Society's Child

Rome's police seize 8 of notorious Casamonica gypsy Mafia family's villas, evicting 30 members

Ross Ibbetson
Daily Mail
Tue, 20 Nov 2018 11:55 UTC

A rearing golden stallion sits atop a porcelain base in the dining area - the family originally made their money in the horse trade in the 1960s before criminal diversification and muscling into Rome from the countryside

The Gaud-father: Eight gaudy villas illegally built by Casamonica Mafia mobsters in Rome are seized by police - along with their tasteless decorations

Italian police seized eight luxury villas and kicked out 30 members of a powerful Roman Mafia clan in dawn raids involving 600 officers.

City mayor Virginia Raggi, who watched the operation carried out against the Casamonica mobsters, said the properties would be demolished before the New Year.

The gang are known for their gaudy extravagance, decorating their houses like film sets in gold and marble, and wearing Rolex watches as their trademark.

They are proud of their gypsy roots and according to the BBC, stood up against the ruling nationalist party in June after they said they wanted to take a census of the Romani population.

Comment: Italy's interior minister comes under fire after ordering full census and expulsion of illegal Roma

Comment: A good start. One wonders whether the government will be bold enough to go after the other criminal networks that run rampant in Italy - although, of course, it's not just Italy that suffers this problem:

Also check out SOTT radio's:

Controversial British blogger Graham Phillips' Twitter account permanently suspended and liberal journalists rejoice

RT
Wed, 21 Nov 2018 19:04 UTC

Controversial British blogger Graham Phillips has had his Twitter account permanently suspended, prompting many liberal journalists who have been following his activities to rejoice.

According to Phillips - writing in a Facebook post - his account has been "permanently banned,"adding that Twitter has provided "no examples of the 'hateful content' they accuse me of."

Philips' often unconventional, always confrontational, practices have led to him being maligned by many of his peers.

After his apparent disappearance from Twitter his detractors were quick to post on the numerous other accusations against him. For example, the UK-based independent journalist and filmmaker Jake Hanrahan, who has worked for the BBC, Bellingcat, and The Guardian, has accused him of looting "a dead Ukraine soldier's body."

Tumblr kicked off Apple App Store for 'child sexual exploitation'

Charlie Nash
Breitibart
Tue, 20 Nov 2018 19:39 UTC

Popular microblogging platform Tumblr, popular with teenagers and college-aged youth, has been kicked off of the Apple App Store, allegedly over issues with "child sexual exploitation" being posted on the social network.

According to the Verge, the app, which has been on the store for several years, was removed on November 16 and has remained off the store since.

On Monday evening, it was confirmed that the reason was due to alleged problems with "child sexual exploitation and abuse" on the platform, which managed to slip through Tumblr's filters.

"We continue to work to restore our app to the iOS App Store," declared Tumblr in a statement. "We're committed to helping build a safe online environment for all users, and we have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to media featuring child sexual exploitation and abuse. As this is an industry-wide problem, we work collaboratively with our industry peers and partners like NCMEC to actively monitor content uploaded to the platform."

The rise of the populist Western dissident

Allum Bokhari
Breitbart
Mon, 19 Nov 2018 16:45 UTC

We're used to Russian dissidents, Chinese dissidents, Iranian dissidents, and Saudi Arabian dissidents. But those who rightly believe the west is superior to authoritarian regimes must now contend with a troubling trend - the rise of the western dissident.

Chief among them is Julian Assange, who for a half-decade has been forced to live in the tiny Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has claimed political asylum since 2011. Assange claimed that he would be extradited to the U.S. to face charges over his work at WikiLeaks if he left the embassy, and was routinely mocked as paranoid for doing so.

This week, we learned that Assange was right and his critics were wrong. Thanks to a clerical error by the U.S. attorney's office in Alexandria, Virginia, reporters were able to confirm the existence of sealed criminal charges against the WikiLeaks founder.

Because the charges are sealed and the evidence is unknown, it's impossible to say if the case has merit. But it likely relates to WikiLeaks' release of unredacted diplomatic cables in 2011, which forced the U.S. to relocate several of its foreign sources.

Fiery 4-car crash on Brooklyn Bridge turns deadly

Stephanie Pagones and Natalie Musumeci
New York Post
Wed, 21 Nov 2018 16:47 UTC

One person was killed and six others injured in a fiery, four-car wreck on the Brooklyn Bridge on Wednesday morning, authorities said.

Three of the vehicles involved in the 7:15 a.m. crash, including a pickup truck, burst into flames on the Brooklyn-bound side of the bridge, sending plumes of black smoke into the air, FDNY officials said.

"There was a huge fire," said witness Jennifer Brown, who had been walking along the bridge at the time. "There was a lot of black smoke ... the cars were pretty engulfed."

Explaining why unburned trees next to burned down houses is not evidence of 'secret energy weapons'

Mick West
Metabunk
Sun, 16 Oct 2016 16:23 UTC

The aftermath of the Ash Wednesday fires in 1983, in Victoria, Australia

Why do you sometimes see unburnt trees next to a burnt down house?

Conspiracy theories would say that this is because the houses were actually vapourize with beams of energy from space. But the actual reason, as many people have pointed out, is simply that the wood in the houses is dry, and the wood in the trees is wet.

If you don't use a wood fire in your house this might be a bit hard to understand, so I set out to do an experiment to demonstrate this.

First stop was my attic, which, like most new houses in California has an internal frame of 2 by 4s.
There was a bit of scrap wood left over from construction. The same wood as the frame of my house, so ideal for testing.

