Fears of a new global crash as debts and dollar’s value rise

The Guardian
March 28, 2015

 Brazil's economy is likely to come under increasing pressure as the dollar rises in value. Photograph: Nacho Doce/Reuters

Greek ministers are spending this weekend, almost five grinding years since Athens was first bailed out, wrangling over the details of the spending cuts and economic reforms they have drawn up to appease their creditors.

As the recriminations fly between Europe’s capitals, campaigners are warning that the global community has failed to learn the lessons of the Greek debt crisis – or even of Argentina’s default in 2001, the consequences of which are still being contested furiously in courts on both sides of the Atlantic.

As Janet Yellen’s Federal Reserve prepares to raise interest rates, boosting the value of the dollar, while the plunging price of crude puts intense pressure on the finances of oil-exporting countries, there are growing fears of a new debt crisis in the making.

Ann Pettifor of Prime Economics, who foreshadowed the credit crunch in her 2003 book The Coming First World Debt Crisis, says: “We’re going to have another financial crisis. Brazil’s already in great trouble with the strength of the dollar; I dread to think what’s happening in South Africa; then there’s Malaysia. We’re back to where we were, and that for me is really frightening.”

Since the aftershocks of the global financial crisis of 2008 died away, the world’s policymakers have spent countless hours rewriting the banking rulebook and rethinking monetary policy. But next to nothing has been done about the question of what to do about countries that can’t repay their debts, or how to stop them getting into trouble in the first place.

Developing countries are using the UN to demand a change in the way sovereign defaults are dealt with. Led by Bolivian ambassador to the UN Sacha Sergio Llorenti, they are calling for a bankruptcy process akin to the Chapter 11 procedure for companies to be applied to governments.

Unctad, the UN’s Geneva-based trade and investment arm, has been working for several years to draw up a “roadmap” for sovereign debt resolution. It recommends a series of principles, including a moratorium on repayments while a solution is negotiated; the imposition of currency controls to prevent capital fleeing the troubled country; and continued lending by the IMF to prevent the kind of existential financial threat that roils world markets and causes severe economic hardship.

Read the entire article

The Gestapo is alive and well in Obama’s America

Personal Liberty
March 28, 2015

Barack Obama's most Gestapo-like initiative is “Operation Chokepoint.” This is your government’s attempt to put morality controls (just like those in Iran) on the American public by shutting down certain businesses.

Saudi Arabia says it won't rule out building nuclear weapons

The Independent
March 27, 2015

Saudi Arabia will not rule out building or acquiring nuclear weapons, the country’s ambassador to the United States has indicated.

Asked whether Saudi Arabia would ever build nuclear weapons in an interview with US news channel CNN, Adel Al-Jubeir said the subject was “not something we would discuss publicly”.

Pressed later on the subject he said: “This is not something that I can comment on, nor would I comment on.”

The ambassador’s reticence to rule out a military nuclear programme may reignite concerns that the autocratic monarchy has its eye on a nuclear arsenal.

Western intelligence agencies believe that the Saudi monarchy paid for up to 60% of Pakistan’s nuclear programme in return for the ability to buy warheads for itself at short notice, the Guardian newspaper reported in 2010.

Read the entire article

U.S. Caves to Key Iranian Demands as Nuke Deal Comes Together

Washington Free Beacon
March 26, 2015

John Kerry/AP

LAUSSANE, Switzerland—The Obama administration is giving in to Iranian demands about the scope of its nuclear program as negotiators work to finalize a framework agreement in the coming days, according to sources familiar with the administration’s position in the negotiations.

U.S. negotiators are said to have given up ground on demands that Iran be forced to disclose the full range of its nuclear activities at the outset of a nuclear deal, a concession experts say would gut the verification the Obama administration has vowed would stand as the crux of a deal with Iran.

Until recently, the Obama administration had maintained that it would guarantee oversight on Tehran’s program well into the future, and that it would take the necessary steps to ensure that oversight would be effective. The issue has now emerged as a key sticking point in the talks.

Concern from sources familiar with U.S. concessions in the talks comes amid reports that Iran could be permitted to continue running nuclear centrifuges at an underground site once suspected of housing illicit activities.

