When a police officer responded to a report of a "vicious" dog, he took the time to give the animal a chance instead of opening fire and ending the dog"s life.
The post Cop Uses Compassion Instead of Violence to Respond to Lost Dog and Something Amazing Happened appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
The Rothschild-linked Bronfman sisters donated millions to the cult whose leaders, Allison Mack and Keith Raniere, have been charged with child sex trafficking.
The post Media Silent as Allison Mack’s Arrest Exposes Child Trafficking For Billionaire-Backed Sex Slave Ring appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
Two super fans jumped the gate to the home of Keanu Reeves and instead of calling 911 to report them, he invited them in to hang out and drink beer.
The post Fans Jump Keanu Reeves Gate, But He Refused to Call the Cops, Invites Them in for Beer Instead appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
Research has shown that the classified websites targeted by the government have actually helped to reduce the homicide rate among sex workers.
The post Study Shows ‘Escort Service’ Websites Save Lives Right As Trump Signs Bill to Shut Them All Down appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
A shocking experiment shows the level to which people will go just to comply with social norms and pressure—up to and including committing murder.
The post Shocking Experiment Shows People Will Murder Others Just to Conform to Society appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
No Joke. A new ordinance just made it illegal to give money to panhandlers and offenders will face steep fines and even jail time.
Bishop T.D. Jakes decries Libyan slave trading and how the US Media and government are ignoring it. He is now calling on his followers to get involved.
Images emerging from Libya tell a sordid tale of modern-day slave trading, the international response, and a call for the slave traders to be tried in international criminal court.
Only in American do people trample each other to buy things on Black Friday exactly one day after being thankful for what they already have.
Buckeye, AZ — Officer David Grossman and the Buckeye Police Department are under fire this week from an angry family who says the way the Phoenix area police officer treated their 14-year-old autistic son was completely inappropriate for an officer of the peace. The officer slammed their son to the ground, injuring him in the process, and now the family wants answers.
Grossman explained to his supervisors why he felt the need to take the boy to the ground that day on July 19. He said he noticed Connor Leibel pacing from the park’s street bench to the corner of the street, fidgeting with something he was holding in his hand, and then smelling it. He said after smelling it the boy appeared to seize and would then do it all again.
In the untrained mind of the officer, the boy was obviously under the influence of some inhaled substance, a conclusion he apparently arrived at well before he made contact with Connor.
As the body camera footage shows, Grossman approached Connor and asked him what he was doing. The autistic boy responded with “good” and that he was “stimming” — short for self-stimulation — the often repetitive actions, movements, and sounds many if not most autistic individuals make to calm and stimulate themselves.
“I’m okay. I’m okay,” Connor screamed as the man he was likely always was told by his family was there as a protector, in that moment, became his tormentor.
Anyone who knows anything about working with autistic individuals knows how to spot someone who is likely autistic. There are the tell-tale signs of repetitive behaviors, rocking motions, awkward social interactions, and inappropriate speech responses in some. And one thing experts also know is autistic individuals get extremely agitated, anxious, and sometimes combative when they’re touched.
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READ MORE: Autistic 8-Year-Old Child Arrested, Brought to Jail & Put In Straight Jacket Over School Outburst
Grossman grabbed Connor as the young teenager attempted to walk away from the officer, an action which was well within his civil rights since he was not a suspect in any crime. But Grossman quickly told him not to walk away and attempted to place the boy in handcuffs after grabbing him by the arm.
Connor again attempted to pull away. But when he did, Grossman took him to the ground and held him there until backup arrived, all the while Connor was screaming in agony and trying to mentally make sense of everything happening to him.
“Don’t move…Stop moving…Don’t you move, you understand?” Grossman told the boy as a dangerous situation could have quickly gotten out of hand. If the boy had reached back and grabbed Grossman’s gun, what would have happened then?
“Why are you acting like this Connor,” he asked. “Cause I’m okay,” the boy replied.
The young boy’s aunt, Diane, heard all the child’s screams and approached the scene. She told Grossman she was sorry if her nephew had done anything wrong but stated he had autism. “He’s fighting with me,” the officer said being completely untruthful with the boy’s guardian.
At that moment, the officer should have removed his hands from the boy and allowed him to get to his feet. Instead, he held him down (a no, no with autistic individuals) for what must have been agonizing minutes until his backup arrived.
“He’s doing something with his hands…I don’t know what that is,” the officer stated. “You don’t have anything (drugs) on you do you,” he ignorantly asked again.
READ MORE: Because they Lack Crucial Training, These Cops Severely Beat a Blind Autistic Teen Unconscious
“So you drove by, you saw him stimming, and you thought he was on drugs? You don’t know anything about autism, huh”? Diane asked.
After making contact with the autistic boy and his mother, it appeared as though he used the aunt’s identification to run a background check on her to see if she had any warrants.
“I’m so wrong,” Grossman said but wasn’t speaking to the aunt or the boy which would have been the most appropriate person to admit his flaws. Instead, he told a colleague how wrong he was, who responded by saying, “What did you do now?” That one comment may lead many to concluded Grossman has a history of boneheaded missteps.
Now the family is demanding answers. After filing a complaint with the Buckeye police department, and going to the media with pictures of his injuries, the BPD said they have concluded their officer followed procedure. A police spokesperson said they will use the interaction as a learning opportunity to prevent further misunderstanding in the future.
In a statement sent to ABC15 in Phoenix, the family said;
The family is anguished about what happened to Connor. It’s astonishing that even after an internal investigation, the Buckeye Police Department claims it did absolutely nothing wrong.
Diane reportedly works at Desert Edge High School in Goodyear, Arizona. She was walking another sibling across the street to music lessons classes when Grossman, a so-called “drug recognition expert” made contact with Connor who was only alone for a few moments.
Buckeye PD conducted their own internal investigation and concluded Grossman did not apply any use of force in detaining Connor, according to spokesperson Detective Tamela Skaggs.
READ MORE: School Cop Honored for Bully Prevention, Caught Bullying & Terrorizing Autistic Child
According to ABCNews 15:
When asked why Grossman, a drug recognition expert, couldn’t tell the difference between a drug user and this boy’s behavior, Det. Skaggs said she couldn’t speak for Grossman because she wasn’t in his head and it happened so fast.
