Nobody Knows What This Secret #Spacecraft Is Doing: “A Source of Anxiety For Weaponization of Space”

May 23, 2016 by mac slavo

One fourth the size of the space shuttle, this secretive unmanned vehicle is capable of launching into space, and returning into orbit for a landing.

Created by Boeing, it is one of the U.S. military’s most talked about secret vehicles and has been orbiting the planet for a full year now.

But no one officially knows just what the X-37B is being used for… it’s mission is classified.

As the Daily Mirror writes:

Speculation about the true purpose of its mission has lit up the internet.

Several articles have been published in the Russian press suggesting it is actually part of a space warfare mission designed to allow America to destroy satellites.

Meanwhile, America has remained tight-lipped about what the space plane is doing.

NASA claims that the spacecraft is carrying ‘100 types of materials’ to test their response to the ‘harsh conditions of space,’ but several scientists have questioned the legitimacy and necessity of using this classified vehicle for a relatively simple test.

Instead, there is every appearance that this purpose is more like a cover story:

“Describing some of the activities on this X-37B flight may be meant to lessen its mysterious nature,” said [Laura Grego, senior scientist at the Global Security Program at the the Union of Concerned Scientists]

“So it still seems to be a source of anxiety for some of those concerned about the increasing weaponization of space.” (Daily Mirror).

As PC Magazine notes, there is every sense that the X-37B represents a new level of weaponization of space:

“The revelation that the Air Force has a space plane caused some concern among foreign governments, with some questioning whether the U.S. has deployed a space-trotting spy vehicle or weapons platform for taking down satellites.”

Though the Air Force denies it, there is a great deal of speculation that the vehicle is capable of covert maneuvers and stealth tactics that conventional weaponry can’t do.

It is truly a Brave New World.

The weaponization of space may someday soon unveil a whole new era of global conflict.

What the Hell Was That? Space Station Feed Catches Mysterious Object Hovering Over Earth

Watch: This Is Why Russia Can’t Attack America: New Weapon Has “Near-Instantaneous Lethality”

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

#CIA ‘Accidentally’ Destroyed 6,700 Page #Torture Report? #Snowden Calls Bullshit

May 22, 2016 by carey wedler

(ANTIMEDIA) The world’s most famous whistleblower, Edward Snowden, took Twitter by storm when he created an account last year. Since, he has criticized everyone from the FBI to Google, so his latest post on the CIA should come as no surprise.

Commenting on revelations the CIA “inadvertently” destroyed a copy of the 6,700-page torture report, Snowden questioned the agency’s official story.

“I worked @CIA. I wrote the Emergency Destruction Plan for Geneva. When CIA destroys something, it’s never a mistake,” he tweeted Wednesday, openly challenging the CIA’s claim. He also shared an article detailing the news.

Snowden previously worked for the CIA and as an NSA contractor before leaking documents revealing the U.S. government’s extensive mass surveillance programs and subsequently fleeing the country. He has been an outspoken voice against government overreach and privacy issues ever since.

On Monday, Yahoo News reported on the CIA’s apparent fumble that inspired Snowden’s Wednesday tweet:

“The CIA inspector general’s office — the spy agency’s internal watchdog — has acknowledged it ‘mistakenly’ destroyed its only copy of a mammoth Senate torture report at the same time lawyers for the Justice Department were assuring a federal judge that copies of the document were being preserved.”

The Senate Intelligence Committee was reportedly informed of the ‘mistake’ last summer, but it was never disclosed to the public, nor to the federal judge presiding over a Freedom of Information Act case seeking access to the lengthy document.

Douglas Cox, a professor at the City University of New York School of Law, who specializes in “tracking the preservation of federal records,” commented on the CIA’s self-described mistake. “It’s breathtaking that this could have happened, especially in the inspector general’s office — they’re the ones that are supposed to be providing accountability within the agency itself,” he said. “It makes you wonder what was going on over there.”

The clandestine organization came under fire for its use of torture after 9/11 (and before, though it’s lesser-known), as exposed by a Senate investigation in December 2014. Following embarrassing reports of everything from sexual assault and forced rectal feeding to beatings, sleep deprivation, and other degrading practices, the CIA has since tried to clean up its image. Amid presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s calls to implement waterboarding and more torture, in general, CIA Director John Brennan disavowed the agency’s infamous practice. “I will not agree to have any CIA officer carry out waterboarding again,” he said in April.

But the CIA has a track record of deception, and has had at least one issue with destroyed documents before — that time concerning records on the agency’s coup in Iran in 1953.

The 2014 Senate report “relied on the CIA’s own records to document a pattern of an agency consistently understating the brutality of the techniques used on detainees and overstating the value of the information they produced,” the Associated Press reported in 2014.

“This is a tremendous amount of CIA misrepresentation. It is difficult to read these pages and wonder whether a system of accountability can work,” Mother Jones observed, in a thorough article examining the many ways the CIA deceived lawmakers and multiple federal agencies about its torture program.

As Democratic Senator Mark Udall flatly said, “The CIA lied.”

No doubt, according to Snowden, the CIA continues to lie — and his tweet highlights growing mistrust of establishment narratives as Americans increasingly lose faith in government and other institutions.

Read Snowden’s recent article on political resistance here.

This article (CIA ‘Accidentally’ Destroyed 6,700 Page Torture Report? Snowden Calls Bullshit) 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.

From theantimedia.org Team

What Hillary #Clinton Has in Common With #Communist #China

May 21, 2016 by antimedia

(ANTIMEDIA) What do Hillary Clinton and the communist government of China have in common? Aside from their shared support for subverting freedom, lack of respect for human rights, and support of invasive surveillance, they both possess armies of trolls who manipulate online narratives.

According to a new report from researchers at Harvard’s Department of Government, the Chinese government employs millions of people to make posts praising government on their behalf. The internet mercenaries are deemed, collectively, “The 50 Cent Party,” because of rumors they are paid per post (the report concluded they do not appeared to be paid and most are government employees to begin with). They are believed to make 488 million posts per year.

After a blogger leaked hacked official email archives, the long-suspected program was confirmed to be real. Those leaks “reported activities of Internet commentators, including numerous 50c posts from workers claiming credit for completing their assignments, and many other communications.” The posts were often “cheerleading” for government, sometimes to “distract the public, although this activity can be also be used to distract from other events, general negativity, specific grievances, etc.” Posts that reflected positively on government made up the majority of so-called 50 centers’ activity, and the researchers theorized it “is a strategy designed to actively distract and redirect public attention from ongoing criticism, other grievances, or collective action.”

Perhaps such behavior is to be expected of an overarching communist regime, but Hillary Clinton’s internet army made headlines before China’s. As Anti-Media reported last month, the Clinton campaign has invested $1 million to fund an army of internet crusaders to challenge negative conversations about her online. That army, called “Barrier Breakers” and is a division of her organization, Correct the Record, which describes itself as “a strategic research and rapid response team designed to defend Hillary Clinton from baseless attacks.”

According to Correct the Record’s website, Barrier Breakers is intended to “serve as a resource for supporters looking for positive content and push-back to share with their online progressive communities, as well as thanking prominent supporters and committed superdelegates on social media.” (By “committed superdelegates,” perhaps they mean “paid lobbyists.”)

The project is extensive, “including the more than tripling of its digital operation to engage in online messaging both for Secretary Clinton and to push back against attackers on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and Instagram.”

It appears 50 centers and Barrier Breakers are performing the same function: creating potentially artificial perceptions that the Chinese government and Hillary Clinton, respectively, enjoy enthusiastic support (it’s likely some members of both the Chinese and Clinton social media teams do genuinely believe the things they post). But there are differences.

For one, the Chinese government has attempted to keep its operations secret. In contrast, the Clinton campaign has made its intentions public, seizing the opportunity to couch their attempts to control the conversation in proactive language that conflates itself with combating online harassment. “The task force currently combats online political harassment, having already addressed more than 5,000 individuals who have personally attacked Secretary Clinton on Twitter,” they boast. They do not disclose whether task force members’ individual identities are public or private.

Correct the Record claims Hillary supporters are “oftentimes are discouraged from engaging online and are ‘often afraid to voice their thoughts’ because of the fear of online harassment,” using this, evidently, as justification for paying people to post positive sentiments about the candidate, who currently suffers a likeability problem as severe as reviled presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump.

The biggest difference between Clinton and the Chinese government in their efforts to sway conversations online concerns the degree of defensive engagement they display: according to the researchers, the Chinese government’s posters “do not step up to defend the government, its leaders, and their policies from criticism, no matter how vitriolic; indeed, they seem to avoid controversial issues entirely,” preferring, rather, to use cheerleading efforts to distract and redirect. “Letting an argument die, or changing the subject, usually works much better than picking an argument and getting someone’s back up,” the researchers explained.

In contrast, Clinton’s Barrier Breakers project openly admits its active engagement in countering anti-Hillary narratives. Referencing “Bernie Bros,” Barrier Breakers vows to use what they’ve learned to “quickly and forcefully [respond] to negative attacks and false narratives.” This reaches beyond the Chinese government’s designs to distract with cheerleading; it’s an unabashed effort to change minds — even as Barrier Breakers fails to elaborate on the “false narratives” they plan to challenge.

Their goal conveniently ignores Clinton’s own proclivity for dishonesty and manipulating narratives. Indeed, her collective of paid public supporters extends to cable news, where many pundits praise her but fail to disclose they are on her payroll.

Hillary Clinton and the Chinese government are not the only entities who attempt to mold narratives and public perception to their benefit. Donald Trump was caught hiring real-life actors to drum up enthusiasm for his campaign. In the social media sphere, the Israeli government has a student program, called “Hasbara,” meant to counter online speech critical of Israel. British spy agency, GCHQ, which wokrks closely with the NSA, has a program to manipulate online political narratives and destroy the reputations of activist movements. And of course, the American government, namely — that we know of — the military, uses sock puppet accounts to spread pro-American propaganda.

While Barrier Breakers is, perhaps, more permissible than the Chinese government’s program, in that it is not officially sponsored by government, Clinton has given the populace no reason to believe her manipulative practices will cease should she make it to the White House.

This article (What Hillary Clinton Has in Common With Communist China) by Elizabeth Montag 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.

From theantimedia.org Team

#SHTF In #Movies: “Lost, Wrecked and Left Alone to Survive”

May 20, 2016 by mac slavo

When it comes to prepping for a truly serious SHTF, experience is the best teacher.

Planning, preparation and learning from experts is also critical.

But can cinema also be a good teacher?

Obviously there are plenty of things in the average Hollywood flick that are ridiculous and far from accurate when it comes to real-life disaster scenarios.

But others have gone to great lengths to be as realistic as possible, and seeing these situations play out on the big screen, before the real stuff happens, can be a great way to start thinking about what you would do in a similar situation, if you ever found yourself in it.

Many of them are pure survival films after being lost in the wilderness, others are prepper-minded but all are thought provoking and depict the kind of desperate scenarios that may well occur someday.

(in alphabetical order)
All is Lost (starring Robert Redford)
Cast Away (starring Tom Hanks)
Goodbye World
Panic Room (starring Jodie Foster)
Red Dawn (starring Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen)
The Edge (starring Anthony Hopkins)
The Road (starring Viggo Mortenson)
The Snow Walker
The Way Back (starring Ed Harris)
Wrecked(Starring Adrian Brody)

Obviously there are many, many other great films with these themes of lost, wrecked and left alone to survive.

What do you think are the best films with a survival, prepping or SHTF mentality as a major part of the plotline?

