Society's ChildS


Pistol

Two Washington high school students gunned down in possible gang-related attack - multiple suspects at large


Fox News
Wed, 06 Dec 2017 11:36 UTC
Graham-Kapowsin High School in Washington
© Google EarthPolice are responding to reports that two students were shot at Graham-Kapowsin High School in Washington.
Police were responding to reports Tuesday that multiple students were shot near a high school in Washington state as part of what police say could be gang-related activity.

Two students were shot in the incident, according to the Pierce County Sheriff's Office. One student was found in a parking lot near the football field, while another student was found shot in a locker room, the sheriff's office tweeted.

Comment: Some more info from Twitter:





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Play

John Oliver grills Dustin Hoffman live over sexual harassment claims (VIDEO)

Jacob Stolworthy
Independent, UK
Tue, 05 Dec 2017 22:18 UTC
Pädophile Weinstein Spacey Hoffman
John Oliver got into a heated debate with Dustin Hoffman over the sexual harassment allegations made against the actor during a film panel on Monday night (4 December).

The Last Week Tonight host grilled the Oscar-winner during a Tribeca Institute 20th anniversary panel and screening of 1997 film Wag the Dog during which Hoffman vehemently defended his behaviour and accused Oliver of "making a very quick judgement."

"This is something we're going to have to talk about because... it's hanging in the air," Oliver said, in reference to the allegations that he sexually harassed Anna Graham-Hunter as a 17-year-old production assistant on the set of his 1985 TV film Death of a Salesman.

Audience members - including The Washington Post journalist Steve Zeitchik - were said to be "visibly shocked" by the interaction in which Oliver expressed disappointment in Hoffman's original apology in which he claimed the behaviour is not reflective of who he is.

"It's that part of the response to this stuff that pisses me off," Oliver stated. "It is reflective of who you were. You've given no evidence to show that it didn't happen. There was a period of time when you were a creeper around women. It feels like a cop-out to say, 'Well, this isn't me.' Do you understand how that feels like a dismissal?"


Comment: Here's what Hoffman is accused of so far, according to the piece by Anna Graham Hunter in the Hollywood Reporter:
The author, who slapped away the star's butt grabs and laughed off his vulgar language on the set of 1985 TV film 'Death of a Salesman,' still feels conflicted: "I loved the attention. Until I didn't."

This is a story I've told so often I'm sometimes surprised when someone I know hasn't heard it. It begins, "Dustin Hoffman sexually harassed me when I was 17." Then I give the details: When I was a senior in high school in New York City, interning as a production assistant on the set of the Death of a Salesman TV film, he asked me to give him a foot massage my first day on set; I did. He was openly flirtatious, he grabbed my ass, he talked about sex to me and in front of me. One morning I went to his dressing room to take his breakfast order; he looked at me and grinned, taking his time. Then he said, "I'll have a hard-boiled egg ... and a soft-boiled clitoris." His entourage burst out laughing. I left, speechless. Then I went to the bathroom and cried.
From Hunter's account, which includes alleged transcripts of her diary taken at the time, Hoffman sounds a bit like that creepy uncle many of us have. And if that characterization is true, Hunter appears to have handled herself fairly well: during week 2 of filming (week 1 seems to have been characterized by sexual banter by many on set), she says she hit Hoffman "hard" each of the 4 times he "felt her ass". Week 3, he apologized after she confronted him and he said he would stop his "wandering hands" and comments (e.g., yelling in front of others on set that Hunter thought he was a "sexist pig"). No other events of note after that. Week 5: "No one is 100 percent good or bad. Dustin's a pig, but I like him a lot."

What is most shocking here isn't so much Hoffman's alleged behavior, but that any young man or woman would enter a room of professional actors (or musicians, or artists) and be shocked by such "piggish" behavior. Do their parents not prepare them for real life? Artists have a reputation for a reason. And does such behavior - which essentially amounts to sexual banter offensive to some, but not sexual assault - really justify it being brought up 30 years later?

