Issue 140 – May 2018

S.M.A.R.T.
(Stop Mind control And Ritual abuse Today)
P. O Box 1295, Easthampton, MA 01027-1295 USA E-mail: SMARTNEWS@aol.com
Home page: https://ritualabuse.us/

Issue 140 – May 2018

The purpose of this newsletter is to help stop secretive organizations and groups from abusing others and to help those who allege they have been abused by such organizations and groups. This newsletter is not a substitute for other ways of recovering from ritual abuse. Readers should use caution while reading this newsletter. If necessary, make sure other support systems are available during and after reading this newsletter.

Important:
The resources mentioned in this newsletter are for educational value only. Reading the books cited may or may not help your recovery process, so use caution when reading any book or contacting any resource mentioned in this newsletter. Some may have a religious or other agenda that may be separate from your own recovery process. Others may have valuable information on secretive organizations, but have triggers or be somewhat sympathetic to those organizations. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, the views expressed in this newsletter constitute expressions of opinion, and readers are cautioned to form their own opinions and draw their own conclusions by consulting a variety of sources, including this newsletter. Resources listed, quoted and individual articles, etc. and their writers do not necessarily support all or any of the views mentioned in this newsletter. Also, the views, facts and opinions mentioned in this newsletter are solely the opinions of the authors and are not necessarily the opinions of this newsletter or its editor.
Copyright 2018 – All rights reserved. No reproduction of any material without written permission from the editor and individual authors.

The 2018 Annual Ritual Abuse, Secretive Organizations and Mind Control Conference, August 18 – 19, 2018, DoubleTree Hotel, Windsor Locks, CT https://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/
Special Price $175 until June 10, 2018

Conference Speakers
The Credibility of Ritual Abuse Allegations
Presenter: Randy Noblitt, PhD
Synopsis: To what extent do mental health and other helping professionals believe the stories of ritual abuse survivors? This presentation systematically reviews the empirical research on the credibility of ritual abuse allegations. After presenting the findings there will be a discussion that welcomes the opinions of the attendees regarding their own conclusions including considerations of the community standard, professional ethics, related forensic questions, and advocacy for extreme abuse survivors. (Skype Presentation)

Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)
Presenter: Jillian Jackson
CPT Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) is short-term, specific 12 session therapeutic intervention to help adults address specific life events associated with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It was originally designed to assist victims of rape and it has been widely used within the Veterans Administration to assist combat veterans address PTSD. Clinicians are now using this evidence-based practice to help individuals who struggle with a continuum of traumas. CPT is a derivate of the more widely known Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Research demonstrates that CPT is effective in reducing the symptoms associated with PTSD. In this workshop, participants will learn the history of CPT, determine who is an appropriate candidate for the intervention, and how CPT is administered. The workshop will also highlight the research supporting this intervention and discuss it’s outcomes.

Radikal Healing
Presenter: Manjot Singh Khalsa
Radikal Healing is a holistic therapeutic approach for the healing of trauma. This workshop will provide a primer introduction to various modalities that are available and also highlight why it is vital for a process of healing and transformation to be tailored to each individual’s needs and experience.
Be Here Now
Presenter: Manjot Singh Khalsa
Manjot Singh Khalsa is the creator of a Kundalini Yoga and Meditation curriculum, “Be Here Now: Yoga, Meditation & Mantra for Trauma Survivors.” In today’s experiential workshop, participants will have the opportunity to stretch, breathe, strengthen and rest in a safe space. No previous yoga experience necessary. Participants will choose to sit in a chair or on the floor during this workshop.

Changes in Awareness of Severe Abuse and Child Abuse Crimes Over Twenty Five Years
Presenter: Neil Brick
The awareness of severe abuse and child abuse crimes has changed over the last 25 years. In the early 1990s, severe abuse survivors were often believed and supported. Then a backlash started and severe abuse survivors and their supporters were harassed and attacked. The child abuse survivor movement changed and adapted. Ten years ago, research began again to help expose severe abuse crimes. More recently, first in the UK and Australia and now in the United States, a variety of child abuse, severe abuse, sexual harassment and rape cases are bringing public awareness again to the mainstream media of severe abuse crimes. This presentation will discuss the changes of the last 25 years, with an emphasis on the more recent exposures of organized child abuse crimes and social systems that have been part of the cover up of these crimes.