Nanny State: Judge rejects family's petition to halt chemotherapy for 13yo son whose cancer is in remission

Greg Cergol
NBC New York
Mon, 19 Nov 2018 16:12 UTC

Nicholas Gundersen

A 13-year-old Long Island boy battling a rare and deadly form of leukemia stood with his parents in family court Monday, sharing another disappointment as a New York judge rejected the family's emergency petition to halt his daily chemotherapy treatments.

"I don't need chemo because I don't have any more cancer in my body," Nicholas Gundersen told reporters Monday. "It's difficult because every time I get it, I always feel sick. And I don't want to feel sick if I don't have to feel sick."

The teen's cancer is said to be in remission, but his doctors at NYU Winthrop Hospital insist the boy needs 40 more months of chemotherapy. A spokesman for NYU Winthrop said previously, "Unless chemotherapy is continued, those [cancer] cells can once again multiply and the results are usually fatal."

When mom Candace Gundersen decided not to continue chemotherapy treatments for her son, instead seeking a second opinion from other doctors and planning to focus on a non-toxic alternative therapy for the teen, Suffolk County's Child Protective Services seized custody of Nicholas.

Woman who had relationship with creepy porn lawyer Michael Avenatti claims he dragged her by arm across the floor

Michael Balsamo and Catherine Lucey
Associated Press
Tue, 20 Nov 2018 16:05 UTC

© Marion Curtis/StarPix via AP
In this September 2018 photo, attorney Michael Avenatti, right, poses with Mareli Miniutti for a photo at a party in New York.

An actress who says she had a relationship with Michael Avenatti alleges that he dragged her across the floor of his Los Angeles apartment after an argument over money, according to court documents obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

Mareli Miniutti wrote in a sworn statement that during the argument, Avenatti shouted expletives at her and told her she was "ungrateful" before he hit her in the face with pillows. She said Avenatti attempted to pull her out of a bed in his guest bedroom and snatched her phone away before she screamed for help.

Avenatti, who was arrested last week on a felony domestic violence charge, called the allegations "completely false." He's scheduled to appear in court next month.

Avenatti, who is mulling a presidential run, is best known as the attorney for porn actress Stormy Daniels, who has said she had an affair with President Donald Trump in 2006, a claim Trump denies. As Daniels' lawyer, Avenatti has pursued the president and those close to him relentlessly for months, taunting Trump in interviews and baiting him and his lawyers in tweets.

Detroit judge dismisses FGM charges - rules law unconstitutional, up to the states to regulate

Tresa Baldas
Detroit Free Press
Tue, 20 Nov 2018 15:56 UTC

In a major blow to the federal government, a judge in Detroit has declared America's female genital mutilation law unconstitutional, thereby dismissing the key charges against two Michigan doctors and six others accused of subjecting at least nine minor girls to the cutting procedure in the nation's first FGM case.

The historic case involves minor girls from Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota, including some who cried, screamed and bled during the procedure and one who was given Valium ground in liquid Tylenol to keep her calm, court records show.

The judge's ruling also dismissed charges against three mothers, including two Minnesota women whom prosecutors said tricked their 7-year-old daughters into thinking they were coming to metro Detroit for a girls' weekend, but instead had their genitals cut at a Livonia clinic as part of a religious procedure.

U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman concluded that "as despicable as this practice may be," Congress did not have the authority to pass the 22-year-old federal law that criminalizes female genital mutilation, and that FGM is for the states to regulate. FGM is banned worldwide and has been outlawed in more than 30 countries, though the U.S. statute had never been tested before this case.

'Disgrace to Jews': Israeli consulate in Boston goes after RT America reporter over Gaza tweets

RT
Wed, 21 Nov 2018 12:46 UTC

The Israeli consulate in Boston has sent angry messages to a RT America reporter, after his criticism of how the US media were covering the deadly events in Gaza was retweeted by Palestinian activists.

Dan Cohen was pointing out how the Associated Press was "whitewashing Israel's crimes" including the shooting of the agency's own journalist in Gaza on Monday, when he received the messages from the consulate, calling him a "disgrace to Americans and Jews everywhere."

Apparently, the messages were triggered by a couple of tweets by Cohen that were retweeted by Ali Abunimah, the co-founder of Electronic Intifada, a Chicago-based news site reporting from the Palestinian perspective. One of them referenced a documentary Cohen co-produced, called 'Killing Gaza,' about the 2014 conflict in the enclave.

I once wore a kilt to elementary school but that was because it was part of my homemade Braveheart costume. I had shorts on underneath but pranked...

Animanarchy

She hopefully also knocked out a complete chronology of her situation and made it available to the press. God speed lady! Fight that good fight -...

Rowan Cocoan

.. .. Never go to Happy Hour when it's nurses night.. or, Let's go phizzer [Link]

Jibrish

But we're going into a mini 'ice age'! HAARP has nothing to do with this...

tekdude

Ehret an idiot beyond belief

smertzasmert

Society's Child

Rome's police seize 8 of notorious Casamonica gypsy Mafia family's villas, evicting 30 members

Controversial British blogger Graham Phillips' Twitter account permanently suspended and liberal journalists rejoice

Tumblr kicked off Apple App Store for 'child sexual exploitation'

The rise of the populist Western dissident

Fiery 4-car crash on Brooklyn Bridge turns deadly

Explaining why unburned trees next to burned down houses is not evidence of 'secret energy weapons'

Nanny State: Judge rejects family's petition to halt chemotherapy for 13yo son whose cancer is in remission

Woman who had relationship with creepy porn lawyer Michael Avenatti claims he dragged her by arm across the floor

Detroit judge dismisses FGM charges - rules law unconstitutional, up to the states to regulate

'Disgrace to Jews': Israeli consulate in Boston goes after RT America reporter over Gaza tweets

Latest News

Picture of the Day

Quote of the Day

Recent Comments

Quantum Quirk

Contact Us