When The S*** Hits the Fan

Archives for April 2016

Pay Attention To The #Economy Right Now, Because A Disturbing Series Of Events Seems To Be In Motion

by

theendisnear-wide

This article was written by Daisy Luther and originally published at her TheOrganicPrepper.ca site.

Editor’s Comment: Stability is paper thin, an illusion, a coyote over a cliff. The big banks on Wall Street have seized even greater power since the 2008 and collapse and are poised to consolidate the balance in the wake of the coming “third wave,” as Goldman Sachs recently warned in its own ominous statements.

For preppers, and anybody with a head on their shoulders, staying informed will mean staying ahead of the curve. The insiders at the top know the right moment to pull out their money, but the rest of us don’t. In the absence of privileged information, we can avoid the obvious traps, and hedge ourselves against some of the worst potential repercussions. But the truth is, this next wave could mean wipe out for tens of millions.

Economic Collapse? Fed Issues an Ominous Warning to JPMorgan Chase and Leaders Flock to Secret Meetings

by Daisy Luther

Tick. Tock.

Do you hear that? It’s the clock on the time bomb, and it appears to be ticking relentlessly toward our economic collapse.

It seems like every day, there is a new threat to the financial well-being of the disappearing middle class in America. Of course, less affected are the members of Congress and their buddies on Wall Street. You know, the ones that put the politicians in office to get favorable decisions made on their behalf in Washington.

But if you happen to have been ignoring the folks Obama calls “peddlers of fiction” who have been warning us all of an impending economic crisis along the lines of the last financial collapse, you might want to pay attention now, because a disturbing series of events is in motion.

First of all, the Fed just issued a terrifying warning to the biggest bank in the country.

Finally, the Fed has admitted that we just can’t take another hit without incurring an epic disaster.

And by “admitted” I mean they’ve issued a chilling warning to JP Morgan Chase, the biggest bank in America.

The letter is addressed to Teflon-coated Jamie Dimon, the leader of the bank (who seems to have made a deal with the Devil to become completely immune to prosecution, no matter what he does.)

It is 19 pages and heavily redacted, but here are some excerpts that should send a chill down your spine. The emphasis is mine.

The Agencies also identified a deficiency in the 2015 Plan regarding the criteria for a rational and less-complex legal entity structure. In order to substantially mitigate the risk that JPMC ‘s material financial distress and failure would have systemic effects, JPMC should ensure that its legal entity structure promotes resolvability under the preferred resolution strategy across a range of failure scenarios. Flexibility—or “optionality”—within the resolution strategy helps mitigate risks that, if not overcome, could otherwise undermine successful execution of the strategy and, more broadly, pose serious adverse effects to the financial stability of the United States.

Then there’s this:

These divestiture options do not appear to provide sufficient optionality under different market conditions.

The divestiture options in the 2015 Plan also were not sufficiently actionable, as the 2015 Plan sections fore did not contain detailed, tailored, and complete separability analyses. For example, only one obstacle to divestiture to the [redacted] key vendor contracts was adequately analyzed; the analysis of the other key obstacles cited regulatory approvals, client communications [redacted]

This is also concerning:

JPMC does not have an appropriate model and process for estimating and maintaining sufficient liquidity at, or readily available to, material entities in resolution (RLAP model). This is notable given J?MC’s liquidity profile in its 2015 Plan, which relies on the firm’s ability to shift substantial amounts of liquidity around the organization during stress, as needed. As explained below, JPMC’s liquidity profile is vulnerable to adverse actions by third parties.

Even without a degree in finance, I know this is bad:

JPMC’s 2015 Plan relied on roughly  of parent liquidity support being injected into various material entities, including its U.S. broker-dealers, during the period immediately preceding JPMC’s bankruptcy filing. This includes reliance on funds in foreign entities that may be subject to defensive ringfencing during a time of financial stress.

Here’s the long and the short of it:

Every year, large banks must create a contingency plan that explains what they’ll do if they begin to go under. The biggest bank in the country has such a lackluster, half-baked plan that the Fed called them out on it for 19 pages and warns that their nonchalance could be responsible for the financial instability of the entire country.

PS: Since this isn’t my first rodeo, I downloaded the entire PDF. It’s funny  how things have a way of disappearing off the internet when the mainstream media wants to ignore them.  You can download it yourself too at this link:

Living-Will-Letter-Issued-to-JPMorgan-Chase

JPMorgan Chase is not alone.

But they’re not the only ones.

Bank of America and Wells Fargo also saw their contingency plans rejected. Zero Hedge reports:

Three of the five largest U.S. banks (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo) have now had their wind-down plans rejected by the Federal agency insuring bank deposits (FDIC) and the Federal agency (Federal Reserve) that secretly sluiced $13 trillion in rollover loans to the insolvent or teetering banks in the last epic crisis that continues to cripple the country’s economic growth prospects.

Are all three banks going down?

But that isn’t even the scariest part.

In case you think it’s just a normal day at the Fed…It isn’t just these warning letters that should make you pay attention. At the risk of sounding like I’m selling Ginsu knives, there’s more.

The Great Recession Blog posted a bullet list that should blow your mind when taken in conjunction with the news above. (Be sure to read the full article – it goes into a lot more detail.) It seems that there’s enough concern to spark a flurry of secret meetings among those in power.

  • The Federal Reserve Board of Governors just held an “expedited special meeting” on Monday in closed-door session.
  • The White House made an immediate announcement that the president was going to meet with Fed Chair Janet Yellen right after Monday’s special meeting and that Vice President Biden would be joining them.
  • The Federal Reserve very shortly posted an announcement of another expedited closed-door meeting for Tuesday for the specific purpose of “bank supervision.”
  • A G-20 meeting of finance ministers and central-bank heads starts in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, too, and continues through Wednesday.
  • Then on Thursday the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund meet in Washington.
  • The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta just revised US GDP growth for the first quarter to the precipice of recession at 0.1%.
  • US banks are widely expected this week to report their worst quarter financially since the start of the Great Recession.
  • The European Union’s new “bail-in” procedures for failing banks were employed for the first time with Austrian bank Heta Asset Resolution AG.
  • Italy’s minister of finance called an emergency meeting of Italian bankers to engage “last resort” measures for dealing with 360-billion euros of bad loans in banks that have only 50 billion in capital.

How does this affect you?

Maybe you think this won’t affect you. Maybe you don’t have an account with anyone affiliated with JP Morgan Chase, BofA, and Wells Fargo. Maybe you aren’t an investor. Maybe you don’t have real estate. Maybe you are absolutely certain, without a shadow of a doubt, that your job is secure. Perhaps you have money in the bank, or maybe not – maybe you keep it stuffed in your mattress.

The trouble is, the money you are working overtime to make, the security you feel that you have by saving it…it’s perceived value can be completely wiped out by a financial crisis that occurs on a national level. That’s because if a huge bank like JPMC fails, lots of other companies fail with it. Then this stuff happens:

  • Prices will go up. We’ve seen an almost unprecedented increase in the price of food over the past couple of years, even as the quality of the food available plummets. This is due to massive droughts, early freezes, and basic cost-of-living increases.
  • Unemployment will go up.  Those without jobs now are equal to the number of unemployed during The Great Depression. As the economy plummets, that number will almost certainly exceed the previous highs as businesses scramble to keep their heads above water. They’ll cut stuff to try and keep afloat, and if that fails, the jobs will be lost anyway.
  • Rents will increase.  If you don’t own your home, prepare to pay higher rent as landlords try to cover their losses of income in other sectors. Foreclosures will be on the rise, which means there will be fewer homes available.
  • Bail-ins could dip into your savings.  Remember a few years ago when depositors in Cyprus could do nothing when the banks there helped themselves to their savings in order to “save” themselves? Do you really, truly, think it can’t happen here?

The bottom line is, income will remain the same, decrease, or even disappear entirely for many of us.  Meanwhile, the price of darn near everything will go up.  Expect to pay more for things like keeping your utilities on, feeding and clothing your family, keeping a roof over your heads. Aside from that, those dollars you are carefully saving? They are only providing you with the illusion of security.

Aside from that, those dollars you are carefully saving? They are only providing you with the illusion of security.

Here’s what you need to do

Here’s what you need to do immediately in the event of either a market crash or further news of a bank failure. (Of course, if you wait until a bank failure has been announced, you may have waited too long.)

  • Take your money out of the bank ASAP.  If you still keep your money in the bank, go there and remove as much as you can while leaving in enough to pay your bills. Although it wasn’t a market collapse in Greece recently, the banks did close and limit ATM withdrawals.  People went for quite some time without being able to access their money, but were able to have a sense of normalcy by transferring money online to pay bills or using their debit cards to make purchases.  Get your cash out. You don’t want to be at the mercy of the banks.
  • Stock up on supplies.  Make sure you are prepped. If you’re behind on your preparedness efforts and need to do this quickly, you can order buckets of emergency food just to have some on hand. (Learn how to build an emergency food supply using freeze dried food HERE) Hit the grocery store or wholesale club and stock up there, too, on  your way home. As mentioned above, if you can’t get your money out, you may be able to make online or debit card purchases.
  • Load up on fuel.  Fill up your gas tank and fill your extra cans also. Quite often, fuel prices skyrocket in the wake of a market crash.
  • Be prepared for the potential of civil unrest. If the banks put a limit on withdrawals (or close like they did in Greece) you can look for some panic to occur. If the stores dramatically increase prices or close..more panic. Be armed and be prepared to stay safely at home. (Although this article was written during the Ferguson race riots, civil unrest follows a similar pattern regardless of the cause.)
  • Be prepared for the possibility of being unable to pay your bills. If things really go downhill, the middle class and those who are the working poor will be the most strongly affected, as they have been in Greece during that country’s ongoing financial crisis.  This article talks about surviving if you are unable to pay all of your bills.

For the long term, focus on information

Hopefully there’s no need to empty out your bank accounts, stock up on last minute supplies, or lock-and-load for home protection. However, if this is an actual 1929/2008-style stock market crash, you need to take your preps to the next level. If you can’t buy your necessities, you’re going to have to produce them, something that is a complete turnaround for most folks.

Information is the key. It’s imperative that you learn everything you can so that you know what you need to add to your preps. As well, it’s essential to acquire the knowledge you need to fend for yourself. Take these two steps, if you haven’t already.

#1.  Bookmark these preparedness websites. (Free)

The internet is a wonderful place, and best of all, this knowledge can be found for FREE! The more you know about crisis situations, the more ready you will be to face them. Some sites are friendlier to beginners than others, so if you stumble upon a forum where people seem less than enthusiastic about helping people who are just starting out, don’t let it get you down. Move on and find a site that makes you feel comfortable. Following are some of my favorites, and the link will take you to a good starting point on these sites. In no particular order:

Following are some of my favorites, and the link will take you to a good starting point on these sites. (Actually, it’s wise to begin increasing your knowledge even if we get a reprieve.) In no particular order:

#2.  Build your library. (Small expense)

This is where some money could come into play. Most of the time, people in the preparedness world like to have hard copies of important information. This way, if the power goes out and you can’t access the internet or recharge your Kindle, you still have access to vital advice.

Some of these books are for just such an event, while others are guides to building your self-reliance skills.  Commit to picking up a good book each pay period until you have a library to reference during any type of scenario.

Be sure to check out used bookstores, libraries, and garage sales, too. Look for books that teach self-reliant skills like sewing, gardening, animal husbandry, carpentry, repair manuals, scratch cooking, and plant identification. You can often pick these up for pennies, and older books don’t rely on expensive new technology or tools for doing these tasks.

Have they finally kicked the can to the end of the road?

Things aren’t looking good. It makes me wonder if all of the quantitative easing and can-kicking has finally reached the point that they can’t push economic disaster back any further.

The Pantry Primer

Please feel free to share any information from this article in part or in full, giving credit to the author and including a link to The Organic Prepper and the following bio.

Daisy Luther is the author of The Pantry Primer: A Prepper’s Guide To Whole Food on a Half Price Budget.  Her website, The Organic Prepper, offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter, and you can email her at daisy@theorganicprepper.ca

Also From Daisy Luther:

The Prepper’s Blueprint: A Step-By-Step Guide To Prepare For Any Disaster

Here’s How You’ll Die When the SHTF (and How to Prevent Your Untimely Demise)

How to Prepare for a Cyber Attack: ‘These Systems Could Be Completely Inoperable or Breached’

San Andreas for Preppers: 12 Essential Survival Lessons from the Movie

12 Bad Strategies That Will Get Preppers Killed

Lock and Load: Are You Prepared for Civil Unrest?

You’ve Been Warned: Why You Need to Be Ready for Total Grid Failure

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

#Women Being Prescribed Surgical Implants to Combat #Alcohol Issues

by

Michaela Whitton
April 19, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) United Kingdom — Women who have become a little too fond of their night caps are being treated with implants to help them curb their drinking. According to Irish media, women between the ages of 30 and 50 have replaced afternoon chats over tea and cake with a glass of wine — and they are increasingly seeking help for addiction. Naltrexone, the implant prescribed, is traditionally associated with heroin users, but the opiate-blocker also reduces the pleasures and highs associated with alcohol consumption.

At first glance, the report in the Irish Independent reads somewhat sexist. It warns against the wine drinking culture of “ladies who lunch” and “middle-class women” who have become accustomed to a bottle of wine every night to shake off the day. Doctors claim the increased consumption is partly caused by the feminist revolution and “newly defined gender roles” that place pressure and expectations on women.

