June 19, 2016

Swedish Muslim fights anti-semitism

I'm posting this here for a couple of reasons: YNet is an Israeli news outlet and I/P issues figure into the truly awful situation in Malmo.


As a young Muslim of Azeri origin who lives in Malmö, Sweden, Siavosh Derakhti founded Young People against Antisemitism and Xenophobia: 'It is absolutely terrible to be Jew today in Malmö.'

Siavosh Derakhti, 24, a young Muslim of Azeri origin who lives in Malmö, Sweden, well-known for openly fighting anti-Semitism in his country, is currently visiting Israel.


"If you are a Jew, people blame you for everything going on in Palestine. Everybody hates Israel. I don't accept this and do everything I can to build bridges between Jews and Muslims through education,” Derakhti stated.


Derahkti, director of Young People against Antisemitism and Xenophobia, is considered very unusual in Sweden. Among his activities are organizing demonstrations in support of Jews and organizing delegations of young Swedes—including Christians, Muslims and Jews—to the Nazi death camps. He has a good relationship with the Israeli Embassy in Sweden and even takes part in various programs run by the embassy.

"It is absolutely terrible to be Jew today in Malmö", said the Swedish Muslim. "Anti-Semites believe in conspiracy theories that (Jews) rule the world. I organized pro-Jewish demonstrations and helped protect our cousins. If Jews can’t live in Sweden I feel it's a personal failure."

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read:http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4817065,00.html

June 19, 2016

There's no way around it. Donald Trump has already inflicted a lot of damage

I get being gleeful over what he's done and is doing to the republican party. Never has it been truer that you reap what you sow. The republican party is reaping the hate they sowed, the division they sowed and the indifference to suffering they sowed. But so is the entire country.

Trump has unleashed the ugly id that was already in breakout mode. Maybe there is a silver lining but I so dread the next few months.

I wish he'd just... vanish into thin air. I really do.

June 18, 2016

Apple won't aid GOP convention over Trump

Apple has told Republican leaders it will not provide funding or other support for the party’s 2016 presidential convention, as it's done in the past, citing Donald Trump’s controversial comments about women, immigrants and minorities.

Unlike Facebook, Google and Microsoft, which have all said they will provide some support to the GOP event in Cleveland next month, Apple decided against donating technology or cash to the effort, according to two sources familiar with the iPhone maker’s plans.

Apple’s political stand against Trump, communicated privately to Republicans, is a sign of the widening tensions between Silicon Valley and the GOP’s bombastic presumptive nominee. Trump has trained his rhetorical fire on the entire tech industry, but he's singled out Apple for particular criticism -- calling for a boycott of the company's products, and slamming CEO Tim Cook, over Apple's stance on encryption.

read:http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/apple-wont-aid-gop-convention-over-trump-224513

June 18, 2016

Greg Sargent, The Plum Line: Give Bernie Sanders some time

In his speech to supporters last night, Bernie Sanders declared that “in a very short period of time,” he would begin devoting himself to making sure Donald Trump is “defeated very badly,” a task he cast as urgent. But he stopped short of endorsing Hillary Clinton, said the next stop for his revolution’s quest to transform America is the Democratic convention, and added that he looks forward to discussions “in the coming weeks” between the two campaigns to ensure that the party’s platform is truly progressive.

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I’m having a lot of trouble getting worked up over this.

It is true, as Matthew Yglesias says, that Sanders’s speech did contain some elements that legitimately annoyed Democratic leaders. Sanders did suggest that only he and his movement can ensure that the Democratic Party becomes a “party of working people” and “not just wealthy campaign contributors,” and a party with the “courage” to take on special interests, as if lots and lots of Democrats have not been working incredibly hard for years to pass things like Obamacare and Dodd-Frank, and to defend Obama’s actions on climate change. This is of a piece with Sanders’ broader tendency to be too dismissive of the gains of the Obama years, and too simplistic in his accounting for why Democrats did not accomplish more than they did.

On the other hand, Sanders did accomplish a great deal in the last year. If he wants a little time to try to translate that achievement into some form of lasting influence, well, so what?

This is a 74-year-old socialist from Vermont who launched a campaign in a manner that was so impromptu — he actually said he had to hurry it up because he had other stuff to do — that reporters practically laughed in his face. He started at low single digits in the polls and went on to win 12 million votes, 22 states, and 45 percent of the pledged delegates against one of the most formidable figures in the last generation of Democratic politics, a global icon who has been First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State. He outraised Clinton with a focus on small-dollar donations that set a standard for grassroots engagement that will probably be studied by future campaigns.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/06/17/give-bernie-sanders-some-time/

June 18, 2016

A tale of two college athlete rapists, one white, the other black

When Cory Batey was a 19-year-old standout football player at Vanderbilt, he raped an unconscious woman. The ample evidence, including security cameras showing the unconscious woman being carried into a dorm room and cellphone photos and videos of the sexual assault, was clear — Cory Batey sexually assaulted the woman. In April, a jury found Batey guilty of three felony counts including aggravated rape and two counts of aggravated sexual battery.

He was immediately remanded into custody and must serve a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 to 25 years in prison.

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That's what makes the case of Brock Turner, a 19-year-old standout swimmer at Stanford who raped an unconscious woman, all the more infuriating. As was the case with Batey, ample evidence existed that Turner was guilty. Eyewitnesses actually caught him in the act as he sexually assaulted an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. A jury agreed and Turner was found guilty of multiple felony rape charges. Turner, though, was given a six-month jail sentence and told he could be released on good behavior in as little as three months. He won't even go to an actual prison, but will remain in the local jail during that time.

