Overview articles:

Erasing History Is A Totalitarian Tradition.  Pretend all you want, but the American Civil War happened.  The Founders were White men.  Our political philosophy is overwhelmingly Western. [...] They can't quite change history, so they might as well destroy it.  And ignorance of the past begins with the destruction of public displays of our history.  Statues, names of buildings and organizations; they all link us to our past, warts and all.  Do these arrogant fascists really believe that monuments dedicated to the Confederate cause really glorify slavery?  If so, they are dumber than they look, and that is impressively stupid.  What these symbols of our history do is honor the sacrifices of those who fought and died for the Confederacy, because they deserve to be honored and remembered, not for their defense of slavery, but for their fight for states rights and autonomy from a central government.  And most of all for their defense of their homes and states and a way of life.

The Rush to Destroy the Past.  [Scroll down]  History is what happened.  It isn't judgment, it is a statement of fact (one hopes) about events that took place at a time and place, and participants in those events.  People decide, often later and in a different context, how to interpret those facts, if need be, and if they so desire, to judge for themselves what the facts "mean."  Denying them doesn't change the events; trying to erase or bury them doesn't either.  It simply means that other people no longer have access to the facts about those people, places, and things that shaped the history that is examined by others at a later time (because once an event has occurred, every examination of it happens later, and is colored by the perceptions of those who do the studying).  Whatever might be learned — good, bad or indifferent — is lost once references to the past are erased, and as Santayana wrote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (often quoted in different forms, which is quite ironic).  The most repressive regimes in history like to destroy the past, so that people have no basis to refer back to in order to see if history is repeating itself, for better or for worse.  If you don't know any better — because there isn't anything to remind you — then you are pretty much forced to play along with whatever the current regime tells you.

The Anti-Cultural Nihilism of the Left.  The final battle lines for America are the history wars.  Conservatives are losing.  There have already been two fundamental revolutions that have reshaped, reconstituted, restructured American society.  The first was Abraham Lincoln and the subjugation of the primacy of the states, Northern and Southern alike, to the dictates of executive fiat and the federal government.  The second was Franklin Roosevelt and the subjugation of civil society to federal bureaucracy.  The first was a political revolution, the second a social revolution.  The third revolution is the ongoing cultural revolution, a revolution that includes factors such as immigration, the teaching and reception of European and North American history, and our own self-understanding as a people with an inheritance and a future.

The Republic's Norms.  The Left isn't evolving and adapting without purpose.  Engineering new financial mechanisms and reframing socialist arguments are only the means that left-wing activists and politicians plan to use to push policy change; their ends deserve similar scrutiny.  Unfortunately, as the New Left's methods have developed, its policy agendas have arguably devolved.  With a newfound and ironic emphasis on populist policies — abolishing the Electoral College and packing the Supreme Court — left-wing influencers and elected officials would fundamentally remake the United States of America.

Here's why it's so important to fight back in the war on American history.  Andrew Jackson went from being a 13-year-old orphan fighting in the Revolutionary War to being the winner of a victory so unthinkable it's still studied by military colleges today.  Despite being severely ill, he cobbled together a diverse army, uniting men of many creeds and colors, and turned them into a fighting machine that took down the greatest army in the world.  Thanks to him, it became safe for America to spread from sea to shining sea.  As I talked about these stories on the hardcover book tour, people often raised questions about the unsavory aspects of Jackson's life.  Yes, he had slaves.  Yes, he fought Native Americans, and, yes, it's true that he had a role in the Trail of Tears.  I don't want to hide these facts; Jackson was a complex and flawed man, and we should learn from his failures.

Which Confederate statues were removed?  A running list.  More than 30 cities across the United States have removed or relocated Confederate statues and monuments amid an intense nationwide debate about race and history.  After a "Unite the Right" rally in Virginia in August to protest against the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee resulted in the death of a woman who was demonstrating against white supremacy, other cities have decided to remove Confederate statues.  Many of the controversial monuments were dedicated in the early twentieth century or during the height of the Civil Rights Movement.  Discussions are under way about the removal of monuments in Houston, Atlanta, Nashville, Pensacola, Florida, Jacksonville, Florida, Richmond, Virginia, Birmingham, Alabama, and Charlottesville, Virginia.

The Ideology of Statue Smashing.  The Confederate states fought the Civil War to preserve slavery, if not expand it.  One can certainly object to the state showcasing an icon that can be seen as inseparable from that evil institution.  Yet not all Confederate soldiers thought slavery was their own cause.  In North Carolina, about 5 percent of the population, or a quarter of family households, held slaves.  The vast majority of the population did not.  No doubt some of the non-slaveholding citizenry opposed the idea of indentured servitude.  Yet somehow, they squared the circle of fighting for a bad cause by redefining it as protecting their ancestral homeland.  In other words, some, or even many, Confederates, like many German and Japanese soldiers in World War II, found themselves fighting for morally wrong causes they may not have supported but saw little realistic alternative to avoiding service.  Yet in today's frenzied ahistorical climate on campuses, there is only melodrama or rather media-fueled psychodrama of the zealous, but otherwise mostly ignorant.  Few grasp the essence of tragedy in bravely fighting for a disreputable cause, sometimes one that is repugnant to one's own sense of morality.

Timely news and commentary:

Professors working to abolish harmful street names.  Several professors, headed by project leader Daniel Oto-Peralías at Universidad Pablo de Olavide in Spain, have created a new app that they claim will help identify "offensive" and "harmful" street names and "repair past wrongs."  The STNAMES LAB app was described by Oto-Peralías and fellow geography professors Derek Alderman of the University of Tennessee and Joshua Inwood of Penn State University as an "important education tool" in a recent article at The Conversation.  The intrepid professors wrote that the app:  ["]will help communities understand how discriminatory beliefs are woven into everyday spaces and the harm caused by offensive names.["]

Biden Admin Looks to Rescind 20 Medal of Honor Awards Given to Soldiers in the 1890s Who Are Dead and Can't Defend Themselves.  Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III has ordered the Department of Defense to review the Medal of Honor awarded to 20 soldiers for their actions in the Wounded Knee Massacre that took place in 1890.  Austin wrote in a memo, "The [special review panel] may consider the context of the overall engagement as appropriate, including as necessary to understand each [Wounded Knee Creek Medal of Honor] recipient's individual actions."  In a separate statement, a senior defense official shared, "It's never too late to do what's right."  The official added, "And that's what is intended by the review that the secretary directed, which is to ensure that we go back and review each of these medals in a rigorous and individualized manner to understand the actions of the individual in the context of the overall engagement."

A Monumental Failure.  Not only are Woke convictions deciding which statues stay intact, they are now dictating which statues can be put up.

Erasing history?  Park Service to remove William Penn statue in Philadelphia, in inclusivity push.  The National Parks Service says it is rehabilitating Philadelphia's Welcome Park to ensure it is "more welcoming, accurate, and inclusive" for visitors, and part of that plan includes removing a statue of the city's founder, William Penn.  In addition to removing the statue, the National Parks Service said in an announcement last week that it will also remove the model of Penn's home known as the Slate Roof House, which was built at the current location of Welcome Park, which was named for the ship Welcome which Penn took to America in 1682.  The proposed plan for the park was developed with input from representatives of five Native American tribes and will include an "expanded interpretation of the Native American history of Philadelphia," the parks agency said.  Penn, a Quaker, was known for advocating for championing religious freedom and supporting amicable relations with local Native Americans.

PETA Pressures Jill Biden to Switch Eggs for Potatoes at Annual White House Easter Egg Roll.  People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is pressuring Jill Biden to forego eggs this Easter but instead use potatoes for the White House's annual Easter Egg Roll event.  In a statement, PETA wrote, "Ahead of the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, PETA sent a letter to Dr. Jill Biden today asking the first lady to modernize the celebration by replacing eggs with dyed Easter potatoes."  "Children love animals and would be sad to learn that the eggs used for fun and games at the White House come from tormented hens whose lives are spent in cages that afford them less space than a standard sheet of typing paper," added PETA.  The White House has yet to respond to PETA's request.

PETA Demands White House Officials Switch 'Eggs For Potatoes' At Annual Easter Egg Event.  People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is urging the White House to swap chicken eggs for potatoes at their annual Easter Egg Roll this year.  The controversial organization wrote in a letter to First Lady Jill Biden that it wants to "suggest an appealing way to modernize the White House Easter Egg Roll," which is set for April 1st on the South Lawn.

The Editor says...
The PETA people apparently don't know Easter Eggs are candy, or plastic capsules full of candy, not chicken eggs.  Since they apparently don't know this, I am encouraged, because it means the PETA people don't have children!

The U.S. is going off the rails.  In nearby New York City, a mayoral commission voted to remove a statue of Thomas Jefferson from City Hall, where it's resided for almost two hundred years ... because he owned slaves.  Yet, a Christian Navy veteran has now been charged with a hate crime (a felony) for vandalizing a Satanic statue in the Iowa Capitol last year.  The man toppled a statue of the horned demon Baphomet that had been set up by the Satanic Temple of Iowa after it received the go ahead from state officials to do so.  So, according to our government, it's necessary to remove a statue of Thomas Jefferson, author of The Declaration of Independence, but a crime to remove one of Satan.

Democratic Congressman Tells GOP to Pass a Bill Removing the Statue of Liberty.  I predict that freshman Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) will have a long, illustrious career in politics.  He certainly has a flair for the dramatic and is very big on "gestures."  This is a prerequisite to be a Democrat in Washington.  After all, how else can you show that you really, really, really care about an issue without making some absolutely ludicrously, useless melodramatic gesture?  Mr. Fox shows promise in this regard.  He's demanding that Republicans introduce a bill to take down the Statue of Liberty. [...] As usual, Democrats have conflated legal with illegal immigration, lumping them together as if there's no difference.  It's OK because the media does the exact same thing.

Florida Dem rep proposes tearing down Statue of Liberty to protest 'bigoted' GOP border policy.  On Wednesday, freshman Democrat Rep. Max Frost announced that in an act of protest against Republicans' desire to secure the border, he had drafted a bill that would remove the Statue of Liberty from New York City.  Frost, who represents Florida's 10th District, referred to the statue as simply a "symbol that tells people to come here," failing to mention that the iconic monument sat next to Ellis Island, which for decades was the country's largest legal immigration hub.  [Tweet]  "My colleagues on the other side of the aisle, let's be honest with immigrants that deserve better than what you're offering them," he began.  "Don't welcome immigrants if you plan to reject them."

The Editor says...
Legal immigrants are welcome, if they intend to make an honest living, assimilate into our society, renounce their countries of origin, obey our laws, and apply for naturalization.  Illegal immigrants are rightly presumed to be troublemakers who will likely become a public charge.

Democrats' Statue Toppling Is A Dress Rehearsal For Going After Actual People.  The news that the Biden administration planned to remove a statue of William Penn in a federal park in Philadelphia that commemorates the founding of Pennsylvania, and that the purpose of the removal was to "provide a more welcoming, accurate, and inclusive experience for visitors," should at this point not come as a surprise.  Once the removals and destruction of Confederate statues and memorials began a few years ago, it was inevitable that all historical figures from America's past, even those with no connection to the Confederacy, would be subject to removal or destruction or erasure.  Why?  Because the removal of statues and memorials by radical Democrats has never been about the past, it's always been about the raw exercise of political power and the assertion of tyranny over a free people in the here and now.  This has been true of commie revolutionaries for a long time now.  Simply put, what they do to statues is what they plan to do to their political enemies.  It starts with statues and books, and eventually ends with people.

National Park Service Retracts Plan to Remove William Penn Statue from Philadelphia Park.  The National Park Service on Monday retracted its plan to remove the William Penn statue as part of rehabilitating Welcome Park in Philadelphia, Pa., three days after it was announced that the landmark sculpture "would be removed and not reinstalled."  "Independence National Historical Park has withdrawn the review of a draft proposal to rehabilitate Welcome Park and closed the public comment period," the park service said in a news release.  "The preliminary draft proposal, which was released prematurely and had not been subject to a complete internal agency review, is being retracted.  No changes to the William Penn statue are planned."  In addition to the Penn statue, the Slate Roof house model, the site of Penn's former home, will also stay in place.

Feds Fold Like a Cheap Suit, William Penn Statue Will Not Be Removed.  Illustrating what a rolling disaster the Biden administration is, the executive-branch-controlled National Park Service decided it'd be a great idea to remove the William Penn statue that stands on the grounds of the founder of Pennsylvania's historic home.  Why?  Because "equity and inclusion," of course.  You see, "Welcome Park," the site of Penn's historic home, didn't give enough representation to Native Americans, and the federal government decided the best course of action would be to remove his statue completely and turn the place into a woke shrine.

Tearing Down Hatred Where Hatred Doesn't Exist.  It's laughable that leftists believe that the "woke" culture is enlightened and inclusive.  Everything they do eliminates and excludes.  Take, for instance, their incessant, nonsensical removal of anything that even slightly offends their shallow, hyper-sensitive sensibilities.  They seem especially troubled with the past and traditions, discarding the idea that our nation, though not perfect, has evolved and instead embracing the belief that everything about it was, is, and will forever be inherently bad.  That is, unless we accept and follow their new world order, which will cleanse us of our ignorance.  In reality, leftists' beliefs will cleanse us of nothing.  In fact, they will deepen existing wounds, reopen ones that have healed, and create new deep ones that will take decades to heal.

Whose idea was this, and what do they hope to accomplish?
[Observe] What They Are Doing in Philadelphia.  I thought of [John] Fetterman and his return to common sense when I read this tidbit:  the National Park Service has announced that it will be "rehabilitating" Welcome Park, one of the most historic sites in America.  And in doing so it will remove all vestiges of Pennsylvania's founder William Penn.  [Tweet]  Located a couple of blocks from Independence Hall, the site of Joe Biden's Leni Riefenstahl speech, Welcome Park is managed by the National Park Service as part of the Independence National Historic Park.  Named after the ship William Penn came to the continent on, it is located at the site of Penn's home.  The park exists to celebrate Penn's life and his many accomplishments.  That is the whole point of the park.  Not only did Penn become the founder of the state that bears his name, but he did so as a strong advocate for religious freedom and as a friend to the local Native Americans.

Biden admin to cancel William Penn, remove statue from Philadelphia park.  William Penn may have founded the state of Pennsylvania but the iconic historic figure could soon find himself canceled by the leftist cultural revolution that has wormed its way into the highest corridors of government.  In a move that would be expected from totalitarian religious zealots like ISIS or the Taliban, President Joe Biden's National Park Service plans to remove Penn's statue from Philadelphia's Welcome Park, a site that has become very unwelcoming to white "colonizers" like Penn under radical Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.  The agency will be seeking input on the "rehabilitation" of Welcome Park, another of the authoritarian left's Orwellian terms that mask its extremism, in this case, the ongoing cultural cleansing of the nation's identity.

Another Confederate Statue Bites the Dust, and No One Should Be Applauding.  In Jacksonville, Florida's Springfield Park, a statue called "Tribute to the Women of the Confederacy" has stood for 108 years.  But no more: on Wednesday morning, the statue was uprooted and carted away on the order of Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan, who justified her action by proclaiming that "symbols matter." Yes, they do.  And that's why she should have left the statue where it was. [...] No one seems to have time to ponder the fact that, while the statue has been in place since 1915, it didn't become so objectionable as to have to be removed forthwith until the summer of 2020, when — in the midst of the George Floyd riots — it suddenly became of the utmost importance to remove Confederate memorials everywhere.  Overnight, it turned out that old statues that were part of landscape of many a city and town, and to which few paid any specific attention, had become an immediate cause of the white supremacism that was supposedly convulsing the nation.

Jacksonville's Democrat mayor celebrates removing women's history statue.  Wednesday's "celebration" in Jacksonville, Florida, where recently elected Mayor Donna Deegan unilaterally tore down two bronze post-Civil War statues that leftists had deemed racist, was Orwellian politics at its worst.  The statues were collectively named "Tribute to the Women of Southern Confederacy and included a robed woman carrying a Confederate flag and a woman reading to two children, which had stood for more than a century in the now renamed "Confederate Park.  This tribute was to the women of the Southland who courageously took the places of their husbands, brothers, and sons who left to fight in the Civil War and often were killed, for taking on their jobs and the care of their families by themselves.

Democrat Jacksonville Mayor Celebrates Removal of Confederate Statue.  The newly elected Democrat mayor of Jacksonville, Florida, celebrated the removal of a Confederate statue in the city, which was officially gone before noon Wednesday.  Democrat Mayor Donna Deegan, who won her mayoral bid in May, celebrated the removal of the statue in Springfield Park, formally known as Confederate Park.  The monument in question, "In Memory of Our Women of the Southland," depicts a mother with her two children at her side, looking down at a book upon her lap.  It was erected in October 1915.

A judge issues an 11th-hour order saving an Arlington memorial.  In 2020, following George Floyd's drug-induced death and the resulting riots, Congress passed a law requiring that the Pentagon remove all Confederate names, monuments, and symbols from military bases.  The Pentagon has carried out this mandate with enthusiasm.  Most recently, Biden's Pentagon announced that it was planning to remove a monument honoring the Confederacy from Arlington, a move that threatens the eternal peace promised for those resting there.  For the time being, at least, a judge has stopped the effort to do so.

Biden Removing Monument that Celebrates National Reconciliation.  The Civil War was, by far, the most deadly war in our history, with over half a million American deaths.  At the turn of the 20th century, Congress agreed to intern Confederate soldiers at Arlington and allowed the erection of a monument that became known as the "Reconciliation" monument — a celebration of the country coming back together.  After the George Floyd riots, the federal government decided to take down monuments with a connection to the Confederacy and to eliminate anything that could be interpreted as celebrating, justifying, or acknowledging the Confederacy as anything other than evil.  As part of this effort the "Reconciliation Monument" was put on the chopping bloc.  [Tweet]  Well, the time has come, and over the objection of many the monument is finally coming down.  Glenn Youngkin and about 40 Republican congressmen have dared to stand up and defend the monument, but most lawmakers have spinelessly remained silent.

Last Civil War Battle Ends:  Army Tears Down Arlington's Confederate Memorial Today.  A Georgia Republican congressman blasted the Army, which begins the teardown of Arlington National Cemetery's Confederate Memorial, also known as the Reconciliation Monument, dedicated in 1914 by President T. Woodrow Wilson, and marking the final resting place for more than 400 Confederate veterans and their wives.  "Joe Biden's woke DOD intends to move forward with its misguided plan to remove the Reconciliation Monument — which commemorates national unity — from Arlington National Cemetery," said Rep. Andrew Clyde in his X-post.  "The Left wants division and destruction — not unity and reconciliation," the Navy combat veteran said.  [Tweet]

Biden Admin To Desecrate Graves In Removal Of Civil War Memorial From Arlington National Cemetery.  The Democrats' march to Year Zero continues apace with the Biden regime's proposed removal of a Civil War Memorial that marks the grave of the memorial's Jewish sculptor who is buried at its base.  The memorial's removal would also necessarily desecrate the graves of numerous Confederate soldiers buried nearby.  The memorial is intended to celebrate the post-war reconciliation of the North and South, a celebration of unity that apparently rankles Democrats and their rabid desire for division and destruction.

Why Radicals Want to Sully Thanksgiving.  A group called Truthsgiving recently hosted a night of "truth-telling, music, and laughter celebrating indigenous culture and history."  Not that this is new, of course — claims that Thanksgiving, "glorifies colonialism, slavery, and even epidemics" have been made before.  It's tempting to simply dismiss such absurd charges.  They solicit eyerolls and an annoyed feeling that anything can be cause for offense.  Yet sometimes such movements are more insidious than we realize.  If you ask many people what Thanksgiving is about, they will provide an honest and accurate response:  family and gratitude.  And here we see why some radicals want to sully a unifying and wholesome holiday like Thanksgiving.  Doing so taints a family occasion and promotes ingratitude, which helps undermine the American character.  So it's easy to see why they're targeting a holiday centered around the family.

It's really quite easy to rewrite history.  But you still won't be able to change what has actually happened in the past.  For starters, the Civil War really happened, no matter how many statues get torn down or places renamed.  Fort Liberty in North Carolina was, until recently, named Fort Bragg — after Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general.  Fort Bragg, a town in Mendocino County, California, is also named after Braxton Bragg.  He was there first, but then he was an officer in the U.S. Army.  He then became one out of the approximately 27% of the U.S. Army officers who defected to the Confederacy at the outbreak of the war.  What the U.S. is today has a lot to do with the reality of the Civil War.  Among other things, it remains the costliest war, in terms of casualties, in U.S. history — obviously because only Americans fought in it.

Anne Frank's Name to Be Removed From Day Care Center in Latest Woke Attempt to Erase History.  News surfaced over the weekend that a daycare center in Germany would be removing Anne Frank's name at the behest of "parents with migrant backgrounds."  Frank is, of course, one of the most well-known victims of the Holocaust, and her diary is considered to be an important documentation of the plight of European Jews during World War II.  The "Anne Frank" daycare center in Tangerhütte, Germany, which has reportedly been in operation for decades, will be getting the name change because, according to the daycare center's director, "parents with migrant backgrounds feel uncertain about the name and find it challenging to explain to their children."  [Tweet]

Melting down our history, one statue at a time.  In their ongoing efforts to "transform" America, progressive activists have work to obliterate our history and traditional American culture.  They are succeeding in many ways:  One is the elimination of Civil War monuments in Southern states.  The removal of Confederate statues is now standard operating procedure.  The statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia is a case in point.  Once the center of protests and counterprotests that turned deadly, the statue is no more.  It has been quietly melted down into ingots at a foundry, the location of which was not disclosed.

Charlottesville statue of Robert E. Lee [was] secretly melted down 6 years after deadly rally.  The statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that was at the center of the deadly 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., was secretly melted down last week to be remade into a more inclusive artwork.  The bronze equestrian statue of Lee, which featured prominently in the 2017 Unite the Right rally, was incinerated in a 2,250-degree furnace Saturday, according to the Washington Post.  It was cut into nine pieces, weighed about 6,000 pounds and required a forklift to move.  It was melted down and then molded into a brick-like casting.  The controversial statue had been removed from its spot in 2021 and placed in a bus depot until it was handed over to the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, which had to move the artwork to various locations over safety concerns.

The Editor says...
How was the world improved by melting down this statue?

Robert E. Lee monument in Charlottesville, Virginia, melted down to make new statue.  The massive bronze sculpture of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia, has been melted down and will be transformed into a new piece of public art.  The statue was at the center of a 2017 controversy in which local governments in Virginia wanted to remove Confederate monuments including Lee's.  In August 2017, a white supremacist rally in connection to the proposed removal resulted in the three people dying and multiple injuries.  The Lee statue was removed in July of 2021.  "We want to transform something that has been toxic in the Charlottesville community," University of Virginia religious studies professor Jalane Schmidt told NPR.  "We want to transform it into a piece of art that the community can be proud of, and gather around and not feel excluded or intimidated."

The Editor says...
If you are intimidated by a statue of Robert E. Lee, or anybody else, you are a snowflake.  Grow up.

Monument to reconciliation to be removed from Arlington Cemetery?  Apparently, as a result of a decision by the now disbanded "Congressional Naming Commission," the Moses Ezekiel Reconciliation Monument will be removed from Arlington Cemetery.  The now defunct panel's Final Report, issued on September 19, 2022, includes the following information specific to the statue: "The Department of Army should consider the most cost-effective method of removal and disposal of the monument's elements in their planning."  This can only make sense to people who are ignorant of American history, or who detest it.

Statue of Revolutionary War Gen. Philip Schuyler Removed from Albany City Hall.  A statue of General Philip Schuyler, who served during the Revolutionary War, has been removed from Albany City Hall in New York.  The statue has stood in front of the Albany City Hall for nearly a century and has been the subject of controversy in recent years due to Schuyler's ownership of slaves.  In 2020, Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan (D) signed an executive order to have the statue removed amid pressure from various groups and activists.

Fort Bragg is renamed Fort Liberty in U.S. Army's most prominent move to erase Confederate names from bases.  Fort Bragg, one of the largest military installations in the world, was renamed as Fort Liberty on Friday, dropping its Confederate namesake once and for all.  It is the largest Army base by population to be renamed so far with around 29,000 people serving on the North Carolina base.  A ceremony took place in which some veterans said agreed was a small but important step in making the U.S. Army more welcoming to current and prospective black service members.

673 university professors sign letter opposing courses on America's founding, Constitution.  Hundreds of professors at the University of North Carolina signed a public letter Tuesday opposing legislation that would require university students to take courses on America's government and founding documents.  The 673 UNC Chapel Hill professors revealed the public letter Tuesday, arguing the new courses and another bill in the North Carolina House of Representatives would constitute an infringement on the university's "academic freedom."  The first piece of legislation, House Bill 96, would require students to take a 3 credit-hour course covering America's founding and history.  Required reading for the course would include the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, at least five essays from the Federalist Papers, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail and the Gettysburg Address.

Corporate America is canceling Mother's Day.  Did you know that Mother's Day is controversial?  I didn't.  Pretty sure nobody did.  After all, everybody has a mother.  Corporate America, though, has for some reason decided that Mother's Day is a "sensitive" time, a "challenging" time, or a "difficult" time, so they are inviting customers to opt out of emails related to the triggering day.

"Woke" Corporations are Attempting to Erase Mother's Day (and Mothers).  As the war on women continues, a trove of corporations are attempting to not so subtly chip away at the soul of humanity, and they have now set their sights on Mother's Day.  Although not a "new" trend, this year the list of companies has grown — significantly.  Twitter user AZInformer has put together a thread of emails (that is growing by the minute) of corporations who have decided to email their patrons and inquire about whether they want to "opt out" of any communications having to do with Mother's Day, lest they be "triggered" or emotionally affected by them.  [Tweet]

How is anything improved by misquoting Lincoln?
Biden's VA Axes Lincoln Quote in 50 Percent of Facilities, Replaces with PC Version.  The Department of Veterans Affairs is changing its mission statement.  The new motto, announced in a Thursday news release, includes a gender-neutral change from the previous mission statement.  The old motto referenced both male and female veterans and featured a direct quote from President Abraham Lincoln:  "To fulfill President Lincoln's promise 'to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan' by serving and honoring the men and women who are America's veterans."  The new mission statement reads as follows:  "To fulfill President Lincoln's promise to care for those who have served in our nation's military and for their families, caregivers, and survivors."  The quote included in the original mission statement — and merely referenced in the new one — is from Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address in 1865, pledging to care for those who served the nation in the Civil War.

Taking Back America.  As I travel, I constantly see tattered American flags blowing in the wind.  They are a metaphor for the state of the Union.  It is emblematic of how our country is being hollowed out.  We have a Manchurian leader who is gutting us of our rights.  The latest assault is Biden's determination to put us under the domination of the World Health Organization, who will determine our health care. [...] In fact, the goal of Marxists is the total annihilation of freedom.  No matter how many times the communist dream is proven to result in nothing but misery, it seems to get resurrected.  And historical ignorance is the means by which the next generation gets sucked in.  Consequently, a statue of Teddy Roosevelt that used to invite visitors into the Museum of Natural History is taken down.  On the other hand, a statue of career criminal George Floyd is erected despite the fact that Floyd committed three armed robberies, three violent home invasions, six burglaries, three car thefts, beat four victims senseless and held a gun to a very pregnant belly of his robbery victim.

Leftists Want a New Civil War.  Make no mistake; the objective of these leftist vandals is to further divide us so that their "fundamental transformation" of America, with its defunding of police, sexual grooming of children, demonization of parents, cancelation, and social credit systems, may flourish.  Their ultimate goal is to so tarnish our Founding Fathers that the nation they bequeathed us, our Constitution, its Bill of Rights, and our Declaration of Independence all become the fruit of the poisonous tree.  Then it's either a new civil war or one-party globalist rule, rigged elections, and citizen serfdom.

US renames 5 places that used racist slur for a Native woman.  The U.S. Department of the Interior announced Thursday that it has given new names to five places that previously included a racist term for a Native American woman.  The renamed sites are in California, North Dakota, Tennessee and Texas, completing a yearlong process to remove the historically offensive word "squaw" from geographic names across the country.

The Editor says...
Racism is in the eye of the beholder, in my opinion.  The term in question is not racially offensive to anyone except those who are easily offended and others who enjoy offending them.  It is highly unlikely that several places around the midwest were named with the intent of being racially offensive, and nobody thought so until very recently, when victim status became popular.  How is it that after all these years, suddenly the names are offensive?

Pentagon begins 'full implementation' of renaming Confederate-named bases.  The Department of Defense has begun implementing the name commission's recommendation to rid the department of its names tied to the Confederacy.  Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante directed all DOD organizations to begin "full implementation" of the recommendations on Thursday, Pentagon spokesman Brig.  Gen. Patrick Ryder announced.  The direction followed the completion of a congressionally mandated 90-day waiting period.

West Point Begins Its Erasure of Robert E. Lee.  Over the summer, Washington's Naming Commission — comprised of four civilians and as many retired military vets — came to final conclusions regarding seven different Department of Defense "assets."  In its report, the group recommended a renaming of sites honoring Confederate General Robert E. Lee, along with Generals P.G.T. Beauregard and William Hardee.  And over the holidays, the United States Military Academy at West Point began the process of purging Lee from its hallowed halls.

History wins! Pennsylvania court orders city to remove box covering Christopher Columbus statue.  Lovers of history just won big in Pennsylvania, where a court ruled on Friday that a Christopher Columbus statue in Philadelphia's Marconi Plaza that's been covered up ever since the violet Black Lives Matter riots of 2020 must now be uncovered.  During the violent riots two years ago, a plywood box was placed around the statue, and then the city's Historical Commission voted to remove the statue altogether, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.  However, rather than take it on the chin, a local Italian American group known as the Friends of Marconi Plaza began fighting back in the courts.

Understanding Monuments and Their Meanings.  The memorials of the late 19th and early 20th century which commemorated the losses in the Civil War were created as community memorials to the community's loss.  Monuments are composed of multiple elements that vary depending on the date of the monument, who raised the monument funds, and the monument's design.  The messages in artwork and text were for the public audience at the time.  The messages are to be timeless in their meaning and unchanging.  Unfortunately, the 21st century "woke" viewer often falls into the fallacy of presentism.

Two statues of Lincoln in Chicago have now been defaced in relation to Lincolns role in the Sioux uprisings.  A statue of young Abraham Lincoln has been defaced with red paint and words referencing troubles with Native American tribes.  The statue has stood in Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood since the city donated it to Senn Park in 1997.  And over Thanksgiving weekend residents around the park found the statue covered in splashes of red paint along with the words "COLONIZER" and "LAND BACK."  The vandals also may have written "Dakota 38" in possible reference to 38 Dakota Sioux members executed on Lincoln's order following the U.S.-Dakota war in 1862, the Chicago Tribune reported.  The statue was one of many in the city examined as part of a commission set up after protests in 2020 that targeted statues of figures with controversial histories.  Debate over former American presidents has proven especially contentious.

The students are there to learn, not to run the place.
Cornell University Removes Lincoln bust and Gettysburg Address from Display After Student Complaint.  Cornell University recently admitted to removing both a bust of President Abraham Lincoln and a plaque of the Gettysburg Address from its library after a student anonymously complained about the display, presumably due to so-called "racism."  Fox News reports that biology professor Randy Wayne gave a very brief statement on the matter, simply saying "someone complained, and it was gone."  Wayne said that he first noticed the missing display several weeks earlier and asked the librarians what had happened, to which he was told that the school had received some kind of complaint; the librarians refused to provide any specific details on the nature of the complaint.  The bust and plaque had been on display in the university's Kroch Library, home to the university's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections.  The Lincoln display had been there since 2013.

Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln bust removed from Cornell library after 'complaint'.  A bust of President Abraham Lincoln and a plaque of the Gettysburg Address have been removed from a Cornell University library.  "Someone complained, and it was gone," Cornell biology professor Randy Wayne told the College Fix of the matter.  The bust of Lincoln and the bronzed plaque of the president's historic 1863 address had been in the Kroch Library, where the university's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections is located, since 2013.  Wayne said he noticed the display was missing a few weeks ago and asked librarians what happened.  He was told the display was removed after some type of complaint, but was not provided further details, according to the College Fix.

The Editor says...
If somebody complains about a statue of Martin Luther King or Malcolm X, that statue is in no danger.

Jacksonville, Florida, votes against removing Confederate statues.  A Florida city council voted against removing two Confederate statues — which would have cost taxpayers $500,000 — after a heated public hearing Tuesday night.  Jacksonville City Councilman Matt Carlucci proposed a bill that would have taken down two monuments — a Daughters of the Confederacy memorial and the remnants of another Confederate soldier monument — arguing that they are a civic blight rooted in racism.  But the board ultimately voted against the measure 13-6 following a passionate public debate.  Opponents argued that the monuments represent Jacksonville's history and should remain in place.

Yellowstone peak renamed for being offensive, park service announces.  The National Park Service announced last week that Yellowstone National Park's Mount Doane would be renamed First Peoples Mountain.  The agency said Thursday the change was taken to remove an "offensive name" from America's first national park.  The US Board on Geographic Names voted unanimously, 15-0, affirming the decision.  The Wyoming mountain stands at 10,551 feet east of Yellowstone Lake.

NYC Academics and Activists Want Theodore Roosevelt Statue Melted Down.  We have followed this story closely.  The statue is supposed to be moved to a Theodore Roosevelt library in North Dakota.  Now the left wants it destroyed completely.

No more 'gypsy moth', insect has new name.  In an attempt to stop using a name that some deemed derogatory, the 'gypsy moth' is no more and officials have determined a new name for the insect.  The Entomological Society of America (ESA) announced that the new name has been selected for the moth species Lymantria dispar.  It was voted unanimously to approve the addition of 'spongy moth' to ESA's common names of insects and related organisms list.

Proposal to scrub 'derogatory term' targets hundreds of U.S. sites.  Federal officials have come up with a list of potential replacement names for hundreds of geographic features in three dozen states that include the word "squaw," kicking off a public comment period that will run through late April.  U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in November formally declared the term derogatory and initiated a process to remove the word from use by the federal government and to replace other existing derogatory place names.

Theodore Roosevelt statue removed from American Museum of Natural History.  A statue of Theodore Roosevelt that has stood in front of the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan for more than 80 years was hauled away Wednesday [1/19/2022], photos show.  The bronze monument depicting the nation's 26th president on a horse flanked by an African man and a Native American man — which has sparked protests for glorifying colonialism and racism — was yanked out with a crane just after midnight, leaving behind only its concrete pedestal.

New Jersey to remove President Woodrow Wilson's name from high school; School may now be named after Obama.  A New Jersey high school will remove President Woodrow Wilson from its name over complaints it perpetuates racism.  The Camden School District voted on the decision 18 months ago, but due to COVID-19 priorities, the process to pick a new name had been postponed until now.  High contenders to have the school named after them include former President Barack Obama, late civil rights activist and Representative John Lewis, and a superintendent who recently passed away.

It's Jefferson's Fault.  The removal of a statue of Thomas Jefferson from New York City Hall on November 22nd raises troubling questions.  That the statue had been there unmolested since 1833 reconfirms that ours is a harsh era of savage reassessments without the tempering influence of context.  Whose fault is it that Thomas Jefferson's statue is, for many Americans, no longer acceptable for public display?  Rejection of American heroes of the past is an essential element of Democrat revolutionary ideology.  One can only observe in astonishment as slaveholding Founding Fathers like Jefferson are strongly rejected on "moral grounds" by the very same Democrats who shout their approval of and support for abortion. [...] The Democrat party was founded by Thomas Jefferson in the late 18th century as the Democratic-Republican party as a foil to the Federalists.  Fundamentally, this new party was meant to ensure the rights of the states versus the federal government.

New York City Cancels Theodore Roosevelt [and] Is Sending His Statue To North Dakota.  New York City recently removed a statue of Thomas Jefferson from their city hall.  Now a statue of Theodore Roosevelt is on the chopping block.  The statue, which stands outside the Museum of Natural History, is going to be sent off to North Dakota.  Leftists are actively erasing American history from public view.

Thomas Jefferson statue removed from City Hall after 187 years.  Thomas Jefferson is no longer in the room where it happens.  Art handlers packed up an 884-pound statue of Jefferson in a wooden crate Monday after a mayoral commission voted to banish the likeness of the nation's third president from City Hall where its resided for nearly two centuries — because he owned slaves.  About a dozen workers with Marshall Fine Arts spent several hours carefully removing the painted plaster monument from its pedestal inside the City Council chambers and surrounding it with sections of foam and wooden boards.  They then lowered the massive structure down the stairs leading to the building's first-floor rotunda with a pulley system and ushered the Founding Father out the back door.

The Editor says...
Are Jefferson's slaves better off now?

Virginia counties vote overwhelmingly to keep Confederate monuments.  Middle Peninsula voters overwhelmingly want to keep their Confederate monuments, according to results of advisory referendums in Mathews and Middlesex counties.  Mathews voters rejected a proposal to relocate the county's Soldier's & Sailor's Monument on its court green at the corner of Court and Church streets by 3,778, or 80% of ballots cast, to 939, or 20%.  In Middlesex, the vote against moving its Civil War Monument from the courthouse grounds in Saluda was 3,229, or 75% of ballots cast, to 1,076.  A CNN statewide exit poll of voters asked about who they backed in the lieutenant governor's race found stark partisan differences on the issue:  85% of those who said they supported the successful GOP candidate, Winsome Sears, said Confederate memorials should remain in place while 88% of those backing Democrat Hala Ayala said they ought to be removed.

The Empire of Lies Breaks Down:  Ugly Truths the Deep State Wants to Keep Hidden.  America is breaking down.  This breakdown — triggered by polarizing circus politics, media-fed mass hysteria, racism, classism, fascism, fear-mongering, political correctness, cultural sanitation, virtue signaling, a sense of hopelessness and powerlessness in the face of growing government corruption and brutality, a growing economic divide that has much of the population struggling to get by, and militarization and militainment (the selling of war and violence as entertainment) — is manifesting itself in madness, mayhem and an utter disregard for the very principles and liberties that have kept us out of the clutches of totalitarianism for so long.  In New York City, for example, a 200-year-old statue of Thomas Jefferson holding the Declaration of Independence will be removed from the City Council's chambers where it has presided since 1915.  Despite Jefferson's many significant accomplishments, without which we might not have the rights we do today, he will be banished for having been, like many of his day, a slaveowner.  Curiously, that same brutal expectation of infallibility has yet to be applied to many other politically correct yet equally imperfect and fallible role models of the day.

