Trump cancels Tom Hanks.
Quote:Tom Hanks award ceremony at West Point abruptly canceled
Hanks, 69, was scheduled to receive the Sylvanus Thayer Award on Sept. 25. The honor is given annually to an “outstanding citizen” whose service and achievements reflect West Point’s ideals of “Duty, Honor, Country.” Past recipients have included presidents, cabinet secretaries and diplomats.
In an email to faculty on Friday, Sept. 5, retired Army Col. Mark Bieger, president and chief executive of the West Point Association of Graduates, announced that the event “will not be held as originally scheduled.”
The reversal comes as West Point faces political pressure during President Donald Trump’s second term. The administration has moved to reshape military academies, rolling back diversity initiatives and reinstating Confederate symbols — including a 20-foot portrait of Gen. Robert E. Lee recently returned to the school’s library.
Hanks’ decades-long support for veterans had initially earned praise from West Point. He helped champion the World War II Memorial in Washington, produced military-themed films such as “Saving Private Ryan” and “Band of Brothers,” and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2016.
But Hanks’ public support for President Biden, along with his recurring portrayal of a MAGA supporter on “Saturday Night Live,” has drawn criticism from Trump allies.
“It is the perfect example of someone being good for the military but not perfectly aligned with current partisan priorities,” Jason Dempsey, a West Point graduate and Army veteran, told the Post.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainmen...034774.php
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