This type of concession would allow Iran to continue work related to its nuclear weapons program, even under the eye of international inspectors. If Iran removes inspectors—as it has in the past—it would be left with a nuclear infrastructure immune from a strike by Western forces.

“Once again, in the face of Iran’s intransigence, the U.S. is leading an effort to cave even more toward Iran—this time by whitewashing Tehran’s decades of lying about nuclear weapons work and current lack of cooperation with the [International Atomic Energy Agency],” said one Western source briefed on the talks but who was not permitted to speak on record.

With the White House pressing to finalize a deal, U.S. diplomats have moved further away from their demands that Iran be subjected to oversight over its nuclear infrastructure.

“Instead of ensuring that Iran answers all the outstanding questions about the past and current military dimensions of their nuclear work in order to obtain sanctions relief, the U.S. is now revising down what they need to do,” said the source.  “That is a terrible mistake—if we don’t have a baseline to judge their past work, we can’t tell if they are cheating in the future, and if they won’t answer now, before getting rewarded, why would they come clean in the future?”

The United States is now willing to let Iran keep many of its most controversial military sites closed to inspectors until international sanctions pressure has been lifted, according to sources.

This scenario has been criticized by nuclear experts, including David Albright, founder and president of the Institute for Science and International Security.

Albright told Congress in November that “a prerequisite for any comprehensive agreement is for the IAEA to know when Iran sought nuclear weapons, how far it got, what types it sought to develop, and how and where it did this work.”

“The IAEA needs a good baseline of Iran’s military nuclear activities, including the manufacturing of equipment for the program and any weaponization related studies, equipment, and locations,” Albright said.

One policy expert familiar with the concessions told the Washington Free Beacon that it would be difficult for the administration to justify greater concessions given the centrality of this issue in the broader debate.

“The Obama administration has gone all-in on the importance of verification,” said the source, who asked for anonymity because the administration has been known to retaliate against critics in the policy community. “But without knowing what the Iranians have it’s impossible for the IAEA to verify that they’ve given it up.”

A lesser emphasis is also being placed on Iran coming clean about its past efforts to build nuclear weapons. The Islamic Republic continues to stall United Nations efforts to determine the extent of its past weapons work, according to the Wall Street Journal.

By placing disclosure of Iran’s past military efforts on the back burner, the administration could harm the ability of outside inspectors to take full inventory of Iran’s nuclear know-how, according to sources familiar with the situation.

It also could jeopardize efforts to keep Iran at least one year away from building a bomb, sources said.

On the diplomatic front, greater concessions are fueling fears among U.S. allies that Iran will emerge from the negations as a stronger regional power.

Iran ramps up sea power while negotiating nukes with West

Fox News
March 26, 2015

Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Navy Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi has threatened the U.S. with the nation's navy, but it is more likely to be used in the Persian Gulf region. (Reuters)

While the U.S. haggles with Iran over nuclear weapons, the Islamic Republic is aggressively building up a navy -- a move that has regional neighbors concerned.

The focus on Tehran's nuclear weapons capabilities could be a mistake, if it comes at the exclusion of addressing the seafaring capabilities of the rogue regime, not to mention the active proxy fighting Iran is engaging in throughout the Middle East, a former U.S. Army officer with intimate knowledge of the Iranian military told FoxNews.com. And it isn't just analysts warning that Iran has plans to project power and influence around the Persian Gulf -- the nation's top military officials are rattling their sabers on a near-daily basis.

"The Americans and our enemies cannot stand up against the Islamic system's deterrence power no matter how hard they try,"  Navy Rear Adm. Ali Fadavi, Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, told Iranian state-run media.

International sanctions have long stunted Iran's ability to buy weapons, but the nation has nonetheless managed to acquire and even build one of the world's largest naval fleets, according to the website GlobalFirepower.com. Earlier this month, Iran touted its “homemade destroyer," naval presence in international waters and "anti-surface and anti-subsurface weapons." In February, Iran stagedUSS Cole-style missile and rocket attacks on a mock-up of a U.S. aircraft carrier.

The U.S. 5th Fleet is based in Bahrain across the Persian Gulf from Iran.

Read the entire article

Can states slow the flow of military equipment to police?

