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The Atlantic's recent firing of columnist Kevin Williamson and victimhood culture

Bradley Campbell
Quillette
Sat, 07 Apr 2018 14:40 UTC
Kevin Williamson
The circumstances of The Atlantic's recent firing of columnist Kevin Williamson make clear that victimhood culture is rapidly spreading beyond university campuses.

Williamson was fired for comments about abortion - comments made in tweets and a podcast before The Atlantic ever hired him. His position, that abortion is murder, is certainly a mainstream position shared by millions of Americans. What is not mainstream is his view that women who have abortions should be subject to the same legal penalties as other murderers - possibly including the death penalty. This is an unpopular opinion that even many pro-lifers find offensive. Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg, in explaining why he fired Williamson, called it "callous and violent."
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Star of David

Video of Palestinian teen activist Ahed Tamimi's THIRD interrogation come to light

Jesse Rosenfeld
The Dailly Beast
Sun, 01 Apr 2018 14:18 UTC
Ahed Tamimi
© Ammar Awad / ReutersPalestinian teen Ahed Tamimi
The Daily Beast obtained an exclusive look at video of Israeli military interrogating Palestinian teen activist Ahed Tamimi for slapping a soldier who shot her cousin.

When an Israeli military judge opened the courtroom at Ofer prison for the press to watch his acceptance of Ahed Tamimi's plea bargain, the teenage Palestinian activist who had already spent months in prison for slapping a soldier was blunt in her short message to the world.

"There is no justice under occupation," said the 17-year-old cuffed in the docket on March 21, looking at her family and friends at the back of the gallery. "We are in an illegitimate court," she continued in Arabic, speaking in a calm, explanatory tone until her guards shut down the impromptu statement.

The curly-haired teen has grown up with cameras documenting her family and village's struggle against Israeli settlements on their land and military rule over their lives. She has learned, over years in a local protest movement, against overwhelming army domination, that publicly speaking out is her best defense. So in February, when the military judge ejected the media and diplomats who packed into the first hearing of the trial where Ahed intended to make a statement, the strategy changed, says her father, Bassem Tamimi.

Comment: Middle East Monitor follows up:
Israeli lawyer Gaby Lasky who is defending Palestinian teen Ahed Tamimi has accused investigators of sexual harassment, Arab48.com reported yesterday.

Lasky has filed several complaints against interrogators for verbal and physical sexual harassment but said that no investigations were opened into any of her complaints. She has described this as a "gross violation of the law".

In her complaint, the lawyer wrote that one of the interrogators questioned Ahed in an inappropriate way for a female minor, which amounted to sexual harassment.

The same interrogator told Tamimi that he would arrest her relatives and interrogate them if she did not respond to his questioning.

Lasky also said that despite the fact that Tamimi is young, she was interrogated simultaneously by two men without the presence of a woman in the room or even an interrogator specialised in questioning minors.

"This proves that the [Israeli] law enforcement system infringes upon the rights of Palestinian minors," Lasky also wrote in her complaint to the Israeli attorney general.

Reporters at The Daily Beast said they had watched an exclusive video footage of Tamimi's interrogation leaked on Sunday which reportedly shows the teenager enduring two hours of questioning on 26 December. One of the interrogators tells her: "You have eyes like an angel" then tries to explain how she is like his sister who "spends all his money on clothes".

According to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed sexual harassment and abuse, including rape, is routinely used by Israeli authorities to humiliate and torture both female and male Palestinian prisoners.

She told reporters last month before the court accepted the plea bargain that "there is no justice under occupation and this is an illegitimate court."


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Bad Guys

BP thinks an oil spill in Australia would be a 'welcome boost' for local economies


RT
Sat, 07 Apr 2018 10:33 UTC
Ocean
© WikipediaGreat Australian Blight
BP, the company behind the deadly Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster, the biggest in history, has claimed an oil spill off the South Australian coast would be a good thing, as the clean up would boost local economies.

BP made the outlandish claim as part of its bid to drill for oil in the pristine Great Australian Blight. "In most instances, the increased activity associated with cleanup operations will be a welcome boost to local economies," it said, in its second rejected environmental safety plan, submitted to the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) in March 2016.

The strange argument was uncovered thanks to a two-year-old freedom of information request made by Climate Home News. Government documents reveal Australia's doubts about the oil giant's proposal.

In a letter to BP, NOPSEMA pointed to a number of statements that BP should remove from its proposal. These included the "welcome boost" claim and the giant firm's allegation that a spill would not have a social impact, which it said meant, "BP interprets this event to be socially acceptable."

Comment: See also: Study finds BP oil spill caused $17.2 billion in damage to natural resources in Gulf of Mexico

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Red Flag

A 'David and Goliath situation': How New York City poop became a rural Alabama town's problem


RT
Sat, 07 Apr 2018 12:57 UTC
Trains
© John Gress / Reuters
The unbearable stench of some 150 rail cars filled with human waste has pushed a small town in rural Alabama into the international spotlight. It turns out the toxic sludge came from New York City, over 1,000 miles away.

Since January, freight cars filled with human waste and other "sludge" from New York City and nearby New Jersey have been piling up at the rail yard in Parrish, Alabama, about half an hour's drive northwest of Birmingham. The town of less than 1,000 residents has been overwhelmed by the stench.

"It smells like dead bodies," one resident told WVTM, a Birmingham-based CNN affiliate, in mid-March. Other locals compared the smell to rotting animals.

"It greatly reduces the quality of life," Mayor Heather Hall told CNN. "You can't sit out on your porch. Kids can't go outside and play, and God help us if it gets hot and this material is still out here."

