Society's ChildS


Brick Wall

'Breaking point': Over 76,000 illegal migrants crossed US border last month

Caitlin Dickerson
New York Times
Wed, 06 Mar 2019 20:06 UTC
Migrants from Central America
© Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesMigrants from Central America turned themselves in to Border Patrol agents in Penitas, Tex., last month.
The number of migrant families crossing the southwest border has once again broken records, with unauthorized entries nearly double what they were a year ago, suggesting that the Trump administration's aggressive policies have not discouraged new migration to the United States.

More than 76,000 migrants crossed the border without authorization in February, an 11-year high and a strong sign that stepped-up prosecutions, new controls on asylum and harsher detention policies have not reversed what remains a powerful lure for thousands of families fleeing violence and poverty.

"The system is well beyond capacity, and remains at the breaking point," Kevin K. McAleenan, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, told reporters in announcing the new data on Tuesday.
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Bomb

UK police investigate explosives sent to Waterloo Station, Heathrow and London City Airports - UPDATES


Sky News
Tue, 05 Mar 2019 18:56 UTC
waterloo airport investigation
Police are investigating three packages, including one at Waterloo
Counter-terror police have said three suspicious packages found near transport hubs across London were "small improvised explosive devices".

Officers were called to Waterloo Station, London City Airport and an office building near Heathrow Airport in separate incidents within hours of each other earlier today.

Three A4-sized white postal bags containing yellow Jiffy bags were found, the Met Police has now confirmed.

Specialist officers have assessed the packages, which were found to be "small improvised explosive devices".

The devices were "not sophisticated", they said.


Counter terrorism officers say they are treating the incidents as "a linked series" but are "keeping an open mind regarding motives".

Comment: The 'obvious connection' being made is that this is intended to influence the Brexit negotiations, with the bomb threats ostensibly being a reminder from Irish nationalists that 'we're still here' as the potential return of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland looms.

Less obvious is whether this is connected with the simultaneous 'suspicious packages' being sent to government ministers in Dublin, which sparked an 'anti-terror' military lock-down there two days ago.

UPDATE 6pm CET

The "Irish connection" is now explicit: the explosives reportedly had Irish stamps:
British police have launched a counterterrorism probe after "small improvised explosive devices" were found in envelopes bearing Irish stamps at London sites including Heathrow Airport, City Airport and Waterloo train station.
...
MET Police also confirmed that police in Ireland were assisting the investigation.


...
The fact that the envelopes had Irish stamps has immediately aroused suspicions that the incident could be related to tense relations between Dublin and London over Brexit negotiations.

The London Telegraph suggested that the incident could be part of a plot by dissident republican groups in Ireland. The issue of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland has been a major sticking point in Brexit talks, with the Irish side insisting on a 'backstop' measure to ensure that a hard border will never be introduced on the island, while the pro-Brexit side in the UK insist that a backstop is unnecessary to prevent a hard border and claim it is hampering a clean break from the EU.
An initially 'suspicious' package found today near the entrance to Britain's parliament was later deemed 'not suspicious'.

UPDATE 10pm CET

RT now reports that:
A suspicious package found at Glasgow University shares similarities with small improvised explosive devices sent on Tuesday to major transport hubs of London, the police have confirmed.
Somebody's clearly working overtime. Somebody seeking to influence the Brexit fiasco deadline at the end of this month. Somebody not wannabe-IRA or ISIS...

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TV

Rachel Maddow, Russiagate's Grand Wizard brazenly lies to her audience about Assange

Caitlin Johnstone
caitlinjohnstone.com
Wed, 06 Mar 2019 19:31 UTC
rachel maddow wikileaks
© MSNBCRachel Maddow
When it was first revealed in November that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is under secret charges by the Trump administration, I spent the next few days being told by Russiagaters that this was proof that I have been wrong about their demented cold war cult all along, because #MuellerTime is fast approaching. At long last, they vehemently assured me, Assange was going to prison for working with Russia to deprive Queen Hillary of her rightful throne.

None of those people have come back to apologize or admit that they were wrong when subsequent evidence disproved their claims. None of them ever do.

