Society's ChildS


Heart - Black

Louise Mensch lives off convicted pedophile's profits

Louise Mensch
Louise Mensch's history of hypocrisy in her political and journalistic career has been well-documented, but her damage control on the behalf of her husband's pedophile client has been all but buried over the years.

Louise's husband Peter is the founder of Q Prime which managed the band Lostprophets for many years and still receives royalties from its success. After Ian Watkins, the lead singer of Lostprophets, was sentenced to 35 years in prison for sexually abusing a small child and producing footage of the lewd acts ("lewd" doesn't even begin to describe how heinous and horrific the things Watkins did are, but they probably can't even be vaguely described without the advertising on this site being shut down entirely), Mensch claims that Q Prime knew nothing that might raise any eyebrows about Ian's behavior. The denial of having any foresight seems a bit suspect given that fans had been complaining about Watkins on social media and accusing him of pedophilia for many years prior to his arrest. At some point, this should have raised a red flag with Lostprophets' management team. Surely, out of the many so-called 'super-fans' who knew about Ian's activities, one of them would have brought this to Q Prime's attention. Accounts of Ian Watkins courting underage fans backstage had been public for several years and his sexual affinity for youth was effectively an open secret.

Info

Fmr Archbishop of Canterbury: Donald Trump is 'Good Samaritan'

U.S. President Donald Trump
© Kevin Lamarque / ReutersU.S. President Donald Trump
US President Donald Trump has been compared to the Biblical Good Samaritan by the former chief cleric of the Anglican Church.

Lord Carey of Clifton, who led the Church of England from 1991 to 2002, compared Trump with the Good Samaritan, a Biblical figure who came to help a robbery victim when no one else would.

Many will recoil at the identification of Donald Trump as the Good Samaritan, but why not, why not?" Lord Carey said at the Oxford Literary Festival.

Star of David

Jewish Defense League members arrested for brutally assaulting Palestinian-American

Israel Kamal Nayfeh arest
Kamal Nayfeh
Kamal Nayfeh, 55, was an out-of-towner waiting to hug goodbye his daughter who lives in Washington DC, in the moments before he was beaten by affiliates of an extremist group on Sunday outside of a policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). It was the close of a family trip from North Carolina, four days of sightseeing and dinners out that included a stop at the Holocaust museum.

The AIPAC conference coincided with the vacation. Nayfeh saw news reports about protests around the event and thought his daughter Danya, a law student at Georgetown University should not be close to the commotion. She wanted to attend. They compromised. Minding the heavy afternoon traffic, the plan was Nayfeh would drive the family to the AIPAC event, drop off his wife and children, park the car alone, then they would all meet on the street to say goodbye. It was a last fatherly duty before motoring down to North Carolina.

Nayfeh saw a group waving yellow flags. He did not know that was the symbol for the Jewish Defense League (JDL), which the FBI designated a domestic terror organization nearly two decades ago; the family had unknowingly found themselves in the middle of a cohort from an anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate group.

Info

U.S. official statistics far underestimate the number of homeless college students

homeless students
A new study by the Wisconsin HOPE Lab has revealed that about half of community college students in the United States, which make up 46 percent college students in the country, do not have consistent housing and that 13 percent are homeless. In absolute terms, this means at least one million people trying to receive postsecondary education do not have a roof over their heads.

These results confirm and expand upon previous studies that have looked at college student homelessness, including earlier work by the HOPE Lab and studies done by the College and University Food Bank Alliance.

This estimate is an order of magnitude higher than the official homeless statistic of the US, which is 0.5 percent of the population, and more than twice the rate of youth aged 10-19 which face homelessness at least once during a year, which is just under five percent. It is also more than 29 times the official student homelessness rate recorded by the Federal Application for Student Aid (FAFSA), which is the only federal body that collects data on homeless students.

Comment: U.S. students are making extraordinary sacrifices to gain a college education, that in the end may not be worth the time and money.
In America today, approximately two-thirds of all college students graduate with student loan debt, and the average debt level has been steadily rising. In fact, one study found that "70 percent of the class of 2013 is graduating with college-related debt - averaging $35,200 - including federal, state and private loans, as well as debt owed to family and accumulated through credit cards."

That would be bad enough if most of these students were getting decent jobs that enabled them to service that debt.

But unfortunately, that is often not the case. It has been estimated that about half of all recent college graduates are working jobs that do not even require a college degree.

And our college students are discovering that when they do graduate that they are woefully unprepared for life on the outside. In fact, one survey found that 70% of all college graduates wish that they had spent more time preparing for the "real world" while they were still in college.

In America today, there are more than 300,000 waitresses that have college degrees, and close to three out of every ten adults in the United States under the age of 35 are still living at home with Mom and Dad.



Toys

'Teddy Bear and Toaster Act': California seeks to regulate 'smart' toys, potential spy gadgets

Smart toys
© Entertainment Robot America/Reuters
California lawmakers have prepared a new bill, dubbed 'The Teddy Bear and Toaster Act', that would regulate manufacturers to better secure 'smart' internet-connected products which can record data, also requiring customers' consent to transfer information.

