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Parents Suing Christian School Say White Boys Dragged Black Girl by Rope Around Her Neck (Video)

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School Official Says Prior Bullying Wasn’t Due to ‘Meanness but More Out of a Desire for Sport’

A Waco, Texas Christian school is facing a $3 million dollar lawsuit alleging negligence, gross negligence, and intentional infliction of emotional distress following accusations that three white male students placed a rope around the neck of a 12-year old Black classmate before dragging her around.

Attorneys for the girl’s family, according to The Dallas Morning News, say that while on a camping trip with classmates from Live Oak Classical School, a mostly white Christian private school, three boys came up behind the girl, wrapped a pull rope from a nearby rope swing around her neck, and yanked her backwards off of her feet, leaving behind a serious rope burn from ear to ear.

The girl was treated with Vaseline and ibuprofen by a chaperone. No adults saw the incident take place, and the girl’s mother was not contacted by school officials.

“It looked like somebody had ripped her neck apart and stitched it back together,” the girl’s mother, Sandy Rougely, told The Dallas Morning News. Rougely only learned of the incident when her daughter got off the bus at the end of the trip. She believes the attack to be racially motivated, following months of bullying by the girl’s classmates.

School officials deny any wrongdoing, claiming that the injury was the result of a perfectly innocent accident, writing in an email to The Dallas Morning News that “the student and some of her classmates were playing with a swing and an attached pull-rope on a field trip. The student received first aid treatment immediately after the accident by a parent chaperone who is also a physician, and she was able to enjoy the remainder of the field trip, which lasted through the next day.”

They also disputed any racial motivation behind the incident, insisting that they had interviewed eyewitnesses and the students involved, and found no indication of harmful intent nor any evidence of a racial motivations.

Attorneys for Sandy Rougely and her daughter disagree, adding, “I don’t know how you can look at her neck, at the pictures and think this was anything but intentional.”

The mother says there was bullying prior to this incident. The Daily Beast reports the lawsuit alleges the child “encountered bullying at the school that was not disciplined.”

“This is not the first time this has happened,” the mother told Principal Allison Buras via email. “During the the Tempest play rehearsal he was pushing and kicking her in the line that they were in.”

Buras, according to court documents, says she addressed the incident with the student, and responded to the mother, “It sounds like he may have pushed on the back of her leg to make her leg buckle, which is something the kids sometimes do.”

“Rarely is that done out of meanness but more out of a desire for sport.”

 

Image: Screenshot via LA Times/KWTX
Hat tip: Raw Story

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Melania Trump Hails Herself as a ‘Visionary’ at Women’s History Month Event

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First Lady Melania Trump, in remarks at a White House Women’s History Month celebration, hailed herself as a “visionary” as she gave advice to guests.

“As a visionary, I know success is not born overnight, but rather takes shape after long, and sometimes challenging process,” the First Lady said. She also described herself as “a mother, humanitarian, philanthropist, and entrepreneur.”

Mrs. Trump also mentioned her new film, “Melania,” saying that she “shaped its creative direction, served as a producer, managed post production and activated the marketing campaign.”

Noting that “curiosity is a core value” that keeps her “ahead of the curve,” she said that her “unrestricted mindset” has led her to “build across very different sectors,” including, “fashion, digital assets, publishing, accessories, skincare, commercial television, and of course, filmmaking.”

Sharing advice and personal experience, Mrs. Trump told the audience, “Often alone at the top, I follow my passion. Listen to my instincts, and always maintain a laser focus.”

She also declared that the “strength of America is closely tied to the role women play in shaping their children’s character, education, and morals. The values cultivated within our communities shape the voice and vision of our next generation.”

“A woman’s influence strengthens our democracy, capital markets, and time-tested business institutions,” she said. “Across the country today, women are finding unique ways to balance career, ambition, and family.”

Image via Reuters 

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‘Seems to Be No Plan’ Expert Says on Trump Securing Iran’s Nuclear Material to End War

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President Donald Trump says he is bombing Iran so it “does not obtain a nuclear weapon,” but a veteran nuclear policy expert is blasting his war strategy, warning there appears to be no plan to secure Iran’s nuclear stockpile — a failure that could leave the U.S. in the “worst of all worlds” while Iran is “holding all the nuclear cards.”

“This may be the worst planned war in history,” Joe Cirincione told Mother Jones. “I see no sign that they knew what they were doing. It seemed to be just literally bomb, bomb, bomb. There didn’t seem to be a plan for how you were going to get at that particular material. If there is one, it hasn’t emerged.”

He warns, “there seems to be no plan for how to end this war.”

“Almost all wars end by some sort of negotiation,” Cirincione says. “If you project forward several weeks, it’s going to have to end. Usually there’s some sort of arrangement that’s made to end a war.”

But, he says, President Trump “seems to be flying by the seat of his pants and making this up as it goes along,” so “we just don’t know.”

READ MORE: Trump Has ‘No Idea’ If Iran War Will Win Him Nobel Peace Prize

Cirincione warns that “it’s possible that Trump has put us into the worst of all possible worlds. He’s made it impossible for us to have a negotiated solution to this. And we can’t use any military means to solve the problem. So we’re left in this worst of all worlds, which is Iran is holding all the nuclear cards at the end of this war.”

Mother Jones reports that “with his war in Iran, Trump has created a big, possibly catastrophic problem: A half-ton of highly enriched uranium, which can be made bomb-ready, is somewhere…out there—available for use by Iran’s new regime or perhaps not fully secured and susceptible to theft or expropriation.”

So, what are the options?

“The United States either has to conduct some high-risk military maneuver where we would land people from the 82nd Airborne or an Israeli commando unit into the site at Isfahan and try to find the uranium, go down hundreds of meters underground, retrieve the uranium and pull it out or perhaps destroy it on site,” says Cirincione. He calls it “a high risk proposition.”

“What you’re left with is really the only other solution where we started: a negotiated deal.”

President Barack Obama signed one with Iran. Trump tore it up during his first term.

With a negotiated deal, “You have to get Iran’s agreement to secure that material, declare it, allow inspectors, and then either secure it under inspection or downblend it—the process in reverse, bring it down to a 3-percent or 4-percent level. That’s the only two solutions to this problem.”

READ MORE: ‘Trying to Look Cool’: Patel Roasted for Inviting UFC Stars to Train FBI Agents

 

Image via Reuters 

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Trump Has ‘No Idea’ If Iran War Will Win Him Nobel Peace Prize

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President Donald Trump says not only does he not know if his war against Iran will help win him the Nobel Peace Prize, he also doesn’t care, and doesn’t want to talk about it.

“Trump claimed to have ‘no idea’ if Operation Epic Fury will ‘get him over the finish line’ with committee members,'” the Washington Examiner reported on Thursday, after a telephone call with the president.

“I don’t know,” Trump told the Washington Examiner. “I’m not interested in it.”

“No, I don’t talk about the Nobel Prize,” Trump also said, when asked if the topic came up in his recent talks with foreign leaders.

The Examiner’s Christian Datoc, who spoke to the president, reported via video that Trump “appears to be having a massive about-face about winning the Nobel Peace Prize amid his war with Iran.”

“He told me over the phone that he’s not sure if he’s deserving of this award anymore,” Datoc added. “This is a massive change in the president’s rhetoric from really anything he’s said over the past thirteen months.”

READ MORE: ‘Trying to Look Cool’: Patel Roasted for Inviting UFC Stars to Train FBI Agents

 

Image via Reuters 

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