In a textbook case of damning with faint praise, the Washington Monthly's Ed Kilgore asserted on Thursday that of all the "dramatically underqualified people" who may run for president in 2016, Ben Carson is the frontrunner.  

Kilgore opines that since Carson is black, his popularity with white conservatives "absolve[s] them of any racist motives when they complain about those people on welfare, and indeed accuse white liberals of being the real bigots." (Italics in original.) He adds that should Carson run, "it seems likely he [would] be even more overtly than [Herman] Cain a pure instrument for conservative resentment and—if you will forgive the unavoidable term—whitewashing."

From Kilgore's post, with no memory of Al Sharpton for President 2004 (emphasis added):

The bar for a “viable” presidential candidate was most dramatically lowered in 2012, when pizza entrepreneur and radio gabber Herman Cain briefly led the polls for the Republican nomination to become Leader of the Free World...

POLL: Where do you get your news?

There’s no telling how many dramatically underqualified people will run for president in 2016 and ascend from the anonymous ranks of cranks and perennial candidates whose campaigns toil in perpetual obscurity. Some, like former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, may even have minimal on-paper credentials and thereby muscle his way onto debate platforms. But the candidate of that nature most likely to make a splash is Dr. Ben Carson, a distinguished neurosurgeon and philanthropist (and also a conservative Christian motivational speaker and writer) who’s become the Latest Big Thing on the conservative defying-the-left circuit...

Now that reliable expositor of the conservative CW, the Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes, reports that Carson is getting serious about a presidential run, which he describes more or less as a trip down the road to Golgotha:

“It’s a daunting thing,” he told me. “I know how vehemently the left will come after you, try to destroy you, try to destroy your family. But at the same time I recognize that people like Nathan Hale - he said, ‘My only regret is I have but one life to give to my country’ … And if everybody runs for the hills because they’re afraid that somebody is going to attack them or their family, then [the left] will have won.”

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-johnson/2014/05/18/washington-monthly-blogger-if-ben-carson-runs-potus-hell-play-role-blac#ixzz324PeU07X

The militarization of our local police forces continues, and as local law enforcement gets their hands on high-grade, weaponized and war-ready equipment, an authoritarian streak goes right along with it.

The sheriff of Erie County, New York, told the State Legislature it was none of their damn business how they use their high-tech cellphone “sniffers” to spy on Americans.

POLL: Does the US legal system need to be reformed?

Timothy B. Howard told a committee the “Stingray Tracking Device” his department has owned for six years wasn’t being used to tap into citizen’s phone conversations, but only for tracking their movement. And that’s all he would say. The Erie County Sheriff’s Department received the device – and other surveillance equipment – from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as part of an ongoing effort to supply local law enforcement with high-grade military equipment.

He wouldn’t tell the elected officials about the scope of the device’s capabilities, how well it worked or how many times his department has used it.

With no disrespect to this honorable body … the specific use of the device should be left to the monitoring of the courts and not to the Legislature or to the media,” he said.

read more:

gopthedailydose.com/2014/05/17/sheriff-tells-state-reps-none-business-spy-citizens/

Could Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry have prevented the release of some 36,000 criminal immigrants last year?

The limited immigration group Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) say there is a good chance the answer is yes. 

Monday, an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement document obtained by CIS and viewed by Breitbart News revealed that the 36,007 criminal immigrants convicted of nearly 88,000 crimes were released while awaiting the outcome of deportation proceedings last year.

In explaining the releases, ICE pointed in part to court cases, specifically Zadvydas v. Davis, a 2001 Supreme Court case in which the court held the government could not indefinitely hold an immigrant if there is not a likelihood of removal in the “foreseeable future.” This may occur when a country refuses or unreasonably delays accepting people the United States is looking to deport. 

POLL: What is the worst Hillary Clinton scandal?

According to ICE, many of the releases — specifically 72 percent of criminal immigrants convicted of homicide — were mandatory, required by court decisions like Zadvydas. 

A little-enforced statute (8 U.S.C. § 1253(d)) CIS highlights, however, requires the Secretary of State to instruct consular offices to stop issuing visas to countries that engage in such obstruction.

read more:

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/05/17/Do-Hillary-Clinton-and-John-Kerry-bear-some-blame-for-last-year-s-criminal-immigrant-releases

All of those around the table also “took pleasure in Indyk’s public bashing of Israel in his speech,” according to the source. “Whatever supposed even-handedness there was in public … was absolutely gone in private.”

