Dr. Ted Thornhill: Wrong Again!

 The following letter was sent to the Ft. Myers News-Press "comments section" following the publication of FGCU Professor Ted Thornhill's guest OP ED attacking Governor DeSantis for his attempt to curtail violent student protests similar to those that resulted in approximately $2 Billion damage to countless cities across America in 2019.  An earlier submission of a more professionally written rebuttal OP ED to Dr. Thornhill was ignored by the News-Press, hence my use of the much abbreviated "comments" section to weigh in on his inane ideas.   (The original OP ED may be accessed here: https://www.news-press.com/get-access/?return=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.news-press.com%2Fstory%2Fopinion%2F2021%2F03%2F24%2Fcritical-race-theory-ron-desantis-florida-ted-race-relations-thornhill-fgcu%2F6982525002%2F . )

Letter to the News-Press Editor: "On Dr. Ted Thornhill's Promotion to the Editoral Board"

 

Rebuttal to Dr. Brandon T. Jett

The following was written in response to Southwest Florida Colliege history professor Brandon T. Jett's guest editorial opinion in the Ft. Myers News-Press on May 20, 2021.  His editorial--“Colleges and Universities are not sites of liberal indoctrination” -- may be accessed "HERE."     

Dr. Brandon T. Jett’s claim that today’s colleges are “largely” not bastions of liberal indoctrination is so fundamentally off-target that one wonders how the local history professor could have it so wrong.  Jett writes that today’s campus faculty is “as diverse as the communities” they serve is ludicrous and easily disproven.  Study after study has shown college faculty to be overwhelmingly liberal, especially in the humanities. Due to this fact, even liberal professor-researchers such as Jonathan Haidt are alarmed.  Simply Google the phrase “how academia’s liberal bias is hurting research” and many studies will appear, some going back for decades. Nearly all the faculty in many of the fields within the humanities are Leftists. Today, advocates of Critical Race Theory argue we should turn our nation upside down due to the “unconscious bias” of whites, yet 82% of the college faculty in one study revealed “they would be at least a little bit prejudiced against a conservative [job] candidate.” This is a conscious bias that Dr. Jett won’t discuss. Nor did he address the fact that “More Than Two-Thirds of Conservative Academics Report Political Bias.” This survey, sent to over 40,000 professors, reported pervasively hostile abuse and discrimination against conservatives.  Some colleges of education are threatening to bestow diplomas upon students who lack ‘woke’ understanding.  Entire classes of freshmen are required to attend “woke” orientations where they indeed indoctrinated to a certain worldview. Dr. Jett knows full well that Howard Zinn’s famously un-American and deliberately leftist book, “A People’s History of the United States,” became one of the most sold volumes in publication history because so many college professors used it as required reading. If colleges were not bastions of indoctrination, why would so many be engaged in shutting down free speech? Why would organizations such as “Campus Reform” or “Foundation for Individual Rights in Education [F.I.R.E.] exist? Perhaps Dr. Jett should visit their webpages.

     Dr. Jett claims that “there are strong contingents of conservative faculty” but not in the fields of education, the humanities, or even today in the schools of Business, Engineering or the Sciences — all of which are increasingly coming under the sway of Leftist administrators and faculty. Professor Jett avows that “for every class on economic, social and racial problems, there are courses that explore the moral and ethical foundations of capitalism.” But will these courses have an adequate exposure to the benefits of free-markets or will there be a clearly Marxist bent to them? To answer this requires only an examination of approved and rejected quest lecturers and commencement speakers. Condoleeza Rice, Ayan Hirsi Ali, Ben Shapiro, Mike Pence all banned or heavily protested while race-baiters such as Ibram X. Kendhi, Al Sharpton and Robin D’Angelo, noted terrorists such as Leila Khalid, and self-avowed communists such as Angela Davis are invited and celebrated. Nor does his claim explain why so many of today’s institutions of higher learning have succumbed to the old adage of Jesse Jackson’s chant when he visited Berkeley a generation or two ago, “Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho—Western Civilization has got to go!” The once-required “survey” courses in American history and Western Civilization were long ago replaced with Far-Left ‘elective course’ requirements or with newly required “Social Justice” courses.  And as Heather MacDonald has repeatedly made clear, some of the most highly paid and influential college administrators are the Directors of Diversity and Inclusion—virtually none of whom can be viewed as conservative.  Nor does Professor care to comment on the idea of some at Harvard to revoke the degrees that institution has bestowed upon influential conservative graduates. And yet Dr. Jett wants his readers to believe Harvard really does believe in diversity!? 

