Society's ChildS

Handcuffs

'Nothing lawful in those barracks': 7 Italian police officers arrested over drug trafficking & torture

italian police
© Reuters / Guglielmo Mangiapane
Italy has been shocked by a massive scandal in the wake of the arrest of seven Carabinieri officers suspected of being involved in a series of crimes ranging from drug trafficking to unlawful arrests and torture.

In an unprecedented move, prosecutors in the northern Italian city of Piacenza closed down and sequestered the local Carabinieri barracks as part of an investigation against officers operating from it. Six local officers were taken into custody and one put under house arrest.

"Nothing that was going on in those barracks was legal," Piacenza Chief Prosecutor Grazia Pradella told journalists. Only one officer working there was not involved in what Pradella described as "shocking crimes."

Pistol

'War zone': 14 injured in crossfire as Chicago funeral attendees fire back at drive-by shooters

Chicago Police crime scene
© Reuters / Jim YoungFILE PHOTO.
Fourteen people have been injured in a shooting at a funeral home in Chicago, Illinois, according to police. The incident saw an exchange of gunfire between attendees and the assailants, who fled the scene and remain at large.

The incident unfolded on Tuesday evening in Chicago's Auburn Gresham community on the South Side, where police superintendent Eric Carter said more than a dozen people were shot outside a funeral home, noting that the victims are being treated at 5 different area hospitals.

Comment: There was another shooting several hours after the one above. See:

3yo girl shot in Chicago after bloody funeral parlor shootout
A three-year-old girl was seriously injured early Wednesday morning in Chicago, not long after a bloody shootout outside a South Side funeral home left 15 people injured. No arrests have been made in either incident.

The toddler was shot in the head around 12:45am local time on Wednesday morning as her parents drove down East 74th Street, also receiving scratches to the eye - possibly from broken glass caused by the bullets shattering the car window, police told local media.

Two suspects are said to have fired in the direction of the car from the street corner. Their identities remain unknown, and no one has been arrested in connection with the shooting. Additionally, police are unsure of the intended target of the attack.

The incident took place just hours after a mass shooting outside a South Side funeral home on Tuesday night left 15 people injured after mourners fired back at the shooter's vehicle. The funeral, in a sad irony, was for the victim of another shooting last week in the city's Englewood neighborhood. A police car was present due to the large number of people attending the funeral, but this apparently didn't deter the attackers - whose identities remain unknown - from shooting up the mourners.

No arrests have been made in connection with the violence, police said in a Tuesday night press conference, but one person has been taken in for questioning. They reported one victim was in "extremely critical condition" and another was in critical condition, while the rest are expected to recover.

Chicago, which has some of the strictest gun laws in the US, also has one of the country's highest murder rates. More than 63 people were shot over the weekend in the city, 12 of them fatally, a pattern that is increasingly being echoed in other cities across the nation.

President Donald Trump recently announced plans to deploy Department of Homeland Security agents to Chicago in an attempt to get a handle on the surge in violent crime. The president has already sent a bevy of agents to Portland, where violent protesters have threatened a federal courthouse and other local government buildings on a nightly basis, and has stated he is eyeing other cities run by "liberal Democrats" for more muscular law enforcement.



Stormtrooper

Russian journalists attacked while covering Portland protests: US law enforcement hit them & broke camera, colleague says

Federal law enforcement officers
© REUTERS / Caitlin OchsFederal law enforcement officers
A Russian TV crew covering ongoing protests in Portland, Oregon has apparently been assaulted by law enforcement officers cracking down on the demonstrators.

Two Russian journalists were hurt while reporting from the scene of an intense confrontation in front of the federal court in Portland, according to a Sputnik correspondent covering the same events. Vyacheslav Arkhipov, a cameraman with a Russian Channel One, was hit with a baton and thrown to the ground. His camera was smashed by an officer.

His colleague, Yulia Olkhovskaya, was targeted while filming the protest with her phone. An officer took the device and the helmet she was wearing and pushed her to the ground, the reporter said.

A senior official from Channel One said the two were not seriously hurt in the incident, but the damage to their equipment appeared significant.

Comment: The Kremlin's press secretary, Dmirty Peskov, called the attack "outrageous" while demanding that US authorities take measures to protect the security of Russian journalists working in the US. They are unfortunately finding out that freedom of press in the US isn't what it used to be.


