Society's ChildS


Stormtrooper

Vigilantism and racism: Meet Finland's fascist thugs, the 'Soldiers of Odin'

Nazi daggers, SS hats and a hangman's noose: On night patrol with the 'Soldiers of Odin', neo-Nazi led vigilantes vowing to 'keep Europe's women safe from migrant sex attacks'
Soldiers of Odin leader in Kemi, Finland
© Roland Hoskins / Daily MailBoss: 'Jani', 27, one of three leaders of the Kemi 'division' of the Soldiers of Odin who works in a paper factory by day, says the group does not follow Nazi ideologies but admits there will be a 'war on the streets, and we are ready to fight'
A gang of vigilantes led by a violent neo-Nazi go on night time 'migrant patrols' on the streets of Finland, with some talking of 'ethnic cleansing' in the wake of the country's mounting immigration crisis.

The self-styled 'Soldiers of Odin' march in a mob, wearing bomber jackets with their logo on the back. They have vowed to take direct action to 'protect their wives, girlfriends and children' after a migrant influx to the liberal Scandinavian country.

The gang - which claims to have cells across Europe - says it mobilised after a rise in migrant-related crime over the past 12 months because the Finnish government has 'screwed everything up'.

MailOnline gained exclusive access to the gang's leadership and visited its secretive headquarters - which was packed with Nazi memorabilia and White Supremacist propaganda.

Comment: Does anyone think that these guys are going to help anything? Or is their way of thinking the bigger problem?

It is very worrying that the police chief, Seppo Kolehmainen, unlike many in the police force, has actually made statements in support of these kinds of groups. Similarly, Jari Lindström, who is the current Minister of Justice and Minister of Labor, has stated that he has not heard that there is a problem with them. This sort of talk gives a positive signal for these kinds of hostile groups and opens the country to accept them little by little. Also, the Finnish media has so far not highlighted the clearly fascist aspects of these groups, which makes one curious as to the cause. Is someone trying to set up a "Maidan"-type of atmosphere in Finland?

Extreme right-wing ideologies have been used to the detriment of Finnish society before and so we need to be vigilant against this sort of thing: Untold history of Finland: Fascist origins, Russophobia and today's anti-Muslim hysteria


Pills

Landmark case: Pill-mill doctor convicted of murder for over prescribing opioids

drugstore, opioid prescriptions
© Lucas Jackson / Reuters
A California doctor received 30 years to life in prison after being convicted of the second-degree murder of three of her patients. The patients of Hsiu-Ying "Lisa" Tseng overdosed on narcotics that she overprescribed.

Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney John Niedermann wrote in court papers that the murder charges against Tseng stemmed from her ignoring warnings from the coroner's office that her patients were dying from her prescriptions.

Tseng was charged in the deaths of Joey Rovero, 21, Steven Ogle, 25, and Vu Nguyen, 28. According to the Los Angeles Times, at least eight of Tseng's patients had died from overdoses in 2008. Among her patients were three convicted drug dealers, two of whom admitted to selling drugs that Tseng prescribed.

The prosecution claims that Tseng received over a dozen phone calls from either law enforcement or the coroner's office, telling her "Your patient has died." Tseng's husband, Gene Tu, testified for the defense that she treated the calls as "just FYI," according to CNN.

Tseng's clinic was allegedly notorious for how easy it was to receive prescriptions. Over the course of three years, Tseng would write over 27,000 prescriptions - 25 a day, according to CBS. Her practice was a busy one, so busy that her appointments allegedly would last just three minutes.

Comment: Deaths from opiate prescriptions are epidemic, yet little has been done so far to counter the forces responsible. The pharmaceutical cartel is primarily responsible through its aggressive marketing of these drugs, yet the industry may now be rewarded for its malfeasance by receiving funding from the government to address the situation.


Cell Phone

Maryland's Attorney General: You consent to surveillance by turning on your phone

EFF mobile phone search
Maryland attorney general Brian E Frosh has filed a brief appealing a decision in the case of Kerron Andrews, who was tracked by a Stingray cell-phone surveillance device.

In the brief, Frosh argued that in not turning off his cellphone, Andrews had consented to warrantless government surveillance, because phones' locations can be derived by an examination of phone company records.

Comment: Absurd! Their argument is akin to saying, "You left the lights on and windows open in your house therefore you consent to warrantless government searches of your home." Interesting how that since the advent of the Internet and mobile technologies those technologies have been increasingly used to push people towards changing the way they interpret what is and isn't right.


