Free Republic

Louisiana’s outgoing Democratic governor pardoned 40 convicted murderers since October including one of whom had been on death row and another who fatally stabbed a woman 39 times. Gov. John Bel Edwards has been on a mission to help Louisiana lose the title of being the World’s Prison Capital and has signed the pardons to release 56 total convicts in five separate batches. Edwards, whose term ends on Jan 8. 2024, campaigned to reduce the state’s prison population and is attempting to see some results in his final weeks in office. The Pelican State governor began signing his pardons on...

There’s a problem with putting someone on a pedestal: Exposed on all sides, a hero to some can be seen as a traitor to others. Atlanta plans to install a statue of a Native American man atop a 110-foot (34-meter) column in its new Peace Park, where it will tower over statues of 17 civil rights icons, including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Developer Rodney Mims Cook Jr. calls Chief Tomochichi “a co-founder of Georgia” who prevented massacres by warmly inviting British Gen. James Oglethorpe to colonize his people’s land in 1733. “They became the closest of friends, initiating...

The 2008 Democratic presidential candidates this week are busy genuflecting at Corporate America's altar -- otherwise known as the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). Now, it's true -- the DLC is really just a group of Beltway-insulated corporate-funded hacks who have spent the better part of the last decade trying to undermine the Democratic Party's traditional working class base -- a base that had kept Democrats in power for 40 years and now, thanks to the DLC, has been forfeited to the Republicans. Even so, the fact that these presidential candidates feel the need to bow down to the DLC is...

WE are so often told we're racist, that I hope you won't mind again hearing the latest proof that we're not. This week's evidence is John So's runaway win in the popular vote for the lord mayor of Melbourne. Here's a Chinese man, whose English has been chopped up for soup, winning more votes than the Anglo also-rans combined. Strange, the harder So tries to speak clear English -- and fails -- the more voters love him. Or not strange. So's struggles show him clearly doing all most Australians have wanted from migrants -- trying to fit in, no matter...