by Simon Kent12 Apr 20184,855
Jewish communities across Europe are enduring a level of mainstream anti-Semitism “not seen since the Second World War,” the European Jewish Congress has warned.That chilling message was delivered just hours after Tel Aviv University’s Kantor Center Report on Antisemitism Worldwide 2017 was released on Wednesday, which noted that while the number of violent anti-Semitic incidents dropped in 2017 by 9 percent, to 327 cases, all types of incidents—ranging from harassment, vandalism, to assaults—have jumped. The 105-page report dissects the spread of anti-Semitism in Europe, the post-Soviet region, the US, Canada, Australia, South America and South Africa. It records 327 major incidents of violence, vandalism and desecration in 2017, compared with a peak of 1,118 in 2009 and a low of 78 in 1989, the year the study began. It found 30 percent of attacks were directed at individuals, 20 percent at cemeteries and memorial sites, and 17 percent at synagogues. Read more
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Banning and Confiscating Guns in Deerfield, Illinois
Written By Laurie Higgins | 04.04.18 Deerfield, Illinois, an affluent suburb on Chicago’s North Shore, is making national headlines for passing an amendment to a 2013 village ordinance that regulates the storage of guns. The amendment mandates a ban on “certain types of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines,” and grants to the “police chief or his or her designee” the authority to “confiscate” any of the banned weapons if they are not “removed, sold, or transferred.” In addition to gun confiscation, failure to comply will result in fines of $250-1,000 per day. Deerfield residents have until June 13 to get rid of the banned guns. The trustees added an exemption for retired law enforcement officers, who evidently have a right to own the now-banned guns that ordinary citizens don’t. Mayor Harriet Rosenthal claims that “There is no place here for assault weapons,”—well, except in the homes of retired law enforcement personnel. The banned weapons include “semiautomatic rifles,” “semiautomatic pistols,” and semiautomatic shotguns” with certain features. Oddly, according to the Chicago Tribune, on Monday night when the vote was taken, “the trustees did not discuss their reasons for supporting the ordinance.” One trustee who voted for the ordinance expressed her concern that opponents of the ordinance were afraid to speak out publicly: Trustee Barbara Struthers said she knew of people who were opposed but chose not to come and speak because it would subject them to ridicule in the community. One resident who wasn’t too intimidated to oppose the amendment was Andy Rogers who spoke at previous board meetings. Rogers challenged the need for such a ban, saying that he “wasn’t aware that Deerfield had an assault weapons problem” and that “assault weapons have essentially been outlawed since the National Firearms Act of 1934.” In response to a community member who claimed that a “well regulated militia meant that firearms could be banned,” Rogers explained that “the meaning of regulated is ‘to make regular’—meaning that everyone had the same training, same weapons, etc.” Attorney Daniel J. Schultz elaborates on this understanding of the Second Amendment: The overriding purpose of the Framers in guaranteeing the right of the people to keep and bear arms was as a check on the standing army…. [A]s to the term “well regulated,” it would make no sense to suggest this referred to a grant of “regulation” power to the government (national or state), when the entire purpose of the Bill of Rights was to both declare individual rights and tell the national government where the scope of its enumerated powers ended…. George Mason, one of the Virginians who refused to sign the Constitution because it lacked a Bill of Rights, said: “Who are the Militia? They consist now of the whole people.” … [T]he right to keep and bear arms is expressly retained by “the people,” not the states. Recently the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed this view, finding that the right to keep and bear arms was an individual right held by the “people,” — a “term of art employed in select parts of the Constitution,” specifically the Preamble and the First, Second, Fourth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments. Thus, the term “well regulated” ought to be considered in the context of the noun it modifies, the people themselves, the militia(s)…. Since the fundamental purpose of the militia was to serve as a check upon a standing army, it would seem the words “well regulated” referred to the necessity that the armed citizens making up the militia(s) have the level of equipment and training necessary to be an effective and formidable check upon the national government’s standing army. Village resident Larry Nordal predicted what will be next for Deerfield: “The [2013] ordinance to store firearms was only passed for one reason…. That was to have an amendatory vehicle that could be used in the future for just this purpose so you could banish assorted firearms in the future. First it’s going to be assault rifles. (There will be) new bans in the future. It’s just a matter of time.” And this is how “progressives” use incrementalism and the cowardice of conservatives to rip out threads from the fabric that holds our republic together: the Constitution. SALEM — The five-year, much-publicized legal battle over a wedding cake that never got baked is continuing here in Oregon.
