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U.S. mass killings hit new high in 2019, most were shootings


CNBC
Tue, 24 Dec 2019 17:43 UTC
school shooting vigil
© John Locher / AP file
Melody Stout, Hannah Payan, Aaliyah Alba, Sherie Gramlich and Laura Barrios comfort each other on Aug. 3, 2019 during a vigil for victims of the shooting in El Paso, Texas.
The first one occurred 19 days into the new year when a man used an ax to kill four family members including his infant daughter. Five months later, 12 people were killed in a workplace shooting in Virginia. Twenty-two more died at a Walmart in El Paso in August.

A database compiled by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University shows that there were more mass killings in 2019 than any year dating back to at least the 1970s, punctuated by a chilling succession of deadly rampages during the summer.

In all, there were 41 mass killings, defined as when four or more people are killed excluding the perpetrator. Of those, 33 were mass shootings. More than 210 people were killed.

Most of the mass killings barely became national news, failing to resonate among the general public because they didn't spill into public places like massacres in El Paso and Odessa, Texas, Dayton, Ohio, Virginia Beach, Va., and Jersey City, New Jersey.

The majority of the killings involved people who knew each other — family disputes, drug or gang violence or people with beefs that directed their anger at co-workers or relatives.

In many cases, what set off the perpetrator remains a mystery.
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Arrow Down

World in 'sex recession' as humans increasingly prefer AI dolls to real lovers


Sputnik
Mon, 23 Dec 2019 17:34 UTC
sex robot
© Realbotix Instagram
As part of curious recent observations, sex researchers have come to believe that there is much harm in using tablets or smartphones before or after sexual pleasures. But however arguable it may seem, technology is also there for many to revive long- (or not so long) forgotten hook-up sensations.

Despite having previously unheard of sexual freedoms, it appears that the modern-day generation is shunning sex, causing intimate bodily pleasures to be on the slide in a range of well-developed countries.

Japan, which has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, has been reported to be leading in the worrying trend, with the country's long working hours typically being blamed for it, as is the huge uptick in the number of robot users.

With as many as 300 robots for every 10,000 people, the Japanese are increasingly comfortable working alongside robots, with the trend having spread well beyond the workplace.

'Gatebox Fairy'

The number of sex robots, holographic partners, and home assistants has gone up more considerably in popularity in Japan than elsewhere, with the most widely reported holographic character to date being Azuma Hikary from Gatebox - a wildly popular digital assistant akin to Amazon's Alexa that can provide company for users, fulfil "smart home" functions, and even texts the owner when feeling lonely.

Comment: This is probably one of the most unforeseen consequences of the radical shift in sexual attitudes over the past few generations. But it has the potential to get even worse:

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X

Virginia Democrats want to outlaw single-family suburban zoning because it's 'racist' and bad for environment

Luke Rosiak
Daily Caller
Tue, 24 Dec 2019 17:24 UTC
house for sale sign
© Reuters
Democrats in Virginia may override local zoning to bring high-density housing, including public housing, to every neighborhood statewide — whether residents want it or not.

The measure could quickly transform the suburban lifestyle enjoyed by millions, permitting duplexes to be built on suburban lots in neighborhoods previously consisting of quiet streets and open green spaces. Proponents of "upzoning" say the changes are necessary because suburbs are bastions of segregation and elitism, as well as bad for the environment.

The move, which aims to provide "affordable housing," might be fiercely opposed by local officials throughout the state, who have deliberately created and preserved neighborhoods with particular character — some dense and walkable, others semi-rural and private — to accommodate people's various preferences.

But Democrats tout a state-level law's ability to replace "not in my backyard" with "yes, in your backyard."


Comment: These Democrats have a top-down, interventionist, totalitarian mindset. God forbid you let people sort themselves out based on their own preferences. The technocrats know what's right and good for you, and they'll make damn sure you get it.


House Delegate Ibraheem Samirah, a Democrat, introduced six housing measures Dec. 19, coinciding with Democrats' takeover of the state legislature in November.

"Single-family housing zones would become two-zoned," Samirah told the Daily Caller News Foundation. "Areas that would be impacted most would be the suburbs that have not done their part in helping out."

