Free Republic

LOS ANGELES — The office of embattled Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón has asked a judge to lift the sentence of a man condemned to die for killing two college students during a 1994 carjacking, according to court documents obtained by NBC News. The 264-page resentencing recommendation, filed July 11 in Los Angeles County Superior Court by Deputy District Attorney Shelan Joseph, seeks to change Raymond Oscar Butler’s death sentence to life without the possibility of parole. The filing argues that Butler, now 47, committed the murders of the two college students when he was 18 years old...

Recently, I found myself reading a column written by a very-credentialed, highly respected professor named Jennifer Ho ̶ sorry ̶ Jennifer Ho (she/her/hers). The piece was titled, “White supremacy is the root of all race-related violence in the US.” Ready? Here we go. “Anti-Asian racism has the same source as anti-Black racism: white supremacy. So when a Black person attacks an Asian person, the encounter is fueled perhaps by racism, but very specifically by white supremacy. White supremacy does not require a white person to perpetuate it.” Quite a bank shot, Ms. Ho. She wasn’t done. “White supremacy as the...

Reading the comments is rarely a good idea. But when opening a breaking news tweet on March 16 about a rash of horrific murders across Atlanta, including six Asian woman working in three separate spas, the overwhelming sameness of the replies was unavoidable, infuriating, and instructive. “Not quite the happy ending they were expecting,” crowed one. “No happy ending then?” asked another. “Definitely not a happy ending,” declared another, throwing in a gif of a stick figure drumming a “heyo!” rimshot to make sure anyone reading it would understand that they wanted a laugh. Endless tweets of the same snark,...