Archives for March 2016

Verge of #Revolution: The Story You Aren’t Being Told About the #Brazil Uprising

March 31, 2016 by clarice palmer

Clarice Palmer
March 31, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) São Paulo, Brazil — As online publications have hailed the major protests overtaking the streets of Brazil at the outset of an apparent political revolution, few discuss the problems that have been brewing for decades in South America’s largest nation.

While Brazilians are angry and tired of their economic hardships, they are also incensed at the country’s history of corruption, which now includes a massive presidential scandal carried out by politicians and lobbyists during the current and previous administrations. This misconduct has given residents of all walks of life enough incentive to take their demands to the streets.

But are the politicians listening?

The History of Brazil is a History of Corruption

Local sociologists often tout Brazil’s corruption problem as a “genetic disposition” to crookedness. But late economist Ludwig von Mises disagreed. In Human Action, the famed economist claimed that corruption is simply a consequence of government’s heavy intervention in all public matters. “Corruption is a regular effect of interventionism,” he wrote — not the root of a country’s woes.

As Brazilian newspapers and talking heads tend to focus on corruption scandals as the root of the political and economic issues the country faces, they are, in fact, some of the consequences of heavy government intervention — not the foundation of the nation’s ongoing problems.

Between 1930 and 1945, the country was under the rule of the populist tyrant Getúlio Vargas, whose rise as a dictator was also tied to a series of corruption scandals, political persecution, and oppression. Nicknamed “the Father of the Poor,” Vargas and his administration used images of hope and harmony to sell the leader as the country’s grassroots hero.

But the individual behind the facade and popular image was the first of many political leaders to promise — though never deliver — peace and prosperity. Vargas also maintained an amicable relationship with Germany prior to World War II, prompting the United States to wonder whether Brazil would enter the Axis orbit. The Vargas administration even aided Nazi Germany by sending Jewish refugees back to their home country, such as the revolutionary militant, Olga Benário Prestes, a German Jew who ultimately died in a concentration camp.

Propaganda by the Getulio Vargas administration teaching children to love country first.

Getúlio Vargas is particularly relevant because Brazil’s last president, Luiz Inácio “Lula” Da Silva, who held office between 2003 and 2011, is often remembered by many as the second coming of the 20th century dictator. Lula is currently implicated in the high-level scandals currently plaguing Brazil.

Long before Lula took office, however, the anti-communist “Red Scare” mindset — the culture of fear tied to communism that existed between 1919 the late 1950s in America — finally settled in Brazil. The country began to fear the possibility that communist agitators would take over the country. With the help of democratically-elected president, João Goulart (Brazilian Labour Party), the country’s military leaders took over, replaced Congress with the National Constituent Assembly, deposed opposition members, and drafted a new Constitutional Charter. The 1964 military coup lasted until 1985.

Once Brazilians had the chance to elect a new president, they put young Fernando Collor de Mello in power, a right-wing politician who froze thousands of Brazilian savings accounts and converted them into government bonds, inciting a wave of anger across the nation.

It was only when Collor was accused of having played a role in an influence-peddling scheme that many started paying attention.

Afraid of what Congress could do to his presidency, Collor allegedly paid $2 million for falsified documents, an act that, once discovered, prompted Congress to vote for his impeachment. Only three senators voted in Collor’s favor. Seventy-three voted for his removal.

Whether or not this was a sign of things to come, Brazil’s first democratically-elected president after the military rule became the first to be impeached.

As privatization policies were put in place by President Fernando Henrique Cardoso in the 1990s, the country’s economy picked up steam. People suddenly believed they had a good, competent administration in place, despite issues with the ongoing drug war. The many years of privatization and inflation-taming measures, however, prompted younger Brazilians to become attached to the ideology behind progressive politics. Enter Lula.

In 2003, young Brazilians cheered the the election of the Workers Party’s Lula. After all, they believed a “man of the people” had been picked as the country’s president. He was the same man who would go on to become the country’s “lobbyist in chief.”

After Lula’s two terms, the Workers Party managed to get Dilma Rousseff elected. Her rise to the presidency was mostly due to her proximity to Lula. She has often referred to him as “[her] president and leader.”

Unemployment, Poverty, Inflation, and High Taxes: Brazilians are Fed Up

Brazilians experienced an economic miracle in the 1990s. But as the Rousseff administration upped sales and consumption taxes while relying on inflation, the increase in the money supply. As the country hosted the World Cup in 2014, businesses and consumers began to suffer. The first ones to feel the consequences were the poor.

Currently, Brazilians pay about 36 percent in sales taxes on most goods and services — a regressive tax that ends up hurting the poor the most. Brazilians give up about 28 percent of their income yearly. With the increase in taxes on large net gains and the country’s protectionist policies, many believe investors will begin to flee the country.

Tension built up due to the economic difficulties consumers face only worsened when the country’s judiciary launched an investigation into Rousseff’s embezzlement and crony capitalist scheme, which has made global headlines.

“Car Wash” Corruption Scheme and Its Investigation: the Beginning of the End for Dilma Rousseff

The “car wash” investigation is the largest probe of its kind in Brazilian history.

Its name comes from the network of laundromats, gas stations, and currency exchange businesses participants in the scheme used to launder money.

From Brazilian writer Alice Salles at FreedomWorks.org:

“Trouble began to brew when authorities launched an investigation into a network of currency exchanging businesses connected to Alberto Youssef. He was accused of forging contracts and moving billions of Brazilian Reais domestically and abroad using front companies and foreign bank accounts.”

Once the investigations were deepened, authorities “learned that Youssef had business relationships with Paulo Roberto Costa, the former director of the state-controlled oil giant Petrobras, major contractors and their lobbyists, and other Petrobras servicers. On March 2014, both Costa and Youssef were arrested.” Once Costa agreed to take part in the investigations in August of 2014, “Brazilians learned that he and several other directors of Petrobras received bribes and passed them along to politicians for their campaigns.” In a few weeks time, the authorities convinced Youssef to join Costa, “and revelations about one of the largest embezzlement schemes in the history of the country started flooding the news.”

Soon enough, the authorities learned the names of contractors involved in the scheme, which happened to be the country’s two top construction companies: Odebrecht and Andrade Gutierrez. André Estevez, owner of Latin America’s largest investment bank, BTG, was also involved.

By March of 2015, authorities learned 53 politicians had participated in the scheme. Even José Dirceu, the former prime minister under President Lula, was “accused of receiving payments from Odebrecht and Andrade Gutierrez.” Lula’s close friend, the farmer José Carlos Bumlai, and Senator Delcídio Amaral of the Workers Party, known as PT, were arrested. The President of the Chamber of Deputies, Eduardo Cunha, a member of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) was also targeted, along with several other PMDB party leaders.

According to what the investigations have unearthed thus far, the embezzlement scheme benefitted political parties in charge of Petrobras’s leadership appointments.

Salles reported that “as federal judge Sérgio Moro showed signs he believed former president Lula had profited from the scheme, prosecutors from the state of São Paulo added insult to injury by accusing Lula of ‘hiding his ownership of a beach-front condominium.’” But the rumors about his future finally hit the news, and Rousseff decided to appoint her predecessor as her chief of staff. The Economist claimed Lula is a “canny political operator,” which may have helped Rousseff make the decision to bring him on board to boost her reputation. However, as Salles noted, “what the cabinet position means to Lula may have served as the sole incentive.”

As the country’s call for impeachment intensifies, a strong opposition movement in Congress is taking shape. The country’s top association of lawyers, Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil, has also announced it will present an impeachment proposal to Congress, making matters worse for Rousseff.

The proposal claims the current president has “authorized … the country to delay its payments,” and it also accuses the president of unilaterally lifting tax obligations tied to the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) during the 2014 World Cup. OAB attorneys also claim Rousseff may have “interfered with the ‘car wash’ probe, which includes her appointment of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as chief of staff.”

Unclear Future: Impeachment Alone is Not the Solution

As the “car wash” probe unveils that billions of taxpayer dollars have been tied to investments abroad that didn’t benefit Brazilians — and that members of most Brazilian political parties were involved — many of the county’s residents are showing signs of fatigue.

Impeaching President Rousseff may offer momentary relief to Brazilians under pressure, but unless a cultural change takes shape, the expulsion of Rousseff from Brasília, the nation’s capital, won’t make a difference.

According to activist Kim Kataguiri, a key figure in the anti-Rousseff protests, “the smokescreens used by the Brazilian government to disperse the population are finally gone.” He believes impeachment will come — no matter what. Even so, Rousseff says she has enough friends in Congress to avoid her downfall. Only time will tell whether Brazilians will find a way to restrict government’s interference in the country, helping to keep corrupt politicians from finding reasons to steal from the taxpayer.

This article (Verge of Revolution: The Story You Aren’t Being Told About the Brazilian Uprising) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Clarice Palmer and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to edits@theantimedia.org.

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White House Warns Of #Nuclear #Terrorist Attacks: The Four Ways They Could Strike…

March 31, 2016 by mac slavo

Within hours of the Brussels attacks earlier this month we learned that rogue terrorists presumably operating under the banner of the Islamic State had set their sights on a high-value target so significant that it could have left hundreds of thousands of people dead.

According to investigators, the terrorists who carried out the attacks had been actively planning to take over and/or target a nuclear power plant. They went so far as to plant hidden cameras at the power plant director’s home so they could monitor his movements and even killed a security guard in the process.

The plan, which failed to come to fruition, called not just for suicide bombing several dozen civilians, but for turning Western Europe into radioactive wasteland for the next several thousand years.

The threat is most certainly real and senior officials from Europe to the United States are now warning of the potential for a large-scale nuclear attack:

Security officials warn that the ingredients for a nuclear device or a “dirty bomb” are alarmingly insecure.

“We know that terrorist organizations have the desire to get access to these raw materials and to have a nuclear device,” said Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser.

…

The havoc such an attack could wreak in an urban area such as New York or London is concerning enough that leaders scheduled a special session on the threat during the two-day summit. U.S. officials said the leaders would discuss a hypothetical scenario about a chain of events that could lead to nuclear terrorism.

Source: Denver Post

Officials have known for months that chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) weapons of mass destruction have been smuggled undetected into Europe. In December of last year Swiss police identified and arrested two terrorists suspected of transporting toxic chemical gases and explosives, which were believed to be part of a plot for a future attack.

At this point, with lax border security in Europe and the United States, the potential for coordinated and devastating attacks has grown exponentially. Moreover, as we learned with Brussels where the threat to their nuclear facilities was identified well in advance but nothing was done to improve security, the reality is that the bureaucracy inherent within our governments makes it all the more likely that terrorists will eventually carry out a successful attack using CBRN weapons.

According to officials, here are some scenarios that show how a strike might happen:

The most devastating but improbable scenario involves a group stealing a fully functional bomb from a nuclear-armed country. Most nuclear experts point to Pakistan as the likeliest source, though that would require cooperation with someone on the inside of Pakistan’s military.

Easier to pull off would be for IS or another group to obtain fissile material like highly enriched uranium, then turn it into a crude nuclear device delivered by truck or ship.

A third possibility is that extremists could bomb an existing nuclear facility, such as the Belgian waste plant, spreading highly radioactive material over a wide area.

The most likely scenario that security experts fear is that a group could get ahold of radioactive material, such as cesium or cobalt, for a dirty bomb that could be carried in a suitcase. Those materials are widely used in industrial, academic and hospital settings, with no consistent security standards across the globe. Last year, an Associated Press investigation revealed multiple attempts by black market smugglers to sell radioactive material to Middle East extremists.

And before you think we’re safe here in the United States and this is Europe’s problem, keep in mind that in the summer of 2014 there were multiple incidents of nuclear material being stolen from labs in Mexico. What’s of interest is that the materials stolen are exactly what officials described above – Cobalt and Cesium-137 – both of which could be used to manufacture a radiological dirty bomb.

How To Prepare For A Chemical, Biological, Radiological or Nuclear Disaster

While the effects of a nuclear detonation or other CBRN related disasters are such that anything in the immediate blast radius will be killed, it is the fall-out after such an event that would have the most significant impact on the population.

In her book The Prepper’s Blurprint Tess Pennington provides a list of extensive strategies for how to survive a nuclear disaster. The type of disaster, your proximity, and your level of preparedness will determine your specific response.

In short, Tess says Plan “A” is just as you may have guessed – get out of the area:

If you are told to evacuate keep the following points in mind… If you are driving, keep the car windows and vents closed, and use recirculating air.

Due to the fear of panic and gridlock that will ensure from mass evacuations, most governments will delay mandatory evacuations until the last minute. This will only cause mass confusion and chaos at gas stations, grocery stores and on the streets. The best way to prevent this is to stay ahead of the crowd and prepare ahead of time.

If you are evacuating during a CBRN event you better plan on delays. And delays could mean life threatening exposure.

Here are two life saving recommendations to consider, as you and your loved ones will be out in the open:

Advanced Breathing Device / Tactical Gas Mask With A Filter Capable Of Blocking CBRN particles
It only takes a few minutes to die of exposure when concentrations of chemical, radiological or nuclear fall-out are high. If you’re out in the open, and that includes evacuating in your car, the air will be contaminated. An advanced respiratory system like the Mestel SGE 400/3 BB tactical gas mask and an A2B2E2K2P3 rated filter (blocks 99.5% of deadly particles) will quite literally keep you alive for the minutes or hours you need to get to a safe zone.
Potassium Iodide
Within a few days of the Fukushima nuclear disaster Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano advised west coast citizens to stockpile Potassium Iodide tablets. This natural supplement reduces the amount of radiation absorbed by your thyroid gland during certain types of nuclear exposure. It will not block raditation from entering your body, but may reduce it enough to keep you alive while you evacuate and prevent future medical issues. (Here are 7 natural supplements to have on hand during a nuclear emergency)

If you are caught in a situation where you can’t get out, you’ll have to shelter in place. Much of how your Plan “B” will work depends on your location, proximity to threat and existing preparedness stockpiles. For the majority of people out there, you may be at home or at work. Some recommendations from The Prepper’s Blueprint:

If told to stay indoors, turn off the air conditioner and other air intakes and go to a basement. Seal basement windows and entrances to prevent fallout from getting inside. If you go outside you will need to remove your outer clothing before coming inside the shelter.

Likewise, creating a sealed area near the entrance of the shelter will prevent fallout dust from entering. Seal the entryway, bubble wrap or plastic sheeting to prevent the dust from coming in.

Preparing for a CBRN disaster includes a variety of strategies. The Urban Guide For Surviving a Nuclear Attack is a good starting point that covers various devices, taking shelter and dealing with fallout.

