Society's ChildS


Snakes in Suits

The well-deserved fall of Chicago's mayor Rahm Emanuel

Rick Perlstein
The New Yorker
Thu, 31 Dec 2015 00:00 UTC
Rahm Emanuel
© Jim Young / REUTERS / LANDOVA majority of Chicagoans now think that the Mayor should resign.
It's hard to remember a time when Rahm Emanuel wasn't a Democratic Party superstar. Go back to 1991, when the thirty-two-year-old took over fund-raising for Bill Clinton. He was soon renowned for making the staff come to work on Sundays, shrieking into the phone to donors things like "Five thousand dollars is an insult! You're a twenty-five-thousand-dollar person!"—and, not incidentally, helping Clinton afford the blitz of TV commercials that saved him from the Gennifer Flowers scandal, clearing his course to the White House. The legend continued through this past April, when Rahm—in Chicago and D.C., he's known by that single name—won a second term as the mayor of Chicago in a come-from-behind landslide.

Nine months later, Chicagoans—and Democrats nationally—are suffering buyer's remorse. Last month, a Cook County judge ordered the release of a shocking dashcam video of a black seventeen-year-old named Laquan McDonald being shot sixteen times by a policeman while he was walking away. Five days later, the officer was charged with murder. The charge came after four hundred days of public inaction, and only hours before the video's release. Of almost four hundred police shootings of civilians investigated by the city's Independent Police Review Authority since 2007, only one was found to be unjustified. So the suspicion was overwhelming that the officer would not have faced discipline at all had officials not feared a riot—especially after it was learned that McDonald's family had been paid five million dollars from city coffers without ever having filed a lawsuit. Mayor Emanuel claims that he never saw the video. Given that he surely would not have been reëlected had any of this come out before the balloting, a recent poll showed that only seventeen per cent of Chicagoans believe him. And a majority of Chicagoans now think he should resign.

Comment:

Read More...
Evil Rays

ISIS New Years Eve terror plot story in Rochester, NY is yet another FBI fabrication

Adam Johnson
AlterNet
Fri, 01 Jan 2016 00:00 UTC
Emanuel Lutchman

Sensational media accounts leave out or bury key details.

Another major holiday, another sensational ISIS terror plot the FBI takes credit for preventing. This time, the case splashed across the news is that of Emanuel Lutchman, a 25-year-old panhandler in Rochester, New York who allegedly plotted to attack a restaurant on New Years Eve. All major network broadcasts led with the story and it was breathlessly featured everywhere from the New York Times to CNN. There's only one problem: the story is wildly inaccurate and in many ways factually false.

Like many 11th-hour FBI terror busts, the only thing the media has to go on is a DOJ criminal complaint that's released to the press. Statements from the accused or their lawyers very rarely reach the public. And the criminal complaint and the FBI press release are framed to deliberately deceive the media.

Let's run down some of the key claims made by the media and why they're either factually incorrect or misleading.

Comment: It seems the FBI has recently been given its marching orders: "We need more domestic terror threats and we need them now! Do whatever the heck you have to earn your paychecks!!" And so they are. It was only a few days ago that we learned that the FBI lured an intellectually disabled teen into another terrorist plot. When will someone with a little integrity and backbone in the US government say something about this fundamentally malevolent pattern of manufacturing terror and ruining lives?

By now we are all too familiar with the pathetic efforts of the FBI and the sickening stories surrounding them:

Read More...
Video

Footage of Kodiak police arresting, pepper-spraying an autistic man outrages Alaskan town


RT
Sat, 02 Jan 2016 21:24 UTC
Kodiak police
© Viral Time Life/You Tube
Bodycam footage of Kodiak police arresting and pepper-spraying an autistic man has caused major upset in the Alaskan town.

The controversial recording of the September 16th arrest was finally obtained on December 31st through a public records request.

The arrest led some Alaskan community members to accuse local police officers Kathleen Gambling, Phillip Christman, and Sargent Francis de la Fuente of using excessive force in arresting 28-year-old Nick Pletnikoff.

Incident reports written by the officers say they arrested Pletnikoff after responding to a call from two tourists who said Nick had "forced his way into their vehicle and was in the process of rifling through their belongings." The officers insist "that any use of force was minimal and necessary under the circumstances," according to police reports obtained by KTUU.

