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Drunk and crazed cops flash badges, threaten to kill people and carry out mass shooting

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Wed, 19 Dec 2018 16:49 UTC
bexar county sheriffs
The Bexar County sheriff's department is no stranger to controversy. Their history includes killing children, raping toddlers, and shooting innocent elderly grandmothers. Now, the department is in the spotlight once again-this time, for threatening to carry out a mass shooting.

According to surveillance video and multiple witnesses, two Bexar County deputies were off duty and drinking at Deol's Bar in San Antonio last week when things took a turn for the worse.

"They said that they were going to come back and shoot up the bar and kill people," said Joshua Cornell, a bouncer at Deol's.

According to witnesses, the cops were not only drunk on alcohol but they were also drunk on power as they ordered patrons around and demanded the DJ play what they wanted. The deputies went so far as to show the patrons their badges to demand they comply. When people refused to comply with the power-tripping deputies, the deputies became enraged.

"They were trying to order people around and tell them what they could and couldn't do just because they're Bexar County sheriff," said Cornell.
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Eye 1

Because a citizen filmed it, cop found guilty for kicking handcuffed teen's head

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Thu, 20 Dec 2018 16:41 UTC
Anthony Foster Junior
As TFTP reported in May, a vigilant citizen with a cellphone captured video of the ridiculously excessive force by police on 18-year-old kid who ran from them. In spite of the teen being handcuffed, face-down on the ground, with another officer on top of him, a Franklin Township police officer is seen punting his face like a football. This week, in a rare move, the officer was actually found guilty for his crimes.

Former Franklin Township Police Officer Robert Wells, 49, pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law, according to Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien.

"While we support police officers, whenever an office uses excessive unreasonable force such as this there is just no justification for that," said O'Brien. "Everyone has the right to be free from the use of excessive force by law-enforcement officers."
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Propaganda

Fighting the mob: PewDiePie's battle for the soul of the internet

Allen Farrington
Quillette
Thu, 20 Dec 2018 00:01 UTC
PewDiePie
This is a story about the question of who holds power over what we can say, hear, watch and read on the internet - an increasingly urgent issue that many ordinary people have cause to think about every day. And yet the protagonist in this story, the man whose fate symbolizes the future of social media and the corporate web that controls it, is unknown to the vast majority of educated readers.

That man is PewDiePie, a Swedish comedian whose real name is Felix Kjellberg. With 77-million subscribers, he has the most popular YouTube channel in the world. Within YouTube's video subculture, he is regarded as a true celebrity - a sort of Joe Rogan, Kanye West and Ben Shapiro all rolled into one. As of this writing, PewDiePie is closing in on 20-billion total views - roughly equivalent to three views for every human on the planet.

Comment: Love him or hate him (or never having heard of him) by being YouTube's ultimate champion content creator, PewDiePie has painted a giant target on himself for the PC mob to attack. Much like with Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, Sargon of Akkad and any number of other targets of the PC police, the accusations against PewDiePie are ridiculous in the extreme. But given what's happening with Patreon at the moment, perhaps these giant social media platforms will think twice about deplatforming users simply because a vocal, outraged minority demands it. YouTube's user base is unlikely to stand for their favourite personality getting the boot because some professional offendees can't get a life.

See also:

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Book 2

A book to inoculate kids against anti-science ideology and teach kids about the nature of genetics

Richard Haier
Quillette
Thu, 20 Dec 2018 00:01 UTC
IQ kids brain
A review of Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are by Kevin J. Mitchell. Princeton University Press (October 16, 2018) 304 pages.
Kevin Mitchell's Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are is a book for high school students. And I mean that as a compliment. Profound misunderstandings about the genetic nature of human beings lie at the heart of the social justice movement, as well as some education reforms, attitudes toward mental disorders, aspects of the self-help industry, and social policies including but not limited to immigration, welfare, racism, and sex/gender issues. What a person understands or misunderstands about genetics is a foundation for evaluating new ideas encountered in college, forming political opinions, dealing with difficult co-workers, tackling issues of parenthood and family, and generally living day-to-day life.

If read early enough, Innate might provide some inoculation against bad or naïve information about human nature and the indisputable role played by genes. That is why it belongs on high school reading lists, not just in science classes. Think general liberal education.

Comment: The denial of biological science seems to be reaching a fever-pitch, with attacks on biologists, psychologists, geneticists and others happening almost daily. The ideological left is completely uncomfortable with the truth and are in-turn smearing anyone who dares to report it. This can not be allowed if we expect to continue as a species. Scientific truths should never be so controversial as to be silenced. Science is how we make progress - denial is regression.

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Arrow Down

Survey of 'profession ethics' finds Members of Congress rated lower than telemarketers

Paul Bedard
Washington Examiner
Fri, 21 Dec 2018 11:51 UTC
ethics honesty integrity respect
Politicians, lawyers, telemarketers, and journalists sit at the low end of a new survey asking which profession has the highest ethics and honesty.

Nurses are on top of the latest Gallup survey, with 84 percent viewing their profession as one with "very high" ethics.

Last sit members of Congress. Just 8 percent view them as highly ethical and 58 percent view as having "very low" ethics, the biggest percentage in the annual poll taken since 1976.