This issues includes information on: Randy Noblitt, Neil Brick, Survivorship Ritual Abuse and Mind Control 2018 Conference, Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment, child abuse, sexual exploitation, animal ritual sacrifice, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Ellen Lacter, Victims of Ritual Abuse and Child Trafficking, satanic murder, Satanic sacrifice, satanic Bible, satanic rituals, Guilty Plea by Backpage.com, Online Sex Trafficking Website, Bill Cosby, indecent assault trial, Cardinal George Pell Vatican treasurer historical sexual offences trial, Cyril Smith, Knowl View, Rochdale, child sexual abuse scandals, paedophile networks, Satanic Christian couple in child porn case, Michigan State’s $500 Million for Nassar Victims, sexually abused young women under the guise of medical treatment, Brainwashed : The Secret CIA Experiments in Canada, Central Intelligence Agency, mind-control experiments, Dr. Ewen Cameron, Allen Memorial Institute, MK-ULTRA, Wormwood, Frank Olson

News items
Resources and Information
Please note: Listing of these resources does not necessarily constitute our endorsement of them. They are for educational value only and some may be heavy for survivors to read. Some of the conferences listed may not necessarily be safe for all survivors. If you are a survivor of mind control and/or ritual abuse, S.M.A.R.T. recommends learning about mind control techniques before attending conferences or other survivor events. This article may be helpful: How to Avoid Being Mind Controlled at a Conference https://survivorship.org/survivorship-articles/how-to-avoid-being-mind-controlled-at-a-conference/

The Weinstein Co. Files For Bankruptcy, Cancels Non-Disclosure Agreements
March 19, 2018 Richard Gonzales
The Weinstein Company Holdings LLC announced that it has filed for voluntary bankruptcy and entered into an agreement to sell its assets to a Dallas-based equity firm.
It also announced that it is ending all nondisclosure agreements that prevented victims of alleged sexual misconduct at the hands of disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein from talking about their experiences.
The Weinstein Co. will enter into a “stalking horse” agreement with an affiliate of Lantern Capital Partners in conjunction with entering into bankruptcy proceedings….
But it was the second and third paragraphs of the statement that are likely to draw even greater attention in light of the many women who have come forward to accuse Weinstein of sexually harassment and abuse.
“Today, the Company also takes an important step toward justice for any victims who have been silenced by Harvey Weinstein. Since October, it has been reported that Harvey Weinstein used non-disclosure agreements as a secret weapon to silence his accusers.
Effective immediately, those “agreements” end. The Company expressly releases any confidentiality provision to the extent it has prevented individuals who suffered or witnessed any form of sexual misconduct by Harvey Weinstein from telling their stories. No one should be afraid to speak out or coerced to stay quiet. The Company thanks the courageous individuals who have already come forward. Your voices have inspired a movement for change across the country and around the world.”….
Weinstein has been accused of raping or sexually assaulting many women over decades….
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/19/595089301/the-weinstein-co-files-for-bankruptcy-cancels-non-disclosure-agreements

Scale of child abuse survey ‘needed every 10 years’ 3/25/18
Thousands of children should be surveyed to build a true picture of sexual exploitation, experts have said.The government says it does not know how many girls have been groomed in the wake of questions about sexual exploitation in Telford.
But the Centre of Expertise for Child Sexual Abuse is designing a survey of children to run every 10 years to assess the scale of the problem.
Authorities raised 18,800 concerns of children at risk in 2016-17.
This was equivalent to 51 every day.
And there were 29,600 assessments of children by social services in England about other sexual abuse because of concerns raised by teachers, social workers and health services.
That works out at 16 assessments of whether children were at risk of child sexual exploitation (CSE) and 25 for sexual abuse for every 10,000 under 18s….
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-43399010

Secret world: The women in the UK who cannot report sexual abuse
By Megha Mohan BBC Stories 3/25/18
They often fled their homelands to escape sexual abuse – but for many asylum seekers, it continues in the UK. Fear of deportation often means they don’t tell police, but one effect of the Harvey Weinstein revelations is that they have now begun to talk about their experiences among themselves.
At the age of 37, Grace has never had consensual sex.
“I am not the only one. There are many more women like me,” she says, hunched over and looking down at the table. She indicates to the wall that separates the small meeting room from her friends in the adjacent room. “We are the most destitute and vulnerable women in the UK.”….
Grace and her sister were subjected to continuous physical, verbal and sexual abuse by their husband. They were also made to take part in superstitious ritual ceremonies that he believed would advance his political career – including drinking animal blood, she says with a shudder.
The young women relied on each other for support, afraid that if they spoke out their family would be harmed. “Our husband was a powerful man,” Grace says…..
“The asylum process is flawed and works against a victim of sexual harassment or abuse at many stages,” says Girma. “If you don’t have legal status you are not considered a person in the eyes of the law. You are not really a human being.
“These women have endured a prolonged and continual cycle of abuse – fleeing sexual violence and walking straight into a life of abuse while in the UK.” The situation is worst for those who are living in the country without having applied for asylum. “Currently there is data-sharing between police and UK immigration officers and we have heard of cases where women go to report abuse and are held in detention centres or even deported back to the countries they came from, and the deadly situations they were trying to escape. The current system prevents these women from reporting sexual violence and the predators know this,” Girma says….. http://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-43499374

