GOP’S policing legislation inadequate, Democrats say

Congress is hitting an impasse on policing legislation, as key Senate Democrats on Tuesday opposed a Republican proposal as inadequate.

Ahead of a test vote Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch

Mcconnell acknowledged it may fall short. If so, he vowed to try again, hoping to pass legislation before a July 4 holiday recess.

“This is not about them or us,” said Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., author of the GOP bill. It’s about young people and others, he said, “who are afraid to jog down the street or get in their car and drive.”

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump lined up squarely Tuesday with those who argue that the pendulum has swung too far in favor of removing statues and other symbols of U.S. history, saying mistakes will be repeated if not learned from and understood.

Trump promised executive action to protect monuments after some statues of Confederates and other historical figures were angrily brought down from parks and other places of public prominence.

Trump said he wants the maximum punishment available under federal law — up to a decade in prison — for those who destroy or tamper with statues on public property that commemorate anyone who served in the U.S. military. He said the executive order would “reinforce” existing law.

“We are looking at long-term jail sentences for these vandals and these hoodlums and these anarchists and agitators,” Trump said, referring to protesters who have vented their anger over racial injustice by toppling statues of figures tied to America’s history.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell on Tuesday cast the “lawlessness” of the attacks on statues as a cultural phenomenon among “far-left radicals” in need of a history lesson.

“Our Founding Fathers are being roped to the ground like they were Saddam Hussein,” Mcconnell said, referring to Iraq’s former authoritarian leader.

Mcconnell, R-KY., criticized protesters for doing the same to statues of former Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Ulysses S. Grant.

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the chamber’s only Black Republican, also decried the toppling of statues but said celebrating “all of our history would be crazy.”

“I’m not going to celebrate all of our history because all of it shouldn’t be celebrated,” Scott told Fox News on Tuesday. “But we should remember it.”

Visitors to the Lafayette Square area Tuesday also panned an effort the night before to tear down a statue of former President Andrew Jackson.

Wenola Wade, a white resident of the District of Columbia, said she’s frustrated that “we’re not far enough along” in dealing with systemic racism but added that “we can’t take down every single statue. That’s stupid.”

Daryl Colter, an African American who lives in a Maryland suburb, brought his 5-year-old daughter to a street near the White House that the city has renamed as Black Lives Matter Plaza as an educational moment.

He said he wants leaders from the government and the protest movement to get together and have discussions, but “you can’t just go around taking it into your own hands and just tear something down.”

“Defacing, tearing it down, it’s going against the cause,” Colter said.