From the Trenches World Report
Enforce our Bill of Rights
BERNARDSVILLE, N.J. –People in parts of New Jersey got an early wake-up call Friday from a small earthquake that caused no damage or injuries.
The magnitude-2.7 quake hit around 3:41 a.m., roughly 2 miles north of Bernardsville, about 35 miles west of New York City, at a depth of 3 1/2 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It was initially recorded as a 2.5 magnitude. Continue reading “Small Earthquake Shakes Parts of New Jersey”
With oil at a six-year low and much of the U.S. enjoying cheaper gas prices this summer, drivers in Chicago and the Midwest are in for some real pain at the pump.
Gasoline prices across the Midwest spiked an average of 20 cents or more per gallon overnight, after the outage at BP‘s Whiting refinery in Indiana sent prices in the wholesale spot market skyrocketing this week. More of that price shock should filter through to gas stations in states from Ohio and Kentucky to Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan. Continue reading “Ouch! Gasoline prices are spiking in these states while oil is at a six-year low”
National Review – by Jim Geraghty, May 5, 2015
One week after 9/11, Michael Hayden, the director of the National Security Agency, the electronic surveillance arm of the U.S. government, had a long list of problems. High on the list was the fact that the NSA needed a ton of new high-tech equipment, particularly servers, right away, to handle a vastly expanded, critically important workload.
Hayden called up the CEO of Hewlett Packard, Carly Fiorina. “HP made precisely the equipment we needed, and we needed in bulk,” says Robert Deitz, who was general counsel at the NSA from 1998 to 2006. Deitz recalls that a tractor-trailer full of HP servers and other equipment was on the Washington, D.C. Beltway, en route to retailers, at the very moment Hayden called. Fiorina instructed her team to postpone the retailer delivery and have the driver stop. An NSA police car met up with the tractor-trailer and the truck proceeded, with an armed escort, to NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. Continue reading “How Carly Fiorina managed and advised the ‘poobahs’ at Langley.”
PFLUGERVILLE, TX — A woman has filed a formal complaint after police entered and searched her home — without consent or a warrant — all to conduct a so-called “welfare check” on her absent roommate.
The incident occurred in the early morning hours of August 2nd, 2015, as Tori Thayer was home alone sleeping a few hours before her shift began at a local restaurant. Around 3:00 a.m., Ms. Thayer heard noises at the front door and thought someone was breaking in. Continue reading “Police invade Texas woman’s home for warrantless 3AM ‘welfare check’”
Last chance! Cutoff for entries for the drawing will be at 1:00 pm Pacific, 4:00 pm Eastern.
Mark Schumacher is sponsoring a drawing for From the Trenches World Report. Mark has provided for 1st prize a brand new medium OD green Alice Rucksack with frame.
2nd prize will be a survival kit provided by Mike from Minnesota with more items than I can recount here.
3rd and 4th prizes will be a large and a medium Trenches shirt provided by Millard. Continue reading “From the Trenches Drawing for Alice Rucksack, Survival Pack, and Two Trenches Shirts”
Continue reading “Another ‘Explosion’, This Time In Ecuador”
A former CIA officer who contested the spy agency’s intelligence about Iraq and authored controversial emails about the 2012 attack on Benghazi, Libya, has passed away.
Tyler Drumheller died on Aug. 2 from complications from pancreatic cancer, The Washington Post reported on Thursday evening. He was 63 years old.
After a 26-year career with the CIA that included time as the head of covert actions in Europe, Drumheller became a prominent critic of some of the agency’s intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq War. Continue reading “Author of Benghazi memos sent to Clinton dies after cancer battle”
Western Journalism – by Norvell Rose
In its coverage of the brutal murders of four people in Florida, including an unborn child, NBC News didn’t point out that the teenage suspect is an illegal immigrant until the final paragraph of its story on the gruesome killings east of Fort Myers. You have to read all the way to the end of the 8-paragraph report before you’re told that the “teenager from Belize,” identified as Brian Omar Hyde, illegally crossed the Texas border about seven months ago.
Hyde reportedly made his way to Florida, where he apparently lived with or near the people he’s now charged with slaughtering. One of the victims was said to have been a relative of the 19-year-old who allegedly beat his victims to death. Another one of the dead was a pregnant 17-year-old girl. Continue reading “Another Illegal Charged With Brutal Murders That Cops Call ‘Almost Unimaginable’”
The United States Postal Service has been compiling a database of every Americans’ mail records into a dragnet being made available to law enforcement agencies on command.
Information buried in the United States Postal Service’s annual audit, gleaned last year, revealed that the USPS’ ‘mail covers‘ surveillance program has grown exponentially over the past several years. Continue reading “Unredacted Postal Service Audit Reveals Extent Of Mail Surveillance”
The first couple to be issued a same-sex marriage license in Florida sued the state Thursday, saying that the Bureau of Vital Statistics still won’t allow hospitals to list both same-sex parents on birth certificates.
