Society's ChildS


Light Sabers

US heartland Democrats want the DNC to 'STFU' about Russia and Trump

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Tue, 24 Apr 2018 17:44 UTC
russiagate
"Somehow we've made him into a blue-collar underdog billionaire," said Betras, of Youngstown. "And people are rooting for him because he's the underdog."
Democrats in midwestern battleground states want the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to back off the Trump-Russia rhetoric, as state-level leaders worry it's turning off voters.
"The DNC is doing a good job of winning New York and California," said Mahoning, OH Democratic county party chair David Betras.

"I'm not saying it's not important - of course it's important - but do they honestly think that people that were just laid off another shift at the car plant in my home county give a shit about Russia when they don't have a frickin' job?"
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Star of David

Israeli army continues to demolish Palestinian West Bank schools


Human Rights Watch
Wed, 25 Apr 2018 17:27 UTC
demolished palestinian schools
© Abbas Momani/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesPalestinian Bedouin school children walk towards their tents on September 15, 2010 at their Bedouin camp outside the Israeli West Bank settlement of Ma'ale Adumin. Israel does not recognize the Bedouins’ property claims and has demolished homes and schools in the area.
Could amount to war crimes

Israel has repeatedly denied Palestinians permits to build schools in the West Bank and demolished schools built without permits, making it more difficult or impossible for thousands of children to get an education, Human Rights Watch said today. On April 25, 2018, Israel's high court will hold what may be the final hearing on the military's plans to demolish a school in Khan al-Ahmar Ab al-Hilu, a Palestinian community. It is one of the 44 Palestinian schools at risk of full or partial demolition because Israeli authorities say they were built illegally.

The Israeli military refuses to permit most new Palestinian construction in the 60 percent of the West Bank where it has exclusive control over planning and building, even as the military facilitates settler construction. The military has enforced this discriminatory system by razing thousands of Palestinian properties, including schools, creating pressure on Palestinians to leave their communities. When Israeli authorities have demolished schools, they have not taken steps to ensure that children in the area have access to schools of at least the same quality.
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Heart - Black

Complicated issue: Couple accused of keeping girl as domestic slave for 16 years

Joshua Rhett Miller
New York Post
Fri, 27 Apr 2018 09:43 UTC
Mohamed Toure and Denise Cros-Toure
© Tarrant County Sheriff's OfficeMohamed Toure and Denise Cros-Toure
A Texas couple forced a young West African girl to work as a domestic slave in their home for more than 16 years without pay, federal prosecutors said.

Mohamed Toure and his wife, Denise Cros-Toure, both 57, appeared in federal court in Fort Worth on Thursday on charges of forced labor after arranging for the girl - who didn't speak English - to travel alone from her village in the Republic of Guinea to Southlake in January 2000, according to the Department of Justice.

The couple then forced the girl - whose passport indicated she was just 5 years old at the time - to work as the family's domestic slave, compelling her to cook, clean, do laundry and yard work, as well as paint and take care of their five children. And although the girl was nearly the same age as other children in the home, the Toures denied her an education and other opportunities given to their own offspring, federal prosecutors allege.

The couple also allegedly took the girl's travel documents, keeping her in the United States unlawfully after her visa expired, according to an affidavit. The Toures are accused of emotionally and physically abusing the girl until she managed to escape the home in August 2016 with the help of several former neighbors.
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Clipboard

Rare unity: All want DC 'swamp drained,' Republican leaders blamed for plugging it

Paul Bedard
The Washington Examiner
Wed, 25 Apr 2018 17:15 UTC
obamas
© J. Scott Applewhite/Associated PressFormer President Barack Obama, with former first lady Michelle Obama at far left, stands for the national anthem dinner on May 9, 2009.
A new poll finds vast concerns about the Washington "swamp." It comes on the eve of the annual gathering of politicians, media and lobbyists at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner which President Trump is skipping.

In a rare sign of political unity, Democrats and Republicans of all partisan stripes want the Washington "swamp" drained and they blame GOP leadership for keeping the muck pond plugged, according to a new national survey.

The Ear to the Ground Listening Project poll found that 55 percent are concerned about the "DC Swamp," and even more, 60 percent, said that it is important "to eliminate the influence of the network of DC-centric professional bureaucrats, media, and insider elites."
dc swamp poll
© Ear to the Ground Listening Project
Among Trump voters, 72 percent said it is important to drain the swamp. It was 51 percent among Hillary Rodham Clinton voters and 63 percent among independents.
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Bug

World's oldest spider 'No.16' dies at age 43

Henry Bodkin
The Telegraph
Fri, 27 Apr 2018 17:43 UTC
trap door spider
© Curtin UniversityNumber 16 has left scientists 'miserable' after dying aged 43
The world's oldest known spider has died at the age of 43, outliving its nearest rival by 15 years, Australian scientists have reported.

Affectionately known as "Number 16", the female Giaus Villosus or trapdoor spider had been under observation in the wild since its birth in 1974.

The arachnid is believed to have survived for so long by sticking to one protected burrow its entire life and expending the minimum of energy.

Previously the oldest known spider was a tarantula in Mexico, which died at the age of 28.

