Category: Crime

So-called church offers miracle cure. Feel like drinking bleach?!

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Industrial Bleach for $20 – what a bargain!

❝ A group calling itself Genesis II Church of Health and Healing plans to convene at a hotel resort in Washington state [last] Saturday to promote a “miracle cure” that claims to cure 95% of all diseases in the world by making adults and children, including infants, drink industrial bleach.

The group is inviting members of the public through Facebook to attend what they call their “effective alternative healing” at the Icicle Village Resort in Leavenworth on Saturday morning. The organizer of the event, Tom Merry, has publicized the event on his personal Facebook page by telling people that learning how to consume the bleach “could save your life, or the life of a loved one sent home to die”.

❝ The “church” is asking attendants of the meeting to “donate” $450 each, or $800 per couple, in exchange for receiving membership to the organization as well as packages of the bleach, which they call “sacraments”. The chemical is referred to as MMS, or “miracle mineral solution or supplement”, and participants are promised they will acquire “the knowledge to help heal many people of this world’s terrible diseases”.

There was a time early on in my life when I spent a significant amount of time in the company of juvenile delinquents. During that period I met a number of “adult” crooks and hustlers. Not as adept as, say, pimps for our fake president; but, still – they loved religious hustles. For the same reasons religious hustlers always do. Built-in cover as some kind of True Believer. Ready and willing to accept every penny they could grab from the gullible.

Armed vigilantes detain migrants –their leader is busted after NM governor calls the Feds

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Paul Ratje/Getty

❝ Armed rightwing militia members detained a large group of migrants at the US-Mexico border and coordinated with US border patrol agents to have them arrested, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, in a series of actions the civil liberties organization called a “kidnapping” and a flagrant violation of the law….

❝ The so-called United Constitutional Patriots posted several live-stream Facebook videos this week that appeared to detail their activities at the border…

❝ Nora Meyers Sackett, the spokesperson for New Mexico governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, told the Guardian her office was working with the attorney general to “verify what exactly happened regarding this group”, adding in an email, “If migrant families feel menaced or threatened at all when they arrive at our border, that’s completely unacceptable, and it should go without saying that regular citizens have no authority to arrest or detain anyone…”

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❝ The head of the militia group…was arrested Saturday by the FBI on charges of being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition…

Larry Mitchell Hopkins, 69, who lives in the tiny village of Flora Vista in San Juan County, was arrested in Sunland Park, a border town near El Paso, the FBI said in a statement…

❝ “This is a dangerous felon who should not have weapons around children and families,” New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas said of Hopkins in a statement issued Saturday. “Today’s arrest by the FBI indicates clearly that the rule of law should be in the hands of trained law enforcement officials, not armed vigilantes.”

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said in a Twitter message a day before Hopkins’ arrest, “We are actively working with @NewMexicoAOG as well as local and state police. Menacing or threatening migrant families and asylum-seekers is absolutely unacceptable and must cease.”

Just a few of the fascist-minded fools who infest rightwing America.

Legalization is only halfway to justice

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❝ Happy 4/20, everyone! Now that pot is legal in 33 states and counting, it’s a pretty heady moment for stoner culture. Fans of cannabis can celebrate 4/20 openly and in style in more places than ever before. And even if you’re not in a state that legalized pot, there’s a still a pretty good chance that the cops won’t hassle you as you spend 4/20 doing your thing.

If you’re a white person…

❝ Sorry to bring you down, but that’s the harsh reality. If you love pot AND you’re white, everything is totally awesome these days. In 2017, 81% of cannabis executives were white. Meanwhile, even in states where pot is legal, and even though Black people and white people use pot at similar rates, Black people are still arrested way more often than whites. We love 4/20 and we love legalization, but that’s not OK.

That’s not enough.

RTFA for facts and ideas. No rest without justice.

Muslim Engineer in Kansas sues Boeing Employees Association

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❝ A judge has rejected a move by Spirit Boeing Employees Association seeking to dismiss the lawsuit filed by a Muslim aerospace engineer alleging discrimination stemming from a party at a Kansas lake.

U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson ruled Tuesday that there remains a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Munir Zanial’s rights were violated on the basis of race, religion or national origin.

❝ The Malaysian national of Indian ancestry rented a pavilion at the group’s lake in 2017 to celebrate Malaysian Independence Day. The lawsuit alleges the association suspended his rental privileges and reported him to authorities.

It alleged an American flag had been desecrated by Islamic State group symbols. But the flag was actually a Malaysian flag and the guests included people of Malaysian Indian ancestry, some wearing hijabs.

Ignorance ain’t bliss, folks. In Kansas it apparently means you might suspect someone of being a dangerous conspiratorial terrorist. Not someone who honors the nation of his birth.

Speaking out on Trump, populism, and complacency toward war crimes

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❝ Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein…recently stepped down from four years as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights…A Jordanian prince whose father is Arab and mother European, a Muslim who has visited Auschwitz and bicycled around Israel, he is a fervent believer in “the human rights of each individual, everywhere.” A soft-spoken man who talks with hard-edged eloquence, he took on an impossible job, challenging violators on all sides, whether American, Russian, Chinese, African, Arab, Israeli, or other. And doing it publicly.

❝ He is reflecting on those difficult years as a Distinguished Global Leader-in-Residence at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House, where he shared some of his thoughts.

We invite you to read his thoughts on the responsibilities of that post. On what has been accomplished…what still needs to be done.

Nielsen resigns as Homeland Security head – NO LOSS, just a symptom of White House incompetence

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Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

❝ Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary who has been the public face of some of the Trump administration’s most contentious policies, has resigned…

According to CBS News, which first reported the news of Nielsen’s impending resignation, her departure is yet another victory for Stephen Miller, the far-right senior adviser in the White House who has consistently steered the president in a hardline direction on immigration…

❝ Nielsen had a very rough ride as the fall guy for Trump’s hardline immigration policy. But given the controversial policies that she consistently championed, there were few expressions of sorrow for her on Sunday night.

A former DHS senior official, Juliette Kayyem, tweeted: “Nielsen is without an agency, and Administration – and public sympathy.”

One of the primary creeps who designed family separations as part of Border Patrol procedure Nielsen deserves little more than contempt. Her only beef with our fake president is that she feels his inhumane and bigoted policies can be made “legal” and that’s what she preferred to cover her participation.