Society's ChildS


Bad Guys

Hispanic pastors tour same border facility lambasted by AOC: They are 'shocked by misinformation'

Caleb Parke
Fox News
Tue, 02 Jul 2019 17:08 UTC
ocasio cortez fake photo op border facility
© GettyOcasio-Cortez stages a photo op at a border facility parking lot
Rev. Samuel Rodriguez was "full of indignation" when he saw the reports and heard from politicians about the deplorable and inhumane conditions for illegal immigrants at an El Paso County, Texas migrant detention center. But what he saw at the same facility toured by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. with a group of pastors was "drastically different."

The president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, the world's largest Hispanic Christian organization, and senior pastor of New Seasons Christian Worship Center in Sacramento shared his firsthand experience touring a migrant detention center during a press briefing Monday.

"I read the reports, saw the news clips. I just wanted to see what was actually happening in order to better enable our efforts to find a fair and a just solution to our broken immigration system," Rodriguez, who has advised President Trump and both Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush on immigration reform, noted. "To my surprise, I saw something drastically different from the stories I've been hearing in our national discourse. Even as a veteran of immigration advocacy in the U.S., I was shocked at the misinformation of the crisis at the border."

Comment: More from the Daily Caller:
A group of pastors led by the president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference is outraged over the depiction of migrant detention centers as inhumane and filthy.

And there appears to be inconsistencies in Ocasio-Cortez's story.

She also reportedly screamed at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) guard.

The pastors said the narrative being offered by some Democratic politicians is like an alternate reality.

"We found no soiled diapers, no deplorable conditions and no lack of basic necessities," Rodriguez continued, noting that he made a point about asking the CBP agents if they had cleaned up the facility in anticipation of an inspection.

"They unequivocally denied it — we were witnessing the identical conditions the attorneys saw when they toured the facility days earlier," he said.

Rather than feeling dismayed, the pastors say their faith in the motives and abilities of the CBP agents has been refreshed — especially since many of the federal workers "are Latinos, by the way."

Rodriguez left reporters with the words of one CBP agent who expressed his frustration over being demonized by politicians: "Pastor Sam, what they're saying about us is completely false. We care about these kids and have a passion for our calling."


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Ambulance

At least 14 Russian Navy servicemen have died in fire on Russian deep submersible - UPDATE


RT
Tue, 02 Jul 2019 15:40 UTC
russian navy
© Sputnik / Pavel Lvov
At least 14 Russian Navy servicemen have died after a scientific deep submersible caught fire while on a mission, Russia's Defense Ministry has said. The cause of the incident is still unknown.

A deep-water research apparatus belonging to the Russian Navy was conducting a bathymetric measurement operation in Russian territorial waters when a fire broke out on board, the ministry's statement said.

The incident claimed the lives of 14 seamen, who were suffocated by smoke. Despite this, the crew managed to extinguish the flames.

The deep submersible has since returned to the Russian Navy base in the northern city of Severomorsk. The cause of the incident is still being investigated. Russian Navy chief, Nikolay Efimov, has taken the issue under personal control.

Comment: UPDATE July 3: RT reports Putin's comments on the disaster, noting that several high ranking officers were among those killed in the fire:
In a first public statement about the fatal incident on board of a Russian deep sea research vehicle, President Vladimir Putin said that it's a "great loss," adding that 2 heroes of Russia and 7 high-ranking officers were killed.

"It is not an ordinary vessel, it is a research vessel," the president said while meeting with the Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu in the wake of the tragedy.

Putin referred to the vessel's crew as "highly qualified professionals" and called the deaths of 14 sailors a "great loss for Russia and our fleet."

He specified that two of those who died in the fire on board the research vessel were previously awarded the nation's highest honorary title - the Hero of Russia - while seven were navy officers in the rank of 'captain 1st class' (Russian equivalent to NATO OF-5/US O-6 captain rank).

Putin ordered Shoigu to personally travel to Severomorsk, where the research vessel is currently stationed, to oversee the investigation and to report to him upon return.
Meanwhile, rumors are flying as people attempt to connect Pence's abrupt cancellation of his trip to New Hampshire with the emergency security meetings in Moscow and Brussels after the submarine accident. Both the VP and WH spokesmen said there was 'no emergency callback' or 'cause for concern", adding that the change of plans was not related to Pence's or Trump's health.This hasn't helped put rumors to rest:





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USA

SOTT Focus: Jingoistic Military Fetishization is as American as Bald Eagle McNuggets

Caitlin Johnstone
caitlinjohnstone.com
Wed, 03 Jul 2019 00:01 UTC
tanks washington
"Putin's America," tweeted Anand Giridharadas, a pundit who was genetically engineered in a Monsanto laboratory to appeal to NPR listeners on every possible level.

