'Monuments matter': Christopher Columbus statue standing tall once again even after radicals did their worst



One of personages repeatedly targeted for erasure in the American left's violent iconoclasm in 2020 has at last found asylum on the White House grounds, thanks to President Donald Trump and some other unrelenting American patriots.

Toppling giants

Liberals appear to have no issue raising and keeping statues in public spaces so long as they are culturally, morally, and/or historically subversive.

Take, for example, the golden statue of a horned monster that was erected atop the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court in January 2023.

The dehumanized figure — which Pakistani-born propagandist Shahzia Sikander purportedly designed to capture the "spirit" of the movement seeking to legalize abortion across the United States — was celebrated by radicals in and outside the courthouse. Claire Bishop, professor of art history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, excitedly told the New York Times, "Maybe she can help channel us back to reinstating Roe v. Wade."

Another statue that liberal activists not only tolerated but celebrated was the ram-headed Baphomet statue the Satanic Temple installed at the Iowa Capitol along with a satanic altar ahead of Christmas that same year.

While evidently unperturbed by demonic imagery, liberal activists have evidenced an aversion in recent years to sculptures reminiscent of America's proud past, noble beginnings, and Christian character.

'These monuments matter.'

Amid the Black Lives Matter-bannered deracination campaign of 2020, radicals vandalized and/or toppled — in many cases through official actions — numerous statutes across the country, including those depicting Spanish missionary Junípero Serra and Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington.

Christopher Columbus — the Italian "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" who sailed under the Spanish flag and whose four transatlantic voyages set the stage for American civilization — was one of the 2020 iconoclasts' most popular targets.

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Karl Merton Ferron/Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

In Baltimore, masked thugs marched through the city's Little Italy neighborhood on July 4, 2020, then toppled a Columbus statue dedicated in 1984 by former Mayor William Donald Schaefer and President Ronald Reagan — a destructive act brushed off by city officials.

After tearing down the statue and jumping on the broken Italian Carrara marble likeness of the explorer, the cheering mob threw the remains into the harbor.

The incident took place just days after President Donald Trump, then in his first term, issued an executive order aimed at protecting such statues from destruction — an order where he stated that extremists' "selection of targets reveals a deep ignorance of our history, and is indicative of a desire to indiscriminately destroy anything that honors our past."

Stoop and build 'em up

Some Americans proved unwilling to let the tide wash away American history.

Tilghman Hemsley, a local painter, sculptor, and fisherman, hired a dive team to recover the broken pieces, which were taken to his family's art studio. Hemsley's son, Will, used scans of the recovered pieces to create a replica of the 13-foot statue.

The New York Times reported that the recreation project received $30,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities, which awarded funds in October 2020 "to help repair and restore statues of iconic historical figures that have been damaged or vandalized, and to construct new ones, in an effort to revitalize public interest in American history in advance of the nation's 250th anniversary in 2026."

Bill Martin, an Italian-American businessman, told the Washington Post that he and his allies also chipped in, raising and spending over $100,000 on the recovery and restoration efforts.

John Pica Jr., the president of Italian American Organizations United — the group that not only commissioned and owned the original statue but reportedly backed the reconstruction efforts — told the Associated Press that he was contacted in 2025 by a middleman who indicated the White House was seeking a statue of Columbus.

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Will Hemsley. Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images.

Basil Russo, president of the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations, had reportedly reached out to the Trump administration after Baltimore officials refused to install the replica in public.

'In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero.'

"Columbus statues have long stood as symbols of pride and cultural identity for more than 18 million Americans of Italian descent," Russo said in a statement.

"For over a century, Columbus' legacy helped Italian immigrants navigate prejudice and hardship, serving as a source of unity and belonging as they built new lives in this country," Russo continued. "Columbus Day itself emerged in the aftermath of the 1891 New Orleans lynching, when 11 Italian immigrants were killed by a mob of thousands, an event that prompted a national effort to promote the acceptance and assimilation of Italian Americans. This history remains central to why these monuments matter."

Working in coordination with the Italian American Organizations United, the COPOMIAO gifted the statue to the White House.

On Sunday, the statue — which was reportedly transported to the White House by Tilghman and Will Hemsley along with Randsallstown resident Jeff Bayer — was installed on the north side of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House.