Some additional resources:

The threat of a Nuclear, Chemical, Biologicial or Radiological event is more real today than ever before. While it is widely believed by citizens of the United States and Europe that such an event will be stopped by law enforcement, military and intelligence services, the fact of the matter is that there are thousands of individuals operating in terror cells around the world whose sole purpose is to kill as many people as possible.

They are actively looking for ways to compromise the system.

They did it in New York in 2001. They did it in London, Madrid, Paris, San Bernardino and Brussels.

And they will absolutely do it again. Anyone who thinks otherwise is naive.

Prepare for it, because once it hits it will be too late.

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

#HUD Wants to Make Living in a Tiny House or RV #Illegal

March 31, 2016 by daisy luther

March 31, 2016

The tiny house movement has taken America by storm, in part because our economy is in the toilet. People are striving to reduce their expenses by embracing minimalism. They’re breaking free from the corporate grind because, as I’ve always advised, they are learning to live with less and radically reducing their expenses.

But, these days in America, you are sharply admonished when you try to live your life outside of the strictures of the 9-5 world. Is it any surprise that the government is now taking steps to limit our ability to drastically reduce our expenses? They always seem to make illegal anything we try to do to be more independent and moving into a tiny house appears to be the next on their list.

HUD has proposed the following law:

This proposed rule would modify the current exemption for recreational vehicles in the Manufactured Home Procedural and Enforcement Regulations. Under the current exemption, questions have arisen regarding whether park model recreational vehicles are regulated by HUD’s manufactured home program. These park models are being produced with patio roofs, screened in porches, and other extensions that exceed the 400 square foot maximum exemption in the current regulations. Additionally, some of these models are being marketed as suitable for year round living. HUD’s proposed rule would permit recreational vehicle manufactures to certify that a unit is exempted from HUD’s regulations. Specifically, HUD’s proposed rule would define a recreational vehicle as a factory build vehicular structure, not certified as a manufactured home, designed only for recreational use and not as a primary residence or for permanent occupancy, and built and certified in accordance with either the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1192-2015, Standard for Recreational Vehicles, or the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) A119.5-15, Recreational Park Trailer Standard. In addition, to provide consumers notice regarding the manufacturing standards used to construct the unit, HUD’s rule would require that units claiming the exemption display a notice that identifies the standards used to construct the unit and states that the unit is designed only for recreational use, and not as a primary residence or permanent dwelling.

That’s right – if this law is passed, living in a tiny house or an RV may become illegal in April of this year.

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Self-Reliance Strategies: Resources for Setting Up a #Prepper’s #Homestead Quickly and Inexpensively

March 31, 2016 by daisy luther

March 31, 2016

This week, the self-reliance report is about the resources and strategies I’ve used for setting up a prepper’s homestead quickly and inexpensively. A lot of research went into swapping environments – I moved from a low country rather dry farm to a cabin in the mountains to set up a homestead in the forest. As always, I followed a thrifty budget to get things done.

The Self-Reliance Weekly Report is a collection of strategies, made up of the articles, books, DIYs, and products that I found useful on my own little prepper’s homestead.

Prepping

I recently spent a great deal of time searching for the perfect prepper’s retreat. This article discusses my search and offers some tips for finding your own perfect retreat. If your plan is to rely on your homesteading ability to survive when the S hits the Fan, it’s essential to get started now. There’s a steep learning curve and many will fail.

Following, find a collection of some of the most interesting prepper resources around right now.

Homesteading

The past couple of weeks my focus has been getting my new homestead set up as quickly as possible. Here are the resources that I found pertinent.

The first two projects were fencing for my dogs and shelter for my chickens. I was able to acquire a lot of the supplies for free just kicking around the shed of the place I rented (with the landlord’s permission, of course). I had to purchase a couple of gates for the fences and my handyman put together this super-cool swingset chicken coop from almost entirely found items. (I used some of the tips from this guide to make my coop predator-resistant.) Just for fun, here are some beautiful, inspiring coop designs.

In the midst of moving chaos, my baby chicks arrived. This time around I went with freedom ranger meat chickens. There are some differences when raising meat chicks vs. laying hens but between this article and this book, I was able to find the necessary information. My brooder did not arrive before the chicks, so they lived in my bathtub briefly. (Thankfully just for 2 days!) In a couple of weeks, I’m going to build them this little “playground” outside.

I’m considering trying my hand at straw bale gardening this year. This article has me almost convinced, so I ordered the most recent edition of a book by the man credited with creating the concept to learn more about it before I commit. I’m also planning to put up some of these bamboo and twine teepee trellises in my garden area. I have all of the supplies on hand. This weekend will be dedicated to starting my cool weather seeds in the kitchen.

Here are a few more great homesteading resources to check out:

DIY

Farm Blog

We survived the unthinkable. We went without internet or a phone connection for 8 days. *shudder* I really enjoy researching and blogging, so it was difficult to be so disconnected. However, it was probably good for the entire family. I got most of the house unpacked, we enjoyed some unplugged together time, and I did a lot of reading for sheer enjoyment.

Here are some photos from the new place.

This is our dog, Bella, checking out the creek in our backyard.

As I wrote above, the baby chicks arrived before my brooder, so I had to house them in my bathtub for a couple of days. They are Freedom Rangers, which are meat birds, so they grow quickly and eat an astonishing amount of food.

Once the brooder arrived, our dog creepily stared at them non-stop. I’d like to think she is guarding them, but the more likely reason is that she’s dreaming of chicken nuggets.

We got to see our Livestock Guardian Dog in action for the first time. I happened to be standing at the kitchen sink, cutting up veggies, when I heard a frantic squawk from one of my chickens. I looked out the window just in time to see 160 pounds of angry teeth and fur rush the fence. The silly chickens were outside the pasture (although still on my property) and the neighbor’s two pit bull dogs decided they would enjoy a nice chicken dinner. Thor had other plans, however. I was in awe at the fury he displayed, and apparently, so too were the roaming dogs. All 3 errant chickens escaped the jaws of death and the pitties turned tail and fled. Hopefully they learned a lesson and won’t be back. I was so impressed with Thor! Of course, I’ve seen him bark protectively and display territorial behavior, but I’d never seen him in full guardian mode and it was a sight to behold. Here’s a photo of my gorgeous boy in his new backyard.

What’s going on at your farm or urban homestead right now? How’s the weather in your area? Please share your updates in the comments below!

What Life is Really Like Under ISIS Rule

March 30, 2016 by michaela whitton

Michaela Whitton
March 30, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) United Kingdom — A group of activists, bloggers, and filmmakers are raising their voices against the propaganda machine of the Islamic State (ISIS) by sharing personal stories of those who have experienced the group’s terror first hand.

The self-declared caliphate’s recruitment strategy promises a fantastic life under their control to those wanting to serve what they consider to be a noble cause. To counter the fictitious and sensationalist propaganda, the Open Your Eyes movement exposes the reality of life under the Islamic State with the aim of showing potential new recruits they are actually joining a death cult — and that what they are being told is lies.

Reiterating that ISIS is not the voice of 1.6 billion Muslims — that it is warping the teachings of Islam and perverting the religion they love — the Open Your Eyes movement was launched by British Muslims. Exposing the utter barbarity of the terror group in the hope of reaching those considering making the journey of no return, it lifts the veil on the brutal reality of life under ISIS control. The movement claims ISIS is prolonging the suffering of Muslims throughout the world and says new recruits are little more than pawns on the chessboard of global power games.

Thanks to those who risked torture and death to recount their suffering, Open Your Eyes is able to share the reality of life in Mosul, Iraq, as well as the stories of Syrian journalists who have escaped torture while attempting to crush Islamic State propaganda.

“Death is better than this”

Women in Mosul have had to adapt to ancient ways of life since ISIS took control. In secret interviews with the women, they described life before the takeover, when they had electricity, they could bake and cook, and their basic needs were met. Now forced to use wood for cooking, and without food or work, they have been forced back in time. There is no electricity or drinking water, and public services have stopped. Covert filming reveals streets strewn with garbage, flies and disease. The women have said even the drinking water smells bad, and that when children drink it, they get get stomach aches and diarrhoea and have to be taken to hospital. They said ISIS has imposed their beliefs on them and complain they are forced to wear face veils (abaya). They said the terror group are often violent towards them and beat them:

“I hope that if ISIS go — god willing — we will go back to our normal life, wear normal clothes, go out and visit our relatives and get out of this prison they have put us in,” one of the women said.

“What kind of life it this?” Another added. “Death is better than this.”

“They took us back to the stone age”

A student in ISIS-controlled Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, said many universities have become places of residence for members of the terror group and their families. Anyone wanting to leave the city must first appear in the Shar’ia court, where someone must act as a guarantor for them to leave. If they don’t return, the guarantor is arrested. Islamic State policies have resulted in textbooks being destroyed, the cancellation of courses, and university departments being shut down.

“They stole the future of most students,” the student said, recalling how he was made to let his hair and beard grow long. He was forced to wear loose clothes and jeans, and bright colours were forbidden. He claimed he can no longer go out with his friends. Smoking is forbidden, and if caught, offenders are whipped and their fingers broken.

“We reject the policies of Daesh because they are nothing but violence and backwardness. The only thing they do is kill people, they took us back to the stone age away from humanity,” said the student.

“Founded on blood”

Renowned for treating journalists particularly harshly, ISIS leaders do not want the truth about those espousing different views to come out. Ahmad, a Syrian journalist, escaped after 50 days of being captured and tortured. Kept blindfolded and tied to a chair while suffering beatings and electric shocks to his genitals, he believed he would never get out and worried for the future of his young son. He said if he could have ended his life, he would have, saying he thought about suicide a great deal during his captivity. In prison, was surprised to see that a former friend was the main torturer. After 50 days, an uprising between various factions and ISIS saw some of his captors killed. Ahmed and the other prisoners were able to break down the doors and escape.

“Daesh are going to disappear in Syria,” Ahmed said, “because nations need laws and solid foundations to thrive, but ISIS was founded on blood.”

Another journalist from Aleppo, Milad Shehabi was writing an article on the Syrian regime’s airstrikes when a group of men dressed head-to-toe in black came to the door and kidnapped him. With seven guns aimed at him, he was warned that if he moved, he would be shot. Kept blindfolded by ISIS for 45 days before being freed by the Free Syrian Army, he said the only thing he could hear in captivity were the sounds of torture and air raids. “We wished they would drop bombs on us to escape the reality we were facing,” he said.

“When we talk about ISIS you have to understand that it doesn’t represent Islam in any way,” he added. “It has perverted the image of Islam globally.”

This article (What Life is Really Like Under ISIS Rule) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Michaela Whitton and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

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Police Forced to Apologize after Blood-Thirsty Officer Accidentally Records Himself

March 30, 2016 by michaela whitton

Michaela Whitton
March 30, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) United Kingdom —The Metropolitan Police have finally apologized and paid out damages for the false arrest and assault of a 20-year-old man at the 2010 student demonstrations — over five years after his tooth was knocked out by a police officer.

As an evidence gatherer, PC Andrew Ott was supposed to look for troublemakers during the student protests in central London. What he didn’t realize in his excessive enthusiasm for the task was that his police radio was on record, capturing every word of his violent boasting.

“I wanna kill these f****** little lot here,” Ott said. “Mate, if that fence goes I’m gonna f****** batter them.”

The accidental recording continued: “Guys, if you happen to move forward and he’s still there, stamp all over his little f****** head,” he said of one protester.

As he bragged that he was more covert than other cops because he wasn’t wearing a jacket, Ott’s menacing threats escalated: “So I’ll go stick in play now and I’ll f****** let some people have it as well.”

William Horner, a student situated near Westminster Abbey, eventually caught the fired-up copper’s attention — and became the target of his aggression. Shortly after Ott hollered to other officers to stop the man, camera footage captured William Horner on the ground, seconds after his front tooth was knocked out by Ott’s riot shield.

Horner had jumped a fence to get away from the increasingly chaotic demonstration in an attempt to get home. Another officer explained to Ott that the man had done nothing to warrant the violence. Rather than being remorseful, the PC continued his tirade: “I f****** knocked his tooth out the c***.”

Not content with hunting down an innocent person, the aggressive cop then grappled with how to frame him. “Well he’s going to have to have done something at the moment because I just put his tooth out,” he said.

Ott was eventually convicted of Actual Bodily Harm (ABH) and sentenced to eight months in prison. This week, the Metropolitan police apologized for the incident and paid an undisclosed sum in damages to William Horner, who said, “I am of course pleased with the apology and damages but if it wasn’t for the accidental recording by PC Ott I could instead be living with a criminal record now.”

It’s unclear why it took the Met nearly six years to apologize. What is clear is that Horner isn’t the first person to be hospitalized by the British police, and he surely won’t be the last. While there is a least a glimmer of accountability for police misconduct in the U.K., this is not an isolated incident; it simply shows PC Andrew Ott was unlucky to be caught.

This article (Police Forced to Apologize after Blood-Thirsty Officer Accidentally Records Himself) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Michaela Whitton and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

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VIDEO: #White College Student Attacked By #Black Classmate For Having #Dreadlocks: “Because It’s MY Culture”

March 30, 2016 by mac slavo

It is becoming apparent that for some individuals in this country we should return to the era of segregation. At least that’s what we gather from the following video filmed at a San Francisco university.

As you’ll see in the clip below, a white student with a dreadlock hairstyle is confronted by a black female classmate who verbally attacks him for “appropriating her culture.”

The white man fires back, noting that the hair style is traditionally Egyptian, asking the black female if she happens to be from Egypt.

As the white student tries to leave he is physically assaulted and battered when the woman blocks his exit and then proceeds to pull him by the arm down the stairs. Ironically, the woman then claims that it was the white man who put his “hands on her.”

Indeed he did, but only as a last resort to escape the confrontation and remove himself from the situation.

Is it racism when someone attacks another person based only on the color of his skin?

We’d like to think so, but the “jury” is still out as the San Francisco university in question is “still investigating” the matter.

What is this woman’s ultimate goal? And why did the black man standing next to her not step in, but rather, supported her racial attacks against the white man who was doing nothing more than walking by and minding his own business?

If the situation were reversed and it was a white person who attacked this woman for appropriating white culture by the clothing she wears, the car she drives or the food she eats, we would have massive protests at the campus and administrators would likely already have expelled the racist attacker.

But this is America, and it appears that only white people can be racists.

Perhaps, as one black Harvard student recently argued, white people should just kill themselves to atone for white privilege.

