Society's ChildS


USA

Outrageous! Gov. target taxpayers for their parents' decades-old debts

Marc Fisher
Washington Post
Thu, 10 Apr 2014 00:00 UTC
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© Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington PostMary Grice of Takoma Park, MD, talks with her attorney Robert Vogel, at Vogel's home in Rockville Maryland, April 5, 2014.
A few weeks ago, with no notice, the U.S. government intercepted Mary Grice's tax refunds from both the IRS and the state of Maryland. Grice had no idea that Uncle Sam had seized her money until some days later, when she got a letter saying that her refund had gone to satisfy an old debt to the government - a very old debt.

When Grice was 4, back in 1960, her father died, leaving her mother with five children to raise. Until the kids turned 18, Sadie Grice got survivor benefits from Social Security to help feed and clothe them.
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Sheriff

Cop "had no choice" to shoot and kill mentally ill boy because he left his taser home? Keith Vidal was only 90 lbs and five feet tall


Blacklisted News
Mon, 17 Feb 2014 00:00 UTC
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Bryon Vassey "had no choice" to shoot the child because he left his Taser home?

Bryon Vassey entered the home of a family who called 911 for medical help after their schizophrenic child had an episode. Rather than helping officers de-escalate the situation, Vassey is reported to have said "We don't have time for this." Moments later he opened fire and executed the young boy, killing him as his parents screamed in shock.

Now, Vassey's attorney is saying the officer "had no choice" but to shoot the child.
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Pistol

Armed militia arriving in Nevada to support rancher


Abel Danger
Thu, 10 Apr 2014 00:00 UTC
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Word on the street from sources close to the militia movement is that up to 5,000 armed militia members will be arriving in Bunkerville, Nevada sometime today.
It is apparent that the Federal government was under the impression that they could simply move into the ranch land surrounding Bunkerville, Nevada and have their way with the property and livelihood of the Bundy family.

What they didn't count on was the outcry from Americans across the country. And now things may be headed to the next level. As Kim Paxton of The Daily Sheeple notes, citizen militias in several states have been called up. Many members of those organizations are taking up arms and are making their way to Nevada.

And it's not just the citizen militias that are preparing to take action. The governor of Nevada has officially condemned the federal government's actions, though he has yet to take any steps afforded to him under State law. Sheriff Richard Mack of Gilbert, Arizona has weighed in and calls the actions "terrorism."

At last count there were some 200 federal agents from various agencies on the ground in Nevada and it appears that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of armed militia members will soon arrive to confront them.
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Quenelle

Facebook reveals 2,000 data requests from UK police

Press Association
The Guardian
Fri, 11 Apr 2014 10:28 UTC
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© Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty ImagesFacebook says it looks at each individual request from police.
Law enforcement agencies in the UK made thousands of requests for data on Facebook users in the last six months of 2013, according to results published by the social network.

Between July and December 2013, there were 1,906 requests submitted to Facebook for user data related to criminal cases. These requests affected 2,277 different accounts, and Facebook revealed that more than 70% of these requests saw some data produced.

"We respond to valid requests relating to criminal cases. Each and every request we receive is checked for legal sufficiency and we reject or require greater specificity on requests that are overly broad or vague," said the report.
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Stormtrooper

Police raid woman's home because she purchased organic plant food

Kristan T. Harris
The Rundown Live
Wed, 09 Apr 2014 19:46 UTC
DEA stormed home
© missellyrh
DEA agents stormed the home of Shorewood artist Angela Kirking at 5am on October 11th after an agent spotted her shopping at Midwest Hydroganics, an indoor garden center they had been staking out.

The Shorewood Patch reports: During the agent's stakeout, the agent noticed Kirking "exit the front door of the store carrying a green plastic bag containing unknown items."

The agent followed Kirking from Midwest Hydroganics back to her home in Shorewood, Illinois. The agent later acquired her electric bills from February 2013 through September. The agent then compared Kirking's bill to two of her neighbors, and noticed her bills were "consistently higher," according to the complaint for the search warrant.

An "investigative garbage pull" was performed at Kirking's residence three weeks later, at 4:15am, the complaint said. After scavenging through her trash, the agents allegedly reported finding "multiple green plant stems" that smelled strongly of "green cannabis."

Three days later agents and police pulled Kirking's husband over while leaving for work at 4:50 a.m., according to the police report. The husband was then presented with the search warrant and was asked to unlock this front door and give them access to the home.

Even though Kirking's husband cooperated agents entered the home with guns drawn according to his wife.
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Attention

World Bank figure of 1 billion people in poverty 30% 'too low'


RT.com
Fri, 11 Apr 2014 15:27 UTC
World's Poor
© AFP Photo/Rodger Bosch
The current international poverty line of $1.25 per day used by the World Bank is "too low" and "artificial," say researchers from Bristol University, adding that the total number of poor people worldwide would increase by 30 percent in future.

