Society's ChildS


USA

More Trump rally madness: Security discharges multiple pockets of angry protesters

Donald Trump
© Carlos Barria / Reuters
A Donald Trump campaign rally in New Orleans took a menacing turn Friday after the politician's security clashed with pockets of angry protesters among the crowd.

For once the Republican frontrunner struggled to get his words out, as security tried for several minutes to maintain order in a crowd containing people opposing Trump's bid for the White House.

Footage broadcast from the rally in Louisiana shows the billionaire businessman becoming increasingly irate as he is disrupted by protesters shouting out during his speech.

It came hours before Louisiana polling stations opened for the latest round of primaries.

Comment: Make Donald Drumpf Again: John Oliver tackles Donald Trump - The result is awesome


Newspaper

Turkish Zaman journalist: 'We will never kneel before Erdogan'

Zaman newspaper protester
© REUTERS/ Kursat Bayhan
Despite the police raid on Turkey's best-selling newspaper on Friday, journalists in Turkey are determined to stand up for free speech, Emre Soncan, a journalist for Zaman and the English-language Today's Zaman, told Sputnik.
​"Our main headquarters are in Istanbul and yesterday a Turkish court, which is allegedly under the control of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, ordered the seizure of Zaman newspapers, and police forces yesterday raided our headquarters in Istanbul and took over the management of our newspapers."

"Thousands of our readers were outside our building chanting 'free media cannot be silenced,' and unfortunately the Turkish police used water cannon and tear gas, and some of my journalist colleagues were wounded in this police raid."

"Today in Ankara where I am working, we are expecting the same thing, we are expecting the police force to come and take over our newspaper."

Roses

Citing discrimination, New York women protest the 'tampon tax'

tampons
© Marcos Brindicci / Reuters
New York women have taken their "tampon tax" fight to court, suing over the taxation of feminine hygiene products, accusing the state of double standards and gender discrimination. They seek to end the "unlawful" tax and force refunds to 5 million women.

"A tax on tampons and sanitary pads is a tax on women. The Tampon Tax is irrational. It is discrimination. It is wrong," the five plaintiffs ‒ Margo Seibert, Jennifer Moore, Catherine O'Neil, Natalie Brasington and Taja-Nia Henderson ‒ wrote in the class-action complaint, filed in the state Supreme Court in Manhattan.

The women claimed that New York collects about $14 million each year in sales tax on menstrual products from the ‒ in their estimates ‒ the 5 million women who live in the Big Apple, each of whom spends an average of $70 on such items annually.

At the same time, the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance does not impose any taxes on what it defines as medical items, including those that are largely used by men, such as Rogaine or condoms.

Sheriff

Psycho cop rams car with grandma and children in it, deletes dashcam evidence

southfield police
© Deb Jacques/C&G Newspapers
This week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth District ruled that on an officer, who violently endangered the lives of an innocent grandmother and her three grandchildren by repeatedly ramming his car into theirs, is not immune from a lawsuit.

On Oct. 24, 2011, Cheryl McCarty was driving her three young grandchildren to school when she was stopped by Southfield police officer Keith Birberick. Birberick accused her of illegally passing a school bus.

Claiming that she hadn't passed a school bus, McCarty voiced her discontent with the several hundred dollar ticket she was receiving for it. She also informed the officer that she planned to file a complaint with the Mayor's Office over this incident.

Heart - Black

Unbelievable! Alabama cop receives a slap on the wrist after raping a car crash victim

Samuel H. McHenry II
Samuel H. McHenry II
Former state trooper, 36-year-old Samuel H. McHenry II managed to get off with minimal jail time after raping a car accident victim and leaving her stranded afterward.

McHenry pleaded guilty to misdemeanor sexual misconduct under a plea deal and managed to avoid more serious charges that were originally filed against him. McHenry originally faced charges of rape and sodomy but he was able to cut a deal and get those charges dropped and replaced with less serious charges.

Under the plea deal, McHenry will have his state certification revoked and will be unable to be a police officer, and he received a 182-day jail sentence. The sentence does not even have to be served at the same time, he has the freedom to go in a few days at a time and go back home, as long as he serves all 182 days within the span of a year.

Propaganda

Study shows that the New York Times portrays Islam and Muslims more negatively than alcohol, cancer, and cocaine

New York Times
The New York Times: Bastion of imperial 'reality creating'
A study released in November 2015 by 416 Labs, a Toronto-based consulting firm, reveals that the New York Times portrays Islam/Muslims more negatively than alcohol, cancer, and cocaine among other benchmarked words.

