The Virginia Senate voted 21-15 to pass Senate Bill 5032 which will declare open season on law enforcement officials in Virginia. The bill will drop assault against a law enforcement officer, firefighter, judge, or EMS from a felony to a misdemeanor.
Eliminates the mandatory minimum term of confinement for an assault and battery committed against a judge; magistrate; law-enforcement officer; correctional officer; person directly involved in the care, treatment, or supervision of inmates; firefighter; or volunteer firefighter or any emergency medical services personnel and provides that such crime can no longer be committed as a simple assault and must result in a bodily injury.
The Senate also removed the mandatory minimum 6-month jail sentence for assaulting a police officer.
“The message to law enforcement is we don’t care about you,” said Sen. Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover, chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus.
The bill does allow for a person to be charged with a felony if an officer is injured.
“For too long in the commonwealth, there have been cases where the punishment is disproportionate to the crime and will ruin an autistic kid’s life,”said Sen. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond.
Republicans responded citing the recent violence against police officers.
“Have you seen what our police are going through?” asked Sen. John Cosgrove, R-Chesapeake. “Have you seen the attacks on our police?”
Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant, R-Henrico, called the proposal “a pretty big insult to our law enforcement community for doing what they’re doing.”
Richmond.com is reporting that the Senate is also set to vote on other law enforcement related bills:
Other police reform bills filed in the Senate would prohibit the use of neck restraints, ban departments from acquiring equipment from the military, require all police officers to be trained in crisis intervention or de-escalation techniques, and set up a fund to pay for body cameras for local police.
Democrats claim that this bill will keep from ruining lives, in reality, it could have the reverse effect. If those fighting police know the consequences are less severe they could be more inclined to fight with police. This creates a dangerous situation where the use of force may need to be increased to control a suspect, which could lead to a police-involved shooting. All of that would happen because Democrats decided to lessen the consequences of attacking a police officer.
An absentee ballot election worker consolidates a large stack of absentee ballot applications at the Mecklenburg Board of Elections office in Charlotte, North Carolina on September 4, 2020. – The US election is officially open: North Carolina on September 4, 2020 launched vote-by-mail operations for the November 3 contest between … Logan Cyrus/AFP/Getty Images
Over 1,000 Virginia voters who sought an absentee ballot to vote received an additional ballot in the mail, raising further concerns about possible electoral fraud in the November election.
Officials blamed the confusion on label printing machines that jammed, erroneously causing some to be duplicated when entire pages were reprinted due to damage to just some of the labels. “Before the supervisors caught it, the people applying the labels applied them to the entire sheet of labels rather than just pulling out the ones that should have been processed,” Fairfax County Registrar Gary Scott told NBC 4 Washington. […]
Fairfax saw the majority of the duplicate ballots, with about 1,000, out of roughly 1,400 across the state. Another 300 were sent to voters in the city of Richmond and 100 in Henrico County, just to the north.
“We knew the Democrats’ many last-minute changes to our election law would make our elections less secure, but no one could imagine voters receiving two ballots,” Virginia Republican Party chairman Rich Anderson said in a statement.
Federal officials are also investigating the discovery of several discarded military ballots cast for President Donald Trump in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.
“Of the nine ballots that were discarded and then recovered, 7 were cast for presidential candidate Donald Trump,” said the U.S. Attorney’s Office Middle District of Pennsylvania. “Two of the discarded ballots had been resealed inside their appropriate envelopes by Luzerne elections staff prior to recovery by the FBI and the contents of those 2 ballots are unknown.”
Meanwhile, U.S. Postal Service officials are investigating trays of mail discovered in a ditch in Greenville, Wisconsin,on Tuesday. In a statement, the Outagamie County Sheriff’s Office said the three trays were found at 8 a.m. near the Appleton International Airport. A USPS spokesman confirmed to FOX 11 that the mail included absentee ballots.
Speaking to the Washington Examiner, the sheriff’s office said the “mail going to the post office.”
“The United States Postal Inspection Service immediately began investigating and we reserve further comment on this matter until that is complete,” USPS spokesman Bob Sheehan said.
The chief of the Richmond, Virginia, police department told reporters Sunday that Black Lives Matter and antifa rioters set fire to a multi-family home with children inside and then blocking access for firefighters to get through to save the children.
Richmond Police Chief William Smith broke down while speaking about the horrible night of chaos after an occupied building was torched by rioters.
The chief of the Richmond, Virginia, police department said Sunday that rioters set fire to a multi-family home with a child inside while blocking access for firefighters to get through to save the child.
Richmond Police Chief William Smith: “One incident that is particularly poignant, that truly illustrates the seriousness of the issues we’re facing. Last night protesters intentionally set fire to an occupied building on [West] Broad Street. This is not the only occupied building that has been set fire to in the last two days. But they prohibited us from getting on the scene. We had to force our way to make a clear path for the fire department. The protesters intercepted the fire apparatus several blocks away with vehicles and blocked that fire department’s access to the structure fire. Inside that home was a child.”
The chief of the Richmond, Virginia, police department broke down while describing the horrific event in his city.
Don’t expect the mainstream media to carry this story.
For the record, police on the scene were able to save the children.
Jim Hoft is the founder of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016.
Tens of thousands of Second Amendment supporters attended a pro-gun rally in Richmond, Virginia in January.
The Democrats in Virginia, after millions of Bloomberg donations flipped the House/Senate to blue, are pushing for gun control legislation, and Governor Ralph Northam declared a state of emergency to ban guns at Monday’s rally, Jan. 20, 2020. Northam banned all weapons from inside the Capitol Square on Jan. 20, 2020, citing “credible and serious threats,” but did not elaborate.
The rally has been peaceful and a law enforcement source tells The Gateway Pundit that an estimated 25,000 people attended that Monday rally. Sheriffs at the pro-gun rally were seen holding a sign that read, “We Support the Second Amendment.”
Via Jack Posobiec.
Today several Virginia senate Democrats joined Republicans to block Governor Northam’s ban on assault weapons in the state.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s push to ban the sale of assault weapons failed on Monday after some of his fellow Democrats balked at the proposal.
Senators voted to shelve the bill for the year and ask the state crime commission to study the issue, an outcome that drew cheers from a committee room packed with gun advocates.