Uncensored Video: Memphis Mob: Scores of Black Teens Attack Shoppers: “They Got a White Dude… Haha”

Court Outrage: Judge Lets Black Armed Robber Go Free… But Hammers White Victims for Racism

Activist: White People Should Kill Themselves To Atone For White Privilege

Watch: Hate Crime or Random Violence: Black Men Beat White Man Who Refused to Talk About Michael Brown

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Trend Forecaster’s Dire Warning: Massive #Crash Will Wipe 12,000 Points Off Dow Jones By Late 2017 | #Dent

March 29, 2016 by mac slavo

Trend forecaster and demographic researcher Harry Dent says we are in a massive bubble. And as he explains in his latest interview with Future Money Trends, central banks around the world continue to fuel this bubble with unlimited fiat money printing.

The end result according to Dent?

The biggest bubble burst in history… and it’s coming soon.

There will be… and I will stake my entire reputation on this… we are going to see the biggest global bubble burst in history in the next four years…

There’s only one way out of this bubble and that is for it to burst… all this stuff is going to reset back to where it should be without all this endless debt, endless printed money, stimulus and zero interest rate policy.

(Watch at Youtube)

Their only solution to this debt and financial asset bubbles is to create more debt and more financial asset bubbles… how can that possibly be the solution?

…

The Dow, I’m projecting, will hit 5,500 to 6,000 by late 2017… just in the next year and a half or so.

That’ll be most of the damage… then it will rally and there’ll be some aftershocks into 2020… my four cycles point down into early 2020 and then they start one after the other to turn up… I think the worst will be over by 2020, but the worst of that will be by the end of 2017.

For more interviews, news and investment strategies visit Future Money Trends.

Harry Dent’s latest book: The Demographic Cliff: How to Survive and Prosper During the Great Deflation Ahead

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Dystopian Fiction of Yesterday is the #NWO of Tomorrow: “The Shift is Toward #Totalitarianism”

March 29, 2016 by contributing author

Many of the things that are happening this very moment have direct parallels in literature of the past. Whether it is an account such as the “Gulag Archipelago” by Solzhenitsyn or a work of “fiction” such as “1984” by George Orwell is irrelevant. Elements of the history or the storyline (regarding the former and the latter works) are now becoming thoroughly inculcated into the fabric of modern reality.

All of the measures taken by the Soviet Union to crush and control its population are beginning to manifest themselves today in the United States. The courts are “stacked” to reflect the decision of the regime and not to rule by law. The Military Industrial Complex contracts are still being shuffled, along with government policies that just happen to substantiate those business interests with kickbacks for all. Laws serve political and corporate interests, and the lawmakers themselves do not represent any of their constituents: they are self-serving thieves, selling out their country and its populace for money and power.

The police departments have (for all intents and purposes) been “federalized,” with budgets and marching orders becoming increasingly dependent upon federal and not local or state policies. Sheriffs who follow their appointed roles as duly-elected law enforcement officials upholding Constitutional guidelines are being “phased out” of existence. The changed demographics of “forced” insertions of illegal aliens and “refugees” into populations are rapidly negating the remainder of the two-party system to ensure that the Democratic party takes control ad infinitum.

Orwell envisioned it. His work is labeled a work of fiction, although all of the measures Oceania pursued are either currently in place in the United States or they’re being developed. There is mass surveillance, increasing by the day. The “internet of things,” as coined by former General David Petraeus, is almost primed to allow “telescreens” to watch our every movement, and a camera on every corner to back them up. Orwell hated totalitarianism, having been exposed to it in his short but accomplished lifetime, and he knew man’s propensity was to move toward the enslavement of his fellow man.

The development of new weapons by DARPA and the MIC are not toward a foreign enemy so much as the purpose of using them against the citizenry. Drones, robots, nanotechnology, and every other “gizmo” able to be employed are all being drawn from behind the black curtain to unleash upon the citizens. Also, the world’s situation is directly paralleling “1984” as three great spheres of influence…Europe, Asia, and North America…are being created by the powers that be. Global governance in “thirds” is probably the NWO end state, as outlined by Orwell for a very significant reason: control with as much ethnic and cultural homogeneity as possible.

It stands to reason that an Oriental (“Eastasia,” in “1984”) empire/totalitarian state would control the Oriental nations, rather than split it up between populations that are not as closely related linguistically and culturally. We are seeing those shifts of influence into the divisions outlined by Orwell now, as the nations jockey for position and power. Just as in “1984,” where it stated that even two of the super-states in alignment and concerted efforts could not together topple the third, perhaps the same is with our world.

The shift is toward totalitarianism, and the populations have been (and are being) conditioned to accept, if not embrace, collectivist thought and socialism. A good example was a film called “the Mutant Chronicles,” in which there were four great super-states that were organized not as nations but as corporations, that made war with one another over resources. We see the blending of government and corporation today in virtually every facet of life, with the illusion of elections and the illusion of choice upheld to keep the population around the dullard state of consciousness.

What will save us from this? Will we be able to save ourselves from it? The more and more one watches freedoms disappearing by the day, the more one must wonder if there is a way to stem the tide. Orwell and Solzhenitsyn…visionary and historian…gave us blueprints to follow…checklists with which to use as frameworks of reference for what is befalling us daily. Someday it may be that the brief period of freedom enjoyed by the American people may be categorized as a “work of fiction” in a future that may not even allow anyone to read it.

Jeremiah Johnson is the Nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces (Airborne). Mr. Johnson is also a Gunsmith, a Certified Master Herbalist, a Montana Master Food Preserver, and a graduate of the U.S. Army’s SERE school (Survival Evasion Resistance Escape). He lives in a cabin in the mountains of Western Montana with his wife and three cats. You can follow Jeremiah’s regular writings at SHTFplan.com.

This article may be republished or excerpted with proper attribution to the author and a link to www.SHTFplan.com.

Also Read:

Obama Pushes For Widespread Surveillance State: “At This Rate We’ll All Be In Cages… Either Electronic Or Literal”

How To Survive Occupied America: “Red Dawn Just Started… And You’re In It”

Collision Course: As Obama Weakens America, The Russians And Chinese Prepare

Forced Economic Free Fall the Precursor to Collapse: “The World Is About To Enter A Global Depression Unlike Anything Seen Before”

The Trigger: If This Ever Happens You Know You’re Days Away From Nuclear War

Jeremiah Johnson’s Green Beret Survival Guides

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Urban Survival: When the Cities Fall Apart, These Strategies Will Keep You Alive

March 29, 2016 by contributing author

The following guide was originally compiled by Tess Pennington at ReadyNutrition.com. Tess is the author of the widely popular and highly rated The Prepper’s Blueprint: The Step-By-Step Guide To Help You Prepare For Any Disaster

Collectively speaking, there are many of us who have been preparing for emergencies and have read our fair share of prepper fiction and watched enough apocalyptic thrillers to know that the higher the population density, the more dangerous it can be in a disaster. As well, when resources like food and fuel have to be transported from outside the city limits, then your survivability rate lessens. So what about those who have to live in the city? Should they just stop prepping all together? Would they stand a fighting chance at surviving?

According to the last census, 80.7 percent of the U.S. population lives in urban areas. In fact, many choose to live the higher populated areas because of better paying jobs and better school systems, so the probability of a SHTF event happening while you are in the city is likely. As well, because many commuters spend a large majority of their time away from their homes, I recommend having these 20 items on hand to get you back home.

In an interview by Rory from The Daily Coin, he asked if it is possible to live out a SHTF scenario in an urban setting. The answer is yes, but for a majority of us, we must ask ourselves if we are up to the challenge. Because while I do believe someone could get by in an urban setting, it could prove to be more challenging for the Average Joe.

Urban Survival – Is It Even Possible?

If you are forced to stay in the city after a disaster occurs, all is not lost. I do believe urban survival is possible, but you may need to get creative. Ultimately, being able to survive in an urban setting during a major ordeal depends on multiple factors: specifically, the type of disaster, if basic infrastructure is still up, where you are located, what you have with you and your skill sets. Moreover, I believe that whether you are surviving in an urban setting or a rural one, you need the same things for survival: food, water, shelter, protection (sound familiar?). The difference is you will need to rely more on your skills and ingenuity in finding opportunities to use to your advantage in a post-disaster city. In both scenarios, rural and urban survivors will also have to find a way to carry on for long durations. That is, when your short-term reserves are tapped out, what’s your long-term plan?

Above all, the population density will be your greatest threat and your resources will quickly be depleted. If you are not familiar with Selco’s story from SHTFSchool.com, he survived in an urban setting and tells his story and shares ways that he and others survived on his website. Some of the critical needs he outlines are:

Food – No city can feed it’s people on its own and when the supply trucks stop running, supplies will quickly be depleted. It is wise to have food on hand. I outlined 25 must-have versatile foods for your pantry.

As well, I highly recommend storing a variety of heirloom seeds. These can be to grow sprouts for emergency nutrition and for gardens for long-term food sources. You could also plant edible flowers. Not only will they be lovely to look at, but they will provide sustenance when you need it the most. Alternatively, if you can locate food packing plants or warehouses in your city, that may be a good place to allocate additional food reserves if yours runs out. This article can provide information on foraging for weeds.

Water – Municipal water sources can become tainted and it will be up to you to locate water sources. Water could look crystal clear and still contain very dangerous contaminants. – so avoid this all together and make sure you have some water stored away. Your skills will come in handy here if you are actively practicing how to survive. Here are five different ways to find water when there is none to be had. As well, consider having a map on hand of water sources in close proximity to you.

Fuel – Due to so many who are getting out of dodge and leaving the city, the fuel stores will quickly be depleted. As well, this could be problematic for running your generators. Many preppers prefer to have some alternative fuel on hand, or even biomass briquettes. Make sure you follow the proper safety guidelines for storing fuel, especially those who live in apartments.

Many suggest solar panels as a good power alternative. While I like this idea, I think it can also draw unwanted attention, so further security measures should be put in place to hide the solar panels from view.

Power – The failure of the power grid will prevent things from getting back to normal. When the majority of the population realize things aren’t going to change any time soon, and the above listed items aren’t available, there will be breakdowns to the level of social collapse. Many feel this very reason is why it’s important to be ready to bug out on a moment’s notice. If you are caught in this, it could be very dangerous.

What You Will Be Up Against

While it is entirely possible to survive in the city, you need to know what you will be up against. I realize that I am painting a very bleak picture, but those who stay behind and choose not to bug out are either under prepared, trapped in the city or have enough skills and know-how to make it on very little stored resources. The latter will not be the majority. Therefore, be prepared for roaming gangs, thugs and desperate individuals who have resorted to a more primal version of themselves. They will do what they need to in order for their needs to be met. If they haven’t eaten in days, they will smell your food from miles away, so you need to know how to mask the smells of your food or you could be welcoming unwanted visitors whose primary focus is to take what you have.

Security will be crucial in surviving in an urban setting and having a group you can depend on will make it all the more secure. Many neighbors and friends living in close proximity will band together and help to fortify the homes or find a suitable location in a higher location so you can get a bird’s-eye view of the scenery. One aspect that the city offers is a plethora of building materials to use for fortifying a home. If you start looking for fortifying plans now, you will have a better idea on what materials you will need. I also cannot stress how important it is to have a means of protecting yourself. If someone kicks in your door, they aren’t only looking for a cup of sugar. Having a firearm and knowing how to use it could make all the difference in the world.

As well, having a keen grasp on communication skills with your group to ensure your perimeter is safe and make sure you will have alerts to possible threats. Communication is key and you should have multiple forms of communication, especially if a family or group member ends up being separated. One of the greatest threats we all face in cities are terrorist attacks. They target highly populated cities with dirty bombs and chemical weapons, and what we saw in Brussels that is can happen in peaceful cities, as well. Today it was Brussels. Where will it be the next time they hit America? Protecting yourself is the only option to ensuring your family has what it needs, including gas masks to gauge against chemical and biological attacks.

Start Finding Ways to Think Outside of the Box:

As I mentioned previously, to survive in a post-disaster urban setting, you will need to get creative in the way you work problems. Nothing should be wasted and everything could be used. Trash lying around can be repurposed and fashioned into something more useful. As well, start reading resources that can help you in your future preparations. The following books have great information on this type of survival.

SAS Urban Survival Handbook

The Prepper’s Blueprint

Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way

The human species has always found way to survive and times aren’t all that different. In order to thrive in an urban environment, you need to be aware of what’s stacked against you: the lack of resources, possible threats, roaming gangs and violence. If you can change your line of thinking, utilize key skill sets and become more fluid with the problem, your odds improve.

Tess Pennington is the author of The Prepper’s Blueprint, a comprehensive guide that uses real-life scenarios to help you prepare for any disaster. Because a crisis rarely stops with a triggering event the aftermath can spiral, having the capacity to cripple our normal ways of life. The well-rounded, multi-layered approach outlined in the Blueprint helps you make sense of a wide array of preparedness concepts through easily digestible action items and supply lists.

Tess is also the author of the highly rated Prepper’s Cookbook, which helps you to create a plan for stocking, organizing and maintaining a proper emergency food supply and includes over 300 recipes for nutritious, delicious, life-saving meals.

Visit her web site at ReadyNutrition.com for an extensive compilation of free information on preparedness, homesteading, and healthy living.

Also From Tess Pennington:

Free Web Series: 52 Weeks to Preparedness: An Emergency Preparedness Plan For Surviving Virtually Any Disaster

Preparedness 101

Disaster Scenarios

Going Rogue: 15 Ways to Detach From the System

When the Trucks Stop Delivering, ‘The System’ Will Collapse

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Make a Thrifty DIY Swingset #Chicken Coop

March 29, 2016 by daisy luther

March 29, 2016

Do you have one of those old A-shaped swingsets rusting in your backyard? If you do, then you have the basis for an awesome swingset chicken coop! (And if you don’t, watch Craigslist – there are frequently people offering them for free to whoever comes to pick them up.) Creativity is key when you go DIY for your coop.

When we moved recently we had to leave our wonderful chicken coop behind, since it was attached to the barn. While I drooled over some of the beautiful chicken Taj Mahals that are available, I’m on a pretty tight budget so it was important to use items that I could acquire either cheap or free. Luckily, the house we moved to had some pretty interesting stuff in a shed and an old rusty swingset in the woods.

I don’t have a lot of construction skills but the guy who put up my fence does, and luckily, he was on board with my wacky, freebie-scrounging ideas.

For the price of some labor, some hardware, some chicken wire, and a fancy-dancy hanging chicken waterer, I got a snazzy new coop that keeps my chickens safe and sound.

Here’s what we used:

A swingset with the swings removed
2 pieces of corrugated metal on the top 3/4 plus a strip of it over the top to help weather proof
Some sheets of plywood for the bottom back of the coop
A piece of chain link fencing for the bottom in order to keep out predators
Some old pieces of fence posts for the bottom of the coop to attach the chicken wire and chain link to
Some lumber for the door
Chicken wire (It was cheaper from Amazon than from my local store)
A double-hinged latch
A chicken waterer

If you’re making a scrounged chicken coop, be creative and see what you components you can find for cheap or free. Because most of the items used were found, this isn’t as much a how-to as it is something to inspire you. Here are some photos so you can see how my coop was assembled.