Attention

Former astronaut Edgar Mitchell, sixth man to walk on moon dies at age 85

edgar mitchell
© NASAApollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell posing with the Apollo 14 mission patch in 1971
Former NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell has died, 45 years to the day since he became the sixth man ever to set foot on the moon. Mitchell piloted the lunar module during the 1971 Apollo 14 mission.

Mitchell died Thursday night at a hospice in West Palm Beach, Florida, after a short illness, his daughter Kimberly said.

Joining NASA in 1966, Mitchell helped design and test the lunar module used in the 1969 Apollo 11 mission. He was on the original crew of the Apollo 13, but was bumped to the next mission after the commander needed more time to prepare. Apollo 13 never made it to the moon, suffering a catastrophic explosion en route; the crew barely managed to return alive.

Comment: UFO cover-ups must end, moonwalker Edgar Mitchell says


Light Saber

Detroit judge blasts 'racist' cop for brutally beating innocent black man (video)

Judge Vonda Evans
© Screengrab via YouTube/MLive.com StaffJudge Vonda Evans
In a speech that lasted almost 30 minutes, Judge Vonda Evans of Detroit laid into 47-year-old William Melendez, the former Inkster, Michigan, police officer caught on video beating an unarmed black man in January 2015.

Melendez was sentenced to 13 months to 10 years in prison Tuesday for his role in the attack on Floyd Dent, a 58-year-old black auto worker, that occurred during a late night traffic stop in the struggling Wayne County suburb last winter.

"The one image [from this trial] that stood out to the court was looking at Mr. Dent in his cell, shaking his head in disbelief of what had occurred to him," Evans said in a courtroom video published by local television station WJBK.

"If his conduct was indicative of what he was thinking, I would have thought this: 'What crime did I commit, being a black man in a Cadillac, stopped for a minor traffic offense by a group of racist police officers looking to do a nigger?'"

On Jan. 28, 2015, Melendez and his partner, John Zieleniewski, pulled Dent over for an alleged traffic violation. Upon finding that Dent was driving with a suspended license, the officers dragged him from his vehicle and onto the ground, where Melendez placed him in a chokehold and punched him 16 times in the head. At least eight more Inkster police officers gathered at the scene, none of whom intervened to stop the attack. Dent was charged with resisting arrest and drug possession, the latter due to a baggy of cocaine that he alleged the officers planted on him.

The beating — which left Dent's face and shirt drenched in blood — was captured on a patrol car dashboard camera and went public soon after, prompting a criminal investigation. After his arrest, as he sat in a cell nearby, Dent reportedly had to listen and watch as officers made fun of him and cleaned his blood off their uniforms with disinfectant.

All charges against Dent were eventually dropped, and in May, he settled with the city of Inkster for $1.4 million.


Comment: Judge Evan's complete 25 minutes address is below:




Water

Flint water crisis: Hundreds of inmates given lead poisoned water, first official fired, scandals keep surfacing

Flint water crisis
© Rebecca Cook / Reuters
A Flint official involved in causing the city's water supply to be contaminated with high levels of lead has been fired, but scandals keep surfacing. An ex-prisoner says he served fellow Genesee County Jail inmates the poisonous stuff for months.

Liane Shekter-Smith was already demoted from her former position as head of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality's Drinking Water and Municipal Assistance, but on Friday she became the first Flint official to be fired over the water crisis.

Comment: See also:
  • Dogs become latest victim of Flint water crisis
  • Nestle's ties to the Michigan water crisis
  • Health officials blasted at congressional hearing over handling of Flint water crisis



Wolf

Dogs become latest victim of Flint water crisis

flint water_dogs
© Kham / Reuters
The Flint water crisis is expanding again. This time, however, the devastation is affecting man's best friend, as two dogs in Genesee County, Michigan have tested positive for lead toxicity, according to the state veterinarian.

The two dogs, both crossbreeds, are still alive, said Dr. James Averill, state veterinarian and Animal Industry Division Director for the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. One dog is a pet, while the other is a stray.

The lead-toxicity test results were confirmed in October 2015 and January 2016, but state officials declined to release further details about the cases, including whether either or both of the pups live in Flint, the Detroit Free Press reported.

"The confidentiality of the owners is like medical information in humans," Averill said.


The two dogs are the first confirmed cases of lead toxicity in canines in the past five years, the Free Press reported citing state records.

It is unknown if the dogs drank Flint water, which has been contaminated since city officials sought to save money by switching the water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River ‒ now known to contain high levels of chloride ions ‒ in April 2014.

Soon after, Flint residents started complaining about their drinking water, and the city issued a number of boil notices that summer, following fears that fecal coliform bacteria was present in the water supply.


