Realist News Podcast: Economic and Political Forecasting: Recent Episodes
Activist Post
Peddling fiction to help you prepare for the coming economic collapse. Joe covers top politics and economic news to help forecast the future. Analysis of the Web Bot report and gold, silver and bitcoin markets. Find Joe on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/jsnip4 and at http://www.realistnews.net.
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A Short Guide to ESG: Goals
By The Corbett Report We all know what happened on 11/22/63. But what about what happened on 11/22/90? And what connects these two events? And...
JFK: From Mongoose to Gladio
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By B.N. Frank Last month, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray admitted that the agency had purchased location data on American citizens without...
New Congressional Committee Created to Investigate “current government attacks on American civil liberties”
By Neenah Payne Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the author of the November 2021 book The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the...
RFK Jr.’s New Book: A Letter to Liberals
By Tessa Lena The primary goals of the internet have always been surveillance and control. Today, it is merely following its original design. The Birth...
World Wide Web: Whom Was It Designed to Catch?
By B.N. Frank American tech insiders (aka “Silicon Valley parents”) have been limiting their own children’s use and exposure to technology for years. They send...
Another Study Reveals that Kids’ Screen Use Can Stunt Emotional Development and “lead to more severe challenging behavior”
By Maryam Henein
The three former Minneapolis police officers – Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao convicted in late February of depriving George Floyd of his constitutional rights, are demanding a new trial. In essence, the men convicted of violating Floyd’s rights are now saying prosecutors violated theirs.
The defense stated that the prosecutors elicited unfairly “duplicative evidence and cumulative testimony,” and violated a pretrial order by “eliciting emotional responses” and “speculation” from witnesses.
“The Government’s actions during this lawsuit stripped Mr. Thao of his constitutionally protected right to a fair and impartial trial due to repeated breaches of this Court’s pretrial orders, questions, and arguments that violated rules of criminal procedure and evidence, and unprofessionalism in front of the jury,” wrote his attorneys Robert M and Nathalie R. Paule.
Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder in a Minnesota state court back in April 2020. Another trial, this time criminal on the state level, is slated to begin for the three former officers on June 13 before Peter Cahill, the same judge who presided over Chauvin’s case. The three officers were tried on the federal level.
Read Part 1¬Ý
Read Part 2¬Ý
Part 3¬Ý
Please follow Maryam Henein on Twitter You can support her work on PatreonFollow Maryam on Telegram and Gab “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell” — Mixing Bad Drugs “Cops are bad. If you don’t think these officers should go to jail, then I don’t want to talk to you anymore,” a sixty-something scriptwriting professor told me recently. We had just met. We’d been on the phone for a total of 24 minutes. His venomous reaction took me by surprise. I quickly changed the subject.
Consider that a police officer responding to a major incident has to juggle uncertainty about missing or conflicting inform
Op-Ed by Ryan Black
Recently, my mom dropped off a plastic bin full of things I had left in her house thirteen years ago when I left for college. I found trinkets, pictures, and a lot of old school things. On top, was a pile of journals – the type we had to keep in elementary school to answer a daily question or prompt.
The first date I intentionally looked up was September 11, 2001. I was eleven years old and in fifth grade. I remember the day well. But I didn‚Äôt remember everything. I wanted to know if we mentioned anything about the terrorist attacks in our journals. We hadn‚Äôt. The prompt¬Ý that day was boring ‚Äî ‚Äúwhat magical power would you choose if you could choose any?‚Äù I chose flying. Boring.
But a few pages later, eleven-year-old me did address 9/11. On Oct 5, 2001, less than a month after the attack, we were asked:
“If you had to give a ten-minute speech to your school on any subject you chose, what would it be about and why?”
My answer to the prompt surprised me:
“My speech would be about the terrerists (sic) who attacked the World Trade Centers. I would tell them that not all Afganies (sic) are bad. In some places people are hurting Afganies (sic) that they see on the street. If kids started doing that it would be horrible.”
Nevermind my poor framing and referencing Afghans as Afghanies (which is what the money is called in Afghanistan, not the people), those few short sentences made something abundantly clear. I knew, even as an eleven-year-old child, that Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent were being treated unfairly in the U.S. after 9/11. And if I could tell my entire school anything, it would be a defense of those people.
So why, over twenty years later, are adults unable to see how treating Russians in the U.S. unfairly is also wrong, and in hindsight, will be a mark of shame on the U.S. just like the hatred and mistreatment of Muslims and Middle Easterners after 9/11 were?
Russiaphobia Reveals Unfair Double Standard In U.S. Imagine for a moment you are working in another country and your employer suddenly demands you publicly reject the country of your birth or face being fired. Imagine the country of your birth is run by a despot who imprisons political enemies, represses speech critical of the state, and your entire extended family still lives there.
What kind of choice is that?
Forcing an individual to publicly denounce their home country — while military tensions are at an all-time high, and protesters there are being arrested en masse — is an affront to empathy and compassion. The choice, to create an ethical dilemma that forces a worker to decide to keep their job or keep their family safe, is reprehensible.
Consider Anna Netrebko, the Met opera singer who
By B.N. Frank
Not that long ago, legislators from both Democrat and Republican parties supported banning controversial special interest earmarks.¬Ý Now legislators from both parties are taking advantage of their stealth re-introduction.¬Ý Argh.
From Full Measure:
Return of Earmarks By Full Measure Staff Sunday, March 6th 2022
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At last check, the White House had put in a bid for $10 billion U.S. tax dollars to assist Ukraine. As we speak, there are high-powered lobbying efforts underway not only by Ukraine, but by countless special interests also looking to make bank in Congress’ next budget. And many are pinning hopes on a controversial spending practice that’s made a quiet comeback after being banned a decade ago: Earmarks.
It may be the most infamous earmark ever requested: $223 million to build a bridge in Alaska longer than the Golden Gate to get to an island with a small airport and about 50 residents.
Rep. Don Young (January 2018): I was the “Bridge to Nowhere” and you all heard of that, yes, it was an earmark.
Republican Congressman Don Young defended his request for the so-called “Bridge to Nowhere” at a hearing in 2018:
Young (January 2018): And of course I’ve suffered that ever since, the bridge has not been built, it should have been built.
The example lives on as a legendary symbol of Congressional excess and waste.
Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican from Iowa, is an outspoken critic of earmarking.
Senator Joni Ernst: Certainly the way I explain it is it’s very pricey pet projects for politicians. And the way I explain it to constituents when you have 535 people struggling for a pot of money, it ends up being misspent.
Sharyl: And when you say “pet projects,” it’s not necessarily just something a member likes the sound of. Maybe that member is getting a benefit in some way for it?
Ernst: Absolutely. And what we have seen in the past and indications of this is maybe you have a buddy or a supporter that you want to direct dollars for and in exchange get dollars for your campaign or support for an election. So that’s why we call it a form of bribery, is you can trade projects for other levels of support outside of the Senate or outside of the House.
As a correspondent for CBS News, I investigated Congress’ addiction to billions of dollars worth of earmarks.
Ralph Regula ducked questions about his earmarks for his wife’s library, where his daughter was a paid director.
Charles Rangel didn’t want to say much about his $2 million earmark for a library and center named after himself.
By Aden Tate
The US Army is about to run its final test for aspiring Green Berets this coming January 22, known as Robin Sage, an unconventional warfare exercise put on by the US Army Special Forces Qualification Course (SFQC). This field training exercise is a 19-day test across approximately 50,000 acres of privately owned land throughout rural North Carolina in which Special Forces must wage a guerilla war against an illegitimate government to free the politically unstable region known as Pineland.
The exercise runs four times every year, and the most recent exercise will last from January 22 to February 4. Should a soldier fail to pass Robin Sage, they fail to become a Green Beret.
What’s the scenario? Pineland’s legitimate government, which was friendly towards America, has been deposed via a coup. Guerilla forces have now risen up in an attempt to fight against this occupying force, and the Green Berets are infiltrating the country to both assist and train the guerilla forces.
Soldiers start at Camp McKall, where they study as much as they can on their current mission and plan out how they’re going to infiltrate, their linkup plan, and more. To understand the region they are fighting in, soldiers study the history of Pineland through a pamphlet titled Atlantica: A Concise History (which unfortunately, we can’t find a PDF of).
Once this is all accomplished, they’ll be sent “behind enemy lines deep into the mountains of Pineland. Students are typically dropped in behind enemy lines via parachute (though sometimes by helicopter or truck), where they must engage in a long-distance trek over rough terrain to linkup with the resistance forces.
Once the linkup has taken place, soldiers must then gain the trust and confidence of the local guerilla chieftains by “proving themselves. Until this has happened, the guerillas are specifically instructed to avoid and distrust all American soldiers in the area. Once this trust has been gained, soldiers then go about training and assisting the guerillas in fighting against the illegitimate government forces (typically role played by the 82nd Airborne).
Prospective Green Berets will teach these guerillas how to conduct patrols, raids, and ambushes, as well as how to use comms tech and medically provide for their fighters. Upon successfully completing their mission, soldiers must safely exfiltrate the environment by helicopter or truck.
By Whitney Webb
Far from being a war against “white supremacy, the Biden administration’s new “domestic terror strategy clearly targets primarily those who oppose US government overreach and those who oppose capitalism and/or globalization.
In the latest sign that the US government’s War on Domestic Terror is growing in scope and scale, the White House on Tuesday revealed the nation’s first ever government-wide strategy for confronting domestic terrorism. While cloaked in language about stemming racially motivated violence, the strategy places those deemed “anti-government or “anti-authority on a par with racist extremists and charts out policies that could easily be abused to silence or even criminalize online criticism of the government.
Even more disturbing is the call to essentially fuse intelligence agencies, law enforcement, Silicon Valley, and “community and “faith-based organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League, as well as unspecified foreign governments, as partners in this “war, which the strategy makes clear will rely heavily on a pre-crime orientation focused largely on what is said on social media and encrypted platforms. Though the strategy claims that the government will “shield free speech and civil liberties in implementing this policy, its contents reveal that it is poised to gut both.
Indeed, while framed publicly as chiefly targeting “right-wing white supremacists, the strategy itself makes it clear that the government does not plan to focus on the Right but instead will pursue “domestic terrorists in “an ideologically neutral, threat-driven manner, as the law “makes no distinction based on political view—left, right or center. It also states that a key goal of this strategic framework is to ensure “that there is simply no governmental tolerance . . . of violence as an acceptable mode of seeking political or social change, regardless of a perpetrator’s political affiliation.
Considering that the main cheerleaders for the War on Domestic Terror exist mainly in establishment left circles, such individuals should rethink their support for this new policy given that the above statements could easily come to encompass Black Lives Matter–related protests, such as those that transpired last summer, depending on which political party is in power.
Once the new infrastructure is in place, it will remain there and will be open to the same abuses perpetrated by both political parties in the US during t
By Derrick Broze
*The Conscious Resistance Network presents: The Pyramid of Power, a brand-new 16-part documentary series aimed at exposing the individuals and institutions which seek to manipulate our world.*More details:
https://theconsciousresistance.com/the-pop/
Our first attempts to understand the influence of various institutions and individuals on our world, has focused on the education system, the establishment media, and Big Tech firms. Each of these pieces of the Pyramid of Power have an immense influence on the minds and decisions of people around the world. However, no other institution may have the impact of the U.S. Film Industry.
As we outlined in Chapter 2, the U.S. intelligence communities have largely infected and influenced mainstream establishment media since the 1950s. This frightening trend continues with the relationship between the film industry and the U.S. military and Central Intelligence Agency.
