New Patch For U.S. Troops

NEW PATCH FOR U.S. TROOPS FIGHTING ISIS… LOOKS LIKE ISIS LOGO

Controversy has stirred because many think the patch looks too much like our boys are fighting for the enemy




by MAC SLAVO | SHTFPLAN.COM | SEPTEMBER 30, 2015

Believe it or not, American soldiers fighting against ISIS in Syria and Iraq will actually be wearing the emblem of ISIS – the infamous crossed-swords logo. Well, almost.

Controversy has stirred because many think the patch looks too much like our boys are fighting for the enemy… just another sign of confusion about the counterproductive Obama-led war against the notorious and shamefully exploitative jihadist army.

The Military Times noted that:

“A combat patch worn by U.S. soldiers who served in Iraq on the mission against Islamic State is drawing flak from service members and veterans who say the patch — with its palm wreath, stars and crossed scimitars — looks like something the enemy would wear.”

Site like JihadWatch are arguing that the:

“new U.S. Army patch for fight against the Islamic State closely resembles Muslim Brotherhood logo.”

While the Islamic State is using barbaric tactics to remake the Middle East closer to its own vision of a Caliphate, the United States and its allies also seek to remake the Middle East, and use the specter of terrorism to aid in regime change in Syria and elsewhere.

The triangulation and cross-purposes are both confusing and aggravating to many Americans.

According to USA Today:

Soldiers in Iraq will soon have a new shoulder sleeve patch to signify their service in the fight against the Islamic State.

All told, there are about 3,335 troops in the region training Iraqi troops, providing security and conducing bombing missions on Islamic State targets in Iraq and neighboring Syria.

The Army’s patch features crossed scimitars, a palm wreath and stars. The scimitars, short swords with curved blades, are meant to symbolize the twin goals of the U.S.-led coalition: to defeat the Islamic State, also referred to as ISIL, and to restore stability in the region, according to Army documents.

Arguably the “twin goals” of Operation Inherent Resolve – better known as the fight against ISIS / ISIL – is fitting with the War on Terrorism in general which always, like a double sword, cut both ways. Symbolically, the double sword cuts both ways, and plays of opposite goals, and embraces conflict, which creates chaos, and begs for a savior and a solution.

But the U.S. has, in fact, created and breathed life into the TV villain known as ISIS. From. the. beginning.

The naked hypocrisy of the U.S. effort to fight ISIS is that the West has been building up and unleashing terrorism upon the Middle East region in order to facilitate chaos and regime change – and give the United States a pretext for stationing troops there, funding budget and spewing rhetoric across the media.

President Bashar al-Assad himself recently called out the United States and other Western allies for actually fostering terrorism – and providing arms, funding, training and soldiers for ISIS and other groups. Assad stated bluntly:

But as for Western cooperation with the al-Nusra Front, this is reality, because we know that Turkey supports al-Nusra and ISIS by providing them with arms, money and terrorist volunteers. And it is well-known that Turkey has close relations with the West. Erdogan and Davutoglu cannot make a single move without coordinating first with the United States and other Western countries.

Al-Nusra and ISIS operate with such a force in the region under Western cover, because Western states have always believed that terrorism is a card they can pull from their pocket and use from time to time. Now, they want to use al-Nusra just against ISIS, maybe because ISIS is out of control one way or another. But that doesn’t mean they want to eradicate ISIS. Had they wanted to do so, they would have been able to do that.

Meanwhile, Putin put in a “call” at the global poker table, vowing to take on ISIS and defend Assad with its own fighter jets, tanks and military equipment.

In a taunting and vexing spin on the United States’ own mission in the Middle East, Putin invited the West to join hands and eradicate ISIS once and for all, as SHTF recently reported.

Moscow, realizing that instead of undertaking an earnest effort to fight terror in Syria, the US had simply adopted a containment strategy for ISIS while holding the group up to the public as the boogeyman par excellence, publicly invited Washington to join Russia in a once-and-for-all push to wipe Islamic State from the face of the earth.

Of course The Kremlin knew the US wanted no such thing until Assad was gone, but by extending the invitation, Putin had literally called Washington’s bluff, forcing The White House to either admit that this isn’t about ISIS at all, or else join Russia in fighting them. The genius of that move is that if Washington does indeed coordinate its efforts to fight ISIS with Moscow, the US will be fighting to stabilize the very regime it sought to oust.

But Putin won’t be holding his breath. Neither should we.

Should we view the patch as a U.S. “resolve” to stop ISIS, or as part of the “inherent” contradiction that serves the larger purpose of terrorism and U.S. foreign policy at the expense of U.S. troops, U.S. taxpayer money and U.S. sovereignty?

And is WWIII near when the U.S. and Russia lock heads so pointedly as they are right now? And who is the real enemy?

U.S. Plan For Internet May Be Unconstitutional

Lawmakers: U.S. plan for Internet may be unconstitutional

By RUDY TAKALA (@RUDYTAKALA) • 9/28/15 12:27 PM

President Obama's plan to "internationalize" the Internet may be unconstitutional, key members of Congress are claiming.

The group of lawmakers sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office last week, saying the plan to relinquish oversight of Internet domain name functions to a global, multi-stakeholder body raised questions about the administration's "authority to transfer possession and control of critical components of the Internet's infrastructure to a third party."

The letter was signed by the chairmen of both congressional judiciary committees, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va; presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. Issa is also a former chairman of the House Oversight Committee.

The lawmakers point out that the Constitution says "Congress has the exclusive power 'to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States.'"

The Internet's root zone file was developed by a grant from the United States, and since 1997, it has been operated by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration under contract with the Department of Commerce. The department had planned to transfer its management rights to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, an international agency, by this Wednesday, but announced this summer that the date would be postponed until roughly June 30 next year.

In their letter, the lawmakers asked the GAO whether transferring ownership of the Internet domain name functions would cause government property to be transferred to ICANN, whether the root zone file constituted U.S. property, and whether it was constitutional for that property to be transferred to any non-federal entity.

The lawmakers did not provide a deadline for answers, saying that the GAO would need to "conduct both significant audit work and complex legal analysis" in order to respond.

I Hope He's Right

Rand Paul: I'll outlast 'clown' Donald Trump
By Tal Kopan, CNN

Updated 11:14 AM ET, Mon September 28, 2015

Washington (CNN)Republican presidential hopeful Rand Paul said Monday that contrary to what Donald Trump says, he's not going anywhere -- and in fact he might actually stay in the race longer than his opponent.

Speaking on CNN's "New Day" with Alisyn Camerota, the Kentucky senator responded to comments from Trump that Paul's campaign was sputtering out.

"I'll tell you this, I think we'll be around just as long as Trump, or longer," Paul said.
While out on the trail talking to reporters, the mogul picked Paul as one of the next candidates to drop out of the race, after two governors have left the race in recent weeks.

Paul called Trump a "clown" and said the attacks on his campaign were similar to the last presidential debate, when the mogul kicked off his first answer with a volley on Paul and a critique of his inclusion in the top-tier debate.

"It kind of reminds me of the funniest moment, I think, of the second debate, where out of nowhere, complete non sequitur, he starts going after me. And I guess it's part of his bravado, his shtick," Paul said. "I'm thinking, how did we get the race for the most important office in the free world to sink to such depths, and how could anyone in my party think that this clown is fit to be president?"

Paul said there's no truth to Trump's assertions that his campaign is having trouble fundraising. In fact, he said, his campaign is focused on organizing on the ground in key primary states and pleased with how that's going.

"Ultimately we're going to get to the truth, we're going to get to substance -- it takes a while," Paul said of the campaign. "But by no means am I finished: I'm just getting started."

Trump has been leading in the polls since he began campaigning in the race, though his prohibitive favorite status has ebbed in recent weeks as other contenders have closed the gap. Paul's campaign has languished in the low single digits in national polling.

On Monday, Paul said national polls have "absolutely nothing to do with the race" at this point.

Where Are Your Fingerprints Stored?

