Society's ChildS


Bad Guys

Winning hearts & minds: At least 8 more Syrian civilians killed in US airstrikes

US Air Force Fighter Jet
© AP Photo/ Senior Airman Matthew Bruch, U.S. Air Force
An airstrike of the US-led anti-terror coalition has claimed lives of eight civilians in the Syrian city of Al-Tabqah, west of Raqqa, local media reported Sunday.

The coalition's airstrike was conducted as part of the offensive operation against Daesh, which controls the city, the Syrian state broadcaster reported.

Other media reports suggest that at least 14 people we killed by the airstrike.

Comment: The civilian body count continues to mount, with the US killing significantly more civilians than terrorists in the Middle East. Deaths in US strikes on Syria & Iraq alone have been described as the 'greatest catastrophe since WWII' - and that doesn't include the on-going carnage in Yemen, Ukraine, Afghanistan and Libya.


Jet3

8 people killed on board Cuban military plane that crashed into mountain

Cuban plane
© Valery Gende-Rote / Sputnik
Eight personnel have been killed after a military plane crashed into a mountain in Cuba, the armed forces announced, refuting initial media reports that dozens of civilians were killed when an Antonov-26 passenger plane disappeared off radar screens.

"The eight military personnel on board, including the crew, died," the Revolutionary Armed Forces Ministry said in a statement.

The Soviet-made Antonov-26 twin-engine turboprop plane crashed into the Loma de la Pimienta mountain some 80km (50 miles) west of Havana after taking off at 6:38am (0638 ET) from Playa Baracoa.

Bulb

If progressives don't wake the heck up about how corrupt Obama was, their movement is as good as done

Obama cowboy
Could you ask for a more perfect bookend to Obama's blood-soaked neocon abortion of a presidency than his receiving $400,000 to give a speech at a health care conference organized by a Wall Street firm?

My God I hate every single thing about every single part of this. Let me type that out again in segments, so we can all really feel into it:
Four hundred thousand dollars. For a former President of the United States. To give a speech. At a healthcare conference. Organized by a Wall Street firm.
Why are Wall Street firms organizing m**********g healthcare conferences, one might understandably ask? And why are they hiring the man who just completed an eight-year war on progressive healthcare policy and a torrid love affair with Wall Street criminals? These are extremely reasonable questions that might be asked by anyone who is intelligent and emotionally masochistic enough to look straight at this thing, and the answer, of course, is America. That's what America is now.

The man who continued and expanded all of Bush's most evil policies, created a failed state in Libya, exponentially expanded the civilian-slaughtering US drone program which Chomsky calls "the most extreme terrorist campaign of modern times" to unprecedented levels, facilitated the Orwellian expansion of the US surveillance state while prosecuting more whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined, and used charm and public sympathy to lull the progressive movement into a dead sleep for eight years now gets paid nearly half a million dollars an hour to continue bolstering the exploitative corporatist nightmare he's dedicated his life to. American University has compiled data indicating that the already extremely wealthy Obama family may end up being worth as much as $242 million in their post-White House years, and if Barry keeps whoring himself out like this, he might exceed even that.


Attention

Native Alaskan tribes 'shocked & appalled' by Trump's Northern Bering Sea drilling executive order

Trump
© Kevin Lamarque / ReutersUS President Donald Trump displays an Executive Order on "Offshore Energy Strategy" at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 28, 2017.
A group representing 40 native Alaskan tribes has severely criticized US President Donald Trump's new executive order that paves the way for oil drilling in the Arctic.

On Friday, Trump signed an executive order aimed at reducing restrictions on oil drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic. Trump said it would create "thousands and thousands" of jobs and "unleash American energy."

The order, called the 'America-First Offshore Energy Strategy', would reverse drilling bans put in place by Barack Obama last year.

It instructs the Interior Department to devise a new development plan for all federal waters off US coasts. The department oversees 1.7 billion acres of the outer continental shelf, which contains an estimated 90 billion barrels of undiscovered oil.

About 94 percent of that is off-limits to drilling due to Obama's ban, which also blocked the sale of new offshore drilling rights in order to preserve coral reefs, marine sanctuaries, and walrus feeding grounds.

The Bering Sea Elders Group, which represents 40 of Alaska's coastal tribes, released a statement slamming Trump's order, saying it removes their say in what the federal government does with the waters they rely on for food.

Arrow Down

US court: Basing on previous salaries, employers can pay women less

brick wall equal pay
© LinkedinWomen shall not pass! The brick wall of equal pay.
A ruling from a traditionally left-leaning federal appeals court allows employers to pay women less than men for the same job, as long as a man was paid more at his previous job and the employer's policies justify using past salaries to determine pay.

On Thursday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the case of Aileen Rizo, a female employee who sued the county public schools in Fresno after discovering she was being paid less than her male co-workers for doing the same job.

Rizo sued the school in 2014, arguing that although she was being paid a higher salary than her previous employer, her male counterparts had salaries more than $10,000 higher than hers. According to the lawsuit, the school "conceded that it paid the female plaintiff less than comparable male employees for the same work." Rizo complained to the County about the disparity, but they informed her that her salary was determined by a salary schedule known as "Standard Operation Procedure 1440."