In the early 20th century, film studios began centering their efforts around southern California in the area that would come to be known as Hollywood. From the outset, the U.S. Department of Defense and intelligence community developed an interest in using the film industry as a method for shaping public opinion. Some of the first collaborations between Hollywood and the U.S. military involved pro-World War 2 propaganda films like Winning Your Wings.
During WW2, the U.S. Office of War Information opened the Bureau of Motion Pictures to further their relationships with Hollywood. Between 1942 and 1945 this Bureau reviewed more than 1,600 scripts, and revised or abandoned projects that portrayed the U.S. government in a bad light.
According to Tanner Mirrlees, an associate professor of communication at Ontario Tech University, and author of Hearts and Mines: The U.S. Empire’s Culture Industry, the former head of the Office of War Information, Elmer Davis stated,
“The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most people’s minds is to let it go through the medium of an entertainment picture when they do not realize they’re being propagandized.
Other historic examples of propaganda in film include the John Wayne film The Green Berets. The film was made after Wayne personally requested U.S. President Lyndon Johnson help him make a propaganda film about the Vietnam war. The Pentagon not only provided access to equipment and military bases, but they also retained final script approval. Most disturbing is the fact that the film depicted the North Vietnamese committing violent atrocities which in reality were committed by American soldiers. This is yet another example of the U.S. government and Hollywood shaping reality for the ignorant mass consumer.
The U.S. military is not the only government agency to develop a close relationship with Hollywood. From its founding in 1947, the U.S. CIA was involved in shaping the
By Fabian Ommar
We’re going through a civilizational-scale metamorphosis. It’s a broad-range process that happens every few generations or centuries and reshapes so many aspects of society that a new one has risen on the other side once it’s over. As history shows, this will play out through a long period going ahead.
But events are already underway and being felt. More is to come. While developments in COVID-19 and sways in the economy, finance, and politics galvanize attention and monopolize M.S.M., the energy sector is undergoing profound transformations that will significantly impact our lifestyle. Because, well, everything runs on energy.
This model transition has been going on for some time now. Like many other events taking place everywhere else, it’s accelerating and already showing through cracks in the system, compounding the instability sweeping the U.S. and the rest of the world.
There isn’t much we can do about the big scheme. We’re just passengers, really. But understanding what’s happening and how this shake-up can affect us is still important. To see the forest for the trees, though, we must first try and connect some dots.
Energy is the basis of modern civilization The development of sanitation enabled the expansion of cities. Common diseases were eradicated with the help of sewage and treated water. Humankind could finally enjoy the productivity and other benefits afforded by large concentrations of different people living and working together. But the intensive use of hydrocarbons and the electrification boom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries changed everything.
Energy consumption patterns have significantly varied throughout history. Two hundred years ago, everyone used wood as fuel. Then coal became the primary source of energy. The transition to petroleum and natural gas came a few decades later. Nuclear emerged after World War II, while renewables have been gaining ground for the last 20 years.
Though supply has increased following population and industrialization growth, the use-share of energy sources remained relatively stable during the last few decades. Fossils have dominated for the past hundred years. Coal, oil, and natural gas still account for the majority of the energy supply worldwide.
The Energy and Power Matrix (or mix) explained The te
By Robert Wheeler
The Texas power grid is failing and failing fast. I’m not just talking about failing under extreme weather conditions but under the market and governmental regulatory requirements.
In the wake of freezing weather that swept across the Lone Star state, millions of Texans found themselves without power for days on end. That power outage then saw bursting pipes lead to a water crisis never before seen in the state’s modern history.
You want me to pay HOW much for what little power I have? As the power went out for many Texans, others found themselves with wildly unrealistic bills for the power they did have. In Texas, customers can select how they want to pay for their electric bill – by locking their rate or selecting a variable rate based upon the price of power in the wholesale market. The argument is that customers with a variable rate can shift their power usage when prices are high by turning up the AC unit’s temperature when it’s warm or by doing things like drying clothes when prices are lower.
When the power went out for millions of Texans, those who selected the variable-rate found themselves paying much more for an allegedly scarce commodity.
As a result, some customers are reporting bills as high as $16,000 for one day of power.
“My power company told me to switch to a different company! Many of the affected customers belonged to Griddy, a company that advised them they would be better off switching to a new company. Now, there is a shockwave of electricity providers going bankrupt as their own ability to pay bills to ERCOT (Texas’ state grid operator) has disappeared in the wake of the storms.
Court documents have already shown that Brazos Electric Power Cooperative (the largest generation and transmission co-op in the state) filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. The company says it ca
By Matt Agorist
Because so many politicians need a bogeyman to blame every time something bad happens, often times entirely benign things get political targets painted on them for eradication. Since government’s toolbox to solve problems is usually limited to prohibition and force, when a tragedy takes place once-legal activities are blamed then banned and those bans are upheld with the threat of police violence.
Sadly, this has been the modus operandi of the state for centuries — despite the fact that it almost never works. Unfortunately, repeated failure of prohibition has not ceased to prevent future politicians from thinking that their next ban will work. Such is the case in Illinois.
State Rep. Marcus Evans has recently placed the next government scapegoat on the chopping block. This time the state’s target is on video games.
Though this isn’t the first time video games have had a target on them by politicians, it is the first time in a long time. And, given the current state of anxiety and uncertainty in the populace amid the constant fear porn shoved down their throats over the last year, this time there is actually a chance the ban could be successful.
Rep. Marcus Evans Jr. is using carjackings in Chicago as a reason to demonize video games this month and has moved to amend a 2012 law which prevents the sale of video games to minors. Earlier this month, Evans filed filed HB3531, which would amend that law to ban the sale — not just to minors but to anyone — of video games depicting “psychological harm, including “motor vehicle theft with a driver or passenger present.
According to the Chicago Sun Times, Evans had been contacted in January by Early Walker, who started Operation Safe Pump to prevent carjackings at gas stations and shopping centers. Safe Pump positions security guards from the Kates Detective and Security Agency in areas with high numbers of carjackings.
“The bill would prohibit the sale of some of these games that promote the activities that we’re suffering from in our communities. Evans said.
Because carjackings in the video games have similarities with carjackings in real life, the state needs to ban the video games because it is clear that they are the reason people are committing these crimes, according to their “logic.
By Maryam Henein
Editor’s Note: Activist Post does not endorse any candidate for president or any other political office. This article is presented for informational purposes only. All opinions and firsthand observations are the author’s alone.
Narrative Supremacy — This Insurrection Will Be Televised The Transition Integrity Project (TIP), the Event 201 tabletop exercise about the 2020 Biden vs. Trump race, warned that “election-related protests could be infiltrated by actors seeking to ‘turn peaceful protests violent.’
Fortune tellers? How did the authors of the TIP know? Consider the prediction in the face of evidence that the “Capitol Insurrection was a planned, possibly manufactured attack.
Please follow Maryam Henein on Twitter You can support her work on PatreonFollow Maryam on Telegram and Gab In an opinion piece for The Washington Post dated January 5th, David Ignatius hinted to ‘a planned force’:
Officials warn that if protesters try to ‘storm’ the Capitol, as some have pledged, they will be arrested.
Who had pledged this exactly? Ignatius is a journalist, but more so, a novelist who writes espionage thrillers. His book, The Quantum Spy, published in 2017, is about the race between the United States and China to build the world’s first hyper-fast quantum computer.
Take a false
By Zen Gardner
How could all of this have happened?
Hypnagogia is the experience of the transitional state between wakefulness and sleep in humans: the hypnagogic state of consciousness, during the onset of sleep. Mental phenomena that occur during this ‘threshold consciousness’ phase include lucid thought, lucid dreaming, hallucinations, and sleep paralysis.
That’s a pretty apt description of the mass human condition, manifested most predominantly in the vast majority refusing to see the true state of affairs on this planet. Sleep walking.
As George Carlin famously said. “It’s called the American dream – because you have to be asleep to believe it.
Speaking of Amerika The US is in the crosshairs of this global takeover. Why? Because it’s the last bastion of what once represented freedom, and Americans can be fiercely independent. Real freedom was compromised and lost a long time ago, but figments of the idea have lingered on — not just in the US, but in the minds of peoples worldwide. It was a land of hopes and dreams to which millions flocked or sought to emulate.
Don’t let the seemingly easier lockdown there compared to other draconian reactive regimes fool you. They know they’re dealing with a tinderbox and have a gradual, intricate plan in mind. The government backed surveillance and tracing tech is the giveaway. They’re throwing a massive net and will move systematically.
After all, they’ve admittedly adopted their own creation of Chinese communism as their model. Another skillfully laid piece in their masonic chessboard.
Unfortunately, while no one seemed to be paying attention except a marginalized few, the US was carefully and mechanically steered off course and corrupted, heavily, until it reached the comatose state it’s in today. Not everyone by any means. That fierce freedom loving American spirit lives despite the assail of unfathomable attacks. Just as others worldwide cherish their basic freedoms despite despotic, centrally controlled powers to whatever degree, carefully and deliberately disguised as “democracies with the illusion of choosing their rulers.
They’re still rulers. That’s the crux of the matter, but I digress.
By Jon Rappoport
To keep up with my new articles on the so-called “epidemic, it really helps to read my earlier pieces (archive here). I don’t recapitulate all the relevant facts every time I sit down to write. If I did, I’d be posting books instead of articles.
So…as I write this one, about 40 million Chinese citizens are on lockdown and quarantine in their cities. This is truly extraordinary. One US vaccine-funding official was heard to say China was a “silver lining in the coronavirus epidemic—because that government is able to exert so much control over its people and, therefore, help contain the epidemic.
You could almost hear him thinking, “I wish we could do that in America.
America, UK, Canada, France, Germany, etc.
You can bet your bottom dollar public health officials all over the world are gathering data on how well “the Chinese experiment is going. They want to learn lessons. They want to know more about containment, mass quarantines, and lockdowns.
Could, for instance, an American president suddenly declare an emergency in the US and issue orders for travel restrictions on a broad scale?
Could he confine citizens to their cities? Could he bring troops into a city and have them assemble in large public places and wave wands at people to look for body temperature elevation and cart them away to hospitals and other holding areas?
Could federal and state officials cancel sporting and concert events? Could crowds of any kind be forbidden? Could a national election be postponed?
China becomes an example for the rest of the world, you see. “This is what has to be done in dire times, to stop the spread of an epidemic. Look to China. They’re accomplishing the right thing. If the killer virus comes here and spreads, we may to have to follow suit.
CHINA IS THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ICE-BREAKER FOR THE REST OF THE PLANET. “Well, they did it there, so it can be done…
“Thank you, China. You’ve showed us what efficiency and necessity look like.
The biggest potential contagion here has nothing to do with the virus. It has to do with other countries deciding to follow Ch
By Michael Snyder
The biggest shopping day of the year is almost here, and marketers are working hard trying to extract as much money from U.S. consumers as possible. Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get consumers to open up their wallets, because many of them are already drowning in debt.
As a society, we have been trained to think of this as “the happiest time of the year, and for many Americans the most important part of the holiday season is opening presents on Christmas morning. So there is a tremendous amount of pressure to spend a lot of money on presents, but this often leads to high levels of credit card debt. In fact, a survey that was just released discovered that 48 million Americans “are still paying off credit card debt from last holiday season…
The holidays can be hard: cooking elaborate meals, facing frigid temperatures, making travel plans that please everyone.
