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The Boy Scouts' bankruptcy, and the scourge of childhood sex abuse

Debra W Soh
Quillette
Fri, 13 Mar 2020 00:01 UTC
boy scouts 1950s
During my many years as an academic, roughly half my time was devoted to research and clinical work with convicted sex offenders, many of whom had sexually abused children. The experience was harrowing. And my decision to eventually shift research areas accompanied the realization that I had numbed myself emotionally as a coping mechanism.

Thankfully, everything I learned from those days stayed with me. I say "thankfully" because, while I don't miss the negative emotional effects, the knowledge I gained allowed me to understand the truth about child sex abuse with a clarity that I wish every parent could be afforded. The sexual abuse of boys, in particular, is much more prevalent than many realize.

I wasn't terribly shocked to learn that the Boy Scouts of America recently declared bankruptcy as the result of hundreds of sex-abuse lawsuits. The Scouts have spent over $150 million on legal costs and settlements to date. The abuse allegations span a century. According to Boy Scout documents disclosed during litigation, more than 12,000 boys have been abused by at least 7,800 individuals since the 1920s.

Comment: See also:

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Question

China's coronavirus: A shocking update. Did the virus originate in the US?

Larry Romanoff
Global Research
Wed, 04 Mar 2020 02:44 UTC
coronavirus
The Western media quickly took the stage and laid out the official narrative for the outbreak of the new coronavirus which appeared to have begun in China, claiming it to have originated with animals at a wet market in Wuhan.

In fact the origin was for a long time unknown but it appears likely now, according to Chinese and Japanese reports, that the virus originated elsewhere, from multiple locations, but began to spread widely only after being introduced to the market.

More to the point, it appears that the virus did not originate in China and, according to reports in Japanese and other media, may have originated in the US.

Comment: The author has written two follow-ups on this:

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Dominoes

That's how you spread panic! Ohio official backtracks on claim 100k people in state ALREADY carry coronavirus


RT
Fri, 13 Mar 2020 02:15 UTC
medical storage
© REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Doctor Amy Acton's shocking claim that 100,000 Ohioans already carried the Covid-19 coronavirus was just "guesstimating," she said a day later, noting the actual number of confirmed cases stood at just 13.

At least one percent of the population carries the virus, Acton had said at a press conference on Thursday. "We have 11.7 million people. So the math is over 100,000. So that just gives you a sense of how this virus spreads and is spreading quickly." Her comment quickly went viral, so to speak.

By Friday, however, she was walking that back, saying that she was only "guesstimating" the numbers. The Ohio Department of Health has confirmed only 13 cases in the state so far, with 159 more awaiting test results and 50 confirmed negatives. Another 333 people are being monitored.
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Handcuffs

Coronavirus lockdown helps Italian police nab 'leading' mobster


AFP
Fri, 13 Mar 2020 20:07 UTC
Italy_arrests
© AFP Photo/Miguel MEDINA
March 13, 2020 A hospital worker wears a mask and gear at the Brescia hospital, Lombardy, on March 13, 2020; empty streets and stay-at-home orders imposed throughout Italy helped -police nab a mobster
A top 'Ndrangheta clan member was arrested in Italy after police, helped by the anti-coronavirus lockdown, spotted the fugitive smoking inside a seemingly deserted safe house, authorities said Friday.

Cesare Cordi, described by police as a "leading figure of the 'Ndrangheta of Locri" in southern Calabria, had been on the run since August, when a judge issued a warrant for the 42-year-old's arrest.

Thanks to the empty streets and stay-at-home orders imposed throughout the country due to the coronavirus risk, the police, who had been tracking Cordi for days, found him at a house in the town of Bruzzano Zeffirio, at the tip of Italy's boot, late on Thursday.

"The faint glow of a cigarette -- caught through the crack of a shutter -- was enough to give the carabinieri the certainty that in that house was the wanted man," the police of the province of Reggio Calabria, who staged the raid, said in a statement.

About a dozen people linked to the Locri clan were arrested in August on suspicion of various crimes, including mafia-type association, extortion, illegal competition, fraudulent transfer of assets, and possession of and carrying weapons in public.

The 'Ndrangheta, a loose confederation of about 100 organised groups centred in the Calabria region, is considered the country's most powerful and most organised crime syndicate.
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Red Flag

Peak 'Florida Man'? Ex-Tallahassee mayor denies using crystal meth after he was found in hotel room with overdosed male escort


RT
Sat, 14 Mar 2020 00:50 UTC
Andrew Gillum
© Reuters / Colin Hackley
Florida Democrat Andrew Gillum
Florida Democrat Andrew Gillum is taking a break from public life after police walked in on what has been described as a crystal meth-fueled orgy - but which he insists was just a wedding celebration where he drank too much.

