Despite the enormous problems facing the western nations, including economic collapse, threats from ISIS, N Korea, internally imposed martial law, water shortages, EMP threats and needs to protect the power grid, the volatile situation in the Ukraine, etc... - the destruction of Israel via the so-called peace plan remains the top priority. If biblical prophecy didn't inform us of this inevitable process it would be impossible to believe:
A senior Palestinian official claimed Saturday that the US and the European Union were urging the Palestinian Authority to resume peace negotiations with Israel, according to a report in the London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, stated that Western diplomats had proposed to organize an urgent meeting between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, either in a European country or in Washington.
Washington on Thursday called Israel’s approval of building 900 apartment units in a Jewish neighborhood of East Jerusalem “damaging and inconsistent” with its commitment to a two-state solution. The condemnation of the move by the State Department came less than a day after Netanyahu announced the formation of a new governing coalition.
“This is a disappointing development, and we’re concerned about it just as a new Israeli government has been announced,” US State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said at a press briefing. “Israel’s leaders have asserted that they remain committed to a two-state solution, and we need to see that commitment in the actions of… the Israeli government.”
Rathke said that the US government would “continue to make our position clear that we view this as illegitimate.”
Plans to build 1,600 homes in Ramat Shlomo were first announced in 2010 while US Vice President Joe Biden was visiting the country. The announcement provoked fierce American opposition and triggered a diplomatic spat with Washington for months.
The new homes will be built in the predominantly ultra-Orthodox East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo, Peace Now spokeswoman Hagit Ofran told AFP.
In early October, Washington leveled especially harsh criticism at Jerusalem for a plan to develop a new neighborhood in the area of Givat Hamatos on the southern end of the city, saying the East Jerusalem construction would “poison the atmosphere” and distance Israel “from even its closest allies.”
President Barack Obama’s administration has had a cold relationship with Netanyahu, notably over strategies for thwarting Iran’s nuclear drive and over the Palestinian conflict, including continued Israeli construction over the Green Line, which the international community views as a major obstacle to peace with the Palestinians.
In his reelection campaign in March, Netanyahu vowed to step up construction in East Jerusalem, insisting on the right to build anywhere in the Israeli capital.
The Obama administration is feverishly working with foreign lawmakers and officials on a new Trans-Pacific Parternship (TPP) trade agreement. Yet what may seem like business as usual is anything but.
The President has made it a point to keep any details of the agreement completely secret, so much so that what amounts to a gag order has been placed on anyone who has anything to do with the bill. Even members of Congress are unable to discuss the contents of the bill with each other or in public, and anyone who is invited to discussions over the bill must leave cell phones and staff members behind. Since not even Republicans have yet to spill the beans about the details of the agreement, one can only assume that those attending the meetings are doing so under threat of criminal prosecution or worse if they talk.
This, of course, begs the question: What is so important to the Obama administration that it has to be kept secret from the American public until after the agreement has been passed?
What could possibly be so critical to national security that the purportedly “most transparent” Presidential administration in history says no one can talk about it?
Could it be that whatever is being negotiated is so significant that if the American people got wind of what was taking place there would be a collective outcry or widespread protests in the streets?
According to Gun Owners of America, this is exactly what’s happening, and it is nothing short of shocking.
Gun import bans … Microstamping of firearms … Ammunition bans … The full implementation of the anti-gun UN Arms Trade Treaty … Illegal amnesty which locks in millions of new, anti-gun voters.
This anti-gun wish list could be part of the secret trade agreement that President Obama is getting ready to spring on the Congress.
This trade pact is called “fast track,” and what it means is that Obama can write any form of gun control he chooses into a trade agreement — import bans, amnesty, etc.
And this agreement DOESN’T need two-thirds vote in the Senate, as a treaty would. When completed, the agreement is merely subject to a majority vote in both Houses … it can’t be filibustered … it can’t be amended … and the GOP can’t refuse to consider it.
Top Secret TPP means you won’t know what’s in the bill
Reports have already surfaced that the TOP SECRET draft contains a whole chapter with a European Union-style provision allowing unlimited migration from Mexico into the United States. This would fulfill Obama’s dream — which he begun with Executive Amnesty — to import millions of new anti-gun (liberal) voters into the country.
Of course, we can’t quote for you any of the language in the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement because the document is TOP SECRET. Obama won’t reveal it, even to most congressmen, until Congress has given it its imprimatur by allowing it to pass under fast track procedures.
