From the Trenches World Report

Middle East Monitor

Former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman does not rule out that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will retire from politics if he is indicted over corruption charges before the general election in April.

“Although it’s fair to say that the decision is taken to bring charges against Benjamin Netanyahu before the election, his chances of forming a government will be zero,” Israeli daily Yedioth Aharonoth quoted Lieberman as saying.   Continue reading “Lieberman: Israel PM to ‘retire’ if indicted over graft”

Town Hall – by Beth Baumann

Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said he refused to enforce Washington State’s latest gun control law, I-1639. According to the Sheriff’s office, a person called into Crime Stoppers to report a threat made on Facebook.

“Sheriff Knezovich is going to get a bullet in his skull,” the post allegedly read. The caller also said he’d shoot anyone who disagrees with I-1639.   Continue reading “Here’s Why Sheriffs In Washington State Are Now Receiving Death Threats”

RT

A landmark legal battle is set to unfold between a mother-of-two who says she was arrested for identifying a transgender woman as male, and the alleged victim who has repeatedly reported Twitter users to police for harassment.

38-year-old Kate Scottow from Hertfordshire says that her life has been turned upside down since police arrived at her house on December 1 last year to arrest her, bring her to a station, take her DNA and fingerprints, before opening an investigation that still hasn’t been resolved.   Continue reading “UK woman says she was held by police for 7 hours after ‘misgendering’ trans activist on Twitter”

The Telegraph – by Sarah Knapton

Smart speakers like Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri are to be used by the NHS to analyse patient conversations and spot if they suicidal, it has emerged.

A new report published today into the technological future of the health service has called for trusts to embrace robots and artificial intelligence and said that London was already planning to embed AI into its mental health services to pick up those in danger of self harm.   Continue reading “Alexa-like bots will listen out for suicidal patients under NHS technology revolution”

Middle East Monitor

The ex-Saudi Intelligence Chief Turki Al-Faisal this weekend revealed that secret relations between Israel and a number of Gulf states date back as far as 25 years.

According to Qatari newspaper Al-Arab, Al-Faisal was interviewed by Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, who claims to have conducted interviews with 20 prominent Gulf officials with knowledge of secret relations with Israel. However, many of these people refused to speak to the camera, Israel’s Channel 13 reported.   Continue reading “Ex-Saudi intelligence chief reveals secret Israel-Saudi relations”

Houston Chronicle

First of three parts

Thirty-five years later, Debbie Vasquez’s voice trembled as she described her trauma to a group of Southern Baptist leaders.

She was 14, she said, when she was first molested by her pastor in Sanger, a tiny prairie town an hour north of Dallas. It was the first of many assaults that Vasquez said destroyed her teenage years and, at 18, left her pregnant by the Southern Baptist pastor, a married man more than a dozen years older.   Continue reading “20 years, 700 victims: Southern Baptist sexual abuse spreads as leaders resist reforms”

PEW Trusts

Lawmakers in 27 states passed 67 new laws aimed at restricting gun access this year.

This latest analysis by the Giffords Law Center, a gun control organization founded by former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, the Arizona Democrat who survived a shooting in 2011, shows the unparalleled success the gun control movement has had this year, in the wake of continued mass shootings.   Continue reading “States Passed 67 New Gun Control Laws in 2018”

Oil and Gas Journal – by Nick Snow

US Bureau of Land Management state offices generated more than $1.1 billion of revenue from onshore oil and gas lease sales during 2018, a record amount nearly triple the previous record of $408 million for the comparable period in 2008, Acting Interior Sec. David Bernhardt announced on Feb. 6.

Bonus bids from the 28 oil and gas lease sales during calendar 2018 came to a preliminary $1,151,109,064 for 1,412 parcels, covering almost 1.5 million acres, he said in Hobbs, NM.  Continue reading “BLM reports record-breaking onshore oil, gas lease revenue in 2018”

The Organic Prepper

While we would love to be able to trust the liquid flowing from our faucets, anyone who pays even half-hearted attention to the news knows that we can no longer expect safety in our drinking water unless we confirm it ourselves.

The EPA and Michigan’s Gov. Snyder really added to the list of reasons that I have trust issues. Water is one of the most important survival topics around – it’s so important to me that I wrote an entire book about it.   Continue reading “How to Test Your Drinking Water (And Why You Should Do It)”

NBC News

Freshman Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota — one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress last fall — is accused of sending a string of “anti-Semitic” tweets regarding the Israeli lobby in the U.S.

Omar, a proponent of the BDS — Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions — movement aimed at putting economic and political pressure on Israel over its treatment of Palestinians, first tweeted Sunday night that money was driving U.S. politicians to defend Israel.   Continue reading “Freshman Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar accused of sending ‘anti-Semitic’ tweets”

Breitbart – by John Binder

The United States could suspend all legal immigration to the country for the next 40 years and maintain a workforce where there are still more than two U.S. workers for every one retiree, a new study finds.

The latest study by the Center for Immigration Studies’ Steven Camarota reveals that despite claims by the big business lobby, Wall St., and corporate executives that mass legal immigration is necessary to maintain a sizeable workforce, current legal immigration trends have little to no impact on the working-age population.  Continue reading “Study: Ending All Legal Immigration for 40 Years Maintains U.S. Workforce”

The Great Recession

As happened with the first housing market crash that began in 2007 but didn’t become widely recognized until mid-2008, the present housing crisis began exploding one story at a time last summer, and this blog was perhaps the first to state that summer’s change was the turning point from decades of ascent into a collapse in housing sales and prices. I said the same thing back in 2007, and people didn’t believe me then either.   Continue reading “Housing Market Crash 2.0: The Jury is in for 2018-2019”

Chicago Tribune – by Jeremy Gorner

Facing allegations that officers under him were baby-sitting his special-needs son, the Chicago police commander gave a novel explanation: He was conducting a secret study.

Grand Central District Cmdr. Anthony Escamilla acknowledged he had on-duty officers pick up his teenage son, who has autism, but insisted he worked as a volunteer in the community policing office.   Continue reading “Accused of having his officers baby-sit his son, Chicago police commander said it was really a secret study”

MSN

Firing an AK-47 semiautomatic pistol through an opening in the door to his south side flat, suspected gun dealer Jordan P. Fricke killed Milwaukee Police Officer Matthew Rittner with a shot that pierced his aorta and both lungs, a criminal complaint filed Sunday said.

Fricke fired the Serbian-made weapon through the hole — opened by Rittner with a battering ram — despite officers repeatedly yelling “Police!” and “Search warrant!” the complaint said. Continue reading “Jordan Fricke fired AK-47 pistol through door at Officer Matthew Rittner, criminal complaint says”