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Gallup poll: US church membership at all-time low

MIchael Burke
The Hill
Thu, 18 Apr 2019 09:22 UTC
US church membership at all-time low
© The Hill
Church membership in the U.S. is at an all-time low, according to a new Gallup poll.

The survey, released Thursday, shows that 50 percent of Americans last year said they belong to a church, synagogue or mosque, representing an all-time low.

That figure was 70 percent or higher between 1937 and 1976 and averaged 68 percent from the 1970s through the 1990s, according to Gallup. The drop-off has occurred over the past two decades, with a 20-point decline since 1999.

More than half of the decline in the past 20 years has been in the past decade, with more Americans saying they have no religious affiliation.

The percentage of Americans who say they aren't affiliated with a religion has jumped from 8 to 19 percent since 2000.
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Black Magic

Man with 'demonic eyes' and 'vampire' fangs murders woman, leaves teeth marks on neck

Roskana Panashchuk
Daily Mail, UK
Thu, 18 Apr 2019 14:09 UTC
Andrey Gorbatyuk
© vk
Andrey Gorbatyuk
A man with black demonic black eyes and vampire fangs has been arrested after allegedly killing a female tattoo master and leaving bite marks on her neck.

Tattoo master Tatiana Podvashetskaya, 27, was found dead in her rented apartment in the city of Ternopil in western Ukraine's Ternopil Oblast region.

The woman's body was found by the apartment owner who came to carry out repairs, according to reports.

When the unnamed owner entered the flat, she saw Podvashetskaya lying on the floor in a pool of blood and called emergency services.

Witness Oleg, who lives next door, said to local media: 'The woman was lying in a pool of blood. A knife was sticking out of her stomach.'
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Handcuffs

Opioid sting: US federal prosecutors charging medical professionals for health care fraud and pushing opioids


npr
Wed, 17 Apr 2019 16:01 UTC
Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowsk, opoid sting

Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski said Wednesday that if doctors or pharmacists behave like drug dealers, the Justice Department would prosecute them accordingly.


Updated at 11:25 a.m. ET

Federal prosecutors are charging 60 doctors, pharmacists, medical professionals and others in connection with alleged opioid pushing and health care fraud, the Justice Department said Wednesday.

The charges came less than four months after the Justice Department dispatched experienced fraud prosecutors across hard-hit regions in Appalachia.

The cases involve more than 350,000 prescriptions for controlled substances and more than 32 million pills - the equivalent of a dose of opioids for "every man, woman and child," across Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and West Virginia, said Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski.

"You can rest assured, when medical professionals behave like drug dealers, the Department of Justice is going to treat them like drug dealers," added Benczkowski, who runs the DOJ's criminal division.

Those charged include 31 doctors, seven pharmacists, eight nurse practitioners and seven other licensed medical professionals, the Justice Department said.

Comment: It's a good start in cleaning up the drug supply, but the DOJ is basically targeting low-lying fruit. The head of the hydra, the pharma industry insiders who are ultimately responsible for this tragedy will likely escape with little more than a few fines (if that); something these monsters simply consider a 'cost of doing business'.

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Attention

Sibling rivalry: 'Mo-Mo' twins spotted 'boxing with each other' in mother's womb during ultrasound scan

Tracy You
Daily Mail
Mon, 15 Apr 2019 13:41 UTC
ultrasound twins boxing

Mr Tao told Chinese news outlet The Paper that he found it amusing to see his unborn daughters seemingly 'boxing with each other for a few rounds'.
Twins bring twice the happiness to their parents. They can also bring twice the headache.

A pair of identical twin sisters have been spotted apparently fighting with each other while they were still in their mother's womb.

In the trending video from China, the two foetuses were seemingly kicking and hitting each other as their mother underwent an ultrasound scan at four months pregnant.

The twins' father, 28-year-old Mr Tao, said the footage was filmed by him when he accompanied his wife to an antenatal check late last year in the city of Yinchuan.

