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US Army & State Officials Facilitated Torturous Child Sex Ring by Ignoring Dozens of Complaints for a Decade

The US Army and the state of Arizona facilitated through inaction, a decade-long child sex abuse ring ran by a top civilian commander, David Frodsham. According to a report from the Associated Press this week, the Army and the state of Arizona missed or ignored multiple red flags over more than a decade, which allowed Frodsham to abuse his adopted children and other children for years, all the while putting national security at risk.

Before his arrest, Frodsham was the deputy commander of the Fort Huachuca Army base — a position he held after being kicked out of Afghanistan for deviant sexual behavior.

“I would not recommend placing him back into a position of authority but rather pursuing disciplinary actions at his home station,” wrote one commanding officer when recommending that the Army order Frodsham to leave his post at Bagram Airfield for his “deviant sexual behavior,” and return to Fort Huachuca.

Instead of discipline, however, Frodsham rejoined the Network Enterprise Technology Command, the Army’s information technology service provider, where he had served as director of personnel for a global command of 15,000 soldiers and civilians, according to the AP.

While running the child sex ring, the state and the Army overlooked nearly 20 complaints, and attempted complaints, of abuse, neglect, maltreatment and licensing violations that surfaced through Arizona’s foster system. Despite these complaints, the state allowed this monster to continue to foster, adopt and retain custody of their many children who were used in the sex abuse ring.

According to officials, Frodsham’s illicit child sex practices coupled with the fact that he held a top secret clearance, made him a target of of blackmail from foreign intelligence agencies and a vulnerable security risk.

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Why the FBI Won’t Release Quarterly Crime Stats for 2021

Every year, the FBI releases its annual year-end crime report, which is based on data provided voluntarily by police departments across the country. This report typically comes out near the end of the following year. (The 2020 report, for example, came out in September of 2021.) Quarterly reports were actually a relatively new innovation, having been introduced in 2020.

To track the numbers that police departments report, the FBI for decades used a system called the Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR) to collect data. But in 2021, the Bureau switched to a different system, called the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), which provides more details on crimes that are reported. Though the change is meant to improve tracking, this week’s announcement from the FBI highlights what experts say are serious concerns about its impact on crime statistics for years to come.

The problem is that a large portion of police departments do not have the NIBRS system, which is expensive and can be difficult to implement into a department. According to the Bureau of Statistics, it could cost up to $377,000 for a department to switch over to NIBRS and over $53,000 for annual maintenance. According to the FBI, 63% of all police agencies in the country are using the NIBRS system; however, many of the big cities, like New York and Los Angeles, don’t use NIBRS, which means their crime trends will be completely left out of the FBI’s data analysis for 2021, including the annual reports.

“The absence of the two largest cities in the country begs the question as to what kind of confidence the public should have in the numbers produced by the FBI,” Rick Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, says. “This is a time period in which we really want to know what’s happening with respect to the most serious crimes. The uncertainties around the data are going to make definitive conclusions very difficult to draw.”

The FBI did not respond to a request for comment on the criticism of their collecting process and releasing the information.

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Proposed City Program Guarantees Income for Transgender Residents

ASouthern California city is moving forward with plans for monthly payments as high as $900 to transgender and nonbinary residents to help them overcome discrimination.

The Palm Springs City Council on Thursday unanimously voted to allocate $200,000 from two local nonprofits for the initial legwork to provide the payments to members of the marginalized demographic living in the city. The city’s move comes as California is implementing a guaranteed income plan, and as Republican-led states have sought to restrict the rights of transgender people.

The money will go to Palm Springs-based Queer Works and DAP Health to work out details of the first-of-its-kind pilot guaranteed income program.

Jacob Rostovsky, Queer Works executive director, told Newsweek he expects the program to be similar to other guaranteed income pilot programs launched in other U.S. cities. He said other cities that have experimented with guaranteed income on average have given 150 people monthly payments of $600 to $900.

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23 Different Types Of Violent Extremists And Counting — Will You Be Classified As One?

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wants Americans to believe since 2011, when the word “extremists” was just starting to take root in the public’s consciousness, there has been an explosion of violent extremism.

In 2011, DHS published the “Empowering Local Partners To Prevent Violent Extremism In The United States” report, while at the same time calls for ending America’s neverending war on terror started taking hold.

The DHS report made dubious claims like al-Qa‘ida was trying to recruit and radicalize Americans across the country, which coincidentally was also the 10th anniversary of 9/11. The report mentions extremists and violent extremists interchangeably during a time when Americans were beginning to question the war on terror.

In May 2011, National Public Radio wrote, “Why We Must End The War On Terror” and asked in September, “Is It Time To End The War On Terror?” Similar articles were being published across the country asking the same thing.

Fast forward eleven years to 2022, and the war on terror shows no signs of abating.

DHS, who could be mistaken for magicians if it were not so ironic, have convinced law enforcement that America now has at least twenty-three different types of extremists.

There does not appear to be a master list of American extremists published by DHS or the Department of Justice.

I used four sources to compile this list of twenty-two different types of violent extremists, but I fear that the government’s “official list” is far larger.

  1. Anti–government violent extremist
  2. Anti-war extremist
  3. Anti–authority violent extremist
  4. Anarchist violent extremist
  5. Domestic violent extremist
  6. Racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist
  7. Militia violent extremists
  8. Sovereign citizen violent extremist
  9. Individual violent extremist
  10. Involuntary celibate–violent extremist
  11. Abortion extremist
  12. Anti-abortion extremist
  13. Animal rights extremist
  14. Environmental extremist
  15. Right-wing extremist
  16. Left-wing extremist
  17. Christian Identity extremist
  18. Islamist extremist
  19. Muslim extremist
  20. Racist extremist
  21. Nativist extremist
  22. Schoolboard extremist

Sources: National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism,  A Schema of  Right-Wing Extremism in the United States,  Homegrown Violent Extremist Violent Indicators (2019) report and the National School Board.

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US Says It’s Just Hanging Out With Ukrainian Soldiers While Giving Them Weapons, Not Training Them

In a carefully worded answer at a press conference yesterday, the Pentagon pushed back against reports that its soldiers are training Ukrainian forces in Poland, saying they’re only “liaising” with them.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said American troops are helping Ukrainian soldiers load weapons and “lethal aid” into convoys as those troops make supply runs from Poland into Ukraine. 

“It’s just a general liaison with them as these shipments are handed over,” said Kirby, referring to the weapons being handed over to Ukrainian forces by the U.S. According to him, there are brief conversations, soldier to soldier, on how to use that gear, but that would not constitute official training. 

“But of course, there are interactions as these Ukrainian soldiers take possession of some of this gear and this kit, and I really don’t have more detail than that, ” he said. 

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Apple and Meta Gave User Data to Hackers Who Used Forged Legal Requests

Apple and Meta provided basic subscriber details, such as a customer’s address, phone number and IP address, in mid-2021 in response to the forged “emergency data requests.” Normally, such requests are only provided with a search warrant or subpoena signed by a judge, according to the people. However, the emergency requests don’t require a court order.

Snap Inc. received a forged legal request from the same hackers, but it isn’t known whether the company provided data in response. It’s also not clear how many times the companies provided data prompted by forged legal requests.

Cybersecurity researchers suspect that some of the hackers sending the forged requests are minors located in the U.K. and the U.S. One of the minors is also believed to be the mastermind behind the cybercrime group Lapsus$, which hacked Microsoft Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. and Nvidia Corp., among others, the people said. City of London Police recently arrested seven people in connection with an investigation into the Lapsus$ hacking group; the probe is ongoing.

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