So now it's Thomas Jefferson's turn.  New York City has reverted to a pre-Giuliani-era "Shattered" urban hellhole, with crime, homelessness, rats, and garbage completely out of control.  What is New York's City Hall concerned about?  But of course:  Removing a statue of Thomas Jefferson, given that as an 18th century grandee of his time in Virginia, he owned slaves by inheritance. [...] The little detail about Jefferson also being the author of the Declaration of Independence and a father of the Bill of Rights, not to mention, an early public voice against slavery back when it was considered risky and radical, are rather unimportant to them.

NBA coach compares Christopher Columbus to Hitler.  The coach of the San Antonio Spurs, Gregg Popovich, actually compared Christopher Columbus to Hitler today in a manner of speaking as he was trashing schools in San Antonio for not getting rid of the holiday altogether:  As Popovich expressed dismay that any school in his city would honor Christopher Columbus at all, he also dismissed his anti-Columbus hate as an attack on Italian Americans:  "It's no knock on Italian Americans.  That's a silly argument.  It's like saying, 'We should be proud of Hitler because we are German.'  It makes no sense.  It's about Columbus.  It's not about Italian Americans."  Popovich calls Columbus a genocidal monster, when that's the furthest thing from the truth.

Why The Left Tells Lies About Christopher Columbus.  For over a decade, Columbus has been painted as a mass murderer, committing all sorts of crimes in the New World, including genocide.  So far, though, he has not — at least, not yet — been accused of not providing transgender bathrooms in his ships.  Those accusations are complete fabrications, unsupported by even one shred of historical evidence.  Let me repeat that because it is very important:  there is no historical basis, no contemporary documents, nothing, that indicates that he engaged in all of the "crimes" that present-day activists have promulgated.

Columbus Day Matters.  Columbus Day matters because the initial landing at Hispaniola, and the subsequent Columbian Exchange, marked one of the most pivotal moments in human history.  This cannot be overstated.  The consequences of Columbus sailing across the ocean blue paved the way for a modern world.  It's also why we rightfully set aside a day to remember it.  Now, the fact that we acknowledge this moment in history is not to spit upon the graves of the conquered.  The fact that we acknowledge it is because it is worth acknowledging the evolution of mankind.  For the first time, the world was united like never before.  And it would never look back.  Moreover, coming out of the European arrival was the eventual formation of the United States of America, a country in current decline but nonetheless one that has served as a model nation in terms of advancing unprecedented human rights, securing freedom around the world, and despite claims of its pervasive racial animus, still the single-most desirable country for non-white immigrants the world over to reach.  The modern world is a direct result of America's prominence on the global stage.

Arizona Attorney General Condemns Biden Administration's Warning Label On Constitution, Declaration.  Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich condemned the National Archives Records Association's (NARA) decision to label documents with a "harmful language" alert.  Brnovich demanded that NARA immediately remove the warning labels from documents including the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, in a Sept. 10 letter to the agency first obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.  The warning labels only serve to further divide Americans, the attorney general said.  "This is shameful action from the National Archives, and the misguided 'alerts' should be taken down immediately," Brnovich wrote to U.S. Archivist David Ferriero.  "There is nothing 'harmful' about our founding documents.  These inspired writings governed the formation of our new country in the late 18th Century and provided the roadmap for it to grow into the greatest nation in history."

Matt Mowers Attacks Democrats for Attempting to Cancel New Hampshire Motto 'Live Free or Die'.  Former congressional candidate Matt Mowers on Friday attacked New Hampshire Democrats for attempting to cancel the state's motto, "Live Free or Die."  "Following @ChrisPappasNH's lead, the Liberals are once again trying to cancel Live Free or Die.  Live Free or Die isn't just a slogan on a license plate — it's our way of life in the Granite State.  We won't let them cancel New Hampshire," Mowers wrote about Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH) and the Democrat Party.

Public Nuisances.  The Woke Folk are not finished.  As I said last week, they are tearing down statues of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Frederick Douglass.  It is only a matter of time before they expand their attacks on other historic irritants that have gotten under their skin, say, Santa Claus or perhaps Uncle Sam — he should have been gone long ago.  But now according to the Good Times — also known as the Washington Times — the Woke Folk want to change the names of "1,000 rivers, mountains and other places because they consider the names to be racist."  That is the way the Times reported the story last Wednesday. [...] Have you looked at a map recently?  There are indeed thousands of names that will need to be changed — perhaps millions.

Classical Music's Suicide Pact.  Classical music is under racial attack.  Orchestras and opera companies are said to discriminate against black musicians and composers.  The canonical repertoire — the product of a centuries-long tradition of musical expression — is allegedly a function of white supremacy.  Not one leader in the field has defended Western art music against these charges.  Their silence is emblematic.  Other supposed guardians of Western civilization, whether museum directors, humanities professors, or scientists, have gone AWOL in the face of similar claims, lest they themselves be denounced as racist.  The campaign against classical music is worth examining in some detail, for it reveals the logic that has been turned against nearly every aspect of Western culture over the last year.

Confederate bust moved from Tennessee Capitol building.  The bust of a Confederate general and early Ku Klux Klan leader that had been prominently displayed inside the Tennessee Capitol for decades — over objections from Black lawmakers and activists — was removed from its pedestal Friday.  The image of Nathan Bedford Forrest has sparked protests ever since its installation in 1978 as defenders sought to tout his legacy while critics objected to honoring a historical figure who supported the South's secession.  Over the years, some suggested adding historical context next to the bust.  Yet many others, including Republican Gov. Bill Lee, successfully argued for moving it to the Tennessee State Museum, just north of the Capitol.

The Editor says...
The fact that that Forrest was a Democrat didn't make it into ABC's report.

Nathan Bedford Forrest:  A gift from Democrats.  Even though Confederate officers would eventually be back running state governments, the South was in turmoil and things were really unsettled in 1867. It was at such a time that Nathan Bedford Forrest stepped up.  He led the paramilitary wing of the Democratic party that had to resort to some unpleasant vigilante actions to restore the natural order of things.  The paramilitary group, known as the Ku Klux Klan, went underground at various times, but for the next 100 years they are always around to protect Democratic majorities and prevent black people from committing voter fraud by avoiding poll taxes, being unable to recite whole sections of the U.S. Constitution or other simple requirements to register to vote.  Anyone who helped organize and lead an organization of Democrats that was able to keep the political party in power in most Southern states for 100 years is deserving of mention.  Forrest paved the way for future Democratic icons.  A few notable examples include George Wallace, Bull Conner, Lester Maddox and Orval Faubus.  That's why in 1978, after a beloved and revered Nashville Democratic state senator named Douglas Henry passed legislation and commissioned a bust of Forrest, it was installed in the state capitol.  For the next three decades the Democrats controlled the legislature and only did so with the support and votes of the Black Caucus.  Yet the bust of Forrest remained sacrosanct.  I guess, unlike those Democratic legislators, the people who want to remove the bust of Forrest just have no sense of history.

Stop Pretending 'Moderate' Democrats Are Heroes.  As Brooklyn's current borough president, [Eric] Adams has been a multiculturalist and then some. [...] His latest shtick, which the New York Post dutifully reported after having gone into transports over Adams' candidacy last month, is a plan for renaming streets, buildings, and public parks that now bear the names of long-dead slaveholders.  Perhaps first on the chopping block will be Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch governor of New Amsterdam, who at one time may have owned as many as 11 slaves.  This project may lead to lots of renaming, since lots of places in New York City are named for that eponymous 17th-century governor, including the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in which Adams once lived.  Another villain whose name may be removed from public view is our first president, who seems to have owned slaves from his youth on.  This may require the municipal government to remove Washington's name from a public square that is now overrun with druggies and vandals.  Clearly, the tainted father of our country does not deserve the honor of being associated with a Lower Manhattan shrine of woke democracy that may contain more derelicts and drug addicts than most other spaces of similar size elsewhere.

The CRT War on the Republic.  "George Washington was an evil man!  He's not a hero.  You need to take that picture down," my 13-year-old daughter admonished my brother, while standing in his home.  "He slaughtered Native Americans and owned slaves.  My social studies teacher taught me all about him."  "And you are sending your kids to that school?" my brother asked.  I shook my head and vowed to investigate while gazing at his copy of "The Prayer at Valley Forge" by Arnold Friberg.  It has always been one of my favorite works of art, and in our family, the portrait is symbolic of the power of prayer and what it means to be an American. [...] As it turns out, my daughter's teacher, a self-proclaimed lover of "hard history," is a disciple of anti-racist teaching.  Parents in our community have testified that they do not object to lesson plans presenting multiple perspectives of history and they support diversity training; they disagree when instructors present revisionist history as fact and disavow the United States Constitution.  Unfortunately, this seems to be lost on educators like my daughter's teacher, who tweets praise for activists such as Hasan Kwami Jeffries, an Ohio State University professor who was contracted by OLSD to provide professional development.

Charlottesville Abruptly Removes Statue of Lewis, Clark, and Sacagawea.  The Charlottesville, Va., City Council abruptly voted to remove a statue of Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and Sacagawea on Saturday, the same day statues of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were removed from the city.  The council voted unanimously for the statue's removal at an emergency session at noon, and has allocated about $1 million for the removal of all three statues.  The statue of the explorers had stood at Charlottesville's West Main Street since 1919. [...] Lewis was born in Albemarle County, where Charlottesville is located.  Lewis and Clark were charged by former president Thomas Jefferson with exploring the land west of the Mississippi River, and were joined by Sacagawea, a Lemhi Shoshone woman, as a guide and interpreter.  Critics had complained that the statue in question depicted Sacagawea crouching behind the two men, though others argued this pose was meant to show her as a tracker.

Statue of Lewis & Clark and Sacagawea toppled in Charlottesville.  The city of Charlottesville, Va. followed up its removal of two controversial Confederate statues Saturday with the lightning-fast toppling of a third local landmark:  a monumental tribute to explorers Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and Sacagawea.  In an emergency meeting called with 20 minutes' notice, the Charlottesville City Council voted unanimously to cancel another piece of public art targeted by left-wing activists.  "I feel that it should just be melted down," Rose Ann Abrahamson, a Sacagawea descendant, said during the council meeting, The Daily Progress reported.  "I feel that it's entirely offensive and it should be obliterated."  Within minutes, a city work crew — the same group that had dismantled equestrian statues of Gens.  Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson earlier Saturday — arrived with ropes, a crane, and pry bars to wrench the artwork off the plinth where it had stood on Charlottesville's West Main Street since 1919.

The Editor says...
The statue stood for a hundred years.  Suddenly, an emergency meeting was called because one person was offended, and the statue was removed.  What's the rush?  Why can't the 47,000 residents of Charlottesville vote on the matter?

Rhode Island Columbus statue vandalized.  Two teenagers are being charged with vandalism and malicious damage to property after they allegedly vandalized a Christopher Columbus statue in Rhode Island.  This is one of many recent incidents regarding the vandalism of historical figures statues across the U.S., including a statue of Columbus in Boston that was beheaded and another Columbus statue in Richmond that was thrown into a lake last year.  A Columbus statue in Providence was defaced with red paint in 2019, and later placed in storage to avoid additional vandalism.

Celebrating Founding Fathers Is 'Structural Racism,' National Archives Says.  Venerating and celebrating the Founding Fathers is an example of "structural racism," apparently.  That's the conclusion of a recently released document created by a National Archives and Records Administration task force on racism.  The National Archives and Records Administration is a federal agency charged with taking care of our country's governmental and historical records, including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  The lengthy internal document — completed in April, but not released until earlier this month — never mentions critical race theory by name, but it uses all of critical race theory's buzzwords, lingo, and style of analysis.

Theodore Roosevelt statue at Museum of Natural History to be relocated.  A statue of President Theodore Roosevelt will be ripped down from in front of the American Museum of Natural History — a decision that was finalized this week over claims that it symbolizes colonial subjugation and racial discrimination.  The New York City Public Design Commission voted unanimously Monday [6/21/2021] to relocate the bronze effigy of the nation's 26th president that has stood at the Upper West Side institution since 1940, the New York Times reported.  The monument — which shows Roosevelt on horseback, flanked by an African man and a Native American man — has long been criticized for glorifying colonialism and racism.  It was vandalized with paint in 2017.  According to the Times, the statue will go to a yet-to-be-designated cultural institution dedicated to the former president's life and legacy.

Our Increasingly Unrecognizable Civilization.  President Macron of France is not my favorite chap — he's a sinister globalist for one thing.  But he made an admirable stand when he announced that not one French statue would be taken down and not a single French street name would be changed, because they are all part of French history.  And "Bingo!" as Peter Navarro likes to say, the statue toppling and street-name changing in France went away.  Why can't American conservatives show that kind of strength?  The Senate Minority Leader says he personally would not be bothered if the historical names of U.S. military bases are changed.  The editor of National Review says that he wouldn't be bothered about taking down Confederate statues.  But of course it doesn't stop there — now they're going for all the statues.  Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, McKinley, and on and on.  The point conservatives need to grasp is, unless you're prepared to surrender everything, don't surrender anything.

Rebellion After Randolph Board of Education Cancels Columbus Day.  A New Jersey Board of Education in Randolph, N.J. removed Columbus Day from their school's calendar and replaced it with "Indigenous Peoples Day."  They did so to be inclusive, and without publicizing that this change was being contemplated.  Two minutes were given to the matter.  When word got out, a furor ensued among the community, including Italian-Americans and members of the Knights of Columbus.  Many spoke is protest at the next BoE meeting.

The Editor says...
Columbus Day has been a federal holiday since 1937.  There was never anything even perceived to be objectionable about it until the last three or four years, when an intense campaign to remove all American traditions began.  Things like statues in the park, streets named after Confederate generals, handshakes, gathering in crowds, the National Anthem, football teams' mascots that are connected to Indians, the boys-only Boy Scouts and the girls-only Girl Scouts, public restrooms that are exclusively for one gender or the other, and even the understanding that there are only two genders!  All of America's customs, history, and traditions must be eradicated so the Socialists can build their new Utopia in its place.  Statutes of George Washington are a relatively small issue, but that's just one brick in the wall, and socialist takeovers happen in seemingly-harmless little increments.  They all add up.

Commission chair: 'Hundreds' of military assets could have Confederate names removed.  The number of U.S. military assets that may need to be renamed as part of an effort to scrub Confederate names could reach into the hundreds, the retired admiral leading the renaming effort said Friday [5/21/2021].  "I think once we get down to looking at buildings and street names, this potentially could run into the hundreds," retired Adm. Michelle Howard told reporters on a conference call.  Howard, a former vice chief of naval operations and the first African American woman to command a U.S. Navy ship, is the chairwoman of the Commission on the Naming of Items of the Department of Defense that Commemorates the Confederate States of America or Any Person Who Served Voluntarily with the Confederate States of America, also known as the Naming Commission.

Italian-Americans in Philadelphia Sue Over City's Changing of Columbus Day Holiday's Name.  The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday [4/6/2021], and declares that the mayor "may not take action that discriminates against Italian-Americans to exalt another ethnic group in its place."  The lawsuit points to other efforts by Kenney to remove historical monuments and commemorations of great Italians, which it says is proof of a systematic pattern of discrimination against Italian-Americans.  Among these examples are the city's efforts to remove a Christopher Columbus statue in South Philadelphia, as well as the successful removal of former mayor Frank Rizzo from City Hall.  The suit, which includes among its plaintiffs Councilman Mark Squilla, also points to the mayor's efforts to designate certain neighborhoods throughout the city as "priorities" for receiving coronavirus vaccines ahead of others, which it claims further discriminates against predominantly Italian-American neighborhoods in favor of other minorities.

Virginia Supreme Court rules Confederate statues of Lee, Jackson can come down.  The Virginia Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the city of Charlottesville can remove two Confederate statues, including one of Robert E. Lee that became the flashpoint for a violent White supremacist rally in August 2017.  Justice S. Bernard Goodwyn said Charlottesville could take down the statues of Lee and Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson because a 1997 state law protecting war memorials does not apply retroactively to statues erected before the law was enacted.  The ruling culminates years of legal battles involving attempts to preserve the Civil War memorials.

Well-deserved pushback against Chicago Monuments Project [is] underway.  Last week in my DTG post I wrote about the Chicago Monuments Project, Mayor Lori Lightfoot's response to last summer's riot surrounding the Christopher Columbus statue in Grant Park south of downtown.  The committee for the project earlier this month identified 41 monuments, mostly statues but also plaques, reliefs, and one painting.  Five of the monuments are statues of Abraham Lincoln.  Yes, that guy, the one who led the Union during the Civil War, which led to ending slavery in America.  Illinois is the Land of Lincoln, that slogan has been emblazoned on every Illinois license plate for decades.  His face is on all standard Illinois license plates.  On every Illinois driver's license and state ID card is Lincoln's countenance — and automobile titles too.  Other monuments "under review" by the project include statues of Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Leif Erikson, Ulysses S. Grant, William McKinley, several pieces honoring Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet, and works featuring anonymous Native Americans.

The Chinese Communist Takeover of America Is Well Underway.  All across America statues of military leaders, former presidents, and our founding fathers are being defaced and torn down, schools are being renamed.  A full scale assault on our history and national heritage has been underway for decades, but has kicked into overdrive in more recent years. 'Cancel culture' is fully engaged and nothing is immune.  All part of the Communist Chinese effort to undermine and overthrow our country from within.

DC Congresswoman introduces bill to remove 'Emancipation Memorial' featuring Lincoln.  Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., has reintroduced legislation to remove a statue commemorating emancipation, arguing that 19th-century memorial doesn't do enough to honor slaves' contribution to their own freedom.  Dedicated in 1876, the statue shows former President Lincoln, who signed the Emancipation Proclamation, with his hand outstretched over a shackled slave who is kneeling beside him.  It was erected after a freed slave, Charlotte Scott, started a fundraising campaign that collected funds from freed slaves.  "Although formerly enslaved Americans paid for this statue, the design and sculpting process was done without their input or participation in any way, and it shows," Holmes Norton said in a press release last week.

Tacoma's Benjamin Franklin Park is renamed after Rosa Franklin, the first African American woman to serve in the state Senate.  A park named after founding father Benjamin Franklin in Washington has been renamed to honor Rosa Franklin, the state's first African American woman to serve in the state Senate.  Metro Parks' Board of Commissioners in Tacoma unanimously voted to change the park's name in Franklin's honor on Monday [2/22/2021], according to a column in The News Tribune.  She served as a member of the Washington State Senate from 1993 to 2010.

The Editor says...
Does anyone in the world believe that Rosa Franklin accomplished more than Benjamin Franklin?

University Of Washington Student Union Pushes To Remove George Washington Statue On Campus.  University of Washington students pushing for the removal of the campus' George Washington statue is one of many instances of college students targeting the United States' founding father, Campus Reform correspondent Justin Brascher said on Tuesday [2/23/2021].  "This is just another further example of how we as a society cannot seem to separate the good that somebody has done from the evil.  This particular petition was brought forth by one of the student unions on campus and has actually been adopted by the school newspaper," Brascher told "Fox & Friends."  Brascher said that the school newspaper "is calling for the removal of the statue," which began when a "petition was filed in August last year."  "It is really just unfortunate to see this sort of attitude towards our founding fathers," Brascher said.

A Fifty-Year History of Anti-Patriotism in the United States.  Patriotism is under attack.  The idea of the cultural Marxists on the left is to replace traditional patriotism with a different vision of the meaning of American nationalism from the vision that has obtained since 1776, although that traditional understanding and vision of the USA has gone through modifications over decades.  Unwillingness to say the Pledge of Allegiance or even to stand for the Pledge is not a first step in that direction, but part of an endgame toward a revised understanding of what America is and what its role is in history.  The readers of this article should not be surprised if legislation for a revised American flag is offered in the halls of Congress in the near future.

Bill Hemmer Predicts Cancel Culture Coming For 'Bible Characters' Next.  Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer warned the increasingly aggressive cancel culture that would go after figures such as former President Abraham Lincoln will soon aim its fire at characters in the Bible.  Hemmer made his comments Friday [2/19/2021] during a segment on Fox News' "America's Newsroom" about the new Chicago Monuments Project, which will catalogue the city's monuments and appoint an advisory committee "to determine which pieces warrant attention or action."  Among the historical figures whose monument is being reviewed is Lincoln, whose tomb is in Springfield, Illinois.

The Editor says...
Other than crosses, I'm not aware of any statues of Biblical figures on public property in the U.S.  If there were any, they would have been the first ones to be demolished.

Who knew that Obama?  My friend in Chicago called to inquire about our electricity issues.  I guess that everybody is talking about Texans freezing at home.  The good news is that most of us are okay now.  He added that Chicago is now looking at reviewing a few school names starting with favorite son Lincoln.  You guessed it: white supremacy!  It left me a bit surprised because no one is asking former President Obama about President Lincoln.  As I recall, then-senator Obama announced his presidential campaign in Springfield, Illinois.  Guess who is buried in Springfield?  As you probably remember, president-elect Obama took a train to Washington D.C.  Guess whose route he followed?

Chicago statues of Columbus, Presidents Washington and Lincoln among commission's list of 40 controversial monuments throughout city.  Statues of Presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and William McKinley, as well as the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, were among the 41 public statues and other commemorative markers identified on a list from Mayor Lori Lightfoot's administration on Wednesday for further review as part of "a racial healing and historical reckoning project" started last summer.  The city launched a website on Wednesday detailing the controversial monuments flagged by the mayor's commission on monuments.  Other statues on the list included a monument to President Ulysses S. Grant, a Benjamin Franklin statue, a police memorial tied to the Haymarket Riot and a statue of Leif Ericson at Humboldt Park.

Leftists Call for 'Melting' Statue of Former California Mayor for Planting American Flag During Mexican-American War.  Thomas Fallon was a soldier in the Mexican-American War and a mayor of San Jose, California, but now left-wing activists are calling for "melting" the bronze statue erected in his honor because they believe he was a racist and a white supremacist.  He planted an American flag in 1846 into the city's soil to claim the land for the United States.

The Marxist War On Art And America.  Over the summer and fall of 2020, America's cities and public landscape burned and were vandalized.  As Nancy Pelosi said when questioned about whether these vandals would be sought and prosecuted for wanton destruction of private and federal property, "I don't care that much about statues." Her attitude, perhaps symptomatic of many Americans, needs to be repudiated because it is a blank check for destroying our heritage, history, and moral consensus. [...] The left's sudden vandalizing spirit to our public memorials and landscape should not be surprising.  For America's public landscape is the treasure of all, but insofar as it tells the real story of freedom, progress, and opportunity, the left understands that it must banish or, better, destroy our statues, paintings, and all that is embodied by our public landscape.

Texas State Historical Assn's Chief Historian Says the Alamo was an 'Insignificant' Battle and Represents 'Whiteness.'  [Scroll down]  Less than three weeks after its fall, the Alamo was already seen as lending its fallen defenders "immortality."  Some might call that wartime propaganda.  That's right, which only reinforces the view that the Alamo was important at the time, not just decades later.  This report became the template other newspapers used to report the battle, according to the Daughters of the Republic of Texas.  Writing in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly in 1988, the late Michael P. Costletoe, professor of Hispanic and Latin American studies at the University of Bristol (England), noted that Mexican newspapers including the country's official newspaper reported the Alamo's fall jubilantly within 10 days of the event.  Why would they do this if the battle was insignificant?

Nathan Bedford Forrest's remains to be moved from Memphis park.  The remains of General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife are set to be removed from Health Sciences Park in Memphis soon.  A controversial figure, Forrest's statute was removed from Health Sciences Park in 2017, but his remains and those of his wife's were not.  Now years later, the family has agreed to move the remains to Columbia, Tennessee, the home of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.  Edward Phillips is the attorney representing the family.  He said they were shocked when the statue was taken down, but has agreed to move the remains so they can put this all behind them.

To help heal racial wounds, Black national anthem would become America's hymn under proposal.  U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., wants a song about faith and resilience long revered in the Black community to become the national hymn and help toward uniting the country after centuries of racial turmoil.  Clyburn, the House majority whip, plans to introduce a measure as early as this week that would make "Lift Every Voice and Sing," known as the Black national anthem, the national hymn and give it a special place alongside the country's anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner."  "To make it a national hymn, I think, would be an act of bringing the country together.  It would say to people, 'You aren't singing a separate national anthem, you are singing the country's national hymn," said Clyburn, the highest-ranking Black American in Congress.  "The gesture itself would be an act of healing.  Everybody can identify with that song."

The Editor says...
I suppose you're going to tell me that if I don't go along with this plan, I'm a racist.  But if someone concocts a "black national anthem," specifically and exclusively for the benefit of blacks, then who's the racist?  And if some Congressman demands that we replace our 200-year-old National Anthem with this specious claptrap, is that really "an act of healing?"

Defenders of Civilization?  [Scroll down]  In just a year, thousands of memorials and icons have vanished.  Names have changed, words are banned.  Careers were ruined.  As new totalitarian rules were enshrined, old freedoms became despised.  Yet most of the country sat in lockdown quiet, as it was told that it, and its history, were toxic and culpable — and by whom exactly?  Moralists like Labron James?  Steve Kerr?  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?  Were Americans in their 244th year suddenly to write checks, apologize, and pay penance to their angry self-described moral superiors?  A few schools apparently are no longer to be named after Abraham Lincoln, the president who saved the Union, destroyed the slave-holding Confederacy, and freed the slaves at a cost of nearly 700,000 American lives.  Now 155 years after his assassination, the present generation — the most leisured, entitled, and wealthiest cohort in civilization's history — deems him unworthy and unfit for any commemoration.  Do any of the street-brawling Antifa radicals seem tough guys in comparison to the Union troops at Gettysburg or those who marched with Sherman?

Police Chief Who Did Nothing as BLM Ripped Down Statue Honored with Medal.  The police chief who stood back and did nothing as Black Lives Matter activists ripped down a historic statue in Bristol, England, during lockdown has received a medal in the New Year Honours.  Superintendent Andy Bennet was in charge of the response — or non-response — to BLM activists pouring into the streets of Bristol despite a national lockdown to topple a 125-year-old bronze of Edward Colston (1636-1721), a figure once revered as a great Christian philanthropist responsible for endowing many almshouses, schools, and other charitable organisation who has since been transformed into a hate figure for his then-unremarkable business links to the slave trade.

The modern left won't be satisfied until America's foundations are destroyed completely.  If there is any early American president the left should be able to celebrate, or at least accept, or at very least not attack, it's Lincoln.  The reasons are myriad and obvious.  But they can't accept anything about early America.  Because they hate America.  To view Lincoln through the lens of our contemporary Sisyphean postmodern woke clown-show is absurd beyond comprehension.  He should be the last early president targeted by the left.  And I think that's the point.  That's why they target him.  If you're thinking, "Hey didn't this happen a couple weeks ago?" that's because yes, it did.  Abraham Lincoln is in the process of being canceled.  Why?  Lefties are targeting Lincoln because he should be acceptable to them.

Boston Removes Lincoln Emancipation Memorial.  The Emancipation Memorial statue, put up in Boston's Park Square in 1879, has been taken down after an online petition with more than 12,000 signatures called for its removal.  The statue of Abraham Lincoln with a freed slave appearing to kneel at his feet drew objections amid a national reckoning with 'racial injustice'.  The decision to remove "acknowledged the statue's role in perpetuating harmful prejudices and obscuring the role of Black Americans in shaping the nation's freedoms," AP reports.  Workers removed the Emancipation Memorial, also known as the Emancipation Group and the Freedman's Memorial, early Tuesday.

National Statuary Hall:  Down With Robert E. Lee And Up With Barbara Johns (Who?).  Today [12/22/2020], Virginia removed the statue of Robert E. Lee that represented the state in National Statuary Hall in Congress for more than 100 years.  Virginia Governor Ralph Northam said the general was "a symbol of Virginia's racist and divisive history."  Nancy Pelosi called the statue an "homage to hate."  If Governor Northam has his way, a black woman — actually, a black girl — will represent the Old Dominion:  Barbara Johns.  Never heard of her?  I hadn't either until today, and the more you look into her, the more you understand why.

Robert E. Lee Statue Removed from Capitol Building.  It's been over 150 years since the Confederate States of America were soundly and justly defeated, but it's never too late to panic about them coming back somehow.  Libs love nothing more than screaming about racism, and it'll never go out of style.  Last week, the worst governor in the United States not named Newsom banned the sale of Confederate flags in New York, which must be a relief to all his constituents with shuttered businesses and crumbling lives.

Robert E. Lee statue removed from US Capitol.  A statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee was removed from the U.S. Capitol overnight.  The statue has stood with America's first president, George Washington, as the state of Virginia's contribution to the National Statuary Hall Collection at the Capitol for more than 100 years.  Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, announced on Monday [12/21/2020] the state will seek to have it replaced with a statue of civil rights icon Barbara Johns.

Condemning 'cancel culture,' New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart vetoes council vote to remove city's Columbus statue.  New Britain's controversial Christopher Columbus statue won't be heading to storage — at least not yet.  Mayor Erin Stewart on Thursday [12/17/2020] vetoed the common council's decision to take down the statue, meaning the issue will drag into January or possibly beyond.  After learning of her decision Thursday afternoon, a top council Democrat said he'll try to get his colleagues to override it next month.  In a statement condemning "cancel culture," Stewart warned taking down the monument would set a bad precedent.

Community service for American Indian leader who toppled Columbus statue on Capitol grounds.  Ramsey County prosecutors on Monday [12/7/2020] offered to suspend the felony charge of an American Indian Movement (AIM) leader accused of toppling a Christopher Columbus statue outside the State Capitol this summer in exchange for 100 hours of community service.  Michael A. Forcia, 57, must write a letter acknowledging the damage he caused and remain law-abiding while on probation for the next year, according to the plea agreement.  Once completed, the charge will be wiped from his record.

Eight hard questions for the Democrats.  [#1] Why are you opposing respected American traditions and Constitutional freedoms?  Why such anti-Americanism in your convention platform and in numerous acts and statements of policy?  Why opposition to the rights to assembly, to worship, to freedom of speech, to the right to bear arms, to the Electoral College?  Why support for open borders, for Medicare for illegal aliens, for abolishing ICE?  Why support for "defunding the police" and then support for violent rioting and looting?  Why support for packing the Supreme Court and for minting new "states" for political advantage?  You Democrats are even endorsing the enormities of the "transgender" movement, where people can supposedly change their sex by flipping a mental switch, and enter women's bathrooms or be transferred to women's prisons at will.

Virginia set to tear down Confederate flag, Robert E. Lee — history.  A large Confederate flag that's flown the Interstate 95 skies in Stafford County, Virginia — and that's been the subject of much heated debate, particularly in recent politically correct times — will finally be pulled from its post.  Chalk this as another historical symbol on the way out, deemed too offensive for public display.  The banner was put up by Virginia Flaggers in 2014.  And it's flown high above the tree line along I-95 — irking those who've argued, or who've tried to argue, that it's a symbol of hate and racism and has no place in today's society.  "It's disgraceful," said one woman opposing its presence, back in 2018.  "It's right there and we have to pass it all the time."  So goes private property rights, right?

"Not Pro-Black": Wisconsin Students Unanimously Vote To Remove Lincoln Statue As Racist.  We previously discussed the effort at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to have the famous statue of Abraham Lincoln removed as racist.  The student government has now voted unanimously in favor of a resolution that calls for the removal of the Abraham Lincoln statue on campus.  The students declared that the president who signed the Emancipation Proclamation, advocated for the 13th Amendment, and led the war against the South and slavery was "not pro-Black" and a "remnant of White Supremacy." That would likely have come as something of a surprise to John Wilkes Booth.

U. of Wisconsin-Madison Student Government Votes to Remove 'Racist' Abraham Lincoln Statue.  The University of Wisconsin-Madison student government recently approved a resolution that calls for the removal of a statue of Abraham Lincoln on campus.  The resolution claims that the statue is a "racist remnant" of "white supremacy."  According to a report by Campus Reform, students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently passed a resolution that calls on administrators to remove a statue of Abraham Lincoln.  The resolution argues that the statue is a "racist remnant" of "white supremacy."

SF Mulls Changing 'Racist' School Names, Including Washington and Lincoln:  Black Mayor Calls Timing 'Offensive'.  The San Francisco Unified School District announced the names of 44 school names could be changed because of alleged links to racism and "colonization," including those named after presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  Sen. Dianne Feinstein's (D-CA) namesake is also on the list.  The school district's School Names Advisory Committee is considering the name changes and local news reports said a decision would be announced by December 18.

The Truth About Columbus.  Is this the last time we can celebrate Columbus Day?  A wave of cities have decided to remove the holiday from the calendar and replace it with "Indigenous Peoples' Day."  Christopher Columbus, the Italian explorer credited with discovering America, and his legacy are under attack figuratively and, increasingly, literally.  Several Columbus monuments have been attacked and vandalized around the country.  The towering Columbus statue at Columbus Circle in New York City now needs 24-hour guards after Mayor Bill de Blasio put it on the list of a commission to review "offensive" memorials.

"Cheyenne Mountain Indians" is the PC wokesters' latest scalp.  Cheyenne Mountain High School near Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs where I grew up has a mascot, or did.  Since, well, forever, they were the "Cheyenne Mountain Indians."  The mascot's depiction is a respectful image that could have come out of an Edward Curtis lithograph.  It's not a caricature.  The wokerati recently demanded that the Indian mascot be changed and that the word "Indian" be canceled.  They have not demanded that the Indian tribe "Cheyenne" be canceled.  Yet.  Over the objections of at least 2,000 alumni and other petitioners who asked that the Indian stay, the school board gave in to the bullies and expelled the Indian.  They're changing the mascot.

Rioters Topple Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt Statues in Portland; Museum Windows Smashed.  Rioters toppled statues of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt in Portland, Oregon, on Sunday night — the latest attacks on monuments in several months of left-wing unrest. [...] According to OregonLive.com, the statues in the South Park Block were toppled during an "Indigenous Day of Rage." The nearby Oregon Historical Society Museum was also reportedly attacked.

Portland protesters topple Lincoln, Roosevelt statues during 'Day of Rage'.  Portland absorbed another night of violent protests Sunday that resulted in the toppling of two statues in the city and reports of numerous buildings with their windows smashed in, including the Oregon Historical Society.  The unrest was reportedly tied to the "Day of Rage," on Columbus Day eve.  Andy Ngo, a journalist who has been documenting the unrest in the city, posted images of the destruction on Twitter.  The Oregonian reported that protesters managed to bring down statues of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.

Great but Imperfect Leaders.  America has been blessed with some of the most dynamic and impressive leaders in world history:  George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln, to name a few.  But none of them were perfect people.  Criticism of many of our past leaders has increased dramatically over the last few years, particularly our Founding Fathers, and the driving force behind that criticism is the positions they held on slavery.  While most of today's militant left has diverted their attention from tearing down statues of historic leaders to burning down courthouses and churches, they will surely be coming back for more.  We must remember how absurd their actions had become, and consider that in late-June they went so far as to bring down a statue of Ulysses S. Grant.  Evidently the logic of those rioters was to ignore the fact that Grant was largely responsible for winning the Civil War, thereby ending slavery.  Grant was a white man, and apparently that was the only justification the rioters needed.

Mount Rushmore name change unlikely, despite proposal.  One lawmaker is fighting attempts to change the name of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial monument, after the U.S. Board on Geographic Names fielded at least one suggestion to do so.  A California resident has proposed changing the name of the monument to "Igmu Tanka Paha," which means "Cougar Mountain," TribLIVE reported on Friday [9/25/2020].  It was a name given to the mountain by the Lakota people, who also call it "Tunkasila Sakpe Paha," meaning Six Grandfathers Mountain.

Vandal Beheads Statue of Jesus in El Paso Cathedral for 'Wrong Skin Color'.  Police have arrested a man suspected of beheading and toppling a historic statue of Jesus in El Paso's Saint Patrick's Cathedral on Tuesday [9/15/2020].  The suspect, 30-year-old Isaiah Cantrell, said that he destroyed the 90-year-old statue because Jesus's skin color was wrong and should have been darker.

Man jailed in historic statue damage at St. Patrick Cathedral in El Paso says Jesus' skin color 'wrong'.  Police on Wednesday [9/16/2020] identified the suspect arrested in the Jesus statue destruction at St. Patrick Cathedral as 30-year old Isaiah Cantrell.  Cantrell was charged with criminal mischief and possession of marijuana.  He was being held Wednesday in the El Paso County Detention Facility on $20,500 bond.  In a court affidavit obtained by ABC-7, police said Cantrell told them the "skin color of the statue was the wrong color."  Cantrell reportedly remarked that "Jesus was Jewish and therefore should be a darker skin color."

Washington Monument Benefactor Doubts Bowser's Proposal To Rename, Remove Monuments 'Will Be Taken Seriously'.  The benefactor of the Washington Monument's recent renovation told Fox News host Dana Perino on Tuesday [9/8/2020] that he doubts the District's proposal to "remove, relocate, or contextualize" major monuments in Washington, D.C., will be "taken seriously."  Philanthropist and Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein, who donated more than $10 million to repair the iconic obelisk after it was damaged in a 2011 earthquake, told Perino, "There are many things I worry about, but removing the Washington Monument is not something I worry about," according to Fox News.

U. of Rhode Island to Remove WWII Murals Due to Lack of Diversity.  The University of Rhode Island recently announced plans to remove two murals depicting the events of World War II due to their lack of diversity.  The decision was prompted after students complained that the mural was not compatible with the university's values of inclusivity.  According to the school's Vice President of Student Affairs, "Some of our students have even shared with us they didn't feel comfortable sitting in that space."  According to a local news report, the University of Rhode Island plans to remove two 70-year-old murals that depict World War II over concerns that they do not feature enough diversity.

Trump Was Right, The Woke Mob Is Coming For The Washington Monument.  Remember a few years ago, when the left scoffed at President Donald Trump for suggesting that mobs tearing down Confederate statues wouldn't stop there?  "This week it's Robert E. Lee.  I noticed that Stonewall Jackson is coming down.  I wonder, is George Washington next week, and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after?  You really do have to ask yourself: 'Where does it stop?'"  NPR even did a "fact check" to prove Trump was nuts for saying that.  Others blasted the president for comparing the nation's founders to slave-loving traitors, suggesting that it was another example of Trump's racism.  Well, a working group appointed by Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser released a report this week that called for removing or relocating (or "contextualizing") the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial because Washington and Jefferson have been deemed "persons of concern."

