Society's Child

Brooklyn District Attorney says people caught with small amount of marijuana won't be prosecuted if they have no criminal record

Oren Yaniv
New York Daily News
Tue, 08 Jul 2014 16:45 UTC

District Attorney Kenneth Thompson released a statement Tuesday saying that those busted in Brooklyn with little or no criminal record for small amounts of marijuana will have their arrests dismissed before even seeing a judge

The order came from on high. Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson on Tuesday said he won't prosecute people with little or no criminal record who get caught with small amounts of weed.

While the majority of such cases already are eventually dismissed, those arrested from now on - with some exceptions - will be released before seeing a judge, according to a DA memo. The revised approach is not shared by cops and could even cause tension between the DA and the NYPD.

"This new policy is a reasonable response to the thousands of low-level marijuana arrests that weigh down the criminal justice system, require significant resources that could be redirected to more serious crimes and take an unnecessary toll on offenders," Thompson said in a statement.

Comment:

US: Too Little, Too Late: Commissioner Kelly Tells New York Police Department to End Stop-and-Frisks That Led to Thousands of Bogus Marijuana Arrests

NYPD sued over 'stop-and-frisk' policy

Poverty and abuse in Cambodia's 'virginity trade'

Lucy Watson
The Independent, UK
Wed, 09 Jul 2014 16:34 UTC

Danet* is fourteen, and lives in a house built on wooden stilts, with no walls, and only tarpaulin for shelter. There are eleven of them who live in the family home, next to a mosquito-infested pond in a poor, rural community in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She loves to read fairy tales but she frowns a lot and her eyes have a haunted gaze.

At the age of ten, she was locked in a guesthouse bedroom for days, at the mercy of a British paedophile. Her mother sold her for a week for $750.

Her virginity was part of the allure, but surely that is irrelevant. This was a child sold by her parents to be raped by a sex offender. Unfathomable.

Danet describes Michael Leach - her convicted abuser, a former government advisor - as "big and cruel looking". She says: "He didn't look nice, he looked strange."

The 54 year old is now serving a twelve year jail sentence, so she is less afraid to talk about him.

"I hope he stays put away forever," she says.

Selling her virginity - her innocence - was a way to feed nine children and pay their debts. Danet's father earns $5 a day as a motorbike taxi driver and fruit seller.

Her mother was approached and coaxed into the deal by a "broker", a local driver, who worked for Leach to appease his urge to abuse minors.

"My mother took me there on the first day. The next, my father drove me there. I didn't want to go but I had to, for my family."

A mother and a father escorted their child to be raped.

Selling donated blood is big business in U.S.

Danny Biederman, Noel Brinkerhoff
All Gov
Wed, 09 Jul 2014 14:03 UTC

Donating blood is anything but a charitable act in the United States. Oftentimes, blood given for free by Americans gets turned into profitable deals by companies specializing in blood sales to hospitals. These days, a pint of blood can go for $180 to $300, depending on demand.

One business, General Blood based in Minnesota, serves as a middleman between blood donation centers and medical centers and research laboratories. Given that blood is such big business, it's not unusual for some of it to be spilled in the midst of legal battles.

Indeed, General Blood is currently caught up in a lawsuit with the nonprofit Oklahoma Blood Institute (OBI), which sells donated blood. OBI sued General Blood, claiming it is owed money, and General Blood counter-sued OBI for $14 million over alleged confidentiality issues.

The sale of people's donated blood for hundreds of dollars per pint explains how a nonprofit like OBI can make $86 million a year, according to The Oklahoman.

These earnings get passed down to the institute's top executives, who make six-figure salaries. Leading the team is OBI's CEO, John Armitage, whose annual salary is $421,561. General Blood founder Ben Bowman claims that non-profits like OBI are profiting on blood. But Armitage denies that OBI is doing so.

"We are providing a drug," Armitage explained to the newspaper. "On the business side of what we do, the comparison is to a pharmaceutical company. Technically, we like to say the blood is free, but they [hospitals] pay a service charge. It's arranged, so it's a service fee."

"We have a charitable side," he added, "which is trying to motivate people to do an amazing thing [donate blood] to help their fellow man or woman."

Utah cop drugged and raped wife repeatedly on video before killing his family and himself

Travis Gettys
The Raw Story
Wed, 09 Jul 2014 09:15 UTC

A Utah police officer who killed his family before taking his own life had drugged and raped his wife on videotape repeatedly, according to an investigation into the January murder-suicide.