Personal Liberty
March 25, 2015

WASHINGTON (TNS) — Police in Minneapolis-St. Paul trained military-grade launchers and used flash bang and tear gas grenades on protesters at the 2008 Republican National Convention. The Richland County, South Carolina, Sheriff’s Department got an armored personnel carrier to help fight drug and gambling crime. And Ohio State University police acquired a 19-ton armored truck that can withstand mine blasts.

These are just a few examples of the growing militarization of police in America. It’s been ongoing for more than a decade, but rarely grabbed the nation’s attention until civil unrest erupted in Ferguson, Missouri, last August after the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager shot by a white police officer.

Now, eight months after the confrontations in Ferguson between heavily armed police and protesters, lawmakers in more than a half-dozen states are trying to rein in the militarization of their own police forces. They point to Ferguson and say they want to prevent similar highly weaponized responses in their states.

The legislative response — backed by Democrats and Republicans, in red states and blue states — is a reaction to what one sponsor of such a bill calls the “law enforcement-industrial complex,” a play on the “military-industrial complex” term first used by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

“You get these pictures that just shock the conscience,” said Republican state Sen. Branden Petersen of Minnesota, referring to news footage of heavily armed police patrolling streets or carrying out sting operations. His bill would bar law enforcement in the state from accepting gear that’s “designed to primarily have a military purpose or offensive capability.”

Read the entire article

Sorry Gutierrez.... No Espanol!!!

SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!!! News
Mark Matheny
March 26, 2015

Traitor Louis Gutierrez

Aren't our Representatives supposed to stand up for the American people first? Well apparently Democrat Illinois Rep. Louis Gutierrez doesn't think he has to.

Recently in California Gutierrez decided he would conduct a Rally entirely in Spanish!
The meeting was to be directed to illegal immigrants, but if you spoke English, the good Representative decided you would get the translated version to English through headphones!!

Where did he think he was?- At the United Nations General Assembly or something?
Well,, needless to say, this didn't set well with many of the American people around the area of the University of Southern California (where the rally was taking place) so they decided to make their voices heard - IN ENGLISH.



Patriotic Americans in the audience began chanting loudly, "USA! -USA!" drowning out Gutierrez as he tried to speak in Spanish. At one point the police came into the Rally and politely, (yes, politely believe it or not) tried to settle the protesters letting them know that he was certainly not trying to deny them their right to protest.

After a few more feeble attempts to conduct the Rally, Gutierrez fled the scene without answering any questions. the protesters successfully shut him down!

Let me say, by the way, that I am not against Legal Immigration. Our country was founded by Immigrants. I am however, against Illegal Immigrants invading my country, and then expecting me to speak their language!!

Legal Immigration laws currently on the books just so happens to require that legal immigrants learn the English Language:

Current law, which is much more detailed than the first naturalization statutes, also requires competency in the English language and excludes those who advocate world communism or the violent overthrow of the government of the United States. Also, current law prohibits discrimination in naturalization on the basis of race, sex, or marital status. The elements of the oath have been expanded to include a solemn commitment "to support and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; . . . to bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and . . . to bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law, or . . . to perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by law" -Heritage Foundation   (emphasis mine)

The Immigration Act of 1795, required the following four elements to be satisfied for a legal immigrant to become an American Citizen:

1) five years of (lawful) residence within the United States; 

2) a good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States; 

3) the taking of a formal oath to support the Constitution and to renounce any foreign allegiance; and 

4) the renunciation of any hereditary titles.

These requirements are is a part of immigration law to this day.

Alexander Hamilton said regarding legal immigration:

:...the safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common national sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of citizens from foreign bias and prejudice; and on the love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education, and family.

Thomas Jefferson warned against immigrants that would come into the country with no intention of assimilating into the culture of America, and who would instead sow the seeds of discord thereby destabilizing and fracturing American Society:

 “These principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their numbers, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its direction, and tender it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass.” 

And finally, here is what President Theodore  Roosevelt said concerning immigration in 1907

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American ... There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag ... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language ... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people." 
Theodore Roosevelt 1907 (emphasis mine)

Illinois Representative Louis Gutierrez needs to be voted out! 

By Mark Matheny

Veteran and Patriot!!

TUNISIA GUNMEN TRAINED BY CIA AND GULF EMIRATE JIHADIS IN LIBYA

Infowars News
March 25, 2015

The Christian Science Monitor warns that last week’s attack on a museum in Tunisia that killed 23 may endanger the supposed “democratic transition” the African nation underwent after the Western engineered Arab Spring.

