bridging the gap
How Do You Catch a Fish? It Opens It's Mouth
In what happens to be the most ridiculous thing I have seen in politics since President Obama received the Noble Peace Prize, the irresponsibility demonstrated by Governor Larry Hogan in promoting and supporting the hoax perpetrated by Red Maryland is where I have to draw the line. Look, you might not think it is a big deal, but I do and you should too because we deserve better from both our elected leaders and the media. One of the things conservatives are pushing back against are the lies being fed to the people by the liberal media. When conservative media outlets contribute to publishing fake news, it makes that job harder. The Maryland Flag controversy started by Red Maryland is precisely what I am talking about and here's my deal with it.
It All Begins in Virginia.
On May 21, 1924, the City of Charlottesville, Virginia dedicated a bronze equestrian statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and his horse Traveller in a location named Emancipation Park. In an open-air press conference beside the Robert E. Lee statue in March of 2016, Charlottesville, Virginia's vice mayor called on the Charlottesville City Council to remove the statue and rename the location Lee Park.
In April 2016, the City Council decided to appoint a special commission, named the Blue-Ribbon Commission on Race Monuments and Public Spaces, to recommend to city officials how to best handle issues surrounding statues of General Thomas Jonathan Jackson in Court Square and General Robert E. Lee in Lee Park, as well as other landmarks and monuments. Early in November 2016, the Blue-Ribbon Commission voted 6–3 to let both statues remain in place. On November 28, 2016, it voted 7–2 to remove the Lee statue to McIntire Park in Charlottesville and 8–1 to keep the Stonewall Jackson statue in place, delivering a final report with that recommendation to Charlottesville City Council in December.
On February 6, 2017, Charlottesville's five-member City Council voted three votes to two to remove the General Lee statue and, unanimously, to rename Emancipation Park as Lee Park. In response, a lawsuit was filed on March 20 by numerous plaintiffs, including the Monument Fund Inc, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and descendants of the statue's donor and sculptor, to block the removal of the Lee statue and another of Stonewall Jackson that the city also plans to remove. The lawsuit sought a temporary injunction to halt the removal, arguing that Charlottesville City Council's decision violated a state law designed to protect American Civil War monuments and memorials of the War Between the States, and that the council had additionally violated the terms of the gift to Charlottesville of the statue and the land for Lee Park. The city responded by asking that the temporary injunction be denied, arguing that the two statues were not erected to commemorate the Civil War and therefore the Virginia statute protecting war monuments did not apply.
In April 2017, the City Council voted three to two that the statue be removed completely from Charlottesville and sold to whoever the Council chooses. On May 2, 2017, the court issued a temporary injunction blocking the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue for six months, in the public's interest, pending a court decision in the suit.
Following several highly publicized protests around the statue and in Emancipation Park, the actions related to August 12, 2017 occurred, causing the senseless death of a young lady and injuring dozens more through a despicable perpetrated by one of those protestors. As a result, heightened awareness surrounding the rising demonstration of instances of racism and hate, has led to the removal of statues in cities across the United States. Maryland, with particularity to Annapolis, the State’s Capital, and Baltimore City, has not been immune from this taking place.
Related
Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh's actions.
Aug. 29, 2017
On Sunday August 13, 2017, Baltimore City Councilman Brandon Scott said that he was going to introduce a resolution to the Baltimore City Council that called for the removal of Confederate monuments in the City and that he wanted them to be destroyed.
On Monday August 14, 2017, Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh announced that she wanted the monuments removed and was in the process of appointing a working group of staffers to guide the process.
That evening it was reported that the Baltimore Bloc threatened to take action. Others online were reported to have made the same vow. A #doitlikedurham hashtag began circulating on social media. In the early morning hours of Tuesday August 15, 2017, under the cloak of darkness, not unlike when the Baltimore Colts were moved to Indianapolis in the dead of night and without warning, statues of Robert E. Lee, the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument, the Confederate Women’s Monument, and the Statue of former Chief Justice to the Supreme Court Roger B. Taney. Those statues were then transported to a City owned location where they remain under protective tarps and under police security.
Many people, including myself, took issue with the manner in which the Mayor of Baltimore went about this decision after having apparently misled Baltimoreans earlier that day. The decision was premised on a perceived threat of public safety, in her perception of the tweet allegedly posted by the Baltimore Bloc and the hashtag that was started. The urgency of her actions to the threat of public safety could not hve been based on a perceived threat but one that was imminent. Fact is, there was no imminent threat at all.
