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Hofstra University students want statue of 'white supremacist' Thomas Jefferson taken down

Mitchell Gunter
Campus Reform
Mon, 26 Mar 2018 16:54 UTC
jefferson protest
A statue of Thomas Jefferson has raised the ire of student activists at Hofstra University, who are demanding that administrators remove his visage from campus.

JaLoni Amor, a Hofstra student and Black Lives Matter activist, released a petition calling for the statue's removal on March 17, proclaiming that Jefferson has been embraced as an "icon" by "white supremacist and neo-nazi organizations" like the Ku Klux Klan.

"The Sondra and David S. Mack Student Center is one of the central points for on-campus life and student activities," the petition reads. "It is unfortunate then that a bronze sculpture of a 71-year-old Thomas Jefferson, gifted to the university by Hofstra Trustee David Mack, is right in front of the Student Center."

"Jefferson has been embraced as an icon by white supremacist and neo-nazi organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan," the petition continues, calling attention to Jefferson's past as a slave owner who committed rape.
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Dominoes

Cambridge Analytica's Christopher Wylie testifies to UK Parliament that company helped fix Brexit vote


RT
Tue, 27 Mar 2018 16:36 UTC
Christopher Wylie
© Toby Melville / Reuters
Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie
A whistleblower who blew the lid off Cambridge Analytica's (CA) links to Facebook, and the sharing of millions of people's data, has opened up about the company, appearing in front of British MPs at the DCMS committee.

Accusations of fake offices, suspicious deaths, and collusion have emerged in the explosive questioning of the whistleblower, Christopher Wylie. Former CA director Wylie spent a year working with the British press over how the company obtained people's personal information from Facebook.

Speaking to MPs in Parliament, Wylie faced questions on the inner workings of the company and their connections to the Brexit campaign group Vote Leave. Wylie says BeLeave campaigners, and fellow whistle blowers, Shahmir Sanni and Darren Grimes were manipulated and told what to do by the Vote Leave lawyers. Under UK law BeLeave and Vote Leave should not have been combining campaigns or sharing finances. Wylie accused Vote Leave, BeLeave, the DUP and Veterans for Britain of working together in the EU referendum campaign.
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Document

Pope accepts resignation of Irish Bishop McAreavey criticized for handling of abuse report

Hannah Brockhaus
Catholic News Agency
Tue, 27 Mar 2018 16:47 UTC
Pope hat
© Antonio Gravante via Shutterstock
On Monday, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Bishop John McAreavey of Dromore, Ireland, who had asked to step down earlier this month following media claims that he mishandled an abuse report in the early '90s.

Pope Francis accepted McAreavey's request to resign as bishop March 26 and appointed an apostolic administrator, retired Bishop Philip Boyce of Raphoe, 78, until the appointment of a successor.
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Attention

British Paralympian slams 'EasyJet' airline after being told 'to prove she has cerebral palsy'


RT
Tue, 27 Mar 2018 16:25 UTC
Sophia Warner
© AI Project / Reuters
Sophia Warner
Former track and field Paralympian Sophia Warner says she was mistreated by staff of the British low-cost carrier airline EasyJet, who asked her to prove that she has cerebral palsy.

The 43-year-old participant of the 2012 Summer Paralympics took to social media on Tuesday, to share her emotions after her latest trip with EasyJet.

"I've not complained on twitter before. The order to publicly prove my disability incident by @easyJet yesterday was beyond devastating," she tweeted.

She then gave more details, when replying to a comment from one of her followers, who, according to his words also had a traumatic experience with the EasyJet company.
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Attention

Thousands with disabilities losing right to vote during guardianship proceedings

Matt Vasilogambros
Pew Charitable Trust / Stateline
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 00:00 UTC
Greg Demer, voting rights lost autism
© Linda Demer
When he turned 18, Greg Demer lost his right to vote because of his autism, joining thousands of other people with mental disabilities who were stripped of the right during guardianship proceedings. More than a decade later, a different judge returned to him the right to vote.
Like many people with autism, Greg Demer is bright but has difficulty communicating. He has a passion for the history of military aircraft, but he can't quite keep up a conversation with new people. When he meets someone, he'll quote from movies or ask them about their favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

His mother, Linda Demer, worried that he wouldn't be able to make complicated decisions about his finances and health care once he turned 18. So, in 2005, a judge in Los Angeles, where they live, granted her conservatorship over Greg.

"I wanted to protect him," she said of her son, who is now 31.

But in the conservatorship process, the judge also stripped away Greg's right to vote. He was not only unfit to make decisions about his health care and finances, the judge ruled, but he also was unfit to participate in the democratic process.

In being declared "mentally incapacitated," he joined tens of thousands of Americans with disabilities who every year lose their right to vote during guardianship proceedings, according to the California-based Spectrum Institute, an advocacy group for people with disabilities.
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Arrow Down

Thai drag queens want more prominent role in society

Patpicha Tanakasempipat
Reuters
Mon, 26 Mar 2018 16:34 UTC
Thai drag
© REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
"Drag Race Thailand" contestants Thanisorn Hengsoontorn 'Annee Maywong' (L) and Supattarapon Kasikam 'Dearis Doll' pose at a studio in Bangkok, Thailand March 23, 2018. Picture taken March 23, 2018.
Before his shows at a jazz club in Bangkok, Pan Pan Narkprasert, 29, slathers layers of makeup on his face, emerging after two hours transformed into Pangina Heals, a larger-than-life, purple-lipped lady with a mass of blonde hair.

