Wednesday, August 31, 2016

"It's like modern-day slavery"


Republican nominee Donald Trump has placed immigration at the core of his presidential campaign. He has claimed that undocumented immigrants are "taking our jobs" and "taking our money," pledged to deport them en masse, and vowed to build a wall on the Mexican border. At one point he demanded a ban on Muslims entering the country. Speaking to supporters in Iowa on Saturday, Trump said he would crack down on visitors to the United States who overstay their visas and declared that when any American citizen "loses their job to an illegal immigrant, the rights of that American citizen have been violated." And he is scheduled to give a major address on immigration in Arizona on Wednesday night.

But the mogul's New York modeling agency, Trump Model Management, has profited from using foreign models who came to the United States on tourist visas that did not permit them to work here, according to three former Trump models, all non-citizens, who shared their stories with Mother Jones. Financial and immigration records included in a recent lawsuit filed by a fourth former Trump model show that she, too, worked for Trump's agency in the United States without a proper visa.  (more...)


Related:

The Bosnian Muslim Nazi SS Division: Heinrich Himmler and the Formation of the Handzar SS Division


SS Reichsfuehrer Heinrich Himmler was instrumental in the formation of the Bosnian Muslim Nazi SS Division “Handzar” or “Handschar” during World War II. In 1944, a second Bosnian Muslim SS Division was formed, “Kama”. Himmler, “the architect of genocide”, and “the architect of the Holocaust”, was determined to create an all-Muslim Nazi SS division. Although nominally a “Croatian” or “Croat” formation, Himmler always wanted and envisioned a Muslim division made up of Bosnian Muslims, or “Bosniaks”. The division was even referred to as an “Ustasha” division. But, in fact, Himmler always intended the Handzar Division to be a Bosnian Muslim SS Division under German and Bosnian Muslim military and political control.

In a letter to SS Gruppenfuehrer Artur Phleps, Himmler wrote:
“I am sticking to my intention of forming SS Bosniak Division of Moslems, who for the most part are not fighting on our side today, but are standing aside or even fighting against us. As Bosniaks, they would surely be loyal soldiers on our side.
I have notified the Foreign Office personally. 
Heil Hitler! 
[signed] H. Himmler”
Himmler told Phleps that he had “received report on your talk with Emmissary [Siegfried] Kasche and Foreign Minister [Mladen] Lorkovic. General [Edmund] Glaise-Hostenau was with me yesterday. The suggestions that Emissary Kasche made there do not correspond with my intentions.” What were Himmler’s intentions? Himmler was determined to form an all-Muslim Bosnian Muslim SS division. Lorkovic had proposed that Croatian “Ustasha” troops be used for the SS division. Himmler was clear and adamant in his objectives. He did not want Croatian Roman Catholic or “Ustasha” troops for his new SS division.  (more...)


Related:


Well. Well. Given that America warmly welcomed Nazi war criminals after WWII, wouldn't Muslim mercenaries also find a home in the land of the free?

Child-porn suspect worked at school and as kids' magician


Police have laid child pornography charges against an educational assistant at a Winnipeg elementary school who also encountered children in his spare time as a magician known as Dan The Magic Man.

Daniel Kamenicky, 39, has been charged with voyeurism, making pornography and distributing pornography.

He was employed at Windsor School, a kindergarten to Grade 8 school in the Louis Riel School Division. Division superintendent Duane Brothers said Kamenicky worked for the school division for at least four years -- as long as Brothers has been superintendent -- and was suspended immediately after staff was notified by police about the charges.

"Our schools (are) opening next week and he will not be in our schools," Brothers said.

He said the school division requires every employee to complete standard criminal record and child abuse checks, and Kamenicky was "absolutely" subjected to those checks as well.

"We are very distressed about hearing this information," he said.

"Winnipeg’s Police Service has been very quick at giving me a heads up on this, and we are going to co-operate completely with the Winnipeg Police Service as they continue their investigation."

Kamenicky also taught magic to children between the ages of eight and 11 in one of the University of Manitoba's Mini U programs in July, the university's director of public affairs said Monday.  (more...)


More coverage:


No end to the weirdness:


Katherine Kitts sentenced to 14 months in jail for sexually exploiting student


A former educational assistant who was working at Sir Robert Borden High School in Ottawa has been sentenced to 14 months in jail for sexually exploiting a student over a two-year period.

Katherine Kitts, 46, was arrested in October 2014 after a mother found sexually explicit texts on her son's phone and contacted police with concerns about Kitts's relationship with him.

The offences happened between April 2012 and April 2014 while Kitts was working at Sir Robert Borden High School. She had sex with the student repeatedly throughout those years, including in Kitts's van, parked off school property.

Kitts was initially charged with sexual assault, sexual exploitation and telecommunication with a person under 18, but after pleading guilty to sexual exploitation in March, the other two charges were stayed.

At a sentencing hearing last week, Crown Robert Thomson called for a 12 to 14-month sentence.

