James' World 2

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More than 150 years after the Civil War, Confederate memorialization — Southerners’ attempt to rationalize slavery, secession and the Civil War — continues to dominate Southern cities. And yet, from Richmond to New Orleans, protesters and elected officials have recently challenged this public commemoration of the South’s “Lost Cause” by demanding the removal of Confederate flags and public statues of Confederate leaders.

The removal (and re-contextualization) of Confederate monuments is not just about correcting a “false narrative” of Southern history. Rather, it is about exposing and confronting the history of segregation that “lost causism” perpetuated over the last century.

The United States built a sizable portion of its roughly 1,500 Confederate-related sites during the early 20th century, the nadir of American race relations. Over the course of that century, memorialization of the Confederacy became a referendum on what white Southerners thought of the present and hoped for the future.

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Symbols of the Confederacy are about the politics of the present, not the past. (Steve Helber/AP)

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Click link below for article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/07/27/confederate-monuments-are-about-maintaining-white-supremacy/?utm_term=.192311ef43d8

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On the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Germany last month, President Trump’s advisers discussed how to respond to a new revelation that Trump’s oldest son had met with a Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign — a disclosure the advisers knew carried political and potentially legal peril. 

The strategy, the advisers agreed, should be for Donald Trump Jr. to release a statement to get ahead of the story. They wanted to be truthful, so their account couldn’t be repudiated later if the full details emerged.

But within hours, at the president’s direction, the plan changed.

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President Trump personally dictated a statement that was issued after revelations that Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer during the 2016 election. The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker and Carol D. Leonnig explain. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

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Click link below for article and video:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-dictated-sons-misleading-statement-on-meeting-with-russian-lawyer/2017/07/31/04c94f96-73ae-11e7-8f39-eeb7d3a2d304_story.html?utm_term=.64fde0e63bee

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It was the most dramatic night in the United States Senate in recent history. Just ask the senators who witnessed it.

A seven-year quest to undo the Affordable Care Act collapsed — at least for now — as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) kept his colleagues and the press corps in suspense over a little more than two hours late Thursday into early Friday.

Not since September 2008, when the House of Representatives rejected the Troubled Asset Relief Program — causing the Dow Jones industrial average to plunge nearly 800 points in a single afternoon — had such an unexpected vote caused such a striking twist.

The bold move by the nation’s most famous senator stunned his colleagues and possibly put the Senate on the verge of protracted bipartisan talks that McCain is unlikely to witness as he begins treatment for an aggressive form of brain cancer.

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Senate Republicans attempted to pass a “skinny repeal” bill that would undo some portions of the Affordable Care Act on July 28, but the bill failed after three GOP senators voted against it. (Photo: Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

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Click link below for article and videos:

The night John McCain killed the GOP’s health-care fight

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