Cathy Pareto and Karla Arguello of Miami filed the lawsuit in federal court in Tallahassee. Pareto and Arguello had twins on Aug. 6. Two other married, same-sex couples also are part of the lawsuit. Continue reading “Gay Couples Sue Florida Over Names on Birth Certificates”
Anti-Media – by Claire Bernish
San Bernardino National Forest — An ongoing investigation by The Desert Sun into Nestle’s contentious bottled water operations in drought-stricken California first disclosed that the company’s permit to draw water had a rather astonishing expiration date that occurred over a quarter century ago, in 1988. Recently, the Sun reported an update in the investigation with a jaw-dropping twist: the Forest Service — not Nestle — is the agency primarily responsible for failing to renew Nestle’s permit.
In fact, judging by the government agency’s complete inability to even review Nestle’s long-expired permit — not to mention the lucrative job a retired Forest Service supervisor currently enjoys — there is an arguable case that collusion and corruption are at the heart of the entire issue. Continue reading “Forest Service Official Who Let Nestle Drain California Water Now Works for Them”
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The Food and Drug Administration has approved limited use of the powerful and frequently abused painkiller OxyContin for children as young as 11 years old, the agency announced Thursday. Continue reading “FDA Approves OxyContin for Children as Young as 11”
Government spying hasn’t been curbed in the least since Snowden’s leaks came out. It’s more just about having it rubbed in our faces every other five minutes than anything else.
Take the new state-of-the-art FBI biometrics facility opening in West Virginia.
“Tuesday started a new era for fighting crime and protecting our country with the dedication of the new FBI Biometric Technology Center in Clarksburg,” local West Virginia WDTV 5 reported. Continue reading “FBI Dedicates New 360,000 Sq Ft Biometric Technology Center in West Virginia”
A nuclear whistleblower in the US will be paid millions of dollars in exchange for dropping his legal charges against the company that fired him for uncovering unsafe disposal of nuclear waste.
AECOM, a distinguished name in infrastructure industry, has reached a $4.1 million settlement with Walter Tamosaitis, a former employee that blew the whistle on an unsafe nuclear waste processing plant in Hanford, Columbia, home to the largest nuclear landfill in the US. Continue reading “US nuclear whistleblower to receive $4.1 million to drop charges”
Political dissidents in Cuba will not be permitted to attend the ceremonial opening of the US embassy in Havana on Friday, a move that signals the lengths Washington is prepared to go to nurture its emerging rapprochement with the communist state.
The US secretary of state, John Kerry, is to raise the flag over the building for the first time in 54 years. He conceded that Cuban dissidents, who for decades have been at the heart of US foreign policy toward Cuba, have not been invited. Continue reading “Cuban dissidents not invited to US embassy ceremonial opening in Havana”
Researchers have recently developed a visor that can actually block facial recognition technology. The new glasses called “Privacy Visor,” can trick facial recognition technology, and prevent cameras from tracing your identity.
The development took place at Japan’s National Institute of Informatics where researchers placed infrared LED’s inside of glasses so they would trick facial recognition cameras. Continue reading “New Glasses Will Trick Facial Recognition Technology And Protect Your Identity”
The Guardian – by Murithi Mutiga
A senior CNN executive has flown to Nairobi to apologise for coverage calling the country a “hotbed of terror” ahead of Barack Obama’s visit in July.
Many Kenyans were outraged by the report, which suggested Obama was likely to be attacked during his historic visit to the land of his father’s birth. Continue reading “CNN executive flies to Kenya to apologise for ‘hotbed of terror’ claim”
There are a number of designs out there for “resistance” type submachine guns that circulate on the net and are available in books. Many are familiar, for example, with P.A. Luty’s Expedient Homemade Firearms: the 9mm Submachine Gun that landed Luty in hot water with Scotland Yard, or with the work of Bill Holmes (a pseudonym); many of these books date from the golden age of the survivalists in the 1970s and 1980s.
These books are not as far-fetched as you might think. In World War II, the open-bolt submachine gun was found to be well adaptable to converted automotive-part and -accessory production lines (in the form, for instance of the M3 and M3A1 submachine guns) and equally well adaptable to cottage industry (in the case of the Sten Mk II). Resistance organizations built their own submachine guns, often modeled on airdropped Stens but sometimes of indigenous design, such as the Polish Bljeskavicza (sp?). Continue reading “Large-Scale Clandestine Production of Small Arms”
As Ferguson’s interim police chief works to calm the troubled Missouri city, reporters have dug up details from his personnel files that raise questions about his integrity and character. The city says the charges are much ado about nothing.
Andre Anderson is on a six-month sabbatical from the Glendale Police Department in Arizona, with a mission to shepherd Ferguson through the anniversary of Michael Brown’s fatal shooting by a police officer, and reform the department a federal probe has accused of systemic racism. He worked the streets over the weekend, urging protesters to stay calm and police to be patient. Continue reading “Ferguson police chief hit with claims of fraud, abuse”