The band’s highest commercial achievement was the 7th place on the American Billboard 200 album chart. No Korean artist in history has ever managed to rise so high on Western charts before.

It is no coincidence that the boy band in 2020 was named “The Most Influential Group of the Year”.
The BTS guys got that name at the Weibo Starlight Awards. It is an annual event held by the Chinese social media platform Weibo and awards celebrities from all over the world who were popular in China this year.

A smartphone app which has been on our radar screen for the past year is now available in Spanish with new features and to a whole new audience: undocumented immigrants who may need help before, during and after a raid from ICE. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement).

The app, called Cell 411 is a smartphone app available for both Android and iOS platforms; it allows users to organize themselves in regional “cells” or groups which are decentralized and managed by the users themselves. The cells can have as little as 2 members and as many as 1,000 members or more, allowing users who are in distress to alerts the rest of the cell of the nature of their problem and the exact location of where they need help.  When sending out an alert, the users’s GPS coordinates are broadcast to their trusted friends and cell members with turn by turn direction to their location.  This allows in essence for the crowd-sourcing of emergencies without the involvement of police, which are often not trusted by communities of immigrants and minorities.

The startup, Cell 411 Inc. was founded by Virgil Vaduva, who is an immigrant himself, after being arrested during an anti-police brutality protest after which he had no means to alert his family and friends of what happened and his whereabouts. The app was built as a decentralized means of helping communities and neighborhoods organize themselves to offer each other mutual aid in case of emergencies without asking for assistance from government, police and other state agencies.

You can also create private cells which are only visible to you an not other users, and you can add your friends to your private cells.

The bluetooth button from Cell 411 Inc.

The app allows you to send emergency alerts about medical problems, police abuse, vehicle problems, crime, and other issues; the alerts are tagged with your exact GPS coordinates and your friends can get turn-by-turn directions to your location, should they decide to come and offer you help.  You can stream live video to your cells and friends, and the video cannot be erased by a malicious user who may gain access to your phone.  The video can also be streamed to YouTube and Facebook and is distributed instantly to all your friends, making it nearly impossible to be destroyed.

The app also has a ride-sharing feature available and real-time chat between cell members, allowing users to discuss how an event unfolds in real time in order to offer help as necessary. (Note: chat feature will be released on March 3)

Last year the company introduced a bluetooth panic button, which can be worn on a wrist, key-chain or a belt clip and allows users to send our an emergency alert much faster, without having to unlock or touch their smart phone.

Available in Spanish, English, German, Portuguese and Romanian, the app is free and does not carry any service cost associated with the use.

It can be downloaded from http://getcell411.com/download

The short video below describes how Cell 411 works and how it can help communities engage in mutual aid activities.

Another walkthrough video also goes into more details on how the app functions.

by Virgil Vaduva

Today Google proudly touted the release of Perspective, an AI-backed platform an API which will allow content publishers to in essence censor user input such as comments, notes and other similar data based on levels of “toxicity” as determined by their AI algorithm.  Marketed as an “anti-harassment tool” the API was released on Thursday by Jigsaw, a Google subsidiary and it was developed in cooperation with the New York Times, Wikipedia, The Economist and The Guardian.

Perspective was created by Jigsaw and Google’s Counter Abuse Technology team in a collaborative research project called Conversation-AI. Conversation AI product manager CJ Adams said, “We hope this is a moment where Conversation AI goes from being ‘this is interesting’ to a place where everyone can start engaging and leveraging these models to improve discussion.”

Adams said that until now, website managers only had a few options on how to manage content, such as up/down voting and black-listing key words but now, [Perspective] “gives them a new option: Take a bunch of collective intelligence—that will keep getting better over time—about what toxic comments people have said would make them leave, and use that information to help your community’s discussions.”

According to their documentation, Google and Jigsaw used content and comments from websites like New York Times and Wikipedia and then displayed the comments to groups of ten people, asking them to rate the “toxic level” of each comment.  This training process gave Google a large test sample they could use in training their machine-learning algorithm and start scoring and ranking real-life comments.

But is their methodology and process sound, and does it lead to a fair scoring, or is it in essence just another re-branded censorship platform that will end up being used to manipulate and censor online content found disagreeable by a majority of the population?

I ran a few tests myself on the Perspective website, which gives people the opportunity to type comments and determine their toxicity in real time.  The higher the score is, the more likely it is that your comment will be removed, blocked or censored by a website using Google’s platform.  I chose a few topics known to create controversial online exchanges and here are my results.

