From the Trenches World Report

RT News

Protesting Walmart’s tax privileges as it pays its workers notoriously low wages, the store’s employees and others have delivered a $7.8 billion “tax bill” to the Arizona home of the retail giant’s chairman, Rob Walton.

A report released this week showed Walmart is the beneficiary of $7.8 billion a year in tax breaks and subsidies from the US tax system. Employees of the retail giant and others used the opportunity to remind Walmart heir Walton how many of the company’s workers are forced to depend on social programs to get by, while Walmart reaps billions in profits.   Continue reading “Walmart employees deliver chairman $7.8 bn ‘tax bill’ for company’s tax breaks”

RT News

“Searching for an apartment in New York City can be challenging,” the prestigious New York University acknowledges on its website’s “Off Campus Living” page. On the contrary, the son of the school’s president apparently didn’t have any problem.

According to the New York Post, that cautionary understatement on the official NYU site hardly applied to Jed Sexton — a Harvard-educated aspiring actor who in 2002 miraculously happened upon a newly renovated duplex embedded right between NYU’s facilities in the heart of Manhattan’s Greenwich Village.   Continue reading “NYU president turned faculty apartments into a duplex for his son”

RT News

The United States Navy announced that it will postpone the commissioning of its new nuclear-powered submarine, the North Dakota, due to an investigation into the quality of the components developed by the weapons contractor.

Additionally, the Navy stated that further design work would be necessary before the submarine could be commissioned. The Virginia-class North Dakota was scheduled to enter active service in May, but no new date has been set.   Continue reading “Navy delays commissioning of new nuclear submarine, opens investigation”

CenturyLink – by John Rogers

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A former city official who became a symbol of municipal greed was sentenced Wednesday to 12 years in prison — less than half the time it will take the nearly bankrupt Los Angeles suburb of Bell to dig itself out of the estimated $150 million in debt he left behind.

A judge also ordered former Bell city manager Robert Rizzo to make $8.8 million in restitution, but prosecutors say that only covers the money he illegally took for himself.   Continue reading “Ex-official leaves huge debt for California city”

Newsmax – by Todd Beamon

The campaign to effectively end the Electoral College’s role in presidential elections has received an additional boost from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomo signed the National Popular Vote Compact on Tuesday, under which the state would award its 29 electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote.   Continue reading “NY Gov. Cuomo Signs Law to Rig Electoral College”

Canada Free Press – by Gary Hunt

Late yesterday early evening, I received a message and link to on on-line article about the events at the Bundy’s Ranch.  I was asked if the article was accurate.  The article is at National Report and is titled “Multiple Militia Members Arrested at Bundy Ranch, Charged with Domestic Terrorism.”  The article, though no time stamp, appears to have been posted yesterday (April 15) at about 3:00 PM PDT.  It has no byline.   Continue reading “The Bundy Affair”

RT News

The United States Federal Reserve is usually the government office finding itself most often in the crosshairs of former Texas congressman Ron Paul, but now the longtime lawmaker is setting his sights on another agency: the Internal Revenue Service.

Paul’s relentless efforts to abolish the Fed have without a doubt been a hallmark of the 78-year-old libertarian’s career in Congress, but recent attempts from the IRS to compel a nonprofit organization run by the former presidential hopeful for details about its contributors has pushed him to pursue yet another fight with the federal government.   Continue reading “Ron Paul’s nonprofit refuses to disclose list of donors to the IRS”

RT News

Scientists are stumped as they try to determine exactly why the state of Idaho has been hit with hundreds of low- and medium-level earthquakes since late March.

The most powerful quake struck central Idaho on Saturday, April 12, when a 4.9 magnitude tremor shook walls and knocked objects off the tables. That quake was the strongest to hit the state since 2005, and was followed by another 4.4 magnitude quake on Monday – felt nearly 100 miles away by residents in Montana.   Continue reading “Central Idaho rocked by hundreds of earthquakes”

IB Times – by Angelo Young

LA Times – by Joel Rubin

Top Los Angeles police officials Tuesday publicly apologized to their civilian bosses for not promptly alerting them that officers had tampered with recording equipment in patrol cars to avoid being monitored.

LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and several top aides promised to monitor the problem more closely and vowed to be better about notifying the five-member police commission about such issues in the future.   Continue reading “LAPD apologizes to commission for not alerting it to tampering”

ProPublica – by Julia Angwin

The Heartbleed computer security bug is many things: a catastrophic tech failure, an open invitation to criminal hackers and yet another reason to upgrade our passwords on dozens of websites. But more than anything else, Heartbleed reveals our neglect of Internet security.

The United States spends more than $50 billion a year on spying and intelligence, while the folks who build important defense software — in this case a program called OpenSSL that ensures that your connection to a website is encrypted — are four core programmers, only one of whom calls it a full-time job.   Continue reading “The U.S. Government: Paying to Undermine Internet Security, Not to Fix It”

Truth News International

David COHEN POSEL, you have already LOST your self-declared “war” and you don’t even realize it yet. Give it up before you hurt yourself more than is necessary and than you can handle because this “war” update below is merely a heads-up to BACK-OFF for it is a fact and promise that slowly but surely we will see to it that your sites will crumble if you really force us to. Back-off and we might allow you to further deceive your remaining readership.   Continue reading “Game Over: David COHEN POSEL (Occupy Corporatism – US Independent) Exposed as “Global Depopulation Policy” Pawn”

1. At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car With Sunglasses on and point a Hair Dryer At Passing Cars…watch ’em Slow Down!

2. On all your check stubs, write ‘For Marijuana’!

3. Skip down the street rather than walk and see how many looks you get.   Continue reading “How To Maintain A Healthy Level Of Insanity in Retirement”

Portland Press Herald – by Gillian Graham

SANFORD — The federal government is trying to revoke the license of a gun store owner who refused to allow a federal agent to copy gun records during a compliance inspection last year.

Phil Chabot, who owns Pac N Arms on Emery Street in Sanford, was issued a notice of revocation in February by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The bureau got a warrant to search Chabot’s store in February, and court records indicate he is suspected of making “straw sales” – sales through an intermediary – to a convicted felon who was barred from buying or possessing guns.   Continue reading “Maine gun store may be shut for refusing to let ATF copy records”

Tech Dirt – by Mike Masnick

A few years ago, we wrote about the bizarre and quixotic effort by Florida businessman Christopher Comins to find any possible way to sue University of Florida student and blogger Matthew Frederick VanVoorhis for his blog post concerning a widely publicized event in which Comins shot two dogs in a field (video link). The story made lots of news at the time, but Comins didn’t go after any of the major media — instead targeting VanVoorhis for a defamation suit. The original blog post is “novelistic” but it’s difficult to see how it’s defamatory. Either way, Comins’ case was shot down on fairly specific procedural grounds: namely that Florida defamation law requires specific notice be given to media properties at least 5 days before a lawsuit is launched. Specifically, the law says:   Continue reading “Court Declares That, Yes, Bloggers Are Media”

Sovereign Man – by Simon Black

Here’s a guy you want to bet on– Li Ka-Shing.

Li is reportedly the richest person in Asia with a net worth well in excess of $30 billion, much of which he made being a shrewd property investor.

Li Ka-Shing was investing in mainland China back in the early 90s, way back before it became the trendy thing to do. Now, Li wants out of China. All of it.   Continue reading “The Richest Man In Asia Is Selling Everything in China”