From the Trenches World Report

AlterNet – by Katherine Paul, Ronnie Cummins

If you think the U.S. government is doing a sub-par job of keeping your food safe, brace yourself. You could soon be eating imported seafood, beef or chicken products that don’t meet even basic U.S. food safety standards. Under two new trade agreements, currently in negotiation, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) could be powerless to shut down imports of unsafe food or food ingredients. And if it tries, multinational corporations will be able to sue the U.S. government for the loss of anticipated future profits.   Continue reading “Secret Trade Agreements Threaten to Undo Our Last Shreds of Food Safety”

Reason – by Mike Riggs

In November 2011, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told an audience at MIT, “I don’t listen to Washington very much, which is something they’re not thrilled about.” He didn’t listen because he didn’t have to. “I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world,” Bloomberg bragged.

That boast–crude and alarming as it was–sort of just hung in the air, slowly losing its stench. Yesterday, Bloomberg revived it, this time while announcing that he didn’t want the Justice Department overseeing the NYPD in the event a federal judge deems stop-and-frisk unconstitutional.   Continue reading “Constitutionally Illiterate Michael Bloomberg Doesn’t Want the DOJ Monitoring His Stop-and-Frisk “Military””

Examiner – by David Codrea

Marking “the sixth month anniversary of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary,” Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns launches a 25-state 100-day “No More Names: The National Drive to Reduce Gun Violence” bus tour today from Newtown, Conn., with the stated purpose of ginning up support for new federal “gun control” laws.

“All day, family members, faith leaders, elected officials and the Newtown community are coming together to read the names of those murdered by guns and call on Congress to act,” MAIG states on the project’s website.   Continue reading “Bloomberg bus tour coy with locations and dates for a reason”

Washington Times – by Dave Boyer

The White House Friday defended the first family’s upcoming weeklong trip to Africa, which could cost taxpayers up to $100 million, as “great bang for our buck.”

“There will be a great bang for our buck for being in Africa because when you travel to regions like Africa that don’t get a lot of presidential attention, you tend to have very longstanding and long-running impact from the visit,” said Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to President Obama.   Continue reading “White House defends high bills for Africa trip”

SOTT Net – by Naomi Wolf, NaomiWolf.org

I hate to do this but I feel obligated to share, as the story unfolds, my creeping concern that the NSA leaker is not who he purports to be, and that the motivations involved in the story may be more complex than they appear to be. This is in no way to detract from the great courage of Glenn Greenwald in reporting the story, and the gutsiness of the Guardian in showcasing this kind of reporting, which is a service to America that US media is not performing at all. It is just to raise some cautions as the story unfolds, and to raise some questions about how it is unfolding, based on my experience with high-level political messaging.    Continue reading “My creeping concern that the NSA leaker is not who he purports to be…”

LivingLies – by Neil Garfield

CHASE-WAMU MERGER CONSIDERED IN MICHIGAN COURT OF APPEALS AS NOT AN ASSIGNMENT.  BOA FORECLOSURE DISMISSED AND REMANDED FOR LACK OF STANDING.

And next is an interesting favorable decision in the State of Michigan entered June 6, 2013 but not yet published. Sobh-v-Bof-A, Chase et al   Continue reading “Michigan Appellate Court Dismisses BOA Foreclosure for Lack of Standing — but for the wrong reason?”

Lest we forget.

Daily Mail – by DAMIEN GAYLE and MAIL FOREIGN SERVICE 

Published May 6, 2013

A senior United Nations official has claimed that Syrian rebels may have used chemical weapons against government forces.

Carla Del Ponte said evidence from casualties and medical staff indicated that rebel forces in the civil war had used the deadly nerve agent sarin.   Continue reading “UN accuses Syrian rebels of carrying out sarin gas attacks which had been blamed on Assad’s troops”

A Public Defender

If you see something, say something. Edward Snowden did and now apparently the country’s atwitter about whether Big Brother is so in the Orwellian sense or in the run of the mill older brother who knows better and looks out for you so the other kids don’t pick on you sense.

Many of you – a full 37% according to one survey – are quite okay with Uncle Sam having a complete record of your lives. Some of you even go beyond that; so far as to say that you’d be okay with giving your Government your DNA.   Continue reading “J’Accuse, or: why you really shouldn’t trust the government”

The Guardian – by Glenn Greenwald

I haven’t been able to write this week here because I’ve been participating in the debate over the fallout from last week’s NSA stories, and because we are very busy working on and writing the next series of stories that will begin appearing very shortly. I did, though, want to note a few points, and particularly highlight what Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez said after Congress on Wednesday was given a classified briefing by NSA officials on the agency’s previously secret surveillance activities:   Continue reading “On PRISM, partisanship and propaganda”

The New American – by Bob Adelmann

Breitbart – by Kerry Picket

The Obama administration is considering resettling thousands of refugees who left Syria during the country’s ongoing civil war to multiple towns and cities across the United States, the L.A. Times reports.

A resettlement plan under discussion in Washington and other capitals is aimed at relieving pressure on Middle Eastern countries straining to support 1.6 million refugees, as well as assisting hard-hit Syrian families.   Continue reading “Obama Admin Considers Resettling Thousands of Syrian Refugees in U.S.”

The only way to find out their schedule is to sign up on their site. 😉

The Progressive Pulse

From the good folks at Mayors Against illegal Guns:   Continue reading “Propaganda Alert: “No more names” campaign launched to commemorate six-month anniversary of Sandy Hook”

RT News

Russia is not convinced by the evidence which the US provided alleging that the government of Syria’s President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons against rebel forces.

“The Americans tried to present us with information on the use of chemical weapons by the regime, but frankly we thought that it was not convincing,” said presidential aide Yury Ushakov on Friday.    Continue reading “Moscow unconvinced by US evidence of Syrian chemical weapons use”

RT News

After over 40 years of secrecy, the real cause of death of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, has been made public. Prominent Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Leonov reveals the truth behind the events of that tragic day.

For over 20 years Aleksey Leonov, the first man to conduct a spacewalk in 1965, has been struggling to gain permission to disclose details of what happened to the legendary Yuri Gagarin in March 1968.     Continue reading “Death of Yuri Gagarin demystified 40 years on”

RT News

Brooklyn prosecutors are examining 50 homicide convictions involving a retired police detective who may have intimidated suspects into confessing to crimes they never committed – with words he chose.

Louis Scarcella was a celebrated member of the Brooklyn North Homicide squad through the crack-cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, when he gained a reputation for his unusual ability to draw out confessions. He investigated about 175 murders alone and helped with almost 200 more, but questions have been raised on whether Scarcella coerced, or even entirely fabricated, the admissions of guilt.    Continue reading “Dozens of convictions in question as NYPD detective said to have falsified murder confessions”

Reuters – by Parisa Hafezi and Matt Spetalnick

The United States is considering imposing a no-fly zone in Syria, its first direct military intervention of the two-year-old civil war, Western diplomats said on Friday, after the White House saidSyria had crossed a “red line” by using nerve gas.

After months of equivocating, President Barack Obama’s administration said on Thursday it would now arm rebels, having obtained proof the Syrian government used chemical weapons against fighters trying to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.   Continue reading “U.S. considering no-fly zone after Syria crosses nerve gas “red line””

Washington Post – by Carol D. Leonnig and David Nakamura

Update: The White House has cancelled the safari for this trip.

When President Obama makes his first extended trip to sub-Saharan Africa this month, the federal agencies charged with keeping him safe won’t be taking any chances.

Continue reading “Document: Major resources needed for Obama Africa trip”