Free Republic

High court strikes down Washington D.C. law in ruling that could have Chicago implications - An angry Mayor Richard Daley on Thursday called the Supreme Court's overturning of the Washington D.C. gun ban "a very frightening decision" and vowed to fight vigorously any challenges to Chicago's ban. The mayor, speaking at a Navy Pier event, said he was sure mayors nationwide, who carry the burden of keeping cities safe, will be outraged by the decision. Chicago's handgun ban, which has lasted for more than a quarter-century, came under threat earlier in the day when the Supreme Court decided that Washington...

The Bush administration bungled the Iraqi and Afghanistan occupations so badly that the president's base is in a mad scramble toward that camera-ready symbol of national security: Rudy Giuliani. Even if he is a counterfeit conservative, the unannounced New Yorker is now the Republican party's front-runner, sprinting past its old media darling John McCain. A CBS News poll last week showed ''America's mayor'' with a 50 percent to 21 percent surge over America's war hero among likely GOP voters. The only big-city mayor to be elected U.S. president was Grover Cleveland, back in the 19th century. I see no reason...

If political corruption scandals, two African-American sacrificial lambs, union activism, felons on the ballot, and Black History Month couldn't make it happen, then what would it take for Chicago area voters to show up at the polls in numbers that could be described in terms other than "disappointing" or "pathetic." Really, I need to know. Because on Sunday, I'll be in Selma, Ala., watching presidential hopefuls praise the high and the lowly for the suffering they endured to get the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed. Barack Obama will deliver the keynote address at the historic Brown Chapel AME Church,...

Twenty fours hours before all chaos would break loose, National Weather Center meteorologists forecast “a chance of snow” for Thursday, Jan. 26, 1967. Had they known then what they know now, they might have called for “a big chance of snow” or “a chance of big snow.” As in many recent years, the winter leading up to the Blizzard of ’67 had been a mild one, said Mark Ratzer, senior forecaster for the National Weather Service’s Romeoville office. “We were in the 50s on Jan. 21 and 22.” Two days before the snowstorm hit, Chicago’s high temperature was 65 degrees...

Hurt, incensed and moved to tears, mayoral challenger Dorothy Brown on Friday accused state Sen. James Meeks of sexism and calling her a "loser" unworthy of endorsement in her race against Mayor Daley. "I am not a loser. I am a winner. I am the epitome of the American dream and Dr. Martin Luther King's dream," said Brown, clerk of the Cook County Circuit Court. "To make the kind of statement he made in the face of my hard work -- the challenges and discrimination I have overcome in growing up poor and becoming a respected countywide elected official in...