Virginia House District 75 Profile: Otto Wachsmann Challenges Senior Delegate Roslyn Tyler

Virginia House of Delegates District 75 is one of the best chances for Republicans to flip a House seat. Delegate Roslyn Tyler (D-Sussex) is a 15-year incumbent, but she faces a repeat challenge from pharmacist Otto Wachsmann, Jr. who nearly beat her in 2019 with 48.89 percent of the vote. The district has been bleeding population in recent years, and the victory will likely depend on whether Roslyn Tyler can mobilize the significant minority presence and overcome dissatisfaction with the local economy. Republicans need to gain six seats in the House to retake the majority. Without Trump on the ballot, Republicans are hoping moderates are more likely to vote Republican, helping them flip some seats.

“If you had to ask me what is the most likely district in the House to flip to Republicans, I would say that one. I still say it’s a toss-up,” CNalysis Director Chaz Nuttycombe told The Virginia Star.

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Tennessee Historical Commission Delays Final Hearing on Nathan Bedford Forrest Bust in State Capitol

After months of waiting, the fate of the Nathan Bedford Forrest bust in the Tennessee State Capitol won’t be decided this week after all. The Tennessee Historical Commission (THC) decided to delay the final hearing over the Confederate bust, as well as those of U.S. Navy Admirals David Glasglow Farragut and Albert Gleaves, on Wednesday due to the poor travel conditions.

THC Historic Preservation Specialist Susan McClamroch informed The Tennessee Star that they wanted to ensure no problems posed by virtual hearings would occur during the proceeding.

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Metro Parks Board Petitions State Historical Commission to Remove Sam Davis Statue

Metro Parks Board has sought permission to remove the Confederate Private Monument featuring soldier Sam Davis from Centennial Park. They submitted the formal request to the Tennessee Historical Commission (THC); Tennessee Code requires that THC wait at least 60 days before holding a hearing for a petition.

Renewed discussion to remove the monument began during January’s board meeting. Vice-Chair Susannah Scott-Barnes asserted that the statue was a “divisive symbol.” She noted that, in light of last year’s protests and the continued climate over Confederate statues nationwide, any vandalism would pose a cost issue for the board. Although the board requires state permission to relocate or remove the monument, the costs to maintain the statue are sourced from local funds.

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Virginia Military Institute Hires First Black Interim Superintendent After Northam Pays $1 Million to Investigate Systemic Racism

The Virginia Military Institute (VMI) hired its first Black superintendent shortly after Governor Ralph Northam allotted $1 million to investigate allegations of systemic racism there. VMI announced the appointment of retired U.S. Army Major General Cedric T. Wins on Friday.

Wins will serve as the interim superintendent at VMI – he is also a 1985 graduate. In his remarks on accepting the interim position with VMI, Wins only had positive words for the institution’s history.

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Busted: Judge Rules Virginia House Speaker Filler-Corn Violated the Freedom of Information Act

Richmond General District Court found Virginia House of Delegates Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn (D-Fairfax) guilty of violating the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on Friday. Filler-Corn must pay a civil penalty of $500 and a partial reimbursement of attorney fees.
The filing attorney, Timothy Anderson, told The Virginia Star that this court ruling was a big win for Virginians. Anderson also shared that the judge had expressed doubt during the trial that Filler-Corn didn’t know about the documents.

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In the Dead of Night, House Speaker Filler-Corn Removed Confederate Statues for $83K – and Lied About the Documents, Lawsuit Claims

Virginia House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn (D-Fairfax) faces a lawsuit for falsely denying the existence of records documenting the $83,000 removal of the Capitol’s Confederate monuments.

The plaintiff in the case, David Webster II, requested documents under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) from Filler-Corn upon learning she’d removed the Confederate statues and busts. In her response, Filler-Corn states repeatedly “The requested records do not exist.” However, Webster II discovered many of the documents in question.

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Charlottesville City Council Moves Forward with Relocating ‘Disrespectful’ Lewis & Clark and Sacagawea Statue

The Charlottesville City Council convened on Wednesday to continue discussing plans for relocating the Lewis & Clark and Sacagawea statue.
Activists take issue with Sacagawea’s posture: she crouches behind Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, a positioning some say is demeaning for depicting the appearance of subservience.

