AP: A former prostitute hopes to shake up Dominican Congress

The 46-year-old wants to focus on improving opportunities for women, a significant challenge in a country where about 35 percent of households are led by single mothers in poverty. [...]

She plans to introduce legislation that would prohibit discrimination against specific groups considered vulnerable, including LGBT, sex workers, people with AIDS and the elderly. The walls of her office are adorned with diplomas and posters from international conferences dealing with sex work. [...]

Others see her elevation as a sign of social progress. "She represents an idea, the idea of non-discrimination, of equal participation of men and women," said Santo Rosario, a coordinator with a group, known by its Spanish acronym COIN, which advocates for the rights of marginalized groups, including sex workers. [...]

Montero, repeating her oft-told life story, grew up poor in a foster family where she was sexually abused by a male relative. She says she began working as a prostitute in Santo Domingo while still a teen after her abusive husband left her alone with a young child she could not support.

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Business Insider: CAROLINE LUCAS: The Iraq War was illegal, Tony Blair was lying, and David Cameron should apologise too

So, absolutely, I think it's really clear that there are big constitutional lessons to be learned, not to least of which I think will be that, in future, the Attorney General ought to be an independent appointment of Parliament, rather than an appointment from the Prime Minister and of one of his old chums. I don't think that gives me confidence in the decisions coming out of it. [...]

On the issue of whether Tony Blair was lying, you can see from some of the timings of the different statements that were made. There he was, on the eve of war, claiming in Parliament that Saddam Hussein could still avoid the invasion if he were to comply with the UN Security Council resolution. Yet, six months earlier, not only was he saying to President Bush that "I will be with you whatever," but also we have Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6, saying very clearly that the US had already stated that they would be invading, the question was only about when. [...]

When it comes to Blair himself, I would like to see him held to the very strongest possible account but, in the absence of the ICC, if there are other legal avenues, it might make sense to explore them.

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Reuters: Russia reminds wayward ally Belarus of its economic muscle

Ukraine regularly accused Russia of political intimidation by cutting energy supplies in the years leading to the 2014 annexation during disputes that Moscow said were commercial.

Now Belarus is experiencing something similar. Since the start of this month, Russian oil pipeline monopoly Transneft has been pumping about 40 percent less oil to Belarus than in the second quarter of this year. [...]

A high-level-Russian energy industry source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the understanding in the industry was that Lukashenko is being punished for his overtures to the West and critical comments directed at Russia. [...]

"The Belarussian establishment and Lukashenko personally were scared by the situation with Ukraine," said Andrei Yegorov, the director of Minsk-based think tank the Centre For European Transformation.

Lukashenko declined to recognize Crimea as part of Russia, and put on hold discussions with Moscow about the Russian military establishing an air base on Belarussian soil. [...]

His diplomacy paid off in February this year when the EU ended sanctions that had been in place for five years. Belarus is now in discussions with the International Monetary Fund about a $3 billion loan.

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Jacobin Magazine: My Resistance to Elie Wiesel

More than anyone, Wiesel helped sacralize the Holocaust, making it a kind of theological event that stood outside history. ‘The ultimate event, the ultimate mystery, never to be comprehended or transmitted,’ was how he once put it. [...]

Primo Levi had a special dislike for Wiesel’s ways and means, which makes Wiesel’s infamous verdict on Levi’s suicide (“Primo Levi died at Auschwitz forty years later”) all the more grating.

Decades ago, in a scorching essay, ‘Resistance to the Holocaust,’ Philip Lopate caught the measure of the man: ‘Sometimes it seems that “the Holocaust” is a corporation headed by Elie Wiesel, who defends his patents with articles in the Arts and Leisure section of the Sunday Times.'” [...]

After I was accused on another thread of being insensitive to the claims of survivors, to how a survivor chooses to represent himself and his experience, to how my position only reflects the fact that I was not There nor even near There, I followed up with this statement from the Nobel Prize–winning author Imre Kertész, who was a survivor (he died earlier this year), from his essay “Who Owns Auschwitz?”:

I regard as kitsch any representation of the Holocaust that is incapable of understanding or unwilling to understand the organic connection between our own deformed mode of life (whether in the private sphere or on the level of ‘civilization’ as such) and the very possibility of the Holocaust. Here I have in mind those representations that seek to establish the Holocaust once and for all as something foreign to human nature; that seek to drive the Holocaust out of the realm of human experience.