Preparing For Worst Case Scenarios: Using Pop Culture Media as a Forecasting and Training Tool

The Prepper Movie: When Survival Is All That’s Left

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

#WWIII? A “Hybrid Geo-Financial War” Between #NATO and Russia Is Dangerously Escalating

May 20, 2016 by mac slavo

Russia is preparing for war against the West.

Putin is being urged to do so because the U.S. and NATO have been preparing for war themselves.

Syria and Ukraine have just been warm ups. The real thing could be around the corner, and other proxy flashpoints are ready to line up.

The rising tensions for military conflict are sharply complicated by the stealthier financial war that is nonetheless taking a serious toll across the globe, in particular as collapsing oil prices put incredible pressure on those regimes who have cast a big social benefits net financed primarily by $100/barrel oil.

As SHTF previously reported, that made Venezuela the most vulnerable, and it is plain today that the oil rich nation is collapsing. However, the manipulation of these prices was also meant to put pressure on Russia (as well as other countries)… while the attempt to undercut Russian natural gas by taking over Ukraine and have NATO supply gas to Europe instead of Russia has so far failed.

It is a sophisticated geopolitical gamble that perhaps no one is winning, apart from who manages not to topple over.

A detailed, but nonetheless alarming article by Alastair Crooke reports that there is significant pressure on Putin from other Russian leaders to take a hard line in the days ahead.

via the Huffington Post:

Putin carries, at one end of his balancing pole, the various elites more oriented toward the West and the “Washington Consensus“ and, at the pole’s other end, those concerned that Russia faces both a real military threat from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and a hybrid geo-financial war as well. He is being pressed to come down on the side of the latter, and to pry the grip of the former from the levers of economic power that they still tightly hold.

In short, the issue coming to a head in the Kremlin is whether Russia is sufficiently prepared for further Western efforts to ensure it does not impede or rival American hegemony. Can Russia sustain a geo-financial assault, if one were to be launched? And is such a threat real or mere Western posturing for other ends?

What is so important is that if these events are misread in the West, which is already primed to see any Russian defensive act as offensive and aggressive, the ground will already have been laid for escalation. We already had the first war to push back against NATO in Georgia. The second pushback war is ongoing in Ukraine. What might be the consequences to a third?

In mid-April, General Alexander Bastrykin, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee (a sort of super attorney general, as Cohen describes it), wrote that Russia — its role in Syria notwithstanding — is militarily ill prepared to face a new war either at home or abroad, and that the economy is in a bad way, too. Russia, furthermore, is equally ill prepared to withstand a geo-financial war. He goes on to say that the West is preparing for war against Russia and that Russia’s leadership does not appear to be aware of or alert to the danger the country faces.

[…] A retired Russian general entered the fray to confirm that the West is indeed preparing for war — he pointed to NATO deployments in the Baltics, the Black Sea and Poland, among other places — and underlines again the unpreparedness of the Russian military to face this threat. “This is a heavy indictment of Putin,” Cohen says of the revelations from this analysis. “It is now out in the open.”

[…]

The government’s economic policy is being criticized. The opposing faction wants to see an immediate mobilization of the military and the economy for war, conventional or hybrid. This is not about wanting Putin ousted; it is about pushing him to wield the knife — and to cut deeply.

There is every reason to think that the clashing interests of NATO and Russia can and will spark more flashpoints across the map and around the arc that generally surrounds the former Soviet empire, which the United States hopes to contain in order to maintain its own crumbling empire.

While President Obama, now officially the president to oversee the longest period of war (albeit somewhat contracted), may be reluctant to pursue in form of open conflict with Russia, a president like Hillary Clinton may be all-too willing to do so. She has already called in recent days for an escalated ‘war against ISIS,’ which handily also gives an open ended pretext to challenge NATO-Russian conflict points wherever they might appear.

Donald Trump’s positions here are as yet unclear, but he is beginning to surround himself with the same type of advisers – including Henry Kissinger – that have brought us to this point.

With economic decline and a definite fatigue for war, Americans face an end of the dollar as the world currency standard and an era where the BRICS nations, and in particular the militaries of Russia and China, pose an existential threat to the world that the U.S. and Britain carved out in the WWII era and which they essentially won away from the Soviets by the end of the Cold War.

These waxing and waning empires are dangerous as their vulnerabilities and short-comings become exposed, and their territories challenged.

That fact that Putin is being prodded from within Russia to be less diplomatic and more aggressive in posturing for war is downright unsettling. Many of our most dangerous American leaders are all-too willing to poke the bear and evoke a reaction.

Ukraine and Syria, as well as the Georgian conflict before it in 2008, prove that the U.S. will continue waging war and posturing for global domination in spite of the lack of a coherent narrative (but there’s ISIS), or any convincing pretext for sending troops and sponsoring proxy armies.

The American people are sick of war, but the misleaders in Washington are eager enough to reinvigorate their sense of power and entitlement to control the affairs here and abroad. After all, war – in a sick kind of way – is good for the economy, and a big one means a mandate of emergency powers and a period of unquestioning obedience from the domestic population.

The threat is all-too real, and a serious provocation, like the false flag attacks that have sparked most of the wars in the past, could be on the horizon.

That all basically points to WWIII… or at least a full second Cold War. It could be a long way off, but the sense is that the scent is in the air.

What do you think will happen next?

Falling Oil Prices Could Cripple ‘Vulnerable’ Russia, Trigger World War III

Putin “Prepared to Use Tactical Nuclear Weapons” If Turkey/Saudi Invade Syria

Sudden Death In Putin’s Inner Circle: “These Two Guys Just ‘Die’ With Barely A Ripple In the Media”

Putin Targets US Monetary System: “Aims to Eliminate the US Dollar and the Euro From Trade”

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Higher Power: How Ancient #Church Spires Help Rural Areas Get Broadband #Internet

May 19, 2016 by michaela whitton

(ANTIMEDIA) United Kingdom — Ancient churches will play their part in bringing superfast broadband to rural Britain following the Church of England’s pledge this week to use 10,000 churches as communication towers. The medieval spires and towers will aid the rollout of superfast internet provision in some of the U.K’s most remote locations. The church’s move comes amid criticism that the government is masking the true extent of poor connectivity.

In rural and remote areas, the costs of installing infrastructure are significantly higher than in urban and suburban areas, often outweighing potential revenues for providers. The Church of England already provides a far-reaching broadband service through its company, WiSpire, using 47 churches across Norfolk as relay towers. Each one provides wireless coverage within a 4km radius.

Communities still struggling with slow speeds are set to benefit from the new set of guidelines being drawn up by the Church of England, which pledged an additional 10,000 churches for use. Last November, the prime minister pledged to provide fast broadband to all homes and businesses, giving the public a legal right to broadband speeds of at least 10mbps by 2020. But the Church of England’s offer is intended to plug the gap as the government struggles to implement the United Service Obligation, which aimed to put access to broadband on a similar footing as other basic services like water and electricity.

The original plan to connect 95% of the population with superfast speeds by the end of 2017 is reportedly on track, but getting the final 5% online (about a million properties) is proving challenging and potentially expensive — so much so that in a recent consultation, published in March, the government backtracked on its original commitment.

Therefore, the solution appears to lie in the steeples of thousands of parish churches,

many of which are ideally located in remote locations. Paul Miner of the Campaign to Protect Rural England said rural areas continue to suffer from poor coverage and slow speeds. Claiming there have been a number of cases where masts have unnecessarily harmed landscapes, he explained that adding new infrastructure to existing buildings, such as churches or farm buildings, is preferable — providing there is no damage to the heritage value.

Steve Maine, chief executive of WiSpire, questions the government’s 5% figure and claims the true extent of poor broadband in Britain is being kept under wraps. “Is five percent the right number? No. The amount of people without a good broadband connection is a lot higher than 10 percent,” Maine told Newsweek.

Adding that many premises are inaccurately counted and included in the 95% figure as being supported by existing fiber networks when they are not, he added:

“In a world where you can’t even get your grants as a farmer unless you apply for them online, there will be more and more areas of life where good broadband connectivity is absolutely vital — even when applying for welfare benefits. The scale of the problem is a lot bigger than the government is prepared to admit to.”

This article (Higher Power: How Ancient Church Spires Help Rural Areas Get Broadband Internet) 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

New #Riot Control #Robot Can “Zap Protesters Into Submission”

May 19, 2016 by contributing author

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

Editor’s Comment: When the system is automated, the robotic enforcers will quite literally do what they are told. If the governing powers-that-be enforce a tyranny, and ask the robots to do something against the people that human law enforcement officers would know to be illegal and/or immoral, they will simply obey. It is in their programming.

As such, robot enforcers stand to be a formidable obstacle to freedom and justice. They can choose targets and make decisions automatically, without the need for human oversight. So just what will happen when civil unrest, riots or other emergencies take place? These machines can and will restore order at all costs.

Meet China’s New Taser Wielding Riot Control Robot

by Joshua Krause

Over the past few years, the police in America and around the world have been facing more scrutiny than they ever have before. Their abuses and arrogant demeanor are now easily recorded, and displayed on the internet for all to see. As a result, it’s never been so easy to criticize the police.

But it’s important to remember that not all cops are bad. It may seem that way, because people are much more likely to turn on their smartphone cameras when a cop is being an intolerable tyrant. There are still plenty of police officers out there who have a conscience, and no doubt, the government is afraid of these officers more than anyone else. They’ll never be able to crackdown on the population, unless they have near 100% obedience from their enforcers.

That’s why the governments of the world are very interested in developing robots for military and law enforcement applications. They need yes men more than ever, and if they can’t get enough yes men to enforce their onerous rules, then they’ll turn to yes robots to fill the gap, and replace all the cops and soldiers who don’t toe the line.

They’ll do it for a lot of the same reasons that private companies are trying to automate their respective industries. In any given workforce, there are humans that complain. There are people who need time off and benefits. There are people in positions both high and low, who can blow the whistle on crimes and labor violations. Ultimately, running a business means appeasing a bunch of ornery humans, each with individual needs, wants, and agendas. And let’s not forget, they all need to be paid.

But more importantly, the government needs people who are willing to control the population. Robots simplify everything for people who are control freaks, and as it just so happens, control freaks tend to gravitate into positions of higher authority in both the public and private spheres. In the case of our government and other governments around the world, the control freaks are eager to clean out all the do-gooders and conscientious individuals who are less than willing to carry out their orders to brutalize the population. If they can replace these people with robots and promote the remaining yes men to higher positions, then they no longer have to answer to anyone.

And don’t think for a second that this is going to happen many years down the road. It’s happening right now in countries like China. While the US has been leading the charge for military robots, China’s autocratic regime may be ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to law enforcement robots. In fact, they’re about to introduce one of the world’s first policing robots, complete with a tazer for shocking non compliant citizens.

Take note. This is the future. There’s no reason why robots like this won’t show up in your neighborhood someday. Pretty much all governments have the same desire to control their population, and technology knows no borders.

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Starving #Venezuelans Fed Up With #Maduro: “We Want Food!”

May 19, 2016 by mac slavo

Venezuela’s problems are sure to get worse before they get better.

Right now the nation, at the hands of socialist dictator President Nicolas Maduro, is headed for the bottom.

Weeks of rationed food and electricity, a shortage of basic necessities and spiraling inflation is taking its toll, and the regime is quickly descending into all out hell.

Now, people are beyond fed up with the conditions and are moving towards support for Maduro’s ouster… that, and they want to eat… food.

It is no laughing matter. Shortages have already prompted poaching animals and looting has become widespread.

The black matter trade of goods, which stores have struggled for more than a year to keep in stock and which are rationed tightly, is an important stabilizing factor for increasingly desperate people in Venezuela.

