On Memorial Day, we honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice to protect our freedoms. This year, we speak with Arlington Cemetery Historian Timothy Frank, on recognizing a century of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. . .

[Video]

Memorial Day inspires mixed emotions: pride in the valor of those who gave their lives in the cause of freedom; sorrow that such self-sacrifice should have been necessary. Pride in past valor may be best expressed in the St. Crispin’s Day speech from “Henry V” (Act IV, Scene iii), delivered by the young king on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt. . . .

Commentary: Pop, the uncle who raised me, carried with him for more than half a century a haunting memory from his time aboard the aircraft carrier Essex in World War II. Anti-aircraft fire had killed a turret gunner during a sortie. Pop, whose job it was to repair and prepare planes for the next mission, went up to inspect the plane as soon as it landed. What he encountered was a gruesome sight: the decapitated body of the turret gunner in a blood-soaked turret.

The captain of the Essex dispatched the ship’s chaplain to ask Pop if the plane could be patched up enough to fly again. Pop’s reply to the captain, via the chaplain/messenger, was, “Yes, but with all this blood in the tropical heat, it will stink to high heaven. I recommend we bury this man in the plane in which he had given his life for his country.” When the chaplain relayed Pop’s message to the captain up on the bridge, the captain turned to Pop and gave him the thumbs-up signal. The subsequent burial at sea was unique. It was the only time during World War II that a still-flightworthy aircraft was used as a coffin. . .

This editorial was written by the Daily Camera.

Monday is Memorial Day, and the best thing anyone can do, says Gulf War veteran Jason Scott Fearing, is to seek out a veteran and start a real, honest, conversation. It could lead to a lifelong friendship, a greater understanding of humanity, or simply and no less importantly allow one veteran to be heard.

Fearing served for 12 years in the U.S. Army, with 30 deployments, including joining hundreds of thousands of American soldiers — his brothers and sisters — during the early 1990s in Operation Desert Shield followed by Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf.

Fearing, who suffers from long- and short-term memory loss, can recall turning 21 years old during boot camp in Ohio, but his days, weeks and hours in combat are not so clearly remembered. Those awful memories – which can be triggered by any loud noise sounding like mortar fire, he says — have manifested as chronic mental health challenges with associated physical pain from a central nervous system disorder. And what he does remember, he doesn’t wish to talk about.

“I stutter, I struggle to remember what I am talking about sometimes and stop, or I might act weird if something smells like burned meat,” he says. “But my sacrifice was worth it to me. I helped people and did a lot of good things like building infrastructure. Remember Baghdad airport?”

Today, at age 50, life is pretty good, Fearing says. He’s got his best friend, a “super pugle” he calls him, a mix of a pug and a beagle named Buddy Boyd. He collects Hot Wheels and shops for food when he isn’t in too much pain or there isn’t too much snow hampering his wheelchair. It was a long road to get here, with a lot of help from others, he says. . . .

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) recalled his service in the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, known as the Old Guard, while reflecting on the sacrifice of those who died in America’s armed forces ahead of Memorial Day.

Cotton, U.S. Army veteran who served tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq, described the attention to detail involved in the Old Guard’s ceremonial mission of receiving remains of fallen soldiers returned to America and of funerals at Arlington National Cemetery.

“We have rulers that are measured down to 1/64th of an inch, which is the standard for most decorations and badges on an Old Guard soldier’s uniform,” Cotton said on Thursday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow.

He continued, “That level of discipline and precision and high standards is a reflection of the care that we have for those fallen heroes, and that if they sacrificed their lives for our nation, then surely we can sacrifice a little comfort, a little time to make sure that everything is perfect for them.” . . .

There’s a serenity about Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery. It is a peaceful place. It’s where I choose to celebrate Memorial Day. . . . It is where they are at rest. Arlington National Cemetery is where I know too many names etched on the white marble headstones. It is 639 acres of ground sanctified by the blood of our nation’s warriors dating back to the Civil War. This ground, and the hundreds of national cemeteries around the country and overseas, is where millions will pause, remember these men and women and take stock of what they fought so bravely to preserve. . . .

In preparation for the historically violent weekend, the Chicago Police Department canceled days off and put officers on 12-hour shifts while community groups fanned out across the city to draw people out of the line of fire.

Two people have been killed and at least 26 others wounded in shootings across Chicago over Memorial Day weekend.

