Independence County (Arkansas) Judge Robert Griffin confirms that he had a Confederate flag taken down last night at the Independence County Courthouse.
This action has been confirmed by Griffin this morning, who recently announced a party switch to seek re-election next year as a Republican. His response:
- I worked to get the consent of the SCV and it took a week to achieve that end. The pole was put up years ago and had various flags over time. In the current atmosphere, I convinced them of the political realities and told them how the endgame would play out. They were agreeable and sensitive to that request. With their consent, I took it down last night.
For those of you who missed it, according to Judge Griffin, the local SCV approved the removal of the flag? I've been unable to reach anyone in the local SCV camp for comment. If you are a member of the SCV camp in Independence County you are invited to issue a statement that we can publish in an upcoming issue.
Florida's Senators Consider Removing Confederate Flag From State Senate Seal
State senators are scheduled next week to begin considering whether to keep the Confederate flag on the Senate's official seal, another sign of a growing national tide against icons of the South's rebellion in the 1860s.
The Senate Rules Committee will meet Oct. 8 to begin re-examining the current emblem of the chamber. Under Senate rules, the seal includes "a fan of the five flags which have flown over Florida" - those of the United States, Confederate States of America, France, Great Britain and Spain.
But there has been a growing backlash against Confederate symbols since June, when a man with white supremacist views opened fire at a church in Charleston, killing nine people. Since then, Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, and Senate Minority Leader Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa, requested in June that the committee consider whether the seal should be changed.
In a memo, Gardiner did not specifically point to the Confederate flag, but wrote about how views on symbols can transform over time:
"The current Senate seal and coat of arms were first adopted in rule in 1973," Gardiner wrote. "Florida has certainly changed a great deal since the early seventies. Just as our state seal has been revised over time, I believe a periodic review of our legislative insignia would be beneficial."
In a separate letter to Rules Chairman David Simmons, Joyner called explicitly for "the removal of the Confederate flag from the official Senate seal."
Gardiner asked Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs, to have a recommendation ready when the next regular legislative session begins in January. Any change to the Senate seal would require a two-thirds vote of the Senate.
Other legislative efforts dealing with the flag are also underway. A pair of bills (SB 154 and HB 243) - sponsored by Sen. Geraldine Thompson, D-Orlando, and Rep. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg - would seek to ban government buildings or properties from displaying any flag used by the Confederacy. .
Lawmakers could also consider legislation to replace a statue of Confederate Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith, whose likeness is one of two sculptures that represent the state in the National Statuary Hall Collection at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, D.C.
n Tuesday, more than 150 years after his death, Pvt. Preston C. Wall has finally gotten a proper funeral.
Wall, a Confederate soldier from Company C of the Missouri Infantry, died June 29, 1863, during the Siege of Vicksburg. He was 23, but was already a seasoned combat veteran. Wall was never married and left behind no descendants.
John C. Pemberton Camp of Sons of Confederate Veterans recently put up a stone in Cedar Hill Cemetery in his honor and formally unveiled the white granite stone Tuesday during a private ceremony with a family member that finally has a marker and some way of memorializing him.
"We're celebrating the life Preston had," said John Wall of Washington, a descendant of one of Preston Wall's brothers.
Preston Walls fought in Missouri and at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, before coming to Mississippi where he fought at Iuka, Port Gibson, Champion Hill, Big Black River and Vicksburg before his death toward the end of the 47-day siege.
DOES SOUTHERN HERITAGE HAVE A NEW ENEMY?
The most unusual group has just jumped onto the anti-southern bandwagon. Joining the SPLC, ACLU, NAACP, Democrats, Republicans, SCV "Grannies," Scallywags, Carpetbaggers, Fox News, CNN and political correctness in their assault on all things Southern is CAIR, The Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The story below is so tabloidish I would not reprint it if it did not represent a real threat to our heritage. CAIR has money, a large organization, and they have the ear of fearful politicians.
FROM YAHOO NEWS
A "Muslim-free" gun store in Florida is selling prints of the Confederate battle flag painted by the U.S.'s most controversial former neighborhood-watch member.
George Zimmerman, who shot and killed Trayvon Martin in February 2012, decided to paint the polarizing flag to raise legal fees for himself and Florida Gun Supply in Inverness.
The store's owner, Andy Hallinan, and Zimmerman are raffling off the latter's latest painting. For $50, each participant will receive a copy of the original.
Hallinan was heavily criticized after releasing a video in which he announced that Muslims were not welcome at his store.
"I will not arm and train those who wish to do harm to my fellow patriots," he said while standing in front of a Confederate flag.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) responded by calling upon the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the gun store for violating federal laws that prohibit discrimination.
"I think it is a clear and concrete demonstration of the overlap of racism and Islamophobia. It's a clear indication that those who support the racist symbol of the Confederate flag also support bigotry targeting American Muslims," Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director for CAIR, said in an interview with Yahoo News.
"Labeling everyone and anyone that has a Confederate flag as a racist is just not right," Zimmerman said to Hallinan. "That's one of the reasons I chose to reach out to you and see what I can do to help."
According to Zimmerman, the phrase has a double meaning: It refers to both the Second Amendment protecting the First Amendment and the Confederate battle flag protecting the American flag.
In July 2013, Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder charges in the black teenager's death. But he has periodically reappeared in the national press for his subsequent run-ins with the law.
Zimmerman's latest painting brings together three highly controversial topics with which the nation is grappling: the deaths of young black men, the Confederate flag and discrimination against American Muslims.
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