Toxicity sample, December '19

cum: 7M
19-12-3 Seven men found guilty over the killing of environmental activist Berta Cáceres in Honduras in 2016 . Berta Cáceres murder: 50 years in jail for activist's killers .

cum: 7M + dozens M 
19-12-3 Police in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila are searching for dozens of gunmen who attacked the city hall in the town of Villa Unión. More than 500 shots were fired in the gun battle which ensued between the suspected members of a local cartel and the security forces. Twenty-one people, including four police officers, were killed.

cum: 8M + dozens M 
19-12-4 A 22-year-old man from Bath has been charged with 12 terror offences following an investigation by counter-terror police into suspected right-wrong-wing terrorism online. The charges include five offences of encouraging terrorism. He has also been charged with four offences of disseminating terrorist publications, two counts of terrorist fundraising, and one count of possessing material that is of use to a terrorist.

cum: 9M + dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests
19-12-4 The Vatican has announced the resignation of a US [Pedophile Protection Agency] bishop who faced widespread criticism for his handling of sexual abuse claims. Bishop Richard J Malone of New York state's Buffalo oversaw one of the country's most scandal-hit dioceses. It is facing more than 200 lawsuits and an FBI investigation. Malone released a document showing 42 priests who had been accused of sexual abuse, mostly from past decades. But his former assistant said an earlier draft contained upwards of 100 names.

cum: 10M + dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests
19-12-4 Sailor at Pearl Harbor Shipyard Fatally Shoots 2, Injures 1 and Kills Himself: The Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam was placed on lockdown for about an hour and a half.

cum: 15M + dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests
19-12-5 A 23-year-old alleged rape victim is fighting for her life after she was set on fire while going to court in northern India. The woman was on her way to a hearing in the case she filed against two men in March, in Uttar Pradesh state. She is in critical condition in hospital, where she is being treated for severe burns. Five men including two of her alleged rapists have been arrested on suspicion of setting her on fire, police say. Unnao rape case: Indian woman set on fire on way to hearing dies .

cum: 16M + dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests
19-12-6 Pensacola shooting: Saudi student kills three at US naval base: The gunman who killed three people at a US naval base in Pensacola, Florida, was a Saudi student, officials say. He has been named as Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani - a Saudi military member in training at the site. He was shot dead by officials. The local sheriff's office confirmed eight others were injured in the attack including two officers. The shooter used a handgun. It is the second shooting to take place at a US military base this week.

cum: 18M + dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests
19-12-6 Shootout after jewellery store raid in Florida leaves four dead: Two suspects perpetrators raided a jewellery store before hijacking a UPS truck and getting into a shootout with police on a busy Florida highway. The suspects, a motorist and the driver of the truck were killed.

cum: 18M + dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-6 Uber had 6,000 US sexual assault reports in two years .

cum: 19M + dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-6 Indian dancer has been hospitalised after being shot in the face because she stopped performing at a wedding.

cum: 20M + dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-6 High-profile trial in France concerning the abduction, rape and killing of a 24-year-old bank manager in 2002 has ended in a conviction and 30-year jail term for the defendant. 

cum: 21M + dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-6 Nepal man arrested over death of woman in 'menstruation hut': Nepali police have arrested the brother-in-law of a woman who died in a so-called "menstruation hut". Parbati Buda Rawat, 21, was found dead on Monday after suffocating from a fire she lit to stay warm in the hut. It is believed to be the first arrest for Chhaupadi, an outlawed practice which considers women impure during their periods and after childbirth. If convicted, the man faces three months in prison and a fine of 3,000 Nepali rupees ($26; £23).

cum: 22M + dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-9 Privacy campaigner sought over child abuse charges .


cum: 23M + dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-9 A serial rapist who carried out a string of sex attacks on 11 women and children across England has been given 33 life sentences. Joseph McCann's victims were aged between 11 and 71 and included three women who were abducted off the street at knifepoint and repeatedly raped. He was found guilty of 37 offences at the Old Bailey on Friday.

cum: 55M + 1F dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-10 Spanish police say 33 people have been arrested globally in connection with a WhatsApp group for images of child sex abuse and other violent content. The many "extreme" images shared in the group had been "normalised by most of its members". Arrests were made in 11 different countries across three continents, but the majority - 17 - were in Spain. Many of those arrested or being investigated in Spain are themselves under 18, including a 15-year-old boy. In Uruguay, police arrested two people - one of whom was a mother who abused her daughter and sent images of this to the group.

cum: 57M + 1F dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-10 Jersey City: Deadly gun battle kills six people .

cum: 58M + 1F dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-10 GP Manish Shah guilty of sex assaults on 23 female patients .  

cum: 59M + 1F dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-10 Czech shooting: Gunman kills six at hospital in Ostrava .

cum: 89+M + 1F dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-10 Every weekend for two years, men would come home and rape her, the 12-year-old told counsellors. Some were known to her father, some were not. Sometimes, she said, the men would disappear into their single, musty bedroom with her mother. Then one day ... her father pushed her into the bedroom with one of his friends and locked the door from outside. The man raped her. Childhood soon became a nightmare. Her father would call up men, booking their time with his daughter, and taking money from them. Counsellors believe the girl was raped by at least 30 men since then.

cum: 90+M + 1F dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-11 Jaden Moodie murder: Man guilty of killing boy in gang knife attack .

cum: 91+M + 1F dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-12 Almost certainly a male attacker . Tessa Majors (18) was walking in the park when she was approached by one to three people near West 116th Street and Morningside Drive. There was a struggle, and one of the attackers pulled out a knife and stabbed Ms. Majors several times. Boy, 13, Arrested in Fatal Stabbing of Tessa Majors, Barnard Freshman . The boy was charged with murder. Detectives believe two other teenagers participated in the stabbing, an official said.

cum: 92+M + 1F dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-15 Man charged with murder over Cheshire boy's death .

cum: 94+M + 1F dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-15 A British man has been killed and his son wounded after being shot during a suspected robbery outside a five-star hotel in Buenos Aires. They were approached by at least two men on a motorbike, apparently accompanied by another vehicle.