FBI Collecting Fingerprints, Photos, and Other Data on Millions

Written by Michael Tennant

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is quietly upgrading its biometrics database to include the fingerprints and photographs of millions of individuals never suspected, let alone convicted, of committing a crime, according to reports from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

The civil-liberties group, citing an FBI Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) from February, finds that the agency now plans to retain indefinitely in its database fingerprints and other biographical information — soon to include photos — submitted as part of routine criminal background checks. These will be merged with data on criminals and criminal suspects. Then, whenever a law-enforcement agency searches the database — EFF says this happens “thousands of times a day” — the fingerprints and other personal data of millions of innocent people will be included in the query.

According to EFF,

This is the first time the FBI has allowed routine criminal searches of its civil fingerprint data. Although employers and certifying agencies have submitted prints to the FBI for decades, the FBI says it rarely retained these non-criminal prints. And even when it did retain prints in the past, they “were not readily accessible or searchable.” Now, not only will these prints — and the biographical data included with them — be available to any law enforcement agent who wants to look for them, they will be searched as a matter of course along with all prints collected for a clearly criminal purpose (like upon arrest or at time of booking).

A significant number of Americans will be affected by this change. Many private employers conduct background checks on prospective employees, although these checks don’t always include fingerprints. Individuals desiring employment in law enforcement usually have to submit to fingerprint checks. Some states require members of various private-sector professions, including child-care workers, engineers, architects, doctors, and attorneys, to undergo fingerprint checks. And all federal employees, from student interns to food-service workers, must undergo the same type of screening.

The fingerprint and biographical data is expected to be stored in the FBI’s Next Generation Identification (NGI) database, which EFFcalls “a massive database of personal and biometric information.” NGI will collect and store fingerprints, iris scans, palm prints, voice data, photographs, and any other biometric identifiers the agency desires in the future.

Employers and agencies can already submit photos as part of background checks. As that practice grows, NGI, with its advanced face-recognition capabilities, will become even more powerful.

Furthermore, reports EFF, the FBI is also seeking to obtain software for mobile devices “to collect fingerprints and face images from anyone officers stop on the street” and “search them against” NGI.

No one outside the government knows exactly what the FBI plans to do with the data it collects. The bureau is being typically tight-lipped about the whole thing and hasn’t updated the relevant PIA since 2008, promises to do so notwithstanding. Even a 2014 letter to the attorney general from EFF and 31 other organizations failed to prod the FBI into action.

Still, knowing the government’s desire for total surveillance of the population, EFF speculates that the mobile-device plan “will allow (and in fact, encourage) agents to collect face recognition images out in the field and use these images to populate NGI — something the FBI stated in Congressional testimony it would not do.”

There are clear and present dangers in all of this.

Having all that data about a person in one place makes it far easier for the government to keep tabs on that individual at all times. Indeed, notes EFF, “one of FBI’s stated goals for NGI is to be able to track people as they move from one location to another.” But as EFF declares, “perfect tracking is inimical to a free society. A society in which everyone’s actions are tracked is not, in principle, free. It may be a livable society, but would not be our society.”

The existence of such a massive, centralized database of personal information makes identity theft, blackmail, and other forms of highly personal nastiness far easier and therefore more likely. As EFF points out, “You can’t change your biometric information like you can a unique identifying number such as [a Social Security Number].” Once someone has all this information on a person — and government databases are hardly among the most secure, as recent hacks have demonstrated — it will be nearly impossible for that individual ever to regain his privacy.

Perhaps NGI’s biggest threat to Americans is that they will be falsely accused of crimes. “In 2004,” EFF reminds us, “the FBI mistakenly linked American attorney Brandon Mayfield to a bombing in Madrid based solely on forensic fingerprint evidence. The FBI seized his property, and he was imprisoned for two weeks before agents finally recognized their error and apologized.” Mayfield was lucky; many people are railroaded into huge fines and long prison sentences even when the government knows they’re innocent.

Facial recognition has the potential for even more false matches. A document the Electronic Privacy Information Center pried out of the FBI via a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit revealed that “NGI shall return an incorrect candidate a maximum of 20% of the time.” That could lead to an extraordinary number of false accusations — and not everyone in that situation will be as fortunate as Mayfield.

The expanded NGI is just the latest evidence that Uncle Sam, the relatively benign personification of the U.S. government, is rapidly being replaced by the tyrannical Big Brother. Americans and their elected officials are now faced with this choice: Either put a stop to Washington’s headlong rush toward the surveillance state or learn to love Big Brother. Constitutionalists and other friends of liberty hope they choose the former.

John Boehner To Resign!

House speaker John Boehner to resign from Congress in October

Republican congressman from Ohio announces he will resign from his seat next month after four years in the top post in the US House of Representatives

The House speaker, John Boehner, has been a congressman for three decades.

Friday 25 September 2015 10.58 EDT

John Boehner, the speaker of the House of Representatives and a congressman from Ohio for three decades, has announced he will resign from his seat next month.

The Republican leader announced his resignation to a party meeting on Friday morning, where he told his members he didn’t want to become “the issue” amid reports of conservative infighting.

Boehner has been under intense pressure from House conservatives, who have repeatedly threatened to stage a coup against the speaker and expressed dissatisfaction with his leadership in high-profile fights on Capitol Hill.
Aides and members of Congress in the room, who were stunned by the announcement, said Boehner received a standing ovation during the meeting.

As speculation immediately soared over who would succeed Boehner, a number of influential Republicans took their names out of the mix.

Wisconsin representative Paul Ryan, the chairman of the powerful House ways and means committee, told reporters he would not seek the job.

“I don’t want to be speaker,” Ryan told reporters on Capitol Hill.

North Carolina representative Mark Meadows, a conservative who in July filed a motion to remove Boehner as speaker, also ruled out a run.

Kevin McCarthy of California, the House majority leader, is next in line as speaker but would have to secure the votes of his caucus in a formal leadership election.

The House speaker is second in line for the presidency after the vice-president and one of the most powerful figures in Washington. Boehner has thus shaped his party’s strategy for passing legislation, scheduled congressional business and been Barack Obama’s main foil on the Hill.
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Boehner has faced repeated challenges to his leadership from the right wing of his caucus since ascending to the top post in the House in 2011. He became the Republican leader in the House in 2006.

Predictions of Boehner’s demise abounded during the partial government shutdown of October 2013, which resulted from a showdown between hard-right Republicans who sought to deny funding for the president’s healthcare policy and the president, who refused to sign spending legislation that carved the policy up.

The eventual deal that Boehner and Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, negotiated with Obama failed to achieve Republican demands.

On Friday at the Values Voters Summit, an annual conclave of social conservatives in Washington, the room erupted in a standing ovation when the news was announced on stage by Senator Marco Rubio. Rubio seemed to embrace the news in his speech, saying: “The time has come to turn the page.”

Jim Bridenstine, a representative from Oklahoma, introduced the Texas senator and 2016 presidential candidate Ted Cruz.

“The good news is we are going to get new leadership,” he said. “I want to share with you why that is happening. That is happening because there is a newly elected senator that showed up articulating principles of the GOP platform.”

Cruz has a famously contentious relationship with Boehner, who last month at a closed-door fundraiser referred to the Texas senator as “a jackass”. Since his arrival on Capitol Hill in 2013, Cruz has helped orchestrate a number of rebellions against Boehner – most notably the shutdown over the president’s healthcare law.
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In what were regarded as unprecedented moves by a member of the Senate, Cruz also routinely gathered House conservatives to plot strategies at odds with the will of Boehner and his leadership team.

Moderate Republicans were dismayed by what they said was a defeat for sensible voices within the party.

“To me, this is a victory of the crazies,” New York representative Peter Kingtold reporters on Capitol Hill.

Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House and a close friend of Boehner, said his departure was “seismic”.

“The resignation of the speaker is a stark indication of the disarray of the House Republicans,” Pelosi told reporters on Capitol Hill.

An aide to Pelosi said the California Democrat had not been informed of Boehner’s announcement in advance.

An aide said Boehner had planned to retire at the end of last year, but the stunning loss of then House majority leader Eric Cantor in his primary election “changed that calculation”.