Hillary Clinton should have won the U.S. elections. (6%)

Donald Trump should have won the U.S. elections. (12%)

Hillary Clinton is going to help the United States recover and make America great again. (6%)

Donald Trump is going to help the United States recover and make America great again. (10%)

There is no racism in America. (39%)

White people often discriminate against blacks. (65%)

Black people often discriminate against whites. (63%)

Gun control is a great thing for America. (10%)

Gun control is a terrible thing for America. (42%)

America needs a tax cut. (13%)

America needs a tax increase. (4%)

There is no racism on America’s college campuses.(30%)

There is racism on America’s college campuses. (34%)

A gun is a great tool for single women to use in self defense. (20%)

A gun is not a great tool for single women to use in self defense. (18%)

Killing cops is morally wrong. (66%)

Killing cops is not morally wrong. (49%)

War is good for America. (11%)

War is not good for America. (18%)

After testing some controversial opinions and comparing various extremes, it’s easy to see that the Perspective platform can easily be used to censor controversial speech, whether that speech comes from the left or the right of the American political spectrum.  This evidence should be disturbing to anyone willing to experience slight discomfort reading “toxic” online comments while still maintaining some resemblance of balanced conversation.

Publishers willing to use Perspective can easily do so in an effort to manipulate the reader perception of weighted opinion on their websites; worse yet, advertisers will have even more limited knowledge about their audience and opinions held by users due to the fact that only opinions deemed appropriate by Perspective will be displayed to end users.

Content producers should remain extremely cautious about the Perspective platform. When users are no longer able to post comments like “Trump is an idiot” or “Hillary is a terrible human being,” they will create an environment empty of value, essentially a masturbatory pleasantry where everyone agrees with everyone, or so it may appear.

You too can test the Perspective platform and rank the toxicity of your own comments here: http://www.perspectiveapi.com/

Virgil Vaduva is a Libertarian security professional, journalist, photographer and overall liberty freak.  He spent most of his life in Communist Romania and participated in the 1989 street protests which led to the collapse of the Ceausescu regime. He can be reached at vvaduva at truthvoice.com.

by Virgil Vaduva

One of the most difficult things about being a libertarian is that I often find myself defending liberty in some difficult situations. Just like a defense attorney may find himself defending a client charged with murder, and who appears by all accounts to be guilty, he still gives his best defense to his client; defending people and ideas that we do not like and their rights to speak and be spoken is unfortunately a critical element of liberty. This is not easy to do as we are all subject to various paradigms and affected by them in ways that we may not even realize.

The world of ideas is very much the same. Ideas are the foundation upon which humanity builds its future or tears it down. They can be the seeds for things to come or the vehicle to effecting change in the world. Virtually everything in existence today was once an idea, and for millennia ideas have shaped the world into the place we call home today.

There is little else that I despise more than Communism and the ideas upon which that ideology was founded. I spent half of my life in a Communist country, growing up in indoctrination schools, taught that free markets were only benefiting the rich and that State control is key to good and peaceful living.  I experienced physical abuse, hunger and mental abuse at the hands of Communists and their ideas.  Now, decades letter, I understand those ideas to be false, and even though more than 100 million humans have died as a result of Communism, I still do not find it necessary to punch a Communist or a Socialist who may be peacefully passing out flyers on the street promoting his ideas. Yes, ironically, as a libertarian I find myself defending the speech of Communists, which I despise, and the speech of Fascists which I find abhorrent.

The trend of virtue-signaling we have been seeing lately popularized by the American media often encourages strangers to punch and physically assault alleged fascists or Nazis (supposed “nationalist socialists,” which is not an exactly American term) in order to stop them from promoting their ideas. “Their ideas are dangerous,” they say. The argument encouraging blatant physical assault against people advocating ideas involves the justification that fascist ideas could potentially come to fruition and give birth to violent actions.  Yes, I hope you caught the irony here: we must use pre-emptive threats, violence or even murder in order to stop ideas that could potentially give birth to more violence.

This in essence is the philosophy we find at the core of the United States foreign policy which has now been embraced at an individual level by average Americans, even Libertarians who claim to support free speech.  For decades, the U.S. government has been pre-emptively going to war with nations that had the potential of becoming enemies of the U.S. and espoused ideas considered anti-American.