"The real issues are the areas in between very dense areas which are single-family zoned. Those are the areas that the state is having significant trouble dealing with. They're living in a bubble," he said.
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Handcuffs

Slain Austin mom was friends for years with suspected kidnapper: 'I hope she rots'

Emily Shapiro and Sabina Ghebremedhin
ABC News
Mon, 23 Dec 2019 10:32 UTC
Heidi Broussard and her daughter Margot Carey
© Austin Police Department
Police have released this photo of Heidi Broussard and her daughter Margot Carey after they were reported missing.
Heidi Broussard, the Austin, Texas, mom found strangled to death one week after she vanished, had been friends for years with Magen Fieramusca, who police believe is involved in her disappearance.

"You were supposed to be Heidi's friend," Broussard's friend, Rachel West, told "Good Morning America." "I hope she rots."

Broussard, 33, and her infant daughter had been missing since Dec. 12 when Broussard was discovered strangled to death in a home near Houston on Dec. 19, according to officials.

An infant girl was found alive and healthy at the scene, and police say DNA testing is underway to confirm that she is Broussard's baby, Margot.
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Dominoes

Triumph of the right in Sweden is a result of the total failure of liberalism

Graham Dockery
RT
Tue, 24 Dec 2019 17:06 UTC
Jimmie Akesson
© Reuters / Johan Nilsson
Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Akesson
Sweden's right-wing Sweden Democrats are now neck and neck with the ruling Social Democrats in opinion polls. Though vilified and demonized, the party's success represents a complete failure of liberalism in the face of reality.

The Sweden Democrats - who were until recently dismissed as a fringe, racist party - are now surging in the polls. A voter survey, commissioned by the Dagens Nyheter newspaper last week, puts the party within 0.2 percentage points of Prime Minister Stefan Lofven's left-wing Social Democrats. Moreover, voters now agree with the party's policies on nine out of nine issues.

On immigration, 43 percent of voters side with the party and its leader, Jimmie Akesson. Only 15 percent favor Lofven's policies. Likewise, 31 percent favor Akesson's position on law and order, compared to 19 percent for Lofven.

The press has not made Akesson's ride to the top easy. Yet, most outlets have failed to dig up dirt on the 40-year-old politician, who like France's Marine Le Pen, has made a point of distancing his party from its extreme-right roots and presenting a clean-cut image.
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Bizarro Earth

US soldier killed by roadside bomb in Afghanistan identified by Pentagon


RFE/RL
Mon, 23 Dec 2019 09:07 UTC
Afghanistan
© Omar Sobhani/Reuters
FILE PHOTO: Car bomb Afghanistan November 13th 2019: No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack
The Pentagon has identified a 33-year-old soldier from New Jersey as the U.S. victim in a fatal roadside bombing in Afghanistan's northern Kunduz Province.

The U.S. military on December 23 said Sergeant 1st Class Michael Goble of Washington Township died in the blast that has been claimed by the Taliban militant group.

Goble's unit was engaged in combat operations in Kunduz, when he suffered fatal injuries, the Pentagon said. No further details were provided.

Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, said they killed "a U.S. force member and injured an Afghan commando" in Kunduz.

Comment: Yet another war that provides absolutely no benefits to the citizens of the US or the country it's occupying:

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Question

A storm as big as a hurricane has been provoked by rapper Stormzy. But IS Britain 100% racist?

George Galloway
RT
Tue, 24 Dec 2019 16:56 UTC
stormzy
© Global Look Press / www.imago-images.de / Roland Owsnitzki
The frenzy sparked by misquoted comments about racism from grime star Stormzy in the UK shows just how deep in denial so many Britons still are over the scale of Britain's racist past.

Urban icon Stormzy has them huffing and puffing over the breakfast tables of Britain as the Italian paper La Republica slowly translates into the English tabloids. Some of it has been lost in translation.

Stormzy didn't mean that 100% of British people were racists. How could they be?

