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Confederate Flag Makes Last Stand in South Carolina

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“Three weeks after the mass shooting at a predominantly black church in Charleston, the South Carolina House of Representatives is expected on Wednesday to step into the freshly revived debate about whether the Confederate battle flag should remain on the grounds of the State House,” the New York Times reports.

“With the flag perhaps facing its final days outside the Capitol, lawmakers have been circulating drafts of dozens of amendments that could jeopardize a bill that calls for the state to remove the flag and send it to the nearby Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum.”

Charleston Post and Courier: “The bill received first reading in the House, but no vote can be taken until a bill has been on the calendar overnight. If the House approves the Senate bill on final reading Thursday, it could reach Gov. Nikki Haley’s desk by Friday. The Republican governor has called for the flag’s removal.”

South Carolina Senate Votes to Remove Confederate Flag

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Members of the South Carolina Senate have voted 37-3 to remove the Confederate battle flag from the Statehouse grounds, the Charleston Post and Courier reports.

The Columbia State notes the Senate “must take one more vote Tuesday to send the bill to the House. The final vote requires a two-thirds majority vote for passage, a rule set under set in the 2000 law that moved the Civil War icon off the Capitol dome.”

South Carolina Braces for Confederate Flag Debate

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“The South Carolina legislature is expected on Monday to take up the fate of the Confederate battle flag that flies on the State House grounds, responding to demands that it be removed after the June 17 massacre of nine people at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston,” the New York Times reports.

A survey of lawmakers found last month that there was most likely enough support in the legislature to approve the plan.


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Behind the Collapse of the Confederate Flag

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New York Times: “The stunningly quick collapse of support for the Confederate flag has been told largely through the public pronouncements of one governor, Nikki R. Haley of South Carolina, who persuaded the legislature to reconsider the flag’s prominent perch on the capitol grounds. But behind the scenes, powerful forces — capitalism, Christianity, social media, college sports and a Republican Party eager to extricate itself from the past — were converging. Within five days, decades of resistance in South Carolina, a state that had held fiercely to its Confederate identity, fell away.”

Push to Remove Confederate Symbols Moves to Capitol

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New York Times: “Almost overnight, the push to remove Confederate symbols has become a bit like the rush to support same-sex marriage. Although one effort stems from a precipitating event and the other from gradual social forces, in both cases politicians are increasingly finding that one side of the divide is the least comfortable place to stand.”

“There are few places where those symbols are in more abundance than at the United States Capitol, where millions of tourists flock each year to take in the living history of America.”

Quote of the Day

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“I don’t know how you can sit with somebody for an hour in a church and pray with them and get up and shoot them. That’s Mideast hate. That’s something I didn’t think we had here, but apparently we do.”

— Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), quoted by National Journal, on the Charleston shootings.

Alabama Governor Orders Confederate Flag Removed

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“On the order of Gov. Robert Bentley (R), the Confederate battle flag which stands at the foot of the confederate memorial on the state Capitol grounds was taken down this morning,” the Birmingham News reports.

“Two workers came out of the Capitol building about 8:20 a.m. and with no fanfare quickly and quietly took the flag down. They declined to answer questions.”

Quote of the Day

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“It is time to acknowledge our past, atone for our sins, and work for a better future. That future cannot be built on symbols of war, hate, and divisiveness… I am aware of my heritage. I am not proud of this heritage. These practices were inhumane and wrong, wrong, wrong.”

— South Carolina state Sen. Paul Thurmond (R), quoted by Charleston City Paper, on voting to remove the Confederate battle flag from the state capitol.

Calls to Drop Confederate Flag Pick Up Steam

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New York Times: “What began as scattered calls for removing the Confederate battle flag from a single state capitol intensified with striking speed and scope on Tuesday into an emotional, nationwide movement to strip symbols of the Confederacy from public parks and buildings, license plates, Internet shopping sites and retail stores.”

Clinton Confronted Race While GOP Stammered

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“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,” the Washington Post reports.

“Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton, by contrast, has forcefully initiated a conversation about race and bigotry in recent days. At this moment of national trauma, the Republican candidates seemed as though they didn’t know what to say.”

Extra Bonus Quote of the Day

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“Racism, we are not cured of it. And it’s not just a matter of it not being polite to say n—– in public. That’s not the measure of whether racism still exists or not.”

— President Obama, in an interview on the WTF podcast.

Clyburn Blames ‘Rightward Drift’ for Murders

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Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) blames the “rightward drift” in the United States for the atrocity at a Charleston church, where a young white man shot and killed nine African American members of a Bible study group, CNS News reports.

Said Clyburn: “I’ve been saying for some time now, my friends in the Congressional Black Caucus will tell you, I’ve been saying to them that there’s this rightward drift in the country that I think is going too far. And people get emboldened by all of this.”

A Defiant Show of Unity in Charleston Church

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New York Times: “In a display of unity, resolve and defiance, ‘Mother Emanuel,’ as people here call the church, opened its doors for its regular Sunday service, just four days after three men and six women were left in a bloody pile in its basement.”

“The chocolate wooden pews with scarlet cushions were packed here, with whites sitting next to blacks, locals next to visitors. Similar gatherings spanned the country, as churchgoers mourned and prayed and honored the lives lost Wednesday evening. They hoped to show that the suspect’s reported goal of setting off a race war had failed miserably.”

The Age of Obama

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David Remnick: “Obama is a flawed President, but his sense of historical perspective is well developed. He gives every sign of believing that his most important role in the American history of race was his election in November, 2008, and, nearly as important, his re-election, four years later. For millions of Americans, that election was an inspiration. But, for some untold number of others, it remains a source of tremendous resentment, a kind of threat that is capable, in some, of arousing the basest prejudices.”

“Obama hates to talk about this. He allows himself so little latitude. Maybe that will change when he is an ex-President focussed on his memoirs. As a very young man he wrote a book about becoming, about identity, about finding community in a black church, about finding a sense of home—in his case, on the South Side of Chicago, with a young lawyer named Michelle Robinson. It will be beyond interesting to see what he’s willing to tell us—tell us with real freedom—about being the focus of so much hope, but also the subject of so much ambient and organized racial anger: the birther movement, the death threats, the voter-suppression attempts, the articles, books, and films that portray him as everything from an unreconstructed, drug-addled campus radical to a Kenyan post-colonial socialist. This has been the Age of Obama, but we have learned over and over that this has hardly meant the end of racism in America. Not remotely. Dylann Roof, tragically, seems to be yet another terrible reminder of that.”

About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

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