Middle East envoy Martin Indyk was overheard at an upscale Washington, D.C., bar bashing Israel and fully blaming it for the recent failure of peace talks with the Palestinians, according to an individual who overheard the conversation and described it as a surprising and “nasty” 30-minute-long tirade against the Jewish state.

Indyk—who has been identified by the Washington Free Beacon as the source of a recent series of anonymous quotes in the press condemning Israel—was caught openly lashing out at Israel over drinks with several members of his staff and wife, Gahl Burt.

POLL: Has the Obama Administration turned its back on Israel?

The conversation took place in the hotel bar at the Ritz-Carlton on Thursday night, shortly after Indyk finished delivering remarks at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s (WINEP) annual gala.

While Indyk was critical of Israel in his public remarks, he and his staff are said to have let loose on the Jewish state over drinks before Indyk was scheduled to meet with former Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

“The tone was nasty,” according to the source who overheard the conversation.

Indyk and his staff “openly blamed” conservative Israeli politician Naftali Bennett and others for “sabotaging the [peace] negotiations” by issuing permits for new Israeli housing blocks in Jerusalem.

“In the 30 minute conversation, no one at the table mentioned a single wrong thing the Palestinians had done,” according to the source who overheard the conversation. “There was no self-criticism whatsoever.”

read more:

http://freebeacon.com/issues/indyk-caught-bashing-israel-at-hotel-bar/

The hearings to be held by the select committee investigating the Benghaziattack haven’t even been scheduled yet, but a Democratic congressman is already threatening to derail the process.

U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., told Al Sharpton on MSNBC’s “Politics Nation” Friday that he is ready to serve on the committee.

POLL: What is the worst Hillary Clinton scandal?

“I would be their worst, worst nightmare,” Grayson said. “I’d be their worst and last nightmare.”

Earlier on Friday, Grayson told Ari Rabin-Havt on XM radio that he has notifiedHouse Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., of his willingness to serve on the committee, according to the Huffington Post.

Pelosi hasn’t decided whether Democrats will participate on the committee. Rabin-Havt said it would be a “colossal error” if Democrats boycott the investigation.

“I’ve said, if she decides to have Democratic members participate, I’d like to be one of them,” Grayson said in the interview.

read more:

http://www.bizpacreview.com/2014/05/18/lib-alan-grayson-vows-to-be-benghazi-hearings-worst-and-last-nightmare-119718?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Nationally, shoplifting incidents that end in violence have been climbing at a steady rate. In the National Retail Federation's 2013 survey, retailers said about 18 percent of apprehensions led to some level of violence, up from about 15 percent the previous year and 13 percent in 2011.

Shoplifting is as prevalent as ever.

It also is becoming more brazen.

Two women stuff their purses full of items from an Old Navy store and shove security officers out of the way as they escape.

Five men rush into Saks Fifth Avenue, snatch dozens of high-end handbags and flee to their getaway car parked just outside the door.

POLL: Is Common Core indoctrination or education?

And in an incident that stunned an Eastside neighborhood, a man trying to steal armfuls of items from a clothing store fatally shoots in the head a man who tried to stop him.

What once seemed a petty crime has escalated into either an enterprise by organized criminals or, at worst, a potential flash point for violence.

Or both.

Authorities attribute much of the increase in such brash and violent shoplifting to organized retail crime, groups of people who steal large volumes of merchandise not for themselves but to sell.

read more:

http://www.indystar.com/story/news/2014/05/17/shoplifting-getting-brazen-violent/9229841/

and this from Oklahoma:

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation has released crime rates for the 2012 year. Stephens County had 35.23 percent crime rate for every 1,000 people.

Stephens County had 984 cases of larceny, 418 instances of breaking and entering and 97 felonious assaults.

Stephens County Sheriff Wayne McKinney said that while the crime rate increased between 2011-2012, they are doing everything in their power to combat it.

“We’ve seen an increase across the board,” McKinney said. “We’ve done a good job cleaning things up. (The) criminals we’re dealing with now are a different breed: they’re under the age of 21. We are doing what we can with the staffing we have. It’s just something that all counties are dealing with. It’s difficult when you only have a couple of guys for each shift.”

In Duncan, robberies, felonious assault, breaking and entering and larceny saw dramatic increases betwen 2011-2012. There were nine more robberies, 28 more felonious assaults, 55 more instances of breaking and entering and 161 more cases of larceny than in 2011.         

