Headline News – Page 5

GOP Insider Admits: “That’s Just the Way It Is… We Choose the Nominee, Not the Voters”

March 17, 2016 by mac slavo

This GOP official made a brazen admission that, well, voting doesn’t matter.

If you haven’t come to terms with that fact, then it’s probably about time that you did.

Given the complex and deliberately obscure rules that the Republican and Democratic parties create for themselves, it is clear that it is not the voters of this country, but the insider party officials who actually determine who our leaders will be.

This system is hardly a democracy, but it is reality.

Many have surmised as much, as they watch the country going down the tubes year after year, but now their suspicions have been confirmed. CNBC reported:

Political parties, not voters, choose their presidential nominees, a Republican convention rules member told CNBC, a day after GOP front-runner Donald Trump rolled up more big primary victories.

“The media has created the perception that the voters choose the nomination. That’s the conflict here,” Curly Haugland, an unbound GOP delegate from North Dakota, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday. He even questioned why primaries and caucuses are held.

[…]

This could lead to a brokered convention…

“It could introduce Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, or it could be the other candidates that have already been in the race and are now out of the race [such as] Mike Huckabee [or] Rick Santorum. All those people could eventually become candidates on the floor,” Emineth said.

[…]

“The rules haven’t kept up,” Haugland said. “The rules are still designed to have a political party choose its nominee at a convention. That’s just the way it is. I can’t help it. Don’t hate me because I love the rules.”

They make the rules, they break the rules, everyone else follows their decision.

It’s not like the Democrats even offered a real choice against Hillary Clinton – instead, the illusion of voting has moved forward, while the party tightly locked around super delegates and byzantine procedures to ensure that the decision had already been made before a single vote was cast.

Power tends to corrupt, and create institutions for holding onto power. That cycle repeats, intensifies and expels excrement, corruption and tyranny.

This network of control had allowed connected insiders, rich billionaires and elite, global architects to steer elections, select candidates and tilt the system in their favor.

As Mark Twain keenly noted: “If voting made any difference they wouldn’t let us do it.”

Shocking Hidden Video: America’s Voting System is a Complete Farce

Election Results: “What’s Going To Change Is Only Who Is Going To Screw You — Not Whether You’ll Get Screwed”

Hostile Takeover: Ron Paul Delegates Barred From Voting at the Republican National Convention *Video*

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Survival Hacks: With These 17 Tricks, You Can Improvise Through Any Crisis

March 17, 2016 by mac slavo

One part of prepping is gathering and storing lots of useful gear and supplies.

Another part is honing your skills so that you could likely manage without any of those supplies – if you had to.

This video will start you out with some tips on how to whip up some useful devices out of practically nothing.

Tips in this video:

1. Use an aluminum soda can, cut open, to reflect and magnify the light of a candle

2. Use a piece of cloth and two containers to purify dirty water by transferring through the cloth. Then boil.

3. Instantly light a fire without lighter fluid. Place charcoal briquets in the spaces of an empty egg carton, and just light the egg carton for a quick lunch out and about.

4. Use or burn rosemary, basil or other common herbs to repel mosquitoes and irritating insects

5. Create an instant solar oven by cutting open a box, lining the top and inside with foil. Just add sun, and your food can be warmed in just a short time.

6. When the compass gets lost in your gear, you can point towards north by static charging a sewing needle by rubbing it on clothing. Place the charged needle on a leaf floating in water, and you’ll find orientation by connecting man, metal and nature.

7. Combine cooking oil with a paper-towel wick in a spare can, and create an emergency candle… more expensive the more virgin and imported it is.

By starting to think this way, you can conceive of and notice hundreds of other ways to modify, improvise and “hack” your way through survival – anywhere, anytime.

Here are even more life hacks that could help in a crisis.

Perhaps even cooler are the “life hacks” presented by the CrazyRussianHacker:

His hacks include:

– Making a candle out of an orange peel, which provides container and wick, and vegetable oil (as above)

– Creating fire with an aluminum-coated gum wrapper connected to the opposite terminal ends of a AA battery (way cool)

– Make a makeshift harpoon-like weapon out of a wooden BBQ skewer, a balloon, and a stabilizing bottle top

– Open a can the Russian way: using just a knife and some strategic angles

– Pick a padlock with an aluminum scrap from a soda can

– Modify an aluminum can into an alcohol-fueled gas stove

– Use aluminum foil to create a battery-dud to complete the circuit when you only have one battery to power a flashlight that requires two.

– Power small devices with the miniature cells inside a AA battery by peeling it open, carefully

– Reconfigure paper clips into wire electrodes to connect batteries to a light bulb and create a flashlight.

Seriously, this guy is the Russian MacGyver!

Train your mind to re-envision the common items around you. Many of them can serve your survival needs and create comfort at times when there is little else around to work with.

There are infinite possibilities, and you are only limited by your cleverness once you understand the basic principles involved.

These Clever 100-Year-Old Life Hacks Can Still Make Your Life Easier Today

Can’t-Do Generation: “Expect Everything to Just Work,” and Throw Out What They Can’t Fix

How To Get a Family of Four Prepped for The Coming Collapse – In The Quickest and Easiest Way Possible…

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

“The 2nd Amendment Will Be Under Siege Before The Election” – New Supreme Court Nominee Supports Whatever Big Government Wants

March 17, 2016 by contributing author

As with most of Obama’s actions, his nomination of Merrick B. Garland as the replacement for recently-deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is hardly unpredictable. This article will outline Garland’s background. Obama will “fast-track” this appointment, as if evidenced by Orrin Hatch already “jumping on the bandwagon” and agreeing with Obama’s choice. Right out of the chute, here comes one “RINO” in the rodeo to “rope” in another liberal democrat to follow the herd of Obama-appointees. First Sotomayor, then Kagan, and the third rodeo clown appears to be Garland. Here’s the “punch line” for the clowns:

Garland will be fast-tracked in, and the 2^nd Amendment under siege before the election.

So, this man grew up in Chicago, Illinois, attended Harvard, then subsequently Garland went to Harvard Law School for his JD. He served under Judge Henry J. Friendly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (Friendly attended Harvard Law School), and then under William J. Brennan, a leading liberal Supreme Court Justice appointed by Eisenhower. Brennan, let it be noted, also received his JD from Harvard Law School, and was a giant liberal who opposed the death penalty and was a staunch supporter of abortion and Roe vs. Wade.

Just to give you an idea of Brennan’s mindset (as he was a mentor to Garland), guess what little gem he helped to set into the crown of our broken American society? He wrote the rulings for Texas v. Johnson, and United States v. Eichman. These rulings enabled the Court to uphold that desecration of the American Flag is protected under the First Amendment.

In 1993, Garland worked for the Department of Justice under another Clinton appointee, Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, Garland’s mentor there who personally asked for him to serve as her principal deputy. Gorelick, let it be noted, also attended Harvard Law School, picking up her JD there. Gorelick later became Vice Chairman for Fannie Mae, and during her tenure from 1997-2003, Fannie Mae underwent a $10 billion accounting scandal.

Garland was later appointed under Clinton in 1995 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. He didn’t start until 1997, however, because his initial appointment was turned down, to consider whether or not the court needed him as a judge. Clinton’s reelection in ’96 enabled him to slip through in ’97. Now Obama is fast-tracking Garland into the Supreme Court. Obama, let it be noted, also attended Harvard Law School.

But wait…there’s more. Back when Parker vs. District of Columbia (submitted 2003, the basis for Heller vs. D.C. ruling in 2008) came about, part of D.C.’s restrictive gun law was struck down as unconstitutional under the 2^nd Amendment. The mayor at that time for D.C., Adrian Fenty and a squad of his liberal assistants brought a petition in April 2007 to the circuit court of D.C. to hear the case en banc, meaning with all of the justices on the appeals court voting. That petition was struck down and denied on May 8, 2007, at a vote of 6-4. Guess who was one of the dissenting 4 voters? Yep, you guessed it…Judge Merrick Garland!

This guy supports whatever big government wants. With him in the vacant SCOTUS seat, it will just be a matter of time before the 2^nd Amendment comes under attack. We have seen what happened when Obamacare was voted in under the color of law with Roberts leading the way. Now it won’t even need a (pseudo)conservative to break the deadlock. Now Roberts can appear to be the “dissenter” …while Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan, Kennedy, and (soon) Garland…vote to negate or cripple the 2^nd Amendment.

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

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

Also Read:

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

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

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

Jeremiah Johnson’s Green Beret Survival Guides

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

‘Thunderstorm Spiral’: Pentagon Trains for Underground War/Disaster In Densely-Populated MegaCities

March 16, 2016 by mac slavo

As populations grow into cities across the globe, and increasing majority of people will live in urban areas – places which quickly become very desperate and vulnerable during a major crisis.

Every prepper knows the dangers of being stuck in a major metropolitan city in the event of a major hurricane, a grid down scenario or civil unrest and societal collapse.

In such a situation, as every prepper knows, food, water and other vital resources will quickly become scarce or unavailable. The gridlock of survivors trying to get out, or get their hands on assets.

Increasingly, the Pentagon is looking at the likelihood – perhaps the inevitability – of war/conflict inside of a destabilized or decimated megacity urban center like New York.

According to the Daily Mail:

The Pentagon is calling for help from technological innovators to take on the future of warfare.

In the program titled ‘Thunderstorm Spiral,’ the US government solicits demonstrations to tackle the challenges of megacities and underground environments, which will become increasingly prevalent as populations continue to grow.

[…]

A megacity is defined as a city with more than 10 million residents. To put this in perspective, there are currently over 8 million people living in New York City.

As these numbers continue to grow within defined areas, infrastructure will have to adapt, pushing megacities toward the development of subterranean – or underground – environments.

In 2014, there were 23 megacities with ‘vast subterranean structures’; in 2025, it’s expected this number will reach 37.

To meet these needs, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Emerging Capability and Prototyping, Rapid Reaction Technology Office (RRTO) Technology Demonstration Program is sponsoring the request for information (RFI) issued by the Pentagon.

‘As the world’s population grows, the probability of the U.S. needing to conduct combat and humanitarian assistance / disaster relief (HA/DR) operations within a megacity (defined as a city with more than 10 million residents) also grows,’ the solicitation states.

[…]

The ‘desired capabilities’ in focus of the program include GPS techniques for underground and dense urban environments along with intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance sensors for use in tunnels.

As major American, Asian and European cities grow with extreme rapidity, urban planners have been expanding large underground facilities. Increasingly, it is not just subway systems, but shopping malls, parking lots, utilities and perhaps even residential units that are being built underground.

While this may be practical to facilitate crowded above-ground conditions, it brings new dangers for populations who could be trapped underneath in the event of a bombing, terrorist attack or major natural disaster.

