Stephan: This trend linking clergy to sex abuse doesn't stop. I don't go to church to begin with so I have very little interaction with clergy except for the occasional academic at a conference, and those individuals aren't Theocratic Rightists. Fundamentalists don't go to the conferences I speak at or attend, and this is mostly about Theocratic Rightists of course. We have a mental health crisis going on in this country, and elsewhere to be sure, but it is becoming a real issue in the U.S.. It's not well known because our media -- with the exception of Roman Catholic clergy -- won't report on it as a trend only as a singular event, this report being an example. But it is clearly a significant problem.
My research suggests about 10-15 per cent of police are bullies, racists, and thugs drawn to the job because it allows them to push people around under color of authority. Just so about 10-15 per cent of the ordained are drawn to the clergy because of their obsessive sexual dysfunction. A collar gives them an appearance of piety and allows them access to children. One thing we have learned from these sordid scandals is that it is hard for a child to say, "No" to God's representative.
Jason Kennedy, left, and Zubin Parakh were among 32 people arrested in an undercover sex sting operation in Tennessee.
Credit: Knox County Sheriff’s Office
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has released the names of 32 men and women who were arrested in an undercover sting targeting a human trafficking and prostitution operation that preyed upon the residents of Knoxville.
Among those arrested in “Operation Someone Like Me”: A volunteer firefighter, an engineer — and two church pastors who responded to online ads for what they thought were for girls under the age of 18, according to the TBI.
One of the pastors netted in the three-day sting was the leader of the children’s ministry at Grace Baptist Church. That man, identified as 46-year-old Jason Kennedy, was charged last week with patronizing prostitution and trafficking and has since been fired by his church.
“We are held to a higher standard,” Grace Baptist’s senior […]
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Wednesday, May 25th, 2016
Travis Gettys, - The Raw Story
Stephan: I am running this story because it shows this same child sex abuse trend is also linked to the White "Patriot" movement Remember the Minutemen down on the Mexican border; this is the co-founder.
Chris Simcox, co-founder of the Minutemen “Patriot” movement.
Three of former border militiaman Chris Simcox’s daughters testified against him in the former Republican candidate’s sexual molestation trial.
Simcox is representing himself in his trial on six counts of child molestation and furnishing pornography to minors, although he’s not allowed to question the children he’s accused of abusing, reported the Phoenix New-Times.
However, the border vigilante cross-examined his adult daughter — who accused him of molesting her decades ago, when she was a child.
Linsey Randich, now 33, testified that she spent summers with her father in California, as part of a custody agreement after her parents divorced when she was 2 years old.
She told jurors that Simcox, who was then a kindergarten teacher at the private Wildwood School in Los Angeles, had fondled her genitals while hosing her off after swimming at the beach — even though she was 10 years old and old enough to clean herself.
Randich said her father again fondled her genitals four years […]
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Stephan: This is a ghastly report demonstrating everything that is wrong with our cultural view of nature -- something we have dominion over and can exploit as we wish. The world ocean is dying. Report after report describes the collapse of the fisheries the world over, and the death of the coral reefs that are the ecosystem's nurseries. All of this is occurring because of human stupidity, greed, and ignorance and our children will pay a fearsome price for policies such as this one.
A whale swims in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Maui, on December 21, 2014.
Credit: Derek
What if you were told the US Navy is legally permitted to harass, injure or kill nearly 12 million whales, dolphins, porpoises, sea lions and seals across the North Pacific Ocean over a five-year period?
It is true, and over one-quarter of every tax dollar you pay is helping to fund it.
A multistate, international citizen watchdog group called the West Coast Action Alliance (WCAA), tabulated numbers that came straight from the Navy’s Northwest Training and Testing EIS (environmental impact statement) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Letters of Authorization for incidental “takes” of marine mammals issued by NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service.
“It is outrageous to think that humans have quantified all of the impacts their actions cause to the marine environment.”
A “take” is a form of harm to an animal that ranges from […]
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