Society's ChildS


Bulb

Patriarch of Russian Orthodox Church seeks special status for large families

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia
© Sergey Pyatakov / SputnikPatriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia.
Russian Orthodox Church head Patriarch Kirill has urged senators to provide special status for multi-child families in Russia, questioning why this can't be done when preferences are being given to sexual minorities in the West.

"The Church has supported and will support any positive changes in legislation aimed at maintaining maternity and childhood and, especially, to overcome such a terrible phenomenon as orphanage with living parents," the Patriarch said during an appearance at the Russia Federal Council on Thursday.

According to the Patriarch, it was also "important" to back the calls from families with three or more underage children for "the adoption of a law regulating their status."

Comment: This is a pretty interesting proposition and shows the Patriarch understands the fundamental motivations of feminism toward breaking up the family better than even many of its Western adherents. More than that, he understands the important role families have in the health of a society.


USA

NeverTrumpers' vexing question: What to make of Trump successes?

Donald Trump
The start of President Trump's second year in office has given Republicans and conservatives an opportunity to review a solid list of achievements: corporate and individual tax cuts; economic growth; wage growth; a conservative Supreme Court justice; a record number of circuit court confirmations; deregulation; the defeat of ISIS and more. Each is a development worth celebrating, either by the standards of conservatism, or the general welfare, or both.

But for NeverTrump conservatives, the list presents a challenge. Many support the actions, like cutting taxes and reducing regulation, on Trump's list. Yet some have also staked their credibility and prestige on declaring Trump's election an unmitigated, historic disaster that will lead to an autocratic, dystopian future. Many want to force Trump out of office, either by impeachment, the 25th Amendment, or, at latest, defeat in 2020.

So how to deal with the current good news?

Comment: Getting rid of Trump will not fix or solve any real problems, but these NeverTrumpers are too blinded by liberal ideological talking points and trivialities to see that they're just pawns in a much bigger game.


Footprints

Head of Italy's ultra-nationalist Lega Nord party Matteo Salvini vows to kick out 100k migrants per year if elected PM

Matteo Salvini
© / @salviniofficial / FacebookThe head of Italy’s ultra-nationalist Lega Nord party Matteo Salvini
The head of Italy's ultra-nationalist Lega Nord party has promised to clean up the "mess" and kick hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants out of the country if he is elected prime minister in the upcoming general election.

The 2018 Italian general election is due to take place on March 4, after the country's Parliament was dissolved by President Sergio Mattarella in late December. The leader of Italy's traditional far-right 'Lega Nord' party hopes that his 'Italians first' slogan will sway enough voters to land him in office. Salvini is betting on Italians' anti-migrant sentiments to bring him to power as part of a center-right alliance led by Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (Go Italy!).

"In Italy, there are too many illegal immigrants who go around making a mess, I cannot take it anymore," Salvini told the host of Dimartedì political talk show that aired on La7 news channel. "There are those who use the aircraft to bring immigrants to Italy. I would use them to bring them back home."

Pirates

'Believe the victim' movement compromises integrity of legal system, says report

legal system justice
A new report published by a criminal justice watchdog argues that the "believe the victim" mentality is compromising "the integrity of our entire legal system."

Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE), a group that seeks to find "effective and fair solutions to sexual assault and domestic violence," argues in a recent white paper that the "believe the victim" ideology turns the neutral role of an investigator "into that of an advocate" while also "systematically insert[ing] bias into the criminal justice system."

"The 'believe the victim' movement not only threatens the reliability of sexual assault adjudications, it compromises the integrity of our entire legal system."

Wedding Rings

Russian senator to introduce automatic common-law marriage for couples cohabitating long-term

Russian lawmakers
© Сергей Фадеичев/ТАСС
Senator Anton Belyakov has drafted legislation that would equate long-term cohabitation to common-law marriage. The bill, which he's expected to introduce soon, would make it so the government recognizes any unrelated man and woman living together for at least five years as having entered into a common-law marriage.

Couples with children would become married after just two years of cohabitation. Once this status applied, a couple's property would be considered jointly owned.

Russia's existing Domestic Relations Code only applies after couples register their marriage with the state. The rights and responsibilities of parents apply independent of marriage.

