Society's ChildS


Attention

Are college and university professors tyrants? Just ask conservative students

Jennifer Kabbany
The College Fix
Mon, 09 Sep 2019 16:12 UTC
college students food
© Tulane Public Relations, CC BY-NC
Droves of open-minded students are often won over to the progressive narrative because they're browbeat with it for four consecutive years and never exposed to alternative arguments.

Now comes more bad news — the vast majority of students who might be willing to speak up to defend conservative, Constitutional and pro-free market principles don't dare lest their grades be docked.

One thousand current college students from across the nation who self-identify as Republican or Republican-leaning were recently asked: "Have you ever withheld your political views in class for fear that your grades would suffer?"

Nearly three-quarters of the students who took part in The College Fix/College Pulse online poll said yes — they've stayed silent. Specifically, 73 percent of students who identity as "strong Republican" reported they had, 71 percent of students who identify as "weak Republican" said yes, and even 70 percent of Republican-leaning independents reported they've kept quiet, too.

Comment: The problem starts early culminating in the manufacture of bogus 'educators':

Liberal madness and ideological indoctrination: Inside a public school social justice factory

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Dominoes

Opposition parties score big wins in closely-watched Moscow elections


RT
Mon, 09 Sep 2019 16:36 UTC
election
© RIA Novosti / Maxim Blinov
The ruling United Russia party suffered a blow from three opposition parties whose candidates claimed nearly half of Moscow City Council's seats during a contentious vote in the metropolis of 12 million people.

With all the votes counted, United Russia managed to retain a slim majority in the 45-member city council, but its share dropped to 25. The Communists, their longtime competitors, came second and won a remarkable 13 seats, up from just five in 2014.

Yabloko, Russia's oldest liberal party, took four seats while the center-left Fair Russia won three. United Russia, whose candidates were formally running as independents, lost nearly a third of districts to their opposition rivals. The voter turnout was slightly above 21 percent.

The Moscow vote follows opposition rallies which sprang up after election officials disqualified numerous liberal candidates, citing failure to collect enough signatures of genuine voters.Almost every weekend, since late July, tens of thousands joined authorized and unauthorized protests, some of which ended up in scuffles with police.
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Russian Flag

Russia boosts gas supplies to Europe while transit deal with Ukraine in limbo


RT
Mon, 09 Sep 2019 16:29 UTC
pipe
© Global Look Press / Patrick Pleul
Russian energy major Gazprom plans to pump twice as much gas into European storage than last year, while Moscow and Kiev have not still agreed on the terms of a new transit contract.

Gazprom is planning to supply more than 11 billion cubic meters to storage facilities in Europe, the head of the company, Alexey Miller, told Russian President Vladimir Putin during their meeting on Monday.

"This is twice as much as last year's level," Miller pointed out. "We see that our European partners are pumping gas at high speed, and our Ukrainian colleagues are trying to do the same."

The rush to stock up gas comes as the current 10-year transit contract is to expire on December 31, the head of Gazprom explained. Earlier this year, Moscow offered Kiev to extend the agreement for 12 months, but didn't receive any response form the Ukrainian side.
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Bullseye

British vegan activists 'set free' 16 rabbits on Spanish farm, killing 100 bunnies in the process - Angry farmers chase vandals off


RT
Mon, 09 Sep 2019 14:25 UTC
Bloodied cheek
A vegan activist claims she was involved in a high speed chase and shot at by farmers who were enraged that she had freed 16 rabbits, while accidentally killing 100 baby bunnies in the process.

The activist, self-styled as 'Mythical Mia', alleges the farmers were extremely aggressive and tried to strangle her fellow activists and hit them in the head with metal poles when they discovered them attempting to free the rabbits from captivity in Osono, Spain last week.

They soon fled the property at which point 'Mia' claims the activists were allegedly cornered by several vehicles down a back road where the irate farmers threatened them and hit their car for up to an hour before police arrived and diffused the situation.

The activist alleges that the police refused to provide her and her accomplice with an escort. Ten minutes later, one of the farmers' vehicles caught up with them and opened fire, shattering the glass and injuring the activist, she claimed online.

Comment: Note that the police turned a blind eye so the farmers could chase them off.

You reap what you sow.

See also: Nutty as a fruitcake vegans hurl bricks through the window of butcher's shop in France

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Pistol

Instant karma: Man 'accidentally shoots himself dead' on London street after bullet ricochets off car

Corazon Miller
Independent
Mon, 09 Sep 2019 10:38 UTC
man accidentally shoots himself london
© PAMan died shortly after he was found with gunshot wounds in south-east London.


'You can see on the car window where the bullet bounced off it,' eyewitness says.

A man is thought to have died after he shot at a car on a southeast London street and the bullet ricocheted back, fatally wounding him.

The victim in his 20s died at the scene in Sydenham on Sunday afternoon, Scotland Yard said.

