As the dust settles on the Robodebt Royal Commission, an examination of how the scheme was orchestrated clearly shows its architects should face prison time, writes Paul Begley.
Tag: Murder
When the senior executives of California’s private for-profit power utility PG&E made the very intentional decision to move cash into their own pockets through bonuses and dividends instead of making their power lines resilient enough to withstand severe winds, they also made the decision to let people die.
Source: How To Kill and Get Away With It | The Smirking Chimp
Amid the pandemic, lockdown orders, and nationwide protests against police violence, a historically large increase in murders occurred in 2020. Previously, the largest recorded one-year rise in murders in U.S. history was a 12.7 percent increase in 1968. Last year, meanwhile, data from nearly 12,000 law enforcement agencies released by the FBI, running through September, shows murders up 21 percent nationally. This matches data we collected from a sample of agencies from 60 large cities showing a 36 percent increase in murders in those cities, as well as a Council on Criminal Justice analysis from 34 cities finding a 30 percent increase in 2020 compared to 2019.
What Drove the Historically Large Murder Spike in 2020?
Israel regularly plays the “Fake News Card” to hide what they criminally do. They aren’t even shy about it when caught. (ODT)
The Israeli military claims that it is not responsible for the death of Amer Snobar, 16, in the central West Bank on Saturday night, claiming that the teen fell. Doctors say he died after being beaten and asphyxiated by soldiers.
Israel lies after soldiers choke and kill Palestinian boy | The Electronic Intifada
By ignoring the pandemic for the sake of the Dow, and hence his re-election campaign, he’s risking the distinct and calamitous possibility that thousands more Americans will die, or suffer from lifelong pre-existing conditions, all to serve his blindingly irresponsible re-election strategy
via Why is the stock market soaring amid a pandemic? Because Trump thinks that may save him | Salon.com
The Washington Post reported over a year ago that the CIA had concluded, on evidence that included intercepted phone calls, that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman ordered the killing. His close friendship with Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner has certainly contributed to the impunity he has so far enjoyed. One way to punish Saudi Arabia is through sanctions and denial of military aid — options that were open until just last week, when Congress passed, and sent to the White House for Trump’s signature, the $738 billion 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. Sen. Bernie Sanders and California Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna issued a joint statement calling the NDAA “a bill of astonishing moral cowardice,” in part for failing to deny aid to Saudi Arabia.
via Let 2020 Be the Year of a Truly Free Press | The Smirking Chimp
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Part 1
The hell visited on Syrian society has been in many respects a continuation of the hell visited on Iraq in 2003, after 13 years of sanctions had already killed two million of its people, including half a million children.
During this sanctions period, former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright, in a rare moment of candor for a functionary of the empire, provided us with an invaluable insight into the pristine barbarism which lurks behind the mask of democracy and human rights that such people usually wear for the purposes of confusing the public mind as to who and what they truly are.
The interviewer, Lesley Stahl, put it to Albright that half a million Iraqi children had died due to the sanctions, and asked if she thought the price “is worth it.” Albright without hesitation answered Yes. “We think the price is worth it.”
via Bush & Blair’s Iraq war was key that opened door to Syria’s current hell — RT Op-ed
Andrew Bolt approves of this.
A total of 31 Palestinians have now been shot dead since the start of the protests on March 30, when tens of thousands took to the border area with Israel, demanding the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
via Palestinian journalist dies after being shot by Israeli forces | News | Al Jazeera
“In the background of a chaotic first year of Donald Trump’s presidency, the conservative Koch brothers have won victory after victory in their bid to reshape American government to their interests.”
“Documents obtained by The Intercept and Documented show that the network of wealthy donors led by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch have taken credit for a laundry list of policy achievements extracted from the Trump administration and their allies in Congress.”
“The donors have pumped campaign contributions not only to GOP lawmakers, but also to an array of third-party organizations that have pressured officials to act swiftly to roll back limits on pollution, approve new pipeline projects, and extend the largest set of upper-income tax breaks in generations.”
via Someone Tell a Reporter: the Rich are Destroying the Earth
Muhammad al-Hattab is among several boys from Jalazone refugee camp killed by soldiers guarding Beit El settlement.
Source: Israel kills three Palestinian children in one week | The Electronic Intifada
The Russian ambassador to Turkey has been shot dead in an attack at an Ankara art gallery by a gunman shouting “Don’t forget Aleppo”.
Source: Gunman kills Russian ambassador to Turkey during Ankara exhibition
Amnesty International says boy’s death should be investigated as possible extrajudicial execution.
Source: US “concerned” over Israeli slaying of Palestinian American teen | The Electronic Intifada
The attacks from Syrian groups supported by the U.S. were described as “relentless and indiscriminate” while targeting civilians and killing children.