Evil Rays

Woman murders her two children before jumping off bridge to her death

Christina Treadway
© GOFUNDME.COM/QHD9WK-FUNERAL-AND-TRAVEL-EXPENSESChristina Treadway, 34, jumped to her death from a higway bridge after fatally injuring her two children in Charlotte, North Carolina on Saturday
A North Carolina mother killed her two kids before jumping off a bridge to her death on a highway Saturday, authorities said.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police responded to a suicide call on Interstate 485 after 5:30 p.m. where they found 34-year-old Christina Treadway dead at the scene, WKRN-TV reported.

Police then went to Treadway's home where 7-year-old Isaiah Miller and 3-year-old Iliyah Miller were found alone with fatal wounds. The kids were taken to a hospital where they later died. Authorities didn't say what their injuries were. A motive remained unclear.

Mr. Potato

Politico blames toxic masculinity for mass shootings

las vegas police
Oh, what the hell is this? We're about to have a titanic duel on immigration and protections for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients. We recently had to endure a shoddy and sloppy three-day government shutdown triggered by Congressional Democrats over this issue, which yielded them nothing; the GOP already agreed to fund their initiatives (i.e. Children's Health Insurance Program) and take up DACA. Democrats learned that shutting down the government for illegal aliens is not popular. Putting the interests of illegal aliens over American citizens isn't good either. You know what's also bad, talking about mass shootings through the progressive lens of toxic masculinity and other issues that give left wing whack jobs the appearance of credibility in higher education, as well as a job.

Gold Coins

Kaspersky Lab claims bitcoins were created to help fund US and British intelligence services

bitcoin
© REUTERS/ Benoit Tessier/Illustration
Natalya Kaspersky claimed that Bitcoin was designed to provide financing for US and British intelligence activities around the world. The expert called the cryptocurrency "dollar 2.0."

The Bitcoin cryptocurrency was developed by "American intelligence agencies," Natalya Kaspersky, CEO of the InfoWatch group of companies and specialist in cyber security systems, said during her presentation at ITMO University in St. Petersburg.

Kaspersky was giving a speech on information wars and digital sovereignty. Photos of her presentation entitled "Modern technologies - the basis for information and cyber-wars," have been published on social media.

No Entry

French prison guards on strike in 129 out of 188 French facilities - risk sanctions

france prison guard strike
© Agence France-Presse/ Pascal Pochard-CasabianceRiot police officers walk by Borgo prison on January 22, 2018 on the French Mediterranean Island of Corsica, as striking prison guards block its access as part of a nationwide movement to call for better safety and wages
French prison authorities warned Wednesday that protesting prison guards were risking fines or sanctions on the movement's 10th day, with actions at 129 prisons.

Guards seeking improved working conditions and better safety measures set up picket lines or blocked prison entrances. Guards at 16 prisons "put down their keys" - meaning they refused all work - a move which triggers a demand for police and gendarmes to do the guards' job, a Prison Administration official said.

The official, confirming French press reports, said that letters sent to prison directors laid out possible financial or disciplinary sanctions against protesting personnel, including job suspensions of five to 15 days. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and could not be identified by name.

The official said sanctions were not automatic and could be handed out but then "suspended" and would be decided on a case-by-case basis.

Prison guards are forbidden from going on strike, and the possibility of issuing suspended sanctions appeared to be a tactic to soften the blow. It was not immediately known whether any prison directors had decided to levy sanctions against protesting personnel.

Comment: See also: The almost univocal decision to support Islamic radicals isn't turning out so well for Western societies. Maybe they should've thought through the consequences before making a deal with the devil.


Magnify

Fancy Bears reveals formula for Western athletes' success: 'Asthma + TUE = Olympic medals'

olympic medal
© Stephen Yang / Reuters
Hacker group Fancy Bears has released emails obtained from the International Luge Federation (FIL) showing "widespread Therapeutic Use Exemptions [TUE]" and missed doping tests concerning a number of its athletes.

TUEs, issued to athletes whose illness or health conditions require usage of a particular banned substance, have long been criticized by sports officials and athletes who insist that competitors with medical exemptions have an advantage over their contemporaries.

"The TUE-granting process showed its effectiveness among the runners who are eager to obtain permission to take asthma medications prohibited in sports, in particular, salbutamol which opens airways to and from the lungs. The same practice is widespread among skiers," the Fancy Bears' statement read.

"According to the chief physician of the Norwegian ski team, Petter Olberg, 70 percent of the national team skiers suffer from asthma. It raises doubts and looks like an institutional conspiracy by the Norwegian Olympic Committee and national sports federations," they added.