Society's Child

US legislative candidates, critical of Israel, face political attacks - but norms may be changing

Umar A. Farooq
Middle East Eye
Wed, 27 Jun 2018 20:31 UTC

As the US mid-term legislative elections approach, several Democratic candidates are facing accusations of anti-Semitism for their critical stance on Israel, highlighting the relevance of the Middle East conflict in US politics.

Still, at least three of those candidates have secured their party's nomination, challenging a prevalent norm in US politics where being perceived as hostile to Israel can be a career-ending taboo.

Candidate Ammar Campa-Najjar, who is running for Congress from San Diego, was chastised by Israeli media for being the grandson of an alleged militant. Campa-Najjar's grandfather, Muhammad Youssef al-Najjar, was an officer in the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) who was assassinated by the Mossad in 1973 in Lebanon.

Various US and Israeli media outlets, including Haaretz, the San Diego Tribune and the Times of Israel, slammed Campa-Najjar's grandfather, calling him a "terrorist". Israel had linked the candidate's grandfather to the Munich attack in 1972 when a group of Palestinian gunman seized and killed 11 Israeli athletes at the Olympic games in Germany. While distancing himself from his grandfather, Campa-Najjar still acknowledges his Palestinian identity.

Comment: The not-so-blind are beginning to see 'a patch of blue' in the stormy sky of intolerance and manipulation by the pro-Israel forces controlling America.

Milo Yiannopoulos defends his 'gun journos down' trolling email after Annapolis shooting

RT
Thu, 28 Jun 2018 18:22 UTC

Following the Capital Gazette shooting, right-wing pundit Milo Yiannopoulos said his 'gun journos down' statement was not a call for violence, and accused left-wing press of exploiting deaths while the bodies are 'barely cold.'

Before authorities even named the motive behind the fatal shooting of five people at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, a number of journalists and activists took to Twitter to blame it on words President Donald Trump and Yiannopoulos have spoken about the press. Yiannopoulos issued a response via Facebook emphasizing that he "wasn't being serious" when he called on vigilantes to gun down the press.

"The bodies are barely cold and left-wing journalists are already exploiting these deaths to score political points against me. It's disgusting. I regret nothing I said, though of course like any normal person I am saddened to hear of needless death," the 33-year old wrote.

Malta allows 230 migrants stuck on humanitarian ship to come to shore

Middle East Monitor
Fri, 29 Jun 2018 19:22 UTC

The Lifeline is the second charity ship that Italy has shut out of its ports this month after the new anti-immigrant Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said private rescue vessels would no longer be welcome

© Twitter
The Lifeline is the second charity ship that Italy has shut out of its ports this month after the new anti-immigrant Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said private rescue vessels would no longer be welcome

A humanitarian ship that has had about 230 rescued migrants on board for almost a week will enter a Maltese port today, ending a standoff with Italy which refused to let the ship dock.

Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said seven European Union countries had offered to share the burden of the migrants with Malta. The Lifeline ship, operated by German charity Mission Lifeline, is due to dock at around 16:00 GMT.

"Lifeline will be granted permission to enter a Maltese port, where procedures for identification, ascertaining their asylum eligibility, and distribution to other member states will start immediately," Muscat told reporters.

Voodoo-practicing nurse convicted of sex trafficking in the UK

RT
Fri, 29 Jun 2018 17:16 UTC

A nurse who forced women to take part in a voodoo ceremony before smuggling them to Europe to work as prostitutes, has become the first UK national to be convicted of human trafficking for crimes committed outside Britain.

A Birmingham Crown Court heard how Josephine Iyamu, 51 and originally from Liberia, subjected her victims to juju, a form of voodoo whose adherents claim can exercise a psychological control over those subject to it.

Iyamu, who became a British citizen in 2009, charged her victims, aged between 24 and 30, up to £33,000 to be smuggled into Europe. The route saw the women travel through the Sahara desert from Nigeria to the Libyan coast. The "horrendous" journey involved some women shot at and gang rapped, according to National Crime Agency (NCA) Senior Investigation Officer Kay Mellor. They would then travel across the Mediterranean to Italy, from where they would be sent to Germany and forced into prostitution to pay off their debts.

Describing the witch-doctors, Mellor said: "They exert an insidious control which an expert witness has said is more powerful than chains. As part of the oath-swearing ceremony they were given blood containing worms to drink. A chicken was used to hit her naked body on the back and on the chest.

Active shooter drill was reported a week before the Capital Gazette shootings

Rachel Blevins
The Free Thought Project
Fri, 29 Jun 2018 17:06 UTC

Five people were killed in another mass shooting after a man opened fire at the Capital Gazette newspaper on Thursday afternoon, in what is being called a "targeted attack" by a deranged individual who reportedly went as far as mutilating his own fingers in order to keep police from identifying him.

Fueling conspiracy theories online, just one week before the shooting at the newspaper's headquarters, the Capital Gazette reported that "Annapolis Police will be conducting an active shooter drill."

The Annapolis Police Department released a statement claiming that residents "should be aware that real-life sights and sounds may be seen and heard along the periphery of the campus and a variety of emergency response vehicles will be in the area."

Annapolis Fire Department Spokesperson Ken White said that the drill was being held "just in case... we have an active shooter here in Annapolis," and insisted that "with the increase of active shooter incidents we are seeing, the city has determined that it's important for us to hold this training so that in the event that something may happen, we will be well-prepared."

