BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG
We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
WAY COOL AND WELL DONE VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH ASSEMBLY!!! DooDuh, DooDuh you feeckin confederate traitors!!! These are overdue actions making things right for all Americans. From the New York Times.....
Anna Venarchik has been reporting across the South on the Confederacy’s legacy since 2020.
Gov. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia has signed into law a bill to end tax exemptions for a slate of Confederacy-related organizations in the state.
The signing by Ms. Spanberger on Monday is the culmination of a yearslong Democrat-led push to shake off the state’s legacy as the capital of the 11 Southern, slaveholding states that seceded from the country in the 1860s.
The new law’s most significant target is the United Daughters of the Confederacy, founded in 1894 for descendants of Confederates. The organization’s stated purpose is to honor the members’ ancestors through, among other things, working with homeless shelters, food banks and other civic groups. Throughout its history, the group built hundreds of Confederate memorials around the country, which have become flash points for protests over historical memory and racial injustices in the last decade.
In the past, the organization has said that losing the decades-old tax breaks could hinder its ability to maintain its headquarters in Richmond and carry out its operations.
Governor Spanberger, a Democrat, was elected in November by a wide margin and took office in January. She has described her victory as a referendum on the Trump administration, which has been aggressively moving to restore some Confederate symbols that were taken down in recent years.
In the General Assembly, where Democrats control both chambers, the House voted 62 to 35, and the Senate 21 to 17, to pass the legislation. This is the third consecutive year that Delegate Alex Askew has sponsored a version of the bill, which he said was an important step toward making state law align with modern values.
“Governor Spanberger’s signing of this bill is a proud moment and an important step forward for Virginia,” he said in a statement on Monday.
Representatives for the United Daughters of the Confederacy did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement in February, Julie Hardaway, the president of the national organization, said the bill “reeks of discrimination, based on misguided and biased opinions of our great philanthropic organization.”
Of particular concern to the group is its marble-walled headquarters in Richmond. It sits on property that the state deeded the group in 1950, but the terms stipulate that if the organization can no longer maintain the site, it will revert to the state.
The total property is valued at about $4.7 million, which according to the city’s rate would make the annual property tax over $57,000. The organization had about $2.1 million in revenue and about $1.1 million in expenses in 2025, according to a tax filing.
In 2020, the building sustained millions of dollars in damage when demonstrators set it ablaze during violence after George Floyd’s murder.
Two other Democrat-led bills targeting the Confederacy’s legacy also made it to Governor Spanberger’s desk. One, which she sent back to the Assembly with recommendations, would establish a task force at the Virginia Military Institute. The panel would be expected to, among other things, recommend ways the college could distance itself from the “Lost Cause,” a sanitized narrative about the Confederacy that has been propagated as fact throughout much of Southern history. The other bill discontinues specialty license plates that feature Robert E. Lee and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. It was signed into law by the governor last week.
Frank Earnest, a spokesman for the Virginia division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said it was “terrible” that the Lee plate would be discontinued and that it was an issue of free speech.
“I could go down to the D.M.V. right now and point out some fact about every plate there that I didn’t like,” he said. “So if we’re going to cancel every plate because somebody out there doesn’t like it, we might as well just cancel the whole program.”
Virginia’s place at the center of Confederate history has stirred tension and anger for years. Efforts to remove Confederate memorials intensified after the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017 and accelerated in 2020, when Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, signed a bill that gave local governments the authority to alter their Confederate symbols. His Republican successor, Glenn Youngkin, however, twice vetoed versions of the tax bill and said targeting specific groups by revoking exemptions would set “an inappropriate precedent.”
The issue continues to play out in other ways across the state. For example, Shenandoah County is awaiting a judge’s decision over whether Black students’ rights were violated when the school board restored the names of Confederate generals to two schools, after they were dropped in 2020.
And at the federal level, the Trump administration announced that a Confederate memorial that was removed in 2023 would be returned to Arlington National Cemetery, a restoration that will reportedly cost $10 million.
Across the U.S. With The Times
Our reporters are exploring how America defines itself.
Go Inside ‘The Brady Bunch’ House: While only its exterior ever appeared in the TV show, stepping into the real-life Brady house now is like going back in time.
