend this land that was built by slaves and indigenous people?” the mayor asked, urging the people to “resist” the US National Guard, while of course, adding in divisive racial political rhetoric.

Rather than urging the people to band together toward peace, Brandon Johnson would like the people to fight American troops in favor of dangerous criminals. The federal government does not have the authority to deploy troops to prevent overall crime, however, the federal government can and will deploy troops to expel illegal migrants.

The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 4,775 people in the Chicago Area of Responsibility in the first four months of the year, which expands beyond Illinois to five neighboring states. As reported by ABC, 47% of those arrested has prior criminal convictions, and 35% were wanted for criminal charges. Only 18% of those arrested in that four-month period had no prior ties to criminal activity. The majority of the people deported from the Chicago area are Venezuelan or Mexican nationals who commonly have ties to criminal organizations. Chicago and Illinois in general has become a refuge for criminals as blue policies permit crime and favor the criminal over the common man.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson continually praise the recent 30% drop in crime. Sorry, but the inner city is nearly an active war zone. Chicago had the most homicides in absolute numbers for 13 consecutive years. Yet, arrest rates remain extremely low at 16.2% despite 147,899 reported crimes since January 1, 2025. President Trump noted that Chicago’s murder rate was double that of Islamabad and nearly 15 times that of Delhi. There were 573 homicides in 2024, but blue lawmakers praise the 8% decrease from the 620 homicides in 2023.

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A Chicago Democrat’s Deranged Explanation for His City’s Violent Weekend

Democrats around the country are test driving different responses to President Trump’s (quite successful) crime crackdown in Washington, DC — which he is threatening to impose elsewhere, albeit under different authorities and jurisdictional constraints, given the capital’s unique status as a federal district.  In DC itself, Mayor Bowser surprised many last week by acknowledging the dramatic reduction in crime and sounding positive about the federal-local partnership achieving those results.  She enraged leftists in the process, but adopting a ‘plummeting crime is good’ position is typically very safe terrain for a politician.  California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been trolling Trump for weeks, so when he rolled out new anti-crime squads in his state, he had to do so with all sorts of requisite criticisms of the president.  But his action alone was something of a nod to the reality Trump has been highlighting: Crime remains far too elevated in large swaths of the country, very much including on the West Coast.  It has been the Democrats of Illinois who seem to have planted their heads in the sand as aggressively as possible, shouting resistance slogans into that dust while rampant crime rages around them.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who has achieved historic, breathtakingly low approval ratings, repeatedly refused to answer whether thousands of more local police on the beat would help reduce crime in his city (which has led the nation in murders for more than a dozen years running).  He’s against what he calls an unconstitutional Trump intervention and “military occupation,” you see, but he’s also against more local enforcement.

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Chicago Mayor’s Order to Resist ICE: “Protecting Chicago Initiative” Makes the City More Dangerous

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order on Saturday, August 30, 2025, called the “Protecting Chicago Initiative,” in response to anticipated federal immigration raids and the possible deployment of the National Guard by the Trump administration.

Ironically, he believes he is protecting Chicago by sheltering illegal aliens, including those with criminal histories, and by refusing to support law enforcement efforts. How this makes the city safer remains unclear.

The order prohibits the Chicago Police Department from assisting federal authorities with civil immigration enforcement, including patrols, traffic stops, and checkpoints, and bars collaboration with military personnel on local police duties. It also requires federal officers to follow municipal policies, such as banning the use of masks to conceal identities.

The directive further instructs city departments to “pursue all available legal and legislative avenues to resist coordinated efforts from the federal government” that may infringe on the rights of Chicago residents.

This raises the question of whether illegal immigrants should be considered residents, what rights they possess, and whether they are entitled to protection from federal law enforcement. No comparable program exists to shield American citizens who commit crimes from federal officers.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson accused Mayor Brandon Johnson of suffering from “Trump derangement syndrome,” after Johnson called the administration “out-of-control” and accused the president of acting “outside the bounds of the Constitution.”

The mayor makes these claims, but immigration enforcement is not “outside the bounds of the Constitution,” and an administration enforcing existing laws is not “out of control.” What is out of control are Chicago’s illegal immigration and violent crime problems, precisely why stronger enforcement is needed.

Chicago has maintained sanctuary city policies for nearly 40 years, beginning with Mayor Harold Washington’s 1985 executive order. The current framework is the “Welcoming City Ordinance,” enacted in 2006, expanded in 2012, and tightened in 2021 to eliminate all cooperation with ICE. At the state level, Illinois passed the Trust Act in 2017, extending sanctuary protections statewide and prohibiting local officials from inquiring about immigration status or assisting in federal enforcement.

Illinois is home to about 500,000 illegal immigrants, including 30,000 DACA recipients and tens of thousands of recent arrivals. Since August 2022, roughly 51,000 migrants from the southern border have settled in Chicago, adding major costs for taxpayers.

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Chicago’s Far-Left Mayor Brandon Johnson Signs ‘Protective Order’ to Try and Block Trump’s National Guard Deployment, Vows to ‘Take Any Action Necessary’

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order on Saturday, titled the “Protecting Chicago Initiative,” aimed at preventing the potential deployment of the National Guard by President Donald Trump to address the city’s rampant crime issues.

Johnson, a far-left Democrat, claims the order is necessary to defend residents’ constitutional rights amid fears of what he calls an “unconstitutional and illegal military occupation.”

The executive order comes as the Trump administration considers using Naval Station Great Lakes, a Navy base near Chicago, as a staging ground for immigration enforcement operations involving more than 200 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents.

Trump has been vocal about addressing Chicago’s crime woes, recently stating after deploying the National Guard to Washington, D.C., that his team would “straighten out” Chicago next, calling it “a mess” under an “incompetent mayor.”

“The City of Chicago will do everything in our power to defend our democracy and protect our communities. With this executive order, we send a resounding message to the federal government: we do not need nor want an unconstitutional and illegal military occupation of our city,” Johnson said in a statement.

“We do not want military checkpoints or armored vehicles on our streets and we do not want to see families ripped apart. We will take any action necessary to protect the rights of all Chicagoans,” the mayor continued. “Protecting Chicago is the next step in the work we have been doing to defend our city from federal overreach and illegal action.”

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