Archaic as their logic sounds, the concerns about the troublesome culture shift are echoed by hepatologists at Cork University hospital. Dr. Orla Crosbie said in the last decade there has been a huge increase in the number of women in need of treatment for alcohol-related liver disease. In her own practice, almost 40% of the patients being treated for cirrhosis of the liver are female.

Naltrexone implants are inserted under women’s skin during a fifteen-minute procedure. Prescribed to both alcohol- and opiate-dependent patients, they help combat cravings and assist in reducing or controlling the patient’s substance misuse. Lasting for three months and costing a whopping €1,150, the implant requires patients to abstain from their drug of choice during treatment. However, the implant is not a cure-all, and as with anything, the individual must be motivated to change. Proof of this is evidenced in rumours of desperate users contemplating the extreme measure of cutting out their own implants.

Since One Step — an Irish clinic for addiction treatment — began the programme 18 months ago, hundreds of patients have attended the part-time rehab programme, which allows them to access treatment and still attend work. Many are receiving counselling in conjunction with the implant.

Describing the troublesome new trend in alcohol use, Dr. Crosbie said it certainly isn’t something Ireland would have seen ten or twenty years ago. She said it is tragic to see so many young females with very significant health issues due to alcohol, and added that some are dying and leaving behind young children.

truth-cancer-ad

“We do need to change our attitude towards alcohol to try and reverse the situation, and have a healthier relationship with alcohol in Ireland,” she said.

This article (Women Being Prescribed Surgical Implants to Combat Alcohol Issues) 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. Image credit: Multimotyl. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

 

From theantimedia.org Team

Primary Chaos: #NY #Elections Face Audit After 126,000 Mysteriously Denied Right to Vote

by

Claire Bernish

April 19, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) Amid further reports of numerous problems with today’s primary election — including reports of some 126,000 voters purged from the rolls — New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer announced on Tuesday he will be auditing the city’s Board of Elections.

“There is nothing more sacred in our nation than the right to vote, yet election after election, reports come in of people who were inexplicably purged from the polls,” the Comptroller stated. “The people of New York City have lost confidence that the Board of Elections can effectively administer elections and we intend to find out why the BOE is so consistently disorganized, chaotic and inefficient.”

Stringer was so alarmed, he penned a letter to NYC BOE Director Michael J. Ryan about the audit, noting his “deep concern over widespread reports of poll site problems and irregularities” — and demanded the BOE provide viable explanations for each.

“Voters across the city have complained about poll workers erroneously redirecting them to different poll sites, poll workers unable to operate voting machines, poll workers unable to produce the correct party ballot for an individual voter, and poll workers giving conflicting information,” he wrote.

“Of particular concern are numerous allegations of widespread removal of eligible voters from voter-registration rolls, as well as instances of incorrect party affiliations on individual registration records. These errors have conspired to bar first time and longtime voters from exercising their fundamental democratic right.”

Stringer’s concerns were echoed by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio this afternoon, who issued a statement cited by Politico about the ongoing turmoil and outrage:

“It has been reported to us from voters and voting rights monitors that voting lists in Brooklyn contain numerous errors, including the purging of entire buildings and blocks of voters from the voting lists. I am calling on the Board of Elections to reverse that purge and update the lists again using Central, not Brooklyn borough, Board of Election staff.”

In fact, a spokesman for State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman claimed his office has already received “by far the largest volume of complaints” from any election since 2011, Politico reported.

In concurrence with Stringer’s audit announcement, de Blasio added:

“We will hold the BOE commissioners responsible for ensuring that the Board and its borough officers properly conduct the election process to assure that voters are not disenfranchised. The perception that voters may have been disenfranchised undermines the integrity of the entire electoral process and must be fixed.”

Despite these telling public statements from officials, Ryan told the Observer:

“I bristle at the suggestion that some folks might be making that there are widespread problems. We’re just not seeing it.” He added the snafus occurring Tuesday were “what we typically see during elections.”

Ryan did mention he’d been away from his office most of the day, yet repeatedly rebuffed suggestions the voluminous number of reports were anything out of the ordinary for an election.

“Comptrollers audit agencies, that’s why comptrollers are there,” Ryan told the Observer about Stringer’s intent to audit. “If Comptroller Stringer believe that it is a worthy use of his agency resources to investigate the Board of Elections, we’re no different than any other city agency.”

With voters increasingly irate over inexplicable difficulties in simply casting a primary vote, we may be in for quite the ride in November.

This article (Primary Chaos: NY Elections Face Audit After 126,000 Mysteriously Denied Right to Vote) 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.

 

From theantimedia.org Team

#Costco Begins Helping Farmers Buy Land to Supply Exploding Demand for #Organic Food

by

AnonHQ Staff
April 19, 2016

(ANONHQ) It seems that Costco can’t get enough organic fruit and vegetables to supply its customers; and is now bypassing its competitor Whole Foods with a whopping $4 billion in its annual organic sales. In a bid to assist the supply to their warehouses, Costco is lending money to farmers to help them purchase land and equipment to grow more organic produce.

Costco CEO Craig Jelinek told investors in Washington earlier this year “We cannot get enough organics to stay in business day in and day out.”

The financial assistance for organic farmers is only a pilot program and still in its infancy, reports the Seattle Times. At this stage, they’re working with one partner, a San-Diego based Andrew and Williamson Fresh Produce purchase a further 1,200 acres of land.

But Costco is hopeful that the project will be expanded for future farmers if successful. Long-term contracts and advance payments to organic farmers may soon be an initiative of the future as Costco struggles to keep up with customer demand in an era plagued by uncertain GMO production.

Costco has also led the way in similar schemes. Two years ago it worked with a Mexican vendor who initially relied on shrimp caught in Thailand, to diversify. Now, the vendor gets their shrimp from the Sea of Cortez, rather than the Thai fishing industry where slave labor is prevalent.

In 2015, Costco started the contracting process with Nebraskan owners of organic fields. After purchasing cattle, they’re now encouraging ranchers to raise the livestock, ensuring a supply for its organic ground-beef program, Seattle Times reports.

Costco’s initiative is a step in the right direction, but Organic Trade Association spokeswoman Angela Jagiello said “demand is increasing. But we’re not seeing the same level of farmland.” Something that may have to do with the ever increasing stronghold Monsanto and the like have over agriculture.

It’s forcing food chains to buy their own land to produce what they need for their consumers, including Nature’s Path Foods Inc. and Pacific Foods, Wall Street Journal reports.

Ultimately, this move has been driven by consumers demanding a healthier choice. Establishing a sustainably grown organic agriculture again, is speaking volumes against Big Ag companies.

Ronnie Cummins, the international director of the Organic Consumers Association stated its “a transition we have to make if we’re going to address the multiple crises of declining health, declining local economies, [and] declining biodiversity.”

This Article (Costco Begins Helping Farmers Buy Land to Supply Exploding Demand for Organic Food) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and AnonHQ.com. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

 

From theantimedia.org Team

Andrew #Jackson, Who Fought #CentralBank, Removed from $20 As “Public Concern for Liberty” Erased

by

Andrew-Jackson-Wouldnt-Want-To-Be-On-The-20-Bill-Anyway

The War on Cash has many fronts.

The latest battle is for the face of the currency itself, and the central bankers, who control the front anyway, have imposed a symbolic defeat against the leaders in America’s past who have fought against the stranglehold of the money makers.

Naturally, there are liberal politics at play, fighting for every inch of ground in the war for ideological re-engineering. History is being whitewashed, various figures of antiquity rolling in their graves….

At stake is a dispute for the powers of government even better than the more famous duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, of whom we also speak.

The iconic $20 bill, with the face of President Andrew Jackson, and the $10 bill, with the face of the nation’s first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, have long pitted two ideological extremes against each other as they pass along as some of the most used denominations in circulation.

But now, the money powers at the Treasury Department have decided that it is time to add a woman’s face to the money supply as well.

As such, the powers-that-bank have decided to oust Andrew Jackson from the line up, and with it, part of his legacy.

It will be “removed in favor of a female representing the struggle for racial equality,” according to CNN, while an early proposal to remove Alexander Hamilton’s bill will be scrapped, though the proposal includes a redesign on the backs of his and several other notes with scenes from the Woman’s Suffrage Movement, Susan B. and all the gals.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is expected to announce this week that Alexander Hamilton’s face will remain on the front of the $10 bill and a woman will replace Andrew Jackson on the face of the $20 bill, a senior government source told CNN on Saturday.

Dramatically, it seems that there was a backlash to counter the coup against Hamilton, including support from former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke:

The decision to make the historic change at the expense of Hamilton drew angry rebukes from fans of the former Treasury Secretary. The pro-Hamilton movement gained steam after the smash success of the hip-hop Broadway musical about his life this year.

 
Those pressures led Lew to determine that Hamilton should remain on the front of the bill.

And there’s a reason for Bernanke’s bias towards Hamilton.

Here’s the scoop from the Economic Policy Journal, who called it a “despicable decision”:

It was Hamilton, who from the early days of the nation clamored for a central bank and a strong interventionist federal government.

I have quoted Thomas DiLorenzo on the evil Hamilton before:

Hamilton was a compulsive statist who wanted to bring the corrupt British mercantilist system — the very system the American Revolution was fought to escape from — to America. He fought fiercely for his program of corporate welfare, protectionist tariffs, public debt, pervasive taxation, and a central bank run by politicians and their appointees out of the nation’s capital….

Hamilton complained to George Washington that “we need a government of more energy” and expressed disgust over “an excessive concern for liberty in public men”…

The Philadelphie Federal Reserve publication. A History of Central Banking in America, reports:

Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, urged Congress to also assume the war debts of the individual states and then create a national bank to help refinance all these debts. Hamilton’s proposal faced major opposition. Critics said that Hamilton’s bank was unconstitutional, would be a monopoly, and would reduce the power of the states. Although Hamilton won, the bank’s charter was limited to 20 years.

And that’s right where Andrew Jackson’s legacy with the banks picks up.

With the charter of the first “Bank of the United States” ending, Jackson was determined to stop the charter of the second “Bank of the United States” and famously stated:

“You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out.” (Andrew Jackson, to a delegation of bankers discussing the recharter of the Second Bank of the United States, 1832)

President Jackson likened their agents to the hydra-beast, with its many heads, and even survived an assassination attempt, by staving off an attacker personally.

jackson-banks-vipers

The bankers, and the powerful families including the Rothschilds who supported it, wanted a “national bank” because they could load the board with “their” guys and outweigh the will of the people and the normal channels of government.

jackson-route-bankers-national-bank

Of course, the same exact state of affairs has been going on today for more than a century with the Federal Reserve, which is run by the successors to the same exact banking interests, including the still immensely-powerful Rothschild family.

The struggle is depicted well in “The Money Masters,” which spans several centuries of history with the threat of banking powers over individual sovereignty in stark contrast. To be sure, there is an important and nefarious plot afoot to ensnare you, your family and everyone on the block with debt.

There is a line, and you should figure out what side of it you’re going to be on.

Jackson narrowly succeeded in staving off banker domination of the U.S. during his day.

Of course, Andrew Jackson, who was the United States’ seventh president, was also a complete controversy his entire lifetime. It is no surprise that the same people who took down the Confederate flag from the South on the back of a mass shooting tragedy are now trying to tear down the image of a particularly controversial and intriguing figure from the American past.

Jackson was a recalcitrant and unyielding general and war hero, and later an outsider riding a wave of populist support into the White House, bringing in sometimes unscrupulous companions, and plenty of Masons. Many of his backers were diametrically opposed to the entrenched power of New York bankers and speculators, as well as patrician politicians who dominated the first phase of politics in the nation’s history. Jackson played a nasty role in the Trail of Tears affairs with Indians, too, and with the South and Western expansion of slave-friendly territories. Many shades of grey.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes in the founding days of this country, Alexander Hamilton, an advocate of strong central government, and maneuvered on behalf of his banker masters to collectivize the war debt from the states and create a central bank to control the financial strength of the country, and ingrain the early United States with the mindset of the British masters they had just fought to shake off.

After the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913, and the crisis and consolidation of wealth during the Great Depression, and ever since the 2008 economic collapse, the rule by bankers has become a foregone conclusion, though there will be more chances to shake off their yoke of control. (BitCoin is one possible avenue; Congressionally-controlled greenbacks another; gold and silver yet another…)

Erasing Andrew Jackson from the faces of the fiat funny-money that is passed around by an increasingly ignorant and dependent society (which itself has adopted digital currency as the new norm) will further cut off the past from the masses, and ensure their enslavement.

Read more:

Americans Face Impoverishing War on Cash: “More Big Banks Are Shunning Cash”

As Banks Seek Monopoly Over Economy, “Cash Is Being Gradually Taken Away”

Action Star Jean-Claude Van Damme Calls Out Rockefeller/Rothschild Puppet Masters Who “Won’t Let Trump Win”

Too Big To Fail Is Now Bigger Than Ever Before

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Everything We Need to Know About #Survival, We Can Learn from a Missing #Cat

by

April 19, 2016

Remember how I told you that the day we moved, our beloved kitty escaped out a window into the forest and our missing cat was never heard from again?

Well guess what?

He’s HOME!

How the Misadventure Began

Syllies day 1

Sylvester has always been a skittish cat. We got him when he was just a few weeks old, after some horrid person had tossed him and his sibling into a trash can to be picked up on garbage day. He was starving and scrawny, and my daughter fell madly in love with him, setting her alarm to bottle feed him in the middle of the night.

I guess you could say, he’s always been a survivor.  Soon, he had become healthy and basically took over like a little 2-pound purring dictator.