Overspending, however, is too easy. In fact, about 48 million Americans are still paying off credit card debt from last holiday season, according to a NerdWallet survey conducted by The Harris Poll.
Sadly, some of those consumers will end up paying the credit card companies more than twice what those Christmas presents originally cost, and it can be exceedingly difficult to ever get ahead when you are trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of debt.
So why do people do it?
Well, according to one financial therapist many Americans are chasing an “emotional experience this time of the year…
Gift-buying requires money, time and energy when you may already feel overwhelmed, says Los Angeles-based financial therapist Amanda Clayman. During the holidays, “we’re chasing a sort of emotional experience, she says. Think: the love and happiness of a Hallmark movie.
But feelings of grie
By Charles Blahous
Advocates of Social Security expansion have declared their intention to move the “Social Security 2100 Act through the House of Representatives before August recess. The bill, introduced by Rep. John Larson (D., Conn.), has more than 200 co-sponsors. Its sponsors deserve credit for putting forth a comprehensive Social Security plan that is specific, scored by the Social Security Administration Chief Actuary, and, though it contains elements clearly designed to appeal to certain ideological and special interests, also doesn’t shy away from difficult policy and political choices.
But even granting this credit to the legislation’s sponsors, the bill nevertheless reflects highly controversial positions with respect to a number of serious policy challenges facing Social Security. Rather than debate the subjective value judgments made in the legislation, this article presents key facts and figures that highlight some of its problematic features.
1: Low-Income Workers’ Payroll Tax Burdens Would Rise 19 Percent
In order to fund its significant benefit expansion, the Social Security 2100 Act would increase payroll taxes on all U.S. workers, including the poorest ones. While many low-income American workers pay no federal income taxes, they nevertheless do pay payroll taxes. The Social Security tax rate would gradually rise over several years from 12.4 percent to 14.8 percent, which when fully phased in would represent a 19 percent increase in low-income workers’ payroll tax burdens.
2: Real (Inflation-Adjusted) Benefits for High-Income Workers Would Be 66 Percent Higher by Mid-Century
Much of the bill’s tax increase on low-income workers would be spent on higher benefits for richer ones. Initial Social Security benefit levels already grow faster than price inflation because of an indexing mechanism in current law. The legislation would accelerate this benefit growth, doing so especially rapidly for the highest-income beneficiaries. This can be illustrated via the example of a high-income worker with earnings consist
By Jon Miltimore, Carey Wedler and Laura Williams
The second round of presidential debates have come and gone, but familiar Democratic talking points remain largely consistent.
A total of 19 candidates sparred over two nights on CNN—Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, Tim Ryan, Steve Bullock, John Hickenlooper, and John Delaney on Tuesday; Michael Bennet, Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Julian Castro, Bill de Blasio, Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris, Jay Inslee, and Andrew Yang on Wednesday.
Despite the good intentions of many of the candidates’ ideas, the proposed policies ignore basic economic realities.
- Medicare for All Healthcare was a prominent topic in both debates. While all or nearly all of the presidential contenders said they support expanding taxpayer-funded health insurance, Medicare for All was a source of contention among the candidates. The policy, introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders and supported by Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Kamala Harris (who recently introduced her own version), drew fire from other members of the crowded primary field.
Former Congressman John Delaney pointed out that Medicare, on average, pays hospitals about 87 cents on the dollar compared to the $1.45 private insurers pay. Expanding Medicare to the entire health care system would put hospitals out of business and create a two-tiered system, similar to Brazil’s.
“If you start under-paying all the health-care providers, you’re going to create a two-tier market where wealthy people buy their health care with cash, Delaney said, while people “like my dad, the union electrician, will be “forced into an underfunded system.
What We Say: Americans’ healthcare costs are out of control, but expanding the role of bureaucrats and lobbyists won’t improve access to care or health outcomes. Whenever wishful terms like “universal and “free precede policy suggestions, candidates are encouraging you to ignore the inevitable costs and trade-offs of implementation. Doctor shortages, long wait times, and lack of access to critical care will be made worse. Public plans are written by lobbyists to protect their own interests, not yours.
Medicare for All? Be Careful What You Ask For
No, My Study Didn’t Find Medicare for All Would Lower U.S. Health Costs by $2 Trillion
Why
By B.N. Frank
If you’re looking for research on how cell phone and wireless WiFi radiation exposure is harmful, you definitely want to check out Dr. Joel M. Moskowitz’s website SaferEMR as well as sign-up for his newsletter. Recently, he sent out a summary and commentary on the April 19, 2019 NPR Science Friday segment, “The Future of 5G.
For those not familiar with 5G technology and the ridiculous and highly risky “Race for 5G, please see Activist Post archives as well as Dr. Moskowitz’s recommended research links (1, 2).
Save Independent Media for as Little as $1 Per Month
From Dr. Moskowitz: “The Future Of 5G (PBS Science Friday): My Summary and Comments.
Brian Fung – Washington Post
5G should be available in most US cities by 2020; many years later for complete nationwide coverage.
Race to 5G: role out quickly so US can dominate development of new technologies (e.g., self-driving cars).
U.S has security concerns re: Chinese manufacturers of 5G equipment.
NASA and NOAA’s concerns re: interference with weather monitoring and forecasting; “bureaucratic tussle.
Harold Feld – Public Knowledge
5G may increase digital divide because this technology requires “densification (i.e., many cell antennas); this will be 10 times more expensive to build out than current cellular technology; rural areas and poor urban areas may not get 5G due to high cost to install the infrastructure.
Trump recently announced $20 billion program over 10 years to provide broadband access to rural areas; but this is the same old Obama program of $2 billion per year; we need a more aggressive program.
Many states adopted laws which remove all regulations on deployment. California is considering such a law. This will increase the digital divide.
Ira Flatow (IP)
IF: Senator Blumenthal & Rep. Eshoo – asked FCC for proof that 5G is safe.
Devra Davis (taped, not live): Wants moratorium on deployment of 5G due to concerns about health effects.
[My comments: Instead of relying on a single sound byte from a pre-taped interview with Dr. Devra Davis, she should have been on the program to address the problematic assertions made by Drs. Bucher and Samet.]
[Christie Taylor, the associate producer for Science Friday, scheduled a phone interview with me yesterday and then failed to follow up. I was available to provide an alternative perspective on the show re: the science and implications
By Jason Ditz
(ANTIWAR.COM) — On Monday, President Trump will officially propose his new budget plan, which calls for major cuts in domestic spending across the board, but which also seeks a large further increase in military spending, above and beyond the increases already planned.
Exact figures aren’t clear at this point, but what is clear is that the general direction of this budget is going to face major opposition within the House of Representatives, not just from the Democratic leadership, but from some Republicans as well.
It’s not just the heavily military-centric priorities that will fuel the opposition, though clearly that is part of it. The budget proposal also ditches the Republicans’ goal of a 10-year time-frame for a balanced budget.
Instead of a 10-year balancing, the new proposal envisions a 15-year time-frame. Even that is based on projections of large economic growth that most economists say are not realistic, and potentially not even possible.
That money will be going into the US military, already the costliest military on the planet by far. The US military budget is so vast as it is, that it is larger than the next several countries combined, and it has already grown substantially in the last two years, while the other comparatively large spenders are trying to make cuts to the military to get their budgets in line.
Budget Committee Chairman Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY) says that the plan is a “non-starter, and that the House leadership has no plans to include the domestic spending cuts in their own plan, and effectively are going to disregard Trump’s proposal.
By Jason Ditz / Republished with permission / ANTIWAR.COM / Report a typo
Trump Budget Would Slash Domestic Spending, Boost Military Spending
By Mitchell Gunter
Germany grabbed headlines across the globe in late January by proposing a complete government ban on utilizing coal for energy by 2038, effectively signing the industry’s death warrant.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) draft “Green New Deal produced anger, confusion, and outright laughter across the nation earlier this month, effectively proposing to eradicate the health insurance, nuclear energy, and fossil fuel industries overnight in addition to providing “economic security to those “unable or unwilling to work.
While Ocasio-Cortez’s proposals cater to leftist, radical environmentalists and are utterly ludicrous in an economic sense, causing even CNN’s Jake Tapper to balk at the $40 trillion price tag, it appears that other nations are leaping headfirst into similar proposals that invite economic destruction.
“Green Demands Could Kill Germany’s Economy Germany grabbed headlines across the globe in late January by proposing a complete government ban on utilizing coal for energy by 2038, effectively signing the industry’s death warrant. President Donald J. Trump has repeatedly slammed Germany for the country’s immense trade surplus with the United States. However, if the German government continues to cave to the demands of green energy extremists, Berlin’s robust economy will be a thing of the past.
The German Coal Commission’s plan involves Germany phasing out coal as early as 2035, a timeline that a number of senior lawmakers have denounced as unrealistic. The proposal would see billions spent to help deal with the economic effects of such a dramatic shift, while the country’s power system will be forced to make a sharp turn to the left.
Moreover, as is often the case for ideologically-motivated policy, German taxpayers will be left footing the bill, sacrificing Germany’s future as an industrial powerhouse in the process.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has made the Energiewende, or energy transition, a key part of her legacy. The Wall Street Journal offered a particularly damning verdict on the coal commission’s proposal, referring to it as “the world’s dumbest energy policy—which wil
Op-Ed by Catherine J. Frompovich
Rep. Matt Getz of Florida posted the following video on Twitter showing caravan participants being handed what looks like paper money—not ‘instructions’ on a money-size piece of paper, as some contend. Do you think these people are clamoring for ‘instructions’? Furthermore, who is supplying the “funding for that effort? Don’t you think U.S. taxpayers ought to know the answer, and shouldn’t the lamestream, mainstream press be reporting on that aspect of the illegal immigration caravans heading toward the USA?
October 17, 2018
0:59 minutes
BREAKING: Footage in Honduras giving cash 2 women & children 2 join the caravan & storm the US border @ election time. Soros? US-backed NGOs? Time to investigate the source! pic.twitter.com/5pEByiGkkN
— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) October 17, 2018
Then, we have this video showing two long-bed tractor trailers in Mexico hauling caravan participants—mostly male, not women and children, which apparently is contrary to accepted ethical protocols.
American Trucking Company Hauling Illegal Alien Migrant Caravan
0:45 minutes
https://youtu.be/KCF5GLy6an8?t=7
Alexandra Bruce at Forbidden Knowledge TV points out several things:
On the door of the truck’s cab, one can see the company name “Javier, along with the company’s registration number at the US Department of Transportation. Numerous flatbed trucks have been filmed on the Mexican highways, carting hundreds of young men to the US border.
Some are calling this the “weaponization of poor people by Globalists like George Soros. Alex Jones is calling it “21st century warfare.
Alexandra’s daily for October 26, 2018 has this photograph of ‘migrants’ burning a USA flag that has a swastika sprayed onto the field of red and white stripes!
By Charles Hugh Smith
Robots are only cost-effective in the narrow niches of commoditized tasks.
In the view of Universal Basic Income (UBI) advocates, substituting robots for human labor will not only free virtually all humans from working, it will also generate endless wealth because the robots will be doing almost all of the work.
To reach a more realistic understanding of the economics of robots, let’s return to author Peter Drucker’s maxim: enterprises don’t have profits, enterprises only have expenses. In other words, from the outside, it looks as if businesses generate profits as a matter of course.
