Free Republic

The teardowns get all the attention, Walter “Donnie” Kennedy grumbles. Every time a local government votes to remove a century-old Confederate war monument, every time activists swing ropes around statues and yank them to the ground, “our enemies claim victory again,” said Kennedy, the chief of heritage operations for the Sons of Confederate Veterans. “We know America doesn’t agree with us - heck, they fought a war against us - but we’re going to tell our story.” Their membership might be dwindling, and their popular support seems to shrink by the day, but the guardians of America’s 700-plus Confederate monuments...

he promise of bloodshed coming alongside or following shortly after is an historic certainty. The symbols of a people never satisfy: People themselves must always come next. WASHINGTON, DC — 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...

Since the beginning of the anti-racism, anti-police brutality protests in late May, at least 183 monuments and memorials have been vandalized, desecrated, or taken down, according to a new report by The Federalist. Statues and memorials have been continually targeted during the civil unrest triggered by George Floyd’s death on May 25. In most cases, the statues targeted commemorated historic figures including Founding Fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, colonial and religious figures, explorers, and Confederate leaders.

Social Experiment: Is It Really All About Slavery pic.twitter.com/jmrnANwvWt — Ami Horowitz (@AmiHorowitz) July 8, 2020

On 60 Minutes, Anderson Cooper took a deep dive into the debate over the removal of Confederate monuments. Cooper sat down with Mayor Levar Stoney of Richmond, Virginia. "The monuments are just a symbol of the effort to ensure African Americans stayed, maybe not in physical bondage, but in bondage in political and economically in this country and in this city," said Stoney, who added, "Those who chose to erect those monuments, and the figures who are glorified in those monuments, they made some serious attempts to ensure that people who look like me would never hold any political office,...

For a century, Monument Avenue has showcased some of the Confederacy’s most revered figures. Soon, there will be a blank canvas. Over the past week, the Richmond Times-Dispatch asked demonstrators, residents, artists and community leaders what they'd like to see on the new Monument Avenue. There were suggestions of new statues, honoring a more inclusive set of heroes. Others wanted a space for performance or reflection, while some felt the empty pedestals should stay as a historical testimony of their own. One point of agreement was that it must be a communitywide conversation. Through restrictive covenants, real estate companies long...

No monument is safe as America undergoes this Kulturkampf, and no statue should be taken for granted or considered less worthy of protection.  First it was Confederate monuments. Low-hanging fruit. For the iconoclastic Left, however, this was merely the appetizer. As of this writing, the main course is being served. The mob is clamoring to gobble up monuments dedicated to the likes of the Founding Fathers and Teddy Roosevelt. Even the abolitionist Matthias Baldwin was not spared from the leftist frenzy after vandals tagged the statue with paint and graffiti that read “colonizer” and “murderer.”It would be a mistake to believe that anti-monument saturnalia...

President Donald Trump addressed the nation on Saturday at the White House, where he announced the first round of historical figures to be included in the National Garden of American Heroes.

President Trump’s unyielding push to preserve Confederate symbols and the legacy of white domination, crystallized by his harsh denunciation of the racial justice movement Friday night at Mount Rushmore, has unnerved Republicans who have long enabled him but now fear losing power and forever associating their party with his racial animus. Although amplifying racism and stoking culture wars have been mainstays of Trump’s public identity for decades, they have been particularly pronounced this summer as the president has reacted to the national reckoning over systemic discrimination by seeking to weaponize the anger and resentment of some white Americans for his...

Executive Order on Building and Rebuilding Monuments to American Heroes Issued on: July 3, 2020 By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. Purpose. America owes its present greatness to its past sacrifices. Because the past is always at risk of being forgotten, monuments will always be needed to honor those who came before. Since the time of our founding, Americans have raised monuments to our greatest citizens. In 1784, the legislature of Virginia commissioned the earliest statue of George...

