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Scott P. Richert is the executive editor of Chronicles.
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Articles and Posts by Scott P. Richert:

  • Hot Rod Lincoln(43)

    He knew that he was destined for greatness. The son of uneducated manual laborers, immigrants to Illinois, he was never much of a student, but he would become a successful lawyer. From a young age, though, his sights were set on political power. Through his political connections, he got himself elected to the Illinois House of Representatives and, later, to the U.S. Congress from Illinois.

  • For the Children(37)

    “I figured if he was there, I’d make sure he wasn’t there [again],” Harlan Drake, a 33-year-old truck driver, told Det. Sgt. Scott Shenk of the Shiawassee County Sheriff’s Department. But on the morning of September 11, 2009, James Pouillon was there, sitting across the street from Owosso High School as he had on so many other mornings. And so Harlan Drake stopped his car, pulled a .45 out of a bag, carefully took aim, and shot Pouillon.

  • The Bubble Economy(0)

    “Why,” Sheila Ramus asked, “if there are so many pro-lifers here, does Rockford have an abortion clinic?”

    Sheila, my wife and I, and our pastor, Fr. Brian Bovee, were waiting to check in at Rockford’s annual Pro-Life Banquet. An hour before the dinner was scheduled to begin, the Holy Family Room (yes, that is its name) in the basement of Holy Family Parish was almost full.

  • The Triumph of the Insurance Companies(53)

    That cry you heard when the 216th vote was cast in favor of President Obama’s “healthcare reform” was the sound of insurance executives rejoicing before lighting their cigars with $1,000 bills. Just as Big Pharma was the chief beneficiary of President Bush’s Medicare prescription coverage bill, so Big Insurance has Barack Obama to thank for their coming years of plenty.

  • A Cautionary Tale(1)

    Jury selection began yesterday in the murder trial of Harlan Drake, the man who has confessed to killing pro-life activist James Pouillon, but the Associated Press reports that Shiawassee County, Michigan, prosecutors “have warned a judge that it will be ‘almost impossible’ to seat jurors.” Pouillon, the AP reports, “was everywhere—the farmers market, City Hall, the county courthouse, football games—with verbal taunts that were as shocking as his signs.” While the national media is finally covering this side of the story, Chronicles gave its readers the full story four months ago.

  • An Arresting Moment(12)

    Five years ago, I wrote of the horror that Aaron Wolf and I experienced as we spent a morning photographing the old Turner School here in Rockford. Built in 1898, the massive brick-and-stone structure was closed 80 years later by a school board attempting in vain to avoid a lawsuit over busing. Today, little effort is being made to maintain the exterior, and weeds grow up in the lawn out front and the former playground in back. Four or five days out of every week, passersby might assume that the building is still shuttered.

  • Ethnic Cleansing(4)

    Some memories of auld lang syne on New Year’s Day 2010. This Rockford Files first appeared in the August 2002 issue of Chronicles.

    Family traditions often get started by accident—especially, perhaps, those that center on food.

  • Multiplication Tables(27)

    No one can accuse Mandolyna Theodoracopulos of not being provocative, and I read her recent post “Jon and Kate Plus Hate” with interest.

  • All Local, All the Time(3)

    One of the talk-radio stations here in Rockford bills itself as “All Local. All Day.” It is an interesting slogan, in light of increasing reports of the impending failure of local media; it would be even more interesting if it (or a version of it) were not used by hundreds of other talk-radio stations across the United States.

  • The United States, In Congress Assembled(0)

    “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States . . . ” Thus run the first words of Article I, Section 1, of the U.S. Constitution, clearly laying out the Framers’ understanding of the nature and the role of Congress.