Inadequate design to accommodate flooding and allow evacuation for people underground is perhaps the biggest threat facing these quickly expanding facilities.

The United Nations University has studied many of the disaster scenarios that could occur in underground spaces, noting the rapid growth of underground facilities in mega-urban areas across the world:

The rapid and extensive underground expansion of mega-cities – for subways, malls, parking and public utilities – takes place often with too little knowledge of associated risks and too few plans to minimize the effects of a natural disaster, United Nations University experts warn.

With growing land pressures in cities (which contain about 50% of all people today, seen rising to 65% by 2030), creating new space underground becomes increasingly attractive. In many places, however, studies of potential natural disaster risks are often neglected, says Srikantha Herath, UNU Senior Academic Programme Officer.

While many underground shelters can withstand earthquakes and other disruptions, flooding stands as one of the biggest and untested underground disasters cities may face in the near future:

Modeling a variety of catastrophic events is essential for building contingencies into underground infrastructure designs, including evacuations and the emergency containment and transport of flood waters, for example.”

Via underground interconnections, water can travel considerable distances away from the flood source. However, there are often no subsurface maps; underground space is usually mapped in relation to a building overhead.

Strategic relocation expert Joel Skousen and other prepping experts have warned against allowing yourself to be trapped in a major city – particularly on the East Coast – where evacuation may be nigh impossible. Being trapped underground in such a megacity only adds another layer of disaster to that recipe.

If you have your own underground structure, make sure that its design has accounted for flooding, because the possibilities are all too real.

Strategic Relocation: Where To Go When It Hits the Fan (Full Movie)

How This Man Converted “Underground Shelter Using a 20 Ft. Shipping Container”

Elite Hiding in Bunkers to Escape War with China: “Intended Survivors Are Moving Underground”

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

China’s 7,000 Year Old Strategy Hints That A Massive Move Is Coming : “Largest Gold Rally Of Our Lifetime… It Will Go Ballistic”

March 16, 2016 by mac slavo

Up until January, the majority of people assumed that governments and central banks had everything under control. Zero-Interest and Negative-Interest rate policies coupled with unprecedented monetary printing appeared to have stabilized the economy and financial markets. But then something broke. Stock exchanges crashed following the New Year and investors the world over went into panic mode. They sold pretty much everything, including oil and the oft touted Internet 2.0 behemoths that were, in some cases, selling at 500 times their earnings. It was a rush for the exits.

But as we’ve noted repeatedly in recent years, when financial panic, confusion and uncertainty take hold, the smart money will rapidly moves into wealth preservation assets of last resort. And, this is exactly what we saw over the last two months. Though broader stock markets were crashing, precious metals and the companies that mine them exploded to the upside. Exchange traded funds that track gold were up double digit percentages and in some cases stock prices nearly doubled.

With more economic machinations from the powers that be sure to come and a currency crisis looming, what we recently saw with gold and silver is just a small preview of how precious metals will behave during serious and sustained market disruptions. Some analysts have suggested that the next stock market crash will be deeper and more violent than what we saw in 2008. And as Future Money Trends notes in their latest video below, that could mean massive moves for gold:

We believe the gold price will go absolutely ballistic… with a repricing of a level of $10,000 per ounce or higher as predicted by former CIA adviser Jim Rickards.

(Watch At Youtube)

And how does one position themselves to take advantage of this crisis asset of last resort?

Holding the physical asset in the form of bullion is, of course, highly recommended.

But for those with investment accounts like 401(k)’s or IRA’s, consider following China’s lead:

For 7,000 years man has mined gold deposits, making it possibly one of the most reliable businesses in human history… and one of the smartest because owning a gold mine allows you to keep producing the gold after your initial investment…

Think about it, for all of human history gold is so precious, so rare, that if you took all the Egyptians mined… the Romans… and everything since… we would only have three Olympic sized swimming pools full of gold.

The headlines for gold these last few years have all focused on physical gold accumulation by China, Russia and Eastern central banks… but what they have missed is a 7,000 year old strategy that China is doubling down on… According to data compiled by Bloomberg, in 2013 asset purchases by Honk Kong and mainland miners increased by $2.2 billion. China is buying gold mines at a record.

…By August of this year Chinese influence will have infiltrated the biggest financial institutions in the world with China only revealing their physical bullion above ground while saying nothing about their mine acquisitions. This explains their long-term strategy to implement some form of gold-backed currency.

The world may well be on its way to the largest gold rally of our lifetime.

When it comes to positioning oneself for crisis, gold and silver have stood the test of time for thousands of years. There will no doubt be ups and downs going forward, but the trend is clear.

For more videos, interviews, news and commentary visit Future Money Trends.

Click here to learn how you can follow China’s strategy of accumulating mining assets ahead of the next bull market.

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Self-Driving Cars Programmed to Sacrifice As They Hit the Road: “Someone Is Going to Die”

March 16, 2016 by mac slavo

Self-driving cars are poised to take over U.S. roads and destroy American jobs… and they will also kill people, even if by accident.

Right now, they’re makers are in the process of convincing Congress that they can handle their own regulations – even as they continue working out the kinks.

The U.S. Senate subcommittee for Commerce, Science and Transportation heared testimony from Duke University roboticist Missy Cummings, who admitted that fatalities and accidents are inevitable as self-driving cars attempt to integrate with a busy and complex society.

The London Guardian reports:

The robot car revolution hit a speed bump on Tuesday as senators and tech experts sounded stern warnings about the potentially fatal risks of self-driving cars.“There is no question that someone is going to die in this technology,” said Duke University roboticist Missy Cummings in testimony before the US Senate committee on commerce, science and transportation. “The question is when and what can we do to minimize that.”

Automotive executives and lawmakers sniped at each other over whether universal standards were necessary for self-driving cars….

Senators Ed Markey and Richard Blumenthal, who have cosponsored legislation that proposes minimum testing standards for automated drivers… “The credibility of this technology is exceedingly fragile if people can’t trust standards – not necessarily for you, but for all the other actors that may come into this space at this point.”

These “standards” reflect the programming that will make sometimes fatal choices in the mix of situations that may involve innocent by-standers and no-win situations.

In these cases, is there a “moral” gradient that computers and people can see eye-to-eye on?

If the self-driving car is designed to avoid children at all costs, does that mean it could be programmed to kill (or sacrifice) you if/when you are caught inside of a car headed for disaster, or on the opposite side of the road as the child? There are no clear answers.

The standards are already becoming morally complex. Google X’s Chris Urmson, the company’s director of self-driving cars, said the company was trying to work through some difficult problems. Where to turn – toward the child playing in the road or over the side of the overpass?

Google has come up with its own Laws of Robotics for cars: “We try to say, ‘Let’s try hardest to avoid vulnerable road users, and beyond that try hardest to avoid other vehicles, and then beyond that try to avoid things that that don’t move in the world,’ and then to be transparent with the user that that’s the way it works,” Urmson said.

But the “morality” of the decision-making structure of the computer’s processes, and the inevitability of chaos for at least some individuals is only part of the story.

Autonomous vehicles will, ironically, also be quite vulnerable to hacking – as Internet-connected devices in the car can be manipulated and used to takeover the commands and data of really any of the newer “smart” cars on the road. The problem will be even bigger as self-driving cars become a bigger part of our life.

“We know that many of the sensors on self-driving cars are not reliable in good weather, in urban canyons, or places where the map databases are out of date,” said Cummings. “We know gesture recognition is a serious problem, especially in real world settings. We know humans will get in the back seat while they think their cars are on ‘autopilot’. We know people will try to hack into these systems.”

“[W]e know that people, including bicyclists, pedestrians and other drivers, could and will attempt to game self-driving cars, in effect trying to elicit or prevent various behaviors in attempts to get ahead of the cars or simply to have fun,” she said.

Back in 2013, a couple of white hat hackers demonstrated how vulnerable a number of newer cars are to hacking. The possibilities are down right frightening – everything from the stereo and windshield wipers to the brakes can be hacked and remotely controlled – or shut off when you need them most. Just imagine what is possible in 2016.

What happens when these self-driving cars of the future disagree with the human passenger about the priorities, or what is allowed in a critical situation – like escaping a car jacking assault or avoiding a cop in pursuit?

It isn’t hard to see how trusting technology on the roads is going to complicate the future, and restrict our human ability to make decisions about important factors on the road. Let’s just hope somebody programs these intelligent machines with some common sense.

“Government Wants to Control Your Car” and Prevent You From Tinkering Under the Hood

How Smart Devices Could Take Out Power Grid: Hack “Air Conditioners, Turn On/Off Repeatedly”

Cyber Attack May Be To Blame For Deadly Amtrak Crash ‘Throttling Speed’

Infrastructure Cyber Attack: “We Don’t Know How Many Utilities Are Compromised”

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

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

March 15, 2016 by contributing author

On Friday, March 11, Obama was in Austin, TX attempting to make his case for an allowance of a “back door” for government to enter into mobile devices. His plea is predicated on the government’s “need” to gain information for use against “war on terror” suspects, and also to find evidence to prosecute those attempting to bypass tax laws. Obama used the phrase “we” to refer to those making the decision to utilize such back door venues. The pronoun does not refer to “we the people,” but instead a nebulous “we” such as the TV series “the Outer Limits.” His “we” wants to control the vertical, the horizontal, and everything in between.

Obama said the following at the South by Southwest Festival on Friday:

“The question we now have to ask is: If technologically it is possible to make an impenetrable device or system where the encryption is so strong that there is no key, there’s no door at all, then how do we apprehend the child pornographer, how do we solve or disrupt a terrorist plot? What mechanisms do we have available to even do simple things like tax enforcement because if in fact you can’t crack that at all, government can’t get in, then everybody is walking around with a Swiss bank account in their pocket.”

He uses “we” as if it applies to us, the American people. That paragraph is very interesting. Of course, none of it applies to him or any of the communists on his staff, present or former. Where’s the “back door” request for Hillary Clinton’s e-mail accounts? Where are the demands for all the data from the servers? How about Hillary’s cell phones? How about Obama’s cell phone records and e-mail account? Yes, Obama, how do we solve or disrupt a terrorist plot such as the Fast and Furious operation that placed weapons into the hands of terrorists who killed a U.S. Border Patrol Agent?

It is a simple equation: the laws are made by them for us to obey.

Such is a truism we are forced to deal with as daily these criminals hide behind the badge of the color of law and inflict their illegal edicts onto those who have no legal remedy or financial wherewithal to defend themselves. The end state has not happened in the U.S. but it is predictable, because it has happened with other societies. History repeats itself. It happened in the Soviet Union, as chronicled in the work “The Gulag Archipelago.” It happened with the formation of Red China. It happened in Nazi Germany. It is happening here.