The Scoop on my Swingset Chicken Coop

The door is very heavy, which adds a layer of security against critters that might try to get in during the night. During the day, I use a bungee to hold the door open in the event of wind so no chickens get squashed. (They’re at the door because they know they’re either getting food or getting out.)

There is also a heavy duty double hinged latch that I fasten with a carabiner at night for an added layer of security. (Order a similar latch here.)

The bottom is covered with a piece of chain link fencing that is attached to the boards that form the bottom edge of the coop.

My biggest splurge is this hanging 5 gallon water dispenser. It stays much cleaner raised a few inches off the ground, only needs to be refilled every few days, and I used the exisiting hook for a swing to hang it from. (You can order your own hanging dispenser here – it is a lower price than it was at my local feed store.)

Here’s the interior of theswingset chicken coop. The chickens like to roost on the cross bars on each end, and there is an extra bar from an old closet that was also installed. I used some cubbies from my previous garage for nesting boxes. (I probably should have taken the interior pic before I put the chickens in here to poop on everything. Of course, anyone who has chickens knows that a coop only looks clean for about 10 minutes.)

The coop in all of its glory. I’ll be painting the plywood soon to make it a little prettier.

Thor, our LGD, is happy to follow the chickens around and protect them because he realized they’re like little feathered Pez dispensers, dropping nice little egg treats around the yard for him to enjoy. I lock them in the coop a couple of days per week and that gives us more than enough eggs for our needs. The rest of the eggs get scattered around the yard for a doggie version of an Easter egg hunt. Thor’s a little skinny so the added fat will do him good. You can see him licking his dog lips in the photo below.

This Stunning Chart Shows How Trump’s Border Wall Will Stop Illegal Immigration

March 28, 2016 by mac slavo

There have been a lot of arguments put forth about Trump’s border wall idea.

Some say such a wall will do nothing to stem the tide of illegal immigrants crossing into the United States through our southern border. Others argue that the hundreds of miles of border can only be secured by a well constructed barrier.

The following chart from The Daily Caller should put any debate over the matter to rest.

The data is compiled from immigration statistics by the Hungarian Police and shows that not only does such a wall work, it begins working almost instantly.

Several European countries have erected fences to keep migrants out, and, according to the numbers, every case appears to have a large impact.

…

When the fence went up Oct. 17, the influx went down to 870 from 6,353 only a day earlier. Illegal border crossing were steadily below 40 per day throughout the rest of the month

The numbers speak for themselves.

We now have proof of concept for how to mitigate and eliminate the immigration crisis facing the United States.

Are our elected officials prepared to step up and do what needs to be done?

Hattip The Daily Caller via Zero Hedge

Also Read:

Watch: How Liberals React When Asked to House An Illegal Immigrant Child In Their Homes

Obama Unleashes Open Border Free-for-All: “Might As Well Abolish Our Immigration Laws Altogether”

Watch This Angry Foreigner: Here’s What Happened In Sweden When Muslim Immigrants Swarmed Their Country

Immigration End Game Revealed: New Law Would Give Illegal Immigrants The Right To Vote, Collect Government Benefits

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

#Google To Begin Alerting Users if #Gmail Account is Targeted by Government

March 28, 2016 by clarice palmer

Clarice Palmer
March 28, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) As privacy advocates celebrate the FBI’s decision to stop harassing Apple over the San Bernardino shooter’s encrypted iPhone, other tech giants seem to have finally noticed that what consumers want is privacy. But for privacy to prevail, the government must stop snooping.

With that idea in mind, Google decided to change how the game is played.

In an official Google blog update detailing new security measures for Gmail, the tech giant announced it would begin alerting consumers whenever the firm detects an account is being targeted — or rather, hacked — by government agencies or their proxies. While the company believes less than 0.1 percent of Gmail users will receive this type of warning, the idea that a tech giant is going to these lengths to give users peace of mind and privacy should give advocacy groups across the country reason to continue celebrating.

Google opened its official statement by announcing the company has a “variety of new protections” in store “that will help keep Gmail users even safer.” The idea, Google added, is to “promote email security best practices across the Internet as a whole.” As one of these efforts, Google announced improvements to its “state-sponsored attack warnings,” a system that has been in place since 2012, when Google began warning Gmail users when their accounts were being targeted by attackers tied to the government.

While these “warnings are rare,” Google noted, “we’re launching a new, full-page warning with instructions about how these users can stay safe.” The blog pointed out that “the users that receive these warnings are often activists, journalists, and policy-makers taking bold stands around the world.”

Enhancing its warning system is not the only thing Google is doing to keep users safe. According to the tech giant, its “safe browsing” notifications will also be expanded to warn users beforehand that a link they are about to open appears suspicious.

Google will also improve its email encryption securities by partnering with Comcast, Yahoo, and Microsoft.

From BGR:

“Google wants to further improve email encryption, and the company partnered up with Comcast, Microsoft and Yahoo to submit a draft IETF [Internet Engineering Task Force] specification for ‘SMTP Strict Transport Security.’ Essentially, Google and its partners want to make sure that encrypted email stays encrypted along its entire path from sender to recipient.”

This idea was originally explored by Google on Safer Internet Day, the day the California company introduced a new tool giving Gmail users a visual warning whenever they receive a message that hasn’t been delivered using encryption. The warning is also displayed whenever a user is about to send an email to an account whose email service provider doesn’t support TLS encryption.

While this step had a positive effect, as Google reported on its blog announcement, the company decided to go even further by partnering with other companies in order to develop a new IETF specification standard. This is intended to help companies “ensure that mail will only be delivered through encrypted channels, and that any encryption failures should be reported for further analysis, helping shine the spotlight on any malfeasance occurring around the Internet.”

The move was Google’s response to research carried out by its researchers, along with the University of Michigan and University of Illinois. According to researchers’ findings, “misconfigured or malicious parts of the Internet can still tamper with email encryption.” That created the necessity for further action in order to protect Gmail users.

This article (Google To Begin Alerting Users if Gmail Account is Targeted by Government) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Clarice Palmer and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to edits@theantimedia.org.

From theantimedia.org Team

#Snowden: #Brussels Attack AND #Boston Bombing Could Have Been Stopped

March 28, 2016 by claire bernish

Claire Bernish
March 28, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) Edward Snowden proffered a rather damning criticism of international intelligence during a lecture last week, arguing the terror attacks in Belgium were entirely preventable and could have been stopped. As Snowden explained:

“In all the talk of Brussels, there’s a story that just recently broke, which I’m not sure has gotten the same play as the others, which is that the attack was preventable; and it was preventable through traditional means, not mass surveillance. An allied intelligence service — in this case, in Turkey — warned Belgium that this individual was a criminal, that they were involved in terrorist activities, and this individual turned out to be one of the suicide bombers.”

As Snowden noted during the University of Arizona panel discussion, which also included Professor Noam Chomsky and journalist Glenn Greenwald, these reports surfaced almost immediately after the attacks claiming Belgian and other intelligence forces had been notified of the potential danger this individual posed. In fact, an exclusive, though unverified report by Haaretz claimed “The security services knew, with a high degree of certainty, that attacks were planned in the very near future for the airport and, apparently, for the subway as well.”

But what stands as a matter of crucial importance is that we’ve witnessed, yet again, not only a failure by intel to act on credible information, but a further example of the uselessness of mass surveillance to thwart any attack. It wasn’t surveillance that gave Belgian intelligence its information, rather, it had been Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sounding the alarm. Turkey had previously deported one of the attackers as a “foreign terrorist fighter” — and Turkish officials notified the Belgian embassy in Ankara they had done so.

“In the United States, we have the same thing, in the Boston Marathon bombings. We were explicitly warned by foreign intelligence services that one of the brothers [who] was involved in the bombings would be engaged in that kind of activity,” Snowden added.

In fact, it was Russian intelligence that alerted the FBI about about Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s links to militant Muslim terrorist groups; but the ostensibly inept U.S. intelligence community failed to do anything — due to a spelling error in his name. Whether that was actually the case or something darker might have been afoot remains unclear, but the point is the same: even when the appropriate governmental agencies have the information necessary to stop a terrorist attack, they fail to do so — every time.

Tsarnaev had been investigated, and in June 2011, the FBI concluded he had “no links to terrorism,” NBC News noted. In September, according to the Independent, “Russia’s FSB sent a cable to the CIA restating their initial warning, and a second note on Tsarnaev was entered on the TECS [U.S. Customs and Border Protection database] system, but his name was misspelled ‘Tsarnayev.’”

A few months later, he was in ‘terror training’ in Dagestan after passing through Moscow. When he returned to the U.S. via New York’s JFK Airport, his name triggered an alert but, due to the misspelling, he wasn’t considered a top priority among the “100 other names on a ‘Hot List’ of people traveling through JFK that day.”

It appears the same fumbling took place surrounding the Brussels attacks: two of the brothers involved, Khalid and Ibrahim El Bakraoui, “were listed as a potential terror threat in U.S. databases,” NBC News reported, citing unnamed and unverified U.S. officials. Congressional committees have now requested to know which databases, for how long, and “whether and how the information was shared.”

Despite these multiple intelligence blunders concerning individuals known to be dangerous, politicians immediately proposed even further truncations of civilian liberties, both in Europe and the United States. In an interview with Democracy Now, Glenn Greenwald discussed the implications:

“I think it’s really important to note a couple of things about Brussels. Number one is, the Brussels attack is now the fourth straight attack, after Boston, the Charlie Hebdo massacre, and then the Paris attacks, where siblings, brothers, were at the heart of the planning. And just like in those three previous attacks that I just referenced, the attacks were carried out by people who live in the same communities, who live very close to one another, and who almost certainly met in person in order to plan them. And yet, the exploitive mindset of Western politicians is to say, every time there’s a successful attack carried out, it means we need to wage war on encryption, we need greater surveillance, we need more police in these communities. But the reality is … none of that will actually help detect the attack.”

Indeed, it appears such crackdowns — including Cruz’ and Trump’s call for patrolling Muslim neighborhoods and Clinton’s insistence on increased surveillance and police forces — serve, instead, to fuel resentment, which ultimately breeds more terrorist activities. Greenwald explained the most facile solution to terrorism by noting what drives it. For “15 years,” he said, the United States “has been declaring itself at war and bombing multiple countries and then acts surprised when people want to come and attack us back.

“And so I think, more than saying we need more intelligence and more surveillance and wage war on encryption and more bombing campaigns, we need to be asking whether there are things that we can be doing that reduce the incentive for people to kill us … and especially the support infrastructure that they get because of the anti-American and anti-European sentiment that gets generated when we engage in all of this violence in the world.”

Snowden, Greenwald, and myriad experts continue to warn of how this cycle not only creates more terrorists, but, almost by design, seems meant to make pliable the populace for increasing infringements on privacy rights. Ultimately — and perhaps because — these attacks were preventable by traditional means, and yet still were allowed to happen, we must be more suspicious than ever of programs initiated under the pretense of increasing security.

This article (Snowden: Brussels Attack AND Boston Bombing Could Have Been Stopped) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

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From theantimedia.org Team

Report: There Is No Sign Of #Recession: “Strong Consumer Spending Underscores The Economy’s Underlying Strength”

March 28, 2016 by mac slavo

For those who think the U.S. economy is going under, a report from Reuters suggests you’re just peddling fiction.

According to official data there is nothing to worry about. We are not only not in recession, but the economy is fundamentally strong and only getting stronger.

Relatively strong consumer spending underscores the economy’s underlying strength and should further allay fears of a recession, which triggered a massive stock market sell-off early this year.

…

“The consumer is back in the driver’s seat. There is no sign of recession in these data so this will put a smile on Fed officials’ faces and argues for their policy of gradual interest rate normalization to continue,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG Union Bank in New York.

GDP growth was initially estimated to have risen at only a 0.7 percent rate. The economy grew at a 2.0 percent pace in the third quarter and expanded 2.4 percent for all of 2015.

Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two thirds of U.S. economic activity, rose at a 2.4 percent pace and not the 2.0 percent rate reported last month. More consumption of services than previously estimated accounted for the revision.

Though at first glance this report may sound convincing, as is normally the case with official data and the mainstream propaganda that follows, some key points have been ignored.

First, while the economy officially grew at a rate of 2.0%, when you adjust for built-in upside bias to official reporting according to ShadowStats.com, we actually had a negative growth rate of nearly -2.0%.

Second, as Michael Snyder recently noted, some 23% of Americans in their prime working years are currently unemployed, so we’ve seen absolutely no real jobs recovery and those jobs that have been created are generally low-paying:

When you look at only Americans that are from age 25 to age 54, 23.2 percent of them are unemployed right now. The following analysis and chart come from the Weekly Standard…

“There are 124.5 million Americans in their prime working years (ages 25–54). Nearly one-quarter of this group—28.9 million people, or 23.2 percent of the total—is not currently employed. They either became so discouraged that they left the labor force entirely, or they are in the labor force but unemployed.This group of non-employed individuals is more than 3.5 million larger than before the recession began in 2007,” writes the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee.

…

Clearly, we have never recovered from the impact of the last recession.

So if this many Americans are unemployed and wages are dropping nationwide, where is the consumer getting the money to boost spending by 2.4%?

The answer comes to us directly from the Federal Reserve’s latest G.19 Consumer Credit report.

According to the Fed, revolving consumer debt increased a whopping 5.6% during the fourth quarter of 2015, which means that the GDP growth rate and consumer spending growth was largely driven by… you guessed it, debt.

The government and our central bank will continue to play these games until such time that a majority of Americans end up jobless, starving and without future prospects as the middle class is slowly but surely wiped out.

We are already seeing the cracks, as evidenced by a recent report that Walmart Customers Are Too Broke To Shop.

As trend forecaster Gerald Celente once warned, when that day comes and people have lost everything and have nothing else left to lose, they will lose it.

We are being told that whatever issues there may have been are now largely resolved. But just as was the case in the months leading up to the crash of 2008, the signs are everywhere. And just as happened in 2008, the Panic will hit with full force, much to the surprise of most:

So, what happens when the Panic of 2016 happens?

The Panic of ’08 helped wipe out the middle class… this is going to eliminate it to a large degree, because they’re deep in debt…

…

The markets have been artificially juiced up… so when this thing comes down it takes the top down… the last time it pulled out the bottom… so this is going to be a top-down crash.

