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.
How does it feel to be Jewish in Germany in 2018? After decades of successful reconciliation and integration, an increase in anti-Semitic attacks has many Jews in Germany wondering: Is the pendulum swinging back?
Karina, 15, attends a Jewish school in Berlin’s Mitte district. She’s used to attending classes behind a tall security fence and being escorted by police.
The denim kippah on display in the Jewish Museum in Berlin belongs to Adam Armoush, the young Israeli who was assaulted with a belt by a 19-year-old Syrian in Prenzlauer Berg in April. A symbol of religiosity, it amounts to an accusation. Look, it says, someone was attacked in central Berlin for wearing this kippah.
Florian is a 19-year-old high school student. He was on vacation in Israel when he heard about the attack. He was shocked. Prenzlauer Berg is his neighborhood and he has always felt safe there. He also wears a kippah, one that’s black and crocheted, held in place atop his red hair by two pins. He still wears it, but he’s become more cautious. He takes it off when he’s on public transport or if he’s out alone in certain neighborhoods. He’s afraid he could be attacked. For being Jewish.
Florian was in 11th grade when he first decided to wear a kippah in public. “Word had already gotten around anyway that I was Jewish,” he says. Of the thousands of students at his high school in Berlin’s Wedding district, only a handful are Jewish. That was two years ago. A lot has changed since then.
Berlin in mid-May. Florian has chosen the restaurant Masel Topf for the interview — a word play on the Hebrew expression “Mazel tov,” which roughly means good luck (tov, or good, has been replaced by Topf, the German word for cooking pot). It’s located on a pleasant street opposite a synagogue. “See the police?” he asks, pointing outside. “I’m so glad they’re there.”
Soon he’ll finish his exams and be done with school. He can finally turn the page on what in many ways has become an ordeal. He’s a slim, gentle young man, eloquent, well-read, politically aware. For five months, he would only enter the school via a side entrance and spent every recess alone in an art classroom in a far corner of the building. It was his decision, he says. After what happened in the school cafeteria, he didn’t feel safe.
This is how he describes it: He was listening to music and doing homework in a free period. “A group of Muslim students came up to me. They were seniors. They said they wanted to talk to me about Trump relocating the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. The usual stuff came up: ‘You stole our land! Where are you Jews from anyway? You’re a bunch of child murderers!’ I explained it to them again: ‘You didn’t agree to the UN Partition Plan, you wanted to destroy us, you’ve always wanted the whole country.'” At some point, they all stood up and a Lebanese girl said: “Wallah! Hitler was a good man because he killed Jews.”
Florian was shocked, he says, but he tried to keep arguing. “I called out: ‘This girl is glorifying the Holocaust, she’s celebrating the mass murder of more than 6 million Jews!'” Then an Arab student grabbed him and “more or less dragged me around the cafeteria,” while others shouted “Israel is the murderer, Israel is the murderer.”
There’s a message from the principal on the Ernst Reuter High School website condemning the “anti-Semitic incident,” which occurred “in the context of a dispute over the Middle East conflict.” The principal did not respond to requests for further comment. According to Saraya Gomis, the anti-discrimination commissioner for the Berlin Education Department, the school is working through the issue. She sees anti-Semitism as being symptomatic of blatant racism in schoolyards and classrooms, and believes teachers are complicit.
Insults, Threats and Bullying
Along with the assault on the man wearing a kippah, the incident in the school cafeteria has sparked a fresh debate about anti-Semitism in Germany. Jewish students in a number of Berlin schools have been insulted, threatened or bullied. Just a few weeks ago in Bonn, a man approached a Jewish university professor and knocked his kippah to the ground.
The Police Crime Statistics Report for 2017 shows that anti-Semitic attacks are on the rise. These include racist taunts, assaults, desecration of memorial sites and the posting of inflammatory online content. According to the Interior Ministry, 94 percent of the perpetrators hail from the far-right. The statistics do not even reflect the full range of abuse, such as insults that go unreported, threats and nasty comments maligning Jews as outsiders. Many Jewish people say the hatred comes from Muslim immigrants who bring the Middle East conflict with them to Germany.
Perhaps most shocking of all is that anti-Semitism appears to have become so common, so routine: in schools, on public transport, in restaurants, on the soccer pitch.
To talk to Jewish people in Germany these days is to be confronted with a deep sense of insecurity. DER SPIEGEL met with Jewish students and talked to both secular and observant Jews in Berlin, Hamburg and Düsseldorf. Many of them have experienced anti-Semitism, including anti-Israeli invective. They wonder why they are seen as different and why stereotypes are so hard to shift.