See:

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Chalkboard

Lawyers sue California because too many children can't read

Julie Watson
Sacramento Bee
Tue, 05 Dec 2017 14:11 UTC
california_school
© APIn this May 10, 2011, file photo, Van Buren Elementary school teacher Debra Keyes teaches a class in Stockton, Calif. A group of prominent lawyers representing teachers and students from poor performing schools filed a lawsuit against the state of California on Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2017, arguing that the state has done nothing about a high number of school children who do not know how to read. Van Buren Elementary School is among the plaintiffs.
A group of prominent lawyers representing teachers and students from poor performing schools sued California on Tuesday, arguing that the state has done nothing about a high number of schoolchildren who do not know how to read.

The advocacy law firm, Public Counsel, filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court to demand the California Department of Education address its "literacy crisis." The state has not followed suggestions from its own report on the problem five years ago, the lawsuit said.

"When it comes to literacy and the delivery of basic education, California is dragging down the nation," said Public Counsel lawyer Mark Rosenbaum, who sued along with the law firm Morrison & Foerster.
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Pistol

Federal authorities issue 4,000 orders to take back guns from people who failed background checks

Kevin Johnson
USA Today
Mon, 04 Dec 2017 21:38 UTC
rack of guns
© Elaine Thompson, AP
Federal authorities sought to take back guns from thousands of people the background check system should have blocked from buying weapons because they had criminal records, mental health issues or other problems that would disqualify them.

A USA TODAY review found that the FBI issued more than 4,000 requests last year for agents from the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives to retrieve guns from prohibited buyers.

It's the largest number of such retrieval requests in 10 years, according to FBI records- an especially striking statistic after revelations that a breakdown in the background check system allowed a troubled Air Force veteran to buy a rifle later used to kill 26 worshipers at a Texas church last month.

The FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) vets millions of gun purchase transactions every year. But the thousands of gun seizure requests highlight persistent problems in a system where analysts must complete background checks within three days of the proposed purchase. If the background check is not complete within the 72-hour time limit, federal law allows the sale to go forward. ATF agents are asked to take back the guns if the FBI later finds these sales should have been denied.
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V

German pilots refusing to deport rejected asylum seekers leads to over 200 canceled flights


RT
Tue, 05 Dec 2017 21:35 UTC
Duesseldorf Airport protests
© Wolfgang Rattay / ReutersProtest against deporting migrants who were denied asylum at Duesseldorf Airport
Pilots in Germany are refusing to deport rejected asylum seekers, leading to the cancelation of more than 200 flights.

A freedom of information request revealed that 222 scheduled flights were forced to be canceled over the course of 2017 as pilots refused to play a part in returning people to Afghanistan, which is still reeling from years of occupation by Western forces.

Deutsche Welle reports that 140 of the canceled flights were to take off from Frankfurt Airport, which is the largest in the country. Dusseldorf Airport, where activist groups regularly hold demonstrations against deportation, saw 40 flights canceled.

Despite a recent increase in deportations, Germany remains by far the most popular destination in the European Union for refugees and migrants. In 2017, it processed more asylum applications than all other EU countries combined.
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Stock Up

Simple math: Illegal immigrants bring more illegal immigrants and crime to Bulgaria

Mariela Stoyanova
Voice of Europe
Fri, 01 Dec 2017 21:20 UTC
migrants
© Edward Crawford / Shutterstock.com
The influx of illegal migrants in Bulgaria continues and the Eastern route is still functioning despite the measures taken and bad weather conditions.

According to the Bulgarian Ministry of Interior's data, from January 1, 2017 to the end of October, Bulgarian police detained 656 migrants who tried to enter the country illegally. Most of them were Syrians - 34%, Iraqis - 21% and Afghans 19.7%. Another 1,616 illegal migrants were apprehended during police operations in the territory of Bulgaria. 32.5% of them were from Afghanistan, followed by Syrians - 27.9% and Iraqis - 14.5%.

During the same period, 2,283 migrants were captured while attempting to illegally leave Bulgaria on their way to Western Europe. 406 of them (almost 18%) were without Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) registration. Among the people detained since the beginning of the year, the majority were citizens of Afghanistan - 53.8%, Pakistan - 18.1% and Iraq - 14.5%.

In 2017 some 3,334 people asked protection and 2,888 were refused. Bulgarian authorities deported 1,771 illegal migrants, 141 of whom were returned to other EU-member states under Regulation 604/2013 EU (the Dublin Regulation).

