Free Republic

Come to Chicago, Michael Bloomberg — in a big way — if you really want to fight gun violence in America. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. Among American big cities, Chicago suffers one of the highest per capita rates of gun violence. And you, since stepping down as mayor of New York, have established yourself as a national leader — certainly the leader with the deepest pockets — in the uphill fight for sanity in gun laws. No city or state could use you more. As we wrote in an editorial last month, Chicago...

Remember "The Ox-Bow Incident?" No? It's positively ancient, and it's easy to see why it's been forgotten. For one thing, it's in black-and-white. And it offers no eye candy: no explosions or moaning flesh, or fast cars or epic battles. But I've been thinking about it lately, especially now, with what's going on in Missouri, in Ferguson and in St. Louis. "The Ox-Bow Incident" is a film of a novel that speaks to the rule of law. And it admonishes us against mob rule, the kind that turns men into a lynch mob. Or — and this is taken from...

Illinois has a chance to get smarter about penalties for gun crimes, hitting offenders with longer sentences where needed and shorter ones where appropriate. We urge the Legislature to seize the opportunity. So much is at stake, especially in Chicago, where the bloodshed from guns is constant and horrific. Within the next couple of days, the Legislature’s Joint Criminal Justice Reform Committee will present a series of findings on gun violence and gun laws, reflecting months of listening to law enforcement officials, national criminal justice experts and others. The committee’s findings are expected to be the basis for new laws...

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and United Arab Emirates—the only OPEC members financially solvent enough to afford temporarily reducing crude oil production—are believed to have refused to cut output on November 27, 2014 to push oil prices down to $68 a barrel in hopes of killing the U.S. oil boom. But unlike traditional oil wells that lose future production capability if temporarily shut down, U.S. shale oil wells have the flexibility to close and then reopen without a long-term loss of production capability. From an annual low of $1.21 a barrel in 1970 to an annual high of $108.90 in 2012, OPEC,...

OK, fine. Let's talk about "black on black" crime. That, after all, is where the conversation seems to inevitably turn whenever one seeks to engage a conservative on the American habit of shooting unarmed African-American boys and men. So it was exasperating, but nowhere near surprising, to see former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani go there last week on "Meet the Press." Asked by host Chuck Todd, during a discussion of the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Mo., about the fact that African-American communities like that one are often served by snow white police departments, he offered some perfunctory words...

BRIDGEPORT, W.Va. (AP) - Black Friday isn't just when shoppers rush to stores for holiday sales. It's also one of the busiest days of the year for gun purchases. In the U.S., there are nine guns for every 10 people. Someone is killed with a firearm every 16 minutes. And every minute, gun shops make about 40 new requests for criminal background checks on people wanting weapons. On Black Friday, the rush accelerates to nearly two checks a second, testing the limits of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. "We have a perfect storm coming," says Kimberly Del Greco,...

I understand we've turned the page to the next controversy -- Obama's unconstitutional immigration pander -- but I'd like to dwell a little longer on the previous travesty. Obama administration health care consultant Jonathan Gruber was discovered to have boasted that Obamacare was designed to exploit the "stupidity" of American voters and elude honest accounting by hiding both its cost and the taxes necessary to pay for it. When asked about this in Brisbane, Australia, the president rolled his eyes at the controversy. "I just heard about this," President Barack Obama said. "… The fact that some adviser who never...

Blase Cupich’s arrival as archbishop presents a historic opportunity to turn Chicago away from its horrific gun violence. As Cupich officially assumes his duties Tuesday, we urge him to take a leading and visible role in fighting the devastating flow of illegal guns into our city. Nothing could be more God’s work. Cupich has said he is “prepared to speak” on a gamut of pressing social issues in the Chicago archdiocese, from the “deep pockets of poverty” to income inequality to compassionate care for the elderly — all profound matters. But arguably no issue is more pressing than the violence...

Chicago desperately needs a real leader in the fight to get illegal guns off our blood-stained streets. Nothing is more important to our city’s future. We believe that leader can and must be Bruce Rauner. That may seem counter-intuitive. Rauner is a Republican who ran for governor as a strong defender of the Second Amendment, against an incumbent Democratic governor, Pat Quinn, with a long record in support of gun control. But it is precisely because Rauner is a Republican and a staunch defender of legal gun rights — and because he now faces the prospect of finding common ground...

Rajendra Pachauri, the Indian academic who chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, recently declared that we have "the means to limit climate change" and that "all we need is the will to change." That's a rather glib statement given that just five years ago, Pachauri was lamenting the fact that so many of his fellow Indians were living in dire energy poverty. In July 2009, Pachauri asked reporters, "Can you imagine 400 million people who do not have a light bulb in their homes?" He continued, saying, "with the resources of coal that India has, we really don't have...

