Category Archives: History

DNC Platform Mentions ‘whites’ 15 times, all Damning

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Just being born white appears to be a basis for ridicule and shaming. Imagine that.

The draft 2020 Democratic National Committee platform being circulated in Washington aims to reinforce the view that liberals are best situated to battle for minorities seeking higher wages, better housing and jobs, and more money for schools.

With the August convention coming on the heels of the Black Lives Matter protests, it features support for the movement and an expanded pledge to root out racism.

The preamble says, “We will give hate no safe harbor. We will never amplify or legitimize the voices of bigotry, racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, or white supremacy.”

In promising change, it sets up one group that has it too good and is holding minorities back: whites.

In more than 80 pages in the draft platform published by Politico, whites are mentioned 15 times, all critical, including three references to white supremacy or supremacists and one to white nationalists. The document doesn’t capitalize white as it does Black, Latinos, Asian Americans, and Native Americans.

In most mentions, the reference is to how whites are better off at the expense of others. And the promise often is to “close the gap” between minorities and whites, though no solutions are offered.

While the nation elected its first black president in 2008, racial issues still rage, and that is a huge factor in former Vice President Joe Biden’s consideration of a running mate in time for the Democratic National Convention, where the platform will be confirmed.

As part of the preamble to the DNC 2020 draft:

Democrats will fight to repair the soul of this nation. To unite and to heal our country. To turn this crisis into a crucible, from which we will forge a stronger, brighter, and more equitable future. We must right the wrongs in our democracy, redress the systemic injustices that have long plagued our society, throw open the doors of opportunity for all Americans, and reinvent our institutions at home and our leadership abroad. We do not simply aspire to return our country to where we were four years ago. We know we must be bolder and more ambitious. We must once again stop another Republican recession from becoming a second Great Depression. President Trump and the Republican Party have rigged the economy in favor of the wealthiest few and the biggest corporations, and left working families and small businesses out in the cold. Democrats will forge a new social and economic contract with the American 1people—a contract that creates millions of new jobs and promotes shared prosperity, closes racial gaps in income and wealth, guarantees the right to join or form a union, raises wages and ensures equal pay for women and paid family leave for all, and safeguards a secure and dignified retirement.

The full draft text is found here.

A sample of how this ‘whiteness’ thing has spread around the nation, enter Rutgers University. Without much press….

Rutgers University: Acceptance Rate, SAT/ACT Scores, GPA source

H/T: The College Fix has uncovered a fascinating change in programming plans for the English Department and Writing Center at Rutgers. You see, teaching all of the rules of grammar, sentence structure and where to put the nouns, verbs and adjectives is apparently insensitive. To whom, you might ask? Well, the title of the memo detailing all of the proposed changes is, “Department actions in solidarity with Black Lives Matter.”

Titled “Department actions in solidarity with Black Lives Matter,” the email states that the ongoing and future initiatives that the English Department has planned are a “way to contribute to the eradication of systemic inequities facing black, indigenous, and people of color.”

One of the initiatives is described as “incorporating ‘critical grammar’ into our pedagogy.”

It is listed as one of the efforts for Rutgers’ Graduate Writing Program, which “serves graduate students across the Rutgers community.

***

This should be added to yet another item that also too got almost no press and that is the Smithsonian Museum. There is a unique separate wing called National Museum of African American History and Culture. It is not only funded by private donations of which Oprah Winfrey is a top donor with more than $30 million but Congress also provided funding. Why is this a big deal you ask?

National Museum of African American History & Culture | NMAAHC

There is a specific portal and ‘whiteness’ here too is a political target.

Phase one of the portal features eight foundational subjects including:

  • Being Anti-Racist: a conscious decision to make frequent, consistent, equitable choices daily.
  • Bias: the inclination or prejudice toward or against something or someone.
  • Community Building: connecting and engaging with others doing anti-racism work and exploring issues of race.
  • Historical Foundations of Race: how race, white privilege, and anti-blackness are woven into the very fabric of American society.
  • Race and Racial Identity: how societies use race to establish and justify systems of power, privilege, disenfranchisement, and oppression.
  • Self-Care: caring for one’s mental, emotional, and physical health to sustain the work of dismantling racism.
  • Social Identities and Systems of Oppression: systems built around the ideology that some groups are superior to others.
  • Whiteness: an ideology that reinforces power at the expense of others.