They didn’t build a $50 billion data recording and storage facility in Ogden, Utah for nothing. The emphasis on technological development is much the same as in “1984” by Orwell. Improvements in technology do nothing to alleviate any of the burdens of poverty, overcrowding, food shortages, disease, or any of the things afflicting mankind. The focus of technology is on developing new methods of surveillance, of data recording, and intrusion into people’s private lives. All of this is anent control and dominion, plain and simple.

Obama asks for “…mechanisms… to even do simple things like tax enforcement…” in such a nonchalant manner.

Oh, what about how James Clapper declared Iran the foremost supporter of terrorism, and Obama was the one who enabled the Iranians to obtain $12 billion in taxpayer funds to continue funding terrorist operations? What “mechanism” do the American people have to prevent such things? Impeachment? Elections? Yeah, we see how well all of that has been working.

Obama still has almost a year left to continue gutting and destroying the country. If elections even occur, what will change? In the meantime, the Bill of Rights continues to be under assault and shredded. At this rate we’ll all be in cages…either electronic or literal, as the U.S. turns into the Hotel California. We’ll be prisoners here of our own device who can check out any time we like…but can never leave.

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

Also Read:

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

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

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

Jeremiah Johnson’s Green Beret Survival Guides

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Putin to Withdraw Russian Forces in Syria: “Objectives Achieved… Terrorists Have Been Forced Out”

March 15, 2016 by mac slavo

Now it is Putin’s “Mission Accomplished” moment in the Middle East.

Who can say what Putin’s long term objectives are, but regardless, he has won this round.

His decision to bring Russian troops into Syria has weakened ISIS, secured Assad’s regime (for now) and put American aggression into check.

Perhaps the ceasefire in Syria means that WWIII has also been averted, or at least delayed.

RT reports:

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu to start the withdrawal of forces from Syria starting Tuesday. Russia will however keep a military presence at the port of Tartus and at the Khmeimim airbase to observe ceasefire agreements.

“I consider the objectives that have been set for the Defense Ministry to be generally accomplished. That is why I order to start withdrawal of the main part of our military group from the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic starting from tomorrow,” Putin said on Monday during a meeting with Shoigu and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

“In a short period of time Russia has created a small but very effective military group [in Syria]… the effective work of our military allowed the peace process to begin,” Putin said, adding that with the assistance of the Russian Air Force “Syrian government troops and patriotic forces have changed the situation in the fight with international terrorism and have ceased the initiative.”

The global chess game is hardly over, but President Putin managed to time his moves with the precision of a master. For all its heightened rhetoric, the other side blinked on the supposed “red line” in Syria.

After Vladimir Putin spent considerable effort politely calling out the hoax behind the ISIS crisis in Iraq and Syria – which has been covertly supported by the U.S. and 40 other countries, many of whom belong to NATO – the White House eventually seemed reticent to even go on pretending that it has a case against Assad, or a moral position in the rise of ISIS.

Seemingly, the entire broiling situation has been defused… for the moment anyway.

Erdogan, not Putin, has been caught engaging in a charade, pretending to fight against ISIS while in actuality funding and fueling their rise in the Middle East. It was Turkey who lost all legitimacy as a result of shooting down Russian planes, not the other way around.

The double game was revealed, and Assad is clearly relieved at the “save” on Putin’s part. For Assad, it can’t take much imagination to watch Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi go down, and know that they had plans for him next.

[During a] phone conversation between Vladimir Putin and Syria’s President Bashar Assad … [t]he two leaders agreed that the actions of Russia’s Air Force in Syria have allowed them to “profoundly reverse the situation” in connection to fighting terrorists in the region, having “disorganized militants’ infrastructure and inflicted fundamental damage upon them.”

[…]

Moscow launched its anti-terror campaign in Syria on September 30 last year. Russia’s participation in the operation, according to a previous statement by Putin, has its basis in international law and has been conducted “in accordance with an official request from the president of the Syrian Arab Republic [Bashar Assad].”

The Russian Air Force has been carrying out airstrikes against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and other terrorist targets in the region, eliminating military equipment, communication centers, vehicles, arms and fuel depots.

As many recall, Putin’s war on terrorism quickly made a mockery out of Obama and Bush’s War on Terror, which has raged on for 15 years only to face setbacks and blowback that has created many fold more terrorists than the region started with.

As RT reported, Putin’s air forces have essentially liberated Syria from terrorist domination, destroyed ISIS petroleum routes to Turkey and ousted them from 400 populated areas… while the U.S. hyped up the threat of ISIS but did little to nothing to stop them:

“Backed by our aviation, Syrian forces have freed 400 populated areas and over 10,000 square kilometers [3,860 square miles] of territories,” Shoigu said during a Kremlin meeting with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on Monday.

Terrorists have been forced out from Latakia and Aleppo, and Palmyra has been “blocked,” the military official reported to Putin, saying that military actions to free the UNESCO heritage site from militants continue. Hama and Homs Provinces in central Syria have been largely mopped up, and Kuweires airbase that had been besieged by terrorists for over three years was retaken.

Saying that Russia’s Air Force in Syria has conducted more than 9,000 sorties starting from September 30, 2015 […] “As a result of airstrikes, terrorists’ resources’ provision has been largely cut,” Shoigu told Putin, saying that petroleum trade routes with Turkey, as well as main routes of weapons provisions to terrorists have been blocked.

Nevertheless, the world is hardly peaceful, and with so much angst over the sour deal with Iran and the rise of Trump-lican politics, people would be best to stay on watch for nasty tricks and devilish surprises.

US Complains As Putin Bombs its Terrorists: “ISIS Is An Intentional Creation of U.S.”

Watch Putin Hammer Obama: “Not Grounded In The Real World… Absolutely Unprofessional Politics”

New Patch for U.S. Troops Fighting ISIS… Looks Like ISIS Logo

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

VIDEO: #Trump Attacked In #Ohio: “The Oligarchs Are Unleashing Their Embedded Socialists To Deliver Chaos”

March 12, 2016 by mac slavo

Just minutes after we published an article in which Karl Denninger argues that silencing trump as was done in Chicago will leave only one option for Americans who believe the Constitution has been attacked and supplanted, new video footage from a Saturday morning rally in Ohio shows that “protesters” are becoming more brazen, now coming for the candidate himself.

As the video footage below shows, Trump was attacked by someone near the stage. Within seconds the Secret Service moved in.

Watch:

One regular SHTFplan contributor commented in response to this incident via email:

The oligarchs are unleashing their Black Lives Matter and other embedded socialists to deliver chaos.

This is only the beginning.

They want Trump out because, as we noted previously, he’s not a member of their secret club.

Mitt Romney’s possible entrance into the Presidential race should make it clear. This isn’t about Republican or Democrat.

This is about the establishment maintaining a stranglehold on the affairs of the American people.

Also read: Free Speech Silenced In Chicago: ‘Our Political Differences Can Be Settled By The Ballot Box Or The Cartridge Box’

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Don’t Blow Your Cash On These Overrated #Survival Items: “There Really Isn’t A Good Reason For It”

March 11, 2016 by contributing author

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

Editor’s Comment: Not only are there lots of prepping items that are overpriced and expensive, but you may not even need it. There is quite possibly a better strategy that is usually learned only through experience and thoughtful planning– and recognizing what not to do after things go wrong.

With that in mind, the newbie prepper, as well as the veteran, should remember that blending in, lying low and adopting the “grey man” strategy may serve you better than hot-headed stockpiling of military surplus gear, and overpriced survival toys. Pace yourself, and invest in the equipment that will truly serve you in times of need, and avoid drawing too much attention to your efforts.

Five Alternatives to the Most Overrated Survival Items

by Joshua Krause

If you’re new to the prepping scene, you should probably know right off the bat that you’re about to waste a lot of money. I’m so sorry to break it to you, but it’s true. We’ve all done it. It’s practically a right of passage by now.

You’ve just become aware of how fragile our society really is, and all the horrifying ways the shit can hit the fan, and you think you have to rush out and buy a bunch of supplies and gear to survive the inevitable looting spree. There’s something you should know first though. If there is one thing that is practically guaranteed to part an otherwise smart person from their money, it is fear.

So stop, take a deep breath, and realize that in all likelihood the world is not going to end tomorrow. There may not be any serious crises for months or years. I know this (as do many other preppers) because I couldn’t possibly count the number of times I’ve heard someone I would consider reputable, sound the alarm on a possible threat.

Don’t get me wrong I’m glad they do, because it’s good that we have people who are dedicated to looking for these threats, but you should know that most of them never come to fruition. If anything, they are usually signs that our society is in a slow decline towards oblivion, rather than an explosive last hurrah. There’s still danger ahead, but when it’s all said and done, there may never be a single day that will go down in history as the day the world ended.

So now that I’ve assuaged your fears, hopefully you’re gripping your wallet a little tighter than you were before. That state of mind you’re experiencing, the one that isn’t an anxiety riddled mess, is the correct state of mind you should be in for prepping. It’s time to take a critical look at that list of supplies and gear you’re thinking of purchasing, and be prepared to cross a few items off, because some of them are highly overrated.

Canned Food and MRE’s

I don’t want to completely bash canned food. It certainly has its merits. In most cases it will last a very long time, longer than the expiration date in fact, but most canned foods aren’t very healthy. The whole canning process tends to degrade the nutritional value of the food, and most cans are laced with toxic preservatives and BPA. They’re also heavy and somewhat awkward to store. If you want to can your own food, that’s a worthy endeavor for other reasons, but to go to the store and max out your credit card on canned food is a terrible idea.

After realizing the folly of cans many preppers turn to MRE’s, but they also come with their own set of problems. For me personally, I find them to be utterly disgusting and unhealthy. They usually taste great when you’ve been hiking all day and you’re starving, but in that condition anything can taste good. I remember the first time I tried an MRE. I thought, “wow, this tastes familiar.” After looking over the ingredients, I realized that I was basically eating the same stuff that is served at McDonald’s and 7/11.

What Should You Get Instead?

Freeze dried food. Mountain House brand is the most popular, but there are several other good brands out there. It’s arguably healthier than most packaged food, and has a shelf life of 10 years or so. It’s small and lightweight, and to me at least, has an excellent flavor. The only downside is that it’s not perfectly edible out of the package. You have to add water (preferably hot), but I consider that a fair trade-off compared to the downsides of the other options. If you live in an area that would have a severe lack of water after the collapse, then maybe canned food is for you. Otherwise, freeze dried is the way to go.

Generator

This is a tough one, because I have to admit that generators can be useful for many short-term disasters. If you need to keep the lights on for a couple of days it’s a viable option, but generators may be completely useless during any long-term disaster. In that case, they become a logistical nightmare. Since it’s safe to assume that there will be gas shortages during any major disaster, do you really want to store enough gasoline to last you six months? And keep in mind that gas has a limited shelf life, and generators are usually really noisy.

