Lindsey Graham: ‘Perfect storm’ brewing vs. U.S.

The United States faces the greatest risk of terrorist activity since 9/11 and national security will be a defining issue of the 2016 election, presidential hopeful Lindsey Graham told New Hampshire residents at a Town Hall-style gathering yesterday in Manchester.

The South Carolina senator — with Sen. John McCain by his side — gave a bleak assessment of the country’s security status, and said the expanding reach of terrorist groups, defense cuts and the Iran nuclear deal create a recipe for domestic disaster.

“This deal is a bad deal for us and for Israel and everyone else,” he said. “There is a perfect storm brewing for us to get hit. Here. Hard.”

A roomful of voters encircled Graham and McCain, who both slammed President Obama for a soft approach to foreign policy.

The meeting gave Granite State voters a glimpse of what’s to come at a Voters First Forum tomorrow, where residents will get to vet GOP candidates.

As president, Graham said, he would pour more money into the military and send soldiers back to Iraq.

Via: Boston Herald

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KKK And New Black Panther Party Clash In South Carolina

Angry clashes have erupted between members of the Ku Klux Klan and the New Black Panther Party as both groups rally at the South Carolina statehouse.

Confederate flags were stolen and ripped up to cheers and applause from the New Black Panther demonstrators - while KKK members stood on the steps of the capitol performing Nazi salutes.

The white supremacists came out in force on Saturday afternoon to condemn the governor's decision to remove the Confederate Flag due to its associations with racial hatred.

Countering their demonstration, around 400 people with links to the New Black Panther Party marched in the name of racial equality - calling on politicians to do more than simply bring down a flag.

Although leaders insisted they would steer clear of one another, disputes were soon breaking out between off-shoots.

Via: Daily Mail

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[VIDEO] Lindsey Graham: Iran Deal a 'Declaration of War on Israel, Mideast'

The goal going into the talks with Iran was to dismantle its nuclear program, Sen. Lindsey Graham said Tuesday, but instead, the Obama administration has "ensured they've become a nuclear nation" and created a situation that will lead to nuclear proliferation throughout the Middle East.

"This is the most dangerous, irresponsible step I have ever seen in the history of watching the Middle East," the South Carolina Republican and presidential candidate told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program. "You have put every Sunni Arab in a terrible spot ... with the passage of time, this industrial-strength program we have locked in place will become a nuclear program."

In regards to Israel, Graham said,  "You have taken their biggest threat on the planet, who constantly chants 'Death to Israel,' and you have created a possible death sentence."

And as for the United States, "you have taken our chief antagonist, people who have killed hundreds of Americans in Iraq, toppled pro-American governments throughout the region, including Yemen, and given them capability to become a nuclear nation."

Graham blamed the deal on a "dangerously naive" President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, who have effectively brought new levels of chaos to the Middle East.

"Any senator who votes for this is voting for a nuclear arms race in the Mideast, and is voting to give the largest state sponsor of terrorism $18 billion," said Graham. "What do you think they'll do with the money? It's going to go to [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad, to Hezbollah and Hamas."

Graham said he would have been more open to a deal that tied Iran's enrichment programs to a change in its behavior, including inspections and finances.

"I would never relieve inspections until there was a certification that Iran is no longer the state sponsor of terrorism," said Graham, adding that he also would never have agreed to lifting the arms embargo "until they changed their behavior."

The deal is also a "virtual declaration of war against Sunni Arabs," said Graham. "You're making every Sunni Arab nation recalculate. You have locked in an industrial-sized nuclear program on behalf of the Iranians."

Further, the deal ensures that "every Sunni Arab nation who can get a nuclear weapon will because now they must," Graham said. "The goal President Obama set out [to achieve] I shared — to dismantle the program, to give them a nuclear capability consistent with a peaceful power program, and to require them to change their behavior before you gave them weapons or a nuclear capability. The goal has not been achieved."

Instead, he said, "With this deal, you've ensured that the Arabs will go nuclear. You have put Israel in the worst possible box. This will be a death sentence over time for Israel if they don't push back. You put our nation at risk."

And at the end, "every goal the president expressed two years ago has absolutely not been met, and you put the arms embargo on the table at a time when they're destroying the Mideast with their conventional weapons program," Graham said. "This is a terrible deal. It's going to make everything worse, and I really fear that we have set in motion a decade of chaos."

