11 Things That Can Happen When You Allow Your Country to Become Enslaved to the Bankers
Why are Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and so many other countries experiencing depression-like conditions right now?
It is because they have too much debt. Why do they have too much debt? It is because they allowed themselves to become enslaved to the bankers. Borrowing money from the bankers can allow a nation to have a higher standard of living in the short-term, but it always results in a lower standard of living in the long-term. Why is that? It is because you always have to pay back more money than you borrowed. And when you get to the point of having a debt to GDP ratio in excess of 100%, you are basically drowning in debt. Huge amounts of money that could be going to providing essential services and stimulating your economy are now going to service your horrific debt. Today, citizens in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy are experiencing a standard of living far below what they should be because the bankers have trapped them in endless debt spirals. Sadly, the vast majority of the people living in those countries have absolutely no idea what is at the root cause of their problems.
The truth is that no sovereign nation on earth ever has to borrow a single penny from anyone.
In theory, there is nothing stopping a government from printing up debt-free money and spending it into circulation.
But that is not the way our world works.
Instead, our national governments borrow money that has been zapped into existence out of thin air by central banks.
Now what kind of sense does that make?
Why don’t our governments just create the money themselves?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Banks Told to Make Plans for Preventing Collapse
U.S. regulators directed five of the country’s biggest banks, including Bank of America Corp and Goldman Sachs Group Inc, to develop plans for staving off collapse if they faced serious problems, emphasizing that the banks could not count on government help.
The two-year-old program, which has been largely secret until now, is in addition to the “living wills” the banks crafted to help regulators dismantle them if they actually do fail. It shows how hard regulators are working to ensure that banks have plans for worst-case scenarios and can act rationally in times of distress.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A Mosque is Not Like a Church or a Synagogue
by Janet Levy
The marked proliferation of mosques in the U.S. since 9/11 should raise a red flag for Americans. Recent controversies surrounding mega-mosque construction projects countrywide — many in locations with almost no Muslims to speak of — have grave implications for the future of these targeted communities and areas beyond.
Accelerated mosque-building — in Murfreesboro, Tennessee; Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Ground Zero, New York; and Santa Clara and Temecula, California, to name a few — carries significance beyond the mere construction of a collection of Muslim houses of worship. It represents yet another orchestrated effort to oust traditional American values and replace them with Islamic practices, laws, and beliefs.
Although most U.S. mosques heretofore have been built without resistance, the newly attendant controversies present speciously polarized views between, on the one hand, ostensibly welcoming, tolerant, multi-culti progressives who deny any possible radical agenda despite substantial evidence to the contrary in existing mosques and, on the other hand, so-called fearful, Islamophobic, ignorant bigots unwilling to embrace diversity. Mainstream media’s predominant point of view is that any opposition to mosque-building represents a blatant unwillingness to integrate Muslims into American communities. This view disallows the possibility that such objections represent appropriate, reasoned responses to an attempt to destroy America from within and supplant its culture with a supremacist, totalitarian, and misogynistic ideology.
Islamic terrorism expert Steven Emerson, executive director of the Investigative Project for Terrorism, attributes the spate of mosque-building and land acquisition to the Muslim American Society (MAS), an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. Emerson contends that the MAS has been actively buying up property and establishing mosques to control the appointment of imams who “distribute the message they believe is necessary to spread Islam around the world.”
It should be noted that a mosque is totally unlike a church or a synagogue, entities that serve their communities under the law of the land and are both empowered and restrained under the First Amendment of the Constitution. Under the Establishment Clause of that amendment, the government is prohibited from establishing a state religion or conferring preferential treatment on one religion over another. Although the government may not interfere with religious beliefs and opinions, the proscription of religious practices is permissible, as in the examples of polygamy and human sacrifice…
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Billionaire George Soros Getting Married for the Third Time
Billionaire investor George Soros had a lot to celebrate on Saturday evening: his 82nd birthday and the engagement to his much younger girlfriend Tamiko Bolton.
Soros and Bolton, who met in the spring of 2008, formally announced their engagement at a party at Soros’ summer home in Southampton, New York attended by a small group of friends and relatives, according to a person familiar with the trader.
Soros proposed to Bolton, 40, a few weeks ago during a weekend visit to the Hamptons, a summer beachside colony on Long Island frequented by New York’s wealthy.
For Soros, this will be his third marriage and the second for Bolton, who was married briefly in the 1990s. Soros has five children from his previous marriages.
