| Eviction Notice |
[23 Jun 2015|01:23am] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/06/nikki_haley_confederate_flag_speech_how_the_charleston_attacks_forced_the.html Three days ago, Republicans were struggling to answer questions on the Confederate battle flag, which flies on the South Carolina state capitol grounds in Columbia. Even under ordinary circumstances, national Republicans have a hard time with the flag. To reject it is to rebuke the countless white Southerners who claim it as heritage, despite its historic meaning as a symbol of resistance to civil rights. But there’s no victory in embracing it either—it opens you to national criticism of taking part in the worst forms of insensitivity and pandering. And so, for decades, most Republicans muddled around the issue in a not-so-subtle nod to white Southern identity politics. (To his credit, Mitt Romney refused to pander on the flag in 2007 during his first run for the White House, while John McCain called his decision to pander on the flag during his 2000 presidential campaign one of his greatest regrets.)
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| Can Inmates and Prison Employees Find Love? |
[23 Jun 2015|08:07pm] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2015/06/clinton_correctional_facility_prison_escape_how_often_do_inmates_and_prison.html Joyce “Tillie” Mitchell got played. That much seems obvious. When convicted murderer Richard Matt first started putting the moves on the prison tailor-shop supervisor—who has been charged with a felony for allegedly providing Matt and fellow convicted murderer David Sweat with tools they used to break out of the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York—he likely saw her less as a paramour than a pawn, someone who could be manipulated into helping them escape. Now Sweat and Matt are still at large, Mitchell is in custody, and the whole country is wondering how this middle-aged woman from upstate could truly have thought “it was love” between her and Matt, as NBC News has reported. (Mitchell has also been accused of having had an inappropriate relationship with Sweat during Sweat’s tenure in the prison tailor shop.)
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| New Recruits |
[23 Jun 2015|11:21pm] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2015/06/dylann_roof_the_charleston_shooter_was_radicalized_by_the_trayvon_martin.html One of the most chilling revelations about Dylann Roof, the alleged murderer of nine parishioners in Charleston, South Carolina’s Emanuel AME Church, is that his descent into crazed and deadly racism began with a simple Google search. According to a manifesto he posted online sometime before his rampage, Roof had his “awakening” after seeing news reports about the death of Trayvon Martin. Roof describes hearing and seeing Martin’s name everywhere, looking him up on Wikipedia, and “being unable to understand what the big deal was.” After that he typed “black on White crime” into Google and came upon the website of a far-right group called the Council of Conservative Citizens. After that day, Roof wrote in his manifesto, he was never the same.
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