Mr Tao told Chinese news outlet The Paper that he found it amusing to see his unborn daughters seemingly 'boxing with each other for a few rounds'.
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Eye 2

Charges demanded after off-duty police officer attacks and injures 19yo Texas woman

Mitch Mitchell
The Star-Telegram
Thu, 18 Apr 2019 19:19 UTC
woman injured off duty police texas
© Atlanta Black Star/Youtube screencap
Josh Anders, anoff-duty Nacogdoches Police officer is under investigation after he showed up in plain clothes and violently detained two women at an apartment complex where he was doing security.
An off-duty Nacogdoches police officer working security for an apartment complex is at the center of what has become a controversial arrest.

The officer, Josh Anders, said he approached a group of young women in the parking lot Wednesday due to ongoing issues with criminal activity at the complex in the 1600 block of Cardinal Street, according to police.

Anders requested help from on-duty officers when several of the women refused orders not to leave while a trespassing investigation was underway, police said in a statement.

Anders said two of the women resisted arrest, police reported. Anders required medical attention for minor injuries after the incident, police said. One suspect walked away, while Lindsey Ogbonna, 19, of Nacogdoches, was arrested and is facing a resisting arrest charge, according to police.

A criminal investigation into the alleged assault on the officer is ongoing and further charges may be filed, police said.
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Star of David

Azaria's legacy: Settlers execute Palestinians, soldiers destroy video evidence, media parrot the lie

Yossi Gurvitz
Mondoweiss
Wed, 17 Apr 2019 18:06 UTC
Abed al-Fatah al-Sharif killed hebron

Abed al-Fatah al-Sharif, 21, on street in Hebron before he was executed. March 24, 2016.
Let's begin with the facts. About two weeks ago, on April 3rd, a Palestinian named Muhammad 'Abd Al Fatah, a resident of the Hirbat Qais near Silfit, stoned several cars with Israeli registration plates near the Beita village square. A settler named Yehoshua Sherman fired several shots at 'Abd Al Fatah from within his vehicle; then Sherman left his vehicle, and advanced towards 'Abd Al Fatah, who was taking cover, and he and another Israeli shot him several times, wounding him; the two, advancing towards the bleeding and unarmed Al Fatah, murdered him as he lay bleeding on the ground.

So far, everything according to SOP, standard operating procedure.

Immediately afterwards, the IDF Spokesman announced 'Abd Al Fatah was killed "while carrying out a knife attack."

There was no knife and no knife attack, but hey, it's the IDF Spokesman. Lying is what it does.

So far, everything according to SOP.

Comment: What Guvitz fails to mention is that Azaria was a medic as well as a soldier. It is a measure of the perversion of Israeli society that someone supposedly trained in saving lives feels no compunction about shooting a wounded human being because they are the wrong kind of human being.

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Question

Where the money goes: Billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's secret charity activities

Kate Briquelet
The Daily Beast
Tue, 16 Apr 2019 17:32 UTC
epstein secret charities
© Lyne Lucien/The Daily Beast
Epstein's secret donations
Billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein may have stopped trumpeting his million-dollar donations to charities in light of accusations he molested dozens of underage girls. But he continues to quietly distribute his wealth-including to the nonprofits of Deepak Chopra, Elton John and a doctor linked to President Trump-through a shadowy private foundation called "Gratitude America, Ltd.," The Daily Beast has learned.

Gratitude America, Ltd. was launched in 2012 to back "organizations around the world that seek to celebrate the United States of America and the American Ideals," the group stated in its application for tax-exempt status. Those ideals, the nonprofit added, include "liberty, equality, democracy, individualism, unity, and diversity." At the time, Epstein was three years out of jail, but disturbing allegations from his alleged victims, including one who claimed Epstein kept her as a "sex slave" for his famous friends, continued to hound him.

Epstein apparently needed some favorable news to change the narrative and embarked on a public relations crusade that depicted him as a renowned "science philanthropist," rather than a convicted sex offender.

Comment: Charitable donations are a time-honored method of defending a questionable reputation, or rehabilitating a damaged one. Yet even in this activity Epstein can't seem to do it cleanly.