Syllie kitten on the laptop

Fast forward to a year and a half later. Sylvester was a big, beautiful, luxurious house cat and the adored companion of my teenage daughter. His hobbies were jumping on our elderly cat, swatting the dogs tail, and scratching things he wasn’t supposed to scratch.

Then, just over a month ago, we moved to our new home on the edges of a national forest. I brought the cats and dogs over myself, in the back of my Jeep. I put the cats into the bathroom and shut the door. But what I should have done was shut the windows, because unbeknownst to me, the screen on one of them was not in properly.

When we went in later to bathe the cats because of an unfortunate incident during the car ride, Sylvester was gone.

We searched frantically, long after dark, calling him, shaking treat containers, opening cans of cat food. It was all to no avail. Our cat, who had never been outside at all, was lost in the deep dark forest.

Over the next few days, we did all the things you’re supposed to do when you have a missing cat. We put up lost kitty ads, we canvassed the neighbors, we put his litter box and some personal items outside hoping he’d find his way home.

He never did. After a couple of weeks went by, we were pretty sure that something had eaten him. There is quite frequently evidence of bears and mountain lions in the forest around our property, and he would have been a big, tasty meal for them. My poor daughter was broken-hearted.

The Return of Our Missing Cat

A couple of days ago I was walking out the front door to water the herb garden when I startled a cat on the upper patio. It took off before I could do anything more than stand there with my mouth open but I was pretty sure it was our missing cat. After all, how many fluffy gray and white kitties could there possibly be in the forest?

We went out and called for him to no avail, but I put out a dish of food and water on the patio. The next morning it was gone, but of course, we had no way of knowing if it was eaten by the kitty or something else.

The vet here in town lends out live traps in certain situations, so we picked one up the following afternoon. Within an hour of putting in the stinkiest cat food I could find, we heard a rattling. As we sat there and watched, hardly daring to move, a skittish, skinny kitty suspiciously sniffed all around the trap. Finally, the hunger was too much for him and he went in and ….

We have our cat back!

He was frantic when we caught him, absolutely terrified, and it took him a few minutes to recognize us. We carried the trap into the house and went into the bathroom with it so we could release him in a controlled area. After about 15 minutes of hand feeding little bites of kitty kibble, he was back with his mama.

Sylvester is home

He’s headed to the vet today for a check-up, but here’s our initial assessment.

  • He has assorted small wounds – gouges, scratches, etc.
  • He lost TEN pounds. He’s gone from a huge, kind of chubby cat, to a lean, mean, surviving machine.
  • He has what seems to be a hernia on his belly.
  • He somehow got a claw ripped out of his back paw.
  • He had a lot of ticks, which we’ve been patiently removing.

But holy cow. I can’t believe our pampered house pet survived in the forest for this long.

Survival Lessons from Sylvester

It really got me thinking about how unprepared most of us would be to survive in the forest alone for a month. You know, Sylvester didn’t pack a bug-out bag before his journey. He didn’t have food stored or a canteen of water or a firestarter. He only had the weapons nature provided him: his claws, his agility, and his speed.

Maybe the lessons from Sylvester aren’t absolutely everything you need to know about survival, but he covered the basics – you just have to fill in the skills to achieve those basics.

The main lessons are these.

  • Find something to drink.  It would have been a lot more difficult for him in another location. Fortunately, we live right on a mountain stream, so water was abundant.
  • Find something to eat. You don’t get to be picky and you have to figure out how to catch it and kill it yourself. Obviously he found something to sustain him, although not much, given his extreme weight loss.
  • Hide from the things that want to eat you. There are all sorts of predators out in the woods that are just as hungry as you are. On their side is the fact that they are used to hunting and you are not. Find a place to hide where you are hard to get to.
  • Stay warm. It dropped below freezing for several nights, and we also had a lot of rain during his misadventure. Somehow, he managed to stay warm and dry enough to survive.

Here’s our boy’s before and after picture. Poor fellow sure is happy to be home. I’ll add an update after we see the vet!

OP collage of Sylvester

#Spy Agency Apologizes for Chemical #Castration and Horrific Treatment of #LGBT People #turing

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Michaela Whitton
April 19th, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) United Kingdom — Britain’s secret intelligence agency has apologized for the “horrifying” treatment of one of its most famous members, as well as for the organisation’s historic prejudice against homosexuality. Speaking at a conference organised by LGBT rights charity, Stonewall, Robert Hannigan — director of Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) — paid tribute to former staff member Alan Turing, who was dismissed by the espionage service over his sexuality in the 1960s. Hannigan went on to apologise to all those unfairly dismissed as a result of the archaic policies, which included a ban on LGBT people joining the agency until the 1990s.

Described as a visionary and a brilliant mathematician, codebreaker Alan Turing’s skills are said to have shortened World War Two by two or more years, yet he was hounded from the secret service because of his sexuality. Known as the father of the modern computer, Turing led the well-known Bletchley Park codebreakers who cracked the encryption devices used by the Nazis.

When his home was burgled in 1952, the resulting police investigation uncovered that Turing was in a relationship with a young man. Homosexuality was still illegal in Britain, and he was ousted from his job following a conviction for indecency. Given the choice between prison and being treated with an experimental hormone to “fix” his sexual orientation — essentially chemical castration — he chose the latter. The treatment rendered him impotent and, in 1954, he took his own life by eating an apple laced with cyanide.

Hannigan said he attended the Stonewall conference to champion the right of people to be themselves. Apologising for the treatment of Alan Turing and many others discriminated against by the intelligence agency, he added:

“The fact that it was common practice for decades reflected the intolerance of the times and the pressures of the cold war, but it does not make it any less wrong and we should apologise for it.

“Their suffering was our loss and it was the nation’s loss too because we cannot know what Ian and others who were dismissed would have gone on to do and achieve. We did not learn our lesson from Turing.”

This article (British Spy Agency Apologizes for Chemical Castration and Horrific Treatment of LGBT People) 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.

 

From theantimedia.org Team

No Matter Who Wins, the #American People Lose: “The #Election Will Only Determine Who Will Continue The Erosion”

by

rep-dem-same2

The things that cripple us the most as a nation are our complacencies combined with the inability to accept the ever changing, shifting paradigm that governs American society.  We are in a transitory state as we “morph” from a soft, socialist dictatorship into a full-blown totalitarian state.  All of the trimmings are not “garnishing” the platter, as the proverbial goose is not completely cooked.  We are heading in that direction daily, make no mistake about it.  Simply put, we simply will not believe what is happening to us before our eyes.

Sometime next year the TSA and the airlines are going to require Real ID for all flights (domestic and abroad); the new proposal before the weekend was (as an action to be taken in response to the Brussels, Belgium terrorist attack) in the United States for Viper teams to be in every airport, railway station, and bus terminal.  These Viper teams (basically paramilitary police teams) are already in many of the major metropolitan areas.  The plan is for them to be not only in the New York’s and Chicago’s but also in the small towns.

The federalization process of the local police forces is almost complete in the U.S., with only the sheriffs departments remaining to reign in under control.  Akin to the proverbial “frog in the kettle,” the feds are moving with incremental (almost glacial) slowness that seems to be not in the field of vision of most Americans.  Daily we hear rhetoric from these politicians, Obama for example, trying to draw similarities between Capitalism and Communism.

There has been a tremendous push in the schools in the last two decades and more, to develop the “socially-conscious” mindset that in any other time would be labeled as “groupthink.”  Curriculum in the schools isn’t: it is indoctrination, plain and simple, as they bombard the post-school generations with a never-ending steady stream of canned media replete with politically correct groupthink.

With their endless “smoke and mirrors” sideshows, they will dupe the public into thinking there are actually candidates for the election…the election…. the election…. the focal point to hypnotize the masses while they continue to pass piece after piece of nefarious legislation.  Incrementally our freedoms continue to be nibbled away at, akin to Ritz crackers floating in a pool of carp, the congressmen that are our misrepresentatives.

But the pulse of the nation overall is weak and thready, not strong and vital.  Our manufacturing base is a shadow of its former self, and there is no end in sight to the almost limitless outsourcing as the companies try to move even more of their assets out of the country.  The United States pays the highest amount in taxes in the entire world.  The erosion of the middle class (the onslaught against it) is unrelenting.

The oligarchs, working in conjunction with their paid-for lackeys in the government are keeping the system propped up, but it’s running on life support.  It is only a matter of time that collapse comes to a nation with no true manufacturing base that bases its entire GDP on consumer spending and “Potemkin” programs designed to bilk the consumer out of more taxes.  We are in the twilight of the day, ladies and gentlemen, with nightfall just around the corner.

Just a matter of time before internal passports and domestic travel checkpoints.  Just a matter of time before we become another country such as Great Britain with a camera on every corner.  Just a matter of time before we pick up the reigns of the Soviet Union that Russia set aside.  In a nation of roughly 320 million people, are these “Morlocks and Eloi” the best candidates that we can field?  For the office of the President of the United States?  We don’t have a true choice, as our freedoms are eroded by the day.  The election will only determine who will continue the erosion as the United States heads down the path of collapsed and fallen empires of the past.

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 or contact him here.

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

Also Read:

How an Attack on America Would Probably Begin: Possible Courses Of Action By Foreign Military Powers

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

Report: Is China Preparing For a Land Of Invasion Of the West Coast Of the United States?

Russia’s Attack Posture: “The Enemy Must Be Destroyed Or Conquered; The Ultimate Soviet Objective Is Total Victory”

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Nobody Believes the #Media Anymore: “Trust Has Eroded to Just 6 Percent” Of Americans

by

report_what_you__re_told__by_poasterchild-d4vhp1g

The truth is, most Americans have understood that the network news and television broadcasts are filled with lies for a while now.

Only, Americans in general put up with the lies for a long time, so long as they still had good jobs, and a decent opportunity as security and a good life.

Nowadays, the squeeze is on. The economic pressure and the growing underclass of government-dependent zombies are all too clear. Many people are becoming sophisticated at sorting out untruths and self-serving propaganda.

The B.S. broadcasting 24/7 on cable news is tiresome. Establishment newspapers and other government-sanctioned liars are losing their grip to the Internet, and today’s Americans are apt to shrug off their old gatekeepers and instead seek out news and information that responds to their concerns.

As the Associated Press demonstrates, this is no fringe movement – basically nobody believes the media anymore, and they are largely seen as complicit in the corruption of the system in Washington, on Wall Street and in countless avenues of everyday life.

Just about everyone alive today is onto their agenda.

According to the AP:

Trust in the news media is being eroded by perceptions of inaccuracy and bias, fueled in part by Americans’ skepticism about what they read on social media.

Just 6 percent of people say they have a lot of confidence in the media, putting the news industry about equal to Congress and well below the public’s view of other institutions.

[…]

Faced with ever-increasing sources of information, Americans also are more likely to rely on news that is up-to-date, concise and cites expert sources or documents, according to a study by the Media Insight Project… the expectations of news consumers have increased.

[…]

Nearly 90 percent of Americans say it’s extremely or very important that the media get their facts correct, according to the study. About 4 in 10 say they can remember a specific incident that eroded their confidence in the media, most often one that dealt with accuracy or a perception that it was one-sided.

The understated difference is not just the existence of the Internet and iPhone, but the menu of options that allows readers to interact and seek out news and information in a proactive way. They aren’t confined to just three channels anymore…

Users are no longer held captive to corporate influence and government talking points. There are endless websites for all points in the political spectrum.

So, while the study shows how corrupt and untrustworthy the government, political candidates and media/news personalities have become, the positive news is that the future about much more than just being spoon-fed “news” that is fortified with elements of the agenda being worked behind the scenes.

The study cited by the AP notes:

Rosenstiel said people who use social media are “hunting pretty carefully for cues” in deciding whether to click on an item of news to read more. The most important factor in determining trust: whether or not they know the original source of the story.

But there is also the potential danger of group think that arises from people forming ideological cliques and refusing to venture beyond the backwaters of thinking in only one way and subconsciously pursuing confirmation bias. (But there’s no utopia, and we must take the good with the bad.)

The dinosaur media will be studied by cultural paleontologists of the near future, obsessed, perhaps with images of ourselves through the recent past.

As they peer into this bizarre system of controlled information, they will question why anybody ever listened to a handful of speaker-reporters who all learned to talk in a phoney cadence and regurgitate talking points literally issued from a centralized source.

This is literally true at most call-letter news stations. Just check out this hilarious but disturbing clip from Conan O’Brien:

Read more:

“The Media Told Us That Everything’s Going to Be Fine” – War Survivor On Why He Missed The Best Time To Bug Out

Mainstream Media Lies to Gullible Americans: “Stocks Aren’t Headed for a Crash”

Are You A Threat? Police Software Scans Your Social Media: “Very Dangerous For a Citizen”

Liberal Media Openly Calls for Mass Gun Confiscation in America: “The Second Amendment Must Go”

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

#Clooney Raised $15 Million for #Hillary & DNC, Denounced #Money in Politics a Day Later

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Elizabeth Montag
April 18, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) George Clooney held a $353,000-per-couple fundraiser for Hillary Clinton just one day before he called the amount of money in politics “obscene.” On Sunday, he discussed his two-day San Francisco event on MSNBC’s “Meet the Press,” where he defended the pricey dinner galas — even as he acknowledged the problem of out-of-control spending in elections.

Clooney went on to justify the fundraiser, estimated to have generated $15 million in two days, by arguing the money raised goes not only to Hillary Clinton, but the Democratic National Committee (DNC) — the institution currently under fire for subverting the electoral process to satisfy the party’s establishment machinery which, of course, includes the Clintons.

