Society's ChildS

USA

Portland: Ground zero for the next American civil war?

portland violence
© Dave Killen/The Oregonian via APPolice disperse people participating in a May Day rally in downtown Portland, Oregon, May 1, 2017.
Unless you have been living under a rock for the past few years, you know just how intense political divisions have become. In recent years, we've seen neo-Nazi marches, feminist marches, Antifa riots, anti-gun rallies and countless other protests and demonstrations. Unfortunately, violence has often accompanied these political gatherings.

Moods have been hostile all over the US, but the west coast seems to be descending into chaos faster than the rest of the country. Two years ago, 7 people were stabbed in Sacramento during a clash between Antifa and white nationalists. Last year, Berkeley broke out in a massive riot after Antifa started attacking a group called Patriot Prayer (more on them later). For the past few years, we have witnessed major riots in Seattle and many other cities on the west coast.

During this time of political destabilization, one of the most chaotic cities on the west coast has been Portland. This seems to be a place where the relatively equal balance of left-wingers and right-wingers creates an atmosphere that is prone to violence. Right-wing groups like Patriot Prayer have had a strong presence in Portland, and the same can be said about Antifa.

Christmas Tree

California to bypass federal reserve and create cannabis banking industry

cannabis federal reserve
Sacramento, CA - In states with legal marijuana, dispensaries and retailers are forced to operate in legal gray areas because the federal government still wants to lock people in cages for possessing this plant. One particularly troublesome aspect of this prohibition is that legal marijuana business cannot accept credit cards and are blocked from using traditional banks. Thanks to a new bill in California, however, all that could be about to change.

In January, Sen. Bob Hertzberg, (D-Van Nuys), along with a bipartisan coalition of nine cosponsors, introduced Senate Bill 930 (SB930) which would create a self-contained banking industry solely for the cannabis industry inside the state of California.

Last week, the California Senate passed the bill. If the bill makes it through final approval, the implications are revolutionary and would aid in further nullifying the federal prohibition of cannabis.

Comment: All over the world people are reconsidering the failed war on drugs, and the arrogance of the establishment thinking they can enforce irrational laws may just bring about more drastic changes than they'd bargained for: Also check out SOTT radio's: The Health & Wellness Show: The Highs and Lows of Cannabis as Medicine


Newspaper

Migrant centres, reduce arrivals, deportations: Italian minister Salvini announces plan to tackle mass migration

salvini
© CARMELO LENZO/AFP/Getty
The first point of Salvini's action plan, he declared in a tweet Thursday, "is to increase the number of repatriation centers so that immigrants can be housed there rather than wandering the streets causing confusion."

In past months undocumented immigrants have been involved in a series of incidents, some of which have been serious, which undoubtedly influenced voters in the March 4 national elections.

The most notorious of the incidents involved three Nigerian asylum seekers arrested by Italian police earlier this year for the murder of the brutal murder of Pamela Mastropietro, an 18-year-old whose dismembered remains were found inside two suitcases outside Macerata in central Italy in early February.

Comment: With EU countries mandated to take in migrants when they can barely care for the citizens they already have, and this would apply to every country within the Eurozone, it is common sense to tackle the issue. And voters agree.

Italy and Greece have been particularly hard hit due to their proximity to countries migrants are leaving but primarily because, according to EU law, the countries migrants first enter, are forced to deal with them. Also check out SOTT radio's: The Truth Perspective: Weapons of Mass Migration: Interview with Michael Springmann on Europe's Migrant Crisis


USA

ICE called on pizza delivery man at military base in US

Pablo Villavicencio
© Go Fund MePablo Villavicencio is seen here (top, right) with his wife, U.S. citizen Sandra Chica (top, left) and their two young daughters.
An Ecuadorean-born pizza delivery man is set to be deported from the United States after he tried to deliver a pizza at a Brooklyn military base.

The incident occurred last Friday when Pablo Villavicencio, 35, arrived at the Fort Hamilton base in Brooklyn to deliver an order from Nonna Delia's pizzeria, a brick-oven pizza restaurant in Queens where he worked. The guard at the military base asked Villavicencio to show more documents apart from the IDNYC card, which is the official form of identification recognized in New York City.

"I was delivering food to the military base, and they detained me," Villavicencio told The New York Post from an ICE detention center Wednesday, over the phone, where he is currently being held pending deportation.

"I have been there before and always go in and never have had any problems. They actually know me, and the sergeant knows me for some time doing delivery," he added.

Comment: A rather unusual request from the guard at the military base:


Footprints

Bringing Assange home: The best possible thing for Australia

Julian Assange
© ABC NewsJulian Assange
Well I'll be damned, it's about time.

According to a new report by the Sydney Morning Herald, officials from Australia's High Commission have just been spotted leaving the Ecuadorian embassy in London, accompanied by Julian Assange's lawyer Jennifer Robinson. Robinson confirmed that a meeting had taken place, but declined to say what it was about "given the delicate diplomatic situation."

