From the Trenches World Report
Enforce our Bill of Rights
The Free Thought Project – by Matt Agorist
Wilmington, DE — Last week, U.S. President Barack Obama disingenuously called for international tax reform in the wake of the massive leak of millions of documents from Panamanian-based law firm Mossack Fonseca.
“There is no doubt that the problem of global tax avoidance generally is a huge problem,” Obama told reporters at the White House on Tuesday. “The problem is that a lot of this stuff is legal, not illegal.”
Just about every major banker and finance minister in the world is meeting in Washington, DC, this week, following two rushed, secretive meetings of the Federal Reserve and another instantaneous and rare meeting between the Fed Chair and the president of the United States. These and other emergency bank meetings around the world cause one to wonder what is going down. Let’s start with a bullet list of the week’s big-bank events: Continue reading “What in the World is Going on with Banks this Week? Emergency meetings, banker summits, crashing European banks, and the worst bank reports since the Great Recession”
Seventeen suspected illegal aliens aboard a panga boat sent a distress signal off the coast of San Diego on Tuesday morning that led the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to apprehend the group.
Video of the stranded boat was released, along with the Coast Guard’s announcement that the 17 aboard were taken to a local Border Patrol station for processing. Continue reading “17 Suspected Illegal Aliens Caught off California Coast”
Illinois – -(Ammoland.com)- As many of you know, the Illinois General Assembly is currently considering HB3160 “The Lethal Violence Order of Protection Act.”
On the surface, a lot of folks might say, “Oh…it’s a good idea to take guns away from wife beaters.”
However, if you peel a couple of layers of the onion, you will see that HB3160 has one purpose, and one purpose only – to set law-abiding citizens up for gun confiscation. Continue reading “Illinois ‘Lethal Violence Order of Protection Act’ Is Plain Old Gun Confiscation”
Internal police documents obtained through a public records request showed Chicago officers punched, beat, Tasered and strangled men held illegally at Homan Square, the city’s off-site interrogation center.
Chicago Police Department files confirm that officers used physical force against at least 14 men when they were held in custody at its warehouse site, according to the Guardian on Tuesday, which obtained the documents through a lawsuit under Illinois’ freedom of information law. Continue reading “Police beat, strangle, Taser men held unlawfully at Chicago’s ‘Gitmo’”
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syrians in government-controlled areas cast ballots Wednesday for a new 250-member parliament that is expected to serve as a rubber stamp for President Bashar Assad in a vote which Western leaders and members of Syria’s opposition have denounced as a sham and a provocation that undermines the Geneva peace talks.
The negotiations on resolving Syria’s five-year civil war were to resume later Wednesday in the Swiss city, with government representatives delayed on account of the elections and the U.N. envoy due to meet with the opposition team. Continue reading “Assad says Syrian parliament elections blow to ‘terrorism’”
HONOLULU (AP) — When Daniel Anthony spent the night sleeping in a traditional Hawaiian structure known as a “hale,” the sound of rain falling on the thatched roof made him feel like he was sleeping in the forest.
“This is the sound of aloha,” he said, recalling the experience. The hales, he said, are also a solution to a crisis of homelessness in Hawaii, which has the highest rate of homelessness per capita in the nation. Continue reading “In homelessness crisis, Hawaii eyes thatched ‘hale’ homes”
NEW DELHI (AP) — The tiny bone fragments formally turned over to the U.S. Wednesday carry a world of significance and perhaps closure for possibly a few American families who lost a loved one over the mountains of India in World War II.
During a solemn ceremony Wednesday, U.S. military members paid final respects to what they believe may be the remains of crew members from a B-24 bomber and a military transport plane that crashed on supply runs from India to China over the Himalayan Mountains. Continue reading “Bone fragments from WWII crashes returning from India”
Personal Liberty – by Brandon Smith
If you are a longtime activist in the Liberty Movement then you are well aware that elections do not matter in terms of the future direction our nation takes. Presidents are puppets of international financiers, and so are most legislators. Whenever a president does attempt to go against the system, he either ends up shot by a “lone gunman,” or his office is disgraced by a conveniently-leaked scandal.
Today, elections represent the illusion of choice; that is all. The leadership of both major parties seem different in terms of their rhetoric, but this is all cosmetic. Underneath the talk, Democrat and Republican leaders are nearly identical in their support for bigger government, more centralization, less constitutional protections, more globalism, more power to international banks and central banks, and less transparency and accountability. Continue reading “The weirdest possible outcomes for the strangest election in U.S. history”
The Office of Personnel Management is preparing for a pilot program to automatically track public social media postings of people applying for security clearances.