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Bipartisan Vote in the House Rules to Remove Confederate Statues from the Capitol

A bill to remove statues of Confederate leaders and figures who advocated for white supremacy from the Capitol passed the House on a bipartisan vote Wednesday, the New York Times reported.

The House voted 305 to 113 to remove the statues as part of a broad effort to take symbols of racism out of public spaces, the Times reported. The legislation was introduced by House Majority Leader and Democratic Maryland Rep. Steny H. Hoyer.

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Virginia Evicts Confederate Monuments from Its State Capitol

Virginia has removed from its iconic state capitol the busts and a statue honoring Confederate generals and officials. That includes a bronze statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee positioned in the same spot where he stood to assume command of the state’s armed forces in the Civil War nearly 160 years ago.

They are the latest Confederate symbols to be removed or retired in the weeks since the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police sparked a nationwide protest movement.

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Over Half of Americans Oppose Removing Confederate Statues, WaPo Poll Finds

More than 50% of Americans oppose removing public statues dedicated to Confederate generals, according to a Washington Post/ABC poll published Monday.

The poll showed 80% of Republicans and 56% of independents oppose removing such monuments, while 74% of Democrats support ridding the country of statues commemorating the Confederacy. Nearly 60% of white people oppose their removal, as do about half of Hispanic people, the poll found.

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Vandalizing American History: A List of 64 Toppled, Defaced, or Removed Statues

The list of American statues and other monuments that have been toppled, decapitated, defaced, or removed since the May 25 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis grew longer almost daily through June and into July. 

A mob cheered as it pulled down a statue of Christopher Columbus in Saint Paul, Minnesota. In Washington, D.C., rioters used ropes to tear down a bronze depiction of Albert Pike, a Confederate general, and then set the 11-foot statue on fire. 

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Judge Blocks Removal of More Confederate Statues in Richmond

A judge issued an injunction Thursday barring the city of Richmond from removing any more Confederate monuments, a process that began last week after Mayor Levar Stoney ordered the statues cleared away amid weeks of protests over police brutality and racism.

Richmond Circuit Court Judge Bradley Cavedo issued the decision after a hearing in a lawsuit filed Tuesday by an unnamed plaintiff, local media outlets reported. The lawsuit asked for an emergency injunction to halt the removal of the statues and alleged that Stoney violated state law by ordering their immediate removal.

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House Democrats’ Funding Bill Includes Provision to Remove Confederate Statues

Confederate statues would be removed from the Capitol under a provision included in the Democrat House Appropriations Committee’s 2021 draft budget bill released Monday.

The nearly $4.2 billion funding proposal would mandate the removal of monuments to Confederate generals and would also call into question those statues of people who have “unambiguous records of racial intolerance,” according to a press release from the Appropriations Committee.

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Richmond Removes Statue of Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart

Work crews on Tuesday took down a monument to Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, the third major statue to be cleared away in less than a week as the Confederacy’s former capital rushes to remove symbols of oppression in response to protests against police brutality and racism.

As a crowd cheered, crews strapped the huge bronze equestrian statue in harnesses and used a crane to lift it from its granite base to be trucked away. Some in the crowd chanted “Black Lives Matter” after the statue was removed. One person sang, “Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye.”

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Stonewall Jackson Removed from Richmond’s Monument Avenue

Work crews wielding a giant crane, harnesses and power tools wrested an imposing statue of Gen. Stonewall Jackson from its concrete pedestal along Richmond, Virginia’s famed Monument Avenue on Wednesday, just hours after the mayor ordered the removal of all Confederate statues from city land.

Mayor Levar Stoney’s decree came weeks after Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam ordered the removal of the most prominent and imposing statue along the avenue: that of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, which sits on state land. The removal of the Lee statue has been stalled pending the resolution of several lawsuits.

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Tennessee Star National Correspondent Neil McCabe: ‘Things are Becoming Very Binary, Both on the Left and the Right’

Live from the iHeart Media studios in Washington, D.C. Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy welcomed Tennessee Star National Correspondent Neil McCabe to the newsmakers line.

During the third hour, McCabe weighed in on current events taking place in cities where protesters are bringing down historic statues. He was concerned that both the left and the right had become binary as the Democrats move further left and Republicans edge out conservatives.