Last year, Adriana Ferreyr ,a former girlfriend of Soros, filed a lawsuit in Manhattan state court, alleging he reneged on a promise to buy her an apartment. Soros has filed a pending motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed by the former Brazilian soap opera star.
Also in 2011, Soros, who is an active contributor to politically liberal causes and frequently speaks on world economic events, converted his hedge fund into a family office and stopped managing money for outside investors.
Soros rose to fame and fortune two decades ago on a now-historic trade, in which he took on the Bank of England and shrewdly wagered on a devaluation of the British pound.
Bolton, who once started an Internet-based dietary supplement business and is now running a web-based yoga education business, has a masters degree in business from the University of Miami.
The engagement ring Soros gave Bolton, according to a person close to the trader, is a Graff diamond in a platinum setting on a rose gold band.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Boy Whose Hot Dog Cart Was Shut Down by the City of Holland Now Homeless
Several weeks after a city zoning officer shut down his hot dog business, 13-year-old Nathan Duszynski and his parents are homeless.
The family was hoping Nathan’s hot dog cart could help them through a difficult time. Nathan’s mother, Lynette Johnson, suffers from epilepsy and his stepfather, Doug Johnson, has multiple sclerosis. Their illnesses have restricted them from finding permanent, full-time work.
The family receives about $1,300 a month in disability payments, Medicaid and food assistance. The three are having a hard time staying together. MLive confirms what the Mackinac Center learned Thursday — Nathan and his mother are staying at the Holland Rescue Mission.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
DHS and US Military Make Final Preparations Before Announcing Martial Law?
Informants and military personnel are coming forth anonymously to confirm that martial law “is right around the corner.” However, right now we are under a silent martial law and citizens are reporting strange and unexplainable activity from the US armed forces and multiple federal agencies that point to a covert preparatory operation to completely lock down America in the very near future.
Sources from multiple locations across the nation have independently confirmed that the US military are repositioning soldiers in conjunction with allied foreign troops in the initial stages of martial law.
The US military are secretly moving massive amounts of “equipment” across the country consistently for more than a year. In Phoenix, Arizona, tractor-trailers transporting tanks on public highways have been spotted. One witness stated that he saw these flatbeds multiple times in the month of June. Eye witness reports are coming primarily from the northern and southern Border States.
When citizens attempt to capture the activity on film, some have their cameras confiscated; sometimes after a physical altercation.
[…]
Information coming out of reserve units in Arizona is that they are being put on official alert. Military personnel are being told by superiors not to schedule vacations and prepare to be on-call and on-duty indefinitely. According to one informant, these new assignments are not providing for deployment overseas, but rather for domestic service with the intimation that these deployments may have relation to civil unrest expectations.
In Lake Havasu, Arizona, and Colorado Springs as well as Fort Collins, Colorado, locals are coming forth to report that local fires may have been lit by foreign troops; specifically Russian forces that have been spotted in the area. These Russian troops are believed to be stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ministry of Homeland Security Rolls Out Armored Vehicles
A post today on the Daily Paul website shows a fearsome black “special response team” armored vehicle on a flatbed trailer in transit somewhere in Kentucky.
The difference between this military vehicle and previous ones trotted out by the Ministry of Homeland Security is that the words “Immigration and Customs Enforcement” and “Police/Rescue” are missing.
Over the last few months, the DHS has purchased millions of rounds of ammunition and an array of state-of-the-art weapons. As Mike Adams notes, the 450 million rounds of ammo purchased by the DHS is enough to wage more than 6 years of Iraq-level combat.
The DHS arsenal is obviously a response to the fact almost half of more than 300 million Americans own guns and a sizable number will resist any attempt by government to confiscate them.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Surveillance Cameras Turned Off During Sikh Temple Shooting
Questions as to whether there were multiple shooters involved in the Sikh temple massacre are likely to remain unanswered given the fact that surveillance cameras covering the property were turned off at the time of the incident.
According to NPR’s Dina Temple-Raston, who spoke with FBI Special Agent Teresa Carlson, “There was no video in the temple itself. Apparently, their surveillance camera wasn’t on.”
Why the camera was turned off during what one would expect to be the temple’s busiest time, a religious service on a Sunday, has not been explained.
The absence of video footage of the event makes it impossible to corroborate multiple eyewitness accounts attesting to the fact that more than one individual carried out the shootings.
Speaking with the Associated Press, an eyewitness stated, “Between ten and ten-thirty, four white males who were dressed darkly, dressed in all black clothing, came in and opened fire on our congregation.”