“In 2011 and 2012, we had several armed robberies of convenience stores,” Duncan Police Chief Daniel Ford said. “That one group of incidents raised the number quite a bit. We’re doing all we can.”
- See more at: http://www.duncanbanner.com/x1667057072/Crime-rates-in-Stephens-County-increase-from-2011-to-2012#sthash.C54Il8U1.dpuf

more:

Bicycles are hot items nationwide:

Spring is finally here and with that, comes the start of riding season. As cyclists dust off their bikes for the first ride of the season, they should be sure to grab all of their gear – including a good quality bike lock. Bicycle theft is an unfortunate occurrence and an increasing trend these past few years, and cyclists from the US are no exception.

According to the latest FBI Uniform Crime Report, from 2007 to 2011, bicycle theft in the United States rose (on average) 14% each year. On average, over 188,500 bicycle thefts are reported stolen each year in the United States, a statistic that in itself is staggering when one also considers the number of bicycle thefts that go unreported. Some US cities are starting to fight back against bicycle theft. In San Francisco, the city issued its first ever official look at the bike theft problem in 2013 and issued a goal to reduce bicycle theft in the city by at least 50% over the next 5 years. The city also created a bike registry to help combat the 70% rise in bicycle thefts since 2006. In both Los Angeles and San Diego, law enforcement is starting to fight back against bike theft by placing bikes with hidden GPS technology around the city and beach areas in hopes of catching a bike thief. In Boston, MBTA Transit Police created two-life sized cardboard cutouts of police offers and placed them in two busy bike rack cages at Alewife Station to help prevent theft.

“It’s amazing how easily a bike can be stolen,” says Audrey Hanken, President of Markel Personal Lines Insurance. “We hear stories about bicycles being stolen from locked bike racks, cars, or even directly outside of their homes. We have also heard about thieves targeting hotels during bicycle road races, looking for opportunities to grab expensive bikes and run.”

more:

http://www.cxmagazine.com/public-service-announcement-bike-theft-rises-14-yearly

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POLL: Should Barack Obama resign the Presidency?

The 60th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision was sure to draw a flood of retrospectives and analysis, and properly so.

But an equally safe bet was the hijacking of the occasion for the proliferation of agenda-driven malarkey.

If you name something the “Civil Rights Project” and put it at UCLA, it becomes easy to predict what it will crank out. Just in time for what should be a celebration of a landmark ruling marking our societal path to enlightenment, along come these Debbie Downers to tell us that no, in fact, segregation is still very much alive.

POLL: Is Common Core indoctrination or education?

This may come as a surprise to anyone with a grasp of what words mean.

“Segregation,” as it pertains to the history of U.S. education policy, refers to actual laws preventing kids of certain races from attending certain schools. It recalls the unfathomable days when a black student could live within the territory of a school near his home and be denied admission because of skin color. Our schools have long been purged of such poison, but how will the Civil Rights Project at UCLA fill its days if American law has indeed righted itself racially?

Needing a narrative of America as a land still in dire need of racial scolding, they have graced us with a report, “Brown at 60: Great Progress, a Long Retreat and and Uncertain Future.”

Rest assured the “Great Progress” section in no way recognizes our society’s enormous leaps toward racial awakening. It embraces instead the social engineering that yanked both black and white kids out of schools they wished to attend, casting them into faraway classrooms to achieve diversity numbers that pleased an activist bureaucracy but made kids miserable.

read more:

http://townhall.com/columnists/markdavis/2014/05/16/the-myth-of-segregations-return-n1839106/page/full

Perhaps you've noticed that Democrats in Washington get a little touchy these days where Hillary Clinton is concerned. A few weeks ago, I had the temerity to suggest that Clinton wouldn't be able to run unopposed for the Democratic nomination. This prompted an immediate response in the Daily Beast from Bob Shrum, the venerable party strategist, who argued that of course Clinton would easily clear the Democratic field and waltz to the nomination, because her situation so closely resembles that of Ulysses Grant in 1868. I'm not making this up.

All this defensiveness leads me to think that a lot of commentators are confused about what's going on with Clinton's political future right now. We think what we're seeing is an elaborate campaign, directed by Hillary, to lock down the 2016 nomination and solidify her image as a leader. But in reality, this isn't emanating from Clinton, and it has nothing to do with voters. What we're really looking at is a campaign orchestrated by nervous Democrats and aimed at persuading Clinton herself.