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Injunction Extended Against Removing Lee Statue in Virginia

A judge on Thursday indefinitely extended an injunction preventing the Virginia governor from removing a historic statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee from a famed avenue in the former capital of the Confederacy.

Richmond Circuit Court Judge Bradley Cavedo made the decision after hearing from attorneys for the state and for the plaintiff in a lawsuit against Gov. Ralph Northam. Earlier this month, Cavedo had issued a 10-day injunction barring Northam from removing the bronze equestrian statue of the Confederate hero from Monument Avenue.

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Poll: Young, College-Educated Americans Most Likely to Favor Removing Confederate Statues

As confederate statues nationwide are being vandalized and toppled, while other are being peaceably removed, a new poll shows young, college-educated Americans are the most likely age demographic to agree that these monuments no longer have a place in society. 

The National Tracking Poll by Morning Consult and Politico, conducted June 6-7, found that 43 percent of Americans between the ages of 18-34 believe that statues of confederate leaders should be taken down, while 26 percent think they should remain standing. The other 31 percent did not know or had no opinion on the statues.

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Tennessee Court of Appeals Says Sons of Confederate Veterans Do Not Have Standing to Stop Removal of Statues at Memphis Parks

  The Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) do not have standing to stop the removal of Confederate statutes at parks the City of Memphis had sold to Memphis Greenspace. Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle ordered Memphis Greenspace Inc. to maintain and preserve the statues of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, President Jefferson Davis, and Captain J. Harvey Mathes until a contested case hearing is held with the Tennessee Historical Commission, The Tennessee Star reported in January 2018. Memphis Greenspace is the nonprofit owned by Shelby County Commissioner Val Turner who ‘bought‘ and removed the statues in a questionable transaction with the City of Memphis in December 2017, The Star said. The city sold the parks for only $1,000 each. The Sons of Confederate Veterans had filed for injunctive relief, according to the appeals court ruling. Prior to filing its complaint, the society filed a petition for declaratory relief with the Tennessee Historical Commission that sought a declaration on the applicability of the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act of 2016 (“THPA”) to two parks and related monuments In the present action, the historical-preservation society requested a temporary injunction under the THPA to preserve the parks and monuments…

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North Carolina College Fires Employee Early After She Removed Silent Sam Statue

by Neetu Chandak   The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s chancellor was asked to step down in her role earlier than expected after making the swift decision to remove leftovers of the school’s Silent Sam statue. Carol Folt planned to resign as the school’s chancellor after commencement in May, according to the letter Monday. But the Board of Governors wanted Folt to resign earlier after she ordered for the removal of the Confederate statue’s plaque and base without consulting others, Inside Higher Ed reported Wednesday. The board held a private meeting with Folt Tuesday afternoon and accepted her resignation date starting Jan. 31. “While I’m disappointed by the Board of Governors’ timeline, I have truly loved my almost six years at Carolina,” Folt said in a statement posted on Twitter Tuesday. Folt had cranes and crews remove the leftovers of the statue at night, hours after her resignation announcement. Gone, baby gone. Silent Sam’s pedestal is nowhere to be seen on @UNC campus. #silentsam reporting for @CarolinaJournal pic.twitter.com/Ta5bz5v9vz — Kari Lynn Travis (@KariLynnTravis) January 15, 2019 “You know, it’s a bit stunning based on how this has gone, that UNC Chapel Hill felt they needed to take this…

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North Carolina Mayor Threatens Legal Action If Group Fails to Remove Confederate Statue

A North Carolina mayor is threatening legal action unless a women’s historical society removes a statue of a Confederate soldier that it owns in downtown Winston-Salem. During a Tuesday event, Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines announced that City Attorney Angela Carmon sent a letter to the Daughters of the Confederacy organization asking that it relocate its statue. According to the Winston-Salem Journal, the city is asking the group to move the statue from its current downtown location to Salem Cemetery, where 36 Confederate soldiers are buried. Joines and Carmon are citing vandalism of the statue as reason for its removal, saying that the city cannot provide sufficient security. The statue was vandalized twice in 2018, most recently on Christmas Day when vandals spray-painted “cowards and traitors” on the base of the statue. “We’ve already had two instances of vandalism and, with the potential for violence, it is [Carmon’s] belief that the statue does create a public nuisance and therefore we are directing the Daughters of the Confederacy to remove it, and if they don’t, we’re prepared to file legal action to achieve that removal,” Joines told the Journal Tuesday. The Daughters of the Confederacy previously declined to remove the statue, but Joines…

