Society's Child

Son of Assange supporter Vivian Westwood urges immediate action to prevent Assange's extradition to US: 'Death sentence for telling the truth'

RT
Wed, 20 Nov 2019 17:06 UTC

© REUTERS/Henry Nicholls
A man walks past an artwork depicting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on a building near Westminster Magistrates Court, where a case management hearing in Assange's U.S. extradition case is held, in London, Britain, October 21, 2019.

Julian Assange is being persecuted for speaking the truth, and the UK public must mobilize to shield him from the 'death sentence' awaiting him in the United States, activist and Agent Provocateur co-founder Joe Corré told RT.

The politically-active entrepreneur, and son of another fashion icon Vivienne Westwood, has been an outspoken advocate for Assange. The imprisoned Wikileaks chief is currently battling his extradition to the United States, where he faces 175 years in prison for obtaining and publishing secret documents. Recounting a recent visit he made to Belmarsh prison, Corré told Going Underground host Afshin Rattansi that Assange was being treated in a "horrific way" by the UK justice system. According to Corré, Assange has been separated from all human contact - a "form of torture" that has affected his mental health.

Comment:

'We should thank & cherish CIA,' says star of 'Jack Ryan' - just maybe not for torture, coups & mind control

Graham Dockery
RT
Wed, 20 Nov 2019 17:22 UTC

Americans should be thankful for the services the CIA provides, 'Jack Ryan' actor John Krasinski says. After all, without the agency, who would prop up foreign dictators, stage coups and 'play' with mind-control drugs?

In three decades between the publication of 'The Hunt for Red October' in 1984 and his death in 2013, Tom Clancy pumped out more than 20 books, giving lots of material for spy agency fanboys.

At long last though, there's someone out there who gets even more tumescent at the thought of clandestine criminality than Clancy himself. Actor John Krasinski - star of 'The Office' and now 'Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan' - came out and told reporters before the release of season 2 that "The CIA is something that we should all not only cherish, but be saying thank you for every single day."

Unlike the FBI, the CIA is not tasked with fighting crime in America. It doesn't spend its time tracking murderers and busting pedophile rings. Instead, the agency often operates in the shadows abroad, and while its officers do foil terror attacks and intercept shipments of weapons of mass destruction, the agency has also been referred to by journalist Douglas Valentine as "the organized crime branch of the US government."

So, to be thankful for the agency's work means also to be thankful for a sordid history of highly controversial actions.

UN torture envoy demands 'full accountability & compensation' after Sweden drops rape probe against Assange

RT
Wed, 20 Nov 2019 17:19 UTC

The UN's Special Rapporteur on torture has called for a "full investigation" into the role Sweden played in driving WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange into asylum and eventual custody, after the rape case against him was dropped.

Swedish prosecutors announced on Tuesday that they would drop a dubious rape inquiry against Assange, as oral testimony against the publisher had "weakened," and corroborating evidence was not strong enough to pursue a case. A Swedish arrest warrant was issued against assange in 2010, and a British court upheld a decision to extradite him in 2012. Threatened with what many saw as a politically motivated extradition, Assange sought refuge in London's Ecuadorian embassy.

"Today's collapse of Sweden's #Assange investigation was inevitable," rapporteur Nils Melzer tweeted on Tuesday. "Given its gross arbitrariness, there must now be a full investigation, and accountability & compensation for the harm inflicted on #JulianAssange."

Ex-Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh indicted over shady book deal

Lia Eustachewich
New York Post
Wed, 20 Nov 2019 16:49 UTC

Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh was hit with federal corruption charges Wednesday related to a shady children's book deal that prompted her resignation.

Pugh is accused of improperly tapping into the nearly $800,000 in proceeds from her lucrative "Healthy Holly" book deal, including to buy and renovate a home in Baltimore, pay down personal debt and fund $35,800 in straw donations to her mayoral campaign.

She inked the deal with the University of Maryland Medical System to write a series of self-published children's books while sitting on the group's board of directors.

The books were sloppily printed — and included misspellings of the main character's name and the word "vegetable" as "vegetale," according to the Baltimore Sun. They were distributed to the city's schools, even though school officials never asked for them, leaving thousands sitting in a warehouse.