      Professor Jett’s argument that Governor DeSantis and Byron Donalds did not graduate from Florida’s universities as avowed liberals isn’t convincing evidence such bias doesn’t exist.  That far too many of our students ARE is more evident from the $2 billion in damages caused mostly by leftist college students around the country last summer!

Jack Bovee

Ft. Myers

The writer has been a social studies educator, founder of Rho Kappa—the National Social Studies Honor Society--and a former elementary school principal.  He may be reached at JSBovee@aol.com. 

Letter to JES in Erie Re: "Response to Andrew Roth's Article: "Robert E. Lee-Traitor"

May 3, 2021

MEMORANDUM

TO:    Andrew Roth, PhD.           roth@jeserie.org 

CC:    Ferki Ferati ,   ED.D.          ferati@jeserie.org
          Ben Speggen,  M.A.            speggen@jeserie.org 
          Bill Steger, Erie CWRT     bill.steger1137@gmail.com

RE:    A Response to Andrew Roth’s article: “Robert E. Lee—Traitor?”   

https://www.jeserie.org/uploads/Book%20Notes%20--%20Robert%20E%20Rinderle.pdf 

I always find myself looking forward to the articles written by Jefferson Society Scholar-in-Residence, Dr. Andrew Roth.  His eloquent prose, depth of knowledge, and wide array of interests and expertise make for not only interesting reading, but generally leave the reader more informed about the subject under his examination. Unfortunately, this was not the case with his recent opinion entitled “Robert E. Lee – Traitor?”—a praiseworthy review of Ty Seidule’s book, Robert E. Lee and Me.  Seidule, a former history professor at West Point who was an undergraduate student of Washington and Lee University, visited that campus some years ago to urge the removal of Lee’s name from the school.  The university has been in turmoil ever since. Like Seidule, Dr. Roth fully embraces the “woke culture” of today’s campus. I found it a bit surprising that in his review of Seidule’s book, Dr. Roth had no desire to present a balanced view on the contributions of Lee—a man whom countless American presidents and world leaders have held to be worthy of respect and emulation. Amazingly, Dr. Roth—a former college president—could not find a single word of praise for Lee. He chose instead to link the Confederate general to the solitary individual who—among the hundreds of thousands of persons who descended upon the nation’s capital on January 6th –dared profane Congress for a few hours by carrying a Confederate flag within its sacred halls. Roth deliberately chose not to mention the fact that former WWII Supreme Commander and president Dwight Eisenhower chose to defend his hanging of Lee’s portrait in Abraham Lincoln’s office just down the street for eight long years—an act which I’m sure he thinks was equally profane.

Perhaps it’s Dr. Roth’s long-time association with post-secondary ‘cancel culture’ institutions of higher learning that leads him to lecture, instead of fully educate, his readers about the now mostly forgotten life of Lee. Although Dr. Roth continually reminded his readers that Lee “renounced his oath and fought a war against his country,” there wasn’t much explanation why Lee was held in such high esteem by all Americans on both sides of the Civil War for generations.  This was primarily due to the last five years of Lee’s life—a subject that both Seidule and Roth gloss over.               

None of us should ever be cast in the position of Robert E. Lee—that of having to choose to wage war against his own family, neighbors, and state against the country he already served for decades and for whom he had already risked his life. Dr. Roth conveniently omits the fact that Lee was given the opportunity to command armies for either side and he takes the position of Seidule that Lee really resigned from the army in order to defend and perpetuate slavery. He makes it a point to portray Lee as an unprincipled man who broke his oath and thus deserves the epithet of ‘traitor.’ He writes, “For those who say Lee had no choice but to serve Virginia, Seidule points out that of the eight West Point graduates with Virginia ties, only one fought against the United States. That one was Lee.” 

Lee the only Virginia West Point graduate to do so? Erie County Civil War Roundtable members probably raised their eyebrows at this statement. First, Generals Joseph E. Johnston, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, Jeb Stuart, George Pickett, James Kemper, Jubal Early, George Washington Custis Lee, and Fitzhugh Lee—all Virginians—graduated from West Point and fought for the Confederacy. (This doesn’t count Lewis Armistead, who was famously expelled after breaking a plate over Jubal Early’s head, and others who didn’t rise to the rank of general.)  Another mistake was Dr. Roth’s comment that the Confederate flag known as the “Stars and Bars” was carried into the capitol building on January 6 by that lone transgressor. A minor point, perhaps, but it was the battle flag for Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, not the official Confederate banner known as the “Stars and Bars” that media outlets across the nation flashed repeatedly to viewing audiences that day.  

Dr. Roth wonders why one of the barracks at West Point is named after Lee when all the others are named for generals who served the United States military in combat—a distinction Lee never attained. The reader is left to wonder, along with Professor Seidule who taught there, why a West Point building would still bear his name. Roth neglects to inform the reader that Lee had many distinctions while serving in the U.S. Army. He graduated second in his class without a single demerit. Winfield Scott, commander in the Mexican War said of his service: “Success in the Mexican War was largely due to Robert E. Lee’s skill, valor, and undaunted energy.” Scott considered Lee the best soldier in the army and offered him command of all Union forces in 1861. Lee also served as the Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy from 1852-1855. To not name a barracks after Robert E. Lee would be surprising.

Dr. Roth—along with Ty Seidule—also wonders “why are we honoring people who sought to destroy the United States of America and the ideals for which it stands?” They both seem to forget Lee’s stated words in his letter of resignation from the Army that except in the defense of his own state he was forever laying down his sword. Rather than break his oath, Lee and countless other Southerners resigned. Moreover, secession was still thought of as constitutional by many scholars in Lee’s day—another fact omitted by Seidule and Roth. The nation had several times before toyed with the idea of secession—once with the demands of the New England Confederation and again during the Nullification Crisis. Although Lee personally opposed secession as he did slavery, it was Lincoln’s call for Virginia to furnish troops to invade the South and the threat of Northern invasion that finally forced Lee and Virginia into officially joining the Confederacy. Dr. Roth conveniently omits all this as well as the fact Lee was no longer under his oath to protect the United States from invasion. Rather, the threat to Lee was the United States. 

Dr. Roth, like Seidule and so many adherents of Critical Race Theory today, would have us believe that “racism is the virus in the American dirt, infecting everything and everyone.” He is greatly offended by Lee—who worked to “destroy the United States.”  I’ll assume his liberal credentials never permitted him to inform his readers of the seventy-plus odd occasions that race-baiter Al Sharpton visited the White House to see then president Barack Obama. [When Rudy Giuliani spoke out about this and was attacked with four Pinocchio’s from the Washington Post for being reckless with the charge, even the Post had to print a correction and admit Giuliani was right.]  Nor will we probably find any criticism from Dr. Roth of president Obama for proudly posing with—then covering up—his cozy portrait with the well-known racist and anti-Semite, Louis Farrakhan. Did the former college president object to the many times President Obama had meetings with Jihadist-linked individuals at the White House? Today, persons in the know within the nation’s Beltway confirm Barack’s influence within the Biden administration is a primary reason our nation is once again moving away from our strongest ally in the middle east and cozying up again with Iran. With such reasoning, should Roth’s and Seidule’s criticism of Lee be extended to our former president?

Dr. Roth further describes Ty Seidule as being ‘vaguely aware’ of Virginia’s racist past and the South’s racial lynching record. What he and so many other liberals today omit, however, is mention that over one-fourth of those lynched in the South were white. These were mostly white Republicans who defended Negro rights during the time when Democrats reinstated white Democratic Party rule in the South. Although the U.S. Senate apologized in 2005 for not enacting the anti-lynching legislation 100 years earlier, the Democratic Party has yet to do so. It was a Republican Congressman, Leonidas Dyer, who first introduced anti-lynching legislation in 1918. It was a Republican president, Warren Harding, who first spoke in favor of the bill. In 1920 the Republican Party Platform endorsed an anti-lynching bill—something FDR openly opposed, despite Eleanor’s being in favor of it. Through these decades, Southern Democrats used the filibuster to kill all attempts to make lynching a federal crime. It wasn’t as needed that the Senate apologize for slavery as it was that Democrats apologize. Perhaps we can look forward to seeing Dr. Roth using his personal influence with the Democratic Party to now correct this historical omission. Personally, I think it’s not such a bad idea to have today’s Democratic Party apologize for both its racial lynching of Blacks as well as its political lynching of whites. 

