Woman Who Flipped Off Trump’s Motorcade Was Fired For Her Behavior

The woman made infamous for flipping off president Donald Trump’s motorcade says she was fired from her job for her childish behavior. Juli Briskman said the marketing company bosses called her in and gave her the boot.

But, nonetheless, the 50-year-old says she has no regrets about flipping off the president’s motorcade. Briskman was cycling in Virginia last month when she offered the gesture in what she described as a “gut reaction” to Donald Trump’s policies. “He was passing by and my blood just started to boil,” she told the Huffington Post. “I’m thinking, DACA (aka, “dreamers,” children of illegal immigrants who were allowed to stay in the United States) recipients are getting kicked out. He pulled ads for open enrollment in Obamacare. Only one-third of Puerto Rico has power. I’m thinking, he’s at the damn golf course again.”

A photographer traveling with the presidential motorcade snapped Briskman’s picture and the image quickly spread across news outlets and social media. Many hailed Briskman as a hero, with some saying she should run in the 2020 election; while others called her disrespectful, emotionally driven, and childish.

“I flipped off the motorcade a number of times,” Briskman added. But her bosses didn’t find her little stunt all that entertaining, or in accordance with how the company perceives the manner in which an employee should conduct themselves in or out of the workplace.

Briskman had been working as a marketing and communications specialist for a Virginia-based federal contractor, Akima, for six months. She thought it best detail to the human resources department that she was now infamous for being emotionally unstable and flipping off the president. With all of the online fuss around her actions, the company would have likely found out about her antics anyway.

Bosses called her into a meeting after she ratted herself out, she said. “They said, ‘We’re separating from you,’” Briskman told the Huffington Post. “‘Basically, you cannot have lewd or obscene things in your social media.’ So they were calling flipping him off obscene.” Unfortunately for Briskman, that’s fairly common among companies. Most want their employees to behave in a manner befitting the company (including on social media), and flipping off the president probably didn’t make Akima look all that great. One would expect the exact same reaction from a boss should a person have been fired for flipping off President Obama’s motorcade.

She said the company was displeased she had used the image as her profile picture on Twitter and Facebook and the bosses told her that using the image violated social media policy and could hurt the company’s reputation as a government contractor. Briskman said she pointed out that her social media pages do not mention her employer. She also tried to shift blame when she said another employee had written a profane insult about someone on Facebook, but had been allowed to keep his job after deleting the post and being reprimanded. Unfortunately, Briskman cannot simply “delete” what she did considering the photo went viral; but it’s oddly amusing she tried to throw a fellow employee under the bus for her misdeeds.

Virginia, however, has “at will” employment laws, meaning private-sector employers can fire anyone for any reason. Suddenly, the emotionally unstable 50-year-old mother of two found herself looking for a new job. Briskman, who votes Democratic (big surprise), said she planned to look for a new job with an advocacy group she believes in, such as Planned Parenthood or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

That seems about right for a Democrat. Advocate for the slaughter of innocent human beings while saving all the animals.

White Supremacist Leader Mike Enoch Staging Deep State Operation in Tennessee?

originally published by Alt-right Exposed

Deep State Linked Neo-Nazi Groups Descend on Small Towns to “Vent Anger”

[Mike “Enoch” Peinovich]

The “White Lives Matter”events will be attended by a group of literal Neo-Nazi groups, including the National Socialist Movement (NSM), and Anticom, who’s members have discussed bombing federal buildings and massacring protesters.

White Supremacist organizer Mike “Enoch” Peinovich, one of the leaders of the disastrous Charlottesville rally on August 12^th, is staging events in both Shelbyville and Murfreesboro, Tennessee on Saturday, October 28^th.

The “White Lives Matter”events will be attended by a group of literal Neo-Nazi groups, including the National Socialist Movement (NSM), and Anticom, who’s members have discussed bombing federal buildings and massacring protesters.

[The National Socialist Movement -NSM]

Awkward Thanksgiving?

On August 16^th, investigator Laura Loomer tweeted that Mike Enoch’s mother, Paula Enockson Sippel, a.k.a. Paula Peinovich, is a political supporter of Hillary Clinton. Mike’s mother is a lifetime liberal activist and labor organizer, and works closely with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who was just re-elected for a third term as head of the AFL-CIO.

Charlottesville

Since the event in Charlottesville, Mike “Enoch” Peinovich has been celebrating the death of Heather Heyer. Right after the rally, Enoch went on his “Daily Shoah” broadcast with Richard Spencer and said, referring to Heather Heyer:

“As far as the cat lady that was killed… this is the police’s fault for failure to control their own streets.”

“He added: “I don’t give a s–t about this dead cat lady. Whatever. The world is a better place. But the murderer is not the driver of the car. … He did nothing wrong. Frankly, he should get a medal. Let’s be honest. But legally he did nothing wrong.”

This weekend, Mike Enoch is staging a “White Lives Matter” demonstration in middle Tennessee with Vanguard America, the group that James Fields Jr held rank in and marched with before he drove his car into the crowd of protesters at Charlottesville.

[James Fields Jr. with his Vanguard America group]

The Neo-Nazi group “NSM”, or “National Socialist Movement” will also be marching at the event. The NSM is shunned by most white nationalists, because it has been riddled with FBI informants since it’s inception.

In 2007, the Orlando (FL) Sentinel revealed that FBI informant David Gletty organized a National Socialist Movement (NSM) rally in Orlando. Gletty had set up and run an entire unit of the NSM, informed on it’s members, and directed all of it’s operations over a two year period.

The march that David Gletty was through the streets of Parramore, a majority African-American section of Orlando. The FBI informant and his Neo-Nazi dupes staged an event that was eerily similar to Charlottesville, in that is stirred up racial tensions and triggered a “major police mobilization”.