Multiple arrests made Friday in possible animal ritual sacrifice in West Bexar County
By Chris Quinn, mySA.com / San Antonio Express-News Saturday, March 17, 2018
A gruesome scene unfolded Friday night as Bexar County Sheriff’s deputies discovered dead and dismembered animals in a West Bexar County home after receiving calls that animals were being sacrificed. Deputies responded to an animal cruelty call in the 11400 block of Bronze Sand Road about 7 p.m. When deputies arrived, they saw more than a dozen people inside the garage of a residence where a woman was cutting up “animal parts,” while another person was draining the blood of a chicken into a container, according to Sgt. Elizabeth Gonzalez.
“It appears that they were having some sort of unknown ritual,” Gonzalez said. “They were speaking a different language the officer did not recognize.” Gonzalez explained the responding deputy is fluent in English and Spanish.
During the investigation deputies found multiple dead and mutilated animals inside the residence as well, including “goat heads” and more chickens, Gonzalez said….
https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/crime/article/Multiple-arrests-made-Friday-in-possible-animal-12760899.php

Jehovah’s Witnesses accused of silencing victims of child abuse
Scores of alleged victims come forward and describe culture of cover-up in religious group in UK
Sarah Marsh Sun 25 Mar 2018
More than 100 people have contacted the Guardian with allegations of child sexual abuse and other mistreatment in Jehovah’s Witness communities across the UK.
Former and current members, including 41 alleged victims of child sexual abuse, described a culture of cover-ups and lies, with senior members of the organisation, known as elders, discouraging victims from coming forward for fear of bringing “reproach on Jehovah” and being exiled from the congregation and their families.
A Guardian investigation also heard from 48 people who experienced other forms of abuse, including physical violence when they were children, and 35 who witnessed or heard about others who were victims of child grooming and abuse.
The stories told to the Guardian ranged from events decades ago to more recent, and many of those who came forward have now contacted the police.
They told the Guardian about:
An organisation that polices itself and teaches members to avoid interaction with outside authorities.
A rule set by the main governing body of the religion that means for child sexual abuse to be taken seriously there must be two witnesses to it.
Alleged child sex abuse victims claiming they were forced to recount allegations in front of their abuser.
Young girls who engage in sexual activity before marriage being forced to describe it in detail in front of male elders.
A solicitor representing some of the alleged victims said she believed there were thousands of complainants in the UK and that the people who have contacted the Guardian were “just the tip of the iceberg”. One alleged victim, Rachel Evans, who has waived her right to anonymity, claimed there was a paedophile ring active in the 1970s, although details of the case cannot be divulged due to a current investigation. “Within the Jehovah’s Witnesses there is an actual silencing and also a network where if someone went to the elders and said ‘there is a problem with this’ and they believe you, the whole thing will be dealt with in-house. But often these people are not dealt with, they are either moved to another congregation or told to keep their head down for a few years,” she said….
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/25/jehovahs-witnesses-accused-of-silencing-victims-of-child-abuse-uk

On July 21 and August 25, 2018, Ellen Lacter will teach the following class at UCSD Extension:
Victims of Ritual Abuse and Child Trafficking: Recognition, Play Therapy, and Symbolic Communication – Presentation by Ellen Lacter, Ph.D., RPT-S
UCSD Extension Play Therapy Certificate Program
Course Description: This workshop describes ritual abuse and child trafficking and how dissociation-savvy abusers psychologically manipulate victims and their dissociated self-states. Participants will learn: 1) indicators of ritual abuse trauma and dissociation in children’s behavior, play, and art; 2) play therapy techniques, metaphors, and stories to intervene in such trauma with optimal psychological distance; 3) use of protective parents as co-therapists, and 4) legal considerations with this population.
Ellen Lacter, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, registered play therapist and supervisor, academic coordinator for the Play Therapy Certificate Program at University of California– San Diego Extension, and past president of the California Association for Play Therapy. She has been an art therapist in various agencies since 1977 and a therapist in private practice since 1984. She has developed an object relations model for resolution of trauma with abused children using play, art, and other expressive therapies. She specializes in the treatment of dissociative disorders and trauma from ritualistic abuse and is an activist against extreme abuse. Website: www.endritualabuse.org Email: ellenlacter@earthlink.net

Judge orders Dos Palos ‘satanic’ murder defendant to stand trial By Vikaas Shanker March 01, 2018 The 37-year-old Dos Palos woman who is accused of killing her mother in an alleged “Satanic” sacrifice was held to answer for murder….
Responding officers found Bal covered in blood, according to investigators’ reports obtained by the Merced Sun-Star. Bal reportedly stabbed her mother during a struggle at least 20 times with an 8-inch kitchen knife.
During the 9-1-1 call played in court Thursday, a female voice identifying herself as Bal calmly tells the operator that she killed her mother by stabbing her and cutting her throat, and that she has a history of mental illness….
But in investigators’ reports, Bal told authorities “It was a calling to kill her” mother as part of a “satanic practice.” She also told them she has used a variety of illegal drugs, and she consumed five beers the night before the murder.
Family members and others told investigators Bal had mental issues and was making troubling statements of a sexual nature the night before, and that she would occasionally make statements referring to satanic practice.
Bal was declared mentally competent to face charges on Feb. 15 after several medical examinations…. http://www.losbanosenterprise.com/news/local/crime/article202882944.html