 

Rep. Gohmert Resolves to #CancelDemocrat Name/Party

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Primer: The political enforcement of Jim Crow was entirely in Democratic hands. The Ku Klux Klan functioned as the paramilitary wing of the Democratic party, and it was used to drive Republicans out of the South after the Civil War. Before he took up the cause of civil rights as president, Lyndon Johnson acting as Senate majority leader blocked the GOP’s 1956 civil-rights bill, and gutted Eisenhower’s 1957 Civil Rights Act. Democratic senators filibustered the GOP’s 1960 Civil Rights Act. More here.

Frankly, Texas Congressman Louis Gohmert’s resolution is brilliant. Since we are in the midst of a cancel culture, changing the name of the ‘democrat’ party falls in line with what the Democrats led by Speaker Pelosi are supporting by even voting to remove selected statues from the halls of Congress.

Actually, last week, DailyWire reported the following:

Official Portrait : U.S. Congressman Louie Gohmert

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) introduced a bill Thursday on the floor of the House of Representatives that would ban the Democratic Party due to the party’s history of having supported slavery and the Confederacy, saying “that is the standard to which they are holding everyone else, so the name change needs to occur.”

“Whereas on June 18, 2020, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered the removal from the capital portraits of four previous speakers of the House who served in the Confederacy, saying that these portraits ‘set back our nation’s work to confront and combat bigotry,’” Gohmert said. “The men depicted in the portraits were Democrat Robert M.T. Hunter, Democrat Howell Cobb, Democrat James L. Orr, and Democrat Charles F. Crisp.”

“Resolved that the speaker of the House of Representatives shall remove any item that named symbolizes or mentions any political organization or party that has ever held a public position that supported slavery or the Confederacy from any area within the House wing of the Capitol or any House office building and shall donate such item or symbol to the Library of Congress, and two, that any political organization or party that has ever held a public position that supported slavery of the Confederacy shall either change its name or be barred from participation in the House of Representatives,” Gohmert concluded. “With that, I would yield back.”

“As outlined in the resolution, a great portion of the history of the Democratic Party is filled with racism and hatred,” Gohmert said in a statement. “Since people are demanding we rid ourselves of the entities, symbols, and reminders of the repugnant aspects of our past, then the time has come for Democrats to acknowledge their party’s loathsome and bigoted past, and consider changing their party name to something that isn’t so blatantly and offensively tied to slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination, and the Ku Klux Klan.”

“As the country watches violent Leftists burn our cities, tear down our statues and call upon every school, military base and city street to be renamed, it is important to note that past atrocities these radicals claim to be so violently offensive were largely committed by members in good standing of the Democratic Party,” Gohmert continued. “Whether it be supporting the most vile forms of racism or actively working against Civil Rights legislation, Democrats in this country perpetuated these abhorrent forms of discrimination and violence practically since their party’s inception.”

Gohmert concluded, “To avoid triggering innocent bystanders by the racist past of the Democratic Party, I would suggest they change their name. That is the standard to which they are holding everyone else, so the name change needs to occur.”

They Really Mean No Marxism No Peace

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Today looks just like 1966. The founders of the Black Panther Party, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale wrote a 10 point plan that is being played out across the nation today.

Chris King's First Amendment Page: KingCast explains Huey ... Huey Newtoncranes are flying: The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the ... Bobby Seale

Frankly, the FBI Director, Christopher Wray should call back the former agents, mobilize a team and run a counter-intelligence surge for domestic gang/terror sweeps.

Three Key Things PBS Black Panther Documentary Left Out ...

For those that may not remember, here is the old plan.

What We Want Now!

  1. We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community.
  2. We want full employment for our people.
  3. We want an end to the robbery by the capitalists of our black and oppressed communities.
  4. We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.
  5. We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present day society.
  6. We want all Black men to be exempt from military service.
  7. We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of Black people.
  8. We want freedom for all Black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails.
  9. We want all Black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from their Black Communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States.
  10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace.

