From the Trenches World Report
Enforce our Bill of Rights
Yahoo News – by STEPHEN OHLEMACHER
WASHINGTON (AP) — Even as millions of baby boomers approach retirement, the Social Security Administration has been closing dozens of field offices, forcing more and more seniors to seek help online instead of in person, according to a congressional report being released Wednesday.
The agency blames budget constraints. Continue reading “Social Security closes offices as baby boomers age”
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office canceled six federal trademark registrations for the name “Washington Redskins” on Wednesday on the grounds that the football team’s name is “disparaging to Native Americans” and thus in violation of federal trademark laws banning offensive or disparaging language.
“We decide, based on the evidence properly before us, that these registrations must be cancelled because they were disparaging to Native Americans at the respective times they were registered,” the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board wrote in its opinion Wednesday. Continue reading “U.S. Patent And Trademark Office Cancels Redskins Trademark”
Islamist militants have attacked Iraq‘s largest oil refinery in the city of Baiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, as Iran raised the prospect of direct military intervention to protect Shia holy sites.
A top security official told the Associated Press that fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) had begun their attack on the refinery late on Tuesday night. The attack continued into Wednesday morning, with militants targeting it with mortar shells, starting a small fire on the periphery. Continue reading “Isis insurgents attack Iraq’s biggest oil refinery”
Despite the more apparent than real “collapse of communism” the Communist Party USA has never given up its ties to the still very influential Russian communist movement.
Russian comrades reaffirmed their commitment to American communism, in these greetings sent to last weekend’s CPUSA national convention in Chicago. Continue reading “Russian Communists Reaffirm Ties to American Comrades”
A TV camera recorded the moment Russian journalists (from Rossiya TV)came under fire while working near Lugansk, E. Ukraine.
Two journalists died from wounds sustained during the Ukrainian military barrage. Reporter Igor Kornelyuk passed away on the operating table, a doctor at a local hospital confirmed to RT. The second alleged victim, sound engineer Anton Voloshin, reportedly died at the attack scene.
The footage was taken in Mirny, near Lugansk. After a first barrage the camera catches two distant figures taking shelter. The next mortar rounds targeted the area near the journalists. The camera is put down and turned over. Continue reading “Moment Ukraine army shell hits Russian TV crew caught on tape”
(Daniel Jennings) The U.S. Justice Department will increase its surveillance of US citizens in a stepped-up effort to combat domestic terrorism, including those who it calls “anti-government.”
US Attorney General Eric Holder has reactivated a Clinton Administration taskforce designed to combat, for instance, so-called hate crimes. Continue reading “Are Feds Targeting You In New Anti-Government Roundup?”
Warning Signs – by Alan Caruba
It is depressing beyond words that we will have to endure two and a half more years of an endless stream of lies about climate change from President Obama.
On June 14 he gave a commencement speech to graduates of the University of California at Irvine, using it to tell Big Fat Lies, not the least of which was that the Earth’s temperatures were rising when in fact they have been falling for nearly eighteen years.
It is an endless source of wonder to me that no part of the mainstream media disputes him when he says things like this. For years now they have been reporting the evidence of increasingly cold weather worldwide. Continue reading “Obama Talks Climate Change While Iraq Implodes”
New photos released by Rep. Henry Cuellar’s (D-Texas) office depict the unsanitary and cramped living conditions that undocumented immigrants, many of whom are unaccompanied children, are experiencing in a detention center near the US-Mexico border.
The photos were first published by the Houston Chronicle. Cuellar’s office declined Monday to tell Business Insider who took the photos and where exactly they were taken.
Reuters – by Vladimir Soldatkin and Nidhi Verma
MOSCOW/NEW DELHI, June 17 (Reuters) – Some oil companies are pulling foreign staff from Iraq, fearing Sunni militants from the north could strike at major oilfields concentrated in the Shi’ite south despite moves by the Baghdad government to tighten security.
Iraqi officials say the southern regions that produce some 90 percent of the country’s oil are completely safe from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which has seized much of the north in a week as Baghdad’s forces there collapsed. Continue reading “Oil majors cut staff in Iraq on fears violence will spread”
Mint Press News – by Katie Rucke
It turns out that those who have cursed at a police officer for apparently not using his brain or said an officer was being “stupid” may not be as far off the mark as the American public might hope.