Despite the increased measures taken by the police, the illegal migrants not only continue to come but they also bring more illegal migrants and crime to Bulgaria and the EU.

Comment: In the history of bad ideas, the EU's "migrant policy" will go down as one of the biggest. The people are catching on. Some leaders are catching on. But things will still have to get worse, potentially a lot worse, before anything can or will be done about it. Europe dug itself into a hole. The sad thing is this: the whole thing was predictable. See also: The Truth Perspective: Weapons of Mass Migration: Interview with Michael Springmann on Europe's Migrant Crisis

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Handcuffs

Caught on bodycam: Former Senator charged with sex trafficking underaged boy

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Tue, 05 Dec 2017 20:36 UTC
former Oklahoma State Senator Ralph Shortey
Ralph Shortey
Body Camera footage, released this week, shows the moment police raided the hotel room occupied by former Oklahoma State Senator Ralph Shortey and his underage victim.

In the body camera footage, Shortey appears dumbfounded as he is caught with the underage boy in his room.

The officer says, "He's 17."

Shortey replies, "Okay."

The officer then asks, "What do you mean, 'Okay'?"

"I didn't know that," replies Shortey.

"Can you show me that he is only 17?" Shortey says in the video.

Ironically, and in poor taste, the senator was wearing a t-shirt referencing the Bible scripture Ephesians 5:22, which refers to wives submitting to their husbands. Under the scripture was the phrase, "Now go make me a sandwich." Shortey was known as the "family values" senator.
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Bizarro Earth

Suicidal ideation spreading among kids: 11-year-old Irish girl kills herself 'because I'm ugly'


Independent.ie
Tue, 05 Dec 2017 20:05 UTC
Milly Tuomey
© Tuomey Family11-year-old Milly Tuomey, who killed herself because, she believed, she was ugly.
A child aged 11, unhappy with her physical appearance, posted on her Instagram account of her intention to die. A coroner returned a verdict of suicide at the inquest into the death of Milly Tuomey from Templeogue in Dublin 6. The child died on January 4, 2016.

"Milly was loving and greatly loved, fit, healthy, connected, engaged and talented," the child's devastated parents Fiona and Tim Tuomey said in a statement after the inquest.

"When we discovered out of the blue that our child had told her friends on Instagram that she had chosen the day she would die, we couldn't believe it. We did not know what to do," they said.

Dublin Coroner's Court heard that on November 3 2015 Milly posted on Instagram to hundreds of friends of her intention to die on a certain date.

Her parents were alerted by her elder sister and her school.
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Heart - Black

Teen arrested for animal cruelty for hurling a kitten into the street


New York Post
Mon, 04 Dec 2017 20:16 UTC
kitten thrower
Authorities in Southern California have arrested a 16-year-old boy who was captured on a Snapchat video throwing a cat into the street.

Police in the city of Ontario said Monday that the boy ran off when he saw officers approaching him, was tackled and taken into custody. He was booked on suspicion of animal cruelty.
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Hardhat

Oil field 'man camps' in North Dakota terrorizing & sex trafficking Native American kids and adults

John Vibes
Free Thought Project
Tue, 05 Dec 2017 19:24 UTC
Sex Trafficking Native American Kids and Adults
The recent disappearance of a 32-year-old mother has shed new light on the growing problem of violence against women that live near the booming oil fields of North Dakota. Over a month ago, Olivia Lone Bear went missing from Fort Berthold Reservation and has not been heard from since.

In a recent interview, lawyer Mary Kathryn Nagle, who is helping the family with the investigation, pointed out that violence against women in this particular area has been steadily increasing since the oil companies came to town.

"We have the highest rates across the United States, again, in Indian Country, of violence, but in particular in North Dakota, where the rates of oil extraction have skyrocketed since 2005 in the Bakken oil boom. As a result of that, over 100,000 men from outside the state of North Dakota have moved to the state of North Dakota to live in man camps that the oil companies have set up. And unfortunately, as Senator Heidi Heitkamp has noted, as the former U.S. Attorney for the state of North Dakota has noted, the resulting rates of violence, drug of course, and crime and burglary have skyrocketed, but also in particular, domestic violence and sexual assault, including rape and sex trafficking," Nagle said.
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