“Freedom’s untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things,” formerSecretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared after the invasion of Iraq. “Stuff happens,” he added.

The untidiness of the revolution against Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia — a ruthless dictator visited by Rumsfeld in 2006 — resulted in the rise of the Salafist brand of Islam and the rise of Ansar Al Sharia, the group responsible for attacking the CIA compound in Libya.

Now we learn that the gunmen who carried out the attack in Tunis were trained in neighboring Libya, another country where stuff happened and the transition to democracy was, to say the least, messy.

The violent overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya was conducted by CIA supported “rebels” who subsequently turned the country into the failed state it is today.

In 2011, we reported that Khalifa Hifter, a former Gaddafi military officer, was appointed to lead the rebel army supported by the United Nations, the United States and its cobbled together coalition. Hifter has worked with the CIA since he “defected to the Libyan National Salvation Front (LNSF), the principal anti-Gaddafi group, which had the backing of the American CIA. He organized his own militia,” according to the Le Monde diplomatique published book Manipulations africaines.

In addition, Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, admitted to working for the CIA. “Mr. al-Hasidi,” we wrote in March, 2011, “is reportedly a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), also known as Al-Jama’a al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi-Libya. It is the most powerful radical faction waging Jihad in Libya and was officially designated as an affiliate of al-Qaeda and the Taliban – both CIA creations – by the UN 1267 Committee. LIFG was founded in the fall of 1995 by Libyans who had fought against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, in short for the CIA and the ISI.”

The order out of chaos effort in Libya continues today as al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi-Libya and other Salafist groups — undoubtedly the same folks who allegedly trained the gunmen in Tunis — are funded by the Gulf Emirates and the CIA, partners since the successful CIA effort to force the Soviets out of Afghanistan.

The attack signals the ascension of the Salafist jihad in northern Africa. “The consolidation of a jihadist Caliphate in eastern Libya accelerated starting early 2014 because of the need to support the Egyptian Islamist jihadists against the growing power and popularity of President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi,” writes theWorld Tribune.

The failure of “democracy” in Tunisia — formerly held out as the shining star of the Arab Spring — and corporate media warnings that such freedom allows the Salafist revolution to grow serves as yet another signal that the war on terror is an ever-expanding enterprise.

In addition to growing the national security state in the United States, Canada and Europe and feeding associated industries in militarism and surveillance, the continuing expansion of the Islamic State, most recently in Libya and soon in Tunisian and across the Arab Maghreb, will extend the expiry date on the so-called war on terror, possibly for a generation or longer.

Russia: US Must remove Its Nuclear Weapons From Europe

News Max
March 24, 2015

Russia called for a ban on American nuclear weapons in parts of Europe, saying the U.S. is breaking an international agreement by holding joint nuclear training missions with NATO allies that don’t possess such weapons.
Using ships and airfields as well as training crews from non-nuclear states from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in such exercises is “in direct contradiction to the letter and spirit” of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement on its website.
“There can be only one solution,” Lukashevich said. Russia is calling for “the return of all nonstrategic nuclear weapons” to U.S. territory as well as “a ban on stationing them abroad, elimination of infrastructure for their rapid deployment, and denial of training for the preparation and use of nuclear weapons” by the militaries of non-nuclear states.

The dispute flared as relations between Russia and the U.S. and NATO are at their worst since the Cold War over the conflict in Ukraine. Deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons on the territories of NATO allies “is consistent with the NPT” and the treaty doesn’t prohibit such basing and planning arrangements, which were in place before it came into force in 1970, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters on March 19.

ThanksObama: Think Our Streets Are Safe? Think Again!

The Federalist Papers
March 24, 2015

We previously reported here about ICE releasing 36,000 illegal aliens with criminal convictions.  Now, more evidence has surfaced that this was just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to illegal criminal aliens on America’s streets.

Newsmax, CNS News, and Judicial Watch are all reporting that the number is actually much larger than that.

Judicial Watch on Monday released documents showing that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released 165,900 illegal aliens, some of whom had been convicted of violent crimes.