Affidavit: Demons, mental issues could have played role in Duncan murder
Monday, April 9th 2018 By Jarred Burk DUNCAN, Ok (RNN Texoma) –
The man accused of killing a 19-year-old woman on Saturday morning told police he was seeing faces and hearing voices before the murder, according to court documents. Duncan police interviewed 18-year-old Kevin Miller just hours after he allegedly shot Caitlin Harmon at his home….
Miller told police that Harmon had found the gun in his bathroom earlier in the evening. He said he had then taken the gun to his dad’s apartment and left it there but went back and got it about 15 minutes later. He reportedly said he then walked into the bedroom where Harmon was watching TV before shooting and killing her. Miller reportedly told police that he had killed her because she did not want to be with him and he was jealous of what she had….
Police say he told them he had spent his free time that day watching videos on YouTube and he bought a satanic Bible off of Amazon before performing satanic rituals in his backyard….
http://www.kswo.com/story/37914211/affidavit-demons-mental-issues-could-have-played-role-in-duncan-murder

Warren double-murder suspect to seek insanity ruling By Jameson Cook, The Macomb Daily 03/22/18
The defense attorney for a man accused of brutally beating to death his aunt and uncle in their Warren home will pursue an insanity defense.
Attorney Stephen Freers formally notified a judge Thursday he will seek a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity for Joseph Borowiak, 38, charged with two counts of first-degree murder for the slayings of Steven and Cynthia Collins late last summer….
The suspect’s Facebook page contained haunting and bizarre posts including a ‘hit list’ that named the Collins’ and their two adult children, terming the deceased couple “exterminians” with arrows next to their names, police said. The same list was found in Borowiak’s backpack, which also contained a map to his aunt and uncle’s home and religious “artifacts” such as crosses, Bibles, charms and jewelry, police said. Religious and Satanic items also were found in the Warren trailer where Borowiak had been living.
Borowiak’s Facebook page also included references to God, the Bible, Satan and the Grim Reaper…. http://www.macombdaily.com/article/MD/20180322/NEWS/180329847

Attorney General Becerra Announces Guilty Plea by Backpage.com CEO Carl Ferrer and Permanent Shutdown of the Online Sex Trafficking Website Thursday, April 12, 2018
Ferrer pleads guilty to conspiracy and money laundering
Prosecution against Backpage.com shareholders James Larkin and Michael Lacey continues
SACRAMENTO – California Attorney General Xavier Becerra today announced that defendant Carl Ferrer, Chief Executive Officer of online sex advertising website Backpage.com, has pled guilty to one charge of conspiracy and three counts of money laundering. The defendant entered the guilty plea in Sacramento County Superior Court, resolving charges against him in the criminal case People of the State of California v. Carl Ferrer, Michael Lacey, and James Larkin. This plea follows the permanent shutdown of Backpage.com announced on April 9. The website has been described as the world’s largest online brothel, facilitating human trafficking throughout the world.
Ferrer will cooperate in the prosecution of two controlling shareholders of the website, Michael Lacey and James Larkin. The case against alleged co-conspirators, Lacey and Larkin, continues in Sacramento County Superior Court.
“Human trafficking is modern-day slavery, and it is happening in our own backyard,” said Attorney General Becerra. “The shutdown of Backpage.com is a tremendous victory for the survivors and their families. And the conviction of CEO Ferrer is a game-changer in combatting human trafficking in California, indeed worldwide.”
https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-becerra-announces-guilty-plea-backpagecom-ceo-carl-ferrer-and-0

Bill Cosby’s Fate Rests With Jury as It Begins Deliberations By GRAHAM BOWLEY and JON HURDLE
APRIL 25, 2018 NORRISTOWN, Pa. — Jurors in the Bill Cosby sexual assault retrial began their deliberations Wednesday, sifting through evidence they heard during 12 days of testimony and arguments in an effort to determine whether Andrea Constand had been molested by the once-popular entertainer.
Last summer jurors spent six days deliberating that question at the Montgomery County Courthouse before Judge Steven T. O’Neill agreed they were hopelessly deadlocked and sent them home.
Judge O’Neill, who is presiding at this retrial, charged the jury Wednesday morning. Deliberations began around 11 a.m. and dragged into the night as the 12-member panel considered the presentations by prosecutors and defense lawyers.
The latter argued that Ms. Constand, a former Temple University employee who viewed Mr. Cosby as a mentor, had a consensual sexual encounter with Mr. Cosby at his home near here in 2004. But they said she later concocted a story about having been assaulted to pressure him into a financial settlement.
Prosecutors said it was Mr. Cosby, now 80, who was the manipulator, a man who hid behind a genial image, they said, while using drugs to incapacitate and assault not just Ms. Constand, but other women as well….
Mr. Cosby is charged with three counts of aggravated indecent assault: penetration with lack of consent; penetration while unconscious; and penetration after administrating an intoxicant. Each is a felony that could carry up to 10 years in prison if he is convicted….
https://www.nytimes.com/    2018/04/25/arts/television/bill-cosby-sexual-assault-trial.html