Long lines have been the norm. Food has been in short supply. But now a new degree by Maduro is forcing people to take ration delivers at their home, door-to-door, in order to curb black market transactions.

As AFP reports:

It was around noon when a food truck rolled up… But, to the fury of the long line of people waiting out front, the cargo wasn’t unloaded. Instead soldiers took it away.

“We want food!” the crowd roared in protest, to no avail. Some tried to run after the truck.

Under the state of emergency imposed by President Nicolas Maduro, the military, along with government-organized civilian committees, ensures that food packets are delivered door-to-door in order to — as officials say — cut out black market operators.

[…]

“Here in Guarenas there were revolutionary supporters. But now the people no longer want revolution — what they want is food,” she said.

“The people are going hungry. We are tired of lining up, of killing ourselves for just a carton of eggs or some bread,” she said.

As Joshua Krause noted in his recent article, Venezuela, while far from perfect, was nonetheless fairly normal only a couple of years ago. The collapse in oil prices forced the oil rich nation into position where it could no longer sustain its system of total socialism.

Two years ago, Venezuela was a normal functioning nation, relatively speaking of course. It was by no means a free country, but the people still had a standard of living that was higher than most developing nations. Venezuelans could still afford the basic necessities of life, and a few luxuries too.

[…]

If you’re a prepper, pay close attention to what happens next. What’s playing out in Venezuela right now is the kind of worst case scenario that many of us have been preparing for in the US. It should be very informative. It just goes to show that if you live under a corrupt authoritarian government that can’t manage its resources, all it takes is a heavy ripple in the global economy to send the whole system careening over a cliff.

The emperor in Venezuela is naked, no one there is under any illusions any longer, and the empire is falling. America, you could be next.

How are your leaders dressed, and vulnerable is society really?

Get your preps together, and don’t let it happen to you if it happens here.

Venezuela, Socialist Paradise in Collapse: “Rationing Food, Toiliet Paper… Now Electricity”

Raw Venezuela: Looter Burned Alive, While “Streets Filled With People Killing Animals For Food”

Venezuela: A Prepper’s Nightmare Come to Life: “Pay Close Attention To What Happens Next”

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Sculpting Public #Opinion from #Birth to #Death: “Schools and Media are Completely Complicit in the Destruction of This Nation”

May 18, 2016 by contributing author

The biggest problem with the Mainstream Media (MSM) is not just one that is based in objectivity. The powers that be actually “sculpt” the media’s position and craft it to their own making, to end up being their mouthpiece at a minimum. With the majority of news reports (mislabeled as such), the slant is no longer a balance between to opposite spectrums. The newscasters, televised news broadcasts, the radio, and news media (newspapers, magazines, and their ilk) are no longer even platforms for the dissemination of information. They’re product, and their productivity is determined by the handlers and controllers of the media and whether it fits inside of their overall objectives.

There is a famous quote that is often overlooked:

“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
-Lord Acton

The interesting thing is this quote has many applications, varied in scope and encompassing a general truism that finds use with many things…reference to power, and also to corruptibility. What Acton was referring to, however, was actually the media. He was heaping subtle derision about the manner in which media and news found itself kowtowing to the powers in charge…allowing those powers – king, prime ministers, and presidents – to influence the media and squelch truth and objectivity. The media (wanting to sell newspapers and still keep a front seat press box and all access passes) traded its objectivity for lucre and position.

The problem also lies within the school system. The public schools (as well as private) are rapidly “losing” the truth in their curriculum, which is being redacted on a daily basis. The founders of the U.S. are portrayed in a negative light: all of their personal problems within their lives are magnified and even exacerbated. The purpose is to destroy the United States of America in terms of perception and education, to create a shift in paradigm and public perception.

We had eight years of a Democratic administration under Clinton in which the attack on the established school curriculum, begun in the 1960’s, took root, and completely metastasized during these Obama years. By destroying the concept of America and how she was founded, the progressives strike at the root and have a completely different tree by the time those inculcated with such fallacies reach the age of voting and earning capacity for taxation purposes. Meanwhile, the stultified parents in the PTA meetings protest the changes in the curriculum that have already been placed in motion by federal legislation. This is not a new concept, as illustrated with the following:

“We must start with the children – the seed corn – in order to grow them into what we wish.”
-Adolf Hitler speaking in the Nuremburg Rallies

This concept is what we are facing now, as we have a generation that hold these untruths to be the norm and factual. It is a forced paradigm shift to change the concept that the youth holds of America and destroy the potential for them to develop creative thought. The curriculum (never truly being perfect, as there is no such thing) introduced children to generalities that could be expanded upon, for the desire of pure education is to introduce evidence and facts and enable someone to draw an opinion on their own regarding the matter.

The concept of creative thought (not in reference to artists and musicians, mind you) is to allow the student to ponder the “why’s” of a matter. Little by little this is being destroyed, but they are replacing it with a canned, sterilized curriculum that only rewards rote memory and the absorption of concepts alien to those originally in the schools.

The media, then, is to feed controlled disinformation to the entire population. This takes the form also of a plethora of useless information, such as who won on “Star Search,” or what some celebrity is wearing in attendance at the Oscars. All useless information that keeps everyone consuming and prevents anyone from seeing the true state of the world as it is. The news itself cannot be used to “dupe” everyone…that is why there are alternative media sites, and other sources of information not corrupted by “the thumb of the Duke” on the reports. Still, take Fox News as an example.

The manner in which Fox News reports is markedly different from the way it was 10 years ago. You can see the capitulation of the newscasters as they begin to echo the platform of the establishment media, and reject objectivity and conservative programming to follow in the overall paradigm shift begun by the administration.

We see it in the schools, as an entire generation is made to not feel any true identity except some “membership in the global community,” let alone the patriotism and pride in the U.S. as a place where dissenting views by the minority is allowed, and (prior to Obamacare) a free nation where you could go about on your own and do your own thing pretty much undisturbed.

They are waiting for the generations that were brought up in an era of conservative actions and critical thought…. waiting for them to either die off or become so hopelessly outnumbered – by the new, sculpted generation, by illegal aliens, and by influx of foreign thought and systems – that the demographics all change in their favor.

The seeds have been planted. The schools and the media are completely complicit in the destruction of this nation, along with their handlers. It is an amazing thing that the country was so free as to allow the very people who are destroying it to come out with and force their socialist and progressive platforms on the country as a whole. This is what is happening, and it is doubtful whether or not we will reverse the tide. It can be done, but until then The-Powers-That-Be sculpt and form the public through the media and schools to make people into their own images, and those images are not good.

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:

Russia Has Been Encircled And Pushed To The Brink Of War: “They Have Exercised Remarkable Restraint”

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

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

The Future Is Now: #Law Firm Hires First Artificially Intelligent #Attorney

May 18, 2016 by jake anderson

(ANTIMEDIA) As if the world wasn’t anxious enough about automation and artificial intelligence fleecing jobs from the working class, now even lawyers might feel a little nervous. Last week, the law firm Baker & Hostetler announced the hiring of IBM’s proprietary artificial intelligence product, Ross. Built by IBM’s own groundbreaking computing system, Watson, Ross is the world’s “first artificially intelligent attorney.”

Designed as a self-learning algorithmic tool, Ross is capable of most basic cognitive skills and possesses fine-tuned research abilities. This includes providing citations. Ross will join Baker & Hostetler’s team of 50 lawyers specializing in bankruptcy cases.*

“You ask your questions in plain English, as you would a colleague, and ROSS then reads through the entire body of law and returns a cited answer and topical readings from legislation, case law and secondary sources to get you up-to-speed quickly,” the website says. “In addition, ROSS monitors the law around the clock to notify you of new court decisions that can affect your case.”

With the legal industry already oversaturated, ROSS Intelligence CEO and co-founder Andrew Arruda recently spoke at a legal conference. He stated:

“We’re standing on day one of artificial intelligence in law.”

Ross will be used primarily as a research tool, as its ability to quickly synthesize vast numbers of case files and extract relevant source material could prove invaluable.

The announcement comes in the wake of a series of startling news stories related to artificial intelligence and robots. Recently, Google revealed it had been feeding its A.I. bot thousands of romance novels and that it had started writing strange, post-modern poetry. Earlier this year, IBM partnered with the company Softbank to manufacture humanoid robots for use in retail stores.

Another strange story appeared on Gizmodo last week when computer science students at Georgia Tech’s School of Interactive Computing learned that the teaching assistant they had been interacting with for the entire term was actually an artificial intelligence program.

The integration of Ross into a legal firm marks another development in the precarious balance we now see in humans using artificial intelligence as assistance tools. How long it will take before an artificial intelligence entity tries an actual court case remains to be seen.

*Editor’s note: According to the website of the law firm now employing Ross,

“BakerHostetler’s White Collar Defense and Corporate Investigations Team is among the nation’s leaders in all aspects of corporate criminal defense and enforcement-related litigation. Our team includes some of the country’s most experienced and seasoned lawyers who are dedicated to protecting businesses…”

Coincidently, one of the firm’s three original partner’s, Newton D. Baker, served as Secretary of War for Woodrow Wilson during World War I. BakerLaw.com also promises the firm will,

Assist clients with all aspects of internal investigations, including government inquiries and negotiations with the government.
Regularly represent clients in grand jury investigations and defend businesses and individuals in white collar criminal investigations and prosecutions around the globe, in parallel civil enforcement proceedings and in related third-party proceedings.
Defend and counsel clients in high-stakes litigation involving Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigations, corporate governance issues, whistleblowing procedures, securities fraud, money laundering/asset forfeiture, criminal antitrust enforcement, public corruption, insider trading, hedge fund fraud and healthcare fraud.
Defend corporations, their officers, directors and employees charged with violations by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Department of Justice, SEC and/or FINRA.

This article (The Future Is Now: Law Firm Hires First Artificially Intelligent Attorney) 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.

From theantimedia.org Team

#Iceland’s Biggest Political Party Is Now The “ #PirateParty” — and It’s Amazing

May 18, 2016 by michaela whitton

(ANTIMEDIA) Iceland’s anti-establishment Pirate Party continues to lead nationwide polls as the most popular choice for the next elections. The party — whose policies include internet freedom, drug decriminalisation, and open democracy — has consistently led the polls for the last year and, as a result, has secured more funding than any of its rivals.

The 2008 financial crisis hit Iceland hard. The following year, the krona was devalued by around 50%, unemployment doubled, and capital controls were introduce. Miraculously, the country rose from the ashes to become one of Europe’s top performers in terms of growth. More recently, the political establishment has been in turmoil since three government ministers were implicated in the global Panama Papers scandal.

Despite their struggle, or perhaps because of it, the list of reasons to admire Icelanders keeps on growing. Whether it’s the sentencing of senior bankers — or the mass outrage at the offshore leak, which propelled 10% of the population to the streets and ousted the Prime Minister — the radical refusal of Icelanders to bow down and accept establishment corruption is admirable.

Because of this, the surge in popularity of the once-fringe Pirate Party comes as little surprise — recent polls suggest almost half the nation supports them. In Iceland, financial support for political parties is allocated based on how well they have done in polls.

Although the party doesn’t have formal leadership, chair of the parliamentary group and spokesperson, Birgitta Jonsdottir, said they did not expect the funding. Claiming their campaign was, so far, funded at a flea market, she said that was enough and that all the party needs is to be able to pay the salaries of its employees.

“We did not expect this. We don’t care. Democracy doesn’t revolve around getting loads of money from the government,” she added.