Just a few hours ago, Richard Spencer, an alleged white supremacist and a fascist was kicked out of a conference called International Students for Liberty Conference (ISLC); this was apparently the result of a confrontation between Spencer and Jeffrey Tucker.  In the spirit of full disclosure, I know almost nothing about Spencer. I have never read anything written by him and other than knowing about him getting assaulted on the street recently.

Spencer was apparently invited to speak at ISLC by the Hans Hermann Hoppe Caucus and a group of conference attendees.  There is even video of Spencer peacefully speaking to what appears to be a large group of students. The audio is very difficult to make out, so it is unclear if Spencer is advocating for the extermination of all ethnic minorities or if he is discussing his love for Donald Trump, however it is clear that there is nothing extraordinary happening outside of the fact that ideas are being discussed in a peaceful fashion.

Some pieces of the conversation can be made out from poor audio available, such as Richard Spencer advocating for the use of the State to protect citizens from immigrants and his condemnation of multi culturalism and what accounts to cultural Marxism. It’s unclear why exactly these ideas are controversial considering that Spencer is openly a supporter of Donald Trump.

What we see later however, is Jeffrey Tucker entering the room and disrupting the event, forcing an employee of the venue to come and warn the participants about keeping things orderly to avoid being removed from the premises. Tucker and Spencer quickly engaged each other in a shouting match across the room full of attendees.

Tucker states: “Libertarianism is about human dignity, liberty for all, and not about fascism!”

Of course, what libertarian would disagree with this?  I am not a fascist and I don’t want libertarian ideology to be about fascism either.  Tucker was immediately triggered by the idea that a supposed fascist was espousing ideas that he disagreed with.  The spectacle unfolding on the video is incredible: a meltdown of epic proportions which ultimately leads to a total denial of the most fundamental libertarian principles, the freedom of speech and the freedom of association.

Mitchell Steffen, the founder of the Hans Hermann Hoppe Caucus and a Dominican, an ethnicity he is proud of, invited Spencer to the conference in order to have a peaceful dialogue.  Steffen said,

“It was really unfortunate how it turned out. I think the Hoppe Caucus did a good job of pushing the envelope and exposing hypocrisy though. Spencer’s ideas should be challenged with better libertarian ideas. He should not be bullied.”

Jeffrey Tucker’s emotional meltdown and virtue-signaling was a perfect fit for the young crowd of college students. At one point Tucker was surrounded by what someone called “a leftist mob:”

“A mob of leftists, who were even joined by Jeffrey Tucker at one point, were warned repeatedly about their noise-level, but refused to calm down. Eventually, hotel security dispersed the entire mob and assisted Spencer in evacuating unscathed.”

There is very little that is noble here about Jeffrey Tucker’s actions. Yes, I’ve seen countless posts on Facebook and tweets about how heroic Tucker was when behaving this way, but I fail to see the heroism in shutting down ideas and debate, especially about current events and political trends. Furthermore, resorting to “you are a fascist” calls is the easiest and laziest way to deal with an argument.

What is even worse about the entire meltdown is that race and ethnicity seem to have been at the core of Tucker’s initial statement, which is particularly ironic considering that Jeffrey Tucker was linked by The Economist years ago to a series of racist letters published by Ron Paul.  The racist letters were not written by Ron Paul himself, but by some of his staff and friends, including allegedly Lew Rockwell, Jeffrey Tucker and potentially Murray Rothbard.

The Economist even called out Tucker for the racist ghost writing, who refused to answer the question asked and pointed to the Mises website for content that he authored.

The suggestion that at some point in time Jeffrey Tucker espoused racist ideas to me doesn’t matter at all as I have never personally heard him say anything racist, but considering his close connections with the issue at hand, one would think that Tucker of all people would favor the open exchange of ideas, as long as they remain peaceful.  Someone being invited on private property to discuss his ideas and then being removed by police and State agents as a result of Tucker’s actions should be condemned by libertarians, not praised, or else there is little difference between the cultural Marxists roaming college campuses everywhere using mob mentality to shut down speech.

Mob-driven Libertarianism aimed at shutting down discourse is not virtuous, regardless of what ideas it attempts to shut down.  We need to know who the fascists among us are, so we can engage them, avoid them, ostracize them or maybe even attempt to change their minds. The same goes for communists, racists and bigots. Ideas alone do not assault people, they do not murder anyone and cannot be killed.

