From the Trenches World Report
Enforce our Bill of Rights
The Senate passed its tax reform bill in the early hour of Saturday morning, following a day full of Republican leaders making changes to bring enough members on board and a long night full of heated rhetoric on both sides of the aisle.
The vote was 51-49, mostly along party lines. Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee was the only Republican to vote against the bill, citing concerns about growing the deficit. Continue reading “Senate passes sweeping GOP tax plan in early hours of Saturday morning”
Merry Jane – by Gregory Heilers
One hears about China’s legendarily harsh anti-drug laws, but is it really so awful to try to get high in China? Paradoxically, in a country with some of the tightest drug laws in the world, hashish and marijuana can be bought and sold on the streets of a megalopolis like Shanghai and dirt-road villages alike, usually with only slight concern for legal repercussions. Cultural eccentricities aside, buying cannabis in China is a largely familiar and comfortable scene to anyone who’s had to buy illegally elsewhere. Continue reading “How Difficult Is It to Get Cannabis in China?”
Pacific Standard – by Tom Jacobs
The gun-control debate in America bypassed rationality long ago. A committed core group of gun owners takes even modest attempts to limit the availability of firearms as a personal affront, and responds with the outrage of devout believers driven to defend their faith.
These gun-rights absolutists—a subset of the firearm-owning population—are overwhelmingly white, male, not very religious, and fearful about their financial future. Owning firearms gives them a sense of masculine strength and authority they otherwise fear is slipping away. Continue reading “Propaganda Alert: For Some Americans, The Gun Is A Sacred Object”
GRAYS HARBOR COUNTY, Wash. (KOMO) – Detectives said 32,449 marijuana plants with an estimated value of more than $80 million were seized during a multi-county raid in Washington State on Tuesday that uncovered a huge illegal pot-growing operation involving Chinese Nationals.
According to the Grays Harbor County Drug Task Force, a total of 50 search warrants were carried out including 38 in Grays Harbor County, eight in King County and four in Thurston County. Continue reading “$80 million worth of pot seized, Chinese Nationals suspected in illegal grow operations”
ProPublica – by Ryann Grochowski Jones and Abrahm Lustgarten
For the past year, ProPublica has been documenting the state of toxic pollution left behind by the military across the U.S. As part of this investigation, we acquired a dataset of all facilities that the Department of Defense considers contaminated. Today we used the data to publish an interactive news application called Bombs in Your Backyard. Here’s how you can use it to find hazardous sites near you — and what, if anything, is being done to remedy the pollution.
The data, which has never been released before, comes from the Defense Environmental Restoration Program, which the DOD administers to measure and document cleanup efforts at current and former military locations. Continue reading “Reporting Recipe: Bombs in Your Backyard”
Hawaii Tribune Herald – by John Burnett
The Hawaii Police Department has a letter it sends to medical marijuana patients seeking a gun permit that’s similar to a letter sent by the Honolulu Police Department which has cannabis advocates up in arms, so to speak.
The Honolulu Police Department letter, reportedly sent by the chief to 30 medical marijuana patients this year, gave them 30 days to “voluntarily surrender your firearms, permit and ammunition to the Honolulu Police Department (HPD) or otherwise transfer ownership.” Continue reading “An illegal combo: Firearm permits being denied to medical marijuana patients”
Washington Post – Anna Momigliano
MILAN — In Italy, as in most of western Europe, medical cannabis is legal. What sets the country apart is that cultivation of the plant is a de facto army monopoly.
The only place cannabis can be legally grown here is at a heavily guarded military facility in Florence where, this year, two greenhouses produced a yield of about 220 pounds. Continue reading “In Italy, the army provides medical marijuana. And that’s a problem.”
The Department of Justice unsealed an arrest warrant Friday for Jose Inez Garcia Zarate, the illegal immigrant acquitted Thursday in Kate Steinle’s murder trial.
Zarate was found not guilty of murdering Steinle on a pier in San Francisco in July 2015. Steinle was walking with her father and a family friend when she was shot, collapsing into her father’s arms. Continue reading “DOJ files arrest warrant for illegal immigrant acquitted in Kate Steinle case”
U.S. President Donald Trump is likely to deliver a speech on Wednesday recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a senior U.S. official said on Friday, a move that could upend decades of American policy and further inflame tensions in the Middle East.
Two administration officials said on Thursday that even as Trump was considering the controversial declaration, he was expected to again delay his campaign promise to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. The senior official and two other government sources said final decisions had not yet been made. Continue reading “Trump to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital: officials”
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Archive: TWFTT 12-1-17
The Justice Department is considering bringing federal charges against Jose Ines Garcia Zarate after his not guilty verdict in the Kate Steinle murder trial, department officials told Fox News on Friday.
A California jury acquitted Zarate of the more serious charges in the case, including murder, involuntary manslaughter and assault with a deadly weapon — only convicting him of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Continue reading “DOJ weighing federal charges in Kate Steinle murder case, after not guilty verdict”
“The political and intellectual history of modernity,” writes historian Robert Orsi, “is also always a religious history.” However, as significant and diverse recent scholarship is now bringing to light, narratives around the political, intellectual, and religious history of modernity often serve not only to illuminate the past, but also to obscure it through the authorization of specific forms of experience and knowledge. Continue reading “Erasing history: Delusional campus Zionist group depicts indigenous people united for Israel”
The Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, Member of Knesset Tzipi Hotovely, held meetings this week with representatives of YouTube and Google, to find ways of cooperating to censor Palestinian videos from occupied Palestine, videos she dubbed as “inciting violence and terrorism.”Israeli daily Maariv said Hotovely will be working with Google and YouTube officials in a joint mechanism that will be in charge of “monitoring and preventing” any publication of materials deemed by Tel Aviv to be “inflammatory.”
Hotovely announced in a Hebrew-only press release that she met with YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, and Google’s Director of Public Policy, Jennifer Oztzistzki, at Google’s Silicon Valley Offices. Continue reading “Israel To Coordinate With Google, YouTube, To Censor Palestinian Videos Of Conflict”
Ben & Jerry’s are combining ice cream with identity politics political campaigning…because society is in constant need of liberal left indoctrination, even as they enjoy their ice cream.
Ben & Jerry’s is now campaigning to take in more refugees by placing pro-migration slogans on their ice cream tubs, virtue signaling to the liberal left, and ultimately allowing identity politics to infect their brand…which will certainly not end well for the iconic ice cream brand. Continue reading “Ben & Jerry’s ice cream places “Refugees Welcome” message on product”
Just a few decades ago, citizens who wanted to stay on top of the daily news had a narrow range of options. They could read a newspaper, watch an evening network newscast, or maybe just have a conversation with a trusted neighbor or co-worker. Today, the digital world today has created a Wild West of information resources. One could question, however, whether we’re really more informed compared to pre-digital news consumers.
Much depends on the quality of the gatekeepers who determine what news topics get traction in the public mindset. Those media agenda setters used to be grizzled, professional journalists who understood news and public dialogue. Sure, power was centralized in the hands and heads of powerful news editors of the big television networks, wire service and major dailies. But, at least, they were journalists who had some conception of their civic duties as public surrogates and had the noses to sniff out news of substance. Continue reading “Google, Facebook and Drudge: What the new titans of media mean for America”