A professional drag queen, Pan Pan performs a weekly show at the 1930s Shanghai-inspired venue in this capital's Silom nightlife area.

"This is not the White House. We're just having fun here," Pangina tells the cheering audience.

"We make fun of everybody. If you feel offended, you know where the door is."

Pan Pan is also co-host of "Drag Race Thailand", the first international edition of the U.S. reality television show "RuPaul's Drag Race", which pits drag queens against each other in various weekly challenges and runway performances to find "America's next drag superstar".

Comment: Draq queens are a caricature. In years past they would present provocative acts as a means of entertaining a subculture. Today, the LGBT movement has utilized such measures as a means of demanding acceptance by the larger society. It shouldn't be difficult to understand, but demanding acceptance of provocation is a pretty futile battle.

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Attention

What has happened to the West I was born in?!

The Saker
The Saker Blog
Mon, 26 Mar 2018 15:25 UTC
decline of west
© David Follett
Frankly, I am awed, amazed and even embarrassed. I was born in Switzerland, lived most of my life there, I also visited most of Europe, and I lived in the USA for over 20 years. Yet in my worst nightmares I could not have imagined the West sinking as low as it does now. I mean, yes, I know about the false flags, the corruption, the colonial wars, the NATO lies, the abject subservience of East Europeans, etc. I wrote about all that many times. But imperfect as they were, and that is putting it mildly, I remember Helmut Schmidt, Maggie Thatcher, Reagan, Mitterrand, even Chirac! And I remember what the Canard Enchaîné used to be, or even the BBC. During the Cold War the West was hardly a knight in white shining armor, but still - rule of law did matter, as did at least some degree of critical thinking.

I am now deeply embarrassed for the West. And very, very afraid.

All I see today is a submissive herd lead by true, bona fide, psychopaths (in a clinical sense of the word)

And that is not the worst thing.
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Eye 1

How search engine suggestions are used to impact opinions and voting preferences

Robert Epstein
American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology
Fri, 24 Mar 2017 15:51 UTC
search suggestions
Multiple experiments, each with diverse groups of 300 subjects from throughout the U.S., were conducted to determine whether search suggestions (sometimes called "autocomplete" suggestions) have the potential to impact people's searches.

The first automated search suggestion system was introduced as an opt-in tool by Google, Inc. in 2004 to accelerate the search process. In 2008, the tool became mandatory, and, in recent years, the number of suggestions has been reduced from 10 to 4 or fewer, with Google officials acknowledging the company actively censors suggestions.

In the first experiment, conducted shortly before the 2016 presidential election, subjects were shown four sets of search suggestions. Two showed search suggestions related to the Republican nominee for vice president, and two showed search suggestions related to the Democratic nominee.

For each search, subjects could select one of four search suggestions or could type their own search term. Each pair of searches (one pair for the Republican nominee, one for the Democratic nominee) was identical except that in one of the searches, one of the search suggestions was negative (e.g., "Tim Kaine scandal"); all other items in all the searches were either neutral or positive.
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Heart - Black

Muslim parents arrested in Texas after torturing 16-year-old daughter for refusing arranged marriage

Jared Sickel
The Daily Wire
Mon, 26 Mar 2018 23:51 UTC
Maarib Al Hishmawi
© FBI
Maarib Al Hishmawi
The parents of a 16-year-old Iraqi girl, Maarib Al Hishmawi, were arrested Friday for allegedly beating, choking, and burning their daughter after she refused to agree to a forced marriage.

This happened not in Baghdad or Mosul or Basra, but in San Antonio, Texas.

The Bexar County Sheriff's Office reported that Abdulah Fahmi Kala Al Hishmawi, 34, and Hamdiyah Sabah Al Hishmawai, 33, beat their daughter with broomsticks, threw hot oil on her, and choked her "almost to the point of unconsciousness" when she resisted the marriage, which apparently would have paid the parents $20,000.
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Bizarro Earth

Retired UK diplomat says "Wave of Russian diplomat expulsions is coordinated political warfare against Moscow"


RT
Tue, 27 Mar 2018 13:32 UTC
People carrying luggage leave the Russian Embassy in London on March 20, 2018
© Daniel Leal-Olivas / AFP
People carrying luggage leave the Russian Embassy in London on March 20, 2018
The pressure on Moscow over its alleged footprint in Sergei Skripal's poisoning, including the coordinated expulsion of diplomats, amounts to "political warfare" against Russia and is a clear case of "hysteria," RT has been told.

Retired UK diplomat Peter Ford also thinks it's the elites clutching onto power as they face more internal opposition. "The scale of it is surprising indeed, but it is just proof that hysteria is contagious. What we've witnessed in Britain in the last two weeks has been a classic case of hysteria whipped up by the government and fanned by the, mostly right wing, press," Ford noted.

Half of the European Union's member states decided to expel Russian diplomats over the Sergei Skripal case. The move came despite zero evidence that Moscow was responsible. British Prime Minister Theresa May repeatedly accused Moscow of being behind the poisoning of former spy Skripal and his daughter in the town of Salisbury in early March.


Comment: It's the witch trials all over again: Paranoia in Full Bloom: British Government Goes Full Retard in Desperate Effort to Frame Russia for 'Chemical Weapons Attack'


Comment: See Also:

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