POLL: What is the worst Hillary Clinton scandal?

The truth is that, leaving aside all this bravado about happy demographics and the disunion of Republicans, Democrats are scared out of their minds right now. The House is solidly out of reach. The Senate is slipping away. And the White House could be close behind, especially if Clinton doesn't run, and if Republicans can rally around a credible candidate.

In the six decades since we added the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits a president from serving more than two consecutive terms, only once has either party managed to hold on to the White House for more than eight years. That was in 1988, when Republicans lucked into a campaign against Michael Dukakis. (Ask Shrum about it.)

read more:

https://news.yahoo.com/who-s-really-driving-the-hillary-train-012103811.html

Students at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota cancelled a “Hump Day” party last week featuring a live camel following complaints that the event could be viewed as offensive to Middle Eastern cultures.

The campus’ Residence Hall Association nixed its own event after several students began organizing a protest on Facebook. The protest had received more than 100 RSVPs before it was deleted Wednesday, according to a Thursday report in Campus Reform.

POLL: Is Common Core indoctrination or education?

The episode has since triggered a social-media backlash against campus political correctness, with critics expressing incredulity over the idea that a camel is somehow culturally insensitive or racist.

“Hopefully this story will be the straw that broke the camel’s back for hypersensitivity on college campuses,” said Andrew Clark, digital press secretary at the National Republican Congressional Committee, on Twitter.

Residence Life Director Aaron Macke told TommieMedia, the school’s online publication, that the organization brought a reindeer to campus in December without incident.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/16/hump-day-party-camel-cancelled-minnesota-college-o/#ixzz31yYKG4en 
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

Bill Maher issued a challenge to Republicans on Friday's Real Time: put your money where your mouth is already and just impeach President Obama. Maher argued, "If you really believe Benghazi is that serious and Obama is that big a crook, then you should impeach him tomorrow." And, Maher said, it would actually help the president, because a partisan attempt to impeach him would trigger a popularity surge.

POLL: Do House Conservatives Have Enough Evidence to Impeach Obama? 

Maher compared Republican "blather" on Benghazi to "trying to relate to someone who's tripping when you're not." He tore into the GOP and Fox News for having a near-single-minded obsession with Benghazi above all else, in a bubble where "rational arguments don't matter" and Fox will ignore whatever Obama says unless it's about Benghazi.

more: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/maher-to-gop-go-ahead-impeach-obama-he%E2%80%99ll-just-kick-your-ass-again/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mediaite%2FxXeM+%28Mediaite%29

In the wake of a botched lethal injection in Oklahoma last month, a Utah lawmaker says he believes a firing squad is a more humane form of execution. And he plans to bring back that option for criminals sentenced to death in his state.

Rep. Paul Ray, a Republican from the northern Utah city of Clearfield, plans to introduce his proposal during Utah's next legislative session in January. Lawmakers in Wyoming and Missouri floated similar ideas this year, but both efforts stalled. Ray, however, may succeed. Utah already has a tradition of execution by firing squad, with five police officers using .30-caliber Winchester rifles to execute Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010, the last execution by rifle to be held in the state.

POLL: Does the US legal system need to be reformed?

Ray argues the controversial method may seem more palatable now, especially as states struggle to maneuver lawsuits and drug shortages that have complicated lethal injections.

"It sounds like the Wild West, but it's probably the most humane way to kill somebody," Ray said.

Utah eliminated execution by firing squad in 2004, citing the excessive media attention it gave inmates. But those sentenced to death before that date still had the option of choosing it, which is how Gardner ended up standing in front of five armed Utah police officers. Gardner was sentenced to death for fatally shooting a Salt Lake City attorney in 1985 while trying to escape from a courthouse.

read more:

http://townhall.com/news/politics-elections/2014/05/17/utah-lawmaker-bring-back-firing-squad-executions-n1839512

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South Africa has it all, rewilding, UNESCO’s Education for All which has dumbed downed an entire population, prohibition to thin out forests which leads to massive flooding, protection of endangered species resulting in private property forfeiture, job promotions and school admissions based upon mindless racial quota systems, policies supportingdepopulation and the installation of a system of living designed to destroy human motivation and the hope for a better future. Yes, Agenda 21 is gobbling up South Africa. And if America is not careful, South Africa’s hopelessness will soon become our national mantra as well.

