kohenari:

Deborah Lipstadt doesn’t pull any punches in her piece about the controversy that erupted this year over a moment of silence to remember the Israeli Olympic athletes murdered in Munich in 1972:

The athletes who were murdered were from Israel and were Jews—that is why they aren’t being remembered. The only conclusion one can draw is that Jewish blood is cheap, too cheap to risk upsetting a bloc of Arab nations and other countries that oppose Israel and its policies.

I have long inveighed against the tendency of some Jews to see anti-Semitism behind every action that is critical of Israel or of Jews. In recent years some Jews have been inclined to hurl accusations of anti-Semitism even when they are entirely inappropriate. By repeatedly crying out, they risk making others stop listening—especially when the cry is true.

Here the charge is absolutely accurate. This was the greatest tragedy to ever occur during the Olympic Games. Yet the IOC has made it quite clear that these victims are not worth 60 seconds. Imagine for a moment that these athletes had been from the United States, Canada, Australia, or even Germany. No one would think twice about commemorating them.

HT: Steven Abraham.

After watching the opening ceremony, they could have and should have evoked or incorporated the Israeli Olympic athletes murdered in Munich in 1972 into their moment of silence. It would have taken nothing away from the event and it would have added a wealth of knowledge and solidarity for an event that many today, 40 years later, still immediately associate with the Olympics.

From paxamericana,

Meanwhile, over in my native Britain, the show hasn’t even got a broadcast home. As Lorna Cooper explained at MSN UK, two channels have tried it—FX in 2008 and Channel 5USA in 2009—and both failed to find an audience. In its initial airing on FX, Breaking Bad managed “consolidated ratings of around 120,000 viewers.” Dismal numbers. Seasons 3 and 4 have never been shown by a U.K. broadcaster.

What’s going on? Start with the show’s premise. For Brits, who have relied for decades on the National Health Service—where money never changes hands for medical care—the thought of someone turning to crime in order to pay for cancer treatment is more far-fetched than a body-switching time lord.

Those Brits are missing out on living a life of petty, stupid, uncertain risk; walking around with the knowledge that you’re one illness away from a serious consideration for the construction of a meth lab in your basement to cover the costs of a treatment that is easily accessible in nations that aren’t considered the most powerful nation to have ever existed.

I pity those British souls. U-S-A #1.

sarahlee310:

Nearly five years after Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio was first sued over his immigration enforcement policy, the Arizona lawman will finally appear in court to explain himself. That’s welcome news given his defiant refusal to date to provide much-needed answers to the serious allegations leveled against him.

Beginning Thursday, U.S. District Judge Murray Snow will preside over the civil rights trial that will determine whether Arpaio and his deputies engaged in racial profiling and discriminatory policing. The immigrant advocates and civil rights groups that filed the lawsuit come armed with an impressive array of evidence, including departmental communications and testimony. Some of the plaintiffs will likely describe how Arpaio’s so-called crime sweeps in neighborhoods targeted Latinos for interrogation about their immigration status based on nothing more than their appearance. Manuel Nieto and Velia Meraz, both of whom are U.S. citizens, will recount how they were pulled over and handcuffed at gunpoint in the middle of the day for no apparent reason other than that Meraz was singing along to Spanish-language music when they passed a deputy.

The allegations that will be raised in the trial this week are not the only ones leveled against Arpaio. The Department of Justice, which conducted a three-year investigation into the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department, has also filed a civil rights lawsuit. It too concludes that the sheriff’s immigration enforcement tactics have nurtured a culture of bias and unconstitutional policing. The Justice Department’s report paints a disturbing picture of a sheriff’s department answerable to no other law than its own. For example, a Latino motorist was stopped for failing to use a turn signal and jailed for 13 days for failing to provide proper identification, even though he provided multiple documents sufficient to satisfy Arizona law. In another case, a deputy allegedly hit and dragged a Latino man with his patrol car and then instructed other deputies to leave the man there.

VIDEO: Visibly angry Arpaio responds to lawsuit

Whether Arpaio’s tactics are illegal is up to Snow to determine. But the stakes are high. Another court is still trying to determine whether the “show me your papers” provision of Arizona’s noxious immigration law, SB 1070, is constitutional. That provision would require law enforcement officers to check the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally — just the sort of thing Arpaio has been doing in Maricopa County for years.

This week’s trial will not only test Arpaio’s claims that he’s not breaking any laws. It will help determine just how far local law enforcement agencies may go in their efforts to enforce federal immigration law.