Jeffrey Tucker did nothing heroic here.  He violated private property rights and the right of association. He shut down a peaceful debate by inciting a mob against the people involved. He should not be praised. If anything, he should be condemned for participating in what was virtually a cultural Marxist cleansing. If we are to claim liberty for all, that includes the liberty of others to speak ideas we may find abhorrent and uncomfortable.

In the famous words from V for Vendetta, “Ideas are bulletproof.”  Only better ideas can defeat flawed ideas, not violence and meltdowns in a public forum.

Virgil Vaduva is a Libertarian security professional, journalist, photographer and overall liberty freak.  He spent most of his life in Communist Romania and participated in the 1989 street protests which led to the collapse of the Ceausescu regime. He can be reached at vvaduva at truthvoice.com.

Virgil Vaduva speaking with his family during his trial (Photo: Justin King)

The City of Xenia, Ohio made headlines two years ago when they decided to prosecute a local journalist for protesting against the city’s unconstitutional anti-panhandling ordinance.  In early 2015, journalist Virgil Vaduva asked the Xenia City Council to remove the anti-panhandling legislation from their code as it is unconstitutional and it violates the First Amendment rights of citizens, but after refusing to do so, he decided to protest the city’s panhandling ordinance by panhandling in front of the city hall and the police station in Xenia.  He raised about $42 which was donated to a local charity.

He was subsequently ticketed and went all the way through a jury trial leading to his conviction, and a 30 day suspended jail sentence and community service.

He wrote:

By dictating the nature of speech in a public space, the City of Xenia has directly violated the first amendment of the United States Constitution.  Of course, they deny this.  They are now in full damage control mode.  Less than twenty-four hours after I challenged their ordinance, they created a website where they are trying to address poverty in town by explaining why panhandling should be illegal.  Their bureaucrats are desperately trying to control the narrative by saying that they only banned “aggressive panhandling” and not all panhandling.  Of course they never explained why their police still ticketed me for very peaceful panhandling if the ordinance only bans aggressive action.

During the various hearings before the trial, one of the judges involved even stated, “there will be no mentioning of the Constitution here (in this court room).”  The statement drew harsh response from citizens across the country, including Alex Jones’ InfoWars website which discussed some of the details of the case.

But despite the lengthy and expensive legal engagement, Vaduva however won the case after an appeals court ruled that his rights to a fair trial were violated and eventually all charges against him were dropped.

Now, two years after the ordeal took place, a $1.6 million federal lawsuit has been filed against the City of Xenia, its agents and the two police officers involved in enforcing what is clearly an unconstitutional law.

The federal suit, filed in the Southern District of Ohio, names the City of Xenia and several individuals, including all the city council members who conspired to violate constitutional rights and the police officers involved in enforcing the law.  The suit demands relief for over $1.6 million under title 42 U.S. Code § 1983 for conspiring to use the color of  law in order to deprive citizens of their civil rights.

Vaduva claims that he intends to see this lawsuit through to a jury trial, regardless of how much it will cost, all in order to prevent future constitutional violations in the City of Xenia.  Furthermore, he claims that the neighboring cities of Beavercreek and Fairborn have identical anti-panhandling laws on the books, and they will be also targeted for constitutional violations in potential upcoming lawsuits. His hope is that his actions will motivate other activists and citizens in the area to engage in direct action to challenge constitutional violations and abuses of power by local politicians.

An easy but misleading comparison.

I don’t really like football. I can appreciate and admire the dedication and raw talent it takes to compete athletically on a national level, but being a spectator to the sport has fairly limited appeal for me. The same goes for pretty much all sports, actually. In this I am sometimes seen as a deviant by my friends, and certainly the rest of my family, the latter of whom I think it’s safe to say meet the bar for “football fanatic.” They watch, talk, and argue about teams, players, strategies. They go so far as to base their home decor around the priority of their team favor, dedicating wall real estate proportionally to each team.

I don’t really understand the emotional investment many seem to have in their preferred teams. Players themselves rarely seem to show a similar loyalty, and even at the college level, the role money and athletic scouts play seems to make the location and name of a given team more of a branding decision than any real representation of the people in that particular area. Yet it’s teams that are nearest to where a fan lives (or where they grew up) that seems to play the biggest role in whether a team is liked. I have to admit it: I just don’t get it.