Prepping for the End of the World: Homesteading evokes a frontier America. But these days, it means having the skills to grow your food, survive off the grid, if necessary, and take care of family and community.
Siblings Raising Children: When undocumented parents are detained by ICE agents, children who are American citizens are often left to raise each other.
I am proud of the Scot-Irish heritage from my mother's side of our family, and though I am a Protestant Christian (but support the Unionist in their nonviolent political actions to reunite the North with the Irish Republic) I refuse to recognize those committing act of violence against each other as catholic or protestant because there is nothing religious about this conflict. Neither side participating in the violence is following the teachings of Jesus Christ, of Christianity. They are misguided, mislead, deceived Unionist and Republicans who have been persuaded through a propaganda campaign of hate that violence is the only way to defend the union with England or achieve union with the Irish Republic. Yet all they will achieve is further division of their communities, economic depression, educational stagnation and emmigration. This is a report from the PBS News Hour on the resurgence of the troubles in N Ireland....
Protesters have been out on the streets of
Belfast in recent days in advance of Thursday's annual parade honoring
Protestant King William's victory over his Catholic rival in 1690.
Special correspondent Kira Kay reports on the ongoing religious tension
-- 14 years after Ireland's sectarian conflict formally ended.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Now: the simmering unrest in Northern Ireland.
Protesters have been out on the street in Belfast for the past two
days in advance of an annual parade tomorrow. NewsHour special
correspondent Kira Kay looks at the ongoing religious tensions 14 years
after Ireland's sectarian conflict formally ended.
KIRA KAY: It's a compelling sight: the parades that wind their way down the Shankill Road in the heart of Belfast's Protestant community.
This parade is one of the first of the so-called marching season,
when during the summer months, Protestant Northern Ireland residents
loyal to the United Kingdom commemorate a series of historic moments.
The largest takes place tomorrow, July 12, honoring Protestant King
William's victory over his Catholic rival in 1690.
Wesley McCreedy has been marching the Shankill Road for 50 years. WESLEY MCCREEDY, Marcher: It's very much important
the way of the Shankill Road. The Shankill Road are a very loyal people,
a very worthwhile people, and they all stick together. WOMAN: That's what I was brought up to believe in, too. It's my culture. KIRA KAY: For Joanne Harrison and her husband, Tommy, the parades are a family tradition, but also a matter of self-preservation. MAN: Have to keep the culture going. WOMAN: Have to keep it going. We have to keep walking. It's the queen's road. It's the queen's highway KIRA KAY: You have to keep it going, why? WOMAN: Well, if we don't, the other side is going to take over. KIRA KAY: The other side she refers to are the
Catholics living just a few blocks away. The Shankill is virtually
encircled by Catholic neighborhoods.
And this small area, where West and North Belfast meet, saw some of
the worst violence of the 30 years of sectarian conflict here, known as
the Troubles; 3,500 people died in bombings, assassinations and clashes
between nationalist militants like the IRA and the British army and
loyalist paramilitaries.
In 1998, peace came, with an agreement that maintained Northern
Ireland as part of the United Kingdom, but brought Catholic nationalist
party Sinn Fein into government in a power-sharing arrangement with its
former loyalist foes. MARTIN MCGUINNESS, Deputy First Prime Minister,
Northern Ireland: It has been a remarkable journey. We're now in the
control effectively of one of the most successful peace processes in the
world today. KIRA KAY: Martin McGuinness, once a militant IRA commander, is now co-leader of the power-sharing government. MARTIN MCGUINNESS: Throughout the course of the last 14 or 15 years, many things that were considered unimaginable have actually happened. KIRA KAY: Downtown Belfast, once cordoned off by
security fences and army checkpoints, now hosts bustling streets and
cafes. A new museum about the Titanic, built in Belfast, beckons
tourists. MARTIN MCGUINNESS: We have been working away at
trying to attract foreign direct investment. We have brought on
thousands of jobs over the course of the last couple of years. You go
out on the streets of Belfast and Derry, there's been a transformation.
