LOS ANGELES – Federal racketeering, murder and other charges were filed against 22 suspected MS-13 gang members who law enforcement officials believe are linked to a series of grisly killings involving baseball bats, machetes and other tools of “medieval-style” violence, authorities said Tuesday.
Nineteen of those indicted are considered illegal immigrants, and most of the group’s members arrived in the U.S. in the past four years from Central America. All but two are under the age of 24, Nicola Hanna, the U.S. Attorney for Los Angeles, announced at a news conference. Most, he added, participated in the “killing spree.”
The arrests – the last came over the weekend – capped a two-year investigation.
While President Donald Trump has singled out MS-13 as a threat to public safety in the making the case for tighter security along the Mexican border, Hanna said the defendants mostly preyed upon other recent immigrants who they believed were rivals.
MS-13 “has been named as one of the top five transnational threats to the U.S.,” Hanna said. “MS-13 has spread like a cancer … throughout the U.S.”
Those arrested were all part of the so-called Fulton clique of MS-13, one of the most violent of about 20 factions of MS-13 operating in the Los Angeles area, Hanna said. The clique operated primarily in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley…
HWH Comment: Wow. So there was a reason why we couldn’t cure the common cold for all these decades trying. Or maybe we didn’t try that hard, thinking colds weren’t all that serious and they generated a lot of income for the cold remedy industry.
Come to find out, it was a good idea, because it just might become a universal agent to cure cancer. Wow again. What a find! No more harsh chemo therapy, just cough and sneeze your way to a cure.
Yeah, I’ve been coughing and sneezing a lot, maybe I’ve got some cancer cells in me screaming to be eradicated. That’s probably not how it works. I hope they put this into practice soon. It’s too long between discovery and marketability. Speed up the process. It’s a cold virus. How bad could it be?
Breast cancer tumors? Inject it right into the tumor? Forget the cancers that are hard to treat, treat them all with the virus. Oh right, we can’t put all those chemo people and radiation people and surgeons out of business? Give them some other jobs to do.
I’m wondering about the price tag on the treatment. How much could it cost? Something so common and readily available? They’ll find a way to take your life savings; they always do.
Laura Donnelly, health editor
5 JULY 2019 • 12:01AM
The common cold virus could cure cancer, scientists say, as a “revolutionary” treatment was found to eradicate the disease in a week. In the pioneering British trial, 15 patients were given an infusion of the bug, before undergoing surgery to remove and examine tumours.
In every case, cancer cells had been destroyed – and in one case, all traces of the disease had gone, the study found. Scientists said they were “very excited” about the findings, for patients with bladder cancer, which could also bring hope to those suffering from other major forms of the disease.
They said the virus could become a “universal agent” to fight cancer, replacing conventional treatments like chemotherapy.
As well as reducing the size of all the tumours, the treatment, via a catheter to the bladder, had no significant side-effects in any of the patients, researchers said. Bladder cancer is the tenth most common type of cancer in the UK, with 10,000 diagnoses annually. Scientists said they hoped the treatment could be available in as little as three years, bringing hope to thousands of patients with diseases that are currently hard-to-treat. Most tumours in the bladder do not have immune cells, making the disease particularly hard to treat. But the study suggests that an infusion of a strain of the common cold virus – called coxsackievirus (CVA21) – was able to inflame the tumour and cause immune cells to rush into the cancer environment, targeting and killing the cancer cells…
HWH COMMENT: Actually, this woman who claims she has had a lifetime of encounters with predatory men, seems more like the offender looking for men who will have a quick encounter.
How do you rape somebody with tights on without being able to squirm away, especially in a high-end department store? Two decades later and she says she’s a mature woman and can handle it. Just how did she handle it?
I can’t imagine having a lifetime of predator men raping me and doing nothing about it.
How is it that this woman is credible? Are we to believe everybody who comes forward two or three decades later with a grab and run or a rape story? I agree that too few people come forward, but how about now. Why aren’t more women coming forward with what happened last night? Why aren’t they in the news for the world to rally behind?
Larry Sabato from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics is quoted as saying that Trump is simply exempt from the rules everybody else has to obey. Sabato fails to mention past presidents who had ‘playboy’ reputations while actually in the White House: John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson just to name two. These behaviors decades ago were pretty much expected of powerful men. And who is ‘everybody else’ that Sabato refers to that have to obey the rules? Italian men? Arab men? Spanish men? Russian men. Jewish men? And what are the rules he speaks of?
Locker room talk. What actually is that? Men bragging about their sexual exploits that never really happened? How common is that? How common two and three decades ago was that? These writers went to the trouble of reaching out to a so-called expert, yet failed to ask all the right questions? It seems like this article was purposely slanted against one man. Who were all the other predatory men that magically came into this accusers life throughout her entire life? Any names to those men?
She waited too long. She acts like twenty years ago we were in the 1920s. The sexual revolution had already occurred in the 60s and 70s. Women were out of the sexual repression closet and free love reigned. “Make love not war”.
Some women want encounters with sexually-free individuals. They’re not all predators (male or female). Twenty years later maybe she feels ashamed. Can money cure shame? To mention the alleged rape it in a book she’s selling reeks of opportunism. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. Still, she used it to advance her status, which is exactly what men do. They use women to advance their status. So welcome to the female oppressor club. Is this what women really want, to be like men? Then they are no better, justified or not.
She should have got her revenge, if she was revenge-worthy, twenty years ago. Too shy to kick a guy in the balls in a high-end department store dressing room? Not if she had encounters with predatory men her entire life.
There were lots of people around. She wouldn’t have been harmed if she screamed.
Hey, if she’s going to try to convince the world of an alleged rape that happened decades ago, then the world has the right to question what she did back then to prevent it.
People like E. Jean Carroll make it difficult for current-day victims to come forward. The press only focuses on those alleged assaults that happened decades ago and that can’t be proven one way or the other. Is that fair to anyone? Is it fair to alleged victims? It makes it look like the press is talking about rape, but they really aren’t talking. They’re telling stories about potential assaults that may or may not have happened.
That hurts the women assaulted last night. By exploiting the past for personal gain, the past repeats itself.
Focus on the NOW in order to change the future for all victims of violent crime.
[Sen. Mazie Hirnono, a Hawaii Democrat, called it a sad day when a rape accusation against the president leaves the country numb.
“With this president you have the Iran situation going on, you have North Korea going on, you have the border crisis going on,” she said.]
Note: So I’m wondering why a decades old sexual assault claim against a current president that gets revealed in a new book by the alleged accuser should take precedent over the Iran, North Korea and Border crises in this country? This is what I’m talking about. E. Jean Carroll waits twenty years, reveals it in a book and at least one women senator is sad that national security issues were taking away from the press coverage of Carroll’s book of revelations. WHOA. Women have become predators. She waited twenty years, do you think she could wait a while longer while the country focuses on pressing security issues of the day?
The name of the book is WHAT DO WE NEED MEN FOR? I believe E. Jean Carroll made that abundantly clear: to exploit them.
AP NEWS: Nearly a week after the latest sexual misconduct accusation against President Donald Trump, the story has largely landed with a thud.
Some see the muted response to author E. Jean Carroll’s allegation of Trump assaulting her in a department store dressing room more than two decades ago as yet another example of the divisive Politics of Trump: Those who support him dismiss it as fake news. Those against him see it as confirmation of what they knew all along.
“Essentially, you’re either for him or against him, and if you’re for him, it doesn’t matter what he’s done,” said Larry Sabato, who directs the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “It really is remarkable. He simply is exempt from the rules everyone else must obey.”
It’s a cycle that’s been repeated before. After more than a dozen women came forward during Trump’s 2016 campaign with allegations of sexual misconduct years earlier, Trump called them “liars” who sought to harm his campaign with “100-percent fabricated” stories. When the “Access Hollywood” tape emerged weeks before the election of him bragging about grabbing women by the genitals, he dismissed it as “locker room talk.”
In the case of Carroll, a feature writer and longtime Elle advice columnist, her accusation was revealed in an excerpt to an upcoming book, leading Trump and others to cast her aside as an opportunist. Her book, “What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal,” describes what she calls a lifetime of encounters with predatory men, starting with her early years as an Indiana cheerleader and pageant winner.
She said that Trump, in the mid-1990s, followed her into a dressing room after a chance encounter at the high-end New York department store Bergdorf Goodman and proceeded to pull down her tights and sexually assault her. Trump, in denying the account on Monday, said she’s “not my type,” a stunning remark from a U.S. president that briefly breathed life into the story.
But even ranking Democrats such as Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois were resigned to how it would all play out. “I wouldn’t dismiss it,” he told The Washington Post, “but let’s be honest, he’s going to deny it and little is going to come of it.”
Lawyer Debra Katz, who represented Christine Blasey Ford in her Senate testimony on her alleged high school assault by then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, concurred.
“The electorate knew this about him. This is nothing new about his character or his behavior — at this point there have been, what, 13 credible accusers?” Katz said. “People have become inured to it. And it’s disgraceful.”
Carroll, who did not return messages left on her cell phone from The Associated Press this week, stopped short in various television interviews of calling what happened to her rape and described the experience as a “three-minute” ordeal that did not change her life. Carroll has said she doesn’t plan to seek criminal charges and it appears the statute of limitations has run out.
“I’m a mature woman. I can handle it,” she said on MSNBC. “My life has gone on. I’m a happy woman.”
It didn’t help that Carroll’s book excerpt dropped late last Friday and was largely drowned out by events of the week: the refugee crisis at the border, the U.S. brinkmanship with Iran and the regular onslaught of news about the environment, the economy and the 2020 election.
“We are trauma-fatigued by the volume of despairing issues seemingly beyond our personal control,” said Carrie Goldberg, a New York lawyer who represents victims of sexual assault and revenge porn. “When a solution feels beyond grasp, it can be impossible to muster an appropriate emotional reaction.”
Sen. Mazie Hirnono, a Hawaii Democrat, called it a sad day when a rape accusation against the president leaves the country numb. “With this president you have the Iran situation going on, you have North Korea going on, you have the border crisis going on,” she said. “So after a while you just practically throw up your hands.”
___AP writers Kali Robinson and AP video journalist Padmanda Rama contributed to this report from Washington.
Yet with few exceptions, the U.S. military’s significant contribution to climate change has received little attention. Although the Defense Department has significantly reduced its fossil fuel consumption since the early 2000s, it remains the world’s single largest consumer of oil — and as a result, one of the world’s top greenhouse gas emitters.