Bill Cosby guilty on all three counts in indecent assault trial By Eric Levenson and Aaron Cooper, CNN Thu April 26, 2018 Norristown, Pennsylvania (CNN)A jury found Bill Cosby guilty of three counts of aggravated indecent assault on Thursday, for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his home in a Philadelphia suburb in 2004.
The 80-year-old comedian faces up to 10 years in prison on each count, but Cosby is likely to serve them concurrently. A sentencing hearing with Judge Steven O’Neill has not yet been scheduled, and Cosby remains out on bail.
Cosby did not audibly react to his conviction, but erupted shortly afterward. Minutes after the verdict, prosecutors asked the judge to revoke Cosby’s bail. They said he is a flight risk and has a private plane.
Cosby, who did not testify in the trial and has sat quietly through the proceedings, stood up and yelled in a booming voice: “He doesn’t have a plane, you asshole.”
Judge O’Neill ruled that Cosby should not leave his Pennsylvania home, and that he would need to be fitted with a GPS tracking device if he left the state….
At the retrial, five other Cosby accusers testified as “prior bad acts” witnesses and said that Cosby had drugged and assaulted them decades ago….
The case against Cosby centered on testimony from Constand, a former employee with Temple University women’s basketball team. She testified that Cosby, a powerful trustee at Temple, drugged her and sexually assaulted her when she visited his home to ask for career advice 14 years ago….
The guilty verdict is a remarkable turn of events for the man once known as “America’s Dad.” Cosby was a groundbreaking actor and the first African-American performer to win an Emmy for his role on “I Spy.” He played the sweater-loving Cliff Huxtable on “The Cosby Show,” one of the first mainstream TV shows to feature a black upper-middle class family.
Although dozens of women have accused Cosby of sexual misconduct, only Constand’s allegations resulted in criminal charges…..
Constand initially told police about the assault in 2005, a year after the assault occurred. Former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor at the time decided not to file charges in the case, and Constand and Cosby settled a civil lawsuit for $3.38 million in 2006…..
https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/26/us/bill-cosby-trial/index.html

Bill Cosby: A 50-year chronicle of accusations and accomplishments
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-bill-cosby-timeline-htmlstory.html

Cardinal George Pell: Vatican treasurer faces historical sexual offences trial Australia’s most senior Catholic has said he will plead not guilty to all charges Melissa Davey Tue 1 May 2018
Cardinal George Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic and the controller of the Vatican’s finances in Rome, has pleaded not guilty after he was ordered to stand trial over historical sexual offence allegations.
Pell has always denied the allegations against him, but it was the first time he had been required to enter a formal plea.
Many of the most serious allegations were dismissed in the Melbourne magistrates’ court on Tuesday, with witnesses described as unreliable and lacking credibility. But a number of charges were ordered to go to trial. Further details of the nature of the charges are unable to be reported for legal reasons….
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/may/01/cardinal-george-pell-stand-trial-historical-sexual-offence-charges

‘Three Girls’, Cyril Smith and Knowl View – why did predators have free rein in Rochdale?
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse made a damning assessment of institutional attitudes in the town, going back decades. By Damon Wilkinson 15 APR 2018
….But over the last forty years, the close-knit communities that make up Rochdale have been rocked by a string of child sexual abuse scandals.
At times it seems abusers have had free rein in the town. Why? Has there been a series of conspiracies and cover-ups as some believe?
Or merely a perfect storm of disregard – the toxic mix of paedophile networks, self-serving politicians, small-town poverty and government neglect?
On Thursday a long-awaited report lifted the lid on the widespread sexual abuse carried out by former Rochdale MP Cyril Smith and several other predatory paedophiles.
….Monsters loomed in places where children were supposed to be protected – at Cambridge House, a boys’ hostel, and Knowl View, a residential school for boys with learning and behavioural difficulties, from the 1960s to the 1990s.
Public places became playgrounds for perverts too; the bus station, the Smith Street public toilet – in view of council’s offices – where lads of primary school age were prostituted for just a few pence.
It’s a chilling precedent of the the town’s most recent abuse scandal – in which young girls were molested by much older men under the nose of the authorities.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse did not look at that most recent child grooming scandal. But it made a damning assessment of institutional attitudes in the town, going back decades.
Based on the harrowing testimony of dozens of victims of abuse at Knowl View, Cambridge House and Smith Street toilets, plus evidence from social workers, teachers, politicians and council officers, the IICSA’s findings lay bare how young, often vulnerable victims were let down time and time again by the very people who were supposed to be protecting them.