Still another egregious error of Dr. Roth lies in his belief that any criticism of Robert E. Lee and Me  must naturally come from the “nethermost regions of the internet” or that it might reside in one of Tucker Carlson’s “replacement rants.” (Interestingly, Dr. Roth is silent as to his own personal theory why our current president has refused to enforce current immigration law or why two separate Latin American presidents blame Biden—not Trump—for the current border crisis.)  According to Dr. Roth, anyone attacking Seidule must have the “nerve to overtly defend racism.”  Really?  How about two other fellow Washington and Lee University students who—like Ty Seidule—now hold doctorates in the history profession? In their short YOUTUBE video, “Defending Lee and Rebutting Seidule,” professors Al Eckes and Neely Young attack Seidule’s book on many different fronts. They confront Seidule’s claim that Lee committed treason as “nonsense.” Dr. Young states, “When offered command of the Union army, he [Lee] declined saying, ‘I look upon secession as anarchy. If I own the 4 million of slaves of the South, I would sacrifice them all to the Union, but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native state?’ ” Dr. Eckes continues, “On a number of occasions before the war, Lee described it as a moral evil. There are numerous statements on the record for Lee that he did not resign from the army to perpetuate slavery, but instead to defend his native state.”

The two historians argue that Seidule’s claims “are not proven by the historical record. . . . In every case where it was demonstrated that [Washington College] students acted badly, Lee reacted swiftly and appropriately either through suspension, expulsion or allowing a student to withdraw. He also cooperated fully with local and federal authorities and encouraged them to do their job. According to David Cox in his book, The Religious Life of Robert E. Lee, “his influence helped dissipate one lynch mob aimed at a black man and another aimed at a white. Lee specifically condemned bad behavior and on several occasions forbade students from participating in demonstrations or acts of violence.”

According to Young and Eckes, Seidule “largely ignores or minimizes Lee’s efforts to promote national reconciliation and better education after becoming president of Washington College.  These were the primary reasons that so many leaders, north and south, honored Robert E Lee—individuals as different as General Grant and Booker T. Washington praised lee for his contributions to peace and national reconciliation.”  When Congress ordered the southern states to submit new constitutions to Congress, Lee announced it was “the duty of the southern people to accept the situation fully.” When other Confederate leaders either talked of or actually did move abroad, Lee urged them to remain in their native states and work toward reconciliation. Among the thousands who wrote to Lee asking for his advice after the war was an embittered Confederate widow. He replied, “Abandon your animosities and make your sons Americans.” This is seen in countless letters from Lee in the period of time 1865-1870.  

In defending Lee, the two professors cite the historical record to refute Seidule’s claims. To conclude, they argue Seidule is just as wrong as the “Lost Cause” historians who attempted to disguise the role of slavery as a cause of the Civil War. The new historians like Seidule incorrectly argue that everything was a result of slavery. They denigrate the economic differences between the sections, the Constitutional questions over secession, and sectional arguments over a strict v loose interpretation of the powers of Congress. Their belief that the underlying framework of 10th Amendment and that state’s rights played no role in secession is as wrong as saying that slavery was the only cause of war.  Seidule—and professor Roth--operate in the narrow tunnel of ‘presentism.’  Eckes concludes: “It seems to me that much of Seidule’s narrative is based upon a hasty reading of several authors, especially Elizabeth Pryor’s book [Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Personal Papers]. . . . This book does not display the hand of an experienced Civil War era researcher. In attacking Lee’s reputation, Seidule embraces the woke history of racial justice as the central theme in American history. . . .  Thus, he does not successfully attack the real reasons for honoring President Lee in 1870—his contributions to national reconciliation and education in the South.”

Professors Eckes and Neely are correct to point out that Seidule almost totally ignores the last five years of Lee’s life. What’s even less well known is the fact that Lee’s example has served our nation at times even after his death in 1870. For example, when LBJ urged Congress to approve the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he reminded Southerners of the legacy and personal example of Robert E. Lee.  He remarked to his fellow southerners, “If we are to heal our history and make this nation whole…opportunity must know no color line. Robert E Lee…a great leader of the South—and I assume no modern-day leader would question him or challenge him—Robert E. Lee counseled us well when he told us to cast off our animosities and raise our sons to be Americans.” 

When the nation was terribly divided during years of conflict in Vietnam, it turned to Lee again. When Lee’s lost Oath of Allegiance to the United States—dated after the war in 1866—was discovered in the National Archives in the last years of the Vietnam War, a national movement to posthumously restore his citizenship took our nation by storm. A bill was quickly passed by both Houses of Congress (nearly unanimously) and was eagerly signed into law by President Gerald Ford.  Not long afterward President Carter pardoned and restored civil rights to an estimated 400,000 Vietnam War draft dodgers in a similar spirit of “national reconciliation.” 

