Tucker Carlson: Don’t destroy America’s history and shared heritage

On Wednesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., added language to the annual defense funding bill. Warren’s amendment would order the Pentagon to rename all military bases currently named for Confederate Civil War generals.

The bases include many of the most famous in America. Among them: Fort Benning in Georgia, Fort Hood in Texas and Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Many of the men who fought and won World War II were trained at these bases.

But Warren’s amendment goes farther than that. Warren would require the desecration of war graves. This country is filled with national cemeteries that honor Americans who fought and died in our wars. Many of those cemeteries hold Civil War soldiers from both sides and contain monuments to their sacrifice.

Those Civil War soldiers, blue and gray, are buried alongside one another for a reason. One side was right, one side was wrong. But when it was over, they were all Americans. Allowing them to lie in the same cemeteries allowed this country to heal its deepest fissure.

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Healing is the opposite of what Elizabeth Warren wants to do now. She has no time for that. Warren profits from hatred and division, no matter how mindless. How many dead Confederate soldiers owned slaves or even supported slavery? Warren doesn’t know. She doesn’t care.

The Massachusetts Democrat wants to humiliate these soldiers more than 150 years after they died, and humiliate their descendants now. In Arlington National Cemetery just outside Washington, there is a memorial to Confederate troops. Warren’s amendment orders the Army to destroy it.

This is vandalism. But it’s worse than that. Healthy societies do not destroy own their history. A country is the sum total of its history, good and bad. Without it, you have no country, just a collection of banks and retail outlets.

This is obvious, but somehow it’s not obvious to Senate Republicans. They support Warren’s amendment. It easily emerged from the bipartisan Senate Armed Services Committee. If President Trump doesn’t veto it, Warren’s desecration order will become law.

Republicans assume that if that happens, it will be enough. The destroyers will be placated, and the GOP can return to its preferred agenda of carrying water for finance. They’re wrong.

Extremists are never placated. Each success makes them stronger and more radical. That’s why, around the country, they aren’t waiting for a vote. They watched rioters loot and burn without being punished. They took the cue. Now, they’re destroying history around the country.

In Richmond, they ripped a statue of Christopher Columbus from its pedestal and threw it in a lake. In Philadelphia, they vandalized a statue of industrialist Matthias Baldwin. Why? It wasn’t for civil rights. Matthias Baldwin was such a zealous abolitionist that, prior to the Civil War, Southern railroads refused to purchase his engines.

Doesn’t matter. The Baldwin statue was old. So they wrecked it. Dozens of other monuments have suffered the same fate, often with the encouragement of our professional class.

Extremists are never placated. Each success makes them stronger and more radical.

Erin Thompson is a professor of “art crime” at New York City’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Her expertise is “the damage done to humanity’s shared heritage through looting, theft, and the deliberate destruction of art.”

Yet Thompson is, in fact, an enthusiastic supporter of destroying our shared heritage. “Use chain instead of rope and it’ll go faster,” she instructed on Twitter Wednesday night, before sharing even more tips for effectively destroying statues.

Nowhere does anyone in authority seem interested in protecting our history and public spaces from nihilists like this.

The Richmond Police Memorial in Virginia commemorates the sacrifice of officers killed in the line of duty. You’d think we’d defend it. But no. The other day, a mob defaced the memorial. Authorities did nothing.

What are our leaders telling us by their negligence? It’s a clear message: we don’t care about you: your history, your monuments, your rights, your safety. Meanwhile, forces of hate and repression seek to destroy all of these things.

As far back as three years ago, CNN employees were calling for the destruction of the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial.

How many lives will be saved by destroying the Jefferson Memorial? How many are saved by desecrating war graves? None, of course. This is about political power, achieved by the oldest means of all: force.

This is an attempt to delegitimize you and the society you live in. You think you live in a country with freedom of speech, freedom of religion, equality under the law? Well, tough luck. The documents celebrating those rights were written by bigots. We tore their statues down. Now we’re in charge.

Is this popular? Is this what the American people want? No.

