- The situation in the Sudan is still really terrible and children are being raped. Despite the splintering of the country into two pieces, things are still horrific as stated in a new report by Human Rights Watch:
Sudanese army troops raped at least 221 women and girls in a Darfur village in a series of organized, house-to-house attacks last year…the new report, based on more than 130 telephone interviews with survivors, witnesses and army defectors, says girls as young as 10 were raped by Sudanese forces, and that some women and girls were assaulted multiple times and in front of their families.
- “We are punishing people for their poverty.” Part of the cycle of poverty in the U.S. has to do with the fact the poor are put in jail and can’t pay the fines they accrue so they sit in jail longer which means they cannot go to work or take care of their children. And these are not because they are committing violent crimes, as noted:
Although violent crime has declined almost 50 percent in the past two decades, annual admissions to jails have almost doubled to 11.7 million…75 percent of the population of people in jail are awaiting trail and are there for nonviolent offenses.
- Yemen continues to provide proof the U.S. can’t kill its way to victory in the War on Terror. The U.S. and other Western allies will be shredding their documents and leaving their embassies in Yemen this week. It’s been noted heavily since the coup (or allegedly not-a-coup, as pointed out in the article) that Yemen was held up as a “model” for how to conduct the War on Terror through a persistent and heavy amount of drone strikes. That worked out well…
- A U.S. drone burned a 13-year old Yemeni boy to death. Just another incident in that “model” country that goes unnoticed by most Americans. But hey, according to sadistic U.S. law, he was “military age” and a male so he’s an enemy combatant and not just a child. Some of his family won’t have to mourn his death since his father and brother were already killed by drones. I’m sure an attack like that will offend absolutely no one that will want to seek revenge against the West sometime in the future. Because that’s how an-eye-for-not-an-eye works.
- Wisconsin Governor and potential Republican 2016 candidate Scott Walker dodges a question on whether he believes in evolution. Which is fantastic if you are cheering for the Democrats to hold the White House in the next election. The hilarious aspect of questions like this and the recent spat on vaccinations is there are clear majorities of Americans that are on one side of these issues and these potential presidential candidates are sometimes choosing the side of the minority. They aren’t issues that will win you too many voters but they are issues that will turn voters off when you take seemingly crazy positions. So, for Walker to dodge the question and make himself look a little wacky when there’s an obviously easier path, I say go right ahead buddy!