According to weekly detention and departure reports from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, there were 167,527 non-detained convicted criminal aliens in the United States as of Jan. 26 of this year, a congressional hearing revealed Thursday.

Judicial Watch today released 76 pages of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) documents revealing that as of April 26, 2014, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had released 165,900 convicted criminal aliens throughout the United States, including many convicted of such violent crimes as homicide, sexual assault, kidnapping, and aggravated assault. (Reports recently detailed that ICE released another 30,000 in the most recent fiscal year, which brings the grand total of known criminals released by the Obama administration to 195,900.)

The documents were released through a July 21, 2014, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:14-cv-01237)) filed by Judicial Watch after DHS failed to respond to a May 15 FOIA request seeking:

Any and all records of communications including, but not limited to, emails and memoranda, to or from personnel in the office of the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (including its component offices, such as the Office of Public Affairs), from May 1 to May 15, 2014, concerning, regarding, or related to the report published by the Center for Immigrations Studies concerning the release of 36,000 criminal aliens.

Another cover up by the Obama Administration as to its actions in relation to illegal immigration.  So committed is Obama to opening America’s borders to criminals from all over the world, that his administration has disregarded the law and Americans’ safety.  Newsmax explains further:

“It’s appalling that we’ve had to sue in federal court to get key information about the Obama administration’s release of 165,950 convicted criminal aliens,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton in a press release.

“These documents show the Obama administration is lying when it says that its ‘enforcement priorities’ include deporting illegal aliens who have committed heinous crimes,” Fitton said.

This matter was investigated recently at a U.S. House hearing dealing with ICE and its priorities according to CNS News:

House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah.) read the statistic aloud Thursday during a hearing examining ICE’s priorities and procedures for removing criminal aliens currently living in the United States.

“In that report, it said that there are 167,527 non-detained, final-order convicted criminals on the loose in the United States,” Chaffetz pointed out while questioning ICE Director Sarah Saldana.

“These are people that are here illegally, get caught, convicted, and you release back out into the public,” he said, adding that some of the crimes committed by those who have been released include homicide, sex crimes, child pornography, drunk driving, robbery and kidnapping.

But, as Judicial Watch points out, this is just a small part of a great illegal immigration problem.

As has been previously reported, and is evidenced in these documents, the 36,007 criminal aliens freed by ICE in 2013 were just the tip of the iceberg. In a DHS “Overview of ICE” document marked “FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY,” the following figures are reported through April 26, 2014 [NOTE: “Final Order” indicates the illegal aliens were ordered to leave the country, but have not done so and remain free]:

• Non-Detained Final Order Convicted CRIMINAL       165,950
• Non-Detained Final Order NON CRIMINAL               706,950
• Non-Detained Final Order TOTAL                              872,900

The documents also detail the difficulty caused by local policies that interfere with federal enforcement of immigration law and provide “sanctuary” for illegal alien criminals.

Chaffetz’s questioning of ICE director Saldana made it clear that the federal government has other priorities than keeping the American people safe from these illegal alien criminals as CNS News reveals:

During the hearing, Saldana said that ICE releases criminal aliens back into the community based on the agency’s “discretionary control.”

“Madam Director, if you’re a criminal, will you be deported?” Chaffetz asked Saldana.

“Those are the people we’re looking for, yes,” Saldana responded.

“But they’ve been in your detention. They’ve been detained. I mean they were convicted. They were…were they deported?” Chaffetz pressed.

“They were in the process of being deported,” Saldana claimed. “Everyone in our detention facilities is in the process of being deported, chairman.”

“Well that’s not true. I mean, you regularly release them back out into the public before they get deported, correct?” Chaffetz continued.

Of the roughly 36,000 criminal aliens released by ICE in 2013, about 22,000 were released under ICE’s “discretionary control,” she estimated.

“So you don’t automatically deport them, then?” Chaffetz asked.

“Automatically, sir? No,” Saldana responded, adding that “the law gives us that discretion.”

“And so when we say, if you’re a criminal, you’ll be deported, that’s not necessarily true,” Chaffetz said.

“It is true, sir. It’s in–”

“After they get released back into the public for untold number of times?” Chaffetz asked.

“It does happen. It does happen, yes, and that’s exactly what we’re here to do,” Saldana admitted.

“What does happen? That they get released?” Chaffetz asked.

