XPost: alt.fan.states.iowa, alt.fan.states.south-dakota, mn.politics   
   From: jrwebster@sjrb.ca   
      
   An activist climbed a flagpole outside the South Carolina state   
   capitol early on Saturday and took down the Confederate flag,   
   state officials said, a day after U.S. President Barack Obama   
   called the banner a symbol of racial oppression.   
      
   Two people were arrested and charged with defacing a monument,   
   the South Carolina Department of Public Safety said in a   
   statement. The banner was replaced within an hour, it said.   
      
   Brittany Newsome climbed the flag pole and James Ian Tyson stood   
   inside a fence and assisted her, police said. They are both 30   
   years old and from North Carolina.   
      
   Both were released on $3,000 bail and allowed to leave the state   
   ahead of a scheduled July 27 court appearance, local television   
   station WIS reported.   
      
   The Civil War-era flag has been a focal point in the United   
   States after the fatal shooting last week of nine African   
   Americans during a Bible study session at the historic Emanuel   
   African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.   
      
   South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who has attended all four   
   of the funerals so far for the victims, on Monday called for the   
   flag's removal saying that while it was an important part of   
   South Carolina's past, it "does not represent the future of our   
   great state."   
      
   The suspect in the shootings, Dylann Roof, 21, had posed with a   
   Confederate flag in photos posted on a website that also   
   displayed a racist manifesto.   
      
   A group of local activists said they organized the removal of   
   the flag, which by law flies at a memorial on the Statehouse   
   grounds in what supporters of the display says honors soldiers   
   who fought on the side of the pro-slavery Confederacy during the   
   1860-65 American Civil War.   
      
   "We could not sit by and watch the victims of the Charleston   
   Massacre be laid to rest while the inspiration for their deaths   
   continues to fly above their caskets," an activist group   
   organized under the Twitter tag #KeepItDown said in a statement.   
      
   Supporters took to social media under the Twitter tag #FreeBree,   
   and a crowdfunding campaign on website Indiegogo raised about   
   $80,000 in nine hours for the protesters' bail and legal defense.   
      
   At a funeral for the slain Emanuel church pastor in Charleston   
   on Friday, Obama called the banner "a reminder of systemic   
   oppression and racial subjugation".   
      
   The South Carolina Legislature is expected to begin debate next   
   week on removing the flag from the memorial.   
      
   (Reporting by David Adams in Charleston, Additional reporting by   
   Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles and Laila Kearney in New York;   
   Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Digby Lidstone and Franklin   
   Paul)   
      
   http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/28/us-usa-shooting-south-   
   carolina-idUSKBN0P70MJ20150628   
      
        
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)