cum: 95+M + 1F dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-15 A man has been arrested following a fatal stabbing in east London.

cum: 96+M + 1F dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-16 A teenage boy has been jailed for a minimum of 16 years for the murder of a young mother during an argument over drug money.

cum: 97+M + 1F dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-16 Prolific thief Michael Weir jailed for 1998 'double jeopardy' murders .

cum: 98+M + 1F dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-16 Man accused of murdering his estranged wife has admitted being responsible for her death -- Shaun Dyson, 28, ... killed Lucy-Anne Rushton by repeatedly stamping or jumping on her at her home in Andover, Hampshire. Ms Rushton died in the early hours of 23 June while children were at the property.

cum: 100+M + 2F dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-16 A 70-year-old woman was tied up and sat on during a "prolonged" assault and burglary at her home. A woman knocked on the victim's door on Airedale, Hull, on Sunday, at about 20:15 GMT, before barging her way into the house with two men who also threatened to kill her dogs.

cum: 101+M + 2F dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-20 Moscow gun attack: Second FSB officer dies after assault on HQ:

cum: 102+M + 2F dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-20 Former lawmaker from India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sentenced to life in jail in one of the year's most high-profile rape cases. Sengar was tried under child protection laws as the survivor was 17 when she was assaulted in 2017. The case came to national attention last year when the woman tried to kill herself, alleging police inaction.
cum: 103+M + 2F dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-22 Crawley Down: Two women killed and man hurt at house [man arrested]: 

cum: 136+M + 2F dozens M + ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-22 Marcial Maciel: Mexican founder Legionaries Pedophiles of Christ 'abused 60 minors': At least 60 children were abused by Marcial Maciel, founder of the ultra-conservative Catholic order Legionaries of Christ, an investigation has found. The report, published by the Roman Catholic group, said 33 priests in the order abused at least 175 minors since it was founded in 1941.

cum: 136+M + dozens M + 2F + probable tens of thousands of pedophiles [presumably mostly male] ~ 100 sexually-exploitative priests + ?K? sexually-exploitative Uber drivers 19-12-22  Sexual predators have grown increasingly adept at using the internet to share and view child sexual abuse photos and videos. Some have computer-programming skills and have deployed sophisticated defenses against efforts to take them down. But the predators don’t have free rein on the internet, thanks to nearly four dozen child protection hotlines around the world, which act as a first line of defense against the explosion of imagery.

RepuGNican Women Endangered = GOOD!

Republican RepuGNican Women Are in Crisis: In the past 10 years, they have become an endangered species on the political stage.

Goodbye 2010s

2019, in 6 minutes > .  

The 2010s: "Highlights" Of The Decade > .

Sane or RepuGNican?

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/08/opinion/sunday/party-polarization-quiz.html .

Shaming the USA

Showing up the USA is not difficult, admittedly: 

New Zealand is destroying military-style guns after ban: Police in New Zealand are destroying military-style guns and rifles ahead of 21 December, when its officially illegal to carry or possess them. The ban comes after the Christchurch mosque shootings, which killed 51 victims in March earlier this year.

The 2010s

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/world/decade-in-pictures.html .

Whom to vote out ...

pseudo-Democrats

Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey,
Jared Golden of Maine,
Collin Peterson of Minnesota,
Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii
Every current RepuGNican representative and senator.

Not that I expect enough American voters to do the right thing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/18/us/politics/how-democrats-voted-on-impeaching-trump.html .

Yup

Barack Obama: Women are better leaders than men: 

If women ran every country in the world there would be a general improvement in living standards and outcomes, former US President Barack Obama has said. Speaking in Singapore, he said women aren't perfect, but are "indisputably better" than men.

He said most of the problems in the world came from old people, mostly men, holding onto positions of power. [YUP!]

He also spoke about political polarisation and the use of social media to spread falsehoods.

Modi, Modi, Modi, Manipulation

Pro-Indian 'fake websites targeted decision makers in Europe': 

A global network of pro-Indian fake websites and think-tanks is aimed at influencing decision-making in Europe. The co-ordinated network of 265 sites operates across 65 countries, according to a report by EU Disinfo Lab, a Brussels-based NGO,

The researchers traced the websites to an Indian company, Srivastava Group. The network was also found to involve groups responsible for anti-Pakistan lobbying events in Europe. There's no evidence [discovered or revealed that] it is linked to India's government.

In October, the European Union's disinformation task force revealed that EP Today had been re-publishing a large amount of news directly from Russia Today and Voice of America. Some suspected Russian interference, but EU Disinfo Lab, which is an independent NGO, traced the servers behind the website to Srivastava Group. The researchers then uncovered a vast network of English language fake sites serving India's lobbying interests. 

Many of the fake websites use names of defunct newspapers to provide a veneer of credibility. EU Disinfo Lab have dubbed these "zombie" sites, because the names were resurrected from dead media outlets.

For example, one of the sites is called Manchester Times. Its "About Us" section uses text copied from a Wikipedia entry about a newspaper with the same name. But it omits an important part of the Wikipedia description, which states: "The newspaper's last issue appeared on 22 July 1922." It also fails to declare the website's links to Indian interests.

Pics

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/world/year-in-pictures.html

Quit, DUH, Greta OUTCLASSES you

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50762373

And another

Jersey City Shooting Live Updates: 6 Killed, Including an Officer: Two shooters opened fire on Tuesday afternoon at a kosher market.

The dead included three people in the market as well as two suspected shooters, officials said. The slain police officer, Detective Joseph Seals, 40, was a longtime veteran with the Jersey City Police Department, according to Chief Mike Kelly.

Officials believe the shooting began when the detective approached one of the gunmen at a nearby cemetery in connection with a homicide investigation and was shot dead, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

The gunmen then fled in a truck and eventually ended up at the kosher market, where they opened fire on police officers and civilians, officials said. For much of the next hour, residents nearby — and blocks away — could hear rapid bursts of gunfire echoing off the low buildings.

Dreaming of a White Impeachment

TARTUS wants to roast FLATUS ...