Even now, only 32 percent of Americans want Civil War statuary torn down. How about desecrating war graves? There isn’t polling on the subject, but it’s hard to believe there is a groundswell of support.

All this is happening because a violent mob is forcing its agenda down the throat of the country. Our leaders – very much including Republican leaders – are too cowardly to resist them.

When asked about the bill to desecrate national cemeteries, one congressional Republican told journalist Ryan Girdusky that “this isn’t the hill to die on.” OK. Where is that hill exactly? What won’t you let them do to the country? Let us know when you find it.

To be clear: This isn’t a matter of defending the Southern Confederacy. Few Americans would do that. We certainly wouldn’t. The Confederacy declared war on the United States. We’re grateful they lost, and that their cause was discredited forever, which it was.

But that’s the point. The Civil War was the turning point in American history. It shaped who we are now. Eliminating the past leaves us unable to say who we are. And that, of course, is exactly the point. It’s why they’re doing it.

Adapted from Tucker Carlson's monologue on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on June 12, 2020.

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Destroying American History Cartoons

Pence hits Pennsylvania to talk comeback at challenging time

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s time to spread the good news. That’s the difficult job Vice President Mike Pence undertook Friday as the Trump administration works to make voters feel better about the direction of the country amid a coronavirus pandemic and racial unrest.

Pence traveled Friday to Pennsylvania, an important swing state with 20 electoral votes that will be bitterly contested. He began with a listening session with faith and community leaders to hear their concerns following the death of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. He later talked up the economy at a manufacturing plant.

Pence stressed the same points that President Donald Trump has made, but with a bit more realism. While Trump told those in Dallas on Thursday that bringing Americans together will “go quickly” and “very easily,” Pence spoke in Pittsburgh about finding opportunities “in the long term” to address what he described as some historic inequities.

Pence’s visit comes at a time when polls suggest that a growing percentage of Americans view the the country as heading in the wrong direction. The president’s prospects for reelection rely greatly on turning that trend around. Trump seized on a better-than-expected jobs report released last week, and his campaign quickly made an ad proclaiming “the great American comeback has begun.”

But he can’t just focus on the economy. The administration also must address the concerns raised by the recent killings of Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmad Aubery.

Pence’s trip to Pennsylvania was part of what is described as the “Great American Comeback Tour.” The visit was organized by America First Policies, a nonprofit associated with the America First Action super PAC supporting Trump’s reelection.

Joe Biden’s Democratic presidential campaign called it a “cynically-titled” tour.

“This is not a time for victory laps,” said Biden campaign manager Kate Bedingfield. “The pandemic continues to claim nearly a thousand American lives every day and unemployment in our nation remains at Depression-era levels.”

For Pence, visiting with ministers is friendly territory. While criticism of Black Lives Matter is out, criticism of Planned Parenthood is in as the conversation can quickly turn to the issue of abortion, as it did a few times Friday. Still, the participants voiced their frustrations with Pence in a way that was not visible when Trump met with black supporters at the White House earlier this week.

“I’m tired. I am mentally, physically and spiritually tired,” said Ross Owens, a local pastor who said he grew up in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Pittsburgh. “I’m tired that people still do not acknowledge that systemic racism is real, and they ignore the billions of voices that exists, and they say, ‘No, that’s not true,’ because of the comfort of their own bubble.”

“I can tell you that I have three sons who have been stopped collectively at least a dozen times by the police, even some black police in the city of Pittsburgh,” said Cheryl Allen, a former judge on the Superior Court of Pennsylvania. “It’s a mindset that if you are a young black man driving a nice car, you must either be a drug dealer or you stole the car.”

She said her children were never charged and noted that when police learned who owned the car, that tended to be “the end of the story.”

“But that’s not the case for most people,” Allen said.

Pence told the group that “this is just about the best hour I’ve had in a long time” and called it “real.”

In the afternoon, Pence turned to the economy with a speech at Oberg Industries in Sarver, a town about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of Pittsburgh.

Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate stood at 15.1% in April as companies closed to slow the spread of the coronavirus. It was at 5.7% when Trump was elected. Hiring did rebound in May after two grueling months of job losses. But those gains appear to reflect temporarily laid-off employees returning to work and increases in people with part-time jobs rather than an economy at full throttle.

Pence chose to place his emphasis on the number of jobs created in May rather than those lost the previous two months. He noted that May’s gain of 2.5 million jobs was a record and that economists had been expecting companies to slash 8 million jobs.

“We’re very confident that it’s just the beginning, and this American comeback has just begun,” Pence said.

During his stop in Pittsburgh, Pence spoke with CBS News about the president’s controversial walk earlier this month from the White House to nearby St. John’s Church, a path that was cleared for him by law enforcement officials who deployed tear gas and flash bang devices against peaceful protesters demonstrating against police brutality and racism.

Pence told CBS that he was encouraged to stay behind at the White House “out of an abundance of caution” but that he would have been happy to walk shoulder to shoulder” with the president, who stood outside the fire-damaged church and held up a Bible in front of the news media.

Trump delays Tulsa rally until June 20 over ‘Juneteenth’ concerns

President Trump announced on Twitter late Friday that his planned rally in Tulsa, Okla., will be held one night later than originally scheduled.
The president was scheduled to speak in Tulsa next Friday, June 19, but now he will hold the rally Saturday, June 20, instead.
The reason: June 19 is the date of “Juneteenth,” a holiday that commemorates the date in 1865 that President Lincoln’s order to free American slaves reached Galveston, Texas.
“We had previously scheduled our #MAGA Rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for June 19th – a big deal. Unfortunately, however, this would fall on the Juneteenth Holiday,” the president wrote late Friday, shortly before midnight.
“Many of my African American friends and supporters have reached out to suggest that we consider changing the date out of respect for this Holiday, and in observance of this important occasion and all that it represents. I have therefore decided to move our rally to Saturday, June 20th, in order to honor their requests.”
The president added that White House officials had received more than 200,000 requests for the event – far exceeding the capacity of the venue where it will be held.
Earlier Friday, during an exclusive interview with Fox News’ Harris Faulkner on “Outnumbered Overtime,” Trump said the originally planned June 19 rally should have been viewed as a “celebration” of Juneteenth rather than a scheduling conflict.
“We’re going to Oklahoma,” Trump said during the interview in Dallas, “and if you think about it relative to your question, think about it as a celebration, don’t think about it as an inconvenience. Think about this as a celebration.”
“The fact that I’m having a rally on that day, you can really think about that very positively as a celebration because a rally to me is a celebration,” the president continued. “It’s going to be really a celebration and it’s an interesting date, it wasn’t done for that reason, but it’s an interesting date, but it’s a celebration.”
Trump also received criticism for selecting Tulsa for the rally because the city was the site of a 1921 massacre of black residents and the destruction of black-owned businesses.
Some Democrats accused the president of deliberately selecting June 19 and Tulsa for his rally in order to antagonize African-Americans amid the George Floyd protests. But the president insisted Friday that that wasn’t the case.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany repeated that assertion to reporters in Washington.
“The African-American community is very near and dear to his heart,” McEnany said.
Fox News’ Ronn Blitzer contributed to this story.

Trump’s West Point appearance will include coronavirus precautions

President Trump is scheduled to deliver the commencement address Saturday at the U.S. Military Academy – and it’s expected to be unlike any commencement held in recent memory at West Point, N.Y.
That’s because numerous precautions are being made to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
For one thing, the event won’t be held at 38,000-seat Michie Stadium, where the academy’s football team plays. Instead, it will be held on the Parade Field, an open area surrounded by statues of legendary U.S. Army generals, such as Washington, Eisenhower, MacArthur and Patton.
For another, family members of the cadets will be watching via livestream. They won’t be there in person to watch their loved ones graduate.