This article (Iceland’s Biggest Political Party Is Now The “Pirate Party” — and It’s Amazing) 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

Global Strategist Warns: “There Is Insane #Speculation… Investors Are Fleeing To Safety… A Lot Of Unknowns”

May 17, 2016 by mac slavo

Over the course of the last six weeks major companies around the world have reported significant drops in sales and consumer sentiment. By all accounts, the global economy is coming to a standstill. But somehow financial markets continue to hover near all-time highs. That a day of reckoning is coming is a foregone conclusion. Something is wrong and highly renowned global strategist Marin Katusa explains that the insanity is just beginning:

People have to understand how fast and vicious the money is flowing around. It’s not just the Fed in the U.S., or big hedge funds coming in and out… you have to also consider what I call Dragon Economics… The Chinese effect… Not only does China have a lot of money, but their people have a lot of money and they’re looking to get it out of China.

In one day in April more cotton was traded on the Shanhai markets then the whole year previously… it would be enough to put a pair of pants on every person on the planet… in one day.. there’s not even enough cotton for that… In one day enough soy bean traded for 52 billion servings of soy…

We’re talking about insane speculation that the Chinese money is fueling… In Vancouver crack houses are selling for $2 – $3 million… The Chinese money is desperately fleeing… it moves very quickly…

There are a lot of unknowns here.

In the following interview with Future Money Trends Marin Katusa, who happens to be one of the most successful investors in the world, explains the various dynamics of the global marketplace and how the average investor must position their assets now to avoid the destructive fall out to come – and it will come, because as Marin explains it, some 90% of companies out there are valued much higher than they should be:

(Watch at Youtube)

Katusa notes that while he continues to acquire assets in the resource space, his funds have now unloaded most of their holdings. Explaining the that anyone with a dart board could have doubled their money in the last six months, it’s time to re-balance your personal portfolios and go with companies that have real value, solid management teams and whose business is focused on sectors with the potential to be explosive in the near to mid-term:

You want to stick with the best in the business. Make sure you take your profits on what you would call your slippery speculations or things that have worked out… If a President is not owning a bunch of stock, you might want to get out of that stock.

I have reduced my fund to five core positions… I am going long and strong on positions that I believe will go up four, five, or ten times from here because the variables that make a good company are in place.

And some of those variables include government and central bank intrusion in the financial marketplace, namely negative interest rates, which Katusa explains will have a deflationary impact on most sectors, but could cause massive upswings in other areas as investors shift capital from risky asset classes to safe havens:

Negative interest rates are going to dry up capital… hence, by definition, will be deflationary in most markets… But within that general macro call you will have pockets of insane inflation… or bubbles.

…For example, where I see gold going… gold is a money and preservation hedge… there’s a lot of money on the sidelines scratching their heads trying to figure out what to do… the Baby Boomers, for example, have lots of money… so what are they going to do? They’re going to want to put their money where it will be safe…

Right now gold takes such a small, small piece of that money looking for safety.. if that percentage of global allocation which is 0.15%… if it just went to 0.3% of that Baby Boomers’ money, the price of gold doesn’t double.

It’s exponential. You’re going to see $4000 – $5000 gold… and we’re talking about just 0.3%.

So I think it’s going to be very deflationary but there will be surges in sectors that will be massive bubbles.

And while usually restricted to his premium subscribers, in the above interview Katusa shares two of his fund’s core positions with listeners. As you may have guessed, the first is a gold sector mining company:

I wrote another seven digit check for Brazil Resources just a few months ago… It’s one of the top performing stocks in the resource sector. Why?

Because it’s the real deal… and when you compare it to any one of the other gold companies it’s not only the most undervalued, but it has the most up-side. There’s a reason why [CEO] Amir Adnani and his management team are buying hand over fist at every financing.

But it won’t just be precious metals that benefit from massive capital flows. The energy sector could see large spikes as well, and not just in oil:

Uranium is a victim of the emerging markets and foreign currency… The Fukushima reactors are coming on slower than people expected… then you have the Chinese that are looking and buying now directly from the mines in Africa… The Russians are doing strategic investments.

Then, what are the Americans doing? Rather than positioning themselves for the future, Obama’s strategy was to sell double the amount of uranium of the Department of Energy’s stockpiles into the markets to fund historic clean ups that have nothing to do with the current producers.

You’ve had all of the stars line up for what will make a bull market.

So, what have I done? I have bought another million shares of Uranium Energy Corp. alongside Morgan Stanley and Rick Rule…

The markets will remain tricky going forward, even for mainstream investment houses and hedge funds. But the fact is, that even during times of crisis there are companies and investments that will not only survive, but thrive.

Hard assets like food and precious metals that you can hold in your hand will certainly be well worth owning as volatility across the globe sends everything into a tailspin.

But for those with investment assets like IRA’s, 401(k)’s, and money market funds, there will be opportunity for significant growth even during economic and financial upheaval.

To learn more about why Marin Katusa is investing in Brazil Resources click here.

For more market commentary and interviews with leading financial experts like the one you just watched visit Future Money Trends.

Disclosure: This author currently holds no positions in the companies mentioned but may acquire holdings in the future.

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Out Of This World: Introducing The $4.5 Million #Meteorite #Handgun: “Heat-Treated by God”

May 17, 2016 by mac slavo

(The Cabot Guns 1911 Big Bang Pistols come in a set of two. Photo Credit Robb Report)

We’ve featured some pretty awesome weapons at our web site, but perhaps none as unique as the Cabot Guns Big Bang Pistol.

Unlike other handguns you may have seen, the .45 caliber Cabot 1911’s took over 4 billion years to come to fruition and find their origins in the moment the universe was created. According to Robb Report the pair are “the first mechanical devices made from a meteorite in the history of mankind.”

The gun maker used Gibeon meteorite, a premium metal because it is non-rusting says Cabot metallurgist Jay Morely.

The firearms come in a set of two (left and right handed) and within minutes of the announcement an interested buyer offered up $1 million for the pair without having ever laid eyes on them.

The eventual purchase price after a bidding war ensued?

$4.5 million.

Cabot metallurgist Jay Morely tells Robb Report. “But it was heat-treated by God—born in enormous heat, frozen solid in space, heated again as it blasted into Earth’s atmosphere, and then cooled again. It’s relatively soft and full of inclusions, bits of debris that hit the meteor at thousands of miles an hour millions of years ago.”

…

“Not to coin a phrase,” says Rob Bianchin, founder and president of the Pennsylvania gun maker, “but we were sweating bullets. That first cut, when we sliced the meteorite chunk in two, was really scary.”

The only parts of the Big Bang pistol set that aren’t made of meteorite are the springs, sears, barrels, hammer strut, pins, screws, and slide rails. Everything else—slides, frames, triggers, magazine release, and grips—is pure Gibeon. Speaking of frightening, the guns’ first test firing was a bit daunting.

…

The Big Bang pistols are a never-to-be-repeated landmark achievement. In addition to their cosmic history, these firearms trace their roots to prehistoric times here on Earth: Ancient Africans used the Gibeon meteorite to create some of humanity’s first weapons.

The guns are forged from a 35 kilogram Gibeon meteorite found in the sub-Saharan part of Africa known as Nambia in 1838.

From this:

To this:

(The slides, frames, triggers, magazine release, and grips are pure Gibeon Meteorite)

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Use #Facebook’s #Reactions Buttons

May 16, 2016 by michaela whitton

(ANTIMEDIA) Belgian police are warning users not to use the Facebook Reactions feature to respond to posts if they want to protect their privacy. In February, the series of six emoticons, allowing users to express a range of emotions from anger to love, were added to the original thumbs-up option. They came in response to calls for a ‘Dislike’ button.

However, the new expressions are another big ‘like’ for Facebook and a ‘dislike’ for its users — according to Belgian police who claim the site is using them as a way to collect information on people to target advertising toward them. In a statement released on their official website on Wednesday, the Belgian force warned people to avoid using the series of emoticons if they want to preserve their privacy.

The statement on the police website reads, “The icons help not only express your feelings, they also help Facebook assess the effectiveness of the ads on your profile.” It adds, “One more reason not to click if you want to protect your privacy.”

The statement warns that users are simply a ‘product’ to Facebook, claiming their reactions to posts are helping the social networking giant build up a profile of them. As a result of the profiling, the site will target ads it thinks users will be more receptive to based on how they are reacting to specific posts at the time.

“By limiting the number of icons to six, Facebook is counting on you to express your thoughts more easily so that the algorithms that run in the background are more effective,” the police said. “By mouse clicks you can let them know what makes you happy.”

In short, the moment Facebook gauges that the user is in a good mood, it will cash in on that by showing them an ad.

It’s no secret Facebook’s growth is fuelled by advertising. In 2015, the company received 96.5% of its revenue from ads, which generated a staggering $17.08 billion in revenue. Just days after former Facebook employees accused the platform of censoring stories while pushing others, few will be surprised to learn the marketing champion has seized another opportunity to do what it does best — collect more information on its users.

This article (Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Use Facebook’s Reactions Buttons) 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: Droid Stuff. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org

From theantimedia.org Team

“This Is A Scary Time” – CEO Explains The Single Biggest Reason People Are Buying #Gold And #Silver

May 16, 2016 by mac slavo

We can talk about technical charts, supply and demand fundamentals, and price manipulation, all of which point to significant increases in the value of gold and silver for the foreseeable future.

But according to Golden Arrow Resources CEO Joseph Grosso, who is credited with the discovery of the largest silver deposit in history, the single biggest reason that retail investors, institutional players and governments around the world are gobbling up physical precious metals, resource stocks and ETF’s at unprecedented levels is that they are scared to death of the state of the global economy and where it will go next.

Like an expecting father waiting for five years to see a baby being born, we are at the inception of a mining economy… There is a pause, a slight pause towards the U.S. dollar and that pause is allowing the oldest currency in the world, gold and silver [to rise] and that is now in favor.

…Because there is fear. When there is fear, that’s when gold does best.

… Right now, this is a scary time… People want to hop out [of traditional assets] and find safety in precious metals.

In the following interview with SGT Report the level-headed Grosso explains that there is still hope for America and the U.S. economy, but there will be a lot of pain before it gets better, the consequence of which is an environment that has historically boded well for precious metals as safe haven assets.

(Watch at Youtube)

SGT Report: There is a web bot project out there that mines the internet for data… and the data mined by the web bot project suggests that some time in the future, because of worldwide monetary chaos, we will eventually see silver return to a 10-to-1 or 8-to-1, with some of the indicators suggesting it could actually go to a 1-to-1 silver-to-gold ratio… Right now the silver-to-gold ratio is hovering somewhere around 70-to-1… And you know as well as anyone, because you mine the stuff, silver is found in the earth’s crust much closer to a 10-to-1 ratio…

Joe Grosso: What you’re saying is really what dreams are made of… I remember a time when silver was somewhere around 40-to-1 and then it gravitated to 80-to-1.

So I do feel that there is a catch up for silver to come into a more humane ratio between the two, but it is of course it is the biggest dream that we will have a ratio of 10-to-1… this would make the silver price worth about $130 per ounce [at current gold price].

We’d like to see a return in the next three to five years where a lot of mines had to shut down and they can re-open again. Unfortunately for some, they have been liquidating assets… and out of the spoils we are now looking at acquiring or merging ourselves.

…

Silver… we’re glad to be in silver because it has two uses. One, as a precious metal. And second, almost 50% of the silver produced in the world is used for industrial use.

As Joe Grosso notes, mining companies have been pummeled over the last five years, leaving many to be either completely liquidated, or pausing operations until such time that prices eventually rise as a result of either core supply and demand fundamentals, or outright panic buying during economic crisis.