Once again it appears, Lee’s personal life story closely mirrors our own. Today, America is almost as divided as it was 160 years ago when a tragic Civil War destroyed half the nation and took an estimated 750,000 lives. Robert E. Lee’s personal efforts to reconcile the division in our nation at that time won him the praise of countless U.S. Presidents and world leaders and he continually serves as a future example to us all. Lee’s Christian faith guided all his actions; his desire to mend fences and not tear them down, find workable compromises, forgive his enemies, not harbor resentments from the past—all this and more serve as sound examples for Americans today. 

This past year saw countless monuments to America’s heroes desecrated and destroyed on college campuses across the north—just as mobs were simultaneously destroying memorials to Confederate soldiers throughout the South. College cancel culture saw monuments to Lincoln, Grant, Franklin, Theodore Roosevelt, Wm McKinley, and countless others—including abolitionists—attacked and destroyed. Given Dr. Roth’s and Ty Seidule’s call to remove Lee’s name from barracks and schools, perhaps the City of Erie should revisit and remove the name of Anthony Wayne from the street, park, and school that bear his name. After all, it could be argued that our own local celebrity was even guilty of prospering under slavery than Robert E. Lee.  

Jack Bovee
Erie, PA
Email:   jsbovee@aol.com

Media Predictions About the Next Republican Presidential Candidate

Just for fun, I would like to make some predictions about future stories run by our super impartial and unbiased mainstream media (MSM) regarding the next Republican nominee for the Presidency. Once you reach a certain age, not only do you gain a certain amount of wisdom, but you also begin to see patterns (if you have been paying attention). It is sort of like Keanu Reeve’s character ‘Neo’ at the end of The Matrix where you have taken the ‘red pill’ and can now see what is really going on.

The first thing the MSM will attempt to do is to tell us how dumb this candidate is. By the way, it will not matter the gender or race of the individual. The double standard is clear now. If you are on the Left and you happen to be black, female, gay, or whatever, then you are defended by the MSM; however, if you are any of the aforementioned minorities, but on the Right … well then you forfeit your protection and are free to be ridiculed (see my previous article The Hypocrisy of the Left – Feminism Part II).

Much of what this Republican nominee says will be taken out of context and distorted so as to make them look foolish. The plethora of ill-liberal late-night talk show hosts will glam onto this and ridicule this person mercilessly. The sad part is that despite how unfunny their monologue is, the lemmings in the audience will clap and cheer vigorously.

The next thing the MSM will do is to attempt to paint this candidate as a racist, misogynist, homophobic, bigot of some kind. They will take some innocuous statement, picture, or tweet from their past and construe it in such a way as to be unflattering to say the least. Incidentally, Ralph Northam is still the governor of Virginia despite appearing in blackface in his 1984 medical school yearbook standing next to a guy in a KKK hood and robe. By the way, when I ‘Googled’ ‘Northam Governor Blackface’ I found several apologetic and excusatory articles by left-wing publications in this order: CNN, NY Times, USAToday, Washington Post, NY Times (again), NBC News, Washington Post (again), USA Today (again), CNN (again), CNN (a third time), Politico, Newsweek, NPR, etc. Thanks for your impartiality big tech!

Anyway, this new Republican nominee will also be portrayed by the state-run-media as an anti-globalist, anti-environmentalist, and pro-military G.I. Joe-type character. I, for one, am a-okay with an American president whose primary concern is America, and is unafraid to stand by our allies and oppose our enemies – such a novel concept! As far as the environment goes, does anyone want a piss-poor environment? We literally all have to live here, so it is hard for me to believe that anyone really wants a crummy environment. In regards to the military, we need to keep our noses out of most other country’s business, but when horrible things occur such as a natural disaster or GENOCIDE – well then I feel we may be in a position to help, and we ought to do just that.

Jean-Marc Bovee, PharmD retired
St. Louis, MO

The Hypocrisy of the Left – Presidential Portrayals

I remember growing up in the eighties as a teenager seeing HBO’s show Not Necessarily the News constantly making fun of Ronald Reagan’s age and portraying him (prematurely I might add) as a nonsensical senile old man (he was 77 at the end of his second term). In fact, I remember Dennis Miller doing a joke around the beginning of Reagan’s second term where Dennis stated that his family would not let their grandfather be in charge of the remote control, and yet we as a nation were giving the presidency to Ronny. By the way, Joe Biden just began his first term as President at the age of 78 years old.