Kitts's lawyer Susan Chapman had argued for a 90-day intermittent sentence, followed by probation, saying what happened was out of character for the mother of two teenage boys.

Justice Célynne Dorval disagreed with that argument in her decision, instead characterizing it as planned and frequent.

Dorval pointed to significant breach of trust, the age difference between Kitts and the victim, and the length and scope of sexual contact as aggravating factors in her decision.  (more...)


More coverage:

Background:

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Confessions Of A Panama Papers Hit Man


As an Economic Hit Man (EHM) in the 1970s I spent a great deal of time in Panama. I hate to admit it, but I helped forge the system that has now been exposed in the Panama Papers. It is a system of legalized crimes. How else can we describe it?

This EHM system has created a global economy where 62 individuals have as much wealth as half the world’s population, big corporations enjoy the airports and highways, fire and police departments, school systems, and other infrastructure of countries like the United States without paying for them and where governments are controlled by a handful of extremely wealthy individuals. The hard-earned tax dollars of the average US citizen finances the infrastructure and social services that benefit the very rich and their corporations while they shelter their incomes in tax havens.

Although the tax sheltering schemes disclosed in the Panama Papers were developed in the 1970s – during my time as an EHM in that country – the foundations of the system go back more than a century.  (more...)


Background:

Canada's complicity:


Canadian Forces probes spate of deaths at Royal Military College


MONTREAL—The Royal Military College of Canada is investigating the sudden deaths over the last four months of four students who attended the prestigious school last year.

Two officer cadets, aged 20 and 22, died within days of each other on the school’s Kingston, Ont., campus. The deaths occurred in April and May.

Then in June, RMC graduate, Sub-Lt. Eric Leclerc, 39, took his own life at CFB Borden, near Barrie, Ont., where he was on a training course five months after finishing his RMC studies.

The most recent death occurred this month in Saint John, N.B., and involved a 19-year-old officer cadet who was being medically released from the military.

Officials did not comment on the possible causes of death for any of the men.  (more...)


A dark legacy:

Monday, August 29, 2016

US war on Catholicism and "Conservatism"


Related:


Horrific abuse scandal in town dubbed 'child sex capital of Britain'

The street pastors and police outside Club Industry in the Oakengates area of Telford
Police are under fire over a “ Rotherham style ” abuse scandal in a town dubbed the child sex capital of Britain.

Officers are accused of taking too long to probe allegations contained in files stretching to 150 pages.

It is claimed reports of grooming in Telford, Shrops, were logged incorrectly and not taken seriously enough despite an earlier probe that led to seven men being jailed in 2012.

Today, one victim who was hawked among paedophiles and forced to sleep with a string of men, said: “The police have betrayed the children of this town for a second time.

“I dread to think how many victims there have been over the years – it wouldn’t surprise me if the offending was on the same scale as Rotherham.”  (more...)


Another story of police ineffectuality:

"Isn't it rather distasteful?"


If I were to imagine the voice of a rather sensible relative, or just a concerned bystander, addressing me on the subject of abortion, the words I hear them using go something like the following: "Why on earth get yourself mixed up in/wade into a matter like this?" (Aside) "And isn't it rather distasteful?"

Well, I don't think my well-meaning voice has it far wrong. I can't be altogether wise to join this debate (on the side I've chosen, anyhow) and, no, it's never going to be the stuff of polite conversation. But just why is it that this question generates so much heat in politics, in the media and around the dinner table? Not just, I think, because it belongs somehow to the category of "bedroom and bathroom" subjects that nice people don't broach too freely. Much more than that, it seems to be a highly reactionary position, one that, probably without a precedent, would seek to take back a "right", specifically a woman's right, that was conferred by Parliament in 1967 in the Abortion Act. What could be more illiberal in our culture than that? No wonder there is fury and resistance.

Three generations have had a legal option they didn't have before, and here comes a jumped-up minority that has the gall to say we should "turn back the clock". That's how bad it looks. You'd have to have a superlative reason to do it. That, of course, is just what we insufferable pro-lifers say we have.  (more...)


A raised eyebrow or two:

A royal conversation-stopper

Sunday, August 28, 2016

Ontario College of Teachers Hearings -- September 2016


Three-member panels of the Discipline Committee conduct public hearings into cases of alleged incompetence or professional misconduct... Discipline Committee panels have ordered that summaries of these recent disciplinary cases be published in Professionally Speaking. Copies of the full decisions are available at oct.ca/members/complaints-and-discipline/decisions.

A Discipline Committee panel revoked the teaching certificate of Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board teacher Joseph Anthony Graziano who was criminally convicted of sexual offences against a student... Based on evidence in court documents, Graziano began grooming a student by assisting him on an exam in January 2011. He then told the student “you owe me” insinuating a sexual favour in exchange for the help provided. On February 9, 2011, Graziano brought the student into his classroom under the guise of discussing the exam and engaged the student in a conversation of a sexual nature. He blocked the door to prevent the student from leaving and then touched the student’s penis over his clothes. Graziano was found guilty of sexual interference and sexual assault in May 2013 and sentenced to six months in jail and two years of probation.

