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From The Reporter's Notebook
South Carolina state Sen. Lee Bright (R) has been a stalwart defender of the Confederate battle flag throughout the debate over its place on state Capitol grounds in the wake of the Charleston church massacre. But as TPM's Catherine Thompson points out, during Monday's debate on the flag he veered wildly off topic several times, going out of his way to draw attention to abortion in the black community and suggesting that Budweiser beer had about as much to do with the shooting as the Confederate flag (the shooter was photographed with both).
Say What?!
"I didn't know it was going to be quite this severe. But I really knew it was going to be bad…You know, maybe I'm leading in polls, but this is certainly not good. I lose customers, I lose people."
– Trump admitted on Fox & Friends that the backlash to his comments calling immigrants rapists was more severe than he expected.
BUZZING: Today in the Hive
From TPM live chat guest/food industry expert Michael Moss: "In researching the processed food industry I was really fortunate to come across a trove of documents that put me inside the largest food giants as they were formulating and marketing their products, which enabled to identify key insiders and get them to reveal even more secrets. And the overwhelming sense I get from that those documents and interviews is that this is an industry that has been striving to get us to not just like their products, but to want more and more. Not in an evil-empire way intending to make us hugely overweight or otherwise ill, but in a companies-wanting-to-maximize earnings kind of way. And their strategy varies from product to product. But generally they go for maximum allure without overpowering us with any one flavor, like vanilla in the case of Coke or garlic in the case of Doritos, because that can trip our internal brake on overeating called Sensory Specific Satiety. Everyone is different and metabolism plays a huge role, but generally junky foods that have lots of empty calories do seem to leave me hungry for more and unsatisfied in the long run. I like the eating a peach method, but also I find that while I indulge in potato chips now and then, I find myself missing them less and less the more time goes by in between, leaving me to think that for many of us getting unhooked on junky food is every bit as doable as getting hooked."
Related: The Navajo nation recently passed a junk food tax, but unfortunately, more than 80% of the food available for purchase on the reservation is junk.
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What We're Reading
Texas officials say schools should teach that slavery was a "side issue" in the Civil War. (The Washington Post)
"Fourteen years after 9/11, teenagers too young to remember the tragedy in the first place are now mining it for comedy." (Slate)
Jason Whitlock and the messy saga of ESPN's plans for a "Black Grantland." (New York Magazine)
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