Me irl on Thanksgiving, trying to blend in

Because spectator sports are something so well-liked, and at the same time so alien to me, its preference as a cultural pastime is something I’m really only capable of thinking about as an outsider. As an outsider to the fandom, I frequently encounter a meme that, in addition to being unfair, inaccurate, and pretentious, is rooted in a kind of unwarranted elitism that is, in my opinion, even more harmful to the cognitive potential of the person holding the opinion than the “divisiveness” caused by maintaining a rude or dismissive belief.

You’ve probably seen someone say something along these lines. “Football is the opiate of the masses.” It’s the contemporary bread and circuses of our modern-day Roman Empire, so says the supposed intellectual — even he who admittedly enjoys the gladiator bouts himself. I’ve seen the opinion spouted by everyone from well-thought activists and philosophers, to pseudo-intellectual posers, and even the arguably well-meaning but laughable walking meme factory Alex Jones.

Maybe the idea took off because it’s easy for an outsider to believe at a glance. To someone who’s not into spectator sports, strangers watching the game can become hordes of faceless sports fans, often encountered while drunk and loud at bars and restaurants, painting the caricature of a tribalist idiot more concerned with what men in tights are doing than the realities of what’s going on around them. What’s “really going on,” of course, is entirely subjective. “Imminent societal collapse,” especially in the wake of a recent presidential election, is a pretty popular one.

Assuming football is such an effective distraction, let me ask you this. What do you really think would happen if people stopped watching football and “woke up?” What would you have them do, stand in crowds waving signs every moment they weren’t watching the game? Football does literally nothing to prevent people from engaging in the political process. People aren’t so distracted by sports that they cannot take the time to get informed and vote. They’re already doing that, and all of the other things you think are helping, and it’s accomplishing nothing.

Good thing these people didn’t waste time watching the playoffs.

The truth is that sports have nothing to do with it. Even the most zealous fan is not an opium addict, and the belief that escapism is the problem — especially “their” preferred type — is a stupid and detrimental belief. It rejects the reality that many humans are capable of complex, varied, and sometimes contradictory thought in favor of masturbatory pomp. It’s detrimental because it distracts from the very realization it masquerades as: that we really are alive in an era of bread and circuses, and it has little to do with television or smartphones.

The plebs of the classical era were regularly beaten into submission, starved, manipulated, and killed for small amounts of material gain. Concepts like economic and social progression were wildly out of scope for what they could ever hope to achieve. Practically all of them suffered living conditions that are almost unfathomable to us today.

If rebellion sounded like it might net some reward, and seemed even remotely within grasp, a violent insurrection was very probable — which is why dissent in the age before easy access to information was punished with incredible brutality. It was quelled not only with barbaric treachery, or even with simple social distraction, but by providing comforts that were otherwise out of reach.

Technology has enabled unprecedented access to information, including the ability to share experience. The restriction to information as a safeguard to the patrician has been removed, and to counter, the old bread and circuses have been done away with. The new opiate is the obfuscation of violence.

Violence, especially violence against otherwise peaceful people, permeates all modern societies. Because it is rarely acted upon, the average person has stopped detecting it. Like the smell of bread in a bakery, you forget it’s even there when you’re not tasting it for yourself. Even when your friends are taxed into oblivion, unable to afford adequate healthcare, or beaten by police, you’re directed to submit written petitions asking for relief. Maybe the state will get around to it, maybe it won’t — it all depends on if the right people get the vote, right?

“is this meme dank? y/n”

It isn’t working, and you don’t need them. You don’t voluntarily pay for the things the state provides or the rules it makes, even when you think it’s a wonderful idea. You can’t escape this, certainly not by voting or protesting, and if you try to, you risk having violence used against you. This arrangement is not only unnecessary, but it keeps you the subject of a system which does not have your interest at heart. The bread and circus of the modern era is the idea that you are a part of the social contract; the opiate of the masses is the belief that you are not a pleb.

Stop shitting on football and start stabbing tyrants.

— David Neely, written for TruthVoice

A small startup that has been around for less than a year has created a free mobile app aimed at helping Americans and people all over the world resist the police state.  The app, called Cell 411 (or Cell 112 in Europe), is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Romanian, and it helps activists and people from all political shades resist government abuse with decentralized GPS-based alerts and live video features. Whether you are a gun-rights activist, an anti-Trump protester, concerned with police brutality or simply a muslim woman concerned for her safety, this app can help you build decentralized groups, or “cells” of trusted connections which you can then use to dispatch when you need help.