A broad carbon footprint
I have studied war and peace for four decades. But I only focused on the scale of U.S. military greenhouse gas emissions when I began co-teaching a course on climate change and focused on the Pentagon’s response to global warming. Yet, the Department of Defense is the U.S. government’s largest fossil fuel consumer, accounting for between 77% and 80% of all federal government energy consumption since 2001.
In a newly released study published by Brown University’s Costs of War Project, I calculated U.S. military greenhouse gas emissions in tons of carbon dioxide equivalent from 1975 through 2017.
The largest sources of military greenhouse gas emissions are buildings and fuel. The Defense Department maintains over 560,000 buildings at approximately 500 domestic and overseas military installations, which account for about 40% of its greenhouse gas emissions.
The rest comes from operations. In fiscal year 2016, for instance, the Defense Department consumed about 86 million barrels of fuel for operational purposes.
Why do the armed forces use so much fuel?
Military weapons and equipment use so much fuel that the relevant measure for defense planners is frequently gallons per mile.
Aircraft are particularly thirsty. For example, the B-2 stealth bomber, which holds more than 25,600 gallons of jet fuel, burns 4.28 gallons per mile and emits more than 250 metric tons of greenhouse gas over a 6,000 nautical mile range. The KC-135R aerial refueling tanker consumes about 4.9 gallons per mile.
A single mission consumes enormous quantities of fuel. In January 2017, two B-2B bombers and 15 aerial refueling tankers traveled more than 12,000 miles from Whiteman Air Force Base to bomb ISIS targets in Libya, killing about 80 suspected ISIS militants. Not counting the tankers’ emissions, the B-2s emitted about 1,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases.
Quantifying military emissions
Calculating the Defense Department’s greenhouse gas emissions isn’t easy. The Defense Logistics Agency tracks fuel purchases, but the Pentagon does not consistently report DOD fossil fuel consumption to Congress in its annual budget requests.
The Department of Energy publishes data on DOD energy production and fuel consumption, including for vehicles and equipment. Using fuel consumption data, I estimate that from 2001 through 2017, the DOD, including all service branches, emitted 1.2 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases. That is the rough equivalent of driving of 255 million passenger vehicles over a year.
Of that total, I estimated that war-related emissions between 2001 and 2017, including “overseas contingency operations” in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Syria, generated over 400 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent — roughly equivalent to the greenhouse emissions of almost 85 million cars in one year.
Real and present dangers?
The Pentagon’s core mission is to prepare for potential attacks by human adversaries. Analysts argue about the likelihood of war and the level of military preparation necessary to prevent it, but in my view, none of the United States’ adversaries — Russia, Iran, China and North Korea — are certain to attack the United States.
Nor is a large standing military the only way to reduce the threats these adversaries pose. Arms control and diplomacy can often de-escalate tensions and reduce threats. Economic sanctions can diminish the capacity of states and nonstate actors to threaten the security interests of the U.S. and its allies.
In contrast, climate change is not a potential risk. It has begun, with real consequences to the United States. Failing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will make the nightmare scenarios strategists warn against — perhaps even “climate wars” — more likely.
The DOD’s total annual emissions declined from a peak of 85 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2004 to 59 million metric tons in 2017. The goal, as then-General James Mattis put it, is to be “unleashed from the tether of fuel” by decreasing military dependence on oil and oil convoys that are vulnerable to attack in war zones.
Since 1979, the United States has placed a high priority on protecting access to the Persian Gulf. About one-fourth of military operational fuel use is for the U.S. Central Command, which covers the Persian Gulf region.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nursing facilities have failed to report thousands of serious cases of potential neglect and abuse of seniors on Medicare even though it’s a federal requirement for them to do so, according to a watchdog report released Wednesday that calls for a new focus on protecting frail patients.
Auditors with the Health and Human Services inspector general’s office drilled down on episodes serious enough that the patient was taken straight from a nursing facility to a hospital emergency room. Scouring Medicare billing records, they estimated that in 2016 about 6,600 cases reflected potential neglect or abuse that was not reported as required. Nearly 6,200 patients were affected.
“Mandatory reporting is not always happening, and beneficiaries deserve to be better protected,” said Gloria Jarmon, head of the inspector general’s audit division.
Overall, unreported cases worked out to 18% of about 37,600 episodes in which a Medicare beneficiary was taken to the emergency room from a nursing facility in circumstances that raised red flags.
Responding to the report, Administrator Seema Verma said the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services does not tolerate abuse and mistreatment and slaps significant fines on nursing homes that fail to report cases.
Verma said the agency, known as CMS, is already moving to improve supervision of nursing homes in critical areas such as abuse and neglect and care for patients with dementia.
CMS officially agreed with the inspector general’s recommendations, including clearer guidance to nursing facilities about what kinds of episodes must be reported, improved training for facility staff, and requirements that state nursing home inspectors record and track possible problems as well as incidents reported to law enforcement.
Neglect and abuse of elderly patients can be difficult to uncover. Investigators say many cases are not reported because vulnerable older people may be afraid to tell even friends and relatives much less the authorities. In some cases, neglect and abuse can be masked by medical conditions.
The report cited the example of a 65-year-old woman who arrived at the emergency room in critical condition. She was struggling to breathe, suffering from kidney failure and in a state of delirium. The patient turned out to have opioid poisoning, due to an error at the nursing facility. The report said a nurse made a mistake copying doctor’s orders, and the patient was getting much bigger doses of pain medication as a result. The woman was treated and sent back to the same nursing facility. The nurse got remedial training, but the facility did not report what happened. The report called it an example of neglect that should have been reported.
The American Health Care Association, which represents the nursing home industry, said in a statement from its vice president for quality, David Gifford, that it would “fully support more transparent reporting.” The group said Medicare’s current definition of neglect “is vague and creates confusion about what should be reported.”
The nursing facilities covered by the report provide skilled nursing and therapy services to Medicare patients recovering from surgeries or hospitalization. Many facilities play a dual role, combining a rehabilitation wing with long-term care nursing home beds.
Investigators said they faced a challenge scoping out the extent of unreported cases. It wasn’t like they could query a database and get a number, since they were looking for cases that weren’t being reported to state nursing home inspectors.
To get their estimate, auditors put together a list of Medicare billing codes that previous investigations had linked to potential neglect and abuse. Common problems were not on the list. Instead it included red flags such as fractures, head injuries, foreign objects swallowed by patients, gangrene and shock.
The investigators found a total of 37,600 records representing 34,800 patients. Auditors then pulled a sample of cases and asked state inspectors to tell them which ones should have been reported. Based on the expert judgment of state inspectors, federal auditors came up with their estimate of 6,600 unreported cases of potential neglect and abuse.
Medicare did not challenge the estimates but instead said that billing data comes with a built-in time lag and may not be useful for spotting problems in real time.
Separately, the report also flagged potential problems with state nursing home inspectors reporting documented cases of abuse or neglect to local law enforcement. Federal auditors pulled a sample of 69 cases across five states in which inspectors verified that nursing facility patients suffered neglect or abuse. Only two were reported to local law enforcement, although reporting is required.
In one case, a male resident was sitting in the facility’s dining room when an employee walked by and pushed the back of his head, then kept walking. The employee denied it, but his actions were captured on surveillance video. The report said state inspectors verified what happened but did not report it to local law enforcement.
HWH: In any situation that lends itself to abuse, the actual cases are way under-reported. It’s the nature of the abuse beast. Nursing home facilities need more oversight. Not enough is being done. The owners are getting rich, while the patients suffer from lack of care. Members of the family practically have to be there everyday checking and participating in their loved ones care, and still it can happen.
Congress sits on their hands, while disrespecting the elderly. After all, they can’t vote if they’re in a nursing home, so they pass the problem onto somebody else. They care more about abortions than senior health care.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minnesota campaign finance officials said last week that Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar misused campaign funds in violation of state rules. They also revealed that she had filed joint tax returns with her husband years before they were legally married and at a time when she was married to another man.
The revelation put the freshman representative under more scrutiny from critics who have taken issue with her marital past. One tax expert said that if there is no criminal intent and the issue has been corrected, she’s unlikely to face any criminal consequences.
Some questions and answers about the tax issue:
Q: What did Omar do wrong?
A: The Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board said Thursday that Omar and her husband, Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi, filed joint tax returns for 2014 and 2015 — before they were actually married and while Omar was legally wed to another man. While some states allow for joint filing for “common law” marriages, Minnesota does not, and filing joint tax returns with someone who is not your legal spouse is against both federal and state law.
Q: How did this become public?
A: Last year, a Republican state representative accused Omar of misusing campaign funds, alleging among other things that she used $2,250 in campaign money to pay a lawyer for her divorce proceedings. The campaign finance board investigated and found she didn’t use the funds to pay for a divorce lawyer as alleged, but other irregularities were found. The board’s final report said “there was an issue with her tax returns that needed to be corrected” and that some campaign funds went to an accounting firm.
State officials ruled last week that Omar must repay her campaign committee nearly $3,500, including $1,500 for payments made to the accounting firm for services related to joint tax returns for 2014 and 2015. Omar must also pay a $500 penalty to the state.
Q: What has Omar said about this?
A: Very little. In response to questions from The Associated Press, her campaign sent an emailed statement saying, “All of Rep. Omar’s tax filings are fully compliant with all applicable tax law.” The campaign did not make Omar available for an interview or answer specific questions from the AP. In response to the overall campaign finance investigation, she said in a statement last week that she will comply with the state board findings calling for her to repay money and pay a penalty.
Full Transcript of Mueller’s Statement on Russia Investigation
By The Associated Press
The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, made his first public comments about the Russia investigation.
Doug Mills/The New York Times
By The New York Times
May 29, 2019
Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, made his first public comments on Wednesday about the Russia investigation that he took over two years ago.
The following is a transcript of his remarks, as prepared by The New York Times.
_________________
ROBERT S. MUELLER III, the special counsel: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for being here. Two years ago, the acting attorney general asked me to serve as special counsel and he created the special counsel’s office. The appointment order directed the office to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. This included investigating any links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign.
Now, I have not spoken publicly during our investigation. I am speaking out today because our investigation is complete. The attorney general has made the report on our investigation largely public. We are formally closing the special counsel’s office, and as well, I’m resigning from the Department of Justice to return to private life. I’ll make a few remarks about the results of our work. But beyond these few remarks, it is important that the office’s written work speak for itself. Let me begin where the appointment order begins, and that is interference in the 2016 presidential election.
As alleged by the grand jury in an indictment, Russian intelligence officers who are part of the Russian military, launched a concerted attack on our political system. The indictment alleges that they used sophisticated cyber techniques to hack into computers and networks used by the Clinton campaign. They stole private information and then released that information through fake online identities and through the organization WikiLeaks.