South Africans Speak Out

In the last several weeks, I have received several communications from people living in South Africa. I have heard from a teacher, a professor, an engineer, a former police officer and a locally elected political official who contacted me through a third party in order to escape detection. All of these individuals found me as the result of my weekly radio show through our live streaming capability or through my radio archives. I come from a generation where I find this kind of international reach for a radio program broadcasted out of my home to be stunning. But even more stunning, is the total destruction of a country and its culture and that is taking place in South Africa. To a person, these people blame their adoption of Agenda 21 policies in one form or another.

POLL:  Do you think the New World Order is a conspiracy theory or the truth?

One of the more popular Agenda 21 policies centers around herding people into extremely cramped and densely populated urban centers. In the United States, we are beginning to witness the introduction of micro apartments in places like San Francisco,New York Cityand Ft. Collins, where the living space does not exceed 500 square feet. However, in South Africa, they have turned their urban areas into a type of prison characterized by filth and squalor and extreme political control.Stack and Pack Cities

Many of the urban residents live behind high walls, there is electrified fencing and the properties are frequently guarded by the South African version of Blackwater.

Local police forces have been decimated and the citizens are living in fear of these privatized security firms who rape and rob many innocent victims in their jurisdiction. These security firms do so with impunity as the private security firms strictly serve the elite and their prime directive is to keep the people in line and in fear of the one ruling political party. Movement of people, especially at night, is tightly controlled. South Africa is becoming a Marxist “papers please” society.  Both educators and person who did not identify his occupation who wrote to me stated that if you are a white male and you are arrested by these private security firms, you have a very high probability of being raped in the holding cell.

read more:

http://www.dcclothesline.com/2014/05/15/south-africas-agenda-21-quagmire-americas-emerging-future/

When Muslims commit acts of terror, it is standard operating procedure for some authority or other to assure the populace that “this has nothing to do with Islam.” This is said so frequently as to induce a boy-who-cried-wolf reaction in anyone with an ounce of contrariness. Nowadays, if there’s a fender bender on the next block or a glitch in our computer, we automatically assume that it probably has something to do with Islam. So it’s refreshing to finally hear a world leader (in this case, a former world leader) admit that global Islamic terror actually does have something to do with Islam.

In a keynote address in April at Bloomberg Headquarters in London, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair described radical Islam as the single biggest threat facing the world today.  He went on to criticize Western commentators who “go to extraordinary lengths” to avoid linking terrorism with Islam.  “It is bizarre,” he said, “to ignore the fact that the principal actors in all situations express themselves through the medium of religious identity.”

Although Blair suggested that radical Islamic ideology “distorts and warps Islam’s true message,” he nevertheless emphasized that this extremist movement is based in religious belief.  He added that we in the West can gain a better understanding of the Islamist ideology by remembering “the experience of revolutionary communism and fascism.”  His main message?  The “defeating of this ideology” should be at the top of the global agenda.  In short, Blair is calling for ideological warfare against “Islamism” (his term for radical Islam).

During the Second World War and during the Cold War that followed, we didn’t hesitate to engage in ideological warfare first with Nazism, and then with communism.  It was considered perfectly legitimate to go after the ideas which lay at the base of these totalitarian systems as a way of weakening belief in them.  And we didn’t particularly worry about who might take offense.  But what if the ideology that threatens you comes wrapped in the cloak of religion?  Blair calls for the defeat of the “Islamist” ideology, but how can you engage in ideological warfare if criticism of the enemy ideology is off-limits?

read more:

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2014/taking-the-islamic-challenge-seriously

In the wake of an ever-burgeoning “wait for them to die” scandal within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the heavy hitters in the Obama Administration have made their priorities known. Specifically, while accusations swirl that purposeful lack of medical attention to vets has resulted in needless deaths, the head honcho himself for the Department of Defense greased the skids for a convicted turncoat to receive a taxpayer subsidized sex change operation.

As reported by both the Toronto-based Globe and Mail and USA TODAY, convicted renegade soldier Bradley Manning could soon be transferred to a civilian hospital on the orders of Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.

POLL: Is Common Core indoctrination or education?

According to Pentagon press secretary Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, “The Secretary approved a request by Army leadership to evaluate potential treatment options for inmates diagnosed with gender dysphoria.” If and when approved, Manning will be transferred from the Leavenworth, Kansas, military prison (officially deemed the United States Disciplinary Barracks) to a yet to be identified civilian hospital for Manning’s sexual reassignment surgery. Reportedly, Hagel personally gave the official thumb’s up last month for the Army “to try to work out a transfer plan with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which does provide such treatment.”

