Take the Test to See If You Might Be Considered a “Potential Terrorist” By Government Officials

washingtonsblog.com
September 21, 2012

Find Out If You Are Doing Things Which Might Be Considered Suspicious

There have been so many anti-terrorism laws passed since 9/11 that it is hard to keep up on what kinds of things might get one on a “list” of suspected bad guys.

We’ve prepared this quick checklist so you can see if you might be doing something which might get hassled.

The following actions may get an American citizen living on U.S. soil labeled as a “suspected terrorist” today:

– Speaking out against government policies

– Protesting anything

– Questioning war (even though war reduces our national security; and see this)

– Criticizing the government’s targeting of innocent civilians with drones (although killing innocent civilians with drones is one of the main things which increases terrorism. And seethis)

– Asking questions about pollution (even at a public Congressional hearing?)

– Paying cash at an Internet cafe

– Asking questions about Wall Street shenanigans

– Holding gold

– Creating alternative currencies

– Stocking up on more than 7 days of food (even though all Mormons are taught to stockpile food, and most Hawaiians store up on extra food)

– Having bumper stickers saying things like “Know Your Rights Or Lose Them”

– Investigating factory farming

– Infringing a copyright

– Taking pictures or videos

– Talking to police officers

– Wearing a hoodie

– Driving a van

– Writing on a piece of paper

Holding the following beliefs may also be considered grounds for suspected terrorism:

– Valuing online privacy

– Supporting Ron Paul or being a libertarian

– Liking the Founding Fathers

– Being a Christian

– Being anti-tax, anti-regulation or for the gold standard

– Being “reverent of individual liberty”

– Being “anti-nuclear”

– “Believe in conspiracy theories”

– “A belief that one’s personal and/or national “way of life” is under attack”

– “Impose strict religious tenets or laws on society (fundamentalists)”

– “Insert religion into the political sphere”

– “Those who seek to politicize religion”

– “Supported political movements for autonomy”

– Being “anti-abortion”

– Being “anti-Catholic”

– Being “anti-global”

– “Suspicious of centralized federal authority”

– “Fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation)”

– “A belief in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in … survivalism”

– Opposing genetically engineered food

– Opposing surveillance

Many Americans assume that only “bad people” have to worry about draconian anti-terror laws.

But as the above lists show, this isn’t true.

When even Supreme Court Justices and congressmen worry that we are drifting into dictatorship, we should all be concerned.

100 Days Until Taxmageddon

Americans for Tax Reform
September 21, 2012

Sunday will mark the start of the 100-day countdown to “Taxmageddon” – the date the largest tax hikes in the history of America will take effect.  They will hit families and small businesses in three great waves on January 1, 2013:

First Wave: Expiration of 2001 and 2003 Tax Relief

In 2001 and 2003, the GOP Congress enacted several tax cuts for small business owners, families, and investors (later re-upped by President Obama and Democrat Congress in 2010).  The following tax hikes will occur on January 1, 2013:

Personal income tax rates will rise on January 1, 2013.  The top income tax rate will rise from 35 to 39.6 percent (this is also the rate at which the majority of small business profits are taxed).  The lowest rate will rise from 10 to 15 percent.  All the rates in between will also rise.  Itemized deductions and personal exemptions will again phase out, which has the same mathematical effect as higher marginal tax rates.  The full list of marginal rate hikes is below:

-The 10% bracket rises to a new and expanded 15%

-The 25% bracket rises to 28%

-The 28% bracket rises to 31%

-The 33% bracket rises to 36%

-The 35% bracket rises to 39.6%

Higher taxes on marriage and family coming on January 1, 2013.  The “marriage penalty” (narrower tax brackets for married couples) will return from the first dollar of taxable income.  The child tax credit will be cut in half from $1000 to $500 per child.  The standard deduction will no longer be doubled for married couples relative to the single level. 

Middle Class Death Tax returns on January 1, 2013.  The death tax is currently 35% with an exemption of $5 million ($10 million for married couples).  For those dying on or after January 1 2013, there is a 55 percent top death tax rate on estates over $1 million.  A person leaving behind two homes and a retirement account could easily pass along a death tax bill to their loved ones.