Coming Soon to Our Nation's Capital:  A Comprehensive Purge.  Mayor Muriel Bowser of the District of Columbia created a D.C. Facilities and Commemorative Expressions (DCFACES) Working Group to review the hundreds of public buildings and spaces in the District, and make recommendations as to whether they should be renamed.  The Working Group has now submitted its report; [...] These are the criteria that the Working Group says it used in recommending renaming of public monuments, buildings and spaces: [...] ["] [#5] Violation of District human rights laws — did research and evidence find the namesake committed a violation of the DC Human Right Act, in whole or part, including discrimination against protected traits such as age, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and natural origin?["]

The Editor says...
How can George Washington be held accountable for "human rights laws" that were written in the 20th century, if not later?

Washington mayor moves to quell anger over statue proposals.  The mayor of US capital Washington on Wednesday [9/2/2020] asked a committee studying the fate of its monuments to figures linked to slavery and racism to focus on "contextualizing, not removing" federal memorials, after the White House slammed its recommendations as "ludicrous."  The "DC Faces" group had recommended that seven monuments, including the Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial and a statue of Christopher Columbus, should be "removed, renamed or contextualized."

White House rips D.C. plan to remove Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial.  The White House slammed Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser on Tuesday night for a "ludicrous" plan to remove, relocate or "contextualize" the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Memorial and other monuments in the nation's capital.  "By publishing a plan that recommends potentially removing the Washington Monument, Christopher Columbus Statue, Andrew Jackson Statue, and Jefferson Memorial — among many other ludicrous recommendations — the radically liberal mayor of Washington, D.C., is repeating the same left-wing narrative used to incite dangerous riots: demolishing our history and destroying our great heritage," said White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany.

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser Considering Proposal To Remove Thomas Jefferson, Other American Icons From Public Spaces.  A commission created by Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser has recommended a slew of changes to public buildings in the district that includes scrubbing Thomas Jefferson's name from schools and potentially removing the Washington Monument.  The District of Columbia Facilities and Commemorative Expressions (DCFACES) board submitted its recommendations to Bowser on Monday, suggesting changes to monuments, memorials, and public spaces to better reflect "DC values."  Bowser assembled the committee in July to "review the legacy of namesakes of District assets."

The Editor says...
If there is a statue of Benedict Arnold anywhere, it's probably safe.

Millenarian Mobs.  Today we see scenes of monuments which had stood for decades, now destroyed and defaced, as well as the forceful cancellation of names from circulation.  Smashing others' idols was, and remains, a staple of tribal warfare.  The Old Testament recalls the divine command to destroy idols, and the clashes between Christian and Muslim armies always aimed as much at symbols as at people. [...] Destroying symbols, however, has had no place within Christian civilization.  As the equivalent of torturing dead men, it has always been the work of cowards likelier to run from living enemies.  On the other hand, war against statues, paintings, books, biographies, etc., has been a defining feature of civilization's revolutionary enemies, consistent with their chosen identities as alien tribes.

119 Confederate statues [have been] removed since George Floyd died.  As the Black Lives Matter movement gained steam, so did the push to remove Confederate monuments, with more memorials having been taken down since George Floyd's death than in the past three years combined.  Across the U.S., 119 Confederate statues and monuments have been removed since the end of May.  In 2017, 55 were removed, while 34 were taken down in 2018 and 21 in 2019, according to a new study.  California has one Confederate monument left and has removed 91% of the offending memorials in the state, according to an analysis by BeenVerified, a public records search service.

Private Schools in Chicago Fielding Wave of Calls After CPS Goes With Remote Learning Plan.  Phones are seemingly constantly ringing at private schools across Chicago after officials announced that all Chicago Public Schools will begin the 2020-21 school year with remote instruction.  "We've had calls from people wanting their children to be engaged in in-class instruction," Mahdi Dadrass, Director of the South Loop Montessori School, said.  That school is just one of many that are seeing an uptick in interest, as they'll offer in-person instruction in the fall.  Dadrass says they are willing to take on new students that are craving a return to the classroom.

The Statue Wars:  Was Secession Treason?  When mobs are attacking statues of Ulysses S. Grant, it is difficult to have an intelligent discussion about why some Confederate generals and officials deserve respect.  No one today defends the role of slavery.  However, if belief in racial equality is the sole measure of the worth of Americans at the time, few people, including in the North, would pass muster.

Chapman University's piece of Berlin Wall is vandalized.  The piece of the Berlin Wall that sits at Chapman University's campus in Orange was vandalized last week, officials said Monday [7/27/2020].  The 12-foot-high chunk of the historical wall — which came to the Liberty Plaza near Memorial Hall in 1998 — was believed to have been vandalized sometime between July 21 and 11 a.m. on July 22, university spokeswoman Amy Stevens said.  The bottom portion of each side of the wall was painted brown.  University officials were working with restoration experts to develop a plan to restore the artifact, she said.  The university and Orange Police Department were working together on the investigation, police Sgt. Phillip McMullin said.  The motive for the vandalism was not known but some evidence has been collected, he said.

Where Are the New Heroes of the Revolution?  Since late May, the United States has been convulsed by a cultural revolution unlike any seen in its recent history.  Statues have been toppled, often without any logic or consistent grievance.  Institutions have been renamed, again without coherent consistency.  Christian iconography has been a common target.  Television shows have been taken off the air; particular corporations boycotted; professional sports recalibrated into social activist spectacles.  If there is any common denominator to this madness, it is apparently that the past was toxic, and erasing it in the present will make for a more just and united future.  For example, because of the glorification of the imperialist and spoiler of native paradise Christopher Columbus, his statue in Chicago must be removed nocturnally by the order of the mayor — in order to restore peace of mind, social justice, and calm.  That act of iconoclasm will rectify things in the present, and thus there will not be another 500 annual homicides in Chicago.  But once names are replaced and commemoration destroyed, what exactly follows the erased?

Chicago Mayor Surrenders to Mob Over Columbus Statues.  Two statues of Christopher Columbus fell victim to the cancel culture mob sweeping America early Friday morning after Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot ordered their removal, wrongly believing it would ease tensions in the city.  "This action was taken after consultation with various stakeholders," her office said in a statement.

Christopher Columbus statue taken down hours after Lightfoot ordered its removal.  The controversial Christopher Columbus statue in Grant Park was taken down under cover of darkness early Friday [7/24/2020], hours after Mayor Lori Lightfoot ordered its removal.  Two cranes pulled up to the statue just before 2 a.m.  Friday, after protesters and supporters of the statue argued and yelled at each other.  Supporters included John Catanzara, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7.  The decision to remove the statue came after violent clashes between police and protesters broke out last week when activists tried but failed to take it down.

7 Acts of Vandalism, Desecration at Churches Across Nation.  In France, police arrested a 39-year-old Rwandan refugee after a cathedral was set on fire Saturday [7/18/2020] in the city of Nantes.  Similar violence and vandalism in the U.S. follow the May 25 death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis.  Since Floyd's death, vandals and rioters across the nation have torn down or attempted to tear down dozens of statues and other monuments, including ones dedicated to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and to Presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Ulysses S. Grant (also a former Union general).  Writer, activist, and Black Lives Matter supporter Shaun King tweeted June 22:  "Yes, I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down.  They are a form of white supremacy. ... Tear them down."

Rioters Are Using Racial Discontent to Promote a Marxist Agenda.  All around us, the forces of socialism, Marxism, and anarchy are waging a war against democracy and the moral legitimacy of the great American experiment.  Radicals have hijacked peaceful protests and are using the current racial unrest as a tool to attack the very foundation of our nation.  Violent mobs have defaced and torn down statues across the country in the name of "social justice," yet they've gone beyond toppling the statues of slave owners and Confederates to toppling statues like that of former slave Frederick Douglass, one of the nation's greatest abolitionists who dedicated his life to ending slavery and promoting justice for African Americans.  Memorials to Founding Fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and even the statues of Union heroes like Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant — more than 150 statues and memorials nationwide — have been destroyed, defaced, or taken down during the last month and a half of protests.

In Bipartisan Vote, House Decides to Remove Confederate Statues From Capitol.  A bill to remove statues of Confederate leaders and figures who advocated for white supremacy from the Capitol passed the House on a bipartisan vote Wednesday, The New York Times reported.  The House voted 305-to-113 to remove the statues as part of a broad effort to take symbols of racism out of public spaces, the Times reported.  The legislation was introduced by House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md.  "These painful symbols of bigotry and racism — they have no place in our society, and certainly should not be enshrined in the United States Capitol," Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., co-sponsor of the bill, said, the Times reported.  "It's past time that we end the glorification of men who committed treason against the United States in a concerted effort to keep African Americans in chains."

The Editor says...
Oh, then I guess you'll have to remove all the statues of Lyndon B. Johnson, too.  His multitrillion-dollar "Great Society" "Affirmative Action" welfare state is keeping blacks chained to the Democratic Party.

America Held Hostage.  Things we thought were sacrosanct, the icons of our national identity, now are scorned.  We can pretend that this doesn't matter.  They're just statues, after all.  But they do matter.  Not for the pleasure they give the rioters so much as for the pain they inflict on patriots who love America.  Nor has it stopped with the vandalism.  We've gone to the next level, with the looting and rioting.  In the last month major cities have become unsafe, as rioters work out the logic of what "resistance" means.  American stores lost hundreds of millions of dollars, and merchants boarded up their stores for protection.  Nothing to see here, folks, said the liberal media, which gaslighted the looting and the boarded-up storefronts, and portrayed the riots as peaceful protests against an illegitimate president. [...] We're in the middle of a chicken game, where the Left tells us they'll let this go on as long as Trump is president.  The liberal media will ignore the riots, the liberal mayors will tell the local police to stand down, the liberal prosecutors will promptly release anyone arrested.  Try to defend yourself, and you'll find yourself prosecuted.

Confederate Monuments:  The Problem With Politically Correct History.  [Scroll down]  Where does this viewing of history through the prism of modern-day feelings end?  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once gave advice to a gay young man that today would be heresy.  King suggested he battle his feelings, strongly implying that the young man needed therapy and sexual reorientation.  Today, that kind of advice gets one branded a Neanderthal.  President John F. Kennedy, frustrated with a high-profile Democrat who hadn't supported his election, threatened to banish him by giving him an obscure ambassadorship to one of the, as Kennedy put it, "boogie republics" in Africa.  Tell that to Black Lives Matter.  History is complicated.  And history requires perspective and understanding, something sadly lacking in those who seek to erase history by imposing today's standards of right and wrong.

It's About More Than Toppling Statues.  It's About Toppling America.  Violent mobs have defaced and torn down statues across the country in the name of "social justice," yet they've gone beyond toppling the statues of slave owners and Confederates to toppling statues like that of former slave Frederick Douglass, one of the nation's greatest abolitionists who dedicated his life to ending slavery and promoting justice for African Americans.  Memorials to Founding Fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and even the statues of Union heroes like Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant — more than 150 statues and memorials nationwide — have been destroyed, defaced, or taken down during the last month and a half of protests.  It has become clear that it matters little to the Marxists and anarchists what a statue or monument represents.  All that matters to them is that it represents America's past, and therefore, it must come down.

Never Give The Mob An Inch:  Nothing You Do Will Ever Be Enough, So Stop Trying To Appease Them.  Frankly, most Americans — of all political stripes — don't really care if we move statues of Confederates to battlefields and cemeteries.  If the war on statues was really just about removing monuments to men only known for rebelling against the United States of America — then I think we could have built a pretty large national consensus in short order and the statues could be lawfully moved.  The truth is, however, that the left isn't looking for a national consensus, which is why — moving forward — we shouldn't agree to give the mob even an inch.  Nothing we do will ever be enough, so it is time we stop appeasing them.  Demands to remove Confederate statues soon became demands to remove statues of Christopher Columbus.  Those demands morphed into demands to take down statues of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and Mount Rushmore.  Incredibly, even statues of Abraham Lincoln are now under attack.

Jesus Statue Found Beheaded Outside Catholic Church In Miami, Diocese Expects Hate Crime Investigation.  A statue of Jesus Christ was vandalized Wednesday outside a Catholic Church in Miami, an incident church leaders say they expect to be investigated as a hate crime, WSVN reported.  Less than a week after another incident targeting Catholics in Florida, the statue of Jesus was found beheaded and knocked off its pedestal outside of Good Shepherd Catholic Church, WSVN reported.

Statue of Jesus Decapitated at Catholic Church in Florida, Archbishop Requests It Be Investigated As Hate Crime.  A statue of Jesus Christ has been decapitated at a Florida church, as a wave of vandalism and arson at churches continues across the nation.  Archbishop Thomas Wenski is requesting that the vandalism be investigated as a hate crime.

The tragedy of the San Gabriel Mission fire.  As I write this the cause of the fire remains under investigation.  While large-scale fires are not exactly unknown in the Golden State, it is difficult to ignore the distinct possibility of arson.  San Gabriel was, after all, founded by St. Jun'pero Serra, the Franciscan missionary frequently styled the "Apostle of California" who was canonized by Pope Francis in 2013.  For absurd reasons that betray ignorance of history and of this great saint's own virtuous conduct in particular, mobs have toppled or otherwise desecrated statues of Serra throughout California in recent weeks.  On the same day as the blaze at San Gabriel, a church in Florida was set on fire while parishioners were inside awaiting the start of Mass, an act of anti-Catholic terrorism worthy of the worst days of the 19th century.  All of this comes amid the backdrop of stories of Catholic statues and landmarks being vandalized, which have become increasingly commonplace while attracting virtually no attention from the mainstream secular media.

Hey Cancel Culture:  What About Buffalo Soldiers?  he high priests of the cancel culture and their Black Lives Matter acolytes seek to erase history.  While their first targets were Confederate statues, recently their wrath has targeted America's Founders, particularly George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, for owning slaves.  Black Lives Matter activists even defaced a statue of Abraham Lincoln, the man who freed the slaves, perhaps because his existence destroys their narrative that all white Republicans hate black people (and serves as an uncomfortable reminder that Democrats founded the Ku Klux Klan and enacted Jim Crow legislation).  The logical endpoint of this Orwellian crusade is to make anyone said to be on "the wrong side of history" an "unperson," removing any positive, or even neutral, references or depictions.  Some of the "allies" of this movement have extended the effort beyond the issue of slavery.

Black conservatives launch campaign to save statue of Lincoln, freed slave in D.C..  Black conservatives on Tuesday kicked off a campaign to save the Emancipation Memorial, the statue of Abraham Lincoln and freed slave Archer Alexander now under attack by Democrats and Black Lives Matter protesters in the District.  Star Parker, founder of the nonprofit UrbanCURE, held an "emancipation celebration" Tuesday [7/14/2020] at Lincoln Park, site of the now fenced-off bronze statue on the Capitol Hill, to promote a petition drive urging Congress to "keep this statue alive, right here."

Vandals Target Monument for Those Evil Racist — Checks Notes — 9/11 Firefighters.  First, it was Confederate monuments.  Then, vandals defaced and toppled monuments commemorating America's heroes, such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln.  Then came Mahatma Gandhi, Union General Ulysses S. Grant, black Union soldiers, and freed slave Frederick Douglass.  This week, vandals targeted a monument to five firefighters who lost their lives trying to save lives in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Virgin Mary statue set on fire outside Boston church:  Police.  A Virgin Mary statue was set ablaze outside a Boston church Saturday night [7/11/2020], said police who are investigating the arson incident.  Officers at 10 p.m. responded to a call for a fire in the area of 284 Bowdoin St. in Dorchester.  On arrival at Saint Peter's Parish, officers saw that a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary had been set on fire.  A suspect had lit plastic flowers on fire, which were in the hands of the Virgin Mary statue, according to members of the Boston Fire Department Fire Investigation Unit.  That caused the statue's face and upper body to get burned, according to officials.

Statue of Virgin Mary vandalized outside Queens Catholic school.  A statue of St. Mary was spray-painted with the word "IDOL" early Friday [7/10/2020] outside Cathedral Prep School and Seminary in Queens.  Staff of the Elmhurst private high school discovered the vandalism when they showed up for work Friday morning.  "Today, Cathedral Prep endured an act of hatred," said Father James Kuroly, Cathedral Prep's rector and president.  "We were victims of vandalism against a beloved statue that is dear to generations of Cathedral students."  Surveillance video shows the vandalism occurred at 3:09 a.m.

Welcome to Year One — All Prior History Is Cancelled.  In George Orwell's novel 1984, one of the techniques of totalitarianism is the "memory hole."  That's the place where inconvenient facts go to die — or so Big Brother hopes.  These days, Big Brother, Big Sister, and Big They have launched their campaign against just about everything; one is reminded of the Red Guards of Maoist China, campaigning against the "Four Olds": Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas. [...] Thus the American people — the normal American people, regular folks in both parties — are going to have to stand up.  Stand up, that is, for their public monuments, their history, and quite possibly for their very lives.  Yes, the stakes are that high.

West Virginia Democrats Silent About Memorials To KKK-Supporting Colleague.  While monuments and building names said to be stained by racism are being erased across the country, one former Ku Klux Klan organizer remains virtually untouchable.  The late Sen. Robert C. Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat and Senate majority leader who organized a Klan chapter in 1941 and filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964, is celebrated in the state, his name gracing over three dozen public works projects, including two federal courthouses, a dam on the Ohio border, libraries, community centers, roads, bridges, schools, and several university buildings throughout the state.  Byrd's still-hallowed legacy came into question this month when tiny Bethany College, in the state's narrow Northern Panhandle between Ohio and Pennsylvania, removed Byrd's name from its health center.

Georgia activists seek to remove 'Stone Mountain', the 'granddaddy of Confederate monuments'.  Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial, often called "the granddaddy of all Confederate monuments," is once again at the center of an ongoing debate over a symbol that some see as a shrine of southern American heritage, and others see as a depiction of white supremacy etched into stone.  The fight over the monument, which is located in Dekalb County, Georgia, is unfolding as the U.S. grapples with civil unrest following the recent Black Lives Matter protests.  Cities are being forced to reckon with a dark history, facing growing pressure to confront the racist past of confederate leaders honored in monuments across the country.

Pelosi on Christopher Columbus Statue Torn Down by Mob: 'People Will Do What They Do'.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) responded to the Christopher Columbus statue that was torn down by a mob on the Fourth of July by saying Thursday, "People will do what they do."  In a Capitol Hill press conference on Thursday [7/9/2020], a reporter asked Pelosi about the removal of the statue, saying, "Shouldn't that be done by a commission or the city council, not a mob in the middle of the night throwing it into the harbor?"  Pelosi shrugged her shoulders and said, "People will do what they do.  I do think that from a safety standpoint it would be a good idea to have it taken down if the community doesn't want it."

House Democrats Propose Budget Cuts to Park Police as Monuments Are Being Targeted by Mobs.  House Democrats on the Appropriations Committee proposed budget cuts to the U.S. Park Police as monuments and memorials are being targeted by mobs and protests continue to occur in the streets in the Washington, D.C. area. [...] The Park Police has seen a lot of action as protests became riots during the recent weeks of unrest the country has experienced in the aftermath of George Floyd's death.  The Department of Interior said at least 60 Park officers were injured during the riots in the nation's capital.

Pelosi on Columbus monument removal: 'Well, I don't even have my grandmother's earrings'.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave a bizarre and convoluted answer to a question regarding her feelings over the removal of statues and monuments to historical American figures, saying she doesn't "even have my grandmother's earrings."  "In Baltimore, in Little Italy, the statue of Christopher Columbus was removed or taken down.  And I wonder if you have anything to share about that?" a reporter asked.  "Well, I don't even have my grandmother's earrings," Pelosi, a California Democrat, said in response during a press conference.

The Left and Borglum's Legacy.  Though it has gained momentum in recent days, the campaign to degrade Mount Rushmore has been in gear for some time now.  One of the triggers was a thoroughly PC piece published in 2016 in no less than the Smithsonian magazine.  Just take a look at the subjects.  Washington, we know, was a slaveowner.  Forget that the fact that he manumitted his slaves as soon as it was practicable.  Forget that he trained them in trades or provided pensions for them.  Forget that he presided over the beginning of the largest abolition of slavery in human history up to that point.  None of that counts under Antifa law.

Trump urges Missouri Gov. Mike Parson not to rename St. Louis.  President Trump said Tuesday [7/7/2020] he opposes a campaign to rename St. Louis.  "You won't be changing the name St. Louis, will you?" Trump asked Missouri Gov. Mike Parson at a White House event on reopening schools during the coronavirus pandemic.  "No, we will not be doing that," the Republican governor replied.  "Thank you.  Thank you.  That's very important.  Thank you very much," Trump said.  St. Louis, a former industrial hub on the Mississippi River, is named for French King Louis IX, who died in 1270 while on a crusade.  A currently fringe effort to rename the city notes that while Louis IX is recognized by the Roman Catholic Church as a saint, he also tried to stamp out other religions during his 44-year reign.

Sen. Cotton on Warren's Amendment to Rename Military Bases: 'Radical' and 'Extreme'.  Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)'s amendment attached to the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act is not simply an effort to rename some military bases named after Confederate leaders but a push to erase American history.  "It may be portrayed in the media as Confederate named bases but it's far more radical," Cotton said on Monday [7/6/2020] [...]. "It's far more extreme.  It would require a crane to go into to Arlington Cemetery and carry out the Memorial to war dead."

Goodbye, Columbus.  The current rage for tearing down statues and renaming things has reached a sort of reductio ad absurdum:  the city of Columbus, Ohio has removed the statue of Christopher Columbus from in front of its City Hall. [...] Those who want to destroy the memory of Christopher Columbus do so because they think the discovery of the New World was a mistake, or a tragedy.  They have a vision, apparently, of a Stone Age culture continuing in perpetuity over which jets ferry passengers from Europe to Asia.  No United States — Columbus never set foot on what is now American territory — no Canada, no Mexico, no Cuba, no Brazil, no Argentina.  Leftists might dishonestly claim that they object to Columbus not because of the discovery per se, but because of his personal failings.  Shockingly, the man who drove a motley collection of tough sailors — unimaginably tough, by our standards — to and fro across the uncharted Atlantic, was not Mr. Rogers.

America Held Hostage.  Reading today's national media is like staring down a bottomless pit.  Le vertige des grandes profondeurs, the French call is.  The vertigo from looking down a deep hole.  And just when you thought we had reached bottom, there's deeper level to the madness.  It seems incomprehensible, and yet there's a simple explanation.  America is being held hostage.  We began by re-fighting the Civil War.  Until recently we had left that behind us, and non-racist white southerners were permitted to retain some measure of dignity, in the memory of their battlefield heroes.  But it was never about the Confederate statues, and the proof is that we quickly moved on to refight the American Revolution.  A statue of Thomas Jefferson came down in Portland, Oregon, and Hofstra removed its statue of the author of the Declaration of Independence.  We're waiting to see what will happen to the Jefferson Memorial.

Baltimore Mayor Gives Up, Says City Will Support Rioters After Columbus Statue Toppled.  Baltimore Mayor Bernard C. "Jack" Young defended hoodlums who toppled a statue of Christopher Columbus on Saturday and chucked it into the city's Inner Harbor like a piece of trash.  Folks, this is an elected official charged with protecting the city.  If this were the military he would be court marshaled for dereliction of duty.  This is a shameful failure on the mayor's part to fulfill the obligations of his office.  It is his duty to enforce city laws, and he has not only failed to do so, but is contributing to the lawlessness by supporting the rioters.

Ohio town proclaims it will be a sanctuary city for statues removed from other locations.  As cities around the country allow anarchists and Left-wing groups like Black Lives Matter to desecrate and destroy monuments to historical American figures, one town in Ohio is moving in a different direction.  On Saturday, Newton Falls City Manager David Lynch issued a "general amnesty" for historical figures, as well as declaring the town a "statuary sanctuary city."  In addition, the July 4 proclamation notes that the town, located about 60 miles east of Cleveland, will accept all statues being taken down and removed, WKBN reported.

Protesters destroy Christopher Columbus statues over Fourth of July weekend.  Protesters beheaded a Christopher Columbus statue in Connecticut, tossed another into Baltimore's harbor and set fire to a "pioneer family" sculpture in Portland, Oregon, over the Fourth of July weekend as clashes over controversial monuments continued to rage across the country.  "While we welcome peaceful protests and constructive dialogue on whether and how to put certain monuments in context or move them to museums through a legal process, lawlessness, vandalism and destruction of public property is completely unacceptable," Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said in a Facebook post on Sunday after the Columbus statue in Baltimore was committed to the seas.

Frederick Douglass statue vandalized at Rochester park.  Police are investigating an act of vandalism, after a statue of Frederick Douglass was removed from its base at Maplewood Park during the Fourth of July holiday weekend.  Leaders from Re-energize the legacy of Frederick Douglass are shocked a monument they worked so hard on will have to be replaced.  "This is all that is left at this particularly moment of a monument that we put so much work and thought and love and care into," said Carvin Eison, Project director, re-energize the legacy of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass Bicentennial Commemoration.

Christopher Columbus statue toppled in Baltimore, thrown into harbor.  Protesters tore down a statue of Christopher Columbus and threw it the Inner Harbor Saturday in Baltimore.  Video recorded by Louis Krauss/The Baltimore Brew shows a group of people pulling the statue down and dumping it into the water.

Antifa Mob Takes Down Christopher Columbus Statue in Baltimore — No Police in Sight.  An Antifa mob toppled a statue of Christopher Columbus in the Little Italy neighborhood of Baltimore Saturday night.  No police were seen in sight according to video of the mob attack by several hundred anti-American guerrillas.  The mob dragged the toppled statue over to the Inner Harbor and tossed it in the water.

Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln Are Left's True Targets.  It goes without saying that Americans enjoy no constitutional right to express their opinion by vandalizing and destroying public and private property and attacking their fellow Americans, but that point seems to be lost on our next generation of Democrats.  The Democrats in Richmond really have their pulse on the problem, as they openly endorse defelonizing assaults on law enforcement officers, meaning one of the worst crimes imaginable, a crime that undermines and threatens civil order, would become a misdemeanor.  This has been a long time in coming. [...] [I]t should be obvious to everyone by now that the Confederate generals aren't the principal target.  Robert E. Lee and Christopher Columbus are the warm-up act, to set the ground for bagging bigger game.

Christopher Columbus statue in Waterbury beheaded.  Someone smashed the head off of the Christopher Columbus statue that has stood in front of Waterbury's city hall on Grand Street for many years.  The decapitated statue was discovered Saturday morning [7/4/2020] and police are investigating.  The Waterbury chapter of UNICO, an Italian-American service organization, said on its Facebook page Saturday it would offer a $5,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for damaging the statue.

The Editor says...
Now is the time to set up high-definition cameras around all your city's statues; that is, unless you're in agreement with the anarchists.

Rep. Dusty Johnson on need to preserve US history:  Dems forget how lucky they are to be in America.  Democrats and activists are so obsessed with America's "imperfections," they seem to forget how lucky they are to be here, Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-SD, said Saturday [7/4/2020].  Johnson, appearing on "Fox & Friends Weekend," said the racial justice activists tearing down statues and defacing monuments, many of them honoring confederate leaders, have no desire to put the nation's imperfect history in context.  "They want to erase it.  They want to remove it," he said.  Last week, Johnson introduced the Mount Rushmore Protection Act.  The bill would prohibit the use of federal funds to alter or destroy the enormous monument in any way.

Antifa 'Ringleader' Behind Attack On Andrew Jackson Statue Arrested By Feds.  Jason Charter, the ringleader behind the antifa attack on the Andrew Jackson statue outside the White House has been arrested by federal law enforcement.  Charter, 25, was arrested on Thursday at his residence by the FBI and US Park Police as a joint task force investigates the destruction of the Andrew Jackson statue in Lafayette Square.  Charter was "in a leadership role" on June 22nd when a gang of antifa members attempted to tear the statue down.  A federal law enforcement official said that the group was "very organized," and that "Charter was on top of the statue and directing people," while the mob had "acid, chisels, straps and a human chain preventing police from getting to the statue."

Feds arrest 'ringleader' in attack on Andrew Jackson statue by White House.  Federal law enforcement officials on Thursday arrested a man in Washington they call a "ringleader" in the recent attempt to destroy the Andrew Jackson statue in Lafayette Square near the White House.  Law enforcement sources tell Fox News that Jason Charter was arrested at his residence Thursday morning, without incident, and charged with destruction of federal property.  He was arrested by the FBI and U.S. Park Police as part of a joint task force.  These sources add that Charter has connections to Antifa and was in a leadership role on the night of June 22 when a large group of protesters tried to pull down the statue.

The Year of Stupid.  In Washington, D.C., working with the loud backing of leading public intellectuals who claim Abraham Lincoln and other Republicans did nothing to free the slaves, a mob of the historically challenged gather around a statue commemorating emancipation that was universally understood as a moving symbol of the liberation of black America until ten minutes ago, before the super-spreading of the stupidity virus.  Protesters at the Emancipation Memorial have for days threatened to give Lincoln and a freed slave the Saddam Hussein treatment and drag them off the plinth they've shared for 144 years.  Over the weekend, a young woman yelling at a pitch that would cause a dog's eardrums to explode screeched, "Why are you protecting it?"  The calm and historically literate older black gentleman at whom the question was directed patiently asked, "Who paid for it?"  The answer to his question was, of course, "freed slaves."  But she didn't know, so she hopped around as though suffering a full-body case of Jimmy legs and screamed, "Why are you fighting me?"  A black woman with a keen interest in local history, Marcia Cole, pointed out on a local news program that the slave depicted in the statue "is not kneeling on two knees with his head bowed.  He is in the act of getting up.  And his head is up, not bowed, because he's looking forward to a future of freedom."  Instead of looking up he'll soon be looking at the bottom of a river bed or a ditch if the mob gets its wish, as today's mobs usually do.

MSNBC Dubs Mount Rushmore as a 'Racist' 'Symbol of White Supremacy'.  According to MSNBC's Katy Tur, President Trump's July 3rd visit to Mount Rushmore is an example of racism and white supremacy.  In a disgusting Wednesday afternoon [7/1/2020] interview with Oglala Lakota tribe member Nick Tilsen, MSNBC gave a platform to someone who legitimately believes the United States of America should give up this national monument in the name of racism.

Statue of an Elk Burned Down by Portland Rioters, Proving They're Definitely the Good Guys.  It was about Confederate generals and bringing down statues dedicated to racism... for about five minutes.  Then it quickly moved into basically burning down any statue they came across no matter who it was dedicated to.

Toppled Statues of Junipero Serra Obscure A History Worth Remembering.  Over the past month, mobs across the Golden State hae torn down statues of a Junipero Serra, an eighteenth-century Spanish Franciscan friar.  On June 20, protesters in downtown Los Angeles toppled a Serra statue near Union Station.  The mob labeled the statue a "commemoration of hate, bigotry, and colonization."  A day earlier, activists had brought down another statue of Serra in San Francisco.  Several statues dedicated to Serra and two other figures in San Pedro were defaced.  The famous mission of San Juan Capistrano preemptively removed their statue of Serra to protect it from possible destruction.  The cities of Carmel and Ventura took similar action.  What could this long-dead priest have done to elicit such strong acrimony and outrage?  Serra was born in 1713 on the island of Mallorca off the Mediterranean coast of Spain.  In 1730, he entered the Franciscan order, known for its poverty, acts of charity, and missionary spirit.  Serra landed in Veracruz, on the Gulf Coast of New Spain (now Mexico) in 1749.  He walked 250 miles from there to Mexico City.

Gandhi statue under fire at Fresno State.  Officials at California State University-Fresno are facing increasing pressure to remove a statue on campus depicting the late Indian freedom leader Mahatma Gandhi.  "How will the historian teach and explain that Gandhi was uncharitable in his attitude towards the Black race and see that we are glorifying him by erecting a statue on our campus?" asks a Change.org petition, which is nearing 5,000 signatures.  "Gandhi was deeply prejudiced against all minorities, from black Africans, Jews, to low-caste Hindus," it states.  "He also demonstrated a shocking lack of morality, from sleeping naked with young girls to employing nonviolence merely as a tool of political expediency."

NYT Targets Mount Rushmore:  Indigenous Land, KKK Ties, Slave Owner Presidents.  The New York Times has set its sights on Mount Rushmore as protesters demand the removal of historic monuments in the name of racial justice, citing its location on "Indigenous land," the sculptor's purported ties to white supremacy, and two of its subjects' slave ownership.

The Myth of Righteous Vandalism.  Confederate monuments' location, imagery, inscriptions, dates, and materials of construction, cost, and commission show what the communities who built them valued and what reasons they had for doing so.  In the past decade, Timothy Sedore, Thomas J. Brown, and Douglas J. Butler have catalogued and produced works reliant on this evidence.  Protesters (and observers) today glean Jim Crow-era historical insight while destroying its sources, and they are the last ones who will ever be able to do so directly.  The primary evidence they offer — complementary to archival and secondary sources — of which there can never be enough, is gone.  Art historians would never argue that Myron's Discobolus is useless, even though plenty of documents illustrate it and the cultural tradition it represents.  Why are Confederate statues uniquely worthless?

Republican senators propose replacing Columbus Day with Juneteenth for fiscal reasons.  A couple of Republican senators rolled out a proposal Wednesday to cancel Columbus Day and replace it with Juneteenth, saying they don't want to just list both dates as federal holidays because that would "put us further in debt."  Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and James Lankford of Oklahoma made the fiscally hawkish suggestion in an amendment to a bipartisan bill that would make Juneteenth a federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery without tinkering with Columbus Day.  "We have offered a counterproposal that does not put us further in debt," Johnson said in a statement.  "We support celebrating emancipation with a federal holiday, but believe we should eliminate a current holiday in exchange."

The Most Noble Experiment in Human History is on a Ventilator.  I have watched in horror as statue after statue has been torn down.  This is our history!  It is the good, the bad, and the ugly, and it is what made us what we are today.  The mob rule is reminiscent of the Nazi brown shirts in the 1930s.  Groupthink has consumed major segments of our population.  One just scratches one's head in bewilderment when learning of U.S. Grant's statue being defaced.  Really?  The general who ended the military part of the Civil War and dedicated the emancipation statue in Washington D.C.? Yes, the statue with Abraham Lincoln; the one with a slave rising up and breaking his shackles to symbolize his new-found freedom.  Yes, the statue paid for by freed black slaves!  Yes, the statue endorsed by Frederick Douglass, the leading black abolitionist of the era.  Yes, that statue. [...] Our history is being eradicated on a scale never-before experienced.  Rest assured, your grandchildren will not be learning about American exceptionalism or manifest destiny in their social studies classes.

Allowing vandals to destroy statues is 'the end of civilization as we've known it,' Gingrich says.  Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says allowing "vandals and barbarians" to get away with destroying public statues without consequence is "the end of civilization as we've known it."  "Most people agree that no one should have the right on their own to go and destroy things.  I mean, if you want to go through a political process, and say, you know, that particular statue should be moved into a museum or whatever, that's one thing," Gingrich told Just the News in an interview Friday [6/26/2020]. "But to just go out on your own and say, 'I have decided, I will destroy this,' clearly is the end of civilization as we've known it.  I mean, these are vandals and barbarians," he added.  Gingrich mentioned the Emancipation Memorial in Lincoln Park, which was paid for by the wages of freed slaves.  The statue shows former Republican President Abraham Lincoln, who signed the Emancipation Proclamation, standing up while a freed slave is kneeling.  Protestors are reportedly planning to join together to attempt to tear it down.

'Real men' clean war memorials vandalized by left-wing jerks.  The contrast between those who built and those who destroy could not have been more apparent in a recent scene in London, England.  Taking their cue from radical left protesters in America, a liberal mob in the U.K. defaced a statue of Sir Winston Churchill and the Cenotaph on the 76th anniversary of D-Day.  Daily Telegraph journalist Miranda Devine shared a video on Twitter showing what appears to be off-duty soldiers cleaning the memorial.  "These are real men," the conservative columnist tweeted.  "Builders, not wreckers.  Protectors, not vandals.  Workers, not slackers.  Warriors, not wimps.  They are the agents of civilization through the ages."

Trump accused of inciting violence for 'wanted' photos, 4 men arrested over attempted destruction of Andrew Jackson statue.  The Department of Justice charged four men with destruction of federal property after they tried to tear down a statue of former President Andrew Jackson near the White House last week.  The felony charge carries a maximum jail sentence of 10 years. [...] It is believed that all four suspects are white.  Mugshots have not been released.  In a statement, the Department of Justice said:  "The United States Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia will not stand idly by and allow our national monuments to be vandalized and destroyed."

Trump tweets 15 flyers of suspects tied to Andrew Jackson monument vandalism.  President Trump has appointed himself Monuments Man — taking it upon himself to personally circulate images of suspects accused of vandalizing an Andrew Jackson statue in the nation's capital earlier this week.  Trump tweeted 15 flyers from the US Park Police Department requesting the public's help to identify people accused of defacing the statue just outside of the White House Monday night.  Protesters spray-painted "killer" on the monument's base and attempted but failed to pull down the statue.

Lawmakers pass resolution, Mississippi state flag expected to come down.  Mississippi lawmakers on Saturday took steps toward changing the state flag and its Confederate battle emblem following weeks of mounting pressure.  Legislation that lays the groundwork for a new flag moved through the House early in the afternoon with a vote of 84-35.  Hours later it cleared the Senate, 36-14.  Both chambers needed to pass House Resolution 79 to suspend legislative deadlines and file a bill to change the flag.  Debate on the bill itself is expected to occur Sunday [6/28/2020].  But Saturday's vote was the biggest hurdle, and it was widely expected legislation formally removing the flag and its Confederate imagery would soon become law.

The Toppling of the Statues.  The liberals are no longer toppling just Confederate General statues or slaveholder statues, they've taken to toppling a statue of Ulysses Grant, who led the Union to victory over the Confederacy in 1865.  I don't think this has anything to do with slavery anymore.  Perhaps what truly offends them about statues, is time itself.  Think about it:  Why do we erect statues in the first place?  It is so that we remember things throughout the generations; record for posterity.  What is the one thing that terrifies liberals?  In their world, there is no time.  There is the dark sinful past; there is the present which is no different from the past, since we're all just so oppressed; there is the glorious revolution that's always just around the corner.  And then there is the bright shining future filled with puppies, unicorns and rainbows.  The last of these frightens them more than anything.  It would nullify their sense of purpose.  They live out their entire lives, as liberals, on a hairpin turn.  The revolution is always tomorrow.  If they happen to be doctrinaire liberals for seventy or eighty years, they spend all that time on the bend of the paper clip, constantly waiting for their chains to be unshackled, tomorrow.  It must be a terrible existence.

DOJ Makes Initial Arrest in Lafayette Square Monument Attacks — Identifies Three Additional Suspects.  AG Bill Barr previously highlighted the DOJ effort to coordinate with the National Parks Service to identify perpetrators who were attempting to destroy national monuments on federal property.  Accordingly, the DOJ has been searching for several suspects identified in video coordinating their attacks.  Today [6/27/2020] the DOJ announced first four suspects to be charged.  One is currently under arrest, the other three are on the run.

Students At University In Wisconsin Demand That Abraham Lincoln Statue Be Removed From Campus.  If you're wondering where all these radical leftists in America came from, look no further than the nearest college campus.  Academia has been spoon feeding a steady diet of leftism to American students for generations.  Now they are beginning to see the fruits of their labor.  At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, students are now demanding the removal of a campus statue of Abraham Lincoln.

Newark removes statue of Christopher Columbus.  The city of Newark has removed a statue of Christopher Columbus from Washington Park, Mayor Ras Baraka announced Friday in a series of tweets.  "In keeping with the movement to remove symbols of oppression and white supremacy, we have decided to remove the statue of Christopher Columbus from Washington Park," Baraka wrote.  "We took it down with city work crews in a safe and orderly manner, to avoid the potential danger of people taking it upon themselves to topple it."

Protesters demand Trenton statue of Christopher Columbus be removed.  "Ancestors are watching today," Niambi Aaliyah McCoy Thursday told the crowd of about 75 people who gathered in front of the statue of Christopher Columbus in a park in Trenton that bears his name.  The demonstrators were there to decry police violence, and call for the removal of the statue.  "This isn't a protest," McCoy said.  "So if you came out here to just hold signs, and do chants, we are not here for that.  We are here to...educate and liberate."

Wisconsin Students Call For Abraham Lincoln Statue To Come Down:  He Was 'Anti-Black'.  Some students at the University of Wisconsin are demanding a statue on campus of former President Abraham Lincoln be taken down.  Nalah McWhorter, the president of the Wisconsin Black Student Union said that just because Lincoln opposed slavery, doesn't mean he supported equal rights for African Americans.

Native American activists are attacking an Olympic landmark in the Sierras.  If you're from Northern California, you might have spent time at Squaw Valley in Lake Tahoe, the site of the 1960 Winter Olympic Games.  It is one of America's most beautiful mountain areas.  Now, though, the leftists have Squaw Valley in their crosshairs, for they're claiming that the word "squaw" is a pejorative that must be stricken from the English language.  Not only is this out-of-control cultural Marxism, it's factually wrong.  As with so many things that leftists advocate, it comes from a place of ignorance.

Trump signs executive order to protect American monuments, memorials and statues.  President Trump announced Friday that he signed an executive order to protect American monuments, memorials and statues and threatened those who try to pull them down with "long prison time."  "I just had the privilege of signing a very strong Executive Order protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues — and combatting recent Criminal Violence," Trump tweeted.  "Long prison terms for these lawless acts against our Great Country!"

Monument destroyers back off after Trump posts FBI wanted poster of vandals' photos, signs strong Executive Order.  A day after Fox News host Tucker Carlson warned that President Donald Trump faces potential defeat in the upcoming 2020 presidential race unless he starts fighting back, the president donned his boxing gloves and began throwing some punches.  The first punch came around 1:00 pm, when the president posted an FBI wanted poster that depicted the photos of 15 hooligans who're wanted for vandalizing the statue of former President Andrew Jackson that lies in D.C.'s Lafayette Park.

Black Community Elders Shutdown And Shame Anti-Statue Protest.  Blazing sun and high humidity met hundreds of protesters, counter-protesters, neighborhood residents, police officers, and reporters Friday evening at Capitol Hill's Lincoln Park.  The protest, planned Tuesday, hoped to tear the monument of Abraham Lincoln with one hand on the Emancipation Proclamation freeing a slave, modeled by freedman Archer Alexander.  It was paid for by local black residents and black Union veterans and dedicated by Frederick Douglass.

Black Americans Turn Out To Defend Lincoln Emancipation Memorial From Extremists.  Black Americans showed up to defend the Lincoln Emancipation Memorial in Washington, D.C., on Friday [6/26/2020] to push back on extremists who want to tear the statue down.  The statue of former President Abraham Lincoln was purchased by slaves as a way to honor Lincoln, a Republican, for freeing the slaves.  The statue shows Lincoln standing over a slave who is rising to his knees while holding a broken chain after being freed from slavery.

Interior secretary says federal authorities will have 'all the tools they need' to protect monuments from criminals.  Secretary of Interior David Bernhardt said on Friday that the federal government will provide law enforcement the "manpower" to crack down on historic monument vandals.  "We are ensuring we have an opportunity to arrest individuals.  We were asking the Department of Justice to prosecute them to the full extent of the law," Bernhardt told "America's Newsroom."  Bernhardt said that there are severe punishments for criminals who deliberately destroy government property.

The Columbus Calumny.  Social Justice Warriors and their anarchist shock troops carrying out this wanton destruction are, as usual, utterly ignorant of history.  When they're not busy pulling down statues of Columbus, they've been attacking statues and monuments honoring prominent abolitionists and black soldiers who fought with the Union Army to free blacks from slavery.  Clearly, nobody in the rage-stoked mob has the wit to Google the history of the public art that has become the Left's latest target — or has the reading comprehension skills to understand words on the plaque explaining the commendatory deeds of the person(s) honored. [...] The issue at hand is the mindless disrespect being shown to the Italian-American community, because social justice warriors believe Columbus was a genocidal white supremacist way back in 1492. Following this blinkered logic, of course, must mean Italians in the here and now are also genocidal white supremacists.

Lincoln's New Assassins.  Now the mob takes the role of John Wilkes Booth in removing perhaps the greatest of all Lincoln sculptures, the Emancipation Memorial in Lincoln Park, located in northeast Washington, D.C.  The preeminent Lincoln scholar of our or any other time, Harry V. Jaffa, said many times that this sculpture, originally referred to as the Freedman's Memorial, rivaled Daniel French's Lincoln Memorial creation.  The statue was dedicated to honor Lincoln on the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.  Yet the furious mob blindly objects that the statue shows a kneeling slave before a standing Lincoln.  The mob is even more blinkered in its art appreciation than it is in its historical understanding, as I will show in close-up views of the muscular freedman — no longer a slave! — and other details.

Frederick Douglass Begs to Differ.  [T]he latest "anti-racist" campaign targeting statues for forcible erasure is being directed at the Emancipation Memorial, also known as the Freedmen's Memorial.  This effort, announced publicly by a mob that intends to tear down the monument tomorrow evening, is also being backed by D.C.'s non-voting congresswoman, Eleanor Holmes Norton, who has raised several ill-founded objections to the memorial's continued presence in Lincoln Park on Capitol Hill.  The memorial, Holmes Norton avers, is no longer a fitting monument for our times because it failed to "take into account the views of African Americans."  The memorial, it is worth noting, was underwritten by freed slaves; this is, apparently, insufficient evidence that African-American perspectives were consulted in its construction.

The Iconoclasts Have It All Wrong.  The Emancipation Memorial Shows A Man 'In The Act Of Getting Up' For 'His Freedom'.  Black Lives Matter Protesters have threatened to tear down the Emancipation Memorial in Washington.  District of Columbia Delegate to Congress Eleanor Holmes Norton also called for the "problematic" statue's removal from Lincoln Park, alleging the statue fails to note how enslaved African Americans pushed for their emancipation.  Norton said former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass "expressed his displeasure" at its unveiling.  In truth, Frederick Douglass predicted members of his race looking back at its dedication in the distant future "will think of it and speak of it with a sense of manly pride."  On April 14, 1876, the 11th anniversary of Lincoln's assassination, Douglass delivered the keynote address at the unveiling of this memorial.

Yahoo Publishes Column Calling for 'Blatantly Racist' National Anthem to Be Replaced.  Yahoo has published a column from their music editor Lyndsey Parker in which she argues that the Star Spangled Banner is "blatantly racist" and needs to go.  In the column, Parker points out that Francis Scott Key, the author of the national anthem, had ties to anti-abolitionists and glorifies the criminal vandals who tore down a statue of him last week in San Francisco.

Activists and journalists say the Star Spangled Banner should no longer be the National Anthem because it was written by slave owner Francis Scott Key.  There is growing outrage over calls by activists, historians and journalists to replace The Star Spangled Banner as the national anthem because it was written by slave owner Francis Scott Key, and potentially replace it with John Lennon's Imagine.  Historian Daniel E. Walker and activist and journalist Kevin Powell made the remarks in an article written by Yahoo Music Editor Lyndsey Parker titled 'Why it might be time to finally replace The Star-Spangled Banner with a new national anthem'.

Black Historians Call for Preservation of Emancipation Memorial Funded by Freed Slaves.  As leftist agitators have set their sights on the Washington, DC, Emancipation Memorial depicting President Abraham Lincoln and a freed black man, a group of black historians are calling for it to remain in the city park where it was placed in 1876.  Despite threats to tear it down, some are noting fundraising began for the memorial when Charlotte Scott "used the first $5 she earned in freedom to kick off a fundraising campaign as a way of paying homage to Lincoln after he was assassinated in 1865," WJLA reported.

Oglala Sioux president calls for Mount Rushmore to be 'removed but not blown up'.  The president of a South Dakota tribe called for Mount Rushmore to be removed, so long as the removal does not harm the existing environment.  Oglala Sioux President Julian Bear Runner told the Argus Leader Thursday [6/25/2020] that he believed the massive carving featuring Presidents Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Teddy Roosevelt, and Thomas Jefferson should be removed from the area, which he considers to be part of the Sioux's Great Sioux Reservation.  "I don't believe it should be blown up, because it would cause more damage to the land," said Bear Runner.  "Removed but not blown up."

The Editor says...
Damage to the land?  It's a mountain of granite in the middle of nowhere.  Was someone about to plant crops there?  Where were the Indians when the mountain was being dynamited and chiseled?  Mount Rushmore is the best thing that ever happened to their tourist industry, which is probably their only industry.

Canceling Yale.  A few years ago, Yale, in a fit of woke panic, decided to change the name of Calhoun College — named for John C. Calhoun, Yale graduate and valedictorian — because his position on slavery was not consonant with the position today advocated by Yale.  Henceforth, the college formerly known as Calhoun would be known as Hopper, after Grace Hopper, an early computer scientist and naval officer.  I wrote about that incident at the time in the Wall Street Journal and The New Criterion.  As I noted then, no sentient observer of the American academic scene could have been surprised by the move to ditch John C. Calhoun.  On the contrary, the unspoken response was "What took them so long?"  Ever since Salovey announced in 2016 that he was convening a Committee to Establish Principles for Renaming (yes, really), the handwriting had been on the wall for Calhoun, a distinguished Yale alumnus who served his country as a congressman, senator, secretary of war, secretary of state, and vice president.

New Approach to Leadership?  Philadelphia Mayor Wants Threatened Christopher Columbus Statue Removed for 'Public Safety'.  On Wednesday [6/24/2020], Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney issued a decision on the threatened statue of Christopher Columbus at the city's Marconi Plaza.  To Jim, the monument — which was likely the first publicly-funded tribute to the man often credited with discovering the New World — should come down.  Kenney's reason: "public safety."

Philadelphia Mayor Wants Columbus Statue Removed, Cites 'Public Safety'.  On Wednesday, Philadelphia mayor Jim Kenney issued a statement in which he championed the removal of the Christopher Columbus statue at Marconi Plaza in South Philadelphia, thought to be the first publicly-funded monument to Christopher Columbus in the United States, citing his concern for "public safety."

Black Lives Matter Destroys Statue of Immigrant Who Died Fighting Slavery.  Protesters from the Black Lives Matter movement vandalized and toppled a statue Tuesday night in Madison, Wisconsin, of Col. Hans Christian Heg, an immigrant from Norway who died fighting for the Union against slavery.

Vandals Deface Statue of Brigham Young — at Brigham Young University.  Vandals defaced a statue of Brigham Young at Brigham Young University over the weekend.  The vandals dumped red paint on the state and painted the word "racist" on the base of the statue in large red letters.  According to a report by Campus Reform, a statue of Brigham Young on BYU's campus was vandalized over the weekend.  Campus police officers discovered that the statue had been covered in red paint on Monday morning.

Confederate monument remnants removed at North Carolina Capitol.  Crews in North Carolina removed the largest remnants of a 75-foot-tall (23-meter-tall) Confederate monument that sat near the grounds of the state Capitol for 125 years.  The granite pillar that had supported a statue of a Confederate soldier was pulled from its base in Raleigh to cheers from a crowd of onlookers late Tuesday night [6/23/2020], news outlets reported.  By about 7 a.m.  Wednesday, after the pedestal was also removed, all that remained was a low-lying part of the monument's base covered in a tarp, according to WNCN-TV.

'Offensive' Imagery of St Michael Defeating Satan Is 'Reminiscent of George Floyd'.  The Guardian has promoted a petition calling for British honours depicting the victory of St Michael the Archangel over Satan to be redesigned, as the "offensive" imagery is "reminiscent of the recent murder of George Floyd".  The Order of St Michael and St George is bestowed at the pleasure of the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, and "recognises service in a foreign country, or in relation to foreign and Commonwealth affairs" — typically of a non-military nature — with members holding the rank of Knight Grand Cross (GCMG), Knight Commander (KCMG), or Companion (CMG).

The Movement to Destroy a Nation.  Nation-wide protests weeks after George Floyd's murder turned into a movement to destroy a nation.  Parading as an attack on racial injustice, the movement has turned into an obliteration of history.  This week that devastation set its eyes on faith.  Less than one week ago, protesters rekindled the call for removing confederate statues.  Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, in a show of solidarity with the protest mob, removed two portraits of former House speakers who were part of the Confederacy.  From there, the momentum quickly shifted to anyone whose statue is seen as offensive, who may have held racist or politically incorrect views of another era, or who may (or may not) have owned slaves or supported slavery at any time.  Never mind that the qualifiers of what constitutes "offensive" is blurred; the momentum of eradicating history is ruled by emotion, not reason.

Leave the Emancipation Memorial Alone.  In a quiet, tree-lined area about a mile from the U.S. Capitol building, a statue has stood since 1876. Unveiled eleven years after Abraham Lincoln's death, it depicts the 16th president holding the Emancipation Proclamation as a freed slave kneels below, his bonds being severed.  Congress originally named the site of the statue, called the Freedman's Memorial on the plaque affixed to it, Lincoln Square, making it "the first site to bear the name of the martyred president," according to the National Park Service.  It is also known as the Emancipation Memorial.  Lincoln Park's typical quiet was broken on Tuesday [6/23/2020] by an increasingly familiar sight:  a crowd seeking a statue to tear down.  The more such groups deviate further from anything resembling legitimate protest against the unjust death of George Floyd, the more one questions their historical literacy.

Criminals announce time and place they will tear down Abraham Lincoln statue in DC.  Black Lives Matter extremists in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area are reportedly intent on tearing down a statue that was paid for by freed slaves.  Known as the Emancipation Memorial or as Freedman's Memorial, the statue depicting former President Abraham Lincoln and a freed slave has sat in Lincoln Park since 1876.  More notably, the monument was paid for almost entirely by freed slaves.  "The bronze statue, designed by sculptor Thomas Ball, was built almost entirely with funds donated by former slaves and dedicated in 1876," D.C.'s official tourism site, Washington.org, notes.  "The statue was unveiled on the 11th anniversary of Lincoln's death, with Frederick Douglass delivering the keynote address to President Ulysses S. Grant and more than 25,000 people in attendance."

Donald Trump Vows to Protect Statues of Jesus Christ from Leftist Mobs.  President Donald Trump on Wednesday at the White House vowed to protect statues of Jesus Christ and statues of the Founding Fathers in the United States from leftist mobs seeking their destruction.  "They're looking at Jesus Christ.  They're looking at George Washington.  They're looking Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson.  Not going to happen," Trump said.  "Not going to happen as long as I'm here."

War on statues — Will only spheres and cylinders satisfy the mob?  This dishonor is unworthy of the Republican who invited Tuskegee Institute founder and "Up from Slavery" author Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House.  This made Washington the executive mansion's first black dinner guest.  Also, TR launched the U.S. Forest Service, among other conservationist initiatives.  This normally earns applause, not cancellation, at a natural-history museum.  What's racist about this statue?  A virile Roosevelt is on horseback, proudly and freely flanked by an equally muscular Native American and a robust black man.  Roosevelt is not whipping them.  Nor is he auctioning them off as property (unlikely, since slavery ended when TR was 6).  So, what the hell is the problem?  Those who call this statue racist should check themselves for infantilizing the Indian and the black man therein.

Venezuelan Warns Americans:  Statues Coming Down Is Where Revolutions Start.  Elizabeth Rogliani, a Venezuelan actress living in the U.S., told followers on Tik Tok why she is concerned to see statues being torn down and roads being renamed in America.

Where Are Conservative Leaders In This Moment?  When I see the images from Lafayette Square last night or from the weekend across the country of radical leftists and anarchists tearing down or defacing memorials to some of America's greatest heroes, what I keep wondering is:  where are the conservative leaders who have said so much and done so little to defend our history?

Cuomo: Statues coming down is a 'healthy expression'.  Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York said he supports tearing down statues Tuesday, noting that it is a powerful statement about equality and anti-racism.  "People are making a statement about equality, about community, to be against racism, against slavery.  I think those are good statements," Cuomo said Tuesday [6/23/2020] on "Today."  "It's a healthy expression of people saying, 'Let's get some priorities here, and let's remember the sin and mistake that this nation made and let's not celebrate it,'" he added.

Mount Rushmore Is Doomed to the 1619 Riots.  There is no way Mount Rushmore can survive the insurgency of left-wing domestic terrorism currently unfolding in our country. [...] The modern left's goals, the modern media's goals, the goals of the terrorists in Antifa and Black Lives Matter are immoral, are the authoritarian goals of tyrants who want to tell us how to think and what to believe, what we can and cannot say.  They want total control of our children by way of a failed school system, they want total control of that which shapes our culture by way of an entertainment institution that blacklists those who think different, they want total control of political speech by means of tech fascists, and they want total control of our government by way of cheat-by-mail, removing the electoral college, killing the filibuster, and expanding the Supreme Court.  The left are now the Woke Taliban, and the Woke Taliban cannot achieve those goals through non-violent protest and civil disobedience because those goals are monstrous.  So they are forced, like the Bolsheviks before them, to resort to gangsterism and violence, to terror and lies.

Rhode Island may change its official state name over slavery connotations.  What's in a name?  For the state of Rhode Island, years of acrimony over an official designation with connotations of slavery.  But change is brewing in the union's smallest state, as Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo signed an executive order Monday taking the "first steps" to change the state's full name:  "The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations."  The "plantations" portion has come under increased scrutiny following widespread protests after the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

Everywhere Statues Are Torn Down By The Mob, History Promises People Are Next.  For millennia, King Mob has targeted societies' icons with varied goals and to varied ends, and few things are more foreboding than his desecration of civic art.  Just as the targets have ranged from rulers to clergy, from tyrants to helpless, and from the guilty to the innocent, the outcomes have ranged from victory to defeat depending on the society's strength and will.  The promise of bloodshed coming alongside or following shortly after, however, is an historic certainty.  The symbols of a people never satisfy:  People themselves must always come next.

A chilling warning about where the statue-toppling leads.  Think it can't happen here?  It can happen here.  That's the warning from a young woman from Venezuela, who has seen the statue-topplings before - and the street renamings, (and the flag alterings, and the name changings) along the destruction of history, and knows exactly where it leads. [...] Among many Venezuelans, there were stories about flight.  There was terror about crime and lawlessness and criminals being allowed to rampage to keep the population docile.  There were conversations about whether it would be wise to collaborate with the CIA. There were warnings about not talking too loudly, even in English, in restaurants.  There was resigned talk about stolen elections -- from the people who actually had them stolen from them.  There was talk about what families should do it someone were to be taken in a kidnapping.  There were Cubans there, too, exiles who fled the Castro regime and made a new life for themselves in Venezuela, who made the same warnings this young woman made, about where the statue-toppling was going to lead.

What Happens After All The Statues Come Down?  The Chavez-ification Of America.  he recent spate of statue toppling is not just vandalism of the rabble gone wild.  It's more than that, much more.  So far in this current cycle, the statues of Confederates, Christopher Columbus, George Washington, a Spanish missionary, U.S. Grant, a Texas Ranger, and an Oregon pioneer, to name a few, have either been torn down by mobs or removed by officials who have surrendered to the swarming Woke activists.  It's not easy to decide who is more contemptible, the thugs pulling down the memorials or the authorities who are allowing the crimes to occur.

The Fight against Statues Is a Fight against Civilization.  The movement to tear down statues or even just to deface them was misconceived in its earliest stages and has now, like most aspects of the self-flagellating fever over "systemic racism," evolved from just concerns about offending African-American sensibilities into an assault on the entire body of achievement of Western civilization.  This movement really began with the debate over whether to remove the statue of General Robert E. Lee from a main square of Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.  Serious civic discussion on a legitimate question quickly deteriorated into mob violence between Klansmen and neo-Nazis on one side and Antifa and the belligerent faction of the now lionized Black Lives Matter (BLM) on the other.

Unfriendly Fascism From the Democrats.  Now the mob is planning to tear down the statue of Theodore Roosevelt, and, may I add, that TR was one of the original Progressives.  Take a look in an American history book, if you can find one.  Teddy was an original Progressive.  The mayor of the fated city of New York, Bill de Blasio has already approved Teddy's removal.  Au revoir, Teddy; you will soon rest in the dustbin of history along with George Washington and so many other old white men of American history. [...] All the flag burners, statue smashers, and, dare I say it, book burners, are on the left.  In fact, Mayor de Blasio is one of them.  Though he is careful to wear a suit and tie, when he appears on television he always approves of the mob, and it is only a matter of time before he begins appearing in public wearing a uniform with epaulets and perhaps a sword.

Police, National Guard to handle 'savage' situation of toppling monuments, interior secretary says.  Interior Secretary David Bernhardt joined "The Ingraham Angle" Tuesday night, where he addressed plans to protect monuments on federal property, saying he has taken more measures to safeguard the artifacts.  "This evening, I requested from the secretary of defense that the National Guard be available to us to begin to redact additional monuments.  Earlier today, I instructed the erection of a fence at Lafayette Plaza as well as at St. John's Church.  And we will protect these monuments and we will do it with the dispatch and severity last night," Bernhardt said.  "Our Park Police and the Metro D.C. Police, as well as the U.S. Secret Service uniformed patrol, did an excellent job in addressing the issue and rapidly protecting the statue.  And those activities will continue."

Self-righteous vandals.  In the case of Confederate monuments, controversy about their relationship to segregation is understandable.  But that calls for discrimination.  The 'Appomattox' statue taken down in Alexandria, Virginia was far from a gesture of defiance toward the victorious north.  Not for nothing was the statue named for the court house at which the Army of Northern Virginia surrendered.  It showed an unarmed soldier, eyes downcast and arms crossed, his face somber — an image of manly defeat, dedicated by veterans in 1889 to their fallen brothers.  The statue was striking for showing a side of America that otherwise remains hidden, a face that isn't the face of moral triumphalism and worldly success.  It was an image intended to trouble a civilization given to self-congratulation.  It was a reminder that even Americans know what it is like to lose a war.

Victor Davis Hanson:  Taking Down Statues Is About 'Humiliation And Power.  Professor Victor Davis Hanson said Monday that the wave of statue removal in the United States is "about humiliation and power."  "They always have a minority of a population that's not about the icon on the statue, it's about humiliation and power," Hanson told "Tucker Carlson Tonight."  "So if you're going to take down Teddy Roosevelt at the National Museum, why don't you go to Mount Rushmore and blow Teddy Roosevelt up?  You don't want to do that because the people in that area of the Dakotas might resist."  Hanson suggested that if people really want to get rid of "Robert E. Lee's head in Washington" they would also head to Stone Mountain, Georgia and deface a bas relief monument with Lee's image on it.  "They won't do that because they know a few people will stand up and say, 'you're not going to do that.'"

How Long Will the Vandals Run Amok?  We erect statues to remember, revere and honor those whom we memorialize.  And what is the motivation of the people who tear them down and desecrate them?  In a word, it is hate.  A goodly slice of America's young hates this country's history and the men who made it.  It hates the discoverers and explorers like Columbus, the conquistadores and colonists.  It hates the Founding Fathers and the first 15 presidents, all of whom either had slaves or coexisted with the injustice of slavery.  But hating history and denying history and tearing down the statues of the men who made that history does not change history.

Statue Toppling Is Bringing Mob Rule to America.  A debate over policing, race, and history has degenerated into general lawlessness, as mobs have swarmed and destroyed statues in our biggest cities from coast to coast.  And these mobs have hardly been discriminating. [...] They've attacked people of a multitude of creeds, races, and religions: white, black, and Hispanic; Catholic, Protestant, and Hindu.  All in the name of purging, in the words of many activists, "systematic racism," and various other sins inherent in our country's past, present, and future.  Unfortunately, this sort of mob justice is unlikely to bring us to a kind of post-racial utopia, a heaven on earth.  More likely it will bring us straight to perdition, where free government disintegrates and we become a nation of men and mobs, not the law.

Why So Few Arrests?  Police Stand by as Vandals Tear Down Statues.  It's not just Confederate statues being pulled down anymore.  Statues of historical figures that weren't part of the Confederacy — and in some cases fought it — have been toppled in cities across the country, while police apparently did nothing to stop the crimes.  According to an Associated Press summary of weekend protests and vandalism, rioters tore down statues in San Francisco; Portland, Oregon; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Washington, D.C.  Only North Carolina police confirmed arrests in connection with the vandalism and destruction of property.

The real reason mobs across the country are tearing down American monuments.  On Monday, a mob attempted to knock down a statue of Andrew Jackson.  They spray-painted the base, trying to knock the statue down.  In large letters, you can see it says "killer" at the bottom.  Amazing.  This is happening all over the country as you know and there's a reason for it.  Over the weekend, most recently — doubtless, you've heard of this — city officials announced their plan to remove the statue of Teddy Roosevelt from outside New York's Museum of Natural History.  The bronze statue has stood there in the Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda facing Central Park since before the Second World War.  Soon it will be gone.  People who erected that statue 80 years ago would be confused by this, no doubt.  They did not consider Teddy Roosevelt a controversial figure.  In fact, Roosevelt was the most popular president in American history.  He was also the most American president.  No other country could have produced Teddy Roosevelt.  Roosevelt's virtues mirrored the values of America.  He was physically brave.  He was profoundly literate, highly self-disciplined and amazingly energetic.  While still a college student, Roosevelt wrote a two-volume history of the War of 1812 that is still in print today.

Systemic Ignorance.  If you don't know much of anything, what right have you to instruct those who do know?  Every right, it would presently seem.  In acknowledgement of which right — oh, boy! — you commission instructive pieces of testimony like the San Francisco overthrow of a statue representing — are you ready? — former President and Gen. Ulysses Simpson Grant.  U.S. Grant!  Grant, who accepted, at Appomattox courthouse in 1865, the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia on the initiative of its commander, Robert E. Lee!  Thus writing "finis" to the Civil War/War Between the States.  I have read that the rap on Grant, from the standpoint of the San Francisco mob, was that for a year, he personally owned one slave — one — who he freed a couple of years before the war.  I doubt many find this explanation persuasive.  I don't.

Trump, Secretary Of The Interior Respond To Left-Wing Rioters Destroying Statues: 'Justice Will Be Served'.  President Donald Trump and Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt both responded to the latest spate of violent riots that have resulted in the destruction of historical statues across the U.S. by saying that it would not be tolerated.  The statements from Trump and Bernhardt come after rioters have destroyed presidential statues in recent days across the country, including statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Ulysses S. Grant.  Violent rioters in Washington, D.C., tried to destroy a statue of former President Andrew Jackson on Monday, which police were able to stop.

Trump orders law enforcement to arrest memorial vandals under federal act with up to 10-year sentence.  President Trump said he has authorized federal law enforcement to arrest those caught vandalizing memorials and charge them under the Veterans' Memorial Preservation and Recognition Act.  "I have authorized the Federal Government to arrest anyone who vandalizes or destroys any monument, statue or other such Federal property in the U.S. with up to 10 years in prison, per the Veteran's Memorial Preservation Act, or such other laws that may be pertinent," the president tweeted Tuesday morning [6/23/2020].  "This action is taken effective immediately, but may also be used retroactively for destruction or vandalism already caused.  There will be no exceptions!" he added.

What Happens When the Madness Ends?  For all the conservatives who virtue signaled that Confederate statues had to come down now, the logical trajectory of their acquiesce was the toppling of Ulysses S. Grant, Columbus, and Father Junipero Serra, and the defacements of Lincoln, Jefferson, and Washington.  And it won't do to deplore the mob's insanity when it turns on abolitionists, Cervantes, and black Civil War veterans.  After all, from the time of the dismemberment of Cinna the Roman poet, that's precisely what mobs do when appeased:  turn on the innocent without apology.

NC governor orders Confederate monuments removed at Capitol after statues toppled.  Gov. Roy Cooper ordered three Confederate monuments removed from the state Capitol grounds to protect public safety, he said in a statement, less than 24 hours after protesters pulled down two bronze soldiers from the 75-foot Confederate monument at the Capitol.  The monuments include memorials that have stood at the State Capitol for more than a century: the remainder of the North Carolina Confederate monument, the monument to the Women of the Confederacy and the Henry Wyatt Monument.  Crews removed the Wyatt Monument and the Women of the Confederacy statues Saturday morning.

Petition Draws Support To Rename Columbus, Ohio, 'Flavortown' After City Removes Christopher Columbus Statue.  Flavortown.  That's what thousands of people want to rename Columbus, Ohio, according to a new petition posted on change.org.  And the petition poster sounds serious.  "Beloved Buckeyes one and all," wrote someone identifying himself as Tyler Woodbridge.  "Columbus is an amazing city, but one whose name is tarnished by the very name itself.  Its namesake, Christopher Columbus, is in The Bad Place because of all his raping, slave trading, and genocide.  That's not exactly a proud legacy."  "Why not rename the city Flavortown?  The new name is twofold.  For one, it honors Central Ohio's proud heritage as a culinary crossroads and one of the nation's largest test markets for the food industry," Woodbridge added.  "Secondly, chef-lebrity Guy Fieri was born in Columbus, so naming the city in honor of him (he's such a good dude, really) would be superior to its current nomenclature."

The Editor says...
Obviously these are people who watch too much television, place too much emphasis on celebrity, have very shallow roots, and have no comprehension of history beyond 1980.  And they want to use riots and insurrection as the leverage to rename once-great cities.  The name of a city doesn't keep anyone from achieving whatever they want.

NYC's Museum of Natural History will remove its statue of Theodore Roosevelt.  The American Museum of Natural History will remove a prominent statue of Theodore Roosevelt from its entrance after years of objections that it symbolizes colonial expansion and racial discrimination, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday [6/21/2020].  The bronze statue that has stood at the museum's Central Park West entrance since 1940 depicts Roosevelt on horseback with a Native American man and an African man standing next to the horse.

Democrat Leaders to Remove Iconic Teddy Roosevelt Statue outside NYC Museum of Natural History.  They won't stop til they crush the system.  In August 2017 far left protesters demanded the New York Museum of Natural History remove their famous Teddy Roosevelt statue. [...] On Sunday [6/21/2020] The New York Times announced liberal leaders agreed to take down the iconic Roosevelt statue outside the Museum of Natural History.

Juneteenth Protesters Topple Golden Gate Park Statues Of Junipero Serra, Francis Scott Key, U.S. Grant.  The statues of Junipero Serra, Francis Scott Key, U.S. Grant laid on the ground in the pre-dawn darkness of Golden Gate Park Saturday, toppled, broken and defaced by a large crowd of Juneteenth protesters who gathered Friday night to demand an end to racial injustice.  San Francisco police said they received several calls around 8:15 p.m.  Friday reporting an unruly gathering in Golden Gate Park in the area of Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr. and Martin Luther King Jr.  Dr.

New York City parks to be renamed after Black Americans.  New York City parks in each borough will be renamed to honor Black Americans.  The announcement was made Friday by Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver in honor of Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S.  The holiday took on added meaning this year amid ongoing protests calling for racial equality, and in that spirit, Silver said it is time to recognize and correct the inequities laid to bare in the course of creating the city parks system.

Conservative Cowards Are To Blame For Falling Statues.  There is no need to name names.  The so-called conservatives who have been coddling mindless calls to destroy public art know who they are, so do the rest of us.  These are the reasonable conservatives, the good ones, so ever careful no to be called racist.  They had a compromise in mind because they always do.  Throw the Confederate statues under the bus and we can save the rest.  Well.  Friday night a statue of Ulysses S. Grant was toppled.  Also the statue of a Catholic saint.  Do you know who is to blame?  It is not the hordes of progressives with ropes and chains; it is every conservative who thought those Jacobin lunatics could be appeased by just tearing down certain statues.  It is a metaphor for the fecklessness of an American right too cowed to stand up for itself.

The Right Must Defend Our Monuments.  Life is tough for statues dedicated to dead white men.  At the bare minimum, these statues will be spray painted.  Worse, and more common these days, an unlucky statue will be dragged across town and dumped in the nearest body of water.  Authorities seem not to mind the recent destruction.  Police stand idly by as mobs deface our heritage and disregard all rules and laws.  Some authorities want to finish the mob's work and topple the statues with taxpayer-funded services.  Republicans and conservatives appear remarkably unconcerned with this war on history.  They're too busy repeating Black Lives Matter talking points to notice our monuments being defaced and our statues razed.

Radical Islamist and Far Left Activist Umar Lee Launches Petition to Rename St. Louis City.  Radical St. Louis Islamist Umar Lee was arrested in Ferguson, Missouri in September 2014. Umar Lee once threatened to behead his critics and watch them squeal "like Daniel Pearl."  Lee was cuffed and detained in September 2014 in Ferguson.  Umar Lee is now passing around a petition to remove the grand St.  Louis Statue from Art Hill in Forest Park in St. Louis.

Minnesota Twins remove statue of former owner Calvin Griffith from outside Target Field.  By the time the Twins reached out this week to several of their prominent former players, the decision already had been made.  The statue of former owner Calvin Griffith, the man who brought Major League Baseball to Minnesota in 1961, was being removed.  In the early hours of Friday morning [6/19/2020], just that occurred.  The statue of the first team owner, standing in front of Target Field since the ballpark opened in 2010, was hauled away by a construction crew.

Statues Are Part of History.  The removal of hundreds of Civil War monuments, including the recent removal of a statue of Jefferson Davis and an attempt to remove the imposing image of Robert E. Lee in Richmond, are part of a similar attempt to suppress an aspect of our history that some now see as offensive.  It does little good to note that many southern leaders before and at the time of the war, including Jefferson; Madison; Clay; and Robert E. Lee himself, who assisted slaves moving to the free colony in Liberia and provided emancipation for his slaves in his will, had serious moral qualms about the institution of slavery and hoped it would eventually be eliminated, regardless of the outcome of the war.  Although they owned slaves, Jefferson and Madison both spoke of slavery as an evil that must be abolished.

Nobody elected her to do anything.
Chirlane McCray to decide fate of NYC statues of Washington, Jefferson.  First lady Chirlane McCray will put statues and structures honoring historic figures tainted by slavery — including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson — under the microscope as part of a new "Commission on Racial Justice and Reconciliation," Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Friday [6/19/2020].  Hizzoner's move comes a day after five city lawmakers — including City Council Speaker Corey Johnson — sent a letter requesting the statue of Jefferson be removed from the council's chamber, as leaders across the city and nation struggle to respond to weeks of protests over racism that followed the death of George Floyd.  "This is exactly the kind of thing that this new commissions needs to examine," de Blasio told reporters during his morning briefing, announcing his wife's latest assignment.

The United States of Appeasement.  Once they see how easy it is to get what they want, their list of demands only grows longer. [...] They want Confederate statues smashed into oblivion and military bases that were named after Confederate generals to be renamed.  However, these statues and military bases have been around a long time — just like House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has served in Congress since 1987.  Let's say Fort Benning, named after Confederate brigadier general Henry L. Benning, is rechristened.  However, it's located in Columbus, Georgia.  Would they want the city renamed, too?  After all, they hate Christopher Columbus as much as they hate Henry Benning.

Senate vote to remove Confederate statues from U.S. Capitol fails.  Calls to remove Confederate statues from the U.S. Capitol were shot down in the Senate this week.  Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) brought a vote on the matter to a close Thursday, voting against the removal of the statues.  Blunt has said he'd "like to get the opinion of states who are taking out similar statues" before voting.  He further suggested holding a hearing on the matter.

George Washington Statue Toppled by Antifa Black Lives Matter Mob in Portland.  A statue of George Washington was toppled by Antifa and Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland, Oregon Thursday night.  The statue and its base were spray-pained with anti-American slogans including the New York Times "1619" propaganda slur.  American flags were burned on Washington.  No police were present until the statue was felled.

Thomas Jefferson statue should be removed from NYC Council chambers, lawmakers say.  A statue of Thomas Jefferson should be removed from the City Council chambers, say Speaker Corey Johnson and the leaders of the Council's Black, Latino and Asian Caucus.  "The statue of Thomas Jefferson in the City Council Chambers is inappropriate and serves as a constant reminder of the injustices that have plagued communities of color since the inception of our country.  It must be removed," Johnson, Councilwoman Adrienne Adams and Councilman I. Daneek Miller wrote Mayor de Blasio on Thursday.

Popular Mechanics blasted for guide on 'how to topple a statue'.  Popular Mechanics magazine has come under fire after publishing a detailed guide on toppling monuments.  "Bring that sucker down without anyone getting hurt," the article posted Monday encourages readers, promising the best advice on "how to topple a statue using science."  Author James Stout says his article is inspired by the worldwide attacks on "problematic monuments" tied to the "legacy of racism" amid ongoing protests.  "Should you happen to find yourself near a statue that you decide you no longer like, we asked scientists for the best, safest ways to bring it to the ground without anyone getting hurt — except, of course, for the inanimate racist who's been dead for a century anyway," the article says.  Mechanical engineer Scott Holland then advised how — with about 70 strong friends — protesters could pull down most statues with 4x4 recovery straps "around the head or the neck."

What's the name of the football team in Kansas City?
Duluth pushes to remove 'chief' from job titles, calling it offensive to indigenous people.  City leaders are making a push to remove the word "chief" from job titles, calling the term offensive to indigenous people.  At a news conference Wednesday, Duluth Mayor Emily Larson implored City Council members to vote to approve the change next week "so that we have more inclusive leadership and less language that is rooted in hurt and offensive, intentional marginalization."  The measure, slated to go before the council Monday night, would change Chief Administrative Officer Noah Schuchman's title to city administrator and Chief Financial Officer Wayne Parson's title to finance director.