On Monday, Politico reported:
If you want to hear the details of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal the Obama administration is hoping to pass, you’ve got to be a member of Congress, and you’ve got to go to classified briefings and leave your staff and cellphone at the door.
If you’re a [congressional] member who wants to read the text, you’ve got to go to a room in the basement of the Capitol Visitor Center and be handed it one section at a time, watched over as you read, and forced to hand over any notes you make before leaving.
And no matter what, you can’t discuss the details of what you’ve read.
Truly, even more than with ObamaCare, this is a case of “You have to pass it to find out what’s in it.”
It should be clear that the eventual goal of the foreign entities like United Nations is total disarmament of the American people.
Clinton confidant Dick Morris explained in 2012 how restrictions outlined in a foreign treaty such as the new trade agreement might work:
It’s entirely a backdoor effort to force gun registration and eventually bans and restrictions with the act of the United States Congress – to do it with international treaty.
One of the deadly parts about this is that when a treaty is signed and made binding in the United States it acquires the force of a Constitutional Amendment. Under the Supremacy Clause, every Congress and every state legislature has to honor that treaty, unless a Constitutional Amendment is passed to the contrary or unless all the other signatories let the U.S. out of the treaty.
So this would be permanent, long-term gun control…all done without Congress.
His views have been reinforced by an ambassador who sat in on the UN Small Treaty negotiations:
“In New York, right here on our own shores, we’ve got a Trojan horse. They won’t accept U.S. firearms policy. They want to take the decision away from the U.S. electorate and undermine our Constitution.”
Ambassador Faith Whittlesey
US Delegate to UN Small Arms Conference
January 2012
Moreover, just so we’re clear, the plan to disarm Americans has been in motion for many years. Last year we reported that the United Nations was operating within the borders of the United States already and according to their own job postings at the UN web site, they were actively recruiting Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Specialists.
According to the United Nations information page on ‘DDR’ operations, the New York post will involve various aspects related to the process by which a governing organization would confiscate firearms, all of which target what the U.N. calls “small arms.”
Disarmament is the collection, documentation, control and disposal of small arms, ammunition, explosives and light and heavy weapons from combatants and often from the civilian population.Demobilization is the formal and controlled discharge of active combatants from armed forces and groups, including a phase of “reinsertion” which provides short-term assistance to ex-combatants.Reintegration is the process by which ex-combatants acquire civilian status and gain sustainable employment and income. It is a political, social and economic process with an open time-frame, primarily taking place in communities at the local level.
Like Obamacare, we’ll soon find out the legal language behind the new Trans-Pacific Partnership. And like Obamacare, we can predict with a fair amount of certainty that this “free trade” agreement will be anything but free.
U.S. Economy Collapsing Faster Than In 2008
The economic data – almost all of it – has been collapsing at a rate as great or greater than it was collapsing in 2008. The media propaganda megaphone loudly broadcasting that “all is well” has never been set at a higher volume.
Today, for instance, the S&P 500 spiked higher on the jobless claims report, which came in well below Wall Street’s “Einstein” forecast. The jobless claims report is probably the most useless barometer of the employment market other than the Government’s non-farm payroll report. IN FACT, with the labor force participation rate at 30-year lows, we would expect that the jobless claims report would drop. With less people as a percent of the population working, it means there’s less people to be fired.
MOREOVER, many people losing jobs do not even qualify to file for jobless benefits. A long-time white collar/blue collar worker for a big corporation is covered by unemployment insurance. An independent contractor working for an energy company or construction company (construction spending plunged in Q1) does not. Nor do the retail employees of chain stores closing down mall space. In other words, the jobless claims number is basically useless.
My colleague Dave Kranzler and I recorded a brief video which we discuss some quite shocking data which further reinforce that BOTH the global and U.S. economy are falling off a cliff:
I hope you take some time to watch the video – I think you’ll be quite shocked by the data we present…When the stock market begins to “regress toward the mean” by re-correlating with the US Macro data, the massive influx of retail investors into the stock market will get decimated – just like in early 2000 and in 2008.
This comes to us from The BRICS Post on May 7, 2015
China’s foreign trade declined by 10.9 percent in April from a year earlier, with exports dropping 6.2 percent and imports plummeting 16.1 percent, official data showed on Friday.
Last month, foreign trade volume dropped by 10.9 per cent year on year to 1.96 trillion yuan ($320.56 billion) from a year earlier, following a 13.5-per cent decrease in March and an 11.3-per cent increase in February, said the General Administration of Customs (GAC).
