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Thought Police: Campus politics lead to Albright student suspensions over #BlackLivesMatter Blackface satire


RT
Mon, 03 Oct 2016 06:03 UTC
thought police
© Unknown
Albright College in Pennsylvania has suspended two students after a blackface video mocking the Black Lives Matter movement went viral.


Comment: "Going viral" implies it was unintentional.


The video, which was uploaded to one of the girls' Snapchat accounts, shows a girl named as Carly Dickinson wearing blackface makeup.


Comment: Name and shame much?


She calls herself Karlisha and mocks the movement throughout the video. Halfway through, she is seen with padding stuffed down her pants and twerking.


Comment: How is this not the definition of satire?
satire /satʌɪə/
noun
the use of humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

Comment: We would strongly suggest you actually watch the video, especially here where a black participant, in making the video, runs by the camera. Criticism, satire, even mocking is not racism. Racism is when you attribute something to a specific ethnicity by virtue of being a member of that group. Whether or not it is tasteful is irrelevant. Whether or not the student was making a political statement is irrelevant. She's a young girl putting on a dramatic imitation/satire for friends.

The brouhaha it generated is social media mining for shock value. This is not just a tempest in a tea pot, but typical of modern campus politics.

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Chart Pie

98% of Hungarians reject EU refugee quotas, but low turnout undermines validity of referendum


RT
Sun, 02 Oct 2016 23:01 UTC
orban merkel

Who lost this battle?
98.3% of Hungarian voters have rejected mandatory EU asylum seeker quotas in a referendum proposed by PM Viktor Orban. But the opposition boycott of Sunday's ballot appears to have worked, as turnout failed to clear the key 50 percent threshold.

Only 1.7 percent of the voters answered 'Yes' to the question "Do you want the European Union to be able to mandate the obligatory resettlement of non-Hungarian citizens into Hungary even without the approval of the National Assembly?"

But the turnout of 43.8 percent, or 3.6 million voters, means that the referendum will be declared invalid. Over 200,000 ballots were spoiled, another tactic by those opposing the vote.

The referendum was non-binding, but became a symbolic litmus test for Orban's pro-sovereignty, anti-migrant and anti-Islamist policies.

His mostly left-wing political opponents rejected the very idea of the referendum, suggesting it would cause "tension" inside the country and in Budapest's relationship with Brussels, and urged a boycott to prevent a validating turnout.


Comment: Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage tweeted:

Steady on there, old boy!

That's 98% of 43%, which comes to about 42% of the Hungarian electorate agreeing with Orban, which is about what he won by in the 2014 general election, so they are 'his supporters'.

The rest, presumably, either don't care, or they stand with Merkel and the EU.Orban calling for this referendum over taking in just 1,200 people is 'playing the race card', but to what end? He says he's doing it for all of Europe, while Western liberal pundits routinely speculate that he's 'doing it for Putin'. Meanwhile, Hungarian intelligence does its bit for the Global War on Islamic TerrorTM...

The bottom line: this 'refugee crisis', manipulated from the get-go by the Powers That Be, has evidently been successful in dividing Europe and giving its leaders 'something to think about'.

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Heart - Black

Anxiety attack makes teen tardy to class; cops taser him twice

Rebekah Kearn
Courthouse News
Wed, 28 Sep 2016 17:25 UTC
taser gun pistola
© Reuters/Sebastien Nogier
Police violence against young black men is not confined to the streets, a high school student says in a lawsuit claiming a school police officer Tasered him twice for being late to class after having an anxiety attack.

Tyson Reed and his mother, Linda Reed, sued Kern High School District, KHSD Officer Luis Pena, and teacher Brett Bonetti on Sept. 22 in Kern County Superior Court, alleging disability discrimination and civil rights violations.

"Schools are supposed to be safe places for kids," the Reeds' Los Angeles-based attorney Shawna Parks told Courthouse News. "This case demonstrates how quickly it can go horribly wrong when schools don't follow proper protocol" for students with disabilities.

Parks said Reed was attacked primarily because of his disability, but his race was likely a "determining factor" as well.

Comment: The line between school and prison is becoming more and more blurred each day.

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Quenelle - Golden

Dozens dead after police fired tear gas at anti-government protesters in Ethiopia


RT
Sun, 02 Oct 2016 12:09 UTC
stampede in Ethiopia
© Tiksa Negeri / Reuters
Multiple deaths are reported in a stampede in Ethiopia, which happened after the police fired tear gas and warning shots at a crowd of anti-government protesters who gathered for a religious festival.

A reporter from AFP on the scene reported seeing up to 20 unmoving bodies in the aftermath of the stampede, some of which were clearly dead. The opposition put the number of fatalities at 50.

The altercation happened in the Oromiya region of the African nation, where clashes between the government and the opposition have become increasingly bloody over the past two years.
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Cell Phone

Orwellian censorship in the age of social media

Catherine Shakdam
RT
Fri, 30 Sep 2016 17:15 UTC
cell phone
© Pawel Kopczynski / Reuters
If George Orwell is watching from above, he must be impressed. In his novel 1984, what was meant as a cautionary tale against government control and intellectual obscurantism, seems to have come to pass without our full knowledge.