“The speaker believes putting members through prolonged leadership turmoil would do irreparable damage to the institution,” the aide said.

“He is proud of what this majority has accomplished, and his speakership, but for the good of the Republican Conference and the institution, he will resign the speakership and his seat in Congress, effective 30 October.”

“Speaker Boehner believes that the first job of any speaker is to protect this institution and, as we saw yesterday with the Holy Father, it is the one thing that unites and inspires us all,” the aide added.

The shock announcement came a day after a highlight of Boehner’s career, when Pope Francis addressed Congress at Boehner’s invitation. The speaker, a former altar boy, wept during the speech and later called it “a blessing for us all”.

Minutes before the announcement, Boehner tweeted pictures of the pope’s Washington visit with the caption: “What a day.”

Boehner, first elected to Congress from his south-west Ohio district in 1990, had a turbulent career before becoming speaker. He joined the Republican congressional leadership in 1994, after the party took control of Congress for the first time in 50 years. Four years later, after the GOP lost seats in midterm elections and Boehner participated in a failed coup against then speaker Newt Gingrich, he was ousted.

Boehner became chair of the House education and workforce committee, a position in which he worked with Senator Ted Kennedy to author the landmark No Child Left Behind bill, and worked in a bipartisan manner with another Democrat, his counterpart George Miller of California.

He returned to leadership in 2006, winning an election to be the No2 Republican in the House. A year later, after Democrats took control of Congress, he moved up to become his party’s leader.

Agenda 2030

AGENDA 2030 AND THE “NEW ECONOMIC WORLD ORDER” – COMING THIS YEAR?

Dire economic prognostications exist simultaneously

by THE SLEUTH JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 23, 2015

With Q3 of the 2015 fiscal year just around the corner, one cannot help but notice unprecedented unease in both financial and social spheres, and perhaps with good reason; with alternative media forecasters, national banks, and supranational institutions alike heralding the coming of “global depression” by the end of 2016, this consensus of seemingly strange bedfellows almost universally agree that something wicked this way comes.

These dire economic prognostications exist simultaneously in a world in which energy and development prospects, both nationally and transnationally, are being reworked – with equally profound implications as the aforementioned financial trend analysis. Be it the Obama Administration’s “Clean Power Plan” or the EU and China’splanned Neomalthusian 2030 carbon emission cutbacks, national entities the world over are positioning themselves for profound shifts in energy, development, trade, and even currency ahead of COP21 in Paris this December, or as some have deemed it, “Agenda 2030.”

The convergence of both engineered economic crisis and an engineered “sustainable development” crisis in late-2015 are hardly coincidental, nor are they insignificant. While the alternative finance community seems destined to eternally squabble about the mechanics of a coming global depression, few have set themselves to the task of projecting what the character of such a post-depression society will look like – and the “New World Economic Order” it has the potential to initiate.

It is this author’s contention that the character of this coming era can only be understood when financial calamity is viewed in tandem with Agenda 21’s faux-ecological insidiousness; and you, Reader, deserve the knowledge and documentation of this sagacious plot. It’s pervasive, it’s global, and has existed (in its modern form) since at least the 1970s.

Seeking to contextualize this historical continuity, we must first examine the writings of erudite anti-Technocracy researcher, Patrick Wood, and his pioneering work on the Trilateral Commission’s “New International Economic Order” of the 1970s.
Technocracy and the “New International Economic Order”

As an integral decade in this ongoing “Age of Transitions,” the 1970s brought with it previously unimagined sociopolitical and economic shifts. Deflation was prevalent. The decade also saw the rise of the Petrodollar and the end of the gold-backed Bretton Woods era, as well as the seeding of eugenic “environmental catastrophe” memes propagated by works like the Club of Rome’s 1972 publication, Limits to Growth, or John P. Holdren’s equally Neomalthusian and lauded Ecoscience. It also saw the birth of the Trilateral Commission, co-founded by David Rockefeller and Zbignew Brzezinski in 1973, who, among other things, pushed forth the concept of a “New International Economic Order” to quell the world’s ailing economic and environmental “doom and gloom” forecasts.

While the nature of this “New International Economic Order” at the time evaded Mr. Wood and his research partner, Dr. Antony Sutton, the perspective granted by the passage of time has lead Patrick Wood to declare Technocracy to be the true aim of this New Order. He writes:

It is plainly evident today, with 40 years of historical examination behind it, that the “New International Economic Order” was really “new” and envisioned historic Technocracy as replacing Capitalism altogether. Technocracy was based on energy rather than money and its system of supply and demand that regulates pricing. Some distinctives of Technocracy include:

• Elimination of private property and wealth accumulation
• Replacing traditional education with workforce training
• Micromanaging all energy distribution and consumption
• Driving people to live in a limited number of cities and off of rural land
• Enforcing a balance between nature’s resources and man’s consumption of them.

Are you thinking that this list is vaguely familiar? You should, because it represents the modern manifestation of programs like Agenda 21, Sustainable Development, Smart Growth, Smart Grid, Cap And Trade, Climate Change, Common Core, massive surveillance operations and a whole lot more. All of this has been brought to us by the machinations of the Trilateral Commission and its members since 1973, and it is all part of its master plan to completely replace capitalism with Technocracy. This is their “New International Economic Order“!

Rand Paul Wins Michigan Straw Poll

Rand Paul wins Michigan straw poll

The Kentucky senator tops Carly Fiorina by 7 percentage points.

By ALEX ISENSTADT

09/20/15, 12:11 AM EDT

MACKINAC ISLAND, Mich. – Rand Paul won the straw poll at the Mackinac Island Republican Leadership Conference, a show of organizational strength for a candidate who has seen his presidential hopes fade.

Paul led with 22 percent, followed by Carly Fiorina with 15 percent, John Kasich with 13 percent, and Ted Cruz with 12 percent. Trailing them were Jeb Bush with 9 percent, Marco Rubio with 8 percent, and Donald Trump with 6 percent.

Further back: Ben Carson received 5 percent and Scott Walker finished with 2 percent.

The prestigious party cattle call, held on a picturesque Northern Michigan island where cars are not allowed and commuters use horse and buggies, drew a handful of the party’s presidential contenders. The straw poll is electorally meaningless, but it is an exercise in political organizing and several campaigns worked the halls of the Grand Hotel aggressively – especially Paul’s.

Going into the weekend, many believed that Paul had a built-in advantage. Heading up his straw poll efforts was John Yob, Paul’s national political director and a Michigan-based Republican strategist in Michigan who is well versed in political organizing. Yob had spent weeks preparing for the straw poll, pushing many of the senator’s activist-minded supporters to cast votes at the conference.

Supporters for Cruz, meanwhile, sought to tilt the vote in his favor by spray-painting the candidate’s name on the sidewalk leading up to the stately Grand Hotel, where the three-day conference is held.

Kasich had perhaps the most visible presence, with aides handing out T-shirts to supporters and setting up a booth offering goodies like bumper stickers. Throughout the weekend, the Ohio governor and his top aides, including campaign manager Beth Hansen, roamed the halls. Kasich’s speaking slot wasn’t until Saturday afternoon, but he showed up Friday night at the hotel to address a group of young supporters.

Supporters for Kasich had hoped that a win would provide him with an aura of momentum in Michigan, a Midwestern battleground that he plans to seriously contend. Walker, another Midwestern governor, did not seriously compete in the straw poll. The Wisconsin governor had been scheduled to deliver a Saturday morning speech but cancelled because, his campaign said, inclement weather interrupted his flight plans.

Fiorina, riding a wave of momentum following her debate performance, drew hordes of supporters to the hotel on Saturday evening. Many of them, wearing “Carly” stickers, packed the dinner hall to hear her address the conference.

It’s the second major straw poll win for Paul, whose following of young, libertarian-minded supporters often pack cattle calls like the one held here this weekend.

Earlier this year, Paul won the straw poll at the conservative political action committee, a gathering of activists held outside of Washington, D.C.