Gillum was "unable to communicate with officers due to his inebriated state" when police chanced upon him in a hotel room at Miami's South Beach Mondrian on Thursday night, responding to another man's "possible drug overdose," revealed the police report, leaked via Twitter on Friday.

The police were concerned enough to request a second "welfare check" on Gillum, while they took his stricken companion to the hospital.
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Microscope 1

'Basically impossible to find a test': AP reporter trying to get Covid-19 test sent from pillar to post by health authorities


RT
Fri, 13 Mar 2020 17:17 UTC
testing coronavirus
© AFP / Danny Lawson
AP reporter Steve Peoples had no luck trying to get tested for the Covid-19 virus after he presented to a primary care center and was subsequently bounced around to various other health facilities with no tests available anywhere.

Peoples tweeted on Friday that he had been experiencing "mild symptoms" — a headache, mild fever and cough — but that when he arrived at his primary care center in north Jersey, they told him to go to the emergency room instead.


Off he went, only to find no more clarity from the ER, as staff there told him to call the city health department. The wild goose chase continued, as Peoples was instructed by the health department to go to an urgent care center — which then advised him to go back to the ER.

Comment:

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Bizarro Earth

Turkey's migrant busses, tear gas attacks and fake news stunts at the Greek border

Paul Antonopoulos
InfoBrics
Tue, 10 Mar 2020 12:00 UTC
greece turkey migrant
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's attempt to intimidate the Syrian Army and force them to withdraw to the Sochi Agreement lines in Idlib utterly failed, resulting in the Turkish leader having to embarrassingly accept large swathes of liberated territory will remain under Syrian sovereignty despite his attempts to occupy it. This was especially embarrassing as Erdoğan's end of February ultimatum came and went with no grand Turkish military offensive to push back the Syrian Army as he had promised. This embarrassment comes as Erdoğan's approval has reached as low as 41.1% according to data published by the Ankara-based pollster MetroPoll last Friday. As Erdoğan's foreign policy is largely driven by a desire for a neo-Ottoman ambitions and to serve as a distraction from Turkey's currency nosedive, he was quick to create issues against the "Old Enemy," Greece.

Comment: Some more reporting from Adam Larson for Fort Russ:
Turkish Brute Force: Migrants Forced to Cross Greek Border at Gunpoint

Turkish interior minister Suleyman Soylu later explained a million would soon pass the Greek border and then "it will cause European governments to fall, crash their stock markets, and destabilize their economies. And there is nothing they can do about it," he claimed to believe.

[...]

This was early on 29 February, just one day in, these photos show thousands piled near the gate, with a few men in the front barely deterred by tear gas just as close to the police guarding the gate. Later we learn their side is also lobbing tear gas at the police, and Turkish police have come to do the same. Some videos show a whole team firing round after round as people follow with buckets full of tear gas refills, and others try and tear down the fences or sneak off to try and cross at an unguarded area along the river. A Turkish army vehicle tried to pull down a section of fence the night of March 6.

greece turkey migrant
tear gas turkey


So that tear gas on innocents thing is not a visually obvious crime, and just how do these people get "piled" there so numerously and so quickly?

Facilitating the Migration

Turkish television TRT (Arabic) shows the routes people can now take by land (yellow) and by sea (blue), with no indication of where anyone might try and halt them. There seems no concern about documentation, or any valid obstacles. Erdogan says it's open, and if people find othewise, he can become furious with Greece's inhuman treachery. Also consider this proposed mass-movement at the height of the global coronavirus outbreak, where Iran and now Iraq are badly hit, and one route they were to take is up through Italy, suffering the worst outbreak in Europe.


The blue lines carry their own stories, but this post focuses on that yellow line to the last town, Erdine, at the borders with Bulgaria (no news there that I've noted) and Greece. There were numerous reports and accusations the Turkish state had facilitated driving "refugees" to the border, aside from many who took their own routes, like public transit to the last town and walking the final stretch. Greek state broadcaster SKAI filed a news report on the 28th featuring many interviews with arriving "refugees" who revealed many were from Afghanistan, and among other things that they had been provided free bus rides provided by Erdogan (as they saw it - officials anyway).

Many, especially able-bodied and adventurous young men, have gone voluntarily for the economic opportunities mentioned by a man claiming to be from Afghanistan (black hood, SKAI report), but he also says he and others ("we") were jailed in Turkey for one month until "today" when the police not only released them but "police brought us here and told us that the gates are opened."