What We Believe:

  1. We believe that Black People will not be free until we are able to determine our own destiny.
  2. We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every man employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the White American business men will not give full employment, the means of production should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize and employ all of its people and give a high standard of living.
  3. We believe that this racist government has robbed us and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules was promised 100 years ago as redistribution for slave labor and mass murder of Black people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be distributed to our many communities: the Germans are now aiding the Jews in Israel for genocide of the Jewish people. The Germans murdered 6,000,000 Jews. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over 50,000,000 Black people; therefore, we feel that this is a modest demand that we make.
  4. We believe that if the White landlords will not give decent housing to our Black community, then the housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that our community, with government aid, can build and make a decent housing for its people.
  5. We believe in an educational system that will give our people a knowledge of self. If a man does not have knowledge of himself and his position in society and the world, then he has little chance to relate to anything else.
  6. We believe that Black people should not be forced to fight in the military service to defend a racist government that does not protect us. We will not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like Black people, are being victimized by the White racist government of America. We will protect ourselves from the force and violence of the racist police and the racist military, by whatever means necessary.
  7. We believe we can end police brutality in our Black community by organizing Black self-defense groups that are dedicated to defending our Black community from racist police oppression and brutality. The second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States gives us the right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all Black people should arm themselves for self-defense.
  8. We believe that all Black people should be released from the many jails and prisons because they have not received a fair and impartial trial.
  9. We believe that the courts should follow the United States Constitution so that Black people will receive fair trials. The 14th Amendment of the U.S Constitution gives a man a right to be tried by his peers. A peer is a persons from a similar economic, social, religious, geographical, environmental, historical, and racial background. To do this the court will be forced to select a jury from the Black community from which the Black defendant came. We have been, and are being tried by all-white juries that have no understanding of “the average reasoning man” of the Black community.
  10. When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature’s god entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, and that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its power in such a form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accused. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, and their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards of their future security.

In recent days, a rather scandalous matter hit the headlines dealing with the Smithsonian Museum and the National Museum of African American History and Culture shaming Whiteness. The museum has many donors including Oprah Winfrey, one of the largest donors of more than $20 million. Beyond the reverse racism of ‘whiteness’, the museum does have some access to

The Black Panther Party: Challenging Police and Promoting Social Change

showing the work and mission to be all positive. However, per the FBI Vault:

The Black Panther Party (BPP) is a black extremist organization founded in Oakland, California in 1966. It advocated the use of violence and guerilla tactics to overthrow the U.S. government. In 1969, the FBI’s Charlotte Field Office opened an investigative file on the BPP to track its militant activities, income, and expenses. The files are here.

 

A Terrorist Donated $3.3M to the BLM War Chest

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Her name is Susan Rosenberg and President Clinton commuted her prison sentence. Just as bad, Congressman, Jerry Nadler (D-NY) was a good friend of Rosenberg and worked diligently to get her released from prison. Rosenberg was part of the May 19th Communist Organization and proud of the bombings.

In the 1980s, a Far-Left, Female-Led Domestic Terrorism Group ...Smithsonian

M19CO), was a US-based revolutionary organization formed by members of the Weather Underground Organization. The group was originally known as the New York chapter of the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee.

Rudy Giuliani and Andy McCarthy prosecuted her.

Now we need to continue to ask where is Obama’s old friend Bill Ayers. Why you ask?

Hold on tight, here we go.

Susan Rosenberg is a convicted domestic terrorist and radical left activist whose youth was spent protesting the Vietnam War and racism in America. A member of the Weather Underground and other radical organizations which used violence as a tool for political change, Rosenberg was sentenced to 58 years in federal prison after being arrested for possession of explosives and weapons during the planning of a number of bombing operations. [1] She was also a suspect in a 1981 armored car robbery which left one guard and two officers dead. She was released in 2001 when then-President Bill Clinton commuted her sentence. [2]