'An historic and exciting event': Pentagon relocates US Army HQ from Seoul after 70+ years

RT
Fri, 29 Jun 2018 18:53 UTC

USFK change of command ceremony on Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek

The US Army's headquarters in South Korea, located in the capital Seoul since the end of WWII, has moved to a $11bn base in the rural south - away from mass protest rallies and the North's guns.

The new United States Forces Korea (USFK) headquarters was opened on Friday at Camp Humphreys, a base near the town Pyeongtaek, about 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of Seoul, where the HQ was stationed for more than 70 years.

USFK commander General Vincent Brooks said the relocation was "an historic and exciting event" during the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Brooks, who also leads the UN forces stationed on the Korean Peninsula, added that it "represents the significant investment in the long-term presence of US Forces Korea."

Dear Isaac Herzog, American intermarriage is not a plague

Robert Lord
Mondoweiss
Tue, 26 Jun 2018 16:38 UTC

Charles Grodin and Cybill Shepherd in "The Heartbreak Kid," an intermarriage comedy by Elaine May (1972)

Isaac Herzog, the chair of the Jewish Agency and former leader of the Zionist left (left, or less extreme right?) in Israel, has declared intermarriage by American Jews a "plague," with millions of victims:

I'll tell you a personal story. Last summer I traveled [with my wife] to the USA for a vacation. I graduated from a Jewish school in New York. And we went to meet friends. I have a ton of friends in the U.S.A. And I encountered something that I called an actual plague. I saw my friends' children married or coupled with non-Jewish partners! And the parents beat their breasts and ask questions, and are suffering. Listen, it's every [Jewish] family in the U.S.A.! And we are talking about millions. And I said there must be a campaign, a solution. We have to rack our brains to figure out how to solve this great challenge.

Oh the horror! Young American Jews are marrying who they love, not who their parents want them to love. How terrible. What a tragic mistake those young fools are making.

Poll: American support for death penalty continues its long-term decline, despite recent uptick favoring capital punishment for murder convictions

David Masci
Pew Research Center
Wed, 27 Jun 2018 00:00 UTC

President Donald Trump has voiced his support for the death penalty, and a recent Pew Research Center survey found an uptick in the share of Americans who favor capital punishment for those convicted of murder. Over the long term, however, public support for the death penalty has declined significantly, as has the number of executions in the United States.

As the debate over the death penalty continues in the U.S. and worldwide, here are five facts about the issue:

1.The annual number of U.S. executions peaked at 98 in 1999 and has fallen sharply in the years since. In 2017, 23 inmates were executed, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. That's slightly higher than the year before, when 20 people were executed, but still well below the number of inmates annually put to death in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Just eight states - Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Texas and Virginia - accounted for all executions in 2017, compared with 20 states in 1999.

Comment: And Russian views: Nearly 80% of Russians want death penalty to combat corruption, Twitter poll shows

Cop arrested for punching his 14yo autistic son in the face and repeatedly smashing his head into a wall

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Fri, 29 Jun 2018 16:21 UTC

An Amesbury police officer was arrested on Tuesday and charged with crimes related to the alleged beating of a 14-year-old autistic boy.

According to the Essex District Attorney's Office, officer Larry Bybee arrested on Tuesday and charged with two counts of assault and battery on a child-his own son. The court issued a restraining order against Bybee and he was ordered to stay away from his children, alcohol, and drugs during his arraignment.

According to NBC10, court documents show the alleged incident happened at Bybee's home in Amesbury on June 13. It was reported to the New Hampshire Division of Children, Youth and Families the following day since Bybee's son lives in New Hampshire half of the time with Bybee's ex-wife.

New body cam footage shows Vegas police cowered in fear in hallway as Paddock slaughtered dozens

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Fri, 29 Jun 2018 15:57 UTC

Sadly, the more information we receive from the worst mass shooting in modern American history, the less coverage it gets by the mainstream media. Damning footage contradicting official timelines and LVMPD documents have surfaced and they barely register as a blip on the media's radar.

After being forced to release information on the October 1 massacre, the Las Vegas police department-in an insultingly futile attempt at transparency-has been dumping information related to the shooting. In what appears to be a deliberate attempt to muddy the waters, much of the video released by the department has no time stamps and is provided without context.

Like all the previous footage, the latest body camera video to be released lacks a time stamp. However, because we know that Stephen Paddock - according to the official timeline and citizen videos of the incident - initially opened fire at 10:05 p.m. and did not stop shooting until 10:14 p.m., we now know that officers were inside the hotel and could've engaged him-contrary to what we've been told.

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Society's Child

US legislative candidates, critical of Israel, face political attacks - but norms may be changing

Milo Yiannopoulos defends his 'gun journos down' trolling email after Annapolis shooting

Malta allows 230 migrants stuck on humanitarian ship to come to shore

Voodoo-practicing nurse convicted of sex trafficking in the UK

Active shooter drill was reported a week before the Capital Gazette shootings

'An historic and exciting event': Pentagon relocates US Army HQ from Seoul after 70+ years

Dear Isaac Herzog, American intermarriage is not a plague

Poll: American support for death penalty continues its long-term decline, despite recent uptick favoring capital punishment for murder convictions

Cop arrested for punching his 14yo autistic son in the face and repeatedly smashing his head into a wall

New body cam footage shows Vegas police cowered in fear in hallway as Paddock slaughtered dozens

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