Four moderate Democrats joined Republicans in Monday’s committee vote, rejecting legislation that would have prohibited the sale of certain semiautomatic firearms, including popular AR-15 style rifles, and banned the possession of magazines that hold more than 12 rounds.
Virginia – When students at Franklin County High School in Virginia were told they could not fly the American flag from their trucks because it might be offensive – they did what any red-blooded American teenager would do: they flew the flag anyway.
The staff at ToddStarnes.com broke the story about this school in the area east of Roanoke and Christiansburg, where the flags displayed behind trucks have become a target for school administrators. Earlier this week, an administrator at the Virginia school reportedly told several students that they could no longer fly Old Glory on their trucks because it was potentially “offensive” and “disruptive.”
School tells students told to remove American flags from their trucks: It’s ‘offensive’
When students at Franklin County High School in Virginia were told they could not fly the American flag from their trucks because it might be offensive – they did what any red-blooded American teenager would do: they flew the flag anyway. (Wikipedia)
Franklin County High School students showed up in unity on Tuesday displaying American flags on their vehicles after an administrator allegedly told them to remove them. Several local residents posted photos of the caravan driving through town with Old Glory waving in the breeze.
“My son called me from school saying that he saw an administrator around his truck and is now being called to the office,” the mother of one of the students said.
The mother said her son and two of his friends were told they could no longer fly their American flag on their trucks. She says she received a call from the school principal Jon Crutchfield on that evening.
“He has apologized to the boys and told them that it is not against the rules to fly their flag on their truck. Apparently, it was a big misunderstanding that should have never gotten this far,” the mother said.
Local citizens commented on the parade of flag-bearing trucks.
“I love that we have young American students standing for our American Flag,” one citizen wrote on Facebook.
Issues with the American flag being considered “offensive” happen far more frequently than most people realize. And with the level of protest surrounding Old Glory, some American leaders are looking to make it a felony to burn one. Back in June, Republicans reintroduced a proposal calling for a ban on burning the American flag. It was immediately endorsed by President Trump.
“All in for Senator Steve Daines as he proposes an Amendment for a strong BAN on burning our American Flag. A no brainer!,” the president wrote in a Twitter message.
The legislation being sponsored in the Senate by Sens. Steve Daines of Montana and Kevin Cramer of North Dakota and in the House by Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas. It calls for the U.S. Constitution to be amended in a way that would give Congress “constitutional authority to ban the desecration of the United States flag.”
Kramer goes on:
“Adding a Constitutional amendment to protect this symbol of freedom and liberty is not an attack on another Constitutional amendment,” he continued, “rather, it is an affirmation of the unifying principles our nation stands for.”
The amendment is the only way to go about banning flag burning. That’s because the Supreme Court has ruled in the past that flag-burning is a form of free speech protected by the First Amendment.
Critics on social media were quick to attack the proposal.
“I love the “Red, White ,and Blue” and am a patriot. But I disagree with Trump’s demand that flag burning be criminalized in all settings,” wrote one person.
Another wrote:
“Please not this stupidity again. the supreme court has ruled that flag burning is constitutionally-protected speech. any such legislation would be unconstitutional. that a loudmouth internet nobody like me has to explain this to the president of the united states boggles the mind”
Some say an amendment like this would be an insult to the country and what we stand for.
“Because I respect the flag and all those who sacrificed so much for it, I would never even think for a moment to desecrate everything it stands for by supporting a dictatorial Constitutional Amendment to outlaw burning the American flag. That’s an insult to freedom and democracy.”
Here’s how the process works.
Amendments can be added to the Constitution if two-thirds of both the House and Senate agree on a proposal and then three-fourths of the states ratify it, or if two-thirds of state legislatures call a convention to propose changes to the Constitution, and then three-fourths of the states ratify the change.
Old Glory isn’t the only flag under attack, though. Members of Antifa seem to love getting the chance to torch the Thin Blue Line flag often flown by members of law enforcement and their supporters.
In December, in Seattle, Washington, Pro-Trump activists held a “Mega MAGA March” that was crashed by masked members of Antifa.
In a video that was released by New2Share’s YouTube channel (seen below), we’re immediately regaled with some black clad protesters who are attempting to ignite a Blue Lives Matter flag directly in front of the police.
Despite the copious number of unsavory things said throughout the over nine-minute video that would make most cringe, there was a moment of levity when police sprayed the ignited flag (and protesters) with a flame retardant to stop the initial burning.
However, from that point on, the demonstrators become more aggressive, and more intolerant toward police and those in support of the march.
Antifa members began following those who were participating in the march, claiming that those who are in support of Trump are “fascists” and likened Trump to Hitler by referring to him as the “fuhrer”.
Sources tell Law Enforcement Today that the administration within the Seattle police department has made it very clear… officers are not to “disrupt” the protestors.
“We’ve been instructed to let Antifa do their thing… up to and including physical violence. We can only step in when people really start getting hurt. It’s unreal,” said one officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Every recorded interaction of the video showcased one very common theme: Antifa is not a tolerant group by any means.
They call everyone who isn’t their ilk “fascists”, while literally employing the techniques that plagued Italy after the first world war. They converge and surround desolate people, attempt to intimidate them for not agreeing with them, and scream the obscenest things toward our men and women donning a uniform.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, the great Rush Limbaugh.
Rifles hang on the wall for sale at Blue Ridge Arsenal in Chantilly, Virginia, on October 6, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / JIM WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)
WDBJ7 reports that Rockingham County was one of the most recent sanctuary declarations. Breitbart News reported that over 3,000 residents attended the Rockingham Board of Supervisors meeting to demand Second Amendment sanctuary status.
WMRA reported that Rockingham’s Board of Supervisors meeting was held at the Spotswood High School’s gymnasium and “it was standing room only.” County Supervisor Pablo Cuevas announced the voting results to the crowd, saying, “The Board of Supervisors hereby expresses its continued intent to uphold, support, and defend all rights, protections, and guarantees by the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the Constitution of the United States of America.”
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) says counties will face “consequences” if they refuse to enforce gun control. Rep. Donald McEachin (D-VA) suggests Northam could use the National Guard to compel compliance with new state gun laws.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been seen all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, and even the great El Rushbo.