A Discipline Committee panel revoked the certificate of Brian David Pennycook, a former Thames Valley District School Board secondary teacher, for engaging in a sexual relationship with a female student at his school... Pennycook was involved in a sexual relationship with the student in the 1986–87 school year. He resigned from the school board in March 1987. Pennycook and the student later married and divorced.

A Discipline Committee panel revoked the Certificate of Qualification and Registration of a former teacher at the Halton District School Board for engaging in continuous sexual abuse of a student... The panel heard that in May 2005, following the member’s six months of communication with the student, she began to see him on a personal level. In the spring of 2007, they started to engage in sexual intercourse. They continued to have sexual intercourse many times over the next three years. In July 2014, she was found guilty of a criminal charge related to her actions with the student. She was sentenced to 90 days in jail to be served intermittently and three years probation. The court ordered a publication ban to restrict publication of information that could identify a complainant, a witness and the accused.

Source and details:

Saturday, August 27, 2016

Students at German school dress up in Nazi outfits and Hitler moustaches to attack Jewish pupils


Children from a German school in Buenos Aires wearing swastika armbands and fake Hitler moustaches attacked Jewish pupils in a resort where several Nazi war criminals lived after the Second World War, including Dr. Josef Mengele, Auschwitz’s “Angel of Death.”

The incident drew swift condemnation of the pupils and the parents accompanying them during the school’s end-of-course trip to San Carlos de Bariloche, in the Andes.

The town became a haven for Nazis fleeing Europe after the war. They were welcomed by the Peronist regime.

According to witnesses, pupils from the Lanus German School arrived at a party in a nightclub dressed as Nazis.

“Some of them were in leathers with swastikas painted on their chests and backs,” Dan, one of the students from a Jewish school who was attacked, told Argentina’s TN television channel.  (more...)


Related:


Freemason link to Hillsborough cover-up investigated by police watchdog

Former Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield told the inquest he was a Freemason
The Independent Police Complaints Commission is investigating the involvement of the Freemasons in the Hillsborough disaster and subsequent cover-up, it has revealed.

The watchdog is examining whether senior police officers’ membership of the secret society had a bearing on the events that led to 96 people losing their lives at Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield, during a football match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest in April 1989.

Fans were crushed to death after too many supporters were allowed onto the terrace, with numerous policing failures having since been blamed.

Both Former Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, who had overall responsibility for policing at the match, and his predecessor Brian Mole were members of the Freemasons. Mr Duckenfield became Worshipful Master – the head of his local lodge – the year after the disaster.  (more...)

False Opposition: The John Birch Society


With the onset of the McCarthy era 50 years ago, any perceived threat to U.S. sovereignty from the British Round Table and its American branch shifted to an obsession with the Soviet Union. Roy Cohn, who was legal counsel to Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the anti-Communist Senate investigations of the 1950s, would later become a member of the John Birch Society and a principle figure in the JBS intelligence gathering operation, the Western Goals Foundation. Out of the latter emerged the core group which, in 1981, formed the present Council for National Policy -- a consortium of high level political, corporate and evangelical leaders which is the primary coordinating body and funding conduit for Christian Right projects.

Sara Diamond's book, Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States, notes: "Before and after the formation of the John Birch Society, corporations played a major role in rallying the public to the anticommunist cause." In 1947, the Taft-Hartley Act granted corporations the right to distribute literature to counter labor union organizing -- a movement they blamed on the communists. To reduce the cost of producing and distributing anti-Communist materials, corporations turned to non-profit organizations such as the JBS.
"By 1963, corporations were spending an estimated $25 million per year on anticommunist literature... Some corporations circulated print and audio-visual materials produced by the John Birch Society; other corporations produced their own in-house literature...By the early 1960s, the Nation magazine reported that there was a minimum of 6,600 corporate-financed anticommunist broadcasts, carried by more than 1,300 radio and television stations at a total annual budget of about $20 million...Leading sponsors included Texas oil billionaire H.L. Hunt and Howard J. Pew of Sun Oil. The corporate sector's massive anticommunist propaganda campaigns created a favorable climate for the mobilization of activist groups like the John Birch Society."
On the other hand, or rather the other side of the dialectic, super-capitalists such as John D. Rockefeller would come to understand the potential of using labor unions to corporate advantage -- as a means of controlling the opposition.
"The Rockefeller interests have not overlooked and have made good use of the monopoly of labor that is afforded to unions, to effect monopolies of industry that would be recognized as illegal if they had been effected by a monopoly of machinery. Labor unions have proved to be a powerful weapon for the Rockefeller Empire in extending its world conquest; and subsidized unioneers are always in the forefront of the emissaries that they send out into newly conquered territories. With Marxism as a shibboleth, they are rapidly accomplishing a world-wide subjugation of the 'peasantry'. This has earned for wily John D. Jr. a reputation for 'liberalism'. It is more appropriately called "Rockefellerism".
In the long march toward a new social order, ultra-right and left-wing agitation propaganda serve not only to polarize and destabilize society, they create a diversionary conflict to prevent recognition of the true conspiracy. Lest an informed and united citizenry form an alliance against them, principles of conflict management are employed by the power elites.  (more...)



Friday, August 26, 2016

‘Degrassi High’ actor charged with child pornography and bestiality offences in Toronto


TORONTO — A former actor, his partner, and two other women have been charged with various sex and child pornography offences following an eight-month investigation, Toronto police said Thursday.

Jason (Byrd) Dickens, who played a minor role in the TV series “Degrassi High,” and Dylan Anne (Doll) McEwen also face bestiality charges unrelated to children.

“The investigation has resulted in the rescue of children who were not only being sexually abused, but then further exploited by having this abuse permanently captured by the recording of it,” said Insp. Pauline Gray. “We are concerned there may be more victims.”

Police refused to say anything about the numbers or ages of the alleged victims.

The arrests followed a search of a Toronto home and workplace in April in which police say they found evidence a couple was sexually abusing children and animals, and were making images and videos of the child abuse and distributing them online.  (more...)


Hollywood North makes headlines

Two years is too short for teacher


It’s a story many have been waiting for, wanting to see the outcome of a Park teacher charged with sexual interference of a minor. Now I’m just disappointed with a flawed system.

Brett Mittelsteadt, 33, was convicted on Monday to sexual interference of a person under 16, and luring a child under 16 for the purpose of facilitating a sexual offence. The incidents took place in 2013 and 2014 when Mittelsteadt taught at Holy Spirit school.

Upon entering a guilty plea, the judge handed Mittelsteadt a two-year prison sentence, along with placing him on the national sex offender registry for life.

That’s not enough.

Mittelsteadt was in a position of power. Not only was he a teacher, but he was also the victim’s basketball coach and was a close friend of the girl’s family.

Justice Brian Burrows told the court that Mittelsteadt’s conduct must be “strongly” denounced and deterred. Well, Justice, you fell short of that mark.

Two years isn’t enough.  (more...)


More coverage:

Background:

Arrest of former badminton coach prompts calls to Victoria police


Victoria Police say several more potential victims have come forward with allegations of sexual abuse against a former youth badminton coach.

Earlier this week, police say they charged Harry Charles Sadd, 70, with one count of sexual assault from 1983 and three counts of indecent assault by a male on a male person between 1978 and 1981.

Police said they went public with the case, because they were concerned there could be more victims.

Sadd has previous convictions for sexual assaults involving young male children and teens, police said.

New charges were laid last week after a man came forward to report he was abused in the 1970s at the age of nine.

More people have now contacted police with information to allege sexual abuse dating back decades, said Sgt. Kristi Ross of the Special Victims Unit.  (more...)


More coverage:

Background:

Tax Evasion Will Persist Until Parliament Hill Steps Up

Your winnings, sir!
It seems like every year a new tax haven scheme is revealed, provoking the ire of Canadians... only to fade from the news a few months later.

In 2008, tax evasion schemes involving the Swiss bank UBS and the Liechtenstein's LGT bank were revealed, and quickly relegated to the back pages. It was followed by more leaks, the last in date, involving the KPMG scheme at the Isle of Man and the Panama Papers.

Last spring, the NDP pushed through a motion to study more specifically the KPMG tax scheme involving the Isle of Man, where the tax consulting firm hatched a plan to create empty shell corporations in the British territory, implemented 15 plans involving 25 Canadians who made tax-free "donations" to the offshore companies.

The CBC/ICI Radio-Canada investigation demonstrated that these companies produced nothing and provided no services. But they gradually gifted the money back to these individuals, sums that were never declared to the Canada Revenue Agency.

Court documents suggest that KPMG was paid a commission of up to 15 per cent of the tax dodge for each of these individuals (KPMG admitted to taking a flat rate of $100,000 for each of the 15 plans).

The five meetings held by the Finance Committee on this topic were frustrating to the extreme. It was next to impossible to get meaningful answers from either KPMG representatives (hiding behind attorney-client privileges) or the Canada Revenue Agency (hiding behind privacy concerns), while the Canadian government seemed to do its best to claim that everything was mostly fine, the rest was being taken care of.  (more...)


Background:

Thursday, August 25, 2016

Fugitive former abbot appears in court over abuse allegations


A former abbot of Ealing Abbey accused of child sex abuse offences has appeared in court after returning to the UK from Kosovo following a five-year police search for him.

Fr Laurence Soper, 72, appeared at Ealing Magistrates’ Court on Monday. In court, he gave his name as Andrew Charles Kingston Soper. He is now due to appear at Isleworth Crown Court on September 19.

