Signs of the Times: Italian Senate passes bill recognizing homosexual civil unions
Days of Lot! Fiery Brimstone From the Skies coming!
This blog is LOADED with the latest madness from the modern world (if you can stomach it)
Italy’s Senate has passed bill recognizing homosexual civil unions, but because of a last-minute deal brokered with Catholic parliamentarians, it will deny such unions the right to adopt. It must still be passed by the House of Deputies.
Virginia Code Nunziante, president of the Association for the Defence of the Family, told LifeSiteNews the bill is almost certain to pass the lower house because of the agreement of Catholic members of Parliament to support it with the right to adoption removed and because the government has formally backed it – a move almost always reserved for security, financial, and economic measures, but “never on a moral issue.”
But Democratic Party Prime Minister Matteo Renzi was elected on a reform platform and has promised to bring Italy “up” to the standards set by most other Western European countries regarding sexual minority rights. Since the Italian constitution has enshrined marriage, the best his coalition could do was bring in a equal rights law granting homosexuals the right to have their relationships recognized by the government as “marriages” in all but name.
However, “the Catholic vote,” in Nunziante’s words, balked at homosexual adoption, and Renzi agreed to drop it from the bill to secure Catholic support.
The homosexual group Rainbow Families said the bill had been “emptied out.” But Prime Minister Renzi defended his compromise, saying, “Between ‘everything never and ‘nothing today’ it’s better to do a little piece today.”
But Nunziante’s group is just as unhappy. “The Catholic vote has betrayed Catholics in the public square,” Nunziante said. Her alliance of pro-family groups lobbied hard with both the public and the Catholic parliamentarians, “asking them to oppose completely this bill.” More than a million marched – and bussed – on Rome last month to protest the bill.
Supporters of the measure, said Nunziante, shamed members of Parliament with the message that “we are the only country in Europe that does not have such a law – which is not true, by the way. They said, ‘We cannot not give civil rights to homosexuals. Of course, they have the same civil rights as anyone else already.” As well, the European Court of Rights condemned Italy for discrimination against homosexuals.
Why is her group opposed to the bill? “Because it against the natural law and against divine law,” she said. “We cannot accept that. Pope Benedict said there are certain non-negotiable values, and the family is one of them. Homosexuality attacks the family.”
Once the bill passes the House of Deputies, only President Sergio Mattarella, a retired constitutional judge, stands between it and implementation. “He can declare it is unconstitutional,” said Nunziante. “He doesn’t have to do that. We can only hope.”
Feds Seek “Mental Health” Testing of All Children, Adults
Next time you visit your doctor, be careful how you respond to his questions, or you may just be branded “mentally ill” and subjected to “treatment.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Next time you visit your doctor, be careful how you respond to his questions, or you may just be branded “mentally ill” and subjected to “treatment.”
That is because a panel advising the Obama administration, in partnership with Big Psychiatry, wants to make doctors subject all American adults and children over age 12 to screening for alleged “mental health” disorders — particularly depression, at least to start with. Then, anyone found to harbor any alleged mental disorder, including children as young as eight, should undergo “therapy,” often including powerful psychotropic medications that experts say have dubious value but often come with well-documented and highly dangerous side effects.
Your ObamaCare plan will be forced to pay for it, whether you want it or not, thanks to the federal government’s commandeering of the health-insurance industry under the so-called Affordable Care Act. And eventually, younger and younger children will be in Big Brother’s crosshairs for mental and behavioral health “services,” whether parents want it or not. School teachers, social workers, and more are all already being enlisted in the federal government’s search for supposed “mental and behavioral health” issues — a list that is perpetually expanding as psychiatrists invent new “illnesses.” The outcry against the federal government’s obsession with your mind and the minds of America’s children, though, is growing louder, as critics call the agenda “depressing” and worry whether it is another scheme to disarm more Americans.