Democrats and the mainstream media were willing to throw away “due process” in order to believe all women during the Kavanaugh hearing, but have a much different attitude regarding the Fairfax accusations.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been seen all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, and even the great El Rushbo.
Country music legend Charlie Daniels slammed Democratic women for wearing white to Tuesday night’s State of the Union address to show support for women while their party is noticeably silent about a high-profile sexual assault accusation against Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax.
And he didn’t mince words.
“Democrat women are wearing white to the State of the Union address to signify support for ALL women (Except for the one who is accusing Lt Governor Fairfax of sexual harassment),”Daniels tweeted Tuesday night.
Many female Democratic members of Congress, including far-left Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, wore white as a way to show solidarity on “women’s issues,” according to CNN. And while white was the color of the suffragette movement that won the right to vote for women in 1920, Democrats made it clear that the white on Tuesday applied went much further than gaining women the franchise a century ago.
“I’m looking forward to wearing suffragette white to #SOTU next week with all @HouseDemWomen!” Florida Rep. Lois Frankel wrote in a Twitter post last week. “We’ll honor all those who came before us and send a message of solidarity that we’re not going back on our hard-earned rights.”
But as Daniels pointed out, the bold statement of “solidarity” from the white attire contrasted sharply with the same women’s deafening silence regarding the allegation against Fairfax.
Virginia is currently in the midst of a political crisis as Democrats try to distance themselves from Gov. Ralph Northam, who found himself embroiled in two controversies last week. In a radio interview on Jan. 30, Northam hinted at supporting post-birth abortion, a position that disgusted and infuriated members of the pro-life movement.
But Democrats are more angry about a racist photo from Northam’s medical school yearbook from 1984. With Northam’s relationship with Democrats in tatters, the party seemed poised to throw its support behind Fairfax if Northam eventually steps down. Unfortunately for Democrats, the lieutenant governor is currently facing an accusation from a woman who claims he sexually assaulted her at the Democratic National Convention in 2004.
Fairfax, however, maintains the encounter was consensual. Virginia Democrats have been cautious at best about the accusation.
“The facts here are still being determined. Every individual deserves the opportunity to be heard, and we respect anyone who comes forward to share their story,”the state’s Democratic lawmakers said in a brief statement Tuesday.
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In a statement Saturday, the Virginia Democratic Party outright endorsed Fairfax.
“Governor Northam must end this chapter immediately, step down, and let Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax heal Virginia’s wounds and move us forward.”
We still haven’t heard the kind of widespread condemnation Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh received when he faced allegations that were undoubtedly less credible.
Quentin Kidd, director of the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University, told The Washington Post that the silence from Democrats is “deafening.”
“They may be thinking, ‘We don’t want to throw our lieutenant governor under the bus while we’re also trying to throw our governor out of office,’” he said. “Republicans are probably eating all the popcorn they can find right now. It’s quite a show.”
To be clear, Fairfax deserves due process, but that’s not a principle that Democrats care about when Republicans are accused. Democrats are supposed to “believe all women,” but it’s not a good look when they selectively believe women based on politics.
Daniels had a point. For a party that supposedly supports women, Democrats are awfully silent about Fairfax’s troubling accusation.
Malachi Bailey is a writer from the Midwest with a background in history, education and philosophy. He has led multiple conservative groups and is dedicated to the principles of free speech, privacy and peace.
While Gov. Ralph Northam is the Democrat most closely associated with the controversy regarding the Virginia abortion bill which would allow a child to be killed up until more or less the moment of birth, someone had to come up with the legislation. That someone is Virginia Delegate Kathy Tran, who introduced HB 2491, “Abortion; eliminate certain requirements.”
According to the summary, the bill “eliminates the requirement that an abortion in the second trimester of pregnancy and prior to the third trimester be performed in a hospital. The bill eliminates all the procedures and processes, including the performance of an ultrasound, required to effect a woman’s informed written consent to the performance of an abortion; however, the bill does not change the requirement that a woman’s informed written consent be first obtained.
“The bill eliminates the requirement that two other physicians certify that a third trimester abortion is necessary to prevent the woman’s death or impairment of her mental or physical health, as well as the need to find that any such impairment to the woman’s health would be substantial and irremediable,” it continues.
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“The bill also removes language classifying facilities that perform five or more first-trimester abortions per month as hospitals for the purpose of complying with regulations establishing minimum standards for hospitals.”
That’s some extremely anti-life stuff. However, on the same day, it’s worth pointing out she did introduce a pro-life bill. I mean, provided that you’re a caterpillar.
On Jan. 9 — the same day that the radical abortion bill was introduced — Tran also introduced HB 2495, which “prohibits localities from spraying pesticides intended to suppress an infestation of the fall cankerworm during the period between March 1 and August 1.”
Well, thank God we’re looking out for the cankerworm, a caterpillar which becomes a gypsy moth.
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Tran, by the way, has gotten off of social media now that the controversy over her bill has hit; according to The Daily Caller, she deleted her accounts once the abortion bill became a major issue.
The Virginia GOP, meanwhile, had this to say about it:
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The great irony of this is that even though this contentious bill may have made Tran decide on radio silence, it didn’t actually receive much play in the media until Gov. Northam decided to go above and beyond what she had proposed.
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“When we talk about third-trimester abortions, these are done with the consent of the mother, with the consent of physicians, more than one physician by the way, and it’s done in cases where there may be severe deformities, there may be a fetus which is non-viable,” Northam said.
“So in this particular example, if the mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen, the infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if this is what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physician and the mother.”
So Gov. Northam appears to be proposing infanticide. (Northam’s people insisted the governor wasn’t talking about termination as an option, something that the context doesn’t support.) Tran believes that killing a baby a few minutes before birth is all right but a few minutes after birth would be murderous.
And she believes caterpillars ought to be protected, too. Don’t forget that.
A protester kicks a toppled Confederate soldier statue after it was pulled down in Durham, North Carolina. (Photo: Casey Toth/TNS/Newscom)
Following the ugly incident that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, this past weekend, an unruly mob took out its anger on a century-old statue in North Carolina. It is a perfect example of how tribal and identity politics are raging out of control in America, and how radicals will continue to ratchet up their tactics to match one another.