We were going to suggest that Diane round up all the Buckeye police officers and give them all training in how to distinguish a drug addict from an autistic person, but the family already knows what they want to see occur as a result of the gross misunderstanding. According to ABCNews 15, they have a very specific list of demands.
“The family is asking for three things to help seek justice for Connor: first, a personal apology from the officer; second, that the officer perform community service with the autistic community; and third, that Buckeye institute a mandatory training program to prevent an incident like this from ever happening again,” according to the family’s statement.
Raw body cam directly from Buckeye police.
The Buckeye, AZ incident is the second such police vs. special needs children incident we at TFTP have reported within the last two months. As we reported, an autistic boy in Utah was also manhandled when the officer who made contact with him did not like the responses he was given.
The officer laid hands on him and took him down to the ground with a wrist/elbow lock. The boy was then instructed to “listen” to the officer. But with individuals with special needs, even the act of listening can be a challenge. That’s why training is so important for officers to be able to distinguish a drug user from a person who has a health issue.
Richmond, VA — Richmond resident Chy-Niece Thacker didn’t know what to expect when she was pulled over Friday for having two tail lights out on her car. As she was looking for her required paperwork, Officer Jenkins reassured her, “Don’t worry about pulling anything out. I just want you to know that your brake lights are out.”
Thacker says she was on her way to an interview when the stop happened. After explaining to Officer Jenkins she’d been having a problem with her brake lights, she told the officer of the peace the mechanic wanted to collect $600 to test the wiring of her vehicle.
He looked at me like 😨 and told me to pop the trunk. He checked the lights in the trunk and tapped them, but they didn’t come on. So he told me to pop the hood to check the relay box then asked me to get out to check the other one.
Looking surprised, Jenkins switched gears from being a code enforcer to that of a Good Samaritan. Having a background in mechanics, he quickly checked the connections on the tail lights, and then looked under the bonnet at the relay box, where he found the problem. In just a few moments, Jenkins had Thacker safely back on the road, on her way to her job interview.
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Thacker seemed impressed having nothing but praise for Jenkins who refused to ticket the young lady, fixing her car instead. She wrote:
He could’ve easily given me a ticket, but Officer Jenkins stepped out of officer role and into mechanic role to make sure I was straight. #hesablessing
Officers who have a propensity to kindness and empathy wmay see Jenkins’ actions as routine, something police officers do every day. But other law enforcement officials may be quick to criticize Jenkins for not doing his job and ticketing the young lady.
READ MORE: Can Technology and Prisons Get Along? Inmates Raise $100,000 to Purchase Educational Computers
Such daily encounters with the public can and do have very different outcomes. As TFTP has reported, a broken tail light can be a death sentence for some motorists who quickly find themselves staring down the barrel of a loaded weapon pointed in their direction by the very people who are paid to protect them.
Philando Castile was shot and killed by a Minneapolis police officer, Jeronimo Yanez, as he was reaching into his pockets to take out his concealed carry license. Yanez was the only adult anywhere near the car that day who believed Castile was reaching for a weapon. As a result, Yanez opened fire, killing Castile instantly in front of his girlfriend and her child.
Body cavity searches are other ways routine traffic stops can end for motorists who get pulled over for having a burned out brake light. A Baltimore woman had her body cavity searched, presumably for drugs, after an officer pulled her over for having a burned out tail light. The incident and others were all documented in a 163-page Department of Justice report which criticized the city’s policing practices.
We applaud Officer Jenkins for helping Thacker in her time of need and we hope your act of kindness serves as a model for the rest of the nation’s law enforcement officers. It’s time to end the practice of pulling people over for broken tail lights and using the infraction as an excuse to “toss” a vehicle and see how many other misdemeanor and felony charges can be filed against a citizen motorist—all designed for one thing—to separate the citizen from his or her money.
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Houston, TX — It is time to strike while the iron is hot. Media coverage of the devastation in Texas is at a peak right now and history shows us that people will help when they see it on TV. However, when coverage stops, so does most of the support. Knowing this, it is time to make your move and show your support to your fellow humans who are suffering dearly right now after being hit by one of the worst storms in US history. But, before you simply click the link and donate to the Red Cross, you should know their history and know there are far better ways to help.
The Red Cross is no stranger to scandal. Putting them on the corruption map was their reaction to the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti. In 2010, hundreds of thousands of Haitians lost their lives in a tragic earthquake. Gail McGovern, the Red Cross’ CEO, and her staff quickly responded with a massive marketing push to raise funds. They received countless celebrity endorsements and even President Obama jumped on the train. In just a few days, they raised a half a billion dollars.
However, of that half billion, the Red Cross kept $125 million for themselves and didn’t disclose it until they were investigated. An investigation later revealed that the rest of the money the Red Cross spent in Haiti resulted in just six permanent homes, NPR and ProPublica found.
But that’s not all. The Red Cross’ response to Katrina was so horrific that some observers noted they were on the verge of criminal wrongdoing. Years later in 2012, it failed again for Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Isaac.
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The response was “worse than the storm,” one Red Cross driver told ProPublica during its jaw-dropping investigation. The Red Cross was more concerned with their public image than helping the storm victims so much so that they ordered employees to drive around empty trucks to make it appear like they were responding. “We were sent way down on the Gulf with nothing to give,” the driver said.
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But that’s not all. Fast forward to 2016 and the Red Cross was responding to the 1000-year flood in Louisiana. Despite Nancy Malone, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross, saying that it was misinformation, there were countless reports of Red Cross stations turning down donations of supplies. Wheel chairs, crutches, canes, diabetic supplies and other goods like clothes and water, were just some of the supplies refused by the Red Cross.
What’s more, when they did take donations during the flood, many of them were reported for throwing them away.
As Justin Elliott notes, writing for Pro Publica, the Red Cross stopped helping people once it was taken over by a team of former AT&T executives who tried to turn it into a profit machine instead of a charity.
As part of her effort to run the Red Cross more like a business, McGovern recruited more than 10 former AT&T executives to top positions. The move stirred resentment inside the organization, with some longtime Red Cross hands referring to the charity as the “AT&T retirement program.’’
McGovern laid out a vision to increase revenue through “consolidated, powerful, breathtaking marketing.”
“This is a brand to die for,” she often said.
The bottom line is that the Red Cross has become a massively centralized bureaucracy that is seemingly more concerned with self-preservation and corporate salaries than they are helping victims of natural disasters.
READ MORE: 25 Ways that the Police Foster Tyranny by Just Doing their Jobs
So, where can you go to help? Well, the answer is not simply donating to a single company who may or may not use that money to help victims. Luckily, there are smaller organizations—far more transparent than the Red Cross—who specialize in certain areas that you can choose to fund.
Below is a list of 10 ways you can help the victims of Harvey.
If you want to help the those who can’t help themselves, Portlight Strategies is working to help to help older adults and those with disabilities. Donate here.
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Texas is helping displaced animals. You can donate at www.spca.org/give or sign up to adopt a displaced animal at www.spca.org/foster. Austin Pets Alive, which transferred more than 200 pets to its shelter as of Saturday morning, is also seeking help, as are the Animal Defense League of Texas and the Houston Humane Society. If you see a stranded marine animal, call the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southeast Regional Office at 1-877-942-5343.
Because these aid efforts will be prolonged for months or even years, it is best to give cash so it can be determined how to be spent in the future, which is unknown. However, if you only have supplies, donate food or cash to food banks in your area. Or you can donate to Feeding Texas, a network of food banks across the state. Find your local food bank here.
The Salvation Army says it is providing food and water to first responders and preparing for massive feeding efforts for residents. Unlike their competition, the Salvation Army has a history of giving back as much as possible. Donate here.
READ MORE: Meet the Most Lovable Police in the World and Their Fascinating Instagram Account
You can give blood. Outside of the Red Cross blood drives, there are also local organizations accepting blood donations, such as Carter BloodCare and the South Texas Blood & Tissue Center.
The Texas Diaper Bank, based in San Antonio, works to meet the basic needs of vulnerable babies, children with disabilities, and seniors. It focuses on providing partner agencies with diapers and goods. Donate here.
Have no cash and no supplies, but lots of time? Volunteer. Volunteer Houston has launched a VIRTUAL Volunteer Reception Center to aid nonprofits and agencies in finding and deploying people to hard-site areas.
The Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund set up by Houston’s mayor, Sylvester Turner, and administered by the Greater Houston Community Foundation is also helping victims. Donate here.
If you want to help children with complex medical needs you can give to the organization Little Lobbyists. Donate here.
If none of the above fit your donation fancy, then perhaps you can try GoFundMe. The crowd sourced group has compiled a list of Harvey Relief Efforts that allow you to pick individual cities, families or homes. You can view the list here.
Please share this article with your friends and family to show how they can really make their donations count—instead of padding executive salaries and massive marketing budgets.
Just weeks after violent riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, brought fuel to the fire making many believe that Americans are more divided than ever before, the scene in Houston, Texas, is the exact opposite.
The impact of Hurricane Harvey in southeast Texas has been described by officials as “catastrophic” and the National Weather Services released a statement saying, “This event is unprecedented & all impacts are unknown & beyond anything experienced.”
This event is unprecedented & all impacts are unknown & beyond anything experienced. Follow orders from officials to ensure safety. #Harvey pic.twitter.com/IjpWLey1h8
— NWS (@NWS) August 27, 2017
The before and after photos showing the record flooding that has overtaken the city of Houston are both heartbreaking and humbling:
Before and after images of the devastating #Houston #flooding. #Harvey2017 https://t.co/E5NMltWRoG pic.twitter.com/Io2uq763xw
— The Weather Channel (@weatherchannel) August 27, 2017
A remarkable amount of flooding in Houston. Here is a before and after of the I-160. pic.twitter.com/S9W5J3ZbFe
— Ben Parsons (@Ben_Parsons__) August 27, 2017
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Given the recent media coverage that has dominated headlines, one might think that there would also be reports of white nationalist groups flocking to Houston to help all of the white citizens, and members of AntiFa coming to the rescue of anyone hanging an anti-Trump banner from their front door. But the exact opposite is true.
“I’m going to go try to save some lives,” a man from Texas City told a reporter, as he helped lower a boat into the floodwaters.
"GOING TO SAVE SOME LIVES"
Heroes converging in #Houston#houstonflood #HurricaneHarvey pic.twitter.com/052ObBBrpx
— Austin Kellerman (@AustinKellerman) August 27, 2017
The sentiment of unity was shared across social media, and people of all backgrounds and races came together to rescue the elderly, children, and pets from the dangerous flood waters.
Don"t let anyone tell you that this nation is divided.#HoustonStrong #Houston #HoustonFlood #HurricaneHarvery #Harvey #rescue pic.twitter.com/5CicswWr18
— Joshua Reynolds (@joshjreynolds) August 28, 2017
Deputy Constables rescue an elderly woman from rising water in Houston, TX. #TropicalStormHarvey pic.twitter.com/jZ7Dgzz0qp
— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 28, 2017
Good Samaritans in Houston, Texas, rescue an elderly woman today from rising floodwaters. ABC"s @TomLlamasABC anchors from city tonight. pic.twitter.com/CqiYXWoOvZ
— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) August 27, 2017
Houston firefighters rescue woman"s dog & cat from 2-alarm fire. See: SE-023MO TX: PETS RESCUED FROM APARTMENT FIRE pic.twitter.com/i7Nrwrt5WD
— CNN Newsource (@CNNNewsource) May 17, 2016
Big love and respect to the amazing rescue crews keeping vulnerable children and the elderly safe in Houston.pic.twitter.com/MptDQNkdW9
— Greg Hogben (@MyDaughtersArmy) August 27, 2017
Residents of Houston are also receiving help from the Cajun Navy, a grassroots group of volunteers that made its name by rescuing stranded families during a massive flood in Louisiana last year.
