Thomas Paine's version of "you didn't build that":
"Separate an individual from society,and give him an island or a continent to possess,and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the end,in all cases,that where the former do not exist the latter cannot be obtained. All accumulation, therefore,of personal property,beyond what a man's own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of justice,of gratitude,and of civilization,a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came"
Submitted by Leah
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Nearly all of these are English-edition daily newspapers. These sites have interesting editorials and essays, and many have links to other good news sources. We try to limit this list to those sites which are regularly updated, reliable, with a high percentage of “up” time.
Movies stars, world leaders, great writers … Life magazine’s Larry Burrows captured everyone who was anyone in the 1950s
John F Kennedy in London, 1961 Burrows was notorious among reporters for his insistence that they hoist his 6ft 1in frame atop their shoulders so he could have the best vantage point
Author Helen Keller, 1951
Instead of the dogged persistence that characterised most photojournalists, Burrows is remembered for his disarming and unpretentious charm
Victim say her case proves ‘you may not get it immediately, but you will get what you’re worth’
Associated Press
From left, mother Renetta M. Cheston-Thornton, lawyer Chris Stewart and Hope Cheston. Hope Cheston has been awarded a billion dollars in damages by a Georgia jury. Photograph: Facebook/ Chris Stewart
A Georgia jury has awarded a $1bn damages verdict against a security company after an apartment complex guard was convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl.
Hope Cheston – who has chosen to be identified – was outside by some picnic tables with her boyfriend during a party in 2012 when an armed security guard approached, attorney L. Chris Stewart told the Associated Press on Wednesday. The guard told the boyfriend not to move and raped Cheston, Stewart said.
The guard, identified in the lawsuit as Brandon Lamar Zachary, was convicted of statutory rape and is serving a 20-year prison sentence, online prison records show.
Brandon Lamar Zachary, an apartment complex guard who was convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl. Photograph: AP
Renatta Cheston-Thornton filed a lawsuit in March 2015 on behalf of her daughter, who was still a minor at the time. The jury on Tuesday handed down the verdict against Crime Prevention Agency, the security company that employed Zachary.
Zachary, who was 22 at the time of the rape, should never have been hired because he wasn’t licensed to be an armed guard, Stewart said.
The judge had already determined the security company was liable, so the jury was only determining damages, Stewart said. After reading the verdict, Stewart said, jurors immediately left the jury box – without waiting for the judge’s permission – to hug Cheston and her mother.
Crime Prevention Agency was dissolved in 2016, according to online corporate registration records. Attempts to contact Mario Watts, who is named on the corporate registration as the CEO and identified in the lawsuit as the company’s registered agent, were unsuccessful.
This jury was clearly trying to send a message.
Jeff Dion, National Crime Victim Bar Association
Cheston, now 20, said she wanted her story to provide strength for other sexual assault victims. A lot of women who suffer sexual assault don’t pursue justice, choosing instead to put it behind them, she said in a phone interview on Wednesday.
“I feel like my case is just to show that you may not get it immediately, but you will get what you’re worth,” Cheston said. “This shows that people do care about the worth of a woman.”
Stewart, who has tried a lot of sexual assault cases, said he was shocked when he heard the verdict. He said he had asked jurors to really determine the value of the pain caused by the rape. “I was really proud of the jury because there is no basis in the legal world for how high a rape verdict can be,” he said.
Verdicts in the tens of millions of dollars, or even hundreds of millions, are not uncommon, Jeff Dion, director of the National Crime Victim Bar Association said in an email. But he had never heard of a $1bn verdict in a case with a single victim. “This jury was clearly trying to send a message about bad conduct on the part of the company,” Dion wrote.
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusets told a rapt gathering from the pulpit: ‘As a believer you have two choices: you can back down or you can get in the fight.’ Photograph: J. Scott Applewhite/AP
The Democratic liberal figurehead Elizabeth Warren and rising star Cory Booker have a message for left-of-center religious leaders in the era of Donald Trump: keep the faith.
The luminaries of the progressive left drew standing ovations – and calls to run for the White House in 2020 – as they laid out a moral case for resisting Trump’s agenda in a pair of speeches in Washington on Tuesday.
“Our fight is a righteous fight,” Warren, the senator from Massachusetts, told a rapt gathering from the pulpit of the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal church.
“These are the moments that matter in ministry and in history when your back is up against the wall and you’re forced to defend your beliefs on every front,” she continued. “As a believer you have two choices: you can back down or you can get in the fight. I don’t know about you this evening but I will fight back.”
