Society's ChildS


USA

Sex, lies and trade deals: how a businessman bribed half the US navy

David Haggith
RT
Fri, 07 Jan 2022 22:35 UTC
us flag
© Getty Images / RoschetzkyIstockPhoto
"Manilla, 2007. The chauffeured Mercedes crawled south for half an hour in the interminable traffic - the turbid waters of Manilla Bay on the right. The middle-aged men packed inside the cars were in an exuberant mood ... Leonard Glenn Francis was taking out the senior commanders of the US 7th Fleet. These were the most powerful navy officers in Asia, and they controlled the movements of around sixty ships and submarines, 150 aircraft, and 20,000 sailors in a huge operational area, stretching from Hawaii to India ..."

"The men moved quickly through an air-conditioned lobby and through a curtain at the back. On the other side, Filipino women - many just students - sat in rows in a kind of fish bowl, identifiable not by their names but by the numbers attached to their skimpy outfits ... Always the ... big boss or Lion King to these navy officers, Leonard dominated the action ..."

"The afterparty was in the $4,000-a-night McArthur Suite at the Manilla Hotel ... It was General Douglas McArthur's home and operational command during World War II. The men piled into the Spanish-Mission-style room with wooden ceiling beams, marble tiles, an ornate chandelier and heavily draped curtains. Leonard ... stocked the suite with $10,000 bottles of Dom Perignon ... The two-bedroom suite was filled with McArthur memorabilia. In the suite's study, two ornately carved wooden chairs - the only objects to survive the Battle of Manilla, stood in front of a desk ... One of the men, quite drunk by now, opened a case on the desk containing a replica of McArthur's famous corn-cob pipe and grabbed a woman."
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Dominoes

FDA ordered to speed up release of approval data for COVID-19 vaccine

Edmund DeMarche
Fox News
Fri, 07 Jan 2022 22:32 UTC
pfizer vaccine
© Dinendra Haria/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
The Food and Drug Administration was ordered by a federal judge Thursday to release tens of thousands of more pages a month about the data used in its approval process for Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine.

Public Health and Medical Professionals sued the FDA under a Freedom of Information Act that demanded more transparency, Reuters reported last month.

The FDA — citing staffing issues — agreed to release 12,000 pages by the end of January and a "minimum" of 500 pages a month going forward, the report said. The group found that number unacceptable and said there are more than 400,000 pages of data needed, which could mean it may be 2097 before all the documents are made public.
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Bullseye

Have we reached the point where Big Tech censorship is simply accepted?

Norm Lewis
RT
Fri, 07 Jan 2022 22:24 UTC
Marjorie Taylor Greene
© Carol Guzy/ZUMA Wire/REX/ShutterstockRep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)
The most shocking thing about Twitter's ban of Marjorie Taylor Greene, the first national US politician since Donald Trump to be de-platformed, was the lack of outcry about Big Tech's self-appointed role as the arbiters of truth.

Shockingly, the permanent suspension of hard-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene from Twitter and her temporary suspension from Facebook does not appear to shock us anymore.

What is at stake here is far more critical than one congresswoman spreading nonsense on social media. The precedent set a year ago, where unaccountable Big Tech simply banned an elected president from the public square, has morphed into a new reality: unaccountable tech barons have become the judge and jury of political debate and what is true or not in society.

The dangers of this reality cannot be stressed enough. Whatever one thinks of Greene or her bonkers views on Covid-19 vaccinations or the QAnon conspiracy theory, the censoring of her opinions from the public realm - particularly by private social media companies - is far worse, for two related reasons.
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Calendar

Launch date for Trump's 'TRUTH Social' app revealed


RT
Fri, 07 Jan 2022 17:22 UTC
Trump
© Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.jpgFormer US President Donald Trump
Former President Donald Trump's 'TRUTH Social' app is due to be released on February 21, according to a listing on the Apple App Store, paving the way for the venture to launch on Presidents' Day.

The social media platform, developed by the Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), is available to pre-order and will go live in the latter half of February, according to The Guardian.

Similar to Twitter, the site will give users the ability to follow one another, discuss trending topics, and post a message called a 'truth'. Reposting another user's post will be called a 're-truth' (similar to a retweet on Twitter), according to The Verge.

A February launch for Trump's alternative social platform would come roughly 13 months after the former president was booted off Facebook and Twitter.
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Clipboard

Wisconsin lawmakers look to add natural immunity to state's coronavirus rules

Benjamin Yount
Just the News
Thu, 06 Jan 2022 11:42 UTC
Murphy/Wis Capitol
© The EdgewaterWisconsin Rep. Dave Murphy • Capitol building, Madison, Wisconsin
Republicans at the Wisconsin Capitol are moving to allow people who've already had COVID-19 to get credit for overcoming the virus.

The Assembly Committee on Constitution and Ethics is discussing AB 675, which would require businesses in the state to accept proof of natural immunity instead of vaccination proof or regular coronavirus testing.

Rep. David Murphy, R-Greenville, said at a hearing o the measure Wednesday:
"We can't force people to get vaccinated, and I certainly would be strongly against that. So that leaves people in the situation of either being forced to do something they don't want to do, or they leave their job."
The push comes as companies across the state wait to see if President Joe Biden's vaccine mandate for all businesses with 100 or more employees is upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, which is scheduled to hear arguments Friday on lawsuits challenging the mandate.