Comment: There are always ways to construct something to the positive or to the negative...dependent on perception, feasibility, greed or bias. The point was made that a 'prior discriminatory salary,' as a basis of a new salary, does not correct inequality. It just kicks the can down the road.


Cow Skull

Best of the Web: It looks like we've just reached the point of peak stock market absurdity

skyline
Have you ever wondered how tech companies that have been losing hundreds of millions of dollars year after year can somehow be worth billions of dollars according to the stock market? Because I run a website called "The Economic Collapse ", there are naysayers out there that take glee in mocking me by pointing out how well the stock market has been doing. This week, the Dow is flirting with 21,000 and the Nasdaq crossed the 6,000 threshold for the first time ever. But a lot of the "soaring stocks" that have been fueling this rally have been losing giant mountains of money every single year, and just like the first tech bubble this madness will eventually come to an end in a spectacular fiery crash in which investors will lose trillions of dollars.

Anyone that cannot see that we are in the midst of an absolutely insane stock market bubble simply does not understand economics. Every valuation indicator that you can possibly point to says that we are in a bubble of epic proportions, and history teaches us that all bubbles inevitably come to an end at some point.

Attention

Brazil protesters and police clash in first general strike in decades

Brazil protests
© REUTERS/Ricardo MoraesBuses burn during clashes between demonstrators and riot police in a protest against President Michel Temer's proposed reform of Brazil's social security system, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, April 28, 2017.
Brazilian protesters torched buses, clashed with police in several cities and marched on President Michel Temer's Sao Paulo residence on Friday amid the nation's first general strike in more than two decades.

Unions called the strike to voice anger over Temer's efforts to push austerity measures through congress, bills that would weaken labor laws and trim a generous pension system.

The blackened hulls of at least eight burned commuter buses littered central Rio de Janeiro as police launched rounds of tear gas and rubber bullets at masked protesters.

Sheriff

Cop who broke elderly vet's ribs, caught AGAIN, attacking innocent grandpa

police brutality
For the second time in less than a year, a police officer with the Buda Police Department is being sued for excessive force and violating the civil rights of two elderly citizens. The Free Thought Project brought you the story of 73-year-old veteran Juan Martinez, who was thrown to the ground in a Buda, TX by Officer Demerriel Young in the local Walmart for questioning his authority apparently.

This time, he's being sued for excessive use of force against a senior citizen, in his own home.

Leonard Miguel Garcia, of Buda, was at his home when police arrived to remove his grandchildren from his home, an action which is likely to make anyone become anxious.

Police officers DeMerriel Young and Kellie Metz were present and were invited into the home.

Eye 2

'Who was the most dangerous person you ever arrested?': A policeman's chilling encounter with a young psychopath

teen psychopath

Comment: The following recounting of a police officer's pursuit of someone who seems quite definitely to have been a psychopath - is instructive in numerous ways - not least of which were the emotional and psychological effects the subject of this story had on those he interacted with.


The most dangerous person I ever put cuffs on was a guy named Brady something-or-other. He was in no way famous, and he was only 19 years old when I arrested him.

Someone had been setting pets on fire with gasoline and matches, and letting them go running down the street burning. We had 5 of these, 4 dogs and 1 cat, over about a 3 week period. Everybody on the department was a ranch kid or grew up working on ranches, hunting and fishing...everyone was an animal lover, particularly dogs. There was a LOT of anger, we all wanted this guy badly - we all secretly hoped that he would give us a reason to kill him, or better yet, to pour gasoline on him and let him burn, although imagining that scenario was tough.

We had several eye witnesses that had seen a kid, teenager-ish, a boy, acting suspiciously in the area, but nobody knew who he was or got a really good look.

One Saturday another dog was seen on fire, although a really quick 11 year old boy walking home from the pool had seen it and managed to smother the fire with his wet towel. The dog was actually in pretty good shape, most of his hair had to be shaved off and he had 1st and 2nd degree burns, but the worst was some scarring in his lungs the vet was worried about, but cautiously optimistic.

Comment: Though this particular sicko had a penchant for violence and wore his pathology on his sleeve, we'd do well to remember that many psychopaths can be cunning and ruthless in ways that are far less obvious. And in many cases, they can be far more dangerous for how easily they slip detection or learn to work well within a system or organization that rewards their proclivities - like in US intelligence, military and political circles for instance.


Newspaper

Ignore those murmurs: German tabloid Bild says Ivanka Trump not booed at event

Ivanka Trump
© Hannibal Hanschke / ReutersBerlin, Germany, April 25, 2017.
German tabloid Bild has claimed that, despite audible evidence, Ivanka Trump was not booed for saying her father, President Donald Trump, is an advocate of female empowerment at a panel discussion in Berlin with some of the world's most powerful women.

This week, Ivanka Trump participated in a panel discussion on women's empowerment and entrepreneurship at the W20, a female-centric summit within the Group of 20 (G20) countries. The panel included the likes of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

During the discussion, Trump opined on her father's legacy as an advocate for paid leave policies.

"That is something I'm very proud of my father's advocacy, long before he came into the presidency, he championed this in the primaries. He's been a tremendous champion of supporting families and enabling them to thrive," Trump said, prompting some restive murmuring from the crowd.