Experts on gun violence met at a symposium Friday afternoon in Milwaukee as another Milwaukee family mourned the death of a child hit by a stray bullet Thursday night. Laylah C. Petersen — remember her name — was sitting on her grandfather's lap when she was hit. She was 5. Sierra Guyton — remember her name, too — was killed while playing on her school playground last May. She was 10. In Racine, a 4-year-old girl was shot the day before Petersen was shot. Our hearts reach out to Petersen's family and echo the words of Laylah's aunt, Jocelyn Petersen:...

On Thursday night, 5-year-old Laylah C. Petersen became one of about 300 Americans per year killed by stray bullets. Laylah, who was sitting on her grandfather's lap when a bullet pierced the wall of her home and struck her in the head, joins Sierra Guyton, 10, fatally shot on a playground in May, and at least nine other Milwaukee children killed by errant gunfire since 1995. On Friday, city residents were once again left with this question: "What can we do?" While the answer is multifaceted, one thing is clear, according to Joshua Horwitz, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based...

In American politics, it pays to be a fighter. Candidates of every stripe and in every age have found it useful to pose as advocates for the common people, champions who will go to the barricades on our humble behalf. Genuine populists have worn the mantle most effectively. "Fighting Bob" La Follette was an impassioned rabble-rouser through his long career in Wisconsin politics, and fiery Dan Hoan regularly "gave 'em hell" during his 24 years as Milwaukee's mayor. Both men, and many of their contemporaries, were on a never-ending crusade against the "special interests" who sought to rig the system...

A recent Journal Sentinel editorial concerning Gov. Scott Walker's budget-saving Act 10 reforms attempts to take readers to an alternate universe, complete with happily negotiated labor contracts and good governance that didn't require hard decisions from lawmakers in Madison ("A trip to Scott Walker's parallel universe where Act 10 never happened," Our View, Oct. 21) . One would indeed need to be in an alternate universe to expect a world free of the dysfunction that has plagued state and federal government. In no universe real or otherwise were powerful labor bosses and their unions ever going to make meaningful concessions...

In an early scene on "Madam Secretary" — a kinda Hillary Clinton political soap opera on CBS — our heroine mucks horse manure out of a barn. As played by Tea Leoni, Madam Secretary is a former CIA-analyst-turned-professor in the Virginia horse country, in jeans and boots. She holds a pitchfork in her hand. And bits of straw and road apples cling to the tines. She's asked: Why clean up horse poop? "Why?" asks Madam Secretary. "I like it. It relaxes me." Just then the president of the United States (Keith "I'm Easy" Carradine) rolls up the dusty road in...

If you're an Illinoisan who isn't on a political payroll — meaning you won't have a fat six-figure pension like many of our public officials — you'll likely spend this last month before the Illinois governor's election in deep contemplation. Democratic incumbent Gov. Pat Quinn and businessman Bruce Rauner, the Republican, are in a daily knife fight, but if you're wise, you might also spend this time asking yourself these eternal questions: •Since I don't have a government pension, what kind of sauce will I put on my dry dog food to make it tasty when I'm old? •Would bottled...

Hispanics contemplating the upcoming elections must be wondering: "What now?" President Barack Obama has shown Hispanics that he takes us for granted. The midterm elections won't feature a "Latino vote" storyline in the most contested high-level races. As far as 2016 is concerned, it's a crapshoot. How best to proceed then? Disengage from the political process? Carry on with straight-ticket voting and hope that any new officeholders will be better than the current ones? Decide that -- at least in the voting booth -- maybe the devil you know is really no better than the devil you don't? These questions...

President Barack Obama had a choice between liberalism and the Democratic Party. He chose the latter and it cost him dearly. Liberalism, as an ideology, insists that government can do good and great things for the people and the world, if the people running the government are smart liberals. The Democratic Party says the exact same thing. But liberalism is an ideal, while the Democratic Party is that ideal’s representative here in the real world, and in the real world political parties disappoint. Just to be clear — and to avoid a lot of “Oh, yeah? What about Republicans?!” responses...

It seems counter-intuitive and more than a little greedy to spend tens of thousands of dollars building green energy facilities so you can live off the grid and then fight the power company because they aren’t paying you for the extra power you give back to the grid. Let’s have our cake and eat it, too. Most people invest in solar panels and wind energy to relieve themselves of the burden and insecurity of depending on the giant energy grid most of us depend upon. And it is a dependable grid. Not having power in America is not common and...

On Monday, first lady Michelle Obama swooped in to Milwaukee to help reinvigorate a struggling Mary Burke for governor campaign. Weighed down by accusations that her staff plagiarized large portions of her jobs plan, Burke called upon Obama to do a little cheerleading for the Democratic base. "We need to be just as passionate and as hungry as we were back in 2008 and 2012," Obama told the crowd. "They're assuming we won't be organized and energized. And only we can prove them wrong." Well, not quite. Perhaps the first lady can be forgiven for not following Wisconsin politics that...