Paul, who has fallen to the back of the pack in Republican polls, addressed the conference on Saturday, telling those gathered that the nation had been too interventionist in its approach to foreign policy and declaring that he wanted to restore “common sense” to America’s international posture.

Russia Bans All GMOs

RUSSIAN GOVT COMPLETELY BANS GMOS IN FOOD PRODUCTION

Will the U.S. recognize this act of food sovereignty?

by ANTHONY GUCCIARDI | INFOWARS.COM | SEPTEMBER 22, 2015

Russia has just announced a game-changing move in the fight against Monsanto’s GMOs, completely banning the use of genetically modified ingredients in any and all food production.

In other words, Russia just blazed way past the issue of GMO labeling and shut down the use of any and all GMOs that would have otherwise entered the food supply through the creation of packaged foods (and the cultivation of GMO crops).

“As far as genetically-modified organisms are concerned, we have made decision not to use any GMO in food productions,” Deputy PM Arkady Dvorkovich revealed during an international conference on biotechnology.

This is a bold move by the Russian government, and it sits in unison with the newly-ignited global debate on GMOs and the presence of Monsanto in the food supply. It also follows the highly-debated ruling by the World Health Organization that Monsanto’s glyphosate-based Roundup is a ‘probable carcinogen.’

But I also want to put it into perspective for you. If this announcement were to be made in the United States, for example, it would mean a total transformation of the food manufacturing industry. But in Russia, the integration of GMOs is not close to the same level as in the U.S.

We know that, in the United States, 90 plus percent of staple crops like corn are genetically modified, along with 94 percent of soybeans and 94 percent of cotton. A ban on GMOs in food production would radically change the entire food supply. In Russia, however, the country is much more poised for a GMO food revolution. [1]

As RT reports:

“According to official statistics the share of GMO in the Russian food industry has declined from 12 percent to just 0.01 percent over the past 10 years, and currently there are just 57 registered food products containing GMO in the country. The law ordering obligatory state registration of GMO products that might contact with the environment will come into force in mid-2017.”

President Vladimir Putin believes that he can keep GMOs out of the country, even while staying in compliance with the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) commandments. In a past meeting addressing the members of the Board of the Russian Federation Council he stated:

“We need to properly construct our work so that it is not contrary to our obligations under the WTO. But even with this in mind, we nevertheless have legitimate methods and instruments to protect our own market, and above all citizens.”

The Next "Sexual Rights" Revolution

MEDIA PROMOTES “PEDOPHILE RIGHTS”

Not long after same-sex marriage ruling, leftists now demand rights for pedophiles

by KIT DANIELS | INFOWARS.COM | SEPTEMBER 21, 2015

Leftist media is now promoting “pedophile rights” as the next “social justice” movement, not long after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriages.

Salon.com published an op/ed by a self-described pedophile asking Americans to “learn to accept” pedophiles and be “understanding and supportive” of their “sexual orientation.”

“So, please, be understanding and supportive,” pedophile Todd Nickerson wrote. “It’s really all we ask of you.”

He blamed his “sexual preference” on his brain while asserting he’s “not a monster.”

“In essence, your brain knows what it likes and isn’t going to take no for an answer,” Nickerson continued. “For that reason, the nature or nurture question with respect to sexual preference is ultimately irrelevant — it becomes all but hardwired soon enough, until it’s all you know, and it’s self-reinforcing, no matter how much you wish to dig it out.”

“Eventually it all tangles together with the rest of who you are.”

Numerous political commentators predicted that pedophiles would try to hijack the June 26 Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriages to argue that they too are “suffering” discrimination over their “normal” sexual orientation.

“Using the same tactics used by ‘gay’ rights activists, pedophiles have begun to seek similar status arguing their desire for children is a sexual orientation no different than heterosexual or homosexuals,” wrote Jack Minor for the Northern Colorado Gazette.

Minor also added that “psychiatrists are now beginning to advocate redefining pedophilia in the same way homosexuality was redefined several years ago.”

This trend began in 1998 when the American Psychiatric Association claimed the “negative potential” of adult sex with children was “overstated” and that “the vast majority of both men and women reported no negative sexual effects from childhood sexual abuse experiences.”

And in 2014 Margo Kaplan, an assistant law professor at Rutgers University, argued in favor of civil rights for pedophiles in an op/ed published by the New York Times.

“Arguing for the rights of scorned and misunderstood groups is never popular, particularly when they are associated with real harm, but the fact that pedophilia is so despised is precisely why our responses to it, in criminal justice and mental health, have been so inconsistent and counterproductive,” she claimed.

Simply put, pedophilia is emerging as the next “sexual rights” revolution.

Blame The Neocons!

BLAME AMERICA? NO, BLAME NEOCONS!

Is pointing out this consequence of bad US policy also blaming America first?

by RON PAUL | INFOWARS.COM | SEPTEMBER 21, 2015

Is the current refugee crisis gripping the European Union “all America’s fault”?

That is how my critique of US foreign policy was characterized in a recent interview on the Fox Business Channel. I do not blame the host for making this claim, but I think it is important to clarify the point.

It has become common to discount any criticism of US foreign policy as “blaming America first.” It is a convenient way of avoiding a real discussion. If aggressive US policy in the Middle East – for example in Iraq – results in the creation of terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda in Iraq, is pointing out the unintended consequences of bad policy blaming America? Is it “blaming America” to point out that blowback – like we saw on 9/11 – can be the result of unwise US foreign policy actions like stationing US troops in Saudi Arabia?

In the Fox interview I pointed out that the current refugee crisis is largely caused by bad US foreign policy actions. The US government decides on regime change for a particular country – in this case, Syria – destabilizes the government, causes social chaos, and destroys the economy, and we are supposed to be surprised that so many people are desperate to leave? Is pointing this out blaming America, or is it blaming that part of the US government that makes such foolish policies?

Accusing those who criticize US foreign policy of “blaming America” is pretty selective, however. Such accusations are never leveled at those who criticize a US pullback. For example, most neocons argue that the current crisis in Iraq is all Obama’s fault for pulling US troops out of the country. Are they “blaming America first” for the mess? No one ever says that. Just like they never explain why the troops were removed from Iraq: the US demanded complete immunity for troops and contractors and the Iraqi government refused.

Iraq was not a stable country when the US withdrew its troops anyway. As soon as the US stopped paying the Sunnis not to attack the Iraqi government, they started attacking the Iraqi government. Why? Because the US attack on Iraq led to a government that was closely allied to Iran and the Sunnis could not live with that! It was not the US withdrawal from Iraq that created the current instability but the invasion. The same is true with US regime change policy toward Syria. How many Syrians were streaming out of Syria before US support for Islamist rebels there made the country unlivable? Is pointing out this consequence of bad US policy also blaming America first?

Last year I was asked by another Fox program whether I was not “blaming America” when I criticized the increasingly confrontational US stand toward Russia. Here’s how I put it then:

I don’t blame America. I am America, you are America. I don’t blame you. I blame bad policy. I blame the interventionists. I blame the neoconservatives who preach this stuff, who believe in it like a religion — that they have to promote American goodness even if you have to bomb and kill people.

In short, I don’t blame America; I blame neocons.

Demonic Possession Of The Vatican Exposed

DEMONIC POSSESSION OF THE VATICAN EXPOSED: LEO ZAGAMI INTERVIEW

"Experts from the Vatican themselves admit there is a very close relationship between pedophilia and satanism"

by INFOWARS.COM | SEPTEMBER 17, 2015

While traveling to Rome to cover the Eurozone implosion, Infowars.com met with illuminati researcher Leo Zagami to break down the jesuit takeover of the Vatican, and the underground massive sex cults embedded within.

Liberal Media Says Rand Paul Won Debate

LIBERAL MEDIA SAYS RAND PAUL WON DEBATE

"It wasn't even close," says Chicago Tribune

by KIT DANIELS | INFOWARS.COM | SEPTEMBER 18, 2015

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) won the latest GOP presidential debate, says the Chicago Tribune.

The left-leaning media outlet said Paul “spoke like a thoughtful grown-up” during the Wednesday debate and overshadowed the rest of the Republican field on foreign policy.

