THIS WEEK IN REVIEW

Fort Morgan, Colorado: A meat packing plant owned by Cargill has fired nearly 200 Muslim employees after they walked off the job and failed to show up for work for three days in a dispute over the company’s accommodations for their prayers. Cargill set up a ‘reflection room’ in 2009 for their prayers, but now the Somalis contend that they were told they could go home if they wanted to pray. More than 2000 are employed at the facility, and an estimated 600 are immigrants from Somalia. The 400 Somalis with good attendance are still employed. Denver Post 2015 Dec 31 (Story) (Cached)

Goldwater Creek, a 15-mile waterway in St. Louis, remains contaminated by nuclear waste from the WWII Manhattan Project. Today, the number of cancer cases in that area is significantly higher than the national average. RT 2015 Dec 31 (Story)

California has passed a law requiring a 21-day gun confiscation from anyone the government labels as potentially violent or mentally unstable. Being branded as a mental case, a potentially violent individual, an alcoholic,or an anger-management case will become an increasingly common excuse to suspend the constitutional right to bear arms. SHTF Plan 2015 Dec 31 (Story) (Cached)

Swiss army chief André Blattmann warns that the risks of violence and social unrest are growing and he is advising citizens to arm themselves against dangerously aggressive displaced people who have flooded into Europe. ZeroHedge 2015 Dec 30 (Story) (Cached)

Ethan Couch, the “affluenza” teen who killed four people in a drunk-driving accident in 2013, was found in Mexico with his mother and now is fighting deportation. He received no jail time for his drunk-driving crime but was ordered to undergo rehab and probation. He failed to keep his probation appointment after a video emerged that allegedly showed him at a party where alcohol was consumed. His mother now faces criminal charges for interfering with the probation of a minor. CNN 2015 Dec 30 (Story)

Due to a $1.2 billion cut in its budget, the US Department of Justice has suspended its practice of sharing assets that have been seized in pursuit of administering federal laws. The move does not prevent local authorities from seizing property. It merely no longer allows them to keep what they take. The cannabis industry previously has been the hardest hit in the forfeiture scheme, especially in California where police are accustomed to keeping 80% of the confiscated property. Opposition by law enforcement to pro-cannabis legalization has been almost totally motivated by the threat of losing forfeiture money. Leafly 2015 Dec 29 (Story) (Cached)

While government-paid climate scientists continue to peddle fear of global warming, nature is not cooperating. A new glacier is growing on the side of Mount St. Helens, an active volcano in Washington state. The author of this article contends that this is an anomaly and says (contrary to fact) that glaciers are decreasing everywhere else in the world. Conde Nast Traveler posted 2015 Dec 28 (Story) (Cached)

Confessions of an ISIS soldier: “The training took place in Turkey”. A former ISIS communication technician has revealed that ISIS had the full cooperation of the Turks and could pass across the NATO member’s border in truck convoys. German media reports that ISIS has an office in Turkey through which it sells slaves obtained from conquered territory. Turkey is the training ground for ISIS soldiers who claim to be part of the Free Syrian Army, supported by the West, but which really is ISIS. ZeroHedge 2015 Dec 28 (Story) (Cached)

Florida: Police officers with the Bal Harbour Police Department and the Glades County Sheriff’s Office are under federal investigation for allegedly laundering $55.6 million for drug cartels under the guise of a joint anti-drug task force. This operation allowed them to make $2.4 million for themselves. The police have been described as bandits with badges. Cop Block 2015 Dec 28 (Story) (Cached)

US: Senator Chris Coons from Delaware is asking for a new ‘surtax’ to pay for the war against ISIS. The current cost of fighting ISIS, which is being financed and supplied by the US, the Saudis, and Turkey, is $11 million per day. InfoWars 2015 Dec 29 (Story)

The US is the world’s top weapons manufacturer. Sales jumped in 2014 to $36.2 billion, a 35% increase in one year. Most of the contracts were with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and South Korea, and were negotiated by the federal government on behalf of private weapons manufacturers. WeMeantWell 2015 Dec 28 (Story) (Cached)

A company named Hive Computing wants to turn smart meters, attached to homes and businesses, into a networked supercomputer. These meters, which have the computing power of a cell phone, sit idle 95% of the time, so the plan is to put that unused computing power to work as close to 100% of the time as possible. Naturally, meter manufacturers and utility companies are on board with the idea, but people with health problems relating to exposure to smart-meter radiation are not happy campers. Smart Grid Awareness posted 2015 Dec 28 (Story) (Cached)

Houston, Texas: George Pickering II was convinced that his 27-year old son, who was in a coma following a massive stroke, still had life in him and he refused to allow doctors to take his son off life support. Pickering fended off medics with a gun to stop them. Three hours later, after Pickering surrendered to a SWAT team, doctors were amazed that Pickering’s son was making eye contact and following commands. Pickering spent ten months in jail, but was released in time to spend Christmas at home with his son, who now is completely recovered. RT posted 2015 Dec 26 (Story)

Czech President Milos Zeman describes the current wave of refugees into Europe as “an organized invasion”. He says that young men from Syria and Iraq should, instead, take up arms and fight against ISIS. The Czech Republic and Slovakia have rejected the EU’s migrant quota, and 70% of their citizens oppose migration. AFP 2015 Dec 26 (Story) (Cached)

The European Parliament announced a new banking policy that allows bail-ins to make up for the losses of failing banks. Bail-ins are similar to bail-outs in that, in both cases, banks are saved from bankruptcy by the legalized confiscation of money from the public. In a bail-out, the money is taken from taxpayers. In a bail-in, it is taken from depositors. The Federal Reserve in the US recently declared that it will no longer use bail-outs to prop up its member banks. That means, the Fed is prepared to follow the same procedure as the EU but merely has not yet made an official announcement to that effect. [Are you ready? If you have over $100,000 in any bank, you are not.] Economic Collapse posted 2015 Dec 26 (Story) (Cached)