Spanish Fork police completed its 145-page investigation Monday into the deaths of 32-year-old Kelly Boren, 7-year-old Joshua "Jaden" Boren, 5-year-old Haley Boren, 55-year-old Marie King, and 34-year-old Joshua Boren, reported the Deseret News.

Police believe Joshua Boren, a Linden police officer who previously worked as a Utah County sheriff's deputy, used his department-issued handgun to kill his wife, children, and mother-in-law Jan. 16 in their home and then turned the gun on himself.

Investigators said Boren was a well-respected law enforcement officer considered a "teddy bear" by those who knew him, but they said the officer had a dark side he had apparently battled since childhood.

California pastor, parishioners plead guilty to forcing 13-year old boy to dig his own grave

David Edwards
The Raw Story
Tue, 08 Jul 2014 15:25 UTC

A California pastor and two members of his congregation admitted in court that they physically abused a 13-year-old boy and made him dig his own grave.

According to affidavits published by The Los Angeles Times, 56-year-old Heart of Worship Community Church Pastor Lonny Lee Remmers, 24-year-old Nicholas James Craig and 30-year-old Darryll Duane Jeter Jr. said that they were following instructions to "scare" the victim. All three of the men had worked at a group home where the boy lived.

In March of 2012, the men reportedly took the victim to the desert where he was forced to dig a grave. After he got in the grave, the men threw dirt on him.

The men also rubbed salt into his wounds while he was showering, tied him to a chair with zip ties, and sprayed mace on his face until he bled.

At one point, the boy was made to sit in the middle of a Bible study group and pinch his own nipples with pliers, investigators said.

'Getting Even': Sixteen dead, over one-hundred wounded in massive Israeli assault on Gaza

Reuters
Tue, 08 Jul 2014 20:23 UTC

© AFP - Said Khatib
Palestinians sitting on a street react after a deadly Israeli air strike that targeted their house on July 8, 2014 in the town of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip.

Sixteen Palestinians have been killed and 106 injured in a massive Israeli air and naval assault against the besieged Gaza Strip Tuesday, bombing dozens of targets, including homes.

"The casualty toll from the [Israeli] aggression has reached 16 dead and 106 injured," health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra wrote on Twitter.The casualties are "mostly children, women and the elderly," he added.In the deadliest of the attacks, eight people were killed when Israel bombed the Kaware family home in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, Qudra announced, writing on Twitter that three children aged eight, 13 and 14 were among the dead. Another 25 people were injured in that bombing.

Witnesses told AFP a drone launched a warning flare, prompting relatives and neighbors to gather at the house as a human shield, but shortly afterwards an F-16 fired a missile which leveled the building.That attack came after four bodies had arrived to Shifa Hospital after Israel bombed a car transporting them in Gaza City, Qudra said.

Israel claims its offensive is meant to end Palestinian rocket fire into Israeli occupied territories, urging Israelis within a 40 kilometer radius of the southern coastal territory to stay within reach of protected areas. The military said it targeted about 50 sites in aerial and naval assaults by morning. Palestinian officials said more than 30 of them were bombed in little more than an hour before dawn, including two homes in southern Gaza, one of which was identified by a neighbor as belonging to a Hamas member.

Comment: Seems like everything is going according to plan. Interesting how this all began with three boys being abducted and killed by parties unknown.

Ethnic cleansing: 24,000 Ukrainians find refuge in Russia's Rostov region

RiaNovosti
Mon, 07 Jul 2014 00:00 UTC

Refugee camp for Ukrainians in Rostov region

Almost 24,000 refugees from Ukraine are staying in Russia's Rostov Region, the regional emergency department reported Monday.

"In total, 23,845 people, including 8,857 children, have been accommodated" in the region, according to the authorities.

Almost 20,000 people are staying with relatives and local residents, while others have been housed in temporary accommodation centers.

The influx of refugees from the southeastern Ukraine increased dramatically in June amid continuing clashes between independence supporters and Kiev-led security forces.

Comment: This is the result of the Obama Administration's sponsored ethnic cleansing to reduce the population in the areas of Ukraine that had voted overwhelmingly "the wrong way" in Ukraine's final nationwide election.

