Society's ChildS


Wedding Rings

Swedish government targets polygamists as migrant influx increases illegal practice

police bus sweden
© TT News Agency / ReutersA police bus outside the entrance to Arlanda airport outside Stockholm
Sweden's Ministry of Justice has launched a probe into how to end polygamy in the country. Although prohibited by law, the government has struggled with how to deal with asylum seekers who arrive in Sweden with multiple wives.

The government investigation seeks to determine the legal implications surrounding the known cases of polygamy in Sweden. According to Helen Fritzon, Sweden's minister for migration and deputy minister for justice, the probe also aims at "preventing the continuation" of the practice. Several hundred polygamous marriages have been reportedly registered with the Swedish government.

Comment: Sweden and other countries must defend themselves against the slow chipping-away of their native cultures in the name of "tolerance".


Eye 2

Landlord describes suspected Texas serial killer Jose Gilberto Rodriquez as 'ideal tenant'

Jose Gilberto Rodriguez
© Karen Warren, Houston Chronicle
Suspected serial killer Jose Gilberto Rodriguez was the ideal tenant at a Fifth Ward transitional living complex, his landlord said, describing him as nice, neat and quiet and someone she would rent to again.

The parolee never missed a payment in the four months he was at Vincent Apartments Transitional Living, said Theresa Williams, who owns and manages the apartment complex in the 2400 block of Pannell Street.

"I think he did not do this, and I hope and am praying for that," Williams said Tuesday afternoon, hours after Rodriguez was arrested in the shooting deaths of three Houston area residents.

Williams said her last encounter with 46-year-old Rodriguez was sometime last week. She spotted Rodriguez as he was leaving the complex with two hampers. She said he told her he was off to do laundry, and she lovingly warned him not to get into trouble.

Stock Down

Majority of Chinese consumers ready to boycott American goods if trade war escalates

McDonald's China
© Bobby Yip / Reuters
Most Chinese may stop buying US products in response to tariffs imposed last month on goods from their country by the White House amid rising trade tensions between Washington and Beijing, according to the latest survey.

The recent study carried out by FT Confidential Research shows that 54 percent of respondents across 300 Chinese cities would "probably" or "definitely" reject US-branded goods "in the event of a trade war." Only 13 percent among 2,000 of those surveyed said they are not ready to boycott products from the US. The other 33 percent either don't buy US-branded produce or expressed uncertainty on the issue.

Laptop

Facebook, Google, Twitter admit imperfections but deny outright bias on what is banned on their platforms

Youtube Diamond and Silk
.@YouTube @TeamYouTube stopped over 95% percent of our videos from being monetized, stating: “It’s Not Suitable For All Advertisers”……..“Wonder if @TeamYouTube stopped the monetization of our videos because we are loyal supporters of the @POTUS….Hummmm………..”
Facebook admitted it "badly mishandled" communications with conservative commentators, like Diamond and Silk, during a congressional hearing on Tuesday.

Members of Congress drilled representatives of major social media platforms about the role social media plays in increasing political polarization during the hearing.

Monika Bickert, Facebook's head of Global Policy Management, testified during the hearing and admitted Facebook has not helped this problem.

Referencing the conservative duo Diamond and Silk, who were banned from the platform last year, Bickert said Facebook has taken steps to improve its relationship with conservative voices.

"We badly mishandled our communications with [Diamond and Silk]," she said. "And since then, we've worked hard to improve our relationship. We appreciate the perspective they add to our platform."

Comment: These companies say that they have no political bias, but their actions suggest otherwise:


Evil Rays

Crazed ISIS terrorist found guilty of planning attack on Parliament and beheading Theresa May

theresa may
© Dinendra Haria/ Global Look Press
An Islamic State (formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorist has been found guilty of plotting a suicide attack on Downing Street with an explosive-filled Argos rucksack. He also planned to behead Prime Minister Theresa May.

Naa'imur Zakariyah Rahman, 20, from Finchley in north London, said he wanted to carry out an attack on Parliament and kill the Tory leader, but his terrorist plot was thwarted by undercover officers from the Metropolitan police, British intelligence agency MI5 and the FBI.

Rahman's plans came to light when he contacted an undercover FBI agent he thought was an ISIS official, who in turn introduced the accused to an MI5 agent. He revealed details of his violent plot to the undercover agents, including wanting to launch a suicide or tanker bomb attack on parliament, and try to kill May.

Take 2

An in-depth debate on the Helsinki Summit, Russia, and US politics

Glen Greenwald Joe cirincione
© Democracy Now!Joe Crincione (L) and Glen Greenwald (R)
On Saturday, I described the "multiple reasons political discourse is degraded by the fact that it now plays out primarily on Twitter." On Sunday night, the New York Times's White House reporter Maggie Haberman announced that she was " taking a break from this platform" because "it's not really helping the discourse." There seems to be a growing recognition, one I certainly share, that Twitter is a uniquely poor, even destructive, medium for conducting complex political debates and should be avoided for those purposes.

