6/19/2015

Notations On Our World: On the Aftermath of Charleston & On Greece

The Charleston Allegded killer was caught yesterday and was arraigned today on 9 counts of murder.   This is as the U.S. Justice Department has determined that the crime may be deemed a Domestic Terrorist Incident.   Under the provisions of the US Constitution, he will be entitled to a trial by Jury and is presumed innocent until proven guilty.   Funerals of the fallen will start to begin tomorrow.

What was so striking was the forgiveness expressed by the families of the fallen.  One by one they told the alledged gunman that they forgave him.  President Obama, while on a swing through California, spoke for many in this tweet:




There was some interesting comment on how the President was "resigned'--He addressed that head-on as he noted how something has to be done.   This was as he also spoke rather personally about how many times he had to come out and speak on such tragedies that occur constantly.    Our team also wondered whether this tragedy will trigger the conversation that Sandy Hook began but could not somehow finish due to the difficult politics that continue to persist today.    Republican Presidential Candidates came out in strong support of gun ownership despite the latest tragedy--as some on the more conservative side resurrected the old argument of taking away "gun rights" as epitomized by the comments by Erik Erickson.

Beyond the shores of the United States, our team has been assessing  the situation in Greece.  The Greek have been withdrawaing billions from their banks due to the continued uncertainty over the status of the Greek Debt negotations.     The Greek Prime Minister flew off to Moscow to meet with the Russians to potentially get a lifeline from them.      This is as the European Central Bank decided to extend a lifeline to Greek Banks to deal with the liquidity crisis (This headline courtesy of the DealBook Blog @ the New York Times) as we will continue to assess the latest over the week-end as a build up to the European Heads of Government Meeting on Monday: 
TOP STORY
People using ATMs in Athens on Friday. Greeks were still pulling out savings, as they have been in recent days, but the withdrawals did not appear to have escalated into a full-out bank run.
E.C.B. Agrees to Extend Lifeline to Athens The central bank has decided to keep Greece's financial system on life support with more funding as anxious depositors accelerated withdrawals.



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