The releases were designed and timed to interfere with our election and to damage a presidential candidate. And at the same time, as the grand jury alleged in a separate indictment, a private Russian entity engaged in a social media operation, where Russian citizens posed as Americans in order to influence an election. These indictments contain allegations, and we are not commenting on the guilt or the innocence of any specific defendant. Every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
The indictments allege, and the other activities in our report describe, efforts to interfere in our political system. They needed to be investigated and understood. And that is among the reasons why the Department of Justice established our office. That is also a reason we investigated efforts to obstruct the investigation. The matters we investigated were of paramount importance. It was critical for us to obtain full and accurate information from every person we questioned. When a subject of an investigation obstructs that investigation or lies to investigators, it strikes at the core of their government’s effort to find the truth and hold wrongdoers accountable.
Let me say a word about the report. The report has two parts, addressing the two main issues we were asked to investigate. The first volume of the report details numerous efforts emanating from Russia to influence the election. This volume includes a discussion of the Trump campaign’s response to this activity, as well as our conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy. And in the second volume, the report describes the results and analysis of our obstruction of justice investigation involving the president.
The order appointing me special counsel authorized us to investigate actions that could obstruct the investigation. We conducted that investigation, and we kept the office of the acting attorney general apprised of the progress of our work. And as set forth in the report, after that investigation, if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime.
The introduction to the Volume II of our report explains that decision. It explains that under longstanding department policy, a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional. Even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view, that, too, is prohibited. A special counsel’s office is part of the Department of Justice, and by regulation, it was bound by that department policy. Charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider. The department’s written opinion explaining the policy makes several important points that further informed our handling of the obstruction investigation. Those points are summarized in our report, and I will describe two of them for you.
First, the opinion explicitly permits the investigation of a sitting president, because it is important to preserve evidence while memories are fresh and documents available. Among other things, that evidence could be used if there were co-conspirators who could be charged now.
And second, the opinion says that the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing. And beyond department policy, we were guided by principles of fairness. It would be unfair to potentially — it would be unfair to potentially accuse somebody of a crime when there can be no court resolution of the actual charge.
So that was Justice Department policy. Those were the principles under which we operated. And from them, we concluded that we would not reach a determination one way or the other about whether the president committed a crime. That is the office’s final position, and we will not comment on any other conclusions or hypotheticals about the president. We conducted an independent criminal investigation and reported the results to the attorney general, as required by department regulations.
The attorney general then concluded that it was appropriate to provide our report to Congress and to the American people. At one point in time, I requested that certain portions of the report be released and the attorney general preferred to make — preferred to make the entire report public all at once and we appreciate that the attorney general made the report largely public. And I certainly do not question the attorney general’s good faith in that decision.
Now, I hope and expect this to be the only time that I will speak to you in this manner. I am making that decision myself. No one has told me whether I can or should testify or speak further about this matter. There has been discussion about an appearance before Congress. Any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report. It contains our findings and analysis and the reasons for the decisions we made. We chose those words carefully, and the work speaks for itself. And the report is my testimony. I would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before Congress. In addition, access to our underlying work product is being decided in a process that does not involve our office.
So beyond what I’ve said here today and what is contained in our written work, I do not believe it is appropriate for me to speak further about the investigation or to comment on the actions of the Justice Department or Congress. And it’s for that reason I will not be taking questions today, as well.
Now, before I step away, I want to thank the attorneys, the F.B.I. agents, the analysts, the professional staff who helped us conduct this investigation in a fair and independent manner. These individuals who spent nearly two years with the special counsel’s office were of the highest integrity. And I will close by reiterating the central allegation of our indictments, that there were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election. And that allegation deserves the attention of every American. Thank you. Thank you for being here today.
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — One victim spoke out, and then another, and another.
A statue of a pedophile priest was toppled in Gdansk, put back by his supporters, and finally dismantled for good.
A feature film about clerical abuse was a box office hit.
Poland thought it had started confronting the problem of clerical abuse and its cover-up by church authorities. Then a bombshell came: A documentary with victim testimony so harrowing it has forced an unprecedented reckoning with pedophile priests in one of Europe’s most deeply Catholic societies.
Poland’s bishops acknowledged this week they face a crisis and made a rare admission that they have failed to protect the young. It’s also a crisis for the country’s conservative government, which is closely aligned with the Catholic Church, putting the ruling Law and Justice party on the defensive before Sunday’s European Parliament vote in Poland.
The documentary ”Tell No One ” was directed by journalist Tomasz Sekielski. Before its release on May 11, ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski had described discussion about clerical abuse as a “brutal attack” on the church and portrayed the LGBT rights movement as the key threat to children in the country. But the revelations in the documentary have pushed the party to face up to the cleric abuse crisis. It has vowed stiffer penalties for pedophilia, although its leaders have avoided pointing a finger at the church specifically.
Across the country, the film has triggered soul searching and raised questions, including whether the same bishops who moved perpetrators from parish to parish for years will be capable of cleansing the church. Some wonder if Poland, which is already being reshaped by economic growth and secularization, could eventually follow Ireland, where the abuse crisis broke the Catholic Church’s hold on society.
Crowdfunded and free on YouTube, “Tell No One” has gotten more than 21 million views so far and has prompted a new wave of survivors to come forward. About 150 people have contacted a foundation helping victims of clerical abuse, “Have No Fear.” One was an 86-year-old man who was molested when he was 6 and had never told anyone until now.“
He finally understood that he is not alone,” said Anna Frankowska, a lawyer for the organization who took his call.“
A huge tsunami has come, and there is no way this issue can be swept under the rug now,” she said. “It has to be addressed.”Michal Wojciechowicz, a 54-year-old abused in his youth by a prominent Solidarity-era priest, the late Rev. Henryk Jankowski, sees a “revolution” whose time has come thanks to clerical sexual abuse revelations elsewhere as well as reforms by Pope Francis.
“The Catholic Church had power over people for centuries. We needed to wait for the right time, and this is the right time,” said Wojciechowicz, a writer. “The most important thing is that people are now willing to listen.”
The church has played an inspirational role in Poland, keeping its language and culture alive during a long era of occupation and foreign rule and supporting the anti-communist Solidarity movement in the 1980s. To generations, the church has been an advocate for freedom and a source of solace under hardship, and to many, Catholic faith and traditions are synonymous with Polishness itself.
A Polish pope who is now a saint, John Paul II, was a moral authority and a political hero for opposing communism, but even his legacy is now in question due to his failure to tackle clerical abuse.
Recognition of the problem came slowly at first. A book published six years ago by a Dutch journalist had the accounts of Polish victims and five years ago ”Have No Fear ” was founded to offer victims counseling and legal help. But the last eight months have brought the most dramatic milestones. A feature film about corrupt, abusive priests, “Clergy,” was a blockbuster after its September release.
Then in December, Barbara Borowiecka, 62, told Polish media about being abused when she was 11 by Jankowski, a prominent prelate in Lech Walesa’s anti-communist Solidarity movement in Gdansk, where a monument of him stood.
Borowiecka was encouraged to tell her story by another priest who brought her back to the church after a nearly five-decade break. Before his death in 2016, he made her promise to publicly name her aggressor when she was strong enough.
Shaken by Borowiecka’s story, three activists from Warsaw — Konrad Korzeniowski, Rafal Suszek i Michal Wojcieszczuk — traveled to Gdansk in February and in the middle of the night put a rope around the Jankowski monument and pulled it down.
“There was something in Borowiecka’s story that chilled me to the bone. It was shocking. The length of her isolation, the embarrassment she had to feel, that her own mother didn’t believe her,” said Korzeniowski, a computer programmer. “Even though I was aware of what is happening in the church with pedophilia, it put a face to it, and I was crying.”
They placed children’s underwear, shoes and white lace…
The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, made his first public comments about the Russia investigation.
By The New York Times
The following is a transcript of his remarks, as prepared by The New York Times.
ROBERT S. MUELLER III, the special counsel: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for being here. Two years ago, the acting attorney general asked me to serve as special counsel and he created the special counsel’s office. The appointment order directed the office to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. This included investigating any links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign.
Now, I have not spoken publicly during our investigation. I am speaking out today because our investigation is complete. The attorney general has made the report on our investigation largely public. We are formally closing the special counsel’s office, and as well, I’m resigning from the Department of Justice to return to private life. I’ll make a few remarks about the results of our work. But beyond these few remarks, it is important that the office’s written work speak for itself. Let me begin where the appointment order begins, and that is interference in the 2016 presidential election.
As alleged by the grand jury in an indictment, Russian intelligence officers who are part of the Russian military, launched a concerted attack on our political system. The indictment alleges that they used sophisticated cybertechniques to hack into computers and networks used by the Clinton campaign. They stole private information and then released that information through fake online identities and through the organization WikiLeaks.
The releases were designed and timed to interfere with our election and to damage a presidential candidate. And at the same time, as the grand jury alleged in a separate indictment, a private Russian entity engaged in a social media operation, where Russian citizens posed as Americans in order to influence an election. These indictments contain allegations, and we are not commenting on the guilt or the innocence of any specific defendant. Every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
The indictments allege, and the other activities in our report describe, efforts to interfere in our political system. They needed to be investigated and understood. And that is among the reasons why the Department of Justice established our office. That is also a reason we investigated efforts to obstruct the investigation. The matters we investigated were of paramount importance. It was critical for us to obtain full and accurate information from every person we questioned. When a subject of an investigation obstructs that investigation or lies to investigators, it strikes at the core of their government’s effort to find the truth and hold wrongdoers accountable.
Let me say a word about the report. The report has two parts, addressing the two main issues we were asked to investigate. The first volume of the report details numerous efforts emanating from Russia to influence the election. This volume includes a discussion of the Trump campaign’s response to this activity, as well as our conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy. And in the second volume, the report describes the results and analysis of our obstruction of justice investigation involving the president.
The order appointing me special counsel authorized us to investigate actions that could obstruct the investigation. We conducted that investigation, and we kept the office of the acting attorney general apprised of the progress of our work. And as set forth in the report, after that investigation, if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime.
The introduction to the Volume II of our report explains that decision. It explains that under longstanding department policy, a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional. Even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view, that, too, is prohibited. A special counsel’s office is part of the Department of Justice, and by regulation, it was bound by that department policy. Charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider. The department’s written opinion explaining the policy makes several important points that further informed our handling of the obstruction investigation. Those points are summarized in our report, and I will describe two of them for you.
First, the opinion explicitly permits the investigation of a sitting president, because it is important to preserve evidence while memories are fresh and documents available. Among other things, that evidence could be used if there were co-conspirators who could be charged now.
