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Hundreds of Maryland students walk out of class to protest gun violence

Maryland school walkout
© Reuters
Hundreds of students in Maryland on Wednesday walked out of class and began marching toward the U.S. Capitol to demand action on gun control.

Students at Montgomery Blair High School in Montgomery County planned a walkout through social media, according to a reporter from ABC 7.

According to Fox 5, students at Richard Montgomery and Bethesda-Chevy Chase high schools are also taking part in a walkout.

The students will finish the rally at the Capitol.

Comment: Students are being used by anti-gun activists to pursue a particular political agenda. It is one which paints conservatives as responsible for violence and decline in the US. Not only is this agenda lacking in perspective, it wrongly assigns criminal thinking broadly to the right, when it more closely resembles that of the rising extreme left. See: Florida School Shooting: A Culture of Narcissistic Entitlement and Resentment


Megaphone

Outrage in Florida as state legislature passes porn bill hours after rejecting gun control

Students Florida congress
© Colin Hackley / Reuters
Students at the Florida congress house gallery begin to grieve as legislators strike down legislation on gun reform.
A week after 17 people were killed in a shooting at a Parkland, Florida school, the state legislature is facing backlash over dropping a gun control bill yet finding time to debate the ills of pornography.

In Tuesday's session, the Florida House of Representatives voted 36-71 against passing House Bill 219 in a matter of three minutes. The bill would have prohibited the sale of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines and required "certificates of possession" for lawfully-possessed firearms, among other measures.

The bill had not been heard in the House committees since representative Kionne McGhee, [D-Miami] submitted it last October. A January 10 senate bill was likewise ignored.

An hour later, Rep. Ross Spano turned the lawmakers' attention to more pressing matters: pornography. The bill (HR 157) argued that it was "creating a public health risk" and was "contributing to the hypersexualization of children and teens."

Comment: Simply banning AR-15s will not stop people like Cruz from finding some other way to hurt people in order to gain notoriety. If people want something to be done that might actually lower the number of school shootings in America, then calling for the media to stop publishing the names and pictures of shooters, and thus removing the notoriety, may be one way to go. As far as pornography is concerned, it most certainly is a public health crisis of epidemic proportions and should be recognized as such.


Heart - Black

Finland turns away Iraqi human rights and anti-corruption researcher seeking asylum - he's killed on his return

migrant refugee
© REUTERS/Khalid al Mousily
Ali's daughter, Noor, is adamant her father was killed by the same people who had made him seek refuge in Finland in 2015.

A man who was denied asylum by Finland's immigration service has been shot dead just weeks after his return to Iraq, according to Finnish public broadcaster YLE.

Ali had said he sought refuge in Finland for being an "incorruptible" researcher on human rights and corruption. In a YLE documentary aired at the start of 2017, Ali said that this made him a danger to many implicated in corruption.

Comment: Had Western governments not supported the illegal wars in the Middle East or backed 'open door' immigration policy in the first place, granting genuine asylum to those who need it wouldn't be so problematic: Check out SOTT radio's: The Truth Perspective: Weapons of Mass Migration: Interview with Michael Springmann on Europe's Migrant Crisis


Ambulance

Connecticut man crashes car into hospital, sets himself on fire

Man crashes into CT hospital
© John Woike/Hartford Courant
Middletown firefighhters, FBI, State Police and local police are investigating an accident after a car drove into the entrance of Middlesex Hospital Thursday.
A man in his 20s crashed his car through the emergency room entrance at Middlesex Hospital Thursday morning and apparently set himself on fire, Mayor Daniel Drew said.

Drew said the act was intentional, but he would not speculate on the motive. The FBI, state police and Hartford bomb squads responded to the hospital, located at 28 Crescent St., and went to the man's home at 66 Milardo Lane on Thursday afternoon, officials said. When asked whether the incident is being investigating as a possible act of terrorism, Drew said officials are not speculating what the man's motives may have been.

Officials said the car crashed through the hospital doors at about 10 a.m. A number of gas cans were found in the vehicle, prompting evacuations of the hospital and nearby homes.