The controversial “recommendations” include screening all Americans between the ages of 12 and 18 for depression. A separate but related recommendation seeks to have all U.S. adults checked for “mental illness,” too. And consider that the list of “illnesses” is subjective (homosexuality was a mental disorder a few decades ago) and is constantly expanding as psychiatrists vote to create new ones, literally, as part of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual — the “Bible” of psychiatry that has been widely criticized, even by leading psychiatrists.
The latest demands come from the United States Preventive Services Task Force, or USPSTF. The influential outfit, appointed by the Obama administration’s increasingly radical Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), recommends various unconstitutional federal health policies for Big Brother to decree into pseudo-law via regulation.
Read more
Big U.S. banks will be rolling out ATMs that take smartphones, not cards
To the long list of things you can do with your phone — including watch a movie, buy a latte and hail a ride — prepare to add one more: get cash. Over the next few months, the nation’s three biggest banks will start rolling out ATMs that will let customers withdraw currency using their smartphones instead of debit cards — the latest step toward a future in which phones could replace bank branches and wallets.
“My boys are 5 and 6 — I don’t think they’ll carry around plastic when they grow up,” said Michelle Moore, head of digital banking for Bank of America, which plans to make cardless ATMs widely available as early as May. San Francisco banking giant Wells Fargo plans to offer cardless access at a limited number of ATMs by this summer and at all ATMs by the end of the year. Most of JPMorgan Chase’s ATMs will start offering cardless access sometime in the second half of the year. Cash machines that work with a phone instead of a card aren’t new, but they are rare. Downtown L.A.’s City National Bank unveiled cardless ATMs in 2013, and a few regional banks have followed suit over the last year, but the number of cardless ATMs now stands in the low thousands nationwide. FULL REPORT
Mandatory vaccine legislation will lead to compulsory organ harvesting from Americans' bodies
(NaturalNews) Health freedom is a sacred right that strikingly few people in America today seem to recognize as vitally important to a free society. This is evidenced by the largely manufactured measles crisis, which has sent some into a tailspin of draconian fervor as they call on the government to literally force the entire populace into getting vaccinated for the "greater good."
But the moment we allow government to decide one aspect of how we must live our lives is the moment we allow government to decide all aspects of how we must live our lives. If forced vaccination is ever (God forbid) recognized as normal and necessary to keep people "safe" from disease, for instance, the floodgates will be opened to all sorts of other compulsory "medical" interventions like mandatory organ harvesting.
Forcing anyone to do anything solely on the basis that it serves some mythical "greater good" is a slippery slope into tyranny. It directly mirrors the Nazi propaganda campaigns prior to World War II that made things like mandatory euthanasia for disabled people appear necessary for the continuity of a healthy, civil society.
An op-ed piece recently published by MinnPost.com, entitled "The case for mandatory vaccinations," could very well be mistaken for one of the Nazi propaganda posters referenced in the aforementioned link (especially if it was published in German rather than English). Its author, a professor of political science by the name of David Schultz, argues that personal liberty as it concerns vaccinations must be sacrificed on the altar of "state interests in promoting public health."
This was the exact same excuse used by the Third Reich to sterilize or murder "defective" members of society who were allegedly costing the public health system large sums of money. Just like the Nazis, Schultz believes that mandatory vaccinations are necessary to address the "public costs and expenditures" supposedly resulting from unvaccinated individuals who require "additional health-care expenditures."
Vaccines don't work and they're dangerous, but even if they were the "miracle cure" that the establishment claims they are, forcing them on people is medical tyranny
This highly repressive claim incorrectly assumes that unvaccinated children are sicker and require more medical care than vaccinated children, a myth that has been completely debunked by science. To the contrary, vaccinated children tend to be more immunocompromised than unvaccinated children, have far more diseases and disorders than unvaccinated children and spread disease to other children as a result of vaccine-induced live-virus "shedding."
But the real issue here, regardless of all these facts, is still medical freedom. Without informed consent and the freedom to choose whether or not to be jabbed with live viruses, chemical preservatives, heavy metals and aborted human fetal tissue, Americans are literally no different from Nazi war prisoners, many of whom were also forced to undergo various medical treatments or experiments for the "greater good."
If forced vaccinations should ever become the norm, so will all sorts of other heinous crimes against humanity. If the government suddenly wants your vital organs for the "greater good," and deems you to have "disabilities" or other "defects" that it claims will be a "burden" to society, then it might decide to take these organs by force. Or if your child gets vaccinated and develops autoimmunity or autism as a result, the government may decide that the societal burden of your child is too much, and that your child needs to be exterminated.
If you support mandatory vaccinations, are you prepared to surrender all your other medical freedoms as well? Think long and hard about this before jumping on the bandwagon of "saving the children" by supporting forced vaccinations on those who, for whatever reason, decide to take a different course of action, of their own free will.
A “Socialist, Communist, and Democrat Walk Into a Bar…”
http://beforeitsnews.com/politics/2016/01/a-socialist-communist-and-democrat-walk-into-a-bar-2773432.html
DAYS OF LOT: Children as young as 13 to be asked whether they are ‘gender fluid’, ‘demi-girl’ or ‘intersex’
Children as young as 13 have been invited to describe their gender as any one of 25 different options in a Government-backed survey. The choices put before teenagers in research for the Children’s Commissioner for England include ‘gender fluid’, ‘demi-girl’ and ‘tri-gender’. The list of alternatives is being offered to children as part of a campaign to ‘find out how gender matters to young people’. Youngsters are also asked whether they feel safe using single-sex toilets, and if their school should have unisex ones instead.
Other questions include whether their school should have just one unisex uniform. The research, described by one of its authors as ‘committed to feminist methodologies’, was condemned by critics who said it was biased and politically motivated. Yesterday Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield withdrew the survey after the Daily Mail asked her office about it. A spokesman said the version that had been distributed was ‘a draft’ and had not been cleared by the Commissioner. A new version will be prepared with some questions withdrawn. FULL REPORT
Sober sex only: Condom machine decides whether you’re too drunk for lovin'??
A condom machine in London which dispenses contraceptives to sober people only has been criticized for potentially leading to riskier bedroom behavior.
The ‘Johnny Be Good’ dispenser comes with a breathalyzer to determine how under the influence of alcohol you are, with levels ranging from ‘teetotaler’ to ‘legless’, and ‘game over’. Users blow into the device and - if they’re under the legal limit - will be rewarded with a free condom.
The Brass Monkey pub in Victoria is trialling the machine, created by dating site Match.
A survey by the dating site found 73 percent of single Britons find alcohol makes dating easier, with one-third saying they aren’t confident enough to sleep with someone for the first time while totally sober.
The survey also revealed men are more likely to seek some Dutch courage before getting down, with almost half admitting they drink beforehand compared to 36 percent of women.
The condom dispenser has drawn criticism from health experts who believe people the dispenser deems too drunk for sex may do so anyway, unprotected.
“Denying people access to condoms could lead to riskier sexual behaviour, increasing the risk of unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections,” Professor Jane Anderson told the Metro.
The machine also fails to tackle the crucial issue of alcohol and consent, which is being increasingly highlighted on college campuses.
In Ireland, first year students at Dublin’s Trinity College will have to attend compulsory sexual consent workshops in September, after a college survey found one-quarter of its female students reported having non-consensual sex.
The university is following in the footsteps of colleges in Oxford, Cambridge and Bristol in the UK, which have also introduced similar initiatives. A 2012 report by the Ministry of Justice revealed female students are at a higher risk of sexual violence than the rest of the population.
Student unions in the US handed out sexual consent kits last year, containing a sex contract, a pen, a condom, and a mint. The kits were an effort to start a conversation about consent.
Meanwhile, New York has introduced a new law on campuses, “Yes Means Yes”, requiring couples to obtain consent at each stage of hooking up. New York colleges must update their rules and conduct codes to reflect the new law.
California also has an ‘affirmative consent’ law to improve how universities deal with sexual assault cases.
Scientists Claim they Can Create Babies Without Men by Injecting Eggs with Artificial Sperm
The Chinese team says the new discovery could pave the way for exciting new treatments to boost male fertility
Scientists have claimed they have found a way for women to have babies without men by creating artificial sperm.
The team from China claim they have created healthy mouse babies by injecting laboratory-made sperm into eggs to produce mouse offspring.
The scientists claim their stem cell technique could pave the way for new treatments for male fertility.
But British experts have called for the results to be independently verified and pointed out that any practical application is likely to be a long way off.
Read more
U.S. Air Force paid to have cadets learn witchcraft
Financial donations made to the U.S. Air Force Academy chapel later were used for cadets to participate in “witchcraft, ‘Faery Magick,’ and voodoo,” according to a new report from one of the leading Washington watchdog organizations. Judical Watch, which has fought for the public’s right to know how government money is spent, including when then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went profligate with $100,000 plus for in-flight treats, said it has obtained documents from the academy revealing in 2014 and 2015, the military school used its “Chapel Tithes and Offering Fund” for some pretty exotic expenditures.
The funds were used for worship services featuring witchcraft, the “Faery Magick,” voodoo and more, including a trip from cadets to a Wiccan festival in Denver and a Denver Witches Ball, the report said. The category of government accounting the money came from is described as being funded by “free-will donations,” and it also is called “an instrumentality of the United States government,” Judicial Watch reported. READ MORE
Artificial intelligence Will Ask For the Data of Humanity and It will Be Given By Free Will
Today’s concerns about giving up privacy will seem quaint in the coming years. A.I. will need everything, and we’ll happily give it. The artificial intelligence revolution is clearly happening. And it’s super exciting. A.I. will transform medicine, give us all super-smart virtual assistants, fight crime and a thousand things more. But there’s a catch. In order for A.I. to work its miracles, it’s going to need data. Massive amounts of data. And I’m predicting that we’ll willingly give that data. In fact, we’re already starting to.
Do you use Siri, Google Now, Cortana or Alexa? They work by recording your voice, uploading the recording to the cloud, then processing the words and sending back the answer. After you’ve got your answer, you forget about the query. But your recorded voice, the text extracted from it, and the entire context of the back-and-forth conversations you had are still doing work in the service of the A.I. that makes virtual assistants work. Everything you say to your virtual assistant is funneled into the data-crunching A.I. engines and retained for analysis. READ MORE
Dozens of LGBT groups lend support to abortifacient Obamacare mandate against Catholic Church
WASHINGTON, D.C., February 24, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – A collection of 29 pro-LGBT groups made a move in court last week to back the HHS Mandate provision forcing Catholic employers to violate their religious principles.
The National LGBTQ Task Force joined 28 other pro-abortion and feminist groups in filing a February 17 amicus brief in the Zubik v. Burwell case to show support for the Obamacare mandate requiring the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh to provide contraception to its employees.
The head of the LGBT group dismissed the position held by Catholics and other people of faith that forcing them to subsidize contraception for their employees violates their religious values.
"A Supreme Court decision that allows discrimination under the guise of 'religious freedom' would drastically restrict the ability of LGBTQ people to control our reproductive health and sexual lives," said National LGBTQ Task Force Executive Director Rea Carey in an LGBT Weekly report.
There are those in the LGBT community who are able to become pregnant, according to Carey, and may want access to the no-co-pay birth control touted in the president's health care takeover.
"Many of us, including cisgender women, transgender men, intersex and gender non-conforming people, can get pregnant," Carey stated, "and rely on a full range of reproductive health options, including birth control, in order to make the best decisions for ourselves."
The Zubik in the case is Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh, and the case is one of seven to go before the Supreme Court next month, when the Court decides whether the Obama administration can force employers to violate their religious beliefs by forcing the employers to provide abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception.
Contraception, sterilization, and abortion all violate Catholic Church teaching, but the federal government via Obamacare is requiring all employers, including Catholic employers, to provide contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacient drugs with no co-pay to their employees, regardless whether the employees use them and despite the fact that doing so would be considered a mortal sin for Catholics.
Suing the government along with Bishop Zubik are the Little Sisters of the Poor; Priests for Life; Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C.; East Texas Baptist University; Southern Nazarene University; and Geneva College.
All have argued that the contraception mandate – and the Obama administration's subsequent contraception delivery scheme, passed off as an "accommodation" – failed to relieve them of the burden of violating their conscience, because they must still participate in a process that will give their employees drugs that could take an unborn human being's life.
Bishop Zubik told a district judge in November 2013 he would not comply with the HHS mandate under any circumstance, even if it meant closing Catholic schools, because, the bishop said, the mandate endangers "the integrity of our beliefs."
In 2012, Bishop Zubik described the mandate as "a slap in the face" that says, "To Hell with you!" to Catholics and religious freedom.
The Little Sisters of the Poor is an international religious community of Catholic nuns who operate group homes and provide daily care for the elderly poor in 30 U.S. cities.
They have become a symbol of the attack on religious freedom in the U.S. due to their refusal to compromise their Catholic values, with more than a dozen briefs from religious and legal groups been filed in their favor.
The federal government has rejected the sisters' request for the Obamacare contraception exception on the basis that they do not qualify because they employ not only Catholics and serve not only Catholics. The enormous IRS fines the sisters face for noncompliance with the Obamacare HHS Mandate would threaten their ability to continue their mission in the U.S.
The February 17 amicus brief filed against the Catholic bishop of Pittsburgh by the LGBT coalition is not the first time for pro-homosexual activists to align with pro-aborts to join in the Obamacare attack on conscience protections.
Two years ago, almost 50 homosexual activist groups partnered with Planned Parenthood in releasing a statement supporting Obama's controversial contraception mandate, saying that legislation proposed in 10 states at the time to ensure conscience protection amounted to discrimination.
Woman killed boyfriend for spending too much time on Facebook
A British hairdresser was sentenced to life in prison last week after she plunged a knife into her boyfriend’s heart — because she felt he spent too much time on Facebook.
Terri-Marie Palmer, 23, broke down in tears as she was convicted of 24-year-old Damon Searson’s murder following a one-week trial, where the details emerged about the fatal end of their rocky relationship, according to multiple reports.
Moments before the killing, Palmer posted: “He p***** me off sitting on Facebook, completely blanking me when I’m talking to him,” according to The Mirror Online.
She regularly posted on the social media site about how Searson would ignore her while scrolling through Facebook messages on his phone, adding random girls and posting shirtless photos of himself.
“Gross,” she wrote on one of his topless pics.
“Didn’t expect any different to come out of your mouth f–king b–ch,” he fired back.
Eventually, Palmer texted her man that she was fed up — and furious.
“Crying myself to sleep for the second time this week and it’s only Wednesday. Thanks Damon. I’m so angry and hurt I honestly want to f–king stab you,” she wrote, according to The Mirror Online.
The two met at Palmer’s hair salon, Costa Del Sol in Lancaster, England, and moved in together last July.
But by August, Palmer said she planned to leave him, complaining that she had to pay his way, since he was unemployed, and that he was also becoming possessive.
On Aug. 14, she stabbed him to death — leaving the bloody bread knife on the floor and telling cops he had harmed himself, according to the reports.
Palmer will have to serve at least 12 years in the slammer before she is up for parole.
Swedish Liberal Party Youth Wing Calls for Legalization of Necrophilia, Incest
"I understand that it can be seen as unusual and disgusting but legislation can not be based on it being disgusting"
The Swedish Liberal party’s youth wing proposed legalizing necrophilia and incest Sunday during the group’s annual meeting in Stockholm.
According to the motion filed, two consenting siblings 15 years of age and older should be allowed to engage in sexual intercourse while sex with a human corpse should also be legalized so long as the deceased gave written permission prior to passing.
Speaking with Swedish news site Aftonbladet, Liberal Youth leader Cecilia Johnsson painted the move as a progressive step forward for the Scandinavian country.
“We are a youth organization and one of our task is to think one step further,” Johnsson said.
Johnsson stated that although most of society views the practices as “disgusting,” such acts should not be outlawed by the government.
“I understand that it can be seen as unusual and disgusting but legislation can not be based on it being disgusting,” she said.
“We don’t like morality laws in general and this legislation is not protecting anyone right now.”
In regards to necrophilia specifically, Johnsson argued that people should be allowed to fornicate with the dead so long as arrangements are made beforehand.
“It should be your own decision what happens with your body after you die, and if that happens to be that you want to bequeath your remains to a museum or to science, or if you want to bequeath your remains to someone to sleep with them, then that should be OK,” she added.
The group’s proposal immediately put several former and current members of the mother party on the defensive.
“Liberal Youth of Sweden focuses on publicity, but hardly the issues that determines our, and Sweden’s future,” former Liberal MP Carl B. Hamilton said on social media. “Surely, you must understand that people are laughing at your liberalism, you nitwits?”
Hamilton also quipped over whether or not the youth would focus on bestiality next.
“And what other challenges facing society is on the top 100-list for Stockholm’s Liberal Youth? Sex with hippos?” he said.
Despite the shocking subject matter, the group’s move is unsurprising to many given the growing effort by some liberals to normalize behaviors deemed reprehensible by the rest of society.
For example, left-wing news outlet’s such as Salon have spent the last several months attempting to convince readers that pedophilia is merely a sexual orientation and not a mental disorder.
“In essence, your brain knows what it likes and isn’t going to take no for an answer,” self-described pedophile Todd Nickerson wrote last September.
Distractions Much?
Projected keyboard, VR, & 5G grab Day 1 headlines at Mobile World Congress
https://www.rt.com/news/333297-mobile-world-congress-day-1/
Satanists to give prayer at Phoenix City Council meeting
Members of a satanic group are set to give the prayer at an upcoming meeting of the Phoenix City Council, triggering a debate about religious freedom and whether such a display is appropriate for the venue. Satanic Temple members Michelle Shortt and Stu de Haan are expected to give the invocation at the council’s Feb. 17 meeting after the group submitted a request in December. Despite the objections of some council members, the city has decided to let the satanists speak as scheduled.
Phoenix City Attorney Brad Holm released a statement Thursday evening, defending the city’s position. The city typically holds a short invocation at the start of formal council meetings and has included members from a variety of faiths, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Sikhism. “Consistent with the U.S. Supreme Court’s direction, the city cannot dictate religious viewpoints or the content of a prayer,” Holm wrote. “In addition, government may not exclude a denomination or a religion from praying under these circumstances.” FULL REPORT
Britain Approves Controversial Gene-Editing Technique
Britain’s fertility regulator has approved a scientist’s request to edit the human genetic code in an effort to fight inherited diseases — but critics fear the new technique crosses too many ethical boundaries. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority announced Monday it has granted a research application to a team led by scientist Kathy Niakan to try to understand the genes that human embryos need to develop successfully. Scientists say gene-editing techniques could one day lead to treatments for conditions like HIV, which causes AIDS, and inherited diseases like muscular dystrophy and sickle cell disease. Niakan, of the Francis Crick Institute, plans to use gene editing to analyze the first week of an embryo’s growth.
This research will “enhance our understanding of (in vitro fertilization) success rates, by looking at the very earliest stage of human development,” said Paul Nurse, director of the Francis Crick Institute. Peter Braude, an emeritus professor of obstetrics and gynecology at King’s College London, said the mechanisms being investigated by Niakan and colleagues “are crucial in ensuring healthy, normal development and implantation” and could help doctors understand how to improve in vitro fertilization rates and prevent miscarriages. FULL REPORT
NWO "Mad Scientists"
Chicago records 51 homicides in January, highest toll since 2000
CHICAGO — The nation's third largest city recorded 51 homicides in January, the highest toll for the month since at least 2000.
Gang conflicts and retaliatory violence drove the "unacceptable" increase in homicides, the police department said in a statement. But the rise in violence also notably comes as the Chicago Police Department faces increased scrutiny following the court-ordered release of a police video showing a white police officer fatally shooting a black teenager 16 times, and as the department implements changes in how it monitors street stops by officers.
Chicago routinely records more homicides annually than any other American city, but the grim January violence toll marks a shocking spike in violence in a city that recorded 29 murders for the month of January last year and 20 murders for the month in 2014. In addition to the jump in killings, police department said that it recorded 241 shooting incidents for the month, more than double the 119 incidents recorded last January.
The rise in violence comes after the Chicago Police Department reported 468 murders in 2015, a 12.5% increase from the year before. There were also 2,900 shootings, 13% more than the year prior, according to police department records.
In recent weeks, the police department pushed back against the notion that the rise in homicides could be due to cops becoming less aggressive due to the negative attention the department has received in the aftermath of the release of the police video showing the shooting of Laquan McDonald. The city saw several weeks of largely peaceful protests after the release of the video. The U.S. Justice Department has launched a civil rights investigation of the city.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who faced fierce backlash in the city's African-American community over his handling of the McDonald case, fired his police superintendent, Garry McCarthy, after the video's release.
Interim Superintendent John Escalante expressed frustration earlier this month as the homicide toll climbed, but said it was due mainly to gang activity. He also said he was concerned about social media fueling gang disputes, with fatal incidents starting as a war of words on the Internet.
"It's the new way of taunting, challenging other gangs," Escalante told reporters. "It's the modern way of gang graffiti."
St. Louis saw a dramatic increase in the number homicides following the August 2014 police shooting death of Michael Brown in nearby Ferguson, which spurred months of angry protests. And Baltimore saw a spike in homicides following the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore in April, an incident that sparked unrest in the Charm City. In both Baltimore and St. Louis, the rise in violent crime began to increase prior to the high-profile incidents and accelerated afterward.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel taps high-profile officer to advise Chicago police
The department says it has seen a decrease in investigative stops by cops on the streets after new rules went into effect Jan. 1 requiring the police department to bolster the monitoring of stops and protective pat downs known as "stop-and-frisk."
The police department entered an agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union to record contact cards for all street stops after the organization criticized the the city's police for disproportionately targeting minorities for questioning and searches. In the past, police officers were required only to fill out cards for stops that didn't result in an arrest. The new contact cards also require police officers to offer greater detail about the stops than they have in the past.
Chicago Police interim Superintendent John Escalante has expressed concern about social media spats between rival gangs fueling a recent spike in homicides and shootings in Chicago. (Photo: Charles Rex Arbogast, AP)
The police department says it recently moved 350 police officers and 31 sergeants from foot patrols into vehicles to help increase visibility in communities hardest hit by the rise of shootings and to improve their ability to quickly respond to incidents.
The department says it has also conducted a series of raids in areas of the city it knows are problematic. One raid last week netted 64 arrests, including 40 suspects who are documented gang members, and the seizure of over $200,000 worth of drugs. Police say they also seized 19 weapons in the raid.
NJ cops bust teenagers shoveling snow without a permit?
I remember being a 15-year-old boy looking for ways to make money on my summer vacation. The whole world seemed to lay ahead of me, and I wasn't about to sit and watch it pass me by. I remember taking $50 out of my $100 savings and purchasing a tabletop snow cone machine, some cups, bags of ice and a handful of flavored snow cone syrups.
That summer, I started a snow cone business, without permits, without taxes, without government interference. I freely delivered snow cones to the neighborhood that summer for 50 cents each, operating right out of my bedroom window. After two months, I had made enough profit to buy my first car: a $500 used Chevy Beretta. I even had enough profit left over to give to a local community organization. I was proud of myself. The neighbors were happy. Everything was full of abundance in my mind.
That summer, so full of wonder and excitement, is what a free market should look like: someone (me) investing in an idea and serving the surrounding community in the way I knew best. The people in the community are free to choose whether to buy the product or pay for the service. If the market conditions are right, the entrepreneur is compensated for his hard work.
In this free market, there is no one coming along to steal from his service, his business. There's no government looking to tax him. The prosperity was not created by a government bureaucracy and it should not be micromanaged by one. The prosperity remains decentralized and rightfully so. The individual is free to manage the fruits of his own labor. In my case, I bought my own modest car and donated the rest.
What we are seeing today is the opposite of free markets. Children who start lemonade stands are now targeted by government enforcers who force the children to shut down the lemonade stand or face permit fines.
The human spirit seeks to provide and share, to do work that matters, to serve and be independent. The government is now a vehicle that takes from these endeavors, forcing individuals to submit, comply, and become docile and dependent.
Teenagers face $450 permit fee for wanting to shovel the snow off neighbor's driveway
The free market is under attack in America today. It's so under attack that teenagers looking to make some extra money shoveling snow can now be stopped in their tracks and forced to pay erroneous permit fees.
That's the case for Matt Molinari and Eric Schnepf, two 18-year-olds from Bound Brook, New Jersey. On January 27, they traveled door to door handing out homemade flyers offering their snow-shoveling services. The weather forecast predicted several inches of snow the next day, and school had already been canceled. The boys were looking to serve their neighbors and make some extra cash.
Local news reports in Bound Brook report that local law enforcement told the boys to stop going door to door. The cops said the boys were not allowed to solicit business door-to-door without obtaining a permit from the local government.
The permit cost $450 and is good for 180 days. Fees like this make any small service not worth it at all. Imagine making a hundred dollars shoveling snow one day only to be forced to fork over all of the earnings, plus $350 extra dollars from your savings account just to satisfy the local government permit masters.
When did we become a nation that discourages servitude, hard work and decentralized business that benefits the community?
When did we write laws that intimidate the free market, forcing people to give up and be dependent or be fined until they are dependent?
When did a piece of paper (a permit), get in the way of the free and independent American spirit? What kind of bizarre police state are we now living in?
When are fully reasonable officers of the law going to stop and say, "Hey, I'm not just going to take orders anymore! I'm going to do whatever I can to restore what makes this country, and this world a better place."
BLASPHEMY – NBC Comedy Suggests Jesus Was Gay
Wow. NBC went there. The freshman comedy Superstore went out of its way to offend Christians by having characters opine on Jesus’ beliefs about gays – including suggesting that Jesus Himself was gay! To set the scene, in the episode “Wedding Day Sale,” Glenn, the religious store manager, enlists the help of Mateo, a gay employee, in creating a special gay wedding section. Glenn explains, “I just want everyone who comes into this store to feel accepted,” which is a fine sentiment and a great way for a manager to treat his customers.
But it leads to this discussion about Jesus being pro-gay marriage, pro-gay adoption, and maybe was even gay himself – a statement that FINALLY makes Glenn uncomfortable. Lefty Hollywood loves poking its finger in the eye of Christians and disrespecting their religion. They think they’re being edgy and provocative, but instead they’re being lame and predictable. Hey Hollywood, you want to REALLY be edgy and provocative? Try airing a scene that has characters saying Muhammad would be pro-gay marriage, pro-gay adoption, and might even be gay. Let’s see how that goes! FULL REPORT