And there’s not going to be anything to pump it back up because they’ve blown all their ammunition…

We encourage our readers to prepare accordingly.

Also Read:

Trend Forecaster Gerald Celente Warns: Prepare For The Panic Of 2016: “History Will Remember This”

Venture Capitalist Says Investors Are Terrified Of Market Volatility And Weak Economy: “They Are Scared And Don’t Know What To Do”

This Is How Bad The Economy Really Is: “Walmart Customers Are Too Broke To Shop”

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

3 Cops Shot by #Gun Traced Back to Recently-Fired #Chicago Cop

March 28, 2016 by claire bernish

Claire Bernish
March 28, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) Chicago, Illinois — A gun used by a suspect who died in a shootout, in which three officers from the Chicago Police Department were wounded, has been traced to a surprising source: a former Lake County sheriff’s deputy.

Now, Chicago police are scrambling to figure out how the gun owned by the unnamed former deputy — who was, incidentally, fired from his law enforcement position last Friday — ended up in the hands of convicted felon, Lamar Harris.

According to the Chicago Tribune:

“Multiple law enforcement sources confirmed that authorities investigating the shooting have traced the weapon that wounded the three officers back to the deputy.”

Rich Bruno, vice president of the Illinois Council of Police, the union representing the three injured officers, the deputy had been placed on leave two days prior to being terminated. Because the firing occurred while the 27-year-old deputy was still within the mandatory twelve-month probationary period for new officers, Lake County was not required to disclose a reason.

Though Bruno told the Tribune that to “the best of [his] knowledge” the gun had been “reported stolen,” the deputy told investigators he didn’t even realize his gun was missing, according to an unnamed law enforcement source.

Interestingly, the unidentified former deputy appears to have a bit of a checkered history in law enforcement. The Tribune explained:

“State records show that the officer who initially purchased the handgun later used by Harris worked for the Chicago Police Department from June 2013 to January [2016], and multiple law enforcement sources said he worked at least part of that time in the Harrison District where the shooting occurred. He started working for the Lake County sheriff’s highway patrol division Jan. 11, the undersheriff said.

“Prior to joining the Chicago force, the man served as a reserve officer for the Lake Geneva, Wis., department for about two months in spring 2013, according to department officials. He was still in a training phase and had limited, if any, experience on the street before he was hired by the Chicago force.”

On March 14, three Chicago officers observed a man, later identified as Harris, and a woman acting suspiciously, and approached them to investigate. Harris immediately fled the scene on foot, firing the gun in question as he ran — and hitting all three officers.

“One officer was shot in the back, another in the foot, and a third in the chest,” where it struck the officer’s bulletproof vest, according to authorities cited by the Herald-News.

One of the three officers managed to fatally shoot Harris in the exchange, and the dubious firearm was found in his possession. The woman, who reportedly also fled but was uninvolved in the exchange of gunfire, was later questioned by police and released without charge.

Now that the owner of the gun has been identified, though not publicly, its path from a recently-fired officer to the hands of man who had been arrested at least 40 times takes on paramount importance.

Police officials refused to comment on both the circumstances surrounding the deputy’s termination, as well as if he played any role in the shooting incident.

This article (3 Cops Shot by Gun Traced Back to Recently-Fired Chicago Cop) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

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How Robert #DeNiro Got Himself into the #Vaccine-#Autism Debate Cross-Fire

March 28, 2016 by jake anderson

Jake Anderson
March 28, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) Last Friday, Robert De Niro, actor and cosponsor of the Tribeca Film Festival, announced a documentary about vaccinations made by controversial anti-vax doctor Andrew Wakefield would be screened at the festival. One day later, DeNiro changed course, announcing the film had been pulled from the lineup.

Wakefield’s documentary, Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Conspiracy, argues there is a conspiracy by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to conceal the medical links between vaccines and autism. The gastroenterologist has been vocal on the issue for over a decade, despite harsh condemnation from critics who believe Wakefield has been completely disgraced and his theories debunked.

The highly divisive issue pits a large contingent of vaccine ‘truthers’ —recently buoyed by none other than Donald Trump — against an even larger community of scientists who say there is no evidence that vaccines used to immunize infants cause autism.

Left in between are confused parents, who are increasingly anxious about the issue and the competing campaigns of information (or, what the respective sides would declare disinformation). DeNiro, whose son is autistic, took to Facebook on Friday to defend the screening of the film:

“Grace and I have a child with autism and we believe it is critical that all of the issues surrounding the causes of autism be openly discussed and examined. In the 15 years since the Tribeca Film Festival was founded, I have never asked for a film to be screened or gotten involved in the programming. However this is very personal to me and my family and I want there to be a discussion, which is why we will be screening ‘Vaxxed.’ I am not personally endorsing the film, nor am I anti-vaccination; I am only providing the opportunity for a conversation around the issue.”

Due to overwhelming outside pressure, DeNiro reversed course almost immediately and on Saturday posted an update to his previous statement:

“My intent in screening this film was to provide an opportunity for conversation around an issue that is deeply personal to me and my family,” he wrote on the festival’s Facebook page. “But after reviewing it over the past few days with the Tribeca Film Festival team and others from the scientific community, we do not believe it contributes to or furthers the discussion I had hoped for.”

The vast majority of scientists and doctors maintain that extensive research by the World Health Organization, the Institute of Medicine and the CDC soundly discredits anti-vaxxer claims. However, there is still a large and passionate movement of activists who continue to believe vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) put infants at greater risk of autism. In 1998, Wakefield published a study purporting to prove this link, but it was almost unanimously rejected by the scientific community. Critics claimed Wakefield used fraudulent data and his medical license was revoked. The very journal that published the study eventually redacted it.

The Tribeca Film Festival originally described Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Conspiracy on its website as containing “revealing and emotional interviews with pharmaceutical insiders, doctors, politicians, parents, and one whistleblower to understand what’s behind the skyrocketing increase of autism diagnoses today.”

DeNiro defended the decision, saying, “The Festival doesn’t seek to avoid or shy away from controversy.”

The trailer for the documentary opens with the question: “Are our children safe?” It proceeds to feature the voice of a whistleblower who claims it’s actually the CDC that has committed fraud, not Wakefield.

Though she praised the festival for yanking the film, Lane says the damage has already been done as Wakefield and his anti-vaxxer supporters can use the ban as a symbol of censorship “and that will add to his conspiracy theory aura.”

This article (How Robert De Niro Got Himself into the Vaccine-Autism Debate Cross-Fire) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Jake Anderson and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Image credit: David Shankbone. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

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Comfort Food Recipe: Pot Pie Made with NuManna #Emergency Food

March 28, 2016 by daisy luther

March 28, 2016

A lot of folks are under the impression that emergency food has to be eaten as is, without embellishment, in some grim survivalist fashion. It doesn’t have to be like that, though. You can easily and deliciously use NuManna emergency food to help extend a small amount of other foods to make it enough to nourish a group.

If a down-grid emergency happens, you’ll probably have some leftovers in your refrigerator that need to be eaten before they spoil. When we had some leftover duck recently, I decided to pull a package of NuManna’s Potato Casserole out of a Grab-and-Go pack to create a comfort food dish that was similar to a pot pie.

As I’ve written before, emergency food is indeed processed, and it’s probably not something you want to make the backbone of your everyday diet. I recommend NuManna’s products because they contain far fewer harmful additives than other brands of emergency food. The company is committed to providing food free of the following ingredients:

No GMOs
No High Fructose Corn Syrup
No Added MSG
No Aspartame
No Soy
No Chemical Preservatives

They also offer gluten-free products for those who have issues digesting wheat. (This was especially important for my family, since two of us are quite intolerant of gluten.)

Pot Pie made with NuManna Emergency Food

Back to the kitchen.

First, I started cooking the potato casserole on the stovetop. Here’s what it looked like when it came out of the package.

I shredded the meat that we had left over from our roasted, home-raised duck, then stirred in some frozen mixed vegetables. You could use whatever meat you have on hand and add in either frozen, canned, or leftover vegetables. I put this in a glass casserole dish while the potato topping was cooking. Then I stirred up a packaged organic, gluten-free gravy mix with some water and added it to my meat and vegetable mixture. (I keep this product on hand for emergency cooking purposes.)

When the potato casserole was almost done, I spread it on top of the mixture in my casserole dish. I had access to an oven, but if you didn’t, you could cook up the gravy mix and stir in the meat and veggies, then return it to you casserole dish. In that case, you’d cook the potato casserole all the way and just spread it on top of your mixture and enjoy.

Here’s what it looked like before it spent 15-20 minutes in the oven at 425.

Once the casserole reaches the desired golden-topped deliciousness, allow it to rest for 10 minutes before dishing it out.

How do you use your emergency food supplies?

Do you just cook them as per the instructions and serve them, or do you combine them with other supplies? Share your ideas in the comments below.

Be sure to visit Prepper’s Market! These are all products I’ve used myself and trust to see my own family through an emergency.

The End of America’s Two-Party System May Be upon Us

March 26, 2016 by admintam

Chris “Kilila” Perrin
March 26, 2016

(UR) Washington, D.C. — There’s a reason most parliamentary and presidential democracies have more than two political parties, and both Trump and Sanders are examples of why. Both nominee-hopefuls have increasingly come to represent polar opposites of the singular problem that the American two-party political system is suffering from: Stagnation.

With only two parties, what this presidential race is showing is that there has been a tendency for those parties to become static and unbending in their policy, stance, and platform. Historically, one or both of the parties must then break, either because the progressive edges within the party force it apart, or voters start to see the party as inflexible and obsolete. It has happened before in the U.S., and it looks like it is happening again. The recent increase of voters registering as independent, as well as the parallel growth in independent candidates, is a good example of the level of dissatisfaction people and politicians now have with the GOP and Democratic Party. It is also an indication that American democracy is changing. Again.

The inclusion of Sanders in the Democratic Party, Trump in the Republican, and the cataclysmic portrayal of them both in the media, has only confused the issue. This is particularly noticeable as Trump is often blamed for the imminent demise of the GOP as a relevant institution. With both candidates running for the nomination of their respective parties, the GOP and the Democratic Party appear internally fractured, split on major issues and confused as to their directions. This can only be the case in a two-party system.

As a country with a long history of a two-party system, these internal party divisions can feel like a breakdown of sorts. In a multi-party system, however, the issue would not be so destabilizing. Although a multi-party democracy does have the down side of sometimes appearing to have too many parties and politicians to choose from, space exists within the system to have the centre-left (Democratic Party) and centre-right (GOP) represented, while far-left and -right candidates don’t tear the centrist parties apart from within.

Whatever the new face of democracy in America, and whatever the future implications of the 2016 election, what is clear is that Americans are no longer content to be represented by parties too close together at the center of the political spectrum. At the very least, the fact that Trump and Sanders have gained so much traction throughout their respective nomination bids is a clear indication that the U.S. will not become a single-party state any time soon. That is at least something to be happy about.

This article (The End of America’s Two-Party System May Be upon Us) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Chris “Kikila” Perrin and UndergroundReporter.org. If you spot a typo, please email the error and the name of the article to undergroundreporter2016@gmail.com. Image credit: Flickr/DonkeyHotey

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Survival Saturday: More #Islamic Terror, Kid Mowing Lawn Makes National News, Babies Die from Vaccines

March 26, 2016 by daisy luther

March 26, 2016

Islamic terror is in the headlines again, along with deadly vaccines, and a puzzling story that demonstrates just how far away our society has actually gotten from the original “Land of Opportunity” roots of our nation.

Survival Saturday is back after a brief hiatus. Here’s this week’s round-up of news and recommended reading material for folks who are interested in being prepared.

This Week in the News

Deadly Terror Attack in Belgium Blamed on ISIS

300 people were wounded and 31 people were killed in horrifying coordinated attacks in Brussels, Belgium. An airport and a subway station were bombed, and ISIS has taken credit for the attacks.

But don’t blame Islam. It’s the religion of peace, remember? At least one source says that the real culprit is a leadership that is unwilling to criticize Islam for fear of being politically incorrect. Judith Bergman wrote, “Western political and military establishments, as well as media and cultural elites, refuse to examine the political and military doctrines of Islam, and make them a subject of honest intellectual inquiry. When they are facing an enemy that uses these very doctrines as its reason for being, this refusal can only be described as gross malfeasance and reckless endangerment.” Many reports say that there were sufficient warnings before these attacks, but they were ignored, perhaps purposely.

According to some predictions, the terror in Belgium may not be over. The badge of a murdered security guard for the Tihange Nuclear Plant was stolen, the security at the plant has been said to be lax, and the ingredients for a dirty bomb have also gone missing in recent weeks. This article puts together a chilling, credible theory. (Prosecutors in Belgium have “ruled out” any “militant link” in the murder of the guard, so rest easy.)

Of course, every time there’s a terror attack, people scramble to try to guess the next target, and thus far, are never correct. While the experts may not be able to predict the next target, one thing is nearly certain: there will be a next target. More than 400 trained fighters have been dispatched to Europe with instructions to conduct attacks.

President Obama doesn’t think that Isis represents an “existential threat,” if that sets your mind at ease.
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Do you know what to do if you are among the unfortunate souls in the midst of a terror attack? Read this politically incorrect article, because someone, somewhere wishes you were dead.

Boy Mows Lawn, Media Goes Wild

Let me preface this little rant by saying, “Good for you, son” to the boy who mowed the neighbor’s lawn to earn money to take his girl out on a date. I’m a huge proponent of kids who work to earn money and this is by now means an attempt to belittle what he did.

Let me continue by saying, “How the heck is this even news?” A 14-year-old boy hit up the neighbors to earn some money to take his girlfriend out to lunch, and somehow it made not only the local newspapers, but also got featured on Buzzfeed.

Have we become so far removed from actual work that it’s a huge deal when a kid cuts the neighbor’s grass to make money? Isn’t that how kids have always made money since the advent of lawnmowers, lawns, and money? Heck, that’s how one of my friends in high school bought his first car. My kids have raked leaves, mowed lawns, walked dogs, and shoveled manure to earn money and we never, ever realized that this was newsworthy. Heck, most of the things we did for fun when we were kids would get someone arrested today.

If mowing the neighbor’s lawn to take a girl on a date is this big of a deal, then I feel that we’re probably in big trouble when this generation takes the reins of the country. There are no news articles and freebie meals in the real world, kids. How can kids who never work to earn money function in the real world? The greatest gift we can give our children to prepare them for the future is the knowledge they need to handle their finances wisely. (Hat-tip to my hard-working 15-year-old daughter, who was also aghast that this was news and brought this story to my attention. She was particularly stunned that no Buzzfeed articles have been written about her, since she cleans poop out of barns to earn her shopping and cell phone money.)

