An Iranian protester removed her head scarf and waved it in public like a flag. She hasn't been seen since

One day late last month, a woman wearing black trousers and gray sneakers climbed atop a telephone utility box in Tehran’s crowded Enghelab Square.

In an act of defiance as quiet as it was striking, she removed her white headscarf, tied it to a stick and waved the garment back and forth like a flag in protest against modesty laws that require Iranian women to cover their hair.

In cellphone videos captured by onlookers, her movements are slow, almost hypnotic, her dark hair flowing down to the middle of her back.

Weeks later, after Iran was shaken by the biggest anti-government protests in nearly a decade, the woman’s whereabouts are unknown. She has become the subject of a social media campaign labeled #Where_Is_She, and an anonymous symbol of opposition to what many Iranians view as the theocracy’s harsh laws against free expression.

Video 392

I would have sent them a check.

Questions over the woman’s fate deepened this week after Nasrin Sotoudeh, one of Iran’s most prominent human rights lawyers, posted on Facebook that she had learned the woman was arrested the day of her protest, Dec. 27, released shortly afterward and then rearrested.

Sotoudeh said the woman was 31 and mother to a 20-month-old child, but she did not know whether she had been tried. No family members or friends have come forward to identify her publicly, perhaps to protect themselves as dissidents come under added scrutiny after the unrest.

Shopkeepers near where the woman stood — a street corner with a confectionary and several sidewalk peddlers — said in interviews that her protest went on for more than an hour until she was arrested by two female police officers.

Peddlers who took video of her were arrested and later released, they said.

Her protest occurred on a Wednesday, a day when activists wear white in protest of the modesty laws that have been enforced with varying degrees of fervor since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. Women must cover their hair with the headscarf, or hijab, and wear long, loose-fitting coats known as manteaus — or risk being stopped by so-called moral police.

The next day, protests over economic grievances and corruption broke out and quickly spread to dozens of cities. In the ensuing crackdown, more than 20 people were killed and thousands arrested, with some believed to have died in custody under circumstances that authorities have not fully explained.

All that has made the hijab-less woman a cause celebre on social media, her gesture forever linked to the anti-government demonstrations even though she was not actually a part of them.

“As the protests spread, many Iranian activists online were inspired by the nonviolent protest of the lone girl,” Masih Alinejad, an activist and founder of the My Stealthy Freedom campaign against enforced hijab, told Al-Monitor, a news site covering the Middle East.

“Her gesture was seen as a symbol of resistance. Her protest caught the imagination of Iranian women and men, feminists and non-feminists.”

Internet memes have sprung up showing the woman facing a firing squad, standing in place of the emblem in the Iranian flag and countering a police baton with her hijab.

“I hail what she has done,” Golnar Ramesh, a 28-year-old engineer in Tehran, said in an interview.

Ramesh said she often goes without a scarf while in public or driving, in defiance of the moral police, but “I don’t have her courage to stand in public near Tehran University for more than an hour.”

Ramesh said that the woman’s protest was impulsive, but that authorities probably would deal with her more harshly because of the broader crackdown against demonstrators.

“I think she has been punished for a protest that could have been done without as much risk at some other time,” she said.

An Iranian protester removed her head scarf and waved it in public like a flag. She hasn't been seen since

Campaign Slogan... 2020

Ought to go over big.

Campaign Slogan... 2020

Veterans Say the NFL Censored its Ad against the Players’ Kneeling Protests

Gotta love this.

The NFL didn't want them to make a 'political statement'.

WTF do you call this?

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By Mark Meckler

Image Details: Airmen from Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, hold the U.S. flag before the Miami Dolphins – Oakland Raiders football game in London on Sept. 28, 2014. The game was the first of three international NFL games that will be played this season at Wembley Stadium. As part of the pregame ceremony, the 48 Fighter Wing Airmen held U.S. and U.K. flags as a sign of the continued cooperation between U.S. visiting forces and their U.K. hosts. (U.S. Air Force photo by Col. Marc Vandeveer)

AMVETS officials reported the National Football League won’t run their ad during the Super Bowl, presumably because it encourages players to stand for the national anthem.

