Society's ChildS


Brick Wall

Former DHS special agent who fought sex trafficking says 'enough politics, build the wall for children'

border patrol wall
© MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty ImagesBorder Patrol officers keep watch before U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen inaugurates the first completed section of President Trumps 30-foot border wall in the El Centro Sector, at the U.S. Mexico border in Calexico, California on October 26, 2018.
As a former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) special agent on the southern border who fought sex trafficking for over a decade, I can say with certainty that the issue of the border wall should be not about power and partisan politics. It should be about the children - the tens of thousands of them who have been and are being trafficked into the U.S. and forced into the commercial sex trade.

Human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal enterprise on the planet, with millions of child victims stuck in its clutches. Indeed, this is no peripheral issue - this alone should be front and center in our border and immigration debate.

I spent over 12 years working as a special agent/undercover operator for Homeland Security Investigations in the Child Crimes/Child Trafficking unit. For a decade of that service, I was stationed at the border office in Calexico, California. Based on my extensive experience fighting transnational crime along the southern border, I know that we should absolutely finish building the wall for the sake of the children.

Mr. Potato

Not The Onion: 27-year-old Indian man plans to sue his parents for having him without his consent

baby
© Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images
Just when you thought you'd heard it all.

A 27-year-old Indian man plans to sue his parents - with whom he admits to having a good relationship - because they brought him into the world without his consent.

LOL. Really?

Really.

Raphael Samuel of New Delhi said that children aren't indebted to their parents and that children should ask their mothers and fathers "for an explanation as to why they gave birth to you."

Comment: What a nihilistic point of view. Perhaps, rather than awarding the prosecutor any money in the legal case, the judge should allow them to be put to death to immediately rectify their objection to their own existence.


Cow

Vegans lacking sense of humor furious at Hyundai for its Super Bowl commercial that bashes vegan dinner parties

Hyundai ad
© Adobe
Vegans are beefing with Hyundai over the car company's Super Bowl ad.

Hyundai's Super Bowl commercial features a couple riding an elevator that is dropping people off to different unpleasant experiences, such as a root canal or shopping for a car. One undesirable experience is a "vegan dinner party," complete with "beetloaf."

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) took issue with the ad when it was released on Twitter prior to the Super Bowl.

Comment: Talk about not having a sense of humor about oneself. Maybe if vegans stopped taking themselves so seriously they wouldn't continually be the butt of so many jokes. And considering vegans make up about 1% of the American population, it's unlikely Hyundai is going to feel much in the way of repercussions in their pocketbooks.

See also:


Arrow Down

UK: Islamic school still enforcing gender segregation, uses texts "encouraging violence against women"

Al-Hijrah school
© GoogleAl-Hijrah school in Birmingham
A Muslim school in Birmingham, England, is still enforcing gender segregation by ordering girls not to eat their lunch until the boys have finished theirs, UK government school inspectors have told MPs.

Al-Hijrah school was instructed to end the unlawful practice by the Court of Appeal in 2017. However, Luke Tryl, director of corporate strategy at Ofsted, the government body charged with carrying out school inspections, says the West Midlands school is still contravening gender segregation rules.

Tryl also told the Parliamentary Women and Equalities Committee that the school continues to teach from "very discriminatory texts... encouraging violence against women."

Comment: This is the state of multi-culturalism in Europe in 2019. The school needs to have its public funding revoked and to be shut down, along with any other schools refusing to comply. Investigations on those running the school may also be a necessary measure. Integration is possible, but multi-culturalism is not, and Europe would do well to look to countries that have achieved it with relative success, like Russia:


Attention

These McCarthyite accusations benefit no one and harm everyone

Jena Friedman tweet
In response to the reprehensible NBC hit piece we discussed the other day in which Hawaii congresswoman and Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard was smeared as a darling of the Russian government, journalist Glenn Greenwald published an article documenting the astonishing amount of journalistic malpractice which went into the piece's formation. In the article, Greenwald wrote the following:

"That's because the playbook used by the axis of the Democratic Party, NBC,MSNBC, neocons, and the intelligence community has been, is, and will continue to be a very simple one: to smear any adversary of the establishment wing of the Democratic Party - whether on the left or the right - as a stooge or asset of the Kremlin."

Displaying a remarkable lack of self-awareness, Democratic establishment pundit and professional Russiagater Caroline Orr responded to Gabbard's share of this article on Twitter as follows:

Comment: Caitlin Johnstone is adept at pointing out the ludicrosity of the McCarthyite rhetoric, exposing the paranoid rhetoric and the depths of peoples delusions. We're lucky to have at least someone who is able to see things for what they are and expose them as such.