Even though the agreement's details have not yet been made public, Graham said he has been to the Middle East enough to know that the deal is a disaster, as it will "lock in a nuclear program that is mature over time without behavior change because that's going to push every Arab to get a weapon."

Graham said he considers Kerry a "good man," but he and Obama "want a deal so bad" Kerry is not listening to the Arabs or to Israel, as they are "are telling him something he doesn't want to hear."

The deal will now move to the Senate for a 60-day review period, and Graham said he plans to argue to his colleagues that it will initiate a nuclear arms race, and that giving Iran cash means "they're going to put it in the war machine, which puts us at risk."

He said he will also "tell the president to go back and try to get a better deal. Tell them there's a better deal to be had."

Graham also had a warning for Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton: "If you think this is a good deal, you're dangerously naive." But still, he said even she could broker a better deal than the one at hand.

"I think she could negotiate a better deal than this," he said. "I think everybody on our side could, except Rand Paul."

And he said that if the Senate cares about Israel, "you will not put her in this box," and if it cares about the United States, "you will not allow our chief antagonist to become a nuclear threshold nation ... If you care about Americans, you will not give this regime one penny."

Via: Newsmax

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SOUTH CAROLINA: Columbia City Council’s new gun safety law assailed

COLUMBIA, SC 

The president of a prominent South Carolina gun rights group said Friday that an emergency Columbia city ordinance enacted last week to allow police to quickly arrest armed and dangerous people is not lawful.

But a council member said members had checked state law and determined that they were allowed to pass the temporary ordinance.

Council passed the measure Thursday night after hearing warnings from law enforcement that demonstrations relating to the Confederate flag at the State House might attract violent gun-toting people and groups that might do harm.

“It’s illegal,” said Gerald Stoudemire, president of the Gun Owners of South Carolina, who teaches concealed weapons classes, runs a gun shop and has testified on gun laws before various S.C. House and Senate committees.

Stoudemire, 68, said the new city ordinance flies in the face of a state law that says local governments cannot pass ordinances that put more restrictions on firearms than state law.

The city’s emergency ordinance, passed Thursday night, made illegal the carrying of firearms by citizens within 250 feet of the State House. The ordinance will expire around Aug. 9. It basically gives police the right within that zone to check out people they think might be carrying concealed weapons and arrest them if they are.

Council members passed the ordinance after hearing from city police Chief Skip Holbrook that police intelligence units were picking up information that various “hate groups” whose members are known to carry weapons might converge on Columbia for Friday’s lowering of the Confederate flag ceremony.

Police are also concerned that armed and potentially violent people will show up at a planned July 18 Ku Klux Klan rally at the State House, according to the ordinance passed by city council.

While state law prohibits the carrying of firearms by citizens on State House grounds, state law currently allows people to carry guns – including concealed guns if they have a permit – just off State House grounds, Stoudemire said. Thus, council’s action to restrict the rights of people to carry guns around the State House property goes further than state law and is illegal, Stoudemire said.

Council member Tameika Isaac Devine said that city council had weighed Stoudemire’s concern as well as the section of state law to which he is referring.

Devine said city officials determined that under state law, city council does have the right to pass emergency measures when health and safety are at stake.

“We can do this on a temporary basis, but we couldn’t do a permanent basis,” she said.

The ordinance will expire after 30 days, unless council extends it, she said.

“It depends on how things go in the next 30 days, what law enforcement is picking up on the Internet,” she said. “I’m hopeful that we will just let it expire.”

“Irregardless – for one day, it’s illegal,” Stoudemire said.

Stoudemire said he intends to ask a lawmaker to get an attorney general’s opinion on whether the ordinance is legal. Previous attorney general opinions support his position, he said.

Stoudemire also warned that the city might get sued and have to pay damages if it wrongfully arrests someone who has the right to carry a concealed weapon.

“It’s going to look bad if they arrest somebody and they sue the city,” Stoudemire said. “I figure the first fellow who gets arrested, he’s going to be asking for some big figures.”

Under the ordinance, anyone arrested and convicted of carrying a weapon in the prohibited zone would be guilty of a misdemeanor and could be fined up to $500 and put in jail for 30 days.