The thirst among Republican voters isn't even for policy. It's for seeing the politicians they elected join the fray. I’ve been hammering away at conservatives and Republicans for failing to defend the symbols of national pride the woke leftist mob has been tearing at in recent weeks. Yesterday on the “Brian Kilmeade Show,” I admitted to letting my anger get the best of me a bit. Brian said I was speaking not as a publisher but as an American — and that’s fair. But part of my frustration is that this is such an obvious challenge that anti-American leftists and...

Violent mobs across America and Western Europe now destroy and vandalize statues, monuments, war memorials, churches, and public buildings on an almost daily basis. Following the death of George Floyd at the hands of rogue Minneapolis police officers a wave of protests and riots broke out across the country. Looting of stores and restaurants soon gave way to more purposeful attacks on statues and other public structures organized by Black Lives Matters (BLM) and Antifa. Ostensibly treated as a response to “institutionalized racism” it has been explained in much of our official media as merely a way to remove...

A Virginia General Assembly law change, which goes into effect July 1, lays out the process for any locality to take down war memorials and monuments. That law also leaves a 60-day waiting period before anything can come down. Work crews wielding a giant crane, harnesses and power tools wrested an imposing statue of Gen. Stonewall Jackson from its concrete pedestal along Richmond’s famed Monument Avenue on Wednesday, just hours after the mayor ordered the removal of all Confederate statues from city land. The Jackson statue is the latest of several dozen Confederate symbols to be removed from public land...

Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden on Tuesday said the federal government has a responsibility to protect statues and monuments of historical figures like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Christopher Columbus. Speaking at a press conference in Wilmington, Del., the former vice president defended monuments dedicated to past presidents who owned slaves. Biden made the case that those public statues should be preserved, while monuments to Confederate leaders should be removed peacefully by local officials. “The idea of comparing whether or not George Washington owned slaves or Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, and somebody who was in rebellion committing treason trying to...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — 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.(Protesters, neighbors, reporters, undercover cops and private security gather)After a Tuesday rally promised to return to tear the statue down on Thursday, Park Police surrounded the monument with fencing re-enforced...

Consider this a copy of Donald Trump’s Tuesday tweet in EO form. Remember this? …..This action is taken effective immediately, but may also be used retroactively for destruction or vandalism already caused. There will be no exceptions!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 23, 2020 Late yesterday, Trump formalized it into an executive order, but added a new provision. Local and state governments that don’t act to protect federal monuments can expect to kiss some of their federal grant money goodbye — at least to the extent Trump controls those pursestrings: President Donald Trump on Friday ordered the Justice Department...

On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Ingraham Angle,” acting Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Ken Cuccinelli stated that President Trump’s executive order on monuments has put withholding federal dollars from local governments that are not enforcing the law “firmly on the table.” Cuccinelli said, “Whether it’s Washington, D.C., or cities all around the country, you’ve seen federal reinforcements playing a role, whether it’s surveillance that they’re sharing with state and local law enforcement, or whether they’re taking the responsibility on themselves. So, when you go beyond that to some of the federal dollars at stake, you obviously bring a...

Quick, what's the biggest no-brainer in Washington? Saying 'no' to looting?  Denouncing rioting, arson, and terror, by self-appointed leftist mobs? Blasting  statue-smashers, who deprive America's children of their heritage? To normal people, any one of these things is a no-brainer. But not Joe Biden. Here's Joe Biden, seeking the highest office of he land from his basement hideout, and despite the time he's got on his hands, he's tongue-tied on the issue of whether to remove statues of George Washington. The Daily Caller asked him an obvious softball question and Biden fled the scene. According to the Daily Caller: As calls to remove...

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:Section 1.  Purpose.  The first duty of government is to ensure domestic tranquility and defend the life, property, and rights of its citizens.  Over the last 5 weeks, there has been a sustained assault on the life and property of civilians, law enforcement officers, government property, and revered American monuments such as the Lincoln Memorial.  Many of the rioters, arsonists, and left-wing extremists who have carried out and supported these acts have explicitly identified themselves...

This video shows Jack (in blue) getting liquid thrown on him, pushed, punched, robbed, mobbed, life threatened by Antifa in Lincoln Park. Police saved Jack - who is pressing charges