Wearing a kippah or a star of David these days can be dangerous. Many Jews are debating whether they have a reliable future in Germany. In 2016, a study conducted by the University of Bielefeld on Jewish perspectives on anti-Semitism in Germany found that a majority of those questioned had recently felt they were not part of German society.
German anti-Semitism may not be as palpable as the hostility expressed by immigrants but is “no less toxic,” says Anetta Kahane, head of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, a German nongovernmental organization that works to strengthen democratic civic society and eliminate neo-Nazism, right-wing extremism and anti-Semitism. Kahane is Jewish and the recipient of regular hate mail filled with insults such as “despicable Jewish filth.” On Twitter, one user said he’d “make a lampshade out of Kahane’s face.”
The Department for Research and Information on Anti-Semitism (RIAS) registered 947 anti-Semitic incidents in 2017 in Berlin alone. RIAS aims to document the incidents that aren’t included in police statistics. Every day, RIAS head Benjamin Steinitz hears of two to three acts of hostility, he says. The perpetrators usually speak Arabic or Turkish. However, “acts or expressions of anti-Semitism, primarily vilification of Israel, occur at all leves, including mainstream German society,” says Steinitz.
‘Always Ready To Leave at a Moment’s Notice’
Such as what happened in a doctor’s waiting room in the German state of Lower Saxony on March 5, 2018. A patient wearing a Star of David necklace helped two elderly women out of their coats. One of them asked him what it symbolized. When he explained, she looked disgusted and said: “Oh, did they forget you?” Just one of many episodes on RIAS’ list.
Not long ago, it appeared that Jewish life had finally returned to Germany. Jewish communities were once again growing thanks to the arrival of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. New Jewish day care centers and schools opened in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Düsseldorf and new synagogues were consecrated. In 2006, the first rabbis were ordained in Germany since the Holocaust. Just last year, Hannelore Kraft, the then-governor of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, talked of Jewish life rediscovering its natural place in Germany.
Over 11,000 young Israelis now live in Berlin, drawn by its hip reputation. A new generation of Jewish writers have also found their voice, including Lena Gorelik, Jan Himmelfarb, Dmitrij Belkin, Olga Grjasnowa and Juna Grossmann, who co-curate the blog “Irgendwie jüdisch” (Kind of Jewish). Actress and singer Sharon Brauner, the niece of Artur (“Atze”) Brauner, a film producer who survived the Holocaust, has made a name for herself performing Yiddish songs that evoke a lost world and revel in the warmth of the old Jewish language.
A quarter of a million roosting gannets in Yorkshire, an orca whale mother keeps her dead calf afloat and Norwegian reindeer seek cool in busy road tunnels – it’s the week in wildlife
A king penguin colony on Ile aux Cochon, part of Frances Iles Crozet archipelago. The world’s largest colony of king penguin has declined by nearly 90 percent in three decades, researchers report. Recent satellite image show the population has collapsed, with barely 200,000 remaining
File photo of Russian police officer patrolling a street in front of the US embassy in Moscow. Photograph: Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images
US counter-intelligence investigators discovered a suspected Russian spy had been working undetected in the heart of the American embassy in Moscow for more than a decade, the Guardian has learned.
The Russian national had been hired by the US Secret Service and is understood to have had access to the agency’s intranet and email systems, which gave her a potential window into highly confidential material including the schedules of the president and vice-president.
The woman had been working for the Secret Service for years before she came under suspicion in 2016 during a routine security sweep conducted by two investigators from the US Department of State’s Regional Security Office (RSO).
Congress is focusing on Russian hackers when it is possible all of the information they needed came from the internal breach
They established she was having regular and unauthorised meetings with members of the FSB, Russia’s principal security agency.
The Guardian has been told the RSO sounded the alarm in January 2017, but the Secret Service did not launch a full-scale inquiry of its own. Instead it decided to let her go quietly months later, possibly to contain any potential embarrassment.
An intelligence source told the Guardian the woman was dismissed last summer after the state department revoked her security clearance. The dismissal came shortly before a round of expulsions of US personnel demanded by the Kremlin after Washington imposed more sanctions on the country.
They established she was having regular and unauthorised meetings with members of the FSB, Russia’s principal security agency.
The Guardian has been told the RSO sounded the alarm in January 2017, but the Secret Service did not launch a full-scale inquiry of its own. Instead it decided to let her go quietly months later, possibly to contain any potential embarrassment.