Under Senate Bill 327, companies would have to design their products to alert customers through a visual or auditory cue that it is gathering data. The device would also have to obtain consent when it intended to transfer the information.

"The more we know and the more we learn about the internet connection of all sorts of devices, many are realizing that we don't know the extent to which these devices are invading our lives," Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson (D, Santa Barbara) said, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Sellers of the products and devices would have to disclose at point of sale to customers whether the devices are capable of sweeping up sensitive data.

The move comes over concerns that toys and devices that converse with children - like 'My Friend Cayla' or Amazon 'Echo' - presents an inviting target for hacks.

War Whore

Connecticut will be the first state to allow weaponized police drones

Drone
© Hogwit / YouTube
Connecticut is taking steps to become the first state to allow law enforcement to use drones capable of deadly force, following the release of viral videos that featured weaponized UAVs.

Legislation regulating drone use in Connecticut breezed through the state House Judiciary Committee this week and now heads to the entire House of Representatives for a future vote.

If passed and signed by the state's governor, House Bill 7260 would make Connecticut a leading example for states attempting to arm law enforcement with drones capable of utilizing deadly force. Only North Dakota currently allows armed drones for its law enforcement agencies, but the state requires "less than lethal" weaponry such as a stun gun.

Comment: See also: Coming soon to a city near you: Taser equipped drones


Stormtrooper

Flashback Crooked, wife-beater LAPD cop caught on tape ignoring official call for help

Jeremy Fennell
© YouTube/priscillaanderson63Deputy Jeremy Fennell
Following his arrest for domestic violence, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) in Lakewood is taking a closer look into the claims of violence and abuse one officer's ex-girlfriend alleges.

Deputy Jeremy Fennell, 26, was arrested in February and released on $50,000 bail for abusing his girlfriend. She says the department didn't believe her when she first came to them with his alleged crimes. It was only after the department became aware of several videos Fennell made, which demonstrated he was guilty of "dereliction of duty," did they start to put two and two together and launch an investigation.

Fennell's pregnant ex-girlfriend, Priscilla Anderson, uploaded many of the more than 100 videos to YouTube. The most disturbing of which may be one in which Fennell received a call to respond to a shooting.

Ambulance

Disturbing video shows a Syrian migrant setting himself on fire at Greek refugee camp

chios camp
© REUTERSSouda camp is located near a local community on Chios
A migrant from Syria has set himself on fire at a Greek refugee camp, apparently after being rejected for asylum multiple times, local media reported. The moment the man set himself alight was captured on numerous mobile phones and later posted online.

The incident took place at a refugee camp on the Greek island of Chios on Thursday. As seen in one of the videos, the man addressed the crowd after soaking himself in a flammable fluid. When a police officer tried to take hold of the migrant from behind, he set himself on fire.

Comment: It's not hard to imagine that this man was probably in a state of total desperation, severely traumatized, or suffering from some sort of mental health issues. Either way he desperately needed support that he wasn't given. Unfortunately he is not the only one:


Fire

Ukraine (still) on fire: Top regional security officer killed in Mariupol car bomb

mariupol car bomb
© TwitterFirefighters in Mariupol extinguish a car in which Colonel Oleksandr Kharaberyush from Ukraine's intelligence service was killed on March 31.
Ukraine says one of its top regional security officers has been killed in a car explosion in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) cited its chief Vasyl Hrytsak as saying that Colonel Oleksandr Kharaberyush was killed in the car blast in the port city on the morning of March 31.

"The SBU will do all it can to locate and punish those involved," Hrytsak said.

Donetsk regional police chief Vyacheslav Abroskyn wrote on Facebook that an investigation has been launched into the car blast.

He wrote that investigators do not exclude that it was conducted by pro-Russian separatists who are controlling parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Comment: Ukraine has been assassinating leading figures in the DPR and LPR. Retaliation perhaps? Whatever the case, Ukraine continues to be a flashpoint. See Joe Quinn's US 'Spring Storm', Ukraine Weapons Depot Explosion, Russia Snap Military Exercises Crimea: Connection?


Pirates

Filipino communists vow armed revolution against US imperialism

Filipino students communist
© Alex de la Rosa / ReutersFilipino students carry the communist flag during a rally in Manila.
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) vows to continue an armed battle against US imperialists and their local supporters, just as the party is heading into peace talks with the Filipino authorities.

"The Party program reaffirms the necessity of waging armed revolution in order to counter the armed violence employed by the US imperialists and the local reactionary ruling classes and end the oppressive and exploitative semicolonial and semifeudal system," read the communique, released on Wednesday.

It also denounced the "pseudo-democratic" regime, which led to "deteriorating socio-economic conditions of the Filipino people," urging the Philippines communists to "be ready to sacrifice their lives if necessary in the struggle to bring about a new Philippines that is completely independent, democratic, united, just and prosperous."