Comment: It is without question that any living being drinking this contaminated water could be harmed.


Video

Obama (correctly) depicted as a murderous devil in downtown Moscow public video installation

Obama devil
A video depicting President Obama feasting on the souls of a half-million people was reportedly projected onto buildings in downtown Moscow early Friday along with a message calling for him to be tried in international court.

Video footage uploaded to YouTube shows a computer-generated version of Mr. Obama picking up little spheres colored in the national flags of several countries and placing them in his mouth.

The president's face gradually turns red and horns sprout from his head as he begins to chew and symbolically destroys the populations of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine and Libya.

Health

How the Zika crisis highlights twisted and brazenly out of touch blind spots in reproductive health

Government responses to the current Zika emergency highlight failures of health policy both in America and abroad
Solange Ferreira
© AP/Felipe DanaIn this Jan. 30, 2016 photo, Solange Ferreira holds Jose Wesley outside their house in Bonito, Pernambuco state, Brazil.
Last month, the World Health Organization declared the mosquito-borne Zika virus a "international health emergency." Though the virus doesn't harm most who get it, recent research suggests that Zika can cause serious damage to the brains of fetuses and, in rare instances, neurological problems in adults.

Since last spring, more than 20 countries have reported locally acquired cases of Zika. "The level of alarm is extremely high," said Dr. Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization, in a speech in Geneva. Such alarmist language about the Zika virus is mostly focused on the implications on pregnant women and their fetuses, specifically on the purported link between the virus and microcephaly, a rare condition in which infants are born with abnormally small heads and damaged brains. Despite the fervor and worry, experts say it is too early to tell whether Zika is causing microcephaly in infants. Nonetheless, in response to the increase in Zika cases, the government of El Salvador has advised women to refrain from becoming pregnant until 2018. Brazil has seen the most Zika cases in Latin America, and recently a leading Brazilian health official recommended that women in the hard-hit northeastern region postpone pregnancy. U.S. health officials have warned pregnant Americans to refrain from traveling to Latin American countries.

In additional pregnancy-related worry, on the heels of the WHO's announcement about the Zika explosion, the United States' Centers for Disease Control issued a report finding that three in four American women who plan to get pregnant soon are still drinking alcohol. The report also found that whether women plan to get pregnant or not - an estimated 3.3 million, between the ages of 15 and 44, risk harming a developing fetus with alcohol because they are drinking and having sex without birth control. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that "Alcohol can permanently harm a developing baby before a woman knows she is pregnant." This is especially important given that, "About half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned, and even if planned, most women won't know they are pregnant for the first month or so, when they might still be drinking."

These are distinct health issues with different causes and impacts. The common threads are the emphasis on pregnancy-related health concerns and solutions that center on behavior-change. The juxtaposition of these scenarios is interesting because of what it exposes about gender and public health — the emphasis on behavior change with a dramatic disregard for the fact that it is growing more and more difficult here in the U.S. and around the world to plan a pregnancy and have control over one's pregnancy outcome — whether it is a healthy childbirth and child, a miscarriage or an abortion.

Comment: See also: The Zika freakout: Is there more to this virus scare than meets the eye?


Light Saber

After petition receives 400,000 signatures, Hollande pardons woman who killed her husband after decades of sadistic abuse

Jacqueline Sauvage
© EPAJacqueline Sauvage, centre, a French woman convicted of murdering her abusive husband, in Blois, France. French President Francois Hollande pardoned Jacqueline Sauvage after a clemency plea by her children.
Norbert Marot was described as violent alcoholic who raped and beat his wife and their three daughters

A 68-year-old French woman jailed for 10 years for murdering her husband after nearly 50 years of rape and violent abuse is set to be freed, after President Francois Hollande intervened following a public outcry. Jacqueline Sauvage, of Montargis in central France, shot her husband Norbert Marot three times in the back with his own hunting rifle in September 2012, the day after their son hanged himself.

She described Marot as violent alcoholic who raped and beat her and their three daughters and also abused their son. After an appeal against an earlier conviction, Ms Sauvage was found guilty in December and given a 10-year-sentence. But then more than 400,000 people, who signed a petition, politicians on the left and right, and Mr Hollande's former partner, Valérie Trierweiler, all called on the president to use his right to pardon convicted criminals.

The power is seldom used in France, but the president's office said it had been decided to waive the remainder of Ms Sauvage's sentence, stopping short of an actual pardon. "In the face of an exceptional human situation, the president wanted to make it possible for Madame Savage to quickly return to her family while respecting judicial authorities," a presidential spokesperson told the Associated Press.

Comment: A great action for France to take - even more so, the people power behind it.