After Friday’s Confederate flag lowering at State House grounds, Holbrook told The State newspaper that no one had been arrested. State Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel also said officers had made no arrests.

Via: The State

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Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/news/local/article27019810.html#storylink=cpy

Walmart to ‘melt’ class rings bearing Confederate flag rather than complete orders

An Arkansas woman who went to pick up the class ring she ordered from Walmart left disappointed, after store officials told her the retailer's new policy barred them from turning the item over -- because it bore an image of the Confederate flag.

Elaine Glidewell told KFSM someone from the store in Fort Smith called her to pick up the ring she'd ordered for her nephew, but when she arrived on Tuesday, a clerk told her she couldn’t have it. The ring had been ordered before Walmart stopped selling items bearing images of the flag, in the wake of controversy that stemmed from a racially-charged shooting in South Carolina.

“I wanted to cry,” Glidewell told KFSM, adding that the store clerk said the ring would be "melted."

Glidewell said she paid $320 for the ring and was going to present it to her nephew, who recently graduated. He had expressed interest in a design that bore a Rebel mascot that incorporates the Confederate battle flag. She got her money back, but no ring.

“They wouldn’t let me have the ring. It had a note on it, was in a plastic bag, it said do not sell. It was signed by the store manager,” Glidewell said.

Brian Nick, spokesman for Walmart, told FoxNews.com Glidewell was denied the ring because her transaction came after the retailer made a “business decision” to stop selling items with the Confederate flag on it.

“The decision was made several weeks ago not to sell products promoting the confederate flag and this item fell under that category and the associate made the right choice and did not complete the sale,” Nick said.

Nick said the ring might have slipped through the cracks because a third party manufactured it, and the store did not realize the Confederate flag was on the ring until an associate went to sell it.

“Because there was a little bit of time I think that’s probably the reason it was noticed a few weeks after,” Nick said.

Nick said the store put Glidewell in touch with a manufacturer, who can get her a new ring, but Glidewell says it was that particular piece she wanted.

“I would give anything to have that ring. Anything. Just because it means so much to him,” Glidewell said.

Via: Fox News

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Background Check Flaw Let Dylann Roof Buy Gun, F.B.I. Says

WASHINGTON — The man accused of killing nine people in an historically black South Carolina church last month should not have been able to buy a gun, the F.B.I. said Friday in what was the latest acknowledgment of flaws in the national background check system.

A loophole in the check system allowed the man, Dylann Roof, to buy the .45-caliber handgun despite his having previously admitted to drug possession, the bureau said.

“We are all sick this happened,” said the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey. “We wish we could turn back time.”

Mr. Roof now faces murder charges in a case that investigators say was racially motivated. Mr. Roof, who is white, is charged with killing nine people at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston.

The F.B.I. operates the background check system, called the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, and loopholes have been discovered in it before. One allowed thousands of prohibited buyers to legally purchase firearms over the past decade — and some of those weapons were ultimately used in crimes, according to court records and government documents. That problem stemmed from the three-day period the government has to determine whether someone is eligible to buy a gun.

After a 2007 shooting in which 33 people died at Virginia Tech University, investigators discovered that the gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, also should not have been able to buy a gun because a court had previously declared him to be a danger to himself. The shooting led to legislation aimed at improving the background check system.

Via: New York Times

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FULL VIDEO: South Carolina’s Confederate Flag Removed from State Grounds

It comes down this morning at 10 a.m. ET.

After an astonishingly quick vote, South Carolina’s lawmakers voted to remove the Confederate battle flag from its state house grounds. Republican Gov. Nikki Haley signed the removal into law on Thursday afternoon.

UPDATE — 10:15 a.m. ET: Oh, hey, it came down in less than five minutes. Here’s the full video of the ceremony, via Fox News:

Via: Mediaite

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People with Prior Knowledge of Charleston Shooter’s Plans May Face Charges

The investigation continues into Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof and what led him to take nine innocent lives at the Emanuel AME Church. Well, reports now indicate Roof was in touch with others who may end up facing charges for their involvement.

According to South Carolina paper The State, there were other people (possibly other white supremacists) who potentially had knowledge of Roof’s plans to target a black church, and they may face charges ranging from lying to the police to failure to inform law enforcement about advanced knowledge of a crime.