But unlike most proponents of a rising silver price, Grosso brings a unique perspective to the conversation, because he doesn’t necessarily see Venezuela-style meltdown, hyperinflation and chaos coming to the United States:

I am firmly of the belief that Venezuela will not happen in America… I think the American people have been tried [historically]… It’s happened before and America came out of it… It will happen again and America will come out of it… It’s a tough time… The administration will be under a lot of pressure…

But you do have what it takes. You have a fully developed economy which has been going for years… The comparison is pale in my estimation… The United States is in a much better position to recover.

I think that America will come out of it.

America is America.

… I really feel that we need to be grown up enough to know that in order to cure any illness, you need a bitter medicine. The more powerful the medicine, the quicker we will return to normality.

And America, I feel, will know that. You have the intelligence to know that. Not everything is only up and up and up and up.

It needs to be dealt with, with stronger resolve. And I am sure your country will understand that the tough things that are to come is the medicine that is going to resolve the problem.

But if you don’t take it, you don’t resolve it.

The American people do, indeed, understand that the system is broken as evidenced by the rise of extremely popular anti-establishment political candidates on both sides of the aisle.

It appears that, at least on some level, the people are willing to take the medicine.

But whether the governing bodies dispense it is a whole nother matter.

Failure to do so, says Grasso, means that things will only get worse.

If and when things get worse, panicked and concerned citizens the world over will continue to shift capital into assets like gold and silver, which will be the only currencies left standing when it really hits the fan.

To learn more about Joe Grasso and his latest projects visit Golden Arrow Resources.

For more important news updates and interview like the one you just watched visit SGT Report.

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Create a #Collapse Supply List Based on the Things They Are Out of in #Venezuela

May 16, 2016 by daisy luther

Create a Collapse Supply List Based on the Things They Are Out of in Venezuela

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Sometimes a cautionary tale is more motivating than any amount of positive reinforcement every could be, and the horrifying reports from Venezuela are a perfect example. If you’re paying attention to the things they’ve run out of, you can put together a collapse supply list to see you through the crisis in the event of a breakdown in our own country. The time to prepare is now, well before the situation devolves to one that is similar.

Every day, there is more dire news out of Venezuela. It’s so bad there that even the mainstream news can no longer ignore that the country is in the midst of an economic collapse. Thousands have turned to looting in order to feed their families. Even their soldiers have been stealing food. Long lines, empty stores, and hospitals without electricity are the norm instead of an unusual occurrence.

It wasn’t always like that. Life before Venezuela devolved into socialism looked a whole lot like our lives do today. In fact, as recently as the 1970s, Venezuela was one of the top 20 richest countries in the world.

So, today, our financial situation certainly looks far brighter than that of Venezuela, but according to a lot of experts, that is a glossy veneer over a crumbling foundation. Obama calls it “peddling fiction” but the outlook here is not good. Financial statistics are massaged and many of them hidden to keep us in the dark. Jobs are nearly impossible to find, and heaven help you if you lose one. The price of living is going up, but financial solvency is going down as personal debt outstrips the ability to pay it. Pension funds that people rely on are going bankrupt, one after another.

It really isn’t a question of if, but when.

Economic collapse starts out as “going through hard times.” It isn’t mobs on the streets or regression to Third World status initially. Before it ever gets to that, you have time to prepare. So let’s get started.

Pay Attention to What They’re Out of in Venezuela

The best way to make your supply list is to figure out what they’ve run out of in Venezuela. Below, you can find a list of the things they do not have, along with suggestions for stocking up or educating yourself.

If we never have a problem in the United States, you can rest assured that none of these supplies are crazy things you’ll never use. Most are the most basic of necessities and you’ll find it’s very convenient to be able to “shop in your pantry” whenever you need something. As well, learning to be more self-reliant is a great way to save money, live simpler, and often be healthier than those who depend on the store to meet all their needs.

Food

The first thing we saw as Venezuela began going down was that the government cracked down on the ability to stock up on food. They instituted a fingerprint registry for buying food, made prepping illegal, and began to dole out supplies. The government took over most of the stores, then forced farmers to hand over the majority of their crops at the price the government chose to pay. These crops were then marked up extravagantly and sold to people who suddenly found they could no longer afford to eat. Eventually, the government announced that the country was out of food and that if people wanted to eat, they’d better grow their own.

Supplies mentioned in articles that people have stolen and waited all day in line for are milk, bread, chicken, rice, and flour.

Here’s a list of food and related supplies you should stock up on.

Long-term emergency food buckets: I never used to stockpile these because most of them have horrible ingredients. However, Preppers Market products are non-GMO, have few additives, and even have gluten free buckets. They’re packed in square containers for easy stacking at the back of your closet, and each container is a month of food for one person. You can build up quite a stockpile this way that doesn’t take up a lot of space. As well, it’s packaged to last for up to 30 years, so you can get it and forget it. (ORDER HERE)
Build a pantry: Purchase things on sale to build your first line of defense against food instability. The pantry you build today can help you weather difficult times in the future. Stock up on shelf-stable versions of the things you generally consume in your family. You want to create at least a couple of months’ supply where you can supplement what you get at the store with what you have in your kitchen cupboards. Check out my book The Pantry Primer: A Prepper’s Guide to Whole Food on a Half Price Budget for details on building your short-term supply. Be sure to focus on pantry staples (here’s a list) so that you can combine ingredients for delicious, from scratch meals.
Gardening Supplies: Once everyone wants them, the price will skyrocket. Stock up now on seeds, tools, compost bins, soil amendments, and testing kits.These books can help for those who want to start a small-scale homestead:

The Backyard Homestead

Backyard Farming on an Acre

Also, check out this article: The Self-Reliance Manifesto: More Than 300 Resources to Guide You on the Path to Radical Freedom

Ways to Garden in an Apartment: I frequently suggest that people take more steps toward self-reliance and there are always folks who say, “That’s fine for you – you live in the country. I can’t grow food in an apartment.” Well, you’d better figure out how to grow food in an apartment, because I can tell you quite clearly, President Maduro’s suggestion that people grow food didn’t have the caveat of “if it’s convenient and you live in the country.” I understand that you can’t raise all of your food in a tiny apartment with a postage stamp balcony. But you can raise something. Lettuce for salads, sprouts that can be used in many different ways, or if you’re really industrious you could try aquaponics and/or rabbits. Everything you do produce can help to supplement the meager rations you may be forced to live on. These books and supplies can help:

The Urban Homestead

Hydroponic Gardening for Beginners

The Sprouting Book

Kitchen Crop sprouting system

Small hydroponics system

Hydroponics minifarm

Milk: One of the first things people run out of is milk. If your family regularly drinks milk, or if you add it to your coffee, the lack of it is something that will be immediately evident and make them feel deprived in an already unsettling situation. You can freeze milk when it’s on sale, and you should also stock up on shelf-stable dry milk. That’s the best way to have it on hand for the long haul. (Order Hormone-free dry milk HERE)

Hygiene Items

It’s important to be able to remain clean if you want to stay healthy. Following are some of the supplies that have been in shortage in Venezuela for months now.

Soap
Laundry detergent
Toilet paper
Diapers
Feminine hygiene supplies

For some of these items, you can learn to make them yourself. For others, you can make or purchase reusable versions.

Public Utilities

The country is rationing electricity and has been for quite some time. Currently, there are mandatory rolling blackouts. This is affecting everyday life, in that food can’t be kept in freezers, they are dealing with the hot humid weather without air conditioning, and they must use alternative lighting.

Stock up now on ways to deal with those concerns. These articles, books, and supplies can help you make your plan.

Learn how to stay warm without using much heat
Learn how to stay cool without an air conditioner
Alternative light sources
Learn home canning to preserve food without relying on your freezer
Store water (learn the details in THIS BOOK)
Find water that you can purify using an off-grid filtration system (and get extra filters)
Learn to use less water
Sanitation if the toilet won’t flush

Medicine and Medical Care

Your heart will break into a million pieces, but this article from the front page of the NY Times (hat tip to Mary) tells you the real nitty gritty of the situation in Venezuela. A hospital is just as likely to kill you as make you better now, due to terrible sanitation and a lack of supplies.

They’re out of antibiotics, cancer medicine, and equipment. They can’t do dialysis or other life-saving treatments. They have no running water so they’re doing operations on a table still covered with blood from the last patient. The rolling blackouts mean that every single days, babies and other patients dependent on respirators are dying. Doctors are making lists of supplies for the families of patients to go out and attempt to procure from the black market.

It is essential that you keep some supplies on hand and that you begin learning all you can about survival medicine.

The best book for that is Cat Ellis’s book, Prepper’s Natural Medicine. It isn’t dependent on expensive, difficult-to-find supplies, but on things you can find in your area. This book is something you absolutely must add to your stockpile. If you can treat most ailments at home and stay away from hospitals, you’re far more likely to survive in a scenario like the one described above. A trip to the hospital in that situation is probably more likely to result in your death than avoiding it altogether.

Stock up on over the counter medications for pain relief, allergies, colds, diarrhea, and inflammation.
Some people purchase veterinary antibiotics like this.
Create a kit of wound treatment supplies to help prevent infection. (This fantastic article can help you decide what you need.)
I’m a huge fan of Vetricyn. We spray it on human wounds as well as animal ones.
Besides Cat’s book of natural medicine, look into adding other guides to your stash. I like the field manuals from the US military, which are available on Amazon.

Now is the time.

Be watching for a comprehensive 3-month program that is coming soon to help you get prepared with one-on-one help from some of the most popular preparedness authors around. More details are coming soon.

If you wait until a crisis is already occurring, you’ve waited too long, which is exactly what the people of Venezuela are learning. By preparing ahead of time and filling your collapse supply list, while you may still experience difficult times, your struggle will not be as extreme as the ones we’re seeing.

5 Huge Stories the Media Ignored While Arguing Over Which #Bathroom to Use

May 15, 2016 by carey wedler

(ANTIMEDIA) Americans are prone to obsessing over seemingly frivolous headlines. Over the past year, we’ve seen the media drive emotional feeding frenzies on everything from the Starbucks red cup scandal or the superficial Confederate flag saga that ultimately glossed over the true foundations of racism in the U.S. Regardless of what the subjective opinion may be, the United States populace tends to feel inclined to indulge in heated, dramatic conversations about the morality of apparently inanimate objects.

But sometimes, they focus on more substantive issues.

One consistent subject that repeatedly riles up the masses is the subject of transgender rights. Last year, America (and the world) erupted in glee, rage, and overall chaos after Caitlyn Jenner debuted her new identity on the cover of Vanity Fair. More recently, many Americans have zeroed in on the ongoing controversy over transgender bathroom rights — sparked by North Carolina’s recent LGBT law. Some champion equal rights for all; others lament the destruction of American values. Headlines have detailed high-profile boycotts against North Carolina, the viral petition condemning Target for allowing transgender people to use whatever bathroom they prefer, and now, the topic is trending again amid news of President Obama’s call on Friday for public schools to respect transgender bathroom rights.

As important as these developments may be — no matter your views on the subject — as tends to happen, other highly important stories have fallen by the wayside. Though they have not been wholly blacked out by the corporate media, they have implications of equal, if not more , importance than America’s obsession with transgender issues — and most Americans will likely never hear about them.

Here are five stories you might want to review before diving back into the transgender imbroglio:

1. Hillary’s Conflicts of Interest Continue to Mount: As we reported, it was revealed this week that employees at the Department of Justice — one of the agencies tasked with investigating Clinton’s allegedly improper use of private email servers — gave $75,000 in donations to the presidential front-runner. “Hillary’s donations from the Department of Justice completely swamp those of the other candidates, in fact, as Sanders’ total from 51 donors was just $8,900 and Trump garnered an inconsequential $381,” we reported. David Bossie, president of watchdog group, Citizens United, argued “Attorney General Lynch must appoint a special counsel to determine if Hillary Clinton or her agents broke the law and compromised our national security. This investigation needs to be conducted free of political influence once and for all.”