In preparation for the historically violent weekend, the Chicago Police Department canceled days off and put officers on 12-hour shifts. Meanwhile, community groups fanned out across the city to draw people out of the line of fire.

“This is our city that we love, and there is loss of life, and it should make us weep and roll up our sleeves,” said John Fuder of Chicagoland United in Prayer, whose group is sponsoring prayer marches across the city this weekend. . . .

While reflecting on the purpose of Memorial Day, Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) told Breitbart News Americans who lost their lives in armed conflicts are “sewn into the fabric of America.”

Mast, a U.S. Army who served in Afghanistan, joined Thursday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow ahead of the Memorial Day weekend.

“There’s a really important reason that we go out there and that we take this time out,” Mast said. “We should be doing it every single, day but I always ask people, ‘Ask yourself, how do you make somebody live on that did something worthy of remembering? How do they live on?’ And the way that they do that is to remember what they did.”

He added, “You don’t just remember what they did. You remember why they did it [and] what to them was was worth fighting for, and take Memorial Day as a day to stop and think about that for a few minutes.” . . .

“We were supposed to be revolutionaries. We were for anybody who is kind of in your face. I saw what I had become, lashing out at every single thing. And then I asked God that if you take anger out of my heart I’ll never hate again.” ~ Justice Clarence Thomas

[ Full Documentary ]

You cannot live a free life without having your own thoughts. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas makes this poignantly clear. “In my life I had been looking at the wrong people as the people who would be problematic toward me. We were told that, oh, it’s going to be the bigot in the pickup truck, it’s gonna be the klansman, it’s gonna be the rural sheriff. And I’m not saying that there weren’t some of those who were bad. But, it turned out that through all of that ultimately the biggest impediment was the modern day liberal. That they were the ones who would discount all those things because they have one issue or because they have the authority, the power to caricature you.” ~ Justice Clarence Thomas

[ Manifold Productions ]

Treason is an ugly thing — it sullies both the traitor and those betrayed. Turncoats must lie, of necessity, spreading misinformation, fanning grievances and hatred, and disguising their true intentions in order to turn citizens against one another. Of course, this man’s traitor might be that woman’s patriot, because when words are weapons, who can say which exact phrase will cause a particular person to abuse, attack, imprison, or exterminate another human being.

American Traitor: The Trial of Axis Sally wrestles with this conundrum by revisiting the real-life case of Mildred Gillars, a wannabe Broadway star who settled for the role of dulcet-toned Nazi propagandist and ended up being tried for treason against the United States. . . . .

. . .Sally’s meandering singing voice dovetailed with the flatlined German jazz that provided musical breaks between her monologues ridiculing the leader of the country she was born in: “This is Berlin calling. Berlin calling the American mothers and wives. It’s a disgrace to the American public that they don’t wake up to the fact of what Franklin Roosevelt is doing to the gentiles of your country and my country.” She read dialogue that was always written by others, sometimes by the minister of propaganda himself, Joseph Goebbels. When Sally goes off script and substitutes “unbeatable” for “invincible” to describe the German army and how it will slaughter any invaders, the Nazi overlord rapes her for overstepping, while musicians and her own boyfriend avert their eyes from the crime unfolding behind the recording booth’s glass.

In the American trial, Sally was represented by the flamboyant James J. Laughlin, a lawyer known for antagonizing prosecutors and judges alike. Al Pacino is no stranger to courtroom dramas (And Justice for All, The Devil’s Advocate), but here, disheveled and hunched, he tells his assistant, “I cannot stand that damn Gillars broad. Did you see the way she walked in, like she was Betty Davis or something? I don’t want anything to do with her for the rest of the trial.” Laughlin, we learn later, has lost a son in the war, but that does not stop him from ultimately defending his unsympathetic client. His aversion to the then 48-year-old Gillars was shared by many Americans. Reporting on the trial, in early 1949, Richard Rovere had this to say in his “Letter From Washington” column for The New Yorker: “In all this weird collection of war surplus, the weirdest item by far, and most incongruous, is Miss Gillars herself.” He goes on to describe her “Miami Beach tan, the cosmetic nature of which is given away by the prison pallor of her hands.” As Gillars, Meadows conveys a woman who lunged for the brass ring of stardom but found herself spouting the nasty dross written for her by the likes of Goebbels, a writer rejected by publishers until the Nazi party’s own presses printed his novel, Michael, which sold well as his star in the regime rose. Likewise an artistic mediocrity, Sally found herself in a land where innovation, imagination, or any form of veering from the official dictates was dangerous. When the bullies and thugs rule, art serves only their purposes and only at their pleasure. . . . .

Patrisse Cullors, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, will depart from her role as the organization’s executive director, the charity announced Thursday.

Cullors’ abrupt departure from the charity, which serves as the national arm of the BLM movement, came three weeks after the Daily Caller News Foundation reported that she had used her position as the charity’s leader to funnel business to an art company led by the father of her only child. Charity experts said BLM’s arrangement with the art company, Trap Heals, amounts to self-dealing and raises ethical and legal questions.

BLM Global Network did not provide an explanation in its statement Thursday for Cullors’ sudden departure. The statement said Cullors would be replaced by two senior executives who will lead the group until it “finds a new permanent team.”

Cullors told the Associated Press on Thursday that she is leaving BLM Global Network to focus on other projects, including the release of her second book and a multi-year Warner Bros. television deal.

Cullors “decried what she called a smear campaign from a far-right group, but said neither that nor recent criticism from other Black organizers influenced her departure,” the AP reported.

BLM Global Network had previously offered a vigorous defense for Cullors in April after reports revealed she had purchased four homes across the country for a total of $3.2 million since 2016.

Two other activist groups co-founded and led by Cullors — Black Lives Matter PAC and Reform LA Jails — also made payments to Trap Heals under her leadership, according to campaign finance records previously reported by the DCNF.

BLM PAC paid Trap Heals $148,000 in November to co-produce an election night live stream event on her personal YouTube channel that, according to industry experts, should have cost a fraction of that price to produce, the DCNF previously reported.

The BLM PAC live stream was so poorly produced and riddled with so many technical issues that a conservative watchdog group told the DCNF it is considering filing a complaint with the Federal Election Commission over the “excessive payments.”

Audio and technical issues persisted when Cullors’ second guest attempted to join the stream.

Remember: A company run by the father of Cullors’ only child received $148,300 from BLM PAC to co-produce this show.

WATCH:

(8/x) pic.twitter.com/XGLiOoMiTK

— Andrew Kerr (@AndrewKerrNC) May 20, 2021

BLM Global Network’s statement did not say if Cullors will depart from her role as chairwoman of BLM PAC.

“With smart, experienced and committed people supporting the organization during this transition, I know that BLMGNF is in good hands,” Cullors said in the statement. “The foundation’s agenda remains the same — eradicate white supremacy and build life-affirming institutions.”

“Between the two Senior Executives and BLM Grassroots Co-Director Melina Abdullah, who is an original member of BLM and co-founder of its first chapter in Los Angeles, their immense talent will build a future where Black lives do more than matter — they will truly thrive,” Cullors said.

After almost 8 years, we say see you later to the last of our founders, Patrisse Cullors, who’s served BLM whole-heartedly. We reflect on the impact Patrisse had on BLM, & we are in deep gratitude.

Patrisse, we are in awe of you always. #ThankYouPatrisse pic.twitter.com/MOWP38DYpT

— Black Lives Matter (@Blklivesmatter) May 27, 2021

BLM Global Network came to Cullors’ defense in an April 13 statement after New York-based black activist Hawk Newsome had called for an “independent investigation” into the group’s finances following reports of Cullors’ multimillion-dollar real estate buying spree.

BLM Global Network said Cullors had received a total of $120,000 from the charity since 2013 and had not received any compensation after 2019.

“To be abundantly clear, as a registered 501c3, BLMGNF cannot and did not commit any organizational resources toward the purchase of personal property by any employee or volunteer,” the statement read.

BLM Global Network did not immediately return a request for comment asking if the DCNF’s reporting on its dealings with Trap Heals played a factor in Cullors’ sudden departure.

– – –

Andrew Kerr is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Patrisse Cullors” by Patrisse Cullors.

As the United Nations human rights chief warns Israel may have committed war crimes in Gaza, we look at how Israel killed 12 Palestinian children being treated for trauma from past Israeli bombings. Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, says Gaza has become “the home of hopelessness,” particularly for young people in the besieged territory. “We humanitarian workers are sick and tired of building and rebuilding and see it all torn down again,” Egeland says of Israel’s repeated attacks on Gaza. “We are accumulating rubble, we’re accumulating dead children, and we’re accumulating hopelessness, if it continues like this.”