Asked point blank by host Chuck Todd if he felt the fundraiser pooled an “obscene” amount of money, as Bernie Sanders alleged, Clooney acknowledged it was over the top:

“Yes, I think it’s an obscene amount of money,” he said, adding that protesters showed up to the event to voice their disapproval.

“[W]e had some protesters last night when we pulled up in San Francisco. And they’re right to protest, they’re absolutely right — it is an obscene amount of money,” he added. The protesters were largely Bernie Sanders supporters, some of whom threw dollar bills at Clinton’s motorcade.

“The Sanders campaign when they talk about it is absolutely right, it’s ridiculous that we should have this kind of money in politics. I agree, completely,” he said.

truth-cancer-ad

The A-list actor acknowledged he likes Bernie Sanders and thinks he is fostering important conversations within the Democratic Party. He also vowed to throw a similar fundraiser should Sanders receive the nomination. Nevertheless, he reaffirmed Hillary Clinton as his first choice. Further, he justified the fundraiser by arguing, essentially, it was a necessary evil to place Democrats back in power.

“The overwhelming amount of the money that we’re raising, is not going to Hillary to run for president. … It’s going to the congressmen and senators to try to take back Congress,” he said, prefacing his statement with the suggestion the Clinton campaign has not made this clear enough.

He continued, “…we need to take the Senate back because we need to confirm the Supreme Court justice, because that fifth vote on the Supreme Court can overturn Citizens United and get this obscene, ridiculous amount of money out so I never have to do a fundraiser again. And that’s why I’m doing it.”

Indeed, much of the money raised for the Hillary Victory Fund — the beneficiary of the weekend’s fundraisers — goes to the DNC to invest in candidates, though Clooney did not explicitly mention the committee in the interview. A much smaller portion goes to state Democratic parties, leaving millions for Clinton and the national party establishment. Unsurprisingly, Todd did not press Clooney on the merits of raising millions of dollars for an organization that has admitted to suppressing the voices of Democratic voters in its tirade against Bernie Sanders.

As Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the increasingly loathed chair of the DNC, said of the Democratic Party’s political process in February:

“Unpledged delegates exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists.” Her statements — and the shenanigans at polling centers — enraged Sanders’s followers. Clinton’s corporate funding has also raised serious suspicions about her credibility.

When Todd pressed him, Clooney denied the possibility that — as Sanders suggested — wealthy donors will expect access to a ‘President Clinton’ for their contributions at the fundraisers. Rather, he abruptly shifted his focus to the Koch Brothers:

“No, I actually don’t think that’s true. I think there is a difference between the Koch Brothers and us. The difference is, if I succeed — if we — succeed in electing an entire Congress…and a president, you know, the tax policies that they would enact would probably cost us a lot more money, quite honestly. The Koch Brothers would profit if they [got] their way, and…there’s no profit for us in this.”

Though Clooney may not personally be making a profit (and he admits the policies he envisions would further indebt the nation), he neglected to note that under a Clinton presidency, defense contractors, private prisons, and other corporatist industries who back Clinton will expect to receive a boon to business for the investments they’ve made in her — even if they didn’t attend this particular Hollywood fundraiser. Further, considering the establishment DNC spearheads Clooney’s stated goal of winning a Democrat-dominated Congress, it’s likely those selected to run for office with the “obscene” cash he raised would favor the same interests as the corrupt party rulership.

In spite of these concerns, Hollywood’s behind-the-scenes moguls, some with interests in Washington D.C., have thrown their support and money behind Clinton; Jeffrey Katzenberg, founder of Dreamworks Animation and former top bundler for the Obama campaign, co-hosted Clooney’s fundraiser and enjoyed alone time with Clinton beforehand. Katzenberg and his staff  have enjoyed access to the White House throughout the Obama years, and he has long-promoted internet censorship legislation for the sake of stopping online piracy, along with other policies beneficial to the film industry.

Others, like Haim Saban, a proudly pro-Israel Hollywood billionaire, have supported Clinton for years. Saban currently runs Univision, which recently acquired the Onion and boasts of his contributions to Hillary, which total $6.4 million. Perhaps reflecting his purchased influence, Clinton wrote a letter to Saban last July vowing to oppose the BDS movement (boycotts, divest, sanctions), which seeks to disempower Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

As Hollywood’s behind-the scenes power players favor Clinton, so do celebrities. Many, like Beyoncé, Kerry Washington, Ellen Degeneres, and Katy Perry, are considered “empowered women,” and thus, apparently support the female presidential candidate. A majority of entertainers openly supporting nominees opt for Clinton. Clooney — and many other actors and musicians — proudly supported Barack Obama and continue to do so, even as his reign failed to live up to expectations, extended privacy violations, sanctioned and committed war crimes, and sought to bolster America’s oligarchy.

The star-studded event over the weekend undoubtedly raised millions for Hillary, but it is unclear whether the Hollywood establishment is unaware of her myriad crimes — or simply overlooking them for the chance at influence over the next president.

As Bernie Sanders said of the extravagant weekend galas:

“So it’s not a criticism of Clooney. It’s a criticism of a corrupt campaign finance system, where big money interests — and it’s not Clooney, it’s the people coming to this event — have undue influence on the political process.”

This article (Clooney Raised $15 Million for Hillary & DNC, Denounced Money in Politics a Day Later) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Elizabeth Montag and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. Image credit: Michael Vlasaty. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article at edits@theantimedia.org.

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#UCDavis Spent $175,000 Trying to Hide This from You. Don’t Let Them

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Jake Anderson
April 18, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) One of the most widely used forms of information suppression is legal and online. It’s known as negative SEO (search engine optimization), and companies use it to bury negative publicity. The most recent and glaring example of this technique can be seen in efforts by UC Davis to conceal search results related to the infamous brutal pepper spraying of protesting students at the University of California campus in 2011.

Evidently, UC Davis is upset the truth went viral — and spent $175,000 burying the thousands of negative stories that resulted from the incident. They hired a PR firm with the stated objective to “expedite the eradication of references to the pepper spraying incident in search results on Google for the university and the Chancellor.”

According to AJ+, the the firm “ran deep analytics on search term patterns.” They then saturated the web with positive stories, optimizing them to bury the negative stories.

As nefarious and outlandish as this sounds, it is actually standard practice. Search engine optimization is a multi-billion dollar industry that involves strategically using online content, social media, and website architecture to manipulate Google’s search algorithm. Companies hire ORM (online reputation management) agencies that use SEO tactics to boost the ranking of desired links on SERPs (search engine page results).

Link placement has been used to bury controversial or negative stories across a range of commercial enterprises. It is an entire industry of subterfuge —  a legal and ubiquitous form of information suppression that remains largely unseen by the public eye.

truth-cancer-ad

With examples like UC Davis’ information suppression, it is important to understand that while the Internet can be a democratizing tool for social enlightenment and grassroots activism, it is also prone to the same forms of oppression as the offline world. The same companies, organizations, and agencies who use money, cronyism and corruption to suppress the truth in real life use their vast wealth and corporatist connections to manipulate the flow of information online, as well.

The full complicity of Google in this widespread practice remains unclear. The search engine giant can claim this form of SEO is legal, which is true (even black-hat SEO is usually legal). They can also claim they are not the ones engaging in the suppression — that it’s independent firms who are gaming Google’s search algorithm. However, we already know of the collusion between Google and the federal government. Is it, perhaps, a bit naive to think there is not rampant collusion between billion dollar brands and the company that controls the vast majority of what we see online?

Now that news of UC Davis’ attempted suppression has gotten out, the pepper spray incident is receiving renewed interest from the internet thanks to the “Streisand effect.” Do free speech a favor: help win the censorship battle with UC Davis by spreading this information around the internet.

This article (UC Davis Spent $175,000 Trying to Hide This from You. Don’t Let Them) 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. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

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School Accused of Ignoring “ #White Student’s Claims of Racial #Harassment” Settles Case

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stop-racism

There’s no doubt that many wrongs have been done in the name of racism.

But, two wrongs don’t make a right.

Reverse racism is no joke for white students who find themselves the target of random violence and intimidation inside schools that are filled with minority students, some of whom are vengeful and hateful against those with a different.

A school district in Long Island, New York settled with a former student – who is white – who sued because the school refused to do anything to stop the racial targeting against him, despite repeated requests for them to do so. Instead, high school years were hellish for Giovanni Micheli.

via New Observer Online

The New York school district being sued by a white former school pupil for refusing to prevent racially-motivated attacks has agreed to settle out of court rather than go to trial.

The decision by the Long Island Brentwood School District to settle without even posing a defense is being widely interpreted as an attempt to hush up the case to prevent similar legal actions being instituted by other whites.

According to a report in the New York Post, the school district “accused of inadequately addressing a white student’s claims of racial harassment as a minority in a predominantly Hispanic and black school”  abruptly settled the case for an undisclosed amount.

As originally reported, pupil Giovanni Micheli was repeatedly attacked, assaulted, and abused for being white in the majority nonwhite school. Repeated requests for help directed to the school authorities by Giovanni and his parents were ignored by the school staff.

According to testimony in the case, Micheli was attacked on numerous occasions for no other reason than the fact that he was one of the few white students at a school that was overwhelmingly black and hispanic.

Worse, the school’s administrators refused to address the problem – and do anything to stop the violence – solely because Micheli was a white minority. Requests to be transferred to another school were, ironically, refused on the grounds that they would then have to accommodate requests from other white students.

Seems like there was a big problem… one that has echoed across the entire country.

For years, the media has focused on cherry-picked cases of black victimization at the hands of police, while ignoring many would-be-high-profile cases about roaming gangs of black individuals randomly victimizing white people, or even other blacks, in order to portray an image of racism that suits the narrative.

This video shows a black student beating up his white teacher:

The phenomenon is real, but don’t be surprised when you don’t see it reported.

Read more:

Brutal Honesty: This Is The Video About Racism They Don’t Want You To See

No Whites Allowed: Student Booted From Conference Because Of Skin Color: “Because I was white they would feel unsafe?”

No Evidence: Police Say Video Beating of White Man By Three Black Men Is Not A Hate Crime

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

#Economic Collapse? Fed Issues an Ominous Warning to #JPMorgan Chase and Leaders Flock to Secret Meetings

by

April 17, 2016

Tick. Tock.

Do you hear that? It’s the clock on the time bomb, and it appears to be ticking relentlessly toward our economic collapse.

It seems like every day, there is a new threat to the financial well-being of the disappearing middle class in America. Of course, less affected are the members of Congress and their buddies on Wall Street. You know, the ones that put the politicians in office to get favorable decisions made on their behalf in Washington.

But if you happen to have been ignoring the folks Obama calls “peddlers of fiction” who have been warning us all of an impending economic crisis along the lines of the last financial collapse, you might want to pay attention now, because a disturbing series of events is in motion.

First of all, the Fed just issued a terrifying warning to the biggest bank in the country.

Finally, the Fed has admitted that we just can’t take another hit without incurring an epic disaster.

And by “admitted” I mean they’ve issued a chilling warning to JP Morgan Chase, the biggest bank in America.

The letter is addressed to Teflon-coated Jamie Dimon, the leader of the bank (who seems to have made a deal with the Devil to become completely immune to prosecution, no matter what he does.)

It is 19 pages and heavily redacted, but here are some excerpts that should send a chill down your spine. The emphasis is mine.

The Agencies also identified a deficiency in the 2015 Plan regarding the criteria for a rational and less-complex legal entity structure. In order to substantially mitigate the risk that JPMC ‘s material financial distress and failure would have systemic effects, JPMC should ensure that its legal entity structure promotes resolvability under the preferred resolution strategy across a range of failure scenarios. Flexibility—or “optionality”—within the resolution strategy helps mitigate risks that, if not overcome, could otherwise undermine successful execution of the strategy and, more broadly, pose serious adverse effects to the financial stability of the United States.

Then there’s this:

These divestiture options do not appear to provide sufficient optionality under different market conditions.

The divestiture options in the 2015 Plan also were not sufficiently actionable, as the 2015 Plan sections fore did not contain detailed, tailored, and complete separability analyses. For example, only one obstacle to divestiture to the [redacted] key vendor contracts was adequately analyzed; the analysis of the other key obstacles cited regulatory approvals, client communications [redacted]

This is also concerning:

JPMC does not have an appropriate model and process for estimating and maintaining sufficient liquidity at, or readily available to, material entities in resolution (RLAP model). This is notable given J?MC’s liquidity profile in its 2015 Plan, which relies on the firm’s ability to shift substantial amounts of liquidity around the organization during stress, as needed. As explained below, JPMC’s liquidity profile is vulnerable to adverse actions by third parties.

Even without a degree in finance, I know this is bad:

JPMC’s 2015 Plan relied on roughly  of parent liquidity support being injected into various material entities, including its U.S. broker-dealers, during the period immediately preceding JPMC’s bankruptcy filing. This includes reliance on funds in foreign entities that may be subject to defensive ringfencing during a time of financial stress.

Here’s the long and the short of it:

Every year, large banks must create a contingency plan that explains what they’ll do if they begin to go under. The biggest bank in the country has such a lackluster, half-baked plan that the Fed called them out on it for 19 pages and warns that their nonchalance could be responsible for the financial instability of the entire country.

PS: Since this isn’t my first rodeo, I downloaded the entire PDF. It’s funny  how things have a way of disappearing off the internet when the mainstream media wants to ignore them.  You can download it yourself too at this link:

Living-Will-Letter-Issued-to-JPMorgan-Chase

JPMorgan Chase is not alone.

But they’re not the only ones.