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Yoda

'Wikileaks' revelations reporting the depth of U.S.-Israel relationship has been a great resource to us

Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss
Wed, 17 Apr 2019 16:56 UTC
Assange arrest
© Getty
Assange in a government vehicle following his arrest on April 11, 2019.
Yesterday the New York Times published a juicy piece about Democratic Party apparatchik Neera Tanden that included a revelation from the Wikileaks dump of documents from the Democratic National Committee in 2016: Tanden hosted Benjamin Netanyahu for a fawning interview at her thinktank, the Center for American Progress, even as Netanyahu was trying to undermine President Obama's Iran deal, so she could recruit a pro-Israel board member, Jonathan Lavine, who gave the organization $1 million last year.

The Times' reliance on Wikileaks to provide important information about our political process is a timely reminder of the public role of the man dragged out of the Ecuadorian embassy last Thursday, headed for criminal proceedings related to his obtaining and publishing government documents. Julian Assange is a journalistic source. I've been in the news business for a long time and I've always been told to protect sources. And by the way, not all these sources had great character or reputation. That wasn't the point. The First Amendment protected news gathering, and sources are a critical element of the process.

Comment:

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Light Saber

Palestinian prisoners win a notable battle with Israeli authorities after hunger strike

Helena Cobban
Mondoweiss
Wed, 17 Apr 2019 16:17 UTC
west bank palestinian protest
© Ayat Arqawy/APA Images
Palestinians take part in a Palestinian Prisoners' Day protest in the West Bank city of Ramallah on April 17, 2019.
Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli jails won a small but significant victory April 15 when the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) agreed to several key demands voiced by 400 prisoners who had been on an open-ended hunger strike. Under the settlement, the IPS agreed to provide three-times-weekly access to (supervised) payphones so prisoners could call their families. It moved numerous prisoners from solitary cells back to the general population and made other concessions to the hunger strikers.

The hunger strikers' apparent victory came just two days before Palestinian Prisoners' Day, an observation held annually on April 17 to draw attention to the plight of the thousands of political prisoners held - many for very long terms and many without any fixed term at all - in Israel's broad network of military prisons.

The Egyptian government played a role in mediating the April 15 settlement - presumably in connection with its ongoing efforts to de-escalate the hostilities between Israel and Hamas.

The prisoners most engaged in the hunger strike were from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front, and the Democratic Front. Few prisoners from Fateh participated, though there were indications that if the hunger strike had continued many more prisoners from all factions would join in on April 17.
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Che Guevara

Massive pro-Assange protest erupts in Ecuador's capital - President Lenin quashes it with riot police


RT
Wed, 17 Apr 2019 10:49 UTC
Quito police riot
© Ruptly
Assange protest in the streets of Quito, Ecuador
Riot police have attacked scores of people who flooded onto the streets of Ecuador's capital and branded their president a "traitor." Protesters were venting anger at the decision to hand Julian Assange over to the UK.

The massive rally in Quito was held to voice unease over the role Ecuador played in arranging for Julian Assange's arrest last week in London. The situation became more tense when police - wearing heavy riot gear - clashed with protesters, using batons to chase them down the street.

A Ruptly video shows some protesters being beaten and taken to the ground amid the demonstration.


Comment: A SOTT reader in Quito, Ecuador informs us that:
Approximately 20,000 citizens of all ages and backgrounds - although especially lower income workers and middle class social-media users - took part in a peaceful protest.

The people were seriously pissed! Chants and cries inundated the streets:
"Traitor! Traitor!... Free Julian Assange... You betrayed our Sovereignty!... Out with the Son of a Bitch!... Lenin Moreno, You're going down!"
There were a considerable amount of activists with Anon Guy Fawkes masks. The historical center was made inaccessible by riot police and at around 7:30pm, some of the younger men couldn't contain their indignation and things got violent, from both sides: stone throwing, tear-gas bombs, swinging batons...

At the moment of this writing, the privately-owned mass media has kept the general public seriously misinformed of international reactions to Assange's arrest event...



From RT: Roger Waters slams UK as accomplice of US Empire in Assange saga:
"To think that the UK has become such a willing accomplice and satellite of the American Empire that it would do such a thing in contravention with all laws, moral, ethical, and actual legal restrictions is absolutely, stunningly appalling and makes me ashamed to be an Englishman.

"If we let the UK get away with allowing him to be extradited to the United States, we allow the United States government, at their whim, to torture him and to detain him possibly for the rest of his life."


See also:

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