President Donald Trump walks onto the field ahead of an NCAA college football game between Army and Navy, Saturday, Dec. 14, 2019, in Philadelphia. (Associated Press)

“This is a real unique year. It really is,” Sherman Fleek, the West Point Command historian, told lohud.com. “I've already been asked, ‘Is this the most unusual year for disruption and events?’ And I said, ‘Fifty years from now, they'll make a determination. You just can't say this is it.’”
The 1,100 cadets in attendance also will be seated six feet apart, in keeping with medical officials’ advice regarding social distancing. There will also be no handshaking, lohud.com reported.
And the swearing-in of the cadets as second lieutenants – which normally occurs after the ceremony – has instead already happened, on May 23 via computer, the outlet reported.
After some initial concern that the event might be canceled because of the virus, academy officials announced in April that they would proceed “after careful consideration of the steps the Army can take to mitigate risk,” Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said at the time.
When President Trump initially disclosed his plans to speak at West Point, the date was set for May 23 but was subsequently changed to Saturday amid the disruptions caused by the coronavirus.
The president expressed some disappointment at the time that the ceremony would be altered from previous years.
“They’ll have some big distance, so it will be very different than it ever looked,” the president said, according to The Hill. “Do I like the look? No, I don’t. And eventually, next year, they’ll have a commencement like it’s been.”
This will be Trump’s first commencement address at West Point, joining a long list of presidents including Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, John Kennedy, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Taft was secretary of war at the time of his speech; Eisenhower also spoke there while chief of staff; and George H.W. Bush previously spoke there twice as vice president.
Vice President Mike Pence spoke at West Point last spring.

Dispatch from 'CHAZ': Tweets call for guns, Gatorade and cigarettes as cops struggle to figure out who's in charge

Activists and police have clashing views regarding the activities going on inside the so-called "CHAZ," a six-block area of Seattle that has been taken over by protesters — and authorities are still scratching their heads as to who is actually running the rabble.
Photos of demonstrations inside the zone, which includes a now-shuttered police precinct, seem to paint a rosy picture: outdoor movies, music performances, sidewalk artwork and more.
"There's that stuff, but then there's the darker side of things too," one law enforcement official told Fox News.
One CHAZ supporter, identified as Armani on Twitter, encouraged protesters to "buy guns."
Police have repeatedly said they have "heard, anecdotally, reports of citizens and businesses being asked to pay a fee to operate within this area" while others have complained about armed guards asking to see identification for people to enter their homes, according to Assistant Chief of Police Deanna Nollette.
Police have also said their response time to 911 calls has tripled over the last few days because they are unable to access the downtown region and are being blocked out by protesters.

A volunteer works security at an entrance to the so-called "Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone" on June 10, 2020 in Seattle, Washington.  (Getty)

A possible leader behind the movement is Kshama Sawant, a Seattle City Council member who helped let hundreds of demonstrators into City Hall earlier this week in a late-night protest calling for Mayor Jenny Durkan to resign.
Sawant has encouraged protesters to hold out on giving back the precinct to police or allowing officers inside the barricaded region.
"The process for deciding East Precinct conversion must include those involved in CHAZ, black community organizations, restorative justice, faith, anti-racist, renter orgns, land trusts, groups, labor unions that have a proven record of fighting racism," Sawant wrote in a post on Twitter.
"Our movement needs to urgently ensure East Precinct is not handed back to police, but is turned over permanently into community control," she wrote.
Meanwhile, posts circulating on Twitter encourage those inside CHAZ to contact their friends and encourage them to fight back against police reclaiming their precinct.
"Yall better be hitting up every single one of your "f-----g" friends right now so they can witness this," one demonstrator said. "This is not what we fought for. They need to get out."
Businesses situated inside CHAZ, including dozens of restaurants and bars, have put out free food, medical supplies, masks and other necessities to help sustain protesters, according to reports by King 5.
The area has also started a garbage-collection program, according to reports by Insider.
Other local reports state that CHAZ has also started planting a garden.
One agitator group on Twitter posting photos inside CHAZ showed a list of items needed by demonstrators including cigarettes, tents and bedding.
Despite President Trump vowing to straighten the situation out if the local government didn't take care of it, it would appear these protesters are preparing for an extended stay.