Society's ChildS

Heart - Black

Republican Charlie Fuqua supports parental death penalty for kids

Republican Charlie Fuqua
© UnknownRepublican Charlie Fuqua
Republican candidate Charlie Fuqua, who is running for the Arkansas House of Representatives, has written a book, God's Law, in which he supports the death penalty for "rebellious children".

Fuqua, who is pro-life, says that sentencing a child to death is described in the Old Testament of the Bible and would require court approval. Fuqua believes that such a law in the U.S. would stop rebellious children, reports the HuffingtonPost.com.

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Jurors sentence ex-Houston police officer to life in prison for raping waitress


An ex-Houston police officer broke down in tears after he was sentenced to life in prison Monday for raping a waitress in the back of his patrol car.

Abraham Joseph stood stunned when he heard the sentence. He stared at the jury as he tried to process what just happened to him, then began crying.

The former cop's wife collapsed into the arms of another family member in the back of the courtroom.

The jury last week convicted Joseph of aggravated sexual assault by a public servant after a month-long trial.

During the sentencing phase, jurors heard from three other women who said Joseph also assaulted them and threatened to have them deported if they told anyone.

Megaphone

Best of the Web: The Maimed

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© Mr.Fish
Chris Hedges gave this talk Sunday night in New York City at a protest denouncing the 11th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan. The event, at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, was led by Veterans for Peace.

Many of us who are here carry within us death. The smell of decayed and bloated corpses. The cries of the wounded. The shrieks of children. The sound of gunfire. The deafening blasts. The fear. The stench of cordite. The humiliation that comes when you surrender to terror and beg for life. The loss of comrades and friends. And then the aftermath. The long alienation. The numbness. The nightmares. The lack of sleep. The inability to connect to all living things, even to those we love the most. The regret. The repugnant lies mouthed around us about honor and heroism and glory. The absurdity. The waste. The futility.

It is only the maimed that finally know war. And we are the maimed. We are the broken and the lame. We ask for forgiveness. We seek redemption. We carry on our backs this awful cross of death, for the essence of war is death, and the weight of it digs into our shoulders and eats away at our souls. We drag it through life, up hills and down hills, along the roads, into the most intimate recesses of our lives. It never leaves us. Those who know us best know that there is something unspeakable and evil many of us harbor within us. This evil is intimate. It is personal. We do not speak its name. It is the evil of things done and things left undone. It is the evil of war.

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Arizona Sheriff Larry Dever of Cochise County "legally drunk" in deadly crash

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© www.cochise.az.govCochise County Sheriff Larry Dever
An autopsy report shows the Cochise County sheriff who lost control of his vehicle in northern Arizona and died was legally drunk at the time. The report released Monday indicates Larry Dever's blood-alcohol content was .29 -- more than three times the state's legal limit. Dever had been driving along a gravel road near Williams on Sept. 18 to meet family members for a camping and hunting trip when his pickup rolled. His speed was marked at 62 mph, but the road doesn't have a speed limit.

The autopsy report also showed that Dever's seat belt wasn't buckled, and authorities noted he had beer and liquor in his vehicle. Coconino County authorities said last week that Dever had alcohol in his system. But his exact blood-alcohol content wasn't released until Monday.

Comment: Arizona Sheriff Who Exposed Obama Administration on Border Arrests is Dead


Che Guevara

Greeks to greet visiting Merkel with protests

Angela Merkel
© Agence France-PresseAngela Merkel
People in debt-stricken Greece are to stage a demonstration in the capital to protest against a planned visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who the Greeks blame for pressuring their government to enforce harsh austerity measures.

Anti-austerity protesters are expected to take to the streets in Athens on Tuesday to take part in a protest organized by labor unions and opposition parties against Merkel's 6-hour-visit to the country.

"She does not come to support Greece, which her policies have brought to the brink. She comes to save the corrupt, disgraced and servile political system," Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the opposition Syriza alliance, said.

"We will give her the welcome she deserves," Tsipras added.

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Media's favorite Anonymous hacktivist charged with conspiracy against FBI agents

Barrett Brown
© YouTubeProject PM founder Barrett Brown speaks to the camera in a YouTube video uploaded before his September 12, 2012 arrest in Dallas, Tx.
Nearly one month after being arrested at gunpoint by federal agents during an FBI raid streamed live on the Web, Project PM founder and Anonymous-linked hacktivist Barrett Brown has been indicted on three counts relating to threatening an officer.

Brown, a 31-year-old activist often portrayed by the media as an unofficial spokesperson for the Anonymous movement, was participating in a live webcam chat on September 12 at his Dallas, Texas home when a squadron of FBI agents unexpectedly stormed the residence and brought him into custody. Brown was booked at a local jail shortly after, but details surrounding the case have since been scarcely made available to the public, until now.

On Wednesday, The Dallas Morning News embedded a copy of the official indictment as it was released, revealing that Brown has officially been charged with three counts: making Internet threats; conspiracy to make publically available restricted personal information of an employee of the United States; and retaliation against a federal law enforcement officer.