Another thing to consider is energy efficiency. The majority of the electricity you use in your home goes toward appliances that provide heat. But the process of turning the combustion from your generator into electricity, and then back into heat, is incredibly inefficient. We don’t normally think about this because the power grid provides electricity at such a low-cost, (relative to a generator) so it’s not a big deal.

What Should You Get Instead?

If you live in a rural area, you might be able source wood from your environment. Otherwise, You should probably use propane for all your heating needs. There are portable stoves, lanterns, and space heaters that all run on propane. You can buy those tiny Coleman tanks for your stove, or you can buy an adapter to connect it to a larger tank. Most of the lanterns have to take the Coleman tanks, but many of the space heaters are designed for the 20lb tanks as well. It’s a pretty versatile option, and best of all, propane has a much longer shelf life than gasoline. If you have to stock up on fuel, this is definitely the superior option.

The rest of your energy needs will probably go to electronics, which will be minuscule compared to your heating needs. For that, I would take a thin and flexible 100 watt solar panel over a generator any day.

Camelbak Canteens

I’m an avid backpacker, so I think I have more experience with this than any other item on this list. For such a simple task, there is a wide variety of ways to carry water. Nowadays the most popular way is with any kind of soft, flexible canteen. They’re lightweight, easy to store, and since you can squeeze the air out of them the water doesn’t slosh around and make a lot of noise.

Over the past 10 years it seems that the Camelback and the Platypus canteens have come to dominate the market. But frankly, I’ve never been a big fan of those drink tube apparatuses, due to their maintenance needs. You have to keep the tube and the drink valve very clean if you don’t want to get any mold. It doesn’t take a whole lot of effort, but personally, I don’t want to put any more work than I have to into my canteen, and I don’t see the Camelbak giving me a huge advantage in any way.

What Should You Get Instead?

For a while I tried using bota bags, but honestly I don’t think they make them like they used to. Maybe I’m just unlucky, but I’ve tried using three different bota bags over the years, and none of them worked very well (they always leak).

If you want a really simple soft-shelled water carrier, I’d recommend the military issue bladder canteen. It holds two quarts, and has all the advantages you’d come to expect from a flexible canteen, but without any of the fuss.

Camouflage

I’d have to say, the most overrated item a prepper could buy is military camouflage. There really isn’t a good reason for it unless you live way out in the sticks, in which case you probably don’t need a military pattern. A good hunting camouflage pattern should be sufficient. And since only 18 percent of the US population lives in a rural area, it’s safe to say that camouflage isn’t really that important for most preppers. If anything, that would just make you stand out in an urban or suburban area.

Even camouflage that is specifically designed for an urban area is a bad idea. Even if it helps to conceal you in a tactical situation, it will still make you stand out in literally every other situation.

What Should You Get Instead?

Instead of camouflage, just get something that is durable, comfortable, and is dyed in solid, muted earth tones. I’m sure there’s more than one opinion on what that entails, but in this case I’m referring to brown, tan, olive drab, and gray, or at least something similar.

These colors have the advantage of being versatile. You can wear them on city streets or in suburban parks without standing out, but on the off-chance that you wind up in a rural area later on, you won’t be too obvious there either. Basically, it’s not the best you can use for any single environment, but it’s the best you can use in most environments without looking like a stereotypical survivalist.

Your best bet would probably be something made by Dickies. They make great civilian looking clothes that are just as durable as their military counterparts, and it’s not hard to find Dickies shirts and jeans that come in earth tone colors. Wrangler and Carhartt brands are also great choices.

Ballistic Plates

This one has a lot of the same problems as wearing camouflage. It’s pretty much impossible to wear these bullet proof plates without it being painfully obvious. They’re so big and heavy, that every soldier who wears them looks like some kind of sci-fi mashup with a Roman legionnaire.

That’s not to say it’s stupid. It’s probably just unnecessary. These plates are made for stopping rifle rounds, and considering the fact that only 2-3 percent of murders are committed with rifles, it’s safe to say that ballistic plates are overkill for civilians.

Keep in mind that the violent criminals you might face after the SHTF aren’t that different than the ones you might run into now. There will probably be an increase in murders committed by rifles since there would be no cops to stop people from carrying them openly, but I suspects that pistols, shotguns, bats, and knives will still be the most common murder weapons.

What Should You Get Instead?

If you even need ballistic protection to begin with, which I don’t think most people will, just an ordinary kevlar vest will do. At most you won’t need anything that is rated above level IIIa, which should stop pretty much all handgun rounds, and some shotgun rounds. They’re also lighter, breathe better in hot weather, and some are designed to be concealable. There’s no need to overdo it with a hulking rig of ballistic plates.

Now I’m sure a lot of folks will disagree parts of this list, but does it sound reasonable to you? If not, then for the benefit of anyone reading this who is new to prepping, let’s hear your opinion in the comments. And if you have any overrated boondoggles from your early prepping days that you’d rather forget, now is a good time to get it off your chest!

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

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

March 10, 2016 by mac slavo

Earlier this week hedge fund manager Marin Katusa explained that up until the recent stock market hit all the easy money flowing into the energy sector was being exuberantly spent on hookers, blow and fancy toys. Now, as oil prices hover under $40 per barrel, Katusa said more pain is likely coming and oil, along with other asset classes, are going to go “lower for longer.”

In a recent interview with Future Money Trends, trend forecaster Gerald Celente echos Katusa’s concerns. Having accurately predicted the Crash of 2008 nine months ahead of the bottom falling out on a global scale, Celente says another panic is coming this year.

But if you thought 2008 was bad, says Celente, this crash will be so severe it’ll be one for the history books:

…51% of the people in the United States that are employed are earning under $30,000 a year… Less than half the population is considered middle-class in America… the gap between the rich and the poor is as bad as it was at the worst times of the Gilded Age going back over a hundred years.

So, what happens when the Panic of 2016 happens?

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

Watch Gerald Celente discuss his trend forecasts for everything from politics and the economy to wealth preservation strategies and entrepreneurship in times of crisis:

Now, what this is going to do… it’s going to knock out the top… and the top survived the other crash because the top are the ones that are totally leveraged out… there’s no more savings anymore… there’s no more savings anymore… it’s only markets because of zero interest rate policy.

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

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

Visit Future Money Trends for news, strategies for protecting your wealth and more interviews like the one posted here.

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Drought-Stricken L.A. Admits to Using Weather Modification “To Produce More Rain”

March 10, 2016 by mac slavo

The weather patterns have become cruel and extreme.

For California, it has meant outright desperation as water reserves disappear and needs for cities and farms have created a standing crisis.

Water and rainfall remain consequential to life as we know it. Mankind is no longer leaving it up to just praying for rain and waiting for a miracle.

Now, a company in the Los Angeles area has admitted that it was hired to seed the clouds and make it rain:

Via Daily Mail:

El Niño has brought some much needed rain to California in recent months, but a Los Angeles storm earlier this week may owe some credit to unnatural modifications.

For the first time since 2002, the Department of Public Works has turned to cloud seeding, using generators to shoot silver iodide into the clouds to produce more rain.

The county estimates that this produces roughly 15 percent more rainfall…

Cloud seeding is a weather modification process that aims to increase the amount of rain in a particular area.

According to the L.A. Times, this method has been used in the county to boost the amount of rain produced by clouds since the 1950s, taking a hiatus during heavy rains or periods of potential flooding from wildfire devastation.

And so, rain has increased in California by something like 15%, and L.A. is happy to get all the water it can.

But cloud seeding is not without its consequences – it could keep it from raining in the area downwind, or have other potentially disastrous effects:

The company says the method has no significant environmental effects, as the amount of the seeding materials used are very small in relation to the affected area.

[But…]

It could have unintended consequences, including a change in precipitation or other environmental impact downwind of the target area, though such effects have not yet been demonstrated.

An earlier cloud seeding contract from 2009 was terminated in L.A. after the Station Fire, which destroyed about 250 square miles of the Angeles National Forest, L.A. Times writes.

Technology and money can make it happen, and there is reason to think much more is going on than just seeding clouds to bump the rainfall.

When it comes to blame for the drought and the environment in general, many are quick to point to the hyped-effects of global warming and climate change, which are supposedly attributed to the every day activity of people in mass.

But few are daring enough to look up at the sky and question the weather manipulation programs that have become common place and which are being carried out covertly on behalf of a shadowy agenda to control the weather, and the economic cloud that surrounds it.

Researcher Peter A. Kirby explains how a secret project on the scale of the Manhattan Project may have been incubated under government research projects to engineer the weather:

After so many years of watching airplanes produce the lines in the sky, largely without knowing of what this Project consists or why, we have recently gained an understanding. Evidence suggests that today’s chemtrail spraying operations consist of airplanes saturating our atmosphere with nano-sized particles influenced by electromagnetic energy for the purpose of weather modification.

U.S. patent #4,686,605 “Method and Apparatus for Altering a Region in the Earth’s Atmosphere, Ionosphere and/or Magnetosphere” shows how stratospheric and tropospheric aerosols can be manipulated using electromagnetic energy in order to modify the weather. The ground-based antennas (known as ionospheric heaters) needed to produce the appropriate electromagnetic energy exist. For a detailed discussion, please see the author’s previous article “Smoking Gun: The HAARP and Chemtrails Connection.”

The 1996 U.S. military document “Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025” outlines a program using aerosols sprayed from airplanes which are then manipulated with electromagnetic energy in order to modify the weather.

[…]

Controlling Earth’s weather would necessarily require a gigantic scientific effort. Oddly enough, when one looks for a National effort in weather modification, one finds a lot. Specifically, if one looks, one can find a history of weather control programs involving electromagnetic energy and atmospheric particles; all in a coherent chronological order.

It is stunning to learn that there are means for manipulating aerosols with electromagnetic energy in effort to change weather patterns. But there are many scientific papers on the topic, and experiments to boot.

Many of these agencies are likely compartmentalized and don’t understand how they fit in to the larger project… but the truth is that most don’t want to know – along with the rest of the general public.

They don’t look up at the sky for the same reason they drag to work, and live an empty life. Most are too conditioned by fear to face the truth, whatever it proves to be.

For now, it is enough to point out that California is admittedly altering the weather in the hopes of catching up on its lost water.

But what are the true causes of the drought in the first place, and what other aspects of weather are being changed for the benefit of a few, and the detriment of entire populations?