Despite what Western media tells you, Americans are engaged in ethnic cleansing in Ukraine

Looming foreclosure crisis in US could be alleviated by action of Fed to renegotiate mortgages

Ellen Brown
Nation of Change
Tue, 08 Jul 2014 00:00 UTC

Mortgage debt overhang from the housing bust has meant lack of middle-class spending power and consumer demand, preventing the economy from growing. The problem might be fixed by a new approach from the Fed. But if the Fed won't act, counties will, as seen in the latest developments on eminent domain and litigation over MERS.

Former Assistant Treasury Secretary Paul Craig Roberts wrote on June 25th that real US GDP growth for the first quarter of 2014 was a negative 2.9%, off by 5.5% from the positive 2.6% predicted by economists. If the second quarter also shows a decline, the US will officially be in recession. That means not only fiscal policy (government deficit spending) but monetary policy (unprecedented quantitative easing) will have failed. The Federal Reserve is out of bullets.

Or is it? Perhaps it is just aiming at the wrong target.

The Fed's massive quantitative easing program was ostensibly designed to lower mortgage interest rates, stimulating the economy. And rates have indeed been lowered - for banks. But the form of QE the Fed has engaged in - creating money on a computer screen and trading it for assets on bank balance sheets - has not delivered money where it needs to go: into the pockets of consumers, who create the demand that drives productivity.

Some ways the Fed could get money into consumer pockets with QE, discussed in earlier articles, include very-low-interest loans for students and very-low-interest loans to state and local governments. Both options would stimulate demand. But the biggest brake on the economy remains the languishing housing market. The Fed has been buying up new issues of mortgage-backed securities so fast that it now owns 12% of the mortgage market; yet housing continues to sputter, largely because of the huge inventory of underwater mortgages.

US cops protest: Nearly 500 cops call in sick to protest healthcare cuts in Memphis

RT
Mon, 07 Jul 2014 15:09 UTC

The Memphis, Tennessee Police Department is hemorrhaging officers as hundreds of cops continue to call in sick as part of a growing act of protest.

On Monday this week, MPD spokesperson Sgt. Karen Rudolph confirmed to the Knoxville News Sentinel that 472 officers were off of work that afternoon after claiming to be sick. One day earlier, Mayor A C Wharton said at a news conference that 308 officer had called out of work since the previous Monday, causing a noticeable strain on the department's ability to patrol the streets. Now if the trend continues in this manner, the number of active cops on the MPD may be obliterated even further.

Over the weekend, Police Director Toney Armstrong acknowledged that the growing number of officers calling out of work was the result of an effort waged after the City Council voted recently to reduce health care subsidies for city employees. According to the Memphis Flyer, city officials approved those changes when they agreed to pass a new budget last month. Now ahead of a July 15 vote where changes to the city employee pension plan are expected to be approved, officers are striking en masse by using up their sick days to express their outrage.

Officer Mike Williams, the president of the local police union, told a Memphis CBS News affiliate recently that a potential strike seemed to be among the only options the cops had left to speak up.

Nurse: VA medical staff stole morphine from dying patients

Patrick Howley
Dailycaller.com
Mon, 07 Jul 2014 17:11 UTC

Vials of morphine were systemically stolen from a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center and replaced with water and saline so that dying veterans got the wrong treatments, a longtime VA nurse told The Daily Caller.

"A nurse taking care of hospice patients over the past year had been diverting vials of morphine," said Valerie Riviello, a 28-year veteran nurse at the Albany Stratton VA Medical Center in Albany, New York. "Those patients that were dying in hospice were not getting their intended pain medication."

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Society's Child

Brooklyn District Attorney says people caught with small amount of marijuana won't be prosecuted if they have no criminal record

Poverty and abuse in Cambodia's 'virginity trade'

Selling donated blood is big business in U.S.

Utah cop drugged and raped wife repeatedly on video before killing his family and himself

California pastor, parishioners plead guilty to forcing 13-year old boy to dig his own grave

'Getting Even': Sixteen dead, over one-hundred wounded in massive Israeli assault on Gaza

Ethnic cleansing: 24,000 Ukrainians find refuge in Russia's Rostov region

Looming foreclosure crisis in US could be alleviated by action of Fed to renegotiate mortgages

US cops protest: Nearly 500 cops call in sick to protest healthcare cuts in Memphis

Nurse: VA medical staff stole morphine from dying patients

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