Temple member Amardeep Kaleka, whose mother and father were injured victims in the shooting, also told WISN that his parents said there were “multiple shooters, multiple people” and that the attack was “very well coordinated.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Most Divisive Campaign in American History
In 1980, when President Reagan asked Americans, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago”, it was still possible to campaign on a theme as simple as the job performance of the other guy. But now, 32 years later, the campaign hinges on a much more fundamental split among the voting population.
Romney appeals to voters who are dissatisfied with the last four years. Obama appeals to voters who are dissatisfied with America.
This basic gap was obscured in the 2008 campaign by the window trappings of inspiration. Among all the plastic pillars and stolen quotes from poets who stole them from sermons, it was harder to see that the underlying theme of the campaign was dissatisfaction with America. But in 2012, Obama can no longer run as a reformer or an optimist.
The coalition that he committed to last year is a coalition of those who are unhappy with America, not in the last four years, but in the last two-hundred years. Its core is composed of groups that fear democracy and distrust the will of the people. There is no optimism here, but a deeply rooted pessimism about human nature and the country as a whole. It is the Democratic Party’s coalition against democracy.
After 2010, the numbers were crunched, and it was clear that Obama and the Democrats could not win a mainstream campaign. Instead, they targeted narrow groups, stirred up conflicts over issues aimed at that group, whether it was union pensions, racism or birth control. There was no more pretense of a national election, only a frenzied rush to polarize as many groups as possible and join them together into an acrimonious coalition, not so much for anything, as against Republicans.
There isn’t any inspiration here.. Just paranoia over everything from gay marriage to abortion to racial profiling to illegal immigration. A dozen illegal benefits being handed out with the explicit threat that they will be lost if Romney wins. A dozen mini-civil wars being stirred up to divide Americans and set them at each other’s throats for the benefit of the Obama campaign.
From Occupy Wall Street to Wisconsin, from Trayvon Martin to Chick-fil-A, the goal of these manufactured conflicts has been to divide and conquer the electorate by emphasizing group rights over individual economic welfare.
Obama can’t win on the economy. He can’t win on foreign policy. He can’t win on any aspect of his administration. All he can do is stir up violence and then promise to heal the country in his second term while winking to all the representatives of the grievance groups. It’s not a new game, but the Democratic Party has never played it quite this baldly in a national election. And if it succeeds, then national politics will have finally been reduced to the level of a Chicago election.
We were expected to believe that the typical Obama voter in 2008 was hoping for a better country, but in 2012 there is no more hope, only hate and fear. The typical Obama voter is not acting as an American, but as a representative of an entitled group looking to secure and expand those entitlements at the expense and the detriment of the country at large.
To vote for Obama after years of grotesque economic mismanagement that has no precedent in history, that exceeds the worst actions of Andrew Jackson or Ulysses S. Grant, is not the instinct of an American, but a selfish greedy looter scrambling to grab a few dinner rolls off the tray while the ship is going down. There is no policy justification for voting for a man with the worst economic and foreign policy record in the country’s history. There is no American justification for voting for him. Only the UnAmerican motivation of carving up a dying country into group fiefdoms privileging identity politics over the common good.
This is an UnAmerican campaign. It is an Anti-American campaign. It is a campaign by those who hate and fear what America was and who resent having to care about anyone outside their own group. Its group jingoism, its dog whistles and special privileges are repulsive and cynical, treating the people of a great nation like a warren of rats eager to sell each other out for a prize from the Cracker Jack box of identity politics entitlements.
| — Hat tip: Nat | [Return to headlines] |
Total Surveillance Police State — NYPD Reveals New Massive $40 Million Super Computer Spy System
(NaturalNews) Statists and post-constitutionalists have a new ally: technology.
The total surveillance police state has finally arrived — in New York City, at least — following a marriage between NYC officials and Microsoft.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, along with NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, have unveiled a massive new $40 million spy system that literally puts the entire city under surveillance.
The Domain Awareness System, as it’s called, was designed by the NYPD and Microsoft to incorporate data from surveillance cameras, license-plate readers (did you know about these?), crime reports and radiation detectors to provide police with instant, real-time tracking capabilities.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Secretive International Olympic Committee is Set to Earn a Record $8 Billion
The secretive group that runs the Olympics is expected to earn a record $8 billion in the 2009-2012 quadrennial cycle, according to Sportcal.
Formed to promote “Olympism,” the International Olympic Committee doesn’t get rich off the Games, but they do enjoy themselves.
