The Rolling to Remember motorcycle rally honoring military has a new location after the Department of Defense blocked the event from staging in the defense parking lot on Memorial Day weekend.
“The Mayor of Washington DC, Metropolitan Police, RFK Stadium and DC Events have stepped up big time. We will stage at RFK Stadium’s Parking Lot 8 for this year’s Rolling To Remember!” AMVETS, the veterans group hosting the event, wrote on Facebook on Tuesday. “All the details coming later this week.”
ROLLING TO REMEMBER: ISSA INTRODUCES BILL FORCING BIDEN TO ALLOW DC MEMORIAL DAY BIKER TRADITION
On Tuesday, Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., and other House Republicans sent a letter to President Biden requesting he override the Pentagon’s decision. Pentagon Special Events had confirmed AMVETS’ permit for the Rolling to Remember motorcycle rally on March 11 but later reversed course. After the lawmakers raised a ruckus, the Pentagon said it would not allow it but looked forward to working with AMVETS in the future “if COVID-19 conditions permit.”
Bikers take part in the annual Rolling Thunder ride in Washington, D.C. on May 25, 2014 as the U.S. marks Memorial Day to remember the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. (NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images)
“I am glad that AMVETS has been able to secure RFK stadium as the staging area for this year’s Rolling To Remember. When even the far-left DC Mayor agrees this event can be done safely, it just goes to show that President Biden’s refusal to let them use the Pentagon parking lot was entirely about politics,” Mast told Fox News on Wednesday. “But when you let the pro-lockdown, anti-liberty Twitter mob run the country, this is what you get. It’s pathetic and a complete disservice to the men and women who lost their lives defending our freedom.”
Mast, a 12-year Army veteran, worked as a bomb disposal expert and lost both his legs while deployed in Afghanistan.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., introduced a bill on Tuesday to ensure Rolling to Remember, an event with a roughly 30-year history, is able continue every year.
.Bikers participate in a blessing of the bikes event at the Washington National Cathedral on May 24, 2019 in Washington, D.C.
(Zach Gibson/Getty Images)
“This isn’t about a parking lot. It’s about the outrage of veterans being cancelled by this White House for wanting to continue a proud Memorial Day tradition. They should never have had to scramble and find an alternative site – and everyone knows it never would have happened to a group that is politically favored by the Biden Administration. The damage is done, but there’s still time for the Biden Administration to at least reverse its embarrassing rejection of these veterans,” Issa told Fox News in a statement on Wednesday.
Issa’s bill, called “Let Veterans Honor the Fallen Act,” would codify the Rolling to Remember Memorial Day motorcycle rally’s ability to stage each year in the Pentagon parking lot as long as its host organization submits a notification of use to the Secretary of Defense by Jan. 31 of the year the event will take place.
“This smacks of some anti-veteran person deep inside the Department of Defense, and if you’re anti-military in the Department of Defense, we’d like to know who you are,” Issa told Fox News in an interview on Tuesday.
The coronavirus pandemic forced Rolling to Remember to go virtual in 2020.