Fr Soper was arrested at Luton Airport on Sunday on suspicion of a series of sexual offences against five boys, one aged under 14, allegedly committed at St Benedict’s School in Ealing where he taught in the 1970s and 1980s.

A spokesman for Scotland Yard said Fr Soper was “arrested on suspicion of nine offences of sexual assault committed over a period from 1972 to 1986.”  (more...)


Bungled inquiry into 'covered-up sex abuse at Britain's leading Catholic school Ampleforth College denies justice for ex-teacher's child victims'


A bungled inquiry into alleged sex abuse at Britain's leading Catholic School denied justice for potential victims, former pupils claim.

An investigation and subsequent trial into allegations that Dr Paul Sheppard, 53, sexually abused a ten-year-old boy Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire, was said to be marred with problems.

The teacher, who taught at the £33,000-a-year school for one term while on a teacher training course from his native country, was accused of indecently assaulting the boy 27 years ago.

The school boasts a star-studded alumni including former England Rugby Captain Lawrence Dallaglio, actors James Norton and Rupert Everett, Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes and the sculptor Sir Antony Gormley.

Former pupils claim that, at the time, several schoolchildren complained of Dr Sheppard's behaviour including stroking, touching and kissing boys.

The school's headmaster, Father Dominic Milroy, interviewed 11 children over the teacher's alleged inappropriate conduct and Dr Sheppard subsequently left the school.

It is unclear whether he was asked to leave is position or if he went on his own. He has long maintained that he chose to leave on his own accord, while the school claims it was a mutual decision. He received a glowing reference from Father Milroy during his departure.

Dr Sheppard then went on to teach at a string of other schools around the world, including at the American School of Yaounde in Cameroon and St John's School, a boarding school in Stony Plain, Alberta, Canada, where he rose to be headmaster in 2000.

However, he was arrested at Heathrow Airport in December 2014 when he returned to Britain from Canada for a month-long extended Christmas break to visit friends and family.
  (more...)


Mae Brussell on the Knights of Malta


Exclusive club
Related:

Retired Ottawa teacher-coach accused of sex crimes gets bail


Donald Greenham stood out in the line of handcuffed men down in the cellblocks of the Ottawa courthouse, waiting to see a justice of the peace.

At 73, the retired Ottawa teacher and basketball coach was the oldest accused criminal in the cells, and his charges were by far the worst, and laid after at least four former students, male and female, came forward to say he molested them between 1970 and 1982.

Greenham, in an untucked plaid, short-sleeved shirt, was granted bail after his wife stood up from the last row in the gallery and agreed to post a $10,000 bond. According to his bail conditions, he must stay clear of children under 16 and far from witnesses and victims in the criminal case. The police allege he preyed on children aged 14 to 17 at the time.

His wife, as a surety, is bound by law to tell Ottawa police if he breaks any of his conditions.

She walked out the front door of the Elgin Street courthouse, arm in arm, with her husband. They walked to a waiting car driven by his son, an Ottawa Senators goaltending prospect.

Greenham’s lawyer, Sean May, said it’s a difficult time for the family and noted that nothing has been proven in court.

At the time of the alleged offences, Greenham was the coach of the Bell Bruins boys’ basketball team. His junior and senior high school teams compiled a 388-35 won-lost record and captured a combined five Carleton board, five Ottawa-Carleton board and three senior regional championship titles. Greenham’s teams also made three OFSAA provincial championship appearances.

He retired as a coach in 1982. At the time, the Citizen reported that he was a teacher at Greenbank Senior Public School. During his career, Greenham also taught at Bayshore Public School and worked as a guidance counsellor at Greenbank Middle School.  (more...)


Background:

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Former teacher and badminton coach charged with historical sex crimes against young males


Victoria police have arrested a former youth badminton coach for alleged sexual assaults dating back to the 1970s and is asking for additional victims to come forward.

Harry Charles Sadd, 70, has been charged with one count of sexual assault from 1983 and three counts of indecent assault by a male on a male person between 1978 and 1981.

In a statement, police say a victim, who is now an adult, came forward to report multiple alleged sexual assaults that occurred while he was a child and teen.

They say the victim was inspired by the stories Theo Fleury and Sheldon Kennedy, who were both abused as youths by a trusted, renowned hockey coach.

Sadd has previous convictions for sexual assaults involving young male children and teens, police said.

Because of these past convictions and the victim's accounts, police say there may be more victims who they have not heard from, both here and in other provinces.  (more...)


More coverage:


Germany: Does “church tax” drive concern over the remarried and gays?

Cologne Cathedral: landmark Gothic cathedral along the Rhine is listed as
being worth only 27 euros - one euro for each of the 26 land parcels beneath it
and one euro for the priceless building.
Due to “church tax” Germany is the cash cow of the Vatican and to encourage this special rules seem to apply. A quarter of new German marriages are remarriages. Neither these couples nor gays are shut out from sacraments and thus discouraged from paying their church membership fees. And soon they may not even be fired from Church employment.

