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Appalling Dickens-style Christmas tour of Los Angele's Skid Row


RT
Wed, 27 Dec 2017 15:08 UTC
Skid Row Christmas in LA
On the outskirts of California's most populous city lies a heart-wrenching sight - block after block of squalid, grinding poverty, where tents and makeshift shelters line the streets as far as the eye can see.

The English writer and social critic Charles Dickens would have had enough material for many more novels depicting life of the poor, had he been around to see LA's most impoverished neighborhood.

Just blocks away from LA's fashionable restaurants, coffee shops and cultural venues, barely visible from the top of the city's shimmering skyscrapers, is something of a warzone, a veritable no-man's land where entry is not conducive to healthy living. In fact, it can be downright deadly.

Welcome to LA's Skid Row, where reportedly one in three residents are homeless. It has been called one of the "most densely-populated areas of people experiencing homelessness."

On Christmas Day, 'citizen journalist' Nick Stern decided to take a drive around this neighborhood to see how some of California's least fortunate citizens were spending the holidays. Stern posted his video, just under three minutes long, on Live Leak. It makes for painful viewing.

Comment: See also: The Truth Perspective: Poverty and Homelessness in America

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Attention

Nine celebs who are 2017's most hideous 'feminist' sex abuse-enablers

John Nolte
Breitbart
Tue, 26 Dec 2017 00:01 UTC
feminist enablers harassment
© Getty/Getty/Getty
Just as they did during Bill Clinton's presidency, in 2017, America's leading leftwing feminists once again proved that nothing has changed in the era of #MeToo - that, if it means furthering The Cause or protecting their friends, they are in reality nothing less than partisan villains eager to enable credibly accused sex abusers.

Most of the time these hideous women hold the sisterhood mask fairly steady. But every once in a while it slips and we are allowed to see what is really behind the hear me roar facade: a grotesque ideologue willing to sell out and personally destroy alleged victims in order to protect a left-wing agenda that, in their own twisted minds, trumps all - even photographic evidence and basic, human decency.

Comment: Here's a couple more from the past:

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Light Sabers

Aaron Maté vs Luke Harding: What happens when a Russiagate skeptic debates a professional Russiagater (VIDEO)

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Tue, 26 Dec 2017 15:19 UTC
Aaron Maté Real News Luke Harding Guardian
© Real News
Have you ever wondered why mainstream media outlets, despite being so fond of dramatic panel debates on other hot-button issues, never have critics of the Russiagate narrative on to debate those who advance it? Well, in a recent Real News interview we received an extremely clear answer to that question, and it was so epic it deserves its own article.

Real News host and producer Aaron Maté has recently emerged as one of the most articulate critics of the establishment Russia narrative and the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory, and has published in The Nation some of the clearest arguments against both that I've yet seen. Luke Harding is a journalist for The Guardian where he has been writing prolifically in promotion of the Russiagate narrative, and is the author of New York Times bestseller Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win.

In theory, it would be hard to find two journalists more qualified to debate each side of this important issue. In practice, it was a one-sided thrashing that The Intercept's Jeremy Scahill accurately described as "brutal".


Comment: Memo for Mr Harding: Do not start a journalistic investigation having decided what the conclusion is in advance - and do not confuse context with evidence.

More Caitlin Johnstone on Russiagate:

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Life Preserver

Poll: More than half of Russians donate blood and the trend is rising


Source
Wed, 27 Dec 2017 15:24 UTC
Russian blood donors are mostly driven by compassion

blood donation
© Sergei Fadeichev/TASS
More Russians have begun donating blood in recent years, while 47% of those polled had given blood in 2017, says a survey by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center.

"The number of Russians giving blood has surged in recent years. If in 2015 the figure was 39%, in 2017 we already see it at 47%. Among them, 12% gave blood once, 15% several times and 20% more than three times," says the survey posted on the pollster's website on Saturday.
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Laptop

Chechen leader Kadyrov's facebook account blocked due to US sanctions


RT
Wed, 27 Dec 2017 15:17 UTC
Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov
© Said Tzarnaev / Sputnik
Facebook has explained that the account of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov was blocked because the US administration imposed restrictions on him under the Magnitsky Act.

Facebook said Kadyrov's account had been deactivated due to "legal obligations," arising from the new US sanctions against the leader of Russia's Chechen Republic. Kadyrov was sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act last week alongside four other Russian nationals over alleged human rights abuses.
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2 + 2 = 4

Parent of 'transgender' teen: 'We have to fight this radical movement'

Dr. Susan Berry
Breitbart
Wed, 27 Dec 2017 14:37 UTC
The parent of a teen girl who is "transitioning" to become a boy is urging the increasing number of families coping with the radical transgender movement to fight back rather than succumb to its ideology.

transgender movement
© David McNew/Getty Images
"It took us completely by surprise," Kristie Sisson told Breitbart News in an interview. "Because Danielle had a normal childhood, did all of the typical girl things - from dressing up like the princesses, to playing with dolls, to wearing make-up, perfume, and jewelry."

Sisson says that, in the fall of 2016, just weeks before her daughter - then a high school senior - told her parents she was going to start to dress like a boy, she had taken her daughter shopping for school clothes, and Danielle had chosen girl's clothing.