All that said, we're still very conscious of the fact that a lot of work
needs to be done. NEIL JARMAN, Director, Institute for Conflict
Research: The peace agreement did certain things, in that it brought
Sinn Fein and the IRA out of the political wilderness to some extent and
into the institutions of power. But it didn't deal with some of the
wider issues of Northern Ireland, which are around segregation and
hostility between the two dominant communities. KIRA KAY: Dr. Neil Jarman directs the Institute for
Conflict Research. He says that, while the peace agreement has brought a
welcome end to full-scale violence, parts of the country remain divided
and on edge. NEIL JARMAN: In Belfast, they're most visibly
expressed in working-class communities, which are almost entirely
segregated. And the tensions really break out where those residential
areas meet, where a Catholic area butts up against a Protestant area. KIRA KAY: North and West Belfast resemble a
patchwork quilt. Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods alternate every
few blocks, sometimes dramatically separated by physical barriers called
peace walls.
Most were built during the Troubles, but some have gone up even since
the peace agreement, as intercommunal attacks continued. Stark and
sometimes militaristic murals make it impossible to escape the weight of
history and identity here.
Jarman says that, while a great deal of the year the streets here are
calm, that changes during the marching season, with the palpable
culture clash the parades bring. NEIL JARMAN: Parades can cause very real tensions,
because it's almost impossible to find a route through North Belfast
that doesn't come into contact with a Catholic area or a Protestant
area. KIRA KAY: In recent years, parades have sparked
upheaval. First come the protests by Catholic community groups over the
parades passing through their area, followed later in the evening by
full-scale riots of angry youth.
Last year, the riots cost two-and-a-half million dollars to police. WINSTON IRVINE, North and West Belfast Parades
Forum: We need to understand, appreciate and respect the fact that we
have cultural differences, we have historical differences and religious
and political differences here in Northern Ireland. KIRA KAY: Winston Irvine defends the Protestant
community's right to march at annual negotiations over the parades
routing through the most contentious streets. WINSTON IRVINE: We as a Protestant community
understand that there are different perceptions and there are different
notions towards loyal order parades. But I think that the only way to
discuss those issues is around a table. And I think it's totally
illegitimate to use any means of violence to protest or to express
opposition to someone else's culture. FERNANDO MURPHY, Ardoyne Youth Providers Forum: The
parade is -- it's a triumphalism of the Protestants against the
Catholics. It brings us back 20 years every time that parade goes down
the road. You know, it brings this community back to what we have tried
to move on and tried to let everybody else see that it has moved on. KIRA KAY: Outreach worker Fernando Murphy lives in
the Ardoyne neighborhood, a particularly poor and marginalized Catholic
community. Peace walls virtually encircle Ardoyne, creating what Murphy
describes as a siege mentality. And he fears the upcoming July 12 parade
will roil communal tensions yet again. FERNANDO MURPHY: Across the way, there is the
Protestant area, and this side is the Catholic side. And on the 12th of
July, the parade comes up here. It comes up past here and comes into the
Catholic area and up past all these houses. All these shops have to
shut. People can't go about their normal daily life. This usually
culminates in a riot situation. KIRA KAY: Protestant Representative Winston Irvine says the two communities have to find a way to agree on parading. WINSTON IRVINE: The single biggest, most important
aspect of reconciliation for unionists and for Protestants living
particularly in working-class areas of Northern Ireland will be to see a
resolution of the parading dispute. That will be a visible affirmation
that reconciliation has begun. KIRA KAY: But Fernando Murphy says his Catholic
community will never accept the parades on their streets. So, instead,
his organization runs field trips for local youths to remove them from
the area on July 12. FERNANDO MURPHY: Community groups are -- actually
don't want the people to be taken away. I can see their issue by saying,
why should we remove our young people from our area because of one
parade? Why doesn't the parade just remove itself from our area?