Read the entire article

Surprise drill: IDF gets ready for war

RT News
September 19, 2012

The Israeli Defense Force has begun surprise live-fire war games on the Golan Heights, bordering unstable Lebanon and Syria. Officially, the Israeli military is practicing combat readiness to repel possible sudden attack from Lebanon-based Hezbollah.

The Chief of IDF General Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz ordered troops from the Northern and Central commands, reinforced by reservists, to simulate an emergency. The IDF insists the drill is a routine scheduled event, but for unknown reasons withheld from making public how many troops and what military vehicles are being involved in the war games.

But Israel Radio’s military affairs correspondent who is in regular contact with senior officers, said on air that the timing of the exercise was “not mere coincidence.”

Troops were flown by helicopter from central Israel to the Golan Heights for the exercise.

The live fire drill will be conducted later in the evening and will be overseen by the IDF’s Chief Artillery Officer, Brig. Gen. Roei Riftin.

Similar war games were held a year ago and last week the IDF held drills simulating a mass rocket assault on Israeli territory by Hezbollah.

The IDF has expressed concerns several times that the situation in neighboring Syria, where a civil war is in full swing, might get out of hand. Syria has a considerable chemical weapons stockpile and Israel fears these weapons could fall into the wrong hands if President Bashar al-Assad is ousted. Some defecting Syrian officers claim Assad has plans to hand some of the chemical weapons over to Hezbollah.

Read the entire article

The tax consequences of a shrinking middle class – Nearly half of Americans do not pay income taxes because they earn too little or are flat out on Social Security.

MyBudget360
September 21, 2012

Recently the topic of taxes has been put on center stage again.  Aside from the political bickering the data shows us an even more disturbing trend.  The middle class is demonstrably shrinking at a time that the government is spending money it doesn’t have while the Fed is digitally printing money to save its allied banks.  The reason nearly half of Americans pay no federal taxes, this is different from other taxes (i.e., payroll, sales, etc) is that nearly half of Americans make too little money.  This might come as a surprise to many given that we are the wealthiest nation on the face of the planet.  However, we need only remember that we have the highest percentage of Americans on food stamps in a generation with nearly 46.5 million receiving this aid.  Yet part of the data also reflects our aging population.  After all, since 1 out of 3 Americans have zero in savings many retire relying completely on Social Security for their income.

The tax data

Let us break down the figures for income taxes:

Source: Tax Policy Center Credit: Lam Thuy Vo / NPR

First, what you’ll notice is that 23 percent do not pay income taxes because they simply make too little.  Again, this does not mean that they do not pay payroll taxes (i.e., Social Security and Medicare) which all Americans earning any money must.  How low is this?  For a family of four it would need to be under $26,400.  Given that the average per capita earnings for Americans is $25,000 it should come as no surprise that many fall under this category.

Then you have older Americans on Social Security.  Since many rely on this as their major source of income and the typical payment is roughly $1,000 a month, not much you can tax here.  Then you have benefits for the working poor that allow additional deductions such as the earned income tax credit.  In this case, a family of two parents and two children earning $45,775 would have paid no income taxes.  Again, they are still paying payroll taxes.  Given the median household income is $50,000 you would expect this figure to put many in the non-income tax paying category.

Yet the overall issue of course is that we are spending more than we make and somehow trying to ignore the fact that we are crushing the middle class.  The middle class has shrunk over the last 40 years by 10 percent:

Source:  CNN Money

What was even more troubling is that nearly half of Americans pass away with zero to their name:

“(NBER) We find that a substantial fraction of persons die with virtually no financial assets – 46.1 percent with less than $10,000 – and many of these households also have no housing wealth and rely almost entirely on Social Security benefits for support.”

The heavy reliance on Social Security, food stamps, Medicare, and other programs shows how precariously close our economic system is to a depression.  We have 46.5 million Americans that would likely have a hard time buying food if it were not for these programs.  Does this even remotely sound like an economic recovery to you?  The spending keeps going up yet the economic growth isn’t necessarily coming:

You’ll notice that out debt growth is far outpacing out GDP growth.  It is unfortunate that mired in all the rhetoric there is little substantive debate regarding helping the middle class.  We have a system that is largely controlled by a millionaire Congress that is far removed from Main Street.  The fact that many Americans are confused about the tax equation isn’t surprising given the low level of financial literacy in our country.  Much of what is out there is set to confuse and keep turmoil in the system.  If you haven’t notice, our economic inequality is at levels last seen since the Great Depression.

