The left wants to ‘reclaim’ the American flag; did they run out of lighter fluid?



In 2018, I was canvassing for a Republican candidate in a local race here in Portland, Oregon. A bunch of us were knocking on doors in the suburbs, seeking out Republicans by using data printouts that indicated which households were aligned with which party.

But those printouts were not always correct. People had moved. Or there were split households. Sometimes the homeowners had changed parties.

In the early 1900s, the color red was the color of communists, subversives, and anarchists.

As the election grew near and we shifted into maximum efficiency mode, our field boss sent out the word: Only go to houses flying the American flag.

That was the easiest way to focus on the most loyal Republicans. In 2018, the two most common flags you saw at people’s houses were the Pride flag (Democrats) and the Stars and Stripes (Republicans).

(The “We Believe in Science” signs had not yet proliferated.)

The funny thing was, we door-knockers were already doing that. I certainly was. I loved canvassing mostly because I liked meeting people. And the best people were always the ones with a big American flag hanging majestically beside their front door.

That was then, this is now

Fast-forward, and I’m at a recent No Kings protest. These protests had drawn huge crowds of leftists and progressives. I wanted to see for myself what these demonstrations looked like.

Imagine my surprise when the first person I encountered was a small elderly woman with a kind face and a big bundle of American flags.

These were 8" by 12" flags. The kind little kids might wave at a parade. She approached me and offered me one.

Naturally, I was confused. Was she a Republican? No, she wasn’t. She explained that these were Democrat flags now. The left was taking the flag back. Progressives were patriotic too!

They were? I thought to myself. Since when?

But I was in enemy territory, so I just smiled and took a flag. She showed me the little note that was attached. (Of course, the left can’t give you an American flag without adding their own anti-Trump commentary.)

The note said: “MAGA is trying to claim the American flag as exclusively their own. It is time we reclaim our flag. It is our national promise of freedom, and rightfully belongs to ALL Americans. Wave it proudly.”

I carried it with me as I watched the Trump derangement parade later that day. Multiple American flags were flown. By leftists.

RELATED: Yes, Trump’s flag-burning executive order is constitutional

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The red and the blue

This isn’t the first time the left has tried to steal symbols or images (or flags) from the right. They also stole the color blue.

Throughout Europe, in the 1800s, revolutionaries and malcontents were associated with the color red. Monarchs and aristocrats were represented by the color blue.

In the early 1900s, the color red was the color of communists, subversives, and anarchists. During the Russian Revolution of 1917, “The Reds” overthrew the czar and started a civil war.

In China, when Chairman Mao Zedong instigated his own revolution in 1949, the flag, books, and symbols were always colored bright red.

This made sense. The color red suggests anger, revolt, defiance.

While blue — the color of the sky — is the color that indicates calmness, stability, order.

So what did the American left do as they consolidated their power in the late 1900s?

They switched the colors! With the help of their allies in the media, the left managed to STEAL the color blue from conservatives.

So now we call Republican states “red” and Democratic states “blue," which is the reverse of what the colors should be.

Never mind that the Democrats are still the party of chaos and upheaval. They wanted the prestige of the color blue. They want people to think of them as rational, calm, regal. So they changed the colors to favor themselves.

Capture the flag!

Regarding this theft of our flag: Does the left think we don’t remember five years ago? During the BLM riots, they were burning the flag all over the country.

In Portland, during the “Summer of 100 Riots,” they burned the flag as a nightly ritual.

Think back even further: The left has been burning the flag since the Vietnam War. It’s one of their most predictable political reactions. If anything happens that they don’t like, the American flag goes up in flames!

And aren’t these the same people who tore down the statues of our founders, who created that flag? Founders like George Washington?

In Portland, leftists toppled a large statue of George Washington. They left the statue right where it fell, with George Washington face down in the mud!

And these people think the American flag belongs to them? That they are now the patriots? That they should be anywhere near our beloved Stars and Stripes?