Comment: See also:

'A leftist mob mentality': NY university apologizes after protesters wreak havoc at Trump-decorated economist lecture

RT
Wed, 20 Nov 2019 16:50 UTC

Free-market economist Arthur Laffer is hardly a controversial figure alongside conservative rabble-rousers like Milo Yiannopoulos, but even he was shouted down by a crowd of protesters during a lecture at a New York university.

A Reagan administration adviser best known for his contributions to supply-side economic theory, Laffer was scheduled to address a conservative group at Binghamton on Monday when a crowd of demonstrators stormed the lecture hall to protest the event.

With many apparently seated in the audience and some wearing masks, the protesters erupted into cheers when one student stood to deliver a monologue on the injustices of the prison system through a bullhorn, grinding the lecture to a halt. Security guards soon arrived to clear away the protesters, prompting the crowd to erupt into chants of "free speech!" Two activists were arrested in the brief confrontation.

Forget OPEC: China now moves the oil markets

Anes Alic
Oilprice.com
Tue, 19 Nov 2019 16:45 UTC

Not so long ago, oil prices would surge or plummet on just a whisper from OPEC, who at the time held all the supply cards.

The mere hint that the world's most powerful oil cartel was going to cut production could send oil prices up dramatically. Those days are over.

When the cartel announced on November 30, 2016, that it would cut production for the first time in eight years amid a major oil-price crisis, the market cheered. Before any cuts even happened, the sentiment alone boosted prices from a $50.74 close on that day to $54.94 at the close on December 5th, 2016.

From that point on, at least up until recently, OPEC could drop the vaguest hint about production, or even think about production, and it would move the market--no fundamentals necessary.

Illinois school district grants transgender students unrestricted locker-room access

Eric Peterson
Daily Herald
Thu, 14 Nov 2019 16:24 UTC

After addressing the controversial issue of transgender students' access to locker rooms in a few different ways over the past four years, Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 board members Thursday voted 5-2 to lift a requirement that those students use privacy stalls.

Board members Mark Cramer and Pete Dombrowski dissented. Earlier in the meeting, they were the only board members to vote for Cramer's motion to postpone the vote in favor of an advisory referendum in March.

Some board members said their votes were based on much individual research.

"I myself have been the subject of discrimination all my life," board member Ed Yung said. "I know what these people are fighting for."

Comment: A commenter on the original article provides additional details:

Guess why "of the 25 people randomly chosen to speak [at the school board vote], 15 expressed support for the policy and 10 were opposed"? Because school board member (and sex-ed podcast creator) Kim Cavill started a SuperPac that funded this and they brought in a mob of transgender activists to fill the room, none of whom actually had kids in the district. The community had overwhelmingly voiced opposition to it.

Cavill's SuperPac was formed just 11 days before the school board election in March and specifically aimed to oust 3 board members who refused to vote to let boys use girls locker rooms if they said they ID as girls; trans Hollywood director Lana Wachowski (The Matrix) donated thousands to it. They funneled money from the Trans United Pac into a second PAC they created called "Parents and Neighbors for Quality Education" so ppl wouldn't realize from the name it was purely a transgender advocacy group. They were successful in stacking the school board with members who would vote their way, paving the way for Cavill to push this BS through against the wishes of most of the community and the girls whose privacy is now violated against their will.

Burger King sued by vegans who complain their meat-free Impossible Whoppers cooked on same grill as regular beef patties

Luke Kenton
Daily Mail
Tue, 19 Nov 2019 15:08 UTC

A group of angry vegan fast food diners have rallied together to sue Burger King after the company were found to be cooking their meatless Impossible Burgers on the same grill as their regular ones.

A group of disgruntled vegan fast food diners have rallied together to file a lawsuit against Burger King after the company were found to be cooking their meatless Impossible Burgers on the same grill as their beef patties.

The class-action lawsuit was filed by Phillip Williams on Monday, TMZ reported, claiming the chain advertises their Impossible Burgers as a vegan alternative to its meat products - however they're all cooked on the same grill.