Although it’s not widely known, federal courts have ruled since 2000 that police departments can legally opt to not hire someone simply because he or she scores too high on an intelligence test. The millenium ruling followed a lawsuit filed in 1999 by Connecticut resident Robert Jordan, who was told by the New London Police Department that they only interview candidates who score 20 to 27 points on an intelligence test. Continue reading “Can Someone Be Too Smart To Be A Cop?”
We have a new police alert here in Las Vegas from the police. It would seem the Bloods are up to their old tricks again and are having a new initiation again.
They are recruiting new Bloods and will have them drive around at night with their headlights off and when they get flashed, warning them their lights are off the initiation will be to follow them and shoot everyone in the car.
This happened a few years ago and it looks like they are at it again. This is probably only in the big citys but it’s wise to be aware everywhere.
Liberty Blitzkrieg – by Michael Krieger
Just yesterday, I wrote what I think was one of my most important articles of 2014, titled: America’s Disastrous Foreign Policy – My Thoughts on Iraq. The key point of the entire article came at the end when I noted that:
So in the course of less than a year, the Obama Administration has proposed an alliance with al-Qaeda in Syria and now an alliance with Iran to fight those very same forces. Continue reading “Blockbuster Report from WND – Jordanian Official Claims Americans Trained ISIS”
Informed Comment – by Juan Cole
The two great branches of Islam coexist in Iraq across linguistic and ethnic groups. There are Sunni Arabs and Shiite Arabs, Sunni Kurds and (a tiny minority of) Shiite Kurds. Arabs are a linguistic group, speaking a Semitic language. Kurds speak and Indo-European language related to English.
Sunnism and Shiism as we know them have evolved over nearly a millennium and a half. But the difference between them begins after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 AD (CE) in the city-state of Mecca in western Arabia. Muhammad, the son of Abdallah, had derived from the noble Quraysh clan. Those who became the Shiites insisted he should be succeeded by Ali, his cousin and son-in-law (and the next best thing to a living son). This dynastic principle was rejected by the group that became the Sunnis. They turned for leadership to prominent notables of the Quraysh, whom they saw as caliphs or vicars of the Prophet. The first three caliphs had given their daughters in marriage to the Prophet and so were his in-laws, but Sunni principles said that they needn’t have been– any prominent, pious male of the Quraysh would have done. Continue reading “Who are Iraq’s Sunni Arabs and What did we Do to them?”
Washington’s Blog – by Charles Hugh Smith
Powers once granted are almost impossible to take back.
After 13.5 years, there is more than enough evidence for reasonable people to conclude that the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama are easily the most destructive in U.S. history.
When historians speak of failed presidencies or weak presidencies, they are typically referring to presidencies characterized by uneven leadership, petty corruption by self-serving cronies or in extreme cases such as the Nixon presidency, abuses of executive power. Continue reading “The Most Destructive Presidencies in U.S. History: George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama”
New York Times – by ALAN SCHWARZ
ATLANTA — More than 10,000 American toddlers 2 or 3 years old are being medicated for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder outside established pediatric guidelines, according to data presented on Friday by an official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The report, which found that toddlers covered by Medicaid are particularly prone to be put on medication such as Ritalin and Adderall, is among the first efforts to gauge the diagnosis of A.D.H.D. in children below age 4. Doctors at the Georgia Mental Health Forum at the Carter Center in Atlanta, where the data was presented, as well as several outside experts strongly criticized the use of medication in so many children that young. Continue reading “Thousands of Toddlers Are Medicated for A.D.H.D., Report Finds, Raising Worries”
Suppose you spent five years in prison for a crime you didn’t commit. How much does the government owe you?
Over the past few decades, the rise of DNA exonerations has made this a more pressing question. And many states have created explicit policies to answer it.
But those policies vary wildly from state to state. Continue reading “When Innocent People Go To Prison, States Pay”
Huffington Post
The Guardian – by Mark Tran
New Zeal – by Trevor Loudon
RT News
Survival Backback
Press TV
NPR – by GABRIELLE EMANUEL