But April’s exports declined 6.2 per cent, 8.4 percentage points less than a 14.6-per cent slump in March, indicating the external environment is improving.
Trade surplus soared by 85.2 per cent to 210.21 billion yuan last month, while expanding 3.4 times to 965.37 billion yuan in the Jan.-April period, the GAC said.
China’s trade with the European Union, its biggest trade partner, waned by 4.9 per cent from January to April, while that with the United States, the second largest, rose 2.3 per cent.
Trade with Japan plummeted by 11 per cent during this period.
Pentagon Boosts Alert Level At Military Bases Following Threats
The US military has increased the security level at US military bases due to unspecific warnings involving the radical Islamic State terrorist group. The alert level is now at its highest since the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
The order to boost the security level on US military bases to “Bravo” – the third of five levels of alert - was ordered by Admiral William Gortney, head of the US Northern Command (NORTHCOM), which commands all military installations on American territory.
The move comes just hours after FBI Director James Comey spoke out on the increasing threat of jihadist attacks being carried out on US soil.
The move comes just hours after FBI Director James Comey spoke out on the increasing threat of jihadist attacks being carried out on US soil.
Comey said Thursday there are "hundreds, maybe thousands" of individuals in the United States who are being inspired via social media platforms to carry out acts of violence on American targets.
"It's like the devil sitting on their shoulders, saying 'Kill, kill, kill,''' Comey told reporters Thursday.
"We have a general concern, obviously, that ISIL is focusing on the uniformed military and law enforcement."
The Pentagon has come around to the view that IS sympathizers residing in the United States present enough of a risk to warrant boosting the security level.
Another Year Of 'Obama Recovery'
It's been almost 7 years. Shouldn't we have recovered by now? Heck, in Reagan's seventh year, we were running like a well-oiled machine, but I digress.
Yesterday, Tyler Durden at Zero Hedgehad an interesting perspective on the One's recovery progress. He wrote that underlying April's great jobs number of 223,000 is a disturbing trend. Of that number, only 1000 manufacturing jobs were added.
He wrote: "Putting this in perspective, for every manufacturing job added in April there were 26 new waiters and bartenders confirming the robustness of America's jobs recovery."
Durden goes on to explain that "since the start of the second great recession in December 2007, there have been 1.4 million manufacturing jobs lost. They have been almost completely offset by the 1.3 million waiter and bartender jobs gained. In short: serving food is the new making stuff."
But this monthly jobs number doesn't tell the whole Obama economy story. That's just a "micro" look at his great work. Let's take a look at the "macro" - the overall picture.
There are now 93,194 people hopelessly unemployed in our nation. That's a record, folks! Darn near 30% of our entire population. It's quite an achievement - one that would be difficult to achieve without making a concerted effort. It's that or the rankest incompetence, but I'll let you decide.
In one month, from March to April, 19,000 more Americans became unemployed, dropping out of the work force. That naturally brings us to the real gauge of employment—the dreaded Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR).
Between 2004 and 2008, the LFPR (Labor Force Participation Rate) held steady at about 66%. That's a pretty strong number. Since Obama took office, it has been falling precipitously, from 65.7% in 2009 to 62.45% now. It's the lowest it has been since 1977—38 years ago—and it shows no signs of stopping its freefall.
In brief, the labor force, according to BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics), is that part of the civilian noninstitutional population that either has a job or has actively sought one in the last four weeks. In other words, the LFPR is a percentage of working age people (16 years and up) who either have a job or are actually looking for employment.
Despite all the positive rhetoric and stock market records, we are rapidly approaching Depression-era numbers, and, at this point, it won't take much to push us over the edge.
It's almost as if someone is purposely trying to ruin our economy - trying to create revolution. But why?
Islamophobia: Thought Crime Of The Totalitarian Future
In the aftermath of the jihadist attack in Garland, TX, leftists and Islamic supremacists are moving swiftly to blamePamela Geller and Robert Spencer for their American Freedom Defense Initiative/Jihad Watch Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest for supposedly “provoking” the violent attack. Once again, advocates of free speech are being slandered while any attempts to examine the real motives of the ISIS-linked terrorists who tried to slaughter them are being labeled as unjustified and “Islamophobic.”