Batch of Vaccines Kill, Injure 75% of the Mexican Babies Who Received Them

Out of 52 children vaccinated for tuberculosis, rotavirus and hepatitis B in a small Mexican town, two babies have died and 37 more have been hospitalized. This article reports some very grim statistics on vaccine injuries and discusses the current drama being endured by the families in Mexico.

In other news on the vaccine debate, Robert de Niro, the father of a child with autism, pushed the Tribeca Film Festival to screen an anti-vax documentary by none other than Andrew Wakefield, amid much hullabaloo from the mainstream media. The film is called “Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe,” Wakefield, if you remember, was the doctor who first made the link between vaccines and autism. He subsequently had has life ruined by Big Pharma, but Wakefield has fought back for years, even though his medical license was taken. Wakefield’s theories were recently supported by a CDC whistleblower who claims that studies proving the link between vaccines and autism were deliberately covered up.

Regardless of whether or not you choose to vaccinate your children, do your research about the risks of either decision. This is an excellent book with thorough and less biased information.

A few years ago when I began my blog, I did so to combine two of my greatest passions: preparedness and wellness. One of the major issues I discovered when trying to help others become more prepared was that it wasn’t just difficult to find a high-quality emergency food – it was impossible.

For years, I tried various emergency food buckets, only to immediately park them in the back of my pantry to be used as an absolute last resort. There are quite a few food intolerances in my family, and the chemical-laden, gluten-filled products were recipes for headaches and digestive upsets. I didn’t find a single product I could recommend to others without writing paragraphs of caveats, warning them that these products weren’t particularly good for them, but here they were if the person was still inclined to buy them.

Then, after many disappointing taste-testings, I discovered NuManna Foods. Out of all of the products I had tried, there was finally something that I could serve to my family and recommend to my readers in good conscience. NuManna is committed to providing ground-breaking products for those who realize that survival food should help you to thrive, not just keep the hunger pangs away.

The things I’ve stockpiled away from NuManna read like a shopping list from a health food store. Delicious things like

Quinoa
Organic brown rice
Chia seeds
Gluten-free meals
Organic milk
Sprouting Seeds

I could go on and on about the good things contained in NuManna Foods, but instead, I also want to talk about the things you won’t find in their buckets. NuManna is committed to providing food free of the following ingredients:

No GMOs
No High Fructose Corn Syrup
No Added MSG
No Aspartame
No Soy
No Chemical Preservatives

This is the emergency food that I store for my own family, and we’ve personally tried every single item. I am delighted to finally find products that I can heartily recommend. If you’re looking for long-term storage food, it doesn’t get better than NuManna. Stock up, so that you can nourish your family in an emergency, too.

I believe so strongly in these products that I’ve developed a new website, Preppers Market. The site includes only products that I personally endorse and use for my own family. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Anything to add to Survival Saturday?

Do you have any news links you want to share? Now’s the time! You are absolutely welcome to post your links in the comments below. (PS: I missed you guys over the past two weeks while I was moving!)

This Is What’s Happening to People Who Live near the Worst Gas Leak in US History

March 25, 2016 by carey wedler

Carey Wedler
March 25, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) Porter Ranch, CA — On February 18, SoCalGas and the national media declared the “worst methane gas leak in U.S. history” permanently sealed, but just over a month later, hundreds of Porter Ranch residents who evacuated — and are now returning home — are suffering the same symptoms they suffered when the gas leak was active. They are experiencing nausea, dizziness, fatigue, headaches, nosebleeds, and many, including children, are also experiencing a new ailment: irritated skin rashes across their bodies.

Neither SoCalGas, which owns the Aliso Canyon facility, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, nor any other government agency has provided a concrete explanation for these continued symptoms. In fact, one of Los Angeles County’s top medical officials recently told local physicians to refrain from performing tests to determine what is causing the symptoms. Late last week, preliminary lab tests from an independent UCLA study found evidence of benzene, a carcinogen, in at least two Porter Ranch homes. Benzene was reported to have been released in the 100 metric tons of methane that spewed into the Los Angeles basin for four months — a fact SoCalGas previously attempted to downplay and withhold.

Reemergence of Symptoms

On March 4, Los Angeles City Councilmember Mitchell Englander issued a press release reporting the Department of Public Health had received at least 150 complaints of reemerging symptoms, including nosebleeds, dizziness headaches, nausea, and skin rashes. Now, the Health Department says it has received 300 complaints since residents began moving home after SoCalGas told them it was safe to do so.

Many residents have said the rashes, which can be extensive, are new and did not occur during the initial, months-long gas leak from October to February. During that time, thousands of families were evacuated and the Department of Public Health received 700 health complaints. Others reported experiencing skin irritation before they relocated, though it appears to be more widespread now.

Residents who left Porter Ranch for temporary housing accommodations and recently moved home told Anti-Media about their symptoms (many still have not moved home, fearful it is still unsafe). Helen Ritenour, a Porter Ranch resident who left the area in December, said that within two days of returning to their home, she and her family began feeling sick.

“The main symptoms are headaches, difficulty breathing, watery eyes, coughing and general fatigue. It feels like I’m in a thick fog of sorts that’s oppressive,” she said. She and her husband were not eager to return home, still concerned about toxins in the area and the health of their newborn baby. But amid long delays receiving reimbursements from SoCalGas — and unable to charge more expenses on their credit card — they moved back to Porter Ranch. Ritenour told Anti-Media that like many other families, she and her husband have had to pay out-of-pocket for relocation services — and have experienced long delays receiving reimbursement checks.

Gabriel Khanlian, a resident who serves as the Chief Technology Officer for Save Porter Ranch, a group formed in 2014 to fight the massive, aging, and leaking facility before the blowout even happened, also said he and his family have suffered symptoms since moving home.

“My daughter Tatiana keeps getting large rashes, red welts and bumps all over her body. Her skin is dry and her behavior has changed significantly and she is very cranky. She has a loss of appetite and is sleeping a lot more,” he said. “My sons, Jayden and Mason, have been getting bloody noses, headaches, upset stomachs, burning eyes, runny nose, dry skin.”

He described other troubles they’ve had, noting his sons are experiencing “anxiety, fear, frustration, anger, and stress from not having the ability to play. Their personalities have changed majorly.”

He said his wife, who experienced symptoms during the initial methane gas leak, is now experiencing them more severely than before.

Kyoko Habino, a Porter Ranch resident and co-founder of Save Porter Ranch, said:

“When I go home to pick up stuff or do a few things, within a few minutes, I start having a dull headache and coughing and having palpitations. Nosebleeds follow later on often. My partner has had headaches, fatigue, and a burning sensation in his chest at the same time I have. Our cat has had a nosebleed and vomited. When I am away from home, the headache goes away instantly. The cough and nosebleed stay for a while, and are gone after.”

Walter Arwood, a Porter Ranch resident, experienced nausea, among other symptoms:

“I am rolling over sick right now. My stomach has been so upset, I have gotten all the headaches back, my husband has had three nose bleeds in two days, and now a visiting relative was out of breath just walking up the stairs at my home. How is it safe?”

Arwood was evacuated during the methane gas leak and recently returned home. “Since we have moved back the symptoms have immediately returned,” he said. “Itchy skin is the only new thing. We have all of our air purifiers on and the scrubber running and still it is happening.”

Residents in surrounding areas, including Chatsworth and Granada Hills, have also reported a reemergence of symptoms.

Sandy Crawford, a resident of Granada Hills, told CBS News in February — after the methane gas leak was sealed — that within a few hours of returning home, her youngest son had trouble breathing and suffered a nosebleed. Crawford moved her sons back to their hotel, and after trying again to move home and experiencing the same results, she returned to the hotel for a second time. She told Anti-Media they recently tried sleeping at home for a few nights and did not feel symptoms, but she remains afraid they could return. As a result, she is staying at the hotel.

“Avoid performing any toxicological tests”

Though these symptoms are pronounced, neither SoCalGas nor the Department of Public Health has offered a definitive explanation of what is causing them. In fact, Dr. Cyrus Rangan, Director of the Bureau of Toxicology and Environmental Assessment at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, recently issued a “Health Update” to “primary care, urgent care, internal medicine, and emergency medicine providers” in the area cautioning them against conducting tests on patients with symptoms.

The advisory, dated Tuesday, March 8, requested that healthcare professionals “look for alternate etiologies other than air contamination,” and “avoid performing any toxicological tests,” claiming “these are not recommended and are unlikely to provide useful data for clinical evaluation of patients.”

Rangan said in the notice that if no “alternative etiology” is found, doctors should consult with him. While it is an indisputable act of due diligence to recommend doctors check for other potential causes of symptoms, it is unclear why a top public health official would discourage doctors from performing tests to better understand illnesses among their patients.

“It’s not to steer the community away from thinking it’s not an environmental issue,” Rangan insisted to the Los Angeles Daily News, adding that, as the local paper summarized, “even when the gas was leaking he did not recommend that doctors perform toxicological tests because there is no test that can determine if a person was exposed to natural gas.”

However, residents are concerned not just with methane, but with other contaminants found in it, from mercaptans to benzene to other toxic emissions (mercaptans are odorants added to natural gas to make it detectable, and are believed to have caused symptoms when the gas leak was active). Many found Rangan’s explanation to be insufficient and an attempt to ask doctors to “look the other way.”

Further, his request that doctors refrain from conducting tests appears to contradict his own supplementary declaration provided for a hearing held last Friday to extend relocation benefits to residents, many of whom feel they were rushed out of temporary housing, evidently, before it was safe to return home.

In that statement, Rangan referred to the continued illnesses as “perplexing,” proceeding to offer potential explanations not previously disclosed to Anti-Media when he spoke with us:

“It could be that there are persistent levels of contaminants still present in the community, or there could be other exposures in areas of the community that were missed in the external environmental monitoring, or perhaps gases may have saturated the soil at the Aliso Canyon facility or other substrates and are being released now that the source has been sealed.”

In spite of Rangan’s multiple hypotheses, however, he has offered no definitive explanation, nor does it appear the Department of Public Health has seriously looked for one (meaning it could be helpful for physicians to run tests on their patients). Asked to investigate a persistent oily residue coating the outside of residents’ homes and the playground of at least one park, representatives sent from Public Health reported they found “no evidence of any oily residue and no health concern for residents or visitors.”

When residents complained to Councilman Englander, representatives from his office confirmed the playsets were coated in oil and SoCalGas agreed clean the park. Three other parks were also shut down amid concerns about the residue, which Rangan insists is safe, aside from causing skin irritation. Mandi Bane, a lab assistant in Rangan’s office, told Anti-Media they have no intentions to test the soil in the community.

Because of incidents like this — such as Dr. Rangan downplaying concerns about long-term side effects from mercaptans, though there is little research to support his assurances — some residents increasingly doubt Public Health’s commitment to helping the community. Many have complained they reported symptoms and received little more than packaged statements in response. Some received no response.

Rangan’s office did conduct door-to-door surveys of residents two weeks ago to gather information on what could be causing the symptoms, an effort reported to be joined by state officials. Bane told Anti-Media they recorded over 200 reports and it would take time to process them before they could comment.

Rangan’s office also requested outside assistance to conduct indoor air sampling, after it was “determined that such a protocol is beyond the expertise of the Department of Public Health.”

Rangan first solicited the help of the EPA to conduct indoor air testing for contaminants, but it was expected to take until May to develop a protocol. Last week, however, Dr. Michael Jerrett, a professor and chairman of UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health, shared preliminary test results from a small sample of homes with Public Health. The independent study raised concerns about the presence of benzene, a known carcinogen, as well as hexane, in two homes. As a result of these findings, UCLA has partnered with Public Health and Dr. Jerrett and his team will begin sampling 120 homes in the coming days to conduct further analysis. According to a press release from the Department of Public Health posted Saturday:

“As a continuation of Professor Jerrett’s independent study, an indoor dust swab sampling was completed in seven homes. Benzene and hexane were found in two of the homes. Benzene and hexane, at certain levels, have known toxic effects on humans, but it is unknown whether the levels found are high enough to be of health concern. Professor Jerrett is sharing these findings with the community and will continue to conduct independent scientific analyses.”

As the Daily News explained, Jerrett’s results showed “higher and more variable concentrations of particulate matter in the outdoor air at locations close to the leak site compared to those farther away, according to the Health Department. Particulate matter is described as tiny pieces of solids or liquids in the air, such as dust, dirt, soot, or drops which can irritate the skin, eyes, nose, throat, respiratory, and cardiovascular systems.”

SoCalGas, however, has failed to provide a conclusive explanation for residents’ illnesses. At a protest on Friday, March 4, which culminated outside the company’s Community Resource Center located in Porter Ranch’s main shopping center, SoCalGas spokeswoman Lisa Alexander spoke to Anti-Media about the reemergence of symptoms. She left the onus of responsibility on the Department of Public Health.

“You know, we recognize that people are saying that they have symptoms, and we hear that, we see the news stories, we’ve been in touch with Department of Public Health to inquire about that,” she said, adding that Public Health expected symptoms to decrease as the blowout’s emissions dissipated — and with them, the mercaptans.

“Is there one house that has been tested that shows a harmful level at this time?”

SoCalGas, at the request of County Supervisor Michael Antonovich, agreed to conduct indoor air testing on a ‘random’ sample of 70 homes in Porter Ranch last week. Residents’ increasing distrust of the utility was further intensified when some residents reported they had received calls from the gas company to perform indoor testing on their homes, but were asked if they had legal counsel. If they said yes, multiple residents reported, they were told they were not eligible for the ‘random’ testing.

Nevertheless, SoCalGas shared these test results at a relocation hearing last Friday to assert air quality had returned to normal. SoCalGas’ attorney James Dragna also reportedly cited the Department of Public Health as an authority on the matter.

Matt Pakucko, president of Save Porter Ranch, spoke to local CBS radio station KNX shortly after the hearing:

“This is such propaganda by SoCalGas,” he said. “They used their indoor testing that they just performed over the last week as their main facts on the ground. But they have said themselves weeks ago, months ago, that the mercaptan and the methane — the only things they test for — would be long gone. So they went and tested what they knew would be long gone… I can’t believe the judge bought it.”

Judge Emilie H. Elias reportedly asked, “Is there one house that has been tested that shows a harmful level at this time?” However, Dr. Jerrett’s results, which showed two homes with potentially hazardous levels of benzene, were not presented.

Jerrett’s preliminary findings were shared with the county just before the hearing, and county attorney Deborah Fox expressed a desire to submit them to the court for an appeal this week.

Though the media reported the judge’s ruling as a tepid victory for residents, who will receive one more week of paid relocation services, county attorney Deborah Fox had originally sought two months. She then sought a 30-day injunction, ultimately settling for a single week extension.