The 109-member Committee gets wined and dined by cities and corporations bidding for contracts, and they get treated like royalty at the Games.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Men Top Spain for Basketball Gold, 107-100
United States beat Spain 107-100 for the Olympic gold medal in menâ€(tm)s basketball. And it was not easy.
The Spanish team kept pace with its American counterpart for much of the game, until the United States finally took control late in the fourth quarter.
Kevin Durant led the way with 30 points, as the American team retained its Olympic title in a rematch of its closely-fought 2008 final in Beijing.
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UK: Largest Fire in Years Hits London
More than 200 firefighters and forty fire engines were called to east London on Sunday to tackle the “largest fire in several years”.
The blaze at a recycling centre in Dagenham began at 1.15pm on Sunday afternoon and at its height sent up a plume of smoke so large it was visible across the capital.
Fire chiefs said the entire building, a single-storey facility on Chequers Lane measuring 50 metres by 100 metres or about the size of a football pitch, was alight.
A spokesman said the fire had been brought under control by 6pm, but that crews were expected to remain at the site throughout the night. The cause of the fire has not been established yet.
Ron Dobson, London Fire Commissioner, said: “We’ve not seen a fire of this size in London for several years.
“It’s certainly a dramatic end to the Olympics for the London Fire Brigade. That said though, we are still able to attend incidents across the capital and the fire cover we’re providing at the Olympic venues has not been affected.
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UK: Parkinson’s Sufferer Arrested for ‘Not Smiling’ At Olympic Men’s Cycling Race
A spectator seeks an exoneration after he claims he was arrested for “not smiling” during the 2012 London Olympic Men’s Cycling Road Race.
Mark Worsfold, 54, a martial-arts trainer who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, wants a “letter of exoneration” after what he claims was a gross over-reaction on the part of Surrey Police.
Worsfold explains, “I was sitting minding my own business…Before I knew anything the police grabbed me off this seven-foot wall, threw me to the floor and cuffed me so all I saw of the cycle race was between the feet of people from the pavement.”
Due to his degenerative disorder, Worsfold says his face can seem expressionless.
According to the Guardian, Worsfold says Surrey police “questioned him about his demeanor and why he had not been seen to be visibly enjoying the event.” They arrested him on charges of “breach of the peace” saying Worsfold’s behavior posed a “caused concern.”
The Guardian reports Worsfold as having been detained for two hours, but the Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser says it was more like five: “Mr Worsfold was detained for five hours, and his wife only found out where he was after reporting him missing when he did not turn up for his daughter’s birthday party.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Morsi Retires Defense Minister, Suspends Interim Constitution
Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has sent Defense Minister and Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi into retirement. He also suspended changes made to the constitution by the military.
Tantawi was replaced by Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, while the head of the armed forces, Sami Anan, was also ordered to retire with immediate affect, according to a presidential spokesman.
In addition, Islamist Morsi cancelled a constitutional declaration issued by the then-ruling army council in June, just before the military handed power to Morsi. The declaration had given the army sweeping powers.
Morsi also appointed Mahmoud Mekki, a former judge, as vice president.
Tantawi was a minister under ousted Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak for 20 years. When Mubarak was toppled, Tantawi’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) effectively ruled the country until Morsi was elected.
It is not clear whether Tantawi and Anan were consulted before being sent into retirement.
“Given the circumstances, this is the right time to make changes in the military institution,” said Mourad Ali from the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Freedom and Justice Party.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Hamas Leader’s Kin Gets Israeli Medical Aid Even as Terror Group Blasts Jewish State
Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has no problem calling for the destruction of Israel and blaming it for attacks linked to his own party, but when his relative needs life-saving heart surgery, only Israeli doctors will do.
The stunning hypocrisy comes to light after five Hamas-backed terrorists allegedly killed 16 Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai Peninsula that borders Gaza. Although evidence points to a Hamas-backed terror operation, Haniyeh inexplicably blamed it on Israel. The suspects were later killed by Israeli Defense Forces when they tried to cross the Kerem Shalom border.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Philippine Rebels Turn to Bombs to Divert Assaults
Philippine military officials say suspected militants from a breakaway Muslim rebel group have set off bombs in two provinces in the southern Philippines in their latest assault but no one has been injured. The gunmen went on a rampage last week and sparked clashes that killed at least 28 people.
The officials say hundreds of army troops have forced armed fighters of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement out of two strongholds in southern Maguindanao province and were pursuing them Sunday mostly in hinterland areas.