Flash forward to 2001 with George W. Bush and his constant portrayal by the media as some dim-witted cowboy. Comedian Will Ferrell portrayed our 43rd President in a one-man Broadway show with an unflattering depiction to say the least. Previous to that we had to hear about how dumb Vice Presidential candidate Dan Quayle was by the self-contradictory comedian George Carlin.

The point is that the mainstream media, and the Left in general, for decades now, have consistently presented a skewered view of Republican politicians as buffoons, and Democrats as supremely enlightened beings. Now it is 2021 and we have a legitimately impaired, feeble, and barely sentient person in the White House, and the cowards that inhabit Saturday Night Live, or the plethora of late-night TV talk shows, refrain from mining this vast endless pit of potential comedic material because their politics forbid it. 

Following are just some examples of the ‘Big mans’ gaffes over the years:

Three decades ago, Biden’s verbal attack on a voter at a New Hampshire house party helped derail his first presidential campaign. When Claremont, New Hampshire high-school teacher Frank Fahey asked Biden what law school he attended, the then-senator from Delaware responded, “I probably have a much higher IQ than you do, I suspect.” Biden snapped as he expounded on a glittering academic record that reporters later found was largely manufactured. The exchange, captured by C-Span’s cameras, resurfaced months later when Biden was revealed as a serial plagiarist going back to his college days. He abandoned his White House bid soon after.

In 2006, as he explored a second presidential run, Biden’s penchant for racial insensitivity resurfaced. “In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian-Americans, moving from India,” he told one voter. “You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. And I’m not joking,” he added with a grin. Indian-American groups objected to what they called “embarrassing, stereotypical comments.” “We do appreciate knowing what he really thinks of his Indian-American constituents,” said Dr. Raghavendra Vijayanagar of the Indian-American Republican Council.

Then he said this about Barack Obama while running against him in 2007, “I mean, you’ve got the first sort of mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean.” 

Back in October of 2008 in Athens, Ohio, at a rally, Biden said, “Look, John’s last-minute economic plan does nothing to tackle the number one job facing the middle class, and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter word, jobs: J-O-B-S.”

During a 2008 campaign rally in Missouri Biden told a paraplegic man to stand up, “I’m told Chuck Graham, state senator, is here. Stand up Chuck, let ‘em see you. Oh, God love you. What am I talking about? I’ll tell you what, you’re making everybody else stand up, though, pal. Stand up for Chuck!”

In February 2009, Biden showed his mathematic prowess when discussing the economic stimulus package, “If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, there’s still a 30% chance we’re going to get it wrong.”

In March 2010, a cranky Biden scolded American troops for their tepid response to a set-up applause line, “Clap for that, you stupid bastards,” the vice-president barked, minutes into his speech to the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing stationed in Abu Dhabi. Biden was seeking kudos for his “incredibly good judgment” in having nominated one of the group’s officers to the Air Force Academy - but his pronouncement was met with crickets. “Man, you are a dull bunch,” he complained.

Unbelievably in August 2012, Biden said this to a black audience in Danville, Virginia regarding Mitt Romney and the GOP, “They’re going to put you all back in chains.” How he was able to get away with that one is truly remarkable.

Voters cringed through the vice-presidential debate between Biden and Republican Paul Ryan in 2012, as the hyper-aggressive veep interrupted Ryan 85 times with sudden guffaws and dismissive interjections - a heckling strategy much like the one that Donald Trump turned on Biden in their first debate.

Biden’s apparent cluelessness about racially sensitive language has repeatedly landed him in hot water. One day after Kamala Harris scorched him for his past opposition to racially integrating schools through busing in a June 2019 debate, Biden scrambled, “We’ve got to recognize that a kid wearing a hoodie may very well be the next poet laureate,” he told members of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition - “not a gangbanger.” In seeking to dispel damaging stereotypes, critics said that Biden reinforced them. “This is just another example of lessons that Joe Biden shouldn’t have to learn,” remarked New Jersey Senator Cory Booker.

“I am a gaffe machine,” Joe Biden admitted in December 2018. “I will develop some disease and say I have to resign,” he told CNN, as Harris shook her head in bewilderment. In March 2018 he also espoused, that he would “beat the hell out of” President Trump.