To combat this pernicious tactic and the toxic delusion that impoliteness about the prophet, and not planned Islamic terrorism, is somehow the cause of the attack in Garland in particular and the global jihad in general, Frontpage is running the Freedom Center’s pamphlet, Islamophobia: Thought Crime of the Totalitarian Future, written by David Horowitz and Robert Spencer.
The authors reveal how the word “Islamophobia” is used by the Muslim Brotherhood to inhibit opposition to jihad terror, and detail how the portrayal of Muslims as victims after every Jihadist attack is a carefully planned and skillfully executed program with the ultimate goal of curtailing the West’s freedom of speech and allowing the jihad to advance unimpeded.
In George Orwell’s futuristic nightmare, 1984, citizens are watched by a secret police for “thought crimes” committed against the totalitarian state. These thought crimes are simply attitudes and ideas the authorities regard as politically incorrect.
Orwell wrote 1984 during the height of the Cold War and its vision reflected an all-too-real fact of life. The Soviet police state had spread its tentacles over hundreds of millions of captive peoples. Tens of millions of them whose ideas failed to conform to the prescriptions of the totalitarian state were sent to labor camps and firing squads for committing thought crimes. Their offense was to be “anti-Soviet” – to speak out against socialism, or its rulers, or to fail to parrot the views and opinions approved by the regime.
“Islamophobia” is the name that has been given to a modern-day thought crime. The purpose of the suffix in the term “Islamophobia” is to suggest that any fear associated with Islam is irrational – whether that fear stems from the fact that its prophet and current-day imams call on believers to kill infidels, or because the attacks of 9/11 were carried out to implement those calls. Worse than that, it is to suggest that such a response to those attacks reflects a bigotry that itself should be feared.
The manifesto issued by Rushdie and his fellow writers said: “After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new global totalitarian threat: Islamism…. We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of ‘Islamophobia,’ a wretched concept that confuses criticism of Islam as a religion and stigmatization of those who believe in it. We defend the universality of the freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit can exist in every continent, towards each and every maltreatment and dogma.”[3]
Abdur-Rahman Muhammad is a former member of the International Institute for Islamic Thought. He was present when the word “Islamophobia” was created, but now characterizes the concept of Islamophobia this way: “This loathsome term is nothing more than a thought-terminating cliche conceived in the bowels of Muslim think tanks for the purpose of beating down critics.”[15] In short, in its very origins, “Islamophobia” was a term designed as a weapon to advance a totalitarian cause by stigmatizing critics and silencing them.
Indeed, the anti-Islamophobia movement has been built on the foundations created by progressives and, as a result, is already well advanced in the West. In 1996 the Runnymede Trust, a leftist group in England, established a “Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia.” Its elaborate definition of Islamophobia has since become a model for Muslim Brotherhood fronts like CAIR and the Muslim Students Association in their drive to impose anti-Islamophobia strictures on everyone and suppress critics of the Islamic jihad.
Under the Runnymede definition, Islamophobia includes any one of these eight components:
- Islam seen as a single monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to new realities.
- Islam seen as separate and other – (a) not having any aims or values in common with other cultures (b) not affected by them (c) not influencing them.
- Islam seen as inferior to the West – barbaric, irrational, primitive, sexist.
- Islam seen as violent, aggressive, threatening, supportive of terrorism, engaged in ‘a clash of civilizations’.
- Islam seen as a political ideology, used for political or military advantage.
- Criticisms made by Islam of ‘the West’ rejected out of hand.
- Hostility towards Islam used to justify discriminatory practices towards Muslims and exclusion of Muslims from mainstream society.
- Anti-Muslim hostility accepted as natural and ‘normal’.”[21]
There is no mystery as to how the Runnymede principles will be interpreted. They have already been used to condemn every critic of the Islamic oppression of women, Islamic support for suicide bombings and other acts of terror, and of Islamic intolerance. Such critics are Islamophobes.
Doudou Diène, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of “racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance,” went further, suggesting that even quoting the Qur’an accurately but in a critical manner was an act of bigotry:
One may note that a number of Islamophobic statements have been falsely claimed to be scientific or scholarly, in order to give intellectual clout to arguments that link Islam to violence and terrorism. Furthermore, the manipulation and selective quoting of sacred texts, in particular the Qur’an, as a means to deceptively argue that these texts show the violent nature of Islam has become current practice.[30]
In many European countries governments already preemptively silence critics of Islam in the name of fighting racial hatred. In June 2002, well before the OIC had begun its Islamophobia campaign in earnest, Muslims in Switzerland targeted the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci for her post-9/11 book, The Rage and the Pride. In it, she had argued that Europe was being colonized by Muslims who refused to assimilate into their host societies, and remained hostile to their cultures and values.
