The Confederate battle flag at South Carolina’s capitol was finally lowered today, after flying for more than half a century. Many American’s cheered as the symbol of hatred and bigotry finally came down. Wingnuts, not so much.
Both South Carolina’s state Senate and House voted on a measure to finally remove the Confederate battle from capitol grounds, after lots of emotional debate. The prize for “Best Complete Meltdown” goes to Sen. Lee Bright, who’s also state co-chair of Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign, for a tour de force that veered into gay marriage, and gave new meaning to the term “hissy fit.”
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The debate was not without its deeply stirring moments. Sen. Paul Thurmond, whose father Strom Thurmond famously ran for president as a segregationist “Dixiecrat,” looked past his own ancestry and called for the flag’s removal.
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Rep. Jenny Horne, a descendant of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, gave a heartfelt appeal for the flag’s removal.
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The flag’s supporters revealed their true faces in the comments on Gov. Halley’s Facebook page, after she posted an acknowledgement of the vote in the state’s House. Others expressed their displeasure by sending death threats to South Carolina legislators.
Others took their complaints to Twitter.
150 years of heritage and I just watched South Carolina permanently remove Confederate flag from capital. Sad this country has gone here
— silas barnabi (@Armyvet0215) July 10, 2015
@greta @nikkihaley and weak-kneed politicians acquiesced to pressure from liberal activists to suppress free speech and First Amendment.
— Sarah Palin News (@SarahPalinLinks) July 10, 2015
Kills me to see the Confederate flag come down in South Carolina…what the hell is our country coming to?
— Cyle Chapman (@CyleChapman) July 10, 2015
Have faith that someday this symbol of Christian oppression will fall… http://t.co/leoJcSGjXp #WeShallOvercome pic.twitter.com/uMlDs7K9Sy
— John Nolte (@NolteNC) July 10, 2015
Left cheers removal of flag with almost no believers in its pro-slavery meaning, replacement with flag of oppression. pic.twitter.com/yXhBu37UBJ
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) July 10, 2015
Meanwhile, in Washington, DC, House Republicans sought to turn back the clock on the Confederate flag. On Tuesday night, the House passed two Democratic amendments that would stop the display of Confederate flag on gravesite on federal land, and make permanent the National Park Service’s policy to pull Confederate flag merchandise from it’s stores after the Charleston Massacre. Rep. Ken Calvert (R, California) offered an amendment that would have changed all of that, reopening the debate hours after the South Carolina legislature voted to remove the flag.
Realizing how bad this would look, especially for a flag that even Lynyrd Skynyrd dumped as a symbol in 2012, House GOP leadership cancelled the vote. Speaker John Boehner said he wanted lawmakers to have more conversation on the issue, rather than making it into a “political football.” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi forced a vote, and said nobody should need much time to decide what to do with a symbol of hate.
“What is it that you have to study? Do we have to study hatred in its manifestation in the confederate flag?” she said in response to a question from a reporter. “This is simple.”
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Trumped Again
Like Frankenstein vainly pursuing his own monster, Republicans are having a hard time stopping billionaire Donald Trump. The GOP embraced and enabled Trump, now he’s become an albatross around its neck — and a great gift to Democrats. Can the GOP stop Trump before 2016? Maybe not. This was the week Trump firmly took the wheel of the GOP’s “clown car” primary, and steered it into a ditch.
- Trump has grabbed the lead in a North Carolina poll, with 16 percent of GOP primary voters.
- Forget North Carolina, this week Trump reached number one in a national Economist/YouGov poll, with 15 percent of Republicans.
- Trump faired less well in a Twitter war with “Modern Family” writer Danny Zucker. (Seriously, Trump’s Twitter feed is epic wingnuttery. )
- Trump even Tweeted (then deleted) a nasty immigration comment about Former Florida governor Jeb Bush.
- Democrats in California drafted a resolution denouncing Trump for labeling Mexica immigrants “rapists” and drug addicts.
- Meanwhile, Trump remains convinced he’ll win the Latino vote.
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The funniest story of all is the one about RNC chair Reince Priebus calling Trump to tell him to “tone it down.” Trump denies this ever happened, because “He knows better than to lecture me.” What’s more laughable than Republicans trying to tell Trump to tone it down is the idea that anyone can control Donald Trump, including himself! Donald Trump is running for one reason only: to satisfy his ego, which has proven insatiable so far.
Here’s the best of the rest of the worst in wingnuttery this week:
- Ann Coulter, who’s apparently gone white nationalist, advised Republicans to “Drive up the white vote; that’s your base.” (The white vote has dropped in every presidential election since 1992.)
- [Coulter also piggy-backed on “Shark Week” during a “Fox & Friends” appearance. “](http://aattp.org/ann-coulter-this-weekend-more-americans-will-be-killed-by-mexicans-than-by-sharks-video/) I will bet you by the end of the weekend more Americans will have been killed by Mexicans than by ISIS or by sharks,” Coulter said.
- Get ready to work until you fall into your grave. Tea party history David Barton declares that, “God did not design us for retirement.”
- “Duck Dynasty” star Si Robertson proved that atheists don’t exist, because they use calendars.
- Convicted felon and adulterer Dinesh D’Souza photoshopped a confederate flag into an old college photograph of Hillary Clinton that’s already been published a billion times, guaranteeing that he’d get caught.
- Pop diva Arianna Grande licked a donut, got caught, and said she hated America. Guess who Fox News blamed? President Obama.
- Fox News contributor Keith Ablow said that equality should mean that men can hit women.
- Gov. Sam Brownback issued an executive order to remind gays that they may be in Kansas, but they still ain’t equal.
- Sarah Palin is quitting again. This time Palin’s subscription web channel is shutting down. Guess nobody wanted to pay for her dribble. The question is: Can Palin even give it away?
- Pat Robertson said that ISIS violence is “maybe the best thing that ever happened to the world.”
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