Posted on 12/18/2023 11:34:36 AM PST by NorthMountain
A Trump-appointed federal judge has temporarily halted removal proceedings for the Confederate memorial at Arlington National Cemetery that began Monday, the Associated Press reported.
Defend Arlington filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, on Sunday for a temporary restraining order, the AP reported. Work had already begun to remove the bronze elements of the memorial in accordance with recommendations in the Congressionally-mandated Naming Commission’s final report to scrub Department of Defense (DOD) assets of any symbolism that could be seen to honor the Confederacy.
A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, according to the AP. The memorial has not been dismantled.
“Safety fencing was installed around the Memorial yesterday, Dec. 17 and the deliberate deconstruction process is currently underway,” cemetery spokesperson Rebecca Wardwell told the Daily Caller News Foundation earlier on Monday.
The Army previously said it anticipated the removal process to take place over four days.
Defend Arlington sued the Army and the Department of Defense (DOD) in a district court in February to halt the removal. The district judge dismissed the case on Dec. 12. (RELATED: Former Senator Makes Plea To Save Arlington Cemetery’s Confederate Monument)
The cemetery claims removing the memorial is required by Congress and that doing so will comply with environmental regulations and leave the 400 Confederate graves encircling the monument undisturbed, according to the AP. However, Defend Arlington’s lawsuit argues the Army unlawfully bypassed certain regulations.
“The removal will desecrate, damage, and likely destroy the Memorial longstanding at ANC as a grave marker and impede the Memorial’s eligibility for listing on the National Register of Historic Places,” the lawsuit states, according to the AP.
A Department of Defense spokesperson referred the DCNF to Arlington National Cemetery. The cemetery did not immediately respond to a renewed request for comment.
U.S. District Judge Rossie Alston, who issued the restraining order, said the parties should be prepared to discuss Defend Arlington’s prior, dismissed case at the court date, saying it could affect his decision whether or not to extend the stay beyond Wednesday, the AP reported.
Alston wrote that he “takes very seriously the representations of officers of the Court and should the representations in this case be untrue or exaggerated the Court may take appropriate sanctions,” AP reported.
The new lawsuit differs from the previous one in that the plaintiffs now have concrete evidence the removal efforts are disturbing the graves, David McCallister, a spokesperson for the advocacy group Save Southern Heritage Florida, told the AP.
“The Memorial represents a symbol of reconciliation aimed at healing a country divided during a brutal sectional war and reconstruction,” Defend Arlington wrote in the prior lawsuit.
Why is a "law" that has the effect of increasing the cost of medical care called the "Affordable Care Act"?
“There is a well-kept cemetery in Normandy, near the American Cemetery for the German soldiers who fell there.”
Spoken at a cemetery in Mississippi, “It is good to see the Confederate monument with the face of the soldier boy lifted toward the sunrise, standing there as a mute reminder of the Stars and Bars, not far from the tall steel flagpole bearing aloft the Stars and Stripes, that beautiful emblem under which you and I were born and under whose protecting folds we have lived.”
Well, look at the political party both these “things” came from....That answers it...
They already dug up General Nathaniel Bedford Forest’s grave and General Ambrose Powell Hill’s. It is ghoulish what is going on.
Forest sincerely renounced his attitudes about slavery later in life and Hill never owned slaves and believed in abolition.
BS. Maybe the feelings were genuine. You wouldn't know about those.
With time, maybe they became geniune, but contrary to the popular mythology, veterans and others who lived through the war had hostile feelings for years after the war.
And maybe I’ve been hanging out with Diogenes too much to believe that politicians have “genuine feelings” that don’t involve self-interest.
Why would I have still have such strong emotional responses to the outcome and subsequent present day antipathy to these desecrations of our history!
It is what you said!
My state, particularly, my town and surrounding areas was an absolute Civil War battleground…..
My dad , through his ancestors, was not too far removed from the horrors and desecration in his own community…….he grew up hearing about ‘the blood running down Billy Goat hill’….
His elders kept it alive!
That is my understanding as well. I have read that the sentiments expressed in that famous reunion footage were somewhat artificial, and they only pretended to be nice to each other.
And maybe I’ve been hanging out with Diogenes too much to believe that politicians have “genuine feelings” that don’t involve self-interest.
That Diogenes is the father of cynicism is one of the reasons I embrace him as a kindred spirit. That and his irreverence and delight in mockery and love of practical jokes.
There are times in my life when I think I am being too cynical, and then something happens which make me realize I wasn't being cynical enough. :)
I wish crane operators would refuse to do this.
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