READ MORE: WATCH: Veteran Nearly Killed by Cops for Legal Open Carry, Gets Gun Back
In addition to filling its Facebook page with messages on how people can help the victims of the storm, the group gathered volunteers in Baton Rouge on Monday, with a fleet of trucks and boats, in preparation for its rescue trip to Houston.
#Houston Hang on. The CAJUN NAVY is already activated and on the way. pic.twitter.com/O6NYOsmXL4
— Priscilla (@MaeMee) August 27, 2017
One of the most important things about the Cajun Navy is that it is demonstrating the impact everyday Americans can have when they come together and volunteer their time and resources. In many ways, they make a difference faster and on a greater scale than the federal government.
As New Orleans journalist Karen Dalton-Beninato noted, “Private boat owners are rescuing more from Harvey than any agency could. Like Louisiana’s Cajun Navy did last year.”
Private boat owners are rescuing more from Harvey than any agency could. Like Louisiana"s Cajun Navy did last year.https://t.co/aT6V8Ogwvk
— Karen DaltonBeninato (@kbeninato) August 27, 2017
At the end of the day, while many politicians and mainstream media pundits push the narrative that the United States is filled with division based on race and political affiliation, the fact is that those people who are defined by that narrative are a small segment of the population, and it is only when they receive media attention on a grand scale that people begin to believe the public is more divided than it actually is.
Mother Nature has no discrimination when it comes to wreaking havoc on cities and neighborhoods. The people who give selflessly with their time and resources, and who push through the obstacles to help those who cannot help themselves are the ones who should be recognized and celebrated by the media, because they are the ones living out the example that today’s children need to see.
Here is how you can help people impacted by #Harvey https://t.co/T3uEzymff4 pic.twitter.com/A1ebsNNW1t
— Cory Smith (@CorySmithNBC5) August 28, 2017
The latest movement within media and Hollywood pop culture is a distinctive agenda to normalize pedophilia and the sexualization of children. The latest example of this growing trend within mainstream media is a fashion show that many feel crossed the line from – with scantily clad girls, who appear to be as young as five-years-old, walking the runway in a Victoria’s Secret–style show.
Photo: australscopeThe show, held at a shopping mall in China, revealed shocking images of young girls wearing nothing but lingerie, costume wings, and headpieces. This comes on the heels of Kim Kardashian sparking controversy last month after she posted images of her new children’s line, which included a bikini and lace slip dress.
“I’m not dressing my 4-yr-old daughter in a leopard n lace slip dress Kim Kardashian Kids Line,” one disgruntled parent replied.
Photo: australscopeWhat you see talking place is simply the latest manifestation of what is, without question, a creeping agenda within the mainstream of pop culture to normalize and force public acceptance of pedophilia.
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We’ve previously reported on the constant drive within pop culture to normalize pedophilia:
In the current age of political correctness, some sects of society know no limits as to how far they will go to force acceptance to avoid offending others. In one extreme case of forcing such political correctness, Salon magazine implies that society must be accepting of pedophiles. In two separate articles, Salon refers to pedophilia as an ‘alternate sexual preference’ and suggests that society should embrace these differences by insinuating that this poor man is just misunderstood.
The article and video on Salon deal with pedophiles known as ‘non-offending’ — meaning while these individuals admit they are sexually attracted to prepubescent children, they claim they’ve never acted on it. However, the subject of one Salon article, Todd Nickerson admitted to seeking out jobs as a babysitter and noted that he “fell in love” with a five-year-old whom he babysat.
The U.S. corporate mainstream media is, without a doubt, the most sophisticated propaganda operation in the history of humankind, according to political philosopher Noam Chomsky, author of Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Media.
READ MORE: Wikileaks Confirms that CNN Really is the Clinton News Network
The mainstream media works diligently to alter and shape our perceptions and values. It seems clear that the propagandists are attempting to engineer a society that is accepting of pedophilia as a normalized behavior.
Both Elijah Wood and Corey Feldman have publicly discussed the fact that Hollywood is a den of pedophilia – noting that numerous powerful moguls and others within the Hollywood scene prey on the vulnerable like “vultures.”
Revealing exactly how the normalization propaganda operates, the New York Times published an op-ed proclaiming that pedophilia is “not a crime” – instead sympathetically characterizing pedophilia as a “disorder” that “these people [pedophiles] are living with.”
The sell is that people who rape, or who fantasize about exploiting or raping children are portrayed as victims living with a condition that they have little choice over. The article goes on to insert tidbits about “recent studies,” which is an appeal to authority meant to imply that the author’s normalization agenda is backed by science.
Thus, claims such as: “Men with pedophilia are three times more likely to be left-handed or ambidextrous, a finding that strongly suggests a neurological cause,” leaving readers to discern the credibility of the author’s opinion based on an unprofessional interpretation of the actual study.
Essentially, the idea being forwarded is that people who want to have sexual relations with children are suffering from a “disorder,” and thus are not subject to a moral evaluation, but instead are in need of compassion. The idea that pedophilia is a “condition,” rather than an internal mental process involving desires and attitudes, leaves the pedophile blameless.
READ MORE: Now that Trump"s In Office, Media Suddenly Concerned with US Military Killing Civilians
It’s clearly a sign of the times when the New York Times devotes more time to making excuses for pedophilia than it does defending innocent and victimized children!
Interestingly, the CEO of the New York Times, Mark Thompson, was involved in the cover-up of cases involving British child rapist Jimmy Saville — who raped as many as 500 children over the coarse of his career – while being protected by media moguls and celebrities alike.
Further revealing the nefarious agenda, when recent news broke of a massive pedophile ring being busted in Norway, numerous mainstream outlets deleted published reports on it – including the Washington Post, ABC News, and the New York Times.
Actions such as these give pause as to what exactly is the agenda of these major media outlets engaging in such actions.
From Seattle to Tuscaloosa, police arrested more than 1,000 people in just one month — including a law enforcement officer and pastor — as part of a sweeping crackdown on child sex offenders, and juvenile and adult sex trafficking in the United States.
