News You Can Use

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Drone usage by local police, fire departments quickly increasing | WTOP

WASHINGTON — Approximately a dozen police, fire and emergency agencies surrounding Washington, D.C. are using drones to capture criminal suspects and fight fires, but the unmanned aircraft systems also are sparking privacy concerns and legislation.

At least 347 state and local police, sheriff, fire and emergency units in the United States have acquired drones, according to an April report by Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College.

[Joel]

Legendary investor Jim Rogers sat down with Business Insider CEO Henry Blodget on this week's episode of The Bottom Line. Rogers predicts a market crash in the next few years. One that he says will rival anything he has seen in his lifetime.

[Joel]

Legendary investor Jim Rogers sat down with Business Insider CEO Henry Blodget on this week's episode of The Bottom Line. Rogers goes after the Fed. He says the Fed is clueless and is setting the US up for disaster.

[Joel]

Video Emerges of Seth Rich Questioning Ballot Integrity

A video has surfaced of murdered Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich questioning ballot integrity during the Election Data Summit in 2015.

“Seth Rich, with the DNC,” he introduces himself, after clearing his throat. “I think some of you had spoken about provisional ballots and rejected ballots — I guess we have looked at, as an outside practitioner with a vested interest in training our voters, how do we get better access to data that tells us why ballots are rejected — why ballots are cast as provisional — so we can analyze that and develop better training guides?”

Rich had valid concerns. During the Democratic primaries the following year, New York voters reported two voter purges that barred 120,000 people from being able to vote. The scandal, months before Rich’s death, had lead to massive outcry from supporters of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who believed that the DNC was engaging in election fraud to nominate Hillary Clinton.

Many have speculated that Rich was a supporter of Sanders, as he openly considered himself a progressive. Including in that group is Kim Dotcom, a tech mogul with close ties to WikiLeaks, who has asserted that the slain staffer was the source of the leaked DNC emails, and that he knew him.

As we have previously reported, Dotcom has offered to provide Congress with written testimony and proof that Rich was the source — if they will include his murder in their Russia investigation.



Additionally, the tech entrepreneur provided three email addresses that he claims belonged to Rich: [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected]. The addresses pointed to social media and Reddit accounts that appeared to back up the claims that he may have been a disgruntled Sanders supporter.

Rich was murdered early morning hours of July 10, 2016. The police initially ruled that it was a botched robbery — but his wallet, watch, and necklace were still on his person when he was discovered by police.

Twelve days after the murder, WikiLeaks began releasing documents that would reveal a plot within the Democratic Party to insure that Clinton would be nominated over the wildly popular Senator Sanders.

Assange has previously hinted that Rich may be the leaker, while repeatedly reminding the public that they never comment on their sources. WikiLeaks has also offered a $20,000 reward for information on his killer.

“Whistleblowers go to significant efforts to get us material and often significant risks. There was a 27-year old that works for the DNC who was shot in the back… murdered.. for unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington,” Assange said during an interview with Dutch TV last year.

WikiLeaks has retweeted articles asserting that Rich was their source without providing additional comment.

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Christian church DESTROYED as police drag worshippers into street | World | News | Express.co.uk

Violence broke out in Shanggiu in Henan province after 300 police officers and officials demolished the Shuangmiao Christian Church—which was under construction. 

Officers dragged out around 40 Christians with one worshipper comparing the brutal scenes to the Japanese invasion of China during the Second World War, according to charity China Aid. 

Eight Christians remain in custody following the incident amid a crackdown on churches by the communist regime. 

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US militias not ready to lay down arms under President Trump

JACKSON, Ga.
In the woods south of Atlanta, John and Yvette DeMaria are with about a dozen camouflage-wearing, heavily armed Americans huffing and puffing as they scramble to navigate the sprawling piece of property where they train, one weekend a month, to ward off enemies — foreign or domestic.

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Cash-strapped Houston sells off $2M worth of city streets - Houston Chronicle

The city of Houston held a yard sale of sorts last week, dusting off some possessions it doesn't use anymore and offering them for sale or swap to its neighbors. 

In this case, City Council approved selling or swapping almost $2 million worth of city streets and utility easements. That won't correct the more than $100 million budget deficits city officials project for the next five years, but it's not peanuts. 

