Society's ChildS


Attention

Chelsea Manning may have been released from prison, but her political persecution continues

Chelsea Manning
© Getty Images / Win McNameeFormer US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, May 16, 2019, Alexandria, Virginia
After nearly a year in jail for refusing to participate in a secretive grand jury against WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning has finally been released, but the political persecution she's endured for a decade continues.

On Wednesday Manning attempted to take her own life, just days before she was scheduled to appear before a judge about a motion to terminate contempt sanctions.

"Manning has previously indicated that she will not betray her principles, even at risk of grave harm to herself," her legal team said in a statement about the incident, adding, "Her actions today evidence the strength of her convictions, as well as the profound harm she continues to suffer as a result of her 'civil' confinement."

The following day, Judge Anthony J. Trenga in the Eastern District of Virginia announced that the grand jury she was being tormented into participating in was dismissed and ordered her immediate release.

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Snakes in Suits

US State Department now calling East Jerusalem Palestinian's 'Arab Residents'

Jerusalem
© Ohad ZiegenbergA Palestinian man walks through the Muslim Quarter in Jerusalem's Old City, March 7, 2020.
The change in terminology comes amid increased disputes following the release of the Trump Mideast plan

The U.S. State Department changed its standard description of East Jerusalem Palestinians from "Palestinian residents" of the city to "Arab residents" or "non-Israeli citizens" in an annual global human rights report released on Wednesday.

The overwhelming majority of East Jerusalem's more than 340,000 Palestinians identify as such. The Palestinians have long sought the city's east, which Israel captured in a 1967 war and later annexed in a move not recognized internationally, as capital of a future state.

Palestinians in Jerusalem hold Israeli residency permits but few have citizenship in Israel, which considers the entire holy city as its eternal, undivided capital. Jerusalem is also home to more than 500,000 Israelis.

Comment: See also: 'Deal of the century' is more than just apartheid


Eye 1

Psychologist Robert Epstein: Big tech will use "subliminal methods" to shift 15 million votes on election day

google hands
Psychologist Robert Epstein says that Big Tech is planning to use "subliminal methods" in the upcoming election that could shift up to 15 million votes and cost Trump the presidency.

After the 2016 presidential election, Epstein surmised that search engine bias shifted 2-3 million votes in Hillary Clinton's favor, and he warns that the number in 2020 could be five times that amount.

The author says that Google and other social media giants "can shift opinions and votes in numerous ways that people can't detect" via "a wide variety of subliminal methods of persuasion that can, in minutes, shift the voting preferences of 20 percent or more of undecided voters without anyone having the slightest idea they've been manipulated."

A leak of Google emails to the Wall Street Journal back in 2018 already exposed how Google engineers had sought to investigate how they could manipulate a user's "ephemeral experiences" to change their mind on the Trump travel ban.

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Blackbox

Best of the Web: Panic and the coronavirus: Is there is better approach?

covid-19 coronavirus
Universities and schools are being shuttered, sports activities and public gatherings are being cancelled, individuals are hoarding toilet paper and supplies, travel is being severely constrained, the stock market has crashed, and business activity is nose-diving. Major businesses are forcing their employees to work at home.

This blog will try to summarize the coronavirus threat, suggest that some of the panic-driven actions may not be well-founded, and that there may be a far better, more effective approach to deal with the virus.

Before I begin, let me note two things. I am not a medical doctor, epidemiologist, or viral expert. But I am a scientist with some facility with statistics and data, and my specialty, weather prediction, is all about helping people react appropriately to estimates of risk. And I have talked to a number of doctors about this issue. But don't read any more if my background bothers you.

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X

The Boy Scouts' bankruptcy, and the scourge of childhood sex abuse

boy scouts 1950s
During my many years as an academic, roughly half my time was devoted to research and clinical work with convicted sex offenders, many of whom had sexually abused children. The experience was harrowing. And my decision to eventually shift research areas accompanied the realization that I had numbed myself emotionally as a coping mechanism.

Thankfully, everything I learned from those days stayed with me. I say "thankfully" because, while I don't miss the negative emotional effects, the knowledge I gained allowed me to understand the truth about child sex abuse with a clarity that I wish every parent could be afforded. The sexual abuse of boys, in particular, is much more prevalent than many realize.

I wasn't terribly shocked to learn that the Boy Scouts of America recently declared bankruptcy as the result of hundreds of sex-abuse lawsuits. The Scouts have spent over $150 million on legal costs and settlements to date. The abuse allegations span a century. According to Boy Scout documents disclosed during litigation, more than 12,000 boys have been abused by at least 7,800 individuals since the 1920s.