I don’t think so.

The good news is, it probably won’t work. Even if their strategists decide to embrace the flag, your average Joe anarchist won’t be able to help himself. They see an American flag, and they reach for their lighter.

But either way, we must reject this movement. Don’t let them have the flag. They don’t deserve it. They haven’t earned it. And they don’t love it. Not like we do.

‘Grandpa was Antifa’ may be the dumbest meme of the decade



The whangdoodles are at it again — raging on X, posting grainy photos of World War II soldiers, and proclaiming, “Grandpa was Antifa!”

Because, you see, Grandpa fought Hitler. Or Hirohito. Or Mussolini. They were fascists, Grandpa was anti-fascist, and since “anti-fascist” shortens to “Antifa,” presto — Grandpa was Antifa.

What these self-styled internet historians are doing is a digital form of stolen valor. ... Grandpa would be appalled.

Right.

Before scourging the ignorant cockwombles pounding keyboards across the internet, let’s define what fascism actually meant.

What fascism meant

Beyond the obvious militarism of Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, and Hirohito’s Japan, the fascist regimes of the 20th century shared three defining traits. First, a top-down command economy controlled by a central planning body. Second, an integrated industrial and banking system. Third, a relatively homogeneous population under rigid state control.

Now ask yourself: Does the United States fit that mold? No central economic planning agency, no state-directed industrial-banking complex (ask the Fed and the Securities and Exchange Commission), and certainly no single, homogeneous racial population.

What we do have is an ever-multiplying swarm of willfully obtuse, historically illiterate useful idiots eager to join whatever digital mob happens to be trending this week.

The kind who think “being a furry” is a lifestyle choice worth defending.

You know — morons.

Grandpa fought for the Constitution

Among them are the smug keyboard warriors who post their grandfather’s old war photo without knowing a thing about his unit, his history, or the weapon he lugged across Europe — a Thompson M1A1 submachine gun chambered in .45 ACP.

These same people casually toss Grandpa’s honorable service into the same slime bucket as the modern-day anarcho-communists who call themselves “Antifa.” They hijack his image to dignify an extremist movement that despises everything he swore to defend.

Grandpa honored and fought under the American flag. Antifa burns it. They literally call it a “fascist symbol.”

Grandpa didn’t fight for a slogan. He fought for the Constitution. He raised his right hand and swore an oath — to protect and defend the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. If that meant bombing Tojo’s Japan, invading Hitler’s Germany, or crushing Mussolini’s Italy, so be it.

RELATED: Antifa isn’t ‘anti-fascist’ — it’s anti-freedom and anti-God

Definitely not Antifa.Bettmann/Getty Images

Generations after him have sworn the same oath. Those men fought communism in Korea and Vietnam, and later took the fight to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and, after 9/11, to al-Qaeda and ISIS across the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa.

Stolen valor for the hashtag age

What these self-styled internet historians are doing is a digital form of stolen valor. They wrap themselves in the virtue of men who actually faced fire, men who earned their medals the hard way — not with a post and a hashtag.

Grandpa would be appalled at his grandkids’ ignorance.

But give it time. Some nimrod, eager for another viral hit, will post a photo of his dad in Afghanistan with the caption: “Dad was intersectional.”

And the whangdoodles will cheer — none the wiser, and none the braver.

Videos Show Portland Police Letting Antifa Militants Go While Arresting Journalists

Portland Police are protecting violent leftist organization Antifa while ignoring or punishing the victims of their violence.

Yes, Trump’s flag-burning executive order is constitutional



In 1989, Justice Antonin Scalia cast the deciding vote to overturn the conviction of Gregory Lee Johnson, who was arrested and found guilty of violating a Texas statute after he burned the American flag outside the Republican National Convention.

The author of the 5-4 opinion was Justice William Brennan, the leading liberal and advocate for the “living Constitution” on the Supreme Court. For conservatives, it was one of the two most widely criticized votes of Justice Scalia’s illustrious career (the other being his vote refusing to recognize that parents have a natural, constitutionally protected right to direct the upbringing of their children).