If they were, Stormzy would be on the roads of Croydon kicking his heels rather than bringing Christmas Day to a close on the BBC, neither would he have headlined Glastonbury or been a judge of prime-time TV on the X Factor. Neither would he now be a multi-millionaire.
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Sheriff

ICE releases footage purportedly proving migrants understood enrollment at fake university was illegal but signed up anyway

Sam Dorman
Fox News
Sun, 22 Dec 2019 16:02 UTC
ICE immigration police migrant
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is defending itself amid claims that it unfairly enticed migrants into enrolling in a fake university so they could falsely maintain their student visa status.

Fox News previously reported on the backlash ICE received as several news outlets reported that the agency recently arrested dozens more students at the University of Farmington -- a fake university set up as part of a broader federal effort to expose immigration fraud.

"These reports mischaracterized the purpose and rationale for the investigation, and I want to set the record straight," ICE Acting Deputy Director Derek Benner said in a news release on Friday.

Comment: NBC News reported in January:
[A] group of foreign citizens, conspired with each other and others to fraudulently facilitate hundreds of foreign nationals in illegally remaining and working in the United States by actively recruiting them to enroll into a metro Detroit private university that, unbeknownst to the conspirators, was operated by HSI special agents as part of an undercover operation," the statement reads.

ICE's Homeland Security Investigations arm in 2015 established a fictional college, the University of Farmington, as part of an undercover operation, according to the indictments.

"The University was not staffed with instructors/educators; it had no curriculum, no actual classes nor any educational activities being conducted therein," the indictment states.

[...]

"We are all aware that international students can be a valuable asset to our country, but as this case shows, the well-intended international student visa program can also be exploited and abused," the U.S. Attorney in Detroit, Matthew Schneider, said in a statement.

Steve Francis, a special agent in Detroit, said in a statement that his team "uncovered a nationwide network that grossly exploited U.S. immigration laws."


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Eye 1

Ohio woman fatally stabbed her retired cop dad in scheme to move into his home: police

Joshua Rhett Miller
New York Post
Mon, 23 Dec 2019 18:37 UTC
Liscia D. Willis
© HCJC; Cincinnati Police Museum
Liscia D. Willis (left) and her dad, James Lee Dunlap
An Ohio woman repeatedly stabbed her retired cop father to death in a sick plot to move into his house, police said.

Liscia D. Willis, 49, allegedly murdered James Lee Dunlap — a retired Cincinnati cop — in the basement of his home in Forest Park and then started hauling her personal items into the 69-year-old man's home, according to court records cited by WXIX.

Willis had planned to take over the mortgage on Dunlap's residence. His body was found Friday, police said in an affidavit.

Willis, who has been charged with aggravated murder, was ordered held on $1 million bond during a court appearance early Monday, WXIX reported.

Dunlap, a US Army vet who joined the service during the Vietnam War, retired from the Cincinnati Police Department in 2002 after 29 years of service to "his country and community," according to his obituary.
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Attention

Why Trump supporters are not protesting in the streets over impeachment

Brian Cates
Epoch Times
Sun, 22 Dec 2019 07:57 UTC
Nancy Pelosi
© Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) delivers remarks alongside House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) and House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) following the House of Representatives vote to impeach President Donald Trump in Washington on Dec. 18, 2019.
Something very strange just happened — something unparalleled in American history.

A President of the United States got impeached, only the third time in history, and hardly anyone outside the DC-beltway bubble was paying attention or cared about it.

Far from building public support for impeaching President Donald Trump, the Democratic leadership's partisan and unfair hearings in the House of Representatives caused most Americans to tune it all out and stop paying attention.

After it was over, and the vote had been taken on the two articles of impeachment, members of the news media were seen commenting to each other how strange it seemed there were no impeachment protests at the capital. Several of these media reporters seemed to think that the lack of protests demonstrates widespread support for Trump's impeachment. This is nonsense.

If Trump's tens of millions of supporters had any real sense that a genuine threat loomed to remove him from office, this past month and a half would've gone quite differently.

When the denizens of the left are upset about something, there are mass protests, often accompanied by rioting, vandalism, violence, and arrests. The Antifa rioting in many major American cities following Trump's election victory and then again at his inauguration and afterward were ample demonstration of this characteristic of the American left.

Comment: See also:

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