As it turns out, whistleblower Chelsea Manning has been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury in a secret case investigating Assange for his 2010 role in the WikiLeaks publication of military war logs and diplomatic cables. Manning served seven years in prison for leaking those documents to the transparency advocacy outlet before her sentence was commuted by President Obama, meaning, obviously, that this sealed case has nothing to do with the 2016 leaks Russiagaters have been fiendishly obsessing over. Indeed, the Washington Post reported yesterday that "U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of grand jury secrecy, say the case is based on [Assange's] pre-2016 conduct, not the election hacks that drew the attention of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III."

Comment: Over the years Rachel Maddow has been a diligent servant to the Deep State. She is a propagandist's dream because no matter how outlandish the claim, she will deliver it with well-polished faux-sincerity. And her audience eats it up.

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Pistol

Over 80 arrested protesting police shooting of unarmed Stephon Clark in Sacramento, CA


RT
Tue, 05 Mar 2019 12:17 UTC
Sacramento protesters
© AFP/Getty Images North America/Justin SullivanProtesters holding images of Stephon Clark in Sacramento, California on March 4, 2019
Police arrested over 80 protesters and detained a reporter in Sacramento, California after scores turned out to demonstrate against a decision not to charge cops who fatally shot 22-year-old Stephon Clark last March.

Clark, an unarmed black man, was holding a cell phone which officers claimed to believe was a gun when they shot him in the backyard of his grandparents' home on 18 March, 2018.

Almost a year after his death, Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert announced the police officers involved would not be charged as they had not committed a crime.

An estimated 100 people gathered in Sacramento around 7pm local time Monday to protest the DA's decision and call for the two officers to be fired, marching through the city with placards bearing photos of Clark.
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Books

The university as a center for authoritarian indoctrination: How Ed Schools became a menace to higher education

Lyell Asher
Quillette
Wed, 06 Mar 2019 18:35 UTC
student reading
I. The Miseducation of College Administrators

Years ago, at the college where I teach, some graffiti on a restroom wall caught my eye. Inked into the tile grout was a swastika the size of a baby aspirin, and just above it, in a different hand, someone had written in large letters: "This says a lot about our community." An arrow pointed to the offending sign.

I'd seen lots of responses to the odd swastika over the years-obscene remarks about the author's anatomy, say, or humiliating additions to his family tree. But a claim that this itsy-bitsy spider of a swastika signaled a web of hatred permeating one of the most left-leaning colleges in the nation? That was a new one.

More evidence for this web was adduced a few months later when some racially charged fliers were posted anonymously around campus. Because the fliers offended people who failed to notice that they were meant as anti-racist satire, administrators punished the undergraduate who had put them up, even after it was discovered that he was a minority student with left-wing political leanings.
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Star of David

Israeli minister regrets letting in Soviet Jews - because they aren't 'real' Jews


Sputnik
Wed, 06 Mar 2019 18:37 UTC
orthodox jews
© REUTERS / Finbarr O'Reilly
The minister landed in hot water after lamenting the presence of hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the USSR on Israeli soil and criticising the current situation in the Immigrant Absorption Ministry.

Aryeh Deri, Israel's minister of interior and head of the Israeli Shas religious political party, has found himself under fire over racist remarks he made towards immigrants from the former Soviet Union, The Times of Israel reports.

"Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of Israelis who immigrated from the former Soviet Union in accordance with the Law of Return aren't Jews according to halacha [Jewish religious law] and they are here, to my great regret," he said.

As the newspaper points out, about 400,000 people currently living in Israel, most of them immigrants from the former Soviet republics, are not considered Jewish by the Chief Rabbinate and therefore "unable to marry in state-sanctioned weddings or to enjoy other basic rights".


Comment: Ahh, Israeli 'democracy'. There's a reason Israel is the Middle East's only democracy: because there's no other democracy on earth like it! And that's because it isn't a democracy.


During his speech at a campaign event in Ashdod, Deri also criticised the current climate in the Immigrant Absorption Ministry where one allegedly cannot walk around "unless you speak Russian".

"The ministry will no longer exist to serve immigrants from the Soviet Union. It will be for those who make aliyah from France, and will be a home for Jews from Ethiopia," Deri said regarding his future plans.

