From the Trenches World Report

RT News

Children as young as seven toil away in sweltering heat, harvesting pesticide-laden tobacco and facing high-volume nicotine exposure in the US south to satisfy the demand of global cigarette manufacturers, a report by the Human Rights Watch reveals.

The 138-page report, ‘Tobacco’s Hidden Children: Hazardous Child Labor in US Tobacco Farming’, gives a startling look of the often perilous conditions in which minors toil away in the United States’ tobacco heartland.   Continue reading “US child tobacco farms: 60hrs a week in heat, nicotine exposure”

RT News

Florida police are investigating an incident in which nearly two-dozen officers fired a torrent of bullets at two unarmed men, killing both of them, injuring other officers, and risking the lives of neighboring residents.

The incident began late last year, when Adrian Montesano reportedly robbed a Walgreens store at gunpoint and, in the aftermath, shot Miami Dade Police Officer Saul Rodriguez. Montesano took off in Rodriguez’s police vehicle after the shooting, dropped it off at his grandmother’s house, and fled again in a blue Volvo.   Continue reading “Miami cops fired hundreds of rounds, killing unarmed suspects and injuring two officers in crossfire”

Mail.com

SPARKS, Nev. (AP) — In less than 10 minutes after his mother dropped him off at school on the morning of Oct. 21, 2013, seventh-grader Jose Reyes and a popular middle school teacher lay on the school yard, dead from gunshot wounds. Two classmates were wounded and a school was in panic.

After seventh months and an exhaustive police investigation that produced a report of 1,300 pages, authorities on Tuesday released an in-depth report about the shooting that painted a picture of bullying, depression and a normal school day turning violent in the matter of minutes. Still, authorities aren’t sure they fully understand what motivated the 12-year-old Reyes to take his parents’ 9mm Ruger pistol and two magazines of ammunition to school that day.   Continue reading “Nevada school shooter left 2 suicide notes”

Reuters

A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday upheld a decision to refuse to allow the owners of a website titled “Stop! Islamization of America” to trademark the site’s name, in a case that legal experts think has implications for the long-running fight over the name of the Washington Redskins NFL team.

Tuesday’s case had its origin in 2011, when an examiner with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) refused to register the website name as a trademark, arguing that it could be disparaging to American Muslims. The decision was reviewed by the USPTO itself, and upheld.   Continue reading “U.S. court says trademarks can’t disparage religious, ethnic groups”

It Ain’t Holy Water

CBS Baltimore – by Meghan McCorkell

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Cracking down on curfews. Baltimore City may soon impose a tough new curfew for teens. City leaders say they want to keep kids off the streets but opponents say the new restrictions may be unconstitutional.

In a preliminary vote, the city council approved a bill that could make Baltimore’s curfew laws among some of the strictest in the country.   Continue reading “Baltimore City May Impose New Curfew For Teens”

Breitbart – by Caroline May

Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith reacted harshly to a new report detailing the crimes committed by 36,007 criminal immigrants that Immigration and Customs Enforcement released last year.

“This would be considered the worst prison break in American history, except it was sanctioned by the President and perpetrated by our own immigration officials. These criminal immigrants should have been deported to ensure that they could never commit crimes on U.S. soil. But instead, ICE officials chose not to detain them and instead released them back onto American streets,” Smith said in a statement Monday.    Continue reading “Lamar Smith Calls ICE Release of 36,000 Criminal Immigrants a President-Sanctioned Prison Break”

Washington’s Blog – by Carl Herman

“The basis for the United States’ use of force… is, therefore, the Article 51 right of individual or collective self-defense.” – Operational Law Handbook 2012, Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center & School, page 6.

The US Army’s official law handbook provides an excellent historical and legal summary of when wars are lawful self-defense and unlawful War of Aggression in a seven-page Chapter One.   Continue reading “US military legal argument for current wars: ‘Self-defense’ is whatever we say”

Reuters – by Joseph Kolb

A rural New Mexico county has voted to defy the federal government and give a rancher’s cattle access to a watering hole fenced off by the Forest Service in the latest dispute over federal control of public land in the U.S. West.

Commissioners in Otero County voted 2-0 on Monday night to authorize Sheriff Benny House to open a gate allowing nearly 200 head of cattle into the 23-acre area despite Forest Service restrictions. A third commissioner was out of town for the vote.   Continue reading “New Mexico county defies U.S. government over cattle grazing”

NBC News – by Bill Briggs

A Florida couple who retired from their management jobs to care for the poor vowed Monday to wage a tenacious legal fight days after being fined more than $300 each for violating a local law.

Debbie and Chico Jimenez openly admit committing the act that earned them two citations apiece: feeding more than 100 people who are homeless in Daytona Beach.

Police in Daytona Beach also threatened them with arrest and incarceration, if they offer any more of their home-cooked meals at Manatee Island Park, a gathering the Jimenezes say they’ve hosted every Wednesday for the past year.   Continue reading “Florida Couple Fined, Threatened with Jail for Feeding Homeless”

Back Door Survival

For many, water becomes their very first prep.  By that I mean that steps are taken to either purchase a supply of bottled water, set up a water barrel, or locate a source of local water that can be filtered and purified for consumption.

I was no exception.  Water was my first major prepping purchase – before food storage, before a bug out bag, before first aid and trauma supplies, and before firearms.  My first major preparedness purchase was a 55 gallon water barrel.   Continue reading “The Five Myths of Water Storage”

Mises Institute – by Ryan McMaken

The Supreme Court’s recent decision on prayer at government meetings reminds me that Supreme Court “season” is upon us, and for the next two months or so, we can expect to see the court decide on a variety of cases that can have profound impacts on the lives of citizens and non-citizens alike. The court’s decision in Town of Greece vs. Galloway has produced a lot of commentary on both sides, with much discussion about the dynamics between justices, and how Justice Kennedy must have been in a pro-prayer mood that day, since his decisions appear to be made on a variety of unknowable whims.   Continue reading “The Mythology of the Supreme Court”