An intelligence source told the Guardian the woman was dismissed last summer after the state department revoked her security clearance. The dismissal came shortly before a round of expulsions of US personnel demanded by the Kremlin after Washington imposed more sanctions on the country.
The order to remove more than 750 US personnel from its 1,200-strong diplomatic mission is understood to have provided cover for her removal.
“The Secret Service is trying to hide the breach by firing [her],” the source said. “The damage was already done but the senior management of the Secret Service did not conduct any internal investigation to assess the damage and to see if [she] recruited any other employees to provide her with more information.
“Only an intense investigation by an outside source can determine the damage she has done.”
Asked detailed questions about the investigation into the woman, and her dismissal, the Secret Service attempted to downplay the significance of her role. But it did not deny that she had been identified as a potential mole.
In a statement, it said: “The US Secret Service recognizes that all Foreign Service Nationals (FSN) who provide services in furtherance of our mission, administrative or otherwise, can be subjected to foreign intelligence influence.
“This is of particular emphasis in Russia. As such, all foreign service nationals are managed accordingly to ensure that Secret Service and United States government interests are protected at all times. As a result, the duties are limited to translation, interpretation, cultural guidance, liaison and administrative support.
“It was specifically the duties of the FSN position in Moscow to assist our attaches and agency by engaging the Russian government, including the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the Russian Ministry of the Interior (MVD), and the Russian Federal Protective Service (FSO) in furtherance of Secret Service interests.”
It said: “At no time, in any US Secret Service office, have FSNs been provided or placed in a position to obtain national security information.”
The state department said it would not comment “on allegations related to intelligence or personnel matters, and we have no information for you on this alleged incident.”
But it said it was aware “that US government employees, by virtue of their employment with the US government, may be targeted by foreign intelligence services … when we identify an employee in violation of security directives, we take appropriate action at the appropriate time.”
The Secret Service is a US federal law enforcement agency that sits within the Department of Homeland Security and has more than 150 offices worldwide. Its mission, it says, is the “protection of the nation’s leaders and the financial and critical infrastructure of the United States”.
California has a waiver under the Clean Air Act to exceed the national standards by requiring even more efficient cars. Photograph: Mike Blake/Reuters
The Trump administration has moved to weaken US vehicle emissions standards and has set up a major confrontation with California by scrapping its ability to enact stricter pollution standards and mandate the sale of electric cars.
In one of its most significant efforts yet to curtail policies designed to address climate change, the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed freezing fuel efficiency standards at 2020 levels, removing the requirement that cars and light trucks be able to travel more than 46 miles per gallon of fuel by 2026. The 2020 standard would be around 32 miles per gallon.
The reversal of an Obama-era deal with automakers in 2012 will also withdraw a waiver California has under the Clean Air Act to exceed the national standards by requiring even more efficient cars. A dozen other states and Washington DC also follow higher standards.
The EPA said it wants a “50-state fuel economy” system and has claimed the reversal will have “negligible environmental impacts on air quality” and even result in thousands fewer deaths on the roads each year. The administration’s assertion that lighter, more fuel efficient cars are more dangerous has been disputed by transport experts.
“We are delivering on President Trump’s promise to the American public that his administration would address and fix the current fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions standards,” said Andrew Wheeler, the EPA’s acting administrator.
“Our proposal aims to strike the right regulatory balance based on the most recent information and create a 50-state solution that will enable more Americans to afford newer, safer vehicles that pollute less. More realistic standards can save lives while continuing to improve the environment.”
The rollback has provoked outcry from environmental and health groups, as well as states who are pushing for cleaner vehicle fleets. States that have followed California’s emissions standard immediately said they will sue the EPA should the new rule be finalized.
It’s an attack on the climate, consumers, state governments and the future viability of America’s auto industry
Union of Concerned Scientists
“The administration’s proposal to weaken these rules will cause the American people to breathe dirtier air and pay higher prices at the pump,” said a joint statement from attorneys general from the states, including New York, Virginia and North Carolina. “We are prepared to go to court to put the brakes on this reckless and illegal plan.”
California’s response has been stinging. Xavier Becerra, the state’s attorney general, said the Trump administration had “launched a brazen attack” on California which he would fight in the courts.
Jerry Brown, California’s governor, said the EPA’s move was “reckless” and a “betrayal”. Brown added: “California will fight this stupidity in every conceivable way possible.”