A town hall speech in August 2019 with the Asian and Latino Coalition in Des Moines, Iowa set the stage for a stunning Biden blunder, “We should challenge students in these schools to have Advanced Placement programs. We have this notion that somehow if you’re poor you cannot do it. Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.” After a pause, he realized his faux pas. “Wealthy kids, black kids, Asian kids,” he revamped. “No, I really mean it, but think how we think about it.”

In February 2020 Biden referred to a Mercer University economics student Madison Moore, 21, as a “lying dog-faced pony soldier” on national TV.

In December 2020 he exploded at an Iowa Democrat who challenged him with some impertinent questions. “You’re a damn liar, man,” Biden sputtered in an eruption of insults. Later, one reporter chided him for the flare-up. “You talk about needing to restore civility,” she began. “It’s not civil to call someone who lied a liar?” Biden responded. 

In 2020, Biden stumbled over his words as he attempted to recite the Declaration of Independence ahead of Super Tuesday, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, all men and women created by — you know, you know, the thing.” He also accidentally referred to Super Tuesday as "Super Thursday."

On February 10, 2020 Biden called a woman a, “lying, dog-faced pony soldier” at a campaign stop in New Hampshire.

In March 2020 Biden got into a verbal spat with a factory worker telling him he was “full of sh-t” when the worker accused Biden of trying to take away Second Amendment rights. Later during the same exchange, the worker told Biden, “You’re working for me, man” and Biden replied, “I’m not working for you. Give me a break, man. Don’t be such a horse’s ass.” 

In May of 2020, while appearing on the Breakfast Club, a New York City-based radio show, Biden brazenly asserted, "Well I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black."

In his first and very delayed press conference in late March 2021, he came across as confused at times losing his train of thought, “…if you hold near and dear to you that you uh, um, like to be able to um ... anyway … we’re ready to get a lot done.”

In April 2021 he stated, “You walk into a store and you buy a gun you have a background check. But you go to a gun show, you can buy whatever you want and no background check,” which is untrue. He also repeatedly referred to the ATF as the “AFT” in a speech on April 9, 2021.

While rolling out a set of executive orders on gun control in April of this year, he said, “No amendment to the Constitution is absolute.” He did not elaborate if that included the 13th amendment abolishing slavery or the 16th Amendment regarding Federal income taxes or the 19th Amendment addressing voting.

In regards to Georgia’s new voter integrity law, Biden referred to it on national news as “Jim Crow on steroids” and suggested that Major League Baseball (MLB) pull the All-Star game out of Atlanta, which they did. Incidentally, the Left-leaning Washington Post assigned Biden four Pinocchios for falsely stating things like the Georgia law “ends voting hours early” when in fact the bill extends them. Interestingly, not only does Denver have only 15 days of in-person early voting versus Georgia’s 17 days, but Atlanta is 51% black and less than 10 % of Denver is black. So, in other words, the roughly $100 million dollars lost to the majority-black city of Atlanta vis-à-vis the MLB All-Star game will now be going to the overwhelmingly white city of Denver.

Sadly, anyone old enough to recall when Biden entered politics in the early seventies, knows that he has had a long history of controversial stances. During his first term as senator in 1977, Biden was outspoken in regards to busing students to desegregated schools lamenting the fact that his children would be subjected to a “racial jungle.” Again, how he gets away with this sort of thing in a cancel culture that throws people under the bus for a 10-year-old tweet they put out when they were teenagers is perplexing to say the least. For a man who ran on the promise of a return to political decorum, Biden has a long history of bigoted cracks, public put-downs, and angry outbursts.

Despite the fact that this pattern of his has been going on for more than a few decades, there is a possible explanation as to why it has gotten so much worse recently. It has been alleged that the President may in fact have Alzheimer’s disease. Here is a short list of some of the symptoms one is afflicted with regarding this terrible disorder. Ask yourself if Biden meets any or all of these criteria: memory loss, difficulty in communication (especially finding the right words), reduced ability to organize or reason, confusion and disorientation, difficulty with coordination and motor functions (think stairs), changes in personality and behavior (like getting angry and raising your voice for no reason during a speech), and mood swings (as in threatening to beat someone up). This pattern could go on and on, and probably will. In fact, in 2020, even Barack Obama warned Democrats, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f*** things up.” 