The commutation led to bipartisan criticism from Republican New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as well as police officials. [3] Rosenberg continued her radical activism through the publication of her 2011 book, An American Radical, and as the Vice-Chair of the fiscal sponsor group Thousand Currents. [4] [5] She also spent 12 years working for the left-of-center social activism group American Jewish World Service and co-founded the anti-prison group National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls. [6]

From 2016 to 2020, Thousand Currents became one of America’s most influential racial and social change organizations because it is Black Lives Matter Global Network’s fiscal sponsor. [7] As the group’s fiscal sponsor, Thousand Currents handles Black Lives Matter’s administrative and back-end work so the racial group can focus on its activism, protests, and riots. [8] As of June 24, 2020, Thousand Currents had deleted from its website the Board of Directors information listing Rosenberg’s biography. [9]
Early Life

In an excerpt from her 2011 book, An American Radical, Rosenberg describes being raised by civil rights advocates. Her father ran a dental practice which focused on helping “Spanish Harlem” residents, and her mother helped struggling artists get on their feet. Both of her parents opposed America’s Cold War-era nuclear build-up, the Vietnam War, and racial inequality in the mid-20th century. [10]

As a child, Rosenberg participated in anti-war demonstrations in New York and, at 15 years old, went to Washington, D.C. with her school to oppose the Vietnam War. She describes seeing police strike and arrest protesters who “raised a North Vietnamese flag on the Justice Department building,” and release tear gas. After the protest, she joined her school’s anti-war group and helped organize activism against the war. [11] Rosenberg’s description of the protest does not include mention of the rioting and property damage caused by activists who put the flag on the Department of Justice roof. This damage was cited by Dr. Wayne Thompson in his 2000 book, To Hanoi and Back, which is included in a number of official federal agencies’ historical records. [12]

Rosenberg’s high school group was part of the national Students for a Democratic Society. The group splintered due to factional interests, and at least one faction’s leadership led to the creation of the terrorist group Weather Underground. [13]

After college, Rosenberg worked as an anti-drug counselor and continued to be involved in anti-war and anti-racism movements. [14]
Political Activism & Terrorism

Rosenberg joined the Weather Underground and other radical, radical left groups which used bombings and other terrorist attacks to protest the Vietnam War and police brutality against minorities. The Underground was founded to overthrow the U.S. government through violent means, though its attacks on police and military resulted in no known deaths. [15]

She also helped found the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee, a radical group which looked to anti-slavery revolutionary John Brown for inspiration to oppose the Klu Klux Klan in the late 1970s and early 1980s. [16] [17] The Committee and Klu Klux Klan members took their conflicting activism to extreme levels, including violence against each other’s membership. [18] [19]

Rosenberg’s terrorism reached a peak when she and other radicals led the May 19th Communist Organization (M19CO). The nation’s only female-led Communist terror group, it helped break a convicted cop killer out of prison in 1979 and organized a number of bombings around the country. The group also participated in a Rockland County, New York, armored car robbery which left a guard and two police officers dead. Rosenberg’s 1984 arrest was one of several arrests over a six-month period which led to the Organization’s collapse. [20]
Brink’s Robbery

On October 20, 1981, Rosenberg’s May 19th Communist Organization and members of the Black Liberation Army carried out a robbery attack against a Brink’s armored car in Nanuet, New York. [21] According to CIA documents, this criminal coalition, known as “The Family,” was organized by Mutulu Shakur, stepfather of the late hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur. [22]

While Rosenberg maintained her innocence in the Brink’s robbery, a report by the New York State Criminal Justice Institute placed Rosenberg at the Mount Vernon safe-house that served as a staging location for the assault. [23] The $1.6 million stolen in the raid was intended to be used to fund the “New Afrika Movement.” [24]
Conviction and Parole Request

Rosenberg managed to evade arrest for three years following the Brink’s robbery. During this time, MC19CO orchestrated a series of bombings against federal government targets, including a blast detonated outside the Senate Chamber of the United States Capitol Building. [25]

Law enforcement caught up to her in November 1984 after she used stolen identification to rent a storage unit to stash away guns and bomb-making materials. The suspicious facility manager called police who noticed Rosenberg was wearing a disguise as she and an accomplice were unloading the supplies. They were both arrested and investigators found more than 700 pounds of explosives, along with multiple firearms and thousands of false ID cards.