The first example came in Manchester, where council abandoned and sold several streets and easements to the adjacent Valero refinery for $1.4 million.

The oil giant already owns the blocks immediately surrounding its facility, and the move will let the company assume the intersecting streets onto its land as part of a plan to build an office building, warehouse, security building and to add parking farther away from the central plant.

[Silver]

Cash-strapped Houston sells off $2M worth of city streets - Houston Chronicle

The city of Houston held a yard sale of sorts last week, dusting off some possessions it doesn't use anymore and offering them for sale or swap to its neighbors. 

In this case, City Council approved selling or swapping almost $2 million worth of city streets and utility easements. That won't correct the more than $100 million budget deficits city officials project for the next five years, but it's not peanuts. 

The first example came in Manchester, where council abandoned and sold several streets and easements to the adjacent Valero refinery for $1.4 million.

The oil giant already owns the blocks immediately surrounding its facility, and the move will let the company assume the intersecting streets onto its land as part of a plan to build an office building, warehouse, security building and to add parking farther away from the central plant.

The federal government should have done this years ago on a much grander scale in the western half of the country.

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Venezuela protesters set fire to Supreme Court building as crisis deepens

Anti-government protesters set fire to the supreme court in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday. 

This is the twelfth week of upset in the country, as protesters demand the resignation of president Nicolas Maduro and call for elections.

The supreme court Monday voted to reject a motion that would prevent Mr Maduro from rewriting the country's constitution.

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Lauded to loathed: Who's afraid of George Soros? | Daily Mail Online

The world has a new puppetmaster.

From his New York home, US financier-cum-philanthropist George Soros has manufactured Europe's migration crisis, backed a coup in Macedonia and sponsored protests in Hungary.

At least that's what his detractors say, and there are many.

From the Kremlin via Skopje to the power corridors of Washington, the Hungarian-born Jewish emigre is the favourite bete noire of nationalists around the globe.

Listed by Forbes magazine as the world's 29th richest man, Soros and his Open Society Foundations (OSF) stand accused of political meddling by seeking to push a liberal, multicultural agenda.

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Rural and Small-Town Jails Are Driving America's High Incarceration Rate, Researchers Find - NBC News

The nation's smallest jails, often overlooked in discussions about America's high incarceration rate, have been quietly driving a historic increase in the number of people behind bars, according to researchers.

These local jails, mostly serving rural communities with low crime rates, hold a disproportionate number of people who are waiting for trial and who are being held by outside agencies, such as overburdened state prison systems and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a newly released report says.

That's because these communities generally lack the resources to steer low-level offenders away from pretrial detention, the researchers say. And many expand their jail capacities to win a bigger share of contracts from outside agencies.

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Are We Nearing Civil War?

President Trump may be chief of state, head of government and commander in chief, but his administration is shot through with disloyalists plotting to bring him down.

We are approaching something of a civil war where the capital city seeks the overthrow of the sovereign and its own restoration.

Thus far, it is a nonviolent struggle, though street clashes between pro- and anti-Trump forces are increasingly marked by fistfights and brawls. Police are having difficulty keeping people apart. A few have been arrested carrying concealed weapons.

That the objective of this city is to bring Trump down via a deep state-media coup is no secret. Few deny it.

[mes5464]

Are We Nearing Civil War?

President Trump may be chief of state, head of government and commander in chief, but his administration is shot through with disloyalists plotting to bring him down.

We are approaching something of a civil war where the capital city seeks the overthrow of the sovereign and its own restoration.

Thus far, it is a nonviolent struggle, though street clashes between pro- and anti-Trump forces are increasingly marked by fistfights and brawls. Police are having difficulty keeping people apart. A few have been arrested carrying concealed weapons.

That the objective of this city is to bring Trump down via a deep state-media coup is no secret. Few deny it.

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Decision time at the Supreme Court: Rulings expected soon on religion, free speech and immigration - LA Times

It’s decision time at the Supreme Court, as the justices prepare to hand down the final rulings of their current term by the end of this month. They are due to rule in 21 cases, including disputes over religion, free speech and immigration that could have broad significance.

[Joel]

[Joel]

An American college student who was imprisoned last year in North Korea for stealing a propaganda poster has been released. The announcement was made on Tuesday by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. 22-year-old Otto Wambier was sentenced in March to 15 years in prison and hard labor after a trial that lasted just one hour. Wambier's unexpected release came as former NBA star Dennis Rodman was headed to North Korea.