 

The New York Times notes that these individuals did not necessarily “encourage” Roof to kill innocent people, but Roof was in enough contact with hate groups on his electronic devices that it’s possible they knew his plans.

Both state officials and the Department of Justice are investigating the shooting.

Via: Mediaite

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John Kasich to announce presidential bid July 21

Ohio Gov. John Kasich will jump into the crowded Republican presidential field on July 21 at the student union at his alma mater, The Ohio State University, in Columbus, advisers tell POLITICO.

Kasich, 63, who was overwhelmingly reelected in November, will aim to appear less scripted and guarded than the leading candidates. Advisers say he combines establishment appeal with a conservative record going back to his stint as House Budget Committee chairman, during his 18 years as a congressman from Ohio.

Despite his late start, Kasich will be one of the most closely watched candidates — partly because Ohio is such a crucial presidential state, putting Kasich on many short lists for vice president.

Kasich briefly pursued a presidential bid in the 2000 cycle, but got no traction and dropped out in July 1999, endorsing then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

For Kasich’s announcement on July 21, doors will open at 9:30 a.m. at The Ohio Union at Ohio State.

The announcement date puts Kasich a week behind the other Midwestern governor in the race, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who plans to announce the week of July 13.

The July launch gives Kasich a shot at raising his national profile enough to qualify for the first GOP debate, on Aug. 6 in his home state. But participation in the Cleveland debate will be based on national polling, and Kasich advisers admit that qualifying will be tough, even with his announcement bump.

Kasich, who graduated from Ohio State in 1974, can expect an excited crowd in the Buckeye capital. He’ll follow his kickoff rally with an announcement tour that includes Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Michigan.

The GOP talent pool is getting shallow, with so many credible candidates vying for the nomination. But Kasich landed two of the best-known names in Republican politics:

His chief strategist will be John Weaver, mastermind of John McCain’s insurgent campaigns of 2000 and 2008. And the lead consultant for Kasich’s super PAC, New Day for America, will be ad maker Fred Davis, based in the Hollywood Hills, who worked on McCain ’08 and has had several viral hits. Both worked on Jon Huntsman’s presidential campaign in 2012.

Via: Politico

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Charlie Daniels on the Confederate Flag, Restraint and Common Sense

Demonstrators carry Confederate flags as they leave the entrance of the South Carolina Statehouse after the removal of the flag in Columbia, S.C., on July 1, 2000. (AP Photo/Eric Draper)

The recent senseless act of slaughter in a church in Charleston, South Carolina awakened America to the ever-present lunacy and evil that walks among us, and it has also reopened some old wounds and deep feelings on both sides of a long festering situation.

Before I go any farther with this piece, I wish to express my love and admiration for the people of Charleston, who have, in the face of immense pain, shown a restraint and a common sense seldom seen in tragic situations involving race.

When I saw the pictures of the people who had been murdered, I made the statement, "I know these people," which I didn't mean literally, but figuratively. They were the kind of Christian people I have been around all my life – worked with and sat in the pews of churches with – salt of the earth folks, who not only professed to know the Lord Jesus Christ, but lived their faith every day of their lives.

These are the kind of people you want to have praying for you, the kind who know how to put their arms around a hurting person and comfort and console. They are the kind of people who raised their families to turn to Almighty God in times of trouble and heartbreak, proven by the forgiving words spoken by family members in court to the monster who had wantonly murdered their loved ones.

As in all Satan inspired iniquity, God has the ability to bring great good, and in this situation, the people of Charleston, South Carolina have shown the depth of common sense and class that exists in that community. More importantly, they showed the world what being a Christian is all about.

I feel sure that a jury of peers in South Carolina will see that Dylann Roof gets what’s coming to him, and justice will be served and meted out to the full extent of the law.

In relation to the main crux of my column today, I would like to relate an experience I had in a Midwestern city when the band was appearing with the local symphony orchestra.

In the evening before the show started, one of the venue staff came to me and said, "There is a gentleman out front who is offended by the confederate flag on your piano."

I responded that we didn't have a Confederate flag painted on our piano.

The upshot of the whole thing was that Taz, our keyboard player, had an American flag and a Tennessee flag with the flagstaffs crossed on the front of his piano, with a drawing of his namesake, a cartoon Tasmanian Devil, and the phrase "Yessiree, Tennessee" painted under it.

