From the Trenches World Report

KRQE News 13 – by Katherine Mozzone

TAOS, N.M. (KRQE) – Teachers are fired up over their new evaluations. The scores were released earlier this month, but many teachers say their grades don’t hold any water. It’s why a group of teachers in Taos are striking a match in protest.

Some Taos teachers say their profession is being stomped on, citing a laundry list of issues surrounding teacher evaluations. They argue the scores should factor in growth, they say they’re not even testing students on the curriculum they’re teaching and the test scores they’re basing much of the evaluations on are from last year. It’s why they decided to take a stand.    Continue reading “Taos teachers burn their evaluations”

Free-Man’s Perspective – by Paul Rosenberg

I know something about bribery. When I was a teenager, my dad was in the construction business in Chicago. So, as soon as I got my driver’s license (at 16), I was sent out delivering bribes. That’s just the way     things were done, and my dad let me drive a fancy car (with an FM radio!) to make the deliveries.

I delivered leather coats to wives, envelopes to government offices, other envelopes to politicians at their fundraisers, booze to lots of people, and in one case, the answers to the state driver’s exam to a guy in… um… a different line of work.   Continue reading “Bribery in America”

Millard says the service video should be complete and up on the site by this evening.

Zero Hedge

My answer to this question:  NO!

RT News

Google has released code of its new open source End-to-End encryption extension to be tested for bugs and back doors by security experts. While it claims to be an effective privacy guard, it leaves the main question of whether it’s NSA-proof open.

The Google team believes that its new End-to-End tool will allow users to easily encrypt their emails on the go.   Continue reading “Will Google’s new email encryption tool save us from the NSA?”

RT News

A 5.7 magnitude earthquake rocked southeastern Alaska, about 73km from Haines, near Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve.

The earthquake hit on Wednesday at 11:58 GMT southwest of Haines, which has a population of over 2,500 people. The epicenter was 10km deep, according to United States Geological Survey.   Continue reading “5.7 magnitude earthquake hits Alaska”

Wake-Up World – by Carolanne Wright

Looking around, it’s no secret that Americans are putting on the pounds unlike any other time in history. Sure, we can’t discount sedentary lifestyles, processed foods and outrageous sugar consumption as contributing factors. At the same time, an elephant in the room is often overlooked — one known as genetically modified food. Researches are beginning to connect the dots, realizing that the possibility of GMOs contributing to weight gain is not as far-fetched as once thought.   Continue reading “GMOs Encourage Weight Gain and Obesity, Researchers Discover”

Global Research – by Sum of Us

Vermont is set to make history by becoming the first state in the country to require genetically modified (GMO) food to be labeled. But Monsanto, the world’s largest GMO producer, is gearing up to sue the state.

This is an important fight, not just for Vermont, but for everyone in the country: 25 other states are considering similar labeling laws, but are waiting for someone else to take the leap for their own laws to go into effect. If Vermont wins, it might not be long until the entire country mandates GMO labeling, giving consumers the information to make their own choices.   Continue reading “Monsanto is Threatening to Sue the State of Vermont over the Labelling of GMO Foods”

Mail.com

NEW YORK (AP) — Private elevators, personal shopping assistants, six-bedroom suites with their own postal codes. Even helipads. This is what the super-rich have come to expect from hotels.

For others, vacation now means renting someone’s apartment, a spare room, maybe just a couch — anything to save on the cost of a hotel. As the gap between the wealthiest travelers and everyone else has widened, so has the way people are experiencing vacations. The wealthy are looking for ever-more pampering. Many others are seeking new ways to economize.   Continue reading “Will that be a 6-bedroom suite or just a couch?”

Mail.com

WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) — Neighbors of two Wisconsin girls accused of stabbing a friend nearly to death say they’re struggling to reconcile the allegations with what they know about the 12-year-olds and their upbringings.

Waukesha County prosecutors have charged the two girls in adult court with attempted homicide for allegedly stabbing a girl the same age in the woods. The girls told detectives they conspired for months to kill the other girl in hopes of pleasing Slenderman, a fictional character they read about on a horror website.   Continue reading “Neighbors: Stabbing at odds with girls’ upbringing”

Reason – by J.D. Tuccille

Hours before a scheduled meeting to surrender records to the American Civil Liberties Union about the use of controversial “stingray” cellphone tracking devices, Sarasota, Florida, police canceled the meeting, saying the U.S. Marshals had seized the records and they were no longer in police possession. Calling the move “blatant violations of open government laws,” in the words of staff attorney Nathan Freed Wessler, the ACLU promptly sued, protesting the handoff of sensitive documents to the feds and seeking their return.   Continue reading “US Marshals Seize FL Cops’ Surveillance Records to Deny Them to ACLU”

TechDirt – by Tim Cushing

Maybe if schools stop handing misbehaving students over to police officers, aggrieved parents won’t be nearly as aggrieved… or so likely to sue. Schools are publicly funded already, but that’s no reason to keep dipping into homeowners’ wallets to pay out settlements for schools’ bad decisions.

The very short background on this particular lawsuit is this (via Courtroom News Service):    Continue reading “Father Sues School After It Brings In Cops To Question His Son About Drawing Of A Person Being Hanged”

Breitbart – by Kristin Tate

HOUSTON, Texas–Armed members of the activist group Open Carry Texas (OCT) were asked to leave Sonic and Chili’s restaurants last month after they entered with AK-47’s in full display. In response to footage of the events, which received national press coverage, the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) released a statement on May 30 calling the demonstrations “downright weird” and “counter productive for the gun owning community.” Now Texas gun group members are threatening to leave the NRA.

“I’m leaving the NRA,” C.J. Grisham, President of OCT, told Breitbart Texas. “I’m an Endowment Life Member which is two levels above Life Member–I’m tearing up the cards and certificates I’ve gotten from the NRA.”   Continue reading “Open Carry Texas’ President: ‘I’m Leaving The NRA’”

Breitbart – by AWR Hawkins

Last week, Kahr Firearms Group began their move out of New York and away from the SAFE Act by breaking ground for a new factory in Pike County, Pennsylvania.

Their plan to relocate includes “headquarters… research… and assembly,” and is expected to take five years.

According to The Washington Free Beacon, company founder and president Justin Moon made it clear Kahr wants to be somewhere that they can build guns without business-crippling regulation.    Continue reading “Kahr Firearms Joins Retreat From NY’s Safe Act, Breaks Ground For Factory In PA”

Breitbart – by AWR Hawkins

On May 30 the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) released a statement on the open carry demonstrations that have been recently carried out in Chipotle, Jack in the Box, Chili’s, and Sonic restaurants in Texas.

These are the demonstrations where members of Open Carry Texas (OCT) legally carry AR-15s and AK-47s into restaurants as part of their bid to see the open carry of handguns legalized in the Lone Star State. The NRA-ILA described the demonstrations as “downright weird” and “counter productive for the gun owning community.”    Continue reading “NRA Chides ‘Open Carry Texas’ Over Carrying Ak-47s Into Restaurants”