Here Are the Heroes Whose Statues Black Lives Matter Has Attacked.  The statue of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, stands at the corner of Fairfax and Beverly in Los Angeles.  When the racist mobs swept through the area, looting Jewish stores and defacing synagogues with "BLM" and "Free Palestine" graffiti, the statue of a man who risked his life to resist fascism and bigotry was one of their targets.  The racists and leftists vandalizing statues across the world claim that they're fighting hate, but their targets have often been the men and women who courageously stood up to racism and hatred.

Activist Who Supports Statue Removal Reveals Live On-Air She Doesn't Know Who Winston Churchill Is.  Left-wing activist and chair of the Lambeth "independent" police advisory board Lorraine Jones revealed live on-air Saturday that she doesn't know who late Prime Minister Winston Churchill was in an embarrassing exchange with Cathy Newman, telling the host, "I haven't personally met him."  Churchill led Britain during World War II in its battle against the Nazis and has been dead since 1965.

As American politicians cower before BLM, they get a lesson in courage from France.  I am sick at heart that our entire political leadership is cowering before mobs of vandals seeking to destroy our collective memory of the past.  But now, we see mob rule imitating the tactics of the Red Guards of China's Cultural Revolution, who destroyed that nation's precious artistic and literary heritage in the name of revolutionary purity, and the Taliban in Afghanistan, who blew up ancient Buddhist statues — to almost universal condemnation outside the Islamic world. [...] If the Republic survives, this era will become an enduring blot of shame for the madness tolerated and even promoted by the commanding heights of our political, corporate, academic, and media establishments — in other words, our entire institutional leadership class.

How Our Anti-American Education System Made Riots Inevitable.  Even in the non-violent demonstrations, protesters can be seen burning the American flag, an act that just 30 years ago engendered such outrage it spurred Congress to pass an unconstitutional law, but doesn't even warrant coverage today.  In broad daylight, protesters have defaced and toppled statues dedicated to any and all figures of America's history.  Lest anyone think the mob's Year Zero behavior stopped with the slaveholding Confederacy, in Boston a monument to the 54th Massachusetts, an all-black Union regiment during the Civil War, was among those vandalized.  Matthias Baldwin, an early abolitionist, got the same treatment in Philadelphia, as did the lesser-known Rotary Club founder Paul Harris, whose plaque in Washington D.C. was marked simply with an ignorance-acknowledging "probably a racist."  The monument to the author of the Emancipation Proclamation on the National Mall was likely spared only because of the protection of the National Guard.

America Has Problems.  Tearing Down Statues Won't Solve Them.  In the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the widespread spirit of protest has expanded to a wide array of cultural symbols — ranging from statues of Columbus to the movie Gone With The Wind.  In Toronto, activists are demanding the renaming of a major street because it happens to be named after a long-dead Scottish politician who opposed the abolition of the slave trade.  Some of these campaigns are questionable.  But in the current environment, any claim or posture that's seen as emanating from the Black Lives Matter movement, however indirectly, is taken as morally unassailable.  In fact, this trend already was well underway before Floyd's death.  But it has accelerated over the last two weeks.

Do we want a civilization based on vandalism?  When demonstrations triggered by the death of George Floyd spread to Philadelphia, vandals defaced a statue outside City Hall of an old white man.  They spray-painted the words "colonizer" and "murderer" on it.  But the statue was of Matthias Baldwin, a 19th-century businessman and abolitionist.  Baldwin was a vocal opponent of slavery decades before the Civil War.  He founded a school for poor black children and paid the teachers' salaries for years.  He also advocated voting rights for blacks well before the enactment of the 15th Amendment.  None of this spared his likeness from today's Jacobins.  Nor was the Baldwin episode an isolated case.

Boston considers removing Abraham Lincoln statue with freed slave.  Boston's mayor is in favor of taking down a local statue of President Abraham Lincoln standing before a freed black man, after a petition was launched for its removal, his office says.  Mayor Marty Walsh's office added that the pol wants a community discussion about its future and whether a new statue commemorating the end of slavery should be commissioned to take its place, according to the Boston Globe.  The controversial statue, situated in the city's Park Square, is a replica of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington and shows Lincoln with one hand raised above a kneeling man with broken shackles on his wrists.  The monument was intended to show Lincoln freeing the man from slavery, but a new petition argues that it "instead represents us still beneath someone else.

Penny Lane, made famous by The Beatles, 'in danger of being renamed' if alleged slavery link proven, official says.  Penny Lane, the road in Liverpool that gained worldwide recognition after The Beatles wrote a song about it, is now "in danger of being renamed" if it can be proven that its title is linked to a slave trader, a local politician says.  Steve Rotherham, the mayor of the Liverpool city region, issued the warning to Sky News on Monday as a debate has emerged over the origins of the name Penny Lane.  One of the road's signs was defaced on Friday with the word "RACIST" spray-painted next to it in an apparent reference to James Penny, a Liverpool-based slave trader whom the BBC says defended the practice during a parliamentary inquiry in the late 1700s.

Thomas Jefferson statue toppled by protesters at Portland high school.  Protesters toppled a statue of Thomas Jefferson in front of a high school Sunday night during a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Portland, Oregon.  Demonstrators gathered Sunday night outside Jefferson High School in Northeast Portland to protest the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man whose police-custody death in Minneapolis sparked a wave of national unrest.  According to The Oregonian, more than 1,000 protesters marched to Alberta Park and a smaller group stayed behind and toppled the statue onto the ground.

The statue-smashers won't stop there — unless we stop them now.  From Boston to Bristol, England, latter-day vandals are decapitating, spray-painting, smashing and throwing into the sea statues of fallen idols.  In the South, Confederate leaders are a target; in Britain, anyone to do with the slave trade.  But Columbus is the commonest trophy, largely due to his likeness' ubiquity in town squares.  The most famous, in Columbus Circle (or just plain Circle?), now has a heavy round-the-clock police guard.  To be clear:  We should continue to reconsider who gets pride of place in public spaces.  When I lived in New Orleans 25 years ago, I thought it was strange to ride down highways named after Jeff Davis.  All the monuments, though, had a double meaning:  They were a reminder that the legacy of slavery still oppressed the country.  Sure, rename the highway, but don't erase history.  Confederate statues belong in museums, with explanation, not destroyed and graffitied.

Dover police charge Camden man with vandalizing law enforcement officer memorial.  A 42-year-old Camden man accused of taking an ax to the back of a neck of a police officer memorial in Dover early Friday morning [6/12/2020] has been arrested, Dover Police said.  They arrested him after finding evidence at the scene and watching video surveillance, according to police.  Police said Kyle Bullock left his cell phone at the scene where they found an ax, a vandalized statue of an officer kneeling, and two urine-soaked Delaware state flags.  Shortly after 5:30 a.m. police discovered the damage to the memorial located on Martin Luther King Boulevard.

'Bring down Winston Churchill's statue!' Black Lives Matter organiser calls for 'offensive' memorial of wartime leader to be removed and put into a museum.  Imarn Ayton, 29, a figurehead of the movement who has given speeches alongside Star Wars actor John Boyega, said a monument to anyone who has made racist comments — including the wartime PM — is offensive and belongs in a museum.  But she urged campaigners to stay off the streets of London to prevent rallies exploding into a 'race war' against the far-right, who are among those trooping to the capital and other cities across the UK to defend targeted sculptures.

Topplers of Statues at Work.  Britain is now following the experience of the U.S. in removing or calling for removal of statues or monuments of individuals associated with slavery, or racial discrimination, or those regarded as imperialists or colonialists.  No doubt the UK in the past pulled down statues and palaces of other civilizations.  The question now arises whether history is being erased or truly evaluated. [...] Is history to be made by the winners or current protestors?  The need is compelling for legitimate historical analysis to clarify the true history of personalities who have been admired.

The Backlash Is Coming.  We can't resolve much of anything when we're kept in a constant state of suspicion, fear, agitation, and anger. [...] There are probably quite a few Americans outraged by the sights of statues of Christopher Columbus or other figures from history being beheaded or pulled down, or the defacing of statutes of abolitionists in the name of racial equality.  Whatever you think of Christopher Columbus or any other historical figure, we have a legal and democratic process to remove statues from public squares when a sufficient portion of the public deems them no longer acceptable.  These communities have zoning boards and local elected officials who can make those choices and be held accountable to the public through elections.  Nobody elected those angry mobs to a damn thing.  This is rule by force, the strongest forcing their will upon those who are weaker than them.  This will not end well for anyone.

'Symbols are powerful things': New Orleans Council readies changes to Confederate street names.  Statues of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and P.G.T. Beauregard were toppled in New Orleans three years ago.  But their names, along with those of a host of other Confederate officers and officials, still adorn the city's streets and parks.  That could soon change amid an upwelling of outrage over racial injustice following the killing of George Floyd.  Jefferson Davis Parkway, Robert E. Lee Blvd. and at least 20 other streets that honor leaders of the Confederacy are expected to be among the first considered for removal by a new City Council advisory group.

Woke Texas Football Players Demand School Rename Stadium, Eliminate 'Eyes of Texas'.  Football players at the University of Texas at Austin have released a lengthy list of demands, urging the university to change the name of buildings on campus — including the stadium — and eliminate "The Eyes of Texas" as the school's song in the name of inclusivity, claiming the racism that "has historically plagued" the campus.  "The recent events across the country regarding racial injustice have brought to light the systemic racism that has always been prevalent in our country as well as the racism that has historically plagued our campus," Texas Longhorns players said in a statement released on Friday [6/13/2020].

Petition launched to change 'racist' name of Lynchburg, Virginia — which was named after an abolitionist.  A resident of Lynchburg, Virginia, has launched a petition to rename the town, arguing that its name carries "racist and horrifying connotations."  But the founder of the town was actually an early supporter of emancipation in the U.S., and his link to the term "lynching" involves another history lesson.  Daisy Howard has launched a petition to the Lynchburg City Council, writing that "if black lives truly matter to the city, then such a word defining the hanging of people of color can and will be eliminated."

New Orleans protesters pull down bust, throw it in river.  Protesters Saturday [6/13/2020] tore down a bust of a slave owner who left part of his fortune to New Orleans' schools and then took the remains to the Mississippi River and rolled it down the banks into the water.  The destruction is part of a nationwide effort to remove monuments to the Confederacy or with links to slavery as the country grapples with widespread protests against police brutality toward African Americans.  Police said in a statement Saturday that demonstrators at Duncan Plaza, which is directly across the street from City Hall, dragged the bust into the streets, loaded it onto trucks and took it to the Mississippi River where they threw it in.

The State Of Texas Delivers A 'Simple' Message To Rioters Thinking About Trashing The Alamo.  Texas land commissioner George P. Bush, the eldest son of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, delivered a simple message for rioters who might be thinking about trashing The Alamo:  "Don't mess with The Alamo."  Bush released a statement on Saturday evening after social media posts claimed that so-called "protesters" were wanting to take down The Alamo, which comes as violent rioters have trashed inner cities across the country and have destroyed historical monuments and statues in recent days.

Robert E. Lee opposed construction of Confederate monuments.  Robert E. Lee, who led the Army of Northern Virginia through the Civil War, opposed the construction of monuments commemorating the vanquished Confederacy.  Within the past week, NASCAR announced a ban on the Confederate flag, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi renewed calls to have Confederate statues removed from the Capitol, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio insisted anything named after Lee in his city "has to go," and thousands of protesters across the country tore down Confederate monuments.  After the Civil War, Lee repeatedly voiced his objection to statues or monuments that honor the Confederacy.  Lee's underlying rationale behind opposing the monuments was Southern reconciliation with the Union, hoping to quell further sentiments of rebellion in the aftermath of the Civil War.

Two historic pioneer statues torn down on University of Oregon campus.  Two historic statues have been torn down on the University of Oregon campus this weekend — the Pioneer Mother and the Pioneer outside Johnson Hall.  The Pioneer Statue has been dragged up the steps of Johnson Hall, while the Pioneer Mother was still laying next to her mount.  Statues of Confederate figures have come down during protests in the southern US, and protesters in England tore down a statue of a slave trader and dumped it in a nearby river.  Statues of Christopher Columbus have also been targeted.

Oops: Protesters just defaced a statue of one of the good guys.  Defacing or vandalizing statues is a risky business.  We saw this earlier this week when a protester in Portsmouth, Va., was seriously injured after a Confederate statue he was helping topple landed squarely on his head.  Sometimes the risk is less serious, damaging only the ego, though the pain of having done something hopelessly stupid can be just as real.  Such is the case in Philadelphia, where Black Lives Matter activists smeared red paint all over the face of a statue of Matthias Baldwin, scrawling colonizer on the pedestal.  So who was Matthias Baldwin?  He was an industrialist, inventor (he perfected a stationary steam engine for locomotives), and philanthropist who lived from 1795 to 1866.  Not much there warranting a paint job.  But there is even less when you consider that Baldwin was also a resolute abolitionist.

Abolitionist Monuments Defaced By 'Anti Racism' Rioters Is What Teaching Fake History Gets America.  The imagery couldn't be more direct.  Across the nation, rioting and unrest that has killed black Americans and destroyed black neighborhoods has included the defacement of historic monuments, including those to abolitionists.  The last wave of monument destruction, in 2017, largely focused on Confederates and slave holders, erasing all the accomplishments of figures such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson with a scarlet S, for slave-holder.  This time, the ignorance has descended even further.  The rioters are now tearing down and defacing memorials wantonly, apparently assuming that if someone is being celebrated that person is "probably a racist," as the image below says. [...]

A Plague of White Submissiveness.  On June 4, Virginia governor Ralph Northam announced that Richmond's largest Confederate statue will be removed — one among the many statues in honor of the Confederacy that are being taken down in cities across the U.S. For more and more, white people are submitting to the left, and evidencing a hostility to their own heritage.  Statues have already been removed in Alexandria and a slave auction block was removed in Fredericksburg, Va., on June 5.  Early Monday, Louisville, Ky., officials removed a statue of John Breckinridge Castleman, a Confederate officer.  The city had been fighting the state for two years to remove the statue, and on Friday a Jefferson Circuit Court judge sided with the city.  In Nashville on Thursday, the Montgomery Bell Academy promised to remove a statue of Sam Davis, a Confederate soldier, within a week after an alum of the school began a petition.  Even NASCAR has banned the Confederate flag at its events, [...]

Statue of Christopher Columbus toppled, beheaded in Camden park.  A statue of Christopher Columbus was beheaded by protesters on Thursday [6/11/2020] as the city tried to remove the monument from a park in Camden, New Jersey.  The city of Camden said the statue in Farnham Park has "long pained residents of the community" and attempted to remove the structure on Thursday evening in advance of a planned protest at the site, according to Philadelphia's CBS3.  But as city workers tried to remove the monument, demonstrators lopped off its head and hoisted it into the air before placing it on the statue's base.

Wokism's Cult Following.  When statues are toppled it's because the topplers are making room for their own monuments.  Every revolution is driven not only by the desire to tear down but also to replace the old world with the new.  'Defunding the police,' we are now told, does not mean defunding the police, but shifting the money to a new public safety agency, which will almost certainly lead to a politicized if not a political police.  Even banning Gone with the Wind is preparatory to more.  No political movement ever bans just one book.  That coming new world will be inconceivably different from anything familiar.  It has to be in order to be transformative.

Nancy Pelosi Silent on Own Father Who Oversaw Dedication of Confederate Statue.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who on Wednesday demanded the removal of Confederate statues occupying the U.S. Capitol, has remained silent on her father's role in overseeing the dedication of the Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee Monument while serving as Baltimore's mayor in 1948.  Pelosi this week formally requested the removal of Confederate statues occupying the U.S. Capitol, dismissing them as "monuments to men who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly racist end."  Her demand comes as angry protesters across the nation take matters into their own hands, vandalizing — and in some cases, beheading — statues and monuments memorializing the Civil War era and beyond.

Whatever happened to Sambo's in Cleveland?  Last remaining restaurant changing its name.  Remember Sambo's?  For decades, the infamously named restaurant was ubiquitous with more than 1,100 locations throughout the country.  It's down to one final restaurant, which announced it is changing its name in light of protests over the death of George Floyd.  The killing of Floyd, an African-American man in Minneapolis, by the hands of police, has spurred protests across the country while sparking conversation and dialogue over race.  And last week, the owners of the original Sambo's in Santa Barbara, California, announced it would change the name of its restaurant, which opened almost exactly 63 years ago.

Why Wasn't Pelosi Offended Over Confederate Statues During Last 30 years?  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has been in Congress for more than 30 years and yet, during this time, she apparently never called for the removal of Confederate statues from the U.S. Capitol.  But she did on Wednesday, which prompted conservative talk radio host Mark Levin to ask why she didn't do it when Harry Reid (D-Nev.) or former KKK member Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) ran the Senate.  On Wednesday, June 10, Pelosi sent a letter to the Joint Committee on the Library, which oversees the statues in the Capitol.  There are 11 statues of Confederate figures in the Capitol's Statuary Hall.

Statue of Boy Scouts founder Robert Baden-Powell will be 'temporarily' removed.  A statue of worldwide Boy Scouts founder Lord Robert Baden-Powell will be "temporarily" removed in southern England amid topplings of controversial monuments, officials said.  Amid the surging worldwide anti-racism movement, Baden-Powell, who served in the British Army, founded the Scouting movement in 1908 and died in 1941 at age 83, has been accused of racism, homophobia and support for Adolf Hitler.  Officials in the southern seaside town of Poole said the statue would be under 24-hour guard until it can be transported to a secure location.

Pelosi:  Confederate symbols 'have to go' from Capitol, bases.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday [6/11/2020] that it's time to remove symbols honoring Confederate figures from the U.S. Capitol building and military bases as the pandemic and racial unrest force a national reckoning with racial discrimination.  "These names have to go from these bases and these statues have to go from the Capitol," Pelosi said at her weekly news conference.

The Editor says...
Ms. Pelosi has been in the Congress for over 33 years.  Why are these statues and base names suddenly objectionable?

Downtown Miami Protest Ends With Statues Vandalized, People Taken Into Police Custody.  A Downtown Miami protest ended with statues vandalized and several people taken away by Miami police officers Wednesday [6/10/2020].  Protesters became heated while on Biscayne Boulevard.  They tried to block an unmarked police car.  Someone then slammed a skateboard on the windshield of the unmarked car.

Group tears down Columbus statue outside Minnesota State Capitol.  A group has made good on its promise to tear down the statue of Christopher Columbus standing on the Minnesota State Capitol grounds.  Speaking earlier in the day, Minnesota Department of Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington said troopers would try to speak with a group that wants to tear down a statue of Christopher Columbus on the state capitol grounds.

Protesters in Virginia behead Confederate monument statues.  Protesters in Virginia beheaded four Confederate statues and pulled down another with a tow rope on Wednesday night [6/10/2020].  Photos and videos posted on Twitter showed a demonstrator taking a sledgehammer to the head of one of the statues on the Portsmouth Confederate monument, which was built in the late 1800s and is said to sit at a site where slaves were whipped.  The Portsmouth City Council had set a July 28 hearing to decide on the monument's fate following demands that it be moved, according to local outlet 13News Now.

City to reassess future of Columbus statue beheaded in North End.  Emotions ran high Wednesday evening [6/10/2020] in front of the decapitated Christopher Columbus statue in the North End as demonstrators and residents debated the symbol Mayor Martin Walsh said the city plans to reassess.  The statue was beheaded overnight Tuesday, Boston Police say, and small chunks of marble were still strewn on the ground in the center of Christopher Columbus Park.  Walsh in a press conference Wednesday at City Hall Plaza said the city would place the statue in storage to assess the damage.

Nelson's Column among 60 statues Black Lives Matter protesters want torn down.  Nelson's Column is the latest target of anti-racism campaigners who want it torn down over links to the slave trade.  The Royal Navy hero is included in a hit-list of 78 statues on a "topple the racists" website listing memorials across the UK that activists say "celebrate slavery and racism".

Jefferson Davis statue torn down in Richmond, Virginia.  Protesters tore down a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis along Richmond, Virginia's famed Monument Avenue on Wednesday night [6/10/2020].  The statue in the former capital of the Confederacy was toppled shortly before 11 p.m., news outlets reported.  Richmond police were on the scene and videos on social media showed the monument being towed away as a crowd cheered.

Nancy Pelosi demands Republicans agree to remove 11 Confederate statues from Congress.  Hours after President Trump said he wouldn't be renaming military bases named for Confederate leaders, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi flaunted her opposition by highlighting her work to get Confederate statues in the U.S. Capitol removed.  Pelosi sent out a copy of a letter she had addressed to the chairs of the Joint Committee on the Library, which manages the National Statuary Hall collection -- the 100 statues contributed by states that are on display in Statuary Hall and other places around the U.S. Capitol complex.  Each U.S. state gets to contribute two statues and there are currently 11 Confederate figures on display.  Pelosi called for their removal.

Protesters stand in solidarity with indigenous peoples at Byrd Park where Columbus statue is torn down, thrown in lake.  About a thousand protesters gathered around the city's monument to Christopher Columbus in Byrd Park on Tuesday evening [6/9/2020] to stand in solidarity with indigenous peoples.  Protests across the country have prompted national reckoning with the historical injustices perpetuated against African Americans.  At Tuesday's protest, activist and founder of Marijuana Justice Chelsea Higgs-Wise reminded attendees that, amid these discussions, "We have to start where it all began — we have to start with the people who stood first on this land."

Mizzou Students Demand Removal of 'Racist' Thomas Jefferson Statue.  Student protesters at the University of Missouri have circulated a petition that calls on Mizzou officials to remove a "racist" Thomas Jefferson statue from campus grounds.  According to a report by Campus Reform, student protesters at the University of Missouri are calling for the removal of a Thomas Jefferson statue from campus on the grounds that it is "racist."

Dedicated to Texas Rangers Removed from Dallas Airport in Aftermath of Riots.  A famous statue of a Texas Ranger at Dallas Love Field was recently removed from the airport on June 4, 2020 in the aftermath of violent rioting on the Texas city's streets.  The statue, which was set up in 1963, was removed by city of Dallas workers.  Officials claim the decision was brought about by an excerpt from a book that will soon be published detailing the law enforcement agency's history.  There is a particular emphasis on police brutality and racism in the book.

Abraham Lincoln monument torched in Chicago: 'An absolute disgraceful act'.  Abraham Lincoln has joined George Washington on the list of those targeted by Chicagoans in a national debate over Civil War-era monuments.  Alderman Raymond Lopez took to Facebook Wednesday night to decry the defacing of a statue representing the nation's 16th president in the Englewood neighborhood.  The giant bust appears to have been damaged after someone in the 15th Ward sprayed and ignited a flammable liquid.  "What an absolute disgraceful act of vandalism.  This bust of Abraham Lincoln, erected by Phil Bloomquist on August 31, 1926, was damaged & burned," Mr. Lopez wrote, a local NBC affiliate reported.

Texas Ranger Statue at Love Field Removed Over Concerns About Racist History.  A fixture at Dallas Love Field has been hauled away to storage.  Airport officials decided to remove the iconic statue of a Texas Ranger after a recently published excerpt from an upcoming book and image of the Ranger depicted in the sculpture came to light.  The decision was made on Wednesday, according to airport spokesperson Chris Perry.

The statues can be removed, but the history cannot.  The Associated Press is reporting that Virginia Governor Ralph Northam (D) is set to announce the removal of a Robert E. Lee monument in Richmond.  The monument was erected in 1890 and sits at the center of a roundabout on Monument Avenue.  It's the largest of the statues on the stretch of road.  This is not the first time that a monument to Lee has come under scrutiny in Virginia.  In 2019, removal of a monument to Lee was blocked by a judge due to a state historical statute.  This statue was in Charlottesville.  According to the AP article, Northam wants to remove the statue from the pedestal and put it into storage until a new location can be identified.

Virginia governor to announce removal of Robert E. Lee statue.  Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam is expected to announce plans Thursday [6/4/2020] for the removal of an iconic statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from Richmond's prominent Monument Avenue, a senior administration official told The Associated Press.  The governor will direct the statue to be moved off its massive pedestal and put into storage while his administration seeks input on a new location, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak before the governor's announcement.

If Tulane's Victory Bell is Removed Over Potential Connections to Slavery, Shouldn't the University Itself Be Shut Down?  Tulane University recently removed the McAlister Victory Bell.  A bell used for decades as a part of university sporting events.  It is the university's version of a generic item used all across Western Civilization for centuries. [...] Recently, though, someone raised the issue of bells being used on Southern farms where slaves worked.  Although every media report regarding the McAlister Victory Bell references its use for slavery, the only hard allegation offered toward that conclusion appears to be the university President's claim that "archives confirmed the bell was made in 1825".  Okay.  So?  Other than that fact, there are lots of slippery-worded, but unsupported, allegations about how bells (generally speaking) were used on farms (using the loaded word "plantation") and claiming blacks were denied clocks or watches so slave masters could better control them. [...] There are no specific allegations about this bell being used in such a setting or for such a purpose or with such motivations.  Just that it could have been like that.  But maybe not.  Nobody knows.

Virginia Democrats reverse laws protecting Confederate monuments.  Some of Virginia's scores of Confederate monuments could soon be removed under legislation state lawmakers approved Sunday [3/8/2020].  The Democratic-led House and Senate passed measures that would undo an existing state law that protects the monuments and instead let local governments decide their fate.

Indigenous Peoples' Day to replace Christopher Columbus Day at Chicago Public Schools.  Chicago Public Schools will no longer observe Columbus Day.  The Board of Education voted to change the name to Indigenous Peoples Day as other cities and school districts have done.  The board's vote on the issue was 5-2.  The school holiday will be on Oct. 12 this year.  CPS is working to develop new curriculum to more accurately tell the history of Native American cultures.

The Editor says...
Will the new curriculum be more accurate or more politically correct?

Virginia lawmakers pass bill ending Lee-Jackson holiday.  Virginia lawmakers passed a bill Monday [2/24/2020] that scraps the state's Lee-Jackson holiday celebrating two Confederate generals and replaces it with one on Election Day.  The House approved legislation that had already cleared the Senate, advancing the measure to Gov. Ralph Northam, who supports it.

Plymouth Rock, Other Pilgrim Monuments Vandalized.  Plymouth Rock, the famous landmark where the pilgrims first set foot on American soil in 1620, was vandalized Sunday night, alongside other iconic monuments to the pilgrims, as CNN reports.  On Monday morning, it was discovered that many monuments had been defaced by the same red graffiti, including the iconic Plymouth Rock, the Pilgrim Maiden statue, and the National Monument to the Forefathers.  Plymouth Town Manager Melissa Arrighi condemned the vandalism on Twitter, saying that "we are saddened and sickened" by the actions, and that they would "begin clean up as soon as possible," adding that "the police are investigating."

Plymouth Rock vandalized, covered in graffiti.  "Why?  Why?  Why would someone do this?" Gayle Manning asked as she looked down at vandalized Plymouth Rock on Monday morning [2/17/2020].  She was one of many who traveled to the Plymouth waterfront to express disgust over the overnight damage to the landmark and other waterfront monuments by vandals wielding cans of spray paint.  Police Chief Michael Botieri said Plymouth Rock, the Pilgrim Maiden statue, a memorial granite bench and at least four of the Scallop Roll statues scattered about the waterfront by the Plymouth Area Chamber of Commerce were tagged with paint.

Bill to replace Kearny statue at U.S. Capitol passes N.J. Senate, angering residents.  Gen. Philip Kearny has watched over the U.S. Capitol for 132 years.  Kearny, a New York-born cavalry officer, earned honors for his bravery fighting in the Mexican-American War before his death fighting for the Union in the Civil War.  The town of Kearny, where he lived for a few years, was named in his honor.  Since 1888, a bronze statue of the general, complete with cavalry saber and soaring mustache, has stood in the Capitol's National Statuary Hall alongside 99 other historical figures from across the country.

Virginia governor says cities, not state, should decide fate of Confederate statues.  Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam called Thursday for letting municipalities within the commonwealth decide the fate of local Confederate war monuments and memorials if desired.  Mr. Northam, a Democrat, made the announcement during a press conference while outlining what he called his "agenda to advance historic justice and equity in our Commonwealth."  "I am proposing that we allow localities to make their own decisions about the monuments and war memorials in their jurisdictions," Mr. Northam said in Richmond.

Democrat Lawmakers From Virginia Call for General Robert E. Lee Statue to be Removed From U.S. Capitol.  Two Democrat lawmakers from Virginia are calling for the state's statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee to be removed from the US Capitol.  Reps.  Jennifer Wexton and A. Donald McEachin have asked that the state's Democrat Governor Ralph Northam, who was photographed wearing blackface and got a free pass, make removing the statue a priority in 2020.

The New Nihilists:  Political Nihilism and the Progressive Movement in America.  In spite of [Obama's] efforts, Hillary lost, and President Trump began unwinding Obama's legacy.  In the end, Obama's above-the-fray, laissez-faire approach to leadership was a mistake — a mistake that today's progressives will not repeat.  They are the new nihilists, activists openly calling for the destruction of America's existing social and political institutions so that new, progressive ones can arise from the rubble.  No more electoral college, no more borders, no more constitutional restrictions is their cry, and all the Democratic Party's presidential hopefuls say amen.

Washington and Lee U. Students Demand Removal of Washington and Lee Photos from Diplomas.  Students and faculty at Washington and Lee University in Lexington city, Virginia, are demanding that the school remove photos of George Washington and Robert E. Lee from their diplomas.  "We, the undersigned, call on the administration of Washington and Lee University and President William Dudley to provide students with the option of removing the portraits of namesakes Robert E. Lee and George Washington from their diplomas," proclaim the law students in their petition.

The Editor says...
Seems like the students would have been aware of the general appearance of their diplomas since the day they signed up to attend the university.  Get over it.

Confederate statue removed from historic North Carolina courthouse.  A North Carolina county removed a Confederate statue from a historic courthouse early on Wednesday, joining the handful of places around the state where such monuments have come down in recent years despite a law protecting them.  News outlets reported that a subdued crowd of several dozen people watched as the statue of a soldier was taken down overnight outside the historic Chatham county courthouse, where it had stood since 1907.  By dawn, even the base was gone.

Destroying America's History One Icon at a Time.  Americans were furious in 2001 when they saw that the Taliban had destroyed Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan.  The prevailing cultural zeitgeist at the time ran clearly against toppling statues.  Don't these third-world barbarians know that they are destroying world culture?  It helped elevate the Taliban's evil in the eyes of the world.  Murderous Islamist thugs harboring terrorists?  That's pretty bad.  Destroyers of world culture?  Call in the Marines!  Even the liberal American media were outraged.  Less than twenty years later, destroying monuments is becoming a national sport in America with little outcry and support from the media.  Leftists have become the Taliban, which is no surprise since the goals are similar.  When attempting to force a twisted worldview on society, overthrowing perceived enemies and any connection to a different past is essential.

It's Columbus Day, Not Indigenous Peoples' Day.  [Reason #5] [W]hatever the truth about Columbus, the Indigenous Peoples of history are not worthy of public honor. [...] In a world that questions celebrating Washington or Jefferson or the Confederate generals because they owned slaves or fought for slavery, why would anyone, indigenous or not, celebrate the ignominious history of the indigenous peoples?  Indigenous peoples in the Americas were engaged in constant warfare, torture, kidnapping, slavery.  They made extensive human sacrifices to their gods.  The Aztecs sacrificed 30,000 to 50,000 innocents annually.  During their ceremonies, Mayans and Aztecs would cut the hearts out of living persons.  Mayans would drown their sacrificed people in their Sacred Cenote.  Mayans also played a ball game called pitz in which the losers, like Roman gladiators, were executed.

Stop scapegoating Christopher Columbus.  Why are we so eager to search out scapegoats for the injustices of history?  Whatever the reason, Christopher Columbus is now the fall guy for the sins of slavery, the exploitation of indigenous peoples, the rape of natural resources and most of the legal, financial and territorial abuses that followed the first European steps in the New World.  His accusers want to eliminate Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous Peoples Day.  Columbus is a 15th-century man in a 21st-century court, and the jury is stacked with self-righteous, injured parties who have 20-20 hindsight.  Vilifying him won't change the unfairness of history, but it will delegitimize the outright and undeniable contributions of Western civilization.  Tearing down statues to him won't undo the damage from two worlds colliding, but it will mask the progress and achievements that emerged from two worlds converging.

Make Columbus Day Great Again.  Christopher Columbus [...] became the whipping boy for progressives who want to rewrite history to fit a PC diversity narrative.  I always liked Columbus Day when I was a kid. [...] Now I'm supposed to celebrate "Indigenous Peoples Day" which doesn't exactly roll off of the tongue and really lacks focus.  The various indigenous peoples from this part of the world aren't all the same, so it's really not clear what is being celebrated.  There is also the fact that many of them weren't any nicer than Columbus, so if we're canceling people for being awful, they're as cancel-worthy as our intrepid Italian.

Air Canada to stop announcing 'ladies and gentlemen' in recognition of gender fluidity.  Employees aboard Air Canada flights will no longer greet guests by referring to them as "ladies and gentlemen" or "mesdames et messieurs," which has been typical protocol for years, in an effort to be conscious of gender fluidity.  Flight attendants and other staff will not use the language in boarding announcements, and the company instead plans to replace the standard greetings with neutral words, such as "everybody" or "tout le monde."

'War on History' Continues After DC City Council Abolishes Columbus Day.  The Washington, D.C. city council held an emergency session this week to address a growing problem plaguing our nation's capital.  No, the council did not address the increasing number of rats, homeless people, and shootings, but a more pressing issue 500 years in the making.  The council voted to abolish Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous People's Day.  Townhall reached out to the Heritage Foundation's Jarrett Stepman, the author of The War on History:  The Conspiracy to Rewrite America's Past, for his opinion on the "emergency" legislation.  Stepman told Townhall that this bill is nothing more than the left's latest attempt to demonize America and its ideals in order to accomplish their regressive goals.

City commissioner:  Replace male statues in Central Park with women.  A member of the commission that oversees art and architecture on city property suggested Monday that instead of simply adding statues of historical female figures to Central Park, the panel yank out some of the male ones first.  "There are what, five or six [male] statutes that I think could easily be replaced by individual statues of each of these women," said Hank Willis Thomas, a painter who serves on the Public Design Commission, at a hearing at City Hall.  Thomas appeared to be specifically fingering statues including that of Scottish poet Robert Burns, in the park's Literary Row, and the one of Christopher Columbus in the park, near the famed second one of the explorer in Columbus Circle, for removal.

The 1619 Project is bad history.  You cannot trace America's founding to Jamestown.  It isn't that simple.  The United States began as 13 separate colonies, all with their own laws and cultures.  You can compare Jamestown, founded for monetary gain by the Virginia Company, and the Pilgrims who landed in Massachusetts seeking religious liberty, but you can't claim they were the same thing.  Further, 1619 was a very different time than 1776.  As of 1619, John Locke had not yet written his "Two Treatises on Government," nor had Montesquieu written "The Spirit of the Laws."  Both of these thinkers were greatly influential on the American Founders.  While Montesquieu taught that republics are the best form of government and that power must be separated to prevent tyranny, Locke's doctrines of religious toleration, consent of the governed, private property, and the equality of all men are foundational to the ideals of 1776, ideals that had not yet been fully espoused in 1619.

America, the Racist.  Writing in the December 1991 issue of Academic Questions, Fred Siegel, associate professor of history at Cooper Union and a self-described liberal and Democrat, bemoaned a fashionable trend in history writing.  The "New Historians," he quipped, saw American life as "a story of defeat, despair, and domination.  American history became a tragedy in three acts:  what we did to the Indians, what we did to the African-Americans, and what we did to everyone else."  That's a pretty fair description of A People's History of the United States.

Save Confederate Statues.  Although statue critics argue that the Confederate soldier fought for slavery, fewer than 30 percent of Southern families owned slaves.  According to historian William C. Davis, "The widespread Northern myth that Confederates went to the battlefield to perpetuate slavery is just that, a myth.  Their letters and diaries, in the tens of thousands, reveal again and again that they fought because their Southern homeland was invaded."  Some modern critics vilify Confederate soldiers as traitors, even though Union veterans eventually regarded their former enemies as fellow Americans.  Moreover, the relative priorities of national-versus-state loyalties were unclear when the Civil War started in 1861.

What the grievance brigade misunderstands about America.  The ongoing crusade against America's civic rituals and founding values picked up pace this summer.  The city council of St. Louis Park, Minn., stopped reciting the Pledge of Allegiance before its meetings, lest immigrants feel "uncomfortable."  Nike junked a commemorative Fourth of July shoe with an embroidered Revolutionary War flag on its heel because the flag could "offend and detract" from the national holiday.  The Charlottesville, Va., city council scrapped the city holiday celebrating Thomas Jefferson's birthday.  The San Francisco School Board voted to cover up a mural of George Washington.  Colorado State University recommended against using "America" or "American" to refer to the United States and its citizens since those words "erase" other cultures in the Western hemisphere.  Previously, monuments to American history have been shrouded, vandalized and removed; patriotic ceremonies have been cancelled or renamed.

No-One's Life Matters.  That's Why There Are Mass Shootings.  Mass shootings are a special form of suicide.  The shooter never expects to survive.  But the shooter combines self-hatred with group hatred.  Hate becomes so melded with the shooter's identity that he determines to take as many people as he can with him.  They are of the same order as the pilot who crashed a Germanwings airliner into the Alps in 2015. [...] They are individuals cut off from society, destabilized by change and despairing of their own place in the world.  Such monsters always have been among us.  But now we are cultivating such monsters by destroying the ties that bind us to each other, to our past and to our future.

After Northam directive, Jefferson Davis' name is removed from archway at Fort Monroe.  Letters spelling out "Jefferson Davis Memorial Park" on an archway at Fort Monroe came down Friday [8/2/2019]as part of a directive from Gov. Ralph Northam.  Fort Monroe, which is in Hampton, sits on a peninsula called Old Point Comfort, where the first enslaved Africans in English North America arrived in 1619.  Events this month will commemorate the 400th anniversary of their landing.

San Francisco liberals censor Life of George Washington and WPA art.  Censorship is the first step toward liberal tyranny.  First, liberals came for the Confederate Flag.  Then the statues of our Confederate leaders.  Classic literature is being censored.  Now, like-minded liberal groups who defend Robert Mapplethorpe or Andres Serrano's artistic images of the Christian Crucifix submerged in urine, want to destroy the Americana art of the 1940's.  Victor Arnautoff is one of the foremost muralists in the San Francisco area during the Depression.  His work of art The Life of George Washington is from the "New Deal" era.  Its erasure is just the next step in historical censorship designed to ignore, or rewrite, America's history.