Police from 37 departments in 17 states participated in the annual National Johns Suppression Initiative — a regular effort to ostensibly crack down on human trafficking and illegal sex work — rescuing 81 adult and child victims and arresting 1,020 people from Seattle to Chicago, and Texas to Tuscaloosa in the month-long effort spearheaded by Cook County, Illinois, Sheriff Thomas J. Dart.
Harris County, Texas, saw the largest number of people arrested, 170, while police in Seattle nabbed 160 alleged perpetrators and authorities throughout Cook County, seat of Chicago, arrested 141.
“Three brothels were shut down in Cook County by the sheriff’s office and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the sheriff’s office said. Three people were charged with operating brothels and four others were charged with patronizing them. Six adult victims were offered help,” CBS News reports.
Meanwhile, CNN reports, “In Arizona, officials said more than 400 people were discouraged from buying sex when they received texts, calls or Web browser redirects informing them about the impact of the illegal sex industry.
“Dart announced Thursday that his office will begin efforts to create a public database that lists sex buyers who are caught for a second or subsequent time.”
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Reports say more than 8,000 people have been arrested during the National Johns Suppression Initiative — just since 2011 — as the project continues taking aim at human trafficking and prostitution by arresting patrons, johns, pimps, and other sex offenders, while finding victims the assistance they may need.
On the surface, the news of more than 1,000 arrests sounds productive, if not sorely needed; but, scratch the gilding from this supposed payoff, and controversy — particularly that surrounding what many now view as an anachronistic view of sex work — bubbles furiously to the top.
As Elizabeth Nolan Brown pointed out sardonically for Reason, following a previous johns bust in 2015, “These coordinated efforts to entrap people around the country lead to large initial arrest-counts, ensuring them prominent placement in U.S. media. But few outlets ask questions about specific charges, merely accepting police PR that these were predators arrested and not largely adult men and women trying to have consensual sex. Nor do many folks follow up on the results of these stings. If they did, it would become clear that the ‘National John Suppression Initiative’ has naught to do with stopping sexual exploitation of minors.”
Charlotte Alter, who accompanied police during stings for the initiative in Cook County for TIME Magazine, notes, “some human rights organizations, most recently Amnesty International, advocate for the decriminalization of all aspects of sex work, including buying sex.”
Indeed, the International watchdog organization published its policy on protection of the world’s sex workers in 2015. Reiterating the contents of that policy in May last year, Amnesty wrote,
“The policy makes several calls on governments including for them to ensure protection from harm, exploitation and coercion; the participation of sex workers in the development of laws that affect their lives and safety; an end to discrimination and access to education and employment options for all.
“It recommends the decriminalization of consensual sex work, including those laws that prohibit associated activities—such as bans on buying, solicitation and general organization of sex work. This is based on evidence that these laws often make sex workers less safe and provide impunity for abusers with sex workers often too scared of being penalized to report crime to the police. Laws on sex work should focus on protecting people from exploitation and abuse, rather than trying to ban all sex work and penalize sex workers.”
One approach against the illicit sex industry, called the “Nordic Model,” developed in Norway and practiced by authorities in Canada, combats the entangled issues of human trafficking and consensual sex work — by arresting and penalizing customers and pimps, rather than prostitutes, who receive job and other assistance instead of jail time.
Authorities across the U.S. have employed the Nordic Model — including the head of the initiative. TIME reports,
“Dart only has jurisdiction in Cook County, but he’s encouraging officers from all over the country to try the buyer-focused approach. Some cities, like Seattle, have developed their own versions of this strategy but traded notes with Dart. Others, like Phoenix, Cincinnati and Houston, followed Dart’s lead on demand suppression. More than 70 agencies have participated in at least one of Dart’s operations, with more than 2,900 buyers arrested across all jurisdictions since 2011. […]
“Some human rights groups take issue with this approach. On August 11 [2015], Amnesty International voted to recommend the complete decriminalization of prostitution, both for the buyers and sellers, saying that criminal laws against the consensual adult sex trade violates the human rights of sex workers. While UNAIDS and the World Health Organization have previously called for the decriminalization of sex work for public health reasons (in order to stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases), and other groups have advocated the same, Amnesty International is the first major international human rights group to issue a full-throated global public policy recommendation for lifting laws against buying and selling of sex purely on humans rights grounds. Amnesty can’t make or enforce laws, but its recommendations carry international weight.”
Fraught doesn’t begin to describe contention internationally over sex work, human trafficking, child exploitation, and similar issues; but, while heavy-handed operations like the Johns Initiative perform a vital role in rescuing victims who might otherwise have slipped through the cracks or gone unnoticed, human rights advocates maintain the only means to combat sexual, criminal exploitation of youth and adults is to legalize sex work — making regulation, health screenings, insurance, and other benefits available to adults in a voluntary profession — theoretically freeing authorities to target child predators and other offenders.
Theoretically, decriminalization of sex work would play out similarly to that of drugs — a decade-long attempt by Portugal to stem violence, curb prison populations, and rein in an addiction epidemic proved taking punitive drug laws off the books works: the nation achieved all three goals and more. Advocates of legalized sex work posit a similar result, with police free to throw resources at cases of true exploitation and trafficking.
Detractors contend elevating prostitution to acceptable will exacerbate the issue by orders of magnitude, by fueling a parallel black market — similar to reports legal cannabis areas of the U.S. have reinvigorated illicit sales.
Undoubtedly, dragnets targeting prostitution and human trafficking serve victims by connecting them to the appropriate aid and locking true abusers and exploiters away from further criminal activity. Indeed, there are enough stories on a weekly basis, in America and across the globe, that show an epidemic of child exploitation is fostering and in dyer need of being brought to a halt.
However, it’s imperative to keep in mind corporate media’s penchant for shock and awe to deliver a criminally oversimplified version of exceedingly complex truths — and the National Johns Suppression Initiative has thus far been no exception.
Disingenuously presenting a law enforcement operation as only good cheats the child and adult trafficking victims who could have been rescued — were consensual sex work not a focus of policing at all.