In the footage, Nick can be heard yelling, "I want to go home!" and "I'm sorry!" Sargent de la Fuente wrote in his report that Pletnikoff was "very strong" and resisted attempts to subdue him.

Following the arrest, Pletnikoff's mother Judy approached officer de la Fuente and told him of her son's condition. "Judy told me Pletnikoff was autistic and usually goes inside cars because he likes cars, but does not steal anything," de la Fuente wrote.

Read More...
Sheeple

What has happened to civic outrage?

Ralph Nader
Common Dreams
Sat, 02 Jan 2016 00:00 UTC
pitchforks, protest
© Dan Lipinski/flickr/cc
If only the people who engage in "road rage" would engage in "corporate rage" when they are harmed by cover-ups or hazardous products and gouging services, aloof CEOs would start getting serious about safety and fair play. With press report after press report documenting how big business stiffs millions of its consumers and workers, why is it that more of these victims do not externalize some of their inner agonies by channeling them into civic outrage?

It has happened on occasion and with good results. After Candy Lightner lost her daughter to a drunk driver, she founded Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) in 1980 as the only way she could deal with her intense grief. Asked what her principal motivation was in building a national movement to put homicide-producing drunk drivers behind bars, she replied: "Revenge."

Medical malpractice victims or their next of kin have started special lobbying associations to stop the attempt by the insurance companies and physician lobbies to weaken the rights of patients to have their full day in court against their negligent harm doers. They also inform the public about the need to discipline bad doctors and careless hospitals so as to reduce some of the 100,000 fatalities a year (according to the Harvard School of Public Health) from malpractice.
Read More...
Handcuffs

Former Texas Officer of the Year accused of being a member of Mexican drug cartel

Andrew Emmett
The Free Though Project
Fri, 01 Jan 2016 00:00 UTC
Efrain Grimaldo
Caught on video illegally selling assault rifles and sensitive information to undercover informants, a former officer of the year has also been accused of secretly working for Los Zetas cartel in a drug trafficking conspiracy in operation since 2006. Although the cop allegedly provided the cartel with firearms, bulletproof vests, luxury vehicles, police scanners, and database access, recently filed court documents revealed at least two convicted cocaine traffickers are cooperating with the government against the disgraced cop.

On September 2, 2014, Efrain Grimaldo, the nephew of Houston Police Officer Noe Juarez, was sentenced to 33 years in federal prison after caught smuggling 1,640 kilograms of cocaine throughout the southern states and east coast. On June 24, 2014, Efrain's brother, Sergio Grimaldo, was extradited from Mexico and later charged along with Officer Juarez for participating in a conspiracy to distribute five or more kilograms of cocaine. Juarez was also charged in a separate conspiracy to possess firearms in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.

Comment: Following in the footsteps of the CIA? Is there a more convenient place to run a drug-trafficking operation than from within corrupt US police departments?

Read More...
USA

Political discourse is now more lowbrow and anti-intellectual than ever before

David Niose
Psychology Today
Tue, 30 Dec 2014 21:33 UTC
trump, authoritarian
Having attended a Donald Trump rally in New Hampshire earlier this week, Scot Lehigh of the Boston Globe was not terribly impressed with the candidate, the message, or the supporters. "After listening to Trump for more than an hour," Lehigh reported, "I came away struck by one thing: how little of substance he'd actually uttered." Instead, the Globe columnist observed, Trump's message was "a populist stew of braggadocio, bluster, and bombast, seasoned with resentments he and his backers share."

And those resentments run deep. Lehigh noted that the key issue repeatedly mentioned by Trump's supporters—and the issue that drew some of the loudest applause—was the GOP frontrunner's plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. This proposal strikes many as strange, especially with Trump promising he'll make Mexico pay for it, but what's truly bizarre is that it would resonate so much with voters in New Hampshire—a state that borders Canada, not Mexico, and a state where Hispanics comprise only two percent of the population.
Read More...
Alarm Clock

Outraged over Shiite cleric execution, Iranian protesters storm Saudi Arabian embassy in Tehran, set it ablaze


RT
Sat, 02 Jan 2016 22:25 UTC
Saudi embassy ablaze
© Via twitter@hassanvand"It's 23:50 here in Tehran, seems protest agnst Nimr execution continues outside Saudi embassy in Tehran right now "
Iranian protesters broke into the Saudi embassy in Tehran after launching several Molotov cocktails into the building. The rally in front of the embassy was triggered by Riyadh's execution of a prominent Shiite cleric.

