Category: News

RT

The Internal Revenue Service has been seizing bank accounts belonging to small businesses and individuals who regularly made deposits of less than $10,000, but broke no laws. And the government is refusing to return all the money taken.

The practice ‒ called civil asset forfeiture ‒ allows IRS agents to seize property they suspect of being tied to a crime, even if no charges are filed, and their agency is allowed to keep a share of whatever is forfeited, the New York Times reported. It’s designed to catch drug traffickers, racketeers and terrorists by tracking cash deposits under $10,000, which is the threshold for when banks are federally required to report activity to the IRS under the Bank Secrecy Act.   Continue reading “IRS seizes hundreds of perfectly legal bank accounts, refuses to give money back”

RT

Australia is the first country to temporarily close its borders to people traveling from West African states battling against the Ebola epidemic. The move comes despite the fact the Ebola-free country has not sent aid workers to any afflicted regions.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison told parliament on Monday, Australia has issued a blanket visa ban for those traveling from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

“This means we are not processing any applications from these affected countries,” Morrison said.   Continue reading “Australia slammed for closing borders to Ebola-struck W. African states”

Mail.com

HAHNVILLE, La. (AP) — Off a narrow gravel road running between a handful of mostly abandoned lots near a Mississippi River levee, down past sprawling oak trees and thick weeds, a lectern framed by banana trees has been set up in front of three short rows of folding chairs.

This is about as far from Washington, D.C., as a politician can get, but Edwin Edwards is happy to speak here, standing patiently in the damp, sub-tropical heat in the town of Hahnville for even a few potential voters to show up.   Continue reading “Ex-gov, ex-con Edwin Edwards on the stump again”

Mail.com

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A man accused of killing two sheriff’s deputies and wounding two other people in a bloody chase through Northern California was arrested nearly a decade ago in Utah, but authorities didn’t connect him with his criminal past or previous deportations.

The man known as Marcelo Marquez and his wife were scheduled to make their first court appearances on Tuesday in a Sacramento County courtroom. Prosecutors in that county and neighboring Placer County were trying to sort out what charges to file after Friday’s rampage and said they would announce the counts.   Continue reading “Suspect in deputy deaths arrested in Utah in 2003”

Mail.com

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The first body found in three months was being recovered Tuesday from the sunken South Korean ferry, increasing the official death toll to 295, officials said.

The government task force said in a statement the body was found around a women’s toilet in the ship. The badly decayed body was being pulled up to the surface and DNA tests were planned to identify the victim, according to task force officials.   Continue reading “Victim’s body found from sunken South Korean ferry”

Mail.com

ATLANTA (AP) — A Dallas nurse who flew from Texas to Ohio and back before being diagnosed with Ebola will be released from an Atlanta hospital Tuesday after tests showed she’s virus-free, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Amber Vinson, 29, would be leaving Emory University Hospital after attending a 1 p.m. news conference where she would make a statement, Emory spokeswoman Holly Korschun told The Associated Press. Vinson worked as a nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas and cared for Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man who died of Ebola at the hospital on Oct. 8.   Continue reading “Nurse who had Ebola will be released from hospital”

David Swanson

The U.S. Air Force says it is not halting its use of Depleted Uranium weapons, has recently sent them to the Middle East, and is prepared to use them.

A type of airplane, the A-10, deployed this month to the Middle East by the U.S. Air National Guard’s 122nd Fighter Wing, is responsible for more Depleted Uranium (DU) contamination than any other platform, according to the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW). “Weight for weight and by number of rounds more 30mm PGU-14B ammo has been used than any other round,” said ICBUW coordinator Doug Weir, referring to ammunition used by A-10s, as compared to DU ammunition used by tanks.   Continue reading “U.S. Sends Planes Armed with Depleted Uranium to Middle East”

Mirror – by Alex Wellman

A flock of sheep were left feeling a little woolly-headed after getting high feasting on the wrong sort of grass.

The animals began stumbling around after eating through thousands of pounds of cannabis dumped in their field.

Police revealed that seven bags of the intoxicating plant, worth around £4,000, were eaten by the sheep who had tucked into their illegal meal completely unaware.   Continue reading “Cannabis-munching sheep left high as a kite after eating through £4,000 worth of drugs”

The New American – by Bob Adelmann

PEN America is using the alleged use of excessive force by the police in restraining crowds and journalists trying to cover the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, last August to call for federal guidelines to be applied to every local police force in the country.