'Twas the Night Before Impeachment > .

Examining America's Manifest Failings

Lawrence Lessig, "They Don't Represent Us" > . 

Comments disabled because Americans are aggressively partisan.

Virtue Signalling about Virtue Signalling

Is virtue signalling a perversion of morality?:

"In the only full treatment of the topic in the academic literature (that I [author, Neil Levy] know of), the philosophers Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke accuse the ‘moral grandstander’ (their term for the virtue signaller) of perverting the function of public moral discourse. According to them, ‘the core, primary function that justifies the practice’ of such public moral discourse is ‘to improve people’s moral beliefs, or to spur moral improvement in the world’. Public moral talk aims to get others to see a moral problem they hadn’t noticed before, and/or to do something about it. But, instead, virtue signallers display themselves, taking the focus away from the moral problem. Since we often spot virtue signalling for what it is, the effect is to cause cynicism in the audience, rather than to induce them to think the signaller is so great. As a result, virtue signalling ‘cheapens’ moral discourse.

But Tosi and Warmke offer no evidence for their claim that the primary, or the justifying, function of moral discourse is improvement in other people’s beliefs or in the world. That’s certainly a function of moral discourse, but it’s not the only one (as they recognise).

Perhaps, in fact, virtue signalling, or something like it, is a core function of moral discourse."

... 

"Lots of religious behaviour can be understood as costly and credibility-enhancing signalling. Religions mandate many behaviours that are costly: fasting, tithing, abstinence from sex except in certain contexts, and so on. All of these behaviours are costly not only in everyday terms, but also in evolutionary terms: they reduce opportunities for reproduction, resources for offspring, and so on. Religious activities are also credibility-enhancing displays of religious belief: no one would pay these costs unless they really believed that there was a payoff.

Why, from an evolutionary point of view, would someone signal religious commitment? A likely explanation is that the function is to secure the benefits of cooperation." [I submit that much religious fare is, in practice, religionist attempts to impose inculcated moralistic controls (historically harmful to minority groups) on others for the sake of regressive control.]

"The accusation that virtue signalling is hypocritical might be cashed out in two different ways. We might mean that virtue signallers are really concerned with displaying themselves in the best light – and not with climate change, animal welfare or what have you."

[I submit that, for the sake of propounding his argument, the author is conflating external-interest (environment, climate, treatment of other species) advocacy with the moralistic virtue signalling that pervades social discourse. This is both a category error and a fallacy of equivocation, specifically of lumping a spectrum under a narrow, poorly-defined label.]

https://aeon.co/ideas/is-virtue-signalling-a-perversion-of-morality

Conclusion? Levy has failed to differentiate the hypocritical moral grandstanders who congregate in social-media lynch mobs from those arguing for compassion, consideration, and tolerance. Is virtue signalling a perversion of morality? In some instances, yes.

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Male Loser Scorned

‘Hate is infectious’: how the 1989 mass shooting of 14 women echoes today: In Canada, 6 December is now a national day of remembrance and action on violence against women. The massacre at Montreal’s Polytechnique school, fueled by misogyny, is not a horrifying memory confined to a bygone era – rather it seems like a foretelling of things to come.

Two weeks ago, a young woman in Chicago was killed by a man after she ignored his catcalls. Last November, a man whose hatred of women was well-documented online shot six women at a hot yoga studio, killing two. And seven months earlier, a man named Alek Minassian drove a van on to a Toronto sidewalk and killed 10 people, eight of them women.

The sexually frustrated young man behind the van’s wheel – a self-described incel, or “involuntary celibate” – saw his act as retribution against women who had starved him of the affection he felt he was rightfully owed. Minassian said he was inspired by Elliot Rodger, an incel and wannabe pickup artist who shot 20 people in 2014.

The pseudonymous “Liz” (a volunteer researcher on hate groups in Canada who “outs” extremists – and who uses a fake name because of the volume of violent threats her alter ego receives) says misogyny is a powerful undercurrent in all alt-right-wrong and white "supremacist" online groups.

“Where do you really start to discuss the intersection between misogyny and hate groups, when they are really one and the same?” asked Liz, adding that hatred of women often serves as a base upon which to build other forms of hate.

Greedy RepuGNican Scammers

C*N*servative Pseudo-Christians Proselytizing for Greedy Power Mongers.

GRIFTERS > .
Get Rich Instantly Following Twitface's Egregious ReguGNican Snake-Kissers

Toxicity sample, November '19

cum: 185M (187M?) + gang M + many hundreds of thousands (historic sexual assault) M, 9F

cumulative: 5M

19-11-1 A court in Barcelona has acquitted five men accused of gang-raping a 14 year old girl of the charge of sexual assault. [Because--a la Bill Cosby--the pedophiles had plied the girl with alcohol and drugs, rendering her unconscious, and hence did not need to use overt physical violence] the men were convicted and jailed for the lesser crime of sexual abuse. Six defendants were initially charged. The five who were convicted were sentenced to between 10 and 12 years in prison. A more serious conviction of sexual assault would have carried prison sentences of between 15 and 20 years.

cum: 6M, 1F
19-11-1 Suzi Taylor, 49, demanded money after arranging through the dating app to meet the man at a Brisbane house on Wednesday, police said. When he refused to pay [presumably for sexual services], another man allegedly entered the room and assaulted the 33-year-old victim.

cum: 7M, 1F
19-11-1 Bizarre death of a woman during a domestic row. Silvia Galva, 32, was impaled by a spear-tipped bed post in a struggle with her boyfriend, Adam Reechard Crespo. Ms Galva died with a 12in (30cm) double-sided blade through her chest following the altercation.

cum: 8M, 1F
19-11-1 Death sentence for killer of British embassy worker: A man convicted of raping and killing a British embassy worker in Lebanon has been sentenced to death, the country's state news agency, NNA, reports. Uber driver Tariq Houshieh, who had previously served several prison sentences, confessed to murdering Rebecca Dykes, whose body was found by the roadside in December 2017. The 30-year-old had been strangled with a rope.