But how was this allowed to happen?
Certainly Cyril Smith has cast a shadow over the town. 29 stone at his heaviest, he was long celebrated as a political giant.
How distressing must that reputation have been to his victims, who knew what he was really capable of?
Stories have abounded in Rochdale that Smith had local police ‘in his pocket’ – using political influence to quash investigations that he was a serial molester of boys.
Former Rochdale MP Cyril Smith
In 1970 a Lancashire constabulary probe into Smith was dropped on the advice of the Director of Public Prosecutions, who felt the allegations concerned – which dated from Cambridge House in the mid 60s – were ‘stale’, lacked corroboration, and the ‘character of the complainants would likely render their evidence suspect’.
….But what is abundantly clear from the report is that allegations of sexual assault were simply not taken seriously by those in authority, a culture that permeated the council from top to bottom for years, and allowed Smith and others to repeatedly get away with their sickening crimes.
From social workers and education workers to former council leaders Richard Farnell – suspended by the Labour Party after the report concluded he lied about what he knew about Knowl View – and Paul Rowen, who has been accused of having ‘turned a blind eye’ to the problems at Knowl View, there was a ‘careless and wholly inadequate response’ to the issue. In regards to Knowl View the inquiry found there was a ‘total lack of urgency on the part of the authorities to address the problem and treat the matters involved for what they were – serious sexual assaults’….
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/three-girls-satanic-abuse-cyril-14529169

‘Satanic Christian’ couple in child porn case caught by FBI Cincinnati task force
Kevin Grasha April 20, 2018
A special agent and police officer working for an FBI Cincinnati task force helped uncover “systematic” sexual abuse of children by a woman and man who claimed they were a “Satanic Christian” couple, court documents show.
The couple sexually abused six children who were in their care and produced multiple images of child pornography, officials said. Federal prosecutors in a news release called the couple’s behavior “depraved” and said it “represented ongoing, systematic and horrific abuse of multiple children.”
The victims ranged in age from 6 months to 14 years.
Sherri Smith, of Osceola, Indiana, and her boyfriend, Joseph Williams, of Watervliet, Michigan, were sentenced this week in federal court in Michigan. Smith was sentenced to 60 years in prison; Williams was sentenced to 80 years.
According to court documents, Williams contacted members of the FBI Cincinnati task force through the website, Motherless.com. Communications then continued through messaging apps.
In a February 2017 message, according to court documents, the person “stated that ‘they’ were a ‘Satanic Christian’ couple and were into ‘older/younger (very younger) and incest.’”
Williams’ home was described as a “child pornography house of horrors.” Among items seized was a reproduction of a young girl’s buttocks and genitals, court documents say.
Both Smith, 48, and Williams, 53, pleaded guilty to federal child pornography charges.
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/crime/crime-and-courts/2018/04/20/satanic-christian-couple-child-porn-case-caught-fbi-cincinnati-task-force/536316002/

Michigan State’s $500 Million for Nassar Victims Dwarfs Other Settlements
By Mitch Smith and Anemona Hartocollis May 16, 2018
Victims of Lawrence G. Nassar, the Michigan State University physician who sexually abused young women under the guise of medical treatment, would receive $500 million from the university in a settlement that is believed to be the largest ever reached in a sexual abuse case involving an American university.
It dwarfed the size of the settlement reached in the sex abuse scandal at Pennsylvania State University. And it was larger than many of the settlements that followed the child sex abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church.
“I think the number being so large sends a message that is undeniable, that something really terrible happened here and that Michigan State owns it,” said John Manly, a lawyer for many of the 332 women who sued the university over abuse by Dr. Nassar. “When you pay half a billion dollars, it’s an admission of responsibility.”

Women who say they were abused by Dr. Nassar still have lawsuits against U.S.A. Gymnastics, the United States Olympic Committee and others, and the settlement with Michigan State could add pressure in those cases. The settlement by Michigan State, a public university that is the state’s largest, also sent a loud warning to other colleges about the potentially devastating cost of ignoring misconduct.
The agreement comes as officials at the University of Southern California are under fire for failing to report a gynecologist who faced allegations of misconduct for decades, and as other colleges find themselves grappling with a growing number of sexual abuse and assault complaints over the last few years. By late Wednesday, officials at U.S.C. said they had received about 85 complaints about George Tyndall, the gynecologist….
Many women said the university enabled Dr. Nassar’s abuse and for years ignored those who came forward with complaints, and top leaders at Michigan State have lost their jobs over the matter, including Lou Anna K. Simon, the president. Michigan’s attorney general is overseeing a criminal investigation into how Dr. Nassar had been permitted to operate at the university for as long as he did. The federal Education Department is investigating the university’s actions. And the F.B.I. is conducting an internal review of what its agents knew about Dr. Nassar’s conduct and when they knew it, Christopher A. Wray, the agency’s director, told Congress on Wednesday.
The settlement was approved by the university’s elected trustees in a conference call on Tuesday night, but final details still had to be handled.
For the women, some of whom shared their stories of abuse in emotional testimony before judges who sentenced Dr. Nassar to more than 100 years in prison, the financial settlement was a step toward healing, but not a fix for systemic failings at Michigan State…..