While the media spent its time connecting riots to the political right, the hard left continued to step up its tactics to promote social discord, as it has been doing for years.
On Monday afternoon, a crowd of people in an “Emergency Durham Protest” marched down Durham’s Main Street, then made its way to the Durham County Courthouse. The Herald Sun reported that organizations like the “Triangle People’s Assembly, Workers World Party, Industrial Workers of the World, Democratic Socialists of America, and the Antifa movement”were at the rally.
One of the participants, Eva Panjwani of the Workers World Party Durham, said in an interview:
This is really an opportunity, this moment of Charlottesville, to see what side of history we are choosing to side with. This is not a call to make someone to feel guilty or ashamed. This is a call to say this is an ask from people of color to say which side are you on.
“We need to shun passive, white liberalism,”Panjwani said.
The larger group was comprised of people demonstrating with various left-wing slogans such as a “No Trump, No KKK, No Racist USA”banner, pro-socialist Che Guevara shirts, and numerous odes to abolishing capitalism. One individual held a sign that said, “Cops and clan go hand in hand,” as the group marched past police officers.
The crowd gathered in front of the courthouse and decided to target a statue that was created in memoriam to “the boys who wore the gray.”That is, the North Carolina soldiers who fought for the Confederate Army in the Civil War.
The rage-filled protesters tore down the statue and proceeded to kick and desecrate it. The surging mass of people hooted and hollered as individuals took turns spitting on and flipping off the generic visage of a young Southern soldier.
The act of vandalism continued unabated, as authorities stood by and watched. Durham Police put out a statement saying that they did not interfere with the toppling because it happened on “county property, where county law enforcement officials were staffed.”
In the aftermath, some of the protesters took pictures in front of the crumpled-up bronze statue that had been pulverized in the fall.
Targeting this statue was seemingly an odd choice. It portrayed no individual specifically and was erected as a tribute in 1924 to the young boys, by that time old men, who had donned the uniform of the failed Confederate rebellion.
However, the attack was fitting as a mirror to the “alt-right” march that had taken place at the foot of a Gen. Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville. The individuals portrayed by the monuments were simply irrelevant.
This isn’t a battle over ideas or the Confederacy’s place in American history, it’s sheer and mindless identity politics.
American towns and cities are now increasingly being besieged by agitators who flaunt the law, direct their hate toward fellow citizens, and openly attack the crucial principles at the heart of the American way of life. The resounding message that these events send is that in 2017, it’s impossible for this country to accept people of different creeds and points of views. You are either on the “right side of history,” as President Barack Obama said, or you are on the wrong side. The narrative is increasingly join us, or be crushed.
Perhaps the protesters should pay more attention to what happened in our Civil War, which claimed more lives than all of our other wars combined. Perhaps they should study the leaders who, however imperfectly, tried to bind regions and people together to move on from a civil feud that pitted brother against brother and American against American. And perhaps they should have studied the people, like Lee and President Abraham Lincoln, who tried to piece the shattered puzzle of American nationhood back together.
Alas, those concepts were lost in a sordid trampling of an old, barely noticed statue. Unless leaders pay increased devotion to denouncing and taking action against these lawless demonstrations, mob rule is here to stay.
In case you missed what happened, one person was killed and 19 others injured after a man rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters at a “Unite the Right” rally in Virginia. The march was notable for its open use of Nazi insignia and salutes, confederate flags, chants like “White Lives Matter” and “you will not replace us.”Of course there was also violence.
These were displays of naked and unacceptable bigotry that must be staunchly opposed. Although Clarion focuses on Islamic extremism, different forms of extremism feed into each other.
Let’s unpack it.
Resentful Identity Politics Fuels Hatred
“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders,” Nazi leader Hermann Goering, who knew a thing or two about whipping the masses into a blind fury, said during the Nuremberg trials. “That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”
The Virginia rally featured white nationalist protesters chanting “White Lives Matter” who clearly saw their group (white people) as being under attack. This narrative has been revved up by white supremacist leaders who are capitalizing on an increasingly militant subsection of the left which views all white people as inherently oppressive. The modern narrative of “white victimhood”thus builds on the legacy of historical white supremacy for the modern age.
Similarly, there are also Islamic hate preachers who use this same narrative — that Muslims are under threat — to peddle hateful rhetoric and recruit vulnerable people to extremist causes.
Both of these extremist ideas are fueled by framing the group identity as being hugely important and something that is under attack. Hateful ideas fuel violence.
Traumatic Events Can Increase Polarization
What is called “confirmation bias” by psychologists can result in violent events driving people further apart, as people interpret a situation through the lens of their pre-existing beliefs.
It’s why anti-fascist activist Daryl Lamont Jenkins told The Atlantic following yesterday’s protests, “This is the beginning of the end of the alt-right, that’s for sure,”while alt-right protester Andrew Dodson told the same reporter, “This is a phenomenal victory.”
Events like this can deepen distrust between the left and the right. They can lead to more left-aligned people suspecting all right wingers of being neo-Nazis, while right wing people accuse the left of focusing on a handful of extremists rather than other issues.
American Ideals Transcend Identities
America has one of the best national narratives around. America was intended to be “a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” as Abraham Lincoln said, in contrast to ethno-nationalist ideas of “blood and soil.”
The American proposition that anyone can be free to flourish, speak their minds and succeed regardless of their background as equal citizens in a free republic is one of the most powerful and revolutionary ideas in the history of the world.
Affirming a commitment to that shared vision, without whitewashing the admittedly rocky history of the United States, can create the bonds of empathy necessary to move from a place of “my group vs. your group” to a space of “our group.”
Then perhaps we can talk about white supremacists (as opposed to white people in general) and Islamic extremists (rather than Muslims in general) as both being opposed to shared American values. Only then can extremists on both sides be marginalized and addressed.
If America is unable to look to a shared story that can help bring people together, there may be dark times ahead.
Just hours after a gunman opened fire on congressional Republicans during a practice baseball game in Virginia on Wednesday, House Speaker Paul Ryan delivered an impassioned speech that called for unity despite partisan differences.
“We are all horrified by this dreadful attack on our friends and on our colleagues and those who serve and protect this Capitol,” Ryan said.
