Today's Must-Read(s)

Hullabaloo is the place to be this morning -- there's a whole series of posts that demand attention. Start with this one by Tom Sullivan on our history of racism, which Trump has made allowable:

Donald Trump did not say he personally condemned those sentiments and racist ideology, only that "the nation" should. He blamed the Internet and video games for the body count rather than the racism, bigotry, and white supremacy he cited moments earlier (and that the alleged El Paso shooter cited for his actions). Trump blamed mental illness for the slaughter and would not address the ready availability of weapons in the U.S. and its gun culture. As if to punctuate his own disconnect from victims, Trump managed in the end to misidentify the affected Ohio city as Toledo.

Then scroll down to this one by Digby; the bulk of it is a column by Ben Shapiro from 2010; the title should give you a hint of the thrust: "Obama's Race War":

That's just an excuse. The Obama administration is racist. They are using that racism to let black criminals off the hook, justify illegal immigration, hamstring law enforcement across the country, and push redistribution as a solution to supposed continuing discrimination against "people of color." The predictable result of this policy will resemble the results of the 1876 election: federal abdication on racial violence, state abdication on racial violence and local abdication on racial violence. The next race war will come not from racist whites, but from racist blacks and Hispanics who feel empowered to act on their racism by an administration that excuses all minority misbehavior.

Shapiro isn't much for predicting the future.

And, something positive -- Digby's post on Beto O'Rourke's comments on Trump's racism, and Trump's racism itself. Here's a sample:

"The only modern western democracy that I can think of that said anything close to this is the Third Reich, Nazi Germany. Talking about human beings as though they‘re animals, making them sub-human to make it ok to put their kids in cages.” — @BetoORourke pic.twitter.com/UzdZEEeAn2

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 5, 2019

And yes, this has everything to do with the rash of mass shootings this week. (One of this first things I saw this morning was that there was another one last night. Four dead, I believe.)

About Those Racist Tweets

There's a series of posts at Hullabaloo that pretty much nail all the ramifications. Start at this post by Tom Sullivan and just work your way down.

The Day After D-Day: Remembering the Forgotten

This is something I didn't know, part of this post from Adam L. Silverman at Balloon Juice:

There used to be a prevailing myth that no black men participated in D-Day — by far one of the most important days of World War II.

But a closer look reveals that some African-American soldiers played a key role on Omaha Beach, and their stories still remain largely untold.

"There were no (Congressional) Medals (of Honor) given to any black soldiers for what they did at D-Day," said 90-year-old Joann Snowden Woodson. "People really need to know the truth.”

Woodson has been on a consistent mission to share the truth of D-Day with the world, as well as the service of her late husband, Waverly Bernard Woodson — one of the few black soldiers known to have served on Omaha Beach that fateful day.

Originally from West Philadelphia, Waverly Woodson was a member of the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion, an all-black Army unit that specialized in placing barrage balloons in battle areas during World War II. Their goal was to distract and destroy enemy aircraft and provide cover for Allied soldiers on the ground.

Waverly Woodson and his Battalion left England on June 5, 1944. They arrived on the beach in Normandy via transport boat the next day.

"He said he could see the soldiers being picked off just like flies," Joann Woodson reiterated. "Some of them were dead; some of them he had to administer the last rites. And some of them — I think he said he had to do amputations and everything."

Read the whole thing. And read Silverman's complete post as well. It's sobering when we think we've made progress in exercising our humanity.

(My dad served in the Pacific. He never talked about the war.)