The president’s executive order is not only much needed and long overdue, but is also very likely to be upheld by the Supreme Court when the inevitable challenges arise.

But the opinion by Brennan, which Scalia joined, is not as absolute as it has subsequently been portrayed.

The historical context

It specifically held that Texas violated the First Amendment by prosecuting Johnson “in these circumstances” — that is, expressive conduct or symbolic speech as part of a political protest that was not designed to incite a crowd (nor did it have that effect). It also held that the “government generally has a freer hand in restricting expressive conduct than it has in restricting the written or spoken word.” Only laws directed at restricting the communicative nature of expressive conduct implicate the First Amendment, and even then they can be upheld for a valid governmental interest.

Texas offered two governmental interests in defense of its flag-burning statute: 1) preventing breaches of the peace and 2) preserving the flag as a symbol of national unity. The court rejected the second because it was related to the suppression of expression, and it rejected the first because “it was not implicated” in the case.

That is the important caveat in Texas v. Johnson that President Donald Trump’s executive order, “Prosecuting Burning of the American Flag,” seeks to capitalize on.

A needed change

After articulating why the flag is such a cherished symbol, one for which “many thousands of American patriots have fought, bled, and died to keep ... waving,” the order asserts, “Desecrating it is uniquely offensive and provocative,” and is “a statement of contempt, hostility, and violence against our Nation.”

It then invokes the Texas v. Johnsoncaveat: “Burning this representation of America may incite violence and riot. American Flag burning is also used by groups of foreign nationals as a calculated act to intimidate and threaten violence against Americans because of their nationality and place of birth.”

The order correctly points out that the Supreme Court “has never held that American Flag desecration conducted in a manner that is likely to incite imminent lawless action or that is an action amounting to ‘fighting words’ is constitutionally protected.” And it laudably directs the attorney general to prioritize the enforcement of civil and criminal laws against flag desecration, quite correctly limiting it to flag-burning conduct that causes harm “unrelated to expression” in order to be consistent with the First Amendment as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Texas v. Johnson.

RELATED: College students say American flag symbolizes ‘genocide,’ ‘extremism,’ ‘injustice,’ and ‘sins’ we’ve committed against others

Photo by BRANDONJ74 via Getty Images

Maintaining precedent

After 35 years of timid responses to the flag-burning case, in which elected officials and law enforcement at every level thought flag-burning was constitutionally protected no matter the circumstances (an erroneous view repeated ad nauseam by many critics of the president’s order), President Trump has taken a long-overdue stand to protect the flag. He is seeking to safeguard it from those who would burn it to incite violence, provoke with “fighting words,” or more broadly, seek to intimidate Americans from expressing patriotism and applauding American exceptionalism.

The incitement, fighting words, and intimidation exceptions have sometimes themselves been limited to acts targeting particular individuals rather than groups. But as the Supreme Court recognized in Virginia v. Black, a cross-burning case that was decided 14 years after Texas v. Johnson, the First Amendment doesn’t necessarily protect such conduct when targeting groups rather than specific individuals.

The aggressive use of American flag-burning as a tactic of incitement and intimidation, which has been on display in cities across the country in response to President Trump’s efforts to enforce our nation’s immigration laws, demonstrates that “in these circumstances” (as distinct from the milquetoast circumstances at issue in Texas v. Johnson), the president’s executive order is not only much needed and long overdue, but is also very likely to be upheld by the Supreme Court when the inevitable challenges arise.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published on the American Mind.

Liz Wheeler: You’re wrong about burning the American flag



On this episode of “The Liz Wheeler Show,” Liz reacts to President Trump’s executive order on burning the American flag. What does the order actually say? Plus, the Heartland Institute’s Justin T. Haskins joins the show to discuss a Washington state law that could destroy the seal of the confessional.

President Trump signed an executive order this week titled, Prosecuting Burning of the American Flag — and it wasn’t just the left who reacted in anger.

“The fiery response to President Trump’s executive order is coming from President Trump’s base, who are all ablaze about this,” BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler says on “The Liz Wheeler Show,” adding, “Now, you’re going to be surprised by what I think about this topic.”


“Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. And we in the United States are not living in ordinary times. We are facing a deliberate concerted assault on everything from the very legitimacy of our country to our rule of law to our constitutionally protected rights and the other side, our political opposition, has been tragically very successful in waging these attacks against us,” she explains.

And Wheeler notes that other symbols are protected by law.

“In Washington, D.C., when those teenagers on their bikes made those burnouts on top of the trans flag that was painted on the roads, they faced a potential 10 years in prison for defacing the trans flag,” Wheeler says.

“Why should the left’s sacred symbols, the trans flag, be protected, but our sacred symbols, the American flag, not?” she asks. “That doesn’t seem like equality under the law, that seems like a double standard where their religious symbols are protected and ours aren’t.”

While others on the right who disagree will use the slippery slope argument, Wheeler notes that the left has already done the same thing to the right when they were in power.

“This is not some hypothetical possibility that might happen down the road that we have to protect against. The left has already called your speech violent in memos behind the scenes at the FBI. If you’re a parent that opposed critical race theory or trans ideology in a public school, if you’re a pro-lifer, if you’re a Catholic, they’ve labeled you a violent extremist, a domestic terrorist,” she explains.

"They’ve already taken our speech and told us that it’s violence. And prosecuted us for it,” she continues, adding, “So the slippery slope argument might sound good on paper. It may be convincing. You may feel sympathetic to it on paper, but in reality, that’s long past relevant.”

Want more from Liz Wheeler?

To enjoy more of Liz’s based commentary, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

For Media Hypocrites, Burning The US Flag Is Speech But Touching The Rainbow One Is ‘Hate’

On Monday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order instructing federal agencies to use existing laws to prosecute American flag desecration. The order instructs agencies to “prioritize the enforcement to the fullest extent possible of our Nation’s criminal and civil laws against acts of American Flag desecration that violate applicable, content-neutral laws, while causing harm […]

Trump cracks down on anti-American flag-burners with potential jail time



President Donald Trump on Monday signed several executive orders to restore the rule of law across the nation, including action to protect America’s “most sacred and cherished symbol.”

Trump signed “Prosecuting Burning of the American Flag” to prevent the desecration of the Stars and Stripes.

'The president is right to be concerned about the desecration of one of the proudest symbols of our nation.'

“Would you listen to this? This is very important,” Trump stated during Monday’s signing in the Oval Office.

“All over the country they’re burning flags.”

“Through a very sad court, I guess it was a five-to-four decision, they called it freedom of speech,” the president stated, referring to the Texas v. Johnson Supreme Court case in 1989.

“When you burn the American flag, it incites riots at levels that we’ve never seen before. People go crazy,” he continued.

“If you burn a flag, you get one year in jail. No early exit. No nothing.”

The White House contended that burning the flag is “a statement of contempt, hostility, and violence against our Nation” that “may incite violence and riot.”

RELATED: Trump moves to end radical left’s cashless bail to restore law and order nationwide

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

“American Flag burning is also used by groups of foreign nationals as a calculated act to intimidate and threaten violence against Americans because of their nationality and place of birth,” the administration added.

According to the EO, those who desecrate the American flag could face charges related to burning restrictions, disorderly conduct, or destruction of property.

Anti-immigration-enforcement protesters have held several demonstrations this year where they have burned American flags.

Trump’s latest executive action has sparked bipartisan debate about whether flag-burning should be protected under the First Amendment.

RELATED: White House hammers liberals for gaslighting about LA riots: Burning cities isn't justice — it's chaos

Photo by Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images

“The president is right to be concerned about the desecration of one of the proudest symbols of our nation. This executive order will eventually allow the Justice Department to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit — and potentially overturn — a prior precedent saying that burning the American flag is constitutionally protected 'speech' under the First Amendment,” Zack Smith, a senior legal fellow and manager with the Heritage Foundation, told Blaze News.

Journalist Christopher Rufo highlighted how some individuals have been prosecuted for burning or damaging Pride flags.

“I'm sorry, but as long as this is the status quo, I'm not going to work myself into a state of hysteria about Trump's executive order on burning the American flag,” Rufo wrote in a post on social media.

He noted that he is “sympathetic to the argument that burning the American flag is protected speech.”

Trump also signed on Monday two executive orders that aim to eliminate cashless bail systems across the United States.

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FACT CHECK: Video Of Jews Burning Israeli Flag Is From 2019

The video originally stems from an A Haber article

Far-left state lawmaker says 'Let's Go Brandon' chant 'should be equated with burning the flag' — and detractors give her a harsh history lesson



Rep. Gloria Johnson — a Democratic member of the Tennessee House of Representatives — took to Twitter earlier this week and fired off a post that made a number of folks, in a manner of speaking, see red.

What did she write?

Johnson — who seems to be a very active Twitter user and doesn't appear to appreciate Republicans and conservatives very much — eyeballed a tweet from the Tennessee Holler making fun of the "Let's Go Brandon!" chant and then posted the following:

As a friend said, I think it should be equated with burning the flag, in essence, that\u2019s what they are doing.https://twitter.com/TheTNHoller/status/1460245720330551299\u00a0\u2026
— Rep. Gloria Johnson (@Rep. Gloria Johnson) 1636988041

"As a friend said, I think it should be equated with burning the flag, in essence, that's what they are doing," Johnson wrote in reference to the "Let's Go Brandon" chant.

What's the background?

As most everyone in America likely knows by now, "Let's Go Brandon!" is code for "F*** Joe Biden!" The chant came to life after a reporter seemingly tried to downplay a "F*** Joe Biden!" chant at a NASCAR race in early October by insisting the crowd actually was cheering "Let's go, Brandon!" for the winner, Brandon Brown.

But no one with an honest pair of operational ears thought that was the case, and since then anti-Biden folks have upped the ante by going all in with "Let's Go Brandon!" at various gatherings to get under the skin of leftist politicians and media members who know full well what the chant stands for.

How did folks react to Johnson's declaration?

While the Democratic lawmaker added a tweet saying, "Reading is fundamental. It's not a legal take, it's a person's opinion. And as a few were smart enough to understand — both are protected speech," detractors still gave Johnson a harsh history lesson, particularly with regard to the fact that many prominent leftists practically made a sport of publicly declaring "F*** Donald Trump" when the Republican commander in chief was in the White House:

"Really? So i assume you also condemned the vile remarks made to our 45th president for four years?" one commenter wondered. "Could you link me to those tweets? Otherwise #LetsGoBrandon."

"Your party loves burning the flag, now you you're against it? Hahahahaha. Yeah, right," another user mocked. "Also, I'll delete this if you can direct me to your phony outrage (and that's exactly what this is) toward the previous occupant of the White House when far worse things were said... and done [to Trump]."

And:

Remember that time when Robert de Niro burned the flag at the Tony Awards?\n\nYoutube remembers.https://youtu.be/1zNr8Pf1QkY
— Utah's Libertarian Party \ud83d\uddfd (@Utah's Libertarian Party \ud83d\uddfd) 1637167595
Then this would be the equivalent of\u2026?pic.twitter.com/C7QPI4mLwB
— Dave Emerich (@Dave Emerich) 1637160194
A) it's NOTHING like burning the flag, and \n\nB) Say WHAT? You assholes APPROVE of flag burning...pic.twitter.com/8xv9T0nqrm
— Safing Sector (@Safing Sector) 1637108295

Democrat Compares ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Chant To Burning An American Flag

Johnson says it's 'protected speech'