As our own Claire Bernish explained, “Critics have previously pointed to Lynch personally donating over $10,000 to Democratic candidates as evidence of her lack of impartiality — and sufficient reason she should not be charged with overseeing the investigation of Clinton’s emails.” Further, Judge Andrew Napolitano revealed Russia has obtained some 20,000 emails from Hillary’s personal server — and is debating whether or not to leak them publicly. Ultimately, this conflict of interest represents deeply-rooted, systemic glitches in American democracy, where accountability is often flouted to protect the oligarchy. This reality does not mean the transgender conversation is unimportant — however, it does provide a sad commentary on whom Americans will accept as their ruler while they trade insults over bathroom rights. In this case, it’s a corrupt career politician whose misdeeds have thus far failed to thwart her designs on power.

2. Somebody was finally arrested for voter fraud, but it wasn’t the people committing it: This week, Anti-Media also reported on a Florida-based hacker, David Michael Levin, who exposed security flaws in the website of the Lee County Elections Office and the Division of Elections in Tallahassee. He shared them with authorities in the hopes of fixing the problem, but instead was arrested and charged. “According to the somewhat redacted police report, Levin’s associate, Daniel Sinclair, sent a security report about the SQL vulnerability — including details of the security flaw and a screenshot — to ‘an employee within the Department of State, Division of Elections,’” we reported. Shortly after, a special investigation was launched and Levin was arrested. “Levin’s foray into the elections data had not been undertaken with the appropriate permission — and because he didn’t alert the authorities as soon as he discovered vulnerabilities, law enforcement is required to be blind to his good intent,” we noted. He spent six hours in jail, even though he complied with all searches and confiscation of electronic devices.

Sinclair is running for a seat on the Lee County elections board, drawing some suspicion the hack was a publicity stunt, but as we noted, “with rather overt fraud disenfranchising voters across the country, arresting the one hacker who attempted to help secure elections seems oddly ironic.” Here’s a list of the many irregularities plaguing the electoral process this year.

3. Former Facebook employees revealed how the site censors news stories: Last week, Gizmodo published an in-depth story on how journalists working for the “Facebook Trends” feature of the social networking site were mistreated and quarantined from the rest of the staff. This week, Gizmodo published a follow-up piece documenting allegations from former employees that curators of the trending section excluded stories from conservative outlets and deliberately failed to include conservative topics from the IRS discrimination scandal to Rand Paul. Though these exclusions appeared to be unintentional displays of bias from individual employees, they dominated coverage of the story. But other manipulations of the feed were more deliberate. One official policy of the department included censoring stories about Facebook from trends.

“When it was a story about the company, we were told not to touch it. It had to be cleared through several channels, even if it was being shared quite a bit. We were told that we should not be putting it on the trending tool,” said one former employee. Further, in another official policy, employees were allowed to artificially inject stories into that trending pool, even if they were not trending on Facebook — as long as they were covered by mainstream outlets.

Though Republican lawmakers demanded answers from Facebook, perhaps the real story is Facebook’s complicity in perpetuating corporate media narratives; Facebook has long-partnered with corporate outlets (and the U.S. government), and has also been accused of censoring stories critical of Hillary Clinton, while blocking grassroots groups supporting Bernie Sanders. While Facebook is ultimately a private company that can make its own decisions, its users would do well to take the revelations as an opportunity to decide whether they trust the outlet to responsibly and equitably provide them with information.

No matter one’s view on Facebook’s rights as a private institution, the news of their practices runs in direct violation of their assertion the feed is comprised of “topics that have recently become popular.” The whistleblowers expressed hope that with the increased use of algorithms, Facebook Trends will be less subject to human bias and manipulation. In case that doesn’t happen, sign up for the weekly Anti-Media newsletter to get information unfiltered by Facebook.

4. Rat DNA, Human DNA, and Pathogenic Germs… in your hamburgers: According to an independent analysis conducted on over 250 burger brands in the United States — ranging from fast food to frozen food, and even vegetarian products — America’s love for burgers faces some snags. Though the report by Clear Labs, a California-based food industry researcher, praised overall improvements in the hamburger industry, they noted severe shortcomings, particularly with product labeling and the presence of germs. Rat DNA was found in three vegetarian burger samples while human DNA was found in one — but those were not the most concerning findings, the researchers noted, because though their presence is revolting, they are not necessarily considered dangerous to humans.

More worthy of alarm, they explained, was the mislabeling of vegetarian products, the presence of meat in some of those purportedly meatless burgers, and the total absence of black beans in a black bean burger. The report notes “23.6% of vegetarian products showed some form of discrepancy between product and label, compared to the 13.6% of all samples. We found pervasive issues in food quality and end-product consistency in these non-meat samples.”

Further, they found pathogens known to cause illness in 11 samples, four of which were found in vegetarian burgers. Though their tests could not determine whether the pathogens were alive or dead, their presence at all should raise eyebrows. Another top concern of analysts was the finding that “nearly 81 percent (38 of 47) of the fast food burgers tested contained more calories than reported in the product’s nutritional information,” and that“these discrepancies are potentially worrisome for customers who make decisions about what to order based on calorie counts and other available nutritional information.”

Though food contamination in the United States is nothing new, these findings are relevant not only because they document ongoing issues with food quality, but because they represent an attempt by a private organization to pick up the FDA’s slack. As Anti-Media pointed out, “Perhaps most telling is Clear Labs’ subtle, if not unintentional, commentary on the failures of the FDA to keep food safe for consumers; they stress their goal is to improve the safety and quality in hamburgers — ‘regardless of whether or not they are acceptable according to FDA guidelines,’” ultimately providing a silver lining to the unsettling report.

5. American foreign policy continues to have unintended ramifications: Americans have by and large accepted aggressive militarism as a linchpin of U.S. policy, and though the overwhelming civilian casualties and military failures are widely-known, this week Anti-Media reported on another consequence of the longest war in U.S. history: the war in Afghanistan has turned a generation of children into heroin addicts.

“The psychological damage of war, together with the flood of cheap heroin, has led to a doubling in addiction rates over the last five years. In the Channel 4 documentary, Unreported World, Ramita Naval explores a harrowing escalation in child addiction. In the ravaged country, where access to drug treatment is severely limited, she visits a rehabilitation centre where children as young as four or five — haunted by horrors they have witnessed — attempt to regain lost childhoods,” Anti-Media noted.

A Kabul-based doctor told Naval rates of addiction had jumped 60 percent in the last two years at the only treatment center in the city that helps children. Naval spoke to a thirteen-year-old boy whose parents were killed by shelling when he was eight. He ended up working as a guard for drug dealers, eventually becoming addicted to opium himself. He said he prostitutes himself to be able to maintain his habit.

Another young boy’s addiction began when, “after witnessing a suicide bomb attack in Kabul, he went to stay with relatives in the countryside. While he was there, U.S. forces bombed his village, killing dozens of people; he described seeing bodies scattered everywhere. The young boy and other villagers had to pick up the body parts and put them in plastic bags. Claiming the war breaks his heart — and making his descent into drug use more understandable — he said, ‘I’d rather not live, than live through this war.’”

“What’s happened in Afghanistan over the last 13 years has been the flourishing of a narco-state that is really without any parallel in history,” Kabul-based journalist Matthieu Aikins told Democracy Now back in 2014.

Afghanistan now produces 90 percent of the world’s opium, and even the CIA has been linked to key players in that trade. Clandestine operations aside, however, a generation of children lives in a country where opium is cheaper than food — and where unrelenting violence chronically traumatizes their young psyches, driving them deeper into addiction.

Of course, it is possible to care about transgender rights and political corruption, censorship, contaminated food, and the unintended victims of the Afghanistan War. As Facebook highlights transgender rights and Americans preach from the bully comment thread pulpits, however, it’s important to remember the broad view of current affairs.

This article (5 Huge Stories the Media Ignored While Arguing Over Which Bathroom to Use) 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.

From theantimedia.org Team

The Horrible Reason Why These #US Workers Had to Literally Wear #Diapers on the Job

May 14, 2016 by michaela whitton

(ANTIMEDIA) A new report revealing another dirty side to America’s rapidly growing poultry industry claims workers are being denied bathroom breaks and are forced to soil themselves to keep up with production. Lifting the veil on the billion dollar industry while pointing to the human cost of cheap chicken, the new report has revealed thousands of poultry workers are being routinely denied their basic needs — forcing some to wear diapers.

The grim discovery was made by Oxfam America during research conducted for their latest report, “No Relief.” Based on three years of interviews, the investigation is part of the global organisation’s continuing campaign to advocate for improved conditions for U.S. poultry workers. Launched in 2015 with the comprehensive report, “Lives on the Line,” the campaign exposed the main challenges facing the 250,000 poultry workers in the U.S. They include poor compensation, high injury and illness rates, and a climate of fear.

Despite all that, workers said the thing that offends their dignity the most is the lack of adequate bathroom breaks and the suffering that entails — especially for women. “Workers struggle to cope with this denial of a basic human need. They urinate and defecate while standing on the line; they wear diapers to work; they restrict intake of liquids and fluids to dangerous degrees,” the report reads.

It names Tyson Foods Inc., Perdue Farms Inc., Pilgrim’s Pride Corp., and Sanderson Farms Inc., who together control around 60% of America’s poultry market. Dozens of interviews with current and former workers, worker advocates, attorneys, medical experts and analysts revealed that behind the scenes of an industry with record profits, life inside the processing plants is dark and dangerous.

Supervisors, who are under pressure to maintain the speed of the processing line, reportedly mocked workers’ needs and ignored their requests. Others were threatened with punishment or termination. Out of hundreds of interviews, only a handful of workers said their bathroom needs were respected.

In addition to being forced to endure pain and discomfort while worrying about job security, workers are in danger of serious health problems. One doctor explained the dangers of “holding it”:

“The longer you hold your urine, the bladder can become a breeding ground for bacteria to grow. This bacteria can lead to infections, which can spread to kidneys and cause greater damage to the body.”

After concluding the denial of regular access to the bathroom is a clear violation of U.S. workplace safety law and could also violate U.S. anti-discrimination laws, the report goes on to make a number of recommendations as to how firms can improve working conditions and respect workers’ rights. Following its release, Oxfam America took to social media to call on poultry companies to change their policies, using the hashtag #GiveThemABreak

This article (The Horrible Reason Why These US Workers Had to Literally Wear Diapers on the Job) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Michaela Whitton and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

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From theantimedia.org Team

You Know Those Missing #Hillary #Emails? #Russia Might Leak 20,000 of Them

May 14, 2016 by claire bernish

(ANTIMEDIA) Hillary Clinton sits at the center of a raging firestorm concerning her arrangement of a private email account and server set up in her home — from which top secret information may have been deleted. But despite Bernie Sanders’ apparent annoyance with the “damn emails,” the scandal just exponentially intensified, when Judge Andrew Napolitano revealed on Monday that Russia has possession of around 20,000 of Clinton’s emails — leaving open the possibility her deletions might not have been permanent after all.

“There’s a debate going on in the Kremlin between the Foreign Ministry and the Intelligence Services about whether they should release the 20,000 of Mrs. Clinton’s emails that they have hacked into,” Napolitano told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly in an interview for The Kelly File.