“We are united. We are united in our shock, we are united in our anguish. An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us,” Ryan said, prompting the crowd to stand and applaud.
“You know, every day we come here to test and to challenge each other. We feel so deeply about the things that we fight for and the things that we believe in, at times our emotions can clearly get the best of us. We’re all imperfect,”Ryan said.
“But we do not shed our humanity when we enter this chamber. For all the noise and all the fury, we are one family,” the speaker said.
Ryan also mentioned a widely-shared photo of Democratic congressional baseball team members praying for Republicans, which embodied the unity Ryan spoke about.
Ryan also praised the efforts of the Capitol Police.
“It is clear to me, based on various eyewitness accounts, that without these two heroes, agent [David] Bailey and agent [Krystal] Griner, many lives would have been lost,”he said.
Watch Ryan’s comments below:
Paul Ryan Says Shooting Is an Attack on All of Us
This video was designed to autoplay so we’ve delayed loading it until you click here.
Ryan, who hasn’t been viewed very favorably by those on either side of the aisle, nevertheless silenced Americans with this poignant truth.
This shooting should serve as a wake up call to our nation that a “house divided against itself cannot stand.”We can only hope and pray this attack isn’t a foreshadowing of more politically-motivated violence.
For many Christians, the question has never been about whether people can marry the same sex. The idea has nothing to do with legal language. It has to do with the definition of marriage. Two people of the same sex cannot marry because what they do is not marriage. Marriage is a union created by God, and the government cannot change what God instituted.
This was not the legal standing of the U.S. Supreme Court. According to their ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, the government determines what the definition of marriage. This, for Christians clearly places the government in an idolatrous position. They can believe and operate as God tells them or they can obey the government, but there can only be one authority on this issue. This is why this authority should never be conceded to the government in the first place.
But for many, this Christian understanding was becoming financially impossible to hold. At least in the public legal sense, the Christian was being forced into financial and practical assent to this variant view of marriage and the authority over its administration.
Now, this might be changing, at least in Virginia.
Christian News reports
Lawmakers in Virginia have passed a bill that prohibits the government from punishing those who believe in biblical marriage and conduct their public lives in accordance with that conviction.
S.B. 1324 passed the Senate on Tuesday 21-19, and now moves on to the House for consideration. The vote was along party lines.
“No person shall be required to participate in the solemnization of any marriage, or subject to any penalty by the Commonwealth, or its political subdivisions or representatives or agents, notwithstanding any other provision of law, solely on account of such person’s belief, speech, or action in accordance with a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman,” the legislation reads.
If this bill becomes law, it will provide a protection of Christians from being legally obliged to accommodate what they consider sin.
The Riverheads High School calligraphy assignment (Courtesy The Schilling Show)
A Virginia school district is defending a classroom assignment that required students to practice calligraphy by writing the Muslim statement of faith, “There is no god but Allah. Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” Female students at Riverheads High School in Augusta County, Virginia, were also invited to wear Muslim clothing — a story first reported by The Schilling Show.
The school district convened a meeting on Dec. 11th to discuss the assignment with outraged parents.
“Neither these lessons, nor any other lesson in the world geography course, are an attempt at indoctrination to Islam or any other religion, or a request for students to renounce their own faith or profess any belief,”the district said in a statement provided to Fox News.
The Muslim-friendly calligraphy assignment took place in a world geography class. The teacher had the kids copy the Muslim statement of faith, also known as the shahada. Parents told The Schilling Show that their children were notgiven the translation of what they were writing. In other words, there were more than likely a few Christian teenagers in that room who had no idea they were writing, “There is no god but Allah.”
But the school district doesn’t seem to think that’s a problem.
“The statement presented as an example of the calligraphy was not translated for students, nor were students asked to translate it, recite it or otherwise adopt or pronounce it as a personal belief,” the district stated. They said it was all about the art — not about the theology.
“They were simply asked to attempt to artistically render written Arabic in order to understand its artistic complexity,” they stated.
And out of sheer coincidence — out of all the Arabic words and phrases the teacher could have selected, she picked the Islamic statement of faith?
The district said the assignment was consistent with the Virginia Department of Education Standards of Learning and the requirements for content instruction on world monotheistic religions.
And what about having the female students dressing up in Islamic garb — is that consistent with the state mandates, too?
The district said the students were taught about the “modest dress adopted by many in the Islamic faith and were invited to try on a scarf as a part of an interactive lesson about the Islamic concept of modest dress.”
“The scarf used in the activity was not an actual Islamic religious hijab,” the district stated.
The district said they also cover other religions — including Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism and Hinduism.
However, one parent told The Schilling Show that while the Koran was presented to students, the Bible was not.The teacher reportedly declined to provide a Bible because all the students have either read or seen a Bible.
The district said there’s really not a controversy here. They just wanted students to participate in “hands-on activities intended to give them a better objective understanding of the region and its culture (including its religions and to allow for interactive learning.”
Perhaps the next time the kids at Riverheads High School practice their calligraphy skills they can learn a new word — “indoctrination.”
There was nothing factually wrong with the headline. And Breitbart News put up the headline, which was approved by Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow and Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon, after Flanagan started sending out Tweets that implied there may have been a racial motivation for the attacks. Flanagan (or Bryce Williams, which was his on-air name) alleged that one of his victims, reporter Alison Parker, “made racist comments.” He wondered on Twitter, “they hired her after that???” Flanagan is black. Ward and Parker were white.
But the mainstream press, left-wing writers, and the usual suspects on the right who love being liked by the liberals went apoplectic.
“Why did I do it? I put down a deposit for a gun on 6/19/15. The Church shooting in Charleston happened on 6/17/15,”he reportedly wrote in his manifesto. “What sent me over the top was the church shooting. And my hollow point bullets have the victims’ initials on them.”
According to ABC, which received Flanagan’s manifesto, Flanagan also said that the Charleston “church shooting was the tipping point…but my anger has been building steadily…I’ve been a human powder keg for a while…just waiting to go BOOM!!!!”
“As for Dylann Roof? You (deleted)! You want a race war (deleted)? BRING IT THEN YOU WHITE …(deleted)!!!” Flanagan wrote.
