Free Republic

Two weeks ago, I discussed the committee authorship of the Declaration of Independence and its adoption (after significant edits) by the Continental Congress.Today, I want to discuss the extraordinary edits concerning the issue of slavery. As is well known, the Continental Congress assigned an editorial committee of five men: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston and Benjamin Franklin.Thomas Jefferson penned the first draft, which was then edited by the committee and then the Continental Congress in session. As noted before in my July 24th column, they made significant edits. However, the most significant and the most extensive edit...

The ex-con husband of a disgraced Westchester County police bigwig turned himself in to cops Thursday to face charges that the pair drove their gangbanger son to a botched hit in the Bronx. James Lackard, 47, the husband of recently fired Mount Vernon Deputy Police Commissioner Jennifer Lackard, walked into the 44th Precinct stationhouse in the Bronx around 8:30 a.m. to surrender after two days on the run, the sources said. He was arraigned hours later on the same attempted murder indictment lodged against his cop wife and 20-year-old son, reputed “Slutty Gang” thug Chase Lackard, earlier this week. The...

If The Onion or the Babylon Bee wanted to spoof the absurdity of DEI — the woke ideology of “diversity, equity and inclusion” — they couldn’t have invented a character as unbelievable as Jason Arday. *** Born in 1985, in 2023 he became the youngest black man ever to hold a professorship at Cambridge University. Naturally, he had to overcome great adversity to do so. *** because Arday, the son of a Ghanaian immigrant to London, isn’t just black, he’s autistic and was nonverbal until the age of 11, according to the glowing media profiles he’s received. And he’s epileptic,...

A Louisiana man accused of gang raping Louisiana State University student Madison Brooks before she was fatally hit by a car has asked that Brooks’ supporters be banned from wearing pink in the courtroom at his trial. Desmond Carter, 21, who is charged with others of sexually assaulting Brooks, 19, in a car in Baton Rouge in 2023 just before her death, claimed that Brooks’ family and friends have repeatedly worn pink – Brooks’ favorite color — in court in an effort to intimidate the jury into a guilty verdict, according to WBRZ.Carter’s lawyers pointed to several social media posts...

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- A man is behind bars in connection with a hit-and-run that killed Temple University student Bryce Wolfe along Kelly Drive last month. The Temple University student was pinned under an SUV and dragged for a mile. Derek Reid, 48, was taken into custody by U.S. Marshals Thursday. The U.S. Marshals Service says 48-year-old Derek Reid was taken into custody in connection with a deadly hit-and-run, as well as a child rape case. Reid has been charged with involuntary manslaughter, among other driving offenses, for the fatal hit-and-run, and will now also face charges in a child rape...

The man who was killed by police in Madison, Wisconsin, a shocking caught-on-camera shooting — sparking protests — was a violent ex-con with a lengthy record, including for assaulting cops, The Post can reveal. Corey Durrell Ruiz, 38, was identified by local officials and his family in social media posts. State Rep. Shelia Stubbs, a Democrat, said Ruiz “should still be alive.” Brandi Grayson, the head of the Madison-based black community advocacy group Urban Triage, decried the shooting as, “Another black man is dead on a Madison street.” Protesters have flooded the streets of Madison, Wisconsin, where the shooting happened...

On April 2, 2025, Karmelo Anthony went to Memorial High School looking for a fight. Though he was participating in a track meet, he felt the need to bring a knife in his backpack. Once at the school, he sat in the tent of the opposing team. When confronted by Austin Metcalf, who told him to leave, Anthony reached into his backpack and said, “Touch me and see what happens.” Metcalf then grabbed Anthony in an attempt to forcibly move him out of the tent. Anthony then used his knife to stab Metcalf in the heart, killing him almost instantly....

The “sweetest” elderly Mississippi couple were allegedly killed by a teenage burglar who then shot at cops during a six-hour standoff while barricaded in the house, according to authorities. Billy Blair, 74, and his wife, Virginia Carol Blair, 71, were killed after 17-year-old Cordarius Hobbs broke into their home last Wednesday, WLBT reported. Hobbs has since been charged with capital murder.Cops swooped on the Mendenhall home just after noon for a welfare check after worried relatives couldn’t make contact — but they encountered gunfire upon their arrival. The burglary was already taking place when police arrived and the front door...

The conversation every Black parent dreads is happening right now in living rooms across America, ignited by a single word echoed in a Texas courtroom: guilty. 19-year-old Karmelo Anthony was convicted of murder in the death of Austin Metcalf and sentenced to 35 years in prison. But while the verdict closed the legal chapter, it opened a painful, urgent dialogue inside Black homes—one centered on a parent’s deepest fear. For many, the verdict has forced an agonizing acceleration of Black childhood, forcing parents to strip away their kid’s innocence in exchange for survival. Popular TikTok Influencer, Just Wayne, spoke about...

A raging woman spewing antisemitic hate pulled a Jewish rider’s hair on a Big Apple subway Sunday and screeched “Jews are eating kids,” according to cops and shocking video. The suspect, identified by police as Bronx resident Diana Smith, shouted an assortment of vicious remarks against Jews on the crowded C train around 2:15 p.m. in lower Manhattan before she assaulted a 23-year-old Upper West Side woman, police said. “I was a ragdoll and I couldn’t defend myself – there should have been a human barricade around me,” the young Orthodox Jewish victim, who asked her name be withheld, told...

