Society's ChildS


Hammer

'Working people want jobs': Mayor Bill de Blasio slams AOC for opposition to Amazon headquarters in NYC

AOC, Bill de Blasio
© Reuters“Working people are very smart and very discerning. They want jobs, they want revenue, they want the kinds of things that government can do for them,” he added. “They understand they have to be paid for.”
It's a progressive civil war.

A hot-under-the-collar Mayor Bill de Blasio tore into Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Friday as he blistered both the online giant and local politicians who opposed bringing it to Queens.

"As a progressive my entire life - and I ain't changing - I'll take on any progressive anywhere that thinks it's a good idea to lose jobs and revenue because I think that's out of touch with what working people want," the mayor said on WNYC radio.

Ocasio Cortez (D-Bronx/Queens) - who lobbed bombs at the $3 billion incentives package offered by city and state leaders - said Thursday that Amazon's withdrawal from the deal showed that "everyday Americans still have the power to organize and fight for their communities and they can have more say in this country than the richest man in the world."

The audio clip, played by WNYC host Brian Lehrer as he questioned de Blasio over Amazon's shocking decision to withdraw, set the mayor on a tear.

Comment: Polls have shown that a majority of New York residents were supportive of Amazon's presence in the region:

Despite majority support from NYers, Amazon pulls out of building HQ in Queens after backlash from radicals like AOC
In addition to the 25,000 jobs, Amazon would've brought $2.5 billion in Amazon investment and eventually 8 million square feet of office space to Long Island City as part of its investment announced last November. The Seattle-based company said it would have generated "incremental tax revenue of more than $10 billion over the next 20 years as a result of Amazon's investment and job creation."
Those in opposition have noted the skyrocketing home prices and community erosion resulting from Amazon's presence in Seattle, not to mention the abysmal treatment of its workforce. See:


Handcuffs

Former Montana deputy arrested for child sex abuse

Virgil Allen Wolfe
© Photo11: courtesy photoVirgil Allen Wolfe
The Cascade County Attorney's Office has released more information about the allegations against a former Lewis and Clark County Sheriff's deputy who has been charged with 81 counts of sexual abuse against children.

According to Cascade County Attorney Josh Racki, Virgil Allen Wolfe, 52, will be prosecuted in Cascade County, although the alleged crimes occurred in both Cascade and Lewis and Clark counties.

Virgil currently lives in Cascade County.

The Tribune first learned of Wolfe's arrest via the Cascade County Sheriff's Office Facebook page.

According to charging documents, a detective with CCSO was assigned in June 2017 to investigate a disclosure of sexual abuse by a 17-year-old who claimed that Wolfe had been molesting her since she was 6 years old.

The alleged incidents began in Helena with Wolfe exposing himself and increased in frequency and severity as the girl grew older, then slowed and mostly came to a stop when she was around 14, although she claims the last time Wolfe sexually abused her was two months before she reported him.

Comment:




Eye 2

Tracked by special request: Facebook tracks users who might pose a threat to its employees and offices

Google and Facebook carnival float
© Reuters / Ina FassbenderA carnival float with a papier-mache caricature representing Google and Facebook at a parade in Dusseldorf Germany
In early 2018, a Facebook user made a public threat on the social network against one of the company's offices in Europe.

Facebook picked up the threat, pulled the user's data and determined he was in the same country as the office he was targeting. The company informed the authorities about the threat and directed its security officers to be on the lookout for the user.

"He made a veiled threat that 'Tomorrow everyone is going to pay' or something to that effect," a former Facebook security employee told CNBC.

The incident is representative of the steps Facebook takes to keep its offices, executives and employees protected, according to more than a dozen former Facebook employees who spoke with CNBC. The company mines its social network for threatening comments, and in some cases uses its products to track the location of people it believes present a credible threat.

Several of the former employees questioned the ethics of Facebook's security strategies, with one of them calling the tactics "very Big Brother-esque."

Other former employees argue these security measures are justified by Facebook's reach and the intense emotions it can inspire. The company has 2.7 billion users across its services. That means that if just 0.01 percent of users make a threat, Facebook is still dealing with 270,000 potential security risks.

Comment: Your privacy up for sale: Facebook is a surveillance company rebranded as 'social media'


Arrow Down

'Total nightmare': Over half of Californians wish they could leave the state

Golden Gate Bridge San Francisco California
This just shows what can happen when you let crazy people run a state for several decades. In the 1960s and 1970s, the possibility of moving to the west coast was "the California dream" for millions of young Americans, but now "the California dream" has turned into "the California nightmare". According to a brand new survey, 53 percent of those living in California are considering leaving the state, and there are certainly lots of reasons to hit the road and never look back. The cities are massively overcrowded, California has the worst traffic in the western world, drug use and illegal immigration both fuel an astounding amount of crime, tax rates are horrendous and many of the state politicians appear to literally be insane. And on top of all that, let us not forget the earthquakes, wildfires and landslides that are constantly making headlines all over the world. Last year was the worst year for wildfires in California history, and these days it seems like the state is hit by some new crisis every few weeks.

But none of those factors are the primary reason why so many people are eager to leave.

According to a brand new survey by Edelman Intelligence, the main reason why so many are considering leaving the state is the high cost of living...