21 Facts About America’s Decaying Infrastructure That Will Blow Your Mind

Michael Snyder
Economic Collapse Blog
September 21, 2012

You can tell a lot about a nation by the condition of the infrastructure. So what does our infrastructure say about us? It says that we are in a very advanced state of decay. At this point, much of America is being held together with spit, duct tape and prayers. Our roads are crumbling and thousands of our bridges look like they could collapse at any moment. Our power grid is ancient and over a trillion gallons of untreated sewage is leaking from our aging sewer systems each year. Our airports and our seaports are clogged with far more traffic than they were ever designed to carry. Approximately a third of all of the dam failures that have taken place in the United States since 1874 have happened during the past decade. Our national parks and recreation areas have been terribly neglected and our railroads are a bad joke. Hurricane Katrina showed how vulnerable our levees are, and drinking water systems all over the country are badly outdated. Sadly, at a time when we could use significant new investment in infrastructure, our spending on infrastructure is actually way down. Back during the 50s and the 60s, the U.S. was spending between 3 and 4 percent of GDP on infrastructure. Today, that figure is down to about 2.4 percent. But of course we don’t have any extra money to spend on infrastructure because of our reckless spending and because of the massive amount of debt that we have accumulated. While the Obama administration is spending more than half a million dollars to figure out why chimpanzees throw poop, our national infrastructure is literally falling apart all around us. Once upon a time nobody else on the planet could match our infrastructure, and now we are in the process of becoming a joke to the rest of the world.

The following are 21 facts about America’s failing infrastructure that will blow your mind….

#1 The American Society of Civil Engineers has given America’s crumbling infrastructure an overall grade of D.

#2 There are simply not enough roads in the United States today. Each year, traffic jams cost the commuters of America 4.2 billion hours and about 2.8 million gallons of gasoline.

#3 It is being projected that Americans will spend an average of 160 hours stuck in traffic annually by the year 2035.

#4 Approximately one-third of all roads in the United States are in substandard condition.

#5 Close to a third of all highway fatalities are due “to substandard road conditions, obsolete road designs, or roadside hazards.”

#6 One out of every four bridges in America either carries more traffic than originally intended or is in need of repair.

#7 Repairing all of the bridges in the United States that need repair would take approximately 140 billion dollars.

#8 According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, our decaying transportation system costs the U.S. economy about 78 billion dollars annually in lost time and fuel.

#9 All over America, asphalt roads are being ground up and are being replaced with gravel roadsbecause they are cheaper to maintain. The state of South Dakota has transformed over 100 miles of asphalt roads into gravel roads, and 38 out of the 83 counties in the state of Michigan have transformed at least some of their asphalt roads into gravel roads.

#10 There are 4,095 dams in the United States that are at risk of failure. That number has risen bymore than 100 percent since 1999.

#11 Of all the dam failures that have happened in the United States since 1874, a third of them have happened during the past decade.

#12 Close to half of all U.S. households do not have access to bus or rail transit.

Read the entire article

Celente: The Tyranny of an Arrested Development Republic

Infowars.com
September 19, 2012



Alex talks with trendsetter, author, and editor and publisher of the Trends Journal, Gerald Celente. Gerald talks with Alex about latest geopolitical and economic events unfolding as the world moves inextricably toward all-out war.
http://www.trendsresearch.com/index.php

Median income in Ohio hits 27-year low

The Columbus Dispatch

September 21, 2012

Ohio households were poorer last year than they’ve been in more than 25 years, and the number of people living in poverty is higher than it’s been in more than 30 years, according to a census report released yesterday.

“People are getting squeezed from every direction,” said James Newton, chief economic adviser to Commerce National Bank.

When adjusted for inflation, the 2010 annual median household income in Ohio of $46,093 was down by $543 from the previous year, and down 15.3 percent from the peak of $54,395 in 2000, according to the census’s Current Population Survey, which was released yesterday.

The inflation-adjusted figure hasn’t been lower for Ohio since officials began keeping that record in 1984, census officials said.

Ohio’s level of poverty — 15.3 percent — was worse than the nation’s, which was at 15.1 percent. Ohio’s level jumped 2 percentage points from 2009; it has never been this high since those records were first kept in 1980.

The worst year before 2010 was 1994, when 14.1 percent of Ohioans were in poverty.

Read the entire article