It also comes as Wisconsin is reporting new records in coronavirus cases, and as hospitals across the state are filling up.

Murphy said hospitals across the state have fired or pushed out hundreds of doctors and nurses for not getting their coronavirus vaccines. He said that doesn't help anyone who needs medical treatment for something other than the coronavirus.
"If I were a cancer patient, I would rather have a doctor or nurse who is unvaccinated than not have one at all. And I think we're coming down to that point where we have to choose between a perfect world and one where we're still getting health care."
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Star of David

Jerusalem: Israeli authorities demolish health centre in Jabal al-Mukaber


Middle East Eye
Tue, 04 Jan 2022 11:05 UTC
houses demolished
© AFPIsraeli excavators demolish Palestinian-built houses
Village of Sair, West Bank • August 5, 2021
Israeli authorities on Tuesday demolished a healthcare centre in occupied East Jerusalem without prior notice, according to Palestinian reports.

Bulldozers arrived early in the morning as security forces cordoned off the area around the Abdallah al-Shaikh health centre, which was treating people at the time, in the neighbourhood of Jabal al-Mukaber before the demolition was carried out.

Ghassan Jalajel, director of the centre, told Palestinian news agency Wafa the building was torn down without notice despite an appeal previously submitted to Israeli courts against the demolition order.

He said half of the centre, which serves 20,000 people living in the neighbourhood, was demolished.

Translation: Occupation forces demolish a health centre in Jabal al-Mukaber this morning
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Attention

EV's and the lessons of I-95

Eric Peters
Eric Peters Auto
Fri, 07 Jan 2022 19:58 UTC
I-95 Traffic Jam
© Eric Peters Auto
A few days ago, Virginia - home to this writer - was hammered by a sudden-onslaught blizzard that dumped almost a foot of snow along the I-95 corridor, the name we Virginians use to reference the stretch of Interstate 95 that runs from Richmond up to Northern Va, near DC - before it threads up the east coast to New York and beyond.

The snow was so fierce and heavy it paralyzed traffic on I-95, which became a kind of extended parking lot for much of the distance between Richmond and Northern Virginia, which is more than 100 miles.

Thousands of drivers were stuck inside their cars, for as long as 27 hours - which is more than one full day, if you're counting. This is extremely inconvenient - as well as uncomfortable, assuming your car isn't an RV with beds in the back and cable TV.

It could be something else - if your car happens to be electric.

EVs don't like sudden, unplanned things - because they're more likely to be not ready for them - since it takes them hours to charge, if not plugged in to a "fast" charger - and none of these are at home. You have to drive to where they are.

This is hard to do if you can't drive to where they are.
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Attention

Explosion from suspected gas leak causes government building to collapse in China, 16 dead


NDTV
Fri, 07 Jan 2022 11:21 UTC
collapse building
At least 16 people died when an explosion triggered by a suspected gas leak caused a building to collapse Friday in the Chinese city of Chongqing, state media said.

The blast at 12:10 pm (0410 GMT) brought down a neighbourhood committee building housing a canteen, trapping 26 people, the Xinhua news agency said.

In the early hours of Saturday, Xinhua put the new death toll at 16, with 10 more injured, one of them critically.

Comment: Other gas explosions and fires in the news recently:

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Arrow Down

Video shows cop shoot without warning at man firing into air

Mark Gillispie
AP
Thu, 06 Jan 2022 18:55 UTC
Canton Police shooting
© Canton Police Dept. via APThis still image taken from from Canton Police Department body camera video shows officers holding up their weapons before entering a house Saturday, Jan. 1, 2022, in Canton, Ohio. James Williams, 46, of Canton, was shot in the chest and pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
Police in Ohio released body camera footage Thursday showing an officer firing multiple rounds through a wooden privacy fence without warning at someone shooting gunfire into the air on the other side.

James Williams, 46, of Canton, was shot in the chest minutes into the new year and pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. The video was released by the Canton Police Department.

The video shows the officer approach the tall privacy fence in a residential area as the sound of multiple gunshots ring out. Smoke from what appears to be a gun can be seen spurting into the air above the fence.

Comment: Graphic video:



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Bizarro Earth

Most voters believe American society & culture "is in a state of decay" - poll

Sean Salai
Washington Times
Thu, 06 Jan 2022 17:24 UTC
American flag
© Todd Berkey/The Tribune-Democrat via APThe sun rises behind an American flag posted outside of Petrunik's Kitchen, Door and Moore store at the old Eureka Department store in Windber, Pa., Wednesday, July 10, 2019.
A new poll finds that most U.S. likely voters believe American society and culture is in decline — including large majorities of self-identified Democrats, Republicans and independents.

The survey by the Trafalgar Group revealed that 76.8% of respondents from all political affiliations said that "American society and culture is in a state of decay," compared to only 9.8% who said "a state of progress." The remaining 13.4% said they were unsure.

Voters on both sides of the aisle are unhappy with the current state of hot-button social and culture war issues for different reasons, said pollster Robert Cahaly, who founded Trafalgar Group in 2016.

Comment: By most metrics, the US empire (along with many of its allies) are at a stage of terminal decline, and possibly teetering on the edge of total collapse: Also check out SOTT radios': NewsReal: Kabul Airport Atrocity - What Actually Happened?



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