Enterprises don’t have profits, enterprises only have expenses captures the core dynamic of all enterprises: the only reliable characteristic of enterprises, whether they are owned by the state, the workers or private investors, is that they have expenses. Profits–needed to reinvest in the enterprise and build capital–can only be reaped if revenues exceed the costs of production, general overhead and debt service.
Robots are complex machines that require substantial quantities of energy and resources to produce, program and maintain. As a result, they will never be super-cheap to manufacture, own or maintain.
Robots, and the ecosystem of software, engineering, spare parts, diagnostics, etc. needed to produce, power and maintain them, are a large capital and operational expense.
The greater the complexity of the tasks the robot is designed to complete, the greater the complexity and cost of the robot.
Robots only make financial sense in a very narrow swath of commoditized production, or in situations such as war or hazardous rescue missions where cost is not the primary issue.
Compare the following two tasks and the cost and complexity of the robots needed to complete them in a cost-effective manner.
Task one: move boxes around a warehouse with flat concrete floors and fixed shelving mounted with hundreds of sensors to guide robots.
Task two: navigate extremely rough and uneven terrain with no embedded sensors, dig deep holes in rocky soil, and plant a delicate seedling in each hole. Each hole must be selected by contextual criteria; there is no pre-set grid pattern to the planting.
The first task has all the features that make robots cost-effective: easily navigable flat floors, fixed, easily mapped structures embedded with multiple sensors, and a limited, easily programmable repertoire of physical movements: stock boxes on the shelving, retrieve boxes from the shelving. The compact working space makes it practical to reprogram, recharge and repair the robots; spare parts can be kept onsite, and so on.
The second task–one of the steps in restoring a habitat–has none of these features. The terrain is extremely uneven and challenging to navigate; the varied surfaces may be hazardous in non-obvious ways (pro
By Grant Smith
But “crusaders backed by foreign interests shape policy.
On November 3, professor John Mearsheimer made a short and stunning presentation at “U.S. Foreign Policy in the Trump Era: Can Realism and Restraint Prevail? conference held at George Washington University in Washington, DC. In the unipolar world after the collapse of the Soviet Union, he claimed, realists urged nonintervention and staying out of conflicts and countries that “really don’t matter much. Unfortunately, American “crusaders prevailed and pushed the US into a series of unnecessary quagmires across the greater Middle East.
Americans appear to agree. When presented with a list of expenditure categories, and polled about which should be the single top priority for budgetary cuts by Congress, “US military actions in the Middle East was far and away their top choice. But most Americans probably have little idea how enormous those costs truly are.
Question: Which expenditure category should Congress cut to make government more responsive to the American people and reduce the budget deficit?
The IRmep poll was fielded by Google surveys from November 13 to November 15 and has an RMSE score of 4.9% Demographic filtering is available online from Google.
A new study from Brown University estimates that the cost per individual US taxpayer for wars since 9/11 is at least $23,386. The true figure is far higher because, as the report notes, “the US went into deficit spending after 9/11, the cost of war per taxpayer will be higher as the US pays interest on borrowing for war. This accounting, notes the report, does not address the human toll, in terms of regional civilian death and displacement, physical and psychological wounds inflicted on US veterans, and the opportunity cost of “what we might have done differently with the money spent and obligated and how veterans’ and civilian lives could have been lived differently.
It is a reflection of the continuing entrenched power of America’s “crusaders that cutting US military expenditures in the Middle East is not part of the debate in ongoing tax plan deliberations and assessments of their enormous budgetary impact. Foreign influences exert enormous
By Carey Wedler
When he was in office, former President Barack Obama earned the ire of anti-war activists for his expansion of Bush’s drone wars. The Nobel Peace Prize-winning head of state ordered ten times more drone strikes than the previous president, and estimates late in Obama’s presidency showed 49 out of 50 victims were civilians. In 2015, it was reported that up to 90% of drone casualties were not the intended targets.
Current President Donald Trump campaigned on a less interventionist foreign policy, claiming to be opposed to nation-building and misguided invasions. But less than two months into his presidency, Trump has expanded the drone strikes that plagued Obama’s “peaceful presidency.
According to an analysis from Micah Zenko, an analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations, Trump has markedly increased U.S. drone strikes since taking office. Zenko, who reported earlier this year on the over 26,000 bombs Obama dropped in 2016, summarized the increase:
During President Obama’s two terms in office, he approved 542 such targeted strikes in 2,920 days—one every 5.4 days. From his inauguration through today, President Trump had approved at least 36 drone strikes or raids in 45 days—one every 1.25 days.
That’s an increase of 432 percent.
He highlights some of the attacks:
These include three drone strikes in Yemen on January 20, 21, and 22; the January 28 Navy SEAL raid in Yemen; one reported strike in Pakistan on March 1; more than thirty strikes in Yemen on March 2 and 3; and at least one more on March 6.
The Trum
By Daisy Luther
When the US government steps outside of the apple pie and baseball narrative of the American Dream and issues warnings to prep, you’d better pay strict attention and start upping your preparedness game. (Whether you believe that the threat to prep for is manufactured to engineer consent or not is, while an interesting debate, is entirely beside the point of this article.)
The US government, much like the ones in Venezuela and Greece, likes to paint a rosy picture of life in our country, often to the point that those who are awake are incredulous that others accept the propaganda. Sort of like when Obama said that anyone who claimed there was something wrong with the US economy was a peddler of fiction. Or when Venezuelan President Maduro said last year that they were merely being environmentally friendly when they began rationing electricity.
But what does it mean when that rosy picture gets a huge rip down the center? Particularly when the rip comes straight from the government, whose usual job it is to photoshop the rips so no one sees them?
I can give you a recent example. Remember how President Maduro said there was no food shortage for the longest time? Then suddenly, he announced that the country was out of food (as though the crisis hadn’t been building all along) and recommended that folks grow veggies and raise chickens on their balconies. And then, all hell broke loose. The country is out of positively everything and what is available is dramatically hyperinflated. (A dozen eggs for $150, anyone?)
Obama issued the first of 2 warnings to prep. Most of us are well aware that when disaster strikes, we’re on our own. That has been proven in disaster after disaster, like when it took days to get aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy. But, usually, the government likes to downplay the need for independence. When they begin telling people to get ready, you’d better be sure that you are, because that means they know – absolutely know – that they won’t have the resources to aid those in need.
First, President Obama stepped away from the golf course to address FEMA at the end of May. Here, from the White House website, is an excerpt from his speech (the emphasis is mine
By Peter A. Kirby
So far we have only discussed the New Manhattan Project’s most obvious aspect: weather control. Just in that aspect alone, the New Manhattan Project is easily the biggest scientific endeavor in Human history. Believe it or not, it appears that quite a few other massive projects have been piggybacked upon this global weather modification scheme.
They are already spraying us with megatons of aluminum, barium, and strontium. That right there is enough to put people away in prison for the rest of their lives, or worse. So why stop there? The people responsible for the New Manhattan Project (NMP) have apparently gone for broke.
What else might one accomplish by spraying stuff all over God’s creation and/or shooting electromagnetic energy all over the place? What else have these mad scientists been up to? As opposed to the more understandable weather modification aspects of the NMP, this article examines the NMP’s more unbelievable aspects. From mind control to Morgellons to Nikola Tesla’s death ray and more, this article examines the New Manhattan Project’s other agendas.
If you do not know what the New Manhattan Project is, please refer to the author’s previous article “Chemtrails Exposed: A History of the New Manhattan Project.
Mind control Other than weather modification, the most probable purpose of the New Manhattan Project is mind control. It is well documented that certain types of electromagnetic energy waves can remotely manipulate people’s thoughts and feelings. The relevant field here is known as “psychotronics and “psychotronic weaponry. A cursory overview is presented here with an emphasis upon the potential use of these technologies as part of the New Manhattan Project.
Not only can electromagnetic frequencies influence one’s mind, they can also affect the rest of our bodily functions. Research by Dr. Robert Becker, Dr. Thomas Valone, and many others have strongly correlated the Human body’s functions to electromagnetic fields. This correlation is due to the fact that the Human body is a complex bioelectric organism highly susceptible to electromagnetic energies and fields.
The ionospheric heaters used as part of today’s New Manhattan Project can produce the extremely low frequency (ELF) signals that affect our moods,
By Peter A. Kirby
A key question in many investigations is: Who benefits? In Latin we say: Cui bono? So, as we continue to investigate chemtrails and geoengineering, let us inquire as to who benefits from this New Manhattan Project. What might be the advantages of conducting a global weather modification project such as this? This article examines the New Manhattan Project’s motives.
If you do not know what the New Manhattan Project is, please refer to the author’s previous work “Chemtrails Exposed: A History of the New Manhattan Project.
It is incredibly bold to routinely dump megatons of toxic metals into our atmosphere. Committing crimes of this magnitude, openly in the sky above us, could very well lead to new Nuremberg trials. Considering the level of risk involved, what might be the rewards for these outrageous crimes against Humanity?
For the worldly, the potential rewards are great.
Weather’s effect upon business activity has been studied extensively at the highest levels since at least the mid-1950s. In 1971, an organization called Research Applied to National Needs (RANN) was created within the National Science Foundation to study the economic benefits of weather modification. The weather modification literature is replete with examples of favorable cost-to-benefit ratios.
From agriculture to energy to transportation to leisure to construction to just about every business activity on the face of the planet, weather has a direct effect upon operations. American business activity sensitive to weather is well understood and measured in the trillions of dollars annually.
The multi-billion dollar weather derivatives and catastrophe reinsurance markets rise and fall with the weather.
Outcomes of wars are heavily dependent upon weather.
The politics of government water distribution has also been hotly contested over the years and directly affected by the weather. Don’t forget about all the hydroelectric power generated by rainfall.
Maybe a better question is: Who doesn’t benefit? Although we the people are surely not benefiting
By Michael Snyder
Millions of Americans were gearing up for some huge event to happen in September, but the world didn’t end and now many of them have given up entirely on prepping. Of course the truth is that some absolutely earth-shattering events did take place last month, but because September did not play out exactly as some were anticipating, a lot of people feel very let down.
My contacts in the emergency food industry tell me that sales have dropped off dramatically, and yesterday I was told by someone that I trust that the same is true for those that sell precious metals. But this should not be happening. What we witnessed in August and September was just the warm up act, and all of the numbers are absolutely screaming at us that we are right on track for a major global crisis.
In this article I am going to focus on economic and financial issues, but there are so many other things going on around the planet right now that threaten to throw our world into turmoil. Anyone who thinks that it is safe to “relax now is simply not paying attention. The following are 20 reasons why all the people that quit prepping after September are dead wrong…
#1 U.S. exports are down 11 percent for the year so far. The only other times they have fallen this dramatically since the turn of the century were during the last two recessions.
#2 Since March, the amount of stuff being shipped by truck, rail and air inside the United States has been falling every single month on a year-over-year basis. This is a clear indication that economic activity is really slowing down.
#3 Wholesale sales in the U.S. have fallen to the lowest level since the last rece
By Peter A. Kirby
“Let me guess… You must be, Xerxes.
– King Leonidas from the movie “300
The New Manhattan Project (NMP) requires an incredibly huge command and control apparatus. Over 1000 airplanes need to be commanded. The ionospheric heaters need to be operated. Atmospheric conditions need to be monitored and analyzed. Computers are needed to assist throughout. Today’s military refers to such an apparatus as C4: command, control, communications and computers.