See also:


X

Users slam YouTube for considering removal of 'dislike' button

youtube eye
© Reuters / Dado Ruvic
In a 'Creator Insider' video aimed at YouTube content makers, project management director Tom Leung gingerly broached the subject of removing the "dislike" button - but only to combat trolls, he stressed. Users were not amused.

Leung was careful to emphasize that he was merely sharing an "early conversation" that had been "lightly discussed" - and that censorship was only a last-ditch necessity for combating the menace of the so-called "dislike mobs."


No Entry

Canada bars alternative media outlets from Lima Group's meeting to plot strategy against Venezuela

Lima Group meeting Venezuela crisis
© Reuters / Chris WattiePeru's Foreign Minister Nestor Popolizio, Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland at the Lima Group meeting
The Canadian government has denied both Russian and alternative media outlets access to a meeting in Ottawa, during which Latin American ministers will plot their further response to Venezuela's ongoing crisis.

With the Lima Group meeting set to begin on Monday, Sputnik and Russian news agency RIA Novosti were officially disinvited that morning. Sputnik reported that the Canadian Foreign Ministry did not initially explain its reasoning.

When pressed, a spokesman for the ministry said that Sputnik "hasn't been cordial" with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland in the past. However, a quick search reveals that Sputnik has never been overly critical of the Canadian FM since she was appointed two years ago.

RIA's request for clarification has not yet been answered.

One day earlier, Latin American news outlet Telesur was also denied access to the meeting. Telesur published an email from the Canadian ministry saying the organization has "NOT been accredited as media."

Comment:


Eye 2

Three arrested, including teen, in Wisconsin over death of 7yo boy

Damian Hauschultz, Timothy Hauschultz and Tina McKeever-Hauschultz
© WLUK/Gabrielle MaysThis composite photo shows, from left, Damian Hauschultz, Timothy Hauschultz and Tina McKeever-Hauschultz appearing in Manitowoc County court Feb. 4, 2019
Three people were arrested Friday in connection with the April 20, 2018, death of 7-year-old Ethan Hauschultz of Newton.

Ethan Hauschultz's court-appointed guardians, Timothy Hauschultz and Tina McKeever-Hauschultz, and Timothy's 15-year-old son were all arrested Friday, Manitowoc County Sheriff's Office said in a press release.

According to the release, the sheriff's office's investigation of the death determined that earlier in the day on April 20, 2018, "Ethan had been performing punishment ordered by Timothy which required Ethan to carry a heavy wooden log, weighing approximately two-thirds his body weight, while being monitored by Timothy's 15-year-old son. Over the course of 1-1.5 hours, the 15-year-old hit, kicked, struck and poked Ethan numerous times.

He repeatedly shoved Ethan to the ground and rolled the heavy log across Ethan's chest. He stood on his body and head while Ethan was face-down in a puddle. He ultimately buried Ethan completely in snow. Timothy and Tina eventually transported Ethan to the hospital where he was pronounced dead."

Books

Performance gap: Migrants' children in Swedish schools are increasingly segregated - survey

Lindblom school
© Reuters / Reuters StaffLindblom school in Hultsfred, Sweden
Some Swedish schools have almost exclusively either foreign-born or Swedish children, according to a recent study. The increasing segregation leads to lower education levels and missed opportunities for the kids, officials warn.

Thousands of migrants' children in Sweden are less and less likely to meet their Swedish classmates at school, according to a survey from the state-funded SVT TV channel. The study of 3,641 Swedish schools published last week shows four out of 10 schools have an imbalance in the ratio of migrant and Swedish children compared to the overall proportion in the given municipality.

Officials say segregation is real and that it directly affects students' performance.

"We get an increased concentration of students based on social background and thus differences in terms of school performance," Peter Fredriksson, chief of the Swedish National Agency for Education, said, commenting on the study. "You should have the same opportunities to succeed regardless of which school you go to. But it is not the case today."

Family

Is the Venezuelan "opposition" starting to break down?

rally maduro
© Agence France-PresseVenezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (L) and his wife Cilia Flores wave at the crowd during a gathering to mark the 20th anniversary of the rise of power of the late Hugo Chavez, in Caracas on February 2, 2019.

Comment: Two geopolitical analysts from Vesti offer their views on the attempted US-backed coup in Venezuela.


Dmitry Kiselev:

In Venezuela there is the most severe crisis. The lawful president of the country Nicolás Maduro controls the army, the courts, and the intelligence agencies, but the US, their allies following in their footsteps, recognised someone else as the head of state - the leader of the oppositional parliament Juan Guaido, encouraging a coup d'etat.

Guaido is an impostor. He is the speaker of the local parliament, but proclaimed himself the president. Without any elections. Recently we spoke about the arisen diarchy in the country, but now this definition isn't absolutely exact any more. Guaido has no real control levers. He has only the support of the West and some of the countries of the region. Thus, supporters of a coup d'etat lost speed and started to lose traction.