Bank of America and Wells Fargo also saw their contingency plans rejected. Zero Hedge reports:

Three of the five largest U.S. banks (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo) have now had their wind-down plans rejected by the Federal agency insuring bank deposits (FDIC) and the Federal agency (Federal Reserve) that secretly sluiced $13 trillion in rollover loans to the insolvent or teetering banks in the last epic crisis that continues to cripple the country’s economic growth prospects.

Are all three banks going down?

But that isn’t even the scariest part.

And just in case you think it’s just a normal day at the Fed…It isn’t just these warning letters that should make you pay attention. At the risk of sounding like I’m selling Ginsu knives, there’s more.

The Great Recession Blog posted a bullet list that should blow your mind when taken in conjunction with the news above. (Be sure to read the full article – it goes into a lot more detail.) It seems that there’s enough concern to spark a flurry of secret meetings among those in power.

  • The Federal Reserve Board of Governors just held an “expedited special meeting” on Monday in closed-door session.
  • The White House made an immediate announcement that the president was going to meet with Fed Chair Janet Yellen right after Monday’s special meeting and that Vice President Biden would be joining them.
  • The Federal Reserve very shortly posted an announcement of another expedited closed-door meeting for Tuesday for the specific purpose of “bank supervision.”
  • A G-20 meeting of finance ministers and central-bank heads starts in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, too, and continues through Wednesday.
  • Then on Thursday the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund meet in Washington.
  • The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta just revised US GDP growth for the first quarter to the precipice of recession at 0.1%.
  • US banks are widely expected this week to report their worst quarter financially since the start of the Great Recession.
  • The European Union’s new “bail-in” procedures for failing banks were employed for the first time with Austrian bank Heta Asset Resolution AG.
  • Italy’s minister of finance called an emergency meeting of Italian bankers to engage “last resort” measures for dealing with 360-billion euros of bad loans in banks that have only 50 billion in capital.

How does this affect you?

Maybe you think this won’t affect you. Maybe you don’t have an account with anyone affiliated with JP Morgan Chase, BofA, and Wells Fargo. Maybe you aren’t an investor. Maybe you don’t have real estate. Maybe you are absolutely certain, without a shadow of a doubt, that your job is secure. Perhaps you have money in the bank, or maybe not – maybe you keep it stuffed in your mattress.

The trouble is, the money you are working overtime to make, the security you feel that you have by saving it…it’s perceived value can be completely wiped out by a financial crisis that occurs on a national level. That’s because if a huge bank like JPMC fails, lots of othe companies fail with it. Then this stuff happens:

  • Prices will go up. We’ve seen an almost unprecedented increase in the price of food over the past couple of years, even as the quality of the food available plummets. This is due to massive droughts, early freezes, and basic cost-of-living increases.
  • Unemployment will go up.  Those without jobs now are equal to the number of unemployed during The Great Depression. As the economy plummets, that number will almost certainly exceed the previous highs as businesses scramble to keep their heads above water. They’ll cut stuff to try and keep afloat, and if that fails, the jobs will be lost anyway.
  • Rents will increase.  If you don’t own your home, prepare to pay higher rent as landlords try to cover their losses of income in other sectors. Foreclosures will be on the rise, which means there will be fewer homes available.
  • Bail-ins could dip into your savings.  Remember a few years ago when depositors in Cyprus could do nothing when the banks there helped themselves to their savings in order to “save” themselves? Do you really, truly, think it can’t happen here?

The bottom line is, income will remain the same, decrease, or even disappear entirely for many of us.  Meanwhile, the price of darn near everything will go up.  Expect to pay more for things like keeping your utilities on, feeding and clothing your family, keeping a roof over your heads. Aside from that, those dollars you are carefully saving? They are only providing you with the illusion of security.

Aside from that, those dollars you are carefully saving? They are only providing you with the illusion of security.

Here’s what you need to do

Here’s what you need to do immediately in the event of either a market crash or further news of a bank failure. (Of course, if you wait until a bank failure has been announced, you may have waited too long.)

  • Take your money out of the bank ASAP.  If you still keep your money in the bank, go there and remove as much as you can while leaving in enough to pay your bills. Although it wasn’t a market collapse in Greece recently, the banks did close and limit ATM withdrawals.  People went for quite some time without being able to access their money, but were able to have a sense of normalcy by transferring money online to pay bills or using their debit cards to make purchases.  Get your cash out. You don’t want to be at the mercy of the banks.
  • Stock up on supplies.  Make sure you are prepped. If you’re behind on your preparedness efforts and need to do this quickly, you can order buckets of emergency food just to have some on hand. (Learn how to build an emergency food supply using freeze dried food HERE) Hit the grocery store or wholesale club and stock up there, too, on  your way home. As mentioned above, if you can’t get your money out, you may be able to make online or debit card purchases.
  • Load up on fuel.  Fill up your gas tank and fill your extra cans also. Quite often, fuel prices skyrocket in the wake of a market crash.
  • Be prepared for the potential of civil unrest. If the banks put a limit on withdrawals (or close like they did in Greece) you can look for some panic to occur. If the stores dramatically increase prices or close..more panic. Be armed and be prepared to stay safely at home. (Although this article was written during the Ferguson race riots, civil unrest follows a similar pattern regardless of the cause.)
  • Be prepared for the possibility of being unable to pay your bills. If things really go downhill, the middle class and those who are the working poor will be the most strongly affected, as they have been in Greece during that country’s ongoing financial crisis.  This article talks about surviving if you are unable to pay all of your bills.

For the long term, focus on information

Hopefully there’s no need to empty out your bank accounts, stock up on last minute supplies, or lock-and-load for home protection. However, if this is an actual 1929/2008-style stock market crash, you need to take your preps to the next level. If you can’t buy your necessities, you’re going to have to produce them, something that is a complete turnaround for most folks.

Information is the key. It’s imperative that you learn everything you can so that you know what you need to add to your preps. As well, it’s essential to acquire the knowledge you need to fend for yourself. Take these two steps, if you haven’t already.

#1.  Bookmark these preparedness websites. (Free)

The internet is a wonderful place, and best of all, this knowledge can be found for FREE! The more you know about crisis situations, the more ready you will be to face them. Some sites are friendlier to beginners than others, so if you stumble upon a forum where people seem less than enthusiastic about helping people who are just starting out, don’t let it get you down. Move on and find a site that makes you feel comfortable. Following are some of my favorites, and the link will take you to a good starting point on these sites. In no particular order:

Following are some of my favorites, and the link will take you to a good starting point on these sites. (Actually, it’s wise to begin increasing your knowledge even if we get a reprieve.) In no particular order:

#2.  Build your library. (Small expense)

This is where some money could come into play. Most of the time, people in the preparedness world like to have hard copies of important information. This way, if the power goes out and you can’t access the internet or recharge your Kindle, you still have access to vital advice.

Some of these books are for just such an event, while others are guides to building your self-reliance skills.  Commit to picking up a good book each pay period until you have a library to reference during any type of scenario.

Be sure to check out used bookstores, libraries, and garage sales, too. Look for books that teach self-reliant skills like sewing, gardening, animal husbandry, carpentry, repair manuals, scratch cooking, and plant identification. You can often pick these up for pennies, and older books don’t rely on expensive new technology or tools for doing these tasks.

Have they finally kicked the can to the end of the road?

Things aren’t looking good. It makes me wonder if all of the quantitative easing and can-kicking has finally reached the point that they can’t push economic disaster back any further.

#Collapse Strategist: “We’re In The Terminal Phase… #Economic Pain Like We’ve Never Seen Before”

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global-detonation

At this point, despite major highs in U.S. stock markets and reassurances from no less than President of the United States himself that the economy is sound, one only need to look around to understand that we are on the cusp of what researcher and collapse strategist Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse Blog calls the “early chapters of a total meltdown.” In his latest interview with Future Money Trends Snyder notes that the fundamental economic problems we face can be seen across the globe. The United States, Europe, Asia, and South America are all crashing and no one will be immune to what comes next.

We’re in the terminal phase of the greatest debt bubble in all of human history… The crisis that happened last time around… it was just a warning signal of what would happen if we didn’t fix our problems… and of course we didn’t fix them.

It’s not sustainable… There’s going to be a permanent, massive adjustment and a loss of faith in the current system… as it unravels and implodes we’re going to see economic pain on a scale that is historic, like we’ve never seen before… when this thing finally blows it’s going to bring the existing system down.

Full Interview via Future Money Trends:


(Watch at Youtube)

While most Americans think that near-record breaking stock markets are a sign of recovery and revival in the U.S. economy, Snyder goes on to warn that what we’ve seen in Greece, Cyprus, and Argentina, and what’s happening right now in Venezuela, is a coming reality to Americans.

That could mean everything from bank holidays wherein governments authorize the seizure of account holders’ deposits, to a full-on collapse scenario like Venezuela where food, toilet paper and basic necessities become totally unavailable.

Michael Snyder explains that the one asset class to protect and preserve wealth in the midst of crisis is precious metals and well known billionaire investors have been rapidly acquiring everything they can their hands on in recent months. And as we’ve seen just this year, when panic is the order of the day capital shifts into gold and silver as a crisis hedge.

But that’s not all you can do to prepare for the next wave, says Snyder, and diversifying your approach to collapse-proofing your life will be critical because we simply don’t know exactly how events will play out over coming months and years:

There’re are different strategies that are required to get through a period of crisis, even if it’s just a recession, but especially if it escalates to a full-blown historic financial crisis. 

For example. if people have money in financial markets they may want to evaluate what their risk is… because if things start crashing are they going to be able to survive if their investments crash to a 40% or 50% decline… can you weather that? Can you survive that?

A lot of people are moving into gold and silver as a way to insulate themselves, to protect their wealth during a time of crisis.

Of course, not everyone’s in the markets. One thing I really recommend to people is to have an emergency fund in the case you lose your job or there’s a business reversal… you just look back at 2008 and all of a sudden there was a huge downturn and millions of people lost their jobs…

We’re already seeing corporate revenues fall… corporate profits fall… Job cut announcements by major firms in the United States were up 32% in the first quarter of 2016… We’re already starting to see it happen… people are going to lose their jobs. 

And because more than 60% of all Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck when people lose their jobs they don’t have anything to fall back on… they can’t pay the mortgage… they can’t pay the bills… then we start seeing people lose their homes…  foreclosures go up..

People go from living a very comfortable lifestyle to being on the street very rapidly. 

You’ve got to have that cushion… you’ve got to have that emergency fund.

But an emergency fund may not be enough, because when the global economy detonates it could bring serious monetary and financial problems with it. And that means supply chains for core essentials like food could dry up because of credit freezes like we saw in Greece. Or, your money will be worth so little because of hyperinflation that you simply won’t have enough of it to put food on the table. And that’s why Snyder advocates owning alternative hard assets and supplies:

In the longer-term… we do believe in storing up food and basic supplies… We don’t think we’re going to need them in the next week or the next month… or even in the short-term time frame… but in the mid- or long-term we believe those things are going to start to come into play…

We’re just in the early chapters… we’re just seeing the early shaking. 

As it all plays out we believe we’re going to see a total meltdown. 

So, for example, if some day you can go to the bank and can’t get money out of the ATM, what are you going to do?

That’s one of the reasons why we recommend not having your eggs in one basket. Spread your assets around to different banks… different types of investments, whether it’s precious metals or different types of hard assets.

Having your assets spread around in different places makes it harder, if there is an emergency or crisis, for you to be in a situation of hardship because you can’t get access to what you need. 

The whole system is built upon lies. And while the powers that be tout stability, what they’ve created is anything but.

And when the house of cards comes tumbling down you can be sure that the elite will be safely tucked away in their bunkers watching it all play out live on their satellite feeds.

They’ve already started preparing for the meltdown by diversifying into precious metals, buckets of food, personal defense armaments and other tangible assets that will be impossible to find during a crisis event.

For more interviews like this visit Future Money Trends. Follow the strategies of top investors like Eric Sprott and Doug Casey – Read this before you buy gold.

Michael Snyder is the founder of The Economic Collapse Blog. He is the author of The Beginning of the End. His latest book The Rapture Verdict has just been released.

 

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

#Survival Saturday: Income Tax Is Robbery, #Socialism Is Robbery…It’s ALL Robbery

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April 16, 2016

This week’s Survival Saturday news discusses robbery.

Merriam-Webster says:

robbery noun rob·bery

the unlawful taking away of personal property from a person by violence or by threat of violence that causes fear :  larceny from the person or immediate presence of another by violence or threat of violence and with intent to steal

Let’s relate that to the news.

First, there’s the fact that all of that money you’ve just been coerced to give to the government was illegally taken from you, and then there’s one of the most popular presidential candidates around, who’s so sweet and lovable that he’s like a Disney character. Except, he’s also a robber. We’ll talk about realities of socialism….even “democratic” socialism. (Spoiler.)

Survival Saturday is  a round-up of the week’s news and resources for folks who are interested in being prepared.

This Week in the News

Income Tax Is Actually  Illegal

With it being tax time and all, my renewed rage at the system had me reading quite a few articles on the topic this week. The best one I read was this piece that says income taxes are not even legal, yet we pay them anyway, lest our belongings be confiscated and we find ourselves behind bars. Former IRS Special Agent Joe Bannister discussed the fallacious taxation codes with CNBC.

“Essentially, its many pages are a work of legal fiction, operating under ‘color of law’ and used to oppress the people, and separate established wealth from everyone else.

Bannister argues that by the books, the incomes of most Americans are not subject to the tax code, but the use of intimidation and nebulous code language has prevented the vast majority from discovering the truth.”