Footage uploaded on Twitter showed angry Iranian protesters pillaging the ground floor of the Saudi embassy, tearing apart furniture, flags, and documents. It was then engulfed in one big blaze, seemingly after the angry mob, outraged over the Saudi execution of prominent Shiite cleric Sheikh al-Nimr, threw Molotov cocktails at the building.

Police eventually resorted to tear gas to scatter the protesters. Police officers managed to force the crowd out of the building and cordon it off again.There were no immediate reports of casualties or injuries in the violence. Photos from inside of the ravaged ground floor appeared to show it had been deserted.



Comment: Comment:
See also:

Read More...
Vader

Pryor teen shot while 'Ding Dong Ditching' In neighborhood

Allison Harris
News 6
Fri, 01 Jan 2016 20:51 UTC
Shooting victim Cole Peyton
Shooting victim Cole Peyton
A 14-year-old Pryor boy is out of surgery after being shot several times by his neighbor who has not been arrested.

Police said the teen and two of his friends were ringing doorbells and running off early New Year's Day when the homeowner came out to his front yard and started firing.

Comment: Clearly the home owner acted out in a rage of violence against kids who presented zero threat to anyone. If the district attorney has even half a bit of wit he'll charge the home owner with assault with a deadly weapon.

Read More...
Evil Rays

Despite health and privacy risks, NYC will turn 7,500 phone booths into Wi-Fi hot spots

Kevin Samson
Activist Post
Sat, 02 Jan 2016 20:22 UTC
city
© LinkNYC
Awareness continues to increase surrounding the health dangers of Electromagnetic Fields (EMFs) emanating from our daily gadgets, as well as from the rise of the Smart Grid. For example, a prominent neuroscientist went on record in a lecture to the medical community itself where he exposed the many health risks as well as an industry-wide attempt by telecom to cover up the negative consequences. A world-renown biochemist is seeking to abolish WiFi in schools. And a British ER physician has made it her mission to educate people about what steps they can take to minimize exposure and damage to WiFi. A slew of peer-review scientific studies support the warnings of these experts.

So what happens when your entire city becomes one giant WiFi signal? Major cities have been planning to do just that, and their plans are now ready to become reality.

Telecom giant Virgin Media announced a pilot program in October to implement "discreet street furniture" and the "UK's first Smart Pavement" in Chesham, a city of 21,000 people. They stated that their plans were ultimately far more ambitious, seeking "to build more networks like this across the UK."

Comment: Does anyone really think that their city cares if they have free and easy access to the internet? Business and government gives out nothing for free unless it is for their own benefit.

Read More...
Cloud Grey

Catastrophe in California: Months-long methane gas leak pollutes the atmosphere north of L.A.

Deirdre Fulton
Common Dreams
Wed, 30 Dec 2015 16:14 UTC
porter ranch methane leak
The giant methane plumes were made visible by a specialized infrared camera operated by an Earthworks ITC-certified thermographer.
The toxic methane cloud that has been "billowing" for months over an underground natural gas reservoir near the affluent community of Porter Ranch just north of Los Angeles illustrates "gaping vulnerabilities" in oversight and enforcement of greenhouse gas pollution rules, a California newspaper editorial board declared this week.

A pipe leak has been releasing an estimated tens of thousands of kilograms of methane into the air every hour since mid-October, leading environmentalists like Erin Brockovich to declare it "a catastrophe the scale of which has not been seen since the 2010 BP oil spill."

"The enormity of the Aliso Canyon gas leak cannot be overstated," Brockovich wrote earlier this month after visiting Porter Ranch. "Gas is escaping through a ruptured pipe more than 8,000 feet underground, and it shows no sign of stopping. As the pressure from weight on top of the pipe causes the gas to diffuse, it only continues to dissipate across a wider and wider area. According to tests conducted in November by the California Air Resources Board, the leak is spewing 50,000 kilograms of gas per hour—the equivalent to the strength of a volcanic eruption."

Comment: For related articles on this issue, see: Methane outgassing is becoming disturbingly frequent, both under the oceans and on land. Although the above leak is occurring at a man-made gas well, the leak may be natural. See also: THIS phenomenon of methane and carbon dioxide being released in enormous quantities from below ground and water, and not 'man-made CO2', is the primary source of observed 'greenhouse gas' increases in both the atmosphere and oceans.

Read More...