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Police Arrest Seven for Toppling Confederate Soldier Statue at North Carolina Protest

Silent Sam

by Vandana Rambaran   Seven people were arrested Saturday after protests broke out in North Carolina as the statue of a Confederate soldier was toppled earlier this week. A “violent mob” of about 300 protesters used ropes on Monday to pull down Silent Sam, a century-old statue at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that commemorates Confederate soldiers, according to a video statement on Thursday by UNC board member Thom Goolsby. Over 100 people gathered near the statue on Saturday, some brandishing Confederate flags and promoting the historical significance of the statute, while others waved signs urging to “Destroy White Supremacy,” according to Reuters. School officials are urging that the statue be resurrected within the 90 days as required by state law, but off campus to avoid violent protests at the university, UNC Chancellor Carol Folt said in a press conference Saturday. “We all have to recognize that the Confederate monument is a flashpoint for demonstrations and interruptions on campus and we believe it will continue to be a lightning rod,” Folt said. Some protesters who were arrested face charges of assault, while three who helped pull down the statue face misdemeanor charges of riot and defacing a…

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Carol Swain Commentary: The Destruction of Silent Sam

by Carol M. Swain   American philosopher George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Those words are worth remembering. As a 1989 alumna of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I am appalled how, on August 20, 2018, law-enforcement officers stood down while anarchists, euphemistically referred to as more noble-sounding “protesters,” destroyed the statue of “Silent Sam.” Silent Sam was a bronze statue of a Confederate soldier commissioned by the Daughters of the Confederacy and gifted to the University in 1913.  Three people arrested following the heinous act of vandalism were charged with misdemeanors. Officials made a serious mistake in judgment when they failed to preserve Silent Sam and the part of our nation’s heritage he represented. By not enforcing laws against vandalism, police were complicit in the destruction of public property. But behind all this stands a rather common culprit – the ubiquitous Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). In 2016, the SPLC released a report titled “Whose Heritage?”. The report “cataloged 1,503 monuments, place names, state holidays, and other symbols of the Confederacy in public spaces across the South and Nation.” TheSPLC updated its numbers in June 2018, to 1,728 such symbols. By publishing the locations of the…

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Richmond’s Jefferson Davis Statue Might Be Next On The Chopping Block

Jefferson Davis statue, Richmond, Virginia

by Rob Shimshock   A commission recommended Monday that Richmond, Va., remove its statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. The Davis statue is one of five Confederate monuments lining Monument Avenue in the city, reported The Guardian. The commission, appointed by Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney, said that the Davis monument “is the most unabashedly Lost Cause in its design and sentiment.” The Lost Cause emphasizes the values and traditions of the South over slavery when conceptualizing the Civil War. The commission notes that the statue terms Davis the “Defender of the Rights of States.” “In the course of [our] work, it became abundantly clear the majority of the public acknowledges Monument Avenue cannot and should not remain exactly as it is,” the commission, comprised partly of historians and local officials, said. “Change is needed and desired.” Richmond erected its Gen. Robert E. Lee Monument Avenue statue in 1890. May and June 1907 saw the installation of statues dedicated to cavalry commander J.E.B. Stuart and Davis, respectively. Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s statue debuted in October 1919 and naval commander Matthew Fontaine Maury’s monument was the last Confederate memorial to populate the street on November 1929. “Richmond has a long, complex and conflicted history and the…

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GOP Gubernatorial Candidate Randy Boyd Agrees With Democrats Dean and Fitzhugh: Removal of Confederate Statues by City of Memphis Was Legal