Where have our media taken us?

To be brutally honest, I would say down the yellow brick road and around the tree a few times over already. As our world has become more and more dependent on media, we have opened ourselves up to the bite of censorship, control and the ever-evolving deity which is 'social trend'.

In other words, our need to be "connected" has pretty much left us dependent on information technology.

Our modern media complex

Social media, the printed press and television networks, has, more often than not, become trapped in a political cycle, serving not the people but their owners - and by extension the interests they each represent.
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Whistle

Creepy clown sightings spike; sightings in more than 10 states since August

Jennifer Smith
Daily Mail
Sat, 01 Oct 2016 17:02 UTC
scary clown
© Getty Images/EyeEm
A recent spike in clown sightings across the country has prompted fears that a menacing trend is on the rise.

Terrified residents have reported being terrorized by people dressed up in the costumes in more than ten states since August.

Among them was one woman who claimed to have been assaulted and worrying accounts of children being lured towards woods by the disguised figures.

In South Carolina, police have issued a stark warning to whoever is frightening the community.

'It's illegal. It's dangerous. It's inappropriate, and it's creating community concern so it needs to stop,' Greenville Police Chief Ken Miller said last month.

Comment: See also:

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No Entry

'Gas from the Zionists is a disgrace': Jordanians protest Israeli gas deal


Yahoo News
Fri, 30 Sep 2016 16:52 UTC
Amman Jordan protest
© AFP Photo/Ahmad Alameen
Jordanians protest in Amman on September 30, 2016 against the government agreement to import natural gas from Israel.
Hundreds of Jordanians took part in a demonstration Friday in the centre of Amman to protest a deal signed this week to import natural gas from Israel.

Demonstrators carried banners reading "No to financing the Zionist entity from the pockets of Jordanian citizens" and "No to gas imports from the Zionist enemy."

The protest was called by trade unions and political parties opposed to the 1994 peace treaty between Israel and Jordan, half the population of which is of Palestinian origin.

Comment: The 15 billion dollar Israel-Jordan gas deal that will increase Israeli regional dominance:
Israel is attempting to expand its hegemony in the region through energy as one of its many reactions in the face of its declining economy and worldwide boycott efforts. Israel's plan to export natural gas from the Leviathan to Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority could not only mean an economic boom, but in the in the opinion of activists and boycott proponents "would also massively undermine our collective efforts to isolate Israel."


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Dollar

Iraqis use JASTA to demand compensation from US for 2003 invasion


Sputnik
Sun, 02 Oct 2016 16:41 UTC
American marines in Kuwait in 2003
© AFP 2016/ JACK GUEZ
In light of a bill passed by the US Congress allowing families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia, Iraqis have asked their parliament to demand compensation for the US invasion of Iraq.

After the US Congress passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), which overrides the principle of sovereign immunity to allow families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia, an Iraqi group has requested parliament to prepare a lawsuit seeking compensation from the US for the invasion of Iraq.

The "Arab Project in Iraq" lobby group "sees their opportunity to ask for compensation from the United States over violations by the US forces following the US invasion that saw the toppling of late President Saddam Hussein in 2003," the Al-Arabiya news channel reported on Saturday. "It urged for a full-fledged investigation over the killing of civilian targets, loss of properties and individuals who suffered torture and other mistreatment on the hand of US forces."
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Radar

Rebels claim responsibility for attack on United Arab Emirates warship transporting 'medical aid' to Yemen


RT
Sat, 01 Oct 2016 16:27 UTC
UAE military vessel
A United Arab Emirates warship allegedly transporting medical aid has been damaged in an "incident" off the coast of Yemen, the navy announced. Meanwhile Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the attack on the UAE military vessel in the Red sea.

"General Command of the Armed Forces said one of its leased vessels suffered an incident in the Bab al-Mandab strait this morning during a return trip from a mission in Aden. No injuries were caused," UAE state news agency WAM said in a statement, adding that an investigation into the incident has been launched.

Meanwhile the Houthis, a Shia group that has forced Sunni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to flee to Saudi Arabia in 2015, claimed that its forces completely destroyed the ship in the 20 km (12 miles) wide Bab al-Mandab strait, once home to a shipping route that handled 3.4 million barrels of oil per day.

"Rockets targeted an Emirati warship as it approached the coast of Mokha" on the Red Sea, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels said in a statement on Yemeni sabanews.net website.


Comment: "Medical aid" - yeah right. "Civilians" - more like mercenaries. "No injuries" - unlikely. Lies, lies, and more lies.

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Airplane

United Airlines forces woman to switch seats after 'Pakistani monks' say they can't sit near her


RT
Sun, 02 Oct 2016 16:18 UTC
united airlines
A California woman is seeking an official apology from United Airlines for discrimination after she was forcefully reseated by the airline agent because two Pakistani monks refused to share a row with a woman.

On September 19, 47-year-old Mary Campos waited in line at John Wayne Airport, Orange County, to board a flight to Houston. Suddenly, she was called to the counter, where the airline agent handed her a new seat assignment.

The representative added that the airline had been forced to give her a new seat on the flight because the two men who had been assigned seats next to her claimed they couldn't be near a woman.
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