Month: February 2018
Free Thought Project – by Rachel Blevins
As the city of San Francisco attempts to build new government housing on a former nuclear test site, an investigation has revealed that the contractors who were supposed to clean up the area intentionally botched the work, even going as far as to swap soil samples from contaminated sites with clean ones.
NBC Bay Area reported that the U.S. Navy is now admitting that the work completed by Tetra Tech, the contractor it hired to clean up the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, resulted in “evidence of potential data manipulation and falsification.” Continue reading “California Gov’t Caught Building Housing on Contaminated Nuclear Test Sites”
When you hear the word “patriot” do you think of someone who stands for the national anthem, perhaps serves in the Armed Forces, and loves their country? Well, “patriot” may become a dirty word if the new Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2018 becomes a law. (And it probably will – we’ve seen the unPatriot Act and the NDAA repeatedly pass with little more than a rustle of dissent. Continue reading “YOU Might Be Considered a Domestic Terrorist If This New Bill Passes”
As the wealthy continue sucking the country dry, the question now isn’t if the US will cease to provide a decent standard of living for its people. Rather it is how many people will be sacrificed on the way down.
In America, the richest nation in the world when measured by raw GDP, children are getting sick from living by open pools of raw sewage. This was one of many shocking findings by the United Nations late last year, following a two-week investigation into extreme poverty in the US. Continue reading “American decline: Open pools of raw sewage in the richest country in the world”
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Tens of thousands of revelers are expected on New Orleans streets for parades and rowdy fun as Mardi Gras caps the Carnival season in a city with a celebration of its own, its 300th anniversary.
The anniversary of this Louisiana port city will feature prominently in Fat Tuesday’s festivities. Rex, New Orleans’ oldest parading Carnival group, is celebrating the tricentennial with 21 of its 28 floats commemorating its history from those who lived in the area before Europeans settled it in 1718 to the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. Other floats in the Rex parade include one for St. Louis Cathedral, the descendant of a church built the year of the city’s founding, and the yellow fever, which killed more than 41,000 people between 1815 and 1905. Continue reading “Mardi Gras parade honors New Orleans’ tricentennial”
NEW YORK (AP) — A terrorist who set off small bombs in two states, including a pressure cooker device that blasted shrapnel across a New York City block, is set to be sentenced Tuesday to a mandatory term of life in prison.
Ahmad Khan Rahimi, who was born in Afghanistan but lived in New Jersey, injured 30 people when one of his bombs exploded in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood on a September night in 2016. A second bomb planted nearby did not detonate. Continue reading “Bomber faces life in prison for New York, New Jersey attacks”
KIRKLAND, Wash. (AP) — Bill and Melinda Gates, as the world’s top philanthropists, are rethinking their work in America as they confront what they consider their unsatisfactory track record on schools, the country’s growing inequity and a president they disagree with more than any other.
In an interview with The Associated Press, the couple said they’re concerned about President Donald Trump’s “America first” worldview. They’ve made known their differences with the president and his party on issues including foreign aid, taxes and protections for immigrant youth in the country illegally. Continue reading “Bill, Melinda Gates turn attention toward poverty in America”
Off the Grid News – by Kathy Bernier
I once heard a story about a young woman proudly showing off her new kitchen to her grandmother. The kitchen had the latest and greatest of everything—high-end range, refrigerator with water and ice through the door, gentle-glide drawers, and granite countertops.
As the older woman admired the kitchen, her granddaughter asked her, “Grandma, what is the thing you like most about it?” Continue reading “55 Things Your Grandparents Lived Without — Can You?”
To dodge its obligation, a state utility company paid a fancy law firm triple the amount of money required to fix damages caused by one of its trucks. It’s yet another example of government wasting taxpayer dollars, a senseless misuse of public funds that is all too common in government at all levels. It’s also a bizarre—and costly—struggle between one of the nation’s largest public power utilities and a small business owner whose security cameras captured the truck crushing the drainage system under the asphalt of her parking lot. The utility truck, which weighs nine tons, left a hole in the pavement and a broken drain pipe underground when it used the parking lot to turn around. Continue reading “Public Utility Avoids Fixing Damage by Paying Fancy Law Firm Triple the Money”
Randy’s family has set up a memorial for him in Bryan, TX on February 24th. It is NOT what he wanted in any way, form, or fashion. However, they don’t care. This is for Them and they will do it Their way. They don’t approve of what he wanted and don’t care what he wanted, much less me.