Source: United Nations Finally Acknowledges US-Backed Rebels in Syria are Murdering Civilians
New video shows settler leader congratulating Hebron executioner after killing.
Source: Israelis rally around soldier filmed executing injured Palestinian | The Electronic Intifada
Scenes like that of soldier firing at head of immobilized Palestinian happen on a regular basis.
Source: Netanyahu’s hypocritical condemnation of videotaped Hebron execution | The Electronic Intifada
Before he was executed on camera by an Israeli soldier, the wounded Palestinian man in Hebron appears to have been refused treatment by two medical teams. One doctor examines the ethical outrage displayed in the…
Source: When medical personnel stand by and watch a murder | +972 Magazine
It has been a year since American reporter Serena Shim was killed on the 19th of October 2014. She was investigating the thousands of foreign jihadists who used Turkey as a stepping stone into Syria, a fact that even Joe Biden would admit on …
Any way you slice it, we have the developed world’s highest firearm murder rate.
Source: America’s Cops Shoot More People Than Criminals Do in These Countries | Mother Jones
Two suspects have been detained over the murder of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was gunned down near the Kremlin in a brazen assassination that shocked the country, the state security agency says.
The arrests come a week after the longtime critic of president Vladimir Putin was shot four times in the back as he strolled with his girlfriend along a bridge in the heart of the capital, near the presidency and iconic Red Square.
In a video posted on the website of Channel One, a state television station, Federal Security Service chief Alexander Bortnikov said two people had been detained.
“I would like to inform you that the work that has been conducted has resulted in two suspects in this crime being detained today,” he said on Saturday.
“They are a Anzor Gubashev and a Zaur Dadayev.”
No further details were provided about the suspects, but RIA Novosti news agency quoted Mr Bortnikov as saying that both were from the Caucasus.
Mr Bortnikov told Channel One that Russian president Vladimir Putin had been informed of the detention and that the investigation was ongoing.
Many European politicians and diplomats attended Mr Nemtsov’s funeral in Moscow on Tuesday.
Kremlin denies involvement
The latest killing of a high-profile government critic under Mr Putin’s rule prompted an outpouring of international condemnation and stunned members of an opposition who blamed the Kremlin for whipping up hatred against anyone who expresses dissent by referring to them as “traitors”.
The 55-year-old, a renowned anti-corruption crusader who served as Boris Yeltsin’s first deputy prime minister in the 1990s, was shot dead just two days before he was to lead a major anti-government rally.
We hope the arrest … is not an error but the result of good work by security forces, but for now it is hard to say.
Illya Yashin, opposition activist
However the protest march — called to denounce Russia’s alleged role in the Ukraine crisis — instead became a massive memorial for Mr Nemtsov, with tens of thousands swarming the streets of Moscow in the largest opposition gathering since a wave of anti-Kremlin protests in 2011.
The Kremlin denied accusations that it played a role in his death.
Mr Putin, whose rule has seen the steady suppression of independent media and opposition parties, promised an all-out effort to catch those responsible for an act which he called a “provocation”.
Killers were paid hitmen: lawmaker
Theories have proliferated since the killing over why Mr Nemtsov was targeted.
Some suggest he was assassinated for criticising Russia’s role in the Ukraine conflict, others for his condemnation of January’s killings at the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly in Paris by Islamist gunmen.
Friends said Mr Nemtsov had been working on a report containing what he described as proof of Russian military involvement in the bloody uprising by pro-Moscow militias in eastern Ukraine.
Meanwhile investigators suggested the killers wanted to destabilise Russia, which is facing its worst standoff with the West since the Cold War over Ukraine, and Mr Putin’s allies hinted at a Western plot.
Following the announcement of the arrests, the former head of the FSB — the successor to the Soviet-era KGB — and now lawmaker Nikolay Kovalev told the RIA Novosti agency that initial information showed the two men were merely paid hitmen.
“The key is to find out who ordered this assassination,” he said.
A fellow opposition activist Ilya Yashin, welcomed the development in the case, but called for more information on the men’s identities.
“We hope the arrest … is not an error but the result of good work by security forces, but for now it is hard to say,” Mr Yashin told Interfax news agency.
“Quite frankly the execution of the investigation had not inspired any optimism, but the fact that there have been arrests inspires some optimism.”
Mr Nemtsov, a charismatic orator who was one of the last outspoken opponents to Mr Putin, was a key speaker at mass opposition rallies against the Russian president’s return to the Kremlin in 2012.
He wrote several reports critical of corruption and misspending under Mr Putin.
In 2013, he said up to $US30 billion of the estimated $US50 billion earmarked for the Olympic Games that Russia was to host in Sochi had gone missing, which the Kremlin denied.
Reuters/AFP
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