One man will spend the entire prime of his life in prison for his crime — the other will be out of jail before the summer heat disappears.

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read:http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-brock-turner-cory-batey-show-race-affects-sentencing-article-1.2664945

June 18, 2016

So fucking insane. Go to 45:10.

story here:

read:http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-epic-rant-winning-election-2016/

June 18, 2016

Trump retweets photo of himself with infamous anti-gay pastor, Robert Jeffress

Donald Trump has spent the week stating his support for the LGBT community in the wake of the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, remarking that he is a better ally than Hillary Clinton, whom he has repeatedly attacked for accepting donations from governments hostile to LGBT rights on behalf of the Clinton Foundation.

"Hillary Clinton can never claim to be a friend of the gay community as long as she continues to support immigration policies that bring Islamic extremists into our country and who suppress women, gays and anyone else who doesn't share their views or values," Trump said during a speech Monday, a day after 49 people were killed in a gay nightclub in Orlando.

But a photo posted to Twitter on Thursday night showed the presumptive Republican nominee with someone decidedly opposed to LGBT rights.

Robert Jeffress, a pastor from Dallas known for his anti-LGBT sentiment, shared a photo in which he posed with Trump at the candidate’s rally at Gilley's, the city's famous honky-tonk.

“Honored to pray for my friend, @realDonaldTrump, at tonight’s Dallas rally,” Jeffress tweeted, along with a photo in which they both held their thumbs up. Trump retweeted the image on Friday.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/trump-robert-jeffress-tweet-lgbt-224496#ixzz4BwTS58IG
Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook

June 18, 2016

EPA Bans Fracking Wastewater from Sewage Treatment Plants

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has banned fracking wastewater from public sewage plants, citing the inability of these plants to handle toxic and radioactive pollutants.

Clean water and public health advocates, along with more than 30,000 Americans, had submitted comments in favor of the EPA rule, finalized earlier this week.


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http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/17/fracking-wastewater-sewage-treatment/

June 18, 2016

Meet the shock troops of Trump's America

The Portland State University Students for Trump gathered on a Friday afternoon in June on the downtown campus to build a replica of “the great wall of Trump.” The wall was four pieces of plywood painted to look like red bricks, and plastered with a black “T” and photocopies of Trump’s head. The Facebook post for the event announced, “Mexico and Black Lives Matter are going to need help paying for the wall so we’ll be holding a collection.”

The wall was propped against a concrete ledge in a grassy mall that cuts through the campus. The dozen or so participants were all white, all male but one, and from the late teens to early 30s. They spent hours milling about, taking selfies, confronting lone protesters and angry passersby, all under the watch of campus police and left-wing activists videoing them. Sam Hyde, 20, a computer science major at PSU said, “The wall fell apart, it’s wobbly. If Donald Trump hires us to build the wall, it’s a lost cause.”


Hyde said he joined the group because “When Milo Yiannopoulos goes on tour and gets hundreds of protesters, we’re not going to back down.” Yiannopoulos is the gay Brit darling of the “alt right” that is repackaging white nationalism for millennials.

Matt Duffy, 19, wearing an Infowars tee shirt, supported building a wall to “keep out illegal immigrants and drugs.” He liked Trump because “he’s a nationalist and a populist and puts America First.” Turning to Muslims, Duffy said, “We have Muslims invading Europe. They are out-breeding us.” When asked about Trump’s attacks on the impartiality of U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel because of his Mexican heritage, Duffy said, “There is definitely a conflict of interest. Lots of Mexicans have illegal family members or friends.”

As for African-Americans, Duffy said, “The majority of them want social programs, free stuff.” He concluded by asking, “Do we want single moms and minorities deciding who the president is? Because that’s where we’re heading.”

Others also talked of political power in sexual terms. Timmy Matlock, 24, a high-school dropout who claims to work in security in Europe and Asia, said “I don’t give a f*ck about the wall” but supported the movement behind Trump. “It’s ending 30 years of cuckoldry the country has been subjected to, with the United States capitulating to the Saudis, Europe, and NAFTA. Our move away from American nationalism is going to cripple us economically and socially in the end.” A reporter present labeled them “angry nerds” and added that Matlock was around the Bundy militia occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Eastern Oregon in January.

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https://www.rawstory.com/2016/06/meet-the-shock-troops-of-trumps-america/

June 18, 2016

LGBT pride flag raised after Orlando shooting ‘unbearable’ for Christian employee,

LGBT pride flag raised after Orlando shooting ‘unbearable’ for Christian employee, Hillsborough commissioner says

A pride flag waving outside the Hillsborough County center was meant to be a sign of respect and remembrance for the victims of the shooting at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando.

But just a day after it was raised, Commissioner Stacy White said it may be offending Christian employees and questioned whether it should be taken down.

In an email sent to the the county human relations director Peggy Rowe on Thursday, White said he received an anonymous complaint from a county employee that the presence of the flag was “nearly unbearable” for her to pass on her way to work and created a “hostile work environment.”

Calling the rainbow flag a “divisive, politically-charged symbol,” White asked Rowe if it could become an HR problem for the county. If it does, then White said he wanted a special meeting of the county commission to consider removing it.

Commissioners voted 5-1 on Wednesday to hang the flag for the rest of June, which is Pride Month, after 49 people were killed at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando on Sunday. The shooter, Omar Mateen, reportedly targeted the bar because it is a well-known LGBT hangout. It was the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

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read:http://www.tbo.com/news/politics/lgbt-pride-flag-raised-after-orlando-shooting-unbearable-for-christian-employee-hillsborough-commissioner-says-20160617/

Fuck the employee who complained and fuck Commissioner White. And all the other whiny fucking bigoted assholes.