Of course, this isn’t news to everyone. Back in 1913, Constitutional scholar Albert H. Walker said that the income tax was illegal but nobody listened. Last week, one of the blurbs in the Survival Saturday post discussed the fact that we spend more on taxes than we do any other expense. Just imagine if the income tax code was overturned and you could actually count your money as your money again.

Speaking of Your Money Being Taken by Force, Let’s Talk About Socialism…

A lot of Americans are “feeling the Bern” lately with unabashed Socialist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. It seems really warm and fuzzy to get all sorts of “free” stuff, like a college education, equal wages, and basically anything else a person might want or need. Unfortunately, it’s totalitarianism in disguise. (This will be the best 99 cents you ever spent to thoroughly understand the link between socialism, the Nazis, and total control. Seriously. You need to read it.)

Here’s what the Bern of socialism really feels like.

1.) Here’s the  best definition I’ve seen: If you read anything else today, read this post by Robert Gore. Here’s an excerpt with that clearly defines what he calls “the scourge.”

“Socialism is a political system whereby the state owns or controls the means of production for goods and services. It can be partial—government control of some industries, or total—government control of all industries. According to Marx, who advocated the total version, the goods and services would be produced by each according to his or her ability, and distributed according to each individual’s need: production severed from distribution. No particular acuity is necessary to see the fatal flaw. The “needy”—and those who garner political power by distributing goods and services to them—are all for this system, but what’s in it for the able? They have to be coerced to produce, and something has to be done with those who object or refuse to submit.”

2.) A lack of opportunities to better one’s self. Because really, what’s the point of hard work if you get the same thing either way? Read this blistering op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by an immigrant from a socialist country, who tells us how he really feels about Sander’s politics.(Hint: there’s a cool line in there about poison peddling.)

3.) The excruciating aftermath when it fails…again. Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And in Venezuela, they’ve repeated it.  For the past two years, I’ve been writing about the suffering of the Venezuelan people, who are out of basic necessities and food under the guidance of former bus driver, current president Nicholas Maduro. Their economy wasn’t able to withstand the warm fuzzy promises, and now it’s collapsing. In the latest installment of the Collapse of Venezuela Saga, electricity, despite strict rationing, is in very short supply. But don’t worry, only the regular people have to ration and/or do without. I guess their feeling the Bern of socialism even without Mr. Sanders.

And please, smack some sense into the next person who chirps “But it’s democratic socialism.” Socialism is socialism. Period. They will take your stuff and distribute it to people without stuff.  They’ll vote on the taking of your stuff but they’ll still take it.

Are you prepared for a disaster?

Do you have the supplies on hand to face a long-term disaster? Whether it’s a natural disaster, an economic collapse, civil unrest, an unexpected expense, or a personal interruption in income that keeps you from doing your regular grocery shopping, do you have what you need to keep your family nourished?

One way is to build yourself a stockpile of healthful food. Here, I outlined how we built our own pantry, even though we’re on a tight, single-mom budget. (There are lots of lists and recipes, too!) If you’re in a hurry, buckets of emergency food are the very fastest way to prepare for the unexpected. These are the products in my long-term storage pantry that provide me with peace of mind. (Try a sample pack and let me know what you think.)

This Week’s Non-Stop Earthquakes Could Be a Sign of an Even Worse Disaster

Over the past 3 days, Asia has been the site of at least 5 large earthquakes (above 5.9 in magnitude) and Japan is dealing with hourly aftershocks as they scramble to rescue people buried alive under the rubble.  This has led one seismologist to make a terrifying prediction which was published in an article in the UK Express. Roger Bilham of the University of Colorado believes that these may not be the main event, but a precursor to something worse.

“The current conditions might trigger at least four earthquakes greater than 8.0 in magnitude.

“And if they delay, the strain accumulated during the centuries provokes more catastrophic mega earthquakes.”

In other earthquake weirdness, one city in Japan is covered in a mysterious foam after the quake. Twitter users posted the following pictures.

TAKAFUMI on Twitter 天神が謎の泡、、

Photo Credit:Twitter

foamy streets

Photo Credit: Twitter

Fukuoka, the site of the unexplained foam, is 90km away from the epicenter of one of the quakes.

Would you know how to survive an earthquake? I actually learned some things from a movie last year with The Rock, proving that knowledge can be acquired in the darnedest places. However, the smart money is general prepping: be prepared to shelter in place with food and water, or if the situation is unstable, know when to bug out with your family.

Want more info for self-reliant lifestyles?

The Best Frugal Gardening Ideas on the Internet

The Self-Reliance Weekly Report links you to all the best articles relating to prepping, homesteading, DIY, and independence.

This week the topic is getting a garden started to grow your own food. We all know it’s cheaper to raise food in your backyard than it is to go to the grocery store. (And since I’ve got taxes on the brain this week, you get to avoid sales tax, too!) But what about getting your garden started? That can cost you an arm and a leg, and possibly a third-born child. Good news: It doesn’t have to be like that!

Check out my round-up of the best frugal gardening ideas on the internet!

Anything to add to Survival Saturday?

What’s going on in your part of the world? Do you have any news links you want to share? Now’s the time! Please post your links in the comments below. I’d love to get more local stories here so we can all have a better picture of the world!

Hillary #Clinton Linked to Company Being Sued over #Flint Water Crisis

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Claire Bernish
April 15, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) Adding to a mounting list of scandals under the family’s belt, the Clintons have now been tied to the Flint water crisis. As the Daily Caller reports, a top executive of the same agency facing multiple lawsuits for its role in poisoning the children of Flint also has ties to Hillary Clinton’s campaign and provides free PR for the Clinton Global Initiative.

Pete Wentz, Ron Brynaert explains in the Daily Caller, is the executive director of APCO Worldwide’s Chicago branch and also serves as spokesperson for Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam Inc. (LAN) — the engineering firm named in several lawsuits “alleging gross negligence, professional negligence and battery for alleged lead poisoning of 50 children in Flint over the last two years.”

Additionally, APCO Worldwide has contributed as much as $50,000 to and worked closely with the Clinton Foundation — itself the subject of criticism for alleged ties to Hillary’s campaign.

LAN, Brynaert says, is listed in at least nine of the rapidly-growing lawsuits over the Flint water crisis because the firm was “hired to oversee a refit of the city’s nearly century-old Water Treatment Plant when Flint separated from the Detroit Water and Sewage Department in April 2014.”

“LAN provided these specific services in a responsible and appropriate manner in accordance with industry standards,” Wentz reportedly stated at the beginning of February.

In an 116-page report issued in March, the task force examining the Flint water crisis slammed the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) as the “cause” of the crisis and, “[m]oreover, when confronted with evidence of its failures,” said it “responded publicly through formal communications with a degree of intransigence and belligerence that has no place in government.”

truth-cancer-ad

In addition to MDEQ, that report targeted emergency managers, who “made key decisions that contributed to the crisis, from the use of Flint River to delays in reconnecting to DWSD [the Detroit Water and Sewage Department] once water quality problems were encountered.”

Though it attempted to contact LAN for its cooperation in the investigation, the Detroit Free Press says the task force was unable to obtain an interview and lacked power for a subpoena — but had previously placed blame for the lead contamination on the city and MDEQ and rebuffed any intimations of its own involvement.

According to one source, Houston-based LAN, “which has Michigan offices in Flint and Lansing, has made more than $3.5 million on various city contract awards since preparing an analysis in 2011 for then-Mayor Dayne Walling about using the Flint River as a water source.

“[One potential class action] lawsuit alleges the company knew that river water needed anti-corrosion treatment chemicals, didn’t require them and didn’t evaluate water coming out of the tap before completing the switch to river water.”

Speaking on behalf of LAN, Wentz stated flatly: “We believe that this lawsuit has no merit and will vigorously defend our position in court.”

Both Wentz’ and APCO’s connections with LAN appear to be somewhat murky, as the former doesn’t list the latter as a client on its website, the Caller pointed out; and Wentz lists APCO, not LAN, as his employer on LinkedIn — despite his acting as LAN spokesman.

While the link between APCO, LAN, and Hillary Clinton might appear somewhat murky on surface examination, it’s worth noting it stands as yet another instance of Hillary Clinton’s hypocrisy.

“I was so angry. I was outraged and I know you must feel exactly the same,” Clinton said of the Flint contamination in early February, calling the contamination with lead and governmental culpability “immoral.”

She added, “Repairing trust is as important as repairing pipes.”

Perhaps Hillary Clinton should take her own advice.

This article (Hillary Clinton Linked to Company Being Sued over Flint Water Crisis) 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

Former #IRS Agent Claims: “Personal Income Tax is Actually Illegal”

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irs-taxman

It is tax day again.

Chances are, you’re done with the dirty business this year, or laying low in hopes that you aren’t audited or flat out persecuted. If not, the clock is quickly ticking.

But it is worth pointing out once again the many ways in which the federal tax scheme in the United States is illegal.

Moreover, the spending by the Federal government and the role of the Federal Reserve in issuing money create overlapping levels of evil that have driven the American people into mere serfs – albeit with cool toys and great TV reception.

Former IRS Special Agent Joe Bannister explains to CNBC what he found out about the reality of the tax code:

Essentially, its many pages are a work of legal fiction, operating under ‘color of law’ and used to oppress the people, and separate established wealth from everyone else.

Bannister argues that by the books, the incomes of most Americans are not subject to the tax code, but the use of intimidation and nebulous code language has prevented the vast majority from discovering the truth.

In this vintage clip, then-Congressman Ron Paul argues that the 16th Amendment wasn’t properly ratified, leaving the 1913 “law” dubious at best.

Nonetheless, the use of intimidation and the custom of “death and taxes” has left millions and millions of people guilty until proven innocent, often labeled as “tax cheats” who are targeted without due process and with police state vengeance… now, they are attaining the power to revoke your passport if you don’t pay what they say you owe!

Will the American people ever be free from the burden of illegal taxation?

The late Aaron Russo, who produced several classic Hollywood films, put it all out in his documentary “America: Freedom vs. Fascism.”

If you haven’t seen it, Russo digs into the questions behind the questions and exposes the naked fraud that is holding America hostage.

This is a must see documentary… and one to share with friends and family while they still have the nation’s ridiculous and obscene tax burden on their minds.

Make no mistake – simply knowing about this information will not protect you. As Russo has noted, the system is very much like a mob. If you don’t pay, they might hurt you, fine you, penalize you or even jail you. But none of that makes it right, fair or legal.

April 15th should be a reminder of how little freedom is left in the nation that so-often prides itself on being the leader of the free world – but the last thing Washington would ever do is let people be.

Read more:

“Income Tax Is Government Theft” and IRS Is a Lawless Thief

Americans Pay More In Taxes Each Year Than “Food, Clothing, and Housing Combined”

Peter Schiff: Abolish Taxes Completely – April 1, 2009

The IRS Can Nix Your Right to Travel: “They Could Revoke Your Passport on Your Honeymoon”

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

#TRUMP: “How Has the ‘System’ Been Working Out For You And your Family?” – Trump Blasts Establishment Elite In Mainstream Op-Ed

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trump-america-great2trump-america-great

Donald Trump appears to be taking the war to the establishment and he’s talking directly to the American people in a an op-ed published by The Wall Street Journal.

“Let me ask America a question,” Trumps begins. “How has the ‘system’ been working out for you and your family? No wonder voters demand change.”

Taking direct aim at Ted Cruz for bragging about his “voterless” victory in Colorado, Trump blasts the entrenched politicos, donors and the system as a whole:

In recent days, something all too predictable has happened: Politicians furiously defended the system. “These are the rules,” we were told over and over again. If the “rules” can be used to block Coloradans from voting on whether they want better trade deals, or stronger borders, or an end to special-interest vote-buying in Congress—well, that’s just the system and we should embrace it.

…

I, for one, am not interested in defending a system that for decades has served the interest of political parties at the expense of the people. Members of the club—the consultants, the pollsters, the politicians, the pundits and the special interests—grow rich and powerful while the American people grow poorer and more isolated.

…

The only antidote to decades of ruinous rule by a small handful of elites is a bold infusion of popular will. On every major issue affecting this country, the people are right and the governing elite are wrong. The elites are wrong on taxes, on the size of government, on trade, on immigration, on foreign policy.

Why should we trust the people who have made every wrong decision to substitute their will for America’s will in this presidential election?

Here, I part ways with Sen. Ted Cruz.

Mr. Cruz has toured the country bragging about his voterless victory in Colorado. For a man who styles himself as a warrior against the establishment (you wouldn’t know it from his list of donors and endorsers), you’d think he would be demanding a vote for Coloradans. Instead, Mr. Cruz is celebrating their disenfranchisement.

…

The American people can have no faith in such a system. It must be reformed.

Just as I have said that I will reform our unfair trade, immigration and economic policies that have also been rigged against Americans, so too will I work closely with the chairman of the Republican National Committee and top GOP officials to reform our election policies. Together, we will restore the faith—and the franchise—of the American people.

We must leave no doubt that voters, not donors, choose the nominee.

How have we gotten to the point where politicians defend a rigged delegate-selection process with more passion than they have ever defended America’s borders?

Perhaps it is because politicians care more about securing their private club than about securing their country.

…

The political insiders have had their way for a long time. Let 2016 be remembered as the year the American people finally got theirs.