Hammer

Oakland city leaders reject additional police department cuts: mayor casts tie-breaking vote

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf
© Jane Tyska/Digital First Media/East Bay Times Via Getty ImagesOakland Mayor Libby Schaaf
Oakland City Council rejects proposal for deeper police budget cuts

The Oakland city council rejected deeper cuts to the police department, where Mayor Libby Schaaf cast the deciding vote - only hours after her home was vandalized.

"Any further cuts, real cuts will require significant reductions to our widely recognized inadequate 911 response, elimination of current police service as well as further strain of what is a well-documented understaffed police force," Schaaf said.

The Tuesday night meeting included hours of public comment with many supporting cuts to the police department.

Comment: You don't suppose this little incident reported by RT had anything to do with her vote maybe? The 'woke' continue to turn on their 'allies'.
Protesters have vandalized the home of Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, splattering it with red paint and graffiti while pelting the house with fireworks. The mayor's office said the attack was meant to "terrorize" and "intimidate."


"An attack at the home of a publicly elected official does not advance democracy," the mayor's office said in a statement, noting that "vandals shot projectiles at the mayor's home, set off fireworks and graffitied her home with paint."
This attack, designed to intimidate the mayor and strike fear into her family, will not stop her from advocating for the policies she believes are in the best long-term interests of her beloved hometown. Like all Oaklanders, she supports passionate protest but does not support tactics meant to harm and terrorize others.
Oakland Police are now investigating the incident, the aftermath of which was seen in photos shared on social media.


Though the mayor has come out in favor of the BLM movement - approving of a massive street mural created to celebrate the group and forcefully speaking out against police brutality on a number of occasions in recent weeks - her not-radical-enough stance on police funding is at odds with activists' growing calls to slash department budgets or abolish them outright.


The city voted to divert more than $14 million from the Oakland Police Department budget last month, however activists and some city council members have demanded more, with two local lawmakers proposing a whopping $150 million cut in a recent budget amendment.

Schaaf ultimately provided the tie-breaking vote to shoot down the larger cut on Tuesday night, arguing it would "further impair what is already sub-standard police 911 response" and "strain Oakland's under-staffed police force."


It is not the first time anti-police brutality demonstrators descended on Schaaf's private residence. In June, some 1,000 marchers staged a protest in her Fruitvale neighborhood, calling on the mayor to defund the OPD, among other things. Following the action, the mayor's office issued a statement in support of the protesters, arguing that the "outrage across America right now needs to be heard."
It's not like Schaaf hasn't tried hard to establish her liberal cred:


Fire

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough calls Portland protests 'peaceful' despite footage of escalating violence

Portland riots
© Reuters/Caitlin OchsPortland riots recorded on cameras
Joe Scarborough has called protests in Portland "peaceful for the most part," less than a day after the mayor was tear-gassed in the face amid escalating violence following more than two months of demonstrations.

On his Morning Joe show Thursday, Scarborough railed against the deployment of federal agents to the city of Portland, saying they have launched "deeply disturbing attacks" against "peaceful protests, for the most part."

The MSNBC host has no doubt seen footage of federal agents arresting protesters and proceeding to throw them into unmarked vans - but perhaps he missed the videos of demonstrators growing increasingly violent after more than 50 nights of raging protests.

Briefcase

Judge unseals Ghislaine Maxwell documents, delays release pending appeal

Ghislaine Maxwell
© Jane Rosenberg | ReutersGhislaine Maxwell appears via video link during her arraignment hearing where she was denied bail for her role aiding Jeffrey Epstein to recruit and eventually abuse of minor girls, in Manhattan Federal Court, in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S. July 14, 2020 in this courtroom sketch.
A federal judge Thursday unsealed a trove of records related to the sex life of longtime Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell โ€” but quickly granted her legal team a stay on the release so they can appeal.

After Judge Loretta Preska delivered the ruling via video hearing in the case, she granted Maxwell's lawyer Lauren Menninger one week to file an emergency motion with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to challenge the decision.

Maxwell, who has been fighting the release, was not on the call.

Comment: Yet the judge in the case is sending mixed signals with regard to Maxwell:

Judge orders 'destruction' of Guiffre's evidence against Jeffrey Epstein


Mr. Potato

Portland mayor cheers protesters & joins them to face tear gas, gets calls to resign anyway

Portland's Mayor Ted Wheeler
© REUTERS / Caitlin OchsPortland's Mayor Ted Wheeler attends a protest rally.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler failed to win over a crowd of angry anti-police protesters despite rooting for their cause. But rather than seeing him as an ally against federal agents, some said he's part of the problem and has to go.

