Caesar Rodney And His ‘At Least 26 Slaves’. You knew he had slaves. You probably didn’t know this history:
The Black men, women and children who Delaware statesman Caesar Rodney owned had been aggravating him in the spring of 1776.
“From their past vile misbehavior they have no right to expect any favour or partiallity for them at my hands,” the plantation owner wrote to his brother after some of the enslaved people were worried they would be sold and their families torn apart.
Rodney, a wealthy lawmaker and militia leader, and future president of the Delaware colony, added in the letter that he’d “lost almost all affection or feeling for them.”
Three months later, that same man, who enslaved at least 26 Black people during his lifetime, signed the Declaration of Independence, whose foundational phrase and most memorable assertion was that “all men are created equal.”
Such was the contradiction at the heart of Rodney’s legacy. He has been lionized as a patriot and memorialized by a marble sculpture in the U.S. Capitol, but his wealth was derived from slave labor, according to a report the city of Wilmington released this week as Americans were concluding the country’s 250th birthday festivities.
Late former Wilmington Mayor Mike Purzycki commissioned the report in 2024, nearly four years after he ordered downtown’s most iconic landmark — a towering bronze statue depicting Rodney riding his horse to Philadelphia to vote for freedom from Great Britain — taken down and put in protective storage.
“The project revealed that Caesar Rodney, public servant, patriot, and advocate for the freedom to self-govern, participated in and benefited from a slaveholding society, directly enslaving at least 26 people in his lifetime, including children and families,” the report concluded.
“The frequently cited number of 200 persons enslaved by Rodney could not be documented by available primary sources. Also, the recent debate about Caesar Rodney as an abolitionist is not supported by primary documents nor by respected contemporary historians who have examined this notion over the past 30 years,” the report continued.
The report also identified the 26 people directly enslaved by Rodney by name, and counted 54 more owned by his parents, siblings, guardian and other close relatives, but said it’s likely there were more enslaved people who could not be traced.
This piece is fascinating. The just-released report stands for now as the definitive story on Caesar Rodney.
Meet The Old Plane, Better Than The New Plane?:
President Trump flew out of Turkey on Wednesday night on the old Air Force One instead of his new Qatari-donated Boeing 747-8 as a security precaution related to the resumption of hostilities with Iran, according to people briefed on the plans, who said the change came at the urging of the Secret Service.
The swap deepens questions about whether the new plane, which the president had pressed to be ready as soon as possible, was retrofitted with sufficient security measures over the last year. Lawmakers and some officials have raised concerns about whether the expedited timeline allowed for the addition of an advanced missile defense system and other modifications used to protect the president.
But people briefed on the new plane’s capabilities, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security issues, said the new plane does not have all the features of the older plane. The switch in the president’s aircraft when he departed Turkey was a precautionary measure made at the advice of the Secret Service and not because of a specific threat, they said.
The president on Wednesday denied that the change in his aircraft was made because of security concerns. Instead, he asserted that the swap was so the new jet could leave early and make stops at U.S. military bases to show it off to the troops because the aircraft is “magnificent.”
But when pressed by reporters in Ankara about the reason for the change, Mr. Trump also repeatedly noted that he was Iran’s No. 1 target, and referred at one point to having seen or been briefed on a list of Tehran’s targets in recent days.
Always look a gift plane in the mouth.
Rahm Emanuel’s Political Deathbed Conversion. How bleeping cynical of him. One of the great phonies in American politics:
Rahm Emanuel, the former Chicago mayor and White House chief of staff who is exploring a 2028 presidential run, landed in Israel this week with a stern tough-love message for America’s most embattled, isolated ally — a message that he hopes could point the way forward on one of the most divisive issues in U.S. politics.
Unconditional U.S. support of Israel should end, Mr. Emanuel bluntly warned in a speech at Tel Aviv University on Wednesday, demanding that Israel make major changes if it is to retain U.S. backing at its historic strength.
Above all, he said, Israel will need to allow again for the possibility of Palestinian sovereignty and give up on dreams of annexing all of the West Bank.
He said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government have isolated Israel and led it “into a dead end” and argued that Mr. Netanyahu sees every security problem as a nail and military action as the only hammer.
Is this mic on? Rahm Emanuel, perhaps Israel’s greatest cheerleader among prominent Democrats (although Josh Shapiro is in the running) wants to run for President. However, his unwavering support for Israel had become a political straitjacket of his own creation. This is nothing more than a pathetic attempt to rebrand himself. Am I being too subtle? Maybe? OK:
As Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland would say, ‘Ain’t nothin’ you can do.’ I’m saving that one.
Rogue DOJ Covers Up Houston Killing By ICE:
For the last 35 years, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s day began the same way: He woke up at 5 a.m., kissed his wife goodbye, loaded his work van and drove off to pick up his construction crew for work in Houston, his family said.
But on Tuesday, Salgado Araujo’s day would not end as it always did. He would not come home to eat a hearty dinner prepared by his wife, then spend the rest of the evening on the porch listening to music in the house he had built for his family.
Around 7 a.m., as the 52-year-old father of three picked up the last of his crew in Houston’s East End area before heading north to finish construction on several houses, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in an unmarked car fatally shot the Mexican man inside his van, Salgado Araujo’s oldest son recounted Wednesday.
ICE said Salgado Araujo attempted to evade arrest as agents tried to conduct a traffic stop as part of a “targeted operation.” He rammed into a law enforcement vehicle and refused to follow several verbal commands before an ICE agent fired his weapon in self-defense, the agency told CNN in a statement Tuesday.
Salgado Araujo had been living in the US without legal authorization, ICE said, without specifying whether the agents had been looking for him. CNN has asked the agency for more information.
But Salgado Araujo’s family disputes the agency’s account, saying they believe the man who’d been seeking a work permit would have stopped and complied with federal agents if he had known the car following him belonged to ICE or other law enforcement. Salgado Araujo did not appear to have a criminal record, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office said.
Salgado Araujo over the last year and a half had submitted pictures and statements from employers and loved ones for a work permit application, his son recalled, saying he was “close to obtaining his legal status.”
“We dotted every ‘i’, crossed every ‘t,’ filled every document, attended every appointment,” Ronaldo Salgado said.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General is leading an investigation into the shooting, according to ICE. And the FBI’s Houston field office is investigating the alleged assault on a federal law enforcement officer.
Let’s cut to the chase: This man was murdered. And the murderers are the ones carrying out the ‘investigation’.
What do you want to talk about?