Giridharadas used these words yesterday to caption a short video clip of two tanks being carted through the streets of DC in preparation for their appearance in a parade for Independence Day, a holiday in which Americans gather to eat hot dogs and drink Mountain Dew in celebration of the anniversary of their lateral transfer from monarchy to corporatist oligarchy.

The military hardware parade is taking place at the behest of President Bolton's social media assistant Donald Trump, and critics have been vocally decrying it as alien and un-American. Pundits like Giridharadas and Steve Silberman have been saying it's something Russia would do. The Independent said it's a spectacle you'd see in "authoritarian regimes such as North Korea, Iran and China." Adam Best and Charles Pierce both likened it to something that would be done in a "banana republic", an interesting choice of phrase for a gratuitous display of American military bravado given that term's blood-soaked origins in US corporate colonialism.
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Piggy Bank

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio wants govt. (i.e. taxpayers) to fork over for gender reassignment surgery

John Gage
The Washington Examiner
Tue, 02 Jul 2019 17:19 UTC
Bill de Blasio
© R. Umar Abbasi
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said he supports the federal government paying for gender reassignment surgery under his Medicare for All plan.

"Absolutely," de Blasio said Saturday in response to CBS News asking him if he supports Medicare for All paying for gender reassignment operations. "We have to respect everyone's medical needs, and if someone needs a surgery to be whole and to live their life fully. The idea is a healthcare system that actually serves everyone to the fullest, not a healthcare system that rations and causes people to struggle to get just a little healthcare."


Comment: Ticking all the correct boxes...

More on NYC's liberal icon and his policies:

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V

Remember: The goal is always to make dissident ideas mainstream

Caitlin Johnstone
caitlinjohnstone.com
Wed, 03 Jul 2019 00:01 UTC
rally
It's amazing how many people confuse egoic masturbation for revolutionary political activism.

We talk a lot about how you can discern the real intentions of a given politician, plutocrat or official by ignoring their words and watching their behavior, but this principle can be applied equally to everyone. And if you were to ignore the words of the people you see sharing dissident ideas in revolutionary-minded circles today and watch their behavior instead, you'd come away with the impression that most of them are actually interested in drama, conflict, social climbing, accolades, and scoring points on social media.

They want dominance and approval from their tribe, in the same way our evolutionary ancestors wanted dominance and approval in theirs. It's the same primitive, hardwired impulse. The majority of the people who find themselves moving in circles that are dedicated to upheaving the status quo in some way are primarily motivated first and foremost by this impulse, no different from anyone else in any other clique.
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Blue Planet

Eastern Europe's emigration crisis

Josh Adams
Quillette
Sat, 29 Jun 2019 12:00 UTC
Latvia
Latvia
In recent years, most of the debate around the global migration of people has focused on the movement into developed countries and the political battles that ensue. Most famously, Trump has overturned the wisdom of the American political establishment by saying the unsayable on immigration. Politicians from Riga to Rome have won votes (and office) by exploiting similar anxieties. But we seldom talk about the places which, year after year, see more people leave than arrive, and the consequences of countries saying goodbye to some of their best and brightest — often for good.

Nowhere is this concern more pressing than in Eastern Europe. According to the UN, of all the countries that are expected to shrink the most in the coming decades, the top 10 are all in the eastern half of the continent, and seven of those are in the European Union. One cause for concern among many of these countries is the EU's freedom of movement, one of the four "fundamental freedoms" of goods, capital, services, and people that bind the 28. Although most press coverage of the bloc's easternmost nations has focused on the rise of anti-immigration populism, there is mounting concern about the brain drain of its most highly qualified citizens to better jobs abroad. In at least six of the EU, the people leaving have become as controversial as those arriving, with some countries now favouring emigration controls.

Comment: France and Germany have seen a significant influx of migrants, the UK's NHS is kept afloat by foreign born staff, yet these countries are seeing a deterioration in living standards, and so evidently the crisis throughout Europe that isn't simply down to demographics.

