CNN

As police stood between two opposing crowds, a crew lifted a statute of former Confederate President Jefferson Davis from its pedestal before dawn Thursday in New Orleans — the latest in a contentious plan to dismantle four Confederate monuments in the city.

It’s the second Confederate monument to come down after the New Orleans city council voted to remove the four landmarks back in 2015. After years of heated public debate and legal battles, recent court decisions paved the way for the city to relocate the four monuments.

Continue reading “New Orleans begins removing second Confederate monument”

Sent to us by Bruce Leichty.

Family members of Ellen Mariani have disclosed that the outspoken “9/11 widow” and truth activist died in late 2015, says her former attorney Bruce Leichty. Mariani’s daughter Lauren stated that her mother died of natural causes.

Leichty reports that the news came as a shock to him. After his professional engagement for Mrs. Mariani ended in 2013, he and his former client had remained on friendly terms, and “after frequent communications over a long period of time I was essentially giving her the space I thought she deserved and wanted after some 12 years of litigation,” he said from his California office. The website established by the Ellen Mariani Legal Defense Fund, still in existence at www.marianilawsuit.com, did not report on the death because website founder and manager Vincent Gillespie did not receive a report of the death until Leichty learned of it, says Gillespie.   Continue reading “Ellen Mariani, 9/11 Truth Activist, Has Died”

Fox News

An illegal immigrant – who had been deported 15 times – is accused of seriously injuring a 6-year-old boy in a Saturday night drunken driving hit-and-run crash, authorities said.

Constantino Banda-Acosta, a 38-year-old Mexican citizen, was kicked out of the U.S. 15 times in the past 15 years, with his most previous deportation coming Jan. 18, federal officials told The San Diego Union-Tribune.   Continue reading “Illegal immigrant deported 15 times arrested in hit-run crash that hurt 6-year-old boy”

Joe from the Carolinas and his band, Filthy Weasels, want to include The Trenches on distribution for their new single, Technology, before they start putting the whole 5-song EP up on itunes or do anything with youtube.

Filthy Weasels – Technology

Check out their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Filthy-Weasels-970590293011527/

Sent to us by People for Life and Freedom.

The Washington Standard – by Tim Brown

I have always questioned the need for prisons.  They are an unjust means of justice.  Even more so, those that are for profit utilize the system to make money and push for quotas to be fulfilled by the states.  Here is just one recent example of such abuses of prisoners.  Ammon Bundy, who became a national household name during the Bundy Ranch siege in 2014 and the protests at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon in 2016, was tortured and abused by a guard at CCA in Pahrump Nevada last week.  Subsequently, when word got out, the guard was sent home.   Continue reading “Torture And Abuse Of Ammon Bundy At For Profit Prison Not Going Unnoticed”

UPI – by Daniel J. Graeber

May 8 (UPI) — Asian investments in U.S. shale basins are expected to gain traction in a capital strategy to offset domestic declines at home, analysis finds.

A report published Monday from analysis group Wood Mackenzie finds Asian companies geared toward exploration and production, known as the upstream sector of the energy business, are migrating toward North America.   Continue reading “Asian investments may target U.S. shale”

New York Times – by Eric Lipton and Jesse Drucker

WASHINGTON — It was the first major piece of legislation that President Trump signed into law, and buried on Page 734 was one sentence that brought a potential benefit to the president’s extended family: renewal of a program offering permanent residence in the United States to affluent foreigners investing money in real estate projects here.

Just hours after the appropriations measure was signed on Friday, the company run until January by Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser, Jared Kushner, was urging wealthy Chinese in Beijing to consider investing $500,000 each in a pair of Jersey City luxury apartment towers the family-owned Kushner Companies plans to build. Mr. Kushner was even cited at a marketing presentation by his sister Nicole Meyer, who was on her way to China even before the bill was signed. The project “means a lot to me and my entire family,” she told the prospective investors.

Continue reading “Kushner Family Stands to Gain From Visa Rules in Trump’s First Major Law”

Bloomberg – by Selcan Hacaoglu

Turkey objected strongly to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to arm Kurdish forces in Syria, calling the plan unacceptable and amounting to support for terrorists.

