Society's ChildS


Putin

Putin named Russia's politician of the year, ahead of PM Mishustin & FM Lavrov, as Navalny & Furgal gain support in annual poll

moscow night
© REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov
A Russian poll has crowned Vladimir Putin as the politician of 2020, backed by 38% of respondents. The head of state beat out Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin (17%) and Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu (15%) to earn the title.

The survey, conducted by the state-funded Russian Public Opinion Research Center (WCIOM), also saw veteran Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (nine percent) and long-tome LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky (seven percent) round out the top five. Compared to 2019, the country's favorite lawmakers remained almost the same, with Mishustin being the only newcomer, replacing his predecessor Dmitry Medvedev, who has dropped out of the leading names.

Of all other political figures, just four received two percent or more of the vote - protest leader Alexey Navalny (four percent), former diplomat Nikolay Platoshkin (two percent), Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin (two percent), and imprisoned former Khabarovsk Region Governor Sergey Furgal. From these four, Navalny and Furgal are notable, given both were elevated into mainstream Russian consciousness this year.

Putin was also the most commonly named person (49 percent) when respondents were asked 'Which politician would you invite to your New Year's celebrations?' with Zhirinovsky and Mishustin coming in second and third place, respectively.

The study was part of WCIOM's annual end-of-year summary, in which respondents are asked to summarize the year in multiple ways. For example, 61 percent of people named 'coronavirus' as word of the year, and 10 percent chose UFC fighter Khabib Nurmagomedov as the leading athlete of 2020.

Megaphone

Tulsi Gabbard: COVID bill is an insult and a slap in the face

tulsi
Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) took to Twitter Monday night to explain why she voted no on the $900 billion COVID relief bill, H.R. 133, rushed through Congress. In the now-viral video, garnering over 1.5 million views, Gabbard explains her rationale for turning down the massive spending bill, joining only one other Democrat, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, in voting "nay."

In the video, Gabbard calls the jamming of H.R. 113 the "height of irresponsibility" since there was "no way anyone in Congress had the opportunity or time to read to know" what was in the bill. She goes on to say that in typical Washington D.C. fashion, provisions had been "snuck into these bills literally in the dark of night without any announcement." This statement comes after several Members of Congress expressed frustration at the prospect of being forced to vote on over 5,500 pages of a bill just a few hours after receiving it.

Handcuffs

Exiled Turkish journalist, whose paper reported on arms sent to Syrian 'rebels', gets 27-year jail term for espionage and aid to terrorism

Can Dundarin
© REUTERS / Tobias SchlieCan Dundarin
A Turkish journalist, whose newspaper reported on an alleged 2014 Turkish intelligence operation to supply arms to anti-government fighters in Syria, was sentenced in absentia to over 27 years in jail.

Can Dundar, the former editor-in-chief of the opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet, was found guilty by an Istanbul court of military espionage and providing material assistance to a terrorist group. He was given 18 years and nine months for publishing state secrets and eight years and nine months for supporting FETO, an organization that Ankara considers terrorist. This amounts to 27 years and six months in total and is less than the 35 years, which prosecutors asked for.

There is little chance that Dundar will see the inside of a Turkish prison anytime soon. He spent over 90 days in custody during his previous trial, but now lives in exile and was tried in absentia. In 2016, Dundar was sentenced to five years and ten months, but managed to leave Turkey as his appeal made it through the court system and has been living in Germany ever since. Berlin refused Turkish requests to extradite him.

Stormtrooper

Authorities in Mexico city employ WRESTLERS to enforce mask wearing in public

mask enforcer
© Twitter/@irapuatogob
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and health authorities in Irapuato, central Mexico, took this advice to the extreme, by deploying a gang of 'lucha libre' fighters to enforce public mask wearing.

In an apparent bid to enforce extreme compliance with mask wearing rules in public, authorities in the central Mexican city of over 380,000 residents, roughly 300km from the capital, decided to, playfully, stomp out the problem of non-compliance.

Footage shared by city hall shows the hell-raising 'health officers' on patrol in the local market square.

In the video, the gang consisting of local lucha libre (wrestling) fighters Lepra, Moco, Gargajo, Costal Clown, and García Jr. can be seen roaming the streets, theatrically, ehem... 'inviting' people to put their masks on properly, including applying their own face shield in the form of a steel chair to the face.

Attention

Prosecutors decline to charge Black Lives Matter militant who ran over Proud Boy in Washington

Shane Moon
Prosecutors have declined to file charges against a Vancouver Black Lives Matter militant who followed the Proud Boys to a bar following a memorial for the Patriot Prayer member who had been murdered by Antifa in Portland — and ran over one of them with his vehicle.

The victim, Shane Moon, as well as other witnesses, say that it was a targeted attack due to his political beliefs. He was placed in intensive care following the attack, as he was bleeding from his brain, sustained damaged to his left temporal lobe, has a concussion and could not remember the impact.

"Court records filed Dec. 11 in Clark County Superior Court, show Charles R. Holliday-Smith, 30, was exonerated, pending further investigation. His bail of $100,000, which had already been posted, was also exonerated," The Columbian reports. "No charges were officially filed against Holliday-Smith, who's also known as Robbie Smith, who had been accused of first-degree assault and hit-and-run resulting in injury."

Attention

Freedom's now a dirty word, safety trumps liberty and we can't have civilized debates: 6 ways that Covid has changed us entirely

woman w mask
© Getty Images/recep-bg
A year of living dangerously with the virus has changed our world, and the way we live, forever. And not always in a good way, especially for those who dislike authoritarianism & cherish hard-won freedoms.

