Society's ChildS


Sherlock

FBI investigating death of Breonna Taylor, killed by police in no-knock raid at her Louisville home

breonna taylor
The FBI is now investigating the death of Breonna Taylor, who was killed by police during a raid at her home in Louisville, Kentucky.

Taylor, 26, was at home with her boyfriend on March 13 when three plainclothes officers with the Louisville Metro Police Department arrived to execute a search warrant in a drug case. The couple thought their home was being broken into, according to a lawsuit from Taylor's family.

The FBI's Louisville branch announced Thursday that it was investigating the shooting after numerous media requests.

"The FBI will collect all facts and evidence and will ensure that the investigation is conducted in a fair, thorough, and impartial manner," the statement said.

Cow

It's the 'End of Meat', so shut up & drink the oil: NYT tries to browbeat its readers into a plant diet

meat counter supermarket
© Reuters / Adrees LatifA man sporting a face mask looks toward beef in the meat section of a Costco warehouse club in Webster, Texas, May 5, 2020
Supermarket shelves are empty and slaughterhouses are cesspits of disease. With the coronavirus breaking supply chains, the New York Times has proclaimed the 'End of Meat'. Why do these people only deal in absolutes?

"Meat comes with uniquely wonderful smells and tastes," author Jonathan Safran Foer wrote in the New York Times on Thursday, "with satisfactions that can almost feel like home itself."

Yet, he continued, these satisfactions won't be with us much longer. Raising livestock is bad for the environment, slaughterhouse workers are getting sick in record numbers, factory farming is cruel and inhumane, and vegetarianism is healthier and cheaper. And, because this is the New York Times, a meat-based diet is also racist, given the fact that the workers who prepare America's steaks and sausages are overwhelmingly black and brown.

Comment: Excellent arguments by Dockery, but he misses the most important one of all. A plant-based "diet" is a recipe for rampant malnutrition. If the elite were looking for a unobtrusive way to knock off a large portion of the population, an immune system-weakening diet would be the way to go. Couple that with system-wrecking vaccines and the stress of modern society, and voila, the job is done.


Heart - Black

'Had to be a f**king American': Hidden camera captures US cop's 'disturbing' traffic stop meltdown

Connecticut State Trooper Matthew Spina
© Connecticut State PoliceConnecticut State Trooper Matthew Spina
A Connecticut state trooper has been placed on administrative leave in connection to a May 18 traffic stop after a hidden camera recording of the scene in question showed the trooper exhibiting "disturbing" behavior toward a man, according to the state police.

While police officers are trained to de-escalate situations, Connecticut State Trooper Matthew Spina exhibited limited knowledge of the tactic during a potentially career-changing traffic stop at 1:45 p.m. local time on Monday in the town of Westbrook.
Within the first several seconds of the footage, Spina is overheard reprimanding a driver after the man inquires about why the officer was following dangerously close to another motorist on Connecticut's I-95. While Spina is clearly annoyed by the line of questioning, he tells the man "buh-bye," but then doubles back to demand the man hand over marijuana that is presumably in plain view.
The scene quickly escalates after the man challenges the order and claims he has a medical marijuana license - which does exist in the state of Connecticut, but the ingestion of the substance remains outlawed in moving vehicles. It's not clear whether the driver was actively using the marijuana referenced by Spina.

Star of David

Effort to blame BDS for anti-Semitism shot down by facts

marathon Gaza human rights
© ActiveStillsA participant in the Palestine Marathon runs with a sign urging support for a boycott of Israel, to help Palestinians secure their rights, in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, 22 March 2019.
The campaign by Israel and its lobby to smear their critics as anti-Semites goes back decades.

But in recent years, this tactic has intensified its breach of all bounds of decency and regard for the truth.

Among the more egregious examples have been the attempts to shift blame for the murders of Jews by neo-Nazis onto the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement for Palestinian rights.

For instance, after a white supremacist's shooting rampage that killed one person at a synagogue in Poway, California, in April 2019, the Zionist Organization of America and other Israel advocates tried to implicate Students for Justice in Palestine and other campus critics of Israel - who had absolutely nothing to do with the attack and who had never attacked any Jewish institutions whatsoever.

Comment: The ADL is Israel's hand-wringing public image. There are more insidious organizations such as Canary Mission and CAMERA, that actively, viciously target those same BDS groups, especially the campus-based ones.


Brick Wall

Liberate London from lockdown now

empty london street lockdown
I know good news is not allowed in coronavirus Britain. Instead we're all meant to cower before the death stats, fume at photos of people on beaches, and nod along as Piers Morgan bursts yet another blood vessel over what a calamitous PM Boris is.

Pessimism is your highest duty in this strange, fearful nation we have become. Optimism is tantamount to thoughtcrime. How else to explain YouTube's disgraceful decision to take down a video interview with Karol Sikora, the perky professor of medicine whose reason and hopefulness on the Covid crisis has helped to keep me, and many others I'm sure, sane over these past three weeks. Confidence in humanity must not be tolerated!

Well, sod it. Here's some good news. Look away now, Piers. The virus is disappearing from London.

Comment: See also:


Info

Trump is racist? Pastor Darrell Scott says Trump is the most pro-black president he's seen in his lifetime

Pastor Darrell Scott
Pastor Darrell Scott praised President Trump's relationship with the black community during a roundtable event on Thursday, dubbing him the most pro-black president he's seen in his lifetime.