Via: CNS News

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QUESTION OF THE DAY: WHERE DOES HE GET THE NERVE?

How dare he! What the hell doesn’t have his no-good nose into? This is how he shows his grief…what a man!

Dudes and dudettes, I don’t know about the rest of you, but having to endure eighteen more months of this entity’s dictatorship has become our nation’s national nightmare! Plus, you can toss in his intentional endless divisiveness, race-baiting included.

Read this report and see what you think:

President Obama believes the Confederate flag “belongs in a museum,” the White House said Friday amid calls for it to be taken down, following a mass shooting in South Carolina.

“The president has said before he believes the Confederate flag belongs in a museum, and that is still his position,” spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters aboard Air Force One.

A mass shooting at a historic African-American church in Charleston, S.C., has renewed the debate over whether the Confederate battle flag should continue to fly in the state.

The suspected shooter, Dylann Storm Roof, reportedly drove a car with Confederate flag license plates.

And while the U.S. and South Carolina flags were lowered to half-staff following the shooting, the Confederate flag that flies near the state capitol flew at full height, a move that drew criticism.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s office said Thursday she could not lower the flag without approval from the state legislature. The GOP governor has dismissed calls to remove it in the past.

Via: AWD

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Will Democrats Apologize for Slavery and Segregation?

An open letter to DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Dear Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz:

I note with interest this statement from you with regard to the controversy over the flying of the Confederate flag on the grounds of the South Carolina State Capitol. You said:

For decades community leaders in South Carolina — and across the country — have been calling to get rid of this symbol of hatred, and action has been long overdue.

But this is just the beginning of a conversation we as a society need to have about race, bigotry and violence in this country — not the end of one.

Good enough. It’s good to know you wish to begin this conversation and I am happy to oblige. Let me begin with this question:

Will the Democratic Party finally apologize for supporting slavery, segregation, lynching, and the Ku Klux Klan?

Let me recall these lines from some of your party platforms.

From your 1840 platform: 

Resolved, That congress has no power, under the constitution, to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several states, and that such states are the sole and proper judges of everything appertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the constitution; that all efforts by abolitionists or others, made to induce congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences, and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people, and endanger the stability and permanency of the union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend to our political institutions.

And again in your 1844 platform:

That Congress has no power, under the Constitution, to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several States; and that such States are the sole and proper judges of everything pertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the Constitution; that all efforts, by abolitionists or others, made to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences, and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people and endanger the stability and permanency of the Union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend to our Political Institutions.

This staunch support for slavery — not to mention the unsubtle threat that accompanied it (there would be “alarming and dangerous consequences” if serious attempts to abolish it were made) is repeated again in your party platforms of 1848 and 1852.

Via: American Spectator

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Guns, race remain Obama’s biggest missed opportunities

President Barack Obama, with Vice President Biden, leaves after making a statement at the White House regarding the church shootings in Charleston, S.C., on June 18, the day after the massacre. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

The killing of nine black worshipers at a church in South Carolina has compelled President Obama to look back with anger, then melancholy and finally some distance at the two most in­trac­table issues he has faced as president: guns and race.

In the White House briefing room, at a fundraiser at the home of a movie star, before a roomful of the country’s mayors and in a garage in Pasadena, Calif., Obama has reflected not only on the Charleston shootings but also on the missed opportunities and unfinished business of his presidency.

“Increasingly, I’ve spent my time thinking about how do I try to break out of these old patterns that our politics have fallen into,” Obama said in Pasadena, where he recorded a podcast interview that was released Monday. He wondered how to have a normal conversation that’s “not this battle in a steel cage between one side and another.”

The pain laid bare by Charleston has led Obama to an unusually frank assessment of his presidency and an acknowledgment that he hasn’t been the unifying, transformational figure that many hoped he would be.

On Friday, he will travel to Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston to deliver another eulogy, this time for a pastor who was one of the earliest supporters of the movement that in 2008 propelled Obama to the White House. That campaign’s most enthusiastic backers believed that a newly mobilized and enthusiastic citizenry could radically improve the nature of the political debate in Washington.