ABC also noted that in his manifesto, Flanagan says he “has suffered racial discrimination, sexual harassment and bullying at work,” been “attacked by black men and white females,” and “talks about how he was attacked for being a gay, black man.”
The same cast of characters in the mainstream media and on the right who always look for any excuse to attack Breitbart News, though, spent the day accusing Breitbart News of race-baiting. Left-wing Media Matters sent out a press release that accused Breitbart News of reacting to the “shooting with a race-baiting article authored by editor-at-large John Nolte.”
New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait said he was “too angry to be tweeting about these racist demagogues at Breitbart but I can’t contain myself right now. These are sick, hateful, twisted people who exploit our worst impulses, and they have real influence,”Chait added.
Business Insider’s Hunter Walker Tweeted, “So, can all of us political folks stop pretending that Breitbart has any place in the mainstream discourse now?”
Vox’s Max Fisher wondered, “at what point do we stop pretending breitbart is anything other than a white supremacist hate site?”
David Waldman of the Daily Kos Tweeted: “Hmm. Horrible, horrible story happening here, on every possible level. How can I, as a Breitbart employee, possibly make this worse? Hmm.”
Jamelle Bouie of Slate Tweeted of Nolte: “*thinks to himself* i should definitely post my story about the scary BLACK murderer.”
Nevada political reporter John Ralston, who slavishly seeks attention from the mainstream media, loves being patted on the head by them, and mimics those in the mainstream press who believe they are the oh-so-wise adults while voters are stupid children, quickly piled on, Tweeting, “For the love of God.” Ralston also agreed with a Twitter user who said that Breitbart News is the “bottomest of bottom-dwelling publications”
The Texas Observer‘s Christopher Hooks Tweeted, “Breitbart Seems Cool.” He also re-Tweeted a user who Tweeted to Breitbart News, “fuuuuuuuuck yoooooou.”
The usual suspects and perpetual backstabbers on the right who look for any excuse to go after Breitbart News joined left-wing writers and their allies in the mainstream press in attacking Breitbart News’s headline. David Fredosso, of the Washington Examiner, Tweeted, “AYFKM [Are you f**king kidding me].”
Rare.us’s entertainment editor accused Breitbart News of sinking to a new low with its headline.
And Redstate’s Ben Howe, who also has looked for any excuse to attack Breitbart News after Nolte called him out for selling out conservatives in order to get patted on the head by left-wing Buzzfeed, Tweeted, “This goes beyond jumping the shark. What you’re witnessing here is jamming spiked cleats into the brain of the shark.”Nolte has called Howe out for being a mercenary who sells his services to various politicians.
Howe claimed that Breitbart News put up its headline without knowing all of the facts before he showed how ignorant he was of the facts on Twitter. Howe revealed that he was unaware of Flanagan’s social media posts and thought Flanagan was a “disgruntled boyfriend.”A Twitter user responded to Howe and wrote, “I follow many reporters and didn’t see disgruntled boyfriend. They were reporting his SM [social media] posts about racial resentment.”
Howe, clearly out of the loop and not in a position to say Breitbart News did not have all of the facts, claimed that “at the time it was being reported that he was a disgruntled boyfriend.” “Is that not still the case?” he asked, even though no outlet or reporter definitively reported that Flanagan was a disgruntled ex-boyfriend.
Back on the left, Huffington Post’s Elise Foley accused Breitbart News of “race-baiting.” Foley’s left-wing publication did not even publish the photo of the murderer. Little Green Football’s Charles Johnson Tweeted that Breitbart News “goes full-on Stormfront.”
And on and on it went.
At the end of the evening, the Drudge Report led its website with the headline, “Killer Wanted ‘Race War.’”
The Constitution was designed to protect both religious rights and free speech, but city officials in a town in Virginia papered to abrogate both when they filed criminal charges against a church that dared post a pro-life sign on its own properly. Valley Church of Christ is located at the corner of Virginia Avenue and Acorn Drive in the City of Harrisonburg. To show its strong religious beliefs in the sanctity of human life, the church put up two signs on a chain link fence running along the Acorn Drive side of the property.
One sign shows an unborn baby cradled in a pair of hands with a quote from Mother Teresa: “It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.” The other sign quotes Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I formed you in the Womb I Knew You,” with a picture of the face of a baby.
Zoning officials with the city of Harrisonburg, Virginia threatened criminal charges at a local church over its display of pro-life messages on private property.
On April 20, 2015, the church received a letter from the City’s zoning inspector advising the church that a complaint had been received about the signs and that the church was in violation of a section of the City’s sign ordinance which prohibits banners, pennants and flags. However, the section cited by the City contains several exemptions from the prohibition, allowing national flags, flags of political subdivisions, corporate/business flags, flags of civic and charitable organization, and banners pertaining to holidays or civic events. The City’s letter ordered that the church correct the “violation” within 10 days or it could be charged with a Class 1 misdemeanor, which carries a penalty of up to 12 months in jail and a fine of up to $2,500.
Thankfully, attorneys intervened on behalf of the church and the city backed down.
The city’s reversal came after attorneys for The Rutherford Institute, a pro-liberty organization, intervened on behalf of Valley Church of Christ, which had been ordered to take down signs on its property that quote Mother Teresa and the Bible on the sanctity of human life. In coming to the defense of the Harrisonburg church, Rutherford Institute attorneys pointed out that the City’s actions constituted discrimination based on the content of the church’s signs, which is a clear violation of the First Amendment. “Under the First Amendment, the government has no authority to pick and choose what type of speech it approves,”said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute.
He continued: “While we are pleased that Harrisonburg city officials were quick to set things right in this matter, this is merely one example out of a hundreds of incidents taking place across the country in which speech and expressive activities that the government perceives as controversial, politically incorrect or unpopular are criminalized, caged, censored or silenced.”
In its letter to the City on behalf of the church, The Rutherford Institute pointed out that the City Code section relied upon in its letter to the church makes content-based distinctions on those banners and flags that are allowable and those that are not. “This kind of preference for banners that express certain messages and discrimination against banners that express other messages is precisely the kind of content-based regulation of speech the First Amendment prohibits,” the Institute’s letter contended. The letter also cited court decisions which have found similar laws regulating the display of flags and banners unconstitutional.