You can read the full letter here: Let Me Ask America a Question

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Hiding money in #London

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Michaela Whitton
April 14th, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) United Kingdom — The City of London has long been known as a tax bolt-hole, facilitating money laundering, welcoming dirty money, and turning a blind eye to the investment of dodgy foreign capital. Long before the Panama Papers leak and its resulting embarrassment, stampedes to buy property in the British capital eliminated locals from the market. Last year’s reports highlighting the purchase of over £100bn worth of London property by foreign investors through shady offshore firms were met with little more than sighs and apathy.

In contrast, the leaked documents linked to Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca, have propelled ministers to the podium in a race to prove who will crack down on tax dodging the hardest — a bit like a small child who has been caught with a hand in its mother’s purse.

Leading a debate on tax avoidance and evasion, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said London is seen as the tax haven at the centre of the worldwide system, designed to help the super-rich avoid paying taxes. Urging ministers to go further than the allocated £10 million for a taskforce to investigate the leak, McDonell has called for an independent public inquiry into the Panama Papers.

Claiming shady operations like Mossack Fonseca are being aided by “supposedly reputable” accountancy companies in London, the Shadow Chancellor named four major London firms, accusing them of aiding and abetting the systemic abuse of the tax system — some on an industrial scale. In addition, he named two banks, RBS and HSBC, claiming they have been “particularly proficient” in directing funds through Mossack Fonseca shell companies.

“We should be clear about this: the City of London is now being viewed by many as a tax haven in the middle of a dense network of havens created for the super rich to avoid the taxes the rest of us must pay,” he added.

As the capital braces for another massive anti-austerity protest this week, which will also call for the resignation of David Cameron, Britain has been reprimanded by UNICEF for lagging behind poorer nations in reducing inequality. Meanwhile, the public scandal emerging from the Panama Leaks is due to continue for some time. In the world’s dirty money laundry, however, few will hold their breath waiting for the U.K. government to prove it is serious about tackling tax evasion.

truth-cancer-ad

This article (While You Pay Taxes, the Rich Hide Their Money In This City To Avoid Paying Theirs) 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.

 

From theantimedia.org Team

The #Pentagon’s Counter- #Zombie Martial Law Plan: ‘Concentrate Firepower to the Head’

by

Terminus---American-Zombie

What level of hell is in the process of descending upon this earth?

The twisted mind of strategic thinking must consider all contingencies, and prepare to defend against it.

And whether it seems like a joke or not, the Pentagon has a document preparing its forces for the remote possibility – or perhaps imminent cult film future pre-programmed through the media – of an all-out Zombie apocalypse.

Foreign Policy reports:

The U.S. military has always been the one place in government with a plan, forever in preparation mode and ready to yank a blueprint off the shelf for almost any contingency.

Incredibly, the Defense Department has a response if zombies attacked and the armed forces had to eradicate flesh-eating walkers in order to “preserve the sanctity of human life” among all the “non-zombie humans.”… [A Concept Operations document C]alled “CONOP 8888.”

“This plan fulfills fictional contingency planning guidance tasking for U.S. Strategic Command to develop a comprehensive [plan] to undertake military operations to preserve ‘non-zombie’ humans from the threats posed by a zombie horde,” CONOP 8888’s plan summary reads.

American TV viewers know all the twists and turns of the debasing fight against undead hoards of the human race, unconscious automatons intent on eating brains and over-running humanity.

But to spoil the fun before you’ve had it, keep in mind that this entire document, though “real,” holds a double meaning, alluding to the plan for maintaining dominance over the masses, who are largely unthinking and tend to follow propaganda prompts and orders to obey.

As its authors note in the document’s “disclaimer section,” “this plan was not actually designed as a joke.” Military planners assigned to the U.S. Strategic Command … looked for a creative way to devise a planning document to protect citizens in the event of an attack of any kind.The officers used zombies as their muse.

It is essentially a generic blueprint for occupying any major episode of civil unrest, economic collapse or major natural disaster. So what is really coming that the Pentagon isn’t telling us about?

If it seems to weird to be true, just see the Counter-Zombie Dominance PDF via Scribd for yourself.

Screen shot 2016-04-14 at 2.49.02 PM

Specifically, the document discusses how the use of head shots and martial law to restore civil order would be utilized:

“Establish and maintain a vigilant defensive condition aimed at protecting humankind from zombies. If necessary, conduct operations that will, if directed, eradicate zombie threats to human safety.”

“The only assumed way to effectively cause casualties to the zombie ranks by tactical force is the concentration of all firepower to the head, specifically the brain.”

“Zombies are horribly dangerous to all human life and zombie infections have the potential to seriously undermine national security and economic activities that sustain our way of life.”

“Given the rapidity at which zombie outbreaks spread, decisive, overwhelming, and possibly unilateral military force may be required to negate the zombie threat.”

“Given the likelihood of an all out threat to ‘human survival’, it is likely that this plan will be executed with a declaration of martial law with CONUS and U.S. territories.

The report also includes several nods to become personally prepared for all contingencies – including use of natural resources, and a reinforcement in the home or shelter:

“Rain will be vitally important to human survival. If civil water supplies are cut off, humans will have to rely on other means to obtain water… it will be difficult to determine if ground water is a vector for zombie infection.”

“Humans who do not shelter-in-place within a sturdy structure that protects them from the direct effects of air currents that could carry pathogens or toxins will be at increased risk of contamination, death and injury.”

Many preppers are expected to survive the zombie apocalypse, and define the character of what is left of humanity.

Will you be among them?

Read more:

The Walking Dead: 7 Mistakes That Would Get Somebody Killed in a Real Zombie Apocalypse

How to Prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse

What Do You Prep For: The Zombie Apocalypse: “Assume The Just In Time Infrastructure That Supplies Our Society Breaks Down”

Zombie Entertainment: A Lesson in Cognitive Dissonance and the Red Pill

Counter-Zombie Dominance PDF via Scribd

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Stunning Map: #Oil Supply Glut Leads To Massive Tanker Traffic Jam: “Would Stretch For 25 Miles”

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While oil prices have jumped about 50% in recent weeks, there appears to be no real reason for the move other than pure speculation and billion-dollar market cash infusions from unknown plunge protection teams.

But as the mainstream media continues to tout non-existent reduction agreements between oil producing nations, the following evidence suggests that the world remains awash in oil, so much so that there is no space to store it… anywhere on earth.

The following report from Zero Hedge explains just how much oil is currently sitting in limbo while suppliers try to figure out what to do with it:

Last week we revealed what we thought was a “shocking photo” of nearly 30 oil tankers caught in a traffic jam off the Iraqi coast, an indication of just how much excess oil is currently parked offshore.

oil-traffic-jam1

But the photo above, meant to do DB’s thesis justice, was nothing in comparisons to what Reuters would reveal today.

Because as ports struggle to cope with a global oil glut, huge queues of supertankers have formed in some of the world’s busiest sea lanes, where some 200 million barrels of crude lies waiting to be loaded or delivered, Reuters reports today.

The vessels, filled with oil worth around $7.5 billion at current market prices, would stretch for almost 40 km (25 miles) if formed up in one straight line.

Something not quite so theoretical, and yet almost identical taking place right now, is shown in the photo below, which shows VLCC supertankers traveling between India and Southeast Asia, courtesy of Reuters.

oil-traffic-jam2

And while the market is for now clearly ignoring the unprecedented accumulation of oil in offshore storage, a bearish indicator of just how much oil will hit markets if and when prices continue rising or when collapsing contango makes it no longer economic to hold for many it is an all too real daily existence.

…

The unprecedented number of ships at sea filled with cargo and just waiting for the signal to offload is also causing congestion between the main producer and consumer hubs.

Almost all supertankers heading to Asia pass by Singapore or adjacent facilities in southern Malaysia, the world’s fuel station for tankers and also a global refinery and ship maintenance hub.

Shipping data shows that some 50 supertankers are currently anchored in or close to Singaporean waters for refueling, maintenance or waiting to deliver crude to refineries or be used as floating storage.

This can be seen in the following Reuters photo of oil tankers lining up on the eastern coast of Singapore.

oil-traffic-jam3

While we struggle to figure out why the price of oil has sky rocketed, one can’t help but think there must be some level of manipulation involved.

In a separate report Zero Hedge revealed that the Federal Reserve met with banks who are holding tons of energy related toxic assets on their books and basically told them to hide the losses for as long as they can. Wells Fargo, in particular, reported today that they are on the hook for some $32 billion in exposure to junk rated oil and gas companies.

The reports confirm what resource strategist Marin Katusa said would happen just last month when he warned that banks and energy companies would first extend their debt as far out as possible, and then simply pretend it didn’t exist. The consequence of the manipulated numbers and continued supply glut, according to Katusa, means that oil will stay lower for longer:

Why?

Because what banker in their right mind wants to get dirty and actually operate an oil field?

So the debt will be amended, extended and then they’ll pretend. 

… Because you can’t just shut down an oil field. You have to reclaim those wells, which means you have to shut them down and environmentally reclaim them… and it costs more to do that today than what the actual value is.

The bankers know that.

… With innovation, in the Western world, costs will decrease and the bankers have no choice but to amend, extend and pretend the debt.

So they’re going to go lower for longer.

The Russian energy minister said this week that he is confident oil prices will be at $65 by 2017.

Yet, we remain skeptical until the massive supply glut is cleared out.

While we’ll stop short of attempting to forecast what happens next with oil prices, the evidence suggests that something is fundamentally wrong in the pricing mechanism for global oil prices.

If oil were to drop back to the January lows of around $26 per barrel, then all of those defaults in the energy industry may very quickly be realized.

And that has the potential to crash equities markets as a whole, just as we saw during the first few weeks of 2016.

As we noted earlier this year, such a crash in oil prices, or even continued low prices at current levels, could cause the most destructive economic situation since the Great Depression:

For the first time in 18 years, oil exporters are pulling liquidity out of world markets rather than putting money in. The world is now fast approaching a world reserve currency shift. If we see 8 to 12 months at these oil prices; U.S. shale industry will be wiped out. The effect on junk bonds will cascade to the rest of the stock market and U.S. economy.

…and this time there will be nothing left to catch the falling knife before it hits the American economy right in the heart. Not the FED nor the U.S. government can stop what’s coming. Liquidity will freeze up, our credit will be downgraded, the stock market will start to collapse, and then we can expect the FED to come in and hyper-inflate the dollar. This will cause the world to finish abandoning the world reserve currency in the last rungs of trade. This will be the end of the petrodollar.

We know the global economic system and the U.S. economy in particular is under extreme stress.

We also know that it simply can’t last. That’s simple arithmetic.

The only question at this point is: what will be the catalyst that sets the whole thing aflame?

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

This 72 Year Old Survived 9 Days in #Arizona Wilderness: “Lost, With No Gas and No Cell Reception”

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Picture 21

Image: Arizona Department of Public Safety.

Running out of gas. Lost on a remote back road. No cellphone signal, unreliable GPS. Maybe an accident.

It could happen to anyone, but not everyone would handle this desperate situation as well as this 72 year old woman managed to do.

Indeed, her resourcefulness and determination in keeping herself alive, along with her dog, after being “lost, with no gas and no cellphone reception” for 9 days in the remote Arizona wilderness is down right incredible.

via AZ Central:

A 72-year-old woman and her dog survived in the Gila County wilderness for nine days before being rescued by the Arizona Department of Public Safety on Saturday.

Ann Rodgers and her dog survived by drinking creek water and eating berries and plants, according to reports by law-enforcement officials. A weeklong multiagency search ended with a helicopter crew rounding a bend in a canyon to find her waving at them from below.

Rodgers had done her best to guide searchers: She had spelled out “HELP” in sticks and rocks on a canyon floor, hoping to gain attention.

According to the report, Ann Rodgers was running low and got lost while exiting for a fuel station, and then got stranded for more than a week in the vast national forest area between Phoenix and Show Low, Arizona.

The Gila County Sheriff’s Office released this statement:

On April 3, 2016, at approximately 8:00 p.m., the Gila County Sheriff’s Office received a call from the White Mountain Apache Rangers to assist with a missing person. The Gila County Sheriff’s Office, Gila County Search and Rescue, Tonto Rim Search and Rescue, along with the Arizona Department of Public Safety Helicopter responded to assist the White Mountain officials in attempts to locate the victim.

On April 9, 2016, at approximately 5:45 p.m. Ann Charon Rodgers, 72 years old, was located in the Canyon Creek Area. The Arizona Department of Public Safety Helicopter was able to get assistance to her and transport her to a local Hospital to be evaluated.

Picture 23

Image: Gila County Sheriff’s Office

Though the search rescue team worked diligently to find her, it took them a week, and everyday in the harsh wilderness made the challenge for Rodgers that much more difficult.

She found water, and made fire for warm and to attract attention from search crews. She left signs, like the word “Help” spelled out in sticks; she attempted, in vain, to find a ranch she saw, and she attempted to find a spot with a working cell phone signal.

But most importantly, she continued on, in spite of these setbacks.

How did she do it? She had taken a survival training course, and had cultivated skills. As the AP reported:

An Arizona woman lost in the wilderness for nine days says she became desperate but stayed alive because of her survival skills.

[S]he slept in her car the first night and wore several layers of clothing to keep warm […]

She says she survived on plants, pond water and at one point, a turtle. Rodgers says she took a survival course and studied techniques for years.

There a lots of things that could have improved her condition if those supplies and tools had been with her…

But this wasn’t just theoretical, it was real world survival, making do with the environment around you when there is no one else to turn to.

And this woman made it; hopefully you can, too, if and when the situation arises.

Of course, it also offers us some lessons for being prepared for anything.

