| | | | Why Team Trump's Bible Claim Sounds Familiar | | The Trump administration's decision to cite the Bible to justify separating undocumented parents and their children has echoes of the Arab world, writes Nesrine Malik in The Guardian. And they aren't good ones.
"There is a reason why some of those regimes will not do away with blasphemy laws, so handy are they in purging political opponents. It is chilling to see religion used this way in a supposedly sophisticated, liberal democracy, and in particular this element of it, which reduces politics to mere compliance," Malik writes.
"This is the most sinister and most powerful element of the dictator's playbook: the pact with the base. Every policy, every utterance, becomes about what it signifies to its target audience rather than what it objectively means," Malik says. When Trump said we don't see "Merry Christmas" anymore "he wasn't expressing, or even reflecting, an earnest concern about the erosion of Christian values. He was feeding a paranoia and nativist angst about race and identity." - What Trump got wrong about Germany. President Trump sought to deflect criticism of his administration's immigration policies Monday by tweeting a warning about Germany and how crime there is "way up". The problem? That's not true, CNN's Betsy Klein notes.
"[D]ata from the German government suggests Trump's hypothesis on crime is incorrect. Statistics from the Federal Ministry of the Interior show that 2017 saw the lowest number of crimes committed in Germany since 1992. The number of non-German suspects dropped almost 23% from 2016 to 2017."
| | Putin May Regret Getting What He Wanted: World Cup Edition | | | Vladimir Putin might see the World Cup as a chance to showcase his government's achievements. But the sprawling nature of the month-long tournament means that visiting fans will have plenty of opportunities to take a peek behind the carefully constructed curtains, suggests Leonid Bershidsky for Bloomberg.
"Despite the many attempts to spruce things up (including the jails!) for the event, many fans will witness cramped, barely furnished apartments renting out for a fortune on Airbnb. They'll brave the potholes on Russian roads, fly rickety planes on local routes and ride the shabby but convivial trains," Bershidsky writes.
"German fans will encounter youths with mocking Nazi salutes, and the Brits will be asked disbelievingly about the Skripal poisoning affair. There will likely be racist incidents, too, and Communist lawmaker Tamara Pletnyova actually warned Russian women against having sex with people of other races during the World Cup – not that anyone was listening." | | Hamas Is Playing with Kites – and Fire | | | Israel and Gaza both appear to want to prevent current tensions bubbling over into outright war, writes Avi Issacharoff for the Times of Israel. But with its latest weapon of choice – rigging kites with explosives – Hamas is literally playing with fire.
"The headline of this round [of violence] is of course the fire kite terrorism. It has turned into a serious threat to southern Israel, and a main weapon in Hamas's arsenal, with a variety of explosives and incendiary devices rigged to kites and balloons," Issacharoff writes.
"By using such a primitive, even childish, tool of destruction, Hamas is hoping to keep Gaza at the center of Israeli and international attention, eventually leading to dramatic economic steps that will contribute to the survival of its rule over the territory. But it's playing with fire." | | Want Less Corruption? Vote for Women: Study | | Want to reduce corruption in your country? Vote more women into office, a new study cited by PsyPost suggests.
"In a cross-country analysis of over 125 countries, this study finds that corruption is lower in countries where a greater share of parliamentarians are women. The study further finds that women's representation in local politics is important too – the likelihood of having to bribe is lower in regions with a greater representation of women in local-level politics in Europe," PsyPost reports.
Why?
"An extensive body of prior research shows that women politicians choose policies that are more closely related to the welfare of women, children, and family."
| | French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are scheduled to meet Tuesday to try to forge a consensus on European Union reform. That's easier said than done, writes Judy Dempsey for the Financial Times. "It is clear that Paris and Berlin have diametrically opposed views about what the future of the EU should look like. France wants a Europe that acts strategically across the board. Germany has shunned a broad strategy in favor of cautious incrementalism. It is hard to see how both views can be reconciled."
The US Patent and Trademark Office "will issue patent number 10 million" on Tuesday, the US Commerce Department says. The World Intellectual Property Organization noted recently that while the US is still the patent top dog, China is closing in. "China moved into the second position as a source of international patent applications filed via WIPO in 2017, closing in on long-time leader United States of America..." | | | | | | |
