Society's ChildS


Handcuffs

Judge sentenced to probation for same electoral crime that gave woman 5 years in jail

Michael Harriot
The Root
Mon, 23 Apr 2018 17:36 UTC
Russ Casey
© Tarrant County Republican PAC
Right now, there is a black woman sitting in prison, reading about a Texas judge who was found guilty of the same crime she committed. She probably noticed that the judge was sentenced to five years' probation in the same county that sentenced her to five years in jail. More than likely, she also noticed that she is black and the judge who was found guilty of turning in fake signatures to secure a spot in the Republican primary is white.

On Monday, Tarrant County, Texas, Justice of the Peace Russ Casey pleaded guilty to tampering with a government record after an investigation found that many signatures on his ballot petition were false, even though Casey signed a form attesting that he'd witnessed the signatures, according to the Star-Telegram.

In a Donald Trump-like display of testicular boldness, the Republican Casey was so desperate to keep his job, which paid $125,911.76 a year, he filed a lawsuit to keep his fellow GOP challengers off the ballot, claiming that they didn't have enough signatures.

If Casey's sentence seems appropriate, consider that 43-year old Crystal Mason was sentenced to five years in jail in March after she illegally cast a provisional ballot in the November 2016 election.

A Texas woman on supervised release from a tax-fraud conviction will lose her freedom once...

Comment: The disparity in the sentencing for these two cases is criminal. But let's be serious: Casey is a judge. That's an important difference in addition to skin color. A black judge might've gotten off just as easily, and a white woman might've been sentenced to just as much jail time. Politicians and judges, and other influential individuals, can get away with murder, figuratively and literally. No, it's not fair and ideally they would be treated with the same severity as ordinary citizens, but that doesn't make it a race issue.

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Bulb

US Senator Ted Cruz suggests using anti-trust laws to curb 'profoundly dangerous' power of Facebook

Robert Kraychik
Breitbart
Wed, 25 Apr 2018 16:28 UTC
zuckerberg
© AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) recommended using antitrust laws to curb the "massive power" of Facebook and other technology companies during a Tuesday interview with SiriusXM hosts Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak on Breitbart News Tonight.

Pollak asked Cruz about possible solutions to "censorship of conservatives" on Facebook and across the broader internet landscape.

Cruz described technology companies' growing control over the flow of information as a threat to democratic processes. He said, "I think, number one, the growing power of tech to censor speech is a profound threat. We're seeing now some two-thirds of Americans are getting their news through social media, and these tech companies are hard-left. They are are partisan Democrats, and what we're seeing is they're amplifying the views they agree with, those of liberal Democrats, and they are suppressing the views of conservatives. They are blocking conservatives."

Cruz added, "The scope of the power is truly unprecedented. You think back to the heights of yellow journalism, when publisher William Randolph Hearst controlled much of media and in fact got America into the Spanish-American War. These tech companies have power William Randolph Hearst could never have imagined. The ability, if there's a view they dislike, simply to silence it so that if you put a post out there, if you put a tweet out there, it simply goes into the void, into oblivion, and no one sees it. Likewise, they have the ability, if there are views they want to promote, to just have everything on your feed be the views they want to promote. That is invidious. It is invisible, and it is profoundly dangerous."
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Star of David

Reclaiming Judaism from mystical Zionist nationalism

Rabbi Michael Davis
Mondoweiss
Tue, 24 Apr 2018 17:11 UTC
Theodor Herzl, the father of political Zionism
Theodor Herzl, the father of political Zionism on Israeli currency
My high school in Jerusalem was a few minutes walk from the Mt. Herzl military cemetery. Mt. Herzl is Israel's National Cemetery. On Israel's Memorial Day (which was celebrated in Israel last Wednesday) we attended state ceremonies there. The grounds and graves are remarkably well tended. Graceful paths curve round the hillside under a canopy of lofty trees. Each identical grave is meticulously constructed with a low wall surrounding a green bed of garden cover. Each grave resembles a bed with a pillow of stone as the tombstone. The serene beauty presents these tragic deaths as orderly and dignified.

However, this week I looked again at images of the Mt Herzl cemetery and found them disturbing. Perhaps it is my becoming a parent that opened my eyes to see the child in each soldier. Thinking of these dead boys as sleeping serenely in their eternal beds misses the point and is frankly, creepy.

My high school's close proximity to Mt Herzl was not just geographical but ideological. We were part of the Bnei Akiva movement a partner in the settler movement. This ideology is promoted both in high schools and in post high school yeshivas and mechinas. These institutions are pre-military academies. They prepare Orthodox young men to be religiously devout and ideologically sound before beginning their three year military service. They are funded by the State of Israel.