Vatican doctrine is quite clear about forbidding remarried to take Communion. Otherwise, said  Pope John Paul II, "the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the Church's teaching about the indissolubility of marriage." Church control over marriage requires that it sticks.

However, the German church poses a special challenge to this doctrine. It has been called "the cash cow of the Vatican". It pays for every priest not only in Peru but also in Brazil, the most populous Catholic country in the world. This is due to the steep German church tax which, at 8-9 % of taxable income, is 3-4 % of their salary. In 2013 this tax brought the Vatican 5.4 billion euros. The next year another wave of church-leaving occurred when the church tax began being withheld from capital gains, as well as from salary.

In 2012 the German church got a Vatican change to its membership rules, which mean that you must pay church tax in order to receive many of the sacraments. These include Confession, Communion, Conformation and Last Rites, except in danger of death. In addition, there can be no church wedding without special permission. And unless the person who has left the Church has shown repentance before death, a Church burial can be denied.

The sale of sacraments is officially considered by the Church to be the sin of simony, but this has not stopped it. In fact, as soon as it was brought in, this "pay to pray" regulation was obediently enforced by a German court.  (more...)


Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Martial arts teacher accused in student sex assaults charged with decades-old crimes

A Winnipeg martial arts instructor accused of sexually assaulting some of his students is now facing charges dating back more than 30 years.

King Yeung, 57, was initially charged in May after two of his former students went to police alleging they had been sexually assaulted as teenagers enrolled at Kang’s Taekwondo Academy on McPhillips Street. A third former student came forward soon after, and Yeung now faces four separate sexual assault charges, one of which is noted on court documents as a domestic-violence matter. The earliest sexual assault is alleged to have happened between 1985 and 1989. The others allegedly took place between 2001 and 2015.

Yeung has yet to enter a plea on the charges. He is presumed innocent.

In addition to four counts of sexual assault, Yeung is charged with several counts of sexual exploitation and sexual interference offences, as well as two counts of "corrupting morals" offences for distributing or possessing obscene material.  (more...)


The Political Right Isn't Conservative? Shocked!

Then-Chairman & CEO of FOX News Roger Ailes
Former Fox News host Andrea Tantaros has filed a lawsuit against the network, claiming that she was sexually harassed by former network chairman Roger Ailes and that Ailes’ lieutenants punished her for her complaints.

Tantaros, who co-hosted the news program Outnumbered, is the second on-air personality at Fox in the past two months to sue Ailes and others at the network for alleged harassment. Former Fox and Friends host Gretchen Carlson filed a suit against Ailes in early July, prompting his departure from the network he founded and shaped into a dominant media organization.

Tantaros, who had appeared on “The Five” and other Fox shows as a conservative commentator since 2010, echoed some of Carlson’s claims in her complaint, which was filed Monday in New York State Supreme Court.

Tantaros said it was routine practice for Ailes to call women, including her, into his office and ask them to turn around “so I can get a good look at you.” She said that he asked her whether she planned to marry and have children and said that he had made off-color jokes about his own marriage on several occasions. At one point, she said, he speculated about what she would look like in a bikini and asked her about the sexuality of “Five” co-hosts Dana Perino and Greg Gutfeld.  (more...)


Well, it isn't exactly news:



'You took my childhood,' sex-abuse survivor tells Brett Mittelsteadt in court


Brett Mittelsteadt was a family man, trusted teacher, coach and active member of the Catholic church when he started sending sexual text messages to a girl less than half his age — who was also one of his students.

The details are outlined in the agreed statement of facts, a list of details agreed on by the court when Mittelsteadt pleaded guilty on Monday morning to luring and touching a minor for a sexual purpose.

The girl, who cannot be named because of a court order that protects her identity, was 14 years old when her teacher at Holy Spirit Catholic School in Sherwood Park started grooming her for a sexual relationship. He was already a close friend of the family. And at that time, in March 2013, the child's parents say she was a "hard-working, bright-spirited girl," whose spirit and flame were extinguished by the dark "narcissistic" decisions Mittelsteadt made in secret.  (more...)


More coverage:




Ex-Radio 1 DJ Chris Denning admits appalling catalogue of sex crimes


One of the founding DJs of Radio 1 has admitted another appalling catalogue of sex crimes against young boys stretching across his showbiz career.

Chris Denning, 75, used his access to celebrities and an "Aladdin's cave" of pornography at his home to lure victims into his web of abuse.

He is already serving a 13-year prison sentence passed in 2014 for abusing 24 boys as young as eight in the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

The depraved DJ - a close friend of Jimmy Savile who helped launched the career of paedophile popstar Gary Glitter - has now admitted another 11 victims fell into his clutches.

Denning was on the rostrum of DJs when Radio 1 was launched in 1967, lining up alongside the likes of Tony Blackburn, John Peel, and Terry Wogan.