“We realize that decriminalization is not a magic bullet for all of the harms faced by sex workers,” wrote Margaret Huang, Amnesty International USA’s interim executive director, in response to a criticism appearing in Rolling Stone of the organization’s advocacy of legal sex work, in June 2016. “Which is why our policy also calls for governments to protect sex workers from harm, exploitation and coercion, and calls for education and employment options for sex workers. Sex workers must also have a say in developing laws that affect their lives and safety. But without decriminalization, they cannot expect equal treatment under the law to achieve these ends.”
Shameless aptly describes the dirty dealings of modern war, from drone bombing human targets from afar in denial of all due process and invasions into sovereign lands, to pro-armed aggression propaganda — often brazen fabrications disseminated across media to engender support for otherwise untenable conflict — including that exploiting young children, who could not possibly possess the critical thinking necessary to grasp the messages their words send to the world.
And no better example of this puppetry of children for war profiteering and Western imperialist agenda-pushing exists than in the case of seven-year-old Bana al-Abed — proffered as the voice of innocent victims of the Syrian government’s bombardment of Aleppo — whose Twitter following just surpassed 386,000, after she featured in a corporate media-touted video promoting the United States’ goal of deposing Bashar al-Assad.
A child was chosen by propagandists for a reason.
September 2016 marked the creation of the Bana al-Abed Twitter account, which exploded in popularity by tweeting express “calls early on for action against the Syrian president, and Russia, and with a glaring absence of information or mention of the terrorist factions occupying eastern areas of Aleppo,” as independent journalist, Eva Bartlett, points out.
In one since-deleted tweet — a prime example of the supposed seven-year-old’s keenly bellicose thinking — al-Abed (sometimes spelled, Alabed) putatively implored,
“Dear world, it’s better to start 3rd world war instead of letting Russia & Assad commit #HolocaustAleppo”
Then, on December 13, a ceasefire agreement saw the purging and transfer of terrorist factions and their families from eastern Aleppo — an action which also triggered a flurry of tweets from ostensively unrelated accounts claiming to be in such a perilous state, their words should be considered a “last message” from inside the besieged city. al-Abed, among them, tweeted,
“I am talking to the world now live from east #Aleppo. This is my last moment to either live or die. -Bana”
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My name is Bana, I"m 7 years old. I am talking to the world now live from East #Aleppo. This is my last moment to either live or die. – Bana
— Bana Alabed (@AlabedBana) December 13, 2016
Of course, the child and her family survived after safely absconding from Aleppo, stopping in Idlib, and ultimately settling in Turkey, where Bana shortly set to work vilifying the Assad regime and its ally, Russia — not exactly typical, seven-year-old, conflict refugee behavior.
Indeed, the child’s tweets appeared so sophisticated in tone and sentence construction, nuanced in idiomatic expression, and generally complex, Fatemah al-Abed, her mother, eventually had to admit to assisting on the first of the year, tweeting,
“For those wondering how can 7 year old tweet, I help her compose the tweets while she’s with me. I let her read all the replies & she enjoys”
For those wondering how can 7 year old tweet, I help her compose the tweets while she"s with me. I let her read all the replies & she enjoys
— Fatemah Alabed (@FatemahAlabed) January 1, 2017
Ultimately, the mother insisted she would allow Bana to compose social media posts, though suspicions remain that has not happened. Some believe, understandably under the circumstances, Bana may never have composed any tweets herself.
Once she arrived in Turkey, Western media ravenously championed the tear-jerking font of propaganda from the obviously-coached little girl, with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota eagerly extending a microphone, camera, and world stage to Bana.
All told, the platform given Bana comprised a potent elixir for anyone harboring misgivings about the continued dropping of bombs in populated areas of Syria — after all, if this small child pled the case for regime change across international air waves, her story had to be credible, right?
Not so much.
About Bana’s interaction with Camerota, independent journalist, Caitlin Johnstone, points out,
“It was scripted, and Bana was phonetically sounding out words that she did not understand in order to manufacture public support for more US interventionism in Syria.
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“The interview was scripted, and what for me is most shocking is that Alisyn Camerota necessarily had the other half of the script. Bana wouldn’t have been able to improvise answers to unscripted questions, so Camerota was necessarily knowingly acting out a staged, scripted scene and deceiving her audience about its nature. She lied to the American people for the most despicable reason imaginable, and exploited a little child to do it.”
Of all the pro-war propaganda justifying the military-industrial machine’s mere existence, the exploitation of Bana al-Abed and the tellingly similar manipulation of Omran Daqneesh — child victims of conflict championed by the U.S., with goals having next to nothing to do with humanitarianism as so proclaimed — could arguably be deemed the most abominable use of innocents for imperialist purposes in morass in Syria.
Bana’s CNN appearance led to others — including TIME Magazine, which named her one of the top 25 most influential people; the advocacy of CNN journalist, Jake Tapper, who suggested Bana as a viable news source; and, recently, a book deal with Simon & Schuster — despite her inability to form reliably coherent sentences in English.
Another keen example of these discrepancies between written words ostensively belonging to Bana and her statements on video — a collection of misspelled basic words and sophisticated syntax even the casual observer could theorize issued from two, separate people — surfaced in January, when the BBC republished what was said to be her letter to President Donald Trump.
“I lived in Syria my whole life before I left from besieged East Aleppo on December last year. I am part of the Syrian children who suffered from the Syrian war,” Bana al-Abed — a seven-year-old child, putatively writing in her second language — wrote to the president, with bolding added to highlight the more glaringly adult syntax.
“I am very sad about them and wish they were with me because we would play together by right now. I couldn’t play in Aleppo, it was the city of death. …Right now in Turkey, I can go out and enjoy. I can go to school although I didn’t yet. That is why peace is important for everyone including you. …However, millions of Syrian children are not like me right now and suffering in different parts of Syria. They are suffering because of adult people.”
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But if the pro-regime change propaganda in the supposed authentic letter weren’t off-putting enough, the BBC implores Trump to consider succumbing emotionally to the child’s pleas to depose Assad — albeit without explicitly stating as much.
“Turkey, where Bana and her family now live, supports the Syrian opposition. But President Trump’s position is not yet clear,” the BBC notes, suggesting that, were the president not to support the U.S.-armed, funded, and trained ‘moderate Syrian rebels’ in opposition to the elected administration of Assad, he would be acting single-handedly against Syria’s war-weary children.