cum: 8M, 2F
19-11-1 German police arrest 'fake doctor' over death of four patients: The woman allegedly used anaesthetics unlawfully as she "did not possess the necessary specialist knowledge."

cum: 9M, 2F
19-11-3 A 40-yr-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a man died when a car hit a pub in Essex.


cum: 9M, 3F
19-11-3 20-year-old Jamaica women's international Tarania Clarke has died after a stabbing dispute over a mobile phone. A woman has been arrested.

cum: 9M+many hundreds of thousands M. 3F
19-11-3 Japanese film festival will now show a documentary on forced wartime sex workers. Tens of thousands of so-called "comfort women" from around Asia were forced into brothels to work as sex slaves for Japan's military. Historians say an estimated 200,000 women were forced to work in brothels for Japanese soldiers.

cum: 10M +many hundreds of thousandsM, 3F
19-11-5 Telangana: Indian officer burnt to death in property dispute .

cum: 12M+many hundreds of thousands M, 3F
19-11-7 Jodie Chesney murder: [drug-dealer] Svenson Ong-a-Kwie and 17-year-old boy guilty .

cum: 14M+many hundreds of thousands M, 3F
19-11-7 [2] North Korean fishermen 'killed 16 colleagues' before fleeing to South .

cum: 15M+many hundreds of thousands M?, 3F
19-11-7 Grace Millane death: Backpacker and murder accused 'on CCTV' .

cum: 16M+many hundreds of thousands M, 3F
19-11-7 Monk accused of sexual abuse of minors . A former Catholic Pedophile Protection Agency monk who taught at the Fort Augustus Abbey school has failed in a bid to halt his extradition from Australia. It is alleged that between 1970 and 1976 he "engaged in acts of physical and sexual abuse" against six complainants, aged between 11 and 15.

cum: 17M+many hundreds of thousands M, 3F
19-11-8 A teenager stabbed his 17-year-old girlfriend repeatedly in the neck in a "frenzied attack" after she dumped him .

cum: 18M+many hundreds of thousands M, 3F
19-11-11  Russian prosecutors have accused a renowned historian of murder after he admitted shooting and then dismembering his student partner in St Petersburg. Prof Oleg Sokolov, 63, was rescued drunk from the Moika river in the city early on Saturday and was found to have a woman's arms in his backpack. Police later found other body parts further downriver and in his flat, identified as Anastasia Yeshchenko, 24. She had been living with him. In court he admitted shooting Ms Yeshchenko four times with a sawn-off shotgun, then chopping up the body with a saw and kitchen knife.

cum: 19M+many hundreds of thousands M, 4F
19-11-12  Sarah Barrass and Brandon Machin jailed for murdering sons . The parents of six children murdered their two teenage sons the day after a bid to poison them failed. Sarah Barrass and Brandon Machin, who is her half-brother, strangled Tristan and Blake Barrass, aged 13 and 14, in Shiregreen, Sheffield, in May.
The court heard how Barrass, 35, would regularly tell her children: "I gave you life, I can take it away." They have both previously admitted murder, conspiracy to murder all six of their children, including Blake and Tristan, and five counts of attempted murder. Barrass and Machin, 39, were both sentenced to a minimum of 35 years in prison at Sheffield Crown Court.

cum: 20M+many hundreds of thousands M, 4F
19-11-14  California school shooting: 'Five injured' in attack: At least five people have been injured after a gunman wearing black clothing opened fire on the grounds of a high school in California, officials say. Police say a suspect, described as an Asian male, is in custody. According to the LA Times website, the suspect is a 15-year-old boy.

cum: 21M+many hundreds of thousands M, 4F
19-11-14 Alfie Lamb car seat death: Man jailed for crushing boy to death: Stephen Waterson, 26, inflicted irreversible brain injuries on Alfie Lamb, his girlfriend's son, who was in the footwell behind him in 2018.

cum: 22M+many hundreds of thousands M, 4F
19-11-14  Michael Weir guilty of 1998 'double jeopardy' murders: A jewel thief who beat two elderly people to death in their own homes has been convicted of their murders two decades on.

cum: 37M +many hundreds of thousands M, 7F
19-11-14 Seventeen arrested in human trafficking raids in London: A total of 29 women aged 20 to 40 were rescued in the operation by the Met, supported by officers from Romania. The suspects, 14 men and three women, remain in custody. The suspects, who were aged between 17 and 50, were held on suspicion of modern slavery, controlling prostitution, Class A drug offences and firearm offences relating to a stun gun. Four warrants were carried out in Romania at the same time, leading to the arrest of a man in Constanta.

cum: 38M +many hundreds of thousands M, 7F
19-11-14 Man jailed for paralysing Amazon delivery driver: A driver who left an Amazon delivery worker paralysed from the waist down by dragging him along a road for almost 100m has been jailed for 12 years.


cum: 39M +many hundreds of thousands M, 7F
19-11-14 Police charged a 16-year-old boy with deliberately starting a damaging fire. The alleged arson had destroyed 14 homes around the town of Yeppoon, 650km (400 miles) north of Brisbane, Queensland Police said. Since 19-11-8, four people have died and at least 300 homes have been destroyed or damaged by fires in NSW. Australian bushfires: Why do people mostly young males start fires during fires?: A review of decades of bushfire studies ... found revenge - against an employer or ex-partner - was a "primary" motive. One man told ABC that he started a bushfire after finding out his girlfriend was sleeping with someone else. At the same time, arsonists are often "odd", marginalised, and angry at society - "weird Pete down the road".

cum: 42M +many hundreds of thousands M, 7F
19-11-17 Three arrested after woman raped in Wigan park: One of the men raped her while the other two men stood by ... A passer-by called police, who then arrested three men aged 24, 25 and 33 on suspicion of rape.

cum: 42M + gang M +many hundreds of thousands M, 7F
19-11-17 A 13-year-old girl has been critically injured after she tried to protect her 11-month-old nephew from a gang of men armed with machetes.

cum: 43M + gang M +many hundreds of thousands M, 7F
19-11-18 Prosecutors have outlined multiple charges against actor Craig McLachlan in Melbourne Magistrates' Court after four women alleged he assaulted them.