All counts are related to perceived threats of violence and intimidation that prosecutors say Brown issued over the Web in the days leading up to September's arrest. Brown's home had been raided months earlier in an unrelated investigation linked to the FBI's arrest of LulzSec hacker Hector Xavier Monsegur, or "Sabu," whom Brown described in a March 2012 dispatch as "a degenerate pussy traitor who couldn't face two fucking years in prison, making him the biggest pussy in the history of mankind." Monsegur reportedly ratted out several alleged Anonymous operatives and associates to the FBI and had been serving as an undercover informant in the months before authorities surprised Brown and others. During March's raid, Brown's laptops and other electronics were subsequently confiscated by the FBI, to which he demanded an immediate return shortly before his latest arrest.

Pistol

Police Brutality: NYPD officer shoot unarmed driver to death

Noel Polanco
© Courtesy Polanco Family National Guardsman Noel Polanco was shot and killed by NYPD officers on the Grand Central Parkway on October 4.
New York - Cutting off a policeman with his car cost a US Army National Guardsman his life. After getting pulled over by an angry cop Friday morning, the victim was shot to death by the detective while his hands were allegedly still on the steering wheel.

The New York police detective, 39-year old Hassan Hamdy, fired one fatal bullet through the open car window of 22-year old Noel Polanco, who was declared dead within one hour of the shooting.

Polanco was driving himself and two friends, one of which was an off-duty police officer, home after work around 5:15 a.m. After cutting off the cops in their unmarked car - which the trio did not realize was a police car - the three friends were harassed in what they described as "an act of road rage."

The police chased them, "sticking their middle fingers at us and screaming obscenities," said 36-year-old Diane DeFerrari, a bartender who sat in the passenger seat of Polanco's car.

DeFarrari told the New York Post that with rifles drawn, the police officers pulled over the vehicle and ordered Polanco and his friends to put their hands up. But in an instant - before Polanco had time to take his hands off the steering wheel - he was shot dead.

"I heard [Polanco] gasp. He just looked at me." DeFarrari said.

"There was no time to put your hands up at all. They shot in front of my face. Had I moved an inch, it would probably have been me," she added.

Heart

'Choose Love': Pro-Muslim ads to appear in New York City subways

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© thinkprogress.orgA subway ad by United Methodist Women is a response to the anti-jihad ad.
After anti-Muslim ads hit NYC subways last month, Jewish and Christian groups respond with a message of love - hanging pro-Muslim posters to condemn intolerance and celebrate the city's diversity.

Rabbis for Human Rights - North America and the Sojourners Christian group will place their adverts right next to the anti-jihad messages that were released by pro-Israel group, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI).The organization covered 10 Manhattan stations, despite strong objection by the city's Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The original text by the AFDI declared "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad."

The ad by Rabbis for Human Rights- North America will say "In the choice between love and hate, choose love. Help stop bigotry against our Muslim neighbors."

"Love your Muslim neighbors," is the message on the Sojourners' ad.

"Our subway platforms and buses should not be the platform for messages of hate that divide friends, neighbors, and colleagues," read a message on the Rabbis for Human Rights - North America's website.

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Justice department calls Megaupload case a success despite catastrophic flaws

Kim Dotcom
© Agence France-Presse/PoolMegaupload founder Kim Dotcom
Even as the US government's case against Kim Dotcom and the vast copyright infringement conspiracy they allege he orchestrated crumbles in their hands, the Justice Department has only nice things to say about their take-down of Megaupload.

The Obama administration has all but thrown in the towel in the federal copyright infringement suit against Megaupload.com, but Attorney General Eric Holder is celebrating the seizure of the file storage site nearly a year later even despite a steady series of setback both domestically and abroad expected to heavily jeopardize the outcome of the case.

Speaking at the Intellectual Property Law Enforcement Grant Award Event in Towson, Maryland on Wednesday, Attorney General Holder praised the DoJ's attempts at prosecuting Megaupload and its associates for copyright infringement, calling the case yet another example in the courts' "record of success" when it comes to fighting and preventing IP crimes.

At this week's ceremony, Mr. Holder said, "In this year alone, we have prosecuted a number of significant IP cases," citing specifically the seizure of Dotcom's file-storage locker as a significant accomplishment under the Obama administration.

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Dozens arrested at San Francisco protest

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© flickr/Steve Rhodes
About 22 protesters were arrested in an "unpermitted" San Francisco march while police officers tried to disperse them for blocking traffic. Demonstrators wore black clothing, masks and threw rocks, paint and flares at police, injuring one officer.

The protest started Saturday as anti-capitalist and anti-colonialist march in San Francisco's financial district that was reportedly part of the Columbus Day actions.

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© flickr/Steve Rhodes
The protest began with an unsanctioned rally, according to police department spokesman Officer Gordon Shyy. When officers tried to approach the crowd, demonstrators began to throw objects at the officers, injuring one.

Also, protesters smashed the window of a local Starbucks coffee shop.

Police encircled the protesters in a roadway and began to detain them. Some protesters managed to flee, but were later found and arrested as well.