The development of these types of technologies used in weather modification and the atmospheric sciences is well documented. It’s way too big to hide. This paper examines the historical development of these technologies, the currently known state of the art, and possible undisclosed operations. Specifically, this article examines the development and current status of C4 technology used as part of today’s New Manhattan Project. If you do not know what the New Manhattan Project is, please see the author’s previous article “Chemtrails Exposed: A History of the New Manhattan Project.
Mapping the atmosphere Before our atmosphere could be commanded and controlled, it was necessary to understand its composition and movements. Pertaining to this quest for understanding, this section recounts some of the most notable efforts.
The weather that we experience is a product of planet Earth, its atmosphere, and the Sun. Our atmosphere consists of many layers. In ascending order, our atmosphere consists of: the troposphere (where we breathe the air and our weather occurs), the stratosphere, the mesosphere, the thermosphere, the ionosphere, and the magnetosphere. Phenomena in all of these regions, stretching to 32,000 miles above Earth’s crust, have a direct effect upon the weather we see every day. Not only that, but the water, ice, volcanoes, calderas, and other features of the Earth’s surface and sub-surface have direct relevance here. Because of this, in order to modify the weather, all of these regions must be understood and manipulated. As this piece unfolds, we will see that this understanding has been achieved.
Terrestrial weather data networks began in the 1840s with the development of the telegraph.
The first scientific explorations of our atmosphere were conducted using balloons, dropsondes and sounding rockets. Weather balloons would be floated up to 100,000 ft. into the stratosphere where attached devices would record atmospheric conditions and then would fall back to Ea
By Brandon Smith
I wouldn’t say that it is “never too late to prepare for potential disaster because, obviously, the numerous economic and social catastrophes of the past have proven otherwise. There simply comes a point in time in which the ignorant and presumptive are indeed officially screwed. I will say that we have not quite come to that point yet here in the U.S., but the window of opportunity for preparation is growing very narrow.
As expected, U.S. stocks are now revealing the underlying instability of our economy, which has been festering for several years. Extreme volatility not seen since 2008/2009 has returned, sometimes with 1000 point fluctuations positive and negative in the span of only a couple days. Current market tremors are beginning to resemble the EKG of a patient suffering a heart attack.
Stocks are a trailing indicator, meaning that when an equities crash finally becomes visible to the mainstream public, it indicates that the economic fundamentals have been broken beyond repair for quite a while. What does this mean for those people who prefer to protect themselves and their families rather than wait to be drowned like lemmings in a deluge? It means they are lucky if they have more than a few months to put their house in order.
The process of crisis preparedness is not as simple as going on a gear-buying bonanza or making a few extra trips to Costco. That is better than nothing; but really, it’s a form of half-assed prepping that creates more of an illusion of survivabilty rather than providing ample security in the event that financial systems malfunction.
Much of what’s listed in this article will include training and infrastructure goals far beyond the usual standards of beans, bullets and Band-Aids.
Market turmoil has only just begun to take shape around the globe; and as I explained in my last article, the situation is only going to become exponentially worse as 2015 bleeds into 2016. I certainly cannot say for certain how long our system will remain “stable, primarily because our current collapse could easily move faster or slower through the influence of outside or engineered events (a slower progression without any black swan-style triggers would likely end in total breakdown within the span of a couple years, rather than a fast progression ending in the span of a few months). What I can do is give you a conservati
By Aaron Dykes
Waking up to the cynical truth about the corrupt, backscratching, revolving door relationships between the FDA (and other agencies) and the Big Pharma and Big Agra industries has been difficult to face, as the problem is so pervasive as to affect the lives of nearly everyone in this country, and beyond throughout the world.
As such, I felt the need to respond to Jon Rappoport’s article, “A Message to Libertarians About the FDA, because it is an issue I have also thought about quite often.
Is it in the interest of a free society who desires limited government and maximum rights to have a tough watchdog who can protect people? After all, even the average citizen is likely familiar with the deadly mistakes and misdeeds of the food and drug industries….
People don’t want dangerous pharmaceuticals being prescribed to them because proper testing wasn’t done; people don’t want their food contaminated with salmonella or e. Coli; many people don’t want GMOs to be allowed at all, and damn sure want a label on food packages in order to know which foods contain them.
But if these are duties of the Food and Drug Administration, then the federal agency has failed over and over and over again, all while protecting those who’ve done wrong and enabling them to do bigger and better business.
The details are part of a long and ongoing saga; but for starters, the overlapping relationships between the FDA and Big Pharma industry look something like this:
So what can be done about it? What is the solution to the dilemma?
As it turns out, protecting individual liberty should be the first priority…until
By Bernie Suarez
It’s been said, in times of great deceit truth is revolutionary. Here we are in 2015 and now that martial law “practice drills or “urban warfare exercises have begun let’s all think for a minute and consider where the lies and deceit surrounding Jade Helm begins.
First, it all starts with the names they use in substitution for the scarier more realistic and understood “martial law. They instead use phrases like “urban warfare, “military training exercise. Call it whatever you would, it’s the same thing. It’s illegal practice for martial law which is when the military forces take on the role of local law enforcement.
Then there is the motto they’ve chosen – “Master the human domain. Really? Is there anyone who thinks this operation is about defending freedom? Helping humanity? Anything good? The motto says it all. The intention is to conquer, to control, to defeat, and overcome human beings. Warning to all!
Then there is the supposed meaning of the acronym associated with JADE HELM – Joint Assistant for Development and Execution – Homeland Eradication of Local Militants. Whether this is the true meaning of this acronym or not it only shows how the Jade Helm psyop is already in effect.
On top of that, look no further than Wikipedia already shockingly characterizing the real live Jade Helm operation as “Jade Helm Conspiracy Theory“. So even as the treasonous participants set off explosions on U.S. soil rocking people’s houses, the exercises are STILL a “conspiracy theory. This gets at the underbelly of the Jade Helm psyop. It goes like this – ‘We are coming for you, we will set off ordnance and practice killing and rounding you up but if you identify what we are doing, YOU are a “conspiracy theorist for jumping to any conclusions or thinking you know what we are doing’.
Is there still anyone out there that doesn’t think “conspiracy theorist is the most overused phrase in America? That Wikipedia is already pounding away at the “conspiracy theory psyop is only a clear attempt to hold on to the sheep that are still asleep in hopes of preventing mass awakening. What we are seeing every day now is a real-time effort by the globalist control system at doing everything they can to prevent mass awakening. Unfortunately for the globalists, their brainless CIA, their dying mainstream media and the new world order, humanity is irreversibly catching on to what is happening; and the faster they move, the faster people are waking up. So let’s push the awakening even more by doing whatever little things we can do to accelerate the awakening in light of the Jade Helm 15 operation.
As in martial arts, one must always find a way to use the enemy’s strength against him. So let’s consider 10 ways that we can use the Jade Helm 15 operation against the very globalists and their drive for a new world order.
1 – New tangible reason to discourage young men and women from joining the military
Are you someone who always tries to talk innocent teenagers out of joining the military? Find it hard to convince them not to join? Well with Jade Helm 15 already underway in Flint, Michigan now you can show them the videos of the outraged local residents. Let them hear the car alarms going off. Explain to them the fear that residents are experiencing at the hands of the oppressive Army traitors who carry on with their mission with
By Brandon Turbeville
Interestingly, a 2007 clip from NBC News has, for some reason, been making the rounds on the Internet once again as if it were being broadcast for the first time. This clip and the accompanying commentary has served to galvanize those reading and listening to it into one of two camps: one that is subject to overhype, “clickbait titles and panic; and another that is firmly entrenched in the American sheep class for whom no bad news or reports of malfeasance is real or anything other than a conspiracy theory.
This is because the NBC clip is an issue that would affect each and every individual in the country on a deeply personal level. Entitled, “The Year 2017, the report predicts a near future in which every American will be microchipped by the year 2017.
Yet, while such a report may have caused consternation amongst the general public even as recently as 2007, much has changed in the last seven or so years. The year 2015 brings a new kind of American, one that is largely unconcerned with anything other than the most basic needs of sustenance and entertainment. While, in 2007, Americans who were willing to engage the ruling class in the idea of microchipping humans were still a distinct minority, the seven years after the report has seen a major increase in the population of individuals who are indeed willing to consider the possibility.
But, while those actually concerned about the idea of a microchipped population are often bombarded with misinformation such as rumors that the AHCA contains provisions to forcibly implant microchips[1], the concerns over microchipping (mandatory and otherwise) are very real. Indeed, not only does the technology exist, it is currently being implemented. Indeed, the goal is to gradually expand the frequency and ubiquity of such technology until it becomes the norm and, eventually, a procedure enforced by law.
Biometrics Already Used
The video clip mentioned above is focused entirely upon the concept of biometric methods/microchipping being used for the purposes of identification and financial transactions. As the report mentions, forms of biometric identification for payment and ID have been used for years, with relatively warm reception amongst the general public despite the fact that the majority have yet to join the bandwagon.
Regardless, such technology has expanded at a rapid pace over the last ten years, intensifying its presence over the last five especially.
For instance, in June 2012 it was announced by Homeland Security News Wire that researchers at the Biometric Technologies Laboratory at the University of Calgary have improved upon current commercially available biometric identification technologies to the point of creating a form of artificial intelligence capable of making decisions regarding biometric information received from a variety of different sources.
The new biometric security program works by simulating the “learning patterns and cognitive processes of the brain. Th
| | | Image Credit: StopSmartMeters.org |
Catherine J Frompovich
Activist Post
Otto von Bismarck, the conservative Prussian statesman, who dominated German and European affairs from the 1860s until 1890 [1], supposedly is attributed with saying, “If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made. How true, especially in the case of the shenanigans that apparently have gone on in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania regarding House Bill 2200 that became Act 129 in 2008.
House Bill 2200 had amendments, and the Freeman Amendment in particular, is discussed in the House Journal. Were Smart Meters (SMs) really mandated or actually supposed to be voluntary, since the history of that bill, according to the House and Senate Journals, seems to indicate something totally different than what is being forced upon electric power company customers like PECO, an Exelon company.
Here’s a brief, but clear account, of the history of PA House Bill 2200 as it worked its way into becoming Act 129 of 2008.
February 11, 2008 House Journal pp. 386-403
PN 3218, p. 388
PA State Rep. Mr. Freeman addresses the Speaker:
Mr. Speaker, this amendment would require that all public utilities, electric utilities, install smart meters for residential and business customers across the Commonwealth. [….] by allowing the customer to be able to opt in – and it is optional – in to a purchasing process where they could purchase their electricity at off-peak hours, thereby saving on cost.
PN 3218, p.390
PA State Rep. Mr. Hutchinson addresses the Speaker:
Mr. Speaker, [….] The consumers of Pennsylvania are about to experience an increase in the electricity costs over the next couple of years because rate caps will be phasing out in various areas over the next 2 or 3 years, and with that, consumers are going to see their electric rated increased. [….], they will be mandated to pay for these new meters to be installed in their home whether they save on their electric costs or not.
It only makes sense to say smart meters should go to consumers who can save money by installing them. Those who can save by having a smart meter, it would make sense for them to have smart meters in their home. Mandating it across the board mandates that everybody pays whether they save or not, and that just does not make sense.
I am very concerned that we continue to ignore the consumers by making more mandates and increasing their costs, whether it is through mandating meters, through trying to have some kind of a surcharge, all these things at a time when their electric costs are going up anyways.
So although on a case-by-case basis, smart meters might be a good thing to do, making a 100-percent mandate does not make sense. So I am opposing this amendment.