Killing The Fourth of July.  After the monuments, the national anthem, and attacks on the Constitution replete with the bent on censorship, it was only a matter of time until the left came for July 4th.  President Trump's plans for a parade in Washington, D.C. hastened the attacks.

Kaepernick and the culture jihadists are going to target Old Glory next.  For the past year I have been researching the relentless attacks on American traditions for my upcoming book, "Culture Jihad:  How to Stop the Left From Killing a Nation."  The "culture jihadists" refer to a militant army made up of secularists, socialists and race agitators.  They are committed to finishing what President Barack Obama started when he promised to fundamentally change the nation.  They literally want to destroy the foundations of this great nation.  They want to turn our traditions and our history into a heaping pile of rubble.

Charlottesville drops Thomas Jefferson's birthday as holiday.  Charlottesville, Virginia, will no longer celebrate Thomas Jefferson's birthday as an official city holiday and instead will observe a day recognizing the emancipation of enslaved African-Americans.

Melvil Dewey's name stripped from top librarian award.  American librarians have voted to remove the name of Melvil Dewey, widely seen as the father of modern librarianship, from one of their top awards, citing his history of antisemitism, racism and sexual harassment.  The council of the American Library Association (ALA) passed a resolution this week to rename its top professional award, the Melvil Dewey Medal.  The resolution explains that Dewey did not permit Jewish people, African Americans or other minorities admittance to the resort he owned, the Lake Placid Club.  He also "made numerous inappropriate physical advances toward women he worked with and wielded professional power over" and was ostracised from the ALA after four women accused him of sexual impropriety, the resolution continues, declaring that "the behaviour demonstrated for decades by Dewey does not represent the stated fundamental values of ALA in equity, diversity, and inclusion".

George Washington High School to Erase 'Offensive' George Washington Mural.  George Washington High School in San Francisco, California, plans to remove an "offensive" mural of George Washington.  At a school board meeting this week, no board members spoke in defense of the historical art, which one speaker claims causes "visual offense."

Pioneer statue called 'monument to violent white supremacy,' students, faculty demand its removal.  In celebration of Oregon's roots in pioneering, a statue of a pioneer, known simply as "The Pioneer," was erected a century ago at the University of Oregon.  And now, as the 100-year anniversary of the statue arrives, some in the campus community demand it be removed.  The Pioneer was the focus of a recent protest, at which dozens of students and faculty and others called for its removal and circulated a petition demanding as much, NPR Oregon reported.

Dissing the Dead in Dallas.  During the walkup to Memorial Day, with its evocations of respect for fallen warriors, hyper-charged Dallas, Texas, found time to stick out a very official tongue at, you see, the wrong kind of fallen warriors: the Confederate kind.  The business of establishment America, on the urging of the political left, has become that of saying, oh, 'scuse us for not living up to ideals we didn't know were ideals 'til you kind progressives kindly wised us up.  Dallas city government — once fairly accused of patient commitment to reasoned dialogue — bellied up enthusiastically:  voting to sell, and bar (unconstitutionally) from display anywhere in the city, a distinguished equestrian statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee and a symbolic aide, removed in 2017 from the city's Lee Park and hidden away in a rented Air Force hangar due to...  Ah.  There's the question: due to what?  How come we're spitting and clawing, not just at each other but at folks long dead?

The War on History Comes for George Washington.  The perpetual war on history now has the father of our country in its sights as the San Francisco Board of Education considers removing a mural of Washington from a local school.  If the board succeeds in politicizing Washington, whose legacy was once so secured and uniting that his home at Mount Vernon was considered neutral ground during the Civil War, then we have clearly crossed the Rubicon of social division.  Critics of the mural point out that, in addition to Washington, it also depicts slaves and Native Americans — and one of the Native Americans appears to be dead.

Pete Buttigieg Now Taking Cues from Campus Leftists, Wants to Erase Thomas Jefferson.  For the last few years campus progressives, most notably at Hofstra University, have been trying to erase Thomas Jefferson from the public square.  Now 2020 Democratic hopeful Pete Buttigieg has joined the effort.  Anyone who's familiar with the concept of Year Zero knows what this is really about.  Still, it's surprising to hear it coming from a presidential candidate.

Vermont Replaces Columbus Day with Indigenous People's Day.  Vermont on Friday [5/10/2019] became the sixth state to eliminate Columbus Day, replacing it with Indigenous People's Day.  Governor Phil Scott, a Republican, signed a bill designating the second Monday in October a day honoring Native Americans rather than the 15th-century Italian explorer.

New York City Council Considering Banning Fur.  Lawmakers in New York City will hold a hearing Wednesday [5/15/2019] on a measure that would ban the sale of nearly all new fur products.  City council Speaker Corey Johnson sponsored the fur ban that will be the centerpiece of a hearing at City Hall Wednesday afternoon.  The bill bans the sale of all fur, except for sales of used fur apparel and fur garments worn for religious reasons.

The Editor says...
Here's a sample of a "religious reason:"  God created man and gave him "dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth[.]"  Dominion is supreme authority and complete control.  Thus, mankind has been given permission to manage the animals of the earth.  Part of that dominion is the decision-making authority to wear fur or leather when conditions warrant, or to sell such products as supply and demand make it feasible.  This activity went on for thousands of years without anyone objecting to it.  The prohibition of fur sales is just another facet of the wholesale destruction of cultural traditions by the left.

New effort launches to democratically elect the vice president in 2020.  There's a national push for voters to elect the U.S. vice presidentseparately from the president.  Vice.run, is a campaign that seeks to create a separate and independent ballot line for the vice president in 2020. The group is trying to collect — from all 50 states — voter signatures and pledges in support of the separate vice president election.  "An independently-elected vice president would give American voters a new level of direct control over who serves in the White House," Vice.run says on its website.

The Editor says...
Fractionalized governments are unstable.  Maybe that's the point.

San Francisco School May Destroy George Washington Murals For "Traumatizing" Students.  Imagine having something on the walls of your high school as fascinating as an original 13-panel history of George Washington's life painted by a communist protege of Diego Rivera — and wanting to destroy it.  The artist, Victor Arnautoff, was a respected painter and professor, not some hack brought in to brighten up the kiddies' surroundings.  He was commissioned to paint the series in 1936 by FDR's Works Progress Administration, making the murals part of U.S. history in more than one way.

High School Mulls Removing George Washington Murals Because They 'Traumatize' Students.  A high school in Northern California — George Washington High School, to be specific — is mulling over a push to remove two 83-year-old murals from its hallways.  Critics advocating for their removal say they are offensive to Native Americans and African-Americans.  They say the pair of panels "traumatizes students and community members."

Every Pronoun Must Go.  Two types of people desire to impose politically correct locutions on the rest of us:  those who possess unlimited power and fear to lose it and those who aspire to unlimited power and need a means to attain it.  And there is, after all, no greater power than that of prescribing what others must say and what others must not think.  The Scottish Maritime Museum, dedicated to the history of the country's shipbuilding industry, has decided that it will no longer use the words she and her to refer to ships, but rather it and its.  This is in response to feminists, who have defaced plaques referring to ships as she or her.  This change would negate centuries of tradition, during which the words traditionally used on launching a ship, "May God bless all who sail in her," carried no connotation of insult or deprecation — rather the reverse.

Trump's Destruction of the White House Correspondents' Dinner Is Complete.  Can you believe it's only been a year since alleged comedian Michelle Wolf killed the White House Correspondents' Dinner?  And I don't mean "killed" as in "performed really well, in a stand-up comedy sense."  I mean "killed" as in "destroyed a decades-old tradition."  Wolf stunk up the place so bad in 2018 that the White House Correspondents' Association decided not to have comedians host the event anymore.

'MeToo' Hysteria:  Handshakes In The Workplace Could Be Next On Chopping Block.  Employers seeking to avoid lawsuits in the hypersensitive age of the #MeToo movement are looking to ban even the most innocuous professional courtesies, including handshakes.  Last week, Kate Palmer, associate director of advisory at human resources consultancy Peninsula and an alleged "expert" on the matter, said that employers may soon seek to ban "all forms of physical contact to avoid confusion about what kind of touch is appropriate," according to The Sun of Britain.

Maine erases Christopher Columbus from calendar.  Gov. Janet Mills signed a bill Friday [4/26/2019] to abolish Columbus Day.  Maine will keep the day a state holiday but will now celebrate it as Indigenous Peoples' Day.  "Our history is by no means perfect.  But, for too long, it has been written and presented in a way that fails to acknowledge our shortcomings," Mills said in a statement.  "There is power in a name and in who we choose to honor.  Today, we take another step in healing the divisions of the past," Mills said.

The Editor says...
One does not heal the divisions of the past by creating the divisions of the present.

Northam calls for Jefferson Davis arch on Fort Monroe to come down.  Gov. Ralph Northam has called for the removal of the Jefferson Davis Memorial arch at Fort Monroe, saying its continued presence has an "adverse effect" on the historic property and urged the authority's board of trustees to initiate steps to take it down.  In a letter presented Thursday to the Fort Monroe Authority Board of Trustees, Chief of Staff Clark Mercer relayed the governor's stance, asking an eight-member panel and those ex-officio members present to take necessary steps to remove the arch and all references to the Jefferson Davis Memorial Park, located at Bernard and Ruckman road intersection near a 500-yard terreplein.

God Bless America?  No, Please Don't!  We live in a world that is almost too stupid for words.  Here is the latest:  the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Flyers have stopped playing Kate Smith's iconic recording of "God Bless America."  Why?  Because Smith recorded a couple of other songs, during the 1930s, that some liberals now consider objectionable. [...] What's the problem?  Smith recorded a song in 1931 called "That's Why Darkies Were Born."  Is that a racist song?  Apparently not, since the Communist black activist Paul Robeson also recorded it.

Yankees' ban of Kate Smith's 'God Bless America' is a new PC low.  The ridiculous excesses of political correctness have now stretched all the way to Yankee Stadium and Philadelphia's Wells Fargo Center.  Both the Yankees and the NHL Flyers have banned Kate Smith's famed 1943 recording of Irving Berlin's classic "God Bless America."  The Flyers — for whom the recording has long been a good-luck charm (Smith herself sang it live during the 1974 Stanley Cup final) — went even further:  They've actually covered up a statue of the singer that stands outside the arena.  The Yankees have played the recording during the seventh-inning stretch ever since 9/11.

Kate Smith should be allowed to keep blessing America.  The most casual patriot melts when hearing Kate Smith sing "God Bless America," which she introduced in 1943.  Subsequent renditions have prompted then and modern stars to appreciate how, per President Reagan when he presented her the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award in 1982:  "Kate always sang from her heart, and we all listened with our hearts." [...] Social media commenters locally attacked Philly's "moronic idiots," who were warned that the Rocky statue is next once they recall that Rocky beat up a black man.

Yankees ban Kate Smith's 'God Bless America' over 'history of potential racism'.  The New York Yankees' anti-racism efforts have extended to pulling from their seventh-inning stretch a famous recording of the legendary Kate Smith singing "God Bless America."  Not because anyone has complained that the song is racist, but because Smith recorded other racially insensitive standards from and during the Jim Crow era.  The Yankees pulled Smith's "God Bless America" from the rotation at the start of the season, but the New York Daily News reported the reason Thursday [4/18/2019] — "the Yankees were made aware of Smith's history of potential racism."

Yankees ban Kate Smith's 'God Bless America' over 'history of potential racism'.  The New York Yankees' anti-racism efforts have extended to pulling from their seventh-inning stretch a famous recording of the legendary Kate Smith singing "God Bless America."  Not because anyone has complained that the song is racist, but because Smith recorded other racially insensitive standards from and during the Jim Crow era.  The Yankees pulled Smith's "God Bless America" from the rotation at the start of the season, but the New York Daily News reported the reason Thursday — "the Yankees were made aware of Smith's history of potential racism."

The Editor says...
What is potential racism?

Dixie School District Votes To Change Name Amid Link To Slavery, Confederacy.  After months of debate, the Dixie School District in Marin County is changing its name after critics said it's linked to the Confederacy and slavery.

What Is Dallas Council Hiding In their Frenzy Over Confederate Monuments?  Neo-Marxist Mayor Mike Rawlings has been a strong advocate for removing Confederate monuments, expressing concern their presence in Dallas will lead to violence like that spearheaded by white supremacists over the Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia.  Rawlings called the Dallas monuments "dangerous totems" and "monuments of propaganda."  Democrat Mayor Rawlings neglected to mention that the Robert E. Lee statue was dedicated to the city in 1936 by Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt.  Are Democrats destroying historical monuments because they want to erase all evidence that they have been the party of slavery and racial segregation and are to blame for the perpetuation of government dependency and poverty among blacks?

Why they want Thomas Jefferson banned.  Breitbart News reported, "Students at Hofstra University in Long Island, New York, demanded on Friday that the school remove a statue of Thomas Jefferson, arguing that it is not possible for the university to have the statue on campus while also being an institution that 'prides itself on diversity and inclusion.'  Students also called on the university to train its faculty and professors to behave in a more politically correct manner."  If you believe in diversity and inclusion, you do not ban people.  These punks are the foot soldiers for oppressors.  Their call to strip President Jefferson of his rightful place on Mount Rushmore is pure sanctimony.  They hate him not because he owned slaves but because he said all men are created equal.  These programmed parrots just say what their previously programmed professors repeat from their professors.  Their hand-me-down thoughts are part of the conformity necessary to install a totalitarian state.

College Students Demand Removal Of Thomas Jefferson Statue Representing A 'Legacy Of Racism And Bigotry'.  The good folks over at Campus Reform report that leftist students at Hofstra University are demanding the college's administration take down a statue of founding father Thomas Jefferson because the statue represents a "legacy of racism and bigotry on college campuses."  Campus Correspondent Sergei Kelley reports that Hofstra students held a second annual "Jefferson Has Gotta Go!" event on Friday.  In addition to demanding that Jefferson's statue be torn down due to his slave-holding past, the group that gathered sought to "expose the culture of bias and discrimination" found on college campuses.

Hofstra University Students Renew Effort to Remove Thomas Jefferson Statue From Campus.  Here we go again.  The school refused to do this last year, but the students aren't taking no for an answer.

Waging War Against the Dead.  In 2001, the primeval Taliban blew up two ancient Buddha statues in Afghanistan on grounds that their very existence was sacrilegious to Islam.  In 2015, ISIS militants entered a museum in Mosul, Iraq, and destroyed ancient, pre-Islamic statues and idols.  Their mute crime?  These artifacts predated the prophet Muhammad.  The West prides itself in the idea that liberal societies would never descend into such nihilism.  Think again.  In the last two years there has been a rash of statue toppling throughout the American South, aimed at wiping out memorialization of Confederate heroes.  The pretense is that the Civil War can only be regarded as tragic in terms of the present oppression of the descendants of Southern slaves — 154 years after the extinction of the Confederate states.  There is also a renewed crusade to erase the memory of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus.

As Confederate statue comes down, onlookers cheer — and criticize the move.  A construction crew was preparing to take down a Confederate statue in a North Carolina city Tuesday morning, a rare move in a state where such monuments are largely protected by law.

The only thing standing between us and the left's neo-Cultural Revolution is ... Trump.  Want to know why we got Trump?  The answer can be found in a brilliant column by Peggy Noonan, who describes what happened in China during its utterly vile Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, and compares the feel of it to the current behavior seen on the left around the country.  It's not just the Democratic maniacs in Congress fueling the phenomenon; it's politics of political correctness in academia.  It's the Twitter mob forcing publishers to pull books.  It's in the destruction of Confederate statues, the covering up of Columbus pictures, and the renaming of airports.

Cultural Exile for the Duke.  For all the rhetoric from Enlightenment defenders, ours is not an age of tolerance and acceptance.  We live in the obverse:  an age of unforgiveness.  Twitter mobs wait at the ready to shame offenders out of the public square; fans of young adult fiction initiate struggle sessions against racially insensitive authors; saucy sexual comments made years, even decades, ago cost offenders their jobs.  Good thing for Wayne, he's too dead and buried to care what liberals in 2019 are saying about him.

The Duke and the Unbearable Smugness of the History-Eaters.  When a Twitter nobody "unearthed" an easily available and well-known 48-year-old Playboy interview with long-dead actor John Wayne, the memory-erasers came out of the woodwork.  They screamed "racist" and "homophobe" and the generic catch-all "bigot."  Calls to strip Wayne's name from Orange County's eponymously named airport reached the op-ed pages of the Los Angeles Times.  Like it or not, the statues of Christopher Columbus, Gandhi, and Supreme Court justices are memorials and commemorations of our collective past that recall both the wisdom and sins of our ancestors.

He Was Expendable.  Was John Wayne a racist?  If he was, would it negate his monumental contributions to the movies, his role in establishing Hollywood as Southern California's still-essential industry, and his stature as an icon of the cinematic American West?  For the Democrats who dominate the California State Assembly, the answers to these questions are You Betcha and [...] Yes.

It Starts:  LAT Columnist Argues For Removal Of John Wayne's Name From Airport.  An LA Times column that called for the removal of John Wayne's name from California's Orange County airport is stirring up a lot of debate on social media.  It all started after a 1971 interview the late actor did with Playboy magazine resurfaced earlier this week.

John Wayne:  Public Enemy.  The Social Justice Warrior Left has dug up an old Playboy interview with John Wayne and discovered — surprise! — that the Duke was not politically correct by the standards of 2019. [...] We used to think the sins of the past should be buried with the dead.  But now, in the age of "reparations," no man, no period of history, and no aspect of Western culture is safe from the vengeful SJWs.

Vandals set fire to statue of World War II General Lee — not the Confederate leader.  A war memorial poised outside an old-fashioned North Carolina home honoring the founder of the U.S. Army Airborne has been the subject of vandalism, likely because he shares a last name with controversial Confederate General Robert E Lee.  The marble statue of U.S. Army Gen. William C. Lee was doused with flammable liquid and set on fire around 10 p.m. last Thursday [2/14/2019], leaving parts of it ashy and scorched.  It's the latest, albeit most unlikely, piece to become roiled in the nationwide debate regarding the removal of Confederate War memorials.  Marc Johnson, Curator of the General William C. Lee Airborne Museum in Dunn, was shocked to see the statue defaced.

In Rejecting the Pledge of Allegiance, the Left Is Rejecting Nationhood.  Devotion to and love of flag and country is now considered hateful.  At least that was the message given by Santa Barbara City College Board of Trustees President Robert Miller when, according to a report by Campus Reform, he sent an email calling the Pledge of Allegiance "steeped in expressions of nativism and white nationalism" after the board announced it would stop saying it before meetings.  While a seemingly small matter at a small school in California, it is emblematic of a larger debate that rages in America today.

Lack of Respect for Our History Lies Behind Attack on Monuments.  The vandalism of the Bomber Command Memorial in Green Park, London this week was no random drunken act.  It was a deliberate targeting of our history.  The same vile people went on to systematically attack the statue of Sir Winston Churchill with President Franklin D Roosevelt, our closest wartime ally, and two other war memorials in central London on the same night.

Civil War statues are evil, but this is okay?
Sign of the times:  Satan gets a statue in Illinois.  According to a recent NPR story, The Satanic Temple of Chicago paid to have a statue installed in the rotunda of the Illinois Capitol.  To accompany the traditional Christmas Nativity scene and Jewish menorah for Hanukkah, there is now a statue of an arm with a snake coiled around it; in the hand is an apple.  An inscription on the front reads, "Knowledge Is the Greatest Gift."

Virginia high school could be renamed for interracial couple over Lee.  A northern Virginia high school that is removing Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's name could be renamed for an interracial couple.

'A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving' Is Now Racist.  Another holiday classic has been slapped with the label "racist" by SJWs for supposedly marginalizing the token black character:  "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving."  People on social media have expressed outrage over the fact that the lone black character Franklin in "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" appears seated differently juxtaposed to the white characters during the famous dinner scene where Charlie Brown serves popcorn and toast to his hungry guests instead of turkey and stuffing.

Fight the Denigration of American History.  American history is everywhere under attack.  The recent skirmishes started with the campaign to remove Confederate statues, but it surely won't end there.  As our betters in America's universities want us to know, the whole of American history is suspect.  In our media, in the popular culture, and in our schools, we're subject to an unending drumbeat of how America was founded to promote imperialism, colonialism, racism, sexism, and genocide — unimpeachable facts, we're told, for which all Americans must forever share the burden of collective guilt and shame.  For America to atone for her sins, her history must be denounced and then purged. [...] One thing we should have learned is that the Left never stops; there is no end to their relentless pursuit of destructive hate.  There is no room for reasonable adjudication of their claims.  We are hopelessly naïve if we believe that once the Robert E. Lee statues come down, the Left will be satisfied.  We all know what will follow; indeed it has already started.

Atlanta To Change Names Of Streets That Honored Confederacy.  Atlanta is changing the names of three streets that echo the city's Civil War past.  Confederate Avenue will become United Avenue, East Confederate Avenue will become United Avenue S.E. and Confederate Court will become Trestletree Court on Martin Luther King Jr.  Day.  "For our community to truly be One Atlanta, we must write a new chapter in our own history," Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said in a statement after signing a bill ordering the name changes.  "The imagery and symbolism of these names and monuments represent systematic injustice, persecution and cruelty.  That is not who we are as a city."

The Editor says...
Do we ever get to vote on "who we are as a city?"

Arkansas Push to Replace White Supremacist Statue Meets Dem Opposition.  There is a push by Republicans in the Arkansas legislature to replace the statues that have represented the state in the U.S. Capitol for the past century.  But one of the statues they want removed happens to be related to Arkansas Democrat Clarke Tucker, leading him to charge Republicans pushing for its removal with "petty politics."  Each state has two statues in the Capitol in Washingon, D.C., and Arkansas has debated changing its statues since Congress began allowing for changes in 2000, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.  The state is currently represented by Uriah Rose, founder of the Little Rock-based Rose Law Firm and, more controversially, James Paul Clarke, a former governor and senator who fought for white supremacy to remain a the key doctrine of the Democratic Party.  Clarke is the great-great-grandfather of Democratic state lawmaker Clarke Tucker, who first spoke out against removing the statue when it was proposed in 2014.

Massachusetts City of Somerville Scrapping Columbus Day In Favor of 'Indigenous Peoples' Day'.  Somerville, Massachusetts is the same city where a leftist recently urinated on American flags at a veterans' memorial cemetery.  Now the city is kicking Columbus Day to the curb over political correctness.

Somerville Mayor Says City Will Observe Indigenous Peoples' Day, Not Columbus Day.  The city of Somerville is ditching Columbus Day for Indigenous Peoples' Day, Mayor Joe Curtatone announced Thursday [9/13/2018].  Somerville joins Cambridge and other places in New England like Portland, Maine and Durham, New Hampshire by choosing to recognize those who lived in the Americas before European colonization instead of Christopher Columbus.  "Columbus Day is a relic of an outdated and oversimplified version of history," Curtatone wrote in Facebook post.  "We all know there's more to the story than a nursery rhyme."

Crews remove controversial statue in San Francisco that activists called racist and demeaning.  As drums beat and people chanted, crews on Friday morning [9/14/2018] took down a controversial statue in San Francisco's Civic Center because critics and Native Americans had long complained it harkened to the country's racist past.  The removal comes after the San Francisco Board of Appeals voted unanimously Wednesday night to remove the "Early Days" statue.  It depicts a Native American at the feet of a Spanish cowboy and a Catholic missionary.  It had been in its location for 124 years.

The Editor says...
One wonders how the statue stood there for 124 years before suddenly becoming so offensive.

Texas education board retreats on stripping 'heroic' Alamo defenders from curriculum.  The Texas State Board of Education appears to have decided the heroism of the Alamo is worth teaching to students after all.  State politicians erupted in protest this month after a volunteer team of educators, looking for ways to "streamline" the state's social studies curriculum, recommended scrubbing references to "all the heroic defenders" at the Alamo from classroom teaching plans.  Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, both Republicans, accused the panel of allowing the dictates of political correctness to run wild and demanded that Texans call the board to complain.

Alamo Defenders Are Latest Target in Left's Attack on American Heritage.  The inspiration of [William B.] Travis has long been held to be the famous words of Patrick Henry on the eve of the American Revolution:  "Give me liberty or give me death."  But Henry lived many more years after that Revolution — Travis did not.  He died, along with the 180 or so Texian soldiers who valiantly defended the tiny Catholic mission located in present day San Antonio.  Santa Anna lost about a third of his force in what he later described in his diary as "a small affair."  "Remember the Alamo!" became the rallying cry of the Texas Revolution against the dictatorship of Santa Anna.  It was the catalyst that enabled General Sam Houston to raise the necessary troops that eventually defeated Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto.  Travis' letter was reprinted across Texas, and finally across America, and even around the world.  Yet, an advisory group that is reviewing the state curriculum standards for social studies in Texas has declared that the standard should not describe the defenders of the Alamo as "heroic."

Will Texas prevent us from recognizing the heroes of the Alamo?  Generations of Texans have rightly drawn inspiration and strength from the heroes of the Alamo — the brave men who fought to the death to defend the battle-scarred mission in San Antonio in 1836 in the fight for Texas' independence from Mexico.  These freedom fighters are a symbol of valor for all Americans.  It is bizarre, then, that an advisory group recommended to the Texas Board of Education that it remove the words "all the heroic defenders" from the state's social studies curriculum describing the men who gave their lives at the Alamo.  The Board of Education was holding a hearing in Austin on the proposal Tuesday.  Fortunately, according to the San Antonio Express-News, "the board appeared poised to keep the words in the curriculum" when it is scheduled to discuss the issue Wednesday.  A final decision is expected in November.

8 arrested in protest over toppled Confederate statue.  Eight people were arrested Saturday [9/8/2018] following another protest over the toppling of a Confederate monument at the University of North Carolina.

Protesters topple Confederate statue in North Carolina.  Protesters tore down a statue of a Confederate soldier on the campus of the University of North Carolina on Monday night, reports said.  Demonstrators targeted the "Silent Sam" statue in Chapel Hill and covered it with banners and red paint before pulling it down with a rope at around 9:15 p.m., according to The News and Observer.  The protest was intended to support UNC graduate student Maya Little, who faces potential expulsion after pouring red paint on the statue in April.

Protesters topple Silent Sam statue at UNC-Chapel Hill.  Protesters toppled the Silent Sam Confederate statue on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill on Monday night [8/20/2018].  The monument came down after 9:15 p.m.  Earlier in the evening, protesters covered the statue with gray banners, erecting "an alternative monument" that said, in part, "For a world without white supremacy."

Revised history:
L.A. Production of 'The Diary of Anne Frank' Replaces Nazis with ICE Agents Hunting for 'LatinX' Illegals.  A modernized theatrical production of The Diary of Anne Frank in Los Angeles will re-imagine the Jewish Frank family hiding from Nazis with Latino immigrants hiding from Immigration, Customs, and Enforcement (ICE) officials, its directors have revealed.  The production, directed by former Roseanne writer Stan Zimmerman and scheduled to run throughout September, "was inspired by the true story of a Jewish woman in Los Angeles who created a 'Safe House' for a Latina mother and her two daughters after her husband was deported by ICE."

Another pleasant valley Sunday in the land of liberal silliness.  First, changing names could confuse future suitors looking to move their companies to Austin.  They may move somewhere else in Texas, and left-wing Austin will lose tax revenue and property taxes.  Second, how out of touch with reality are these people?  Have you ever met anyone in Texas dwelling on what Stephen Austin said about Mexico in 1836?  I have not, and I know a lot of Mexican-Americans.  In fact, most Mexicans that I've known in Mexico love Austin, Texas!  So what do we have here?  We have a frustrated bunch of people who hate themselves and the country that they are super-fortunate to be living in.

PC Gone Wild:  Austin, Texas, Considering Changing Its Name.  The city of Austin, Texas, is now considering changing its name.  Austin's Equity Office suggested renaming the city after discovering its namesake, Stephen F. Austin, "opposed an attempt by Mexico to ban slavery in the province of Tejas and said if slaves were freed, they would turn into 'vagabonds, a nuisance, and a menace,'" according to the NY Post.  Steven Austin is known as the "father of Texas" and drew the state's early borders.  He was even the Secretary of State for the short-lived independent Republic of Texas (Sam Houston was the President).

City report on Confederate monuments raises idea of renaming Austin.  Known as both the "father of Texas" and the namesake of the state's capital, Stephen F. Austin carved out the early outlines of Texas among his many accomplishments.  He also opposed an attempt by Mexico to ban slavery in the province of Tejas and said if slaves were freed, they would turn into "vagabonds, a nuisance and a menace."  For that reason, the city of Austin's Equity Office suggested renaming the city in a report about existing Confederate monuments that was published this week.

The Editor says...
[1] The residents of Austin are just now making this discovery?  [2] Apparently Mr. Austin's peers thought highly enough of him to name a city after him.  [3] Yes, "vagabonds, a nuisance and a menace" is pretty strong.  I wouldn't wish a life of slavery upon anyone, but... was he wrong?

Facebook's philistines back at it, now censoring art of Flemish masters.  Are the leftists running Facebook really that stupid?  According to the Flanders tourist authority, they're censoring images from Rubens paintings, unable to distinguish art from pornography.  Someone told them "nude, bad," and not a one of them had sufficient art education to know that these painting represent the pinnacle of Western cultural achievement.

Beauregard statue base vandalized with pro-migrant phrases.  The vacant base of the General Beauregard statue at the entrance to City Park has been vandalized again, this time with pro-migrant phrases.  The pedestal has been the target of vandals several times since the statue of the Confederate general was removed last year.

Richmond commission recommends removing Jefferson Davis monument, reinterpreting four other Confederate statues.  A statue honoring Jefferson Davis, the one-time President of the Confederacy, could soon be removed from Richmond, Va., the city's mayor announced Monday [7/2/2018].  Following 11 months of public input, a 10-member commission convened by Mayor Levar Stoney released a 115-page report recommending the removal of the Davis monument and the reinterpretation of four other Confederate statues lining the city's Monument Avenue.  "The Commission's report is unequivocal in its affirmation that there is an overwhelming desire and belief they should not remain as they currently are," Stoney said in a statement.

Virginia city votes to remove Jefferson Davis' name from highway.  After three years of discussion, the City Council in Alexandria, Va., voted Saturday to remove the name of Jefferson Davis from a city highway.  Jefferson Davis Highway, named for the only president of the Confederacy, will be renamed Richmond Highway, council members decided in a 6-0 vote.

Protesters burn Mississippi flag, say it symbolizes racism.  A group of about 30 demonstrators on Monday burned a Mississippi state flag, saying it symbolizes the racism at the heart of the state's problems with poverty, education and health care.

School honoring Confederate general to be renamed for Obama.  A Virginia city is rebranding its only school named after a Confederate general to honor the United States' first black president.

Seattle war memorial to lose battle guns, drawing criticism even as city cites safety, costs.  Seattle, citing safety concerns, is set to move two historic boat guns from one of its war memorials to Chehalis.  It's a decision that has angered at least one veteran who spent more than a decade with the city providing services to his comrades.  The city on Tuesday will relocate two cannon-like weapons that were aboard the USS Concord during the Spanish-American War of 1898 from the War Garden in Woodland Park to the Veterans Memorial Museum in Chehalis, according to Chip Duncan, the museum's executive director.  It's the culmination of an effort that started about two years ago, when a member of the museum reported that the relics were neglected and in disrepair.

In campus attacks on Thomas Jefferson, Dave Brat sees decline of Judeo-Christian tradition.  As an academic from Virginia with a healthy admiration for the Founding Fathers, Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., is in good position to ponder Thomas Jefferson's imperiled reputation at his state's flagship university.  Jefferson is increasingly controversial at the University of Virginia, a school he founded in 1819, where students have taken to protesting statues of him in recent months.  Asked about disputes over the statues in a Wednesday meeting with the Washington Examiner's editorial board, Brat said the tributes to Jefferson should remain standing.

Ex-New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu gets JFK award for removing Confederate monuments.  The former mayor of New Orleans is being honored for his leadership in removing Confederate memorials in his city.

California Bill Seeks to Replace Washington or Lincoln's Birthday Holidays with 'May Day'.  A Democrat California assemblyman introduced a bill seeking to make "May Day," or International Workers Day, a state holiday that would replace President George Washington's or President Abraham Lincoln's birthday.  Assemblyman Miguel Santiago's (D-Los Angeles) legislation calls for consolidating the two presidents' birthdays to be observed on the third Monday in February as a single "President's Day" holiday, but it also calls for the state to observe May 1 as "International Workers Day."

Minnesota Democrats wage war on God, faith and American history.  A bill in the Minnesota Senate that would allow schools in the state to voluntarily display the national motto "In God We Trust" has state Democrats spiraling into fits of outrage, because God offends them.  By waging war on God, they are showing contempt for people of faith and disregard for the history of our country.

Politics in the Pews:  Anti-Trump Activism is Reviving Protestant Churches — at a Cost.  Christ Church in Alexandria, Va., a historic Episcopal church, hasn't been a particularly political congregation.  It has welcomed Democratic and Republican presidents.  George Washington and Robert E. Lee were members.  Stone plaques commemorating them adorn a wall.  Then last year, Richard Spencer, the leader of a white nationalist organization, rented office space in Alexandria.  Several parishioners organized protests outside his office, which became bimonthly events.  The church released a written statement denouncing white supremacy, and later decided to remove the plaques honoring Washington, who owned slaves, and Lee, who led the Confederate Army.

George Washington U. Students Petition to Get Rid of 'Offensive' Colonials Mascot.  More than 200 George Washington University students have signed a petition calling for the school to adopt a new mascot and nickname because the current moniker, Colonials, is "extremely offensive."  "The historically, negatively-charged figure of Colonials has too deep a connection to colonization and glorifies the act of systemic oppression," the petition reads.  It suggests alternative nicknames such as "Hippos" or "Riverhorses."  The Colonials mascot was adopted in 1926 to honor the school's namesake, George Washington, and is intended as a reference to colonial America and the Continental Army.

Student arrested for dousing Confederate statue with red paint.  A University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student was arrested Monday and charged with vandalism for dousing a controversial Confederate statue with red paint.  The "Silent Sam" statue has been a focal point of controversy throughout the school year, and many students expressed outrage over Maya Little's arrest, even encouraging others to follow her lead.

Liberal students admit to defacing Jefferson statue at Hofstra.  Several Hofstra University students have openly confessed to defacing a Thomas Jefferson statue on campus with a "Black Lives Matter" sign, and one of the vandals is reportedly facing disciplinary action from the university.  The students strongly denied that their actions constituted "vandalism," insisting that all they did was use university printers to create a BLM sign that they then affixed to the statue's face.

Tomb of President Andrew Jackson vandalized in Tennessee.  Officials at Andrew Jackson's historic home in Tennessee say the seventh president's tomb has been vandalized and marred by profanities [4/27/2018].

After more than 100 years, the Stephen Foster statue in Oakland has been removed.  A 118-year-old statue of "Oh!  Susanna" songwriter and Pittsburgh native Stephen Foster was removed by city workers on Thursday morning [4/26/2018].  The statue, by sculptor Giuseppe Moretti, was unveiled in 1900 and moved to its location near Schenley Plaza in Oakland in 1940.  The statue has drawn controversy because it depicts Foster with a slave at his feet, strumming a banjo.

Lawsuit Alleges Dallas Violated Law Protecting Historic Confederate Monuments.  The Dallas City Council was expected to vote Wednesday on a resolution that called for demolishing one Confederate monument and auctioning off another.  Instead, they postponed making major decisions, voting 9-6 to review more options for a Confederate War Memorial.  Then, they voted 10-5, without discussion, not to sell a statue of General Robert E. Lee but did not indicate what the city would do with it either.

Memphis loses $250,000 in Tennessee payback bill for removing Confederates statues.  Tennessee's GOP-led House voted Tuesday to strip $250,000 away from the city of Memphis after the city removed Confederate statues on a dark December night through a legal loophole.  The quarter-million was supposed to go to the city's bicentennial celebration next year, but as a way of punishing the city for removing Confederate monuments, Tennessee's House appropriations passed a last-minute retaliation amendment that triggered a lively floor debate with both sides slinging hyperbolic accusations, FOX 61 reported.  Republican Andy Holt said taking statues down was erasing history, akin to "what ISIS does," but Democrat Antonio Parkinson blasted the amendment as "vile" and "racist" before fellow lawmakers started to boo.

House punishes Memphis for removing Confederate statues with $250,000 budget cut.  House lawmakers on Tuesday [4/17/2018] approved a last-minute amendment to remove $250,000 allocated to the city of Memphis as punishment for the removal of Confederate monuments.  The amendment, which was approved with a 56-31 vote, was introduced as a result of Memphis officials' decision to remove two controversial statues on public property last year.  After being denied a waiver by the state Historical Commission to remove the statues, Memphis sold two public parks in December to a nonprofit, which then removed statues of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest and Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

NYC commission unanimously approves statue's removal.  It took the city's Public Design Commission only a half-hour Monday to approve removal of a statue of a pioneering 19th century gynecologist who experimented on slaves.  The commission voted 7-0 to accept a recommendation by a mayoral-appointed panel to relocate a statue of Dr. J. Marion Sims from Fifth Avenue and 103rd Street in East Harlem to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, where he is buried.

On Founder's Day at U-Va., Jefferson's statue is defaced.  The words "RACIST + RAPIST" were painted on a statue of Thomas Jefferson at the University of Virginia on Friday [4/13/2018], the day the school commemorates its founder each year.  This year marks the 275th anniversary of his birth.  Jefferson has become a fraught symbol as the university delves more deeply into its own complicated history, and as broader cultural battles play out nationally and locally over monuments and race.

Liberal push to erase history expands beyond Confederate generals and segregationists.  A California town's effort to remove a statue of former President William McKinley shows that the leftist bent for erasing politically incorrect figures from the public square no longer is reserved for slave owners, Confederate generals and segregationists.  On the heels of the Confederate monument purge across the South, the town council of Arcata, California, voted to take down a statue of the 25th president, despite McKinley's sterling record on civil rights.  Among other things, McKinley fought to abolish slavery in the Civil War, resisted demands to fire Catholic state workers as governor of Ohio and appointed a record number of blacks to federal positions as president.