Ever since high school, we have all been made aware of black accomplishments with each occasion of black history month in February. There was Harriet Tubman’s railroad and Rosa Parks’s bus seat, but most memorable of all, was George Washington Carver who invented the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which was a mainstay of kid’s lunches until nervous white mothers had it banned from schools. Apart from those recollections, I have not given much thought to the cultural legacy of blacks, except for their music, dance, and comedy. However, around the time of George Floyd, I started to hear common...

Get ready for a summer of teen mayhem, unless blue-city leaders across the country abandon their commitment to fostering disorder in the name of equity.The hot new thing is a “takeover” — a Gen-Z euphemism for a riot,*** Chicago saw several “teen takeovers” over Memorial Day weekend, with dozens of arrests of “youths” running as old as 28. And one of them saw Rashad Johnson, 18, allegedly plow his vehicle into a group of cops trying to restore order; he’s now charged with five counts of attempted murder.President Donald Trump posted: “Five officers badly hurt. Mayor and Governor are terrible....

Somewhere, Ron DeSantis has got to be sitting back, booted feet propped on his desk, laughing and smoking a cigar at what has been playing out in Florida's 20th Congressional District. As RedState readers will recall, at the governor's urging, the Sunshine State redrew its congressional map in late April just as the Supreme Court's ruling in Louisiana v. Callais was being handed down. Republicans hold 20 of Florida's 28 congressional seats. The new map, if it survives the current court challenges, could potentially net them another four seats in the upcoming midterm elections. One of the districts impacted was...

Just a few years ago, the nation rioted over a black career criminal’s drug overdose. We gave black America a second national holiday. American embassies flew Black Lives Matter flags all over the world. Democrats were all rushing to “study” reparations. Major corporations announced explicit racial quotas to ensure blacks got plum jobs. Rap was ubiquitous and black music was the only music allowed at the Super Bowl halftime show. But things changed. We’re living in an age where affirmative action is diminished, DEI is rolled back, and rap is no longer in the top 40. Blackness no longer has...

What we know: According to TPD, a large group of teens attempted to take over the area of Curtis Hixon Park on Friday night, causing traffic disruptions, fights and other issues in the park.TPD responded to the disturbance with patrol officers, bike units and Air Service personnel to ensure the safety of the surrounding community. As a result of the operation, 22 people were arrested on charges that include affray (public fight, or noisy brawl), possession of narcotics, resisting without violence and unlawful possession of a weapon. Officers seized two firearms and one vehicle. Only four of those arrested were...

MS NOW host Reverend Al Sharpton said the United States' upcoming 250th anniversary is not a "celebration" for Black people and that it's "crazy" to expect them to celebrate it. "They're going to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the country July 4th, but that's not our celebration," Sharpton said at the National Action Network’s 35th Anniversary National Convention on Wednesday. He continued, "We were slaves then, and they celebrate signing the Declaration of Independence 1776. We were not even emancipated until 1863. So I don't know what everybody getting ready for a celebration [for]. You know that it seems crazy...

*** And now ***a woman was murdered by a left-wing former coworker who was angry over her support for President Trump and saw her as “racist.” The media won’t touch the story because they helped build the climate that made this kind of hatred feel righteous in the first place. This was the targeted killing of a Trump supporter by a former coworker who hated her politics and had been hostile toward her before the murder. And the press, which never misses a chance to spin every story into a lecture about how dangerous the right is, suddenly has nothing...

Wild footage shows three disgruntled women being hauled out of Miami International Airport in handcuffs for storming onto a Philadelphia-bound flight while refusing to pay for extra luggage. Nafisa Dockery, 30, DionjanaCochran, 21, and Davana Cochran, 26 were all slapped with trespassing after a warning and resisting an officer charges over the Sunday night airport mayhem, according to arrest reports. The trio was waiting to board a Frontier Airlines flight when an employee noticed they didn’t pay for a second carry-on luggage item and asked that they step off the line and fork over the extra fee, authorities said, according...

A Madison woman accused of killing someone she used to work with was in court on Wednesday. Diamond Wallace, 31, is charged with first-degree intentional homicide in the death of Christine Jones, 61, of Cottage Grove. Jones was found dead Sunday morning in a parking ramp on West Washington Avenue. Madison police said Jones was on her way to work when she was shot. Wallace was arrested outside of an apartment on Milwaukee Street on Monday. A gun was recovered from Wallace's apartment. According to the criminal complaint, Wallace worked with Jones at a hotel in downtown Madison. Wallace was...

Wild video has surfaced of thousands of terrified spring break beachgoers fleeing the sand in Florida as gunshots rang out over the weekend. At least four shootings have been reported in Daytona Beach since Friday as scores of spring breakers descended on the city, WFTV9 reported. Four shootings and massive unruly crowds turned Daytona Beach’s spring-break weekend into a public safety nightmare, as thousands fled the sand while police from multiple agencies rushed in to restore order. In one of the chaotic incidents, footage shot from a hotel balcony captured the moment screaming bikini-clad sunbathers scattered the beach after a...