Rosenberg was convicted on federal explosives and firearms charges and sentenced to 58 years in prison, the longest conviction for such charges in American history. [26] [27]

Future New York City mayor and President Donald Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, at the time a U.S. District Attorney, led Rosenberg’s prosecution. Though she was indicted for planning and driving in the Rockland County case, Giuliani declined to purse prosecution because of the long sentence Rosenberg received on the other charges. [28] [29] Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, who convinced a federal judge to oppose Rosenberg’s request for parole in 1999, wrote that Giuliani also didn’t want to put the public and robbery victims through a second trial. [30]

Rosenberg’s attorneys sought parole on the basis that Rosenberg had been a model prisoner and had rejected her previous terrorist activities and beliefs. [31] They also argued that her sentence was extreme compared to the charges upon which she was convicted, and that McCarthy’s use of the robbery to argue against parole was invalid because Giuliani had dismissed the charges. [32] McCarthy maintained that it was Rosenberg’s radical declarations during her trial and her regret that “she hadn’t had the courage to shoot it out with police” when she was arrested that led to the lengthy sentence. He also argued that the robbery rightly played a role in the parole rejection because “it has long been the law that sentencing courts and the Parole Commission may take into account any conduct, even if the defendant has been acquitted — which Rosenberg, of course, had not been.” [33]
Commutation

See also: “Other Controversies” section of the Bill Clinton profile.

After Rosenberg’s parole request was denied, President Bill Clinton commuted her sentence on his last day in office. She was one of 176 people protected by Clinton that day, including indicted fugitive March Rich and former Clinton Whitewater associate Susan McDougal. McDougal was convicted of bank fraud in the Clinton Whitewater scandal investigation. [34] Clinton also commuted the 40-year sentence of Rosenberg co-conspirator Linda Sue Evans. [35] Evans was imprisoned for 11 counts of false identification used to purchase firearms and for harboring a fugitive related to the armored car murders. [36] She was also convicted in 1990 for participating in a number of terrorist bombings, including at the U.S. Capitol Building. [37]

Rosenberg’s commutation brought bipartisan condemnation from Giuliani, Schumer, and at least two police officials. Officials cited by The New York Times at the time of the commutation included then-New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik, who had escorted Rosenberg to and from her trial, and Rockland County union police official David Trois. Trois said he believed Rosenberg participated in the armored car robbery, a claim she denied. [38] Kerik said the commutation “sickened” him. [39]

The New York Times published an editorial criticizing Clinton’s pardons on his last day in office, including the ones for Rosenberg and Evans. [40]

In an interview three days after her “executive clemency,” Rosenberg said in an interview with leftist political group Democracy Now that “the whole issue with my case was a question of due process…” She called Clinton’s action “an important statement…” Her attorney said that Rosenberg desired to go to trial over the armored car robbery to prove innocence, but Giuliani and his office declined to do so. “…[T]heir evidence was flimsy at best,” said the attorney. [41]

During a 2008 Democratic presidential primary debate, then-candidate Barack Obama criticized President Clinton’s decision to grant Rosenberg clemency. [42]
Commutation Actors

Rosenberg’s commutation included a number of key players, such as:

Jerrold Nadler

In 1993, at the request of her mother and rabbi, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D—NY) reached out to the Bureau of Prisons on Rosenberg’s behalf for permission to visit her dying father. [43] Nadler continued to advocate for Rosenberg leveraging his connections within the Clinton White House. [44]

Nadler also signed a letter in 2019 asking the New York State Board of Parole to release Judith Clark, another member of MC19CO convicted for her role as the getaway driver in the Brink’s robbery. [45]

In 2011, Nadler told the far-left anti-war publication TruthOut that he criticized “the head of the Bureau of Prisons,” who opposed letting Rosenberg visit her father for security reasons. According to Nadler, he was told that Rosenberg was “still in contact with some of her terrorist friends from the outside” and that the Bureau of Prisons was concerned that her armed entourage would be targeted by those associates. Nadler said his first response to the concern was, “So?” Later, he said he pressured the Bureau into keeping the visit secret and still provide armed security, as had been done when transferring Rosenberg to several prisons. [46]