Village's annual Second World War re-enactment featuring actors wearing Nazi uniforms is scrapped after 25 years over fears it will cause offence.  A village's annual war-time re-enactment has been scrapped because organisers fear it will cause offence.  The event has run for 25 years in the village of Levisham as part of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway's event called Railway in Wartime, which pulls in tourists in their thousands.  Traditionally Levisham is transformed into 'Le Visham', a German-occupied French village, featuring actors wearing Nazi uniforms.  Past years have seen actors dressed as German soldiers patrolling the platform at Levisham station outside the Cafe du Bois.  But this year the railway's operators have pulled that part of the event out of its schedule citing the Equalities Act and the need to consider 'diversity and possible offence.'

Two sentenced to jail for removing tarps covering Confederate statues in Charlottesville.  Two men have been convicted of removing multiple times the tarps that covered Confederate statues to mourn the counterprotester killed during last August's violent white nationalist rally in Virginia.

Hofstra activists want to remove Thomas Jefferson statue.  Student activists at Hofstra University are demanding the removal of a statue of Thomas Jefferson from campus.  Ja'Loni Owens, a Hofstra student and Black Lives Matter activist, started a change.org petition that warns it will discuss "slavery, rape, eugenics, anti-black racism" and claims the Founding Father's statue belongs in a museum with proper context, "not displayed on a college campus, especially not in front of a hub of student life."  Owens specifically addressed "white allies" in their Facebook event for the Friday [3/23/2018] protest "Jefferson Has Gotta Go!" to be held at the statue in front of the student center.

The onslaught against the West's moral codes.  We are living in an era which extols reason, science and human rights.  These are said to be essential for progress, a civilised society and the betterment of humanity.  Religion is said to be their antithesis, the source instead of superstitious mumbo-jumbo, oppression and backward-thinking.  Some of this hostility is being driven by the perceived threat from Islamic terrorism and the Islamisation of Western culture.  However, this animus against religion has far deeper roots and can be traced back to what is considered the birthplace of Western reason, the 18th-century Enlightenment.  Actually, it goes back specifically to the French Enlightenment.  In England and Scotland, the Enlightenment developed reason and political liberty within the framework of Biblical belief.  In France, by contrast, anti-clericalism morphed into fundamental hostility to Christianity and to religion itself.

The Coming Cultural Revolution.  [Scroll down]  In America and England, for example, historical relics and artifacts are being destroyed as college activists radicalized by the Marxist professors who dominate Humanities departments clamor for the removal of monuments to the "slave-owning" Founding Fathers, to "colonialist" giants like Cecil Rhodes, and to "mass murderers" like Winston Churchill.  What has been the West's response to such assaults on its cultural heritage?  For the most part, it too often has been self-censorship, naval-gazing self-loathing, and apologetic compliance.  The Left's loud denunciations of so-called white privilege, colonialist imperialism, and cishetero-normativity have resulted not in pushback but increasingly in pre-emptive confessions of racial sin and gender intolerance.

Communist students vandalize WWI memorial at UT-Austin.  The "Revolutionary Student Front," an unofficial group of communist students at the University of Texas at Austin, decided to mark International Women's Day by vandalizing a fountain on campus.  The RSF recently had its Twitter account suspended for "promoting violence," but has not toned down its rhetoric, stressing "the necessity of organizing women for revolutionary violence" in its latest posts.

Utah School Named After Andrew Jackson Renamed to Honor NASA Engineer.  A Utah school board voted to change the name of the oldest elementary school in its district from Andrew Jackson Elementary School to honor a NASA engineer with the same last name.  The Salt Lake City school board voted unanimously this week to change the school's name from Andrew Jackson Elementary School to Mary Jackson Elementary School, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

Patterson Park statue honoring national anthem is defaced, found sprayed with red paint.  A statue paid for with pennies contributed by Baltimore school children more than a century ago was found sprayed with red paint Monday morning [1/15/2018].  Jennifer Arndt Robinson, executive director of Friends of Patterson Park, said the bronze statue of children holding a scroll to commemorate the writing of the Star Spangled Banner had been damaged by paint.  The words "Racist Anthem" were sprayed on a sidewalk near the statue.  "We were notified early this morning of the incident," Robinson said.  "We are working with appropriate city officials to make sure it is addressed as quickly as possible."

Statue dedicated to Star Spangled Banner in Baltimore defaced with paint.  A statue honoring the composition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" has been defaced in Baltimore, according to our affilate WBFF.  Red paint was sprayed on the statue in Baltimore's Patterson Park.  The words "Racist Anthem" were sprayed on a sidewalk leading up to the statue Monday morning [1/15/2018].  The statue built in 1914 was paid for with pennies collected by Baltimore schoolchildren.

New York City decides to move only one 'symbol of hate' statue, place markers on others.  A task force created to figure out what to do with controversial statues and monuments on New York City property — described by the mayor as "symbols of hate" — has recommended only one statue be moved from its current location.  Among the statues and monuments that came under scrutiny was the statue of Christopher Columbus that stands above Columbus Circle; a plaque in lower Manhattan for Henri Philippe Petain, considered a Nazi collaborator; and a Central Park statue of Dr. J. Marion Sims, who operated on slave women to develop advances in gynecological surgery.

The Weaponization of History and Journalism.  Writing the truth is no way to succeed as an author.  Only a small percentage of readers are interested in the truth.  Most want their biases or brainwashing vindicated.  They want to read what they already believe.  It is comforting, reassuring.  When their ignorance is confronted, they become angry.  The way to be successful as a writer is to pick a group and give them what they want.  There is always a market for romance novels and for histories that uphold a country's myths.  On the Internet successful sites are those that play to one ideology or another, to one emotion or the other, or to one interest group or another.  The single rule for success is to confine truth to what the readership group you serve believes.

New Year's Resolutions for Leftists.  [#2] Stop Wanting to Purify American History.  Whether it was renaming Civil War monuments or college buildings, this year the left's anguish about American history became more extreme than ever.  What an absurd waste of time!  Although we inherit history, we are not responsible for the evils that occurred before we got here.  Leftist academics and intellectuals, by wanting to revise all history to suit their own idea of "purity," do not evince the moral sophistication on which they pride themselves deep down.  On the contrary, they merely show that they are too weak for existence itself.  Any symbol or reminder of "inequality," or of slavery, or of genocide, or of whatever might cause one some sort of pain, must be purged from memory.  But this anxious affair, even if successful, would not alter the fundamental character of life itself, which is necessarily competitive.  For the left, the great scandal, at bottom, is simply life itself:  No one can win, since that requires that some shall lose, and to lose is painful, that is, "wrong."  The leftist would benefit from replacing this unmanly sentimentalism with the recognition that virtually all modern nations are founded on conquest, nor is the existence of slavery unique to America.  History, and life itself, may not be agreeable to one's feelings, but there is wisdom in accepting natural limits, though none at all in the delusional project of making the world "pure."

Which Confederate statues were removed?  A running list.  More than 25 cities across the United States have removed or relocated Confederate statues and monuments amid an intense nationwide debate about race and history.  After a "Unite the Right" rally in Virginia in August to protest against the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee resulted in the death of a woman who was demonstrating against white supremacy, other cities have decided to remove Confederate statues.  Many of the controversial mouments were dedicated in the early twentieth century or during the height of the Civil Rights Movement.  Discussions are under way about the removal of monuments in Houston, Atlanta, Nashville, Pensacola, Florida, Jacksonville, Florida, Richmond, Virginia, Birmingham, Alabama, and Charlottesville, Virginia.

Forrest, Davis Statues Whisked Away After Memphis Sells Public Parks.  A Jim Crow-era statue of Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest, an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan and pre-war slave trader, was removed from a Memphis park tonight under police guard immediately after the city council gave the go-ahead to sell the parkland.  The city circumvented state law, and the Tennessee Historical Commission's denial of the city's waiver request in October, by turning the public property into private property.  The council unanimously voted to sell Health Science Park, where the Forrest statue sat, and Fourth Bluff Park, home to a statue of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, to nonprofit Memphis Greenspace Inc. for $1,000 each.  That entity used its own private resources to remove the statues, while not removing the graves of Forrest and his wife.

Memphis finds legal loophole to remove Confederate statues.  The city of Memphis, Tennessee, took down Confederate statues that stood in two public parks on Wednesday — after selling the spaces to a nonprofit organization in order to avoid an arcane legal battle.  Memphis mayor Jim Strickland explained the legal maneuver in a statement that hailed the removal of the Nathan Bedford Forrest and Jefferson Davis statues.  "The statues no longer represent who we are as a modern, diverse city with momentum," he said in a statement.  "The Forrest statue was placed in 1904, as Jim Crow segregation laws were enacted.  The Davis statue was placed in 1964, as the Civil Rights Movement changed our country."

Memphis removes Confederate statues from Downtown parks.  The city of Memphis sold two public parks containing Confederate monuments to a nonprofit Wednesday in a massive, months-in-the-planning operation to take the statues down overnight.  The City Council unanimously approved the sale of Health Science Park, home of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, and its easement on Fourth Bluff Park, home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, for $1,000 each to Memphis Greenspace Inc.  Fourth Bluff, or Memphis Park, is owned by a group called The Overton Heirs.  The sale — which is almost certain to result in a lawsuit from statue supporters — allows Greenspace to legally do what the city of Memphis cannot:  Remove the statues from their visible perches in the parks, Chief Legal Officer Bruce McMullen said.  He said they would be stored in an undisclosed location for security reasons.

Why The Left Hates Thanksgiving.  Why is it so hard for the left to be thankful?  The answer is as easy as pumpkin pie.  The left is a movement built on resentment.  And resentment and gratitude are opposing emotions.  That is why the left really hates Thanksgiving.  The revisionist autopsies of American history and the guides to sensitively calling your uncle a racist are about substituting resentment for thankfulness.  Whether it's a family getting together once a year, the Pilgrims and the Indian tribesmen breaking bread or the White House press corps being asked to talk about the good things in their lives, a moment of thankfulness has to be ruined with resentment.  Resentment is the force that gives the left meaning.

Church Tells Clergy To Stop Referring To 'The Lord' And 'He' Because God Is Gender Neutral.  In Sweden, Lutherans are imploring their clergy to use gender-neutral terms in reference to God, and using terms like "the Lord" and "He" aren't going to cut it anymore. [...] For those who are in the know, The Lord's Prayer commonly refers to God as "Our Father."  Apparently, Swedish Lutherans are being led away from such language, and are now encouraged to say "Our Parent who art in Heaven."

From One Frenzy to the Next.  America woke up one day and decided that century-old statues of Confederate generals or archetypical southern soldiers were proof of pernicious racism.  So they had to be removed — by the dead of night and by the mob if necessary.  Once these iconic impediments were gone, then social justice would be achieved, as if mute stones, not beating human hearts, explain deteriorating racial relations.

The California NAACP wants 'The Star-Spangled Banner' removed as the national anthem.  The California NAACP is seeking state lawmakers to support its campaign to remove "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the national anthem, according to The Sacramento Bee.  The Bee on Tuesday reported that the California NAACP passed a resolution at its state conference last month aimed at the song's removal.  The resolution urges Congress to rescind "one of the most racist, pro-slavery, anti-black songs in the American lexicon" in "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Get rid of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' as national anthem, state's NAACP urges.  When California lawmakers return to the Capitol in January, the state chapter of the NAACP will be seeking their support for a campaign to remove "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the national anthem.  The organization last week began circulating among legislative offices two resolutions that passed at its state conference in October:  one urging Congress to rescind "one of the most racist, pro-slavery, anti-black songs in the American lexicon" as the national anthem, and another in support of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who launched a protest movement against police brutality among professional athletes by kneeling when "The Star-Spangled Banner" was played before games.  "We owe a lot of it to Kaepernick," California NAACP President Alice Huffman said.  "I think all this controversy about the knee will go away once the song is removed."

Dem Rep 'Sees Nothing Wrong' With Changing The Anthem.  Illinois Democratic Rep. Danny Davis says he sees 'nothing wrong' with the California ACLU's effort to ban the Star Spangled Banner as the country's national anthem.  "Well, you know, one of the things about the Constitution that our forefathers wrote, and basically, there were none of our foremothers that were there.  There were none of our fore-sisters there.  There are changes that can take place and there is room to change," he told TheDC Thursday.  Alice Huffman, president of the California chapter of the NAACP, declared the anthem to be "racist" and that it "doesn't represent our community.  It's anti-black people," SFGate.com, reported Wednesday.  The NAACP is hoping for lawmakers to change it.

Failure to assimilate:
Atheist Immigrant Sues Government For Having 'So Help Me God' in Citizenship Oath.  Olga Paule Perrier-Bilbo is a French citizen who has lived in Scituate, Mass., since 2000. She says she has twice applied for U.S. citizenship and now she's ready to become an American.  There's just one problem.  She doesn't want to say the last four words of the citizenship oath.  As an atheist, she objects to "So help me God," claiming that the phrase violates her right to religious freedom.  So she filed a lawsuit.

Abraham Lincoln Becomes Slave Owner.  Abraham Lincoln stands too tall in American history not to be denounced as a thought criminal.  As mentioned earlier, moonbats at University of Wisconsin — Madison have demanded that his statue be desecrated with a plaque denouncing him for his supposed oppression of sacred victims of color.  The plaque would be a prelude to Lincoln following Robert E. Lee down the Memory Hole.  One reason they want to erase Lincoln is that he has recently become a slave owner.

George Washington, Un-American.  When George Washington's memory has been deemed "unacceptable" to Americans, will America still exist?  In the fundamental transformation of any nation, there will be a moment that stands as the symbolic termination of that nation as anything recognizable, and the beginning of a completely new nation unrelated to the old except in name.  For example, you will know England is over when Shakespeare is no longer taught or studied, but has been officially rejected as an elitist remnant of the nation's sexist, racist past.  Likewise, America will be over when she no longer recognizes George Washington as the prototypical national hero.

George Washington's Church Removes Plaque Honoring Him.  Another reminder, as if we needed one, that it's not going to stop with Confederate generals.  Or, for that matter, Virginians or slaveowners.  Look at the history of the left around the world.  And look at where they drew the line and stopped.  The answer is nowhere.

George Washington's Church Says Plaque Honoring First President Must Come Down.  Leaders at the church that George Washington attended decided that a plaque honoring the first president of the United States must be removed.  Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia will take down a memorial marking the pew where Washington sat with his family, saying it is not acceptable to all worshipers.  "The plaques in our sanctuary make some in our presence feel unsafe or unwelcome," leaders said, a reference to the fact that Washington was a slaveholder.

University of Wisconsin-Madison Students Protest Abraham Lincoln Statue Because 'He Owned Slaves'.  There's a common quote, frequently attributed to G.K. Chesterton:  "Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason why it was put up."  In our modern context, this should be rephrased a bit:  "Don't try to pull down a statue if you have no idea who or what the statue was really about."

Undermining America.  Students at the University of Virginia want to remove the statue of Thomas Jefferson, the university's founder.  Students at the University of Missouri also want Jefferson's statue gone.  Why?  He was a slave owner. [...] What goes unappreciated is just why America's leftists' movement attacks the Founders.  If they can delegitimize the Founders themselves, it goes a long way toward their agenda of delegitimizing the founding principles of our nation.  If the leftists can convince the nation that men such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were good-for-nothing slave-owning racists, then their ideas can be more easily trashed.  We find the greatest assaults on our founding documents on the nation's college campuses.

It's 1968 All Over Again.  After the polarizing Obama presidency and the contested election of Donald Trump, the country is once again split in two.  But this time the divide is far deeper, both ideologically and geographically — and more 50/50, with the two liberal coasts pitted against red-state America in between.  Century-old mute stone statues are torn down in the dead of night, apparently on the theory that by attacking the Confederate dead, the lives of the living might improve.  All the old standbys of American life seem to be eroding.

Columbus Statue Vandalized with Red Paint, Obscenities.  Residents of Providence, Rhode Island awoke on Monday, Columbus Day, to find a statue of Christopher Columbus covered in red and black paint, as well as obscenities.  ABC6 reported that buckets of paint had been poured over the monument, located in Columbus Square, late Sunday night or early Monday morning [10/9/2017].  This comes after similar incidents took place in New York and Connecticut as a means of protesting statues — and a holiday — celebrating a man who is maligned by many as a figure of European colonialism and destruction brought upon Native Americans.

Italian Americans fight against movement to abolish Columbus Day.  A movement to abolish Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous Peoples Day has gained momentum in some parts of the US, with Los Angeles in August becoming the biggest city yet to decide to stop honoring the Italian explorer and instead recognize victims of colonialism.  Austin, Texas, followed suit Thursday.  It joined cities including San Francisco, Seattle and Denver, which had previously booted Columbus in favor of Indigenous Peoples Day.  But the gesture to recognize indigenous people rather than the man who opened the Americas to European domination also has prompted howls of outrage from some Italian-Americans, who say eliminating their festival of ethnic pride is culturally insensitive, too.

Columbus, the West, and the Myth of the Noble Savage.  For a few decades now, the 15th century European explorer's face has been held up as that of Western civilization, i.e. the face of all that is evil in the world.  Columbus is the proverbial poster child for the White, Christian, Heterosexual Male, i.e. the contemporary left's version of Public Enemy Number One.  Columbus Day assumes a new significance this year, however, for monuments to Columbus are no longer alone in being targeted for destruction by leftist agitators.  They are now in the company of monuments to Robert E. Lee, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and, yes, even legendary Philadelphia mayor and Police Commissioner, Frank Rizzo.  It is now clear that the campaign against monuments to Columbus has always has been and remains a campaign designed to subvert the Western world's historic identity as a predominantly European (white) and Christian civilization.

The New World's Oldest Villain.  To the best of my discernment, Indigenous Peoples Day exists for those who think it's a noble idea to honor those who were too technologically backward to defend their own land.  Perhaps its first emergence as a counter-celebration to Columbus Day happened in South Dakota, which in 1990 decided to host Native American Day on the second Monday of October.  Two years later, the incurably Americaphobic city of Berkeley, CA swapped out Columbus Day for Indigenous Peoples Day.  Now a total of four states — South Dakota, Oregon, Alaska, and Hawaii — refuse to celebrate Columbus Day.  Major municipalities that have chosen to turn their backs on the renowned [Italian] explorer include Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Denver, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Salt Lake City, Austin, and, of course, Portland, OR, which should be officially crowned as America's Whitest White-Hating Town.  In schoolrooms across the nation, Columbus is increasingly being depicted as a villain rather than a hero — someone who trampled on the gentle and progressive natives just because he wanted to be [a contrarian] and impede their inevitable progress.

Lawmaker takes first step to remove Columbus Day in NYC.  A radical Brooklyn lawmaker on Monday [10/9/2017] introduced a new state bill to rename Columbus Day to Indigenous People's Day, and slammed the famed explorer as a "murderer."  "This land that all of us inhabit is stolen land — stolen from the indigenous people who were slaughtered and forced onto reservations," Assemblyman Charles Barron told The Post, adding that "they should be recognized in replace of Columbus Day."  Barron described Columbus as a "colonizer" who "enslaved Africans and slaughtered indigenous people."

The Editor says...
The liberals just don't get it.  This perpetual PC nonsense about Indigenous People's Day, perverts in the women's restrooms, and same-sex wedding cakes, etc., is precisely the reason Donald Trump got elected, and will get re-elected.

Stonewall Jackson monument vandalized at Manassas National Battlefield Park.  The National Park Service is actively working to remove paint that was poured and sprayed on the Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson monument at Manassas National Battlefield Park.  The vandalism happened overnight and was discovered at approximately 6:30 a.m.  Wednesday [10/4/2017].  "Vandals poured a large quantity of white paint on three of the four sides of the polished granite base, and 'Dead!!!' was painted in gold spray paint," the federal agency said in a statement.  "Preservation experts have started to remove the paint from the monument, and are assessing the best methods to remove remaining paint, oils and residue."

Battle Over Confederate Monuments Moves to the Cemeteries.  One by one, Confederate monuments are coming down from their perches in front of courthouses, in public squares, along city boulevards.  Now opponents to the memorials are looking through cemetery gates for more.  Local officials and residents, outraged by the violence in Charlottesville, Va., last month and determined to clear their cities of markers that glorify the Confederacy, are pushing for the removal of Confederate monuments that have adorned the graves of soldiers for decades.

Commission moves swiftly to postpone decision on Confederate monuments.  The state commission considering the fate of Confederate monuments on Capitol Square put off until April a decision on whether the statues should be moved to a Civil War battlefield.  The NC Historical Commission voted 9-1 Friday to postpone action on the request to move the monuments 46 miles to Bentonfield Battlefield in Johnston County because members wanted more time to gather legal options on a 2015 monuments law and issues related to relocation.  The law requires approval from the Historical Commission to relocate monuments, but some have described the law as vague.

The Racial Cliff.  [Scroll down]  This the force behind the frenzy of statue toppling.  It has nothing to do with the Civil War or symbols of past racism. [...] The Progs are sure that in the final reckoning, all signs of race realism will disappear, including those in the past.  Therefore, they can bring this about by erasing the past!  That's what is behind the mania that now includes erasing guys like Ben Franklin and Sam Houston from our collective memories.  The Progs are trying to erase the past to bring about the rapture.  This self-flagellation is not happening in isolation.  One result of the rise of anti-white politics, among whites, is that non-whites now feel free to drop the mask.  Steve Sailer calls it the Late Obama Era Collapse.  He trots it out whenever some blacks go crazy and start shooting cops and making a nuisance of themselves.  Non-whites are now taking every chance they can to tell the world they hate white people.

Here is the FDR Quote about Robert E. Lee That Liberals Never Wanted You to See.  Robert E. Lee monuments are being vandalized and removed across the country.  After Charlottesville, the hate directed at Lee has reached an extreme level.  If you don't want these statues removed, you will be called a racist.  One such statue that will likely be removed is in Dallas, Texas.  Activists believe it's a "sign of enduring legacy of white supremacy in the South and across America," according to a local television network. [...] However, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, author of the New Deal, is a secular Saint for liberals.  But he attended the dedication of this same statue in Dallas back in 1936, and he said something extraordinary about Lee.

Remember the Mayflower.  [Scroll down]  Unfortunately, the idiots bringing down Columbus probably remember the story different, a confirmation of their ignorance, not the validity of the story.  They'd probably say that these "white people" raped the land and brought disease.  Indeed, some did.  They also brought the freedom that allows these clowns to take votes in city government or express themselves without the King, Moctezuma, or Geronimo hanging them for treason.  Long live the Mayflower.  God save the U.S. from these fools who want to rewrite history rather than talk about the lousy state of our Democrat-run inner cities or the public schools that Democrats like the Obamas did not send their kids to.

Hillary Clinton Is the New David Duke.  Franklin Roosevelt is the president who went out of his way to appoint a lifetime member of the Ku Klux Klan — progressive Democrat and Alabama Senator Hugo Black — to the United States Supreme Court.  And why not?  Progressives and racism were the peanut butter and jelly of Leftist politics.  As a sitting Justice it was Black who, leading the five other FDR Court appointees in the 1944 Korematsu v.  United States decision, wrote the opinion that gave a thumbs up to the internment of Japanese-Americans.  A decision based not on the Constitution but on race.  Will the Trust for the National Mall add this interesting information to the FDR memorial?

Dallas removes statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee removed from park named after him.  Crews arranged by Dallas officials removed a statue of Robert E Lee from a pedestal Thursday [9/14/2017] and carted it away from a park named for the Confederate general.

When Will They Blow Up Mount Rushmore?  The Taliban and Islamic state blow up ancient statues.  Cambodia's communist Khmer Rouge aimed to erase the past and start history anew with their "Year Zero."  As for our "devolutionaries," when will they destroy Mt. Rushmore?  Answer:  when they have enough power.  There's now a mad rush to tear down Confederate monuments and statues, with General Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis, and even rank-and-file Confederate soldiers being victims.  This occurs despite a healthy majority of Americans — including a plurality of blacks — believing the memorials should stand.  Moreover, even more widely revered American figures are now in the cross hairs, with proposals to remove monuments to Founders such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.  After all, they share the Confederates' unpardonable sin:  having been slave owners.

Catholic Saint Statue Beheaded in California, Splashed with Red Paint.  It seems no statue is off limits in the great purging of American history.  At the Old Santa Barbara Mission in California, a statue of St. Junipero Serra was found decapitated this week and covered in dripping, red paint.

Left's Tidal Wave of Hate Keeps Flowing.  The massive wave of hatred that leftists have been expressing toward our heritage shows no sign of letting up.  A statue of Christopher Columbus — despised by liberals for bringing Western Civilization to the New World — was just vandalized in New York's Central Park.

Charlottesville Council votes to remove 'Stonewall' Jackson statue.  The city council in Charlottesville, Va., voted unanimously Tuesday [9/5/2017] to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson from Justice Park.  The 5-0 vote came just weeks after last month's violent protests in the city, sparked in part by city officials' plans to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.  Tuesday's vote also will expedite the relocation of the Lee statue.

Washington National Cathedral to remove stained glass windows of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson.  The Washington National Cathedral will remove two stained glass windows featuring Confederate Gens.  Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, the church said Wednesday, joining a growing list of cities and institutions that have removed statues of Confederate figures in the wake of last month's violence in Charlottesville, Va.  The National Cathedral said the Cathedral Chapter, its governing body, voted Tuesday [9/5/2017] to immediately take the windows down.  Scaffolding was erected Wednesday morning as crews began the process of removing the stained glass windows, according to the Washington Post.

Texas School Sheds 'Robert E. Lee' for 'Student Safety'.  A Texas high school cited "student safety" concerns as the reason for shedding its nearly 60-year-old Confederate namesake, General Robert E. Lee.  This marks the second time in a week that public education officials in the Lone Star State used the rationale to strip a slice of history from a campus.  North East Independent School District trustees held a special meeting Tuesday night where they voted unanimously, 7-0, to change the name of Robert E. Lee High.  Last Thursday, Midland ISD administrators framed "student safety" to nix a few bars of the southern favorite "Dixie" out of their school fight song.

Supreme Court asks Mississippi governor to defend Confederate emblem.  The U.S. Supreme Court is asking attorneys for Mississippi's governor to file arguments defending the Confederate battle emblem on the state flag.  The court on Tuesday [8/29/2017] set a Sept. 28 deadline for the filing.  Mississippi has the last state flag featuring the Confederate battle emblem.

ESPN's "Robert Lee" Incident [is] Only [the] Latest Example of PC Absurdity.  By now, many people both in and out of the sports world are familiar with the controversy surrounding broadcaster Robert Lee.  In short, the recent rallies in Charlottesville, VA have caused ESPN to pull Lee from working Virginia's game against William and Mary due to his name being the same as the most famous general of the Confederacy.  As surprising as this move may be to some, it is simply another example of the rampant political correctness that accompanies both ESPN and most of the sports media.  So let's take a stroll through some (though certainly not all) recent events highlighting just how deep the plague of PC has infected the sports culture in America.

Christopher Columbus deserves to stay in his rightful place.  Christopher Columbus has been coming under fire for decades, and lately Mayor de Blasio hasn't ruled out scrapping the iconic 1892 statue of the explorer, in Columbus Circle, as a possible "symbol of hate."  But if Columbus were to come back to today, he would be dumbfounded by both the acclaim and condemnation he's received over time in a land he never knew existed.  Despite everything, Columbus has a claim to greatness.  He was a peerless and fearless navigator, maybe the best ever, able to read the seas and skies with near-perfect understanding, and to make the first documented ocean voyages from Europe to the new world and back.  This was at a time when sailing uncross the uncharted Atlantic was like going to the moon, only more dangerous.

Congressman wants Columbus statues for federal park if city takes them down.  A Staten Island congressman wants an iconic statue of Christopher Columbus relocated to federal park land in his borough if the city takes it down in Manhattan in a frenzy of political correctness.  "Christopher Columbus is a permanent fixture of our national history.  Rarely can we trace the wheels of progress over 500 years back to the actions of a single person," said Rep. Dan Donovan (R-SI/Brooklyn).  "If a radical group bent on sanitizing history doesn't want the statue at Columbus Circle anymore, Staten Island will gladly accept it."

Protesters now rally to remove statue of Christopher Columbus from Manhattan.  A rally was held in New York by those who wish to see the removal of a statue of Christopher Columbus from where it has stood since the 1800's.  The statue is currently under review by a special task force implemented by Mayor Bill de Blasio designed to remove 'symbols of hate' in New York City.  Friday night [8/25/2017], demonstrators took to Columbus Circle where the statue is prominently displayed in a busy round-about at the base of Central Park, carrying signs that read:  'Columbus didn't discover America he invaded it.'

The Never-Ending Liberal Bait And Switch.  Back in 2015, liberals demanded that Confederate flags be taken down because Dylann Roof had a picture of one on his Facebook page.  Most Republicans, even Southern Republicans, didn't care all that much about the Confederate flag.  So, in South Carolina for example, Republicans voluntarily removed the Confederate flag.  That's what liberals wanted, right?  So, that was it?  No, that was the start of the bait and switch.  The Dukes of Hazzard was taken off the air.  Confederate flags were ripped down.  There were liberals who said that waving a Confederate flag should be considered a hate crime and Southerners in general were attacked as racist.  Then people who protested this stupidity were labeled as bigots.  Next the Left moved on to statues.

Jewish activists target removal of Peter Stuyvesant monuments.  Move over Christopher Columbus, it's Peter Stuyvesant's turn to get scorched in the monuments war.  A Jewish activist group is now demanding Mayor de Blasio scrub all traces of the anti-Semitic Dutch governor from city property — even Stuyvesant High School — as part of his campaign to rid the city of "symbols or hate."  "Peter Stuyvesant was an extreme racist who targeted Jews and other minorities including Catholics and energetically tried to prohibit them from settling in then New Amsterdam," said Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the head of the Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center.

Calif. Catholic school removes Jesus and Mary statues: 'Alienating'.  An independent Catholic school in San Anselmo, California, has sparked the ire of some parents after officials removed and relocated a large number of religious statues, reportedly including those of Jesus and Mary, in order not to alienate children of other faiths.  Amy Skewes-Cox, who heads San Domenico School's board of trustees, said at least 18 of the 180 religious icons still remain at the school as part of a plan approved unanimously by the board last year, the Marin Independent Journal reported.  Ms. Skewes-Cox said the timing of the statues' removals and the national statue debate spurring from the unrest in Charlottesville, Virginia, is an unfortunate coincidence and have "absolutely no connection other than it is change, and people have a hard time with change."

The Editor says...
Ri-i-i-ight.  The statues are (or were) at a Catholic school.  Nobody "children of other faiths" will ever get close enough to see such statues, nor will they give them a second thought.  The Catholics were proud to display their statues for centuries, and now — at the moment in history when they're most likely to be vandalized by the far-left, the statues are being taken down.  And they want us to believe the timing is just "an unfortunate coincidence."

The Progressive War Against the Dead.  The wide liberal search for more enemies of the past may soon take progressives down hypocritical pathways they would prefer not to walk.  In the present climate of auditing the past, it is inevitable that Margaret Sanger's Planned Parenthood will have to be disassociated from its founder.  Sanger was an unapologetic racist and eugenicist who pushed abortion to reduce the non-white population.  Should we ask that Ruth Bader Ginsburg resign from the Supreme Court?  Even with the benefit of 21st-century moral sensitivity, Ginsburg still managed to echo Sanger in a racist reference to abortion ("growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of").  Why did we ever mint a Susan B. Anthony dollar?  The progressive suffragist once said, "I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman."

Nancy Pelosi's Father Dedicated Confederate Statues to Robert E. Lee & 'Stonewall' Jackson.  In recent days, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has publicly supported the removal of Confederate statues around the U.S. As it turns out, the Pelosi family wasn't always against the statues.  On Monday, Ron Meyer of Red Alert Politics dropped a little truth bomb on Fox News viewers, revealing Nancy Pelosi's father helped dedicate Confederate statues to Robert E. Lee and 'Stonewall' Jackson.

Oberlin Council gets rid of Columbus Day.  With enthusiasm, the Oberlin City Council changed the second Monday in October from Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day.  The unanimous vote for the resolution was anticipated, though it was not without opposition.  Council voted about 8:15 p.m.  Monday [8/21/2017] after nearly an hour of public comment from people for and against replacing the federally recognized holiday.

Report: ESPN Removes College Football Announcer From Game Because He's Named 'Robert Lee'.  ESPN confirmed via emailed statement that they did, indeed, take Robert Lee off the UVA game over the fact that his name was close to that of a Confederate general.

ESPN Exec on Robert Lee Controversy: 'No Biggie Until Someone Leaked it to Embarrass Us and Him'.  ESPN is now in full blown damage control mode over what would seem to be one of the more ridiculous self-made controversies in recent times — the decision to pull a broadcaster from a University of Virginia football game telecast because his name happens to be Robert Lee.  With cable news and social media reaction nearly universal in their criticism of ESPN, the Worldwide Leader is looking to calm the outcry from those on the left and the right over the decision.

War of the Classes.  Rewriting the past to help disinherit the powerless by demeaning their ancestors is an ancient practice currently growing in popularity.  For example, this summer in Madison and Boston, government officials have obliterated or covered up grave markers commemorating prisoners of war who died in captivity.  This is justified as punching up against white supremacy.  After all, who is more powerful than a dead POW?  Why are politicians today going out of their way to disrespect Confederate soldiers who died in Union prison camps more than 150 years ago?  Because they can.  Because this kind of vandalism is a classic turf-marking exercise understood by even the dimmest juvenile delinquents.  Because desecration of memorials to the dead signifies that their living heirs are vulnerable to rapacity.  Further, this ISIS-like destruction of monuments can provoke individual losers in this struggle to overreact, which in turn is instantly used to justify more despoliation.

Hey Statue-Hating Snowflakes: Barack Obama's Ancestors Owned Slaves.  Former President Barack Obama will have a bronze statue of his likeness revealed some time next month in Rapid City, South Dakota.  It is one in a series of all former presidents mounted on street corners throughout the city (one of which is the Bill Clinton one which his rape accuser Juanita Broaddrick has demanded to be removed).  But it looks as if there will be a problem with the statue of the 44th POTUS, especially in today's hypersensitive racial climate. [...] In 2007, a genealogical researcher determined that ancestors on Obama's mother's side were slave owners.  And based on recent news you simply can't have that kind of history if you're going to have a statue in this day and age.

Anderson Cooper Family Owned Slaves, Including Michelle Obama Relatives.  CNN loves to push the white supremacist and slave owning former presidents card.  Funny they want to go down that road considering one of their fading "stars," Anderson Cooper and his Vanderbilt family were also slave owners.  Not only were they slave owners, they owned slaves that were relatives of former First Lady Michelle Obama.  Cornelius Vanderbilt, the great great grandfather of Anderson Cooper owned slaves, who picked cotton that would be sent north to New England.

Polls shows majority of Americans think Confederate statues should remain.  A majority of Americans think Confederate monuments should be preserved in public spaces, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll, a view that is at odds with efforts in many cities to remove them.  The 18-21 August poll found that 54% of adults said Confederate monuments "should remain in all public spaces", while 27% said they "should be removed from all public spaces".

Our War against Memory.  Were the 60-70 percent of the Confederate population in most secessionist states who did not own slaves complicit in the economics of slavery?  Did they have good options to leave their ancestral homes when the war started to escape the stain of perpetuating slavery?  Do such questions even matter to the new arbiters of ethics, who recently defiled the so-called peace monument in an Atlanta park — a depiction of a fallen Confederate everyman, his trigger hand stilled by an angel?  How did those obsessed with the past know so little of history?

The Broken Clock.  The Cult that rules over us has forever lectured against the past, claiming that it is what prevents us from reaching the glorious future.  The future is never defined, it is just assumed, but the past is full of a detailed list of monsters.  The rage-heads, running around defacing statues and demanding people named "Jefferson" change their names, are not making detailed arguments about who should and should not be memorialized.  These are not people with a sense of the past.  They are raging against the ideas of having a past.  The proof of this is they quickly moved from rebel flags to Confederate statuary to pretty much every white man who is now dead.

All in:  The left is through messing around.  We have seen the recent drive to take down Confederate monuments that had been around for one hundred years or more.  Enraged by Trump's press conference, the left is now calling to erase the Founding Fathers.  Trump was not wrong in asking if it were to end with Washington and Jefferson — he just didn't go far enough.  The left's goal is to eliminate the Constitution.  Every argument made against the Founders can also be made against their historic document.  Whether the left achieves this through elections or civil unrest, it has started the ball rolling, and it will be difficult to stop.

Pelosi Calls on Paul Ryan to Immediately Remove 'Confederate Statues' from Capitol.  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) today [8/17/2017] called on House Speaker Paul Ryan (R.-Wisc.) to immediately remove "Confederate statues" from the U.S. Capitol.  "If Republicans are serious about rejecting white supremacy, I call upon Speaker Ryan to join Democrats to remove the Confederate statues from the Capitol immediately," Pelosi said in a statement.  "There is no room for celebrating the violent bigotry of the men of the Confederacy in the hallowed halls of the United States Capitol or in places of honor across the country," Pelosi said.

Carved Upon the Landscape.  Why the ever-increasing hatred for America's past?  You might think that, on the whole, American history is, relative to world history, fairly impressive and heartening.  But it's precisely American history's virtues, more than anything else, that enrage so many people these days against the great men of the American past.  While the Founding Fathers might be nominally condemned for their misdeeds, they are largely resented for their accomplishments.

Democrats decry the KKK while forgetting legacy of one of their own.  Because, of course, they want rule of law to reign, a group of citizens began digging up the grave of Nathan Bedford Forrest in Memphis this week over his helping found the Ku Klux Klan.  They only got a few shovelfuls before giving up.  But they vowed to return with a backhoe to dig the rest of the man's grave up later.

A War Of Religion.  A brilliant friend who wishes to remain nameless reminds us why incidents like Charlottesville are all too inevitable in a nation with a hard left high command, an army of portable paid thugs, and a vast population of sentimental liberals who believe they stand only for truth and 'social justice.'  "The left could care less about this issue (Confederate statuary), as they could care less about any of their issues.  "The issue is never the issue, the issue is always revolution". [...] The left has no limits.  It's vital to understand that.  No battle they pick is over the stated issue.  Each is merely a step towards the goal of eradicating Western Civilization.  They've set up a self reinforcing system of rewards, whereby SJWs out bid each other to come up with new ways to be offended.

Battle underway to strip Confederate names from military bases.  Military leaders have hastened to denounce racism amid the furor over President Donald Trump's defense of white supremacists who violently rallied last week around a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia.  But they are also presiding over their own controversial symbols of the Confederacy — including 10 Army bases named for generals who commanded armies of the slave-holding South during the Civil War, such as Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas and Fort Rucker in Alabama.

