Society's ChildS


Cross

Predators among us: Sex offenders groom in churches too

Kimberly Harris
Christianity Today
Fri, 08 Jun 2018 17:05 UTC
Pedophiles in churches
© robert.anthony/Lightstock
How predatory behavior goes undetected in congregations

A man who had long sexually abused children sat in front of his pastor, wanting to confess his crimes. He began cautiously, mentioning that there had been accusations against him. He got no further, as his minister broke in, "Well, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of," the minister said quickly. "You're the last person I'd believe that of. End of conversation."

This true account was shared in Anna C. Salter's 1991 book, Predators, Pedophiles, Rapists, And Other Sex Offenders. As a psychologist who has spent over 20 years working with and studying victims and sexual offenders, Salter says that "many offenders report that religious people are even easier to fool than most people."

Rachael Denhollander, the courageous attorney who invoked her faith in her statement during the trial of her abuser Larry Nassar, warns, "It defies the gospel of Christ when we do not call out abuse and enable abuse in our own church." Shortly before Nassar's trial, she lost her church because of her advocacy for other victims within evangelical churches. Her story is an example of a culture found in some churches that disregards victims.

Comment: In 2013, editors at SOTT interviewed Dr. Anna Salter about her book. You can listen to our interview or read the transcript below. Dr. Salter's invaluable book, "Predators: Pedophiles, Rapists, and Other Sex Offenders, Who They Are, How They Operate, and How We Can Protect Ourselves and Our Children", can be found on Amazon.

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Megaphone

10 weeks incommunicado: Conspiracy building to force Assange out of Ecuadorian embassy

James Cogan
World Socialist Web Site
Wed, 06 Jun 2018 12:00 UTC
Assange supporter
© Toby Melville / ReutersA supporter holds up a poster of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange outside the Ecuadorian embassy, London, February 5, 2016.
One day after Ecuadorian Foreign Minister María Fernanda Espinosa declared that her government would continue blocking WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange from all communications and deny him any personal visitors, she was elected president of the United Nations General Assembly. Today marks 10 weeks since Ecuador's government deprived Assange of his rights, which it is obliged to honour after granting him political asylum in its London embassy in 2012.

The UN vote in support of Espinosa was a substantial 128, versus 62 for the only other nominee, Honduras's UN ambassador Mary Elizabeth Flores Flake, and two abstentions. The vote suggests that the United States did not energetically intrigue on behalf of Honduras. Washington was believed to favour Honduras because its right-wing government supported the provocative relocation of the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

There is little doubt that the treatment of Assange by Ecuador's government - and behind it, the small country's corporate elite - is the outcome of pressure and threats by the US and other powers. Washington is demanding Assange's head as the price of restoring relations. CIA director Mike Pompeo, now US secretary of state, asserted last year that WikiLeaks was a "non-state hostile intelligence agency," due to its publication of documents exposing the operations of US intelligence.

Comment: Those countries participating in the persecution of Assange are showing their true colours; they are lackey's to the US and the Western ruling elites:

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USA

Portland: Ground zero for the next American civil war?

Daniel Carter
Investment Watch Blog
Fri, 08 Jun 2018 20:17 UTC
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.
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Christmas Tree

California to bypass federal reserve and create cannabis banking industry

Matt Agorist
Free Thought Project
Fri, 08 Jun 2018 12:00 UTC
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

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Newspaper

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

Thomas D, Williams
Breitbart
Thu, 07 Jun 2018 12:00 UTC
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

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USA

ICE called on pizza delivery man at military base in US


teleSUR
Thu, 07 Jun 2018 12:00 UTC
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:

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Footprints

Bringing Assange home: The best possible thing for Australia

Caitlin Johnstone
caitlinjohnstone.com
Sat, 09 Jun 2018 18:47 UTC
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.

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Biohazard

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


RT
Sat, 09 Jun 2018 17:55 UTC
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.
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Footprints

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

Bob Shanahan
Investment Watch Blog
Thu, 07 Jun 2018 15:10 UTC
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:

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Jet2

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


RT
Sat, 09 Jun 2018 12:01 UTC
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.
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