Chuck Ross of the Washington Free Beacon highlights one group that should play no part in the planning the celebration of the nation’s 250th birthday.
Former Obama administration official Rosie Rios, who chairs the taxpayer-funded America250 commission overseeing next year’s semiquincentennial celebration, tapped to help organize the festivities a left-wing nonprofit which has been the driving force behind efforts to remove Christopher Columbus memorials and cancel the federal holiday honoring the famed explorer.
The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) has also spearheaded efforts to rename the Washington Redskins football team and successfully lobbied then-president Joe Biden to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier, the American Indian Movement leader who murdered two FBI agents in 1975.
Rios, whom Biden appointed to lead America250 in 2022, selected NCAI and four other “nonpartisan” groups last year to “scale and execute America250 programming.” NCAI will serve as the “subject-matter” expert on Indigenous culture and history, according to America250.
But NCAI is far from nonpartisan, taking millions of dollars in donations from liberal charities like the Ford Foundation and Hewlett Foundation, in addition to $6,740 in contributions from the Democratic National Committee since 2023.
That could draw additional scrutiny for the commission and Rios, who has already faced calls for her removal from America250 over her criticism of Trump.
Sen. Eric Schmitt (R., Mo.) urged the president to ditch Rios earlier this year, flagging her past statements that “nothing good” could come from Trump’s presidency. She has also said that Trump “demonized … my people,” a reference to her Mexican heritage. Rios, who was born in California to Mexican parents, stated at a conference in 2015 that she was “as much Mexican as I am American.”
“Ms. Rios has a track record of extreme partisan bias against you and your administration,” said Schmitt, who noted that Biden appointed Rios after removing Trump’s initial America250 chairman.
