Free Republic

Former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday said convicted hate-crime hoaxer Jussie Smollett "spit in the face of real victims of bigotry" by "lying about being attacked because of his race" and "should be sentenced to the fullest extent of the law to serve as an example and to send a very strong message to anyone who thinks about pulling a hoax like this in the future."

If Love means never having to say you're sorry (it doesn't), then being a member of the media means never having to admit you were wrong (it does). I wouldn't write about the Jussie Smollett case and his conviction for lying about a hoax he perpetrated if it didn't reflect something seriously wrong in the culture. Smollett was convicted in Chicago last week of faking an attack by a supposed Trump-MAGA man he claimed uttered racist and homophobic slurs. Normally, I would ignore this story, along with other tabloid trash stories I don't care about, such as the Kardashians, Harry...

In an open letter to San Francisco Bay View National Black newspaper, USF Black Student Union President Brianna Johnson had demanded the university release the identity of the person responsible for hanging the noose, evict them from student housing and expel them from the university. Johnson also called on the university to quickly and widely disclose hate crimes and proactively provide wellness checks for students who might be emotionally affected. Fitzgerald said in an earlier response to the Black Student Union that it would not identify the student, citing federal and university privacy requirements. But he said the university would...

You have to feel kind of sorry for the once modest movement called Black Lives Matter. I suppose it started out earnestly enough. I’ll take it at its word. While not every case was honestly discussed, there was room and willingness in this country to discuss policing, racial profiling, and racism in some rare corners of our nation. People of goodwill all share a desire to identify, punish, and purge such behavior from the culture. But just like the high school party you throw when your parents are out of town, all it takes are a few idiots to start...

Philadelphia police have released images of the suspect wanted for spray-painting racial slurs on the Cecil B. Moore mural in North Philadelphia. Police say he was also caught spray-painting slurs at Brightside Academy and Habitat for Humanity. The incidents happened on Feb. 15, between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m.

When I was a youngster – shall we say, college through my teens – I occasionally exceeded posted speed limits. Not all the time, of course, and not so wildly to be a danger to the road, but often enough that I got to know Chicago’s “supervision” program rather well. In Cook County, there is a time-honored tradition that minor traffic offenses – almost always speeding tickets – can be disposed of by going to court and saying “I’d like to stipulate guilt, your honor, and request court supervision in recognition of my otherwise excellent driving record.” If the judge...

A black college lacrosse player has been arrested in connection with two incidents of racist graffiti found in a dorm on the Goucher College campus in Maryland. Fynn Ajani Arthur, a 21-year-old from Brunswick, Maine, was charged with two counts of malicious destruction of property on Thursday night in Baltimore County. His arrest came after graffiti aimed at black and Latino students was found on the second floor of a campus dorm, one floor above where similar graffiti had been found on November 14, Goucher College administrators said in a statement. Both incidents that shook the Towson campus involved backward...

The Anne Arundel County Police Department has charged a 14-year-old girl with a juvenile citation for sending a threatening tweet related to Arundel High School. (snip) That person has been identified as a 14-year-old African American female who attends Arundel High School.