PA State Rep. Mr. Godshall states:
In this case are we not taking the choice away from the consumer by saying you have to put this in service in your district rather than you may or you have a choice? Are we not saying that you m
Catherine J. Frompovich
Activist Post
Ms. Rebecca Fish, Senior Policy Advisor / Email: Rebecca.Fish@hhs.gov
U.S. Health & Human Services
Ref: Federal Register Doc. 2015-02481 – NAIP Comment due date 3-9-15
Dear Senior Policy Adviser Rebecca Fish:
As requested in the Federal Register of 2-5-15, please accept my comments regarding mandatory adult vaccinations in the USA, the NAIP.
Realistically, most of the information promulgated about vaccines really needs to be revisited for accuracy, transparency, and scientific facts. Furthermore, misleading bureaucratic promotional information should not be the basis for mandating any more vaccines for anyone in the USA!
Probably, the most dramatic explanation for the above statement is found in the information discussed in the:
Dr. Paul Offit, MD, Vaccine Inventor, Chief, Infectious Diseases, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, PA AND Dr. Boyd Haley, PhD, Researcher, Emeritus Professor Chemistry/Biochemistry, University of Kentucky Virtual Debate
Biochemistry Science versus the Pharmaceutical-Medical Paradigm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ehqA5z_l3fc#t=103
Dr. Haley claims that “people like Dr. Offit have no training in toxicology at all. That statement probably can be applied to most—if not all—medical doctors and healthcare professionals who, through pharmaceutical industry proselytization/sales reps and ‘contrived science publications to approve their products’, believe “hook-line-and- sinker all the rhetoric about vaccine ‘safety’, ‘efficacy’, and interpreted biochemical baloney.
One impeccable example of biochemical baloney about vaccines deals with mercury and ethylmercury, in particular. It is the Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry Boyd Haley’s discussion regarding Thimerosal, ethylmercury and mercury, which HHS/CDC/FDA really need to take to heart and abide by. The science on Hg has been there for years! It’s a neurotoxin.
Dr. Haley emphasizes that the USA vaccinates the most of any country, but also has the highest infant mortality-death rate; that the USA is way down the list—number 27!
In 2010, The Washington Post published the article “Our infant mortality rate is a national embarrassment, which contained a dramatic chart as to where the USA rated in regard to infant mortality: 27th behind countries like Slovakia (26), New Zealand (25), Hungary (24), Poland (23), United Kingdom (21), Ireland (16), Czech Republic (5), and Finland (1).
Dr. Haley lends his expertise as a biochemistry professor to explaining what happens biochemically and synergistically between toxic chemicals and, in particular, Thimerosal’s ethylmercury and aluminum.
Dr. Haley’s discussion of leaky membranes being created, and “leaky gut, in particular, ought to be of particular interest to anyone who has allergies or an autoimmune
By Bernie Suarez
Yet another new year is upon us, and those of us fully awakened can see that the globalist plan to control humanity is rolling forward at superhighway speed as our battle for humanity rages on. So let’s ask the question, what can we do as truth seekers to improve our odds of success against this global cabal of control and oppression? Is there anything worth throwing on the table with the advent of the new year for truth seekers to consider that could actually act as a game-changer in this battle for truth, freedom, and consciousness? Actually there is.
I deeply pondered on this issue as we begin a new year and I want to share seven points that could make a big difference in our battle for humanity by bringing truth seekers together on the same page so that we can act more effectively, more efficiently and have a greater impact on the world around us in the new year. Here are seven things I believe all truth seekers should stop doing (if they are doing these), so that we can gel as a movement and strengthen our presence and impact on the consciousness of the current world. These points, I believe, will help us leave our mark on history as we push forward with the current information war of today.
1 – Stop labeling everyone who doesn’t agree with you on every single issue, as “controlled opposition I now hear it all the time. This person and that person is “controlled opposition. We know factually that the U.S. government has indeed co-opted (to put it lightly) many movements in America in the past, dating back to the 1960s and before. There is no question that government employs controlled opposition to stifle and derail movements. The phrase, “the truth shall set you free, comes to mind. It is exponentially more important for truth seekers to fight the good fight, do their own research, check the authenticity of claims with verifiable facts and science, i.e. search for truth. Most importantly, determine what your main purpose is, and then focus on what means most to you instead of burning all your energy trying to warn others who the controlled opposition is or isn’t. Consider that, ultimately, if you are wrong about your accusation, this will serve to divide the movement further and potentially create more damage than good to the movement.
We all know that the trolls and shills that regularly appear on mainstream media are ALL by definition controlled oppositi
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Heather Callaghan
Activist Post
With friends like these…
Recently I wrote about a large Canada-wide surveillance initiative: Look Who’s Behind This Large Study to “Help the Bees. Following the money trail, one could see that Canada’s government was placing “hope for an answer unto major international biotech and agricultural companies such as Monsanto, BASF, Bayer, Syngenta etc… The very same companies whose chemical products are implicated for diminishing bee populations and have everything to gain by “finding an answer that doesn’t point back to them.
Does that seem like a gross conflict of interest to you?
It may or may not surprise you to know that similar shadow puppeteering is going on in the UK.
British MPs are “up in arms saying that government bee research to boost pollinators is now tainted by corporate funding.
NewScientist reports:
A report released today by Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee critiques the government’s draft National Pollinator Strategy, which sets out plans to halt the decline in pollinating insects like bees.
The strategy was created by Defra (Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs). The list of consultees appears here. Whaddya know? On that list, among many Big Agri and Big Biotech interests, appears BASF, Bayer CropScience, and Syngenta. Also, the Crop Protection Association, of which Syngenta is a member.
Of course, the EAC critique would have come in handy back when Defra was asking for public comment by May 2014. Defra, by the way, opposed the EU’s temporary neonicotinoid ban, along with farmers and chemical companies like Bayer and Syngenta. The critique is basically asking Defra to accept the ban and stop trying to overturn it. Only three kinds of neonicotinoids were halted: thiamethoxam, clothianidin, and imidacloprid.
The critique
Daisy Luther
Activist Post
Have you ever thought about how wildly unrealistic and unsustainable our current diets are? Items that don’t grow within the same season are commonly consumed together. Things that don’t grow on the same continent are combined into all sorts of meals. We eat blueberries in December and drink pumpkin spice lattes in the summer. We eat tropical fruit with Midwestern grains. Without the transportation system, there would be absolutely no rhyme or reason to our “normal diets.
Here’s an example: What’s a typical breakfast in the United States?
Maybe it’s a bowl of Cheerios with milk, a banana sliced on top, and a glass of orange juice.
This sounds pretty normal, right? It’s not – it’s actually quite exotic, if you think about it.
Imagine if the grocery store supply lines shut down. If you had to eat what you could acquire without the national food transport network, how likely would it be that you could replicate that breakfast? It seems so simple, but it’s not going to happen.
Think for just a moment about how ridiculous such a combination would have seemed to our ancestors. Let’s forget for a moment that the breakfast mentioned is processed and loaded with GMOs. Let’s just think about the origins of the food.
If you live where wheat is growing, I’m going to guess that you do not live where bananas and oranges are growing. You’ve just invalidated the typical American breakfast in that sentence.
Here’s an example of a breakfast you could acquire at the right time of year without a visit to the store. It took less than 5 minutes to make – it was truly as fast as that hypothetical bowl of cereal with the sliced banana. We picked the berries ourselves a short walk from our home on Friday. The duck eggs came from a nearby farm. It was filling, healthy, and delicious. You could easily add some local meat to the breakfast, or a bowl of porridge made from whatever grain grows nearby (like corn, rice, oats, or quinoa, depending on your location). Nearly every agricultural zone has a grain that grows well if you wish to acquire or farm them.
It’s time to look at your diet very differently, because I can almost guarantee that transit supply line won’t be there indefinitely. And even if the stores do remain open, how long with this food be financially viable? With the petrodollar teetering on the brink of obsolescence,
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Richard Wilcox, PhD
Activist Post
The plane to Lisbon, you would like to be on it.
Why, what’s in Lisbon?
To get back to America. I’ve often speculated why you don’t return to America. Did you abscond with the church funds? Did you run off with the Senator’s wife? I like to think that you killed a man, it’s the romantic in me.
It’s a combination of all three.
And what in Heaven’s name brought you to Casablanca?
My health, I came to Casablanca for the waters.
The waters? What waters? We’re in the desert.
I was misinformed. – Reins & Bogart, Casablanca (1942)
I stand to be corrected but what I recently witnessed first hand and face to face in the city of Nihonmatsu can be interpreted as nothing other than scientific fraud and blatant misrepresentation of the facts on the part of the Japanese government regarding gamma radiation levels, leading to the early deaths of tens of thousands of residents (1). I visited a large nuclear refugee camp in a beautiful location near Nihonmatsu, a modest sized city just outside the evacuation zone of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant No. 1 (FNPP#1) disaster site (2).
Nihonmatsu is a typical mid-sized city in the near region of the FNPP#1 that was heavily doused with radiation from the triple meltdowns that occurred in March of 2011. Due to wind direction, the southern side of the plant did not receive nearly as much as in the northwest (3). Last summer I traveled within just a few kilometers of the FNPP#1 from the south, but readings never exceeded 0.5 microsieverts per hour (mcr sv pr hr). (Consider that 0.1 mcr sv pr hr is roughly an average dose received by a person in a normal environment).
0.5 mcr sv pr hr is an unsettlingly high dose but not nearly as high as what I experienced in Nihonmatsu where the average dose is over 2 mcr pr hr. Depending on how long one spends out of doors (farmers and children at play), that is as high as 19 millisieverts per year, barely under the official limit of 20 per year. Previous to the 3/11 nuclear disaster the Japanese government set the safe limit of exposure for the public at one millisievert per year.
(Photographs the copyrighted property of Richard Wilcox, 2014) Real radiation levels at Nihonmatsu: 2.17 microsieverts per hour.
The housing facility sits on a bluff that used to be a baseball field, and enjoys a beautiful view of surrounding farming villages and a mountain range.
Japan’s Potemkin Village approach to dealing with radiation. The government monitoring station at Nihonmatsu gives an acc
Brandon Smith
Activist Post
Numerous cultures have had holidays dedicated to the celebration of pulling the wool over the eyes of others, from the ancient Romans, to early Muslims, to medieval Christians, to Americans and Europeans today. As April begins, we once again turn a mischievous eye to the concept of the fool and, as always, each person seeks to be the prankster and never the victim.
Unfortunately, even the most vigilant of Americans can sometimes be led astray by a clever ruse, and I believe this is taking place today in the Liberty Movement’s perception of the rising “tensions between Russia and the West.
In my article Ukraine Crisis: Just Another Globalist-Engineered Powder Keg, I outlined the history of false paradigms and engineered conflicts between numerous nations, including how these conflicts are exploited by global money interests to consolidate and centralize social and political power. The birth of communist Russia, in particular, was directly funded by Western banks and supported with arms and military aid from the U.S. government itself. These sorts of startling facts are not taught in schools and universities exactly because the continued dominance of the money elite relies on continued misrepresentations of legitimate history.
Many in the Liberty Movement have studied and are well aware of the central banking cabal and its stranglehold on the U.S. and Europe. But strangely, some people refuse to acknowledge the substantial possibility that global bankers are also in control of Russia and are playing both sides of the burgeoning economic war.