We see it necessary, because it stops young people from getting a criminal record or being exposed to sectarian violence. KIRA KAY: On the streets of North and West Belfast,
young people are living with the reality of segregation. Kids in
Protestant neighborhoods are busy building towering bonfires to be lit
on the eve of the July 12 march. YOUTH: Aye, it's brilliant. KIRA KAY: It's brilliant? YOUTH: Aye, I love it. KIRA KAY: Why? MAN: Because, I don't know, I have been waiting for this time of year all year, to start collecting for the bonfire. YOUTH: There's nothing to do up these here streets. So whenever a bonfire comes up, there's just really something to do. KIRA KAY: Do you ever go into the Catholic neighborhoods? YOUTH: Not really, no. KIRA KAY: How come? YOUTH: Just probably end up getting hurt if you end up caught over there. YOUTH: Different religion. KIRA KAY: People still feel differently here? YOUTH: Yes. Conflict hasn't changed, to be honest with you. KIRA KAY: Among a group of Catholic kids on the other side of town, there is some initial bluster. YOUTH: They're orange bastards. They're British. KIRA KAY: They're orange bastards? YOUTH: Yes, they're British, so they're not our people. KIRA KAY: They are not your people. YOUTH: No. KIRA KAY: But then also some promising signs of curiosity.
You would like to meet some Protestants? YOUTH: Well, I would. YOUTH: Aye. KIRA KAY: You would like to understand them a little bit. YOUTH: Aye, see if they get on like us, see if they're different. KIRA KAY: Would any of you go to the same school with them? YOUTH: I would. KIRA KAY: You would? Why? YOUTH: Aye. YOUTH: See what it's like. YOUTH: Aye. See what it's like. KIRA KAY: See what it's like.
More than 90 percent of Northern Ireland's schools are segregated.
But Hazelwood Primary School is different. Its goal is integration.
Patricia Murtagh is the principal. PATRICIA MURTAGH, Principal, Hazelwood Integrated
Primary School: One of the things that parents that set up a school like
ours were banking on, that the relationships that the children would
establish here would be continued as they got older, and as they got
older they would realize the significance of those relationships, that
I'm living in a Catholic area, my friend is living in a Protestant area,
and yet we're still friends. KIRA KAY: The school maintains a strict sectarian
balance, both in numbers of students and topics covered. But even
Hazelwood's campus abuts a peace wall, erected just a few years ago when
nearby homes were torched. PATRICIA MURTAGH: And, actually, we use it as a
discussion point without children, too. You know, it's a resource. And
we go and talk to them and ask, why is it there and why do you think
people felt threatened sufficiently to have something like that
constructed? KIRA KAY: For schools like Hazelwood to become the
norm and for communities to integrate, activists are looking towards
removing the peace walls bit by bit.
Alexandra Park has been split in half for 18 years. But now, in an
experiment, the gates are being opened from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on
weekdays. NEIL JARMAN: As it moves on, the intention is that
the gates will be open, rather than they will be closed. And once that
norm has become established, you can then take away the rest of the
fence. It will take a long time, but we will get there. MARTIN MCGUINNESS: You can't flick a switch and go
from darkness into light. It's a process. And it's going to take a lot
of effort and a lot of recognition by people within communities that we
have to work together. KIRA KAY: The Northern Ireland Parades Commission
has now ruled that this year's July 12 march must end earlier than in
previous years, in an attempt to avoid clashes with protesters.
Protestant politicians called the decision outrageous. Catholics said it
didn't go far enough. GWEN IFILL: Kira's story is part of the series "Fault Lines of Faith," produced in partnership with the Bureau for International Reporting.
You can learn more about their stories by following a link on our Web
site. Plus, on our World page, read about how one group is using video
diaries to try to bridge the divide between Catholic and Protestant
youth in Belfast. Video link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j48XwoTeFC4 http://pbs.org/newshour/rss/media/2012/07/11/20120711_nireland.mp3
THE koch brothers are evil. Only evil people would work to destroy a school system that does what a school system is supposed to do, educate all the community's children equally. The Wake County, N.C. public school system does that very well, in racially and economically diverse schools. The koch brothers are evil because they tried to destroy this through their proxy organization americans for prosperity which lead a campaign of deception, manipulation and fear mongering propaganda to gain control of the Wake County School Board and then begin the dismantling of a very successful public school system. Only the strength and resolve of a majority of the residents, students and teachers protesting at school board meetings as well as the threat of lawsuits and calls for the federal government to investigate has stopped the afp and koch brothers plans. The Brave New Foundation has documented what the koch brothers are trying to do in Wake County. Check out the video and linked articles and donate to BNF if you can, at the least share this with others so the koch brothers attacks on our public education system are exposed.