cum: 44M + gang M +many hundreds of thousands M, 7F
20-11-18 Whitby sex offender jailed after Australian police tip-off:

cum: 45M + gang M +many hundreds of thousands M, 7F
20-11-18  The son of former German President Richard von Weizsäcker has been stabbed to death at a Berlin hospital: A 57-year-old man was taken into police custody and then sent to a psychiatric unit.

cum: 150M (152M?) + gang M +many hundreds of thousands M, 7F
23-11-18 France has one of the highest rates of murders linked to domestic violence in Western Europe, with at least 115 women killed by their partners or ex-partners this year alone, local media say.

cum: 150M (152M?) + gang M +many hundreds of thousands M, 8F
23-11-18 A woman has been arrested in Ohio after allegedly stabbing a woman because she was wearing fur-style boots. Police detained [pseudo-Christian] Meredith Lowell, 35, after she allegedly attacked the woman with a knife inside a Presbyterian church. The victim sustained three non-life threatening stab wounds, including two to her arms and one to her abdomen. ... Ms Lowell has been charged with attempted murder and felony assault. She is scheduled to next appear in court on Monday. Officials said she had been arrested for similar crimes in the past including an incident in 2012 when she was charged with attempting to hire a hit man to kill a fur-wearer.

cum: 151M (153M?) + gang M +many hundreds of thousands M, 8F
25-11-18  Woman says she was locked in a house, smothered and stabbed by her husband, who was found dead with their two sons:  Mr Stokes locked her in the house, hit her on the back of the head with a rolling pin and tried to smother her with a pillow. ... Stokes hit her head against a wall ... Stokes stabbed her and she ran out into the street.

cum: 151M (153M?) + gang M +many hundreds of thousands M, 9F
25-11-18 Australia woman charged with murder after toddlers die in hot car:

cum: 152M (154M?) + gang M +many hundreds of thousands M, 9F
27-11-18 A man who beat his fiancée to death when he was "unwilling to accept" her decision to leave him amid a row over his cross-dressing has been jailed. Roderick Deakin-White used a metal bar to launch a "savage" attack on Amy Parsons while she was showering at their Whitechapel flat in April. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to a minimum of 17 years.

cum: 157M (159M?) + gang M +many hundreds of thousands M, 9F
27-11-18 A 14-year-old boy was knocked off a moped and then stabbed to death by a rival gang in a "violent and frenzied" attack, a court has heard. Jaden Moodie was allegedly dealing drugs for a gang when he was targeted by a group of five men on 8 January.

cum: 158M (160M?) + gang M +many hundreds of thousands M, 9F
27-11-18 A man who tried to kill three people, including a police officer, in a frenzied knife attack at a railway station has been detained for life. Mahdi Mohamud, 26, stabbed a couple and then attacked Sgt Lee Valentine at Manchester Victoria on New Year's Eve. ... Mohamud will initially held in a high security psychiatric hospital.

cum: 165M (167M?) + gang M +many hundreds of thousands M, 9F
27-11-18 Seven [male] Islamists have been sentenced to death for a 2016 attack on a cafe in the Bangladeshi capital in which 22 people, mostly foreigners, were killed.

cum: 166M (168M?) + gang M +many hundreds of thousands M, 9F
27-11-18 A College Student Was Killed by a Man Whose Catcalls She Tried to Ignore, Prosecutors Say:

cum: 169M (171M?) + gang M +many hundreds of thousands M, 9F
27-11-18 Three teenage boys have admitted threatening two women who refused to kiss each other on a bus.

cum: 170M (173M?) + gang M +many hundreds of thousands M, 9F
29-11-18 London Bridge: Two killed in stabbing attack: The [male] suspect, who died at the scene, was believed to have been wearing a hoax explosive device, police said.

cum: 171M (174M?) + gang M +many hundreds of thousands M, 9F
29-11-18 Netherlands stabbing: Several hurt in attack in The Hague: police are searching for a male perpetrator aged between 45 and 50 ⇒ Police have arrested a man aged 35 over stabbing attack in which three teenagers were injured.

cum: 173M (176M?) + gang M +many hundreds of thousands M, 9F
29-11-18 K-pop stars Jung Joon-young and Choi Jong-hoon sentenced for rape: gang raping drunk unconscious women. Jung was also charged with filming the assault and distributing the footage. The men will have to do 80 hours of sexual violence treatment courses and are banned from working with children. The case is one of several sex and abuse scandals that have rocked the K-pop world in recent years.

cum: 177M (179M?) + gang M +many hundreds of thousands M, 9F
29-11-18 Indian vet, 27, allegedly raped and murdered in Hyderabad: Her badly burnt body was found the next morning. Police allege she was gang-raped before she was killed. Four men have been arrested in connection with the case. According to the latest government crime figures, police registered 33,658 cases of rape in India in 2017 - that's an average of 92 rapes every day. ⇒ Hyderabad case: Police kill suspects in rape and murder of Indian vet: The suspects were shot when they tried to steal the officers' guns and escape, police told BBC Telugu.

cum: 179M (181M?) + gang M +many hundreds of thousands M, 9F
29-11-18 The former head of Amazon Mexico is wanted for questioning after his wife was apparently killed by a hitman in Mexico City. Abril Pérez Sagaón was shot dead in a car on Monday in front of two of her teenage children. The couple were in the middle of a divorce battle and García had been freed on bail after a prior allegation of violence against her. Ms Pérez said he had beat her with a baseball bat when she was asleep in January and she formally accused him of attempted femicide (murder of a woman because of her gender). The same judge who freed Mr García is now also under scrutiny for another decision: the release of a doctor accused of raping a female patient. Mexican media say Mr González insisted the evidence was insufficient.

cum: 183M (185M?) + gang M +many hundreds of thousands M, 9F
30-11-18 Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech has been charged with complicity in the murder of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017. Three men - brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio and their friend Vincent Muscat, all in their 50s - have been charged with triggering the bomb which killed Caruana Galizia near her home in October 2017. They were arrested in December 2017.

cum: 184M (186M?) + gang M +many hundreds of thousands M, 9F
30-11-18 Solihull stabbing: Man died after knifing in town centre.

cum: 185M (187M?) + gang M +many hundreds of thousands M, 9F
30-11-18 Suriname president gets 20 years in jail for murder (execution of 15 political opponents in 1982.)

cum: 183M (185M?) + gang M +many hundreds of thousands M, + minimum of 87,000 M in 2017; 9F Some 87,000 women and girls were murdered around the world in 2017, according to the United Nations.

