Society's ChildS


Attention

USDA report found that 14% of US households don't have enough food

grocery shopping
© Rick Wilking / Reuters
An annual hunger report found that 17.4 million American households don't have "enough food for an active, healthy life," according to the US Department of Agriculture.

More than 80 percent in the survey said they were hungry, but didn't eat because they couldn't afford food.

The 2014 report, released on Wednesday, found that the majority of American households (86 percent) have access to enough food and are food secure throughout the year. However, a minority of households (14 percent, or 17.4 million) experience food insecurity, which means their access to food was limited by a lack of money or other resources.


Black Cat

Psychopathic Swedish politician calls for meeting migrants with a machine gun

migrants
© Laszlo Balogh / Reuters
Politician Gunilla Schmidt from the nationalist party Sweden Democrats (SD) had to apologize after calling to meet refugees with a machine gun on the Oresund Bridge connecting Sweden with Denmark.

"Denmark and Germany are trying to decrease the number of asylum seekers, but not Sweden! They clearly want to go to Sweden. And no one can meet them on the Oresund Bridge with a machine gun!" she wrote on her Facebook page.

"You must be very stupid!" Schmidt said, when she was asked what she meant.
She later deleted the post. When the tabloid newspaper Kvällsposten reached Ms. Schmidt for a comment she blamed it on "temporary insanity."

"I very much apologize for what I've done and I want to take it back. It was a temporary insanity," she reportedly said. "I was in a bad mood and angry. I never express myself in that way, it was wrong. I do not want to discuss it anymore."


Comment: It is doubtful that this politician feels any remorse for her outburst - no one with any conscience at all could make such a comment. More likely she has had time to consider the ramifications to her political career and is only backtracking to salvage it.


Comment: Dead 'migrants' and psychopaths in positions of power


Arrow Down

Flooding from Typhoon Etau caused more Fukushima contaminated water to flow into the ocean

fukushima
© Toru Hanai / Reuters
Flooding from Typhoon Etau has caused new leaks of contaminated water to flow from the Fukushima nuclear power station into the ocean. The incident came after a rush of water overwhelmed the site's drainage pumps.

Typhoon Etau brought lashing rains, floods and storm winds to Japan. Tens of thousands of Japanese people have been ordered to leave their homes across the country.

Comment: This is just the latest in the ongoing Fukushima environmental catastrophe that is ignored or downplayed in the mainstream press. Tepco has been dumping radioactive water into the Pacific for over a year at least, spiking all-time radiation highs at monitoring points near the Fukushima power plant. The radioactive material has been found all over the world with massive die-offs of marine life and reports of radioactive contamination of seafood.


Heart - Black

3 siblings who were sent to juvenile detention by judge for refusing to see father undergo intensive therapy, forced to live with father

Image
The three Bloomfield Hills children caught up in a custody dispute that made international headlines have successfully reunited with their father, and have been living with him since Aug. 13, according to Oakland County Circuit Court records.

The children, ages 9, 11, and 14, underwent a court-ordered five day intensive therapy treatment designed to treat parental alienation in mid August and are now residing with their father, Omer Tsimhoni, his second wife, and their young half brother.

The court file on that matter is sealed and it is not clear where the therapy - considered controversial by some - took place and who conducted it. The intensive treatment is rare - only a handful of firms provide it - and expensive, costing as much as $40,000. Proponents say it is a way to end high conflict custody disputes and ensure that children have relationships with both parents. Critics say it doesn't do enough to protect children from parents who may, indeed, be abusive.

Comment: What a terrible decision by the judge. How in the world it can be legal to force children, who say the father is abusive, to either spend time alone with him or go to juvenile detention? In a divorce the children can't be made party to the case and can't be ordered to do anything, so what the judge did should be cause for her disbarment and the mother should sue her.

See also: Abusive judge throws kids in jail because they didn't eat lunch with their abusive father


Stormtrooper

Freddie Gray case to be tried in Baltimore - judge refuses defense request for alternate site

The trial against six police officers accused in the death of the 25-year-old will take place in Baltimore, despite opposition from defense attorneys.
freddy gray trial defendents
© Reuters The six U.S. police officers accused in the death of Freddy Gray: (Top L-R) Officers Caesar R. Goodson Jr., Edward M. Nero, Garrett E Miller, (Bottom L-R) officers William G. Porter, Lt. Brian W. Rice, Sgt. Alicia D. White. The six U.S. police officers accused in the death of Freddy Gray: (Top L-R) Officers Caesar R. Goodson Jr., Edward M. Nero, Garrett E Miller, (Bottom L-R) officers William G. Porter, Lt. Brian W. Rice, Sgt. Alicia D. White.
A Baltimore judge ruled Thursday against proposals to move the trail of police officers allegedly involved in the death of Freddie Gray out of town.

Defense attorneys had argued the officers would not be able to receive a fair trial in Baltimore due to the level of media coverage the case has received, calling on the judge to move proceedings elsewhere.

Chief Deputy State's Attorney Michael Schatzow slammed the defense's argument as "insulting to the citizenry of Baltimore."

"Nobody knows what the sentiment of the jurors are until you ask them questions about it," he stated, according to the Baltimore Sun newspaper.

In the end, the judge agreed with prosecutors.

"The citizens of Baltimore are not monolithic," Judge Barry Williams said in his ruling. "They think for themselves."

Outside the court, the decision was welcomed by protesters, who had gathered since early morning. Ahead of the decision, protesters had chanted, "All night, all day, we will fight for Freddie Gray!"

Comment: Baltimore has a chance to do things right here. Will it happen?