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The Guardian: Anti-immigration party in Germany hits crisis over MP's antisemitism

Thirteen members of the AfD, including the co-leader of the party that is currently polling between 9% and 14%, walked out of its parliamentary group in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg on Wednesday in protest at the failure to expel fellow MP Wolfgang Gideon. [...]

In the book, entitled Green Communism and the Dictatorship of Minorities, Gedeon compares Holocaust deniers such as David Irving to Chinese dissidents, claiming, among other things, that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a faked historical pamphlet purporting to outline a Jewish plan to control the global economy and media, were in fact real. [...]

Petry has previously fallen out with another leader of the AfD’s moderate wing. The founder Bernd Lucke resigned from the political group in protest at its growing xenophobic and “pro-Russian tendencies” in July 2015, after a series of clashes with Petry.

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Deutsche Welle: Opinion: No remorse - Tony Blair fails to understand

The report, prepared in infinite detail by a former high-ranking government official, is a quiet, yet perfectly focussed annihilation of Tony Blair. Britain's old government apparatus has once again demonstrated its qualities amid the political chaos of the day. In the 2.6 million word report, Sir John Chilcot explains how Tony Blair decided to go to war in 2002, and how he subsequently shaped intelligence to justify that decision. [...]

The former prime minister laid the foundation for the hate and opposition that politicians are so often confronted with today. He committed the original sin that feeds the distrust with which so many people regard politics. [...]

"I will be with you, whatever," wrote Tony Blair to George W. Bush in the summer of 2002. One should carve that on his gravestone as an eternal deterrent to blind allegiance and political hubris. With the report, Tony Blair's reputation has been utterly decimated.

The positive things that he achieved in office - such as the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland - will be buried under the ruins of the Iraq War. Whether Tony Blair can now be brought to trial remains to be seen. But history will ultimately judge him: Here is a man that fought the wrong war, for the wrong reasons, with the wrong plan.

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Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell: How Far Can We Go? Limits of Humanity

The Huffington Post: Pope Francis Can Begin By Apologizing For His Own Hateful Words Against Gays

Francis stayed silent as country after country in Europe and the Americas legalized marriage for gays and lesbians over the past few years, in sharp contrast to his predecessor, Pope Benedict, who railed against Spain when it was out front on marriage equality in 2005; he even traveled there to speak out against it. And then came Francis’s “Who am I to judge?”response to a question about a gay priest, and several other comments that indicated his emphasis would be different.

Like an artful politician, however, Francis has seemed to play to his audiences. Six months into his papacy he told a fellow Jesuit interviewer for a Jesuit journal that he is not a “right-winger” and criticized those in the church who had become “obsessed” with gay marriage and abortion. But then in January of last year it was Francis who seemed obsessed with the issue while speaking to an audience in the Philippines, a traditional Catholic country, suggesting that gay marriage threatens families. [...]

As the Argentine government was moving to legalize marriage for gays and lesbians, Bergoglio was quietly lobbying for civil unions instead, having spoken to at least one gay activist, realizing that the rights gays were deprived of were real and knowing that he and the church couldn’t support marriage.

When that didn’t work, and the government made it clear it was moving forward on marriage, Bergoglio did what the Vatican expected of him and which, like a politician, he knew he likely had to do if he were ever to have a shot at becoming pope in Benedict’s Vatican: He issued an ugly, earth-scorching attack against gays, equating gay marriage and adoption by gay couples with the work of the Devil, and declared that gay marriage was a “destructive attack on God’s plan.”

Those kinds of words are the kind that killers of gay people take solace in. Those are the words that empower those who bash gays, and those who fire gays from their jobs. And those are the kinds of words that Francis clearly is saying the church must apologize for. If it’s not those words, after all, then what exactly is Francis referring to?

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The New Yorker‎: Elizabeth II, the Brexit Queen

“Retaining the ability to stay calm and collected can at times be hard,” she conceded, at the opening of Scotland’s Parliament, on Saturday. “One hallmark of leadership in such a fast-moving world is allowing sufficient room for quiet thinking and contemplation, which can enable deeper, cooler consideration of how challenges and opportunities can best be addressed.”