It would’ve cost them $30,000, but the organization thought it was worth the cost to send this message to a culture desperately in need of a little patriotism: #PleaseStand. The ads would feature veterans standing to salute the flag, along with info on how people can donate money to a Congressionally approved charity. Wow. That doesn’t sound very controversial, does it?

Yet, the NFL rejected the ad buy and didn’t say why, according to AMVETS National Commander Marion Polk. Here’s a post that Polk posted about the controversy:

.@AMVETSHQ will NOT tolerate the @NFL refusing #Veteran right to free speech. We fought for it! #PleaseStand#SuperBowlpic.twitter.com/NARbC5zKuE

— Marion Polk (@AMVETSNatlCmdr) January 22, 2018

The Army Times reports that the NFL didn’t want the ads to be political:

In a statement, NFL Vice President of Communications Brian McCarthy said the Super Bowl game program “is designed for fans to commemorate and celebrate the game, players, teams and the Super Bowl. It’s never been a place for advertising that could be considered by some as a political statement.”

Wait, so football isn’t the place for a political statement? Isn’t that what patriotic Americans have been saying all along? McCarthy said AMVETS didn’t respond to a request for a content change fast enough and therefore missed the deadline.

Sounds suspicious to me.

This controversy, which began in 2016 when (then) San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick decided to sit during the National Anthem, has been mishandled by the NFL all along. When President Donald Trump called any player doing this a “son of a bitch” and suggested they get fired for their actions, fuel was added to the cultural fire. Things have died down lately, which is probably how the NFL wants to keep it. But one thing’s for sure — the NFL has another public relations nightmare on their hands.

Can’t they ever get this issue right? Here’s a tip, I’ll give to you for free: err on the side of America and vets… not your spoiled, rich, entitled athletes.

Veterans Say the NFL Censored its Ad against the Players’ Kneeling Protests

Another reason we need the wall...NOW

Mexico had over 29,000 murders in 2017

58,766 in our federal jails are 'known or suspected' illegals, 31% of all prisoners

Wouldn't it make sense to keep them out of the country rather than pay to keep them in jail? How much does this cost the taxpayers per year? Couldn't that money be spent more wisely elsewhere?

Are we fools?

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Mexico posted its highest homicide rate in decades, with the government reporting Sunday there were 29,168 murders in 2017.

The number is the highest since comparable records began being kept in 1997 and is also higher than the peak year of Mexico's drug war in 2011 when there were 27,213 murders.

The Interior Department, which posted the number, reported the country's homicide rate was 20.5 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2017, compared to 19.4 in 2011.

Mexico security analyst Alejandro Hope stated Mexico's murder rate is probably higher than the Interior Department statistics show, because the department does the per 100,000 count based on the number of murder investigations, not the number of victims, and a killing may result in more than one victim. Hope says the real homicide rate is probably around 24 per 100,000

While President Enrique Pena Nieto had campaigned on a pledge to end the violence that occurred during his predecessors' 2006-2012 offensive against drug cartels, there was only a temporary drop in killings between 2012 and 2014.

By 2015, killings began rising again, and 2017 was the bloodiest year, probably since the early 1990s.

This year promises to be even bloodier: During the first few days of 2018 in just the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, nine people were killed, dismembered and had their body parts stuffed into a van in the state capital of Xalapa.

The grisly scene — literally a jumbled pile of human limbs and torsos topped by a threatening note apparently signed by the Zetas drug gang — was reminiscent of the mass dumping of bodies in the state in 2011.

Earlier in the new year, five severed heads were found arranged on the hood of a taxi in the tourist town of Tlacotalpan, Veracruz, and four others found in another city in the same state.

Experts say drug violence and other factors, such as bloody turf battles sparked by the expansion of the Jalisco New Generation cartel, played a role in Mexico's rising murder rate.