I am flying down on the 21st and back to NYC on the 28th (what would have been our 10th Wedding Anniversary) to perform my duty as Widow. I will drive the car back with his ashes later, when the weather is better and I get word from the National Cemetery in Houston.
The American Conservative – by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
WASHINGTON — There’s a lot of talk today about the feebleness of Congress, whether on its inability to pass real spending budgets or confront knotty but inevitably crucial issues like immigration. But there’s nothing that gets constitutionalists more agitated than lawmakers’ seeming abdication of their war powers.
“They are the invertebrate branch,” charged Bruce Fein, a constitutional scholar who moonlights as James Madison in rotating theater performances inside and outside the Beltway. “Pure cowardice,” he adds, once or twice for good measure. Continue reading “John Yoo: President Can Wage War Without Congressional Declaration”
Journalist Lee Stranahan reports that Carter Page, the subject of the FISA wiretap warrant, was an FBI employee from 2013 to 2016 who targeted the Russians prior to joining the Trump campaign. Therefore, when the FBI obtained the FISA warrant against Page, it was aware that he was not a Russian agent. -GEG
Continue reading “When the FBI Used FISA to Spy on Carter Page as A Suspected Russian Agent, It Knew Better Because He Had Been an FBI Employee Targeting the Russians”
WILLISTON, Vt. (AP) — A distraught man who was pointing a pistol at his own head was shot by police as he walked toward two officers next to a busy interstate and refused repeated commands to drop the weapon, state police said Monday.
The man died at a hospital shortly after the Sunday shooting in the breakdown lane of Interstate 89 in Bolton, said state police Col. Matthew Birmingham. Continue reading “Police: Man pointing gun at his own head killed by officers”
With the calm of global capital markets shattered in the past two weeks, the ongoing military conflict in the Middle East has taken an understandable back seat to monetary matters. And yet, tensions involving Syria, Iran and Israel continue to escalate, most notably with this weekend’s outright attack by Israel on Syria, allegedly in retaliation for an Iranian drone launch from a Syrian army base, and which led to the first downing of an Israeli F-16 jet in decades.
Yet what has so far prevented the proxy way from spinning out of control, was that Putin – as guarantor of the Syria-Iran axis on one hand, and Netanyahu as his nemesis on the other, had expressed restraint. For now. Continue reading “Russian Fighters Killed In Clash With US-Led Coalition Forces In Syria”
It had been a good day at the park. A miracle day, in fact, for our family. Our 5-year-old son, who is moderately autistic and prone to violent outbursts and self-injurious behavior, had sailed through the outing without a meltdown. So it was all the more shocking when the police approached us.
It was a Sunday, four days before Thanksgiving, and my mom was in town visiting. My son had a good morning, and feeling encouraged by that, we selected a new park to visit, the boardwalk on Lady Bird Lake in Austin. Continue reading “We had a great day at the park with our autistic son, until someone called the police”
BALTIMORE (AP) — Two Baltimore police detectives were convicted of robbery, racketeering, and conspiracy Monday in a trial that’s part of an ongoing federal investigation into corruption among rogue members of the city’s beleaguered police force.
After the jury foreman read the verdict following two days of deliberations, Detectives Daniel Hersl and Marcus Taylor were shackled and led out of U.S. District Court in Baltimore. Some of Hersl’s relatives burst into tears, while one of his victims called out: “Justice.” Continue reading “2 Baltimore detectives convicted of racketeering, robbery”
Free Thought Project – by Matt Agorist
Louisville, KY — A recent settlement paid out by the Kentucky State Police, highlights the utter importance of filming cops. A 68-year-old disabled man was accused of attacking police officers but video evidence showed the exact opposite.
The victim, Lewis Lyttle has since been paid $130,000 in taxpayer money because officers took turns kicking and punching him while he was in handcuffs. The suit was settled in October of last year, however, police have kept it secret and even lied about it. Continue reading “Disturbing Video Shows Cops Take Turns Beating a Disabled Elderly Man—In HANDCUFFS”
Free Thought Project – by Rachel Blevins
Olathe, KS – Police officers are making an attempt to keep from murdering innocent individuals who suffer from autism, by putting the burden on family members to ensure that their loved one with special needs is accompanied with a sticker.
The car stickers, which were created by the Take Me Home Program, are free for local residents. They help to warn officers that they are dealing with a “special needs person” who “may not respond to verbal commands.” The new initiative was announced in a Facebook post from the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office: Continue reading “Police Dept. Now Having Parents Label Their Autistic Kids So Cops Don’t Kill Them”