"I've lived under 12 presidential administrations," Scott said. "I was born during Eisenhower's administration. This president has been the most pro-black president in my lifetime. When I say 'pro,' I'm saying 'pro' as in proactive. He's been proactive rather than reactive to issues concerning minorities, underserved, and disadvantaged communities than any other president in my lifetime."

Scott joined Trump on a trip to Ypsilanti, Michigan, to discuss the coronavirus pandemic's impact on minority communities during a tour of a Ford manufacturing plant that makes ventilators.

Comment: See also:


NPC

Brave New Normal - Part 2

brave new normal
© South China Morning Post
My columns haven't been very funny recently. This one isn't going to be any funnier. Sorry. Fascism makes me cranky.

I don't mean the kind of fascism the corporate media and the fake Resistance have been desperately hyping for the last four years. God help me, but I'm not terribly worried about a few hundred white-supremacist morons marching around with tiki torches hollering Nazi slogans at each other, or Jewish-Mexican-American law clerks flashing "OK" signs on TV, or smirking schoolkids in MAGA hats.

I'm talking about actual, bona fide fascism, or totalitarianism, if you want to get technical. The kind where governments declare a global "state of emergency" on account of a virus with a 0.2% to 0.6% lethality (and that causes mild, flu-like symptoms, or absolutely no symptoms whatsoever, in over 97% of those infected), locks everyone down inside their homes, suspends their constitutional rights, terrorizes them with propaganda, and unleashes uniformed goon squads on anyone who doesn't comply with their despotic decrees.

Comment: Part 1: Brave New Normal


Attention

Documents: Human sex trafficking charges dropped due to federal agents engaging in sex acts with victims

brad rideout
© Molly Duerig/Howard Center for Investigative Journalism via AP“It was absolutely, morally problematic,” defense attorney Brad Rideout said of behavior by Homeland Security Investigations agents who allegedly participated in sexual acts while investigating possible human trafficking.
The women were forced to live and work in filth and near darkness, the federal agent said, surviving on only the tips they received from performing massages and sexual favors.

Lon Weigand, deputy special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Arizona, described them as "Asian females" who may be sex-trafficking victims. He praised the joint operation between federal agents and local police in western Arizona that led to their rescue and credited "investigative techniques" with helping to crack a "transnational criminal organization."

What Weigand didn't say at that September 2018 press conference - although HSI documents show some supervisors knew - was that federal undercover agents repeatedly paid for and engaged in sex acts with suspected victims.

Comment: Disgusting.


Attention

We are infectious disease experts. It's time to lift the COVID-19 lockdowns

social distancing
© Gavin Young/Postmedia NewsA sign in Calgary’s Olympic Plaza urges social distancing due to COVID-19 on May 20, 2020.
The past two months have shown that with major sacrifices, the community transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus could be slowed down. In Canada, we can rightfully say that we were able to "flatten the curve" to avert a northern Italy or New York City scenario. Now we face the unintended consequences: delays in medical care for non-COVID-19 patients, educational impacts, the looming pandemic of mental-health issues, and massive economic repercussions. Widespread restrictions certainly cannot be sustained until an effective and safe vaccine is widely available, which may not occur for years, if ever. And the virus is unlikely to disappear from Canada or the world any time soon.

Did the lockdown achieve the desired goals? Yes and no. Success in "flattening" the outbreak curve permitted the health-care system to handle the surge in cases safely and to avoid unnecessary deaths. But, we were not successful in protecting the elderly and frail population in nursing homes, where roughly 80 per cent of Canada's deaths occurred. It is important to point out that more than 95 per cent of COVID-19 deaths occurred in those over 60, compared with none under age 20. Protection of the former group deserves the most attention; this will be easier if limited resources are diverted from other, low-risk groups.

In Canada, the individual rate of death from COVID-19 for people under 65 years of age is six per million people, or 0.0006 per cent. This is roughly equivalent to the risk of dying from a motor vehicle accident during the same time period. In other countries where data are available, 0.6-2.6 per cent of deaths in people below age 65 have occurred in people without known underlying health conditions. Although the risk of death is small in this group, ongoing research to discover the critical risk factors for death from COVID-19 in younger age groups must remain a top priority. This will permit us to better protect those at risk, while loosening restrictions for the majority.

Attention

The US birth rate is at its lowest in 35 years

pregnant woman
The birth rate across the U.S. fell to its lowest point in 35 years last year, and experts think that the coronavirus pandemic may cause it to fall even more. What, people don't want to bring a child into a world on the brink of economic collapse in a country governed by a pickled ham? You don't say.


Comment: Even the lowered birthrate is Trumps fault, apparently.


The new statistics were released by the CDC, and though considered preliminary, they're based on a review of more than 99 percent of birth certificates issued last year.

"This unpredictable environment, and anxiety about the future, is going to make women think twice about having children," Dr. Denise Jamieson, chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Emory University, told the AP.

Comment: If this were written by a journalist, who wasn't opposed to doing a little research, the article would have likely pointed out that US birthrates, like those of many western countries, have been in decline for quite some time. It doesn't have anything to do with the coronavirus since it hasn't been with us long enough to affect current birth rates (for that, one would need to either check conception rates or wait 9 months to see if there's a decline in births). It's not Trump, it's not the coronavirus, so why does it seem that birthrates are dropping around the world?

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