And second, the opinion says that the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing. And beyond department policy, we were guided by principles of fairness. It would be unfair to potentially — it would be unfair to potentially accuse somebody of a crime when there can be no court resolution of the actual charge.
So that was Justice Department policy. Those were the principles under which we operated. And from them, we concluded that we would not reach a determination one way or the other about whether the president committed a crime. That is the office’s final position, and we will not comment on any other conclusions or hypotheticals about the president. We conducted an independent criminal investigation and reported the results to the attorney general, as required by department regulations.
The attorney general then concluded that it was appropriate to provide our report to Congress and to the American people. At one point in time, I requested that certain portions of the report be released and the attorney general preferred to make — preferred to make the entire report public all at once and we appreciate that the attorney general made the report largely public. And I certainly do not question the attorney general’s good faith in that decision.
Now, I hope and expect this to be the only time that I will speak to you in this manner. I am making that decision myself. No one has told me whether I can or should testify or speak further about this matter. There has been discussion about an appearance before Congress. Any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report. It contains our findings and analysis and the reasons for the decisions we made. We chose those words carefully, and the work speaks for itself. And the report is my testimony. I would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before Congress. In addition, access to our underlying work product is being decided in a process that does not involve our office.
So beyond what I’ve said here today and what is contained in our written work, I do not believe it is appropriate for me to speak further about the investigation or to comment on the actions of the Justice Department or Congress. And it’s for that reason I will not be taking questions today, as well.
Now, before I step away, I want to thank the attorneys, the F.B.I. agents, the analysts, the professional staff who helped us conduct this investigation in a fair and independent manner. These individuals who spent nearly two years with the special counsel’s office were of the highest integrity. And I will close by reiterating the central allegation of our indictments, that there were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election. And that allegation deserves the attention of every American. Thank you. Thank you for being here today.
HWH Comment: In this instance, where there was so much media attention, and people hurt, by someone alleged to have made false accusations regarding a hate crime, that the public deserves to know the truth of the legal process that exonerated the accused.
Falsely reporting hate crimes – especially when premeditated and reeking with startling prejudicial symbolism – needs to have the light of everybody’s eyes shined on it. Otherwise, future victims will not come forward and/or will not be believed.
When a black judge dismisses a black person’s case then seals the process that led to her decision so the public can’t see it, that case should be scrutinized in the same way as when the judge is white and the accused is white. Bias is bias, no matter the color or gender. We must make every effort to eliminate it in the court system, otherwise our democracy will fail and our efforts to spread our system around the world will have no credibility.
Add-on: What’s with the gloved hand front and center in the photo? Staged? Coming from Jussie Smollet, probably so. “If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”
He obviously didn’t think the charade through to its conclusion. Yes, everybody remembers the ‘glove’ in the O.J. Simpson trial. And that may be enough to sway the black and the gay communities in Smollet’s favor.
O.J. Simpson’s glove found at the scene of a bloody dual-murder was soaked with blood then dried, which made it shrink due to it’s leather nature. So when he tried it on during trial and spread his fingers to make it look like the glove was too small to fit his hand, the jury bought it.
But as the photo shows here, the glove fits the hand of Jussie Smollet. I’m beginning to think Jussie Smollet is aiming for a Hollywood movie gig, where he plays himself as the persecuted black gay man accused of committing a hate crime against himself. That should get him the money and notoriety he craves.
Yeah, he has a secret to tell.
CHICAGO (AP) — One of Jussie Smollett’s conditions after posting $10,000 bail amid charges he lied about being the victim of a racist, anti-gay attack was that he have no contact with two brothers police say he paid to help stage the incident, according to a case file unsealed Thursday in Chicago.
Besides that detail, the “Empire” actor’s criminal case file appears to contain little new information. The bulk of the more-than-250-page file centers on the legal battle between media organizations that wanted access to the file and Smollett’s attorneys who wanted it kept sealed.In his order for the file to be unsealed, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Steven Watkins said Smollett’s actions before and after his case was dismissed did not appear to be those of someone seeking to maintain his privacy.
Smollett’s lawyers had argued that since the charges were dropped, the actor had “the right to be left alone.
”Watkins’ decision, which followed requests by The Associated Press and other media organizations to make the file public, said there were good arguments for keeping the file sealed but that Smollett forfeited his right to protect his privacy by talking to the media.
The actor had been charged with 16 counts alleging he lied to police when telling them that two masked men beat him in January in downtown Chicago, shouted slurs at him, doused him with a chemical substance and looped a rope around his neck. Police still insist Smollett, who is black and gay, staged the attack because he was unhappy with his salary on the Fox TV show and wanted publicity.
Prosecutors dismissed all charges, though, with little explanation on March 26.
The judge on Thursday wrote that Smollett “voluntarily appeared on national television for an interview speaking about the incident in detail. After the March 26 dismissal, he voluntarily stood in front of cameras from numerous news organizations in the courthouse lobby and spoke about the case. On several occasions, attorneys for Defendant, presumably with his authorization, appeared on various media outlets speaking about the case.”
The judge added, “These are not the actions of a person seeking to maintain his privacy or simply be let alone.”
Natalie Spears, an attorney representing media organizations that wanted the file unsealed, applauded Watkins’ decision.
“This is about transparency and trust in the system and we believe the public has a right to know what the government did and why,” she said Thursday after the hearing.
The oft-repeated claim that Earth’s biota is entering a sixth “mass extinction” depends on clearly demonstrating that current extinction rates are far above the “background” rates prevailing between the five previous mass extinctions.
Earlier estimates of extinction rates have been criticized for using assumptions that might overestimate the severity of the extinction crisis. We assess, using extremely conservative assumptions, whether human activities are causing a mass extinction.
First, we use a recent estimate of a background rate of 2 mammal extinctions per 10,000 species per 100 years (that is, 2 E/MSY), which is twice as high as widely used previous estimates.
We then compare this rate with the current rate of mammal and vertebrate extinctions. The latter is conservatively low because listing a species as extinct requires meeting stringent criteria.
Even under our assumptions, which would tend to minimize evidence of an incipient mass extinction, the average rate of vertebrate species loss over the last century is up to 100 times higher than the background rate.
[Others report: The rapid loss of species we are seeing today is estimated by experts to be between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate.]
Under the 2 E/MSY background rate, the number of species that have gone extinct in the last century would have taken, depending on the vertebrate taxon, between 800 and 10,000 years to disappear.
These estimates reveal an exceptionally rapid loss of biodiversity over the last few centuries, indicating that a sixth mass extinction is already under way.
Averting a dramatic decay of biodiversity and the subsequent loss of ecosystem services is still possible through intensified conservation efforts, but that window of opportunity is rapidly closing…
HWH Comment: It appears now that human rights groups want the world to pity migrants who hijack ships on the open seas after they’re compassionately rescued, hold the crew members prisoners then redirect the ship on a course of their choosing. Do you think a better way could be found to freedom than risking landing in a foreign prison to be beaten, raped and tortured?
These aren’t desperate people; they’re opportunistic terrorists who would commit an international crime with no remorse or concern for the people who compassionately rescued them. They were rescued, then hijacked the ship anyway and then complained that several ships passed their rickety boat by before the ship they hijacked picked them up.
Tanker hijacked by rescued migrants arrives safely in Malta
By STEPHEN CALLEJA and COLLEEN BARRY
3/28/2019
Armed forces stand onboard the Turkish oil tanker El Hiblu 1, which was hijacked by migrants, in Valletta, Malta, Thursday March 28, 2019.
A Maltese special operations team on Thursday boarded a tanker that had been hijacked by migrants rescued at sea, and returned control to the captain, before escorting it to a Maltese port.
VALLETTA, Malta (AP) — A Maltese special operations team on Thursday boarded a tanker that had been hijacked by migrants rescued at sea, and returned control to the captain before escorting it to a Maltese port.
Armed military personnel stood guard on the ship’s deck, and a dozen or so migrants were also visible, as the Turkish oil tanker El Hiblu 1 docked at Boiler Wharf in the city of Senglea. Several police vans were lined up on shore to take custody of the migrants for investigation, and four migrants were led off the ship in handcuffs.
Authorities in Italy and Malta on Wednesday said that the group had hijacked the vessel after it rescued them in the Mediterranean Sea, and forced the crew to put the Libya-bound vessel on a course north toward Europe.
Italy’s interior minister, Matteo Salvini, said the ship had rescued about 120 people and described what happened as “the first act of piracy on the high seas with migrants” as the alleged hijackers. Malta has put the number of migrants rescued at 108.
Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said on Twitter that the nation’s armed forces had conducted a “sensitive operation on high seas.”
“We do not shirk responsibility despite our size,” he said, pledging to follow international rules.
The ship had been heading toward Italy’s southernmost island of Lampedusa and the island nation of Malta when Maltese forces intercepted it.
Maltese armed forces established communications with the captain while the ship was still 30 nautical miles off shore. The captain said he was not in control of the vessel “and that he and his crew were being forced and threatened by a number of migrants to proceed to Malta,” the armed forces said. No details were given of what force and threats were used.
The special team that restored control to the captain was backed by a patrol vessel, two fast interceptor craft and a helicopter.
There was no immediate word on the condition of El Hiblu 1′s crew.
Humanitarian organizations say that migrants are mistreated and even tortured in Libya, and have protested protocols to return migrants rescued offshore to the lawless northern African nation. Meanwhile, both Italy and Malta have refused to open their ports to humanitarian ships that rescue migrants at sea, which has created numerous standoffs as European governments haggle over which will take them in.
While Italy’s interior minister called the hijacking an act of piracy, the humanitarian group Sea Watch disputed that term, saying the actions “were in self-defense against the deadly consequences forced upon them by Europe’s inhumane border policy.”
A private group that operates a rescue ship and monitors how governments treat migrants, Mediterranea, urged compassion for the group on the hijacked vessel and said it hoped European countries would act “in the name of fundamental rights, remembering that we are dealing with human beings fleeing hell.”
Mass migration to Europe has dropped sharply since 2015, when the continent received 1 million refugees and migrants from countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. The surge created a humanitarian crisis in which desperate travelers frequently drowned and leading arrival spots such as Italy and Greece struggled to house large numbers of asylum-seekers.
Along with the dangerous sea journey itself, those who attempt to cross the Mediterranean risk being stopped by Libya’s coast guard and held in Libyan detention centers that human rights groups have described as bleak places where migrants allegedly suffer routine abuse.
EU members “alert the Libyan coast guard when refugees and migrants are spotted at sea so they can be taken back to Libya, despite knowing that people there are arbitrarily detained and exposed to widespread torture, rape, killings and exploitation,” said Matteo de Bellis, an international migration researcher for Amnesty International.
European Union member countries, responding to domestic opposition to welcoming immigrants, have decided to significantly downscale an EU operation in the Mediterranean, and have decided in principle to withdraw their ships, which would mean continuing the mission with air surveillance only. A formal decision has to be made by Sunday, when the mission mandate expires.
“This shameful decision has nothing to do with the needs of people who risk their lives at sea, but everything to do with the inability of European governments to agree on a way to share responsibility for them,” de Bellis said.
Commercial ships have been increasingly caught between European governments hostile to taking in new migrants and the international maritime law’s obligation to save people at sea.
Last November, dozens of migrants of a variety of nationalities seized control of a container ship that had picked them up in the Mediterranean, barricading themselves inside and refusing to disembark in the Libyan port of Misrata. After 10 days, Libyan authorities forcibly removed them from the ship and brought them to a detention center.
During the standoff, several migrants on the vessel told the AP that six commercial ships had seen their rickety boat foundering but passed them by before they were picked up by the seventh.
____
Barry reported from Milan. Lori Hinnant in Paris, Lorne Cooke in Brussels and Vanessa Gera in Rome also contributed.
SYDNEY (AP) — The gunman behind at least one of the mosque shootings in New Zealand that left 49 people dead on Friday tried to make a few things clear in the manifesto he left behind: He is a 28-year-old Australian white nationalist who hates immigrants. He was set off by attacks in Europe that were perpetrated by Muslims. He wanted revenge, and he wanted to create fear.
He also, quite clearly, wanted attention.
Though he claimed not to covet fame, the gunman — whose name was not immediately released by police — left behind a 74-page document posted on social media under the name Brenton Tarrant in which he said he hoped to survive the attack to better spread his ideas in the media.
He also livestreamed to the world in graphic detail his assault on the worshippers at Christchurch’s Al Noor Mosque.
That rampage killed at least 41 people, while an attack on a second mosque in the city not long after killed several more. Police did not say whether the same person was responsible for both shootings.
While his manifesto and video were an obvious and contemptuous ploy for infamy, they do contain important clues for a public trying to understand why anyone would target dozens of innocent people who were simply spending an afternoon engaged in prayer.
There could be no more perplexing a setting for a mass slaughter than New Zealand, a nation so placid and so isolated from the mass shootings that plague the U.S. that even police officers rarely carry guns.Yet the gunman himself highlighted New Zealand’s remoteness as a reason he chose it. He wrote that an attack in New Zealand would show that no place on earth was safe and that even a country as far away as New Zealand is subject to mass immigration.He said he grew up in a working-class Australian family, had a typical childhood and was a poor student. A woman who said she was a colleague of his when he worked as a personal trainer in the Australian city of Grafton said she was shocked by the allegations against him.
“I can’t … believe that somebody I’ve probably had daily dealings with and had shared conversations and interacted with would be able of something to this extreme,” Tracey Gray told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Beyond his white nationalistic ideals, he also considers himself an environmentalist and a fascist who believes China is the nation that most aligns with his political and social values. He has contempt for the wealthiest 1 percent. And he singled out American conservative commentator Candace Owens as the person who had influenced him the most.In a tweet, Owens responded by saying that if the media portrayed her as the inspiration for the attack, it had better hire lawyers.
Throughout the manifesto, the theme he returns to most often is conflict between people of European descent and Muslims, often framing it in terms of the Crusades.
He wrote that the episode that pushed him toward violence took place in 2017 while he was touring through Western Europe. That was when an Uzbek man drove a truck into a crowd of people in Stockholm, killing five. The Australian was particularly enraged by the death of an 11-year-old Swedish girl in the attack.
He said his desire for violence grew when he arrived in France, where he became enraged by the sight of immigrants in the cities and towns he visited.
And so he began to plot his attack. Three months ago, he started planning to target Christchurch. He claimed not to be a direct member of any organization or group, though he said he has donated to many nationalist groups. He also claimed he contacted an anti-immigration group called the reborn Knights Templar and got the blessing of Anders Breivik for the attack.
Breivik is a right-wing Norwegian extremist who killed 77 people in Oslo and a nearby island in 2011. Breivik’s lawyer Oeystein Storrvik told Norway’s VG newspaper that his client, who is in prison, has “very limited contacts with the surrounding world, so it seems very unlikely that he has had contact” with the New Zealand gunman.
The gunman had a long wish list for what he hoped the attack would achieve. He hoped it would reduce immigration by intimidating immigrants. He hoped to drive a wedge between NATO and the Turkish people. He hoped to further polarize and destabilize the West. And he hoped to create more conflict over gun laws in the U.S., thus leading to a civil war that would ultimately result in a separation of races.
Though he claimed not to be a Nazi, in the video he livestreamed of the shooting the number 14 is seen on his rifle. That may be a reference to the “14 Words,” a white supremacist slogan attributed in part to Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. He also used the symbol of the Schwarze Sonne, or black sun, which “has become synonymous with myriad far-right groups who traffic in neo-Nazi,” according to the center.
His victims, he wrote, were chosen because he saw them as invaders who would replace the white race. He predicted he would feel no remorse for their deaths. And in the video he livestreamed of his shooting, no remorse can be seen or heard. Instead, he simply says: “Let’s get this party started.”
Then he picks up his gun, storms into the mosque, and cuts down one innocent life after another.
When it is over, he climbs back into his car, where he has left his music playing — the song “Fire” by the English rock band The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. And right after the singer bellows, “I am the god of hellfire!” the gunman drives away.
HWH Comment: How about instead of a news outlet telling us what he wrote and what it meant, let the public see what he wrote, and let each individual use their own brains to figure out what he meant. This article so far seems to be more about Jews wanting him to be a Nazi. If you’re not sure, then don’t put it out there.
Netanyahu’s comments have shattered that illusion.
His comments that the country belongs to ‘Jewish people alone’ strike to the heart of the nature of Israel.
Ben White The Independent Voices
Netanyahu is desperate, in the face of an electoral challenge from former military chiefs of staff as well as the looming indictments for corruption allegations ( EPA )
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was back in the headlines on Sunday, after declaring on social media that “Israel is not a state of all its citizens”. The Likud leader later doubled down, telling his cabinet that Israel is “the nation state not of all its citizens, but only of the Jewish people”.
Netanyahu’s comments are the latest grim episode in an election season that will see Israelis going to the polls on 9 April. Just last month, the prime minister helped engineer an election merger that could see far-right party Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) enter the Knesset.
That latter piece of realpolitik in particular prompted outrage from a number of Israeli politicians, analysts and even US-based groups better known for their Israel advocacy. According to the critics, Netanyahu’s boosting of the far-right and indulging of racist rhetoric endangers Israeli democracy.
Netanyahu is desperate, in the face of an electoral challenge from former military chiefs of staff as well as the looming indictments for corruption allegations. But recent developments are not just about motivating a right-wing base – the problem goes much deeper than an embattled demagogue.Netanyahu’s election manoeuvres offer an opportunity to shine a spotlight on an uncomfortable truth: namely that only under the most superficial definition can Israel be considered a democracy.
Consider the following:
Millions of Palestinians are subjected to a military regime which, for 52 years, has facilitated the establishment of illegal settlements. Settlers are Israeli citizens, and vote. The Palestinians they live among – whose land the settlers inhabit and colonise – are not.
The April elections will lead to the formation of Israel’s 35th government. Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip began during Israel’s 13th government.
Those Palestinians who do have Israeli citizenship, meanwhile, are very much second-class citizens – as Netanyahu has been at pains to emphasize.
Yes, the Jewish Nation-State law passed last year is significant in that regard, defining Israel as “the national home of the Jewish people”, and asserting that “the right to exercise national self-determination in the state of Israel is unique to the Jewish people”.
But the legislation was consistent with de jure and de facto discrimination going back to the very foundation of the state of Israel.As conflict studies scholar Nadim Rouhana wrote in 2010, “there are few honest observers in Israel who dispute that a Jewish state, by definition, privileges one group of citizens over another”.
This is an inequality “expressed in various ways, including in Israel’s Basic Laws and its laws of land control, immigration and resource distribution” – as documented by Palestinian citizens themselves, as well as international NGOs and human rights experts.
Finally – and this is regrettably rarely taken into account – there are millions of Palestinians who, expelled from their homes in the 1948 Nakba and prevented from returning ever since, are denied their rightful citizenship and thus suffrage…
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump announced Saturday he would soon sign an executive order requiring colleges and universities to support free speech if they want federal resources.
Trump is highlighting concerns from some conservatives that their voices were being censored, whether on social media or at the nation’s universities. He did not go into more detail about what the order would say, but his comments immediately drew scrutiny from those who noted that public research universities already have a constitutional obligation to protect free speech.
“An executive order is unnecessary as public research universities are already bound by the First Amendment, which they deeply respect and honor,” said Peter McPherson, president of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities. “It is core to their academic mission.”
Trump invited Hayden Williams to join him Saturday while he addressed activists attending the Conservative Political Action Conference. Williams was punched Feb. 19 while on the campus of University of California, Berkeley. He was recruiting for the conservative group Talking Points USA.Two men approached and one punched him during a confrontation captured on student cellphones. University of California, Berkeley police arrested a suspect, Zachary Greenberg, on Friday.Williams, who had a black eye, told Fox News that the men objected to a sign that said “Hate Crime Hoaxes Hurt Real Victims.”
Neither Williams nor Greenberg are affiliated with UC Berkeley.Trump told the audience Saturday that Williams “took a hard punch in the face for all of us.” Meanwhile, Williams said many conservative students face “discrimination, harassment or worse if they dare speak up on campus.”
Trump offered no details about what the executive order might say about what has become a thorny issue on college campuses…
HWH COMMENT: It’s unfortunate that one would need to use an Executive Order to establish and maintain a climate of free speech in any institution in the USA. But that’s an example of how the Constitution is being trampled on by those who can’t and won’t tolerate opposing views. It happens all over social media. People are not only abused and intimidated but the perpetrators are encouraged by Facebook employees by turning a blind eye to offenders and in many cases Facebook employees are the perpetrators of hateful actions toward the people whose opinions they disagree with.
It appears that the very people who preach tolerance to everybody else are the most intolerant of everybody else’s views, unless they’re the same as theirs.
If they even suspect that someone is a Trump supporter or a supporter of any of his policies, the target gets brutally threatened, verbally assaulted and gutted by Facebook trolls. Facebook knows who these trolls are and lets them operate with impunity, siding with the bullies and the deniers of free speech, while punishing the victims with threats of hate crime prosecution when they defend themselves against the perpetrators.