Flag Waving: Red Maryland responds to Rascovar
Maryland Reporter
Aug. 26, 2017
Why Maryland’s popular Republican governor is in the doghouse with Maryland conservatives
Washington Post
Aug. 25, 2017
Petition to keep Maryland flag gets support, but who wants it gone?
wsua 9
Aug. 24, 2017
Hogan joins in flap over state flag
Balto. Sun
Aug. 2, 2017
Does Maryland’s Flag Have Confederate Ties? Social Media Campaign Sparks Controversy
CBS Baltimore
“As I said at my inauguration, Maryland has always been a state of middle temperament, which is a guiding principle of our administration. While we cannot hide from our history – nor should we – the time has come to make clear the difference between properly acknowledging our past and glorifying the darkest chapters of our history. With that in mind, I believe removing the Justice Roger B. Taney statue from the State House grounds is the right thing to do, and we will ask the State House Trust to take that action immediately.”
Governor Larry Hogan, August 15, 2017
Governor Hogan's actions.
In the early morning hours of August 17, Taney's statue was gone. The blowback was swift and not very friendly to the most popular governor the state has had in recent years. Now, Governor Hogan faced his biggest opposition since his election and it was pretty savage. People were not just upset, they threatened to not vote for him in 2018 and some even talked of total party abandonment. Hogan needed a distraction. He needed to be the hero, just like he was when he fumbled his way through the response to the uprising in Baltimore City that occurred after the in custody death of Freddie Gray by the Baltimore Police Department.
The Petition to Save the Maryland Flag
On Monday, August 21, a petition began circulating on the internet that said the Maryland Flag was under attack. The media immediately tied to the flag to the Confederacy and its secessionist symbolism, thereby attempting to paint supporters of it, as racists. It has garnered over 50,000 signatures in favor of saving it. Governor Hogan even shared the petition on both Change Maryland's and on his official facebook page. In those posts he made a pretty bold statement in defense of the flag. He said:
“Not only is the Maryland state flag a symbol of unity and pride, but it is also the most beautiful and most recognized state flag in America. You can rest assured that it will never be changed as long as I'm governor."
Governor Larry Hogan, August 24, 2017
One problem though, the petition was discovered to be a hoax. No one was calling for the flag's removal. So, how did it get started you ask? O.K., you didn't ask but I'm telling you anyway. It was started by Red Maryland and as stated by Brian Griffiths, editor-in-chief, "the petition was meant to be a pre-emptive strike to dissuade lawmakers from considering changes to the State flag." I could not find any evidence of this anywhere. I, along with other representatives of the media, went looking for the truth and when contacted by Channel 9, Brian Griffiths explained, "Our Flag is a symbol of unity, we wanted to make sure that people understood that this symbol of unity is out of bounds for people who were trying to revise some of our history."
But who were these people?
Mr. Griffiths previously asserted that it was a pre-emptive strike to dissuade lawmakers from making changes to it, so the story must have been evolving to include those people. Nope, never happened. Not one lawmaker said a word.
Breitbart Reports, Leftists Launch Attack on Maryland State Flag Calling It 'Confederate Symbol'
On August 3rd, Breibart, a national conservative media outlet, published a story about a man by the name of Benjamin Jancewicz who posted a version of the Maryland flag's history. While his posts were not very flattering, nowhere could I find where the man requested that the flag be taken down. Sure, he was talking bad about our flag but I didn't find where he was going to take any action into his own hands, which prompted Baltimore's mayor to act after the Baltimore Bloc tweet. Even Breitbart's own reporting was merely suggesting that Mr. Jancewicz was just looking for a cause to flog and his tweets were not a call to action by anyone on the left.
Obviously the folks at Red Maryland took offense to Mr. Jancewicz's tweets and took matters into their own hands on this issue. Mr. Griffiths even stated that it was "time to draw a line in the sand." But why? Because of the perception of someone possibly exercising their constitutional right to freedom of speech and voicing their oppostion? I will state that I do not support Mr. Jancewicz's position but I do support his right to speak freely about what concerns him and let this issue become part of the public debate.
When asked about Mr. Jancewicz's tweets, Mr. Griffiths said he was aware of the flag's history and it should be celebrated. "Nobody is trying to hide the history of the flag," Griffiths said, "and I think that particularly in times as divisive as these, the fact that a flag like this exists, that brought people together after such a horrific conflict during the 1860's, that's something we should be celebrating."
Mr. Griffiths went on to say that he thought Mr. Jancewicz was making a mountain out of a molehill. To that Mr. Jancewicz said, "I don't think the confederacy was a molehill. I think the Confederacy affected the State in deep and lasting ways." I think they are both wrong.