Below average are journalists - even lower than scandal-plagued Catholic priests. Some 33 percent of those polled said reporters are honest and have high ethics and 34 percent said the industry's ethics and honesty are low.
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Question

Family struggling to understand how mom was jailed for 5 months and died before they knew she was there

Pamela Kirkland
CNN
Fri, 21 Dec 2018 11:22 UTC
Janice Dotson-Stephens

Janice Dotson-Stephens had a history of mental health problems, her daughter says.
A woman held on a $300 bond for five months died Friday in a Texas jail, and the 61-year-old's family was unaware she had been arrested until it was time for them to collect the body.

Janice Dotson-Stephens had been arrested on July 18 in Bexar County and charged with criminal trespassing. Her daughter, Michelle Dotson, said the Bexar County Sheriff's Office did not have a next of kin listed for her mother. "We asked about her being in jail for so long. We are still getting clarity on the chain of events," she said.

The sheriff's office said Dotson-Stephens died of natural causes. According to the Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office, the cause of death was atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, or coronary artery disease. They also listed schizoaffective disorder, a chronic mental health condition characterized by symptoms of schizophrenia, as a contributing factor.
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Question

1 dead, several injured after man plows car into bus stop in Germany


Deutsche Welle
Fri, 21 Dec 2018 14:00 UTC
Germany bus stop crash
Driver plows car into pedestrians at German bus stop, killing one

Recklinghausen police have said that several people were injured and one killed in the incident. They have, however, warned that no assumptions should be made at this point.

On Thursday afternoon a 32-year-old man drove his car into a group of pedestrians waiting at a bus stop in the German city of Recklinghausen, near Dortmund. The crash injured seven people, including the driver, and killed an 88-year-old woman.

The cause of the accident, which took place shortly before 3 p.m. local time (1400 GMT/UTC), is not yet known.

The driver reportedly swerved out of his lane, crossing onto the wrong side of the street before plowing into the crowded bus stop.

"Police experts are working intensively on determining the cause. The area around the accident has been closed off," local police said on Twitter.

Comment:


See also: France: Counter-terrorism troops open fire on car that tried to ram them, vehicle still on the run

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Target

In defense of male stoicism

Ben Sixsmith
Quillette
Fri, 21 Dec 2018 00:01 UTC
man standing stoic
© unsplash
I dealt with the most stereotypically feminine of mental illnesses in the most stereotypically masculine way. After acknowledging that I was anorexic, and deciding that I had no wish to be, I put my head down and tried to recover with the minimum of fuss. I told almost nobody about my condition, and almost never discussed it with the people I had told. I had two sessions with a therapist - almost missing the first after getting myself lost and terrifying pedestrians by running up to them, wild-eyed, to ask for directions to the mental health center - and then abandoned them out of embarrassment and reticence. I did not want to talk, and I did not cry, and I had no wish to hold anyone's hand or be hugged.

As a means of recovery, I would not recommend this. I was fortunate enough to have a family who supported me as I recovered, and someone less privileged would need additional support. Had I been more open to professional help, meanwhile, I might have made a quicker and more comprehensive recovery, and if someone feels as if it might be good for them I have no reservations about advising people to seek it.
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Handcuffs

France protests: Police threaten to join protesters, demand better pay and conditions

David Brennan
Newsweek
Wed, 19 Dec 2018 10:52 UTC
Yellow vest protesters clash with police
© Veronique de Viguerie/Getty Images
Yellow vest protesters clash with police in Paris, on December 15. French officials met with police trade union leaders to work out a deal to soothe anger in law enforcement ranks regarding overwork, unpaid overtime and difficult working conditions.
The French government is desperately trying to keep its exhausted police force onside following weeks of violent protests demanding economic reforms, improved living standards and the resignation of President Emmanuel Macron.

On Wednesday, French officials met with police trade union leaders to work out a deal to soothe anger in law enforcement ranks regarding overwork, unpaid overtime and difficult working conditions, Le Monde reported.

But some activists are calling on police to walk out on government negotiations, close down police stations and join the "gilets jaunes" - or yellow vest - protesters with whom they have been facing off since November 17.

Comment: It's easy to see why the police would be against fighting their own countrymen with whom, fundamentally, they agree. France is a mess, and police officers are suffering as much as the rest of the country. If Macron loses control of the police things will really start to go downhill for the French government. It's hard to see any other option than to concede to the demands of the Gilets Jaunes, but this seems unlikely, and the whole confrontation may end up escalating.

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Display

YouTube removes 58 million videos featuring hateful or inappropriate content

Sarah Whyte
ABC
Mon, 17 Dec 2018 07:06 UTC
girl apple laptop
© Unsplash: Steinar Engeland
YouTube uses more advanced machine learning technology to flag content that violates its guidelines.
YouTube was once seen as safe space, free from government regulation and censorship.

But the dark side of the sharing platform has been laid bare in a report that reveals in the past three months, it has had to remove 58 million videos that were posting hateful or inappropriate content.

Catherine Archer, a lecturer at Murdoch University who specialises in social media, said it is the tip of the iceberg.

"I guess it's starting to admit the problem, but the whole point of YouTube was being able to upload a video without being a professional," she said.

Comment: Anyone with two firing neurons can see that the type of content being removed from YouTube is being done within an ideological framework. More than likely, they are removing actual hateful, racist content, but much of what is getting removed is nothing of the sort. A significant part of the problem lies in the fact that it's difficult to teach a machine to detect intent, and context isn't taken into account. And when you've got human workers who are ideologically indoctrinated policing content along with the computer algorithms, you essentially just have two different types of machines doing the work.

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