In my 50-odd years on the planet, the hopeful greeting 'Happy New Year!' will never mean so much as it will when the bells chime at midnight on December 31. For billions of people, 2020 was a depressing and sometimes dangerous year that won't be missed.

According to the Johns Hopkins Covid-19 dashboard, there have been 1.7 million deaths from the disease to date. That's a small proportion of the estimated 58 million deaths so far this year from all causes, but the threat of the virus and the damage done by lockdowns has been enormous.

As the year comes to an end, what lessons can we learn from the pandemic? In many ways, this year has brought to the fore a host of trends. Sadly, most are negative, but there are a few silver linings, too.

Comment: What are 'acceptable' causes of death? Wars? Murders? No. It is Coronavirus - a societal ploy met with global acquiescence. Why were we so easily duped? We, the herd, do not fundamentally believe authoritarianism can be eliminated - a blindspot created to assure an authoritarian control of our final destiny.


No Entry

Judge fast-tracked Martin Shkreli's grilling in a case that could get him banned for life from drug industry - and why timing matters

Martin Shkreli
© Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesFinger-pointer Martin Shkreli
Fending off a possible lifetime ban from the pharmaceutical industry, Martin Shkreli must prepare for a two-day deposition inside a federal prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania, where he is serving a seven-year sentence for securities fraud.

The Federal Trade Commission and seven state attorneys general will take turns grilling Shkreli about whether he conspired behind bars to jack up the price of the live-saving drug Daraprim, whose 40-fold price hike earned him the nickname "Pharma Bro" roughly half a decade ago. U.S. District Judge Denise Cote slated his questioning for Jan. 27 and 28, the dates requested by regulators.

Shkreli had wanted the deposition to occur on Feb. 23 and 24, which would have given regulators little time to pursue investigative leads before the close of discovery on Feb. 26. The commission's assistant director Markus Meier told the judge the fast-track would be necessary to keep Shkreli from running out the clock.

"Your Honor allotted each side 140 hours of deposition time, and Plaintiffs have a substantial interest in deposing key witnesses, such as Mr. Shkreli, earlier in the process, so as not to risk running short on time," he wrote on Dec. 18.

During his deposition next month, Shkreli will be a little more than halfway through a sentence expected to expire in September 14, 2023. He has been serving that time after a federal jury in Brooklyn convicted him of what prosecutors called a "Ponzi-like" scheme to defraud investors in his company, Retrophin. Years before that prosecution, Shkreli earned public notoriety for raising the price of Daraprim from $17.50 to $750 per pill. The 4,000-percent hike made for sky-high treatment for toxoplasmosis, a disease common with pregnant women and people with AIDS.

Family

People power! Muscogee County GOP issues local challenge over residency of over 4,000 voters in advance of January senate runoff

muscogee county challenge residency election fraud
© WTVM
The Muscogee County Republican Party is challenging the residency of over 4,000 voters.

Wednesday, the Muscogee County Board of Elections held an emergency meeting on the matter by phone.

The meeting came after a challenge was submitted by Alton Russell on behalf of the Muscogee County GOP, questioning the residency of voters registered in the county for the upcoming January 5 runoff election.

Eye 1

'Health dictatorship': French citizens who refuse Covid-19 jab may be BANNED from public transport under 'Green Passport' plan

France Covid
© Reuters / Charles PlatiauFILE PHOTO: Pedestrians walk amid the spread of Covid-19 in Paris, France.
French citizens who decline to take the coronavirus vaccine will be barred from public transportation, among other places, under a controversial "Green Passport" plan set out in a draft law that's now on its way to parliament.

Gaining the support of Prime Minister Jean Castex's cabinet earlier this week, the bill proposes to deny "access to transport or to some locations, as well as certain activities" to those unable to prove that they received a "preventative treatment" for Covid-19, including a vaccine, or produce a negative virus screening.


Comment: With the faulty PCR tests showing false positives more often than not, that means the average person will be coerced into having the experimental vaccines in order to go about their 'new normal' lives.


The draft bill has been harshly denounced by members of the opposition, with the spokesman of the right-wing National Rally party (RN), Sebastien Chenu, accusing the government of planning a "health dictatorship." RN head Marine Le Pen, meanwhile, blasted the proposed measure as "essentially totalitarian."

Comment: In recent weeks the French government tried to push through a different but similarly totalitarian bill, but, following large protests and an overwhelming public distrust towards it, it was dropped. However a clear pattern has emerged. The Pathocrats are now sufficiently emboldened - and likely leaned upon by higher authorities - so that, even if this bill is defeated, another one will be crafted that enables them to snatch ever more power, and, if history is anything to go by, they won't stop until they get it all: And check out SOTT radio's:


Pumpkin

Dominion Voting Systems' Eric Coomer sues Trump campaign, allies over 'unproven conspiracy theories' of vote-flipping

Eric coomer dominion voting machine ceo
Eric Coomer’s profile as director at Dominion Voting Systems was scrubbed from their website in November 2020
An employee of Dominion Voting Systems has sued President Trump's reelection campaign and several of its surrogates, claiming their promotion of conspiracy theories about him forced him into hiding.

Eric Coomer, Dominion's director of product strategy and security, accuses the defendants of defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Coomer's complaint says he was targeted with death threats and harassment and "untold damage to his reputation as a national expert on voting systems," according to Colorado Public Radio (CPR).

Comment: Soooo, Coomer is upset about being associated with "numerous unproven conspiracy theories that it was used to flip votes from Trump to President-elect Joe Biden@ ?

Really.

Matt Braynard, Bobby Piton and Ron (@codemonkeyz), all accomplished mathematicians and statisticians, beg to differ on the point of 'unproven conspiracy theories'. Samples of each of their findings: