The names of the dead:
Clementa Pinckney, 41, the primary pastor who also served as a state senator.
Cynthia Hurd, 54, St. Andrews regional branch manager for the Charleston County Public Library system.
Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, 45, a church pastor, speech therapist and coach of the girls’ track and field team at Goose Creek High School.
Tywanza Sanders, 26, who had a degree in business administration from Allen University, where Pinckney also attended.
Ethel Lance, 70, a retired Gailliard Center employee who has worked recently as a church janitor.
Susie Jackson, 87, Lance’s cousin who was a longtime church member.
DePayne Middleton-Doctor, 49, a retired director of the local Community Development Block Grant Program who joined the church in March as a pastor.
Myra Thompson, 59, a pastor at the church.
Daniel Simmons Sr., 74, a pastor, who died in a hospital operating room.
—compiled by Andrew Knapp, The Post and Courier
~~~
Nikki Haley, South Carolina’s Republican governor, made a curiously obtuse statement on Facebook in the aftermath of Wednesday’s massacre at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. “While we do not yet know all of the details, we do know that we’ll never understand what motivates anyone to enter one of our places of worship and take the life of another,” the governor said.
[. . .]
On the same program, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani also confessed to being baffled about possible motives. “We have no idea what’s in his mind,” he said. “Maybe he hates Christian churches. Maybe he hates black churches or he’s gonna go find another one. Who knows.”
South Carolina Senator and presidential candidate Lindsey Graham questioned whether this was a “hate crime” and tried to suggest factors other than race were involved. “There are real people who are organized out there to kill people in religion and based on race, this guy’s just whacked out,” Graham said on the TV show “The View.” “But it’s 2015. There are people out there looking for Christians to kill them.” (Via)
“I have to do it,” the gunman allegedly told a survivor. “You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go.”
https://twitter.com/historianess/status/611540914947948545
In response to the Boston bombing of 2013, Senator Lindsey Graham demanded that the government do everything it could to learn from the attack and prevent future attacks.
This man, in my view, should be designated as a potential enemy combatant and we should be allowed to question him for intelligence gathering purposes to find out about future attacks and terrorist organizations that may exist that he has knowledge of, and that evidence cannot be used against him in trial. That evidence is used to protect us as a nation.
[. . .]
Graham’s reaction to Wednesday’s attack on a black church in his home state of South Carolina was very different. . . .
“I just think he was one of these whacked out kids. I don’t think it’s anything broader than that,” Graham said. “It’s about a young man who is obviously twisted.” (Via)
https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/611554282718957568
Oh yes, and this:
Indeed.
AbsurdBeats 