Trump thanked the COPOMIAO in a letter on Sunday for its "incredible generosity in gifting the Federal Government a beautiful statue of Christopher Columbus," noting that he is "truly honored that this magnificent statue will now sit on the grounds of the White House."

The president said further that the statue will "stand as an eternal memorial to courage, adventure, and the noblest aspirations of the human spirit as well as the extraordinary pride of our wonderful Italian American community."

White House spokesman Davis Ingle told the Times in a statement Sunday, "In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero, and President Trump will ensure he's honored as such for generations to come."

Tilghman Hemsley told the Baltimore Sun that the statue's installation "was very climactic and it was very fulfilling."

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Pacific races bode well for Republicans in 2024 election



The Legislature of Guam, comprising 15 senators of whom nine are presently Democrats and six are Republicans, has been under Democratic control since March 2008 — but will be no longer.

According to the unofficial results released Tuesday and finalized early Wednesday by the Guam Election Commission, Republicans will control the legislature come January.

The Pacific Daily News noted that while Democrats clinched three of the top five spots in the race for the legislature, Republicans ultimately secured a majority with all precincts counted, such that in January, the territory's Senate will be flipped 9-6 in their favor.

Extra to flipping the legislature, Republican James Moylan, a member of Congress representing Guam's at-large congressional district, defeated his Democratic challenger, Ginger Cruz, 52.69% to 46.81%.

'The winds of change are blowing.'

While the residents of Guam cannot vote in American presidential elections, they nevertheless conduct a straw poll. In the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden beat President Donald Trump in the straw poll 55.38% to 41.91%. This time around, Trump nearly closed the gap. Kamala Harris beat him in the straw poll Tuesday 49.56% to 46.22%.

Former CNN contributor Ryan Girdusky suggested that a "political realignment" appears to be under way, highlighting that in 2012, Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney in the straw poll by roughly 46 percentage points. In 2016, Hillary Clinton beat Trump in the poll by 47 points. In this election, the Republican candidate was within three points.

Conservative filmmaker Robby Starbuck appeared to agree, writing, "While meaningless for electoral votes, the winds of change are blowing."

Republican gains in the Pacific are not limited to Guam. Kimberlyn King-Hinds appears to have successfully beat Democrat Edwin Propst to represent Northern Mariana Islands' at-large congressional district.

According to the Saipan Tribune, Propst conceded the race early on Wednesday and congratulated King-Hinds, writing, "I wish you the very best."

At the time of publication, King-Hinds had secured 40.34% of the vote, whereas Probst netted only 33.27%.

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Douglas Murray drops bombshells during discussion of Western reparations and heirloom grievances: 'Some of us are simply a bit bored of hearing people ripping at closed wounds'



Spectator columnist and author Douglas Murray recently dropped brass tacks on his fellow "Piers Morgan Uncensored" panelists, denouncing the ongoing efforts by opportunistic ideologues to simultaneously extort Western nations over the crimes of the long dead and ignore the cold reality of universal guilt.

Murray stressed that people no longer want to be enmired in divisive and destabilizing debates about historically remote grievances, particularly not when victimhood can invoked by anybody willing to look back far enough.

"Some of us are simply a bit bored of hearing people ripping at closed wounds and then crying about their hurt or their presumed hurt, because everybody could do this," said Murray. "Where would you end if you did that? The answer is that you couldn't end, because nobody is alive who has actually suffered the hurt, and nobody is alive who did the wrong."

"If we were to play this fairly, we would at least look at all of the countries around the world that engaged in the slave trade who are simply not interested in any form of reparations," continued Murray.

The Ottoman Empire, which has been whittled down to the Republic of Turkey, was among the guilty parties Murray cited as presently having no interest in assuming blame or responsibility for its history of violence, genocide, and slavery.

He also cited "all the Arab countries who not just traded far more slaves and across the Atlantic but castrated all the men so that there wouldn't be any more African slaves after them. They worked them to the bone. I see no interest across Africa in paying reparations for selling their brother and sister Africans into slavery or for working them to the bone to the present day. ... There is slavery across Africa today. In fact, there are more slaves in the world today than there were at the height of the transatlantic slave trade."

According to a September 2022 U.N. report, nearly "50 million people were living in modern slavery: 28 million in forced labour and 22 million in forced marriages."

Extra to shared guilt, Murray noted that those presently fitted up as antagonists in today's "grievance competition" could similarly claim victimhood, as "a million Europeans were stolen by North Africans over the course of decades of the North African Barbary pirate slave trade."

The BBC indicated that in the first half of the 1600s, "Barbary corsairs — pirates from the Barbary Coast of North Africa, authorised by their governments to attack the shipping of Christian countries — ranged all around Britain's shores. In their lanteen-rigged xebecs (a type of ship) and oared galleys, they grabbed ships and sailors, and sold the sailors into slavery."

Between 1530 and 1780, as many as 1,250,000 Christian slaves were reportedly taken and held in Tripoli, Tunis, and various Moroccan towns, but predominantly in Algiers.

Murray's comments on Morgan's show echo those made in his 2022 book, "The War on the West," wherein he defended America and the rest of the Western world from various blood libels and acontextual accusations.

"The forgotten history of slavery, like colonialism, is not the history of what the West got wrong but the history of what the West got right," he wrote, noting that long after the English-speaking world banned slavery, various nations continued trafficking in human beings — including Middle Eastern and African nations where the slave trade survives today.

On the issue of reparations, Murray highlighted how the West's abolition of slavery and its global efforts to enforce that decision were not without significant cost, both in terms of blood and gold.

Just in the case of British abolitionism, "Between 1808 and 1860, the West Africa Squadron captured 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 African slaves. They also lost a huge number of personnel themselves. More than 1,500 men of the Royal Navy were killed in action during this period."

Even if equivalencies could be struck and balances owed properly determined, Murray pointed out the grievance competition would still have no end.

"If America were to find a way to pay reparations today, why would the same demands not rearise two centuries later, as they have done in relation to Britain? If the great reparations machine were to pour out money, why should it be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?" he asked.

"We appear to be in the process of killing the goose that has laid some very golden eggs," Murray suggested in his book.

On Piers Morgan's show, he suggested that the very nations responsible for those "golden eggs" are the same "put through this struggle session."

"Britain, like America and France, are the most desired destinations for migrants worldwide and have been for centuries," he added. "It's not because we're racist but because we're better. It's because we're good. It's because when we see racism, we actually call it out and recognize it as a sin. Try finding that across Africa. Try finding that across the Middle East or in China. Nobody would hear."

— (@)

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CPAC reportedly cuts rapper from lineup after reports of anti-Semitic behaviors. Rapper fires back, calls it 'censorship at its best.'



The Conservative Political Action Conference has cut a rapper from its lineup after he reportedly made anti-Semitic tweets, USA Today reported.

What are the details?

Rapper Young Pharaoh will not appear as a panelist at CPAC's 2021 conference this weekend following allegations that he expressed decidedly anti-Semitic sentiments on social media.

The allegations against Pharaoh were brought forth after Media Matters for America reported that the rapper told his followers that Judaism is a "complete lie" and "made up for political gain." He also reportedly alleged that "Jewish people are 'thieving fake Jews.'"

Pharaoh is a hip-hop artist who was also identified by the outlet as an "online commentator who has dabbled in conspiracy theories."

According to a report from The Daily Beast, Pharaoh also once tweeted, "THERE IS NO #HISTORICAL OR #SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE PROVING THE EXISTENCE OF #JEWS OR #JUDAISM."

Media Matters also reported that the rapper attacked conservative commentator Ben Shapiro over his own Jewish faith.

The outlet reported that the rapper was previously scheduled to take part on a panel titled, "Please Check the Number and Dial Again: Doubt, Dysfunction, and the Price of Missed Opportunities."

What was Young Pharaoh's response?

In response to the news, Young Pharaoh blasted the move as "censorship at its best."

At the time of this reporting, his Twitter account appears to have been suspended.

According to Newsweek, he added, "All because I said: 'I do not believe in the validity of Judaism and am willing to place $50,000 on myself to debate the top Jewish Rabbi.' Now I'm no longer invited to CPAC, racist, dictatorship, Young Pharaoh."

The conference — titled "America Uncanceled" — is set to take place this weekend in Orlando, Florida, and former President Donald Trump is set to appear and give his first speech since leaving office.

The organization on Twitter wrote, "We have just learned that someone we invited to CPAC has expressed reprehensible views that have no home with our conference or our organization. The individual will not be participating at our conference."