[embedded content]

With Clinton’s repeated claims she employed the personal email server only for mundane communications and non-sensitive State matters having been proven outright lies, the deletions of 31,830 emails — in the new context of Napolitano’s statement — have suddenly become remarkably relevant.

As the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton’s questionable email practices deepens, the question of who had access to what information previously located on the former secretary of state’s server is now more critical than ever.

One such individual, Romanian hacker Guccifer, who was abruptly extradited to the United States, revealed he had easily and repeatedly accessed Clinton’s personal server — and he wasn’t the only one.

“For me, it was easy,” the hacker, whose given name is Marcel Lehel Lazar, exclusively told Fox News; “easy for me, for everybody.”

If Guccifer and Napolitano are right, Russia may, indeed, have possession of highly-sensitive information courtesy of Clinton’s arrogant failure to adhere to the obligation to use a government email account during her tenure as secretary — a situation worsened by the now-mendacious claim no sensitive information had been sent through the personal account.

In fact, if Guccifer is to be believed — as his extradition by the U.S. indicates — news of the Kremlin having obtained potentially top-secret material may be the tip of a gargantuan iceberg. Using a readily available program, the Romanian hacker also claimed he observed “up to 10, like, IPs from other parts of the world” during sessions on Clinton’s personal server. If just one of those unknown parties was connected to Russia, who the other nine might be could be central to the FBI’s decision whether or not to charge Clinton for mishandling classified information.

Adding yet another nail in the coffin case against Hillary on Thursday, the Hill reported conservative watchdog Judicial Watch revealed, pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request, frustration with technical difficulties in obtaining a secure phone line led the secretary to direct a top aide to abandon the effort and call her without the necessary security in place.

“I give up. Call me on my home [number],” Clinton wrote in a February 2009 email from the newly-released batch — on the also notoriously unsecured server — to then-chief of staff, Cheryl Mills.

Though the email thread contains no confirmation such a call was ever made on the unsecured phone line, it evidences still more of the same flagrant disregard for national security apparently peppering Clinton’s practices during her time at the State Department.

“This drip, drip of new Clinton emails show Hillary Clinton could not care less about the security of her communications,” noted Judicial Watch president, Tom Fitton, in a statement cited by the Hill. “How many other smoking gun emails are Hillary Clinton and her co-conspirators in the Obama administration hiding from the American people?”

For a putative presidential hopeful, Hillary Clinton certainly doesn’t appear to appreciate the imperative for keeping matters of national security obscured from … anyone.

This article (You Know Those Missing Hillary Emails? Russia Might Leak 20,000 of Them) 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

#UK Government Urged To Answer for Policy of Targeted #Killing

May 14, 2016 by michaela whitton

(ANTIMEDIA) When is it acceptable for a state to take a life outside of armed conflict? Is assassinating someone in order to protect other lives justified? If so, who gets to decide what constitutes a threat? In order to clarify the answers, a parliamentary committee in the U.K. has called into question the government’s interpretation of the law when it comes to the targeted killings of suspected terrorists outside the scope of armed conflict.

A new report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) has called for more accountability from the British government when it uses such force. However, campaigners claim the new recommendations risk legitimising extrajudicial killing. Although the inquiry was triggered by the RAF drone strike that targeted and killed 21-year-old Reyaad Khan in Syria last August, the JCHR focused on the wider legal issues surrounding the U.K’s targeted killing policy. They concluded the legal basis for the policy requires urgent clarification.

The U.K. government currently considers the use of drone attacks outside of armed conflict justified, as long as it complies with international law governing the use of force on the territory and the Law of War. However, the report highlighted a number of areas where the government’s legal basis for its own policy remains unclear, urging it to provide more clarity.

It also recommended the government establish its understanding of key concepts, such as what constitutes an “imminent threat” under international law. In addition, it stated the government must make clear its legal basis for contributing to the use of lethal force by other countries abroad, such as the U.S. Jennifer Gibson, a lawyer from Reprieve, called the report a wake-up call. She warned the U.K. risks “following the US down the slippery slope of kill lists and targeted killings.”

Chris Cole from Drone Wars U.K. also issued a word of caution. “We must be careful not to fall into the trap of putting in place policies and procedures that normalise and legitimise extrajudicial killing,” he said. “The UK must not follow the US down the path of adding suspects to a ‘kill list’ in order that they will be assassinated at the first opportunity in an ever-expanding, global battlefield.”

Claiming part of the problem is that the issue is being examined in legal terms, Cole pointed to additional serious ethical and security issues raised by the increased use of drone technology. Acknowledging the growing recognition that drones are lowering the threshold for the use of lethal force, he added:

“The constant presentation of targeted drone strikes as ‘precise’ and ‘pinpoint accurate’ has serious implications for the public’s understanding and debate of these issues.

“Due to the nature of today’s military interventions, few people in the UK have first-hand accounts of the impact on the ground, creating in the minds of many the idea that such strikes are clean, safe and even bloodless.”

Although Cole acknowledged the report is an important step in opening up the debate, he said there is a need for more serious debate on whether targeted killing should be happening at all.

This article (UK Government Urged To Answer for Policy of Targeted Killing) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Michaela Whitton and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

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From theantimedia.org Team

Signs of a #Slave Nation: Humiliation, #Socialism, Dependency, and Managed Media #Venezuela #feelthebern

May 14, 2016 by daisy luther

Signs of a Slave Nation: Humiliation, Socialism, Dependency, and Managed Media

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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

Is the economy turning the United States into a slave nation? It certainly looks like it, given the stories that we’ll be discussing this week. Jobs are so difficult to find that employers can turn them into sweatshops and people put up with it, just to be able to take care of their families.

Add to this the reliance of the average American on the cheap, easily available processed food system, and we truly are a nation at the mercy of the overlords, who even control the news we’re allowed to see.

Slavery and Humiliation Are Alive and Well in the American Workplace

Are your working conditions unpleasant? If you get to drink fluids during work, and urinate and defecate in a toilet, then you’re living the good life. Unlike American poultry workers, who toil in some of the most horrendous conditions imaginable – including having to wear a diaper to work, since bathroom breaks aren’t allowed. Slavery, it seems, is alive and well here in America.

With decent-paying jobs so few and far between, people who want to remain employed are accepting more and more mistreatment just to survive. Essentially, many American workplaces are becoming little more than sweatshops.

A report by the watchdog group, Oxfam, tells a story that will make you sick:

“I had to wear Pampers,” a worker identified as Dolores stated in a damning reportcalled “No Relief” released Wenesday by watchdog group Oxfam America. “I and many, many others had to wear Pampers.”

Industry employees also have been forced to cut down on drinking fluids “to a dangerous degree,” and some reported having urinated or defecated on themselves while working because they can’t hold it in any longer, according to the report.

“Supervisors mock [the workers’] needs and ignore
their requests; they threaten punishment or firing,” the report’s executive summary states. “Workers wait inordinately long times (an hour or more), then race to accomplish the task within a certain timeframe (e.g., ten minutes) or risk discipline.”

One worker said supervisors at an Alabama plant regularly threatened people by saying, “Go to the bathroom, and from there, go to Human Resources.” Another worker at a plant in the Delmarva (Delaware, Maryland and Virginia) region claimed it took between 20 and 60 minutes to get permission to leave her position and use the bathroom.

When workers do get permission to take a break, they aren’t given much time to use the facilities. In another section of the report, poultry plant employees say they are given as many as 5 minutes to leave their post, use the restroom and get back.

It’s bad enough that you can almost see how some people would choose welfare over working. Poultry plants are often in rural areas, where jobs are nearly impossible to come by. The folks working there have no options to leave and find other employment. There is no other employment, and that’s exactly what gives these companies the power to treat people the way they do.

These conditions were reported at four of the largest chicken processing plants in the country: Tyson Foods, Pilgrim’s Pride, Perdue Farms and Sanderson Farms. Is it really a stretch to think that companies whose policies are to torture animals in horrific ways would not value the dignity of human beings either? (If you’re wondering what I’m referring to, this article tells shows some horrifying photos from inside a Pilgrim’s Pride plant. I’m not a vegetarian, but I refuse to spend a penny with a company like this. And the big companies? They’re basically ALL like this. The modern poultry industry is horrendous in almost every way.)

Please consider purchasing your meat from small farms, where both animals and humans are treated with decency. Consider raising your own if circumstances allow. If you just go to the store and choose the cheapest option, you are, by default, endorsing the actions of companies that won’t even allow their employees to go to the restroom.

Venezuela Is Going Down

I know, I know. I’ve been saying it for two years, but it’s happening for real.

The beleaguered South American country is descending into chaos. Thousands of looters pillaged the remaining supplies in stores instead of waiting in hours-long lines for whatever might be doled out at exorbitant prices. Supply trucks just keep having “accidents” after which the contents are stolen. Other hungry people are killing cats, dogs, pigeons, and rodents just to have something to eat. One man who turned to mugging people was actually lit on fire and burned to death by the mob that caught him doing so. Unbelievably, the Venezuelan government has promised even more cuts on imports in order to pay their debts. Since stock is already depleted in this country that relies on imports for food, personal items, and necessities, things are about to get even worse.

Venezuela contains the largest reserves of crude oil in the world, but due to the mismanagement of a Socialist regime, collapse is imminent – even the mainstream media has admitted that it is inevitable.The country is suffering from the highest inflation in the world, electricity has been strictly rationed with rolling blackouts (and this is in the city – rumor has it that in the rural areas, there is no power whatsoever), and a few months ago, it was announced that they simply did not have enough food to supply the country. (This will get far worse when the import cuts get more intense.) People, including city dwellers, were informed that they needed to begin to produce their own food.

With the oil-based wealth of the country, many citizens never expected that collapse was coming. Sound familiar? Now that they’re on their own to feed themselves, the country has devolved into pandemonium. This is why, no matter where you live, as I discussed in this interview, you need to begin taking steps to be more self-reliant. You need to store long-term emergency food, build a food pantry that you use from day-to-day, and learn to replenish your food in your own backyard. While you might not be able to grow all of your food, if things get tight, what you do grow and stockpile can supplement meager rations. You do not want to be a slave to this system, because when the masters stop feeding you, things are going to get ugly.

If it can happen in a country with that much oil, it can happen in the United States. They’re feeling the Bern of socialism in Venezuela and if you haven’t noticed, younger Americans are positively begging for a similar style of government here.

Anonymous Is Taking Down Banks, But Facebook Won’t Let You Tell Anyone

Hactivist group Anonymous has dedicated the month of May to assaulting the global banking cartel in a rather spectacular fashion. Beginning with the Bank of Greece, they’ve targeted the websites of 9 of the world’s largest banks so far.

And here is the follow-up from Anonymous with a list of banks that they intend to target.

In the event these videos are taken down, you can find a list of their targets HERE.

But if you haven’t heard about it, there’s a very good reason. Taking media blackouts to a whole new level, it seems that Facebook has blocked any sharing of a particular link about the takedowns. Here’s the message I got when I tried to share the link in a private message to a friend. Right?????? (This is the link I was trying to share – definitely go read it!)

Hmmm…right as Facebook comes under fire for an apparent policy of censoring conservative news and information, an accusation they vehemently denied.

Now, indulge me just a teeny little bit. I enjoy watching the greedy being taught a lesson as much as anyone else, and because everyone loves a Robin Hood anti-hero story, I really hope this is all legit.

But…

What if…

What if there was something huge going on in the banking world this month? Some kind of excruciating collapse that could cause massive chaos if everyone knew about it? What better way to cover up the financial disaster than to say, “Oh! Our system has been hacked! Don’t worry, comrades, your money is safe and there’s nothing to see here!” What if it isn’t Anonymous at all,but actually the banks themselves? What if Anonymous isn’t who they present themselves to be? There have been rumors for years that they are actually a government-controlled psy-op and part of the manipulative narrative.

