News For The Blind

https://www.jta.org/quick-reads
BERLIN (JTA) – A 70-year-old man was beaten in Berlin in what news reports have described as an anti-Semitic incident. The victim suffered wounds to his head and chin in the Monday afternoon attack, which started with a verbal assault featuring anti-Semitic insults. He lost his balance and fell while trying to defend himself. The victim had tried to respond verbally to the insults before he was beaten. The assailant, whose identity is unknown, fled when a passerby rushed to the scene. Police are investigating. It is not clear from reports in the German media whether the victim actually is Jewish. The attack is one of several against Jews reported in recent months in the German capital, including one in which men on a balcony spat on a rabbi and his young son on their way home from synagogue on a Friday night. That investigation was dropped for lack of evidence. “It is unacceptable that in broad daylight someone taking a walk is subjected to an anti-Semi…

https://www.jta.org/quick-reads/pro-palestinian-student-walks-out-on-holocaust-survivors-speech-after-accusing-israel-of-ethnic-cleansing
(JTA) — A Palestinian student at Benedictine University called on a Holocaust survivor to condemn the establishment of Israel, and then walked out on his speech after he did not do so. Following a speech last week by Professor Harold Kasimow, who survived the Holocaust as a child, Benedictine senior Ayah Ali asked a question which drew a parallel between Kasimow’s experiences and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. Ali, according to her Twitter feed, is affiliated with the Chicago-area school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. “It honestly means the world that you were willing to share your story with us, but I wanted to bring your attention towards a similar story,” Ali said. “I’m sure you know about whats happening in Palestine and my question to you is, do you support or do you condemn the establishment of the Zionist Israeli sta…

https://dailyarchives.org/index.php/news/2768-germany-announces-plans-to-build-up-fully-orwellian-thought-police
The German government has set out its new measures to tackle free speech on the internet. Opposition politicians say the plans are long overdue. (DW) Tightening of gun laws, more protection for political figures at all levels and an obligation to report online criminal content for social media networks such as Facebook, Youtube and Twitter: those were just some of the measures announced by the German government on Wednesday as part of a new strategy which aims to combat "far-right extremism and hate speech on the internet". For more than a year, Germany's Interior and Justice Ministries have wrangled over the new bill, but recent events in Germany resulted in the Cabinet upping the tempo and hashing out a new packet months earlier than planned. "After the synagogue attack in Halle, it was important that the government's words were followed by actions,&…

http://www.renegadetribune.com/washington-post-calls-for-a-hate-speech-law-in-america/
Richard Stengel, a former State Department official, TIME magazine editor and Atlantic Council distinguished fellow, recently wrote a piece “Why America Needs a Hate Speech Law” for the Washington Post, wherein he argued against the First Amendment. It is important to remember that our First Amendment doesn’t just protect the good guys; our foremost liberty also protects any bad actors who hide behind it to weaken our society. Stengel goes on to discuss how Russia supposedly used fake identities and fake stories to influence the 2016 election, all while utilizing our pesky First Amendment. That’s partly because the intellectual underpinning of the First Amendment was engineered for a simpler era. The amendment rests on the notion that the truth will win out in what Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas called “the marketplace of ideas.” This “marketplace” model has a long history going back to 17…

https://youtu.be/3NmX4GdLFn8
http://www.renegadetribune.com/trump-announces-plans-for-nationwide-police-crackdown-and-more-militarized-police/
(CD) President Donald Trump on Monday said the Justice Department is preparing to launch a sweeping crackdown on crime that he named “the surge,” a term commonly associated with the George W. Bush administration’s decision to send tens of thousands of additional troops into Iraq in 2007. “In coming weeks, Attorney General Barr will announce a new crackdown on violent crime—which I think is so important—targeting gangs and drug traffickers in high crime cities and dangerous rural areas,” Trump said during the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Chicago. “Let’s call it the surge.” The president did not provide any details on the plan but said it is going to be “very dramatic.” “And you’re going to see tremendous results very quickly,” Trump added. As if to emphasize his view of America’s cities as war zones, Trump went on t…

https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/american-evangelicals-rejected-a-reality-based-world-so-trump-was-able-to-reshape-them-in-his-own-image/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2836
H.L. Mencken’s reputation has suffered in recent years as people have realized that his bigotry extended far beyond his famous contempt for Biblical literalists, but no one has revoked his reputation as a wordsmith. When he arrived in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925 to cover the Scopes “Monkey” Trial, he claimed to be pleasantly surprised by the inhabitants: The town, I confess, greatly surprised me. I expected to find a squalid Southern village, with darkies snoozing on the horse blocks, pigs rooting under the houses and the inhabitants full of hookworm and malaria. What I found was a country town of charm and even beauty…. But this didn’t mean he had any respect for their point of view on the teaching of evolution. Remarking on the influence of prosecuting lawyer Williams Jennings Bryan, Mencken sho…

https://dailyarchives.org/index.php/focus/2762-fraud-exposed-in-defamatory-german-exhibition
A highly publicized German exhibition of atrocities allegedly carried out by regular German army forces during the Second World War has been closed down in the wake of revelations that many of the harrowing photographs it displayed are deceitful. By Mark Weber (IHR) The organizers of "War of Annihilation: Crimes of the German Armed Forces, 1941-1944," announced the shutdown on November 5, 1999, after ever more evidence had come to light proving that much of the controversial exhibit is fraudulent. Since 1995 hundreds of thousands of visitors had viewed the exhibition, which appeared in more than 30 German and Austrian cities. Numerous secondary school classes were guided through it. Many of Germany's most prominent social, political and business personalities endorsed the exhibit, which was designed to prove that regular German army (Wehrmacht) troops, and not just SS soldiers, ca…