Because this app has been so revolutionary in its approach to building a new way to handle emergencies and the police state, it has been selected by the Victoria & Albert Museum in London to be featured in the “Future of Design” exhibit in 2018.

Think of this app as an “UBER for emergencies” or a “911 on steroids” except it doesn’t involve government, police or people  you don’t trust.  The app was created by a small group of passionate engineers, activists and people concerned with the growth of police state all over the world.  It can be used by anyone with an Android or iOS smartphone and it has tens of thousands of users all over the world.

Here is how it works: users can freely download the app and signup for an account using their e-mail address of Facebook account. Once signed up, a user can join existing public “cells” or groups in their areas, or can create their own cells.  Joining a cell allows you to send and receive emergency alerts from the members of that cell.  Let’s say you want to create a cell in your town called, “Denver Mutual Aid.”  Al users in the Denver area will be notified when this cell was created and can join the cell in order to offer each other help when the members request the help.  There are thousands of cells all over the world used by users for many reasons, such as immigration help, neighborhood watching, etc.

You can also create private cells which are only visible to you an not other users, and you can add your friends to your private cells.

The app allows you to send emergency alerts about medical problems, police abuse, vehicle problems, crime, and other issues; the alerts are tagged with your exact GPS coordinates and your friends can get turn-by-turn directions to your location, should they decide to come and offer you help.  You can stream live video to your cells and friends, and the video cannot be erased by a malicious user who may gain access to your phone.  The video can also be streamed to YouTube and Facebook and is distributed instantly to all your friends, making it nearly impossible to be destroyed.

The app was specifically designed to be resistant to censorship and government surveillance and has been used successfully all over the world to save lives and keep users safe from criminals, police abuse and many other malicious actors.

The company also created a “panic button” which is a bluetooth device that pairs with the mobile app and allows users to issue alerts instantly without having to unlock the phone or spend precious time navigating an app. Recently a “ride sharing” feature was also added to the app to allow users to offer rides to each other when they need help and accept payments for cash, Bitcoin, silver and even bartering.

You can download Cell 411 for Android and Apple devices from http://getcell411.com/download

You can also watch a quick walk-trough of the main features of this app below:

Update: It appears that at least one mainstream media outlet, the Columbus Dispatch did mention at least one gunshot victim in this article however failed to account for how the individual was shot or ask authorities how it happened.

In what is becoming a bizarre turn of events, it appears that the cop hailed as the hero who saved lives at Ohio State, is actually is responsible for shooting several of the students while trying to shoot the attacker. Officer Alan Horujko, hailed as a hero by mainstream media, appears to be responsible for causing several gunshot wounds, one of which appears to be serious.

Around 10:30 AM on November 28, Abdul Razak Ali Artan, a Somali immigrant attending Ohio State drove his car into a crowd of students who were gathered outside a building due to a research lab fluoride leak causing an evacuation.  After this, Artan exited the car holding a knife and began stabbing several bystanders with the large kitchen knife.

As police was already present there, Abdul Razak Ali Artan was almost immediately shot by OSU police officer Alan Horujko who was immediately hailed as a hero by the mainstream media.  While perhaps Horujko is a hero for ending a threat, it appear that the mainstream media is not telling the entire story, namely that several of the students injured during the attack were injured by Horujko’s poor marksmanship, not by Artan’s knife.

Almost immediately after the attack, eye witnesses started calling out mainstream media for falsely reporting that a shooter was loose on campus and for covering up the fact that some of the most serious injuries were caused by the police, not the attacker.  One eyewitness wrote in a post titled I’m Here, This is what happened,

A Muslim jumped the curb and used his car to hit people. Then he got out with a machete and tried to whack a few folks with that. He didn’t have much success. The police were called. A campus cop showed up, emptied his clip killing the Muslim and ALSO SHOT A STUDENT. The cop gets on the radio and says ‘shots fired’ – suddenly its a ‘mass shooting’.

Now they’re on TV not saying a word about the student the cop shot who is in critical condition. In fact, the worst injury in all this came from the police. They’re also completely ignoring motive, race or religion of the attacker. They’re not giving his name or even asking the question.