So, forgive me if I squee a bit. I am aware how subservient Australia has historically been to US interests, I am aware that those US interests entail the arrest of Assange and the destruction of WikiLeaks, and I am aware that things don't often work out against the interests of the US-centralized empire. But there is a glimmer of hope now, coming from a direction we've never seen before. A certain southerly direction.


Biohazard

Chernobyl contaminating cow milk 30 years after catastrophic nuclear meltdown - study

Chernobyl
© Getty ImagesCooling towers stand at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
More than 30 years after its catastrophic meltdown, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is being blamed for high radiation levels discovered in local cow's milk.

Sampling milk from private farms in the Ukraine's Rivne region, scientists from Exeter University and the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences made a startling find - radioactive material from more than three decades ago has leached into the livestock.

The lingering nuclear fallout from 1986 means farmers are unwittingly producing milk with radioactive caesium levels above the Ukraine safety standard of 100 becquerel per litre. The becquerel is a unit of radioactivity, with the new report documenting how some farms had milk with a radioactivity concentration of around 500 becquerel per litre.

One of the researchers, Dr Iryna Labunska, of the University of Exeter, believes the issue warrants government intervention. She said that while soil contamination in the Rivne region is not particularly high, the milk study shows how nuclear accidents have a long lasting legacy.

Footprints

Liberals have ruined California: Democrat-led policies create endless mass exodus

welcome to california
© @toby1942wow/Twitter
On Tuesday's primary election in California, Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom moved closer to becoming governor of the most populous state in the country and the world's fifth largest economy. He will be going up against the hapless and uninspiring John Cox, a Republican, in the November general election.

Although current Governor Jerry Brown is quite an urban utopian socialist, he is at least leaving the state with a sizable surplus totaling $6.1 billion. But when Newsom takes over, that will be quickly dispensed with and the situation in California will get worse than it already is.

Newsom is calling for a universal health care system and a plan for building affordable housing, in addition to: "A master plan for aging with dignity. A middle-class workforce strategy. A cradle-to-college promise for the next generation. An all-hands approach to ending child poverty." His platform includes an unworkable array of big government proposal to save a an extremely populous and drastically diverse state. He wants a state bank to finance infrastructure and many other costly items on his endless liberal wish list that would balloon the state budget that Brown has done a respectable job at right-sizing.

Comment: See also:


Jet2

US Air Force grounds all B-1B 'Lancer' bomber fleet after ejection seat malfunction

Air force
© Ian Hodgson / ReutersB-1 bombers
The US Air Force has grounded its entire B-1B 'Lancer' bomber fleet, due to safety concerns related to the aircraft's ejection seats not functioning properly.

The decision was taken as a direct result of an incident last month, where a Lancer had to make an emergency landing at Midland Airport in Texas.

The Air Force confirmed in a statement that a safety investigation uncovered an issue with ejection seat components that necessitated a stand-down of the full fleet until further investigations are complete. The aircraft will return to flight as issues are resolved.

Questions were raised at the time as to whether the ejection seat had failed after photos of the incident circulated on social media, showing that at least one of the four cockpit escape hatches had blown, but the ejection seat had not been deployed.

Eye 2

Migrant suspected in rape & murder of 14- year-old captured in Iraq after fleeing Germany

Migrant suspected in rape and murder
An Iraqi migrant suspected in the rape and murder of a 14-year-old German girl has been detained in his native country after attempting to flee Germany, the German government has said.

The 20-year-old man, identified as Ali B., was taken into custody by Kurdish security forces in northern Iraq on Friday morning, at the request of German federal police, German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer told reporters.

The suspect apparently left Germany several days ago, accompanied by his parents and five siblings. German authorities say they believe the Iraqi national arrived in Germany in October 2015 via Turkey and Greece, amid a wave of refugees that entered Europe.

German police say that Ali B. had recently been living in a refugee shelter located outside the girl's hometown of Mainz. Her body was found in a wooded area near the shelter on Wednesday.

Attention

As official gatekeeper Snopes debunks Arizona child trafficking camp, 160 children rescued from traffickers in Georgia

child trafficking snopes
A massive sting operation carried out by the FBI in metro Atlanta captured dozens of child traffickers and rescued 160 children who had been forced into sex slavery by their captors. This news comes as Snopes and the other ostensible arbiters of truth distort information claiming that similar trafficking is taking place in Arizona.

Illustrating the massive scope of the sting, called Operation Safe Summer, it was a collaborative effort between the FBI and 38 other law enforcement agencies from six metro counties.

"They are crimes of special concern to the FBI and to law enforcement generally," Special Agent in Charge Matt Alcoke told Channel 2. "Because the victims are so vulnerable as children and because the offenders could be from just about any walk of life, from a gang member all the way up to someone who is highly successful and wealthy."

"It's important for those of us who are responsible for the children, the parents, the guardians, the older siblings, to not let children fall away (from) those strongly centered circles of importance," Alcoke said.

This case illustrates how sinister and outright dangerous it is for the supposed arbiters of truth like Snopes, to immediately write off any allegations of child trafficking as "conspiracy theory" and fake news.

Comment: See also: Metro Atlanta sex-trafficking sting rescues nearly 160 children, authorities say