As the Ukrainian crisis festers and other dangers in the Pacific and the Mideast grow, an odd consensus among alternative analysts is taking hold — namely the belief that President Vladimir Putin and Russia represent some kind of opposition to globalization and the rule of corporate financiers. Perhaps moments in Putin’s rhetoric and the existence of media outlets like RT have seduced elements of the Liberty Movement into assuming that Russia is a “victim in the grand schemes of Western oligarchy and that Russia is truly the “white knight, the underdog willing to stand up against the New World Order. I’m sorry to say that nothing could be further from the truth.
Russia is just as much a tool of the global elite today as it was after the Bolshevik Revolution, and Vladimir Putin is just as much a socialist puppet as Barack Obama. Let’s start from the beginning of the rebirth of Russia as a regional federation in the 1990s after the fall of the Warsaw Pact.
Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader largely credited with the ultimate dismantling of the Soviet Union and the rise of the “new Russia, has long been a proponent of the “New World Order (his words) and centralized global government. In an address entitled “Pe
Brandon Smith
Activist Post
With the Crimea referendum passed and Russia ready to annex the region, the United States and the European Union have threatened sanctions. The full extent of these sanctions is not yet known, and announcements are pending for the end of March. If these measures are concrete, they will of course be followed inevitably by economic warfare, including a reduction of natural gas exports to the EU and the eventually full dump of the U.S. dollar by Russia and China. As I have discussed in recent articles, the result of these actions will be disastrous.
For those of us in the liberty movement, it is now impossible to ignore the potential threat to our economy. No longer can people claim that “perhaps there will be a crisis someday, that perhaps “five or 10 years down the road we will have to face the music. No, the threat is here now, and it is very real.
The loss of the dollar’s world reserve status will destroy the only thread holding up its value, namely, investor faith. There are only two possible outcomes from that point onward:
A) The U.S. will be forced to default because no nation will purchase our Treasury bonds and support our debt spending, causing the dollar’s value to implode.
B) The Fed will choose to restart and expand quantitative easing measures, confiscate pension funds, raid bank accounts or issue new taxes in order to keep the system afloat; this will also end in the eventual collapse of dollar value and hyperinflation.
The consequences will lead to an explosion in prices — first in commodities and necessities like petroleum, imported raw materials, food, electricity, etc. and then in all other goods and services. Austerity measures will be instituted by Federal and State governments. Cuts to social welfare programs, including food stamps, are probable. Civil infrastructure will suffer. The cost effectiveness of maintaining public utilities could become unrealistic. Anyone relying on such services may find themselves cut off for days, weeks or indefinitely. Public suffering will invariably rise, along with public crime.
If events like Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans are any indication, the Federal government’s response will be inadequate, to say the least. The Federal Emergency Management Agency clearly cannot be relied upon to provide food, shelter, medical care or protection for communities. In fact, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Feds did far more harm than good, corralling people into camps where death was rampant and disarming outlying neighborhoods so that they could not defend themselves. Tens of millions of dollars in donated and Federally purchased necessities were never delivered to aid survivors. Trucks were turned away, and help from civilian sources was denied.
The point is, if you find yourself in the midst of a national or international catastrophe, you should assume that you will be on your own with
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Julian Rose
Activist Post
Like others fortunate enough to have time to read, reflect and absorb the information put out on sites like this, you have no doubt acquired a pretty reasonable grasp of what’s going on in the World. Yet this knowledge comes with a certain proviso – it gives you a greater responsibility ‘to be’ and to give direction to the change that you now know is needed. Greater than the responsibility of those who have not had such an opportunity.
You have experienced for yourself how manipulated and socially engineered is the society in which we live; how despotic is the cabal that pulls the strings; how effective is the methodology employed in keeping the majority in a dumbed-down state of creative impotence.
You have seen for yourself just how cold are the hearts of those who seek the tantalizing prize of absolute power; be it in banking, the hegemony of war, control of the food chain, the weather, the constitution and even the genetic pool of life itself.
You have seen all this and have duly wished for an end to the top-down incestuous hierarchical control freaks who relish holding the reins of power and exercising relentless repression over all who struggle to keep body and soul together.
But, somehow or other, in spite of all this, you haven’t seen yourself as someone to do something about it. This for you – has always been someone else’s task. Someone else’s concern. You have preferred to absolve yourself from confronting and grappling with the true reality.
Then, one night, you are confronted by a remarkable series of events that set off a domino effect whose momentum is so strong that it becomes unstoppable. The foundations of the military industrial consortium begin to crack open; the main perpetrators start heading out of town; the grid sputters and then comes down and the government fails to get the support of the military in enforcing an emergency shut down of civil society.
A great void opens up where just a few days before the imposition of a police state looked inevitable. In the tumultuous events that follow the centralised control is lost and ‘the people’ surge onto the streets.
There is an attempt by an ad hoc forum to set in motion some form of mutual support groups so as to mitigate the chaos that rages all around. You yourself are now out on the street too. A young woman suddenly calls out your name – drawing you aside she says “I know you are capable, take charge of this community and give them leadership, show them the new way you know must transcend this worn out criminal regime – start now!
Then suddenly you snap awake. It was just a dream…But was it? Sitting up in bed in a state of shock, you try to get your bearings. It feels all so real, so possible – and yet the clock points to 7 a.m. and you hear the familiar sound of your neighbour’s car heading off down the road – and take in the aroma of toast wafting up the bedroom stairway. A news reader on the kitchen radio is giving the economic prognosis for the day
Kansas and Missouri Seek to Prohibit Use Of Illegally Gathered Electronic Data
Activist Post
As federal judges and lawyers squabble over the constitutionality of NSA data gathering, state legislators in Kansas and Missouri have taken steps to thwart its practical effect and protect the privacy of citizens in their states.
Late last week, Rep. Brett Hildabrand (R-Shawnee) prefiled a bill that would ban all state agencies and local governments in the state from possessing data “held by a third-party in a system of record and would prohibit any such information from being “subject to discovery, subpoena or other means of legal compulsion for its release to any person or entity or be admissible in evidence in any judicial or administrative proceeding without either “express informed consent or a warrant.
The Fourth Amendment Protection Act (HB2421) would effectively prohibit the use of information gathered by the NSA and shared with state or local agencies in Kansas.
“I want to make sure that electronic privacy in Kansas is protected in the same way that physical letters in the mail are protected from random government searches, Hildabrand said. “Each day, we hear a new revelation about how the NSA is violating our personal privacy. My bill will ensure the state of Kansas doesn’t utilize this illegally obtained data.
Hildabrand said it will also address potential privacy violations at the state level.
“USA Today reported early in December that over 100 police agencies in 33 states now use technology to intercept and catalog the electronic communication of average, law-abiding citizens. We must be ever-vigilant that their rights are not being infringed upon by big government taking advantage of advances in technology.
A proposed amendment to the Missouri state constitution would accomplish the same thing by adding “electronic communications and data to the search and seizure clause of the state constitution. If SJR 27 passes the legislature, the proposed amendment would be placed on the next ballot.
A Reuters report in August, 2013, revealed that the NSA ‘s secretive Special Operations Division (SOD) is “funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans. Documents obtained by Reuters show that these cases “rarely involve national security issues, and that the SOD directs local law enforcement to “conceal how such investigations truly begin.
Tenth Amendment Center national communications director Mike Maharrey said he has no faith in Congress or the courts reining in the NSA.
“The bottom line is the federal government doesn’t limit itself, he said. “Realistically, the federal courts have a strong track record of deferring to federal agencies when they claim ‘national security issues,’ so we can’t count on them to uphold the intent of the Fourth Amendment. That’s why it’s crucial for state governments to step into the gap a
Brandon Smith
Activist Post
By any reasonable measure, I think it is safe to say that the last quarter of 2013 has been an insane game of economic Russian Roulette. Even more unsettling is the fact that most of the American population still has little to no clue that the U.S. was on the verge of a catastrophic catalyst event at least three times in the past three months alone, and that we face an even greater acceleration next year.
The first near miss was the Federal Reserve’s announcement of a possible “taper of QE stimulus in early fall, which sent shivers through stock markets and proved what we have been saying all along – that the entire recovery is a facade built on an ever thinning balloon of fiat money. Today, markets function entirely on the expectation that the Fed will continue stimulus forever. If the Fed does cut QE in any way, the frail psychology of the markets will shatter, and the country will come crashing down with it.
The second near miss was the possible unilateral invasion of Syria demanded by the Obama Administration.
As we have discussed at Alt-Market for years, any invasion of Syria or Iran will bring detrimental consequences to the U.S. economy and energy markets, not to mention draw heavy opposition from Russia and China. Though the naïve shrug it off as a minor foreign policy bungle, Syria could have easily become WWIII, and I believe the only reason the establishment has not yet followed through with a strike in the region is because the alternative media has been so effective in warning the masses. The elites need a certain percentage of support from the general public and the military for any war action to be effective, which they did not receive. After all, no one wants to fight and die in support of CIA-funded Al Qaeda terrorist cells on the other side of the world. The establishment tried to hide who the rebels were, and failed.
The third near miss was, of course, the debt ceiling debate, which has been extended to next spring. America came within a razor’s edge of debt default, which many people rightly fear. What some do not yet grasp, though, is that debt default of the U.S. was NOT avoided last month, it is INEVITABLE. Debt default will ultimately result in the death of the dollar as the world reserve currency, and the petro-currency. This final gasp will lead to hyperstagflation within our financial system, and third world status for most of the citizenry. It is only a matter of time, and timing.
“Timing is truly what we are all concerned about. Those of us in the field of alternative media and economics understand well that the U.S. is on a collision course with disaster; it is a mathematical certainty. We no longer think in terms of “if it happens – we only question “when it will happen. Our fiscal structure now hangs by the thinnest of threads, a thread which for all we know could be cut at a moment’s notice. However, economic and political storms appear to be brewing with the year 2014 as a target.
Globalists have been openly seeking the destabilization of U.S. sovereignty, and they have openly admitted that the destruction of the dollar and our economic foundations will aid them in their goal. It is important to never forget that international financiers WANT to absorb America into a new global economic structure, and that the U.S. must be debased before this can be accomplished. Here
Mapping a Road to Self-Sufficiency
Gaye Levy
Activist Post
The number one question I am asked by new readers is “where do I start? This is followed by a meek comment indicating “I have a job and a family and can not afford to move to a farm in the outback.
Well first of all, let me say that no apologies are needed. None. Moving to a farm or even to the remote boonies is not for everyone, myself included. On the other hand, with some time, perseverance and a bit of hard work, we all can take steps to be self sufficient. And isn’t that what prepping is all about: being self sufficient so we can take care of our own needs no matter what?
In an idealized world, we would be 100% self-sufficient. Alas, that is unrealistic for most of us and is something that is simply is not going to happen for most of us, desire notwithstanding. I am just being honest and pragmatic here because honestly, that is the truth.
That does not mean that we can not have the ability to get by nicely on our own and satisfy 80% or more of our needs without outside help. I am just saying that to set a goal of 100% self sufficiency is defeatist and a goal that is so difficult that giving up is likely.
Going back to that idealized world, if everything were perfect, we would have enough food, water, power, fuel, and money to live a well-rounded, healthy and comfortable life. Hard work would be the norm but at the end of the day we would have the satisfaction of being able to take care of ourselves without selling out to greedsters or taking a handout from the government.
Alas, everywhere you look there are roadblocks to achieving this state. Not the least of these roadblocks is our dependency on transportation systems and the power infrastructure to deliver goods and energy products to our homes. We depend on the government and insurance companies to rescue us if there is a natural disaster and we depend on organized medicine to keep us healthy.
