From the Trenches World Report

New York Times – by CAMPBELL ROBERTSON and FRANCES ROBLES

NEW ORLEANS — All last week, people were calling Louis Charbonnet to find out how they might avoid lying down at their funerals. Funeral directors have called; so have people with their own requests, such as the woman who wanted to be seen for the last time standing over her cooking pot.

The calls started coming in to the Charbonnet-Labat Funeral Home during its June 12 viewing for Miriam Burbank, who died at 53 and spent her service sitting at a table amid miniature New Orleans Saints helmets, with a can of Busch beer at one hand and a menthol cigarette between her fingers, just as she had spent a good number of her living days.   Continue reading “Rite of the Sitting Dead: Funeral Poses Mimic Life”

AOL

CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian court convicted three Al-Jazeera journalists and sentenced them to seven years in prison each on terrorism-related charges in a verdict Monday that stunned their families and raised international outrage, with a chorus of voices denouncing the ruling as a blow to freedom of expression.

The verdicts against Australian Peter Greste, Canadian-Egyptian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohammed came after a 5-month trial that Amnesty International described as a “sham.” The group called Monday’s rulings “a dark day for media freedom in Egypt.”   Continue reading “Egypt sentences 3 Al-Jazeera reporters to 7 years”

The War Room – by Tom Nichols

Ok, let’s stipulate up front: the Bush administration owns the invasion of Iraq and everything that happened because of it up through 2009. (I do not believe new presidents inherit all responsibility on Inauguration Day; there is a grace period. President Obama’s expired about three years ago, but leave that argument for another day.) When Megyn Kelley is pantsing former Vice President Dick Cheney on this, you know that even the conservatives have accepted at least that much.

On one thing, however, it’s important to set the record straight, and that’s the issue of “lies” about WMD, especially chemical weapons. It has now become pretty much the status of urban legend that no one was crazy enough to link Saddam Hussein to WMD and Al Qaeda terrorists until the Bush administration did it as a rationale — one of several — for the 2003 invasion. It makes for a great story, except for one problem.   Continue reading “Who started that story about Iraq, WMDs, and Al Qaeda? That’s right, Bill Clinton.”

CBS Detroit

DETROIT (WWJ) – It’s a basic human right: water. But could the United Nations soon help the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department provide the service to struggling customers?

Water department spokeswoman Curtrise Garner says it’s a possibility — but for now, the water bills must be paid.

“We do have programs that do help those that are just totally in need; can’t afford it — but we also know that there are also people who can’t afford it would can not pay and we know this because, once we shut water off, the next day they are in paying the bill in full. So we do know that that has become a habit as well,” said Garner.   Continue reading “Nearly Half Of Detroit Water Customers Can’t Pay Their Bill”

RT News

Nearly three years after an American drone strike in Yemen killed United States citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki, the official Department of Justice memorandum that justified the attack has finally been released.

A redacted version of the July 16, 2010 memo from the DOJ’s office of Legal Counsel to Attorney General Eric Holder was published on Monday this week, for the first time revealing the exact legal justification that the White House secretly relied on to authorize the done strike that killed Al-Awlaki, a suspected New Mexico-born Al-Qaeda official.   Continue reading “New York court releases government memo justifying drone killing of American citizen”

RT News

United States Senator Rand Pal (R-Kentucky) says jihadist wonderlands are sprouting up abroad, and American foreign policy is to blame.

The possible 2016 presidential contender was discussing the escalating crisis in Iraq on camera with CNN host Candy Crowley over the weekend when he condemned the notion that the American military should intervene further.   Continue reading “Rand Paul: US created ‘jihadist wonderland’ in Syria, Libya and Iraq”

RT News

After more than six years of failures and billions of dollars spent the US missile defense system managed by Boeing has successfully hit a mock enemy warhead over the Pacific, the US Defense Department confirmed.

“This is a very important step in our continuing efforts to improve and increase the reliability of our homeland ballistic missile defense system,” said Missile Defense Agency Director Vice Admiral James Syring, after a successful test of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system – the only US defensive system theoretically capable of intercepting intercontinental ballasting missiles midcourse.   Continue reading “First in 6 years: Troubled US missile defense system hits test target”

RT News

US Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington is “not responsible” for either the crisis in Libya, or violence in Iraq, where militants of the Al-Qaeda offshoot group ISIS are capturing cities one by one.