Only one flag flies over Six Flags theme park now.  Ever since Six Flags opened in 1961, the six flags that have flown over Texas have been a staple of the park.  No more.  As of Friday morning [8/18/2017], the five flags other than the United States flag — representing Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas and the Confederacy — are being left to the history books.  The park received criticism following last weekend's violence in Charlottesville, Va., from TMZ, Fox News and others for flying the Confederate states flag.  As a result, Six Flags Over Texas decided to take down all but the U.S. flag.

The Editor says...
With this action, the management of Six Flags is showing an ignorance of Texas history, a disregard for our culture, and a deplorable lack of fortitude.  I think it's safe to say that I'll never visit Six Flags again, especially because — compared to the last time I was there — it now costs twice as much to get into Six Flags and four times as much to park the car.

Poll: 62% of Americans Favor Keeping Confederate Statues.  A new Marist poll finds that 62% of Americans believe statues of Confederate leaders should be allowed to stand.  What's more, a majority of self-identified "Soft Democrats" say Confederate monuments should remain.

American Left Adopts Taliban Tactics in Destruction of Historical Icons.  As the American left targets historical icons for removal and/or destruction, one is reminded of the way the Taliban destroyed centuries-old Buddhist statues and the Islamic State's ongoing violence against Christian churches and landmarks.  In short, the American left, the Taliban, and the Islamic State (ISIS) hold two things in common.  First, an inability to appreciate the whole of history as it happened, which includes good times and bad.  And secondly, a tendency to express this lack of appreciation via violence and destruction.

Take Down the Statues of Robert Byrd.  President Trump had it right when, during his press conference on infrastructure he addressed the nonstop questions on Charlottesville, he asked if those obsessed with fears of white nationalism if they would also remove statues and monuments to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, both slaveowners, in addition to the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.  Trump's critics responded that while Washington and Jefferson were slaveowners, they did not go to war to defend slavery.  True enough, but also true is the fact that white nationalism had its roots in the Democratic post-Civil War south and that the KKK was founded by Democrats to suppress blacks liberated by the Republican administration of President Abraham Lincoln.  The alt-left movement, which shares the blame along with arguably racist groups such as Black Lives Matter and Antifa, hate America so much that they want to erase all vestiges of American history and throw them down an Orwellian memory hole to be supplanted by alt-left politically correct ideology.

Here's a List of All the Confederate Monuments They're Attempting to Remove.  In the wee hours of Wednesday morning [8/16/2017], Baltimore removed its four Confederate monuments, including statues of Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson.  This action followed this weekend's events in Charlottesville, Va., when white supremacists protested the removal of a Lee statue, and events this week, when protesters vandalized Confederate statues in Durham, N.C., Louisville, Ky., and Gainesville, Fla.  Activists and government leaders are calling for more removals, while some counter protesters have organized to protect some monuments.  Here is a brief summary of the monuments under attack — and those that aren't.

If Democrats Want Racism Removed There Are 12 Memorials That Need To Go — They Won't Like It.  Robert Byrd is perhaps the most notable example.  The late senator from West Virginia was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, rising to the rank of "exalted cyclops", and unsurprisingly filibustered the Civil Rights Act in 1964.  He's honored throughout West Virginia: [...] Yet no one is complaining about memorials to an actual Klansman who opposed the Civil Rights Act?  President Lyndon B. Johnson was also a reported racist, allegedly calling the Civil Rights Act the "n----- bill".  He is memorialized with the Lyndon Baines Johnson Memorial Grove on the Potomac.  President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was not only a socialist, but also ordered for Japanese-Americans to be held in internment camps, something almost universally condemned today.  He is honored at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington DC.  Presidents Andrew Johnson and Woodrow Wilson were also reportedly racist, yet both also have memorials standing in their name.

Whose Side Is He On?  I wonder how many of the counter-protesters at the Charlottesville event even had any idea who Robert E. Lee was.  He was a major hero of the Mexican-American War.  He fought for the Confederacy against the Union, but at the time he did it, it was not illegal.  Slavery was — while 100 percent evil — completely protected by law as of 1861.  When Lee went to work to defend his native Virginia, he was not violating any law.  In fact, at no time did the Supreme Court rule that secession was unconstitutional.  To the contrary, when the Supreme Court moved towards declaring secession lawful, President Lincoln, in violation of every lawful principle, threatened to have Roger Taney, the Chief Justice, arrested and jailed.

A story about deleting history.  My guess is that most of the people bringing down monuments are caught up in a rage and have not thought through just exactly what they are doing.  After all, why would anyone bring down a statue that honors the Confederate soldier as just happened in Durham, North Carolina?  We can disagree about the war, but can't we honor the men who were drafted or volunteered to fight?  Isn't that what The Vietnam Memorial is about?

Leftist Activists Demand New York Museum Take Down Statue of 'Racist' Theodore Roosevelt.  Social justice warriors are never satisfied.  If you give them an inch, they'll take a mile.  After demanding that southern states take down statues of Confederate figures, the activist Left is now targeting an iconic American president featured on Mount Rushmore.  On Monday [8/14/2017], more than 200 SJW zealots held a protest inside the American Museum of Natural History in New York City to take down the supposedly "racist" statue of former President Theodore Roosevelt.

The Erasure Of The Southern Heritage.  Before the war between the states, the understanding that it was a war "against the United States of America" presupposes the outcome of the war.  Or in other words, membership is said states was seen as the right of association, and secession was seen as the exercise of that right.  Furthermore, no one I know who really understands the war between the states thinks that it was fought over slavery.  In order to understand the thinking at the time, one must understand that slavery was on its way out, would not have lasted, and was effectively obsolete given industrialization.

What Everyone is Missing About Charlottesville.  This all began because someone decided, as other elected officials have across the country, to cave in to partisan political pressures and seek to erase American history.  History is not there for us to love or hate, but for us to learn from and seek to not repeat its mistakes.  If there are those who truly believe we protect ourselves by trying to revise history due to false emotions, then we miss out on who we are as a nation, and our evolution.  The statues of long since deceased leaders of the Confederate Army do not stand to remind anyone of oppression.  And if a statue can oppress you, then I submit that you have greater issues.

The Left Focuses On Tearing Down Statues When They Should Be Condemning Violence.  In the aftermath of Charlottesville, the Left has returned to one of its favorite pastimes:  tearing down statues and defacing public property.  Instead of making a grown-up argument that Confederate war monuments shouldn't be funded by taxpayer dollars, Leftists have simply determined that it's fine to tear down statues they don't like, without even engaging in a serious historical or political debate.

Georgia Politician Calls for Removal of Stone Mountain's Giant Carving of Confederate Leaders.  The politicians are using our monuments to history as bargaining chips to gain votes.  It's sickening to see the back and forth with the cowardly bunch of lily livered sellouts who would rather win their seat than fight for what the people want.

Grave Digging Protesters Start to Dig Up Confederate General's Grave.  This happened in 2015 but is still relevant today:  A group of protesters decided to go digging to destroy a Confederate General's grave.  No kidding!  Does anyone out there think this will do anything productive?

Politically correct and intellectually intolerable.  You only need to read a few recent news stories to get the gist of it, but what drove me over the edge was a story from last week that three Portland, Oregon, elementary schools were having their names changed because they "offended" some students and families.  The schools were named after Patrick Lynch, a man who generously had donated land to the local school district in the late 1800s and whose name had thus been memorialized in Lynch Wood Elementary School, Lynch Meadows Elementary School and Lynch View Elementary School.  So what was the problem?  Patrick Lynch's patronym happens to also be the word used for public executions by a mob, especially when done out of racial animus.

Deadly rally accelerates removal of Confederate statues.  In Gainesville, Florida, workers hired by the Daughters of the Confederacy chipped away at a Confederate soldier's statue, loaded it quietly on a truck and drove away with little fanfare.  In Baltimore, Mayor Catherine Pugh said she's ready to tear down all of her city's Confederate statues, and the city council voted to have them destroyed.

Council on American-Islamic Relations:  Tear Down Every Confederate Memorial.  he Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), America's largest Muslim civil rights group, is calling on state and local governments all over the United States to tear down all monuments and memorials commemorating Confederate leaders and the short-lived Confederate States of America.  CAIR joined several groups asking for the removal of Confederate memorials in the wake of a "Unite the Right" white supremacist rally that turned violent over the weekend.

Protesters topple Confederate statue in North Carolina.  Protesters toppled a Confederate monument in Durham, N.C. on Monday night [8/14/2017].  Video posted to Twitter shows protestors surrounding the statue and chanting "No KKK! No fascists!  USA" as several protestors appear to pull down the statue with a rope.  [Video clip]

Army Denies Dems' Demands to Rename 'Confederate' Streets on Historic Base.  The U.S. Army denied requests from several New York Democrats to rename streets on the city's Fort Hamilton military installation.  The Bay Ridge, Brooklyn property is a base for the New York Army National Guard and Reserves and was a key U.S. battery during the Revolution and World War II. [...] Rep. Yvette Clarke (D) of Brooklyn was one of several city Democrats who demanded that streets on the base like "General Lee Avenue" and "Stonewall Jackson Drive" be renamed.

Ryan Zinke:  Activists Shouldn't 'Rewrite History' by Removing Confederate Monuments.  U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told Breitbart News that "history is important" and it should not be rewritten when asked about those attempting to destroy or remove Confederate monuments while touring Antietam National Battlefield on Wednesday [7/5/2017] in western Maryland.  Zinke explained the significance of history, gesturing to the area around him, "As an example, what did the battle of Antietam bring us?  One is that it was the deadliest battle in the history of our country.  But also, one could argue successfully, it also brought the Emancipation Proclamation."

Drive to remove Confederate symbols spurs backlash.  A revived campaign to remove Confederate statues and symbols from government grounds has reignited an impassioned national debate pitting opponents against self-described "patriots" who argue the monuments stand for heritage and not hate.  These tensions were bared over the weekend when defenders of those symbols traveled to Gettysburg, Pa., preparing to face off against rumored anti-Confederate protests.

Purging History -- Assaulting Our American Heritage.  Monuments honoring heroes of the Confederate States of America, American heroes in fact, are being removed from the public square, due to a successful presentation of oversimplified arguments and lies by the same progressive Leftist Democratic apparatus that seeks to fundamentally transform America.  These assaults on the Southern heritage by politically correct propagandists and arrogant activist ideologues are assaults on our American culture and heritage, or "AmeriKKKa" as the Left calls America; and, it is nothing short of a cultural cleansing campaign, a purging of the truth and history and a national disgrace.

New Orleans Is Not New Orleans Anymore.  The video of Robert E. Lee being taken off his pedestal — literally — was stunning enough, since that 1884 statue by Alexander Doyle is sculpted in a Florentine neoclassical style that just doesn't exist anymore.  Even more shocking is where it happened.  New Orleans?  This really went down in the Southern city most associated with tolerance, community, art, hospitality, jazz, street celebrations, and a melting pot of black, white, mulatto, Creole, French, Spanish, Cajun, Native American, German, and Haitian peoples sprouting from various historical periods and cultural traditions?  The city of laissez les bon temps rouler really singled out particular monuments from the city's multilayered history and targeted them for iconic destruction, like the Taliban?  But it gets stranger.  The idol smashers also took down the equestrian statue of General Beauregard, their own Creole hero, a man whose first language was French and who, in keeping with the loyalty that Louisiana inspires, chose to remain in the hostile Reconstruction South after the war, working for universal black voting rights, rather than accept lucrative offers to lead foreign armies.

The Social Justice Warrior's Latest Tactic:  Reshaping America by Targeting Its History.  Social justice warriors seem to have hit a wall in American politics.  Perhaps sensing that their attempts to fundamentally transform America through top-down control have reached their limit, they are doubling down on reshaping America from the ground up.  Their new favorite target is American history, and they are starting with low-hanging fruit:  Confederate monuments.  It may perhaps be enough to denounce the bulldozing of statues as an absurd erasure of history, but this is not the primary problem with this drive to wipe out uncomfortable elements of our past from the public sphere.  The more critical issue at stake is the loss of a common purpose and the binding heritage that Americans of previous generations forged and shared.

Tempers Flare Over Removal of Confederate Statues in New Orleans.  For Frank B. Stewart Jr., a white New Orleans native, the city government's plan to remove the statues — an idea championed by New Orleans's white mayor, Mitch Landrieu — feels like an Orwellian attempt to erase history.  This week, Mr. Stewart, 81, a businessman and civic leader, argued as much in a letter he published as a two-page advertisement in The Advocate, a local newspaper.  "I ask you, Mitch, should the Pyramids in Egypt be destroyed since they were built entirely from slave labor?" he wrote.  Mr. Stewart added:  "What about the Roman Coliseum?  It was built by slaves, who lived horrible lives under Roman oppression, but it still stands today and we learn so much from seeing it."

Totalitarians always seek to erase history.  The Washington Post has an interesting, fairly reported article on an old Confederate group's effort to stop this postmodern move from the radical left.  Like the Confederacy itself, it's probably a lost cause, but it's heartening to see some fight-back, because the Confederacy deserves to be known and understood objectively, meaning neither romanticized nor demonized. Wiping out the evidence of its existence deracinates New Orleans from its history and makes it just another generic U.S. city with nothing to speak for it other than crime and the other failures of Democratic one-party rule.

Removal of the first of four New Orleans Confederate monuments begins with Liberty Place.  Efforts to remove four Confederate monuments commenced early Monday morning (April 24), as crews and police gathered around the Battle of Liberty Place monument downtown around 2 a.m. to begin dismantling the first of four statues eyed for removal by the city.  Just before 1:30 a.m., and after a small group of protesters had departed, a wave of officers with the New Orleans Police Department barricaded the entry points to the monument, which stands at the river end of Iberville Street outside the parking garage for Canal Place.  Snipers were stationed on the parking deck looking down at the monument.

The New York Times Rewrites History To Tarnish Trump Speech.  In a curtain raiser for President Trump's address to Congress this week, the New York Times tried to compare Trump's bumpy start to President Obama's supposedly "impressive" one.  But in doing so, the Times wildly distorts what actually happened in Obama's first month in office.

The Rampant Incivility of the Left.  It has become increasingly a staple of left-wing political bombast to compare one's adversaries to the primary villains of World War II.  Today, about 5% of the U.S. population has any recollection of those years.  It has, therefore, become far too easy to demean and diminish the genesis and consequences of that fateful period as the education establishment, dominated by the Left, deliberately avoids teaching the realities of that era.  Thus, opening the door for the demagogues to miscast those years for their own ends.

The Handmaidens of Hatred.  Hatred of Americas founding principles was pushed early on by Howard Zinn, the loony Marxist who now controls the narrative of our history books.  His writings were filled with partial truths, half-truths, and outright lies about American history.  He cleverly inserted himself into the lexicon of hate in the attempt to help the global communist revolution come to America.  He has become the most widely read historian today — and has taught an entire generation, and an entire party, to hate their own country.

Virginia City Removes Nearly 100-Year-Old Statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.  The City of Charlottesville, Virginia, has decided to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee that has stood in a city park for nearly 100 years, reports say.  In a three to two vote, the Charlottesville City Council decided to eliminate the equestrian statue memorializing the Confederate hero that was first erected 93 years ago in the city's Lee park.  After the vote, city leaders also vowed to erase Lee's name from the park, CBS reported.

The End of Columbus Day is the End of America.  Columbus may have outfoxed the Spanish court and his rivals, but he is falling victim to the court of political correctness.  The explorer who discovered America has become controversial because the very idea of America has become controversial.  There are counter-historical claims put forward by Muslim and Chinese scholars claiming that they discovered America first.  And there are mobs of fake indigenous activists on every campus to whom the old Italian is as much of a villain as the bearded Uncle Sam.  Columbus Day parades are met with protests and some have been minimized or eliminated.  In a number of cities Columbus Day was transformed into Indigenous People's Day, which sounds like a Marxist terrorist group's holiday.

More cities replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples' Day.  Phoenix voted on Wednesday to officially declare the second Monday in October — the same day as Columbus Day — Indigenous Peoples' Day.  The Phoenix City Council unanimously approved the request which aims to celebrate Phoenix's indigenous community.

More cities, states ditch Columbus Day name for Indigenous Peoples' Day.  A growing number of U.S. cities and states moved to downplay Columbus Day — a federal holiday — in favor of the rebranded Indigenous Peoples' Day, to honor what Vermont's governor called the "sacrifice and contributions of the First Peoples of this land."  Gov. Peter Shumlin wrote in a proclamation that the day provided an opportunity to celebrate "indigenous heritage and resiliency."  South Dakota has avoided the Columbus Day name for decades, reportedly declaring the second Monday in October as Native Americans Day in 1990.

National Geographic Wants to Indoctrinate Your Kids This Columbus Day.  To celebrate Columbus Day this year, National Geographic has joined the choir of faux liberal outrage at Christopher Columbus, continuing to drag the enterprising explorer's legacy through the mud.  NatGeo Education — "content that inspires students through their teachers and educators" — posted a "reminder" on Twitter shaming those who would celebrate the attributed discoverer of America.

Kentucky Confederate monument to be removed after 120 years.  The stone monument honoring Kentuckians who died for the Confederacy in the Civil War will be moved to another location, University [of Louisville] President James Ramsey and Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said during a surprise announcement Friday [4/29/2016].

Symbolism Instead of History.  [Scroll down]  Ignoring facts kills legitimate history.  That's why symbolic history is about all the history anybody learns these days. [...] This brings us to Harriet Tubman.  There is no question she was a remarkable, brave woman.  She deserves her place in the history books, and everyone should learn about her.  The problem is that the purveyors of identity politics aren't satisfied with that recognition.  They have to exclude their ideological enemies as much as include their friends, inflate their chosen heroes as much as diminish their enemies'.  As a result, they create a selective, incomplete history.  The simple fact is that as brave as Harriet Tubman was, she was not the main story in the Civil War or the abolition of slavery.

Ben Carson:  Harriet Tubman Would Be 'Turning Over in Her Grave' If She Knew She Was on $20.  Former Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson wrote an op-ed Tuesday reiterating his belief that Harriet Tubman should not be on $20 bill, arguing it was not a fitting tribute to her legacy.  Carson claimed in an op-ed for IJ Review that he had been "misconstrued" when first stating his opposition.  "Harriet Tubman, one of America's truest and most revered freedom fighters, deserves a far more fitting tribute than to be sacrificed on the altar of political expediency by placing her on the twenty dollar bill," he argued.  "The effort to rush this through under the current Obama administration is nothing short of national disgrace..."

Update:
Iowa congressman wants to block $20 Tubman.  An Iowa congressman has proposed legislation that would block Harriet Tubman from replacing President Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill.  Republican Rep. Steve King introduced an amendment to bar the Treasury Department from spending any funds to redesign paper money or coin currency.

Political Correctness Is War By Other Means.  [Scroll down]  2016 will be remembered as the year in which Progressives forced their redefinition of American history upon one and all by re-facing America's currency with their favorite faces.  Obama took Andrew Jackson off the $20 bill and replaced it with a glowering image of anti-slavery activist Harriet Tubman.  Jackson's victory at the 1815 battle of New Orleans ended the War of 1812 and removed doubt about America's independence by securing America's possession of the Mississippi valley.  But Progressives think it more important for Tubman to reproach us (not themselves, for sure) every time we open our wallets.

Obama's constant meddling is killing us, America.  We need leadership, not tinkering.  I am incensed that our government has decided to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill.  I have nothing against this gun-toting abolitionist; I have everything against President Obama's continued rattling of the nation's cage.  I object to his ongoing efforts to "transform" and "modernize" our country, authoring one divisive measure after another, at a time when he should be restoring our confidence. [...] Obama's inflammatory and pesky interventions in matters great and small, from shoving ObamaCare down the country's throat to renaming Mt.  McKinley, from overturning our immigration laws to optimizing transgender bathroom availability, have kept Americans on their heels, not knowing what will come next.

Harriet Tubman was a gun-toting Republican.  There are some knee-jerk reactions to the seemingly "political correctness run amok" move to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, replacing President Andrew Jackson.  But the replacing of the slave-owning founder of the Democratic Party with a gun-toting black Republican may spark a political debate worth having and unearth historical truths worth learning. [...] Harriet Tubman's image should remind Americans that gun control was a historical method to control and subjugate blacks.

Andrew Jackson's Reckoning.  Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew's decision to replace Jackson on the front of the $20 bill with abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor Tubman has been widely praised.  It honors women's role in American history and, indirectly, disparages slave-owner Jackson, who moves to the back of the $20 bill.  But there is another irony to Jackson's traditional place on the $20 bill:  He was an ardent critic of paper money.

No whitewash for Harriet Tubman.  Sometimes the government does the right thing for the wrong reasons.  Treasury Secretary Jack Lew's decision to put Harriet Tubman's face on the nation's currency was the right thing to do, even if it was done as a way to demote Andrew Jackson, the nation's seventh president, to the back of the bill.  Many liberals are unhappy that Mr. Lew picked the wrong black woman.  Harriet Tubman was a devout Christian and she armed herself, with both pistols and long rifles.  Choose your wrong reason.

Harriet Tubman is the next face of the $20 bill; $5 and $10 bills will also change.  Harriet Tubman and President Andrew Jackson lived on opposite sides of the American experience.  Tubman, a black woman, escaped slavery to become a conductor on the Underground Railroad, risking her life to lead slaves to freedom.  Jackson, the son of Scots-Irish immigrants and owner of slaves, was elected president as a war hero and became known for policies that led to the deaths of countless Native Americans.  Soon, though, the two will share prominent placement on a new $20 bill — with Tubman, the former slave, getting top billing.

Another astroturf letter, ostensibly submitted spontaneously by a little girl with no political connections:
Meet the 11-year-old girl whose letter to President Obama led to plans for the first woman on US currency in more than a century.  A woman will feature on US currency for the first time in more than 100 years — thanks to the efforts of an 11-year-old girl.  Sofia, from Cambridge in Massachusetts, had written to President Barack Obama in 2014 after a school project on historic American heroes.  'I realized no women had their face on our currency, so I went home and wrote the letter,' she told WCVB.  The schoolgirl demanded to know why there were no women on US bills, as 'if there were no women, there wouldn't be men'.

Greta Van Susteren: 'Stupid' to put Tubman on $20 bill.  Fox News host Greta Van Susteren said the decision to replace former President Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill with Harriet Tubman was "stupid" and creating an "unnecessary fight" in the country. [...] "You all know I'm a feminist, love to see women acknowledged for the great things they do to contribute to our nation, and Harriet Tubman did, and she deserves it," Van Susteren said on "Off the Record."  "But what I don't get is this:  Rather than dividing the country between those who happen to like the tradition of our currency and want President Andrew Jackson to stay put and those who want to put a woman on a bill — it's so easy to make everyone happy.  Van Susteren said that while Tubman should be acknowledged for her "courage," the decision to put her image on a bill doesn't need to "stir up the country."

The Media Have It Wrong:  Andrew Jackson's Legacy Was Fighting Crony Capitalism.  After a relentless campaign by conservatives, progressives, and Broadway musicals to keep Founding Father Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill, it appears the Treasury Department will keep Hamilton.  According to Politico, the agency will instead replace President Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill with Harriet Tubman.  It's a shame that progressives (and even conservatives) have been quick to ditch Jackson.  While it's true that Jackson is often remembered for his alleged reputation for violence, the Trail of Tears, or perhaps even the 1959 Johnny Horton song, "Battle of New Orleans," his true legacy is much more important to America.

Leftists Lose Their Lunch Over the Tubman 20.  After years of complaining that America's paper money featured only dead white guys, a lot of folks on the Left are in a snit that Harriet Tubman is going to replace Andrew Jackson on the face of the twenty-dollar bill.  You can practically hear them:  "We didn't mean a gun-toting, Bible-believing Republican black woman!  We meant Angela Davis!"

Michelle's Historically Black Attempt to Malign Mississippi.  Last year, the first lady, Michelle Obama, gave a commencement speech at Alabama's Tuskegee University that sounded more like she was paying homage to black activist W.E.B. DuBois than the school's founder Booker T. Washington who, as an ex-slave, believed character and hard work were key to improving the plight of the black man.  Then again, Michelle is part of the illiterate gang who ousted evil slave owner Andrew Jackson from the $20 bill without researching the philosophies escaped slave Harriet Tubman stood for.  Wait until Obama, who misquoted MLK on his Oval Office rug, realizes Underground Railroad conductor Tubman was a devout Christian whose pistol-packing ways mirror Sarah Palin, not Maxine Waters. [...] Either way, Mrs. Obama is not unlike her Saul Alinsky-trained husband.  The FLOTUS also 'sees the world not as it is but as it should be' and feels it's her duty to set the non-compliant straight.

Public Pushes Back Against PC Purge In Public School Names.  Imagine attending "Bleeding Heart Liberal Elementary" or "Hypothetical Perfect Person Memorial Elementary.  While that seems absurd, those are two of the choices the public nominated to replace "Robert E. Lee Elementary" when the Austin, Texas, school decided it needed to remove the name of the Confederate General from its façade.

Confederate emblem removed at U.S. Capitol.  State flags, including the controversial Mississippi flag featuring the Confederate battle emblem, will no longer hang in the tunnel at the U.S. Capitol where each had been displayed.  Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., said Thursday [4/21/2016] the flags, which had been removed during renovations, will instead be replaced with prints of each state's commemorative coin.  "Given the controversy surrounding confederate imagery, I decided to install a new display," Miller, chairwoman of the House Administration Committee, said in a statement.  "I am well aware of how many Americans negatively view the Confederate flag, and, personally, I am very sympathetic to these views.  However, I also believe that it is not the business of the federal government to dictate what flag each state flies."

Treasury's Lew to announce Hamilton to stay on $10 bill.  Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is expected to announce the changes on Wednesday [4/20/2016] after receiving fierce blowback.

Black? Check.  Woman?  Check.  Old White Man Out?  Check.  Lew Announces New $20 Bill.  Politico reported on Wednesday [4/20/2016] that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew plans to announce a redesign of the $20 bill, replacing Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman. [...] In its campaign to reinforce the left-wing view of women as an oppressed group of people relative to men across history — with Hillary Clinton as scraping the contemporary phantom glass ceiling — Lew will further the Obama Administration's narrative by incorporating "leaders of the women's suffrage movement" on the back of the $10 bill.

Do Not Weep for Andrew Jackson.  Politico reports that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is set to announce that Alexander Hamilton will get a reprieve and remain on the $10 bill, while Harriet Tubman will replace Andrew Jackson on the face of the $20, and Treasury will make other changes including "putting leaders of the women's suffrage movement on the back of the $10 bill, and incorporating civil-rights era leaders and other important moments in American history into the $5 bill" while relocating Jackson to less desirable real estate (his own Trail of Tears, one might say) on the back of the $20.

Tubman replacing Jackson on the $20, Hamilton spared.  "Today, I'm excited to announce that for the first time in more than a century, the front of our currency will feature the portrait of a woman, Harriet Tubman, on the $20 note," Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told reporters during a conference call Wednesday afternoon [4/20/2016].  Lew rolled out sweeping changes that will put a new cast of historic figures onto various bills that have remained largely static for decades.  Leaders of the women's suffrage movement will make their way onto the back of the $10 bill, while civil rights era leaders and other important moments in American history will be incorporated into the $5 bill.  Jackson will be kicked to the back of the $20 bill.

First They Came for Andrew Jackson, Now They've Come for Woodrow Wilson, So Who's Next?  One need not be a fan of Woodrow Wilson to be appalled at the ease with which Princeton University sees fit to erase any association it has with the 28th President of the United States because of a few bullies who have nothing constructive to do with their lives.  Wilson, of course, was President of Princeton from 1902 to 1910.  This is no different than the effort to remove Andrew Jackson from the $20 bill.

Florida Senate removes Confederate flag from seal.  Without a formal vote, the Florida Senate on Monday agreed to strip the Confederate battle flag from its official seal, removing one of the few remaining vestiges of the infamous icon in state government.  After some hesitation when the change first came up, senators — back in Tallahassee for a redistricting special session — agreed without objection to adopt a new rule removing the controversial emblem from the chamber's insignia.  Approving the change without objection avoided the need for even a voice vote on the emotional issue.

Let's Take Back Columbus Day.  More than a century ago, America celebrated the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's voyage of discovery by hosting an enormous worlds fair on the shores of Lake Michigan.  This Worlds Columbian Exposition featured statues of the great explorer, replicas of his three ships, and commemorative stamps and coins.  Because Columbus Day was a patriotic holiday — it marked the opening chapter in American history — the newly written Pledge of Allegiance was first recited in schools on October 12, 1892.  Nowadays, however, an embarrassed, guilty silence descends on the nation each Columbus Day.  We[']ve been taught that Columbus opened the way for rapacious European settlers to unleash a stream of horrors on a virgin continent:  slavery, racism, warfare, epidemic, and the cruel oppression of Indians.  This modern view of Columbus represents an unjust attack upon both our country and the civilization that made it possible.

Goodbye Columbus, Hello Leftist Indigenous Peoples'.  Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day all you comrades out there!  CBS NEWS announced that more cities are "recognizing Native Americans on Columbus Day" to celebrate the contributions of indigenous cultures.  This is part of the leftist populist movement to recognize Native Americans and fake indigenous peoples', and to change our culture.  The movement is meant to take us out of traditional America and into the hand-wringing world of the dreary left.  The Italians and America's European ancestors are forgotten in all this.

Maryland students told to remove Confederate flag clothing.  At least two students at a Maryland high school were asked to change out of clothes displaying the Confederate symbol.  School district spokesman Michael Doerrer says the students at Brunswick High School wore the Confederate symbol Tuesday [10/13/2015]. [...] Doerrer says the school doesn't ban Confederate symbols, but administrators can ask a symbol to be removed on a case-by-case basis if it proves disruptive.

Va. drivers with Confederate plates resistant to switch.  Roughly 9 in 10 drivers with Virginia's Confederate battle flag license plates have refused so far to send their plates back to the state as part of a program to swap out a symbol that many consider racist.  The Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles mailed new plates without the emblem in early September to 1,600 members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans who pay an annual $10 premium for the specialty plates but so far has received only 163 back.  The DMV requires a copy of a current membership card to be eligible to buy the plates.

So Now the POW/MIA Flag Is Under Fire — as a Symbol of 'Racist Hate'.  Another day, another argument that a flag must come down.  Today's target is a bit surprising — the POW/MIA flag that flies from government buildings, honoring the hundreds of Americans still missing and unaccounted for in Vietnam.  Writing in the pages of Newsweek, a very angry Rick Perlstein is simply not having it, declaring, "That d----- flag:  It's a shroud.  It smothers the complexity, the reality, of what really happened in Vietnam."  In fact, he claims the entire emphasis on American missing and POW's was nothing but a political trick designed to detract from alleged American deceptions and war crimes: [...]

State by State, Democratic Party Is Erasing Ties to Jefferson and Jackson.  For nearly a century, Democrats have honored two men as the founders of their party:  Thomas Jefferson, for his visionary expression of the concept of equality, and Andrew Jackson, for his populist spirit and elevation of the common man.  Political candidates and activists across the country have flocked to annual Jefferson-Jackson Day dinners, where speeches are given, money is raised, and the party celebrates its past and its future.

To Get History Right, Democrats Would Erase It.  [Scroll down]  Perhaps the most ludicrous example of this overcompensation came when television networks cancelled re-airings of the Dukes of Hazard and the owner of the program's original prop car, the General Lee, revealed that the vehicle's famous rebel flag roof art was to be painted over.  It was then that some cautiously began to wonder if the well-meaning decision to remove this historical artifact with all its negative baggage had gone too far.  There was clearly no limiting principle to this national effort to address historical grievances.  Where would it all end?  Today, it is clear that, for some, the fight to make history conform to today's moral standards has only just begun.

Trump Effect: Left Moves To Ban Truth About Immigration.  The Overton Window is a political theory describing how ideas go from the margins to mainstream, from "unthinkable" to "policy."  But in today's anti-America, a Reverse Overton Window is visibly at work:  existing law, policy, majority opinion, legal terms like "illegal alien" and established traditions like flying the Confederate Battle Flag are suddenly decreed to be beyond the pale for all good-thinkers.

Is A Digital Bible Less Holy? U.S. Officials Increasingly Sworn In On Tablets.  It was called the wave of the future — the recently tapped U.S. ambassador to Switzerland was sworn in last month with her hand not on a paper Bible but on top of a Kindle.  Techies called it revolutionary and applauded Suzi Levine for making history.  But she wasn't the only one who went high-tech when she took the oath of office.  A county executive from Long Island, N.Y., used the Bible app on an iPad to be sworn in last year and a few months ago a group of firefighters from New Jersey huddled around a Kindle Bible when they took their oath.  But the movement has drawn concern from some in the religious community who are reluctant to accept officials choosing tablets over the printed Bible.

The Editor says...
A tablet, smart phone, or jump drive might contain the words of the Bible one minute, but not the next.  How would you know the difference?  The same tablet that allegedly contains the Bible may also contain the Koran, Mao's Little Red Book, pornography or any number of things.  One could argue that swearing out an oath with one hand on a Bible is a superstition, but it is also a public agreement of the seriousness of testimony under oath.  The abolition of books is just another way "progressive" bureaucrats are incrementally chipping away at centuries-old traditions.

Council passes Indigenous People's Day Resolution.  The second Monday in October will now be referred to as "Indigenous People's Day," rather than Columbus Day, on all official city communications in Minneapolis following a unanimous City Council vote on Friday morning [4/25/2014].  The resolution brought hundreds of people to City Hall to commemorate the vote, which Native American activists have been seeking for many years.

From Greatness to Whiteness.  When Americans over the age of, let us say, 45, look at any of the iconic paintings of America's Founders — the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the signing of the Constitution, George Washington crossing the Delaware, any of the individual portraits the Founders — what do they see?  They see great men founding a great country.  f you ask recent graduates of almost any American university what they see when they look at these paintings, chances are that they see something entirely different.  They are apt to see rich, white males who are not great and who did not found a great country.  And for many, it is worse than that.  These men are not only not great; they are morally quite flawed in that they were slaveholders and/or founded a country that allowed slavery.

Council to vote on renaming 'Columbus Day'.  Minneapolis is preparing to strike "Columbus Day" from its calendar this October.  The City Council is expected to vote Friday on a resolution that would rename the federal holiday "Indigenous People's Day" on all city communications.  The vote follows a similar effort in Red Wing, where the city mulled changing Columbus Day to "First People's Day" earlier this year.  The Red Wing city council has yet to act on the resolution.

Hallmark removes the word 'gay' from Deck The Halls holiday ornament sparking fury from customers.  Hallmark has provoked outrage and ridicule from its customers after changing the words of a traditional Christmal carol on a festive ornament. [...] The original line — 'Don we now our gay apparel' — has been altered by the Kansas-City based company for its new line of holiday merchandise.  It now reads:  'Don we now our FUN apparel.'

The Editor says...
One thing that makes English hard to master is that many English words have multiple definitions.  The homosexuals are attempting to hijack words like gay and queer, and abolish those words' other definitions and legitimate uses.

Atheists Call 9-11 Memorial Cross "Grossly Offensive".  A Jewish firefighter who wants to display a Christian cross as part of a New Jersey 9-11 memorial is facing stiff opposition from a group of atheists who called the religious image "grossly offensive."  The American Atheists are threatening to sue Princeton, NJ if they proceed with plans to erect the memorial.  They took issue with a beam that was salvaged from the ruins of the World Trade Center because a cross had been cut out of one side of the beam.

St. Louis Cardinals remove religious symbols from pitcher's mound following fan's complaints.  The St. Louis Cardinals have done away with religion at Busch Stadium after a fan raised hell over Christian symbols on the pitching mound.

Separation of church and baseball — no doubt the courts can find that in the Constitution, too.
Cross written in sand not allowed to honor beloved player.  Political correctness infected the world of sports recently, when the St. Louis Cardinals' management put an end to the recent practice of etching a cross and the number 6 into the pitcher's mound to honor a Cardinal great, the late Stan Musial.  The number and cross only began appearing in recent weeks on the mound, just behind the rubber.

White House reconsiders pick of 'Founding Founders' over 'Founding Fathers'.  Throughout United States history, the group of men who assembled in Philadelphia in 1787 to write the nation's Constitution had been known as the "Founding Fathers," a moniker used even on official government websites.  But the use of the "fathers" may have been a step too far for the Obama administration.  In a Thursday [6/13/2013] post on the White House's blog, Keith Donohue, the communications director for the National Historical Publications and Records Commission at the National Archives, announced that the papers of the "Founding Founders," otherwise known as the Founding Fathers, are available online.

The Editor says...
You would think that the well-paid "communications director" could come up with something less insipid and redundant than "Founding Founders."

Christian Origins of Essential American Doctrines.  Virtually every important, original American idea is a product of Christianity.  Further, had these doctrines never been developed, the US would arguably not been nearly as productive, free or happy.  These ideas involve property, liberty, and the rule of law.

California Dept. of Transportation: 'Be Sure to Black Out the 'United States' and [the] Motto'.  For three years, a private citizen named Steve LeBard has led the effort to build a privately funded memorial in Orcutt, California — a tranquil small town located on the Golden State's gorgeous Central Coast — to honor military veterans.  And for the better part of those three years, he has run into a toxic blend of political correctness, anti-Americanism, and bureaucratic senselessness.  Today, the memorial, which was to be built with private funds on a small piece of public land, remains unbuilt.

ACLU Loses Ten Commandments Case.  Thou shall not remove the Ten Commandments.  That's the declaration from a federal district court — dismissing a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union against Dixie County, Fla. and ending a six-year legal battle.  The ACLU sued the county after they allowed a private citizen to erect a six-ton monument of the Ten Commandments atop the steps of the courthouse.  A 75-year-old North Carolina man, who happens to be an ACLU member, objected to the monument — which led to the lawsuit.

Do Liberals Care if Third World Illnesses Infect Americans?  Calling it the "European Invasion," liberals believe that prior to Christopher Columbus' arrival American Indians were virtually disease-free.  Never mind that syphilis, which originated in the New World, was brought back to Europe, where spirochete bacterium was not present until after Columbus and his fellow discoverers returned in 1493.  The Columbian theory concludes that invaders from across the sea brought to the Americas the scourge of bubonic and pneumonic plague, chicken pox, cholera, diphtheria, influenza, measles, scarlet fever, smallpox, typhus, tuberculosis, and whooping cough.  Even though Indian tribes were slaughtering each other, lefties argue that their lack of immunity was solely responsible for American Indians dying en masse after exposure to infectious diseases, and are persuaded that 80-90 percent of the Native American population perished after Europeans landed in the New World.

This is an original compilation, Copyright © 2024 by Andrew K. Dart