Here are some links to develop ideas about what to focus on next… and what it might take to survive in a wilderness scenario alone for an extended period:

7 Tips to Keep You Alive and Found in the Wilderness

Survival Skills: How to Find Water In the Wild

The Prepper’s Blueprint: Step-by-Step Guide to Survive Any Disaster

The Number One Knife Skill for Wilderness Survival and Self-Reliance

Teaching Kids How to Survive in the Forest

Wilderness Survival: Preventative Measures and Off Grid Treatment for Deadly Bugs

The One Thing You Need To Survive: “Everything Else Is Just Talking and Wishful Thinking”

Are You Prepared to Survive in the Wilderness Alone? “Natural Shelter, Blend In”

12 Bad Strategies That Will Get Preppers Killed

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Dirt Cheap: The Best Frugal #Gardening Ideas on the Internet

by

April 13, 2016

With the price of healthful groceries going no place but up, lots of thrifty folks are starting a garden to save money on their bills this year. But what about the money to start a garden? It can be a very expensive undertaking, especially if you’ve never gardened before in your particular location.

I’ve been researching ways to start my own garden as inexpensively as possible and thought, “HEY!!! I know some other folks who would absolutely love frugal gardening ideas!” So…here they are.

Step One: What Kind of Garden Are You Going to Grow?

Of course, the very first thing to decide is what type of garden will work best for your situation. This will depend a lot on your soil, your climate, your skill set, and what you have easy and inexpensive access to. Following are some articles and books that will help you make your decision.

Pallet Gardens: Simple, Easy, Free

Straw Bale Gardens Complete

How to Build a Recycled Greenhouse

Create an Instant Garden with Sheet Mulching

Lasagna Gardening: A New Layering System for Bountiful Gardens: No Digging, No Tilling, No Weeding, No Kidding!

DIY Metal Raised Beds

DIY Super Easy Raised Garden Bed for Under $30

How to Build a Raised Garden Bed for $12

For those who aren’t build-y: Big Bag Fabric Raised Beds (I have used these with great success for veggies with shallow roots and as a bonus, you can use them on concrete if you’re gardening on a patio.)

Using Pallets to Make Free Raised Garden Beds

Square Foot Gardening: The Revolutionary Way to Grow More in Less Space

15 Fruits and Veggies You Can Grow in a Bucket Garden

PVC Drip Irrigation System for Your Garden

How to Save BIG on Lumber Supplies for Your Square Foot Garden

Step Two: Plan Your Garden

Now that you have figured out how you’ll grow your food, you need to figure out what to grow. A lot of that depends on your goals. Are you just hoping for salad this summer? Or are you planning to grow an entire year’s worth of food for your family? These links will help you make some decisions!

FREE Garden Planning Printables

How Much to Plant for a Year’s Worth of Food

Granny Miller’s Garden Planner for Home Preservation

An Inspiring 5000 Square Foot Garden Plan

Last Frost Date Seed Planting Worksheet

Step Three: Start Your Seedlings

While it’s easy and less hassle to buy your seedlings already started, it costs a whole lot more. One plant can be the equivalent of an entire package of seeds!  Starting your own seedlings is not that difficult and you don’t need an indoor growing operation that marijuana drug lords would envy.

Seed Starting 101

Frugal Seed Starting Station

DIY Seed Starting Mix

10 Seed Starting Hacks

20 Frugal Repurposed Seed Starting Containers

How to Make Newspaper Seed Starting Pots

Another Way to Make Seed Starting Pots from Newspaper

Chicken Manure Tea for Seedlings

Why Your Seeds Aren’t Germinating

Step Four: Amend, Create, or Prepare Your Soil

No matter how sturdy your seedlings or how efficient your beds, your garden is only as good as your soil. These tips will help you, whether you’re amending what exists, creating soil, or preparing your soil to recieve seedlings.

Know Where You’re Starting Out: Test Your Soil

How to Make Your Own Garden Soil and Compost

Create an Instant Garden with Sheet Mulching

10 Tips to Improve Your Soil

Using Eggshells in the Garden

Using Coffee Grounds in the Garden

Build a Compost Bin from Pallets

Is Your Soil Getting Enough Calories?

Bonus: Pest and Weed Control

You don’t have to break the bank to keep weeds and pests at bay.  Many of the things you need are things you’d normally throw in the trash. Other DIYs are chemical-free and thrifty to make.

Natural Pest Control in the Garden

5 Ways to Naturally Control Weeds

Natural Flea Beetle Control

The Organic Gardener’s Handbook of Pest and Disease Control

Repel Insects Naturally with This All-Purpose Garden Spray

Using Banana Peels in the Garden to Repel Pests

Bonus Bonus: Miscellaneous Frugal Gardening Awesomeness

These resources didn’t fit into any of the above categories but I found something useful for my frugal gardening efforts in every single one. So, I figured you guys would like them too!

10 Things That Can Be Recycled for the Garden

Cheap and Easy Gardening Tips

The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible

The Top 10 Plants for Companion Gardening

Vegetable Gardening Basics

DIY Garden Hose Repair

7 Budget-Friendly Garden Tips

Build a Simple Cucumber Trellis

21 Gardening Hacks

Frugal and Free Landscaping and Garden Ideas

25 Cheap Gardening Tricks for Self-Reliance

9 Gardening Supplies You Can Get for Free

How to Start a Garden on a Budget

70+ Frugal Garden DIYs

80+ Items You Can Compost

Bonus Bonus BONUS: A Peek at My Personal Gardening Library

These are the books I have on my own bookshelf in the gardening/homesteading area. I’ve included links so you can find them on Amazon. All links are to the newest editions, so the books may not look the same as the ones you see on my shelf.

Gardening Books

Lasagna Gardening: A New Layering System for Bountiful Gardens: No Digging, No Tilling, No Weeding, No Kidding!

The Backyard Homestead

Straw Bale Gardens Complete

The Woodland Homestead

Urban Farming

Western Garden Book

The Encyclopedia of Country Living

Building a Shed

Organic Gardening (There are only a few used copies of this one on Amazon)

The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible

Craft Wisdom and Know-How

The Taylor Guides

Not shown because I let someone borrow them or read the e-version:

Garden Like a Ninja

What are you waiting for?

If you are into the preparedness lifestyle, I’ve mentioned again and again what a terrible idea it is to wait until after a disaster to begin learning to garden. I’ve had a couple of bad years in a row, and I’m determined to make this one better. I have that luxury now, because groceries are plentiful, albeit pricey, at my local store.

Clearly, budget isn’t an issue! There are so many things you can do on a dime that there’s absolutely no reason for you to delay starting a garden for self-reliance.

Do you have any frugal garden tips you’d like to share? Your comments could be included in a future round-up! Post them in the section below! :)

Hilarious Video: Brothers Convince Drugged Little Sister Of #Zombie Apocalypse

by

fake-zombies-1

In what may be the funniest video you see today, two brothers and their mother played a pretty hilarious practical joke on their little sister.

The sister had her wisdom teeth pulled and after the surgery she was a bit out of it.

Not letting a good opportunity go to waste, the brothers conspired to convince their sister that a viral infection was spreading across the city, complete with a fake emergency message from the CDC.

Once convinced that it was happening, the sister was asked to make some split second, life-saving decisions that included deciding between taking the dog or the cat, whether they needed Funfetti or chocolate, and if Mexico was the best place to bug out.

Watch:

Also See:

The Prepper’s Blueprint: How To Prepare For A REAL Zombie Apocalypse

Top Tier Gear USA: This Will Protect You From A Bio-Weapon Attack (As well as Chemical, Nuclear or Radiological WMD)

Evac Strategy: How To Create a Coordinated Bug Out Plan

The Prepper’s Conundrum: To Bug in or Bug Out?

5 Awesome Backpacks That You’ll Want To Bug Out With

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

#Whistleblower Says #CIA Behind #PanamaPapers Leak

by

 

Carey Wedler
April 12, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) A former Swiss banker-turned-whistleblower has accused the CIA of playing a key role the Panama Papers leak, which implicated numerous foreign leaders, companies, organizations and individuals in offshore tax evasion, among other offenses. Bradley Birkenfeld, a former American banker for Swiss firm UBS, told CNBC  “the CIA I’m sure is behind this, in my opinion,” in an interview conducted Tuesday from Munich.

Birkenfeld originally blew the whistle on American tax evaders using Swiss bank accounts to divert their funds away from the reach of U.S. authorities. He served two-and-a-half years for his involvement and was released from prison in 2012. Pursuant to whistleblower policy, Birkenfeld was awarded $104 million of the $780 million settlement UBS was forced to pay as a result of his cooperation with authorities. Since his release from prison in 2012, he has said he wants “to force the government to explain why it was so aggressive in prosecuting him, but let nearly everyone else involved in the scam get off with light penalties or none at all.”

Focusing on the CIA on Tuesday, Birkenfeld was careful to note his comments were his “opinion,” but nonetheless offered strong observations on the scope of the data leak, which is the biggest in history.

“The very fact that we see all these names surface that are the direct quote-unquote enemies of the United States, Russia, China, Pakistan, Argentina and we don’t see one U.S. name. Why is that?” Birkenfeld said. “Quite frankly, my feeling is that this is certainly an intelligence agency operation.”

Asked why a U.S. spy agency would release information that damages U.S. allies, like David Cameron, Birkenfeld said he was likely “collateral damage” in the purported overarching scheme to smear American adversaries.

He suggested the CIA had a calculated role in the way the leak was presented to the public:

truth-cancer-ad

“If you’ve got NSA and CIA spying on foreign governments they can certainly get into a law firm like this,” Birkenfeld said. “But they selectively bring the information to the public domain that doesn’t hurt the U.S. in any shape or form. That’s wrong. And there’s something seriously sinister here behind this.”

Birkenfeld’s comments seem even more perceptive considering German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported Tuesday that “secret agents and their informants have made wide use of [Mossack Fonseca’s] services,”as translated by Raw Story. Sueddeutsche Zeitung originally received the leaked data from an anonymous whistleblower before handing it over to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

“Agents have opened shell companies to conceal their activities… Among them are close intermediaries of the CIA,” the German publication noted. Other individuals reportedly mentioned in the leaks included players in the infamous 1980s Iran-Contra scandal, in which the CIA was involved. The Iran-Contra scheme involved the U.S. selling weapons to Iran in exchange for the release of American hostages, then using the profits to fund anti-communist rebels in Nicaragua.

Though the CIA was not explicitly named in Sueddeutsche Zeitung’s report, their “intermediaries” were. Regardless, these revelations taken alongside Birkenfeld’s suspicions can mean one of two things: either Birkenfeld is wrong, or the CIA actually is involved with the Panama Papers and considered reports on their “intermediaries” to be “collateral damage,” as Birkenfeld suggested of Cameron.

Regardless, the Panama Papers leak has faced scrutiny beyond Birkenfeld’s. Wikileaks has called on the ICIJ to make all data from the 11,500 leaked pages available to the public.

Wikileaks also said, “If you censor more than 99% of the documents you are engaged in 1% journalism by definition.”

Gerard Ryle, Director of the ICIJ, has said, “We’re not WikiLeaks. We’re trying to show that journalism can be done responsibly,” and the ICIJ has noted it will not release all of the data. However, it will continue to release parts of the leak in the coming months.

Wikileaks also took to Twitter to accuse the ICIJ of being a “Washington DC based Ford, Soros funded soft-power tax-dodge” that “has a WikiLeaks problem.”

Further, the publishing organization accused ICIJ and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, with whom ICIJ shared the data, of launching an attack against Russian president Vladimir Putin:

“Putin attack was produced by OCCRP which targets Russia & former USSR and was funded by USAID & Soros,” Wikileaks tweeted. Another Twitter post later clarified the Panama Papers were not an “attack” against Putin, but that “DC organization [ICIJ] & USAID money tilt coverage.” USAID, the U.S. Agency for International Development, has been previously accused of corruption. Billionaire George Soros has been accused of influencing narratives in the mainstream media.

Regardless of who was behind the leak — and who may or may not be clandestinely pulling the strings on the flow of information — the CIA has faced similar accusations of media manipulation before. Otto Ulfkotte, the former editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine, a large German publication, said he was bribed by the CIA to write pro-American stories.

“It is not right what I have done in the past. To manipulate people and make propaganda,” he said in 2014. “I was bribed by billionaires, I was bribed by the Americans not to report exactly the truth.” Explaining how this relationship began, he said:

“Germany is still kind of a colony of the United States… And being a colony it is very easy to approach young journalists from transatlantic organizations.”

Noting that “all journalists from really respected and recommended big German newspapers” tend to be members of such transatlantic organizations, he said:

“They invite you [to see] the U.S. They pay for that, they pay all your expenses and everything, so you are bribed, you get more and more corrupt, because they make you good contacts. You won’t know that those good contacts are, let’s say, ‘non-official’ covers or officially people working for Central Intelligence Agency or other American intelligence agencies… so you make friends, you think you are friends, and you cooperate with them. They ask you, ‘Well, could you do me this favor? Could you do me that favor?’ And so your brain is more and more brainwashed.”

He said many reporters in countries around the world “play the [role of] respected journalists but if you look behind them you’ll find they are puppets on the string of the CIA.”

Though some may discount Ulfkotte’s account because it was not corroborated by a third party — and the interview aired on Russia Today, Russia’s state-funded news agency — the CIA has been known to work with other newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, to manipulate news stories in their favor.

Regardless of whether or not Birkenfeld is correct in his assessment of the CIA’s role in the leaks, his statements on CNBC provide, at the very least, cause for continued skepticism among the many interests and motivations driving the ongoing leak.

This article (Whistleblower Says CIA Behind Panama Papers Leak) 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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