The Bnei David Mechina on the West Bank settlement of Eli made headlines recently when its faculty Rabbi Ophir Walls endorsed genocide against the Palestinians. (Before that, Rabbi Yigal Levenstein of Bnei David was pilloried in Israel for his outspoken prejudice against LGBTQ.)

Comment: What happens when a group gets trapped in its own identity politics and ideological possession:

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Attention

Two men injured as car slams into pedestrians outside Birmingham, UK mosque


RT
Fri, 27 Apr 2018 17:19 UTC
muslims praying
© Joel Goodman / Global Look Press
A car reportedly drove into pedestrians outside the Shah Jalal mosque on Ettington Road in Aston, Birmingham on Friday, injuring two men before speeding away.

Officers from West Midlands Police were called to the scene at about 2:15pm after receiving reports that two men in their 20s had been injured in a hit-and-run incident, reports the Express.

Police are now appealing for witnesses, or those with security cameras in the area, to come forward.

"The investigation is at an early stage and we're still trying to establish exactly what has happened," Detective Inspector Greg Evans told to paper.
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Binoculars

Second class citizens: North Korean defectors living in the south yearn to return home

Benjamin Haas
The Guardian
Thu, 26 Apr 2018 05:00 UTC
Kim Ryon-hui defector North Korea
© Benjamin HaasKim Ryon-hui outside the group home in Seoul where she lives with others who want to return to North Korea.
From the moment Kim Ryon-hui set foot in Seoul she has had a singular goal that has defined every aspect her life: return to her home in North Korea.

It is a rare yearning among the roughly 30,000 North Korean defectors living in the South, with many risking death to escape a life of poverty, hunger and political oppression. Kim's desire to return has made her a hero in the North, where officials have demanded her return, while in the South she is viewed with suspicion by the government, who have refused to issue her a passport for fear she would try to travel to North Korea through China.

Kim has spent the past seven years trying to return to her daughter and husband in Pyongyang, staging protests, going on speaking tours and petitioning the United Nations, saying she is trapped, a stranger in a strange land.

Ahead of this week's summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean president Moon Jae-in, Kim Ryon-hui hopes her dream of returning to Pyongyang will become a reality. North Korean officials have consistently demanded Kim be allowed to return and have said it is a precondition to any reunions between families divided by the 1950-53 Korean War.

Comment: Those who are anxiously waiting for a chance to return to their families in North Korea may indeed have cause to celebrate:

Full statement of the Kim-Moon DMZ summit: Peace, prosperity, unification!
South and North Korea agreed to endeavor to swiftly resolve the humanitarian issues that resulted from the division of the nation, and to convene the Inter-Korean Red Cross Meeting to discuss and solve various issues including the reunion of separated families. In this vein, South and North Korea agreed to proceed with reunion programs for the separated families on the occasion of the National Liberation Day of August 15 this year.
See also: 'Let us build a better world': Historic meeting between North and South Korea leaders kicks off

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Attention

UN food chief: ISIS and Africa terrorist groups stirring new, bigger migrant crisis for Europe


RT
Thu, 26 Apr 2018 20:44 UTC
Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau
© AFPBoko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau speaking in a video message; January 2, 2018
Islamic State leaders who fled Syria are now conspiring with terrorist groups in Africa to use food as a recruitment tool and weapon to trigger another migrant crisis in Europe, the head of the UN World Food Program has warned.

David Beasley said that Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) was partnering with terrorist groups like Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram and Al-Qaeda to spark a wave of African migration into Europe - and infiltrate the ranks of migrants in the process.

Many IS militants are fleeing from the wannabe caliphate that failed to appear in Syria and Iraq. But now they have reportedly found refuge in Africa's Sahel region, a belt of semi-arid land spanning east-west across Africa south of the Sahara Desert. According to Beasley, the terrorist coalition is now using food as a weapon to destabilize the region, which is home to 500 million people, and force a new wave of mass migration into Europe.

Comment: From The Guardian:
Those [extremists] forced out of Syria were uniting with local terrorist groups to use a lack of food as both a recruitment tool and a vehicle to push millions of Africans towards Europe, [Beasley] said. [...]

"What we are picking up is that they are partnering with the extremist groups like Boko Haram and al-Qaida to divvy up territory and resources and to continue to infiltrate and destabilise in the hope of creating migration into Europe where they can infiltrate and cause chaos. [...]