March 5, Mekut Mallet: Turkish police military beat and force refugees to cross Greek border at gun point

March 4, Manoto News: Turkish police threaten with weapons #پناهجویان To the Greek border (translated from Persian)
He goes on to further state that Turkey's "Grey Wolves", a Turkish far-right & fascist organization, have been attacking the workplaces and homes of Syrian refugees in the south of Turkey, with the intention of driving them across the border into Greece.

You can read the full post with all the documentation here.

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Handcuffs

Federal grand jury indicts alleged MS-13 gang members in San Francisco for racketeering, murder & weapons charges


US DOJ Northern District of California
Fri, 13 Mar 2020 00:00 UTC
MS-13 indictments San Francisco
© AP Photo/Janie Har
San Francisco Police Chief William Scott, speaking at the podium, joins Federal authorities announcing, Friday, March 13, 2020, indictments against 17 alleged members and associates of the MS-13 gang, saying they were trying to take over San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood. Homeland Security Investigations special agent in charge Tatum King, left and second from left is U.S. Attorney for Northern California David Anderson.
A federal grand jury indicted 17 Bay Area residents for a broad range of racketeering crimes including RICO conspiracy, attempted murder, and assault, announced United States Attorney David L. Anderson and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Special Agent in Charge Tatum King. The Superseding Indictment handed down February 18, 2020 and unsealed today catalogues a litany of crimes allegedly perpetrated in and around the Mission District of San Francisco.

"San Francisco continues to suffer from gang violence and gang claims on our public spaces," said U.S. Attorney Anderson. "I am grateful to the men and women of Homeland Security Investigations and the San Francisco Police Department for their professionalism and teamwork. San Francisco is safer when we all work together. We will oppose gang activity with professional law enforcement and vigorous prosecutions."

"MS-13 gang members prey upon the communities they live in, committing the most heinous violent acts against their victims. The streets of San Francisco and the surrounding communities are safer when criminal gang members are held to account for their crimes," said Special Agent In Charge King. "I'm proud of our agents' exhaustive investigative work, together with the San Francisco Police Department and the U.S. Attorney's Office, in bringing these subjects to justice. We also appreciate the law enforcement assistance with yesterday's successful criminal arrests provided by the South San Francisco Police Department, the Mountain View Police Department and the San Mateo County Gang Intelligence Unit."

Comment:

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Health

What can the US learn from South Korea's coronavirus response?

John Dale Grover
Washington Examiner
Wed, 11 Mar 2020 08:11 UTC
Drive-thru clinic
© Yonhap/AFP via Getty Images
Drive-thru coronavirus screening clinic in Daegu, South Korea
The World Health Organization just declared COVID-19, which is caused by the novel coronavirus, a global pandemic, warning, "There are now more than 118,000 cases in 114 countries, and 4,291 people have lost their lives." So far, Johns Hopkins University estimates that there are at least 1,050 cases in America, and that number is expected to grow. Meanwhile, South Korea has had 7,755 cases and yet has done a good job of handling the outbreak. How has Seoul been able to slow down the number of new cases?

South Korea is a model to follow if countries want to avoid long-term locking down millions of people with the police and military, as China and Italy have done. To be fair, South Korea may still impose stricter quarantine measures as they run out of hospital beds in some areas. Yet, despite these huge problems, South Korea has been a relative success story by focusing on hot spots and asking people to remain at home voluntarily and avoid travel and large gatherings. In addition, anyone tested positive for COVID-19 who breaks quarantine will run afoul of South Korean law.

Comment: Additional information surfaces from China's strategy:


Acknowledgements for South Korea's handling of the coronavirus back in February:






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Star of David

Interview: UN's list of companies exploits the occupation of Palestine, omits key profiteers


The Real News Network
Thu, 12 Mar 2020 00:00 UTC
company logos
© United Nations
The United States and Israel not only delayed the UN's list of companies exploiting Palestinian occupation for three years, but omitted the most egregious profiteers, concealing activity that could be a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.

Marc Steiner: Welcome to The Real News. I'm Marc Steiner. Good to have you with us.

In February, the United Nations Human Rights Committee published a list of 112 companies that profit from the Israeli occupation on Palestinian and Syrian land. Now the colonization of occupied territory, and the exploitation of property and people in that territory, is prohibited by the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention. It's interesting to note that that convention was prompted, these international rules were prompted, because of the Nazi theft and exploitation of Jewish land and property, in large part. The companies listed by the UN are all involved in activity benefiting from this illegal occupation and colonization of Palestinian land. That makes them complicit in a war crime. What will all that mean? We're going to talk about:

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