“Donald Trump wanted to kick him off the debate stage,” the Chicago Tribune’s John Kass wrote. “Fox News ignored him. CNN limited his time, then called him a loser.”

“But Rand Paul won the Republican presidential debate [and] it wasn’t even close.”

While the other candidates argued like angry children trying to act tough, Paul acted the most mature, he added.

“Paul doesn’t have buzz, but buzz is overrated, as is snark and hair,” Kass pointed out. “Former President George W. Bush had buzz when he plunged foolishly into Iraq and that led to the terror of ISIS.”

“President Barack Obama had buzz, just about the time he drew that ‘red line’ in the sands of Syria, and before the dictator in Libya was toppled.”

The Chicago Tribune also revealed why blue-blood Republicans are viciously attacking Paul.

“What the Republican establishment cannot afford is Paul as their nominee,” Kass said. “That would expose the neocons and the war party, and the security surveillance state, and it might help remind Americans that conservatives once opposed foreign adventures, meaning wars, because wars by definition lead to the aggrandizement of federal power.”

“It is the universal law of political arithmetic that as the government gorges and muscles up, individual liberty fades.”

It was very revealing when Trump, the front-runner, began the debate with an unprovoked attack on Paul, claiming the Kentucky senator “shouldn’t even be on this stage.”

Why did Trump do this? Because the more experienced Paul is the only candidate who can strongly challenge Trump on specific constitutional issues and foreign policy, a fact that’s only going to get worse for Trump later down the campaign trail.

Interest Rates Stay Unchanged

FED LEAVES KEY INTEREST RATE UNCHANGED, CITING LOW INFLATION

BY MARTIN CRUTSINGER
AP ECONOMICS WRITER

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Reserve ended weeks of speculation Thursday by keeping U.S. interest rates at record lows in the face of threats from a weak global economy, persistently low inflation and unstable financial markets.

But at a news conference after a Fed policy meeting, Chair Janet Yellen said a rate hike was still likely this year. A majority of Fed officials on the committee that sets the federal funds rate - which controls the interest that banks charge each other - foresee higher rates before next year. The Fed will next meet in October and then in December.

"Every (Fed) meeting is a live meeting," Yellen said. "October, it remains a possibility."

In maintaining its policy, the Fed is keeping its benchmark short-term rate near zero, where it's been since the depths of the 2008 financial crisis. A higher Fed rate would eventually send rates up on many consumer and business loans.

The ultra-low loan rates the Fed engineered were intended to help the economy recover from the Great Recession. Since then, the economy has nearly fully recovered even as pressures from abroad appear to have grown.

In a statement it issued after its meeting ended, the Fed said that while the U.S. job market is solid, global pressures may "restrain economic activity" and further slow inflation.

Signs of a sharp slowdown in China, the world's second-largest economy, and other emerging economies have intensified fear about the U.S. and global economy. And low oil prices and a high-priced dollar have kept inflation undesirably low.

"We're focused particularly on China and emerging markets," Yellen said at her news conference. "We've long expected, as most analysts have, to see some slowing in Chinese growth over time as they rebalance their economy. The question is whether or not there might be a risk of a more abrupt slowdown than most analysts expect."

China's economy has slowed for four straight years - from 10.6 percent in 2010 to 7.4 percent last year. The International Monetary Fund expects the Chinese economy to grow just 6.8 percent this year, slowest since 1990.

The continuation of the Fed's ultra-low-rate policy likely means that rates on mortgages and car loans will remain low. That could help maintain steady economic growth and hiring in coming months.

Mark Vitner, an economist at Wells Fargo, said he was a bit disappointed by the Fed's delay because it suggested that the U.S. economy still wasn't at full health. But by holding down loan rates, the delay could lift home sales and construction, he said. More homebuilding, in particular, can help drive growth by creating construction jobs and boosting sales of furniture, appliances, electronic goods, and landscaping services.

"That could allow the US economy to be in an even better place a few months from now," Vitner said.

Other analysts worry, though, that ultra-low rates are encouraging more risk-taking by investors and could inflate bubbles in the stock market or other assets.

Stocks ended mostly lower after a volatile day as traders tried to decide on the path of interest rates. The Dow Jones industrial average ended down 65 points, or 0.4 percent. It had rallied shortly after the Fed's statement came out, then drifted lower. But bond prices rose, sending yields lower, as traders reacted to the Fed's prediction that inflation will remain subdued.

Financial markets had been zigzagging with anxiety this summer as investors tried to divine whether the Fed would start phasing out the period of extraordinarily low borrowing rates it launched at a time of crisis.

At her news conference, Yellen stressed that even after the first increase from zero, interest rate policy will be "highly accommodative for quite some time." She has stressed that any rate increases will likely be modest and gradual.

The Fed's action Thursday was approved on a 9-1 vote, with Jeffrey Lacker casting the first dissenting vote this year. Lacker, president of the Fed's Richmond regional bank, had pushed for the Fed to begin raising rates by moving the federal funds rate up by a quarter-point.

Instead, the Fed retained language it has been using that it will be appropriate to raise interest rates when it sees "some further improvement in the labor market" and is "reasonably confident" that inflation will move back to the Fed's optimal inflation target of 2 percent.

The Fed's preferred measure of inflation was most recently up just 1.2 percent, compared with 12 months earlier. And it's been below 2 percent, year over year, for more than three years.

In an updated economic forecast, 13 of the 17 Fed policymakers said they see the first rate hike occurring this year. In June, 15 Fed officials had predicted that the first rate hike would occur this year.

The new forecast significantly lowered the expectation for inflation this year to show the Fed's preferred inflation gauge rising just 0.4 percent, down from a 0.7 percent forecast in June. The change takes into account the further rise in the value of the dollar, which makes imports cheaper, and a recent drop in oil prices. The Fed's forecast still foresees inflation accelerating to a 1.7 percent increase next year, still below its 2 percent target.

The new forecast has unemployment dropping to 5 percent by the end of this year, down from 5.3 percent in June. The unemployment rate in August dropped to a seven-year low of 5.1 percent.

The anxiety that gripped investors before Thursday's decision stemmed in part from concern that once the Fed starts raising its key rate, other rates - for mortgages, car loans, business borrowing - will eventually rise. Some fear the economy might suffer.

Yet the Fed's influence on many consumer and business rates is only indirect. In the short run at least, those rates could continue to stay low, held down by low inflation globally and by a flow of money into U.S Treasurys.

Clinton Chronicles 2015

SPECIAL REPORT: THE NEW CLINTON CHRONICLES 2015

Insider tears open the Clinton machine

by INFOWARS.COM | SEPTEMBER 17, 2015

Clinton insider, Larry Nichols, tears open the Clinton machine and exposes their colossal list of lies, deceptions and depravities.

From Bill Clinton’s bizarre sexual history and involvement with trafficking cocaine into the U.S. too Hillary’s trail of death as secretary of state and her rise to the presidency: the blood is spilled as the gloves come off.

Obama Issues Orwellian Executive Order

OBAMA ISSUES ORWELLIAN EXECUTIVE ORDER

To better manipulate American people to government's will

DOUGLAS ERNST

Welcome to President Obama’s brave new world.

Federal agencies have been directed to hire psychologists to experiment and find ways to better manipulate the American people to the federal government’s will. 

“A growing body of evidence demonstrates that behavioral science insights – research findings from fields such as behavioral economics and psychology about how people make decisions and act on them – can be used to design government policies to better serve the American people,” Obama wrote in an executive order released Tuesday on WhiteHouse.gov. The origin of the order can be traced back to a 2013 policy proposal entertained by the White House called “Strengthening Federal Capacity for Behavioral Insights.”

The president’s new order said streamlined applications for federal financial aid and automatic retirement payments are two examples where behavioral-science lessons applied to government programs have been effective.

“Police State USA: How Orwell’s Nightmare Is Becoming Our Reality” chronicles how America has arrived at the point of being a de facto police state, and what led to an out-of-control government that increasingly ignores the Constitution. Order today! 