You stand a higher chance of being crushed by a vending machine.

Via The Daily Bell

There’s something I’ve always found mesmerizing about watching animals in the wild.

They have the most incredible instincts, honed from countless generations of survival against constant threats.

Animals have a keen sense of danger. They know immediately when something doesn’t feel right, and they act on it without hesitation.

I saw an incredible example of this last year when I was visiting a remote wildlife reservation in Zimbabwe.

It was late in the afternoon on a hot summer day, and my friends and I were ensconced in a hidden observation bunker situated on the edge of a water hole.

The animals all began to arrive, one species at a time, to cool off before nightfall. First the elephants. Then Rhinos. Zebras. Giraffes. Baboons.

It was a playful mood; all the animals seemed to be enjoying the water, when without warning, there was a stillness. The gazelles froze. The zebras’ ears perked.

Something wasn’t right. A smell. A sound. Something.

So they got the hell out of there.

We found out later that a ravenous pack of hyenas was on the prowl nearby, so the animals’ instincts were spot-on.

Deep, deeeep down, human beings have the same highly refined instincts.

Our long-lost ancestors struggled against every imaginable danger. And those lessons are hard-coded in our DNA.

We sense threats. We can feel it when something’s wrong.

The difference between our species and animals in the wild, though, is that we humans have way too many external influences that muck it all up.

Case in point: last week was obviously a tough one for anyone with any sense of humanity.

Acts of terrorism are scary.

And hearing about completely innocent people on a popular pedestrian promenade getting mowed down like bowling pins by some madman is definitely going to cause some discomfort.

But down here in Latin America at least, there was ensuring wall-to-wall news coverage for the next several days in a way I hadn’t seen since 9/11.

It’s all we saw. Terrorism. Terrorism. Terrorism.

This really amps up the fear factor for something that is already difficult to stomach.

So it’s easy to understand why I keep hearing people say things like, “We’re living through the most dangerous times in human history.”

It’s easy to lose perspective. But on the balance we have it pretty good.

13th century Europeans faced a far greater threat with the approaching Mongol hoard.

A century later they faced an even more terrible fate with the onset of the Bubonic Plague, which ultimately wiped out around 30% of Europe’s population.

Even in more recent times, the threat of nuclear annihilation between East and West posed a constant threat.

Yes, acts of terrorism are appalling. But taken in historical and mathematical context the danger is actually quite low.

The Cato Institute published some data recently showing that the chances of dying in a terror attack are around 1 in 3 million.

Statistically speaking, you have a better chance of being crushed to death by a vending machine.

But we don’t demand that our governments spend hundreds of billions of dollars that taxpayers cannot possibly afford in order to protect us from vending machines.

That’s because deep down we sense that vending machines don’t truly pose a threat.

But with terrorism our senses are heavily manipulated until we believe that the threat is far greater than what the statistics show.

The real irony is that the manipulation works both ways.

Just as we are manipulated into being terrified of certain risks that pose no real statistical threat, we are manipulated into ignoring other risks that are far more likely.

I would raise financial markets as an obvious example.

The stock market in the United States is at an all-time high, with valuation metrics that have rarely been higher in more than 100 years of data.

Bond markets around the world have literally never been more expensive… EVER.

In order to return to levels that are more in-line with long-term historical averages, stock and bond markets would both have to suffer steep losses.

But instead of encouraging investors to independently assess these financial risks, mainstream media often dismisses such assertions as pessimistic bugaboo.

Or another obvious long-term risk– that Social Security is going to run out of money.

I write about this one frequently. The Social Security Trustees, including the Treasury Secretary of the United States, state very clearly in their annual report that Social Security’s major trust funds “will be depleted in 2034.”

Yet despite the totally predictable, unavoidable, widespread consequences to Americans’ primary source of retirement income, the public is manipulated into ignoring this threat as well.

Instead of the truth, we continue to hear the same tired mantra– “Social Security is just fine,” despite every shred of objective evidence to the contrary.

We’re also told to believe ridiculous axioms like “the US government’s debt doesn’t matter,” even though they have $20+ trillion of it and spend like drunken sailors.

But no. The experts tell us that this is not a risk worth concerning ourselves with. Angry brown people want to kill us. Focus on that instead.

Human beings have a 1 in 3,000,000 chance of suffering from a terror attack.

Yet there is currently a 100% chance that Social Security runs out of money in 2034.

Only one of these manages to find its way into the news.

Not to mention, if properly informed, people can actually DO SOMETHING about the latter. There’s plenty of time for intelligent people to prepare.

Guard Your Mind Like the Precious Resource It Is

Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

I’m concerned about a better world. I’m concerned about justice; I’m concerned about brotherhood; I’m concerned about truth. And when one is concerned about that, he can never advocate violence. For through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can’t murder murder. Through violence you may murder a liar, but you can’t establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate through violence.  Darkness cannot put out darkness; only light can do that.

– Martin Luther King, Jr. (1967)

Something I’ve been working on personally is becoming more in control of my emotions and, more importantly, trying not  to immediately respond when something makes me angry. In order to do this, I’ve found it necessary to be conscious of the anger itself. Specifically, I’ve noticed that when we get angry we tend to move into a state of mind that is obsessively focused on the source of this anger. We dwell on how we were wronged over and over in our minds like an uncontrollable movie, which then makes us even more angry. In an attempt to stop the movie and momentarily feel better about the situation, we tend to lash out. It feels good for a second, but it almost never gets you anywhere.

Anger and fear are two emotions that serve important evolutionary purposes and certainly have their place, but I’ve found neither to be productive when it comes to solutions to serious problems, or to establishing better relationships with those you care about. When one is angry or fearful the instinctual response is to do whatever might make you feel better in the moment. Allowing oneself to react from a state of fear or anger will almost always lead to poor decision making, unless you are actually in a situation that requires such a response.