Should these foreign workers ever choose to return home, as many are want to do, should the conditions improve in their homeland, then these Western European countries could suffer a similar fate as those in the East. Clearly there are some fundamental flaws in the current structure, no society can truly benefit in the long term, and until these imbalances are addressed the potential fallout only increases: Also check out SOTT radio's:

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Heart - Black

Police officer charged with repeatedly raping 16-year-old homeless girl while on duty

Alex Lasker
Yahoo! News
Wed, 03 Jul 2019 08:37 UTC
Officer Kevin Garneau
© APOfficer Kevin Garneau
A 49-year-old Massachusetts police officer was arraigned Thursday on two charges of rape after he allegedly sexually assaulted an underage homeless girl multiple times while on duty.

Officer Kevin Garneau, a 19-year veteran of the Lowell Police Department and well-known bicycle patrol officer, was serving as a member of a community homeless outreach program in 2016 when he met the victim, who was 16 years old at the time.

The girl, whose identity has not been released, was then living in a tent in an area of Lowell set up to offer shelter to the town's homeless population, according to Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan.
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Info

Judge Amy Coney Barrett strikes a major blow against 'woke' universities & their kangaroo courts

David French
National Review
Wed, 03 Jul 2019 08:37 UTC
Judge Amy Coney Barrett
© C-SPANJudge Amy Coney Barrett testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee, September 6, 2017
Whenever I read a court opinion describing a campus sexual-assault proceeding, I routinely find myself shocked at the staggering unfairness and ridiculous bias of campus kangaroo courts. Driven by the need to find more men guilty — and rationalized by a #BelieveWomen ideology — campus administrators have systematically discarded every fundamental notion of due process in American law.

Across the nation, courts on the right and on the left are saying no. They're blocking biased sexual-assault adjudications, protecting basic fairness, and restoring a degree of sanity to colleges' procedures. On Friday it was the turn of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals to protect the Fourteenth Amendment, and an all-woman panel, led by Judge Amy Coney Barrett, established a precedent that could be used against woke college administrators nationwide.
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Gold Coins

Bitcoin's sharp rise and its fight within the hard money camp

Tom Luongo
Gold, Goats 'N Guns
Fri, 28 Jun 2019 00:00 UTC
blooming flowers in famous Keukenhof park in Netherlands
Landscape with beautiful blooming flowers in famous Keukenhof park in the Netherlands. Tulips and hyacinths with trees at sunrise. Nature background
It was quite a week in money. Gold popped above $1430. The spectacular pump and dump of Bitcoin on Wednesday was something to behold.

No sooner had I published a post about it then the market seized up while I was taking my normal Wednesday evening sabbatical from the grind of politics and markets.

Coinbase went down. The price plummeted 25% and my blood pressure didn't even move. I've been a gold and crypto guy so long 'heart-stopping' volatility is for other people.

That said, Bitcoin's volatility is real and that's because it is an asset in the process of becoming fully capitalized. It's an asset that goes through the most extreme emotional roller coasters because it is also trading in immature and unregulated markets.

That volatility is used by some in the hard money/Austrian economics community to argue against Bitcoin and/or cryptocurrencies as potential money. But that is simply specious argumentation.
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MIB

The Syrian refugee terror plot in Pittsburgh and the long list of FBI-manufactured terrorism cases

Kris Hermes
Counterpunch
Wed, 26 Jun 2019 00:00 UTC
An FBI Evidence Response Team
An FBI Evidence Response Team
On the surface, the story of 21-year-old Syrian refugee and Pittsburgh resident Mustafa Mousab Alowemer has the elements to strike fear in many Americans and give ammunition to the Trump administration for its war on immigrants and refugees, especially those who would dare to flee violence in countries like Syria.

With much fanfare but no apparent imminent danger, the FBI announced on Wednesday last week that it had foiled a purported plot by Alowemer, an accused ISIS supporter, to bomb a local church in Northview Heights on the north side of Pittsburgh. To increase the spectacle of Alowemer's arrest, police shut down the entire block on which he lived and even knocked on neighborhood doors to alert residents to stay inside.

The results of the months-long FBI investigation was the indictment of Alowemer, who was charged with one count of attempting to provide material support to ISIS and two counts of distributing information about making explosives.

Although Alowemer's alleged plot to bomb the Legacy International Worship Center was set for July, the arrest was carried out on June 19, the eve of Global Refugee Day. This year's theme encouraged people to stand in solidarity with refugees.
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