When Facebook calls your response hate speech, which is a hate crime, that implies prosecutorial action, which suggests that Facebook is impersonating law enforcement to silence opposing views. Facebook should not have a view. It is not the place of Facebook computer programmers and workers to be punishing anybody for their political and social views – or any views – on anything.
HWH COMMENTARY: This segment is a perfect example of how CNN and black Africans explain Don Lemon’s racism against white people. “It’s true”, is their defense.
Well, it’s also true that some black Africans exhibit ape/monkey motor behavior. When walking, talking, singing they bend over and sway their arms back and forth and raise one arm at a time to their chests. The guy who sang at the Super Bowl halftime show did it – a lot. It’s not racist to point that out. It’s interesting. Drunk black Africans do it even more. It’s a little weird walking into a predominately black African drinking place to see the movement all around you, if you’re not used to it. They pound the bar a lot too, for attention. Males do it more often than females.
Whites also mimic blacks who do it, especially in the entertainment world. Even some women, especially Hispanic. They’re bringing their crotches into the songs or the talk. They spread their legs like monkeys do and start shaking their stuff with their hands.
We have senses for the purpose of observation – for recognition purposes. For example, reading is an observation exercise. Read this book with your eyes, then remove the book and we’re going to test what you read. Color the dot within the circle – another observational exercise.
If you don’t want me to observe that you dyed your hair blonde, then why do it? People pretty much walk, talk, move, dress, act to leave impressions in the minds of those who observe them – or to influence positively or negatively or anywhere in-between those they encounter in person, through the media, through gossip even.
If you don’t want me to look at your bare breasts, then why bare them? That’s the point – to rattle you, to shock you, to peak your interest, to distract you.
If you don’t want me to look at your bare ass, when you’re walking in front of me, then pull your pants up so I don’t have to look. Oh well, ‘you don’t have to look’, but everybody knows that people look at what is uncommon. Or what is sensual or sexual or grotesque or beautiful.
Powers of observation – very important to remember. It’s part of being an animal. We survive and thrive based on our observational skills. No justice no peace means war if black Africans aren’t allowed revenge when a police officer shoots a black person pretending to have a gun. Burning cities, businesses means war. War means death to white people.
War chants are terror tactics black Africans in America use to oppress white people – the white guy – as Don Lemon and Barak Obama famously refer to them. The Don Lemons and Barak Obamas of the world group all whites together. Or all men. Well, all white men are not the same. Oh, far right, extremist white men. Not many of those around blowing up towers. But they’re keeping Border People approaching the border from illegally crossing. Not that I’ve seen. Thousands of people got tuckered out Lemon says, so didn’t even try to cross? They didn’t walk the thousands of miles that Lemon claimed they did. They were driven. They only walked when the cameras were on or when stopping for breakfast, lunch, dinner and for the night – to sleep.
Don Lemon who was giving his own biased belief, was probably drunk when he said it, then CNN had to scramble to keep him on the show. The guy’s a train wreck.
Antifa (People against Fascism aka proanarchism) are mostly rich white non-observant Jews’ kids. Not many people with pick-up trucks in that crowd, who break protest laws, cover their faces with hoods, carry large burning torches, flame throwers. Toss police cruisers. Terrorize a nation in support of black Africans who break laws. They’re about as left-leaning as you get. They incite mob behavior and anybody watching the behavior – it’s all over the television. “A good cop is a dead cop”.
Maybe those white cops shouldn’t go out next time there’s a domestic violence call coming from the home of a rich and famous black person who paints all white people with the same brush. Transparent paint is what they use, because whites don’t have a color according to people of color. That tells the story right there.
Black Africans in America strip all white people of their color as a strategy to remove their power by removing their skin, after they take their souls, their hearts and now their observational senses. The purpose is to turn the white people black – or kill them, whichever benefits them the most.
It was true that recent gun violence could be attributed to white males, but their political or religious affiliation didn’t cause the strikes. They were popped. Probably by the media – that’s the source of most popping these days.
Don Lemon says things that even silly white people wouldn’t say. I’m not really sure where he gets his commentary. I do know that had a white commentator said that about blacks in America they would have been fired, even though most gun violence is perpetrated by blacks and many blacks have murdered many white police officers. You have to be careful when accusing white people that you get the correct group. Not all white people are the same.
Jews want to be considered a race, so many of those so-called white people were actually white Jews.
“…WHITE OFFICERS ARE NO MORE LIKELY TO USE LETHAL FORCE AGAINST MINORITIES THAN NONWHITE OFFICERS.”
Researchers looked at every use of deadly force by officers across the United States and discovered that the killing of black suspects is a police problem, not a white police problem. Further, the killing of unarmed suspects of any race is extremely rare. (https://www.futurity.org/police-killings-african-americans-1836722/)
The main topic of the show in question was not “WHO POSES THE GREATEST TERROR THREAT IN AMERICA TODAY?” Don Lemon morphed it into the only topic that everybody was talking about the next day.
There are shootings all over the USA everyday. Yet, he picked this one supermarket killing by a white male to point out to the world that the greatest threat to America today is white men. That was prejudicial, since he has no proof of the future threat. His anti-white republican guy feelings were hanging out all over the world stage.
The reason why white people get fired and metaphorically dismembered before the world and black people don’t for engaging in the same behavior is because white people don’t fight back; they’re not going to burn cities and terrorize a nation over it. So the intelligence agencies make a decision to feed a few high profile white people to the blacks to chew up as an appeasement tool. The CIA knows that white people will take the unequal, unfair punishment, just because they’re built that way.
Tables can, and as history has proven, turn. The white guys, as the black racists like to call them, will fight back and those white guys who fed the blacks their white meat dinners will be first on the menu.
Violence isn’t the white person’s first line of defense like it is with black people. Generally speaking.
White people don’t identify with their color. There’s no such thing as a white group of brothers and sisters that compares with a black group, even though worldwide whites are a minority race. Even the neo-Nazis aren’t on anybody’s ‘hang out with’ list, except other neo-Nazis. Nobody hangs with Jews, because Jews don’t hang with anybody else. They’re white separatists – in the USA and other English speaking nations. In non-English speaking nations their identity changes. Everywhere Jews populated, you’ll find them.
White people identify with their socio-economic class only to the extent that they share a demographic and frequent the same shops and engage in similar activities. Most white people don’t belong to clubs that focus on their race. There’s no running to a white person or leader or group if a white person has been wronged by a person of a different race. Whites don’t have leaders who tell them what to think, say and do.
Don Lemon said we shouldn’t demonize people, then went right into demonizing white men. Who did he mean by “we”? I guess in his Book of Racial Teachings white men aren’t people.
Don Lemon is a RACE BAITER AND RACIAL INCITER.
By Lindsey Bever November 1, 2018
During a recent segment about a supermarket shooting in Kentucky, CNN host Don Lemon said that “the biggest terror threat in this country is white men.”Lemon was speaking on live television Monday about an incident in which a white man allegedly shot and killed two black people outside a Kroger grocery store in Jeffersontown, Ky., not far from Louisville.
The incident, which is being investigated as a hate crime, occurred during the same week that 13 potential explosive devices were sent to prominent Democratic and media figures across the country and 11 people were killed in a mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. A white man was charged in the latter case.
“I keep trying to point out to people not to demonize any one group or any one ethnicity. But we keep thinking that the biggest terror threat is something else — some people who are marching towards the border like it’s imminent,” Lemon told CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, referring to the Central American migrant caravan walking toward the United States. He added that “the last time they did this, a couple hundred people came and they — most of them didn’t get into the country. Most of them got tuckered out before they even made it to the border.”
“So,” he said, “we have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men, most of them radicalized to the right, and we have to start doing something about them. There is no travel ban on them. There is no ban — you know, they had the Muslim ban. There is no white-guy ban. So what do we do about that?”
On Wednesday, following the backlash, Lemon doubled down.
“Earlier this week, I made some comments about that in a conversation with Chris,” he said during a broadcast Wednesday night. “I said that the biggest terror threat in this country comes from radicals on the far right, primarily white men. That angered some people. But let’s put emotion aside and look at the cold hard facts. The evidence is overwhelming.”
Lemon pointed to a recent Government Accountability Office report that shows that since the 9/11 attacks in 2001, far-right violent extremists have killed 106 people in 62 attacks in the United States, while radical Islamist violent extremists have killed 119 people in 23 attacks.
He also referenced several studies, including a 2017 report from the Nation Institute’s Investigative Fund and the Center for Investigative Reporting’s Reveal, which found that from 2008 to 2016, there were almost twice as many terrorist incidents carried out on U.S. soil by right-wing extremists — many of whom are white — than by Islamist extremists.
It showed there were 115 incidents involving right-wing extremists and that those that ended in death were more deadly than incidents carried out by other groups.
“So people who were angered about what I said are missing the entire point,” Lemon said about his earlier statements. “We don’t need to worry about people who are thousands of miles away. The biggest threats are homegrown. The facts prove that.”
HWH: In reference to terrorism Don Lemon said, “we don’t need to worry about people who are thousands of miles away”.
I guess he slept through 9-11. Or maybe he drank and drugged his way through it. Either way he doesn’t remember that the terrorists who struck the USA on 9-11 all lived thousands of miles away.
Don lemon is an embarrassment to the country and CNN news outlet. How could a news commentator not know that?
Leaky blood vessels in the brain may be an early sign of Alzheimer’s disease, researchers say.
They followed 161 older adults for five years and found that those with the most severe memory declines had the greatest leakage in their brain’s blood vessels, regardless of whether the Alzheimer’s-related proteins amyloid and tau were present.
The findings could help with earlier diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and suggest a new drug target for slowing down or preventing the disease, according to the researchers from the University of Southern California.
“The fact that we’re seeing the blood vessels leaking, independent of tau and independent of amyloid, when people have cognitive [mental] impairment on a mild level, suggests it could be a totally separate process or a very early process,” said study senior author Dr. Berislav Zlokovic. He is director of the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute at the university’s Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles.
“That was surprising, that this blood-brain barrier breakdown is occurring independently,” Zlokovic added in a university news release…
HWH Comment: There are currently 2,208 billionaires in the world today with a combined worth of 9.1 trillion dollars.
Acting on just the dollar amount and not the red tape and cost of liquidating the funds, put them in a large cash vat and equally divided 9.1 trillion dollars among every live human in the world (population 7.6 billion) how much would each person receive in a one-time payment?
1,197.00 (one thousand, one hundred nine-seven dollars)
If you stripped all these morally corrupt individuals of their wealth as punishment for hoarding power through cash and gave them the same 1,197.00 each, how much of a stimulus would 9.1 trillion dollars be to the world economy? Now we’re not making any adjustments here, like people always do, such as giving Africans less because the amount in US. dollars can buy more in many locations. None of that funny business to level the playing field even more.