Published the Pacific Conservation Biology Journal, the research is the life's work of Barbara York Main, now 88, who first set eyes on Number 16 shortly after its birth.
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Eye 1

Collapse of Iran nuclear deal would hurt EU business says ex-diplomat


Sputnik
Thu, 26 Apr 2018 21:38 UTC
merkel macron
© AP Photo / Michael Sohn
Although French President Emmanuel Macron took every effort to reach a compromise on the Iran nuclear agreement with Donald Trump, serious disagreements on the accord still remain, former French Ambassador to Iran Francois Nicoullaud said, shedding light on the potential consequences of Trump's withdrawal from the deal.

If the Trump administration withdraws from the Iran nuclear agreement and resumes anti-Iranian sanctions it will inevitably hit the US' European allies, says former French Ambassador to Iran Francois Nicoullaud, commenting on President Emmanuel Macron's recent visit to Washington.

"Donald Trump did not make concessions, and so did President Macron. Despite the feeling that an agreement has been reached, serious differences still persist," Nicoullaud told Sputnik France.

Comment: See: Also check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Trump Wags the Iran Riot Dog, Kim Talks Korean Peace

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Network

Twitterati challenge journalist who complained Douma testimony as 'bizarre & underwhelming'


RT
Sat, 28 Apr 2018 16:17 UTC
Douma
© Bart Maat / AFP
Witnesses giving public testimony about the alleged chemical attack in Douma - what can be uncomfortable about that? A lot, according to one journalist, as the event was organized by Russia. Readers were not convinced.

The Intercept's Robert Mackey took issue with Russia's decision to allow an 11-year-old "victim" of the alleged attack to speak at The Hague about his experience, claiming that the boy's testimony was an affront to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons' (OPCW) ongoing investigation and included nothing to support the theory that the gas attack was staged.

"Rather than wait for @OPCW to verify its claim that there was no chemical attack in Syria, Russia staged its own event at OPCW headquarters in The Hague and flew in an 11-year-old witness who said nothing to support the theory that he acted in a hoax video,"Mackey wrote on Twitter, linking to his Intercept piece.

In his article, Mackey cites an OPCW statement which recommended that the boy, Hassan Diab, and sixteen other witnesses be interviewed by the fact-finding mission, and that the briefing should be postponed until after the investigation is completed.
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Cupcake Pink

Best of the Web: Holding a royal wedding amid Britain's third-world level 21% poverty rate is a provocation

John Wight
Sputnik
Sat, 28 Apr 2018 17:08 UTC
poverty uk
The days of a royal birth or wedding being able to forge a national consensus in Britain are over. Not now. Not when so many are suffering. Not when social and economic injustice has reached Dickensian levels. And certainly not when revulsion of the country's power elite has become so entrenched.

On the contrary, such royal events only serve to emphasise the incompatibility of the monarchy with democracy and the nation's collective intelligence in the 21st century.

How could it be otherwise at a time of rising poverty, brute inequality, social injustice, and growing public anger over a political and media establishment whose detachment from the lived experience of millions is near complete?
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Cow

Left-wing hypocrisy: Media Matters says no boycott for Joy Reid, blasts 'right-wing chicanery'

Jon Levine
The Wrap
Wed, 25 Apr 2018 17:02 UTC
Joy Reid
"There's no corrective action they seek here. Just revenge," Angelo Carusone tells TheWrap

Media Matters for America will not launch any advertiser boycott against Joy Reid. The non-profit watchdog group's president Angelo Carusone told TheWrap on Wednesday his group will not target the MSNBC host after mounting pressure from those who have called out an old blog post of hers as being bigoted toward the LGBT community.

In a public Twitter conversation on Wednesday, Carusone answered a question from TheWrap, saying that Reid's past post will not trigger a Twitter boycott from his group. He called the effort to draw attention to Media Matters on the topic of Reid "bulls-t" and "right wing chicanery."

"I hope people can separate, especially media figures, can separate out difference," said Carusone. "There's no corrective action they seek here. Just revenge."

Comment:

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Eye 1

Saudi employers beat and sexually abuse Bangladeshi teen maid then dump her at hospital

Areeb Ullah
Middle East Eye
Thu, 26 Apr 2018 11:45 UTC
Activists say the maid has been repeatedly beaten by her Saudi employers
Activists say the maid has been repeatedly beaten by her Saudi employers
A Bangladeshi woman's family is pleading for her rescue from Saudi Arabia after her Saudi employers had subjected her to sexual abuse and broke her leg by throwing her down two flights of stairs.

Activists and relatives say the 19-year-old woman, who works as a housemaid in Riyadh, was pushed while trying to escape months of abuse at the hands of her employers.

Her impassioned plea for help was recorded from her workplace days before her employer dumped her with a broken leg in a Riyadh hospital, and ran away.

According to NGO workers and the woman's family, the Bangladeshi embassy in the Saudi capital had previously refused to get her out of the country, instead telling her to "run away".

Comment: Sadly, stories like this are all too common. But then what would you expect from Saudi Arabia which treats its own people, particularly women (excluding their 'royalty', for the most part) like second class citizen's - and worse:

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