I discussed this concept in May’s post, Do Ends Justify the Means?

I think many people will quickly answer the question “do the ends justify the means” without putting enough thought into it. The question is meant to be considered when it comes to premeditated voluntary actions of questionable ethics taken with a defined objective in mind. It has nothing to do with matters of self-defense, or anything in that category. For example, if someone is coming at your family with an intent to inflict harm, the ethical decision might be to harm the aggressor to protect your family despite the fact that harming another person in itself is an immoral act. Pretty much everyone can agree with this, so it doesn’t add anything to the argument of whether the ends justify the means.

What about if you’re walking down the street and you see someone come from behind an old lady, hit her on the head and then struggle with her on the ground in an attempt to take her purse. You aren’t being directly attacked, so should you intervene with violence if necessary against the perpetrator to help an innocent bystander? Again, I think the right and ethical decision here is to step in to try to help the victim if possible.

In both these cases the negative “means” of violence you might be required to use against violent aggressors do indeed justify the ends — in the first instance the protection of your family, and in the second a vulnerable old lady. Given these examples, one might be led to believe that the ends can often justify the means, but I would argue that this only holds true in extreme examples such as the ones described above, and that for a principled person, the ends almost never justify the means.

When people seriously consider whether the ends of a particular action justify the means, it’s almost never in relation to scenarios like the ones described above for two reasons. First, those are extremely rare situations that many people (in the developed world at least) will only experience a few of times in the course of a lifetime, if that. On the other hand, many of us face constant but often overlooked ethical dilemmas on a daily or weekly basis. We all face situations where we are confronted with the choice to do something we know is wrong, but perhaps do it anyway either for instant gratification or in the pursuit of a larger goal.

The point is that most of us (at least here in the U.S.) rarely find ourselves in situations where the proper course of action would be to respond instinctually from a state of fear or anger. For most of us, the best course of action is to become aware of our anger and acknowledge that it is a normal response, but to also then recognize that this state of mind must be transcended in order to come up with conscious and productive ways to overcome the root problem. This is the wisdom the spiritual masters of all faiths throughout history have taught us. Easier said than done for sure, but that doesn’t make it any less true or important.

This is part of what it means to be more conscious, or aware. It means you’ve learned to acknowledge the constant presence of the crazy “monkey mind” which tends to dominate human thought. Recognizing it is the crucial first step, taming it is a whole other ballgame, and one I am only beginning to work on.

For the purposes of this piece, the key thing I want to hammer home is that people are much more easily manipulated when they don’t realize they’re being manipulated. Moreover, the easiest way to manipulate someone is to ensure they get in, and stay in, a state of either fear or angry, preferably both. Whether intentional or not, the media seems to be professionals at creating such an environment, which  is why it’s so important to tune from 90% of the nonsense they publish. It’s quite literally brain cancer.

It’s not just the corporate media though. I’m seeing it across the political spectrum, whether from “new right” pundits, or anti-free speech leftists advocating violence. Becoming your enemy to fight your enemy has become a new rallying cry for the unconscious across the political spectrum. “But they’re doing it, so now we’re gonna do it.” Is this political discourse, or toddlers throwing sand at each other in the playground?

The bottom line is if you ever hear anyone advocating such tactics run away from them as fast as you can. These people are poison.

Some people are actively trying to lower your consciousness, while others are trying to raise it.

Discard the former, embrace the latter.

— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) August 16, 2017

Only conscious people can help create a better world, unconscious people never will.

"Tone Policing" And The Left's Anger Privelege

Authored by Daniel Greenfield via CanadaFreePress.com,

If you want to know who has privilege in a society and who doesn’t, follow the anger...

There are people in this country who can safely express their anger. And those who can’t. If you’re angry that Trump won, your anger is socially acceptable. If you were angry that Obama won, it wasn’t.

James Hodgkinson’s rage was socially acceptable. It continued to be socially acceptable until he crossed the line into murder. And he’s not alone. There’s Micah Xavier Johnson, the Black Lives Matter cop-killer in Dallas, and Gavin Long, the Black Lives Matter cop-killer in Baton Rouge. If you’re black and angry about the police, your anger is celebrated. If you’re white and angry about the Terror travel ban, the Paris Climate treaty, ObamaCare repeal or any leftist cause, you’re on the side of the angry angels. But if you’re white and angry that your job is going to China or that you just missed being killed in a Muslim suicide bombing, your anger is unacceptable.

If you’re an angry leftist, your party leader, Tom Perez will scream and curse into a microphone, and your aspiring presidential candidate, Kirsten Gillibrand, will curse along, to channel the anger of the base. But if you’re an angry conservative, then Trump channeling your anger is “dangerous” because you aren’t allowed to be angry.

Not all anger is created equal. Some anger is privileged rage.

Good anger gets you a gig as a CNN commentator. Bad anger gets you hounded out of your job. Good anger isn’t described as anger at all. Instead it’s linguistically whitewashed as “passionate” or “courageous”. Bad anger however is “worrying” or “dangerous”. Angry left-wing protesters “call out”, angry right-wing protesters “threaten”. Good anger is left-wing. Bad anger is right-wing.

Socially acceptable displays of anger, from Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter riots to the anti-Trump marches to the furious campus protests, are invariably left-wing.

Left-wing anger over the elections of Bush and Trump was sanctified. Right-wing outrage over Obama’s victory was demonized. Now that left-wing anger led a Bernie Sanders volunteer to open fire at a Republican charity baseball practice outing. And the media reluctantly concedes that maybe both sides should moderate their rhetoric. Before listing examples that lean to the right like “Lock her up”.

Not all anger is created equal. Anger, like everything else, is ideologically coded

Why were chants of “Lock her up” immoderate, but not Bush era cries of “Jail to the chief”?