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Question

Best of the Web: China's coronavirus: A shocking update. Did the virus originate in the US?

coronavirus
The Western media quickly took the stage and laid out the official narrative for the outbreak of the new coronavirus which appeared to have begun in China, claiming it to have originated with animals at a wet market in Wuhan.

In fact the origin was for a long time unknown but it appears likely now, according to Chinese and Japanese reports, that the virus originated elsewhere, from multiple locations, but began to spread widely only after being introduced to the market.

More to the point, it appears that the virus did not originate in China and, according to reports in Japanese and other media, may have originated in the US.

Comment: The author has written two follow-ups on this:


Dominoes

That's how you spread panic! Ohio official backtracks on claim 100k people in state ALREADY carry coronavirus

medical storage
© REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Doctor Amy Acton's shocking claim that 100,000 Ohioans already carried the Covid-19 coronavirus was just "guesstimating," she said a day later, noting the actual number of confirmed cases stood at just 13.

At least one percent of the population carries the virus, Acton had said at a press conference on Thursday. "We have 11.7 million people. So the math is over 100,000. So that just gives you a sense of how this virus spreads and is spreading quickly." Her comment quickly went viral, so to speak.

By Friday, however, she was walking that back, saying that she was only "guesstimating" the numbers. The Ohio Department of Health has confirmed only 13 cases in the state so far, with 159 more awaiting test results and 50 confirmed negatives. Another 333 people are being monitored.

Handcuffs

Coronavirus lockdown helps Italian police nab 'leading' mobster

Italy_arrests
© AFP Photo/Miguel MEDINAMarch 13, 2020 A hospital worker wears a mask and gear at the Brescia hospital, Lombardy, on March 13, 2020; empty streets and stay-at-home orders imposed throughout Italy helped -police nab a mobster
A top 'Ndrangheta clan member was arrested in Italy after police, helped by the anti-coronavirus lockdown, spotted the fugitive smoking inside a seemingly deserted safe house, authorities said Friday.

Cesare Cordi, described by police as a "leading figure of the 'Ndrangheta of Locri" in southern Calabria, had been on the run since August, when a judge issued a warrant for the 42-year-old's arrest.

Thanks to the empty streets and stay-at-home orders imposed throughout the country due to the coronavirus risk, the police, who had been tracking Cordi for days, found him at a house in the town of Bruzzano Zeffirio, at the tip of Italy's boot, late on Thursday.

"The faint glow of a cigarette -- caught through the crack of a shutter -- was enough to give the carabinieri the certainty that in that house was the wanted man," the police of the province of Reggio Calabria, who staged the raid, said in a statement.

About a dozen people linked to the Locri clan were arrested in August on suspicion of various crimes, including mafia-type association, extortion, illegal competition, fraudulent transfer of assets, and possession of and carrying weapons in public.

The 'Ndrangheta, a loose confederation of about 100 organised groups centred in the Calabria region, is considered the country's most powerful and most organised crime syndicate.

Red Flag

Peak 'Florida Man'? Ex-Tallahassee mayor denies using crystal meth after he was found in hotel room with overdosed male escort

Andrew Gillum
© Reuters / Colin HackleyFlorida Democrat Andrew Gillum
Florida Democrat Andrew Gillum is taking a break from public life after police walked in on what has been described as a crystal meth-fueled orgy - but which he insists was just a wedding celebration where he drank too much.

Gillum was "unable to communicate with officers due to his inebriated state" when police chanced upon him in a hotel room at Miami's South Beach Mondrian on Thursday night, responding to another man's "possible drug overdose," revealed the police report, leaked via Twitter on Friday.

The police were concerned enough to request a second "welfare check" on Gillum, while they took his stricken companion to the hospital.

Microscope 1

'Basically impossible to find a test': AP reporter trying to get Covid-19 test sent from pillar to post by health authorities

testing coronavirus
© AFP / Danny Lawson
AP reporter Steve Peoples had no luck trying to get tested for the Covid-19 virus after he presented to a primary care center and was subsequently bounced around to various other health facilities with no tests available anywhere.

Peoples tweeted on Friday that he had been experiencing "mild symptoms" — a headache, mild fever and cough — but that when he arrived at his primary care center in north Jersey, they told him to go to the emergency room instead.


Off he went, only to find no more clarity from the ER, as staff there told him to call the city health department. The wild goose chase continued, as Peoples was instructed by the health department to go to an urgent care center — which then advised him to go back to the ER.

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