He was the first voice heard on BBC 2, and helped propel stars including Glitter and the Bay City Rollers to stardom while at the helm of Decca Records.  (more...)


Teacher's aide who abused boy a 'full-on sex predator,' mother says


The boy’s mother sat at the back of Court Room No. 11 in tearful silence Monday as her son’s sex predator was portrayed as a compassionate, morally upright woman who should serve her jail sentence on weekends.

She kept listening as a defence lawyer presented Katherine (Kathy) Kitts, her son’s onetime teacher’s aide, as a devoted mother who had made a “very big mistake.”

Kitts’ lawyer, Susan Chapman, also told the sentencing hearing that the 46-year-old had suffered hardship in light of her criminal case, saying she’s on strict bail conditions, her teaching career is finished, she has been publicly shamed for her sex crime and will forever wear an online “scarlet letter.”

The Crown wasn’t buying that it was a one-off mistake, and noted that the sexual exploitation of the vulnerable boy lasted two years.

That’s when the boy’s mother stopped listening and stormed out of court, yelling that Kitts was a “full-on sex predator.”  (more...)


More coverage:

Background:


Monday, August 22, 2016

Former Ottawa teacher faces 14 sexual assault-related charges involving 4 alleged victims


A 73-year-old former public school teacher in Ottawa is facing 14 sexual assault-related charges involving four alleged victims — three boys and one girl between the ages of 14 and 17 — in the 1970s and early '80s.

Donald Greenham was teaching and coaching for the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board at the time, and in a media release issued Monday, police allege the incidents took place in the course of his duties.

Police did not specify which sport Greenham coached.

Greenham, who still lives in Ottawa, was arrested and charged on Monday with multiple counts of gross indecency, indecent assault on a male and indecent assault on a female. Those are the charges that existed in Canada's criminal code at the time of the alleged offences.

He was scheduled to appear in court on Monday.

The investigation into Greenham began in late June when a victim came forward to police. Investigators are concerned there could be other victims, police said.  (more...)


Wrong Turn: The Purpose-Driven Life Gives Bad Directions

Endorsed by Henry Luce's CIA mouthpiece
The Purpose-Driven Life has sold over 7 million copies and was named Christian "Book of the Year" in 2003. "Purpose-Driven" is now a registered trademark, and "Purpose-Driven" programs have been offered everywhere from schools and prisons to corporate headquarters, including Coca Cola, Sparrow Records, NASCAR, the LPGA, and the Oakland Raiders.

The book's promise for those who follow its forty-day journey is that "you will know God's purpose for your life." The book is being promoted and studied in some Catholic parishes, especially as a Lenten exercise, so it is worth examining whether it can deliver on its exaggerated promise.

The book's author, Rick Warren, was labeled as "America's most influential pastor" by Christianity Today. He is the pastor of Saddleback Church, which is situated on a 120-acre campus in southern California that was designed by theme park experts. Every weekend nearly 20,000 people attend services at one of nine "venues," including a 3,000-seat main sanctuary, a religious coffee bar, and a "beach hut" for high school students. Sculpted into the landscape are settings for forty Bible reenactments, including a stream that can part like the Red Sea.

Saddleback is associated with the Southern Baptist Convention, but Warren's teachings have spread widely. Thousands of pastors from more than 100 countries have attended Warren's Purpose-Driven seminars and subscribe to his free weekly e-mail newsletter, Ministry Toolbox. Warren's web site claims that he is starting a new Reformation.  (more...)


Related:

Swimming in the wrong lane
Some supplementary reading:

UK: Files reveal approved school drug trial plans in 1960s


Home Office doctors gave the go-ahead for experimental drug trials on children at two approved schools in the 1960s, National Archives files show.

Parents were not consulted and the issue of consent was left to managers.

At Richmond Hill Approved School in North Yorkshire, housing pupils aged 15 and older, the most disruptive boys were given an anticonvulsant drug to see if it would control behaviour.

The trial of a sedative on girls at a school near Leeds did not proceed.

The proposal had been to give all girls at Springhead Park Approved School in Rothwell, which cared for 14 and 15-year-olds, Haloperidol, a powerful sedative now used largely as an anti-psychotic.  (more...)


Meanwhile Canadians suffer their own school drug scandal:


Saturday, August 20, 2016

Former Regina high school basketball coach charged with sexual exploitation


A Regina high school coach is due to make a first appearance in court this fall after being charged with a sex offence involving a teenage girl.

Grant John Edworthy, 28, was arrested this week and charged with sexual exploitation of a girl who was 17 at the time of the alleged offence, Regina police announced Friday in a news release. In law, sexual exploitation refers to sexual activity that occurs between a young person and an adult in a position of trust or authority over the person, such as a teacher, babysitter, youth group worker, employer or coach. The courts have ruled consent to the activity is not a defence in such situations.