“[T]o more fully realize the benefits of behavioral insights and deliver better results at a lower cost for the American people, the federal government should design its policies and programs to reflect our best understanding of how people engage with, participate in, use, and respond to those policies and programs,” Obama wrote, the Washington Examiner reported. 

Obama has not hidden his interest in using federal resources to employ behavioral science techniques on the public. The White House launched a Social and Behavioral Sciences Team, or SBST, in February 2014 and then celebrated its one-year anniversary on the White House blog. 

“SBST had a successful first year, launching a wide variety of evidence-based pilots with objectives ranging from connecting veterans with employment and educational counseling benefits to helping struggling student borrowers understand their loan repayment options,” the Obama administration wrote Feb. 9, 2015. 

SBST will now move forward to identify programs that will “most effectively promote public welfare, as appropriate, giving particular consideration to the selection and setting of default options.” The team’s work is done under the purview of the National Science and Technology Council. 

David Limbaugh’s book chillingly documents the destructive “transformation” of the United States — get “The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama’s War on the Republic”
Two figures whose research played a key role in bringing the new initiative to fruition were Harvard Law School professor Cass Sunstein (once deemed Obama’s regulatory czar), and Richard Thaler, a University of Chicago economist, the Daily Beast reported Tuesday. 

“The two behavioral scientists argued in their 2008 book ‘Nudge’ that government policies can be designed in a way that ‘nudges’ citizens toward certain behaviors and choices,” the Daily Beast reported. 

Obama’s executive order requires SBST to issue guidance to federal agencies on how to implement his policy directive within the next 45 days. 

SBST will also consider different ways of labeling “benefits, taxes, subsidies, and other incentives” to “more effectively and efficiently promote” the president’s policy goal.

Massive Russian Military Drill

95,000 Russian troops in massive military drill

September 14, 2015 5:39 AM

Moscow (AFP) - Russia on Monday launched its largest military exercises of the year, Centre-2015, involving some 95,000 soldiers including ground troops, navy and airforce units.

The long-announced war games are "the most large-scale drill of 2015," the defence ministry said.

Russia has recently intensified snap checks of its military might, testing its capabilities from the Arctic to the Far East as relations with the West have plunged to a post-Cold War low over the Ukraine crisis.

Centre-2015 takes place at 20 sites across Russia's central military district, which reaches from the Volga River to the Ural mountains and Siberia in the east, while also including far northern Russia.

Troops from member states of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), made up of several ex-Soviet countries, are also involved in the exercise.

The defence ministry said the war games are aimed at testing the readiness of the military of the CSTO countries to "manage coalition groups of troops in containing an international armed conflict."

Russian Buk-M2 surface-to-air missile systems in the Victory Day parade at Red Square in Moscow on M …

The troops will simulate "blocking and destroying illegal armed formations during joint special operations," the ministry said.

The drill begins as leaders are to arrive in Tajikistan for a summit of the CSTO that starts Tuesday.

The exercises running to September 20 include 20 naval ships and up to 170 aircraft, the defence ministry said.

President Vladimir Putin will observe the drills during one of the days, Russian daily Izvestia reported last week, without giving details.

The main action will take place in the Urals, in the Siberian Altai region and in the southern Astrakhan region and the Caspian Sea, the commander of troops in Russia's central military district, Vladimir Zarudnitsky told journalists, quoted by Interfax news agency.

In European Russia, 12,000 troops will take part in drills at military ranges in the Urals region close to Kazakhstan involving around 90 tanks as well as 20 artillery and rocket launcher systems.

Kazakh troops will also take part and a military delegation from Nicaragua will act as monitors, Zarudnitsky added.

Congress Fiddles While The Economy Burns

CONGRESS FIDDLES WHILE THE ECONOMY BURNS

Congress spent the majority of last week trying to void the Iranian nuclear agreement

by RON PAUL | INFOWARS.COM | SEPTEMBER 14, 2015

Reports that the official unemployment rate has fallen to 5.1 percent may appear to vindicate the policies of easy money, corporate bailouts, and increased government spending.

However, even the mainstream media has acknowledged that the official numbers understate the true unemployment rate. This is because the government’s unemployment figures do not include the 94 million Americans who have given up looking for work or who have settled for part-time employment. John Williams of Shadow Government Statistics estimates the real unemployment rate is between 23 and 24 percent.

Disappointingly, but not surprisingly, few in Washington, DC acknowledge that America’s economic future is endangered by excessive spending, borrowing, taxing, and inflating. Instead, Congress continues to waste taxpayer money on futile attempts to run the economy, run our lives, and run the world.

For example, Congress spent the majority of last week trying to void the Iranian nuclear agreement. This effort was spearheaded by those who think the US should waste trillions of dollars on another no-win Middle East war. Congressional war hawks ignore how America’s hyper-interventionist foreign policy feeds the growing rebellion against the dollar’s world reserve currency status. Of course, the main reason many are seeking an alternative to the dollar is their concern that, unless Congress stops creating — and the Federal Reserve stops monetizing — massive deficits, the US will experience a Greek-like economic crisis.

Despite the clear need to reduce federal spending, many Republicans are trying to cut a deal with the Democrats to increase spending. These alleged conservatives are willing to lift the “sequestration” limits on welfare spending if President Obama and congressional democrats support lifting the “sequestration” limits on warfare spending. Even sequestration’s miniscule, and largely phony, cuts are unbearable for the military-industrial complex and the rest of the special interests that control our government.

The only positive step toward addressing our economic crisis that the Senate may take this year is finally holding a roll call vote on the Audit the Fed legislation. Even if the audit legislation lacks sufficient support to overcome an expected presidential veto, just having a Senate vote will be a major step forward.

Passage of the Audit the Fed bill would finally allow the American people to know the full truth about the Fed’s operations, including its deals with foreign central banks and Wall Street firms. Revealing the full truth about the Fed will likely increase the number of Americans demanding that Congress end the Fed’s monetary monopoly. This suspicion is confirmed by the hysterical attacks on and outright lies about the audit legislation spread by the Fed and its apologists.

Every day, the American people see evidence that, despite the phony statistics and propaganda emanating from Washington, high unemployment and rising inflation plague the economy. Economic anxiety has led many Americans to support an avowed socialist’s presidential campaign. Perhaps more disturbingly, many other Americans are supporting the campaign of an authoritarian crony capitalist. If there is a major economic collapse, many more Americans — perhaps even a majority — will embrace authoritarianism. An economic crisis could also lead to mob violence and widespread civil unrest, which will be used to justify new police state measures and crackdowns on civil liberties.

Unless the people demand an end to the warfare state, the welfare state, and fiat money, our economy will continue to deteriorate until we are faced with a major crisis. This crisis can only be avoided by rejecting the warfare state, the welfare state, and fiat money. Those of us who know the truth must redouble our efforts to spread the ideas of liberty.

The Libertarian Stand On Immigration

THE LIBERTARIAN STAND ON IMMIGRATION

Immigration problems are caused by governments

by PER BYLUND | MISES.ORG | SEPTEMBER 10, 2015

[Updated Author’s Note: The issue of immigration has only become more pressing over the ten years that have passed since this article’s original publication. And, unfortunately, the libertarian movement has not reached a consensus on this issue. But it should be easy, considering how government is at both ends of the problem: government is the number one reason people choose to escape their countries, whether because of governments’ war or devastating poverty due to the lack of opportunities in regulated markets; and government is the reason ordinary people, in a desperate state because their lives have been forcefully uprooted, have a hard time choosing where to lead their lives in peace. The desperation is due to the so-called “failings” of their own governments, and augmented by ours.

I too have fled my country, though not because I’m fearing for my life but because I sought a better life and greater opportunities. While the immigration issue generally focuses on people from poor countries with little skill or education, it is hardly the case that governments welcome people at the other end of the spectrum: the highly productive, highly educated, and hard-working. On the contrary, government is the least forgiving, least reasonable, and most costly when it deals with non-citizens — those who cannot hold government officials accountable in any sense and do not have a voice. This should make immigration a prime target for the libertarian argument for freedom, peace, and property.]
Immigration Controls and the State

The pre-1914 world saw no immigration issues or policies, and no real border controls. Instead, there was free movement in the real sense; there were no questions asked, people were treated respectfully and one did not even need official documents to enter or leave a country. This all changed with the First World War, after which states seem to compete with having the least humane view on foreigners seeking refuge within its territory.


The “immigration policies” of modern states is yet another licensing scheme of the twentieth century: the state has enforced licensing of movement. It is virtually impossible to move across the artificial boundaries of the state’s territory in the search for opportunity, love, or work; one needs a state-issued license to move one’s body, be it across a river, over a mountain, or through a forest. The Berlin Wall may be gone, but the basic principle of it lives and thrives.

Immigration controls are not different from other kinds of licensing even though it has been awarded a special name. Licensing has the same result regardless of what is licensed: licensing of physicians causes poor health care at higher cost just as licensing taxi businesses causes poor and untimely service at high cost — licensing on movement means restricted freedom and higher taxes for people (whether “citizens” or “foreigners”). From a libertarian point of view it should be clear that all licensing needs to be done away with, including licensing for immigrants.

Yet the immigration issue seems to be somewhat of a divide within libertarianism, with two seemingly conflicting views on how to deal with population growth through immigration. On the one hand, it is not possible as a libertarian to support a regulated immigration policy, since government itself is never legitimate. This is the somewhat classical libertarian standpoint on immigration: open borders.

On the other hand, the theory of natural rights and, especially, private property rights tells us anyone could move anywhere — but they need first to purchase their own piece of land on which to live or obtain necessary permission from the owner. Otherwise immigration becomes a violation of property rights, a trespass. This is an interpretation of a libertarian-principled immigration policy presented by Hans-Hermann Hoppe a few years ago, which since then has gained increasing recognition and support.

To a non-libertarian bystander, the discussion of the two alternatives must seem quite absurd. What is the use of this libertarian idea of liberty, if people cannot agree on a simple issue such as immigration? I intend to show that the libertarian idea is as powerful as we claim, and that there is no reason we should not be able to reach consensus on the immigration issue. Both sides in this debate, the anti-government-policy as well as the pro-private-property, somehow fail to realize there is no real contradiction in their views.
The Open Borders Argument

The people advocating “open borders” in the immigration issue argue state borders are artificial, they are creations based on the coercive powers of the state, and therefore nothing about them can be legitimate. As things are, we should not (or, rather: cannot) regulate immigration. Everyone has a right to settle down and live wherever they wish. This is a matter of natural right; no one enjoys the right to force his decision upon me unless it is an act of self-defense when I am violating his rights.

In a world order based on natural rights, this would be true. It is a golden rule, a universal rule of thumb proscribing that I’ll leave you alone if you leave me alone; if you attack me or try to force something or someone on me, I have a right to use force to defend myself and what is mine.

The problem with this idea is that it has too much of a macro perspective. While arguing there should be no states and therefore no state borders, it presents arguments with an intellectual point of departure in the division of mankind into territorial nationalities and ethnicity. It is simply not possible to make conclusions on immigration to, say, the United States, if we start our argument from the libertarian idea. What is “immigration” in a world with no states?
The Pro-Property Argument

A less macro view on immigration is taken for granted in the pro-property argument. Here, the individual’s natural right to make his own choices and his right to personal property is the point of departure. Since we all have in our power to create value through putting our minds and bodies to work, we also enjoy a natural right to do as we please with that which we have created and place ourselves wherever we have property owners or guests. Or, as Hoppe puts it, “[i]n a natural order, immigration is a person’s migration from one neighborhood-community into a different one.”

Consequently, the immigration issue is in real terms solved through the many choices made by sovereign individuals; how they act and interact in order to achieve their goals. There can simply be no immigration policy, since there is no government — only individuals, their actions and their rights (to property). The “open borders” argument is therefore not only irrelevant, since it has a macro point of view; it also fails to realize property rights as a natural regulation of movement. Since all property must be owned and created by the individual, government cannot own property. Furthermore, the property currently in government control was once stolen from individuals — and should be returned the second the state is abolished since property rights are absolute. There is consequently no unowned land to be homesteaded in the Western world, and so “open borders” is in essence a meaningless concept.
Libertarian Utopia

Immigration will thus be naturally restricted in a free society, since all landed property (at least in the Western world) is rightfully owned by self-owning individuals. Just like Nozick argues in his magnum opusAnarchy, State, and Utopia, a society based on natural rights should honor property rights in absolute terms, and therefore the rightful owners of each piece of property should be identified despite the fact that humankind has been plundered by a parasitic class for centuries.

What is to be considered just property when the welfare-warfare state is eventually abolished is not at all clear. Can one take for granted that the subjects (citizens) of a certain state have the right to an equal share of what is currently controlled by the government? Are they, at all, the rightful owners to what they currently control with the state’s legal protection? If we intend to seek the just origin of property, we need to roll back all transactions until the times before the modern state, before monarchies and feudalism, and probably to a time before the city states of ancient Greece. If we do, how should we consider the produced values of the generations we’ve effectively dismissed?

There is probably no way to sort out this unbelievable mess along the lines of absolute property rights. Itshould be dealt with this way, but I dare say it will be a practical issue when we get to that point, rather than a philosophical one.
A State Immigration Problem

Another problem of immigration and property arises from the social welfare system financed by money extorted from citizens. With the open borders argument, private property rights might be undermined even further if immigrants are entitled to special rights such as housing, social security, minority status and rights, etc. Also, immigrants will automatically become part of the parasitic masses through enjoying the common right to use public roads, public schooling, and public health care — while not paying for it (yet).

The concept of private property rights seems to offer a solution to this, but it is not really a way out: it is not as simple as “private property rights — yes or no?” Private property rights is a philosophical position offering a morally superior fundamental framework for how to structure society, but it does not offer guidance in what to do with non-property such as that currently controlled by government.

It is deceivingly simple to claim all of the state’s subjects have just claims to “state property” since they are entitled to retribution for years of rights violations. This is, however, only part of the truth. It is also a matter of fact that all private production to some degree is part of the rights violation process, with direct state support through subsidies, tax breaks, patent laws, police protection, etc., or indirectly through state meddling with currency exchange rates, “protective” state legislation, through using publicly-owned and maintained property and services for transportation, and so on. There is simply no such thing as just private property anymore in the philosophical sense.

Therefore, it is impossible to say immigrants would be parasites to a greater degree than, e.g., Bill Gates: the Microsoft Corporation has benefited greatly thanks to state regulation of the market, but has also been severely punished in a number of ways. We are all both victims and beneficiaries. Of course, one might argue that forced benefits are not really benefits, but only one aspect of oppression. Well, in that case it would also be true for immigrants, who too are or will be victims of the state (but perhaps not for as long as you and I).
A Libertarian Stand on Immigration

We must not forget libertarianism is not a teleological dogma striving for a certain end; it rather sees individual freedom and rights as the natural point of departure for a just society. When people are truly free, whatever will be will be. Hence, the question is not what the effects of a certain immigration policy would be, but whether there should be one at all.

From a libertarian point of view, it is not relevant to discuss whether to support immigration policy A, B, or C. The answer is not open borders but no borders; the libertarian case is not whether private property rights restrict immigration or not, but that a free society is based on private property. Both of these views are equally libertarian — but they apply the libertarian idea from different points of view. The open borders argument provides the libertarian stand on immigration from a macro view, and therefore stresses the libertarian values of tolerance and openness. The private property argument assumes the micro view and therefore stresses the individual and natural rights.

There is no conflict between these views, except when each perspective is presented as a policy to be enforced by the state. With the state as it is today, should we as libertarians champion open borders or enforced property rights (with citizens’ claims on “state property”)? Both views are equally troublesome when applied within the framework of the state, but they do not contradict each other; they are not opposites.

