NXIVM, Legal, Polygamy, QAnon, Anti-Vaxx
Albany Times Union: NXIVM leader Keith Raniere recovering from coronavirus
"NXIVM leader Keith Raniere is recovering from COVID-19 in his Arizona prison.And the convicted sex trafficker has some new attorneys to help him attempt to legally recover from his federal convictions and 120-year prison sentence.The new lawyers, who will be working on Raniere's appeal, are closely tied to the fight against wrongful convictions — and are affiliated with Christopher Darden, a prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson trial.Raniere, 6o, the disgraced personal growth guru known as "Vanguard," was feeling good after contracting the coronavirus, according to Joseph D. McBride, a Manhattan lawyer who recently joined Raniere's legal team."Keith is still recovering from his bout with COVID-19," McBride told the Times Union. "Our understanding of the situation is that Keith began experiencing symptoms shortly after being transported from MDC but somehow did not test positive until arriving in Tucson.""To put it lightly, his journey from New York to Arizona was grueling," McBride added. "Moreover, his legal team was unable to communicate with him for long periods of time. Be that as it may, Keith's spirit remains unbroken and he seems to be recovering well."That legal team, which at trial included lawyers Marc Agnifilo, Paul DerOhannesian, Teny Geragos and Danielle Smith, now includes McBride and attorneys Steven A. Metcalf II, Martin H. Tankleff and Jennifer Bonjean, the latter of whom has represented comedian and convicted sex assailant Bill Cosby.Metcalf's firm, which includes McBride, is affiliated with Darden."
CBC: French assembly passes bill ensuring 'French values,' banning polygamy, forced marriage
"French lawmakers overwhelmingly approved on Tuesday a bill that would strengthen oversight of mosques, schools and sports clubs to safeguard France from radical Islamists and ensure respect for French values — one of President Emmanuel Macron's landmark projects.
The vote in the lower house was the first critical hurdle for the legislation that has been long in the making after two weeks of intense debate. The bill passed 347 to 151 with 65 abstentions.
The wide-ranging bill that covers most aspects of French life has been hotly contested by some Muslims, lawmakers and others who fear the state is intruding on essential freedoms and pointing a finger at Islam, the nation's No. 2 religion. But it breezed through a chamber in which Macron's centrist party has a majority.
The legislation gained added urgency after a teacher was beheaded in October followed by a deadly attack on a basilica in Nice.
The bill known as Art. 18 is known as the "Paty law," named after Samuel Paty, the teacher beheaded outside his school west of Paris.
The legislation makes it a crime to endanger the life of a person by providing details of their private life and location. Paty was slain after information about his school was posted in a video.
The bill bolsters other French efforts to fight extremism, mainly security-based."
CFJC Today Kamloops: CHARBONNEAU: QAnon Canada: quieter, subtler
"QANON IN THE U.S. has taken on the militaristic quality of a religious crusade with Q as the prophet and Trump as the Messiah. In Canada, the response has been more muted.QAnon has been wildly successful and expanded beyond what the apocalyptic prophet Q intended. The identity of Q is speculative; s/he could be the online avatar of the American pig farmer Jim Watkins or someone connected to Watkins. Supporters are called "Anons."The success of QAnon has been its skill in connecting unrelated ideologies into a tangled narrative.QAnon has brought together incoherent groups into a big-tent scheme, complete with flowcharts of the "theoretical functional relationships" of the supposed cabal of pedophiles that is operating an international child sex-trafficking ring, and a Sephirot Map of the Pharaonic Death Cult. British writer Hari Kunzru explains the appeal of QAnon:"Yet despite its incoherence, there is, in a strictly aesthetic sense, something sublime about it, or at least about the experience it is trying to represent, the experience of scale and complexity, of a world that is beyond the capacity of the human mind to apprehend." (Harper's magazine, January, 2021)At the gut level of QAnon is a primal fear that children are being murdered and trafficked for sex.QANON IN THE U.S. has taken on the militaristic quality of a religious crusade with Q as the prophet and Trump as the Messiah. In Canada, the response has been more muted."
Washington Post: On social media, vaccine misinformation mixes with extreme faith
"In an insular world on the social media app TikTok, young Christians act out biblically inspired scenes in which they are forced to take a vaccine for the coronavirus, only to end up splattered in fake blood and on the brink of death.The melodramatic videos are an attempt to represent how the introduction of coronavirus vaccines could herald the biblical End Time. Along with hundreds of thousands of other vaccine-questioning posts by social media users all over the world, they're demonstrating the ways in which health misinformation is targeting Christians, some reaching sizable audiences.Some churches and Christian ministries with large online followings — as well as Christian influencers on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube — are making false claims that vaccines contain fetal tissue or microchips, or are construing associations between vaccine ingredients and the devil. Others talk about how coronavirus vaccines and masks contain or herald the "mark of the beast," a reference to an apocalyptic passage from the Book of Revelation that suggests that the Antichrist will test Christians by asking them to put a mark on their bodies.The rapid spread of this material has triggered debate and concern among U.S. Christian leaders and experts who believe the religious movement against vaccines is growing, even as many leaders such as Pope Francis and Southern Baptist Convention policy leader Russell Moore are urging people to get shots. Both approved vaccines, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, passed rigorous federal safety reviews and were shown to be more than 94 percent effective at preventing disease."
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