Thousands in South Carolina receive menacing Confederate flag robocall over Independence Day weekend

South Carolina residents began receiving robocalls on Friday comparing the movement to remove the Confederate flag from statehouse grounds to ISIS.

The state's General Assembly is set to begin debates Monday on removing the flag, which has flown over the statehouse since 1961. Talk of removing it grew heated after a white supremacist gunned down nine African-American churchgoers on June 17, including State Senator Clementa Pinckney.

The message, featuring an eery-sounding and likely digitally-generated voice, was paid for by a group called the Conservative Response Team (CRT). According to their Facebook page, the group dropped 40,000 robocalls. They will continue to do so throughout the July 4th weekend and next week.

"Just like ISIS, Obama's haters want our monuments down, graves dug up and school, roads, towns and counties renamed. They've even taken 'Dukes of Hazzard' off TV," the recording says. "Whats's next? This attack on our values is sick and un-American and it has to stop right here and right now in South Carolina."

According to CRT's Facebook page, they are newly-formed and are a pending 501(c)4 non-profit organization. They did not specify how their robocalls and radio ad campaign are being funded.

They first posted on Friday, with a picture of men in camouflage in a helicopter aiming assault rifles.

"We believe in a scorched earth policy towards the left -- the same policy they have towards us," the group posted.

During Pinckney's memorial, chilling images show the slain civil rights leader's body lying under the flag. Since then, Governor Nikki Haley and other Republican politicians have voiced support for removing the flag, NPR reports.

Listen to the recording, via The State newspaper, here: