From the Trenches World Report

Miami Herald – by Kimberly Kelly, Wesley Lowery, Steven Rich

Since 2006, the nation’s largest police departments have fired at least 1,881 officers for misconduct that betrayed the public’s trust, from cheating on overtime to unjustified shootings. But The Washington Post has found that departments have been forced to reinstate more than 450 officers after appeals required by union contracts.

Most of the officers regained their jobs when police chiefs were overruled by arbitrators, typically lawyers hired to review the process. In many cases, the underlying misconduct was undisputed, but arbitrators often concluded that the firings were unjustified because departments had been too harsh, missed deadlines, lacked sufficient evidence or failed to interview witnesses.    Continue reading “Police departments forced to take back hundreds of officers fired for misconduct”

Fox News – by Hans A. von Spakovsky

Washington, D.C. residents, you don’t have to holster your Second Amendment rights anymore.  Unfortunately, residents of many other states like California don’t have the same ability that D.C. residents now do to protect themselves.

In a stirring victory for those who live in the national’s capital, a panel of the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals recently threw out a D.C. ordinance that denied concealed-carry permits to anyone who could not show a “special” need for self-defense, what is referred to as a “good reason” requirement.  The problem is that other courts of appeal have upheld such restrictive laws and the U.S. Supreme Court has turned down appeals of those decisions, refusing to take up the issue of the Second Amendment’s application to carrying a weapon outside of the home.   Continue reading “The Second Amendment has won (again) in Washington. So why won’t the Supreme Court fully enforce it?”

Daily Mail

The Tesla Model 3 has the potential to spy on you as you drive, with the automaker secretly installing a driver-facing camera in the rear view mirror of each vehicle.

The cameras, which Tesla claims are currently deactivated, could be used to monitor the driver’s attention span during autonomous journeys.

Tesla has remained tight-lipped as to the purpose of the cameras, and made no mention of the devices during the firm’s launch of the Model 3 last week.   Continue reading “Tesla’s Model 3 cars have secret cameras installed in the rear view mirror to watch drivers”

McClatchy DC – by Tim Johnson

LAS VEGAS – If you’re prone to forgetting your card key for the office or your computer password, here’s a solution: Get a microchip implanted in your hand.

That’s what Brian McEvoy has done multiple times. He’s got five implants, mostly for functional reasons but one just for fun.

“There’s a glow-in-the-dark implant on the back of my right hand,” said McEvoy, a 36-year-old electrical engineer from St. Paul, Minnesota.
Continue reading “Dawn of the bionic age: Body hackers let chips get under their skin”

Time – by Phillip Eliott

After trying to go-it-alone on a failed health care repeal, the White House is cozying up to the outside conservative groups that many in the Administration distrust or feel were insufficiently supportive during the 2016 campaign. If President Trump is going to prevail on his other goals, like tax reform, he will need this kind of boost from potential allies.

On Friday, the White House plans to announce it is sending Vice President Mike Pence to a major gathering of tea party-minded activists in Richmond, Va., on Aug. 19. Organized by Americans for Prosperity, the Defending the American Dream confab is one of the largest public-facing events linked to the political and policy network convened by billionaires Charles and David Koch. The conference tends to set the tone for the year among the more than 2 million grassroot activists who push for lower taxes, less regulation and fewer subsidies.   Continue reading “Vice President Mike Pence to Headline Koch Summit”

The Organic Prepper

Everyone has heard of those crazy folks who are all ready to hunker down in a bunker with some buckets of freeze-dried food and a bunch of guns – it’s the fodder of quirky news stories and the avatar of many a deranged serial killer in the movies. So how does a perfectly normal person end up turning into a survivalist prepper?

I get asked this a lot because I come across as fairly normal and sane. But, despite my average-mom exterior, I’ve been a prepper for more than 20 years and there’s most likely a gun tucked away in my girlie-looking purse.   Continue reading “How a Nice Girl Like Me Turned Into a Gun-Toting Survivalist Prepper”

Translation: No government can be effective in robbing and tyrannizing a people when it cannot operate in secret.

Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden

On the surface the July jobs report was solid, with 209K jobs added, more than the expected, as the recent auto sector slowdown appears to skip the labor market (for now), with Trump quick to take credit for the report.   Continue reading “The Amazon Effect: Part Time Jobs Soar By 393K, Full Time Jobs Slide”

Sent to us by the author.

Educate Yourself – by Ken Adachi

I talked on the phone today to a woman who’s being victimized as a Targeted Individual after filing for divorce from her husband, who came from a wealthy banking family. Among other injustices she has suffered, she told me that when her brother attempted to send her $8,000 in cash by FedEx to help her in May of 2016, it was stolen from her by Homeland Security.   Continue reading “Sen. Charles Grassley Betrays His Conservative Constituency by Sponsoring SB. 1241, Latest ‘Asset Forfeiture’ Scheme to Rob Citizens of Their Cash, Freedom and Privacy”

Free Thought Project – by Jay Syrmopoulos

Detroit, MI – Nikita Smith filed a lawsuit against the Detroit Police Department after they killed her three dogs during a raid of her home in search of pot last year. On Wednesday, a judge absurdly ruled the dogs were considered “contraband,” noting that Smith had no legal basis to sue the police department for shooting and killing her dogs, due to the canines not having been properly licensed.

Subsequently, the federal civil rights lawsuit filed by Smith after a raid of her home by the Detroit police was dismissed by U.S. District Court Judge George Caram Steeh.   Continue reading “Federal Court Rules Unlicensed Pets are ‘Contraband’ — Police Can Legally Kill Them”

The Daily Sheeple – by Will Porter

A former chief investigator at Guantanamo Bay is accusing the Defense Department of withholding the publication of his book, which covers the use of “enhanced interrogation” techniques at the facility, as well as the advocacy of what the author deems torture from top U.S. officials, Reuters reports.

The book, entitled “Unjustifiable Means,” according to its author Mark Fallon, contains no classified information, but instead details the internal decision-making process regarding the use of “enhanced interrogation” and identifies officials who advocated such techniques.   Continue reading “Pentagon Suppresses Release of Book on Torture”

The Guardian – by Jonathan Watts and John Vidal

Last year was the most perilous ever for people defending their community’s land, natural resources or wildlife, with new research showing that environmental defenders are being killed at the rate of almost four a week across the world.

Two hundred environmental activists, wildlife rangers and indigenous leaders trying to protect their land were killed in 2016, according to the watchdog group Global Witness – more than double the number killed five years ago.   Continue reading “Environmental defenders being killed in record numbers globally, new research reveals”

This is pretty interesting.

Even if Miles Mathis is only half right in what he wrote about Benjamin Franklin, he’s still probably closer to the truth than anything we read in history books in school.

Benjamin Franklin – Premier British Spook

Bloomberg – by Jennifer Kaplan

American Green Inc., a maker of cannabis products, is taking an unusual step to attract new customers as it capitalizes on California legalizing marijuana: It’s buying an entire town.

The company has acquired the tiny burg of Nipton, California, for about $5 million and plans to invest as much as $2.5 million over the next 18 months to create a pot-friendly tourist destination. The purchase includes 120 acres of land with a general store, a hotel, a school building and mineral baths.   Continue reading “Cannabis Grower Buys California Town to Build Pot-Friendly Outpost”

Fox News

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has impaneled a grand jury to investigate Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

The move is seen as a sign the investigation into election interference and possible collusion with the Trump campaign is heating up and entering a new phase. Reuters also reported that grand jury subpoenas have been issued in connection with the meeting Donald Trump Jr. had with a Russian lawyer and others last year.    Continue reading “Mueller reportedly impanels grand jury in Russia probe”

CBS Denver

DENVER (CBS4)– Dozens of people filled the room where the Denver City Council met on Wednesday to consider taking a stance on protecting immigrants from federal agents. The safety committee passed the ordinance by a vote of 6-1.

This comes on the same day as Pres. Donald Trump endorsed the RAISE Act, an immigration bill aimed at reducing legal immigration overall, and give priority to English-speaking applicants.   Continue reading “Denver City Council Considers Stance On Protecting Immigrants From Federal Agents”

SHTF Plan – by Mac Slavo

Stating that the content is “controversial,” not the censorship itself, YouTube has taken the first few steps to censor dissenting views. But it gets worse.  YouTube will also begin to censor your searches and fill the results with propaganda while on its website.

Last night, YouTube took to its “Official Blog” to more or less announce that they would be taking steps to censor content they determined to be “controversial,” even if that content didn’t break any laws or violate the site’s user agreement.  The message made a pledge to be part of an effort to “fight terror content online.” But the move was rightly met with widespread skepticism among YouTuber’s as nothing more than a thinly-veiled attempt to censor conservative speech.   Continue reading “YouTube Takes Controversial Steps To Censor Non-Leftists”