Society's ChildS


Stormtrooper

Ukrainian trooper who wore Nazi SS insignia thought it was a kind of... PIRATE FLAG?!?!


RT
Fri, 14 Dec 2018 17:41 UTC
ukraine soldier
© Command of the Airborne Assault Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine/ AFP / SERGEI SUPINSKY
An elite Ukrainian airborne trooper who was pictured wearing an emblem of a Nazi unit during a visit of the president, claims he thought the skull and bones was simply a pirate flag.

The insignia of the 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf, which the soldier showed off last week on his chest next to a Ukrainian flag, is a version of the 'death's head' symbol, which was used since at least the times of the Knight Templars. The Jolly Roger features it too, so we should perhaps give the benefit of the doubt to the young warrior, who may have just made a blunder in trying to connect with his inner adventurer by putting the skull and bones on his uniform.

"I want to stress that I used it out of ignorance thinking it to be a kind of a pirate flag. I acknowledge my mistake and am prepared to take responsibility for it," the man said in a video statement published on Thursday by Ukraine's airborne troops, to which he belongs.
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Red Flag

Gender neutral insanity: Design firm suggests 'rebranding' Santa


RT
Fri, 14 Dec 2018 17:34 UTC
santa
© Reuters / Caitlin Ochs
Companies are always looking for new ways to corner the Christmas market but one design firm has courted an often controversial topic: "What if Father Christmas was rebranded for today?"

In a multinational survey, Graphic Springs, put the question to 400 members of the public in the US and asked, if Saint Nick was given a modern makeover, what would the merry Christmas icon look like? This initial sample group gave suggestions on which 4,000 people then voted with some surprising results.

11 percent of respondents believe Santa should be a woman while 17 percent would rather a gender neutral Christmas character.

However, 72 percent were still in favor of keeping Santa as a man.
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Attention

7-year-old Guatemalan migrant girl in Border Patrol custody dies of septic shock, fever and dehydration

Alan Gomez
USA Today
Fri, 14 Dec 2018 11:20 UTC
7 yo girl dies
A 7-year-old Guatemalan girl who was detained by Customs and Border Protection agents after illegally crossing the southern border into the United States last week died after suffering from a high fever and seizures, federal immigration authorities said.

The girl was in custody for more than nine hours after crossing into New Mexico with a group of 163 migrants, including her father. She began having seizures and vomiting, was determined to have a 105.7-degree fever, and was transported by Air Ambulance to a hospital in El Paso, Texas, according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security.

She went into cardiac arrest at Providence Children's Hospital, but was revived, before dying a short time later, according to DHS. The initial diagnosis by physicians at Providence Children's Hospital listed the cause of death as septic shock, fever and dehydration, according to a separate statement provided to The Washington Post.

According to the statement given to the Post, the girl had not eaten or consumed food for several days before her death. A DHS official said the father and daughter were given a medical screening after being detained, and were offered food and water. But the statement does not make clear whether the two received any food or water.
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Heart - Black

Stepmother sentenced to 28 years in prison for nearly starving stepson to death, locking him in crawlspace

Emily Shapiro
ABC News
Wed, 12 Dec 2018 17:14 UTC
Tammi Bleimeyer
© Mark Herman, Harris County Constable Precinct 4Tammi Bleimeyer
A Texas stepmother convicted of starving her 5-year-old stepson and locking him in a crawlspace has been sentenced to 28 years in prison, prosecutors said Monday.

Tammi Bleimeyer's 28-year sentence comes after she was found guilty last week of injury to a child - serious bodily injury, according to the Harris County District Attorney's Office.

The boy's father, Bradley Bleimeyer, pleaded guilty two years ago to the same charge and was sentenced to 15 years in prison, prosecutors said.


Comment: Malnourished boy found in closet of Texas home by teenage step-brother


The little boy weighed just 29 pounds when he was rescued, after what prosecutors allege were at least months of starvation.
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Bug

Woman charged in apparent violent, racist tirade on Brooklyn, NY D train


ABC7 NY
Thu, 13 Dec 2018 11:35 UTC
Crazy lady
A Brooklyn woman is under arrest after allegedly unleashing a violent, racist tirade on another straphanger onboard a D train.

It happened Tuesday around 8:30 a.m. on a northbound D train near 9th Avenue in Borough Park, Brooklyn.

Police said 40-year-old Anna Lushchinskaya, of Sheepshead Bay, faces felony assault charges after she yelled profanities at a 24-year-old Asian woman and struck her with an umbrella handle and keys.

Videos on social media from the incident show what appears to be Lushchinskaya making racist slurs at both the victim and a good Samaritan who intervened, but police have not charged the suspect for bias crimes.
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Quenelle - Golden

Hungarian protesters stage massive rally over labor 'slave law', clashing with police outside parliament


RT
Fri, 14 Dec 2018 09:25 UTC
hungary slave law protests
Despite popular opposition, the bill was still adopted later the same day, prompting an angry crowd to gather outside of the parliament building in the evening. The protesters were chanting “traitors!” Some of them were also waving the EU flags.
A controversial labor bill dubbed the 'slave law' has sparked an angry public response in Hungary. Protesters have clashed with police outside the parliament as thousands staged a massive rally in Budapest.