NASA Warns California Drought Could Threaten U.S. Food Supply: “There will be some definite changes”

Water Wars Loom Over California As Farmers Lose Thousands of Jobs: “Wrestling Match Over Who Gets the Water”

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Schiff: Obama Caught “Peddling Fiction” to Hide Pre-Election Recession

March 10, 2016 by mac slavo

Despite the extent to which the officials in the White House, and the talking heads in the media and on Wall Street deny that the economy is faltering, it is this very issue that is driving voter outrage in the direction of Trump and Bernie.

It’s the jobs, stupid!

And since Obama can’t fix it, he’s lying about it to maintain appearances.

Because so many have become so ill-adjusted to the unforgiving job market, there is great talk about why our national policy is directed towards destroying employment, income, savings and the American dream in general.

After 8 years, it is a problem that Obama may have inherited, but will now have to own.

Peter Schiff claims that:

In his seventh, and final, State of the Union address this January, President Obama, clearly looking to bolster his legacy as the president who vanquished the Great Recession, boldly asserted that “Anyone claiming that America’s economy is in decline is peddling fiction.” Unfortunately for the President, more and more Americans seem to believe (with an adequate basis for proof) that the fiction is emanating from the White House.

It’s hard to imagine how anyone can really assert with a straight face that the economy is currently “strong.”

[…]

Companies have been incentivized to cut their full-time work force… The view from the street looks quite different, as workers prefer one good job to several bad ones. This is why rallies for Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are so well-attended. The underemployed are fed up with platitudes from the elites and they flock to these outsider candidates, who seem to understand their pain.

Never mind these two as individuals, but what they represent as symbols. Americans are completely fed up with establishment – and they aren’t ready to accept being pushed back in for another round.

I don’t expect that the President will ever officially acknowledge that the economy has weakened, let alone relapsed into recession. He has walked out too far on his rhetorical branch to walk it back. As a lame duck, he really has no incentive to do so.

The Obama White House has been hiding an economic holocaust during his two terms. Symbolically elected to dispose of the mess created by George W. Bush’s administration and the economic collapse that was engulfing people already drowning in debt.

Instead, he has cheered on the illusion that “recovery” is near, while the bankers have accumulated more wealth than ever, and are waiting for the next wave of the crash to come down on the population.

Meanwhile, critics have accused Yellen – publicly very silent about policy decisions – of timing the blow of the recession.

The recession itself is presumably inevitable, but the announcement and reaction to it could change the major issues of the election cycle, and potentially swing even more votes into those camps who are running as anti-establishment. Trump has previously accused the Fed of waiting to raise rates in order to avoid embarrassing Obama:

But Janet Yellen is in a very difficult spot. If she continues to ignore the growing signs of recession, she runs the risk of letting one develop prior to the election. This would favor the Republican challenger, whether that is Donald Trump or Ted Cruz, neither of whom would be inclined to reappoint her as Fed Chairwoman if elected. Allowing the Greenspan bubble to bust on Bush’s watch sealed John McCain’s fate, allowing Obama to ride a wave of voter outrage into the White House in 2008. Yellen does not want Trump to catch a similar wave in 2016.

As a result, I expect the Fed to soften its rhetoric in the very near future.

As Schiff himself has pointed out many times before, the entire situation is made worse by the prolonged and belabored attempt at cushioning the impact. For better times to be had by all, the Fed out to stop propping up a market of speculators driving a bubble in real estate and other over-priced assets.

Since that isn’t going to happen, pay attention to the handling of the “political football” as Obama & co. try to pretend that job growth is happening and stability is here to stay.

Ron Paul: Unless the Fed is Stopped, America Will “Soon Experience Major Economic Crisis”

NYT Jokes About Trump Assassination: “Good News I’ve Figured Out How Trump Campaign Ends”

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

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

March 9, 2016 by mac slavo

You may find that the below report is, as President Obama might suggest, once again “peddling fiction.”

But for the average American, we can assure you that the economic recession is a very real situation.

Walmart, which made its billions serving low to middle income Americans, is struggling and it’s because their core customer base is too broke to shop. As Michael Snyder recently pointed out, they are just one of many domestic retailers laying off workers amid falling store sales. But they are certainly the biggest and baddest of the retailers out there. If they are having problems it should be a big red warning sign that despite mainstream cheerleaders telling us not to panic because the economy is still in good shape, we are in for some rough times ahead – in fact, the rough times are a reality right here and now.

Walmart’s customers are too broke to shop

Walmart is facing a “perfect storm” that’s hurting its sales growth, according to Moody’s.

The company’s core customers are struggling with flat income levels, and savings from lower fuel prices aren’t translating into more retail spending, Moody’s vice president, Charles O’Shea, wrote in a note to clients on Wednesday.

The business is also under pressure from deflation in key product categories, such as food, and the effects of the strong dollar abroad.

“Walmart is facing an almost perfect storm when it comes to top-line growth,” O’Shea wrote. “Until the health of the lower-to-middle-income consumer improves, Walmart will continue to face macroeconomic headwinds in the US.”

Walmart said last month that it’s expecting virtually no sales growth in the coming fiscal year.

Source: Business Insider via Yahoo

The entirety of the growth story being disseminated to the American public is being revealed, almost daily, for the sham it really is.

Stock markets may have recently rocketed back up with many an analyst suggesting they are back on track to go to new highs. But when you consider that one of the lowest price retailers in the country can’t increase or even maintain their sales, then it suggests that something has to give.

As Brandon Smith warned this week, we are experiencing the most unstable economic conditions possible and coming central bank action (or inaction) may well lead to another leg down in global stock markets.

Regardless of what stock markets do going forward, to the average person trying to put food and clothing in their Walmart grocery basket it doesn’t really matter whether the indexes are lighting up red or green.

For them, the collapse isn’t some future event.

It is right now.

Also Read:

How To Prepare For Economic Collapse

Unemployment Prepping: What You Can Do Beforehand

Forecasting an Economic Collapse: These 7 Indicators Are All You Need to Know

Top Post-Collapse Barter Items And Trade Skills

The Self-Reliance Manifesto: More Than 300 Resources to Guide You on the Path to Radical Freedom

How Do You Prepare Now to Make Recovery From Economic Collapse “Manageable”?

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

You Won’t Believe How They Rigged Ohio Against Trump: “Intentionally Confusing Ballot”

March 9, 2016 by contributing author

This article was written by Piper McGowan and originally published at The ~~Dai~~

ly Sheeple.

Editor’s Comment: The GOP has a history of manipulating the primary, but this time they are going all out to destroy Trump. Is it any wonder that Ohio’s ballot – which will be cast next week – is so confusing that Trump may lose votes just as a result of the ballot’s design?

It is the home state of Governor John Kasich – a lackluster candidate who, nonetheless, was expected to win Ohio, and keep the delegates for the establishment side. But according to the polls, Trump is beating Kasich in Ohio AND Rubio in Florida – and they are big delegate, winner take all states. However, Kasich is close enough in his homestate, that a bit of meddling could change things. If Trump wins both, the GOP insiders have even less of a chance to trip up The Donald.

But if the Ohio GOP ballot leaves as many people scratching their heads as the newscaster in the video below, anything could happen in Ohio. Polls will not translate into votes if the machines are designed to deceive.

You Won’t Believe What They Did to the Ohio Ballot to Stop Trump

by Piper McGowan

We all know the elite are on the warpath against Donald Trump, with everyone from pundits, to major world leaders, to the Pope speaking out against him. Newt Gingrich recently said it’s because Trump isn’t part of the secret societies and hasn’t taken the initiation rites.

Regardless, Trump has received a groundswell of support from the average conservative American, winning state primaries left and right. Ohio’s primary is coming up on March 15, and it’s a big one because it’s a “winner takes all” state.

Well now it’s being alleged that Ohio’s GOP has intentionally set up a confusing ballot in a bid to try to make sure Donald Trump does not win.

The Dem ballot has one place for voters to mark their choice for president. Period.

The Republican ballot in Ohio this year apparently has two, leaving a lot more questions than answers about whether or not voters will understand how it works.

Take a look, (via the Conservative Treehouse):

Is the ballot intentionally confusing by design?

Given the previous discussions on State Party shenanigans, and the intent of state republican party leadership to hold complete influence over their delegate’s decision-making, many believe the answer is “probably”.

Look at that ballot. It definitely raises a lot of questions… that aren’t answered on the ballot.

Do the majority of voters know the difference between “Delegates-at-Large” and “District Delegates”? Does a person need to choose their candidate twice, or are they only supposed to chose once? Which is right? What if they pick a different candidate in each box, do they cancel each other out? What if they pick someone in the first box and not the second, or vice versa?

Why the confusing GOP ballot, Ohio?

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Who Is a Threat To You? “Dangerous People to Avoid After the Collapse”

March 9, 2016 by mac slavo

Who can you trust, turn to or rely upon during a collapse?

Morals are effectively suspended in the midst of a great crisis. And, as the Canadian Prepper explains, you will want to consider and profile high risk people, dangerous personalities and groups to avoid during a disaster – well in advance.

Those with nothing else to turn to will act in desperate ways, and could act unstable during a collapse, during martial law or civil unrest. Many will turn to the system, and go willingly into FEMA camps – but others may drag, steal or lean on you. Worse, they may expose your hideout and compromise your carefully laid survival plans.

Just a few of these types are discussed below:

– MEDICALLY DEPENDENT/DRUG ADDICTS: People who are dependent on medication may become desperate for drugs when prescriptions fall through, and could become unstable, dangerous or a liability to your survival plan. Most wouldn’t mean

– PANICKED/WEAK MINDED: Emotionally unstable, prone to upset, who can’t keep their cool under pressure and those who are temperamental are difficult to trust, and who put your life in danger

– GANGS/CRIMINALS/LOOTERS: Then of course there are always going to be violent gangs, looters and outright criminals. It’s pretty obvious what they want, but it may still surprise you how far they are willing to go to get it. Only, some criminals won’t be as easy to spot, and historically they have taken advantage of hard working, prepared and ultimately naive individuals using any and every tactic they can think of. Keep in mind, this includes color-of-law rogue government agents, too; historically the appearance of authority will be used to gain entry, take advantage and catch you off guard. During Hurricane Katrina, some cops were caught on tape looting Wal-Mart… just imagine the type of stuff that wasn’t seen by cameras.

– WANNA-BE LEADERS: Narcissists, selfish, egotistical, grandiose and those willing to use psychology and tactics to gain advantage of your group and your resources, let you down when a plan needs to come to fruition, or turn tail when the going gets tough. These people are in it for themselves, would create a mutiny if they thought they had the leverage to do so, and will be even more undependable than the easily panicked and the addicted.

– ALSO BEWARE OF: The above category is closely related to those who are overly macho, those who hold obvious and disproportionate gun fetishes, those prone to uncalled for paranoia, the weaselly and conniving salesman types, and the foregone-conclusion doomsday nihilist who secretly wants to fulfill his entimes fantasy and die in a fight, rather than living to fight another day. There are other variations of these types, but few of them will be all that helpful when reality sets in, regardless of how big they talk as things gear up.