RICHMOND, Virginia—Her surprisingly activist support for the long-shot primary challenger to Eric Cantor is part of a larger plan to shape the GOP, conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingraham told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview.
“I think Jeb Bush will be the nominee of the Republican Party [for President in 2016]. I would be stunned if he weren’t,” Ingraham told Breitbart News.
“I think it’s important to raise these issues about Jeb Bush now so people are not shocked that, oh my gosh, he’s for immigration amnesty. Oh my goodness, he’s for fast track trade authority. Wow, he’s for doing more deals with China,” she said.
“It’s important to talk about these things now before we end up getting into a situation where it’s a fast track to the nomination and it’s a done deal, it’s a fait accompli,” she said.
Ingraham spoke at a Dave Brat campaign rally in Glenn Allen, Virginia on Tuesday evening. Brat, an economics professor at Randolph-Macon College, is challenging House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) in the June 10 Republican primary in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District.
Brat’s criticisms of Cantor’s immigration positions have forced Cantor to suddenly discover his inner anti-amnesty warrior in the last two weeks of the campaign, at least as he’s described himself in his television ads and direct mailers.
Ingraham explained why she believes Cantor will pivot back to his pro-amnesty positions within days after the June 10 primary, if he is renominated.
“Here’s what we know,” she told Breitbart News. “Anyone who’s ever had any wiggle room or squishy language on the issue of immigration has always moved to the amnesty position eventually. If people say the following–well, you can’t deport 11 million people; we have to pull these people out of the shadows; the system is broken; we have de facto amnesty.”
“If they say all those things,”Ingraham continued, “those are just the cliches of the Republican and Democratic establishment and all of those statements are essentially meaningless. It’s kind of play-doh, you can turn it into anything you want, or silly putty, it doesn’t mean anything. So what, that’s not policy!”
“Eric Cantor could have taken immigration off the table. He chose not to,”she stated.
“He could have said we’re not talking about this, you people are untrustworthy.You’re allowing all these people into the country now. You’re busing people who are here illegally to destinations to live with other illegal aliens,” Ingraham said.
“He could have spoken out against all of this,” Ingraham concluded, but he did not.
Ingraham was highly critical of the job the mainstream media has done reporting on the primary. “The press corps,” she said, “has done an abysmal job covering the Brat-Cantor race.”
“There’s been one piece in the Washington Post that was somewhat fair introducing Dave Brat after all these months where he’s been running and challenging Cantor. Cantor won’t debate him,”she said.
“Now they’re allowing this ridiculous choreography of this Luis Gutierrez supposed animosity towards Eric Cantor on the issue of immigration that happened a couple of weeks ago when Gutierrez came down here. They cover it like it’s some real issue that they disagree on immigration when anyone who has been following this issue at all knows that Cantor and Gutierrez are working hand-in-glove on the timing of when immigration reform will pass and what form it will pass,” she continued.
Ingraham pointed out that Frank Roche, an anti-amnesty candidate she supported in May’s 2nd Congressional District Republican primary in North Carolina, did surprisingly well against Renee Ellmers, the pro-amnesty incumbent who had an epic immigration outburst on Ingraham’s radio show.
“It was $18,000 versus hundreds of thousands of dollars [and he got 41 percent],” Ingraham said.
Ingraham said she did not know why the national Tea Party and conservative groups are not coming to help David Brat.
“I think that in some cases people are worried about their access. I think people are making their bets on who’s going to win and who’s going to lose. It’s the same reason there are a lot of people out there who are reluctant to criticize Jeb Bush now.”
“There are a lot of people who are reluctant to get involved in primaries. If Dave Brat does not win people can say, ‘well, Laura Ingraham has no mojo.’ I don’t care what people say about me. It doesn’t matter to me at all,” Ingraham said.
“What matters to me is that I do whatever is in my power to try to save this country in my own little way. I think right now our country is in real peril.”
Ingraham explained why she is so supportive of Dave Brat, who she has endorsed and supported throughout his campaign.
“I think Dave Brat is a great guy, so courageous, so earnest, so smart. If he went toe-to-toe with Eric Cantor in a debate he would have wiped the floor with him. It would have been like Nigel Farage versus David Cameron in Britain,”she said.
Ingraham was pessimistic about the Republican Party’s chances of winning back the White House in 2016, but her reasoning is based less on short term political punditry and more on a sense that a dramatic social and political realignment is in the works.
“I doubt the Republicans will put up someone who can beat Hillary,”she told Breitbart News.“I think there’s an interesting realignment going on,” she said.
“You can’t have a situation where the middle class stays down as long as they have today,”she explained.
“I think [that realignment is] what’s going to happen ultimately. It might not happen in this next Presidential election, but it will happen. Look out Republican and Democratic parties when that happens.”
“I think the Republicans better watch out,”Ingraham advised, “because there are a lot of conservatives looking for ways to work with the left on issues like shrinking government surveillance, pulling back from military intervention in unnecessary engagements, stopping fanatical trade deals that lower American wages.”
“The question is do you want to live in a country run by, essentially, 100 families or do you want to live in a country where the middle class has a real chance to have a better life and leave a better life for their kids,”she explained.
“Right now,” Ingraham said, “I think we are edging closer to that country where just the rich and powerful have a consistent say.They have an alliance with the far left groups that have their own agenda to bolster union membership and swell the ranks of the Democratic Party.”
“I think this will not end well for the capitalists. If they think this is going to be a good ride, it’s not going to end well. History is replete with examples of the perpetually impoverished rising up against the fat cats.”
“That will happen here. There are no gates that are strong enough or walls that are high enough when that eventually blows.”
The tweet didn’t sit too well with some, who took Dickinson to task for appearing to threaten elected officials.
“[D]ude, did you just threaten the life of a sitting US Senator?” one person asked.
“Mikey thinks he is above the law since he is ‘progressive,'” another person added.
This is the second time Dickinson has engaged in the Twittergame where players are given a list of well-known people and then asked to state whether they would have sex, marry or kill the person. In mid-May, Dickinson issued asimilar tweetlisting former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, conservative columnist Michelle Malkin and Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
“Picking between @GOPLeader Eric cantor & tea @DaveBratVA7th is like a (expletive deleted), Marry, Kill between @michellemalkin @ehasselbeck & @SarahPalinUSA,” hetweeted.