Manning, who now demands he be called “Chelsea,” was sentenced to a 35-year stretch in Leavenworth after being found guilty of “six Espionage Act violations and 14 other offences for giving WikiLeaks [founder Julian Assange] more than 700,000 secret military and U.S. State Department documents, along with battlefield video.” Despite still retaining male genitalia, Manning was granted an official name change by a Leavenworth County District Judge last month.

As cited by Health.com, the total cost of sexual reassignment surgery ranges from a total of $40,000 to $50,000 for “mid-range transition, including surgery.” Not ending there, the cost of hormone therapy ranges from $25 to $200 per month, “depending on which hormones are prescribed.”

Read more at http://libertyunyielding.com/2014/05/15/vets-die-waiting-pentagon-moves-ahead-manning-sex-change/#w0HBDcYSBTIwzJJ4.99

A retired United States Army colonel expects as many as 30 million like-minded individuals will descend on Washington, DC this week and demand that President Barack Obama and other members of his administration be booted from office.

Those are just some of the demands that Col. Harry Riley, founder of “Operation American Spring,” said he’ll ask the Obama administration to adhere to when militia members and patriots of all sorts arrive in the nation’s capital on Friday and begin demonstrating against a government the group considers to be in violation of the principles established by the founders of the country. 

“We are calling for the removal of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi and Eric Holder as a start toward constitutional restoration,” Riley told the Before Its News website during an interview earlier this year. 

POLL: Do you believe that Congress is for sale to the highest special interest group bidder?

“They have all abandoned the US Constitution,” he said, and “are unworthy to be retained in a position that calls for servant status.” 

Riley told Before Its News in January that he expects his Operation American Spring movement will provoke anywhere from 10 million to 30 million Americans to mobilize this week and arrive in DC, where they will participate in a “massive, gigantic effort as a last stand before America moves into a more devastating condition.” 

“For more than five years, ‘we the people’ have been writing, calling, faxing Congress, the media, screaming in town halls, marching, rallying, demonstrating, petitioning, all to no avail,” he said. “Every branch of government looks at ‘we the people’ whom they have taken an oath to serve, as ‘pests,’ interfering with their political agenda, cramping their self-serving, greedy agendas. We have no faith in the ballot box any longer, as many believe this sacred secret box has been compromised.” 

read more:

http://rt.com/usa/159244-operation-american-spring-washington/

Economic inequality has emerged as the central political challenge of the 21st Century. Left wing academics and politicians are quick with quack remedies—higher taxes on the wealthy that will only send more investment abroad and smother growth.

For most Americans, good-paying jobs are scarce, and many feel powerless to improve their lot. Yet, for those at the very top of business and in a few charmed professions things have never been better.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) recently asked Federal Reserve Chair Yellen “are we still a capitalist democracy or have we gone over into an oligarchic form of society in which incredible economic and political power now rests with the billionaire class.”

Yellen deflected, saying she preferred not to assign labels, but Sanders struck a nerve.

Russia’s oligarchy has two salient characteristics. The government uses its power to regulate markets to concentrate wealth in the hands of an influential few, while most of its citizens stay poor by western standards.

POLL: Is Common Core indoctrination or education?

In recent decades, the U.S. government has enabled monopolization in many industries—for example, in cable TV and high speed internet, banking and health care—by failing to use its antitrust and regulatory powers to curb abusive practices.

Comcast enjoys monopoly access to most homes it services. Each year, it raises rates for cable TV bundled with high-speed internet faster than the rate of inflation, because federal policies prohibit local governments from regulating cable prices as those do for electric and water utilities.

Its fee structure discourages subscribers from purchasing only high-speed internet and independently obtaining entertainment content over the net. Now Comcast proposes to acquire TimeWarner Cable and establish a virtual national monopoly, giving it huge bargaining leverage with content providers, such as Fox and Turner, even though it already owns NBC.

Comcast is transforming a public utility into an international media giant on the backs of overtaxed subscribers. Yet federal regulators will likely approve its acquisition of TimeWarner, because it has “close ties” with the Obama White House.

Similarly, Dodd-Frank financial reforms impose regulatory costs so onerous that small banks are selling out to bigger ones. In the bargain, small business loans and mortgages are tougher to obtain, and grandma can’t get a decent rate on CDs. Bank executives pull down huge bonuses but also make generous contributions to political candidates.

