From the Trenches World Report

The Sovereign Investor

Now, I’m scared …

And if you, too, care about preserving your personal wealth, then a new report released this month by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) should leave you paralyzed with fear and desperate to find measures to counteract the attack that will soon take aim at your pocketbook.

In the 100-plus-page report dryly titled Fiscal Monitor: Taxing Times, the IMF has essentially given lawmakers from deeply indebted countries a paint-by-numbers kit on how to extract larger tax revenues from anyone with any level of wealth. Though the IMF’s language is couched in faux-objectivity, the underlying message is shockingly clear: Many developed nations, especially the United States, have abundant opportunities “to raise revenue from the top of the income distribution,” using a variety of methods including the direct confiscation of personal wealth.   Continue reading “A Confiscation Tax is Headed Your Way …”

Examiner

Washington Times – by Jessica Chasmar

The South Carolina state House passed a bill Wednesday that declares President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to be “null and void,” and criminalizes its implementation.

The state’s Freedom of Health Care Protection Act intends to “prohibit certain individuals from enforcing or attempting to enforce such unconstitutional laws; and to establish criminal penalties and civil liability for violating this article.”   Continue reading “South Carolina House passes bill making ‘Obamacare’ implementation a crime”

Washington Post – by Keith L. Alexander

The illuminated billboard in the Judiciary Square Metro station near the F Street entrance was strategically placed.

Prospective jurors who take the subway to D.C. Superior Court and exit near the National Building Museum see these words: “Good jurors nullify bad laws” and “You have the right to ‘hang’ the jury with your vote if you cannot agree with other jurors.”   Continue reading “Billboard advocating jury nullification concerns local prosecutors”

Business Insider – by JIM EDWARDS

This is a picture of what is allegedly another Google shipping-container barge being towed into port off the coast of New England. It was taken by the Portland Tugboat company, and posted Facebook with the caption “ROWAN towing the ‘mystery barge’. Entering Portland harbor.”

We recently told you about the mysterious barge Google built which floats in San Francisco Bay. It is surrounded by secrecy, and is either a floating data center or a marketing stunt for Google Glass, depending on which rumor you prefer.   Continue reading “Google Has Reportedly Built Another Mystery Barge — This One Is Floating Off The Coast Of Maine”

Map Light – by Donny Shaw

Later this week, the House of Representatives will be voting on a bipartisan bill to repeal financial bailout protections that Congress passed in 2010 as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The bill, H.R. 992 or the “Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act,” would severely limit the reach of Sec. 716 in Dodd-Frank, which requires banks that are eligible for Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or Federal Reserve lending discounts to spin off their derivatives activities into separate corporate entities that would not be eligible for federal assistance.   Continue reading “House to Vote on Derivatives Bill That Was Written by Citigroup Lobbyists”

The Organic Prepper

Food storage calculators recommend 300 pounds of grains per person for a one year supply. For a family of four, that is a whopping 1200 pounds of food that you should store if you are trying to build a one year pantry!

That sounds like a really daunting number until you remember that it is divided over many different items.  To name a few:   Continue reading “The Pantry Primer: Stockpiling Grains”

Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden

It’s quite simple really, and as the WaPo explains, the NSA “has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, according to documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials. By tapping those links, the agency has positioned itself to collect at will from among hundreds of millions of user accounts, many of them belonging to Americans. The NSA does not keep everything it collects, but it keeps a lot.”   Continue reading “How The NSA Spies On Your Google And Yahoo Accounts”

Common Dreams – by Lauren McCauley

Regulators with Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority gave the final OK Wednesday for the operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to begin to remove the 1300 spent fuel rods from the badly damaged Unit 4 pool, thus initiating a decommissioning process which anti-nuclear activist Harvey Wasserman describes as “humankind’s most dangerous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis.”   Continue reading “Japan Greenlights ‘Perilous’ Cleanup at Fukushima’s Reactor 4”

Reuters – by Harriet McLeod

Six people, including two children, were shot to death in a South Carolina home on Tuesday in what police believe is a murder-suicide involving members of a family, authorities said.

Investigators in Greenwood County, where the shootings took place, did not immediately release the identity of the shooter.   Continue reading “Six people killed in apparent murder-suicide in South Carolina”

While on active duty I was stationed in many places. I was in Desert Storm and OIF 2003-2004. I have trained until I thought I couldn’t go any more. But the best training I ever had was one event at Ft. Polk in the late 80s.

We had a system called P1 and P2. P1 was field time (two weeks, generally) P2 was recovery and prep for field time. I thought it sucked more than anything I had ever done, but looking back it was some of the best training ever. I was young, dumb and full of crap.   Continue reading “The best training I ever got”