– PARASITES AND NOSY PEEPERS: Perhaps the most dangerous type of person, at least immediately when the SHTF, is the one who knows about your prepping, your supplies and stocks, and expects to come over to your place and join you without contributing any skills or having prepped in advance. Even worse, if a reward or a position of power is offered, this person is far-too-willing to turn you in and turn you over to a FEMA camp if they can derive any benefit. Though this individual may be a nosy neighbor or family friend during times of normalcy, they are a very dangerous liability for you and your family during times of emergency. Here’s what to do when those types come knocking…

Good character and common sense just aren’t as plentiful as they used to be, so be careful about who you willingly associate with. These kind of mistakes could easily cost your life.

There are many people worth working with, trusting and helping during a collapse, but you should be very judicious in determining who these people are – and careful to keep away from the rest as much as possible. If you find yourself in captivity in a government facility, many of these same types will cause you just as much or more trouble inside the system.

Ideally, you want to be working with those people already, and eliminate anyone from the group and from your confidence with unstable and dangerous personalities. Moreover, you should be able to read and identify people to screen out these traits and avoid the people who will endanger or prey upon you.

Above all, don’t lose sight of the fact that they are all still human beings, and unless they are physically attacking you, should be treated as such. Nonetheless, they can and will work against you if you trust the wrong people. It is simply human nature.

5 Mistakes Every New Prepper Makes

If you don’t use a bank, where should you stash your cash?

“I’ll Come To Your Place When SHTF” – No You Won’t

10 Prepping Mistakes That Could Get You Killed (And How To Avoid Them)

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Martial Law at Republican Convention? Riot Cops “Preparing For A Siege Rather Than Political Event”

March 9, 2016 by contributing author

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

Editor’s Comment: It looks like RNC 2016 could end up being as chaotic as the DNC in 1968 – and potentially as violent – as the system then clamped down in an arbitrary and over-blown way in order to send a message that dissent will be stifled, and that state power will be defended at all costs, and against all principles.

By all accounts, the Hillary and the GOP insiders are taking it farther than ever – preparing to bare their ruthlessness in order to stop Trump and quell the angry masses who’ve had enough of the status quo rulers, and would rather the novelty of being fooled by someone new.

What is going to happen in June, and why are the police preparing as if for civil unrest and widespread martial law?

Here was ’68:

Cleveland Stocks Up On Riot Gear For Republican National Convention

by Joshua Krause

As the July Republican National Convention looms, the city of Cleveland is preparing for any eventuality, including civil unrest. In exchange for hosting the convention, the city has received a $50 million federal security grant, and they haven’t wasted any time spending it on all kinds of goodies for their police departments. In fact, when you read the list of gear they’re trying to acquire, it sounds like they’re preparing for a siege rather than a political event.

That list includes 2000 sets of riot control suits, batons, and bags to carry it all in. Plus another 310 sets of riot gear that are designed for bicycle mounted cops (I bet you can’t imagine a cop riding a bicycle in full riot gear without laughing). Last week they ordered 300 bicycles, 15 motorcycles, 25 sets of tactical armor and two horse trailers. To top it all off, the city is going to rent 3 miles of 3.5 foot tall steel barriers, and 3,250 feet of 6.5 foot tall barriers.

Welcome to America, where a supposedly free and open electoral process must be accompanied with barricades and an army of stormtroopers.

Joshua Krause is a reporter, writer and researcher at The Daily Sheeple. He was born and raised in the Bay Area and is a freelance writer and author. You can follow Joshua’s reports at Facebook or on his personal Twitter. Joshua’s website is Strange Danger .

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

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

“We Have Placed The Knife To Our Own Throats” – Iranian Missile Tests Are The Effects Of Obama’s Treason

March 8, 2016 by contributing author

We just went over the parameters of Obama’s actions that are treasonous in a recent article. Now we begin to see the results of his treasonous policies, aided and abetted by a laissez-faire (if not complicit) Congress: The Iranians testing their missiles. It stands to reason that if the United States has given the Iranians half a billion dollars with $11 ½ billion more to come that we have placed the knife to our own throats. We have financed the Iranian missile tests.

As of this writing, on Tuesday March 8, the Iranian military has tested short, medium, and long range missile systems in complete violation of U.S. sanctions, imposed on Iran to put a stop to their nuclear activity. The Iranian Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh actually had this to say regarding the Iranian tests:

“Our main enemies, the Americans, who mutter about plans, have activated new missile sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran and are seeking to weaken the country’s missile capability. The [Iranian Republican] Guards and other armed forces are defenders of the revolution and the country will not pay a toll to anyone… and will stand against their excessive demands.”

Excuse me, but does this general not explicitly state that Americans are their main enemies as underlined in the above statement?

And as you may recall in the previous article, James Clapper, the Obama-appointed Director of National Intelligence said this:

“Iran continues to be the foremost state sponsor of terror and exert its influence in regional crises in the Mid-East through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, its terrorist partner Lebanese Hezbollah, and proxy groups. Iran and Hezbollah remain a continuing terrorist threat to U.S. interests and partners worldwide.”

So look at what is going on, now. The Iranians have declared us their enemies and the head of our intelligence directorate has declared Iran to be a terrorist threat. Even as late as January 17^th of this year, Obama himself said that Iran’s nuclear policies were causing rifts between Tehran and Washington over “profound differences” regarding their policies that were leading to stabilization problems.

As reported by Reuters from an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps website press release on March 8, 2016, Brigadier General Hajizadeh elaborated on the aforementioned rhetoric regarding the Iranian launches:

“Our main enemies are imposing new sanctions on Iran to weaken our missile capabilities… But they should know that the children of the Iranian nation in the Revolutionary Guards and other armed forces refuse to bow to their excessive demands.”

Several of the launches took place from underground missile silos, heavily-guarded and fortified during the night. The Emad missile (one of Iran’s latest in development) was defended by the Iranian military and declared to be “conventional and not nuclear.” O.K. A conventional missile launched from a fortified silo.

Need we also take into account that North Korea and Iran have been (according to Dr. Peter V. Pry as cited in several articles) collaborating both on missile and on nuclear warhead technology. Of course, Russia and China are also involved.

Dave Hodges Common Sense Show just released an excellent article on North Korea’s EMP capabilities and the ongoing threat that mentions interesting and salient points to keep in mind. Also keep in mind that these two nations are working together. The bottom line here: Obama just funded the Iranians’ portion of the partnership, after all of the Congressional EMP threat analyses and all of the declarations of the Iranians and our own intelligence services that Iran is indeed a threat. Obama’s actions are treasonous, and these missile launches by the Iranians are just the beginning.

I wonder what Obama will tell Rouhani, the Iranian President if the two ever go golfing out at Martha’s Vineyard? It’ll probably be, “Tell Khamenei I’ll have more leeway after the EMP.”

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

Also Read:

America Will Force Russia’s Hand: The United States Will Start World War III: “Imminent”

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

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

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

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

Jeremiah Johnson’s Green Beret Survival Guides

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

The Self-Reliance Manifesto: More Than 300 Resources to Guide You on the Path to Radical Freedom

March 8, 2016 by contributing author

This resource was originally published by Daisy Luther at The Organic Prepper

Self-Reliance. It’s a revolutionary word these days and I thought it deserved a manifesto.