USA

12 of the most idiotic racist panics fed by mainstream media to White America

Image
Fox News host Elisabeth Hasselbeck
Since the Salem witch trials, moral panics have been a staple of American society. We love a good morality tale and we love a good scapegoat. It's only fitting this unique puritanical impulse would combine with America's other favorite pastime: mindless racism.

The Oxford dictionary of sociology defines moral panic as, "the process of arousing social concern over an issue — usually the work of moral entrepreneurs and the mass media." Left out of this definition is the factor of race, which informs, amplifies and often is the sole reason for moral panics. Since moral panics are marked by the unchecked spread of a moral meme by the media, and because the media is largely white and caters often to white fear, the addition of a racial element significantly increases the likelihood a particular meme will catch fire and spread rapidly throughout the public consciousness.

This phenomenon has reared its ugly head again with the Ferguson Effect, a panic that that Blacks Lives Matter movement and its "heightened rhetoric" are somehow leading to an increase in police murder and crime. This latest wave of baseless innuendo has all the elements of a classic racist moral panic: an uncritical media, old stereotypes and dubious "trends" backed up by little or no evidence. It's presently being floated by everyone from the Daily Beast to theNew York Times to the Telegraph, but has thus far proved to be a total myth. No one, including the Harris County sheriff who recently suggested a link, has shown any proof of a connection between any killings and the Black Lives Matter protests. Executive director Marc Mauer of the Sentencing Project, a criminal justice nonprofit, recently told Think Progress that the Ferguson Effect is a "dangerous concept" that "gets us back to the era of the 1980s when police had crime policy developed by sound bites and anecdotes."

Bad Guys

Conditions in Roszke refugee camp in Hungary reminiscent of WWII atrocities

refugee camp
© ReutersRiot police guard Hungary's Roszke refugee camp, which has become known for its poor conditions and alleged human rights violations.
Until the summer of 2015, the small village of Roszke in southern Hungary near the Serbian border was virtually indistinguishable from neighboring working-class communities. But since Tuesday, when a refugee camp was constructed there in response to the massive influx of mostly Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans and North Africans seeking refuge from sectarian violence in their home countries, the village that sits 175 kilometers from the capital Budapest has been transformed with tall barbed-wire fences, security cameras, and heaps of stinking trash.

Over the past few moths, refugees have been arriving in Europe every day by the thousands only to be detained in refugee camps with poor living conditions. At least 1,500 people escaped from the Roszke camp Friday amid allegations of nonexistent hygiene and food and water shortages in the makeshift shelters. As droves of refugees continued to arrive in Hungary, nonprofits and journalists alike reported worsening instances of human rights violations in the European nation, with some even comparing the situation to the treatment of Jewish people during World War II.

Syrians and Afghans of all ages, including women, children and the disabled, stood behind the Roszke camp's barricades, guarded by armed police in riot gear. Several people were reportedly tricked into being taken to the camp throughout the week after being told they were boarding a train to Austria or Germany, the intended destination for most of the refugees. The apparent deceit caused chaos when they arrived only a few kilometers away at Hungarian camps.

Fearing they would meet with the same fate, hundreds of people broke out of the Keleti train station in Budapest Friday and joined several hundred others from refugee camps in attempting to run to the Austrian border, a distance of 275 kilometers from Budapest.

Comment: See also: The refugee crisis reveals the Neo-Holocaust


Red Flag

Syria and the worst refugee crisis since WWII

Image
© UNHCR
The world is witnessing the largest refugee crisis since the horrors of World War II.

Today there are close to 60 million war refugees, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)—an all-time high, as violence and persecution around the world are on the rise.

The Middle East, North Africa, and Western Asia are particularly hard hit. Millions of refugees from Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and Yemen are fleeing violence and war in their countries.

In all of 2014, approximately 219,000 people tried to cross the Mediterranean to seek asylum in Europe. In just the first eight months of 2015, over 300,000 refugees tried to cross the sea, according to the UNHCR. More than 2,500 died.

Human rights organizations warn the Gulf states, Israel, Iran, and Russia—all of which have taken zero refugees—along with the US, Canada, and Europe—which have taken few—are not doing enough to provide refuge to the asylum-seekers.

Handcuffs

San Diego sees increase in use-of-force from police after issuing body cameras

police
© AP Photo/ Jim Mone
After outfitting San Diego police with body cameras one year ago, the department was surprised to find that while they have received less complaints- use of force has actually gone up.

Complaints against officers fell 23% between July 2014 and June 2015, but instances of force increased ten percent in the same time period, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

At the six month mark, an in house study found that both complaints and use of force had fallen, unfortunately their findings didn't stick.

According to the findings, there were 6,421 instances of force from July 2014 until June 2015 while cameras were in use, and 5,820 the year before they were issued.

On a good note, while there was a 17% increase in "lesser controlling force," which is non weaponized force such as an officer using his body weight to control a suspect, "greater" controlling or defending force such as tasers and chokeholds dropped 8%.

Eye 2

Psychopath? Woman pleads guilty to making animal snuff porn in nation's 1st federal animal crush video case

Image
© Houston Police DepartmentAshley Nicole Richards is charged with felony cruelty to non-livestock animals.
Editor's note: Story contains graphic description of the animal torture depicted in the videos.

One of the first persons in the nation to face federal charges under the Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act of 2010 pleaded guilty in Houston on Tuesday and may become a government informant on sex trafficking crimes.

Ashley Nicole Richards, 24, admitted to four counts of creating animal crush videos and one film distribution charge.

Animal crush is a sexual fetish in which small mammals such as puppies and kittens are tortured, maimed or killed for the sexual gratification of observers. Videos of such acts, sometimes described as rituals or sacrifices, have been marketed for sale and broadcast online.