Warren and Booker spoke hours apart at the week-long conference, the annual Festival of Homiletics – the art of preaching – which drew hundreds of preachers and seminary students from mostly Christian denominations.The theme of this year’s conference is “Politics and Preaching”.
Senators Warren and Booker – the only politicians scheduled to address the festival – are high on the list of possible 2020 contenders for the Democratic nomination.
The religious right has had a dominating influence on the Republican party’s agenda for decades, while, on the left, the relationship between religious progressives and the Democratic party has been more complicated. Though Democratic leaders and liberal candidates often discuss their personal faith, the party has largely adhered to the constitutional separation of church and state.
But with Trump bursting into the White House with the religious conservative Vic-President Mike Pence by his side and fierce evangelical voter support for his agenda, progressive religious leaders are stirring into action with seemingly fresh ambition to influence the national political debate.
Warren has built a reputation as a fierce consumer champion who takes on Wall Street while Booker is known as a national leader on criminal justice reform, both topics that jibe well with the Christian message of mercy and helping the disadvantaged.
The pews on Tuesday were filled when Warren and Booker each stepped behind the pulpit a few hours apart to share their experiences with faith. They mixed in personal anecdotes and humor but the most striking aspect was their passionate, sermon-like remarks decrying the inflammatory rhetoric from Trump and the GOP leadership that has deepened political and racial divides. Both made efforts to rally religious liberals to step up the fight against the Republican-led push to restrict immigration, repeal the Affordable Care Act and cut social welfare programs.
‘If they had spies in my campaign, that would be a disgrace to this country,’ the president said. Photograph: Oliver Contreras / Pool/EPA
Donald Trump has dramatically escalated his attacks on the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the US election, and his fightback against the Department of Justice reached a turning point this week with aspects of the inquiry itself now being investigated.
The president’s growing frustration with special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry now appears to be having an impact at high levels – as experts warned that Trump’s fresh offensive could backfire, and the former FBI director James Comey counter-punched.
Trump’s manoeuvring came as reports indicated an FBI informant was in contact with several Trump campaign officials in 2016. Trump swiftly seized on the news to claim, without evidence, that the FBI had planted a spy within his campaign and demanded that the DoJ investigate the matter.
Now a meeting will be held on Thursday between top government officials and two senior Republican lawmakers – but no Democrats – to allow the congressmen to review classified information relating to claims the FBI deployed a confidential source to gather information on Trump’s presidential campaign, the White House said on Tuesday afternoon.
Made against the backdrop of a series of characteristically fuming tweets, Trump’s demand signalled he was embracing an aggressive strategy to discredit the special counsel’s investigation.
Trump was tweeting busily and ferociously on Wednesday morning, with declarations such as: “SPYGATE could be one of the biggest political scandals in history!” and inflammatory, conspiracy-style talk about the government he heads as the “Criminal Deep State”.
Donald J. Trump
?@realDonaldTrump
Look how things have turned around on the Criminal Deep State. They go after Phony Collusion with Russia, a made up Scam, and end up getting caught in a major SPY scandal the likes of which this country may never have seen before! What goes around, comes around!
Trump’s demand also marks a significant use of his authority to potentially undercut the FBI and apply direct pressure on the officials tasked with upholding the independence of Mueller and his team.
“If they had spies in my campaign, that would be a disgrace to this country,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday. “It would be very illegal aside from everything else.”
The deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, responded to Trump’s demand by referring the president’s inquiry to the Office of the Inspector General, which acts as the justice department’s internal watchdog. Trump subsequently reached a deal with top officials at the justice department under which Republican congressional leaders will be able to review highly classified information related to the investigation.
The course of events raised fresh concerns over Trump’s willingness to flout the norms that have historically ensured oversight of the executive branch.
On Wednesday morning the former director of the FBI, James Comey, whose controversial firing last year spurred the Mueller investigation, hit back – also via Twitter.
“Facts matter. The FBI’s use of Confidential Human Sources (the actual term) is tightly regulated and essential to protecting the country. Attacks on the FBI and lying about its work will do lasting damage to our country. How will Republicans explain this to their grandchildren?” Comey posted. In a subsequent tweet he warned about a “dangerous time” for the US.
There has been no evidence to suggest the FBI informant was embedded with Trump’s campaign, as the president is implying. The informant, revealed over the weekend as the former University of Cambridge professor Stefan Halper, was in contact with a number of Trump aides who had come under FBI scrutiny as the agency investigated communications between the Trump campaign and Moscow.
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