The issue with these dependencies, of course, is that they may be unreliable, out of control or so fragile that a strong wind(or hurricane or earthquake) will shut them down, perhaps with dire consequences. If you are smart enough to recognize this, you will strive for self sufficiency of one type or another.
Mapping a Road to Self-Sufficiency
Luckily, self-sufficiency is not an all-or-nothing proposition. At one end of the spectrum is a total, off grid, agrarian lifestyle; and at the other is a moderately self-sufficient lifestyle where steps are taken to move toward 20% to 50% self sufficiency.
Today I will share some easy steps you can take to to start becoming self-sufficient. These are steps that do not require a farm, do not require acreage and do not require a lot of money. They are practical steps that you can select from and embrace as your needs and desire for independence evolve over time.
Some are easy and others take a bit of skill and practice. Some can be done for little or no cost and others will require an investment in time, labor, money or all three. The good news is that there are lots of choices and the journey toward self sufficiency does not have to be done in a day, a month, a year or even a decade.
19 Baby Steps Toward a Self Sufficient Lifestyle
Daisy Luther
Activist Post
Will your teen behave like…well, a teen…when the SHTF?
I watched the National Geographic show American Blackout on Sunday night with a friend. This part in particular got us thinking about the psychology of teenagers and young adults.
Let’s be realistic about teenagers.
If you have one, know one, or have been one, you know that they are a breed apart. Most of this is a mixture of biology and psychology, and it affects different kids to different degrees.
Some merely find their parents to be rather embarrassing, others think mom and dad are complete idiots, and then you have teens who are outright rebels.
If your child attends a public school, watches television, hangs out with other kids, or has any exposure to popular culture whatsoever, you can be assured that society is trying to create kinder, gentler children, aka sheep who will be easily led to slaughter. They are taught to fear the very word “gun through the ridiculous zero tolerance policies, like the one at a Texas school which recently punished a student for wearing a t-shirt with a Bible verse and the words, “God, Guns, Country on the sleeve, because it might “incite fear among the students.
Furthermore, those of us with a liberty mindset spend a great deal of time teaching our kids to be critical thinkers and not to blindly follow orders just because someone is an “authority figure. We teach them to stand up for what they believe is right, regardless of the consequences.
When the SHTF, that “think for yourself mentality can be a real Catch-22 that can backfire, as is illustrated in the clip above. Later in the program, the young man snuck into the food supply and gave away rations to the neighbors under the cover of darkness. This resulted in an armed attack on the compound by the same people to whom he was dispensing charity.
Now, in all fairness, the boy in the clip is the daughter’s boyfriend and was not raised by the prepping dad. However, can’t you easily imagine an idealistic young person intent on “doing right thing taking a similar action?
Instilling the Preparedness Mindset in Young People
This is why it is so very vital to teach the preparedness mindset to the young people in your life. It isn’t enough merely to tell them WHAT they should do. The nature of the beast – ummm…I mean teenager…is that you must also impress upon them why you should take these actions.
This requires a great deal of attention to consequences and to the study of disaster and unrest scenarios. There is another fine line to draw here – you don’t want to terrify your child, but you must impress upon them that during an unusual scenario, unprepared people behave in predictable ways. The media tries very hard
Daisy Luther
Activist Post
I can’t really mourn too much that the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency are unable to continue wreaking regulatory havoc on the little guys due to the government shutdown. In fact, I think a celebration just might be in order. This could be a good chance for folks to see how unnecessary the intervention of the government is in running the minute details of our everyday lives.
94% of the employees of the EPA have been sent home and 45% of the FDA workers have followed them. The mainstream media is on the case, telling readers about the potential deadly consequences of the restrictions being put on these agencies.
In the case of the EPA, staff will not be out there protecting the country from greenhouse gases or inspecting landfills.
Employees are barred from checking government email, using government-issued cellphones during the furlough, or catching up on any of their work for the duration of the shutdown.
“It stinks, said John O’Grady, a union representative at the EPA’s Chicago office. “No one is going to be out inspecting water discharges, or wet lands. Nobody is going to be out inspecting waste water treatment plants, drinking water treatment plants, or landfills – nothing. None of that is going to be done.
EPA officials had warned earlier that a shutdown could hurt Obama’s climate change agenda. The agency was about to roll out new rules for promoting the use of biofuels, and tougher penalties against polluters.
The EPA was also working to set the first limits on carbon pollution from power plants – the pillar of Obama’s climate change agenda.
EPA officials said there would be growing risk to public health if the shutdown lasted beyond a few days.
“It’s like most of the other agencies. In the short term, the impact may not be terribly big, but over the long term, there is a cost to the work not getting done, said Jonathan Schweitzer, an environmental engineer at the agency and a veteran of the 1990s shutdown. (source)
It’s hard to get too worried about the loss of an agency that only worries about public health and safety when it fits into a monetary agenda for the biggest spenders. For example, when radiation from Fukushima began to sweep the Western Coast of the US, the EPA responded by trying to convince us that it really wasn’t that big of a deal.
The
Tess Pennington
Activist Post
As some of you know, I’ve been prepping for a little over 3 years now. Believe me when I say that I have probably made every prepping mistake in the book. It’s time I admit to these mistakes and begin using them as a learning experiences for those of you who are beginning their preparedness efforts.
Don’t Panic
Take a deep breath, sit down and make an emergency plan. Decide what emergency you are preparing for and what supplies you will need. Try and stay within a certain emergency time frame and work your way up to larger scale emergencies. For example, begin planning for a 72-hour emergency and work your way up to a short-term emergency and later, a larger scale or long-term emergency.
Take your time and properly plan how you are going to open up your budget so that you can attain these emergency items. Cutting out the extraneous spending in your budget can free up a lot of extra cash. The money saved can be used toward your future preparedness items. Make the choice of using the new found preparedness money or save it for a more expensive prep. Either way, you will accumulate a little at a time and not break the budget.
Personal Experience – One mistake I remember (and am still paying for) was when my husband and I decided to get a short-term food supply. We hadn’t really researched what it takes to maintain your family’s health during a short-term emergency so we impulsively went out and bought $200 in canned goods. Needless to say that we are still living off of that canned good investment. Looking back, we could have used that $200 in a more constructive manner.
Don’t always believe the experts.
Listen to what the experts say, but make the decision that is best for your family and your needs. Some experts’ advice is driven by what makes them the most money or what other experts are saying at the time. Make a list of what items you are looking for and research those items (include reading the customer reviews).
Personal Experience – An expert was telling everyone that they should have a certain brand of hiking boots. Well, I went out and bought them because “the expert said I should. Because I didn’t research the boots (and the specs about the boot), after purchasing it; I made the realization that they were way too heavy for me. Luckily, I was able to return the boots and get my money back. After I researched and read customer reviews, I went out and invested in a different pair of hiking boots that were perfect for what I needed.
Don’t buy cheap preps.
Trying to save money here and there is great, but when you are investing in survival gear, you want to make sure the investment is worth the money spent. Begin looking at your purchase as an investment for your future. You want that product to last and do it’s desired function with minimal hassel. And you want to be able to depend on that product to see you through an emergency. On another note, whatever items or tools you buy, make sure you use it. If
Stephen Lendman
Activist Post
Once wasn’t enough for Kerry. He came. He saw. He lied. He did so twice. Friday was his second Colin Powell moment. It’s prelude to lawless aggression.
Lies assure more lies. They used to launch wars. All wars are based on lies. Sunshine is the best disinfectant. Truth is the ally of peace. It’s the enemy of war.
On August 30, The New York Times headlined “Kerry Becomes Chief Advocate for US Attack, saying:
He “laid out the case. (He) mad(e) a closing argument to a skeptical jury.
Twenty-four times he lied saying “we know. He “left no doubt that the United States (will) respond with military power.
Critics called Hillary Clinton a war goddess. Kerry matches her aggressiveness. Seven months after becoming Secretary of State, he’s become Obama’s lawless aggression frontman.
He’s his most prominent hawk. He’s polar opposite his earlier incarnation. On April 22, 1971, he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
He belonged to Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). He was one of over 150 honorably discharged, highly decorated combatants.
They committed war crimes. They admitted it. Kerry explained, saying:
…at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, bl(ew) up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages (like) Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravages of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.
(T)here is nothing in South Vietnam, nothing which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America.
He called America’s Vietnam involvement “the height of criminal hypocrisy.
“We saw firsthand how money from American taxes was used for a corrupt dictatorial regime, he said. “We rationalized destroying villages….to save them. “We saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very cooly a My Lai. Many others like it replicated what happened.
“We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of orientals, said Kerry.
We have come here….because we believe this body can be responsive to the will of the people.
(W)e should be out of Vietnam now….
He condemned what he called Washington’s immoral war. He wanted no further part in it. He symbolically gave back up to nine medals he won. He wasn’t sure how many. That was then. This is now.
In May 2011, he and five other senators co-sponsored John McCain’s S. 194: A Resolution expressing the sense of the Senate of the United States military operations in Libya.
It expressed support fo
Activist Post
Nathan Fuller at Bradleymanning.org has given us gracious permission to reprint his daily firsthand reports, which you can find below highlighted by date. Summaries, commentary, and videos provide a comprehensive chronicle of events from start to finish.
| | | image credit: Bradleymanning.org |
Summary
Over the last week we have heard Manning’s plea for forgiveness, as well as the introduction of Manning’s mental health records and his childhood as possible mitigating factors in the sentencing phase. Combined with questions surrounding leadership failures at nearly all levels, as well as statements from Manning’s family, the defense was seeking to stress that Judge Lind could render a decision that “allows him to have a life.
Manning could have received up to 90 years, but the government had officially called for 60 years, which would have ended Manning’s life while behind bars. Captain Joe Morrow said, “There’s value in deterrence . . . This court must send a message to any soldier contemplating compromising national security information.
The sentence is 35 years, dishonorable discharge, and forfeiture of pay and benefits. Realistically, given nearly 4 years of time served, plus parole, Manning reportedly could be out in as little as 10 years.
However, the defense is moving for a Presidential Pardon. Perhaps the Nobel Peace Prize-winning president will acknowledge the 100,000+ signatures that were submitted to nominate Manning for the same prize. The fight is far from over, as stated in the full report from the Bradley Manning Support Network below.
Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years, defense moves for Presidential Pardon
Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years, defense moves for Presidential Pardon
WikiLeaks whistle-blower Pfc. Bradley Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison today, an outrage that flies in the face of America’s essential ideals of accountability in government, and which seeks to instill a chilling effect on those who’d dare to expose the United States’ illegality. A heroic soldier of conscience, Manning witnessed war crimes, rampant corruption, and covert abuse while stationed in Baghdad in 2009-10, and exposed what he saw by releasing hundreds of thousands of classified military and diplomatic files to the transparency website WikiLeaks. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three years in a row. Earlier this month, more than 100,000 signatures in support of his 2013 nomination were delivered to the Nobel committee in Norway. Military judge Col. Denise Lind’s sentence is an outright injustice that we cannot accept.
“The only person prosecuted for the crimes and abuses uncovered in the WikiLeaks’ releases is the person who exposed them, said Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg. “That alone proves the injustice of one more day in prison for Bradley Manning.
Manning can subtract more than three and a half years off of that sentence, for the time he has already served and the mere 112 days he was credited for enduring torture while detained at the Quantico Marine Brig. He will be eligible to reduce his sentence by 10% for good behavior.
The fight for Manning’s freedom is far from over. Supporters and attorney David Coombs will demand Maj. Gen. Jeff