They say at least seven homemade bombs have exploded in recent days along roads and in communities in Maguindanao and nearby North Cotabato province in an apparent attempt by the breakaway rebels to disrupt army assaults. The fighting has displaced 39,000 villagers.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Spanish Police, Boston FBI Say They Foiled Mexican Drug Cartel Expansion in Europe
The Interior Ministry says Spanish police working on a joint investigation with the FBI’s Boston division have halted an attempt by a major Mexican drug smuggling and distribution ring to establish a European operation.
The ministry says that four alleged members of the Sinaloa cartel, including a cousin of notorious leader Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman, known as “El Chapo,” have been arrested in Madrid.
It says Jesus Gutierrez Guzman, Rafael Humberto Valenzuela Celaya, Samuel Valenzuela Zazueta and Jesus Gonzalo Soto Palazuelos were arrested near their hotels in Madrid.
The ministry said Friday that the cartel intended to make Spain a gateway for drug importation and distribution throughout Europe, but investigators intercepted a container carrying 822 pounds of cocaine in July and then moved in to make the arrests.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Frankfurt School and ‘Political Correctness’
The people of North America and Western Europe now accept a level of ugliness in their daily lives which is almost without precedent in the history of Western civilization. Most of us have become so inured, that the death of millions from starvation and disease draws from us no more than a sigh, or a murmur of protest. Our own city streets, home to legions of the homeless, are ruled by Dope, Inc., the largest industry in the world, and on those streets Americans now murder each other at a rate not seen since the Dark Ages.
At the same time, a thousand smaller horrors are so commonplace as to go unnoticed. Our children spend as much time sitting in front of television sets as they do in school, watching with glee, scenes of torture and death which might have shocked an audience in the Roman Coliseum. Music is everywhere, almost unavoidable—but it does not uplift, nor even tranquilize— it claws at the ears, sometimes spitting out an obscenity. Our plastic arts are ugly, our architecture is ugly, our clothes are ugly. There have certainly been periods in history where mankind has lived through similar kinds of brutishness, but our time is crucially different. Our post-World War II era is the first in history in which these horrors are completely avoidable. Our time is the first to have the technology and resources to feed, house, educate, and humanely employ every person on earth, no matter what the growth of population. Yet, when shown the ideas and proven technologies that can solve the most horrendous problems, most people retreat into implacable passivity. We have become not only ugly, but impotent.
Nonetheless, there is no reason why our current moral-cultural situation had to lawfully or naturally turn out as it has; and there is no reason why this tyranny of ugliness should continue one instant longer.
Consider the situation just one hundred years ago, in the early 1890’s.
[…]
We will have to face the fact that the ugliness we see around us has been consciously fostered and organized in such a way, that a majority of the population is losing the cognitive ability to transmit to the next generation, the ideas and methods upon which our civilization was built. The loss of that ability is the primary indicator of a Dark Age. And, a new Dark Age is exactly what we are in. In such situations, the record of history is unequivocal: either we create a Renaissance—a rebirth of the fundamental principles upon which civilization originated—or, our civilization dies.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Weird Details of the United Nation’s Creepy, Cult-Like Environmental Religion
If the United Nations stands for anything, it is the supposed triumph of mankind’s rational, humanistic mind over the dull biases of the past, especially religious fanaticism—correct? And so who would guess the UN’s most hallowed mission—that of saving the planet—was underwritten by an exposed con artist claiming inspiration from a “burning bush” spurring him to action? In fact, the person most associated with the early green movement is Maurice Strong, chief architect of Agenda 21—a Marxist opportunist scoundrel of the first order.
It is a simple fact that successful political ideologies all have a structure borrowed from traditional religion. In fact, Carl Schmitt said, “all significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts.” So as the UN propagandizes the globe to support its mission, it uses the same logic as the USSR and communist China when banning religion, then presenting Lenin, Stalin and Mao as gods. For as traditional religion is eliminated, the idea of devils, sin and scapegoats cannot be so easily dismissed. An example is the far leftist Club of Rome’s “The First Global Revolution”—which states,
The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. The real enemy then is humanity itself.
[…]
The Earth Charter contains these chapters:
I. RESPECT AND CARE FOR THE COMMUNITY OF LIFE; II. ECOLOGICAL INTEGRITY; III. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE; IV. DEMOCRACY, NONVIOLENCE, AND PEACE.
The subheadings are quite revealing as to the tenor of the entire Charter. The text reveals a poisonous bias against capitalism and humanity itself. In other words, it’s pure Marxism. For example, here are a few excerpts…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
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