Greece on the Brink, Waving the Flag

Drachma Drama: About a third of Greece’s ATM’s ran out of money yesterday after Greeks rushed to the banks in response to the latest developments in the country’s credit crisis.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called for a quick national vote on the latest European bailout plan and recommended that Greeks say “no” to more austerity. As a result the European Union rejected Greece’s request for a bailout extension beyond the end of this month.

Greece has to repay about $1.8 billion to the International Monetary Fund this week. International financiers are afraid that without a cash injection Greece will suffer financial collapse and leave the Euro Zone.

Charleston: A woman climbed a flagpole on the Capitol grounds early yesterday and took down the Confederate flag that’s been the focus of protests since the Emanuel AME Church massacre. Two people were arrested and charged with defacing a monument. The flag was back up within an hour.

And several hours after the flag flew again, several dozen demonstrators rallied in support of the Stars and Bars.

Another funeral is scheduled for today. Three victims of the church shooting were buried yesterday.

Nation: Federal and state investigators are looking into a fire that destroyed a predominantly black church in Warrenville, South Carolina Friday. Recent fires in predominantly black churches in Charlotte, North Carolina and Macon, Georgia have been determined to have been deliberately set. At least seven black churches in four states have been damaged or destroyed in the past week.

PolitiSpeak: Jeb Bush says new gun controls are not the way to stop massacres. “We as a society better figure out how we identify these folks long before they feel compelled to take up a gun and kill innocent people,” Bush said in Nevada. …. After the “lawless” Obamacare and same-sex marriage decisions by the Supreme Court, Ted Cruz is calling for a Constitutional amendment to convert lifelong Supreme Court appointments to elected eight-year terms. “Liberty is in the balance,” he wrote in an opinion piece published by the National Review …. Mike Huckabee blustered, “I will not acquiesce to an imperial court any more than our Founders acquiesced to an imperial British monarch.”

World: Tour companies rushed yesterday to get Europeans out of Tunisia after a terrorist attack on a beach left 39 people dead. It was the second major attack on tourists in Tunisia in a year. About 6,000 tourists left the country within 24 hours.

>More than 500 people were injured yesterday by a fire that started on a music stage in a Taiwan water park. A colored powder was blown into the air and accidentally exploded. More than 180 were listed as seriously hurt.

The Sports Page: A Chinese graduate of a New Jersey prep school has become the first Chinese hockey player drafted by the NHL. Andong Song, an 18-year-old defenseman, was drafted #172 by the New York Islanders, but it will be a while before he skates in the bigs. He plans to spend a postgraduate year at Andover Academy in Massachusetts and then go to college.

Really, They Did: CNN broke in with a special report yesterday … “Just In” … about how their sharp-eyed international editor Lucy Pawle had spotted a black ISIS flag carried in a London Gay Pride parade. “I seem to be the only person who has spotted this,” Pawle reported breathlessly. And she was … for a reason. She noted that the markings on the flag were not Arabic but rather “gibberish.” Well, not exactly gibberish. The flag was a spoof on the ISIS flag decorated with silhouettes of sex toys against a white background. Pawle was unable to translate.

Friday, March 29, 2024

Page Two

The Most Corrupt Justice

Monday, October 2, 2023

Democracy and Video in the Dark

Sunday, February 26, 2023

Page Two: Do the Right Thing

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Page Two: Sound Recall

Monday, September 13, 2021

Page Two: Cuomo Must Go

Friday, August 13, 2021

Trump and the Truth

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

The “Great” President

Monday, March 30, 2020

The Wright Stuff

Saturday, February 29, 2020

It's Been Said

"In my mind, I’ve never crossed the line with anyone, but I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn. There are generational and cultural shifts that I just didn’t fully appreciate, and I should have, no excuses."

-Andrew Cuomo, resigning as governor of New York after accusations of sexual harassment

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