Category Archives: Gun-violence

Lithuanian authorities launch investigation into fake German rape story | News | DW.COM | 17.02.2017 Trump-Putin Duo Do it Again

Vytautas Bakas, chairman of the Lithuanian parliament’s Committee on National Security and Defense, said on Friday that a probe had been launched into the incident amid growing concerns over the spread of so-called “fake news” meant to sow distrust between locals and NATO allies.”The police are conducting [the investigation],” Bakas told DW in a phone interview. Furthermore, he added that Lithuanian authorities had been preparing for such incidents, which he called “information attacks.”

Source: Lithuanian authorities launch investigation into fake German rape story | News | DW.COM | 17.02.2017

Donald Trump: White House flatly denies plan to mobilise National Guard troops – Donald Trump’s America – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official described the document as a very early draft that was not seriously considered and never brought to General Kelly for approval.However, DHS staffers said on Thursday they had been told by colleagues in two DHS departments that the proposal was still being considered as recently as February 10.DHS spokeswoman Gillian Christensen declined to say who wrote the memo, how long it had been under consideration or when it had been rejected.The pushback from administration officials did little to quell outrage over the draft plan. Two Republican governors spoke out against the proposal and numerous Democratic politicians denounced it as an overly aggressive approach to immigration enforcement.Democrats Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said he was appalled at the report saying, ” I just hope it’s not true”.Mr Schumer called the concept “despicable” and said even considering the proposal would be “appalling”.”Regardless of the White House’s response, this document is an absolutely accurate description of the disturbing mindset that pervades the Trump administration when it comes to our nation’s immigrants,” said US senator Catherine Cortez Masto.Arkansas Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson said he would have “concerns about the utilisation of National Guard resources for immigration enforcement”, believing such a program “would be too much of a strain on our National Guard personnel”.Utah GOP Governor Gary Herbert would have serious concerns about the constitutional implications and financial impact of activating the National Guard to round up unauthorised immigrants, the governor’s office said in a statement.Senator Richard Blumenthal said: “This administration’s complete disregard for the impact its internal chaos and inability to manage its own message and policy is having on real people’s lives is offensive.”

Source: Donald Trump: White House flatly denies plan to mobilise National Guard troops – Donald Trump’s America – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Times May Change But Fascism Remains the Same | Dame Magazine – Trumpism, the latest run for Fascism!

If these arguments seem familiar, it’s because if you substitute Muslim for Jew and American identity for Christian identity, the cultural chaos and the backlash against women and those who are seen as not being part of the community are eerily similar. Donald Trump emphasizes exclusion and the marking of Muslims as a way of convincing Americans that there are distinctions between “real” Americans and “terrorists.” (The ideas are similar in his rhetoric about “Mexicans” and undocumented immigrants.) Trump’s executive order that banned Muslims from seven different countries was not about keeping Americans safe. His purpose was to convince his supporters that they have a claim to some sort of specialness that is due to having been born on American soil.While Trump uses different rhetorical structures to separate Americans by gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity, the purpose of his executive order was to create a sense of American identity that was based on one idea. According to Trump, Muslims cannot be true Americans. And, he believes, they cannot be admitted because, “In order to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles. The United States cannot, and should not, admit those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law. In addition, the United States should not admit those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred (including “honor” killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation.”The irony, of course, is that if “acts of bigotry … violence against women … or the oppression based on race, gender, or sexual orientation” are the criteria by which being admitted to the United States will be determined, millions of native-born Americans, including Donald Trump himself, should not be allowed to stay.It is a primary tool of the demagogue to convince their audience that a secret group lives among them. This secret group plots the larger community’s downfall; therefore, all the members of the community must not only swear allegiance to its chosen leader, they must all be willing to spy on other members of the group and turn them in should anyone suspect that a mole be working to bring them down.

Source: Times May Change But Fascism Remains the Same | Dame Magazine

Woman dies following Horner Park police shooting – Chicago Tribune – Two more police cannot disarm a person with a knife? Just kill them because we can? Crap!

He said the woman “made some threatening statements” and the officers tried to calm her down. She continued to walk toward the officers, before they deployed a Taser on her two times, Guglielmi said.”That had no effect,” he said. “She continued to advance after that, making threatening statements toward the officers, and the officers discharged their service weapons.”Guglielmi said the woman was shot twice and transported to an area hospital, where she was pronounced dead. He said the woman had no identification on her and hasn’t been identified yet. Guglielmi said the woman is believed to be about 40 or 50 years old, and a knife was recovered.He said the officers, who were not hurt, have more than 10 years’ experience with the Police Department. They will be placed on a 30-day administrative assignment, mandatory for all Chicago police officers involved in shootings.

Source: Woman dies following Horner Park police shooting – Chicago Tribune

Trump and Netanyahu are allies in a losing battle | +972 Magazine

The most important clue to solve this puzzle is Trump and Netanyahu’s obsession with attacking, controlling and manipulating the news media (indeed, this is one of the major sources of Netanyahu’s recent legal troubles). Admittedly, even within their own camps, they are extreme outliers in terms of crudity and relentlessness on this issue — something that surely has to do with their individual psychological makeup. But they are also emblematic of a broader approach on the right, which has fueled the rise of rigorously partisan and uncurious media organs such as Israel Hayom in Israel and Fox News in the U.S.Journalists are a major problem for the Israeli and American extreme right because, despite all their flaws, they occasionally do provide information and cover actual events. In other words, they reflect reality — however partially and inadequately.Reality is the greatest foe of the extreme right wingers currently in power. In the real world, Palestinians, Mexicans, Muslims, and many other groups that they do not like continue to exist, despite travel bans and land grabs. In the real world, international relations are crucial for the prosperity of both countries and cannot be flippantly dismissed. “Alternative facts” are easily malleable. Actual facts cannot be so flexibly managed. The extreme right is not creating “facts on the ground,” it is being undone by them, bit by bit.Netanyahu, Trump, and their allies are fighting a losing battle. Deep inside, they know this. If they truly believed otherwise, their disposition would be sunny and confident, not dark and fretful.This is not cause for complacency. Part of the reason these agendas will be defeated is precisely because people are not complacent — they are mobilized and agitated (at least in the U.S.; this kind of mass opposition seems to be further down the road in Israel and Palestine). Until they are stopped, Trump and Netanyahu can do great harm, some of which will be irreparable. Nonetheless, the struggle against them must begin with the insight that we are not fighting an ascendant and secure power, we are opposing a desperate and fearful faction.

Source: Trump and Netanyahu are allies in a losing battle | +972 Magazine

Donald Trump: The Role of the Media in Addressing the Threat – SPIEGEL ONLINE

So there we have it: Donald Trump, a misogynist and a racist businessman who verifiably made 87 false statements in the course of only five days of the election campaign, is no longer a candidate. He’s sitting in the White House. Here are three insights about this American president who has been in office since Jan. 20.First, in the two-and-a-half weeks since his awful inauguration speech, he has demonstrated that he will do what he said he would: He is ordering the construction of a wall on the border to Mexico, he is issuing xenophobic decrees and he is rattling America’s allies and international institutions and, by doing so, every aspect of global politics. He has already threatened Iran and North Korea. None of this comes as a surprise either, because even Trump’s voters knew that adviser Stephen Bannon is a man who considers wars to be useful.Second, Trump is also showing that he will do much that he did not announce in the campaign. He has ordered scientists not to conduct or publish research on topics of which he does not approve. He says climate change doesn’t exist and means it seriously. He stood by as one of his closest confidants invented the term “alternative facts” to create a parallel reality. Trump brings his children with him to high-level meetings, he hired his son-in-law as a White House adviser, he has spared countries in which he does business from his travel ban on citizens of predominately Muslim states, he has not divested himself of his company holdings, he has not released his tax filings (despite pledging to do so) and even had his adviser Kellyanne Conway claim that voters didn’t care. He now wants to undo banking regulations so that “friends of mine” can get easier access to money. Is he paving the way to cash in and further enrich himself while in office?Third, Trump has already proven some of the things we already knew about him. The perception people have of him is more important to Trump than anything else. Nothing was more important to him in his first two and a half weeks in office than the size of the crowd at his inauguration. Trump is a chronic liar and he proves this in one tweet after the other. Trump despises the media (he calls it the “opposition party” and says “As you know, I have a running war with the media”) as well as the judicial branch in the form of “this so-called judge” who didn’t rule the way that his ruler desired. Meanwhile, Trump claims the people protesting against him are “paid.”

Source: Donald Trump: The Role of the Media in Addressing the Threat – SPIEGEL ONLINE

The age of Trump spells the end of the Zionist dream | +972 Magazine

When Israel backs an American regime that threatens our liberty as humans and our safety as Jews, the claim that Zionism protects Jews no longer holds.By Ben Lorber

Source: The age of Trump spells the end of the Zionist dream | +972 Magazine

Humans of New York

“My parents disappeared during the last dictatorship. They were political activists. My father was taken first in 1977. My mother was taken a year later during the World Cup. We were standing in a public square, and two cars stopped, and they grabbed me and my mother. They let me go. But my mother was never heard from again. I learned all of this later because I was only three at the time. My grandparents raised me. When I was a child they would tell me that my parents were working. I used to imagine them building a skyscraper, wearing helmets, and getting closer and closer to the top. It wasn’t until the age of ten that I learned what really happened. But even then, my parents were only ideas to me. They were two-dimensional. But when I turned seventeen, I visited the town where they first met. I found their old friends and they told me stories. I learned that my father loved the Beatles. He also loved to dance. A man gave me a costume that my father would wear when he danced. And suddenly my parents weren’t ideas anymore. They were people. They were Daniel and Viviana. And for the first time, I cried for them.” (Buenos Aires, Argentina)

Source: Humans of New York

′Der Spiegel′ magazine sparks furor as cover depicts Trump beheading Lady Liberty | News | DW.COM | 04.02.2017

It depicts a recognizable figure of Trump holding up the bleeding head of the Statue of Liberty in one hand, and a bloodstained knife in the other. In this week’s editorial, “Der Spiegel” editor-in-chief Klaus Brinkbäumer dubbed the president “Nero Trump,” after the notoriously brutal ancient Roman emperor.Trump’s action and pose depicted on the cover clearly invokes that of Islamist terrorist – and that was always its intention.The cover’s illustrator, Edel Rodriguez, a Cuban political refugee in the US, told the “Washington Post” newspaper that he was prompted to channel his anger into the piece of art following Trump’s visa ban. “It’s a beheading of democracy, a beheading of a sacred symbol,” Rodriguez said. “And clearly, lately, what’s associated with beheadings is ISIS, so there’s a comparison. Both sides are extremists, so I’m just making a comparison between them.”

Source: ′Der Spiegel′ magazine sparks furor as cover depicts Trump beheading Lady Liberty | News | DW.COM | 04.02.2017

Lying US defence chief brands Iran ‘biggest sponsor of terrorism’ as tensions flare – France 24

Iran is to deploy missiles for a Revolutionary Guards exercise Saturday in a show of defiance, while the US defense secretary on the same day called Iran the world’s “single biggest state sponsor of terrorism.

Source: US defence chief brands Iran ‘biggest sponsor of terrorism’ as tensions flare – France 24