Manifesto: noun man·i·fes·to ˌma-nə-ˈfes-(ˌ)tō

A declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer.

~~~~~

Have you happened to notice that our society is out of balance?

The consumers outnumber the producers at such a rapid clip that we can’t possibly continue like this. But who has time to produce when they are indebted and working overtime to finance their current lifestyles in the hopes that they will finally be able to buy “enough” to be happy, fulfilled, and loved?

We live in a society made up mostly of rabid consumers. As soon as the advertising pros on Madison Avenue point them in a given direction, people flock to it like the zombies on The Walking Dead lurch toward a fresh human, completely oblivious to everything else. They yearn for these things that are produced across the world and then delivered at a cheap price. They fill up on cheap food that has been government subsidized, making it unrealistically inexpensive. They are enslaved as they work to pay for it, or in some cases, accept a handout to pay for it. More people are deeply in debt than ever, living a fancy First World Lifestyle that would crumble with one missed paycheck. They are slaves and they don’t even know it.

They don’t care that the newest clothing and gadgets were produced in sweatshops across the world. They don’t care that some items are produced by slave labor. They don’t care about the processed offerings at the grocery store., the pesticide-laden produce raised by corporations instead of farmers, or even the feedlots that are the scenes of the worst animal abuse in the country, completely free from prosecution. They don’t care that subsidized corporate agriculture puts real farmers out of business while it destroys our health and our environment.

They just care about their illusions of prosperity. They care that the products are cheap and make them feel good for a moment.

And “illusion” is the perfect word for it because we live in a society where many people consume but very few people produce. A society like that could not stand on its own if isolated from the rest of the world or if the corporate food companies and manufacturing plants shut down. The majority of the country has become completely dependent on things that are produced in factories.

Simple math tells us that this system can’t last forever. We can’t all be consumers if there are no producers.

These days, self-reliance is actually a revolutionary act.

That quality is the difference between someone who merely accepts what is doled out to meet the needs of their family and someone with the power to fulfill those needs themselves.

Regardless of where you live, whether it is at the top of the highest high-rise, in the suburbs, in the desert, or on a few acres in the lush countryside, you can still be more self-sufficient. You can learn to meet your own needs by acquiring the skills to produce. Every single thing that you can produce on your own is a personal declaration of your own independence, whether it is food, clothing, shelter, or something else to meet the needs of your family. In today’s society, freedom like that is a radical thing, completely against the grain, and it’s much more gratifying than anything you could ever purchase.

This list is full of insurrections, both small and large. No matter who you are or where you live, you can pick something from the list and learn to do it. That brings you one step closer to the real freedom of self-sufficiency. If you live in an urban environment or one not conducive to 30 chickens and a flock of goats, you can learn to preserve food in delicious ways or make your own clothing, or cook from scratch. You can grow some veggies or herbs in your windowsill. You can go on a foraging hike nearby.

You can do something. You are a free human being and you deserve better than to simply line up at the store and exchange dollars you spent many hours earning for rations of processed, food-like substances and electronic gadgets. You deserve the feeling that comes from creating and producing. There is absolutely nothing like it on this earth.

This is a collection of more than 300 resources to inspire you and teach you to be more self-reliant.You’ll see that there are numerous articles on some topics, and that is because they are all written from a different perspective. Some bloggers and authors live in the ‘burbs, some live in big cities, and some live off-grid in the boondocks, but they all have lessons to teach you. I hope that you will discover some new experts and mentors along the way.

So, no excuses. I’m not an expert. I wasn’t brought up in an agrarian lifestyle. I’m learning, just like you are, and after a lot of trial and error, I’m just now starting to put meat on the table that I raised myself. I’m a former city girl, a single mom, and a newbie at a lot of this stuff, and if I can become more self-reliant, so can you! Every day, I learn something new that puts me one step closer to the personal liberty I crave. I have personally read the work of every single author and blogger on this list, and I am positive that every person who reads this post can findsomething to learn that will put them on the path toward real freedom.

Getting Started

General Homesteading Information

Chickens

Ducks, Geese, Quail, and Turkeys

Rabbits

Pigs

Goats

Cows

Bees

Gardening

Soil Building and Composting

Orchards

Aquaponics

Old-Fashioned Skills

Off-Grid Living

Scratch Cooking

Off-Grid Kitchen

Food Preservation

Foraging

Passing on Self-Reliance Lessons to Kids

Create. Produce. Rebel.

The biggest insurrection in our society is to be self-sufficient. Make the way you live your life a revolutionary act by producing some of the things that you need.

Let me know in the comments how you will rebel against the status quo. What skills and projects you will undertake this year? I want to hear about your self-reliance goals!

Shout-out to the incredible community at the Homestead Bloggers Network!

I asked and you came through to help me create this guide.

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

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

Also From Daisy Luther:

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

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

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

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

12 Bad Strategies That Will Get Preppers Killed

Lock and Load: Are You Prepared for Civil Unrest?

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

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Now He’s Sporting A Breathing Tube: Woman Shoots Mall Stalker In The Throat After He Pulls A Knife

March 8, 2016 by mac slavo

When seconds count, you’d better have a way to defend yourself because no one else will be there to help.

According to reports, it came down to a matter of life and death when a Kentucky woman was followed by a man in the mall. When she entered the garage elevator, as shown in the video below, the man followed behind. Neither of them said anything to each other and the woman knew instinctively what was about to happen.

As soon as the elevator door opened she bolted for her car.

The stalker, John Ganobick, gave chase.

Surveillance cameras played in court this week from the Fourth Street Live food court show the chilling moment when Ganobick began to follow the woman.

She told Louisville Metro Police she sensed instantly that she was being stalked.

‘The victim asked the suspect what floor he needed, and the victim described the suspect as being out of it, possibly high or drunk, but when he said the sixth floor, the victim stated she became nervous,’ states the police report read out in court.

Appearing in court sporting a breathing tube that is a reminder of his injuries after the attempted attack, Ganobick has been charged with attempted murder, robbery and kidnapping.

…

She told police when the elevator reached her floor, she started running to her car, but he chased her.

The woman got in her car and he pushed in behind her and put his hand over her mouth, according to ABC 7.

Ganobick slammed her head into an unknown object, told her to ‘give me all your money’, and showed her a knife, the arrest report said.

‘The victim stated she was afraid that she would be raped or murdered and as she fell across the passenger seat of her vehicle, she was able to reach into her purse and grab her gun and attempt to fire a shot at the suspect,’ the report states.

During the violent struggle the woman, who was being held at knife-point, reached into her purse and pulled out a gun.

…

According to the woman she pulled the trigger, but the gun did not fire. So she kept on pulling the trigger till it did.

‘Fearing for her life, the victim kept pulling the trigger of her gun, which finally fired, and struck the suspect in the neck.’

He recoiled, but according to the woman, collected himself despite his injury and started to come towards her again.

‘The victim described being afraid that the suspect was turning to come back at her and she kept pulling and struck the suspect in the buttocks,’ states the police report.

Surveillance footage captured the man coming down the parking garage’s stairs bleeding from the neck.

Source: Daily Mail

Video Report:

Despite the size of the attacker this small tool was the great equalizer in this fight:

Even this tiny, small caliber weapon was powerful enough to stop a predator from inflicting injury or death on his perceived prey.

For those who would ban this woman from carrying a firearm to protect herself, we suggest considering what would have transpired had she not had a weapon to defend herself. Perhaps she would merely have been robbed. Or, she could well have been kidnapped, raped and murdered.

12-Year-Old Exercises Second Amendment: “When I Saw the Door Handle Turn, I Shot Him”

Justified Self Defense: Mom Kills Armed Intruder with Shotgun; 9-1-1 Operator Gives Her the OK To Shoot

Take No Prisoners: Self Defense Killings in Detroit Spike to 2200% Above National Average; Justifiable Homicide up 79%

Europeans Scramble For Guns Amid Islamic Immigrant Invasion: “Long Guns Sold Out”

Paul to Congress: “Someone Who Has Guns, Ammunition, 7 Days of Food” Can Be Considered a Potential Terrorist

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Clamp Down on Cash Is the Ultimate Surveillance State: “Citizens Shouldn’t Be Under General Suspicion”

March 7, 2016 by mac slavo

The war on cash is more than just a currency war to clamp everyone down on the electric grid. It is also a war on your privacy, and the nail in the coffin for the free market of low level transactions.

Soon, restrictions on cash will become so severe that even spending $100 will arouse suspicion, despite the constant inflation on the value of such a denomination. One day, physical currency may become obsolete.

When that day comes, they will know everything you do.

Conducting transactions in anything but digital creds will be not only increasingly difficult, but seen as outright criminal behavior. It might even make you a terrorist.

Don Quijones argues on Wolf Street:

There are two sides in the global war against cash. On one side are many of the world’s governments, central banks, fintech firms, banks, credit card companies, telecommunication behemoths, financial institutions, large retailers, etc. According to them, the days of physical currency are numbered, so why not pull the plug already, beginning with the largest denomination bills such as the $100-note and particularly the €500-note?

On the other side are people who like to use cash – most of whom, according to the dominant official narrative, are either criminals or terrorists. After all, they must have something to hide; otherwise, why would they use a private, untraceable (not to mention archaic, dirty, dangerous and unhygienic) form of payment like cash?

Although it may seem like a foregone conclusion, cash still accounts for a majority of transactions in many European countries, and still factors in significantly in the U.S., though use of cash is in decline.

Many leaders overseas are calling out the moves to kill cash – albeit in slow motion – as nothing more than an attempt to impose a police state where every transaction, every purchase and every activity is monitored and databased.

Likewise, the use of cash is linked with terrorists and criminals, every bit as much as using pagers was linked with drug dealers in the pre-cell phone days.

Don Quijones writes:

[I]n recent weeks the unlikeliest of defenders of physical money has emerged: the national central bank of Europe’s biggest economy, the German Bundesbank.

“I have my doubts that introducing a cash limit or getting rid of bigger denominations can really prevent terrorists or criminals from engaging in illegal activities,” Carl-Ludwig Thiele, Bundesbank board member in charge of cash issues, said in a speech last week. “We also should ask ourselves: what sort of an understanding of government forms the basis of these proposals? Citizens should not be put under general suspicion.”

[…]

And in Germany and Austria, the EU’s plans to suppress cash have already provoked a backlash.

“We don’t want someone to be able to track digitally what we buy, eat and drink, what books we read and what movies we watch,”said Austrian Deputy Economy Minister Harald Mahreron on Oe1 radio. “We will fight everywhere against rules” including caps on cash purchases, he said.

The NSA surveillance has never been limited to just ferreting out terrorists, its mass surveillance of every conceivable communications device has created a Big Data tracking system that can hone in on specific behaviors of anyone in the country, or can track the mass patterns of human society like a school of fish.

Standing by complicit with the elimination of cash is surrendering yourself to a society based upon nothing more than Big Brother teamed up with the Big Banks – and what good could come from all of that?

Banning Cash “Necessary to Give Central Banks More Power”

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

‘Cash Is Being Eradicated’: Digital Payments Take Over Western World

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

“He Is Aiding And Abetting The Enemies Of The United States” – Obama’s Use of Taxpayer Money to Arm our Enemies is Treason

March 6, 2016 by contributing author

President Obama appointed James Clapper as his Director of National Intelligence in 2010. As of January 2016, the Obama administration paid Iran over half a billion dollars, unfroze Iranian assets, paid the Iranians interest on their previously-frozen accounts, and through the remainder of the year will give the Iranians almost $12 billion in aid. Such activities bear close scrutiny, and we’ll begin with a quote from Clapper:

“Iran continues to be the foremost state sponsor of terror and exert its influence in regional crises in the Mid-East through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, its terrorist partner Lebanese Hezbollah, and proxy groups. Iran and Hezbollah remain a continuing terrorist threat to U.S. interests and partners worldwide. Iran’s supreme leader continues to view the U.S. as a major threat and we assess his views will not change despite the implementation of the deal, the exchange of detainees, and the release of the 10 sailors,” Clapper said.

(AP report by Adam Kredo, 2/25/15)

Basically Obama has ramrodded a deal through Congress (just as complicit as Obama for enabling his actions) to give funding to Iran, our avowed enemy. Now treason is a difficult charge to make stick against a sitting U.S. president; however, the one committing it now actually enabled it to stick himself. Here is the part he likes:

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, Pub.L. 112–81. This NDAA contains several controversial sections, mainly §§ 1021-1022, which affirm provisions authorizing the indefinite military detention of civilians, including U.S. citizens, without habeas corpus or due process, contained in the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), Pub.L. 107–40.

(Source: Wikipedia, NDAA)

By signing the NDAA into law, Obama’s wording in a nutshell made the entire world a battlefield in the “War on Terror.” As such, Obama the Commander-in-Chief is outside of the UCMJ. A Commander-in-Chief is (regarding a Chain of Command) sort of akin to “Captain Crunch”, but with eye-teeth….no accountability to anyone…. yet as captain of the ship, able to send the legions marching for at least 30 days without congressional approval. The supreme military commander without any true military oversight to guard against his actions.

Obama only appears to be a bungling clown. His true mentor was not Sun Tzu, but Saul Alinsky, and the tactics he has been using have been sound…soundly resounding a death knell for the U.S. military and bringing the country to its knees. Every single action he has taken has been calculated and with true, deliberate purpose. His plan is Cloward-Piven, and his playbook is “Rules for Radicals.”

What more is needed? The NDAA permits any citizen to be grabbed and hauled off by the Cheka/NKVD/DHS for “indefinite detention” just for suspicion of complicity with terrorist activity. Look at this guy sitting on the throne that was once the leather chair of the Oval Office! No accountability whatsoever. The payments were made with no strings, just flat out given to Iran, the banker of Hezbollah and also funding its own terrorist activities, such as atrocities carried out by Iran’s Republican Guard. By aiding and abetting the enemies of the U.S., the President has deliberately and with knowledge aforethought committed treason and can be impeached, plain and simple. They wanted the entire world to be labeled a “battlefield” of the “War on Terror?” Well, then, the rules for treason and aiding and abetting an enemy…especially one committing terrorist acts and enabling them…apply to this sitting Commander-in-Chief.

Oh, but the State Department “conveniently” instituted Obama’s open arms policy and removed the Republican Guard from the watch-lists of suspected terrorist organizations. This was done in 2014 to precede the outflow of the cash to Iran in 2015.

I’m not pulling any punches here in this article. President Obama made comments to Medvedev prior to the 2012 elections regarding the deployment of ICBM’s and also missile defense systems in Eastern Europe. His “hot mic” picked up the conversation…in essence, “Tell Vladimir that I’ll have more leeway [with the missiles] after the election.”

There you have an instance: a sitting U.S. president talking about reducing the size of our nuclear arsenal, the defenses of the United States, unilaterally and without Congressional approval. Now you have another instance: Obama has enriched Iran financially, enabling it to arm itself militarily.

All of this enabled by the uncomprehending public, the masses, and their tax dollars. They have the right to rise up and shake this petty dictatorship from their throat as a lion would swat a hyena away; yet, the public complacency allows the hyena to feed….and off of them.

February news reports revealed that the Iranians are spending billions of dollars acquired under the release of funds by Obama under the nuclear deal. Guess what they’re buying? Su30SM fourth generation fighter aircraft, the S-300 air defense system, and the T-90 tank, Russia’s newest design. John Kerry specifically stated that the UN veto the United States holds will not be necessary. He was asked pointedly about it by a Congressional Oversight committee that plainly declared the sale of arms by Russia to Iran was in violation of the UN Security Council mandates.

And the Obama administration? They acknowledged the illegality of the sale by Russia to Iran under Security Council Resolution 2231.

With malice aforethought, and completely aware of what they are doing…. they are taking the orders directly from Obama. And he’s Teflon…nothing sticks to him. But it is clear: he is aiding and abetting the enemies of the United States. He has committed treason on numerous occasions. It has been long past the time for the American people to stand their ground and have him removed from office. The grounds: treason, against the people of the United States of America.

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

Also Read:

America Will Force Russia’s Hand: The United States Will Start World War III: “Imminent”

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

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

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

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

Jeremiah Johnson’s Green Beret Survival Guides

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Incoming Asteroid Passing Extremely Close: “If It Doesn’t Hit Earth, May Strike Something Around Us!”

March 4, 2016 by mac slavo

It’s not worth panicking over, but it is at least worth mentioning the “chance” that a giant asteroid could hit the planet.

Its calculated trajectory varies, with reports claiming it will arrive March 5, or between the 7th and 8th, and will hurl as close as 11,000 miles away from Earth, but that’s about as close as anything close to its size has come on record.

Lexi Morgan at Intellihub.com explains:

NASA has now updated its Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s close approach data to reflect a 22 hour window of uncertainty regarding asteroid 2013 TX68, which is currently set to nearly graze Earth.

NASA hopes the massive chunk of rock will pass safely by Earth at a distance of around 18,000 miles between the dates of Mar. 7, at 1 p.m. and Mar. 8, until 11 a.m. Eastern Time.

It’s also worthy to note that even if the asteroid safety passes the planet, it still has the potential to collide with the moon, orbiting satellites, the International Space Station or other space-based platforms.

The Sun story adds additional details:

NASA has admitted there is a chance the asteroid 2013 TX68, a 100ft-wide rock which is currently heading towards us, could impact earth.

The asteroid is due to pass earth on March 5 by as close as 11,000 miles however NASA says there is “a chance” it could actually hurtle into our planet on September 28, 2017.

But NASA puts the odds of this happening at “no more than 1-in-250-million.”

[…]

NASA has said it could be anywhere between 9 million miles and 11,000 miles. This large range is due to a wide range of possible trajectories since it was tracked for only a short time after discovery.

Though there’s only a fraction of a chance that we will be entering a doomsday scenario ripped from the pages of Hollywood in a period of just a few days from now, scientists also point out that it could wreak havoc on the moon, or satellite and man-made space infrastructure.

So, there could be noteworthy damage. Maybe.

Regardless, it is a reminder of the fragility and mortality of our condition here. There are many disturbing forces, and there is little reason to remain well adjusted to them.

Russia has just unveiled a plan to use ICBMs to blow up smaller asteroids/meteors that more frequently pelt their homeland. Chelyabinsk took an unexpected hit last year.

NASA has previously announced a nearly identical plan for United States defense against possible threats from space. The Daily Mail reported:

Dramatic proof that any of these can strike Earth came on 15 February last year, when an unknown object exploded high above Chelyabinsk, Russia, with 20 – 30 times the energy of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

The resulting shock wave caused widespread damage and injuries, making it the largest known natural object to have entered the atmosphere since the 1908 Tunguska event, which destroyed a forest area of Siberia.

The Daily Caller reports:

The Russian government is going to revamp some of its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) in order to blow up asteroids before they reach Earth.

[…]

Apparently, the nuclear-armed ICBMs would be used to target asteroids with a 20 to 50 meter diameter (approximately 65 to 164 feet). Asteroids of these sizes are difficult to detect, and using an ICBM to take them out before they hit Earth would be the last line of defense preventing a potential catastrophe.

In an age where space has been weaponized, along with weather and climate, and foreign relations have returned to Cold War tensions, that could have layers of hidden intention as well.

“Unfortunately, we only know about roughly 1% of those asteroids that get down to the 30-meter size, so there’s a tremendous amount out there that we have yet to discover,” said Jason Kessler, NASA’s man in charge of identifying potential asteroid threats, to CNN.

Anyway, there could be surprises. Russia has certainly taken note of what could and has happened.

H/t Intellihub.

Is NASA Covering Up a Devastating Meteor Strike In Iran: “Destruction On An Unimaginable Scale”

The US Government Is Prepping For Unlikely Events Like War, Catastrophic Collapse of Society, and Even Asteroids – Are You?

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Expert Warns That Unparalleled Financial Destruction Is “Just Six Months Away”

March 4, 2016 by mac slavo

The time is nigh.

The crash is coming. It’s waves can be felt pulsing through the system, foretelling its arrival.

But how long will it be until it hits, and how big will its magnitude be?

According to Yale’s Vikram Mansharamani, it is only months away.

Via London Express:

FINANCIAL bubbles across the globe are imploding and the problem is only set to get worse... Prices are falling around the world thanks to the collapse of China’s debt fuelled economic growth and this has triggered a succession of disastrous events that are starting to be realised, according to Vikram Mansharamani, an author and, lecturer at Yale University.

Fears are growing that the world could face a financial crash of unprecedented levels and could even be just six months away.

Bubbles created by the mountain of cheap money made available by low interest rates since the last financial crisis are now starting to burst, said Mr Mansharamani.

[…]

Mr Mansharamani added: “We’ve got a bubble bursting, I would argue, in Australian housing markets — that is beginning to crack; South Africa — the whole economy; Canada — housing and the economy; Brazil. We can keep going on and on.”

The details have come out in warnings posted here at SHTF and elsewhere, but the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing program changed the metabolism of the global economy.

Like a diabetic or a heroin addict, people in the United States, and in countries abroad all borrow on cheap credit, and face a debilitating spike now that repayment is being demanded – all while oil prices have bottomed out and destroyed the fragile livelihoods of those who depended upon these and other commodity prices.

Nightmares are surfacing. Entire sectors are being destroyed. New technology is causing extreme upheaval in jobs, and economic warfare is subtly sucking away life and stability from the ranks of the hard working, aspiring and once prosperous. It is punishing and leveling out all those who haven’t learned to work inside the system.

All the rest will end up on welfare, until that collapses too.

Robots will replace millions of jobs in the next few decades:

That’s ok, though, according to the guy in the video, because we’re supposed to live in some technologically-planned future where computers figure out how to address the needs of everyone. But that’s not OK, because that leaves no room for freedom.

When you lose the ability to support yourself independently, you become a government serf overnight. And the rest is history. We are being pushed and shoved into a new collectivist state with strikingly few liberties.

The criminals who orchestrated the last round of looting in 2008 have grown in power and wealth in the years since, and are now poised to come back for the rest – and use finance as a tool to condition societal behavior. Puppeteer bankers Goldman Sachs admitted that we are entering the third wave of a debt-supercycle that has been unleashed through predatory policy:

This wave is characterised by rock-bottom commodities prices, stalling growth in China and other emerging-markets economies, and low global inflation, Goldman Sachs analysts led by Peter Oppenheimer said in a big-picture note.

This triple whammy has its roots in the response to the first two waves of crisis — the banking collapse and European sovereign-debt crisis — and it is all part of the so-called debt supercycle of the past few decades.

Central banks all rushed to lower interest rates in response to the first two debt-fueled crises, encouraging investors to lend in emerging markets such as China for a decent return.

Now that interest rates are looking as if they might go up, lenders are heading for the exits and investors are pulling out of commodities, which are closely linked to the fate of the emerging economies.

Once they are done, everyone you know will be either working for the government, or under close government regulation. Wall Street crimes are instituted as policy, and competition and free enterprise from the little guy is yanked out of the system, and his salary is capped at the level befitting a modern day serf.

The borg is assimilating the economy and taking everyone as an asset/hostage now.

Time to make your final preparations, and place any wealth you have in carefully considered positions.

Goldman Sachs: The Third Wave of the Financial Crisis Is Upon Us

Global Economy Grinds to a Halt: We’re “Already in a Recession”

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

Here Is Why Trump Will Win: Americans “Want Somebody With Balls”

March 3, 2016 by mac slavo

You may not agree with everything this guy stands for, but you have to respect his candor and principles for blatantly calling out the system for what it is.

But this epic rant explains in 4 minutes why Trump is unstoppable, and Americans are done with the way things have been.

Common sense has been sacrificed for a whiny, liberal la-la-land where the State can arrest or silence anyone it pleases for hurting someone’s feelings or saying “taboo” words.

But Outlaw Morgan doesn’t give a F-@* about that. His viral and foul-mouthed rant is close to the sentiments of the people. They are fed up, and pissed off – and for that reason, Trump will win.

Disclaimer: This video is filled with foul language and politically incorrect observations. “So just cry about it!”

And the primary results are proving that. The establishment can pull out every empty suit in their line up, but people inside the GOP and across the country are sick of all of it.

Donald Trump is quite obviously not perfect, and has yet to earn any trust. His record has sometimes blown in the wind. But it doesn’t matter.

In 2016, he has done nothing but tell it like it is, and that is why is resonating with Americans everywhere, regardless of party or creed, and despite the outrageous and incendiary comments that Trump has made.

And that’s why wimps like Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney and the other phonies can’t even buy their way into office anymore.

What do you think will happen next in 2016?

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

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