Attention

Fmr. Bolivian president Lozada to face trial in Florida over human rights abuses

Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada

Former Bolivian president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, seen here in a September 30 2003 picture, is to go on trial in Florida for alleged human rights abuses during 2003 protests against his government.
Former Bolivian president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada goes on trial in Florida next month in a civil suit over his role in the killing of more than 50 civilians during disturbances in 2003, court documents showed Wednesday.

It would be the first time a former head of state will face trial in the US for human rights abuses, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is among a team of lawyers representing relatives of eight of the victims.

The suit alleges that Sanchez de Lozada and his defense minister, Carlos Sanchez Berzain, planned the extra-judicial killings by Bolivian security forces.

A federal judge ruled that the two will face trial in Fort Lauderdale, Florida starting March 5 under a law that permits civil suits in US courts for extrajudicial killings.

Comment: The relatives of those killed may have their day in court, but whether justice will be served is questionable:
Obama administration refuses extradition Bolivia's ex-president on genocide charges

In October 2003, the intensely pro-US president of Bolivia, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, sent his security forces to suppress growing popular protests against the government's energy and globalization policies. Using high-powered rifles and machine guns, his military forces killed 67 men, women and children, and injured 400 more, almost all of whom were poor and from the nation's indigenous Aymara communities. Dozens of protesters had been killed by government forces in the prior months when troops were sent to suppress them.

The resulting outrage over what became known as "the Gas Wars" drove Sanchez de Lozada from office and then into exile in the United States, where he was welcomed by his close allies in the Bush administration. He has lived under a shield of asylum in the US ever since.
[..]
The former leader - a multimillionaire mining executive who, having been educated in the US, spoke Spanish with a heavy American accent - was a loyal partner in America's drug war in the region. More importantly, the former leader himself was a vehement proponent and relentless crusader for free trade and free market policies favored by the US: policies that the nation's indigenous poor long believed (with substantial basis) resulted in their impoverishment while enriching Bolivia's small Europeanized elite.

It was Sánchez de Lozada's forced exile that ultimately led to the 2006 election and 2009 landslide re-election of Morales, a figure the New York Times in October 2003 described as one "regarded by Washington as its main enemy". Morales has been as vehement an opponent of globalization and free trade as Sánchez de Lozada was a proponent, and has constantly opposed US interference in his region and elsewhere (in 2011, Morales called for the revocation of Obama's Nobel Peace Prize as a result of the intervention in Libya).
See also: Bolivian 'Day of Dignity' commemorates 'Black October' massacre


Cow Skull

DACA amnesty could hurt American millennials most

DACA protestors
Although millennials are the first to virtuously signal their support for granting amnesty to DACA recipients, they are also the demographic cohort most hurt by DACA.

This is an bizarre paradox - why would anyone favor a policy that harms them? Misinformation? Perhaps. Or maybe millennials think - feel, rather - that they have more to gain (socially) from supporting DACA than they do to lose (economically). This is probably closer to the truth. Some doubtlessly do, but as a group millennials will be the losers in any DACA amnesty deal.

DACA is the acronym for President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive order, which granted temporary legal status to any illegal immigrant to arrived in America before the age of 16. Roughly 800,000 people enrolled in the program, although the total number of potential DACA recipients is nearly 2 million. This is how many people would likely receive amnesty in an amnesty deal.

Comment: Immigration, like any other large problem, is not black and white. No doubt there are among the Dreamers fine, intelligent young people who will be a credit to their community. The issue is to weed out those who have taken up a criminal lifestyle (e.g. M-13 gang members) or who otherwise are a drain on the country. The Democrats loudly oppose any sort of vetting, as every immigrant is a potential future vote.


Extinguisher

Biblical sex 101: Michigan church faces state investigation, death threats for holding sexuality workshop

bible
© Pixabay
From the moment Metro City Church announced a workshop for teenage girls struggling from peer pressure and questions about sexual identity, Jeremy Schossau, the lead pastor for the church with campuses in Riverview and Taylor, Michigan, said he and the congregation had faced "unbridled" hate and vitriol.