“The United States of America is not responsible for what happened in Libya, nor is it responsible for what is happening in Iraq today,” said Kerry at a press conference in Cairo after a short visit to Egypt for talks with its newly elected President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as part of his Middle East tour.   Continue reading “Kerry: US ‘not responsible’ for crisis in Iraq, Libya”

Mail.com

PINE HILL, Ala. (AP) — Burdened with Alabama’s highest unemployment rate, long abandoned by textile mills and furniture plants, Wilcox County desperately needs jobs.

They’re coming, and from a most unlikely place: Henan Province, China, 7,600 miles away. Henan’s Golden Dragon Precise Copper Tube Group opened a plant here last month. It will employ more than 300 in a county known less for job opportunities than for lakes filled with bass, pine forests rich with wild turkey and boar and muddy roads best negotiated in four-wheel-drive trucks.   Continue reading “Ni hao, y’all: US hinterlands woo Chinese firms”

Mail.com

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia’s top court weighed in Monday on the country’s longstanding fight over the word “Allah,” saying non-Muslims cannot use it to refer to God. But the government said hours later the judgment applied only to one newspaper at the center of the case, adding still more confusion to a deeply divisive debate over religious freedom in the Muslim-majority country.

In a 4-3 ruling, the Federal Court upheld a government ban on the use of the word Allah by non-Muslims in a case against The Herald, a Catholic Malay-language weekly. The court did not elaborate on the implication of its ruling, but the government issued a tersely worded statement saying it only applied to The Herald and that Malaysian Christians can still use the word Allah in churches.   Continue reading “Malaysia court upholds ‘Allah’ ban for non-Muslims”

Mail.com

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) — A Massachusetts mayor is calling for an end to refugee resettlement in his city, saying Somali families are putting pressure on already strained services in Springfield, a onetime industrial center where nearly a third of the population lives below the poverty line.

Mayor Domenic Sarno is the latest mayor to decry refugee resettlement, joining counterparts in New Hampshire in Maine in largely rare tensions with the State Department, which helps resettle refugees in communities across America.   Continue reading “Massachusetts mayor: Stop sending my city refugees”

As the invasion of our country continues down at the Southern border and as our country falls deeper into tyranny with an ever-growing authoritarian government, it is important for all of us to keep focused and to not lose sight on the meaning of who we are and what we are fighting for.

During the Bundy Ranch standoff, We the People got together as a militia and stood up to the tyrannical BLM and 200 Federal agents. With over 1500 militia members, we made them retreat quicker than a cluster of runaway chickens. We knew who our enemy was, who we were and what we were fighting for. We had the moral rule of law on our side and we won the battle. We knew it would definitely not be the last, but it was a wake-up call for all Americans throughout our country, as we have finally put our foot down and made one of the most ruthless authoritarian governments roll away faster than a dustball in the desert wind.    Continue reading “A Message To All Militia Members And Future Militia Members”

Mint Press – by Brandon Baker, Eco Watch

Research from Environment America shows that 2012 was a bigger year for toxic chemical dumping than most of us could have imagined.

Industrial facilities across the U.S. dumped more than 206 million pounds of toxic chemicals into waterways in 2012, according to the “Wasting Our Waterways” report. The figures about the nation, as a whole, are stark, as are figures about individual regions and companies. For instance, Tyson Foods Inc. alone dumped more than 18.5 million pounds—about 9 percent of the nationwide total.   Continue reading “Report Exposes Companies That Dumped 206 Million Pounds Of Toxic Chemicals Into U.S. Waterways”

Breitbart – by Kristen Tate

HOUSTON, Texas–Thousands of illegal immigrants are flooding the U.S.-Mexico border and the problem isn’t likely to get better anytime soon. In a mad dash to make it to the U.S., many of the Latino minors are hopping aboard a network of Mexican freight trains called “El Tren de la Muerte,” or Death Train. The phenomenon may support claims that the Obama Administration’s lax stance on immigration is encouraging thousands of children to put their lives at risk.

Children who travel via Death Train must jump onto a moving freight car. Minors who cannot successfully pull themselves onto the traveling cars fall onto the tracks–many are left with extreme injuries.   Continue reading “Illegal Immigrants Hopping on “Death Trains” Hoping for Amnesty”