Jean-Marc Bovee, Pharm.D. retired
St. Louis, MO

PRESS RELEASE - April 13, 2021 "In Defense of Robert E. Lee"

Re:  In Defense of Robert E. Lee 

Today, our nation struggles to recover from $2 billion dollars in destruction and countless lives lost over this past summer—much of it surrounding the destruction of monuments dedicated to important figures in our national past.  It is no surprise that with the decline in knowledge about our nation’s history that citizens have pressured the Ft. Myers City Council to remove the Memorial dedicated to the memory of the man for whom our county is named. Gone are the days when mayors and commissioners would pose for pictures at the base of the Robert E. Lee Memorial. Nor do many citizens recall that in recent years our County Commission has both officially recognized Confederate Memorial Day and passed a resolution to protect historical monuments within our county.  Unfortunately, with the march of today’s ‘cancel culture’ all that matters is to follow the dictates of an uninformed mob. Due to the blatantly erroneous statements that were made before the Ft. Myers City Council regarding the character of Robert E. Lee, we believe it’s necessary to set the record straight. 

It’s been falsely stated that Lee was a cruel slave owner who whipped his slaves and sold apart family members. The truth is Lee freed not only the slaves he inherited from his wife, but also all those from the Custis estate which were not owned by him.  He always stood in opposition to the institution. True, as executor he rented slaves from the Custis estate, but he did so in order to raise the funds to pay for their emancipation. He accomplished that goal. Those of his slaves who wished to remove to Liberia even had their transport paid by Lee.  

Nor was Lee a ‘traitor.’ He had already dedicated much of his life to the defense of our nation and risked his life in its war against Mexico. Lee always saw himself as following the steps of his Revolutionary War father, “Light-Horse Henry” Lee, and George Washington. He opposed secession but was forced by history to choose. Thank goodness none of us is faced with his choice—to take up arms against one’s one family and neighbors and to invade one’s own state or to hope for peace and vow to protect your loved ones from foreign invasion. Through Lee’s simple word and deed, a murderous guerrilla war following Appomattox was averted. He turned down opportunities to make a fortune off his name as he saw his own properties seized by the federal government, leaving him in dire poverty in 1865. Thanks to an offer from a bankrupt Washington College, he found a respectable home and comfort for his wife by assuming the presidency of the little school. For the next five years as thousands of his officers, former soldiers and southern citizens sought out his guidance, he always advised them that God had decided the contest and their duty now was to be loyal citizens of the United States. Without a doubt, he single-handedly did more than anyone to heal the wounds from a war that cost 750,000 dead and another hundred thousand maimed and disabled. For this he won the undying devotion of our nation and countless Presidents and world leaders. Hardly acts of a traitor!

Lee’s life is a lesson to us in troubled times. For that alone he should not be driven in disgrace from our public square. Drawing inspiration from his ordeal, he continues to inspire generations of Americans to enlist in an army that prides itself on duty, sacrifice, loyalty, and perseverance. We’ve forgotten that in 1964 President Johnson invoked the memory of Lee to successfully pass that year’s momentous Civil Rights Act into law. We’ve forgotten his memory was invoked again during the national turmoil over the Vietnam War. When his “lost” loyalty oath was rediscovered in the National Archives in 1970 there were over 400,000 draft dodgers who had fled to Canada or were in hiding out within America. Congress quickly rushed through a bill restoring Lee’s citizenship. Signed into law by Gerald Ford on July 22, 1975 it offered hope for our future. Shortly afterward, President Carter used this example to pardon hundreds of thousands of Vietnam draft dodgers. Once again Lee helped heal our wounds.

Today should be no different. Many of our members had ancestors who fought in the American Civil War. We respect the views of many Black citizens in Lee County who are offended by the local Robert E. Lee memorial.  We ask them to judge the entire man’s life, however, and not just the four years he chose to defend his family and state from what he considered foreign invasion. We ask that they remember that through his acts and deeds he opposed slavery and humanly freed his own slaves. We feel just as closely touched by Lee’s deeds as they—actions on his part freed their ancestors while they maimed and killed some of ours. 

Lee’s Christian heritage taught him to forgive his enemies and to forget the divisions of the past. He never drank, smoked, swore or was unkind to any person. He was always a faithful husband and loving father. He was a renowned educator—both at West Point and later at Washington College. We’d like to call upon the citizens of Lee County to remember Lee’s character and his entire life’s lesson—one that all our school children should be educated to.  Rather than remove this man from our collective memory, we need to strengthen our remembrance of him. 

With the same hope that Lee had for our nation’s future, we urge the collective elective officials of Ft Myers and Lee County to make the right decision for of our community.

WORDS 949

Sincerely,

 Brian Bailey, President, Southwest Florida Civil War Roundtable
Naples, FL   34117
Cell:     239-