This Could Have Nothing To Do With Any Of The Problems In This Country

21,995,000 to 12,329,000: Government Employees Outnumber Manufacturing Employees 1.8 to 1

By Terence P. Jeffrey | September 8, 2015 | 11:14 AM EDT

(CNSNews.com) - Those employed by government in the United States in August of this year outnumbered those employed in the manufacturing sector by almost 1.8 to 1, according to data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

There were 21,995,000 employed by federal, state and local government in the United States in August, according to BLS. By contrast, there were only 12,329,000 employed in the manufacturing sector.

The BLS has published seasonally-adjusted month-by-month employment numbers for both government and manufacturing going back to 1939. In the first 50 years of the 76-year span since then, manufacturing out-employed government. But in August 1989, government overtook manufacturing as a U.S. employer.

That month, government employed 17,989,000 and manufacturing employed 17,964,000.

Since then, government employment has increased 4,006,000 and manufacturing employment has declined 5,635,000.

 

According to the BLS data, seasonally-adjusted manufacturing employment in the United States peaked in June 1979, when it hit 19,553,000. Seasonally-adjusted government employment peaked in May 2010, when it hit 22,996,000.

(However, government employment in May and June of 2010 was unusually high because of temporary workers hired to help conduct the decennial census. In April 2010, there were 22,569,000 government employees in the United States. That climbed to the peak of 22,996,000 in May 2010, then dropped to 22,740,000 in June, and returned to 22,659,000 in July 2010.)

There were more Americans employed in manufacturing in 1941 in the months leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor than are employed in manufacturing in the United States today, according to data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

This August, according to BLS’s seasonally adjusted data, there were 12,329,000 employed by the manufacturing sector in the United States. But back in August 1941, there were 12,532,000 employed by the manufacturing sector. By December 1941, the month of the Pearl Harbor attack, employment in the U.S. manufacturing sector had risen to 12,876,000.

The 12,532,000 employed in manufacturing in August 1941 equaled 1 manufacturing worker for each 10.6 people in the overall population (which the Census Bureau estimated at 133,402,471 in July 1941). The 12,329,000 employed in manufacturing in August 2015 equaled 1 manufacturing worker for each 26.1 people in the overall population (which the Census Bureau estimated at 321,191,461 in July 2015).

The 4,821,000 people employed by government in August 1941 equaled 1 for each 27.7 people in the overall population of 133,402,471. The 21,995,000 employed by government in August 2015 equaled 1 for each 14.6 people in the overall population of 321,191,461.

Of the 21,995,000 employed by government in August, 2,738,000 worked for the federal government (including 596,500 who worked for the Postal Service), 5,092,000 worked for state governments, and 14,165,000 worked for local governments.

State and local government employees include large numbers of people employed in education. Of the 5,092,000 who worked for state governments in August, 2,446,300 (or 48 percent) worked in education. Of the 14,165,000 who worked for local governments, 7,852,500 (or 55.4 percent) worked in education.

Why Are People So Ignorant About GMO's?

EXPERIMENTAL GMO WHEAT CROP FAILS TO DETER PESTS

Transgenic crop, known as “whiffy wheat,” utterly failed to deter aphids

by CHRISTINA SARICH | NATURAL SOCIETY | SEPTEMBER 7, 2015

Biotech’s claims that genetically modified crops are more resistant to bugs seem to be dismissed like yesterday’s pastries, especially when their crops so obviously fail to deliver on the promise. So why are farmers still planting GM seed?

In a recent biotech debacle, a UK-based biotech company wasted over $5 million on an experimental GM wheat trial.

Rothamsted Research says it is “disappointed” that the transgenic crop, known as “whiffy wheat,” utterly failed to deter aphids. The crop was succumbing to the same amount of insect damage as real wheat, even though it was genetically engineered to be resistant to aphids.

The company’s press releases in 2012 were glowing testimonials of how wonderful wiffy wheat would be, even calling it ‘the new pest control.’ But it is increasingly obvious that no matter how good the propaganda is written, GM crops are continuing to fail at every Big Biotech claim made. Namely these are:

‘Pest-resistant’ trans-genic plants are better than non-GM plants
GM crops will feed the world better than the crops that have been developed over thousands, if not millions of years, with higher crop yields. As evidenced in the report, Failure to Yield, written by the Union of Concerned Scientist, we can see that more billions in tax payer and private funds have been funneled intoGM engineering.

GM crops somehow improve soil condition.This has also been proven to be the exact opposite of what happens to soil that is heavily sprayed with GM chemicals – specifically herbicides, insecticides, and non-organic fertilizers, which chelate important minerals from the soil, thus making plants’ immune systems weaker and our food supply less nutritious. Glyphosate was first patented as a chelator in 1964 by Stauffer Chemical Co. It was patented by Monsanto and introduced as an herbicide in 1974. According to Dr. Huber, an award-winning scientist and professor emeritus of plant pathology at Purdue University for the past 35 years, “It’s important to realize that glyphosate is not ‘just’ an herbicide.” It was first patented as a mineral chelator.

Despite ‘wiffy wheat’s’ failure, the company is blaming its high-dollar loses on the fact that it had to build high fences and high tech security systems to keep people in the UK, who overwhelmingly refuse GM crops, from destroying the frankenfood that they don’t want to see in their food supply.

Ron Paul On How To Solve The Refugee Problem

THE REAL REFUGEE PROBLEM – AND HOW TO SOLVE IT

Here is the real solution to the refugee problem: stop meddling in the affairs of other countries

by RON PAUL | THE RON PAUL INSTITUTE | SEPTEMBER 7, 2015

Last week Europe saw one of its worst crises in decades. Tens of thousands of migrants entered the European Union via Hungary, demanding passage to their hoped-for final destination, Germany.

While the media focuses on the human tragedy of so many people uprooted and traveling in dangerous circumstances, there is very little attention given to the events that led them to leave their countries. Certainly we all feel for the displaced people, especially the children, but let’s not forget that this is a man-made crisis and it is a government-made crisis.

The reason so many are fleeing places like Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq is that US and European interventionist foreign policy has left these countries destabilized with no hopes of economic recovery. This mass migration from the Middle East and beyond is a direct result of the neocon foreign policy of regime change, invasion, and pushing “democracy” at the barrel of a gun.

Even when they successfully change the regime, as in Iraq, what is left behind is an almost uninhabitable country. It reminds me of the saying attributed to a US major in the Vietnam War, discussing the bombing of Ben Tre: “It became necessary to destroy the town in order to save it.”

The Europeans share a good deal of blame as well. France and the UK were enthusiastic supporters of the attack on Libya and they were early backers of the “Assad must go” policy. Assad may not be a nice guy, but the forces that have been unleashed to overthrow him seem to be much worse and far more dangerous. No wonder people are so desperate to leave Syria.

Most of us have seen the heartbreaking photo of the young Syrian boy lying drowned on a Turkish beach. While the interventionists are exploiting this tragedy to call for direct US attacks on the Syrian government, in fact the little boy was from a Kurdish family fleeing ISIS in Kobane. And as we know there was no ISIS in either Iraq or Syria before the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.

As often happens when there is blowback from bad foreign policy, the same people who created the problem think they have a right to tell us how to fix it – while never admitting their fault in the first place.

Thus we see the disgraced General David Petraeus in the news last week offering his solution to the problem in Syria: make an alliance with al-Qaeda against ISIS! Petraeus was head of the CIA when the US launched its covert regime-change policy in Syria, and he was in charge of the “surge” in Iraq that contributed to the creation of al-Qaeda and ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The idea that the US can salvage its disastrous Syria policy by making an alliance with al-Qaeda is horrific. Does anyone think the refugee problem in Syria will not be worse if either al-Qaeda or ISIS takes over the country?

Here is the real solution to the refugee problem: stop meddling in the affairs of other countries. Embrace the prosperity that comes with a peaceful foreign policy, not the poverty that goes with running an empire. End the Empire!

Vaccine Victim Stories

VICTIMS OF VACCINE DAMAGE SPEAK OUT

Callers discuss personal stories regarding damage caused by vaccines

by INFOWARS.COM | SEPTEMBER 4, 2015

Infowars Nightly News Director Rob Dew takes calls from everyday Americans who reveal their vaccine horror stories.