I spent about 2 hours today tutoring Jonathan in math and English. The rest of the day was laid back. Tomorrow is very busy with physio and meetings at my mother's care facility. I'll see her for a few minutes between meetings but that will be it.
Short Takes
The Atlantic — This afternoon, in announcing her support for removing the Confederate flag from the capitol grounds, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley asserted that killer Dylann Roof had “a sick and twisted view of the flag” which did not reflect “the people in our state who respect and in many ways revere it.” If the governor meant that very few of the flag’s supporters believe in mass murder, she is surely right. But on the question of whose view of the Confederate Flag is more twisted, she is almost certainly wrong.
Roof’s belief that black life had no purpose beyond subjugation is “sick and twisted” in the exact same manner as the beliefs of those who created the Confederate flag were “sick and twisted.” The Confederate flag is directly tied to the Confederate cause, and the Confederate cause was white supremacy. This claim is not the result of revisionism. It does not require reading between the lines. It is the plain meaning of the words of those who bore the Confederate flag across history. These words must never be forgotten. …
It was in South Carolina that the Civil War began, when the Confederacy fired on Fort Sumter. The state’s casus belli was neither vague nor hard to comprehend:
…A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction. This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.
… As the Late Unpleasantness stretched from the predicted months into years, the very reason for the Confederacy’s existence came to threaten its diplomatic efforts. Fighting for slavery presented problems abroad, and so Confederate diplomats came up with the notion of emphasizing “states rights” over “slavery”…
Click through for this long but interesting piece from June 2015. Too many times, I have heard dyed-in-the-wool southerners say that the Civil War was fought over states' rights. Around the time this article was written, Republican politicians in South Carolina and elsewhere were beating that states' rights drum. But here are historical records that make clear that the Civil War, from the South's perspective, was indeed about the retention and expansion of slavery. Further it was about white supremacy.
Raw Story — From the files of "Well that just happened!"
Two men with mirrors and a wooden cross interrupted a campaign event in Raymond, New Hampshire to perform an exorcism on Ted Cruz on Monday, saying that the Republican presidential candidate was “possessed by a demon.”
According to The Dallas Morning News, Cruz had just finished his stump speech when the men began shouting at the candidate.
“Ted Cruz look in the mirror and let the evil spirit depart!” one man exclaimed. “He’s possessed by a demon!”
Click through for the rest and a short video. I don't think the exorcism worked because Cruz is still a nasty piece of work.
Foreign Policy — That could be good news for Democrats and a serious threat to Republican efforts to hold the Senate. Even without Trump and Cruz, Republicans faced an unfavorable electoral map in 2016: They hold only a four-seat majority as they defend 24 seats, many of which Obama won in 2012, versus Democrats’ 10. It’s almost a mirror image of what Democrats faced in the 2014 midterms, …
But even former New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu, who has known Ayotte for more than a dozen years and campaigned for her first Senate bid in 2010, was pessimistic. “I don’t think anybody’s going to have an easy victory this time around,” he told FP. …
Ayotte doesn’t seem to have much patience with that Trump-style of campaigning, where rhetoric and gimmick replaces substance on national security and bipartisanship is a dirty word. Asked whether she can run on non-partisanship in this hyper-partisan climate, she said, “The resounding answer is going to be yes.”
“And I’m afraid that if a Donald Trump or a Cruz is at the top of the ticket, Republicans will lose a lot of seats, and it will make Kelly’s race extremely tough.”
With the Senate Republican majority at stake in November and two presidential hopefuls that may mean chaos in New Hampshire, Kelly Ayotte has her work cut out for her. Of course, I support the Democrat, Hassan.
My Universe — h/t Ted W and Carol B, Care2
