CURIOUS
The Pentagon Has Banned the Flying of Rainbow Pride Flags at All Military Sites
While attempting to make all branches of the U.S. military consistent in their banning of Confederate flags, Defense Secretary Mark Esper has also banned all rainbow Pride flags too.
“The flags we fly must accord with the military imperatives of good order and discipline, treating all our people with dignity and respect, and rejecting divisive symbols,” Esper wrote in a Department of Defense memo released Friday.
“Military installations are allowed to fly the American flag; the flags of the U.S. states, territories and the District of Columbia; military flags and those of allies,” writes the Washington Blade. “However, by not enumerating them, the memo effectively bans Confederate flags and LGBTQ Pride flags.”
Banning rainbow flags seems particularly notable seeing as the Pentagon has held an annual Pride event in June each year since 2011, when the military’s ban on gay people (“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”) was repealed. The new memo basically says that rainbow flags can’t be displayed at such events in the future.
Today I issued a memorandum to the force on the display of flags at @DeptofDefense facilities. With this change in policy, we will further improve the morale, cohesion, and readiness of the force in defense of our great Nation. pic.twitter.com/YQPc3kxf4V
— Dr. Mark T. Esper (@EsperDoD) July 17, 2020
According to the memo, the ban applies to “public displays or depictions of flags by service members and civilian employees in all Department of Defense workplaces, common access areas, and public areas.” This includes stickers.
Jennifer Dane, interim executive director for the Modern Military Association of America, told the Washington Blade,
“It’s absolutely outrageous that Defense Secretary Mark Esper would ban the Pride flag — the very symbol of inclusion and diversity. In what universe is it OK to turn an opportunity to ban a racist symbol like the Confederate flag into an opportunity to ban the symbol of diversity?” Dane said. “This decision sends an alarming message to LGBTQ service members, their families and future recruits.”
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Minnesota Governor Tim Walz didn’t mince words when asked what the motivation was for the new movement among MAGA Republicans to convince President Donald Trump to pardon Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who killed George Floyd in 2020.
“Racism. It’s racist. OK? That’s what I believe,” Walz said in an interview with Semafor published Wednesday.
The calls to pardon Chauvin started with an online petition earlier this month, according to The Independent. The pardon push picked up steam this week when conservative commentator Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire launched a webseries, “The Case of Derek Chauvin.” Shapiro claims the officer was convicted on “extraordinarily scanty evidence,” saying Floyd did not die from having Chauvin’s knee on his neck for over nine minutes, but rather from drugs in Floyd’s system and heart disease.
Walz, however, disputes this interpretation of events.
“This was a man who murdered George Floyd on TV,” Walz said, adding that a pardon “would undermine the faith in the system.”
The White House, however, has denied that a Chauvin pardon is in Trump’s plans. Earlier this month, Trump said he hadn’t even heard about a push to pardon Floyd’s killer, and on Wednesday, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt repeated that a pardon is “not something he’s considering at this time,” according to The Grio.
However, some commentators, like The Hill’s Juan Williams are skeptical, pointing out that Trump has pardoned two police officers convicted of killing a Black man in the first days of his second term.
In 2020, after the killing, Trump condemned Chauvin.
“We all saw what we saw. It’s hard to conceive anything other than what we did see. It should have never happened,” Trump said.
If Trump were to pardon Chauvin, it would be largely moot. Presidents can only pardon those convicted on federal charges. Chauvin was convicted on both federal and Minnesota state charges. In the event Trump cleared the federal charges, the main thing that would happen is that Chauvin would be moved from the federal prison in Big Spring, Texas to a Minnesota state prison.
Minnesota sentenced Chauvin to 22 and a half years for murder; on the federal level, he was sentenced to 21 years for violating Floyd’s civil rights. Barring a federal pardon, the two sentences are running concurrently, not consecutively.
Image via Shutterstock
GOP presidential challenger Mark Sanford, a former U.S. Congressman and former governor, has just dropped out of the race to win the Republican presidential nomination.
“You gotta be a realist, and what I did not anticipate is an impeachment,” Sanford said, according to The Post and Courier.
But impeachment had been all but certain when Sanford officially announced his candidacy just two months ago.
Axios reports Sanford “was always a long shot to unseat the president.”
President Donald Trump still has two Republican opponents, former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld, and former U.S. Congressman Joe Walsh.
Sanford’s timing, less than 24 hours before the House impeachment inquiry’s public witness testimony is slated to begin, is curious.
This is a breaking news and developing story. Details may change. This story will be updated, and NCRM will likely publish follow-up stories on this news. Stay tuned and refresh for updates.
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