In most countries it wouldn’t buy much.
It could give each person a hundred dollars a month to buy food for one year around the world. That’s it.
You know, if you keep leveling the playing field we’ll all be back living a step above the cave dwellers.
MEET THE MEMBERS OF THE THREE COMMAS CLUB
Capitalism’s global conquest continues as entrepreneurs around the globe mint fortunes in everything from cryptocurrencies to telecom to bridal dresses. Forbes has pinned down a record 2,208 billionaires from 72 countries and territories including the first ever from Hungary and Zimbabwe.
This elite group is worth $9.1 trillion, up 18% since last year. Their average net worth is a record $4.1 billion. Americans lead the way with a record 585 billionaires, followed by mainland China with 373.
Centi-billionaire Jeff Bezos secures the list’s top spot for the first time, becoming the only person to appear in the Forbes ranks with a 12-figure fortune. Bezos’s fortune leapt more than $39 billion, the list’s biggest one-year gain ever. He moves ahead of Bill Gates, who is now number 2. It is the biggest gap between no. 1 and 2 since 2001.
Bernard Arnault, with a fortune of $72 billion, reclaims the title of richest European for the first time since 2012. There are 259 newcomers including the first ever cryptocurrency billionaires; two Canadians whose toy company is behind Hatchimals and PAW Patrol; two Americans who founded online retailer Wayfair; and a 35-year-old heiress who runs In-N-Out Burger.
Even in such a strong year, 121 dropped out due to falling fortunes or political headwinds, including all 10 Saudi Arabians. Click here for more on Forbes methodology, credits and acknowledgments.THE 2018 LIST…
HWH Commentary: This is shocking if it’s true. No wonder Border People are desperate to be here. The streets really are paved with Gold. But guess who’s paying for the fraud? Yep, the hard-working American living from pay check to pay check. Prices rise on everything, social services go to Hispanics first, then blacks, then white, then Chinese. It’s a discriminatory system. First to apply should be the rule. But social workers and office staff notoriously change dates and alter applications.
My identification was stolen a few years ago and the IRS and Social Security treated me as if I were the criminal. They never would tell me who stole it. They put me through hoops that were all unnecessary.
It’s not a few bad apples. Everyone comes to the USA with a scam in mind. The country is already built. They’re not coming here to build anything but their own bank accounts off the backs of those who work the hardest for the least amount.
It’s the few good ones that we base all our immigration polices on. That’s what gets us into immigration trouble, where we end up with fifteen million (and increasing rapidly) people living in the USA illegally at the tax payers expense.
Don’t let those crocodile tears fool you. They bear children for the purpose of exploiting them, like the Chinese bear them for the purpose of switching kids with their neighbors so they won’t feel guilty eating them.
Animal rights activists wonder why the Chinese and all Oriental Asian Peoples are so emotionally distant from the suffering they or others inflict upon other animals.
Hey, they did it to their own children. They turned the conscience switch off for what they called necessary for survival. How long can a kid last? Depends on the size. Why do you think they put so little meat into their dishes and they cut it up so small? So it’ll last, and so they won’t recognize any feature that resembles who they are. These weren’t cows. But even cows are put into meat grinders so they won’t be recognized as the farmer’s child’s pet, when she eats it.
Asians don’t have cemeteries. They eat their dead. Their stomachs are final resting places.
Indians float their dying families on rafts out in the middle of a body of water without an anchor to finish dying, where only vultures and water animals can eat them, or neighboring tribes up or down stream. Probably some kind of peace offering to the Gods of the animals (including humans) they hunt. They don’t have cemeteries either. All this talk about ancient burial grounds is nonsense.
Where are the Mexican graveyards in USA? Probably in your stomach.
It seems all they’re allowed to do is open Mexican restaurants and employ the whole tribe. Ever hear of a white family opening a Mexican restaurant or Chinese restaurant or Greek or Jewish? That’s discrimination. They only give permits to certain ethnicities to operate certain ethnic restaurants.
I know, I know, they do other work jobs too.
But why only Indians and Pakistanis can own convenience stores? And why does the IRS let them charge beer and wine as grocery? Isn’t that discrimination?
Okay, okay mostly Indians and Pakistanis. It’s like the government decides what immigrants are going to do before they even get here. Or is it the other way around? Why do most immigrants when they get here want to start a small business instead of learn a skill to do something else? Probably because they can employ the whole family who doesn’t speak English. When I grew up there wasn’t anyone I knew who wanted to be a store owner. What would they sell?
Now, every immigrant comes with a dream of hanging out a shingle and selling something. America has too many sellers and not enough buyers as a result.
In Cleveland there’s a restaurant downtown that applied for a permit to serve dog meat on the menu. Word has it that they were denied, but since they’re upscale and entertain out-of-towners and probably visiting foreigners, they know the people to go to for fresh dog meat. They all have back rooms and secrets in the kitchen and after hour parties.
Japanese people (alright, some Japanese people) cook dogs alive by paralyzing them first. They cook them slowly. It’s a sick world we live in. Hey, the Japanese don’t do it as a necessity to survive. They turn that conscience switch off too. Rural people do it. They keep the head of the chicken sticking out of the pot, with the rest of the body of the live chicken bound by the pot so it can’t move while being cooked, then they slowly cook it to death.
“I cooked it to death”. Where do you think that saying comes from? The slow cooking process too – makes the animal more tender.
Hispanics have been scamming people in the USA forever (for as long as most people can remember and before that). It’s how they operate. Mostly? NO, not with this one.
It’s time to bust that operation wide open. Is it so strange that out of all the departments in the government they’d pick the IRS to scam? I mean those IRS people are diligent. They’re ruthless. So how does this go on this long? DRUG MONEY (CARTEL INSURANCE POLICY). They get paid off. Just like south-of-the-border. Drug money is everywhere. Money talks and walks. It’s the most versatile commodity.
Where do the drug lords in the USA do their banking? Come on, they do it somewhere. Where do they launder it? You don’t know and you don’t care, that’s why so many people want to ice ICE and the FBI? If there’s no one to investigate them, they can operate with impunity. Law enforcement is okay with them, because they can more easily own them. Sometimes even they need a cop. They have families; their security force can’t be all places with all family members all the time.
Yeah, all these people who publicly state to eliminate the FBI and ICE have been bought or want to be bought and their public declaration is their first knock on the cartels door.
HWH Comment: The word ‘meat’ does not clearly come from livestock as Sen. Carol Blood claims. Meat has historically been used to refer to many types of plant food. Sen. Carol Blood should focus on turning Nebraska’s animal slaughter industries into plant meat industries or technology or anything other than continuing selling for consumption the atrocities committed against cattle and all other ‘destined for our plate’ animals. She lacks vision, hope, ingenuity and a better plan for the future of Nebraska. I’d say Nebraska needs a better advocate than one who advocates holding onto an industry that’s doomed.
There is no truth in advertising cattle as livestock. They’re deadstock. There is no truth to the claim that animals are on this earth as a food for human consumption. Animals are not food, except in the deviant minds of those who thirst for the blood and flesh of other creatures. Or by those who raise and sell victims of torture and slaughter for profit.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — More than four months after Missouri became the first U.S. state to regulate the term “meat” on product labels, Nebraska’s powerful farm groups are pushing for similar protection from veggie burgers, tofu dogs and other items that look and taste like real meat.
Nebraska lawmakers will consider a bill this year to prevent companies that package and sell food from advertising plant-based, insect-based and lab-grown products as meat. Similar measures are pending in Tennessee, Virginia and Wyoming.
The issue strikes a particularly strong chord in Nebraska, one of the nation’s top states for livestock production, where cars roll down the interstate with “Beef State” license plates and the governor each year proclaims May as “Beef Month.”
Farm groups have found an unusual ally in state Sen. Carol Blood, a city-dwelling vegetarian from the Omaha suburb of Bellevue. Blood, who grew up on a farm, said she introduced the measure because agriculture is Nebraska’s largest industry and needs to be protected for the good of the whole state.“
I’m not bringing this bill to tell people what they can and can’t eat,” she said. “All I’m asking for is truth in advertising. It’s clear that meat comes from livestock, and livestock is our livelihood in Nebraska.”
Nebraska led the nation in commercial red meat production in 2017 and had the most feed cows as of last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Livestock and livestock product sales generated an estimated $12.1 billion for the state’s economy in 2016, according to the USDA’s most recent available data.
The measure is certain to face resistance from food producers that sell plant-based alternatives, as well as those working with the emerging science of meat grown by culturing cells in a lab. Critics say the bill infringes on the free-speech rights of companies that produce vegetarian alternatives to real meat.
The Good Food Institute, the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri, the Animal Legal Defense Fund and plant-based food company Tofurkey have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Missouri law . They argue the law unfairly stifles competition.
The Nebraska bill “would censor food labels and create consumer confusion where there is none,” said Jessica Almy, director of policy for the Washington-based Good Food Institute. “You can’t censor speech just to promote one industry’s financial success.”…
How to be One Step Ahead of Pickpockets in Barcelona
A vibrantly artistic heart, incredible food, better drink and unforgettable nightlife make Barcelona one of Spain, and Europe’s most enticing cities.
Unfortunately the Catalonian capital also bears another, more dubious honour: Barcelona is the pickpocket capital of the world. Spain’s soaring unemployment rate, a wealth of tourist wallets and scarce legal deterrent for petty crimes has created some kind of larcenous perfect storm.
There’s no need to go and cancel your flights. Sure, petty theft could almost number among Barcelona’s leading industries, but the perpetrators are out for easy pickings which, after a few quick tips, won’t be you. Violent crime is also very rare, so as long as you can keep a hand on your wallet you have nothing to fear in Barcelona.
Spotting a Pickpocket – Common Scams in Barcelona – Where They Strike – Protecting Your Belongings – Spotting a Pickpocket
The crooks often work in groups, preying on distracted and disoriented tourists. One hand captures your attention while the other rifles through your bag.
It might seem rude or culturally insensitive to question odd or overly friendly behaviour from strangers while you’re travelling but this is the attitude pickpockets rely on.
Of course you don’t want to be constantly wound up and paranoid when you’re trying to relax. But, if you do feel suspicious, it’s easy to brush your hand over your wallet, pull your bag closer or have a quick look over your shoulder. Don’t be afraid to confront anyone following you either, although there’s no need to get aggressive. If the thieves know you’re onto them they’ll quickly skulk off to await an easier target.