Simple manipulation by the media, a refined vocabulary, and disparities in written and spoken comprehension of the English language obviate only superficially something amiss with the story of Bana al-Abed.
Leery of the niggling details, Bartlett, the journalist, previously interviewed Syrian colleague, Khaled Iskef, on the exploitation of Daqneesh — and revisited the topic in reference to Bana al-Abed. She writes:
“For his research, Iskef did more than look at the social media accounts of the family. He went to their home, which happened to be just meters around the corner from an al-Nusra (Al-Qaeda) headquarters, and less than 400 meters down the street from the main Al-Qaeda headquarters in Aleppo.”
Iskef learned Ghassan al-Abed, Bana’s father, describes himself on Twitter as an “Independent lawyer, Activist against terrorism and ISIS” — but that, as well as any pretense the family randomly became the face of pro-interventionist policy, falls apart upon inspection. Bartlett writes,
“In the al-Abed home, Iskef found a notebook documenting Ghassan’s work with terrorists over the years. According to the notebook (and coinciding with photos formerly on his social media pages) Ghassan Al-Abed was a military trainer for the Islamic Sawfa Brigade, and worked in the Shariah Council in the occupied state Eye Hospital, under the control of ISIS for a time until 2014, and al-Nusra for all of the time that al-Abed was there. The Shariah Council which al-Abed worked with passed decisions on imprisonment and assassination of the captured civilians being tried.”
From the location near vital al-Qaeda headquarters where photos were taken of Bana to her father’s and grandfather’s direct ties to the terrorist group, nothing about this little Syrian girl with massively popular social media accounts is as simple as made to appear.
When extenuating circumstances shred the thin semblance of innocence from an innocent child’s plea, the pro-war propaganda is working precisely as designed — precisely to engender your support for continued Western intervention in a sovereign nation’s conflict.
To propagandists, a child’s lips can do more to rile public outrage against nebulous geopolitical conflicts than any studied presentation on the merits of an aggressive military campaign ever could.
This is not a condemnation of Bana al-Abed. Rather, that condemnation is reserved for the unscrupulous adults eagerly proffering an innocent, photogenic face of the Syrian war — when they know the contrary to be true — to enjoin support for yet more bombs to be dropped on countless other innocent children who will never know the perks of a timely book deal.
Image Credit: CNNNashville, NC – A police chief in a small eastern North Carolina town, Chief Thomas Bashore, in collaboration with town manager Hank Raper, began a program — using compassion instead of violence — known as the HOPE initiative that is both saving lives and lowering crime.
Nashville, North Carolina, a town of 5,400 offers a unique program to help addicts recover, rather than continue the cycle of crime and addiction, by allowing addicts to turn themselves into police with their drugs and paraphernalia, without being thrown in a cage.
Instead of them facing arrest, they get help getting into a program to fight addiction.
Thomas Spikes, 24, has battled addiction since before he was a teenager, and credits Bashore with saving his life by putting him on a path to recovery from the deadly scourge of opioid addiction.
“He saved my life for sure,” he said. “I owe a lot to him and the program.”
As opioid deaths continue to rise dramatically across the United States, replacing car accidents as the number one cause of unintentional deaths, the state of North Carolina has seen a more than 340 percent increase in opioid deaths from 2010 to 2016.
“There’s no clear characteristic of what a heroin or opioid addiction looks like,” Raper told CNN. “It’s not a white problem, it’s not a black problem, it’s not a Hispanic problem, middle class, working class, upper class. It affects all peoples of all walks of life.”
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The HOPE initiative was modeled on the “Angel” program in Gloucester, Massachusetts, which allows addicts to safely get medical help and police assistance—without fear of being arrested. These innovative programs are creating a new paradigm that reconfigures the manner in which law enforcement responds to addiction.
“They walk into the front door, if they have drugs or paraphernalia on them at any time, they can turn it in to us at that time, and have no charges filed. And we facilitate them into recovery,” Bashore said.
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“We have actually had individuals who have brought in heroin bags and turned that over because they knew that they were going to get into recovery and they didn’t want that around when they got out,” Bashore said.
To ensure that there would be no impediments to the HOPE program, Chief Bashore and Raper recruited the county district attorney, who was on board with the initiative, ensuring that addicts seeking help would not be charged. With the support of the county attorney, the HOPE program began on Feb. 9, 2016—with the first addict coming into the police station seeking help only eight days later.
“It was eye-opening,” recalled Bashore. “That individual came in and we spent the better part of 7 and a half hours getting him processed. Only then did I leave the hospital and come back to the police department to start calling facilities to start having him placed, after he left detox. You can spend hours on the phone, calling facilities, saying, ‘Do you have a bed?"”
Bashore has been intimately involved in the program, driving many of the 172 men and women that have been helped by the HOPE initiative. Revealing the changing nature of law enforcement’s fight against drug addition—and a clear movement from a punitive “War on Drugs” mentality, to a recovery-based model—Bashore has worked to build personal relationships with numerous rehabilitation facilities across North Carolina.
The business cards he passes out even have his personal cellphone number so that rehab facilities across the state can personally alert him when a space opens up for an addict.
“My cellphone, it rings all the time,” Bashore said. “Each participant who comes through the program and all their family members have it. So, when they need something, they reach out.”
In addition to helping numerous addicts get clean, the HOPE initiative has substantially changed the dynamics between the police and the community. Bashore said he is working to help people understand that substance abuse is a disease and that his department’s goal is to “supportive not only for their benefit, but for the community benefit.”
Revealing exactly how this new approach by law enforcement, to drugs and addiction, can drastically alter crime rates, Bashore said that crime is down 40 percent since the program’s inception.
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“We’ve had a pretty significant drop in our crimes that are associated with substance-abuse disorder,” Bashore said. “Things like shoplifting and larcenies and breaking into cars.”
The beautiful thing is that HOPE does not limit its services to residents of Nashville, as people from across the state have taken advantage of the program—as well as people from as far away as California and Pennsylvania.
The initiative has no cost to participants in the program, and is funded through small grants, fundraisers, and donations.
“The chief paid for the first two months that I was there and the rehab I was at,” recalled Spikes. After spending over half his life in the grip of addiction, Spikes has now been clean for four months after leaving the rehabilitation facility.
In an interview with CNN, Spikes said that he first used drugs when he was 12 years old. “It started off with just smoking weed,” he said, “then occasional pills, and it progressed through the years.” Eventually, his addiction became a $200 to $300 a day habit at its worst.
After being caught with heroin and sent to jail in October 2016, he had his first encounter with Chief Bashore. Initially, Spikes was skeptical of any help police offered, and expressed a commonly held belief: “You don’t talk to cops, you don’t associate with them, they’re not your friends.”
Spikes’ perceptions quickly began to evolve when he recognized that Bashore was solely there to help him, no questions asked.
The chief “never tried to pry into anything in my life in that era,” Spikes said. “[He doesn’t] care who you hang out with, what kind of drugs you do.”
After having gone through countless rehab facilities in the past, Spikes said his life has changed because of Chief Bashore and the HOPE initiative.
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“He saved my life for sure because if it wasn’t for the HOPE Initiative, I wouldn’t have gotten help,” Spikes said. “My life has done a 180. I’m working, I have a vehicle, a house, I have a beautiful girlfriend with a baby on the way.”
This inspirational police chief decided that criminalizing addiction is a clear recipe for failure, and increased crime and death in his community—and made a decision to do something about it. By not comporting with the “get tough on crime” mentality that is often prevalent in law enforcement, Bashore is actually making a difference in people’s lives. He is also saving taxpayers money as the cost of rehabilitation is far less than prison, and it is being independently funded.
“Of those 172 people that have come through the program, I’ve actually been to two funerals. Knowing what the alternative could have been for Thomas … (who) just recently disclosed to me that his girlfriend’s pregnant, he’s going to be a father,” he said. “So, that’s an amazing thing. That touches me deeply.”
One of the most fundamental rights in a nation logically consistent in crying freedom is the ability to boycott — a company, entity, church, or, in the case of the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction Movement against Israel, an entire nation — in protest of perceived transgressions to force through the wallet reforms which might not otherwise be accomplished.
Boycotts have indeed managed the seemingly impossible — SeaWorld, for example, ultimately had to shutter its orca captivity and breeding programs after the documentary, Blackfish, depicting horrendous, inhumane conditions, jerked heartstrings and ignited a backlash boycott, sending profits to the brink of an abyss.
Now, an alarmingly large group of politicians seek to strip American citizens of the right to this highly-effective method of protest — only when employed against the nation of Israel — with violators facing decades behind bars and stiff financial penalties.
New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand join 41 other members of Congress championing proposed legislation, which would make literal criminals of any Americans boycotting Israel — a brazen, if not explicit, attack on the BDS Movement, incidentally exploding in popularity worldwide as the belligerent nation continues its occupation of Palestinian lands.
Laying down the irrational, inflammatory gauntlet before the Senate this week, Schumer opined,
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“Anti-Zionism, unfortunately, continues to bubble up in many different forms. There is perhaps no greater example than the pernicious effort to delegitimize Israel through boycotts, divestment, and sanctions. The BDS movement is a deeply biased campaign that I would say, in similar words to Mr. Macron, is a ‘reinvented form of anti-Semitism’ because it seeks to impose boycotts on Israel and not on any other nation.”
But critics of BDS should absolutely take heed — it is the First Amendment, not political views on Israel, at the crux of this dangerous legislation.
“Under the terms of the bill, a pair of U.S. laws that prohibit U.S. citizens from supporting a boycott request from a foreign government against an ally of the United States would be updated to specifically prohibit Americans from supporting international boycott efforts against Israel,” reports the Gothamist.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union — which immediately castigated the bill for further shredding the First Amendment — violators “would be subject to a minimum civil penalty of $250,000 and a maximum criminal penalty of $1 million and 20 years in prison.”
Despite clarifying it “takes no position for or against the effort to boycott Israel or any foreign country,” the ACLU implored, “The impacts of the legislation would be antithetical to free speech protections enshrined in the First Amendment and we urged members to oppose the legislation in the absence of significant revisions.”
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Worse, “it would punish individuals for no reason other than their political beliefs” — a footnote critics of BDS would do well to heed in determining their own position on the proposed legislation or others similar. To enact law punitive of one’s political adversaries is to invite they do the same — or, more accurately, proves to the State rights can be erased if packaged appropriately.
Ire over Israel’s enactment of what has consistently been deemed by academia and analysis a brutal apartheid — mirroring human rights abuses, atrocities, and blatant injustices of the South African regime responsible for the political detainment of Nelson Mandela — bolsters the numbers of BDS adherents in the U.S. and elsewhere.
“The state of Israel maintains a military occupation of territories that were assigned to Palestinians by international law. Palestinian residents of the occupied West Bank are subjected to the discriminatory rule of a foreign army, while their Israeli neighbors enjoy the full rights of citizenship,” writes Eric Levitz for the Daily Intelligencer.
Make no mistake, this bill came to the fruition as Israel’s appalling persecution of Palestinians on their land has increasingly become the subject of protest by activists and advocates — who turn to the successful BDS campaign as a legitimate, nonviolent means to convey the message.
Pro-Israel fervor in the United States Congress usually bears the hallmarks of AIPAC — the infamous lobbying group — and this bill is no exception.
Indeed, as The Intercept noted, it appears an embarrassing number of the bill’s signatories did so simply for its AIPAC seal-of-approval (making felons of Americans choosing to protest a foreign nation through refusing business serves who, exactly?), rather than taking time to actually read the draft.
However this monstrosity gained congressional popularity, it must be loudly quashed and relegated to the dustbin of rights-crushing, ill-conceived ideas — which is the snuggest-fitting definition of the Anti-Boycott Israel bill.
“[T]he bill would punish businesses and individuals based solely on their point of view,” the outraged ACLU admonished. “Such a penalty is in direct violation of the First Amendment.”
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Such a penalty sadly also seems a typical evisceration of freedom in this corrupt and encroaching authoritarian State.