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Officials say they issued alerts in Providence on military training that frightened some

PROVIDENCE — Tina Demers says she received no prior warning. So when her West End house began shuddering late Friday night and her neighbor’s plastic lawn furniture flew about the yard and the thunderous dark aircraft crept over the treetops, there was a moment of terror.

“Initially, I was very scared,” said Demers, 70, of 95 Harrison St.

Eventually at least two Army helicopters landed in Dexter Field two blocks away. They were part of nighttime military exercises that began around 10 p.m. in several locations around the state — including in Pawtucket and Newport — that rattled the nerves of those without prior notice.

In Providence the exercises included special operations soldiers on the ground around the Cranston Street Armory, just south of Dexter Field, and simulated weapons explosions that neighbors described as sounding like loud compression grenades.

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Where American billionaires could go during the apocalypse - Business Insider

Reid Hoffman, the cofounder of LinkedIn and a notable investor, told The New Yorker earlier this year he estimated that more than 50% of Silicon Valley billionaires had bought some level of "apocalypse insurance," like an underground bunker.

A new article in Forbes suggests the superrich are making significant land grabs in America's heartland, where the climate is mild and the locations are conducive to survivalism, farming, and living on the land. States like Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming are home to several fortified shelters and vacation homes where wealthy billionaires could happily live out their post-doomsday (or retirement) days.

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Officers To Be Put On 12-Hour Shifts, As City Violence Increases « CBS Baltimore

The victims include a 28-year-old man killed during a drug dispute on Bentalou Street, a 37-year-old woman killed in a bullying incident on Gertrude street and a man and woman– both in their twenties, killed during a quadruple shooting on Bonaparte Ave.

[Joel]

[Original_Intent]

Are We Nearing Civil War?

President Trump may be chief of state, head of government and commander in chief, but his administration is shot through with disloyalists plotting to bring him down.

We are approaching something of a civil war where the capital city seeks the overthrow of the sovereign and its own restoration.

Thus far, it is a nonviolent struggle, though street clashes between pro- and anti-Trump forces are increasingly marked by fistfights and brawls. Police are having difficulty keeping people apart. A few have been arrested carrying concealed weapons.

That the objective of this city is to bring Trump down via a deep state-media coup is no secret. Few deny it.

Well, that went obsolete quickly.

[Sunain]

Religion increasingly seen as doing more harm than good in Canada: Ipsos poll

Just over half of Canadian respondents say they believe religion does more harm than good in the world, according to a new survey.

The Ipsos poll, conducted for Global News, showed that 51 per cent of respondents agreed with the above statement.

“There’s a lot that’s happening in the world right now in the name of religion,” Sean Simpson, vice-president of Ipsos Affairs, said. “Of course, ISIL being the primary example that’s using religion to justify what they’re doing.”

Simpson explained that the number is rising; when Ipsos asked the same question in 2011, 44 per cent of respondents agreed.

“But I think we hear about these incidents more often, not just because they may be happening more often but because of the information age.

“We’ve got 24-hour news cycles and social media and Twitter where we hear about every incident so it’s not surprising to me that a growing number of Canadians believe it does more harm than good.”

What he did find surprising was that Quebec, once considered to be Canada’s most religious province, is now the most secular.

Compared to the rest of Canada, Quebecers are significantly more likely than residents of other provinces to feel religion does more harm than good (62 per cent). They’re also more inclined (18 per cent) to lose respect for people when they find out they are religious

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Pre-crime at it's best. I am convinced that laws intended to prevent crime always violate your rights. In this case, surveillance, or imprisoning someone for a crime they haven't committed yet. You can imprison anyone with laws like that.

Abe Passes Controversial Bill Boosting Japan Surveillance Powers - Bloomberg

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government passed controversial legislation that gives prosecutors the power to monitor and arrest people in the planning stages of crimes.

As dawn broke in Tokyo on Thursday, bleary-eyed lawmakers voted to pass the so-called anti-conspiracy bill, which the government says is needed to bolster counter-terrorism precautions ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Opposition lawmakers pulled out an array of political tricks to delay the vote until morning.