The Raw Story

A non-profit news blog, focused on providing independent journalism.

Thursday, 21 May 2015

"War is just a racket": Memorial day is a hoax. "Our soldiers died for the profits of the bankers"

© americleaninc.com      Memorial Day commemorates soldiers killed in war. We are told that the war dead died for us and our freedom. US Marine General Smedley Butler challenged this view. He said that our soldiers died for the profits of the bankers, Wall Street, Standard Oil, and the United Fruit Company. Here is an excerpt from a speech that he gave in 1933: War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as...

Strange skys, strange times: Another solar halo in mexico

E-mails sent to Sott.net become the property of Quantum Future Group, Inc and may be published without notice. Reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views of the volunteers, editors, and directors of SOTT.net or the Quantum Future Group. Remember, we need your help to collect information on what is going on in your part of the world! Send your article suggestions to: Some icons appearing on this site were created by: Afterglow, Aha-Soft, AntialiasFactory, artdesigner.lv, Artura, DailyOverview, Dellustrations, Everaldo, GraphicsFuel,...

Dentist sued by over 50 patients for performing unnecessary surgery and abusing children

© WJAX-TV Dr. Howard Schneider      It's a sound no parent likes to hear: a child screaming out of fear and possibly pain from the dentist's chair. Going to the dentist is a rite of passage, of sorts, but what's alleged to have happened at the hands of 78-year-old Dr. Howard Schneider was not. For the past three weeks, there have been daily protests outside his practice. One parent was so angry, she attacked him outside his...

NOAA study confirms BP oil spill caused unprecedented fatalities in Gulf of Mexico dolphins

© Reuters      The 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico caused an unprecedented number of fatal diseases in roughly 1,300 dolphins over the course of five years, according to a new study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Up to now, the link between oil spill exposure and dolphin deaths has been inconclusive, but this study changes that. The results are from a forensic investigation that was part of NOAA's...

Ukrainian parliament makes ignoring human rights official policy

The Ukrainian parliament has approved a regulation removing the obligation to protect certain human rights in the eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions. An note accompanying the regulation states that the conduct of what Kiev calls"anti-terrorist operations" in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions is not in compliance with the country's obligations for the protection of human rights. The document, cited by Tass, also mentions an "objective necessity...

Psychopathic pediatric dentist accused of torture, abuse, fraud

© WTLV-TV/WJXX-TV      Jacksonville, Florida — A Jacksonville pediatric dentist under investigation by the state of Florida is now the target of a class-action lawsuit alleging his practice is a front for a "sadistic and systematic scheme of physical and psychological torture and abuse" of "utterly defenseless" children. In a lawsuit filed this week in the 4th Judicial Circuit Court in Duval County, Fla., four plaintiffs accuse...

U.S. coalition's increased aid to extremists bears fruit: Palmyra, Syria, falls to ISIS

© Sergey Ponomarev/New York Times The central Syrian city of Palmyra last year. On Wednesday, Islamic State fighters fought their way into the city center.      News reports have begun to come in about the fall of Palmyra to ISIS in Syria, and while most Western media has rightly been concerned with the city's ancient ruins, few mentions have been given to the welfare of the people living in the region, or the fact that "The...

Undercover cops on trial shown on video terrorizing couple in SUV attack

     As the nation turns its attention to the biker gang attacks in Waco, another violent biker gang episode from 2013, this one in New York, is making headlines again as the trial of two of its assailants, former undercover NYPD police officer Wojciech Braszczok and Robert Sims, gets underway in Manhattan. The testimony of one of the victims, Rosalyn Ng, was backed up in court by a new video obtained by the showing the brutality...

Police in Germany investigated over accusations of torturing migrants

© Reuters / Kai Pfaffenbach      Prosecutors in the German city of Hanover are looking into accusations that federal police are involved in torturing migrants and documenting the incidents of violence in mobile phone photos and text messages. The mistreatment first reported by the public radio and television network Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) which described two incidents at a police station in Lower Saxony, included beating...

Hillary Clinton's lucrative life of crime

© The Japan Times      Bill and Hillary Clinton "earned" — can a mortal earn such stratospheric sums? — "at least $30 million over the last 16 months, mainly from giving paid speeches to corporations, banks and other organizations," The New York Times reports. "They have now earned more than $125 million on the [lecture] circuit since leaving the White House in 2001." This is an important issue. But the big story has little...

Study of twins finds nature and nurture play equal parts in psychological makeup

© Shutterstock      The effect of genetics versus the environment is around 50/50, a new study finds. When it comes to personality, intelligence, health and many other factors, nature and nurture play their part equally. To reach this conclusion, scientists have reviewed almost every twin study conducted in the last 50 years. The research included data from 14,558,903 pairs of twins, measuring 17,804 individual traits across...

Innocent man who spent 39 years in jail sues cops who framed him for murder

© Reuters / Kim Palmer Ricky Jackson      Ricky Jackson, who spent 39 years in jail for a murder he did not commit, is suing the police officers who allegedly helped frame him. Jackson was convicted on the testimony of a 12-year-old boy who didn't see the crime and later retracted his statement. The lawsuit, which was filed on Tuesday against the city of Cleveland, alleges that eight officers, including detectives and their...

Anti-gay pastor resigns after caught seeking men on dating app Grindr

© HO Matt Makela      In light of revelations that he solicited companionship with men on Grindr, the popular hookup app, Reverend Matthew Makela has resigned as pastor of St. John's Lutheran Church and School in Midland, Michigan, Pink News Reports. St. John's website has removed Makela's biography from its staff page, but it has added a letter from senior pastor Reverend Daniel Kempin to parishioners, alerting them to the...

Google Fiber users suspected of downloading illegal content may find automatic demands for money

Google Fiber is allegedly acting as a conduit for automatic demands for money in relation to piracy and copyright infringement.   Google Fiber, the high-speed broadband service, is quickly expanding across the United States. Touting speeds which leave current Internet offerings in the dust -- allowing consumers to enjoy up to 1 GB/ps -- the service has moved from its original pilot grounds in Kansas City and is expected to appear in...

"We Reached The Tipping Point": Income Inequality Is Highest Since Records Began

While soaring stock prices do nothing to boost the economy, because as 7 years of hard facts have shown, the only thing "trickle down" QE has done is forced economists to jump the shark and demand not one but two seasonal adjustments to goal seek collapsing economic data, the S&P hitting new all time highs on a daily basis has certainly succeeded in one thing: pushing inequality around the globe, and especially in the US, to new record highs. And...

DHS giving grants to police to set up DUI checkpoints

Drunk driving has decreased by one-third since 2007 and three-quarters since 1973, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) 2013-2014 Roadside Survey of Alcohol and Drug Use by Drivers. The NHTSA used FORCIBLY collected oral fluid or blood samples from 11,100 drivers at 60 locations across the country to make the determination . DHS/NHTSA studies claim drunk driving is decreasing,...

Thousands Gather At McDonald's Headquarters Demanding Higher Wages

On Wednesday, we got a look at a leaked WalMart training videoin which a series of “associates” (read: hilariously bad actors) patiently explain to new hires why unions are bad.  The video is especially relevant in light of the retailer’s recent battle with intractable “clogs and leaks” at several locations and if “clogs and leaks” actually means “unions” then it makes a lot of sense why the company closed its Pico Rivera location because...

What’s Baddawi?

On October 29, 1948, the Israeli terrorist group Irgun ethnically cleansed the village of Safsaf in Palestine, lining some 70 men up, shooting them, dumping them in a ditch, and raping three girls. Among the survivors who fled to Lebanon were the grandparents of a young woman in Chicago who has a talent for telling stories in pictures and words. Safsaf was called Safsofa by the Romans and can be found as Safsufa on the iNakba app on your NSA-tracking...

Snake filmed on moving car windscreen

© newsflare Snake hitches a lift in windscreen wipers      An oblivious motorist had no idea they had an extra passenger on board their car - until a huge snake suddenly appeared on their windscreen. The slippery customer had been nesting in the windshield washer reservoir tank when its peaceful sleep was brought to an abrupt end by the car's engine starting. Disturbed from its unique hiding place, the snake slowly appeared...
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)