For about 20 years, Dr. Nassar preyed on young women who came to him for medical care at a Michigan State clinic. When some patients claimed abuse, Dr. Nassar insisted he was performing legitimate medical treatment, and university officials allowed him to continue seeing patients….
https://www.nytimes.com/     2018/05/16/us/larry-nassar-michigan-state-settlement.html

Brainwashed : The Secret CIA Experiments in Canada
It sounded like a bad Hollywood horror movie. Patients at a psychiatric hospital subjected to intensive shock treatments, LSD and drug-induced comas. But for hundreds of Canadians, it was an all-too real nightmare. They were brutal experiments on human guinea pigs — funded by the Canadian government and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
Concerned about the brainwashing of U.S. soldiers who had been Korean prisoners of war, the CIA funded mind-control experiments across North America. They turned to Dr. Ewen Cameron and Montreal’s famed Allen Memorial Institute.
In the 1950s and 1960s, patients committed to the hospital for something as simple as post-partum depression were subjected to chemically- induced sleep for weeks and continuous rounds of electroshocks. Many emerged broken and destroyed, their memories erased and minds permanently damaged.

The fifth estate first investigated this story in 1980. And for two decades, we kept on the story… following the victims who successfully sued the CIA. And questioning why the Canadian government was so reluctant to admit its responsibility. Never has the federal government apologized for funding those experiments.
Now as result of our reporting, more and more victims and their families are coming forward.
An estimated 90 patients were eventually compensated, but hundreds more who tried to get compensation were rejected because the Ottawa said they hadn’t been “de-patterned” enough or didn’t have the necessary documents to warrant compensation. Newly unearthed documents reveal how Ottawa kept files secret, misplaced vital documents – and forced victims to keep compensation agreements confidential.
http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/episodes/2017-2018/brainwashed-the-secret-cia-experiments-in-canada

Archbishop Philip Wilson found guilty of concealing child sex abuse By Sam Rigney 22 May 2018
Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson has been put on notice that he could expect a jail term after he was found guilty on Tuesday of concealing historical child abuse allegations against another priest.
In a landmark decision that could have wide-reaching implications for other high-ranking clergy members, Magistrate Robert Stone found Archbishop Wilson had been told by a 15-year-old boy in 1976 that he had been indecently assaulted by notorious Hunter paedophile priest Father James Fletcher, but chose not to go to the authorities despite believing the allegations were true.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/archbishop-philip-wilson-found-guilty-of-concealing-child-sex-abuse-20180522-p4zgpc.html

The Bitter Secret of ‘Wormwood’ Tamsin Shaw
….In Errol Morris’s new series, Wormwood, which blends documentary with dramatic reconstructions, he sets out to explore an episode in the history of US intelligence that is irresistibly sensational, the CIA’s cold war “mind control” program of the 1950s and 1960s. Code-named MK-ULTRA, the program involved agents experimenting with methods for gaining full control of a person’s thoughts and behavior using LSD, hypnosis, electric shocks, and other bizarre means—the films The Ipcress File (1965) and The Parallax View (1974) show cool, stylized versions. The thesis offered by Wormwood’s principal subjects is that, during the same period, the CIA ran an authorized, extrajudicial execution program of dissenting agents who were active in the agency’s secret operations.
….The six-part series focuses on the death of Frank Olson, an army scientist who worked on biological weapons research at Camp Detrick, a US army camp in Maryland, but who subsequently became a CIA operative involved in Project ARTICHOKE, a predecessor to MK-ULTRA that focused, with brutal rigor, on interrogation methods. When the Rockefeller Commission (established by President Gerald Ford in 1975 to investigate potentially illegal CIA programs, and led by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller) examined records of his death, which occurred in November 1953, it reported that Olson had been secretly dosed with LSD by the CIA several days beforehand. The existing CIA documents (many had been destroyed) created the impression that Olson had then sunk into a severe depression before jumping not just out of, but directly through, his New York hotel room’s thirteenth-floor window, smashing its glass pane.
….Surprisingly, though, the most jarring and psychologically revealing interviews are not with Olson’s son, but with Hersh. More than forty years after Hersh broke the story, Eric Olson confronted him in 2016 (the year before Morris made the documentary) with fresh evidence, including a new autopsy report that, he claimed, demonstrated the suicide story was false; it was a murder. Eric also insisted that Hersh had been taken in, by the CIA, that he had “swallowed the cover story” about LSD, when, in fact, his father was silenced because of his involvement in Project ARTICHOKE and in bioweapons research, about which he had loudly expressed serious moral qualms. After initially dismissing Olson’s theory, Hersh went back to a CIA source, someone he describes as a trusted friend, to investigate further.
….To date, the Senate’s Church Committee reports and the White House’s Rockefeller Commission report on the US intelligence agencies have been by far the most comprehensive studies holding these agencies to account that have yet been made public; they came out now more than forty years ago. The House Committee that investigated the same affairs, chaired by the Long Island Democrat Otis Pike, didn’t release its report because of congressional opposition. The published reports contained lurid and shocking information, including CIA drug experiments and assassination plots, FBI harassment of dissidents, the deliberate incitement of violence (including murder) in the black community, and the manipulation of elections in democratic countries. These were dark times for the agencies. The story of Frank Olson’s supposedly LSD-induced suicide was one of the episodes that dominated coverage, shedding light on the sinister mind-control program, which captured the public imagination. But if Wormwood’s claims are true, this public reckoning was itself tainted by lies, elaborately concocted cover stories, and forged documents.