Just hours after the June 17 shootings in Charleston, Obama stood before the cameras in the White House briefing room and spoke mournfully of the Rev. Clementa Pinckney and the eight other parishioners killed during an evening Bible study.

Obama was thinking about the dead. But his frustration and disgust in that moment sprang just as much from the killing of 20 elementary school students in Connecticut three years earlier, his aides said.

Obama has described the Newtown massacre as the “worst day” of his presidency and Congress’s inability to pass gun control legislation as his most stinging defeat.

Via; Washington Post

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[SPECIAL REPORT] The Culture of Smugness History is written by the PC victors.

Whether or not South Carolina retains a Confederate flag on state grounds is clearly a matter for the state to decide. But the media couldn’t permit GOP presidential candidates to limit themselves to that position. It had to hector the candidates into support for the flag’s removal. On all matters racial, the media polices not only sins of commission but sins of omission. By the media’s estimate, insufficient enthusiasm for the flag’s removal is evidence of a troubling racial attitude.

The hate on display in the controversy is coming not from the flag’s defenders but from a smug liberal elite that can’t rest until every inch of America conforms to their liberal prejudices. Jon Stewart’s supposedly anguished remarks about the Charleston horror seemed more like childish pouting and sophomoric South-bashing, with the glib host demanding that even the streets of the South be renamed: “In South Carolina, the roads that black people drive on are named for Confederate Generals who fought to keep black people from driving freely on that road. That’s insanity. That’s racial wallpaper. You can’t allow that.”

Like French Revolutionaries, the liberal elite wants American culture to begin from scratch, built on nothing more than the conviction that the past is wicked and the present good. Even as the moral refuse of modern life grows higher and higher, its spokesmen can still peer down from it to denounce the past pitilessly. Americans can trot off to Walmart to pick up an abortifacient, but its clerks, the company announced, will no longer let customers purchase a Confederate flag. “We never want to offend anyone with the products that we offer,” the company explained. That hasn’t stopped the store from selling sex toys over the objections of parental groups, but it feels that it has to draw the line somewhere. The company has concluded that the flag under which Robert E. Lee fought is too corrupting for its customers.

For years, Southerners, without any connection to slavery or segregation and without the slightest racial intent, have flown the flag out of regional pride and ancestral respect. Little did they know that they were following in the footsteps of Hitler’s acolytes.

“The only argument you can make against having this flag be as spectacularly shown as it is around the South is the Nazis,” said actress Whoopi Goldberg. “It would be like having the swastika flag flying [at] your next-door neighbor’s [house].” HBO host John Oliver said, “The Confederate flag is one of those symbols that should really only be seen on T-shirts, belt buckles and bumper stickers to help the rest of us identify the worst people in the world.”

Such is the moral nuance of the American Left. Instead of challenging the crudeness of these remarks, pols of both parties appear ready to enshrine them into law by banishing the flag from all public places save obscure museums.

South Carolina’s governor, Nikki Haley, did make a few tactful remarks about the supporters of the flag but it is unlikely that her words will survive the flag’s banishment. She said that the “hate filled murderer who massacred our brothers and sisters in Charleston has a sick and twisted view of the flag,” which doesn’t “reflect the people in our state who respect and, in many ways, revere it.” Yet the law that she seeks to pass will have the effect of stigmatizing those people and vindicating the Left’s interpretation of the flag as inherently racist.

Via: The Spectator

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Keep the Confederate Flag Flying

See also: Take down the Confederate flag

“Take it down! That symbol must go!” We hear these cries in the wake of the Charleston church shooting in reference to the Confederate flag, which still flies above the South Carolina Capitol. As you know, one criminal who committed a heinous act had sometimes sported the symbol, so, the thinking… er, feeling… goes, it should be sent to cultural Siberia. But the flag should remain --  especially right now.

This is precisely the opposite of the fashionable view, of course. It holds that especially right now, in this time of pain, sorrow and efforts at reconciliation (by some), it’s an ideal time to dispense with the flag. I say otherwise, but not mainly because the flag is viewed by millions as a symbol of Southern heritage, of state’s rights or of defiance against an increasingly despotic federal government. The real reason is simple. Is removing the flag really a good idea?

If so, it’ll also be a good idea a year from now.