Regina police have said only that Edworthy was a high school basketball coach at the time of the alleged offence, “though not a teacher in the school.” Spokesman Les Parker said in keeping with a Regina Police Service practice to not disclose an organization that’s “tangential” to a case, the school where Edworthy coached wasn’t named.  (more...)


Friday, August 19, 2016

The New Germany and The Old Nazis

Dr. Hans Globke -- the "eminence gris"

 The New Germany and the Old Nazis
No book documents the failure of the Allies’ de-Nazification policies following World War II better than T. H. Tetens’ The New Germany and the Old Nazis. Building effectively on their plans to go underground, finalized during the latter years of the war, the Third Reich successfully made the transition to “peacetime” governance of  the “new” Federal Republic of  Germany.

Dominating the political,  national security,  judicial and economic hierarchies of the German state, the Third Reich was able to realize goals set by Hitler and completed by his chosen agents in the Federal Republic.

Two long excerpts effectively characterize the dimension of the postwar Nazi success. Himself a Nazi sympathizer and collaborator during the war, [German chancellor Konrad] Adenauer was really a figurehead, with control of the chancellor’s office falling to Dr. Hans Globke. ...

Globke–the “eminence grise” behind “Der Alte” (Adenauer) – was the man who had implemented the Nazi racial laws, under which the Third Reich’s extermination programs were performed. Globke’s real power was such that he screened Adenauer’s mail. (more...)


See also:

 Germany Plots With The Kremlin


A dangerous consequence:

The Purpose Driven Life Terminates in Hell



LifeSiteNews may wish to rethink:


Mainline protestants don't buy it either:



New Age Technofascism posing as Christianity?

Thursday, August 18, 2016

NAZI Homosexuals and the Slow Steady Seduction of America


Only in his dreams could Hitler have imagined the blatant homosexualizing of the German Wehrmacht.  What Hitler could only dream of, the United States is poised to make fact, a scant sixty-six years after fighting a costly and bloody war to defeat Hitler and the Nazis.

Before I get ahead of myself, let me point out that the title of this article, and the article itself, are meant to be attention getting, but do not constitute a spurious ad hominem attack on homosexuality; they are designed to bring attention to historical facts that are of profound importance to the future of America (and the world).

To give credit where it is due, I first became aware of much of the material presented here after reading “The Pink Swastika” (4th edition 2002), by Scott Lively and Kevin Abram.  The entire book can be accessed for free online.  My reaction to the book was similar to Scott Lively’s reaction, “When I initially learned the truths set forth in [“The Pink Swastika”] I was first astonished and then angered.”

At the outset of this article let me reiterate that Communism and Fascism (of which Nazism is a subset) are both Far Left ideologies.  That is not to say that they are “like peas in a pod;” they are not — nonetheless they are both left-wing, top-down, big-government social engineering movements.

Comparing the two is not like “apples and oranges,” but rather like comparing “oranges and tangerines.”  Many of the left-wing’s “rank and file” are unaware that fascism is a left-wing doctrine, but their puppet-masters are well aware of it, and work in collusion with other Far Left doctrines — “united in hate,” as Dr. Jamie Glazov puts it.  (more...)


Related:

Why we should worry about the link between politicians and abuse

Kincora boys' home
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse, or IICSA, is in crisis. Its third chair, New Zealand judge Dame Lowell Goddard, has just resigned and a replacement, Professor Alexis Jay, appointed. Dame Lowell and her predecessors were appointed by Theresa May in her previous role as Home Secretary to chair the inquiry examining the institutional abuse of children in England and Wales.

The two previous appointees had to step down because of their closeness to the very Establishment that they were supposed to be examining. More than a year on from its formation the inquiry has barely got into its stride.

One of the central roles of IICSA is to look at allegations against senior politicians who have been accused of abusing children. It is hoped the inquiry will consider whether Establishment abusers had been protected, and to determine what changes to the child protection system should be made in light of allegations against prominent people.  (more...)


 Abuse of Trust

Related:

Are the Knights of Columbus worthy of traditional Catholic men?

Photo-op like DiCaprio
On August 17th, Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, promulgated a Bull (or load thereof) in the form of an editorial published by The Hill.

The editorial is an embarrassing display of both unbridled Americanism and sheer hypocrisy that not only renders a disservice to those individual Knights who embrace neither; it also makes it necessary for such men to reconsider whether or not continued membership in the Order is still warranted.

In his editorial, Anderson takes to task those “Catholic politicians in America” who invoke the Mario Cuomo argument that civil authorities mustn’t “impose their religious beliefs” on the people – thus enabling one to play both sides of the fence on matters of intrinsic evil; e.g., claiming to be faithfully and “personally opposed” to such things as abortion on the one hand, while supporting the same legislatively on the other.

“Such an argument by a Catholic politician was bogus then, and it is untenable now,” Anderson writes.

So far so good, but after arguing that science itself confirms that abortion is the taking of a human life (i.e., it is an objective truth and not simply a “religious belief”), he then goes full bore Americanist  (more...)


Related: