Without a government for the last eleven days, and amid mainstream discussion of a Euro Zone exit, the Greek people are realizing that the economic and political system as they know it is rapidly descending into chaos.

With massive jobless rates that have forced many into bartering to survive, and facing credit destruction across the entirety of the country that has led to shortages of critical supplies like life saving medicines, those with any money left at national banks are taking the desperate step of withdrawing as much of their savings as they can from a banking system on its last leg.

Emily Heil
Washington Post
Monday, May 14, 2012

Seems no one is immune from the tender mercies of the TSA pat-down. First, we learned that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was subjected to a handsy search. And now we learn of the latest high-profile search-ee: former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

As voter registration and identity fraud becomes a hot button issue across State legislatures you’d think that at least one group of voters – our elected officials – would understand the importance of laws and procedures designed to maintain the integrity of our legislative process.

According to the rules of the Texas State House of Representatives, for example:

I see this little bicycle weave through the crowd and stop in front of the troops. He stood there for a few minutes. I’m not sure why.

-Julia Ioffe, Moscow Correspondent for the New Yorker
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The image, captured in Moscow, is a stark reminder that tyranny has spread its wings the world over.

Brit Dee, Contributor
Activist Post

A report coming out of the Los Angeles Times and citing US and Yemeni officials appears to confirm widely-voiced suspicions that the latest supposed “underwear bomb” plot was little more than a contrived threat – the potential Al Qaeda bomber was actually, it seems, a CIA informant.

The LA Times reports how the informant, working under the direction of Saudi Arabian intelligence and the CIA, posed as a would-be suicide bomber in an attempt to persuade Yemeni bombmakers to provide him with a “new kind of non-metallic bomb that the militants were designing to easily pass through airport security”.

Activist Post
As if the NDAA wasn’t bad enough — essentially turning the whole planet, including America into one giant battlefield — Congress is set to introduce an amendment that would grant even more power to the military for offensive operations in cyberspace.

As Mike Masnick highlights in his article for TechDirt, the applicable section currently gives authority to the president, whereas the amendment would give the entire Department of Defense the same authority.

The prospect of clandestine military actions online against whichever targets any one of the military agencies deems appropriate will officially complete the goal of full spectrum dominance.

Thanks to the available findings of a 2006 study showing that cannabis actually reduces the number of cancer cells, medical marijuana users can now feel even better about the widely abolished pain relief ingredient found in the plant.

The relationship between marijuana and cancer has always been up for debate, but with the use of a specially crafted oil made from the buds of the Cannabis Sativa plant, scientists confirmed that the plant’s primary psychoactive chemical tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) destroys any and all malignant cancer cell growths in several patients.

Stephen Lendman, Contributor
Activist Post

Replicating post-WW II occupations is planned. Sixty-seven years after war’s end, US troops still occupy Germany, Japan and Korea. They’re part of America’s growing empire of bases.

Status of forces (SOFA) agreements establish the framework under which US forces operate abroad. The Department of Defense Technical Information Center calls them agreements “that defines the legal position of a ‘visiting’ military force deployed in the territory of a friendly state.”

They delineate “the status of visiting military forces (and) may be bilateral or multilateral. Provisions pertaining to the status of visiting forces may be set forth in a separate agreement, or they may form a part of a more comprehensive agreement.”

These provisions describe how the authorities of a visiting force may control members of that force and the amenability of the force or its member to the local law or to the authority of local officials . . . To the extent that agreements delineate matters affecting the relations between a military force and civilian authorities and population, they may be considered as civil affairs agreements.

Occupied countries get little choice. Pentagon officials draft provisions. They’re largely one way.

Daisy Luther
Saturday, April 21, 2012

Imagine being able to announce your intention to kill 900 million people.

Psychopathy is defined as “a personality disorder characterized by a pervasive pattern of disregard for the rights of others and the rules of society. Psychopaths have a total lack of empathy and remorse, and have very shallow emotions. They are generally regarded as callous, selfish, dishonest, arrogant, aggressive, impulsive, irresponsible, and hedonist.”

Economic Collapse Blog
Saturday, April 21, 2012

There has been no society in the history of the world that has ever been 100% safe.  No matter how much money the federal government spends on “homeland security”, the truth is that bad things will still happen.  Our world is a very dangerous place and it is becoming increasingly unstable.  The federal government could turn the entire country into one giant prison camp, but that would still not keep us safe.  It is inevitable that bad stuff will happen in life.  But we have a choice.  We can choose to live in fear or we can choose to live as free men and women.  Our forefathers intended to establish a nation where liberty and freedom would be maximized.  But today we are told that we have to give up our liberties and our freedoms and our privacy for increased security.  But is such a trade really worth it?  Just think of the various totalitarian societies that we have seen down throughout history.  Have any of them ever really thrived?  Have their people been happy?  Unfortunately, the U.S. federal government has decided that the entire country needs to be put on lock down.  Nearly everything that we do today is watched and tracked, and personal privacy is rapidly becoming a thing of the past.  Many of the things that George Orwell wrote about in 1984 are becoming a reality, and that is a very frightening thing.  The United States is supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave.  Sadly, we are rapidly becoming the exact opposite of that.

I don’t know about you, but I never signed up to live in North Korea.  When I was growing up I was taught that repressive regimes such as North Korea are “the bad guys” and that America is where “the good guys” live.

The Daily Bell
Saturday, April 21, 2012

Huge’ water resource exists under Africa … Scientists say the notoriously dry continent of Africa is sitting on a vast reservoir of groundwater. They argue that the total volume of water in aquifers underground is 100 times the amount found on the surface. The team have produced the most detailed map yet of the scale and potential of this hidden resource. Writing in the journal Environmental Research Letters, they stress that large scale drilling might not be the best way of increasing water supplies. Across Africa more than 300 million people are said not to have access to safe drinking water. Demand for water is set to grow markedly in coming decades due to population growth and the need for irrigation to grow crops. – BBC

Dominant Social Theme: Water, water everywhere … it’s a miracle! Who would have thunk …

Free-Market Analysis: We’ve charted this elite meme for several years – water scarcity. The powers-that-be create fear-based scarcity promotions and then propose globalist solutions. Water scarcity is a big promotion for them – and this meme is a central one these days.

Emily Flitter
Reuters
April 20, 2012

Federal prosecutors in California are investigating a Goldman Sachs employee for insider trading, according to prosecutors and defense lawyers who attended a hearing in U.S. federal court in New York on Thursday.

The Daily Bell
Saturday, April 21, 2012

Spain Bans Cash Transactions Over 2,500 Euros … Spain has outlawed the use of cash in business transactions in excess 2,500 euros in order to crack down on the black market and tax evaders. The motivations behind the push for digital currencies is exposed as Spain heads down the road of the Greeks in combating their sovereign debtcrisis. As the government scrambles for every tax dollar it can get its hands on, even though they already gave every Spaniard $23,000 Euros in debt last year alone (approximately $32,500), they are now banning all large cash business transactions. Why? So they can track the transactions and make sure that people and business are paying taxes. Being able to track the transactions is also aimed to combat the growing black market in Spain. – Alexander Higgins’ blog

Dominant Social Theme: This cash has gotta go. It’s evil.

Free-Market Analysis: They are not even making a pretense anymore that the West is run via market economies. As we have long predicted, the phony “sovereign debt” crisis in Europe is being used to justify all sorts of authoritarian measures.

Josh Rogin
Foreign Policy
April 18, 2012

China may be helping North Korea develop long range ballistic missiles that could reach the United States, and one Republican congressman wants the Obama administration to do something about it.

“As you have likely seen, the press is reporting that North Korea unveiled a new mobile missile at a military parade in Pyongyang in honor of the founder of that dictatorship, Kim Il Sung,” Rep.Mike Turner (R-OH), wrote in an April 17 letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, obtained by The Cable. Turner is the Chairman of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee.

Washington’s Blog
April 18, 2012

For years, many high-level economists and financial experts have said that – unless we break up the giant banks – our economy will never recover, real reform will be blocked, and democracy and the rule of law will be corrupted.

So how did the government respond to the financial crisis which started in 2007?

Let the giant banks get even bigger.

As Bloomberg notes, the five banks that held assets equal to 43% of the US economy in 2007 before the financial crisis and the bank bailout now control assets that equal 56% of the US economy:

Michael Snyder, Contributor

Does it seem to you like there has been an unusual amount of seismic activity around the world lately?  Well, it isn’t just your imagination.  The Ring of Fire is roaring to life and that is really bad news for the west coast of the United States.

Approximately 90 percent of all earthquakes and approximately 75 percent of all volcanic eruptions occur along the Ring of Fire.

Considering the fact that the entire west coast of the United States lies along the Ring of Fire, we should be very concerned that the Ring of Fire is becoming more active.  On Wednesday, the most powerful strike-slip earthquake ever recorded happened along the Ring of Fire.  If that earthquake had happened in a major U.S. city along the west coast, the city would have been entirely destroyed.

Scientists tell us that there is nearly a 100% certainty that the “Big One” will hit California at some point.  In recent years we have seen Japan, Chile, Indonesia and New Zealand all get hit by historic earthquakes.  It is inevitable that there will be earthquakes of historic importance on the west coast of the United States as well.  So far we have been very fortunate, but that good fortune will not last indefinitely.

UK Daily Mail
April 13, 2012

In July 1976, the Viking 1 probe touched down on Mars and failed to find traces of life – but now, three decades later, scientists think the experiment was flawed.

VIking 1 did find evidence of extraterrestrial microbes in soil samples from the Red Planet.

Mathematical analysis of the samples concluded that salts in the soil on Mars ‘threw off’ initial estimates – and that the soil samples show strong evidence of microbial life.

RT
April 13, 2012

Syrian opposition is calling for mass rallies as the first reports come in suggesting Thursday’s fragile ceasefire has been broken. Fears of fresh violence in the country are running high.

Syrian troops are clashing with rebels near the border with Turkey, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports.

Earlier opposition activists called for mass protests, warning potential participants that president Assad’s government is likely to break Thursday’s truce and shoot.

Researchers claim that only global government can save humanity, echoing MIT/Club of Rome model for collapse by 2030

Aaron Dykes
Prison Planet.com
April 9, 2012

Will 5 billion people perish from the earth in the coming century? That’s what the controversial elitist think tank, the Club of Rome, predicted back in 1972. Decades after its publication, advocates of world government are still pushing its predictions as a call to curb mankind’s footprint on the earth.

Australian physicist Graham Turner has recently made news again after revisiting computer models MIT researchers created for the Club of Rome’s 1972 publication that sees a drastic decline in human population coming in relation to a increasing scarcity of resources. Turner’s basic conclusions, however, give away the agenda in plain sight. “The world is on track for disaster,” he bluntly states, while suggesting that “unlimited economic growth” is still possible if world governments enact policies and invest in green technologies that help limit the expansion of our ecological footprint.

Editor’s Note: People working within the MPAA and similar organizations have backed legislation like this in the past. After the legislation passed, they made huge profits directly related to the inaction of the bill. THIS IS BEING DONE ON MANY FRONTS. These corrupt bastards should be thrown in prison. Fight SOPA and every other act of blatant conflict of interest (e.g. body scanners and TSA).

Madison Ruppert, Contributor

Many people thought that the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was going to be dead for good after it was protested by millions of Internet users and some of the web’s largest entities like Google, Wikipedia, Reddit and more.

Unfortunately, Chris Dodd, the Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and formerly a long-time Senator and Congressman, wants to bring it back and once again threaten everything that the Internet was built upon.

DEBKAfile
April 8, 2012

Moscow has stepped into the vacuum created by US President Barack Obama’s decision to stay out of any potentially incendiary Middle East involvement while campaigning for a second term. After blocking the way to direct Western and Arab military intervention in Syria through the Mediterranean, Russia sent its Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov last week on a round trip to the capitals of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan – an expedition designed to secure Iran against a potential US/Israeli attack via its northern and eastern neighbors, DEBKAfile’s military sources report.