Citing Swiss laws against racism, the Islamic Center of Geneva demanded that Fallaci’s book be banned. Hani Ramadan, grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, declared that “Fallaci is insulting the Muslim community as a whole with her shameful words.” The Islamic Center called on Swiss authorities not only to ban her book, but to prosecute those who were distributing it. Swiss officials moved to have Fallaci extradited to face trial, but failed in their attempt.[33] Then, in May 2005, the Italian government itself indicted Fallaci for writing a book that “defames Islam.”[34]
These prosecutions were ongoing. Wilders noted shortly after his acquittal that “Danish journalist Lars Hedegaard, Austrian human rights activist Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff and others…have recently been convicted for criticizing Islam.”[38]
It is no accident that the movement to outlaw Islamophobia should be deeply indebted to the secular left and its campaign to stigmatize its opponents by indiscriminately applying repugnant terms to them like “racist.” Therefore, the left has sponsored the creation of “hate crime” laws as precursors of the desire blasphemy laws. “Hate crime” claws are by their very nature crimes against thought. A crime of violence is a crime whatever the motivation. Making it a “hate crime” merely criminalizes the alleged motive.
The very term “Islamophobe” has roots in leftist political jargon, as a variation on the term “homophobe.” But “homophobe” is itself a coinage derived from similar categories – “racist” and “sexist” – which the left has detached from any meaning other than disagreement with its own agendas, and which it has then deployed to stigmatize and silence its critics. Islamophobe is but the latest of these weapons.
Evgeny Buzhinsky has spent much of his professional life with the threat of global nuclear destruction hanging over his head. A lifelong Russian military officer, he earned his PhD in military sciences in 1982, just as the Cold War was entering its most dangerous period, and served in the Soviet general staff during an arms race that several times came perilously close to triggering a nuclear war that neither side wanted.
Buzhinsky retired a lieutenant general in 2009, after a long career on the Russian general staff, including several years heading the Russian Defense Ministry's international treaty agency, which brought him into frequent contact with European and American generals over some of the most contentious issues of the post–Cold War era. He now heads the PIR Center, a well-respected Russian think tank that focuses on military, national security, and arms control issues.
Amanda Taub and I met last week with Buzhinsky at a cafe in Moscow to ask him about a topic that is being increasingly discussed in certain policy circles in Washington, Moscow, and NATO's headquarters in Brussels: the fear that tensions between Russia and the West could spiral into an unwanted war, perhaps even nuclear war. As a true veteran of the Cold War, not to mention someone who had only recently left the highest ranks of the Russian military, he seemed like the right person to ask.
If Ukrainian forces attempted to retake the territory in eastern Ukraine (Donbas) held by pro-Russia separatist rebels, he warned, the Russian military could very well declare war and march on the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, whatever the costs. He also described potential dangers from the military buildup in Europe — particularly American missile defense there — and discussed when Russia's nuclear doctrine would or would not allow the use of nuclear weapons.
Buzhinsky is not a government spokesperson, nor was he always the most objective as an analyst, as would be expected. But his view seems to reflect, at least to some degree, that of the Russian military leadership, which remains one of the most important and least understood actors in Russia's tensions with the West — not to mention a group with control over thousands of nuclear warheads.
As Putin said twice, we will not allow the physical extermination of the people of Donbas. I fear that it may — well, it's unpredictable. A war with Russia in Ukraine — if Russia starts a war, it never stops until it takes the capital. That's all the Russian wars.
The trigger? A massive offensive on the Ukrainian side. The size of Ukrainian armed forces versus the people of Donbas, they are not comparable. Ukraine is stronger; it has much more equipment, personnel. The defeat of Donbas would definitely mean the physical extermination of a lot of people.
So you think if that were to happen, then Putin will have no choice but to intervene, even if it meant going all the way to Kiev?
Yes, definitely. He said twice publicly, "I won't let it happen." As he is a man of his word, I am sure he will.
From what you’re saying, it sounds like if NATO troops were to intervene directly or were to heavily arm the Ukrainian military, then that could provoke a response that could be very dangerous.
Of course. It seems to me that the Ukrainian goal is not just deliveries of sophisticated systems. It's the presence of the US crews and personnel on the front line in the east. And that is very dangerous...
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