What currently exists is an emotionally charged environment, and, as a rule, that’s the worst possible time to make decisions. A fit of emotion caused the ancient Athenians to condemn philosopher Socrates and force him to drink the hemlock; they regretted the decision almost immediately afterwards and erected a statue in his honor. But that’s the way of the mob — it’s an emotional entity whose feelings change with the wind.

And make no mistake about it, the current drumbeat to hang the flag is the mob’s handiwork. Yes, as in ancient Athens, it’s a glorified mob, lathered in the lipstick of the pig of democracy (we’re a constitutional republic for a reason). And this is why we see the mob mentality, with even Southern Republicans chiming in with hard-core leftists in calling for the Confederate flag’s removal. This includes Lindsey Graham and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley (sorry, but I’m always suspicious of politicians with cutesy first names; I’m waiting for the first president named “Buffy”). In this, these “conservatives” side with Barack Obama, who said that the flag “belongs in a museum.” This is hardly convincing from a man who also apparently believes the American Constitution belongs in a museum.

Via: American Thinker

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The one picture to which Obama and #blacklivesmatter never point

President Barack Obama, capitulating South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, Al Sharpton and the rank and file of #blacklivesmatter seek to draw everyone’s attention to the wrong picture.

All of the above are pointing to the picture of the Confederate Flag, blaming it as the killer of nine innocent souls who came to pray at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church one week ago tomorrow.

As of today the Confederate Flag will be ripped down from its revered place on the grounds of the South Carolina State Capitol, and after 150 years, tossed into the dustbin of history.  It’s okay to display the Confederate Flag, in your private backyard, says Nikki.

But all who do will soon be openly branded with the racism Obama claims that comes with their DNA.

If any single picture is worthy of the gaze of freedom loving Americans, it should be the one painted by Colorado artist Dave Merrick,DaveMerrick.US, who, in essence, provided ‘The Defining Moment of the State of America’, back in 2012, three years before the Confederate Flag of the South became the politically chosen scapegoat of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church tragedy.

How is it possible that the 150-year-old Confederate flag that flies at the South Carolina Capitol tops alleged killer Dylann Roof as the main controversy in the tragedy?

Proving with talented artwork the plain-as-day truth in the age-old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words”, Merrick called his 2012 oil and acrylic painting, ‘The Price of CHANGE’.

“Patriots have been looking for ways to pull their country back from the brink of Obama’s promised Fundamental Transformation of America ever since his inauguration.  Bloggers have blogged their concerns.  Pundits have been pounding away at the keyboards of their computers and sending out messages they hope will go viral.” (Canada Free Press,Oct. 16,, 2012)

Merrick did not just use his remarkable artistic talent to paint another picture.  He painted the one that “exposes the obvious heart and intent of our president”.

“After Merrick finished the piece, he put it on his email list and sent it to a few blog pages, and now it’s traveling - on its own - all around the world. Only starting, we hope with Canada Free Press (CFP).” (Canada Free Press)

Via: Canada Free Press

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Hillary Clinton Not Talking About ’92 Clinton-Gore Confederate Campaign Button

It’s unclear if the Clinton-Gore Confederate flag campaign button that has been prominent on social media was an official part of their 1992 presidential campaign.

And Hillary Clinton isn’t clarifying, nor is her team responding to questions about her husband honoring the flag as Arkansas governor in 1987.

Credit: eBay

The Blaze left phone and email messages with the Clinton campaign Monday inquiring whether the button, and other similar designs sold on eBay, was part of the official campaign of Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

The Blaze also asked if the former Arkansas first lady opposed now or opposed then an act signed by her husband honoring the Confederate flag. The Clinton campaign did not respond to either question.

The Confederate battle flag has become an issue following last week’s shooting massacre at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina. The Confederate flag is still flown on the South Carolina Capitol grounds. After increasing calls for its removal, Gov. Nikki Haley (R) on Monday called for the flag to finally come down.

Republican presidential candidates were reluctant to take a firm stand on the matter over the weekend. Hillary Clinton spoke about race relations on Friday in San Francisco, but did not mention the Confederate flag, according to the campaign’s transcript. Clinton did, however, call for the flag to be removed from the South Carolina capitol in 2007 during her first presidential campaign.

As for the 1992 buttons, the Washington Post speculated on whether they were part of the official 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign.

Via: The Blaze

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