Howard Gutman

Attorney Howard Gutman of the prestigious Williams & Connelly law firm represented Rosenberg in her efforts to gain executive clemency. The Williams & Connelly firm also led President Bill Clinton’s impeachment defense. [47] Gutman, who later raised $500,000 for President Barack Obama’s White House campaign, became the United States Ambassador to Belgium in 2009. [48] [49]

60 Minutes Producers

Rosenberg was interviewed by “60 Minutes” in 2000, where she claimed to be “really afraid” of “the government” after the Brink’s robbery. While she maintained her innocence in that crime during the interview, she also portrayed herself as distrusting the government instead of engaging in terrorist bombings with M19C0. [50] While there is no direct causational relationship between the interview and the commutation, they took place within three months of each other. [51]
Post-Commutation

Left-of-center groups like the PEN American Center have praised Rosenberg for her HIV/Aids advocacy while in prison. [52]

Immediately following her release, Rosenberg became the Communications Director at the left-of-center American Jewish World Service organization, a position she held for nearly 12 years. [53] [54] AJWS is an advocacy, grant, and issue-oriented organization which promotes both human rights like freedom from sex slavery as well as left-of-center social change priorities like greater access to abortion and advocacy for transgenderism. [55]

Rosenberg co-founded the anti-prison group National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls. [56] The organization advocates for fewer women and girls in prison and for a change in America’s prison system from punishment to criminal reform efforts. [57]

Rosenberg has taught as an adjunct professor at the City University of New York and Hunter College. [58] In 2004, she was offered a teaching position at Hamilton College that was pulled after protests by faculty and students. [59] Rosenberg has widely lectured on prominent college campuses about her prison experience and her political views. [60]
Thousand Currents

Formerly known as the International Development Exchange (IDEX), Thousand Currents is a left-of-center grantmaking organization. [61] As of June 16, 2020, Rosenberg sat on the Thousand Currents Board of Directors serving as Vice Chair. However, the organization subsequently deleted the Board of Directors information listing Rosenberg’s biography from its website. [62]

While still known as IDEX in 2016, Thousand Currents began a sponsorship of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. [63] In 2019, financial documents showed the group held over $3.3 million in assets earmarked for BLM. [64] As of June 24, 2020, access to financial information had been deleted from the organization’s website. [65] [66]

With assistance from Thousand Currents, the Black Lives Matter Global Foundation established a $12 million fund in the months following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. [67] Thousand Currents claims support for BLM’s mission “to eradicate White supremacy and build power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes through its educational and charitable activities.” [68]

 

Monuments are Silent Teachers

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The Left shames everyone by stating they ‘celebrate’ the monuments of those that supported slavery and committed treason. Then the only faction that gets to vote for removal are the misguided politicians, Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA. No one else is allowed to be part of the discussion. So, President Trump announced a solution in an Executive Order that few even know about or that the media even bothered to read much less report.

National Park Service | U.S. Department of the Interior

No nation has a perfect history and yet who was assigned then and now to pass judgment on the good and evil of history? There should be no judgement, there should only be lessons.

Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) gets it right.

Image may contain: text  Image may contain: text

You have a chance for some real input on this debate thanks to President Trump.

Executive Order on Building and Rebuilding Monuments to American Heroes

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 Washington, a “monument of affection and gratitude” to a man who “unit[ed] to the endowment[s] of the Hero the virtues of the Patriot” and gave to the world “an Immortal Example of true Glory.”  I Res. H. Del. (June 24, 1784).  In our public parks and plazas, we have erected statues of great Americans who, through acts of wisdom and daring, built and preserved for us a republic of ordered liberty.

These statues are silent teachers in solid form of stone and metal.  They preserve the memory of our American story and stir in us a spirit of responsibility for the chapters yet unwritten.  These works of art call forth gratitude for the accomplishments and sacrifices of our exceptional fellow citizens who, despite their flaws, placed their virtues, their talents, and their lives in the service of our Nation.  These monuments express our noblest ideals:  respect for our ancestors, love of freedom, and striving for a more perfect union.  They are works of beauty, created as enduring tributes.  In preserving them, we show reverence for our past, we dignify our present, and we inspire those who are to come.  To build a monument is to ratify our shared national project.

To destroy a monument is to desecrate our common inheritance.  In recent weeks, in the midst of protests across America, many monuments have been vandalized or destroyed.  Some local governments have responded by taking their monuments down.  Among others, monuments to Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Francis Scott Key, Ulysses S. Grant, leaders of the abolitionist movement, the first all-volunteer African-American regiment of the Union Army in the Civil War, and American soldiers killed in the First and Second World Wars have been vandalized, destroyed, or removed.

These statues are not ours alone, to be discarded at the whim of those inflamed by fashionable political passions; they belong to generations that have come before us and to generations yet unborn.  My Administration will not abide an assault on our collective national memory.  In the face of such acts of destruction, it is our responsibility as Americans to stand strong against this violence, and to peacefully transmit our great national story to future generations through newly commissioned monuments to American heroes.

Sec. 2.  Task Force for Building and Rebuilding Monuments to American Heroes.  (a)  There is hereby established the Interagency Task Force for Building and Rebuilding Monuments to American Heroes (Task Force).  The Task Force shall be chaired by the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary), and shall include the following additional members:

(i)    the Administrator of General Services (Administrator);

(ii)   the Chairperson of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA);

(iii)  the Chairperson of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH);

(iv)   the Chairman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP); and

(v)    any officers or employees of any executive department or agency (agency) designated by the President or the Secretary.

(b)  The Department of the Interior shall provide funding and administrative support as may be necessary for the performance and functions of the Task Force.  The Secretary shall designate an official of the Department of the Interior to serve as the Executive Director of the Task Force, responsible for coordinating its day-to-day activities.

(c)  The Chairpersons of the NEA and NEH and the Chairman of the ACHP shall establish cross-department initiatives within the NEA, NEH, and ACHP, respectively, to advance the purposes of the Task Force and this order and to coordinate relevant agency operations with the Task Force.

Sec. 3.  National Garden of American Heroes.  (a)  It shall be the policy of the United States to establish a statuary park named the National Garden of American Heroes (National Garden).

(b)  Within 60 days of the date of this order, the Task Force shall submit a report to the President through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy that proposes options for the creation of the National Garden, including potential locations for the site.  In identifying options, the Task Force shall:

(i)    strive to open the National Garden expeditiously;

(ii)   evaluate the feasibility of creating the National Garden through a variety of potential avenues, including existing agency authorities and appropriations; and

(iii)  consider the availability of authority to encourage and accept the donation or loan of statues by States, localities, civic organizations, businesses, religious organizations, and individuals, for display at the National Garden.

(c)  In addition to the requirements of subsection 3(b) of this order, the proposed options for the National Garden should adhere to the criteria described in subsections (c)(i) through (c)(vi) of this section.

(i)    The National Garden should be composed of statues, including statues of John Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton, Daniel Boone, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Henry Clay, Davy Crockett, Frederick Douglass, Amelia Earhart, Benjamin Franklin, Billy Graham, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Douglas MacArthur, Dolley Madison, James Madison, Christa McAuliffe, Audie Murphy, George S. Patton, Jr., Ronald Reagan, Jackie Robinson, Betsy Ross, Antonin Scalia, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington, George Washington, and Orville and Wilbur Wright.

(ii)   The National Garden should be opened for public access prior to the 250th anniversary of the proclamation of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 2026.

(iii)  Statues should depict historically significant Americans, as that term is defined in section 7 of this order, who have contributed positively to America throughout our history.  Examples include:  the Founding Fathers, those who fought for the abolition of slavery or participated in the underground railroad, heroes of the United States Armed Forces, recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor or Presidential Medal of Freedom, scientists and inventors, entrepreneurs, civil rights leaders, missionaries and religious leaders, pioneers and explorers, police officers and firefighters killed or injured in the line of duty, labor leaders, advocates for the poor and disadvantaged, opponents of national socialism or international socialism, former Presidents of the United States and other elected officials, judges and justices, astronauts, authors, intellectuals, artists, and teachers.  None will have lived perfect lives, but all will be worth honoring, remembering, and studying.