But Hope says the problem is complex.

"The violence in Mexico has many causes. Drug trafficking is one of them, of course, but it is not the only one," said Hope. "There are social triggers, institutional ones, historical ones, issues of land rights. It is complex."

In fact, Hope argues, the period from 1997 to 2007 — when murder rates in Mexico plunged to as low as 9.3 murders per 100,000 — was in fact the exception.

"What we have seen in the last decade is regression to the mean" that prevailed throughout much of the 20th century, he said. "The anomaly is the decade before this one."

Another reason we need the wall...NOW

Michigan man arrested after caller threatens to kill CNN employees

Check out the headline above...I'm shocked! It doesn't mention Trump in the entire article. CNN must be losing their touch.

That's better.

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The CNN Center is located in downtown Atlanta. 

(CNN)Authorities arrested a Michigan man last week after he allegedly called CNN several times, threatening to kill employees at the network's Atlanta, Georgia, headquarters, according to a federal affidavit. 

Brandon Griesemer made 22 calls to CNN on January 9 and January 10 and four calls, which were recorded, contained threats, according to the affidavit, which was unsealed Friday. 

Griesemer, whose age was not given, also made disparaging statements about Jewish people, African-Americans and the network in several calls, the affidavit said.

He was charged Friday in US District Court with transmitting interstate communications with the intent to extort and threat to injure. He was released Friday on $10,000 bond. 

A family member at Griesemer's home in Novi, Michigan, declined to comment late Monday.

"We take any threats to CNN employees or workplaces, around the world, extremely seriously. This one is no exception. We have been in touch with local and federal law enforcement throughout, and have taken all necessary measures to ensure the safety of our people," CNN said Monday in a statement.

Michigan authorities first crossed paths with Griesemer last fall. 

On September 19, a man -- later identified as Griesemer -- called an employee at an Islamic center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and made derogatory comments about the mosque and Muslims, an FBI agent said in the affidavit. 

Ann Arbor police used an online database to identify Griesemer's father as the phone's owner. 

Two days later, Ann Arbor police contacted Griesemer's mother at the family's home, where Griesemer lived. She told police her son had called the mosque, the affidavit said. Officers told her they wanted to talk to her son. 

In a call to Ann Arbor police that day, Griesemer admitted he called the mosque on September 19 "and that he was angry at the time of the call," the affidavit said.

CNN received the first threatening call around 3 p.m. on January 9. The call was made to a publicly listed phone number at the Atlanta headquarters from the same cell phone number used to call the Islamic center in Ann Arbor on September 19, the affidavit said. 

It was the first of three threatening calls that day to CNN from that number, according to the affidavit. 

"Fake news. I'm coming to gun you all down," said the caller, who cursed and used an expletive directed at African-Americans, the affidavit said. 

"I am on my way right now to gun the f****** CNN cast down .... I am coming to kill you," the caller said a second call to CNN, according to affidavit. 

On January 9, an investigator employed by CNN searched law enforcement databases for the phone number and discovered it was registered to Griesemer's father, the affidavit said. The investigator learned a second number was associated with the wireless account. 

The investigator called the second phone number and asked to speak to Griesemer's father. The man who picked up identified himself as Brandon, the affidavit said. 

The investigator recorded the conversation with Griesemer and compared the audio to the recorded audio of the threatening calls, the affidavit said.

The voices sounded like the same person, the affidavit said.

On January 10, CNN received the fourth call from the same cell phone number used to make the three prior threats, the affidavit said. 

The caller again threatened to come to the Atlanta headquarters to "gun every single last one of you," the affidavit said. 

The CNN investigator collected data from the cell phone used to make the threats. That phone had accessed a cellular tower in Novi, Michigan, the affidavit said.

Griesemer could face a fine or up to five years in prison if convicted.

CNN's Dave Alsup contributed to this report.

Michigan man arrested after caller threatens to kill CNN employees