Juul was TRYING to hook teens

Why target teens? To put it politely: 1) teens lack life experience, stubbornly ignore adult advice, and imagine themselves immortal 2) most teens succumb to peer pressure and join "cool" crazes 3) the cigarette industry had already cashed in on the addictive properties of a toxin called nicotine.

Juul Says Its Focus Was Smokers, but It Targeted Young Nonsmokers: The company planted the seeds of a public health crisis by marketing to a generation with low smoking rates, and it ignored evidence that teenagers were using its products. Juul’s remarkable rise to resurrect and dominate the e-cigarette business came after it began targeting consumers in their 20s and early 30s, a generation with historically low smoking rates, in a furious effort to reward investors and capture market share before the government tightened regulations on vaping.

As recently as 2017, as evidence grew that high school students were flocking to its sleek devices and flavored nicotine pods, the company refused to sign a pledge not to market to teenagers as part of a lawsuit settlement. It wasn’t until the summer of 2018, when the Food and Drug Administration [finally!] required it to do so, that the company put a nicotine warning label on its packaging.

 ---

From 2016 to 2018, the years Juul’s growth became astronomical, the number of adult nonsmokers who began using e-cigarettes doubled in the United States, according to an analysis of federal survey data by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease. The study estimates that six million adults [and teens] were introduced to nicotine via e-cigarettes.

During that time, millions of high school and middle school students began vaping, according to federal health surveys. More than five million youths — one in four American high school students and one in 10 middle school students — now vape, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration said in a joint report this summer. Nicotine is a highly addictive drug that impedes the developing brain, and many teenagers have struggled to quit.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/23/health/juul-vaping-crisis.html .

Functional Governments INDICT Corrupt Officials

Functional Governments INDICT Corrupt Officials. Dysfunctional Governments (e.g. Brazil's) INVENT charges against dangerously pro-populace officials.

No functionality for newly-3rd-world America, of course. No, despite recent events, Americans continue to flatter themselves that, having rid themselves of a monarch, they would never again be ruled by an autocratic despot. Instead, they revere celebrities, worship wealth, uncritically worship the Constitution, pay excessive homage to religiosity, and have elevated the presidency (and the current corrupt occupant) to an autocratic position above the law.


The Four Lessons of Impeachment (Susan E. Rice):

"First, there is now overwhelming testimony and evidence that affirm the deeply troubling revelation" [that--surprise, surprise--DUHnocchio abused his power in order to benefit himself.]

"Second, these hearings have amply [and eventually] demonstrated the extraordinary caliber and character of our nonpartisan career Foreign Service officers, civil servants and uniformed military personnel."

"Third, it is now abundantly apparent that most Republicans RepuGNicans in Congress have abandoned all semblance of serving the national interest. Their desperate resort to distortions, discredited conspiracy theories and blatant lies to distract from damning facts that implicate [UNpresident Crook-in-Chief] has replaced any pretense of performing their duties. From attacking the press to smearing witnesses and refusing to engage in congressional oversight responsibilities, the [desperate] Republican RepuGNican Party has [abandoned pretense and] sacrificed its principles and traditions to preserve its political power — at the expense of our country.

Our separation of powers, the guard rail of our Constitution, fails when half the legislative branch abdicates its duty to hold the executive branch accountable. The cost of this failure will endure long beyond this presidency and is already signaling that our democracy is not only diminished but also increasingly dysfunctional."

And last, as Fiona Hill ably testified on 19-11-21, the primary beneficiary of our domestic dysfunction and divisions is President Vladimir Putin of Russia. Republicans RepuGNicans in Congress are spouting Russian-sponsored conspiracy theories that disparage Ukraine and obscure Russian interference in our democracy. [UNpresident Traitor-in-Chief] consistently takes actions with respect to NATO, Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere that accrue to Russian rather than American interests.

While Americans spew venom [some justifiable, some delusional] at one another, Russia is working overtime to pour salt into our wounds. Using social media every day to inflame distrust, fear and hate, Russia is pitting Americans against one another by fueling extremes on both sides of every divisive issue, whether race, immigration or guns. [As though RepuGNican-voting Americans need encouragement to be racist, xenophobic, or violence-encouraging!]

Mr. Putin seeks to dismantle democracy and destroy America’s standing as a global leader. The only question is whether we will allow him to succeed."

[Actually, I'd say that RepuGNican politicans and their duped/deplorable supporters, in not only permitting, but voting for a transparent CONman to rig the 2016 election, have already tarnished the Greedy Oligarchic Partisanship's reputation irretrievably.]

Death = absence of herd immunity

DR Congo measles: Nearly 5,000 dead in major outbreak: 

The World Health Organization (WHO) says this is the world's largest and fastest-moving epidemic. Close to a quarter of a million people have been infected this year alone.

Measles in DR Congo has now killed more than twice the number who have died of Ebola there in the last 15 months. The Congolese government and the WHO launched an emergency vaccination programme in September that aimed to inoculate more than 800,000 children.

But poor infrastructure, attacks on health centres and a lack of access to routine healthcare have all hindered efforts to stop the spread of the disease. The majority of those infected with measles in the country are infants. Four million children have been vaccinated, but experts warn that this amounts to less than half of the total in the country - and not enough vaccines are available.

Strangled after/during rape, more like

A 27-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, denies her murder. His defence told Auckland High Court Ms Millane, from Wickford, Essex, [supposedly] died accidentally after being consensually choked during sex. The defendant has chosen not to give evidence himself. Prosecutors allege he strangled Ms Millane before disposing of her body. 

The man has admitted putting Ms Millane's body in a suitcase and burying it in the Waitākere Ranges, a mountainous woodland area outside Auckland. He told police he had "freaked out" after finding her dead in the morning after their date.

Toxicity sample, November '19 ..cum: 15M+many hundreds of thousands M?, 3F
19-11-7 Grace Millane death: Backpacker and murder accused 'on CCTV' .

As though Xian authoritarianism could look any worse

Hong Kong University protests > .

Several protesters have escaped from a Hong Kong university campus surrounded by police by abseiling from a bridge and fleeing on the back of motorbikes.

Around 100 others who tried to leave the Polytechnic University were met with tear gas and rubber bullets. Some were arrested. Authorities say 116 people were injured in the violence on Monday. In the past week, the campus has become the latest battleground for long-running anti-government protests. The violence is some of the worst seen during months of unrest in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory. The protests started over a controversial extradition bill, and have now evolved into broader anti-government demonstrations.

China has warned that "no-one should underestimate [its] will to safeguard its sovereignty and Hong Kong's stability", and its ambassador to the UK said the central government would not sit back and watch if the situation became "uncontrollable".

Many virulent homophobes struggle with homosexual urges

"Folau, who is [claims to be] a Christian, gave a sermon in his Sydney church on Sunday in which he said Australia's decision to pass abortion and same-sex marriage laws had gone against "God's word", adding the nation needed to "repent".

"Look how rapid, these bushfires, these droughts, all these things have come, in a short period of time. You think it's a coincidence or not?," he said.

His comments sparked outrage from many Australians online, who noted the widespread devastation of the fires."

...

"Rugby Australia (RA) sacked the former Wallabies player in May after he said on social media that "hell awaits" gay people.

The 30-year-old fullback has been widely condemned for those comments and others targeting transgender people, but he has also received vocal support from Christian pseudo-Christian groups."

Folau married in 2017, but that (heterosexism disguised as religiosity) does not rule out the possibility of projected internalized homophobia.

It's no comfort to have confirmation that America is not the only supposedly-developed nation with ignorant bigoted pseudo-Christian zealots.
 ------
Heterosexism is a system of attitudes, bias, and discrimination in favor of opposite-sex sexuality and relationships. It can include the presumption that other people are heterosexual or that opposite-sex attractions and relationships are the only norm and therefore superior.

Although heterosexism is defined in the online editions of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language and the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary as anti-gay discrimination or prejudice "by heterosexual people" and "by heterosexuals", respectively, people of any sexual orientation can hold such attitudes and bias, and can form a part of internalised hatred of one's sexual orientation.

Heterosexism as discrimination ranks gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and other sexual minorities as second-class citizens with regard to various legal and civil rights, economic opportunities, and social equality in many of the world's jurisdictions and societies. It is often related to homophobia. ... Other factors that Herek acknowledges to contribute to heterosexism include individual differences, religiosity, conforming to social norms, right-wrong-wing authoritarianism, customs and beliefs regarding cultural tradition, and personal experience with non-heterosexual individuals.
 ----
1996 and many later: Is homophobia associated with homosexual arousal?

... The men were exposed to sexually explicit erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual, and lesbian videotapes, and changes in penile circumference were monitored. ... Only the homophobic men showed an increase in penile erection to male homosexual stimuli. ... Homophobia is apparently associated with homosexual arousal that the homophobic individual is either unaware of or denies.

Obama illustrates one of the problems with America

It's time to move past wussy, excessively-cautious policies, and to recognize that the much vaunted system is not working. That's why Joe's numbers have nowhere to to but down.

Too Far Left? Some Candidates Don’t Buy the Argument: One day after former President Barack Obama cautioned against being out of touch with voters, Democratic candidates said there was a winner among them.
The crowded Democratic field of presidential candidates grappled with President Barack Obama’s advice and legacy on Saturday, the day after the former president sounded an unusual public warning about moving too far left in the primary race.

While none were willing to directly rebuff Mr. Obama, a few candidates offered implicit criticism, saying that Democrats should be careful to steadfastly back the field so that whoever wins the nomination can count on enthusiastic support from all corners of the party.
 ---
US election 2020: Democrats respond to Obama's warning .  -----
Win for John Bel Edwards and a Hard Loss for Trump crooked-LIAR-in-Chief: John Bel Edwards of Louisiana, a rare Democratic governor in the South, was re-elected for a second term, beating back a challenger heavily supported by [UNpresident DUHnocchio].

DUHnocchio's große Lüge and Big Stick technique

In a JUST system, he would already be locked away

Did UNpresident DUHnocchio Just Earn Himself Another Article of Impeachment?: Now there’s [another instance of] witness intimidation and clearer evidence he had [of course] no interest in cleaning up Ukraine.

Representative Adam Schiff, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, interrupted the questioning to let the ambassador know that the UNpresident was attacking her.

After reading Ms. Yovanovitch one of the belligerent tweets, Mr. Schiff asked: “What effect do you think that has on other witnesses’ willingness to come forward and expose wrongdoing?”

“Well, it’s very intimidating,” she said, visibly shaken.

Mr. Schiff assured her that “some of us here take witness intimidation very, very seriously.”

Translation: The president may just have earned himself an article of impeachment.

 ......

The große Lüge (big lie) technique:

But it remained for the Jews, with their unqualified capacity for falsehood, and their fighting comrades, the Marxists, to impute responsibility for the downfall precisely to the man who alone had shown a superhuman will and energy in his effort to prevent the catastrophe which he had foreseen and to save the nation from that hour of complete overthrow and shame. By placing responsibility for the loss of the world war on the shoulders of Ludendorff they took away the weapon of moral right from the only adversary dangerous enough to be likely to succeed in bringing the betrayers of the Fatherland to Justice.

All this was inspired by the principle—which is quite true within itself—that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.  

It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.

—  Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X ~ James Murphy's translation

Mein Kampf  (My Struggle or My Fight) is a 1925 autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie .

Overly cautious, overly concessive

Whilst the RepuGNicans commandeered the far wrong, Democrats remained too far to the wrong. The current Make America Grotesque Again debacle illustrates what comes of arrogantly revering an increasingly broken system. 