Thousands of people marched through the Hungarian capital on Wednesday, in an attempt to discourage lawmakers from approving a controversial amendment to the labor law, backed by Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Fidesz party.


Despite popular opposition, the bill was still adopted later the same day, prompting an angry crowd to gather outside of the parliament building in the evening. The protesters were chanting "traitors!" Some of them were also waving the EU flags.

Comment: 'The discontent is everywhere'...

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Eye 1

Time's 'Person of the Year' hypocrisy

Stephen Lendman
Global Research
Wed, 12 Dec 2018 11:45 UTC
Time person year 2018
© Time Inc., All Rights Reserved, via Getty Images
On Tuesday, Time magazine announced its annual Person of the Year Award, honoring what it called "Guardians...who have taken great risks in pursuit of greater truths."

Time's editors ignored the most highly deserving investigative, muckraking, truth-telling journalists of our time, focusing on major issues mattering most - polar opposite establishment reporting Time and other major Western media feature exclusively, suppressing what's most important to report.

The late William Blum was excluded from consideration. His books, Empire Report, and other writings documented US high crimes throughout the post WW II period - hard truths Time and other establishment media suppress.

Nor was WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange a candidate for person of the year. He's a virtual prisoner inside Ecuador's London embassy, unable to leave its confines for over six years, fearing arrest and extradition to the US for the crime of truth-telling journalism the way it's supposed to be, taking an enormous risk "in pursuit of greater truths," not risk enough for Time's editors.

Comment: See also: 2018's 'man' of the year: The American "Dissidents" - Stephen Cohen, Bonnie Faulkner, Paul Craig Roberts and Ron Unz

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No Entry

Bomb hoax at Columbine High sends 24 Jefferson County schools into hours-long "lockout"

Noelle Phillips, Joe Rubino & Matt Sebastien
Denver Post
Fri, 14 Dec 2018 11:26 UTC
Columbine High School bomb hoax
© KUSA
An anonymous caller who claimed bombs had been planted inside Columbine High School on Thursday morning led to an aggressive police response and a decision to place more than 20 schools in the Jefferson County area on "lockout" status.

No evidence of explosives or any other threat was found following a search of Columbine, officials said. Three hours after the threat was called in, Jefferson County Public Schools announced that all lockouts had been lifted except the one at Columbine, which would remain in place the rest of the school day.


Comment: CBS Denver reports that this bomb hoax was part of a string of fake threats across the US:
Nothing dangerous has been found after a threat of explosives was called in about Columbine High School on Thursday morning. A total of 24 different Jefferson County schools were placed on lockdown. Those lockdowns were lifted a few hours later and at 12:45 p.m., it was determined the threat at Columbine was not substantiated.

The school threat was linked to dozens of other similar threats nationwide, according to the Colorado Office of Emergency Management.


A wave of bomb threats emailed Thursday to hundreds of schools, businesses and government buildings across the U.S. triggered searches, evacuations and fear. Law enforcement agencies across the country dismissed the threats, saying they were meant to cause disruption and compel recipients into sending money and were not considered credible.

The police response was one of the biggest seen at Columbine due to a school threat since 12 students and a teacher were killed inside the school on April 20, 1999.

"Unfortunately we receive many threats like this to Columbine. We respond to each threat appropriately, which is what we're doing now," Taplin said.


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NPC

Fake news 'fact-checkers' abandoning Facebook after 'losing trust' in the platform

Sam Levin
The Guardian
Fri, 14 Dec 2018 11:26 UTC
Sheryl Sandberg
Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook
Journalists working as factcheckers for Facebook have pushed to end a controversial media partnership with the social network, saying the company has ignored their concerns and failed to use their expertise to combat misinformation.

Current and former Facebook factcheckers told the Guardian that the tech platform's collaboration with outside reporters has produced minimal results and that they've lost trust in Facebook, which has repeatedly refused to release meaningful data about the impacts of their work. Some said Facebook's hiring of a PR firm that used an antisemitic narrative to discredit critics - fueling the same kind of propaganda factcheckers regularly debunk - should be a deal-breaker.

"They've essentially used us for crisis PR," said Brooke Binkowski, former managing editor of Snopes, a factchecking site that has partnered with Facebook for two years. "They're not taking anything seriously. They are more interested in making themselves look good and passing the buck ... They clearly don't care."

Comment: See also: Fake News 'fact checkers' are the new snake oil salesmen

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Star of David

Four Palestinians & two Israeli soldiers dead after day of violence in the West Bank

Yumna Patel
Mondoweiss
Fri, 14 Dec 2018 11:26 UTC
Palestinian house IDF Israel attack
© Shadi Jarar'ah/APA ImagesPalestinians inspect the damage to a house following an Israeli attack that killed Palestinian Ashraf Na'alouh, in Askar camp east of the West Bank city of Nablus, on December 13, 2018.
Four Palestinians and two Israelis were killed between Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon in a series of attacks and search and arrest operations in the central occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

In the late hours of Wednesday night, Israeli special forces raided the Ramallah-area town of Surda to detain 29-year-old Saleh Omar Barghouthi, who the Israelis claim was responsible for a shooting attack on Sunday near the Ofra settlement that left seven Israelis injured.

Barghouthi was reportedly injured while attempting to flee, and later succumbed to his wounds. His body has yet to be returned to his family.
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