The rail yard is "right next door to our softball and baseball fields and right across the street from houses," Hall told Canadian radio. "It's a very small town."
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Eye 1

'You have to be brain-dead to believe US in Syria for democracy' - Eva Bartlett interview on RT America


RT
Fri, 06 Apr 2018 15:19 UTC
eva bartlett
The US should, but likely won't, pull out of Syria soon, independent journalist Eva Bartlett told RT's Lee Camp. She added that you have to be "brain-dead" to believe the myths used by the US to justify the conflict.

Comedy show Redacted Tonight hosted by Lee Camp strikes a more serious tone in its special interview editions. This week he spoke with Bartlett - whose extensive reporting from inside Syria has challenged mainstream coverage of the conflict - about what the US is doing in Syria, the human cost of "bringing democracy" to the Middle East, and the many myths used by the West to justify its involvement in the war.

US President Donald Trump's recent comments about wanting to bring home US forces currently operating in Syria caused an uproar in Washington and the media. Administration officials quickly clarified that while an immediate withdrawal was not being seriously considered, Trump was opposed to maintaining a long-term presence in the country.


Comment: See also:

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Arrow Down

US hypocrisy marks its descent into barbarism


Strategic Culture
Fri, 06 Apr 2018 12:00 UTC
us city
The war of words over American trade tariffs on Chinese exports and the expulsion of Russian diplomats may seem unrelated issues. But there is a connecting theme: the staggering US hypocrisy over its own aggressive behaviour.

This blatant American hypocrisy - beyond reason and respect for international law - marks a fatal descent into barbarism towards foreign relations. Dialogue and diplomacy are repudiated with a "might is right" attitude.

Washington took the initiative to propose slapping China's economy with nearly $50 billion in levies on certain exports - claiming unfair trading practices conducted by Beijing. Then when China responded this week by announcing it would be reciprocating by imposing equivalent tariffs on American exports, the Trump White House threw up its arms in annoyance, saying that the Chinese decision was "not fair".

Comment: In its role of hegemon, the US has often flouted international law and diplomacy, however with the emerging multi-polar world now holding them to account and their internal structure collapsing under the weight of corruption, they're are becoming ever more brazen: Also check out SOTT radio's:

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USA

Will America ever learn? Racism, materialism and militarism still reign supreme

John W. Whitehead
The Rutherford Institute
Tue, 03 Apr 2018 15:59 UTC
martin luther king jr, MLK
"In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. [Y]ou can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization...filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love... What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black...."-Robert F. Kennedy on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
I was sitting in a crowded bar, drinking a beer, when the news broke that Martin Luther King Jr. had been shot and killed.

The room erupted in cheers.

It was April 4, 1968.

I've never forgotten that moment.

Twenty-two years old and a junior at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, I was horrified that King's death was being greeted with such glee. Then again, as hard it is to believe it today, there was rejoicing all across the country on that dark day that this man-a black activist-a troublemaker-an extremist-had been silenced for good.

Despite having been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, graced countless magazine covers, and consorted with movers and shakers throughout the country, King was not a popular man by the time of his death. In fact, a Gallup poll found that almost two-thirds of Americans disapproved of King.
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Eye 1

'We see you very well': IDF's tweet threatening children with sniper fire enrages social media users


RT
Sat, 07 Apr 2018 09:04 UTC
Palestinian protesters
© Ibraheem Abu Mustafa / ReutersPalestinian protesters
An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman has tweeted an image of a group of Palestinian children seen through a sniper's lens, along with an ominous warning.

Avichay Adraee, the IDF Arabic spokesman tweeted the image on Friday, which appeared to be stamped with red letters reading, "We see you very well."

"Whoever thinks he can evade the lens of our forces is wrong, we see you clearly, and we will not allow anyone to threaten security of #Israel and the citizens of it. Enough with your naivety and self-endangerment," Adraee wrote.


Comment: See also:

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Light Saber

Backpage.com, website notorious for its sex marketplace, seized by U.S. authorities

Sarah N. Lynch, Lisa Lambert
Reuters
Fri, 06 Apr 2018 23:52 UTC
backpage
© backpage.com via ReutersAn image of the current home page of the website backpage.com shows logos of U.S. law enforcement agencies after they seized the sex marketplace site April 6, 2018.
U.S. law enforcement agencies have seized the sex marketplace website Backpage.com as part of an enforcement action by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to a posting on the Backpage website on Friday.

A Phoenix FBI official said that there was "law enforcement activity" on Friday at the Sedona, Arizona home of Michael Lacey, one of the founders of Backpage.

Glenn Milnor, FBI Special Agent and Media Coordinator, referred further inquiries to the Department of Justice.

The Department of Justice will provide more information at 6 p.m. EDT (1000 GMT), according to the website posting, which said U.S. attorneys in Arizona and California, as well as the Justice Department's section on child exploitation and obscenity and the California and Texas attorneys general had supported shutting down the website.

Lawmakers and enforcement officials have been working to crack down on the site, which is used primarily to sell sex and is the second largest classified ad service in the country after Craigslist.
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SOTT Logo Media

Craig Murray: Here's an 'extremely boring' video I did for Sky News about Skripal - don't watch It

Craig Murray
Craig Murray Blog
Fri, 06 Apr 2018 00:00 UTC
Craig Murray video
I have managed to get hold of a copy, which you can see here, of my lengthy interview with Sky News about the Skripals yesterday, which Sky refused to put online because they allege I was boring. With the warning you might therefore be very bored, you may watch it if you wish.


Comment: You have to forgive Kay Burley of Sky News - some of these media people find objective reasoning and inquiry to be a little boring.

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