Wouldn't actually celebrating it be better then promoting its removal with a petition like this when the likelihood of the happening was zero? The removal of the flag would never happen with a Republican governor in office, unless he was pandering to the left. We had the most popular one in the country, at the time. So, what is behind this all? Here is my take on it.
Is Being Called a Confederate the New Way to Call Whitey a "Cracker" and is Hogan Pandering?
Let's dispense with the second question first. The answer is unequivocally yes but who didn't know that already? It's getting close to re-election time and he's going to need Democrats to win a second term. Republicans can't do it on their own. We are that outnumbered in this liberal cesspool of leadership that is Maryland. It puts the swamp in DC to shame and makes it look more like a kiddie pool. Some are suggesting the Governor's backing of the petition to keep the flag when no one asked to change it is a way to appeal to Republicans. I'm thinking that Governor Hogan needs to tell what he knew about the petition and when he knew about it.
Since these events have taken place there has been a rise in violent acts being perpetrated on white people. I'm not suggesting that it is anymore or less than was evident before. Those attacks are just being shown a bit more frequently in videos on Youtube taken during these hate rallies conuducted by fake white supremacists who are actually paid actors and clowns from Antifa, the Neo-Nazis, and the KKK. Any self-respecting white person today will tell you that those groups are nothing but pure garbage and if I haven't been clear on this myself, I think they are lower than garbage. Black people are not immune to attacks and I am not even suggesting that the violence demonstrated against whites is necessarily their fault. There are plenty of white people out there who are so repulsed by our unfortunate and dehumanizing history of slavery that they will attack other whites for the mere symbolism that supporting the Confederacy presents to them and the way they process it into becoming part of the simulated reality that the left is creating that ties it to racism. There are probably an equal number of black people who support the history of the Confederacy and proudly represent it, so painting everybody as a racist in this manner is to do it with an awfully broad brush.
The entire situation stinks and I believe it went down like this. It was meant to stir the anger of Confederates..., uh, I meant to say Republicans, so they would cause some kind of controversy that brings Red Maryland attention and brings the Governor back to good again, regardless if a little blood had to be spilled in order to accomplish their goals.
The only sign of unity any of this demonstrated was the simliarities in the responses of both Red Maryland and Governor Hogan to it. Since then, Governor Hogan has not explained his decision to involve himself in the controversy. His early statements show that he was well prepared to respond to it and since some heat has been put on Red Maryland, their position that it was to dissuade lawmakers has changed totally from the original. It no longer blames them for the action but says that activists are attacking the flag. Griffiths says that, "We should not be trying to use its origin as a reason to divide people." None of that was considered by Red Maryland when they started the petition.
This could have sparked a major riot and was incredibly irresponsible of the Governor. His connection to Red Maryland is widely known among conservatives and this seems to be a part of Hogan's modus operandi, which leads me to question what he knew about the petition and when he knew about it. Was this all just a game that was being played to boost the Governor's favorability and get back the support he lost that was disappearing faster than our history? If it was, I think the Governor needs to resign for his failure to perform the fundamental duty of his office and that is to protect and defend the rights of Marylanders, which extends to the symbols so highly revered by us, as our symbols of this great State. I also believe that he was duty bound under the law, to protect our monuments under the Antiquities Act. Subjecting the flag to adverse actions that could have resulted in not only the removal of it, but injury to the public had any civil unrest that occurred. If we do not get to the bottom of this, games like this will continue to be played and they will never stop. If that happens I can only pray that they will be able to restore order when they get their wish and Baltimore becomes "Ground Zero" for the sequel to the last Civil War we had.
What Red Maryland did was use the symbolism of our State flag, which belongs to us all and is something that Gov. Hogan asserts should be a source of unity and pride for ALL Marylanders, and subject it to its possible removal due to the very fact that most symbols of our past can be tied slavery and to attempt to spark racial tensions among us. This alone could have led to its removal. For this, and for promoting the continued lies of Larry Hogan, I am designating Red Maryland to be a hate group and I am condemning them for it. The Governor should too and so should the MD GOP, or Democrats, as they are more easily identifiable in their sheep's clothing.
I am not going to accept this kind of behavior from elected officals who take an oath to protect and defend us while being the root of all of our problems and promoting the hate groups they support. I will be requesting that the Court issue a subpeona on Red Maryland to provide testimony in my lawsuit against the Governor over the issue of the removal of our public symbols to demonstrate the true motives of our State's top law enforcement officer.