"Every kind of threat imaginable, from killing my family to burning down our church, has been leveled against us," Schossau said at a press conference at the state capitol last week with other pastors and supporters.


Comment: Tolerance in action.


The latest threat came from a man who was arrested after threatening that Antifa would show up at the church. Brian Carl Begin II was arraigned Feb. 15 on misdemeanor charges.

"In the middle of the voicemail the male states if the church goes through with the gay conversion therapy class in the state of Michigan, I promise every member of the Antifa will show up 'armed and ready. This is not a joke,'" the police told the News-Herald.

Protesters gathered at the church on the occasions of the six-week workshop - which has since been canceled - and the church has received a continuous stream of emails and voicemail claiming the aim of the course was "conversion therapy."


Comment: We can see what direction this is going. Anyone who questions transgender "identity" issues can now be accused of advocating "conversion" therapy.


The complaints and protest led two state legislators to speak out against the church, introduce a bill to make conversation therapy illegal in the state, and called on the attorney general's office to investigate the congregation.

Jet4

Russia deploys new warplanes at Hmeimim airbase - Video shows Russia's 5th-gen jets in action over Syria - UPDATE

The Russian Aerospace Forces deployed warplanes at their Hmeimim airbase

The Russian Aerospace Forces deployed warplanes at their Hmeimim airbase
On February 21, the Russian Aerospace Forces deployed additional warplanes at their Hmeimim airbase near the Syrian coastal city of Jableh. According to Syrian pro-government sources, four Su-35 multi-role fighters and four Su-25 attack aircraft escorted by a Tu-154M plane arrived at the airbase.

An A-50U Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) plane was also deployed, according to the sources. The A-50U is equipped with a Vega Shmel-M radar. It can detect a launch of missile or a fighter jet in the range of 650km. The detection range for ground targets is 300km. The plane can remain in the air for more than 9 hours and has an ability to guide friendly fighters and track multiple enemy fighters on the same time. It can also detect ground targets and ships.


Comment: Amid a very recent dispatch of reinforcements to Syria, the Russian Aerospace Forces have brought with them a number of its latest 5th generation stealth air superiority fighters - the Su-57.
Along with the 5th generation stealth aircraft came another 8 warplanes including four Su-35S multi-role air superiority fighters and four Su-25 ground attack aircraft.

With the arrival of the Su-57s (and additional warplanes in general), it appears that Moscow is expecting major escalations in Syria during 2018 and - having been caught off-guard in the past - wants to be fully prepared for anything drastic situation that may arise.
Update: The Su-57 is a fifth generation fighter jet, the most advanced in the Russian air force. The video appears to capture its first combat drill.



Heart - Black

American woman publicly shamed by CNN for sharing 'Russian' event on Facebook - abuse and violent threats against her follow

cnn screen
A private citizen received online abuse after CNN tracked her down and publicly shamed her for unknowingly sharing a "Russian-coordinated event" on her Facebook page.

While filming the woman, who runs a pro-Trump page on Facebook, CNN publicly shamed her for "unwittingly" promoting a "Russian-coordinated event."


"When you're talking like this, I don't want anything to do with you," complained the woman after being repeatedly harassed by CNN's Special Investigations Unit Reporter Drew Griffin.

Following the incident, conservative commentators criticized CNN for tracking down and attempting to publicly shame private citizens.

"Stop harassing people at their homes, you psychos!" replied conservative YouTube star Mark Dice.

Bizarro Earth

South African president pledges to seize white farmers land without compensation and redistribute to black citizens

Cyril Ramaphosa
© Mike Hutchings / Reuters
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa
South Africa's new president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has pledged to return the lands owned by white farmers since the 1600s to the black citizens of the country.

The government plans to accelerate land redistribution through expropriation without compensation.

"The expropriation of land without compensation is envisaged as one of the measures that we will use to accelerate the redistribution of land to black South Africans," said Ramaphosa, who was sworn into office to succeed Jacob Zuma as president last week.

Comment: The social justice mentality is running rampant and is manifesting the very things it rails against. Discriminating laws based on race were a bad idea during South Africa's apartheid, and they happen to still be a bad idea now.