Why were Tea Party rallies “ominous” but the latest We Hate Trump march is “courageous”?

Why is killing Trump on stage the hottest thing to hit Shakespeare while a rodeo clown who wore an Obama mask was hounded by everyone from the Lieutenant Governor of Missouri to the NAACP?

Not all anger is created equal. Anger, like everything else, is ideologically coded. Left-wing anger is good because its ideological foundations are good. Right-wing anger is bad because its ideology is bad.

It’s not the level of anger, its intensity or its threatening nature that makes it good or bad.

And that is why the left so easily slips into violence. All its ideological ends are good. Therefore its means, from mass starvation to gulags to riots and tyranny, must be good. If I slash your tires because of your Obama bumper sticker, I’m a monster. But if you key my car because of my Trump bumper sticker, you’re fighting racism and fascism. Your tactics might be in error, but your viewpoint isn’t.

There are no universal standards of behavior. Civility, like everything else, is ideologically limited.

Tone policing is how the anger of privileged leftists is protected while the frustration of their victims is suppressed

Intersectionality frowns on expecting civil behavior from “oppressed” protesters. Asking that shrieking campus crybully not to scream threats in your face is “tone policing”. An African-American millionaire’s child at Yale is fighting for her “existence”, unlike the Pennsylvania coal miner, the Baltimore police officer and the Christian florist whose existences really are threatened.

Tone policing is how the anger of privileged leftists is protected while the frustration of their victims is suppressed. The existence of tone policing as a specific term to protect displays of left-wing anger shows the collapse of civility into anger privilege. Civility has been replaced by a political entitlement to anger.

The left prides itself on an unearned moral superiority (“When they go low, we go high”) reinforced by its own echo chamber even as it has become incapable of controlling its angry outbursts. The national tantrum after Trump’s victory has all but shut down the government, turned every media outlet into a non-stop feed of conspiracy theories and set off protests that quickly escalated into street violence.

But Trump Derangement Syndrome is a symptom of a problem with the left that existed before he was born. The left is an angry movement. It is animated by an outraged self-righteousness whose moral superiority doubles as dehumanization. And its machinery of culture glamorizes its anger. The media dresses up the seething rage so that the left never has to look at its inner Hodgkinson in the mirror.

The angry left has gained a great deal of power

The left is as angry as ever. Campus riots and assassinations of Republican politicians are nothing new. What is changing is that its opponents are beginning to match its anger. The left still clings to the same anger it had when it was a theoretical movement with plans, but little impact on the country. The outrage at the left is no longer ideological. There are millions of people whose health care was destroyed by ObamaCare, whose First Amendment rights were taken away, whose land was seized, whose children were turned against them and whose livelihoods were destroyed.

The angry left has gained a great deal of power. It has used that power to wreck lives. It is feverishly plotting to deprive nearly 63 million Americans of their vote by using its entrenched power in the government, the media and the non-profit sector. And it is too blinded by its own anger over the results of the election to realize the anger over its wholesale abuses of power and privileged tantrums.

But monopolies on anger only work in totalitarian states. In a free society, both sides are expected to control their anger and find terms on which to debate and settle issues. The left rejects civility and refuses to control its anger. The only settlement it will accept is absolute power. If an election doesn’t go its way, it will overturn the results. If someone offends it, he must be punished. Or there will be anger.

The angry left demands that everyone recognize the absolute righteousness of its anger as the basis for its power. This anger privilege, like tone policing, is often cast in terms of oppressed groups. But its anger isn’t in defiance of oppression, but in pursuit of oppression.

Anger privilege is used to silence opposition, to enforce illegal policies and to seize power. But the left’s monopolies on anger are cultural, not political. The entertainment industry and the media can enforce anger privilege norms through public shaming, but their smears can’t stop the consequences of the collapse of civility in public life. There are no monopolies on emotion.

James Hodgkinson absorbed all this. The left fed his anger. And eventually he snapped

When anger becomes the basis for political power, then it won’t stop with Howard Dean or Bernie Sanders. That’s what the left found out in the last election. Its phony pearl clutching was a reaction to the consequences of its destruction of civility. Its reaction to that show of anger by conservatives and independents was to escalate the conflict. Instead of being the opposition, the left became the “resistance”. Trump was simultaneously Hitler and a traitor. Republicans were evil beasts.

James Hodgkinson absorbed all this. The left fed his anger. And eventually he snapped.

Anger has to go somewhere.

The left likes to think that its anger is good anger because it’s angry over the plight of illegal aliens, Muslim terrorists, transgender bathrooms, the lack of abortion in South Carolina, the minimum wage at Taco Bell, budget cuts, tax cuts, police arrests, drone strikes and all the other ways in which reality differs from its utopia. But all that anger isn’t the road to a better world, but to hate and violence.

Millions of leftists, just like Hodgkinson, are told every day that Republicans are responsible for everything wrong with their lives, the country and the planet. Despite everything they do, all the petitions they sign, the marches they attend, the donations, the angry letters, the social media rants, Republicans continue to exist and even be elected to public office. Where does that anger go?

Leftist anger is a privileged bubble of entitlement that bursts every other election

Either we have a political system based on existing laws and norms of civility. Or we have one based on coups and populist leftist anger. And there are already a whole bunch of those south of the border.

Leftist anger is a privileged bubble of entitlement that bursts every other election. Its choice is to try to understand the rest of the country or to intimidate, censor, oppress and eventually kill them.

James Hodgkinson took the latter course. His personal leftist revolution ended, as all leftist revolutions do, in blood and violence. The left can check its anger privilege and examine its entitlement.

Or his violence will be our future.

"Lynching Epidemic" Breaks Out In Venezuela

The public-safety infrastructure in Venezuela has been degraded to such a degree that citizens now take justice into their own hands. Agence France Presse reported that lynchings have risen sharply over the last year and a half as political and economic instability in the crumbling socialist republic has worsened. Witnesses who spoke to AFP said a 22-year-old man who was set on fire at an anti-government demonstration in May was actually lynched after being accused of stealing by the crowd - not because he was a government sympathizer, as President Nicolas Maduro had suggested at the time.

As AFP alleges, "it is not just the country"s economy and political system that are sick, but society itself, experts say. An epidemic of lynchings is one of the most gruesome symptoms."

The OVCS says some 60 people were recorded as killed in lynchings in the first five months of this year alone. Last year there were 126 such killings -- a surge from the 20 reported in the previous year, coinciding with the worsening of political tensions and economic chaos.

"Their aim is to kill the person before the police arrive," says Marco Ponce, coordinator of the Venezuelan Social Conflict Observatory (OVCS).

"In lynchings, citizens let out their anger in the face of a state that is not defending their right to justice," says Ponce.

"They think they are dispensing justice, and they do so with anger, so they go as far as killing the person."

Residents blame the breakdown in social order that’s resulted from Venezuela’s worsening economic crisis. In the capital Caracas, the army and police are focused on brutally suppressing the street protests that have become a daily occurrence in recent months. Meanwhile, the dire financial straits of the country’s residents, who are struggling with inflation rates as high as 10,000%, have caused crime to skyrocket.

AFP journalists witness one incident on a street in Caracas where a mob attacked a man after passers-by caught him stealing.

Swearing in fury, the crowd strips the man naked and stomps on his head as he sprawls on the ground.

"You want things that come easy? Then take this, you bastard."

A witness says he stopped the man who had tried to rob a woman at gunpoint in a bakery. Then the mob took over.

"You"re lucky we didn"t burn you," a voice yells, as police lug the man, limp but still breathing, into the back of their car.

The crowd yells in satisfaction -- but not at the man"s arrest. They think they are the ones who have done justice here.
 

One Caracas resident, Damaso Velasquez, described taking part in a lynching. He argued that the mob must dole out street justice because the police don’t do enough to hold criminals accountable.

"I didn"t feel pity for that person because I knew he was a criminal," he tells AFP.

"I felt rage and hatred towards that person... I saw him committing a robbery. That makes you feel furious, so whatever happens to him, it"s alright," he goes on.

"The government grabs him, puts him in jail and then they let him go again. There is disorder here in Caracas -- starting with the government."

“People feel that the state is not protecting them, so they opt to defend themselves," says Freddy Crespo, a criminologist at the University of the Andes.

"Their fear turns into anger."

Venezuela now has one of the highest annual murder rates in the world -- 70 for every 100,000 inhabitants in 2016. Yet only about six crimes out of every 100 here result in a sentence. Still, at least one Venezuelan felt the need to speak out against the brutality.

"The state is supposed to provide you with civil and judicial security, which we are totally lacking," says one Caracas resident, Maria Hernandez.

"But I don"t think it is just for me to come and kill or burn you just because you have robbed," she adds.

"That way I would turn into someone more barbaric than you."

From "socialist utopia" to Mad Max in a few short years... any thoughts now Bernie?

Welcome To One of The Most Pivotal Weeks In Modern American History

Many are anticipating that a wonderful new era of peace and prosperity is just a couple days away, but others are using terms such as “civil unrest” and “civil war” for what they believe is about to happen in America.  Without a doubt, Donald Trump is one of the most electrifying politicians in modern American history, but he is also one of the most polarizing.  So will the next four years bring us together as a nation, or will anger, frustration, strife and discord tear us much farther apart?  It is being projected that extremely large crowds of supporters will attend Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20th, but the mainstream media is also reporting that “hundreds of thousands of protesters” are on their way to Washington.  Many on the far left are hoping to turn Trump’s inauguration into one of the biggest riots in U.S. history, but thousands of law enforcement personnel are going to do their very best to prevent that from happening.

There are sites on the Internet that are literally counting down the hours until Barack Obama leaves office.  Knowing that his time is short, Obama seems determined to squeeze as much “change” out of his final hours as he possibly can.  Just check out what the Washington Post says that he was able to accomplish on just one day last week…

On Thursday alone, the administration designated three new national monuments and expanded another two in sites including a forest in the Pacific Northwest and a school for freed slaves in South Carolina; took away one of the special immigration privileges Cubans arriving in the United States without visas have enjoyed for 50 years; announced sanctions designations against 18 senior Syrian officials for their role in the use of chlorine as a chemical weapon in 2014 and 2015; awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Vice President Biden; and accused Fiat Chrysler of cheating on national emission standards for some of its diesel trucks.

And in the last few days of his presidency, there is a great deal of concern about how much more damage he may be able to do on his way out the door.  Late last week he enraged the Russians by moving U.S. troops into Poland, and Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova is warning that Obama still has a few more days left to “destroy the world”…

Zakharova charged that “Obama and his illiterate foreign policy team have dealt a crushing blow to America’s prestige and leadership” and described his administration as “a bunch of geopolitical losers, enraged and shortsighted.”

Obama’s administration still has a few days left to “destroy the world,” Zakharova wrote.

However, there is one piece of good news.  According to the Jerusalem Post, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Obama will not support any additional action against Israel at the UN Security Council before Trump is inaugurated.

Of course politicians lie all the time, and John Kerry may not have been entirely honest with Netanyahu, and so we will keep a close eye on the UN Security Council when they meet on Tuesday.

On Friday, the eyes of the entire world will be on Washington.  What once seemed so impossible is on the verge of actually becoming a reality, and security officials will be working overtime to make sure that nobody tries to stop Trump from being inaugurated at the last minute.

Needless to say, the festivities on Friday would be a big, fat juicy target for anyone that hates Trump, hates America or that just wanted to make an unforgettable political statement.  In fact, Republican Senator Roy Blunt has admitted that the inauguration of Donald Trump will be “the most appealing target in the world”…

“Security is my greatest concern,” Republican Senator Roy Blunt, chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, has said. “No question that on inaugural day, this would be the most appealing target in the world.”

Even if there isn’t any violence on Friday, there will definitely be plenty of angry protesters.  And instead of attempting to calm things down, many in the mainstream media are actually promoting the protests.  For example, the Washington Post has even published a “guide to inauguration demonstrations, marches and protests”.

It appears that most of those on the left plan to protest peacefully, but there are definitely groups that are planning to be as disruptive as they possibly can.  I have previously reported about an organization known as DisruptJ20, and now audio has been released of one of their leaders saying that they want to “do everything we can to try and stop people from being able to access the inauguration”…

A conservative group also shared with FoxNews.com what it said was audio from a Jan. 8 #DisruptJ20 meeting at a Washington church, giving even greater insight into the group’s planned D.C. “shutdown.”

The audio, recorded by Trevor Loudon with Capital Research Center, purports to show a female member detailing plans to “do everything we can to try and stop people from being able to access the inauguration.”

It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out how they are going to do that.  According to the shocking new audio recording obtained by Fox News, DisruptJ20 plans to physically block “roads and other modes of transit into the city”…

“We’re going to be doing blockades,” the woman says in the audio. “We’re going to [be] blockading checkpoints into the security zones. We’re also going to be blockading roads and other modes of transit into the city.”

Traffic in the Washington D.C. area is a major headache even at the best of times, and so even if everything went perfectly transportation would be a major issue at Trump’s inauguration.  So it isn’t going to take much for these anarchists to create a very real crisis.

And some leftists have been encouraging those that cannot physically come to Washington D.C. to go online and help take down the official White House website on January 20th…

PR Newswire, a global news-release distribution service, circulated a release on Thursday highlighting a campaign launched by Protester.io, a digital protest organizing platform, to “take down” the White House website next Friday in protest of Trump’s inauguration.

“On January 20th, hundreds of thousands of Americans are going to Washington, DC to march in protest of the inauguration of Donald Trump. Millions more around the country will be joining the cause from home. If you can’t make it to Washington DC on inauguration day, you can still participate by occupying whitehouse.gov online,” the release read.

Many on the left truly believe that Trump is the modern equivalent of Adolf Hitler, and therefore he must be resisted at all costs.

And one of the reasons why they want to be as disruptive as possible is so that they can provoke an extremely harsh response.  If law enforcement officials can be filmed treating protesters very harshly, that can be used as fuel to inspire thousands of others to join the movement against the “fascist” Donald Trump.

Following the “blockades” and other “actions” on the 20th, there will be a “million woman march” on the 21st.  Michael Moore and a whole host of liberal celebrities will be there, and it is being reported that there will be close to 300 “sister marches” in other cities around the nation…

Protesters are using the hashtag #WhyIMarch to explain why they are heading to Washington — from calls for equality to initiatives to curb gun violence to pleas for health care reform.

Nearly 300 “sister marches” have been organized in other US cities — including New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Seattle — and around the world.

This is going to be a week that none of us will ever forget.

Many are hoping (myself included) that the protests will soon fade and that Trump’s presidency will represent a true turning point for America.

But there are many others that are literally gearing up for a “war”, and they intend to fight for as long as it takes to achieve their goals.

We are a nation that is deeply, deeply divided, and it isn’t going to take much to push us over the edge.

So this week is definitely a beginning, but is it the beginning of a wonderful new chapter in American history, or is it the beginning of the end for our once great nation?

This story will unfold over the next four years, and let us hope that it is a good one.

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Study: Mobile Devices are Causing, Stress, Anxiety at Home

Smartphones and tablets are replacing face-to-face interactions, and families are suffering because of it, a new study says.

According to lead study author Dr. Jenny Radesky, assistant professor of developmental behavioral pediatrics at the University of Michigan Medical School, incoming communications from work, friends, and the world at large is “contaminating” family mealtime, bedtime, and playtime. Whether you agree with the term ‘contamination’ or not, I think we can all agree these times are changing due to these technological devices. [1]

Radesky says:

“This tension, this stress, of trying to balance newly emerging technologies with the established patterns and rituals of our lives is extremely common, and was expressed by almost all of our participants. We have to toggle between what might be stress-inducing or highly cognitively demanding mobile content and responding to our kids’ behavior.”

As a result, there is more tension between parents and their children, with increased stress in the home.

The findings are based on interviews with 35 parents and caregivers of young children in the Boston area. The study included 22 mothers, 9 fathers, and 4 grandmothers.

Participants were between the ages of 23 and 55, with an average age of 36, and cared for toddlers or children up to age 8. Roughly 1/3 were single parents, and nearly six in 10 were white.

Joseph Bayer, an assistant professor in the School of Communication at Ohio State University, found the results unsurprising. It all makes perfect sense to Bayer, who says:

“Given past research on texting while driving and mentally demanding tasks, I can see how ‘texting while parenting’ would lead to some cognitive and emotional conflict.” [2]

Some Positive Takeaways

There were some positive associations with using mobile devices at home, too.

Here are a few interesting findings from the study:

• While many parents said devices made it easier for them to work from home, this sometimes created more anxiety.

• Some participants said smartphones gave them a break from the boredom and stress of raising young children.

• Many parents admitted that using a mobile device could affect their mood, thereby affecting their interactions with their child.

• Children sometimes acted out to get attention if their parent or caregiver spent too much time on their device. As a result, caregivers sometimes reacted angrily.

• Parents who used mobile devices during meals interacted less with their children, and became stressed when their children tried to divert their attention away from the device.

Larry Rosen, professor emeritus at California State University, Dominguez Hills, who wasn’t involved in the study, says:

“Younger generations believe that they can multitask with anything and that is simply not true.

What they rapidly discover is that they cannot do two tasks together as well as each separately, and, in fact, it adds another layer of stress to their already stressed lives raising children.”

Radesky holds the same views, saying:

“So much of their lives are contained in these devices – work, friendships, world news, loads of information – so they elicit much more in-depth cognitive and emotional responses from us, and this can be even harder to balance with attention to each other.”

Read: 5 Ways to Recharge, Enjoy Life Without Technology

Setting Some Boundaries

Radesky has some advice for parents and caregivers who are struggling to keep all of the balls in the air while still holding onto their electronic gadgets:

• Set boundaries that include device-free periods and device-free areas of the home.

• Keep track of your mobile use and cut back if you find that you’re spending too much time staring at a device. There are downloadable apps that can help you do that. [1] [2]

• Parents should pay attention to which activities are the most stressful, and try to avoid those tasks when it’s family time. [2]

Here’s something else for parents to consider. A study published this past spring shows that 1/2 of U.S. kids are addicted to technology, so there is no doubt that this problem is pervasive, and growing.

Sources:

[1] HealthDay

[2] Reuters

Featured image source: NPR

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About Julie Fidler:
	Julie Fidler is a freelance writer, legal blogger, and the author of Adventures in Holy Matrimony: For Better or the Absolute Worst. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two ridiculously spoiled cats. She occasionally pontificates on her blog.

Read What Happened When Healthy People Were Given Antidepressants

Antidepressants are supposed to ease symptoms of depression, but yet another study shows the drugs may actually increase suicidal feelings in users. According to Danish researchers, the new study wrecks “potentially lethal misconceptions” about the safety of antidepressants. [1]

Click for larger version.

Statistics About Antidepressants

Researchers estimate that 8% to 10% of Americans take an antidepressant. Adults in the U.S. consumed 4 times more of the drugs in the late 2000’s than they did in the early 1990’s. [2]

Are more people depressed now than they were 20 years ago? Probably, yes. But that doesn’t necessarily account for the rise in antidepressant use.

You see, nearly 70% of people taking an antidepressant do not meet the criteria for clinical depression. That doesn’t mean they don’t feel sad, or they’re not going through hard times. It simply means that, from a purely diagnostic standpoint, they are not clinically depressed.

Not only that, but between 25% and 60% of antidepressants are prescribed for off-label purposes, including ADHD, autism, fibromyalgia, bipolar disorder, and even neuropathic pain.

Source: Mad in America

Findings of the Study

Danish researchers analyzed 13 trial studies, and conducted a study of their own involving 374 trial volunteers – all of them healthy – to see how antidepressants affected people who did not have depression. [1]

The researchers said they picked the patients that they did because earlier studies suggesting a link between suicide and antidepressants had been dismissed by those who blamed the deaths on the person’s supposed mental health condition and not the drugs.

Professor Peter Gøtzsche, of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, said:

“The drug industry always tries to blame the disease for these harms, never the pills. This is why our study is important. Healthy volunteers don’t have a disease — so we cannot blame the side effects of the pills on it.” [3]

When the participants were given antidepressant pills, levels of side effects nearly doubled, including suicidal feelings.

“Suicidal feelings” included anxiety, nightmares, and agitation.

Gotzsche said these feelings could be considered as “precursors to suicidality or violence.” [1]

Immediately, Detractors

However, Professor Guy Goodwin, past President of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, called the conclusions “absurd.” He said:

“This manuscript claims to show that antidepressants double the risk of suicide and violence, but it does not. The methodology is fatally flawed and leads to conclusions that are highly misleading.

If ‘nervousness, anxiety, tremor, bad dreams and agitation events’ are risk factors for suicide or violence, then probably the majority of people in the UK would be at risk of suicide or violence, which obviously isn’t so.”

Phil Cowen, Professor of Psychopharmacology at Oxford University, agreed, saying:

“These side-effects are clinically significant, frequently distressing and an important topic for discussion between patient and clinician.

However, the notion that they are necessarily indicative of violence and suicide seems to me rather like arguing that transient annoyance with a colleague is much the same thing as attempted murder.” [3]

Drug Companies Seriously “Under-Report Harms of Antidepressants”

But Gøtzsche said that his findings are even more disturbing, considering drug companies seriously “under-report the harms of antidepressants related to suicide and violence, either by simply omitting them from reports, by calling them something else, or by committing scientific misconduct.” [4]

Gøtzsche is right about that.

It came out in 2005 that a Harvard psychiatrist and the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly covered up a secret 1988 internal memo indicating that Lilly’s own controlled clinical trials of antidepressant drug Prozac had a significantly higher rate of suicide attempts, hostility, violence, and psychosis than 4 other commonly used antidepressants in the 1980’s and 1990’s.

Earlier this year, another study conducted by Gøtzsche and his colleagues found that SSRI antidepressants – the most common class of antidepressants – doubled the risk of suicide and aggressive behavior in teens under 18.

That study, a review of 70 clinical trials of SSRI antidepressants, which involved more than 18,000 people, also found that 1 drug company misreported 4 deaths in favor of its product. The company also chalked up over 50% of suicidal incidents to “emotional lability” or “worsening of depression.”

No mention that either problem could have been the result of taking the drug itself.

And let’s face it – there’s a reason why antidepressants list “suicidal thoughts” as a potential side effect on their labels.

Serotonin and Depression: Lacking a Link

You’ve probably heard that depression is a result of a lack of brain chemicals, or an imbalance of them.

Researchers are still trying to figure out what causes depression, exactly, still arguing over whether a lack of the chemical serotonin is or isn’t actually the cause of depression.