“Yes,” Saldana said, “Even criminals that are released.

There we have it – ICE is intentionally releasing illegal alien criminals back into American society.

Sweden, NATO Report Russian Military Planes Over Baltic Sea

The New York Times
March 24, 2015

STOCKHOLM — The Swedish Air Force and NATO jets on Tuesday tracked four Russian combat aircraft flying with their transponders turned off over the Baltic Sea, officials said.

The Russian planes — two long-range, nuclear-capable Tu-22M3 bombers and two Sukhoi Su-27 fighters — were flying in international airspace, according to Sweden's Armed Forces and alliance sources.

NATO said it scrambled Danish jets and Italian jets based in Lithuania early Tuesday to identify the Russian aircraft which it said were heading to the Russian Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad.

"The Russian military aircraft did not use their onboard transponder; they were not in contact with civilian Air Traffic Control and they were not on a pre-filed flight plan," a NATO military officer said on condition he not be identified by name in keeping with alliance practice.

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom said it was "unacceptable" for the Russian planes to be flying with shut-off transponders that are necessary for identifying aircraft on radar, calling it violation of international aviation rules.

"This has happened now on a number of occasions and in a very challenging way," Wallstrom told reporters in Stockholm. "We are tired of always having to protest against this kind of ... breach of rules."

NATO and Sweden, which is not a member of the alliance, have reported an increase in Russian air maneuvers over the Baltic Sea in recent years.

Tuesday's sighting comes as Finnish and Swedish military aircraft are preparing to train with U.S. fighters over the Baltic Sea, and American and NATO forces continue military exercises in the Baltic countries.

The Swedish military said the threat against Sweden had not grown but that the armed forces were watching the "increased activity" in the region.

Price of Ground Beef Hits Record in February: $4.238 Per Pound

CNS News
March 24, 2015

(CNSNews.com) - The average price of a pound of ground beef climbed to another record high in February, hitting $4.238 per pound, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Ground beef. (AP Photo)

In August 2014, the average price for a pound of all types of ground beef topped $4 for the first time, hitting $4.013, according to the BLS.

In September, the average price jumped to $4.096 per pound; in October, the average price climbed to $4.154 per pound; and in November, the average price climbed to $4.201 per pound.

In December, the price declined slightly to $4.156 per pound. In January 2015, ground beef hit $4.235 per pound and in February 2015, according to the latest data from the BLS, the price of ground beef hit the highest level ever recorded of $4.238.

A year ago, in February 2014, the average price for a pound of ground beef was $3.555 per pound. Since then, the average price has increased 19.2 percent in one year.

Five years ago, in February 2010, the average price of a pound of ground beef was $2.277, according to the BLS. The price has since climbed by $1.961 per pound, or an increase of 86.1 percent.

The overall Consumer Price Index measures the relative change in the prices of a basket of goods and services relative to a basis of 100.  Subordinate indexes measure the relative change in price for individual goods or services or categories of goods and services.

While the price of ground beef increased over the month, the overall Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased as well. “The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.2 percent in February on a seasonally adjusted basis,” the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reportedtoday. “Over the last 12 months, the all items index was unchanged before seasonal adjustment.”

“The food index increased 0.2 percent in February,” said the BLS. “Also turning up in February was the index for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs, which rose 0.3 percent after declining slightly the prior month. The index for beef and veal rose 0.7 percent, its thirteenth consecutive increase.”

White House Accuses Israel of Spying

SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!!!News
Mark Matheny
March 24, 2015

The White House is now accusing Israel of spying on the closed door talks between the White House and Iran.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Israel spied on the negotiations with the intent of using the information to build its own case against the deal:

The spying operation was part of a broader campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to penetrate the negotiations and then help build a case against the emerging terms of the deal, current and former U.S. officials said. In addition to eavesdropping, Israel acquired information from confidential U.S. briefings, informants and diplomatic contacts in Europe, the officials said.

Apparently the White House had no problem with Israel spying on the U.S., but they didn't like the idea that Israel would then use the information against the very negotiations they were spying on!

A Senior official briefed on the matter had this to say:

“It is one thing for the U.S. and Israel to spy on each other. It is another thing for Israel to steal U.S. secrets and play them back to U.S. legislators to undermine U.S. diplomacy,”  

However, spying by Israel on the U.S. and vice versa is nothing new.