This, of course, is nothing but interesting conjecture and something to think about. (Dear Anonymous: If I’m wrong, please don’t get all mad and hack me. I’m just a little blogger being a critical thinker.:) Thanks.)

Prepper Stuff

This week, instead of a round-up, I wrote a letter to folks who are out there doing the family preparedness gig by themselves. Single parent preppers can often become discouraged by information that seems to be specific to families with two adults, but there are many of us juggling the whole shebang on our own.

Not only are these families headed up by divorced and widowed parents, but there are a growing number of people who straddle the line for a variety of reasons. Some are the spouses of our military members who have been deployed overseas. Others are forced to live separately when one spouse finds employment too far away to return home each night. There are families in which one parent takes the majority of the responsibilities due to something that affects their spouses: chronic illness, addiction, or mental health concerns, to name a few. These semi-single parents face many of the same issues as single parents do, and these are topped off with additional worries about the well-being of their spouses. You can read the letter here.

I did an interview recently with my friend Rory, of The Daily Coin. We discussed the situation in Venezuela and talked about the lessons that we can learn if we observe carefully what is going on down there. One thing is very clear: independence means a lack of dependence. It’s time to break free from the system. You can listen to the interview here.

Resources:

An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry

State MinimumWages

Venezuela Before Chavez

Non-GMO Long-term Storable Food

The Pantry Primer: A Prepper’s Guide to Whole Food Pantry on a Half Price Budget

Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous

The Prepper’s Blueprint

Global Catastrophe Imminent: “Asteroids, Robots and Engineered Viruses Will Kill Millions”

May 14, 2016 by mac slavo

There is yet more confirmation that near-certain doom is headed for planet earth, and could kill or disrupt the lives of everyone on the planet.

And there’s reason to think it could be in our lifetimes.

A study commissioned by Oxford University identified possibly-imminent catastrophe from asteroids, AI, volcanoes, nukes/EMP or manufactured/weaponized disease sweeping the planet.

And yet we’re the conspiracy theorists…

According to the Daily Mail/Press Association:

In the next five years asteroids, super volcanic eruptions and unknown risks are ranked as the biggest threat to humanity.[…]

It may sound like the stuff of sci-fi films, but experts said these apocalyptic threats are more likely than many realise…

[…]

In the longer term, the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has been listed alongside catastrophic climate change, nuclear war and pandemics as a threat to humanity.

The biggest long term threat to civilization is natural and engineered pandemics and nuclear war […] the rise of synthetic biology could open the door to the creation of “off the shelf” deadly viruses.

The report, which focuses on global approaches to address these looming dangers, and a worldwide integration of efforts, reminds us that we are all too mortal, and that devastating pandemics have indeed occurred throughout history:

It warns that while most generations never experience a catastrophe, they are far from fanciful, as the bouts of plague and the 1918 Spanish flu that wiped out millions illustrated.

There is no way of knowing what kind disaster could befall the planet, but it is important to prepare for the worst at a personal and local level. Chances are, you’ll be far more effective that way.

Despite the focus on global talk, there is little chance that a bigger and bigger governing structure could protect us all, or come to the rescue when you need it most.

When seconds count, police are minutes away, and the federal/international authorities are days or weeks away. They are only there to clean up the mess when it’s over and seize power.

Indeed, it seems that civilization is all-too-vulnerable, and millions of lives hang in the balance. Don’t be complacent, don’t rely on big cities and trust only those who you know and can rely upon.

The Shaking Continues: “There is Great Reason For Concern” Over Recent Earthquakes and Volcanic Eruptions

“Looming Catastrophe from Diseased Rates”: Billionaire Icahn Warns of Danger Ahead

Surviving The Unthinkable – Being Prepared For What Is Coming Will Be The Difference Between Living And Dying

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

#Banker Gets Record #Prison Sentence

May 14, 2016 by michaela whitton

(ANTIMEDIA) United Kingdom — A senior investment banker has been slapped with the U.K.’s longest-ever prison sentence for insider trading. On Wednesday, Martyn Dodgson was convicted of conspiring to deal secretly in company shares. He was sentenced to four-and-a-half years at London’s Southwark Crown Court for what was described as “highly sophisticated” offenses. His accomplice and friend, Andrew Hind, received three-and-a-half years in the case, which involved five defendants — three of whom were acquitted.

Insider dealing uses confidential information to trade on the stock market, and the economic offence carries a maximum seven-year sentence in the U.K., though the longest sentence handed out to date had previously been four years. The judge said the two men’s offences amounted to “persistent, prolonged, deliberate and dishonest behaviour,” and it is estimated the duo netted £7.4 million from their activities.

During the period covered by the indictment, Dodgson was employed by Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, and Deutsche Bank. After sourcing inside information within the investment banks — either through transactions he worked on himself or by gleaning what colleagues were working on — he then passed the information to Hind, who acted as middleman and traded in shares for both men’s benefit.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) accused the senior investment banker and chartered accountant of using elaborate strategies to keep their activities under wraps. These included unregistered mobile phones, encoded and encrypted records, safety deposit boxes, and cash payments.

The sentences drew a line under “Operation Tabernula,” an investigation by the FCA that began in 2007. Described as the FCA’s largest and most complex insider dealing investigation, it is said to have cost £14 million; officials called it demanding and time-consuming.

Dodgson is one of the most senior figures ever to be charged with insider dealing in the U.K. Although the banker’s sentence is higher than any imposed to date, some might consider it pitiful considering the two men stole more than £7 million.

This article (Banker Gets Record Prison Sentence) 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

Bombshell Report: Crooked #Hillary Took $100 Million From #MiddleEast Regimes: “Massive Conflicts Of Interest”

May 12, 2016 by mac slavo

How much more of Hillary Clinton’s scandals can America take?

A bombshell report from The Daily Caller says the Clinton Foundation, a purported not-for-profit charity headed by Bill, Hillary and daughter Chelsea, has reportedly amassed a fortune from oil-rich mid east nations to the tune of $100 million.

National Security Analyst Patrick Poole says the amount of cash donated to the Clintons is “simple unprecedented.”

“These regimes are buying access. You’ve got the Saudis. You’ve got the Kuwaitis, Oman, Qatar and the UAE. There are massive conflicts of interest. It’s beyond comprehension,” Poole told The Daily Caller.

A Daily Caller News Foundation investigation reveals that Bill and Hillary Clinton received at least $100 million from autocratic Persian Gulf states and their leaders, potentially undermining Democratic presidential candidate Hillary’s claim she can carry out independent Middle East policies.

The benefits for mid east oil producers amount to billions of dollars in oil trade, and as you might expect, Hillary Clinton is more than happy to oblige – at the expense of American energy companies and workers:

The ongoing Clinton financial relationship with despotic Persian Gulf states could hurt Hillary as a supporter of labor rights and tarnish her image as a vigorous supporter of women.

Yet as secretary of state, Clinton consciously and actively sought to legitimize the sheikdoms through many new Department of State programs.

It’s unclear what kind of promises or concessions the Clintons may have given the monarchs in return for their lavish financial support over the years, but last month the candidate reversed her long-standing support for fracking.

Hillary’s new position, unveiled last month at a CNN presidential debate with Democratic opponent Sen. Bernie Sanders, put her in alignment with the Gulf State policy which opposes North American oil and gas fracking.

Read the full investigative report at The Daily Caller

There is absolutely no plausible reason for why oil sheikhs in the middle east would “donate” $100 million to The Clinton Foundation, save one. They need direct access to the President of the United States, and like most other establishment groups, they assume Hillary’s coronation as President of the United States is a foregone conclusion.

The donations and Clinton’s subsequent flip-flop to support the policies of mid east producers just months after the donations were made is direct evidence that she has been paid to play.

Whether you are a Republican, Democrat, or currently without political party affiliation, it should be clear that Clinton will sell America down the river in pursuit of money, power and legacy.

Love him or hate him, Donald Trump’s “Crooked Hillary” label sums her up precisely.

Also Read:

Watch: Clinton Town Hall Questions Totally Rigged: “I Can See Why they Gave You This Question”

Real Reason Biden Didn’t Run: VP Warned “Clinton Machine Will Destroy You”

“She’s a f*cking liar”: Caitlyn Jenner Destroys Hillary Clinton on TV, Causes Heads to Explode

Sick of It Yet? Hillary’s Big Fat Stinking Piles of Lies Get BIGGER!

White House At War With Clintons: “Obama Does Not Want To See Hillary Become President Of The United States”

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Jon #Stewart Just Slammed Hillary #Clinton But the Media Ignored It

May 12, 2016 by claire bernish

(ANTIMEDIA) While it’s hardly shocking that mainstream media targeted Jon Stewart’s latest jab — in which he described Donald Trump as a “man-baby” — the mainstream media establishment mouthpiece virtually ignored his lambasting of Hillary Clinton.

“What I think about Hillary Clinton is, you know … I imagine [her] to be a very bright woman … without the courage of her convictions — ‘cause I’m not even sure what they are,” Stewart told David Axelrod for his podcast, The Axe, to which the audience erupted in applause.

Though the slam represented more than corporate media has managed thus far during the former secretary of state’s troubled run for the presidency, Jon Stewart took the description to a hilarious next level. For reference, Magic Johnson once had a talk show that ultimately failed because … well … witness Stewart’s comparison of Johson to Hillary:

“Magic Johnson was a charming individual, but he wasn’t a talk show host … so, he would sit and he would go, [Stewart affected a flat tone here] ‘Uh, my first guest tonight … my first guest tonight is [with lots of enthusiasm] CHER, everybody!’ But he never seemed authentic and real to his personality. It seemed like he was wearing an outfit designed by someone else for someone else to be someone else, and that is not to say that [Clinton] is not preferable to Donald Trump — because at this point, I would vote for Mr. T over Donald Trump. But I think she will be in big trouble if she can’t find a way, and maybe I’m wrong. Maybe a real person doesn’t exist underneath there. I don’t know.”

Axelrod then asked the former host of the Daily Show about Clinton’s appearance as a guest — and the criticism continued:

[embedded content]

“What was that like?” Axelrod inquired about the former secretary’s interview.

“Really cool,” Stewart deadpanned. “It’s — look, there are politicians who are either rendering their inauthenticity in real enough time to appear authentic, and then their are politicians who render their inauthenticity through — it’s like, when your computer … if you have a Mac and you want to play a Microsoft game on it …”

AXELROD: Yes, yes.

STEWART: … and there’s that weird lag.

AXELROD: Yes. No, I mean …

STEWART: That’s Hillary Clinton.

AXELROD: … that’s a big problem. There’s like a seven-second delay and all the words come out in a perfectly …

STEWART: Right.

AXELROD: … politically calibrated sentence.

STEWART: Right. Now, what gives me hope in that is that there’s a delay, which means she’s somehow fighting something. I’ve seen politicians who don’t have that delay and render their inauthenticity in real time, and that’s when you go, ‘That’s a sociopath.’

So, there you have it. Jon Stewart described Hillary Clinton as inauthentic and not bold enough to follow through on issues she stridently touts — but stopped just short of calling the presidential hopeful a ‘sociopath.’

Jon Stewart speaks ill of Hillary, instantly has his Good Liberal card revoked by hordes of angry Democrats https://t.co/zuW0wmxVK8

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 12, 2016

For the full podcast, visit this link.

This article (Jon Stewart Just Slammed Hillary Clinton But the Media Ignored It) 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

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