2010 "It was clear from the outset that this was someone who would concede rather than confront — and that’s a shortcoming in a politician, if not in a man."
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/opinion/20judt.html .

History of Authoritarianism

Anne Applebaum writing for The New York Review of Books said of Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin:

"Snyder’s original contribution is to treat all of these episodes—the Ukrainian famine, the Holocaust, Stalin’s mass executions, the planned starvation of Soviet POWs, postwar ethnic cleansing—as different facets of the same phenomenon. Instead of studying Nazi atrocities or Soviet atrocities separately, as many others have done, he looks at them together. Yet Snyder does not exactly compare the two systems either. His intention, rather, is to show that the two systems committed the same kinds of crimes at the same times and in the same places, that they aided and abetted one another, and above all that their interaction with one another led to more mass killing than either might have carried out alone."

Witness Intimidation AGAIN

Is there a crime he won't gladly commit? A depth of depravity to which he will not sink?

Trump DUHnocchio impeachment inquiry: Envoy 'intimidated' by tweets during testimony:

US UNpresident Crook-in-Chief has attacked the former US ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, on Twitter, in the middle of her testimony to the impeachment inquiry.

Asked for her response, Ms Yovanovitch called it "very intimidating".

Mr Schiff, the Democratic Chairman of the Intelligence Committee overseeing the impeachment inquiry, suggested the UNpresident's tweets could be classed as witness intimidation.

And another tragic event in a gun-crazed society

Santa Clarita Shooting Updates: Student Kills 2 at California High School:

A 16-year-old [male] student (at the school) pulled a handgun from his backpack at a high school in Santa Clarita, Calif., on Thursday morning and shot five students, killing two ... The gunman was in grave condition after shooting himself in the head.

The gunman fired a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol in the quad of the school just after 7:30 a.m. and it was caught on video ... there were no more bullets in the gun when it was recovered.

The murdered students who died were a 16-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy. The other victims were identified as a 14-year-old girl, a 15-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy, all of whom were injured by gunfire.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/14/us/santa-clarita-shooting.html .

Here’s a List of School Shootings in 2019: The attack at Saugus High School in California on Thursday is at least the 11th this year on a high school or college campus, which have resulted in at least six deaths.

Boris Notgudunov

Clinton: 'Every UK voter deserves to see Russia report' > .

Great "Again"? NOT Great YET.

RepuGNicans and RepuGNican-minded supporters have ensured that America has NOT YET lived up to its touted values.

Supreme Court Appears Ready to Let Trump Xenophobe-in-Chief End DACA Program: The justices are considering whether the Trump LIAR-in-Chief Badministration can shut down a program that shields about 700,000 young immigrants from deportation.

Fact-checking the border crisis? Misleading RepuGNican spin > .

Pelosi and Schumer speak on Supreme Court DACA case > .

Have Big Mouth, Will Be Fired

Good riddance to Don Cherry ....
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50241256 .

When Chinese Don't Like China

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-china-50314430/hong-kong-lawmaker-attack-junius-ho-stabbed-in-chest .

Unstable Idiocy Exposed

Anonymous tells us what we already know - DUHnocchio is a dim, erratic, ignorant, incompetent idiot who reflects negatively on RepuGNican enablers, DUH-suckers, hypocritical proselytizing pseudo-Christians, and America's alarmingly enfeebled "checks-and-balances".

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show

Anglophobia Quebec style

Canada's Quebec province has denied immigrant status to a French citizen because she was unable to demonstrate adequate French-language proficiency.

Quebec rejected Emilie Dubois' application apparently because part of her university thesis was in English.

Ms Dubois came to Quebec from France in 2012 and completed a doctorate at a French-language university. Quebec is a predominantly French-speaking province and Ms Dubois, 31, was applying to settle under a provincial programme for foreign students that requires applicants to display a strong ability in the language.

To clarify: The majority of scientific publication is in English. The majority of Canadians use English. English is widely spoken as a second language--the globe's lingua franca. Francophones feel that their language is threatened.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50241254 .

English is by far the world’s most studied language. 1.5 billion (20% of the world's population) speak it. About 360 million people speak English as their first language.

France has 76.8 million native speakers; roughly 274 million speak French worldwide (predominantly in African nations).

Saner in Suburbs

19-11-6 What bad night for Trump means for 2020: Off-year state elections in the US can be a mixed bag or harbingers of things to come.

19-11-6 Democrats claim victory in key Virginia and Kentucky elections:

19-11-6 Virginia elects woman who gave president the finger: 

19-11-5 Democrats Win Big in Virginia and Hold Slim Lead in Kentucky Governor’s Election: With backing from Kentucky’s urban centers, the Democratic candidate, Andy Beshear, had an edge over Gov. Matt Bevin, the Republican RepuGNican.

"Democrats won control of both houses of the Virginia legislature for the first time in a generation on 19-11-5 and claimed a narrow victory in the governor’s race in deep-red Kentucky, as Republicans RepuGNicans struggled to overcome UNpresident Crook-in-Chief’s growing unpopularity in suburbs of both states.

In capturing the legislature in Virginia, Democrats now have full control of the state government. That clears the way for Gov. Ralph S. Northam, who was nearly driven from office earlier this year, to pass measures tightening access to guns and raising the minimum wage that have been stymied by legislative Republicans RepuGNicans.

In Kentucky, Gov. Matt Bevin, the [unpopular, sore-loser] RepuGNican candidate, [surprise! surprise] refused to concede the election to his Democratic challenger, Attorney General Andy Beshear. With 100 percent of the precincts counted, Mr. Beshear was ahead by 5,300 votes."

...
Agent Orange "himself stood alongside Mr. Bevin Monday night in Lexington to argue that, while the combative governor is “a pain in the ass,” his defeat would send “a really bad message” beyond Kentucky’s borders."

Finally, DUHnocchio made an accurate statement. Your boy's defeat does indeed look bad for the worst collection of unpatriotic partisan politicians in many years :D
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/us/politics/ky-va-ms-elections-recap.html .