A Bad Case Of "Foxbetes" Brought On By Charleston Murders

Jon Stewart on the sniveling Republican hypocrites at Fox "News," from Sean "Heil" Hannity, to Rudy "Noun, Verb, 9/11" Giuliani, to Fox Felon Bernie Kerik, to Assy Andrea Tantaros, to Rich "Starbursts" Lowry (buffering might be slow):

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Race And Cowardice

Here's sportswriter (!) Sally Jenkins this morning in the once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle:

If you went to Germany and saw a war memorial with a Nazi flag flying over it, what would you think of those people? You might think they were unrepentant. You might think they were in a lingering state of denial about their national atrocities. The Confederate battle flag is an American swastika, the relic of traitors and totalitarians, symbol of a brutal regime, not a republic. The Confederacy was treason in defense of a still deeper crime against humanity: slavery. If weaklings find racial hatred to be a romantic expression of American strength and purity, make no mistake that it begins by unwinding a red thread from that flag.

Yet the governor of South Carolina found it easier to call for the execution of this milkweed boy than it was for her to finally call for the lowering of that banner. Why?

Jenkins, who happens to have co-authored a book on Unionists in Mississippi during the Civil War, writes a particularly powerful essay on how this "American swastika" was allowed back into public life, most notably during the civil rights struggles of the last half of the 20th century, and the truth about what it really stands for.  Why she's not a regular contributor to the editorial page (instead of a Bush administration re-tread) is symptomatic of the decay of this once-great newspaper.

Another recommended read this morning is on the subject of how the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid Party, and specifically it's presidential hopefuls, reacted to the Charleston killing and displaying the flag of slavery and treason:

The massacre last week at a church in Charleston, S.C., opened a leadership opportunity for the nearly two dozen politicians running to be the next president.

But few stepped forward to seize it.

The Republican hopefuls mostly stammered and stumbled in response to the shootings. At first, some resisted calling the massacre racially motivated, only to reverse course when it became obvious it was.

Most stopped short of calling for South Carolina leaders to remove the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the state capitol in Columbia. Some, like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, declined to comment at all. Only after South Carolina’s Republican governor, Nikki Haley, emotionally declared Monday that the flag should come down did most GOP candidates join the chorus.

We eagerly await the insights of Ron "Leadership!" Fournier (but we won't be holding our breath).

Charleston And The "Culture Of Evasion"

Here's E.J. Dionne, Jr., this morning on how some =cough= Republicans = cough= take cover through a "culture of evasion" to deflect the changes that we need to make as a people in the wake of tragedies like the murders in Charleston, SC:

Right off the top, anyone who wants to discuss the implications of this shooting is scolded for “politicizing a tragedy.” We are told we must heal and mourn first, that it’s “disrespectful” to the victims to ask what this slaughter means and what we must do as a nation. How manipulative: Mourning the deaths of good people — and honoring the astonishing spirit of forgiveness modeled by their families — is used as an excuse to delay reflection on why this happened until the moment of urgency passes. In a media culture with a short attention span, there is no surer way to contain and marginalize the hard questions. (our emphasis)

Hmm.  Could he be referring, at least in part, to an op/ ed in the same paper the day before from Republican apologist and Family Bush publicist Kathleen Parker, who wrote this perfect example of delaying reckoning:

As I hear talk-show hosts scramble to turn this tragedy into issues — gun control, race, mental illness, what’s next? — I can’t help thinking that some manners are in order. People need time to recover from shock and to heal. Grief isn’t bound by deadlines or expressed in sound bites. Southerners, especially, like to take time with their mourning.

Let’s allow them.  (our emphasis)

No, let's not allow them.

Manners?  How is flying the flag of slavery and treason -- the "American swastika" -- at the South Carolina state capitol mannerly?   Southerners "like to take time" in a lot of things, don't they?  Southerners are taking their time getting over the Civil War, over integration, over voting rights, over same-sex marriage -- essentially over entering the 20th (much less the 21st) century.

No, they've had enough time.  And they don't have the moral authority to decide when and how long to mourn the victims of their "heritage."

UPDATE:  The Governor of South Carolina is now calling for the flag of slavery and treason to come down.

A Primer For Republicans Who Can't Fathom What's Behind The Charleston Murders

It's really simple enough for a Republican to understand.  Just follow along.

Here's the killer with his flag:

Here are a few excerpts from his"manifesto":

The event that truly awakened me was the Trayvon Martin case. I kept hearing and seeing his name, and eventually I decided to look him up. I read the Wikipedia article and right away I was unable to understand what the big deal was. It was obvious that Zimmerman was in the right. But more importantly this prompted me to type in the words “black on White crime” into Google, and I have never been the same since that day. The first website I came to was the Council of Conservative Citizens. There were pages upon pages of these brutal black on White murders. I was in disbelief. At this moment I realized that something was very wrong. How could the news be blowing up the Trayvon Martin case while hundreds of these black on White murders got ignored? [snip]

I have no choice. I am not in the position to, alone, go into the ghetto and fight. I chose Charleston because it is most historic city in my state, and at one time had the highest ratio of blacks to Whites in the country. We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the internet. Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me.  (our emphasis)

Oh, that "manifesto" is something to behold.  It's every anti-black, anti-Semitic, anti-Hispanic Southern white supremacist bit of disassociated dumbassery that you could read on any skinhead, neo-Nazi or Klan web site.  The "Council of Conservative Citizens" he cites as a source of his information on crime is a far-right organization that's been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Any ambiguity now, Republicans?

Today's Cartoon Twofer - It's Not Tradition, It's Hate

(click on image to enlarge)

(Dan Wasserman, via Gocomics.com)

(Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Right-Wingers Try To Construct False Narrative In Charleston Murders

As we noted yesterday, there's a concerted effort by right-wingers to shift the focus of the Charleston, SC, murders from the (white supremacist) killer targeting blacks to it being a crime against Christians (or, most disgustingly laughable, "religious liberty").  Certainly, that would fit more easily into their base-inflaming, false narrative of a "war on Christianity" (you know, because same-sex marriage!).  Unfortunately, the killer didn't get their talking points:

(CNN) - Dylann Roof admits he did it, two law enforcement officials said -- shooting and killing nine people he'd sat with for Bible study at a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina.

But why? To start a race war, Roof told investigators, according to one of the officials.  (our emphasis)

The false right-wing narrative, promoted by the usual suspects (Fox "News", various Republican presidential clowns), is an attempt to distract people from a fact the right doesn't want you to know, as Ryan Cooper notes:

Since 9/11, right-wing terrorists have killed more than five times as many people as Islamist ones. Yet a short study warning to keep a watchful attitude towards the former is met with enraged hostility. It reveals both the small actual danger of Islamist terrorism, and the utterly ridiculous and hypocritical way in which anti-terrorism resources are allocated.

Still, if conservatives are confident in their ideas, and do not subscribe to the paranoid delusions of the sovereign citizen, white supremacist, or neo-Nazi movements, they should not feel threatened by close investigations of such people. But I'm not holding my breath.  (our emphasis)

We're not holding our breath, either.

There are monstrously evil people in the world willing to put their evil thoughts into action, and they're being aided and abetted by these banal people we see and hear every day in the media and the halls of Congress.  We believe that's called "accessories after the fact."

BONUS:  Ana Marie Cox on why Republicans don't want to talk about racial hatred.

BONUS II:  Craven Republican Jeb! Bush still mystified as to the killer's motive.  Ass crack. 

BONUS III:  Now the dimmest of the bulbs chimes in.