Forewarned is forearmed so if you can recognise a dodgy character or situation you’ll know when to crank up the defences and then you can spend the rest of your holiday being pleasantly distracted.
Common Scams in Barcelona
The Flower Scam
One of the most popular traps involves a couple of unassuming ladies offering you a flower. Don’t take it. The flower is just an excuse for the women to get close and get into your pockets. If you do take it, you’ll soon learn it wasn’t a gift. The women will demand money for it, pestering you for some tiny amount. When you decide it’s worth un centavo to be rid of them, they will kindly reach into your wallet to help you locate the right coin, simultaneously clearing out all your notes.
Obviously letting a stranger put their hands in your wallet isn’t a great idea but these sneaky couples can be very persistent. Even if you don’t take the flower they may grab your hands, urging you to accept it, all the while getting themselves closer to you and your valuables. The best approach is not to acknowledge them at all, don’t slow down or stop. If you do end up with a flower in your hand just drop it on the ground and continue on your way. You might cop a few curses but at least you’ll keep you stuff.
The Pigeon Poo Scam
Another classic trick is for someone to spray paint or milk onto your clothes. A kindly local will quickly approach to tell you about your unfortunate accident and offer to help clean you up. The aim is for you to drop what you’re carrying as you attend to the stain, or for your helpful friend to get his hands into your pockets. If you do find yourself the target of this messy method, politely but firmly refuse any assistance. Keep a tight hold on your possessions and walk away quickly. You can clean yourself up later.
Antifa Website Calls for ‘Slaughter’ of ‘Fascistic Border Patrol Dogs and Their Bosses’
BY DEBRA HEINE SEPTEMBER 21, 2018
In a post Thursday at far-left antifa website Incendiary News, an activist advocated for revolutionaries to rise up and “slaughter” what he called “fascistic Border Patrol dogs and their bosses,” Far Left Watch reported on Friday.
Disturbingly, far-left activists have in recent months become more brazenly militant and violent in their rhetoric on their websites and social media, as PJ Media has documented.
The author of the Incendiary News piece, Ulrike Salazar, likens Border Patrol agents to SS troops who “take away young boys and girls, tear apart families, throw away undesirables into dark and cramped dungeons.
“Then, after decrying all of the so-called atrocities committed by Border Patrol against illegal immigrants, Salazar writes: “This author only hopes that this chapter in American history will also include the moment when revolutionaries rose up with the masses and slaughtered the fascistic Border Patrol dogs and their bosses, slaying them with revolutionary fire and justice.”…
Chinese Scientist Claims to Use Crispr to Make First Genetically Edited Babies
The researcher, He Jiankui, offered no evidence or data to back up his assertions. If true, some fear the feat could open the door to “designer babies.”
A microplate from Chinese scientist He Jiankui’s lab, containing embryos whose genes have been edited. Dr. He’s announcement prompted a statement from a group of 122 scientists condemning his actions as “crazy.”
Ever since scientists created the powerful gene editing technique Crispr, they have braced apprehensively for the day when it would be used to create a genetically altered human being. Many nations banned such work, fearing it could be misused to alter everything from eye color to I.Q.
Now, the moment they feared may have come. On Monday, a scientist in China announced that he had created the world’s first genetically edited babies, twin girls who were born this month.
The researcher, He Jiankui, said that he had altered a gene in the embryos, before having them implanted in the mother’s womb, with the goal of making the babies resistant to infection with H.I.V. He has not published the research in any journal and did not share any evidence or data that definitively proved he had done it.
But his previous work is known to many experts in the field, who said — many with alarm — that it was entirely possible he had.
“It’s scary,” said Dr. Alexander Marson, a gene editing expert at the University of California in San Francisco.
While the United States and many other countries have made it illegal to deliberately alter the genes of human embryos, it is not against the law to do so in China, but the practice is opposed by many researchers there. A group of 122 Chinese scientists issued a statement calling Dr. He’s actions “crazy” and his claims “a huge blow to the global reputation and development of Chinese science.”
If human embryos can be routinely edited, many scientists, ethicists and policymakers fear a slippery slope to a future in which babies are genetically engineered for traits — like athletic or intellectual prowess — that have nothing to do with preventing devastating medical conditions.
While those possibilities might seem far in the future, a different concern is urgent and immediate: safety. The methods used for gene editing can inadvertently alter other genes in unpredictable ways. Dr. He said that did not happen in this case, but it is a worry that looms over the field.
Dr. He made his announcement on the eve of the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong, saying that he had recruited several couples in which the man had H.I.V. and then used in vitro fertilization to create human embryos that were resistant to the virus that causes AIDS. He said he did it by directing Crispr-Cas9 to deliberately disable a gene, known as CCR₅, that is used to make a protein H.I.V. needs to enter cells.
Dr. He said the experiment worked for a couple whose twin girls were born in November. He said there were no adverse effects on other genes…
Vietnam’s dog meat culture clashes with modern tastes
Vietnamese officials in Hanoi have asked residents to stop eating dog meat, citing health and public image concerns. Vendors and enthusiasts now fear a nationwide ban on what they consider to be a traditional delicacy.
Hoang has been eating dog meat since he was young. He can’t imagine there will be a time that he won’t be eating it at least twice a month. However, Vietnamese officials announced in September that dog and cat meat should no longer be served in the inner districts of the capital city Hanoi because it’s offensive to tourists and can spread diseases like rabies.
Dog meat lovers and restaurant owners fear that the government will try to expand the ban and decide to officially forbid eating dog and cat meat entirely.
“I don’t see how they can ban it. The demand is just too high,” Hoang said at a restaurant in Vietnam’s largest metropolis, Ho Chi Minh City.
In a small alley in Ho Chi Minh City, at least four restaurants serve dog meat, or “Thit cho.” People gather around small tables to dine on the canine meat, complementing it with rice wine or beer.
Hoang, who declined to give his full name, is sitting at a table with three good friends. “For us it’s a tradition to eat dog meat. It’s just as normal as eating seafood or chicken,” he told DW.
It’s a point many Vietnamese people make. For them eating dog meat is no different than eating any other type of meat. Additionally, some Vietnamese believe that eating dog meat by the end of the month will help them to get rid of bad luck gathered in the weeks before. It’s why these types of restaurants are always more crowded when the month comes to an end…
…Tradition vs. international image
The Vietnamese government has a different view on things. Officials in Hanoi say that eating dog meat is damaging the reputation and image of the capital city. They also say that eating the meat could lead to a deadly rabies infection.
In Ho Chi Minh City, authorities are also taking a tougher stand. In September, the city’s largest dog meat market was raided. According to Vietnamese state media, many vendors were fined and a large amount of raw dog meat was confiscated because it came from unknown sources. In Vietnam dogs are often stolen from pet lovers and then sold to restaurants.
Mr. Chien, who didn’t want to give his full name, has been selling dog meat for 10 years in Ho Chi Minh City. He said that pressure on him and his colleagues has grown in the past five years. He needs to be very transparent about where his dog meat comes from.
“All the meat I’m selling comes from a qualified supplier,” he told DW. “I have all the papers and licenses that are necessary. Society has been looking down on us, so I need to have my business as clean as possible,” he added.
His restaurant is a popular establishment in the city. Each month he attracts about 1,000 customers, whom altogether eat about 100 dogs per month. “It’s a business. If there’s demand, then there is supply,” Chien said.
An estimated 5 million dogs are consumed every year in Vietnam. Only China, where roughly 20 million dogs are consumed every year, eats more of “man’s best friend.”
Animal rights activists support a ban on dog meat. They have been campaigning for years to get the controversial dish removed from menus, pointing out that the slaughter of dogs and cats is brutal and that Vietnamese people often fear for the safety of their pets.
Mr. Chien is aware of the resistance to dog meat. He said he will stop selling it if the government issues a ban – but he doubts it will go that far. “I think it’s a tradition that’s been here too long to ban it entirely.”
HWH COMMENT: It’s hard to believe that massive numbers of people living in the twenty-first century, still try to marginalize and demonize women of child bearing age. Menstruating women are evil? Where does that even come from? And why on earth would half the human population of such countries go along with it? And even now that the ban against menstruating women in temples has been lifted, the men and many women won’t abide by it.
Do you know what happens when these anti-women-minded people flock to the USA? They bring that sexist culture with them. They are not here to assimilate. They don’t like American values, unless they benefit the men in their cultures. The women get more of the same, no matter where they reside. They are here to make more money. Oddly, most of the women embrace the same sexist mores as their male counterparts embrace.
The article states, “some religious figures consider menstruating women to be impure”. Just stop it. It’s part of their culture to denigrate women – all women. Menstruation is just an excuse to keep the men and women separate. Oh, I see. If a woman is menstruating, then she can’t get pregnant, so let us all separate the women from the men during these years, so they won’t be tempted by the devil leaving open a door to allow for adultery absent consequences. Yes, that solves that problem. It’s not the woman’s fault. It’s the devil leaving her open like that. So we keep the men away – as long as the devil is with her. But they need to go to temple to talk business. Then we keep the women away. They belong home anyway.
Nice try. Whoa, how long did that go on? Thousands of years? I’m losing my optimism about the future, given it takes so long for people even to recognize a wrong, much less remedy it.
Some religious figures consider menstruating women to be impure. But the court ruled 4-1 the practice of excluding women cannot be regarded as an essential religious practice. The temple argued the celibate nature of Sabarimala temple’s presiding deity Lord Ayyappa was protected by India’s Constitution.
The top court’s verdict is part a string of recent rulings that recognize more rights of women, challenging deeply conservative Indian society. On Thursday, it scrapped a law which did not allow wives to bring criminal charges against adulterous husbands.
Chief Justice Dipak Misra in part of Friday’s judgment said devotion could not be discriminatory and a patriarchal notion could not trump equality in devotion. “Religion cannot be the cover to deny women the right to worship. To treat women as children of a lesser God is to blink at constitutional morality,” he said.
Rahul Eswaran, an attorney for the temple, said its management would seek a review of the court’s decision. It noted girls and women of other ages were allowed in the temple without restrictions. Chhavi Methi, a women’s rights activist, hailed the court verdict, but said its acceptance by temple authorities remained to be seen.
“I am doubtful the temple authorities would take it in the right spirit. Women would accept it, but its implementation might pose a problem,” she said.
Sabarimala is surrounded by mountains and dense forests in its location at the Periyar Tiger Reserve in southern Kerala state. Up to 50 million devotees visit the temple every year.
Several temples across India have banned women, saying it is intended to preserve the purity of their shrines. The operators of a temple in Rajasthan state believe Hindu god Kartikeya curses women who enter the temple, instead of blessing them…
