From the Trenches World Report

Miami New Times – by Jerry Iannelli

For years, Bruce M. Bagley has taught in the University of Miami’s International Studies program. He’s one of the nation’s foremost experts on money laundering in Latin America.

That might be because, at least according to the FBI, he’s been helping to launder money out of Latin America. Today federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged Bagley with laundering nearly $3 million in dirty money out of Venezuela between November 2017 and October 2018. Bloomberg first reported on the charges this afternoon. Continue reading “University of Miami Money-Laundering Expert Charged With Money Laundering”

Daily Star – by Michael Moran

Who owns America? That depends who you ask.

A growing body of opinion points to an obscure, but immensely powerful organisation called CEDE and Company.

This small New York based financial institution has a dozen directors and no more than a half dozen employees but holds, according to some reports, some 34 trillion dollars in assets.  Continue reading “The secret trillion-dollar company that owns America”

A driver was stuck in a traffic jam on the highway outside Washington, DC Nothing was moving.

Suddenly, a man knocks on the window.

The driver rolls down the window and asks, “What’s going on?”  Continue reading “Seriously, just a joke”

ArsTechnica – by Timothy B Lee

Back in 2012, the US Supreme Court ruled that it’s illegal for the police to attach a GPS tracking device to someone’s car without a warrant. But what if you find a GPS tracking device on your car? Can you remove it?

A little more than a year ago, the state of Indiana charged a suspected drug dealer with theft for removing a government-owned GPS tracking device from his SUV. This month, the state’s Supreme Court began considering the case, and some justices seemed skeptical of the government’s argument.  Continue reading “Cops put GPS tracker on man’s car, charge him with theft for removing it”

Yahoo News

(Bloomberg) — In the end, the unraveling economics of U.S. coal proved too much for even a giant among power generators to handle.

At 12:09 p.m. local time on Monday — after churning out electricity for almost five decades — the largest coal-fired power plant in the western U.S. permanently closed, becoming the latest testament to the fossil fuel’s decline. Once a flash point in President Donald Trump’s campaign to save America’s coal industry, the Navajo complex in the Arizona desert will now spend the next three years being dismantled and decommissioned.  Continue reading “A Massive Coal Plant That Asked for Trump’s Help Has Gone Dark”

Political Flare – by Andrea Jefferson

Donald Trump’s personal pastor and spiritual advisor Paula White is asking followers to give her $229 in order to receive “prophetic instruction” on how to defeat the enemies in their lives this November.

In an email to her newsletter subscribers Thursday, White said she has “prayerfully focused on November as a month for a victory over enemies” and said dark spiritual forces are stopping her believers from achieving a “complete breakthrough in every area of your life.”  Continue reading “WH Employee Paula White Implores Everyone to Send Her $229 Immediately (Or $31 If You’re Poor)”

Forbes – by Zak Doffman

In June, I reported on the China Tribunal in London, which found evidence of “forced organ harvesting” from Chinese prisoners, including Falun Gong and Uighur Muslims. The Tribunal’s final judgment concluded that this “forced organ harvesting has been committed for years… on a significant scale.” China has said that the practice has been outlawed, replaced with a system of voluntary donations. But a new report, published on November 14 in the BMC Medical Ethics journal, has refuted this, alleging that those claims of reform are being supported by the “systematic falsification and manipulation of official organ transplant datasets in China.”  Continue reading “China Killing Prisoners To Harvest Organs For Transplant: BMC Report Accuses China Of ‘Falsifying’ Data”

Mises – by Tho Bishop

Recent protests in Hong Kong, along with the resulting fall out from international corporations questioned for their relationships with mainland China, has placed a renewed focus on the authoritarianism of the Chinese Communist Party. This has led to several articles identifying ways in which Western countries have learned from the CCP, including Europe’s growing embrace of web censorship and growing interest in the social credit system rolled out in 2018. Given that it wasn’t that long ago that it was common to see Western leaders and neoliberal commentators openly envy aspects of the Chinese political system, these concerns are certainly worth exploring. What should be of equal interest, however, is the ways China may be learning from the West. Continue reading “Globalist-Endorsed War on Cash May Be China’s Next Terrifying Weapon”

Breitbart – by John Binder

New York’s latest criminal justice reform plan will release suspects accused of second-degree manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, child sex crimes, and making threats of terrorism without ever having to post bail.

The state’s series of bail reforms, set to go into effect January 2020, will ensure that suspects accused of crimes deemed “non-violent” are not jailed before their trial dates and do not have to post bail.  Continue reading “New York Jailbreak Law to Free Suspects Accused of Manslaughter, Negligent Homicide, Child Sex Crimes”

Let’s face it; buying a new car in today’s environment is something akin to insanity. The cars today are for the most part, impossible to work on unless you are a professional technician trained to diagnose via the new computer systems. These systems require expensive diagnostic equipment costing in the thousands of dollars, on top of the insane sticker price of the car.

The auto manufacturers have designed these new cars around computer platforms that quite frankly require us to attend diagnosis workshops so we at least deal with the check engine light intelligently, and all of this cost big money.  Continue reading “To Be Happy In America Today, You Need To Steal, Cheat And Con Everybody You Come In Contact With.”

Middle East Eye

Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank are not “inconsistent with international law”, Mike Pompeo has announced, in a move that rolls back decades of policy in Washington and was immediately condemned by Palestine advocates.

The US Secretary of State said on Monday that the Trump administration believes “that what we’ve done today has recognised the reality on the ground”.  Continue reading “Israeli settlements do not violate international law, Pompeo says”

Middle East Monitor

An Israeli attack on Gaza was imminent, and not because of any provocations by Palestinian groups in the besieged, impoverished Gaza Strip. The Israeli military escalation was foreseeable because it factors neatly in Israel’s contentious political scene. The war was not a question of “if”, but “when”.

The answer came on November 12, when the Israeli military launched a major strike against Gaza, killing an Islamic Jihad Commander, Bahaa Abu al-Ata, along with his wife Asma.  Continue reading “How Western media bias allows Israel to getaway with murder in Gaza”

Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden

A shocking shooting rocked the mid-sized California city of Fresno Sunday night when a gunman shot at least 10 people attending a backyard barbecue, killing four and wounding six, according to CNN.

About 40 guests were in attendance at the party, where they were watching football and enjoying their Sunday, when suddenly a number of gunmen interrupted the festivities – they arrived out of nowhere and just started shooting.  Continue reading “4 Killed In Fresno After Backyard Mass Shooting; Suspects Still At Large”