Nightly protests in Portland focused around a downtown federal courthouse have been raging for over 50 nights. The confrontations regularly escalate into rioting, and have become more volatile since the Trump administration deployed additional federal law enforcement agents to the city last week. Mayor Wheeler, who has been sympathetic to the Black Lives Matter cause, criticized the federal agents for using controversial tactics in their crackdown.

On Wednesday night, the mayor appeared before an angry crowd of around 2,000 demonstrators, who gathered behind a large fence erected around the courthouse to keep them away from the building. The reception was lukewarm at best from the start. Some people shouted, "Quit your job" as he walked towards the center of the rally, while one protester emptied a bag of trash under his feet.

Comment: Trying to appease the mob only makes things worse.


SOTT Logo

Americans tune in to 'cancel culture' โ€” and don't like what they see

Trump Fourth of July speech at Mount Rushmore
© Alex Brandon/AP PhotoSupporters listen to President Donald Trump deliver a Fourth of July speech at Mount Rushmore during which he decried cancel culture as a political weapon of the left.
One of the few things that Barack Obama and Donald Trump agree on is cancel culture.

In the last year, as numerous public figures have become the targets of online campaigns by social media swarms, the former and current president have spoken out against the practice. "That's not activism," Obama said last November. "That's not bringing about change. If all you're doing is casting stones, you're probably not going to get that far. That's easy to do."

In a Fourth of July speech at Mount Rushmore, Trump said, "We want free and open debate, not speech codes and cancel culture. We embrace tolerance, not prejudice." Speaking of the left, he added that "one of their political weapons is 'cancel culture' โ€” driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters, and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees. This is the very definition of totalitarianism, and it is completely alien to our culture and our values, and it has absolutely no place in the United States of America." (One commentator quickly pointed out that Trump has long been one of the most enthusiastic practitioners of cancel culture.)

We were curious how much this debate over cancel culture โ€” which has quickly morphed from a Twitter obsession for elite journalists to a campaign rallying cry for Trump โ€” has permeated the public consciousness. We asked our polling partner, Morning Consult, to field some questions in our weekly survey and one surprising finding is the number of Americans who now agree with Obama and Trump and want to cancel cancel culture โ€” or at least its worst aspects.

Sheeple

Twitter ban of QAnon conspiracy theorists only makes them stronger, & the censorship won't stop there

trump rally qanon teeshirt
© Reuters / Leah Millis
Twitter's threat to shadowban accounts and hashtags linked to the pro-Trump 'QAnon' psy-op has merely validated followers' persecution complex and brought them attention - while putting others who buck the establishment on notice.

When the social media giant announced it was "cracking down" on QAnon on Tuesday, barring Q-related topics from trending, blocking URLs associated with the conspiracy theory (really an ecosystem of interlinked conspiracy theories, centered around the cryptic disclosures of a supposedly high-ranking government employee going by the moniker Q), and banning Q-promoting accounts that have violated other Twitter rules, it gave QAnon followers the validation they craved.

Comment:


Bad Guys

Geraldo Rivera: Trump 'brave' for sending good wishes to accused sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell

Geraldo Rivera
© Theo Wargo/Getty ImagesGeraldo Rivera
'For this judge to chicken out and not give this defendant bail, I think is copping out to the mob,' Mr Rivera said.

Fox News contributor Geraldo Rivera defended Donald Trump's well-wishes to alleged child sex trafficker and Jeffery Epstein confidante Ghislaine Maxwell on Twitter Wednesday.

During Mr Trump's coronavirus press briefing on Tuesday, he was asked about Ms Maxwell and offered his sympathies to her.

"I don't know, I haven't really been following it too much," Mr Trump said. "I just wish her well, frankly."

Mr Trump went on to say he'd met her numerous times over the years, especially when he was living in Palm Beach, Florida.

"But I wish her well, whatever it is," Mr Trump said.

Ms Maxwell is facing federal charges for allegedly helping Epstein recruit and sexually abuse girls.

Comment: Rivera is right, in that Maxwell is entitled to presumption of innocence and a fair trial. Unfortunately for Ms. Maxwell, the mountain of evidence against her is going to make that a difficult proposition. She has been named by too many of Epstein's victims as the one who lured them into danger.