And what do SSRI antidepressants do? They increase serotonin in the brain. SSRI stands for Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors. Well, there’s more to it than that. Maybe I’ll just let the Mayo Clinic explain:

“SSRIs ease depression by increasing levels of serotonin in the brain. Serotonin is one of the chemical messengers (neurotransmitters) that carry signals between brain cells. SSRIs block the reabsorption (reuptake) of serotonin in the brain, making more serotonin available. SSRIs are called selective because they seem to primarily affect serotonin, not other neurotransmitters.”

For years, doctors and patients alike have believed that depression is caused by a lack of serotonin, not because anyone told them so, but because they just assumed that because SSRIs improve the symptoms of depression, depression must be caused by not enough serotonin.

Antidepressants might make you feel better, but because they interfere with the delicate chemistry of the brain, they might also be causing you irreparable brain damage.

It’s like saying that eating pancakes might help you deal with the stress of an upcoming business meeting, but they’re still making you overweight and spiking your blood sugar.

Many scientists, including Dr. Turhan Canli of Stony Brook University in New York, have come to believe that depression might have more to do with gut microbes, viruses, or bacteria than brain chemistry. In fact, Cali believes depression should be reclassified as an infectious disease.

Only more research can prove or disprove this theory, which doesn’t offer the quick fix that so many people find in antidepressants. But this theory makes sense, because 80% to 90% of the serotonin in the body is located in the gastrointestinal tract.

But wouldn’t it be worthwhile to find and treat the cause, rather than just treat the symptoms?

No one should guilt you into or out of taking any medication. (And if you’re taking antidepressants, this is NOT my way of telling you to stop taking them! I know people who seem to experience much more benefit than risk.)

However, if you’re going through a divorce, you’ve just lost your job, or you’re grieving a loved one, counseling, yoga, and other methods for dealing with your pain may be a safer option for you.

Sources:

[1] The Telegraph

[2] Scientific American

[3] The Sun

[4] The Express

Mad in America

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About Julie Fidler:
	Julie Fidler is a freelance writer, legal blogger, and the author of Adventures in Holy Matrimony: For Better or the Absolute Worst. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two ridiculously spoiled cats. She occasionally pontificates on her blog.

DEA Decides NOT to Ban Kratom … For Now

On October 12, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said in a notice to be published in the Federal Register that it has formally withdrawn plans to ban kratom, an herb used by many as a natural medicine.

In August, the DEA outlined plans to classify mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine, two active compounds in kratom, as Schedule I substances, alongside heroin, LSD, and (inexplicably) marijuana.

The category is reserved for drugs which have no known medicinal value.

The August announcement drew the ire of kratom users, advocates, and stakeholders, many of whom expressed their outrage via the Internet. Citing this backlash, the DEA says it will open an official comment period, set to end on December 1.

The DEA is also asking the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a formal scientific and medical evaluation of kratom, which it will use to make an updated scheduling recommendation.

What is Kratom?

Kratom is an herb made from the leaves of mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine, two active compounds in kratom. These alkaloids seem to activate opioid receptors in the brain and reduce pain.

Kratom has been a widely-used traditional medicine in Asia for thousands of years, where people use it as a painkiller, as well as a treatment for depression, anxiety, and opioid addiction.

kratom (mitragyna speciosa) mitragynine

Researchers believe their work on kratom could eventually lead to the development of painkillers that rival opiates, but without being addictive. And unlike opioid medications, kratom isn’t known to cause the same side effects as opioids, including respiratory depression. [2]

While ingesting kratom does lead to feelings of euphoria, David Kroll, a pharmacologist and medical writer, explained that it’s not the same high as the one derived from taking opioids. [3]

Researchers argue that making the herb a Schedule I drug would cripple their ability to study it further. [2]

The Future of Kratom

When December 1 rolls around, a number of things could happen.

Firstly, the DEA could opt to put kratom in a schedule of the Controlled Substances Act permanently. This would allow more time for lawmakers and the public to voice their opinions on the herb’s future.

Secondly, the administration could decide to temporarily schedule kratom, which would not require any additional comment.

Thirdly, it might leave kratom unregulated.

Andrew Kruegel of Columbia University is one of the researchers working on next-generation painkillers based on the compounds found in kratom. He called the DEA’s decision not to ban the herb for now “a positive development.”

Kruegel said the FDA’s evaluation of kratom will hold a lot of weight when it comes time to decide how to handle the medicine, but the type of stringent trials the FDA usually requires in similar situations don’t exist for kratom.

He said:

“Unfortunately, in the United States I don’t think we have a good regulatory framework for handling this situation or taking perhaps more reasonable middle paths” between banning kratom outright and leaving it unregulated.

Marc Swogger, a clinical psychologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center who has published research on kratom use, said that he is “happy to see this.” He went on:

“I’m happy to see this. It is a step in the right direction and a credit to people who have spoken out against scheduling this plant.

Now, the government should take into account, not just the minimal available scientific data on kratom, but the broader impact that criminalizing the use of this plant will have on vulnerable citizens.”

Advocates know exactly where they stand, too.

Susan Ash, founder of the nonprofit organization American Kratom Association, said:

“We believe kratom should not be scheduled in any way, shape or form.

It’s been consumed safely for decades in the U.S. and world-wide for millennium, so there is no impetus to make it a controlled substance. We look forward to working cooperatively with the DEA as they conduct their review.” [1]

Sources:

[1] The Huffington Post

[2] The Washington Post

[3] NPR

Article image source: MintPress News

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About Julie Fidler:
	Julie Fidler is a freelance writer, legal blogger, and the author of Adventures in Holy Matrimony: For Better or the Absolute Worst. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two ridiculously spoiled cats. She occasionally pontificates on her blog.