The World Bank's "estimates are flawed" as the organization hasn't used "different poverty measures" and only explores one angle of the problem - financial, says the study, called "The mis-measurement of extreme global poverty: A case study in the Pacific Islands," published in Journal of Sociology.

"There is considerable controversy surrounding the 'dollar a day' measure used to monitor progress against the Millennium Development Goals," adds the research, which was carried out together with specialists at the Australian National University, UNICEF Pacific and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

"Thus, the tighter definition of poverty used by the World Bank tends to lead to a better-looking poverty trend, because the poverty line is too low the trend it reports is too rosy," adds the study.

The paper urges the World Bank to examine "non-monetary forms of disadvantage and deprivation for families, adults and children." Researchers looked deeper at those living on the Pacific island state of Vanuatu by taking into account shelter, sanitization, water, information, nutrition, health and education to build up a more comprehensive picture of poverty, deprivation and inequality.
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Stock Up

This is just the beginning; meat prices will continue to soar

Michael Snyder
endoftheamericandream.com
Wed, 09 Apr 2014 10:00 UTC
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The average price of USDA choice-grade beef has soared to $5.28 a pound, and the average price of a pound of bacon has skyrocketed to $5.46. Unfortunately for those that like to eat meat, this is just the beginning of the price increases. Due to an absolutely crippling drought that won't let go of the western half of the country, the total size of the U.S. cattle herd has shrunk for seven years in a row, and it is now the smallest that is has been since 1951. But back in 1951, we had less than half the number of mouths to feed. And a devastating pig virus that has never been seen in the United States before has already killed up to 6 million pigs in this country and continues to spread like wildfire. What all of this means is that the supply of meat is going to be tight for the foreseeable future even as demand for meat continues to go up. This is going to result in much higher prices, and so food is going to put a much larger dent in American family budgets in the months and years to come.

One year ago, the average price of USDA choice-grade beef was $4.91. Now it is up to $5.28, and the Los Angeles Times says that we should not expect prices to come down "any time soon"...
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Dominoes

Climate change = violence

Rebecca Solnit
Information Clearing House
Mon, 07 Apr 2014 09:51 UTC
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© Unknown
Social unrest and famine, superstorms and droughts. Places, species and human beings - none will be spared. Welcome to Occupy Earth

If you're poor, the only way you're likely to injure someone is the old traditional way: artisanal violence, we could call it - by hands, by knife, by club, or maybe modern hands-on violence, by gun or by car.

But if you're tremendously wealthy, you can practice industrial-scale violence without any manual labor on your own part. You can, say, build a sweatshop factory that will collapse in Bangladesh and kill more people than any hands-on mass murderer ever did, or you can calculate risk and benefit about putting poisons or unsafe machines into the world, as manufacturers do every day. If you're the leader of a country, you can declare war and kill by the hundreds of thousands or millions. And the nuclear superpowers - the US and Russia - still hold the option of destroying quite a lot of life on Earth.

So do the carbon barons. But when we talk about violence, we almost always talk about violence from below, not above.

Comment: For more insight on how humanity as a whole has contributed to the climate situation, read Comets and the Horns of Moses by Laura Knight-Jadczyk.

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Ambulance

10 killed in California as truck and bus carrying students collide


SFGate.com
Fri, 11 Apr 2014 10:01 UTC
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A FedEx tractor-trailer crossed over a grassy median on a Northern California freeway and slammed into a bus carrying 44 high school students in an explosive crash that left 10 people dead, authorities said.

Among the students on the trip to visit Humboldt State University was Steven Clavijo, 18, a senior at West Ranch High in Santa Clarita, who planned to enroll in the school. Just as Clavijo was trying to catch a nap Thursday afternoon, he said he felt the big vehicle begin to shake from left to right and then he heard a loud boom.

"We knew we were in major trouble," he said.

Both the bus and semi driver were among those killed in the fiery crash, authorities said.
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Brick Wall

300,000 jobs at risk: German enterprises worried about relations with Russia


ITAR-TASS
Fri, 11 Apr 2014 06:31 UTC
German and Russian flags
© ITAR-TASS/Dmitry Burlakov
Economic sanctions against Russia are unlikely to be effective in settling the Ukrainian crisis, Ingo Kramer, president of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations (BDA), told Germany's daily Die Welt (The World) on Friday.

"Our enterprises are really worried about their relations with Russia," Kramer said. "Some of them can already feel the consequences of the current crisis, but this has not affected the general state of the economy yet."

"Economic sanctions will not help to reach a breakthrough in politics," he said. "And I do not think there will be any escalation (of the conflict) or another 'ice age'. There is very strong interdependence (between Russia and the West)."

Kramer added that "Russia has always been a reliable economic partner", which was not to be neglected.
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