Witnesses in the area said it appeared the man had accidentally shot himself.
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Marijuana

Racketeering lawsuit heats up wine vs. weed war in Oregon


RT
Mon, 09 Sep 2019 10:11 UTC
Wine and pot
© (L) Pixabay; (R) Reuters / Carlos Osorio
The rolling hills of northern Oregon produce some of the most prized wine in America. But there's rivalry from a new neighbor: Cannabis farms. With grapes and buds competing for the same soil, messy legal battles have ensued.

A number of racketeering lawsuits taken by winemakers against pot growers have languished and failed in Oregon's courts, with the grape-growers unable to prove that the pot plantations next door messed with their crops or cost them business. One such lawsuit, however, has managed to proceed, with a federal judge acknowledging an actual financial loss.

The owners of Momtazi Vineyard, in Oregon's verdant Yamhill County, pride themselves on utilizing the earth beneath them to produce a superior product. "The farm is considered a living organism," they write, and the Momtazi team avoids commercial fertilizers and pesticides, going as far as applying herbal teas "in homeopathic amounts" to their vines.

Neighbors Mary and Steven Wagner use this same soil to grow marijuana with their company Yamhill Naturals, an activity legal in Oregon since 2014.
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Newspaper

Lower interest rates are a 'definite trend' in Russia - Major Moscow bank

Yen Nee Lee
CNBC
Thu, 05 Sep 2019 02:33 UTC
RUssia central bank
Interest rates in many economies are heading south — that's no exception in Russia where the central bank is widely expected to ease monetary policy on Friday, for the third time this year.

All but one of the 25 analysts and economists polled by Reuters expect the Russian central bank to lower its key rate by 25 basis points to 7% at Friday's meeting. The Bank of Russia previously eased in June and July, and said more cuts were likely amid slowing inflation.

"There's quite wide expectations that rate might be cut again by a quarter of a percent on Friday. We shall see, but definite trend is to lower key rate in Russia," Andrey Kostin, chairman of Moscow-based bank VTB, told CNBC's Tanvir Gill at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia.

Kostin said inflation in Russia is expected to be around 4%, but the key rate is currently 7.25% — much higher than that in major economies around the world. That means the central bank has room to ease monetary policy even more to support the economy, added Kostin.

Comment: One wonders just how economies in the West would have fared had they been under the same economic attack they're overseeing in Russia:

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Stock Down

Trucking recession: heavy-duty truck orders collapse, production slashed, cancellation orders soar

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Sat, 07 Sep 2019 08:45 UTC
trucking recession 1
New reports from the trucking industry show the transportation recession continues to gain momentum through the end of summer, likely to continue through 2019 into 1H20.

The US trucking industry had a blockbuster year in 2018, as high demand for freight allowed transportation companies to expand fleets. But since freight demand was artificial, sparked by importers pulling forward to get ahead of tariffs, the good times were destined to end and end rather sharply.

The Institute for Supply Management's purchasing managers index plunged to 49.1 in August, the first time a contraction has been seen since 2016. Prints below 50 suggest the manufacturing economy is shrinking. Data also showed new orders dropped to a seven-year low, while the production index hit 2015 lows.

Comment: See also:

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Wall Street

Microsoft warns that Trump's crackdown on Huawei threatens US companies


RT
Mon, 09 Sep 2019 09:06 UTC
Huawei logo
© Reuters / Hannibal HanschkeThe Huawei logo
US tech major Microsoft is unhappy with US president Donald Trump's push against China's Huawei, claiming that such unfair and "un-American" treatment may hit indigenous companies hard, and Microsoft itself will not be spared.

The tech giant's President Brad Smith has serious doubts over the grounds on which Huawei was added to the US infamous 'Entity List' effectively banning American companies from doing business with the Chinese behemoth. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek Smith said his company wants the Trump administration to shed more light on the matter to check if the move was not taken without "sound basis in fact, logic, and the rule of law."

However, US regulators failed to give any plausible explanation as they simply claim to know much more than they reveal to the businessmen, according to the Microsoft official. He argues that the government must open up, so firms could decide for themselves.
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Magnify

Embassy insider exposes lies and errors in CNN's defamatory report on Assange

Aaron Maté
The Grayzone
Fri, 06 Sep 2019 00:00 UTC
CNN-Assange
© Western Journalism/KJN
A "bombshell" CNN report claimed to show how Wikileaks founder Julian Assange published stolen Democratic Party emails in 2016 in cooperation with the Russian government from his place of refuge in Ecuador's London embassy. Ecuadorian diplomat Fidel Narváez — who served in the embassy throughout Assange's stay — says that CNN's report was error-ridden and defamatory.

"There are so many smears, speculations, and some false information in that report that somewhat somebody needs to set the record straight," Narváez says. "It is unbelievable how they twist every single thing in order to to defame Julian and Ecuador."

Guest: Fidel Narváez, former Ecuadorian diplomat who served in Ecuador's London embassy for six of the seven years that Julian Assange lived there under asylum.


Comment: See also SOTT's article from Caitlin Johnstone:
CNN's new Assange smear piece is amazingly dishonest - even for CNN!

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