Comment: There is nothing wrong with transgenderism in and of itself. However, the decision to transition should be made by responsible adults who are sure of their choice.

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People 2

Where European populism is going in 2018

Tyler Durden
Zerohedge
Tue, 26 Dec 2017 19:58 UTC
populism
While the establishment may breathe a sigh of relief looking back at political developments and events in Europe - which was spared some of the supposedly "worst-case scenarios" including a Marine le Pen presidency, a Merkel loss and a Geert Wilders victory - in 2017, any victory laps will have to be indefinitely postponed because as Goldman writes in its "Top of Mind" peek at 2018, Europe's nationalist and populist tide was just resting, and as Pascal Lamy, the former Chief of Staff to the President of the European Commission admitted earlier this year, "Euroskeptic politicians are largely following the pulse of domestic sentiment. The fact is that the public is less enthusiastic about Europe than it once was."
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Pistol

Gunman kills one and injures three others in shooting rampage at Moscow factory

Will Stewart
Daily Mail
Wed, 27 Dec 2017 12:35 UTC
Special forces troops were preparing to storm the Menshevik sweet plant amid reports that the plant's owner was holed up inside with weapons

Special forces troops were preparing to storm the Menshevik sweet plant amid reports that the plant's owner was holed up inside with weapons
A gunman has killed one and injured three during a shooting rampage at a Moscow sweet factory.

The attacker, named as Ilya Averyanov, 49, has barricaded himself inside the facility in a southeastern area of the Russian capital and told a radio station he will 'fight until the very end'.

Special forces troops were preparing to storm the Menshevik sweet plant amid reports that the plant's owner was holed up inside with weapons.

There are reports that workers were forced to leap from factory windows to save their lives. The director was using a Saiga semi-automatic rifle.

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Gear

Israel's Shin Bet accused of coercing false confession and imprisoning innocent man for two years


RT
Wed, 27 Dec 2017 12:17 UTC
Israel security policemen Shin Bet
© Ammar Awad / Reuters
Israeli security personnel patrol Jerusalem's old city, December 22, 2017.
A panel of Israeli judges has blasted the country's counterterrorism agency Shin Bet, accusing it of dubious interrogation practices and evidence-gathering that led to an innocent man spending two years behind bars.

Last month, 23-year-old Khalil Nimri, of East Jerusalem, was acquitted of plotting a bomb attack against a hotel in the southern resort city of Eilat, known to be frequented by Orthodox Jews. In 2015, a hotel clerk wrongly identified Nimri as a man who came in and started asking suspicious questions, before realizing his mistake and warning the police who then arrested another suspect, Ashraf Salameh.

But instead of letting Nimri go, his interrogators made him believe they would harm his family and coerced him into admitting he was part of the bomb plot. It is not uncommon for a suspect, put under pressure or tricked into thinking they will get off lightly, to confess to something they haven't done.

Comment: The problem with arguing that a "horrible error" was made is that it suggests that such abusive practices on the part of Israeli security and military forces are the exception and not the rule - but we know that's not the case. Sometimes it is not just 'coercion'; others it is torture. And sometimes the targets of torture are children. See: The IDF vs The Teenage Girl: Palestinian Activist Ahed Tamimi Arrested For Slapping Soldiers Who Shot Boy, where we read:
Sadly, what is happening to Ahed is not the exception. Since 2000, at least 8,000 Palestinian children as young as 12 have been arrested and prosecuted by the Israeli military. The Israeli military detention system is notorious for the ill-treatment of children.The extent to which Shin Bet interrogators practice torture has been described as 'institutional'. In its 2016 report, Amnesty International found that Israeli forces and Shin Bet personnel had "tortured and otherwise ill-treated Palestinian detainees, including children, particularly during arrest and interrogation", with methods such as "beating with batons, slapping, throttling, prolonged shackling, stress positions, sleep deprivation and threats".

According to research of Defence for Children International - Palestine, almost two thirds of Palestinian children detained in the West Bank had endured physical violence after apprehension. In several cases (23% in 2013, for example), children have been either shown or made to sign documentation, presumably 'confessions', in Hebrew - a language they do not understand.


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Vader

How "Star Wars" lost its way to identity politics

Bishop Robert Barron
Catholic World Report
Wed, 27 Dec 2017 12:08 UTC
What began forty years ago as a thrilling, cinematic exploration of the philosophia perennis has devolved into a vehicle for the latest trendy ideology-and that is really a shame.

Star Wars
I fell sound asleep for about ten minutes during the most recent installment in the Star Wars franchise, The Last Jedi. This was not only because the narrative had wandered down a very tedious alleyway, but because Star Wars in general has lost its way. What began as a thrilling exploration of the philosophia perennis has devolved into a vehicle for the latest trendy ideology-and that is really a shame.

Like so many others in my generation (I was seventeen when the first film in the series came out), I was captivated by George Lucas' vision. We all loved the explosions, the spaceships, and the special effects (corny now, but groundbreaking at the time), but we also sensed that there was something else going on in these films, something that excited the soul as much as it dazzled the eyes.

Comment:

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