According toUrban Dictionary, the game “is not intended for literal thoughts,” but it’s beginning to appear that Dickinson really has fantasies of murdering conservatives, given the nature of his tweets. On Monday, for example, he issued tweets fantasizing about being part of the Civil War while calling members of the Tea Party “traitors” and “terrorists.”
In other tweets, he expressed a desire to “eradicate” the Tea Party and those who watch Fox News, while soliciting support from those who want to see him “decimate” Christians. Dickinson, however, claims his offensive tweets are simply intended to “tweak” conservatives.
“In sports it’s called you punk someone. I punk all my haters everyday. I play you for fools. You actually take time and reply lol,” hetweeted.
So says the man who once threatened an elected GOP state delegate, suggested supporters violate the law by calling police to harass members of the Tea Party and posted pictures of license plates of Tea Party members for identification and harassment. Now, he appears to be suggesting that certain elected officials be murdered.
One Twitter user summed up Dickinson’s short, hate-filled messages: “You just need attention, you’re like a dog that chews shoes, only people love dogs.”
RICHMOND, Va. – A crosscheck of voter rolls in Virginia and Maryland turned up 44,000 people registered in both states, a vote-integrity group reported Wednesday.
And that’s just the beginning.
“The Virginia Voters Alliance is investigating how to identify voters who are registered and vote in Virginia but live in the states that surround us,” Alliance President Reagan George told the State Board of Elections.
George acknowledged that the number of voters who actually cast multiple ballots is relatively small. In the case of Maryland and Virginia, he revealed that 164 people voted in both states during the 2012 election.
But George said his group will expand their search for duplicate voters in the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia and Georgia.
“We are also determining the best way to identify non-citizens who have registered to vote and may have voted in past elections,” George said.
Working with the Privileges and Elections committees of the state House and Senate, VVA identified 31,000 dead voters via the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File. Subsequent processing by SBE found 40,000 to 60,000 dead voter registrations.
“Dead voter registrations are prime targets for voter fraud which generate few complaints,” George noted.
Appearing with Clara Belle Wheeler of the Albemarle County,Va., Election Board and Jay DeLancy of the North Carolina Voter Integrity Project, George challenged the SBE to:
Tighten Virginia’s voter ID law that allows absentee voters to use mailed ballots without affirming their identity.
Require proof of citizenship to register to vote. Kansas and Arizona require this.
Annually audit felons who are not allowed to vote.
“Certain nonviolent felons, especially those who commit voter fraud, should never be given back their right to vote,” George said.
More broadly, George said, “Virginia must control the registration process, as well as the form used to register voters. The current system is the perfect vehicle for identity theft and ‘lost’ registrations.”
“There needs to be a clearinghouse for all voter fraud referrals statewide,” he said. “The SBE would be the perfect place to assume that role and provide transparency for the public.”
DeLancy and Wheeler urged the board to open its voter-crosscheck data to the public and to publicize cases of voter fraud.
DeLancy said groups that downplay or dismiss the incidence of ongoing voting irregularities use “pretzel logic.”
“If prosecutors don’t prosecute, there’s no ‘crime,’” he noted.
The three-member state board — controlled by Republicans until the end of the year — took VVA’s recommendations under advisement. Kenric Ward is chief of Watchdog.org’s Virginia Bureau. Contact him at kenric@watchdogvirginia.org or at (571) 319-9824. @Kenricward
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Ryan also praised the efforts of the Capitol Police.
While the media spent its time connecting riots to the political right, the hard left continued to step up its tactics to promote social discord, as it has been doing for years.
On Monday afternoon, a crowd of people in an “Emergency Durham Protest” marched down Durham’s Main Street, then made its way to the Durham County Courthouse. The Herald Sun reported that organizations like the “Triangle People’s Assembly, Workers World Party, Industrial Workers of the World, Democratic Socialists of America, and the Antifa movement” were at the rally.
One of the participants, Eva Panjwani of the Workers World Party Durham, said in an interview:
The larger group was comprised of people demonstrating with various left-wing slogans such as a “No Trump, No KKK, No Racist USA” banner, pro-socialist Che Guevara shirts, and numerous odes to abolishing capitalism. One individual held a sign that said, “Cops and clan go hand in hand,” as the group marched past police officers.
The crowd gathered in front of the courthouse and decided to target a statue that was created in memoriam to “the boys who wore the gray.” That is, the North Carolina soldiers who fought for the Confederate Army in the Civil War.
>>> I Went to Charlottesville During the Protests. Here’s What I Saw.
What followed was a scene reminiscent of the French Revolution or the war in Iraq.
The rage-filled protesters tore down the statue and proceeded to kick and desecrate it. The surging mass of people hooted and hollered as individuals took turns spitting on and flipping off the generic visage of a young Southern soldier.
In the aftermath, some of the protesters took pictures in front of the crumpled-up bronze statue that had been pulverized in the fall.
However, the attack was fitting as a mirror to the “alt-right” march that had taken place at the foot of a Gen. Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville. The individuals portrayed by the monuments were simply irrelevant.
>>> Why Cities Shouldn’t Take Down Confederate Statues
This isn’t a battle over ideas or the Confederacy’s place in American history, it’s sheer and mindless identity politics.
American towns and cities are now increasingly being besieged by agitators who flaunt the law, direct their hate toward fellow citizens, and openly attack the crucial principles at the heart of the American way of life. The resounding message that these events send is that in 2017, it’s impossible for this country to accept people of different creeds and points of views. You are either on the “right side of history,” as President Barack Obama said, or you are on the wrong side. The narrative is increasingly join us, or be crushed.
Perhaps the protesters should pay more attention to what happened in our Civil War, which claimed more lives than all of our other wars combined. Perhaps they should study the leaders who, however imperfectly, tried to bind regions and people together to move on from a civil feud that pitted brother against brother and American against American. And perhaps they should have studied the people, like Lee and President Abraham Lincoln, who tried to piece the shattered puzzle of American nationhood back together.
Alas, those concepts were lost in a sordid trampling of an old, barely noticed statue. Unless leaders pay increased devotion to denouncing and taking action against these lawless demonstrations, mob rule is here to stay.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jarrett Stepman/ @JarrettStepman