(iv)   All statues in the National Garden should be lifelike or realistic representations of the persons they depict, not abstract or modernist representations.

(v)    The National Garden should be located on a site of natural beauty that enables visitors to enjoy nature, walk among the statues, and be inspired to learn about great figures of America’s history.  The site should be proximate to at least one major population center, and the site should not cause significant disruption to the local community.

(vi)   As part of its civic education mission, the National Garden should also separately maintain a collection of statues for temporary display at appropriate sites around the United States that are accessible to the general public.

Sec. 4.  Commissioning of New Statues and Works of Art.  (a)  The Task Force shall examine the appropriations authority of the agencies represented on it in light of the purpose and policy of this order.  Based on its examination of relevant authorities, the Task Force shall make recommendations for the use of these agencies’ appropriations.

(b)  To the extent appropriate and consistent with applicable law and the other provisions of this order, Task Force agencies that are authorized to provide for the commissioning of statues or monuments shall, in expending funds, give priority to projects involving the commissioning of publicly accessible statues of persons meeting the criteria described in section 3(b)(iii) of this order, with particular preference for statues of the Founding Fathers, former Presidents of the United States, leading abolitionists, and individuals involved in the discovery of America.

(c)  To the extent appropriate and consistent with applicable law, these agencies shall prioritize projects that will result in the installation of a statue as described in subsection (b) of this section in a community where a statue depicting a historically significant American was removed or destroyed in conjunction with the events described in section 1 of this order.

(d)  After consulting with the Task Force, the Administrator of General Services shall promptly revise and thereafter operate the General Service Administration’s (GSA’s) Art in Architecture (AIA) Policies and Procedures, GSA Acquisition Letter V-10-01, and Part 102-77 of title 41, Code of Federal Regulations, to prioritize the commission of works of art that portray historically significant Americans or events of American historical significance or illustrate the ideals upon which our Nation was founded.  Priority should be given to public-facing monuments to former Presidents of the United States and to individuals and events relating to the discovery of America, the founding of the United States, and the abolition of slavery.  Such works of art should be designed to be appreciated by the general public and by those who use and interact with Federal buildings.  Priority should be given to this policy above other policies contained in part 102-77 of title 41, Code of Federal Regulations, and revisions made pursuant to this subsection shall be made to supersede any regulatory provisions of AIA that may conflict with or otherwise impede advancing the purposes of this subsection.

(e)  When a statue or work of art commissioned pursuant to this section is meant to depict a historically significant American, the statue or work of art shall be a lifelike or realistic representation of that person, not an abstract or modernist representation.

Sec. 5.  Educational Programming.  The Chairperson of the NEH shall prioritize the allocation of funding to programs and projects that educate Americans about the founding documents and founding ideals of the United States, as appropriate and to the extent consistent with applicable law, including section 956 of title 20, United States Code.  The founding documents include the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers.  The founding ideals include equality under the law, respect for inalienable individual rights, and representative self-government.  Within 90 days of the conclusion of each Fiscal Year from 2021 through 2026, the Chairperson shall submit a report to the President through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy that identifies funding allocated to programs and projects pursuant to this section.

Sec. 6.  Protection of National Garden and Statues Commissioned Pursuant to this Order.  The Attorney General shall apply section 3 of Executive Order 13933 of June 26, 2020 (Protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues and Combating Recent Criminal Violence), with respect to violations of Federal law regarding the National Garden and all statues commissioned pursuant to this order.

Sec. 7.  Definition.  The term “historically significant American” means an individual who was, or became, an American citizen and was a public figure who made substantive contributions to America’s public life or otherwise had a substantive effect on America’s history.  The phrase also includes public figures such as Christopher Columbus, Junipero Serra, and the Marquis de La Fayette, who lived prior to or during the American Revolution and were not American citizens, but who made substantive historical contributions to the discovery, development, or independence of the future United States.

Sec. 8.  General Provisions.  (a)  Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i)   the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii)  the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b)  This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c)  This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

DONALD J. TRUMP

THE WHITE HOUSE,
July 3, 2020.