“This issue is a matter of existence or nonexistence for Turkey,” Deputy Prime Minister Nurettin Canikli told AHaber television on Wednesday. “It is a matter of survival for Turkey. Everyone should see it this way. We can never accept or allow the existence of terrorist organizations that pose a threat to Turkey’s future.”   Continue reading “Turkey Says U.S. Plan to Arm Kurds in Syria Supports Terrorism”

Yahoo News

A Connecticut woman got an unexpected and terrifying knock on her door last week while she was making brownies, as a bear came by to see what she was doing.

“My neighbor across the street just came over in a panic,” one of the resident’s neighbors said to a 911 dispatcher. “She’s a little old lady screaming that a bear got in her back porch and is slamming on her glass door.”   Continue reading “Persistent Bear With Taste for Brownies Refuses to Leave Woman’s Home”

Yahoo News

Aaron Hernandez was granted an abatement on his 2015 conviction for the murder of Odin Lloyd, meaning the former New England Patriot is considered not guilty in the eyes of the court.

Bristol County (Mass.) Judge Susan Garsh, who presided over the original trial, ruled in favor of Hernandez’s estate, agreeing that an ancient Massachusetts law should be applied here. It states that if a defendant dies while a conviction is still in the process of appeal then the verdict is vacated. Hernandez, 27, committed suicide late last month while serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole for the 2013 murder of Lloyd.   Continue reading “Aaron Hernandez’s murder conviction vacated”

Fox News

The Chicago Police Department warned its officers Monday about gangs armed with high-powered weapons, after three people were shot to death over the weekend and two cops were targeted in an ambush last week.

Anthony Guglielmi, a police spokesman, said three people who were killed in shootings Sunday were all members of the same street gang. Two of them died while attending a memorial for the earlier victim.   Continue reading “Chicago police warns officers about gangs armed with high-powered rifles”

Fox News

President Trump’s ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn took more hits at a Senate hearing Monday where former top Justice official Sally Yates testified she warned the Trump White House that Flynn could “essentially be blackmailed” by Moscow for having misled the VP about his Russia contacts.

At the same hearing, testimony from another Obama official also challenged persistent allegations from some of the Trump administration’s fiercest critics about ‘collusion’ with Russia during the 2016 campaign.   Continue reading “Yates says Flynn could have been ‘blackmailed,’ Clapper knocks collusion narrative”

ABC News – by Karma Allen

Multiple people were arrested on Sunday as hundreds of protesters clashed over the fate of Confederate monuments in New Orleans, police said.

Three protesters were arrested and charged with disturbing the peace on Sunday afternoon near Lee Circle in New Orleans after a fight broke out at a Confederate monuments demonstration, according to the New Orleans Police Department.  Continue reading “Protesters clash over fate of Confederate monuments in New Orleans”

Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden

The system used by the Dept. of Education to collect on defaulted student loans came to a standstill in the last month, leaving an estimated 91,000 accounts in limbo, when the agency ordered debt collectors under contract to stop making collections on accounts.

As Consumerist’s Ashlee Kieler reports, consumers who expected their student loan payments to be deducted from their bank accounts this month have reportedly found the funds untouched, and their calls to the companies unanswered thanks to a Department of Education’s order prohibiting the debt collection companies from working on default accounts in response to two lawsuits against the agency.   Continue reading ““The Crisis Has Become Pandemic” – System To Collect Defaulted Student Loans Is No Longer Functioning”

Las Vegas Review-Journal – by Jenny Wilson

Federal prosecutors said this week they want to retry the first group of defendants in the Bunkerville standoff case before moving forward with the trial of rancher Cliven Bundy and others charged as leaders of the 2014 armed protests.

Acting U.S. Attorney Steven Myhre disclosed the decision, which still needs a judge’s approval, in a Wednesday court filing.
Continue reading “Prosecutors ask to retry gunmen before Bundys go to trial”

Sent to us by a reader.

The Advocate

Two large groups have planned Sunday protests and counter-protests over the planned removal of three Confederate monuments in New Orleans.

Sunday’s rally was originally called by Take ‘Em Down NOLA, an organization that has called for the removal of all statues and street and institution names that the group says honor white supremacists. It promises a march and second-line at 1:30 p.m. from Congo Square, next to Municipal Auditorium, to Lee Circle to celebrate the removal of the first of four Jim Crow-era statues in the city last month.   Continue reading “Tensions high at opposing Confederate monument protests in New Orleans”