For Elizabeth, the Brexit vote marks an almost Shakespearean turn. In the nineteen-twenties, when she was born, the British Empire was the largest in history. It covered almost a quarter of the earth’s land mass; it held sway over more than four hundred and fifty million people, about a fifth of the world’s population. It was “the empire on which the sun never set.” In the past year, her reign, now the longest in British history, has twice been fêted with imperial pomp and horsey parades—last fall, for setting the longevity record, and, this spring, as she reached the age of ninety. Even Washington celebrated. At the British Embassy, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer last month led the toasts at a lawn party honoring the Queen’s birthday. Big names from the White House and Congress also attended. [...]

The monarchy itself is not in jeopardy. The Queen will hang on to her palaces, diamond-encrusted tiaras, royal carriages, and footmen, not to mention billions in assets, vast tracts of prime land, and royal privilege. Barring a political reversal on Brexit, however, her dynastic heirs could inherit little more than the realms of England and Wales. By today’s numbers, Little Britain would represent less than one per cent of the world’s population—and cover a mere fifty-six thousand square miles, smaller than the state of Florida. Forget where the sun sets; it would cover less than a time zone. [...]

“Change,” she added, “has become a constant. Managing it has become an expanding discipline. The way we embrace it defines our future.” For now, she’s the only other constant in Britain.

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FiveThirtyEight: Trump May Become The First Republican In 60 Years To Lose White College Graduates

Donald Trump does really well among white voters without a college degree. Indeed, he is on track to carry that group by a wider margin than Mitt Romney did over President Obama four years ago. But there’s another side to that coin: While Trump is outperforming your run-of-the-mill Republican among whites without a college degree, he’s underperforming among white voters with a college degree. In fact, he is on a track to lose white college graduates. [...]

On the other hand, Trump’s performance is downright shocking from a historical perspective. Romney won whites with a college degree by 6 percentage points over Obama, according to the American National Elections Studies. In fact, the American National Elections Studies shows Republicans carrying that group in every election from 1956 to 2012. [...]

This split between white voters with and without a college degree could also make a big difference in where this election is decided. As Margaret Talev, Jennifer Epstein and Gregory Giroux wrote at Bloomberg Politics, Clinton’s strength among white voters with a college degree could aid her in swing states like Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia. She may do worse than Obama did in states where whites without a college degree are more plentiful, like Iowa and Ohio.

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Independent: Psychologists reveal why we kiss with our eyes closed

People close their eyes while kissing to allow the brain to properly focus on the task in hand, psychologists have said.

A study on vision and tactile sensory experience at Royal Holloway, University of London, concluded the brain finds it difficult to process another sense while also concentrating on the visual stimuli. [...]

Tactile alerts are used in as warning systems in some cars and aeroplanes, both of which demand a high level of visual concentration.

“For example, some cars now provide tactile alerts when they begin drifting across lanes. Our research suggests that drivers will be less likely to notice these alerts when engaging in demanding visual tasks such as searching for directions at a busy junction,” Dr Murphy added.

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The Guardian: The US needs its own Chilcot report

The only thing close to the Chilcot report in the US was the Senate intelligence committee’s long-delayed investigation on intelligence failures in the lead-up to Iraq, released in 2008. The Democratic-led committee faulted the CIA for massive intelligence failures and the Bush administration for purposefully manipulating intelligence for public consumption. It led to a couple days of headlines, denunciations from the Bush White House (still in office at the time) and that was it.

After that, the Senate intelligence committee continued to lavish the CIA with praise, increase its budgets and provide only a modicum of oversight, despite the many scandals that preceded and succeeded the report. When the same intelligence committee later investigated illegal CIA torture – also directed by the highest levels of the Bush administration – they didn’t even bother mentioning the top officials who designed and sanctioned the program, only the anonymous (read: redacted) underlings who carried it out. [...]

Coincidentally, a scathing new biography of Bush was published Tuesday by renowned historian Jean Edward Smith, and it sounds like it’s closer to an indictment than anything an official governing body has come close to producing. Smith, who devotes a substantial portion of his book to the lead-up and aftermath of the Iraq war, concludes: “Whether George W Bush was the worst president in American history will be long debated, but his decision to invade Iraq is easily the worst foreign policy decision ever made by an American president.” [...]

It’s unlikely that anything will ever actually happen to Tony Blair or any of the other war architects in the UK despite the report’s damning conclusions. And he’ll continue to spend much of his time doing PR work for some of the world’s worst dictators, helping them avoid the same fate that he will almost certainly miss himself.

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