ObamaCare has effectively monopolized many local markets for health insurance and hospital care, and reinforces pharmaceutical companies’ ability to charge higher drug prices than prevail in other wealthy countries like German and Holland.

To salve the masses, Washington politicians exempt nearly 50 percent of voters from income taxes, and offer subsidized health care, food stamps and the earned income tax credit for lower income Americans.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/205915-is-america-becoming-a-russian-style-oligarchy#ixzz31pGAj0Fe 

by: Pat Henry

I have been asked before by friends how I got started with prepping. It seems the concept can be pretty daunting at first for some people. I can understand how it is when you start to think of the literally hundreds of important items that you need to consider for your family. My first list of “needs” took up an entire sheet of paper. On first glance, this undertaking can appear to be a giant behemoth and some people throw their hands up immediately and give in. I have heard excuses from not having enough money to not knowing where to start. While I agree that some prepper items require money (sometimes a lot!) often there are alternatives in to spending a ton of money, but knowing where to start should never be an issue.

The uncertainty of knowing where to begin could stem from the motivation that is driving you toward emergency preparedness. If your desire to be prepared is driven by some external threat that seems real and tangible like living in Tornado Alley, the place to start might be easier to find. If the motivation to be more prepared is due to what I would call common sense; which is telling you to be prepared for anything, the sense of urgency being lower in some cases might make the choices about where to start and what to do more complex.

POLL: Is Common Core indoctrination or education?

In this article, which will broken into a few different parts,  I will try to lay out what I consider is a basic guideline for how to start prepping with a list of areas that I have placed in order of importance. This is just an example of one methodology, but your personal needs, resources or experience might shuffle some of these around. This list was designed for the perspective of the person who is brand spanking new to prepping and is looking for a template of sorts they can follow to get their homes prepared for most emergency situations listed above (within reason). This does not address bugging out but is designed primarily for sheltering in place. My wife loves lists and something like this breaks everything into nice little chunks that is easier to digest and then she can cross off one at a time, so this type of list is designed for people like her.

Step 1 – Priorities

First things first, before you do anything it is important to understand a few things. This is also known as “So you want to be prepared, now what?” For me, it started with a gut feeling for lack of a better word back in 2008. I have said before that I believe someone was trying to get my attention so I started to listen. There was no driving natural threat like earthquakes or hurricanes, wildfires or mudslides that prompted me. I do not worry about the poles shifting too much or aliens attacking from planet Niburu (look that one up) but I did have a sense that society as we know it now is too fragile. Within this fragile society we are dependent upon systems and processes that are created to address the problem of Just in Time inventory management and if those systems break down, so does society. When society breaks down, so do people. When people break down, all hell breaks loose.  As Gerald Celente says; “(when) People Lose Everything, They Have Nothing Left to Lose, And They Lose It.”

The example that gets used pretty frequently is natural disasters so I will stick with that for a moment. Looking back at Hurricane Sandy or Hurricane Katrina, the people in both of those situations saw how quickly society could come crashing down. In both Katrina and Sandy, gas shortages, grocery stores wiped clean and looting happened almost overnight. Power outages of course happened right away and within 24 hours people’s lives were turned upside down.

Now, imagine your family and what you would be faced with if you were in a similar situation. But I don’t live anywhere near the ocean you say. OK, now forget about tornadoes earthquakes, fires, nuclear meltdowns, comets with aliens living in them and all of the other natural disasters. What if there is a major fluctuation with the price of gas and the grocery stores are no longer filled by the trucks that drive down the street every day? What if the trucks were rolling, but with the high price of gas, they were only able to come half as often as they were in the past? What if there is a terrorist attack at the port of Los Angeles and shipments are delayed for months? What if there is a stupid basketball game that doesn’t go right and there is rioting on your street? What if the police declare martial law because a bad guy is running around and they prevent you from going out of your house for days or weeks?

The point I am trying to make is that there shouldn’t be one single reason you are preparing for. You should want to be prepared for anything. The chances of any one single event happening to you are too small, but the chance of something happening at all that could disrupt your life is much higher. To understand what you need to be prepared for, think less about the event that could cause disruption and more about the potential for disruption and what you would need to live comfortably through that disruption.

There is a saying called the rule of 3’s and it goes like this. A person can live 3 minutes without air, 3 hours without shelter, 3 days without water and 3 weeks without food. We will use these as a guideline for prepping going forward. In some cases, the rule of threes can drive what you need to focus on.