OPM is conducting market research to find companies that can perform automated social media tracking and other types of Web crawling as part of the background investigation process, according to an April 8 request for information posted online. Responses from interested companies are due by April 15. Continue reading “OPM Seeks Social Media Tracking For Background Checks”
This year, 236,000 foreigners applied for the H-1B, the most common visa for high-skilled foreign workers. That’s up 3,000 from 2015 — and up significantly more from 2014 which had 172,500 applications.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will grant just 85,000 H-1B visas (20,000 of which are reserved for master’s degree holders), which it selected on Saturday, April 9, via a lottery process. Continue reading “High-skilled visa applications hit record high – again”
Sent to us by a reader.
Five out of eight of the biggest U.S. banks do not have credible plans for winding down operations during a crisis without the help of public money, federal regulators said on Wednesday, saying the institutions could face stricter oversight if they do not fix their plans.
The “living wills” that the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation jointly agreed were not credible came from Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, JPMorgan Chase, State Street,Wells Fargo. Continue reading “5 major banks fail ‘too big to fail’ test; Citi’s plan passes”
Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.
Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Horatio G. Spafford dated March 17, 1814.
DES MOINES | A lawsuit has been filed against the Iowa Utilities Board for authorizing use of eminent domain to access land for the Bakken oil pipeline.
The lawsuit was filed Friday in Polk County on behalf of the Northwest Iowa Landowners Association and individual landowners.
Continue reading “Iowa lawsuit filed over eminent domain for oil pipeline”
The Daily Sheeple – by Piper McGowin
It’s hard to believe people still fly in this country… still consent to putting up with this crap.
The TSA just confiscated CNN journalist Campbell Brown’s pimento cheese. Continue reading “Feel Safer Now, America? The TSA Just Confiscated A CNN Journalist’s Pimento Cheese”
Thanks, to DHS & TSA grants totaling nearly $3 million, the NJ Transit has nearly finished installing DriveCam LTYX’s cameras with microphones to spy on every commuter 24/7. (Note: NJ’s Transit has been using DriveCam surveillance cameras since 2006.)
NJ Transit officials say spying on commuters conversations is “necessary to fight crime and maintain security!” NJ Transit spokesman Jim Smith said, “the onboard surveillance systems are also a deterrent for crime and unruly behavior.” Continue reading “DHS/TSA are installing microphones and cameras to spy on public transit commuters”
National Geographic – by Sarah Gilman
More than 400 miles of the Klamath River system that have been blocked for a century will open up for people and wildlife.
Glen Canyon Dam began its life with an explosion. Congress authorized the dam’s construction on this day in 1956, and about seven months later, then-president Dwight D. Eisenhower pressed a telegraph key in the Oval Office, sending the signal to blast a string of dynamite wedged in the side of a sinuous canyon. Boulders sprayed through the air at Arizona’s northern border, and workers began drilling a tunnel to temporarily redirect the flow of the Colorado River while they built the base of the dam.
Continue reading “This Will Be the Biggest Dam-Removal Project in History”
Ever since Ford discontinued the Crown Victoria — a long-time favorite choice for police radio cars — it’s been harder to tell if that SUV on your tail is a grocery getter or Johnny Law looking to make traffic stop.
Now, Ford is making it even harder with the debut of new “zero profile” lightbars for Police Interceptors, the cop version of the Explorer. But in offering the new hardware, Ford also has safety in mind as they allow greater visibility from the cockpit, especially for taller officers, compared with other interior lightbars. Continue reading “The cops will be harder to spot with Ford’s new ‘zero profile’ lightbars”
MANHATTAN — Former NYPD Chief of Department Philip Banks received between $250,000 and $500,000 from a politically connected businessman at the center of a federal probe into a pay-for-favors scandal engulfing the NYPD and City Hall, DNAinfo New York has learned.
Jona Rechnitz — owner of the Manhattan-based real estate firm JSR Capital who also has ties to Mayor Bill de Blasio — made the “investments” payout to Banks in 2014 while Banks was serving as the highest-ranking uniformed officer in charge of the NYPD’s daily operations. Continue reading “NYPD Chief Received Up To $500K From Developer Eyed in Corruption Probe”
The Daily Sheeple – by Joshua Krause
Many presidential candidates have come and gone over the past year (yes, it’s been more than a year since the first candidate started campaigning), but when it comes to gun rights, Hillary is by far the most terrifying person to compete for the White House. Even more so than socialist Bernie Sanders if you can believe that. If you’re wondering what a Clinton administration would do to gun rights, then take a look at this clip and see if you notice anything peculiar. Continue reading “Why Hillary Is The Biggest Threat To The Second Amendment”