Pakucko said of the ruling:

“Any sane person would say [the testing should be complete before a decision is made] … there are people reporting health issues, the cause of which has not yet been discovered.”

Save Porter Ranch and much of the community are campaigning to have the entire, 3,600-acre Aliso Canyon facility shut down.

SoCalGas had previously been ordered to extend relocation services as residents began reporting symptoms again after the gas leak, a decision the company fought. Residents have also complained they have not yet been reimbursed for the months they were relocated, citing long waits, convoluted customer service, and financial strain caused by SoCalGas’ reimbursement process.

On Tuesday, County Supervisor Michael Antonovich announced the court had suspended its Friday ruling, presumably in light of the county’s submission of Jerrett’s results. Los Angeles Times reporter Abby Sewell tweeted an update that residents now have until March 29 — an extra four days — pending further legal proceedings.

As the legal battle continues, the difficulties of obtaining comprehensive, reliable air tests remain complicated by the fact that humans can smell mercaptans at lower levels than equipment can detect them. Pakucko told Anti-Media residents have consistently been reporting the smell of mercaptans, though SoCalGas spokeswoman Melissa Bailey assured Anti-Media via email there were no current leaks.

Neither SoCalGas nor the regulatory South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCQAMD) offered an explanation to Anti-Media regarding elevations in methane emissions since the gas leak was sealed. They are not consistently high, but nevertheless contradict assurances from the gas company that air quality has returned to “normal.” For example, from March 17 to March 22, methane levels in the community exceeded 3 ppm (parts per million); SCAQMD, itself, says “Results greater than 3 ppm suggest some additional sources of methane.” A March 13 sampling of air at the site of the repaired well, SS-25, found methane levels at 46 ppm; according to SCAQMD, “results greater than 10 ppm suggest a considerable additional amount of methane is present.” Though SCAQMD cautions the levels of methane have been dropping since the methane gas leak was sealed in February, 46 ppm is still 43 ppm above ‘normal.’

Further, a recently published government survey, initiated after the Aliso Canyon blowout, found 229 leaks in natural gas storage fields across California. Though the leaks were deemed minor, 66 were found at Aliso Canyon.

As Porter Ranch residents continue to deal with the fallout from the months-long environmental disaster, communities around the country face similar battles. From the increasing number of communities plagued with unsafe levels of lead (among other chemicals) in their water and soil, to the radioactive leaks in New York, Florida, and elsewhere across the country, Americans face an increasingly apparent, non-partisan struggle against aging, dangerous infrastructure — and the apathetic, often negligent authorities and corporate hegemons responsible for maintaining it.

In Porter Ranch, SoCalGas and public officials have, at least, begun to acknowledge something is still amiss in the community. As Pakucko told Anti-Media:

“They’ve stopped saying everything’s fine. I’ve got two words for ‘everything’s fine’: Flint, Michigan.”

Editor’s Note: Carey Wedler is from Granada Hills and has two family members whose health was affected by the leak, one severely (his symptoms have intermittently returned in the last several weeks). She has experienced symptoms herself and felt them recently while reporting in Porter Ranch.

This article (This Is What’s Happening to People Who Live near Worst Gas Leak in US History) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Carey Wedler and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article at edits@theantimedia.org.

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29 Essential Tips for the New #Prepper: “Start Small. Develop Your Skills. Create a Plan”

March 25, 2016 by mac slavo

Whether you are just starting out with prepping and are figuring out what to focus on first, or whether you are a veteran prepper tracing over your plans for potential flaws, you can always make improvements.

These videos can help you cover the essentials, boil down to the most important factors and start actually putting your preps into action.

Don’t wait until the trouble starts, because it will already be too late.

How would you survive if the food supplies stall out, the economy and digital grid crashes, or para-government forces unleash a round-up plan?

Have you made your family as secure as they can be with stored goods, equipment and a fool proof bug out plan for continuity of life off the grid?

There are some good answers on where to start and how to account for just about everything, but the point is that you must start somewhere.

For beginners, the best tip may be to start small and build up from there as you learn what you’re doing:

10 Tips for New Preppers: Supplies, Survival food and Emergency Essentials

Survival Know How explains his Top 10 Tips For New Preppers:

1. Start small. There is no need to prepare for the zombie Apocalypse if you don’t have enough supplies to last you 3 days without power.
2. Start with Food and Water. To often new preppers want to focus on guns, knives and ammo. It may not be as glamorous but your first preps should be food and water.
3. Develop your skills. Prepping is not just about what you buy but is also about developing your skill set and expanding your knowledge.
4. Build a prepper community. Talk about prepping to your friends, co-workers and family.
5. Tailor your preps to your geographical location. If you live up north you need to focus on keeping warm in the winter, if you live down south you need to focus on staying cool in the summer.
6. Develop a plan B. AKA a Bug Out Bag. Bugging in should always be your plan A. Only Bug Out if you absolutely need to.
7. Practice with your preps. Having preps is not enough, you need to be proficient with them and know how to use them when shit hits the fan.
8. Use List to stay organised. Create prepper supplies list, emergency food list and anything else. This will help you stay organized and buy everything you need.
9. Get into shape. When the shit hits the fan and you are forced to fend for your self you want to be in the best shape possible.
10. Learn First Aid. Skills in first aid will literally save your and your family life.

Even if you have everything you need to survive at home, there are many bad situations that could force you to leave your home and seek survival somewhere else – if you can make it.

Here are some important factors to consider when planning to bug out. What will the roads and highways look like during disaster? Likely they won’t be easy to travel on, and could be downright dangerous. Foreknowledge of the back roads and other alternative means of travel are essential if you are in a serious situation.

Setting up cache sites along your bug out route could also be vital to your survival plan, particularly if your travel plans hit a snag.

Bugging Out: What to Know Before You Go! 19 Tips for Preppers for SHTF Escape Planning!

The Healthy Prepper explains her 19 Tips for Preppers for SHTF Escape Planning:

1. Know your routes.
2. Have multiple forms of travel. (car, bike, foot, zodiac etc.)
3. Preload car with bug out bag
4. Bury caches along routs.
5. Know your final destination.
6. Lay low and blend in.
7. Choose off roads, back roads etc.
8. Sleep in a different location than you cook your food or build a fire.
9. Have back up fuel on the car.
10. Keep bug out vehicle maintained and full of gas.
11. Know when it is time to go.
12.Learn to use maps, compass, star navigation
13. Expect to get lost forced off route.
14.Avoid ridge lines and tops of hills.
15. Have alternative bug out locations in mind if the first one does not pan out.
16. Practice you bug out plan with your family.
17. Know where water, food, fuel can be found along your bug out routes.
18. Be prepared for interactions with others.
19. Be prepared someone may have already pillaged for bug out location or has already set up camp there.

Realistically, you may not be able to cover all of these points, and may find some of them to be contradictions with your real world situation. Regardless, you must prepare for all eventualities.

The point is to consider the best information you can, match it up with the realities of your area, your home, your financial situation and the reliability of the people around you (or lack thereof).

Plan ahead, and avoid becoming paralyzed by fear and inaction if and when the SHTF.

5 Mistakes Every New Prepper Makes

12 Bad Strategies That Will Get Preppers Killed

Report: Feds Take Down Preppers Accused of Stockpiling Guns and Ammunition: “Federal Conspiracy Charges”

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Searching for the Perfect #Prepper’s Retreat

March 25, 2016 by daisy luther

March 25, 2016

Do you ever feel like this is it? Did some world event (or a series of them) make you feel like time is running out for getting your preps in order? Have you decided that now is the time to pull up stakes and begin searching for the perfect prepper’s retreat?

Recently I’ve felt a renewed sense of urgency that has prompted me to make some big changes in order to get more prepared. So many world events lately have pointed toward a looming crisis, and the truly scary thing is, the crisis could be one of many scenarios. Lately it seems that every single month, we are on the sidelines of a dramatic event.

The horror of the recent terror attacks happening in places like Paris, Brussels, and right here in San Bernardino
The collapses of places like Greece and Venezuela
The onslaught of refugees who seem intent on changing the very fabric of Europe through sheer numbers, a refusal to conform, and undermining the safety of European women
The slim pickings for the presidential election (do you want a psychopath, a narcissist, or someone suffering from delusions to lead the country?)
The looming nuclear threats from that chubby little lunatic running North Korea, not to mention hostile feelings from at least half a dozen other countries
The race war going on in our own back yard, egged on by those with an agenda of divisiveness

Combine all of these things and if you aren’t just a little bit uneasy, then you should probably stop reading right now and tune in to the latest episode following the antics of that crazy Kardashian family. Go on, who knows what they’ll do next?

Are you ready for our world to change dramatically?

Any of the things mentioned above could suddenly change our lives in the blink of an eye, and if you aren’t ready, you darn well better get your bootie in gear. Have you given any serious thought to how well your home would work for you in a long-term scenario? Is it a place where you could dig in for the long haul? Could you raise food, defend it, stay warm in it, cook in it, and survive in it if the grid went down? If not, maybe you need to make some changes.

For some of us, getting down to business means improving the situation at our own homes, and for others it means seeking our version of the perfect prepper’s retreat. As I’ve written about before, planning to have a prepper’s homestead after disaster strikes is doomed to failure. It takes time to learn to raise your own food, and many people overestimate their abilities in this regard. It’s imperative to deal with the learning curve now, when the grocery store is accessible 24 hours a day.

After some eye-opening major issues with the house we moved to last summer, my family and I decided we couldn’t trust that location for the long haul. The week without a working septic system was enough to provide a reality check. The house was simply too run down, too close to a main thoroughfare, and too dry, despite the coveted well and the most wonderful barn that I’ve ever laid eyes on. Never have I been so happy to be a renter who could pick up and leave an undesirable situation. There were some red flags earlier, but the septic disaster was the last straw. Had it occurred post-disaster, we would have had no alternative but to leave our home and all of our careful preparations. Moving now was a pain, especially with preps and livestock, but moving later after working to build a homestead would have been even worse.

So, we did an intensive search to find a place that would serve as a retreat, but one that we will live in now. We moved deep into the mountains, down a road that is really more like a trail, to our long-term retreat.

What makes the perfect prepper’s retreat?

Everyone has a different idea in mind for their perfect retreat. Some folks like balmy weather, while others prefer a cold, forbidding winter. Some people feel better in wide open spaces, while others feel safer nestled in the trees.

Regardless of your personal preferences, there are several characteristics that are imperative if you’re looking for property – the lack of any of these things could doom you to failure in a long-term scenario:

There is nothing more important than water. Water is the difference between life and death, so start your search by looking for places with more than one source of water. Look for a place with a well, a body of water, and/or a spring. Don’t count on something “nearby.” What if you have to carry water on foot from that location? The supply you’ll need each day will get pretty darned heavy, and it’ll be even more work hauling enough to water a garden and care for livestock.

Another concern with “nearby” water is that the people who own the water rights just might not let you cross their property to fill up your vessels. Think about it: would you let people possibly befoul the most precious resource around?

Water is everything in a survival situation.

In the event of a long-term down-grid situation, municipal water will most likely stop flowing from the taps. Even if it does continue to flow, the water will not be treated and may not be safe to drink. Even more alarming is the threat that someone could easily taint a municipal water supply as an act of terror. Think about the accidental chemical spills that have occurred just over the past couple of years here in the US. Now, imagine that someone up to no good got access to our water supply.

Most of America is dependent on municipal water – you truly want your own sources and a way to purify the water to make it safe for drinking.

Is your location one of safety? Some things to look for are defensibility, distance from large population centers, privacy, and difficulty of accessibility.

Defensibility: Can you protect the perimeter of the property? Can you see someone before they get the chance to sneak up on you? Is your property well fenced? Is your driveway gated? Is your community one that will band together to protect one another?

Distance: Everyone knows that being as far away as possible from major thoroughfares and big cities is ideal. However, not everyone can move out to the boondocks right now. Many of us have jobs, families, schools, and responsibilities that keep us near population centers.

Of course, it’s ideal to be about a tank of gas away from the major cities. That will mean that if the fuel pumps are no longer working, anyone headed your way will most likely arrive on foot. In this age of obesity and poor fitness, that rules out a whole lot of folks who might want to eat your food. Most fuel tanks hold enough to get the passengers between 250-400 miles, assuming the driver starts out with a completely full tank.

If you do live near the city, try to find a place that keeps some distance between you and the major thoroughfares. If you happen to be right by the highway, where do you think people will go when their car runs out of gas? That’s right – they’ll head for the nearest home for help. You don’t want strangers showing up at your door.

Difficulty: If that type of distance is unattainable, another bonus is natural obstacles. If you are up a tall mountain, folks are less likely to hike up your way unless there is some kind of specific draw, like a large body of water.

On that note, while living on the banks of a river or lake might seem ideal, your home will be the target of every person from a nearby city who has ever visited your area. This means that creeks, streams, ponds, and natural springs are more desirable features. Avoid the tourist spots that draw the crowds. Those same crowds may remember your home as the Promised Land in the aftermath of a disaster.

Other Resources

There are other resources to look for when searching for your ideal location. You will want a way to provide food, a way to cook food, and a way to maintain a livable temperature. The following can help:

Fertile land
Space for raising animals
An area for hunting (only count on this if your location is fairly remote and you already hunt regularly. “Living off the land” is a prepper myth that will get you killed.)
A strong local economy made of people who produce instead of people who consume
Wood for fuel
Sun for solar power
Moderate temperatures in the absence of wood for fuel
A long growing season
A local government that supports self-sufficient endeavors, instead of one that charges fees and taxes for every single project
A place that isn’t upwind from military targets in case of a nuclear attack
An area not prone to natural disasters like tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, earthquakes, or tsunamis

Home Sweet Home

When searching for a home there are different schools of thought. If you have building skills and the wherewithal to purchase necessary supplies, you can purchase a home that requires some tweaking to be perfect. If you’re really talented, you can even build your home yourself and end up with a prepper dream home.

However, this isn’t realistic for some of us. Personally, my budget is limited and I’m a single mom with iffy building skills. Therefore, I looked for a home that checked most of the boxes already.

If the power was out (as it often is in the aftermath of a variety of disasters) would the home you want or already live in be functional without the grid? This should be a top priority when seeking a retreat property.

The things that I looked for were:

The ability to use passive solar for heating
A secondary, off-grid heat source (woodstove or fireplace)
The ability to cook in the absence of electricity (If your stove is propane, you will be able to use it for quite some time if you reserve your propane for that purpose only)
Windows placed in a way that allow breezes to help cool the house
Tree cover in summer that is absent in the winter to adjust the home’s temperature naturally
A well with an off-grid back-up like a manual or solar-powered pump
A septic system so you can use the toilet indoors (We have a family of girls – while this isn’t an absolute necessity, it’s certainly a perk)
Shelter for livestock
Ample storage space for preps (I now have an entire room in which to store these food buckets.)

