From the Trenches World Report
Enforce our Bill of Rights
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Agriculture Committee has approved a sweeping farm bill that would trim the $80 billion-a-year food stamp program.
The panel approved the bill 46-10 late Wednesday after rebuffing Democratic efforts to keep the food stamp program whole. Continue reading “House panel OKs farm bill with food stamp cuts”
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew requested – and has accepted – the resignation of the acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service in the wake of its handling of requests by conservative groups for tax-exempt status, President Barack Obama said Wednesday.
The “misconduct” detailed in a report about the IRS response to those requests is “inexcusable,” he said. Continue reading “Acting commissioner of IRS resigns, Obama says”
The IRS is facing a lawsuit after stealing 60 million medical records from 10 million patients.
Healthcare IT News reported:
The Internal Revenue Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges. Continue reading “IRS Faces Lawsuit After Stealing 60 Million Medical Records”
Godfather Politics – by Philip Hodges
Public figures are more honest when they think no one is watching or listening.
The New Jersey legislature archives their sessions and uploads them to their website for all to listen to. What some of these legislators didn’t realize was that the mic was still on and could pick up what they were saying. Continue reading ““Hot Mic” Picks Up Dem Lawmakers: “Confiscate, Confiscate, Confiscate””
Watchdog – by Malia Zimmerman | Hawaii Reporter
HONOLULU — Aloha, U.S. Secret Service? You’ve been served.
About those vacations to Hawaii, we want to know how much they’re costing taxpayers. Continue reading “Group sues for Obama vacation records”
Long Island Press – by Jed Morey
U.S. Military ‘Power Grab’ Goes Into Effect
The manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombing suspects offered the nation a window into the stunning military-style capabilities of our local law enforcement agencies. For the past 30 years, police departments throughout the United States have benefitted from the government’s largesse in the form of military weaponry and training, incentives offered in the ongoing “War on Drugs.” For the average citizen watching events such as the intense pursuit of the Tsarnaev brothers on television, it would be difficult to discern between fully outfitted police SWAT teams and the military. Continue reading “Pentagon Unilaterally Grants Itself Authority Over ‘Civil Disturbances’”
The number of violent crimes fell last year in Philadelphia, as did assaults on police officers.
But the number of people shot by police is up.
Way up.
The number of shootings by police in 2012 resulting in death or injury climbed to the highest level it’s been in 10 years. Philadelphia police shot 52 suspects last year while responding to calls for reported crimes. Of those shot, 15 people died. Continue reading “Shootings by Philly police soar as violent crime plummets”
Following the just concluded recent visit by John Kerry to Russia, one may have been left with the impression that the tensions of the Cold War are dead and buried. Just the opposite it appears. In what may be a well-timed and orchestrated announcement, moments ago Russia announced that it had caught an American, Ryan Fogle, a third-secretary at the US Embassy in Moscow, “red-handed” as he tried to recruit a Russian intelligence officer to work for the CIA. Continue reading “Russia Captures US Embassy Worker In Act Of CIA Recruitment; CIA’s “Dropbox” Gmail Address Revealed”
President Barack Obama is currently blocking the release—or allowing the CIA to block the release—of a comprehensive Senate report on the use of torture by the George W. Bush administration CIA that is said to conclude that torture was not an effective or reliable method of interrogation and that the agency repeatedly misled the White House, the Justice Department, and Congress about its interrogation efforts. Continue reading “Why is Obama Hiding 6,000-Page Report on Bush-Era Torture and Why is Torture Still Allowed?”
There’s so much data available on the internet that even government cyberspies need a little help now and then to sift through it all. So to assist them, the National Security Agency produced a book to help its spies uncover intelligence hiding on the web.
The 643-page tome, called Untangling the Web: A Guide to Internet Research (.pdf), was just released by the NSA following a FOIA request filed in April by MuckRock, a site that charges fees to process public records for activists and others. Continue reading “Use These Secret NSA Google Search Tips to Become Your Own Spy Agency”
The Hill – by Brendan Sasso and Jordy Yager
Federal prosecutors secretly obtained two months’ worth of telephone records of Associated Press journalists in what the news agency described Monday as a “massive and unprecedented intrusion.”
The Justice Department notified the AP on Friday that it had subpoenaed the records, which included more than 20 office, cellphone and home phone lines. The lines include the general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery. Continue reading “Justice Department secretly seized AP reporters’ phone records”
Question: Just where would a fellow be going that he couldn’t buy him a pressure cooker when he got there? Think about it.
You can’t make this stuff up.
A man traveling with an altered Saudi Arabian passport was in federal court Monday after a pressure cooker was discovered in his luggage at the Detroit airport over the weekend. Continue reading “Man with altered Saudi passport arrested with pressure cooker at Detroit airport”
Infowars – by Paul Joseph Watson
The secretive Bilderberg Group is currently undergoing a major transformation that will see it and other high profile networks merge under the banner of Google as the elite accelerates its plan to consolidate its technocratic agenda.
This past weekend, Infowars reporters Paul Joseph Watson and Jon Scobie visited the luxury Grove Hotel in Watford, UK, site of the 2013 Bilderberg Group conference set to take place June 6-9, a clandestine annual gathering of over 100 of the world’s most influential power brokers in the fields of politics, academia, technology, business and banking. Continue reading “Google-Berg: Global Elite Transforms Itself For Technocratic Revolution”
The Montgomery County (Texas) Sheriff’s Office had a big day planned. After becoming the first department in the country with its own aerial drone ($300,000!), they were ready for a nice photo op. And then the drone crashed into a SWAT team. Continue reading “Police Drone Crashes into Police”
Just how long and cold of a winter have we had in Minnesota? While the temperatures have finally risen to early-spring levels in the Twin Cities, it’s still cold in Mille Lacs even two weeks into May. In fact, what little warming they’ve had may have contributed to a bizarre ice attack on lakefront resort homes this weekend. One visitor took video of the stunning glacial flow from a video phone, and the language gets NSFW when the ice hits the houses: Continue reading “When ice floes attack … in May”
CNN
Gateway Pundit – by Jim Hoft
Philly.com – by Sam Wood
Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden 
All Gov – by Matt Bewig 
Wired – by KIM ZETTER
Gizmodo – by Sam Biddle