Comment: Also see: Rats, Public Defecation And Open Drug Use: West Coast Cities Becoming Uninhabitable Hellholes


Star of David

Israeli settlers rampage against Palestinians in Hebron following expulsion of human rights observers

Hebron IDF soldiers
© Badee DweikIsraeli forces deploy in the Old City of Hebron on Wednesday February 13, 2019
Dozens of Israeli settlers launched an attack on Palestinians in the Old City of Hebron in the southern occupied West Bank on Tuesday night, yelling "death to Arabs!" in the street and hurling rocks at Palestinian homes.

According to locals, more than 100 settlers accompanied by over 70 armed Israeli forces began marching down Shuhada street at 9pm in the Old City, heading towards the Palestinian neighborhood of Tel Rumeida.

"They were chanting anti-Arab slogans, calling for the expulsion of all Palestinians from the area, saying this is the land of Israel, and saying we should all die," Badee Dweik, 46, Co-Founder of the Human Rights Defenders group in Hebron told Mondoweiss.

NPC

European Parliament passes controversial "meme ban" under cover of copyright law

NPC EU
NPC EU
Copyright Directive

The doomsday clock is ticking for European internet users.

Last night, the European Parliament approved the final text of a controversial online copyright law that would force internet platforms to filter everything users upload for copyright - including memes - and charge news aggregators to link to news publications.

The move comes after months of adjustments to the Parliament's proposed Copyright Directive. Parliament members will gather for a final vote later this year.

Most contentious of all are two Articles included in the proposed Copyright Directive:

Comment: While we still can...
Ghandi meme
rapper meme
orange man bad



No Entry

Russian trolls blamed for spreading anti-vaccination propaganda

measles
© Shutterstock
The same Russian social media trolls accused of meddling in the 2016 US election may be to blame for the deadly measles outbreak across Europe last year, according to a new report.


Comment: Oh dear lord...


Scientists believe the St. Petersburg troll farm also pumped out anti-vaccination propaganda, contributing to the outbreak that killed 72 people and infected more than 82,000, Radio Free Europe reported.

In a study published by the American Public Health Association in September, researchers examined the trolls' online messages from July 2014 through September 2017 and concluded that their posts were responsible for "eroding public consensus on vaccination."

Comment: At least someone quoted in the article is at least a little skeptical of this absolutely preposterous connection! The American people should be absolutely disgusted that the press think them so stupid and fickle as to fall for a troll farm campaign rather than do their own research and come to their own conclusions. How insulting can you be than to your readers than to say that they aren't intelligent enough to formulate their own opinions but will just swallow whatever the Kremlin is supposedly telling them to believe? That the only possible reason any American citizen could disagree with the MSM is that they're easily persuaded by a bunch of poorly created memes.

And yet they're not disgusted. In fact, they believe it.

See also:


Sheriff

Lawfare: SPLC and ACLU sue the Department of Homeland Security over "remain in Mexico" policy for migrants

customs border patrol logo
© Frederic J. Brown/Agence France-Presse/Getty
Immigration advocates are suing the Department of Homeland Security and Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen - and other individuals and U.S. agencies - over the Trump administration's newly implemented "Migrant Protection Protocols" initiative, which forces some asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while they await immigration court dates. Many refer to the initiative as the "Remain in Mexico" policy.

The Southern Poverty Law Center and American Civil Liberties Union officially challenged the policy Thursday in a lawsuit dubbed Innovation Law Lab et al. v. Nielsen et al. The suit claims "Migrant Protection Protocols" violates the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Administrative Procedures Act and various international human rights laws.

The suit represents 11 asylum seekers and six organizations impacted by the policy. The 11 asylum seekers - 10 men and one woman - are from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala and from different families, said a person close to the suit.

Comment:


Airplane Paper

Best of the Web: Millions of Venezuelans sign Maduro's open letter to US with the message 'Hands Off Our Country'

letter us
Venezuelans queue to sign open letter to US government
The Grayzone breaks the media blockade inside Venezuela, amplifying the voices of people ignored by the corporate media. By Anya Parampil

Produced in partnership with MintPress News

The Grayzone reported from inside Venezuela, where millions of people waited in long lines to sign an open letter to the US public, strongly rejecting foreign intervention in their country.

Anya Parampil interviewed working-class Venezuelans in Simon Bolivar Square in the capital Caracas, on February 10, 2019.

Read the letter in full below.

Watch our report:


Comment: By February 8th, after just one day, two million Venezuelans had signed the letter, according to the Venezuelan government.


Bullseye

Writer's Twitter account temporarily suspended after questioning if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put her boyfriend on payroll

AOC and friends
Writer Luke Thompson was temporarily suspended by Twitter for calling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez out on giving her boyfriend a job in her Congressional office.

Thompson had discovered that Ocasio-Cortez's boyfriend, Riley Roberts, is now listed as staff in the House directory and tweeted "while you were having a nice Valentine's Day, @AOC decided to put her boyfriend on staff - drawing a salary on the taxpayer's dime. Nice to see her adapting to the swamp so quickly."

Twitter claimed that a screenshot of his House directory listing violated the rules against posting private information.