Randy Boyd, Beth harwell, Karl Dean, Craig Fitzhugh

Republican gubernatorial candidate Randy Boyd declared on Thursday that the removal of two Confederate statues by the City of Memphis in December using a questionable ruse to sidestep state law was legal, agreeing on that issue with Democratic gubernatorial candidates Karl Dean and Craig Fitzhugh. Boyd’s remarks came at a forum held in Memphis that was co-hosted by the Tennessee Bar Association, The Tennessee Judicial Council, and The Commercial Appeal. “Our history is our history, and we need to preserve it,” Boyd said. But Boyd asserted that the City of Memphis did not break the law when they removed a statue of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest in the middle-of-the-night last December, referring to the legal loophole used by the Memphis City Council to remove statues from two city parks. “Memphis followed the law. So they didn’t break the law. So I don’t think it’s now, in retrospect, saying, they didn’t do anything that they weren’t allowed to do,” Boyd said. You can hear Boyd say that Memphis did not break the law here at the 24:55 mark of this video: You can hear those same remarks by Boyd in this audio version of the conversation, at the 5:14 mark.…

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Texas Committee Votes to Keep Confederate Statue, but Add Anti-Slavery Plaque and Kiosks

A Texas committee voted to keep a Confederate statue, but will add an anti-slavery plaque and kiosks to it, according to a Thursday report. The monument advisory committee in Denton, Texas, voted 12-3 to preserve a Confederate soldier statue but add a plaque and audiovisual interviews bashing slavery and segregation, reported the Denton Record-Chronicle.

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Court Rules Memphis’ Hastily Removed Confederate Statues Must Be ‘Preserved and Maintained’

Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle ordered Memphis Greenspace Inc. – the nonprofit owned by Shelby County Commissioner Val Turner who ‘bought‘ two statues in a questionable transaction with the City of Memphis – to maintain and preserve the statues of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, President Jefferson Davis, and Captain J. Harvey Mathes until a contested case hearing is held with the Tennessee Historical Commission within the next 60 days. The Commercial Appeal reports: The commission, which rejected the city’s request for a waiver to remove the Forrest statue in October, will determine whether the city violated state law when it sold the parks and statues to Greenspace for a total of $2,000 on Dec. 20, making the parks and the statues private property. State laws require the commission’s approval before removal of historical monuments — but only if the monuments are on public property. The 16-page order’s temporary injunction was a partial, if unsurprising, win for the Sons of Confederate Veterans Nathan Bedford Forrest Camp 215 as the organization seeks to return the statues to Health Sciences and Fourth Bluff parks in Downtown Memphis. “It’s not over — but today was an important day,” said Doug Jones, attorney for the Sons of…

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Tennessee House Republican Caucus Calls for Investigation into Removal of Confederate Statues in Memphis

On Thursday, Tennessee House Majority Leader State Rep. Glen Casada (R-Thompsons Station) and Republican Caucus Chairman State Rep. Ryan Williams (R-Cookeville) called for an investigation into the removal of two Confederate statues Wednesday evening from property that was owned by the City of Memphis until just a few hours earlier. “Last night, the Memphis City Council unanimously approved the sale of the Health Sciences Park and Fourth Bluff Park under the cover of night to a private entity. For years, these two parks have housed the statues of Nathan Bedford Forrest and Jefferson Davis,” the statement began. Casada and Williams noted that “within an hour following the vote … cranes were spotted shortly thereafter to remove both statues,” adding: Multiple questions have been raised involving the legality of these actions, including: Did Memphis officials violate sunshine laws by coordinating this sale outside of the public eye? Did anyone gain financially from the rapid and clear undervalued sale of these two properties? Were existing state statutes violated related to the removal or relocation of these memorials? With these and many additional questions still unanswered, we will immediately begin work in conjunction with the Speaker, the Attorney General, the Comptroller’s office, and other…

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Nancy Pelosi Calls for Removing Confederate Statues from U.S. Capitol

Tennessee Star

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday said she supports removing Confederate statues from the U.S. Capitol and called on Speaker Paul D. Ryan to join the push to remove them “immediately.” “The Confederate statues in the halls of Congress have always been reprehensible,” Mrs. Pelosi said in a statement. “If Republicans are serious about rejecting…

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Democrat Senator Cory Booker Proposes Removal of All Confederate Statues From US Capitol Building

Sen. Cory Booker plans to propose a bill to remove all Confederate statues from the United States Capitol building, he announced Wednesday. “I will be introducing a bill to remove Confederate statues from the US Capitol building,” Booker, D-N.J., tweeted. “This is just one step. We have much work to do.” He did not offer any…

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