Aaron and Melissa Klein of Sandy, the Christian couple who formerly owned and operated Sweet Cakes by Melissa bakery in Gresham, are asking the Oregon Supreme Court to overturn a state Court of Appeals ruling against them. As reported by The Oregonian, that December 2017 ruling upheld a penalty against the business for declining in 2013 to bake a custom wedding cake for a lesbian couple, Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer. The appeals court unanimously upheld an award of $135,000 to the women that had been ordered by an administrative law judge of the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. That agency found that the Kleins had violated the state anti-discrimination law by by denying service to the same-sex couple. The Kleins are represented by First Liberty Institute, a national law firm specializing in religious freedom issues, and C. Boyden Gray, who served as White House counsel to President George H.W. Bush. The Kleins’ lawyers ask the state’s highest court to review the case to determine whether Oregon business owners can exercise their freedoms of speech, religion and conscience, and whether due process can protect them against bias and judgment from “ideologically motivated adjudicators.” The Kleins experienced major financial losses from the nationally publicized controversy and also were targeted with hate mail, harassment and threats, and eventually were forced to close their storefront location and later the business, which had moved to their home. The Bowman-Cryers said they suffered deep emotional pain over the business’s denial of service as well as the huge publicity over the case. Attorney Paul Thompson, who represents the women, declined to comment to The Oregonian on the appeal. Attorney Nancy Marcus of the national law firm Lambda Legal, which wrote a brief in support of the women before the appeals court, told The Oregonian that the Kleins are using religious freedom claims to exempt themselves from civil rights and discrimination laws. Mike Berry, an attorney with First Liberty Institute, told Christian News Northwest in January that a pending U.S. Supreme Court decision on a similar case involving the Christian-owned Masterpiece Bake Shop in Colorado might affect the Oregon case. He said that hinges on how broad a ruling the federal High Court issues. http://cnnw.com/former-bakery-owners-file-an-appeal-with-oregons-supreme-court/ You can protect yourself from some of Facebook's worst tendencies without cutting it out of your life entirely.
By Eric Limer Facebook is awful. It makes us feel bad, it purposefully drives us into partisan rabbit holes, it tracks you around the web whether you're logged in or not and leaks the data all over the place. Deleting your account might sound nice, but Facebook is also a crucial tool for communication, so ubiquitous as to virtually be a public utility. Fortunately, there's a way to fight back without giving up the upsides. Mozilla's new Facebook Container Extension will let you use the social network almost completely like normal while also defanging its ability to track you in particularly unsavory ways. Once you set up the extension, Firefox deletes all your Facebook information from itself and only connects to Facebook from inside a software "container." The practical result is that you can look through a sort of one-way mirror to see into Facebook, but Firefox keeps Facebook from looking out. This helps protect your privacy but it does come with a few downsides. It may break services if you log into them with Facebook and it will break "Like" and "Share" buttons that are embedded on non-Facebook pages. Of course, that's part of how Facebook tracks you around the web, so it's a feature not a bug. There are measures you can take, short of switching to Firefox, if you happen to be on Google Chrome or something else entirely. Alpha nerds can block all of Facebook's subdomains directly (though that obviously disables the site entirely). You can also install the Privacy Badger extension which is designed to thwart unsavory trackers of all kinds. Related Story What Google's Really Up to With Chrome Ad-BlockingIf you're serious about your privacy, it might be wise to make the jump to Mozilla's Firefox anyway. The new "Firefox Quantum" released late last year has given the browser a speedy, modern update with performance that rivals Chrome. Perhaps more importantly, as a non-profit company that makes the lion's share of its money through search engine royalties, Mozilla can actually afford to take your privacy seriously. Google, meanwhile, is ultimately an ad-selling company that uses its Chrome browser to increase the demand for kind of tracking ads it sells. You can download Firefox Quantum here and the Facebook Container Extension here. |
AuthorAnd they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death. Archives
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