That view was reinforced for me by a lengthy, spirited, and substantive debate I had on Democracy Now! this morning about the Trump-Putin summit, and U.S. politics more broadly, with Joe Cirincione, the longtime president of Ploughshares Fund, which has long been devoted to the reduction and ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons, as well as a contributor to MSNBC and Think Progress. Although we disagreed on several critical questions, the debate was substantive, respectful, and nuanced, and therefore, infinitely more illuminating of my positions and his than endless Twitter bickering could possibly achieve (the two tweets of his that I referenced during the discussion are here and here).

Comment: Glen Greenwald is the voice of reason in this discussion. Cirincione has clearly drunk the kool-aid, parroting anti-Trump and anti-Putin talking points that have no basis in reality. Advantage Greenwald.


Arrow Up

Violent crimes continue to rise in England and Wales

knife attack
© CHROMORANGE / Bilderbox / Global Look Press
Murder, knife crime and gun violence continue to rise in England and Wales, official data reveals. Offences involving knives or sharp instruments rose by 16 percent according to police-recorded crimes. Murders rose by 12 percent.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS), which examined police-recorded crime, detailed the fourth consecutive year that the murder rate has risen, with 701 cases in the year ending March 2018 - a 12-percent rise accounting for 74 cases.

Over the same time period covering the first three months of 2018, which saw a surge in violent crime in London, 40,147 knife crime offences were recorded by police. Gun offences rose less dramatically, with the ONS recording a two-percent increase to 6,492 incidents.

Robberies recorded by police also increased by 30 percent, while 31 percent more rapes were investigated and 21 percent more other sexual offences, in part due to the rise in sexual offences against children.

Star of David

Eight more Jewish young people walk out on 'Birthright': 'Tour has no place for Palestinians"

birthright walkout
© Hal Rose/FacebookTwo members of Birthright tour who walked off on July 15, 2018 flank a member of the Sumarin family, which faces eviction from house in occupied Jerusalem.
Wildcat Birthright! Yesterday two more Birthright tours of Israel were struck by walkouts in Jerusalem. Two from one group, six from another group- making 13 in all to stage these walkouts (and the dissidents are overwhelmingly women).

Birthright offers free trips to Israel for Jews 18-26, paid for by Israel supporters. One of these tours was about to visit the "City of David," the settlement just south of the Old City walls that is confiscating Palestinian properties in Silwan. The young people refused to take part in the settlement tour, preferring to meet the Sumarin family, which has faced endless eviction threats from the settler-state, and then to meet Palestinians at the great Wadi Hilweh information center in Silwan.

A member of the Sumarin family honors the solidarity: "Truly this is something important for us and this house, your coming here."

Gingerbread

University of Minnesota planning policy to fire or expel those who don't use 'preferred pronouns'

gender pronouns
The University of Minnesota is considering a policy to discipline students or professors who refuse to call someone by their preferred gender pronoun, with penalties that could include being fired or expelled.

The draft policy under review may change, but as of now it states that "university members and units are expected to use the names, gender identities and pronouns specified to them by university members, except as legally required."

When someone does not go along with a person whose biological sex does not match their preferred gender - such as refusing to call a biological man a woman - it is called "misgendering" and is considered harassment by secular progressives. Indeed, some have even suggested refusing to recognize someone's preferred gender amounts to "violence."


Comment: Even if everyone were to agree that deliberate "misgendering" is mean and wrong (just for the sake of argument), this policy does not take intent into account. What if someone accidentally misgenders someone? Is that cause for firing or expulsion? Because it's impossible to prove one way or the other. All we have are the subjective feelings of the misgendered person.


"I've come to understand after all these years of experience that calling a transgender woman a man is an act of violence," transgender actress Laverne Cox once told an audience of college students, prompting them to applause wildly.


Comment: No, it's not, actually. Violence denotes physical aggression. Get a new word. It may be cruelty, depending on the context, but violence it is not.


The proposed policy at the University of Minnesota states that misgendering someone may result in "disciplinary action up to and including termination from employment and academic sanctions up to and including academic expulsion."

Sheriff

Cops laugh as fellow cop tortures handcuffed man with a taser

Floyd County Sheriff’s Department
A Georgia man and his mother are planning to sue the Floyd County Sheriff's Department after her son was tased and tortured while in police custody, and the disturbing incident was captured on video.

In 2017, Juan Porter asked a motorist to call the police and claimed he had been attacked by four men. Upon arrival, instead of hunting for the perpetrators, the officers arrested the man, who was 21 at the time, for being drunk.

When he was taken to the Floyd County jail, Porter reportedly became belligerent and was subsequently tased while inside his holding cell. But that wasn't what caused Porter's mother, Felicia Curry, to become upset so much as what happened after Porter was removed from his jail cell.

One of the deputies stood behind Porter as he was signing some paperwork for his release and dry-fired his taser in an attempt to scare and intimidate Porter. Sgt. Matthew Battle-who had just tasered Porter in his cell-triggered the taser multiple times in an effort to incite fear.

Comment: The video of the incident can be found here.