Comment: Some context on the Israeli worldview and why racism like this is to be expected:

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Bulb

Best of the Web: Universal basic income for every American? In defense of Andrew Yang's Freedom Dividend

Samuel Kronen
Quillette
Wed, 06 Mar 2019 18:06 UTC
andrew yang
We should replace the ragbag of specific welfare programs with a single comprehensive program of income supplements in cash - a negative income tax. It would provide an assured minimum to all persons in need, regardless of the reasons for their need...A negative income tax provides comprehensive reform which would do more efficiently and humanely what our present welfare system does so inefficiently and inhumanely.
~Milton Friedman
I get emotional about facts.
~Andrew Yang
Although we are still a long way from the 2020 presidential campaigns, whispers of who the Democratic candidates will be and what policy platforms will be adopted is steadily droning into an orchestra. We can already predict some of the names that are likely to appear on the ballot sheet and the talking points that will be heard on the campaign trail, and it would not be imprudent to suspect the upcoming election will be even uglier and more contentious than the last.

While the overwhelming majority of political pundits seem to be pouring their energies into slamming the current president-criticizing old models rather than conjuring new ones-many are wondering what will be left standing in the wake of yet another crashing political wave.
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Family

Single-parent kids aren't 'malnourished' - but if we don't need both a mother and father, then why have families?

Igor Ogorodnev
RT
Tue, 05 Mar 2019 18:26 UTC
Terry Crews and his family.
© Getty/WireimageTerry Crews and his family.
Actor Terry Crews has incited wrath by saying children without the "vitamins and minerals" of "maternal AND paternal love" are "severely malnourished." His views are not "disgusting" - they are normal; and worth fighting for.

It might be impolitic to tell the growing number of children being raised in single-sex households that they are missing out on essential nutrients, as the Hollywood actor did in a now-deleted tweet. Indeed, many single-parent - or grandparent, or a gay couple - households are much more loving than those of dysfunctional couples bringing up their own kid.

Crews tweet
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Attention

RT report: Oxfam says Yemeni parents forced to sell young daughters for food


RT
Wed, 06 Mar 2019 17:56 UTC
yemeni child
© AFP / Essa AhmedA girl suffering from malnutrition in Yemen. February 2019.
With the bloody conflict in Yemen raging on, desperate parents choose to make their daughters child brides, feeling it is the only way to let other relatives survive the famine and destruction on the ground, Oxfam told RT.

The "man-made humanitarian catastrophe" caused by the brutal civil war in Yemen forced some parents to sell off their daughters, some as young as three years old, in hopes that the dowry bride will keep the rest of the family alive, international charity Oxfam reported.

The relatives planned to use the money, paid for the child brides, to buy food and shelter.

"They think this is the only way" to stay alive, Oxfam's director for Yemen, Muhsin Siddiquey, told RT. "They can bring the dowry, and that can protect the whole family and other extended members."

Overall, "10 million are just on the brink of famine" in Yemen, he said, adding that the four years of war also sparked "the worst cholera crisis in the century."

"If the humanitarian assistance is not provided timely" and the food supply becomes "nonfunctional even for a day... there will be much more catastrophic situations," Siddiquey stressed.

Comment: See also:

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NPC

PC police strike again: Will Smith 'not black enough' for role as father of Williams tennis sisters in new biopic


RT
Wed, 06 Mar 2019 17:51 UTC
will smith
© Wikipedia Commons / Taís Melillo; Global Look Press / q48 / ZUMAPRESS.com(L) Will Smith and (R) Richard Williams
Will Smith has been slated to play the role of Richard Williams, the father and first coach of tennis sisters Venus and Serena Williams, but his casting has sparked controversy, as some purists say his skin is "not black enough."

'King Richard' will tell the rags-to-riches story of Williams, who began training his daughters in tennis from an early age to see them become two of the most successful players in history.

But the fact that Williams happens to have a darker skin tone than Smith has broken political correctness rules in Hollywood and online, where a certain cohort who appear to be permanently offended by one thing or another, are complaining that Smith is the wrong shade of black. Yes, really.

Hollywood is no stranger to race controversies. Everyone already knows that it's probably best if white actors play white roles, black actors play black roles and Asian actors play asian roles. Actress Emma Stone found that out the hard way after playing an Asian role in 'Aloha' in 2016 and facing major backlash for the misstep. But now it seems that choosing a black actor for a black role is not quite good enough - and even promoting "colorism."
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