Williams says as a result of Burger King's cooking methods, his supposedly meat-free meal was contaminated by meat by-products.

The burger in question was said to have been purchased at a franchise in Atlanta, Georgia.

Comment: Is it any wonder the vast majority of people maintain the stance that vegans are crazy? Burger King doesn't cook their food in a way that can cater to vegans, nor does it appear that they claimed to do so. If you're vegan and you're not cool with this, go elsewhere. That some would waste the court's time and try to make a buck off of this entitled stance is where the real outrage should be unleashed.

See also:

Firing is not enough: There's now a debate if Don Cherry should be in the Hockey Hall of Fame

Becky Robertson
Fresh Daily
Tue, 19 Nov 2019 00:01 UTC

In the wake of the Don Cherry controversy that has been at the centre of Canadian discourse for the past week, many are now wondering whether the iconic — though problematic — hockey commentator will (or should) be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Comment: Let's define everyone who says things that we don't like as "problematic".

Comment: Maybe it's not enough to keep Cherry out of the Hockey Hall of Fame. Maybe he should be retroactively removed from all past Coaches Corner archives - digitally edited out so that no one will ever be exposed to his 'bigotry'. The world can't be set right as long as there is an awareness of the uncomfortable parts of our history. Erase slavery, the holocaust, and any reference to past wars from our history books. Our children need to be protected.

See also: The Don Cherry-Jess Allen double standard is awakening Canada's silent majority

Educational earthquake: 'Disappearing' the great writers from schools in Canada

Barbara Kay
The Epoch Times
Tue, 19 Nov 2019 00:01 UTC

© Oliver Bunic/AFP via Getty Images
A mural depicting British novelist George Orwell with the words “Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear,” in Belgrade, Serbia, on May 8, 2018.

The Greater Essex County District School Board in the Windsor, Ontario, area is supplanting its grade 11 literature curriculum, which up to now has featured great writers of the western canon such as Shakespeare and George Orwell, with a year-long program of Indigenous writers. The change has already been effected in eight of the district's 15 schools.

In the Peel district as well, I am informed by a reader, the same transformation is in progress. It would be naïve to assume that these schools will remain anomalies for long. The "disappearing" of dead white European male writers, however magnificent their achievements, may well be normalized across Canada before long.

It is hard to overstate the alarming implications of this educational earthquake. Deliberately withholding Shakespeare from young minds is a form of aesthetic starvation, but depriving them of Orwell is a moral crime. It is from Orwell's "Animal Farm" that young minds first grasp the nature of totalitarian evil, whether it arises from the left or the right, and understand the preciousness of their freedoms.

Comment: See also:

Quote of the Day

The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim: nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences.

- Carroll Quigley

Eerie to have Bollène and beheading in the same phrase. Made me think of Anne Boleyn.

ROEL

Height & Weight for this tyrannical pile of shit? Gotta know these things ahead of time.

DeliciousTears

Send Newsom & co. to unload the ships.

ROEL

Pfizer are pushing their new scientific data proving we should trust their product and get the booster shot Pfizer said its trial of 10,000 people...

HashAttack2

I bet the Phoenicians and Chinese beat the Vikings to Turtle Island.

bbrebozo

Society's Child

Son of Assange supporter Vivian Westwood urges immediate action to prevent Assange's extradition to US: 'Death sentence for telling the truth'

'We should thank & cherish CIA,' says star of 'Jack Ryan' - just maybe not for torture, coups & mind control

UN torture envoy demands 'full accountability & compensation' after Sweden drops rape probe against Assange

Ex-Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh indicted over shady book deal

'A leftist mob mentality': NY university apologizes after protesters wreak havoc at Trump-decorated economist lecture

Forget OPEC: China now moves the oil markets

Illinois school district grants transgender students unrestricted locker-room access

Burger King sued by vegans who complain their meat-free Impossible Whoppers cooked on same grill as regular beef patties

Firing is not enough: There's now a debate if Don Cherry should be in the Hockey Hall of Fame

Educational earthquake: 'Disappearing' the great writers from schools in Canada

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