‘Horrific pattern’: Amnesty says 106 killed in Iran protests | News | Al Jazeera
sigh…
Category: International Affairs,
Hong Kong Protests: Inside the Chaos
The two women weren’t sure whether they would win. That’s also something I’ve heard often—these protesters aren’t the most optimistic group. No rose-colored glasses here. “But we cannot give up,” one insisted, “because if we do, there will be no future for us anyway. We might as well go down fighting.”
One of the young women gave me an umbrella: a tool protesters use to shield themselves from the sun, from CCTV cameras, from overhead helicopters, from the blue water laced with pepper spray and fired from water cannons, from tear-gas canisters. They had noticed I didn’t have one, and were worried for me. They had brought extras to share. “You might need this,” one of them said as she handed it to me, and wished me good luck. And then the clouds of tear gas drifted in our direction, as they so often do in Hong Kong these days, and we scattered.
Hong Kong Protests: Inside the Chaos – The Atlantic
hmmm
Archaeologists Discover Ancient Native American Sites In Path Of Planned Highway
Greubel thinks this particular pit house was probably a center for ceremonies or gatherings for the Ancestral Puebloan people who lived here roughly 1,200 years ago. That was before they are believed to have migrated west to the Mesa Verde area and then south to become the ancestors of the Hopi, Zuni and various Pueblo tribes.
“When we were working down here, you kind of have a sense of peace and you feel like you’re accomplishing something good,” Greubel says. “I know not all people think that way, but we treated the site with respect and a sense of awe.”
…This pit house is about to be filled in and covered up by a highway, as are six other important ancient sites on this mesa.
…The new construction site will cross the outer boundaries of the tribe’s reservation.
But some Southern Ute citizens are still upset that the digs are happening at all, and they don’t feel empowered to stop them.
…”You know, those are my family’s bones in there,” Maez says. “We don’t have a ceremony to dig them up and put them somewhere else.”
He says projects like this have forced tribes to adapt to that process and create new rituals to remove and rebury remains.
…Local tribes didn’t have ultimate veto power to stop this highway project from moving forward.
…”It’s quite interesting to see how we lived, you know, and to compare in how we live today. But on the other hand, it’s very hurtful and sad too.”
Archaeologists Discover Ancient Native American Sites In Path Of Planned Highway : NPR
hmmmm
The Amount of Money Being Made Ripping Migrant Families Apart Is Staggering
Microsoft’s Azure cloud-computing software was “mission critical” for ICE’s operations, as Berkowitz explained to me, and the agency paid Microsoft nearly $20 million for its use.
…Accenture, Boeing, Elbit, G4S, General Dynamics, IBM, L3 Technologies, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Palantir (with software provided by Amazon), Raytheon, and UNISYS are among the hundreds of companies who are facilitating the migrant detention and deportation machine—and have been raking in, from 2006 to 2018, more than a combined $45 billion, dispersed among nearly 100,000 separate contracts with CBP and ICE.
…Immigration enforcement budgets have ballooned from $350 million in 1980, to $1.2 billion in 1990, to $9.1 billion in 2003, to a whopping $23.7 billion in 2018. …Those budgets then annually funnel $2.32 billion back to the private sector through federal immigration, corrections, and detention contracts.
…Since 2006, “177 people have gone through the DHS revolving door and 34 have worked both for the House Homeland Security Committee and for a lobbying firm,” the report notes. Just from 2003 to 2017, four CBP commissioners and three DHS secretaries went on to work in homeland security corporations after leaving government.
…John Kelly …joined the board of directors of Caliburn International. …[During] the period Kelly was in office, from July 2017 to December 2018, …the average length of stay for an unaccompanied child migrant in US custody “skyrocketed.” The company that ran Homestead, a subsidiary of Caliburn, also happened to land a contract, in that same period, for a whopping $222 million.
…The border-security corporate giants, especially Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and Boeing, are the biggest campaign contributors to members of the House Appropriations Committee—the congressional body that regulates expenditures of the federal government. Between 2006 and 2018, these companies contributed a total of $27.6 million just to members of the committee.
Texas Democrat Henry Cuellar, to take just one example, received large campaign contributions from GEO Group and CoreCivic ($55,690), Northrop Grumman ($13,000), Boeing Corporation ($10,000), Caterpillar Inc ($10,000) and Lockheed Martin ($10,000).
The Amount of Money Being Made Ripping Migrant Families Apart Is Staggering | The Nation
hmmm
A Sorceress’s Kit Was Discovered in the Ashes of Pompeii | Smart News | Smithsonian
A Sorceress’s Kit Was Discovered in the Ashes of Pompeii | Smart News | Smithsonian
Seems like a bit of a leap to Sorceress’s Kit.
Impeachment transcript: White House officials testify quid pro quo effort was coordinated with Mulvaney
[National Security Council Ukraine expert Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and former White House Russia expert Fiona Hill] …told lawmakers the “blatant” push for politically motivated investigations from President Donald Trump left “no ambiguity” what the Ukrainians needed to do to secure a highly sought meeting.
… Gordon Sondland told Ukrainian officials in meetings on July 10 they would have to open an investigation to secure the White House meeting. Sondland told [Vindman and Hill] he was acting at the direction of Mulvaney.
…[Hill] was instructed by Bolton to take her concerns about the role Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani was playing in Ukraine to National Security Council attorneys. Bolton told her to make clear he was “not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up on this.”
…Vindman testified that the Ukrainians asked him in the spring “for advice on how to respond to Mr. Giuliani’s advances, meaning his call to undertake these — what would come across as partisan investigations.” Vindman said he recommended to Zelesnky not to get involved in US domestic politics.
…Vindman said he was first aware of the hold on Ukraine aid by July 3, and later learned that it came from Mulvaney’s office.
……Vindman said that he had raised concerns about the July 25 call to NSC lawyers, and that the process that was used for placing the call transcript on a highly secure server was abnormal.
Impeachment transcript: White House officials testify quid pro quo effort was coordinated with Mulvaney – CNNPolitics
hmmmmm
Russian Trolls Came for Instagram, Too
Russia’s Internet Research Agency operated a vast network of accounts on Instagram that sought to infiltrate American identity groups, harden ideological divides and sow distrust in the American political system.
Much of the group’s activity was concentrated among several dozen large accounts, …[two] of which had more than 200,000 followers. Many of the group’s accounts targeted specific identity groups, including African-Americans, gun-rights supporters and anti-immigration activists.
In total, posts from Instagram accounts linked to the I.R.A. received nearly 185 million likes during the two-year period reviewed by the researchers, and about four million comments, according to the researchers.
…One post, made by an Instagram account called @feminism_tag, accused Ms. Clinton of insulting women who had accused her husband, Bill Clinton, of sexual misconduct. Another post targeted at African-American voters showed a manipulated image of Ms. Clinton with braided hair, and was captioned “when you need the black vote.”
In all, roughly 7 percent of the more than 100,000 Instagram posts included in the data set mentioned Ms. Clinton, while 11 percent mentioned Mr. Trump. There were no instances of pro-Clinton content on Instagram, according to the New Knowledge report.
…Several of the Instagram posts traced to Russia offered merchandise for sale.
…Researchers suggested, selling merchandise …allowed Russians to collect names, addresses and other personal information from users; second, it allowed them to identify strong supporters of a cause, who could then be targeted with advertisements.
Russian Trolls Came for Instagram, Too – The New York Times
hmmmm
Holocaust Survivor Is Swept Up in Italy’s Storm of Vitriol
Last month, to counteract what increasingly feels like a political time marked by ethnic scapegoating and nationalist invective, Ms. Segre called for the creation of a parliamentary commission to investigate hate, racism and social media.
But the League Party, led by Mr. Salvini, the post-fascist Brothers of Italy and the center-right Forza Italia led by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi all opposed the commission.
They abstained from the vote, seeing it as a political trap by their enemies to make them look extremist and as a first step toward censorship.
…The motion passed without the conservative votes.
Ms. Segre expressed bewilderment at the abstentions, …“I thought a committee against hatred, as a matter of principle, should be accepted by everyone. I thought it was almost banal.”
Mr. Belli Paci said his mother had been taken back by the “barbarization” of the country. Nevertheless, he said, she planned to continue reaching out to students and telling the story of what happened here not so long ago.
Holocaust Survivor Is Swept Up in Italy’s Storm of Vitriol – The New York Times
Trump apparently wanted Ukraine to investigate Hillary Clinton in addition to the Bidens: State Department official
He just can’t get over Hillary Clinton.
Before giving U.S. military aid to Ukraine, …Trump wanted “nothing less” than for the European country to announce an investigation targeting Clinton in addition to one targeting Joe Biden and his son, according to a senior State Department official.
…Trump used Clinton’s name as “shorthand” for the investigation he wanted President Volodymyr Zelensky to launch into a debunked right-wing conspiracy theory claiming anti-Trump Ukrainians interfered in the 2016 election.
…Trump’s requested Biden investigation centered on unsubstantiated claims that the former vice president’s son, Hunter, evaded prosecution on corruption charges in the country with the help of his powerful father. There’s no evidence to back up the allegation.
…Sondland, a Trump campaign mega-donor, submitted revised testimony to impeachment investigators earlier this week confirming there was quid pro quo involved in the U.S. aid freeze, saying Zelensky had [to] agreed to make the CNN announcement in exchange for the sorely-needed defense cash.
…Kent said he and other career officials were instructed to “keep” their heads “down,” as Giuliani and Trump-appointed administration officials engaged in the dubious back-channel efforts.
Part of that shadow policy included aggressive attempts by Giuliani to slander former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and push for her ouster, according to Kent.
hmmm
Slain U.S. citizens were part of Mormon offshoot with sordid history
The group was part of the extended LeBaron family, Mormon fundamentalists who first came to Mexico nearly a century ago — when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City started cracking down on members who were still practicing polygamy.
Over the years, members of the extended LeBaron family have spread throughout northern Mexico as well as into Arizona and Utah.
…The family has had a sordid history, Bowman said. Its founder’s sons fell victim to infighting. One, Ervil LeBaron, formed his own church that took on a cult following, said Anna LeBaron, who was one of Ervil’s 51 children with 13 wives. She was born at the LeBaron colony and escaped her father’s cult when she was 13; she detailed her experience in a 2017 book, “The Polygamist’s Daughter.”
The cult was disbanded in the early 1990s and her father died in prison in 1981 while serving a life sentence for murder.
Slain U.S. citizens were part of Mormon offshoot with sordid history
From every angle this is just a wild story.
DNA Support the Idea That Viking Women Were Sometimes Powerful Warriors
Legends of ferocious female warriors appear in Scandinavian lore and poetry from the Middle Ages. Stories of similar warriors have been told in the modern era too, for example Lagertha on the HISTORY series Vikings, but the existence of warrior women in Viking culture has consistently been challenged in official histories, with women often relegated to non-combatant roles.
…This isn’t the first Viking grave to contain both weapons and female remains, the study explains. It is, however, the first to present overwhelming evidence that the weapons and paraphernalia found beside a skeleton belonged to the woman who occupied the grave.
DNA Proves Viking Women Were Powerful Warriors – HISTORY
hmm
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