The group — part of the PEN American Center, whose motto is “Protecting Free Expression” — published its summary of 52 instances of Ferguson police allegedly overreacting to real and perceived threats to public safety in the aftermath of the shooting of Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. Calling them “alleged” violations, PEN America said on Monday that they “contravene a right that is protected under the U.S. Constitution and international human rights law.”   Continue reading “Calls for National Police Guidelines After Ferguson”

The New American – by Dave Bohon

A longtime North Carolina judge has resigned his position rather than be forced to perform same-sex marriages against his Christian convictions. Swain County Magistrate Judge Gilbert Breedlove, in office since 1990, resigned October 20, citing the October federal court ruling that struck down North Carolina’s voter-passed constitutional amendment defining marriage as only between a man and a woman.

“It was my only option,” the 57-year-old Breedlove told the Asheville, N.C., Citizen-Times newspaper. “We were directed we had to perform the marriages, and that was just something I couldn’t do because of my religious beliefs.”   Continue reading “N.C. Judge Resigns Rather Than Perform Same-sex “Marriages””

Bloomberg – by Mario Parker

Coal exports from the U.S. West Coast rose to the highest in more than a decade amid demand from Mexico and Asia, providing a market for the power-plant fuel amid lower domestic consumption.

Shipments from the western U.S. are up 35 percent to about 5 million tons through the first six months of this year, led by an almost six-fold jump in cargoes leaving San Francisco, according to the Energy Information Administration. That comes even as nationwide exports have fallen 15 percent.   Continue reading “U.S. West Coast Coal Exports Rise as Mexico to China Buy”

Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at the White House.

One is from Chicago, another is from Kentucky, and the third is from New Orleans.

All three go with a White House official to examine the fence.

The New Orleans contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil.   Continue reading “Three Contractors Bid On The White House Fence”

The New American – by Alex Newman

Already under fire for seeking to usurp new powers to control the Internet, the United Nations International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is facing intense criticism after appointing a Chinese Communist to lead the controversial UN agency starting next year. Even more alarming, perhaps, is that the new ITU boss claims censorship is in the eye of the beholder. On October 23, at an ITU summit in Busan, South Korea, member governments and dictatorships overwhelmingly selected Houlin Zhao (shown) of mainland China — where the dictatorship operates among the most Orwellian censorship regimes on Earth, currently working on overdrive to spin and conceal the uprising in Hong Kong — to serve as the UN outfit’s secretary general. Zhao joins a growing roster of Chinese Communist operatives in charge of powerful UN agencies.   Continue reading “Chinese Communist to Lead UN Agency Seeking to Control Internet”

MassPrivateI

The United States Postal Service reported that it approved nearly 50,000 requests last year from law enforcement agencies and its own internal inspection unit to secretly monitor the mail of Americans for use in criminal and national security investigations.

The number of requests, contained in a little-noticed 2014 audit of the surveillance program by the Postal Service’s inspector general, shows that the surveillance program is more extensive than previously disclosed and that oversight protecting Americans from potential abuses is lax.   Continue reading “U.S. Postal Service spied on at least 50,000 people last year”

ABC News – by Cara Anna

A spokesman for Jordan’s mission to the United Nations says his country will request an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting on behalf of the Palestinians, who have written to the council president about “dangerously escalating tensions” in east Jerusalem.

Laith Ibrahim Obeidat confirmed the request in a message Monday and said his country, a council member, will ask the council president to set a date.   Continue reading “Jordan to request emergency UN meeting on Israel”

Continue reading “Change Is Coming TO America…”

Examiner – by Kenric Ward

Voting machines that switch Republican votes to Democrats are being reported in Maryland.

“When I first selected my candidate on the electronic machine, it would not put the ‘x’ on the candidate I chose — a Republican — but it would put the ‘x’ on the Democrat candidate above it,” reported Donna Hamilton.   Continue reading “Machines flip GOP votes to Democrats in Maryland”

WSOC TV – by Ken Lemon

Cherryville, NC – The former Cherryville police chief who stole from his city will not spend any time in prison.

Woody Burgess faced as much as 10 years but will serve six months of house arrest and one year of probation for embezzlement.

He admitted using city money to buy $11,000 worth of guns for personal use. He has repaid almost all of the money.   Continue reading “Former Cherryville police chief will not go to prison for embezzlement”

American Mercenary

The Mosin Nagant is the longest continued service serving sniper rifle in the world, even if the longest continued manufactured rifled is the M98 Mauser.

The Russians, then Soviets, literally built millions of them, and spread them out across the world to arm Communist Guerillas from Vietnam to Central America. Beyond that, other countries used them as they wound up in the inventory for some reason or other, such as Poland, Finland, and the United States.   Continue reading “Improvised Sniper Rifles, even nation states start out pressing something into service”