From the Trenches World Report

I always write down contact info for the surveys I take and often send emails to the survey providers to set them straight. Yesterday I was very frustrated and sent the following email:

I am a 53 year old woman with an associates degree and regularly take surveys. This morning I was happy to agree to take your survey after reading that there are no right or wrong answers because you are only seeking opinions. As I proceeded to take the survey I came to a question about my political affiliation. I checked the box marked “other” and typed in “Bill of Rights”. After this I was rejected from the survey. Is it your opinion that American nationals must be either democrat or republican? If so, I am afraid you have been misled.  Continue reading “This made me smile”

The Drive – by Tyler Rogoway

The inbox here at The War Zone can be pretty interesting on any given morning, but today’s correspondence featured something you definitely don’t see every day—an entire Patriot air defense battery sprawled out on a runway at a small regional airport. Apparently, very few people, if anyone, at Easterwood Airport in College Station, Texas knew exactly what was going on with the sudden deployment of the Army’s preeminent air defense system, either.

“Nobody knows anything, they just showed up” one commercial pilot that flies in and out of Easterwood daily told The War Zone.
Continue reading “Patriot Missile Battery Suddenly Appears At Small Regional Airport In Texas”

Fox News

China has vowed to retaliate if the U.S. proceeds with the sale of advanced weaponry to Taiwan worth more than a billion dollars.

The statement from China’s defense ministry gave no specifics, but the development marks a further deterioration in ties between Beijing and Washington that have hit their lowest ebb in decades. Continue reading “China vows retaliation if US proceeds with Taiwan arms sale”

Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden

A 19-year-old man was arrested in North Carolina after local police found guns, ammo, and explosives inside an abandoned van. Court documents, seen by local television network Fox8, allege the man had intentions to carry out acts of terrorism, including a possible plan to assassinate Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden.

According to federal court documents, the man, Alexander Hillel Treisman, was arrested at the end of May when Kannapolis Police Department (KPD) found an abandoned van stashed with an AR-15 style rifle, a handgun, ammunition, explosives, night vision goggles, and rifle parts at a Fifth Third Bank’s parking lot in Kannapolis, North Carolina.  Continue reading “Man Who Researched Killing Joe Biden Arrested After Cops Find Van Full Of Guns, Ammo, And Explosives”

North Jersey

Gov. Phil Murphy acknowledged Thursday that he did not wear a mask — because he was eating and drinking — at an event where he came into contact with a senior staff member who later tested positive for COVID-19, forcing the governor to quarantine.

But Murphy has tested negative twice since the encounter and has shown no symptoms, he said.   Continue reading “Gov. Murphy was eating, drinking, not wearing mask at event where he was exposed to COVID”

Yahoo News

Hundreds of fire crews are battling a blaze in Northern Colorado that grew dramatically Wednesday, producing heavy smoke and flames. The town of Grand Lake had to evacuate at short notice Wednesday night, and part of Rocky Mountain National Park is now closed.

The wildfire is burning an estimated 6,000 acres per hour.  Continue reading “Colorado wildfire burning 6,000 acres per hour is “getting worse””

Breitbart – by John Binder

President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have issued a final regulatory rule that bans convicted felons, gang members, and domestic abusers from securing asylum to remain in the United States.

The rule, DOJ and DHS officials announced this week, ensures that foreign nationals convicted of certain crimes are not allowed to obtain asylum in the U.S. The rule takes effect in about a month. Continue reading “Trump Bans Convicted Felons, Gang Members from Securing Asylum in U.S.”

NBC News

WASHINGTON — A cybersecurity company says it has found a hacker selling personally identifying information of more than 200 million Americans, including the voter registration data of 186 million.

The revelation underscored how vulnerable Americans are to email targeting by criminals and foreign adversaries, even as U.S. officials announced that Iran and Russia had obtained voter registration data and email addresses with an eye toward interfering in the 2020 election. Continue reading “Cybersecurity company finds hacker selling info on 186 million U.S. voters”

RT

A group of researchers in the US is sounding the alarm over several coronavirus vaccines currently undergoing clinical trials, warning that they may increase the risk of contracting HIV in subjects who take them.

At least four of the current batch of Covid-19 vaccines in development at the clinical trial stage might increase patients’ risk of contracting HIV, according to a team of scientists led by Susan Buchbinder, a University of California San Francisco professor and head of HIV Prevention Research at the San Francisco Department of Public Health. One of the vaccines is on the verge of phase 3 studies in Russia and Pakistan.  Continue reading “Cure worse than disease? Some Covid-19 vaccines may increase HIV risk, scientists warn”

RT

The Korean Medical Association has called on the country’s government to halt its plan to inoculate millions of citizens after more than two dozen people died after receiving flu shots.

The vaccine initiative, billed as a strategy to potentially offset complications from Covid-19, aims to provide free flu jabs to 19 million people. But the ambitious undertaking has come under fire after 25 people died, including a 17-year-old boy and a man in his 70s, after participating in the program. The number jumped from 12 deaths reported earlier on Thursday. Continue reading “South Korean’s medical association urges govt to suspend flu shot program after 25 people die following jab”

The Guardian

A court document containing potentially sensitive information about Ghislaine Maxwell and her relationship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unsealed on Thursday morning in New York just moments before a court-imposed deadline.

About a dozen long-awaited Maxwell files have been unsealed, with the first filing involving Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre’s lawyer alleging the British socialite avoided a question “about allegedly ‘adult’ sexual activity related to Jeffrey Epstein  Continue reading “Ghislaine Maxwell deposition unsealed after court ruling”

CDPH

This guidance provides an updated plan for Californians to gather outside their household and replaces the prior gatherings guidance issued on September 12, 2020 and March 16, 2020. It applies to private gatherings, and all other gatherings not covered by existing sector guidance are prohibited. Gatherings are defined as social situations that bring together people from different households at the same time in a single space or place.  When people from different households mix, this increases the risk of transmission of COVID-19. Continue reading “California “rules” regarding holiday gatherings”

Wall Street Journal – by Costas Paris, Jared S. Hopkins

In Kalamazoo, Mich., a stretch of land the size of a football field has been turned into a staging ground outfitted with 350 large freezers, ready to take delivery of millions of doses of Covid-19 vaccine before they can be shipped around the world.

The facility is a hub in the sprawling supply chain Pfizer Inc. has built to handle the delivery of a vaccine widely awaited as a possible relief from the coronavirus pandemic. The U.S. pharmaceutical giant says it wants to deliver up to 100 million doses this year and another 1.3 billion in 2021. Continue reading “Pfizer Sets Up Its ‘Biggest Ever’ Vaccination Distribution Campaign”

AP

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — Coronavirus cases are rising so fast in North Dakota that it’s taking officials up to three days to notify people after they test positive, and as a result the state has fallen behind on tracing their close contacts who might have been exposed.

Republican Gov. Doug Burgum and the North Dakota Department of Health announced late Tuesday that they’re shifting 50 National Guard members who had been working in contract tracing to simply notifying people who test positive. Public health officials will no longer notify close contacts of people who tested positive; instead those individuals will be instructed to notify their close contacts themselves and direct those people to the department’s website. Continue reading “North Dakota scrambles to speed up virus test notifications”