We got them! With your help, we got the Kochs and we got them good. Our latest video about the Koch brothers' fight against public education earned 60,000 views so far. It was played on MSNBC and was written about everywhere from Mother Jones to the Raleigh News & Observer. These and other press clip links are below.
We drew the Kochs' ire as soon as our video went live and these reporters started making calls. Americans for Prosperity quickly flooded reporters' inboxes with litigation threats and retraction demands. When asked for their side of the story by news organizations, Americans for Prosperity's Dallas Woodhouse told journalists there is pending legal action against us.
[UDPATE: In an August 16 letter to Brave New Foundation Robert Greenwald, Dallas Woodhouse, Americans for Prosperity's North Carolina state director, attacked the premise of Greenwald's film, saying it "falsely claims" AFP was involved in the 2009 Wake County school board elections. Woodhouse asserts that AFP "did not spend a single dime on those elections" nor did it engage in any get-out-the-vote or voter education efforts. "AFP played no role in the 2009 WCPSS election," Woodhouse asserts. Read his full response.
In its response to AFP, Brave New Foundation stood by its story. BNF pointed to several statements of AFP-NC's in support of its claims, including a 2008 blog post of Woodhouse's saying AFP-NC "is on record as supporting the parents of WakeCARES, through significant financial contributions as well as other support." In the fall of 2009, WakeCARES endorsed the four school board candidates who opposed Wake County's busing policy, and a former AFP-NC director later credited WakeCARES with paving the way for the four candidates' victories. BNF alleged AFP "funneled" financial support to the candidates through Art Pope, a wealthy Raleigh businessman and an AFP national director, who gave more than $15,000 to the Wake GOP which in turn spent nearly all of its political donations in 2009 on backing the four conservative school board candidates. AFP-NC's Woodhouse also toldNewsweek in January that his group did voter education and mobilized volunteers for the school board election.]
At first glance, the billionaire libertarian Koch brothers and the Wake County, North Carolina, school board couldn't be more disparate. Charles and David Koch, the brains behind the massive Koch Industries conglomerate and the funders of so many right-wing political causes, are national figures, credited with (or accused of, depending on your political persuasion) launching the tea party movement and waging war on the Obama administration and its agenda. The Wake County public school board is, well, just that.
In reality, there are deep connections between the Kochs and Wake County, and it's all about the money. The latest installment in the left-leaning Brave New Foundation's "Koch Brothers Exposed" video series reveals how a Koch-founded and funded outfit, Americans for Prosperity, fueled a campaign to "resegregate" the schools of Wake County, a prosperous area in central North Carolina that's home to the cities of Raleigh and Cary, among others.
The story starts back in 2009, when elections were held for four of Wake County's nine school board seats—enough seats to dictate the public school district's agenda if all four board members wanted the same reforms. That's where Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political advocacy group, came into play. AFP swooped in to fund and organize on behalf of four candidates who sought to kill the district's policy of busing to ensure diverse, desegregated public schools. The AFP-backed candidates ran against what they called "forced busing"—a phrase, the film points out, that dates back to George Wallace in the 1970s—and instead stressed that schools should educate only those who lived in the surrounding neighborhood.
Local reporters, some of whom are interviewed in the film, connected the push to eliminate busing with the philosophies of AFP and its funders. "They're definitely pushing an agenda to resegregate these schools, but there's also a real push toward privatization," Sue Sturgis of the Institute for Southern Studies says in the film.
In the end, all four AFP-backed candidates won, and the school board has since begun to roll back its existing busing policies despite a wave of protest and outrage in the local community.
Robert Greenwald, president of Brave New Films, says he and his team zeroed in on the Wake County schools controversy as a way to illustrate just how powerful monied interests can be at the local level. "The fact that millionaires can put hundreds of thousands of dollars into a local election and essentially deprive people of their rights, in many ways, and mess with their school system," he says. "It seems to us one of the strongest examples of the really incredible way money takes away our democracy."
You can watch the video in its entirety above.
Andy Kroll is a reporter at Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here. Email him with tips and insights at akroll (at) motherjones (dot) com. Follow him on Twitter here. Get Andy Kroll's RSS feed.