Here is the complete details at the Wall Street Journal article

Russia threatens to aim nuclear missiles at Denmark ships if it joins NATO shield

Yahoo News
March 22, 2015

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Russia threatened to aim nuclear missiles at Danish warships if Denmark joins NATO's missile defense system, in comments Copenhagen called unacceptable and NATO said would not contribute to peace.

Denmark said in August it would contribute radar capacity on some of its warships to the missile shield, which the Western alliance says is designed to protect members from missile launches from countries like Iran.

Moscow opposes the system, arguing that it could reduce the effectiveness of its own nuclear arsenal, leading to a new Cold War-style arms race.

In an interview in the newspaper Jyllands-Posten, the Russian ambassador to Denmark, Mikhail Vanin, said he did not think Danes fully understood the consequences of joining the program.

"If that happens, Danish warships will be targets for Russian nuclear missiles," Vanin told the newspaper.

Asked to respond, NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said Denmark was a staunch member of the alliance and NATO would defend all allies against any threat.

Read the entire article

Nurses Coming Clean About Government’s ‘Super-Race’ Forced Sterilizations

Counter Current News
March 22, 2015

It sounds like something out of Nazi Germany, but it happened right in the United States. Now, former nurses are coming forward, admitting and lamenting their roles in a government forced-sterilization of those deemed “defective.”

“Ground Zero” for the government plans for a “super-race” was at the Lynchburg State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded. Former nurse Celia Vandegrift is 87, but she explains that her memory is still crystal clear with regards to the forced-sterilizations she took part in administering.

The government-run facility housed those who were epileptic, mentally disabled and others determined by the State to be “socially inadequate.”

Vandegrift says she personally administered thousands of forced sterilizations as part of a government effort to rid society of those deemed defective. All of this was literally for the purpose of creating what the government claimed would be a “super-race.”

Al-Jazeera’s “America Tonight” sat down with Vandegrift, who explained “it’s what our legislators wanted at the time and what our bosses wanted, even the President of the United States,” Vandegrift said. “You trusted all those people, so I went right along with them.”

“I thought, at the time, I was doing the right thing,” she added. “I can see now that it was so wrong.”

This wasn’t something that just happened in secret, without the government knowing about it. The Supreme Court itself upheld Virginia’s sterilization law.

Virginia’s 1924 Eugenical Sterilization Act laid it all out. Three years later, the Supreme Court ruled the whole thing to be constitutional. In fact, this court decision was later even cited by Nazi doctors during the Nuremberg trials, in their defense.

In all, 7,325 Virginians were forcibly-sterilized under the law. The State didn’t even scrub the act from the law books until 1979. By then, over 65,000 forced sterilizations had been conducted across the nation.

One of those sterilized was Lewis Reynolds, 86, who says “I wish I had a family,” but he had a head injury and was deemed “defective” by the age of 13. He was later accepted into the military, where he served for 30 years, in spite of the State having ruled him “defective” and thus in need of sterilization.

“I just wonder what kind of daddy would I be if I had any children,” he lamented.

Janet Ingram, 66, was sterilized as part of this program when she was a teenager too.

“I woke up and my stomach was hurting,” she recalled. “I said, ‘Oh no, my stomach. I looked down, and I had stitches in my…stomach, and the nurse came back in and…I said, ‘What happened?’ She said, ‘You just been sterilized.’”

“And she said, ‘Oh you didn’t want to have a baby cause they’re nasty,'” Ingram continued.

Ingram had been sent to the facility when she was only 22 months old, because “she was suspected of being feebleminded, of low mentality due to inbreeding and environmental surroundings and living under the worst financial, home and moral conditions imaginable.”

It wasn’t until this year that the Virginia House came clean themselves and voted to approve a meager $500,000 “to provide compensation to some of our most vulnerable citizens who were subjected to forced sterilization during the middle part of the past century.”

On March 24, a general assemble discussion will decide whether to approve a pitiful $25,000 to each surviving victim of this State “Super-Race” program.

But Virginia was not alone. North Carolina has already passed a similar compensatory measure. Nearly 30 other states took part in programs just like Virginia’s.

(Article by M. David and S. Wooten; image via Counter Current News)