Based on a sentiment analysis of online and print headlines spanning 25 years of coverage, the study found "strong evidence that Islam/Muslims are consistently associated with negative terms in NYT headlines." Key findings pertaining to 2,667,700 articles include:
  • "57% of the headlines containing the words Islam/Muslims were scored negatively. Only 8% of the headlines were scored positively.
  • Compared to all the other benchmarked terms (Republican, Democrat, Cancer and Yankees, Christianity and Alcohol), Islam/Muslims had the highest incidents of negative terms throughout the 25-year period.
  • Not once over the examined period does the aggregate negative sentiment of headlines related to Islam/Muslims go below the NYT aggregate (29%) for all headlines.
  • The most frequent terms associated with Islam/Muslims include "Rebels" and "Militant." None of the 25 most frequently occurring terms were positive."

Comment: A Fascist tool, the New York Times is as much a problem as the political hacks and imperial lackeys drawing up plans to carve up the world. But under the con of being an objective - even liberal - newspaper, it has gotten a free pass by many to distort, deceive, and manipulate public perception to the detriment, and ultimate destruction of, many.


Megaphone

Injured protesters sue NYPD for using sound cannons at Eric Garner demonstration

LRAD sound cannon
LRAD sound cannon mounted to top of Police vehicle
The New York City Police Department has been sued for having allegedly injured demonstrators at a protest over the death of Eric Garner by using military-grade sound cannons to disperse them.

According to a complaint filed on Thursday night against the NYPD and Commissioner William Bratton, five plaintiffs suffered ear damage and other injuries after being targeted at an early morning protest on Dec. 5, 2014 in midtown Manhattan by one of the NYPD's Long Range Acoustic Devices, or LRADs.

Police can use the devices as loudspeakers, or to disperse crowds through volumes that can top 120 decibels, louder than a sandblaster or power saw.

The plaintiffs Anika Edrei, Shay Horse, James Craven, Keegan Stephan and Michael Nusbaum included photojournalists, a photographer, a graduate student and an activist.

Comment: The LRAD -- yet another tool in Amerika's arsenal of repression directed at citizens who are no longer willing to put up with the brutal and violent fascism that has been inflicted on them. Pathological tactics and training courtesy of Israel.


House

Cave-dwelling tradition: Drone films incredible Chinese underground village

Chinese cave homes
© Ruptly
A drone has captured a bird's eye view of a spectacular underground village in the province of Henan, central China.

The footage reveals a subterranean village complex consisting of man-made caves in the city of Sanmenxia, which has the largest collection of such homes - at around 100 clusters.

Two-meter wide wells prevent the cave homes and courtyards from flooding, Channel News Asia reports.

The structures prevent temperatures dropping too low in winter and too high in summer as they protect inhabitants from strong winds and scorching surface temperatures.

Eye 2

Apartheid State: Israel demolishes entire Palestinian community, leaves families without homes, school or work

Israel demolition Palestine Gaza
© I Acknowledge Apartheid Exists / Facebook
Israel has demolished at least 41 structures, including an elementary school, in one of the villages in the West Bank, leaving dozens of people homeless, the UN said. The current destruction trend is one of the highest on record in the West Bank since 2009.

The latest demolition by the Israeli Civil Administration in Khirbet Tana, on the outskirts of Nablus city, "displaced ten families with 36 members, including 11 children, and affected the livelihoods of five additional families," Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for occupied Palestinian territory said in a statement.

Khirbet Tana, a community of some 250 relying on herding and agriculture for their livelihood, is now left practically with no infrastructure. All in all, the destruction included 11 homes, five common bathrooms, one kitchen and 18 farming structures. Two traditional ovens and one solar system, all used for communal living were also destroyed.

Comment: For Palestinians this is a regular occurrence - along with their children getting abducted and tortured by Israeli forces and their loved ones killed whenever Israel decides to bomb their neighborhoods. Also see:
Everything is known of the everyday indignities of living under the Israeli occupation: the checkpoints, the separation wall, the embargo, the settlers, the IDF raids...

Much has been written about individual acts of violence and inconvenience. The fundamental immobility of the Palestinians is not often underlined. Palestinians in Gaza are cut off from this in the West Bank, who are themselves not allowed into Israel proper. The seminars I attend rely upon Skype to link intellectuals, whose academic freedom is violated systematically by Israel. Gaza is in a spectacular form of isolation. But the West Bank is also caged in.

The list of indignities when listed again and again attain the status of making the occupation eternal. The Palestinian comes across as victim. The Israeli as powerful and the victor. This is the myth of the IDF and Mossad:: that they are invincible and legendary. Each retelling affirms the Israeli project. The Palestinian movement is tossed into purgatory.

The indignity and failure of the Israeli occupation



Dollars

Dumb and dumber: Government fines homeless man over $110,000 for being homeless

homeless
The recent case of a homeless man racking up massive fines has exposed the widespread police practice of fining homeless people for being homeless.

Émilie Guimond-Bélanger, a social worker at the Droits Devant legal clinic in Montreal spoke to the media about a case that she worked on where a homeless man racked up over $110,000 in tickets.

"It was shocking. We've never seen someone with so many tickets," Émilie told CBC.

The man had over 500 tickets, which amounted to over $110,000 in fines. The fines were mostly for things that homeless people can't control, such as sleeping in the subway or asking people for money.