Transport has become the largest sector source of greenhouse gas emissions in the US, as cheap fuel has encouraged Americans to buy larger vehicles such as SUVs. In announcing the new standards in 2012, the Obama administration said the stricter rules would save around 6bn tons of greenhouse gases by 2026, as well as save Americans $1.7tn in fuel costs.
Gina McCarthy, the EPA administrator under Obama, said the reversal of these standards “run contrary to sound science and the law”.
While many carmakers have touted their development of more efficient cars, including electric vehicles, auto lobbyists were quick to get assurances from the Trump administration that the more stringent rules would be dismantled.
The Union of Concerned Scientists said the rollback is “completely unacceptable”. Its analysis shows the Trump administration’s new regime for vehicles would result in an additional 120m tons of carbon emissions by 2030 – the equivalent of running 30 coal-fired power plants for a year.
“It’s an attack on the climate, consumers, state governments and the future viability of America’s auto industry,” said Ken Kimmell, president of UCS. “The Trump administration has decided to force America’s drivers to spend more at the gas pump, burn millions more barrels of oil, and put us on a path to greater harm from climate change.
‘Fake, fake, disgusting news’: Trump launches new broadside against media – video
Donald Trump ramped up his attack on the media on Thursday night, criticizing the press as “fake, fake, disgusting news” and describing journalists in attendance as “horrible, horrendous people”, despite UN experts warning earlier in the day that his actions were putting journalists at risk.
Nominally appearing in Wilkes-Barre, in Pennsylvania, to support a Republican candidate for the US Senate, Trump instead spent more than 15 minutes listing a series of grievances with the press, inducing angry chanting from the crowd towards the assembled media.
The president angrily attacked the media’s coverage of a range of topics including his 2016 election victory, his meeting with Kim Jong-un of North Korea, his meeting with Vladimir Putin, his meeting with Nato, and finally his meeting with the Queen in July.
Trump’s most intense criticisms came during an anecdote about the latter. Trump said he and the Queen “got along fantastically well” and enjoyed “good chemistry”, but told the thousands-strong crowd that the “fake news” had instead reported that he turned up late.
“They can make anything bad. Because they are the fake, fake, disgusting news,” Trump said.
The insult prompted wild applause, as did his series of other denunciations of the press, which Trump continued despite widely shared videos showing the crowd at a Trump rally in Florida on Tuesday using aggressive language and gestures towards the CNN correspondent Jim Acosta.
During the middle of his speech on Thursday Trump pointed to the press area in the middle of the arena as he recalled the skepticism around his chances of victory in November 2016.
“Even these people back there, these horrible, horrendous people,” Trump said, would agree “there has never been anything like what happened in November”, Trump said.
Earlier in the day UN experts had warned that Trump’s rhetoric could “increase the risk of journalists being targeted with violence”, while his daughter, Ivanka Trump, said that, unlike her father, she does “not consider the media the enemy of the people”.
The level of hostility on Tuesday had been such that Acosta later tweeted that he was “very worried that the hostility whipped up by Trump and some in conservative media will result in somebody getting hurt”. On Thursday Acosta had clashed with White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders, repeatedly asking if she disagreed with Trump’s view of the press as the “enemy of the people”. Huckabee-Sanders declined to answer.
Trump was appearing at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre, in a bid to boost Lou Barletta, a congressman running for the Senate. Barletta was one of the first members of Congress to endorse Trump for president and has remained a firm supporter.
Barletta is currently trailing his opponent, the incumbent Democrat Bob Casey, by an average of 16 points in the polls, and had just $1.6m cash on hand at the end of June compared with Casey’s $9.9m.
Bartletta’s campaign said Trump’s appearance had been an immediate success, prompting a swathe of donations, but the lasting memory of Trump’s appearance is likely to be his sustained attacks on the free press.
During his lengthy diatribe Trump referenced his meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un – which was widely criticized as having achieved little – in furthering his characterization of the media and “fake news”. Trump claimed he had returned to DC from the Singapore summit and told his wife, Melania, that he was excited to see the media coverage.
“I just stopped missiles from being launched every two seconds,” Trump quoted himself as saying to his wife.
“‘And baby, I got the hostages back’,” Trump said. “‘And you know what, honey, they’re not testing any more nuclear.’”
“Oh the media is gonna finally treat me so good,” Trump recalled himself saying. “I’m looking forward to waking up tomorrow and reading those dying papers.”
Instead, Trump said, he faced “only negativity” from the “fake news”.
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