This whole thing has been escalated times a thousand by a bored media and an overzealous cop….a reporter just asked if anyone other than the attacker was shot and THEY IGNORED THE QUESTION. Ridiculous.

So far no media reports have mentioned the fact that the most serious injuries appear to have been caused by police rather than the terrorist armed with a knife.

Another source working for the Ohio State University public safety department who does not wish to be identified publicly, told TruthVoice that one victim with a fairly serious gunshot leg injury was treated at Ohio State Medical Center and at least one other victim with gunshot wounds was treated at another hospital. The extent of the injuries appears to be unclear right now.

No other media outlets appear to report on the fact that several students were shot by police and continue to ignore the question of how victims of this attack ended up with gun shots while the attacker was only armed with a knife.

The narrative of “cops as heroes no matter what” continues to be played as the main thread in all media reports, putting the media in questionable light as they should be the ones asking the difficult questions in order to provide a full and complete story to the public at large.

We will continue to keep you updated as new details about the Ohio State University attack emerge.

CARACAS, VENEZUELA –  Last month 20 Venezuelans were arrested as they were trying to sneak into Curaçao, the island country in the southern Caribbean Sea, using a small boat — just like Cubans rafters do to make their way to Florida.

Venezuela’s northernmost point is less than 20 miles away from the Dutch territory, so this has become the route of choice for dozens trying to flee the socialist, hunger-stricken country every week.

According to a Datin Corp poll released last week, 57 percent of Venezuelan registered voters want to leave the country. This means that approximately 12 million people want out, almost half of the 30 million who populate the country if we take out children and teens.

In a similar survey conducted in 2015, Datin Corp found out that 49 percent of Venezuelans wanted to move overseas.

Datin Corp’s head, political analyst Jesus Seguias, said that one of the most surprising facts this year is that as many as one of every four admirers of the late Hugo Chavez also said they would emigrate if they could.

“They are Chavistas and they declare themselves as such, but they are angry at President Nicolas Maduro because of the country’s situation,” he said to Fox News Latino.

The country’s situation is one of acute shortages of the most basic products, a 700 percent inflation projected for 2016 and record levels of street crime.

According to Seguias, the new rise is partly explained by the number of opposition members and independents who now want out — 71 percent and 59 percent, respectively.

“The desire of leaving is clearly related to the lack of hope and the disappointment at the current situation,” said Seguias, warning that the number could escalate if a vote to recall President Maduro is not held this year, as the majority of Venezuelans expect.

Yet the wish to relocate is for most people an almost impossible dream.

“Leaving your country is a real complex matter,” said sociologist Ivan De La Vega, professor at Simon Bolivar University. “It requires a plan and is risky, so normally those who emigrate are young people without children.”

He said that some countries in the region are setting an increasing number of restrictions to avoid undesired migration from Venezuela.

Curaçao, for example, now requires any Venezuelan entering the island to carry at least $300 in cash, hold hotel reservations and have a return ticket. In neighboring Aruba, some people are asking the government to start demanding a visa to all Venezuelans.

In May, the Curaçao Red Cross announced that they were working on a contingency plan to deal with Venezuelan expatriates, but expressed concern because they said the country simply doesn’t have the resources needed.

Since Chavismo took power in 1999, more than 1.8 million Venezuelans have fled the country, De La Vega said.

Up until 2012 most of them were highly educated professionals who were typically well received anywhere they went. A Pew Research Center conducted in early 2013 estimated that 51 percent of Venezuelans living in the U.S. at the time had at least a college degree.

But that began to change rapidly after Maduro took power in March of 2013.

“In 2013 and 2014 we had a new wave of migration that included a wider range of social strata,” De La Vega told FNL.

According to an investigation published last month by the Grupo de Diarios America, the top three countries receiving Venezuelan exiles are currently the U.S., Spain and Colombia.

“We have been able to find Venezuelans living in all five continents and in at least 96 countries.

The list keeps growing. Many leave to one place and then move to another,” the sociologist said.

Many of those who choose Spain and Colombia are descendants of Spanish and Colombian immigrants who settled in Venezuela years ago, so they don’t count as foreigners.

“The total number of emigrants could rise to up to 3 million,” De La Vega said. “We would be able to calculate the number better if [the government of] Venezuela kept a better record of entries and departures,” he added.

Franz von Bergen is a freelancer reporter living in Caracas.

Source: Reed v. Beckett (West Virginia Supreme Court, 10/26/2016)