Remember when it was a cOnSpIrAcY ThEoRy to say that the liberals would eventually come after statues of the Founding Fathers? We were saying it back in the early Trump years when the libs were tearing down Confederate statues.
Welp, conspiracy theorists are once again correct.
George Washington, ladies and gentlemen — our first president — being removed from city hall in Chicago.
Mayor Brandon Johnson's administration had planned to remove the George Washington statue from outside the mayor's office, his spokesman confirmed Tuesday while hinting at instead honoring a Black Chicagoan with a City Hall display.
But late in the evening, a mayoral critic who chairs the City Council's Cultural Affairs Committee told the Tribune that the administration is reversing course. Ald. Nicholas Sposato, 38th, said Johnson senior advisor Jason Lee appeared to blame the confusion on Johnson's predecessor, Lori Lightfoot.
But look at that: Johnson's administration is trying to brush this off as a policy of former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, which, knowing her, wouldn't surprise me.
It still seems as if Mayor Johnson will be removing the statue from his office and replacing it with a black historical figure, though where George Washington ends up is still up in the air.
In a Tuesday night text, [Johnson senior advisor Jason] Lee said he heard about the potential removal of the statue Tuesday, but when he checked with mayoral staffers was told it would not be moved. ‘I have no further information (about its) relationship with another administration... Just accepted the answer and moved on' Lee said …
Fielding questions at an unrelated news conference after reports of the statue's impending removal, the mayor would not address his reasoning or explain plans for a replacement. But [mayoral spokesman Ronnie] Reese later told the Tribune that the statue would be moved because 'we're just making some updates to some areas in and around City Hall.'
Sounds like they got caught red-handed about to remove the statue, got some pushback, and are now scrambling to not be known as the extremist liberals who removed George Washington from city hall.
More context:
Reese did not answer questions about when it would be moved, the cost of the move or the fate of the Washington statue, which he said was on loan from the Art Institute of Chicago and remained in City Hall late Tuesday afternoon.
But he floated names of local Black historical figures as alternatives, among them Ida B. Wells, Jean Baptiste Point DuSable and Harold Washington - the city's first Black mayor whom Johnson invoked throughout his mayoral campaign.
We'll keep you updated if the Dems try to sneak George out of the building when no one is paying attention.
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