A four-year campaign against Isis has destroyed much of the group's so-called caliphate, confining it to a tract of land in the Euphrates valley near the border with Iraq and decimating the cities of Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor. But officials involved in the campaign say at least 2,200 fighters remain entrenched in the east of Syria.


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Chart Bar

Half Republicans polled say the news media should be described as the enemy of the American people

Philip Bump
The Washington Post
Thu, 26 Apr 2018 15:16 UTC
President Trump Washington
© Manuel Balce Ceneta/APPresident Trump speaks in Washington on Dec. 18.
It has faded into the background noise by now, as does anything in politics these days that's older than about 12 hours. But it's occasionally worth remembering that the president of the United States disparaged the news media as "the enemy of the American people" within his first month in office.


Comment: Is it any wonder Republicans have a severe trust of mainstream media news given the blatant liberal bias to almost all major news networks? And given the amount and scope of lying one sees in the mainstream press, perhaps Republicans are simply more 'woke' than the Dems.

See also:

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Handcuffs

Russian FSB detains four members of suspected ISIS cell and prevents string of 'high-profile' terrorist attacks in Moscow


RT
Fri, 27 Apr 2018 18:34 UTC
Russian security services detained four members an Islamic State “sleeper cell
© RT
Russian security services detained four members an Islamic State "sleeper cell," which had been planning a series of "high-profile" attacks in the Moscow region. The group is said to have been coordinated from Syria.

The arrested Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) members arrived from the city of Noviy Urengoy in Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area and intended to carry out attacks under guidance received from Syria, the FSB's press service told Russian media on Thursday. It noted that the terrorists had communicated through Telegram messenger, which was recently blocked in Russia.

While the arrest took place in March, the FSB and police detained 20 terrorist accomplices in a joint raid in Noviy Urengoy on Wednesday. Security officers seized a cache of extremist literature and videos containing IS propaganda.
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Dollar

Comcast launches bidding war against Murdoch with rival £22bn takeover bid for Sky

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Fri, 27 Apr 2018 16:27 UTC
comcast
© Brendan McDermid / Reuters
Comcast has launched a bidding war against Rupert Murdoch's takeover of Sky with a rival £22 billion offer for Britain's biggest pay-TV broadcaster. The US media and telecom giant which owns NBC Universal and is the largest US cable operator made an all-cash offer of £12.50 a share, a 16% premium on the offer from Murdoch's 21st Century Fox, which values Sky at about £19bn.

Fox owns 39% of Sky and submitted its bid to take full control in December 2016, but the deal has been held up by regulatory issues.
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People

Immigration crisis: Macron returns to an increasingly divided Europe

Gavin Mortimer
The Spectator
Thu, 26 Apr 2018 16:17 UTC
Emmanuel Macron France
While Emmanuel Macron has been wowing Washington there's been something of a mini crisis in France. To put it bluntly, the country was invaded on Sunday, its border in the French Alps breached by a force of around 200 foreigners, who then fought with the police as they advanced on the small town of Briançon.

The incursion was organised by Italians and Swiss, their number swelled by forty migrants, a fraction of the number who in recent years have used the Alps to cross from Italy into France. In 2016, 315 were intercepted on this arduous route, a figure that last year rose to 1,900. The majority come from West Africa - Senegal, Guinea and the Ivory Coast - although there is also a Paris-based network of Pakistanis who smuggle their compatriots across the border.

One of the Italians told France24 he participated in the incursion "to express our shock at the failure of the French police to stop the fascists". The 'fascists' were around 100 members of an anti-immigration organisation called Génération Identitaire who, on Saturday, had erected a symbolic frontier post on the summit of the Col de l'Echelle, six kilometres from the Italian border. Having hired two helicopters at a cost of €30,000 they unfurled a large banner on which were emblazoned the words: "No Way. Border closed. You will not make Europe Home!".

The stunt may have been provocative but the Génération Identitaire activists broke no law, unlike the pro-migrant militants who put two policemen in hospital and escorted into France immigrants who, under the terms of the Dublin Treaty, should have applied for asylum in Italy. Nonetheless, Benoît Hamon, the Socialist candidate in last year's presidential election, has since called for Génération Identitaire to be banned because they "provoke discrimination, hate and violence".

Comment: Years ago, Europe should have resisted the calls of the US/Israel war party to destroy Iraq, Libya and Syria and generally destabilize the Middle East. Immigration with strong and stable Northern Africa and Middle East would not have been a major problem - now Europe must face a crisis that has no easy solution. Even ISIS sees this as an opportunity to spread chaos, and they are right!

UN food chief: ISIS and Africa terrorist groups stirring new, bigger migrant crisis for Europe

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