The home we found is nearly perfect, although unfortunately there was no barn for housing our livestock. In the grand scheme of stuff to add, that is fairly minimal, so we’re in the process of adding shelters.

The importance of the right neighbors

Very little is more important than the neighborhood you find yourself in. It’s best if you have a longstanding relationship with your neighbors, of course, but you can get to know people in your vicinity fairly quickly if you put in a bit of effort.

Obviously, you want to be incredibly careful not to disclose too much information about your preps. (Never forget OPSEC!) I like to bond by finding people who also enjoy firearms, for example. In the community where we relocated, you can often hear a few dozen rounds being fired as people send some lead down range. Finding other vegetable gardeners is another good way to meet folks who might be like-minded.

When house-hunting during an election year, pay attention to the political signs in the yards. You want to be surrounded by people who think like you do, and if you find that most of the signs support a political view that is diametrically opposite yours, you may not be very happy there.

I chose a house at the very end of a country road. There is only one way to drive into the neighborhood, which means the road could easily be blocked off in the event of a long-term disaster. In fact, I discovered that the neighbors have discussed doing just that, which points to the fact that they will be cognizant of safety in an emergency.

Not everyone is in a position to relocate to a retreat

Not everyone can undertake a major relocation. There are times during which we have to live in circumstances that are less than ideal from a prepper’s perspective. Never let anyone tell you that you’re doomed if you can’t move to 20 acres in the country. We all have to live within our means and within the confines of our personal situations:

While your current situation may be less than ideal, you have to remember that very few locations are actually perfect for prepping. Nearly anywhere you live will be subject to some type of extreme weather, be it crippling cold, blazing heat, drought, tornadoes, or hurricanes. Chemical spills can taint water supplies anywhere. Riots and civil unrest can occur outside of the big city.

The point is, to borrow an old saying, you just have to bloom where you’re planted.

There are many things you can do to create a viable preparedness plan wherever you happen to live. Apartment dwellers at the top of a city high rise, folks in the middle of the desert, those in a beachfront condo, and people in HOA-ruled suburban lots all have to examine their situations, figure out their pros and cons, and work towards resolving what they can. With some pre-planning, there is a lot you can overcome if you have the right mindset. I suspect there are just as many (and probably far more) preppers living in the ‘burbs than there are living in perfect rural locations, with a lake, 10 acres of cultivated farmland, and an off-grid house.

Stop waiting until you move to the perfect location. Make preparations for the situation you have, not the situation you want.

Click HERE to read the rest of this article if relocation is not an option for you.

Is it time for you to search for the perfect prepper’s retreat for your family?

Sometimes, though, you just feel compelled to take the plunge. When you do, be sure to go about your search in an organized fashion. Figure out what your priorities are, have a clear picture of your budget, and find the retreat that fits your carefully chosen criteria.

Remember, it’s far easier to already be at a bug-out location than to go on a journey to get there after it all hits the fan. If you have to bug-out there are many things that can go wrong, such as an issue with your transportation, the inability to get enough gas to get there, impassable roads, and the horrifying reality that someone else may have already taken over your location.

Surprised? #Belgium Knew Terror Attack Was Coming: “Advance and Precise Intelligence Warnings”

March 24, 2016 by contributing author

This article was written by Joshua Krause and originally published at The Daily Sheeple.

Editor’s Comment: If the true facts were to come out, they would so totally contradict the official narrative that the entire paradigm of NATO and the whole of the conflicts in the Middle East would look completely different. If people only understood how manufactured and targeted the terrorism was – in serving as a cattle prod to action – the population would revolt over night.

Instead, the weight of tragedy, of tears and loss and the psychological impact of fear and shock take over logical thinking and, of course, all the world’s headlines. Instead, the reality of these attacks are deceptively spun as an enemy instead of as a deliberate catalyst. Then again, no one is buying the red pill, and they just can’t seem to keep enough blue in stock to keep everybody going. The will of the people seems to be to keep riding along with their abusers and captors, even when escape is possible and even likely. The people have learned helplessness, and become conditioned to action only through fear…

Surprised? Belgian Government Knew Terror Attack Was Coming

by Joshua Krause

On the surface, there really isn’t anything mysterious about Tuesday’s terrorist attack in Brussels. Belgium carried out a small bombing campaign against ISIS last year, and roughly 100 of their military personnel remain in the Middle East in advisory roles. Couple that with the fact that Belgium has a sizeable migrant population from the Middle East, and many of their urban neighborhoods have become no go zones for the authorities, and it becomes shocking that an attack like this didn’t happen sooner.

The country is so out of control, that it has become a breeding ground for Islamic terror groups who use the country as a staging area for future attacks against Europe. In fact, the assailants who committed the brutal terrorist attack in Paris last November were originally based in Belgium.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a terrorist attack was attempted in this country, and it isn’t first time this has happened. The only thing that’s unique about it this time around, is the scale of the devastation. What is surprising however, is the fact that the Belgian government couldn’t prevent this attack. According to some sources like Haaretz, Belgian authorities should have known this was coming.

The Belgian security services, as well as other Western intelligence agencies, had advance and precise intelligence warnings regarding the terrorist attacks in Belgium on Tuesday, Haaretz has learned.

The security services knew, with a high degree of certainty, that attacks were planned in the very near future for the airport and, apparently, for the subway as well.

Despite the advance warning, the intelligence and security preparedness in Brussels, where most of the European Union agencies are located, was limited in its scope and insufficient for the severity and immediacy of the alert.

And that’s not all. Turkey’s President recently said something along similar lines.

Belgium had been notified of the terrorist links of one of the suicide bombers involved in the deadly Brussels attacks when he was deported from Turkey last year, according to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The Belgian citizen was detained in Turkey’s southeastern Gaziantep province, which borders Syria, in July of 2015, and was subsequently deported, Erdogan said.

“One of the attackers in Brussels is an individual we detained in Gaziantep in June 2015 and deported. We reported the deportation to the Belgian Embassy in Ankara on July 14, 2015, but he was later set free,” Erdogan said, as cited by Reuters.

“Belgium ignored our warning that this person is a foreign fighter,” he added.

Similar accusations were hurled at the Belgian government following the Paris terror attack. They had all the intel they needed to foil the terrorists, but completely bungled their counter-terror efforts. For many of you reading this, I’m sure alarm bells are ringing in your head. You may be wondering if a conspiracy of some kind is afoot. It almost seems too convenient for Belgium to repeatedly drop the ball on these attacks.

However, it’s just as likely that Belgian authorities are simply incompetent. That’s certainly what many U.S. intelligence officials believe.

News of Tuesday’s attack was met in some parts of Washington with resigned frustration.

“There was only so much we could do to help,” one official explained to The Daily Beast.

“Belgium has been stepping up the amount of people they’re devoting to intelligence and law enforcement but they’re playing catch-up and we’re seeing the terrible results of that today,” Rep. Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said on MSNBC.

Indeed, an official said there were warnings as recent as this weekend.

A frustrated U.S. intelligence official bemoaned the state of the counterterrorism apparatus in Belgium and across Europe.

“Even with the EU in general, there’s an infiltration of jihadists that’s been happening for two decades. And now they’re just starting to work on this. When we have to contact these people or send our guys over to talk to them, we’re essentially talking with people who are—I’m just going to put it bluntly—children. They are not pro-active, they don’t know what’s going on. They’re in such denial. It’s such a frightening thing to admit their country is being taken over.”

So what do you think is going on? Is the Belgian government completely incompetent, or are they letting these attacks happen? Honestly, neither would surprise me at this point.

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

New Eye-Opening Documentary Completely Exposes #Barbaric #Saudi Regime

March 24, 2016 by michaela whitton

Michaela Whitton
March 24, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) United Kingdom — A British television crew recently filmed an undercover documentary in Saudi Arabia in an attempt to penetrate the world’s most secretive and murderous regime. Working with a team of undercover Saudi cameramen, the one hour eye-opener, Exposure: Saudi Arabia Uncovered, was broadcast by ITV on March 22. It reveals the hidden side of the regime, which buys billions of pounds worth of British arms, accepts training from British security forces, sells oil back to the U.K., and enjoys nothing less than red carpet treatment from the British royal family.

After setting up a fake company, the crew flew into Riyadh posing as businessmen, wielding carefully concealed hidden cameras. For cover, they said they were in the country to attend a business conference on cyber-security. What they discovered was a state that beheads — and even crucifies — its citizens; where women lack basic human rights and its children are indoctrinated. Patrolled by religious police, citizens are tortured, imprisoned, and sentenced to death for writing blogs and questioning authority. It sounds like the Islamic State, but it’s not — it’s the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And it is fully propped up by Europe and the United States.

The mind-boggling documentary reveals how Saudi Arabia’s money and Wahhabi ideology has helped drive terrorism around the world. Shining a light on Britain’s shoulder-rubbing with the ruling royals, the production has pushed the U.K. government to admit they have provided more than 300 Saudi police officers with training since 2012.

“A necessary evil”

In January 2015, the Union Jack flew at half-mast at Westminster as a mark of respect for the death of Saudi ruler, King Abdullah. During the same month, young Saudi blogger Raif Badawi received 50 lashes in public. Convicted of insulting Islam after blogging about his government and religion, quoting Albert Camus, he wrote:

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”

Comments like this earned the father of three 1,000 total lashes and ten years in prison.

“We don’t approve of what Saudi Arabia does, we don’t like what they do, but they are a necessary evil in combating other regimes,” former Head of International Terrorism, Colonel Richard Kemp, told ITV.

“And of course, ultimately they have a lot of oil,” he added.

Undercover cameraman Yasser is from an underground network of Saudi activists. He risked life and limb to provide a window into the brutal and secretive country where the King is all powerful, journalists cannot operate without a minder, and dissent is a cardinal sin. In the country, which is home of some of Islam’s holiest sites, the Saudi state oil company is worth £7 trillion. The royal family is worth billions. In contrast, an estimated quarter of the population lives in poverty, and numerous women were filmed begging and being beaten in the streets.

It is estimated that only one in five Saudi women of working age are employed. They are banned from driving and struggle to perform simple tasks, such as going to the doctor without a male guardian. But some are fighting back, and prominent human rights activist Loujain Hathloul has become the face of the Saudi women’s rights movement.

Moments after uploading videos of herself driving — as part of a campaign to change the ban against it — the activist was arrested for trying to enter Saudi Arabia from the United Arab Emirates while behind the wheel. Imprisoned for 73 days without trial, she remains banned from traveling. Terrorism charges also were filed against her. Facing persistent death threats towards her and her family, for some she is a hero. For others, she is a hate figure.

The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice

The religious police, officially known as the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, patrol streets and shopping malls enforcing strict Islamic laws. Yasser films himself and his friend as they are violently stopped from playing a lute outside. Playing music in public is forbidden, and their instrument and hidden camera are smashed. In other instances, religious police force women to cover themselves and drive people out of cafes to pray.

This strict form of Sunni Islam is known as Wahhabism, and it is the religion on which Saudi Arabia was founded. It is thought that the majority of Saudis support the state ideology, and the activists film a preacher spreading hatred of other religions and the Shia minority. Children are shown being indoctrinated by school textbooks, made in Saudi Arabia and exported to the world.

“No country is the perfect ally, perfect partner, without any reservations whatsoever. Welcome to the real world, welcome to the premier league,” said former CIA Director, General David Petraeus.

Director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, Ali al-Ahmed, said the Saudi education system was created as a security measure to protect the ruling family and mislead millions of students into hatred of other religions and cultures. Some say the state has made progress in removing some of the worst examples of hatred from its textbooks, but the books can still be found in mosques and schools around the world.

Al-Ahmed added, “It’s no wonder that thousands of Saudis joined ISIS and other terror groups because they were trained in Saudi schools.”

“Chop Chop Square”

In 2015, Saudi Arabia executed 157 people. Traditional punishments are employed, and executions are often carried out in public by one sword blow to the neck. Headless bodies are sometimes displayed publicly, and the documentary shows harrowing footage of a Burmese woman screaming for mercy as she is beheaded in the street.

Yasser says many Saudis are angry but cannot speak out due to fear of imprisonment, adding that the regime relies on secrecy; criticism of the government is considered an act of terror. The film crew visits one of Saudi Arabia’s most notorious landmarks, known as Chop Chop Square. It is the scene of many of the regime’s public executions and has drains in the ground for blood.

Since 9/11, Saudi Arabia has attempted to show the world they are tackling terrorism. The regime has clamped down on private donations to extremists from inside the Kingdom and carried out airstrikes against ISIS. They deny they are supporting the terror group, but many feel it is the underlying Wahhabi Salafi ideology that is the wider problem.

Former Director of Political Islam of the CIA, Emile Nakleh told ITV:

“The ideology of ISIS is not much different from the ideology that Wahabi Salafi Islam in Saudi adheres to. Unless the Saudis deal with this issue, we are going to constantly fight yesterday’s wars. Even if we defeat ISIS there will be another terrorist organisation, perhaps with a different name, as long as they have this ideology.”

Unwilling to tolerate dissent and fiercely opposed to sharing power, Saudi Arabia executed 47 people in January of this year — its largest mass execution since 1980. Some were convicted terrorists, but others were political activists. Footage smuggled out by activists has revealed that the executions sparked the largest public protests since the Arab Spring.

Since the mass executions, Yasser has stopped filming undercover. He claims it is just too risky continue, which, of course, is exactly what these public displays of punishment are all about. Although activists are being forced underground, the spread of mobile phones and cameras means it is becoming impossible for the regime to control what the world sees.

While in the country pretending to be traders, the filmmakers’ website was hacked, leading them to believe their cover was blown. As a result, they promptly left the country.

The documentary ends with a statement from the Saudi authorities condemning the covert filming by ITV:

“The kingdom of Saudi Arabia utterly rejects the partisan nature and sensationalist tone of this documentary which sets out to portray the country in a negative and unbalanced light. The Kingdom’s legal system is based on the due process of Islamic Sharia Law. The Kingdom is at the forefront of international efforts to combat terrorism and will pursue anyone who supports and funds terrorist activities. To suggest otherwise is a slur. In keeping with its biased agenda, ITV chose to undertake covert filming when they could have applied for and received a journalistic visa, like many of their counterparts.”

The full documentary, Exposure: Saudi Arabia Uncovered, can be viewed here.

This article (New Eye-Opening Documentary Completely Exposes Barbaric Saudi Regime) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Michaela Whitton and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

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