The forces that had been set in motion after the war by the new Central Intelligence Agency (established in 1947) could not entirely be reined in. Nelson Rockefeller already had some experience of this independent momentum. He had been an early proponent of psychological operations, targeting Latin American populations that were subjected to Nazi propaganda during World War II. Serving under Eisenhower as Special Assistant to the President for Foreign Affairs, he tried to establish institutions for coordinating security policies—and this was broadly understood to mean psychological operations—from the White House, by creating boards that included representatives from the State Department, the Pentagon, and the CIA. But Rockefeller couldn’t secure the cooperation of either John Foster Dulles, then secretary of state, or Allen Dulles, the CIA director.
….Allen Dulles was unrestrained in his cultivation of behavioral science initiatives that would assist in the manipulation of individuals and societies. The dramatic term “brainwashing” became popular in describing this attempt to discover fundamental mechanisms through which human thought and behavior could be controlled. Many of America’s most distinguished behavioral scientists, who had served in the OSS (forerunner to the CIA) during the war, competing with the Nazis to develop techniques of manipulation, then transitioned seamlessly into this new cold war effort. (The Americans prosecuted Dachau’s doctors at Nuremberg—but not before they had plundered Dachau for the results of the Nazis’ studies on the use of mescaline and other drugs for mind control.)
In a 1949 study for the US Air Force, Yale’s Irving Janis claimed that the Soviets were using hypnosis, drugs, electroshock, and other means to extract false confessions. He thereby helped to lay out the program followed in the CIA’s mind-control research. This program was funded primarily via the Office of Naval Research and the National Science Foundation, and, under various pretexts, the most prominent social psychologists at America’s Ivy League universities experimented very freely with those methods.
….But mind-control research was not confined to the attempted manufacture of “Manchurian candidate” obedient spies and the spread of propaganda in Communist countries. The cold war, it was thought, could be won abroad through the capturing of hearts and minds, but it could equally be lost at home if the American people lacked commitment or resilience. There was a great deal of concern within the national security community that Americans were not as psychologically resilient as the Soviets and would therefore be less able to cope with the threat of a nuclear strike, or to absorb a first strike by the USSR. Janis authored an important RAND report on this topic, entitled Air War and Emotional Stress: Psychological Studies of Bombing and Civilian Defense, in which he used data collected from interviews conducted after air attacks during World War II in order to outline research proposals addressing “the problem of providing adequate psychological preparation for the American population so as to prevent inappropriate and disruptive behavior.” The study of large-scale psychological manipulation was intended to find ways of producing conformity to norms of “appropriate” behavior during a thermonuclear war.
The precise extent to which active deception was necessary to acclimate the American public to the horrifying absurdities of the cold war is still unknown. In Wormwood, we are told that Frank Olson came to believe that the American public was being elaborately deceived about the US use of biological weapons in the Korean War. Morris shows footage of articulate but apparently “brainwashed” prisoners making “false confessions” to using germ warfare.
….We do know that the cold war bequeathed a branch of behavioral science built around the desire to discover universal psychological mechanisms through which human beings could be manipulated. The most famous experiments of mind-control research from the era are the shock experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram at Yale in 1961–1962. (Peter Sarsgaard, as it happens, played Milgram in a 2015 movie about these tests called Experimenter.) Milgram led his subjects to believe that they were administering electric shocks to a man in an adjacent room whenever he got an answer wrong on a quiz, but the man apparently screaming in pain was a hired actor. In one study, 65 percent of the subjects were prepared to turn the shocks up to the maximum level, labeled “Danger. Severe Shock.” Both the Office of Naval Research and the National Science foundation were interested in funding this research into “action conformity” in which Milgram aimed to compel people to act “in violation of deeply rooted standards of behavior.” His research proposal claimed that he would shed light on the techniques used by “the red Chinese in trying to extract compliance from our troops in POW camps” (later, in the press, he would represent the experiments to the public as attempts to understand obedience to the Nazis).
In Experimenter, and in Milgram’s own films of the experiments, we can watch in horror and fascination as the duped subjects, anxious and perspiring, obey. Sarsgaard’s Milgram keeps a very straight face (Milgram himself confessed to being inspired in his experimental designs by the TV show Candid Camera), but we can smirk as we watch. The real secret Milgram hid, though, was that his work was intended to confer on America’s intelligence community superior knowledge of how to control people’s minds. He was part of a profession that claimed to know us better than we know ourselves…..
http://www.nybooks.com/      daily/2018/01/18/the-bitter-secret-of-wormwood/

May 29, 2018 · Filed Under Newsletter 2018 - Issues 138 - 143